The banker, no doubt, like the conqueror, runs risks; but there are so few men in a position to wage this warfare, that the sheep have no business to meddle.  Such grand struggles are between the shepherds.  Thus, as the defaulters are guilty of having wanted to win too much, very little sympathy is felt as a rule for the misfortunes brought about by the coalition of the Nucingens.  If a speculator blows his brains out, if a stockbroker bolts, if a lawyer makes off with the fortune of a hundred families—­which is far worse than killing a man —­if a banker is insolvent, all these catastrophes are forgotten in Paris in few months, and buried under the oceanic surges of the great city.

The colossal fortunes of Jacques Coeur, of the Medici, of the Angos of Dieppe, of the Auffredis of la Rochelle, of the Fuggers, of the Tiepolos, of the Corners, were honestly made long ago by the advantages they had over the ignorance of the people as to the sources of precious products; but nowadays geographical information has reached the masses, and competition has so effectually limited the profits, that every rapidly made fortune is the result of chance, or of a discovery, or of some legalized robbery.  The lower grades of mercantile enterprise have retorted on the perfidious dealings of higher commerce, especially during the last ten years, by base adulteration of the raw material.  Wherever chemistry is practised, wine is no longer procurable; the vine industry is consequently waning.  Manufactured salt is sold to avoid the excise.  The tribunals are appalled by this universal dishonesty.  In short, French trade is regarded with suspicion by the whole world, and England too is fast being demoralized.

With us the mischief has its origin in the political situation.  The Charter proclaimed the reign of Money, and success has become the supreme consideration of an atheistic age.  And, indeed, the corruption of the higher ranks is infinitely more hideous, in spite of the dazzling display and specious arguments of wealth, than that ignoble and more personal corruption of the inferior classes, of which certain details lend a comic element—­terrible, if you will—­to this drama.  The Government, always alarmed by a new idea, has banished these materials of modern comedy from the stage.  The citizen class, less liberal than Louis XIV., dreads the advent of its Mariage de Figaro, forbids the appearance of a political Tartuffe, and certainly would not allow Turcaret to be represented, for Turcaret is king.  Consequently, comedy has to be narrated, and a book is now the weapon —­less swift, but no more sure—­that writers wield.

In the course of this morning, amid the coming and going of callers, orders to be given, and brief interviews, making Nucingen’s private office a sort of financial lobby, one of his stockbrokers announced to him the disappearance of a member of the Company, one of the richest and cleverest too—­Jacques Falleix, brother of Martin Falleix, and the successor of Jules Desmarets.  Jacques Falleix was stockbroker in ordinary to the house of Nucingen.  In concert with du Tillet and the Kellers, the Baron had plotted the ruin of this man in cold blood, as if it had been the killing of a Passover lamb.