Saccard jobbed a big affair with the city of Paris. The latter, hard-up, crushed by its debt, dragged into this dance of millions which it had started to please the Emperor and fill certain people's pockets, was now reduced to borrowing covertly, not caring to own its violent fever, its stone-and-pickaxe madness. It had just begun to issue what it called delegation bonds, real bills of exchange at a distant date, so as to pay the contractors on the very days that the agreements were signed, and thus enable them to obtain money by having these bonds discounted. The Crédit Viticole had graciously accepted this paper from the contractors; and one day when the city was in need of money Saccard went to tempt it. A considerable sum was lent it on the security of delegation bonds which M. Toutin-Laroche swore he had obtained from contracting companies, and which he had dragged through all the gutters of speculation. After that the Crédit Viticole was above attack; it held Paris by the throat. The director now only talked with a smile about the famous Société Générale of the Ports of Morocco; and yet it still existed, and the newspapers continued regularly extolling the great commercial stations. One day when M. Toutin-Laroche tried to persuade Saccard to take some shares in this enterprise, the latter laughed in his face, asking him if he thought him fool enough to invest his money in the "General Company of the Arabian Nights." Saccard had so far speculated successfully, with safe profits, cheating, selling himself, making money by contracts, deriving some sort of gain from each of his operations. Soon, however, this jobbing did not suffice him, he disdained gleaning, picking up the gold which folks like Toutin-Laroche and Baron Gouraud dropped behind them. He plunged his arms into the bag, up to the shoulders. He went into partnership with Mignon, Charrier & Co., the famous contractors, who were then just starting, and who were destined to make colossal fortunes. The city of Paris had already decided not to execute the works itself, but to have the boulevards laid out by contract. The contracting companies agreed to deliver a thoroughfare complete, with its trees planted, its benches and lamp-posts duly placed, in exchange for a specified indemnity; at times they even delivered the thoroughfare for nothing, finding themselves amply remunerated by retaining the bordering building ground, for which they asked a greatly enhanced price. The fever of speculation in land, the furious rise in the value of house property date from this period. Saccard, thanks to his connections, obtained a grant to lay out three lots of boulevard. He was the ardent and somewhat muddling soul of the partnership. Messieurs Mignon & Charrier, his dependents at the outset, were fat, artful fellows, master masons, who knew the value of money. They laughed slyly at sight of Saccard's equipages; they generally retained