“Did you go to see Doctor Halpersohn this morning?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Your grandson went there half an hour after you.”
“Did he? I knew nothing of that. I have just returned home, and have not
seen my grandson for two days.”
“The writs he has shown me and the examination explain everything,” said
the commissary of police. “I see the cause of the crime. Monsieur, I
ought by rights to arrest you as accomplice to your grandson; for your
answers confirm the allegations in Doctor Halpersohn’s complaint. But
these papers, which I here return to you,” holding out to the old man a
bundle of papers, “do prove you to be Baron Bourlac. Nevertheless, you
must hold yourself ready to appear before Monsieur Marest, the judge
of the Municipal Court who has cognizance of the case. As for your
grandson, I will speak to the _procureur du roi_, and we will take all
the care of him that is due to the grandson of a former judge,--the
victim, no doubt, of youthful error. But the complaint has been made,
the delinquent admits his guilt, I have drawn up the proces-verbal,
and served the warrant of arrest; I cannot go back on that. As for the
incarceration, I will put him in the Conciergerie.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” said the unhappy Bourlac.
With the words he fell rigid on the snow, and rolled into one of the
hollows round the trees of the boulevard.
The commissary of police called for help, and Nepomucene ran up,
together with Madame Vauthier. The old man was carried to his room,
and Madame Vauthier begged the commissary to call on his way in the rue
d’Enfer, and send Doctor Berton as soon as possible.
“What is the matter with my grandfather?” asked poor Auguste.
“He is out of his head. You see what it is to steal,” said the Vauthier.
Auguste made a movement as though he would dash out his brains. The two
agents caught him.
“Come, young man, be calm,” said the commissary of police; “you have
done wrong, but it may not be irreparable--”
“Monsieur, will you tell that woman my grandfather hasn’t had anything
to ear for twenty-four hours?”
“Oh! the poor things!” exclaimed the commissary under his breath.
He stopped the coach, which had started, and said a word in the ear
of one of his agents, who got out and ran to Madame Vauthier, and then
returned.
When Dr. Berton arrived he declared that Monsieur Bernard (he knew him
only under that name) had a high fever of great intensity. After hearing
from Madame Vauthier all the events which had brought on this crisis
(related after the manner of such women) he informed Monsieur Alain
the next morning, at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, of the present state of
affairs; on which Monsieur Alain despatched a note in pencil by a street
messenger to Monsieur Joseph.
Godefroid had given Monsieur Joseph, on his return from the boulevard
du Mont-Parnasse the night before, the notes confided to him by Auguste,
and Monsieur Joseph had spent part of the night in reading the first
volume of Baron Bourlac’s work.
The next morning after breakfast Madame de la Chanterie told her
neophyte that he should, if his resolution still held good, be put to
work at once. Godefroid, initiated by her into the financial secrets
of the society, worked steadily seven or eight hours a day for several
months, under the inspection of Frederic Mongenod, who came every
Sunday to examine the work, and from whom he received much praise and
encouragement.
“You are,” he said, when the books were all in order and the accounts
audited, “a precious acquisition to the saints among whom you live. Two
or three hours a day will now suffice to keep the current accounts in
order, and you will have plenty of surplus time to help the work in
other ways, if you still have the vocation you showed for it six months
ago.”
It was now July, 1838. During the time that had elapsed since his
opening attempt on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, Godefroid, eager
to prove himself worthy of his friends, had refrained from asking any
question relating to Baron Bourlac. Not hearing a single word on the
subject, and finding no record of any transaction concerning it in the
accounts, he regarded the silence maintained about the enemy of Madame
de la Chanterie and his family either as a test to which he himself was
subjected, or as a proof that the friends of the noble woman had in some
way avenged her.
Some two months after he had left Madame Vauthier’s lodgings he turned
his steps when out for a walk towards the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse,
where he came upon the widow herself, and asked for news of the Bernard
family.
“Just as if I knew what has become of them!” she replied. “Two days
after your departure--for it was you, slyboots, who got the affair away
from my proprietor--some men came here and rid me of that arrogant old
fool and all his belongings. Bless me! if they didn’t move everything
out within twenty-four hours; and as close as wax they were too; not a
word would they say to me. I think he went off to Algiers with his rogue
of a grandson; for Nepomucene, who had a fancy for that young thief,
being no better himself, couldn’t find him at the Conciergerie. I dare
say Nepomucene knows where he is, though, for he, too, has run away.
That’s what it is to bring up foundlings! that’s how they reward you for
all your trouble, leaving you in the lurch! I haven’t yet been able to
get a man in his place, and as the quarter is looking up the house is
full, and I am worked to death.”
Godefroid would never have known more about Baron Bourlac and his family
if it had not been for one of those chance encounters such as often
happens in Paris.
In the month of September he was walking down the great avenue of the
Champs Elysees, thinking, as he passed the end of the rue Marbeuf, of
Dr. Halpersohn.
“I might,” thought he, “go and see him and ask if he ever cured
Bourlac’s daughter. What a voice, what immense talents she had!--and she
wanted to consecrate herself to God!”
When he reached the Rond-point Godefroid crossed it quickly, on account
of the many carriages that were passing rapidly. As he reached the other
side in haste he knocked against a young man with a lady on his arm.
“Take care!” said the young man; “are you blind?”
“Hey! is it you?” cried Godefroid, recognizing Auguste de Mergi.
Auguste was so well-dressed, and looked so dandified and handsome and so
proud of giving his arm to a pretty woman, that if it had not been for
the youth’s voice and the memories that were just then in his own mind
he might not have recognized him.
“Oh! it is our dear Monsieur Godefroid!” said the lady.
Hearing those words in the celestial notes of Vanda’s enchanting voice,
Godefroid stopped short on the spot where he stood.
“Cured!” he exclaimed.
“For the last ten days he has allowed me to walk out,” she replied.
“Who? Halpersohn?”
“Yes,” she said. “Why have you not been to see us? Perhaps it was well
you didn’t;” she added; “my hair came off; this that you see is a wig;
but the doctor assures me it will grow again. Oh! how many things we
have to tell each other! Come and dine with us. Oh! your accordion! oh!
monsieur,”--she put her handkerchief to her eyes.
“I shall keep it all my life,” she went on, “and my son will preserve it
as a relic after me. My father has searched all Paris for you. And he
is also in search of his unknown benefactors; he will grieve himself to
death if you do not help him to discover them. Poor father! he is gnawed
by a melancholy I cannot always get the better of.”
As much attracted by that exquisite voice, now rescued from the silence
of the grave, as by a burning curiosity, Godefroid offered his arm to
the hand held out to him by the Baronne de Mergi, who signed to her
son to precede them, charging him with a commission which he seemed to
understand.
“I shall not take you far,” she said; “we live in the Allee d’Antin, in
a pretty little house built in the English fashion. We occupy it alone;
each of us has a floor. Oh! we are so comfortable. My father thinks that
you had a great deal to do with our good fortune.”
“I?”
“Yes; did you know that on a recommendation made by the minister of
public instruction a chair of international law has been created for
papa at the Sorbonne? He begins his first course next November. The
great work on which he has been engaged for so long will be published
this month by the firm of Cavalier and Co., who agree to share the
profits with my father; they have already paid him on account thirty
thousand francs. My father bought our house with that money. The
minister of justice has awarded me a pension of twelve hundred francs
as the daughter of a former judge; my father has his retiring pension of
three thousand, and his professorship will give him five thousand more.
We are so economical that we are almost rich. My dear Auguste will begin
his law studies in two months; but he is already employed in the office
of the attorney-general, and is earning twelve hundred francs a year.
Ah! Monsieur Godefroid, promise me you will never speak of that unhappy
affair of my poor Auguste. As for me, I bless him every day for his
action, though his grandfather has not yet forgiven him. Yes, his mother
blesses him, Halpersohn adores him, but my father is implacable!”
“What affair?” asked Godefroid.
“Ah! I recognize your generosity,” cried Vanda. “What a heart you have!
Your mother must be proud of you.”
She stopped as if a pain had struck her heart.
“I swear to you that I know nothing of the affair of which you speak,”
said Godefroid.
“It is possible that you really did not know it?” said Vanda. And she
related naively, in terms of admiration for her son, the story of the
loan that he had secured from the doctor.
“We may not speak of it before Baron Bourlac,” said Godefroid, “tell me
now how your son got out of his trouble.”
“Well,” said Vanda, “I told you, I think, that he is now employed by the
attorney-general, who shows him the greatest kindness. Auguste was
only forty-eight hours in the Conciergerie, where he was put into the
governor’s house. The good doctor, who did not receive a noble letter
the boy wrote him till late at night, withdrew his complaint; and,
through the influence of a former judge of the Royal Courts, whom my
father has never been able to meet, the attorney-general was induced to
annul the proceedings in the court. There is no trace left of the
affair except in my heart and my son’s conscience, and alas! in his
grandfather’s mind. From that day he has treated Auguste as almost a
stranger. Only yesterday Halpersohn begged him to forgive the boy; but
my father, who never before refused me anything--me, whom he loves so
well!--replied: ‘You are the person robbed; you can, and you ought to
forgive; but I am responsible for the thief. When I was attorney-general
I never pardoned.’ ‘You’ll kill your daughter,’ said Halpersohn. My
father made no reply and turned away.”
“But who helped you in all this?”
“A gentleman, whom we think is employed to do the queen’s benefits.”
“What is he like?”
“Well, he is of medium height; rather stout, but active; with a kindly,
genial face. It was he who found my father ill of fever in the house
where you knew us and had him brought to that in which we now live. And
just fancy, as soon as my father recovered _I_ was installed there too,
in my very own room, just as if I had never left it. Halpersohn, whom
the gentleman captivated, I am sure I don’t know how, then told me all
the sufferings my father had endured. Ah, when I think of it! my father
and my son often without bread to eat, and when with me pretending to be
rich! even the diamonds in the snuff box sold! Oh, Monsieur Godefroid!
those two beings are martyrs. And so, what can I say to my father?
Between him and my son I can take no part; I can only make return to
them in kind by suffering with them, as they once suffered with me.”
“And you say you think that gentleman came from the queen?”
“Oh! I am sure you know him, I see it in your face,” cried Vanda, now at
the door of the house.
She seized Godefroid by the hand with the vigor of a nervous woman and
dragged him into a salon, the door of which stood open.
“Papa!” she cried, “here is Monsieur Godefroid! and I am certain he
knows our benefactors.”
Baron Bourlac, whom Godefroid now saw dressed in a manner suitable for
a man of his rank and position, rose and came forward, holding out his
hand to Godefroid, saying as he did so:--
“I was sure of it.”
Godefroid made a gesture denying that he shared in this noble vengeance,
but the former attorney-general gave him no chance to speak.
“Ah! monsieur,” he said, continuing, “Providence could not be more
powerful, love more ingenious, motherhood more clear-sighted than your
friends have been for us. I bless the chance that has brought you here
to-day; for Monsieur Joseph has disappeared forever; he has evaded all
the traps I set to discover his true name and residence. Here, read his
last letter. But perhaps you already know it.”