In spite of such attacks and the violence of these recriminations, a few peaceful intervals occurred, when Birotteau breathed once more; but instead of resolutely facing and vanquishing the first skirmishings of adverse fortune, Cesar employed his whole mind in the effort to keep his wife, the only person able to advise him, from knowing anything about them.  He guarded the very threshold of his door, and set a watch on all around him.  He took Celestin into confidence so far as to admit a momentary embarrassment, and Celestin examined him with an amazed and inquisitive look.  In his eyes Cesar lessened, as men lessen in presence of disasters when accustomed only to success, and when their whole mental strength consists of knowledge which commonplace minds acquire through routine.

Menaced as he was on so many sides at once, and without the energy or capacity to defend himself, Cesar nevertheless had the courage to look his position in the face.  To meet the payments on his house and on his loans, and to pay his rents and his current expenses, he required, between the end of December and the fifteenth of January, a sum of sixty thousand francs, half of which must be obtained before the thirtieth of December.  All his resources put together gave him a scant twenty thousand; he lacked ten thousand francs for the first payments.  To his mind the position did not seem desperate; for like an adventurer who lives from day to day, he saw only the present moment.  He resolved to attempt, before the news of his embarrassments was made public, what seemed to him a great stroke, and seek out the famous Francois Keller, banker, orator, and philanthropist, celebrated for his benevolence and for his desire to serve the interests of Parisian commerce,—­with the view, we may add, of being always returned to the Chamber as a deputy of Paris.

The banker was Liberal, Birotteau was Royalist; but the perfumer judged by his own heart, and believed that the difference in their political opinions would only be one reason the more for obtaining the credit he intended to ask.  In case actual securities were required he felt no doubt of Popinot’s devotion, from whom he expected to obtain some thirty thousand francs, which would enable him to await the result of his law-suit by satisfying the demands of the most exacting of the creditors.  The demonstrative perfumer, who told his dear Constance, with his head on her pillow, the smallest thoughts and feelings of his whole life, looking for the lights of her contradiction, and gathering courage as he did so, was now prevented from speaking of his situation to his head-clerk, his uncle, or his wife.  His thoughts were therefore doubly heavy,—­and yet the generous martyr preferred to suffer, rather than fling the fiery brand into the soul of his wife.  He meant to tell her of the danger when it was over.  The awe with which she inspired him gave him courage.  He went every morning to hear Mass at Saint-Roch, and took God for his confidant.