“The prosperity of the firm of Nucingen is one of the most extraordinary things seen in our days,” began Blondet.  “In 1804 Nucingen’s name was scarcely known.  At that time bankers would have shuddered at the idea of three hundred thousand francs’ worth of his acceptances in the market.  The great capitalist felt his inferiority.  How was he to get known?  He suspended payment.  Good!  Every market rang with a name hitherto only known in Strasbourg and the Quartier Poissonniere.  He issued deposit certificates to his creditors, and resumed payment; forthwith people grew accustomed to his paper all over France.  Then an unheard-of-thing happened—­his paper revived, was in demand, and rose in value.  Nucingen’s paper was much inquired for.  The year 1815 arrives, my banker calls in his capital, buys up Government stock before the battle of Waterloo, suspends payment again in the thick of the crisis, and meets his engagements with shares in the Wortschin mines, which he himself issued at twenty per cent more than he gave for them!  Yes, gentlemen!—­He took a hundred and fifty thousand bottles of champagne of Grandet to cover himself (forseeing the failure of the virtuous parent of the present Comte d’Aubrion), and as much Bordeaux wine of Duberghe at the same time.  Those three hundred thousand bottles which he took over (and took at thirty sous apiece, my dear boy) he supplied at the price of six francs per bottle to the Allies in the Palais Royal during the foreign occupation, between 1817 and 1819.  Nucingen’s name and his paper acquired a European celebrity.  The illustrious Baron, so far from being engulfed like others, rose the higher for calamities.  Twice his arrangements had paid holders of his paper uncommonly well; he try to swindle them?  Impossible.  He is supposed to be as honest a man as you will find.  When he suspends payment a third time, his paper will circulate in Asia, Mexico, and Australia, among the aborigines.  No one but Ouvrard saw through this Alsacien banker, the son of some Jew or other converted by ambition; Ouvrard said, ’When Nucingen lets gold go, you may be sure that it is to catch diamonds.’”

“His crony, du Tillet, is just such another,” said Finot.  “And, mind you, that of birth du Tillet has just precisely as much as is necessary to exist; the chap had not a farthing in 1814, and you see what he is now; and he has done something that none of us has managed to do (I am not speaking of you, Couture), he has had friends instead of enemies.  In fact, he has kept his past life so quiet, that unless you rake the sewers you are not likely to find out that he was an assistant in a perfumer’s shop in the Rue Saint Honore, no further back than 1814.”