“No; but such attempts to capture are always disagreeable, and I beg

you to believe that I was not a party to the plot. I am not so violently

ministerial as my husband.”

“Nor I as violently revolutionary as they think.”

“I trust that these annoying politics, which have already produced a

jar between you and Monsieur de l’Estorade, may not disgust you with the

idea of being counted among our friends.”

“That is an honor, madame, for which I can only be grateful.”

“It is not an honor but a pleasure that I hoped you would find in it,”

said Madame de l’Estorade, quickly. “I say, with Nais, if I had saved

the life of a friend’s child, I should cease to be ceremonious with

her.”

So saying, and without listening to his answer, she disengaged her arm

quickly from that of Sallenauve, and left him rather astonished at the

tone in which she had spoken.

In seeing Madame de l’Estorade so completely docile to the advice, more

clever than prudent, perhaps, of Madame de Camps, the reader, we think,

can scarcely be surprised. A certain attraction has been evident for

some time on the part of the frigid countess not only to the preserver

of her daughter, but to the man who under such romantic and singular

circumstances had come before her mind. Carefully considered, Madame de

l’Estorade is seen to be far from one of those impassible natures which

resist all affectionate emotions except those of the family. With a

beauty that was partly Spanish, she had eyes which her friend Louise

de Chaulieu declared could ripen peaches. Her coldness was not what

physicians call congenital; her temperament was an acquired one.

Marrying from _reason_ a man whose mental insufficiency is very

apparent, she made herself love him out of pity and a sense of

protection. Up to the present time, by means of a certain atrophy of

heart, she had succeeded, without one failure, in making Monsieur de

l’Estorade perfectly happy. With the same instinct, she had exaggerated

the maternal sentiment to an almost inconceivable degree, until in that

way she had fairly stifled all the other cravings of her nature. It must

be said, however, that the success she had had in accomplishing this

hard task was due in a great measure to _the circumstance_ of Louise de

Chaulieu. To her that dear mistaken one was like the drunken slave whom

the Spartans made a living lesson to their children; and between the two

friends a sort of tacit wager was established. Louise having taken the

side of romantic passion, Renee held firmly to that of superior reason;

and in order to win the game, she had maintained a courage of good sense

and wisdom which might have cost her far more to practise without this

incentive. At the age she had now reached, and with her long habit

of self-control, we can understand how, seeing, as she believed, the

approach of a love against which she had preached so vehemently, she

should instantly set to work to rebuff it; but a man who did not feel

that love, while thinking her ideally beautiful, and who possibly

loved elsewhere,--a man who had saved her child from death and asked

no recompense, who was grave, serious, and preoccupied in an absorbing

enterprise,--why should she still continue to think such a man

dangerous? Why not grant to him, without further hesitation, the

lukewarm sentiment of friendship?

VI. CURIOSITY THAT CAME WITHIN AN ACE OF BEING FATAL

On returning to Ville d’Avray, Sallenauve was confronted by a singular

event. Who does not know how sudden events upset the whole course of our

lives, and place us, without our will, in compromising positions?

Sallenauve was not mistaken in feeling serious anxiety as to the mental

state of his friend Marie-Gaston.

When that unfortunate man had left the scene of his cruel loss

immediately after the death of his wife, he would have done a wiser

thing had he then resolved never to revisit it. Nature, providentially

ordered, provides that if those whose nearest and dearest are struck by

the hand of death accept the decree with the resignation which ought to

follow the execution of all necessary law, they will not remain too long

under the influence of their grief. Rousseau has said, in his famous

letter against suicide: “Sadness, weariness of spirit, regret, despair

are not lasting sorrows, rooted forever in the soul; experience will

always cast out that feeling of bitterness which makes us at first

believe our grief eternal.”

But this truth ceases to be true for imprudent and wilful persons, who

seek to escape the first anguish of sorrow by flight or some violent

distraction. All mental and moral suffering is a species of illness

which, taking time for its specific, will gradually wear out, in the

long run, of itself. If, on the contrary, it is not allowed to consume

itself slowly on the scene of its trouble, if it is fanned into flame by

motion or violent remedies, we hinder the action of nature; we deprive

ourselves of the blessed relief of comparative forgetfulness, promised

to those who will accept their suffering, and so transform it into a

chronic affection, the memories of which, though hidden, are none the

less true and deep.

If we violently oppose this salutary process, we produce an acute evil,

in which the imagination acts upon the heart; and as the latter from

its nature is limited, while the former is infinite, it is impossible

to calculate the violence of the impressions to which a man may yield

himself.

When Marie-Gaston returned to the house at Ville d’Avray, after two

years’ absence, he fancied that only a tender if melancholy memory

awaited him; but not a step could he make without recalling his lost

joys and the agony of losing them. The flowers that his wife had loved,

the lawns, the trees just budding into greenness under the warm breath

of May,--they were here before his eyes; but she who had created this

beauteous nature was lying cold in the earth. Amid all the charms and

elegances gathered to adorn this nest of their love, there was nothing

for the man who rashly returned to that dangerous atmosphere but sounds

of lamentation, the moans of a renewed and now ever-living grief.

Alarmed himself at the vertigo of sorrow which seized him, Marie-Gaston

shrank, as Sallenauve had said, from taking the last step in his ordeal;

he had calmly discussed with his friend the details of the mausoleum he

wished to raise above the mortal remains of his beloved Louise, but he

had not yet brought himself to visit her grave in the village cemetery

where he had laid them. There was everything, therefore, to fear from

a grief which time had not only not assuaged, but, on the contrary, had

increased by duration, until it was sharper and more intolerable than

before.

The gates were opened by Philippe, the old servant, who had been

constituted by Madame Gaston majordomo of the establishment.

“How is your master?” asked Sallenauve.

“He has gone away, monsieur,” replied Philippe.

“Gone away!”

“Yes, monsieur; with that English gentleman whom monsieur left here with

him.”

“But without a word to me! Do you know where they have gone?”

“After dinner, which went off very well, monsieur suddenly gave orders

to pack his travelling-trunk; he did part of it himself. During that

time the Englishman, who said he would go into the park and smoke, asked

me privately where he could go to write a letter without monsieur seeing

him. I took him to my room; but I did not dare question him about

this journey, for I never saw any one with such forbidding and

uncommunicative manners. By the time the letter was written monsieur

was ready, and without giving me any explanation they both got into

the Englishman’s carriage, and I heard one of them say to the coachman,

‘Paris.’”

“What became of the letter?” asked Sallenauve.

“It is there in my room, where the Englishman gave it me secretly. It is

addressed to monsieur.”

“Fetch it at once, my dear man,” cried Sallenauve.

After reading the letter, his face seemed to Philippe convulsed.

“Tell them not to unharness,” he said; and he read the letter through a

second time.

When the old servant returned after executing the order, Sallenauve

asked him at what hour they had started.

“About nine,” answered Philippe.

“Three hours in advance!” muttered the deputy, looking at his watch, and

returning to the carriage which had brought him. As he was getting into

it, the old majordomo forced himself to say,--

“Monsieur found no bad news in that letter, did he?”

“No; but your master may be absent for some time; keep the house in good

order.” Then he said to the coachman, “Paris!”

The next day, quite early in the morning, Monsieur de l’Estorade was in

his study, employed in a rather singular manner. It will be remembered

that on the day when Sallenauve, then Dorlange the sculptor, had sent

him the bust of Madame de l’Estorade, he had not found a place where, as

he thought, the little masterpiece had a proper light. From the moment

that Rastignac hinted to him that his intercourse with the sculptor,

now deputy, might injure him at court, he had agreed with his son Armand

that the artist had given to Madame de l’Estorade the air of a grisette;

but now that Sallenauve, by his resistance to ministerial blandishments,

had taken an openly hostile attitude to the government, that bust seemed

to the peer of France no longer worthy of exhibition, and the worthy man

was now engaged in finding some dark corner where, without recourse to

the absurdity of actually hiding it, it would be out of range to the

eyes of visitors, whose questions as to its maker he should no longer

be forced to answer. He was therefore perched on the highest step of

his library ladder, holding in his hands the gift of the sculptor, and

preparing to relegate it to the top of a bookcase, where it was destined

to keep company with an owl and a cormorant shot by Armand during the

recent holidays and stuffed by paternal pride, when the door of the

study opened and Lucas announced,--

“Monsieur Philippe.”

The age of the old majordomo and the confidential post he occupied in

Marie-Gaston’s establishment seemed to the factotum of the house of

l’Estorade to authorize the designation of “monsieur,”--a civility

expectant of return, be it understood.

Descending from his eminence, the peer of France asked Philippe what

brought him, and whether anything had happened at Ville d’Avray. The old

servant related the singular departure of his master, and the no less

singular departure of Sallenauve without a word of explanation; then he

added,--

“This morning, while putting monsieur’s room in order, a letter

addressed to Madame le comtesse fell out of a book. As the letter was

sealed and all ready to be sent, I supposed that monsieur, in the hurry

of departure, had forgotten to tell me to put it in the post. I thought

therefore I had better bring it here myself. Perhaps Madame la comtesse

will find in it some explanation of this sudden journey, about which I

have dreamed all night.”

Monsieur de l’Estorade took the letter.

“Three black seals!” he said.

“The color doesn’t surprise me,” replied Philippe; “for since Madame’s

death monsieur has not laid off his mourning; but I do think three seals

are rather strange.”

“Very well,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “I will give the letter to my

wife.”

“If there should be anything in it to ease my mind about monsieur, would

Monsieur le comte be so kind as to let me know?” said Philippe.

“You can rely on that, my good fellow. _Au revoir_.”

“I beg Monsieur le comte’s pardon for offering an opinion,” said the

majordomo, not accepting the leave just given him to depart; “but in

case the letter contained some bad news, doesn’t Monsieur le comte think

that it would be best for him to know of it, in order to prepare Madame

la comtesse for the shock?”

“What! Do you suppose--” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, not finishing his

idea.

“I don’t know; but monsieur has been very gloomy the last few days.”

“To break the seal of a letter not addressed to us is always a serious

thing to do,” remarked the peer of France. “This bears my wife’s

address, but--in point of fact--it was never sent to her; in short, it

is most embarrassing.”

“But if by reading it some misfortune might be averted?”

“Yes, yes; that is just what keeps me in doubt.”

Here Madame de l’Estorade cut the matter short by entering the room.

Lucas had told her of the unexpected arrival of Philippe.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked with anxious curiosity.

The apprehensions Sallenauve had expressed the night before as to

Marie-Gaston’s condition returned to her mind. As soon as Philippe had

repeated the explanations he had already given to her husband, she broke

the seals of the letter.

Whatever may have been the contents of that disquieting epistle, nothing

was reflected on Madame de l’Estorade’s face.

“You say that your master left Ville d’Avray in company with an English

gentleman,” she said to Philippe. “Did he seem to go unwillingly, as if

yielding to violence?”

“No, far from that, madame; he seemed to be rather cheerful.”

“Well, there is nothing that need make us uneasy. This letter was

written some days ago, and, in spite of its three black seals, it has no

reference to anything that has happened since.”

Philippe bowed and went away. As soon as husband and wife were alone

together, Monsieur de l’Estorade said, stretching out his hand for the

letter,--

“What did he write about?”

“No, don’t read it,” said the countess, not giving him the letter.

“Why not?”

“It would pain you. It is enough for me to have had the shock; I could

scarcely control myself before that old servant.”

“Does it refer to suicide?”

Madame de l’Estorade nodded her head in affirmation.

“A real, immediate intention?”

“The letter is dated yesterday morning; and apparently, if it had not

been for the providential arrival of that Englishman, the poor fellow

would have taken advantage of Monsieur de Sallenauve’s absence last

night to kill himself.”

“The Englishman must have suspected his intention, and carried him

off to divert him from it. If that is so, he won’t let him out of his

sight.”

“And we may also count on Monsieur Sallenauve, who has probably joined

them by this time.”

“Then I don’t see that there is anything so terrible in the letter”; and

again he offered to take it.

“No,” said Madame de l’Estorade, drawing back, “if I ask you not to read

it. Why give yourself painful emotions? The letter not only expresses

the intention of suicide, but it shows that our poor friend is

completely out of his mind.”

At this instant piercing screams from Rene, her youngest child, put

Madame de l’Estorade into one of those material agitations which she

less than any other woman was able to control.

“My God!” she cried, as she rushed from the study, “what has happened?”

Less ready to be alarmed, Monsieur de l’Estorade contented himself by

going to the door and asking a servant what was the matter.

“Oh, nothing, Monsieur le comte,” replied the man. “Monsieur Rene in

shutting a drawer pinched his finger; that is all.”

The peer of France thought it unnecessary to convey himself to the scene

of action; he knew, by experience in like cases, that he must let his

wife’s exaggerated maternal solicitude have free course, on pain of

being sharply snubbed himself. As he returned to his desk, he noticed

lying on the ground the famous letter, which Madame de l’Estorade

had evidently dropped in her hasty flight. Opportunity and a certain

fatality which appears to preside over the conduct of all human affairs,

impelled Monsieur de l’Estorade, who thought little of the shock his

wife had dreaded for him, to satisfy his curiosity by reading the

letter.

Marie-Gaston wrote as follows:--

Madame,--This letter will seem to you less amusing than those I

addressed to you from Arcis-sur-Aube. But I trust you will not be

alarmed by the decision which I now announce. I am going to rejoin

my wife, from whom I have been too long separated; and this

evening, shortly after midnight, I shall be with her, never to

part again.

You have, no doubt, said to yourselves--you and Sallenauve--that I

was acting strangely in not visiting her grave; that is a remark

that two of my servants made the other day, not being aware that I

overheard them. I should certainly be a great fool to go and look

at a stone in the cemetery which can make me no response, when

every night, at twelve o’clock, I hear a little rap on the door of

my room, and our dear Louise comes in, not changed at all, except,

as I think, more plump and beautiful. She has had great trouble in

obtaining permission from Marie, queen of angels, to withdraw me

from earth. But last night she brought me formal leave, sealed

with green wax; and she also gave me a tiny vial of hydrocyanic

acid. A single drop of that acid puts us to sleep, and on waking

up we find ourselves on the other side.

Louise desired me to give you a message from her. I am to tell you

that Monsieur de l’Estorade has a disease of the liver and will

not live long, and that after his death you are to marry

Sallenauve, because, on the _other side_, husbands and wives who

really love each other are reunited; and she thinks we shall all

four--she and I and you and Sallenauve--be much happier together

than if we had your present husband, who is very dull, and whom

you married reluctantly.

My message given, nothing remains for me, madame, but to wish you

all the patience you need to continue for your allotted time in

this low world, and to subscribe myself

Your very affectionately devoted

Marie-Gaston.

If, after reading this letter, it had occurred to Monsieur de l’Estorade

to look at himself in the glass, he would have seen, in the sudden

convulsion and discoloration of his face, the outward and visible signs

of the terrible blow which his unfortunate curiosity had brought down

upon him. His heart, his mind, his self-respect staggered under one and

the same shock; the madness evident in the sort of prediction made about

him only added to his sense of its horror. Presently convincing himself,

like a mussulman, that madmen have the gift of second sight, he believed

he was a lost man, and instantly a stabbing pain began on his liver

side, while in the direction of Sallenauve, his predicted successor,

an awful hatred succeeded to his mild good-will. But at the same time,

conscious of the total want of reason and even of the absurdity of the

impression which had suddenly surged into his mind, he was afraid lest

its existence should be suspected, and he looked about him to see in

what way he could conceal from his wife his fatal indiscretion, the

consequences of which must forever weigh upon his life. It was certain,

he thought, that if she found the paper in his study she would deduce

therefrom the fact that he had read it. Rising from his desk, he softly

opened the door leading from the study to the salon, crossed the latter

room on tiptoe, and dropped the letter at the farther end of it, as

Madame de l’Estorade might suppose she had herself done in her hasty

departure. Then returning to his study, he scattered his papers over his

desk, like a school-boy up to mischief, who wants to mislead his master

by a show of application, intending to appear absorbed in his accounts

when his wife returned. Useless to add that he listened with keen

anxiety lest some other person than she should come into the salon; in

which case he determined to rush out and prevent other eyes from reading

the dreadful secrets contained in that paper.

Presently, however, the voice of Madame de l’Estorade, speaking to some

one at the door of the salon, reassured him as to the success of his

trick, and a moment later she entered the study accompanied by Monsieur

Octave de Camps. Going forward to receive his visitor, he was able

to see through the half-opened door the place where he had thrown the

letter. Not only had it disappeared, but he detected a movement which

assured him that Madame de l’Estorade had tucked it away in that part

of her gown where Louis XIV. did not dare to search for the secrets of

Mademoiselle d’Hautefort.

“I have come, my dear friend,” said Monsieur de Camps, “to get you to go

with me to Rastignac’s, as agreed on last night.”

“Very good,” said the peer, putting away his papers with a feverish

haste that plainly indicated he was not in his usual state of mind.

“Don’t you feel well?” asked Madame de l’Estorade, who knew her husband

by heart too well not to be struck by the singular stupefaction of his

manner, while at the same time, looking in his face, she saw the signs

of internal convulsion.

“True,” said Monsieur de Camps, “you certainly do not look so well as

usual. If you prefer it, we will put off this visit.”

“No, not at all,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade. “I have tired myself

with this work, and I need the air. But what was the matter with Rene?”

he inquired of his wife, whose attention he felt was unpleasantly fixed

upon him. “What made him cry like that?”

“Oh, a mere nothing!” she replied, not relaxing her attention.

“Well, my dear fellow,” said the peer, trying to take an easy tone,

“just let me change my coat and I’ll be with you.”

When the countess was alone with Monsieur de Camps, she said, rather

anxiously,--

“Don’t you think Monsieur de l’Estorade seems very much upset?”

“Yes; as I said just now, he does not look like himself. But the

explanation he gave seems sufficient. This office life is bad for the

health. I have never been as well as since I am actively engaged about

my iron-works.”

“Yes, certainly,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a heavy sigh; “he

ought to have a more active life. It seems plain that there is something

amiss with his liver.”

“What! because he is so yellow? He has been so ever since I have known

him.”

“Oh, monsieur, I can’t be mistaken! There is something seriously the

matter with him; and if you would kindly do me a service--”

“Madame, I am always at your orders.”

“When Monsieur de l’Estorade returns, speak of the injury to Rene’s

finger, and tell me that little wounds like that sometimes have serious

consequences if not attended to at once, and that will give me an excuse

to send for Doctor Bianchon.”

“Certainly,” replied Monsieur de Camps; “but I really don’t think a

physician is necessary. Still, if it reassures you--”

At this moment Monsieur de l’Estorade reappeared. He had almost

recovered his usual expression of face, but he exhaled a strong odor of

_melisse des Carmes_, which indicated that he had felt the need of that

tonic. Monsieur de Camps played his part admirably, and as for Madame

de l’Estorade it did not cost her much trouble to simulate maternal

anxiety.

“My dear,” she said to her husband, when Monsieur de Camps had delivered

himself of his medical opinion, “as you return from Monsieur de

Rastignac’s, please call on Doctor Bianchon and ask him to come here.”

“Pooh!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, shrugging his shoulders, “the idea

of disturbing a busy man like him for what you yourself said was a mere

nothing!”

“If you won’t go, I shall send Lucas; Monsieur de Camps’ opinion has

completely upset me.”

“If it pleases you to be ridiculous,” said the peer of France, crossly,

“I have no means of preventing it; but I beg you to remark one thing: if

people disturb physicians for mere nonsense, they often can’t get them

when they are really wanted.”

“Then you won’t go for the doctor?”

“Not I,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade; “and if I had the honor of

being anything in my own house, I should forbid you to send anybody in

my place.”

“My dear, you are the master here, and since you put so much feeling

into your refusal, let us say no more; I will bear my anxiety as best I

can.”

“Come, de Camps,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “for if this goes on, I

shall be sent to order that child’s funeral.”

“But, my dear husband,” said the countess, taking his hand, “you must be

ill, to say such dreadful things in that cool way. Where is your usual

patience with my little maternal worries, or your exquisite politeness

for every one, your wife included?”

“But,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, getting more excited instead of

calmer, under this form of studied though friendly reproach, “your

maternal feelings are turning into monomania, and you make life

intolerable to every one but your children. The devil! suppose they are

your children; I am their father, and, though I am not adored as

they are, I have the right to request that my house be not made

uninhabitable!”

While Monsieur de l’Estorade, striding about the room, delivered himself

of this philippic, the countess made a despairing sign to Monsieur de

Camps, as if to ask him whether he did not see most alarming symptoms in

such a scene. In order to cut short the quarrel of which he had been the

involuntary cause, the latter said, as if hurried,--

“Come, let us go!”

“Yes,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade, passing out first and neglecting

to say good-bye to his wife.

“Ah! stay; I have forgotten a message my wife gave me,” said Monsieur

de Camps, turning back to Madame de l’Estorade. “She told me to say she

would come for you at two o’clock to go and see the spring things at the

‘Jean de Paris,’ and she has arranged that after that we shall all four

go to the flower-show. When we leave Rastignac, l’Estorade and I will

come back here, and wait for you if you have not returned before us.”

Madame de l’Estorade paid little attention to this programme, for a

flash of light had illumined her mind. As soon as she was alone, she

took Marie-Gaston’s letter from her gown, and, finding it folded in the

proper manner, she exclaimed,--

“Not a doubt of it! I remember perfectly that I folded it with the

writing outside, as I put it back into the envelope; he must have read

it!”

An hour later, Madame de l’Estorade and Madame de Camps met in the same

salon where they had talked of Sallenauve a few days earlier.

“Good heavens! what is the matter with you?” cried Madame de Camps,

seeing tears on the face of her friend, who was finishing a letter she

had written.

Madame de l’Estorade told her all that had happened, and showed her

Marie-Gaston’s letter.

“Are you very sure,” asked Madame de Camps, “that your husband has read

the luckless scrawl?”

“How can I doubt it?” returned Madame de l’Estorade. “The paper can’t

have turned of itself; besides, in recalling the circumstances, I have a

dim recollection that at the moment when I started to run to Rene I felt

something drop,--fate willed that I should not stop to pick it up.”

“Often, when people strain their memories in that way they fasten on

some false indication.”

“But, my dear friend, the extraordinary change in the face and behavior

of Monsieur de l’Estorade, coming so suddenly as it did, must have

been the result of some sudden shock. He looked like a man struck by

lightning.”

“But if you account for the change in his appearance in that way, why

look for symptoms of something wrong with his liver?”

“Ah! this is not the first time I have seen symptoms of that,” replied

Madame de l’Estorade. “But you know when sick people don’t complain, we

forget about their illness. See,” and she pointed to a volume lying open

beside her; “just before you came in, I found in this medical dictionary

that persons who suffer from diseases of the liver are apt to be morose,

irritable, impatient. Well, for some time past, I have noticed a great

change in my husband’s disposition. You yourself mentioned it to me

the other day. Besides, the scene Monsieur de Camps has just

witnessed--which is, I may truly say, unprecedented in our household--is

enough to prove it.”

“My dear love, you are like those unpleasant persons who are resolved

to torture themselves. In the first place, you have looked into medical

books, which is the very height of imprudence. I defy you to read a

description of any sort of disease without fancying that either you or

some friends of yours have the symptoms of it. In the next place, you

are mixing up things; the effects of fear and of a chronic malady are

totally different.”

“No, I am not mixing them up; I know what I am talking about. You don’t

need to be told that if in our poor human machine some one part gets out

of order, it is on _that_ that any strong emotion will strike.”

“Well,” said Madame de Camps, not pursuing the medical discussion, “if

the letter of that unhappy madman has really fallen into the hands of

your husband, the peace of your home is seriously endangered; that is

the point to be discussed.”

“There are not two ways to be followed as to that,” said Madame de

l’Estorade. “Monsieur de Sallenauve must never set foot in this house

again.”

“That is precisely what I came to speak about to-day. Do you know that

last night I did not think you showed the composure which is so marked a

trait in your character?”

“When?” asked Madame de l’Estorade.

“Why, when you expressed so effusively your gratitude to Monsieur de

Sallenauve. When I advised you not to avoid him, for fear it would

induce him to keep at your heels, I never intended that you should

shower your regard upon his head in a way to turn it. The wife of so

zealous a dynastic partisan as Monsieur de l’Estorade ought to know what

the _juste milieu_ is by this time.”

“Ah! my dear, I entreat you, don’t make fun of my poor husband.”

“I am not talking of your husband, I am talking of you. Last night you

so surprised me that I have come here to take back my words. I like

people to follow my advice, but I don’t like them to go beyond it.”

“At any other time I should make you explain what horrible impropriety

I have committed under your counsel; but fate has interposed and settled

everything. Monsieur de Sallenauve will, at any cost, disappear from our

path, and therefore why discuss the degree of kindness one might have

shown him?”

“But,” said Madame de Camps, “since I must tell you all, I have come

to think him a dangerous acquaintance,--less for you than for some one

else.”

“Who?” asked Madame de l’Estorade.

“Nais. That child, with her passion for her ‘preserver,’ makes me really

uneasy.”

“Oh!” said the countess, smiling rather sadly, “are you not giving too

much importance to childish nonsense?”

“Nais is, of course, a child, but a child who will ripen quickly into a

woman. Did you not tell me yourself that you were sometimes frightened

at the intuition she showed in matters beyond her years?”

“That is true. But what you call her passion for Monsieur de Sallenauve,

besides being perfectly natural, is expressed by the dear little thing

with such freedom and publicity that the sentiment is, it seems to me,

obviously childlike.”

“Well, don’t trust to that; especially not after this troublesome being

ceases to come to your house. Suppose that when the time comes to

marry your daughter, this fancy should have smouldered in her heart and

increased; imagine your difficulty!”

“Oh! between now and then, thank Heaven! there’s time enough,” replied

Madame de l’Estorade, in a tone of incredulity.

“Between now and then,” said Madame de Camps, “Monsieur de Sallenauve

may have reached a distinction which will put his name on every lip; and

Nais, with her lively imagination, is more likely than other girls to be

dazzled by it.”

“But, my dear love, look at the disproportion in their ages.”

“Monsieur de Sallenauve is thirty, and Nais will soon be fourteen; that

is precisely the difference between you and Monsieur de l’Estorade.”

“Well, you may be right,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “and the sort of

marriage I made from reason Nais may want to make from folly. But you

needn’t be afraid; I will ruin that idol in her estimation.”

“But there again, as in the comedy of hatred you mean to play for

Monsieur de l’Estorade’s benefit, you need moderation. If you do not

manage it by careful transitions, you may miss your end. Never allow

the influence of circumstances to appear when it is desirable than an

impulse or an action should seem spontaneous.”

“But,” said Madame de l’Estorade, excitedly, “do you think that my

hatred, as you call it, will be acted? I do hate him, that man; he is

our evil genius!”

“Come, come, my dear, be calm! I don’t know you--you, you have always

been Reason incarnate.”

At this moment Lucas entered the room and asked his mistress if she

would receive _a_ Monsieur Jacques Bricheteau. Madame de l’Estorade

looked at her friend, as if to consult her.

“He is that organist who was so useful to Monsieur de Sallenauve during

the election. I don’t know what he can want of me.”

“Never mind,” said Madame de Camps, “receive him. Before beginning

hostilities it is always well to know what is going on in the enemy’s

camp.”

“Show him in,” said the countess.

Jacques Bricheteau entered. Expecting to be received in a friendly

country, he had not taken any particular pains with his dress. An old

maroon frock-coat to the cut of which it would have been difficult to

assign a date, a plaid waistcoat buttoned to the throat, surmounted by a

black cravat worn without a collar and twisted round the neck, yellowish

trousers, gray stockings, and laced shoes,--such was the more than

negligent costume in which the organist allowed himself to appear in a

countess’s salon.

Requested briefly to sit down, he said,--

“Madame, I hope I am not indiscreet in thus presenting myself without

having the honor of being known to you, but Monsieur Marie-Gaston told

me of your desire that I should give music-lessons to your daughter. At

first I replied that it was impossible, for all my time was occupied;

but the prefect of police has just afforded me some leisure by

dismissing me from a place I filled in his department; therefore I am

now happy to place myself at your disposal.”

“Your dismissal, monsieur, was caused by your activity in Monsieur de

Sallenauve’s election, was it not?” asked Madame de Camps.

“As no reason was assigned for it, I think your conjecture is probably

correct; especially as in twenty years I have had no trouble whatever

with my chiefs.”

“It can’t be denied,” said Madame de l’Estorade, sharply, “that you have

opposed the views of the government by this proceeding.”

“Consequently, madame, I have accepted this dismissal as an expected

evil. What interest, after all, had I in retaining my paltry post,

compared to that of Monsieur de Sallenauve’s election?”

“I am very sorry,” resumed Madame de l’Estorade, “to be unable to accept

the offer you are good enough to make me. But I have not yet considered

the question of a music-master for my daughter; and, in any case, I

fear that, in view of your great and recognized talent, your instruction

would be too advanced for a little girl of fourteen.”

“Well,” said Jacques Bricheteau, smiling, “no one has recognized my

talent, madame. Monsieur de Sallenauve and Monsieur Marie-Gaston have

only heard me once or twice. Apart from that I am the most obscure of

professors, and perhaps the dullest. But setting aside the question

of your daughter’s master, I wish to speak of a far more important

interest, which has, in fact, brought me here. I mean Monsieur de

Sallenauve.”

“Has Monsieur de Sallenauve,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with marked

coldness of manner, “sent you here with a message to my husband?”

“No, madame,” replied Jacques Bricheteau, “he has unfortunately given me

no message. I cannot find him. I went to Ville d’Avray this morning, and

was told that he had started on a journey with Monsieur Marie-Gaston.

The servant having told me that the object and direction of this journey

were probably known to you--”

“Not in any way,” interrupted Madame de l’Estorade.

Not as yet perceiving that his visit was unacceptable and that

no explanation was desired, Jacques Bricheteau persisted in his

statement:--

“This morning, I received a letter from the notary at Arcis-sur-Aube,

who informs me that my aunt, Mother Marie-des-Anges, desires me to be

told of a scandalous intrigue now being organized for the purpose of

ousting Monsieur de Sallenauve from his post as deputy. The absence of

our friend will seriously complicate the matter. We can take no steps

without him; and I cannot understand why he should disappear without

informing those who take the deepest interest in him.”

“That he has not informed you is certainly singular,” replied Madame

de l’Estorade, in the same freezing tone; “but as for my husband or me,

there is nothing to be surprised about.”

The meaning of this discourteous answer was too plain for Jacques

Bricheteau not to perceive it. He looked straight at the countess,

who lowered her eyes; but the whole expression of her countenance, due

north, confirmed the meaning he could no longer mistake in her words.

“Pardon me, madame,” he said, rising. “I was not aware that the future

and the reputation of Monsieur de Sallenauve had become indifferent to

you. Only a moment ago, in your antechamber, when your servant hesitated

to take in my name, Mademoiselle, your daughter, as soon as she heard I

was the friend of Monsieur de Sallenauve, took my part warmly; and I

had the stupidity to suppose that such friendliness was the tone of the

family.”

After this remark, which gave Madame de l’Estorade the full change for

her coin, Jacques Bricheteau bowed ceremoniously and was about to

leave the room, when a sudden contradiction of the countess’s comedy of

indifference appeared in the person of Nais, who rushed in exclaiming

triumphantly,--

“Mamma, a letter from Monsieur de Sallenauve!”

The countess turned crimson.

“What do you mean by running in here like a crazy girl?” she said

sternly; “and how do you know that this letter is from the person you

mention?”

“Oh!” replied Nais, twisting the knife in the wound, “when he wrote you

those letters from Arcis-sur-Aube, I saw his handwriting.”

“You are a silly, inquisitive little girl,” said her mother, driven by

these aggravating circumstances quite outside of her usual habits of

indulgence. “Go to your room.” Then she added to Jacques Bricheteau, who

lingered after the arrival of the letter,--

“Permit me, monsieur.”

“It is for me, madame, to ask permission to remain until you have

read that letter. If _by chance_ Monsieur de Sallenauve gives you any

particulars about his journey, you will, perhaps, allow me to profit by

them.”

“Monsieur de Sallenauve,” said the countess, after reading the letter,

“requests me to inform my husband that he has gone to Hanwell, county of

Middlesex, England. You can address him there, monsieur, to the care of

Doctor Ellis.”

Jacques Bricheteau made a second ceremonious bow and left the room.

“Nais has just given you a taste of her quality,” said Madame de Camps;

“but you deserved it,--you really treated that poor man too harshly.”

“I could not help it,” replied Madame de l’Estorade; “the day began

wrong, and all the rest follows suit.”

“Well, about the letter?”

“It is dreadful; read it yourself.”

Madame,--I was able to overtake Lord Lewin, the Englishman of whom

I spoke to you, a few miles out of Paris. Providence sent him to

Ville d’Avray to save us from an awful misfortune. Possessing an

immense fortune, he is, like so many of his countrymen, a victim

to _spleen_, and it is only his natural force of character which

has saved him from the worst results of that malady. His

indifference to life and the perfect coolness with which he spoke

of suicide won him Marie-Gaston’s friendship in Florence. Lord

Lewin, having studied the subject of violent emotions, is very

intimate with Doctor Ellis, a noted alienist, and it not

infrequently happens that he spends two or three weeks with him at

Hanwell, Middlesex Co., one of the best-managed lunatic asylums in

England,--Doctor Ellis being in charge of it.

When he arrived at Ville d’Avray, Lord Lewin saw at once that

Marie-Gaston had all the symptoms of incipient mania. Invisible to

other eyes, they were apparent to those of Lord Lewin. In speaking

to me of our poor friend, he used the word _chiffonait_,--meaning

that he picked up rubbish as he walked, bits of straw, scraps of

paper, rusty nails, and put them carefully into his pocket. That,

he informed me, is a marked symptom well known to those who study

the first stages of insanity. Enticing him to the subject of their

conversations in Florence, he obtained the fact that the poor

fellow meditated suicide, and the reason for it. Every night,

Gaston told him, his wife appeared to him, and he had now resolved

to _rejoin_ her, to use his own expression. Instead of opposing

this idea, Lord Lewin took a tone of approval. “But,” he said,

“men such as we ought not to die in a common way. I myself have

always had the idea of going to South America, where, not far from

Paraguay, there is one of the greatest cataracts in the world,

--the Saut de Gayra. The mists rising from it can be seen at a

distance of many miles. An enormous volume of water is suddenly

forced through a narrow channel, and rushes with terrific force

and the noise of a hundred thunder-claps into the gulf below.

There, indeed, one could find a noble death.”

“Let us go there,” said Gaston.

“Yes,” said Lord Lewin, “I am ready to go at once; we must sail

from England; it will take a few weeks to get there.”

In this way, madame, he enticed our poor friend to England, where,

as you will already have supposed, he has placed him in charge of

Doctor Ellis, who, they say, has not his equal in Europe for the

treatment of this particular form of mental aberration.

I joined them at Beauvais, and have followed them to Hanwell,

taking care not to be seen by Marie-Gaston. Here I shall be

detained until the doctor is able to give a decided opinion as to

the probable results of our friend’s condition. I greatly fear,

however, that I cannot possibly return to Paris in time for the

opening of the session. But I shall write to the president of the

Chamber, and in case any questions regarding my absence should

arise, may I ask Monsieur de l’Estorade to do me the favor of

stating that, to his knowledge, I have been absolutely forced by

sufficient reasons to absent myself? He will, of course,

understand that I ought not to explain under any circumstances the

nature of the affair which has taken me out of the country at this

unlucky time; but I am certain it will be all-sufficient if a man

of Monsieur de l’Estorade’s position and character guarantees the

necessity of my absence.

I beg you to accept, madame, etc., etc.

As Madame de Camps finished reading the letter, the sound of a carriage

entering the courtyard was heard.

“There are the gentlemen,” said the countess. “Now, had I better show

this letter to my husband or not?”

“You can’t avoid doing so,” replied Madame de Camps. “In the first

place, Nais will chatter about it. Besides, Monsieur de Sallenauve

addresses you in a most respectful manner, and there is nothing in the

letter to feed your husband’s notion.”

“Who is that common-looking man I met on the stairs talking with Nais?”

said Monsieur de l’Estorade to his wife, as he entered the salon.

As Madame de l’Estorade did not seem to understand him, he added,--

“He is pitted with the small-pox, and wears a maroon coat and shabby

hat.”

“Oh!” said Madame de Camps, addressing her friend; “it must be the man

who was here just now. Nais has seized the occasion to inquire about her

idol.”

“But who is he?” repeated Monsieur de l’Estorade.

“I think his name is Bricheteau; he is a friend of Monsieur de

Sallenauve,” replied Madame de Camps.

Seeing the cloud on her husband’s brow, Madame de l’Estorade hastened to

explain the double object of the organist’s visit, and she gave him the

letter of the new deputy. While he was reading it, Madame de l’Estorade

said, aside, to Monsieur de Camps,--

“He seems to me much better, don’t you think so?”

“Yes; there’s scarcely a trace left of what we saw this morning. He was

too wrought up about his work. Going out did him good; and yet he met

with a rather unpleasant surprise at Rastignac’s.”

“What was it?” asked Madame de l’Estorade, anxiously.

“It seems that the affairs of your friend Sallenauve are going wrong.”

“Thanks for the commission!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, returning the

letter to his wife. “I shall take very good care not to guarantee his

conduct in any respect.”

“Have you heard anything disagreeable about him?” asked Madame de

l’Estorade, endeavoring to give a tone of indifference to her question.

“Yes; Rastignac has just told me of letters received from Arcis, where

they have made the most compromising discoveries.”

“Well, what did I tell you?” cried Madame de l’Estorade.

“How do you mean? What _did_ you tell me?”

“I told you some time ago that the acquaintance was one that had better

be allowed to die out. I remember using that very expression.”

“But _I_ didn’t draw him here.”

“Well, you can’t say that I did; and just now, before I knew of these

discoveries you speak of, I was telling Madame de Camps of another

reason why it was desirable to put an end to the acquaintance.”

“Yes,” said Madame de Camps, “your wife and I were just discussing, as

you came in, the sort of frenzy Nais has taken for what she calls her

‘preserver.’ We agreed in thinking there might be future danger in that

direction.”

“From all points of view,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “it is an

unwholesome acquaintance.”

“It seems to me,” said Monsieur de Camps, who was not in the secret of

these opinions, “that you go too fast. They may have made what they call

compromising discoveries about Monsieur de Sallenauve; but what is

the value of those discoveries? Don’t hang him till a verdict has been

rendered.”

“My husband can do as he likes,” said Madame de l’Estorade; “but as for

me, I shall drop the acquaintance at once. I want my friends to be, like

Caesar’s wife, beyond suspicion.”

“Unfortunately,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “there’s that unfortunate

obligation--”

“But, my dear,” cried Madame de l’Estorade, “if a galley-slave saved my

life, must I admit him to my salon?”

“Oh! dearest,” exclaimed Madame de Camps, “you are going too far.”

“At any rate,” said the peer of France, “there is no need to make an

open rupture; let things end quietly between us. The dear man is now in

foreign parts, and who knows if he means to return?”

“What!” exclaimed Monsieur de Camps, “has he left the country for a mere

rumor?”

“Not precisely for that reason,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “he found

a pretext. But once out of France, you know--”

“I don’t believe in that conclusion,” said Madame de l’Estorade; “I

think he will return, and if so, my dear, you really must take your

courage in both hands and cut short his acquaintance.”

“Is that,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, looking attentively at his wife,

“your actual desire?”

“Mine?” she replied; “if I had my way, I should write to him and say

that he would do us a favor by not reappearing in our house. As that

would be rather a difficult letter to write, let us write it together,

if you are willing.”

“We will see about it,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, brightening up

under this suggestion; “there’s no danger in going slow. The most

pressing thing at this moment is the flower-show; I think it closes at

four o’clock; if so, we have only an hour before us.”

Madame de l’Estorade, who had dressed before the arrival of Madame de

Camps, rang for her maid to bring her a bonnet and shawl. While she

was putting them on before a mirror, her husband came up behind her and

whispered in her ear,--

“Then you really love me, Renee?”

“Are you crazy, to ask me such a question as that?” she answered,

looking at him affectionately.

“Well, then, I must make a confession: that letter, which Philippe

brought--I read it.”

“Then I am not surprised at the change in your looks and manner,” said

his wife. “I, too, will make you a confession: that letter to Monsieur

de Sallenauve, giving him his dismissal,--I have written it; you will

find it in my blotting-book. If you think it will do, send it.”

Quite beside himself with delight at finding his proposed successor

so readily sacrificed, Monsieur de l’Estorade did not control his joy;

taking his wife in his arms, he kissed her effusively.

“Well done!” cried Monsieur de Camps, laughing; “you have improved since

morning.”

“This morning I was a fool,” said the peer of France, hunting in the

blotting-book for the letter, which he might have had the grace to

believe in without seeing.

“Hush!” said Madame de Camps, in a low voice to her husband, to prevent

further remarks. “I’ll explain this queer performance to you by and by.”

Rejuvenated by ten years at least, the peer of France offered his arm

to Madame de Camps, while the amateur iron-master offered his to the

countess.

“But Nais!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, noticing the melancholy face of

his daughter, who was looking over the stairs at the party. “Isn’t she

going too?”

“No,” said the countess; “I am displeased with her.”

“Ah, bah!” said the father, “I proclaim an amnesty. Get your hat,” he

added, addressing his daughter.

Nais looked at her mother to obtain a ratification, which her knowledge

of the hierarchy of power in that establishment made her judge to be

necessary.

“You can come,” said her mother, “if your father wishes it.”

While they waited in the antechamber for the child, Monsieur de

l’Estorade noticed that Lucas was standing up beside a half-finished

letter.

“Whom are you writing to?” he said to his old servant.

“To my son,” replied Lucas, “who is very impatient to get his sergeant’s

stripes. I am telling him that Monsieur le comte has promised to speak

to his colonel for him.”

“True, true,” said the peer of France; “it slipped my memory. Remind me

of it to-morrow morning, and I’ll do it the first thing after I am up.”

“Monsieur le comte is very good--”

“And here,” continued his master, feeling in his waistcoat pocket, and

producing three gold pieces, “send that to the corporal, and tell him to

drink a welcome to the stripes.”

Lucas was stupefied. Never had he seen his master so expansive or so

generous.

When Nais returned, Madame de l’Estorade, who had been admiring herself

for her courage in showing displeasure to her daughter for half an hour,

embraced her as if they were meeting after an absence of two years;

after which they started for the Luxembourg, where in those days the

Horticultural Society held its exhibitions.

VII. THE WAY TO MANAGE POLITICAL INTRIGUES

Toward the close of the audience given by the minister of Public

Works to Monsieur Octave de Camps, who was presented by the Comte de

l’Estorade, an usher entered the room, and gave the minister the card

of the attorney-general, Monsieur Vinet, and that of Monsieur Maxime de

Trailles.

“Very good,” said Rastignac; “say to those gentlemen that I will receive

them in a few moments.”

Shortly after, Monsieur de l’Estorade and Monsieur de Camps rose to take

leave; and it was then that Rastignac very succinctly let the peer know

of the danger looming on the horizon of his friend Sallenauve. Monsieur

de l’Estorade exclaimed against the word _friend_.

“I don’t know, my dear minister,” he said, “why you insist on giving

that title to a man who is, really and truly, a mere acquaintance, and,

I may add, a passing acquaintance, if the rumors you have just mentioned

to us take actual shape.”

“I am glad to hear you say that,” said the minister, “because the

friendly relations which I supposed you to hold towards him would have

embarrassed me a good deal in the hostilities which I foresee must break

out between him and the government.”

“Most grateful, I am sure, for that sentiment,” replied the peer of

France; “but be kind enough to remember that I give you _carte blanche_.

You are free to handle Monsieur de Sallenauve as your political enemy,

without a moment’s fear of troubling me.”

Thereupon they parted, and Messieurs Vinet and de Trailles were

introduced.

The attorney-general, Vinet, was the most devoted and the most consulted

champion of the government among its various officials. In a possible

reconstitution of the ministry he was obviously the candidate for the

portfolio of justice. Being thoroughly initiated into all the business

of that position, and versed in its secret dealings, nothing was hatched

in that department on which he was not consulted, if not actually

engaged. The electoral matters of Arcis-sur-Aube had a double claim to

his interest, partly on account of his wife, a Chargeboeuf of Brie, and

a relative of the Cinq-Cygnes, but chiefly because of the office held

by his son in the local administration. So that when, earlier in the

morning, Monsieur de Trailles carried to Rastignac a letter from

Madame Beauvisage, wife of the defeated governmental candidate, full

of statements injurious to the new deputy, the minister had replied,

without listening to any explanations,--

“See Vinet about it; and tell him, from me, to come here with you.”

Notified by de Trailles, who offered to fetch him in his carriage, Vinet

was ready enough to go to the minister; and now that we find the three

together in Rastignac’s study, we shall be likely to obtain some better

knowledge of the sort of danger hanging over Sallenauve’s head than

we gained from Jacques Bricheteau’s or Monsieur de l’Estorade’s very

insufficient information.

“You say, my dear friends,” said the minister, “that we can win a game

against that puritan, who seemed to me, when I met him at l’Estorade’s

last evening, to be an out-and-out enemy to the government?”

Admitted to this interview without official character, Maxime de

Trailles knew life too well to take upon himself to answer this query.

The attorney-general, on the contrary, having a most exalted sense

of his own political importance, did not miss the opportunity to put

himself forward.

“When Monsieur de Trailles communicated to me this morning a letter from

Madame Beauvisage,” he hastened to say, “I had just received one from my

son, conveying to me very much the same information. I am of Monsieur

de Trailles’ opinion, that the affair may become very serious for our

adversary, provided, however, that it is well managed.”

“I know, as yet, very little about the affair,” remarked the minister.

“As I wished for your opinion in the first place, my dear Vinet, I

requested Monsieur de Trailles to postpone his explanation of its

details until you could be present at the discussion.”

This time Maxime was plainly authorized and even required to speak, but

again Vinet stole the opportunity.

“Here is what my son Olivier writes me, and it is confirmed by the

letter of Madame Beauvisage, in whom, be it said in passing, my dear

minister, you have lost a most excellent deputy. It appears that on the

last market-day Maitre Achille Pigoult, who is left in charge of the

affairs of the new deputy, received a visit from a peasant-woman of

Romilly, a large village in the neighborhood of Arcis. The mysterious

father of the deputy, the so-called Marquis de Sallenauve, declared

himself to be the last remaining scion of the family; but it seems

that this woman produced papers in due form, which show her to be

a Sallenauve in the direct line, and within the degree of parentage

required to constitute her an heir.”

“Was she as ignorant of the existence of the Marquis de Sallenauve as

the marquis seems to have been of hers?” asked Rastignac.

“That does not clearly appear from what she says,” replied the

attorney-general; “but it might so happen among relations so curiously

placed.”

“Go on, if you please,” said Rastignac; “before we draw conclusions we

must know the facts, which, as you are aware, is not always done in the

Chamber of deputies.”

“Fortunately, sometimes, for the ministers,” remarked Maxime, laughing.

“Monsieur is right,” said Vinet; “hail to the man who can muddle

questions. But to return to our peasant-woman. Not being satisfied,

naturally, with Maitre Pigoult’s reception of her news, she went into

the market-square, and there by the help of a legal practitioner from

her village, who seems to have accompanied her, she spread about reports

which are very damaging to my worthy colleague in the Chamber. She said,

for instance, that it was not true that the Marquis de Sallenauve was

his father; that it was not even true that the Marquis de Sallenauve was

still living; and moreover that the spurious Sallenauve was a man of no

heart, who had repudiated his real parents,--adding that she could, by

the help of the able man who accompanied her, compel him to disgorge the

Sallenauve property and ‘clear out’ of the place.”

“I have no objection to that,” said Rastignac; “but this woman must, of

course, have papers to prove her allegations?”

“That is the weak point of the matter,” replied Vinet. “But let me go

on with my story. The government has at Arcis a most intelligent and

devoted functionary in the commissary of police. Circulating among the

groups, as he usually does on market days, he heard these statements

of the peasant-woman, and reported them at once, not to the mayor, who

might not have heeded them, but to Madame Beauvisage.”

“_Ah ca_!” said Rastignac, addressing Maxime; “was the candidate you

gave us such a dolt as that?”

“Just the man you needed,” replied Maxime,--“silly to the last degree,

and capable of being wound round anybody’s finger. I’ll go any lengths

to repair that loss.”

“Madame Beauvisage,” continued Vinet, “wished to speak with the woman

herself, and she ordered Groslier--that’s the commissary of police--to

fetch her with a threatening air to the mayor’s office, so as to give

her an idea that the authorities disapproved of her conduct.”

“Did Madame Beauvisage concoct that plan?” asked Rastignac.

“Yes,” replied Maxime, “she is a very clever woman.”

“Questioned closely by the mayoress,” continued Vinet, “who took care to

have the mayor present, the peasant-woman was far from categorical. Her

grounds for asserting that the new deputy could not be the son of the

marquis, and the assurance with which she stated that the latter had

long been dead were not, as it appears, very clearly established; vague

rumors and the deductions drawn by the village practitioner seem to be

all there was to them.”

“Then,” said Rastignac, “what does all this lead to?”

“Absolutely nothing from a legal point of view,” replied the

attorney-general; “for supposing the woman were able to establish the

fact that this recognition of the said Dorlange was a mere pretence, she

has no status on which to proceed farther. By Article 339 of the Civil

Code direct heirship alone has the right to attack the recognition of

natural children.”

“Your balloon is collapsing fast,” said the minister.

“So that the woman,” continued Vinet, “has no object in proceeding, for

she can’t inherit; it belongs to the government to pursue the case of

supposition of person; she can do no more than denounce the fact.”

“From which you conclude?” said Rastignac, with that curtness of speech

which to a prolix speaker is a warning to be concise.

“From which I conclude, judicially speaking, that the Romilly

peasant-woman, so far as she is concerned, will have her trouble for her

pains; but, speaking politically, the thing takes quite another aspect.”

“Let us see the political side,” said the minister; “up to this point, I

see nothing.”

“In the first place,” replied the attorney-general, “you will admit that

it is always possible to bring a bad case?”

“Certainly.”

“And I don’t suppose it would signify much to you if the woman did

embark in a matter in which she can lose nothing but her costs?”

“No, I assure you I am wholly indifferent.”

“In any case, I should have advised you to let things take their course.

The Beauvisage husband and wife have engaged to pay the costs and also

the expense of keeping the peasant-woman and her counsel in Paris during

the inquiry.”

“Then,” said Rastignac, still pressing for a conclusion, “the case is

really begun. What will be the result?”

“What will be the result?” cried the attorney-general, getting excited;

“why, anything you please if, _before the case comes for trial_,

your newspapers comment upon it, and your friends spread reports

and insinuations. What will result? why, an immense fall in public

estimation for our adversary suspected of stealing a name which does

not belong to him! What will result? why, the opportunity for a fierce

challenge in the Chamber.”

“Which you will take upon yourself to make?” asked Rastignac.

“Ah! I don’t know about that. The matter would have to be rather

more studied, and the turn the case might take more certain, if I had

anything to do with it.”

“So, for the present,” remarked the minister, “the whole thing amounts

to an application of Basile’s famous theory about calumny: ‘good to set

a-going, because some of it will always stick.’”

“Calumny!” exclaimed Vinet, “that remains to be seen. Perhaps a good

round of gossip is all that can be made of it. Monsieur de Trailles,

here, knows better than I do the state of things down there. He can

tell you that the disappearance of the father immediately after the

recognition had a bad effect upon people’s minds; and every one in

Arcis has a vague impression of secret plotting in this affair of the

election. You don’t know, my dear minister, all that can be made in the

provinces of a judicial affair when adroitly manipulated,--cooked, as I

may say. In my long and laborious career at the bar I saw plenty of that

kind of miracle. But a parliamentary debate is another thing. In that

there’s no need of proof; one can kill one’s man with probabilities and

assertions, if hotly maintained.”

“But, to come to the point,” said Rastignac, “how do you think the

affair ought to be managed?”

“In the first place,” replied Vinet, “I should leave the Beauvisage

people to pay all costs of whatever kind, inasmuch as they propose to do

so.”

“Do I oppose that?” said the minister. “Have I the right or the means to

do so?”

“The affair,” continued Vinet, “should be placed in the hands of some

capable and wily solicitor, like Desroches, for example, Monsieur de

Trailles’ lawyer. He’ll know how to put flesh on the bones of a case you

justly consider rather thin.”

“Well, it is certainly not my place to say to Monsieur de Trailles

or any other man, ‘I forbid you to employ whom you will as your

solicitor.’”

“Then we need some pleader who can talk in a moving way about that

sacred thing the Family, and put himself into a state of indignation

about these surreptitious and furtive ways of entering its honored

enclosure.”

“Desroches can point out some such person to you. The government cannot

prevent a man from saying what he pleases.”

“But,” interposed Maxime, who was forced out of his passive role by the

minister’s coldness, “is _not preventing_ all the help we are to expect

in this affair from the government?”

“You don’t expect us, I hope, to take this matter upon ourselves?”

“No, of course not; but we have certainly supposed that you would take

some interest in the matter.”

“But how?--in what way?”

“Well, as Monsieur le procureur said just now, by giving a hint to the

subsidized newspapers, by stirring up your friends to spread the news,

by using a certain influence which power always exerts on the minds of

magistrates.”

“Thank you, no!” replied Rastignac. “When you want the government for

an accomplice, my dear Maxime, you must provide a better-laid plot

than that. From your manner this morning I supposed there was really

something in all this, and so I ventured to disturb our excellent

attorney-general, who knows how I value his advice. But really, your

scheme seems to me too transparent and also too narrow not to be doomed

to inevitable defeat. If I were not married, and could pretend to the

hand of Mademoiselle Beauvisage, perhaps I should feel differently; of

course you will do as you think best. I do not say that the government

will not wish you well in your attempt, but it certainly cannot descend

to make it with you.”

“But see,” said Vinet, interposing to cut off Maxime’s reply, which

would doubtless have been bitter; “suppose we send the affair to the

criminal courts, and the peasant-woman, instigated by the Beauvisage

couple, should denounce the man who had sworn before a notary, and

offered himself for election falsely, as a Sallenauve: the question is

one for the court of assizes.”

“But proofs? I return to that, you must have proof,” said Rastignac.

“Have you even a shadow of it?”

“You said yourself, just now,” remarked Maxime, “that it was always

possible to bring a bad case.”

“A civil case, yes; but to fail in a criminal case is a far more serious

matter. It would be a pretty thing if you were shown not to have a

leg to stand on, and the case ended in a decision of _non-lieu_. You

couldn’t find a better way to put our enemy on a pedestal as high as the

column of July.”

“So,” said Maxime, “you see absolutely nothing that can be done?”

“For us, no. For you, my dear Maxime, who have no official character,

and who, if need be, can support the attack on Monsieur de Sallenauve

pistol in hand, as it were, nothing hinders you from proceeding in the

matter.”

“Oh, yes!” said Maxime, bitterly, “I’m a sort of free lance.”

“Not at all; you are a man intuitively convinced of facts impossible

to prove legally, and you do not give way before the judgment of God or

man.”

Monsieur de Trailles rose angrily. Vinet rose also, and, shaking hands

with Rastignac as he took leave of him, he said,--

“I don’t deny that your course is a prudent one, and I don’t say that in

your place I should not do the same thing.”

“Adieu, Maxime; without bitterness, I hope,” said Rastignac to Monsieur

de Trailles, who bowed coldly and with dignity.

When the two conspirators were alone in the antechamber, Maxime turned

to his companion.

“Do you understand such squeamishness?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” replied Vinet, “and I wonder to see a clever man like you

so duped.”

“Yes, duped to make you lose your time and I mine by coming here to

listen to a lecture on virtue!”

“That’s not it; but I do think you guileless to be taken in by that

refusal to co-operate.”

“What! do you think--”

“I think that this affair is risky; if it succeeds, the government, arms

folded, will reap the benefit. But if on the contrary we fail, it will

not take a share in the defeat. But you may be sure of this, for I

know Rastignac well: without seeming to know anything, and without

compromising himself in any way, he will help us, and perhaps more

usefully than by open connivance. Think! did he say a single word on

the morality of the affair? Didn’t he say, again and again, ‘I don’t

oppose--I have no right to prevent’? And as to the venom of the case,

the only fault he found was that it wasn’t sure to kill. But in truth,

my dear monsieur, this is going to be a hard pull, and we shall want all

the cleverness of that fellow Desroches to get us through.”

“Then you think I had better see him?”

“Better see him! why, my good friend, you ought to go to him at once.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if he talked with you?”

“Oh! no, no!” exclaimed Vinet. “I may be the man to put the question

in the Chamber; and if Desroches were seen with me, I should lose my

virginity.”

So saying, he took leave of Maxime with some haste, on the ground that

he ought then to be at the Chamber.

“But I,” said Maxime, running after him,--“suppose I want to consult you

in the matter?”

“I leave to-night for my district, to get things into order before the

opening of the new session.”

“But about bringing up the question which you say may devolve on you?”

“I or another. I will hasten back as soon as I can; but you understand,

I must put my department in order for a six months’ absence.”

“A good journey to you, then, Monsieur le procureur-general,” replied

Maxime, sarcastically.

Left to himself, Monsieur de Trailles had a period of discouragement,

resulting from the discovery that these two political Bertrands meant

that his paw should pull the chestnuts from the fire. Rastignac’s

behavior particularly galled him. His mind went back to their first

interview at Madame Restaud’s, twenty years earlier, when he himself

held the sceptre of fashion, and Rastignac, a poor student, neither knew

how to come into a room nor how to leave it. [See “Pere Goriot.”] And

now Rastignac was peer of France and minister, while he, Maxime, become

his agent, was obliged with folded arms to hear himself told that his

plot was weak and he must carry it out alone, if at all.

But this discouragement did not last.

“Yes!” he cried to himself, “I _will_ carry it out; my instinct tells

me there is something in it. What nonsense!--a Dorlange, a nobody, to

attempt to checkmate Maxime de Trailles and make a stepping-stone of my

defeat! To my solicitor’s,” he said to the coachman, opening the door of

the carriage himself.

Desroches was at home; and Monsieur de Trailles was immediately admitted

into his study.

Desroches was a lawyer who had had, like Raffaelle, several manners.

First, possessor of a practice without clients, he had made fish of

every case that came into his net; and he felt himself, in consequence,

little respected by the court. But he was a hard worker, well versed in

all the ins and outs of chicanery, a keen observer, and an intelligent

reader of the movements of the human heart. Consequently he had made for

himself, in course of time, a very good practice; he had married a rich

woman, and the moment that he thought himself able to do without crooked

ways he had seriously renounced them. In 1839 Desroches had become an

honest and skilful solicitor: that is to say, he assumed the interests

of his clients with warmth and ability; he never counselled an openly

dishonorable proceeding, still less would he have lent a hand to it.

As to that fine flower of delicacy to be met with in Derville and some

others like him, besides the sad fact that it is difficult to keep its

fragrance from evaporating in this business world of which Monsieur de

Talleyrand says, “Business means getting the property of others,” it is

certain that it can never be added to any second state of existence.

The loss of that bloom of the soul, like that of other virginities, is

irreparable. Desroches had not aspired to restore it to himself. He

no longer risked anything ignoble or dishonest, but the good tricks

admitted the code of procedure, the good traps, the good treacheries

which could be legitimately played off upon an adversary, he was very

ready to undertake.

Desroches was moreover a man of parts and witty; loving the pleasures of

the table, and like all men perpetually the slaves of imperious toil,

he felt the need of vigorous amusement, taken on the wing and highly

spiced. While purifying after a fashion his judicial life, he still

continued the legal adviser of artists, men of letters, actresses,

courtesans, and elegant bohemians like Maxime de Trailles, because he

liked to live their life; they were sympathetic to him as he to them.

Their witty _argot_, their easy morals, their rather loose adventures,

their expedients, their brave and honorable toil, in a word, their

greatness and their weakness,--he understood it all marvellously well;

and, like an ever-indulgent providence, he lent them his aid whenever

they asked for it. But in order to conceal from his dignified and more

valuable clients whatever might be compromising in the _clientele_ he

really preferred, Desroches had his days of domesticity when he was

husband and father, especially on Sundays. He appeared in the Bois de

Boulogne in a modest caleche beside his wife (whose ugliness revealed

the size of her _dot_), with three children on the front seat, who were

luckless enough to resemble their mother. This family picture, these

virtuous Dominical habits, recalled so little the week-day Desroches,

dining in cafes with all the male and female _viveurs_ of renown,

that one of them, Malaga, a circus-rider, famous for her wit and vim,

remarked that lawyers ought not to be allowed to masquerade in that way

and deceive the public with fictitious family joys.

It was to this relative integrity that de Trailles now went for counsel,

as he never failed to do in all the many difficulties he encountered in

life. Following a good habit, Desroches listened, without interrupting,

to the long explanation of the case submitted to him. As Maxime hid

nothing from this species of confessor, he gave his reasons for wishing

to injure Sallenauve, representing him, in all good faith, as having

usurped the name under which he was elected to the Chamber,--his hatred

making him take the possibility for positive evidence.

In his heart, Desroches did not want to take charge of an affair in

which he saw not the slightest chance of success; but he showed his lax

integrity by talking over the affair with his client as if it were an

ordinary case of legal practice, instead of telling him frankly his

opinion that this pretended “case” was a mere intrigue. The number

of things done in the domain of evil by connivance in speech, without

proceeding to the actual collusion of action, are incalculable.

“In the first place,” said Desroches, when the matter was all explained,

“a civil suit is not to be thought of. Your Romilly peasant-woman might

have her hands full of proofs, but she has no ground herself to stand

upon; she has no legal interest in contesting the rights of this

recognized natural son.”

“Yes, that is what Vinet said just now.”

“As for the criminal case, you could, no doubt, compel it by giving

information to the police authorities of this alleged imposture--”

“Vinet,” interrupted Maxime, “inclined to the criminal proceeding.”

“Yes, but there are a great many objections to it. In the first place,

in order that the complaint be received at all, you must produce

a certain amount of proof; then, supposing it is received, and the

authorities are determined to pursue the case, you must have more

evidence of criminality than you have now; and, moreover, supposing that

you can show that the so-called Marquis de Sallenauve committed a fraud,

how will you prove that the so-called son was privy to it? He might have

been the dupe of some political schemer.”

“But what interest could such a schemer have in giving Dorlange the many

advantages he has derived from the recognition?”

“Ah! my dear fellow, in political manners all queer proceedings are

possible; there is no such fertile source for compilers of _causes

celebres_ and novelists. In the eyes of the law, you must remember, the

counterfeiting of a person is not always a crime.”

“How so?” asked Maxime.

“Here,” said Desroches, taking up the Five Codes; “do me the favor to

read Article 5 of the Penal Code, the only one which gives an opening to

the case you have in mind.”

Maxime read aloud the article, which was as follows:--

“‘Any functionary or public officer who, in the exercise of his

function, shall commit forgery--either by false signatures, by

alterations of deeds, writings, or signatures, or by counterfeiting

persons--’ There, you see,” said Maxime, interrupting himself,--“‘by

counterfeiting persons--’”

“Go on,” insisted Desroches.

“‘--by counterfeiting persons,’” resumed de Trailles, “‘either by

writings made or intercalated in the public records or other documents,

shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for life.’”

Maxime lingered lovingly over the last words, which gave his revenge a

foretaste of the fate that awaited Sallenauve.

“My dear count,” said Desroches, “you do as the barristers do; they read

to the jury only so much of a legal document as suits their point of

view. You pay no attention to the fact that the only persons affected by

this article are _functionaries_ or _public officers_.”

Maxime re-read the article, and convinced himself of the truth of that

remark.

“But,” he objected, “there must be something elsewhere about such a

crime when committed by private individuals.”

“No, there is not; you can trust my knowledge of jurisprudence,--the

Code is absolutely silent in that direction.”

“Then the crime we wish to denounce can be committed with impunity?”

“Its repression is always doubtful,” replied Desroches. “Judges do

sometimes make up for the deficiency of the Code in this respect. Here,”

he added, turning over the leaves of a book of reference,--“here are two

decisions of the court of assizes, reported in Carnot’s Commentary on

the Penal Code: one of July 7, 1814, the other April 24, 1818,--both

confirmed by the court of appeals, which condemn for forgery, by

‘counterfeiting persons,’ individuals who were neither functionaries

nor public officers: but these decisions, unique in law, rest on the

authority of an article in which the crime they punish is not even

mentioned; and it is only by elaborate reasoning that they contrived to

make this irregular application of it. You can understand, therefore,

how very doubtful the issue of such a case would be, because in the

absence of a positive rule you can never tell how the magistrates might

decide.”

“Consequently, your opinion, like Rastignac’s, is that we had better

send our peasant-woman back to Romilly and drop the whole matter?”

“There is always something to be done if one knows how to set about it,”

replied Desroches. “There is a point that neither you nor Rastignac nor

Vinet seems to have thought of; and that is, to proceed in a criminal

case against a member of the national representation, except for

flagrant crime, requires the consent and authority of the Chamber.”

“True,” said Maxime, “but I don’t see how a new difficulty is going to

help us.”

“You wouldn’t be sorry to send your adversary with the galleys,” said

Desroches, laughing.

“A villain,” added Maxime, “who may make me lose a rich marriage; a

fellow who poses for stern virtue, and then proceeds to trickery of this

kind!”

“Well, you must resign yourself to a less glorious result; but you can

make a pretty scandal, and destroy the reputation of your man; and that

ought, it seems to me, to serve your ends.”

“Of course,--better that than nothing.”

“Well, then, here’s what I advise. Don’t let your peasant-woman lodge

her complaint before the criminal court, but make her place in the

hands of the president of the Chamber of deputies a simple request for

permission to proceed. Probably the permission will not be granted, and

the affair will have to stop at that stage; but the matter being once

made known will circulate through the Chambers, the newspapers will get

hold of it and make a stir, and the ministry, _sub rosa_, can envenom

the vague accusation through its friends.”

“_Parbleu_! my dear fellow,” cried Maxime, delighted to find a way

open to his hatred, “you’ve a strong head,--stronger than that of these

so-called statesmen. But this request for permission addressed to the

president of the Chamber, who is to draw it up?”

“Oh! not I,” said Desroches, who did not wish to mix himself up any

farther in this low intrigue. “It isn’t legal assistance that you

want; this is simply firing your first gun, and I don’t undertake that

business. But you can find plenty of briefless barristers always ready

to put their finger in the political pie. Massol, for instance, can draw

it up admirably. But you must not tell him that the idea came from me.”

“Oh! as for that,” said Maxime, “I’ll take it all on my own shoulders.

Perhaps in this form Rastignac may come round to the project.”

“Yes, but take care you don’t make an enemy of Vinet, who will think you

very impertinent to have an idea which ought, naturally, to have come

into the head of so great a parliamentary tactician as himself.”

“Well, before long,” said Maxime, rising, “I hope to bring the Vinets

and Rastignacs, and others like them, to heel. Where do you dine this

evening?” he added.

“In a cave,” replied Desroches, “with a band.”

“Where’s that?”

“I suppose, in the course of your erotic existence, you have had

recourse to the good offices of a certain Madame de Saint-Esteve?”

“No,” replied Maxime, “I have always done my own business in that line.”

“True,” said Desroches, “you conquer in the upper ranks, where, as a

general thing, they don’t use go-betweens. But, at any rate, you have

heard of Madame de Saint-Esteve?”

“Of course; her establishment is in the rue Neuve-Saint-Marc, and it was

she who got that pot of money out of Nucingen for La Torpille. Isn’t she

some relation to the chief of detective police, who bears the same name,

and used to be one of the same kind as herself?”

“I don’t know about that,” said Desroches, “but what I can tell you

is that in her business as procuress--as it was called in days less

decorous than our own--the worthy woman has made a fortune, and now,

without any serious change of occupation, she lives magnificently in

the rue de Provence, where she carries on the business of a matrimonial

agency.”

“Is that where you are going to dine?” asked Maxime.

“Yes, with the director of the London opera-house, Emile Blondet, Finot,

Lousteau, Felicien Vernon, Theodore Gaillard, Hector Merlin, and Bixiou,

who was commissioned to invite me, as it seems they are in want of my

_experience_ and _capacity for business_!”

“_Ah ca_! then there’s some financial object in this dinner?”

“No; it merely concerns a theatrical venture,--the engagement of a prima

donna; and they want to submit the terms of the contract to my judgment.

You understand that the rest of the guests are invited to trumpet the

affair as soon as the papers are signed.”

“Who is the object of all this preparation?”

“Oh! a _star_,--destined, they say, to European success; an Italian,

discovered by a Swedish nobleman, Comte Halphertius, through the

medium of Madame de Saint-Esteve. The illustrious manager of the London

opera-house is negotiating this treaty in order that she shall make her

first appearance at his theatre.”

“Well, adieu, my dear fellow; a pleasant dinner,” said Maxime, preparing

to depart. “If your star shines in London, it will probably appear

in our firmament next winter. As for me, I must go and attend to the

sunrise in Arcis. By the bye, where does Massol live?”

“Faith! I couldn’t tell you that. I never myself trust him with a case,

for I will not employ barristers who dabble in politics. But you can

get his address from the ‘Gazette des Tribuneaux’; he is one of their

reporters.”

Maxime went to the office of that newspaper; but, probably on account

of creditors, the office servant had express orders not to give the

barrister’s address, so that, in spite of his arrogant, imperious

manner, Monsieur de Trailles obtained no information. Happily, he

bethought him that he frequently saw Massol at the Opera, and he

resolved to seek him there that evening. Before going to dinner, he

went to the lodgings in the rue Montmartre, where he had installed

the Romilly peasant-woman and her counsel, whom Madame Beauvisage had

already sent to Paris. He found them at dinner, making the most of the

Beauvisage funds, and he gave them an order to come to his apartment the

next day at half-past eleven without breakfasting.

In the evening he found Massol, as he expected, at the opera-house.

Going up to the lawyer with the slightly insolent manner which was

natural to him, he said,--

“Monsieur, I have an affair, half legal, half political, which I desire

to talk over with you. If it did not demand a certain amount of secrecy,

I would go to your office, but I think we could talk with more safety

in my own apartment; where, moreover, I shall be able to put you in

communication with other persons concerned in the affair. May I hope

that to-morrow morning, at eleven o’clock, you will do me the favor to

take a cup of tea with me?”

If Massol had had an office, he might possibly not have consented, for

the sake of his legal dignity, to reverse the usual order of things; but

as he perched rather than lodged in any particular place, he was glad of

an arrangement which left his abode, if he had any, incognito.

“I shall have the honor to be with you at the hour named,” he replied

ceremoniously.

“Rue Pigalle,” said Maxime, “No. 6.”

“Yes, I know,” returned Massol,--“a few steps from the corner of the rue

de la Rochefoucauld.”

VIII. SOME OLD ACQUAINTANCES

A few evenings after the one on which Sallenauve and Marie-Gaston had

taken Jacques Bricheteau to Saint-Sulpice to hear the Signora Luigia’s

voice, the church was the scene of a curious little incident that

passed by almost wholly unperceived. A young man entered hastily by a

side-door; he seemed agitated, and so absorbed in some anxiety that he

forgot to remove his hat. The beadle caught him by the arm, and his face

became livid, but, turning round, he saw at once that his fears were

causeless.

“Is your hat glued on your head, young man?” said the beadle, pompously.

“Oh, pardon me, monsieur,” he replied, snatching it off; “I forgot

myself.”

Then he slipped into the thickest of the crowd and disappeared.

A few seconds after the irruption of this youth the same door gave

access to a man around whose powerful, seamed face was the collar of a

white beard, which, combined with a thick shock of hair, also white but

slightly reddish in tone and falling almost to his shoulders, gave him

very much the air of an old Conventional, or a Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

who had had the small-pox. His face and his hair placed him in the

sixties, but his robust figure, the energetic decision of his movements,

and, above all, the piercing keenness of the glance which he cast about

him on entering the church, showed a powerful organization on which the

passage of years had made little or no impression. No doubt, he was in

search of the young fellow who had preceded him; but he did not commit

the mistake of entering the crowd, where he knew of course that the

youth had lost himself. Like a practised hunter, he saw that pursuit was

useless, and he was just about to leave the church when, after a short

organ prelude, the contralto of the signora delivering its solemn notes

gave forth that glorious harmony to which is sung the Litany of the

Virgin. The beauty of the voice, the beauty of the chant, the beauty

of the words of the sacred hymn, which the fine method of the singer

brought out distinctly, made a singular impression on the stalwart

stranger. Instead of leaving the church, he put himself in the shadow of

a column, against which he leaned as he stood; but as the last notes of

the divine canticle died away among the arches of the church, he knelt

on the pavement, and whoever had chanced to look that way would have

seen two heavy tears rolling slowly down his cheeks. The benediction

given, and the crowd dispersing, he rose, wiped his eyes, and,

muttering, “What a fool I am!” left the church. Then he went to the

Place Saint-Sulpice, and, beckoning to a coach on the stand, he said to

the driver,--

“Rue de Provence, my man, quick! there’s fat in it.”

Reaching the house, he went rapidly up the stairway, and rang at the

door of an apartment on the first floor.

“Is my aunt at home?” he inquired of the Negro who opened it. Then he

followed the man, and was presently ushered into a salon where the Negro

announced,--

“Monsieur de Saint-Esteve.”

The salon which the famous chief of the detective police now entered was

remarkable for the luxury, but still more for the horribly bad taste,

of its appointments. Three women of advanced age were seated round a

card-table earnestly employed in a game of dominoes. Three glasses and

an empty silver bowl which gave forth a vinous odor showed that the

worship of double-sixes was not without its due libations.

“Good evening, mesdames,” said the chief of police, sitting down; “for I

have something to say to each of you.”

“We’ll listen presently,” said his aunt; “you can’t interrupt the game.

It won’t be long; I play for four.”

“White all round!” said one of the hags.

“Domino!” cried the Saint-Esteve. “I win; you have four points between

you two, and the whites are all out. Well, my dear, what is it?” she

said, turning to her nephew, after a rather stormy reckoning among the

witches was over.

“You, Madame Fontaine,” said the chief of police, addressing one of the

venerable beings, whose head was covered with disorderly gray hair and

a battered green bonnet,--“you neglect your duty; you have sent me no

report, and, on the contrary, I get many complaints of you. The prefect

has a great mind to close your establishment. I protect you on account

of the services you are supposed to render us; but if you don’t render

them, I warn you, without claiming any gifts of prediction, that your

fate-shop will be shut up.”

“There now!” replied the pythoness, “you prevented me from hiring

Mademoiselle Lenormand’s apartment in the rue de Tournon, and how can

you expect me to make reports about the cooks and clerks and workmen and

grisettes who are all I get where I am? If you had let me work among the

great folks, I’d make you reports and plenty of them.”

“I don’t see how you can say that, Madame Fontaine,” said Madame de

Saint-Esteve. “I am sure I send you all my clients. It was only the

other day,” continued the matrimonial agent, “I sent you that Italian

singer, living with a deputy who is against the government; why didn’t

you report about that?”

“There’s another thing,” said the chief of police, “which appears

in several of the complaints that I received about you,--that nasty

animal--”

“What, Astaroth?” said Madame Fontaine.

“Yes, that batrachian, that toad, to come down to his right name. It

seems he nearly killed a woman who was pregnant--”