bulk. Cesar was then able to buy the huts and the land in the Faubourg
du Temple; he built large manufactories, and decorated his shop at
"The Queen of Roses" with much magnificence; his household began to
taste the little joys of competence, and his wife no longer trembled
as before.

In 1810 Madame Cesar, foreseeing a rise in rents, pushed her husband
into becoming chief tenant of the house where they had hitherto
occupied only the shop and the _entresol_, and advised him to remove
their own appartement to the first floor. A fortunate event induced
Constance to shut her eyes to the follies which Birotteau committed
for her sake in fitting up the new appartement. The perfumer had just
been elected judge in the commercial courts: his integrity, his
well-known sense of honor, and the respect he enjoyed, earned for him
this dignity, which ranked him henceforth among the leading merchants
of Paris. To improve his knowledge, he rose daily at five o'clock, and
read law-reports and books treating of commercial litigation. His
sense of justice, his rectitude, his conscientious intentions,
--qualities essential to the understanding of questions submitted for
consular decision,--soon made him highly esteemed among the judges.
His defects contributed not a little to his reputation. Conscious of
his inferiority, Cesar subordinated his own views to those of his
colleagues, who were flattered in being thus deferred to. Some sought
the silent approbation of a man held to be sagacious, in his capacity
of listener; others, charmed with his modesty and gentleness, praised
him publicly. Plaintiffs and defendants extolled his kindness, his
conciliatory spirit; and he was often chosen umpire in contests where
his own good sense would have suggested the swift justice of a Turkish
cadi. During his whole period in office he contrived to use language
which was a medley of commonplaces mixed with maxims and computations