intuition than his wife, but because external
appearances sufficed him, and he flattered himself by believing in
the genius of a son who was his living image. A month prior to the
Revolution of February, 1848, Eugene became restless; some special
inspiration made him anticipate the crisis. From that time forward he
seemed to feel out of his element at Plassans. He would wander about the
streets like a distressed soul. At last he formed a sudden resolution,
and left for Paris, with scarcely five hundred francs in his pocket.

Aristide, the youngest son, was, so to speak, diametrically opposed
to Eugene. He had his mother's face, and a covetousness and slyness of
character prone to trivial intrigues, in which his father's instincts
predominated. Nature has need of symmetry. Short, with a pitiful
countenance suggesting the knob of a stick carved into a Punch's head,
Aristide ferretted and fumbled everywhere, without any scruples, eager
only to gratify himself. He loved money as his eldest brother loved
power. While Eugene dreamed of bending a people to his will, and
intoxicated himself with visions of future omnipotence, the other
fancied himself ten times a millionaire, installed in a princely
mansion, eating and drinking to his heart's content, and enjoying life
to the fullest possible extent. Above all things, he longed to make a
rapid fortune. When he was building his castles in the air, they would
rise in his mind as if by magic; he would become possessed of tons of
gold in one night. These visions agreed with his indolence, as he never
troubled himself about the means, considering those the best which were
the most expeditious. In his case the race of the Rougons, of those
coarse, greedy peasants with brutish appetites, had matured too rapidly;
every desire for material indulgence was found in him, augmented
threefold by hasty education, and rendered the more insatiable and
dangerous by the deliberate way in which the young man had come to
regard their realisation as his set purpose. In spite of her keen
feminine intuition, Felicite preferred this son; she did not perceive
the greater affinity between herself and Eugene; she excused the follies
and indolence of her youngest son under the pretext that he would
some day be the superior genius of the family, and that such a man
was entitled to live a disorderly life until his intellectual strength
should be revealed.

Aristide subjected her indulgence to a rude test.