hough
he was ready enough to visit me at Madame Mere's when he wanted to sell
his silks to the Emperor, the imperial highnesses, and all the great
people at court. But now the Camusots have turned ultras. The eldest son
of Camusot's first wife married a daughter of one of the king's ushers.
The world is mighty hump-backed when it stoops! However, it was a clever
thing to do, for the Cocon d'Or has the custom of the present court as
it had that of the Emperor. But to-morrow we will go and see your uncle
Cardot, and I hope that you will endeavor to behave properly; for, as I
said before, and I repeat it, that is our last hope."

Monsieur Jean-Jerome-Severin Cardot had been a widower six years. As
head-clerk of the Cocon d'Or, one of the oldest firms in Paris, he had
bought the establishment in 1793, at a time when the heads of the house
were ruined by the maximum; and the money of Mademoiselle Husson's
dowry had enabled him to do this, and so make a fortune that was almost
colossal in ten years. To establish his children richly during his
lifetime, he had conceived the idea of buying an annuity for himself and
his wife with three hundred thousand francs, which gave him an income
of thirty thousand francs a year. He then divided his capital into three
shares of four hundred thousand francs each, which he gave to three
of his children,--the Cocon d'Or, given to his eldest daughter on her
marriage, being the equivalent of a fourth share. Thus the worthy man,
who was now nearly seventy years old, could spend his thirty thousand a
year as he pleased, without feeling that he injured the prospects of
his children, all finely provided for, whose attentions and proofs of
affection were, moreover, not prompted by self-interest.

Uncle Cardot lived at Belleville, in one of the first houses above
the Courtille. He there occupied, on the first floor, an apartment
overlooking the valley of the Seine, with a southern exposure, and the
exclusive enjoyment of a large garden, for the sum of a thousand francs
a year. He troubled himself not at all about the three or four other
tenants of the same vast country-house. Certain, through a long lease,
of ending his days there, he lived rather plainly, served by an old cook
and the former maid of the late Madame Cardot,--both of whom expected
to reap an annuity of some six hundred francs apiece on the old man's
death. These two women took the utmost care of him, and were all the
more interested