last sole master of the house. The Fouques' land belonged
to him in fact, if not in law. He never thought of establishing himself
on it. It was too narrow a field for his ambition. To till the ground
and cultivate vegetables seemed to him boorish, unworthy of his
faculties. He was in a hurry to divest himself of everything
recalling the peasant. With his nature refined by his mother's nervous
temperament, he felt an irresistible longing for the enjoyments of the
middle classes. In all his calculations, therefore, he had regarded the
sale of the Fouques' property as the final consummation. This sale, by
placing a round sum of money in his hands, would enable him to marry the
daughter of some merchant who would take him into partnership. At this
period the wars of the First Empire were greatly thinning the ranks of
eligible young men. Parents were not so fastidious as previously in the
choice of a son-in-law. Pierre persuaded himself that money would
smooth all difficulties, and that the gossip of the Faubourg would be
overlooked; he intended to pose as a victim, as an honest man suffering
from a family disgrace, which he deplored, without being soiled by it or
excusing it.

For several months already he had cast his eyes on a certain Felicite
Puech, the daughter of an oil-dealer. The firm of Puech & Lacamp, whose
warehouses were in one of the darkest lanes of the old quarter, was
far from prosperous. It enjoyed but doubtful credit in the market, and
people talked vaguely of bankruptcy. It was precisely in consequence of
these evil reports that Pierre turned his batteries in this direction.
No well-to-do trader would have given him his daughter. He meant to
appear on the scene at the very moment when old Puech should no longer
know which way to turn; he would then purchase Felicite of him, and
re-establish the credit of the house by his own energy and intelligence.
It was a clever expedient for ascending the first rung of the social
ladder, for raising himself above his station. Above all things, he
wished to escape from that frightful Faubourg where everybody reviled
his family, and to obliterate all these foul legends, by effacing even
the very name of the Fouques' enclosure. For that reason the filthy
streets of the old quarter seemed to him perfect paradise. There, only,
he would be able to change his skin.

The moment which he had been awaiting soon arrived. The firm of Puech
and Lacamp seemed to be at the last gas