Lively, witty, and well-educated, she committed more faults than her duller companions, whose misdemeanors had invariably self-interest for their base.  After knowing various writers, poor but dishonest, clever but deeply in debt; after trying certain rich men as calculating as they were foolish; and after sacrificing solid interests to one true love,—­thus going through all the schools in which experience is taught,—­on a certain day of extreme misery, when, at Valentino’s (the first stage to Musard) she danced in a gown, hat, and mantle that were all borrowed, she attracted the attention of Arthur de Rochefide, who had come there to see the famous galop.  Her cleverness instantly captivated the man who at that time knew not what passion to devote himself to.  So that two years after his desertion by Beatrix, the memory of whom often humiliated him, the marquis was not blamed by any one for marrying, so to speak, in the thirteenth arrondissement, a substitute for his wife.

Let us sketch the four periods of this happiness.  It is necessary to show that the theory of marriage in the thirteenth arrondissement affects in like manner all who come within its rule.[*] Marquis in the forties, sexagenary retired shopkeeper, quadruple millionnaire or moderate-income man, great seigneur or bourgeois, the strategy of passion (except for the differences inherent in social zones) never varies.  The heart and the money-box are always in the same exact and clearly defined relation.  Thus informed, you will be able to estimate the difficulties the duchess was certain to encounter in her charitable enterprise.

[*] Before 1859 there was no 13th arrondissement in Paris, hence the
    saying.—­TR.

Who knows the power in France of witty sayings upon ordinary minds, or what harm the clever men who invent them have done?  For instance, no book-keeper could add up the figures of the sums remaining unproductive and lost in the depths of generous hearts and strong-boxes by that ignoble phrase, “tirer une carotte!”

The saying has become so popular that it must be allowed to soil this page.  Besides, if we penetrate within the 13th arrondissement, we are forced to accept its picturesque patois. Tirer une carotte has a dozen allied meanings, but it suffices to give it here as:  To dupe.  Monsieur de Rochefide, like all little minds, was terribly afraid of being carotte.  The noun has become a verb.  From the very start of his passion for Madame Schontz, Arthur was on his guard, and he was, therefore, very rat, to use another word of the same vocabulary.  The word rat, when applied to a young girl, means the guest or the one entertained, but applied to a man it signifies the giver of the feast who is niggardly.