“No,” said Cesar; “but that won’t keep me from saving up everything to pay you.”

“Irrational folly!” cried Pillerault.  “In matters of honor I ought to be believed.  What nonsense were you saying just now?  How have you robbed your creditors when you have paid them all in full?”

Cesar looked earnestly at Pillerault, and Pillerault was touched to see, for the first time in three years, a genuine smile on the face of his poor nephew.

“It is true,” he said, “they would be paid; but it would be selling my daughter.”

“And I wish to be bought!” cried Cesarine, entering with Popinot.

The lovers had heard Birotteau’s last words as they came on tiptoe through the antechamber of their uncle’s little appartement, Madame Birotteau following.  All three had driven round to the creditors who were still unpaid, requesting them to meet at Alexandre Crottat’s that evening to receive their money.  The all-powerful logic of the enamored Popinot triumphed in the end over Cesar’s scruples, though he persisted for some time in calling himself a debtor, and in declaring that he was circumventing the law by a substitution.  But the refinements of his conscience gave way when Popinot cried out:  “Do you want to kill your daughter?”

“Kill my daughter!” said Cesar, thunderstruck.

“Well, then,” said Popinot, “I have the right to convey to you the sum which I conscientiously believe to be your share in my profits.  Do you refuse it?”

“No,” said Cesar.

“Very good; then let us go at once to Crottat and settle the matter, so that there may be no backing out of it.  We will arrange about our marriage contract at the same time.”

* * * * *

A petition for reinstatement with corroborative documents was at once deposited by Derville at the office of the procureur-general of the Cour Royale.

During the month required for the legal formalities and for the publication of the banns of marriage between Cesarine and Anselme, Birotteau was a prey to feverish agitation.  He was restless.  He feared he should not live till the great day when the decree for his vindication would be rendered.  His heart throbbed, he said, without cause.  He complained of dull pains in that organ, worn out as it was by emotions of sorrow, and now wearied with the rush of excessive joy.  Decrees of rehabilitation are so rare in the bankrupt court of Paris that seldom more than one is granted in ten years.

To those persons who take society in its serious aspects, the paraphernalia of justice has a grand and solemn character difficult perhaps to define.  Institutions depend altogether on the feelings with which men view them and the degree of grandeur which men’s thoughts attach to them.  When there is no longer, we will not say religion, but belief among the people, whenever early education has loosened all conservative bonds by accustoming youth to the practice of pitiless analysis, a nation will be found in process of dissolution; for it will then be held together only by the base solder of material interests, and by the formulas of a creed created by intelligent egotism.