Pillerault, Monsieur and Madame Ragon, and Monsieur Roguin were playing
at boston, and Cesarine was embroidering a handkerchief, when the judge
and Anselme arrived. Roguin, placed opposite to Madame Ragon, near whom
Cesarine was sitting, noticed the pleasure of the young girl when she
saw Anselme enter, and he made Crottat a sign to observe that she turned
as rosy as a pomegranate.
“This is to be a day of deeds, then?” said the perfumer, when the
greetings were over and the judge told him the purpose of the visit.
Cesar, Anselme, and the judge went up to the perfumer’s temporary
bedroom on the second floor to discuss the lease and the deed of
partnership drawn up by the magistrate. A lease of eighteen years was
agreed upon, so that it might run the same length of time as the lease
of the shop in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants,--an insignificant circumstance
apparently, but one which did Birotteau good service in after days. When
Cesar and the judge returned to the _entresol_, the latter, surprised
at the general upset of the household, and the presence of workmen on
a Sunday in the house of a man so religious as Birotteau, asked the
meaning of it,--a question which Cesar had been eagerly expecting.
“Though you care very little for the world, monsieur,” he said, “you
will see no harm in celebrating the deliverance of our territory.
That, however, is not all. We are about to assemble a few friends to
commemorate my promotion to the order of the Legion of honor.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the judge, who was not decorated.
“Possibly I showed myself worthy of that signal and royal favor by
my services on the Bench--oh! of commerce,--and by fighting for the
Bourbons on the steps--”
“True,” said the judge.
“--of Saint-Roch on the 13th Vendemiaire, where I was wounded by
Napoleon. May I not hope that you and Madame Popinot will do us the
honor of being present?”
“Willingly,” said the judge. “If my wife is well enough I will bring
her.”
“Xandrot,” said Roguin to his clerk, as they left the house, “give up
all thoughts of marrying Cesarine; six weeks hence you will thank me for
that advice.”
“Why?” asked Crottat.
“My dear fellow, Birotteau is going to spend a hundred thousand francs
on his ball, and he is involving his whole fortune, against my advice,
in that speculation in lands. Six weeks hence he and his family won’t
have bread to eat. Marry Mademoiselle Lourdois, the daughter of the
house-painter. She has three hundred thousand francs _dot_. I threw out
that anchor to windward for you. If you will pay me a hundred thousand
francs down for my practice, you may have it to-morrow.”
The splendors of the approaching ball were announced by the newspapers
to all Europe, and were also made known to the world of commerce by
rumors to which the preparations, carried on night and day, had given
rise. Some said that Cesar had hired three houses, and that he was
gilding his salons; others that the supper would furnish dishes invented
for the occasion. On one hand it was reported that no merchants would be
invited, the fete being given to the members of the government; on the
other hand, Cesar was severely blamed for his ambition, and laughed at
for his political pretensions: some people even went so far as to deny
his wound. The ball gave rise to more than one intrigue in the second
arrondissement. The friends of the family were easy in their minds,
but the demands of mere acquaintances were enormous. Honors bring
sycophants; and there was a goodly number of people whose invitations
cost them more than one application. The Birotteaus were fairly
frightened at the number of friends whom they did not know they had.
These eager attentions alarmed Madame Birotteau, and day by day her face
grew sadder as the great solemnity drew near.
In the first place, as she owned to Cesar, she should never learn the
right demeanor; next, she was terrified by the innumerable details
of such a fete: where should she find the plate, the glass-ware, the
refreshments, the china, the servants? Who would superintend it all? She
entreated Birotteau to stand at the door of the appartement and let no
one enter but invited guests; she had heard strange stories of people
who came to bourgeois balls, claiming friends whose names they did not
know. When, a week before the fateful day, Braschon, Grindot, Lourdois,
and Chaffaroux, the builder, assured Cesar positively that the rooms
would be ready for the famous Sunday of December the 17th, an amusing
conference took place, in the evening after dinner, between Cesar, his
wife, and his daughter, for the purpose of making out the list of guests
and addressing the invitations,--which a stationer had sent home that
morning, printed on pink paper, in flowing English writing, and in the
formula of commonplace and puerile civility.
“Now we mustn’t forget any body,” said Birotteau.
“If we forget any one,” said Constance, “they won’t forget it. Madame
Derville, who never called before, sailed down upon me in all her glory
yesterday.”
“She is very pretty,” said Cesarine. “I liked her.”
“And yet before her marriage she was even less than I was,” said
Constance. “She did plain sewing in the Rue Montmartre; she made shirts
for your father.”
“Well, now let us begin the list,” said Birotteau, “with the upper-crust
people. Cesarine, write down Monsieur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de
Lenoncourt--”
“Good heavens, Cesar!” said Constance, “don’t send a single invitation
to people whom you only know as customers. Are you going to invite
the Princesse de Blamont-Chavry, who is more nearly related to your
godmother, the late Marquise d’Uxelles, than the Duc de Lenoncourt? You
surely don’t mean to invite the two Messieurs de Vandenesse, Monsieur
de Marsay, Monsieur de Ronquerolles, Monsieur d’Aiglemont, in short, all
your customers? You are mad; your honors have turned your head!”
“Well, but there’s Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine and his family,
hein?--the one that always went by the name of GRAND-JACQUES,--and
the YOUNG SCAMP, who was the Marquis de Montauran, and Monsieur de la
Billardiere, who was called the NANTAIS at ‘The Queen of Roses’ before
the 13th Vendemiaire. In those days it was all hand-shaking, and
‘Birotteau, take courage; let yourself be killed, like us, for the good
cause.’ Why, we are all comrades in conspiracy.”
“Very good, put them down,” said Constance. “If Monsieur de la
Billardiere comes he will want somebody to speak to.”
“Cesarine, write,” said Birotteau. “_Primo_, Monsieur the prefect of
the Seine; he’ll come or he won’t come, but any way he commands the
municipality,--honor to whom honor is due. Monsieur de la Billardiere
and his son, the mayor. Put the number of the guests after their names.
My colleague, Monsieur Granet, deputy-mayor, and his wife. She is very
ugly, but never mind, we can’t dispense with her. Monsieur Curel, the
jeweller, colonel of the National Guard, his wife, and two daughters.
Those are what I call the authorities. Now come the big wigs,--Monsieur
le Comte and Madame la Comtesse de Fontaine, and their daughter,
Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine.”
“An insolent girl, who makes me leave the shop and speak to her at the
door of the carriage, no matter what the weather is,” said Madame Cesar.
“If she comes, it will only be to ridicule me.”
“Then she’ll be sure to come,” said Cesar, bent on getting everybody.
“Go on, Cesarine. Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Comtesse de
Grandville, my landlord,--the longest head at the royal court, so
Derville says. Ah ca! Monsieur de la Billardiere is to present me as
a chevalier to-morrow to Monsieur le Comte de Lacepede himself, high
chancellor of the Legion of honor. It is only proper that I should
send him an invitation for the ball, and also to the dinner. Monsieur
Vauquelin; put him down for ball and dinner both, Cesarine. And (so
as not to forget them) put down all the Chiffrevilles and the Protez;
Monsieur and Madame Popinot, judge of the Lower Court of the Seine;
Monsieur and Madame Thirion, gentleman-usher of the bedchamber to the
king, friends of Ragon, and their daughter, who, they tell me, is to
marry the son of Monsieur Camusot by his first wife.”
“Cesar, don’t forget that little Horace Bianchon, the nephew of Monsieur
Popinot, and cousin of Anselme,” said Constance.
“Whew! Cesarine has written a four after the name of Popinot. Monsieur
and Madame Rabourdin, one of the under-secretaries in Monsieur de la
Billardiere’s division; Monsieur Cochin, same division, his wife
and son, sleeping-partners of Matifat, and Monsieur, Madame, and
Mademoiselle Matifat themselves.”
“The Matifats,” said Cesarine, “are fishing for invitations for Monsieur
and Madame Colleville, and Monsieur and Madame Thuillier, friends of
theirs.”
“We will see about that,” said Cesar. “Put down my broker, Monsieur and
Madame Jules Desmarets.”
“She will be the loveliest woman in the room,” said Cesarine. “I like
her--oh! better than any one else.”
“Derville and his wife.”
“Put down Monsieur and Madame Coquelin, the successors to my uncle
Pillerault,” said Constance. “They are so sure of an invitation that
the poor little woman has ordered my dressmaker to make her a superb
ball-dress, a skirt of white satin, and a tulle robe with succory
flowers embroidered all over it. A little more and she would have
ordered a court-dress of gold brocade. If you leave them out we shall
make bitter enemies.”
“Put them down, Cesarine; all honor to commerce, for we belong to it!
Monsieur and Madame Roguin.”
“Mamma, Madame Roguin will wear her diamond fillet and all her other
diamonds, and her dress trimmed with Mechlin.”
“Monsieur and Madame Lebas,” said Cesar; “also Monsieur le president of
the Court of Commerce,--I forgot him among the authorities,--his wife,
and two daughters; Monsieur and Madame Lourdois and their daughter;
Monsieur Claparon, banker; Monsieur du Tillet; Monsieur Grindot;
Monsieur Molineux; Pillerault and his landlord; Monsieur and Madame
Camusot, the rich silk-merchants, and all their children, the one at the
Ecole Polytechnique, and the lawyer; he is to be made a judge because of
his marriage to Mademoiselle Thirion.”
“A provincial judge,” remarked Constance.
“Monsieur Cardot, father-in-law of Camusot, and all the Cardot children.
Bless me, and the Guillaumes, Rue du Colombier, the father-in-law of
Lebas--old people, but they’ll sit in a corner; Alexandre Crottat;
Celestin--”
“Papa, don’t forget Monsieur Andoche Finot and Monsieur Gaudissart, two
young men who are very useful to Monsieur Anselme.”
“Gaudissart? he was once in the hands of justice. But never mind, he is
going to travel for our oil and starts in a few days; put him down. As
to the Sieur Andoche Finot, what is he to us?”
“Monsieur Anselme says he will be a great man; he has a mind like
Voltaire.”
“An author? all atheists.”
“Let’s put him down, papa; we want more dancers. Besides, he wrote the
beautiful prospectus for the oil.”
“He believes in my oil?” said Cesar, “then put him down, dear child.”
“I have put down all my proteges,” said Cesarine.
“Put Monsieur Mitral, my bailiff; Monsieur Haudry, our doctor, as a
matter of form,--he won’t come.”
“Yes, he will, for his game of cards.”
“Now, Cesar, I do hope you mean to invite the Abbe Loraux to the
dinner,” said Constance.
“I have already written to him,” said Cesar.
“Oh! and don’t forget the sister-in-law of Monsieur Lebas, Madame
Augustine Sommervieux,” said Cesarine. “Poor little woman, she is so
delicate; she is dying of grief, so Monsieur Lebas says.”
“That’s what it is to marry artists!” cried her father. “Look! there’s
your mother asleep,” he whispered. “La! la! a very good night to you,
Madame Cesar--Now, then,” he added, “about your mother’s ball-dress?”
“Yes, papa, it will be all ready. Mamma thinks she will wear her
china-crape like mine. The dressmaker is sure there is no need of trying
it on.”
“How many people have you got down,” said Cesar aloud, seeing that
Constance opened her eyes.
“One hundred and nine, with the clerks.”
“Where shall we ever put them all?” said Madame Birotteau. “But, anyhow,
after that Sunday,” she added naively, “there will come a Monday.”
* * * * *
Nothing can be done simply and naturally by people who are stepping from
one social level to another. Not a soul--not Madame Birotteau, nor Cesar
himself--was allowed to put foot into the new appartement on the first
floor. Cesar had promised Raguet, the shop-boy, a new suit of clothes
for the day of the ball, if he mounted guard faithfully and let no
one enter. Birotteau, like the Emperor Napoleon at Compiegne, when the
chateau was re-decorated for his marriage with Maria Louisa of Austria,
was determined to see nothing piecemeal; he wished to enjoy the surprise
of seeing it as a whole. Thus the two antagonists met once more, all
unknown to themselves, not on the field of battle, but on the peaceful
ground of bourgeois vanity. It was arranged that Monsieur Grindot was to
take Cesar by the hand and show him the appartement when finished,--just
as a guide shows a gallery to a sight-seer. Every member of the family
had provided his, or her, private “surprise.” Cesarine, dear child, had
spent all her little hoard, a hundred louis, on buying books for her
father. Monsieur Grindot confided to her one morning that there were two
book-cases in Cesar’s room, which enclosed an alcove,--an architectural
surprise to her father. Cesarine flung all her girlish savings upon the
counter of a bookseller’s shop, and obtained in return, Bossuet, Racine,
Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, Moliere, Buffon, Fenelon,
Delille, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, La Fontaine, Corneille, Pascal, La
Harpe,--in short, the whole array of matter-of-course libraries to be
found everywhere and which assuredly her father would never read. A
terrible bill for binding was in the background. The celebrated and
dilatory binder, Thouvenin, had promised to deliver the volumes at
twelve o’clock in the morning of the 16th. Cesarine confided her anxiety
to her uncle Pillerault, and he had promised to pay the bill. The
“surprise” of Cesar to his wife was the gown of cherry-colored velvet,
trimmed with lace, of which he spoke to his accomplice, Cesarine. The
“surprise” of Madame Birotteau to the new chevalier was a pair of gold
shoe-buckles, and a diamond pin. For the whole family there was the
surprise of the new appartement, and, a fortnight later, the still
greater surprise of the bills when they came in.
Cesar carefully weighed the question as to which invitations should be
given in person, and which should be sent by Raguet. He ordered a coach
and took his wife--much disfigured by a bonnet with feathers, and his
last gift, a shawl which she had coveted for fifteen years--on a round
of civilities. In their best array, these worthy people paid twenty-two
visits in the course of one morning.
Cesar excused his wife from the labor and difficulty of preparing at
home the various viands demanded by the splendor of the entertainment.
A diplomatic treaty was arranged between the famous Chevet and the
perfumer. Chevet furnished superb silver plate (which brought him an
income equal to that of land); he supplied the dinner, the wines, and
the waiters, under the orders of a major-domo of dignified aspect, who
was responsible for the proper management of everything. Chevet exacted
that the kitchen, and the dining-room on the _entresol_, should be given
up to him as headquarters; a dinner for twenty people was to be served
at six o’clock, a superb supper at one in the morning. Birotteau
arranged with the cafe Foy for ices in the shape of fruits, to be served
in pretty saucers, with gilt spoons, on silver trays. Tanrade, another
illustrious purveyor, furnished the refreshments.
“Don’t be worried,” said Cesar to his wife, observing her uneasiness on
the day before the great event, “Chevet, Tanrade, and the cafe Foy will
occupy the _entresol_, Virginie will take charge of the second floor,
the shop will be closed; all we shall have to do is to enshrine
ourselves on the first floor.”
At two o’clock, on the 16th, the mayor, Monsieur de la Billardiere, came
to take Cesar to the Chancellerie of the Legion of honor, where he
was to be received by Monsieur le Comte de Lacepede, and about a dozen
chevaliers of the order. Tears were in his eyes when he met the mayor;
Constance had just given him the “surprise” of the gold buckles and
diamond pin.
“It is very sweet to be so loved,” he said, getting into the coach in
presence of the assembled clerks, and Cesarine, and Constance. They,
one and all, gazed at Cesar, attired in black silk knee-breeches, silk
stockings, and the new bottle-blue coat, on which was about to gleam the
ribbon that, according to Molineux, was dyed in blood. When Cesar came
home to dinner, he was pale with joy; he looked at his cross in all the
mirrors, for in the first moments of exultation he was not satisfied
with the ribbon,--he wore the cross, and was glorious without false
shame.
“My wife,” he said, “Monsieur the high chancellor is a charming man. On
a hint from La Billardiere he accepted my invitation. He is coming with
Monsieur Vauquelin. Monsieur de Lacepede is a great man,--yes, as great
as Monsieur Vauquelin; he has continued the work of Buffon in forty
volumes; he is an author, peer of France! Don’t forget to address him
as, Your Excellence, or, Monsieur le comte.”
“Do eat something,” said his wife. “Your father is worse than a child,”
added Constance to Cesarine.
“How well it looks in your button-hole,” said Cesarine. “When we walk
out together, won’t they present arms?”
“Yes, wherever there are sentries they will present arms.”
Just at this moment Grindot was coming downstairs with Braschon. It had
been arranged that after dinner, monsieur, madame, and mademoiselle were
to enjoy a first sight of the new appartement; Braschon’s foreman was
now nailing up the last brackets, and three men were lighting the rooms.
“It takes a hundred and twenty wax-candles,” said Braschon.
“A bill of two hundred francs at Trudon’s,” said Madame Cesar, whose
murmurs were checked by a glance from the chevalier Birotteau.
“Your ball will be magnificent, Monsieur le chevalier,” said Braschon.
Birotteau whispered to himself, “Flatterers already! The Abbe Loraux
urged me not to fall into that net, but to keep myself humble. I shall
try to remember my origin.”
Cesar did not perceive the meaning of the rich upholsterer’s speech.
Braschon made a dozen useless attempts to get invitations for himself,
his wife, daughter, mother-in-law, and aunt. He called the perfumer
Monsieur le chevalier to the door-way, and then he departed his enemy.
The rehearsal began. Cesar, his wife, and Cesarine went out by the
shop-door and re-entered the house from the street. The entrance had
been remodelled in the grand style, with double doors, divided into
square panels, in the centre of which were architectural ornaments in
cast-iron, painted. This style of door, since become common in Paris,
was then a novelty. At the further end of the vestibule the staircase
went up in two straight flights, and between them was the space which
had given Cesar some uneasiness, and which was now converted into
a species of box, where it was possible to seat an old woman. The
vestibule, paved in black and white marble, with its walls painted to
resemble marble, was lighted by an antique lamp with four jets. The
architect had combined richness with simplicity. A narrow red carpet
relieved the whiteness of the stairs, which were polished with
pumice-stone. The first landing gave an entrance to the _entresol_; the
doors to each appartement were of the same character as the street-door,
but of finer work by a cabinet-maker.
The family reached the first floor and entered an ante-chamber in
excellent taste, spacious, parquetted, and simply decorated. Next came a
salon, with three windows on the street, in white and red, with
cornices of an elegant design which had nothing gaudy about them. On
a chimney-piece of white marble supported by columns were a number of
mantel ornaments chosen with taste; they suggested nothing to ridicule,
and were in keeping with the other details. A soft harmony prevailed
throughout the room, a harmony which artists alone know how to attain by
carrying uniformity of decoration into the minutest particulars,--an art
of which the bourgeois mind is ignorant, though it is much taken with
its results. A glass chandelier, with twenty-four wax-candles, brought
out the color of the red silk draperies; the polished floor had an
enticing look, which tempted Cesarine to dance.
“How charming!” she said; “and yet there is nothing to seize the eye.”
“Exactly, mademoiselle,” said the architect; “the charm comes from the
harmony which reigns between the wainscots, walls, cornices, and the
decorations; I have gilded nothing, the colors are sober, and not
extravagant in tone.”
“It is a science,” said Cesarine.
A boudoir in green and white led into Cesar’s study.
“Here I have put a bed,” said Grindot, opening the doors of an alcove
cleverly hidden between the two bookcases. “If you or madame should
chance to be ill, each can have your own room.”
“But this bookcase full of books, all bound! Oh! my wife, my wife!”
cried Cesar.
“No; that is Cesarine’s surprise.”
“Pardon the feelings of a father,” said Cesar to the architect, as he
kissed his daughter.
“Oh! of course, of course, monsieur,” said Grindot; “you are in your own
home.”
Brown was the prevailing color in the study, relieved here and there
with green, for a thread of harmony led through all the rooms and allied
them with one another. Thus the color which was the leading tone of one
room became the relieving tint of another. The engraving of Hero and
Leander shone on one of the panels of Cesar’s study.
“Ah! _thou_ wilt pay for all this,” said Birotteau, looking gaily at it.
“That beautiful engraving is given to you by Monsieur Anselme,” said
Cesarine.
(Anselme, too, had allowed himself a “surprise.”)
“Poor boy! he has done just as I did for Monsieur Vauquelin.”
The bedroom of Madame Birotteau came next. The architect had there
displayed a magnificence well calculated to please the worthy people
whom he was anxious to snare; he had really kept his word and _studied_
this decoration. The room was hung in blue silk, with white ornaments;
the furniture was in white cassimere touched with blue. On the
chimney-piece, of white marble, stood a clock representing Venus
crouching, on a fine block of marble; a moquette carpet, of Turkish
design, harmonized this room with that of Cesarine, which opened out
of it, and was coquettishly hung with Persian chintz. A piano, a pretty
wardrobe with a mirror door, a chaste little bed with simple curtains,
and all the little trifles that young girls like, completed the
arrangements of the room. The dining-room was behind the bedroom of
Cesar and his wife, and was entered from the staircase; it was treated
in the style called Louis XIV., with a clock in buhl, buffets of the
same, inlaid with brass and tortoise-shell; the walls were hung with
purple stuff, fastened down by gilt nails. The happiness of these three
persons is not to be described, more especially when, re-entering her
room, Madame Birotteau found upon her bed (where Virginie had just
carried it, on tiptoe) the robe of cherry-colored velvet, with lace
trimmings, which was her husband’s “surprise.”
“Monsieur, this appartement will win you great distinction,” said
Constance to Grindot. “We shall receive a hundred and more persons
to-morrow evening, and you will win praises from everybody.”
“I shall recommend you,” said Cesar. “You will meet the very _heads_ of
commerce, and you will be better known through that one evening than if
you had built a hundred houses.”
Constance, much moved, thought no longer of costs, nor of blaming her
husband; and for the following reason: That morning, when he brought the
engraving of Hero and Leander, Anselme Popinot, whom Constance credited
with much intelligence and practical ability, had assured her of the
inevitable success of Cephalic Oil, for which he was working night and
day with a fury that was almost unprecedented. The lover promised that
no matter what was the round sum of Birotteau’s extravagance, it should
be covered in six months by Cesar’s share in the profits of the oil.
After fearing and trembling for nineteen years it was so sweet to give
herself up to one day of unalloyed happiness, that Constance promised
her daughter not to poison her husband’s pleasure by any doubts or
disapproval, but to share his happiness heartily. When therefore, about
eleven o’clock, Grindot left them, she threw herself into her husband’s
arms and said to him with tears of joy, “Cesar! ah, I am beside myself!
You have made me very happy!”
“Provided it lasts, you mean?” said Cesar, smiling.
“It will last; I have no more fears,” said Madame Birotteau.
“That’s right,” said the perfumer; “you appreciate me at last.”
People who are sufficiently large-minded to perceive their own innate
weakness will admit that an orphan girl who eighteen years earlier was
saleswoman at the Petit-Matelot, Ile Saint-Louis, and a poor peasant lad
coming from Touraine to Paris with hob-nailed shoes and a cudgel in his
hand, might well be flattered and happy in giving such a fete for such
praiseworthy reasons.
“Bless my heart!” cried Cesar. “I’d give a hundred francs if someone
would only come in now and pay us a visit.”
“Here is Monsieur l’Abbe Loraux,” said Virginie.
The abbe entered. He was at that time vicar of Saint-Sulpice. The power
of the soul was never better manifested than in this saintly priest,
whose intercourse with others left upon the minds of all an indelible
impression. His grim face, so plain as to check confidence, had grown
sublime through the exercise of Catholic virtues; upon it shone, as
it were by anticipation, the celestial glories. Sincerity and candor,
infused into his very blood, gave harmony to his unsightly features, and
the fires of charity blended the discordant lines by a phenomenon, the
exact counterpart of that which in Claparon had debased and brutalized
the human being. Faith, Hope, and Charity, the three noblest virtues
of humanity, shed their charm among the abbe’s wrinkles; his speech
was gentle, slow, and penetrating. His dress was that of the priests of
Paris, and he allowed himself to wear a brown frock-coat. No ambition
had ever crept into that pure heart, which the angels would some day
carry to God in all its pristine innocence. It required the gentle
firmness of the daughter of Louis XVI. to induce him to accept a
benefice in Paris, humble as it was. As he now entered the room he
glanced with an uneasy eye at the magnificence before him, smiled at the
three delighted people, and shook his gray head.
“My children,” he said, “my part in life is not to share in gaieties,
but to visit the afflicted. I came to thank Monsieur Cesar for his
invitation, and to congratulate you. I shall come to only one fete
here,--the marriage of this dear child.”
After the short visit the abbe went away without seeing the various
apartments, which the perfumer and his wife dared not show him. This
solemn apparition threw a few drops of cold water into the boiling
delight of Cesar’s heart. Each of the party slept amid their new luxury,
taking possession of the good things and the pretty things they
had severally wished for. Cesarine undressed her mother before a
toilet-table of white marble with a long mirror. Cesar had given himself
a few superfluities, and longed to make use of them at once: and they
all went to sleep thinking of the joys of the morrow.
On that morrow Cesarine and her mother, having been to Mass, and having
read their vespers, dressed about four o’clock in the afternoon, after
resigning the _entresol_ to the secular arm of Chevet and his people. No
attire ever suited Madame Cesar better than this cherry-colored velvet
dress with lace trimmings, and short sleeves made with jockeys: her
beautiful arms, still fresh and youthful, her bosom, sparklingly white,
her throat and shoulders of a lovely shape, were all heightened in
effect by the rich material and the resplendent color. The naive delight
which every woman feels when she sees herself in the plenitude of her
power gave an inexpressible sweetness to the Grecian profile of this
charming woman, whose beauty had all the delicacy of a cameo. Cesarine,
dressed in white crape, wore a wreath of white roses, a rose at her
waist, and a scarf chastely covering her shoulders and bust: Popinot was
beside himself.
“These people crush us,” said Madame Roguin to her husband as they went
through the appartement.
The notary’s wife was furious at appearing less beautiful than Madame
Cesar; for every woman knows how to judge the superiority or the
inferiority of a rival.
“Bah!” whispered Roguin to his wife, “it won’t last long; you will soon
bespatter her when you meet her a-foot in the streets, ruined.”
Vauquelin showed perfect tact; he came with Monsieur de Lacepede, his
colleague of the Institute, who had called to fetch him in a carriage.
On beholding the resplendent mistress of the fete they both launched
into scientific compliments.
“Ah, madame, you possess a secret of which science is ignorant,” said
the chemist, “the recipe for remaining young and beautiful.”
“You are, as I may say, partly at home here, Monsieur l’academicien,”
said Birotteau. “Yes, Monsieur le comte,” he added, turning to the
high chancellor of the Legion of honor, “I owe my fortune to Monsieur
Vauquelin. I have the honor to present to your lordship Monsieur
le president of the Court of Commerce. This is Monsieur le Comte de
Lacepede, peer of France,” he said to Joseph Lebas, who accompanied the
president.
The guests were punctual. The dinner, like all commercial dinners, was
extremely gay, full of good humor, and enlivened by the rough jests
which always raise a laugh. The excellence of the dishes and the
goodness of the wines were fully appreciated. It was half-past nine
o’clock when the company returned to the salons to take their coffee. A
few hackney-coaches had already brought the first impatient dancers.
An hour later the rooms were full, and the ball took the character of a
rout. Monsieur de Lacepede and Monsieur Vauquelin went away, much to the
grief of Cesar, who followed them to the staircase, vainly entreating
them to remain. He succeeded, however, in keeping Monsieur Popinot the
judge, and Monsieur de la Billardiere. With the exception of three
women who severally represented the aristocracy, finance, and government
circles,--namely, Mademoiselle de Fontaine, Madame Jules, and Madame
Rabourdin, whose beauty, dress, and manners were sharply defined in this
assemblage,--all the other women wore heavy, over-loaded dresses, and
offered to the eye that anomalous air of richness which gives to the
bourgeois masses their vulgar aspect, made cruelly apparent on this
occasion by the airy graces of the three other women.
The bourgeoisie of the Rue Saint-Denis displayed itself majestically in
the plenitude of its native powers of jocose silliness. It was a fair
specimen of that middle class which dresses its children like lancers
or national guards, buys the “Victoires et Conquetes,” the
“Soldat-laboureur,” admires the “Convoi du Pauvre,” delights in mounting
guard, goes on Sunday to its own country-house, is anxious to acquire
the distinguished air, and dreams of municipal honors,--that middle
class which is jealous of all and of every one, and yet is good,
obliging, devoted, feeling, compassionate, ready to subscribe for the
children of General Foy, or for the Greeks, whose piracies it knows
nothing about, or the Exiles until none remained; duped through its
virtues and scouted for its defects by a social class that is not worthy
of it, for it has a heart precisely because it is ignorant of social
conventions,--that virtuous middle-class which brings up ingenuous
daughters to an honorable toil, giving them sterling qualities which
diminish as soon as they are brought in contact with the superior world
of social life; girls without mind, among whom the worthy Chrysale would
have chosen his wife,--in short, a middle-class admirably represented by
the Matifats, druggists in the Rue des Lombards, whose firm had supplied
“The Queen of Roses” for more than sixty years.
Madame Matifat, wishing to give herself a dignified air, danced in a
turban and a heavy robe of scarlet shot with gold threads,--a toilet
which harmonized well with a self-important manner, a Roman nose, and
the splendors of a crimson complexion. Monsieur Matifat, superb at a
review of the National Guard, where his protuberant paunch could be
distinguished at fifty paces, and upon which glittered a gold chain
and a bunch of trinkets, was under the yoke of this Catherine II. of
commerce. Short and fat, harnessed with spectacles and a shirt-collar
worn above his ears, he was chiefly distinguished for his bass voice
and the richness of his vocabulary. He never said Corneille, but “the
sublime Corneille”; Racine was “the gentle Racine”; Voltaire, “Oh!
Voltaire, second in everything, with more wit than genius, but
nevertheless a man of genius”; Rousseau, “a gloomy mind, a man full of
pride, who hanged himself.” He related in his prosy way vulgar anecdotes
of Piron, a poet who passes for a prodigy among the bourgeoisie.
Matifat, a passionate lover of the stage, had a slight leaning to
obscenity. It was even said that, in imitation of Cadot and the rich
Camusot, he kept a mistress. Sometimes Madame Matifat, seeing him about
to relate some questionable anecdote, would hasten to interrupt him by
screaming out: “Take care what you are saying, old man!” She called
him habitually her “old man.” This voluminous queen of drugs caused
Mademoiselle de Fontaine to lose her aristocratic countenance, for the
impertinent girl could not help laughing as she overheard her saying
to her husband: “Don’t fling yourself upon the ices, old man, it is bad
style.”
It is more difficult to explain the nature of the difference between
the great world and the bourgeoisie than it is for the bourgeoisie to
obliterate it. These women, embarrassed by their fine clothes and very
conscious of them, displayed a naive pleasure which proved that a
ball was a rarity in their busy lives; while the three women, who each
represented a sphere in the great world, were then exactly what they
would be on the morrow. They had no appearance of having dressed
purposely for the ball, they paid no heed to the splendor of their
jewels, nor to the effect which they themselves produced; all had been
arranged when they stood before their mirrors and put the last touches
on their toilets. Their faces showed no excitement or excessive
interest, and they danced with the grace and ease which unknown genius
has given to certain statues of antiquity.
The others, on the contrary, stamped with the mark of toil, retained
their vulgar attitudes, and amused themselves too heartily; their eyes
were full of inconsiderate curiosity; their voices ranged above the
low murmur which gives inimitable piquancy to the conversations of a
ball-room; above all, they had none of that composed impertinence
which contains the germs of epigram, nor the tranquil attitude
which characterizes those who are accustomed to maintain empire over
themselves. Thus Madame Rabourdin, Madame Jules, and Mademoiselle
de Fontaine, who had expected much amusement from the ball of their
perfumer, were detached from the background of the bourgeoisie about
them by their soft and easy grace, by the exquisite taste of their dress
and bearing,--just as three leading singers at an opera stand out in
relief from the stolid array of their supernumeraries. They were watched
with jealous, wondering eyes. Madame Roguin, Constance, and Cesarine
formed, as it were, a link which united the three types of feminine
aristocracy to the commercial figures about them.
There came, as there does at all balls, a moment when the animation of
the scene, the torrents of light, the gaiety, the music, the excitement
of dancing brought on a species of intoxication which puts out of
sight these gradations in the _crescendo_ of the _tutti_. The ball was
beginning to be noisy, and Mademoiselle de Fontaine made a movement to
retire; but when she looked about for the arm of her venerable Vendeen,
Birotteau, his wife, and daughter made haste to prevent such a desertion
of the aristocracy.
“There is a perfume of good taste about this appartement which really
amazes me,” remarked that impertinent young woman to the perfumer. “I
congratulate you.”
Birotteau was so intoxicated by compliments that he did not comprehend
her meaning; but his wife colored, and was at a loss how to reply.
“This is a national fete which does you honor,” said Camusot.
“I have seldom seen such a ball,” said Monsieur de la Billardiere, to
whom an official falsehood was of no consequence.
Birotteau took all these compliments seriously.
“What an enchanting scene! What a fine orchestra! Will you often give us
a ball?” said Madame Lebas.
“What a charming appartement! Is this your own taste?” said Madame
Desmarets.
Birotteau ventured on a fib, and allowed her to suppose that he had
designed it.
Cesarine, who was asked, of course, for all the dances, understood very
well Anselme’s delicacy in that matter.
“If I thought only of my own wishes,” he had whispered as they left the
dinner-table, “I should beg you to grant me the favor of a quadrille;
but my happiness would be too costly to our mutual self-love.”
Cesarine, who thought all men walked ungracefully if they stood straight
on their legs, was resolved to open the ball with Popinot. Popinot,
emboldened by his aunt, who told him to dare all, ventured to tell his
love to the charming girl, during the pauses of the quadrille, using,
however, the roundabout terms of a timid lover.
“My fortune depends on you, mademoiselle.”
“And how?”
“There is but one hope that can enable me to make it.”
“Then hope.”
“Do you know what you have said to me in those two words?” murmured
Popinot.
“Hope for fortune,” said Cesarine, with an arch smile.
“Gaudissart! Gaudissart!” exclaimed Anselme, when the quadrille was
over, pressing the arm of his friend with Herculean force. “Succeed, or
I’ll blow my brains out! Success, and I shall marry Cesarine! she has
told me so: see how lovely she is!”
“Yes, she is prettily tricked out,” said Gaudissart, “and rich. We’ll
fry her in oil.”
The good understanding between Mademoiselle Lourdois and Alexandre
Crottat, the promised successor to Roguin, was noticed by Madame
Birotteau, who could not give up without a pang the hope of seeing her
daughter the wife of a notary of Paris.
Uncle Pillerault, who had exchanged bows with little Molineux,
seated himself in an armchair near the bookshelves. He looked at the
card-players, listened to the conversations, and went to the doorway
every now and then to watch the oscillating bouquet of flowers formed by
the circling heads of the dancers in the _moulinet_. The expression of
his face was that of a true philosopher. The men were dreadful,--all,
that is, except du Tillet, who had acquired the manners of the great
world, little La Billardiere, a budding fashionable, Monsieur Desmarets,
and the official personages. But among all the faces, more or less
comical, from which the assemblage took its character, there was
one that was particularly washed-out, like a five-franc piece of the
Republic, and whose owner’s apparel rendered him a curiosity. We
guess at once the little tyrant of the Cour Batave, arrayed with
linen yellowed by lying by in a cupboard, and exhibiting to the eye a
shirt-frill of lace that had been an heirloom, fastened with a bluish
cameo set as a pin; he wore short black-silk breeches which revealed the
skinny legs on which he boldly stood. Cesar showed him, triumphantly,
the four rooms constructed by the architect out of the first floors of
the two houses.
“Hey! hey! Well, it is your affair, Monsieur Birotteau,” said Molineux.
“My first floor thus improved will be worth more than three thousand
francs to me.”
Birotteau answered with a jest; but he was pricked as if with a pin at
the tone in which the little old man had pronounced the words.
“I shall soon have my first floor back again; the man will ruin
himself.” Such was the real meaning of the speech which Molineux
delivered like the scratch of a claw.
The sallow face and vindictive eye of the old man struck du Tillet,
whose attention had first been attracted by a watch-chain from which
hung a pound of jingling gew-gaws, and by a green coat with a collar
whimsically cocked up, which gave the old man the semblance of a
rattlesnake. The banker approached the usurer to find out how and why he
had thus bedizened himself.
“There, monsieur,” said Molineux, planting one foot in the boudoir, “I
stand upon the property of Monsieur le Comte de Grandville; but here,”
he added, showing the other, “I stand upon my own. I am the owner of
this house.”
Molineux was so ready to lend himself to any one who would listen to
him, and so delighted by du Tillet’s attentive manner, that he gave a
sketch of his life, related his habits and customs, told the improper
conduct of the Sieur Gendrin, and, finally, explained all his
arrangements with the perfumer, without which, he said, the ball could
not have been given.
“Ah! Monsieur Cesar let you settle the lease?” said du Tillet. “It is
contrary to his habits.”
“Oh! I asked it of him. I am good to my tenants.”
“If Pere Birotteau fails,” thought du Tillet, “this little imp would
make an excellent assignee. His sharpness is invaluable; when he is
alone he must amuse himself by catching flies, like Domitian.”
Du Tillet went to the card-table, where Claparon was already stationed,
under orders; Ferdinand thought that under shelter of a game of
_bouillotte_ his counterfeit banker might escape notice. Their demeanor
to each other was that of two strangers, and the most suspicious man
could have detected nothing that betrayed an understanding between them.
Gaudissart, who knew the career of Claparon, dared not approach him
after receiving a solemnly frigid glance from the promoted commercial
traveller which warned him that the upstart banker was not to be
recognized by any former comrade. The ball, like a brilliant rocket,
was extinguished by five o’clock in the morning. At that hour only some
forty hackney-coaches remained, out of the hundred or more which
had crowded the Rue Saint-Honore. Within, they were dancing the
_boulangere_, which has since been dethroned by the cotillon and
the English galop. Du Tillet, Roguin, Cardot junior, the Comte de
Grandville, and Jules Desmarets were playing at _bouillotte_. Du Tillet
won three thousand francs. The day began to dawn, the wax lights paled,
the players joined the dancers for a last quadrille. In such houses
the final scenes of a ball never pass off without some impropriety. The
dignified personages have departed; the intoxication of dancing, the
heat of the atmosphere, the spirits concealed in the most innocent
drinks, have mellowed the angularities of the old women, who
good-naturedly join in the last quadrille and lend themselves to the
excitement of the moment; the men are heated, their hair, lately curled,
straggles down their faces, and gives them a grotesque expression which
excites laughter; the young women grow volatile, and a few flowers
drop from their garlands. The bourgeois Momus appears, followed by his
revellers. Laughs ring loudly; all present surrender to the amusement
of the moment, knowing that on the morrow toil will resume its sway.
Matifat danced with a woman’s bonnet on his head; Celestin called the
figures of the interminable country dance, and some of the women beat
their hands together excitedly at the words of command.
“How they do amuse themselves!” cried the happy Birotteau.
“I hope they won’t break anything,” said Constance to her uncle.
“You have given the most magnificent ball I have ever seen, and I have
seen many,” said du Tillet, bowing to his old master.
Among the eight symphonies of Beethoven there is a theme, glorious as a
poem, which dominates the finale of the symphony in C minor. When,
after slow preparations by the sublime magician, so well understood by
Habeneck, the enthusiastic leader of an orchestra raises the rich veil
with a motion of his hand and calls forth the transcendent theme towards
which the powers of music have all converged, poets whose hearts have
throbbed at those sounds will understand how the ball of Cesar Birotteau
produced upon his simple being the same effect that this fecund harmony
wrought in theirs,--an effect to which the symphony in C minor owes its
supremacy over its glorious sisters. A radiant fairy springs forward,
lifting high her wand. We hear the rustle of the violet silken curtains
which the angels raise. Sculptured golden doors, like those of the
baptistery at Florence, turn on their diamond hinges. The eye is lost in
splendid vistas: it sees a long perspective of rare palaces where beings
of a loftier nature glide. The incense of all prosperities sends up its
smoke, the altar of all joy flames, the perfumed air circulates! Beings
with divine smiles, robed in white tunics bordered with blue, flit
lightly before the eyes and show us visions of supernatural beauty,
shapes of an incomparable delicacy. The Loves hover in the air and waft
the flames of their torches! We feel ourselves beloved; we are happy
as we breathe a joy we understand not, as we bathe in the waves of a
harmony that flows for all, and pours out to all the ambrosia that
each desires. We are held in the grasp of our secret hopes which are
realized, for an instant, as we listen. When he has led us through the
skies, the great magician, with a deep mysterious transition of the
basses, flings us back into the marshes of cold reality, only to draw us
forth once more when, thirsting for his divine melodies, our souls cry
out, “Again! Again!” The psychical history of that rare moment in the
glorious finale of the C minor symphony is also that of the emotions
excited by this fete in the souls of Cesar and of Constance. The flute
of Collinet sounded the last notes of their commercial symphony.
Weary, but happy, the Birotteaus fell asleep in the early morning amid
echoes of the fete,--which for building, repairs, furnishing, suppers,
toilets, and the library (repaid to Cesarine), cost not less, though
Cesar was little aware of it, than sixty thousand francs. Such was the
price of the fatal red ribbon fastened by the king to the buttonhole
of an honest perfumer. If misfortunes were to overtake Cesar Birotteau,
this mad extravagance would be sufficient to arraign him before the
criminal courts. A merchant is amenable to the laws if, in the event of
bankruptcy, he is shown to have been guilty of “excessive expenditure.”
It is perhaps more dreadful to go before the lesser courts charged with
folly or blundering mistakes, than before the Court of Assizes for an
enormous fraud. In the eyes of some people, it is better to be criminal
than a fool.