a _chauderie_, as he breathes the odors of an Indian
root. Dazzled by the blaze of cochineal, he recalls the poems of the
Veda, the religion of Brahma and its castes; brushing against piles of
ivory in the rough, he mounts the backs of elephants; seated in a muslin
cage, he makes love like the King of Lahore. But the little retail
merchant is ignorant from whence have come, or where may grow, the
products in which he deals. Birotteau, perfumer, did not know an iota of
natural history, nor of chemistry. Though regarding Vauquelin as a great
man, he thought him an exception,--of about the same capacity as the
retired grocer who summed up a discussion on the method of importing
teas, by remarking with a knowing air, "There are but two ways: tea
comes either by caravan, or by Havre." According to Birotteau aloes and
opium were only to be found in the Rue des Lombards. Rosewater, said to
be brought from Constantinople, was made in Paris like eau-de-cologne.
The names of these places were shams, invented to please Frenchmen who
could not endure the things of their own country. A French merchant
must call his discoveries English to make them fashionable, just as in
England the druggists attribute theirs to France.

Nevertheless, Cesar was incapable of being wholly stupid or a fool.
Honesty and goodness cast upon all the acts of his life a light which
made them creditable; for noble conduct makes even ignorance seem
worthy. Success gave him confidence. In Paris confidence is accepted as
power, of which it is the outward sign. As for Madame Birotteau, having
measured Cesar during the first three years of their married life,
she was a prey to continual terror. She represented in their union the
sagacious and fore-casting side,--doubt, opposition, and fear; while
Cesar, on the other hand, was the embodiment of audacity, energy,
and the inexpressible delights of fatalism. Yet in spite of these
appearances the husband often quaked, while the wife, in reality, was
possessed of patience and true courage.

Thus it happened that a man who was both mediocre and pusillanimous,
without education, without ideas, without knowledge, without force of
character, and who might be expected not to succeed in the slipperiest
city in the world, came by his principles of conduct, by his sense
of justice, by the goodness of a heart that was truly Christian, and
through his love for the only woman he had really won, to be considered
as a remarkable ma