“I am the author, you are the play; if you fail, it is I who shall be hissed,” said he on the day when he confessed his sacrilegious disguise.

Carlos prudently confessed only a little at a time, measuring the horrors of his revelations by Lucien’s progress and needs.  Thus Trompe-la-Mort did not let out his last secret till the habit of Parisian pleasures and success, and gratified vanity, had enslaved the weak-minded poet body and soul.  Where Rastignac, when tempted by this demon, had stood firm, Lucien, better managed, and more ingeniously compromised, succumbed, conquered especially by his satisfaction in having attained an eminent position.  Incarnate evil, whose poetical embodiment is called the Devil, displayed every delightful seduction before this youth, who was half a woman, and at first gave much and asked for little.  The great argument used by Carlos was the eternal secret promised by Tartufe to Elmire.

The repeated proofs of absolute devotion, such as that of Said to Mahomet, put the finishing touch to the horrible achievement of Lucien’s subjugation by a Jacques Collin.

At this moment not only had Esther and Lucien devoured all the funds intrusted to the honesty of the banker of the hulks, who, for their sakes, had rendered himself liable to a dreadful calling to account, but the dandy, the forger, and the courtesan were also in debt.  Thus, as the very moment of Lucien’s expected success, the smallest pebble under the foot of either of these three persons might involve the ruin of the fantastic structure of fortune so audaciously built up.

At the opera ball Rastignac had recognized the man he had known as Vautrin at Madame Vauquer’s; but he knew that if he did not hold his tongue, he was a dead man.  So Madame de Nucingen’s lover and Lucien had exchanged glances in which fear lurked, on both sides, under an expression of amity.  In the moment of danger, Rastignac, it is clear, would have been delighted to provide the vehicle that should convey Jacques Collin to the scaffold.  From all this it may be understood that Carlos heard of the Baron’s passion with a glow of sombre satisfaction, while he perceived in a single flash all the advantage a man of his temper might derive by means of a hapless Esther.

“Go on,” said he to Lucien.  “The Devil is mindful of his chaplain.”

“You are smoking on a powder barrel.”

“Incedo per ignes,” replied Carlos with a smile.  “That is my trade.”

The House of Grandlieu divided into two branches about the middle of the last century:  first, the ducal line destined to lapse, since the present duke has only daughters; and then the Vicomtes de Grandlieu, who will now inherit the title and armorial bearings of the elder branch.  The ducal house bears gules, three broad axes or in fess, with the famous motto:  Caveo non timeo, which epitomizes the history of the family.

The coat of the Vicomtes de Grandlieu is the same quartered with that of Navarreins:  gules, a fess crenelated or, surmounted by a knight’s helmet, with the motto:  Grands faits, grand lieu.  The present Viscountess, widowed in 1813, has a son and a daughter.  Though she returned from the Emigration almost ruined, she recovered a considerable fortune by the zealous aid of Derville the lawyer.