Ten days later, Oscar was taken by Monsieur Moreau to Maitre Desroches,
solicitor, recently established in the rue de Bethisy, in a vast
apartment at the end of a narrow court-yard, for which he was paying a
relatively low price.
Desroches, a young man twenty-six years of age, born of poor parents,
and brought up with extreme severity by a stern father, had himself
known the condition in which Oscar now was. Accordingly, he felt an
interest in him, but the sort of interest which alone he could take,
checked by the apparent harshness that characterized him. The aspect
of this gaunt young man, with a muddy skin and hair cropped like a
clothes-brush, who was curt of speech and possessed a piercing eye and a
gloomy vivaciousness, terrified the unhappy Oscar.
“We work here day and night,” said the lawyer, from the depths of his
armchair, and behind a table on which were papers, piled up like Alps.
“Monsieur Moreau, we won’t kill him; but he’ll have to go at our pace.
Monsieur Godeschal!” he called out.
Though the day was Sunday, the head-clerk appeared, pen in hand.
“Monsieur Godeschal, here’s the pupil of whom I spoke to you. Monsieur
Moreau takes the liveliest interest in him. He will dine with us and
sleep in the small attic next to your chamber. You will allot the exact
time it takes to go to the law-school and back, so that he does not lose
five minutes on the way. You will see that he learns the Code and is
proficient in his classes; that is to say, after he has done his work
here, you will give him authors to read. In short, he is to be under
your immediate direction, and I shall keep an eye on it. They want to
make him what you have made yourself, a capable head-clerk, against the
time when he can take such a place himself. Go with Monsieur Godeschal,
my young friend; he’ll show you your lodging, and you can settle down in
it. Did you notice Godeschal?” continued Desroches, speaking to Moreau.
“There’s a fellow who, like me, has nothing. His sister Mariette, the
famous danseuse, is laying up her money to buy him a practice in ten
years. My clerks are young blades who have nothing but their ten fingers
to rely upon. So we all, my five clerks and I, work as hard as a dozen
ordinary fellows. But in ten years I’ll have the finest practice in
Paris. In my office, business and clients are a passion, and that’s
beginning to make itself felt. I took Godeschal from Derville, where he
was only just made second clerk. He gets a thousand francs a year from
me, and food and lodging. But he’s worth it; he is indefatigable. I love
him, that fellow! He has managed to live, as I did when a clerk, on six
hundred francs a year. What I care for above all is honesty, spotless
integrity; and when it is practised in such poverty as that, a man’s a
man. For the slightest fault of that kind a clerk leaves my office.”
“The lad is in a good school,” thought Moreau.
For two whole years Oscar lived in the rue de Bethisy, a den of
pettifogging; for if ever that superannuated expression was applicable
to a lawyer’s office, it was so in this case. Under this supervision,
both petty and able, he was kept to his regular hours and to his work
with such rigidity that his life in the midst of Paris was that of a
monk.
At five in the morning, in all weathers, Godeschal woke up. He went down
with Oscar to the office, where they always found their master up and
working. Oscar then did the errands of the office and prepared his
lessons for the law-school,--and prepared them elaborately; for
Godeschal, and frequently Desroches himself, pointed out to their pupil
authors to be looked through and difficulties to overcome. He was not
allowed to leave a single section of the Code until he had thoroughly
mastered it to the satisfaction of his chief and Godeschal, who put him
through preliminary examinations more searching and longer than those of
the law-school. On his return from his classes, where he was kept but a
short time, he went to his work in the office; occasionally he was sent
to the Palais, but always under the thumb of the rigid Godeschal, till
dinner. The dinner was that of his master,--one dish of meat, one of
vegetables, and a salad. The dessert consisted of a piece of Gruyere
cheese. After dinner, Godeschal and Oscar returned to the office and
worked till night. Once a month Oscar went to breakfast with his uncle
Cardot, and he spent the Sundays with his mother. From time to time
Moreau, when he came to the office about his own affairs, would take
Oscar to dine in the Palais-Royal, and to some theatre in the evening.
Oscar had been so snubbed by Godeschal and by Desroches for his attempts
at elegance that he no longer gave a thought to his clothes.
“A good clerk,” Godeschal told him, “should have two black coats, one
new, one old, a pair of black trousers, black stockings, and shoes.
Boots cost too much. You can’t have boots till you are called to the
bar. A clerk should never spend more than seven hundred francs a year.
Good stout shirts of strong linen are what you want. Ha! when a man
starts from nothing to reach fortune, he has to keep down to bare
necessities. Look at Monsieur Desroches; he did what we are doing, and
see where he is now.”
Godeschal preached by example. If he professed the strictest principles
of honor, discretion, and honesty, he practised them without assumption,
as he walked, as he breathed; such action was the natural play of his
soul, as walking and breathing were the natural play of his organs.
Eighteen months after Oscar’s installation into the office, the second
clerk was, for the second time, slightly wrong in his accounts, which
were comparatively unimportant. Godeschal said to him in presence of all
the other clerks:
“My dear Gaudet, go away from here of your own free will, that it may
not be said that Monsieur Desroches has dismissed you. You have been
careless or absent-minded, and neither of those defects can pass here.
The master shall know nothing about the matter; that is all that I can
do for a comrade.”
At twenty years of age, Oscar became third clerk in the office. Though
he earned no salary, he was lodged and fed, for he did the work of the
second clerk. Desroches employed two chief clerks, and the work of
the second was unremitting toil. By the end of his second year in the
law-school Oscar knew more than most licensed graduates; he did the
work at the Palais intelligently, and argued some cases in chambers.
Godeschal and Desroches were satisfied with him. And yet, though he now
seemed a sensible man, he showed, from time to time, a hankering after
pleasure and a desire to shine, repressed, though it was, by the stern
discipline and continual toil of his life.
Moreau, satisfied with Oscar’s progress, relaxed, in some degree, his
watchfulness; and when, in July, 1825, Oscar passed his examinations
with a spotless record, the land-agent gave him the money to dress
himself elegantly. Madame Clapart, proud and happy in her son, prepared
the outfit splendidly for the rising lawyer.
In the month of November, when the courts reopened, Oscar Husson
occupied the chamber of the second clerk, whose work he now did
wholly. He had a salary of eight hundred francs with board and lodging.
Consequently, uncle Cardot, who went privately to Desroches and made
inquiries about his nephew, promised Madame Clapart to be on the lookout
for a practice for Oscar, if he continued to do as well in the future.
In spite of these virtuous appearances, Oscar Husson was undergoing a
great strife in his inmost being. At times he thought of quitting a
life so directly against his tastes and his nature. He felt that
galley-slaves were happier than he. Galled by the collar of this iron
system, wild desires seized him to fly when he compared himself in the
street with the well-dressed young men whom he met. Sometimes he was
driven by a sort of madness towards women; then, again, he resigned
himself, but only to fall into a deeper disgust for life. Impelled by
the example of Godeschal, he was forced, rather than led of himself, to
remain in that rugged way.
Godeschal, who watched and took note of Oscar, made it a matter of
principle not to allow his pupil to be exposed to temptation. Generally
the young clerk was without money, or had so little that he could
not, if he would, give way to excess. During the last year, the worthy
Godeschal had made five or six parties of pleasure with Oscar, defraying
the expenses, for he felt that the rope by which he tethered the young
kid must be slackened. These “pranks,” as he called them, helped Oscar
to endure existence, for there was little amusement in breakfasting with
his uncle Cardot, and still less in going to see his mother, who lived
even more penuriously than Desroches. Moreau could not make himself
familiar with Oscar as Godeschal could; and perhaps that sincere friend
to young Husson was behind Godeschal in these efforts to initiate the
poor youth safely into the mysteries of life. Oscar, grown prudent, had
come, through contact with others, to see the extent and the character
of the fault he had committed on that luckless journey; but the volume
of his repressed fancies and the follies of youth might still get the
better of him. Nevertheless, the more knowledge he could get of the
world and its laws, the better his mind would form itself, and, provided
Godeschal never lost sight of him, Moreau flattered himself that between
them they could bring the son of Madame Clapart through in safety.
“How is he getting on?” asked the land-agent of Godeschal on his return
from one of his journeys which had kept him some months out of Paris.
“Always too much vanity,” replied Godeschal. “You give him fine clothes
and fine linen, he wears the shirt-fronts of a stockbroker, and so my
dainty coxcomb spends his Sundays in the Tuileries, looking out for
adventures. What else can you expect? That’s youth. He torments me
to present him to my sister, where he would see a pretty sort of
society!--actresses, ballet-dancers, elegant young fops, spendthrifts
who are wasting their fortunes! His mind, I’m afraid, is not fitted for
law. He can talk well, though; and if we could make him a barrister he
might plead cases that were carefully prepared for him.”
In the month of November, 1825, soon after Oscar Husson had taken
possession of his new clerkship, and at the moment when he was about to
pass his examination for the licentiate’s degree, a new clerk arrived to
take the place made vacant by Oscar’s promotion.
This fourth clerk, named Frederic Marest, intended to enter the
magistracy, and was now in his third year at the law school. He was a
fine young man of twenty-three, enriched to the amount of some twelve
thousand francs a year by the death of a bachelor uncle, and the son
of Madame Marest, widow of the wealthy wood-merchant. This future
magistrate, actuated by a laudable desire to understand his vocation
in its smallest details, had put himself in Desroches’ office for the
purpose of studying legal procedure, and of training himself to take a
place as head-clerk in two years. He hoped to do his “stage” (the period
between the admission as licentiate and the call to the bar) in Paris,
in order to be fully prepared for the functions of a post which would
surely not be refused to a rich young man. To see himself, by the time
he was thirty, “procureur du roi” in any court, no matter where, was
his sole ambition. Though Frederic Marest was cousin-german to Georges
Marest, the latter not having told his surname in Pierrotin’s coucou,
Oscar Husson did not connect the present Marest with the grandson of
Czerni-Georges.
“Messieurs,” said Godeschal at breakfast time, addressing all the
clerks, “I announce to you the arrival of a new jurisconsult; and as
he is rich, rishissime, we will make him, I hope, pay a glorious
entrance-fee.”
“Forward, the book!” cried Oscar, nodding to the youngest clerk, “and
pray let us be serious.”
The youngest clerk climbed like a squirrel along the shelves which lined
the room, until he could reach a register placed on the top shelf, where
a thick layer of dust had settled on it.
“It is getting colored,” said the little clerk, exhibiting the volume.
We must explain the perennial joke of this book, then much in vogue in
legal offices. In a clerical life where work is the rule, amusement is
all the more treasured because it is rare; but, above all, a hoax or a
practical joke is enjoyed with delight. This fancy or custom does, to
a certain extent, explain Georges Marest’s behavior in the coucou. The
gravest and most gloomy clerk is possessed, at times, with a craving
for fun and quizzing. The instinct with which a set of young clerks will
seize and develop a hoax or a practical joke is really marvellous.
The denizens of a studio and of a lawyer’s office are, in this line,
superior to comedians.
In buying a practice without clients, Desroches began, as it were, a new
dynasty. This circumstance made a break in the usages relative to the
reception of new-comers. Moreover, Desroches having taken an office
where legal documents had never yet been scribbled, had bought new
tables, and white boxes edged with blue, also new. His staff was made
up of clerks coming from other officers, without mutual ties, and
surprised, as one may say, to find themselves together. Godeschal, who
had served his apprenticeship under Maitre Derville, was not the sort of
clerk to allow the precious tradition of the “welcome” to be lost.
This “welcome” is a breakfast which every neophyte must give to the
“ancients” of the office into which he enters.
Now, about the time when Oscar came to the office, during the first six
months of Desroches’ installation, on a winter evening when the work had
been got through more quickly than usual, and the clerks were warming
themselves before the fire preparatory to departure, it came
into Godeschal’s head to construct and compose a Register
“architriclino-basochien,” of the utmost antiquity, saved from the
fires of the Revolution, and derived through the procureur of the
Chatelet-Bordin, the immediate predecessor of Sauvaguest, the attorney,
from whom Desroches had bought his practice. The work, which was highly
approved by the other clerks, was begun by a search through all the
dealers in old paper for a register, made of paper with the mark of
the eighteenth century, duly bound in parchment, on which should be the
stamp of an order in council. Having found such a volume it was left
about in the dust, on the stove, on the ground, in the kitchen, and even
in what the clerks called the “chamber of deliberations”; and thus
it obtained a mouldiness to delight an antiquary, cracks of aged
dilapidation, and broken corners that looked as though the rats had
gnawed them; also, the gilt edges were tarnished with surprising
perfection. As soon as the book was duly prepared, the entries were
made. The following extracts will show to the most obtuse mind the
purpose to which the office of Maitre Desroches devoted this register,
the first sixty pages of which were filled with reports of fictitious
cases. On the first page appeared as follows, in the legal spelling of
the eighteenth century:--
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, so be it. This
day, the feast of our lady Saincte-Geneviesve, patron saint of
Paris, under whose protection have existed, since the year 1525
the clerks of this Practice, we the under-signed, clerks and
sub-clerks of Maistre Jerosme-Sebastien Bordin, successor to the
late Guerbet, in his lifetime procureur at the Chastelet, do hereby
recognize the obligation under which we lie to renew and continue
the register and the archives of installation of the clerks of
this noble Practice, a glorious member of the Kingdom of Basoche,
the which register, being now full in consequence of the many acts
and deeds of our well-beloved predecessors, we have consigned to
the Keeper of the Archives of the Palais for safe-keeping, with
the registers of other ancient Practices; and we have ourselves
gone, each and all, to hear mass at the parish church of
Saint-Severin to solemnize the inauguration of this our new
register.
In witness whereof we have hereunto signed our names: Malin,
head-clerk; Grevin, second-clerk; Athanase Feret, clerk; Jacques
Heret, clerk; Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely, clerk; Bedeau,
youngest clerk and gutter-jumper.
In the year of our Lord 1787.
After the mass aforesaid was heard, we conveyed ourselves to
Courtille, where, at the common charge, we ordered a fine
breakfast; which did not end till seven o’clock the next morning.
This was marvellously well engrossed. An expert would have said that
it was written in the eighteenth century. Twenty-seven reports of
receptions of neophytes followed, the last in the fatal year of 1792.
Then came a blank of fourteen years; after which the register began
again, in 1806, with the appointment of Bordin as attorney before the
first Court of the Seine. And here follows the deed which proclaimed the
reconstitution of the kingdom of Basoche:--
God in his mercy willed that, in spite of the fearful storms which
have cruelly ravaged the land of France, now become a great
Empire, the archives of the very celebrated Practice of Maitre
Bordin should be preserved; and we, the undersigned, clerks of the
very virtuous and very worthy Maitre Bordin, do not hesitate to
attribute this unheard-of preservation, when all titles,
privileges, and charters were lost, to the protection of
Sainte-Genevieve, patron Saint of this office, and also to the
reverence which the last of the procureurs of noble race had for
all that belonged to ancient usages and customs. In the uncertainty
of knowing the exact part of Sainte-Genevieve and Maitre Bordin in
this miracle, we have resolved, each of us, to go to Saint-Etienne
du Mont and there hear mass, which will be said before the altar
of that Holy-Shepherdess who sends us sheep to shear, and also to
offer a breakfast to our master Bordin, hoping that he will pay
the costs.
Signed: Oignard, first clerk; Poidevin, second clerk; Proust,
clerk; Augustin Coret, sub-clerk.
At the office.
November, 1806.
At three in the afternoon, the above-named clerks hereby return
their grateful thanks to their excellent master, who regaled them
at the establishment of the Sieur Rolland restaurateur, rue du
Hasard, with exquisite wines of three regions, to wit: Bordeaux,
Champagne, and Burgundy, also with dishes most carefully chosen,
between the hours of four in the afternoon to half-past seven in
the evening. Coffee, ices, and liqueurs were in abundance. But
the presence of the master himself forbade the chanting of hymns
of praise in clerical stanzas. No clerk exceeded the bounds of
amiable gayety, for the worthy, respectable, and generous patron
had promised to take his clerks to see Talma in “Brittanicus,” at
the Theatre-Francais. Long life to Maitre Bordin! May God shed
favors on his venerable pow! May he sell dear so glorious a
practice! May the rich clients for whom he prays arrive! May his
bills of costs and charges be paid in a trice! May our masters to
come be like him! May he ever be loved by clerks in other worlds
than this!
Here followed thirty-three reports of various receptions of new clerks,
distinguished from one another by different writing and different inks,
also by quotations, signatures, and praises of good cheer and wines,
which seemed to show that each report was written and signed on the
spot, “inter pocula.”
Finally, under date of the month of June, 1822, the period when
Desroches took the oath, appears this constitutional declaration:--
I, the undersigned, Francois-Claude-Marie Godeschal, called by
Maitre Desroches to perform the difficult functions of head-clerk
in a Practice where the clients have to be created, having learned
through Maitre Derville, from whose office I come, of the
existence of the famous archives architriclino-basochien, so
celebrated at the Palais, have implored our gracious master to
obtain them from his predecessor; for it has become of the highest
importance to recover a document bearing date of the year 1786,
which is connected with other documents deposited for safe-keeping
at the Palais, the existence of which has been certified to by
Messrs. Terrasse and Duclos, keepers of records, by the help of
which we may go back to the year 1525, and find historical
indications of the utmost value on the manners, customs, and
cookery of the clerical race.
Having received a favorable answer to this request, the present
office has this day been put in possession of these proofs of the
worship in which our predecessors held the Goddess Bottle and good
living.
In consequence thereof, for the edification of our successors, and
to renew the chain of years and goblets, I, the said Godeschal,
have invited Messieurs Doublet, second clerk; Vassal, third clerk;
Herisson and Grandemain, clerks; and Dumets, sub-clerk, to
breakfast, Sunday next, at the “Cheval Rouge,” on the Quai
Saint-Bernard, where we will celebrate the victory of obtaining
this volume which contains the Charter of our gullets.
This day, Sunday, June 27th, were imbibed twelve bottles of twelve
different wines, regarded as exquisite; also were devoured melons,
“pates au jus romanum,” and a fillet of beef with mushroom sauce.
Mademoiselle Mariette, the illustrious sister of our head-clerk
and leading lady of the Royal Academy of music and dancing, having
obligingly put at the disposition of this Practice orchestra seats
for the performance of this evening, it is proper to make this
record of her generosity. Moreover, it is hereby decreed that the
aforesaid clerks shall convey themselves in a body to that noble
demoiselle to thank her in person, and declare to her that on the
occasion of her first lawsuit, if the devil sends her one, she
shall pay the money laid out upon it, and no more.
And our head-clerk Godeschal has been and is hereby proclaimed a
flower of Basoche, and, more especially, a good fellow. May a man
who treats so well be soon in treaty for a Practice of his own!
On this record were stains of wine, pates, and candle-grease. To exhibit
the stamp of truth that the writers had managed to put upon these
records, we may here give the report of Oscar’s own pretended
reception:--
This day, Monday, November 25th, 1822, after a session held
yesterday at the rue de la Cerisaie, Arsenal quarter, at the house
of Madame Clapart, mother of the candidate-basochien Oscar Husson,
we, the undersigned, declare that the repast of admission
surpassed our expectations. It was composed of radishes, pink and
black, gherkins, anchovies, butter and olives for hors-d’oeuvre; a
succulent soup of rice, bearing testimony to maternal solicitude,
for we recognized therein a delicious taste of poultry; indeed, by
acknowledgment of the new member, we learned that the gibbets of a
fine stew prepared by the hands of Madame Clapart herself had been
judiciously inserted into the family soup-pot with a care that is
never taken except in such households.
Item: the said gibbets inclosed in a sea of jelly.
Item: a tongue of beef with tomatoes, which rendered us all
tongue-tied automatoes.
Item: a compote of pigeons with caused us to think the angels had
had a finger in it.
Item: a timbale of macaroni surrounded by chocolate custards.
Item: a dessert composed of eleven delicate dishes, among which we
remarked (in spite of the tipsiness caused by sixteen bottles of
the choicest wines) a compote of peaches of august and mirobolant
delicacy.
The wines of Roussillon and those of the banks of the Rhone
completely effaced those of Champagne and Burgundy. A bottle of
maraschino and another of kirsch did, in spite of the exquisite
coffee, plunge us into so marked an oenological ecstasy that we
found ourselves at a late hour in the Bois de Boulogne instead of
our domicile, where we thought we were.
In the statutes of our Order there is one rule which is rigidly
enforced; namely, to allow all candidates for the privilege of
Basoche to limit the magnificence of their feast of welcome to the
length of their purse; for it is publicly notorious that no one
delivers himself up to Themis if he has a fortune, and every clerk
is, alas, sternly curtailed by his parents. Consequently, we
hereby record with the highest praise the liberal conduct of
Madame Clapart, widow, by her first marriage, of Monsieur Husson,
father of the candidate, who is worthy of the hurrahs which we
gave for her at dessert.
To all of which we hereby set our hands.
[Signed by all the clerks.]
Three clerks had already been deceived by the Book, and three real
“receptions of welcome,” were recorded on this imposing register.
The day after the arrival of each neophyte, the little sub-clerk (the
errand-boy and “gutter-jumper”) laid upon the new-comer’s desk the
“Archives Architriclino-Basochiennes,” and the clerks enjoyed the sight
of his countenance as he studied its facetious pages. Inter pocula
each candidate had learned the secret of the farce, and the revelation
inspired him with the desire to hoax his successor.
We see now why Oscar, become in his turn participator in the hoax,
called out to the little clerk, “Forward, the book!”
Ten minutes later a handsome young man, with a fine figure and pleasant
face, presented himself, asked for Monsieur Desroches, and gave his name
without hesitation to Godeschal.
“I am Frederic Marest,” he said, “and I come to take the place of third
clerk.”
“Monsieur Husson,” said Godeschal to Oscar, “show monsieur his seat and
tell him about the customs of the office.”
The next day the new clerk found the register lying on his desk. He took
it up, but after reading a few pages he began to laugh, said nothing to
the assembled clerks, and laid the book down again.
“Messieurs,” he said, when the hour of departure came at five o’clock,
“I have a cousin who is head clerk of the notary Maitre Leopold
Hannequin; I will ask his advice as to what I ought to do for my
welcome.”
“That looks ill,” cried Godeschal, when Frederic had gone, “he hasn’t
the cut of a novice, that fellow!”
“We’ll get some fun out of him yet,” said Oscar.