cure them; they don't perorate in public meetings upon deadly ills for
the pleasure of perorating.

Fabien du Ronceret, without being a superior man, had divined, by the
exercise of that greedy common-sense peculiar to a Norman, the gain he
could derive from this public vice. Every epoch has its character
which clever men make use of. Fabien's mind, though not clever, was
wholly bent on making himself talked about.

"My dear fellow, a man must make himself talked about, if he wants to
be anything," he said, on parting from the king of Alencon, a certain
du Bousquier, a friend of his father. "In six months I shall be better
known than you are!"

It was thus that Fabien interpreted the spirit of his age; he did not
rule it, he obeyed it. He made his debut in Bohemia, a region in the
moral topography of Paris where he was known as "The Heir" by reason
of certain premeditated prodigalities. Du Ronceret had profited by
Couture's follies for the pretty Madame Cadine, for whom, during his
ephemeral opulence, he had arranged a delightful ground-floor
apartment with a garden in the rue Blanche. The Norman, who wanted his
luxury ready-made, bought Couture's furniture and all the improvements
he was forced to leave behind him,--a kiosk in the garden, where he
smoked, a gallery in rustic wood, with India mattings and adorned with
potteries, through which to reach the kiosk if it rained. When the
Heir was complimented on his apartment, he called it his /den/. The
provincial took care not to say that Grindot, the architect, had
bestowed his best capacity upon it, as did Stidmann on the carvings,
and Leon de Lora on the paintings, for Fabien's crowning defect was
the vanity which condescends to lie for the sake of magnifying the