only four times a year. He has never come to call upon me here, though
he was ready enough to visit me at Madame Mere's when he wanted to
sell his silks to the Emperor, the imperial highnesses, and all the
great people at court. But now the Camusots have turned ultras. The
eldest son of Camusot's first wife married a daughter of one of the
king's ushers. The world is mighty hump-backed when it stoops!
However, it was a clever thing to do, for the Cocon d'Or has the
custom of the present court as it had that of the Emperor. But
to-morrow we will go and see your uncle Cardot, and I hope that you
will endeavor to behave properly; for, as I said before, and I repeat
it, that is our last hope."

Monsieur Jean-Jerome-Severin Cardot had been a widower six years. As
head-clerk of the Cocon d'Or, one of the oldest firms in Paris, he had
bought the establishment in 1793, at a time when the heads of the
house were ruined by the maximum; and the money of Mademoiselle
Husson's dowry had enabled him to do this, and so make a fortune that
was almost colossal in ten years. To establish his children richly
during his lifetime, he had conceived the idea of buying an annuity
for himself and his wife with three hundred thousand francs, which
gave him an income of thirty thousand francs a year. He then divided
his capital into three shares of four hundred thousand francs each,
which he gave to three of his children,--the Cocon d'Or, given to his
eldest daughter on her marriage, being the equivalent of a fourth
share. Thus the worthy man, who was now nearly seventy years old,
could spend his thirty thousand a year as he pleased, without feeling
that he injured the prospects of his children, all finely provided
for, whose attentions and proofs of affection were, moreover, not
prompted by self-interest.