smallest blunder!--You are right: as a first step let us act on Fouche’s
principle, ‘Arrest!’--and Jacques Collin must at once be sent back to
the secret cells.”
“That is to proclaim him a convict and to ruin Lucien’s memory!”
“What a desperate business!” said Monsieur de Granville. “There is
danger on every side.”
At this instant the governor of the Conciergerie came in, not without
knocking; and the private room of a public prosecutor is so well
guarded, that only those concerned about the courts may even knock at
the door.
“Monsieur le Comte,” said Monsieur Gault, “the prisoner calling himself
Carlos Herrera wishes to speak with you.”
“Has he had communication with anybody?” asked Monsieur de Granville.
“With all the prisoners, for he has been out in the yard since about
half-past seven. And he has seen the condemned man, who would seem to
have talked to him.”
A speech of Camusot’s, which recurred to his mind like a flash of light,
showed Monsieur de Granville all the advantage that might be taken of
a confession of intimacy between Jacques Collin and Theodore Calvi to
obtain the letters. The public prosecutor, glad to have an excuse for
postponing the execution, beckoned Monsieur Gault to his side.
“I intend,” said he, “to put off the execution till to-morrow; but let
no one in the prison suspect it. Absolute silence! Let the executioner
seem to be superintending the preparations.
“Send the Spanish priest here under a strong guard; the Spanish Embassy
claims his person! Gendarmes can bring up the self-styled Carlos by your
back stairs so that he may see no one. Instruct the men each to hold him
by one arm, and never let him go till they reach this door.
“Are you sure, Monsieur Gault, that this dangerous foreigner has spoken
to no one but the prisoners!”
“Ah! just as he came out of the condemned cell a lady came to see
him----”
The two magistrates exchanged looks, and such looks!
“What lady was that!” asked Camusot.
“One of his penitents--a Marquise,” replied Gault.
“Worse and worse!” said Monsieur de Granville, looking at Camusot.
“She gave all the gendarmes and warders a sick headache,” said Monsieur
Gault, much puzzled.
“Nothing can be a matter of indifference in your business,” said the
public prosecutor. “The Conciergerie has not such tremendous walls for
nothing. How did this lady get in?”
“With a regular permit, monsieur,” replied the governor. “The lady,
beautifully dressed, in a fine carriage with a footman and a chasseur,
came to see her confessor before going to the funeral of the poor young
man whose body you had had removed.”
“Bring me the order for admission,” said Monsieur de Granville.
“It was given on the recommendation of the Comte de Serizy.”
“What was the woman like?” asked the public prosecutor.
“She seemed to be a lady.”
“Did you see her face?”
“She wore a black veil.”
“What did they say to each other?”
“Well--a pious person, with a prayer-book in her hand--what could she
say? She asked the Abbe’s blessing and went on her knees.”
“Did they talk together a long time?”
“Not five minutes; but we none of us understood what they said; they
spoke Spanish no doubt.”
“Tell us everything, monsieur,” the public prosecutor insisted. “I
repeat, the very smallest detail is to us of the first importance. Let
this be a caution to you.”
“She was crying, monsieur.”
“Really weeping?”
“That we could not see, she hid her face in her handkerchief. She left
three hundred francs in gold for the prisoners.”
“That was not she!” said Camusot.
“Bibi-Lupin at once said, ‘She is a thief!’” said Monsieur Gault.
“He knows the tribe,” said Monsieur de Granville.--“Get out your
warrant,” he added, turning to Camusot, “and have seals placed on
everything in her house--at once! But how can she have got hold of
Monsieur de Serizy’s recommendation?--Bring me the order--and go,
Monsieur Gault; send me that Abbe immediately. So long as we have him
safe, the danger cannot be greater. And in the course of two hours’ talk
you get a long way into a man’s mind.”
“Especially such a public prosecutor as you are,” said Camusot
insidiously.
“There will be two of us,” replied Monsieur de Granville politely.
And he became discursive once more.
“There ought to be created for every prison parlor, a post of
superintendent, to be given with a good salary to the cleverest and most
energetic police officers,” said he, after a long pause. “Bibi-Lupin
ought to end his days in such a place. Then we should have an eye and
ear on the watch in a department that needs closer supervision than it
gets.--Monsieur Gault could tell us nothing positive.”
“He has so much to do,” said Camusot. “Still, between these secret cells
and us there lies a gap which ought not to exist. On the way from the
Conciergerie to the judges’ rooms there are passages, courtyards, and
stairs. The attention of the agents cannot be unflagging, whereas the
prisoner is always alive to his own affairs.
“I was told that a lady had already placed herself in the way of Jacques
Collin when he was brought up from the cells to be examined. That
woman got into the guardroom at the top of the narrow stairs from the
mousetrap; the ushers told me, and I blamed the gendarmes.”
“Oh! the Palais needs entire reconstruction,” said Monsieur de
Granville. “But it is an outlay of twenty to thirty million francs!
Just try asking the Chambers for thirty millions for the more decent
accommodation of Justice.”
The sound of many footsteps and a clatter of arms fell on their ear. It
would be Jacques Collin.
The public prosecutor assumed a mask of gravity that hid the man.
Camusot imitated his chief.
The office-boy opened the door, and Jacques Collin came in, quite calm
and unmoved.
“You wished to speak to me,” said Monsieur de Granville. “I am ready to
listen.”
“Monsieur le Comte, I am Jacques Collin. I surrender!”
Camusot started; the public prosecutor was immovable.
“As you may suppose, I have my reasons for doing this,” said Jacques
Collin, with an ironical glance at the two magistrates. “I must
inconvenience you greatly; for if I had remained a Spanish priest, you
would simply have packed me off with an escort of gendarmes as far as
the frontier by Bayonne, and there Spanish bayonets would have relieved
you of me.”
The lawyers sat silent and imperturbable.
“Monsieur le Comte,” the convict went on, “the reasons which have led me
to this step are yet more pressing than this, but devilish personal to
myself. I can tell them to no one but you.--If you are afraid----”
“Afraid of whom? Of what?” said the Comte de Granville.
In attitude and expression, in the turn of his head, his demeanor
and his look, this distinguished judge was at this moment a living
embodiment of the law which ought to supply us with the noblest examples
of civic courage. In this brief instant he was on a level with the
magistrates of the old French Parlement in the time of the civil wars,
when the presidents found themselves face to face with death, and stood,
made of marble, like the statues that commemorate them.
“Afraid to be alone with an escaped convict!”
“Leave us, Monsieur Camusot,” said the public prosecutor at once.
“I was about to suggest that you should bind me hand and foot,” Jacques
Collin coolly added, with an ominous glare at the two gentlemen. He
paused, and then said with great gravity:
“Monsieur le Comte, you had my esteem, but you now command my
admiration.”
“Then you think you are formidable?” said the magistrate, with a look of
supreme contempt.
“_Think_ myself formidable?” retorted the convict. “Why think about it?
I am, and I know it.”
Jacques Collin took a chair and sat down, with all the ease of a man who
feels himself a match for his adversary in an interview where they would
treat on equal terms.
At this instant Monsieur Camusot, who was on the point of closing the
door behind him, turned back, came up to Monsieur de Granville, and
handed him two folded papers.
“Look!” said he to Monsieur de Granville, pointing to one of them.
“Call back Monsieur Gault!” cried the Comte de Granville, as he read the
name of Madame de Maufrigneuse’s maid--a woman he knew.
The governor of the prison came in.
“Describe the woman who came to see the prisoner,” said the public
prosecutor in his ear.
“Short, thick-set, fat, and square,” replied Monsieur Gault.
“The woman to whom this permit was given is tall and thin,” said
Monsieur de Granville. “How old was she?”
“About sixty.”
“This concerns me, gentlemen?” said Jacques Collin. “Come, do not puzzle
your heads. That person is my aunt, a very plausible aunt, a woman, and
an old woman. I can save you a great deal of trouble. You will never
find my aunt unless I choose. If we beat about the bush, we shall never
get forwarder.”
“Monsieur l’Abbe has lost his Spanish accent,” observed Monsieur Gault;
“he does not speak broken French.”
“Because things are in a desperate mess, my dear Monsieur Gault,”
replied Jacques Collin with a bitter smile, as he addressed the Governor
by name.
Monsieur Gault went quickly up to his chief, and said in a whisper,
“Beware of that man, Monsieur le Comte; he is mad with rage.”
Monsieur de Granville gazed slowly at Jacques Collin, and saw that he
was controlling himself; but he saw, too, that what the governor said
was true. This treacherous demeanor covered the cold but terrible
nervous irritation of a savage. In Jacques Collin’s eyes were the lurid
fires of a volcanic eruption, his fists were clenched. He was a tiger
gathering himself up to spring.
“Leave us,” said the Count gravely to the prison governor and the judge.
“You did wisely to send away Lucien’s murderer!” said Jacques Collin,
without caring whether Camusot heard him or no; “I could not contain
myself, I should have strangled him.”
Monsieur de Granville felt a chill; never had he seen a man’s eyes so
full of blood, or cheeks so colorless, or muscles so set.
“And what good would that murder have done you?” he quietly asked.
“You avenge society, or fancy you avenge it, every day, monsieur, and
you ask me to give a reason for revenge? Have you never felt vengeance
throbbing in surges in your veins? Don’t you know that it was that idiot
of a judge who killed him?--For you were fond of my Lucien, and he loved
you! I know you by heart, sir. The dear boy would tell me everything at
night when he came in; I used to put him to bed as a nurse tucks up a
child, and I made him tell me everything. He confided everything to me,
even his least sensations!
“The best of mothers never loved an only son so tenderly as I loved
that angel! If only you knew! All that is good sprang up in his heart as
flowers grow in the fields. He was weak; it was his only fault, weak as
the string of a lyre, which is so strong when it is taut. These are the
most beautiful natures; their weakness is simply tenderness, admiration,
the power of expanding in the sunshine of art, of love, of the beauty
God has made for man in a thousand shapes!--In short, Lucien was a woman
spoiled. Oh! what could I not say to that brute beast who had just gone
out of the room!
“I tell you, monsieur, in my degree, as a prisoner before his judge,
I did what God A’mighty would have done for His Son if, hoping to save
Him, He had gone with Him before Pilate!”
A flood of tears fell from the convict’s light tawny eyes, which just
now had glared like those of a wolf starved by six months’ snow in the
plains of the Ukraine. He went on:
“That dolt would listen to nothing, and he killed the boy!--I tell you,
sir, I bathed the child’s corpse in my tears, crying out to the Power
I do not know, and which is above us all! I, who do not believe in
God!--(For if I were not a materialist, I should not be myself.)
“I have told everything when I say that. You don’t know--no man knows
what suffering is. I alone know it. The fire of anguish so dried up my
tears, that all last night I could not weep. Now I can, because I feel
that you can understand me. I saw you, sitting there just now, an Image
of Justice. Oh! monsieur, may God--for I am beginning to believe in
Him--preserve you from ever being as bereft as I am! That cursed judge
has robbed me of my soul, Monsieur le Comte! At this moment they are
burying my life, my beauty, my virtue, my conscience, all my powers!
Imagine a dog from which a chemist had extracted the blood.--That’s me!
I am that dog----
“And that is why I have come to tell you that I am Jacques Collin, and
to give myself up. I made up my mind to it this morning when they came
and carried away the body I was kissing like a madman--like a mother--as
the Virgin must have kissed Jesus in the tomb.
“I meant then to give myself up to justice without driving any bargain;
but now I must make one, and you shall know why.”
“Are you speaking to the judge or to Monsieur de Granville?” asked the
magistrate.
The two men, Crime and Law, looked at each other. The magistrate had
been strongly moved by the convict; he felt a sort of divine pity for
the unhappy wretch; he understood what his life and feelings were.
And besides, the magistrate--for a magistrate is always a
magistrate--knowing nothing of Jacques Collin’s career since his escape
from prison, fancied that he could impress the criminal who, after
all, had only been sentenced for forgery. He would try the effect of
generosity on this nature, a compound, like bronze, of various elements,
of good and evil.
Again, Monsieur de Granville, who had reached the age of fifty-three
without ever having been loved, admired a tender soul, as all men do who
have not been loved. This despair, the lot of many men to whom women can
only give esteem and friendship, was perhaps the unknown bond on which
a strong intimacy was based that united the Comtes de Bauvan, de
Granville, and de Serizy; for a common misfortune brings souls into
unison quite as much as a common joy.
“You have the future before you,” said the public prosecutor, with an
inquisitorial glance at the dejected villain.
The man only expressed by a shrug the utmost indifference to his fate.
“Lucien made a will by which he leaves you three hundred thousand
francs.”
“Poor, poor chap! poor boy!” cried Jacques Collin. “Always too honest!
I was all wickedness, while he was goodness--noble, beautiful, sublime!
Such lovely souls cannot be spoiled. He had taken nothing from me but my
money, sir.”
This utter and complete surrender of his individuality, which the
magistrate vainly strove to rally, so thoroughly proved his dreadful
words, that Monsieur de Granville was won over to the criminal. The
public prosecutor remained!
“If you really care for nothing,” said Monsieur de Granville, “what did
you want to say to me?”
“Well, is it not something that I have given myself up? You were getting
warm, but you had not got me; besides, you would not have known what to
do with me----”
“What an antagonist!” said the magistrate to himself.
“Monsieur le Comte, you are about to cut off the head of an innocent
man, and I have discovered the culprit,” said Jacques Collin, wiping
away his tears. “I have come here not for their sakes, but for yours. I
have come to spare you remorse, for I love all who took an interest in
Lucien, just as I will give my hatred full play against all who helped
to cut off his life--men or women!
“What can a convict more or less matter to me?” he went on, after a
short pause. “A convict is no more in my eyes than an emmet is in yours.
I am like the Italian brigands--fine men they are! If a traveler is
worth ever so little more than the charge of their musket, they shoot
him dead.
“I thought only of you.--I got the young man to make a clean breast of
it; he was bound to trust me, we had been chained together. Theodore
is very good stuff; he thought he was doing his mistress a good turn by
undertaking to sell or pawn stolen goods; but he is no more guilty of
the Nanterre job than you are. He is a Corsican; it is their way to
revenge themselves and kill each other like flies. In Italy and Spain
a man’s life is not respected, and the reason is plain. There we are
believed to have a soul in our own image, which survives us and lives
for ever. Tell that to your analyst! It is only among atheistical or
philosophical nations that those who mar human life are made to pay
so dearly; and with reason from their point of view--a belief only in
matter and in the present.
“If Calvi had told you who the woman was from whom he obtained the
stolen goods, you would not have found the real murderer; he is already
in your hands; but his accomplice, whom poor Theodore will not betray
because she is a woman----Well, every calling has its point of honor;
convicts and thieves have theirs!
“Now, I know the murderer of those two women and the inventors of that
bold, strange plot; I have been told every detail. Postpone Calvi’s
execution, and you shall know all; but you must give me your word that
he shall be sent safe back to the hulks and his punishment commuted.
A man so miserable as I am does not take the trouble to lie--you know
that. What I have told you is the truth.”
“To you, Jacques Collin, though it is degrading Justice, which ought
never to condescend to such a compromise, I believe I may relax the
rigidity of my office and refer the case to my superiors.”
“Will you grant me this life?”
“Possibly.”
“Monsieur, I implore you to give me your word; it will be enough.”
Monsieur Granville drew himself up with offended pride.
“I hold in my hand the honor of three families, and you only the lives
of three convicts in yours,” said Jacques Collin. “I have the stronger
hand.”
“But you may be sent back to the dark cells: then, what will you do?”
said the public prosecutor.
“Oh! we are to play the game out then!” said Jacques Collin. “I was
speaking as man to man--I was talking to Monsieur de Granville. But if
the public prosecutor is my adversary, I take up the cards and hold them
close.--And if only you had given me your word, I was ready to give you
back the letters that Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu----”
This was said with a tone, an audacity, and a look which showed Monsieur
de Granville, that against such an adversary the least blunder was
dangerous.
“And is that all you ask?” said the magistrate.
“I will speak for myself now,” said Jacques. “The honor of the Grandlieu
family is to pay for the commutation of Theodore’s sentence. It is
giving much to get very little. For what is a convict in penal servitude
for life? If he escapes, you can so easily settle the score. It is
drawing a bill on the guillotine! Only, as he was consigned to Rochefort
with no amiable intentions, you must promise me that he shall be
quartered at Toulon, and well treated there.
“Now, for myself, I want something more. I have the packets of letters
from Madame de Serizy and Madame de Maufrigneuse.--And what letters!--I
tell you, Monsieur le Comte, prostitutes, when they write letters,
assume a style of sentiment; well, sir, fine ladies, who are accustomed
to style and sentiment all day long, write as prostitutes behave.
Philosophers may know the reasons for this contrariness. I do not
care to seek them. Woman is an inferior animal; she is ruled by her
instincts. To my mind a woman has no beauty who is not like a man.
“So your smart duchesses, who are men in brains only, write
masterpieces. Oh! they are splendid from beginning to end, like Piron’s
famous ode!----”
“Indeed!”
“Would you like to see them?” said Jacques Collin, with a laugh.
The magistrate felt ashamed.
“I cannot give them to you to read. But, there; no nonsense; this is
business and all above board, I suppose?--You must give me back the
letters, and allow no one to play the spy or to follow or to watch the
person who will bring them to me.”
“That will take time,” said Monsieur de Granville.
“No. It is half-past nine,” replied Jacques Collin, looking at the
clock; “well, in four minutes you will have a letter from each of these
ladies, and after reading them you will countermand the guillotine.
If matters were not as they are, you would not see me taking things so
easy.--The ladies indeed have had warning.”--Monsieur de Granville was
startled.--“They must be making a stir by now; they are going to bring
the Keeper of the Seals into the fray--they may even appeal to the King,
who knows?--Come, now, will you give me your word that you will forget
all that has passed, and neither follow, nor send any one to follow,
that person for a whole hour?”
“I promise it.”
“Very well; you are not the man to deceive an escaped convict. You are a
chip of the block of which Turennes and Condes are made, and would keep
your word to a thief.--In the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_ there is at this
moment a beggar woman in rags, an old woman, in the very middle of the
hall. She is probably gossiping with one of the public writers, about
some lawsuit over a party-wall perhaps; send your office messenger to
fetch her, saying these words, ‘Dabor ti Mandana’ (the Boss wants you).
She will come.
“But do not be unnecessarily cruel. Either you accept my terms or you
do not choose to be mixed up in a business with a convict.--I am only a
forger, you will remember!--Well, do not leave Calvi to go through the
terrors of preparation for the scaffold.”
“I have already countermanded the execution,” said Monsieur de Granville
to Jacques Collin. “I would not have Justice beneath you in dignity.”
Jacques Collin looked at the public prosecutor with a sort of amazement,
and saw him ring his bell.
“Will you promise not to escape? Give me your word, and I shall be
satisfied. Go and fetch the woman.”
The office-boy came in.
“Felix, send away the gendarmes,” said Monsieur de Granville.
Jacques Collin was conquered.
In this duel with the magistrate he had tried to be the superior, the
stronger, the more magnanimous, and the magistrate had crushed him. At
the same time, the convict felt himself the superior, inasmuch as he had
tricked the Law; he had convinced it that the guilty man was innocent,
and had fought for a man’s head and won it; but this advantage must be
unconfessed, secret and hidden, while the magistrate towered above him
majestically in the eye of day.
As Jacques Collin left Monsieur de Granville’s room, the Comte des
Lupeaulx, Secretary-in-Chief of the President of the Council, and a
deputy, made his appearance, and with him a feeble-looking, little old
man. This individual, wrapped in a puce-colored overcoat, as though
it were still winter, with powdered hair, and a cold, pale face, had a
gouty gait, unsteady on feet that were shod with loose calfskin boots;
leaning on a gold-headed cane, he carried his hat in his hand, and wore
a row of seven orders in his button-hole.
“What is it, my dear des Lupeaulx?” asked the public prosecutor.
“I come from the Prince,” replied the Count, in a low voice. “You have
carte blanche if you can only get the letters--Madame de Serizy’s,
Madame de Maufrigneuse’s and Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu’s. You
may come to some arrangement with this gentleman----”
“Who is he?” asked Monsieur de Granville, in a whisper.
“There are no secrets between you and me, my dear sir,” said des
Lupeaulx. “This is the famous Corentin. His Majesty desires that you
will yourself tell him all the details of this affair and the conditions
of success.”
“Do me the kindness,” replied the public prosecutor, “of going to tell
the Prince that the matter is settled, that I have not needed this
gentleman’s assistance,” and he turned to Corentin. “I will wait on His
Majesty for his commands with regard to the last steps in the matter,
which will lie with the Keeper of the Seals, as two reprieves will need
signing.”
“You have been wise to take the initiative,” said des Lupeaulx,
shaking hands with the Comte de Granville. “On the very eve of a great
undertaking the King is most anxious that the peers and the great
families should not be shown up, blown upon. It ceases to be a low
criminal case; it becomes an affair of State.”
“But tell the Prince that by the time you came it was all settled.”
“Really!”
“I believe so.”
“Then you, my dear fellow, will be Keeper of the Seals as soon as the
present Keeper is made Chancellor----”
“I have no ambition,” replied the magistrate.
Des Lupeaulx laughed, and went away.
“Beg of the Prince to request the King to grant me ten minutes’ audience
at about half-past two,” added Monsieur de Granville, as he accompanied
the Comte des Lupeaulx to the door.
“So you are not ambitious!” said des Lupeaulx, with a keen look at
Monsieur de Granville. “Come, you have two children, you would like at
least to be made peer of France.”
“If you have the letters, Monsieur le Procureur General, my intervention
is unnecessary,” said Corentin, finding himself alone with Monsieur de
Granville, who looked at him with very natural curiosity.
“Such a man as you can never be superfluous in so delicate a case,”
replied the magistrate, seeing that Corentin had heard or guessed
everything.
Corentin bowed with a patronizing air.
“Do you know the man in question, monsieur?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Comte, it is Jacques Collin, the head of the ‘Ten
Thousand Francs Association,’ the banker for three penal settlements,
a convict who, for the last five years, has succeeded in concealing
himself under the robe of the Abbe Carlos Herrera. How he ever came to
be intrusted with a mission to the late King from the King of Spain is a
question which we have all puzzled ourselves with trying to answer. I am
now expecting information from Madrid, whither I have sent notes and a
man. That convict holds the secrets of two kings.”
“He is a man of mettle and temper. We have only two courses open to us,”
said the public prosecutor. “We must secure his fidelity, or get him out
of the way.”
“The same idea has struck us both, and that is a great honor for me,”
said Corentin. “I am obliged to have so many ideas, and for so many
people, that out of them all I ought occasionally to meet a clever man.”
He spoke so drily, and in so icy a tone, that Monsieur de Granville made
no reply, and proceeded to attend to some pressing matters.
Mademoiselle Jacqueline Collin’s amazement on seeing Jacques Collin in
the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_ is beyond imagining. She stood square on
her feet, her hands on her hips, for she was dressed as a costermonger.
Accustomed as she was to her nephew’s conjuring tricks, this beat
everything.
“Well, if you are going to stare at me as if I were a natural history
show,” said Jacques Collin, taking his aunt by the arm and leading her
out of the hall, “we shall be taken for a pair of curious specimens;
they may take us into custody, and then we should lose time.”
And he went down the stairs of the Galerie Marchande leading to the Rue
de la Barillerie. “Where is Paccard?”
“He is waiting for me at la Rousse’s, walking up and down the flower
market.”
“And Prudence?”
“Also at her house, as my god-daughter.”
“Let us go there.”
“Look round and see if we are watched.”
La Rousse, a hardware dealer living on the Quai aux Fleurs, was the
widow of a famous murderer, one of the “Ten Thousand.” In 1819, Jacques
Collin had faithfully handed over twenty thousand francs and odd to this
woman from her lover, after he had been executed. _Trompe-la-Mort_ was
the only person who knew of his pal’s connection with the girl, at that
time a milliner.
“I am your young man’s boss,” the boarder at Madame Vauquer’s had told
her, having sent for her to meet him at the Jardin des Plantes. “He
may have mentioned me to you, my dear.--Any one who plays me false dies
within a year; on the other hand, those who are true to me have nothing
to fear from me. I am staunch through thick and thin, and would die
without saying a word that would compromise anybody I wish well to.
Stick to me as a soul sticks to the Devil, and you will find the benefit
of it. I promised your poor Auguste that you should be happy; he wanted
to make you a rich woman, and he got scragged for your sake.
“Don’t cry; listen to me. No one in the world knows that you were
mistress to a convict, to the murderer they choked off last Saturday;
and I shall never tell. You are two-and-twenty, and pretty, and you have
twenty-six thousand francs of your own; forget Auguste and get married;
be an honest woman if you can. In return for peace and quiet, I only
ask you to serve me now and then, me, and any one I may send you, but
without stopping to think. I will never ask you to do anything that can
get you into trouble, you or your children, or your husband, if you get
one, or your family.
“In my line of life I often want a safe place to talk in or to hide in.
Or I may want a trusty woman to carry a letter or do an errand. You
will be one of my letter-boxes, one of my porters’ lodges, one of my
messengers, neither more nor less.
“You are too red-haired; Auguste and I used to call you la Rousse; you
can keep that name. My aunt, an old-clothes dealer at the Temple, who
will come and see you, is the only person in the world you are to obey;
tell her everything that happens to you; she will find you a husband,
and be very useful to you.”
And thus the bargain was struck, a diabolical compact like that which
had for so long bound Prudence Servien to Jacques Collin, and which the
man never failed to tighten; for, like the Devil, he had a passion for
recruiting.
In about 1821 Jacques Collin found la Rousse a husband in the person of
the chief shopman under a rich wholesale tin merchant. This head-clerk,
having purchased his master’s house of business, was now a prosperous
man, the father of two children, and one of the district Maire’s
deputies. La Rousse, now Madame Prelard, had never had the smallest
ground for complaint, either of Jacques Collin or of his aunt; still,
each time she was required to help them, Madame Prelard quaked in every
limb. So, as she saw the terrible couple come into her shop, she turned
as pale as death.
“We want to speak to you on business, madame,” said Jacques Collin.
“My husband is in there,” said she.
“Very well; we have no immediate need of you. I never put people out of
their way for nothing.”
“Send for a hackney coach, my dear,” said Jacqueline Collin, “and tell
my god-daughter to come down. I hope to place her as maid to a very
great lady, and the steward of the house will take us there.”
A shop-boy fetched the coach, and a few minutes later Europe, or, to
be rid of the name under which she had served Esther, Prudence Servien,
Paccard, Jacques Collin, and his aunt, were, to la Rousse’s great
joy, packed into a coach, ordered by _Trompe-la-Mort_ to drive to the
Barriere d’Ivry.
Prudence and Paccard, quaking in presence of the boss, felt like guilty
souls in the presence of God.
“Where are the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs?” asked the boss,
looking at them with the clear, penetrating gaze which so effectually
curdled the blood of these tools of his, these ames damnees, when they
were caught tripping, that they felt as though their scalp were set with
as many pins as hairs.
“The seven hundred and _thirty_ thousand francs,” said Jacqueline Collin
to her nephew, “are quite safe; I gave them to la Romette this morning
in a sealed packet.”
“If you had not handed them over to Jacqueline,” said _Trompe-la-Mort_,
“you would have gone straight there,” and he pointed to the Place de
Greve, which they were just passing.
Prudence Servien, in her country fashion, made the sign of the Cross, as
if she had seen a thunderbolt fall.
“I forgive you,” said the boss, “on condition of your committing no more
mistakes of this kind, and of your being henceforth to me what these two
fingers are of my right hand,” and he pointed to the first and middle
fingers, “for this good woman is the thumb,” and he slapped his aunt on
the shoulder.
“Listen to me,” he went on. “You, Paccard, have nothing more to fear;
you may follow your nose about Pantin (Paris) as you please. I give you
leave to marry Prudence Servien.”
Paccard took Jacques Collin’s hand and kissed it respectfully.
“And what must I do?” said he.
“Nothing; and you will have dividends and women, to say nothing of your
wife--for you have a touch of the Regency about you, old boy!--That
comes of being such a fine man!”
Paccard colored under his sultan’s ironical praises.
“You, Prudence,” Jacques went on, “will want a career, a position, a
future; you must remain in my service. Listen to me. There is a
very good house in the Rue Sainte-Barbe belonging to that Madame de
Saint-Esteve, whose name my aunt occasionally borrows. It is a very good
business, with plenty of custom, bringing in fifteen to twenty thousand
francs a year. Saint-Esteve puts a woman in to keep the shop----”
“La Gonore,” said Jacqueline.
“Poor la Pouraille’s moll,” said Paccard. “That is where I bolted to
with Europe the day that poor Madame van Bogseck died, our mis’ess.”
“Who jabbers when I am speaking?” said Jacques Collin.
Perfect silence fell in the coach. Paccard and Prudence did not dare
look at each other.
“The shop is kept by la Gonore,” Jacques Collin went on. “If that is
where you went to hide with Prudence, I see, Paccard, that you have
wit enough to dodge the reelers (mislead the police), but not enough to
puzzle the old lady,” and he stroked his aunt’s chin. “Now I see how
she managed to find you.--It all fits beautifully. You may go back to
la Gonore.--To go on: Jacqueline will arrange with Madame Nourrisson to
purchase her business in the Rue Sainte-Barbe; and if you manage well,
child, you may make a fortune out of it,” he said to Prudence. “An
Abbess at your age! It is worthy of a Daughter of France,” he added in a
hard tone.
Prudence flung her arms round _Trompe-la-Mort’s_ neck and hugged him;
but the boss flung her off with a sharp blow, showing his extraordinary
strength, and but for Paccard, the girl’s head would have struck and
broken the coach window.
“Paws off! I don’t like such ways,” said the boss stiffly. “It is
disrespectful to me.”
“He is right, child,” said Paccard. “Why, you see, it is as though the
boss had made you a present of a hundred thousand francs. The shop is
worth that. It is on the Boulevard, opposite the Gymnase. The people
come out of the theatre----”
“I will do more,” said _Trompe-la-Mort_; “I will buy the house.”
“And in six years we shall be millionaires,” cried Paccard.
Tired of being interrupted, _Trompe-la-Mort_ gave Paccard’s shin a kick
hard enough to break it; but the man’s tendons were of india-rubber, and
his bones of wrought iron.
“All right, boss, mum it is,” said he.
“Do you think I am cramming you with lies?” said Jacques Collin,
perceiving that Paccard had had a few drops too much. “Well, listen. In
the cellar of that house there are two hundred and fifty thousand francs
in gold----”
Again silence reigned in the coach.
“The coin is in a very hard bed of masonry. It must be got out, and you
have only three nights to do it in. Jacqueline will help you.--A hundred
thousand francs will buy up the business, fifty thousand will pay for
the house; leave the remainder.”
“Where?” said Paccard.
“In the cellar?” asked Prudence.
“Silence!” cried Jacqueline.
“Yes, but to get the business transferred, we must have the consent of
the police authorities,” Paccard objected.
“We shall have it,” said _Trompe-la-Mort_. “Don’t meddle in what does
not concern you.”
Jacqueline looked at her nephew, and was struck by the alteration in
his face, visible through the stern mask under which the strong man
generally hid his feelings.
“You, child,” said he to Prudence Servien, “will receive from my aunt
the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs----”
“Seven hundred and thirty,” said Paccard.
“Very good, seven hundred and thirty then,” said Jacques Collin. “You
must return this evening under some pretext to Madame Lucien’s house.
Get out on the roof through the skylight; get down the chimney into your
miss’ess’ room, and hide the packet she had made of the money in the
mattress----”
“And why not by the door?” asked Prudence Servien.
“Idiot! there are seals on everything,” replied Jacques Collin. “In a
few days the inventory will be taken, and you will be innocent of the
theft.”
“Good for the boss!” cried Paccard. “That is really kind!”
“Stop, coachman!” cried Jacques Collin’s powerful voice.
The coach was close to the stand by the Jardin des Plantes.
“Be off, young ‘uns,” said Jacques Collin, “and do nothing silly! Be on
the Pont des Arts this afternoon at five, and my aunt will let you
know if there are any orders to the contrary.--We must be prepared
for everything,” he whispered to his aunt. “To-morrow,” he went on,
“Jacqueline will tell you how to dig up the gold without any risk. It is
a ticklish job----”
Paccard and Prudence jumped out on to the King’s highway, as happy as
reprieved thieves.
“What a good fellow the boss is!” said Paccard.
“He would be the king of men if he were not so rough on women.”
“Oh, yes! He is a sweet creature,” said Paccard. “Did you see how he
kicked me? Well, we deserved to be sent to old Nick; for, after all, we
got him into this scrape.”
“If only he does not drag us into some dirty job, and get us packed off
to the hulks yet,” said the wily Prudence.
“Not he! If he had that in his head, he would tell us; you don’t know
him.--He has provided handsomely for you. Here we are, citizens at
large! Oh, when that man takes a fancy to you, he has not his match for
good-nature.”
“Now, my jewel,” said Jacques Collin to his aunt, “you must take la
Gonore in hand; she must be humbugged. Five days hence she will be taken
into custody, and a hundred and fifty thousand francs will be found in
her rooms, the remains of a share from the robbery and murder of the old
Crottat couple, the notary’s father and mother.”
“She will get five years in the Madelonnettes,” said Jacqueline.
“That’s about it,” said the nephew. “This will be a reason for old
Nourrisson to get rid of her house; she cannot manage it herself, and a
manager to suit is not to be found every day. You can arrange all
that. We shall have a sharp eye there.--But all these three things are
secondary to the business I have undertaken with regard to our letters.
So unrip your gown and give me the samples of the goods. Where are the
three packets?”
“At la Rousse’s, of course.”
“Coachman,” cried Jacques Collin, “go back to the Palais de Justice, and
look sharp----
“I promised to be quick, and I have been gone half an hour; that is too
much.--Stay at la Rousse’s, and give the sealed parcels to the office
clerk, who will come and ask for Madame _de_ Saint-Esteve; the _de_ will
be the password. He will say to you, ‘Madame, I have come from the public
prosecutor for the things you know of.’ Stand waiting outside the door,
staring about at what is going on in the Flower-Market, so as not to
arouse Prelard’s suspicions. As soon as you have given up the letters,
you can start Paccard and Prudence.”
“I see what you are at,” said Jacqueline; “you mean to step into
Bibi-Lupin’s shoes. That boy’s death has turned your brain.”
“And there is Theodore, who was just going to have his hair cropped to
be scragged at four this afternoon!” cried Jacques Collin.
“Well, it is a notion! We shall end our days as honest folks in a fine
property and a delightful climate--in Touraine.”
“What was to become of me? Lucien has taken my soul with him, and all my
joy in life. I have thirty years before me to be sick of life in, and I
have no heart left. Instead of being the boss of the hulks, I shall be a
Figaro of the law, and avenge Lucien. I can never be sure of demolishing
Corentin excepting in the skin of a police agent. And so long as I have
a man to devour, I shall still feel alive.--The profession a man follows
in the eyes of the world is a mere sham; the reality is in the idea!” he
added, striking his forehead.--“How much have we left in the cash-box?”
he asked.
“Nothing,” said his aunt, dismayed by the man’s tone and manner. “I gave
you all I had for the boy. La Romette has not more than twenty thousand
francs left in the business. I took everything from Madame Nourrisson;
she had about sixty thousand francs of her own. Oh! we are lying in
sheets that have been washed this twelve months past. That boy had all
the pals’ blunt, our savings, and all old Nourrisson’s.”
“Making----?”
“Five hundred and sixty thousand.”
“We have a hundred and fifty thousand which Paccard and Prudence will
pay us. I will tell you where to find two hundred thousand more. The
remainder will come to me out of Esther’s money. We must repay old
Nourrisson. With Theodore, Paccard, Prudence, Nourrisson, and you, I
shall soon have the holy alliance I require.--Listen, now we are nearly
there----”
“Here are the three letters,” said Jacqueline, who had finished unsewing
the lining of her gown.
“Quite right,” said Jacques Collin, taking the three precious
documents--autograph letters on vellum paper, and still strongly
scented. “Theodore did the Nanterre job.”
“Oh! it was he.”
“Don’t talk. Time is precious. He wanted to give the proceeds to a
little Corsican sparrow named Ginetta. You must set old Nourrisson to
find her; I will give you the necessary information in a letter which
Gault will give you. Come for it to the gate of the Conciergerie in two
hours’ time. You must place the girl with a washerwoman, Godet’s sister;
she must seem at home there. Godet and Ruffard were concerned with la
Pouraille in robbing and murdering the Crottats.
“The four hundred and fifty thousand francs are all safe, one-third
in la Gonore’s cellar--la Pouraille’s share; the second third in la
Gonore’s bedroom, which is Ruffard’s; and the rest is hidden in Godet’s
sister’s house. We will begin by taking a hundred and fifty thousand
francs out of la Pouraille’s whack, a hundred thousand of Godet’s, and a
hundred thousand of Ruffard’s. As soon as Godet and Ruffard are nabbed,
they will be supposed to have got rid of what is missing from their
shares. And I will make Godet believe that I have saved a hundred
thousand francs for him, and that la Gonore has done the same for la
Pouraille and Ruffard.
“Prudence and Paccard will do the job at la Gonore’s; you and
Ginetta--who seems to be a smart hussy--must manage the job at Godet’s
sister’s place.
“And so, as the first act in the farce, I can enable the public
prosecutor to lay his hands on four hundred thousand francs stolen from
the Crottats, and on the guilty parties. Then I shall seem to have shown
up the Nanterre murderer. We shall get back our shiners, and are
behind the scenes with the police. We were the game, now we are the
hunters--that is all.
“Give the driver three francs.”
The coach was at the Palais. Jacqueline, speechless with astonishment,
paid. _Trompe-la-Mort_ went up the steps to the public prosecutor’s
room.
A complete change of life is so violent a crisis, that Jacques Collin,
in spite of his resolution, mounted the steps but slowly, going up from
the Rue de la Barillerie to the Galerie Marchande, where, under the
gloomy peristyle of the courthouse, is the entrance to the Court itself.
Some civil case was going on which had brought a little crowd together
at the foot of the double stairs leading to the Assize Court, so that
the convict, lost in thought, stood for some minutes, checked by the
throng.
To the left of this double flight is one of the mainstays of the
building, like an enormous pillar, and in this tower is a little door.
This door opens on a spiral staircase down to the Conciergerie, to which
the public prosecutor, the governor of the prison, the presiding judges,
King’s council, and the chief of the Safety department have access by
this back way.
It was up a side staircase from this, now walled up, that Marie
Antoinette, the Queen of France, was led before the Revolutionary
tribunal which sat, as we all know, in the great hall where appeals are
now heard before the Supreme Court. The heart sinks within us at the
sight of these dreadful steps, when we think that Marie Therese’s
daughter, whose suite, and head-dress, and hoops filled the great
staircase at Versailles, once passed that way! Perhaps it was in
expiation of her mother’s crime--the atrocious division of Poland.
The sovereigns who commit such crimes evidently never think of the
retribution to be exacted by Providence.
When Jacques Collin went up the vaulted stairs to the public
prosecutor’s room, Bibi-Lupin was just coming out of the little door in
the wall.
The chief of the “Safety” had come from the Conciergerie, and was also
going up to Monsieur de Granville. It was easy to imagine Bibi-Lupin’s
surprise when he recognized, in front of him, the gown of Carlos
Herrera, which he had so thoroughly studied that morning; he ran on
to pass him. Jacques Collin turned round, and the enemies were face to
face. Each stood still, and the self-same look flashed in both pairs of
eyes, so different in themselves, as in a duel two pistols go off at the
same instant.
“This time I have got you, rascal!” said the chief of the Safety
Department.
“Ah, ha!” replied Jacques Collin ironically.
It flashed through his mind that Monsieur de Granville had sent some one
to watch him, and, strange to say, it pained him to think the magistrate
less magnanimous than he had supposed.
Bibi-Lupin bravely flew at Jacques Collin’s throat; but he, keeping his
eye on the foe, gave him a straight blow, and sent him sprawling on
his back three yards off; then _Trompe-la-Mort_ went calmly up to
Bibi-Lupin, and held out a hand to help him rise, exactly like
an English boxer who, sure of his superiority, is ready for more.
Bibi-Lupin knew better than to call out; but he sprang to his feet, ran
to the entrance to the passage, and signed to a gendarme to stand on
guard. Then, swift as lightning, he came back to the foe, who quietly
looked on. Jacques Collin had decided what to do.
“Either the public prosecutor has broken his word, or he had not taken
Bibi-Lupin into his confidence, and in that case I must get the matter
explained,” thought he.--“Do you mean to arrest me?” he asked his enemy.
“Say so without more ado. Don’t I know that in the heart of this place
you are stronger than I am? I could kill you with a well-placed kick,
but I could not tackle the gendarmes and the soldiers. Now, make no
noise. Where to you want to take me?”
“To Monsieur Camusot.”
“Come along to Monsieur Camusot,” replied Jacques Collin. “Why should we
not go to the public prosecutor’s court? It is nearer,” he added.
Bibi-Lupin, who knew that he was out of favor with the upper ranks of
judicial authorities, and suspected of having made a fortune at the
expense of criminals and their victims, was not unwilling to show
himself in Court with so notable a capture.
“All right, we will go there,” said he. “But as you surrender, allow me
to fit you with bracelets. I am afraid of your claws.”
And he took the handcuffs out of his pocket.
Jacques Collin held out his hands, and Bibi-Lupin snapped on the
manacles.
“Well, now, since you are feeling so good,” said he, “tell me how you
got out of the Conciergerie?”
“By the way you came; down the turret stairs.”
“Then have you taught the gendarmes some new trick?”
“No, Monsieur de Granville let me out on parole.”
“You are gammoning me?”
“You will see. Perhaps it will be your turn to wear the bracelets.”
Just then Corentin was saying to Monsieur de Granville:
“Well, monsieur, it is just an hour since our man set out; are you not
afraid that he may have fooled you? He is on the road to Spain perhaps
by this time, and we shall not find him there, for Spain is a whimsical
kind of country.”
“Either I know nothing of men, or he will come back; he is bound by
every interest; he has more to look for at my hands than he has to
give.”
Bibi-Lupin walked in.
“Monsieur le Comte,” said he, “I have good news for you. Jacques Collin,
who had escaped, has been recaptured.”
“And this,” said Jacques Collin, addressing Monsieur de Granville, “is
the way you keep your word!--Ask your double-faced agent where he took
me.”
“Where?” said the public prosecutor.
“Close to the Court, in the vaulted passage,” said Bibi-Lupin.
“Take your irons off the man,” said Monsieur de Granville sternly. “And
remember that you are to leave him free till further orders.--Go!--You
have a way of moving and acting as if you alone were law and police in
one.”
The public prosecutor turned his back on Bibi-Lupin, who became deadly
pale, especially at a look from Jacques Collin, in which he read
disaster.
“I have not been out of this room. I expected you back, and you cannot
doubt that I have kept my word, as you kept yours,” said Monsieur de
Granville to the convict.
“For a moment I did doubt you, sir, and in my place perhaps you would
have thought as I did, but on reflection I saw that I was unjust. I
bring you more than you can give me; you had no interest in betraying
me.”
The magistrate flashed a look at Corentin. This glance, which could
not escape _Trompe-la-Mort_, who was watching Monsieur de Granville,
directed his attention to the strange little old man sitting in an
armchair in a corner. Warned at once by the swift and anxious instinct
that scents the presence of an enemy, Collin examined this figure;
he saw at a glance that the eyes were not so old as the costume would
suggest, and he detected a disguise. In one second Jacques Collin was
revenged on Corentin for the rapid insight with which Corentin had
unmasked him at Peyrade’s.
“We are not alone!” said Jacques Collin to Monsieur de Granville.
“No,” said the magistrate drily.
“And this gentleman is one of my oldest acquaintances, I believe,”
replied the convict.
He went forward, recognizing Corentin, the real and confessed originator
of Lucien’s overthrow.
Jacques Collin, whose face was of a brick-red hue, for a scarcely
perceptible moment turned white, almost ashy; all his blood rushed to
his heart, so furious and maddening was his longing to spring on this
dangerous reptile and crush it; but he controlled the brutal impulse,
suppressing it with the force that made him so formidable. He put on a
polite manner and the tone of obsequious civility which he had practised
since assuming the garb of a priest of a superior Order, and he bowed to
the little old man.
“Monsieur Corentin,” said he, “do I owe the pleasure of this meeting to
chance, or am I so happy as to be the cause of your visit here?”
Monsieur de Granville’s astonishment was at its height, and he could
not help staring at the two men who had thus come face to face. Jacques
Collin’s behavior and the tone in which he spoke denoted a crisis, and
he was curious to know the meaning of it. On being thus suddenly and
miraculously recognized, Corentin drew himself up like a snake when you
tread on its tail.
“Yes, it is I, my dear Abbe Carlos Herrera.”
“And are you here,” said _Trompe-la-Mort_, “to interfere between
monsieur the public prosecutor and me? Am I so happy as to be the
object of one of those negotiations in which your talents shine so
brightly?--Here, Monsieur le Comte,” the convict went on, “not to waste
time so precious as yours is, read these--they are samples of my wares.”
And he held out to Monsieur de Granville three letters, which he took
out of his breast-pocket.
“And while you are studying them, I will, with your permission, have a
little talk with this gentleman.”
“You do me great honor,” said Corentin, who could not help giving a
little shiver.
“You achieved a perfect success in our business,” said Jacques Collin.
“I was beaten,” he added lightly, in the tone of a gambler who has lost
his money, “but you left some men on the field--your victory cost you
dear.”
“Yes,” said Corentin, taking up the jest, “you lost your queen, and I
lost my two castles.”
“Oh! Contenson was a mere pawn,” said Jacques Collin scornfully; “you
may easily replace him. You really are--allow me to praise you to your
face--you are, on my word of honor, a magnificent man.”
“No, no, I bow to your superiority,” replied Corentin, assuming the
air of a professional joker, as if he said, “If you mean humbug, by
all means humbug! I have everything at my command, while you are
single-handed, so to speak.”
“Oh! Oh!” said Jacques Collin.
“And you were very near winning the day!” said Corentin, noticing the
exclamation. “You are quite the most extraordinary man I ever met in my
life, and I have seen many very extraordinary men, for those I have to
work with me are all remarkable for daring and bold scheming.
“I was, for my sins, very intimate with the late Duc d’Otranto; I have
worked for Louis XVIII. when he was on the throne; and, when he was
exiled, for the Emperor and for the Directory. You have the tenacity of
Louvel, the best political instrument I ever met with; but you are as
supple as the prince of diplomates. And what auxiliaries you have! I
would give many a head to the guillotine if I could have in my service
the cook who lived with poor little Esther.--And where do you find such
beautiful creatures as the woman who took the Jewess’ place for Monsieur
de Nucingen? I don’t know where to get them when I want them.”
“Monsieur, monsieur, you overpower me,” said Jacques Collin. “Such
praise from you will turn my head----”
“It is deserved. Why, you took in Peyrade; he believed you to be a
police officer--he!--I tell you what, if you had not that fool of a boy
to take care of, you would have thrashed us.”
“Oh! monsieur, but you are forgetting Contenson disguised as a mulatto,
and Peyrade as an Englishman. Actors have the stage to help them, but
to be so perfect by daylight, and at all hours, no one but you and your
men----”
“Come, now,” said Corentin, “we are fully convinced of our worth and
merits. And here we stand each of us quite alone; I have lost my old
friend, you your young companion. I, for the moment, am in the stronger
position, why should we not do like the men in _l’Auberge des Adrets_?
I offer you my hand, and say, ‘Let us embrace, and let bygones be
bygones.’ Here, in the presence of Monsieur le Comte, I propose to give
you full and plenary absolution, and you shall be one of my men, the
chief next to me, and perhaps my successor.”
“You really offer me a situation?” said Jacques Collin. “A nice
situation indeed!--out of the fire into the frying-pan!”
“You will be in a sphere where your talents will be highly appreciated
and well paid for, and you will act at your ease. The Government police
are not free from perils. I, as you see me, have already been imprisoned
twice, but I am none the worse for that. And we travel, we are what we
choose to appear. We pull the wires of political dramas, and are treated
with politeness by very great people.--Come, my dear Jacques Collin, do
you say yes?”
“Have you orders to act in this matter?” said the convict.
“I have a free hand,” replied Corentin, delighted at his own happy idea.
“You are trifling with me; you are very shrewd, and you must allow that
a man may be suspicious of you.--You have sold more than one man by
tying him up in a sack after making him go into it of his own accord.
I know all your great victories--the Montauran case, the Simeuse
business--the battles of Marengo of espionage.”
“Well,” said Corentin, “you have some esteem for the public prosecutor?”
“Yes,” said Jacques Collin, bowing respectfully, “I admire his noble
character, his firmness, his dignity. I would give my life to make
him happy. Indeed, to begin with, I will put an end to the dangerous
condition in which Madame de Serizy now is.”
Monsieur de Granville turned to him with a look of satisfaction.
“Then ask him,” Corentin went on, “if I have not full power to snatch
you from the degrading position in which you stand, and to attach you to
me.”
“It is quite true,” said Monsieur de Granville, watching the convict.
“Really and truly! I may have absolution for the past and a promise of
succeeding to you if I give sufficient evidence of my intelligence?”
“Between two such men as we are there can be no misunderstanding,” said
Corentin, with a lordly air that might have taken anybody in.
“And the price of the bargain is, I suppose, the surrender of those
three packets of letters?” said Jacques Collin.
“I did not think it would be necessary to say so to you----”
“My dear Monsieur Corentin,” said _Trompe-la-Mort_, with irony worthy
of that which made the fame of Talma in the part of Nicomede, “I beg to
decline. I am indebted to you for the knowledge of what I am worth, and
of the importance you attach to seeing me deprived of my weapons--I will
never forget it.
“At all times and for ever I shall be at your service, but instead of
saying with Robert Macaire, ‘Let us embrace!’ I embrace you.”
He seized Corentin round the middle so suddenly that the other could not
avoid the hug; he clutched him to his heart like a doll, kissed him on
both cheeks, carried him like a feather with one hand, while with the
other he opened the door, and then set him down outside, quite battered
by this rough treatment.
“Good-bye, my dear fellow,” said Jacques Collin in a low voice, and in
Corentin’s ear: “the length of three corpses parts you from me; we have
measured swords, they are of the same temper and the same length. Let us
treat each other with due respect; but I mean to be your equal, not
your subordinate. Armed as you would be, it strikes me you would be too
dangerous a general for your lieutenant. We will place a grave between
us. Woe to you if you come over on to my territory!
“You call yourself the State, as footmen call themselves by their
master’s names. For my part, I will call myself Justice. We shall often
meet; let us treat each other with dignity and propriety--all the more
because we shall always remain--atrocious blackguards,” he added in a
whisper. “I set you the example by embracing you----”
Corentin stood nonplussed for the first time in his life, and allowed
his terrible antagonist to wring his hand.
“If so,” said he, “I think it will be to our interest on both sides to
remain chums.”
“We shall be stronger each on our own side, but at the same time more
dangerous,” added Jacques Collin in an undertone. “And you will allow me
to call on you to-morrow to ask for some pledge of our agreement.”
“Well, well,” said Corentin amiably, “you are taking the case out of my
hands to place it in those of the public prosecutor. You will help
him to promotion; but I cannot but own to you that you are acting
wisely.--Bibi-Lupin is too well known; he has served his turn; if you
get his place, you will have the only situation that suits you. I am
delighted to see you in it--on my honor----”
“Till our next meeting, very soon,” said Jacques Collin.
On turning round, _Trompe-la-Mort_ saw the public prosecutor sitting at
his table, his head resting on his hands.
“Do you mean that you can save the Comtesse de Serizy from going mad?”
asked Monsieur de Granville.
“In five minutes,” said Jacques Collin.
“And you can give me all those ladies’ letters?”
“Have you read the three?”
“Yes,” said the magistrate vehemently, “and I blush for the women who
wrote them.”
“Well, we are now alone; admit no one, and let us come to terms,” said
Jacques Collin.
“Excuse me, Justice must first take its course. Monsieur Camusot has
instructions to seize your aunt.”
“He will never find her,” said Jacques Collin.
“Search is to be made at the Temple, in the shop of a demoiselle Paccard
who superintends her shop.”
“Nothing will be found there but rags, costumes, diamonds,
uniforms----However, it will be as well to check Monsieur Camusot’s
zeal.”
Monsieur de Granville rang, and sent an office messenger to desire
Monsieur Camusot to come and speak with him.
“Now,” said he to Jacques Collin, “an end to all this! I want to know
your recipe for curing the Countess.”
“Monsieur le Comte,” said the convict very gravely, “I was, as you know,
sentenced to five years’ penal servitude for forgery. But I love my
liberty.--This passion, like every other, had defeated its own end, for
lovers who insist on adoring each other too fondly end by quarreling. By
dint of escaping and being recaptured alternately, I have served seven
years on the hulks. So you have nothing to remit but the added terms
I earned in quod--I beg pardon, in prison. I have, in fact, served my
time, and till some ugly job can be proved against me,--which I defy
Justice to do, or even Corentin--I ought to be reinstated in my rights
as a French citizen.
“What is life if I am banned from Paris and subject to the eye of the
police? Where can I go, what can I do? You know my capabilities. You
have seen Corentin, that storehouse of treachery and wile, turn ghastly
pale before me, and doing justice to my powers.--That man has bereft me
of everything; for it was he, and he alone, who overthrew the edifice
of Lucien’s fortunes, by what means and in whose interest I know
not.--Corentin and Camusot did it all----”
“No recriminations,” said Monsieur de Granville; “give me the facts.”
“Well, then, these are the facts. Last night, as I held in my hand the
icy hand of that dead youth, I vowed to myself that I would give up
the mad contest I have kept up for twenty years past against society at
large.
“You will not believe me capable of religious sentimentality after what
I have said of my religious opinions. Still, in these twenty years I
have seen a great deal of the seamy side of the world. I have known its
back-stairs, and I have discerned, in the march of events, a Power which
you call Providence and I call Chance, and which my companions call
Luck. Every evil deed, however quickly it may hide its traces, is
overtaken by some retribution. In this struggle for existence, when the
game is going well--when you have quint and quartorze in your hand
and the lead--the candle tumbles over and the cards are burned, or the
player has a fit of apoplexy!--That is Lucien’s story. That boy, that
angel, had not committed the shadow of a crime; he let himself be led,
he let things go! He was to marry Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, to be made
marquis; he had a fine fortune;--well, a prostitute poisons herself, she
hides the price of a certificate of stock, and the whole structure so
laboriously built up crumbles in an instant.
“And who is the first man to deal a blow? A man loaded with secret
infamy, a monster who, in the world of finance, has committed such
crimes that every coin of his vast fortune has been dipped in the tears
of a whole family [see _la Maison Nucingen_]--by Nucingen, who has been
a legalized Jacques Collin in the world of money. However, you know as
well as I do all the bankruptcies and tricks for which that man deserves
hanging. My fetters will leave a mark on all my actions, however
virtuous. To be a shuttlecock between two racquets--one called the
hulks, and the other the police--is a life in which success means
never-ending toil, and peace and quiet seem quite impossible.
“At this moment, Monsieur de Granville, Jacques Collin is buried with
Lucien, who is being now sprinkled with holy water and carried away to
Pere-Lachaise. What I want is a place not to live in, but to die in.
As things are, you, representing Justice, have never cared to make the
released convict’s social status a concern of any interest. Though the
law may be satisfied, society is not; society is still suspicious, and
does all it can to justify its suspicions; it regards a released convict
as an impossible creature; it ought to restore him to his full rights,
but, in fact, it prohibits his living in certain circles. Society says
to the poor wretch, ‘Paris, which is the only place you can be hidden
in; Paris and its suburbs for so many miles round is the forbidden
land, you shall not live there!’ and it subjects the convict to the
watchfulness of the police. Do you think that life is possible under
such conditions? To live, the convict must work, for he does not come
out of prison with a fortune.
“You arrange matters so that he is plainly ticketed, recognized, hedged
round, and then you fancy that his fellow-citizens will trust him, when
society and justice and the world around him do not. You condemn him to
starvation or crime. He cannot get work, and is inevitably dragged into
his old ways, which lead to the scaffold.
“Thus, while earnestly wishing to give up this struggle with the law, I
could find no place for myself under the sun. One course alone is open
to me, that is to become the servant of the power that crushes us; and
as soon as this idea dawned on me, the Power of which I spoke was shown
in the clearest light. Three great families are at my mercy. Do not
suppose I am thinking of blackmail--blackmail is the meanest form of
murder. In my eyes it is baser villainy than murder. The murderer needs,
at any rate, atrocious courage. And I practise what I preach; for the
letters which are my safe-conduct, which allow me to address you thus,
and for the moment place me on an equality with you--I, Crime, and you,
Justice--those letters are in your power. Your messenger may fetch them,
and they will be given up to him.
“I ask no price for them; I do not sell them. Alas! Monsieur le Comte, I
was not thinking of myself when I preserved them; I thought that Lucien
might some day be in danger! If you cannot agree to my request, my
courage is out; I hate life more than enough to make me blow out my own
brains and rid you of me!--Or, with a passport, I can go to America and
live in the wilderness. I have all the characteristics of a savage.
“These are the thoughts that came to me in the night.--Your clerk, no
doubt, carried you a message I sent by him. When I saw what precautions
you took to save Lucien’s memory from any stain, I dedicated my life
to you--a poor offering, for I no longer cared for it; it seemed to
me impossible without the star that gave it light, the happiness that
glorified it, the thought that gave it meaning, the prosperity of the
young poet who was its sun--and I determined to give you the three
packets of letters----”
Monsieur de Granville bowed his head.
“I went down into the prison-yard, and there I found the persons guilty
of the Nanterre crime, as well as my little chain companion within an
inch of the chopper as an involuntary accessory after the fact,”
Jacques Collin went on. “I discovered that Bibi-Lupin is cheating the
authorities, that one of his men murdered the Crottats. Was not this
providential, as you say?--So I perceived a remote possibility of doing
good, of turning my gifts and the dismal experience I have gained
to account for the benefit of society, of being useful instead
of mischievous, and I ventured to confide in your judgment, your
generosity.”
The man’s air of candor, of artlessness, of childlike simplicity, as
he made his confession, without bitterness, or that philosophy of vice
which had hitherto made him so terrible to hear, was like an absolute
transformation. He was no longer himself.
“I have such implicit trust in you,” he went on, with the humility of a
penitent, “that I am wholly at your mercy. You see me with three roads
open to me--suicide, America, and the Rue de Jerusalem. Bibi-Lupin is
rich; he has served his turn; he is a double-faced rascal. And if you
set me to work against him, I would catch him red-handed in some trick
within a week. If you will put me in that sneak’s shoes, you will do
society a real service. I will be honest. I have every quality that is
needed in the profession. I am better educated than Bibi-Lupin; I went
through my schooling up to rhetoric; I shall not blunder as he does; I
have very good manners when I choose. My sole ambition is to become an
instrument of order and repression instead of being the incarnation of
corruption. I will enlist no more recruits to the army of vice.
“In war, monsieur, when a hostile general is captured, he is not shot,
you know; his sword is returned to him, and his prison is a large town;
well, I am the general of the hulks, and I have surrendered.--I am
beaten, not by the law, but by death. The sphere in which I crave to
live and act is the only one that is suited to me, and there I can
develop the powers I feel within me.
“Decide.”
And Jacques Collin stood in an attitude of diffident submission.
“You place the letters in my hands, then?” said the public prosecutor.
“You have only to send for them; they will be delivered to your
messenger.”
“But how?”
Jacques Collin read the magistrate’s mind, and kept up the game.
“You promised me to commute the capital sentence on Calvi for twenty
years’ penal servitude. Oh, I am not reminding you of that to drive a
bargain,” he added eagerly, seeing Monsieur de Granville’s expression;
“that life should be safe for other reasons, the lad is innocent----”
“How am I to get the letters?” asked the public prosecutor. “It is my
right and my business to convince myself that you are the man you say
you are. I must have you without conditions.”
“Send a man you can trust to the Flower Market on the quay. At the door
of a tinman’s shop, under the sign of Achilles’ shield----”
“That house?”
“Yes,” said Jacques Collin, smiling bitterly, “my shield is there.--Your
man will see an old woman dressed, as I told you before, like a
fish-woman who has saved money--earrings in her ears, and clothes like a
rich market-woman’s. He must ask for Madame de Saint-Esteve. Do not
omit the DE. And he must say, ‘I have come from the public prosecutor
to fetch you know what.’--You will immediately receive three sealed
packets.”
“All the letters are there?” said Monsieur de Granville.
“There is no tricking you; you did not get your place for nothing!”
said Jacques Collin, with a smile. “I see you still think me capable
of testing you and giving you so much blank paper.--No; you do not know
me,” said he. “I trust you as a son trusts his father.”
“You will be taken back to the Conciergerie,” said the magistrate, “and
there await a decision as to your fate.”
Monsieur de Granville rang, and said to the office-boy who answered:
“Beg Monsieur Garnery to come here, if he is in his room.”
Besides the forty-eight police commissioners who watch over Paris like
forty-eight petty Providences, to say nothing of the guardians of Public
Safety--and who have earned the nickname of quart d’oeil, in thieves’
slang, a quarter of an eye, because there are four of them to each
district,--besides these, there are two commissioners attached equally
to the police and to the legal authorities, whose duty it is to
undertake delicate negotiation, and not frequently to serve as deputies
to the examining judges. The office of these two magistrates, for police
commissioners are also magistrates, is known as the Delegates’ office;
for they are, in fact, delegated on each occasion, and formally
empowered to carry out inquiries or arrests.
These functions demand men of ripe age, proved intelligence, great
rectitude, and perfect discretion; and it is one of the miracles wrought
by Heaven in favor of Paris, that some men of that stamp are always
forthcoming. Any description of the Palais de Justice would be
incomplete without due mention of these _preventive_ officials, as they
may be called, the most powerful adjuncts of the law; for though it must
be owned that the force of circumstances has abrogated the ancient pomp
and wealth of justice, it has materially gained in many ways. In Paris
especially its machinery is admirably perfect.
Monsieur de Granville had sent his secretary, Monsieur de Chargeboeuf,
to attend Lucien’s funeral; he needed a substitute for this business, a
man he could trust, and Monsieur Garnery was one of the commissioners in
the Delegates’ office.
“Monsieur,” said Jacques Collin, “I have already proved to you that I
have a sense of honor. You let me go free, and I came back.--By this
time the funeral mass for Lucien is ended; they will be carrying him to
the grave. Instead of remanding me to the Conciergerie, give me leave to
follow the boy’s body to Pere-Lachaise. I will come back and surrender
myself prisoner.”
“Go,” said Monsieur de Granville, in the kindest tone.
“One word more, monsieur. The money belonging to that girl--Lucien’s
mistress--was not stolen. During the short time of liberty you allowed
me, I questioned her servants. I am sure of them as you are of your
two commissioners of the Delegates’ office. The money paid for the
certificate sold by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck will certainly be found
in her room when the seals are removed. Her maid remarked to me that the
deceased was given to mystery-making, and very distrustful; she no doubt
hid the banknotes in her bed. Let the bedstead be carefully examined and
taken to pieces, the mattresses unsewn--the money will be found.”
“You are sure of that?”
“I am sure of the relative honesty of my rascals; they never play any
tricks on me. I hold the power of life and death; I try and condemn them
and carry out my sentence without all your formalities. You can see for
yourself the results of my authority. I will recover the money
stolen from Monsieur and Madame Crottat; I will hand you over one of
Bibi-Lupin’s men, his right hand, caught in the act; and I will tell you
the secret of the Nanterre murders. This is not a bad beginning. And if
you only employ me in the service of the law and the police, by the
end of a year you will be satisfied with all I can tell you. I will be
thoroughly all that I ought to be, and shall manage to succeed in all
the business that is placed in my hands.”
“I can promise you nothing but my goodwill. What you ask is not in my
power. The privilege of granting pardons is the King’s alone, on the
recommendation of the Keeper of the Seals; and the place you wish to
hold is in the gift of the Prefet of Police.”
“Monsieur Garnery,” the office-boy announced.
At a nod from Monsieur de Granville the Delegate commissioner came
in, glanced at Jacques Collin as one who knows, and gulped down his
astonishment on hearing the word “Go!” spoken to Jacques Collin by
Monsieur de Granville.
“Allow me,” said Jacques Collin, “to remain here till Monsieur Garnery
has returned with the documents in which all my strength lies, that I
may take away with me some expression of your satisfaction.”
This absolute humility and sincerity touched the public prosecutor.
“Go,” said he; “I can depend on you.”
Jacques Collin bowed humbly, with the submissiveness of an inferior to
his master. Ten minutes later, Monsieur de Granville was in possession
of the letters in three sealed packets that had not been opened! But
the importance of this point, and Jacques Collin’s avowal, had made him
forget the convict’s promise to cure Madame de Serizy.
When once he was outside, Jacques Collin had an indescribable sense of
satisfaction. He felt he was free, and born to a new phase of life. He
walked quickly from the Palais to the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres,
where mass was over. The coffin was being sprinkled with holy water, and
he arrived in time thus to bid farewell, in a Christian fashion, to the
mortal remains of the youth he had loved so well. Then he got into a
carriage and drove after the body to the cemetery.
In Paris, unless on very exceptional occasions, or when some famous
man has died a natural death, the crowd that gathers about a funeral
diminishes by degrees as the procession approaches Pere-Lachaise. People
make time to show themselves in church; but every one has his business
to attend to, and returns to it as soon as possible. Thus of ten
mourning carriages, only four were occupied. By the time they reached
Pere-Lachaise there were not more than a dozen followers, among whom was
Rastignac.
“That is right; it is well that you are faithful to him,” said Jacques
Collin to his old acquaintance.
Rastignac started with surprise at seeing Vautrin.
“Be calm,” said his old fellow-boarder at Madame Vauquer’s. “I am your
slave, if only because I find you here. My help is not to be despised;
I am, or shall be, more powerful than ever. You slipped your cable, and
you did it very cleverly; but you may need me yet, and I will always be
at your service.
“But what are you going to do?”
“To supply the hulks with lodgers instead of lodging there,” replied
Jacques Collin.
Rastignac gave a shrug of disgust.
“But if you were robbed----”
Rastignac hurried on to get away from Jacques Collin.
“You do not know what circumstances you may find yourself in.”
They stood by the grave dug by the side of Esther’s.
“Two beings who loved each other, and who were happy!” said Jacques
Collin. “They are united.--It is some comfort to rot together. I will be
buried here.”
When Lucien’s body was lowered into the grave, Jacques Collin fell in
a dead faint. This strong man could not endure the light rattle of the
spadefuls of earth thrown by the gravediggers on the coffin as a hint
for their payment.
Just then two men of the corps of Public Safety came up; they recognized
Jacques Collin, lifted him up, and carried him to a hackney coach.
“What is up now?” asked Jacques Collin when he recovered consciousness
and had looked about him.
He saw himself between two constables, one of whom was Ruffard; and he
gave him a look which pierced the murderer’s soul to the very depths of
la Gonore’s secret.
“Why, the public prosecutor wants you,” replied Ruffard, “and we have
been hunting for you everywhere, and found you in the cemetery, where
you had nearly taken a header into that boy’s grave.”
Jacques Collin was silent for a moment.
“Is it Bibi-Lupin that is after me?” he asked the other man.
“No. Monsieur Garnery sent us to find you.”
“And he told you nothing?”
The two men looked at each other, holding council in expressive
pantomime.
“Come, what did he say when he gave you your orders?”
“He bid us fetch you at once,” said Ruffard, “and said we should find
you at the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres; or, if the funeral had left
the church, at the cemetery.”
“The public prosecutor wants me?”
“Perhaps.”
“That is it,” said Jacques Collin; “he wants my assistance.”
And he relapsed into silence, which greatly puzzled the two constables.
At about half-past two Jacques Collin once more went up to Monsieur
de Granville’s room, and found there a fresh arrival in the person of
Monsieur de Granville’s predecessor, the Comte Octave de Bauvan, one of
the Presidents of the Court of Appeals.
“You forgot Madame de Serizy’s dangerous condition, and that you had
promised to save her.”
“Ask these rascals in what state they found me, monsieur,” said Jacques
Collin, signing to the two constables to come in.
“Unconscious, monsieur, lying on the edge of the grave of the young man
they were burying.”
“Save Madame de Serizy,” said the Comte de Bauvan, “and you shall have
what you will.”
“I ask for nothing,” said Jacques Collin. “I surrendered at discretion,
and Monsieur de Granville must have received----”
“All the letters, yes,” said the magistrate. “But you promised to save
Madame de Serizy’s reason. Can you? Was it not a vain boast?”
“I hope I can,” replied Jacques Collin modestly.
“Well, then, come with me,” said Comte Octave.
“No, monsieur; I will not be seen in the same carriage by your side--I
am still a convict. It is my wish to serve the Law; I will not begin
by discrediting it. Go back to the Countess; I will be there soon after
you. Tell her Lucien’s best friend is coming to see her, the Abbe Carlos
Herrera; the anticipation of my visit will make an impression on her
and favor the cure. You will forgive me for assuming once more the false
part of a Spanish priest; it is to do so much good!”
“I shall find you there at about four o’clock,” said Monsieur de
Granville, “for I have to wait on the King with the Keeper of the
Seals.”
Jacques Collin went off to find his aunt, who was waiting for him on the
Quai aux Fleurs.
“So you have given yourself up to the authorities?” said she.
“Yes.”
“It is a risky game.”
“No; I owed that poor Theodore his life, and he is reprieved.”
“And you?”
“I--I shall be what I ought to be. I shall always make our set shake in
their shoes.--But we must get to work. Go and tell Paccard to be off as
fast as he can go, and see that Europe does as I told her.”
“That is a trifle; I know how to deal with la Gonore,” said the
terrible Jacqueline. “I have not been wasting my time here among the
gilliflowers.”
“Let Ginetta, the Corsican girl, be found by to-morrow,” Jacques Collin
went on, smiling at his aunt.
“I shall want some clue.”
“You can get it through Manon la Blonde,” said Jacques.
“Then we meet this evening,” replied the aunt, “you are in such a deuce
of a hurry. Is there a fat job on?”
“I want to begin with a stroke that will beat everything that Bibi-Lupin
has ever done. I have spoken a few words to the brute who killed Lucien,
and I live only for revenge! Thanks to our positions, he and I shall
be equally strong, equally protected. It will take years to strike the
blow, but the wretch shall have it straight in the heart.”
“He must have vowed a Roland for your Oliver,” said the aunt, “for he
has taken charge of Peyrade’s daughter, the girl who was sold to Madame
Nourrisson, you know.”
“Our first point must be to find him a servant.”
“That will be difficult; he must be tolerably wide-awake,” observed
Jacqueline.
“Well, hatred keeps one alive! We must work hard.”
Jacques Collin took a cab and drove at once to the Quai Malaquais, to
the little room he lodged in, quite separate from Lucien’s apartment.
The porter, greatly astonished at seeing him, wanted to tell him all
that had happened.
“I know everything,” said the Abbe. “I have been involved in it, in
spite of my saintly reputation; but, thanks to the intervention of the
Spanish Ambassador, I have been released.”
He hurried up to his room, where, from under the cover of a breviary, he
took out a letter that Lucien had written to Madame de Serizy after that
lady had discarded him on seeing him at the opera with Esther.
Lucien, in his despair, had decided on not sending this letter,
believing himself cast off for ever; but Jacques Collin had read the
little masterpiece; and as all that Lucien wrote was to him sacred, he
had treasured the letter in his prayer-book for its poetical expression
of a passion that was chiefly vanity. When Monsieur de Granville told
him of Madame de Serizy’s condition, the keen-witted man had very wisely
concluded that this fine lady’s despair and frenzy must be the result
of the quarrel she had allowed to subsist between herself and Lucien.
He knew women as magistrates know criminals; he guessed the most secret
impulses of their hearts; and he at once understood that the Countess
probably ascribed Lucien’s death partly to her own severity, and
reproached herself bitterly. Obviously a man on whom she had shed her
love would never have thrown away his life!--To know that he had loved
her still, in spite of her cruelty, might restore her reason.
If Jacques Collin was a grand general of convicts, he was, it must be
owned, a not less skilful physician of souls.
This man’s arrival at the mansion of the Serizys was at once a disgrace
and a promise. Several persons, the Count, and the doctors were
assembled in the little drawing-room adjoining the Countess’ bedroom;
but to spare him this stain on his soul’s honor, the Comte de Bauvan
dismissed everybody, and remained alone with his friend. It was bad
enough even then for the Vice-President of the Privy Council to see this
gloomy and sinister visitor come in.
Jacques Collin had changed his dress. He was in black with trousers, and
a plain frock-coat, and his gait, his look, and his manner were all that
could be wished. He bowed to the two statesmen, and asked if he might be
admitted to see the Countess.
“She awaits you with impatience,” said Monsieur de Bauvan.
“With impatience! Then she is saved,” said the dreadful magician.
And, in fact, after an interview of half an hour, Jacques Collin opened
the door and said:
“Come in, Monsieur le Comte; there is nothing further to fear.”
The Countess had the letter clasped to her heart; she was calm, and
seemed to have forgiven herself. The Count gave expression to his joy at
the sight.
“And these are the men who settle our fate and the fate of nations,”
thought Jacques Collin, shrugging his shoulders behind the two men. “A
female has but to sigh in the wrong way to turn their brain as if it
were a glove! A wink, and they lose their head! A petticoat raised a
little higher, dropped a little lower, and they rush round Paris in
despair! The whims of a woman react on the whole country. Ah, how much
stronger is a man when, like me, he keeps far away from this childish
tyranny, from honor ruined by passion, from this frank malignity, and
wiles worthy of savages! Woman, with her genius for ruthlessness, her
talent for torture, is, and always will be, the marring of man. The
public prosecutor, the minister--here they are, all hoodwinked, all
moving the spheres for some letters written by a duchess and a chit, or
to save the reason of a woman who is more crazy in her right mind than
she was in her delirium.”
And he smiled haughtily.
“Ay,” said he to himself, “and they believe in me! They act on my
information, and will leave me in power. I shall still rule the world
which has obeyed me these five-and-twenty years.”
Jacques Collin had brought into play the overpowering influence he had
exerted of yore over poor Esther; for he had, as has often been shown,
the mode of speech, the look, the action which quell madmen, and he had
depicted Lucien as having died with the Countess’ image in his heart.
No woman can resist the idea of having been the one beloved.
“You now have no rival,” had been this bitter jester’s last words.
He remained a whole hour alone and forgotten in that little room.
Monsieur de Granville arrived and found him gloomy, standing up, and
lost in a brown study, as a man may well be who makes an 18th Brumaire
in his life.
The public prosecutor went to the door of the Countess’ room, and
remained there a few minutes; then he turned to Jacques Collin and said:
“You have not changed your mind?”
“No, monsieur.”
“Well, then, you will take Bibi-Lupin’s place, and Calvi’s sentence will
be commuted.”
“And he is not to be sent to Rochefort?”
“Not even to Toulon; you may employ him in your service. But these
reprieves and your appointment depend on your conduct for the next six
months as subordinate to Bibi-Lupin.”
Within a week Bibi-Lupin’s new deputy had helped the Crottat family to
recover four hundred thousand francs, and had brought Ruffard and Godet
to justice.
The price of the certificates sold by Esther Gobseck was found in the
courtesan’s mattress, and Monsieur de Serizy handed over to Jacques
Collin the three hundred thousand francs left to him by Lucien de
Rubempre.
The monument erected by Lucien’s orders for Esther and himself is
considered one of the finest in Pere-Lachaise, and the earth beneath it
belongs to Jacques Collin.
After exercising his functions for about fifteen years Jacques Collin
retired in 1845.