While Renée, luxuriously installed in the apartment on the rue de Rivoli, right in the middle of the new Paris of which she was soon to become one of the queens, pondered her future wardrobe and tried her hand at the life of the socialite, her husband devoted himself to his first important business transaction. His first move was to buy from his wife the house on the rue de la Pépinière, using a certain Larsonneau as an intermediary. Larsonneau was someone he had come to know while prying into the secrets of city hall but who had been foolish enough to get caught going through the prefect’s files. He had then set himself up as a real estate agent in an office off a dank and dismal courtyard at the lower end of the rue Saint-Jacques. This was a cruel blow to Larsonneau’s pride, as well as to his greed. He found himself in the same position Saccard had been in prior to his marriage. He, too, claimed to have invented a “money machine,” only he lacked the initial funds needed to capitalize on his invention. Saccard quickly came to a tacit understanding with his former colleague, who did his job so well that he managed to purchase the house for 150,000 francs. After only a few months, Renée was already badly in need of cash. Her husband intervened solely to authorize his wife to sell. When the deal was done, she asked him to invest the proceeds on her behalf and entrusted 100,000 francs of the money to him, no doubt hoping to win him over with this show of confidence and encourage him to overlook the 50,000 francs she kept for pocket money. He smiled knowingly. In his calculations he had already taken into account the fact that she would be shoveling money out the window. The 50,000 francs that would soon vanish in lace and jewels would come back to him with a hundred percent profit. He was so pleased with this first transaction that he carried honesty to the point of actually investing the 100,000 francs that Renée had given him in bonds, which he then turned over to his wife. Since she could not sell them, he was certain of being able to recover his nest egg should the need arise.

“My dear,” he said gallantly, “these will do for your rags.”

Once he was in possession of the house, he was shrewd enough to resell it twice to fronts, raising the price each time. The final buyer paid no less than 300,000 francs for the property. Meanwhile, Larsonneau, who acted as sole representative of the successive owners, harassed the tenants. He was merciless, refusing to renew their leases unless they agreed to substantial rent increases. The tenants, having gotten wind of the impending confiscation of the property, were desperate. In the end they agreed to accept the rent hike, especially after Larsonneau made the conciliatory gesture of announcing that the increase would exist only on paper for the first five years and no additional sums would actually be collected. The few tenants who refused to back down were replaced by shills to whom free housing was offered in exchange for signing any document placed in front of them. This yielded two benefits: the nominal rents went up, and the indemnity to be paid to the tenant for his lease would go to Saccard. Mme Sidonie wanted to help her brother out by setting up a piano shop in one of the ground-floor boutiques. At this point Saccard and Larsonneau got a bit carried away: they concocted fake books for the business and forged signatures to make it appear as though the shop was doing a huge volume of sales. They spent several nights together scribbling away. As a result of all these efforts, the building tripled in value. Thanks to the final contract of sale, the rent increases, the sham tenants, and Mme Sidonie’s shop, it was possible to propose an estimated value of 500,000 francs to the commission on indemnities.

Confiscation by eminent domain—the powerful machine that bulldozed its way through Paris for fifteen years, leaving wealth and ruin in its wake—could not be simpler in its operation. As soon as the decision to build a new street is made, surveyors map out the affected parcels of land and estimate the value of the properties. In the case of rental properties, they make inquiries to determine the income stream from rentals in order to calculate an approximate value of the building as a capital investment. The indemnity commission, made up of members of the municipal council, then makes an offer that is always less than this calculated figure, knowing that the owners will ask for more and that the eventual price will be reached through compromise. If agreement cannot be reached, the case goes to a jury, which has the final say in arbitrating between the city’s offer and the price asked by the landlord or lessee facing expropriation.

Saccard, who had decided to remain in his job at city hall until after the crucial decisions were taken, had briefly entertained the impudent idea of having himself named as estimator on the boulevard Malesherbes project, which would have allowed him to set the value of his own house. But he was afraid that in doing so he would inhibit his ability to exert influence on the members of the indemnity commission. So he had one of his colleagues appointed instead, a pleasant, amiable young man named Michelin, whose strikingly beautiful wife often appeared in person to present her husband’s excuses to his superiors when he stayed away from work. He stayed away frequently. Saccard had observed that the lovely Mme Michelin, who had such a discreet way of slipping into offices when doors were left ajar, could work wonders. Michelin came away from each of his illnesses with a promotion; he made his way in life by taking to his bed. During one of his absences, when he was sending his wife to the office nearly every morning with news of his condition, Saccard twice ran into him on the outer boulevards smoking his cigar with his usual expression of bemused delight. These encounters left Saccard with sympathy for both this fine young man and this happy couple, which had demonstrated such ingenuity and pragmatism in its dealings with the bureaucracy. Indeed, he admired any skillfully operated money machine. After securing the appointment for Michelin, he went to see the young man’s charming wife, insisted on introducing her to Renée, and spoke in her presence of his brother the deputy and illustrious speechmaker. Mme Michelin got the point. From that day on, her husband reserved his most significant smiles for his colleague. Saccard, who did not want to take the worthy youth into his confidence, simply turned up as if by chance on the day the building on the rue de la Pépinière was to be inspected. He offered his assistance. Michelin, who was stupider and more empty-headed than one might imagine, followed the instructions given him by his wife, who had recommended that he do everything possible to please M. Saccard. In any case, he suspected nothing. He thought that the clerk wanted him to hurry through his work so that they could go off together to a café. The leases, the rental receipts, and Mme Sidonie’s amazing books passed through his colleague’s hands while Saccard looked on, and there was not even time to verify the figures, which Saccard himself read out loud. Larsonneau, who was also present, treated his accomplice as a stranger.

“Go ahead, put it down as 500,000 francs,” Saccard said in the end. “The house is worth more. . . . Hurry up, I think there’s going to be a change in personnel at city hall, and I want to discuss it with you so that you can pass it on to your wife.”

That sealed the deal. Saccard was still anxious, though. He was afraid that the 500,000-franc figure might strike the indemnity commission as somewhat inflated for a house well-known to be worth 200,000 at best. The remarkable rise in real estate values had yet to take place. An investigation would have subjected him to a risk of serious unpleasantness. He remembered what his brother had said to him: “No unseemly scandals, or I’ll get rid of you.” And he knew Eugène to be the kind of man to carry out such a threat. The honorable members of the commission would need to have the wool pulled over their eyes, and their goodwill would have to be secured. He looked to two influential men whose friendship he had won by the way he greeted them in hallways when they met. The thirty-six members of the municipal council were handpicked by the Emperor himself, on the prefect’s recommendation, from among the senators, deputies, lawyers, doctors, and leading industrialists who knelt most devoutly before the majesty of the government. Of all of them, however, two had earned the favor of the Tuileries by their zealousness: Baron Gouraud and M. Toutin-Laroche.