Des Lupeaulx was just forty years old. His youth had long been a
vexation to him, for he felt that the making of his career depended on
his becoming a deputy. How had he reached his present position? may be
asked. By very simple means. He began by taking charge of certain
delicate missions which can be given neither to a man who respects
himself nor to a man who does not respect himself, but are confided to
grave and enigmatic individuals who can be acknowledged or disavowed
at will. His business was that of being always compromised; but his
fortunes were pushed as much by defeat as by success. He well
understood that under the Restoration, a period of continual
compromises between men, between things, between accomplished facts
and other facts looking on the horizon, it was all-important for the
ruling powers to have a household drudge. Observe in a family some old
charwoman who can make beds, sweep the floors, carry away the dirty
linen, who knows where the silver is kept, how the creditors should be
pacified, what persons should be let in and who must be kept out of
the house, and such a creature, even if she has all the vices, and is
dirty, decrepit, and toothless, or puts into the lottery and steals
thirty sous a day for her stake, and you will find the masters like
her from habit, talk and consult in her hearing upon even critical
matters; she comes and goes, suggests resources, gets on the scent of
secrets, brings the rouge or the shawl at the right moment, lets
herself be scolded and pushed downstairs, and the next morning
reappears smiling with an excellent bouillon. No matter how high a
statesman may stand, he is certain to have some household drudge,
before whom he is weak, undecided, disputations with fate,
self-questioning, self-answering, and buckling for the fight. Such a
familiar is like the soft wood of savages, which, when rubbed against
the hard wood, strikes fire. Sometimes great geniuses illumine
themselves in this way. Napoleon lived with Berthier, Richelieu with