Birotteau was
now punished by du Tillet.

The commissioner is of necessity a personage before whom much is said;
who listens, recollecting all the while his own interests, and leaves
the cause to the assignees and the attorneys,--except, possibly, in
a few strange and unusual cases where dishonesty is accompanied by
peculiar circumstances, when the judge usually observes that the debtor,
or the creditors, as it may happen, are clever people. This personage,
set up in the drama like the royal bust in a public audience-chamber,
may be found early in the morning at his wood-yard, if he sells wood; in
his shop, if, like Birotteau, he is a perfumer; or, in the evenings,
at his dessert after dinner,--always, it should be added, in a terrible
hurry; as a general thing he is silent. Let us, however, do justice
to the law: the legislation that governs his functions, and which was
pushed through in haste, has tied the hands of this commissioner; and
it sometimes happens that he sanctions fraud which he cannot hinder,--as
the reader will shortly see.

The agent to whom the judge delegates the first proceedings, instead
of serving the creditors, may become if he please a tool of the debtor.
Every one hopes to swell his own gains by getting on the right side of
the debtor, who is always supposed to keep back a hidden treasure. The
agent may make himself useful to both parties; on the one hand by not
laying the bankrupt's business in ashes, on the other by snatching a few
morsels for men of influence,--in short, he runs with the hare and holds
with the hounds. A clever agent has frequently arrested judgment by
buying up the debts and then releasing the merchant, who then rebounds
like an india-rubber ball. The agent chooses the best-stocked crib,
whether it leads him to cover the largest creditors and shear the
debtor, or to sacrifice the creditors for the future prosperity of
the restored merchant. The action of the agent is decisive. This man,
together with the bankrupt's solicitor, plays the utility role in the
drama, where it may be said neither the one nor the other would accept
a part if not sure of their fees. Taking the average of a thousand
failures, an agent would be found nine hundred and fifty times on the
side of the bankrupt. At the period of our history, the solicitors
frequently sought the judge with the request that he would appoint
an agent whom they proposed to him,--a man, as they said, to whom the
affairs of t