Nobody ever sees me now on the boulevard doing
nothing. Bah! I'm sick of business; I don't want to talk about business;
I've got money enough, but I never can get enough happiness. My
gracious! I want to travel,--to see Italy! Oh, that dear Italy!
beautiful in spite of all her reverses! adorable land, where I shall no
doubt encounter some angel, complying yet majestic! I have always loved
Italian women. Did you ever have an Italian woman yourself? No?
Then come with me to Italy. We will see Venice, the abode of
doges,--unfortunately fallen into those intelligent Austrian hands that
know nothing of art! Bah! let us get rid of business, canals, loans, and
peaceful governments. I'm a good fellow when I've got my pockets lined.
Thunder! let's travel."

"One word, monsieur, and I will release you," said Birotteau. "You made
over my notes to Monsieur Bidault."

"You mean Gigonnet, that good little Gigonnet, easy-going--"

"Yes," said Cesar; "but I wish,--and here I count upon your honor and
delicacy,--"

Claparon bowed.

"--to renew those notes."

"Impossible!" snapped the banker. "I'm not alone in the matter. We have
met in council,--regular Chamber; but we all agreed like bacon in a
frying-pan. The devil! we deliberated. Those lands about the Madeleine
don't amount to anything; we are operating elsewhere. Hey! my dear sir,
if we were not involved in the Champs Elysees and at the Bourse which
they are going to finish, and in the quartier Saint-Lazare and at
Tivoli, we shouldn't be, as that fat Nucingen says, in _peaseness_ at
all. What's the Madeleine to us?--a midge of a thing. Pr-r-r! We don't
play low, my good fellow," he said, tapping Birotteau on the stomach
and catching him round the waist. "Come, let's have our breakfast, and
talk," added Claparon, wishing to soften his refusal.

"Very good," said Birotteau. "So much the worse for the other guest,"
he thought, meaning to make Claparon drunk, and to find out who were his
real associates in an affair which began to look suspicious to him.

"All right! Victoire!" called the banker.

This call brought a regular Leonarde, tricked out like a fish-woman.

"Tell the clerks that I can't see any one,--not even Nucingen, Keller,
Gigonnet, and all the rest of them."

"No one has come but Monsieur Lempereur."

"He can receive the great people," said Claparon; "the small fry are
not to get beyond the first room. They are to say I'm cogitating a great
enterprise--in c