buttoned, came down low over his stomach, which was rather
protuberant, for he was somewhat fat. He wore blue trousers, black
silk stockings, and shoes with ribbon ties, which were often
unfastened. His surtout coat, olive-green and always too large, and
his broad-brimmed hat gave him the air of a Quaker. When he dressed
for the Sunday evening festivities he put on silk breeches, shoes with
gold buckles, and the inevitable square waistcoat, whose front edges
opened sufficiently to show a pleated shirt-frill. His coat, of maroon
cloth, had wide flaps and long skirts. Up to the year 1819 he kept up
the habit of wearing two watch-chains, which hung down in parallel
lines; but he only put on the second when he dressed for the evening.

* * * * *

Such was Cesar Birotteau; a worthy man, to whom the fates presiding at
the birth of men had denied the faculty of judging politics and life
in their entirety, and of rising above the social level of the middle
classes; who followed ignorantly the track of routine, whose opinions
were all imposed upon him from the outside and applied by him without
examination. Blind but good, not spiritual but deeply religious, he
had a pure heart. In that heart there shone one love, the light and
strength of his life; for his desire to rise in life, and the limited
knowledge he had gained of the world, both came from his affection for
his wife and for his daughter.

As for Madame Cesar, then thirty-seven years old, she bore so close a
resemblance to the Venus of Milo that all who knew her recognized the
likeness when the Duc de Riviere sent the beautiful statue to Paris.
In a few months sorrows were to dim with yellowing tints that dazzling
fairness, to hollow and blacken the bluish circle round the lovely