told himself that nature doomed her to a disappointed life through his
fault; HIS; she was like a thoroughbred English horse, a racer
harnessed to a cart full of stones; she it was who suffered; and he
blamed himself. His wife, by dint of constant repetition, had
inoculated him with her own belief in herself. Ideas are contagious in
a household; the ninth thermidor, like so many other portentous
events, was the result of female influence. Thus, goaded by
Celestine's ambition, Rabourdin had long considered the means of
satisfying it, though he hid his hopes, so as to spare her the
tortures of uncertainty. The man was firmly resolved to make his way
in the administration by bringing a strong light to bear upon it. He
intended to bring about one of those revolutions which send a man to
the head of either one party or another in society; but being
incapable of so doing in his own interests, he merely pondered useful
thoughts and dreamed of triumphs won for his country by noble means.
His ideas were both generous and ambitious; few officials have not
conceived the like; but among officials as among artists there are
more miscarriages than births; which is tantamount to Buffon's saying
that "Genius is patience."

Placed in a position where he could study French administration and
observe its mechanism, Rabourdin worked in the circle where his
thought revolved, which, we may remark parenthetically, is the secret
of much human accomplishment; and his labor culminated finally in the
invention of a new system for the Civil Service of government. Knowing
the people with whom he had to do, he maintained the machine as it
then worked, so it still works and will continue to work; for
everybody fears to remodel it, though no one, according to Rabourdin,
ought to be unwilling to simplify it. In his opinion, the problem to
be resolved lay in a better use of the same forces. His plan, in its