With his
independent means (he had an income of twelve thousand livres), he was
courted by mothers of daughters, and led a frivolous life. He did just
enough at the Tribunal to satisfy his conscience, much as a schoolboy
does his exercises, saying ditto on all occasions, with a "Yes, dear
President." But underneath the appearance of indifference lurked the
unusual powers of the Paris law student who had distinguished himself
as one of the staff of prosecuting counsel before he came to the
provinces. He was accustomed to taking broad views of things; he could
do rapidly what the President and Blondet could only do after much
thinking, and very often solved knotty points for them. In delicate
conjunctures the President and Vice-President took counsel with their
junior, confided thorny questions to him, and never failed to wonder
at the readiness with which he brought back a task in which old
Blondet found nothing to criticise. Michu was sure of the influence of
the most crabbed aristocrats, and he was young and rich; he lived,
therefore, above the level of departmental intrigues and pettinesses.
He was an indispensable man at picnics, he frisked with young ladies
and paid court to their mothers, he danced at balls, he gambled like a
capitalist.
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