IV

During the first three days of the year, two hundred visiting cards

were sent to Birotteau. This rush of fictitious friendship, these empty

testimonials of favor, are horrible to those who feel themselves drawn

down into the vortex of misfortune. Birotteau presented himself three

times at the hotel of the famous banker, the Baron de Nucingen, but

in vain. The opening of the year with all its festivities sufficiently

explained the absences of the financier. On the last occasion Birotteau

got as far as the office of the banker, where the head-clerk, a German,

told him that Monsieur de Nucingen had returned at five in the morning

from a ball at the Kellers’, and would not be visible until half-past

nine o’clock. Birotteau had the luck to interest this man in his

affairs, and remained talking with him more than half an hour. In the

course of the afternoon this prime minister of the house of Nucingen

wrote Birotteau that the baron would receive him the next day, 13th, at

noon. Though every hour brought its drop of absinthe, the day went by

with frightful rapidity. Cesar took a hackney coach, but stopped it

several paces distant from the hotel, whose courtyard was crowded

with carriages. The poor man’s heart sank within him when he saw the

splendors of that noted house.

“And yet he has failed twice,” he said to himself as he went up a superb

staircase banked with flowers, and crossed the sumptuous rooms which

helped to make Madame Delphine de Nucingen famous in the Chaussee

d’Antin. The baronne’s ambition was to rival the great ladies of the

Faubourg Saint-Germain, to whose houses she was not as yet admitted. The

baron was breakfasting with his wife. In spite of the crowd which was

waiting for him in the counting-room, he had left word that any friend

of du Tillet was to be admitted. Birotteau trembled with hope as he

noticed the change which the baron’s order had wrought in the hitherto

insolent manner of the footman.

“Pardon me, my tear,” said the baron to his wife, in a strong German

accent, as he rose and nodded to Birotteau, “monsieur is a good

royalist, and der intimate frient of tu Tillet. Bezides, monsieur is

debudy-mayor of der zecond arrondissement, and gifs palls of Aziatigue

magnifissence; so vill you mak his acquentence mit blaysure.”

“I should be delighted to take lessons from Madame Birotteau, for

Ferdinand--”

“She calls him Ferdinand!” thought Cesar.

“--spoke of the ball with great admiration, which is all the more

valuable because he usually admires nothing. Ferdinand is a harsh

critic; in his eyes everything ought to be perfect. Shall you soon give

another ball?” she inquired affably.

“Madame, poor people, such as we are, seldom have many amusements of

that kind,” said the perfumer, not knowing whether she meant to ridicule

him, or was merely paying an empty compliment.

“Monsieur Grindot suberintented der resdoration of your abbartement, I

zink?” said the baron.

“Ah, Grindot! that nice little architect who has just returned from

Rome,” said Delphine de Nucingen. “I dote on him; he makes delicious

drawings in my album.”

No culprit enduring the torments of hell in Venetian dungeons ever

suffered more from the torture of the boot than Birotteau did, standing

there in his ordinary clothes. He felt a sneer in every word.

“Vill you gif oder little palls?” said the banker, with a searching look

at the perfumer. “You see all der vorld ist inderesded.”

“Will Monsieur Birotteau breakfast with us, without ceremony?” said

Delphine, motioning towards the table which was sumptuously served.

“Madame la baronne, I came on business, and I am--”

“Yes, matame, vill you bermit us to speak of business?”

Delphine made a little sign of assent, saying to her husband, “Are you

going to buy perfumery?” The baron shrugged his shoulders and turned to

Cesar, who trembled with anxiety.

“Tu Tillet takes der graadest inderest in you,” he said.

“At last,” thought the poor man, “we are coming to the point.”

“His ledder gif you in my house a creydit vich is only limided by der

limids of my privade fortune.”

The exhilarating balm infused into the water offered by the angel

to Hagar in the desert, must have been the same cordial which flowed

through Cesar’s veins as he listened to these words. The wily banker

retained the horrible pronunciation of the German Jews,--possibly

that he might be able to deny promises actually given, but only

half-understood.

“You shall haf a running aggont. Ve vill broceed in dis vay--” said this

great and good and venerable financier, with Alsatian good-humor.

Birotteau doubted no longer; he was a merchant, and new very well that

those who have no intention of rendering a service never enter into the

details of executing it.

“I neet not tell you dat der Bank demands of all, graat and small

alaike, dree zignatures. So denn, you traw a cheque to die order of our

frient tu Tillet, and I vill sent it, same tay, to der Bank mit mein

zignature; so shall you haf, at four o’clock, der amount of die cheque

you trew in der morning; and at der costs of die Bank. I vill not receif

a commission, no! I vill haf only der blaysure to be agreeaple to you.

But I mak one condeetion,” he added, laying his left finger lightly on

his nose with an inimitably sly gesture.

“Monsieur le baron, it is granted on the sport,” said Birotteau, who

thought it concerned some tithe to be levied on his profits.

“A condeetion to vich I attache der graatest imbortance, because I vish

Matame de Nucingen should receif, as she say, zom lessons from Matame

Pirodot.”

“Monsieur le baron! pray do not laugh at me, I entreat you.”

“Monsieur Pirodot,” said the financier, with a serious air, “it is deen

agreet; you vill invite us to your nex pall? My vife is shalous; she

vish to see your abbartement, of vich she hear so mooch.”

“Monsieur le baron!--”

“Oh! if you reffuse me, no creydit! Yes, I know der Prayfic of die Seine

was at your las pall.”

“Monsieur le baron!--”

“You had Pillartiere, shentelman of der betchamber; goot royalist like

you, who vas vounded at Zaint-Roqque--”

“On the 13th Vendemiaire, Monsieur le baron.”

“Denn you hat Monsieur de Lazabed, Monsieur Fauquelin of der Agatemi--”

“Monsieur le baron!--”

“Hey! der tefle! dont pe zo humple, Monsieur der debudy-mayor; I haf

heard dat der king say dat your ball--”

“The king?” exclaimed Birotteau, who was destined to hear no more, for,

at this moment, a young man entered the room familiarly, whose step,

recognized from afar by the beautiful Delphine de Nucingen, brought the

color to her cheek.

“Goot morning, my tear te Marsay; tak my blace. Dere is a crowd, zey

tell me, waiting in der gounting-room. I know vy. Der mines of Wortschin

bay a graat divitent! I haf receifed die aggonts. You vill haf one

hundert tousant francs, Matame de Nucingen, so you can buy chewels and

oder tings to make you bretty,--as if you could be brettier!”

“Good God! the Ragons sold their shares!” exclaimed Birotteau.

“Who are those persons?” asked the elegant de Marsay, smiling.

“Egzactly,” said Monsieur de Nucingen, turning back when he was almost

at the door. “I zink tat dose persons--te Marsay, dis is Monsieur

Pirodot, your berfumer, who gifs palls of a magnifissence druly

Aziatique, and whom der king has decoraded.”

De Marsay lifted his eyeglass, and said, “Ah! true, I thought the face

was not unknown to me. So you are going to perfume your affairs with

potent cosmetics, oil them with--”

“Ah! dose Rakkons,” interrupted the baron, making a grimace expressive

of disgust; “dey had an aggont mit us; I fafored dem, and dey could haf

made der fortune, but dey would not wait one zingle day longer.”

“Monsieur le baron!” cried Birotteau.

The worthy man thought his own prospects extremely doubtful, and without

bowing to Madame de Nucingen, or to de Marsay, he hastily followed the

banker. The baron was already on the staircase, and Birotteau caught

him at the bottom just as he was about to enter the counting-room.

As Nucingen opened the door he saw the despairing gesture of the poor

creature behind him, who felt himself pushed into a gulf, and said

hastily,--

“Vell, it is all agreet. See tu Tillet, and arranche it mit him.”

Birotteau, thinking that de Marsay might have some influence with

Nucingen, ran back with the rapidity of a swallow, and slipped into the

dining-room where he had left the baronne and the young man, and where

Delphine was waiting for a cup of _cafe a la creme_. He saw that the

coffee had been served, but the baronne and the dandy had disappeared.

The footman smiled at the astonishment of the worthy man, who slowly

re-descended the stairs. Cesar rushed to du Tillet’s, and was told that

he had gone into the country with Madame Roguin. He took a cabriolet,

and paid the driver well to be taken rapidly to Nogent-sur-Marne.

At Nogent-sur-Marne the porter told him that monsieur and madame had

started for Paris. Birotteau returned home, shattered in mind and body.

When he related his wild-goose chase to his wife and daughter he was

amazed to find his Constance, usually perched like a bird of ill omen

on the smallest commercial mishap, now giving him the tenderest

consolation, and assuring him that everything would turn out well.

The next morning, Birotteau mounted guard as early as seven o’clock

before du Tillet’s door. He begged the porter, slipping ten francs

into his hand, to put him in communication with du Tillet’s valet, and

obtained from the latter a promise to show him in to his master the

moment that du Tillet was visible: he slid two pieces of gold into the

valet’s hand. By such little sacrifices and great humiliations, common

to all courtiers and petitioners, he was able to attain his end.

At half-past eight, just as his former clerk was putting on a

dressing-gown, yawning, stretching, and shaking off the cobwebs of

sleep, Birotteau came face to face with the tiger, hungry for revenge,

whom he now looked upon as his only friend.

“Go on with your dressing,” said Birotteau.

“What do you want, _my good Cesar_?” said du Tillet.

Cesar stated, with painful trepidation, the answer and requirements

of Monsieur de Nucingen to the inattentive ears of du Tillet, who was

looking for the bellows and scolding his valet for the clumsy manner in

which he had lighted the fire.

The valet listened. At first Cesar did not notice him; when he did so

he stopped short, confused, but resumed what he was saying as du Tillet

touched him with the spur exclaiming, “Go on! go on! I am listening to

you.”

The poor man’s shirt was wet; his perspiration turned to ice as du

Tillet looked fixedly at him, and he saw the silver-lined pupils of

those eyes, streaked with threads of gold, which pierced to his very

heart with a diabolical gleam.

“My dear master, the Bank has refused to take your notes which the house

of Claparon passed over to Gigonnet _not guaranteed_. Is that my

fault? How is it that you, an old commercial judge, should commit such

blunders? I am, first and foremost, a banker. I will give you my money,

but I cannot risk having my signature refused at the Bank. My credit is

my life; that is the case with all of us. Do you want money?”

“Can you give me what I want?”

“That depends on how much you owe. How much do you want?”

“Thirty thousand francs.”

“Are the chimney-bricks coming down on my head?” exclaimed du Tillet,

bursting into a laugh.

Cesar, misled by the luxury about him, fancied it was the laugh of a man

to whom the sum was a mere trifle; he breathed again. Du Tillet rang the

bell.

“Send the cashier to me.”

“He has not come, monsieur,” said the valet.

“These fellows take advantage of me! It is half-past eight o’clock, and

he ought to have done a million francs’ worth of business by this time.”

Five minutes later Monsieur Legras came in.

“How much have we in the desk?”

“Only twenty thousand francs. Monsieur gave orders to buy into the Funds

to the amount of thirty thousand francs cash, payable on the 15th.”

“That’s true; I am half-asleep still.”

The cashier gave Birotteau a suspicious look as he left the room.

“If truth were banished from this earth, she would leave her last word

with a cashier,” said du Tillet. “Haven’t you some interest in this

little Popinot, who has set up for himself?” he added, after a dreadful

pause, in which the sweat rolled in drops from Cesar’s brow.

“Yes,” he answered, naively. “Do you think you could discount his

signature for a large amount?”

“Bring me his acceptances for fifty thousand francs, and I will get them

discounted for you at a reasonable rate by old Gobseck, who is very easy

to deal with when he has funds to invest; and he has some now.”

Birotteau went home broken-hearted, not perceiving that the bankers were

tossing him from one to the other like a shuttle-cock; but Constance had

already guessed that credit was unattainable. If three bankers refused

it, it was very certain that they had inquired of each other about so

prominent a man as a deputy-mayor; and there was, consequently, no hope

from the Bank of France.

“Try to renew your notes,” she said; “go and see Monsieur Claparon, your

copartner, and all the others to whom you gave notes for the 15th, and

ask them to renew. It will be time enough to go to the money-lenders

with Popinot’s paper if that fails.”

“To-morrow is the 13th,” said Birotteau, completely crushed.

In the language of his own prospectus, he enjoyed a sanguine

temperament, which was subject to an enormous waste through emotions and

the pressure of thought, and imperatively demanded sleep to repair it.

Cesarine took her father into the salon and played to him “Rousseau’s

Dream,”--a pretty piece of music by Herold; while Constance sat sewing

beside him. The poor man laid his head on a cushion, and every time he

looked up at his wife he saw a soft smile upon her lips; and thus he

fell asleep.

“Poor man!” said Constance; “what misery is in store for him! God grant

he may have strength to bear it!”

“Oh! what troubles you, mamma?” said Cesarine, seeing that her mother

was weeping.

“Dear daughter, I see a failure coming. If your father is forced to

make an assignment, we must ask no one’s pity. My child, be prepared

to become a simple shop-girl. If I see you accepting your life

courageously, I shall have strength to begin my life over again. I know

your father,--he will not keep back one farthing; I shall resign my

dower; all that we possess will be sold. My child, you must take your

jewels and your clothes to-morrow to your uncle Pillerault; for you are

not bound to any sacrifice.”

Cesarine was seized with a terror beyond control as she listened to

these words, spoken with religious simplicity. The thought came into her

mind to go and see Anselme; but her native delicacy checked it.

On the morrow, at nine o’clock, Birotteau, following his wife’s advice,

went to find Claparon in the Rue de Provence, in the grasp of anxieties

quite other than those through which he had lately passed. To ask for a

credit is an ordinary business matter; it happens every day that those

who undertake an enterprise are obliged to borrow capital; but to

ask for the renewal of notes is in commercial jurisprudence what the

correctional police is to the court of assizes,--a first step towards

bankruptcy, just as a misdemeanor leads to crime. The secret of your

embarrassment is in other hands than your own. A merchant delivers

himself over, bound hand and foot, to another merchant; and mercy is a

virtue not practised at the Bourse.

Cesar, who once walked the streets of Paris with his head high and his

eye beaming with confidence, now, unstrung by perplexity, shrank from

meeting Claparon; he began to realize that a banker’s heart is mere

viscera. Claparon had seemed to him so brutal in his coarse jollity,

and he had felt the man’s vulgarity so keenly, that he shuddered at the

necessity of accosting him.

“But he is nearer to the people; perhaps he will therefore have more

heart!” Such was the first reproachful word which the anguish of his

position forced from Cesar’s lips.

Birotteau drew upon the dregs of his courage, and went up the stairway

of a mean little _entresol_, at whose windows he had caught a glimpse of

green curtains yellowed by the sun. He read the word “Offices,” stamped

in black letters on an oval copper-plate; he rapped, nobody answered,

and he went in. The place, worse than humble, conveyed an idea of

penury, or avarice, or neglect. No employe was to be seen behind

the brass lattice which topped an unpainted white wooden enclosure,

breast-high, within which were tables and desks in stained black wood.

These deserted places were littered with inkstands, in which the ink was

mouldy and the pens as rumpled as a ragammufin’s head, and twisted like

sunfish; with boxes and papers and printed matter,--all worthless,

no doubt. The floor was as dirty, defaced, and damp as that of a

boarding-house. The second room, announced by the word “Counting-Room”

on its door, harmonized with the grim _facetiae_ of its neighbor. In one

corner was a large space screened off by an oak balustrade, trellised

with copper wire and furnished with a sliding cat-hole, within which was

an enormous iron chest. This space, apparently given over to the rioting

of rats, also contained an odd-looking desk, with a shabby arm-chair,

which was ragged, green, and torn in the seat,--from which the

horse-hair protruded, like the wig of its master, in half a hundred

libertine curls. The chief adornment of this room, which had evidently

been the salon of the appartement before it was converted into a

banking-office, was a round table covered with a green cloth, round

which stood a few old chairs of black leather with tarnished gilt nails.

The fireplace, somewhat elegant, showed none of the sooty marks of a

fire; the hearth was clean; the mirror, covered with fly-specks, had a

paltry air, in keeping with a mahogany clock bought at the sale of some

old notary, which annoyed the eye, already depressed by two candelabras

without candles and the sticky dust that covered them. The wall-paper,

mouse-gray with a pink border, revealed, by certain fuliginous stains,

the unwholesome presence of smokers. Nothing ever more faithfully

represented that prosaic precinct called by the newspapers an “editorial

sanctum.” Birotteau, fearing that he might be indiscreet, knocked

sharply three times on the door opposite to that by which he entered.

“Come in!” cried Claparon, the reverberation of whose voice revealed

the distance it had to traverse and the emptiness of the room,--in

which Cesar heard the crackling of a good fire, though the owner was

apparently not there.

The room was, in truth, Claparon’s private office. Between the

ostentatious reception-room of Francois Keller and the untidy abode of

the counterfeit banker, there was all the difference that exists between

Versailles and the wigwam of a Huron chief. Birotteau had witnessed the

splendors of finance; he was now to see its fooleries. Lying in bed,

in a sort of oblong recess or den opening from the farther end of the

office, and where the habits of a slovenly life had spoiled, dirtied,

greased, torn, defaced, obliterated, and ruined furniture which had been

elegant in its day, Claparon, at the entrance of Birotteau, wrapped his

filthy dressing-gown around him, laid down his pipe, and drew together

the curtains of the bed with a haste which made even the innocent

perfumer suspect his morals.

“Sit down, monsieur,” said the make-believe banker.

Claparon, without his wig, his head wrapped up in a bandanna

handkerchief twisted awry, seemed all the more hideous to Birotteau

because, when the dressing-gown gaped open, he saw an undershirt

of knitted wool, once white, but now yellowed by wear indefinitely

prolonged.

“Will you breakfast with me?” said Claparon, recollecting the perfumer’s

ball, and thinking to make him a return and also to put him off the

scent by this invitation.

Cesar now perceived a round table, hastily cleared of its litter, which

bore testimony to the presence of jovial company by a pate, oysters,

white wine, and vulgar kidneys, _sautes au vin de champagne_, sodden in

their own sauce. The light of a charcoal brazier gleamed on an _omelette

aux truffes_.

Two covers and two napkins, soiled by the supper of the previous night,

might have enlightened the purest innocence. Claparon, thinking himself

very clever, pressed his invitation in spite of Cesar’s refusal.

“I was to have had a guest, but that guest has disappointed me,” said

the crafty traveller, in a voice likely to reach a person buried under

coverlets.

“Monsieur,” said Birotteau, “I came solely on business, and I shall not

detain you long.”

“I’m used up,” said Claparon, pointing to the desk and the tables piled

with documents; “they don’t leave me a poor miserable moment to myself!

I don’t receive people except on Saturdays. But as for you, my dear

friend, I’ll see you at any time. I haven’t a moment to love or to loaf;

I have lost even the inspiration of business; to catch its vim one must

have the sloth of ease. Nobody ever sees me now on the boulevard doing

nothing. Bah! I’m sick of business; I don’t want to talk about business;

I’ve got money enough, but I never can get enough happiness. My

gracious! I want to travel,--to see Italy! Oh, that dear Italy!

beautiful in spite of all her reverses! adorable land, where I shall no

doubt encounter some angel, complying yet majestic! I have always loved

Italian women. Did you ever have an Italian woman yourself? No?

Then come with me to Italy. We will see Venice, the abode of

doges,--unfortunately fallen into those intelligent Austrian hands that

know nothing of art! Bah! let us get rid of business, canals, loans, and

peaceful governments. I’m a good fellow when I’ve got my pockets lined.

Thunder! let’s travel.”

“One word, monsieur, and I will release you,” said Birotteau. “You made

over my notes to Monsieur Bidault.”

“You mean Gigonnet, that good little Gigonnet, easy-going--”

“Yes,” said Cesar; “but I wish,--and here I count upon your honor and

delicacy,--”

Claparon bowed.

“--to renew those notes.”

“Impossible!” snapped the banker. “I’m not alone in the matter. We have

met in council,--regular Chamber; but we all agreed like bacon in a

frying-pan. The devil! we deliberated. Those lands about the Madeleine

don’t amount to anything; we are operating elsewhere. Hey! my dear sir,

if we were not involved in the Champs Elysees and at the Bourse which

they are going to finish, and in the quartier Saint-Lazare and at

Tivoli, we shouldn’t be, as that fat Nucingen says, in _peaseness_ at

all. What’s the Madeleine to us?--a midge of a thing. Pr-r-r! We don’t

play low, my good fellow,” he said, tapping Birotteau on the stomach

and catching him round the waist. “Come, let’s have our breakfast, and

talk,” added Claparon, wishing to soften his refusal.

“Very good,” said Birotteau. “So much the worse for the other guest,”

he thought, meaning to make Claparon drunk, and to find out who were his

real associates in an affair which began to look suspicious to him.

“All right! Victoire!” called the banker.

This call brought a regular Leonarde, tricked out like a fish-woman.

“Tell the clerks that I can’t see any one,--not even Nucingen, Keller,

Gigonnet, and all the rest of them.”

“No one has come but Monsieur Lempereur.”

“He can receive the great people,” said Claparon; “the small fry are

not to get beyond the first room. They are to say I’m cogitating a great

enterprise--in champagne.”

To make an old commercial traveller drunk is an impossibility. Cesar

mistook the elation of the man’s vulgarity when he attempted to sound

his mind.

“That infamous Roguin is still connected with you,” he began; “don’t you

think you ought to write and tell him to assist an old friend whom he

has compromised,--a man with whom he dined every Sunday, and whom he has

known for twenty years?”

“Roguin? A fool! his share is ours now. Don’t be worried, old fellow,

all will go well. Pay up to the 15th, and after that we will see--I say,

we will see. Another glass of wine? The capital doesn’t concern me one

atom; pay or don’t pay, I sha’n’t make faces at you. I’m only in the

business for a commission on the sales, and for a share when the lands

are converted into money; and it’s for that I manage the owners. Don’t

you understand? You have got solid men behind you, so I’m not afraid, my

good sir. Nowadays, business is all parcelled out in portions. A single

enterprise requires a combination of capacities. Go in with us; don’t

potter with pomatum and perfumes,--rubbish! rubbish! Shave the public;

speculate!”

“Speculation!” said Cesar, “is that commerce?”

“It is abstract commerce,” said Claparon,--“commerce which won’t be

developed for ten years to come, according to Nucingen, the Napoleon of

finance; commerce by which a man can grasp the totality of fractions,

and skim the profits before there are any. Gigantic idea! one way of

pouring hope into pint cups,--in short, a new necromancy! So far, we

have only got ten or a dozen hard heads initiated into the cabalistic

secrets of these magnificent combinations.”

Cesar opened his eyes and ears, endeavoring to understand this composite

phraseology.

“Listen,” said Claparon, after a pause. “Such master-strokes need men.

There’s the man of genius who hasn’t a sou--like all men of genius.

Those fellows spend their thoughts and spend their money just as it

comes. Imagine a pig rooting round a truffle-patch; he is followed by

a jolly fellow, a moneyed man, who listens for the grunt as piggy finds

the succulent. Now, when the man of genius has found a good thing, the

moneyed man taps him on the shoulder and says, ‘What have you got there?

You are rushing into the fiery furnace, my good fellow, and you haven’t

the loins to run out again. There’s a thousand francs; just let me take

it in hand and manage the affair.’ Very good! The banker then convokes

the traders: ‘My friends, let us go to work: write a prospectus! Down

with humbug!’ On that they get out the hunting-horns and shout and

clamor,--‘One hundred thousand francs for five sous! or five sous for

a hundred thousand francs! gold mines! coal mines!’ In short, all the

clap-trap of commerce. We buy up men of arts and sciences; the show

begins, the public enters; it gets its money’s worth, and we get the

profits. The pig is penned up with his potatoes, and the rest of us

wallow in banknotes. There it all is, my good sir. Come, go into the

business with us. What would you like to be,--pig, buzzard, clown,

or millionaire? Reflect upon it; I have now laid before you the whole

theory of the modern loan-system. Come and see me often; you’ll always

find me a jovial, jolly fellow. French joviality--gaiety and gravity,

all in one--never injures business; quite the contrary. Men who quaff

the sparkling cup are born to understand each other. Come, another glass

of champagne! it is good, I tell you! It was sent to me from Epernay

itself, by a man for whom I once sold quantities at a good price--I

used to be in wines. He shows his gratitude, and remembers me in my

prosperity; very rare, that.”

Birotteau, overcome by the frivolity and heedlessness of a man to whom

the world attributed extreme depth and capacity, dared not question him

any further. In the midst of his own haziness of mind produced by the

champagne, he did, however, recollect a name spoken by du Tillet; and he

asked Claparon who Gobseck the banker was, and where he lived.

“Have you got as far as that?” said Claparon. “Gobseck is a banker,

just as the headsman is a doctor. The first word is ‘fifty per cent’; he

belongs to the race of Harpagon; he’ll take canary birds at all seasons,

fur tippets in summer, nankeens in winter. What securities are you going

to offer him? If you want him to take your paper without security you

will have to deposit your wife, your daughter, your umbrella, everything

down to your hat-box, your socks (don’t you go in for ribbed socks?),

your shovel and tongs, and the very wood you’ve got in the cellar!

Gobseck! Gobseck! in the name of virtuous folly, who told you to go to

that commercial guillotine?”

“Monsieur du Tillet.”

“Ah! the scoundrel, I recognize him! We used to be friends. If we have

quarrelled so that we don’t speak to each other, you may depend upon it

my aversion to him is well-founded; he let me read down to the bottom of

his infamous soul, and he made me uncomfortable at that beautiful ball

you gave us. I can’t stand his impudent airs--all because he has got

a notary’s wife! I could have countesses if I wanted them; I sha’n’t

respect him any the more for that. Ah! my respect is a princess who’ll

never give birth to such as he. But, I say, you are a funny fellow, old

man, to flash us a ball like that, and two months after try to renew

your paper! You seem to have some go in you. Let’s do business together.

You have got a reputation which would be very useful to me. Oh! du

Tillet was born to understand Gobseck. Du Tillet will come to a bad end

at the Bourse. If he is, as they say, the tool of old Gobseck, he won’t

be allowed to go far. Gobseck sits in a corner of his web like an old

spider who has travelled round the world. Sooner or later, ztit! the

usurer will toss him off as I do this glass of wine. So much the better!

Du Tillet has played me a trick--oh! a damnable trick.”

At the end of an hour and a half spend in just such senseless chatter,

Birotteau attempted to get away, seeing that the late commercial

traveller was about to relate the adventure of a republican deputy of

Marseilles, in love with a certain actress then playing the part of la

belle Arsene, who, on one occasion, was hissed by a royalist crowd in

the pit.

“He stood up in his box,” said Claparon, “and shouted: ‘Arrest whoever

hissed her! Eugh! If it’s a woman, I’ll kiss her; if it’s a man, we’ll

see about it; if it’s neither the one nor the other, may God’s lightning

blast it!’ Guess how it ended.”

“Adieu, monsieur,” said Birotteau.

“You will have to come and see me,” said Claparon; “that first scrap of

paper you gave Cayron has come back to us protested; I endorsed it, so

I’ve paid it. I shall send after you; business before everything.”

Birotteau felt stabbed to the heart by this cold and grinning kindness

as much as by the harshness of Keller or the coarse German banter of

Nucingen. The familiarity of the man, and his grotesque gabble excited

by champagne, seemed to tarnish the soul of the honest bourgeois as

though he came from a house of financial ill-fame. He went down the

stairway and found himself in the streets without knowing where he

was going. As he walked along the boulevards and reached the Rue

Saint-Denis, he recollected Molineux, and turned into the Cour Batave.

He went up the dirty, tortuous staircase which he once trod so proudly.

He recalled to mind the mean and niggardly acrimony of Molineux, and

he shrank from imploring his favor. The landlord was sitting in the

chimney-corner, as on the occasion of Cesar’s first visit, but his

breakfast was now in process of digestion. Birotteau proffered his

request.

“Renew a note for twelve hundred francs?” said Molineux, with mocking

incredulity. “Have you got to that, monsieur? If you have not twelve

hundred francs to pay me on the 15th, do you intend to send back my

receipt for the rent unpaid? I shall be sorry; but I have not the

smallest civility in money-matters,--my rents are my living. Without

them how could I pay what I owe myself? No merchant will deny the

soundness of that principle. Money is no respecter of persons; money has

no ears, it has no heart. The winter is hard, the price of wood has gone

up. If you don’t pay me on the 15th, a little summons will be served

upon you at twelve o’clock on the 16th. Bah! the worthy Mitral, your

bailiff, is mine as well; he will send you the writ in an envelope, with

all the consideration due to your high position.”

“Monsieur, I have never received a summons in my life,” said Birotteau.

“There is a beginning to everything,” said Molineux.

Dismayed by the curt malevolence of the old man, Cesar was cowed; he

heard the knell of failure ringing in his ears, and every jangle woke

a memory of the stern sayings his pitiless justice had uttered against

bankrupts. His former opinions now seared, as with fire, the soft

substance of his brain.

“By the by,” said Molineux, “you neglected to put upon your notes, ‘for

value received in rental,’ which would secure me preference.”

“My position will prevent me from doing anything to the detriment of

my creditors,” said Cesar, stunned by the sudden sight of the precipice

yawning before him.

“Very good, monsieur, very good; I thought I knew everything relating to

rentals and tenants, but I have learned through you never to take notes

in payment. Ah! I shall sue you, for your answer shows plainly enough

that you are not going to meet your liabilities. Hard cash is a matter

which concerns every landlord in Paris.”

Birotteau went out, weary of life. It is in the nature of such soft

and tender souls to be disheartened by a first rebuff, just as a first

success encourages them. Cesar no longer had any hope except in the

devotion of little Popinot, to whom his thoughts naturally turned as he

crossed the Marche des Innocents.

“Poor boy! who could have believed it when I launched him, only six

weeks ago, in the Tuileries?”

It was just four o’clock, the hour at which the judges left their

court-rooms. Popinot the elder chanced to go and see his nephew. This

judge, whose mind was singularly acute on all moral questions, was

also gifted with a second-sight which enabled him to discover secret

intentions, to perceive the meaning of insignificant human actions, the

germs of crime, the roots of wrongdoing; and he now watched Birotteau,

though Birotteau was not aware of it. The perfumer, who was annoyed at

finding the judge with his nephew, seemed to him harassed, preoccupied,

pensive. Little Popinot, always busy, with his pen behind his ear, lay

down as usual flat on his stomach before the father of his Cesarine. The

empty phrases which Cesar addressed to his partner seemed to the judge

to mask some important request. Instead of going away, the crafty old

man stayed in spite of his nephew’s evident desire, for he guessed that

the perfumer would soon try to get rid of him by going away himself.

Accordingly, when Birotteau went out the judge followed, and saw

Birotteau hanging about that part of the Rue des Cinq-Diamants which

leads into the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher. This trifling circumstance roused

the suspicions of old Popinot as to Cesar’s intentions; he turned into

the Rue des Lombards, and when he saw the perfumer re-enter Anselme’s

door, he came hastily back again.

“My dear Popinot,” said Cesar to his partner, “I have come to ask a

service of you.”

“What can I do?” cried Popinot with generous ardor.

“Ah! you save my life,” exclaimed the poor man, comforted by this

warmth of heart which flamed upon the sea of ice he had traversed for

twenty-five days.

“You must give me a note for fifty thousand francs on my share of the

profits; we will arrange later about the payment.”

Popinot looked fixedly at Cesar. Cesar dropped his eyes. At this moment

the judge re-entered.

“My son--ah! excuse me, Monsieur Birotteau--Anselme, I forget to tell

you--” and with an imperious gesture he led his nephew into the street

and forced him, in his shirt-sleeves and bareheaded, to listen as they

walked towards the Rue des Lombards. “My nephew, your old master may

find himself so involved that he will be forced to make an assignment.

Before taking that step, honorable men who have forty years of integrity

to boast of, virtuous men seeking to save their good name, will play the

part of reckless gamblers; they become capable of anything; they will

sell their wives, traffic with their daughters, compromise their

best friends, pawn what does not belong to them; they will frequent

gambling-tables, become dissemblers, hypocrites, liars; they will even

shed tears. I have witnessed strange things. You yourself have seen

Roguin’s respectability,--a man to whom they would have given the

sacraments without confession. I do not apply these remarks in their

full force to Monsieur Birotteau,--I believe him to be an honest man;

but if he asks you to do anything, no matter what, against the rules of

business, such as endorsing notes out of good-nature, or launching into

a system of ‘circulations,’ which, to my mind, is the first step to

swindling,--for it is uttering counterfeit paper-money,--if he asks

you to do anything of the kind, promise me that you will sign nothing

without consulting me. Remember that if you love his daughter you must

not--in the very interests of your love you must not--destroy your

future. If Monsieur Birotteau is to fall, what will it avail if you fall

too? You will deprive yourselves, one as much as the other, of all the

chances of your new business, which may prove his only refuge.”

“Thank you, my uncle; a word to the wise is enough,” said Popinot, to

whom Cesar’s heart-rending exclamation was now explained.

The merchant in oils, refined and otherwise, returned to his gloomy shop

with an anxious brow. Birotteau saw the change.

“Will you do me the honor to come up into my bedroom? We shall be better

there. The clerks, though very busy, might overhear us.”

Birotteau followed Popinot, a prey to the anxiety a condemned man goes

through from the moment of his appeal for mercy until its rejection.

“My dear benefactor,” said Anselme, “you cannot doubt my devotion; it is

absolute. Permit me only to ask you one thing. Will this sum clear you

entirely, or is it only a means of delaying some catastrophe? If it

is that, what good will it do to drag me down also? You want notes at

ninety days. Well, it is absolutely impossible that I could meet them in

that time.”

Birotteau rose, pale and solemn, and looked at Popinot.

Popinot, horror-struck, cried out, “I will do them for you, if you wish

it.”

“UNGRATEFUL!” said his master, who spent his whole remaining strength

in hurling the word at Anselme’s brow, as if it were a living mark of

infamy.

Birotteau walked to the door, and went out. Popinot, rousing himself

from the sensation which the terrible word produced upon him, rushed

down the staircase and into the street, but Birotteau was out of sight.

Cesarine’s lover heard that dreadful charge ringing in his ears, and saw

the distorted face of the poor distracted Cesar constantly before him;

Popinot was to live henceforth, like Hamlet, with a spectre beside him.

Birotteau wandered about the streets of the neighborhood like a drunken

man. At last he found himself upon the quay, and followed it till he

reached Sevres, where he passed the night at an inn, maddened with

grief, while his terrified wife dared not send in search of him. She

knew that in such circumstances an alarm, imprudently given, might be

fatal to his credit, and the wise Constance sacrificed her own anxiety

to her husband’s commercial reputation: she waited silently through the

night, mingling her prayers and terrors. Was Cesar dead? Had he left

Paris on the scent of some last hope? The next morning she behaved as

though she knew the reasons for his absence; but at five o’clock in the

afternoon when Cesar had not returned, she sent for her uncle and

begged him to go at once to the Morgue. During the whole of that day the

courageous creature sat behind her counter, her daughter embroidering

beside her. When Pillerault returned, Cesar was with him; on his way

back the old man had met him in the Palais-Royal, hesitating before the

entrance to a gambling-house.

This was the 14th. At dinner Cesar could not eat. His stomach, violently

contracted, rejected food. The evening hours were terrible. The shaken

man went through, for the hundredth time, one of those frightful

alternations of hope and despair which, by forcing the soul to run up

the scale of joyous emotion and then precipitating it to the last

depths of agony, exhaust the vital strength of feeble beings. Derville,

Birotteau’s advocate, rushed into the handsome salon where Madame Cesar

was using all her persuasion to retain her husband, who wished to sleep

on the fifth floor,--“that I may not see,” he said, “these monuments of

my folly.”

“The suit is won!” cried Derville.

At these words Cesar’s drawn face relaxed; but his joy alarmed Derville

and Pillerault. The women left the room to go and weep by themselves in

Cesarine’s chamber.

“Now I can get a loan!” cried Birotteau.

“It would be imprudent,” said Derville; “they have appealed; the court

might reverse the judgment; but in a month it would be safe.”

“A month!”

Cesar fell into a sort of slumber, from which no one tried to rouse

him,--a species of catalepsy, in which the body lived and suffered while

the functions of the mind were in abeyance. This respite, bestowed by

chance, was looked upon by Constance, Cesarine, Pillerault, and Derville

as a blessing from God. And they judged rightly: Cesar was thus enabled

to bear the harrowing emotions of that night. He was sitting in a corner

of the sofa near the fire; his wife was in the other corner watching him

attentively, with a soft smile upon her lips,--the smile which proves

that women are nearer than men to angelic nature, in that they know how

to mingle an infinite tenderness with an all-embracing compassion; a

secret belonging only to angels seen in dreams providentially strewn at

long intervals through the history of human life. Cesarine, sitting on

a little stool at her mother’s feet, touched her father’s hand lightly

with her hair from time to time, as she gave him a caress into which

she strove to put the thoughts which, in such crises, the voice seems to

render intrusive.

Seated in his arm-chair, like the Chancelier de l’Hopital on the

peristyle of the Chamber of Deputies, Pillerault--a philosopher prepared

for all events, and showing upon his countenance the wisdom of an

Egyptian sphinx--was talking to Derville and his niece in a suppressed

voice. Constance thought it best to consult the lawyer, whose discretion

was beyond a doubt. With the balance-sheet written in her head, she

explained the whole situation in low tones. After an hour’s conference,

held in presence of the stupefied Cesar, Derville shook his head and

looked at Pillerault.

“Madame,” he said, with the horrible coolness of his profession, “you

must give in your schedule and make an assignment. Even supposing that

by some contrivance you could meet the payments for to-morrow, you would

have to pay down at least three hundred thousand francs before you could

borrow on those lands. Your liabilities are five hundred thousand. To

meet them you have assets that are very promising, very productive,

but not convertible at present; you must fail within a given time. My

opinion is that it is better to jump out of the window than to roll

downstairs.”

“That is my advice, too, dear child,” said Pillerault.

Derville left, and Madame Cesar and Pillerault went with him to the

door.

“Poor father!” said Cesarine, who rose softly to lay a kiss on Cesar’s

head. “Then Anselme could do nothing?” she added, as her mother and

Pillerault returned.

“UNGRATEFUL!” cried Cesar, struck by the name of Anselme in the only

living part of his memory,--as the note of a piano lifts the hammer

which strikes its corresponding string.

V

From the moment when that word “Ungrateful” was flung at him like an

anathema, little Popinot had not had an hour’s sleep nor an instant’s

peace of mind. The unhappy lad cursed his uncle, and finally went to

see him. To get the better of that experienced judicial wisdom he poured

forth the eloquence of love, hoping it might seduce a being from whose

mind human speech slips like water from a duck’s back,--a judge!

“From a commercial point of view,” he said, “custom does allow the

managing-partner to advance a certain sum to the sleeping-partner on the

profits of the business, and we are certain to make profits. After close

examination of my affairs I do feel strong enough to pay forty thousand

francs in three months. The known integrity of Monsieur Cesar is a

guarantee that he will use that forty thousand to pay off his debts.

Thus the creditors, if there should come a failure, can lay no blame on

us. Besides, uncle, I would rather lose forty thousand francs than lose

Cesarine. At this very moment while I am speaking, she has doubtless

been told of my refusal, and will cease to esteem me. I vowed my blood

to my benefactor! I am like a young sailor who ought to sink with his

captain, or a soldier who should die with his general.”

“Good heart and bad merchant, you will never lose my esteem,” said the

judge, pressing the hand of his nephew. “I have thought a great deal of

this,” he added. “I know you love Cesarine devotedly, and I think you

can satisfy the claims of love and the claims of commerce.”

“Ah! my uncle, if you have found a way my honor is saved!”

“Advance Birotteau fifty thousand on his share in your oil, which has

now become a species of property, reserving to yourself the right of

buying it back. I will draw up the deed.”

Anselme embraced his uncle and rushed home, made notes to the amount

of fifty thousand francs, and ran from the Rue des Cinq-Diamants to the

Place Vendome, so that just as Cesarine, her mother, and Pillerault were

gazing at Cesar, amazed at the sepulchural tone in which he had

uttered the word “Ungrateful!” the door of the salon opened and Popinot

appeared.

“My dear and beloved master!” he cried, wiping the perspiration from his

forehead, “here is what you asked of me!” He held out the notes. “Yes, I

have carefully examined my situation; you need have no fear, I shall be

able to pay them. Save--save your honor!”

“I was sure of him!” cried Cesarine, seizing Popinot’s hand, and

pressing it with convulsive force.

Madame Cesar embraced him; Birotteau rose up like the righteous at the

sound of the last trumpet, and issued, as it were, from the tomb. Then

he stretched out a frenzied hand to seize the fifty stamped papers.

“Stop!” said the terrible uncle, Pillerault, snatching the papers from

Popinot, “one moment!”

The four individuals present,--Cesar, his wife, Cesarine, and

Popinot,--bewildered by the action of the old man and by the tone of

his voice, saw him tear the papers and fling them in the fire, without

attempting to interfere.

“Uncle!”

“Uncle!”

“Uncle!”

“Monsieur!”

Four voices and but one heart; a startling unanimity! Uncle Pillerault

passed his arm round Popinot’s neck, held him to his breast, and kissed

him.

“You are worthy of the love of those who have hearts,” he said. “If you

loved a daughter of mine, had she a million and you had nothing but that

[pointing to the black ashes of the notes], you should marry her in a

fortnight, if she loved you. Your master,” he said, pointing to Cesar,

“is beside himself. My nephew,” resumed Pillerault, gravely, addressing

the poor man,--“my nephew, away with illusions! We must do business with

francs, not feelings. All this is noble, but useless. I spent two hours

at the Bourse this afternoon. You have not one farthing’s credit; every

one is talking of your disaster, of your attempts to renew, of your

appeals to various bankers, of their refusals, of your follies,--going

up six flights of stairs to beg a gossiping landlord, who chatters like

a magpie, to renew a note of twelve hundred francs!--your ball, given to

conceal your embarrassments. They have gone so far as to say you had no

property in Roguin’s hands; according to your enemies, Roguin is only

a blind. A friend of mine, whom I sent about to learn what is going on,

confirms what I tell you. Every one foresees that Popinot will issue

notes, and believes that you set him up in business expressly as a last

resource. In short, every calumny or slander which a man brings upon

himself when he tries to mount a rung of the social ladder, is going the

rounds among business men to-day. You might hawk about those notes of

Popinot in vain; you would meet humiliating refusals; no one would take

them; no one could be sure how many such notes you are issuing; every

one expects you to sacrifice the poor lad to your own safety. You would

destroy to no purpose the credit of the house of Popinot. Do you

know how much the boldest money-lender would give you for those fifty

thousand francs? Twenty thousand at the most; twenty thousand, do you

hear me? There are crises in business when we must stand up three days

before the world without eating, as if we had indigestion, and on the

fourth day we may be admitted to the larder of credit. You cannot live

through those three days; and the whole matter lies there. My poor

nephew, take courage! file your schedule, make an assignment. Here is

Popinot, here am I; we will go to work as soon as the clerks have gone

to bed, and spare you the agony of it.”

“My uncle!” said Cesar, clasping his hands.

“Cesar, would you choose a shameful failure, in which there are no

assets? Your share in the house of Popinot is all that saves your

honor.”

Cesar, awakened by this last and fatal stream of light, saw at length

the frightful truth in its full extent; he fell back upon the sofa, from

thence to his knees, and his mind seemed to wander; he became like a

little child. His wife thought he was dying. She knelt down to raise

him, but joined her voice to his when she saw him clasp his hands and

lift his eyes, and recite, with resigned contrition, in the hearing of

his uncle, his daughter, and Popinot, the sublime catholic prayer:--

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come;

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven; GIVE US THIS DAY OUR

DAILY BREAD; and forgive us our offences, as we forgive those who have

offended against us. So be it!”

Tears came into the eyes of the stoic Pillerault; Cesarine, overcome and

weeping, leaned her head upon Popinot’s shoulder, as he stood pale and

rigid as a statue.

“Let us go below,” said the old merchant, taking the arm of the young

man.

It was half-past eleven when they left Cesar to the care of his wife

and daughter. Just at that moment Celestin, the head-clerk, to whom the

management of the house had been left during this secret tumult, came up

to the appartement and entered the salon. Hearing his step, Cesarine ran

to meet him, that he might not see the prostration of his master.

“Among the letters this evening there was one from Tours, which was

misdirected and therefore delayed. I thought it might be from monsieur’s

brother, so I did not open it.”

“Father!” cried Cesarine; “a letter from my uncle at Tours!”

“Ah, I am saved!” cried Cesar. “My brother! oh, my brother!” He kissed

the letter, as he broke the seal, and read it aloud to his wife and

daughter in a trembling voice:--

Answer of Francois to Cesar Birotteau.

Tours, 10th.

My beloved Brother,--Your letter gave me the deepest pain. As soon

as I had read it, I went at once and offered to God the holy

sacrifice of the Mass, imploring Him by the blood which His Son,

our divine Redeemer, shed for us, to look with mercy upon your

afflictions. At the moment when I offered the prayer _Pro meo

fratre Caesare_, my eyes were filled with tears as I thought of

you,--from whom, unfortunately, I am separated in these days when

you must sorely need the support of fraternal friendship. I have

thought that the worthy and venerable Monsieur Pillerault would

doubtless replace me. My dear Cesar, never forget, in the midst of

your troubles, that this life is a scene of trial, and is passing

away; that one day we shall be rewarded for having suffered for

the holy name of God, for His holy Church, for having followed the

teachings of His Gospel and practised virtue. If it were

otherwise, this world would have no meaning. I repeat to you these

maxims, though I know how good and pious you are, because it may

happen that those who, like you, are flung into the storms of life

upon the perilous waves of human interests might be tempted to

utter blasphemies in the midst of their adversity,--carried away

as they are by anguish. Curse neither the men who injure you nor

the God who mingles, at His will, your joy with bitterness. Look

not on life, but lift your eyes to heaven; there is comfort for

the weak, there are riches for the poor, there are terrors for

the--

“But, Birotteau,” said his wife, “skip all that, and see what he sends

us.”

“We will read it over and over hereafter,” said Cesar, wiping his eyes

and turning over the page,--letting fall, as he did so, a Treasury note.

“I was sure of him, poor brother!” said Birotteau, picking up the note

and continuing to read, in a voice broken by tears.

I went to Madame de Listomere, and without telling her the reason

of my request I asked her to lend me all she could dispose of, so

as to swell the amount of my savings. Her generosity has enabled

me to make up a thousand francs; which I send herewith, in a note

of the Receiver-General of Tours on the Treasury.

“A fine sum!” said Constance, looking at Cesarine.

By retrenching a few superfluities in my life, I can return the

four hundred francs Madame de Listomere has lent me in three

years; so do not make yourself uneasy about them, my dear Cesar. I

send you all I have in the world; hoping that this sum may help

you to a happy conclusion of your financial difficulties, which

doubtless are only momentary. I well know your delicacy, and I

wish to forestall your objections. Do not dream of paying me any

interest for this money, nor of paying it back at all in the day

of prosperity which ere long will dawn for you if God deigns to

hear the prayers I offer to Him daily. After I received your last

letter, two years ago, I thought you so rich that I felt at

liberty to spend my savings upon the poor; but now, all that I

have is yours. When you have overcome this little commercial

difficulty, keep the sum I now send for my niece Cesarine; so that

when she marries she may buy some trifle to remind her of her old

uncle, who daily lifts his hands to heaven to implore the blessing

of God upon her and all who are dear to her. And also, my dear

Cesar, recollect I am a poor priest who dwells, by the grace of

God, like the larks in the meadow, in quiet places, trying to obey

the commandment of our divine Saviour, and who consequently needs

but little money. Therefore, do not have the least scruple in the

trying circumstances in which you find yourself; and think of me

as one who loves you tenderly.

Our excellent Abbe Chapeloud, to whom I have not revealed your

situation, desires me to convey his friendly regards to every

member of your family, and his wishes for the continuance of your

prosperity. Adieu, dear and well-beloved brother; I pray that at

this painful juncture God will be pleased to preserve your health,

and also that of your wife and daughter. I wish you, one and all,

patience and courage under your afflictions.

Francois Birotteau,

Priest, Vicar of the Cathedral and Parochial Church

of Saint-Gatien de Tours.

“A thousand francs!” cried Madame Birotteau.

“Put them away,” said Cesar gravely; “they are all he had. Besides, they

belong to our daughter, and will enable us to live; so that we need ask

nothing of our creditors.”

“They will think you are abstracting large sums.”

“Then I will show them the letter.”

“They will say that it is a fraud.”

“My God! my God!” cried Birotteau. “I once thought thus of poor, unhappy

people who were doubtless as I am now.”

Terribly anxious about Cesar’s state, mother and daughter sat plying

their needles by his side, in profound silence. At two in the morning

Popinot gently opened the door of the salon and made a sign to Madame

Cesar to come down. On seeing his niece Pillerault took off his

spectacles.

“My child, there is hope,” he said; “all is not lost. But your husband

could not bear the uncertainty of the negotiations which Anselme and I

are about to undertake. Don’t leave your shop to-morrow, and take the

addresses of all the bills; we have till four o’clock in the afternoon

of the 15th. Here is my plan: Neither Ragon nor I am to be considered.

Suppose that your hundred thousand francs deposited with Roguin had been

remitted to the purchasers, you would not have them then any more than

you have them now. The hundred and forty thousand francs for which notes

were given to Claparon, and which must be paid in any state of the case,

are what you have to meet. Therefore it is not Roguin’s bankruptcy which

as ruined you. I find, to meet your obligations, forty thousand francs

which you can, sooner or later, borrow on your property in the Faubourg

du Temple, and sixty thousand for your share in the house of Popinot.

Thus you can make a struggle, for later you may borrow on the lands

about the Madeleine. If your chief creditor agrees to help you, I shall

not consider my interests; I shall sell out my Funds and live on dry

bread; Popinot will get along between life and death, and as for you,

you will be at the mercy of the smallest commercial mischance; but

Cephalic Oil will undoubtedly make great returns. Popinot and I have

consulted together; we will stand by you in this struggle. Ah! I shall

eat my dry bread gaily if I see daylight breaking on the horizon. But

everything depends on Gigonnet, who holds the notes, and the associates

of Claparon. Popinot and I are going to see Gigonnet between seven

and eight o’clock in the morning, and then we shall know what their

intentions are.”

Constance, wholly overcome, threw herself into her uncle’s arms,

voiceless except through tears and sobs.

Neither Popinot nor Pillerault knew or could know that Bidault, called

Gigonnet, and Claparon were du Tillet under two shapes; and that du

Tillet was resolved to read in the “Journal des Petites Affiches” this

terrible article:--

“Judgment of the Court of Commerce, which declares the Sieur Cesar

Birotteau, merchant-perfumer, living in Paris, Rue Saint-Honore,

no. 397, insolvent, and appoints the preliminary examination on

the 17th of January, 1819. Commissioner, Monsieur

Gobenheim-Keller. Agent, Monsieur Molineux.”

Anselme and Pillerault examined Cesar’s affairs until daylight. At eight

o’clock in the morning the two brave friends,--one an old soldier,

the other a young recruit, who had never known, except by hearsay, the

terrible anguish of those who commonly went up the staircase of Bidault

called Gigonnet,--wended their way, without a word to each other,

towards the Rue Grenetat. Both were suffering; from time to time

Pillerault passed his hand across his brow.

The Rue Grenetat is a street where all the houses, crowded with trades

of every kind, have a repulsive aspect. The buildings are horrible.

The vile uncleanliness of manufactories is their leading feature. Old

Gigonnet lived on the third floor of a house whose window-sashes,

with small and very dirty panes, swung by the middle, on pivots. The

staircase opened directly upon the street. The porter’s lodge was on the

_entresol_, in a space which was lighted only from the staircase. All

the lodgers, with the exception of Gigonnet, worked at trades. Workmen

were continually coming and going. The stairs were caked with a layer

of mud, hard or soft according to the state of the atmosphere, and were

covered with filth. Each landing of this noisome stairway bore the

names of the occupants in gilt letters on a metal plate, painted red and

varnished, to which were attached specimens of their craft. As a rule,

the doors stood open and gave to view queer combinations of the domestic

household and the manufacturing operations. Strange cries and grunts

issued therefrom, with songs and whistles and hisses that recalled the

hour of four o’clock in the Jardin des Plantes. On the first floor,

in an evil-smelling lair, the handsomest braces to be found in the

_article-Paris_ were made. On the second floor, the elegant boxes which

adorn the shop-windows of the boulevards and the Palais-Royal at the

beginning of the new year were manufactured, in the midst of the vilest

filth. Gigonnet eventually died, worth eighteen hundred thousand francs,

on a third floor of this house, from which no consideration could

move him; though his niece, Madame Saillard, offered to give him an

appartement in a hotel in the Place Royalle.

“Courage!” said Pillerault, as he pulled the deer’s hoof hanging from

the bell-rope of Gigonnet’s clean gray door.

Gigonnet opened the door himself. Cesar’s two supporters, entering the

precincts of bankruptcy, crossed the first room, which was clean and

chilly and without curtains to its windows. All three sat down in the

inner room where the money-lender lived, before a hearth full of ashes,

in the midst of which the wood was successfully defending itself against

the fire. Popinot’s courage froze at sight of the usurer’s green boxes

and the monastic austerity of the room, whose atmosphere was like that

of a cellar. He looked with a wondering eye at the miserable blueish

paper sprinkled with tricolor flowers, which had been on the walls

for twenty-five years; and then his anxious glance fell upon the

chimney-piece, ornamented with a clock shaped like a lyre, and two oval

vases in Sevres blue richly mounted in copper-gilt. This relic, picked

up by Gigonnet after the pillage of Versailles, where the populace broke

nearly everything, came from the queen’s boudoir; but these rare vases

were flanked by two candelabra of abject shape made of wrought-iron, and

the barbarous contrast recalled the circumstances under which the vases

had been acquired.

“I know that you have not come on your own account,” said Gigonnet, “but

on behalf of the great Birotteau. Well, what is it, my friends?”

“We can tell you nothing that you do not already know; so I will be

brief,” said Pillerault. “You have notes to the order of Claparon?”

“Yes.”

“Will you exchange the first fifty thousand of those notes against the

notes of Monsieur Popinot, here present,--less the discount, of course?”

Gigonnet took off the terrible green cap which seemed to have been born

on him, pointed to his skull, denuded of hair and of the color of fresh

butter, made his usual Voltairean grimace, and said: “You wish to pay me

in hair-oil; have I any use for it?”

“If you choose to jest, there is nothing to be done but to beat a

retreat,” said Pillerault.

“You speak like the wise man that you are,” answered Gigonnet, with a

flattering smile.

“Well, suppose I endorse Monsieur Popinot’s notes?” said Pillerault,

playing his last card.

“You are gold by the ingot, Monsieur Pillerault; but I don’t want bars

of gold, I want my money.”

Pillerault and Popinot bowed and went away. Going down the stairs,

Popinot’s knees shook under him.

“Is that a man?” he said to Pillerault.

“They say so,” replied the other. “My boy, always bear in mind this

short interview. Anselme, you have just seen the banking-business

unmasked, without its cloak of courtesy. Unexpected events are the screw

of the press, we are the grapes, the bankers are the casks. That land

speculation is no doubt a good one; Gigonnet, or some one behind him,

means to strangle Cesar and step into his skin. It is all over; there’s

no remedy. But such is the Bank: be warned; never have recourse to it!”

After this horrible morning, during which Madame Birotteau for the first

time sent away those who came for their money, taking their addresses,

the courageous woman, happy in the thought that she was thus sparing her

husband from distress, saw Popinot and Pillerault, for whom she waited

with ever-growing anxiety, return at eleven o’clock, and read her

sentence in their faces. The assignment was inevitable.

“He will die of grief,” said the poor woman.

“I could almost wish he might,” said Pillerault, solemnly; “but he is so

religious that, as things are now, his director, the Abbe Loraux, alone

can save him.”

Pillerault, Popinot, and Constance waited while a clerk was sent to

bring the Abbe Loraux, before they carried up to Cesar the schedule

which Celestin had prepared, and asked him to affix his signature. The

clerks were in despair, for they loved their master. At four o’clock

the good priest came; Constance explained the misfortune that had fallen

upon them, and the abbe went upstairs as a soldier mounts the breach.

“I know why you have come!” cried Birotteau.

“My son,” said the priest, “your feelings of resignation to the Divine

will have long been known to me; it now remains to apply them. Keep

your eyes upon the cross; never cease to behold it, and think upon the

humiliations heaped upon the Saviour of men. Meditate upon the agonies

of his passion, and you will be able to bear the mortification which God

has laid upon you--”

“My brother, the abbe, has already prepared me,” said Cesar, showing the

letter, which he had re-read and now held out to his confessor.

“You have a good brother,” said Monsieur Loraux, “a virtuous and gentle

wife, a tender daughter, two good friends,--your uncle and our dear

Anselme,--two indulgent creditors, the Ragons: all these kind hearts

will pour balm upon your wounds daily, and will help you to bear your

cross. Promise me to have the firmness of a martyr, and to face the blow

without faltering.”

The abbe coughed, to give notice to Pillerault who was waiting in the

salon.

“My resignation is unbounded,” said Cesar, calmly. “Dishonor has come; I

must now think only of reparation.”

The firm voice of the poor man and his whole manner surprised Cesarine

and the priest. Yet nothing could be more natural. All men can better

bear a known and definite misfortune than the cruel uncertainties of

a fate which, from one moment to another, brings excessive hope or

crushing sorrow.

“I have dreamed a dream for twenty-two years; to-day I awake with my

cudgel in my hand,” said Cesar, his mind turning back to the Tourangian

peasant days.

Pillerault pressed his nephew in his arms as he heard the words.

Birotteau saw that his wife, Anselme, and Celestin were present. The

papers which the head-clerk held in his hand were significant. Cesar

calmly contemplated the little group where every eye was sad but loving.

“Stay!” he said, unfastening his cross, which he held out to the Abbe

Loraux; “give it back to me on the day when I can wear it without shame.

Celestin,” he added, “write my resignation as deputy-mayor,--Monsieur

l’abbe will dictate the letter to you; date it the 14th, and send it at

once to Monsieur de la Billardiere by Raguet.”

Celestin and the abbe went down stairs. For a quarter of an hour silence

reigned unbroken in Cesar’s study. Such strength of mind surprised

the family. Celestin and the abbe came back, and Cesar signed his

resignation. When his uncle Pillerault presented the schedule and the

papers of his assignment, the poor man could not repress a horrible

nervous shudder.

“My God, have pity upon me!” he said, signing the dreadful paper, and

holding it out to Celestin.

“Monsieur,” said Anselme Popinot, over whose dejected brow a luminous

light flashed suddenly, “madame, do me the honor to grant me the hand of

Mademoiselle Cesarine.”

At these words tears came into the eyes of all present except Cesar; he

rose, took Anselme by the hand and said, in a hollow voice, “My son, you

shall never marry the daughter of a bankrupt.”

Anselme looked fixedly at Birotteau and said: “Monsieur, will you pledge

yourself, here, in presence of your whole family, to consent to our

marriage, if mademoiselle will accept me as her husband, on the day when

you have retrieved your failure?”

There was an instant’s silence, during which all present were affected

by the emotions painted on the worn face of the poor man.

“Yes,” he said, at last.

Anselme made a gesture of unspeakable joy, as he took the hand which

Cesarine held out to him, and kissed it.

“You consent, then?” he said to her.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Now that I am one of the family, I have the right to concern myself in

its affairs,” he said, with a strange, excited expression of face.

He left the room precipitately, that he might not show a joy which

contrasted too cruelly with the sorrow of his master. Anselme was not

actually happy at the failure, but love is such an egoist! Even Cesarine

felt within her heart an emotion that counteracted her bitter grief.

“Now that we have got so far,” whispered Pillerault to Constance, “shall

we strike the last blow?”

Madame Birotteau let a sign of grief rather than of acquiescence escape

her.

“My nephew,” said Pillerault, addressing Cesar, “what do you intend to

do?”

“To carry on my business.”

“That would not be my judgment,” said Pillerault. “Take my advice, wind

up everything, make over your whole assets to your creditors, and keep

out of business. I have often imagined how it would be if I were in a

situation such as yours--Ah, one has to foresee everything in business!

a merchant who does not think of failure is like a general who counts on

never being defeated; he is only half a merchant. I, in your position,

would never have continued in business. What! be forced to blush

before the men I had injured, to bear their suspicious looks and tacit

reproaches? I can conceive of the guillotine--a moment, and all is over.

But to have the head replaced, and daily cut off anew,--that is agony I

could not have borne. Many men take up their business as if nothing

had happened: so much the better for them; they are stronger than

Claude-Joseph Pillerault. If you pay in cash, and you are obliged to

do so, they say that you have kept back part of your assets; if you are

without a penny, it is useless to attempt to recover yourself. No, give

up your property, sell your business, and find something else to do.”

“What could I find?” said Cesar.

“Well,” said Pillerault, “look for a situation. You have influential

friends,--the Duc and the Duchesse de Lenoncourt, Madame de Mortsauf,

Monsieur de Vandenesse. Write to them, go and see them; they might get

you a situation in the royal household which would give you a thousand

crowns or so; your wife could earn as much more, and perhaps your

daughter also. The situation is not hopeless. You three might earn

nearly ten thousand francs a year. In ten years you can pay off a

hundred thousand francs, for you shall not use a penny of what you earn;

your two women will have fifteen hundred francs a year from me for their

expenses, and, as for you,--we will see about that.”

Constance and Cesar laid these wise words to heart. Pillerault left

them to go to the Bourse, which in those days was held in a provisional

wooden building of a circular shape, and was entered from the Rue

Faydeau. The failure, already known, of a man lately noted and envied,

excited general comment in the upper commercial circles, which at that

period were all “constitutionnel.” The gentry of the Opposition claimed

a monopoly of patriotism. Royalists might love the king, but to love

your country was the exclusive privilege of the Left; the people

belonged to it. The downfall of the protege of the palace, of a

ministeralist, an incorrigible royalist who on the 13th Vendemiaire had

insulted the cause of liberty by fighting against the glorious French

Revolution,--such a downfall excited the applause and tittle-tattle of

the Bourse. Pillerault wished to learn and study the state of public

opinion. He found in one of the most animated groups du Tillet,

Gobenheim-Keller, Nucingen, old Guillaume, and his son-in-law Joseph

Lebas, Claparon, Gigonnet, Mongenod, Camusot, Gobseck, Adolphe Keller,

Palma, Chiffreville, Matifat, Grindot, and Lourdois.

“What caution one needs to have!” said Gobenheim to du Tillet. “It was

a mere chance that one of my brothers-in-law did not give Birotteau a

credit.”

“I am in for ten thousand francs,” said du Tillet; “he asked me for them

two weeks ago, and I let him have them on his own note without security.

But he formerly did me some service, and I am willing to lose the

money.”

“Your nephew has done like all the rest,” said Lourdois to

Pillerault,--“given balls and parties! That a scoundrel should try to

throw dust in people’s eyes, I can understand; but it is amazing that

a man who passed for as honest as the day should play those worn-out,

knavish tricks which we are always finding out and condemning.”

“Don’t trust people unless they live in hovels like Claparon,” said

Gigonnet.

“Hey! mein freint,” said the fat Nucingen to du Tillet, “you haf joust

missed blaying me a bretty drick in zenting Pirodot to me. I don’t

know,” he added, addressing Gobenheim the manufacturer, “vy he tid not

ask me for fifdy tousand francs. I should haf gif dem to him.”

“Oh, no, Monsieur le baron,” said Joseph Lebas, “you knew very well that

the Bank had refused his paper; you made them reject it in the committee

on discounts. The affair of this unfortunate man, for whom I still feel

the highest esteem, presents certain peculiar circumstances.”

Pillerault pressed the hand of Joseph Lebas.

“Yes,” said Mongenod, “it seems impossible to believe what has happened,

unless we believe that concealed behind Gigonnet there are certain

bankers who want to strangle the speculation in the lands about the

Madeleine.”

“What has happened is what happens always to those who go out of their

proper business,” said Claparon, hastily interrupting Mongenod. “If he

had set up his own Cephalic Oil instead of running up the price of all

the land in Paris by pouncing upon it, he might have lost his hundred

thousand francs with Roguin, but he wouldn’t have failed. He will go on

now under the name of Popinot.”

“Keep a watch on Popinot,” said Gigonnet.

Roguin, in the parlance of such worthy merchants, was now the

“unfortunate Roguin.” Cesar had become “that wretched Birotteau.”

The one seemed to them excused by his great passion; the other they

considered all the more guilty for his harmless pretensions.

Gigonnet, after leaving the Bourse, went round by the Rue

Perrin-Gasselin on his way home, in search of Madame Madou, the vendor

of dried fruits.

“Well, old woman,” he said, with his coarse good-humor, “how goes the

business?”

“So-so,” said Madame Madou, respectfully, offering her only armchair to

the usurer, with a show of attention she had never bestowed on her “dear

defunct.”

Mother Madou, who would have floored a recalcitrant or too-familiar

wagoner and gone fearlessly to the assault of the Tuileries on the 10th

of October, who jeered her best customers and was capable of speaking up

to the king in the name of her associate market-women,--Angelique Madou

received Gigonnet with abject respect. Without strength in his presence,

she shuddered under his rasping glance. The lower classes will long

tremble at sight of the executioner, and Gigonnet was the executioner of

petty commerce. In the markets no power on earth is so respected as that

of the man who controls the flow of money; all other human institutions

are as nothing beside him. Justice herself takes the form of a

commissioner, a familiar personage in the eyes of the market; but usury

seated behind its green boxes,--usury, entreated with fear tugging at

the heart-strings, dries up all jesting, parches the throat, lowers the

proudest look, and makes the commonest market women respectful.

“Do you want anything of me?” she said.

“A trifle, a mere nothing. Hold yourself ready to make good those notes

of Birotteau; the man has failed, and claims must be put in at once. I

will send you the account to-morrow morning.”

Madame Madou’s eyes contracted like those of a cat for a second, and

then shot out flames.

“Ah, the villain! Ah, the scoundrel! He came and told me himself he was

a deputy-mayor,--a trumped-up story! Reprobate! is that what he calls

business? There is no honor among mayors; the government deceives us.

Stop! I’ll go and make him pay me; I will--”

“Hey! at such times everybody looks out for himself, my dear!” said

Gigonnet, lifting his leg with the quaint little action of a cat fearing

to cross a wet place,--a habit to which he owed his nickname. “There are

some very big wigs in the matter who mean to get themselves out of the

scrape.”

“Yes, and I’ll pull my nuts out of the fire, too! Marie-Jeanne, bring my

clogs and my rabbit-skin cloak; and quick, too, or I’ll warm you up with

a box on the ear.”

“There’ll be warm work down there!” thought Gigonnet, rubbing his hands

as he walked away. “Du Tillet will be satisfied; it will make a fine

scandal all through the quarter. I don’t know what that poor devil of

a perfumer has done to him; for my part I pity the fellow as I do a dog

with a broken leg. He isn’t a man, he has got no force.”

Madame Madou bore down, like an insurrectionary wave from the Faubourg

Saint-Antoine, upon the shop-door of the hapless Birotteau, which she

opened with excessive violence, for her walk had increased her fury.

“Heap of vermin! I want my money; I will have my money! You shall give

me my money, or I carry off your scent-bags, and that satin trumpery,

and the fans, and everything you’ve got here, for my two thousand

francs. Who ever heard of mayors robbing the people? If you don’t pay me

I’ll send you to the galleys; I’ll go to the police,--justice shall be

done! I won’t leave this place till I’ve got my money.”

She made a gesture as if to break the glass before the shelves on which

the valuables were placed.

“Mother Madou takes a drop too much,” whispered Celestin to his

neighbor.

The virago overheard him,--for in paroxysms of passion the organs

are either paralyzed or trebly acute,--and she forthwith applied to

Celestin’s ear the most vigorous blow that ever resounded in a Parisian

perfumery.

“Learn to respect women, my angel,” she said, “and don’t smirch the

names of the people you rob.”

“Madame,” said Madame Birotteau, entering from the back-shop, where she

happened to be with her husband,--whom Pillerault was persuading to

go with him, while Cesar, to obey the law, was humbly expressing his

willingness to go to prison,--“madame, for heaven’s sake do not raise a

mob, and bring a crowd upon us!”

“Hey! let them come,” said the woman; “I’ll tell them a tale that will

make you laugh the wrong side of your mouth. Yes, my nuts and my francs,

picked up by the sweat of my brow, helped you to give balls. There you

are, dressed like the queen of France in woollen which you sheared

off the backs of poor sheep such as me! Good God! it would burn my

shoulders, that it would, to wear stolen goods! I’ve got nothing but

rabbit-skin to cover my carcass, but it is mine! Brigands, thieves, my

money or--”

She darted at a pretty inlaid box containing toilet articles.

“Put that down, madame!” said Cesar, coming forward, “nothing here

is mine; everything belongs to my creditors. I own nothing but my own

person; if you wish to seize that and put me in prison, I give you my

word of honor”--the tears fell from his eyes--“that I will wait here

till you have me arrested.”

The tone and gesture were so completely in keeping with his words that

Madame Madou’s anger subsided.

“My property has been carried off by a notary; I am innocent of the

disasters I cause,” continued Cesar, “but you shall be paid in course of

time if I have to die in the effort, and work like a galley-slave as a

porter in the markets.”

“Come, you are a good man,” said the market-woman. “Excuse my words,

madame; but I may as well go and drown myself, for Gigonnet will hound

me down. I can’t get any money for ten months to redeem those damned

notes of yours which I gave him.”

“Come and see me to-morrow morning,” said Pillerault, showing himself.

“I will get you the money from one of my friends, at five per cent.”

“Hey! if it isn’t the worthy Pere Pillerault! Why, to be sure, he’s your

uncle,” she said to Constance. “Well, you are all honest people, and I

sha’n’t lose my money, shall I? To-morrow morning, then, old fellow!”

she said to the retired iron-monger.

* * * * *

Cesar was determined to live on amid the wreck of his fortunes at “The

Queen of Roses,” insisting that he would see his creditors and explain

his affairs to them himself. Despite Madame Birotteau’s earnest

entreaties, Pillerault seemed to approve of Cesar’s decision and took

him back to his own room. The wily old man then went to Monsieur Haudry,

explained the case, and obtained from him a prescription for a sleeping

draught, which he took to be made up, and then returned to spend the

evening with the family. Aided by Cesarine he induced her father to

drink with them. The narcotic soon put Cesar to sleep, and when he

woke up, fourteen hours later, he was in Pillerault’s bedroom, Rue des

Bourdonnais, fairly imprisoned by the old man, who was sleeping himself

on a cot-bed in the salon.

When Constance heard the coach containing Pillerault and Cesar roll away

from the door, her courage deserted her. Our powers are often stimulated

by the necessity of upholding some being feebler than ourselves. The

poor woman wept to find herself alone in her home as she would have wept

for Cesar dead.

“Mamma,” said Cesarine, sitting on her mother’s knee, and caressing her

with the pretty kittenish grace which women only display to perfection

amongst themselves, “you said that if I took up my life bravely, you

would have strength to bear adversity. Don’t cry, dear mother; I am

ready and willing to go into some shop, and I shall never think again of

what we once were. I shall be like you in your young days; and you shall

never hear a complaint, nor even a regret, from me. I have a hope. Did

you not hear what Monsieur Anselme said?”

“That dear boy! he shall not be my son-in-law--”

“Oh, mamma!”

“--he shall be my own son.”

“Sorry has one good,” said Cesarine, kissing her mother; “it teaches us

to know our true friends.”

The daughter at last eased the pain of the poor woman by changing places

and playing the mother to her. The next morning Constance went to the

house of the Duc de Lenoncourt, one of the gentlemen of the king’s

bedchamber, and left a letter asking for an interview at a later hour

of the day. In the interval she went to Monsieur de la Billardiere,

and explained to him the situation in which Roguin’s flight had placed

Cesar, begging him to go with her to the duke and speak for her, as she

feared she might explain matters ill herself. She wanted a place

for Birotteau. Birotteau, she said, would be the most upright of

cashiers,--if there could be degrees of integrity among honest men.

“The King has just appointed the Comte de Fontaine master of his

household; there is no time to be lost in making the application,” said

the mayor.

At two o’clock Monsieur de la Billardiere and Madame Cesar went up the

grand staircase of the Hotel de Lenoncourt, Rue Saint-Dominique, and

were ushered into the presence of the nobleman whom the king preferred

to all others,--if it can be said that Louis XVIII. ever had a

preference. The gracious welcome of this great lord, who belonged to the

small number of true gentlemen whom the preceding century bequeathed

to ours, encouraged Madame Cesar. She was dignified, yet simple, in her

sorrow. Grief ennobles even the plainest people; for it has a grandeur

of its own; to reflect its lustre, a nature must needs be true.

Constance was a woman essentially true.

The question was, how to speak to the king at once. In the midst of the

conference Monsieur de Vandenesse was announced; and the duke exclaimed,

“Here is our support!”

Madame Birotteau was not unknown to this young man, who had been to her

shop two or three times in search of those trifles which are sometimes

of more importance than greater things. The duke explained Monsieur de

la Billardiere’s wishes. As soon as he learned the misfortune which had

overtaken the godson of the Marquise d’Uxelles, Vandenesse went at once,

accompanied by Monsieur de la Billardiere, to the Comte de Fontaine,

begging Madame Birotteau to wait their return. Monsieur le Comte

de Fontaine was, like Monsieur de la Billardiere, one of those fine

provincial gentlemen, the heroes, almost unknown, who made “la Vendee.”

Birotteau was not a stranger to him, for he had seen him in the old

days at “The Queen of Roses.” Men who had shed their blood for the

royal cause enjoyed at this time certain privileges, which the king kept

secret, so as not to give umbrage to the Liberals.

Monsieur de Fontaine, always a favorite with Louis XVIII., was thought

to be wholly in his confidence. Not only did the count positively

promise a place, but he returned with the two gentlemen to the Duc

de Lenoncourt, and asked him to procure for him an audience that very

evening; and also to obtain for Billardiere an audience with MONSIEUR,

who was greatly attached to the old Vendeen diplomatist.

The same evening, the Comte de Fontaine came from the Tuileries to “The

Queen of Roses,” and announced to Madame Birotteau that as soon as the

proceedings in bankruptcy were over, her husband would be officially

appointed to a situation in the Sinking-fund Office, with a salary of

two thousand five hundred francs,--all the functions in the household of

the king being overcrowded with noble supernumeraries to whom promises

had already been made.

This success was but one part of the task before Madame Birotteau.

The poor woman now went to the “Maison du Chat-qui-pelote,” in the Rue

Saint-Denis, to find Joseph Lebas. As she walked along she met Madame

Roguin in a brilliant equipage, apparently making purchases. Their eyes

met; and the shame which the rich woman could not hide as she looked at

the ruined woman, gave Constance fresh courage.

“Never will I roll in a carriage bought with the money of others,” she

said to herself.

Joseph Lebas received her kindly, and she begged him to obtain a place

for Cesarine in some respectable commercial establishment. Lebas made no

promises; but eight days later Cesarine had board, lodging, and a salary

of three thousand francs from one of the largest linen-drapers in

Paris, who was about to open a branch establishment in the quartier

des Italiens. Cesarine was put in charge of the desk, and the

superintendence of the new shop was entrusted to her; she filled, in

fact, a position above that of forewoman, and supplied the place of both

master and mistress.

Madame Cesar went from the “Chat-qui-pelote” to the Rue des

Cinq-Diamants, and asked Popinot to let her take charge of his accounts

and do his writing, and also manage his household. Popinot felt that his

was the only house where Cesar’s wife could meet with the respect that

was due to her, and find employment without humiliation. The noble lad

gave her three thousand francs a year, her board, and his own room;

going himself into an attic occupied by one of his clerks. Thus it

happened that the beautiful woman, after one month’s enjoyment of her

sumptuous home, came to live in the wretched chamber looking into a

damp, dark court, where Gaudissart, Anselme, and Finot had inaugurated

Cephalic Oil.

When Molineux, appointed agent by the Court of Commerce, came to take

possession of Cesar Birotteau’s assets, Madame Birotteau, aided

by Celestin, went over the inventory with him. Then the mother and

daughter, plainly dressed, left the house on foot and went to their

uncle Pillerault’s, without once turning their heads to look at the home

where they had passed the greater part of their lives. They walked in

silence to the Rue des Bourdonnais, where they were to dine with Cesar

for the first time since their separation. It was a sad dinner. Each

had had time for reflection,--time to weigh the duties before them, and

sound the depths of their courage. All three were like sailors ready

to face foul weather, but not deceived as to their danger. Birotteau

gathered courage as he was told of the interest people in high places

had taken in finding employment for him, but he wept when he heard what

his daughter was to become. Then he held out his hand to his wife, as he

saw the courage with which she had returned to labor. Old Pillerault’s

eyes were wet, for the last time in his life, as he looked at these

three beings folded together in one embrace; from the centre of which

Birotteau, feeblest of the three and the most stricken, raised his

hands, saying:--

“Let us have hope!”

“You shall live with me,” said Pillerault, “for the sake of economy; you

shall have my chamber, and share my bread. I have long been lonely; you

shall replace the poor child I lost. From my house it is but a step to

your office in the Rue de l’Oratoire.”

“God of mercy!” exclaimed Birotteau; “in the worst of a storm a star

guides me.”

Resignation is the last stage of man’s misfortune. From this moment

Cesar’s downfall was accomplished; he accepted it, and strength returned

to him.