He was seized by the ambition to get on.
No pains were to be spared to gain his goal.
His master having been elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Cayrol accompanied him to Paris.

Life in the capital finished the turmoil of Cayrol's brain.

Seeing the prodigious activity of the great city on whose pavements fortunes sprang up in a day like mushrooms, the Auvergnat felt his moral strength equal to the occasion, and leaving his master, he became clerk to a merchant in the Rue du Sentier.
There, for four years, he studied commerce, and gained much experience.
He soon learned that it was only in financial transactions that large fortunes were to be rapidly made.

He left the Rue du Sentier, and found a place at a stock-broker's.

His keen scent for speculation served him admirably.