While waiting for an opportunity to embark, at the same time making
choice of a ship and reflecting on the chances offered by the various
ports for which they sailed, the colonel heard much talk about the
brilliant future which the peace seemed to promise to Havre. As he
listened to these conversations among the merchants, he foresaw the
means of fortune, and without loss of time he set about making himself
the owner of landed property, a banker, and a shipping-merchant. He
bought land and houses in the town, and despatched a vessel to New
York freighted with silks purchased in Lyons at reduced prices. He
sent Dumay on the ship as his agent; and when the latter returned,
after making a double profit by the sale of the silks and the purchase
of cottons at a low valuation, he found the colonel installed with his
family in the handsomest house in the rue Royale, and studying the
principles of banking with the prodigious activity and intelligence of
a native of Provence.
This double operation of Dumay's was worth a fortune to the house of
Mignon. The colonel purchased the villa at Ingouville and rewarded his
agent with the gift of a modest little house in the rue Royale.
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