ed to acquire some of the
neat little estates which the _emigre_ magnates had left to the care of
the State, and when they came home again in the days of the Restoration,
Monsieur Griffard was one of the lucky men who watched the gorgeous
pageant of the march of the allied armies through Paris from his own
balcony. Several of the _emigres_, who came in batches in the rear of
the triumphant hosts, beheld with amazement the splendid five-storeyed
palace in the Boulevard des Italiens, which was not there at all when
they last saw Paris, and when they inquired after its owner, the name
they heard was quite unfamiliar to them.

But it did not remain unfamiliar for long. The owner of millions has
very little difficulty in acquiring distinctions which will admit him
into the very best society. In a short time Monsieur Griffard's name
became one of the most harmonious of passwords. An elegant _soiree_, a
genial _matinee_, a horse race, an orgie, an elopement, were not
considered complete without him, and Monsieur Griffard never remained
away, for all such occasions were so many opportunities to an able
business man for learning all about the passions, the follies, the
status, the extravagance, or the necessities of other people, and
building safe calculations upon what he learnt.

Monsieur Griffard was one of the boldest speculators in the world. He
would lend large amounts to ruined spendthrifts whom their own servants
summoned for their monthly wages, and yet, somehow or other, he always
made his money by it. When I say "his money," I mean that he got back
about twice as much as he expended. He did not risk his money for
nothing. Amongst all the villas and pavilions on the Ile de Jerusalem,
Monsieur Griffard's pleasure-house was the most costly and the most
magnificent. It was built on a little mound, which human ingenuity had
exalted into a hill, and its parade looked into the waters of the Seine.
In point of style it owed something to almost every age and nation--a
great point with the architects of the day, who, equally rejecting all
pedantic classicism, and all rococo prettiness, strove instead to make
everything they put their hands to as complicated, bizarre, and
incongruous as possible. It was not enough that the garden itself
should stand on an island, but it was surrounded by an artificial stream
meandering in the most masterly style in every direction, and with all
sorts of bridges thrown across it, from an America