hours. He demanded
security; not an attachment on the furniture, but a second mortgage on
the property in the Faubourg du Temple.

In spite of such attacks and the violence of these recriminations, a
few peaceful intervals occurred, when Birotteau breathed once more; but
instead of resolutely facing and vanquishing the first skirmishings of
adverse fortune, Cesar employed his whole mind in the effort to keep his
wife, the only person able to advise him, from knowing anything about
them. He guarded the very threshold of his door, and set a watch on
all around him. He took Celestin into confidence so far as to admit a
momentary embarrassment, and Celestin examined him with an amazed and
inquisitive look. In his eyes Cesar lessened, as men lessen in presence
of disasters when accustomed only to success, and when their whole
mental strength consists of knowledge which commonplace minds acquire
through routine.

Menaced as he was on so many sides at once, and without the energy or
capacity to defend himself, Cesar nevertheless had the courage to look
his position in the face. To meet the payments on his house and on
his loans, and to pay his rents and his current expenses, he required,
between the end of December and the fifteenth of January, a sum of sixty
thousand francs, half of which must be obtained before the thirtieth
of December. All his resources put together gave him a scant twenty
thousand; he lacked ten thousand francs for the first payments. To his
mind the position did not seem desperate; for like an adventurer who
lives from day to day, he saw only the present moment. He resolved to
attempt, before the news of his embarrassments was made public, what
seemed to him a great stroke, and seek out the famous Francois Keller,
banker, orator, and philanthropist, celebrated for his benevolence and
for his desire to serve the interests of Parisian commerce,--with the
view, we may add, of being always returned to the Chamber as a deputy of
Paris.

The banker was Liberal, Birotteau was Royalist; but the perfumer judged
by his own heart, and believed that the difference in their political
opinions would only be one reason the more for obtaining the credit
he intended to ask. In case actual securities were required he felt no
doubt of Popinot's devotion, from whom he expected to obtain some thirty
thousand francs, which would enable him to await the result of
his law-suit by satisfying the demands of the most exacting o