--The last way is the
easiest----"
Madame Hulot raised her head, and looked uneasily at the ex-perfumer.
"Paris is a town whither every man of energy--and they sprout like
saplings on French soil--comes to meet his kind; talent swarms here
without hearth or home, and energy equal to anything, even to making a
fortune. Well, these youngsters--your humble servant was such a one in
his time, and how many he has known! What had du Tillet or Popinot
twenty years since? They were both pottering round in Daddy
Birotteau's shop, with not a penny of capital but their determination
to get on, which, in my opinion, is the best capital a man can have.
Money may be eaten through, but you don't eat through your
determination. Why, what had I? The will to get on, and plenty of
pluck. At this day du Tillet is a match for the greatest folks; little
Popinot, the richest druggist of the Rue des Lombards, became a
deputy, now he is in office.--Well, one of these free lances, as we
say on the stock market, of the pen, or of the brush, is the only man
in Paris who would marry a penniless beauty, for they have courage
enough for anything. Monsieur Popinot married Mademoiselle Birotteau
without asking for a farthing. Those men are madmen, to be sure! They
trust in love as they trust in good luck and brains!--Find a man of
energy who will fall in love with your daughter, and he will marry
without a thought of money. You must confess that by way of an enemy I
am not ungenerous, for this advice is against my own interests.
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