At the ministry to which Rabourdin belonged there flourished, as
general-secretary, a certain Monsieur Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, one
of those men whom the tide of political events sends to the surface for
a few years, then engulfs on a stormy night, but whom we find again on a
distant shore, tossed up like the carcass of a wrecked ship which still
seems to have life in her. We ask ourselves if that derelict could ever
have held goodly merchandise or served a high emprise, co-operated
in some defence, held up the trappings of a throne, or borne away the
corpse of a monarchy. At this particular time Clement des Lupeaulx (the
“Lupeaulx” absorbed the “Chardin”) had reached his culminating period.
In the most illustrious lives as in the most obscure, in animals as in
secretary-generals, there is a zenith and there is a nadir, a period
when the fur is magnificent, the fortune dazzling. In the nomenclature
which we derive from fabulists, des Lupeaulx belonged to the species
Bertrand, and was always in search of Ratons. As he is one of the
principal actors in this drama he deserves a description, all the
more precise because the revolution of July has suppressed his office,
eminently useful as it was, to a constitutional ministry.
Moralists usually employ their weapons against obstructive
administrations. In their eyes, crime belongs to the assizes or the
police-courts; but the socially refined evils escape their ken; the
adroitness that triumphs under shield of the Code is above them or
beneath them; they have neither eye-glass nor telescope; they want good
stout horrors easily visible. With their eyes fixed on the carnivora,
they pay no attention to the reptiles; happily, they abandon to the
writers of comedy the shading and colorings of a Chardin des Lupeaulx.
Vain and egotistical, supple and proud, libertine and gourmand, grasping
from the pressure of debt, discreet as a tomb out of which nought
issues to contradict the epitaph intended for the passer’s eye, bold and
fearless when soliciting, good-natured and witty in all acceptations
of the word, a timely jester, full of tact, knowing how to compromise
others by a glance or a nudge, shrinking from no mudhole, but gracefully
leaping it, intrepid Voltairean, yet punctual at mass if a fashionable
company could be met in Saint Thomas Aquinas,--such a man as this
secretary-general resembled, in one way or another, all the mediocrities
who form the kernel of the political world. Knowing in the science of
human nature, he assumed the character of a listener, and none was ever
more attentive. Not to awaken suspicion he was flattering ad nauseum,
insinuating as a perfume, and cajoling as a woman.
Des Lupeaulx was just forty years old. His youth had long been a
vexation to him, for he felt that the making of his career depended on
his becoming a deputy. How had he reached his present position? may
be asked. By very simple means. He began by taking charge of certain
delicate missions which can be given neither to a man who respects
himself nor to a man who does not respect himself, but are confided to
grave and enigmatic individuals who can be acknowledged or disavowed
at will. His business was that of being always compromised; but his
fortunes were pushed as much by defeat as by success. He well understood
that under the Restoration, a period of continual compromises between
men, between things, between accomplished facts and other facts looking
on the horizon, it was all-important for the ruling powers to have a
household drudge. Observe in a family some old charwoman who can make
beds, sweep the floors, carry away the dirty linen, who knows where
the silver is kept, how the creditors should be pacified, what persons
should be let in and who must be kept out of the house, and such a
creature, even if she has all the vices, and is dirty, decrepit, and
toothless, or puts into the lottery and steals thirty sous a day for
her stake, and you will find the masters like her from habit, talk and
consult in her hearing upon even critical matters; she comes and goes,
suggests resources, gets on the scent of secrets, brings the rouge
or the shawl at the right moment, lets herself be scolded and pushed
downstairs, and the next morning reappears smiling with an excellent
bouillon. No matter how high a statesman may stand, he is certain
to have some household drudge, before whom he is weak, undecided,
disputations with fate, self-questioning, self-answering, and buckling
for the fight. Such a familiar is like the soft wood of savages,
which, when rubbed against the hard wood, strikes fire. Sometimes great
geniuses illumine themselves in this way. Napoleon lived with Berthier,
Richelieu with Pere Joseph; des Lupeaulx was the familiar of everybody.
He continued friends with fallen ministers and made himself their
intermediary with their successors, diffusing thus the perfume of
the last flattery and the first compliment. He well understood how
to arrange all the little matters which a statesman has no leisure to
attend to. He saw necessities as they arose; he obeyed well; he could
gloss a base act with a jest and get the whole value of it; and he chose
for the services he thus rendered those that the recipients were not
likely to forget.
Thus, when it was necessary to cross the ditch between the Empire and
the Restoration, at a time when every one was looking about for planks,
and the curs of the Empire were howling their devotion right and left,
des Lupeaulx borrowed large sums from the usurers and crossed the
frontier. Risking all to win all, he bought up Louis XVIII.’s most
pressing debts, and was the first to settle nearly three million of them
at twenty per cent--for he was lucky enough to be backed by Gobseck in
1814 and 1815. It is true that Messrs. Gobseck, Werdet, and Gigonnet
swallowed the profits, but des Lupeaulx had agreed that they should
have them; he was not playing for a stake; he challenged the bank, as it
were, knowing very well that the king was not a man to forget this debt
of honor. Des Lupeaulx was not mistaken; he was appointed Master of
petitions, Knight of the order of Saint Louis, and officer of the Legion
of honor. Once on the ladder of political success, his clever mind
looked about for the means to maintain his foothold; for in the
fortified city into which he had wormed himself, generals do not long
keep useless mouths. So to his general trade of household drudge and
go-between he added that of gratuitous consultation on the secret
maladies of power.
After discovering in the so-called superior men of the Restoration their
utter inferiority in comparison with the events which had brought them
to the front, he overcame their political mediocrity by putting into
their mouths, at a crisis, the word of command for which men of real
talent were listening. It must not be thought that this word was the
outcome of his own mind. Were it so, des Lupeaulx would have been a
man of genius, whereas he was only a man of talent. He went everywhere,
collected opinions, sounded consciences, and caught all the tones they
gave out. He gathered knowledge like a true and indefatigable political
bee. This walking Bayle dictionary did not act, however, like that
famous lexicon; he did not report all opinions without drawing his own
conclusions; he had the talent of a fly which drops plumb upon the
best bit of meat in the middle of a kitchen. In this way he came to
be regarded as an indispensable helper to statesmen. A belief in his
capacity had taken such deep root in all minds that the more ambitious
public men felt it was necessary to compromise des Lupeaulx in some way
to prevent his rising higher; they made up to him for his subordinate
public position by their secret confidence.
Nevertheless, feeling that such men were dependent on him, this gleaner
of ideas exacted certain dues. He received a salary on the staff of the
National Guard, where he held a sinecure which was paid for by the city
of Paris; he was government commissioner to a secret society; and filled
a position of superintendence in the royal household. His two official
posts which appeared on the budget were those of secretary-general to
his ministry and Master of petitions. What he now wanted was to be made
commander of the Legion of honor, gentleman of the bed-chamber, count,
and deputy. To be elected deputy it was necessary to pay taxes to the
amount of a thousand francs; and the miserable homestead of the des
Lupeaulx was rated at only five hundred. Where could he get money to
build a mansion and surround it with sufficient domain to throw dust
in the eyes of a constituency? Though he dined out every day, and was
lodged for the last nine years at the cost of the State, and driven
about in the minister’s equipage, des Lupeaulx possessed absolutely
nothing, at the time when our tale opens, but thirty thousand francs
of debt--undisputed property. A marriage might float him and pump the
waters of debt out of his bark; but a good marriage depended on his
advancement, and his advancement required that he should be a deputy.
Searching about him for the means of breaking through this vicious
circle, he could think of nothing better than some immense service to
render or some delicate intrigue to carry through for persons in power.
Alas! conspiracies were out of date; the Bourbons were apparently on
good terms with all parties; and, unfortunately, for the last few years
the government had been so thoroughly held up to the light of day by the
silly discussions of the Left, whose aim seemed to be to make government
of any kind impossible in France, that no good strokes of business could
be made. The last were tried in Spain, and what an outcry that excited!
In addition to all this, des Lupeaulx complicated matters by believing
in the friendship of his minister, to whom he had the imprudence to
express the wish to sit on the ministerial benches. The minister guessed
at the real meaning of the desire, which simply was that des Lupeaulx
wanted to strengthen a precarious position, so that he might throw off
all dependence on his chief. The harrier turned against the huntsman;
the minister gave him cuts with the whip and caresses, alternately, and
set up rivals to him. But des Lupeaulx behaved like an adroit courtier
with all competitors; he laid traps into which they fell, and then he
did prompt justice upon them. The more he felt himself in danger the
more anxious he became for an irremovable position; yet he was compelled
to play low; one moment’s indiscretion, and he might lose everything. A
pen-stroke might demolish his civilian epaulets, his place at court,
his sinecure, his two offices and their advantages; in all, six
salaries retained under fire of the law against pluralists. Sometimes he
threatened his minister as a mistress threatens her lover; telling him
he was about to marry a rich widow. At such times the minister petted
and cajoled des Lupeaulx. After one of these reconciliations he received
the formal promise of a place in the Academy of Belles-lettres on the
first vacancy. “It would pay,” he said, “the keep of a horse.” His
position, so far as it went, was a good one, and Clement Chardin des
Lupeaulx flourished in it like a tree planted in good soil. He could
satisfy his vices, his caprices, his virtues and his defects.
The following were the toils of his life. He was obliged to choose,
among five or six daily invitations, the house where he could be sure
of the best dinner. Every morning he went to his minister’s morning
reception to amuse that official and his wife, and to pet their
children. Then he worked an hour or two; that is to say, he lay back in
a comfortable chair and read the newspapers, dictated the meaning of a
letter, received visitors when the minister was not present, explained
the work in a general way, caught or shed a few drops of the holy-water
of the court, looked over the petitions with an eyeglass, or wrote his
name on the margin,--a signature which meant “I think it absurd; do
what you like about it.” Every body knew that when des Lupeaulx was
interested in any person or in any thing he attended to the matter
personally. He allowed the head-clerks to converse privately about
affairs of delicacy, but he listened to their gossip. From time to time
he went to the Tuileries to get his cue. And he always waited for the
minister’s return from the Chamber, if in session, to hear from him
what intrigue or manoeuvre he was to set about. This official sybarite
dressed, dined, and visited a dozen or fifteen salons between eight at
night and three in the morning. At the opera he talked with journalists,
for he stood high in their favor; a perpetual exchange of little
services went on between them; he poured into their ears his misleading
news and swallowed theirs; he prevented them from attacking this or that
minister on such or such a matter, on the plea that it would cause real
pain to their wives or their mistresses.
“Say that his bill is worth nothing, and prove it if you can, but do
not say that Mariette danced badly. The devil! haven’t we all played
our little plays; and which of us knows what will become of him in times
like these? You may be minister yourself to-morrow, you who are spicing
the cakes of the ‘Constitutionel’ to-day.”
Sometimes, in return, he helped editors, or got rid of obstacles to the
performances of some play; gave gratuities and good dinners at the
right moment, or promised his services to bring some affair to a happy
conclusion. Moreover, he really liked literature and the arts; he
collected autographs, obtained splendid albums gratis, and possessed
sketches, engravings, and pictures. He did a great deal of good to
artists by simply not injuring them and by furthering their wishes
on certain occasions when their self-love wanted some rather costly
gratification. Consequently, he was much liked in the world of actors
and actresses, journalists and artists. For one thing, they had the
same vices and the same indolence as himself. Men who could all say such
witty things in their cups or in company with a danseuse, how could they
help being friends? If des Lupeaulx had not been a general-secretary
he would certainly have been a journalist. Thus, in that fifteen years’
struggle in which the harlequin sabre of epigram opened a breach by
which insurrection entered the citadel, des Lupeaulx never received so
much as a scratch.
As the young fry of clerks looked at this man playing bowls in the
gardens of the ministry with the minister’s children, they cracked
their brains to guess the secret of his influence and the nature of his
services; while, on the other hand, the aristocrats in all the various
ministries looked upon him as a dangerous Mephistopheles, courted him,
and gave him back with usury the flatteries he bestowed in the higher
sphere. As difficult to decipher as a hieroglyphic inscription to the
clerks, the vocation of the secretary and his usefulness were as plain
as the rule of three to the self-interested. This lesser Prince de
Wagram of the administration, to whom the duty of gathering opinions
and ideas and making verbal reports thereon was entrusted, knew all the
secrets of parliamentary politics; dragged in the lukewarm, fetched,
carried, and buried propositions, said the Yes and the No that the
ministers dared not say for themselves. Compelled to receive the first
fire and the first blows of despair and wrath, he laughed or bemoaned
himself with the minister, as the case might be. Mysterious link by
which many interests were in some way connected with the Tuileries, and
safe as a confessor, he sometimes knew everything and sometimes nothing;
and, in addition to all these functions came that of saying for the
minister those things that a minister cannot say for himself. In short,
with his political Hephaestion the minister might dare to be himself; to
take off his wig and his false teeth, lay aside his scruples, put on
his slippers, unbutton his conscience, and give way to his trickery.
However, it was not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he flattered
and advised his master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to advise
while flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All
politicians who follow this trade have bilious faces; and their constant
habit of giving affirmative nods acquiescing in what is said to them,
or seeming to do so, gives a certain peculiar turn to their heads. They
agree indifferently with whatever is said before them. Their talk is
full of “buts,” “notwithstandings,” “for myself I should,” “were I in
your place” (they often say “in your place”),--phrases, however, which
pave the way to opposition.
In person, Clement des Lupeaulx had the remains of a handsome man; five
feet six inches tall, tolerably stout, complexion flushed with good
living, powdered head, delicate spectacles, and a worn-out air; the
natural skin blond, as shown by the hand, puffy like that of an old
woman, rather too square, and with short nails--the hand of a satrap.
His foot was elegant. After five o’clock in the afternoon des Lupeaulx
was always to be seen in open-worked silk stockings, low shoes, black
trousers, cashmere waistcoat, cambric handkerchief (without perfume),
gold chain, blue coat of the shade called “king’s blue,” with brass
buttons and a string of orders. In the morning he wore creaking boots
and gray trousers, and the short close surtout coat of the politician.
His general appearance early in the day was that of a sharp lawyer
rather than that of a ministerial officer. Eyes glazed by the constant
use of spectacles made him plainer than he really was, if by chance he
took those appendages off. To real judges of character, as well as to
upright men who are at ease only with honest natures, des Lupeaulx was
intolerable. To them, his gracious manners only draped his lies; his
amiable protestations and hackneyed courtesies, new to the foolish and
ignorant, too plainly showed their texture to an observing mind. Such
minds considered him a rotten plank, on which no foot should trust
itself.
No sooner had the beautiful Madame Rabourdin decided to interfere in
her husband’s administrative advancement than she fathomed Clement des
Lupeaulx’s true character, and studied him thoughtfully to discover
whether in this thin strip of deal there were ligneous fibres strong
enough to let her lightly trip across it from the bureau to the
department, from a salary of eight thousand a year to twelve thousand.
The clever woman believed she could play her own game with this
political roue; and Monsieur des Lupeaulx was partly the cause of the
unusual expenditures which now began and were continued in the Rabourdin
household.
The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for several
houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are skilfully
laid out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well arranged,--a
domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of private
lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from the courtyard,
led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked on the street. To
the right of the salon were Rabourdin’s study and bedroom, and behind
them the dining-room, which was entered from the antechamber; to
the left was Madame’s bedroom and dressing-room, and behind them her
daughter’s little bedroom. On reception days the door of Rabourdin’s
study and that of his wife’s bedroom were thrown open. The rooms were
thus spacious enough to contain a select company, without the
absurdity which attends many middle-class entertainments, where
unusual preparations are made at the expense of the daily comfort, and
consequently give the effect of exceptional effort. The salon had
lately been rehung in gold-colored silk with carmelite touches. Madame’s
bedroom was draped in a fabric of true blue and furnished in a rococo
manner. Rabourdin’s study had inherited the late hangings of the salon,
carefully cleaned, and was adorned by the fine pictures once belonging
to Monsieur Leprince. The daughter of the late auctioneer had utilized
in her dining-room certain exquisite Turkish rugs which her father had
bought at a bargain; panelling them on the walls in ebony, the cost of
which has since become exorbitant. Elegant buffets made by Boulle, also
purchased by the auctioneer, furnished the sides of the room, at the end
of which sparkled the brass arabesques inlaid in tortoise-shell of the
first tall clock that reappeared in the nineteenth century to claim
honor for the masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers perfumed these
rooms so full of good taste and of exquisite things, where each detail
was a work of art well placed and well surrounded, and where Madame
Rabourdin, dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone
attain, gave the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies,
though she never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind
to complete the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful
surroundings. Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society
talk of her as soon as the rococo became fashionable.
Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real magnificence in
all their stages, he was, nevertheless, surprised at Madame Rabourdin’s
home. The charm it exercised over this Parisian Asmodeus can be
explained by a comparison. A traveller wearied with the rich aspects of
Italy, Brazil, or India, returns to his own land and finds on his way a
delightful little lake, like the Lac d’Orta at the foot of Monte Rosa,
with an island resting on the calm waters, bewitchingly simple; a scene
of nature and yet adorned; solitary, but well surrounded with choice
plantations and foliage and statues of fine effect. Beyond lies a vista
of shores both wild and cultivated; tumultuous grandeur towers above,
but in itself all proportions are human. The world that the traveller
has lately viewed is here in miniature, modest and pure; his soul,
refreshed, bids him remain where a charm of melody and poesy surrounds
him with harmony and awakens ideas within his mind. Such a scene
represents both life and a monastery.
A few days earlier the beautiful Madame Firmiani, one of the charming
women of the faubourg Saint-Germain who visited and liked Madame
Rabourdin, had said to des Lupeaulx (invited expressly to hear this
remark), “Why do you not call on Madame ----?” with a motion towards
Celestine; “she gives delightful parties, and her dinners, above all,
are--better than mine.”
Des Lupeaulx allowed himself to be drawn into an engagement by the
handsome Madame Rabourdin, who, for the first time, turned her eyes on
him as she spoke. He had, accordingly, gone to the rue Duphot, and
that tells the tale. Woman has but one trick, cries Figaro, but that’s
infallible. After dining once at the house of this unimportant official,
des Lupeaulx made up his mind to dine there often. Thanks to the
perfectly proper and becoming advances of the beautiful woman, whom her
rival, Madame Colleville, called the Celimene of the rue Duphot, he had
dined there every Friday for the last month, and returned of his own
accord for a cup of tea on Wednesdays.
Within a few days Madame Rabourdin, having watched him narrowly and
knowingly, believed she had found on the secretarial plank a spot where
she might safely set her foot. She was no longer doubtful of success.
Her inward joy can be realized only in the families of government
officials where for three or four years prosperity has been counted
on through some appointment, long expected and long sought. How many
troubles are to be allayed! how many entreaties and pledges given to the
ministerial divinities! how many visits of self-interest paid! At last,
thanks to her boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard the hour strike when she
was to have twenty thousand francs a year instead of eight thousand.
“And I shall have managed well,” she said to herself. “I have had
to make a little outlay; but these are times when hidden merit is
overlooked, whereas if a man keeps himself well in sight before the
world, cultivates social relations and extends them, he succeeds. After
all, ministers and their friends interest themselves only in the people
they see; but Rabourdin knows nothing of the world! If I had not cajoled
those three deputies they might have wanted La Billardiere’s place
themselves; whereas, now that I have invited them here, they will be
ashamed to do so and will become our supporters instead of rivals. I
have rather played the coquette, but--it is delightful that the first
nonsense with which one fools a man sufficed.”
The day on which a serious and unlooked-for struggle about this
appointment began, after a ministerial dinner which preceded one of
those receptions which ministers regard as public, des Lupeaulx was
standing beside the fireplace near the minister’s wife. While taking his
coffee he once more included Madame Rabourdin among the seven or eight
really superior women in Paris. Several times already he had staked
Madame Rabourdin very much as Corporal Trim staked his cap.
“Don’t say that too often, my dear friend, or you will injure her,” said
the minister’s wife, half-laughing.
Women never like to hear the praise of other women; they keep silence
themselves to lessen its effect.
“Poor La Billardiere is dying,” remarked his Excellency the minister;
“that place falls to Rabourdin, one of our most able men, and to whom
our predecessors did not behave well, though one of them actually owed
his position in the prefecture of police under the Empire to a certain
great personage who was interested in Rabourdin. But, my dear friend,
you are still young enough to be loved by a pretty woman for yourself--”
“If La Billardiere’s place is given to Rabourdin I may be believed when
I praise the superiority of his wife,” replied des Lupeaulx, piqued by
the minister’s sarcasm; “but if Madame la Comtesse would be willing to
judge for herself--”
“You want me to invite her to my next ball, don’t you? Your clever woman
will meet a knot of other women who only come here to laugh at us, and
when they hear ‘Madame Rabourdin’ announced--”
“But Madame Firmiani is announced at the Foreign Office parties?”
“Ah, but she was born a Cadignan!” said the newly created count, with a
savage look at his general-secretary, for neither he nor his wife were
noble.
The persons present thought important matters were being talked
over, and the solicitors for favors and appointments kept at a little
distance. When des Lupeaulx left the room the countess said to her
husband, “I think des Lupeaulx is in love.”
“For the first time in his life, then,” he replied, shrugging his
shoulders, as much as to inform his wife that des Lupeaulx did not
concern himself with such nonsense.
Just then the minister saw a deputy of the Right Centre enter the room,
and he left his wife abruptly to cajole an undecided vote. But the
deputy, under the blow of a sudden and unexpected disaster, wanted to
make sure of a protector and he had come to announce privately that in a
few days he should be compelled to resign. Thus forewarned, the minister
would be able to open his batteries for the new election before those of
the opposition.
The minister, or to speak correctly, des Lupeaulx had invited to dinner
on this occasion one of those irremovable officials who, as we have
said, are to be found in every ministry; an individual much embarrassed
by his own person, who, in his desire to maintain a dignified
appearance, was standing erect and rigid on his two legs, held well
together like the Greek hermae. This functionary waited near the
fireplace to thank the secretary, whose abrupt and unexpected departure
from the room disconcerted him at the moment when he was about to turn
a compliment. This official was the cashier of the ministry, the only
clerk who did not tremble when the government changed hands.
At the time of which we write, the Chamber did not meddle shabbily with
the budget, as it does in the deplorable days in which we now live; it
did not contemptibly reduce ministerial emoluments, nor save, as they
say in the kitchen, the candle-ends; on the contrary, it granted to each
minister taking charge of a public department an indemnity, called an
“outfit.” It costs, alas, as much to enter on the duties of a minister
as to retire from them; indeed, the entrance involves expenses of all
kinds which it is quite impossible to inventory. This indemnity amounted
to the pretty little sum of twenty-five thousand francs. When the
appointment of a new minister was gazetted in the “Moniteur,” and the
greater or lesser officials, clustering round the stoves or before the
fireplaces and shaking in their shoes, asked themselves: “What will he
do? will he increase the number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make
room for three?” the cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean
bank-bills and pinned them together with a satisfied expression on
his beadle face. The next day he mounted the private staircase and
had himself ushered into the minister’s presence by the lackeys, who
considered the money and the keeper of money, the contents and the
container, the idea and the form, as one and the same power. The cashier
caught the ministerial pair at the dawn of official delight, when the
newly appointed statesman is benign and affable. To the minister’s
inquiry as to what brings him there, he replies with the
bank-notes,--informing his Excellency that he hastens to pay him the
customary indemnity. Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister’s
wife, who never fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes
all, for the “outfit” is looked upon as a household affair. The cashier
then proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a few politic
phrases: “If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if, satisfied
with his purely mechanical services, he would,” etc. As a man who brings
twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the cashier is
sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from which he has
seen a succession of ministers come and go during a period of, perhaps,
twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at the orders of
Madame; he brings the monthly thirteen thousand francs whenever wanted;
he advances or delays the payment as requested, and thus manages to
obtain, as they said in the monasteries, a voice in the chapter.
Formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, when that establishment kept its
books by double entry, the Sieur Saillard was compensated for the loss
of that position by his appointment as cashier of a ministry. He was a
bulky, fat man, very strong in the matter of book-keeping, and very weak
in everything else; round as a round O, simple as how-do-you-do,--a man
who came to his office with measured steps, like those of an elephant,
and returned with the same measured tread to the place Royale, where he
lived on the ground-floor of an old mansion belonging to him. He usually
had a companion on the way in the person of Monsieur Isidore Baudoyer,
head of a bureau in Monsieur de la Billardiere’s division, consequently
one of Rabourdin’s colleagues. Baudoyer was married to Elisabeth
Saillard, the cashier’s only daughter, and had hired, very naturally,
the apartments above those of his father-in-law. No one at the ministry
had the slightest doubt that Saillard was a blockhead, but neither
had any one ever found out how far his stupidity could go; it was too
compact to be examined; it did not ring hollow; it absorbed everything
and gave nothing out. Bixiou (a clerk of whom more anon) caricatured the
cashier by drawing a head in a wig at the top of an egg, and two little
legs at the other end, with this inscription: “Born to pay out and take
in without blundering. A little less luck, and he might have been lackey
to the bank of France; a little more ambition, and he could have been
honorably discharged.”
At the moment of which we are now writing, the minister was looking
at his cashier very much as we gaze at a window or a cornice, without
supposing that either can hear us, or fathom our secret thoughts.
“I am all the more anxious that we should settle everything with the
prefect in the quietest way, because des Lupeaulx has designs upon the
place for himself,” said the minister, continuing his talk with the
deputy; “his paltry little estate is in your arrondissement; we won’t
want him as deputy.”
“He has neither years nor rentals enough to be eligible,” said the
deputy.
“That may be; but you know how it was decided for Casimir Perier as
to age; and as to worldly possessions, des Lupeaulx does possess
something,--not much, it is true, but the law does not take into account
increase, which he may very well obtain; commissions have wide margins
for the deputies of the Centre, you know, and we cannot openly oppose
the good-will that is shown to this dear friend.”
“But where would he get the money?”
“How did Manuel manage to become the owner of a house in Paris?” cried
the minister.
The cashier listened and heard, but reluctantly and against his will.
These rapid remarks, murmured as they were, struck his ear by one of
those acoustic rebounds which are very little studied. As he heard these
political confidences, however, a keen alarm took possession of his
soul. He was one of those simple-minded beings, who are shocked at
listening to anything they are not intended to hear, or entering where
they are not invited, and seeming bold when they are really timid,
inquisitive where they are truly discreet. The cashier accordingly began
to glide along the carpet and edge himself away, so that the minister
saw him at a distance when he first took notice of him. Saillard was a
ministerial henchman absolutely incapable of indiscretion; even if the
minister had known that he had overheard a secret he had only to whisper
“motus” in his ear to be sure it was perfectly safe. The cashier,
however, took advantage of an influx of office-seekers, to slip out
and get into his hackney-coach (hired by the hour for these costly
entertainments), and to return to his home in the place Royale.