The Comte de Bonzag, opening the paper with the accustomed sinking of the heart, was startled by the staring headlines:
RESULTS OF THE LOTTERY
A glance at the winners of the first and second prizes reassured him. He drew a breath of satisfaction, saying gratefully; "Ah, what luck! God be praised! I'll never do that again!"
Then, remembering with only an idle curiosity the one hundred and forty-three mediocre prizes on the list, he returned to the perusal. Suddenly the print swam before his eyes, and the great esplanade seemed to rise. Number 77,707 had won the fourth prize of one hundred thousand francs; number 200,013, a prize of ten thousand francs.
[a/]
III
The emotion which overwhelmed Napoleon at Waterloo as he beheld his triumphant squadrons go down into the sunken road was not a whit more complete than the despair of the Comte de Bonzag when he realized that the one hundred and ten thousand francs which the laws of probability had finally produced was now the property of Francine, the cook.
One hundred and ten thousand francs! It was colossal! Five generations of Bonzags had never touched as much as that. One hundred and ten thousand francs meant the rehabilitation of the ancient name, the restoration of the Château de Keragouil, half the year at Paris, in the Cercle Royale, in the regions of art, and among the great minds that were still young in the Quartier—and all that was in the possession of a plump Gascony peasant, whose ideas of comfort and pleasure were satisfied by one hundred and twenty francs a year.
"What am I going to do?" he cried, rising in an outburst of anger. Then he sat down in despair. There was nothing to do. The fact was obvious that Francine was an heiress, possessed of the greatest fortune in the memory of Keragouil. There was nothing to do, or rather, there was manifestly but one way open, and the Comte resolved on the spot to take it. He must have back the lottery tickets, though it meant a Comtesse de Bonzag.