olitical secrets, and also of being a courageous
man,--though he had no military courage in his heart, and not the
smallest political idea in his brain. Upon these grounds the worthy
people of the arrondissement made him captain of the National Guard; but
he was cashiered by Napoleon, who, according to Birotteau, owed him a
grudge for their encounter on the 13th Vendemiaire. Cesar thus obtained
at a cheap rate a varnish of persecution, which made him interesting in
the eyes of the opposition, and gave him a certain importance.

* * * * *

Such was the history of this household, lastingly happy through its
feeling, and agitated only by commercial anxieties.

During the first year Cesar instructed his wife about the sales of
their merchandise and the details of perfumery,--a business which she
understood admirably. She really seemed to have been created and sent
into the world to fit on the gloves of customers. At the close of that
year the assets staggered our ambitious perfumer; all costs calculated,
he would be able in less than twenty years to make a modest capital of
one hundred thousand francs, which was the sum at which he estimated
their happiness. He then resolved to reach fortune more rapidly, and
determined to manufacture articles as well as retail them. Contrary to
the advice of his wife, he hired some sheds, with the ground about
them, in the Faubourg du Temple, and painted upon them in big letters,
"Manufactory of Cesar Birotteau." He enticed a skilful workman from
Grasse, with whom he began, on equal shares, the manufacture of soaps,
essences, and eau-de-cologne. His connection with this man lasted only
six months, and ended by losses which fell upon him alone. Without
allowing himself to be discouraged, Birotteau determined to get better
results at any price, solely to avoid being scolded by his wife,--to
whom he acknowledged later that in those depressing days his head had
boiled like a saucepan, and that several times, if it had not been for
his religious sentiments, he should have flung himself into the Seine.

Harassed by some unprofitable enterprise, he was lounging one day along
the boulevard on his way to dinner,--for the Parisian lounger is as
often a man filled with despair as an idler,--when among a parcel of
books for six sous a-piece, laid out in a hamper on the pavement, his
eyes lighted on the following title, yellow with dust: "Abdeker, or the
Art of Preservi