Truly Fortune in Paris has bewildering turns of the wheel!
To have seen the Territorial Bank as I have seen it, the rooms without
fires, never swept, the desert with its dust, protested bills piled high
as _that_ on the desks, every week a notice of sale posted at the door,
my stew spreading throughout the whole place the odour of a poor man’s
kitchen; and then to witness now the reconstitution of our company in
its newly furnished halls, in which I have orders to light fires big
enough for a Government department, amid a busy crowd, blowings of
whistles, electric bells, gold pieces piled up till they fall over; it
savours of miracle. I need to look at myself in the glass before I can
believe it, to see in the mirror my iron-gray coat, trimmed with silver,
my white tie, my usher’s chain like the one I used to wear at the
Faculty on the days when there were sittings. And to think that to work
this transformation, to bring back to our brows gaiety, the mother of
concord, to restore to our scrip its value ten times over, to our dear
governor the esteem and confidence of which he had been so unjustly
deprived, one man has sufficed, the being of supernatural wealth whom
the hundred voices of renown designate by the name of the Nabob.
Oh, the first time that he came to the office, with his fine presence,
his face a little worn perhaps, but so distinguished, his manners of one
accustomed to frequent courts, upon terms of the utmost familiarity with
all the princes of the Orient--in a word, that indescribable quality of
assurance and greatness which is bestowed by immense wealth--I felt my
heart bursting beneath the double row of buttons on my waistcoat. People
may mouth in vain their great words of equality and fraternity; there
are men who stand so surely above the rest that one would like to
bow one’s self down flat in their presence, to find new phrases of
admiration in order to compel them to take a practical interest in one.
Let us hasten to add that I had need of nothing of the kind to attract
the attention of the Nabob. As I rose at his passage--moved to some
emotion, but with dignity, you may trust Passajon for that--he looked
at me with a smile and said in an undertone to the young man who
accompanied him: “What a fine head, like a--” Then there came a word
which I did not catch very well, a word ending in _art_, something like
_leopard_. No, however, it cannot have been that. _Jean-Bart_, perhaps,
although even then I hardly see the connection. However that be, in
any case he did say, “What a fine head,” and this condescension made me
proud. Moreover, all the directors show me a marked degree of kindness
and politeness. It seems that there was a discussion with regard to me
at the meeting of the board, to determine whether I should be kept or
dismissed like our cashier, that ill-tempered fellow who was always
talking of getting everybody sent to the galleys, and whom they have
now invited to go elsewhere to manufacture his cheap shirt-fronts.
Well done! That will teach him to be rude to people. So far as I
am concerned, Monsieur the Governor kindly consented to overlook my
somewhat hasty words, in consideration of my record of service at the
Territorial and elsewhere; and at the conclusion of the board meeting,
he said to me with his musical accent: “Passajon, you remain with us.”
It may be imagined how happy I was and how profuse in the expression
of my gratitude. But just think! I should have left with my few pence
without hope of ever saving any more; obliged to go and cultivate my
vineyard in that little country district of Montbars, a very narrow
field for a man who has lived in the midst of all the financial
aristocracy of Paris, and among those great banking operations by which
fortunes are made at a stroke. Instead of that, here I am established
afresh in a magnificent situation, my wardrobe renewed, and my savings,
which I spent a whole day in fingering over, intrusted to the kind
care of the governor, who has undertaken to invest them for me
advantageously. I think that is a manoeuvre which he is the very man
to execute successfully. And no need for the least anxiety. Every fear
vanishes before the word which is in vogue just now at all the councils
of administration, in all shareholders’ meetings, on the Bourse, the
boulevards, and everywhere: “The Nabob is in the affair.” That is to
say, gold is being poured out abundantly, the worst _combinazioni_ are
excellent.
He is so rich, that man!
Rich to a degree one cannot imagine. Has he not just lent fifteen
million francs as a simple loan passing from hand to hand, to the Bey
of Tunis? I repeat, fifteen millions. It was a trick he played on the
Hemerlingues, who wished to embroil him with that monarch and cut the
grass under his feet in those fine regions of the Orient where it grows
golden, high, and thick. It was an old Turk whom I know, Colonel Brahim,
one of our directors at the Territorial, who arranged the affair.
Naturally, the Bey, who happened to be, it appears, short of
pocket-money, was very much touched by the alacrity of the Nabob to
oblige him, and he has just sent him through Brahim a letter of thanks
in which he announces that upon the occasion of his next visit to
Vichy, he will stay a couple of days with him at that fine Chateau de
Saint-Romans, which the former Bey, the brother of this one, honoured
with a visit once before. You may fancy, what an honour! To receive a
reigning prince as a guest! The Hemerlingues are in a rage. They who had
manoeuvred so carefully--the son at Tunis, the father in Paris--to get
the Nabob into disfavour. And then it is true that fifteen millions is
a big sum. And do not say, “Passajon is telling us some fine tales.” The
person who acquainted me with the story has held in his hands the paper
sent by the Bey in an envelope of green silk stamped with the royal
seal. If he did not read it, it was because this paper was written in
Arabic, otherwise he would have made himself familiar with its contents
as in the case of all the rest of the Nabob’s correspondence. This
person is his _valet de chambre_, M. Noel, to whom I had the honour
of being introduced last Friday at a small evening-party of persons in
service which he gave to all his friends. I record an account of this
function in my memoirs as one of the most curious things which I have
seen in the course of my four years of sojourn in Paris.
I had thought at first when M. Francis, Monpavon’s _valet de chambre_,
spoke to me of the thing, that it was a question of one of those little
clandestine junketings such as are held sometimes in the garrets of our
boulevards with the fragments of food brought up by Mlle. Seraphine and
the other cooks in the building, at which you drink stolen wine, and
gorge yourself, sitting on trunks, trembling with fear, by the light
of a couple of candles which are extinguished at the least noise in the
corridors. These secret practices are repugnant to my character. But
when I received, as for the regular servants’ ball, an invitation
written in a very beautiful hand upon pink paper:
“M. Noel rekwests M---- to be present at his evenin-party on the 25th
instent. Super will be provided”
I saw clearly, not withstanding the defective spelling, that it was a
question of something serious and authorized. I dressed myself therefore
in my newest frock-coat, my finest linen, and arrived at the Place
Vendome at the address indicated by the invitation.
For the giving of his party, M. Noel had taken advantage of a
first-night at the opera, to which all fashionable society was
thronging, thus giving the servants a free rein, and putting the entire
place at our disposal until midnight. Notwithstanding this, the host
had preferred to receive us upstairs in his own bed-chamber, and this I
approved highly, being in that matter of the opinion of the old fellow
in the rhyme:
Fie on the pleasure
That fear may corrupt!
But my word, the luxury on the Place Vendome! A felt carpet on the
floor, the bed hidden away in an alcove, Algerian curtains with red
stripes, an ornamental clock in green marble on the chimneypiece, the
whole lighted by lamps of which the flames can be regulated at will. Our
oldest member, M. Chalmette, is not better lodged at Dijon. I arrived
about nine o’clock with Monpavon’s old Francis, and I must confess that
my entry made a sensation, preceded as I was by my academical past, my
reputation for politeness, and great knowledge of the world. My fine
presence did the rest, for it must be said that I know how to go into a
room. M. Noel, in a dress-coat, very dark skinned and with mutton-chop
whiskers, came forward to meet us.
“You are welcome, M. Passajon,” said he, and taking my cap with silver
galloons which, according to the fashion, I had kept in my right hand
while making my entry, he gave it to a gigantic negro in red and gold
livery.
“Here, Lakdar, hang that up--and that,” he added by way of a joke,
giving him a kick in a certain region of the back.
There was much laughter at this sally, and we began to chat together
in very friendly fashion. An excellent fellow, this M. Noel, with his
accent of the Midi, his pronounced style of dress, the smoothness and
the simplicity of his manners. He reminded me of the Nabob, without
his distinction, however. I noticed, moreover, that evening, that these
resemblances are frequently to be observed in _valets de chambre_ who,
living in the intimacy of their masters, by whom they are always a
little dazzled, end by acquiring their manners and habits. Thus, M.
Francis has a certain way of straightening his body when displaying his
linen-front, a mania for raising his arms in order to pull his cuffs
down--it is Monpavon to a T. Now one, for instance, who bears no
resemblance to his master is Joey, the coachman of Dr. Jenkins. I call
him Joey, but at the party every one called him Jenkins; for, in that
world, the stable folk among themselves give to each other the names
of their masters, call each other Bois l’Hery, Monpavon, and Jenkins,
without ceremony. Is it in order to degrade their superiors, to raise
the status of menials? Every country has its customs; it is only a fool
who will be surprised by them. To return to Joey Jenkins, how can the
doctor, affable as he is, so polished in every particular, keep in his
service that brute, bloated with _porter_ and _gin_, who will remain
silent for hours at a time, then, at the first mounting of liquor to
his head, begins to howl and to wish to fight everybody, as witness the
scandalous scene which had just occurred when we entered?
The marquis’s little groom, Tom Bois l’Hery, as they call him here, had
desired to have a jest with this uncouth creature of an Irishman, who
had replied to a bit of Parisian urchin’s banter with a terrible Belfast
blow of his fist right in the lad’s face.
“A sausage with paws, I! A sausage with paws, I!” repeated the coachman,
choking with rage, while his innocent victim was being carried into the
adjoining room, where the ladies and girls found occupation in bathing
his nose. The disturbance was quickly appeased, thanks to our arrival,
thanks also to the wise words of M. Barreau, a middle-aged man, sedate
and majestic, with a manner resembling my own. He is the Nabob’s cook,
a former _chef_ of the Cafe Anglais, whom Cardailhac, the manager of
the Nouveautes, has procured for his friend. To see him in a dress-coat,
with white tie, his handsome face full and clean-shaven, you would have
taken him for one of the great functionaries of the Empire. It is true
that a cook in an establishment where the table is set every morning
for thirty persons, in addition to madame’s special meal, and all eating
only the very finest and most delicate of food, is not the same as the
ordinary preparer of a _ragout_. He is paid the salary of a colonel,
lodged, boarded, and then the perquisites! One has hardly a notion
of the extent of the perquisites in a berth like this. Every one
consequently addressed him respectfully, with the deference due to a man
of his importance. “M. Barreau” here, “My dear M. Barreau” there. For
it is a great mistake to imagine that servants among themselves are all
cronies and comrades. Nowhere do you find a hierarchy more prevalent
than among them. Thus at M. Noel’s party I distinctly noticed that the
coachmen did not fraternize with their grooms, nor the valets with the
footmen and the lackeys, any more than the steward or the butler would
mix with the lower servants; and when M. Barreau emitted any little
pleasantry it was amusing to see how exceedingly those under his orders
seemed to enjoy it. I am not opposed to this kind of thing. Quite on
the contrary. As our oldest member used to say, “A society without
a hierarchy is like a house without a staircase.” The observation,
however, seems to me one worth setting down in these memoirs.
The party, I need scarcely say, did not shine with its full splendour
until after the return of its most beauteous ornaments, the ladies and
girls who had gone to nurse the little Tom, ladies’-maids with shining
and pomaded hair, chiefs of domestic departments in bonnets adorned with
ribbons, negresses, housekeepers, a brilliant assembly in which I was
immediately given great prestige, thanks to my dignified bearing and to
the surname of “Uncle” which the younger among these delightful persons
saw fit to bestow upon me.
I fancy there was in the room a good deal of second-hand frippery in
the way of silk and lace, rather faded velvet, even, eight-button
gloves that had been cleaned several times, and perfumes abstracted from
madame’s dressing-table, but the faces were happy, thoughts given wholly
to gaiety, and I was able to make a little corner for myself, which was
very lively, always within the bounds of propriety--that goes without
saying--and of a character suitable for an individual in my position.
This was, moreover, the general tone of the party. Until towards the end
of the entertainment I heard none of those unseemly jests, none of those
scandalous stories which give so much amusement to the gentlemen of
our Board; and I take pleasure in remarking that Bois l’Hery the
coachman--to cite only one example--is much more observant of the
proprieties than Bois l’Hery the master.
M. Noel alone was conspicuous by his familiar tone and by the liveliness
of his repartees. In him you have a man who does not hesitate to call
things by their names. Thus he remarked aloud to M. Francis, from one
end of the room to the other: “I say, Francis, that old swindler of
yours has made a nice thing out of us again this week.” And as the other
drew himself up with a dignified air, M. Noel began to laugh.
“No offence, old chap. The coffer is solid. You will never get to the
bottom of it.”
And it was on this that he told us of the loan of fifteen millions, to
which I alluded above.
I was surprised, however, to see no sign of preparation for the supper
which was mentioned on the cards of invitation, and I expressed my
anxiety on the point to one of my charming nieces, who replied:
“They are waiting for M. Louis.”
“M. Louis?”
“What! you do not know M. Louis, the _valet de chambre_ of the Duc de
Mora?”
I then learned who this influential personage was, whose protection is
sought by prefects, senators, even ministers, and who must make them pay
stiffly for it, since with his salary of twelve hundred francs from
the duke he has saved enough to produce him an income of twenty-five
thousand, sends his daughters to the convent school of the Sacre Coeur,
his son to the College Bourdaloue, and owns a chalet in Switzerland
where all his family goes to stay during the holidays.
At this juncture the personage in question arrived; but nothing in his
appearance would have suggested the unique position in Paris which is
his. Nothing of majesty in his deportment, a waistcoat buttoned up to
the collar, a mean-looking and insolent manner, and a way of speaking
without moving the lips which is very impolite to those who are
listening to you.
He greeted the assembly with a slight nod of the head, extended a finger
to M. Noel, and we were sitting there looking at each other, frozen by
his grand manners, when a door opened at the farther end of the room and
we beheld the supper laid out with all kinds of cold meats, pyramids
of fruit, and bottles of all shapes beneath the light falling from two
candelabra.
“Come, gentlemen, give the ladies your hands.” In a minute we were at
table, the ladies seated next the eldest or the most important among
us all, the rest on their feet, serving, chattering, drinking from
everybody’s glass, picking a morsel from any plate. I had M. Francis
for my neighbour and I had to listen to his grudges against M. Louis, of
whose place he was envious, so brilliant was it in comparison with that
which he occupied under the noble but worn-out old gambler who was his
master.
“He is a _parvenu_,” he muttered to me in a low voice. “He owes his
fortune to his wife, to Mme. Paul.”
It appears that this Mme. Paul is a housekeeper, who has been in the
duke’s establishment for twenty years, and who excels beyond all others
in the preparation for him of a certain ointment for an affection to
which he is subject. She is indispensable to Mora. Recognising this, M.
Louis made love to the old lady, married her though much younger than
she, and in order not to lose his sick-nurse and her ointments, his
excellency engaged the husband as _valet de chambre_. At bottom, in
spite of what I said to M. Francis, for my own part I thought the
proceeding quite praiseworthy and conformable to the loftiest morality,
since the mayor and the priest had a finger in it. Moreover, that
excellent meal, composed of delicate and very expensive foods with
which I was unacquainted even by name, had strongly disposed my mind to
indulgence and good-humour. But every one was not similarly inclined,
for from the other side of the table I could hear the bass voice of M.
Barreau, complaining:
“Why can he not mind his own business? Do I go pushing my nose into
his department? To begin with, the thing concerns Bompain, not him. And
then, after all, what is it that I am charged with? The butcher sends me
five baskets of meat every morning. I use only two of them and sell the
three others back to him. Where is the _chef_ who does not do the same?
As if, instead of coming to play the spy in my basement, he would not
do better to look after the great leakage up there. When I think that
in three months that gang on the first floor has smoked twenty-eight
thousand francs’ worth of cigars. Twenty-eight thousand francs! Ask
Noel if I am not speaking the truth. And on the second floor, in the
apartments of madame, that is where you should look to see a fine
confusion of linen, of dresses thrown aside after being worn once,
jewels by the handful, pearls that you crush on the floor as you walk.
Oh, but wait a little. I shall get my own back from that same little
gentleman.”
I understood that the allusion was to M. de Gery, that young secretary
of the Nabob who often comes to the Territorial, where he is always
occupied rummaging into the books. Very polite, certainly, but a very
haughty young man, who does not know how to push himself forward. From
all round the table there came nothing but a concert of maledictions
on him. M. Louis himself addressed some remarks to the company upon the
subject with his grand air:
“In our establishment, my dear M. Barreau, the cook quite recently had
an affair, similar to yours, with the chief of his excellency’s Cabinet,
who had permitted himself to make some comments upon the expenditure.
The cook went up to the duke’s apartments upon the instant in his
professional costume, and with his hand on the strings of his apron,
said, ‘Let your excellency choose between monsieur and myself.’ The duke
did not hesitate. One can find as many Cabinet leaders as one desires,
while the good cooks, you can count them. There are in Paris four
altogether. I include you, my dear Barreau. We dismissed the chief
of our Cabinet, giving him a prefecture of the first class by way of
consolation; but we kept the _chef_ of our kitchen.”
“Ah, you see,” said M. Barreau, who rejoiced to hear this story,
“you see what it is to serve in the house of a _grand seigneur_. But
_parvenus_ are _parvenus_--what will you have?”
“And that is all Jansoulet is,” added M. Francis, tugging at his cuffs.
“A man who used to be a street porter at Marseilles.”