more enthusiasm because she was rich and a noted beauty, while he was
only a lieutenant with no prospects but the extremely problematical
future of a soldier of fortune of that day. Old Wallenrod, a decayed
German baron (there is always a baron in a German bank) delighted to
know that the handsome lieutenant was the sole representative of the
Mignon de La Bastie, approved the love of the blonde Bettina, whose
beauty an artist (at that time there really was one in Frankfort) had
lately painted as an ideal head of Germany. Wallenrod invested enough
money in the French funds to give his daughter thirty thousand francs
a year, and settled it on his anticipated grandsons, naming them
counts of La Bastie-Wallenrod. This "dot" made only a small hole in
his cash-box, the value of money being then very low. But the Empire,
pursuing a policy often attempted by other debtors, rarely paid its
dividends; and Charles was rather alarmed at this investment, having
less faith than his father-in-law in the imperial eagle. The
phenomenon of belief, or of admiration which is ephemeral belief, is
not so easily maintained when in close quarters with the idol. The
mechanic distrusts the machine which the traveller admires; and the
officers of the army might be called the stokers of the Napoleonic
engine,--if, indeed, they were not its fuel.

However, the Baron Wallenrod-Tustall-Bartenstild promised to come if
necessary to the help of the household. Charles loved Bettina
Wallenrod as much as she loved him, and that is saying a good deal;
but when a Provencal is moved to enthusiasm all his feelings and
attachments are genuine and natural. And how could he fail to adore
that blonde beauty, escaping, as it were, from the canvas of Durer,
gifted with an angelic nature and endowed with Frankfort wealth? The
pair had four children, of whom only two daughters survived at the
time when he poured his griefs into the Breton's heart. Dumay loved