ing it into a really universal
_comptoir_, through which passed merchandise from all parts of the
world. Frontiers did not exist for Ambroise, he enriched himself with
the spoils of the earth, particularly striving to extract from the
colonies all the wealth they were able to yield, and carrying on his
operations with such triumphant audacity, such keen perception, that the
most hazardous of his campaigns ended victoriously.

A man of this stamp, whose fruitful activity was ever winning battles,
was certain to devour the idle, impotent Seguins. In the downfall of
their fortune, the dispersal of the home and family, he had carved a
share for himself by securing possession of the house in the Avenue
d'Antin. Seguin himself had not resided there for years, he had thought
it original to live at his club, where he secured accommodation after he
and his wife had separated by consent. Two of the children had also gone
off; Gaston, now a major in the army, was on duty in a distant garrison
town, and Lucie was cloistered in an Ursuline convent. Thus, Valentine,
left to herself and feeling very dreary, no longer able, moreover, to
keep up the establishment on a proper footing, in her turn quitted
the mansion for a cheerful and elegant little flat on the Boulevard
Malesherbes, where she finished her life as a very devout old lady,
presiding over a society for providing poor mothers with baby-linen, and
thus devoting herself to the children of others--she who had not known
how to bring up her own. And, in this wise, Ambroise had simply had to
take possession of the empty mansion, which was heavily mortgaged, to
such an extent, indeed, that when the Seguins died their heirs would
certainly be owing him money.

Many were the recollections which awoke when Mathieu, accompanied by
Denis, entered that princely mansion of the Avenue d'Antin! There, as at
the factory, he could see himself arriving in poverty, as a needy tenant
begging his landlord to repair a roof, in order that the rain might no
longer pour down on the four children, whom, with culpable improvidence,
he already had to provide for. There, facing the avenue, was the
sumptuous Renaissance facade with eight lofty windows on each of its
upper floors; there, inside, was the hall, all bronze and marble,
conducting to the spacious ground-floor reception-rooms which a winter
garden prolonged; and there, up above, occupying all the central part of
the first floor, was Seguin's fo