Monsieur Jean-Jerome-Severin Cardot had been a widower six years.  As head-clerk of the Cocon d’Or, one of the oldest firms in Paris, he had bought the establishment in 1793, at a time when the heads of the house were ruined by the maximum; and the money of Mademoiselle Husson’s dowry had enabled him to do this, and so make a fortune that was almost colossal in ten years.  To establish his children richly during his lifetime, he had conceived the idea of buying an annuity for himself and his wife with three hundred thousand francs, which gave him an income of thirty thousand francs a year.  He then divided his capital into three shares of four hundred thousand francs each, which he gave to three of his children,—­the Cocon d’Or, given to his eldest daughter on her marriage, being the equivalent of a fourth share.  Thus the worthy man, who was now nearly seventy years old, could spend his thirty thousand a year as he pleased, without feeling that he injured the prospects of his children, all finely provided for, whose attentions and proofs of affection were, moreover, not prompted by self-interest.

Uncle Cardot lived at Belleville, in one of the first houses above the Courtille.  He there occupied, on the first floor, an apartment overlooking the valley of the Seine, with a southern exposure, and the exclusive enjoyment of a large garden, for the sum of a thousand francs a year.  He troubled himself not at all about the three or four other tenants of the same vast country-house.  Certain, through a long lease, of ending his days there, he lived rather plainly, served by an old cook and the former maid of the late Madame Cardot,—­both of whom expected to reap an annuity of some six hundred francs apiece on the old man’s death.  These two women took the utmost care of him, and were all the more interested in doing so because no one was ever less fussy or less fault-finding than he.  The apartment, furnished by the late Madame Cardot, had remained in the same condition for the last six years,—­the old man being perfectly contented with it.  He spent in all not more than three thousand francs a year there; for he dined in Paris five days in the week, and returned home at midnight in a hackney-coach, which belonged to an establishment at Courtille.  The cook had only her master’s breakfast to provide on those days.  This was served at eleven o’clock; after that he dressed and perfumed himself, and departed for Paris.  Usually, a bourgeois gives notice in the household if he dines out; old Cardot, on the contrary, gave notice when he dined at home.

This little old man—­fat, rosy, squat, and strong—­always looked, in popular speech, as if he had stepped from a bandbox.  He appeared in black silk stockings, breeches of “pou-de-soie” (paduasoy), a white pique waistcoat, dazzling shirt-front, a blue-bottle coat, violet silk gloves, gold buckles to his shoes and his breeches, and, lastly, a touch of powder and a little queue tied with black ribbon.