capitalist ought not to rise higher than a baron's rank, while du
Tillet has a mind to be an Italian count."

"Blondet--one word, my boy," put in Couture. "In the first place,
Nucingen dared to say that honesty is simply a question of
appearances; and secondly, to know him well you must be in business
yourself. With him banking is but a single department, and a very
small one; he holds Government contracts for wines, wools, indigoes
--anything, in short, on which any profit can be made. He has an
all-round genius. The elephant of finance would contract to deliver
votes on a division, or the Greeks to the Turks. For him business
means the sum-total of varieties; as Cousin would say, the unity of
specialties. Looked at in this way, banking becomes a kind of
statecraft in itself, requiring a powerful head; and a man thoroughly
tempered is drawn on to set himself above the laws of a morality that
cramps him."

"Right, my son," said Blondet; "but we, and we alone, can comprehend
that this means bringing war into the financial world. A banker is a
conquering general making sacrifices on a tremendous scale to gain
ends that no one perceives; his soldiers are private people's
interests. He has stratagems to plan out, partisans to bring into the
field, ambushes to set, towns to take. Most men of this stamp are so
close upon the borders of politics, that in the end they are drawn
into public life, and thereby lose their fortunes. The firm of Necker,
for instance, was ruined in this way; the famous Samuel Bernard was
all but ruined. Some great capitalist in every age makes a colossal
fortune, and leaves behind him neither fortune nor a family; there was
the firm of Paris Brothers, for instance, that helped to pull down
Law; there was Law himself (beside whom other promoters of companies