tell him that I had, be--because they have gone to keep the h--house
of that poor Monsieur Pi--i--cot; and now they accuse me of r--robbing
him!”
Madame Lambert sobbed.
“My opinion is,” said Cerizet, “that you are making yourself out much
poorer than you are; and if friend Peyrade here, who seems to be more
in your confidence, hadn’t his tongue tied by the rules of his
profession--”
“I!” said la Peyrade, hastily, “I don’t know anything of madame’s
affairs. She asked me to draw up a petition on a matter in which there
was nothing judicial or financial.”
“Ah! that’s it, is it?” said Cerizet. “Madame had doubtless gone to
see you about this petition the day Dutocq met her at your office, the
morning after our dinner at the Rocher de Cancale--when you were such a
Roman, you know.”
Then, without seeming to attach any importance to the reminiscence, he
added:--
“Well, my good Madame Lambert, I’ll ask my patron to speak to the
justice-of-peace, and, if I get a chance, I’ll speak to him myself; but,
I repeat it, he is very much prejudiced against you.”
Madame Lambert retired with many curtseys and protestations of
gratitude. When she was fairly gone la Peyrade remarked:--
“You don’t seem to believe that that woman came to me about a petition;
and yet nothing was ever truer. She is thought a saint in the street she
lives in, and that old man they accuse her of robbing is actually kept
alive by her devotion, so I’m told. Consequently, the neighbors have put
it into the good woman’s head to apply for the Montyon prize; and it was
for the purpose of putting her claims in legal shape that she applied to
me.”
“Dear! dear! the Montyon prize!” cried Cerizet; “well, that’s an idea!
My good fellow, we ought to have cultivated it before,--I, especially,
as banker of the poor, and you, their advocate. As for this client of
yours, it is lucky for her Monsieur Picot’s relatives are not members
of the French academy; it is in the correctional police-court, sixth
chamber, where they mean to give her the reward of virtue. However, to
come back to what we were talking about. I tell you that after all your
tergiversations you had better settle down peaceably; and I advise you,
as your countess did, to go and see du Portail.”
“Who and what is he?” asked la Peyrade.
“He is a little old man,” replied Cerizet, “as shrewd as a weasel. He
gives me the idea of having dealings with the devil. Go and see him!
Sight, as they say, costs nothing.”
“Yes,” said la Peyrade, “perhaps I will; but, first of all, I want you
to find out for me about this Comtesse de Godollo.”
“What do you care about her? She is nothing but a supernumerary, that
countess.”
“I have my reasons,” said la Peyrade; “you can certainly get some
information about her in three days; I’ll come and see you then.”
“My good fellow,” said Cerizet, “you seem to me to be amusing yourself
with things that don’t pay; you haven’t fallen in love with that
go-between, have you?”
“Plague take him!” thought la Peyrade; “he spies everything; there’s no
hiding anything from him! No,” he said, aloud, “I am not in love; on
the contrary, I am very cautious. I must admit that this marriage with a
crazy girl doesn’t attract me, and before I go a step into it I want to
know where I put my feet. These crooked proceedings are not reassuring,
and as so many influences are being brought to bear, I choose to
control one by another. Therefore don’t play sly, but give me all the
information you get into your pouch about Madame la Comtesse Torna de
Godollo. I warn you I know enough to test the veracity of your report;
and if I see you are trying to overreach me I’ll break off short with
your du Portail.”
“Trying to overreach you, monseigneur!” replied Cerizet, in the tone and
manner of Frederic Lemaitre. “Who would dare attempt it?”
As he pronounced those words in a slightly mocking tone, Dutocq
appeared, accompanied by his little clerk.
“Bless me!” he exclaimed, seeing la Peyrade and Cerizet together;
“here’s the trinity reconstituted! but the object of the alliance,
the ‘casus foederis,’ has floated off. What have you done to that good
Brigitte, la Peyrade? She is after your blood.”
“What about Thuillier?” asked la Peyrade.
Moliere was reversed; here was Tartuffe inquiring for Orgon.
“Thuillier began by not being very hostile to you; but it now seems that
the seizure business has taken a good turn, and having less need of
you he is getting drawn into his sister’s waters; and if the tendency
continues, I haven’t a doubt that he’ll soon come to think you deserving
of hanging.”
“Well, I’m out of it all,” said la Peyrade, “and if anybody ever catches
me in such a mess again!--Well, adieu, my friends,” he added. “And
you, Cerizet, as to what we were speaking about, activity, safety, and
discretion!”
When la Peyrade reached the courtyard of the municipal building, he was
accosted by Madame Lambert, who was lying in wait for him.
“Monsieur wouldn’t believe, I am sure,” she said, in a deprecating tone,
“the villainous things that Monsieur Cerizet said about me; monsieur
knows it was the little property I received from my uncle in England
that I placed in his hands.”
“Yes, yes,” said la Peyrade, “but you must understand that with all
these rumors set about by your master’s relatives the prize of virtue is
desperately endangered.”
“If it is God’s will that I am not to have it--”
“You ought also to understand how important it is for your interests
to keep secret the other service which I did for you. At the first
appearance of any indiscretion on your part that money, as I told you,
will be peremptorily returned to you.”
“Oh! monsieur may be easy about that.”
“Very well; then good-bye to you, my dear,” said la Peyrade, in a
friendly tone.
As he turned to leave her, a nasal voice was heard from a window on the
staircase.
“Madame Lambert!” cried Cerizet, who, suspecting the colloquy, had gone
to the staircase window to make sure of it. “Madame Lambert! Monsieur
Dutocq has returned; you may come up and see him, if you like.”
Impossible for la Peyrade to prevent the conference, although he knew
the secret of that twenty-five thousand francs ran the greatest danger.
“Certainly,” he said to himself as he walked away, “I’m in a run of
ill-luck; and I don’t know where it will end.”
In Brigitte’s nature there was such an all-devouring instinct of
domination, that it was without regret, and, we may even say, with a
sort of secret joy that she saw the disappearance of Madame de Godollo.
That woman, she felt, had a crushing superiority over her; and this,
while it had given a higher order to the Thuillier establishment, made
her ill at ease. When therefore the separation took place, which was
done, let us here say, on good terms, and under fair and honorable
pretexts, Mademoiselle Thuillier breathed more freely. She felt like
those kings long swayed by imperious and necessary ministers, who
celebrate within their hearts the day when death delivers them from a
master whose services and rival influence they impatiently endured.
Thuillier was not far from having the same sentiment about la Peyrade.
But Madame de Godollo was only the elegance, whereas la Peyrade was the
utility of the house they had now simultaneously abandoned; and after
the lapse of a few days, a terrible need of Theodose made itself felt
in the literary and political existence of his dear, good friend.
The municipal councillor found himself suddenly appointed to draft an
important report. He was unable to decline the task, saddled as he
was with the reputation, derived from his pamphlet, of being a man of
letters and an able writer; therefore, in presence of the perilous honor
conferred upon him by his colleagues of the general Council, he sat down
terrified by his solitude and his insufficiency.
In vain did he lock himself into his study, gorge himself with black
coffee, mend innumerable pens, and write a score of times at the head of
his paper (which he was careful to cut of the exact dimensions as that
used by la Peyrade) the solemn words: “Report to the Members of the
Municipal Council of the City of Paris,” followed, on a line by itself,
by a magnificent _Messieurs_--nothing came of it! He was fain to issue
furious from his study, complaining of the horrible household racket
which “cut the thread of his ideas”; though really no greater noise
than the closing of a door or the opening of a closet or the moving of
a chair had made itself heard. All this, however, did not help the
advancement of the work, which remained, as before--simply begun.
Most fortunately, it happened that Rabourdin, wanting to make some
change in his apartment, came, as was proper, to submit his plan to the
owner of the house. Thuillier granted cordially the request that was
made to him, and then discoursed to his tenant about the report with
which he was charged,--being desirous, he said, to obtain his ideas on
the subject.
Rabourdin, to whom no administrative question was foreign, very readily
threw upon the subject a number of very clear and lucid ideas. He was
one of those men to whom the quality of the intellect to which they
address themselves is more or less indifferent; a fool, or a man of
talent who will listen to them, serves equally well to think aloud to,
and they are, as a stimulant, about the same thing. After Rabourdin had
said his say, he observed that Thuillier had not understood him; but he
had listened to himself with pleasure, and he was, moreover, grateful
for the attention, obtuse as it was, of his hearer, and also for the
kindliness of the landlord in receiving his request.
“I must have among my papers,” he said as he went away, “something on
this subject; I will look it up and send it to you.”
Accordingly, that same evening Thuillier received a voluminous
manuscript; and he spent the entire night in delving into that precious
repository of ideas, from which he extracted enough to make a really
remarkable report, clumsily as the pillage was managed. When read before
the council it obtained a very great success, and Thuillier returned
home radiant and much elated by the congratulations he had received.
From that moment--a moment that was marked in his life, for even to
advanced old age he still talked of the “report he had had the honor
of making to the Council-general of the Seine”--la Peyrade went down
considerably in his estimation; he felt then that he could do very well
without the barrister, and this thought of emancipation was strengthened
by another happiness which came to him at almost the same time.
A parliamentary crisis was imminent,--a fact that caused the ministry
to think about depriving its adversaries of a theme of opposition which
always has great influence on public opinion. It resolved therefore
to relax its rigor, which of late had been much increased against the
press. Being included in this species of hypocritical amnesty, Thuillier
received one morning a letter from the barrister whom he had chosen in
place of la Peyrade. This letter announced that the Council of State had
dismissed the complaint, and ordered the release of the pamphlet.
Then Dutocq’s prediction was realized. That weight the less within his
bosom, Thuillier took a swing toward insolence; he chorused Brigitte,
and came at last to speak of la Peyrade as a sort of adventurer whom he
had fed and clothed, a tricky fellow who had _extracted_ much money from
him, and had finally behaved with such ingratitude that he was thankful
not to count him any longer among his friends. Orgon, in short, was in
full revolt, and like Dorine, he was ready to cry out: “A beggar! who,
when he came, had neither shoes nor coat worth a brass farthing.”
Cerizet, to whom these indignities were reported by Dutocq, would gladly
have served them up hot to la Peyrade; but the interview in which the
copying clerk was to furnish information about Madame de Godollo did
not take place at the time fixed. La Peyrade made his own discoveries in
this wise:
Pursued by the thought of the beautiful Hungarian, and awaiting, or
rather not awaiting the result of Cerizet’s inquiry, he scoured Paris in
every direction, and might have been seen, like the idlest of loungers,
in the most frequented places, his heart telling him that sooner or
later he must meet the object of his ardent search.
One evening--it was towards the middle of October--the autumn, as
frequently happens in Paris, was magnificent, and along the boulevards,
where the Provencal was airing his love and his melancholy, the out-door
life and gaiety were as animated as in summer. On the boulevard des
Italiens, formerly known as the boulevard de Gand, as he lounged past
the long line of chairs before the Cafe de Paris, where, mingled with
a few women of the Chaussee d’Antin accompanied by their husbands and
children, may be seen toward evening a cordon of nocturnal beauties
waiting only a gloved hand to gather them, la Peyrade’s heart received a
cruel shock. From afar, he thought he saw his adored countess.
She was alone, in a dazzling toilet scarcely authorized by the place and
her isolation; before her, mounted on a chair, trembled a tiny lap-dog,
which she stroked from time to time with her beautiful hands. After
convincing himself that he was not mistaken, la Peyrade was about to
dart upon that celestial vision, when he was forestalled by a dandy of
the most triumphant type. Without throwing aside his cigar, without even
touching his hat, this handsome young man began to converse with the
barrister’s ideal; but when she saw la Peyrade making towards her the
siren must have felt afraid, for she rose quickly, and taking the arm of
the man who was talking to her, she said aloud:--
“Is your carriage here, Emile? Mabille closes to-night, and I should
like to go there.”
The name of that disreputable place thus thrown in the face of the
unhappy barrister, was a charity, for it saved him from a foolish
action, that of addressing, on the arm of the man who had suddenly made
himself her cavalier, the unworthy creature of whom he was thinking a
few seconds earlier with so much tenderness.
“She is not worth insulting,” he said to himself.
But, as lovers are beings who will not allow their foothold to be taken
from them easily, the Provencal was neither convinced nor resigned as
yet. Not far from the place which his countess had left, sat another
woman, also alone; but this one was ripe with years, with feathers on
her head, and beneath the folds of a cashmere shawl she concealed the
plaintive remains of tarnished elegance and long past luxury. There was
nothing imposing about this sight, nor did it command respect, but the
contrary. La Peyrade went up to the woman without ceremony and addressed
her.
“Madame,” he said, “do you know that woman who has just gone away on the
arm of a gentleman?”
“Certainly, monsieur; I know nearly all the women who come here.”
“And her name is?--”
“Madame Komorn.”
“Is she as impregnable as the fortress of that name?”
Our readers will doubtless remember that at the time of the insurrection
in Hungary our ears were battered by the press and by novelists about
the famous citadel of Komorn; and la Peyrade knew that by assuming a
tone of indifference or flippancy he was more likely to succeed with his
inquiries.
“Has monsieur any idea of making her acquaintance?”
“I don’t know,” replied la Peyrade, “but she is a woman who makes people
think of her.”
“And a very dangerous woman, monsieur,” added his companion; “a fearful
spendthrift, but with no inclination to return generously what is done
for her. I can speak knowingly of that; when she first arrived here from
Berlin, six months ago, she was very warmly recommended to me.”
“Ah!” exclaimed la Peyrade.
“Yes, at that time I had in the environs of Ville d’Avray a very
beautiful place, with park and coverts and a stream for fishing; but as
I was alone I found it dull, and several of these ladies and gentlemen
said to me, ‘Madame Louchard, why don’t you organize parties in the
style of picnics?’”
“Madame Louchard!” repeated la Peyrade, “are you any relation to
Monsieur Louchard of the commercial police?”
“His wife, monsieur, but legally separated from him. A horrid man who
wants me to go back to him; but I, though I’m ready to forgive most
things, I can’t forgive a want of respect; just imagine that he dared to
raise his hand against me!”
“Well,” said la Peyrade, trying to bring her back to the matter in
hand; “you organized those picnics, and Madame de Godo--I mean Madame
Komorn--”
“Was one of my first lodgers. It was there she made acquaintance with an
Italian, a handsome man, and rich, a political refugee, but one of the
lofty kind. You understand it didn’t suit my purposes to have intrigues
going on in my house; still the man was so lovable, and so unhappy
because he couldn’t make Madame Komorn like him, that at last I took an
interest in this particular love affair; which produced a pot of money
for madame, for she managed to get immense sums out of that Italian.
Well, would you believe that when--being just then in great need--I
asked her to assist me with a trifling little sum, she refused me
point-blank, and left my house, taking her lover with her, who, poor
man, can’t be thankful for the acquaintance now.”
“Why not? What happened to him?” asked la Peyrade.
“It happened to him that this serpent knows every language in Europe;
she is witty and clever to the tips of her fingers, but more manoeuvring
than either; so, being, as it appears, in close relations to the
police, she gave the government a lot of papers the Italian left about
carelessly, on which they expelled him from France.”
“Well, after his departure, Madame Komorn--”
“Since then, she has had a good many adventures and upset several
fortunes, and I thought she had left Paris. For the last two months
she was nowhere to be seen, but three days ago she reappeared, more
brilliant than ever. My advice to monsieur is not to trust himself
in that direction; and yet, monsieur looks to me a Southerner, and
Southerners have passions; perhaps what I have told him will only serve
to spur them up. However, being warned, there’s not so much danger, and
she is a most fascinating creature--oh! very fascinating. She used to
love me very much, though we parted such ill-friends; and just now,
seeing me here, she came over and asked my address, and said she should
come and see me.”
“Well, madame, I’ll think about it,” said la Peyrade, rising and bowing
to her.
The bow was returned with extreme coldness; his abrupt departure did not
show him to be a man of _serious_ intentions.
It might be supposed from the lively manner in which la Peyrade made
these inquiries that his cure though sudden was complete; but this
surface of indifference and cool self-possession was only the stillness
of the atmosphere that precedes a storm. On leaving Madame Louchard, la
Peyrade flung himself into a street-cab and there gave way to a passion
of tears like that Madame Colleville had witnessed on the day he
believed that Cerizet had got the better of him in the sale of the
house.
What was his position now? The investment of the Thuilliers, prepared
with so much care, all useless; Flavie well avenged for the odious
comedy he had played with her; his affairs in a worse state than they
were when Cerizet and Dutocq had sent him, like a devouring wolf, into
the sheepfold from which he had allowed the stupid sheep to drive him;
his heart full of revengeful projects against the woman who had so
easily got the better of what he thought his cleverness; and the memory,
still vivid, of the seductions to which he had succumbed,--such were
the thoughts and emotions of his sleepless night, sleepless except for
moments shaken by agitated dreams.
The next day la Peyrade could think no more; he was a prey to fever,
the violence of which became sufficiently alarming for the physician who
attended him to take all precautions against the symptoms now appearing
of brain fever: bleeding, cupping, leeches, and ice to his head; these
were the agreeable finale to his dream of love. We must hasten to add,
however, that this violent crisis in the physical led to a perfect cure
of the mental being. The barrister came out of his illness with no other
sentiment than cold contempt for the treacherous Hungarian, a sentiment
which did not even rise to a desire for vengeance.
CHAPTER IX. GIVE AND TAKE
Once more afoot, and reckoning with his future, on which he had lost so
much ground, la Peyrade asked himself if he had not better try to renew
his relations with the Thuilliers, or whether he should be compelled
to fall back on the rich crazy woman who had bullion where others have
brains. But everything that reminded him of his disastrous campaign was
repulsive to him; besides, what safety was there in dealing with this du
Portail, a man who could use such instruments for his means of action?
Great commotions of the soul are like those storms which purify the
atmosphere; they induce reflection, they counsel good and strong
resolutions. La Peyrade, as the result of the cruel disappointment he
had just endured, examined his own soul. He asked himself what sort of
existence was this, of base and ignoble intrigue, which he had led for
the past year? Was there for him no better, no nobler use to make of the
faculties he felt within him? The bar was open to him as to others; that
was a broad, straight path which could lead him to all the satisfaction
of legitimate ambition. Like Figaro, who displayed more science and
calculation in merely getting a living than statesmen had shown in
governing Spain for a hundred years, he, la Peyrade, in order to install
and maintain himself in the Thuillier household and marry the daughter
of a clarionet and a smirched coquette, had spent more mind, more art,
and--it should also be said, because in a corrupt society it is an
element that must be reckoned--more dishonesty than was needed to
advance him in some fine career.
“Enough of such connections as Dutocq and Cerizet,” he said to himself;
“enough of the nauseating atmosphere of the Minards and Phellions and
Collevilles and Barniols and all the rest of them. I’ll shake off this
province ‘intra muros,’ a thousand times more absurd and petty than the
true provinces; they at least, side by side with their pettiness, have
habits and customs that are characteristic, a ‘sui generis’ dignity;
they are frankly what they are, the antipodes of Parisian life; this
other is but a parody of it. I will fling myself upon Paris.”
In consequence of these reflections, la Peyrade went to see two or three
barristers who had offered to introduce him at the Palais in secondary
cases. He accepted those that presented themselves at once, and three
weeks after his rupture with the Thuilliers he was no longer the
“advocate of the poor,” but a barrister pleading before the Royal court.
He had already pleaded several cases successfully when he received,
one morning, a letter which greatly disturbed him. The president of the
order of barristers requested him to come to his office at the Palais in
the course of the day, as he had something of importance to say to him.
La Peyrade instantly thought of the transaction relating to the purchase
of the house on the boulevard de la Madeleine; it must have come,
he thought, to the ears of the Council of Discipline; if so he was
accountable to that tribunal and he knew its severity.
Now this du Portail, whom he had never yet been to see, in spite of his
conditional promise to Cerizet, was likely to have heard the whole
story of that transaction from Cerizet himself. Evidently all means
were thought good by that man, judging by the use he had made of the
Hungarian woman. In his savage determination to bring about the marriage
with the crazy girl, had this virulent old man denounced him? On seeing
him courageously and with some appearance of success entering a career
in which he might find fame and independence, had his persecutor taken
a step to make that career impossible? Certainly there was enough
likelihood in this suggestion to make the barrister wait in cruel
anxiety for the hour when he might learn the true nature of the alarming
summons.
While breakfasting rather meagrely, his mind full of these painful
conjectures, Madame Coffinet, who had the honor to take charge of his
housekeeping, came up to ask if he would see Monsieur Etienne Lousteau.
[See “The Great Man of the Provinces in Paris.”]
Etienne Lousteau! la Peyrade had an idea that he had heard the name
before.
“Show him into my office,” he said to the portress.
A moment later he met his visitor, whose face did not seem utterly
unknown to him.
“Monsieur,” said this new-comer, “I had the honor of breakfasting with
you not long ago at Vefour’s; I was invited to that meeting, afterwards
rather disturbed, by Monsieur Thuillier.”
“Ah, very good!” said the barrister, offering a chair; “you are attached
to the staff of a newspaper?”
“Editor-in-chief of the ‘Echo de la Bievre,’ and it is on the subject
of that paper that I have now called to see you. You know what has
happened?”
“No,” said la Peyrade.
“Is it possible you are not aware that the ministry met with terrible
defeat last night? But instead of resigning, as every one expected, they
have dissolved the Chamber and appeal to the people.”
“I knew nothing of all that,” said la Peyrade. “I have not read the
morning papers.”
“So,” continued Lousteau, “all parliamentary ambitions will take the
field, and, if I am well informed, Monsieur Thuillier, already member
of the Council-general, intends to present himself as candidate for
election in the 12th arrondissement.”
“Yes,” said la Peyrade, “that is likely to be his intention.”
“Well, monsieur, I desire to place at his disposition an instrument the
value of which I am confident you will not underestimate. The ‘Echo de
la Bievre,’ a specialist paper, can have a decisive influence on the
election in that quarter.”
“And you would be disposed,” asked la Peyrade, “to make that paper
support Monsieur Thuillier’s candidacy?”
“Better than that,” replied Lousteau. “I have come to propose to
Monsieur Thuillier that he purchase the paper itself. Once the
proprietor of it he can use it as he pleases.”
“But in the first place,” said la Peyrade, “what is the present
condition of the enterprise? In its character as a specialist
journal--as you called it just now--it is a sheet I have seldom met
with; in fact, it would be entirely unknown to me were it not for the
remarkable article you were so good as to devote to Thuillier’s defence
at the time his pamphlet was seized.”
Etienne Lousteau bowed his thanks, and then said:
“The position of the paper is excellent; we can give it to you on easy
terms, for we were intending shortly to stop the publication.”
“That is strange for a prosperous journal.”
“On the contrary, it happens to be quite natural. The founders, who were
all representatives of the great leather interest, started this paper
for a special object. That object has been attained. The ‘Echo de la
Bievre’ has therefore become an effect without a cause. In such a case,
stockholders who don’t like the tail end of matters, and are not eager
after small profits, very naturally prefer to sell out.”
“But,” asked la Peyrade, “does the paper pay its costs?”
“That,” replied Lousteau, “is a point we did not consider; we were not
very anxious to have subscribers; the mainspring of the whole affair
was direct and immediate action on the ministry of commerce to obtain a
higher duty on the introduction of foreign leathers. You understand that
outside of the tannery circle, this interest was not very exciting to
the general reader.”
“I should have thought, however,” persisted la Peyrade, “that a
newspaper, however circumscribed its action, would be a lever which
depended for its force on the number of its subscribers.”
“Not for journals which aim for a single definite thing,” replied
Lousteau, dogmatically. “In that case, subscribers are, on the contrary,
an embarrassment, for you have to please and amuse them, and in so
doing, the real object has to be neglected. A newspaper which has a
definite and circumscribed object ought to be like the stroke of that
pendulum which, striking steadily on one spot, fires at a given hour the
cannon of the Palais-Royal.”
“At any rate,” said la Peyrade, “what price do you put upon a
publication which has no subscribers, does not pay its expenses, and
has until now been devoted to a purpose totally different from that you
propose for it?”
“Before answering,” returned Lousteau, “I shall ask you another
question. Have you any intention of buying it?”
“That’s according to circumstances,” replied la Peyrade. “Of course
I must see Thuillier; but I may here remark to you that he knows
absolutely nothing about newspaper business. With his rather bourgeois
ideas, the ownership of a newspaper will seem to him a ruinous
speculation. Therefore, if, in addition to an idea that will scare him,
you suggest an alarming price, it is useless for me to speak to him. I
am certain he would never go into the affair.”
“No,” replied Lousteau. “I have told you we should be reasonable; these
gentlemen have left the whole matter in my hands. Only, I beg to remark
that we have had propositions from other parties, and in giving Monsieur
Thuillier this option, we intended to pay him a particular courtesy.
When can I have your answer?”
“To-morrow, I think; shall I have the honor of seeing you at your own
house, or at the office of the journal?”
“No,” said Lousteau, “to-morrow I will come here, at the same hour, if
that is convenient to you.”
“Perfectly,” replied la Peyrade, bowing out his visitor, whom he was
inclined to think more consequential than able.
By the manner in which the barrister had received the proposition to
become an intermediary to Thuillier, the reader must have seen that
a rapid revolution had taken place in his ideas. Even if he had not
received that extremely disquieting letter from the president of the
order of barristers, the new situation in which Thuillier would be
placed if elected to the Chamber gave him enough to think about.
Evidently his dear good friend would have to come back to him, and
Thuillier’s eagerness for election would deliver him over, bound hand
and foot. Was it not the right moment to attempt to renew his marriage
with Celeste? Far from being an obstacle to the good resolutions
inspired by his amorous disappointment and his incipient brain fever,
such a finale would ensure their continuance and success. Moreover, if
he received, as he feared, one of those censures which would ruin
his dawning prospects at the bar, it was with the Thuilliers, the
accomplices and beneficiaries of the cause of his fall, that his
instinct led him to claim an asylum.
With these thoughts stirring in his mind la Peyrade obeyed the summons
and went to see the president of the order of barristers.
He was not mistaken; a very circumstantial statement of his whole
proceeding in the matter of the house had been laid before his brethren
of the bar; and the highest dignitary of the order, after stating
that an anonymous denunciation ought always to be received with
great distrust, told him that he was ready to receive and welcome an
explanation. La Peyrade dared not entrench himself in absolute denial;
the hand from which he believed the blow had come seemed to him too
resolute and too able not to hold the proofs as well. But, while
admitting the facts in general, he endeavored to give them an acceptable
coloring. In this, he saw that he had failed, when the president said to
him:--
“After the vacation which is now beginning I shall report to the Council
of the order the charges made against you, and the statements by which
you have defended yourself. The Council alone has the right to decide on
a matter of such importance.”
Thus dismissed, la Peyrade felt that his whole future at the bar was
imperilled; but at least he had a respite, and in case of condemnation a
new project on which to rest his head. Accordingly, he put on his gown,
which he had never worn till now, and went to the fifth court-room,
where he was employed upon a case.
As he left the court-room, carrying one of those bundles of legal papers
held together by a strip of cotton which, being too voluminous to hold
under the arm, are carried by the hand and the forearm pressed against
the chest, la Peyrade began to pace about the Salle des Pas perdus with
that harassed look of business which denotes a lawyer overwhelmed with
work. Whether he had really excited himself in pleading, or whether he
was pretending to be exhausted to prove that his gown was not a dignity
for show, as it was with many of his legal brethren, but an armor
buckled on for the fight, it is certain that, handkerchief in hand, he
was mopping his forehead as he walked, when, in the distance, he spied
Thuillier, who had evidently just caught sight of him, and was beginning
on his side to manoeuvre.
La Peyrade was not surprised by the encounter. On leaving home he had
told Madame Coffinet he was going to the Palais, and should be there
till three o’clock, and she might send to him any persons who called on
business. Not wishing to let Thuillier accost him too easily, he turned
abruptly, as if some thought had changed his purpose, and went and
seated himself on one of the benches which surround the walls of that
great antechamber of Justice. There he undid his bundle, took out a
paper, and buried himself in it with the air of a man who had not had
time to examine in his study a case he was about to plead. It is not
necessary to say that while doing this the Provencal was watching
the manoeuvres of Thuillier out of the corner of his eye. Thuillier,
believing that la Peyrade was really occupied in some serious business,
hesitated to approach him.
However, after sundry backings and fillings the municipal councillor
made up his mind, and sailing straight before the wind he headed for the
spot he had been reconnoitring for the last ten minutes.
“Bless me, Theodose!” he cried as soon as he had got within hailing
distance. “Do you come to the Palais now?”
“It seems to me,” replied Theodose, “that barristers at the Palais are
like Turks at Constantinople, where a friend of mine affirmed you could
see a good many. It is YOU whom it is rather surprising to see here.”
“Not at all,” said Thuillier, carelessly. “I’ve come about that cursed
pamphlet. Is there ever any end to your legal bothers? I was summoned
here this morning, but I don’t regret it, as it gives me the happy
chance of meeting you.”
“I, too,” said la Peyrade, tying up his bundle. “I am very glad to see
you, but I must leave you now; I have an appointment, and I suppose you
want to do your business at once.”
“I have done it,” said Thuillier.
“Did you speak to Olivier Vinet, that mortal enemy of yours? he sits in
that court,” asked la Peyrade.
“No,” said Thuillier, naming another official.
“Well, that’s queer!” said the barrister; “that fellow must have the
gift of ubiquity; he has been all the morning in the fifth court-room,
and has just this minute given a judgment on a case I pleaded.”
Thuillier colored, and got out of his hobble as best he could. “Oh, hang
it!” he said; “those men in gowns are all alike, I don’t know one from
another.”
La Peyrade shrugged his shoulders and said aloud, but as if to himself:
“Always the same; crafty, crooked, never straightforward.”
“Whom are you talking about?” asked Thuillier, rather nonplussed.
“Why, of you, my dear fellow, who take me for an imbecile, as if I and
the whole world didn’t know that your pamphlet business came to an end
two weeks ago. Why, then, summon you to court?”
“Well, I was sent for,” said Thuillier, with embarrassment; “something
about registry fees,--it is all Greek to me, I can’t comprehend their
scrawls.”
“And they chose,” said la Peyrade, “precisely the very day when the
Moniteur, announcing the dissolution of the Chamber, made you think
about being a candidate for the 12th arrondissement.”
“Why not?” asked Thuillier, “what has my candidacy to do with the fees I
owe to the court?”
“I’ll tell you,” said la Peyrade, dryly. “The court is a thing
essentially amiable and complaisant. ‘Tiens!’ it said to itself, ‘here’s
this good Monsieur Thuillier going to be a candidate for the Chamber;
how hampered he’ll be by his attitude to his ex-friend Monsieur de la
Peyrade, with whom he wishes now he hadn’t quarrelled. I’ll summon him
for fees he doesn’t owe; that will bring him to the Palais where la
Peyrade comes daily; and in that way he can meet him by chance, and so
avoid taking a step which would hurt his self-love.”
“Well, there you are mistaken!” cried Thuillier, breaking the ice. “I
used so little craft, as you call it, that I’ve just come from your
house, there! and your portress told me where to find you.”
“Well done!” said la Peyrade, “I like this frankness; I can get on with
men who play above-board. Well, what do you want of me? Have you come to
talk about your election? I have already begun to work for it.”
“No, really?” said Thuillier, “how?”
“Here,” replied la Peyrade, feeling under his gown for his pocket
and bringing out a paper, “here’s what I scribbled just now in the
court-room while the lawyer on the other side rambled on like an
expert.”
“What is it about?” asked Thuillier.
“Read and you’ll see.”
The paper read as follows:--
Estimate for a newspaper, small size, at thirty francs a year.
Calculating the editions at 5,000 the costs are:--
Paper, 5 reams at 12 francs . . . . . . . . . . 1,860 francs.
Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,400 ”
Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 ”
One administrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 ”
One clerk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 ”
One editor (also cashier) . . . . . . . . . . . 200 ”
One despatcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 ”
Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 ”
One office boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 ”
Office expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 ”
Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 ”
License and postage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,500 ”
Reporting and stenographic news . . . . . . . . 1,800 ”
---------
Total monthly, 15,110 ”
“ yearly, 181,320 ”
“Do you want to set up a paper?” asked Thuillier, in dread.
“I?” asked la Peyrade, “I want nothing at all; you are the one to be
asked if you want to be a deputy.”
“Undoubtedly I do; because, when you urged me to become a municipal
councillor, you put the idea into my head. But reflect, my dear
Theodose, one hundred and eighty one thousand three hundred and twenty
francs to put out! Have I a fortune large enough to meet such a demand?”
“Yes,” said la Peyrade, “you could very well support that expense, for
considering the end you want to obtain there is nothing exorbitant
in it. In England they make much greater sacrifices to get a seat in
Parliament; but in any case, I beg you to observe that the costs are
very high on that estimate, and some could be cut off altogether. For
instance, you would not want an administrator. You, yourself, an old
accountant, and I, an old journalist, can very well manage the affair
between us. Also rent, we needn’t count that; you have your old
apartment in the rue Saint-Dominique which is not yet leased; that will
make a fine newspaper office.”
“All that costs off two thousand four hundred francs a year,” said
Thuillier.
“Well, that’s something; but your error consists in calculating on the
yearly cost. When do the elections take place?”
“In two months,” said Thuillier.
“Very good; two months will cost you thirty thousand francs, even
supposing the paper had no subscribers.”
“True,” said Thuillier, “the expense is certainly less than I thought at
first. But does a newspaper really seem to you essential?”
“So essential that without that power in our hands, I won’t have
anything to do with the election. You don’t seem to see, my poor fellow,
that in going to live in the other quarter you have lost, electorally
speaking, an immense amount of ground. You are no longer the man of the
place, and your election could be balked by the cry of what the English
call ‘absenteeism.’ This makes your game very hard to play.”
“I admit that,” said Thuillier; “but there are so many things wanted
besides money,--a name for one thing, a manager, editorial staff, and so
forth.”
“A name, we have one made to hand; editors, they are you and I and a
few young fellows who grow on every bush in Paris. As for the manager, I
have a man in view.”
“What name is it?” asked Thuillier.
“L’Echo de la Bievre.”
“But there is already a paper of that name.”
“Precisely, and that’s why I give my approval to the affair. Do you
think I should be fool enough to advise you to start an entirely new
paper? ‘Echo de la Bievre!’ that title is a treasure to a man who wants
support for his candidacy in the 12th arrondissement. Say the word only,
and I put that treasure into your hands.”
“How?” asked Thuillier, with curiosity.
“Parbleu! by buying it; it can be had for a song.”
“There now, you see,” said Thuillier in a discouraged tone; “you never
counted in the cost of purchase.”
“How you dwell on nothings!” said la Peyrade, hunching his shoulders;
“we have other and more important difficulties to solve.”
“Other difficulties?” echoed Thuillier.
“Parbleu!” exclaimed la Peyrade; “do you suppose that after all that has
taken place between us I should boldly harness myself to your election
without knowing exactly what benefit I am to get for it?”
“But,” said Thuillier, rather astonished, “I thought that friendship was
a good exchange for such services.”
“Yes; but when the exchange consists in one side giving all and the
other side nothing, friendship gets tired of that sort of sharing, and
asks for something a little better balanced.”
“But, my dear Theodose, what have I to offer you that you have not
already rejected?”
“I rejected it, because it was offered without heartiness, and seasoned
with Mademoiselle Brigitte’s vinegar; every self-respecting man would
have acted as I did. Give and keep don’t pass, as the old legal saying
is; but that is precisely what you persist in doing.”
“I!--I think you took offence very unreasonably; but the engagement
might be renewed.”
“So be it,” replied la Peyrade; “but I will not put myself at the
mercy of either the success of the election or Mademoiselle Celeste’s
caprices. I claim the right to something positive and certain. Give and
take; short accounts make good friends.”
“I perfectly agree with you,” said Thuillier, “and I have always treated
you with too much good faith to fear any of these precautions you now
want to take. But what guarantees do you want?”
“I want that the husband of Celeste should manage your election, and not
Theodose de la Peyrade.”
“By hurrying things as much as possible, so Brigitte said, it would
still take fifteen days; and just think, with the elections only eight
weeks off, to lose two of them doing nothing!”
“Day after to-morrow,” replied la Peyrade, “the banns can be published
for the first time at the mayor’s office, in the intervals of
publication some things could be done, for though the publishing of the
banns is not a step from which there is no retreat, it is at least a
public pledge and a long step taken; after that we can get your notary
to draw the contract at once. Moreover, if you decide on buying this
newspaper, I shouldn’t be afraid that you would go back on me, for you
don’t want a useless horse in your stable, and without me I am certain
you can’t manage him.”
“But, my dear fellow,” said Thuillier, going back to his objections,
“suppose that affair proves too onerous?”
“There’s no need to say that you are the sole judge of the conditions of
the purchase. I don’t wish any more than you do to buy a pig in a poke.
If to-morrow you authorize me, I won’t say to buy, but to let these
people know that you may possibly make the purchase, I’ll confer with
one of them on your behalf, and you may be certain that I’ll stand up
for your interests as if they were my own.”
“Very good, my dear fellow,” said Thuillier, “go ahead!”
“And as soon as the paper is purchased we are to fix the day for signing
the contract?”
“Yes,” replied Thuillier; “but will you bind yourself to use your utmost
influence on the election?”
“As if it were my own,” replied la Peyrade, “which, by the bye, is not
altogether an hypothesis. I have already received suggestions about my
own candidacy, and if I were vindictive--”
“Certainly,” said Thuillier, with humility, “you would make a better
deputy than I; but you are not of the required age, I think.”
“There’s a better reason than that,” said la Peyrade; “you are my
friend; I find you again what you once were, and I shall keep the
pledges I have given you. As for the election, I prefer that people say
of me, ‘He makes deputies, but will be none himself.’ Now I must leave
you and keep my appointment. To-morrow in my own rooms, come and see me;
I shall have something to announce.”
Whoso has ever been a newspaper man will ever be one; that horoscope
is as sure and certain as that of drunkards. Whoever has tasted that
feverishly busy and relatively lazy and independent life; whoever has
exercised that sovereignty which criticises intellect, art, talent,
fame, virtue, absurdity, and even truth; whoever has occupied that
tribune erected by his own hands, fulfilled the functions of that
magistracy to which he is self-appointed,--in short, whosoever has
been, for however brief a span, that proxy of public opinion, looks
upon himself when remanded to private life as an exile, and the moment
a chance is offered to him puts out an eager hand to snatch back his
crown.
For this reason when Etienne Lousteau went to la Peyrade, a former
journalist, with an offer of the weapon entitled the “Echo de la
Bievre,” all the latter’s instincts as a newspaper man were aroused, in
spite of the very inferior quality of the blade. The paper had failed;
la Peyrade believed he could revive it. The subscribers, on the vendor’s
own showing, were few and far between, but he would exercise upon them a
“compelle intrare” both powerful and irresistible. In the circumstances
under which the affair was presented to him it might surely be
considered provincial. Threatened with the loss of his position at the
bar, he was thus acquiring, as we said before, a new position and that
of a “detached fort”; compelled, as he might be, to defend himself, he
could from that vantage-ground take the offensive and oblige his enemies
to reckon with him.
On the Thuillier side, the newspaper would undoubtedly make him a
personage of considerable importance; he would have more power on the
election; and by involving their capital in an enterprise which,
without him, they would feel a gulf and a snare, he bound them to him
by self-interests so firmly that there was nothing to fear from their
caprice or ingratitude.
This horizon, rapidly taken in during Etienne Lousteau’s visit, had
fairly dazzled the Provencal, and we have seen the peremptory manner
in which Thuillier was forced into accepting with some enthusiasm the
discovery of this philosopher’s-stone.
The cost of the purchase was ridiculously insignificant. A bank-note for
five hundred francs, for which Etienne Lousteau never clearly accounted
to the share-holders, put Thuillier in possession of the name, property,
furniture, and good-will of the newspaper, which he and la Peyrade at
once busied themselves in reorganizing.
CHAPTER X. IN WHICH CERIZET PRACTISES THE HEALING ART AND
THE ART OF POISONING ON THE SAME DAY
While this regeneration was going on, Cerizet went one morning to see du
Portail, with whom la Peyrade was now more than ever determined to hold
no communication.
“Well,” said the little old man to the poor man’s banker, “what effect
did the news we gave to the president of the bar produce on our man? Did
the affair get wind at the Palais?”
“Phew!” said Cerizet, whose intercourse, no doubt pretty frequent, with
du Portail had put him on a footing of some familiarity with the old
man, “there’s no question of that now. The eel has wriggled out of our
hands; neither softness nor violence has any effect upon that devil of
a man. He has quarrelled with the bar, and is in better odor than
ever with Thuillier. ‘Necessity,’ says Figaro, ‘obliterates distance.’
Thuillier needs him to push his candidacy in the quartier Saint-Jacques,
so they kissed and made up.”
“And no doubt,” said du Portail, without much appearance of feeling,
“the marriage is fixed for an early day?”
“Yes,” replied Cerizet, “but there’s another piece of work on hand. That
crazy fellow has persuaded Thuillier to buy a newspaper, and he’ll make
him sink forty thousand francs in it. Thuillier, once involved, will
want to get his money back, and in my opinion they are bound together
for the rest of their days.”
“What paper is it?”
“Oh, a cabbage-leaf that calls itself the ‘Echo de la Bievre’!” replied
Cerizet with great scorn; “a paper which an old hack of a journalist on
his last legs managed to set up in the Mouffetard quarter by the help of
a lot of tanners--that, you know, is the industry of the quarter. From
a political and literary point of view the affair is nothing at all, but
Thuillier has been made to think it a masterly stroke.”
“Well, for local service to the election the instrument isn’t so bad,”
remarked du Portail. “La Peyrade has talent, activity, and much resource
of mind; he may make something out of that ‘Echo.’ Under what political
banner will Thuillier present himself?”
“Thuillier,” replied the beggars’ banker, “is an oyster; he hasn’t any
opinions. Until the publication of his pamphlet he was, like all those
bourgeois, a rabid conservative; but since the seizure he has gone over
to the Opposition. His first stage will probably be the Left-centre; but
if the election wind should blow from another quarter, he’ll go straight
before it to the extreme left. Self-interest, for those bourgeois,
that’s the measure of their convictions.”
“Dear, dear!” said du Portail, “this new combination of la Peyrade’s may
assume the importance of a political danger from the point of view of
my opinions, which are extremely conservative and governmental.” Then,
after a moment’s reflection, he added, “I think you did newspaper work
once upon a time; I remember ‘the courageous Cerizet.’”
“Yes,” replied the usurer, “I even managed one with la Peyrade,--an
evening paper; and a pretty piece of work we did, for which we were
finely recompensed.”
“Well,” said du Portail, “why don’t you do it again,--journalism, I
mean,--with la Peyrade.”
Cerizet looked at du Portail in amazement.
“Ah ca!” he cried, “are you the devil, monsieur? Can nothing ever be
hidden from you?”
“Yes,” said du Portail, “I know a good many things. But what has been
settled between you and la Peyrade?”
“Well, remembering my experience in the business, and not knowing whom
else to get, he offered to make me manager of the paper.”
“I did not know that,” said du Portail, “but it was quite probable. Did
you accept?”
“Conditionally; I asked time for reflection. I wanted to know what you
thought of the offer.”
“Parbleu! I think that out of an evil that can’t be remedied we should
get, as the proverb says, wing or foot. I had rather see you inside than
outside of that enterprise.”
“Very good; but in order to get into it there’s a difficulty. La Peyrade
knows I have debts, and he won’t help me with the thirty-three-thousand
francs’ security which must be paid down in my name. I haven’t got them,
and if I had, I wouldn’t show them and expose myself to the insults of
creditors.”
“You must have a good deal left of that twenty-five thousand francs la
Peyrade paid you not more than two months ago,” remarked du Portail.
“Only two thousand two hundred francs and fifty centimes,” replied
Cerizet. “I was adding it up last night; the rest has all gone to pay
off pressing debts.”
“But if you have paid your debts you haven’t any creditors.”
“Yes, those I’ve paid, but those I haven’t paid I still owe.”
“Do you mean to tell me that your liabilities were more than twenty-five
thousand francs?” said du Portail, in a tone of incredulity.
“Does a man go into bankruptcy for less?” replied Cerizet, as though he
were enunciating a maxim.
“Well, I see I am expected to pay that sum myself,” said du Portail,
crossly; “but the question is whether the utility of your presence
in this enterprise is worth to me the interest on one hundred
and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three francs,
thirty-three centimes.”
“Hang it!” said Cerizet, “if I were once installed near Thuillier, I
shouldn’t despair of soon putting him and la Peyrade at loggerheads.
In the management of a newspaper there are lots of inevitable
disagreements, and by always taking the side of the fool against the
clever man, I can increase the conceit of one and wound the conceit of
the other until life together becomes impossible. Besides, you spoke
just now of political danger; now the manager of a newspaper, as you
ought to know, when he has the intellect to be something better than a
man of straw, can quietly give his sheet a push in the direction wanted.
“There’s a good deal of truth in that,” said du Portail, “but defeat to
la Peyrade, that’s what I am thinking about.”
“Well,” said Cerizet, “I think I have another nice little insidious
means of demolishing him with Thuillier.”
“Say what it is, then!” exclaimed du Portail, impatiently; “you go
round and round the pot as if I were a man it would do you some good to
finesse with.”
“You remember,” said Cerizet, coming out with it, “that some time ago
Dutocq and I were much puzzled to know how la Peyrade was, all of a
sudden, able to make that payment of twenty-five thousand francs?”
“Ha!” said the old man quickly, “have you discovered the origin of that
very improbable sum in our friend’s hands; and is that origin shady?”
“You shall judge,” said Cerizet.
And he related in all its details the affair of Madame Lambert,--adding,
however, that on questioning the woman closely at the office of the
justice-of-peace, after the meeting with la Peyrade, he had been unable
to extract from her any confession, although by her whole bearing she
had amply confirmed the suspicions of Dutocq and himself.
“Madame Lambert, rue du Val-de-Grace, No. 9; at the house of Monsieur
Picot, professor of mathematics,” said du Portail, as he made a note of
the information. “Very good,” he added; “come back and see me to-morrow,
my dear Monsieur Cerizet.”
“But please remark,” said the usurer, “that I must give an answer to
la Peyrade in the course of to-day. He is in a great hurry to start the
business.”
“Very well; you must accept, asking a delay of twenty-four hours to
obtain your security. If, after making certain inquiries I see it is
more to my interests not to meddle in the affair, you can get out of it
by merely breaking your word; you can’t be sent to the court of assizes
for that.”
Independently of a sort of inexplicable fascination which du Portail
exercised over his agent, he never lost an opportunity to remind him of
the very questionable point of departure of their intercourse.
The next day Cerizet returned.
“You guessed right,” said du Portail. “That woman Lambert, being obliged
to conceal the existence of her booty, and wanting to draw interest
on her stolen property, must have taken it into her head to consult
la Peyrade; his devout exterior may have recommended him to her. She
probably gave him that money without taking a receipt. In what kind of
money was Dutocq paid?”
“In nineteen thousand-franc notes, and twelve of five-hundred francs.”
“That’s precisely it,” said du Portail. “There can’t be the slightest
doubt left. Now, what use do you expect to make of this information
bearing upon Thuillier.”
“I expect to put it into his head that la Peyrade, to whom he is going
to give his goddaughter and heiress, is over head and ears in debt;
that he makes enormous secret loans; and that in order to get out of
his difficulties he means to gnaw the newspaper to the bone; and I shall
insinuate that the position of a man so much in debt must be known to
the public before long, and become a fatal blow to the candidate whose
right hand he is.”
“That’s not bad,” said du Portail; “but there’s another and even more
conclusive use to be made of the discovery.”
“Tell me, master; I’m listening,” said Cerizet.
“Thuillier has not yet been able, has he, to explain to himself the
reason of the seizure of the pamphlet?”
“Yes, he has,” replied Cerizet. “La Peyrade was telling me only
yesterday, by way of explaining Thuillier’s idiotic simplicity, that he
had believed a most ridiculous bit of humbug. The ‘honest bourgeois’
is persuaded that the seizure was instigated by Monsieur Olivier Vinet,
substitute to the procureur-general. The young man aspired for a moment
to the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville, and the worthy Thuillier has
been made to imagine that the seizure of his pamphlet was a revenge for
the refusal.”
“Good!” said du Portail; “to-morrow, as a preparation for the other
version of which you are to be the organ, Thuillier shall receive from
Monsieur Vinet a very sharp and decided denial of the abuse of power he
foolishly gave ear to.”
“Will he?” said Cerizet, with curiosity.
“But another explanation must take its place,” continued du Portail;
“you must assure Thuillier that he is the victim of police machinations.
That is all the police is good for, you know,--machinations.”
“I know that very well; I’ve made that affirmation scores of times when
I was working for the republican newspapers and--”
“When you were ‘the courageous Cerizet,’” interrupted du Portail. “Well,
the present machination, here it is. The government was much displeased
at seeing Thuillier elected without its influence to the Council-general
of the Seine; it was angry with an independent and patriotic citizen
who showed by his candidacy that he could do without it; and it learned,
moreover, that this excellent citizen was preparing a pamphlet on
the subject, always a delicate one, of the finances, as to which this
dangerous adversary had great experience. So, what did this essentially
corrupt government do? It suborned a man in whom, as it learned,
Thuillier placed confidence, and for a sum of twenty-five thousand
francs (a mere trifle to the police), this treacherous friend agreed
to insert into the pamphlet three or four phrases which exposed it
to seizure and caused its author to be summoned before the court
of assizes. Now the way to make the explanation clinch the doubt in
Thuillier’s mind is to let him know that the next day la Peyrade, who,
as Thuillier knew, hadn’t a sou, paid Dutocq precisely that very sum of
twenty-five thousand francs.”
“The devil!” cried Cerizet, “it isn’t a bad trick. Fellows of the
Thuillier species will believe anything against the police.”
“We shall see, then,” continued du Portail, “whether Thuillier will want
to keep such a collaborator beside him, and above all, whether he will
be so eager to give him his goddaughter.”
“You are a strong man, monsieur,” said Cerizet, again expressing his
approbation; “but I must own that I feel some scruples at the part
assigned me. La Peyrade came and offered me the management of the paper,
and, you see, I should be working to evict him.”
“And that lease he knocked you out of in spite of his promises, have you
forgotten that?” asked the little old man. “Besides, are we not aiming
for his happiness, though the obstinate fellow persists in thwarting our
benevolent intentions?”
“It is true,” said Cerizet, “that the result will absolve me. Yes, I’ll
go resolutely along the ingenious path you’ve traced out for me. But
there’s one thing more: I can’t fling my revelation at Thuillier’s head
at the very first; I must have time to prepare the way for it, but that
security will have to be paid in immediately.”
“Listen to me, Monsieur Cerizet,” said du Portail, in a tone of
authority; “if the marriage of la Peyrade to my ward takes place it is
my intention to reward your services, and the sum of thirty thousand
francs will be your perquisite. Now, thirty thousand from one side and
twenty-five thousand from the other makes precisely fifty-five thousand
francs that the matrimonial vicissitudes of your friend la Peyrade will
have put into your pocket. But, as country people do at the shows of
a fair, I shall not pay till I come out. If you take that money out of
your own hoard I shall feel no anxiety; you will know how to keep it
from the clutches of your creditors. If, on the contrary, my money is
at stake, you will have neither the same eagerness nor the same
intelligence in keeping it out of danger. Therefore arrange your affairs
so that you can pay down your own thirty-three thousand; in case of
success, that sum will bring you in pretty nearly a hundred per cent.
That’s my last word, and I shall not listen to any objections.”
Cerizet had no time to make any, for at that moment the door of du
Portail’s study opened abruptly, and a fair, slender woman, whose face
expressed angelic sweetness, entered the room eagerly. On her arm,
wrapped in handsome long clothes, lay what seemed to be the form of an
infant.
“There!” she said, “that naughty Katte insisted that the doctor was not
here. I knew perfectly well that I had seen him enter. Well, doctor,”
she continued, addressing Cerizet, “I am not satisfied with the
condition of my little one, not satisfied at all; she is very pallid,
and has grown so thin. I think she must be teething.”
Du Portail made Cerizet a sign to accept the role so abruptly thrust
upon him.
“Yes, evidently,” he said, “it is the teeth; children always turn pale
at that crisis; but there’s nothing in that, my dear lady, that need
make you anxious.”
“Do you really think so, doctor,” said the poor crazed girl, whom our
readers have recognized as du Portail’s ward, Lydie de la Peyrade; “but
see her dear little arms, how thin they are getting.”
Then taking out the pins that fastened the swathings, she exhibited to
Cerizet a bundle of linen which to her poor distracted mind represented
a baby.
“Why, no, no,” said Cerizet, “she is a trifle thin, it is true, but the
flesh is firm and her color excellent.”
“Poor darling!” said Lydie, kissing her dream lovingly. “I do think
she is better since morning. What had I better give her, doctor? Broth
disgusts her, and she won’t take soup.”
“Well,” said Cerizet, “try panada. Does she like sweet things?”
“Oh, yes!” cried the poor girl, her face brightening, “she adores them.
Would chocolate be good for her?”
“Certainly,” replied Cerizet, “but without vanilla; vanilla is very
heating.”
“Then I’ll get what they call health-chocolate,” said Lydie, with all
the intonations of a mother, listening to the doctor as to a god who
reassured her. “Uncle,” she added, “please ring for Bruneau, and tell
him to go to Marquis at once and get some pounds of that chocolate.”
“Bruneau has just gone out,” said her guardian; “but there’s no hurry,
he shall go in the course of the day.”
“There, she is going to sleep,” said Cerizet, anxious to put an end
to the scene, which, in spite of his hardened nature, he felt to be
painful.
“True,” said the girl, replacing the bandages and rising; “I’ll put her
to bed. Adieu, doctor; it is very kind of you to come sometimes without
being sent for. If you knew how anxious we poor mothers are, and how,
with a word or two, you can do us such good. Ah, there she is crying!”
“She is so sleepy,” said Cerizet; “she’ll be much better in her cradle.”
“Yes, and I’ll play her that sonata of Beethoven that dear papa was so
fond of; it is wonderful how calming it is. Adieu, doctor,” she said
again, pausing on the threshold of the door. “Adieu, kind doctor!” And
she sent him a kiss.
Cerizet was quite overcome.
“You see,” said du Portail, “that she is an angel,--never the least
ill-humor, never a sharp word; sad sometimes, but always caused by a
feeling of motherly solicitude. That is what first gave the doctors the
idea that if reality could take the place of her constant hallucination
she might recover her reason. Well, this is the girl that fool of a
Peyrade refuses, with the accompaniment of a magnificent ‘dot.’ But
he must come to it, or I’ll forswear my name. Listen,” he added as the
sound of a piano came to them; “hear! what talent! Thousands of sane
women can’t compare with her; they are not as reasonable as she is,
except on the surface.”
When Beethoven’s sonata, played from the soul with a perfection of
shades and tones that filled her hardened hearer with admiration, had
ceased to sound, Cerizet said:--
“I agree with you, monsieur; la Peyrade refuses an angel, a treasure, a
pearl, and if I were in his place--But we shall bring him round to your
purpose. Now I shall serve you not only with zeal, but with enthusiasm,
I may say fanaticism.”
As Cerizet was concluding this oath of fidelity at the door of the
study, he heard a woman’s voice which was not that of Lydie.
“Is he in his study, the dear commander?” said that voice, with a
slightly foreign accent.
“Yes, madame, but please come into the salon. Monsieur is not alone; I
will tell him you are here.”
This was the voice of Katte, the old Dutch maid.
“Stop, go this way,” said du Portail quickly to Cerizet.
And he opened a hidden door which led through a dark corridor directly
to the staircase, whence Cerizet betook himself to the office of the
“Echo de la Bievre,” where a heated discussion was going on.
The article by which the new editors of every newspaper lay before the
public their “profession of faith,” as the technical saying is, always
produces a laborious and difficult parturition. In this particular case
it was necessary, if not openly to declare Thuillier’s candidacy, to at
least make it felt and foreseen. The terms of the manifesto, after la
Peyrade had made a rough draft of it, were discussed at great length.
This discussion took place in Cerizet’s presence, who, acting on du
Portail’s advice, accepted the management, but postponed the payment
of the security till the next day, through the latitude allowed in all
administrations for the accomplishment of that formality.
Cleverly egged on by this master-knave, who, from the start, made
himself Thuillier’s flatterer, the discussion became stormy, and
presently bitter; but as, by the deed of partnership the deciding word
was left to la Peyrade in all matters concerning the editorship, he
finally closed it by sending the manifesto, precisely as he had written
it, to the printing office.
Thuillier was incensed at what he called an abuse of power, and finding
himself alone with Cerizet later in the day, he hastened to pour his
griefs and resentments into the bosom of his faithful manager, thus
affording the latter a ready-made and natural opportunity to insinuate
the calumnious revelation agreed upon with du Portail. Leaving the knife
in the wound, Cerizet went out to make certain arrangements to obtain
the money necessary for his bond.
Tortured by the terrible revelation, Thuillier could not keep it to
himself; he felt the need of confiding it, and of talking over the
course he would be compelled to take by this infernal discovery. Sending
for a carriage he drove home, and half an hour later he had told the
whole story to his Egeria.
Brigitte had from the first very vehemently declared against all the
determinations made by Thuillier during the last few days. For no
purpose whatever, not even for the sake of her brother’s election,
would she agree to a renewal of the relation to la Peyrade. In the
first place, she had treated him badly, and that was a strong reason
for disliking him; then, in case that adventurer, as she now called him,
married Celeste, the fear of her authority being lessened gave her a
species of second-sight; she had ended by having an intuitive sense of
the dark profundities of the man’s nature, and now declared that under
no circumstances and for no possible price would she make one household
with him.
“Ruin yourself if you choose,” she said, “you are the master of that,
and you can do as you like; a fool and his money are soon parted.”
When, therefore, she listened to her brother’s confidences it was
not with reproaches, but, on the contrary, with a crow of triumph,
celebrating the probable return of her power, that she welcomed them.
“So much the better!” she cried; “it is well to know at last that the
man is a spy. I always thought so, the canting bigot! Turn him out of
doors without an explanation. WE don’t want him to work that newspaper.
This Monsieur Cerizet seems, from what you tell me, the right sort of
man, and we can get another manager. Besides, when Madame de Godollo
went away she promised to write to me; and she can easily put us in the
way of finding some one. Poor, dear Celeste! what a fate we were going
to give her!”
“How you run on!” said Thuillier. “La Peyrade, my dear, is so far only
accused. He must be heard in his defence. And besides, there’s a deed
that binds us.”
“Ah, very good!” said Brigitte; “I see how it will be; you’ll let that
man twist you round his finger again. A deed with a spy! As if there
could be deeds with such fellows.”
“Come, come, be calm, my good Brigitte,” returned Thuillier. “We
mustn’t do anything hastily. Certainly, if la Peyrade cannot furnish
a justification, clear, categorical, and convincing, I shall decide to
break with him, and I’ll prove to you that I am no milksop. But Cerizet
himself is not certain; these are mere inductions, and I only came
to consult you as to whether I ought, or ought not, to demand an
explanation outright.”
“Not a doubt about it,” replied Brigitte. “You ought to demand an
explanation and go to the bottom of this thing; if you don’t, I cast you
off as my brother.”
“That suffices,” said Thuillier, leaving the room with solemnity; “you
shall see that we will come to an understanding.”
CHAPTER XI. EXPLANATIONS AND WHAT CAME OF THEM
On his return to the office after his conference with Brigitte,
Thuillier found la Peyrade at his post as editor-in-chief, and in a
position of much embarrassment, caused by the high hand he had reserved
for himself as the sole selector of articles and contributors. At this
moment, Phellion, instigated by his family, and deeply conscious of his
position on the reading-committee of the Odeon, had come to offer his
services as dramatic critic.
“My dear monsieur,” he said, continuing his remarks to la Peyrade, after
inquiring of Thuillier about his health, “I was a great student of the
theatre in my youth; the stage and its scenic effects continue to have
for me peculiar attractions; and the white hairs which crown my
brow to-day seem to me no obstacle to my allowing your interesting
publication to profit by the fruit of my studies and my experience. As
member of the reading-committee of the Odeon theatre, I am conversant
with the modern drama, and--if I may be quite sure of your discretion--I
will even confide to you that among my papers it would not be impossible
for me to find a certain tragedy entitled ‘Sapor,’ which in my young
days won me some fame when read in salons.”
“Ah!” said la Peyrade, endeavoring to gild the refusal he should be
forced to give, “why not try to have it put upon the stage? We might be
able to help you in that direction.”
“Certainly,” said Thuillier, “the director of any theatre to whom we
should recommend--”
“No,” replied Phellion. “In the first place, as member of the
reading-committee of the Odeon, having to sit in judgment upon others,
it would not become me to descend into the arena myself. I am an old
athlete, whose business it is to judge of blows he can no longer give.
In this sense, criticism is altogether within my sphere, and all the
more because I have certain views on the proper method of composing
dramatic feuilletons which I think novel. The ‘castigat ridendo mores’
ought to be, according to my humble lights, the great law, I may say the
only law of the stage. I should therefore show myself pitiless for those
works, bred of imagination, in which morality has no part, and to which
mothers of families--”
“Excuse me,” said la Peyrade, “for interrupting you; but before allowing
you to take the trouble to develop your poetical ideas, I ought to tell
you that we have already made arrangements for our dramatic criticism.”
“Ah! that’s another thing,” said Phellion; “an honest man must keep his
word.”
“Yes,” said Thuillier, “we have our dramatic critic, little thinking
that you would offer us your valuable assistance.”
“Well,” said Phellion, suddenly becoming crafty,--for there is something
in the newspaper atmosphere, impossible to say what, which flies to
the head, the bourgeois head especially,--“since you are good enough to
consider my pen capable of doing you some service, perhaps a series of
detached thoughts on different subjects, to which I should venture to
give the name of ‘Diversities,’ might be of a nature to interest your
readers.”
“Yes,” said la Peyrade, with a maliciousness that was quite lost upon
Phellion, “thoughts, especially in the style of la Rochefoucauld or la
Bruyere, might do. What do you think yourself, Thuillier?”
He reserved to himself the right to leave the responsibility of
refusals, as far as he could, to the proprietor of the paper.
“But I imagine that thoughts, especially if detached, cannot be very
consecutive,” said Thuillier.
“Evidently not,” replied Phellion; “detached thoughts imply the idea of
a very great number of subjects on which the author lets his pen stray
without the pretension of presenting a whole.”
“You will of course sign them?” said la Peyrade.
“Oh, no!” replied Phellion, alarmed. “I could not put myself on
exhibition in that way.”
“Your modesty, which by the bye I understand and approve, settles the
matter,” said la Peyrade. “Thoughts are a subject altogether individual,
which imperatively require to be personified by a name. You must be
conscious of this yourself. ‘Divers Thoughts by Monsieur Three-Stars’
says nothing to the public.”
Seeing that Phellion was about to make objections, Thuillier, who was in
a hurry to begin his fight with la Peyrade, cut the matter short rather
sharply.
“My dear Phellion,” he said, “I beg your pardon for not being able to
enjoy the pleasure of your conversation any longer, but we have to talk,
la Peyrade and I, over a matter of much importance, and in newspaper
offices this devilish time runs away so fast. If you are willing, we
will postpone the question to another day. Madame Phellion is well, I
trust?”
“Perfectly well,” said the great citizen, rising, and not appearing to
resent his dismissal. “When does your first number appear?” he added;
“it is eagerly awaited in the arrondissement.”
“To-morrow I think our confession of faith will make its appearance,”
replied Thuillier, accompanying him to the door. “You will receive a
copy, my dear friend. We shall meet again soon, I hope. Come and see us,
and bring that manuscript; la Peyrade’s point of view may be a little
arbitrary.”
With this balm shed upon his wound, Phellion departed, and Thuillier
rang the bell for the porter.
“Could you recognize the gentlemen who has just gone out the next time
you see him?” asked Thuillier.
“Oh, yes, m’sieu, his round ball of a head is too funny to forget;
besides, it is Monsieur Phellion; haven’t I opened the door to him
hundreds of times?”
“Well, whenever he comes again neither I nor Monsieur de la Peyrade will
be here. Remember that’s a positive rule. Now leave us.”
“The devil!” cried la Peyrade, when the two partners were alone, “how
you manage bores. But take care; among the number there may be electors.
You did right to tell Phellion you would send him a copy of the paper;
he has a certain importance in the quarter.”
“Well,” said Thuillier, “we can’t allow our time to be taken up by all
the dull-heads who come and offer their services. But now you and I have
to talk, and talk very seriously. Be seated and listen.”
“Do you know, my dear fellow,” said la Peyrade, laughing, “that
journalism is making you into something very solemn? ‘Be seated,
Cinna,’--Caesar Augustus couldn’t have said it otherwise.”
“Cinnas, unfortunately, are more plentiful than people think,” replied
Thuillier.
He was still under the goad of the promise he had made to Brigitte,
and he meant to fulfil it with cutting sarcasm. The top continued the
whirling motion imparted to it by the old maid’s lash.
La Peyrade took a seat at the round table. As he was puzzled to know
what was coming, he endeavored to seem unconcerned, and picking up the
large scissors used for the loans which all papers make from the columns
of their brethren of the press, he began to snip up a sheet of paper, on
which, in Thuillier’s handwriting, was an attempt at a leading article,
never completed.
Though la Peyrade was seated and expectant, Thuillier did not begin
immediately; he rose and went toward the door which stood ajar, with
the intention of closing it. But suddenly it was flung wide open, and
Coffinet appeared.
“Will monsieur,” said Coffinet to la Peyrade, “receive two ladies? They
are very well-dressed, and the young one ain’t to be despised.”
“Shall I let them in?” said la Peyrade to Thuillier.
“Yes, since they are here,” growled Thuillier; “but get rid of them as
soon as possible.”
Coffinet’s judgment on the toilet of the two visitors needs revision.
A woman is well-dressed, not when she wears rich clothes, but when her
clothes present a certain harmony of shapes and colors which form an
appropriate and graceful envelope to her person. Now a bonnet with a
flaring brim, surmounted by nodding plumes, an immense French cashmere
shawl, worn with the awkward inexperience of a young bride, a plaid silk
gown with enormous checks and a triple tier of flounces with far too
many chains and trinkets (though to be just, the boots and gloves were
irreproachable), constituted the apparel of the younger of these ladies.
As for the other, who seemed to be in the tow of her dressy companion,
she was short, squat, and high-colored, and wore a bonnet, shawl, and
gown which a practised eye would at once have recognized as second hand.
Mothers of actresses are always clothed by this very economical process.
Their garments, condemned to the service of two generations, reverse the
order of things, and go from descendants to ancestors.
Advancing two chairs, la Peyrade inquired, “To whom have I the honor of
speaking?”
“Monsieur,” said the younger visitor, “I am a dramatic artist, and as I
am about to make my first appearance in this quarter, I allow myself to
hope that a journal of this locality will favor me.”
“At what theatre?” asked la Peyrade.
“The Folies, where I am engaged for the Dejazets.”
“The Folies?” echoed la Peyrade, in a tone that demanded an explanation.
“Folies-Dramatiques,” interposed the agreeable Madame Cardinal, whom the
reader has doubtless recognized.
“When do you appear?” asked la Peyrade.
“Next week, monsieur,--a fairy piece in which I play five parts.”
“You’ll encourage her, monsieur, won’t you?” said Madame Cardinal, in
a coaxing voice; “she’s so young, and I can certify she works day and
night.”
“Mother!” said Olympe, with authority, “the public will judge me; all I
want is that monsieur will kindly promise to notice my debut.”
“Very good, mademoiselle,” said la Peyrade in a tone of dismissal,
beginning to edge the pair to the door.
Olympe Cardinal went first, leaving her mother to hurry after her as
best she could.
“At home to no one!” cried Thuillier to the office-boy as he closed the
door and slipped the bolt. “Now,” he said, addressing la Peyrade, “we
will talk. My dear fellow,” he went on, starting with irony, for
he remembered to have heard that nothing was more confusing to an
adversary, “I have heard something that will give you pleasure. I know
now why MY pamphlet was seized.”
So saying, he looked fixedly at la Peyrade.
“Parbleu!” said the latter in a natural tone of voice, “it was seized
because they chose to seize it. They wanted to find, and they found,
because they always find the things they want, what the king’s adherents
call ‘subversive doctrine.’”
“No, you are wrong,” said Thuillier; “the seizure was planned,
concocted, and agreed upon before publication.”
“Between whom?” asked la Peyrade.
“Between those who wanted to kill the pamphlet, and the wretches who
were paid to betray it.”
“Well, in any case, those who paid,” said la Peyrade, “got mighty little
for their money; for, persecuted though it was, I don’t see that your
pamphlet made much of a stir.”
“Those who sold may have done better?” said Thuillier with redoubled
irony.
“Those who sold,” returned la Peyrade, “were the cleverer of the two.”
“Ah, I know,” said Thuillier, “that you think a great deal of
cleverness; but allow me to tell you that the police, whose hand I see
in all this, doesn’t usually throw its money away.”
And again he looked fixedly at la Peyrade.
“So,” said the barrister, without winking, “you have discovered that the
police had plotted in advance the smothering of your pamphlet?”
“Yes, my dear fellow; and what is more, I know the actual sum paid to
the person who agreed to carry out this honorable plot.”
“The person,” said la Peyrade, thinking a moment,--“perhaps I know the
person; but as for the money, I don’t know a word about that.”
“Well, I can tell you the amount. It was twenty-five--thousand--francs,”
said Thuillier, dwelling on each word; “that was the sum paid to Judas.”
“Oh! excuse me, my dear fellow, but twenty-five thousand francs is a
good deal of money. I don’t deny that you have become an important man;
but you are not such a bugbear to the government as to lead it to make
such sacrifices. Twenty-five thousand francs is as much as would ever be
given for the suppression of one of those annoying pamphlets about the
Civil list. But our financial lucubrations didn’t annoy in that way; and
such a sum borrowed from the secret-service money for the mere pleasure
of plaguing you, seems to me rather fabulous.”
“Apparently,” said Thuillier, acrimoniously, “this honest go-between
had some interest in exaggerating my value. One thing is very sure; this
monsieur had a debt of twenty-five thousand francs which harassed him
much; and a short time before the seizure this same monsieur, who had no
means of his own, paid off that debt; and unless you can tell me where
else he got the money, the inference I think is not difficult to draw.”
It was la Peyrade’s turn to look fixedly at Thuillier.
“Monsieur Thuillier,” he said, raising his voice, “let us get out of
enigmas and generalities; will you do me the favor to name that person?”
“Well, no,” replied Thuillier, striking his hand upon the table, “I
shall not name him, because of the sentiments of esteem and affection
which formerly united us; but you have understood me, Monsieur la
Peyrade.”
“I ought to have known,” said the Provencal, in a voice changed by
emotion, “that in bringing a serpent to this place I should soon be
soiled by his venom. Poor fool! do you not see that you have made
yourself the echo of Cerizet’s calumny?”
“Cerizet has nothing to do with it; on the contrary, he has told me
the highest good of you. How was it, not having a penny the night
before,--and I had reason to know it,--that you were able to pay Dutocq
the round sum of twenty-five thousand francs the next day?”
La Peyrade reflected for a moment.
“No,” he said, “it was not Dutocq who told you that. He is not a man to
wrestle with an enemy of my strength without a strong interest in it. It
was Cerizet; he’s the infamous calumniator, from whose hands I wrenched
the lease of your house near the Madeleine,--Cerizet, whom in kindness,
I went to seek on his dunghill that I might give him the chance of
honorable employment; that is the wretch, to whom a benefit is only an
encouragement to treachery. Tiens! if I were to tell you what that man
is I should turn you sick with disgust; in the sphere of infamy he has
discovered worlds.”
This time Thuillier made an able reply.
“I don’t know anything about Cerizet except through you,” he said;
“you introduced him to me as a manager, offering every guarantee; but,
allowing him to be blacker than the devil, and supposing that this
communication comes from him, I don’t see, my friend, that all that
makes YOU any the whiter.”
“No doubt I was to blame,” said la Peyrade, “for putting such a man into
relations with you; but we wanted some one who understood journalism,
and that value he really had for us. But who can ever sound the depths
of souls like his? I thought him reformed. A manager, I said to myself,
is only a machine; he can do no harm. I expected to find him a man of
straw; well, I was mistaken, he will never be anything but a man of
mud.”
“All that is very fine,” said Thuillier, “but those twenty-five thousand
francs found so conveniently in your possession, where did you get them?
That is the point you are forgetting to explain.”
“But to reason about it,” said la Peyrade; “a man of my character in the
pay of the police and yet so poor that I could not pay the ten thousand
francs your harpy of a sister demanded with an insolence which you
yourself witnessed--”
“But,” said Thuillier, “if the origin of this money is honest, as I
sincerely desire it may be, what hinders you from telling me how you got
it?”
“I cannot,” said la Peyrade; “the history of that money is a secret
entrusted to me professionally.”
“Come, come, you told me yourself that the statutes of your order forbid
all barristers from doing business of any kind.”
“Let us suppose,” said la Peyrade, “that I have done something not
absolutely regular; it would be strange indeed after what I risked, as
you know, for you, if you should have the face to reproach me with it.”
“My poor friend, you are trying to shake off the hounds; but you can’t
make me lose the scent. You wish to keep your secret; then keep it. I am
master of my own confidence and my own esteem; by paying you the forfeit
stipulated in our deed I take the newspaper into my own hands.”
“Do you mean that you dismiss me?” cried la Peyrade. “The money that you
have put into the affair, all your chances of election, sacrificed to
the calumnies of such a being as Cerizet!”
“In the first place,” said Thuillier, “another editor-in-chief can be
found; it is a true saying that no man is indispensable. As for election
to the Chamber I would rather never receive it than owe it to the help
of one who--”
“Go on,” said la Peyrade, seeing that Thuillier hesitated, “or rather,
no, be silent, for you will presently blush for your suspicions and ask
my pardon humbly.”
By this time la Peyrade saw that without a confession to which he must
compel himself, the influence and the future he had just recovered would
be cut from under his feet. Resuming his speech he said, solemnly:--
“You will remember, my friend, that you were pitiless, and, by
subjecting me to a species of moral torture, you have forced me to
reveal to you a secret that is not mine.”
“Go on,” said Thuillier, “I take the whole responsibility upon myself.
Make me see the truth clearly in this darkness, and if I have done wrong
I will be the first to say so.”
“Well,” said la Peyrade, “those twenty-five thousand francs are the
savings of a servant-woman who came to me and asked me to take them and
to pay her interest.”
“A servant with twenty-five thousand francs of savings! Nonsense; she
must serve in monstrously rich households.”
“On the contrary, she is the one servant of an infirm old savant; and
it was on account of the discrepancy which strikes your mind that she
wanted to put her money in my hands as a sort of trustee.”
“Bless me! my friend,” said Thuillier, flippantly, “you said we were in
want of a romance-feuilletonist; but really, after this, I sha’n’t be
uneasy. Here’s imagination for you!”
“What?” said la Peyrade, angrily, “you don’t believe me?”
“No, I do not believe you. Twenty-five thousand francs savings in the
service of an old savant! that is about as believable as the officer of
La Dame Blanche buying a chateau with his pay.”
“But if I prove to you the truth of my words; if I let you put your
finger upon it?”
“In that case, like Saint Thomas, I shall lower my flag before the
evidence. Meanwhile you must permit me, my noble friend, to wait until
you offer me that proof.”
Thuillier felt really superb.
“I’d give a hundred francs,” he said to himself, “if Brigitte could have
been here and heard me impeach him.”
“Well,” said la Peyrade, “suppose that without leaving this office, and
by means of a note which you shall read, I bring into your presence the
person from whom I received the money; if she confirms what I say will
you believe me?”
This proposal and the assurance with which it was made rather staggered
Thuillier.
“I shall know what to do when the time comes,” he replied, changing his
tone. “But this must be done at once, now, here.”
“I said, without leaving this office. I should think that was clear
enough.”
“And who will carry the note you write?” asked Thuillier, believing
that by thus examining every detail he was giving proofs of amazing
perspicacity.
“Carry the note! why, your own porter of course,” replied la Peyrade;
“you can send him yourself.”
“Then write it,” said Thuillier, determined to push him to the wall.
La Peyrade took a sheet of paper with the new heading and wrote as
follows, reading the note aloud:--
Madame Lambert is requested to call at once, on urgent business,
at the office of the “Echo de la Bievre,” rue Saint-Dominique
d’Enfer. The bearer of this note will conduct her. She is awaited
impatiently by her devoted servant,
Theodose de la Peyrade.
“There, will that suit you?” said the barrister, passing the paper to
Thuillier.
“Perfectly,” replied Thuillier, taking the precaution to fold the letter
himself and seal it. “Put the address,” he added.
Then he rang the bell for the porter.
“You will carry this letter to its address,” he said to the man, “and
bring back with you the person named. But will she be there?” he asked,
on reflection.
“It is more than probable,” replied la Peyrade; “in any case, neither
you nor I will leave this room until she comes. This matter must be
cleared up.”
“Then go!” said Thuillier to the porter, in a theatrical tone.
When they were alone, la Peyrade took up a newspaper and appeared to be
absorbed in its perusal.
Thuillier, beginning to get uneasy as to the upshot of the affair,
regretted that he had not done something the idea of which had come to
him just too late.
“Yes, I ought,” he said to himself, “to have torn up that letter, and
not driven him to prove his words.”
Wishing to do something that might look like retaining la Peyrade in
the position of which he had threatened to deprive him, he remarked
presently:--
“By the bye, I have just come from the printing-office; the new type has
arrived, and I think we might make our first appearance to-morrow.”
La Peyrade did not answer; but he got up and took his paper nearer to
the window.
“He is sulky,” thought Thuillier, “and if he is innocent, he may well
be. But, after all, why did he ever bring a man like that Cerizet here?”
Then to hide his embarrassment and the preoccupation of his mind, he sat
down before the editor’s table, took a sheet of the head-lined paper and
made himself write a letter.
Presently la Peyrade returned to the table and sitting down, took
another sheet and with the feverish rapidity of a man stirred by some
emotion he drove his pen over the paper.
From the corner of his eye, Thuillier tried hard to see what la Peyrade
was writing, and noticing that his sentences were separated by numbers
placed between brackets, he said:--
“Tiens! are you drawing up a parliamentary law?”
“Yes,” replied la Peyrade, “the law of the vanquished.”
Soon after this, the porter opened the door and introduced Madame
Lambert, whom he had found at home, and who arrived looking rather
frightened.
“You are Madame Lambert?” asked Thuillier, magisterially.
“Yes, monsieur,” said the woman, in an anxious voice.
After requesting her to be seated and noticing that the porter was still
there as if awaiting further orders he said to the man:--
“That will do; you may go; and don’t let any one disturb us.”
The gravity and the lordly tone assumed by Thuillier only increased
Madame Lambert’s uneasiness. She came expecting to see only la Peyrade,
and she found herself received by an unknown man with a haughty manner,
while the barrister, who had merely bowed to her, said not a word;
moreover, the scene took place in a newspaper office, and it is a
well-known fact that to pious persons especially all that relates to the
press is infernal and diabolical.
“Well,” said Thuillier to the barrister, “it seems to me that nothing
hinders you from explaining to madame why you have sent for her.”
In order to leave no loophole for suspicion in Thuillier’s mind la
Peyrade knew that he must put his question bluntly and without the
slightest preparation; he therefore said to her “ex abrupto”:--
“We wish to ask you, madame, if it is not true that about two and a
half months ago you placed in my hands, subject to interest, the sum, in
round numbers, of twenty-five thousand francs.”
Though she felt the eyes of Thuillier and those of la Peyrade upon
her, Madame Lambert, under the shock of this question fired at her
point-blank, could not restrain a start.
“Heavens!” she exclaimed, “twenty-five thousand francs! and where should
I get such a sum as that?”
La Peyrade gave no sign on his face of the vexation he might be
supposed to feel. As for Thuillier, who now looked at him with sorrowful
commiseration, he merely said:--
“You see, my friend!”
“So,” resumed la Peyrade, “you are very certain that you did not place
in my hands the sum of twenty-five thousand francs; you declare this,
you affirm it?”
“Why, monsieur! did you ever hear of such a sum as that in the pocket
of a poor woman like me? The little that I had, as everybody knows,
has gone to eke out the housekeeping of that poor dear gentleman whose
servant I have been for more than twenty years.”
“This,” said Thuillier, pompously, “seems to me categorical.”
La Peyrade still did not show the slightest sign of annoyance; on the
contrary, he seemed to be playing into Thuillier’s hand.
“You hear, my dear Thuillier,” he said, “and if necessary I shall call
for your testimony, that madame here declares that she did not possess
twenty-five thousand francs and could not therefore have placed them
in my hands. Now, as the notary Dupuis, in whose hands I fancied I had
placed them, left Paris this morning for Brussels carrying with him
the money of all his clients, I have no account with madame, by her own
showing, and the absconding of the notary--”
“Has the notary Dupuis absconded?” screamed Madame Lambert, driven by
this dreadful news entirely out of her usual tones of dulcet sweetness
and Christian resignation. “Ah, the villain! it was only this morning
that he was taking the sacrament at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas.”
“To pray for a safe journey, probably,” said la Peyrade.
“Monsieur talks lightly enough,” continued Madame Lambert, “though that
brigand has carried off my savings. But I gave them to monsieur, and
monsieur is answerable to me for them; he is the only one I know in this
transaction.”
“Hey?” said la Peyrade to Thuillier, pointing to Madame Lambert, whose
whole demeanor had something of the mother-wolf suddenly bereft of her
cubs; “is that nature? tell me! Do you think now that madame and I are
playing a comedy for your benefit?”
“I am thunderstruck at Cerizet’s audacity,” said Thuillier. “I am
overwhelmed with my own stupidity; there is nothing for me to do but to
submit myself entirely to your discretion.”
“Madame,” said la Peyrade, gaily, “excuse me for thus frightening you;
the notary Dupuis is still a very saintly man, and quite incapable of
doing an injury to his clients. As for monsieur here, it was necessary
that I should prove to him that you had really placed that money in my
hands; he is, however, another myself, and your secret, though known to
him, is as safe as it is with me.”
“Oh, very good, monsieur!” said Madame Lambert. “I suppose these
gentlemen have no further need of me?”
“No, my dear madame, and I beg you to pardon me for the little terror I
was compelled to occasion you.”
Madame Lambert turned to leave the room with all the appearance of
respectful humility, but when she reached the door, she retraced her
steps, and coming close to la Peyrade said, in her smoothest tones:--
“When does monsieur expect to be able to refund me that money?”
“But I told you,” said la Peyrade, stiffly, “that notaries never return
on demand the money placed in their hands.”
“Does monsieur think that if I went to see Monsieur Dupuis himself and
asked him--”
“I think,” said la Peyrade, interrupting her, “that you would do a most
ridiculous thing. He received the money from me in my own name, as you
requested, and he knows only me in the matter.”
“Then monsieur will be so kind, will he not, as to get back that
money for me as soon as possible? I am sure I would not wish to press
monsieur, but in two or three months from now I may want it; I have
heard of a little property it would suit me to buy.”
“Very good, Madame Lambert,” said la Peyrade, with well-concealed
irritation, “it shall be done as you wish; and in less time, perhaps,
than you have stated I shall hope to return your money to you.”
“That won’t inconvenience monsieur, I trust,” said the woman; “he told
me that at the first indiscretion I committed--”
“Yes, yes, that is all understood,” said la Peyrade, interrupting her.
“Then I have the honor to be the very humble servant of these
gentlemen,” said Madame Lambert, now departing definitively.
“You see, my friend, the trouble you have got me into,” said la Peyrade
to Thuillier as soon as they were alone, “and to what I am exposed by my
kindness in satisfying your diseased mind. That debt was dormant; it
was in a chronic state; and you have waked it up and made it acute. The
woman brought me the money and insisted on my keeping it, at a good rate
of interest. I refused at first; then I agreed to place it in Dupuis’s
hands, explaining to her that it couldn’t be withdrawn at once; but
subsequently, when Dutocq pressed me, I decided, after all, to keep it
myself.”
“I am dreadfully sorry, dear friend, for my silly credulity. But don’t
be uneasy about the exactions of that woman; we will manage to arrange
all that, even if I have to make you an advance upon Celeste’s ‘dot.’”
“My excellent friend,” said la Peyrade, “it is absolutely necessary that
we should talk over our private arrangements; to tell you the truth, I
have no fancy for being hauled up every morning and questioned as to
my conduct. Just now, while waiting for that woman, I drew up a little
agreement, which you and I will discuss and sign, if you please, before
the first number of the paper is issued.”
“But,” said Thuillier, “our deed of partnership seems to me to settle--”
“--that by a paltry forfeit of five thousand francs, as stated in
Article 14,” interrupted Theodose, “you can put me, when you choose,
out of doors. No, I thank you! After my experience to-day, I want some
better security than that.”
At this moment Cerizet with a lively and all-conquering air, entered the
room.
“My masters!” he exclaimed, “I’ve brought the money; and we can now sign
the bond.”
Then, remarking that his news was received with extreme coldness, he
added:--
“Well? what is it?”
“It is this,” replied Thuillier: “I refuse to be associated with
double-face men and calumniators. We have no need of you or your money;
and I request you not to honor these precincts any longer with your
presence.”
“Dear! dear! dear!” said Cerizet; “so papa Thuillier has let the wool be
pulled over his eyes again!”
“Leave the room!” said Thuillier; “you have nothing more to do here.”
“Hey, my boy!” said Cerizet, turning to la Peyrade, “so you’ve twisted
the old bourgeois round your finger again? Well, well, no matter! I
think you are making a mistake not to go and see du Portail, and I shall
tell him--”
“Leave this house!” cried Thuillier, in a threatening tone.
“Please remember, my dear monsieur, that I never asked you to employ me;
I was well enough off before you sent for me, and I shall be after.
But I’ll give you a piece of advice: don’t pay the twenty-five thousand
francs out of your own pocket, for that’s hanging to your nose.”
So saying, Cerizet put his thirty-three thousand francs in banknotes
back into his wallet, took his hat from the table, carefully smoothed
the nap with his forearm and departed.
Thuillier had been led by Cerizet into what proved to be a most
disastrous campaign. Now become the humble servant of la Peyrade, he
was forced to accept his conditions, which were as follows: five hundred
francs a month for la Peyrade’s services in general; his editorship of
the paper to be paid at the rate of fifty francs a column,--which was
simply enormous, considering the small size of the sheet; a binding
pledge to continue the publication of the paper for six months,
under pain of the forfeiture of fifteen thousand francs; an absolute
omnipotence in the duties of editor-in-chief,--that is to say, the
sovereign right of inserting, controlling, and rejecting all articles
without being called to explain the reasons of his actions,--such were
the stipulations of a treaty in duplicate made openly, “in good faith,”
between the contracting parties. _But_, in virtue of another and secret
agreement, Thuillier gave security for the payment of the twenty-five
thousand francs for which la Peyrade was accountable to Madame Lambert,
binding the said Sieur de la Peyrade, in case the payment were required
before his marriage with Celeste Colleville could take place, to
acknowledge the receipt of said sum advanced upon the dowry.
Matters being thus arranged and accepted by the candidate, who saw no
chance of election if he lost la Peyrade, Thuillier was seized with a
happy thought. He went to the Cirque-Olympique, where he remembered to
have seen in the ticket-office a former employee in his office at the
ministry of Finance,--a man named Fleury; to whom he proposed the post
of manager. Fleury, being an old soldier, a good shot, and a skilful
fencer, would certainly make himself an object of respect in a newspaper
office. The working-staff of the paper being thus reconstituted, with
the exception of a few co-editors or reporters to be added later, but
whom la Peyrade, thanks to the facility of his pen, was able for the
present to do without, the first number of the new paper was launched
upon the world.
Thuillier now recommenced the explorations about Paris which we saw him
make on the publication of his pamphlet. Entering all reading-rooms and
cafes, he asked for the “Echo de la Bievre,” and when informed,
alas, very frequently, that the paper was unknown in this or that
establishment, “It is incredible!” he would exclaim, “that a house which
respects itself does not take such a widely known paper.”
On that, he departed disdainfully, not observing that in many places,
where this ancient trick of commercial travellers was well understood,
they were laughing behind his back.
The evening of the day when the inauguration number containing the
“profession of faith” appeared, Brigitte’s salon, although the day was
not Sunday, was filled with visitors. Reconciled to la Peyrade, whom her
brother had brought home to dinner, the old maid went so far as to tell
him that, without flattery, she thought his leading article was a famous
HIT. For that matter, all the guests as they arrived, reported that the
public seemed enchanted with the first number of the new journal.
The public! everybody knows what that is. To every man who launches
a bit of writing into the world, the public consists of five or six
intimates who cannot, without offending the author, avoid knowing
something more or less of his lucubrations.
“As for me!” cried Colleville, “I can truthfully declare that it is the
first political article I ever read that didn’t send me to sleep.”
“It is certain,” said Phellion, “that the leading article seems to me to
be stamped with vigor joined to an atticism which we may seek in vain in
the columns of the other public prints.”
“Yes,” said Dutocq, “the matter is very well presented; and besides,
there’s a turn of phrase, a clever diction, that doesn’t belong to
everybody. However, we must wait and see how it keeps on. I fancy that
to-morrow the ‘Echo de la Bievre’ will be strongly attacked by the other
papers.”
“Parbleu!” cried Thuillier, “that’s what we are hoping for; and if the
government would only do us the favor to seize us--”
“No, thank you,” said Fleury, whom Thuillier had also brought home to
dinner, “I don’t want to enter upon those functions at first.”