The next day, as Godefroid rose amid the appointments of modern luxury
and the choice appliances of English “comfort,” he remembered the
details of his visit to that cloister of Notre-Dame, and the meaning of
the things he had seen there came into his mind. The three unknown and
silent men, whose dress, attitude, and stillness acted powerfully upon
him, were no doubt boarders like the priest. The solemnity of Madame de
la Chanterie now seemed to him a secret dignity with which she bore
some great misfortune. But still, in spite of the explanations which
Godefroid gave himself, he could not help fancying there was an air of
mystery about those sober figures.
He looked around him and selected the pieces of furniture that he would
keep, those that were indispensable to him; but when he transported them
in thought to the miserable lodging in the rue Chanoinesse, he began to
laugh at the contrast they would make there, resolving to sell all and
let Madame de la Chanterie furnish the rooms for him. He wanted a new
life, and the very sight of these objects would remind him of that which
he wished to forget. In his desire for transformation (for he belonged
to those characters who spring at a bound into the middle of a
situation, instead of advancing, as others do, step by step), he was
seized while he breakfasted with an idea,--he would turn his whole
property into money, pay his debts, and place the remainder of his
capital in the banking-house with which his father had done business.
This house was the firm of Mongenod and Company, established in 1816
or 1817, whose reputation for honesty and uprightness had never been
questioned in the midst of the commercial depravity which smirched,
more or less, all the banking-houses of Paris. In spite of their immense
wealth, the houses of Nucingen, du Tillet, the Keller Brothers, Palma
and Company, were each regarded, more or less, with secret disrespect,
although it is true this disrespect was only whispered. Evil means
had produced such fine results, such political successes, dynastic
principles covered so completely base workings, that no one in 1834
thought of the mud in which the roots of these fine trees, the mainstay
of the State, were plunged. Nevertheless there was not a single one of
those great bankers to whom the confidence expressed in the house of
Mongenod was not a wound. Like English houses, the Mongenods made no
external display of luxury. They lived in dignified stillness, satisfied
to do their business prudently, wisely, and with a stern uprightness
which enabled them to carry it from one end of the globe to the other.
The actual head of the house, Frederic Mongenod, is the brother-in-law
of the Vicomte de Fontaine; therefore, this numerous family is
allied through the Baron de Fontaine to Monsieur Grossetete, the
receiver-general, brother of the Grossetete and Company of Limoges,
to the Vandenesses, and to Planat de Baudry, another receiver-general.
These connections, having procured for the late Mongenod, father of the
present head of the house, many favors in the financial operations
under the Restoration, obtained for him also the confidence of the old
_noblesse_, whose property and whose savings, which were immense, were
deposited in this bank. Far from coveting a peerage, like the Kellers,
Nucingen, and du Tillet, the Mongenods kept away from politics, and only
knew as much about them as their banking interests demanded.
The house of Mongenod is established in a fine old mansion in the rue de
la Victoire, where Madame Mongenod, the mother, lived with her two sons,
all three being partners in the house,--the share of the Vicomtesse
de Fontaine having been bought out by them on the death of the elder
Mongenod in 1827.
Frederic Mongenod, a handsome young man about thirty-five years of
age, cold, silent, and reserved in manner like a Swiss, and neat as
an Englishman, had acquired by intercourse with his father all the
qualities necessary for his difficult profession. Better educated than
the generality of bankers, his studies had the breadth and universality
which characterize the polytechnic training; and he had, like most
bankers, predilections and tastes outside of his business,--he loved
mechanics and chemistry. The second brother, who was ten years younger
than Frederic, held the same position in the office of his elder brother
that a head clerk holds in that of a notary or lawyer. Frederic trained
him, as he had himself been trained by his father, in the variety of
knowledge necessary to a true banker, who is to money what a writer is
to ideas,--they must both know all of that with which they have to deal.
When Godefroid reached the banking house and gave his name, he saw
at once the estimation in which his father had been held; for he was
ushered through the offices without delay to the private counting-room
of the Mongenods. This counting-room was closed with a glass door, so
that Godefroid, without any desire to listen, overheard as he approached
it what was being said there.
“Madame, your account is balanced to sixteen hundred thousand francs,”
said the younger Mongenod. “I do not know what my brother’s intentions
are; he alone can say whether an advance of a hundred thousand francs
can be made. You must have been imprudent. Sixteen hundred thousand
francs should not be entrusted to any business.”
“Do not speak so loud, Louis!” said a woman’s voice. “Your brother has
often told you to speak in a low voice. There may be some one in the
next room.”
At this moment Frederic Mongenod himself opened the door of
communication between his private house and the counting-room. He saw
Godefroid and crossed the room, bowing respectfully to the lady who was
conversing with his brother.
“To whom have I the honor of speaking?” he said to Godefroid.
As soon as Godefroid gave his name, Frederic begged him to be seated;
and as the banker opened the lid of his desk, Louis Mongenod and the
lady, who was no other than Madame de la Chanterie, rose and went up to
him. All three then moved into the embrasure of a window and talked in
a low voice with Madame Mongenod, the mother, who was sitting there, and
to whom all the affairs of the bank were confided. For over thirty years
this woman had given, to her husband first and then to her sons, such
proofs of business sagacity that she had long been a managing partner in
the firm and signed for it.
Godefroid, as he looked about him, noticed on a shelf certain boxes
ticketed with the words “De la Chanterie,” and numbered 1 to 7. When the
conference was ended by the banker saying to his brother, “Very good;
go down to the cashier,” Madame de la Chanterie turned round, saw
Godefroid, checked a gesture of surprise, and asked a few questions of
the banker in a low voice, to which he replied in a few words spoken
equally in a whisper.
Madame de la Chanterie now wore gray silk stockings and small prunella
shoes; her gown was the same as before, but she was wrapped in a
Venetian “mantua,”--a sort of cloak which was just then returning into
fashion. On her head was a drawn bonnet of green silk, lined with white
silk, of a style called _a la bonne femme_. Her face was framed by
a cloud of lace. She held herself very erect, in an attitude which
bespoke, if not noble birth, certainly the habits of an aristocratic
life. Without the extreme affability of her manner, she might have
seemed haughty; she was certainly imposing.
“It is the will of Providence rather than mere chance that has brought
us here together, monsieur,” she said to Godefroid; “for I had almost
decided to refuse a lodger whose ways of life seemed to me quite
antipathetic to those of my household; but Monsieur Mongenod has just
given me some information about your family which--”
“Ah, madame,--monsieur!” said Godefroid, addressing both Madame de la
Chanterie and the banker, “I have no longer a family; and I have come
here now to ask some financial advice of my father’s business advisers
as to the best method of adapting my means to a new way of life.”
Godefroid then succinctly, and in as few words as possible, related his
history, and expressed his desire to change his existence.
“Formerly,” he said, “a man in my position would have made himself a
monk; but there are no longer any religious orders.”
“Go and live with madame, if she is willing to take you,” said Frederic
Mongenod, after exchanging a glance with Madame de la Chanterie, “and
do not sell out your property; leave it in my hands. Give me the exact
amount of your debts; I will agree with your creditors for payment at
certain dates, and you can have for yourself about a hundred and fifty
francs a month. It will thus take two years to clear you. During those
two years, if you take those quiet lodgings, you will have time to think
of a career, especially among the persons with whom you will live, who
are all good counsellors.”
Here Louis Mongenod returned, bringing in his hand a hundred notes of a
thousand francs each, which he gave to Madame de la Chanterie. Godefroid
offered his arm to his future hostess, and took her down to the
hackney-coach which was waiting for her.
“I hope I shall see you soon, monsieur,” she said in a cordial tone of
voice.
“At what hour shall you be at home, madame?” he asked.
“At two o’clock.”
“I shall have time to sell my furniture,” he said, as he bowed to her.
During the short time that Madame de la Chanterie’s arm rested upon his
as they walked to the carriage, Godefroid could not escape the
glamour of the words: “Your account is for sixteen hundred thousand
francs!”--words said by Louis Mongenod to the woman whose life was spent
in the depths of the cloisters of Notre-Dame. The thought, “She must be
rich!” entirely changed his way of looking at the matter. “How old is
she?” he began to ask himself; and a vision of a romance in the rue
Chanoinesse came to him. “She certainly has an air of nobility! Can she
be concerned in some bank?” thought he.
In our day nine hundred and ninety-nine young men out of a thousand in
Godefroid’s position would have had the thought of marrying that woman.
A furniture dealer, who also had apartments to let, paid about three
thousand francs for the articles Godefroid was willing to sell, and
agreed to let him keep them during the few days that were needed to
prepare the shabby apartment in the rue Chanoinesse for this lodger with
a sick mind. Godefroid went there at once, and obtained from Madame de
la Chanterie the address of a painter who, for a moderate sum, agreed
to whiten the ceilings, clean the windows, paint the woodwork, and stain
the floors, within a week. Godefroid took the measure of the rooms,
intending to put the same carpet in all of them,--a green carpet of the
cheapest kind. He wished for the plainest uniformity in this retreat,
and Madame de la Chanterie approved of the idea. She calculated, with
Manon’s assistance, the number of yards of white calico required for
the window curtains, and also for those of the modest iron bed; and
she undertook to buy and have them made for a price so moderate as
to surprise Godefroid. Having brought with him a certain amount of
furniture, the whole cost of fitting up the rooms proved to be not over
six hundred francs.
“We lead here,” said Madame de la Chanterie, “a Christian life, which
does not, as you know, accord with many superfluities; I think you have
too many as it is.”
In giving this hint to her future lodger, she looked at a diamond which
gleamed in the ring through which Godefroid’s blue cravat was slipped.
“I only speak of this,” she added, “because of the intention you
expressed to abandon the frivolous life you complained of to Monsieur
Mongenod.”
Godefroid looked at Madame de la Chanterie as he listened to the
harmonies of her limpid voice; he examined that face so purely white,
resembling those of the cold, grave women of Holland whom the Flemish
painters have so wonderfully reproduced with their smooth skins, in
which a wrinkle is impossible.
“White and plump!” he said to himself, as he walked away; “but her hair
is white, too.”
Godefroid, like all weak natures, took readily to a new life, believing
it satisfactory; and he was now quite eager to take up his abode in the
rue Chanoinesse. Nevertheless, a prudent thought, or, if you prefer
to say so, a distrustful thought, occurred to him. Two days before his
installation, he went again to see Monsieur Mongenod to obtain some more
definite information about the house he was to enter.
During the few moments he had spent in his future lodgings overlooking
the changes that were being made in them, he had noticed the coming and
going of several persons whose appearance and behavior, without being
exactly mysterious, excited a belief that some secret occupation or
profession was being carried on in that house. At that particular period
there was much talk of attempts by the elder branch of the Bourbons to
recover the throne, and Godefroid suspected some conspiracy. When he
found himself in the banker’s counting-room held by the scrutinizing eye
of Frederic Mongenod while he made his inquiry, he felt ashamed as he
saw a derisive smile on the lips of the listener.
“Madame la Baronne de la Chanterie,” replied the banker, “is one of
the most obscure persons in Paris, but she is also one of the most
honorable. Have you any object in asking for information?”
Godefroid retreated into generalities: he was going to live among
strangers; he naturally wished to know something of those with whom he
should be intimately thrown. But the banker’s smile became more and more
sarcastic; and Godefroid, more and more embarrassed, was ashamed of the
step he had taken, and which bore no fruit, for he dared not continue
his questions about Madame de la Chanterie and her inmates.