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Updated: June 15, 2025
"There is one place where you can learn what kings will fetch in the market; where nations are weighed in the balance and systems appraised; where the value of a government is stated in terms of the five-franc piece; where ideas and beliefs have their price, and everything is discounted; where God Himself, in a manner, borrows on the security of His revenue of souls, for the Pope has a running account there.
Other shops the wasps had entirely to themselves, and nobody cared and nobody came when I beat with a five-franc piece upon the board of custom. What I sought was no more to be found than if I had sought a nugget of Californian gold: so I went, spongeless, to pass the evening with the Family P. Salcy.
In two or three years, and without imposing taxes on any of you, Napoleon filled his vaults with gold, built palaces, made bridges, roads, scholars, fêtes, laws, vessels, harbours, and spent millions upon millions such enormous sums that he could, so they tell me, have paved France from end to end with five-franc pieces, if he had had a mind to.
During the seven or eight hours he passed at La Calade a considerable number of people had gathered round- the inn, and manifested every disposition to proceed to some excess. Most of them had in their hands five-franc pieces, in order to recognise the Emperor by his likeness on the coin.
"It will be a hard task, my good lady; still, there are a good many five-franc pieces in a thousand francs, and I will try to earn your money." "Good-morning, then, Madame Bijou."
She's such a good girl, she was learning so nicely at the Communal School! But now she hasn't even a shift to go there in." Pierre, who had at last written his address, slipped a five-franc piece into the little girl's hand, and, desirous as he was of curtailing any thanks, he hastily said: "You will know now where to find me if you need me for Laveuve.
She hesitated; then crossed the wide road towards the gardens, her thoughts still hovering about the five-franc piece. "It's a case for riotous living," she told herself, as she passed in to the smooth paths beneath the trees. "Five francs' worth of real dinner or something like that. Only I'm not feeling very riotous just now."
In the evening she went to a provision shop to buy food, and the man behind the counter took the five-franc piece. He looked at it, rung it on the counter, and, with a laugh, bent it easily in half. "See here, my little one," he said, tossing the coin back to her, "one does not buy good food with lead." Celia dragged herself out of the shop in despair. She was starving.
The blind man sank down on his haunches, with his head thrown back, whilst he rolled his greenish eyes, lolled out his tongue, and rubbed his stomach with both hands as he uttered a kind of hollow yell like a famished dog. Emma, filled with disgust, threw him over her shoulder a five-franc piece. It was all her fortune. It seemed to her very fine thus to throw it away.
There was a wonderful change in Hunterleys. He seemed to have grown years younger. "Come," he exclaimed, "they call this the City of Pleasure, but these are the first happy moments I have spent in it. We'll gamble in five-franc pieces for an hour or so. Then we'll go back to the hotel and have our trunks sent down to the station, dine at Ciro's and wire Richard.
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