Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen

Before he left Paris for London Anthony was so thoroughly engaged in the great scheme to pry open the rusty flood gate of the Mexican treasury and turn its stagnant pool of bullion into the thirsty channels of European finance that he had all but forgotten his determination to order life from within rather than to have it overwhelmed from without, a determination which he had brought with him and cherished out of Africa.

It was true that the inanimate form of that ideal still lay vague and dormant in the twilight depths of his being, but it was like the neglected image of his little madonna that he had brought back with him from Gallegos wrapped up in Neleta's shawl along with other memorabilia of the past--and toilet articles. It was seldom remembered, and never brought out for contemplation. It simply reposed, probably safely enough, in a closed cupboard at numéro 47, Rue de Vielle du Temple, where he and Vincent Nolte for several months in the late autumn and early winter of 1801 conducted life in a gilded-bachelor style of existence that made them at once enviable, convenient, and valuable to a widening circle of influential friends.