“We will talk of that when we are out of danger,” said Madame de Godollo, moving towards the door; “and if Madame Phellion, the tenderest and most virtuous of mothers, will grant me a little place in her esteem, I shall count myself more than repaid for my trouble.”

Madame Phellion plunged headlong into a responsive compliment; and the countess, in her carriage, was at some distance from the house before Phellion had ceased to offer her his most respectful salutations.

As the Latin-quarter element in Brigitte’s salon became more rare and less assiduous, a livelier Paris began to infiltrate it.  Among his colleagues in the municipal council and among the upper employees of the prefecture of the Seine, the new councillor had made several very important recruits.  The mayor, and the deputy mayors of the arrondissement, on whom, after his removal to the Madeleine quarter, Thuillier had called, hastened to return the civility; and the same thing happened with the superior officers of the first legion.  The house itself had produced a contingent; and several of the new tenants contributed, by their presence, to change the aspect of the dominical meetings.  Among the number we must mention Rabourdin [see “Bureaucracy"], the former head of Thuillier’s office at the ministry of finance.  Having had the misfortune to lose his wife, whose salon, at an earlier period, checkmated that of Madame Colleville, Rabourdin occupied as a bachelor the third floor, above the apartment let to Cardot, the notary.  As the result of an odious slight to his just claims, Rabourdin had voluntarily resigned his public functions.  At this time, when he again met Thuillier, he was director of one of those numerous projected railways, the construction of which is always delayed by either parliamentary rivalry or parliamentary indecision.  Let us say, in passing, that the meeting with this able administrator, now become an important personage in the financial world, was an occasion to the worthy and honest Phellion to display once more his noble character.  At the time of the resignation to which Rabourdin had felt himself driven, Phellion alone, of all the clerks in the office, had stood by him in his misfortunes.  Being now in a position to bestow a great number of places, Rabourdin, on meeting once more his faithful subordinate, hastened to offer him a position both easy and lucrative.

“Mossieu,” said Phellion, “your benevolence touches me and honors me, but my frankness owes you an avowal, which I beg you not to take in ill part:  I do not believe in ‘railways,’ as the English call them.”

“That’s an opinion to which you have every right,” said Rabourdin, smiling; “but, meanwhile, until the contrary is proved, we pay the employees in our office well, and I should be glad to have you with me in that capacity.  I know by experience that you are a man on whom I can count.”

“Mossieu,” returned the great citizen, “I did my duty at that time, and nothing more.  As for the offer you have been so good as to make to me, I cannot accept it; satisfied with my humble fortunes, I feel neither the need nor the desire to re-enter an administrative career; and, in common with the Latin poet, I may say, ’Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt.’”