“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-called dividend 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.