In the course of our conversations you had given
me a picture of the society of Besancon, of the impossibility for
a stranger to get on there, to produce the smallest effect, to get
into society, or to succeed in any way whatever. It was there that
I determined to set up my flag, thinking, and rightly, that I
should meet with no opposition, but find myself alone to canvass
for the election. The people of the Comte will not meet the
outsider? The outsider will meet them! They refuse to admit him to
their drawing-rooms, he will never go there! He never shows
himself anywhere, not even in the streets! But there is one class
that elects the deputies--the commercial class. I am going
especially to study commercial questions, with which I am already
familiar; I will gain their lawsuits, I will effect compromises, I
will be the greatest pleader in Besancon. By and by I will start a
_Review_, in which I will defend the interests of the country,
will create them, or preserve them, or resuscitate them. When I
shall have won a sufficient number of votes, my name will come out
of the urn. For a long time the unknown barrister will be treated
with contempt, but some circumstance will arise to bring him to
the front--some unpaid defence, or a case which no other pleader
will undertake.
"Well, my dear Leopold, I packed up my books in eleven cases, I
bought such law-books as might prove useful, and I sent everything
off, furniture and all, by carrier to Besancon.
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