Thanks to her manoeuvres, sentimental, high-flown, and romantic,
Valerie, without committing herself to any promises, obtained for her
husband the appointment as deputy head of the office and the Cross of
the Legion of Honor.
The campaign was not carried out without little dinners at the _Rocher
de Cancale_, parties to the play, and gifts in the form of lace,
scarves, gowns, and jewelry. The apartment in the Rue du Doyenne was
not satisfactory; the Baron proposed to furnish another magnificently
in a charming new house in the Rue Vanneau.
Monsieur Marneffe got a fortnight's leave, to be taken a month hence
for urgent private affairs in the country, and a present in money; he
promised himself that he would spend both in a little town in
Switzerland, studying the fair sex.
While Monsieur Hulot thus devoted himself to the lady he was
"protecting," he did not forget the young artist. Comte Popinot,
Minister of Commerce, was a patron of Art; he paid two thousand francs
for a copy of the _Samson_ on condition that the mould should be
broken, and that there should be no _Samson_ but his and Mademoiselle
Hulot's. The group was admired by a Prince, to whom the model sketch
for the clock was also shown, and who ordered it; but that again was
to be unique, and he offered thirty thousand francs for it.
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