The firm of Puech & Lacamp, whose warehouses were in one of the darkest lanes of the old quarter, was far from prosperous.

It enjoyed but doubtful credit in the market, and people talked vaguely of bankruptcy.

It was precisely in consequence of these evil reports that Pierre turned his batteries in this direction.
No well-to-do trader would have given him his daughter.

He meant to appear on the scene at the very moment when old Puech should no longer know which way to turn; he would then purchase Felicite of him, and re-establish the credit of the house by his own energy and intelligence.
It was a clever expedient for ascending the first rung of the social ladder, for raising himself above his station.

Above all things, he wished to escape from that frightful Faubourg where everybody reviled his family, and to obliterate all these foul legends, by effacing even the very name of the Fouques' enclosure.