The deputy, however, his spirits already cheered by these rough words, began to defend himself, declaring that he had not even read Sagnier's article, and had simply come to recommend a lady friend to the Minister.

Thereupon the Baron undertook this business for him and sent him away with the wish that he might spend a merry mid-Lent.

However, the one who most roused Duvillard's pity was Chaigneux, whose figure swayed about as if bent by the weight of his long equine head, and who looked so shabby and untidy that one might have taken him for an old pauper.

On recognising the banker he darted forward, and bowed to him with obsequious eagerness.
"Ah! Monsieur le Baron," said he, "how wicked some men must be! They are killing me, I shall die of it all; and what will become of my wife, what will become of my three daughters, who have none but me to help them ?" The whole of his woeful story lay in that lament.

A victim of politics, he had been foolish enough to quit Arras and his business there as a solicitor, in order to seek triumph in Paris with his wife and daughters, whose menial he had then become--a menial dismayed by the constant rebuffs and failures which his mediocrity brought upon him.