passions such or such a development— gambling, the
lottery, the Ninons of the barriers, whatever you
like, — they will never extirpate the passions. To
kill the passions, that would be to kill society,
which, if it does not engender them, at least devel-
ops them. Thus, if you fetter with restrictions
the desire to gamble which lurks at the bottom of
every heart, that of the young girl, that of the man
of the provinces, as in that of a diplomat, for all
the world sighs for a fortune gratis, gambling will
then display itself in other spheres. You suppress
the lottery stupidly; the cooks will not the less steal
from their masters, they will carry their thefts to
the savings-bank, and the stake is for them two
hundred and fifty francs instead of being forty sous,
for the shares in industrial enterprises, the stock-
companies, become the lottery, the play without the
green carpet, but with an invisible rake and with
a calculated success for the bank. The gambling
places are closed, the lottery no longer exists, behold
France much more moral, exclaim the imbeciles,
as if they had suppressed the punters! Gambling
still goes on, only the benefit no longer accrues to
the state, which replaces a tax paid with pleasure
THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN 85
by a vexatious tax, without diminishing the num-
ber of suicides, for the gambler does not die, but
only his victim ! I do not say anything about funds
invested abroad, lost to France, nor of the lotteries
of Frankfort, against the hawking about of which
the Convention proclaimed the death penalty, and
to which the procureurs-syndics themselves were
addicted! Here you may see the sense of the silly
philanthropy of our legislator. The encouragement
given to the savings-bank is a gross political stu-
pidity. Suppose any distrust whatever about the
conduct of affairs, the government would have cre-
ated la queue* de I' argent as they created during
the Revolution, la queue du pain. So many
savings-banks, so many riots. If, in a corner, three
street boys set up a solitary flag, you will have a
revolution. But this danger, however great it
may be, seems to me less to be feared than that of
the demoralization of the people. A savings-bank
is the inoculation of all the vices engendered by
interest, to those whom neither education nor reflec-
tion restrain in their tacitly criminal combinations.
And there you have the effects of philanthropy. A
great politician should be a blackguard in the
abstract; without which societies are badly con-
ducted. A politician who is an honest man is a
steam-engine which has feelings, or a pilot who
makes love while at the helm, — the vessel founders.
A prime minister who takes a hundred millions
and who renders France great and happy, is he not
* Queue, a long line of people waiting to be served.
86 THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN
to be preferred to a minister who has to be buried
at the expense of the state, but who had ruined his
country? Between Richelieu, Mazarin, Potemkin,
all three of them possessed at certain epochs three
hundred millions, and the virtuous Robert Lindet,
who did not know enough to make anything either
from the assignats, nor from the national property,
or the virtuous imbeciles who ruined Louis XVI.,
would you hesitate? Go on with your story,
Bixiou."
"I will not explain to you," resumed Bixiou,
"the nature of the enterprise invented by the finan-
cial genius of Nucingen, it would be all the more
inconvenient, as it is still existing to-day ; its shares
are quoted on the Bourse; the combinations were
so real, the object of the enterprise so permanent,
that, created with a nominal capital of a thousand
francs, established by royal ordinance, fallen to
three hundred francs, they went up again to seven
hundred, and will arrive at par after having tra-
versed the storms of the years '27, '30 and '32. The
financial crisis of 1827 made them shrink, the Rev-
olution of July brought them down, but the enter-
prise is sound at bottom — Nucingen would not know
how to invent a bad affair — In short, as several
first-class banking houses have participated in it,
it would not be parliamentary to enter more into
details. The nominal capital was fixed at ten mil-
lions, the real capital seven, three millions were to
go to the originators and to the bankers who had
charge of the issuing of the shares. Everything
THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN 87
was calculated so as to cause in the first six months
each share to gain two hundred francs by the dis-
tribution of a fictitious dividend. Hence, twenty
per cent on ten millions. The interest of Du
Tillet amounted to five hundred thousand francs.
In the financial vocabulary this gain is called the
glutton' s part ! Nucingen proposed to operate, with
his millions made from a quire of pink paper, with
the aid of a lithographic stone, some nice little
marketable shares, preciously preserved in his
cabinet. The real shares would go to help estab-
lish the enterprise, to buy a magnificent hotel
and commence operations. Nucingen found still
other shares in I-know-not-what mines of silver-
bearing lead ore, in oil wells and in two canals,
interest-bearing shares issued to aid in the pre-
sentation of these four enterprises in full activity,
equipped in a superior manner and flourishing,
thanks to the dividend drawn on the capital.
Nucingen could count upon an agio if the shares
went up, but the baron left this out of his calcula-
tions; he allowed it to remain at its par value,
on the market, in order to attract the fish!
He had thus massed his funds, as Napoleon massed
his troops, in order to be able to liquidate during
the crisis which was revealing itself and which rev-
olutionized, in '26 and '27, the European markets.
If he had had his Prince deWagram, he would have
been able to say, as did Napoleon on the heights of
Santon: 'Examine the locality well ; on such a day,
at such an hour, there will funds be scattered!'
88 THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN
But in whom could he confide? Du Tillet did not
suspect his involuntary complicity. His first two
liquidations had demonstrated to our puissant baron
the necessity of attaching to himself a man who
could serve him as a piston to act on the creditor.
Nucingen had no nephew, did not dare to take a
confidant; he required a devoted man, an intelligent
Claparon, gifted with good manners, a veritable
diplomat, a man worthy of being a minister and
worthy of him. Such connections are not formed in
a day nor in a year. Rastignac had been so well
twisted up by the baron, that, like the Prince of
the Peace, who was loved as much by the king as by
the queen of Spain, he believed he had conquered
in Nucingen an invaluable dupe. After having
laughed at a man whose capacity was long unknown
to him, he had finished by vowing to him a grave
and serious worship in recognizing in him the
strength which he thought he alone possessed.
From the date of his debut in Paris, Rastignac had
been led to despise society in its entirety. From
1820, he had thought, like the baron, that there
were only apparently honest men, and he regarded
the world as the reunion of all corruptions and of all
dishonesties. If he admitted exceptions, he con-
demned the mass; he did not believe in any virtue,
but in certain circumstances in which man is vir-
tuous. This science was the result of a moment; it
was acquired at the top of Pere-Lachaise, the day
on which he conducted there the funeral of a poor,
honest man, the father of his Delphine, who had
THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN 89
died the dupe of our society, of the truest feelings,
and abandoned by his daughters and by his sons-
in-law. He resolved to get the better of all this
world, and to maintain himself in a fine costume of
virtue, of probity, of beautiful manners. Egotism
armed this young noble cap-a-pie. When he met
Nucingen clothed with the same armor, he esteemed
him as, in the Middle Ages, in the tournament, a
knight in damascene steel from the feet to the head,
mounted on a war horse, would esteem his adversary
caparisoned and mounted like himself. But he
softened for a while in the delights of Capua. The
friendship of a woman like the Baroness de Nucin-
gen is of a nature to banish all egotism. After hav-
ing been deceived a first time in her affections by
meeting a piece of Birmingham mechanism, such
as was the late De Marsay, Delphine naturally felt
for a man young and full of the religious sentiment
of the provinces, an attachment without bounds.
This tenderness reacted on Rastignac. When
Nucingen had passed over to his wife's friend the
harness which every exploiter puts on his exploitee,
which happened precisely at the moment when he
was meditating his third liquidation, he confided to
him his position, presenting to him, as an obligation
growing out of his intimacy, as a reparation, the
role of accomplice to take up and to play. The
baron thought it dangerous to initiate his conjugal
collaborator into his plan. Rastignac feared a misfor-
tune, and the baron let him believe that he might
save the shop. But, when a skein has so many
cp THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN
threads, there are sure to be knots. Rastignac
trembled for the fortune of Delphine; he stipulated
for the independence of the baroness, requiring a
separation of property, swearing to himself to join
his account with hers and triple her fortune. As
Eugene did not speak for himself, Nucingen begged
him to accept, in case of complete success, twenty-
five shares of a thousand francs each in the mines
of silver-bearing lead ore, which Rastignac took so
as not to offend him! Nucingen taught Rastignac
his tunes the evening before the day in which our
friend advised Malvina to get married. At the
sight of the hundred happy families who came and
went in Paris tranquil in the possession of their for-
tunes, the Godefroid de Beaudenords, the d'Aldrig-
gers, the d'Aiglemonts, etc., Rastignac was seized
with a shiver like a young general who for the first
time contemplates an army before the battle. The
poor little Isaure and Godefroid, playing at love, did
they not represent Acis and Galatea under the rock
which the great Polyphemus is about to tumble on
them?—"
"This monkey of a Bixiou," said Blondet, "he
has almost a talent."
"Ah! 1 am not sentimentalizing, then, any
more?" said Bixiou, enjoying his success, and
looking at his surprised auditors. — "During two
months," he resumed, after this interruption,
"Godefroid gave himself up to all the little hap-
pinesses of a man who is about to marry. He
resembles at this period those birds who make their
THE HOUSE OF NUC1NGEN 91
nests in springtime, come and go, pick up straws,
carry them in their beaks, and line the domicile
of their eggs. The future husband of Isaure had
taken in the Rue de la Planche a little hotel for a
thousand ecus, commodious, suitable, neither too
large nor too small. He went every morning to see
the workmen working and to inspect the painting.
He had introduced comfort there, the only good thing
that there is in England, — a heater to maintain an
equal temperature in the house; furniture well
chosen, neither too brilliant nor too elegant; colors
fresh and pleasant to the eye, interior and exterior
blinds to all the windows ; silverware, new carriages.
He had arranged the stable, the harness-house, the
carriage-house, where Toby, Joby, Paddy agitated
himself, fidgeting about like a marmot unchained,
and apparently delighted to know that there would be
women in the household and a lady! This passion
of the man who sets up housekeeping, who selects
clocks, who comes into the house of his betrothed
with his pockets full of samples of stuffs, consults
her on the furnishing of the bed-chamber, who goes,
comes, trots, when he goes, comes, and trots ani-
mated by love, is one of those things which most
rejoice an honest heart, and especially the furnishers.
And, as nothing pleases the world more than the
marriage of a pretty young man of twenty-seven
with a charming girl of twenty who dances well,
Godefroid, embarrassed by the bridegroom's gifts,
invited Rastignac and Madame de Nucingen to de-
jeuner, in order to consult them on this capital affair.
92 THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN
He had the excellent idea of inviting his cousin
d'Aiglemont and his wife, as well as Madame de
Serizy. Fashionable women like very well these
little occasional dissipations in bachelor apartments,
they like to breakfast there."
"It is their way of playing truant," said Blondet.
"Every one had to go and see in the Rue de la
Planche the little hotel of the future married pair,"
resumed Bixiou. "The women are for these little
expeditions just like ogres for fresh flesh, they
freshen up their own present with this young joy
which has not yet begun to pall through enjoyment.
The table was laid in the little salon, which, for the
interment of this bachelor life, was adorned like a
show horse in a cavalcade. The dejeuner had been
selected so as to offer a variety of those pretty little
dishes which the women love to eat, to craunch, to
suck, in the mornings, a time of the day in which
they have a frightful appetite, which they do not
wish to admit, for it seems that they compromise
themselves in saying: 'I am hungry!' 'And why are
you all alone?' said Godefroid, seeing Rastignac
arrive. 'Madame de Nucingen is indisposed, I will
tell you all about it,' replied Rastignac, who had the
appearance of a man much disturbed. 'Some dis-
agreement?' cried Godefroid. 'No,' said Rastignac.
At four o'clock, when the ladies had all flown away
to the Bois de Boulogne, Rastignac remained in the
salon, looking in a melancholy manner through the
window at Toby, Joby, Paddy, who was posted
audaciously before the horse harnessed to the
THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN 93
tilbury, the arms folded like Napoleon ; he could not
keep him in check otherwise than by his clear,
shrill voice, and the horse feared Joby, Toby.
'Well, what is the matter with you, my dear
friend?' said Godefroid to Rastignac. 'You are
sombre, disquieted; your gayety is not spontaneous.
It is incomplete happiness which vexes your soul.
It is, in fact, very unfortunate not to be married at
the Mayor's office and at the church to the woman
you love.' 'Have you courage, my dear fellow, to
hear what I have to say to you, and will you know
how to recognize to what a degree it is necessary to
be attached to some one in order to commit the
indiscretion of which I am about to be culpable?'
said Rastignac to him in that tone which resembled
a stroke of a whip. 'What?' said Godefroid, turn-
ing pale. 'I was grieved at your joy, and I have
not the heart, in seeing all these preparations, this
happiness in flower, to keep such a secret' 'Tell
me in three words.' 'Swear to me on your honor
that you will be in this as silent as the tomb.' 'As
the tomb.' 'That, if one of your nearest friends is
interested in this secret, he shall not know it.' 'He
shall not' 'Well, Nucingen has gone off last night
to Brussels; it will be necessary to go into bank-
ruptcy if liquidation cannot be effected. Delphine
has petitioned this very morning at the Palais for
the separation of her property. You may yet save
your fortune.' 'How?' said Godefroid, feeling an
icy blood in his veins. 'Write simply to the Baron
de Nucingen a letter antedated fifteen days, in which
94 THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN
you will give him the order to employ all your
funds in shares — and he named to him the Claparon
Company — You will have two weeks, a month,
three months, perhaps, to sell them above the pres-
ent price; they will rise still higher.' 'But
d'Aiglemont, who breakfasted with us, d'Aigle-
mont, who has a million invested with Nucingen!'
'Listen, I do not know if there are enough of these
shares to cover him, and then I am not his friend.
I cannot betray the secrets of Nucingen; you
must not speak to him about it. If you say one
word, you will answer to me for the consequences.'
Godefroid remained for ten minutes perfectly
motionless. 'Do you accept, yes or no?' said Ras-
tignac to him, pitilessly. Godefroid took pen and
ink, he wrote and signed the letter which Rastignac
dictated to him. 'My poor cousin!' he cried. 'Each
one for himself,' said Rastignac. 'And one saved
from the game,' he added, in leaving Godefroid.
While Rastignac was manceuvering in Paris, this
was the state of affairs on the Bourse. I have a
friend from the provinces, a stupid, who asked me,
when passing the Bourse, between four and five
o'clock, the reason for this assemblage of eager
talkers, who came and went, what they could be
saying to each other, and why they were thus going
about after the final settlement of the price of the
public funds. 'My friend,' I said to him, 'they
have eaten, they are digesting; during diges-
tion, they gossip about their neighbors; without
that, no commercial security in Paris.' There
THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN 95
enterprises are launched, and there is such and
such a man, Palma, for example, whose authority
is like that of Sinard at the Royal Academy of
Sciences. He says: 'Let there be speculation,' and
speculation there is."
"What a man, Messieurs," said Blondet, "is this
Jew, who possesses an education not of the Univer-
sities, but universal. In him, the universality does
not exclude profundity; what he knows, he knows
all the way to the bottom; his genius is intuitive in
business; he is the great referendary of the lynxes
who rule the Exchange of Paris, and who do not
undertake an enterprise until Palma has examined
it. He is grave, he listens, he studies, he reflects,
and says to his interlocutor, who, seeing his atten-
tion, believes him secured: 'That does not interest
me.' That which seems to me to be the most ex-
traordinary, is, that after having been for ten years
the associate of Werbrust, there have never arisen
any differences between them."
"That only happens between those who are very
strong or very weak; all those who are between
these two extremes quarrel and speedily separate
enemies," said Couture.
"You understand," said Bixiou, "that Nucingen
had knowingly and with a skilful hand thrown
under the columns of the Bourse a little shell which
exploded about four o'clock. 'Do you know of a
grave piece of news?' said Du Til let to Werbrust,
drawing him into a corner. 'Nucingen is in Brussels,
his wife has presented to the court a petition for
cp THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN
her separation of property.' 'Are you his accom-
plice in a liquidation?' said Werbrust, smiling. 'No
nonsense, Werbrust,' said Du Tillet; 'you know
the people who have his paper ; listen to me, we have
an affair to arrange. The shares of our new company
earn twenty per cent, they will gain twenty-five at
the end of the quarter ; you know why. There will
be a magnificent dividend. ' 'You are sly, ' said Wer-
brust, 'go on, go your way; you are a devil whose
claws are long and pointed, and you plunge them in
butter.' 'But let me tell you, or we will not have
time in which to operate. I found my idea when I
heard the news, and 1 have positively seen Madame
de Nucingen in tears ; she has fears for her fortune. '
'Poor little thing!' said Werbrust, with an ironical
air. 'Well ?' resumed this old Alsatian Jew, inter-
rogating Du Tillet, who was silent. 'Well, there
are in my office a thousand shares of a thousand
francs which Nucingen delivered to me to put on
the market, do you understand?' 'Good!' 'We will
buy at ten, at twenty per cent discount, paper
of the House of Nucingen for a million, we will gain
a fine premium on this million, for we will be cred-
itors and debtors, there will be uncertainty! But
we must act carefully; the holders might believe
that we are manceuvering in the interests of Nucin-
gen.' Werbrust now comprehended the thing to
be done and grasped Du Tillet's hand, throwing upon
him the look of a woman who is playing a trick on her
neighbor. 'Well, have you heard the news?' said
Martin Falleix to them. 'The House of Nucingen
THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN 97
has suspended!' 'Bah!' replied Werbrust; 'Do
not noise that about, let the people who hold his
paper attend to their affairs.' 'Do you know the
cause of the disaster ? — ' said Claparon, intervening.
'You, you know nothing,' said Du Tillet to him;
'there will not be the least disaster, there will be
payment in full. Nucingen will resume and will
find all the funds he requires in my hands. I know
the cause of the suspension, — he has put all his
capital in Mexican investments, which repay him
in metals, in Spanish cannon so ridiculously cast
that there is gold in them, bells, church silver,
all the debris of the Spanish monarchy in the
Indies. The return of these values is delayed.
The dear baron is cramped, that is all.' 'That is
true,' said Werbrust, 'I take his paper at twenty
per cent discount. The news circulated thencefor-
ward with the rapidity of fire under a stack of
straw. The most contradictory things were said.
But there was so much confidence in the House of
Nucingen, always because of the two preceding
liquidations, that everybody kept its paper. 'It is
necessary that Palma give us a lift,' said Werbrust.
Palma was the oracle of the Kellers, who were gorged
with Nucingen securities. A word of alarm from
him would suffice. Werbrust persuaded Palma to
sound this tocsin. The next day, alarm pervaded
the Bourse. The Kellers, advised by Palma, dis-
posed of their securities at ten per cent rebate, and
were accepted as authority at the Bourse; they
were known to be very shrewd. Taillefer then
7
98 THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN
disposed of three hundred thousand francs at twenty
per cent, Martin Falleix two hundred thousand at
fifteen per cent. Gigonnet guessed the trick! He
encouraged the panic in order to be able to procure
the Nucingen paper so as to gain some two or
three per cent, by selling it to Werbrust. He per-
ceived, in a corner of the Bourse, the poor Matifat,
who had three hundred thousand francs in the
hands of Nucingen. The druggist, pale and ghastly,
did not see without a shudder the terrible Gigonnet,
the discounter of his ancient quarter, coming to him
to terrify him. 'That is bad, the crisis is at
hand. Nucingen is making an arrangement! but
that does not concern you, Father Matifat; you have
retired from business.' 'Well, you are mistaken,
Gigonnet, I am caught with three hundred thousand
francs with which I wished to operate in Spanish
funds.' 'They are saved; the Spanish funds would
have entirely devoured you, whilst I will give you
something like fifty per cent for your account with
Nucingen.' 'I had rather see the liquidation,' replied
Matifat; 'a banker has never given less than fifty
per cent. Ah, if it were only a question of ten per
cent loss,' said the former druggist. 'Well, will
you have it at fifteen?' said Gigonnet. 'You
seem to me very eager,' said Matifat. 'Good-
evening,' said Gigonnet. 'Will you have it at
twelve?' 'Agreed,' said Gigonnet. Two millions
were bought up that evening and balanced at
Nucingen's by Du Tillet, for the account of these
three fortunate associates, who, the next day,
THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN
99
received their premium. The old, pretty and little
Baroness d'Aldrigger was breakfasting with her
two daughters and Godefroid, when Rastignac came
with a diplomatic air and engaged the conversation
on the financial crisis. The Baron de Nucingen
had a lively affection for the d'Aldrigger family;
he had arranged in case of misfortune to cover the
account of the baroness with his most valuable
securities, shares in the mines of silver-bearing
lead ore; but, for the security of the baroness, she
should request him to employ her funds in this
manner. 'That poor Nucingen,' said the bar-
oness. 'And what has happened to him, then?'
'He is in Belgium; his wife has demanded a sepa-
ration of her property; but he has gone to find other
resources among the bankers.' 'Mon Dieu, that
reminds me of my poor husband! Dear Monsieur
de Rastignac, how badly this must make you feel,
you who are so attached to that house.' 'Provided
that all the outsiders are protected, his friends will be
recompensed later. He will get out of it; he is a
clever man.' 'An honest man, above all,' cried the
baroness. At the end of a month the liquidation of
the liabilities of the House of Nucingen had
been accomplished, without any other process than
letters by which each one requested the employment
of his money in certain designated securities, and
without any other formalities on the part of the