* * * * *

Such was the history of this household, lastingly happy through its
feeling, and agitated only by commercial anxieties.

During the first year Cesar instructed his wife about the sales of
their merchandise and the details of perfumery,--a business which she
understood admirably. She really seemed to have been created and sent
into the world to fit on the gloves of customers. At the close of that
year the assets staggered our ambitious perfumer; all costs
calculated, he would be able in less than twenty years to make a
modest capital of one hundred thousand francs, which was the sum at
which he estimated their happiness. He then resolved to reach fortune
more rapidly, and determined to manufacture articles as well as retail
them. Contrary to the advice of his wife, he hired some sheds, with
the ground about them, in the Faubourg du Temple, and painted upon
them in big letters, "Manufactory of Cesar Birotteau." He enticed a
skilful workman from Grasse, with whom he began, on equal shares, the
manufacture of soaps, essences, and eau-de-cologne. His connection
with this man lasted only six months, and ended by losses which fell
upon him alone. Without allowing himself to be discouraged, Birotteau
determined to get better results at any price, solely to avoid being
scolded by his wife,--to whom he acknowledged later that in those
depressing days his head had boiled like a saucepan, and that several
times, if it had not been for his religious sentiments, he should have
flung himself into the Seine.

Harassed by some unprofitable enterprise, he was lounging one day
along the boulevard on his way to dinner,--for the Parisian lounger is
as often a man filled with despair as an idler,--when among a parcel