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Updated: May 17, 2025
The first days of the year 1814, so fatal to imperial France, were marked at the Birotteaus by two events, not especially remarkable in other households, but of a nature to impress such simple souls as Cesar and his wife, who casting their eyes along the past could find nothing but tender memories. They had taken as head-clerk a young man twenty-two years of age, named Ferdinand du Tillet.
The destiny of the Birotteaus demanded, no doubt, that they should be oppressed by men, or by circumstances, wheresoever they planted themselves. The last child is the hero of this story. When Cesar at fourteen years of age could read, write, and cipher, he left his native place and came to Paris on foot to seek his fortune, with one louis in his pocket.
The friends of the family were easy in their minds, but the demands of mere acquaintances were enormous. Honors bring sycophants; and there was a goodly number of people whose invitations cost them more than one application. The Birotteaus were fairly frightened at the number of friends whom they did not know they had.
The judge had a coach at the end of the street, in which he carried off his nephew to the Birotteaus. Pillerault, Monsieur and Madame Ragon, and Monsieur Roguin were playing at boston, and Cesarine was embroidering a handkerchief, when the judge and Anselme arrived.
The clerk who had charge of the desk was a nephew of Monsieur Ragon named Popinot, a young man nineteen years old, who lived with the Birotteaus and was integrity itself. His figures, which disagreed with the money in the desk, revealed the deficit, and showed that the abstraction had been made after the balance had been added up. Husband and wife resolved to keep silence and watch the house.
The guests on this occasion were Popinot the judge, Pillerault, Anselme, the three Birotteaus, three Matifats, and the Abbe Loraux.
At first the Birotteaus kept only a cook, and lived in the entresol above the shop, a sort of den tolerably well decorated by an upholsterer, where the bride and bridegroom began a honeymoon that was never to end. Madame Cesar appeared to advantage behind the counter.
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