"All claims satisfied, there remained to him five hundred thousand
francs and certain receipts for sums advanced to that Imperial
Government, which had ceased to exist. 'See vat komms of too much
pelief in Nappolion,' said he, when he had realized all his capital.

"When you have been one of the leading men in a place, how are you to
remain in it when your estate has dwindled? D'Aldrigger, like all
ruined provincials, removed to Paris, there intrepidly wore the
tricolor braces embroidered with Imperial eagles, and lived entirely
in Bonapartist circles. His capital he handed over to Nucingen, who
gave him eight per cent upon it, and took over the loans to the
Imperial Government at a mere sixty per cent of reduction; wherefore
d'Aldrigger squeezed Nucingen's hand and said, 'I knew dot in you I
should find de heart of ein Elzacien.'

"(Nucingen was paid in full through our friend des Lupeaulx.) Well
fleeced as d'Aldrigger had been, he still possessed an income of
forty-four thousand francs; but his mortification was further
complicated by the spleen which lies in wait for the business man so
soon as he retires from business. He set himself, noble heart, to
sacrifice himself to his wife, now that her fortune was lost, that
fortune of which she had allowed herself to be despoiled so easily,
after the manner of a girl entirely ignorant of money matters. Mme.
d'Aldrigger accordingly missed not a single pleasure to which she had
been accustomed; any void caused by the loss of Strasbourg
acquaintances were speedily filled, and more than filled, with Paris
gaieties.

"Even then as now the Nucingens lived at the higher end of financial