quarter, coming up to worry him. He shuddered in spite of himself.
" 'Things are looking bad. There is a crisis on hand. Nucingen is

compounding with his creditors. But this does not interest you, Daddy
Matifat; you are out of business.'

" 'Oh, well, you are mistaken, Gigonnet; I am in for three hundred
thousand francs. I meant to speculate in Spanish bonds.'

" 'Then you have saved your money. Spanish bonds would have swept
everything away; whereas I am prepared to offer you something like

fifty per cent for your account with Nucingen.'
" 'You are very keen about it, it seems to me,' said Matifat. 'I never

knew a banker yet that paid less than fifty per cent. Ah, if it were
only a matter of ten per cent of loss--' added the retired man of

drugs.
" 'Well, will you take fifteen?' asked Gigonnet.

" 'You are very keen about it, it seems to me,' said Matifat.
" 'Good-night.'

" 'Will you take twelve?'
" 'Done,' said Gigonnet.

"Before night two millions had been bought up in the names of the
three chance-united confederates, and posted by du Tillet to the debit

side of Nucingen's account. Next day they drew their premium.
"The dainty little old Baroness d'Aldrigger was at breakfast with her

two daughters and Godefroid, when Rastignac came in with a diplomatic
air to steer the conversation on the financialcrisis. The Baron de

Nucingen felt a lively regard for the d'Aldrigger family; he was
prepared, if things went amiss, to cover the Baroness' account with

his best securities, to wit, some shares in the argentiferous lead-
mines, but the application must come from the lady.

" 'Poor Nucingen!' said the Baroness. 'What can have become of him?'
" 'He is in Belgium. His wife is petitioning for a separation of her

property; but he had gone to see if he can arrange with some bankers
to see him through.'

" 'Dear me! That reminds me of my poor husband! Dear M. de Rastignac,
how you must feel this, so attached as you are to the house!'

" 'If all the indifferent are covered, his personal friends will be
rewarded later on. He will pull through; he is a clever man.'

" 'An honest man, above all things,' said the Baroness.
"A month later, Nucingen met all his liabilities, with no formalities

beyond the letters by which creditors signified the investments which
they preferred to take in exchange for their capital; and with no

action on the part of other banks beyond registering the transfer of
Nucingen's paper for the investments in favor.

"While du Tillet, Werbrust, Claparon, Gigonnet, and others that
thought themselves clever were fetching in Nucingen's paper from

abroad with a premium of one per cent--for it was still worth their
while to exchange it for securities in a rising market--there was all

the more talk on the Bourse, because there was nothing now to fear.
They babbled over Nucingen; he was discussed and judged; they even

slandered him. His luxurious life, his enterprises! When a man has so
much on his hands, he overreaches himself, and so forth, and so forth.

"The talk was at its height, when several people were greatly
astonished to receive letters from Geneva, Basel, Milan, Naples,

Genoa, Marseilles, and London, in which their correspondents,
previously advised of the failure, informed them that somebody was

offering one per cent for Nucingen's paper! 'There is something up,'
said the lynxes of the Bourse.

"The Court meanwhile had granted the application for Mme. de
Nucingen's separation as to her estate, and the question became still

more complicated. The newspapers announced the return of M. le Baron
de Nucingen from a journey to Belgium; he had been arranging, it was

said, with a well-known Belgian firm to resume the working of some
coal-pits in the Bois de Bossut. The Baron himself appeared on the

Bourse, and never even took the trouble to contradict the slanders
circulating against him. He scorned to reply through the press; he

simply bought a splendid estate just outside Paris for two millions of
francs. Six weeks afterwards, the Bordeaux shipping intelligence

announced that two vessels with cargoes of bullion to the amount of
seven millions, consigned to the firm of Nucingen, were lying in the

river.
"Then it was plain to Palma, Werbrust, and du Tillet that the trick

had been played. Nobody else was any the wiser. The three scholars
studied the means by which the great bubble had been created, saw that

it had been preparing for eleven months, and pronounced Nucingen the
greatest financier in Europe.

"Rastignac understood nothing of all this, but he had the four hundred
thousand francs which Nucingen had allowed him to shear from the

Parisian sheep, and he portioned his sisters. D'Aiglemont, at a hint
from his cousin Beaudenord, besought Rastignac to accept ten per cent

upon his million if he would undertake to convert it into shares in a
canal which is still to make, for Nucingen worked things with the

Government to such purpose that the concessionaires find it to their
interest not to finish their scheme. Charles Grandet implored

Delphine's lover to use his interest to secure shares for him in
exchange for his cash. And altogether Rastignac played the part of Law

for ten days; he had the prettiest duchesses in France praying to him
to allot shares to them, and to-day the young man very likely has an

income of forty thousand livres, derived in the first instance from
the argentiferous lead-mines."

"If every one was better off, who can have lost?" asked Finot.
"Hear the conclusion," rejoined Bixiou. "The Marquis d'Aiglemont and

Beaudenord (I put them forward as two examples out of many) kept their
allotted shares, enticed by the so-calleddividend that fell due a few

months afterwards. They had another three per cent on their capital,
they sang Nucingen's praises, and took his part at a time when

everybody suspected that he was going bankrupt. Godefroid married his
beloved Isaure and took shares in the mines to the value of a hundred

thousand francs. The Nucingens gave a ball even more splendid than
people expected of them on the occasion of the wedding; Delphine's

present to the bride was a charming set of rubies. Isaure danced, a
happy wife, a girl no longer. The little Baroness was more than ever a

Shepherdess of the Alps. The ball was at its height when Malvina, the
Andalouse of Musset's poem, heard du Tillet's voice drily advising her

to take Desroches. Desroches, warmed to the right degree by Rastignac
and Nucingen, tried to come to an understanding financially; but at

the first hint of shares in the mines for the bride's portion, he
broke off and went back to the Matifat's in the Rue du Cherche-Midi,

only to find the accursed canal shares which Gigonnet had foisted on
Matifat in lieu of cash.

"They had not long to wait for the crash. The firm of Claparon did
business on too large a scale, the capital was locked up, the concern

ceased to serve its purposes, or to pay dividends, though the
speculations were sound. These misfortunes coincided with the events

of 1827. In 1829 it was too well known that Claparon was a man of
straw set up by the two giants; he fell from his pedestal. Shares that

had fetched twelve hundred and fifty francs fell to four hundred,
though intrinsically they were worth six. Nucingen, knowing their

value, bought them up at four.
"Meanwhile the little Baroness d'Aldrigger had sold out of the mines

that paid no dividends, and Godefroid had reinvested the money
belonging to his wife and her mother in Claparon's concern. Debts

compelled them to realize when the shares were at their lowest, so
that of seven hundred thousand francs only two hundred thousand

remained. They made a clearance, and all that was left was prudently
invested in the three per cents at seventy-five. Godefroid, the

sometime gay and carelessbachelor who had lived without taking
thought all his life long, found himself saddled with a little goose

of a wife totally unfitted to bear adversity (indeed, before six
months were over, he had witnessed the anserine transformation of his