g
enormous quantities into the Empire at six sous the kilogramme, in
virtue of the Emperor's celebrated decree. The reaction produced in
France by the introduction of the Portuguese cotton caused the death of
Pigoult, Achille's father, and began the fortune of Phileas, who, far
from losing his head like his master, made his prices moderate by
buying cotton cheaply and in doubling the quantity ventured upon by
his predecessor. This simple system enabled Phileas to triple the
manufacture and to pose as the benefactor of the workingmen; so that
he was able to disperse his hosiery in Paris and all over France at
a profit, when the luckiest of his competitors were only able to sell
their goods at cost price.

At the beginning of 1814, Phileas had emptied his warerooms. The
prospect of a war on French soil, the hardships of which were likely to
press chiefly on Champagne, made him cautious. He manufactured nothing,
and held himself ready to meet all events with his capital turned into
gold. At this period the custom-house lines were no longer maintained.
Napoleon could not do without his thirty thousand custom-house officers
for service in the field. Cotton, then introduced through a thousand
loopholes, slipped into the markets of France. No one can imagine
how sly and how alert cotton had become at this epoch, nor with what
eagerness the English laid hold of a country where cotton stockings sold
for six francs a pair, and cambric shirts were objects of luxury.

Manufacturers from the second class, the principal workmen, reckoning on
the genius of Napoleon, had bought up the cottons that came from Spain.
They worked it up in hopes of being able later to give the law to the
merchants of Paris. Phileas observed these facts. When the war ravaged
Champagne, he kept himself between the French army and Paris. After each
lost battle he went among the workmen who had buried their products in
casks,--a sort of silo of hosiery,--then, gold in hand, this Cossack
of weaving bought up, from village to village, below the cost of
fabrication, tons of merchandise which might otherwise become at
any time a prey to an enemy whose feet were as much in need of being
_socked_ as its throat of being moistened.

Phileas displayed under these unfortunate circumstances an activity
nearly equal to that of the Emperor. This general of hosiery made a
commercial campaign of 1814 with splendid but ignored courage. A league
or two behind where the army