lt, "look for a situation. You have influential
friends,--the Duc and the Duchesse de Lenoncourt, Madame de Mortsauf,
Monsieur de Vandenesse. Write to them, go and see them; they might get
you a situation in the royal household which would give you a thousand
crowns or so; your wife could earn as much more, and perhaps your
daughter also. The situation is not hopeless. You three might earn
nearly ten thousand francs a year. In ten years you can pay off a
hundred thousand francs, for you shall not use a penny of what you earn;
your two women will have fifteen hundred francs a year from me for their
expenses, and, as for you,--we will see about that."

Constance and Cesar laid these wise words to heart. Pillerault left
them to go to the Bourse, which in those days was held in a provisional
wooden building of a circular shape, and was entered from the Rue
Faydeau. The failure, already known, of a man lately noted and envied,
excited general comment in the upper commercial circles, which at that
period were all "constitutionnel." The gentry of the Opposition claimed
a monopoly of patriotism. Royalists might love the king, but to love
your country was the exclusive privilege of the Left; the people
belonged to it. The downfall of the protege of the palace, of a
ministeralist, an incorrigible royalist who on the 13th Vendemiaire had
insulted the cause of liberty by fighting against the glorious French
Revolution,--such a downfall excited the applause and tittle-tattle of
the Bourse. Pillerault wished to learn and study the state of public
opinion. He found in one of the most animated groups du Tillet,
Gobenheim-Keller, Nucingen, old Guillaume, and his son-in-law Joseph
Lebas, Claparon, Gigonnet, Mongenod, Camusot, Gobseck, Adolphe Keller,
Palma, Chiffreville, Matifat, Grindot, and Lourdois.

"What caution one needs to have!" said Gobenheim to du Tillet. "It was
a mere chance that one of my brothers-in-law did not give Birotteau a
credit."

"I am in for ten thousand francs," said du Tillet; "he asked me for them
two weeks ago, and I let him have them on his own note without security.
But he formerly did me some service, and I am willing to lose the
money."

"Your nephew has done like all the rest," said Lourdois to
Pillerault,--"given balls and parties! That a scoundrel should try to
throw dust in people's eyes, I can understand; but it is amazing that
a man who passed for as honest as the day should play those worn-out,