them, unless the whole debt be paid. Were that debt therefore
transferred to another mortgagee, we might stipulate for their exception,
and in so doing secure a sum of more than 100,000 francs, which you could
keep in reserve for a pressing or unforeseen occasion, and make the
nucleus of a capital devoted to the gradual liquidation of the charges on
the estate. For with a little capital, Monsieur le Marquis, your rent-
roll might be very greatly increased, the forests and orchards improved,
those meadows round S_____ drained and irrigated. Agriculture is
beginning to be understood in Bretagne, and your estate would soon double
its value in the hands of a spirited capitalist. My advice to you,
therefore, is to go to Paris, employ a good 'avoue,' practised in such
branch of his profession, to negotiate the consolidation of your
mortgages upon terms that will enable you to sell outlying portions,
and so pay off the charge by instalments agreed upon; to see if some safe
company or rich individual can be found to undertake for a term of years
the management of your forests, the draining of the S_____ meadows, the
superintendence of your fisheries, etc. They, it is true, will
monopolize the profits for many years,--perhaps twenty; but you are a
young man: at the end of that time you will reenter on your estate with
a rental so improved that the mortgages, now so awful, will seem to you
comparatively trivial."

In pursuance of this advice, the young Marquis had come to Paris
fortified with a letter from M. Hebert to an 'avoue' of eminence, and
with many letters from his aunt to the nobles of the Faubourg connected
with his house. Now one reason why M. Hebert had urged his client to
undertake this important business in person, rather than volunteer his
own services in Paris, was somewhat extra-professional. He had a sincere
and profound affection for Alain; he felt compassion for that young life
so barrenly wasted in seclusion and severe privations; he respected, but