during its sequestration. At the present moment, though Comte Ferraud
was a Councillor of State, and a Director-General, he regarded his
position as merely the first step of his political career.

Wholly occupied as he was by the anxieties of consuming ambition, he
had attached to himself, as secretary, a ruined attorney named
Delbecq, a more than clever man, versed in all the resources of the
law, to whom he left the conduct of his private affairs. This shrewd
practitioner had so well understood his position with the Count as to
be honest in his own interest. He hoped to get some place by his
master's influence, and he made the Count's fortune his first care.
His conduct so effectually gave the lie to his former life, that he
was regarded as a slandered man. The Countess, with the tact and
shrewdness of which most women have a share more or less, understood
the man's motives, watched him quietly, and managed him so well, that
she had made good use of him for the augmentation of her private
fortune. She had contrived to make Delbecq believe that she ruled her
husband, and had promised to get him appointed President of an
inferior court in some important provincial town, if he devoted
himself entirely to her interests.

The promise of a place, not dependent on changes of ministry, which
would allow of his marrying advantageously, and rising subsequently to
a high political position, by being chosen Depute, made Delbecq the
Countess' abject slave. He had never allowed her to miss one of those
favorable chances which the fluctuations of the Bourse and the
increased value of property afforded to clever financiers in Paris
during the first three years after the Restoration. He had trebled his
protectress' capital, and all the more easily because the Countess had
no scruples as to the means which might make her an enormous fortune