The Rush for the Spoil by Émile Zola

Three months later, on one of those gloomy spring mornings which bring back into Paris the dimness and dirty dampness of winter, Aristide Saccard alighted from his carriage at the Place du Château-d'Eau, and turned with four other gentlemen into the gorge of demolitions opened by the future Boulevard du Prince-Eugène. The party formed a committee of inquiry which the expropriation jury had despatched to the spot to estimate the value of certain property, the owners of which had not come to an amicable arrangement with the city of Paris.

Saccard was renewing his Rue de la Pépinière stroke of fortune. So that his wife's name might completely disappear from the affair, he had at first devised a mock sale of the ground and the music-hall. Larsonneau relinquished the whole to a supposed creditor. The deed of sale enunciated the colossal figure of three millions of francs. The sum was so exorbitant, that when the expropriation agent, in the name of the imaginary owner, claimed the amount of the purchase money as an indemnity, the commission of the Hôtel-de-Ville would not grant more than two millions five hundred thousand francs, despite the underhand endeavours of Monsieur Michelin, and the speeches of Monsieur Toutin-Laroche and Baron Gouraud. Saccard had expected this repulse; he refused the offer, and let the case go before the expropriation jury, of which he happened to be a member, together with Monsieur de Mareuil, by a chance he had no doubt assisted.