At last the Rougons were nibbling at the pleasures of the wealthy! Their appetites, sharpened by thirty years of restrained desire, now fell to with wolfish teeth.

These fierce, insatiate wild beasts, scarcely entering upon indulgence, exulted at the birth of the Empire--the dawn of the Rush for the Spoils.

The Coup d'Etat, which retrieved the fortune of the Bonapartes, also laid the foundation for that of the Rougons.
Pierre stood up, held out his glass, and exclaimed: "I drink to Prince Louis--to the Emperor!" The gentlemen, who had drowned their jealousies in champagne, rose in a body and clinked glasses with deafening shouts.

It was a fine spectacle.
The bourgeois of Plassans, Roudier, Granoux, Vuillet, and all the others, wept and embraced each other over the corpse of the Republic, which as yet was scarcely cold.

But a splendid idea occurred to Sicardot.