In 1795, when the squall of the Terror had passed over, Nicolas Sechard was obliged to look out for another jack-of-all-trades to be compositor, reader, and foreman in one; and an Abbe who declined the oath succeeded the Comte de Maucombe as soon as the First Consul restored public worship.  The Abbe became a Bishop at the Restoration, and in after days the Count and the Abbe met and sat together on the same bench of the House of Peers.

In 1795 Jerome-Nicolas had not known how to read or write; in 1802 he had made no progress in either art; but by allowing a handsome margin for “wear and tear” in his estimates, he managed to pay a foreman’s wages.  The once easy-going journeyman was a terror to his “bears” and “monkeys.”  Where poverty ceases, avarice begins.  From the day when Sechard first caught a glimpse of the possibility of making a fortune, a growing covetousness developed and sharpened in him a certain practical faculty for business—­greedy, suspicious, and keen-eyed.  He carried on his craft in disdain of theory.  In course of time he had learned to estimate at a glance the cost of printing per page or per sheet in every kind of type.  He proved to unlettered customers that large type costs more to move; or, if small type was under discussion, that it was more difficult to handle.  The setting-up of the type was the one part of his craft of which he knew nothing; and so great was his terror lest he should not charge enough, that he always made a heavy profit.  He never took his eyes off his compositors while they were paid by the hour.  If he knew that a paper manufacturer was in difficulties, he would buy up his stock at a cheap rate and warehouse the paper.  So from this time forward he was his own landlord, and owned the old house which had been a printing office from time immemorial.

He had every sort of luck.  He was left a widower with but one son.  The boy he sent to the grammar school; he must be educated, not so much for his own sake as to train a successor to the business; and Sechard treated the lad harshly so as to prolong the time of parental rule, making him work at case on holidays, telling him that he must learn to earn his own living, so as to recompense his poor old father, who was slaving his life out to give him an education.

Then the Abbe went, and Sechard promoted one of his four compositors to be foreman, making his choice on the future bishop’s recommendation of the man as an honest and intelligent workman.  In these ways the worthy printer thought to tide over the time until his son could take a business which was sure to extend in young and clever hands.