In revolutions, as in storms at sea, solid
treasure goes to the bottom, and light trifles are floated to the
surface. Cesar Birotteau, a Royalist, in favor and envied, had been
made the mark of bourgeois hostility, while bourgeoisie triumphant
found its incarnation in Crevel.
This apartment, at a rent of a thousand crowns, crammed with all the
vulgar magnificence that money can buy, occupied the first floor of a
fine old house between a courtyard and a garden. Everything was as
spick-and-span as the beetles in an entomological case, for Crevel
lived very little at home.
This gorgeous residence was the ambitious citizen's legal domicile.
His establishment consisted of a woman-cook and a valet; he hired two
extra men, and had a dinner sent in by Chevet, whenever he gave a
banquet to his political friends, to men he wanted to dazzle or to a
family party.
The seat of Crevel's real domesticity, formerly in the Rue Notre-Dame
de Lorette, with Mademoiselle Heloise Brisetout, had lately been
transferred, as we have seen, to the Rue Chauchat. Every morning the
retired merchant--every ex-tradesman is a retired merchant--spent two
hours in the Rue des Saussayes to attend to business, and gave the
rest of his time to Mademoiselle Zaire, which annoyed Zaire very much.
Orosmanes-Crevel had a fixed bargain with Mademoiselle Heloise; she
owed him five hundred francs worth of enjoyment every month, and no
"bills delivered." He paid separately for his dinner and all extras.
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