menagerie, constructed to receive human beings of all trades and all
kinds, if that animal, calling itself the proprietor, should go to a
man of science and say: 'I want an individual of the bimanous species,
able to live in holes full of old boots, pestiferous with rags, and
ten feet square; I want him such that he can live there all his life,
sleep there, eat there, be happy, get children as pretty as little
cupids, work, toil, cultivate flowers, sing there, stay there, and
live in darkness but see and know everything,' most assuredly the man
of science could never have invented the porter to oblige the
proprietor; Paris, and Paris only could create him, or, if you choose,
the devil."

"Parisian creative powers have gone farther than that," said Gazonal;
"look at the workmen! You don't know all the products of industry,
though you exhibit them. Our toilers fight against the toilers of the
continent by force of misery, as Napoleon fought Europe by force of
regiments."

"Here we are, at my friend the usurer's," said Bixiou. "His name is
Vauvinet. One of the greatest mistakes made by writers who describe
our manners and morals is to harp on old portraits. In these days all
trades change. The grocer becomes a peer of France, artists capitalize
their money, vaudevillists have incomes. A few rare beings may remain
what they originally were, but professions in general have no longer
either their special costume or their formerly fixed habits and ways.
In the past we had Gobseck, Gigounet, Samonon,--the last of the
Romans; to-day we rejoice in Vauvinet, the good-fellow usurer, the
dandy who frequents the greenroom and the lorettes, and drives about
in a little coupe with one horse. Take special note of my man, friend
Gazonal, and you'll see the comedy of money, the cold man who won't