When he was in possession of the house, he was skilful enough to sell it twice in a month to fictitious persons, increasing each time the amount paid. The last purchaser gave no less than three hundred thousand francs. Meanwhile, Larsonneau, who alone appeared as representative of the successive landlords, worked upon the tenants. He pitilessly declined to renew the leases, unless they consented to a formidable increase of rent. The tenants, who had an inkling of the approaching dispossession, were in despair; they ended by agreeing to the increase, especially when Larsonneau added in a conciliatory manner that this increase should remain a fictitious one during the first five years. As for the tenants who continued nasty, they were replaced by persons to whom the apartments were let for nothing and who signed everything they were asked to; there was thus a double profit: the rent was raised, and the indemnity reserved to the tenant for his lease was to go to Saccard. Madame Sidonie was willing to assist her brother by starting a piano-dealer's in one of the shops. It was then that Saccard and Larsonneau were carried away by their greed for gain and rather overreached themselves: they concocted the books of a regular business, they falsified accounts, so as to establish a sale of pianos on an enormous footing. During several nights they sat scribbling away together. Worked in this skilful manner the house increased in value threefold. Thanks to the last sale, to the raising of the rent, to the false tenants, and to Madame Sidonie's piano business, it might be considered worth five hundred thousand francs when the indemnity commission came to inquire into the matter. The mechanism of the instrument of dispossession, of that powerful machine which during fifteen years turned Paris topsy-turvy, breathing fortune and ruin the while, is of the simplest. Directly a new thoroughfare is decided upon, the road inspectors draw up the plan in separate portions and appraise the various buildings to be removed. They generally, after making inquiries, arrive at the total amount of the rents and can thus fix upon the approximate value. The indemnity commission, consisting of members of the municipal council, always offers something beneath this sum, knowing that the interested parties will be sure to demand more, and that there will be a mutual concession. When they are unable to come to terms, the matter is brought before a jury which decides without appeal between the offer of the municipality and the claims of the dispossessed landlord or tenant.