Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/50

 calculation of that sage, who, when asking a Persian king, as a reward for having invented the game of chess, to give him one ear of corn for the first square of the chess-board whilst always doubling it, demonstrated that the kingdom itself would not suffice to pay it. The network of nobility encircled by the network of the bourgeoisie, this antagonism of two races, the one protected by immovable institutions, the other by the active patience of work and the wiles of trade, produced the revolution of 1789. The two races, almost reunited, stand today face to face with collateral heirs without any inheritance. What are they going to do? Our political future is pregnant with the reply.

The family of him who under Louis XV. called himself simply Minoret, was so numerous, that one of the five children, the Minoret whose entrance into the church created a sensation, went to seek his fortune in Paris, and only appeared at long intervals in his native town, where, upon the death of his grandparents, he doubtless came to fetch his share of the inheritance. After having suffered a great deal, like all young people gifted with a strong will and who wish to hold a place in the brilliant society of Paris, the child of the Minorets created for himself a finer destiny than he had perhaps ever dreamt of at the outset; for he had at once devoted himself to medicine, one of the professions which require talent and luck, but even more luck than talent. Supported by Dupont—of Nemours,—connected by a lucky chance with the Abbé Morellet that Voltaire