rich town abounding in capital slowly amassed by its trade in hosiery.

Monsieur Phileas Beauvisage was the Alexander, or, if you will, the
Attila of this business. And here follow the means by which this
honorable merchant had acquired his supremacy over cotton.

The last remaining child of farmers named Beauvisage, tenants of the
splendid farm of Bellache, a dependency of the Gondreville estate, his
parents made, in 1811, a great sacrifice in order to buy a substitute
and save their only child from conscription. After that, in 1813, the
mother Beauvisage, having become a widow, saved her son once more from
enrolment in the Gardes, thanks to the influence of the Comte de
Gondreville. Phileas, who was then twenty-one years of age, had been
devoted for the last three years to the peaceable trade of hosiery.

Coming to the end of the lease of Bellache, old Madame Beauvisage
declined to renew it. She saw she had enough to do in her old age in
taking care of her property. That nothing might give her uneasiness of
mind, she proceeded, by the help of Monsieur Grevin, the notary of
Arcis, to liquidate her husband's estate, although her son made no
request whatever for a settlement. The result proved that she owed him
the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand francs. The good woman did
not sell her landed property, most of which came from the unfortunate
Michu, the former bailiff of the Simeuse family; she paid the sum to
Phileas in ready money,--advising him to buy out the business of his
employer, Monsieur Pigoult, the son of the old justice of the peace,
whose affairs were in so bad a way that his death, as we have said,
was thought to be voluntary.

Phileas Beauvisage, a virtuous youth, having a deep respect for his