The Emperor fell.

At the time of Comte Chabert's death, M. Ferraud was a young man of
six-and-twenty, without a fortune, of pleasing appearance, who had had
his successes, and whom the Faubourg Saint-Germain had adopted as
doing it credit; but Madame la Comtesse Chabert had managed to turn
her share of her husband's fortune to such good account that, after
eighteen months of widowhood, she had about forty thousand francs a
year. Her marriage to the young Count was not regarded as news in the
circles of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Napoleon, approving of this
union, which carried out his idea of fusion, restored to Madame
Chabert the money falling to the Exchequer under her husband's will;
but Napoleon's hopes were again disappointed. Madame Ferraud was not
only in love with her lover; she had also been fascinated by the
notion of getting into the haughty society which, in spite of its
humiliation, was still predominant at the Imperial Court. By this
marriage all her vanities were as much gratified as her passions. She
was to become a real fine lady. When the Faubourg Saint-Germain
understood that the young Count's marriage did not mean desertion, its
drawing-rooms were thrown open to his wife.

Then came the Restoration. The Count's political advancement was not
rapid. He understood the exigencies of the situation in which Louis
XVIII. found himself; he was one of the inner circle who waited till
the "Gulf of Revolution should be closed"--for this phrase of the
King's, at which the Liberals laughed so heartily, had a political
sense. The order quoted in the long lawyer's preamble at the beginning
of this story had, however, put him in possession of two tracts of
forest, and of an estate which had considerably increased in value