Chesnel made the draft payable to
Sorbier's young successor; and the latter, feeling but little
inclination to adopt his correspondent's sentimentality, was delighted
to put himself at the Count's orders, and gave Victurnien as much
money as he wanted.
Now those who know what life in Paris means, know that fifty thousand
francs will not go very far in furniture, horses, carriages, and
elegance generally; but it must be borne in mind that Victurnien
immediately contracted some twenty thousand francs' worth of debts
besides, and his tradespeople at first were not at all anxious to be
paid, for our young gentleman's fortune had been prodigiously
increased, partly by rumor, partly by Josephin, that Chesnel in
livery.
Victurnien had not been in town a month before he was obliged to
repair to his man of business for ten thousand francs; he had only
been playing whist with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Chaulieu, and de
Lenoncourt, and now and again at his club. He had begun by winning
some thousands of francs but pretty soon lost five or six thousand,
which brought home to him the necessity of a purse for play.
Victurnien had the spirit that gains goodwill everywhere, and puts a
young man of a great family on a level with the very highest. He was
not merely admitted at once into the band of patrician youth, but was
even envied by the rest.
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