The Parisians, Book 1.

somewhat breathless from the rapidity at which he had asc

ld shrink from scaling Mont Blanc? Well, well. I have been meditating on your business ever since we parted. But I would fain know

ope, though vaguely, entered into his heart. Willingly he accepted Frederic's invitation, and the young men were soon rapidly borne along the Champs E

vely. "Then Gandrin has g

from him this morning ask

it to me. Gandrin ought to help you; he transacts affairs in a large way. 'Belle clientele' among the millionnaires. But hi

Hebert told me tha

f the Kings of Finance, Ah! obse

two cavaliers whom he had conjectured

said Frederic; "they would decline my acquaintance because my

mistaken, then

, sons of that mocker

dem

p a shop! You

ey don't serve at the counter; they only invest their pocket-money in the speculation; and

uch birth! How shocked the C

e the date of Castor and Pollux. Their tastes indeed differ-Raoul is religious and moral, melancholy and dignified; Enguerrand is a lion of the first water,-elegant to the tips of his nails. These demigods nevertheless are very mild to mortals. Though Enguerrand is the best pistol-

you mean to imply that men of the

se their skill; and I must add that, though they are sleeping partners in a shop, they woul

tners in

may form some idea of the spirit of the age. If young nobles are not generally sleeping partners in shops, still they are more o

N

have time yet for the Bois. C

ng money without working for it must have its vent, and that vent is the Bourse. As instead of a hundred wax-lights you now have one jet of gas, so instead of a hundred hells you have n

s at a place destined to guard them, and the Marquis follows Frederic up a flight of stairs till he gains

hed some friends, whom he

nglish contested election in the market-place of a borough when the candidates are running close on each other-the

confusion, a Babel, which it seems absolutely impossible to reconcile to the notion of quiet mercantile transactions, the purchas

r. Vane. "This is the heart o

rse in Londo

olis unknown to fashion, but in some elegant square in St. James's or at Hyde Park Corner, I suspect that our national character would soon undergo a great change, and that all our idlers and sporting-men would make their books there every day, instead of waiting long months in 'ennui' for the Doncaster and the Derby. At present

find that what he considered a blot on his countryme

way to rebuild a 'noblesse' in France, and give it a chance of power be side an access to fortune? But to how many sides of your national character has the Bourse of Paris magnetic attraction! You Frenchmen are so brave that you could not be happy without facing danger, so covetous of distinction that you would pine yourselves away without a dash, coute quo coute, at celebrity and a red ribbon. Danger! look below at that arena: there it is; danger daily, hourly. But there also is celebrity; win at the Bourse, as of old in a tournament, and paladins smile on you, and

d not given the Englishman credit for the

taking him aside, said, "But you promised to go to the Bois, and in

it is not half-past t

rive thither from the B

ke with you that very

owever, if Rochebriant occasions you the pang which your humble serv

ery much obliged to any one with whom she would fall in lov

y struck Alain: the air was more dignified, the expression keener; there was a look of conscious power and command about the man even at that distance; the intense, concentrated intelligence of his eye, his firm lip, his marked features, his projecting, massive brow, would have impressed a very ordinary observer. In fact, the man was here in his native element; in the field in which his intellect gloried

ce the Cousin, the Guizot, and the Victor Hugo of speculation. Philosophy, Eloquence, audacious Romance,- al

s recent lesson in English names. "Alain underrates that

t Paris, in order some day or other to know how to act in Londo