Lieutenant-Colonel Bridau returned to Paris, taking with him his aunt
and the helpless Rouget, whom he escorted, three days after their
arrival, to the Treasury, where Jean-Jacques signed the transfer of
the income, which henceforth became Philippe's. The exhausted old man
and the Rabouilleuse were now plunged by their nephew into the
excessive dissipations of the dangerous and restless society of
actresses, journalists, artists, and the equivocal women among whom
Philippe had already wasted his youth; where old Rouget found
excitements that soon after killed him. Instigated by Giroudeau,
Lolotte, one of the handsomest of the Opera ballet-girls, was the
amiable assassin of the old man. Rouget died after a splendid supper
at Florentine's, and Lolotte threw the blame of his death upon a slice
of pate de foie gras; as the Strasburg masterpiece could make no
defence, it was considered settled that the old man died of
indigestion.
Madame Rouget was in her element in the midst of this excessively
decollete society; but Philippe gave her in charge of Mariette, and
that monitress did not allow the widow--whose mourning was diversified
with a few amusements--to commit any actual follies.
In October, 1823, Philippe returned to Issoudun, furnished with a
power of attorney from his aunt, to liquidate the estate of his uncle;
a business that was soon over, for he returned to Paris in March,
1824, with sixteen hundred thousand francs,--the net proceeds of old
Rouget's property, not counting the precious pictures, which had never
left Monsieur Hochon's hands. Philippe put the whole property into the
hands of Mongenod and Sons, where young Baruch Borniche was employed,
and on whose solvency and business probity old Hochon had given him
satisfactory assurances. This house took his sixteen hundred thousand
francs at six per cent per annum, on condition of three months' notice
in case of the withdrawal of the money.
One fine day, Philippe went to see his mother, and invited her to be
present at his marriage, which was witnessed by Giroudeau, Finot,
Nathan, and Bixiou. By the terms of the marriage contract, the widow
Rouget, whose portion of her late husband's property amounted to a
million of francs, secured to her future husband her whole fortune in
case she died without children. No invitations to the wedding were
sent out, nor any "billets de faire part"; Philippe had his designs.
He lodged his wife in an _appartement_ in the rue Saint-Georges, which
he bought ready-furnished from Lolotte. Madame Bridau the younger
thought it delightful, and her husband rarely set foot in it. Without
her knowledge, Philippe purchased in the rue de Clichy, at a time when
no one suspected the value which property in that quarter would one
day acquire, a magnificent hotel for two hundred and fifty thousand
francs; of which he paid one hundred and fifty thousand down, taking
two years to pay the remainder. He spent large sums in altering the
interior and furnishing it; in fact, he put his income for two years
into this outlay. The pictures, now restored, and estimated at three
hundred thousand francs, appeared in such surroundings in all their
beauty.
The accession of Charles X. had brought into still greater court favor
the family of the Duc de Chaulieu, whose eldest son, the Duc de
Rhetore, was in the habit of seeing Philippe at Tullia's. Under
Charles X., the elder branch of the Bourbons, believing itself
permanently seated on the throne, followed the advice previously given
by Marshal Gouvion-Saint-Cyr to encourage the adherence of the
soldiers of the Empire. Philippe, who had no doubt made invaluable
revelations as to the conspiracies of 1820 and 1822, was appointed
lieutenant-colonel in the regiment of the Duc de Maufrigneuse. That
fascinating nobleman thought himself bound to protect the man from
whom he had taken Mariette. The corps-de-ballet went for something,
therefore, in the appointment. Moreover, it was decided in the private
councils of Charles X., to give a faint tinge of liberalism to the
surroundings of Monseigneur the Dauphin. Philippe, now a sort of
equerry to the Duc de Maufrigneuse, was presented not only to the
Dauphin, but also to the Dauphine, who was not averse to brusque and
soldierly characters who had become noted for a past fidelity.
Philippe thoroughly understood the part the Dauphin had to play; and
he turned the first exhibition of that spurious liberalism to his own
profit, by getting himself appointed aide-de-camp to a marshal who
stood well at court.
In January, 1827, Philippe, who was now promoted to the Royal Guard as
lieutenant-colonel in a regiment then commanded by the Duc de
Maufrigneuse, solicited the honor of being ennobled. Under the
Restoration, nobility became a sort of perquisite to the "roturiers"
who served in the Guard. Colonel Bridau had lately bought the estate
of Brambourg, and he now asked to be allowed to entail it under the
title of count. This favor was accorded through the influence of his
many intimacies in the highest rank of society, where he now appeared
in all the luxury of horses, carriages, and liveries; in short, with
the surroundings of a great lord. As soon as he saw himself gazetted
in the Almanack under the title of Comte de Brambourg, he began to
frequent the house of a lieutenant-general of artillery, the Comte de
Soulanges.
Insatiable in his wants, and backed by the mistresses of influential
men, Philippe now solicited the honor of being one of the Dauphin's
aides-de-camp. He had the audacity to say to the Dauphin that "an old
soldier, wounded on many a battle-field and who knew real warfare,
might, on occasion, be serviceable to Monseigneur." Philippe, who
could take the tone of all varieties of sycophancy, became in the
regions of the highest social life exactly what the position required
him to be; just as at Issoudun, he had copied the respectability of
Mignonnet. He had, moreover, a fine establishment and gave fetes and
dinners; admitting none of his old friends to his house if he thought
their position in life likely to compromise his future. He was
pitiless to the companions of his former debauches, and curtly refused
Bixiou when that lively satirist asked him to say a word in favor of
Giroudeau, who wanted to re-enter the army after the desertion of
Florentine.
"The man has neither manners nor morals," said Philippe.
"Ha! did he say that of me?" cried Giroudeau, "of me, who helped him
to get rid of his uncle!"
"We'll pay him off yet," said Bixiou.
Philippe intended to marry Mademoiselle Amelie de Soulanges, and
become a general, in command of a regiment of the Royal Guard. He
asked so many favors that, to keep him quiet, they made him a
Commander of the Legion of honor, and also Commander of the order of
Saint Louis. One rainy evening, as Agathe and Joseph were returning
home along the muddy streets, they met Philippe in full uniform,
bedizened with orders, leaning back in a corner of a handsome coupe
lined with yellow silk, whose armorial bearings were surmounted with a
count's coronet. He was on his way to a fete at the Elysee-Bourbon;
the wheels splashed his mother and brother as he waved them a
patronizing greeting.
"He's going it, that fellow!" said Joseph to his mother.
"Nevertheless, he might send us something better than mud in our
faces."
"He has such a fine position, in such high society, that we ought not
to blame him for forgetting us," said Madame Bridau. "When a man rises
to so great a height, he has many obligations to repay, many
sacrifices to make; it is natural he should not come to see us, though
he may think of us all the same."
"My dear fellow," said the Duc de Maufrigneuse one evening, to the new
Comte de Brambourg, "I am sure that your addresses will be favorably
received; but in order to marry Amelie de Soulanges, you must be free
to do so. What have you done with your wife?"
"My wife?" said Philippe, with a gesture, look, and accent which
Frederick Lemaitre was inspired to use in one of his most terrible
parts. "Alas! I have the melancholy certainty of losing her. She has
not a week to live. My dear duke, you don't know what it is to marry
beneath you. A woman who was a cook, and has the tastes of a cook! who
dishonors me--ah! I am much to be pitied. I have had the honor to
explain my position to Madame la Dauphine. At the time of the
marriage, it was a question of saving to the family a million of
francs which my uncle had left by will to that person. Happily, my
wife took to drinking; at her death, I come into possession of that
million, which is now in the hands of Mongenod and Sons. I have thirty
thousand francs a year in the five per cents, and my landed property,
which is entailed, brings me in forty thousand more. If, as I am led
to suppose, Monsieur de Soulanges gets a marshal's baton, I am on the
high-road with my title of Comte de Brambourg, to becoming general and
peer of France. That will be the proper end of an aide-de-camp of the
Dauphin."
After the Salon of 1823, one of the leading painters of the day, a
most excellent man, obtained the management of a lottery-office near
the Markets, for the mother of Joseph Bridau. Agathe was fortunately
able, soon after, to exchange it on equal terms with the incumbent of
another office, situated in the rue de Seine, in a house where Joseph
was able to have his atelier. The widow now hired an agent herself,
and was no longer an expense to her son. And yet, as late as 1828,
though she was the directress of an excellent office which she owed
entirely to Joseph's fame, Madame Bridau still had no belief in that
fame, which was hotly contested, as all true glory ever will be. The
great painter, struggling with his genius, had enormous wants; he did
not earn enough to pay for the luxuries which his relations to
society, and his distinguished position in the young School of Art
demanded. Though powerfully sustained by his friends of the Cenacle
and by Mademoiselle des Touches, he did not please the Bourgeois. That
being, from whom comes the money of these days, never unties its
purse-strings for genius that is called in question; unfortunately,
Joseph had the classics and the Institute, and the critics who cry up
those two powers, against him. The brave artist, though backed by Gros
and Gerard, by whose influence he was decorated after the Salon of
1827, obtained few orders. If the ministry of the interior and the
King's household were with difficulty induced to buy some of his
greatest pictures, the shopkeepers and the rich foreigners noticed
them still less. Moreover, Joseph gave way rather too much, as we must
all acknowledge, to imaginative fancies, and that produced a certain
inequality in his work which his enemies made use of to deny his
talent.
"High art is at a low ebb," said his friend Pierre Grassou, who made
daubs to suit the taste of the bourgeoisie, in whose _appartements_ fine
paintings were at a discount.
"You ought to have a whole cathedral to decorate; that's what you
want," declared Schinner; "then you would silence criticism with a
master-stroke."
Such speeches, which alarmed the good Agathe, only corroborated the
judgment she had long since formed upon Philippe and Joseph. Facts
sustained that judgment in the mind of a woman who had never ceased to
be a provincial. Philippe, her favorite child, was he not the great
man of the family at last? in his early errors she saw only the
ebullitions of youth. Joseph, to the merit of whose productions she
was insensible, for she saw them too long in process of gestation to
admire them when finished, seemed to her no more advanced in 1828 than
he was in 1816. Poor Joseph owed money, and was bowed down by the
burden of debt; he had chosen, she felt, a worthless career that made
him no return. She could not conceive why they had given him the cross
of the Legion of honor. Philippe, on the other hand, rich enough to
cease gambling, a guest at the fetes of _Madame_, the brilliant colonel
who at all reviews and in all processions appeared before her eyes in
splendid uniforms, with his two crosses on his breast, realized all
her maternal dreams. One such day of public ceremony effaced from
Agathe's mind the horrible sight of Philippe's misery on the Quai de
l'Ecole; on that day he passed his mother at the self-same spot, in
attendance on the Dauphin, with plumes in his shako, and his pelisse
gorgeous with gold and fur. Agathe, who to her artist son was now a
sort of devoted gray sister, felt herself the mother of none but the
dashing aide-de-camp to his Royal Highness, the Dauphin of France.
Proud of Philippe, she felt he made the ease and happiness of her
life,--forgetting that the lottery-office, by which she was enabled to
live at all, came through Joseph.
One day Agathe noticed that her poor artist was more worried than
usual by the bill of his color-man, and she determined, though cursing
his profession in her heart, to free him from his debts. The poor
woman kept the house with the proceeds of her office, and took care
never to ask Joseph for a farthing. Consequently she had no money of
her own; but she relied on Philippe's good heart and well-filled
purse. For three years she had waited in expectation of his coming to
see her; she now imagined that if she made an appeal to him he would
bring some enormous sum; and her thoughts dwelt on the happiness she
should feel in giving it to Joseph, whose judgment of his brother,
like that of Madame Descoings, was so unfair.
Saying nothing to Joseph, she wrote the following letter to
Philippe:--
To Monsieur le comte de Brambourg:
My dear Philippe,--You have not given the least little word of
remembrance to your mother for five years. That is not right. You
should remember the past, if only for the sake of your excellent
brother. Joseph is now in need of money, and you are floating in
wealth; he works, while you are flying from fete to fete. You now
possess, all to yourself, the property of my brother. Little
Borniche tells me you cannot have less than two hundred thousand
francs a year. Well, then, come and see Joseph. During your visit,
slip into the skull a few thousand-franc notes. Philippe, you owe
them to us; nevertheless, your brother will feel grateful to you,
not to speak of the happiness you will give
Your mother,
Agathe Bridau, nee Rouget
Two days later the concierge brought to the atelier, where poor Agathe
was breakfasting with Joseph, the following terrible letter:--
My dear Mother,--A man does not marry a Mademoiselle Amelie de
Soulanges without the purse of Fortunatus, if under the name of
Comte de Brambourg he hides that of
Your son,
Philippe Bridau
As Agathe fell half-fainting on the sofa, the letter dropped to the
floor. The slight noise made by the paper, and the smothered but
dreadful exclamation which escaped Agathe startled Joseph, who had
forgotten his mother for a moment and was vehemently rubbing in a
sketch; he leaned his head round the edge of his canvas to see what
had happened. The sight of his mother stretched out on the floor made
him drop palette and brushes, and rush to lift what seemed a lifeless
body. He took Agathe in his arms and carried her to her own bed, and
sent the servant for his friend Horace Bianchon. As soon as he could
question his mother she told him of her letter to Philippe, and of the
answer she had received from him. The artist went to his atelier and
picked up the letter, whose concise brutality had broken the tender
heart of the poor mother, and shattered the edifice of trust her
maternal preference had erected. When Joseph returned to her bedside
he had the good feeling to be silent. He did not speak of his brother
in the three weeks during which--we will not say the illness, but--the
death agony of the poor woman lasted. Bianchon, who came every day and
watched his patient with the devotion of a true friend, told Joseph
the truth on the first day of her seizure.
"At her age," he said, "and under the circumstances which have
happened to her, all we can hope to do is to make her death as little
painful as possible."
She herself felt so surely called of God that she asked the next day
for the religious help of old Abbe Loraux, who had been her confessor
for more than twenty-two years. As soon as she was alone with him, and
had poured her griefs into his heart, she said--as she had said to
Madame Hochon, and had repeated to herself again and again throughout
her life:--
"What have I done to displease God? Have I not loved Him with all my
soul? Have I wandered from the path of grace? What is my sin? Can I be
guilty of wrong when I know not what it is? Have I the time to repair
it?"
"No," said the old man, in a gentle voice. "Alas! your life seems to
have been pure and your soul spotless; but the eye of God, poor
afflicted creature, is keener than that of his ministers. I see the
truth too late; for you have misled even me."
Hearing these words from lips that had never spoken other than
peaceful and pleasant words to her, Agathe rose suddenly in her bed
and opened her eyes wide, with terror and distress.
"Tell me! tell me!" she cried.
"Be comforted," said the priest. "Your punishment is a proof that you
will receive pardon. God chastens his elect. Woe to those whose
misdeeds meet with fortunate success; they will be kneaded again in
humanity until they in their turn are sorely punished for simple
errors, and are brought to the maturity of celestial fruits. Your
life, my daughter, has been one long error. You have fallen into the
pit which you dug for yourself; we fail ever on the side we have
ourselves weakened. You gave your heart to an unnatural son, in whom
you made your glory, and you have misunderstood the child who is your
true glory. You have been so deeply unjust that you never even saw the
striking contrast between the brothers. You owe the comfort of your
life to Joseph, while your other son has pillaged you repeatedly. The
poor son, who loves you with no return of equal tenderness, gives you
all the comfort that your life has had; the rich son, who never thinks
of you, despises you and desires your death--"
"Oh! no," she cried.
"Yes," resumed the priest, "your humble position stands in the way of
his proud hopes. Mother, these are your sins! Woman, your sorrows and
your anguish foretell that you shall know the peace of God. Your son
Joseph is so noble that his tenderness has never been lessened by the
injustice your maternal preferences have done him. Love him now; give
him all your heart during your remaining days; pray for him, as I
shall pray for you."
The eyes of the mother, opened by so firm a hand, took in with one
retrospective glance the whole course of her life. Illumined by this
flash of light, she saw her involuntary wrong-doing and burst into
tears. The old priest was so deeply moved at the repentance of a being
who had sinned solely through ignorance, that he left the room hastily
lest she should see his pity.
Joseph returned to his mother's room about two hours after her
confessor had left her. He had been to a friend to borrow the
necessary money to pay his most pressing debts, and he came in on
tiptoe, thinking that his mother was asleep. He sat down in an
armchair without her seeing him; but he sprang up with a cold chill
running through him as he heard her say, in a voice broken with
sobs,--
"Will he forgive me?"
"What is it, mother?" he exclaimed, shocked at the stricken face of
the poor woman, and thinking the words must mean the delirium that
precedes death.
"Ah, Joseph! can you pardon me, my child?" she cried.
"For what?" he said.
"I have never loved you as you deserved to be loved."
"Oh, what an accusation!" he cried. "Not loved me? For seven years
have we not lived alone together? All these seven years have you not
taken care of me and done everything for me? Do I not see you every
day,--hear your voice? Are you not the gentle and indulgent companion
of my miserable life? You don't understand painting?--Ah! but that's a
gift not always given. I was saying to Grassou only yesterday: 'What
comforts me in the midst of my trials is that I have such a good
mother. She is all that an artist's wife should be; she sees to
everything; she takes care of my material wants without ever troubling
or worrying me.'"
"No, Joseph, no; you have loved me, but I have not returned you love
for love. Ah! would that I could live a little longer-- Give me your
hand."
Agathe took her son's hand, kissed it, held it on her heart, and
looked in his face a long time,--letting him see the azure of her eyes
resplendent with a tenderness she had hitherto bestowed on Philippe
only. The painter, well fitted to judge of expression, was so struck
by the change, and saw so plainly how the heart of his mother had
opened to him, that he took her in his arms, and held her for some
moments to his heart, crying out like one beside himself,--"My mother!
oh, my mother!"
"Ah! I feel that I am forgiven!" she said. "God will confirm the
child's pardon of its mother."
"You must be calm: don't torment yourself; hear me. I feel myself
loved enough in this one moment for all the past," he said, as he laid
her back upon the pillows.
During the two weeks' struggle between life and death, there glowed
such love in every look and gesture and impulse of the soul of the
pious creature, that each effusion of her feelings seemed like the
expression of a lifetime. The mother thought only of her son; she
herself counted for nothing; sustained by love, she was unaware of her
sufferings. D'Arthez, Michel Chrestien, Fulgence Ridal, Pierre
Grassou, and Bianchon often kept Joseph company, and she heard them
talking art in a low voice in a corner of her room.
"Oh, how I wish I knew what color is!" she exclaimed one evening as
she heard them discussing one of Joseph's pictures.
Joseph, on his side, was sublimely devoted to his mother. He never
left her chamber; answered tenderness by tenderness, cherishing her
upon his heart. The spectacle was never afterwards forgotten by his
friends; and they themselves, a band of brothers in talent and
nobility of nature, were to Joseph and his mother all that they should
have been,--friends who prayed, and truly wept; not saying prayers and
shedding tears, but one with their friend in thought and action.
Joseph, inspired as much by feeling as by genius, divined in the
occasional expression of his mother's face a desire that was deep
hidden in her heart, and he said one day to d'Arthez,--
"She has loved that brigand Philippe too well not to want to see him
before she dies."
Joseph begged Bixiou, who frequented the Bohemian regions where
Philippe was still occasionally to be found, to persuade that
shameless son to play, if only out of pity, a little comedy of
tenderness which might wrap the mother's heart in a winding-sheet of
illusive happiness. Bixiou, in his capacity as an observing and
misanthropical scoffer, desired nothing better than to undertake such
a mission. When he had made known Madame Bridau's condition to the
Comte de Brambourg, who received him in a bedroom hung with yellow
damask, the colonel laughed.
"What the devil do you want me to do there?" he cried. "The only
service the poor woman can render me is to die as soon as she can; she
would be rather a sorry figure at my marriage with Mademoiselle de
Soulanges. The less my family is seen, the better my position. You can
easily understand that I should like to bury the name of Bridau under
all the monuments in Pere-Lachaise. My brother irritates me by
bringing the name into publicity. You are too knowing not to see the
situation as I do. Look at it as if it were your own: if you were a
deputy, with a tongue like yours, you would be as much feared as
Chauvelin; you would be made Comte Bixiou, and director of the
Beaux-Arts. Once there, how should you like it if your grandmother
Descoings were to turn up? Would you want that worthy woman, who looked
like a Madame Saint-Leon, to be hanging on to you? Would you give her
an arm in the Tuileries, and present her to the noble family you were
trying to enter? Damn it, you'd wish her six feet under ground, in a
leaden night-gown. Come, breakfast with me, and let us talk of something
else. I am a parvenu, my dear fellow, and I know it. I don't choose
that my swaddling-clothes shall be seen. My son will be more fortunate
than I; he will be a great lord. The scamp will wish me dead; I expect
it,--or he won't be my son."
He rang the bell, and ordered the servant to serve breakfast.
"The fashionable world wouldn't see you in your mother's bedroom,"
said Bixiou. "What would it cost you to seem to love that poor woman
for a few hours?"
"Whew!" cried Philippe, winking. "So you come from them, do you? I'm
an old camel, who knows all about genuflections. My mother makes the
excuse of her last illness to get something out of me for Joseph. No,
thank you!"
When Bixiou related this scene to Joseph, the poor painter was chilled
to the very soul.
"Does Philippe know I am ill?" asked Agathe in a piteous tone, the day
after Bixiou had rendered an account of his fruitless errand.
Joseph left the room, suffocating with emotion. The Abbe Loraux, who
was sitting by the bedside of his penitent, took her hand and pressed
it, and then he answered, "Alas! my child, you have never had but one
son."
The words, which Agathe understood but too well, conveyed a shock
which was the beginning of the end. She died twenty hours later.
In the delirium which preceded death, the words, "Whom does Philippe
take after?" escaped her.
Joseph followed his mother to the grave alone. Philippe had gone, on
business it was said, to Orleans; in reality, he was driven from Paris
by the following letter, which Joseph wrote to him a moment after
their mother had breathed her last sigh:--
Monster! my poor mother has died of the shock your letter caused
her. Wear mourning, but pretend illness; I will not suffer her
assassin to stand at my side before her coffin.
Joseph B.
The painter, who no longer had the heart to paint, though his bitter
grief sorely needed the mechanical distraction which labor is wont to
give, was surrounded by friends who agreed with one another never to
leave him entirely alone. Thus it happened that Bixiou, who loved
Joseph as much as a satirist can love any one, was sitting in the
atelier with a group of other friends about two weeks after Agathe's
funeral. The servant entered with a letter, brought by an old woman,
she said, who was waiting below for the answer.
Monsieur,--To you, whom I scarcely dare to call my brother, I am
forced to address myself, if only on account of the name I bear.--
Joseph turned the page and read the signature. The name "Comtesse
Flore de Brambourg" made him shudder. He foresaw some new atrocity on
the part of his brother.
"That brigand," he cried, "is the devil's own. And he calls himself a
man of honor! And he wears a lot of crosses on his breast! And he
struts about at court instead of being bastinadoed! And the scoundrel
is called Monsieur le Comte!"
"There are many like him," said Bixiou.
"After all," said Joseph, "the Rabouilleuse deserves her fate,
whatever it is. She is not worth pitying; she'd have had my neck wrung
like a chicken's without so much as saying, 'He's innocent.'"
Joseph flung away the letter, but Bixiou caught it in the air, and
read it aloud, as follows:--
Is it decent that the Comtesse Bridau de Brambourg should die in a
hospital, no matter what may have been her faults? If such is to
be my fate, if such is your determination and that of monsieur le
comte, so be it; but if so, will you, who are the friend of Doctor
Bianchon, ask him for a permit to let me enter a hospital?
The person who carries this letter has been eleven consecutive
days to the hotel de Brambourg, rue de Clichy, without getting any
help from my husband. The poverty in which I now am prevents my
employing a lawyer to make a legal demand for what is due to me,
that I may die with decency. Nothing can save me, I know that. In
case you are unwilling to see your unhappy sister-in-law, send me,
at least, the money to end my days. Your brother desires my death;
he has always desired it. He warned me that he knew three ways of
killing a woman, but I had not the sense to foresee the one he has
employed.
In case you will consent to relieve me, and judge for yourself the
misery in which I now am, I live in the rue du Houssay, at the
corner of the rue Chantereine, on the fifth floor. If I cannot pay
my rent to-morrow I shall be put out--and then, where can I go?
May I call myself,
Your sister-in-law,
Comtesse Flore de Brambourg.
"What a pit of infamy!" cried Joseph; "there is something under it
all."
"Let us send for the woman who brought the letter; we may get the
preface of the story," said Bixiou.
The woman presently appeared, looking, as Bixiou observed, like
perambulating rags. She was, in fact, a mass of old gowns, one on top
of another, fringed with mud on account of the weather, the whole
mounted on two thick legs with heavy feet which were ill-covered by
ragged stockings and shoes from whose cracks the water oozed upon the
floor. Above the mound of rags rose a head like those that Charlet has
given to his scavenger-women, caparisoned with a filthy bandanna
handkerchief slit in the folds.
"What is your name?" said Joseph, while Bixiou sketched her, leaning
on an umbrella belonging to the year II. of the Republic.
"Madame Gruget, at your service. I've seen better days, my young
gentleman," she said to Bixiou, whose laugh affronted her. "If my poor
girl hadn't had the ill-luck to love some one too much, you wouldn't
see me what I am. She drowned herself in the river, my poor Ida,
--saving your presence! I've had the folly to nurse up a quaterne, and
that's why, at seventy-seven years of age, I'm obliged to take care of
sick folks for ten sous a day, and go--"
"--without clothes?" said Bixiou. "My grandmother nursed up a trey,
but she dressed herself properly."
"Out of my ten sous I have to pay for a lodging--"
"What's the matter with the lady you are nursing?"
"In the first place, she hasn't got any money; and then she has a
disease that scares the doctors. She owes me for sixty days' nursing;
that's why I keep on nursing her. The husband, who is a count,--she is
really a countess,--will no doubt pay me when she is dead; and so I've
lent her all I had. And now I haven't anything; all I did have has
gone to the pawn-brokers. She owes me forty-seven francs and twelve
sous, beside thirty francs for the nursing. She wants to kill herself
with charcoal. I tell her it ain't right; and, indeed, I've had to get
the concierge to look after her while I'm gone, or she's likely to
jump out of the window."
"But what's the matter with her?" said Joseph.
"Ah! monsieur, the doctor from the Sisters' hospital came; but as to
the disease," said Madame Gruget, assuming a modest air, "he told me
she must go to the hospital. The case is hopeless."
"Let us go and see her," said Bixiou.
"Here," said Joseph to the woman, "take these ten francs."
Plunging his hand into the skull and taking out all his remaining
money, the painter called a coach from the rue Mazarin and went to
find Bianchon, who was fortunately at home. Meantime Bixiou went off
at full speed to the rue de Bussy, after Desroches. The four friends
reached Flore's retreat in the rue du Houssay an hour later.
"That Mephistopheles on horseback, named Philippe Bridau," said
Bixiou, as they mounted the staircase, "has sailed his boat cleverly
to get rid of his wife. You know our old friend Lousteau? well,
Philippe paid him a thousand francs a month to keep Madame Bridau in
the society of Florine, Mariette, Tullia, and the Val-Noble. When
Philippe saw his crab-girl so used to pleasure and dress that she
couldn't do without them, he stopped paying the money, and left her to
get it as she could--it is easy to know how. By the end of eighteen
months, the brute had forced his wife, stage by stage, lower and
lower; till at last, by the help of a young officer, he gave her a
taste for drinking. As he went up in the world, his wife went down;
and the countess is now in the mud. The girl, bred in the country, has
a strong constitution. I don't know what means Philippe has lately
taken to get rid of her. I am anxious to study this precious little
drama, for I am determined to avenge Joseph here. Alas, friends," he
added, in a tone which left his three companions in doubt whether he
was jesting or speaking seriously, "give a man over to a vice and
you'll get rid of him. Didn't Hugo say: 'She loved a ball, and died of
it'? So it is. My grandmother loved the lottery. Old Rouget loved a
loose life, and Lolotte killed him. Madame Bridau, poor woman, loved
Philippe, and perished of it. Vice! vice! my dear friends, do you want
to know what vice is? It is the Bonneau of death."
"Then you'll die of a joke," said Desroches, laughing.
Above the fourth floor, the young men were forced to climb one of the
steep, straight stairways that are almost ladders, by which the attics
of Parisian houses are often reached. Though Joseph, who remembered
Flore in all her beauty, expected to see some frightful change, he was
not prepared for the hideous spectacle which now smote his artist's
eye. In a room with bare, unpapered walls, under the sharp pitch of an
attic roof, on a cot whose scanty mattress was filled, perhaps, with
refuse cotton, a woman lay, green as a body that has been drowned two
days, thin as a consumptive an hour before death. This putrid skeleton
had a miserable checked handkerchief bound about her head, which had
lost its hair. The circle round the hollow eyes was red, and the
eyelids were like the pellicle of an egg. Nothing remained of the
body, once so captivating, but an ignoble, bony structure. As Flore
caught sight of the visitors, she drew across her breast a bit of
muslin which might have been a fragment of a window-curtain, for it
was edged with rust as from a rod. The young men saw two chairs, a
broken bureau on which was a tallow-candle stuck into a potato, a few
dishes on the floor, and an earthen fire-pot in a corner of the
chimney, in which there was no fire; this was all the furniture of the
room. Bixiou noticed the remaining sheets of writing-paper, brought
from some neighboring grocery for the letter which the two women had
doubtless concocted together. The word "disgusting" is a positive to
which no superlative exists, and we must therefore use it to convey
the impression caused by this sight. When the dying woman saw Joseph
approaching her, two great tears rolled down her cheeks.
"She can still weep!" whispered Bixiou. "A strange sight,--tears from
dominos! It is like the miracle of Moses."
"How burnt up!" cried Joseph.
"In the fires of repentance," said Flore. "I cannot get a priest; I
have nothing, not even a crucifix, to help me see God. Ah, monsieur!"
she cried, raising her arms, that were like two pieces of carved wood,
"I am a guilty woman; but God never punished any one as he has
punished me! Philippe killed Max, who advised me to do dreadful
things, and now he has killed me. God uses him as a scourge!"
"Leave me alone with her," said Bianchon, "and let me find out if the
disease is curable."
"If you cure her, Philippe Bridau will die of rage," said Desroches.
"I am going to draw up a statement of the condition in which we have
found his wife. He has not brought her before the courts as an
adulteress, and therefore her rights as a wife are intact: he shall
have the shame of a suit. But first, we must remove the Comtesse de
Brambourg to the private hospital of Doctor Dubois, in the rue du
Faubourg-Saint-Denis. She will be well cared for there. Then I will
summon the count for the restoration of the conjugal home."
"Bravo, Desroches!" cried Bixiou. "What a pleasure to do so much good
that will make some people feel so badly!"
Ten minutes later, Bianchon came down and joined them.
"I am going straight to Despleins," he said. "He can save the woman by
an operation. Ah! he will take good care of the case, for her abuse of
liquor has developed a magnificent disease which was thought to be
lost."
"Wag of a mangler! Isn't there but one disease in life?" cried Bixiou.
But Bianchon was already out of sight, so great was his haste to tell
Despleins the wonderful news. Two hours later, Joseph's miserable
sister-in-law was removed to the decent hospital established by Doctor
Dubois, which was afterward bought of him by the city of Paris. Three
weeks later, the "Hospital Gazette" published an account of one of the
boldest operations of modern surgery, on a case designated by the
initials "F. B." The patient died,--more from the exhaustion produced
by misery and starvation than from the effects of the treatment.
No sooner did this occur, than the Comte de Brambourg went, in deep
mourning, to call on the Comte de Soulanges, and inform him of the sad
loss he had just sustained. Soon after, it was whispered about in the
fashionable world that the Comte de Soulanges would shortly marry his
daughter to a parvenu of great merit, who was about to be appointed
brigadier-general and receive command of a regiment of the Royal
Guard. De Marsay told this news to Eugene de Rastignac, as they were
supping together at the Rocher de Cancale, where Bixiou happened to
be.
"It shall not take place!" said the witty artist to himself.
Among the many old friends whom Philippe now refused to recognize,
there were some, like Giroudeau, who were unable to revenge
themselves; but it happened that he had wounded Bixiou, who, thanks to
his brilliant qualities, was everywhere received, and who never
forgave an insult. One day at the Rocher de Cancale, before a number
of well-bred persons who were supping there, Philippe had replied to
Bixiou, who spoke of visiting him at the hotel de Brambourg: "You can
come and see me when you are made a minister."
"Am I to turn Protestant before I can visit you?" said Bixiou,
pretending to misunderstand the speech; but he said to himself, "You
may be Goliath, but I have got my sling, and plenty of stones."
The next day he went to an actor, who was one of his friends, and
metamorphosed himself, by the all-powerful aid of dress, into a
secularized priest with green spectacles; then he took a carriage and
drove to the hotel de Soulanges. Received by the count, on sending in
a message that he wanted to speak with him on a matter of serious
importance, he related in a feigned voice the whole story of the dead
countess, the secret particulars of whose horrible death had been
confided to him by Bianchon; the history of Agathe's death; the
history of old Rouget's death, of which the Comte de Brambourg had
openly boasted; the history of Madame Descoings's death; the history
of the theft from the newspaper; and the history of Philippe's private
morals during his early days.
"Monsieur le comte, don't give him your daughter until you have made
every inquiry; interrogate his former comrades,--Bixiou, Giroudeau,
and others."
Three months later, the Comte de Brambourg gave a supper to du Tillet,
Nucingen, Eugene de Rastignac, Maxime de Trailles, and Henri de
Marsay. The amphitryon accepted with much nonchalance the
half-consolatory condolences they made to him as to his rupture with
the house of Soulanges.
"You can do better," said Maxime de Trailles.
"How much money must a man have to marry a demoiselle de Grandlieu?"
asked Philippe of de Marsay.
"You? They wouldn't give you the ugliest of the six for less than ten
millions," answered de Marsay insolently.
"Bah!" said Rastignac. "With an income of two hundred thousand francs
you can have Mademoiselle de Langeais, the daughter of the marquis;
she is thirty years old, and ugly, and she hasn't a sou; that ought to
suit you."
"I shall have ten millions two years from now," said Philippe Bridau.
"It is now the 16th of January, 1829," cried du Tillet, laughing. "I
have been hard at work for ten years and I have not made as much as
that yet."
"We'll take counsel of each other," said Bridau; "you shall see how
well I understand finance."
"How much do you really own?" asked Nucingen.
"Three millions, excluding my house and my estate, which I shall not
sell; in fact, I cannot, for the property is now entailed and goes
with the title."
Nucingen and du Tillet looked at each other; after that sly glance du
Tillet said to Philippe, "My dear count, I shall be delighted to do
business with you."
De Marsay intercepted the look du Tillet had exchanged with Nucingen,
and which meant, "We will have those millions." The two bank magnates
were at the centre of political affairs, and could, at a given time,
manipulate matters at the Bourse, so as to play a sure game against
Philippe, when the probabilities might all seem for him and yet be
secretly against him.
The occasion came. In July, 1830, du Tillet and Nucingen had helped
the Comte de Brambourg to make fifteen hundred thousand francs; he
could therefore feel no distrust of those who had given him such good
advice. Philippe, who owed his rise to the Restoration, was misled by
his profound contempt for "civilians"; he believed in the triumph of
the Ordonnances, and was bent on playing for a rise; du Tillet and
Nucingen, who were sure of a revolution, played against him for a
fall. The crafty pair confirmed the judgment of the Comte de Brambourg
and seemed to share his convictions; they encouraged his hopes of
doubling his millions, and apparently took steps to help him. Philippe
fought like a man who had four millions depending on the issue of the
struggle. His devotion was so noticeable, that he received orders to
go to Saint-Cloud with the Duc de Maufrigneuse and attend a council.
This mark of favor probably saved Philippe's life; for when the order
came, on the 25th of July, he was intending to make a charge and sweep
the boulevards, when he would undoubtedly have been shot down by his
friend Giroudeau, who commanded a division of the assailants.
A month later, nothing was left of Colonel Bridau's immense fortune
but his house and furniture, his estates, and the pictures which had
come from Issoudun. He committed the still further folly, as he said
himself, of believing in the restoration of the elder branch, to which
he remained faithful until 1834. The not imcomprehensible jealousy
Philippe felt on seeing Giroudeau a colonel drove him to re-enter the
service. Unluckily for himself, he obtained, in 1835, the command of a
regiment in Algiers, where he remained three years in a post of
danger, always hoping for the epaulets of a general. But some
malignant influence--that, in fact, of General Giroudeau,--continually
balked him. Grown hard and brutal, Philippe exceeded the ordinary
severity of the service, and was hated, in spite of his bravery a la
Murat.
At the beginning of the fatal year 1839, while making a sudden dash
upon the Arabs during a retreat before superior forces, he flung
himself against the enemy, followed by only a single company, and fell
in, unfortunately, with the main body of the enemy. The battle was
bloody and terrible, man to man, and only a few horsemen escaped
alive. Seeing that their colonel was surrounded, these men, who were
at some distance, were unwilling to perish uselessly in attempting to
rescue him. They heard his cry: "Your colonel! to me! a colonel of the
Empire!" but they rejoined the regiment. Philippe met with a horrible
death, for the Arabs, after hacking him to pieces with their
scimitars, cut off his head.
Joseph, who was married about this time, through the good offices of
the Comte de Serizy, to the daughter of a millionaire farmer,
inherited his brother's house in Paris and the estate of Brambourg, in
consequence of the entail, which Philippe, had he foreseen this
result, would certainly have broken. The chief pleasure the painter
derived from his inheritance was in the fine collection of paintings
from Issoudun. He now possesses an income of sixty thousand francs,
and his father-in-law, the farmer, continues to pile up the five-franc
pieces. Though Joseph Bridau paints magnificent pictures, and renders
important services to artists, he is not yet a member of the
Institute. As the result of a clause in the deed of entail, he is now
Comte de Brambourg, a fact which often makes him roar with laughter
among his friends in the atelier.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Note: The Two Brothers is also known as A Bachelor's Establishment and
The Black Sheep. In other Addendum appearances it is referred to as A
Bachelor's Establishment.
Bianchon, Horace
Father Goriot
The Atheist's Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Secrets of a Princess
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Honorine
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Second Home
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of the Department
The Imaginary Mistress
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
Another Study of Woman
La Grande Breteche
Birotteau, Cesar
Cesar Birotteau
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
The Purse
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Beatrix
A Man of Business
Gaudissart II.
The Unconscious Humorists
Cousin Pons
Brambourg, Comte de (Title of Philippe Bridau, later Joseph)
The Unconscious Humorists
Bridau, Philippe
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Bridau, Joseph
The Purse
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Start in Life
Modeste Mignon
Another Study of Woman
Pierre Grassou
Letters of Two Brides
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Bruel, Jean Francois du
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life
A Prince of Bohemia
The Middle Classes
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Daughter of Eve
Bruel, Claudine Chaffaroux, Madame du
A Prince of Bohemia
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Middle Classes
Cabirolle, Madame
A Start in Life
Cabirolle, Agathe-Florentine
A Start in Life
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Camusot
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Cousin Pons
The Muse of the Department
Cesar Birotteau
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
Cardot, Jean-Jerome-Severin
A Start in Life
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
Cesar Birotteau
Chaulieu, Henri, Duc de
Letters of Two Brides
Modest Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Thirteen
Chrestien, Michel
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Secrets of a Princess
Claparon, Charles
Cesar Birotteau
Melmoth Reconciled
The Firm of Nucingen
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes
Coloquinte
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Coralie, Mademoiselle
A Start in Life
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Desplein
The Atheist's Mass
Cousin Pons
Lost Illusions
The Thirteen
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
The Seamy Side of History
Modest Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Honorine
Desroches (son)
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
A Woman of Thirty
The Commission in Lunacy
The Government Clerks
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes
Finot, Andoche
Cesar Birotteau
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life
Gaudissart the Great
The Firm of Nucingen
Gaillard, Madame Theodore
Jealousies of a Country Town
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Beatrix
The Unconscious Humorists
Gerard, Francois-Pascal-Simon, Baron
Beatrix
Giraud, Leon
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Secrets of a Princess
The Unconscious Humorists
Giroudeau
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Start in Life
Gobseck, Esther Van
Gobseck
The Firm of Nucingen
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Godeschal, Francois-Claude-Marie
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
The Commission in Lunacy
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Godeschal, Marie
A Start in Life
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Cousin Pons
Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de
The Gondreville Mystery
The Thirteen
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Grandlieu, Mademoiselle de
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Grassou, Pierre
Pierre Grassou
Cousin Betty
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Gruget, Madame Etienne
The Thirteen
The Government Clerks
Haudry (doctor)
Cesar Birotteau
The Thirteen
The Seamy Side of History
Cousin Pons
Lora, Leon de
The Unconscious Humorists
A Start in Life
Pierre Grassou
Honorine
Cousin Betty
Beatrix
Loraux, Abbe
A Start in Life
Cesar Birotteau
Honorine
Lousteau, Etienne
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Daughter of Eve
Beatrix
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
A Prince of Bohemia
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes
The Unconscious Humorists
Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
The Muse of the Department
Eugenie Grandet
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Government Clerks
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Ursule Mirouet
Magus, Elie
The Vendetta
A Marriage Settlement
Pierre Grassou
Cousin Pons
Matifat (wealthy druggist)
Cesar Birotteau
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Firm of Nucingen
Cousin Pons
Maufrigneuse, Duc de
The Secrets of a Princess
A Start in Life
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Nathan, Madame Raoul
The Muse of the Department
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Government Clerks
Ursule Mirouet
Eugenie Grandet
The Imaginary Mistress
A Prince of Bohemia
A Daughter of Eve
The Unconscious Humorists
Navarreins, Duc de
Colonel Chabert
The Muse of the Department
The Thirteen
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Peasantry
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Country Parson
The Magic Skin
The Gondreville Mystery
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty
Rhetore, Duc Alphonse de
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Letters of Two Brides
Albert Savarus
The Member for Arcis
Ridal, Fulgence
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Unconscious Humorists
Roguin
Cesar Birotteau
Eugenie Grandet
Pierrette
The Vendetta
Rouget, Jean-Jacques
The Muse of the Department
Schinner, Hippolyte
The Purse
Pierre Grassou
A Start in Life
Albert Savarus
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
The Imaginary Mistress
The Unconscious Humorists
Serizy, Comte Hugret de
A Start in Life
Honorine
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Tillet, Ferdinand du
Cesar Birotteau
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
Pierrette
Melmoth Reconciled
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Secrets of a Princess
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
Cousin Betty
The Unconscious Humorists
Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des
Beatrix
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Another Study of Woman
A Daughter of Eve
Honorine
Beatrix
The Muse of the Department
Vernou, Felicien
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Daughter of Eve
Cousin Betty