"Look!" said his cousin, pointing to an elegant caleche which
was turning at that moment from the boulevard into the rue
Grange-Bateliere, "there's one of the leading danseuses whose name
on the posters attracts all Paris. That woman earns sixty thousand
francs a year and lives like a princess; the price of your manufactory
all told wouldn't suffice to buy you the privilege of bidding her
good-morning a dozen times."

"Do you see," said Bixiou, "that young man who is sitting on the front
seat of her carriage? Well, he's a viscount who bears a fine old name;
he's her first gentleman of the bed-chamber; does all her business
with the newspapers; carries messages of peace or war in the morning
to the director of the Opera; and takes charge of the applause which
salutes her as she enters or leaves the stage."

"Well, well, my good friends, that's the finishing touch! I see now
that I knew nothing of the ways of Paris."

"At any rate, you are learning what you can see in ten minutes in the
Passage de l'Opera," said Bixiou. "Look there."

Two persons, a man and a woman, came out of the Passage at that
moment. The woman was neither plain nor pretty; but her dress had that
distinction of style and cut and color which reveals an artist; the
man had the air of a singer.

"There," said Bixiou, "is a baritone and a second danseuse. The
baritone is a man of immense talent, but a baritone voice being only
an accessory to the other parts he scarcely earns what the second