If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I
have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when
Laubépin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in
speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have
paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my
little sister Hélène at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I feel
the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide
in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that
oppress me; so I will keep this diary.

It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I
shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of
my singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have
been transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful
and wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised
domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my
proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There
were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my
fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me,
except the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Hélouin; and we
were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to
a young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bévallan, whose estate joined that
of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Hélouin that it was his
ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite Laroque.
I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her grandfather
into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair by
Bévallan, and came and sat by my side.

"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and
I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut