I’m good, he thought; me, plebeian, have pity on a family of this place! Me that the Duke of Chaulnes calls a servant! How the Marquis he increases his vast fortune? By selling the annuity, the castle when he learns that there will appear the next coup. And I threw in last place with a providence stepmother, whom she had me give a noble heart and not a thousand francs a year, that is to say, no bread, exactly speaking, no bread, refuse me pleasure which is offered! A clear spring just quench my thirst in the burning desert of mediocrity that I go through so painfully! My faith, not so stupid every man for himself in this wilderness of selfishness called life.

And he recalled a few stares of disdain, sent to him by Madame de La Mole, and especially by the ladies her friends.

The pleasure of triumphing over the Marquis de Croisenois completed the rout of the memory of virtue.