M. Pascal, as we have said, had spent a part of his life in a
subordinate and precarious position, enduring the most ignominious
treatment with a patience full of bitterness and hatred.
Born of a peddler who had amassed a competency by dint of privation and
illicit or questionable traffic, he had commenced his business career as
a day-labourer in the house of a provincial usurer, to whom Pascal's
father had entrusted the care of his money.
The first years of our hero were passed in a state of servitude as hard
as it was humiliating. Nevertheless, as he was endowed with considerable
intelligence and unusual ingenuity, and as his despotic will could, upon
necessity, hide itself under an exterior of insinuating meanness,--a
dissimulation which was the result of his condition,--Pascal, without
the knowledge of his master, learned to read, write, and draw up
accounts, the faculty for financial calculation developing in him
spontaneously with marvellous rapidity. Foreseeing the value of these
acquirements, he resolved to conceal them, using them only for his own
advantage, and as a dangerous weapon against his master, whom he
detested. After mature reflection, Pascal finally thought it his
interest to reveal the knowledge he had secretly acquired. The usurer,
struck with the ability of the man who was his drudge, then took him as
his bookkeeper at a reduced salary, increased his meagre pay by the
smallest possible amount, continued to treat him with brutal contempt,
vilifying him more than ever that he might not suspect the use that he
made of his new services.
Pascal, earnest, indefatigable in work, and eager to further his
financial education, continued to submit passively to the outrages
heaped upon him, redoubling his servility in proportion as his master
redoubled disdain and cruelty.
At the end of a few years thus passed, he felt sufficiently strong to
leave the province, and seek a field more worthy of his ability. He
entered into a business correspondence with a banker in Paris, to whom
he offered his services. The banker had long appreciated Pascal's work,
accepted his proposition, and the bookkeeper left the little town, to
the great regret of his former master, who tried too late to retain him
in his own interests.
The new patron of our hero was at the head of one of those rich houses,
morally questionable, but--and it is not unusual--regarded, in a
commercial sense, as irreproachable; because, if these houses deal in
speculations which sometimes touch upon robbery and fraud, and enrich
themselves by ingenious and successful bankruptcy, they, to use their
own pretentious words, honour their signature, however dishonourable
that signature may be in the opinion of others.
Fervent disciples of that beautiful axiom so universally adopted before
the revolution of 1848,--Get rich!--they proudly take their seats in the
Chamber of Commerce, heroically assume the name of honourable, and even
aim at control of the administration. Why not?
The luxury so much boasted by the old tenants was misery compared to the
magnificence of M. Thomas Rousselet.
Pascal, transplanted to this house of absurd and extravagant opulence,
suffered humiliations altogether different, but quite as bitter and
painful as when he was with the knavish usurer in the province, who, it
is true, treated him as a despicable hireling, but had with him in his
daily work frequent and familiar relations.
One would seek in vain, among the proudest nobility, the most exclusive
aristocracy, anything which could approach the imperious and crushing
disdain with which M. and Madame Rousselet treated their subordinates.
Shut up in their gloomy offices, from which they saw the sumptuous
displays of the Hôtel Rousselet, the persons employed in this house knew
only by fairy-like tradition or fabulous legend the gorgeous wonders of
these parlours and this dining-room, from which they were absolutely
excluded by the dignity of Madame Rousselet, who was as haughty and
domineering as the first lady of the chamber to a princess of Lorraine
or Rohan.
Although of a new class, these humiliations were not the less galling to
Pascal; he now felt more than ever his dependence, his nothingness, and
the yoke of the opulent banker chafed him far more than the abuse of the
usurer; but our hero, faithful to his plans, hid his wounds, smiled at
blows, and licked the varnished boot which sometimes deigned to amuse
itself by kicking him, redoubling labour, study, and shrewdness, until
he learned the practice of this house, which he considered the perfect
pattern of business enterprise, whose motto was:
"Get as much money as possible with the least money possible by all the
means possible, carefully protecting yourself from the police and the
court."
The margin is a large one, and, as can be easily seen, one can operate
there at pleasure.
Thus passed five or six years. The imagination revolts at the
accumulation of bitterness, hatred, anger, venom, and malice in the
depths of this calculating and vindictive soul, always calm without,
like the black and gloomy surface of a poisonous morass.
One day M. Pascal learned the death of his father.
The peddler's savings, considerably increased by skilful financial
manipulation, had attained a very high figure. Once possessed of this
capital, Pascal swore that he would amass a great fortune by untiring
diligence and fortitude, by knowing what to do, and, still more, by
knowing how to take; for, argued he, one must risk something, and, if
need be, go outside of the straight and narrow path of lawfulness. Our
hero kept his oath. He left the house of Rousselet. Ability, chance,
fraud, luck, adroitness, and the laws of the time all contributed to his
success. He gained important sums, rewarding with cash the friendship of
an agent, who, keeping him well informed, put it in his power to handle
safely seventy thousand on the Exchange, and lay up almost two millions.
A short time afterward an intelligent and adventurous broker, versed in
the business of London, helped him to see the possibility of realising
immense profit, by boldly engaging in railway speculations, then
altogether new in England. Pascal went to London, engaged successfully
in an enterprise which soon assumed unheard-of proportions, threw his
whole fortune upon one cast of the die, and, realising in time, came
back to France with fifteen millions. Then, as cool and prudent as he
had been adventurous, and naturally endowed with great financial talent,
his only thought was to continually increase this unexpected fortune; he
succeeded, availing himself of every opportunity with rare skill, living
comfortably, satisfying, at any cost, his numerous sensual desires, but
never attracting attention by any exterior display or luxury, and always
dining at a public house. In this way he scarcely spent the fifth part
of his income, which, furnishing new capital each year, constantly added
to the fortune which successful speculation as constantly augmented.
Then, as we have said, came to Pascal his great and terrible day of
reprisal.
This soul, hardened by so many years of humiliation and hatred, became
implacable, and found a thousand cruel delights in making others feel
the weight of the money yoke which he had worn so long.
His keenest suffering had come from the vassalage, the servitude, and
complete effacement of self in which he had been held for so long a time
under the tyranny of his opulent employers. Now, his pleasure was to
impose this servitude on others,--on some, by exercising their natural
servility, on others, by compelling them to submit to hard necessity,
thus symbolising in himself the almighty power of money, holding all who
came within his grasp in absolute slavery, from the petty merchant whom
he commanded to the prince of royal blood who humbled himself to obtain
a loan. This awful despotism, which the man who lends exercises over the
man whose necessities force him to borrow, Pascal wielded and enjoyed
with all the refinement and delicacy of an incredible barbarity. We hear
often of the power of Satan over souls. M. Pascal was able to destroy or
torture as many and more souls than Satan.
Once in his power, through credit, loan, or partnership,--often granted
with a show of perfect good-nature, and not unfrequently offered with a
duplicity which looked like generosity, though always on solid
security,--a man belonged to himself no longer; he had, as was commonly
said, sold his soul to Satan-Pascal.
He calculated and arranged his bargains with a skill which seemed
infernal.
A commercial crisis would arrive,--capital not be found, or at such
exorbitant interest that merchants, at other times solvent and prompt in
payment, saw themselves in extreme embarrassment, often upon the brink
of failure. M. Pascal, perfectly instructed and certain of covering his
advances by merchandise or property, granted or proposed assistance at
enormous interest, with the invariable condition that he was to be
reimbursed at his will, hastening to add that he would not exercise his
right, inasmuch as his own advantage would be gained by keeping his
money at interest; but by habit or caprice, as he argued, he always held
to this express condition, to be reimbursed at his will.
The alternative was cruel indeed for the unhappy ones whom Satan-Pascal
tempted: on one hand, the ruin of a prosperous industry; on the other,
an unexpected aid, so easily offered that it might pass for a generous
service. The impossibility of finding capital, even at ruinous rates,
and the confidence which M. Pascal knew how to inspire, rendered the
temptation most powerful, a temptation all the more seductive by the
insinuating kindness of the multi-millionaire, who came, as he declared,
as a financial providence to the assistance of honest, labouring people.
In a word, everything conspired to stifle suspicion; they accepted. From
that time Pascal possessed them.
Beset by the fear of an immediate demand for repayment which must reduce
them to a desperate condition from which they could not hope to rise,
they had but one aim, to please M. Pascal, but one dread, to displease
M. Pascal, who was master of their fate.
It not infrequently happened that our Satan did not at first use his
power, and, by a refinement of wicked malice, would play the part of a
kind man, a benefactor, taking a fiendish pleasure in hearing the
benedictions with which his victims loaded him, leaving them for a long
time in the error which led them to adore their benevolent friend; then,
by degrees, according to his humour, he revealed himself slowly, never
employing threats, rudeness, or passion, but, on the contrary, affecting
an insinuating sweetness which in itself became frightful. Circumstances
the most insignificant and puerile offered him a thousand means of
tormenting the persons he held in his absolute power.
For instance, he would arrive at the house of one of his vassals, so to
speak. Perhaps the man was going with his wife and children to some
family reunion, long before arranged.
"I have come to dine with you without ceremony to-day, my friends," this
Satan would say.
"My God, M. Pascal! how sorry we are! To-day is my mother's birthday,
and you see we are just getting ready to go to dine with her. It is an
anniversary we never fail to celebrate."
"Ah! that is very provoking, as I hoped to spend my evening with you."
"And do you think it is less annoying to us, dear M. Pascal?"
"Bah! you could very easily give up a family reunion for me. After all,
your mother would not die if you were not there."
"Oh, my dear M. Pascal, that is impossible! It would be the first time
since our marriage that we failed in this little family ceremony."
"Come, you surely will do that for me."
"But, M. Pascal--"
"I tell you, you will do that for your good M. Pascal, will you not?"
"We would like to do it with all our heart, but--"
"What! you refuse me that--me--the first thing I have ever asked of
you?"
And M. Pascal put such an emphasis on the word _me_ that the whole
family suddenly trembled; they felt, as is vulgarly said, their master,
and knowing of the strange caprice of the capitalist, they submitted
sadly rather than offend the dreadful man upon whom their fate depended.
They gave up the visit and improvised a dinner. They tried to smile, to
have a cheerful air, and not to appear to regret the family festivity
which they had renounced. But soon another fear begins to oppress their
hearts; the dinner is becoming more and more sad and constrained. M.
Pascal professes a sort of pathetic astonishment, as he complains with a
sigh:
"Come, now, I have interfered with your plans; you feel bitterly toward
me, alas! I see it."
"Ah, M. Pascal!" cried the unhappy family, more and more disquieted,
"how can you conceive such a thought?"
"Oh, I am not mistaken. I see it, I feel it, because my heart tells me
so. Eh, my God! just to think of it! It is always a great wrong to put
friendship to the proof, even in the smallest things, because they serve
sometimes to measure great ones. I,--yes, I,--who counted on you as true
and good friends!--yet it was a deception, perhaps."
And Satan-Pascal put his hand over his eyes, got up from the table, and
went out of the house with a grieved and afflicted air, leaving the
miserable inmates in unspeakable anguish, because he no longer believed
in their friendship, and thought them ungrateful,--he who could in one
moment plunge them in an abyss of woe by demanding the money he had so
generously offered. The gratitude that he expected from them was their
only assurance of his continued assistance.
We have insisted on these circumstances, trifling as they may seem
perhaps, but whose result was so cruel, because we wished to give an
example of how M. Pascal tortured his victims.
Let one judge after that of the degrees of torture to which he was
capable of subjecting them, when so insignificant a fact as we have
mentioned offered such food to his calculating cruelty.
He was a monster, it must be admitted.
There are Neros, unhappily, everywhere and in every age, but who would
dare say that Pascal could have reached such a degree of perversity
without the pernicious influences and terrible resentments which his
soul, irritated by a degrading servitude, had nourished for so long a
time?
The word reprisal does not excuse the cruelty of this man; it explains
itself. Man rarely becomes wicked without a cause. Evil owes its birth
to evil.
M. Pascal thus portrayed, we will precede him by one hour to the home of
M. Charles Dutertre.