Some of the estates, as, indeed, I already knew, yielded little or nothing.

The commerce of France was naturally paralysed by the declaration of war, and no one wanted a vast old house in the Faubourg St.Germain--a hotbed of Legitimism where no good Buonapartist cared to own a friend or show his face.
I disguised nothing from Madame de Clericy, whom indeed it was hard to deceive.
"Then," she said, "there is no money." We were in my study, where I was seated at the table, while Madame moved from table to mantelpiece with a woman's keen sight for the blemishes to be found in a bachelor's apartment.
"For the moment you are in need of ready money--that is all.

If the war is brought to a speedy termination, all will be set right." "And if the war is not brought to a speedy termination--you are a second-rate optimist, _mon ami_--what then ?" "Then I shall have to find some expedient." She looked at me probingly.

The windows were open, and we heard the cries of the newsboys in the streets.
"Hear!" she said; "they are shouting of victories." I shrugged my shoulders.
"You mean," said the Vicomtesse slowly, "that they will shout of victories until the Prussians are in sight of Paris." "The Parisians will pay two sous for good news, and nothing at all for evil tidings," I answered.
Thus we lived for some weeks, through the heat of July--and I could neither leave Paris nor give thought to Charles Miste.

That scoundrel was, however, singularly quiet.