Every year some fresh disaster shook Rougon's business.

A bankruptcy resulted in the loss of a few thousand francs; his estimates of crops proved incorrect, through the most incredible circumstances; the safest speculations collapsed miserably.

It was a truceless, merciless combat.
"You see I was born under an unlucky star!" Felicite would bitterly exclaim.
And yet she still struggled furiously, not understanding how it was that she, who had shown such keen scent in a first speculation, could now only give her husband the most deplorable advice.
Pierre, dejected and less tenacious than herself, would have gone into liquidation a score of times had it not been for his wife's firm obstinacy.

She longed to be rich.

She perceived that her ambition could only be attained by fortune.