The old man was reading the “Constitutionnel” in his chimney-corner,
before a little round table on which stood his frugal breakfast,--a
roll, some butter, a plate of Brie cheese, and a cup of coffee.
“Here is true wisdom,” thought Birotteau, envying his uncle’s life.
“Well!” said Pillerault, taking off his spectacles, “I heard at the cafe
David last night about Roguin’s affair, and the assassination of his
mistress, la belle Hollandaise. I hope, as we desire to be actual owners
of the property, that you obtained Claparon’s receipt for the money.”
“Alas! uncle, no. The trouble is just there,--you have put your finger
upon the sore.”
“Good God! you are ruined!” cried Pillerault, letting fall
his newspaper, which Birotteau picked up, though it was the
“Constitutionnel.”
Pillerault was so violently roused by his reflections that his
face--like the image on a medal and of the same stern character--took a
deep bronze tone, such as the metal itself takes under the oscillating
tool of a coiner; he remained motionless, gazing through the
window-panes at the opposite wall, but seeing nothing,--listening,
however, to Birotteau. Evidently he heard and judged, and weighed the
_pros_ and _cons_ with the inflexibility of a Minos who had crossed the
Styx of commerce when he quitted the Quai des Morfondus for his little
third storey.
“Well, uncle?” said Birotteau, who waited for an answer, after closing
what he had to say with an entreaty that Pillerault would sell sixty
thousand francs out of the Funds.
“Well, my poor nephew, I cannot do it; you are too heavily involved. The
Ragons and I each lose our fifty thousand francs. Those worthy people
have, by my advice, sold their shares in the mines of Wortschin: I feel
obliged, in case of loss, not to return the capital of course, but
to succor them, and to succor my niece and Cesarine. You may all want
bread, and you shall find it with me.”
“Want bread, uncle?”
“Yes, bread. See things as they are, Cesar. _You cannot extricate
yourself._ With five thousand six hundred francs income, I could
set aside four thousand francs for you and the Ragons. If misfortune
overtakes you,--I know Constance, she will work herself to the bone, she
will deny herself everything; and so will you, Cesar.”
“All is not hopeless, uncle.”
“I cannot see it as you do.”
“I will prove that you are mistaken.”
“Nothing would give me greater happiness.”
Birotteau left Pillerault without another word. He had come to seek
courage and consolation, and he received a blow less severe, perhaps,
than the first; but instead of striking his head it struck his heart,
and his heart was the whole of life to the poor man. After going down a
few stairs he returned.
“Monsieur,” he said, in a cold voice, “Constance knows nothing. Keep my
secret at any rate; beg the Ragons to say nothing, and not to take from
my home the peace I need so much in my struggle against misfortune.”
Pillerault made a gesture of assent.
“Courage, Cesar!” he said. “I see you are angry with me; but later, when
you think of your wife and daughter, you will do me justice.”
Discouraged by his uncle’s opinion, and recognizing its
clear-sightedness, Cesar tumbled from the heights of hope into the miry
marshes of doubt and uncertainty. In such horrible commercial straits
a man, unless his soul is tempered like that of Pillerault, becomes the
plaything of events; he follows the ideas of others, or his own, as a
traveller pursues a will-o’-the-wisp. He lets the gust whirl him along,
instead of lying flat and not looking up as it passes; or else gathering
himself together to follow the direction of the storm till he can escape
from the edges of it. In the midst of his pain Birotteau bethought him
of the steps he ought to take about the mortgage on his property. He
turned towards the Rue Vivienne to find Derville, his solicitor, and
institute proceedings at once, in case the lawyer should see any chance
of annulling the agreement. He found Derville sitting by the fire,
wrapped in a white woollen dressing-gown, calm and composed in manner,
like all lawyers long used to receiving terrible confidences. Birotteau
noticed for the first time in his life this necessary coldness, which
struck a chill to the soul of a man grasped by the fever of imperilled
interests,--passionate, wounded, and cruelly gashed in his life, his
honor, his wife, his child, as Cesar showed himself to be while he
related his misfortunes.
“If it can be proved,” said Derville, after listening to him, “that the
lender no longer had in Roguin’s hands the sum which Roguin pretended to
borrow for you upon your property, then, as there has been no delivery
of the money, there is ground for annulling the contract; the lender may
seek redress through the warranty, as you will for your hundred thousand
francs. I will answer for the case, however, as much as one can ever
answer. No case is won till it is tried.”
The opinion of so able a lawyer restored Cesar’s courage a little,
and he begged Derville to obtain a judgment within a fortnight. The
solicitor replied that it might take three months to get such a judgment
as would annul the agreement.
“Three months!” cried Birotteau, who needed immediate resources.
“Though we may get the case at once on the docket, we cannot make your
adversary keep pace with us. He will employ all the law’s delays, and
the barristers are seldom ready. Perhaps your opponents will let the
case go by default. We can’t always get on as we wish,” said Derville,
smiling.
“In the commercial courts--” began Birotteau.
“Oh!” said the lawyer, “the judges of the commercial courts and the
judges of the civil courts are different sorts of judges. You dash
through things. At the Palais de Justice we have stricter forms. Forms
are the bulwarks of law. How would you like slap-dash judgments, which
can’t be appealed, and which would make you lose forty thousand francs?
Well, your adversary, who sees that sum involved, will defend himself.
Delays may be called judicial fortifications.”
“You are right,” said Birotteau, bidding Derville good-by, and going
hurriedly away, with death in his heart.
“They are all right. Money! money! I must have money!” he cried as he
went along the streets, talking to himself like other busy men in the
turbulent and seething city, which a modern poet has called a vat. When
he entered his shop, the clerk who had carried round the bills informed
him that the customers had returned the receipts and kept the accounts,
as it was so near the first of January.
“Then there is no money to be had anywhere,” said the perfumer, aloud.
He bit his lips, for the clerks all raised their heads and looked at
him.
Five days went by; five days during which Braschon, Lourdois, Thorein,
Grindot, Chaffaroux, and all the other creditors with unpaid bills
passed through the chameleon phases that are customary to uneasy
creditors before they take the sanguinary colors of the commercial
Bellona, and reach a state of peaceful confidence. In Paris the
astringent stage of suspicion and mistrust is as quick to declare
itself as the expansive flow of confidence is slow in gathering way. The
creditor who has once turned into the narrow path of commercial fears
and precautions speedily takes a course of malignant meanness which puts
him below the level of his debtor. He passes from specious civility
to impatient rage, to the surly clamor of importunity, to bursts of
disappointment, to the livid coldness of a mind made up to vengeance,
and the scowling insolence of a summons before the courts. Braschon, the
rich upholsterer of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, who was not invited
to the ball, and was therefore stabbed in his self-love, sounded the
charge; he insisted on being paid within twenty-four hours. He demanded
security; not an attachment on the furniture, but a second mortgage on
the property in the Faubourg du Temple.
In spite of such attacks and the violence of these recriminations, a
few peaceful intervals occurred, when Birotteau breathed once more; but
instead of resolutely facing and vanquishing the first skirmishings of
adverse fortune, Cesar employed his whole mind in the effort to keep his
wife, the only person able to advise him, from knowing anything about
them. He guarded the very threshold of his door, and set a watch on
all around him. He took Celestin into confidence so far as to admit a
momentary embarrassment, and Celestin examined him with an amazed and
inquisitive look. In his eyes Cesar lessened, as men lessen in presence
of disasters when accustomed only to success, and when their whole
mental strength consists of knowledge which commonplace minds acquire
through routine.
Menaced as he was on so many sides at once, and without the energy or
capacity to defend himself, Cesar nevertheless had the courage to look
his position in the face. To meet the payments on his house and on
his loans, and to pay his rents and his current expenses, he required,
between the end of December and the fifteenth of January, a sum of sixty
thousand francs, half of which must be obtained before the thirtieth
of December. All his resources put together gave him a scant twenty
thousand; he lacked ten thousand francs for the first payments. To his
mind the position did not seem desperate; for like an adventurer who
lives from day to day, he saw only the present moment. He resolved to
attempt, before the news of his embarrassments was made public, what
seemed to him a great stroke, and seek out the famous Francois Keller,
banker, orator, and philanthropist, celebrated for his benevolence and
for his desire to serve the interests of Parisian commerce,--with the
view, we may add, of being always returned to the Chamber as a deputy of
Paris.
The banker was Liberal, Birotteau was Royalist; but the perfumer judged
by his own heart, and believed that the difference in their political
opinions would only be one reason the more for obtaining the credit
he intended to ask. In case actual securities were required he felt no
doubt of Popinot’s devotion, from whom he expected to obtain some thirty
thousand francs, which would enable him to await the result of
his law-suit by satisfying the demands of the most exacting of the
creditors. The demonstrative perfumer, who told his dear Constance, with
his head on her pillow, the smallest thoughts and feelings of his whole
life, looking for the lights of her contradiction, and gathering courage
as he did so, was now prevented from speaking of his situation to his
head-clerk, his uncle, or his wife. His thoughts were therefore doubly
heavy,--and yet the generous martyr preferred to suffer, rather than
fling the fiery brand into the soul of his wife. He meant to tell her
of the danger when it was over. The awe with which she inspired him gave
him courage. He went every morning to hear Mass at Saint-Roch, and took
God for his confidant.
“If I do not meet a soldier coming home from Saint-Roch, my request
will be granted. That will be God’s answer,” he said to himself, after
praying that God would help him.
And he was overjoyed when it happened that he did not meet a soldier.
Still, his heart was so heavy that he needed another heart on which to
lean and moan. Cesarine, to whom from the first he confided the fatal
truth, knew all his secrets. Many stolen glances passed between them,
glances of despair or smothered hope,--interpellations of the eye darted
with mutual eagerness, inquiries and replies full of sympathy, rays
passing from soul to soul. Birotteau compelled himself to seem gay, even
jovial, with his wife. If Constance asked a question--bah! everything
was going well; Popinot (about whom Cesar knew nothing) was succeeding;
the oil was looking up; the notes with Claparon would be paid; there was
nothing to fear. His mock joy was terrible to witness. When his wife had
fallen asleep in the sumptuous bed, Birotteau would rise to a sitting
position and think over his troubles. Cesarine would sometimes creep
in with her bare feet, in her chemise, and a shawl over her white
shoulders.
“Papa, I hear you,--you are crying,” she would say, crying herself.
Birotteau sank into such a torpor, after writing the letter which asked
for an interview with the great Francois Keller, that his daughter took
him out for a walk through the streets of Paris. For the first time he
was roused to notice enormous scarlet placards on all the walls, and his
eyes encountered the words “Cephalic Oil.”
While catastrophes thus threatened “The Queen of Roses” to westward,
the house of A. Popinot was rising, radiant in the eastern splendors of
success. By the advice of Gaudissart and Finot, Anselme launched his oil
heroically. Two thousand placards were pasted in three days on the most
conspicuous spots in all Paris. No one could avoid coming face to face
with Cephalic Oil, and reading a pithy sentence, constructed by Finot,
which announced the impossibility of forcing the hair to grow and the
dangers of dyeing it, and was judiciously accompanied by a quotation
from Vauquelin’s report to the Academy of Sciences,--in short, a
regular certificate of life for dead hair, offered to all those who
used Cephalic Oil. Every hair-dresser in Paris, and all the perfumers,
ornamented their doorways with gilt frames containing a fine impression
of the prospectus on vellum, at the top of which shone the engraving of
Hero and Leander, reduced in size, with the following assertion as an
epigraph: “The peoples of antiquity preserved their hair by the use of
Cephalic Oil.”
“He has devised frames, permanent frames, perpetual placards,”
said Birotteau to himself, quite dumbfounded as he stood before the
shop-front of the Cloche d’Argent.
“Then you have not seen,” said his daughter, “the frame which Monsieur
Anselme has brought with his own hands, sending Celestin three hundred
bottles of oil?”
“No,” he said.
“Celestin has already sold fifty to passers-by, and sixty to regular
customers.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Cesar.
The poor man, bewildered by the clash of bells which misery jangles in
the ears of its victims, lived and moved in a dazed condition. The night
before, Popinot had waited more than an hour to see him, and went away
after talking with Constance and Cesarine, who told him that Cesar was
absorbed in his great enterprise.
“Ah, true! the lands about the Madeleine.”
Happily, Popinot--who for a month had never left the Rue des
Cinq-Diamants, sitting up all night, and working all Sunday at the
manufactory--had seen neither the Ragons, nor Pillerault, nor his uncle
the judge. He allowed himself but two hours’ sleep, poor lad! he had
only two clerks, but at the rate things were now going, he would soon
need four. In business, opportunity is everything. He who does not
spring upon the back of success and clutch it by the mane, lets fortune
escape. Popinot felt that his suit would prosper if six months hence he
could say to his uncle and aunt, “I am secure; my fortune is made,” and
carry to Birotteau thirty or forty thousand francs as his share of
the profits. He was ignorant of Roguin’s flight, of the disasters and
embarrassments which were closing down on Cesar, and he therefore could
say nothing indiscreet to Madame Birotteau.
Popinot had promised Finot five hundred francs for every puff in a
first-class newspaper, and already there were ten of them; three hundred
francs for every second-rate paper, and there were ten of those,--in all
of them Cephalic Oil was mentioned three times a month! Finot saw three
thousand francs for himself out of these eight thousand--his first stake
on the vast green table of speculation! He therefore sprang like a lion
on his friends and acquaintances; he haunted the editorial rooms; he
wormed himself to the very bedsides of editors in the morning, and
prowled about the lobby of the theatres at night. “Think of my oil, dear
friend; I have no interest in it--bit of good fellowship, you know!”
“Gaudissart, jolly dog!” Such was the first and the last phrase of all
his allocutions. He begged for the bottom lines of the final columns of
the newspapers, and inserted articles for which he asked no pay from the
editors. Wily as a supernumerary who wants to be an actor, wide-awake
as an errand-boy who earns sixty francs a month, he wrote wheedling
letters, flattered the self-love of editors-in-chief, and did them base
services to get his articles inserted. Money, dinners, platitudes, all
served the purpose of his eager activity. With tickets for the theatre,
he bribed the printers who about midnight are finishing up the columns
of a newspaper with little facts and ready-made items kept on hand. At
that hour Finot hovered around printing-presses, busy, apparently,
with proofs to be corrected. Keeping friends with everybody, he
brought Cephalic Oil to a triumphant success over Pate de Regnauld, and
Brazilian Mixture, and all the other inventions which had the genius to
comprehend journalistic influence and the suction power that reiterated
newspaper articles have upon the public mind. In these early days of
their innocence many journalists were like cattle; they were unaware
of their inborn power; their heads were full of actresses,--Florine,
Tullia, Mariette, etc. They laid down the law to everybody, but they
picked up nothing for themselves. As Finot’s schemes did not concern
actresses who wanted applause, nor plays to be puffed, nor vaudevilles
to be accepted, nor articles which had to be paid for,--on the contrary,
he paid money on occasion, and gave timely breakfasts,--there was soon
not a newspaper in Paris which did not mention Cephalic Oil, and
call attention to its remarkable concurrence with the principles of
Vauquelin’s analysis; ridiculing all those who thought hair could be
made to grow, and proclaiming the danger of dyeing it.
These articles rejoiced the soul of Gaudissart, who used them as
ammunition to destroy prejudices, bringing to bear upon the provinces
what his successors have since named, in honor of him, “the charge
of the tongue-battery.” In those days Parisian newspapers ruled the
departments, which were still (unhappy regions!) without _local organs_.
The papers were therefore soberly studied, from the title to the name
of the printer,--a last line which may have hidden the ironies of
persecuted opinion. Gaudissart, thus backed up by the press, met with
startling success from the very first town which he favored with his
tongue. Every shopkeeper in the provinces wanted the gilt frames, and
the prospectuses with Hero and Leander at the top of them.
In Paris, Finot fired at Macassar Oil that delightful joke which
made people so merry at the Funambules, when Pierrot, taking an old
hair-broom, anointed it with Macassar Oil, and the broom incontinently
became a mop. This ironical scene excited universal laughter. Finot
gaily related in after days that without the thousand crowns he earned
through Cephalic Oil he should have died of misery and despair. To him
a thousand crowns was fortune. It was in this campaign that he
guessed--let him have the honor of being the first to do so--the
illimitable power of advertisement, of which he made so great and so
judicious a use. Three months later he became editor-in-chief of a
little journal which he finally bought, and which laid the foundation
of his ultimate success. Just as the tongue-battery of the illustrious
Gaudissart, that Murat of travellers, when brought to bear upon the
provinces and the frontiers, made the house of A. Popinot and Company
a triumphant mercantile success in the country regions, so likewise did
Cephalic Oil triumph in Parisian opinion, thanks to Finot’s famishing
assault upon the newspapers, which gave it as much publicity as that
obtained by Brazilian Mixture and the Pate de Regnauld. From the start,
public opinion, thus carried by storm, begot three successes, three
fortunes, and proved the advance guard of that invasion of ambitious
schemes which since have poured their crowded battalions into the arena
of journalism, for which they have created--oh, mighty revolution!--the
paid advertisement. The name of A. Popinot and Company now flaunted on
all the walls and all the shop-fronts. Incapable of perceiving the full
bearing of such publicity, Birotteau merely said to his daughter,--
“Little Popinot is following in my steps.”
He did not understand the difference of the times, nor appreciate the
power of the novel methods of execution, whose rapidity and extent took
in, far more promptly than ever before, the whole commercial universe.
Birotteau had not set foot in his manufactory since the ball; he knew
nothing therefore of the energy and enterprise displayed by Popinot.
Anselme had engaged all Cesar’s workmen, and often slept himself on the
premises. His fancy pictured Cesarine sitting on the cases, and hovering
over the shipments; her name seemed printed on the bills; and as he
worked with his coat off, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up, courageously
nailing up the cases himself, in default of the necessary clerks, he
said in his heart, “She shall be mine!”
* * * * *
The following day Cesar went to Francois Keller’s house in Rue du
Houssaye, having spent the night turning over in his mind what he
ought to say, or ought not to say, to a leading man in banking circles.
Horrible palpitations of the heart assailed him as he approached the
house of the Liberal banker, who belonged to a party accused, with good
reason, of seeking the overthrow of the restored Bourbons. The perfumer,
like all the lesser tradesmen of Paris, was ignorant of the habits
and customs of the upper banking circles. Between the higher walks of
finance and ordinary commerce, there is in Paris a class of secondary
houses, useful intermediaries for banking interests, which find in them
an additional security. Constance and Birotteau, who had never gone
beyond their means, whose purse had never run dry, and who kept their
moneys in their own possession, had so far never needed the services
of these intermediary houses; they were therefore unknown in the higher
regions of a bank. Perhaps it is a mistake not to take out credits, even
if we do not need them. Opinions vary on this point. However that may
be, Birotteau now deeply regretted that his signature was unknown.
Still, as deputy-mayor, and therefore known in politics, he thought he
had only to present his name and be admitted: he was quite ignorant of
the ceremonial, half regal, which attended an audience with Francois
Keller. He was shown into a salon which adjoined the study of the
celebrated banker,--celebrated in various ways. Birotteau found
himself among a numerous company of deputies, writers, journalists,
stock-brokers, merchants of the upper grades, agents, engineers, and
above all satellites, or henchmen, who passed from group to group, and
knocked in a peculiar manner at the door of the study, which they were,
as it seemed, privileged to enter.
“What am I in the midst of all this?” thought Birotteau, quite
bewildered by the stir of this intellectual kiln, where the daily bread
of the opposition was kneaded and baked, and the scenes of the grand
tragi-comedy played by the Left were rehearsed. On one side he heard
them discussing the question of loans to complete the net-work of canals
proposed by the department on highways; and the discussion involved
millions! On the other, journalists, pandering to the banker’s
self-love, were talking about the session of the day before, and the
impromptu speech of the great man. In the course of two long hours
Birotteau saw the banker three times, as he accompanied certain persons
of importance three steps from the door of his study. But Francois
Keller went to the door of the antechamber with the last, who was
General Foy.
“There is no hope for me!” thought Birotteau with a shrinking heart.
When the banker returned to his study, the troop of courtiers, friends,
and self-seekers pressed round him like dogs pursuing a bitch. A few
bold curs slipped, in spite of him, into the sanctum. The conferences
lasted five, ten, or fifteen minutes. Some went away chap-fallen; others
affected satisfaction, and took on airs of importance. Time passed;
Birotteau looked anxiously at the clock. No one paid the least attention
to the hidden grief which moaned silently in the gilded armchair in the
chimney corner, near the door of the cabinet where dwelt the universal
panacea--credit! Cesar remembered sadly that for a brief moment he too
had been a king among his own people, as this man was a king daily; and
he measured the depth of the abyss down which he had fallen. Ah, bitter
thought! how many tears were driven back during those waiting hours! how
many times did he not pray to God that this man might be favorable to
him! for he saw, through the coarse varnish of popular good humor, a
tone of insolence, a choleric tyranny, a brutal desire to rule, which
terrified his gentle spirit. At last, when only ten or twelve persons
were left in the room, Birotteau resolved that the next time the outer
door of the study turned on its hinges he would rise and face the great
orator, and say to him, “I am Birotteau!” The grenadier who sprang first
into the redoubt at Moscow displayed no greater courage than Cesar now
summoned up to perform this act.
“After all, I am his mayor,” he said to himself as he rose to proclaim
his name.
The countenance of Francois Keller at once became affable; he evidently
desired to be cordial. He glanced at Cesar’s red ribbon, and stepping
back, opened the door of his study and motioned him to enter, remaining
himself for some time to speak with two men, who rushed in from the
staircase with the violence of a waterspout.
“Decazes wants to speak to you,” said one of them.
“It is a question of defeating the Pavillon Marsan!” cried the other.
“The King’s eyes are opened. He is coming round to us.”
“We will go together to the Chamber,” said the banker, striking the
attitude of the frog who imitates an ox.
“How can he find time to think of business?” thought Birotteau, much
disturbed.
The sun of successful superiority dazzled the perfumer, as light blinds
those insects who seek the falling day or the half-shadows of a starlit
night. On a table of immense size lay the budget, piles of the Chamber
records, open volumes of the “Moniteur,” with passages carefully marked,
to throw at the head of a Minister his forgotten words and force him to
recant them, under the jeering plaudits of a foolish crowd incapable of
perceiving how circumstances alter cases. On another table were heaped
portfolios, minutes, projects, specifications, and all the thousand
memoranda brought to bear upon a man into whose funds so many nascent
industries sought to dip. The royal luxury of this cabinet, filled with
pictures, statues, and works of art; the encumbered chimney-piece; the
accumulation of many interests, national and foreign, heaped together
like bales,--all struck Birotteau’s mind, dwarfed his powers, heightened
his terror, and froze his blood. On Francois Keller’s desk lay bundles
of notes and checks, letters of credit, and commercial circulars.
Keller sat down and began to sign rapidly such letters as needed no
examination.
“Monsieur, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
At these words, uttered for him alone by a voice which influenced
all Europe, while the eager hand was running over the paper, the poor
perfumer felt something that was like a hot iron in his stomach. He
assumed the ingratiating manner which for ten years past the banker had
seen all men put on when they wanted to get the better of him for
their own purposes, and which gave him at once the advantage over them.
Francois Keller accordingly darted at Cesar a look which shot through
his head,--a Napoleonic look. This imitation of Napoleon’s glance was a
silly satire, then popular with certain parvenus who had never seen so
much as the base coin of their emperor. This glance fell upon Birotteau,
a devotee of the Right, a partisan of the government,--himself an
element of monarchical election,--like the stamp of a custom-house
officer affixed to a bale of merchandise.
“Monsieur, I will not waste your time; I will be brief. I come on
commercial business only,--to ask if I can obtain a credit. I was
formerly a judge of the commercial courts, and known to the Bank of
France. You will easily understand that if I had plenty of ready money
I need only apply there, where you are yourself a director. I had the
honor of sitting on the Bench of commerce with Monsieur le baron Thibon,
chairman of the committee on discounts; and he, most assuredly, would
not refuse me. But up to this time I have never made use of my credit
or my signature; my signature is virgin,--and you know what difficulties
that puts in the way of negotiation.”
Keller moved his head, and Birotteau took the movement for one of
impatience.
“Monsieur, these are the facts,” he resumed. “I am engaged in an affair
of landed property, outside of my business--”
Francois Keller, who continued to sign and read his documents, without
seeming to listen to Birotteau, here turned round and made him a little
sign of attention, which encouraged the poor man. He thought the matter
was taking a favorable turn, and breathed again.
“Go on; I hear you,” said Keller good-naturedly.
“I have purchased, at half its value, certain land about the
Madeleine--”
“Yes; I heard Nucingen speak of that immense affair,--undertaken, I
believe, by Claparon and Company.”
“Well,” continued Cesar, “a credit of a hundred thousand francs, secured
on my share of the purchase, will suffice to carry me along until I can
reap certain profits from a discovery of mine in perfumery. Should it be
necessary, I will cover your risk by notes on a new establishment,--the
firm of A. Popinot--”
Keller seemed to care very little about the firm of Popinot; and
Birotteau, perceiving that he had made a false move, stopped short;
then, alarmed by the silence, he resumed, “As for the interest, we--”
“Yes, yes,” said the banker, “the matter can be arranged; don’t doubt my
desire to be of service to you. Busy as I am,--for I have the finances
of Europe on my shoulders, and the Chamber takes all my time,--you will
not be surprised to hear that I leave the vast bulk of our affairs to
the examination of others. Go and see my brother Adolphe, downstairs;
explain to him the nature of your securities; if he approves of the
operation, come back here with him to-morrow or the day after, at five
in the morning,--the hour at which I examine into certain business
matters. We shall be proud and happy to obtain your confidence. You are
one of those consistent royalists with whom, of course, we are political
enemies, but whose good-will is always flattering--”
“Monsieur,” said Cesar, elated by this specimen of tribune eloquence, “I
trust I am as worthy of the honor you do me as I was of the signal and
royal favor which I earned by my services on the Bench of commerce, and
by fighting--”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted the banker, “your reputation is a passport,
Monsieur Birotteau. You will, of course, propose nothing that is not
feasible, and you can depend on our co-operation.”
A lady, Madame Keller, one of the two daughters of the Comte de
Gondreville, here opened a door which Birotteau had not observed.
“I hope to see you before you go the Chamber,” she said.
“It is two o’clock,” exclaimed the banker; “the battle has begun.
Excuse me, monsieur, it is a question of upsetting the ministry. See my
brother--”
He conducted the perfumer to the door of the salon, and said to one of
the servants, “Show monsieur the way to Monsieur Adolphe.”
As Cesar traversed a labyrinth of staircases, under the guidance of a
man in livery, towards an office far less sumptuous but more useful than
that of the head of the house, feeling himself astride the gentle steed
of hope, he stroked his chin, and augured well from the flatteries of
the great man. He regretted that an enemy of the Bourbons should be so
gracious, so able, so fine an orator.
Full of these illusions he entered a cold bare room, furnished with
two desks on rollers, some shabby armchairs, a threadbare carpet, and
curtains that were much neglected. This cabinet was to that of the elder
brother like a kitchen to a dining-room, or a work-room to a shop. Here
were turned inside out all matters touching the bank and commerce; here
all enterprises were sifted, and the first tithes levied, on behalf of
the bank, upon the profits of industries judged worthy of being upheld.
Here were devised those bold strokes by which short-lived monopolies
were called into being and rapidly sucked dry. Here defects of
legislation were chronicled; and bargains driven, without shame, for
what the Bourse terms “pickings to be gobbled up,” commissions exacted
for the smallest services, such as lending their name to an enterprise,
and allowing it credit. Here were hatched the specious, legal plots by
which silent partnerships were taken in doubtful enterprises, that the
bank might lie in wait for the moment of success, and then crush
them and seize the property by demanding a return of the capital at a
critical moment,--an infamous trick, which involves and ruins many small
shareholders.
The two brothers had each selected his appropriate part. Upstairs,
Francois, the brilliant man of the world and of politics, assumed a
regal air, bestowed courtesies and promises, and made himself agreeable
to all. His manners were easy and complying; he looked at business
from a lofty standpoint; he intoxicated new recruits and fledgling
speculators with the wine of his favor and his fervid speech, as he made
plain to them their own ideas. Downstairs, Adolphe unsaid his brother’s
words, excused him on the ground of political preoccupation, and
cleverly slipped the rake along the cloth. He played the part of the
responsible partner, the careful business man. Two words, two speeches,
two interviews, were required before an understanding could be reached
with this perfidious house. Often the gracious “yes” of the sumptuous
upper floor became a dry “no” in Adolphe’s region. This obstructive
manoeuvre gave time for reflection, and often served to fool unskilful
applicants. As Cesar entered, the banker’s brother was conversing with
the famous Palma, intimate adviser of the house of Keller, who retired
on the appearance of the perfumer. When Birotteau had explained his
errand, Adolphe--much the cleverest of the two brothers, a thorough
lynx, with a keen eye, thin lips, and a dry skin--cast at Birotteau,
lowering his head to look over his spectacles as he did so, a look which
we must call the banker-look,--a cross between that of a vulture and
that of an attorney; eager yet indifferent, clear yet vague, glittering
though sombre.
“Have the goodness to send me the deeds relating to the affair of the
Madeleine,” he said; “our security in making you this credit lies there:
we must examine them before we consent to make it, or discuss the terms.
If the affair is sound, we shall be willing, so as not to embarrass you,
to take a share of the profits in place of receiving a discount.”
“Well,” thought Birotteau, as he walked away, “I see what it means. Like
the hunted beaver, I am to give up a part of my skin. After all, it is
better to be shorn than killed.”
He went home smiling gaily, and his gaiety was genuine.
“I am saved,” he said to Cesarine. “I am to have a credit with the
Kellers.”