terms with the house of Nucingen, to which Roguin had introduced him,
and he had promptly become connected with the brothers Keller and with
several other great banking-houses. No one knew from whence this youth
had derived the immense capital which he handled, but every one
attributed his success to his intelligence and his integrity.

* * * * *

The Restoration made Cesar a personage, and the turmoil of political
crises naturally lessened his recollection of these domestic
misadventures. The constancy of his royalist opinions (to which he had
become exceedingly indifferent since his wound, though he remained
faithful to them out of decency) and the memory of his devotion in
Vendemiaire won him very high patronage, precisely because he had
asked for none. He was appointed major in the National Guard, although
he was utterly incapable of giving the word of command. In 1815
Napoleon, always his enemy, dismissed him. During the Hundred Days
Birotteau was the bugbear of the liberals of his quarter; for it was
not until 1815 that differences of political opinion grew up among
merchants, who had hitherto been unanimous in their desires for public
tranquillity, of which, as they knew, business affairs stood much in
need.

At the second Restoration the royal government was obliged to remodel
the municipality of Paris. The prefect wished to nominate Birotteau as
mayor. Thanks to his wife, the perfumer would only accept the place of
deputy-mayor, which brought him less before the public. Such modesty
increased the respect generally felt for him, and won him the
friendship of the new mayor, Monsieur Flamet de la Billardiere.
Birotteau, who had seen him in the shop in the days when "The Queen of