Saccard secured the protection of these two personages by rendering them certain services, of the importance of which he cleverly pretended to be ignorant. He brought his sister and the baron together, the latter being then compromised in a very objectionable affair. He took her to him, under the pretence of soliciting his support in the favour of the dear woman who had been petitioning for a long time to obtain an order for the supply of curtains to the Tuileries. But it so happened that, when the road inspector left them together, it was Madame Sidonie who promised the baron to enter into negotiations with certain people who were stupid enough not to have felt honoured by the attention that a senator had deigned to bestow on their daughter, a little girl ten years old. Saccard took Monsieur Toutin-Laroche in hand himself; he manœuvred so as to obtain an interview with him in a corridor, and then brought the conversation round to the famous Crédit Viticole. At the end of five minutes, the great administrator, dazed and astounded by the amazing things told him, took the civil service clerk familiarly by the arm and detained him a full hour in the passage. Saccard whispered in his ear some financial deals which were prodigiously ingenious. When Monsieur Toutin-Laroche took his departure, he shook his hand in an expressive manner, and gave him the glance of a freemason. "You shall belong to it," murmured he, "you must really belong to it." Saccard surpassed himself throughout this affair. He carried his prudence so far as not to make Baron Gouraud and Monsieur Toutin-Laroche accomplices. He visited them separately, letting drop a word or two in their ear in favour of one of his friends who was about to be dispossessed of his house in the Rue de la Pépinière; he was careful to tell each of his confederates that he would mention the matter to no other member of the commission, that it was all very uncertain, but that he counted on his friendliness. The road inspector had done right to fear and to take his precautions. When the documents relating to his house came before the indemnity commission, it so happened that one of the members lived in the Rue d'Astorg, and knew the house. This member protested against the sum of five hundred thousand francs, which, according to him, should have been reduced to less than half. Aristide had had the impudence to have a claim sent in for seven hundred thousand francs. On that day Monsieur Toutin-Laroche, who was usually very disagreeable towards his colleagues, was even of a more detestable temper still. He became quite angry, and took the part of the landlords.