the marriage took place.

Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious protector to whom
the auctioneer alluded. Led away by such hopes and by the natural
extravagance of happy love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin spent nearly
one hundred thousand francs of their capital in the first five years
of married life. By the end of this time Celestine, alarmed at the
non-advancement of her husband, insisted on investing the remaining
hundred thousand francs of her dowry in landed property, which
returned only a slender income; but her future inheritance from her
father would amply repay all present privations with perfect comfort
and ease of life. When the worthy auctioneer saw his son-in-law
disappointed of the hopes they had placed on the nameless protector,
he tried, for the sake of his daughter, to repair the secret loss by
risking part of his fortune in a speculation which had favourable
chances of success. But the poor man became involved in one of the
liquidations of the house of Nucingen, and died of grief, leaving
nothing behind him but a dozen fine pictures which adorned his
daughter's salon, and a few old-fashioned pieces of furniture, which
she put in the garret.

Eight years of fruitless expectation made Madame Rabourdin at last
understand that the paternal protector of her husband must have died,
and that his will, if it ever existed, was lost or destroyed. Two
years before her father's death the place of chief of division, which
became vacant, was given, over her husband's head, to a certain
Monsieur de la Billardiere, related to a deputy of the Right who was
made minister in 1823. It was enough to drive Rabourdin out of the
service; but how could he give up his salary of eight thousand francs
and perquisites, when they constituted three fourths of his income and