idea had some foundation; for he resembled the Count as much as a vulgar
man can resemble one of the highest polish.

He was the son of a small confectioner in the provinces; had received
from his father an honestly acquired fortune, and had dissipated it in
the varied enterprises of his adventurous life. The influence of his
college, however, obtained for him a place in the Seminary. He left it
to come to Paris and study law; placed himself with an attorney;
attempted literature without success; gambled on the Bourse and lost
there.

He had successively knocked with feverish hand at all the doors of
Fortune, and none had opened to him, because, though his ambition was
great, his capacity was limited. Subordinate positions, for which alone
he was fit, he did not want. He would have made a good tutor: he sighed
to be a poet. He would have been a respectable cure in the country: he
pined to be a bishop. Fitted for an excellent secretary, he aspired to
be a minister. In fine, he wished to be a great man, and consequently
was a failure as a little one.

But he made himself a hypocrite; and that he found much easier. He
supported himself on the one hand by the philosophic society to be met at
Madame d'Oilly's; on the other, by the orthodox reunions of Madame de la
Roche-Jugan.

By these influences he contrived to secure the secretaryship to the Comte
de Camors, who, in his general contempt of the human species, judged
Vautrot to be as good as any other. Now, familiarity with M. de Camors
was, morally, fearfully prejudicial to the secretary. It had, it is
true, the effect of stripping off his devout mask, which he seldom put on