haven’t the time, but to-morrow I shall carry that paper into court.”
“Into court!” echoed la Peyrade; “you surely wouldn’t go to law in such
a matter as this? In the first place, there is nothing to proceed upon;
you are not named nor the paper either, and, besides, it is a pitiable
business, going to law; you’ll look like a boy who has been fighting,
and got the worst of it, and runs to complain to his mamma. Now if you
had said that you meant to make Fleury intervene in the matter, I could
understand that--though the affair is rather personal to you, and it
might be difficult to make it seem--”
“Ah ca!” said Thuillier, “do you suppose I am going to commit myself
with a Cerizet or any other newspaper bully? I pique myself, my
dear fellow, on possessing civic courage, which does not give in to
prejudices, and which, instead of taking justice into its own hands, has
recourse to the means of defence that are provided by law. Besides, with
the legal authority the Court of Cassation now has over duelling, I have
no desire to put myself in the way of being expatriated, or spending two
or three years in prison.”
“Well,” said la Peyrade, “we’ll talk it over later; here’s your sister,
and she would think everything lost if this little matter reached her
ears.”
When Brigitte appeared Colleville shouted “Full!” and proceeded to sing
the chorus of “La Parisienne.”
“Heavens! Colleville, how vulgar you are!” cried the tardy one,
hastening to cast a stone in the other’s garden to avoid the throwing
of one into hers. “Well, are you all ready?” she added, arranging her
mantle before a mirror. “What o’clock is it? it won’t do to get there
before the time, like provincials.”
“Ten minutes to two,” said Colleville; “I go by the Tuileries.”
“Well, then we are just right,” said Brigitte; “it will take about that
time to get to the rue Caumartin. Josephine,” she cried, going to the
door of the salon, “we’ll dine at six, therefore be sure you put the
turkey to roast at the right time, and mind you don’t burn it, as you
did the other day. Bless me! who’s that?” and with a hasty motion she
shut the door, which she had been holding open. “What a nuisance! I hope
Henri will have the sense to tell him we are out.”
Not at all; Henri came in to say that an old gentleman, with a very
genteel air, had asked to be received on urgent business.
“Why didn’t you say we were all out?”
“That’s what I should have done if mademoiselle had not opened the
door of the salon so that the gentleman could see the whole family
assembled.”
“Oh, yes!” said Brigitte, “you are never in the wrong, are you?”
“What am I to say to him?” asked the man.
“Say,” replied Thuillier, “that I am very sorry not to be able to
receive him, but I am expected at a notary’s office about a marriage
contract; but that if he could return two hours hence--”
“I have told him all that,” said Henri, “and he answered that that
contract was precisely what he had come about, and that his business
concerned you more than himself.”
“You had better go and see him, Thuillier, and get rid of him in
double-quick,” said Brigitte; “that’s shorter than talking to Henri, who
is always an orator.”
If la Peyrade had been consulted he might not have joined in that
advice, for he had had more than one specimen of the spokes some occult
influence was putting into the wheels of his marriage, and the present
visit seemed to him ominous.
“Show him into my study,” said Thuillier, following his sister’s advice;
and, opening the door which led from the salon to the study, he went to
receive his importunate visitor.
Brigitte immediately applied her eye to the keyhole.
“Goodness!” she exclaimed, “there’s my imbecile of a Thuillier offering
him a chair! and away in a corner, too, where I can’t hear a word they
say!”
La Peyrade was walking about the room with an inward agitation covered
by an appearance of great indifference. He even went up to the three
women, and made a few lover-like speeches to Celeste, who received them
with a smiling, happy air in keeping with the role she was playing. As
for Colleville, he was killing the time by composing an anagram on the
six words of “le journal ‘l’Echo de la Bievre,’” for which he had found
the following version, little reassuring (as far as it went) for the
prospects of that newspaper: “O d’Echo, jarni! la bevue reell”--but as
the final “e” was lacking to complete the last word, the work was not
altogether as satisfactory as it should have been.
“He’s taking snuff!” said Brigitte, her eye still glued to the keyhole;
“his gold snuff-box beats Minard’s--though, perhaps, it is only
silver-gilt,” she added, reflectively. “He’s doing the talking, and
Thuillier is sitting there listening to him like a buzzard. I shall go
in and tell them they can’t keep ladies waiting that way.”
But just as she put her hand on the lock she heard Thuillier’s visitor
raise his voice, and that made her look through the keyhole again.
“He is standing up; he’s going,” she said with satisfaction.
But a moment later she saw she had made a mistake; the little old man
had only left his chair to walk up and down the room and continue the
conversation with greater freedom.
“My gracious! I shall certainly go in,” she said, “and tell Thuillier we
are going without him, and he can follow us.”
So saying, the old maid gave two little sharp and very imperious raps on
the door, after which she resolutely entered the study.
La Peyrade, goaded by anxiety, had the bad taste to look through
the keyhole himself at what was happening. Instantly he thought
he recognized the small old man he had seen under the name of “the
commander” on that memorable morning when he had waited for Madame de
Godollo. Then he saw Thuillier addressing his sister with impatience
and with gestures of authority altogether out of his usual habits of
deference and submission.
“It seems,” said Brigitte, re-entering the salon, “that Thuillier finds
some great interest in that creature’s talk, for he ordered me bluntly
to leave them, though the little old fellow did say, rather civilly,
that they would soon be through. But Jerome added: ‘_Mind_, you are to
wait for me.’ Really, since he has taken to making newspapers I don’t
know him; he has set up an air as if he were leading the world with his
wand.”
“I am very much afraid he is being entangled by some adventurer,” said
la Peyrade. “I am pretty sure I saw that old man at Madame de Godollo’s
the day I went to warn her off the premises; he must be of the same
stripe.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” cried Brigitte. “I’d have asked him for news
of the countess, and let him see we knew what we knew of his Hungarian.”
Just then the sound of moving chairs was heard, and Brigitte darted back
to the keyhole.
“Yes,” she said, “he is really going, and Thuillier is bowing him out
respectfully!”
As Thuillier did not immediately return, Colleville had time to go to
the window and exclaim at seeing the little old gentleman driving away
in an elegant coupe, of which the reader has already heard.
“The deuce!” cried Colleville; “what an ornate livery! If he is an
adventurer he is a number one.”
At last Thuillier re-entered the room, his face full of care, his manner
extremely grave.
“My dear la Peyrade,” he said, “you did not tell us that another
proposal of marriage had been seriously considered by you.”
“Yes, I did; I told you that a very rich heiress had been offered to
me, but that my inclinations were here, and that I had not given any
encouragement to the affair; consequently, of course, there was no
serious engagement.”
“Well, I think you do wrong to treat that proposal so lightly.”
“What! do you mean to say, in presence of these ladies, that you blame
me for remaining faithful to my first desires and our old engagement?”
“My friend, the conversation that I have just had has been a most
instructive one to me; and when you know what I know, with other details
personal to yourself, which will be confided to you, I think that you
will enter into my ideas. One thing is certain; we shall not go to the
notary to-day; and as for you, the best thing that you can do is to go,
without delay, to Monsieur du Portail.”
“That name again! it pursues me like a remorse,” exclaimed la Peyrade.
“Yes; go at once; he is awaiting you. It is an indispensable preliminary
before we can go any farther. When you have seen that excellent man and
heard what he has to say to you--well, _then_ if you persist in claiming
Celeste’s hand, we might perhaps carry out our plans. Until then we
shall take no steps in the matter.”
“But, my poor Thuillier,” said Brigitte, “you have let yourself be
gammoned by a rascal; that man belongs to the Godollo set.”
“Madame de Godollo,” replied Thuillier, “is not at all what you suppose
her to be, and the best thing this house can do is never to say one word
about her, either good or evil. As for la Peyrade, as this is not the
first time he has been requested to go and see Monsieur du Portail, I am
surprised that he hesitates to do so.”
“Ah ca!” said Brigitte, “that little old man has completely befooled
you.”
“I tell you that that little old man is all that he appears to be. He
wears seven crosses, he drives in a splendid equipage, and he has told
me things that have overwhelmed me with astonishment.”
“Well, perhaps he’s a fortune-teller like Madame Fontaine, who managed
once upon a time to upset me when Madame Minard and I, just to amuse
ourselves, went to consult her.”
“Well, if he is not a sorcerer he certainly has a very long arm,” said
Thuillier, “and I think a man would suffer for it if he didn’t respect
his advice. As for you, Brigitte, he saw you only for a minute, but he
told me your whole character; he said you were a masterful woman, born
to command.”
“The fact is,” said Brigitte, licking her chops at this compliment,
like a cat drinking cream, “he has a very well-bred air, that little old
fellow. You take my advice, my dear,” she said, turning to la Peyrade;
“if such a very big-wig as that wants you to do so, go and see this
du Portail, whoever he is. That, it seems to me, won’t bind you to
anything.”
“You are right, Brigitte,” said Colleville; “as for me, I’d follow up
all the Portails, or Port_ers_, or Port_ents_ for the matter of that, if
they asked me to.”
The scene was beginning to resemble that in the “Barber of Seville,”
where everybody tells Basil to go to bed, for he certainly has a fever.
La Peyrade, thus prodded, picked up his hat in some ill-humor, and went
where his destiny called him,--“quo sua fata vocabant.”
CHAPTER XV. AT DU PORTAIL’S
On reaching the rue Honore-Chevalier la Peyrade felt a doubt; the
dilapidated appearance of the house to which he was summoned made him
think he had mistaken the number. It seemed to him that a person of
Monsieur du Portail’s evident importance could not inhabit such a place.
It was therefore with some hesitation that he accosted Sieur Perrache,
the porter. But no sooner had he entered the antechamber of the
apartment pointed out to him than the excellent deportment of Bruneau,
the old valet, and the extremely comfortable appearance of the furniture
and other appointments made him see that he was probably in the right
place. Introduced at once, as soon as he had given his name, into the
study of the master of the house, his surprise was great when he found
himself in presence of the commander, so called, the friend of Madame
de Godollo, and the little old man he had seen half an hour earlier with
Thuillier.
“At last!” said du Portail, rising, and offering la Peyrade a chair, “at
last we meet, my refractory friend; it has taken a good deal to bring
you here.”
“May I know, monsieur,” said la Peyrade, haughtily, not taking the chair
which was offered to him, “what interest you have in meddling with my
affairs? I do not know you, and I may add that the place where I once
saw you did not create an unconquerable desire in me to make your
acquaintance.”
“Where have you seen me?” asked du Portail.
“In the apartment of a strumpet who called herself Madame de Godollo.”
“Where monsieur, consequently, went himself,” said the little old man,
“and for a purpose much less disinterested than mine.”
“I have not come here,” said la Peyrade, “to bandy words with any one.
I have the right, monsieur, to a full explanation as to the meaning of
your proceedings towards me. I therefore request you not to delay them
by a facetiousness to which, I assure you, I am not in the humor to
listen.”
“Then, my dear fellow,” said du Portail, “sit down, for I am not in the
humor to twist my neck by talking up at you.”
The words were reasonable, and they were said in a tone that showed the
old gentleman was not likely to be frightened by grand airs. La Peyrade
therefore deferred to the wishes of his host, but he took care to do so
with the worst grace possible.
“Monsieur Cerizet,” said du Portail, “a man of excellent standing in the
world, and who has the honor to be one of your friends--”
“I have nothing to do with that man now,” said la Peyrade, sharply,
understanding the malicious meaning of the old man’s speech.
“Well, the time has been,” said du Portail, “when you saw him, at least,
occasionally: for instance, when you paid for his dinner at the Rocher
de Cancale. As I was saying, I charged the virtuous Monsieur Cerizet to
sound you as to a marriage--”
“Which I refused,” interrupted la Peyrade, “and which I now refuse
again, more vehemently than ever.”
“That’s the question,” said the old man. “I think, on the contrary, that
you will accept it; and it is to talk over this affair with you that I
have so long desired a meeting.”
“But this crazy girl that you are flinging at my head,” said la Peyrade,
“what is she to you? She can’t be your daughter, or you would put more
decency into your hunt for a husband.”
“This young girl,” replied du Portail, “is the daughter of one of my
friends who died about ten years ago; at his death I took her to live
with me, and have given her all the care her sad condition needed. Her
fortune, which I have greatly increased, added to my own, which I intend
to leave to her, will make her a very rich heiress. I know that you
are no enemy to handsome ‘dots,’ for you have sought them in various
places,--Thuillier’s house, for instance, or, to use your own
expression, that of a strumpet whom you scarcely knew. I have therefore
supposed you would accept at my hands a very rich young woman,
especially as her infirmity is declared by the best physicians to be
curable; whereas you can never cure Monsieur and Mademoiselle Thuillier,
the one of being a fool, the other of being a fury, any more than you
could cure Madame Komorn of being a woman of very medium virtue and
extremely giddy.”
“It may suit me,” replied la Peyrade, “to marry the daughter of a fool
and a fury if I choose her, or I might become the husband of a clever
coquette, if passion seized me, but the Queen of Sheba herself, if
imposed upon me, neither you, monsieur, nor the ablest and most powerful
man living could force me to accept.”
“Precisely; therefore it is to your own good sense and intelligence that
I now address myself; but we have to come face to face with people
in order to speak to them, you know. Now, then, let us look into your
present situation, and don’t get angry if, like a surgeon who wants to
cure his patient, I lay my hand mercilessly on wounds which have long
tormented and harassed you. The first point to state is that the Celeste
Colleville affair is at an end for you.”
“Why so?” demanded la Peyrade.
“Because I have just seen Thuillier and terrified him with the history
of the misfortunes he has incurred, and those he will incur if he
persists in the idea of giving you his goddaughter in marriage. He knows
now that it was I who paralyzed Madame du Bruel’s kind offices in the
matter of the cross; that I had his pamphlet seized; that I sent that
Hungarian woman into his house to handle you all, as she did; and that
my hand is opening fire in the ministerial journals, which will only
increase from bad to worse,--not to speak of other machinations which
will be directed against his candidacy. Therefore you see, my good
friend, that not only have you no longer the credit in Thuillier’s eyes
of being his great helper to that election, but that you actually block
the way to his ambition. That is enough to prove to you that the side by
which you have imposed yourself on that family--who have never sincerely
liked or desired you--is now completely battered down and dismantled.”
“But to have done all that which you claim with such pretension, who are
you?” demanded la Peyrade.
“I shall not say that you are very inquisitive, for I intend to answer
your question later; but for the present let us continue, if you please,
the autopsy of your existence, dead to-day, but which I propose to
resuscitate gloriously. You are twenty-eight years old, and you have
begun a career in which I shall not allow you to make another step. A
few days hence the Council of the order of barristers will assemble and
will censure, more or less severely, your conduct in the matter of
the property you placed with such candor in Thuillier’s hands. Do not
deceive yourself; censure from that quarter (and I mention only your
least danger) is as fatal to a barrister as being actually disbarred.”
“And it is to your kind offices, no doubt,” said la Peyrade, “that I
shall owe that precious result?”
“Yes, I may boast of it,” replied du Portail, “for, in order to tow you
into port it has been necessary to strip you of your rigging; unless
that were done, you would always have tried to navigate under your own
sails the bourgeois shoals that you are now among.”
Seeing that he, undoubtedly, had to do with a strong hand, la Peyrade
thought best to modify his tone; and so, with a more circumspect air, he
said:--
“You will allow me, monsieur, to reserve my acknowledgments until I
receive some fuller explanation.”
“Here you are, then,” continued du Portail, “at twenty-eight years of
age, without a penny, virtually without a profession; with antecedents
that are very--middling; with associates like Monsieur Dutocq and the
courageous Cerizet; owing to Mademoiselle Thuillier ten thousand francs,
and to Madame Lambert twenty-five thousand, which you are no doubt
extremely desirous to return to her; and finally, this marriage, your
last hope, your sheet-anchor, has just become an utter impossibility.
Between ourselves, if I have something reasonable to propose to you, do
you not think that you had much better place yourself at my disposal?”
“I have time enough to prove that your opinion is mistaken,” returned
la Peyrade; “and I shall not form any resolutions so long as the designs
you choose to have upon me are not more fully explained.”
“You were spoken to, at my instigation, about a marriage,” resumed du
Portail. “This marriage, as I think, is closely connected with a past
existence from which a certain hereditary or family duty has devolved
upon you. Do you know what that uncle of yours, to whom you applied
in 1829, was doing in Paris? In your family he was thought to be a
millionaire; and, dying suddenly, you remember, before you got to him,
he did not leave enough for his burial; a pauper’s grave was all that
remained to him.”
“Did you know him?” asked la Peyrade.
“He was my oldest and dearest friend,” replied du Portail.
“If that is so,” said la Peyrade, hastily, “a sum of two thousand
francs, which I received on my arrival in Paris from some unknown
source--”
“Came from me,” replied du Portail. “Unfortunately, engaged at the time
in a rush of important affairs, which you shall hear of later, I could
not immediately follow up the benevolent interest I felt in you for your
uncle’s sake; this explains why I left you in the straw of a garret,
where you came, like a medlar, to that maturity of ruin which brought
you under the hand of a Dutocq and a Cerizet.”
“I am none the less grateful to you, monsieur,” said la Peyrade; “and if
I had known you were that generous protector, whom I was never able to
discover, I should have been the first to seek occasion to meet you and
to thank you.”
“A truce to compliments,” said du Portail; “and, to come at once to the
serious side of our present conference, what should you say if I told
you that this uncle, whose protection and assistance you came to Paris
to obtain, was an agent of that occult power which has always been the
theme of feeble ridicule and the object of silly prejudice?”
“I do not seize your meaning,” said la Peyrade, with uneasy curiosity;
“may I ask you to be more precise?”
“For example, I will suppose,” continued du Portail, “that your uncle,
if still living, were to say to you to-day: ‘You are seeking fortune and
influence, my good nephew; you want to rise above the crowd and to play
your part in all the great events of your time; you want employment
for a keen, active mind, full of resources, and slightly inclined to
intrigue; in short, you long to exert in some upper and elegant sphere
that force of will and subtlety which at present you are wasting in
the silly and useless manipulation of the most barren and tough-skinned
animal on earth, to wit: a bourgeois. Well, then, lower your head, my
fine nephew; enter with me through the little door which I will open to
you; it gives admittance to a great house, often maligned, but better
far than its reputation. That threshold once crossed, you can rise to
the height of your natural genius, whatever its spark may be. Statesmen,
kings even, will admit you to their most secret thoughts; you will be
their occult collaborator, and none of the joys which money and the
highest powers can bestow upon a man will be lacking to you.”
“But, monsieur,” objected la Peyrade, “without venturing to understand
you, I must remark that my uncle died so poor, you tell me, that public
charity buried him.”
“Your uncle,” replied du Portail, “was a man of rare talent, but he had
a certain weak side in his nature which compromised his career. He was
eager for pleasure, a spendthrift, thoughtless for the future; he wanted
also to taste those joys that are meant for the common run of men,
but which for great, exceptional vocations are the worst of snares and
impediments: I mean the joys of family. He had a daughter whom he madly
loved, and it was through her that his terrible enemies opened a breach
in his life, and prepared the horrible catastrophe that ended it.”
“Is that an encouragement to enter this shady path, where, you say, he
might have asked me to follow him?”
“But if I myself,” said du Portail, “should offer to guide you in it,
what then?”
“You, monsieur!” said la Peyrade, in stupefaction.
“Yes, I--I who was your uncle’s pupil at first, and later his protector
and providence; I, whose influence the last half-century has daily
increased; I, who am wealthy; I, to whom all governments, as they fall
one on top of the others like houses of cards, come to ask for safety
and for the power to rebuild their future; I, who am the manager of a
great theatre of puppets (where I have Columbines in the style of Madame
de Godollo); I, who to-morrow, if it were necessary to the success of
one of my vaudevilles or one of my dramas, might present myself to your
eyes as the wearer of the grand cordon of the Legion of honor, of the
Order of the Black Eagle, or that of the Golden Fleece. Do you wish to
know why neither you nor I will die a violent death like your uncle, and
also why, more fortunate than contemporaneous kings, I can transmit my
sceptre to the successor whom I myself may choose? Because, like you,
my young friend, in spite of your Southern appearance, I was cold,
profoundly calculating, never tempted to lose my time on trifles at the
outskirts; because heat, when I was led by force of circumstances to
employ it, never went below the surface. It is more than probable that
you have heard of me; well, for you I will open a window in my cloud;
look at me, observe me well; have I a cloven hoof, or a tail at the end
of my spine? On the contrary, am I not a model of the most inoffensive
of householders in the Saint-Sulpice quarter? In that quarter, where I
have enjoyed, I may say it, universal esteem for the last twenty-five
years, I am called du Portail; but to you, if you will allow me, I shall
now name myself _Corentin_.”
“Corentin!” cried la Peyrade, with terrified astonishment.
“Yes, monsieur; and you see that in telling you that secret I lay my
hand upon you, and enlist you. Corentin! ‘the greatest man of the police
in modern times,’ as the author of an article in the ‘Biographies of
Living Men’ has said of me--as to whom I ought in justice to remark that
he doesn’t know a thing about my life.”
“Monsieur,” said la Peyrade, “I can assure you that I shall keep that
secret; but the place which you offer me near you--in your employ--”
“That frightens you, or, at least, it makes you uneasy,” said Corentin,
quickly. “Before you have even considered the thing the word scares you,
does it? The police! _Police_! you are afraid to encounter the terrible
prejudice that brands it on the brow.”
“Certainly,” said la Peyrade, “it is a necessary institution; but I do
not think that it is always calumniated. If the business of those who
manage it is honorable why do they conceal themselves so carefully?”
“Because all that threatens society, which it is the mission of the
police to repress,” replied Corentin, “is plotted and prepared in
hiding. Do thieves and conspirators put upon their hats, ‘I am Guillot,
the shepherd of this flock’? And when we are after them must we ring a
bell to let them know we are coming?”
“Monsieur,” said la Peyrade, “when a sentiment is universal it ceases
to be a prejudice, it becomes an opinion; and this opinion ought to be a
law to every man who desires to keep his own esteem and that of others.”
“And when you robbed that notary to enrich the Thuilliers for your own
advantage,” said Corentin, “did you keep your own esteem and that of the
Council of barristers? And who knows, monsieur, if in your life there
are not still blacker actions than that? I am a more honorable man than
you, because, outside of my functions, I have not one doubtful act upon
my conscience; and when the opportunity for _good_ has been presented
to me I have done it--always and everywhere. Do you think that the
guardianship of that poor insane girl in my home has been all roses? But
she was the daughter of my old friend, your uncle, and when, feeling
the years creep on me, I propose to you, between sacks of money, to fit
yourself to take my place--”
“What!” cried la Peyrade, “is that girl my uncle’s daughter?”
“Yes; the girl I wish you to marry is the daughter of your uncle
Peyrade,--for he democratized his name,--or, if you like it better,
she was the daughter of Pere Canquoelle, a name he took from the little
estate on which your father lived and starved with eleven children. You
see, in spite of the secrecy your uncle always kept about his family,
that I know all about it. Do you suppose that before selecting you as
your cousin’s husband I had not obtained every possible information
about you? And what I have learned need not make you quite so
supercilious to the police. Besides, as the vulgar saying is, the best
of your nose is made of it. Your uncle belonged to the police, and,
thanks to that, he became the confidant, I might almost say the friend,
of Louis XVIII., who took the greatest pleasure in his companionship.
And you, by nature and by mind, also by the foolish position into which
you have got yourself, in short, by your whole being, have gravitated
steadily to the conclusion I propose to you, namely, that of succeeding
me,--of succeeding Corentin. That is the question between us, Monsieur.
Do you really believe now that I have not a grasp or a ‘seizin,’ as you
call it, upon you, and that you can manage to escape me for any foolish
considerations of bourgeois vanity?”
La Peyrade could not have been at heart so violently opposed to this
proposal as he seemed, for the vigorous language of the great master of
the police and the species of appropriation which he made of his person
brought a smile to the young man’s lips.
Corentin had risen, and was walking up and down the room, speaking,
apparently, to himself.
“The police!” he cried; “one may say of it, as Basile said of calumny to
Batholo, ‘The police, monsieur! you don’t know what you despise!’ And,
after all,” he continued, after a pause, “who are they who despise it?
Imbeciles, who don’t know any better than to insult their protectors.
Suppress the police, and you destroy civilization. Do the police ask
for the respect of such people? No, they want to inspire them with one
sentiment only: fear, that great lever with which to govern mankind,--an
impure race whose odious instincts God, hell, the executioner, and the
gendarmes can scarcely restrain!”
Stopping short before la Peyrade, and looking at him with a disdainful
smile, he continued:--
“So you are one of those ninnies who see in the police nothing more than
a horde of spies and informers? Have you never suspected the statesmen,
the diplomats, the Richelieus it produces? Mercury, monsieur,--Mercury,
the cleverest of the gods of paganism,--what was he but the police
incarnate? It is true that he was also the god of thieves. We are better
than he, for we don’t allow that junction of forces.”
“And yet,” said la Peyrade, “Vautrin, or, I should say, Jacques Collin,
the famous chief of the detective police--”
“Yes, yes! but that’s in the lower ranks,” replied Corentin, resuming
his walk; “there’s always a muddy place somewhere. Still, don’t be
mistaken even in that. Vautrin is a man of genius, but his passions,
like those of your uncle, dragged him down. But go up higher (for there
lies the whole question, namely, the rung of the ladder on which a man
has wits enough to perch). Take the prefect, for instance, that honored
minister, flattered and respected, is he a spy? Well, I, monsieur,
am the prefect of the secret police of diplomacy--of the highest
statesmanship. And you hesitate to mount that throne!--to seem small and
do great things; to live in a cave comfortably arranged like this, and
command the light; to have at your orders an invisible army, always
ready, always devoted, always submissive; to know the _other side_ of
everything; to be duped by no intrigue because you hold the threads of
all within your fingers; to see through all partitions; to penetrate all
secrets, search all hearts, all consciences,--these are the things you
fear! And yet you were not afraid to go and wallow in a Thuillier
bog; you, a thoroughbred, allowed yourself to be harnessed to a
hackney-coach, to the ignoble business of electing that parvenu
bourgeois.”
“A man does what he can,” said la Peyrade.
“Here’s a very remarkable thing,” pursued Corentin, replying to his own
thought; “the French language, more just than public opinion, has given
us our right place, for it has made the word police the synonym of
civilization and the antipodes of savage life, when it said and wrote:
‘l’Etat police,’ from the Greek words state and city. So, I can assure
you, we care little for the prejudice that tries to brand us; none know
men as we do; and to know them brings contempt for their contempt as
well as for their esteem.”
“There is certainly much truth in what you say with such warmth,” said
la Peyrade, finally.
“Much truth!” exclaimed Corentin, going back to his chair, “say, rather,
that it is all true, and nothing but the truth; yet it is not the whole
truth. But enough for to-day, monsieur. To succeed me in my functions,
and to marry your cousin with a ‘dot’ that will not be less than five
hundred thousand francs, that is my offer. I do not ask you for an
answer now. I should have no confidence in a determination not seriously
reflected upon. To-morrow, I shall be at home all the morning. I trust
that my conviction may then have formed yours.”
Dismissing his visitor with a curt little bow, he added: “I do not bid
you adieu, but au revoir, Monsieur de la Peyrade.”
Whereupon Corentin went to a side-table, where he found all that he
needed to prepare a glass of “eau sucree,” which he had certainly
earned, and, without looking at la Peyrade, who left the room rather
stunned, he seemed to have no other interest on his mind than that
prosaic preparation.
Was it, indeed, necessary that the morning after this meeting with
Corentin a visit from Madame Lambert, now become an exacting and
importunate creditor, should come to bear its weight on la Peyrade’s
determination? As the great chief had pointed out to him the night
before, was there not in his nature, in his mind, in his aspirations,
in the mistakes and imprudences of his past life, a sort of irresistible
incline which drew him down toward the strange solution of existence
thus suddenly offered to him?
Fatality, if we may so call it, was lavish of the inducements to which
he was destined to succumb. This day was the 31st of October; the
vacation of the Palais was just over. The 2nd of November was the day
on which the courts reopened, and as Madame Lambert left his room he
received a summons to appear on that day before the Council of his
order.
To Madame Lambert, who pressed him sharply to repay her, under pretence
that she was about to leave Monsieur Picot and return to her native
place, he replied: “Come here the day after to-morrow, at the same hour,
and your money will be ready for you.”
To the summons to give account of his actions to his peers he replied
that he did not recognize the right of the Council to question him
on the facts of his private life. That was an answer of one sort,
certainly. Inevitably it would result in his being stricken from the
roll of the barristers of the Royal courts; but, at least, it had an air
of dignity and protestation which saved, in a measure, his self-love.
Finally, he wrote a letter to Thuillier, in which he said that his
visit to du Portail had resulted in his being obliged to accept another
marriage. He therefore returned to Thuillier his promise, and took back
his own. All this was curtly said, without the slightest expression
of regret for the marriage he renounced. In a postscript he added: “We
shall be obliged to discuss my position on the newspaper,”--indicating
that it might enter into his plans not to retain it.
He was careful to make a copy of this letter, and an hour later, when,
in Corentin’s study, he was questioned as to the result of his night’s
reflections, he gave that great general, for all answer, the matrimonial
resignation he had just despatched.
“That will do,” said Corentin. “But as for your position on the
newspaper, you may perhaps have to keep it for a time. The candidacy
of that fool interferes with the plans of the government, and we must
manage in some way to trip up the heels of the municipal councillor. In
your position as editor-in-chief you may find a chance to do it, and I
think your conscience won’t kick at the mission.”
“No, indeed!” said la Peyrade, “the thought of the humiliations to which
I have been so long subjected will make it a precious joy to lash that
bourgeois brood.”
“Take care!” said Corentin; “you are young, and you must watch against
those revengeful emotions. In our austere profession we love nothing and
we hate nothing. Men are to us mere pawns of wood or ivory, according to
their quality--with which we play our game. We are like the blade
that cuts what is given it to cut, but, careful only to be delicately
sharpened, wishes neither harm nor good to any one. Now let us speak
of your cousin, to whom, I suppose, you have some curiosity to be
presented.”
La Peyrade was not obliged to pretend to eagerness, that which he felt
was genuine.
“Lydie de la Peyrade,” said Corentin, “is nearly thirty, but her
innocence, joined to a gentle form of insanity, has kept her apart from
all those passions, ideas, and impressions which use up life, and has,
if I may say so, embalmed her in a sort of eternal youth. You would not
think her more than twenty. She is fair and slender; her face, which
is very delicate, is especially remarkable for an expression of angelic
sweetness. Deprived of her full reason by a terrible catastrophe, her
monomania has something touching about it. She always carries in her
arms or keeps beside her a bundle of linen which she nurses and cares
for as though it were a sick child; and, excepting Bruneau and myself,
whom she recognizes, she thinks all other men are doctors, whom she
consults about the child, and to whom she listens as oracles. A crisis
which lately happened in her malady has convinced Horace Bianchon, that
prince of science, that if the reality could be substituted for this
long delusion of motherhood, her reason would assert itself. It is
surely a worthy task to bring back light to a soul in which it is
scarcely veiled; and the existing bond of relationship has seemed to
me to point you out as specially designated to effect this cure,
the success of which Bianchon and two other eminent doctors who have
consulted with him declare to be beyond a doubt. Now, I will take you
to Lydie’s presence; remember to play the part of doctor; for the only
thing that makes her lose her customary serenity is not to enter into
her notion of medical consultation.”
After crossing several rooms Corentin was on the point of taking la
Peyrade into that usually occupied by Lydie when employed in cradling
or dandling her imaginary child, when suddenly they were stopped by the
sound of two or three chords struck by the hand of a master on a piano
of the finest sonority.
“What is that?” asked la Peyrade.
“That is Lydie,” replied Corentin, with what might be called an
expression of paternal pride; “she is an admirable musician, and though
she no longer writes down, as in the days when her mind was clear, her
delightful melodies, she often improvises them in a way that moves me
to the soul--the soul of Corentin!” added the old man, smiling. “Is not
that the finest praise I can bestow upon her? But suppose we sit down
here and listen to her. If we go in, the concert will cease and the
medical consultation begin.”
La Peyrade was amazed as he listened to an improvisation in which the
rare union of inspiration and science opened to his impressionable
nature a source of emotions as deep as they were unexpected. Corentin
watched the surprise which from moment to moment the Provencal expressed
by admiring exclamations.
“Hein! how she plays!” said the old man. “Liszt himself hasn’t a firmer
touch.”
To a very quick “scherzo” the performer now added the first notes of an
“adagio.”
“She is going to sing,” said Corentin, recognizing the air.
“Does she sing too?” asked la Peyrade.
“Like Pasta, like Malibran; but hush, listen to her!”
After a few opening bars in “arpeggio” a vibrant voice resounded, the
tones of which appeared to stir the Provencal to the depths of his
being.
“How the music moves you!” said Corentin; “you were undoubtedly made for
each other.”
“My God! the same air! the same voice!”
“Have you already met Lydie somewhere?” asked the great master of the
police.
“I don’t know--I think not,” answered la Peyrade, in a stammering voice;
“in any case, it was long ago--But that air--that voice--I think--”
“Let us go in,” said Corentin.
Opening the door abruptly, he entered, pulling the young man after him.
Sitting with her back to the door, and prevented by the sound of the
piano from hearing what happened behind her, Lydie did not notice their
entrance.
“Now have you any remembrance of her?” said Corentin.
La Peyrade advanced a step, and no sooner had he caught a glimpse of the
girl’s profile than he threw up his hands above his head, striking them
together.
“It is she!” he cried.
Hearing his cry, Lydie turned round, and fixing her attention on
Corentin, she said:--
“How naughty and troublesome you are to come and disturb me; you know
very well I don’t like to be listened to. Ah! but--” she added, catching
sight of la Peyrade’s black coat, “you have brought the doctor; that is
very kind of you; I was just going to ask you to send for him. The baby
has done nothing but cry since morning; I was singing to put her to
sleep, but nothing can do that.”
And she ran to fetch what she called her child from a corner of the
room, where with two chairs laid on their backs and the cushions of the
sofa, she had constructed a sort of cradle.
As she went towards la Peyrade, carrying her precious bundle with one
hand, with the other she was arranging the imaginary cap of her “little
darling,” having no eyes except for the sad creation of her disordered
brain. Step by step, as she advanced, la Peyrade, pale, trembling, and
with staring eyes, retreated backwards, until he struck against a seat,
into which, losing his equilibrium, he fell.
A man of Corentin’s power and experience, and who, moreover, knew to its
slightest detail the horrible drama in which Lydie had lost her reason,
had already, of course, taken in the situation, but it suited his
purpose and his ideas to allow the clear light of evidence to pierce
this darkness.
“Look, doctor,” said Lydie, unfastening the bundle, and putting the pins
in her mouth as she did so, “don’t you see that she is growing thinner
every day?”
La Peyrade could not answer; he kept his handkerchief over his face,
and his breath came so fast from his chest that he was totally unable to
utter a word.
Then, with one of those gestures of feverish impatience, to which her
mental state predisposed her, she exclaimed, hastily:--
“But look at her doctor, look!” taking his arm violently and forcing him
to show his features. “My God!” she cried, when she had looked him in
the face.
Letting fall the linen bundle in her arms, she threw herself hastily
backwards, and her eyes grew haggard. Passing her white hands rapidly
over her forehead and through her hair, tossing it into disorder, she
seemed to be making an effort to obtain from her memory some dormant
recollection. Then, like a frightened mare, which comes to smell an
object that has given it a momentary terror, she approached la Peyrade
slowly, stooping to look into his face, which he kept lowered, while,
in the midst of a silence inexpressible, she examined him steadily for
several seconds. Suddenly a terrible cry escaped her breast; she ran for
refuge into the arms of Corentin, and pressing herself against him with
all her force, she exclaimed:--
“Save me! save me! It is he! the wretch! It is he who did it!”
And, with her finger pointed at la Peyrade, she seemed to nail the
miserable object of her terror to his place.
After this explosion, she muttered a few disconnected words, and her
eyes closed; Corentin felt the relaxing of all the muscles by which she
had held him as in a vice the moment before, and he took her in his arms
and laid her on the sofa, insensible.
“Do not stay here, monsieur,” said Corentin. “Go into my study; I will
come to you presently.”
A few minutes later, after giving Lydie into the care of Katte and
Bruneau, and despatching Perrache for Doctor Bianchon, Corentin rejoined
la Peyrade.
“You see now, monsieur,” he said with solemnity, “that in pursuing
with a sort of passion the idea of this marriage, I was following, in a
sense, the ways of God.”
“Monsieur,” said la Peyrade, with compunction, “I will confess to you--”
“Useless,” said Corentin; “you can tell me nothing that I do not know;
I, on the contrary, have much to tell you. Old Peyrade, your uncle, in
the hope of earning a POT for this daughter whom he idolized, entered
into a dangerous private enterprise, the nature of which I need not
explain. In it he made enemies; enemies who stopped at nothing,--murder,
poison, rape. To paralyze your uncle’s action by attacking him in his
dearest spot, Lydie was, not abducted, but enticed from her home and
taken to a house apparently respectable, where for ten days she was kept
concealed. She was not much alarmed by this detention, being told
that it was done at her father’s wish, and she spent her time with her
music--you remember, monsieur, how she sang?”
“Oh!” exclaimed la Peyrade, covering his face with his hands.
“I told you yesterday that you might perhaps have more upon your
conscience than the Thuillier house. But you were young; you had just
come from your province, with that brutality, that frenzy of Southern
blood in your veins which flings itself upon such an occasion. Besides,
your relationship became known to those who were preparing the ruin of
this new Clarissa Harlowe, and I am willing to believe than an abler and
better man than you might not have escaped the entanglement into
which you fell. Happily, Providence has granted that there is nothing
absolutely irreparable in this horrible history. The same poison,
according to the use that is made of it, may give either death or
health.”
“But, monsieur,” said la Peyrade, “shall I not always be to her an
object of horror?”
“The doctor, monsieur,” said Katte, opening the door.
“How is Mademoiselle Lydie?” asked la Peyrade, eagerly.
“Very calm,” replied Katte. “Just now, when we put her to bed,--though
she did not want to go, saying she felt well,--I took her the bundle of
linen, but she told me to take it away, and asked what I meant her to do
with it.”
“You see,” said Corentin, grasping the Provencal’s hand, “you are the
lance of Achilles.”
And he left the room with Katte to receive Doctor Bianchon.
Left alone, Theodose was a prey to thoughts which may perhaps be
imagined. After a while the door opened, and Bruneau, the old valet,
ushered in Cerizet. Seeing la Peyrade, the latter exclaimed:--
“Ha! ha! I knew it! I knew you would end by seeing du Portail. And the
marriage,--how does that come on?”
“What are you doing here?” asked la Peyrade.
“Something that concerns you; or rather, something that we must do
together. Du Portail, who is too busy to attend to business just now,
has sent me in here to see you, and consult as to the best means of
putting a spoke in Thuillier’s election; it seems that the government is
determined to prevent his winning it. Have you any ideas about it?”
“No,” replied la Peyrade; “and I don’t feel in the mood just now to be
imaginative.”
“Well, here’s the situation,” said Cerizet. “The government has another
candidate, which it doesn’t yet produce, because the ministerial
negotiations with him have been rather difficult. During this time
Thuillier’s chances have been making headway. Minard, on whom they
counted to create a diversion, sits, the stupid fool, in his corner; the
seizure of that pamphlet has given your blockhead of a protege a certain
perfume of popularity. In short, the ministry are afraid he’ll be
elected, and nothing could be more disagreeable to them. Pompous
imbeciles, like Thuillier, are horribly embarrassing in the Opposition;
they are pitchers without handles; you can’t take hold of them
anywhere.”
“Monsieur Cerizet,” said la Peyrade, beginning to assume a protecting
tone, and wishing to discover his late associate’s place in Corentin’s
confidence, “you seem to know a good deal about the secret intentions of
the government; have you found your way to a certain desk in the rue de
Grenelle?”
“No. All that I tell you,” said Cerizet, “I get from du Portail.”
“Ah ca!” said la Peyrade, lowering his voice, “who _is_ du Portail? You
seem to have known him for some time. A man of your force ought to have
discovered the real character of a man who seems to me to be rather
mysterious.”
“My friend,” replied Cerizet, “du Portail is a pretty strong man. He’s
an old slyboots, who has had some post, I fancy, in the administration
of the national domain, or something of that kind, under government; in
which, I think, he must have been employed in the departments suppressed
under the Empire.”
“Yes?” said la Peyrade.
“That’s where I think he made his money,” continued Cerizet; “and being
a shrewd old fellow, and having a natural daughter to marry, he has
concocted this philanthropic tale of her being the daughter of an old
friend named Peyrade; and your name being the same may have given him
the idea of fastening upon you--for, after all, he has to marry her to
somebody.”
“Yes, that’s all very well; but his close relations with the government,
and the interest he takes in elections, how do you explain all that?”
“Naturally enough,” replied Cerizet. “Du Portail is a man who loves
money, and likes to handle it; he has done Rastignac, that great
manipulator of elections, who is, I think, his compatriot, several
signal services as an amateur; Rastignac, in return, gives him
information, obtained through Nucingen, which enables him to gamble at
the Bourse.”
“Did he himself tell you all this?” asked la Peyrade.
“What do you take me for?” returned Cerizet. “With that worthy old
fellow, from whom I have already wormed a promise of thirty thousand
francs, I play the ninny; I flatten myself to nothing. But I’ve made
Bruneau talk, that old valet of his. You can safely ally yourself to
his family, my dear fellow; du Portail is powerfully rich; he’ll get you
made sub-prefect somewhere; and thence to a prefecture and a fortune is
but one step.”
“Thanks for the information,” said la Peyrade; “at least, I shall know
on which foot to hop. But you yourself, how came you to know him?”
“Oh! that’s quite a history; by my help he was able to get back a lot of
diamonds which had been stolen from him.”
At this moment Corentin entered the room.
“All is well,” he said to la Peyrade. “There are signs of returning
reason. Bianchon, to whom I have told all, wishes to confer with
you; therefore, my dear Monsieur Cerizet, we will postpone until
this evening, if you are willing, our little study over the Thuillier
election.”
“Well, so here you have him, at last!” said Cerizet, slapping la
Peyrade’s shoulder.
“Yes,” said Corentin, “and you know what I promised; you may rely on
that.”
Cerizet departed joyful.
CHAPTER XVI. CHECKMATE TO THUILLIER
The day after that evening, when Corentin, la Peyrade, and Cerizet were
to have had their consultation in reference to the attack on Thuillier’s
candidacy, the latter was discussing with his sister Brigitte the letter
in which Theodose declined the hand of Celeste, and his mind seemed
particularly to dwell on the postscript where it was intimated that la
Peyrade might not continue the editor of the “Echo de la Bievre.” At
this moment Henri, the “male domestic,” entered the room to ask if his
master would receive Monsieur Cerizet.
Thuillier’s first impulse was to deny himself to that unwelcome visitor.
Then, thinking better of it, he reflected that if la Peyrade suddenly
left him in the lurch, Cerizet might possibly prove a precious resource.
Consequently, he ordered Henri to show him in. His manner, however, was
extremely cold, and in some sort expectant. As for Cerizet, he presented
himself without the slightest embarrassment and with the air of a man
who had calculated all the consequences of the step he was taking.
“Well, my dear monsieur,” he began, “I suppose by this time you have
been posted as to the Sieur la Peyrade.”
“What may you mean by that?” said Thuillier, stiffly.
“Well, the man,” replied Cerizet, “who, after intriguing to marry your
goddaughter, breaks off the marriage abruptly--as he will, before
long, break that lion’s-share contract he made you sign about his
editorship--can’t be, I should suppose, the object of the same blind
confidence you formerly reposed in him.”
“Ah!” said Thuillier, hastily, “then do you know anything about la
Peyrade’s intention of leaving the newspaper?”
“No,” said the other; “on the terms I now am with him, you can readily
believe we don’t see each other; still less should I receive his
confidences. But I draw the induction from the well-known character of
the person, and you may be sure that when he finds it for his interest
to leave you, he’ll throw you away like an old coat--I’ve passed that
way, and I speak from experience.”
“Then you must have had some difficulties with him before you joined my
paper?” said Thuillier, interrogatively.
“Parbleu!” replied Cerizet; “the affair of this house which he helped
you to buy was mine; I started that hare. He was to put me in relation
with you, and make me the principal tenant of the house. But the
unfortunate affair of that bidding-in gave him a chance to knock me out
of everything and get all the profits for himself.”
“Profits!” exclaimed Thuillier. “I don’t see that he got anything out of
that transaction, except the marriage which he now refuses--”
“But,” interrupted Cerizet, “there’s the ten thousand francs he got
out of you on pretence of the cross which you never received, and the
twenty-five thousand he owes to Madame Lambert, for which you went
security, and which you will soon have to pay like a good fellow.”
“What’s this I hear?” cried Brigitte, up in arms; “twenty-five thousand
francs for which you have given security?”
“Yes, mademoiselle,” interposed Cerizet; “behind that sum which this
woman had lent him there was a mystery, and if I had not laid my hand
on the true explanation, there would certainly have been a very dirty
ending to it. La Peyrade was clever enough not only to whitewash himself
in Monsieur Thuillier’s eyes, but to get him to secure the debt.”
“But,” said Thuillier, “how do you know that I did give security for
that debt, if you have not seen him since then?”
“I know it from the woman herself, who tells the whole story now she is
certain of being paid.”
“Well,” said Brigitte to her brother, “a pretty business you are engaged
in!”
“Mademoiselle,” said Cerizet, “I only meant to warn Monsieur Thuillier a
little. I think myself that you are sure to be paid. Without knowing the
exact particulars of this new marriage, I am certain the family would
never allow him to owe you to such mortifying debts; if necessary, I
should be very glad to intervene.”
“Monsieur,” said Thuillier, stiffly, “thanking you for your officious
intervention, permit me to say that it surprises me a little, for the
manner in which we parted would not have allowed me to hope it.”
“Ah ca!” said Cerizet; “you don’t think I was angry with you for that,
do you? I pitied you, that was all. I saw you under the spell, and I
said to myself: ‘Leave him to learn la Peyrade by experience.’ I knew
very well that the day of justice would dawn for me, and before long,
too. La Peyrade is a man who doesn’t make you wait for his questionable
proceedings.”
“Allow me to say,” remarked Thuillier, “that I do not consider the
rupture of the marriage we had proposed a questionable proceeding. The
matter was arranged, I may say, by mutual consent.”
“And the trick he is going to play you by leaving the paper in the
lurch, and the debt he has saddled you with, what are they?”
“Monsieur Cerizet,” continued Thuillier, still holding himself on
the reserve, “as I have said more than once to la Peyrade, no man is
indispensable; and if the editorship of my paper becomes vacant, I feel
confident that I shall at once meet with persons very eager to offer me
their services.”
“Is it for me you say that?” asked Cerizet. “Well, you haven’t hit the
nail; if you did me the honor to want my services it would be impossible
for me to grant them. I have long been disgusted with journalism. I let
la Peyrade, I hardly know why, persuade me to make this campaign with
you; it didn’t turn out happily, and I have vowed to myself to have no
more to do with newspapers. It was about another matter altogether than
I came to speak to you.”
“Ah!” said Thuillier.
“Yes,” continued Cerizet, “remembering the business-like manner in which
you managed the affair of this house in which you do me the honor to
receive me, I thought I could not do better than to call your attention
to a matter of the same kind which I have just now in hand. But I
shall not do as la Peyrade did,--make a bargain for the hand of
your goddaughter, and profess great friendship and devotion to you
personally. This is purely business, and I expect to make my profit out
of it. Now, as I still desire to become the principal tenant of this
house,--the letting of which must be a care and a disappointment to
mademoiselle, for I saw as I came along that the shops were still
unrented,--I think that this lease to me, if you will make it, might
be reckoned in to my share of the profits. You see, monsieur, that the
object of my visit has nothing to do with the newspaper.”
“What is this new affair?” said Brigitte; “that’s the first thing to
know.”
“It relates to a farm in Beauce, which has just been sold for a song,
and it is placed in my hands to resell, at an advance, but a small one;
you could really buy it, as the saying is, for a bit of bread.”
And Cerizet went on to explain the whole mechanism of the affair, which
we need not relate here, as no one but Brigitte would take any interest
in it. The statement was clear and precise, and it took close hold on
the old maid’s mind. Even Thuillier himself, in spite of his inward
distrust, was obliged to own that the affair had all the appearance of a
good speculation.
“Only,” said Brigitte, “we must first see the farm ourselves.”
This, the reader will remember, was her answer to la Peyrade when he
first proposed the purchase of the house at the Madeleine.
“Nothing is easier than that,” said Cerizet. “I myself want to see it,
and I have been intending to make a little excursion there. If you like,
I’ll be at your door this afternoon with a post-chaise, and to-morrow
morning, very early, we can examine the farm, breakfast at some inn near
by, and be back in time for dinner.”
“A post-chaise!” said Brigitte, “that’s very lordly; why not take the
diligence?”
“Diligences are so uncertain,” replied Cerizet; “you never know at what
time they will get to a place. But you need not think about the expense,
for I should otherwise go alone, and I am only too happy to offer you
two seats in my carriage.”
To misers, small gains are often determining causes in great matters;
after a little resistance “pro forma,” Brigitte ended by accepting the
proposal, and three hours later the trio were on the road to Chartres,
Cerizet having advised Thuillier not to let la Peyrade know of his
absence, lest he might take some unfair advantage of it.
The next day, by five o’clock, the party had returned, and the brother
and sister, who kept their opinions to themselves in presence of
Cerizet, were both agreed that the purchase was a good one. They had
found the soil of the best quality, the buildings in perfect repair,
the cattle looked sound and healthy; in short, this idea of becoming the
mistress of rural property seemed to Brigitte the final consecration of
opulence.
“Minard,” she remarked, “has only a town-house and invested capital,
whereas we shall have all that and a country-place besides; one can’t be
really rich without it.”
Thuillier was not sufficiently under the charm of that dream--the
realization of which was, in any case, quite distant--to forget, even
for a moment, the “Echo de la Bievre” and his candidacy. No sooner had
he reached home than he asked for the morning’s paper.
“It has not come,” said the “male domestic.”
“That’s a fine distribution, when even the owner of the paper is not
served!” cried Thuillier, discontentedly.
Although it was nearly dinner-time, and after his journey he would much
rather have taken a bath than rush to the rue Saint-Dominique, Thuillier
ordered a cab and drove at once to the office of the “Echo.”
There a fresh disappointment met him. The paper “was made,” as they say,
and all the employees had departed, even la Peyrade. As for Coffinet,
who was not to be found at his post of office-boy, nor yet at his other
post of porter, he had gone “of an errand,” his wife said, taking the
key of the closet in which the remaining copies of the paper were locked
up. Impossible, therefore, to procure the number which the unfortunate
proprietor had come so far to fetch.
To describe Thuillier’s indignation would be impossible. He marched up
and down the room, talking aloud to himself, as people do in moments of
excitement.
“I’ll turn them all out!” he cried. And we are forced to omit the rest
of the furious objurgation.
As he ended his anathema a rap was heard on the door.
“Come in!” said Thuillier, in a tone that depicted his wrath and his
frantic impatience.
The door opened, and Minard rushed precipitately into his arms.
“My good, my excellent friend!” cried the mayor of the eleventh
arrondissement, concluding his embrace with a hearty shake of the hand.
“Why! what is it?” said Thuillier, unable to comprehend the warmth of
this demonstration.
“Ah! my dear friend,” continued Minard, “such an admirable proceeding!
really chivalrous! most disinterested! The effect, I assure you, is
quite stupendous in the arrondissement.”
“But what, I say?” cried Thuillier, impatiently.
“The article, the whole action,” continued Minard, “so noble, so
elevated!”
“But what article? what action?” said the proprietor of the “Echo,”
getting quite beside himself.
“The article of this morning,” said Minard.
“The article of this morning?”
“Ah ca! did you write it when you were asleep; or, like Monsieur
Jourdain doing prose, do you do heroism without knowing it?”
“I! I haven’t written any article!” cried Thuillier. “I have been away
from Paris for a day, and I don’t even know what is in this morning’s
paper; and the office-boy is not here to give me a copy.”
“I have one,” said Minard, pulling the much desired paper from his
pocket. “If the article is not years you have certainly inspired it; in
any case, the deed is done.”
Thuillier hurriedly unfolded the sheet Minard had given him, and
devoured rather than read the following article:--
Long enough has the proprietor of this regenerated journal
submitted without complaint and without reply to the cowardly
insinuations with which a venal press insults all citizens who,
strong in their convictions, refuse to pass beneath the Caudine
Forks of power. Long enough has a man, who has already given
proofs of devotion and abnegation in the important functions of
the aedility of Paris, allowed these sheets to call him ambitious
and self-seeking. Monsieur Jerome Thuillier, strong in his
dignity, has suffered such coarse attacks to pass him with
contempt. Encouraged by this disdainful silence, the stipendiaries
of the press have dared to write that this journal, a work of
conviction and of the most disinterested patriotism, was but the
stepping-stone of a man, the speculation of a seeker for election.
Monsieur Jerome Thuillier has held himself impassible before these
shameful imputations because justice and truth are patient, and he
bided his time to scotch the reptile. That time has come.
“That deuce of a Peyrade!” said Thuillier, stopping short; “how he does
touch it off!”
“It is magnificent!” cried Minard.
Reading aloud, Thuillier continued:--
Every one, friends and enemies alike, can bear witness that
Monsieur Jerome Thuillier has done nothing to seek a candidacy
which was offered to him spontaneously.
“That’s evident,” said Thuillier, interrupting himself. Then he
resumed:--
But, since his sentiments are so odiously misrepresented, and his
intentions so falsely travestied, Monsieur Jerome Thuillier owes
it to himself, and above all to the great national party of which
he is the humblest soldier, to give an example which shall
confound the vile sycophants of power.
“It is fine, the way la Peyrade poses me!” said Thuillier, pausing once
more in his reading. “I see now why he didn’t send me the paper; he
wanted to enjoy my surprise--‘confound the vile sycophants of power!’
how fine that is!”
After which reflection, he continued:--
Monsieur Thuillier was so far from founding this journal of
dynastic opposition to support and promote his election that, at
the very moment when the prospects of that election seem most
favorable to himself and most disastrous to his rivals, he here
declares publicly, and in the most formal, absolute, and
irrevocable manner that he _renounces his candidacy_.
“What?” cried Thuillier, thinking he had read wrong, or had
misunderstood what he read.
“Go on! go on!” said the mayor of the eleventh.
Then, as Thuillier, with a bewildered air, seemed not disposed to
continue his reading, Minard took the paper from his hands and read the
rest of the article himself, beginning where the other had left off:--
Renounces his candidacy; and he strongly urges the electors to
transfer to Monsieur Minard, mayor of the eleventh arrondissement
and his friend and colleague in his municipal functions, all the
votes with which they seemed about to honor him.
“But this is infamous!” cried Thuillier, recovering his speech; “you
have bought that Jesuit la Peyrade.”
“So,” said Minard, stupefied by Thuillier’s attitude, “the article was
not agreed upon between you?”
“The wretch has profited by my absence to slip it into the paper; I
understand now why he prevented a copy from reaching me to-day.”
“My dear friend,” said Minard, “what you tell me will seem incredible to
the public.”
“I tell you it is treachery; it is an abominable trap. Renounce my
candidacy!--why should I?”
“You understand, my dear friend,” said Minard, “that I am truly sorry
if your confidence has been abused, but I have just issued my circular
manifesto; the die is cast, and luck to the lucky now.”
“Leave me,” said Thuillier; “it is a comedy for which you have paid.”
“Monsieur Thuillier,” said Minard, in a threatening voice, “I advise you
not to repeat those words, unless you are ready to give me satisfaction
for them.”
Happily for Thuillier, who, we may remember, had made his profession
of faith as to civic courage some time before, he was relieved from
answering by Coffinet, who now opened the door of the editorial sanctum,
and announced:--
“Messieurs the electors of the twelfth arrondissement.”
The arrondissement was represented on this occasion by five persons. An
apothecary, chairman of the deputation, proceeded to address Thuillier
in the following terms:--
“We have come, monsieur, after taking cognizance of an article inserted
this morning in the ‘Echo de la Bievre,’ to inquire of you what may be
precisely the origin and bearing of that article; thinking it incredible
that, having solicited our suffrages, you should, on the eve of this
election, and from a most mistaken puritanism, have cast disorder and
disunion into our ranks, and probably have caused the triumph of the
ministerial candidate. A candidate does not belong to himself; he
belongs to the electors who have promised to honor him with their votes.
But,” continued the orator, casting his eye at Minard, “the presence in
these precincts of the candidate whom you have gone out of your way to
recommend to us, indicates that between you and him there is connivance;
and I have no need to ask who is being here deceived.”
“No, messieurs, no,” said Thuillier; “I have not renounced my candidacy.
That article was written and printed without my knowledge or consent.
To-morrow you will see the denial of it in the same paper, and you will
also learn that the infamous person who has betrayed my confidence is no
longer the editor of this journal.”
“Then,” said the orator of the deputation, “in spite of your declaration
to the contrary, you do continue to be the candidate of the Opposition?”
“Yes, messieurs, until death; and I beg you to use your utmost influence
in the quarter to neutralize the effect of this deliberate falsehood
until I am able to officially present the most formal disavowal.”
“Hear! hear!” said the electors.
“And, as for the presence of Monsieur Minard, my competitor, in these
precincts, I have not invited it; and at the moment when you entered
this room, I was engaged in a very sharp and decided explanation with
him.”
“Hear! hear!” said the electors again.
Then, after cordially shaking the hand of the apothecary, Thuillier
conducted the deputation to the outer door of the apartment; after
which, returning to the editorial sanctum, he said:--
“My dear Minard, I withdraw the words which wounded you; but you can see
now what justification I had for my indignation.”
Here Coffinet again opened the door and announced:--
“Messieurs the electors of the eleventh arrondissement.”
The arrondissement was represented this time by seven persons. A
linen-draper, chairman of the delegation, addressed Thuillier in the
following speech:--
“Monsieur, it is with sincere admiration that we have learned this
morning from the columns of your paper, the great civic act by which
you have touched all hearts. You have shown, in thus retiring, a most
unusual disinterestedness, and the esteem of your fellow-citizens--”
“Excuse me,” said Thuillier, interrupting him, “I cannot allow you to
continue; the article about which you are so good as to congratulate me,
was inserted by mistake.”
“What!” said the linen-draper; “then do you not retire? Can you suppose
that in opposition to the candidacy of Monsieur Minard (whose presence
in these precincts seems to me rather singular) you have the slightest
chance of success?”
“Monsieur,” said Thuillier, “have the goodness to request the electors
of your arrondissement to await the issue of to-morrow’s paper, in which
I shall furnish categorical explanations of the most distinct character.
The article to-day is the result of a misunderstanding.”
“It will be a sad pity, monsieur,” said the linen-draper, “if you lose
this occasion to place yourself in the eyes of your fellow-citizens
beside the Washingtons and other great men of antiquity.”
“I say again, _to-morrow_, messieurs,” said Thuillier. “I am none the
less sensible to the honor you do me, and I trust that when you know the
whole truth, I shall not suffer in your esteem.”
“A pretty queer mess this seems to be,” said the voice of an elector.
“Yes,” said another; “it looks as if they meant to bamboozle us.”
“Messieurs, messieurs!” cried the chairman, putting a stop to the
outbreak; “to-morrow--we will wait until to-morrow for the promised
explanations.”
Whereupon, the deputation retired.
It is not likely that Thuillier would have accompanied them beyond the
door of the sanctum, but in any case he was prevented by the sudden
entrance of la Peyrade.
“I have just come from your house, my dear fellow,” said the Provencal;
“they told me I should find you here.”
“You have come, doubtless, for the purpose of explaining to me the
strange article you allowed yourself to insert in my name.”
“Precisely,” said la Peyrade. “The remarkable man whom you know,
and whose powerful influence you have already felt, confided to me
yesterday, in your interests, the plans of the government, and I saw at
once that your defeat was inevitable. I wished therefore to secure to
you an honorable and dignified retreat. There was no time to lose; you
were absent from Paris, and therefore--”
“Very good, monsieur,” said Thuillier; “but you will take notice that
from the present moment you are no longer the editor of this paper.”
“That is what I came to tell you.”
“Perhaps you also came to settle the little account we have together.”
“Messieurs,” said Minard, “I see that this is a business interview; I
shall therefore take leave of you.”
As soon as Minard had left the room, la Peyrade pulled out his
pocket-book.
“Here are ten thousand francs,” he said, “which I will beg you to remit
to Mademoiselle Brigitte; and here, also, is the bond by which you
secured the payment of twenty-five thousand francs to Madame Lambert;
that sum I have now paid in full, and here is the receipt.”
“Very good, monsieur,” said Thuillier.
La Peyrade bowed and went away.
“Serpent!” said Thuillier as he watched him go.
“Cerizet said the right thing,” thought la Peyrade,--“a pompous
imbecile!”
The blow struck at Thuillier’s candidacy was mortal, but Minard did not
profit by it. While the pair were contending for votes, a government
man, an aide-de-camp to the king, arrived with his hands full of tobacco
licenses and other electoral small change, and, like the third thief,
he slipped between the two who were thumping each other, and carried off
the booty.
It is needless to say that Brigitte did not get her farm in Beauce. That
was only a mirage, by help of which Thuillier was enticed out of Paris
long enough for la Peyrade to deal his blow,--a service rendered to the
government on the one hand, but also a precious vengeance for the many
humiliations he had undergone.
Thuillier had certainly some suspicions as to the complicity of Cerizet,
but that worthy managed to justify himself; and by manoeuvring the
sale of the “Echo de la Bievre,” now become a nightmare to the luckless
owner, he ended by appearing as white as snow.
The paper was secretly bought up by Corentin, and the late opposition
sheet became a “canard” sold on Sundays in the wine-shops and concocted
in the dens of the police.
CHAPTER XVII. IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS FUNCTIONS
About two months after the scene in which la Peyrade had been convinced
that through a crime of his past life his future was irrevocably
settled, he (being now married to his victim, who was beginning to have
lucid intervals, though the full return of her reason would not take
place until the occasion indicated by the doctors) was sitting one
morning with the head of the police in the latter’s office. Taking
part in the work of the department, the young man was serving an
apprenticeship under that great master in the difficult and delicate
functions to which he was henceforth riveted. But Corentin found that
his pupil did not bring to this initiation all the ardor and amiability
that he desired. It was plain that in la Peyrade’s soul there was a
sense of forfeiture and degradation; time would get the better of that
impression, but the callus was not yet formed.
Opening a number of sealed envelopes enclosing the reports of his
various agents, Corentin glanced over these documents, seldom as useful
as the public suppose, casting them one after another contemptuously
into a basket, whence they issued in a mass for a burning. But to one of
them the great man evidently gave some particular attention; as he read
it a smile flickered on his lips, and when he had finished, instead of
adding it to the pile in the basket, he gave it to la Peyrade.
“Here,” he said, “here’s something that concerns you; it shows that in
our profession, which just now seems to you unpleasantly serious, we do
occasionally meet with comedies. Read it aloud; it will cheer me up.”
Before la Peyrade began to read, Corentin added:--
“I ought to tell you that the report is from a man called Henri, whom
Madame Komorn introduced as man-servant at the Thuilliers’; you probably
remember him.”
“So!” said la Peyrade, “servants placed in families! is that one of your
methods?”
“Sometimes,” replied Corentin; “in order to know all, we must use all
means. But a great many lies are told about us on that subject. It
is not true that the police, making a system of it, has, at certain
periods, by a general enrolment of lacqueys and lady’s-maids,
established a vast network in private families. Nothing is fixed and
absolute in our manner of proceeding; we act in accordance with the time
and circumstances. I wanted an ear and an influence in the Thuillier
household; accordingly, I let loose the Godollo upon it, and she, in
turn, partly to assist herself, installed there one of our men, an
intelligent fellow, as you will see for yourself. But for all that, if,
at another time, a servant came and offered to sell me the secrets of
his master, I should have him arrested, and let a warning reach the ears
of the family to distrust the other servants. Now go on, and read that
report.”
Monsieur the Director of the Secret Police,
read la Peyrade aloud,--
I did not stay long with the little baron; he is a man wholly
occupied in frivolous pleasures; and there was nothing to be
gathered there that was worthy of a report to you. I have found
another place, where I have already witnessed several thing which
fit into the mission that Madame de Godollo gave me, and
therefore, thinking them likely to interest you, I hasten to bring
them to your knowledge. The household in which I am now employed
is that of an old savant, named Monsieur Picot, who lives on a
first floor, Place de la Madeleine, in the house and apartment
formerly occupied by my late masters, the Thuilliers--
“What!” cried la Peyrade, interrupting his reading, “Pere Picot, that
ruined old lunatic, occupying such an apartment as that?”
“Go on, go on!” said Corentin; “life is full of many strange things.
You’ll find the explanation farther along; for our correspondent--it is
the defect of those fellows to waste themselves on details--is only too
fond of dotting his i’s.”
La Peyrade read on:--
The Thuilliers left this apartment some weeks ago to return to
their Latin quarter. Mademoiselle Brigitte never really liked our
sphere; her total want of education made her ill at ease. Just
because I speak correctly, she was always calling me ‘the orator,’
and she could not endure Monsieur Pascal, her porter, because,
being beadle in the church of the Madeleine, he had manners; she
even found something to say against the dealers in the great
market behind the church, where, of course, she bought her
provisions; she complained that they gave themselves _capable_
airs, merely because they are not so coarse-tongued as those of
the Halle, and only laughed at her when she tried to beat them
down. She has leased the whole house to a certain Monsieur Cerizet
(a very ugly man, with a nose all eaten away) for an annual rent of
fifty-five thousand francs. This tenant seems to know what he is
about. He has lately married an actress at one of the minor
theatres, Mademoiselle Olympe Cardinal, and he was just about to
occupy himself the first-floor apartment, where he proposed to
establish his present business, namely, insurance for the “dots”
of children, when Monsieur Picot, arriving from England with his
wife, a very rich Englishwoman, saw the apartment and offered such
a good price that Monsieur Cerizet felt constrained to take it.
That was the time when, by the help of M. Pascal, the porter, with
whom I have been careful to maintain good relations, I entered the
household of Monsieur Picot.
“Monsieur Picot married to a rich Englishwoman!” exclaimed la Peyrade,
interrupting himself again; “but it is incomprehensible.”
“Go on, I tell you,” said Corentin; “you’ll comprehend it presently.”
The fortune of my new master,
continued la Peyrade,
is quite a history; and I speak of it to Monsieur le directeur
because another person in whom Madame de Godollo was interested
has his marriage closely mixed up in it. That other person is
Monsieur Felix Phellion, the inventor of a star, who, in despair
at not being able to marry that demoiselle whom they wanted to
give to the Sieur la Peyrade whom Madame de Godollo made such a
fool of--
“Scoundrel!” said the Provencal, in a parenthesis. “Is that how he
speaks of me? He doesn’t know who I am.”
Corentin laughed heartily and exhorted his pupil to read on.
--who, in despair at not being able to marry that demoiselle . . .
went to England in order to embark for a journey round the world
--a lover’s notion! Learning of this departure, Monsieur Picot,
his former professor, who took great interest in his pupil, went
after him to prevent that nonsense, which turned out not to be
difficult. The English are naturally very jealous of discoveries,
and when they saw Monsieur Phellion coming to embark at the heels
of their own savants they asked him for his permit from the
Admiralty; which, not having been provided, he could not produce;
so then they laughed in his face and would not let him embark at
all, fearing that he should prove more learned than they.
“He is a fine hand at the ‘entente cordiale,’ your Monsieur Henri,” said
la Peyrade, gaily.
“Yes,” replied Corentin; “you will be struck, in the reports of
nearly all our agents, with this general and perpetual inclination to
calumniate. But what’s to be done? For the trade of spies we can’t have
angels.”
Left upon the shore, Telemachus and his mentor--
“You see our men are lettered,” commented Corentin.
--Telemachus and his mentor thought best to return to France, and
were about to do so when Monsieur Picot received a letter such as
none but an Englishwoman could write. It told him that the writer
had read his “Theory of Perpetual Motion,” and had also heard of
his magnificent discovery of a star; that she regarded him as a
genius only second to Newton, and that if the hand of her who
addressed him, joined to eighty thousand pounds sterling--that is,
two millions--of “dot,” was agreeable to him it was at his
disposal. The first thought of the good man was to make his pupil
marry her, but finding that impossible, he told her, before
accepting on his own account, that he was old and three-quarters
blind, and had never discovered a star, and did not own a penny.
The Englishwoman replied that Milton was not young either, and was
altogether blind; that Monsieur Picot seemed to her to have
nothing worse than a cataract, for she knew all about it, being
the daughter of a great oculist, and she would have him operated
upon; that as for the star, she did not care so very much about
that; it was the author of the “Theory of Perpetual Motion” who
was the man of her dreams, and to whom she again offered her hand
with eighty thousand pounds sterling (two millions) of “dot.”
Monsieur Picot replied that if his sight were restored and she
would consent to live in Paris, for he hated England, he would let
himself be married. The operation was performed and was
successful, and, at the end of three weeks the newly married pair
arrived in the capital. These details I obtained from the lady’s
maid, with whom I am on the warmest terms.
“Oh! the puppy!” said Corentin, laughing.
The above is therefore hearsay, but what remains to be told to
Monsieur le directeur are facts of which I can speak “de visu,”
and to which I am, consequently, in a position to certify. As
soon as Monsieur and Madame Picot had installed themselves, which
was done in the most sumptuous and comfortable manner, my master
gave me a number of invitations to dinner to carry to the
Thuillier family, the Colleville family, the Minard family, the
Abbe Gondrin, vicar of the Madeleine, and nearly all the guests
who were present at another dinner a few months earlier, when he
had an encounter with Mademoiselle Thuillier, and behaved, I must
say, in a rather singular manner. All the persons who received
these invitations were so astonished to learn that the old man
Picot had married a rich wife and was living in the Thuilliers’
old apartment that most of them came to inquire of Monsieur
Pascal, the porter, to see if they were hoaxed. The information
they obtained being honest and honorable, the whole society
arrived punctually on time; but Monsieur Picot did not appear.
The guests were received by Madame Picot, who does not speak
French and could only say, “My husband is coming soon”; after
which, not being able to make further conversation, the company
were dull and ill at ease. At last Monsieur Picot arrived, and all
present were stupefied on seeing, instead of an old blind man,
shabbily dressed, a handsome young elderly man, bearing his years
jauntily, like Monsieur Ferville of the Gymnase, who said with a
lively air:
“I beg your pardon, mesdames, for not being here at the moment of
your arrival; but I was at the Academy of Sciences, awaiting the
result of an election,--that of Monsieur Felix Phellion, who has
been elected unanimously less three votes.”
This news seemed to have a great effect upon the company. So then
Monsieur Picot resumed:--
“I must also, mesdames, ask your pardon for the rather improper
manner in which I behaved a short time ago in the house where we
are now assembled. My excuse must be my late infirmity, the
annoyances of a family lawsuit, and of an old housekeeper who
robbed me and tormented me in a thousand ways, from whom I am
happily delivered. To-day you see me another man, rejuvenated and
rich with the blessings bestowed upon me by the amiable woman who
has given me her hand; and I should be in the happiest frame of
mind to receive you if the recollection of my young friend, whose
eminence as a man of science has just been consecrated by the
Academy, did not cast upon my mind a veil of sadness. All here
present,” continued Monsieur Picot, raising his voice, which is
rather loud, “are guilty towards him: I, for ingratitude when he
gave me the glory of his discovery and the reward of his immortal
labors; that young lady, whom I see over there with tears in her
eyes, for having foolishly accused him of atheism; that other
lady, with the stern face, for having harshly replied to the
proposals of his noble father, whose white hairs she ought rather
to have honored; Monsieur Thuillier, for having sacrificed him to
ambition; Monsieur Colleville, for not performing his part of
father and choosing for his daughter the worthiest and most
honorable man; Monsieur Minard, for having tried to foist his son
into his place. There are but two persons in the room at this
moment who have done him full justice,--Madame Thuillier and
Monsieur l’Abbe Gondrin. Well, I shall now ask that man of God
whether we can help doubting the divine justice when this generous
young man, the victim of all of us, is, at the present hour, at
the mercy of waves and tempests, to which for three long years he
is consigned.”
“Providence is very powerful, monsieur,” replied the Abbe Gondrin.
“God will protect Monsieur Felix Phellion wherever he may be, and
I have the firmest hope that three years hence he will be among
his friends once more.”
“But three years!” said Monsieur Picot. “Will it still be time?
Will Mademoiselle Colleville have waited for him?”
“Yes, I swear it!” cried the young girl, carried away by an
impulse she could not control.
Then she sat down again, quite ashamed, and burst into tears.
“And you, Mademoiselle Thuillier, and you, Madame Colleville, will
you permit this young lady to reserve herself for one who is
worthy of her?”
“Yes! Yes!” cried everybody; for Monsieur Picot’s voice, which is
very full and sonorous, seemed to have tears in it and affected
everybody.
“Then it is time,” he said, “to forgive Providence.”
And rushing suddenly to the door, where my ear was glued to the
keyhole, he very nearly caught me.
“Announce,” he said to me, in a very loud tone of voice, “Monsieur
Felix Phellion and his family.”
And thereupon the door of a side room opened, and five or six
persons came out, who were led by Monsieur Picot into the salon.
At the sight of her _lover_, Mademoiselle Colleville was taken ill,
but the faint lasted only a minute; seeing Monsieur Felix at her
feet she threw herself into Madame Thuillier’s arms, crying out:--
“Godmother! you always told me to hope.”
Mademoiselle Thuillier, who, in spite of her harsh nature and want
of education, I have always myself thought a remarkable woman, now
had a fine impulse. As the company were about to go into the
dining-room,--
“One moment!” she said.
Then going up to Monsieur Phellion, senior, she said to him:
“Monsieur and old friend! I ask you for the hand of Monsieur Felix
Phellion for our adopted daughter, Mademoiselle Colleville.”
“Bravo! bravo!” they call cried in chorus.
“My God!” said Monsieur Phellion, with tears in his eyes; “what
have I done to deserve such happiness?”
“You have been an honest man and a Christian without knowing it,”
replied the Abbe Gondrin.
Here la Peyrade flung down the manuscript.
“You did not finish it,” said Corentin, taking back the paper. “However,
there’s not much more. Monsieur Henri confesses to me that the scene
had _moved him_; he also says that, knowing the interest I had
formerly taken in the marriage, he thought he ought to inform me of
its conclusion; ending with a slightly veiled suggestion of a fee. No,
stay,” resumed Corentin, “here is a detail of some importance:--”
The English woman seems to have made it known during dinner that,
having no heirs, her fortune, after the lives of herself and her
husband, will go to Felix. That will make him powerfully rich one
of these days.
La Peyrade had risen and was striding about the room with rapid steps.
“Well,” said Corentin, “what is the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“That is not true,” said the great detective. “I think you envy the
happiness of that young man. My dear fellow, permit me to tell you that
if such a conclusion were to your taste, you should have acted as he has
done. When I sent you two thousand francs on which to study law, I
did not intend you to succeed me; I expected you to row your galley
laboriously, to have the needful courage for obscure and painful toil;
your day would infallibly have come. But you chose to violate fortune--”
“Monsieur!”
“I mean hasten it, reap it before it ripened. You flung yourself
into journalism; then into business, questionable business; you made
acquaintance with Messieurs Dutocq and Cerizet. Frankly, I think you
fortunate to have entered the port which harbors you to-day. In any
case, you are not sufficiently simple of heart to have really valued the
joys reserved for Felix Phellion. These bourgeois--”
“These bourgeois,” said la Peyrade, quickly,--“I know them now. They
have great absurdities, great vices even, but they have virtues, or,
at the least, estimable qualities; in them lies the vital force of our
corrupt society.”
“_Your_ society!” said Corentin, smiling; “you speak as if you were
still in the ranks. You have another sphere, my dear fellow; and you
must learn to be more content with your lot. Governments pass, societies
perish or dwindle; but we--_we_ dominate all things; the police is
eternal.”
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
Note.--This volume (“Les Petits Bourgeois”) was not published
until 1854, more than three years after Balzac’s death; although
he says of it in March, 1844: “I must tell you that my work
entitled ‘Les Petits Bourgeois,’ owing to difficulties of
execution, requires still a month’s labor, although the book is
entirely written.” And again, in October, 1846, he says: “It is to
such scruples” (care in perfecting his work) “that delays which
have injured several of my works are due; for instance, ‘Les
Paysans,’ which has long been nearly finished, and ‘Les Petits
Bourgeois,’ which has been in type at the printing office for the
last eighteen months.”
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Barbet
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Man of Business
The Seamy Side of History
The Middle Classes
Baudoyer, Isidore
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Beaumesnil, Mademoiselle
The Middle Classes
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
A Second Home
Bianchon, Horace
Father Goriot
The Atheist’s Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor’s Establishment
The Secrets of a Princess
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Honorine
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Second Home
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of the Department
The Imaginary Mistress
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
Another Study of Woman
La Grande Breteche
Bousquier, Du (or Du Croisier or Du Bourguier)
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Middle Classes
Brisetout, Heloise
Cousin Betty
Cousin Pons
The Middle Classes
Bruel, Jean Francois du
A Bachelor’s Establishment
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life
A Prince of Bohemia
The Middle Classes
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Daughter of Eve
Bruel, Claudine Chaffaroux, Madame du
A Bachelor’s Establishment
A Prince of Bohemia
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Middle Classes
Bruno
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Middle Classes
Cardot (Parisian notary)
The Muse of the Department
A Man of Business
Jealousies of a Country Town
Pierre Grassou
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Cerizet
Lost Illusions
A Man of Business
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Middle Classes
Chaffaroux
Cesar Birotteau
A Prince of Bohemia
The Middle Classes
Claparon, Charles
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Cesar Birotteau
Melmoth Reconciled
The Firm of Nucingen
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes
Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel
Cesar Birotteau
The Government Clerks
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
Colleville
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame
The Government Clerks
Cousin Betty
The Middle Classes
Corentin
The Chouans
The Gondreville Mystery
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Middle Classes
Couture
Beatrix
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
Crochard, Charles
A Second Home
The Middle Classes
Desroches (son)
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
A Woman of Thirty
The Commission in Lunacy
The Government Clerks
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Firm of Nucingen
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes
Dutocq
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Fleury
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Galathionne, Prince and Princess (both not in each story)
The Secrets of a Princess
The Middle Classes
Father Goriot
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Daughter of Eve
Beatrix
Godard, Joseph
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Godeschal, Francois-Claude-Marie
Colonel Chabert
A Bachelor’s Establishment
A Start in Life
The Commission in Lunacy
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Grassou, Pierre
Pierre Grassou
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Cousin Betty
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Grindot
Cesar Birotteau
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Start in Life
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Beatrix
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
Katt
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Middle Classes
Keller, Adolphe
The Middle Classes
Pierrette
Cesar Birotteau
La Peyrade, Charles-Marie-Theodose de
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Middle Classes
La Peyrade, Madame de
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Middle Classes
La Roche-Hugon, Martial de
Domestic Peace
The Peasantry
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
Laudigeois
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Lousteau, Etienne
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
A Daughter of Eve
Beatrix
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
A Prince of Bohemia
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes
The Unconscious Humorists
Metivier
Lost Illusions
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Metivier (nephew)
The Seamy Side of History
The Middle Classes
Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois
The Government Clerks
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
Minard, Madame
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Phellion
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Poiret, the elder
The Government Clerks
Father Goriot
A Start in Life
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Middle Classes
Poiret, Madame (nee Christine-Michelle Michonneau)
Father Goriot
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Middle Classes
Popinot, Jean-Jules
Cesar Birotteau
Honorine
The Commission in Lunacy
The Seamy Side of History
The Middle Classes
Rabourdin, Xavier
The Government Clerks
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
Cesar Birotteau
The Middle Classes
Saillard
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Thuillier
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Thuillier, Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Thuillier, Louis-Jerome
The Government Clerks
The Middle Classes
Tillet, Ferdinand du
Cesar Birotteau
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Pierrette
Melmoth Reconciled
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Secrets of a Princess
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
Cousin Betty
The Unconscious Humorists
Vinet
Pierrette
The Member for Arcis
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Vinet, Olivier
The Member for Arcis
Cousin Pons
The Middle Classes
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Lesser Bourgeoisie, by Honore de Balzac