position impossible. If you succeed in finding this priceless
being, I will give him the best room in my castle and a salary of
twelve thousand francs. I stipulate that he shall not be a fool.
As to character, I say nothing about it; he will do me the favor to
have such as will suit me."

M. Lerins was intimate with a young man from Lorraine named Gilbert
Saville, a savant of great merit, who had left Nancy several years
before to seek his fortune in Paris. At the age of twenty-seven he
had presented, in a competition opened by the Academy of
Inscriptions, an essay on the Etruscan language, which took the
prize and was unanimously declared a masterpiece of sagacious
erudition. He had hoped for some time that this first success,
which had gained him renown among learned men, would aid him in
obtaining some lucrative position and rescue him from the
precarious situation in which he found himself. Nothing resulted
from it. His merits compelled esteem; the charm of his frank and
courteous manner won him universal good will; his friends were
numerous; he was well received and caressed; he even obtained,
without seeking it, the entree to more than one salon, where he met
men of standing who could be useful to him and assure him a
successful future. All this however amounted to nothing, and no
position was offered. What worked most to his prejudice was an
independence of opinion and character which was a part of his
nature. Only to look at him was to know that such a man could not
be tied down, and the only language which this able philologist
could not learn was the jargon of society. Add to this that
Gilbert had a speculative, dreamy temperament and the pride and
indolence which are its accessories. To bestir himself and to
importune were torture to him. A promise made to him could be