“Poor woman!” said Cesar, looking at her as she slept.

“Come, papa, take courage! you are so superior a man that you will triumph in the end.  This trouble won’t last; Monsieur Anselme will help you.”

Cesarine said these vague words in the tender tones which give courage to a stricken heart, just as the songs of a mother soothe the weary child tormented with pain as its cuts its teeth.

“Yes, my child, I shall struggle on; but say not a word to any one, —­not to Popinot who loves us, nor to your uncle Pillerault.  I shall first write to my brother; he is canon and vicar of the cathedral.  He spends nothing, and I have no doubt he has means.  If he saves only three thousand francs a year, that would give him at the end of twenty years one hundred thousand francs.  In the provinces the priests lay up money.”

Cesarine hastened to bring her father a little table with writing-things upon it,—­among them the surplus of invitations printed on pink paper.

“Burn all that!” cried her father.  “The devil alone could have prompted me to give that ball.  If I fail, I shall seem to have been a swindler.  Stop!” he added, “words are of no avail.”  And he wrote the following letter:—­

My dear Brother,—­I find myself in so severe a commercial crisis
that I must ask you to send me all the money you can dispose of,
even if you have to borrow some for the purpose.

Ever yours,
Cesar.

Your niece, Cesarine, who is watching me as I write, while my poor
wife sleeps, sends you her tender remembrances.

This postscript was added at Cesarine’s urgent request; she then took the letter and gave it to Raguet.

“Father,” she said, returning, “here is Monsieur Lebas, who wants to speak to you.”

“Monsieur Lebas!” cried Cesar, frightened, as though his disaster had made him a criminal,—­“a judge!”

“My dear Monsieur Birotteau, I take too great an interest in you,” said the stout draper, entering the room, “we have known each other too long,—­for we were both elected judges at the same time,—­not to tell you that a man named Bidault, called Gigonnet, a usurer, has notes of yours turned over to his order, and marked ‘not guaranteed,’ by the house of Claparon.  Those words are not only an affront, but they are the death of your credit.”

“Monsieur Claparon wishes to speak to you,” said Celestin, entering; “may I tell him to come up?”

“Now we shall learn the meaning of this insult,” said Lebas.

“Monsieur,” said Cesar to Claparon, as he entered, “this is Monsieur Lebas, a judge of the commercial courts, and my friend—­”

“Ah! monsieur is Monsieur Lebas?” interrupted Claparon.  “Delighted with the opportunity, Monsieur Lebas of the commercial courts; there are so many Lebas, you know, of one kind or another—­”

“He has seen,” said Birotteau, cutting the gabbler short, “the notes which I gave you, and which I understood from you would not be put into circulation.  He has seen them bearing the words ’not guaranteed.’”