to
revisit the capital.

The second son of the vine-dresser, Jean Birotteau, was drafted into
the militia, and won the rank of captain early in the wars of the
Revolution. At the battle of Trebia, Macdonald called for volunteers to
carry a battery. Captain Jean Birotteau advanced with his company, and
was killed. The destiny of the Birotteaus demanded, no doubt, that
they should be oppressed by men, or by circumstances, wheresoever they
planted themselves.

The last child is the hero of this story. When Cesar at fourteen years
of age could read, write, and cipher, he left his native place and came
to Paris on foot to seek his fortune, with one louis in his pocket. The
recommendation of an apothecary at Tours got him a place as shop-boy
with Monsieur and Madame Ragon, perfumers. Cesar owned at this period a
pair of hob-nailed shoes, a pair of breeches, blue stockings, a flowered
waistcoat, a peasant's jacket, three coarse shirts of good linen, and
his travelling cudgel. If his hair was cut like that of a choir-boy, he
at least had the sturdy loins of a Tourangian; if he yielded sometimes
to the native idleness of his birthplace, it was counterbalanced by his
desire to make his fortune; if he lacked cleverness and education,
he possessed an instinctive rectitude and delicate feelings, which he
inherited from his mother,--a being who had, in Tourangian phrase, a
"heart of gold." Cesar received from the Ragons his food, six francs a
month as wages, and a pallet to sleep upon in the garret near the cook.
The clerks who taught him to pack the goods, to do the errands, and
sweep up the shop and the pavement, made fun of him as they did so,
according to the manners and customs of shop-keeping, in which chaff is
a principal element of instruction. Monsieur and Madame Ragon spoke to
him like a dog. No one paid attention to his weariness, though many a
night his feet, blistered by the pavements of Paris, and his bruised
shoulders, made him suffer horribly. This harsh application of the maxim
"each for himself,"--the gospel of large cities,--made Cesar think the
life of Paris very hard. At night he cried as he thought of Touraine,
where the peasant works at his ease, where the mason lays a stone
between breakfast and dinner, and idleness is wisely mingled with labor;
but he always fell asleep without having time to think of running away,
for he had his errands to do in the morning, and obeyed his duty with
the instinct of a watc