licly. Plaintiffs and defendants extolled
his kindness, his conciliatory spirit; and he was often chosen umpire in
contests where his own good sense would have suggested the swift justice
of a Turkish cadi. During his whole period in office he contrived to
use language which was a medley of commonplaces mixed with maxims
and computations served up in flowing phrases mildly put forth, which
sounded to the ears of superficial people like eloquence. Thus he
pleased that great majority, mediocre by nature, who are condemned
to perpetual labor and to views which are of the earth earthy. Cesar,
however, lost so much time in court that his wife obliged him finally to
resign the expensive dignity.

Towards 1813, the Birotteau household, thanks to its constant harmony,
and after steadily plodding on through life, saw the dawn of an era of
prosperity which nothing seemed likely to interrupt. Monsieur and Madame
Ragon, their predecessors, the uncle Pillerault, Roguin the notary, the
Messrs. Matifat, druggists in the Rue des Lombards and purveyors to
"The Queen of Roses," Joseph Lebas, woollen draper and successor to
the Messrs. Guillaume at the Maison du Chat-qui-pelote (one of the
luminaries of the Rue Saint-Denis), Popinot the judge, brother of Madame
Ragon, Chiffreville of the firm of Protez & Chiffreville, Monsieur and
Madame Cochin, employed in the treasury department and sleeping partners
in the house of Matifat, the Abbe Loraux, confessor and director of the
pious members of this coterie, with a few other persons, made up
the circle of their friends. In spite of the royalist sentiments of
Birotteau, public opinion was in his favor; he was considered very rich,
though in fact he possessed only a hundred thousand francs over and
above his business. The regularity of his affairs, his punctuality, his
habit of making no debts, of never discounting his paper, and of taking,
on the contrary, safe securities from those whom he could thus oblige,
together with his general amiability, won him enormous credit. His
household cost him nearly twenty thousand francs a year, and the
education of Cesarine, an only daughter, idolized by Constance as well
as by himself, necessitated heavy expenses. Neither husband nor wife
considered money when it was a question of giving pleasure to their
child, from whom they had never been willing to separate. Imagine the
happiness of the poor parvenu peasant as he listened to his charming
Cesarine playin