“Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a regular Commissariat office in Africa.  A head-clerk in the War Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed to the post of director.”

“The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition.  The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le Comte de Rastignac.  Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon becomes Master of Appeals.”

Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition newspapers is the official bogus paragraph.  However keen journalists may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power.  The newspaper can only be circumvented by the journalist.  It may be said, as a parody on a line by Voltaire: 

“The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe.”

Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his senior.  The two men spoke not a word.  Hector was helpless.  The Marshal was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight.  On arriving at his own house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he beckoned his brother into his study.  The Count had received from the Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles factory; he took the box, with its inscription. “Given by the Emperor Napoleon to General Hulot,” out of his desk, and placing it on the top, he showed it to his brother, saying, “There is your remedy.”

Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to the Rue Plumet.  Within about twenty minutes she had brought back Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal’s threat to his brother.

The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years.

“Beau-Pied,” said he, “fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury.  It is now half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve.  Take hackney cabs —­and go faster than that!” he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips.  And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See Les Chouans.)

“You shall be obeyed, Marechal,” said Beau-Pied, with a military salute.

Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander.