"You will be my tributaries," said David, "and all other consumers of
papers besides."
"Then what are you investigating?" asked the hypocritical Boniface
Cointet.
Boniface's question slipped out smoothly and insinuatingly, and again
Eve's eyes implored her husband to give an answer that was no answer,
or to say nothing at all.
"I am trying to produce paper at fifty per cent less than the present
cost price," and he went. He did not see the glances exchanged between
the brothers. "That is an inventor, a man of his build cannot sit with
his hands before him.--Let us exploit him," said Boniface's eyes. "How
can we do it?" said Jean's.
Mme. Sechard spoke. "David treats me just in the same way," she said.
"If I show any curiosity, he feels suspicious of my name, no doubt,
and out comes that remark of his; it is only a formula, after all."
"If your husband can work out the formula, he will certainly make a
fortune more quickly than by printing; I am not surprised that he
leaves the business to itself," said Boniface, looking across the
empty workshop, where Kolb, seated upon a wetting-board, was rubbing
his bread with a clove of garlic; "but it would not suit our views to
see this place in the hands of an energetic, pushing, ambitious
competitor," he continued, "and perhaps it might be possible to arrive
at an understanding. Suppose, for instance, that you consented for a
consideration to allow us to put in one of our own men to work your
presses for our benefit, but nominally for you; the thing is sometimes
done in Paris. We would find the fellow work enough to enable him to
rent your place and pay you well, and yet make a profit for himself."
"It depends on the amount," said Eve Sechard. "What is your offer?"
she added, looking at Boniface to let him see that she understood his
scheme perfectly well.
"What is your own idea?" Jean Cointet put in briskly.
"Three thousand francs for six months," said she.
"Why, my dear young lady, you were proposing to sell the place
outright for twenty thousand francs," said Boniface with much suavity.
"The interest on twenty thousand francs is only twelve hundred francs
per annum at six per cent."
For a moment Eve was thrown into confusion; she saw the need for
discretion in matters of business.
"You wish to use our presses and our name as well," she said; "and, as
I have already shown you, I can still do a little business. And then
we pay rent to M. Sechard senior, who does not load us with presents."
After two hours of debate, Eve obtained two thousand francs for six
months, one thousand to be paid in advance. When everything was
concluded, the brothers informed her that they meant to put in Cerizet
as lessee of the premises. In spite of herself, Eve started with
surprise.
"Isn't it better to have somebody who knows the workshop?" asked the
fat Cointet.
Eve made no reply; she took leave of the brothers, vowing inwardly to
look after Cerizet.
"Well, here are our enemies in the place!" laughed David, when Eve
brought out the papers for his signature at dinner-time.
"Pshaw!" said she, "I will answer for Kolb and Marion; they alone
would look after things. Besides, we shall be making an income of four
thousand francs from the workshop, which only costs us money as it is;
and looking forward, I see a year in which you may realize your
hopes."
"You were born to be the wife of a scientific worker, as you said by
the weir," said David, grasping her hand tenderly.
But though the Sechard household had money sufficient that winter,
they were none the less subjected to Cerizet's espionage, and all
unconsciously became dependent upon Boniface Cointet.
"We have them now!" the manager of the paper-mill had exclaimed as he
left the house with his brother the printer. "They will begin to
regard the rent as regular income; they will count upon it and run
themselves into debt. In six months' time we will decline to renew the
agreement, and then we shall see what this man of genius has at the
bottom of his mind; we will offer to help him out of his difficulty by
taking him into partnership and exploiting his discovery."
Any shrewd man of business who should have seen tall Cointet's face as
he uttered those words, "taking him into partnership," would have
known that it behooves a man to be even more careful in the selection
of the partner whom he takes before the Tribunal of Commerce than in
the choice of the wife whom he weds at the Mayor's office. Was it not
enough already, and more than enough, that the ruthless hunters were
on the track of the quarry? How should David and his wife, with Kolb
and Marion to help them, escape the toils of a Boniface Cointet?
A draft for five hundred francs came from Lucien, and this, with
Cerizet's second payment, enabled them to meet all the expenses of
Mme. Sechard's confinement. Eve and the mother and David had thought
that Lucien had forgotten them, and rejoiced over this token of
remembrance as they rejoiced over his success, for his first exploits
in journalism made even more noise in Angouleme than in Paris.
But David, thus lulled into a false security, was to receive a
staggering blow, a cruel letter from Lucien:--
_Lucien to David._
"MY DEAR DAVID,--I have drawn three bills on you, and negotiated
them with Metivier; they fall due in one, two, and three months'
time. I took this hateful course, which I know will burden you
heavily, because the one alternative was suicide. I will explain
my necessity some time, and I will try besides to send the amounts
as the bills fall due.
"Burn this letter; say nothing to my mother and sister; for, I
confess it, I have counted upon you, upon the heroism known so
well to your despairing brother,
"LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE."
By this time Eve had recovered from her confinement.
"Your brother, poor fellow, is in desperate straits," David told her.
"I have sent him three bills for a thousand francs at one, two, and
three months; just make a note of them," and he went out into the
fields to escape his wife's questionings.
But Eve had felt very uneasy already. It was six months since Lucien
had written to them. She talked over the news with her mother till her
forebodings grew so dark that she made up her mind to dissipate them.
She would take a bold step in her despair.
Young M. de Rastignac had come to spend a few days with his family. He
had spoken of Lucien in terms that set Paris gossip circulating in
Angouleme, till at last it reached the journalist's mother and sister.
Eve went to Mme. de Rastignac, asked the favor of an interview with
her son, spoke of all her fears, and asked him for the truth. In a
moment Eve heard of her brother's connection with the actress Coralie,
of his duel with Michel Chrestien, arising out of his own treacherous
behavior to Daniel d'Arthez; she received, in short, a version of
Lucien's history, colored by the personal feeling of a clever and
envious dandy. Rastignac expressed sincere admiration for the
abilities so terribly compromised, and a patriotic fear for the future
of a native genius; spite and jealousy masqueraded as pity and
friendliness. He spoke of Lucien's blunders. It seemed that Lucien had
forfeited the favor of a very great person, and that a patent
conferring the right to bear the name and arms of Rubempre had
actually been made out and subsequently torn up.
"If your brother, madame, had been well advised, he would have been on
the way to honors, and Mme. de Bargeton's husband by this time; but
what can you expect? He deserted her and insulted her. She is now Mme.
la Comtesse Sixte du Chatelet, to her own great regret, for she loved
Lucien."
"Is it possible!" exclaimed Mme. Sechard.
"Your brother is like a young eagle, blinded by the first rays of
glory and luxury. When an eagle falls, who can tell how far he may
sink before he drops to the bottom of some precipice? The fall of a
great man is always proportionately great."
Eve came away with a great dread in her heart; those last words
pierced her like an arrow. She had been wounded to the quick. She said
not a word to anybody, but again and again a tear rolled down her
cheeks, and fell upon the child at her breast. So hard is it to give
up illusions sanctioned by family feeling, illusions that have grown
with our growth, that Eve had doubted Eugene de Rastignac. She would
rather hear a true friend's account of her brother. Lucien had given
them d'Arthez's address in the days when he was full of enthusiasm for
the brotherhood; she wrote a pathetic letter to d'Arthez, and received
the following reply:--
_D'Arthez to Mme. Sechard._
"MADAME,--You ask me to tell you the truth about the life that
your brother is leading in Paris; you are anxious for
enlightenment as to his prospects; and to encourage a frank answer
on my part, you repeat certain things that M. de Rastignac has
told you, asking me if they are true. With regard to the purely
personal matter, madame, M. de Rastignac's confidences must be
corrected in Lucien's favor. Your brother wrote a criticism of my
book, and brought it to me in remorse, telling me that he could
not bring himself to publish it, although obedience to the orders
of his party might endanger one who was very dear to him. Alas!
madame, a man of letters must needs comprehend all passions, since
it is his pride to express them; I understood that where a
mistress and a friend are involved, the friend is inevitably
sacrificed. I smoothed your brother's way; I corrected his
murderous article myself, and gave it my full approval.
"You ask whether Lucien has kept my friendship and esteem; to this
it is difficult to make an answer. Your brother is on a road that
leads him to ruin. At this moment I still feel sorry for him;
before long I shall have forgotten him, of set purpose, not so
much on account of what he has done already as for that which he
inevitably will do. Your Lucien is not a poet, he has the poetic
temper; he dreams, he does not think; he spends himself in
emotion, he does not create. He is, in fact--permit me to say it
--a womanish creature that loves to shine, the Frenchman's great
failing. Lucien will always sacrifice his best friend for the
pleasure of displaying his own wit. He would not hesitate to sign
a pact with the Devil to-morrow if so he might secure a few years
of luxurious and glorious life. Nay, has he not done worse
already? He has bartered his future for the short-lived delights
of living openly with an actress. So far, he has not seen the
dangers of his position; the girl's youth and beauty and devotion
(for she worships him) have closed his eyes to the truth; he
cannot see that no glory or success or fortune can induce the
world to accept the position. Very well, as it is now, so it will
be with each new temptation--your brother will not look beyond the
enjoyment of the moment. Do not be alarmed: Lucien will never go
so far as a crime, he has not the strength of character; but he
would take the fruits of a crime, he would share the benefit but
not the risk--a thing that seems abhorrent to the whole world,
even to scoundrels. Oh, he would despise himself, he would repent;
but bring him once more to the test, and he would fail again; for
he is weak of will, he cannot resist the allurements of pleasure,
nor forego the least of his ambitions. He is indolent, like all
who would fain be poets; he thinks it clever to juggle with the
difficulties of life instead of facing and overcoming them. He
will be brave at one time, cowardly at another, and deserves
neither credit for his courage, nor blame for his cowardice.
Lucien is like a harp with strings that are slackened or tightened
by the atmosphere. He might write a great book in a glad or angry
mood, and care nothing for the success that he had desired for so
long.
"When he first came to Paris he fell under the influence of an
unprincipled young fellow, and was dazzled by his companion's
adroitness and experience in the difficulties of a literary life.
This juggler completely bewitched Lucien; he dragged him into a
life which a man cannot lead and respect himself, and, unluckily
for Lucien, love shed its magic over the path. The admiration that
is given too readily is a sign of want of judgment; a poet ought
not to be paid in the same coin as a dancer on the tight-rope. We
all felt hurt when intrigue and literary rascality were preferred
to the courage and honor of those who counseled Lucien rather to
face the battle than to filch success, to spring down into the
arena rather than become a trumpet in the orchestra.
"Society, madame, oddly enough, shows plentiful indulgence to
young men of Lucien's stamp; they are popular, the world is
fascinated by their external gifts and good looks. Nothing is
asked of them, all their sins are forgiven; they are treated like
perfect natures, others are blind to their defects, they are the
world's spoiled children. And, on the other hand, the world is
stern beyond measure to strong and complete natures. Perhaps in
this apparently flagrant injustice society acts sublimely, taking
a harlequin at his just worth, asking nothing of him but
amusement, promptly forgetting him; and asking divine great deeds
of those before whom she bends the knee. Everything is judged by
laws of its being; the diamond must be flawless; the ephemeral
creation of fashion may be flimsy, bizarre, inconsequent. So
Lucien may perhaps succeed to admiration in spite of his mistakes;
he has only to profit by some happy vein or to be among good
companions; but if an evil angel crosses his path, he will go to
the very depths of hell. 'Tis a brilliant assemblage of good
qualities embroidered upon too slight a tissue; time wears the
flowers away till nothing but the web is left; and if that is poor
stuff, you behold a rag at the last. So long as Lucien is young,
people will like him; but where will he be as a man of thirty?
That is the question which those who love him sincerely are bound
to ask themselves. If I alone had come to think in this way of
Lucien, I might perhaps have spared you the pain which my plain
speaking will give you; but to evade the questions put by your
anxiety, and to answer a cry of anguish like your letter with
commonplaces, seemed to me alike unworthy of you and of me, whom
you esteem too highly; and besides, those of my friends who knew
Lucien are unanimous in their judgment. So it appeared to me to be
a duty to put the truth before you, terrible though it may be.
Anything may be expected of Lucien, anything good or evil. That is
our opinion, and this letter is summed up in that sentence. If the
vicissitudes of his present way of life (a very wretched and
slippery one) should bring the poet back to you, use all your
influence to keep him among you; for until his character has
acquired stability, Paris will not be safe for him. He used to
speak of you, you and your husband, as his guardian angels; he has
forgotten you, no doubt; but he will remember you again when
tossed by tempest, with no refuge left to him but his home. Keep
your heart for him, madame; he will need it.
"Permit me, madame, to convey to you the expression of the sincere
respect of a man to whom your rare qualities are known, a man who
honors your mother's fears so much, that he desires to style
himself your devoted servant,
"D'ARTHEZ."
Two days after the letter came, Eve was obliged to find a wet-nurse;
her milk had dried up. She had made a god of her brother; now, in her
eyes, he was depraved through the exercise of his noblest faculties;
he was wallowing in the mire. She, noble creature that she was, was
incapable of swerving from honesty and scrupulous delicacy, from all
the pious traditions of the hearth, which still burns so clearly and
sheds its light abroad in quiet country homes. Then David had been
right in his forecasts! The leaden hues of grief overspread Eve's
white brow. She told her husband her secret in one of the pellucid
talks in which married lovers tell everything to each other. The tones
of David's voice brought comfort. Though the tears stood in his eyes
when he knew that grief had dried his wife's fair breast, and knew
Eve's despair that she could not fulfil a mother's duties, he held out
reassuring hopes.
"Your brother's imagination has let him astray, you see, child. It is
so natural that a poet should wish for blue and purple robes, and
hurry as eagerly after festivals as he does. It is a bird that loves
glitter and luxury with such simple sincerity, that God forgives him
if man condemns him for it."
"But he is draining our lives!" exclaimed poor Eve.
"He is draining our lives just now, but only a few months ago he saved
us by sending us the first fruits of his earnings," said the good
David. He had the sense to see that his wife was in despair, was going
beyond the limit, and that love for Lucien would very soon come back.
"Fifty years ago, or thereabouts, Mercier said in his _Tableau de Paris_
that a man cannot live by literature, poetry, letters, or science, by
the creatures of his brain, in short; and Lucien, poet that he is,
would not believe the experience of five centuries. The harvests that
are watered with ink are only reaped ten or twelve years after the
sowing, if indeed there is any harvest after all. Lucien has taken the
green wheat for the sheaves. He will have learned something of life,
at any rate. He was the dupe of a woman at the outset; he was sure to
be duped afterwards by the world and false friends. He has bought his
experience dear, that is all. Our ancestors used to say, 'If the son
of the house brings back his two ears and his honor safe, all is
well----'"
"Honor!" poor Eve broke in. "Oh, but Lucien has fallen in so many
ways! Writing against his conscience! Attacking his best friend!
Living upon an actress! Showing himself in public with her. Bringing
us to lie on straw----"
"Oh, that is nothing----!" cried David, and suddenly stopped short.
The secret of Lucien's forgery had nearly escaped him, and, unluckily,
his start left a vague, uneasy impression on Eve.
"What do you mean by nothing?" she answered. "And where shall we find
the money to meet bills for three thousand francs?"
"We shall be obliged to renew the lease with Cerizet, to begin with,"
said David. "The Cointets have been allowing him fifteen per cent on
the work done for them, and in that way alone he has made six hundred
francs, besides contriving to make five hundred francs by job
printing."
"If the Cointets know that, perhaps they will not renew the lease.
They will be afraid of him, for Cerizet is a dangerous man."
"Eh! what is that to me!" cried David, "we shall be rich in a very
little while. When Lucien is rich, dear angel, he will have nothing
but good qualities."
"Oh! David, my dear, my dear; what is this that you have said
unthinkingly? Then Lucien fallen into the clutches of poverty would
not have the force of character to resist evil? And you think just as
M. d'Arthez thinks! No one is great unless he has strength of
character, and Lucien is weak. An angel must not be tempted--what is
that?"
"What but a nature that is noble only in its own region, its own
sphere, its heaven? I will spare him the struggle; Lucien is not meant
for it. Look here! I am so near the end now that I can talk to you
about the means."
He drew several sheets of white paper from his pocket, brandished them
in triumph, and laid them on his wife's lap.
"A ream of this paper, royal size, would cost five francs at the
most," he added, while Eve handled the specimens with almost childish
surprise.
"Why, how did you make these sample bits?" she asked.
"With an old kitchen sieve of Marion's."
"And are you not satisfied yet?" asked Eve.
"The problem does not lie in the manufacturing process; it is a
question of the first cost of the pulp. Alas, child, I am only a late
comer in a difficult path. As long ago as 1794, Mme. Masson tried to
use printed paper a second time; she succeeded, but what a price it
cost! The Marquis of Salisbury tried to use straw as a material in
1800, and the same idea occurred to Seguin in France in 1801. Those
sheets in your hand are made from the common rush, the _arundo
phragmites_, but I shall try nettles and thistles; for if the material
is to continue to be cheap, one must look for something that will grow
in marshes and waste lands where nothing else can be grown. The whole
secret lies in the preparation of the stems. At present my method is
not quite simple enough. Still, in spite of this difficulty, I feel
sure that I can give the French paper trade the privilege of our
literature; papermaking will be for France what coal and iron and
coarse potter's clay are for England--a monopoly. I mean to be the
Jacquart of the trade."
Eve rose to her feet. David's simple-mindedness had roused her to
enthusiasm, to admiration; she held out her arms to him and held him
tightly to her, while she laid her head upon his shoulder.
"You give me my reward as if I had succeeded already," he said.
For all answer, Eve held up her sweet face, wet with tears, to his,
and for a moment she could not speak.
"The kiss was not for the man of genius," she said, "but for my
comforter. Here is a rising glory for the glory that has set; and, in
the midst of my grief for the brother that has fallen so low, my
husband's greatness is revealed to me.--Yes, you will be great, great
like the Graindorges, the Rouvets, and Van Robais, and the Persian who
discovered madder, like all the men you have told me about; great men
whom nobody remembers, because their good deeds were obscure
industrial triumphs."
"What are they doing just now?"
It was Boniface Cointet who spoke. He was walking up and down outside
in the Place du Murier with Cerizet watching the silhouettes of the
husband and wife on the blinds. He always came at midnight for a chat
with Cerizet, for the latter played the spy upon his former master's
every movement.
"He is showing her the paper he made this morning, no doubt," said
Cerizet.
"What is it made of?" asked the paper manufacturer.
"Impossible to guess," answered Cerizet; "I made a hole in the roof
and scrambled up and watched the gaffer; he was boiling pulp in a
copper pan all last night. There was a heap of stuff in a corner, but
I could make nothing of it; it looked like a heap of tow, as near as I
could make out."
"Go no farther," said Boniface Cointet in unctuous tones; "it would
not be right. Mme. Sechard will offer to renew your lease; tell her
that you are thinking of setting up for yourself. Offer her half the
value of the plant and license, and, if she takes the bid, come to me.
In any case, spin the matter out. . . . Have they no money?"
"Not a sou," said Cerizet.
"Not a sou," repeated tall Cointet.--"I have them now," said he to
himself.
Metivier, paper manufacturers' wholesale agent, and Cointet Brothers,
printers and paper manufacturers, were also bankers in all but name.
This surreptitious banking system defies all the ingenuity of the
Inland Revenue Department. Every banker is required to take out a
license which, in Paris, costs five hundred francs; but no hitherto
devised method of controlling commerce can detect the delinquents, or
compel them to pay their due to the Government. And though Metivier
and the Cointets were "outside brokers," in the language of the Stock
Exchange, none the less among them they could set some hundreds of
thousands of francs moving every three months in the markets of Paris,
Bordeaux, and Angouleme. Now it so fell out that that very evening
Cointet Brothers had received Lucien's forged bills in the course of
business. Upon this debt, tall Cointet forthwith erected a formidable
engine, pointed, as will presently be seen, against the poor, patient
inventor.
By seven o'clock next morning, Boniface Cointet was taking a walk by
the mill stream that turned the wheels in his big factory; the sound
of the water covered his talk, for he was talking with a companion, a
young man of nine-and-twenty, who had been appointed attorney to the
Court of First Instance in Angouleme some six weeks ago. The young
man's name was Pierre Petit-Claud.
"You are a schoolfellow of David Sechard's, are you not?" asked tall
Cointet by way of greeting to the young attorney. Petit-Claud had lost
no time in answering the wealthy manufacturer's summons.
"Yes, sir," said Petit-Claud, keeping step with tall Cointet.
"Have you renewed the acquaintance?"
"We have met once or twice at most since he came back. It could hardly
have been otherwise. In Paris I was buried away in the office or at
the courts on week-days, and on Sundays and holidays I was hard at
work studying, for I had only myself to look to." (Tall Cointet nodded
approvingly.) "When we met again, David and I, he asked me what I had
done with myself. I told him that after I had finished my time at
Poitiers, I had risen to be Maitre Olivet's head-clerk, and that some
time or other I hoped to make a bid for his berth. I know a good deal
more of Lucien Chardon (de Rubempre he calls himself now), he was Mme.
de Bargeton's lover, our great poet, David Sechard's brother-in-law,
in fact."
"Then you can go and tell David of your appointment, and offer him
your services," said tall Cointet.
"One can't do that," said the young attorney.
"He has never had a lawsuit, and he has no attorney, so one can do
that," said Cointet, scanning the other narrowly from behind his
colored spectacles.
A certain quantity of gall mingled with the blood in Pierre
Petit-Claud's veins; his father was a tailor in L'Houmeau, and his
schoolfellows had looked down upon him. His complexion was of the
muddy and unwholesome kind which tells a tale of bad health, late
hours and penury, and almost always of a bad disposition. The best
description of him may be given in two familiar expressions--he was
sharp and snappish. His cracked voice suited his sour face, meagre
look, and magpie eyes of no particular color. A magpie eye, according
to Napoleon, is a sure sign of dishonesty. "Look at So-and-so," he
said to Las Cases at Saint Helena, alluding to a confidential servant
whom he had been obliged to dismiss for malversation. "I do not know
how I could have been deceived in him for so long; he has a magpie
eye." Tall Cointet, surveying the weedy little lawyer, noted his face
pitted with smallpox, the thin hair, and the forehead, bald already,
receding towards a bald cranium; saw, too, the confession of weakness
in his attitude with the hand on the hip. "Here is my man," said he to
himself.
As a matter of fact, this Petit-Claud, who had drunk scorn like water,
was eaten up with a strong desire to succeed in life; he had no money,
but nevertheless he had the audacity to buy his employer's connection
for thirty thousand francs, reckoning upon a rich marriage to clear
off the debt, and looking to his employer, after the usual custom, to
find him a wife, for an attorney always has an interest in marrying
his successor, because he is the sooner paid off. But if Petit-Claud
counted upon his employer, he counted yet more upon himself. He had
more than average ability, and that of a kind not often found in the
provinces, and rancor was the mainspring of his power. A mighty hatred
makes a mighty effort.
There is a great difference between a country attorney and an attorney
in Paris; tall Cointet was too clever not to know this, and to turn
the meaner passions that move a pettifogging lawyer to good account.
An eminent attorney in Paris, and there are many who may be so
qualified, is bound to possess to some extent the diplomate's
qualities; he had so much business to transact, business in which
large interests are involved; questions of such wide interest are
submitted to him that he does not look upon procedure as machinery for
bringing money into his pocket, but as a weapon of attack and defence.
A country attorney, on the other hand, cultivates the science of
costs, _broutille_, as it is called in Paris, a host of small items that
swell lawyers' bills and require stamped paper. These weighty matters
of the law completely fill the country attorney's mind; he has a bill
of costs always before his eyes, whereas his brother of Paris thinks
of nothing but his fees. The fee is a honorarium paid by a client over
and above the bill of costs, for the more or less skilful conduct of
his case. One-half of the bill of costs goes to the Treasury, whereas
the entire fee belongs to the attorney. Let us admit frankly that the
fees received are seldom as large as the fees demanded and deserved by
a clever lawyer. Wherefore, in Paris, attorneys, doctors, and
barristers, like courtesans with a chance-come lover, take very
considerable precautions against the gratitude of clients. The client
before and after the lawsuit would furnish a subject worthy of
Meissonier; there would be brisk bidding among attorneys for the
possession of two such admirable bits of genre.
There is yet another difference between the Parisian and the country
attorney. An attorney in Paris very seldom appears in court, though he
is sometimes called upon to act as arbitrator (_refere_). Barristers,
at the present day, swarm in the provinces; but in 1822 the country
attorney very often united the functions of solicitor and counsel. As
a result of this double life, the attorney acquired the peculiar
intellectual defects of the barrister, and retained the heavy
responsibilities of the attorney. He grew talkative and fluent, and
lost his lucidity of judgment, the first necessity for the conduct of
affairs. If a man of more than ordinary ability tries to do the work
of two men, he is apt to find that the two men are mediocrities. The
Paris attorney never spends himself in forensic eloquence; and as he
seldom attempts to argue for and against, he has some hope of
preserving his mental rectitude. It is true that he brings the balista
of the law to work, and looks for the weapons in the armory of
judicial contradictions, but he keeps his own convictions as to the
case, while he does his best to gain the day. In a word, a man loses
his head not so much by thinking as by uttering thoughts. The spoken
word convinces the utterer; but a man can act against his own bad
judgment without warping it, and contrive to win in a bad cause
without maintaining that it is a good one, like the barrister. Perhaps
for this very reason an old attorney is the more likely of the two to
make a good judge.
A country attorney, as we have seen, has plenty of excuses for his
mediocrity; he takes up the cause of petty passions, he undertakes
pettifogging business, he lives by charging expenses, he strains the
Code of procedure and pleads in court. In a word, his weak points are
legion; and if by chance you come across a remarkable man practising
as a country attorney, he is indeed above the average level.
"I thought, sir, that you sent for me on your own affairs," said
Petit-Claud, and a glance that put an edge on his words fell upon tall
Cointet's impenetrable blue spectacles.
"Let us have no beating about the bush," returned Boniface Cointet.
"Listen to me."
After that beginning, big with mysterious import, Cointet set himself
down upon a bench, and beckoned Petit-Claud to do likewise.
"When M. du Hautoy came to Angouleme in 1804, on his way to his
consulship at Valence, he made the acquaintance of Mme. de Senonches,
then Mlle. Zephirine, and had a daughter by her," added Cointet for
the attorney's ear----"Yes," he continued, as Petit-Claud gave a
start; "yes, and Mlle. Zephirine's marriage with M. de Senoches soon
followed the birth of the child. The girl was brought up in my
mother's house; she is the Mlle. Francoise de la Haye in whom Mme. de
Senoches takes an interest; she is her godmother in the usual style.
Now, my mother farmed land belonging to old Mme. de Cardanet, Mlle.
Zephirine's grandmother; and as she knew the secret of the sole
heiress of the Cardanets and the Senonches of the older branch, they
made me trustee for the little sum which M. Francois du Hautoy meant
for the girl's fortune. I made my own fortune with those ten thousand
francs, which amount to thirty thousand at the present day. Mme. de
Senonches is sure to give the wedding clothes, and some plate and
furniture to her goddaughter. Now, I can put you in the way of
marrying the girl, my lad," said Cointet, slapping Petit-Claud on the
knee; "and when you marry Francoise de la Haye, you will have a large
number of the aristocracy of Angouleme as your clients. This
understanding between us (under the rose) will open up magnificent
prospects for you. Your position will be as much as any one could
want; in fact, they don't ask better, I know."
"What is to be done?" Petit-Claud asked eagerly. "You have an
attorney, Maitre Cachan----"
"And, moreover, I shall not leave Cachan at once for you; I shall only
be your client later on," said Cointet significantly. "What is to be
done, do you ask, my friend? Eh! why, David Sechard's business. The
poor devil has three thousand francs' worth of bills to meet; he will
not meet them; you will stave off legal proceedings in such a way as
to increase the expenses enormously. Don't trouble yourself; go on,
pile on items. Doublon, my process-server, will act under Cachan's
directions, and he will lay on like a blacksmith. A word to the wise
is sufficient. Now, young man?----"
An eloquent pause followed, and the two men looked at each other.
"We have never seen each other," Cointet resumed; "I have not said a
syllable to you; you know nothing about M. du Hautoy, nor Mme. de
Senonches, nor Mlle. de la Haye; only, when the time comes, two months
hence, you will propose for the young lady. If we should want to see
each other, you will come here after dark. Let us have nothing in
writing."
"Then you mean to ruin Sechard?" asked Petit-Claud.
"Not exactly; but he must be in jail for some time----"
"And what is the object?"
"Do you think that I am noodle enough to tell you that? If you have
wit enough to find out, you will have sense enough to hold your
tongue."
"Old Sechard has plenty of money," said Petit-Claud. He was beginning
already to enter into Boniface Cointet's notions, and foresaw a
possible cause of failure.
"So long as the father lives, he will not give his son a farthing; and
the old printer has no mind as yet to send in an order for his funeral
cards."
"Agreed!" said Petit-Claud, promptly making up his mind. "I don't ask
you for guarantees; I am an attorney. If any one plays me a trick,
there will be an account to settle between us."
"The rogue will go far," thought Cointet; he bade Petit-Claud
good-morning.
The day after this conference was the 30th of April, and the Cointets
presented the first of the three bills forged by Lucien. Unluckily,
the bill was brought to poor Mme. Sechard; and she, seeing at once
that the signature was not in her husband's handwriting, sent for
David and asked him point-blank:
"You did not put your name to that bill, did you?"
"No," said he; "your brother was so pressed for time that he signed
for me."
Eve returned the bill to the bank messenger sent by the Cointets.
"We cannot meet it," she said; then, feeling that her strength was
failing, she went up to her room. David followed her.
"Go quickly to the Cointets, dear," Eve said faintly; "they will have
some consideration for you; beg them to wait; and call their attention
besides to the fact that when Cerizet's lease is renewed, they will
owe you a thousand francs."
David went forthwith to his enemies. Now, any foreman may become a
master printer, but there are not always the makings of a good man of
business in a skilled typographer; David knew very little of business;
when, therefore, with a heavily-beating heart and a sensation of
throttling, David had put his excuses badly enough and formulated his
request, the answer--"This is nothing to do with us; the bill has been
passed on to us by Metivier; Metivier will pay us. Apply to M.
Metivier"--cut him short at once.
"Oh!" cried Eve when she heard the result, "as soon as the bill is
returned to M. Metivier, we may be easy."
At two o'clock the next day, Victor-Ange-Hermenegilde Doublon,
bailiff, made protest for non-payment at two o'clock, a time when the
Place du Murier is full of people; so that though Doublon was careful
to stand and chat at the back door with Marion and Kolb, the news of
the protest was known all over the business world of Angouleme that
evening. Tall Cointet had enjoined it upon Master Doublon to show the
Sechards the greatest consideration; but when all was said and done,
could the bailiff's hypocritical regard for appearances save Eve and
David from the disgrace of a suspension of payment? Let each judge for
himself. A tolerably long digression of this kind will seem all too
short; and ninety out of every hundred readers shall seize with
avidity upon details that possess all the piquancy of novelty, thus
establishing yet once again the trust of the well-known axiom, that
there is nothing so little known as that which everybody is supposed
to know--the Law of the Land, to wit.
And of a truth, for the immense majority of Frenchmen, a minute
description of some part of the machinery of banking will be as
interesting as any chapter of foreign travel. When a tradesman living
in one town gives a bill to another tradesman elsewhere (as David was
supposed to have done for Lucien's benefit), the transaction ceases to
be a simple promissory note, given in the way of business by one
tradesman to another in the same place, and becomes in some sort a
letter of exchange. When, therefore, Metivier accepted Lucien's three
bills, he was obliged to send them for collection to his
correspondents in Angouleme--to Cointet Brothers, that is to say.
Hence, likewise, a certain initial loss for Lucien in exchange on
Angouleme, taking the practical shape of an abatement of so much per
cent over and above the discount. In this way Sechard's bills had
passed into circulation in the bank. You would not believe how greatly
the quality of banker, united with the august title of creditor,
changes the debtor's position. For instance, when a bill has been
passed through the bank (please note that expression), and transferred
from the money market in Paris to the financial world of Angouleme, if
that bill is protested, then the bankers in Angouleme must draw up a
detailed account of the expenses of protest and return; 'tis a duty
which they owe to themselves. Joking apart, no account of the most
romantic adventure could be more mildly improbable than this of the
journey made by a bill. Behold a certain article in the Code of
commerce authorizing the most ingenious pleasantries after
Mascarille's manner, and the interpretation thereof shall make
apparent manifold atrocities lurking beneath the formidable word
"legal."
Master Doublon registered the protest and went himself with it to MM.
Cointet Brothers. The firm had a standing account with their bailiff;
he gave them six months' credit; and the lynxes of Angouleme
practically took a twelvemonth, though tall Cointet would say month by
month to the lynxes' jackal, "Do you want any money, Doublon?" Nor was
this all. Doublon gave the influential house a rebate upon every
transaction; it was the merest trifle, one franc fifty centimes on a
protest, for instance.
Tall Cointet quietly sat himself down at his desk and took out a small
sheet of paper with a thirty-five centime stamp upon it, chatting as
he did so with Doublon as to the standing of some of the local
tradesmen.
"Well, are you satisfied with young Gannerac?"
"He is not doing badly. Lord, a carrier drives a trade----"
"Drives a trade, yes; but, as a matter of fact, his expenses are a
heavy pull on him; his wife spends a good deal, so they tell me----"
"Of _his_ money?" asked Doublon, with a knowing look.
The lynx meanwhile had finished ruling his sheet of paper, and now
proceeded to trace the ominous words at the head of the following
account in bold characters:--