matter. Gold is the spiritual basis of existing society.--The ten of
us are bound by the ties of common interest; we meet on certain days
of the week at the Cafe Themis near the Pont Neuf, and there, in
conclave, we reveal the mysteries of finance. No fortune can deceive
us; we are in possession of family secrets in all directions. We keep
a kind of Black Book, in which we note the most important bills
issued, drafts on public credit, or on banks, or given and taken in
the course of business. We are the Casuists of the Paris Bourse, a
kind of Inquisition weighing and analyzing the most insignificant
actions of every man of any fortune, and our forecasts are infallible.
One of us looks out over the judicial world, one over the financial,
another surveys the administrative, and yet another the business
world. I myself keep an eye on eldest sons, artists, people in the
great world, and gamblers--on the most sensational side of Paris.
Every one who comes to us lets us into his neighbor's secrets.
Thwarted passion and mortified vanity are great babblers. Vice and
disappointment and vindictiveness are the best of all detectives. My
colleagues, like myself, have enjoyed all things, are sated with all
things, and have reached the point when power and money are loved for
their own sake.

"'Here,' he said, indicating his bare, chilly room, 'here the most
high-mettled gallant, who chafes at a word and draws swords for a
syllable elsewhere will entreat with clasped hands. There is no city
merchant so proud, no woman so vain of her beauty, no soldier of so
bold a spirit, but that they entreat me here, one and all, with tears
of rage or anguish in their eyes. Here they kneel--the famous artist,
and the man of letters, whose name will go down to posterity. Here, in
short' (he lifted his hand to his forehead), 'all the inheritances and
all the concerns of all Paris are weighed in the balance. Are you