Alain reached the house in which he lodged. Externally a fine house, it
had been the hotel of a great family in the old regime. On the first
floor were still superb apartments, with ceilings painted by Le Brun,
with walls on which the thick silks still seemed fresh. These rooms were
occupied by a rich 'agent de change;' but, like all such ancient palaces,
the upper stories were wretchedly defective even in the comforts which
poor men demand nowadays: a back staircase, narrow, dirty, never lighted,
dark as Erebus, led to the room occupied by the Marquis, which might be
naturally occupied by a needy student or a virtuous 'grisette.' But
there was to him a charm in that old hotel, and the richest 'locataire'
therein was not treated with a respect so ceremonious as that which at
tended the lodger on the fourth story. The porter and his wife were
Bretons; they came from the village of Rochebriant; they had known
Alain's parents in their young days; it was their kinsman who had
recommended him to the hotel which they served: so, when he paused at
the lodge for his key, which he had left there, the porter's wife was in
waiting for his return, and insisted on lighting him upstairs and seeing
to his fire, for after a warm day the night had turned to that sharp
biting cold which is more trying in Paris than even in London.
The old woman, running up the stairs before him, opened the door of his
room, and busied herself at the fire. "Gently, my good Marthe," said he,
"that log suffices. I have been extravagant to-day, and must pinch for
it."
"M. le Marquis jests," said the old woman, laughing.
"No, Marthe; I am serious. I have sinned, but I shall reform. 'Entre
nous,' my dear friend, Paris is very dear when one sets one's foot out
of doors: I must soon go back to Rochebriant."
"When M. le Marquis goes back to Rochebriant he must take with him a
Madame la Marquise,--some pretty angel with a suitable dot."
"A dot suitable to the ruins of Rochebriant would not suffice to repair
them, Marthe: give me my dressing-gown, and good-night."
"'Bon repos, M. le Marquis! beaux reves, et bel avenir.'"
"'Bel avenir!'" murmured the young man, bitterly, leaning his cheek on
his hand; "what fortune fairer than the present can be mine? yet inaction
in youth is more keenly felt than in age. How lightly I should endure
poverty if it brought poverty's ennobling companion, Labour,--denied to
me! Well, well; I must go back to the old rock: on this ocean there is
no sail, not even an oar, for me."
Alain de Rochebriant had not been reared to the expectation of poverty.
The only son of a father whose estates were large beyond those of most
nobles in modern France, his destined heritage seemed not unsuitable to
his illustrious birth. Educated at a provincial academy, he had been
removed at the age of sixteen to Rochebriant, and lived there simply and
lonelily enough, but still in a sort of feudal state, with an aunt, an
elder and unmarried sister to his father.
His father he never saw but twice after leaving college. That brilliant
seigneur visited France but rarely, for very brief intervals, residing
wholly abroad. To him went all the revenues of Rochebriant save what
sufficed for the manage of his son and his sister. It was the cherished
belief of these two loyal natures that the Marquis secretly devoted his
fortune to the cause of the Bourbons; how, they knew not, though they
often amused themselves by conjecturing: and, the young man, as he grew
up, nursed the hope that he should soon hear that the descendant of Henri
Quatre had crossed the frontier on a white charger and hoisted the old
gonfalon with its 'fleur-de-lis.' Then, indeed, his own career would be
opened, and the sword of the Kerouecs drawn from its sheath. Day after
day he expected to hear of revolts, of which his noble father was
doubtless the soul. But the Marquis, though a sincere Legitimist, was
by no means an enthusiastic fanatic. He was simply a very proud, a very
polished, a very luxurious, and, though not without the kindliness and
generosity which were common attributes of the old French noblesse, a
very selfish grand seigneur.
Losing his wife (who died the first year of marriage in giving birth to
Alain) while he was yet very young, he had lived a frank libertine life
until he fell submissive under tho despotic yoke of a Russian Princess,
who, for some mysterious reason, never visited her own country and
obstinately refused to reside in France. She was fond of travel, and
moved yearly from London to Naples, Naples to Vienna, Berlin, Madrid,
Seville, Carlsbad, Baden-Baden,--anywhere for caprice or change, except
Paris. This fair wanderer succeeded in chaining to herself the heart and
the steps of the Marquis de Rochebriant.
She was very rich; she lived semi-royally. Hers was just the house in
which it suited the Marquis to be the 'enfant qate.' I suspect that,
cat-like, his attachment was rather to the house than to the person of
his mistress. Not that he was domiciled with the Princess; that would
have been somewhat too much against the proprieties, greatly too much
against the Marquis's notions of his own dignity. He had his own
carriage, his own apartments, his own suite, as became so grand a
seigneur and the lover of so grand a dame. His estates, mortgaged before
he came to them, yielded no income sufficient for his wants; he mortgaged
deeper and deeper, year after year, till he could mortgage them no more.
He sold his hotel at Paris; he accepted without scruple his sister's
fortune; he borrowed with equal 'sang froid' the two hundred thousand
francs which his son on coming of age inherited from his mother.
Alain yielded that fortune to him without a murmur,--nay, with pride;
he thought it destined to go towards raising a regiment for the
fleur-de-lis.
To do the Marquis justice, he was fully persuaded that he should shortly
restore to his sister and son what he so recklessly took from them. He
was engaged to be married to his Princess so soon as her own husband
died. She had been separated from the Prince for many years, and every
year it was said he could not last a year longer. But he completed the
measure of his conjugal iniquities by continuing to live; and one day,
by mistake, Death robbed the lady of the Marquis instead of the Prince.
This was an accident which the Marquis had never counted upon. He was
still young enough to consider himself young; in fact, one principal
reason for keeping Alain secluded in Bretagne was his reluctance to
introduce into the world a son "as old as myself" he would say
pathetically. The news of his death, which happened at Baden after a
short attack of bronchitis caught in a supper 'al fresco' at the old
castle, was duly transmitted to Rochebriant by the Princess; and the
shock to Alain and his aunt was the greater because they had seen so
little of the departed that they regarded him as a heroic myth, an
impersonation of ancient chivalry, condemning himself to voluntary exile
rather than do homage to usurpers. But from their grief they were soon
roused by the terrible doubt whether Rochebriant could still be retained
in the family. Besides the mortgagees, creditors from half the capitals
in Europe sent in their claims; and all the movable effects transmitted
to Alain by his father's confidential Italian valet, except sundry
carriages and horses which were sold at Baden for what they would fetch,
were a magnificent dressing-case, in the secret drawer of which were some
bank-notes amounting to thirty thousand francs, and three large boxes
containing the Marquis's correspondence, a few miniature female
portraits, and a great many locks of hair.
Wholly unprepared for the ruin that stared him in the face, the young
Marquis evinced the natural strength of his character by the calmness
with which he met the danger, and the intelligence with which he
calculated and reduced it.
By the help of the family notary in the neighbouring town, he made
himself master of his liabilities and his means; and he found that, after
paying all debts and providing for the interest of the mortgages, a
property which ought to have realized a rental of L10,000 a year yielded
not more than L400. Nor was even this margin safe, nor the property out
of peril; for the principal mortgagee, who was a capitalist in Paris
named Louvier, having had during the life of the late Marquis more than
once to wait for his half-yearly interest longer than suited his
patience,--and his patience was not enduring,--plainly declared that if
the same delay recurred he should put his right of seizure in force; and
in France still more than in England, bad seasons seriously affect the
security of rents. To pay away L9,600 a year regularly out of L10,000,
with the penalty of forfeiting the whole if not paid,--whether crops may
fail, farmers procrastinate, and timber fall in price,--is to live with
the sword of Damocles over one's head.
For two years and more, however, Alain met his difficulties with prudence
and vigour; he retrenched the establishment hitherto kept at the chateau,
resigned such rural pleasures as he had been accustomed to indulge, and
lived like one of his petty farmers. But the risks of the future
remained undiminished.
"There is but one way, Monsieur le Marquis," said the family notary,
M. Hebert, "by which you can put your estate in comparative safety.
Your father raised his mortgages from time to time, as he wanted money,
and often at interest above the average market interest. You may add
considerably to your income by consolidating all these mortgages into one
at a lower percentage, and in so doing pay off this formidable mortgagee,
M. Louvier, who, I shrewdly suspect, is bent upon becoming the proprietor
of Rochebriant. Unfortunately those few portions of your land which were
but lightly charged, and, lying contiguous to small proprietors, were
coveted by them, and could be advantageously sold, are already gone to
pay the debts of Monsieur the late Marquis. There are, however, two
small farms which, bordering close on the town of S_____, I think I could
dispose of for building purposes at high rates; but these lands are
covered by M. Louvier's general mortgage, and he has refused to release
them, unless the whole debt be paid. Were that debt therefore
transferred to another mortgagee, we might stipulate for their exception,
and in so doing secure a sum of more than 100,000 francs, which you could
keep in reserve for a pressing or unforeseen occasion, and make the
nucleus of a capital devoted to the gradual liquidation of the charges on
the estate. For with a little capital, Monsieur le Marquis, your rent-
roll might be very greatly increased, the forests and orchards improved,
those meadows round S_____ drained and irrigated. Agriculture is
beginning to be understood in Bretagne, and your estate would soon double
its value in the hands of a spirited capitalist. My advice to you,
therefore, is to go to Paris, employ a good 'avoue,' practised in such
branch of his profession, to negotiate the consolidation of your
mortgages upon terms that will enable you to sell outlying portions,
and so pay off the charge by instalments agreed upon; to see if some safe
company or rich individual can be found to undertake for a term of years
the management of your forests, the draining of the S_____ meadows, the
superintendence of your fisheries, etc. They, it is true, will
monopolize the profits for many years,--perhaps twenty; but you are a
young man: at the end of that time you will reenter on your estate with
a rental so improved that the mortgages, now so awful, will seem to you
comparatively trivial."
In pursuance of this advice, the young Marquis had come to Paris
fortified with a letter from M. Hebert to an 'avoue' of eminence, and
with many letters from his aunt to the nobles of the Faubourg connected
with his house. Now one reason why M. Hebert had urged his client to
undertake this important business in person, rather than volunteer his
own services in Paris, was somewhat extra-professional. He had a sincere
and profound affection for Alain; he felt compassion for that young life
so barrenly wasted in seclusion and severe privations; he respected, but
was too practical a man of business to share, those chivalrous sentiments
of loyalty to an exiled dynasty which disqualified the man for the age he
lived in, and, if not greatly modified, would cut him off from the hopes
and aspirations of his eager generation. He thought plausibly enough
that the air of the grand metropolis was necessary to the mental health,
enfeebled and withering amidst the feudal mists of Bretagne; that once in
Paris, Alain would imbibe the ideas of Paris, adapt himself to some
career leading to honour and to fortune, for which he took facilities
from his high birth, an historical name too national for any dynasty not
to welcome among its adherents, and an intellect not yet sharpened by
contact and competition with others, but in itself vigorous, habituated
to thought, and vivified by the noble aspirations which belong to
imaginative natures.
At the least, Alain would be at Paris in the social position which would
afford him the opportunities of a marriage, in which his birth and rank
would be readily accepted as an equivalent to some ample fortune that
would serve to redeem the endangered seigneuries. He therefore warned
Alain that the affair for which he went to Paris might be tedious, that
lawyers were always slow, and advised him to calculate on remaining
several months, perhaps a year; delicately suggesting that his rearing
hitherto had been too secluded for his age and rank, and that a year at
Paris, even if he failed in the object which took him there, would not be
thrown away in the knowledge of men and things that would fit him better
to grapple with his difficulties on his return.
Alain divided his spare income between his aunt and himself, and had come
to Paris resolutely determined to live within the L200 a year which
remained to his share. He felt the revolution in his whole being that
commenced when out of sight of the petty principality in which he was the
object of that feudal reverence, still surviving in the more unfrequented
parts of Bretagne, for the representatives of illustrious names connected
with the immemorial legends of the province.
The very bustle of a railway, with its crowd and quickness and
unceremonious democracy of travel, served to pain and confound and
humiliate that sense of individual dignity in which he had been nurtured.
He felt that, once away from Rochebriant, he was but a cipher in the sum
of human beings. Arrived at Paris, and reaching the gloomy hotel to
which he had been recommended, he greeted even the desolation of that
solitude which is usually so oppressive to a stranger in the metropolis
of his native land. Loneliness was better than the loss of self in the
reek and pressure of an unfamiliar throng. For the first few days he had
wandered over Paris without calling even on the 'avoue' to whom M. Hebert
had directed him. He felt with the instinctive acuteness of a mind
which, under sounder training, would have achieved no mean distinction,
that it was a safe precaution to imbue himself with the atmosphere of the
place, and seize on those general ideas which in great capitals are so
contagious that they are often more accurately caught by the first
impressions than by subsequent habit, before he brought his mind into
collision with those of the individuals he had practically to deal with.
At last he repaired to the 'avoue,' M. Gandrin, Rue St. Florentin. He
had mechanically formed his idea of the abode and person of an 'avoue'
from his association with M. Hebert. He expected to find a dull house in
a dull street near the centre of business, remote from the haunts of
idlers, and a grave man of unpretending exterior and matured years.
He arrived at a hotel newly fronted, richly decorated, in the fashionable
quartier close by the Tuileries. He entered a wide 'porte cochere,' and
was directed by the concierge to mount 'au premier.' There, first
detained in an office faultlessly neat, with spruce young men at smart
desks, he was at length admitted into a noble salon, and into the
presence of a gentleman lounging in an easy-chair before a magnificent
bureau of 'marqueterie, genre Louis Seize,' engaged in patting a white
curly lapdog, with a pointed nose and a shrill bark.
The gentleman rose politely on his entrance, and released the dog, who,
after sniffing the Marquis, condescended not to bite.
"Monsieur le Marquis," said M. Gandrin, glancing at the card and the
introductory note from M. Hebert, which Alain had sent in, and which lay
on the 'secretaire' beside heaps of letters nicely arranged and labelled,
"charmed to make the honour of your acquaintance; just arrived at Paris?
So M. Hebert--a very worthy person whom I have never seen, but with whom
I have had correspondence--tells me you wish for my advice; in fact, he
wrote to me some days ago, mentioning the business in question,--
consolidation of mortgages. A very large sum wanted, Monsieur le
Marquis, and not to be had easily."
"Nevertheless," said Alain, quietly, "I should imagine that there must
be many capitalists in Paris willing to invest in good securities at fair
interest."
"You are mistaken, Marquis; very few such capitalists. Men worth money
nowadays like quick returns and large profits, thanks to the magnificent
system of 'Credit Mobilier,' in which, as you are aware, a man may place
his money in any trade or speculation without liabilities beyond his
share. Capitalists are nearly all traders or speculators."
"Then," said the Marquis, half rising, "I am to presume, sir, that you
are not likely to assist me."
"No, I don't say that, Marquis. I will look with care into the matter.
Doubtless you have with you an abstract of the, necessary documents, the
conditions of the present mortgages, the rental of the estate, its
probable prospects, and so forth."
"Sir, I have such an abstract with me at Paris; and having gone into
it myself with M. Hebert, I can pledge you my word that it is strictly
faithful to the facts."
The Marquis said this with naive simplicity, as if his word were quite
sufficient to set that part of the question at rest. M. Gandrin smiled
politely and said, "'Eh bien,' M. le Marquis: favour me with the
abstract; in a week's time you shall have my opinion. You enjoy Paris?
Greatly improved under the Emperor. 'Apropos,' Madame Gandrin receives
tomorrow evening; allow me that opportunity to present you to her."
Unprepared for the proffered hospitality, the Marquis had no option but
to murmur his gratification and assent.
In a minute more he was in the streets. The next evening he went to
Madame Gandrin's,--a brilliant reception,--a whole moving flower-bed of
"decorations" there. Having gone through the ceremony of presentation to
Madame Gandrin,--a handsome woman dressed to perfection, and conversing
with the secretary to an embassy,--the young noble ensconced himself in
an obscure and quiet corner, observing all and imagining that he escaped
observation. And as the young men of his own years glided by him, or as
their talk reached his ears, he became aware that from top to toe, within
and without, he was old-fashioned, obsolete, not of his race, not of his
day. His rank itself seemed to him a waste-paper title-deed to a
heritage long lapsed. Not thus the princely seigneurs of Rochebriant
made their 'debut' at the capital of their nation. They had had the
'entree' to the cabinets of their kings; they had glittered in the halls
of Versailles; they had held high posts of distinction in court and camp;
the great Order of St. Louis had seemed their hereditary appanage. His
father, though a voluntary exile in manhood, had been in childhood a
king's page, and throughout life remained the associate of princes; and
here, in an 'avoue's soiree,' unknown, unregarded, an expectant on an
'avoue's' patronage, stood the last lord of Rochebriant.
It is easy to conceive that Alain did not stay long. But he stayed long
enough to convince him that on L200 a year the polite society of Paris,
even as seen at M. Gandrin's, was not for him. Nevertheless, a day or
two after, he resolved to call upon the nearest of his kinsmen to whom
his aunt had given him letters. With the Count de Vandemar, one of his
fellow-nobles of the sacred Faubourg, he should be no less Rochebriant,
whether in a garret or a palace. The Vandemars, in fact, though for many
generations before the First Revolution a puissant and brilliant family,
had always recognized the Rochebriants as the head of their house,--the
trunk from which they had been slipped in the fifteenth century, when a
younger son of the Rochebriants married a wealthy heiress and took the
title with the lands of Vandemar.
Since then the two families had often intermarried. The present count
had a reputation for ability, was himself a large proprietor, and might
furnish advice to guide Alain in his negotiations with M. Gandrin. The
Hotel do Vandemar stood facing the old Hotel de Rochebriant; it was less
spacious, but not less venerable, gloomy, and prison-like.
As he turned his eyes from the armorial scutcheon which still rested,
though chipped and mouldering, over the portals of his lost ancestral
house, and was about to cross the street, two young men, who seemed two
or three years older than himself, emerged on horseback from the Hotel
de Vandemar.
Handsome young men, with the lofty look of the old race, dressed with the
punctilious care of person which is not foppery in men of birth, but
seems part of the self-respect that appertains to the old chivalric point
of honour. The horse of one of these cavaliers made a caracole which
brought it nearly upon Alain as he was about to cross. The rider,
checking his steed, lifted his hat to Alain and uttered a word of apology
in the courtesy of ancient high-breeding, but still with condescension as
to an inferior. This little incident, and the slighting kind of notice
received from coevals of his own birth, and doubtless his own blood,--for
he divined truly that they were the sons of the Count de Vandemar,--
disconcerted Alain to a degree which perhaps a Frenchman alone can
comprehend. He had even half a mind to give up his visit and turn back.
However, his native manhood prevailed over that morbid sensitiveness
which, born out of the union of pride and poverty, has all the effects
of vanity, and yet is not vanity itself.
The Count was at home, a thin spare man with a narrow but high forehead,
and an expression of countenance keen, severe, and 'un peu moqueuse.'
He received the Marquis, however, at first with great cordiality,
kissed him on both sides of his cheek, called him "cousin," expressed
immeasurable regret that the Countess was gone out on one of the missions
of charity in which the great ladies of the Faubourg religiously interest
themselves, and that his sons had just ridden forth to the Bois.
As Alain, however, proceeded, simply and without false shame,
to communicate the object of his visit at Paris, the extent of his
liabilities, and the penury of his means, the smile vanished from
the Count's face. He somewhat drew back his fauteuil in the movement
common to men who wish to estrange themselves from some other man's
difficulties; and when Alain came to a close, the Count remained some
moments seized with a slight cough; and, gazing intently on the carpet,
at length he said, "My dear young friend, your father behaved extremely
ill to you,--dishonourably, fraudulently."
"Hold!" said the Marquis, colouring high. "Those are words no man can
apply to my father in my presence."
The Count stared, shrugged his shoulders, and replied with 'sang froid,'
"Marquis, if you are contented with your father's conduct, of course it
is no business of mine: he never injured me. I presume, however, that,
considering my years and my character, you come to me for advice: is it
so?"
Alain bowed his head in assent.
"There are four courses for one in your position to take," said the
Count, placing the index of the right hand successively on the thumb and
three fingers of the left,--"four courses, and no more.
"First. To do as your notary recommended: consolidate your mortgages,
patch up your income as you best can, return to Rochebriant, and devote
the rest of your existence to the preservation of your property. By that
course your life will be one of permanent privation, severe struggle; and
the probability is that you will not succeed: there will come one or two
bad seasons, the farmers will fail to pay, the mortgagee will foreclose,
and you may find yourself, after twenty years of anxiety and torment,
prematurely old and without a sou.
"Course the second. Rochebriant, though so heavily encumbered as to
yield you some such income as your father gave to his chef de cuisine,
is still one of those superb 'terres' which bankers and Jews and stock-
jobbers court and hunt after, for which they will give enormous sums.
If you place it in good hands, I do not doubt that you could dispose
of the property within three months, on terms that would leave you a
considerable surplus, which, invested with judgment, would afford you
whereon you could live at Paris in a way suitable to your rank and age.
Need we go further?--does this course smile to you?"
"Pass on, Count; I will defend to the last what I take from my ancestors,
and cannot voluntarily sell their roof-tree and their tombs."
"Your name would still remain, and you would be just as well received
in Paris, and your 'noblesse' just as implicitly conceded, if all Judaea
encamped upon Rochebriant. Consider how few of us 'gentilshommes' of the
old regime have any domains left to us. Our names alone survive: no
revolution can efface them."
"It may be so, but pardon me; there are subjects on which we cannot
reason,--we can but feel. Rochebriant may be torn from me, but I cannot
yield it."
"I proceed to the third course. Keep the chateau and give up its
traditions; remain 'de facto' Marquis of Rochebriant, but accept the new
order of things. Make yourself known to the people in power. They will
be charmed to welcome you a convert from the old noblesse is a guarantee
of stability to the new system. You will be placed in diplomacy;
effloresce into an ambassador, a minister,--and ministers nowadays
have opportunities to become enormously rich."
"That course is not less impossible than the last. Till Henry V.
formally resign his right to the throne of Saint Louis, I can be servant
to no other man seated on that throne."
"Such, too, is my creed," said the Count, "and I cling to it; but my
estate is not mortgaged, and I have neither the tastes nor the age for
public employments. The last course is perhaps better than the rest; at
all events it is the easiest. A wealthy marriage; even if it must be a
'mesalliance.' I think at your age, with your appearance, that your name
is worth at least two million francs in the eyes of a rich 'roturier'
with an ambitious daughter."
"Alas!" said the young man, rising, "I see I shall have to go back to
Rochebriant. I cannot sell my castle, I cannot sell my creed, and I
cannot sell my name and myself."
"The last all of us did in the old 'regime,' Marquis. Though I still
retain the title of Vandemar, my property comes from the Farmer-General's
daughter, whom my great-grandfather, happily for us, married in the days
of Louis Quinze. Marriages with people of sense and rank have always
been 'marriages de convenance' in France. It is only in 'le petit monde'
that men having nothing marry girls having nothing, and I don't believe
they are a bit the happier for it. On the contrary, the 'quarrels de
menage' leading to frightful crimes appear by the 'Gazette des Tribunaux'
to be chiefly found among those who do not sell themselves at the altar."
The old Count said this with a grim 'persiflage.' He was a Voltairian.
Voltairianism, deserted by the modern Liberals of France, has its chief
cultivation nowadays among the wits of the old 'regime.' They pick up
its light weapons on the battle-field on which their fathers perished,
and re-feather against the 'canaille' the shafts which had been pointed
against the 'noblesse.'
"Adieu, Count," said Alain, rising; "I do not thank you less for your
advice because I have not the wit to profit by it."
"'Au revoir,' my cousin; you will think better of it when you have been
a month or two at Paris. By the way, my wife receives every Wednesday;
consider our house yours."
"Count, can I enter into the world which Madame la Comtesse receives, in
the way that becomes my birth, on the income I take from my fortune?"
The Count hesitated. "No," said he at last, frankly; "not because you
will be less welcome or less respected, but because I see that you have
all the pride and sensitiveness of a 'seigneur de province.' Society
would therefore give you pain, not pleasure. More than this, I know,
by the remembrance of my own youth and the sad experience of my own
sons, that you would be irresistibly led into debt, and debt in your
circumstances would be the loss of Rochebriant. No; I invite you to
visit us. I offer you the most select but not the most brilliant circles
of Paris, because my wife is religious, and frightens away the birds of
gay plumage with the scarecrows of priests and bishops. But if you
accept my invitation and my offer, I am bound, as an old man of the world
to a young kinsman, to say that the chances are that you will be ruined."
"I thank you, Count, for your candour; and I now acknowledge that I have
found a relation and a guide," answered the Marquis, with nobility of
mien that was not without a pathos which touched the hard heart of the
old man.
"Come at least whenever you want a sincere if a rude friend;" and though
he did not kiss his cousin's cheek this time, he gave him, with more
sincerity, a parting shake of the hand.
And these made the principal events in Alain's Paris life till he met
Frederic Lemercier. Hitherto he had received no definite answer from
M. Gandrin, who had postponed an interview, not having had leisure to
make himself master of all the details in the abstract sent to him.