1839 – Le Député d'Arcis (1847, unfinished) – Rastignac is minister for the second time (of Public Works), he has been made Comte (ranking as a peer of France), his brother-in-law Roche-Hugon is now an ambassador and Councillor of State (equivalent to senator), and he is regarded as indispensable to the government. "After 20 at hard labour" Rastignac has recently married the daughter of Delphine and Baron de Nucingen (their only child, and thus the inheritor of their vast fortune).
