enter a protest, and his counsel will have a right to find out whether
you have any creditors. This boudoir is newly furnished, your rooms are
not now furnished with the things left to you by M. d’Espard in 1816.
If, as you did me the honor of informing me, furniture is costly for
the Jeanrenauds, it must be yet more so for you, who are a great
lady. Though I am a judge, I am but a man; I may be wrong--tell me so.
Remember the duties imposed on me by the law, and the rigorous inquiries
it demands, when the case before it is the suspension from all his
functions of the father of a family in the prime of life. So you will
pardon me, Madame la Marquise, for laying all these difficulties before
you; it will be easy for you to give me an explanation.
“When a man is pronounced incapable of the control of his own affairs, a
trustee has to be appointed. Who will be the trustee?”
“His brother,” said the Marquise.
The Chevalier bowed. There was a short silence, very uncomfortable for
the five persons who were present. The judge, in sport as it were,
had laid open the woman’s sore place. Popinot’s countenance of common,
clumsy good-nature, at which the Marquise, the Chevalier, and Rastignac
had been inclined to laugh, had gained importance in their eyes. As
they stole a look at him, they discerned the various expressions of
that eloquent mouth. The ridiculous mortal was a judge of acumen. His
studious notice of the boudoir was accounted for: he had started from
the gilt elephant supporting the chimney-clock, examining all this
luxury, and had ended by reading this woman’s soul.
“If the Marquis d’Espard is mad about China, I see that you are not less
fond of its products,” said Popinot, looking at the porcelain on the
chimney-piece. “But perhaps it was from M. le Marquis that you had these
charming Oriental pieces,” and he pointed to some precious trifles.
This irony, in very good taste, made Bianchon smile, and petrified
Rastignac, while the Marquise bit her thin lips.
“Instead of being the protector of a woman placed in a cruel dilemma--an
alternative between losing her fortune and her children, and being
regarded as her husband’s enemy,” she said, “you accuse me, monsieur!
You suspect my motives! You must own that your conduct is strange!”
“Madame,” said the judge eagerly, “the caution exercised by the Court in
such cases as these might have given you, in any other judge, a perhaps
less indulgent critic than I am.--And do you suppose that M. d’Espard’s
lawyer will show you any great consideration? Will he not be suspicious
of motives which may be perfectly pure and disinterested? Your life will
be at his mercy; he will inquire into it without qualifying his search
by the respectful deference I have for you.”
“I am much obliged to you, monsieur,” said the Marquise satirically.
“Admitting for the moment that I owe thirty thousand or fifty thousand
francs, in the first place, it would be a mere trifle to the d’Espards
and the Blamont-Chauvrys. But if my husband is not in the possession
of his mental faculties, would that prevent his being pronounced
incapable?”
“No, madame,” said Popinot.
“Although you have questioned me with a sort of cunning which I
should not have suspected in a judge, and under circumstances where
straightforwardness would have answered your purpose,” she went on, “I
will tell you without subterfuge that my position in the world, and the
efforts I have to make to keep up my connection, are not in the least
to my taste. I began my life by a long period of solitude; but my
children’s interest appealed to me; I felt that I must fill their
father’s place. By receiving my friends, by keeping up all this
connection, by contracting these debts, I have secured their future
welfare; I have prepared for them a brilliant career where they will
find help and favor; and to have what has thus been acquired, many a man
of business, lawyer or banker, would gladly pay all it has cost me.”
“I appreciate your devoted conduct, madame,” replied Popinot. “It does
you honor, and I blame you for nothing. A judge belongs to all: he must
know and weigh every fact.”
Madame d’Espard’s tact and practice in estimating men made
her understand that M. Popinot was not to be influenced by any
consideration. She had counted on an ambitious lawyer, she had found
a man of conscience. She at once thought of finding other means for
securing the success of her side.
The servants brought in tea.
“Have you any further explanations to give me, madame?” said Popinot,
seeing these preparations.
“Monsieur,” she replied haughtily, “do your business your own way;
question M. d’Espard, and you will pity me, I am sure.” She raised her
head, looking Popinot in the face with pride, mingled with impertinence;
the worthy man bowed himself out respectfully.
“A nice man is your uncle,” said Rastignac to Bianchon. “Is he really
so dense? Does not he know what the Marquise d’Espard is, what her
influence means, her unavowed power over people? The Keeper of the Seals
will be with her to-morrow----”
“My dear fellow, how can I help it?” said Bianchon. “Did not I warn you?
He is not a man you can get over.”
“No,” said Rastignac; “he is a man you must run over.”
The doctor was obliged to make his bow to the Marquise and her mute
Chevalier to catch up Popinot, who, not being the man to endure an
embarrassing position, was pacing through the rooms.
“That woman owes a hundred thousand crowns,” said the judge, as he
stepped into his nephew’s cab.
“And what do you think of the case?”
“I,” said the judge. “I never have an opinion till I have gone into
everything. To-morrow early I will send to Madame Jeanrenaud to call on
me in my private office at four o’clock, to make her explain the facts
which concern her, for she is compromised.”
“I should very much like to know what the end will be.”
“Why, bless me, do not you see that the Marquise is the tool of that
tall lean man who never uttered a word? There is a strain of Cain in
him, but of the Cain who goes to the Law Courts for his bludgeon, and
there, unluckily for him, we keep more than one Damocles’ sword.”
“Oh, Rastignac! what brought you into that boat, I wonder?” exclaimed
Bianchon.
“Ah, we are used to seeing these little family conspiracies,”
said Popinot. “Not a year passes without a number of verdicts of
‘insufficient evidence’ against applications of this kind. In our state
of society such an attempt brings no dishonor, while we send a poor
devil to the galleys who breaks a pane of glass dividing him from a bowl
full of gold. Our Code is not faultless.”
“But these are the facts?”
“My boy, do you not know all the judicial romances with which clients
impose on their attorneys? If the attorneys condemned themselves to
state nothing but the truth, they would not earn enough to keep their
office open.”
Next day, at four in the afternoon, a very stout dame, looking a good
deal like a cask dressed up in a gown and belt, mounted Judge Popinot’s
stairs, perspiring and panting. She had, with great difficulty, got out
of a green landau, which suited her to a miracle; you could not think of
the woman without the landau, or the landau without the woman.
“It is I, my dear sir,” said she, appearing in the doorway of the
judge’s room. “Madame Jeanrenaud, whom you summoned exactly as if I were
a thief, neither more nor less.”
The common words were spoken in a common voice, broken by the wheezing
of asthma, and ending in a cough.
“When I go through a damp place, I can’t tell you what I suffer, sir. I
shall never make old bones, saving your presence. However, here I am.”
The lawyer was quite amazed at the appearance of this supposed Marechale
d’Ancre. Madame Jeanrenaud’s face was pitted with an infinite number of
little holes, was very red, with a pug nose and a low forehead, and was
as round as a ball; for everything about the good woman was round. She
had the bright eyes of a country woman, an honest gaze, a cheerful tone,
and chestnut hair held in place by a bonnet cap under a green bonnet
decked with a shabby bunch of auriculas. Her stupendous bust was a thing
to laugh at, for it made one fear some grotesque explosion every time
she coughed. Her enormous legs were of the shape which make the Paris
street boy describe such a woman as being built on piles. The widow wore
a green gown trimmed with chinchilla, which looked on her as a splash of
dirty oil would look on a bride’s veil. In short, everything about her
harmonized with her last words: “Here I am.”
“Madame,” said Popinot, “you are suspected of having used some seductive
arts to induce M. d’Espard to hand over to you very considerable sums of
money.”
“Of what! of what!” cried she. “Of seductive arts? But, my dear sir, you
are a man to be respected, and, moreover, as a lawyer you ought to have
some good sense. Look at me! Tell me if I am likely to seduce any one.
I cannot tie my own shoes, nor even stoop. For these twenty years past,
the Lord be praised, I have not dared to put on a pair of stays under
pain of sudden death. I was as thin as an asparagus stalk when I was
seventeen, and pretty too--I may say so now. So I married Jeanrenaud, a
good fellow, and headman on the salt-barges. I had my boy, who is a fine
young man; he is my pride, and it is not holding myself cheap to say
he is my best piece of work. My little Jeanrenaud was a soldier who did
Napoleon credit, and who served in the Imperial Guard. But, alas! at the
death of my old man, who was drowned, times changed for the worse. I had
the smallpox. I was kept two years in my room without stirring, and I
came out of it the size you see me, hideous for ever, and as wretched as
could be. These are my seductive arts.”
“But what, then, can the reasons be that have induced M. d’Espard to
give you sums----”
“Hugious sums, monsieur, say the word; I do not mind. But as to his
reasons, I am not at liberty to explain them.”
“You are wrong. At this moment, his family, very naturally alarmed, are
about to bring an action----”
“Heavens above us!” said the good woman, starting up. “Is it possible
that he should be worried on my account? That king of men, a man that
has not his match! Rather than he should have the smallest trouble, or
hair less on his head I could almost say, we would return every sou,
monsieur. Write that down on your papers. Heaven above us! I will go at
once and tell Jeanrenaud what is going on! A pretty thing indeed!”
And the little old woman went out, rolled herself downstairs, and
disappeared.
“That one tells no lies,” said Popinot to himself. “Well, to-morrow I
shall know the whole story, for I shall go to see the Marquis d’Espard.”
People who have outlived the age when a man wastes his vitality at
random, know how great an influence may be exercised on more important
events by apparently trivial incidents, and will not be surprised at the
weight here given to the following minor fact. Next day Popinot had
an attack of coryza, a complaint which is not dangerous, and generally
known by the absurd and inadequate name of a cold in the head.
The judge, who could not suppose that the delay could be serious,
feeling himself a little feverish, kept his room, and did not go to see
the Marquis d’Espard. This day lost was, to this affair, what on the Day
of Dupes the cup of soup had been, taken by Marie de Medici, which, by
delaying her meeting with Louis XIII., enabled Richelieu to arrive at
Saint-Germain before her, and recapture his royal slave.
Before accompanying the lawyer and his registering clerk to the Marquis
d’Espard’s house, it may be as well to glance at the home and the
private affairs of this father of sons whom his wife’s petition
represented to be a madman.
Here and there in the old parts of Paris a few buildings may still be
seen in which the archaeologist can discern an intention of decorating
the city, and that love of property, which leads the owner to give a
durable character to the structure. The house in which M. d’Espard was
then living, in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, was one of
these old mansions, built in stone, and not devoid of a certain richness
of style; but time had blackened the stone, and revolutions in the town
had damaged it both outside and inside. The dignitaries who formerly
dwelt in the neighborhood of the University having disappeared with
the great ecclesiastical foundations, this house had become the home
of industries and of inhabitants whom it was never destined to shelter.
During the last century a printing establishment had worn down the
polished floors, soiled the carved wood, blackened the walls, and
altered the principal internal arrangements. Formerly the residence of
a Cardinal, this fine house was now divided among plebeian tenants. The
character of the architecture showed that it had been built under the
reigns of Henry III., Henry IV., and Louis XIII., at the time when the
hotels Mignon and Serpente were erected in the same neighborhood, with
the palace of the Princess Palatine, and the Sorbonne. An old man
could remember having heard it called, in the last century, the hotel
Duperron, so it seemed probable that the illustrious Cardinal of that
name had built, or perhaps merely lived in it.
There still exists, indeed, in the corner of the courtyard, a perron or
flight of several outer steps by which the house is entered; and the way
into the garden on the garden front is down a similar flight of steps.
In spite of dilapidations, the luxury lavished by the architect on the
balustrade and entrance porch crowning these two perrons suggests the
simple-minded purpose of commemorating the owner’s name, a sort of
sculptured pun which our ancestors often allowed themselves. Finally,
in support of this evidence, archaeologists can still discern in the
medallions which show on the principal front some traces of the cords of
the Roman hat.
M. le Marquis d’Espard lived on the ground floor, in order, no doubt, to
enjoy the garden, which might be called spacious for that neighborhood,
and which lay open for his children’s health. The situation of the
house, in a street on a steep hill, as its name indicates, secured these
ground-floor rooms against ever being damp. M. d’Espard had taken them,
no doubt, for a very moderate price, rents being low at the time when
he settled in that quarter, in order to be among the schools and to
superintend his boys’ education. Moreover, the state in which he found
the place, with everything to repair, had no doubt induced the owner to
be accommodating. Thus M. d’Espard had been able to go to some expense
to settle himself suitably without being accused of extravagance. The
loftiness of the rooms, the paneling, of which nothing survived but the
frames, the decoration of the ceilings, all displayed the dignity which
the prelacy stamped on whatever it attempted or created, and which
artists discern to this day in the smallest relic that remains, though
it be but a book, a dress, the panel of a bookcase, or an armchair.
The Marquis had the rooms painted in the rich brown tones loved of
the Dutch and of the citizens of Old Paris, hues which lend such good
effects to the painter of genre. The panels were hung with plain paper
in harmony with the paint. The window curtains were of inexpensive
materials, but chosen so as to produce a generally happy result; the
furniture was not too crowded and judiciously placed. Any one on going
into this home could not resist a sense of sweet peacefulness, produced
by the perfect calm, the stillness which prevailed, by the unpretentious
unity of color, the keeping of the picture, in the words a painter might
use. A certain nobleness in the details, the exquisite cleanliness of
the furniture, and a perfect concord of men and things, all brought the
word “suavity” to the lips.
Few persons were admitted to the rooms used by the Marquis and his two
sons, whose life might perhaps seem mysterious to their neighbors. In a
wing towards the street, on the third floor, there are three large rooms
which had been left in the state of dilapidation and grotesque bareness
to which they had been reduced by the printing works. These three rooms,
devoted to the evolution of the Picturesque History of China, were
contrived to serve as a writing-room, a depository, and a private room,
where M. d’Espard sat during part of the day; for after breakfast till
four in the afternoon the Marquis remained in this room on the third
floor to work at the publication he had undertaken. Visitors wanting to
see him commonly found him there, and often the two boys on their return
from school resorted thither. Thus the ground-floor rooms were a sort
of sanctuary where the father and sons spent their time from the hour
of dinner till the next day, and his domestic life was carefully closed
against the public eye.
His only servants were a cook--an old woman who had long been attached
to his family--and a man-servant forty years old, who was with him
when he married Mademoiselle de Blamont. His children’s nurse had also
remained with them, and the minute care to which the apartment bore
witness revealed the sense of order and the maternal affections expended
by this woman in her master’s interest, in the management of his house,
and the charge of his children. These three good souls, grave, and
uncommunicative folk, seemed to have entered into the idea which ruled
the Marquis’ domestic life. And the contrast between their habits and
those of most servants was a peculiarity which cast an air of mystery
over the house, and fomented the calumny to which M. d’Espard himself
lent occasion. Very laudable motives had made him determine never to
be on visiting terms with any of the other tenants in the house. In
undertaking to educate his boys he wished to keep them from all contact
with strangers. Perhaps, too, he wished to avoid the intrusion of
neighbors.
In a man of his rank, at a time when the Quartier Latin was distracted
by Liberalism, such conduct was sure to rouse in opposition a host of
petty passions, of feelings whose folly is only to be measured by their
meanness, the outcome of porters’ gossip and malevolent tattle from door
to door, all unknown to M. d’Espard and his retainers. His man-servant
was stigmatized as a Jesuit, his cook as a sly fox; the nurse was in
collusion with Madame Jeanrenaud to rob the madman. The madman was
the Marquis. By degrees the other tenants came to regard as proofs of
madness a number of things they had noticed in M. d’Espard, and passed
through the sieve of their judgment without discerning any reasonable
motive for them.
Having no belief in the success of the History of China, they had
managed to convince the landlord of the house that M. d’Espard had no
money just at a time when, with the forgetfulness which often befalls
busy men, he had allowed the tax-collector to send him a summons for
non-payment of arrears. The landlord forthwith claimed his quarter’s
rent from January 1st by sending in a receipt, which the porter’s wife
had amused herself by detaining. On the 15th a summons to pay was served
on M. d’Espard, the portress had delivered it at her leisure, and
he supposed it to be some misunderstanding, not conceiving of any
incivility from a man in whose house he had been living for twelve
years. The Marquis was actually seized by a bailiff at the time when his
man-servant had gone to carry the money for the rent to the landlord.
This arrest, assiduously reported to the persons with whom he was in
treaty for his undertaking, had alarmed some of them who were already
doubtful of M. d’Espard’s solvency in consequence of the enormous sums
which Baron Jeanrenaud and his mother were said to be receiving from
him. And, indeed, these suspicions on the part of the tenants, the
creditors, and the landlord had some excuse in the Marquis’ extreme
economy in housekeeping. He conducted it as a ruined man might. His
servants always paid in ready money for the most trifling necessaries
of life, and acted as not choosing to take credit; if now they had asked
for anything on credit, it would probably have been refused, calumnious
gossip had been so widely believed in the neighborhood. There are
tradesmen who like those of their customers who pay badly when they
see them often, while they hate others, and very good ones, who hold
themselves on too high a level to allow of any familiarity as CHUMS, a
vulgar but expressive word. Men are made so; in almost every class they
will allow to a gossip, or a vulgar soul that flatters them, facilities
and favors they refuse to the superiority they resent, in whatever
form it may show itself. The shopkeeper who rails at the Court has his
courtiers.
In short, the manners of the Marquis and his children were certain to
arouse ill-feeling in their neighbors, and to work them up by degrees to
the pitch of malevolence when men do not hesitate at an act of meanness
if only it may damage the adversary they have themselves created.
M. d’Espard was a gentleman, as his wife was a lady, by birth and
breeding; noble types, already so rare in France that the observer
can easily count the persons who perfectly realize them. These two
characters are based on primitive ideas, on beliefs that may be called
innate, on habits formed in infancy, and which have ceased to exist. To
believe in pure blood, in a privileged race, to stand in thought above
other men, must we not from birth have measured the distance which
divides patricians from the mob? To command, must we not have never
met our equal? And finally, must not education inculcate the ideas with
which Nature inspires those great men on whose brow she has placed a
crown before their mother has ever set a kiss there? These ideas, this
education, are no longer possible in France, where for forty years past
chance has arrogated the right of making noblemen by dipping them in the
blood of battles, by gilding them with glory, by crowning them with the
halo of genius; where the abolition of entail and of eldest sonship,
by frittering away estates, compels the nobleman to attend to his own
business instead of attending to affairs of state, and where personal
greatness can only be such greatness as is acquired by long and patient
toil: quite a new era.
Regarded as a relic of that great institution know as feudalism, M.
d’Espard deserved respectful admiration. If he believed himself to be by
blood the superior of other men, he also believed in all the obligations
of nobility; he had the virtues and the strength it demands. He had
brought up his children in his own principles, and taught them from the
cradle the religion of their caste. A deep sense of their own dignity,
pride of name, the conviction that they were by birth great, gave rise
in them to a kingly pride, the courage of knights, and the protecting
kindness of a baronial lord; their manners, harmonizing with their
notions, would have become princes, and offended all the world of the
Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve--a world, above all others, of
equality, where every one believed that M. d’Espard was ruined, and
where all, from the lowest to the highest, refused the privileges of
nobility to a nobleman without money, because they were all ready to
allow an enriched bourgeois to usurp them. Thus the lack of communion
between this family and other persons was as much moral as it was
physical.