"Ladies! Ah! mademoiselle is doubtless yours," said Claparon, holding himself very straight and looking at Birotteau; "hey! you are not a bungler. None of the roses you distil can be compared with her; and perhaps it is because you have distilled roses that--"
"Faith!" said Roguin, interrupting him, "I am very hungry."
"Let us go to dinner," said Birotteau.
"We shall dine before a notary," said Claparon, catching himself up.
"You do a great deal of business?" said Pillerault, seating himself intentionally next to Claparon.
"Quantities; by the gross," answered the banker. "But it is all heavy, dull; there are risks, canals. Oh, canals! you have no idea how canals occupy us; it is easy to explain. Government needs canals. Canals are a want especially felt in the departments; they concern commerce, you know. 'Rivers,' said Pascal, 'are walking markets.' We must have markets. Markets depend on embankments, tremendous earth-works; earth-
works employ the laboring-classes; hence loans, which find their way back, in the end, to the pockets of the poor. Voltaire said, 'Canaux, canards, canaille!' But the government has its own engineers; you can't get a finger in the matter unless you get on the right side of them; for the Chamber,--oh, monsieur, the Chamber does us all the harm in the world! It won't take in the political question hidden under the financial question. There's bad faith on one side or the other. Would you believe it? there's Keller in the Chamber: now Francois Keller is an orator, he attacks the government about the budget, about canals.
Well, when he gets home to the bank, and we go to him with proposals, canals, and so forth, the sly dog is all the other way: everything is right; we must arrange it with the government which he has just been been impudently attacking. The interests of the orator and the interests of the banker clash; we are between two fires! Now, you understand how it is that business is risky; we have got to please everybody,--clerks, chambers, antechambers, ministers--"
"Ministers?" said Pillerault, determined to get to the bottom of this co-associate.
"Yes, monsieur, ministers."
"Well, then the newspapers are right?" said Pillerault.
"There's my uncle talking politics," said Birotteau. "Monsieur Claparon has won his heart."
"Devilish rogues, the newspapers," said Claparon. "Monsieur, the newspapers do all the mischief. They are useful sometimes, but they keep me awake many a night. I wish they didn't. I have put my eyes out reading and ciphering."
"To go back to the ministers," said Pillerault, hoping for revelations.
"Ministers are a mere necessity of government. Ah! what am I eating?
ambrosia?" said Claparon, breaking off. "This is a sauce you'll never find except at a tradesman's table, for the pot-houses--"
Here the flowers in Madame Ragon's cap skipped like young rams.
Claparon perceived the word was low, and tried to catch himself up.
"In bank circles," he said, "we call the best cafes.--Very, and the Freres Provencaux,--pot-houses in jest. Well, neither those infamous pot-houses nor our most scientific cooks can make us a sauce like this; mellifluous! Some give you clear water soured with lemon, and the rest drugs, chemicals."
Pillerault tried throughout the dinner to fathom this extraordinary being; finding only a void, he began to think him dangerous.
"All's well," whispered Roguin to Claparon.
"I shall get out of these clothes to-night, at any rate," answered Claparon, who was choking.
"Monsieur," said Cesar, addressing him, "we are compelled to dine in this little room because we are preparing, eighteen days hence, to assemble our friends, as much to celebrate the emancipation of our territory--"
"Right, monsieur; I myself am for the government. I belong, in opinion, to the /statu quo/ of the great man who guides the destinies of the house of Austria, jolly dog! Hold fast that you may acquire;
and, above all, acquire that you may hold. Those are my opinions, which I have the honor to share with Prince Metternich."
"--as to commemorate my promotion to the order of the Legion of honor," continued Cesar.
"Yes, I know. Who told me of that,--the Kellers, or Nucingen?"
Roguin, surprised at such tact, made an admiring gesture.
"No, no; it was in the Chamber."
"In the Chamber? was it Monsieur de la Billardiere?" said Birotteau.
"Precisely."
"He is charming," whispered Cesar to his uncle.
"He pours out phrases, phrases, phrases," said Pillerault, "enough to drown you."
"Possibly I showed myself worthy of this signal, royal favor,--"
resumed Birotteau.
"By your labors in perfumery; the Bourbons know how to reward all merit. Ah! let us support those generous princes, to whom we are about to owe unheard-of prosperity. Believe me, the Restoration feels that it must run a tilt against the Empire; the Bourbons have conquests to make, the conquests of peace. You will see their conquests!"
"Monsieur will perhaps do us the honor to be present at our ball?"
said Madame Cesar.
"To pass an evening with you, Madame, I would sacrifice the making of millions."
"He certainly does chatter," said Cesar to his uncle.