showed himself a most intelligent man, and that he seconded my efforts
valiantly.”
“His clumsiness could not have been, I think, very unexpected to you,”
replied la Peyrade; “therefore the protection you have deigned to give
him is the more cruel to me.”
“What a misfortune it would be,” said the countess, with charmingly
affected satire, “if your marriage with Mademoiselle Celeste were
prevented! Do you really care so much, monsieur, for that little
school-girl?”
In that last word, especially the intonation with which it was uttered,
there was more than contempt, there was hatred. This expression did
not escape an observer of la Peyrade’s strength, but not being a man to
advance very far on a single remark he merely replied:--
“Madame, the vulgar expression, to ‘settle down,’ explains this
situation, in which a man, after many struggles and being at an end of
his efforts and his illusions, makes a compromise with the future.
When this compromise takes the form of a young girl with, I admit, more
virtue than beauty, but one who brings to a husband the fortune which
is indispensable to the comfort of married life, what is there so
astonishing in the fact that his heart yields to gratitude and that he
welcomes the prospect of a placid happiness?”
“I have always thought,” replied the countess, “that the power of a
man’s intellect ought to be the measure of his ambition; and I imagined
that one so wise as to make himself, at first, the poor man’s lawyer,
would have in his heart less humble and less pastoral aspirations.”
“Ah! madame,” returned la Peyrade, “the iron hand of necessity compels
us to strange resignations. The question of daily bread is one of those
before which all things bend the knee. Apollo was forced to ‘get a
living,’ as the shepherd of Admetus.”
“The sheepfold of Admetus,” said Madame de Godollo, “was at least a
royal fold; I don’t think Apollo would have resigned himself to be the
shepherd of a--bourgeois.”
The hesitation that preceded that last word seemed to convey in place of
it a proper name; and la Peyrade understood that Madame de Godollo,
out of pure clemency, had suppressed that of Thuillier, had turned her
remark upon the species and not the individual.
“I agree, madame, that your distinction is a just one,” he replied, “but
in this case Apollo has no choice.”
“I don’t like persons who charge too much,” said the countess, “but
still less do I like those who sell their merchandise below the market
price; I always suspect such persons of trying to dupe me by some clever
and complicated trick. You know very well, monsieur, your own value, and
your hypocritical humility displeases me immensely. It proves to me that
my kindly overtures have not produced even a beginning of confidence
between us.”
“I assure you, madame, that up to the present time life has never
justified the belief in any dazzling superiority in me.”
“Well, really,” said the Hungarian, “perhaps I ought to believe in the
humility of a man who is willing to accept the pitiable finale of his
life which I threw myself into the breach to prevent.”
“Just as I, perhaps,” said la Peyrade, with a touch of sarcasm, “ought
to believe in the reality of a kindness which, in order to save me, has
handled me so roughly.”
The countess cast a reproachful look upon her visitor; her fingers
crumpled the ribbons of her gown; she lowered her eyes, and gave a sigh,
so nearly imperceptible, so slight, that it might have passed for an
accident in the most regular breathing.
“You are rancorous,” she said, “and you judge people by one aspect only.
After all,” she added, as if on reflection, “you are perhaps right in
reminding me that I have taken the longest way round by meddling,
rather ridiculously, in interests that do not concern me. Go on, my dear
monsieur, in the path of this glorious marriage which offers you so many
combined inducements; only, let me hope that you may not repent a course
with which I shall no longer interfere.”
The Provencal had not been spoilt by an experience of “bonnes fortunes.”
The poverty against which he had struggled so long never leads to
affairs of gallantry, and since he had thrown off its harsh restraint,
his mind being wholly given up to the anxious work of creating his
future, the things of the heart had entered but slightly into his
life; unless we must except the comedy he had played on Flavie. We
can therefore imagine the perplexity of this novice in the matter of
adventures when he saw himself placed between the danger of losing what
seemed to be a delightful opportunity, and the fear of finding a serpent
amid the beautiful flowers that were offered to his grasp. Too marked
a reserve, too lukewarm an eagerness, might wound the self-love of that
beautiful foreigner, and quench the spring from which he seemed invited
to draw. On the other hand, suppose that appearance of interest were
only a snare? Suppose this kindness (ill-explained, as it seemed to
him), of which he was so suddenly the object, had no other purpose than
to entice him into a step which might be used to compromise him with
the Thuilliers? What a blow to his reputation for shrewdness, and what a
role to play!--that of the dog letting go the meat for the shadow!
We know that la Peyrade was trained in the school of Tartuffe, and the
frankness with which that great master declares to Elmire that without
receiving a few of the favors to which he aspired he could not trust in
her tender advances, seemed to the barrister a suitable method to apply
to the present case, adding, however, a trifle more softness to the
form.
“Madame la comtesse,” he said, “you have turned me into a man who is
much to be pitied. I was cheerfully advancing to this marriage, and you
take all faith in it away from me. Suppose I break it off, what use can
I--with that great capacity you see in me--make of the liberty I thus
recover?”
“La Bruyere, if I am not mistaken, said that nothing freshens the blood
so much as to avoid committing a folly.”
“That may be; but it is, you must admit, a negative benefit; and I am
of an age and in a position to desire more serious results. The interest
that you deign to show to me cannot, I think, stop short at the idea
of merely putting an end to my present prospects. I love Mademoiselle
Colleville with a love, it is true, which has nothing imperative about
it; but I certainly love her, her hand is promised to me, and before
renouncing it--”
“So,” said the countess, hastily, “in a given case you would not be
averse to a rupture? And,” she added, in a more decided tone, “there
would be some chance of making you see that in taking your first
opportunity you cut yourself off from a better future, in which a more
suitable marriage may present itself?”
“But, at least, madame, I must be enabled to foresee it definitely.”
This persistence in demanding pledges seemed to irritate the countess.
“Faith,” she said, “is only a virtue when it believes without seeing.
You doubt yourself, and that is another form of stupidity. I am not
happy, it seems, in my selection of those I desire to benefit.”
“But, madame, it cannot be indiscreet to ask to know in some remote way
at least, what future your kind good-will has imagined for me.”
“It is very indiscreet,” replied the countess, coldly, “and it shows
plainly that you offer me only a conditional confidence. Let us say no
more. You are certainly far advanced with Mademoiselle Colleville; she
suits you, you say, in many ways; therefore marry her. I say again, you
will no longer find me in your way.”
“But does Mademoiselle Colleville really suit me?” resumed la Peyrade;
“that is the very point on which you have lately raised my doubts.
Do you not think there is something cruel in casting me first in one
direction and then in the other without affording me any ground to go
upon?”
“Ah!” said the countess, in a tone of impatience, “you want my opinion
on the premises! Well, monsieur, there is one very conclusive fact to
which I can bring proof: Celeste does not love you.”
“So I have thought,” said la Peyrade, humbly. “I felt that I was making
a marriage of mere convenience.”
“And she cannot love you, because,” continued Madame de Godollo, with
animation, “she cannot comprehend you. Her proper husband is that blond
little man, insipid as herself; from the union of those two natures
without life or heat will result in that lukewarm existence which, in
the opinion of the world where she was born and where she has lived,
is the ne plus ultra of conjugal felicity. Try to make that little
simpleton understand that when she had a chance to unite herself with
true talent she ought to have felt highly honored! But, above all, try
to make her miserable, odious family and surroundings understand it!
Enriched bourgeois, parvenus! there’s the roof beneath which you think
to rest from your cruel labor and your many trials! And do you believe
that you will not be made to feel, twenty times a day, that your share
in the partnership is distressingly light in the scale against their
money? On one side, the Iliad, the Cid, Der Freyschutz, and the frescos
of the Vatican; on the other, three hundred thousand francs in good,
ringing coin! Tell me which side they will trust and admire! The artist,
the man of imagination who falls into the bourgeois atmosphere--shall I
tell you to what I compare him? To Daniel cast into the lion’s den, less
the miracle of Holy Writ.”
This invective against the bourgeoisie was uttered in a tone of heated
conviction which could scarcely fail to be communicated.
“Ah! madame,” cried la Peyrade, “how eloquently you say things which
again and again have entered my troubled and anxious mind! But I have
felt myself lashed to that most cruel fate, the necessity of gaining a
position--”
“Necessity! position!” interrupted the countess, again raising the
temperature of her speech,--“words void of meaning! which have not even
sound to able men, though they drive back fools as though they were
formidable barriers. Necessity! does that exist for noble natures, for
those who know how to will? A Gascon minister uttered a saying which
ought to be engraved on the doors of all careers: ‘All things come to
him who knows how to wait.’ Are you ignorant that marriage, to men of a
high stamp, is either a chain which binds them to the lowest vulgarities
of existence, or a wing on which to rise to the highest summits of the
social world? The wife you need, monsieur,--and she would not be long
wanting to your career if you had not, with such incredible haste,
accepted the first ‘dot’ that was offered you,--the wife you should
have chosen is a woman capable of understanding you, able to divine
your intellect; one who could be to you a fellow-worker, an intellectual
confidant, and not a mere embodiment of the ‘pot-au-feu’; a woman
capable of being now your secretary, but soon the wife of a deputy, a
minister, an ambassador; one, in short, who could offer you her heart as
a mainspring, her salon for a stage, her connections for a ladder, and
who, in return for all she would give you of ardor and strength, asks
only to shine beside your throne in the rays of the glory she predicts
for you!”
Intoxicated, as it were, with the flow of her own words, the countess
was really magnificent; her eyes sparkled, her nostrils dilated; the
prospect her vivid eloquence thus unrolled she seemed to see, and touch
with her quivering fingers. For a moment, la Peyrade was dazzled by this
sunrise which suddenly burst upon his life.
However, as he was a man most eminently prudent, who had made it his
rule of life never to lend except on sound and solvent security, he was
still impelled to weigh the situation.
“Madame la comtesse,” he said, “you reproached me just now for speaking
like a bourgeois, and I, in return, am afraid that you are talking like
a goddess. I admire you, I listen to you, but I am not convinced. Such
devotions, such sublime abnegations may be met with in heaven, but in
this low world who can hope to be the object of them?”
“You are mistaken, monsieur,” replied the countess, with solemnity;
“such devotions are rare, but they are neither impossible nor
incredible; only, it is necessary to have the heart to find them, and,
above all, the hand to take them when they are offered to you.”
So saying, the countess rose majestically.
La Peyrade saw that he had ended by displeasing her, and he felt that
she dismissed him. He rose himself, bowed respectfully, and asked to be
received again.
“Monsieur,” said Madame de Godollo, “we Hungarians, primitive people
and almost savages that we are, have a saying that when our door is open
both sides of it are opened wide; when we close it it is double-locked
and bolted.”
That dignified and ambiguous speech was accompanied by a slight
inclination of the head. Bewildered, confounded by this behavior, to him
so new, which bore but little resemblance to that of Flavie, Brigitte,
and Madame Minard, la Peyrade left the house, asking himself again and
again whether he had played his game properly.
CHAPTER V. SHOWING HOW NEAR THE TARPEIAN ROCK IS TO THE CAPITOL
On leaving Madame de Godollo, la Peyrade felt the necessity of gathering
himself together. Beneath the conversation he had just maintained
with this strange woman, what could he see,--a trap, or a rich and
distinguished marriage offered to him. Under such a doubt as this, to
press Celeste for an immediate answer was neither clever nor prudent;
it was simply to bind himself, and close the door to the changes,
still very ill-defined, which seemed offered to him. The result of the
consultation which Theodose held with himself as he walked along the
boulevard was that he ought, for the moment, to think only of gaining
time. Consequently, instead of going to the Thuilliers’ to learn
Celeste’s decision, he went home, and wrote the following little note to
Thuillier:--
My dear Thuillier,--You will certainly not think it extraordinary
that I should not present myself at your house to-day,--partly
because I fear the sentence which will be pronounced upon me, and
partly because I do not wish to seem an impatient and unmannerly
creditor. A few days, more or less, will matter little under such
circumstances, and yet Mademoiselle Colleville may find them
desirable for the absolute freedom of her choice. I shall,
therefore, not go to see you until you write for me.
I am now more calm, and I have added a few more pages to our
manuscript; it will take but little time to hand in the whole to
the printer.
Ever yours,
Theodose de la Peyrade.
Two hours later a servant, dressed in what was evidently the first step
towards a livery, which the Thuilliers did not as yet venture to risk,
the “male domestic,” whom Minard had mentioned to the Phellions, arrived
at la Peyrade’s lodgings with the following note:--
Come to-night, without fail. We will talk over the whole affair
with Brigitte.
Your most affectionately devoted Jerome Thuillier.
“Good!” said la Peyrade; “evidently there is some hindrance on the other
side; I shall have time to turn myself round.”
That evening, when the servant announced him in the Thuillier salon, the
Comtesse de Godollo, who was sitting with Brigitte, hastened to rise and
leave the room. As she passed la Peyrade she made him a very ceremonious
bow. There was nothing conclusive to be deduced from this abrupt
departure, which might signify anything, either much or nothing.
After talking of the weather and so forth for a time, as persons do who
have met to discuss a delicate subject about which they are not sure of
coming to an understanding, the matter was opened by Brigitte, who had
sent her brother to take a walk on the boulevard, telling him to leave
her to manage the affair.
“My dear boy,” she said to Theodose, “it was very nice of you not to
come here to-day like a _grasp-all_, to put your pistol at our throats,
for we were not, as it happened, quite ready to answer you. I think,”
she added, “that our little Celeste needs a trifle more time.”
“Then,” said la Peyrade, quickly, “she has not decided in favor of
Monsieur Felix Phellion?”
“Joker!” replied the old maid, “you know very well you settled that
business last night; but you also know, of course, that her own
inclinations incline her that way.”
“Short of being blind, I must have seen that,” replied la Peyrade.
“It is not an obstacle to my projects,” continued Mademoiselle
Thuillier; “but it serves to explain why I ask for Celeste a little more
time; and also why I have wished all along to postpone the marriage to
a later date. I wanted to give you time to insinuate yourself into the
heart of my dear little girl--but you and Thuillier upset my plans.”
“Nothing, I think, has been done without your sanction,” said la
Peyrade, “and if, during these fifteen days, I have not talked with
you on the subject, it was out of pure delicacy. Thuillier told me that
everything was agreed upon with you.”
“On the contrary, Thuillier knows very well that I refused to mix myself
up on your new arrangements. If you had not made yourself so scarce
lately, I might have been the first to tell you that I did not approve
of them. However, I can truly say I did nothing to hinder their
success.”
“But that was too little,” said la Peyrade; “your active help was
absolutely necessary.”
“Possibly; but I, who know women better than you, being one of them,--I
felt very sure that if Celeste was told to choose between two suitors
she would consider that a permission to think at her ease of the one
she liked best. I myself had always left her in the vague as to Felix,
knowing as I did the proper moment to settle her mind about him.”
“So,” said la Peyrade, “you mean that she refuses me.”
“It is much worse than that,” returned Brigitte; “she accepts you, and
is willing to pledge her word; but it is so easy to see she regards
herself as a victim, that if I were in your place I should feel neither
flattered nor secure in such a position.”
In any other condition of mind la Peyrade would probably have answered
that he accepted the sacrifice, and would make it his business to win
the heart which at first was reluctantly given; but delay now suited
him, and he replied to Brigitte with a question:--
“Then what do you advise? What course had I better take?”
“Finish Thuillier’s pamphlet, in the first place, or he’ll go crazy; and
leave me to work the other affair in your interests,” replied Brigitte.
“But am I in friendly hands? For, to tell you the truth, little aunt, I
have not been able to conceal from myself that you have, for some time
past, changed very much to me.”
“Changed to you! What change do you see in me, addled-pate that you
are?”
“Oh! nothing very tangible,” said la Peyrade; “but ever since that
Countess Torna has had a footing in your house--”
“My poor boy, the countess has done me many services, and I am very
grateful to her; but is that any reason why I should be false to you,
who have done us still greater services?”
“But you must admit,” said la Peyrade, craftily, “that she has told you
a great deal of harm of me.”
“Naturally she has; these fine ladies are all that way; they expect the
whole world to adore them, and she sees that you are thinking only of
Celeste; but all she has said to me against you runs off my mind like
water from varnished cloth.”
“So, then, little aunt, I may continue to count on you?” persisted la
Peyrade.
“Yes; provided you are not tormenting, and will let me manage this
affair.”
“Tell me how you are going to do it?” asked la Peyrade, with an air of
great good-humor.
“In the first place, I shall signify to Felix that he is not to set foot
in this house again.”
“Is that possible?” said the barrister; “I mean can it be done civilly?”
“Very possible; I shall make Phellion himself tell him. He’s a man who
is always astride of principles, and he’ll be the first to see that if
his son will not do what is necessary to obtain Celeste’s hand he ought
to deprive us of his presence.”
“What next?” asked la Peyrade.
“Next, I shall signify to Celeste that she was left at liberty to choose
one husband or the other, and as she did not choose Felix she must make
up her mind to take you, a pious fellow, such as she wants. You needn’t
be uneasy; I’ll sing your praises, especially your generosity in not
profiting by the arrangement she agreed to make to-day. But all that
will take a week at least, and if Thuillier’s pamphlet isn’t out before
then, I don’t know but what we shall have to put him in a lunatic
asylum.”
“The pamphlet can be out in two days. But is it very certain, little
aunt, that we are playing above-board? Mountains, as they say, never
meet, but men do; and certainly, when the time comes to promote the
election, I can do Thuillier either good or bad service. Do you know,
the other day I was terribly frightened. I had a letter from him in
my pocket, in which he spoke of the pamphlet as being written by me. I
fancied for a moment that I had dropped it in the Luxembourg. If I had,
what a scandal it would have caused in the quarter.”
“Who would dare to play tricks with such a wily one as you?” said
Brigitte, fully comprehending the comminatory nature of la Peyrade’s
last words, interpolated into the conversation without rhyme or reason.
“But really,” she added, “why should you complain of us? It is you
who are behindhand in your promises. That cross which was to have been
granted within a week, and that pamphlet, which ought to have appeared a
long time ago--”
“The pamphlet and the cross will both appear in good time; the one will
bring the other,” said la Peyrade, rising. “Tell Thuillier to come
and see me to-morrow evening, and I think we can then correct the last
sheet. But, above all, don’t listen to the spitefulness of Madame
de Godollo; I have an idea that in order to make herself completely
mistress of this house she wants to alienate all your old friends, and
also that she is casting her net for Thuillier.”
“Well, in point of fact,” said the old maid, whom the parting shot of
the infernal barrister had touched on the ever-sensitive point of her
authority, “I must look into that matter you speak of there; she is
rather coquettish, that little woman.”
La Peyrade gained a second benefit out of that speech so adroitly
flung out; he saw by Brigitte’s answer to it that the countess had
not mentioned to her the visit he had paid her during the day. This
reticence might have a serious meaning.
Four days later, the printer, the stitcher, the paper glazier having
fulfilled their offices, Thuillier had the inexpressible happiness of
beginning on the boulevards a promenade, which he continued through
the Passages, and even to the Palais-Royal, pausing before all the
book-shops where he saw, shining in black letters on a yellow poster,
the famous title:--
TAXATION AND THE SLIDING-SCALE by J. Thuillier,
Member of the Council-General of the Seine.
Having reached the point of persuading himself that the care he had
bestowed upon the correction of proofs made the merit of the work his
own, his paternal heart, like that of Maitre Corbeau, could not contain
itself for joy. We ought to add that he held in very low esteem those
booksellers who did not announce the sale of the new work, destined to
become, as he believed, a European event. Without actually deciding the
manner in which he would punish their indifference, he nevertheless made
a list of these rebellious persons, and wished them as much evil as if
they had offered him a personal affront.
The next day he spent a delightful morning in writing a certain number
of letters, sending the publication to friends, and putting into paper
covers some fifty copies, to which the sacramental phrase, “From the
author,” imparted to his eyes an inestimable value.
But the third day of the sale brought a slight diminution of his
happiness. He had chosen for his editor a young man, doing business at
a breakneck pace, who had lately established himself in the Passage
des Panoramas, where he was paying a ruinous rent. He was the nephew
of Barbet the publisher, whom Brigitte had had as a tenant in the rue
Saint-Dominique d’Enfer. This Barbet junior was a youth who flinched at
nothing; and when he was presented to Thuillier by his uncle, he pledged
himself, provided he was not shackled in his advertising, to sell off
the first edition and print a second within a week.
Now, Thuillier had spent about fifteen hundred francs himself on costs
of publication, such, for instance, as copies sent in great profusion
to the newspapers; but at the close of the third day _seven_ copies only
had been sold, and three of those on credit. It might be believed that
in revealing to the horror-stricken Thuillier this paltry result the
young publisher would have lost at least something of his assurance. On
the contrary, this Guzman of the book-trade hastened to say:--
“I am delighted at what has happened. If we had sold a hundred copies
it would trouble me far more than the fifteen hundred now on our hands;
that’s what I call hanging fire; whereas this insignificant sale only
proves that the edition will go off like a rocket.”
“But when?” asked Thuillier, who thought this view paradoxical.
“Parbleu!” said Barbet, “when we get notices in the newspapers.
Newspaper notices are only useful to arouse attention. ‘Dear me!’ says
the public, ‘there’s a publication that must be interesting.’ The title
is good,--‘Taxation and the Sliding-Scale,’--but I find that the more
piquant a title is, the more buyers distrust it, they have been taken in
so often; they wait for the notices. On the other hand, for books
that are destined to have only a limited sale, a hundred ready-made
purchasers will come in at once, but after that, good-bye to them; we
don’t place another copy.”
“Then you don’t think,” said Thuillier, “that the sale is hopeless?”
“On the contrary, I think it is on the best track. When the ‘Debats,’
the ‘Constitutionnel,’ the ‘Siecle,’ and the ‘Presse’ have reviewed it,
especially if the ‘Debats’ mauls it (they are ministerial, you know), it
won’t be a week before the whole edition is snapped up.”
“You say that easily enough,” replied Thuillier; “but how are we to get
hold of those gentlemen of the press?”
“Ah! I’ll take care of that,” said Barbet. “I am on the best of terms
with the managing editors; they say the devil is in me, and that I
remind them of Ladvocat in his best days.”
“But then, my dear fellow, you ought to have seen to this earlier.”
“Ah! excuse me, papa Thuillier; there’s only one way of seeing to the
journalists; but as you grumbled about the fifteen hundred francs for
the advertisements, I did not venture to propose to you another extra
expense.”
“What expense?” asked Thuillier, anxiously.
“When you were nominated to the municipal council, where was the plan
mooted?” asked the publisher.
“Parbleu! in my own house,” replied Thuillier.
“Yes, of course, in your own house, but at a dinner, followed by a ball,
and the ball itself crowned by a supper. Well, my dear master, there are
no two ways to do this business; Boileau says:--
“‘All is done through the palate, and not through the mind;
And it is by our dinners we govern mankind.’”
“Then you think I ought to give a dinner to those journalists?”
“Yes; but not at your own house; for these journalists, you see, if
women are present, get stupid; they have to behave themselves. And,
besides, it isn’t dinner they want, but a breakfast--that suits
them best. In the evening these gentlemen have to go to first
representations, and make up their papers, not to speak of their own
little private doings; whereas in the mornings they have nothing to
think about. As for me, it is always breakfasts that I give.”
“But that costs money, breakfasts like that,” said Thuillier;
“journalists are gourmands.”
“Bah! twenty francs a head, without wine. Say you have ten of them;
three hundred francs will see you handsomely through the whole thing.
In fact, as a matter of economy, breakfasts are preferable; for a dinner
you wouldn’t get off under five hundred francs.”
“How you talk, young man!” said Thuillier.
“Oh, hang it! everybody knows it costs dear to get elected to the
Chamber; and all this favors your nomination.”
“But how can I invite those gentlemen? Must I go and see them myself?”
“Certainly not; send them your pamphlet and appoint them to meet you at
Philippe’s or Vefour’s--they’ll understand perfectly.”
“Ten guests,” said Thuillier, beginning to enter into the idea. “I did
not know there were so many leading journals.”
“There are not,” said the publisher; “but we must have the little dogs
as well, for they bark loudest. This breakfast is certain to make a
noise, and if you don’t ask them they’ll think you pick and choose, and
everyone excluded will be your enemy.”
“Then you think it is enough merely to send the invitations?”
“Yes; I’ll make the list, and you can write the notes and send them
to me. I’ll see that they are delivered; some of them I shall take in
person.”
“If I were sure,” said Thuillier, undecidedly, “that this expense would
have the desired effect--”
“_If I were sure_,--that’s a queer thing to say,” said Barbet. “My dear
master, this is money placed on mortgage; for it, I will guarantee the
sale of fifteen hundred copies,--say at forty sous apiece; allowing the
discounts, that makes three thousand francs. You see that your costs and
extra costs are covered, and more than covered.”
“Well,” said Thuillier, turning to go, “I’ll talk to la Peyrade about
it.”
“As you please, my dear master; but decide soon, for nothing gets mouldy
so fast as a book; write hot, serve hot, and buy hot,--that’s the rule
for authors, publishers, and public; all is bosh outside of it, and no
good to touch.”
When la Peyrade was consulted, he did not think in his heart that the
remedy was heroic, but he had now come to feel the bitterest animosity
against Thuillier, so that he was well pleased to see this new tax
levied on his self-important inexperience and pompous silliness.
As for Thuillier, the mania for posing as a publicist and getting
himself talked about so possessed him that although he moaned over this
fresh bleeding of his purse, he had decided on the sacrifice before he
even spoke to la Peyrade. The reserved and conditional approval of the
latter was, therefore, more than enough to settle his determination, and
the same evening he returned to Barbet junior and asked for the list of
guests whom he ought to invite.
Barbet gaily produced his little catalogue. Instead of the ten guests
originally mentioned, there proved to be fifteen, not counting himself
or la Peyrade, whom Thuillier wanted to second him in this encounter
with a set of men among whom he himself felt he should be a little out
of place. Casting his eyes over the list, he exclaimed, vehemently:--
“Heavens! my dear fellow, here are names of papers nobody ever heard of.
Where’s the ‘Moralisateur,’ the ‘Lanterne de Diogene,’ the ‘Pelican,’
the ‘Echo de la Bievre’?”
“You’d better be careful how you scorn the ‘Echo de la Bievre,’” said
Barbet; “why, that’s the paper of the 12th arrondissement, from which
you expect to be elected; its patrons are those big tanners of the
Mouffetard quarter!”
“Well, let that go--but the ‘Pelican’?”
“The ‘Pelican’? that’s a paper you’ll find in every dentist’s
waiting-room; dentists are the first _puffists_ in the world! How many
teeth do you suppose are daily pulled in Paris?”
“Come, come, nonsense,” said Thuillier, who proceeded to mark out
certain names, reducing the whole number present to fourteen.
“If one falls off we shall be thirteen,” remarked Barbet.
“Pooh!” said Thuillier, the free-thinker, “do you suppose I give in to
that superstition?”
The list being finally closed and settled at fourteen, Thuillier seated
himself at the publisher’s desk and wrote the invitations, naming,
in view of the urgency of the purpose, the next day but one for the
meeting, Barbet having assured him that no journalist would object to
the shortness of the invitation. The meeting was appointed at Vefour’s,
the restaurant par excellence of the bourgeoisie and all provincials.
Barbet arrived on the day named before Thuillier, who appeared in a
cravat which alone was enough to create a stir in the satirical circle
in which he was about to produce himself. The publisher, on his own
authority, had changed various articles on the bill of fare as selected
by his patron, more especially directing that the champagne, ordered in
true bourgeois fashion to be served with the dessert, should be placed
on the table at the beginning of breakfast, with several dishes of
shrimps, a necessity which had not occurred to the amphitryon.
Thuillier, who gave a lip-approval to these amendments, was followed
by la Peyrade; and then came a long delay in the arrival of the guests.
Breakfast was ordered at eleven o’clock; at a quarter to twelve not
a journalist had appeared. Barbet, who was never at a loss, made the
consoling remark that breakfasts at restaurants were like funerals,
where, as every one knew, eleven o’clock meant mid-day.
Sure enough, shortly before that hour, two gentlemen, with pointed
beards, exhaling a strong odor of tobacco, made their appearance.
Thuillier thanked them effusively for the “honor” they had done him;
after which came another long period of waiting, of which we shall not
relate the tortures. At one o’clock the assembled contingent comprised
five of the invited guests, Barbet and la Peyrade not included. It is
scarcely necessary to say that none of the self-respecting journalists
of the better papers had taken any notice of the absurd invitation.
Breakfast now had to be served to this reduced number. A few polite
phrases that reached Thuillier’s ears about the “immense” interest
of his publication, failed to blind him to the bitterness of his
discomfiture; and without the gaiety of the publisher, who had taken in
hand the reins his patron, gloomy as Hippolytus on the road to Mycenae,
let fall, nothing could have surpassed the glum and glacial coldness of
the meeting.
After the oysters were removed, the champagne and chablis which had
washed them down had begun, nevertheless, to raise the thermometer,
when, rushing into the room where the banquet was taking place, a young
man in a cap conveyed to Thuillier a most unexpected and crushing blow.
“Master,” said the new-comer to Barbet (he was a clerk in the
bookseller’s shop), “we are done for! The police have made a raid upon
us; a commissary and two men have come to seize monsieur’s pamphlet.
Here’s a paper they have given me for you.”
“Look at that,” said Barbet, handing the document to la Peyrade, his
customary assurance beginning to forsake him.
“A summons to appear at once before the court of assizes,” said la
Peyrade, after reading a few lines of the sheriff’s scrawl.
Thuillier had turned as pale as death.
“Didn’t you fulfil all the necessary formalities?” he said to Barbet, in
a choking voice.
“This is not a matter of formalities,” said la Peyrade, “it is a seizure
for what is called press misdemeanor, exciting contempt and hatred of
the government; you probably have the same sort of compliment awaiting
you at home, my poor Thuillier.”
“Then it is treachery!” cried Thuillier, losing his head completely.
“Hang it, my dear fellow! you know very well what you put in your
pamphlet; for my part, I don’t see anything worth whipping a cat for.”
“There’s some misunderstanding,” said Barbet, recovering courage;
“it will all be explained, and the result will be a fine cause of
complaint--won’t it, messieurs?”
“Waiter, pens and ink!” cried one of the journalists thus appealed to.
“Nonsense! you’ll have time to write your article later,” said another
of the brotherhood; “what has a bombshell to do with this ‘filet
saute’?”
That, of course, was a parody on the famous speech of Charles XII., King
of Sweden, when a shot interrupted him while dictating to a secretary.
“Messieurs,” said Thuillier, rising, “I am sure you will excuse me
for leaving you. If, as Monsieur Barbet thinks, there is some
misunderstanding, it ought to be explained at once; I must therefore,
with your permission, go to the police court. La Peyrade,” he added in a
significant tone, “you will not refuse, I presume, to accompany me. And
you, my dear publisher, you would do well to come too.”
“No, faith!” said Barbet, “when I breakfast, I breakfast; if the police
have committed a blunder, so much the worse for them.”
“But suppose the matter is serious?” cried Thuillier, in great
agitation.
“Well, I should say, what is perfectly true, that I had never read a
line of your pamphlet. One thing is very annoying; those damned juries
hate beards, and I must cut off mine if I’m compelled to appear in
court.”
“Come, my dear amphitryon, sit down again,” said the editor of the “Echo
de la Bievre,” “we’ll stand by you; I’ve already written an article in
my head which will stir up all the tanners in Paris; and, let me tell
you, that honorable corporation is a power.”
“No, monsieur,” replied Thuillier, “no; a man like me cannot rest an
hour under such an accusation as this. Continue your breakfast without
us; I hope soon to see you again. La Peyrade, are you coming?”
“He’s charming, isn’t he?” said Barbet, when Thuillier and his counsel
had left the room. “To ask me to leave a breakfast after the oysters,
and go and talk with the police! Come, messieurs, close up the ranks,”
he added, gaily.
“Tiens!” said one of the hungry journalists, who had cast his eyes
into the garden of the Palais-Royal, on which the dining-room of the
restaurant opened, “there’s Barbanchu going by; suppose I call him in?”
“Yes, certainly,” said Barbet junior, “have him up.”
“Barbanchu! Barbanchu!” called out the journalist.
Barbanchu, his hat being over his eyes, was some time in discovering the
cloud above him whence the voice proceeded.
“Here, up here!” called the voice, which seemed to Barbanchu celestial
when he saw himself hailed by a man with a glass of champagne in his
hand. Then, as he seemed to hesitate, the party above called out in
chorus:--
“Come up! come up! _There’s fat to be had_!”
When Thuillier left the office of the public prosecutor he could no
longer have any illusions. The case against him was serious, and the
stern manner in which he had been received made him see that when the
trial came up he would be treated without mercy. Then, as always happens
among accomplices after the non-success of an affair they have done in
common, he turned upon la Peyrade in the sharpest manner: La Peyrade
had paid no attention to what he wrote; he had given full swing to his
stupid Saint-Simonian ideas; _he_ didn’t care for the consequences; it
was not _he_ who would have to pay the fine and go to prison! Then, when
la Peyrade answered that the matter did not look to him serious, and
he expected to get a verdict of acquittal without difficulty, Thuillier
burst forth upon him, vehemently:--
“Parbleu! the thing is plain enough; monsieur sees nothing in it? Well,
I shall not put my honor and my fortune into the hands of a little
upstart like yourself; I shall take some great lawyer if the case comes
to trial. I’ve had enough of your collaboration by this time.”
Under the injustice of these remarks la Peyrade felt his anger rising.
However, he saw himself disarmed, and not wishing to come to an open
rupture, he parted from Thuillier, saying that he forgave a man excited
by fear, and would go to see him later in the afternoon, when he would
probably be calmer; they could then decide on what steps they had better
take.
Accordingly, about four o’clock, the Provencal arrived at the house
in the Place de la Madeleine. Thuillier’s irritation was quieted, but
frightful consternation had taken its place. If the executioner were
coming in half an hour to lead him to the scaffold he could not have
been more utterly unstrung and woe-begone. When la Peyrade entered
Madame Thuillier was trying to make him take an infusion of
linden-leaves. The poor woman had come out of her usual apathy, and
proved herself, beside the present Sabinus, another Eponina.
As for Brigitte, who presently appeared, bearing a foot-bath, she had
no mercy or restraint towards Theodose; her sharp and bitter reproaches,
which were out of all proportion to the fault, even supposing him
to have committed one would have driven a man of the most placid
temperament beside himself. La Peyrade felt that all was lost to him
in the Thuillier household, where they now seemed to seize with joy the
occasion to break their word to him and to give free rein to revolting
ingratitude. On an ironical allusion by Brigitte to the manner in which
he decorated his friends, la Peyrade rose and took leave, without any
effort being made to retain him.
After walking about the streets for awhile, la Peyrade, in the midst of
his indignation, turned to thoughts of Madame de Godollo, whose
image, to tell the truth, had been much in his mind since their former
interview.
CHAPTER VI. ‘TWAS THUS THEY BADE ADIEU
Not only once when the countess met the barrister at the Thuilliers had
she left the room; but the same performance took place at each of
their encounters; and la Peyrade had convinced himself, without knowing
exactly why, that in each case, this affectation of avoiding him,
signified something that was not indifference. To have paid her another
visit immediately would certainly have been very unskilful; but now a
sufficient time had elapsed to prove him to be a man who was master of
himself. Accordingly, he returned upon his steps to the Boulevard de la
Madeleine, and without asking the porter if the countess was at home, he
passed the lodge as if returning to the Thuilliers’, and rang the bell
of the entresol.
The maid who opened the door asked him, as before, to wait until she
notified her mistress; but, on this occasion, instead of showing him
into the dining-room, she ushered him into a little room arranged as a
library.
He waited long, and knew not what to think of the delay. Still, he
reassured himself with the thought that if she meant to dismiss him he
would not have been asked to wait at all. Finally the maid reappeared,
but even then it was not to introduce him.
“Madame la comtesse,” said the woman, “was engaged on a matter of
business, but she begged monsieur be so kind as to wait, and to amuse
himself with the books in the library, because she might be detained
longer than she expected.”
The excuse, both in form and substance, was certainly not discouraging,
and la Peyrade looked about him to fulfil the behest to amuse himself.
Without opening any of the carved rosewood bookcases, which enclosed a
collection of the most elegantly bound volumes he had ever laid his
eyes upon, he saw on an oblong table with claw feet a pell-mell of books
sufficient for the amusement of a man whose attention was keenly alive
elsewhere.
But, as he opened one after another of the various volumes, he began to
fancy that a feast of Tantalus had been provided for him: one book
was English, another German, a third Russian; there was even one in
cabalistic letters that seemed Turkish. Was this a polyglottic joke the
countess had arranged for him?
One volume, however, claimed particular attention. The binding, unlike
those of the other books, was less rich than dainty. Lying by itself at
a corner of the table, it was open, with the back turned up, the edges
of the leaves resting on the green table-cloth in the shape of a tent.
La Peyrade took it up, being careful not to lose the page which it
seemed to have been some one’s intention to mark. It proved to be
a volume of the illustrated edition of Monsieur Scribe’s works. The
engraving which presented itself on the open page to la Peyrade’s eyes,
was entitled “The Hatred of a Woman”; the principal personage of which
is a young widow, desperately pursuing a poor young man who cannot help
himself. There is hatred all round. Through her devilries she almost
makes him lose his reputation, and does make him miss a rich marriage;
but the end is that she gives him more than she took away from him, and
makes a husband of the man who was thought her victim.
If chance had put this volume apart from the rest, and had left it open
at the precise page where la Peyrade found it marked, it must be owned
that, after what had passed between himself and the countess, chance can
sometimes seem clever and adroit. As he stood there, thinking over the
significance which this more or less accidental combination might have,
la Peyrade read through a number of scenes to see whether in the details
as well as the general whole they applied to the present situation.
While thus employed, the sound of an opening door was heard, and he
recognized the silvery and slightly drawling voice of the countess, who
was evidently accompanying some visitor to the door.
“Then I may promise the ambassadress,” said a man’s voice, “that you
will honor her ball with your presence?”
“Yes, commander, if my headache, which is just beginning to get a little
better, is kind enough to go away.”
“Au revoir, then, fairest lady,” said the gentleman. After which the
doors were closed, and silence reigned once more.
The title of commander reassured la Peyrade somewhat, for it was not
the rank of a young dandy. He was nevertheless curious to know who this
personage was with whom the countess had been shut up so long. Hearing
no one approach the room he was in, he went to the window and opened the
curtain cautiously, prepared to let it drop back at the slightest noise,
and to make a quick right-about-face to avoid being caught, “flagrante
delicto,” in curiosity. An elegant coupe, standing at a little distance,
was now driven up to the house, a footman in showy livery hastened to
open the door, and a little old man, with a light and jaunty movement,
though it was evident he was one of those relics of the past who have
not yet abandoned powder, stepped quickly into the carriage, which was
then driven rapidly away. La Peyrade had time to observe on his breast
a perfect string of decorations. This, combined with the powdered hair,
was certain evidence of a diplomatic individual.
La Peyrade had picked up his book once more, when a bell from the
inner room sounded, quickly followed by the appearance of the maid, who
invited him to follow her. The Provencal took care _not_ to replace the
volume where he found it, and an instant later he entered the presence
of the countess.
A pained expression was visible on the handsome face of the foreign
countess, who, however, lost nothing of her charm in the languor that
seemed to overcome her. On the sofa beside her was a manuscript written
on gilt-edged paper, in that large and opulent handwriting which
indicates an official communication from some ministerial office or
chancery. She held in her hand a crystal bottle with a gold stopper,
from which she frequently inhaled the contents, and a strong odor of
English vinegar pervaded the salon.
“I fear you are ill, madame,” said la Peyrade, with interest.
“Oh! it is nothing,” replied the countess; “only a headache, to which
I am very subject. But you, monsieur, what has become of you? I was
beginning to lose all hope of ever seeing you again. Have you come
to announce to me some great news? The period of your marriage with
Mademoiselle Colleville is probably so near that I think you can speak
of it.”
This opening disconcerted la Peyrade.
“But, madame,” he answered, in a tone that was almost tart, “you, it
seems to me, must know too well everything that goes on in the
Thuillier household not to be aware that the event you speak of is not
approaching, and, I may add, not probable.”
“No, I assure you, I know nothing; I have strictly forbidden myself from
taking any further interest in an affair which I felt I had meddled with
very foolishly. Mademoiselle Brigitte and I talk of everything except
Celeste’s marriage.”
“And it is no doubt the desire to allow me perfect freedom in the matter
that induces you to take flight whenever I have the honor to meet you in
the Thuillier salon?”
“Yes,” said the countess, “that ought to be the reason that makes me
leave the room; else, why should I be so distant?”
“Ah! madame, there are other reasons that might make a woman avoid a
man’s presence. For instance, if he has displeased her; if the advice,
given to him with rare wisdom and kindness, was not received with proper
eagerness and gratitude.”
“Oh, my dear monsieur,” she replied, “I have no such ardor in
proselytizing that I am angry with those who are not docile to my
advice. I am, like others, very apt to make mistakes.”
“On the contrary, madame, in the matter of my marriage your judgment was
perfectly correct.”
“How so?” said the countess, eagerly. “Has the seizure of the pamphlet,
coming directly after the failure to obtain the cross, led to a
rupture?”
“No,” said la Peyrade, “my influence in the Thuillier household rests
on a solid basis; the services I have rendered Mademoiselle Brigitte
and her brother outweigh these checks, which, after all, are not
irreparable.”
“Do you really think so?” said the countess.
“Certainly,” replied la Peyrade; “when the Comtesse du Bruel takes it
into her head to seriously obtain that bit of red ribbon, she can do so,
in spite of all obstacles that are put in her way.”
The countess received this assertion with a smile, and shook her head.
“But, madame, only a day or two ago Madame du Bruel told Madame
Colleville that the unexpected opposition she had met with piqued her,
and that she meant to go in person to the minister.”
“But you forget that since then this seizure has been made by the
police; it is not usual to decorate a man who is summoned before the
court of assizes. You seem not to notice that the seizure argues a
strong ill-will against Monsieur Thuillier, and, I may add, against
yourself, monsieur, for you are known to be the culprit. You have not, I
think, taken all this into account. The authorities appear to have acted
not wholly from legal causes.”
La Peyrade looked at the countess.
“I must own,” he said, after that rapid glance, “that I have tried in
vain to find any passage in that pamphlet which could be made a legal
pretext for the seizure.”
“In my opinion,” said the countess, “the king’s servants must have
a vivid imagination to persuade themselves they were dealing with
a seditious publication. But that only proves the strength of the
underground power which is thwarting all your good intentions in favor
of Monsieur Thuillier.”
“Madame,” said la Peyrade, “do you know our secret enemies?”
“Perhaps I do,” replied the countess, with another smile.
“May I dare to utter a suspicion, madame?” said la Peyrade, with some
agitation.
“Yes, say what you think,” replied Madame de Godollo. “I shall not blame
you if you guess right.”
“Well, madame, our enemies, Thuillier’s and mine, are--a woman.”
“Supposing that is so,” said the countess; “do you know how many lines
Richelieu required from a man’s hand in order to hang him?”
“Four,” replied la Peyrade.
“You can imagine, then, that a pamphlet of two hundred pages might
afford a--slightly intriguing woman sufficient ground for persecution.”
“I see it all, madame, I understand it!” cried la Peyrade, with
animation. “I believe that woman to be one of the elite of her sex, with
as much mind and malice as Richelieu! Adorable magician! it is she who
has set in motion the police and the gendarmes; but, more than that, it
is she who withholds that cross the ministers were about to give.”
“If that be so,” said the countess, “why struggle against her?”
“Ah! I struggle no longer,” said la Peyrade. Then, with an assumed air
of contrition, he added, “You must, indeed, _hate_ me, madame.”
“Not quite as much as you may think,” replied the countess; “but, after
all, suppose that I do hate you?”
“Ah! madame,” cried la Peyrade, ardently, “I should then be the happiest
of unhappy men; for that hatred would seem to me sweeter and more
precious than your indifference. But you do not hate me; why should
you feel to me that most blessed feminine sentiment which Scribe has
depicted with such delicacy and wit?”
Madame de Godollo did not answer immediately. She lowered her eyelids,
and the deeper breathing of her bosom gave to her voice when she did
speak a tremulous tone:--
“The hatred of a woman!” she said. “Is a man of your stoicism able to
perceive it?”
“Ah! yes, madame,” replied la Peyrade, “I do indeed perceive it, but not
to revolt against it; on the contrary, I bless the harshness that deigns
to hurt me. Now that I know my beautiful and avowed enemy, I shall not
despair of touching her heart; for never again will I follow any road
but the one that she points out to me, never will I march under any
banner but hers. I shall wait--for her inspiration, to think; for her
will, to will; for her commands, to act. In all things I will be her
auxiliary,--more than that, her slave; and if she still repulses me with
that dainty foot, that snowy hand, I will bear it resignedly, asking, in
return for such obedience one only favor,--that of kissing the foot that
spurns me, of bathing with tears the hand that threatens me.”
During this long cry of the excited heart, which the joy of triumph
wrung from a nature so nervous and impressionable as that of the
Provencal, he had slidden from his chair, and now knelt with one knee
on the ground beside the countess, in the conventional attitude of the
stage, which is, however, much more common in real life than people
suppose.
“Rise, monsieur,” said the countess, “and be so good as to answer me.”
Then, giving him a questioning look from beneath her beautiful frowning
brows, she continued: “Have you well-weighed the outcome of the words
you have just uttered? Have you measured the full extent of your pledge,
and its depth? With your hand on your heart and on your conscience, are
you a man to fulfil those words? Or are you one of the falsely humble
and perfidious men who throw themselves at our feet only to make us lose
the balance of our will and our reason?”
“I!” exclaimed la Peyrade; “never can I react against the fascination
you have wielded over me from the moment of our first interview! Ah!
madame, the more I have resisted, the more I have struggled, the more
you ought to trust in my sincerity and its tardy expression. What I have
said, I think; that which I think aloud to-day I have thought in my soul
since the hour when I first had the honor of admittance to you; and the
many days I have passed in struggling against this allurement have ended
in giving me a firm and deliberate will, which understands itself, and
is not cast down by your severity.”
“Severity?” said the countess; “possibly. But you ought to think of
the kindness too. Question yourself carefully. We foreign women do not
understand the careless ease with which a Frenchwoman enters upon a
solemn engagement. To us, our _yes_ is sacred; our word is a bond. We do
and we will nothing by halves. The arms of my family bear a motto which
seems significant under the present circumstances,--‘All or Nothing’;
that is saying much, and yet, perhaps, not enough.”
“That is how I understand my pledge,” replied la Peyrade; “and on
leaving this room my first step will be to break with that ignoble
past which for an instant I seemed to hold in the balance against the
intoxicating future you do not forbid me to expect.”
“No,” said the countess, “do it calmly and advisedly; I do not like rash
conduct; you will not please me by taking open steps. These Thuilliers
are not really bad at heart; they humiliated you without knowing that
they did so; their world is not yours. Is that their fault? Loosen the
tie between you, but do not violently break it. And, above all, reflect.
Your conversion to my beliefs is of recent date. What man is certain of
what his heart will say to him to-morrow?”
“Madame,” said la Peyrade, “I am that man. We men of Southern blood do
not love as you say a Frenchwoman loves.”
“But,” said the countess, with a charming smile, “I thought it was
hatred we were talking of.”
“Ah, madame,” cried the barrister, “explained and understood as it has
been, that word is still a thing that hurts me. Tell me rather, not that
you love me, but that the words you deigned to say to me at our first
interview were indeed the expression of your thoughts.”
“My friend,” said the countess, dwelling on the word; “one of your
moralists has said: ‘There are persons who say, _that is_ or _that is
not_.’ Do me the favor to count me among such persons.”
So saying, she held out her hand to her suitor with a charming gesture
of modesty and grace. La Peyrade, quite beside himself, darted upon that
beautiful hand and devoured it with kisses.
“Enough, child!” said the countess, gently freeing her imprisoned
fingers; “adieu now, soon to meet again! Adieu! My headache, I think,
has disappeared.”
La Peyrade picked up his hat, and seemed about to rush from the
apartment; but at the door he turned and cast upon the handsome creature
a look of tenderness. The countess made him, with her head, a graceful
gesture of adieu; then, seeing that la Peyrade was inclined to return to
her, she raised her forefinger as a warning to control himself and go.
La Peyrade turned and left the apartment.
CHAPTER VII. HOW TO SHUT THE DOOR IN PEOPLE’S FACES
On the staircase la Peyrade stopped to exhale, if we may so express it,
the happiness of which his heart was full. The words of the countess,
the ingenious preparation she had made to put him on the track of her
sentiments, seemed to him the guarantee of her sincerity, and he left
her full of faith.
Possessed by that intoxication of happy persons which shows itself in
their gestures, their looks, their very gait, and sometimes in actions
not authorized by their common-sense, after pausing a moment, as we have
said, on the staircase, he ran up a few steps till he could see the door
of the Thuilliers’ apartment.
“At last!” he cried, “fame, fortune, happiness have come to me; but,
above all, I can now give myself the joy of vengeance. After Dutocq and
Cerizet, I will crush _you_, vile bourgeois brood!”
So saying, he shook his fist at the innocent door. Then he turned and
ran out; the popular saying that the earth could not hold him, was true
at that moment of his being.
The next day, for he could not restrain any longer the tempest that was
swelling within him, la Peyrade went to see Thuillier in the bitterest
and most hostile of moods. What was therefore his amazement when, before
he had time to put himself on guard and stop the demonstration of union
and oblivion, Thuillier flung himself into his arms.
“My friend,” cried the municipal councillor, as he loosened his clasp,
“my political fortune is made; this morning all the newspapers, without
exception, have spoken of the seizure of my pamphlet; and you ought to
see how the opposition sheets have mauled the government.”
“Simple enough,” said la Peyrade, not moved by this enthusiasm; “you are
a topic for them, that’s all. But this does not alter the situation; the
prosecution will be only the more determined to have you condemned.”
“Well, then,” said Thuillier, proudly raising his head, “I will go to
prison, like Beranger, like Lamennais, like Armand Carrel.”
“My good fellow, persecution is charming at a distance; but when you
hear the big bolts run upon you, you may be sure you won’t like it as
well.”
“But,” objected Thuillier, “prisoners condemned for political offences
are always allowed to do their time in hospital if they like. Besides,
I’m not yet convicted. You said yourself you expected to get me
acquitted.”
“Yes, but since then I have heard things which make that result very
doubtful; the same hand that withheld your cross has seized your
pamphlet; you are being murdered with premeditation.”
“If you know who that dangerous enemy is,” said Thuillier, “you can’t
refuse to point him out to me.”
“I don’t know him,” replied la Peyrade; “I only suspect him. This is
what you get by playing too shrewd a game.”
“Playing a shrewd game!” said Thuillier, with the curiosity of a man who
is perfectly aware that he has nothing of that kind on his conscience.
“Yes,” said la Peyrade, “you made a sort of decoy of Celeste to attract
young bloods to your salon. All the world has not the forbearance of
Monsieur Godeschal, who forgave his rejection and generously managed
that affair about the house.”
“Explain yourself better,” said Thuillier, “for I don’t see what you
mean.”
“Nothing is easier to understand. Without counting me, how many suitors
have you had for Mademoiselle Colleville? Godeschal, Minard junior,
Phellion junior, Olivier Vinet, the substitute judge,--all men who have
been sent about their business, as I am.”
“Olivier Vinet, the substitute judge!” cried Thuillier, struck with
a flash of light. “Of course; the blow must have come from him. His
father, they say, has a long arm. But it can’t be truly said that we
sent him about his business,--to use your expression, which strikes me
as indecorous,--for he never came to the house but once, and made no
offer; neither did Minard junior or Phellion junior, for that matter.
Godeschal is the only one who risked a direct proposal, and he was
refused at once, before he dipped his beak in the water.”
“It is always so!” said la Peyrade, still looking for a ground of
quarrel. “Straightforward and outspoken persons are always those that
sly men boast of fooling.”
“Ah ca! what’s all this?” said Thuillier; “what are you insinuating?
Didn’t you settle everything with Brigitte the other day? You take a
pretty time to come and talk to me about your love-affairs, when the
sword of justice is hanging over my head.”
“Oh!” said la Peyrade, ironically; “so now you are going to make the
most of your interesting position of accused person! I knew very well
how it would be; I was certain that as soon as your pamphlet appeared
the old cry of not getting what you expected out of me would come up.”
“Parbleu! your pamphlet!” cried Thuillier. “I think you are a fine
fellow to boast of that when, on the contrary, it has caused the most
deplorable complications.”
“Deplorable? how so? you have just said your political fortune was
made.”
“Well, truly, my dear Theodose,” said Thuillier, with feeling, “I should
never have thought that you would choose the hour of adversity to come
and put your pistol at our throats and make me the object of your sneers
and innuendoes.”
“Well done!” said la Peyrade; “now it is the hour of adversity! A minute
ago you were flinging yourself into my arms as a man to whom some signal
piece of luck had happened. You ought really to choose decidedly between
being a man who needs pity and a glorious victor.”
“It is all very well to be witty,” returned Thuillier; “but you can’t
controvert what I say. I am logical, if I am not brilliant. It is very
natural that I should console myself by seeing that public opinion
decides in my favor, and by reading in its organs the most honorable
assurances of sympathy; but do you suppose I wouldn’t rather that things
had taken their natural course? Besides, when I see myself the object of
unworthy vengeance on the part of persons as influential as the Vinets,
how can I help measuring the extent of the dangers to which I am
exposed?”
“Well,” said la Peyrade, with pitiless persistency, “I see that you
prefer to play the part of Jeremiah.”
“Yes,” said Thuillier, in a solemn tone. “Jeremiah laments over a
friendship I did think true and devoted, but which I find has only
sarcasms to give me when I looked for services.”
“What services?” asked la Peyrade. “Did you not tell me positively, no
later than yesterday, that you would not accept my help under any form
whatever? I offered to plead your case, and you answered that you would
take a better lawyer.”
“Yes; in the first shock of surprise at such an unexpected blow, I did
say that foolish thing; but, on reflection, who can explain as well
as you can the intention of the words you wrote with your own pen?
Yesterday I was almost out of my mind; but you, with your wounded
self-love, which can’t forgive a momentary impatience, you are very
caustic and cruel.”
“So,” said la Peyrade, “you formally request me to defend you before the
jury?”
“Yes, my dear fellow; and I don’t know any other hands in which I could
better place my case. I should have to pay a monstrous sum to some great
legal luminary, and he wouldn’t defend me as ably as you.”
“Well, I refuse. Roles have changed, as you see, diametrically.
Yesterday, I thought, as you do, that I was the man to defend you.
To-day, I see that you had better take the legal luminary, because, with
Vinet’s antagonism against you the affair is taking such proportions
that whoever defends it assumes a fearful responsibility.”
“I understand,” said Thuillier, sarcastically. “Monsieur has his eye on
the magistracy, and he doesn’t want to quarrel with a man who is already
talked of for Keeper of the Seals. It is prudent, but I don’t know that
it is going to help on your marriage.”
“You mean,” said la Peyrade, seizing the ball in its bound, “that to
get you out of the claws of that jury is a thirteenth labor of Hercules,
imposed upon me to earn the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville? I expected
that demands would multiply in proportion to the proofs of my devotion.
But that is the very thing that has worn me out, and I have come here
to-day to put an end to this slave labor by giving back to you your
pledges. You may dispose of Celeste’s hand; for my part, I am no longer
a suitor for it.”
The unexpectedness and squareness of this declaration left Thuillier
without words or voice, all the more because at this moment entered
Brigitte. The temper of the old maid had also greatly moderated since
the previous evening, and her greeting was full of the most amicable
familiarity.
“Ah! so here you are, you good old barrister,” she said.
“Mademoiselle, your servant,” he replied, gravely.
“Well,” she continued, paying no attention to the stiffness of his
manner, “the government has got itself into a pretty mess by seizing
your pamphlet. You ought to see how the morning papers lash it! Here,”
she added, giving Thuillier a small sheet printed on sugar-paper, in
coarse type, and almost illegible,--“here’s another, you didn’t read;
the porter has just brought it up. It is a paper from our old quarter,
‘L’Echo de la Bievre.’ I don’t know, gentlemen, if you’ll be of my
opinion, but I think nothing could be better written. It is droll,
though, how inattentive these journalists are! most of them write your
name without the H; I think you ought to complain of it.”
Thuillier took the paper, and read the article inspired to the reviewer
of the tanner’s organ by stomach gratitude. Never in her life had
Brigitte paid the slightest attention to a newspaper, except to know if
it was the right size for the packages she wrapped up in it; but now,
suddenly, converted to a worship of the press by the ardor of her
sisterly love, she stood behind Thuillier and re-read, over his
shoulder, the more striking passages of the page she thought so
eloquent, pointing her finger to them.
“Yes,” said Thuillier, folding up the paper, “that’s warm, and very
flattering to me. But here’s another matter! Monsieur has come to tell
me that he refuses to plead for me, and renounces all claim to Celeste’s
hand.”
“That is to say,” said Brigitte, “he renounces her if, after having
pleaded, the marriage does not take place ‘subito.’ Well, poor fellow,
I think that’s a reasonable demand. When he has done that for us there
ought to be no further delay; and whether Mademoiselle Celeste likes it
or not, she must accept him, because, you know, there’s an end to all
things.”
“Do you hear that, my good fellow?” said la Peyrade, seizing upon
Brigitte’s speech. “When I have pleaded, the marriage is to take
place. Your sister is frankness itself; she, at least, doesn’t practise
diplomacy.”
“Diplomacy!” echoed Brigitte. “I’d like to see myself creeping
underground in matters. I say things as I think them. The workman has
worked, and he ought to have his pay.”
“Do be silent,” cried Thuillier, stamping his foot; “you don’t say a
word that doesn’t turn the knife in the wound.”
“The knife in the wound?” said Brigitte, inquiringly. “Ah ca! are you
two quarrelling?”
“I told you,” said Thuillier, “that la Peyrade had returned our
promises; and the reason he gives is that we are asking him another
service for Celeste’s hand. He thinks he has done us enough without it.”
“He has done us some services, no doubt,” said Brigitte; “but it seems
to me that we have not been ungrateful to him. Besides, it was he who
made the blunder, and I think it rather odd he should now wish to leave
us in the lurch.”
“Your reasoning, mademoiselle,” said la Peyrade, “might have some
appearance of justice if I were the only barrister in Paris; but as the
streets are black with them, and as, only yesterday, Thuillier himself
spoke of engaging some more important lawyer than myself, I have not the
slightest scruple in refusing to defend him. Now, as to the marriage, in
order that it may not be made the object of another brutal and forcible
demand upon me, I here renounce it in the most formal manner, and
nothing now prevents Mademoiselle Colleville from accepting Monsieur
Felix Phellion and all his advantages.”
“As you please, my dear monsieur,” said Brigitte, “if that’s your last
word. We shall not be at a loss to find a husband for Celeste,--Felix
Phellion or another. But you must permit me to tell you that the reason
you give is not the true one. We can’t go faster than the fiddles. If
the marriage were settled to-day, there are the banns to publish; you
have sense enough to know that Monsieur le maire can’t marry you before
the formalities are complied with, and before then Thuillier’s case will
have been tried.”
“Yes,” said la Peyrade, “and if I lose the case it will be I who have
sent him to prison,--just as yesterday it was I who brought about the
seizure.”
“As for that, it seems to me that if you had written nothing the police
would have found nothing to bite.”
“My dear Brigitte,” said Thuillier, seeing la Peyrade shrug his
shoulders, “your argument is vicious in the sense that the writing was
not incriminating on any side. It is not la Peyrade’s fault if persons
of high station have organized a persecution against me. You remember
that little substitute, Monsieur Olivier Vinet, whom Cardot brought to
one of our receptions. It seems that he and his father are furious that
we didn’t want him for Celeste, and they’ve sworn my destruction.”
“Well, why did we refuse him,” said Brigitte, “if it wasn’t for the fine
eyes of monsieur here? For, after all, a substitute in Paris is a very
suitable match.”
“No doubt,” said la Peyrade, nonchalantly. “Only, he did not happen to
bring you a million.”
“Ah!” cried Brigitte, firing up. “If you are going to talk any more
about that house you helped us to buy, I shall tell you plainly that
if you had had the money to trick the notary you never would have come
after us. You needn’t think I have been altogether your dupe. You spoke
just now of a bargain, but you proposed that bargain yourself. ‘Give me
Celeste and I’ll get you that house,’--that’s what you said to us in so
many words. Besides which, we had to pay large sums on which we never
counted.”
“Come, come, Brigitte,” said Thuillier, “you are making a great deal out
of nothing.”
“Nothing! nothing!” exclaimed Brigitte. “Did we, or did we not, have to
pay much more than we expected?”
“My dear Thuillier,” said la Peyrade, “I think, with you, that the
matter is now settled, and it can only be embittered by discussing it
further. My course was decided on before I came here; all that I have
now heard can only confirm it. I shall not be the husband of Celeste,
but you and I can remain good friends.”
He rose to leave the room.
“One moment, monsieur,” said Brigitte, barring his way; “there is one
matter which I do not consider settled; and now that we are no longer to
have interests in common, I should not be sorry if you would be so good
as to tell me what has become of a sum of ten thousand francs which
Thuillier gave you to bribe those rascally government offices in order
to get the cross we have never got.”
“Brigitte!” cried Thuillier, in anguish, “you have a devil of a tongue!
You ought to be silent about that; I told it to you in a moment of
ill-temper, and you promised me faithfully never to open your lips about
it to any one, no matter who.”
“So I did; but,” replied the implacable Brigitte, “we are parting. When
people part they settle up; they pay their debts. Ten thousand francs!
For my part, I thought the cross itself dear at that; but for a cross
that has melted away, monsieur himself will allow the price is too
high.”
“Come, la Peyrade, my friend, don’t listen to her,” said Thuillier,
going up to the barrister, who was pale with anger. “The affection she
has for me blinds her; I know very well what government offices are, and
I shouldn’t be surprised if you had had to pay out money of your own.”
“Monsieur,” said la Peyrade, “I am, unfortunately, not in a position
to return to you, instantly, that money, an accounting for which is so
insolently demanded. Grant me a short delay; and have the goodness
to accept my note, which I am ready to sign, if that will give you
patience.”
“To the devil with your note!” cried Thuillier; “you owe me nothing; on
the contrary, it is we who owe you; for Cardot told me I ought to give
you at least ten thousand francs for enabling us to buy this magnificent
property.”
“Cardot! Cardot!” said Brigitte; “he is very generous with other
people’s money. We were giving monsieur Celeste, and that’s a good deal
more than ten thousand francs.”
La Peyrade was too great a comedian not to turn the humiliation he
had just endured into a scene finale. With tears in his voice, which
presently fell from his eyes, he turned to Brigitte.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “when I had the honor to be received by you I
was poor; you long saw me suffering and ill at ease, knowing, alas! too
well, the indignities that poverty must bear. From the day that I was
able to give you a fortune which I never thought of for myself I have
felt, it is true, more assurance; and your own kindness encouraged me
to rise out of my timidity and depression. To-day, when I, by frank
and loyal conduct, release you from anxiety,--for, if you chose to be
honest, you would acknowledge that you have been thinking of another
husband for Celeste,--we might still remain friends, even though I
renounce a marriage which my delicacy forbids me to pursue. But you have
not chosen to restrain yourself with the limits of social politeness,
of which you have a model beside you in Madame de Godollo, who, I am
persuaded, although she is not at all friendly to me, would never have
approved of your odious behavior. Thank Heaven! I have in my heart
some religious sentiment at least; the Gospel is not to me a mere
dead-letter, and--understand me well, mademoiselle--_I forgive you_.
It is not to Thuillier, who would refuse them, but to you that I shall,
before long, pay the ten thousand francs which you insinuate I have
applied to my own purposes. If, by the time they are returned to you,
you feel regret for your unjust suspicions, and are unwilling to
accept the money, I request that you will turn it over to the bureau of
Benevolence to the poor--”
“To the bureau of Benevolence!” cried Brigitte, interrupting him. “No, I
thank you! the idea of all that money being distributed among a crowd
of do-nothings and devotes, who’ll spend it in junketing! I’ve been poor
too, my lad; I made bags for the money of others long before I had any
money of my own; I have some now, and I take care of it. So, whenever
you will, I am ready to receive that ten thousand francs and keep it. If
you didn’t know how to do what you undertook to do, and spent that money
in trying to put salt on a sparrow’s tail, so much the worse for you.”
Seeing that he had missed his effect, and had made not the slightest
impression on Brigitte’s granite, la Peyrade cast a disdainful look upon
her and left the room majestically. As he did so he noticed a movement
made by Thuillier to follow him, and also the imperious gesture of
Brigitte, always queen and mistress, which nailed her brother to his
chair.
CHAPTER VIII
At the moment when la Peyrade was preparing to lay at the feet of the
countess the liberty he had recovered in so brutal a manner, he received
a perfumed note, which made his heart beat, for on the seal was that
momentous “All or Nothing” which she had given him as the rule of the
relation now to be inaugurated between them. The contents of the note
were as follows:--
Dear Monsieur,--I have heard of the step you have taken; thank
you! But I must now prepare to take my own. I cannot, as you may
well think, continue to live in this house, and among these people
who are so little of our own class and with whom we have nothing
in common. To arrange this transaction, and to avoid explanations
of the fact that the entresol welcomes the voluntary exile from
the first-floor, I need to-day and to-morrow to myself. Do not
therefore come to see me until the day after. By that time I shall
have executed Brigitte, as they say at the Bourse, and have much
to tell you.
Tua tota,
Torna de Godollo.
That “Wholly thine” in Latin seemed charming to la Peyrade, who was
not, however, astonished, for Latin is a second national language to the
Hungarians. The two days’ waiting to which he was thus condemned only
fanned the flame of the ardent passion which possessed him, and on the
third day when reached the house by the Madeleine his love had risen
to a degree of incandescence of which only a few days earlier he would
scarcely have supposed himself capable.
This time the porter’s wife perceived him; but he was now quite
indifferent as to whether or not the object of his visit should be
known. The ice was broken, his happiness was soon to be official, and he
was more disposed to cry it aloud in the streets than to make a mystery
of it.
Running lightly up the stairs, he prepared to ring the bell, when, on
putting out his hand to reach the silken bell-cord he perceived that the
bell-cord had disappeared. La Peyrade’s first thought was that one of
those serious illnesses which make all noises intolerable to a patient
would explain its absence; but with the thought came other observations
that weakened it, and which, moreover, were not in themselves
comforting.
From the vestibule to the countess’s door a stair carpet, held at each
step by a brass rod, made a soft ascent to the feet of visitors; this,
too, had been removed. A screen-door covered with green velvet and
studded with brass nails had hitherto protected the entrance to the
apartment; of that no sign, except the injury to the wall done by the
workmen in taking it away. For a moment the barrister thought, in his
agitation, that he must have mistaken the floor, but, casting his eye
over the baluster he saw that he had not passed the entresol. Madame de
Godollo must, therefore, be in the act of moving away.
He then resigned himself to make known his presence at the great lady’s
door as he would have done at that of a grisette. He rapped with
his knuckles, but a hollow sonority revealing the void, “intonuere
cavernae,” echoed beyond the door which he vainly appealed to with his
fist. He also perceived from beneath that door a ray of vivid light,
the sure sign of an uninhabited apartment where curtains and carpets and
furniture no longer dim the light or deaden sound. Compelled to believe
in a total removal, la Peyrade now supposed that in the rupture with
Brigitte, mentioned as probable by Madame de Godollo, some brutal
insolence of the old maid had necessitated this abrupt departure. But
why had he not been told of it? And what an idea, to expose him to
this ridiculous meeting with what the common people call, in their
picturesque language, “the wooden face”!
Before leaving the door finally, and as if some doubt still remained in
his mind, la Peyrade made a last and most thundering assault upon it.
“Who’s knocking like that, as if they’d bring the house down?” said the
porter, attracted by the noise to the foot of the staircase.
“Doesn’t Madame de Godollo still live here?” asked la Peyrade.
“Of course she doesn’t live here now; she has moved away. If monsieur
had told me he was going to her apartment I would have spared him the
trouble of battering down the door.”
“I knew that she was going to leave the apartment,” said la Peyrade, not
wishing to seem ignorant of the project of departure, “but I had no idea
she was going so soon.”
“I suppose it was something sudden,” said the porter, “for she went off
early this morning with post-horses.”
“Post-horses!” echoed la Peyrade, stupefied. “Then she has left Paris?”
“That’s to be supposed,” said the porter; “people don’t usually take
post-horses and a postilion to change from one quarter of Paris to
another.”
“And she did not tell you where she was going?”
“Ah! monsieur, what an idea! Do people account to us porters for what
they do?”
“No, but her letters--those that come after her departure?”
“Her letters? I am ordered to deliver them to Monsieur le commandeur,
the little old gentlemen who came to see her so often; monsieur must
have met him.”
“Yes, yes, certainly,” said la Peyrade, keeping his presence of mind in
the midst of the successive shocks which came upon him,--“the powered
little man who was here every day.”
“I couldn’t say every day; but he came often. Well, I am told to give
the countess’s letters to him.”
“And for other persons of her acquaintance,” said la Peyrade,
carelessly, “did she leave no message?”
“None, monsieur.”
“Very well,” said la Peyrade, “good-morning.” And he turned to go out.
“But I think,” said the porter, “that Mademoiselle Thuillier knows more
about it than I do. Won’t monsieur go up? She is at home; and so is
Monsieur Thuillier.”
“No, never mind,” said la Peyrade, “I only came to tell Madame de
Godollo about a commission she asked me to execute; I haven’t time to
stop now.”
“Well, as I told you, she left with post-horses this morning. Two hours
earlier monsieur might still have found her; but now, with post-horses,
she must by this time have gone a good distance.”
La Peyrade departed, with a sense of despair in his heart. Added to the
anxiety caused by this hasty departure, jealousy entered his soul,
and in this agonizing moment of disappointment the most distressing
explanations crowded on his mind.
Then, after further reflection, he said to himself:--
“These clever diplomatic women are often sent on secret missions which
require the most absolute silence, and extreme rapidity of movement.”
But here a sudden revulsion of thought overcame him:--
“Suppose she were one of those intriguing adventurers whom foreign
governments employ as agents? Suppose the tale, more or less probable,
of that Russian princess forced to sell her furniture to Brigitte were
also that of this Hungarian countess? And yet,” he continued, as his
brain made a third evolution in this frightful anarchy of ideas and
feelings, “her education, her manners, her language, all bespoke a woman
of the best position. Besides, if she were only a bird of passage, why
have given herself so much trouble to win me over?”
La Peyrade might have continued to plead thus for and against for a long
time had he not been suddenly grasped round the shoulders by a strong
arm and addressed in a well-known voice.
“Take care! my dear barrister; a frightful danger threatens you; you are
running right into it.”
La Peyrade, thus arrested, looked round and found himself in the arms of
Phellion.
The scene took place in front of a house which was being pulled down at
the corner of the rues Duphot and Saint-Honore. Posted on the pavement
of the other side of the street, Phellion, whose taste for watching the
process of building our readers may remember, had been witnessing for
the last fifteen minutes the drama of a wall about to fall beneath
the united efforts of a squadron of workmen. Watch in hand, the great
citizen was estimating the length of the resistance which that mass of
freestone would present to the destructive labor of which it was the
object. Precisely at the crucial moment of the impending catastrophe la
Peyrade, lost in the tumult of his thoughts, was entering, heedless of
the shouts addressed to him on all sides, the radius within which the
stones would fall. Seen by Phellion (who, it must be said, would have
done the same for a total stranger) la Peyrade undoubtedly owed his
life to him; for, at the moment when he was violently flung back by the
vigorous grasp of the worthy citizen, the wall fell with the noise of a
cannon-shot, and the stones rolled in clouds of dust almost to his very
feet.
“Are you blind and deaf?” said the workman whose business it was to warn
the passers, in a tone of amenity it is easy to imagine.
“Thank you, my dear friend,” said la Peyrade, recalled to earth. “I
should certainly have been crushed like an idiot if it hadn’t been for
you.”
And he pressed Phellion’s hand.
“My reward,” replied the latter, “lies in the satisfaction of knowing
that you are saved from an imminent peril. And I may say that that
satisfaction is mingled, for me, with a certain pride; for I was not
mistaken by a single second in the calculation which enabled me to
foresee the exact moment when that formidable mass would be displaced
from its centre of gravity. But what were you thinking of, my dear
monsieur? Probably of the plea you are about to make in the Thuillier
affair. The public prints have informed me of the danger of prosecution
by the authorities which hangs above the head of our estimable friend.
You have a noble cause to defend, monsieur. Habituated as I am, through
my labors as a member of the reading committee of the Odeon, to judge of
works of intellect, and with my hand upon my conscience, I declare that
after reading the incriminated passages, I can find nothing in the tone
of that pamphlet which justifies the severe measures of which it is the
object. Between ourselves,” added the great citizen, lowering his voice,
“I think the government has shown itself petty.”
“So I think,” said la Peyrade, “but I am not employed for the defence. I
have advised Thuillier to engage some noted lawyer.”
“It may be good advice,” said Phellion; “at any rate, it speaks well for
your modesty. Poor man! I went to him at once when the blow fell, but I
did not see him; I saw only Brigitte, who was having a discussion with
Madame de Godollo. There is a woman with strong political views; it
seems she predicted that the seizure would be made.”
“Did you know that the countess had left Paris?” said la Peyrade,
rushing at the chance of speaking on the subject of his present
monomania.
“Ah! left Paris, has she?” said Phellion. “Well, monsieur, I must tell
you that, although there was not much sympathy between us, I regard her
departure as a misfortune. She will leave a serious void in the salon
of our friends. I say this, because it is my belief, and I am not in the
habit of disguising my convictions.”
“Yes,” said la Peyrade, “she is certainly a very distinguished woman,
with whom in spite of her prejudice against me, I think I should have
come to an understanding. But this morning, without leaving any word as
to where she was going, she started suddenly with post-horses.”
“Post-horses!” said Phellion. “I don’t know whether you will agree with
me, monsieur, but I think that travelling by post is a most agreeable
method of conveyance. Certainly Louis XI., to whom we owe the
institution, had a fortunate inspiration in the matter; although, on the
other hand, his sanguinary and despotic government was not, to my humble
thinking, entirely devoid of reproach. Once only in my life have I used
that method of locomotion, and I can truly say I found it far superior,
in spite of its inferior relative rapidity, to the headlong course of
what in England are called _railways_; where speed is attained only at
the price of safety.”
La Peyrade paid but little attention to Phellion’s phraseology.
“Where can she have gone?”--round that idea he dug and delved in every
direction, an occupation that would have made him indifferent to a far
more interesting topic. However, once started, like the locomotive he
objected to, the great citizen went on:--
“I made that journey at the period of Madame Phellion’s last
confinement. She was in Perche, with her mother, when I learned that
serious complications were feared from the milk-fever. Overcome with
terror at the danger which threatened my wife, I went instantly to the
post-office to obtain a seat in the mail-coach, but all were taken; I
found they had been engaged for more than a week. Upon that, I came to a
decision; I went to the rue Pigalle, and, for a very large sum in gold
a post-chaise and three horses were placed at my disposal, when
unfortunately the formality of a passport, with which I had neglected
to supply myself, and without which, in virtue of the decrees of the
consulate of 17 Nivose, year VII., the post agents were not permitted to
deliver horses to travellers--”
The last few words were like a flash of light to la Peyrade, and without
waiting for the end of the postal odyssey of the great citizen, he
darted away in the direction of the rue Pigalle, before Phellion, in the
middle of his sentence, perceived his departure.
Reaching the Royal postal establishment, la Peyrade was puzzled as to
whom to address himself in order to obtain the information he wanted. He
began by explaining to the porter that he had a letter to send to a
lady of his acquaintance that morning by post, neglecting, very
thoughtlessly, to send him her address, and that he thought he might
discover it by means of the passport which she must have presented in
order to obtain horses.
“Was it a lady accompanied by a maid whom I took up on the boulevard de
la Madeleine?” asked a postilion sitting in the corner of the room where
la Peyrade was making his preliminary inquiry.
“Exactly,” said la Peyrade, going eagerly up to the providential being,
and slipping a five-franc piece into his hand.
“Ah! well, she’s a queer traveller!” said the man, “she told me to take
her to the Bois de Boulogne, and there she made me drive round and round
for an hour. After that, we came back to the Barriere de l’Etoile, where
she gave me a good ‘pourboire’ and got into a hackney coach, telling me
to take the travelling carriage back to the man who lets such carriages
in the Cour des Coches, Faubourg Saint-Honore.”
“Give me the name of that man?” said la Peyrade, eagerly.
“Simonin,” replied the postilion.
Furnished with that information la Peyrade resumed his course, and
fifteen minutes later he was questioning the livery-stable keeper; but
that individual knew only that a lady residing on the Boulevard de la
Madeleine had hired, without horses, a travelling-carriage for half a
day; that he had sent out the said carriage at nine that morning, and it
was brought back at twelve by a postilion of the Royal Post house.
“Never mind,” thought la Peyrade, “I am certain now she has not left
Paris, and is not avoiding me. Most probably, she wants to break utterly
with the Thuilliers, and so has invented this journey. Fool that I am!
no doubt there’s a letter waiting for me at home, explaining the whole
thing.”
Worn out with emotion and fatigue, and in order to verify as quickly as
possible this new supposition, la Peyrade flung himself into a street
cab, and in less than a quarter of an hour, having promised the driver a
good pourboire, he was deposited at the house in the rue Saint-Dominique
d’Enfer. There he was compelled to endure still longer the tortures of
waiting. Since Brigitte’s departure, the duty of the porter, Coffinet,
had been very negligently performed, and when la Peyrade rushed to the
lodge to inquire for his letter, which he thought he saw in the case
that belonged to him, the porter and his wife were both absent and their
door was locked. The wife was doing some household work in the building,
and Coffinet himself, taking advantage of that circumstance, had allowed
a friend to entice him into a neighboring wine-shop, where, between
two glasses, he was supporting, against a republican who was talking
disrespectfully against it, the cause of the owners of property.
It was twenty minutes before the worthy porter, remembering the
“property” entrusted to his charge, decided to return to his post. It is
easy to imagine the reproaches with which la Peyrade overwhelmed him.
He excused himself by saying that he had gone to do a commission for
Mademoiselle, and that he couldn’t be at the door and where his masters
chose to send him at the same time. At last, however, he gave the lawyer
a letter bearing the Paris postmark.
With his heart rather than his eyes la Peyrade recognized the
handwriting, and, turning over the missive, the arms and motto confirmed
the hope that he had reached the end of the cruellest emotion he had
ever in his life experienced. To read that letter before that odious
porter seemed to him a profanation. With a refinement of feeling which
all lovers will understand, he gave himself the pleasure of pausing
before his happiness; he would not even unseal that blissful note until
the moment when, with closed doors and no interruptions to distract him,
he could enjoy at his ease the delicious sensation of which his heart
had a foretaste.
Rushing up the staircase two steps at a time, the now joyous lover
committed the childish absurdity of locking himself in; then, having
settled himself at his ease before his desk, and having broken the seal
with religious care, he was forced to press his hand on his heart, which
seemed to burst from his bosom, before he could summon calmness to read
the following letter:--
Dear Monsieur,--I disappear forever, because my play is played
out. I thank you for having made it both attractive and easy. By
setting against you the Thuilliers and Collevilles (who are fully
informed of your sentiments towards them), and by relating in a
manner most mortifying to their bourgeois self-love the true
reason of your sudden and pitiless rupture with them, I am proud
and happy to believe that I have done you a signal service. The
girl does not love you, and you love nothing but the eyes of her
“dot”; I have therefore saved you both from a species of hell.
But, in exchange for the bride you have so curtly rejected,
another charming girl is proposed to you; she is richer and more
beautiful than Mademoiselle Colleville, and--to speak of myself
--more at liberty than
Your unworthy servant,
Torna “Comtesse de Godollo.”
P.S. For further information apply, without delay, to Monsieur du
Portail, householder, rue Honore-Chevalier, near the rue de la
Cassette, quartier Saint-Sulpice, by whom you are expected.
When he had read this letter the advocate of the poor took his head
in his hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, thought nothing; he was
annihilated.
Several days were necessary to la Peyrade before he could even begin to
recover from the crushing blow which had struck him down. The shock
was terrible. Coming out of that golden dream which had shown him a
perspective of the future in so smiling an aspect, he found himself
fooled under conditions most cruel to his self-love, and to his
pretensions to depth and cleverness; irrevocably parted from the
Thuilliers; saddled with a hopeless debt of twenty-five thousand francs
to Madame Lambert, together with another of ten thousand to Brigitte,
which his dignity required him to pay with the least delay possible;
and, worst of all,--to complete his humiliation and his sense of
failure,--he felt that he was not cured of the passionate emotion he
had felt for this woman, the author of his great disaster, and the
instrument of his ruin.
Either this Delilah was a very great lady, sufficiently high in station
to allow herself such compromising caprices,--but even so, she would
scarcely have cared to play the role of a coquette in a vaudeville
where he himself played the part of ninny,--_or_ she was some noted
adventuress who was in the pay of this du Portail and the agent of his
singular matrimonial designs. Evil life or evil heart, these were the
only two verdicts to be pronounced on this dangerous siren, and in
either case, it would seem, she was not very deserving of the regrets of
her victim; nevertheless, he was conscious of feeling them. We must put
ourselves in the place of this son of Provence, this region of hot blood
and ardent heads, who, for the first time in his life finding himself
face to face with jewelled love in laces, believed he was to drink that
passion from a wrought-gold cup. Just as our minds on waking keep the
impression of a vivid dream and continue in love with what we know was
but a shadow, la Peyrade had need of all his mental energy to drive away
the memory of that treacherous countess. We might go further and say
that he never ceased to long for her, though he was careful to drape
with an honest pretext the intense desire that he had to find her.
That desire he called curiosity, ardor for revenge; and here follow the
ingenious deductions which he drew for himself:--
“Cerizet talked to me about a rich heiress; the countess, in her letter,
intimates that the whole intrigue she wound about me was to lead to a
rich marriage; rich marriages flung at a man’s head are not so plentiful
that two such chances should come to me within a few weeks; therefore
the match offered by Cerizet and that proposed by the countess must be
the crazy girl they are so frantic to make me marry; therefore Cerizet,
being in the plot, must know the countess; therefore, through him I
shall get upon her traces. In any case, I am sure of information about
this extraordinary choice that has fallen upon me; evidently, these
people, whoever they are, who can pull the wires of such puppets to
reach their ends must be persons of considerable position; therefore,
I’ll go and see Cerizet.”
And he went to see Cerizet.
Since the dinner at the Rocher de Cancale, the pair had not met. Once or
twice la Peyrade had asked Dutocq at the Thuilliers’ (where the latter
seldom went now, on account of the distance to their new abode) what had
become of his copying clerk.
“He never speaks of you,” Dutocq had answered.
Hence it might be inferred that resentment, the “manet alta mente
repostum” was still living in the breast of the vindictive usurer. La
Peyrade, however, was not stopped by that consideration. After all, he
was not going to ask for anything; he went under the pretext of renewing
an affair in which Cerizet had taken part, and Cerizet never took part
in anything unless he had a personal interest in it. The chances were,
therefore, that he would be received with affectionate eagerness rather
than unpleasant acerbity. Moreover, he decided to go and see the copying
clerk at Dutocq’s office; it would look, he thought, less like a visit
than if he went to his den in the rue des Poules. It was nearly two
o’clock when la Peyrade made his entrance into the precincts of the
justice-of-peace of the 12th arrondissement. He crossed the first room,
in which were a crowd of persons whom civil suits of one kind or another
summoned before the magistrate. Without pausing in that waiting-room, la
Peyrade pushed on to the office adjoining that of Dutocq. There he found
Cerizet at a shabby desk of blackened wood, at which another clerk, then
absent, occupied the opposite seat.
Seeing his visitor, Cerizet cast a savage look at him and said, without
rising, or suspending the copy of the judgment he was then engrossing:--
“You here, Sieur la Peyrade? You have been doing fine things for your
friend Thuillier!”
“How are you?” asked la Peyrade, in a tone both resolute and friendly.
“I?” replied Cerizet. “As you see, still rowing my galley; and, to
follow out the nautical metaphor, allow me to ask what wind has blown
you hither; is it, perchance, the wind of adversity?”
La Peyrade, without replying, took a chair beside his questioner, after
which he said in a grave tone:--
“My dear fellow, we have something to say to each other.”
“I suppose,” said Cerizet, spitefully, “the Thuilliers have grown cold
since the seizure of the pamphlet.”
“The Thuilliers are ungrateful people; I have broken with them,” replied
la Peyrade.
“Rupture or dismissal,” said Cerizet, “their door is shut against you;
and from what Dutocq tells me, I judge that Brigitte is handling you
without gloves. You see, my friend, what it is to try and manage affairs
alone; complications come, and there’s no one to smooth the angles.
If you had got me that lease, I should have had a footing at the
Thuilliers’, Dutocq would not have abandoned you, and together we could
have brought you gently into port.”
“But suppose I don’t want to re-enter that port?” said la Peyrade, with
some sharpness. “I tell you I’ve had enough of those Thuilliers, and
I broke with them myself; I warned them to get out of my sun; and if
Dutocq told you anything else you may tell him from me that he lies. Is
that clear enough? It seems to me I’ve made it plain.”
“Well, exactly, my good fellow, if you are so savage against your
Thuilliers you ought to have put me among them, and then you’d have seen
me avenge you.”
“There you are right,” said la Peyrade; “I wish I could have set you at
their legs--but as for that matter of the lease I tell you again, I was
not master of it.”
“Of course,” said Cerizet, “it was your conscience which obliged you to
tell Brigitte that the twelve thousand francs a year I expected to make
out of it were better in her pocket than in mine.”
“It seems that Dutocq continues the honorable profession of spy which he
formerly practised at the ministry of finance,” said la Peyrade, “and,
like others who do that dirty business, he makes his reports more witty
than truthful--”
“Take care!” said Cerizet; “you are talking of my patron in his own
lair.”
“Look here!” said la Peyrade. “I have come to talk to you on serious
matters. Will you do me the favor to drop the Thuilliers and all their
belongings, and give me your attention?”
“Say on, my friend,” said Cerizet, laying down his pen, which had never
ceased to run, up to this moment, “I am listening.”
“You talked to me some time ago,” said la Peyrade, “about marrying a
girl who was rich, fully of age, and slightly hysterical, as you were
pleased to put it euphemistically.”
“Well done!” cried Cerizet. “I expected this; but you’ve been some time
coming to it.”
“In offering me this heiress, what did you have in your mind?” asked la
Peyrade.
“Parbleu! to help you to a splendid stroke of business. You had only to
stoop and take it. I was formally charged to propose it to you; and,
as there wasn’t any brokerage, I should have relied wholly on your
generosity.”
“But you are not the only person who was commissioned to make me that
offer. A woman had the same order.”
“A woman!” cried Cerizet in a perfectly natural tone of surprise. “Not
that I know of.”
“Yes, a foreigner, young and pretty, whom you must have met in the
family of the bride, to whom she seems to be ardently devoted.”
“Never,” said Cerizet, “never has there been the slightest question of
a woman in this negotiation. I have every reason to believe that I am
exclusively charged with it.”
“What!” said la Peyrade, fixing upon Cerizet a scrutinizing eye, “did
you never hear of the Comtesse Torna de Godollo?”
“Never, in all my life; this is the first time I ever heard that name.”
“Then,” said la Peyrade, “it must really have been another match; for
that woman, after many singular preliminaries, too long to explain to
you, made me a formal offer of the hand of a young woman much richer
than Mademoiselle Colleville--”
“And hysterical?” asked Cerizet.
“No, she did not embellish the proposal with that accessory; but there’s
another detail which may put you on the track of her. Madame de Godollo
exhorted me, if I wished to push the matter, to go and see a certain
Monsieur du Portail--”
“Rue Honore-Chevalier?” exclaimed Cerizet, quickly.
“Precisely.”
“Then it is the same marriage which is offered to you through
two different mediums. It is strange I was not informed of this
collaboration!”
“In short,” said la Peyrade, “you not only didn’t have wind of the
countess’s intervention, but you don’t know her, and you can’t give me
any information about her--is that so?”
“At present I can’t,” replied Cerizet, “but I’ll find out about her; for
the whole proceeding is rather cavalier towards me; but this employment
of two agents only shows you how desirable you are to the family.”
At this moment the door of the room was opened cautiously, a woman’s
head appeared, and a voice, which was instantly recognized by la
Peyrade, said, addressing the copying-clerk:--
“Ah! excuse me! I see monsieur is busy. Could I say a word to monsieur
when he is alone?”
Cerizet, who had an eye as nimble as a hand, instantly noticed a
certain fact. La Peyrade, who was so placed as to be plainly seen by the
new-comer, no sooner heard that drawling, honeyed voice, than he turned
his head in a manner to conceal his features. Instead therefore of being
roughly sent away, as usually happened to petitioners who addressed the
most surly of official clerks, the modest visitor heard herself greeted
in a very surprising manner.
“Come in, come in, Madame Lambert,” said Cerizet; “you won’t be kept
waiting long; come in.”
The visitor advanced, and then came face to face with la Peyrade.
“Ah! monsieur!” cried his creditor, whom the reader has no doubt
recognized, “how fortunate I am to meet monsieur! I have been several
times to his office to ask if he had had time to attend to my little
affair.”
“I have had many engagements which have kept me away from my office
lately; but I attended to that matter; everything has been done right,
and is now in the hands of the secretary.”
“Oh! how good monsieur is! I pray God to bless him,” said the pious
woman, clasping her hands.
“Bless me! do you have business with Madame Lambert?” said Cerizet; “you
never told me that. Are you Pere Picot’s counsel?”
“No, unfortunately,” said Madame Lambert, “my master won’t take any
counsel; he is so self-willed, so obstinate! But, my good monsieur, what
I came to ask is whether the family council is to meet.”
“Of course,” said Cerizet, “and not later than to-morrow.”
“But monsieur, I hear those gentlemen of the Royal court said the family
had no rights--”
“Yes, that’s so,” said the clerk; “the lower court and the Royal court
have both, on the petition of the relatives, rejected their demand for a
commission.”
“I should hope so!” said the woman; “to think of making him out a
lunatic! him so full of wisdom and learning!”
“But the relations don’t mean to give up; they are going to try the
matter again under a new form, and ask for the appointment of a judicial
counsel. That’s what the family council meets for to-morrow; and I
think, this time, my dear Madame Lambert, your old Picot will find
himself restrained. There are serious allegations, I can tell you. It
was all very well to take the eggs, but to pluck the hen was another
thing.”
“Is it possible that monsieur can suppose--” began the devote, clasping
her hands under her chin.
“I suppose nothing,” said Cerizet; “I am not the judge of this affair.
But the relations declare that you have pocketed considerable sums, and
made investments about which they demand inquiry.”
“Oh! heavens!” said the woman, casting up her eyes; “they can inquire;
I am poor; I have not a deed, nor a note, nor a share; not the slightest
security of any kind in my possession.”
“I dare say not,” said Cerizet, glancing at la Peyrade out of the corner
of his eye; “but there are always friends to take care of such things.
However, that is none of my business; every one must settle his
own affairs in his own way. Now, then, say what you have to say,
distinctly.”
“I came, monsieur,” she replied, “to implore you, monsieur, to implore
Monsieur the judge’s clerk, to speak in our favor to Monsieur the
justice-of-peace. Monsieur the vicar of Saint-Jacques is also to speak
to him. That poor Monsieur Picot!” she went on, weeping, “they’ll kill
him if they continue to worry him in this way.”
“I sha’n’t conceal from you,” said Cerizet, “that the justice-of-peace
is very ill-disposed to your cause. You must have seen that the other
day, when he refused to receive you. As for Monsieur Dutocq and myself,
our assistance won’t help you much; and besides, my good woman, you are
too close-mouthed.”