to the man who surmounts them. Maxime was, in the eyes of /rats/ and
courtesans, an extremely powerful and capable man, who had known how
to make himself excessively loved. He was also admired by men who knew
how difficult it is to live in Paris on good terms with creditors; in
short, he had never had any other rival in elegance, deportment, and
wit than the illustrious de Marsay, who frequently employed him on
political missions. All this will suffice to explain his interview
with the duchess, his prestige with Madame Schontz, and the authority
of his words in a conference which he intended to have on the
boulevard des Italiens with a young man already well-known, though
lately arrived, in the Bohemia of Paris.



XXV

A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA

The next day, when Maxime de Trailles rose, Finot (whom he had
summoned the night before) was announced. Maxime requested his visitor
to arrange, as if by accident, a breakfast at the cafe Anglais, where
Finot, Couture, and Lousteau should gossip beside him. Finot, whose
position toward the Comte de Trailles was that of a sub-lieutenant
before a marshall of France, could refuse him nothing; it was
altogether too dangerous to annoy that lion. Consequently, when Maxime
came to the breakfast, he found Finot and his two friends at table and
the conversation already started on Madame Schontz, about whom
Couture, well manoeuvred by Finot and Lousteau (Lousteau being, though
not aware of it, Finot's tool), revealed to the Comte de Trailles all
that he wanted to know about her.