uch
mistaken if you think a citizen has paid his debt to his country by
merely selling perfumery for twenty years to those who came to buy it.
If the State demands the help of our intelligence, we are as much bound
to give it as we are to pay the tax on personal property, on windows and
doors, _et caetera_. Do you want to stay forever behind your counter?
You have been there, thank God, a long time. This ball shall be our
fete,--yours and mine. Good-by to economy,--for your sake, be it
understood. I burn our sign, 'The Queen of Roses'; I efface the name,
'Cesar Birotteau, Perfumer, Successor to Ragon,' and put simply,
'Perfumery' in big letters of gold. On the _entresol_ I place the
office, the counting-room, and a pretty little sanctum for you. I make
the shop out of the back-shop, the present dining-room, and kitchen. I
hire the first floor of the next house, and open a door into it through
the wall. I turn the staircase so as to pass from house to house on one
floor; and we shall thus get a grand appartement, furnished like a nest.
Yes, I shall refurnish your bedroom, and contrive a boudoir for you and
a pretty chamber for Cesarine. The shop-girl whom you will hire, our
head clerk, and your lady's-maid (yes, Madame, you are to have one!)
will sleep on the second floor. On the third will be the kitchen and
rooms of the cook and the man-of-all-work. The fourth shall be a general
store-house for bottle, crystals, and porcelains. The workshop for our
people, in the attic! Passers-by shall no longer see them gumming on
the labels, making the bags, sorting the flasks, and corking the phials.
Very well for the Rue Saint-Denis, but for the Rue Saint-Honore--fy! bad
style! Our shop must be as comfortable as a drawing-room. Tell me, are
we the only perfumers who have reached public honors? Are there not
vinegar merchants and mustard men who command in the National Guard and
are very well received at the Palace? Let us imitate them; let us extend
our business, and at the same time press forward into higher society."

"Goodness! Birotteau, do you know what I am thinking of as I listen to
you? You are like the man who looks for knots in a bulrush. Recollect
what I said when it was a question of making you deputy-mayor: 'your
peace of mind before everything!' You are as fit, I told you, 'to be put
forward in public life as my arm is to turn a windmill. Honors will be
your ruin!' You would not listen to me, and now the ruin has come