be--and she was--indiscreet. Her friendship seemed to be staunch; she
worked for her proteges with a persistency which showed that she cared
less for patronage than for increased influence. This conduct was based
on her dominant passion, Vanity. Conquests and pleasure, which so many
women love, to her seemed only means to an end; she aimed at living on
every point of the largest circle that life can describe.
Among the men still young, and to whom the future belonged, who crowded
her drawing-room on great occasions, were to be seen MM. de Marsay and
de Ronquerolles, de Montriveau, de la Roche-Hugon, de Serizy, Ferraud,
Maxime de Trailles, de Listomere, the two Vandenesses, du Chatelet,
and others. She would frequently receive a man whose wife she would not
admit, and her power was great enough to induce certain ambitious men to
submit to these hard conditions, such as two famous royalist bankers, M.
de Nucingen and Ferdinand du Tillet. She had so thoroughly studied the
strength and the weakness of Paris life, that her conduct had never
given any man the smallest advantage over her. An enormous price might
have been set on a note or letter by which she might have compromised
herself, without one being produced.
If an arid soul enabled her to play her part to the life, her person was
no less available for it. She had a youthful figure. Her voice was, at
will, soft and fresh, or clear and hard. She possessed in the highest
degree the secret of that aristocratic pose by which a woman wipes out
the past. The Marquise knew well the art of setting an immense space
between herself and the sort of man who fancies he may be familiar after
some chance advances. Her imposing gaze could deny everything. In her
conversation fine and beautiful sentiments and noble resolutions flowed
naturally, as it seemed, from a pure heart and soul; but in reality she
was all self, and quite capable of blasting a man who was clumsy in
his negotiations, at the very time when she was shamelessly making a
compromise for the benefit of her own interest.
Rastignac, in trying to fasten on to this woman, had discerned her to
be the cleverest of tools, but he had not yet used it; far from handling
it, he was already finding himself crushed by it. This young Condottiere
of the brain, condemned, like Napoleon, to give battle constantly, while
knowing that a single defeat would prove the grave of his fortunes, had
met a dangerous adversary in his protectress. For the first time in his
turbulent life, he was playing a game with a partner worthy of him. He
saw a place as Minister in the conquest of Madame d’Espard, so he was
her tool till he could make her his--a perilous beginning.
The Hotel d’Espard needed a large household, and the Marquise had
a great number of servants. The grand receptions were held in the
ground-floor rooms, but she lived on the first floor of the house. The
perfect order of a fine staircase splendidly decorated, and rooms fitted
in the dignified style which formerly prevailed at Versailles, spoke of
an immense fortune. When the judge saw the carriage gates thrown open
to admit his nephew’s cab, he took in with a rapid glance the lodge, the
porter, the courtyard, the stables, the arrangement of the house,
the flowers that decorated the stairs, the perfect cleanliness of the
banisters, walls, and carpets, and counted the footmen in livery who, as
the bell rang, appeared on the landing. His eyes, which only yesterday
in his parlor had sounded the dignity of misery under the muddy clothing
of the poor, now studied with the same penetrating vision the furniture
and splendor of the rooms he passed through, to pierce the misery of
grandeur.
“M. Popinot--M. Bianchon.”
The two names were pronounced at the door of the boudoir where the
Marquise was sitting, a pretty room recently refurnished, and looking
out on the garden behind the house. At the moment Madame d’Espard was
seated in one of the old rococo armchairs of which Madame had set the
fashion. Rastignac was at her left hand on a low chair, in which he
looked settled like an Italian lady’s “cousin.” A third person was
standing by the corner of the chimney-piece. As the shrewd doctor had
suspected, the Marquise was a woman of a parched and wiry constitution.
But for her regimen her complexion must have taken the ruddy tone
that is produced by constant heat; but she added to the effect of her
acquired pallor by the strong colors of the stuffs she hung her rooms
with, or in which she dressed. Reddish-brown, marone, bistre with a
golden light in it, suited her to perfection. Her boudoir, copied from
that of a famous lady then at the height of fashion in London, was in
tan-colored velvet; but she had added various details of ornament which
moderated the pompous splendor of this royal hue. Her hair was dressed
like a girl’s in bands ending in curls, which emphasized the rather
long oval of her face; but an oval face is as majestic as a round one is
ignoble. The mirrors, cut with facets to lengthen or flatten the face at
will, amply proved the rule as applied to the physiognomy.
On seeing Popinot, who stood in the doorway craning his neck like a
startled animal, with his left hand in his pocket, and the right hand
holding a hat with a greasy lining, the Marquise gave Rastignac a look
wherein lay a germ of mockery. The good man’s rather foolish appearance
was so completely in harmony with his grotesque figure and scared looks,
that Rastignac, catching sight of Bianchon’s dejected expression of
humiliation through his uncle, could not help laughing, and turned away.
The Marquise bowed a greeting, and made a great effort to rise from her
seat, falling back again, not without grace, with an air of apologizing
for her incivility by affected weakness.
At this instant the person who was standing between the fireplace and
the door bowed slightly, and pushed forward two chairs, which he offered
by a gesture to the doctor and the judge; then, when they had seated
themselves, he leaned against the wall again, crossing his arms.
A word as to this man. There is living now, in our day, a
painter--Decamps--who possesses in the very highest degree the art of
commanding your interest in everything he sets before your eyes, whether
it be a stone or a man. In this respect his pencil is more skilful than
his brush. He will sketch an empty room and leave a broom against the
wall. If he chooses, you shall shudder; you shall believe that this
broom has just been the instrument of crime, and is dripping with blood;
it shall be the broom which the widow Bancal used to clean out the room
where Fualdes was murdered. Yes, the painter will touzle that broom like
a man in a rage; he will make each hair of it stand on-end as though
it were on your own bristling scalp; he will make it the interpreter
between the secret poem of his imagination and the poem that shall have
its birth in yours. After terrifying you by the aspect of that broom,
to-morrow he will draw another, and lying by it a cat, asleep, but
mysterious in its sleep, shall tell you that this broom is that on which
the wife of a German cobbler rides off to the Sabbath on the Brocken. Or
it will be a quite harmless broom, on which he will hang the coat of a
clerk in the Treasury. Decamps had in his brush what Paganini had in his
bow--a magnetically communicative power.
Well, I should have to transfer to my style that striking genius, that
marvelous knack of the pencil, to depict the upright, tall, lean man
dressed in black, with black hair, who stood there without speaking a
word. This gentleman had a face like a knife-blade, cold and harsh, with
a color like Seine water when it was muddy and strewn with fragments
of charcoal from a sunken barge. He looked at the floor, listening and
passing judgment. His attitude was terrifying. He stood there like
the dreadful broom to which Decamps has given the power of revealing a
crime. Now and then, in the course of conversation, the Marquise tried
to get some tacit advice; but however eager her questioning, he was as
grave and as rigid as the statue of the Commendatore.
The worthy Popinot, sitting on the edge of his chair in front of the
fire, his hat between his knees, stared at the gilt chandeliers, the
clock, and the curiosities with which the chimney-shelf was covered,
the velvet and trimmings of the curtains, and all the costly and elegant
nothings that a woman of fashion collects about her. He was roused from
his homely meditations by Madame d’Espard, who addressed him in a piping
tone:
“Monsieur, I owe you a million thanks----”
“A million thanks,” thought he to himself, “that is too many; it does
not mean one.”
“For the trouble you condescend----”
“Condescend!” thought he; “she is laughing at me.”
“To take in coming to see an unhappy client, who is too ill to go
out----”
Here the lawyer cut the Marquise short by giving her an inquisitorial
look, examining the sanitary condition of the unhappy client.
“As sound as a bell,” said he to himself.
“Madame,” said he, assuming a respectful mien, “you owe me nothing.
Although my visit to you is not in strict accordance with the practice
of the Court, we ought to spare no pains to discover the truth in cases
of this kind. Our judgment is then guided less by the letter of the law
than by the promptings of our conscience. Whether I seek the truth here
or in my own consulting-room, so long as I find it, all will be well.”
While Popinot was speaking, Rastignac was shaking hands with Bianchon;
the Marquise welcomed the doctor with a little bow full of gracious
significance.
“Who is that?” asked Bianchon in a whisper of Rastignac, indicating the
dark man.
“The Chevalier d’Espard, the Marquis’ brother.”
“Your nephew told me,” said the Marquise to Popinot, “how much you are
occupied, and I know too that you are so good as to wish to conceal your
kind actions, so as to release those whom you oblige from the burden of
gratitude. The work in Court is most fatiguing, it would seem. Why have
they not twice as many judges?”
“Ah, madame, that would not be difficult; we should be none the worse if
they had. But when that happens, fowls will cut their teeth!”
As he heard this speech, so entirely in character with the lawyer’s
appearance, the Chevalier measured him from head to foot, out of one
eye, as much as to say, “We shall easily manage him.”
The Marquise looked at Rastignac, who bent over her. “That is the
sort of man,” murmured the dandy in her ear, “who is trusted to pass
judgments on the life and interests of private individuals.”
Like most men who have grown old in a business, Popinot readily let
himself follow the habits he had acquired, more particularly habits of
mind. His conversation was all of “the shop.” He was fond of questioning
those he talked to, forcing them to unexpected conclusions, making them
tell more than they wished to reveal. Pozzo di Borgo, it is said, used
to amuse himself by discovering other folks’ secrets, and entangling
them in his diplomatic snares, and thus, by invincible habit, showed
how his mind was soaked in wiliness. As soon as Popinot had surveyed
the ground, so to speak, on which he stood, he saw that it would
be necessary to have recourse to the cleverest subtleties, the most
elaborately wrapped up and disguised, which were in use in the Courts,
to detect the truth.
Bianchon sat cold and stern, as a man who has made up his mind to endure
torture without revealing his sufferings; but in his heart he wished
that his uncle could only trample on this woman as we trample on a
viper--a comparison suggested to him by the Marquise’s long dress, by
the curve of her attitude, her long neck, small head, and undulating
movements.
“Well, monsieur,” said Madame d’Espard, “however great my dislike to be
or seem selfish, I have been suffering too long not to wish that you may
settle matters at once. Shall I soon get a favorable decision?”
“Madame, I will do my best to bring matters to a conclusion,” said
Popinot, with an air of frank good-nature. “Are you ignorant of the
reason which made the separation necessary which now subsists between
you and the Marquis d’Espard?”
“Yes, monsieur,” she replied, evidently prepared with a story to tell.
“At the beginning of 1816 M. d’Espard, whose temper had completely
changed within three months or so, proposed that we should go to live
on one of his estates near Briancon, without any regard for my health,
which that climate would have destroyed, or for my habits of life; I
refused to go. My refusal gave rise to such unjustifiable reproaches on
his part, that from that hour I had my suspicions as to the soundness of
his mind. On the following day he left me, leaving me his house and
the free use of my own income, and he went to live in the Rue de la
Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, taking with him my two children----”
“One moment, madame,” said the lawyer, interrupting her. “What was that
income?”
“Twenty-six thousand francs a year,” she replied parenthetically. “I
at once consulted old M. Bordin as to what I ought to do,” she went
on; “but it seems that there are so many difficulties in the way of
depriving a father of the care of his children, that I was forced to
resign myself to remaining alone at the age of twenty-two--an age
at which many young women do very foolish things. You have read my
petition, no doubt, monsieur; you know the principal facts on which I
rely to procure a Commission in Lunacy with regard to M. d’Espard?”
“Have you ever applied to him, madame, to obtain the care of your
children?”
“Yes, monsieur; but in vain. It is very hard on a mother to be deprived
of the affection of her children, particularly when they can give her
such happiness as every woman clings to.”
“The elder must be sixteen,” said Popinot.
“Fifteen,” said the Marquise eagerly.
Here Bianchon and Rastignac looked at each other. Madame d’Espard bit
her lips.
“What can the age of my children matter to you?”
“Well, madame,” said the lawyer, without seeming to attach any
importance to his words, “a lad of fifteen and his brother, of thirteen,
I suppose, have legs and their wits about them; they might come to see
you on the sly. If they do not, it is because they obey their father,
and to obey him in that matter they must love him very dearly.”
“I do not understand,” said the Marquise.
“You do not know, perhaps,” replied Popinot, “that in your petition
your attorney represents your children as being very unhappy with their
father?”
Madame d’Espard replied with charming innocence:
“I do not know what my attorney may have put into my mouth.”
“Forgive my inferences,” said Popinot, “but Justice weighs everything.
What I ask you, madame, is suggested by my wish thoroughly to understand
the matter. By your account M. d’Espard deserted you on the most
frivolous pretext. Instead of going to Briancon, where he wished to take
you, he remained in Paris. This point is not clear. Did he know this
Madame Jeanrenaud before his marriage?”
“No, monsieur,” replied the Marquise, with some asperity, visible only
to Rastignac and the Chevalier d’Espard.
She was offended at being cross-examined by this lawyer when she had
intended to beguile his judgment; but as Popinot still looked stupid
from sheer absence of mind, she ended by attributing his interrogatory
to the Questioning Spirit of Voltaire’s bailiff.
“My parents,” she went on, “married me at the age of sixteen to M.
d’Espard, whose name, fortune, and mode of life were such as my family
looked for in the man who was to be my husband. M. d’Espard was then
six-and-twenty; he was a gentleman in the English sense of the word;
his manners pleased me, he seemed to have plenty of ambition, and I like
ambitious people,” she added, looking at Rastignac. “If M. d’Espard
had never met that Madame Jeanrenaud, his character, his learning, his
acquirements would have raised him--as his friends then believed--to
high office in the Government. King Charles X., at that time Monsieur,
had the greatest esteem for him, and a peer’s seat, an appointment at
Court, some important post certainly would have been his. That woman
turned his head, and has ruined all the prospects of my family.”
“What were M. d’Espard’s religious opinions at that time?”
“He was, and is still, a very pious man.”
“You do not suppose that Madame Jeanrenaud may have influenced him by
mysticism?”
“No, monsieur.”
“You have a very fine house, madame,” said Popinot suddenly, taking his
hands out of his pockets, and rising to pick up his coat-tails and warm
himself. “This boudoir is very nice, those chairs are magnificent, the
whole apartment is sumptuous. You must indeed be most unhappy when,
seeing yourself here, you know that your children are ill lodged, ill
clothed, and ill fed. I can imagine nothing more terrible for a mother.”
“Yes, indeed. I should be so glad to give the poor little fellows some
amusement, while their father keeps them at work from morning till night
at that wretched history of China.”
“You give handsome balls; they would enjoy them, but they might acquire
a taste for dissipation. However, their father might send them to you
once or twice in the course of the winter.”
“He brings them here on my birthday and on New Year’s Day. On those days
M. d’Espard does me the favor of dining here with them.”
“It is very singular behaviour,” said the judge, with an air of
conviction. “Have you ever seen this Dame Jeanrenaud?”
“My brother-in-law one day, out of interest in his brother----”
“Ah! monsieur is M. d’Espard’s brother?” said the lawyer, interrupting
her.
The Chevalier bowed, but did not speak.
“M. d’Espard, who has watched this affair, took me to the Oratoire,
where this woman goes to sermon, for she is a Protestant. I saw her;
she is not in the least attractive; she looks like a butcher’s wife,
extremely fat, horribly marked with the smallpox; she has feet and hands
like a man’s, she squints, in short, she is monstrous!”
“It is inconceivable,” said the judge, looking like the most imbecile
judge in the whole kingdom. “And this creature lives near here, Rue
Verte, in a fine house? There are no plain folk left, it would seem?”
“In a mansion on which her son has spent absurd sums.”
“Madame,” said Popinot, “I live in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau; I know
nothing of such expenses. What do you call absurd sums?”
“Well,” said the Marquise, “a stable with five horses and three
carriages, a phaeton, a brougham, and a cabriolet.”
“That costs a large sum, then?” asked Popinot in surprise.
“Enormous sums!” said Rastignac, intervening. “Such an establishment
would cost, for the stables, the keeping the carriages in order, and
the liveries for the men, between fifteen and sixteen thousand francs a
year.”
“Should you think so, madame?” said the judge, looking much astonished.
“Yes, at least,” replied the Marquise.
“And the furniture, too, must have cost a lot of money?”
“More than a hundred thousand francs,” replied Madame d’Espard, who
could not help smiling at the lawyer’s vulgarity.
“Judges, madame, are apt to be incredulous; it is what they are paid
for, and I am incredulous. The Baron Jeanrenaud and his mother must have
fleeced M. d’Espard most preposterously, if what you say is correct.
There is a stable establishment which, by your account, costs sixteen
thousand francs a year. Housekeeping, servants’ wages, and the gross
expenses of the house itself must run to twice as much; that makes a
total of from fifty to sixty thousand francs a year. Do you suppose that
these people, formerly so extremely poor, can have so large a fortune? A
million yields scarcely forty thousand a year.”
“Monsieur, the mother and son invested the money given them by M.
d’Espard in the funds when they were at 60 to 80. I should think their
income must be more than sixty thousand francs. And then the son has
fine appointments.”
“If they spend sixty thousand francs a year,” said the judge, “how much
do you spend?”
“Well,” said Madame d’Espard, “about the same.” The Chevalier started a
little, the Marquise colored; Bianchon looked at Rastignac; but Popinot
preserved an expression of simplicity which quite deceived Madame
d’Espard. The chevalier took no part in the conversation; he saw that
all was lost.
“These people, madame, might be indicted before the superior Court,”
said Popinot.
“That was my opinion,” exclaimed the Marquise, enchanted. “If threatened
with the police, they would have come to terms.”
“Madame,” said Popinot, “when M. d’Espard left you, did he not give
you a power of attorney enabling you to manage and control your own
affairs?”
“I do not understand the object of all these questions,” said the
Marquise with petulance. “It seems to me that if you would only consider
the state in which I am placed by my husband’s insanity, you ought to be
troubling yourself about him, and not about me.”
“We are coming to that, madame,” said the judge. “Before placing in
your hands, or in any others, the control of M. d’Espard’s property,
supposing he were pronounced incapable, the Court must inquire as to how
you have managed your own. If M. d’Espard gave you the power, he would
have shown confidence in you, and the Court would recognize the fact.
Had you any power from him? You might have bought or sold house property
or invested money in business?”
“No, monsieur, the Blamont-Chauvrys are not in the habit of trading,”
said she, extremely nettled in her pride as an aristocrat, and
forgetting the business in hand. “My property is intact, and M. d’Espard
gave me no power to act.”
The Chevalier put his hand over his eyes not to betray the vexation
he felt at his sister-in-law’s short-sightedness, for she was ruining
herself by her answers. Popinot had gone straight to the mark in spite
of his apparent doublings.
“Madame,” said the lawyer, indicating the Chevalier, “this gentleman, of
course, is your near connection? May we speak openly before these other
gentlemen?”
“Speak on,” said the Marquise, surprised at this caution.
“Well, madame, granting that you spend only sixty thousand francs
a year, to any one who sees your stables, your house, your train of
servants, and a style of housekeeping which strikes me as far more
luxurious than that of the Jeanrenauds, that sum would seem well laid
out.”
The Marquise bowed an agreement.
“But,” continued the judge, “if you have no more than twenty-six
thousand francs a year, you may have a hundred thousand francs of debt.
The Court would therefore have a right to imagine that the motives which
prompt you to ask that your husband may be deprived of the control of
his property are complicated by self-interest and the need of paying
your debts--if--you--have--any. The requests addressed to me have
interested me in your position; consider fully and make your confession.
If my suppositions have hit the truth, there is yet time to avoid the
blame which the Court would have a perfect right to express in the
saving clauses of the verdict if you could not show your attitude to be
absolutely honorable and clear.
“It is our duty to examine the motives of the applicant as well as
to listen to the plea of the witness under examination, to ascertain
whether the petitioner may not have been prompted by passion, by a
desire for money, which is unfortunately too common----”
The Marquise was on Saint Laurence’s gridiron.
“And I must have explanations on this point. Madame, I have no wish to
call you to account; I only want to know how you have managed to live at
the rate of sixty thousand francs a year, and that for some years past.
There are plenty of women who achieve this in their housekeeping, but
you are not one of those. Tell me, you may have the most legitimate
resources, a royal pension, or some claim on the indemnities lately
granted; but even then you must have had your husband’s authority to
receive them.”
The Marquise did not speak.