III

Cesar's last thought as he fell asleep was a fear that his wife would

make peremptory objections in the morning, and he ordered himself to

get up very early and escape them. At the dawn of day he slipped out

noiselessly, leaving his wife in bed, dressed quickly, and went down

to the shop, just as the boy was taking down the numbered shutters.

Birotteau, finding himself alone, the clerks not having appeared, went

to the doorway to see how the boy, named Raguet, did his work,--for

Birotteau knew all about it from experience. In spite of the sharp air

the weather was beautiful.

"Popinot, get your hat, put on your shoes, and call Monsieur Celestin;

you and I will go and have a talk in the Tuileries," he said, when he

saw Anselme come down.

Popinot, the admirable antipodes of du Tillet, apprenticed to Cesar by

one of those lucky chances which lead us to believe in a Sub-

Providence, plays so great a part in this history that it becomes

absolutely necessary to sketch his profile here. Madame Ragon was a

Popinot. She had two brothers. One, the youngest of the family, was at

this time a judge in the Lower courts of the Seine,--courts which take

cognizance of all civil contests involving sums above a certain

amount. The eldest, who was in the wholesale wool-trade, lost his

property and died, leaving to the care of Madame Ragon and his brother

an only son, who had lost his mother at his birth. To give him a

trade, Madame Ragon placed her nephew at "The Queen of Roses," hoping

he might some day succeed Birotteau. Anselme Popinot was a little

fellow and club-footed,--an infirmity bestowed by fate on Lord Byron,

Walter Scott, and Monsieur de Talleyrand, that others so afflicted

might suffer no discouragement. He had the brilliant skin, with

frequent blotches, which belongs to persons with red hair; but his

clear brow, his eyes the color of a grey-veined agate, his pleasant

mouth, his fair complexion, the charm of his modest youth and the

shyness which grew out of his deformity, all inspired feelings of

protection in those who knew him: we love the weak, and Popinot was

loved. Little Popinot--everybody called him so--belonged to a family

essentially religious, whose virtues were intelligent, and whose lives

were simple and full of noble actions. The lad himself, brought up by

his uncle the judge, presented a union of qualities which are the

beauty of youth; good and affectionate, a little shame-faced though

full of eagerness, gentle as a lamb but energetic in his work, devoted

and sober, he was endowed with the virtues of a Christian in the early

ages of the Church.

When he heard of a walk in the Tuileries,--certainly the most

eccentric proposal that his august master could have made to him at

that hour of the day,--Popinot felt sure that he must intend to speak

to him about setting up in business. He thought suddenly of Cesarine,

the true queen of roses, the living sign of the house, whom he had

loved from the day when he was taken into Birotteau's employ, two

months before the advent of du Tillet. As he went upstairs he was

forced to pause; his heart swelled, his arteries throbbed violently.

However, he soon came down again, followed by Celestin, the head-

clerk. Anselme and his master turned without a word in the direction

of the Tuileries.

Popinot was twenty-one years old. Birotteau himself had married at

that age. Anselme therefore could see no hindrance to his marriage

with Cesarine, though the wealth of the perfumer and the beauty of the

daughter were immense obstacles in the path of his ambitious desires:

but love gets onward by leaps of hope, and the more absurd they are

the greater faith it has in them; the farther off was the mistress of

Anselme's heart, the more ardent became his desires. Happy the youth

who in those levelling days when all hats looked alike, had contrived

to create a sense of distance between the daughter of a perfumer and

himself, the scion of an old Parisian family! In spite of all his

doubts and fears he was happy; did he not dine every day beside

Cesarine? So, while attending to the business of the house, he threw a

zeal and energy into his work which deprived it of all hardship; doing

it for the sake of Cesarine, nothing tired him. Love, in a youth of

twenty, feeds on devotion.

"He is a true merchant; he will succeed," Cesar would say to Madame

Ragon, as he praised Anselme's activity in preparing the work at the

factory, or boasted of his readiness in learning the niceties of the

trade, or recalled his arduous labors when shipments had to be made,

and when, with his sleeves rolled up and his arms bare, the lame lad

packed and nailed up, himself alone, more cases than all the other

clerks put together.

The well-known and avowed intentions of Alexandre Crottat, head-clerk

to Roguin, and the wealth of his father, a rich farmer of Brie, were

certainly obstacles in the lad's way; but even these were not the

hardest to conquer. Popinot buried in the depths of his heart a sad

secret, which widened the distance between Cesarine and himself. The

property of the Ragons, on which he might have counted, was involved,

and the orphan lad had the satisfaction of enabling them to live by

making over to them his meagre salary. Yet with all these drawbacks he

believed in success! He had sometimes caught a glance of dignified

approval from Cesarine; in the depths of her blue eyes he had dared to

read a secret thought full of caressing hopes. He now walked beside

Cesar, heaving with these ideas, trembling, silent, agitated, as any

young lad might well have been by such an occurrence in the burgeoning

time of youth.

"Popinot," said the worthy man, "is your aunt well?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"She has seemed rather anxious lately. Does anything trouble her?

Listen, my boy; you must not be too reticent with me. I am half one of

the family. I have known your uncle Ragon thirty-five years. I went to

him in hob-nailed shoes, just as I came from my village. That place is

called Les Tresorieres, but I can tell you that all my worldly goods

were one louis, given me by my godmother the late Marquise d'Uxelles,

a relation of Monsieur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de Lenoncourt,

who are now customers of ours. I pray every Sunday for her and for all

her family; I send yearly to her niece in Touraine, Madame de

Mortsauf, all her perfumery. I get a good deal of custom through them;

there's Monsieur de Vandenesse who spends twelve hundred francs a year

with us. If I were not grateful out of good feeling, I ought to be so

out of policy; but as for you Anselme, I wish you well for you own

sake, and without any other thought."

"Ah, monsieur! if you will allow me to say so, you have got a head of

gold."

"No, no, my boy, that's not it. I don't say that my head-piece isn't

as good as another's; but the thing is, I've been honest,--

/tenaciously/! I've kept to good conduct; I never loved any woman

except my wife. Love is a famous /vehicle/,--happy word used by

Monsieur Villele in the tribune yesterday."

"Love!" exclaimed Popinot. "Oh, monsieur! can it be--"

"Bless me! there's Pere Roguin, on foot at this hour, at the top of

the Place Louis XV. I wonder what he is doing there!" thought Cesar,

forgetting all about Anselme and the oil of nuts.

The suspicions of his wife came back to his mind; and instead of

turning in to the Tuileries Gardens, Birotteau walked on to meet the

notary. Anselme followed his master at a distance, without being able

to define the reason why he suddenly felt an interest in a matter so

apparently unimportant, and full of joy at the encouragement he

derived from Cesar's mention of the hob-nailed shoes, the one louis,

and love.

In times gone by, Roguin--a large stout man, with a pimpled face, a

very bald forehead, and black hair--had not been wanting in a certain

force of character and countenance. He had once been young and daring;

beginning as a mere clerk, he had risen to be a notary; but at this

period his face showed, to the eyes of an observer, certain haggard

lines, and an expression of weariness in the pursuit of pleasure. When

a man plunges into the mire of excesses it is seldom that his face

shows no trace of it. In the present instance the lines of the

wrinkles and the heat of the complexion were markedly ignoble. Instead

of the pure glow which suffuses the tissues of a virtuous man and

stamps them, as it were, with the flower of health, the impurities of

his blood could be seen to master the soundness of his body. His nose

was ignominiously shortened like those of men in whom scrofulous

humors, attacking that organ, produce a secret infirmity which a

virtuous queen of France innocently believed to be a misfortune common

to the whole human race, for she had never approached any man but the

king sufficiently near to become aware of her blunder. Roguin hoped to

conceal this misfortune by the excessive use of snuff, but he only

increased the trouble which was the principal cause of his disasters.

Is it not a too-prolonged social flattery to paint men forever under

false colors, and never to reveal the actual causes which underlie

their vicissitudes, caused as they so often are by maladies? Physical

evil, considered under the aspect of its moral ravages, examined as to

its influence upon the mechanism of life, has been perhaps too much

neglected by the historians of the social kingdom. Madame Cesar had

guessed the secret of Roguin's household.

From the night of her marriage, the charming and only daughter of the

banker Chevrel conceived for the unhappy notary an insurmountable

antipathy, and wished to apply at once for a divorce. But Roguin,

happy in obtaining a rich wife with five hundred thousand francs of

her own, to say nothing of expectations, entreated her not to

institute an action for divorce, promising to leave her free, and to

accept all the consequences of such an agreement. Madame Roguin thus

became sovereign mistress of the situation, and treated her husband as

a courtesan treats an elderly lover. Roguin soon found his wife too

expensive, and like other Parisian husbands he set up a private

establishment of his own, keeping the cost, in the first instance,

within the limits of moderate expenditure. In the beginning he

encountered, at no great expense, grisettes who were glad of his

protection; but for the past three years he had fallen a prey to one

of those unconquerable passions which sometimes invade the whole being

of a man between fifty and sixty years of age. It was roused by a

magnificent creature known as /la belle Hollandaise/ in the annals of

prostitution, for into that gulf she was to fall back and become a

noted personage through her death. She was originally brought from

Bruges by a client of Roguin, who soon after left Paris in consequence

of political events, presenting her to the notary in 1815. Roguin

bought a house for her in the Champs-Elysees, furnished it handsomely,

and in trying to satisfy her costly caprices had gradually eaten up

his whole fortune.

The gloomy look on the notary's face, which he hastened to lay aside

when he saw Birotteau, grew out of certain mysterious circumstances

which were at the bottom of the secret fortune so rapidly acquired by

du Tillet. The scheme originally planned by that adventurer had

changed on the first Sunday when he saw, at Birotteau's house, the

relations existing between Monsieur and Madame Roguin. He had come

there not so much to seduce Madame Cesar as to obtain the offer of her

daughter's hand by way of compensation for frustrated hopes, and he

found little difficulty in renouncing his purpose when he discovered

that Cesar, whom he supposed to be rich, was in point of fact

comparatively poor. He set a watch on the notary, wormed himself into

his confidence, was presented to la belle Hollandaise, made a study of

their relation to each other, and soon found that she threatened to

renounce her lover if he limited her luxuries. La belle Hollandaise

was one of those mad-cap women who care nothing as to where the money

comes from, or how it is obtained, and who are capable of giving a

ball with the gold obtained by a parricide. She never thought of the

morrow; for her the future was after dinner, and the end of the month

eternity, even if she had bills to pay. Du Tillet, delighted to have

found such a lever, exacted from la belle Hollandaise a promise that

she would love Roguin for thirty thousand francs a year instead of

fifty thousand,--a service which infatuated old men seldom forget.

One evening, after a supper where the wine flowed freely, Roguin

unbosomed himself to du Tillet on the subject of his financial

difficulties. His own estate was tied up and legally settled on his

wife, and he had been led by his fatal passion to take from the funds

entrusted to him by his clients a sum which was already more than half

their amount. When the whole were gone, the unfortunate man intended

to blow out his brains, hoping to mitigate the disgrace of his conduct

by making a demand upon public pity. A fortune, rapid and secure,

darted before du Tillet's eyes like a flash of lightning in a

saturnalian night. He promptly reassured Roguin, and made him fire his

pistols into the air.

"With such risks as yours," he said, "a man of your calibre should not

behave like a fool and walk on tiptoe, but speculate--boldly."

He advised Roguin to take a large sum from the remaining trust-moneys

and give it to him, du Tillet, with permission to stake it bravely on

some large operation, either at the Bourse, or in one of the thousand

enterprises of private speculation then about to be launched. Should

he win, they were to form a banking-house, where they could turn to

good account a portion of the deposits, while the profits could be

used by Roguin for his pleasures. If luck went against them, Roguin

was to get away and live in foreign countries, and trust to /his

friend/ du Tillet, who would be faithful to him to the last sou. It

was a rope thrown to a drowning man, and Roguin did not perceive that

the perfumer's clerk had flung it round his neck.

Master of Roguin's secret, du Tillet made use of it to establish his

power over wife, mistress, and husband. Madame Roguin, when told of a

disaster she was far from suspecting, accepted du Tillet's attentions,

who about this time left his situation with Birotteau, confident of

future success. He found no difficulty in persuading the mistress to

risk a certain sum of money as a provision against the necessity of

resorting to prostitution if misfortunes overtook her. The wife, on

the other hand, regulated her accounts, and gathered together quite a

little capital, which she gave to the man whom her husband confided

in; for by this time the notary had given a hundred thousand francs of

the remaining trust-money to his accomplice. Du Tillet's relations to

Madame Roguin then became such that her interest in him was

transformed into affection and finally into a violent passion. Through

his three sleeping-partners Ferdinand naturally derived a profit; but

not content with that profit, he had the audacity, when gambling at

the Bourse in their name, to make an agreement with a pretended

adversary, a man of straw, from whom he received back for himself

certain sums which he had charged as losses to his clients. As soon as

he had gained fifty thousand francs he was sure of fortune. He had the

eye of an eagle to discern the phases through which France was then

passing. He played low during the campaign of the allied armies, and

high on the restoration of the Bourbons. Two months after the return

of Louis XVIII., Madame Roguin was worth two hundred thousand francs,

du Tillet three hundred thousand, and the notary had been able to get

his accounts once more into order.

La belle Hollandaise wasted her share of the profits; for she was

secretly a prey to an infamous scoundrel named Maxime de Trailles, a

former page of the Emperor. Du Tillet discovered the real name of this

woman in drawing out a deed. She was Sarah Gobseck. Struck by the

coincidence of the name with that of a well-known usurer, he went to

the old money-lender (that providence of young men of family) to find

out how far he would back the credit of his relation. The Brutus of

usurers was implacable towards his great-niece, but du Tillet himself

pleased him by posing as Sarah's banker, and having funds to invest.

The Norman nature and the rapacious nature suited each other. Gobseck

happened to want a clever young man to examine into an affair in a

foreign country. It chanced that an auditor of the Council of State,

overtaken by the return of the Bourbons and anxious to stand well at

court, had gone to Germany and bought up all the debts contracted by

the princes during the emigration. He now offered the profits of the

affair, which to him was merely political, to any one who would

reimburse him. Gobseck would pay no money down, unless in proportion

to the redemption of the debts, and insisted on a careful examination

of the affair. Usurers never trust any one; they demand vouchers. With

them the bird in the hand is everything; icy when they have no need of

a man, they are wheedling and inclined to be gracious when they can

make him useful.

Du Tillet knew the enormous underground part played in the world by

such men as Werbrust and Gigonnet, commercial money-lenders in the

Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin; by Palma, banker in the Faubourg

Poissonniere,--all of whom were closely connected with Gobseck. He

accordingly offered a cash security, and obtained an interest in the

affair, on condition that these gentlemen would use in their

commercial loans certain moneys he should place in their hands. By

this means he strengthened himself with a solid support on all sides.

Du Tillet accompanied Monsieur Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx to Germany

during the Hundred Days, and came back at the second Restoration,

having done more to increase his means of making a fortune than

augmented the fortune itself. He was now in the secret councils of the

sharpest speculators in Paris; he had secured the friendship of the

man with whom he had examined into the affair of the debts, and that

clever juggler had laid bare to him the secrets of legal and political

science. Du Tillet possessed one of those minds which understand at

half a word, and he completed his education during his travels in

Germany. On his return he found Madame Roguin faithful to him. As to

the notary, he longed for Ferdinand with as much impatience as his

wife did, for la belle Hollandaise had once more ruined him. Du Tillet

questioned the woman, but could find no outlay equal to the sum

dissipated. It was then that he discovered the secret which Sarah had

carefully concealed from him,--her mad passion for Maxime de Trailles,

whose earliest steps in a career of vice showed him for what he was,

one of those good-for-nothing members of the body politic who seem the

necessary evil of all good government, and whose love of gambling

renders them insatiable. On making this discovery, du Tillet at once

saw the reason of Gobseck's insensibility to the claims of his niece.

Under these circumstances du Tillet the banker (for Ferdinand was now

a banker) advised Roguin to lay up something against a rainy day, by

persuading his clients to invest in some enterprise which might enable

him to put by for himself large sums of money, in case he were forced

to go into bankruptcy through the affairs of the bank. After many ups

and downs, which were profitable to none but Madame Roguin and du

Tillet, Roguin heard the fatal hour of his insolvency and final ruin

strike. His misery was then worked upon by his faithful friend.

Ferdinand invented the speculation in lands about the Madeleine. The

hundred thousand francs belonging to Cesar Birotteau, which were in

the hands of the notary, were made over to du Tillet; for the latter,

whose object was to ruin the perfumer, had made Roguin understand that

he would run less risk if he got his nearest friends into the net. "A

friend," he said, "is more considerate, even if angry."

Few people realize to-day how little value the lands about the

Madeleine had at the period of which we write; but at that time they

were likely to be sold even below their then value, because of the

difficulty of finding purchasers willing to wait for the profits of

the enterprise. Now, du Tillet's aim was to seize the profits speedily

without the losses of a protracted speculation. In other words, his

plan was to strangle the speculation and get hold of it as a dead

thing, which he might galvanize back to life when it suited him. In

such a scheme the Gobsecks, Palmas, and Werbrusts would have been

ready to lend a hand, but du Tillet was not yet sufficiently intimate

with them to ask their aid; besides, he wanted to hide his own hand in

conducting the affair, that he might get the profits of his theft

without the shame of it. He felt the necessity of having under his

thumb one of those living lay-figures called in commercial language a

"man of straw." His former tool at the Bourse struck him as a suitable

person for the post; he accordingly trenched upon Divine right, and

created a man. Out of a former commercial traveller, who was without

means or capacity of any kind, except that of talking indefinitely on

all subjects and saying nothing, who was without a farthing or a

chance to make one,--able, nevertheless, to understand a part and act

it without compromising the play or the actors in it, and possessed of

a rare sort of honor, that of keeping a secret and letting himself be

dishonored to screen his employers,--out of such a being du Tillet now

made a banker, who set on foot and directed vast enterprises; the

head, namely, of the house of Claparon.

The fate of Charles Claparon would be, if du Tillet's scheme ended in

bankruptcy, a swift deliverance to the tender mercies of Jews and

Pharisees; and he well knew it. But to a poor devil who was

despondently roaming the boulevard with a future of forty sous in his

pocket when his old comrade du Tillet chanced to meet him, the little

gains that he was to get out of the affair seemed an Eldorado. His

friendship, his devotion, to du Tillet, increased by unreflecting

gratitude and stimulated by the wants of a libertine and vagabond

life, led him to say /amen/ to everything. Having sold his honor, he

saw it risked with so much caution that he ended by attaching himself

to his old comrade as a dog to his master. Claparon was an ugly

poodle, but as ready to jump as Curtius. In the present affair he was

to represent half the purchasers of the land, while Cesar Birotteau

represented the other half. The notes which Claparon was to receive

from Birotteau were to be discounted by one of the usurers whose name

du Tillet was authorized to use, and this would send Cesar headlong

into bankruptcy so soon as Roguin had drawn from him his last funds.

The assignees of the failure would, as du Tillet felt certain, follow

his cue; and he, already possessed of the property paid over by the

perfumer and his associates, could sell the lands at auction and buy

them in at half their value with the funds of Roguin and the assets of

the failure. The notary went into this scheme believing that he should

enrich himself by the spoliation of Birotteau and his copartners; but

the man in whose power he had placed himself intended to take, and

eventually did take, the lion's share. Roguin, unable to sue du Tillet

in any of the courts, was glad of the bone flung to him, month by

month, in the recesses of Switzerland, where he found nymphs at a

reduction. Circumstances, actual facts, and not the imagination of a

tragic author inventing a catastrophe, gave birth to this horrible

scheme. Hatred without a thirst for vengeance is like a seed falling

on stony ground; but vengeance vowed to a Cesar by a du Tillet is a

natural movement of the soul. If it were not, then we must deny the

warfare between the angels of light and the spirits of darkness.

Du Tillet could not very easily assassinate the man who knew him to be

guilty of a petty theft, but he could fling him into the mire and

annihilate him so completely that his word and testimony would count

for nothing. For a long time revenge had germinated in his heart

without budding; for the men who hate most are usually those who have

little time in Paris to make plans; life is too fast, too full, too

much at the mercy of unexpected events. But such perpetual changes,

though they hinder premeditation, nevertheless offer opportunity to

thoughts lurking in the depths of a purpose which is strong enough to

lie in wait for their tidal chances. When Roguin first confided his

troubles to du Tillet, the latter had vaguely foreseen the possibility

of destroying Cesar, and he was not mistaken. Forced at last to give

up his mistress, the notary drank the dregs of his philter from a

broken chalice. He went every day to the Champs Elysees returning home

early in the morning. The suspicions of Madame Cesar were justified.

*****

From the moment when a man consents to play the part which du Tillet

had allotted to Roguin, he develops the talents of a comedian; he has

the eye of a lynx and the penetration of a seer; he magnetizes his

dupe. The notary had seen Birotteau some time before Birotteau had

caught sight of him; when the perfumer did see him, Roguin held out

his hand before they met.

"I have just been to make the will of a great personage who has only

eight days to live," he said, with an easy manner. "They have treated

me like a country doctor,--fetched me in a carriage, and let me walk

home on foot."

These words chased away the slight shade of suspicion which clouded

the face of the perfumer, and which Roguin had been quick to perceive.

The notary was careful not to be the first to mention the land

speculation; his part was to deal the last blow.

"After wills come marriage contracts," said Birotteau. "Such is life.

Apropos, when do we marry the Madeleine? Hey! hey! papa Roguin," he

added, tapping the notary on the stomach.

Among men the most chaste of bourgeois have the ambition to appear

rakish.

"Well, if it is not to-day," said the notary, with a diplomatic air,

"then never. We are afraid that the affair may get wind. I am much

urged by two of my wealthiest clients, who want a share in this

speculation. There it is, to take or leave. This morning I shall draw

the deeds. You have till one o'clock to make up your mind. Adieu; I am

just on my way to read over the rough draft which Xandrot has been

making out during the night."

"Well, my mind is made up. I pass my word," said Birotteau, running

after the notary and seizing his hand. "Take the hundred thousand

francs which were laid by for my daughter's portion."

"Very good," said Roguin, leaving him.

For a moment, as Birotteau turned to rejoin little Popinot, he felt a

fierce heat in his entrails, the muscles of his stomach contracted,

his ears buzzed.

"What is the matter, monsieur?" asked the clerk, when he saw his

master's pale face.

"Ah, my lad! I have just with one word decided on a great undertaking;

no man is master of himself at such a moment. You are a party to it.

In fact, I brought you here that we might talk of it at our ease; no

one can overhear us. Your aunt is in trouble; how did she lose her

money? Tell me."

"Monsieur, my uncle and aunt put all their property into the hands of

Monsieur de Nucingen, and they were forced to accept as security

certain shares in the mines at Wortschin, which as yet pay no

dividends; and it is hard at their age to live on hope."

"How do they live, then?"

"They do me the great pleasure of accepting my salary."

"Right, right, Anselme!" said the perfumer, as a tear rolled down his

cheek. "You are worthy of the regard I feel for you. You are about to

receive a great recompense for your fidelity to my interests."

As he said these words the worthy man swelled in his own eyes as much

as he did in those of Popinot, and he uttered them with a plebeian and

naive emphasis which was the genuine expression of his counterfeit

superiority.

"Ah, monsieur! have you guessed my love for--"

"For whom?" asked his master.

"For Mademoiselle Cesarine."

"Ah, boy, you are bold indeed!" exclaimed Birotteau. "Keep your

secret. I promise to forget it. You leave my house to-morrow. I am not

angry with you; in your place--the devil! the devil!--I should have

done the same. She is so lovely!"

"Oh, monsieur!" said the clerk, who felt his shirt getting wet with

perspiration.

"My boy, this matter is not one to be settled in a day. Cesarine is

her own mistress, and her mother has fixed ideas. Control yourself,

wipe your eyes, hold your heart in hand, and don't let us talk any

more about it. I should not blush to have you for my son-in-law. The

nephew of Monsieur Popinot, a judge of the civil courts, nephew of the

Ragons, you have the right to make your way as well as anybody; but

there are /buts/ and /ifs/ and /hows/ and /whys/. What a devil of a

dog you have let loose upon me, in the midst of a business

conversation! Here, sit down on that chair, and let the lover give

place to the clerk. Popinot, are you a loyal man?" he said, looking

fixedly at the youth. "Do you feel within you the nerve to struggle

with something stronger than yourself, and fight hand to hand?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"To maintain a long and dangerous battle?"

"What for?"

"To destroy Macassar Oil!" said Birotteau, rising on his toes like a

hero in Plutarch. "Let us not mistake; the enemy is strong, well

entrenched, formidable! Macassar Oil has been vigorously launched. The

conception was strong. The square bottles were original; I have

thought of making ours triangular. Yet on the whole I prefer, after

ripe reflection, smaller bottles of thin glass, encased in wicker;

they would have a mysterious look, and customers like things which

puzzle them."

"They would be expensive," said Popinot. "We must get things out as

cheap as we can, so as to make a good reduction at wholesale."

"Good, my lad! That's the right principle. But now, think of it.

Macassar Oil will defend itself; it is specious; the name is

seductive. It is offered as a foreign importation; and we have the

ill-luck to belong to our own country. Come, Popinot, have you the

courage to kill Macassar? Then begin the fight in foreign lands. It

seems that Macassar is really in the Indies. Now, isn't it much better

to supply a French product to the Indians than to send them back what

they are supposed to send to us? Make the venture. Begin the fight in

India, in foreign countries, in the departments. Macassar Oil has been

thoroughly advertised; we must not underrate its power, it has been

pushed everywhere, the public knows it."

"I'll kill it!" cried Popinot, with fire in his eyes.

"What with?" said Birotteau. "That's the way with ardent young people.

Listen till I've done."

Anselme fell into position like a soldier presenting arms to a marshal

of France.

"Popinot, I have invented an oil to stimulate the growth of hair, to

titillate the scalp, to revive the color of male and female tresses.

This cosmetic will not be less successful than my Paste or my Lotion.

But I don't intend to work it myself. I think of retiring from

business. It is you, my boy, who are to launch my Oil Comagene,--from

the latin word /coma/, which signifies 'hair,' as Monsieur Alibert,

the King's physician, says. The word is found in the tragedy of

Berenice, where Racine introduces a king of Comagene, lover of the

queen so celebrated for the beauty of her hair; the king--no doubt as

a delicate flattery--gave the name to his country. What wit and

intellect there is in genius! it condescends to the minutest details."

Little Popinot kept his countenance as he listened to this absurd

flourish, evidently said for his benefit as an educated young man.

"Anselme, I have cast my eyes upon you as the one to found a

commercial house in the high-class druggist line, Rue des Lombards. I

will be your secret partner, and supply the funds to start with. After

the Oil Comagene, we will try an essence of vanilla and the spirit of

peppermint. We'll tackle the drug-trade by revolutionizing it, by

selling its products concentrated instead of selling them raw.

Ambitious young man, are you satisfied?"

Anselme could not answer, his heart was full; but his eyes, filled

with tears, answered for him. The offer seemed prompted by indulgent

fatherhood, saying to him: "Deserve Cesarine by becoming rich and

respected."

"Monsieur," he answered at last, "I will succeed!"

"That's what I said at your age," cried the perfumer; "that was my

motto. If you don't win my daughter, at least you will win your

fortune. Eh, boy! what is it?"

"Let me hope that in acquiring the one I may obtain the other."

"I can't prevent you from hoping, my friend," said Birotteau, touched

by Anselme's tone.

"Well, then, monsieur, can I begin to-day to look for a shop, so as to

start at once?"

"Yes, my son. To-morrow we will shut ourselves up in the workshop, you

and I. Before you go to the Rue des Lombards, call at Livingston's and

see if my hydraulic press will be ready to use to-morrow morning.

To-night we will go, about dinner-time, to the good and illustrious

Monsieur Vauquelin and consult him. He has lately been employed in

studying the composition of hair; he has discovered the nature of the

coloring matter and whence it comes; also the structure of the hair

itself. The secret is just there, Popinot, and you shall know it; all

we have to do is to work it out cleverly. Before you go to

Livingston's, just stop at Pieri Berard's. My lad, the disinterested

kindness of Monsieur Vauquelin is one of the sorrows of my life. I

cannot make him accept any return. Happily, I found out from

Chiffreville that he wished for the Dresden Madonna, engraved by a man

named Muller. After two years correspondence with Germany, Berard has

at last found one on Chinese paper before lettering. It cost fifteen

hundred francs, my boy. To-day, my benefactor will see it in his

antechamber when he bows us out; it is to be all framed, and I want

you to see about it. We--that is, my wife and I--shall thus recall

ourselves to his mind; as for gratitude, we have prayed to God for him

daily for sixteen years. I can never forget him; but you see, Popinot,

men buried in the depths of science do forget everything,--wives,

friends, and those they have benefited. As for us plain people, our

lack of mind keeps our hearts warm at any rate. That's the consolation

for not being a great man. Look at those gentlemen of the Institute,--

all brain; you will never meet one of them in a church. Monsieur

Vauquelin is tied to his study or his laboratory; but I like to

believe he thinks of God in analyzing the works of His hands.--Now,

then, it is understood; I give you the money and put you in possession

of my secret; we will go shares, and there's no need for any papers

between us. Hurrah for success! we'll act in concert. Off with you, my

boy! As for me, I've got my part to attend to. One minute, Popinot. I

give a great ball three weeks hence; get yourself a dress-coat, and

look like a merchant already launched."

This last kindness touched Popinot so deeply that he caught Cesar's

big hand and kissed it; the worthy soul had flattered the lover by

this confidence, and people in love are capable of anything.

"Poor boy!" thought Birotteau, as he watched him hurrying across the

Tuileries. "Suppose Cesarine should love him? But he is lame, and his

hair is the color of a warming-pan. Young girls are queer; still, I

don't think that Cesarine--And then her mother wants to see her the

wife of a notary. Alexandre Crottat can make her rich; wealth makes

everything bearable, and there is no happiness that won't give way

under poverty. However, I am resolved to leave my daughter mistress of

herself, even if it seems a folly."