rival. Bixiou fancied he saw the favored one in Leon de Lora; the
painter saw him in Bixiou, who had passed his fortieth year and ought
to be making himself a fate of some kind. Suspicions were also turned
on Victor de Vernisset, a poet of the school of Canalis, whose passion
for Madame Schontz was desperate; but the poet accused Stidmann, a
young sculptor, of being his fortune rival. This artist, a charming
lad, worked for jewellers, for manufacturers in bronze and
silver-smiths; he longed to be another Benvenuto Cellini. Claude Vignon,
the young Comte de la Palferine, Gobenheim, Vermanton a cynical
philosopher, all frequenters of this amusing salon, were severally
suspected, and proved innocent. No one had fathomed Madame Schontz,
certainly not Rochefide, who thought she had a penchant for the young
and witty La Palferine; she was virtuous from self-interest and was
wholly bent on making a good marriage.

Only one man of equivocal reputation was ever seen in Madame Schontz's
salon, namely Couture, who had more than once made his brother
speculators howl; but Couture had been one of Madame Schontz's
earliest friends, and she alone remained faithful to him. The false
alarm of 1840 swept away the last vestige of this stock-gambler's
credit; Aurelie, seeing his run of ill-luck, made Rochefide play, as
we have seen, in the other direction. Thankful to find a place for
himself at Aurelie's table, Couture, to whom Finot, the cleverest or,
if you choose, the luckiest of all parvenus, occasionally gave a note
of a thousand francs, was alone wise and calculating enough to offer
his hand and name to madame Schontz, who studied him to see if the
bold speculator had sufficient power to make his way in politics and
enough gratitude not to desert his wife. Couture, a man about
forty-three years of age, half worn-out, did not redeem the unpleasant
sonority of his name by birth; he said little of the authors of his