the wiser for it, but that cannot be helped. So far so good. We mean
to make an advocate of ourselves with a prospect of one day being made
President of a Court of Assize, when we shall send poor devils, our
betters, to the galleys with a T.F.[*] on their shoulders, so that the
rich may be convinced that they can sleep in peace. There is no fun in
that; and you are a long while coming to it; for, to begin with, there
are two years of nauseous drudgery in Paris, we see all the lollipops
that we long for out of our reach. It is tiresome to want things and
never to have them. If you were a pallid creature of the mollusk
order, you would have nothing to fear, but it is different when you
have the hot blood of a lion and are ready to get into a score of
scrapes every day of your life. This is the ghastliest form of torture
known in this inferno of God's making, and you will give in to it. Or
suppose that you are a good boy, drink nothing stronger than milk, and
bemoan your hard lot; you, with your generous nature, will endure
hardships that would drive a dog mad, and make a start, after long
waiting, as deputy to some rascal or other in a hole of a place where
the Government will fling you a thousand francs a year like the scraps
that are thrown to the butcher's dog. Bark at thieves, plead the cause
of the rich, send men of heart to the guillotine, that is your work!
Many thanks! If you have no influence, you may rot in your provincial
tribunal. At thirty you will be a Justice with twelve hundred francs a
year (if you have not flung off the gown for good before then). By the
time you are forty you may look to marry a miller's daughter, an
heiress with some six thousand livres a year. Much obliged! If you
have influence, you may possibly be a Public Prosecutor by the time
you are thirty; with a salary of a thousand crowns, you could look to
marry the mayor's daughter. Some petty piece of political trickery,
such as mistaking Villele for Manuel in a bulletin (the names rhyme,
and that quiets your conscience), and you will probably be a Procureur