_To one bill for_ one thousand francs, _bearing date of February the
tenth, eighteen hundred and twenty-two, drawn by_ Séchard junior _of
Angoulême, to order of_ Lucien Chardon, _otherwise_ de Rubempré,
_endorsed to order of_ Métivier, _and finally to our order, matured
the thirtieth of April last, protested by_ Doublon, _process-server,
on the first of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two._
fr. c.
Principal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000 --
Expenses of Protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 35
Bank charges, one-half per cent. . . . . . . 5 --
Brokerage, one-quarter per cent. . . . . . . 2 50
Stamp on re-draft and present account. . . . 1 35
Interest and postage . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 --
____ ____
1024 20
Exchange at the rate of one and a quarter
per cent on 1024 fr. 20 c.. . . . . . . . 13 25
____ ____
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 45
_One thousand and thirty-seven francs forty-five centimes, for
which we repay ourselves by our draft at sight upon M. Métivier,
Rue Serpente, Paris, payable to order of M. Gannerac of L’Houmeau._
ANGOULEME, May 2, 1822 COINTET BROTHERS.
At the foot of this little memorandum, drafted with the ease that comes
of long practice (for the writer chatted with Doublon as he wrote),
there appeared the subjoined form of declaration:--
“We, the undersigned, Postel of L’Houmeau, pharmaceutical chemist,
and Gannerac, forwarding agent, merchant of this town, hereby
certify that the present rate of exchange on Paris is one and a
quarter per cent.
“ANGOULEME, May 2, 1822.”
“Here, Doublon, be so good as to step round and ask Postel and Gannerac
to put their names to this declaration, and bring it back with you
to-morrow morning.”
And Doublon, quite accustomed as he was to these instruments of torture,
forthwith went, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Evidently
the protest might have been sent in an envelope, as in Paris, and
even so all Angoulême was sure to hear of the poor Séchards’ unlucky
predicament. How they all blamed his want of business energy! His
excessive fondness for his wife had been the ruin of him, according
to some; others maintained that it was his affection for his
brother-in-law; and what shocking conclusions did they not draw from
these premises! A man ought never to embrace the interests of his kith
and kin. Old Séchard’s hard-hearted conduct met with approval, and
people admired him for his treatment of his son!
And now, all you who for any reason whatsoever should forget to “honor
your engagements,” look well into the methods of the banking business,
by which one thousand francs may be made to pay interest at the rate
of twenty-eight francs in ten minutes, without breaking the law of the
land.
The thousand francs, the one incontestable item in the account, comes
first.
The second item is shared between the bailiff and the Inland Revenue
Department. The six francs due to the State for providing a piece of
stamped paper, and putting the debtor’s mortification on record, will
probably ensure a long life to this abuse; and as you already know,
one franc fifty centimes from this item found its way into the banker’s
pockets in the shape of Doublon’s rebate.
“Bank charges one-half per cent,” runs the third item, which appears
upon the ingenious plea that if a banker has not received payment,
he has for all practical purposes discounted a bill. And although the
contrary may be the case, if you fail to receive a thousand francs,
it seems to be very much the same thing as if you had paid them away.
Everybody who has discounted a bill knows that he has to pay more than
the six per cent fixed by law; for a small percentage appears under
the humble title of “charges,” representing a premium on the financial
genius and skill with which the capitalist puts his money out to
interest. The more money he makes out of you, the more he asks.
Wherefore it would be undoubtedly cheaper to discount a bill with a
fool, if fools there be in the profession of bill-discounting.
The law requires the banker to obtain a stock-broker’s certificate for
the rate of exchange. When a place is so unlucky as to boast no stock
exchange, two merchants act instead. This is the significance of the
item “brokerage”; it is a fixed charge of a quarter per cent on the
amount of the protested bill. The custom is to consider the amount
as paid to the merchants who act for the stock-broker, and the banker
quietly puts the money into his cash-box. So much for the third item in
this delightful account.
The fourth includes the cost of the piece of stamped paper on which the
account itself appears, as well as the cost of the stamp for re-draft,
as it is ingeniously named, viz., the banker’s draft upon his colleague
in Paris.
The fifth is a charge for postage and the legal interest due upon the
amount for the time that it may happen to be absent from the banker’s
strong box.
The final item, the exchange, is the object for which the bank exists,
which is to say, for the transmission of sums of money from one place to
another.
Now, sift this account thoroughly, and what do you find? The method of
calculation closely resembles Polichinelle’s arithmetic in Lablache’s
Neapolitan song, “fifteen and five make twenty-two.” The signatures of
Messieurs Postel and Gannerac were obviously given to oblige in the way
of business; the Cointets would act at need for Gannerac as Gannerac
acted for the Cointets. It was a practical application of the well-known
proverb, “Reach me the rhubarb and I will pass you the senna.” Cointet
Brothers, moreover, kept a standing account with Métivier; there was no
need of a re-draft, and no re-draft was made. A returned bill between
the two firms simply meant a debit or credit entry and another line in a
ledger.
This highly-colored account, therefore, is reduced to the one thousand
francs, with an additional thirteen francs for expenses of protest, and
half per cent for a month’s delay, one thousand and eighteen francs it
may be in all.
Suppose that in a large banking-house a bill for a thousand francs is
daily protested on an average, then the banker receives twenty-eight
francs a day by the grace of God and the constitution of the banking
system, that all powerful invention due to the Jewish intellect of
the Middle Ages, which after six centuries still controls monarchs and
peoples. In other words, a thousand francs would bring such a house
twenty-eight francs per day, or ten thousand two hundred and twenty
francs per annum. Triple the average of protests, and consequently of
expenses, and you shall derive an income of thirty thousand francs
per annum, interest upon purely fictitious capital. For which reason,
nothing is more lovingly cultivated than these little “accounts of
expenses.”
If David Séchard had come to pay his bill on the 3rd of May, that is,
the day after it was protested, MM. Cointet Brothers would have met him
at once with, “We have returned your bill to M. Métivier,” although, as
a matter of fact, the document would have been lying upon the desk. A
banker has a right to make out the account of expenses on the evening of
the day when the bill is protested, and he uses the right to “sweat the
silver crowns,” in the country banker’s phrase.
The Kellers, with correspondents all over the world, make twenty
thousand francs per annum by charges for postage alone; accounts of
expenses of protest pay for Mme. la Baronne de Nucingen’s dresses, opera
box, and carriage. The charge for postage is a more shocking swindle,
because a house will settle ten matters of business in as many lines of
a single letter. And of the tithe wrung from misfortune, the Government,
strange to say! takes its share, and the national revenue is swelled by
a tax on commercial failure. And the Bank? from the august height of a
counting-house she flings an observation, full of commonsense, at the
debtor, “How is it?” asks she, “that you cannot meet your bill?” and,
unluckily, there is no reply to the question. Wherefore, the “account of
expenses” is an account bristling with dreadful fictions, fit to cause
any debtor, who henceforth shall reflect upon this instructive page, a
salutary shudder.
On the 4th of May, Métivier received the account from Cointet Brothers,
with instructions to proceed against M. Lucien Chardon, otherwise de
Rubempré, with the utmost rigor of the law.
Eve also wrote to M. Métivier, and a few days later received an answer
which reassured her completely:--
_To M. Séchard, Junior, Printer, Angoulême._
“I have duly received your esteemed favor of the 5th instant. From
your explanation of the bill due on April 30th, I understand that
you have obliged your brother-in-law, M. de Rubempré, who is
spending so much that it will be doing you a service to summons
him. His present position is such that he is likely to delay
payment for long. If your brother-in-law should refuse payment, I
shall rely upon the credit of your old-established house.--I sign
myself now, as ever, your obedient servant,
“Métivier.”
“Well,” said Eve, commenting upon the letter to David, “Lucien will know
when they summons him that we could not pay.”
What a change wrought in Eve those few words meant! The love that grew
deeper as she came to know her husband’s character better and better,
was taking the place of love for her brother in her heart. But to how
many illusions had she not bade farewell?
And now let us trace out the whole history of the bill and the account
of expenses in the business world of Paris. The law enacts that the
third holder, the technical expression for the third party into whose
hands the bill passes, is at liberty to proceed for the whole amount
against any one of the various endorsers who appears to him to be most
likely to make prompt payment. M. Métivier, using this discretion,
served a summons upon Lucien. Behold the successive stages of the
proceedings, all of them perfectly futile. Métivier, with the Cointets
behind him, knew that Lucien was not in a position to pay, but
insolvency in fact is not insolvency in law until it has been formally
proved.
Formal proof of Lucien’s inability to pay was obtained in the following
manner:
On the 5th of May, Métivier’s process-server gave Lucien notice of
the protest and an account of the expense thereof, and summoned him to
appear before the Tribunal of Commerce, or County Court, of Paris, to
hear a vast number of things: this, among others, that he was liable to
imprisonment as a merchant. By the time that Lucien, hard pressed
and hunted down on all sides, read this jargon, he received notice of
judgment against him by default. Coralie, his mistress, ignorant of the
whole matter, imagined that Lucien had obliged his brother-in-law, and
handed him all the documents together--too late. An actress sees so
much of bailiffs, duns, and writs, upon the stage, that she looks on all
stamped paper as a farce.
Tears filled Lucien’s eyes; he was unhappy on Séchard’s account, he
was ashamed of the forgery, he wished to pay, he desired to gain time.
Naturally he took counsel of his friends. But by the time Lousteau,
Blondet, Bixiou, and Nathan had told the poet to snap his fingers at a
court only established for tradesmen, Lucien was already in the clutches
of the law. He beheld upon his door the little yellow placard which
leaves its reflection on the porter’s countenance, and exercises a most
astringent influence upon credit; striking terror into the heart of
the smallest tradesman, and freezing the blood in the veins of a poet
susceptible enough to care about the bits of wood, silken rags, dyed
woolen stuffs, and multifarious gimcracks entitled furniture.
When the broker’s men came for Coralie’s furniture, the author of the
_Marguerites_ fled to a friend of Bixiou’s, one Desroches, a barrister,
who burst out laughing at the sight of Lucien in such a state about
nothing at all.
“That is nothing, my dear fellow. Do you want to gain time?”
“Yes, as much possible.”
“Very well, apply for stay of execution. Go and look up Masson, he is
a solicitor in the Commercial Court, and a friend of mine. Take your
documents to him. He will make a second application for you, and give
notice of objection to the jurisdiction of the court. There is not the
least difficulty; you are a journalist, your name is well known enough.
If they summons you before a civil court, come to me about it, that
will be my affair; I engage to send anybody who offers to annoy the fair
Coralie about his business.”
On the 28th of May, Lucien’s case came on in the civil court, and
judgment was given before Desroches expected it. Lucien’s creditor was
pushing on the proceedings against him. A second execution was put in,
and again Coralie’s pilasters were gilded with placards. Desroches felt
rather foolish; a colleague had “caught him napping,” to use his own
expression. He demurred, not without reason, that the furniture belonged
to Mlle. Coralie, with whom Lucien was living, and demanded an order for
inquiry. Thereupon the judge referred the matter to the registrar for
inquiry, the furniture was proved to belong to the actress, and judgment
was entered accordingly. Métivier appealed, and judgment was confirmed
on appeal on the 30th of June.
On the 7th of August, Maître Cachan received by the coach a bulky
package endorsed, “Métivier _versus_ Séchard and Lucien Chardon.”
The first document was a neat little bill, of which a copy (accuracy
guaranteed) is here given for the reader’s benefit:--
_To Bill due the last day of April, drawn by_
Séchard, junior, _to order of_ Lucien de
Rubempré, _together with expenses of fr. c.
protest and return_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 45
May 5th--Serving notice of protest and
summons to appear before the
Tribunal of Commerce in
Paris, May 7th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 75
“ 7th--Judgment by default and
warrant of arrest. . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 --
“ 10th--Notification of judgment . . . . . . . . . 8 50
“ 12th--Warrant of execution . . . . . . . . . . . 5 50
“ 14th--Inventory and appraisement
previous to execution. . . . . . . . . . . 16 --
“ 18th--Expenses of affixing placards. . . . . . . 15 25
“ 19th--Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 --
“ 24th--Verification of inventory, and
application for stay of execution
on the part of the said
Lucien de Rubempré, objecting
to the jurisdiction of the Court. . . . . . 12 --
“ 27th--Order of the Court upon application
duly repeated, and transfer of
of case to the Civil Court. . . . . . . . . 35 --
____ ____
Carried forward. . . . . . . . . . . . 1177 45
fr. c.
Brought forward 1177 45
May 28th--Notice of summary proceedings in
the Civil Court at the instance
of Métivier, represented by
counsel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 50
June 2nd--Judgment, after hearing both
parties, condemning Lucien for
expenses of protest and return;
the plaintiff to bear costs
of proceedings in the
Commercial Court. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 --
“ 6th--Notification of judgment. . . . . . . . . . 10 --
“ 15th--Warrant of execution. . . . . . . . . . . . 5 50
“ 19th--Inventory and appraisement preparatory
to execution; interpleader summons by
the Demoiselle Coralie, claiming goods
and chattels taken in execution; demand
for immediate special inquiry before
further proceedings be taken . . . . . . . 20 --
“ “ --Judge’s order referring matter to
registrar for immediate special inquiry. . 40 --
“ “ --Judgment in favor of the said
Mademoiselle Coralie . . . . . . . . . . . 250 --
“ 20th--Appeal by Métivier . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 --
“ 30th--Confirmation of judgment . . . . . . . . . 250 --
____ ____
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926 45
__________
Bill matured May 31st, with expenses of fr. c.
protest and return. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 45
Serving notice of protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 75
____ ____
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1046 20
Bill matured June 30th, with expenses of
protest and return. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 45
Serving notice of protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 75
____ ____
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1046 20
__________
This document was accompanied by a letter from Métivier, instructing
Maître Cachan, notary of Angoulême, to prosecute David Séchard with
the utmost rigor of the law. Wherefore Maître Victor-Ange-Herménégilde
Doublon summoned David Séchard before the Tribunal of Commerce in
Angoulême for the sum-total of four thousand and eighteen francs
eighty-five centimes, the amount of the three bills and expenses already
incurred. On the morning of the very day when Doublon served the writ
upon Eve, requiring her to pay a sum so enormous in her eyes, there came
a letter like a thunderbolt from Métivier:--
_To Monsieur Séchard, Junior, Printer, Angoulême._
“SIR,--Your brother-in-law, M. Chardon, is so shamelessly
dishonest, that he declares his furniture to be the property of an
actress with whom he is living. You ought to have informed me
candidly of these circumstances, and not have allowed me to go to
useless expense over law proceedings. I have received no answer
to my letter of the 10th of May last. You must not, therefore,
take it amiss if I ask for immediate repayment of the three bills
and the expenses to which I have been put.--Yours, etc.,
“METIVIER.”
Eve had heard nothing during these months, and supposed, in her
ignorance of commercial law, that her brother had made reparation for
his sins by meeting the forged bills.
“Be quick, and go at once to Petit-Claud, dear,” she said; “tell him
about it, and ask his advice.”
David hurried to his schoolfellow’s office.
“When you came to tell me of your appointment and offered me your
services, I did not think that I should need them so soon,” he said.
Petit-Claud studied the fine face of this man who sat opposite him in
the office chair, and scarcely listened to the details of the case,
for he knew more of them already than the speaker. As soon as he saw
Séchard’s anxiety, he said to himself, “The trick has succeeded.”
This kind of comedy is often played in an attorney’s office. “Why are
the Cointets persecuting him?” Petit-Claud wondered within himself, for
the attorney can use his wit to read his clients’ thoughts as clearly as
the ideas of their opponents, and it is his business to see both sides
of the judicial web.
“You want to gain time,” he said at last, when Séchard had come to an
end. “How long do you want? Something like three or four months?”
“Oh! four months! that would be my salvation,” exclaimed David.
Petit-Claud appeared to him as an angel.
“Very well. No one shall lay hands on any of your furniture, and no one
shall arrest you for four months----But it will cost you a great deal,”
said Petit-Claud.
“Eh! what does that matter to me?” cried Séchard.
“You are expecting some money to come in; but are you sure of it?” asked
Petit-Claud, astonished at the way in which his client walked into the
toils.
“In three months’ time I shall have plenty of money,” said the inventor,
with an inventor’s hopeful confidence.
“Your father is still above ground,” suggested Petit-Claud; “he is in no
hurry to leave his vines.”
“Do you think that I am counting on my father’s death?” returned David.
“I am on the track of a trade secret, the secret of making a sheet of
paper as strong as Dutch paper, without a thread of cotton in it, and at
a cost of fifty per cent less than cotton pulp.”
“There is a fortune in that!” exclaimed Petit-Claud. He knew now what
the tall Cointet meant.
“A large fortune, my friend, for in ten years’ time the demand for paper
will be ten times larger than it is to-day. Journalism will be the craze
of our day.”
“Nobody knows your secret?”
“Nobody except my wife.”
“You have not told any one what you mean to do--the Cointets, for
example?”
“I did say something about it, but in general terms, I think.”
A sudden spark of generosity flashed through Petit-Claud’s rancorous
soul; he tried to reconcile Séchard’s interests with the Cointet’s
projects and his own.
“Listen, David, we are old schoolfellows, you and I; I will fight your
case; but understand this clearly--the defence, in the teeth of the
law, will cost you five or six thousand francs! Do not compromise your
prospects. I think you will be compelled to share the profits of your
invention with some one of our paper manufacturers. Let us see now. You
will think twice before you buy or build a paper mill; and there is
the cost of the patent besides. All this means time, and money too. The
servers of writs will be down upon you too soon, perhaps, although we
are going to give them the slip----”
“I have my secret,” said David, with the simplicity of the man of books.
“Well and good, your secret will be your plank of safety,” said
Petit-Claud; his first loyal intention of avoiding a lawsuit by a
compromise was frustrated. “I do not wish to know it; but mind this that
I tell you. Work in the bowels of the earth if you can, so that no one
may watch you and gain a hint from your ways of working, or your plank
will be stolen from under your feet. An inventor and a simpleton often
live in the same skin. Your mind runs so much on your secrets that you
cannot think of everything. People will begin to have their suspicions
at last, and the place is full of paper manufacturers. So many
manufacturers, so many enemies for you! You are like a beaver with the
hunters about you; do not give them your skin----”
“Thank you, dear fellow, I have told myself all this,” exclaimed
Séchard, “but I am obliged to you for showing so much concern for me and
for your forethought. It does not really matter to me myself. An income
of twelve hundred francs would be enough for me, and my father ought by
rights to leave me three times as much some day. Love and thought make
up my life--a divine life. I am working for Lucien’s sake and for my
wife’s.”
“Come, give me this power of attorney, and think of nothing but your
discovery. If there should be any danger of arrest, I will let you know
in time, for we must think of all possibilities. And let me tell you
again to allow no one of whom you are not so sure as you are of yourself
to come into your place.”
“Cérizet did not care to continue the lease of the plant and premises,
hence our little money difficulties. We have no one at home now but
Marion and Kolb, an Alsacien as trusty as a dog, and my wife and her
mother----”
“One word,” said Petit-Claud, “don’t trust that dog----”
“You do not know him,” exclaimed David; “he is like a second self.”
“May I try him?”
“Yes,” said Séchard.
“There, good-bye, but send Mme. Séchard to me; I must have a power of
attorney from your wife. And bear in mind, my friend, that there is a
fire burning in your affairs,” said Petit-Claud, by way of warning of
all the troubles gathering in the law courts to burst upon David’s head.
“Here am I with one foot in Burgundy and the other in Champagne,” he
added to himself as he closed the office door on David.
Harassed by money difficulties, beset with fears for his wife’s health,
stung to the quick by Lucien’s disgrace, David had worked on at his
problem. He had been trying to find a single process to replace the
various operations of pounding and maceration to which all flax or
cotton or rags, any vegetable fibre, in fact, must be subjected; and as
he went to Petit-Claud’s office, he abstractedly chewed a bit of nettle
stalk that had been steeping in water. On his way home, tolerably
satisfied with his interview, he felt a little pellet sticking between
his teeth. He laid it on his hand, flattened it out, and saw that the
pulp was far superior to any previous result. The want of cohesion is
the great drawback of all vegetable fibre; straw, for instance, yields
a very brittle paper, which may almost be called metallic and resonant.
These chances only befall bold inquirers into Nature’s methods!
“Now,” said he to himself, “I must contrive to do by machinery and some
chemical agency the thing that I myself have done unconsciously.”
When his wife saw him, his face was radiant with belief in victory.
There were traces of tears in Eve’s face.
“Oh! my darling, do not trouble yourself; Petit-Claud will guarantee
that we shall not be molested for several months to come. There will be
a good deal of expense over it; but, as Petit-Claud said when he came
to the door with me, ‘A Frenchman has a right to keep his creditors
waiting, provided he repays them capital, interest, and costs.’--Very
well, then, we shall do that----”
“And live meanwhile?” asked poor Eve, who thought of everything.
“Ah! that is true,” said David, carrying his hand to his ear after the
unaccountable fashion of most perplexed mortals.
“Mother will look after little Lucien, and I can go back to work again,”
said she.
“Eve! oh, my Eve!” cried David, holding his wife closely to him.--“At
Saintes, not very far from here, in the sixteenth century, there
lived one of the very greatest of Frenchmen, for he was not merely the
inventor of glaze, he was the glorious precursor of Buffon and Cuvier
besides; he was the first geologist, good, simple soul that he was.
Bernard Palissy endured the martyrdom appointed for all seekers into
secrets but his wife and children and all his neighbors were against
him. His wife used to sell his tools; nobody understood him, he wandered
about the countryside, he was hunted down, they jeered at him. But I--am
loved----”
“Dearly loved!” said Eve, with the quiet serenity of the love that is
sure of itself.
“And so may well endure all that poor Bernard Palissy suffered--Bernard
Palissy, the discoverer of Écouen ware, the Huguenot excepted by Charles
IX. on the day of Saint-Bartholomew. He lived to be rich and honored in
his old age, and lectured on the ‘Science of Earths,’ as he called it,
in the face of Europe.”
“So long as my fingers can hold an iron, you shall want for nothing,”
cried the poor wife, in tones that told of the deepest devotion. “When
I was Mme. Prieur’s forewoman I had a friend among the girls, Basine
Clerget, a cousin of Postel’s, a very good child; well, Basine told me
the other day when she brought back the linen, that she was taking Mme.
Prieur’s business; I will work for her.”
“Ah! you shall not work there for long,” said David; “I have found
out----”
Eve, watching his face, saw the sublime belief in success which sustains
the inventor, the belief that gives him courage to go forth into the
virgin forests of the country of Discovery; and, for the first time in
her life, she answered that confident look with a half-sad smile. David
bent his head mournfully.
“Oh! my dear! I am not laughing! I did not doubt! It was not a sneer!”
cried Eve, on her knees before her husband. “But I see plainly now that
you were right to tell me nothing about your experiments and your hopes.
Ah! yes, dear, an inventor should endure the long painful travail of a
great idea alone, he should not utter a word of it even to his wife
.... A woman is a woman still. This Eve of yours could not help smiling
when she heard you say, ‘I have found out,’ for the seventeenth time
this month.”
David burst out laughing so heartily at his own expense that Eve caught
his hand in hers and kissed it reverently. It was a delicious moment for
them both, one of those roses of love and tenderness that grow beside
the desert paths of the bitterest poverty, nay, at times in yet darker
depths.
As the storm of misfortune grew, Eve’s courage redoubled; the greatness
of her husband’s nature, his inventor’s simplicity, the tears that now
and again she saw in the eyes of this dreamer of dreams with the
tender heart,--all these things aroused in her an unsuspected energy
of resistance. Once again she tried the plan that had succeeded so
well already. She wrote to M. Métivier, reminding him that the printing
office was for sale, offered to pay him out of the proceeds, and begged
him not to ruin David with needless costs. Métivier received the heroic
letter, and shammed dead. His head-clerk replied that in the absence of
M. Métivier he could not take it upon himself to stay proceedings, for
his employer had made it a rule to let the law take its course. Eve
wrote again, offering this time to renew the bills and pay all the costs
hitherto incurred. To this the clerk consented, provided that Séchard
senior guaranteed payment. So Eve walked over to Marsac, taking Kolb and
her mother with her. She braved the old vinedresser, and so charming was
she, that the old man’s face relaxed, and the puckers smoothed out at
the sight of her; but when, with inward quakings, she came to speak of a
guarantee, she beheld a sudden and complete change of the tippleographic
countenance.
“If I allowed my son to put his hand to the lips of my cash box whenever
he had a mind, he would plunge it deep into the vitals, he would take
all I have!” cried old Séchard. “That is the way with children; they
eat up their parents’ purse. What did I do myself, eh? _I_ never cost my
parents a farthing. Your printing office is standing idle. The rats and
the mice do all the printing that is done in it. . . . You have a pretty
face; I am very fond of you; you are a careful, hard-working woman; but
that son of mine!--Do you know what David is? I’ll tell you--he is a
scholar that will never do a stroke of work! If I had reared him, as
I was reared myself, without knowing his letters, and if I had made a
‘bear’ of him, like his father before him, he would have money saved and
put out to interest by now. . . . Oh! he is my cross, that fellow is,
look you! And, unluckily, he is all the family I have, for there is
never like to be a later edition. And when he makes you unhappy----”
Eve protested with a vehement gesture of denial.
“Yes, he does,” affirmed old Séchard; “you had to find a wet-nurse for
the child. Come, come, I know all about it, you are in the county court,
and the whole town is talking about you. I was only a ‘bear,’ _I_ have
no book learning, _I_ was not foreman at the Didots’, the first printers
in the world; but yet I never set eyes on a bit of stamped paper. Do
you know what I say to myself as I go to and fro among my vines, looking
after them and getting in my vintage, and doing my bits of business?--I
say to myself, ‘You are taking a lot of trouble, poor old chap; working
to pile one silver crown on another, you will leave a fine property
behind you, and the bailiffs and the lawyers will get it all; . . . or
else it will go in nonsensical notions and crotchets.’--Look you here,
child; you are the mother of yonder little lad; it seemed to me as
I held him at the font with Mme. Chardon that I could see his old
grandfather’s copper nose on his face; very well, think less of Séchard
and more of that little rascal. I can trust no one but you; you will
prevent him from squandering my property--my poor property.”
“But, dear papa Séchard, your son will be a credit to you, you will see;
he will make money and be a rich man one of these days, and wear the
Cross of the Legion of Honor at his buttonhole.”
“What is he going to do to get it?”
“You will see. But, meanwhile, would a thousand crowns ruin you? A
thousand crowns would put an end to the proceedings. Well, if you cannot
trust him, lend the money to me; I will pay it back; you could make it a
charge on my portion, on my earnings----”
“Then has some one brought David into a court of law?” cried the
vinedresser, amazed to find that the gossip was really true. “See what
comes of knowing how to write your name! And how about my rent! Oh!
little girl, I must go to Angoulême at once and ask Cachan’s advice, and
see that I am straight. You did right well to come over. Forewarned is
forearmed.”
After two hours of argument Eve was fain to go, defeated by the
unanswerable _dictum_, “Women never understand business.” She had come
with a faint hope, she went back again almost heartbroken, and reached
home just in time to receive notice of judgment; Séchard must pay
Métivier in full. The appearance of a bailiff at a house door is an
event in a country town, and Doublon had come far too often of late. The
whole neighborhood was talking about the Séchards. Eve dared not leave
her house; she dreaded to hear the whispers as she passed.
“Oh! my brother, my brother!” cried poor Eve, as she hurried into the
passage and up the stairs, “I can never forgive you, unless it was----”
“Alas! it was that, or suicide,” said David, who had followed her.
“Let us say no more about it,” she said quietly. “The woman who dragged
him down into the depths of Paris has much to answer for; and your
father, my David, is quite inexorable! Let us bear it in silence.”
A discreet rapping at the door cut short some word of love on David’s
lips. Marion appeared, towing the big, burly Kolb after her across the
outer room.
“Madame,” said Marion, “we have known, Kolb and I, that you and the
master were very much put about; and as we have eleven hundred francs of
savings between us, we thought we could not do better than put them in
the mistress’ hands----”
“Die misdress,” echoed Kolb fervently.
“Kolb,” cried David, “you and I will never part. Pay a thousand francs
on account to Maître Cachan, and take a receipt for it; we will keep the
rest. And, Kolb, no power on earth must extract a word from you as to my
work, or my absences from home, or the things you may see me bring back;
and if I send you to look for plants for me, you know, no human being
must set eyes on you. They will try to corrupt you, my good Kolb;
they will offer you thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of francs, to
tell----”
“Dey may offer me millions,” cried Kolb, “but not ein vort from me shall
dey traw. Haf I not peen in der army, and know my orders?”
“Well, you are warned. March, and ask M. Petit-Claud to go with you as
witness.”
“Yes,” said the Alsacien. “Some tay I hope to be rich enough to dust der
chacket of dat man of law. I don’t like his gountenance.”
“Kolb is a good man, madame,” said Big Marion; “he is as strong as a
Turk, and as meek as a lamb. Just the one that would make a woman happy.
It was his notion, too, to invest our savings this way--‘safings,’ as he
calls them. Poor man, if he doesn’t speak right, he thinks right, and
I understand him all the same. He has a notion of working for somebody
else, so as to save us his keep----”
“Surely we shall be rich, if it is only to repay these good folk,” said
David, looking at his wife.
Eve thought it quite simple; it was no surprise to her to find
other natures on a level with her own. The dullest--nay, the most
indifferent--observer could have seen all the beauty of her nature in
her way of receiving this service.
“You will be rich some day, dear master,” said Marion; “your bread is
ready baked. Your father has just bought another farm, he is putting by
money for you; that he is.”
And under the circumstances, did not Marion show an exquisite delicacy
of feeling by belittling, as it were, her kindness in this way?
French procedure, like all things human, has its defects; nevertheless,
the sword of justice, being a two-edged weapon, is excellently adapted
alike for attack or defence. Procedure, moreover, has its amusing side;
for when opposed, lawyers arrive at an understanding, as they well may
do, without exchanging a word; through their manner of conducting their
case, a suit becomes a kind of war waged on the lines laid down by the
first Marshal Biron, who, at the siege of Rouen, it may be remembered,
received his son’s project for taking the city in two days with the
remark, “You must be in a great hurry to go and plant cabbages!” Let
two commanders-in-chief spare their troops as much as possible, let them
imitate the Austrian generals who give the men time to eat their soup
though they fail to effect a juncture, and escape reprimand from the
Aulic Council; let them avoid all decisive measures, and they shall
carry on a war for ever. Maître Cachan, Petit-Claud, and Doublon, did
better than the Austrian generals; they took for their example Quintus
Fabius Cunctator--the Austrian of antiquity.
Petit-Claud, malignant as a mule, was not long in finding out all the
advantages of his position. No sooner had Boniface Cointet guaranteed
his costs than he vowed to lead Cachan a dance, and to dazzle the paper
manufacturer with a brilliant display of genius in the creation of items
to be charged to Métivier. Unluckily for the fame of the young forensic
Figaro, the writer of this history is obliged to pass over the scene of
his exploits in as great a hurry as if he trod on burning coals; but a
single bill of costs, in the shape of the specimen sent from Paris, will
no doubt suffice for the student of contemporary manners. Let us follow
the example set us by the Bulletins of the Grande Armée, and give a
summary of Petit-Claud’s valiant feats and exploits in the province of
pure law; they will be the better appreciated for concise treatment.
David Séchard was summoned before the Tribunal of Commerce at Angoulême
for the 3rd of July, made default, and notice of judgment was served
on the 8th. On the 10th, Doublon obtained an execution warrant, and
attempted to put in an execution on the 12th. On this Petit-Claud
applied for an interpleader summons, and served notice on Métivier for
that day fortnight. Métivier made application for a hearing without
delay, and on the 19th, Séchard’s application was dismissed. Hard upon
this followed notice of judgment, authorizing the issue of an execution
warrant on the 22nd, a warrant of arrest on the 23rd, and bailiff’s
inventory previous to the execution on the 24th. Métivier, Doublon,
Cachan & Company were proceeding at this furious pace, when Petit-Claud
suddenly pulled them up, and stayed execution by lodging notice of
appeal on the Court-Royal. Notice of appeal, duly reiterated on the 25th
of July, drew Métivier off to Poitiers.
“Come!” said Petit-Claud to himself, “there we are likely to stop for
some time to come.”
No sooner was the storm passed over to Poitiers, and an attorney
practising in the Court-Royal instructed to defend the case, than
Petit-Claud, a champion facing both ways, made application in Mme.
Séchard’s name for the immediate separation of her estate from her
husband’s; using “all diligence” (in legal language) to such purpose,
that he obtained an order from the court on the 28th, and inserted
notice at once in the _Charente Courier_. Now David the lover had
settled ten thousand francs upon his wife in the marriage contract,
making over to her as security the fixtures of the printing office and
the household furniture; and Petit-Claud therefore constituted Mme.
Séchard her husband’s creditor for that small amount, drawing up a
statement of her claims on the estate in the presence of a notary on the
1st of August.
While Petit-Claud was busy securing the household property of his
clients, he gained the day at Poitiers on the point of law on which the
demurrer and appeals were based. He held that, as the court of the
Seine had ordered the plaintiff to pay costs of proceedings in the Paris
commercial court, David was so much the less liable for expenses of
litigation incurred upon Lucien’s account. The Court-Royal took this
view of the case, and judgment was entered accordingly. David Séchard
was ordered to pay the amount in dispute in the Angoulême Court, less
the law expenses incurred in Paris; these Métivier must pay, and each
side must bear its own costs in the appeal to the Court-Royal.
David Séchard was duly notified of the result on the 17th of August.
On the 18th the judgment took the practical shape of an order to pay
capital, interest, and costs, followed up by notice of an execution for
the morrow. Upon this Petit-Claud intervened and put in a claim for the
furniture as the wife’s property duly separated from her husband’s; and
what was more, Petit-Claud produced Séchard senior upon the scene of
action. The old vinegrower had become his client on this wise. He came
to Angoulême on the day after Eve’s visit, and went to Maître Cachan for
advice. His son owed him arrears of rent; how could he come by this rent
in the scrimmage in which his son was engaged?
“I am engaged by the other side,” pronounced Cachan, “and I cannot
appear for the father when I am suing the son; but go to Petit-Claud, he
is very clever, he may perhaps do even better for you than I should do.”
Cachan and Petit-Claud met at the Court.
“I have sent you Séchard senior,” said Cachan; “take the case for me in
exchange.” Lawyers do each other services of this kind in country towns
as well as in Paris.
The day after Séchard senior gave Petit-Claud his confidence, the tall
Cointet paid a visit to his confederate.
“Try to give old Séchard a lesson,” he said. “He is the kind of man that
will never forgive his son for costing him a thousand francs or so; the
outlay will dry up any generous thoughts in his mind, if he ever has
any.”
“Go back to your vines,” said Petit-Claud to his new client. “Your son
is not very well off; do not eat him out of house and home. I will send
for you when the time comes.”
On behalf of Séchard senior, therefore, Petit-Claud claimed that the
presses, being fixtures, were so much the more to be regarded as tools
and implements of trade, and the less liable to seizure, in that the
house had been a printing office since the reign of Louis XIV. Cachan,
on Métivier’s account, waxed indignant at this. In Paris Lucien’s
furniture had belonged to Coralie, and here again in Angoulême David’s
goods and chattels all belonged to his wife or his father; pretty things
were said in court. Father and son were summoned; such claims could not
be allowed to stand.
“We mean to unmask the frauds intrenched behind bad faith of the most
formidable kind; here is the defence of dishonesty bristling with the
plainest and most innocent articles of the Code, and why?--to avoid
repayment of three thousand francs; obtained how?--from poor Métivier’s
cash box! And yet there are those who dare to say a word against
bill-discounters! What times we live in! . . . Now, I put it to
you--what is this but taking your neighbor’s money? . . . You will
surely not sanction a claim which would bring immorality to the very
core of justice!”
Cachan’s eloquence produced an effect on the court. A divided judgment
was given in favor of Mme. Séchard, the house furniture being held to
be her property; and against Séchard senior, who was ordered to pay
costs--four hundred and thirty-four francs, sixty-five centimes.
“It is kind of old Séchard,” laughed the lawyers; “he would have a
finger in the pie, so let him pay!”
Notice of judgment was given on the 26th of August; the presses and
plant could be seized on the 28th. Placards were posted. Application was
made for an order empowering them to sell on the spot. Announcements of
the sale appeared in the papers, and Doublon flattered himself that the
inventory should be verified and the auction take place on the 2nd of
September.
By this time David Séchard owed Métivier five thousand two hundred and
seventy-five francs, twenty-five centimes (to say nothing of interest),
by formal judgment confirmed by appeal, the bill of costs having been
duly taxed. Likewise to Petit-Claud he owed twelve hundred francs,
exclusive of the fees, which were left to David’s generosity with the
generous confidence displayed by the hackney coachman who has driven you
so quickly over the road on which you desire to go.
Mme. Séchard owed Petit-Claud something like three hundred and fifty
francs and fees besides; and of old Séchard, besides four hundred and
thirty-four francs, sixty-five centimes, the little attorney demanded a
hundred crowns by way of fee. Altogether, the Séchard family owed about
ten thousand francs. This is what is called “putting fire into the bed
straw.”
Apart from the utility of these documents to other nations who thus may
behold the battery of French law in action, the French legislator ought
to know the lengths to which the abuse of procedure may be carried,
always supposing that the said legislator can find time for reading.
Surely some sort of regulation might be devised, some way of forbidding
lawyers to carry on a case until the sum in dispute is more than eaten
up in costs? Is there not something ludicrous in the idea of submitting
a square yard of soil and an estate of thousands of acres to the same
legal formalities? These bare outlines of the history of the various
stages of procedure should open the eyes of Frenchmen to the meaning of
the words “legal formalities, justice, and costs,” little as the immense
majority of the nations know about them.
Five thousand pounds’ weight of type in the printing office were worth
two thousand francs as old metal; the three presses were valued at six
hundred francs; the rest of the plant would fetch the price of old iron
and firewood. The household furniture would have brought in a thousand
francs at most. The whole personal property of Séchard junior therefore
represented the sum of four thousand francs; and Cachan and Petit-Claud
made claims for seven thousand francs in costs already incurred, to say
nothing of expenses to come, for the blossom gave promise of fine fruits
enough, as the reader will shortly see. Surely the lawyers of France and
Navarre, nay, even of Normandy herself, will not refuse Petit-Claud
his meed of admiration and respect? Surely, too, kind hearts will give
Marion and Kolb a tear of sympathy?
All through the war Kolb sat on a chair in the doorway, acting as
watch-dog, when David had nothing else for him to do. It was Kolb who
received all the notifications, and a clerk of Petit-Claud’s kept watch
over Kolb. No sooner were the placards announcing the auction put up on
the premises than Kolb tore them down; he hurried round the town after
the bill-poster, tearing the placards from the walls.
“Ah, scountrels!” he cried, “to dorment so goot a man; and they calls it
chustice!”
Marion made half a franc a day by working half time in a paper mill as
a machine tender, and her wages contributed to the support of the
household. Mme. Chardon went back uncomplainingly to her old occupation,
sitting up night after night, and bringing home her wages at the end
of the week. Poor Mme. Chardon! Twice already she had made a nine days’
prayer for those she loved, wondering that God should be deaf to her
petitions, and blind to the light of the candles on His altar.
On the 2nd of September, a letter came from Lucien, the first since
the letter of the winter, which David had kept from his wife’s
knowledge--the announcement of the three bills which bore David’s
signature. This time Lucien wrote to Eve.
“The third since he left us!” she said. Poor sister, she was afraid to
open the envelope that covered the fatal sheet.
She was feeding the little one when the post came in; they could not
afford a wet-nurse now, and the child was being brought up by hand. Her
state of mind may be imagined, and David’s also, when he had been roused
to read the letter, for David had been at work all night, and only lay
down at daybreak.
_Lucien to Eve._
“PARIS, August 29th.
“MY DEAR SISTER,--Two days ago, at five o’clock in the morning,
one of God’s noblest creatures breathed her last in my arms; she
was the one woman on earth capable of loving me as you and mother
and David love me, giving me besides that unselfish affection,
something that neither mother nor sister can give--the utmost
bliss of love. Poor Coralie, after giving up everything for my
sake, may perhaps have died for me--for me, who at this moment
have not the wherewithal to bury her. She could have solaced my
life; you, and you alone, my dear good angels, can console me for
her death. God has forgiven her, I think, the innocent girl, for
she died like a Christian. Oh, this Paris! Eve, Paris is the glory
and the shame of France. Many illusions I have lost here already,
and I have others yet to lose, when I begin to beg for the little
money needed before I can lay the body of my angel in consecrated
earth.
“Your unhappy brother,
“Lucien.”
“P. S. I must have given you much trouble by my heedlessness; some
day you will know all, and you will forgive me. You must be quite
easy now; a worthy merchant, a M. Camusot, to whom I once caused
cruel pangs, promised to arrange everything, seeing that Coralie
and I were so much distressed.”
“The sheet is still moist with his tears,” said Eve, looking at the
letter with a heart so full of sympathy that something of the old love
for Lucien shone in her eyes.
“Poor fellow, he must have suffered cruelly if he has been loved as he
says!” exclaimed Eve’s husband, happy in his love; and these two forgot
all their own troubles at this cry of a supreme sorrow. Just at that
moment Marion rushed in.
“Madame,” she panted, “here they are! Here they are!”
“Who is here?”
“Doublon and his men, bad luck to them! Kolb will not let them come in;
they have come to sell us up.”
“No, no, they are not going to sell you up, never fear,” cried a voice
in the next room, and Petit-Claud appeared upon the scene. “I have just
lodged notice of appeal. We ought not to sit down under a judgment that
attaches a stigma of bad faith to us. I did not think it worth while to
fight the case here. I let Cachan talk to gain time for you; I am sure
of gaining the day at Poitiers----”
“But how much will it cost to win the day?” asked Mme. Séchard.
“Fees if you win, one thousand francs if we lose our case.”
“Oh, dear!” cried poor Eve; “why, the remedy is worse than the disease!”
Petit-Claud was not a little confused at this cry of innocence
enlightened by the progress of the flames of litigation. It struck him
too that Eve was a very beautiful woman. In the middle of the discussion
old Séchard arrived, summoned by Petit-Claud. The old man’s presence
in the chamber where his little grandson in the cradle lay smiling at
misfortune completed the scene. The young attorney at once addressed the
newcomer with:
“You owe me seven hundred francs for the interpleader, Papa Séchard;
but you can charge the amount to your son in addition to the arrears of
rent.”
The vinedresser felt the sting of the sarcasm conveyed by Petit-Claud’s
tone and manner.
“It would have cost you less to give security for the debt at first,”
said Eve, leaving the cradle to greet her father-in-law with a kiss.
David, quite overcome by the sight of the crowd outside the house (for
Kolb’s resistance to Doublon’s men had collected a knot of people),
could only hold out a hand to his father; he did not say a word.
“And how, pray, do I come to owe you seven hundred francs?” the old man
asked, looking at Petit-Claud.
“Why, in the first place, I am engaged by you. Your rent is in question;
so, as far as I am concerned, you and our debtor are one and the same
person. If your son does not pay my costs in the case, you must pay
them yourself.--But this is nothing. In a few hours David will be put in
prison; will you allow him to go?”
“What does he owe?”
“Something like five or six thousand francs, besides the amounts owing
to you and to his wife.”
The speech roused all the old man’s suspicions at once. He looked round
the little blue-and-white bedroom at the touching scene before his
eyes--at a beautiful woman weeping over a cradle, at David bowed down by
anxieties, and then again at the lawyer. This was a trap set for him by
that lawyer; perhaps they wanted to work upon his paternal feelings, to
get money out of him? That was what it all meant. He took alarm. He went
over to the cradle and fondled the child, who held out both little arms
to him. No heir to an English peerage could be more tenderly cared for
than this little one in that house of trouble; his little embroidered
cap was lined with pale pink.
“Eh! let David get out of it as best he may. I am thinking of this child
here,” cried the old grandfather, “and the child’s mother will approve
of that. David that knows so much must know how to pay his debts.”
“Now I will just put your meaning into plain language,” said Petit-Claud
ironically. “Look here, Papa Séchard, you are jealous of your son.
Hear the truth! you put David into his present position by selling the
business to him for three times its value. You ruined him to make an
extortionate bargain! Yes, don’t you shake your head; you sold the
newspaper to the Cointets and pocketed all the proceeds, and that was
as much as the whole business was worth. You bear David a grudge, not
merely because you have plundered him, but because, also, your own son
is a man far above yourself. You profess to be prodigiously fond of
your grandson, to cloak your want of feeling for your son and his wife,
because you ought to pay down money _hic et nunc_ for them, while you
need only show a posthumous affection for your grandson. You pretend
to be fond of the little fellow, lest you should be taxed with want of
feeling for your own flesh and blood. That is the bottom of it, Papa
Séchard.”
“Did you fetch me over to hear this?” asked the old man, glowering at
his lawyer, his daughter-in-law, and his son in turn.
“Monsieur!” protested poor Eve, turning to Petit-Claud, “have you vowed
to ruin us? My husband had never uttered a word against his father.”
(Here the old man looked cunningly at her.) “David has told me scores
of times that you loved him in your way,” she added, looking at her
father-in-law, and understanding his suspicions.
Petit-Claud was only following out the tall Cointet’s instructions. He
was widening the breach between the father and son, lest Séchard senior
should extricate David from his intolerable position. “The day that
David Séchard goes to prison shall be the day of your introduction
to Mme. de Senonches,” the “tall Cointet” had said no longer ago than
yesterday.
Mme. Séchard, with the quick insight of love, had divined Petit-Claud’s
mercenary hostility, even as she had once before felt instinctively that
Cérizet was a traitor. As for David, his astonishment may be imagined;
he could not understand how Petit-Claud came to know so much of his
father’s nature and his own history. Upright and honorable as he was, he
did not dream of the relations between his lawyer and the Cointets;
nor, for that matter, did he know that the Cointets were at work behind
Métivier. Meanwhile old Séchard took his son’s silence as an insult,
and Petit-Claud, taking advantage of his client’s bewilderment, beat a
retreat.
“Good-bye, my dear David; you have had warning, notice of appeal doesn’t
invalidate the warrant for arrest. It is the only course left open to
your creditors, and it will not be long before they take it. So, go away
at once----Or, rather, if you will take my advice, go to the Cointets
and see them about it. They have capital. If your invention is perfected
and answers the purpose, go into partnership with them. After all, they
are very good fellows----”
“Your invention?” broke in old Séchard.
“Why, do you suppose that your son is fool enough to let his business
slip away from him without thinking of something else?” exclaimed the
attorney. “He is on the brink of the discovery of a way of making paper
at a cost of three francs per ream, instead of ten, he tells me.”
“One more dodge for taking me in! You are all as thick as thieves in a
fair. If David has found out such a plan, he has no need of me--he is a
millionaire! Good-bye, my dears, and a good-day to you all,” and the old
man disappeared down the staircase.
“Find some way of hiding yourself,” was Petit-Claud’s parting word to
David, and with that he hurried out to exasperate old Séchard still
further. He found the vinegrower growling to himself outside in the
Place du Mûrier, went with him as far as L’Houmeau, and there left him
with a threat of putting in an execution for the costs due to him unless
they were paid before the week was out.
“I will pay you if you will show me how to disinherit my son without
injuring my daughter-in-law or the boy,” said old Séchard, and they
parted forthwith.
“How well the ‘tall Cointet’ knows the folk he is dealing with! It is
just as he said; those seven hundred francs will prevent the father from
paying seven thousand,” the little lawyer thought within himself as
he climbed the path to Angoulême. “Still, that old slyboots of a
paper-maker must not overreach us; it is time to ask him for something
besides promises.”
“Well, David dear, what do you mean to do?” asked Eve, when the lawyer
had followed her father-in-law.
“Marion, put your biggest pot on the fire!” called David; “I have my
secret fast.”
At this Eve put on her bonnet and shawl and walking shoes with feverish
haste.
“Kolb, my friend, get ready to go out,” she said, “and come with me; if
there is any way out of this hell, I must find it.”
When Eve had gone out, Marion spoke to David. “Do be sensible, sir,” she
said, “or the mistress will fret herself to death. Make some money
to pay off your debts, and then you can try to find treasure at your
ease----”
“Don’t talk, Marion,” said David; “I am going to overcome my last
difficulty, and then I can apply for the patent and the improvement on
the patent at the same time.”
This “improvement on the patent” is the curse of the French patentee.
A man may spend ten years of his life in working out some obscure
industrial problem; and when he has invented some piece of machinery, or
made a discovery of some kind, he takes out a patent and imagines that
he has a right to his own invention; then there comes a competitor; and
unless the first inventor has foreseen all possible contingencies, the
second comer makes an “improvement on the patent” with a screw or a nut,
and takes the whole thing out of his hands. The discovery of a cheap
material for paper pulp, therefore, is by no means the conclusion of
the whole matter. David Séchard was anxiously looking ahead on all sides
lest the fortune sought in the teeth of such difficulties should be
snatched out of his hands at the last. Dutch paper, as flax paper is
still called, though it is no longer made in Holland, is slightly sized;
but every sheet is sized separately by hand, and this increases the cost
of production. If it were possible to discover some way of sizing the
paper in the pulping-trough, with some inexpensive glue, like that in
use to-day (though even now it is not quite perfect), there would be no
“improvement on the patent” to fear. For the past month, accordingly,
David had been making experiments in sizing pulp. He had two discoveries
before him.
Eve went to see her mother. Fortunately, it so happened that Mme.
Chardon was nursing the deputy-magistrate’s wife, who had just given the
Milauds of Nevers an heir presumptive; and Eve, in her distrust of all
attorneys and notaries, took into her head to apply for advice to the
legal guardian of widows and orphans. She wanted to know if she could
relieve David from his embarrassments by taking them upon herself and
selling her claims upon the estate, and besides, she had some hope of
discovering the truth as to Petit-Claud’s unaccountable conduct. The
official, struck with Mme. Séchard’s beauty, received her not only with
the respect due to a woman, but with a sort of courtesy to which Eve was
not accustomed. She saw in the magistrate’s face an expression which,
since her marriage, she had seen in no eyes but Kolb’s; and for a
beautiful woman like Eve, this expression is the criterion by which men
are judged. When passion, or self-interest, or age dims that spark of
unquestioning fealty that gleams in a young man’s eyes, a woman feels
a certain mistrust of him, and begins to observe him critically.
The Cointets, Cérizet, and Petit-Claud--all the men whom Eve felt
instinctively to be her enemies--had turned hard, indifferent eyes on
her; with the deputy-magistrate, therefore, she felt at ease, although,
in spite of his kindly courtesy, he swept all her hopes away by his
first words.
“It is not certain, madame, that the Court-Royal will reverse the
judgment of the court restricting your lien on your husband’s property,
for payment of moneys due to you by the terms of your marriage-contract,
to household goods and chattels. Your privilege ought not to be used
to defraud the other creditors. But in any case, you will be allowed
to take your share of the proceeds with the other creditors, and your
father-in-law likewise, as a privileged creditor, for arrears of rent.
When the court has given the order, other points may be raised as to the
‘contribution,’ as we call it, when a schedule of the debts is drawn up,
and the creditors are paid a dividend in proportion to their claims.
“Then M. Petit-Claud is bringing us to bankruptcy,” she cried.
“Petit-Claud is carrying out your husband’s instructions,” said the
magistrate; “he is anxious to gain time, so his attorney says. In my
opinion, you would perhaps do better to waive the appeal and buy in at
the sale the indispensable implements for carrying on the business; you
and your father-in-law together might do this, you to the extent of your
claim through your marriage contract, and he for his arrears of rent.
But that would be bringing the matter to an end too soon perhaps. The
lawyers are making a good thing out of your case.”
“But then I should be entirely in M. Séchard’s father’s hands. I should
owe him the hire of the machinery as well as the house-rent; and my
husband would still be open to further proceedings from M. Métivier, for
M. Métivier would have had almost nothing.”
“That is true, madame.”
“Very well, then we should be even worse off than we are.”
“The arm of the law, madame, is at the creditor’s disposal. You have
received three thousand francs, and you must of necessity repay the
money.”
“Oh, sir, can you think that we are capable----” Eve suddenly came to a
stop. She saw that her justification might injure her brother.
“Oh! I know quite well that it is an obscure affair, that the debtors on
the one side are honest, scrupulous, and even behaving handsomely; and
the creditor, on the other, is only a cat’s-paw----”
Eve, aghast, looked at him with bewildered eyes.
“You can understand,” he continued, with a look full of homely
shrewdness, “that we on the bench have plenty of time to think over all
that goes on under our eyes, while the gentlemen in court are arguing
with each other.”
Eve went home in despair over her useless effort. That evening at seven
o’clock, Doublon came with the notification of imprisonment for debt.
The proceedings had reached the acute stage.
“After this, I can only go out after nightfall,” said David.
Eve and Mme. Chardon burst into tears. To be in hiding was for them a
shameful thing. As for Kolb and Marion, they were more alarmed for David
because they had long since made up their minds that there was no guile
in their master’s nature; so frightened were they on his account,
that they came upstairs under pretence of asking whether they could do
anything, and found Eve and Mme. Chardon in tears; the three whose life
had been so straightforward hitherto were overcome by the thought that
David must go into hiding. And how, moreover, could they hope to escape
the invisible spies who henceforth would dog every least movement of a
man, unluckily so absent-minded?
“Gif montame vill vait ein liddle kvarter hour, she can regonnoitre
der enemy’s camp,” put in Kolb. “You shall see dot I oonderstand mein
pizness; for gif I look like ein German, I am ein drue Vrenchman, and
vat is more, I am ver’ conning.”
“Oh! madame, do let him go,” begged Marion. “He is only thinking of
saving his master; he hasn’t another thought in his head. Kolb is not
an Alsacien, he is--eh! well--a regular Newfoundland dog for rescuing
folk.”
“Go, my good Kolb,” said David; “we have still time to do something.”
Kolb hurried off to pay a visit to the bailiff; and it so fell out that
David’s enemies were in Doublon’s office, holding a council as to the
best way of securing him.
The arrest of a debtor is an unheard-of thing in the country, an
abnormal proceeding if ever there was one. Everybody, in the first
place, knows everybody else, and creditor and debtor being bound to meet
each other daily all their lives long, nobody likes to take this odious
course. When a defaulter--to use the provincial term for a debtor, for
they do not mince their words in the provinces when speaking of this
legalized method of helping yourself to another man’s goods--when a
defaulter plans a failure on a large scale, he takes sanctuary in Paris.
Paris is a kind of City of Refuge for provincial bankrupts, an almost
impenetrable retreat; the writ of the pursuing bailiff has no force
beyond the limits of his jurisdiction, and there are other obstacles
rendering it almost invalid. Wherefore the Paris bailiff is empowered
to enter the house of a third party to seize the person of the debtor,
while for the bailiff of the provinces the domicile is absolutely
inviolable. The law probably makes this exception as to Paris, because
there it is the rule for two or more families to live under the same
roof; but in the provinces the bailiff who wishes to make forcible
entry must have an order from the Justice of the Peace; and so wide a
discretion is allowed the Justice of the Peace, that he is practically
able to give or withhold assistance to the bailiffs. To the honor of the
Justices, it should be said, that they dislike the office, and are by no
means anxious to assist blind passions or revenge.
There are, besides, other and no less serious difficulties in the way
of arrest for debt--difficulties which tend to temper the severity of
legislation, and public opinion not infrequently makes a dead letter
of the law. In great cities there are poor or degraded wretches enough;
poverty and vice know no scruples, and consent to play the spy, but in
a little country town, people know each other too well to earn wages of
the bailiff; the meanest creature who should lend himself to dirty
work of this kind would be forced to leave the place. In the absence
of recognized machinery, therefore, the arrest of a debtor is a problem
presenting no small difficulty; it becomes a kind of strife of ingenuity
between the bailiff and the debtor, and matter for many pleasant stories
in the newspapers.
Cointet the elder did not choose to appear in the affair; but the
fat Cointet openly said that he was acting for Métivier, and went to
Doublon, taking Cérizet with him. Cérizet was his foreman now, and had
promised his co-operation in return for a thousand-franc note. Doublon
could reckon upon two of his understrappers, and thus the Cointets had
four bloodhounds already on the victim’s track. At the actual time of
arrest, Doublon could furthermore count upon the police force, who are
bound, if required, to assist a bailiff in the performance of his
duty. The two men, Doublon himself, and the visitors were all closeted
together in the private office, beyond the public office, on the ground
floor.
A tolerably wide-paved lobby, a kind of passage-way, led to the public
office. The gilded scutcheons of the court, with the word “Bailiff”
printed thereon in large black letters, hung outside on the house wall
on either side the door. Both office windows gave upon the street, and
were protected by heavy iron bars; but the private office looked into
the garden at the back, wherein Doublon, an adorer of Pomona, grew
espaliers with marked success. Opposite the office door you beheld
the door of the kitchen, and, beyond the kitchen, the staircase that
ascended to the first story. The house was situated in a narrow street
at the back of the new Law Courts, then in process of construction,
and only finished after 1830.--These details are necessary if Kolb’s
adventures are to be intelligible to the reader.
It was Kolb’s idea to go to the bailiff, to pretend to be willing to
betray his master, and in this way to discover the traps which would be
laid for David. Kolb told the servant who opened the door that he wanted
to speak to M. Doublon on business. The servant was busy washing up her
plates and dishes, and not very well pleased at Kolb’s interruption; she
pushed open the door of the outer office, and bade him wait there till
her master was at liberty; then, as he was a stranger to her, she told
the master in the private office that “a man” wanted to speak to him.
Now, “a man” so invariably means “a peasant,” that Doublon said, “Tell
him to wait,” and Kolb took a seat close to the door of the private
office. There were voices talking within.
“Ah, by the by, how do you mean to set about it? For, if we can catch
him to-morrow, it will be so much time saved.” It was the fat Cointet
who spoke.
“Nothing easier; the gaffer has come fairly by his nickname,” said
Cérizet.
At the sound of the fat Cointet’s voice, Kolb guessed at once that they
were talking about his master, especially as the sense of the words
began to dawn upon him; but, when he recognized Cérizet’s tones, his
astonishment grew more and more.
“Und dat fellow haf eaten his pread!” he thought, horror-stricken.
“We must do it in this way, boys,” said Doublon. “We will post our
men, at good long intervals, about the Rue de Beaulieu and the Place du
Mûrier in every direction, so that we can follow the gaffer (I like that
word) without his knowledge. We will not lose sight of him until he is
safe inside the house where he means to lie in hiding (as he thinks);
there we will leave him in peace for awhile; then some fine day we will
come across him before sunrise or sunset.”
“But what is he doing now, at this moment? He may be slipping through
our fingers,” said the fat Cointet.
“He is in his house,” answered Doublon; “if he left it, I should know. I
have one witness posted in the Place du Mûrier, another at the corner of
the Law Courts, and another thirty paces from the house. If our man came
out, they would whistle; he could not make three paces from his door but
I should know of it at once from the signal.”
(Bailiffs speak of their understrappers by the polite title of
“witnesses.”)
Here was better hap than Kolb had expected! He went noiselessly out of
the office, and spoke to the maid in the kitchen.
“Meestair Touplon ees encaged for som time to kom,” he said; “I vill kom
back early to-morrow morning.”
A sudden idea had struck the Alsacien, and he proceeded to put it into
execution. Kolb had served in a cavalry regiment; he hurried off to see
a livery stable-keeper, an acquaintance of his, picked out a horse, had
it saddled, and rushed back to the Place du Mûrier. He found Madame Eve
in the lowest depths of despondency.
“What is it, Kolb?” asked David, when the Alsacien’s face looked in upon
them, scared but radiant.
“You have scountrels all arount you. De safest way ees to hide de
master. Haf montame thought of hiding the master anywheres?”
When Kolb, honest fellow, had explained the whole history of Cérizet’s
treachery, of the circle traced about the house, and of the fat
Cointet’s interest in the affair, and given the family some inkling
of the schemes set on foot by the Cointets against the master,--then
David’s real position gradually became fatally clear.
“It is the Cointet’s doing!” cried poor Eve, aghast at the news; “_they_
are proceeding against you! that accounts for Métivier’s hardness. . . .
They are paper-makers--David! they want your secret!”
“But what can we do to escape them?” exclaimed Mme. Chardon.
“If de misdress had some liddle blace vere the master could pe hidden,”
said Kolb; “I bromise to take him dere so dot nopody shall know.”
“Wait till nightfall, and go to Basine Clerget,” said Eve. “I will
go now and arrange it all with her. In this case, Basine will be like
another self to me.”
“Spies will follow you,” David said at last, recovering some presence of
mind. “How can we find a way of communicating with Basine if none of us
can go to her?”
“Montame kan go,” said Kolb. “Here ees my scheme--I go out mit der
master, ve draws der vischtlers on our drack. Montame kan go to
Montemoiselle Clerchet; nopody vill vollow her. I haf a horse; I take de
master oop behint; und der teufel is in it if they katches us.”