The story of a celebrated sculptor and his model -- David
d'Angers at the funeral of Cortot, the sculptor -- How I became
acquainted with him -- The sculptor leaves the funeral procession
to speak to a woman -- He tells me the story -- David d'Angers'
sympathy with Greece in her struggle for independence -- When
Botzaris falls at Missolonghi, he makes up his mind to carve his
monument -- Wishes to do something original -- He finds his idea
in the cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise -- In search of a model --
Comes unexpectedly upon her in the Rue du Montparnasse, while in
company of Victor Hugo -- The model and her mother -- The bronze
Christ on the studio wall -- David gives it to his model -- The
latter dismissed -- A plot against the sculptor's life -- His
model saves him -- He tries to find her and fails -- Only meets
with her when walking behind the hearse of Cortot -- She appears
utterly destitute -- Loses sight of her again -- Meets her on the
outer boulevards with a nondescript of the worst character -- He
endeavours to rescue her, but fails -- Canler, of the Paris
police, reveals the tactics pursued with regard to "unfortunates"
-- David's exile and death -- The Botzaris Monument is brought
back to Paris to be restored -- The model at the door of the
exhibition -- Her death.
In connection with the treatment of "fallen women" in Paris, I may give
the following story, which becomes interesting in virtue of the
personality of one of the actors. In 1843 the sculptor Cortot died, and
I followed his funeral on foot, as was the custom in those days. I
walked by the side of one of the greatest artists France, or, for that
matter, the world, has ever produced--David d'Angers. The name of his
native town was adopted to distinguish him from his celebrated namesake,
the painter. I had become acquainted with the great sculptor a
twelvemonth previously, in Delacroix's studio. All at once, as the
procession went along the Quai Malaquais, I saw him start violently, and
break through what, for want of a more appropriate term, I must call the
ranks of mourners. For a moment only; the next, he was back by my side:
but I noticed that he was frightfully agitated. He probably saw my
concern for him in my face, for, though I asked him no questions, he
said of his own accord, "It is all right. I just caught sight of a woman
who saved my life, and, by the looks of her, she is in great straits,
but, by the time I got out of the crowd, she had disappeared. I have an
idea of the errand she was bent upon, and will inquire to-morrow, but I
am afraid it will be of very little use."
I kept silent for a moment or two, but my curiosity was aroused, for, I
repeat, at that time, the artistic world was ringing with the name of
David d'Angers.
"I did not know you had been in such great danger," I said at last.
"Very few people do know it," he replied sadly; "besides, it happened a
good many years ago, when you were very young. The next time we meet I
will tell you all about it."
A week or so afterwards, as I was leaving the Cafe de Paris one evening,
and going to the tobacconist at the corner of the Rue Laffite, I ran
against the celebrated sculptor. The weather was mild, and we sat
outside Tortoni's, where he told me the story, part of which I give in
his own words, as far as I can remember them after the lapse of more
than forty years.
"If there were any need," he began, "to apologize to an Englishman for
my sympathy with the Philhellenism which shortened the life of Byron, I
might say that I sucked the principle of the independence of nations
with the mother's milk, for I was born in 1789. Be that as it may, when
Marcos Botzaris fell at Missolonghi I felt determined that he should
have a monument worthy of his heroism and patriotism, as far as my
talents could contribute to it. I was sufficiently young to be
enthusiastic, and, at the same time, sufficiently presumptuous to
imagine that I could do something which had never been done before. You
have seen the engraving of the monument; you may judge for yourself how
far I succeeded. But the idea of the composition, however out of the
common, was, I am bound to admit, not the offspring of my own
imagination. I was, perhaps, clever enough to see the poesy of it when
presented to me, and to appropriate it; but the young, fragile girl
lying on the tombstone and tracing the name of Marcos Botzaris was
suggested to me by a scene I witnessed one day at Pere-la-Chaise. I saw
a child stooping over a gravestone, and trying to spell out the words
carved on it. It was all I wanted. I own, from that moment, my
composition took shape in my mind. I was, however, still at a loss where
to find the ideal child. The little girl of whom I had caught a glimpse
would not have done at all for my purpose, even if her parents would
have consented to let her sit, which was not at all likely--she was the
prosperous-looking demoiselle of a probably prosperous bourgeoise
family, well-fed, plump, and not above seven or eight. I, on the
contrary, wanted a girl double that age just budding into womanhood, but
with the travail of the transition expressed in every feature, in every
limb. She was to represent to the most casual observer the sufferings
engendered by the struggle against tutelage for freedom. She was to bend
over the tomb of Botzaris to drag the secret of that freedom from him.
Dawning life was to drag the secret from the dead.
"That was my idea, and for several days I cudgelled my brain to find
among my models one that would, physically and morally, represent all
this. In vain; the grisettes of the Rue Fleurus and the Quartier-Latin,
in spite of all that has been said of them by the poets and novelists of
that time, were not at all the visible incarnations of lofty sentiment;
whatever pain and grief an unrequited romantic passion might entail,
they left no appreciable traces on their complexions or in their
outline; they were saucy madams, and looked it. I had communicated my
wants to some of my friends, and one of them sent me what he thought
would suit. The face was certainly a very beautiful one, as an
absolutely perfect ensemble of classical features I have never seen the
like; but there was about as much expression in it as in my hand, and,
as for the body, it was simply bursting out of its dress. I told her she
would not do, and the reason why. 'Monsieur can't expect me to go into a
consumption for two francs fifty an hour,' she remarked, bouncing out of
the room.
"I was fast becoming a nuisance to all my cronies, when, one day, going
to dine with Victor Hugo at La Mere Saget's, which was at the Barriere
du Maine, I came unexpectedly, in the Rue du Montparnasse, upon the very
girl for which I had been looking out for months. Notwithstanding her
rags, she was simply charming. She was not above fourteen or fifteen,
and, although very tall for her age, she had scarcely any flesh on her
bones. I only knew her Christian name--Clementine: I doubt whether she
had any other. Next morning she came with her mother, an old hag,
dissipation and drunkenness written in every line of her face. But the
child herself was perfectly innocent--at any rate, as innocent as she
could be with such a parent, and tractable to a degree. After a little
while the old woman, tired of twirling her thumbs, disgusted, perhaps,
at my want of hospitality in not offering her refreshments, left off
accompanying her, Clementine came henceforth alone.
"My studio was in the Rue de Fleurus in those days, and on the wall hung
a very handsome bronze Christ on a velvet panel and in a dark satin
frame. Curiously enough, I often caught the mother watching it; it
seemed to have an irresistible fascination for her: and, one day, while
the child was dressing, after two or three hours of hard work, she
suddenly exclaimed, 'That's why my mother will not come here; she says
she'd commit a robbery. She never leaves off talking about it. I wonder
whether you'd like to part with it, M. David? A Christ like that would
be beautiful in our attic. It would comfort and cheer me. If you like,
I'll buy it of you. Of course, I have no money, but you can deduct it
from my sittings. You can have as many as you like, not only for this
statue, but for any other you may want later on.'
"We democrats, professed republicans, and more than suspected
revolutionaries, are not credited by the majority with a great reverence
for religious dogma; we are generally branded as absolute freethinkers,
not to say atheists. This is frequently a mistake.[73] I have no
occasion to recite my _credo_ to you, but a great many of the
republicans of '89 and of to-day were and are believers. At any rate, I
fondly imagined that the Christ for which the mother and child were
longing might exercise some salutary influence on their lives, so I
simply took down the frame and its contents and handed them to her. She
staggered under the weight. 'You want that Christ,' I said; 'here it is:
and when you are tempted to do evil look at it, and think of me, who
gave it you as a present.'
[Footnote 73: It is a mistake. Not to mention Camille
Desmoulins, who, when asked his age by his judge, replied, "The
age of another _sans-culotte_, Jesus." Esquiros frequently
spoke of "that good patriot, Christ;" Lammenais began the draft
of his constitution with "In the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, and by the will of the French
people."--EDITOR.]
"'As a present?' she shrieked for joy; and hurried away as fast as her
legs would carry her.
"In about six months from that day the statue was finished. I had no
further need of Clementine's services, and gradually all thought of her
slipped from my mind. You may have heard that some time after my work
was despatched to Greece, I was assaulted one night in the Rue
Childebert, on my way to Gerard de Nerval's. My skull was split open in
two places, I was left for dead in the street, and but for a workman who
stumbled over me, took me home, and sat up with me until morning, I
might not have lived to tell the tale. From the very first I suspected
the identity of my assailant, though I have never breathed his name to
any one. I am glad to say I never had many enemies, nor have I now, as
far as I am aware; but I had offended the man by withholding my vote in
a prize competition. He was, however, not responsible for his actions;
for even at that time he must have been mad. A few years afterwards, the
suspicion both of his madness and his attempt upon my life became a
certainty, for he repeated the latter. You are very young, and youth is
either very credulous or very sceptical. We should be neither. If what I
am going to tell you now were to be represented to you at the Ambigu or
Porte Saint-Martin, you, as an educated man, would shrug your shoulders,
and look with a kind of good-natured contempt upon the grisette or
workman or bourgeois who would sit spellbound and take it all in as so
much gospel. Providence, fate, call it what you will, concocts more
striking dramatic situations and a greater number of them than M. Scribe
and all his compeers have constructed in the course of their
professional careers. Listen, and you shall judge for yourself.
"About seven years after the attack in the Rue Childebert, I received a
letter one morning, inviting me to attend a meeting that same night
between twelve and one, at a house in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, near
the hospital of the Val-de-Grace. The letter told me how to proceed.
There being no concierge in the house, I was to provide myself with a
'dark lantern,' and to go up four flights of stairs, where I should find
a door with a cross chalked upon it. It would be opened by my giving a
particular knock. My previous danger notwithstanding, I had not the
least suspicion of this being a trap. I did not for one moment connect
the letter with the other event, the recollection of which, strange as
it may seem to you, did not obtrude itself at all then. But there was
another reason for the absence of caution on my part. In one of its
corners the letter bore a sign, not exactly that of a secret society,
but agreed upon among certain patriots.
"In short, a little before twelve o'clock that night, I went to the
place appointed. I had no difficulty in finding the house, and reached
the fourth story without meeting a soul. There was the door, with the
cross chalked on it. I knocked once, twice, without receiving an answer.
Still, the thought of evil never entered my head. I began to think that
I had been the victim of a hoax of some youngsters of the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts, most of whom were aware of my political opinions. I was just
turning round to go down again, when a door by the side of that
indicated was slowly opened, and a young girl with a lighted candle
appeared on the threshold. Though both the candle and my lantern did not
shed much light, I perceived that, at the sight of me, she turned very
pale, but, until she spoke, I failed to recognize her. Then I saw it was
Clementine, my model. She scarcely gave me time to speak. 'It is you, M.
David,' she said, in a voice trembling with fear and emotion. 'You,' she
repeated. 'For Heaven's sake, go!--go as quickly as you can! If you stay
another moment, you will be a corpse; for God's sake, go! And let me beg
of you not to breathe a word of this to any one; if you do, my mother
and I will pay for this with our lives. For God's sake, go. I did not
know that you were the person expected. Go--go!'
"I do not think I answered a single word. I felt instinctively that this
was no hoax, as I had imagined, but terrible reality. I went downstairs
as fast as I could, but it was not until I got into the street that a
connection between the two events presented itself to me. Then I decided
to wait and watch. I hid myself in the doorway of a house a few steps
away. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed when half a dozen individuals
arrived, one by one, and disappeared into the house that sheltered
Clementine and her mother. One of them, I feel sure, was the man whom I
suspected of having attempted my life before. A few years more went by,
during which I often thought of my former model; and then, one day, I
felt I would like to see her again. In plain daylight this time, I
repaired to the house of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, clambered up the
stairs, and knocked at the door I had such good cause to remember. The
door was opened by a workman, and a rapid glance at the inside of the
room showed me that he was a lastmaker. 'Mademoiselle Clementine?' I
asked. The man stared at me, and said, 'No such person lives here.' I
made inquiries on all the lower floors--nobody had ever heard of her.
Clementine had disappeared. I never saw her again until a few days ago,
when I walked by your side behind the body of Cortot. I should not have
recognized her but for the bronze Christ she carried under her arm, and
which attracted my notice. If what I surmise be correct, she must have
reached the last stage of misery; for I feel convinced that nothing but
absolute want would make her part with it. I have, however, failed to
trace it in any of the bric-a-brac shops on the quays, and I believe
that I have pretty well inquired at every one; so I must fain be content
until fate throws her again across my path."
So far the story as told by the great sculptor himself. During the next
eight years, in fact up to the Coup d'Etat, I met him frequently, and,
curiously enough, rarely failed to inquire whether in his many
wanderings through Paris he had caught a glimpse of his former model. I
felt unaccountably interested in the fate of that woman whom I had never
seen, and, if we had been able to find her, would have endeavoured to
find a decent home for her. But for about three years my inquiries
always met with the same answer. Then, one evening in the latter end of
'46 or beginning of '47, David told me that he had met her on the outer
boulevards, arm in arm with one of those terrible nondescripts of which
one is often compelled to speak again and again, and which, as far as I
am aware, are nowhere to be found as a class except in the French
metropolis and great provincial centres. Clementine evidently wished to
avoid David. A little while after, he met her again, and this time
followed her, but, though by no means a coward, lacked the courage to
enter the hovel into which she had disappeared with her companion. The
last time he saw her was in the middle of '47, in the Rue des
Boucheries. She seemed to have returned to her old quarters, and she was
by herself. Until she spoke, David did not recognize her. Her face was
positively seamed with horrible scars, "wounds inflicted by her
lovers"--Heaven save the mark! She asked him to help her, and he did;
but she had scarcely gone a few steps when she was arrested and taken to
the prison of l'Abbaye de St. Germain, hard by, whither David followed
to intercede for her. He was told to come back next morning, and that
same evening communicated the affair to me. I decided there and then to
accompany him, in order to carry out my plan of redeeming that human
soul if possible. I failed, though through no fault of my own, but my
attempt brought me in contact with a personage scarcely less interesting
in his own way than David, namely, M. Canler, the future head of the
Paris detective force. It was through him that I got an insight into
some of the most revolting features of criminal life in Paris. But,
before dealing with that subject, I wish to devote a few more lines to
David, whom I had the honour of numbering among my friends till the day
of his death, albeit that the last few years of his life were spent away
from France, whither he returned, however, to die in '56. After the Coup
d'Etat he was exiled by Louis-Napoleon--ostensibly, for his political
opinions; in reality, because he had refused to finish the monument for
Queen Hortense's tomb after her son's fiasco at Boulogne.
Writing about France and Frenchmen, I feel somewhat reluctant to make
too lavish a use of the words "patriot" and "patriotism," especially
with the patriots and the patriotism of the Third Republic around me.
But I have no hesitation in saying that, to David d'Angers, these words
meant something almost sacred. Sprung from exceedingly poor parents, he
had amassed, by honest work, a fortune which, to men born in a higher
sphere and with far more expensive tastes, might seem sufficient. Seeing
that he was frugality and simplicity personified, that his income was
mainly spent in alleviating distress, and that his daughter was even
more simple-minded than her father, he had nothing to gain by the advent
of a republic, nothing to lose by the establishment of a monarchy or
empire, and his ardent championship of republican institutions--such as
he conceived them--was prompted solely by his noble nature. That
Louis-Napoleon should have exiled such a man was an error his warmest
friends could scarcely forgive him. But David never complained, any more
than he ever uttered a harsh word against the memory of Flaxman, who, in
his youth, had shut his doors against him under the impression that he
was a relation of Louis David who had voted for the death of Louis XVI.
On the contrary, the memory of the great English sculptor was held in
deep reverence.
And so David departed, a wanderer on the face of the earth with his
daughter. He first endeavoured to settle in Brussels, but the
irresistible desire to behold once more what he himself considered his
greatest work, the monument to Marcos Botzaris, attracted him to Greece.
A friend, to whom he communicated his intention, wrote to him, "Do not
go." He gave him no further reason; he even withheld from him the fact
that he had been at Missolonghi a twelvemonth previously. The
explanation of this reticence may be gathered from David's letter to him
a few days after his, David's, return. I have been allowed to copy it,
and give it verbatim.
"Long before our vessel anchored near the spot where Byron died, I
caught a glimpse of the tumulus erected at the foot of the bastion, in
honour of Botzaris and his fellow-heroes. It made a small dark spot on
the horizon, and above it was a speck, much smaller and perfectly white.
I knew instinctively that this was my statue of the 'young Greek girl,'
and I watched and watched with bated breath, fancying as the ship sped
along that the speck moved. Of course, it was only my imagination, the
presumptuous thought that the marble effigy would start into life at the
approach of its creator.
"Alas, would I had proceeded no further--that I had been satisfied with
the mirage instead of pushing on in hot haste towards the reality! For
the reality was heart-rending, so heart-rending that I wept like a
child, and clenched my fists like a giant in despair. The right hand of
the statue, the index finger of which pointed to the name, had been
broken; the ears had disappeared, one of the feet was broken to atoms,
and the face slashed with knives. It was like the face of the girl that
had sat for me, when I last saw it, under the circumstances which, you
may remember, I told you. The whole was riddled with bullets, and some
tourists, British ones probably, had cut their names on the back of the
child. And so ends the most glorious chapter of my artist's career--the
model itself fallen beyond redemption, the work mutilated beyond repair,
the author of it in exile.
"I felt powerless to repair the mischief. I did not stay long. Perhaps I
ought not to complain. I knew that Byron had been buried near the
fortifications at Missolonghi, but all my efforts to find the spot have
proved useless.[74] The house where he breathed his last had been pulled
down. Why should the Greeks have more reverence for Botzaris or
Mavrocordato than they had for the poet? and if these three are so
little to them, what must I be, whose name they probably never heard?
Still, as I stood at the stern of the departing vessel, I felt
heart-broken. I have no illusions left."
[Footnote 74: Of course, David meant the spot where the remains
had been interred at first.--EDITOR.]
I firmly believe that the injury done to the statue hastened David's
death. His work has since been restored by M. Armand Toussaint, his
favourite pupil, who gave his promise to that effect a few days before
the great sculptor breathed his last. The monument was, however, not
brought to Paris until 1861, and when M. Toussaint had finished his
task, he invited the press and the friends of his famous master to
judge of the results. It was at the door of his studio that I saw the
woman, whose adventures I have told in the preceding notes, for the
first time. A fortnight later, she died at the hospital of La Charite,
at peace, I trust, with her Maker. "Fate, Providence, call it what you
will," as David himself would have said, had brought me to the spot
just in time to alleviate the last sufferings of one who, though not
altogether irresponsible for her own errors, was to a still greater
extent the victim of a system so iniquitous as to make the least
serious-minded--provided he be endowed with the faintest spark of
humanity--shudder. I allude to the system pursued by the Paris
detective force in their hunt after criminals--a system not altogether
abandoned yet, and the successful carrying out of which is paid for by
the excruciating tortures inflicted upon defenceless though fallen
women--but women still--by the _souteneur_. I refrain from Anglicizing
the word; it will suggest itself after the perusal of the following
facts, albeit that, fortunately with us, the creature itself does not
exist as a class, and, what is worse, as a class recognized by those
whose first and foremost duty it should be to destroy him root and
branch.
* * * * *
The morning after Clementine's arrest, David and I repaired to the
prison of l'Abbaye Saint-German. When the sculptor sent in his name, the
governor himself came out to receive us. But the woman was gone; she had
been transferred, the previous night, to the depot of the prefecture de
police, "where," he said, "if you make haste, you will still find her."
He gave us a letter of introduction for the official charged to deal
with refractory "filles soumises," or offending insoumises, because,
then as now, these unfortunates were not tried by an ordinary police
magistrate in open court, but summarily punished by said official, the
sentences being subject, however, to revision or confirmation by his
superior, the chief of the municipal police. Nay, the decisions were not
even communicated to these women until they were safely lodged in
Saint-Lazare, lest there should be a disturbance; for they were not
examined one by one; and, as may be imagined, the contagion of revolt
spread easily among those hysterical and benighted creatures.
When we reached the prefecture de police the judging was over, but, on
our sending in our letter, we were admitted at once to the official's
room. After David's description, he remembered the woman, and told us at
once that she had not been sent to Saint-Lazare, but liberated. Some one
had interceded for her--no less a personage than Canler, who, though at
the time but a superintendent, was already fast springing into notice as
a detective of no mean skill. "What had he done with her?" was David's
question. "I could not tell you," was the courteous reply; "but I will
give you his address, and he will no doubt give you all the information
in his power and consistent with his duty." With this we were bowed out
of the room.
We did not succeed in seeing Canler until two days afterwards, or,
rather, on the evening of the second day; for, at that period, he was
entrusted with the surveillance of the theatres on the Boulevard du
Temple. I may have occasion to speak of him again, so I need not give
his portrait here. He was about fifty, and, unlike one of his
successors, M. Claude, the type of the old soldier. Of his honesty there
never was, there could have never been, a doubt, nor was his
intelligence ever questioned. And yet, this very honest, intelligent
man, in his all-absorbing pursuit, the detection and chasing of
criminals, was sufficiently dishonest and unintelligent to foster, if
not to inaugurate, a system subversive of all morality.
David's name was a passport everywhere, and, no sooner had it been sent
in, than Canler came out to him. The sculptor stated his business, and
the police officer made a wry face. "I am afraid, M. David, I cannot
help you in this instance. To speak plainly, I have restored her to her
souteneur." We both opened our eyes very wide. "Yes," came the remark,
"I know what you are going to say. I can sum up all your objections
before you utter them. But I could not help myself; the fellow rendered
me a service, and this was the price of it. Without his aid, one of the
most desperate burglars in Paris would still be at large. As it is, I
have got him safe under lock and key. Very shocking, no doubt; mais, a
la guerre comme a la guerre." Then, seeing that we did not answer, he
continued: "As a rule, I do not explain my tactics to everybody; but
you, M. David, are not everybody, and, if you like to meet me when the
theatre is over, I shall be pleased to have a chat with you."
At half-past twelve that night we were seated at a restaurant near the
Porte Saint-Martin, and, after a few preliminary remarks, Canler
explained.
However great an artist you may be, M. David, you could not produce a
statue without the outlay for the marble, or for the casting of it in
bronze. You, moreover, want to pay your _praticien_, who does the rough
work for you. Our _praticiens_ are the informers, and they want to be
paid like the most honest workmen. The detection of crime means, no
doubt, intelligence, but it means also money. Now, money is the very
thing I have not got, and yet, when I accepted the functions I am at
present fulfilling, I gave my promise to M. Delessert not to neglect the
detective part of the business. I wish to keep my word, first of all,
because I pledged it; secondly, because detection of crime is food and
drink to me; thirdly, because I hope to be the head of the Paris
detective force one day. The Government allows a ridiculously small sum
every year for distribution among informers, and rewards among their own
agents; it is something over thirty thousand francs, but not a sou of
which ever reached my hands when I accepted my present appointment, and
scarcely a sou of which reaches me now. I was, therefore, obliged to
look out for auxiliaries, sufficiently disinterested to assist me
gratuitously, but, knowing that absolute disinterestedness is very rare
indeed, I looked for my collaborateurs among the very ones I was charged
to watch, but who, in exchange for my protection in the event of their
offending, were ready to peach upon their companions in crime and in
vice. I need not trouble you by enumerating the various categories of my
allies, but the souteneur, the most abject of them all, is, perhaps, the
most valuable.
"He is too lazy to work, and, as a rule, has not got the pluck of a
mouse, consequently he rarely resorts to crime, requiring the smallest
amount of energy or daring. He furthermore loves his Paris, where,
according to his own lights, he enjoys himself and lives upon the fat of
the land; all these reasons make him careful not to commit himself,
albeit that at every minute of the day he comes in contact with
everything that is vile. But he gets hold of their secrets, though the
word is almost a misnomer, seeing that few of these desperadoes can hold
their tongue about their own business, knowing all the while, as they
must do, that their want of reticence virtually puts their heads into
the halter. But if they have done 'a good stroke of business,' even if
they do not brag about it in so many words, they must show their success
by their sudden show of finery, by their treating of everybody all
round, etc. The souteneur is, as it were, jealous of all this; for
though he lives in comparative comfort from what his mistress gives him,
he rarely makes a big haul. His mistress gone, the pot ceases to boil;
in fact, he calls her his _marmite_. In a few days he is on his beams'
ends, unless he has one in every different quarter, which is not often
the case, though it happens now and then. But, at any rate, the
incarceration of one of them makes a difference, and, under the
circumstance, he repairs, as far as he dares, to the prefecture, and
obtains her liberation in exchange for the address of a burglar or even
a murderer who is wanted. I have known one who had perfected his system
of obtaining information to such a degree as to be able to sell his
secrets to his fellow-souteneurs when they had none of their own
wherewith to propitiate the detectives. He has had as much as three or
four hundred francs for one revelation of that kind, which means twenty
or thirty times the sum the police would have awarded him. Of course,
three or four hundred francs is a big sum for the souteneur to shell
out; but, when the marmite is a good one, he sooner does that than be
deprived of his revenues for six months or so. I have diverted some of
those secrets into my own channel, and Clementine's souteneur is one of
my clients; that is why I gave her up. Very shocking, gentlemen, but a
la guerre comme a la guerre."
M. Canler furthermore counselled us to leave Clementine alone. He
positively refused to give us any information as to her whereabouts;
that is why I did not meet with her until five years after David's
death, too late to be of any use to her in this world.