Morny's military achievements had earned him a certain degree of respect, but that was all.
He was still shut out of mainstream society. The man who would one day become France's foremost playboy was repeatedly turned away at this time; even prostitutes paid to do their job often mocked him.
Later, Morny keenly realized that this was an age where money reigned supreme. With money, one could buy almost anything—at the very least, it would keep him from being rejected by those prostitutes again.
Invitations of every kind left him overwhelmed. The aloof noblewomen who had once ignored him now scrambled over one another to climb into his bed.
Those who fawned on power and wealth were as numerous as crucian carp crossing a river. He, too, began to grow lucky, with all sorts of grand prizes always seeming to find their way to him.
All manner of formidable figures began competing to befriend him. He himself even became a gilded signboard.
Countless illustrious names—the Rothschild family, the Pereire brothers, Fould, and others—had to be placed after his. Any salon or gathering without him simply could not rise in stature.
Duke of Morny even coined a term specifically for it: "crony capitalism."
After such experiences, commoners naturally became nothing more than consumables in his eyes—at best, grass on the prairie. Those officials and merchants were merely a flock of self-righteous fat sheep, while he was the wolf, the true carnivore.
In fact, the first thing Morny did after being made a duke was propose to Franz's sister. After all, he was now a man above ten thousand and below only one in the French Second Empire.
If he could further forge a marriage alliance with the Austrian Empire, he would not only accomplish what even Napoleon III could not, but