the illustrious Bianchon lived in a shabby boarding-house in the Latin
Quarter; his people ate roast cockchafers and their own wine so as to
send him a hundred francs every month. His father's property was not
worth a thousand crowns; he had two sisters and a brother on his
hands, and now----"

"Now he has an income of forty thousand livres," continued Finot; "his
sisters had a handsome fortune apiece and married into noble families;
he leaves his mother a life interest in the property----"

"Even in 1827 I have known him without a penny," said Blondet.

"Oh! in 1827," said Bixiou.

"Well," resumed Finot, "yet to-day, as we see, he is in a fair way to
be a Minister, a peer of France--anything that he likes. He broke
decently with Delphine three years ago; he will not marry except on
good grounds; and he may marry a girl of noble family. The chap had
the sense to take up with a wealthy woman."

"My friends, give him the benefit of extenuating circumstances," urged
Blondet. "When he escaped the clutches of want, he dropped into the
claws of a very clever man."

"You know what Nucingen is," said Bixiou. "In the early days, Delphine
and Rastignac thought him 'good-natured'; he seemed to regard a wife
as a plaything, an ornament in his house. And that very fact showed me
that the man was square at the base as well as in height," added
Bixiou. "Nucingen makes no bones about admitting that his wife is his
fortune; she is an indispensable chattel, but a wife takes a second