VERY EASILY STOLEN
The following day, as the abbe was leaving the altar after saying mass,
a thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the utterance
of a voice. He made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and accompanied
her home without having breakfasted.
“My child,” he said, “I want to see the two volumes your godfather
showed you in your dreams--where he said that he placed those
certificates and banknotes.”
Ursula and the abbe went up to the library and took down the third
volume of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not
without surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which
still kept the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he found
a sort of hollow made by the long-continued presence of a package, which
had left its traces on the two pages next to it.
“Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand,” La Bougival was heard to say, and the
justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was putting
on his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret’s hand-writing
on the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder had lined the
cover of the volume,--figures which Ursula had just discovered.
“What’s the meaning of those figures?” said the abbe; “our dear doctor
was too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fly-leaf of a valuable
volume. Here are three numbers written between a first number preceded
by the letter M and a last number preceded by a U.”
“What are you talking of?” said Bongrand. “Let me see that. Good God!”
he cried, after a moment’s examination; “it would open the eyes of an
atheist as an actual demonstration of Providence! Human justice is, I
believe, the development of the divine thought which hovers over the
worlds.” He seized Ursula and kissed her forehead. “Oh! my child, you
will be rich and happy, and all through me!”
“What is it?” exclaimed the abbe.
“Oh, monsieur,” cried La Bougival, catching Bongrand’s blue overcoat,
“let me kiss you for what you’ve just said.”
“Explain, explain! don’t give us false hopes,” said the abbe.
“If I bring trouble on others by becoming rich,” said Ursula, forseeing
a criminal trial, “I--”
“Remember,” said the justice, interrupting her, “the happiness you will
give to Savinien.”
“Are you mad?” said the abbe.
“No, my dear friend,” said Bongrand. “Listen; the certificates in the
Funds are issued in series,--as many series as there are letters in
the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the
certificates which are made out ‘to bearer’ cannot have a letter; they
are not in any person’s name. What you see there shows that the day the
doctor placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the number
of his own certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest which bears
his initial M; next, the numbers of three inscriptions to bearer; these
are without a letter; and thirdly, the certificate of Ursula’s share in
the Funds, the number of which is 23,534, and which follows, as you see,
that of the fifteen-thousand-franc certificate with lettering. This
goes far to prove that those numbers are those of five certificates of
investments made on the same day and noted down by the doctor in case of
loss. I advised him to take certificates to bearer for Ursula’s fortune,
and he must have made his own investment and that of Ursula’s little
property the same day. I’ll go to Dionis’s office and look at the
inventory. If the number of the certificate for his own investment is
23,533, letter M, we may be sure that he invested, through the same
broker on the same day, first his own property on a single certificate;
secondly his savings in three certificates to bearer (numbered, but
without the series letter); thirdly, Ursula’s own property; the transfer
books will show, of course, undeniable proofs of this. Ha! Minoret, you
deceiver, I have you--Motus, my children!”
Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with admiration on the ways
by which Providence had brought the innocent to victory.
“The finger of God is in all this,” cried the abbe.
“Will they punish him?” asked Ursula.
“Ah, mademoiselle,” cried La Bougival. “I’d give the rope to hang him.”
Bongrand was already at Goupil’s, now the appointed successor of Dionis,
but he entered the office with a careless air. “I have a little matter
to verify about the Minoret property,” he said to Goupil.
“What is it?” asked the latter.
“The doctor left one or more certificates in the three-per-cent Funds?”
“He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year,” said Goupil; “I
recorded it myself.”
“Then just look on the inventory,” said Bongrand.
Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the
place, and read:--
“‘Item, one certificate’--Here, read for yourself--under the number
23,533, letter M.”
“Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an
hour,” said Bongrand.
“What good is it to you?” asked Goupil.
“Do you want to be a notary?” answered the justice of peace, looking
sternly at Dionis’s proposed successor.
“Of course I do,” cried Goupil. “I’ve swallowed too many affronts not to
succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable
creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre
Jean-Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of
Mademoiselle Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are no
longer even alike. Look at me!”
Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil’s clothes. The new
notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned with
ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat of
handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his
hair, carefully combed, was perfumed--in short he was metamorphosed.
“The fact is you are another man,” said Bongrand.
“Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice--a practice;
besides, money is the source of cleanliness--”
“Morally as well as physically,” returned Bongrand, settling his
spectacles.
“Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever
a democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what
refinement is, and who intends to love his wife,” said Goupil; “and
what’s more, I shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty actions.”
“Well, make haste,” said Bongrand. “Let me have that copy in an hour,
and notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil the
clerk.”
After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet, he
went back to Ursula’s house for the two important volumes and for
her own certificate of Funds; then, armed with the extract from the
inventory, he drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the
procureur du roi. Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft
of the three certificates by one or other of the heirs,--presumably by
Minoret.
“His conduct is explained,” said the procureur.
As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the Treasury
to withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told Bongrand to go
to Paris and ascertain if the shares had ever been sold. He then wrote a
polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her presence.
Zelie, very uneasy about her son’s duel, dressed herself at once,
had the horses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The
procureur’s plan was simple enough. By separating the wife from the
husband, and bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he
expected to learn the truth. Zelie found the official in his private
office and was utterly annihilated when he addressed her as follows:--
“Madame,” he said; “I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft
that has been committed upon the Minoret property, on the track of which
the law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the shame of
appearing in the prisoner’s dock by making a full confession of what
you know about it. The punishment which your husband has incurred is,
moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son’s career is to be
thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an hour hence will be
too late. The police are already under orders for Nemours, the warrant
is made out.”
Zelie nearly fainted; when she recovered her senses she confessed
everything. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an
accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure
either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence.
“You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate,” he
said. “No complaint has been lodged by the victim, nor has any publicity
been given to the theft. But your husband has committed a great crime,
which may be brought before a judge less inclined than myself to be
considerate. In the present state of the affair I am obliged to make you
a prisoner--oh, in my own house, on parole,” he added, seeing that
Zelie was about to faint. “You must remember that my official duty would
require me to issue a warrant at once and begin an examination; but I am
acting now individually, as guardian of Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet, and
her best interests demand a compromise.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Zelie.
“Write to your husband in the following words,” he continued, placing
Zelie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter:--
“My Friend,--I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the
certificates which uncle left to Monsieur de Portenduere in the
will which you burned; for the procureur du roi has stopped
payment at the Treasury.”
“You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to
make,” said the magistrate, smiling at Zelie’s orthography. “We will see
that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make your stay in
our house as agreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of the
matter and not to appear anxious or unhappy.”
Now that Zelie had confessed and was safely immured, the magistrate sent
for Desire, told him all the particulars of his father’s theft, which
was really to Ursula’s injury, but, as matters stood, legally to that of
his co-heirs, and showed him the letter written by his mother. Desire at
once asked to be allowed to go to Nemours and see that his father made
immediate restitution.
“It is a very serious matter,” said the magistrate. “The will having
been destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and
Cremiere may put in a claim. I have proof enough against your father.
I will release your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has
already taken place has been sufficient warning as to her duty. To her,
I will seem to have yielded to your entreaties in releasing her. Take
her with you to Nemours, and manage the whole matter as best you can.
Don’t fear any one. Monsieur Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouet too well to
let the matter become known.”
Zelie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the
procureur du roi received by a mounted messenger the following letter,
the orthography of which has been corrected so as not to bring ridicule
on a man crushed by affliction.
To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau:
Monsieur,--God is less kind to us than you; we have met with an
irreparable misfortune. When my wife and son reached the bridge at
Nemours a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the
carriage; the horses smelt the stable; my son, fearing their impatience,
jumped down to hook the trace rather than have the coachman leave the
box. As he turned to resume his place in the carriage beside his mother
the horses started; Desire did not step back against the parapet in
time; the step of the carriage cut through both legs and he fell, the
hind wheel passing over his body. The messenger who goes to Paris for
the best surgeon will bring you this letter, which my son in the midst
of his sufferings desires me to write so as to let you know our entire
submission to your decisions in the matter about which he was coming to
speak to me.
I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which you
have acted, and I will deserve your goodness.
Francois Minoret.
This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Nemours. The crowds
standing about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell
Savinien that his vengeance had been taken by a hand more powerful than
his own. He went at once to Ursula’s house, where he found both the abbe
and the young girl more distressed than surprised.
The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and
surgeons from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be
amputated, Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied by
the abbe, to Ursula’s house, where he found also Monsieur Bongrand and
Savinien.
“Mademoiselle,” he said; “I am very guilty towards you; but if all the
wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that
I can expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in
absolute possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and
also in case we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him.”
He burst into tears as he said the last words.
“I can assure you, my dear Ursula,” said the abbe, “that you can and
that you ought to accept a part of this gift.”
“Will you forgive me?” said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the
astonished girl. “The operation is about to be performed by the first
surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely
only on the power of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to
restore our son to us, he will have strength to bear the agony and we
shall have the joy of saving him.”
“Let us go to the church!” cried Ursula, rising.
But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and
she fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her
friends--but not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor--looking at her
with anxious eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled
their hearts.
“I saw my godfather standing in the doorway,” she said, “and he signed
to me that there was no hope.”
The day after the operation Desire died,--carried off by the fever and
the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame
Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity, became
insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her husband to the
establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in 1841.
Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married
Savinien with Madame de Portenduere’s consent. Minoret took part in the
marriage contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his estate
at Rouvre and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the Funds;
keeping for himself only his uncle’s house and ten thousand francs a
year. He has become the most charitable of men, and the most religious;
he is churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the providence of
the unfortunate.
“The poor take the place of my son,” he said.
If you have ever noticed by the wayside, in countries where they poll
the oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing out
its twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe, you
will have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair,--broken,
emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace of the jovial
dullard whom you first saw watching for his son at the beginning of
this history; he does not even take his snuff as he once did; he carries
something more now than the weight of his body. Beholding him, we feel
that the hand of God was laid upon that figure to make it an awful
warning. After hating so violently his uncle’s godchild the old man now,
like Doctor Minoret himself, has concentrated all his affections on her,
and has made himself the manager of her property in Nemours.
Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere pass five months of the year
in Paris, where they have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain. Madame de Portenduere the elder, after giving her house
in Nemours to the Sisters of Charity for a free school, went to live
at Rouvre, where La Bougival keeps the porter’s lodge. Cabirolle, the
former conductor of the “Ducler,” a man sixty years of age, has married
La Bougival and the twelve hundred francs a year which she possesses
besides the ample emoluments of her place. Young Cabirolle is Monsieur
de Portenduere’s coachman.
If you happen to see in the Champs-Elysees one of those charming little
low carriages called ‘escargots,’ lined with gray silk and trimmed with
blue, and containing a pretty young woman whom you admire because
her face is wreathed in innumerable fair curls, her eyes luminous as
forget-me-nots and filled with love; if you see her bending slightly
towards a fine young man, and, if you are, for a moment, conscious of
envy--pause and reflect that this handsome couple, beloved of God, have
paid their quota to the sorrows of life in times now past. These married
lovers are the Vicomte de Portenduere and his wife. There is not another
such home in Paris as theirs.
“It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen,” said the Comtesse de
l’Estorade, speaking of them lately.
Bless them, therefore, and be not envious; seek an Ursula for
yourselves, a young girl brought up by three old men, and by the best of
all mothers--adversity.
Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justly considered the
wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he
is punished in his children, who are rickety and hydrocephalous. Dionis,
his predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is
one of the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of the king
of the French, who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls. Madame Dionis
relates to the whole town of Nemours the particulars of her receptions
at the Tuileries and the splendor of the court of the king of the
French. She lords it over Nemours by means of the throne, which
therefore must be popular in the little town.
Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is
in the way of becoming an honest attorney-general.
Madame Cremiere continues to make her delightful speeches. On the
occasion of her daughter’s marriage, she exhorted her to be the working
caterpillar of the household, and to look into everything with the eyes
of a sphinx. Goupil is making a collection of her “slapsus-linquies,”
which he calls a Cremiereana.
“We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbe Chaperon,” said
the Vicomtesse de Portenduere this winter--having nursed him herself
during his illness. “The whole canton came to his funeral. Nemours is
very fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the
venerable cure of Saint-Lange.”
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Bouvard, Doctor
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Dionis
The Member for Arcis
Estorade, Madame de l’
Letters of Two Brides
The Member for Arcis
Kergarouet, Comte de
The Purse
The Ball at Sceaux
Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
The Muse of the Department
Eugenie Grandet
A Bachelor’s Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Government Clerks
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Marsay, Henri de
The Thirteen
The Unconscious Humorists
Another Study of Woman
The Lily of the Valley
Father Goriot
Jealousies of a Country Twon
A Marriage Settlement
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Ball at Sceaux
Modeste Mignon
The Secrets of a Princess
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve
Mirouet, Ursule (see Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de)
Nathan, Madame Raoul
The Muse of the Department
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Government Clerks
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Eugenie Grandet
The Imaginary Mistress
A Prince of Bohemia
A Daughter of Eve
The Unconscious Humorists
Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de
The Ball at Sceaux
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Beatrix
Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
Another Study of Woman
Beatrix
Ronquerolles, Marquis de
The Imaginary Mistress
The Peasantry
A Woman of Thirty
Another Study of Woman
The Thirteen
The Member for Arcis
Rouvre, Marquis du
The Imaginary Mistress
A Start in Life
Rouvre, Chevalier du
The Imaginary Mistress
Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Government Clerks
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Schmucke, Wilhelm
A Daughter of Eve
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Cousin Pons
Serizy, Comtesse de
A Start in Life
The Thirteen
A Woman of Thirty
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Another Study of Woman
The Imaginary Mistress
Trailles, Comte Maxime de
Cesar Birotteau
Father Goriot
Gobseck
A Man of Business
The Member for Arcis
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty
Beatrix
The Unconscious Humorists
Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de
Cesar Birotteau
The Ball at Sceaux
A Daughter of Eve