"And, madame, Abbé Ledoux, whom I have the honour of presenting to you, considers me, at this hour even, a pagan, a dreadful idolater. Be good enough to rehabilitate me in his opinion, by informing this saintly man that you and your husband have, in the midst of profound and invincible idleness, exercised an activity without bounds, an inconceivable energy, and a sagacity which have secured for both of you an honourable independence."
"For the honour of indolence, respected abbé," replied Florence, smiling, "I am obliged to do violence to my own modesty, as well as that of my husband, by confessing that the dear doctor has spoken the truth."
"Avarice," whispered the doctor to the canon and the abbé, while the father of Louis Richard, the happy husband of Marietta, advanced to meet him.
"Is this M. Richard?" said the abbé, in a low voice to Doctor Gasterini, "the founder of those schools and houses of retreat established at Chaillot, and so admirably organised?"
"It is he, himself," replied the doctor, extending his hand to the old man, as he said, "Welcome, good Richard, the abbé was just speaking to me of you."
"Or, if you prefer it, of your wonderful endowments at Chaillot."
"Ah, doctor," said the old man, "you must render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's,--my son is the founder of those charitable institutions."
"Let us see, my good Richard," replied the doctor, "if you had not been as thorough a miser as your friend, Ramon, your worthy son would not have been able to make your name blessed everywhere as he has done."
"As to that, doctor, it is the pure truth, and, too, I confess to you that there is not a day I do not thank God, from this fact, for having made me the most avaricious of men."
"And how is your son's friend, the Marquis of Saint-Hérem?"
"He came to visit us yesterday with his wife. His household is the very pearl of establishments. He invited us to visit his castle just erected in the valley of Chevreuse. They say that no palace in Paris equals it in splendour. It seems that for three years fifteen hundred artisans have been at work on it, without counting the terraces of the park, which alone have employed the force of four villages, and, as the marquis pays handsomely, you can conceive what comfort has been spread abroad through the neighbourhoods around his castle."