The extreme delicacy with which he had managed the
susceptibilities of a man both poor and modest; the respect with which
he had surrounded him; the ingenious cleverness he had employed to
nobly compel him to share his opulence without permitting it to make
him blush, increased their friendship. Jacquet continued faithful to
Desmarets in spite of his wealth.
Jacquet, a nobly upright man, a toiler, austere in his morals, had
slowly made his way in that particular ministry which develops both
honesty and knavery at the same time. A clerk in the ministry of
Foreign Affairs, he had charge of the most delicate division of its
archives. Jacquet in that office was like a glow-worm, casting his
light upon those secret correspondences, deciphering and classifying
despatches. Ranking higher than a mere _bourgeois_, his position at
the ministry was superior to that of the other subalterns. He lived
obscurely, glad to feel that such obscurity sheltered him from
reverses and disappointments, and was satisfied to humbly pay in the
lowest coin his debt to the country. Thanks to Jules, his position had
been much ameliorated by a worthy marriage. An unrecognized patriot, a
minister in actual fact, he contented himself with groaning in his
chimney-corner at the course of the government. In his own home,
Jacquet was an easy-going king,--an umbrella-man, as they say, who
hired a carriage for his wife which he never entered himself. In
short, to end this sketch of a philosopher unknown to himself, he had
never suspected and never in all his life would suspect the advantages
he might have drawn from his position,--that of having for his
intimate friend a broker, and of knowing every morning all the secrets
of the State.
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