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280 was impossibls for him to have been treated with more consideration. "What an admirable talent," said Julien to himself. When he got up to go, the marquis apologised for not being able to accompany him by reason of his gout.

Julien was preoccupied by this strange idea. "Perhaps he is making fun of me," he thought. He went to ask advice of the abbé Pirard, who being less polite than the marquis, made no other answer except to whistle and change the subject.

Julien presented himself to the marquis the next morning in his black suit, with his letter case and his letters for signature. He was received in the old way, but when he wore the blue suit that evening, the marquis's tone was quite different, and absolutely as polite as on the previous day.

"As you are not exactly bored," said the marquis to him, "by these visits which you are kind enough to pay to a poor old man, you must tell him about all the little incidents of your life, but you must be frank and think of nothing except narrating them clearly and in an amusing way. For one must amuse oneself," continued the marquis. "That's the only reality in life. I can't have my life saved in a battle every day, or get a present of a million francs every day, but if I had Rivarol here by my sofa he would rid me every day of an hour of suffering and boredom. I saw a lot of him at Hamburg during the emigration."

And the marquis told Julien the stories of Rivarol and the inhabitants of Hamburg who needed the combined efforts of four individuals to understand an epigram. M. de la Mole, being reduced to the society of this little abbé, tried to teach him. He put Julien's pride on its mettle. As he was asked to speak the truth, Julien resolved to tell everything, but to suppress two things, his fanatical admiration for the name which irritated the marquis, and that complete scepticism, which was not particularly appropriate to a prospective curé. His little affair with the chevalier de Beauvoisis came in very handy. The marquis laughed till the tears came into his eyes at the scene in the café in the Rue St. Honore with the coachman who had loaded him with sordid insults. The occasion was marked by a complete frankness between the marquis and the protegé.

M. de la Mole became interested in this singular character. At the beginning he had encouraged Jullikn's [sic] droll blunders