frank laugh and an open countenance, Jean Bellanger had always retained
general popularity and good-will, and was one of those whom the policy of
the First Consul led him to conciliate. He had long since retired from
the more vulgar departments of trade, but continued to flourish as an
army contractor. He had a large hotel and a splendid establishment; he
was one of the great capitalists of Paris. The relationship between
Dalibard and Bellanger was not very close,--it was that of cousins twice
removed; and during Dalibard's previous residence at Paris, each
embracing different parties, and each eager in his career, the blood-tie
between them had not been much thought of, though they were good friends,
and each respected the other for the discretion with which he had kept
aloof from the more sanguinary excesses of the time. As Bellanger was
not many years older than Dalibard; as the former had but just married in
the year 1791, and had naturally before him the prospect of a family; as
his fortunes at that time, though rising, were unconfirmed; and as some
nearer relations stood between them, in the shape of two promising,
sturdy nephews,--Dalibard had not then calculated on any inheritance from
his cousin. On his return, circumstances were widely altered: Bellanger
had been married some years, and no issue had blessed his nuptials. His
nephews, draughted into the conscription, had perished in Egypt.
Dalibard apparently became his nearest relative.

To avarice or to worldly ambition there was undoubtedly something very
dazzling in the prospect thus opened to the eyes of Olivier Dalibard.
The contractor's splendid mode of living, vying with that of the fermier-
general of old, the colossal masses of capital by which he backed and
supported speculations that varied with an ingenuity rendered practical
and profound by experience, inflamed into fever the morbid restlessness
of fancy and intellect which characterized the evil scholar; for that
restlessness seemed to supply to his nature vices not constitutional to