Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by James Waring
PREPARER'S
NOTE
DEDICATION
SCENES FROM A
COURTESAN'S LIFE
ESTHER HAPPY;
OR, HOW A
COURTESAN CAN
LOVE
WHAT LOVE COSTS
AN OLD MAN
THE END OF EVIL
WAYS
VAUTRIN'S LAST
AVATAR
ADDENDUM
PREPARER'S NOTE
Note: The story of Lucien de Rubempre begins in the Lost
Illusions trilogy which consists of Two Poets, A Distinguished Provincial
at
Paris, and Eve and David.
DEDICATION
To His Highness Prince Alfonso Serafino di Porcia.
Allow me to place your name at the beginning of an essentially
Parisian work, thought out in your house during these latter
days.
Is it not natural that I should offer you the flowers of rhetoric
that blossomed in your garden, watered with the regrets I
suffered
from home-sickness, which you soothed, as I wandered under the
boschetti whose elms reminded me of the Champs-Elysees? Thus,
perchance, may I expiate the crime of having dreamed of Paris
under the shadow of the Duomo, of having longed for our muddy
streets on the clean and elegant flagstones of Porta-Renza. When
I have some book to publish which may be dedicated to a Milanese
lady, I shall have the happiness of finding names already dear to
your old Italian romancers among those of women whom we love, and
to whose memory I would beg you to recall your sincerely
affectionate
DE BALZAC.
July 1838.
SCENES FROM A COURTESAN'S LIFE
ESTHER HAPPY; OR, HOW A COURTESAN
CAN LOVE
In 1824, at the last opera ball of the season, several masks were
struck by the beauty of a youth who was wandering about the passages
and greenroom with the air of a man in search of a woman kept at home
by unexpected circumstances. The secret of this behavior, now dilatory
and again hurried, is known only to old women and to certain
experienced loungers. In this immense assembly the crowd does not
trouble itself much to watch the crowd; each one's interest is
impassioned, and even idlers are preoccupied.
The young dandy was so much absorbed in his anxious quest that he
did not observe his own success; he did not hear, he did not see the
ironical exclamations of admiration, the genuine appreciation, the
biting gibes, the soft invitations of some of the masks. Though he was
so handsome as to rank among those exceptional persons who come to an
opera ball in search of an adventure, and who expect it as confidently
as men looked for a lucky coup at roulette in Frascati's day, he
seemed quite philosophically sure of his evening; he must be the hero
of one of those mysteries with three actors which constitute an opera
ball, and are known only to those who play a part in them; for, to
young wives who come merely to say, "I have seen it," to country
people, to inexperienced youths, and to foreigners, the opera house
must on those nights be the palace of fatigue and dulness. To these,
that black swarm, slow and serried—coming, going, winding, turning,
returning, mounting, descending, comparable only to ants on a pile of
wood—is no more intelligible than the Bourse to a Breton peasant who
has never heard of the Grand livre.
With a few rare exceptions, men wear no masks in Paris; a man in a
domino is thought ridiculous. In this the spirit of the nation betrays
itself. Men who want to hide their good fortune can enjoy the opera
ball without going there; and masks who are absolutely compelled to go
in come out again at once. One of the most amusing scenes is the crush
at the doors produced as soon as the dancing begins, by the rush of
persons getting away and struggling with those who are pushing in. So
the men who wear masks are either jealous husbands who come to watch
their wives, or husbands on the loose who do not wish to be watched by
them—two situations equally ridiculous.
Now, our young man was followed, though he knew it not, by a man in
a mask, dogging his steps, short and stout, with a rolling gait, like
a barrel. To every one familiar with the opera this disguise betrayed
a stock-broker, a banker, a lawyer, some citizen soul suspicious of
infidelity. For in fact, in really high society, no one courts such
humiliating proofs. Several masks had laughed as they pointed this
preposterous figure out to each other; some had spoken to him, a few
young men had made game of him, but his stolid manner showed entire
contempt for these aimless shafts; he went on whither the young man
led him, as a hunted wild boar goes on and pays no heed to the bullets
whistling about his ears, or the dogs barking at his heels.
Though at first sight pleasure and anxiety wear the same
livery—the noble black robe of Venice—and though all is confusion at
an opera ball, the various circles composing Parisian society meet
there, recognize, and watch each other. There are certain ideas so
clear to the initiated that this scrawled medley of interests is as
legible to them as any amusing novel. So, to these old hands, this man
could not be here by appointment; he would infallibly have worn some
token, red, white, or green, such as notifies a happy meeting
previously agreed on. Was it a case of revenge?
Seeing the domino following so closely in the wake of a man
apparently happy in an assignation, some of the gazers looked again at
the handsome face, on which anticipation had set its divine halo. The
youth was interesting; the longer he wandered, the more curiosity he
excited. Everything about him proclaimed the habits of refined life.
In obedience to a fatal law of the time we live in, there is not much
difference, physical or moral, between the most elegant and best bred
son of a duke and peer and this attractive youth, whom poverty had not
long since held in its iron grip in the heart of Paris. Beauty and
youth might cover him in deep gulfs, as in many a young man who longs
to play a part in Paris without having the capital to support his
pretensions, and who, day after day, risks all to win all, by
sacrificing to the god who has most votaries in this royal city,
namely, Chance. At the same time, his dress and manners were above
reproach; he trod the classic floor of the opera house as one
accustomed there. Who can have failed to observe that there, as in
every zone in Paris, there is a manner of being which shows who you
are, what you are doing, whence you come, and what you want?
"What a handsome young fellow; and here we may turn round to look
at him," said a mask, in whom accustomed eyes recognized a lady of
position.
"Do you not remember him?" replied the man on whose arm she was
leaning. "Madame du Chatelet introduced him to you——"
"What, is that the apothecary's son she fancied herself in love
with, who became a journalist, Mademoiselle Coralie's lover?"
"I fancied he had fallen too low ever to pull himself up again, and
I cannot understand how he can show himself again in the world of
Paris," said the Comte Sixte du Chatelet.
"He has the air of a prince," the mask went on, "and it is not the
actress he lived with who could give it to him. My cousin, who
understood him, could not lick him into shape. I should like to know
the mistress of this Sargine; tell me something about him that will
enable me to mystify him."
This couple, whispering as they watched the young man, became the
object of study to the square-shouldered domino.
"Dear Monsieur Chardon," said the Prefet of the Charente, taking
the dandy's hand, "allow me to introduce you to some one who wishes to
renew acquaintance with you——"
"Dear Comte Chatelet," replied the young man, "that lady taught me
how ridiculous was the name by which you address me. A patent from the
king has restored to me that of my mother's family—the Rubempres.
Although the fact has been announced in the papers, it relates to so
unimportant a person that I need not blush to recall it to my friends,
my enemies, and those who are neither—— You may class yourself where
you will, but I am sure you will not disapprove of a step to which I
was advised by your wife when she was still only Madame de Bargeton."
This neat retort, which made the Marquise smile, gave the Prefet of
la Charente a nervous chill. "You may tell her," Lucien went on, "that
I now bear gules, a bull raging argent on a meadow vert."
"Raging argent," echoed Chatelet.
"Madame la Marquise will explain to you, if you do not know, why
that old coat is a little better than the chamberlain's key and
Imperial gold bees which you bear on yours, to the great despair of
Madame Chatelet, nee Negrepelisse d'Espard," said Lucien quickly.
"Since you recognize me, I cannot puzzle you; and I could never
tell you how much you puzzle me," said the Marquise d'Espard, amazed
at the coolness and impertinence to which the man had risen whom she
had formerly despised.
"Then allow me, madame, to preserve my only chance of occupying
your thoughts by remaining in that mysterious twilight," said he, with
the smile of a man who does not wish to risk assured happiness.
"I congratulate you on your changed fortunes," said the Comte du
Chatelet to Lucien.
"I take it as you offer it," replied Lucien, bowing with much grace
to the Marquise.
"What a coxcomb!" said the Count in an undertone to Madame
d'Espard. "He has succeeded in winning an ancestry."
"With these young men such coxcombry, when it is addressed to us,
almost always implies some success in high places," said the lady;
"for with you older men it means ill-fortune. And I should very much
like to know which of my grand lady friends has taken this fine bird
under her patronage; then I might find the means of amusing myself
this evening. My ticket, anonymously sent, is no doubt a bit of
mischief planned by a rival and having something to do with this young
man. His impertinence is to order; keep an eye on him. I will take the
Duc de Navarrein's arm. You will be able to find me again."
Just as Madame d'Espard was about to address her cousin, the
mysterious mask came between her and the Duke to whisper in her ear:
"Lucien loves you; he wrote the note. Your Prefet is his greatest
foe; how can he speak in his presence?"
The stranger moved off, leaving Madame d'Espard a prey to a double
surprise. The Marquise knew no one in the world who was capable of
playing the part assumed by this mask; she suspected a snare, and went
to sit down out of sight. The Comte Sixte du Chatelet—whom Lucien had
abridged of his ambitious du with an emphasis that betrayed long
meditated revenge—followed the handsome dandy, and presently met a
young man to whom he thought he could speak without reserve.
"Well, Rastignac, have you seen Lucien? He has come out in a new
skin."
"If I were half as good looking as he is, I should be twice as
rich," replied the fine gentleman, in a light but meaning tone,
expressive of keen raillery.
"No!" said the fat mask in his ear, repaying a thousand ironies in
one by the accent he lent the monosyllable.
Rastignac, who was not the man to swallow an affront, stood as if
struck by lightning, and allowed himself to be led into a recess by a
grasp of iron which he could not shake off.
"You young cockerel, hatched in Mother Vauquer's coop—you, whose
heart failed you to clutch old Taillefer's millions when the hardest
part of the business was done—let me tell you, for your personal
safety, that if you do not treat Lucien like the brother you love, you
are in our power, while we are not in yours. Silence and submission!
or I shall join your game and upset the skittles. Lucien de Rubempre
is under the protection of the strongest power of the day—the Church.
Choose between life and death—Answer."
Rastignac felt giddy, like a man who has slept in a forest and
wakes to see by his side a famishing lioness. He was frightened, and
there was no one to see him; the boldest men yield to fear under such
circumstances.
"No one but HE can know—or would dare——" he murmured to himself.
The mask clutched his hand tighter to prevent his finishing his
sentence.
"Act as if I were HE," he said.
Rastignac then acted like a millionaire on the highroad with a
brigand's pistol at his head; he surrendered.
"My dear Count," said he to du Chatelet, to whom he presently
returned, "if you care for your position in life, treat Lucien de
Rubempre as a man whom you will one day see holding a place far above
where you stand."
The mask made a imperceptible gesture of approbation, and went off
in search of Lucien.
"My dear fellow, you have changed your opinion of him very
suddenly," replied the Prefet with justifiable surprise.
"As suddenly as men change who belong to the centre and vote with
the right," replied Rastignac to the Prefet-Depute, whose vote had for
a few days failed to support the Ministry.
"Are there such things as opinions nowadays? There are only
interests," observed des Lupeaulx, who had heard them. "What is the
case in point?"
"The case of the Sieur de Rubempre, whom Rastignac is setting up as
a person of consequence," said du Chatelet to the Secretary-General.
"My dear Count," replied des Lupeaulx very seriously, "Monsieur de
Rubempre is a young man of the highest merit, and has such good
interest at his back that I should be delighted to renew my
acquaintance with him."
"There he is, rushing into the wasps' nest of the rakes of the
day," said Rastignac.
The three speakers looked towards a corner where a group of
recognized wits had gathered, men of more or less celebrity, and
several men of fashion. These gentlemen made common stock of their
jests, their remarks, and their scandal, trying to amuse themselves
till something should amuse them. Among this strangely mingled party
were some men with whom Lucien had had transactions, combining
ostensibly kind offices with covert false dealing.
"Hallo! Lucien, my boy, why here we are patched up again—new
stuffing and a new cover. Where have we come from? Have we mounted the
high horse once more with little offerings from Florine's boudoir?
Bravo, old chap!" and Blondet released Finot to put his arm
affectionately around Lucien and press him to his heart.
Andoche Finot was the proprietor of a review on which Lucien had
worked for almost nothing, and to which Blondet gave the benefit of
his collaboration, of the wisdom of his suggestions and the depth of
his views. Finot and Blondet embodied Bertrand and Raton, with this
difference—that la Fontaine's cat at last showed that he knew himself
to be duped, while Blondet, though he knew that he was being fleeced,
still did all he could for Finot. This brilliant condottiere of the
pen was, in fact, long to remain a slave. Finot hid a brutal strength
of will under a heavy exterior, under polish of wit, as a laborer rubs
his bread with garlic. He knew how to garner what he gleaned, ideas
and crown-pieces alike, in the fields of the dissolute life led by men
engaged in letters or in politics.
Blondet, for his sins, had placed his powers at the service of
Finot's vices and idleness. Always at war with necessity, he was one
of the race of poverty-stricken and superior men who can do everything
for the fortune of others and nothing for their own, Aladdins who let
other men borrow their lamp. These excellent advisers have a clear and
penetrating judgment so long as it is not distracted by personal
interest. In them it is the head and not the arm that acts. Hence the
looseness of their morality, and hence the reproach heaped upon them
by inferior minds. Blondet would share his purse with a comrade he had
affronted the day before; he would dine, drink, and sleep with one
whom he would demolish on the morrow. His amusing paradoxes excused
everything. Accepting the whole world as a jest, he did not want to be
taken seriously; young, beloved, almost famous and contented, he did
not devote himself, like Finot, to acquiring the fortune an old man
needs.
The most difficult form of courage, perhaps, is that which Lucien
needed at this moment to get rid of Blondet as he had just got rid of
Madame d'Espard and Chatelet. In him, unfortunately, the joys of
vanity hindered the exercise of pride—the basis, beyond doubt, of
many great things. His vanity had triumphed in the previous encounter;
he had shown himself as a rich man, happy and scornful, to two persons
who had scorned him when he was poor and wretched. But how could a
poet, like an old diplomate, run the gauntlet with two self-styled
friends, who had welcomed him in misery, under whose roof he had slept
in the worst of his troubles? Finot, Blondet, and he had groveled
together; they had wallowed in such orgies as consume something more
than money. Like soldiers who find no market for their courage, Lucien
had just done what many men do in Paris: he had still further
compromised his character by shaking Finot's hand, and not rejecting
Blondet's affection.
Every man who has dabbled, or still dabbles, in journalism is under
the painful necessity of bowing to men he despises, of smiling at his
dearest foe, of compounding the foulest meanness, of soiling his
fingers to pay his aggressors in their own coin. He becomes used to
seeing evil done, and passing it over; he begins by condoning it, and
ends by committing it. In the long run the soul, constantly strained
by shameful and perpetual compromise, sinks lower, the spring of noble
thoughts grows rusty, the hinges of familiarity wear easy, and turn of
their own accord. Alceste becomes Philinte, natures lose their
firmness, talents are perverted, faith in great deeds evaporates. The
man who yearned to be proud of his work wastes himself in rubbishy
articles which his conscience regards, sooner or later, as so many
evil actions. He started, like Lousteau or Vernou, to be a great
writer; he finds himself a feeble scrivener. Hence it is impossible to
honor too highly men whose character stands as high as their talent—
men like d'Arthez, who know how to walk surefooted across the reefs of
literary life.
Lucien could make no reply to Blondet's flattery; his wit had an
irresistible charm for him, and he maintained the hold of the
corrupter over his pupil; besides, he held a position in the world
through his connection with the Comtesse de Montcornet.
"Has an uncle left you a fortune?" said Finot, laughing at him.
"Like you, I have marked some fools for cutting down," replied
Lucien in the same tone.
"Then Monsieur has a review—a newspaper of his own?" Andoche Finot
retorted, with the impertinent presumption of a chief to a
subordinate.
"I have something better," replied Lucien, whose vanity, nettled by
the assumed superiority of his editor, restored him to the sense of
his new position.
"What is that, my dear boy?"
"I have a party."
"There is a Lucien party?" said Vernou, smiling
"Finot, the boy has left you in the lurch; I told you he would.
Lucien is a clever fellow, and you never were respectful to him. You
used him as a hack. Repent, blockhead!" said Blondet.
Blondet, as sharp as a needle, could detect more than one secret in
Lucien's air and manner; while stroking him down, he contrived to
tighten the curb. He meant to know the reasons of Lucien's return to
Paris, his projects, and his means of living.
"On your knees to a superiority you can never attain to, albeit you
are Finot!" he went on. "Admit this gentleman forthwith to be one of
the great men to whom the future belongs; he is one of us! So witty
and so handsome, can he fail to succeed by your quibuscumque viis?
Here he stands, in his good Milan armor, his strong sword half
unsheathed, and his pennon flying!—Bless me, Lucien, where did you
steal that smart waistcoat? Love alone can find such stuff as that.
Have you an address? At this moment I am anxious to know where my
friends are domiciled; I don't know where to sleep. Finot has turned
me out of doors for the night, under the vulgar pretext of 'a lady in
the case.' "
"My boy," said Lucien, "I put into practice a motto by which you
may secure a quiet life: Fuge, late, tace. I am off."
"But I am not off till you pay me a sacred debt—that little
supper, you know, heh?" said Blondet, who was rather too much given to
good cheer, and got himself treated when he was out of funds.
"What supper?" asked Lucien with a little stamp of impatience.
"You don't remember? In that I recognize my prosperous friend; he
has lost his memory."
"He knows what he owes us; I will go bail for his good heart," said
Finot, taking up Blondet's joke.
"Rastignac," said Blondet, taking the young dandy by the arm as he
came up the room to the column where the so-called friends were
standing. "There is a supper in the wind; you will join us—unless,"
he added gravely, turning to Lucien, "Monsieur persists in ignoring a
debt of honor. He can."
"Monsieur de Rubempre is incapable of such a thing; I will answer
for him," said Rastignac, who never dreamed of a practical joke.
"And there is Bixiou, he will come too," cried Blondet; "there is
no fun without him. Without him champagne cloys my tongue, and I find
everything insipid, even the pepper of satire."
"My friends," said Bixiou, "I see you have gathered round the
wonder of the day. Our dear Lucien has revived the Metamorphoses of
Ovid. Just as the gods used to turn into strange vegetables and other
things to seduce the ladies, he has turned the Chardon (the Thistle)
into a gentleman to bewitch—whom? Charles X.!—My dear boy," he went
on, holding Lucien by his coat button, "a journalist who apes the fine
gentleman deserves rough music. In their place," said the merciless
jester, as he pointed to Finot and Vernou, "I should take you up in my
society paper; you would bring in a hundred francs for ten columns of
fun."
"Bixiou," said Blondet, "an Amphitryon is sacred for twenty-four
hours before a feast and twelve hours after. Our illustrious friend is
giving us a supper."
"What then!" cried Bixiou; "what is more imperative than the duty
of saving a great name from oblivion, of endowing the indigent
aristocracy with a man of talent? Lucien, you enjoy the esteem of the
press of which you were a distinguished ornament, and we will give you
our support.—Finot, a paragraph in the 'latest items'!—Blondet, a
little butter on the fourth page of your paper!—We must advertise the
appearance of one of the finest books of the age, l'Archer de Charles
IX.! We will appeal to Dauriat to bring out as soon as possible les
Marguerites, those divine sonnets by the French Petrarch! We must
carry our friend through on the shield of stamped paper by which
reputations are made and unmade."
"If you want a supper," said Lucien to Blondet, hoping to rid
himself of this mob, which threatened to increase, "it seems to me
that you need not work up hyperbole and parable to attack an old
friend as if he were a booby. To-morrow night at Lointier's——" he
cried, seeing a woman come by, whom he rushed to meet.
"Oh! oh! oh!" said Bixiou on three notes, with a mocking glance,
and seeming to recognize the mask to whom Lucien addressed himself.
"This needs confirmation."
He followed the handsome pair, got past them, examined them keenly,
and came back, to the great satisfaction of all the envious crowd, who
were eager to learn the source of Lucien's change of fortune.
"Friends," said Bixiou, "you have long known the goddess of the
Sire de Rubempre's fortune: She is des Lupeaulx's former 'rat.' "
A form of dissipation, now forgotten, but still customary at the
beginning of this century, was the keeping of "rats." The "rat"—a
slang word that has become old-fashioned—was a girl of ten or twelve
in the chorus of some theatre, more particularly at the opera, who was
trained by young roues to vice and infamy. A "rat" was a sort of demon
page, a tomboy who was forgiven a trick if it were but funny. The
"rat" might take what she pleased; she was to be watched like a
dangerous animal, and she brought an element of liveliness into life,
like Scapin, Sganarelle, and Frontin in old-fashioned comedy. But a
"rat" was too expensive; it made no return in honor, profit, or
pleasure; the fashion of rats so completely went out, that in these
days few people knew anything of this detail of fashionable life
before the Restoration till certain writers took up the "rat" as a new
subject.
"What! after having seen Coralie killed under him, Lucien means to
rob us of La Torpille?" (the torpedo fish) said Blondet.
As he heard the name the brawny mask gave a significant start,
which, though repressed, was understood by Rastignac.
"It is out of the question," replied Finot; "La Torpille has not a
sou to give away; Nathan tells me she borrowed a thousand francs of
Florine."
"Come, gentlemen, gentlemen!" said Rastignac, anxious to defend
Lucien against so odious an imputation.
"Well," cried Vernou, "is Coralie's kept man likely to be so very
particular?"
"Oh!" replied Bixiou, "those thousand francs prove to me that our
friend Lucien lives with La Torpille——"
"What an irreparable loss to literature, science, art, and
politics!" exclaimed Blondet. "La Torpille is the only common
prostitute in whom I ever found the stuff for a superior courtesan;
she has not been spoiled by education—she can neither read nor write,
she would have understood us. We might have given to our era one of
those magnificent Aspasias without which there can be no golden age.
See how admirably Madame du Barry was suited to the eighteenth
century, Ninon de l'Enclos to the seventeenth, Marion Delorme to the
sixteenth, Imperia to the fifteenth, Flora to Republican Rome, which
she made her heir, and which paid off the public debt with her
fortune! What would Horace be without Lydia, Tibullus without Delia,
Catullus without Lesbia, Propertius without Cynthia, Demetrius without
Lamia, who is his glory at this day?"
"Blondet talking of Demetrius in the opera house seems to me rather
too strong of the Debats," said Bixiou in his neighbor's ears.
"And where would the empire of the Caesars have been but for these
queens?" Blondet went on; "Lais and Rhodope are Greece and Egypt. They
all indeed are the poetry of the ages in which they lived. This
poetry, which Napoleon lacked—for the Widow of his Great Army is a
barrack jest, was not wanting to the Revolution; it had Madame
Tallien! In these days there is certainly a throne to let in France
which is for her who can fill it. We among us could make a queen. I
should have given La Torpille an aunt, for her mother is too decidedly
dead on the field of dishonor; du Tillet would have given her a
mansion, Lousteau a carriage, Rastignac her footmen, des Lupeaulx a
cook, Finot her hats"—Finot could not suppress a shrug at standing
the point-blank fire of this epigram—"Vernou would have composed her
advertisements, and Bixiou her repartees! The aristocracy would have
come to enjoy themselves with our Ninon, where we would have got
artists together, under pain of death by newspaper articles. Ninon the
second would have been magnificently impertinent, overwhelming in
luxury. She would have set up opinions. Some prohibited dramatic
masterpiece should have been read in her drawing-room; it should have
been written on purpose if necessary. She would not have been liberal;
a courtesan is essentially monarchical. Oh, what a loss! She ought to
have embraced her whole century, and she makes love with a little
young man! Lucien will make a sort of hunting-dog of her."
"None of the female powers of whom you speak ever trudged the
streets," said Finot, "and that pretty little 'rat' has rolled in the
mire."
"Like a lily-seed in the soil," replied Vernou, "and she has
improved in it and flowered. Hence her superiority. Must we not have
known everything to be able to create the laughter and joy which are
part of everything?"
"He is right," said Lousteau, who had hitherto listened without
speaking; "La Torpille can laugh and make others laugh. That gift of
all great writers and great actors is proper to those who have
investigated every social deep. At eighteen that girl had already
known the greatest wealth, the most squalid misery—men of every
degree. She bears about her a sort of magic wand by which she lets
loose the brutal appetites so vehemently suppressed in men who still
have a heart while occupied with politics or science, literature or
art. There is not in Paris another woman who can say to the beast as
she does: 'Come out!' And the beast leaves his lair and wallows in
excesses. She feeds you up to the chin, she helps you to drink and
smoke. In short, this woman is the salt of which Rabelais writes,
which, thrown on matter, animates it and elevates it to the marvelous
realms of art; her robe displays unimagined splendor, her fingers drop
gems as her lips shed smiles; she gives the spirit of the occasion to
every little thing; her chatter twinkles with bright sayings, she has
the secret of the quaintest onomatopoeia, full of color, and giving
color; she——"
"You are wasting five francs' worth of copy," said Bixiou,
interrupting Lousteau. "La Torpille is something far better than all
that; you have all been in love with her more or less, not one of you
can say that she ever was his mistress. She can always command you;
you will never command her. You may force your way in and ask her to
do you a service——"
"Oh, she is more generous than a brigand chief who knows his
business, and more devoted than the best of school-fellows," said
Blondet. "You may trust her with your purse or your secrets. But what
made me choose her as queen is her Bourbon-like indifference for a
fallen favorite."
"She, like her mother, is much too dear," said des Lupeaulx. "The
handsome Dutch woman would have swallowed up the income of the
Archbishop of Toledo; she ate two notaries out of house and home——"
"And kept Maxime de Trailles when he was a court page," said
Bixiou.
"La Torpille is too dear, as Raphael was, or Careme, or Taglioni,
or Lawrence, or Boule, or any artist of genius is too dear," said
Blondet.
"Esther never looked so thoroughly a lady," said Rastignac,
pointing to the masked figure to whom Lucien had given his arm. "I
will bet on its being Madame de Serizy."
"Not a doubt of it," cried du Chatelet, "and Monsieur du Rubempre's
fortune is accounted for."
"Ah, the Church knows how to choose its Levites; what a sweet
ambassador's secretary he will make!" remarked des Lupeaulx.
"All the more so," Rastignac went on, "because Lucien is a really
clever fellow. These gentlemen have had proof of it more than once,"
and he turned to Blondet, Finot, and Lousteau.
"Yes, the boy is cut out of the right stuff to get on," said
Lousteau, who was dying of jealousy. "And particularly because he has
what we call independent ideas . . ."
"It is you who trained him," said Vernou.
"Well," replied Bixiou, looking at des Lupeaulx, "I trust to the
memory of Monsieur the Secretary-General and Master of Appeals—that
mask is La Torpille, and I will stand a supper on it."
"I will hold the stakes," said du Chatelet, curious to know the
truth.
"Come, des Lupeaulx," said Finot, "try to identify your rat's
ears."
"There is no need for committing the crime of treason against a
mask," replied Bixiou. "La Torpille and Lucien must pass us as they go
up the room again, and I pledge myself to prove that it is she."
"So our friend Lucien has come above water once more," said Nathan,
joining the group. "I thought he had gone back to Angoumois for the
rest of his days. Has he discovered some secret to ruin the English?"
"He has done what you will not do in a hurry," retorted Rastignac;
"he has paid up."
The burly mask nodded in confirmation.
"A man who has sown his wild oats at his age puts himself out of
court. He has no pluck; he puts money in the funds," replied Nathan.
"Oh, that youngster will always be a fine gentleman, and will
always have such lofty notions as will place him far above many men
who think themselves his betters," replied Rastignac.
At this moment journalists, dandies, and idlers were all examining
the charming subject of their bet as horse-dealers examine a horse for
sale. These connoisseurs, grown old in familiarity with every form of
Parisian depravity, all men of superior talent each his own way,
equally corrupt, equally corrupting, all given over to unbridled
ambition, accustomed to assume and to guess everything, had their eyes
centered on a masked woman, a woman whom no one else could identify.
They, and certain habitual frequenters of the opera balls, could alone
recognize under the long shroud of the black domino, the hood and
falling ruff which make the wearer unrecognizable, the rounded form,
the individuality of figure and gait, the sway of the waist, the
carriage of the head—the most intangible trifles to ordinary eyes,
but to them the easiest to discern.
In spite of this shapeless wrapper they could watch the most
appealing of dramas, that of a woman inspired by a genuine passion.
Were she La Torpille, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, or Madame de
Serizy, on the lowest or highest rung of the social ladder, this woman
was an exquisite creature, a flash from happy dreams. These old young
men, like these young old men, felt so keen an emotion, that they
envied Lucien the splendid privilege of working such a metamorphosis
of a woman into a goddess. The mask was there as though she had been
alone with Lucien; for that woman the thousand other persons did not
exist, nor the evil and dust-laden atmosphere; no, she moved under the
celestial vault of love, as Raphael's Madonnas under their slender
oval glory. She did not feel herself elbowed; the fire of her glance
shot from the holes in her mask and sank into Lucien's eyes; the
thrill of her frame seemed to answer to every movement of her
companion. Whence comes this flame that radiates from a woman in love
and distinguishes her above all others? Whence that sylph-like
lightness which seems to negative the laws of gravitation? Is the soul
become ambient? Has happiness a physical effluence?
The ingenuousness of a girl, the graces of a child were discernible
under the domino. Though they walked apart, these two beings suggested
the figures of Flora and Zephyr as we see them grouped by the
cleverest sculptors; but they were beyond sculpture, the greatest of
the arts; Lucien and his pretty domino were more like the angels
busied with flowers or birds, which Gian Bellini has placed beneath
the effigies of the Virgin Mother. Lucien and this girl belonged to
the realm of fancy, which is as far above art as cause is above
effect.
When the domino, forgetful of everything, was within a yard of the
group, Bixiou exclaimed:
"Esther!"
The unhappy girl turned her head quickly at hearing herself called,
recognized the mischievous speaker, and bowed her head like a dying
creature that has drawn its last breath.
A sharp laugh followed, and the group of men melted among the
crowd like a knot of frightened field-rats whisking into their holes
by the roadside. Rastignac alone went no further than was necessary,
just to avoid making any show of shunning Lucien's flashing eye. He
could thus note two phases of distress equally deep though
unconfessed; first, the hapless Torpille, stricken as by a lightning
stroke, and then the inscrutable mask, the only one of the group who
had remained. Esther murmured a word in Lucien's ear just as her knees
gave way, and Lucien, supporting her, led her away.
Rastignac watched the pretty pair, lost in meditation.
"How did she get her name of La Torpille?" asked a gloomy voice
that struck to his vitals, for it was no longer disguised.
"HE again—he has made his escape!" muttered Rastignac to himself.
"Be silent or I murder you," replied the mask, changing his voice.
"I am satisfied with you, you have kept your word, and there is more
than one arm ready to serve you. Henceforth be as silent as the grave;
but, before that, answer my question."
"Well, the girl is such a witch that she could have magnetized the
Emperor Napoleon; she could magnetize a man more difficult to
influence—you yourself," replied Rastignac, and he turned to go.
"One moment," said the mask; "I will prove to you that you have
never seen me anywhere."
The speaker took his mask off; for a moment Rastignac hesitated,
recognizing nothing of the hideous being he had known formerly at
Madame Vauquer's.
"The devil has enabled you to change in every particular, excepting
your eyes, which it is impossible to forget," said he.
The iron hand gripped his arm to enjoin eternal secrecy.
At three in the morning des Lupeaulx and Finot found the elegant
Rastignac on the same spot, leaning against the column where the
terrible mask had left him. Rastignac had confessed to himself; he had
been at once priest and pentient, culprit and judge. He allowed
himself to be led away to breakfast, and reached home perfectly tipsy,
but taciturn.
The Rue de Langlade and the adjacent streets are a blot on the
Palais Royal and the Rue de Rivoli. This portion of one of the
handsomest quarters of Paris will long retain the stain of foulness
left by the hillocks formed of the middens of old Paris, on which
mills formerly stood. These narrow streets, dark and muddy, where such
industries are carried on as care little for appearances wear at night
an aspect of mystery full of contrasts. On coming from the
well-lighted regions of the Rue Saint-Honore, the Rue
Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, and the Rue de Richelieu, where the crowd is
constantly pushing, where glitter the masterpieces of industry,
fashion, and art, every man to whom Paris by night is unknown would
feel a sense of dread and melancholy, on finding himself in the
labyrinth of little streets which lie round that blaze of light
reflected even from the sky. Dense blackness is here, instead of
floods of gaslight; a dim oil-lamp here and there sheds its doubtful
and smoky gleam, and many blind alleys are not lighted at all. Foot
passengers are few, and walk fast. The shops are shut, the few that
are open are of a squalid kind; a dirty, unlighted wineshop, or a
seller of underclothing and eau-de-Cologne. An unwholesome chill lays
a clammy cloak over your shoulders. Few carriages drive past. There
are sinister places here, especially the Rue de Langlade, the entrance
to the Passage Saint-Guillaume, and the turnings of some streets.
The municipal council has not yet been to purge this vast
lazar-place, for prostitution long since made it its headquarters. It
is, perhaps, a good thing for Paris that these alleys should be
allowed to preserve their filthy aspect. Passing through them by day,
it is impossible to imagine what they become by night; they are
pervaded by strange creatures of no known world; white, half-naked
forms cling to the walls—the darkness is alive. Between the passenger
and the wall a dress steals by—a dress that moves and speaks.
Half-open doors suddenly shout with laughter. Words fall on the ear
such as Rabelais speaks of as frozen and melting. Snatches of songs
come up from the pavement. The noise is not vague; it means something.
When it is hoarse it is a voice; but if it suggests a song, there is
nothing human about it, it is more like a croak. Often you hear a
sharp whistle, and then the tap of boot-heels has a peculiarly
aggressive and mocking ring. This medley of things makes you giddy.
Atmospheric conditions are reversed there—it is warm in winter and
cool in summer.
Still, whatever the weather, this strange world always wears the
same aspect; it is the fantastic world of Hoffmann of Berlin. The most
mathematical of clerks never thinks of it as real, after returning
through the straits that lead into decent streets, where there are
passengers, shops, and taverns. Modern administration, or modern
policy, more scornful or more shamefaced than the queens and kings of
past ages, no longer dare look boldly in the face of this plague of
our capitals. Measures, of course, must change with the times, and
such as bear on individuals and on their liberty are a ticklish
matter; still, we ought, perhaps, to show some breadth and boldness as
to merely material measures—air, light, and construction. The
moralist, the artist, and the sage administrator alike must regret the
old wooden galleries of the Palais Royal, where the lambs were to be
seen who will always be found where there are loungers; and is it not
best that the loungers should go where they are to be found? What is
the consequence? The gayest parts of the Boulevards, that
delightfulest of promenades, are impossible in the evening for a
family party. The police has failed to take advantage of the outlet
afforded by some small streets to purge the main street.
The girl whom we have seen crushed by a word at the opera ball had
been for the last month or two living in the Rue de Langlade, in a
very poor-looking house. This structure, stuck on to the wall of an
enormously large one, badly stuccoed, of no depth, and immensely high,
has all its windows on the street, and bears some resemblance to a
parrot's perch. On each floor are two rooms, let as separate flats.
There is a narrow staircase clinging to the wall, queerly lighted by
windows which mark its ascent on the outer wall, each landing being
indicated by a stink, one of the most odious peculiarities of Paris.
The shop and entresol at that time were tenanted by a tinman; the
landlord occupied the first floor; the four upper stories were rented
by very decent working girls, who were treated by the portress and the
proprietor with some consideration and an obligingness called forth by
the difficulty of letting a house so oddly constructed and situated.
The occupants of the quarter are accounted for by the existence there
of many houses of the same character, for which trade has no use, and
which can only be rented by the poorer kinds of industry, of a
precarious or ignominious nature.
At three in the afternoon the portress, who had seen Mademoiselle
Esther brought home half dead by a young man at two in the morning,
had just held council with the young woman of the floor above, who,
before setting out in a cab to join some party of pleasure, had
expressed her uneasiness about Esther; she had not heard her move.
Esther was, no doubt, still asleep, but this slumber seemed
suspicious. The portress, alone in her cell, was regretting that she
could not go to see what was happening on the fourth floor, where
Mademoiselle Esther lodged.
Just as she had made up her mind to leave the tinman's son in
charge of her room, a sort of den in a recess on the entresol floor, a
cab stopped at the door. A man stepped out, wrapped from head to foot
in a cloak evidently intended to conceal his dress or his rank in
life, and asked for Mademoiselle Esther. The portress at one felt
relieved; this accounted for Esther's silence and quietude. As the
stranger mounted the stairs above the portress' room, she noticed
silver buckles in his shoes, and fancied she caught sight of the black
fringe of a priest's sash; she went downstairs and catechised the
driver, who answered without speech, and again the woman understood.
The priest knocked, received no answer, heard a slight gasp, and
forced the door open with a thrust of his shoulder; charity, no doubt
lent him strength, but in any one else it would have been ascribed to
practice. He rushed to the inner room, and there found poor Esther in
front of an image of the Virgin in painted plaster, kneeling, or
rather doubled up, on the floor, her hands folded. The girl was dying.
A brazier of burnt charcoal told the tale of that dreadful morning.
The domino cloak and hood were lying on the ground. The bed was
undisturbed. The unhappy creature, stricken to the heart by a mortal
thrust, had, no doubt, made all her arrangements on her return from
the opera. A candle-wick, collapsed in the pool of grease that filled
the candle-sconce, showed how completely her last meditations had
absorbed her. A handkerchief soaked with tears proved the sincerity of
the Magdalen's despair, while her classic attitude was that of the
irreligious courtesan. This abject repentance made the priest smile.
Esther, unskilled in dying, had left the door open, not thinking
that the air of two rooms would need a larger amount of charcoal to
make it suffocating; she was only stunned by the fumes; the fresh air
from the staircase gradually restored her to a consciousness of her
woes.
The priest remained standing, lost in gloomy meditation, without
being touched by the girl's divine beauty, watching her first
movements as if she had been some animal. His eyes went from the
crouching figure to the surrounding objects with evident indifference.
He looked at the furniture in the room; the paved floor, red,
polished, and cold, was poorly covered with a shabby carpet worn to
the string. A little bedstead, of painted wood and old-fashioned
shape, was hung with yellow cotton printed with red stars, one
armchair and two small chairs, also of painted wood, and covered with
the same cotton print of which the window-curtains were also made; a
gray wall-paper sprigged with flowers blackened and greasy with age; a
fireplace full of kitchen utensils of the vilest kind, two bundles of
fire-logs; a stone shelf, on which lay some jewelry false and real, a
pair of scissors, a dirty pincushion, and some white scented gloves;
an exquisite hat perched on the water-jug, a Ternaux shawl stopping a
hole in the window, a handsome gown hanging from a nail; a little hard
sofa, with no cushions; broken clogs and dainty slippers, boots that a
queen might have coveted; cheap china plates, cracked or chipped, with
fragments of a past meal, and nickel forks—the plate of the Paris
poor; a basket full of potatoes and dirty linen, with a smart gauze
cap on the top; a rickety wardrobe, with a glass door, open and empty,
and on the shelves sundry pawn-tickets,—this was the medley of
things, dismal or pleasing, abject and handsome, that fell on his eye.
These relics of splendor among the potsherds, these household
belongings—so appropriate to the bohemian existence of the girl who
knelt stricken in her unbuttoned garments, like a horse dying in
harness under the broken shafts entangled in the reins—did the whole
strange scene suggest any thoughts to the priest? Did he say to
himself that this erring creature must at least be disinterested to
live in such poverty when her lover was young and rich? Did he ascribe
the disorder of the room to the disorder of her life? Did he feel pity
or terror? Was his charity moved?
To see him, his arms folded, his brow dark, his lips set, his eye
harsh, any one must have supposed him absorbed in morose feelings of
hatred, considerations that jostled each other, sinister schemes. He
was certainly insensible to the soft roundness of a bosom almost
crushed under the weight of the bowed shoulders, and to the beautiful
modeling of the crouching Venus that was visible under the black
petticoat, so closely was the dying girl curled up. The drooping head
which, seen from behind, showed the white, slender, flexible neck and
the fine shoulders of a well-developed figure, did not appeal to him.
He did not raise Esther, he did not seem to hear the agonizing gasps
which showed that she was returning to life; a fearful sob and a
terrifying glance from the girl were needed before he condescended to
lift her, and he carried her to the bed with an ease that revealed
enormous strength.
"Lucien!" she murmured.
"Love is there, the woman is not far behind," said the priest with
some bitterness.
The victim of Parisian depravity then observed the dress worn by
her deliverer, and said, with a smile like a child's when it takes
possession of something longed for:
"Then I shall not die without being reconciled to Heaven?"
"You may yet expiate your sins," said the priest, moistening her
forehead with water, and making her smell at a cruet of vinegar he
found in a corner.
"I feel that life, instead of departing, is rushing in on me," said
she, after accepting the Father's care and expressing her gratitude by
simple gestures. This engaging pantomime, such as the Graces might
have used to charm, perfectly justified the nickname given to this
strange girl.
"Do you feel better?" said the priest, giving her a glass of sugar
and water to drink.
This man seemed accustomed to such queer establishments; he knew
all about it. He was quite at home there. This privilege of being
everywhere at home is the prerogative of kings, courtesans, and
thieves.
"When you feel quite well," this strange priest went on after a
pause, "you must tell me the reasons which prompted you to commit this
last crime, this attempted suicide."
"My story is very simple, Father," replied she. "Three months ago I
was living the evil life to which I was born. I was the lowest and
vilest of creatures; now I am only the most unhappy. Excuse me from
telling you the history of my poor mother, who was murdered——"
"By a Captain, in a house of ill-fame," said the priest,
interrupting the penitent. "I know your origin, and I know that if a
being of your sex can ever be excused for leading a life of shame, it
is you, who have always lacked good examples."
"Alas! I was never baptized, and have no religious teaching."
"All may yet be remedied then," replied the priest, "provided that
your faith, your repentance, are sincere and without ulterior motive."
"Lucien and God fill my heart," said she with ingenuous pathos.
"You might have said God and Lucien," answered the priest, smiling.
"You remind me of the purpose of my visit. Omit nothing that concerns
that young man."
"You have come from him?" she asked, with a tender look that would
have touched any other priest! "Oh, he thought I should do it!"
"No," replied the priest; "it is not your death, but your life that
we are interested in. Come, explain your position toward each other."
"In one word," said she.
The poor child quaked at the priest's stern tone, but as a woman
quakes who has long ceased to be surprised at brutality.
"Lucien is Lucien," said she, "the handsomest young man, the
kindest soul alive; if you know him, my love must seem to you quite
natural. I met him by chance, three months ago, at the
Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, where I went one day when I had leave, for
we had a day a week at Madame Meynardie's, where I then was. Next day,
you understand, I went out without leave. Love had come into my heart,
and had so completely changed me, that on my return from the theatre I
did not know myself: I had a horror of myself. Lucien would never have
known. Instead of telling him what I was, I gave him my address at
these rooms, where a friend of mine was then living, who was so kind
as to give them up to me. I swear on my sacred word——"
"You must not swear."
"Is it swearing to give your sacred word?—Well, from that day I
have worked in this room like a lost creature at shirt-making at
twenty- eight sous apiece, so as to live by honest labor. For a month
I have had nothing to eat but potatoes, that I might keep myself a
good girl and worthy of Lucien, who loves me and respects me as a
pattern of virtue. I have made my declaration before the police to
recover my rights, and submitted to two years' surveillance. They are
ready enough to enter your name on the lists of disgrace, but make
every difficulty about scratching it out again. All I asked of Heaven
was to enable me to keep my resolution.
"I shall be nineteen in the month of April; at my age there is
still a chance. It seems to me that I was never born till three months
ago.—I prayed to God every morning that Lucien might never know what
my former life had been. I bought that Virgin you see there, and I
prayed to her in my own way, for I do not know any prayers; I cannot
read nor write, and I have never been into a church; I have never seen
anything of God excepting in processions, out of curiosity."
"And what do you say to the Virgin?"
"I talk to her as I talk to Lucien, with all my soul, till I make
him cry."
"Oh, so he cries?"
"With joy," said she eagerly, "poor dear boy! We understand each
other so well that we have but one soul! He is so nice, so fond, so
sweet in heart and mind and manners! He says he is a poet; I say he is
god.— Forgive me! You priests, you see, don't know what love is. But,
in fact, only girls like me know enough of men to appreciate such as
Lucien. A Lucien, you see, is as rare as a woman without sin. When you
come across him you can love no one else; so there! But such a being
must have his fellow; so I want to be worthy to be loved by my Lucien.
That is where my trouble began. Last evening, at the opera, I was
recognized by some young men who have no more feeling than a tiger has
pity—for that matter, I could come round the tiger! The veil of
innocence I had tried to wear was worn off; their laughter pierced my
brain and my heart. Do not think you have saved me; I shall die of
grief."
"Your veil of innocence?" said the priest. "Then you have treated
Lucien with the sternest severity?"
"Oh, Father, how can you, who know him, ask me such a question!"
she replied with a smile. "Who can resist a god?"
"Do not be blasphemous," said the priest mildly. "No one can be
like God. Exaggeration is out of place with true love; you had not a
pure and genuine love for your idol. If you had undergone the
conversion you boast of having felt, you would have acquired the
virtues which are a part of womanhood; you would have known the charm
of chastity, the refinements of modesty, the two virtues that are the
glory of a maiden.—You do not love."
Esther's gesture of horror was seen by the priest, but it had no
effect on the impassibility of her confessor.
"Yes; for you love him for yourself and not for himself, for the
temporal enjoyments that delight you, and not for love itself. If he
has thus taken possession of you, you cannot have felt that sacred
thrill that is inspired by a being on whom God has set the seal of the
most adorable perfections. Has it never occurred to you that you would
degrade him by your past impurity, that you would corrupt a child by
the overpowering seductions which earned you your nickname glorious in
infamy? You have been illogical with yourself, and your passion of a
day——"
"Of a day?" she repeated, raising her eyes.
"By what other name can you call a love that is not eternal, that
does not unite us in the future life of the Christian, to the being we
love?"
"Ah, I will be a Catholic!" she cried in a hollow, vehement tone,
that would have earned her the mercy of the Lord.
"Can a girl who has received neither the baptism of the Church nor
that of knowledge; who can neither read, nor write, nor pray; who
cannot take a step without the stones in the street rising up to
accuse her; noteworthy only for the fugitive gift of beauty which
sickness may destroy to-morrow; can such a vile, degraded creature,
fully aware too of her degradation—for if you had been ignorant of it
and less devoted, you would have been more excusable—can the intended
victim to suicide and hell hope to be the wife of Lucien de Rubempre?"
Every word was a poniard thrust piercing the depths of her heart.
At every word the louder sobs and abundant tears of the desperate girl
showed the power with which light had flashed upon an intelligence as
pure as that of a savage, upon a soul at length aroused, upon a nature
over which depravity had laid a sheet of foul ice now thawed in the
sunshine of faith.
"Why did I not die!" was the only thought that found utterance in
the midst of a torrent of ideas that racked and ravaged her brain.
"My daughter," said the terrible judge, "there is a love which is
unconfessed before men, but of which the secret is received by the
angels with smiles of gladness."
"What is that?"
"Love without hope, when it inspires our life, when it fills us
with the spirit of sacrifice, when it ennobles every act by the
thought of reaching some ideal perfection. Yes, the angels approve of
such love; it leads to the knowledge of God. To aim at perfection in
order to be worthy of the one you love, to make for him a thousand
secret sacrifices, adoring him from afar, giving your blood drop by
drop, abnegating your self-love, never feeling any pride or anger as
regards him, even concealing from him all knowledge of the dreadful
jealousy he fires in your heart, giving him all he wishes were it to
your own loss, loving what he loves, always turning your face to him
to follow him without his knowing it—such love as that religion would
have forgiven; it is no offence to laws human or divine, and would
have led you into another road than that of your foul voluptuousness."
As she heard this horrible verdict, uttered in a word—and such a
word! and spoken in such a tone!—Esther's spirit rose up in fairly
legitimate distrust. This word was like a thunder-clap giving warning
of a storm about to break. She looked at the priest, and felt the grip
on her vitals which wrings the bravest when face to face with sudden
and imminent danger. No eye could have read what was passing in this
man's mind; but the boldest would have found more to quail at than to
hope for in the expression of his eyes, once bright and yellow like
those of a tiger, but now shrouded, from austerities and privations,
with a haze like that which overhangs the horizon in the dog-days,
when, though the earth is hot and luminous, the mist makes it
indistinct and dim—almost invisible.
The gravity of a Spaniard, the deep furrows which the myriad scars
of virulent smallpox made hideously like broken ruts, were ploughed
into his face, which was sallow and tanned by the sun. The hardness of
this countenance was all the more conspicuous, being framed in the
meagre dry wig of a priest who takes no care of his person, a black
wig looking rusty in the light. His athletic frame, his hands like an
old soldier's, his broad, strong shoulders were those of the
Caryatides which the architects of the Middle Ages introduced into
some Italian palaces, remotely imitated in those of the front of the
Porte-Saint- Martin theatre. The least clear-sighted observer might
have seen that fiery passions or some unwonted accident must have
thrown this man into the bosom of the Church; certainly none but the
most tremendous shocks of lightning could have changed him, if indeed
such a nature were susceptible of change.
Women who have lived the life that Esther had so violently
repudiated come to feel absolute indifference as to the critics of our
day, who may be compared with them in some respects, and who feel at
last perfect disregard of the formulas of art; they have read so many
books, they see so many pass away, they are so much accustomed to
written pages, they have gone through so many plots, they have seen so
many dramas, they have written so many articles without saying what
they meant, and have so often been treasonable to the cause of Art in
favor of their personal likings and aversions, that they acquire a
feeling of disgust of everything, and yet continue to pass judgment.
It needs a miracle to make such a writer produce sound work, just as
it needs another miracle to give birth to pure and noble love in the
heart of a courtesan.
The tone and manner of this priest, who seemed to have escaped from
a picture by Zurbaran, struck this poor girl as so hostile, little as
externals affected her, that she perceived herself to be less the
object of his solitude than the instrument he needed for some scheme.
Being unable to distinguish between the insinuating tongue of personal
interest and the unction of true charity, for we must be acutely awake
to recognize false coin when it is offered by a friend, she felt
herself, as it were, in the talons of some fierce and monstrous bird
of prey who, after hovering over her for long, had pounced down on
her; and in her terror she cried in a voice of alarm:
"I thought it was a priest's duty to console us, and you are
killing me!"
At this innocent outcry the priest started and paused; he meditated
a moment before replying. During that instant the two persons so
strangely brought together studied each other cautiously. The priest
understood the girl, though the girl could not understand the priest.
He, no doubt, put aside some plan which had threatened the unhappy
Esther, and came back to his first ideas.
"We are physicians of the soul," said he, in a mild voice, "and we
know what remedies suit their maladies."
"Much must be forgiven to the wretched," said Esther.
She fancied she had been wrong; she slipped off the bed, threw
herself at the man's feet, kissed his gown with deep humility, and
looked up at him with eyes full of tears.
"I thought I had done so much!" she said.
"Listen, my child. Your terrible reputation has cast Lucien's
family into grief. They are afraid, and not without reason, that you
may lead him into dissipation, into endless folly——"
"That is true; it was I who got him to the ball to mystify him."
"You are handsome enough to make him wish to triumph in you in the
eyes of the world, to show you with pride, and make you an object for
display. And if he wasted money only!—but he will waste his time, his
powers; he will lose his inclination for the fine future his friends
can secure to him. Instead of being some day an ambassador, rich,
admired and triumphant, he, like so many debauchees who choke their
talents in the mud of Paris, will have been the lover of a degraded
woman.
"As for you, after rising for a time to the level of a sphere of
elegance, you will presently sink back to your former life, for you
have not in you the strength bestowed by a good education to enable
you to resist vice and think of the future. You would no more be able
to break with the women of your own class than you have broken with
the men who shamed you at the opera this morning. Lucien's true
friends, alarmed by his passion for you, have dogged his steps and
know all. Filled with horror, they have sent me to you to sound your
views and decide your fate; but though they are powerful enough to
clear a stumbling-stone out of the young man's way, they are merciful.
Understand this, child: a girl whom Lucien loves has claims on their
regard, as a true Christian worships the slough on which, by chance,
the divine light falls. I came to be the instrument of a beneficent
purpose;—still, if I had found you utterly reprobate, armed with
effrontery and astuteness, corrupt to the marrow, deaf to the voice of
repentance, I should have abandoned you to their wrath.
"The release, civil and political, which it is so hard to win,
which the police is so right to withhold for a time in the interests
of society, and which I heard you long for with all the ardor of true
repentance—is here," said the priest, taking an official-looking
paper out of his belt. "You were seen yesterday, this letter of
release is dated to-day. You see how powerful the people are who take
an interest in Lucien."
At the sight of this document Esther was so ingenuously overcome by
the convulsive agitation produced by unlooked-for joy, that a fixed
smile parted her lips, like that of a crazy creature. The priest
paused, looking at the girl to see whether, when once she had lost the
horrible strength which corrupt natures find in corruption itself, and
was thrown back on her frail and delicate primitive nature, she could
endure so much excitement. If she had been a deceitful courtesan,
Esther would have acted a part; but now that she was innocent and
herself once more, she might perhaps die, as a blind man cured may
lose his sight again if he is exposed to too bright a light. At this
moment this man looked into the very depths of human nature, but his
calmness was terrible in its rigidity; a cold alp, snow-bound and near
to heaven, impenetrable and frowning, with flanks of granite, and yet
beneficent.
Such women are essentially impressionable beings, passing without
reason from the most idiotic distrust to absolute confidence. In this
respect they are lower than animals. Extreme in everything—in their
joy and despair, in their religion and irreligion—they would almost
all go mad if they were not decimated by the mortality peculiar to
their class, and if happy chances did not lift one now and then from
the slough in which they dwell. To understand the very depths of the
wretchedness of this horrible existence, one must know how far in
madness a creature can go without remaining there, by studying La
Torpille's violent ecstasy at the priest's feet. The poor girl gazed
at the paper of release with an expression which Dante has overlooked,
and which surpassed the inventiveness of his Inferno. But a reaction
came with tears. Esther rose, threw her arms round the priest's neck,
laid her head on his breast, which she wetted with her weeping,
kissing the coarse stuff that covered that heart of steel as if she
fain would touch it. She seized hold of him; she covered his hands
with kisses; she poured out in a sacred effusion of gratitude her most
coaxing caresses, lavished fond names on him, saying again and again
in the midst of her honeyed words, "Let me have it!" in a thousand
different tones of voice; she wrapped him in tenderness, covered him
with her looks with a swiftness that found him defenceless; at last
she charmed away his wrath.
The priest perceived how well the girl had deserved her nickname;
he understood how difficult it was to resist this bewitching creature;
he suddenly comprehended Lucien's love, and just what must have
fascinated the poet. Such a passion hides among a thousand temptations
a dart-like hook which is most apt to catch the lofty soul of an
artist. These passions, inexplicable to the vulgar, are perfectly
accounted for by the thirst for ideal beauty, which is characteristic
of a creative mind. For are we not, in some degree, akin to the
angels, whose task it is to bring the guilty to a better mind? are we
not creative when we purify such a creature? How delightful it is to
harmonize moral with physical beauty! What joy and pride if we
succeed! How noble a task is that which has no instrument but love!
Such alliances, made famous by the example of Aristotle, Socrates,
Plato, Alcibiades, Cethegus, and Pompey, and yet so monstrous in the
eyes of the vulgar, are based on the same feeling that prompted Louis
XIV. to build Versailles, or that makes men rush into any ruinous
enterprise—into converting the miasma of a marsh into a mass of
fragrance surrounded by living waters; placing a lake at the top of a
hill, as the Prince de Conti did at Nointel; or producing Swiss
scenery at Cassan, like Bergeret, the farmer-general. In short, it is
the application of art in the realm of morals.
The priest, ashamed of having yielded to this weakness, hastily
pushed Esther away, and she sat down quite abashed, for he said:
"You are still the courtesan." And he calmly replaced the paper in
his sash.
Esther, like a child who has a single wish in its head, kept her
eyes fixed on the spot where the document lay hidden.
"My child," the priest went on after a pause, "your mother was a
Jewess, and you have not been baptized; but, on the other hand, you
have never been taken to the synagogue. You are in the limbo where
little children are——"
"Little children!" she echoed, in a tenderly pathetic tone.
"As you are on the books of the police, a cipher outside the pale
of social beings," the priest went on, unmoved. "If love, seen as it
swept past, led you to believe three months since that you were then
born, you must feel that since that day you have been really an
infant. You must, therefore, be led as if you were a child; you must
be completely changed, and I will undertake to make you
unrecognizable. To begin with, you must forget Lucien."
The words crushed the poor girl's heart; she raised her eyes to the
priest and shook her head; she could not speak, finding the
executioner in the deliverer again.
"At any rate, you must give up seeing him," he went on. "I will
take you to a religious house where young girls of the best families
are educated; there you will become a Catholic, you will be trained in
the practice of Christian exercises, you will be taught religion. You
may come out an accomplished young lady, chaste, pure, well brought
up, if——" The man lifted up a finger and paused.
"If," he went on, "you feel brave enough to leave the 'Torpille'
behind you here."
"Ah!" cried the poor thing, to whom each word had been like a note
of some melody to which the gates of Paradise were slowly opening.
"Ah! if it were possible to shed all my blood here and have it
renewed!"
"Listen to me."
She was silent.
"Your future fate depends on your power of forgetting. Think of the
extent to which you pledge yourself. A word, a gesture, which betrays
La Torpille will kill Lucien's wife. A word murmured in a dream, an
involuntary thought, an immodest glance, a gesture of impatience, a
reminiscence of dissipation, an omission, a shake of the head that
might reveal what you know, or what is known about you for your
woes——"
"Yes, yes, Father," said the girl, with the exaltation of a saint.
"To walk in shoes of red-hot iron and smile, to live in a pair of
stays set with nails and maintain the grace of a dancer, to eat bread
salted with ashes, to drink wormwood,—all will be sweet and easy!"
She fell again on her knees, she kissed the priest's shoes, she
melted into tears that wetted them, she clasped his knees, and clung
to them, murmuring foolish words as she wept for joy. Her long and
beautiful light hair waved to the ground, a sort of carpet under the
feet of the celestial messenger, whom she saw as gloomy and hard as
ever when she lifted herself up and looked at him.
"What have I done to offend you?" cried she, quite frightened. "I
have heard of a woman, such as I am, who washed the feet of Jesus with
perfumes. Alas! virtue has made me so poor that I have nothing but
tears to offer you."
"Have you not understood?" he answered, in a cruel voice. "I tell
you, you must be able to come out of the house to which I shall take
you so completely changed, physically and morally, that no man or
woman you have ever known will be able to call you 'Esther' and make
you look round. Yesterday your love could not give you strength enough
so completely to bury the prostitute that she could never reappear;
and again to-day she revives in adoration which is due to none but
God."
"Was it not He who sent you to me?" said she.
"If during the course of your education you should even see Lucien,
all would be lost," he went on; "remember that."
"Who will comfort him?" said she.
"What was it that you comforted him for?" asked the priest, in a
tone in which, for the first time during this scene, there was a
nervous quaver.
"I do not know; he was often sad when he came."
"Sad!" said the priest. "Did he tell you why?"
"Never," answered she.
"He was sad at loving such a girl as you!" exclaimed he.
"Alas! and well he might be," said she, with deep humility. "I am
the most despicable creature of my sex, and I could find favor in his
eyes only by the greatness of my love."
"That love must give you the courage to obey me blindly. If I were
to take you straight from hence to the house where you are to be
educated, everybody here would tell Lucien that you had gone away
to-day, Sunday, with a priest; he might follow in your tracks. In the
course of a week, the portress, not seeing me again, might suppose me
to be what I am not. So, one evening—this day week—at seven o'clock,
go out quietly and get into a cab that will be waiting for you at the
bottom of the Rue des Frondeurs. During this week avoid Lucien, find
excuses, have him sent from the door, and if he should come in, go up
to some friend's room. I shall know if you have seen him, and in that
event all will be at an end. I shall not even come back. These eight
days you will need to make up some suitable clothing and to hide your
look of a prostitute," said he, laying a purse on the chimney-shelf.
"There is something in your manner, in your clothes—something
indefinable which is well known to Parisians, and proclaims you what
you are. Have you never met in the streets or on the Boulevards a
modest and virtuous girl walking with her mother?"
"Oh yes, to my sorrow! The sight of a mother and daughter is one of
our most cruel punishments; it arouses the remorse that lurks in the
innermost folds of our hearts, and that is consuming us.—I know too
well all I lack."
"Well, then, you know how you should look next Sunday," said the
priest, rising.
"Oh!" said she, "teach me one real prayer before you go, that I may
pray to God."
It was a touching thing to see the priest making this girl repeat
Ave Maria and Paternoster in French.
"That is very fine!" said Esther, when she had repeated these two
grand and universal utterances of the Catholic faith without making a
mistake.
"What is your name?" she asked the priest when he took leave of
her.
"Carlos Herrera; I am a Spaniard banished from my country."
Esther took his hand and kissed it. She was no longer the
courtesan; she was an angel rising after a fall.
In a religious institution, famous for the aristocratic and pious
teaching imparted there, one Monday morning in the beginning of March
1824 the pupils found their pretty flock increased by a newcomer,
whose beauty triumphed without dispute not only over that of her
companions, but over the special details of beauty which were found
severally in perfection in each one of them. In France it is extremely
rare, not to say impossible, to meet with the thirty points of
perfection, described in Persian verse, and engraved, it is said, in
the Seraglio, which are needed to make a woman absolutely beautiful.
Though in France the whole is seldom seen, we find exquisite parts. As
to that imposing union which sculpture tries to produce, and has
produced in a few rare examples like the Diana and the Callipyge, it
is the privileged possession of Greece and Asia Minor.
Esther came from that cradle of the human race; her mother was a
Jewess. The Jews, though so often deteriorated by their contact with
other nations, have, among their many races, families in which this
sublime type of Asiatic beauty has been preserved. When they are not
repulsively hideous, they present the splendid characteristics of
Armenian beauty. Esther would have carried off the prize at the
Seraglio; she had the thirty points harmoniously combined. Far from
having damaged the finish of her modeling and the freshness of her
flesh, her strange life had given her the mysterious charm of
womanhood; it is no longer the close, waxy texture of green fruit and
not yet the warm glow of maturity; there is still the scent of the
flower. A few days longer spent in dissolute living, and she would
have been too fat. This abundant health, this perfection of the animal
in a being in whom voluptuousness took the place of thought, must be a
remarkable fact in the eyes of physiologists. A circumstance so rare,
that it may be called impossible in very young girls, was that her
hands, incomparably fine in shape, were as soft, transparent, and
white as those of a woman after the birth of her second child. She had
exactly the hair and the foot for which the Duchesse de Berri was so
famous, hair so thick that no hairdresser could gather it into his
hand, and so long that it fell to the ground in rings; for Esther was
of that medium height which makes a woman a sort of toy, to be taken
up and set down, taken up again and carried without fatigue. Her skin,
as fine as rice-paper, of a warm amber hue showing the purple veins,
was satiny without dryness, soft without being clammy.
Esther, excessively strong though apparently fragile, arrested
attention by one feature that is conspicuous in the faces in which
Raphael has shown his most artistic feeling, for Raphael is the
painter who has most studied and best rendered Jewish beauty. This
remarkable effect was produced by the depth of the eye-socket, under
which the eye moved free from its setting; the arch of the brow was so
accurate as to resemble the groining of a vault. When youth lends this
beautiful hollow its pure and diaphanous coloring, and edges it with
closely-set eyebrows, when the light stealing into the circular cavity
beneath lingers there with a rosy hue, there are tender treasures in
it to delight a lover, beauties to drive a painter to despair. Those
luminous curves, where the shadows have a golden tone, that tissue as
firm as a sinew and as mobile as the most delicate membrane, is a
crowning achievement of nature. The eye at rest within is like a
miraculous egg in a nest of silken wings. But as time goes on this
marvel acquires a dreadful melancholy, when passions have laid dark
smears on those fine forms, when grief had furrowed that network of
delicate veins. Esther's nationality proclaimed itself in this
Oriental modeling of her eyes with their Turkish lids; their color was
a slate-gray which by night took on the blue sheen of a raven's wing.
It was only the extreme tenderness of her expression that could
moderate their fire.
Only those races that are native to deserts have in the eye the
power of fascinating everybody, for any woman can fascinate some one
person. Their eyes preserve, no doubt, something of the infinitude
they have gazed on. Has nature, in her foresight, armed their retina
with some reflecting background to enable them to endure the mirage of
the sand, the torrents of sunshine, and the burning cobalt of the sky?
or, do human beings, like other creatures, derive something from the
surroundings among which they grow up, and preserve for ages the
qualities they have imbibed from them? The great solution of this
problem of race lies perhaps in the question itself. Instincts are
living facts, and their cause dwells in past necessity. Variety in
animals is the result of the exercise of these instincts.
To convince ourselves of this long-sought-for truth, it is enough
to extend to the herd of mankind the observation recently made on
flocks of Spanish and English sheep which, in low meadows where
pasture is abundant, feed side by side in close array, but on
mountains, where grass is scarce, scatter apart. Take these two kinds
of sheep, transfer them to Switzerland or France; the mountain breeds
will feed apart even in a lowland meadow of thick grass, the lowland
sheep will keep together even on an alp. Hardly will a succession of
generations eliminate acquired and transmitted instincts. After a
century the highland spirit reappears in a refractory lamb, just as,
after eighteen centuries of exile, the spirit of the East shone in
Esther's eyes and features.
Her look had no terrible fascination; it shed a mild warmth, it was
pathetic without being startling, and the sternest wills were melted
in its flame. Esther had conquered hatred, she had astonished the
depraved souls of Paris; in short, that look and the softness of her
skin had earned her the terrible nickname which had just led her to
the verge of the grave. Everything about her was in harmony with these
characteristics of the Peri of the burning sands. Her forehead was
firmly and proudly molded. Her nose, like that of the Arab race, was
delicate and narrow, with oval nostrils well set and open at the base.
Her mouth, fresh and red, was a rose unblemished by a flaw,
dissipation had left no trace there. Her chin, rounded as though some
amorous sculptor had polished its fulness, was as white as milk. One
thing only that she had not been able to remedy betrayed the courtesan
fallen very low: her broken nails, which needed time to recover their
shape, so much had they been spoiled by the vulgarest household tasks.
The young boarders began by being jealous of these marvels of
beauty, but they ended by admiring them. Before the first week was at
an end they were all attached to the artless Jewess, for they were
interested in the unknown misfortunes of a girl of eighteen who could
neither read nor write, to whom all knowledge and instruction were
new, and who was to earn for the Archbishop the triumph of having
converted a Jewess to Catholicism and giving the convent a festival in
her baptism. They forgave her beauty, finding themselves her superiors
in education.
Esther very soon caught the manners, the accent, the carriage and
attitudes of these highly-bred girls; in short, her first nature
reasserted itself. The change was so complete that on his first visit
Herrera was astonished as it would seem—and the Mother Superior
congratulated him on his ward. Never in their existence as teachers
had these sisters met with a more charming nature, more Christian
meekness, true modesty, nor a greater eagerness to learn. When a girl
has suffered such misery as had overwhelmed this poor child, and looks
forward to such a reward as the Spaniard held out to Esther, it is
hard if she does not realize the miracles of the early Church which
the Jesuits revived in Paraguay.
"She is edifying," said the Superior, kissing her on the brow.
And this essentially Catholic word tells all.
In recreation hours Esther would question her companions, but
discreetly, as to the simplest matters in fashionable life, which to
her were like the first strange ideas of life to a child. When she
heard that she was to be dressed in white on the day of her baptism
and first Communion, that she should wear a white satin fillet, white
bows, white shoes, white gloves, and white rosettes in her hair, she
melted into tears, to the amazement of her companions. It was the
reverse of the scene of Jephtha on the mountain. The courtesan was
afraid of being understood; she ascribed this dreadful dejection to
the joy with which she looked forward to the function. As there is
certainly as wide a gulf between the habits she had given up and the
habits she was acquiring as there is between the savage state and
civilization, she had the grace and simplicity and depth which
distinguished the wonderful heroine of the American Puritans. She had
too, without knowing it, a love that was eating out her heart—a
strange love, a desire more violent in her who knew everything than it
can be in a maiden who knows nothing, though the two forms of desire
have the same cause, and the same end in view.
During the first few months the novelty of a secluded life, the
surprises of learning, the handiworks she was taught, the practices of
religion, the fervency of a holy resolve, the gentle affections she
called forth, and the exercise of the faculties of her awakened
intelligence, all helped to repress her memory, even the effort she
made to acquire a new one, for she had as much to unlearn as to learn.
There is more than one form of memory: the body and mind have each
their own; home-sickness, for instance, is a malady of the physical
memory. Thus, during the third month, the vehemence of this virgin
soul, soaring to Paradise on outspread wings, was not indeed quelled,
but fettered by a dull rebellion, of which Esther herself did not know
the cause. Like the Scottish sheep, she wanted to pasture in solitude,
she could not conquer the instincts begotten of debauchery.
Was it that the foul ways of the Paris she had abjured were calling
her back to them? Did the chains of the hideous habits she had
renounced cling to her by forgotten rivets, and was she feeling them,
as old soldiers suffer still, the surgeons tell us, in the limbs they
have lost? Had vice and excess so soaked into her marrow that holy
waters had not yet exorcised the devil lurking there? Was the sight of
him for whom her angelic efforts were made, necessary to the poor
soul, whom God would surely forgive for mingling human and sacred
love? One had led to the other. Was there some transposition of the
vital force in her involving her in inevitable suffering? Everything
is doubtful and obscure in a case which science scorns to study,
regarding the subject as too immoral and too compromising, as if the
physician and the writer, the priest and the political student, were
not above all suspicion. However, a doctor who was stopped by death
had the courage to begin an investigation which he left unfinished.
Perhaps the dark depression to which Esther fell a victim, and
which cast a gloom over her happy life, was due to all these causes;
and perhaps, unable as she was to suspect them herself, she suffered
as sick creatures suffer who know nothing of medicine or surgery.
The fact is strange. Wholesome and abundant food in the place of
bad and inflammatory nourishment did not sustain Esther. A pure and
regular life, divided between recreation and studies intentionally
abridged, taking the place of a disorderly existence of which the
pleasures and the pains were equally horrible, exhausted the convent-
boarder. The coolest rest, the calmest nights, taking the place of
crushing fatigue and the most torturing agitation, gave her low fever,
in which the common symptoms were imperceptible to the nursing
Sister's eye or finger. In fact, virtue and happiness following on
evil and misfortune, security in the stead of anxiety, were as fatal
to Esther as her past wretchedness would have been to her young
companions. Planted in corruption, she had grown up in it. That
infernal home still had a hold on her, in spite of the commands of a
despotic will. What she loathed was life to her, what she loved was
killing her.
Her faith was so ardent that her piety was a delight to those about
her. She loved to pray. She had opened her spirit to the lights of
true religion, and received it without an effort or a doubt. The
priest who was her director was delighted with her. Still, at every
turn her body resisted the spirit.
To please a whim of Madame de Maintenon's, who fed them with scraps
from the royal table, some carp were taken out of a muddy pool and
placed in a marble basin of bright, clean water. The carp perished.
The animals might be sacrificed, but man could never infect them with
the leprosy of flattery. A courtier remarked at Versailles on this
mute resistance. "They are like me," said the uncrowned queen; "they
pine for their obscure mud."
This speech epitomizes Esther's story.
At times the poor girl was driven to run about the splendid convent
gardens; she hurried from tree to tree, she rushed into the darkest
nooks—seeking? What? She did not know, but she fell a prey to the
demon; she carried on a flirtation with the trees, she appealed to
them in unspoken words. Sometimes, in the evening, she stole along
under the walls, like a snake, without any shawl over her bare
shoulders. Often in chapel, during the service, she remained with her
eyes fixed on the Crucifix, melted to tears; the others admired her;
but she was crying with rage. Instead of the sacred images she hoped
to see, those glaring nights when she had led some orgy as Habeneck
leads a Beethoven symphony at the Conservatoire—nights of laughter
and lasciviousness, with vehement gestures, inextinguishable laughter,
rose before her, frenzied, furious, and brutal. She was as mild to
look upon as a virgin that clings to earth only by her woman's shape;
within raged an imperial Messalina.
She alone knew the secret of this struggle between the devil and
the angel. When the Superior reproved her for having done her hair
more fashionably than the rule of the House allowed, she altered it
with prompt and beautiful submission; she would have cut her hair off
if the Mother had required it of her. This moral home-sickness was
truly pathetic in a girl who would rather have perished than have
returned to the depths of impurity. She grew pale and altered and
thin. The Superior gave her shorter lessons, and called the
interesting creature to her room to question her. But Esther was
happy; she enjoyed the society of her companions; she felt no pain in
any vital part; still, it was vitality itself that was attacked. She
regretted nothing; she wanted nothing. The Superior, puzzled by her
boarder's answers, did not know what to think when she saw her pining
under consuming debility.
The doctor was called in when the girl's condition seemed serious;
but this doctor knew nothing of Esther's previous life, and could not
guess it; he found every organ sound, the pain could not be localized.
The invalid's replies were such as to upset every hypothesis. There
remained one way of clearing up the learned man's doubts, which now
lighted on a frightful suggestion; but Esther obstinately refused to
submit to a medical examination.
In this difficulty the Superior appealed to the Abbe Herrera. The
Spaniard came, saw that Esther's condition was desperate, and took the
physician aside for a moment. After this confidential interview, the
man of science told the man of faith that the only cure lay in a
journey to Italy. The Abbe would not hear of such a journey before
Esther's baptism and first Communion.
"How long will it be till then?" asked the doctor.
"A month," replied the Superior.
"She will be dead," said the doctor.
"Yes, but in a state of grace and salvation," said the Abbe.
In Spain the religious question is supreme, above all political,
civil, or vital considerations; so the physician did not answer the
Spaniard. He turned to the Mother Superior, but the terrible Abbe took
him by the arm and stopped him.
"Not a word, monsieur!" said he.
The doctor, though a religious man and a Monarchist, looked at
Esther with an expression of tender pity. The girl was as lovely as a
lily drooping on its stem.
"God help her, then!" he exclaimed as he went away.
On the very day of this consultation, Esther was taken by her
protector to the Rocher de Cancale, a famous restaurant, for his wish
to save her had suggested strange expedients to the priest. He tried
the effect of two excesses—an excellent dinner, which might remind
the poor child of past orgies; and the opera, which would give her
mind some images of worldliness. His despotic authority was needed to
tempt the young saint to such profanation. Herrera disguised himself
so effectually as a military man, that Esther hardly recognized him;
he took care to make his companion wear a veil, and put her in a box
where she was hidden from all eyes.
This palliative, which had no risks for innocence so sincerely
regained, soon lost its effect. The convent-boarder viewed her
protector's dinners with disgust, had a religious aversion for the
theatre, and relapsed into melancholy.
"She is dying of love for Lucien," said Herrera to himself; he had
wanted to sound the depths of this soul, and know how much could be
exacted from it.
So the moment came when the poor child was no longer upheld by
moral force, and the body was about to break down. The priest
calculated the time with the hideous practical sagacity formerly shown
by executioners in the art of torture. He found his protegee in the
garden, sitting on a bench under a trellis on which the April sun fell
gently; she seemed to be cold and trying to warm herself; her
companions looked with interest at her pallor as of a folded plant,
her eyes like those of a dying gazelle, her drooping attitude. Esther
rose and went to meet the Spaniard with a lassitude that showed how
little life there was in her, and, it may be added, how little care to
live. This hapless outcast, this wild and wounded swallow, moved
Carlos Herrera to compassion for the second time. The gloomy minister,
whom God should have employed only to carry out His revenges, received
the sick girl with a smile, which expressed, indeed, as much
bitterness as sweetness, as much vengeance as charity. Esther,
practised in meditation, and used to revulsions of feeling since she
had led this almost monastic life, felt on her part, for the second
time, distrust of her protector; but, as on the former occasion, his
speech reassured her.
"Well, my dear child," said he, "and why have you never spoken to
me of Lucien?"
"I promised you," she said, shuddering convulsively from head to
foot; "I swore to you that I would never breathe his name."
"And yet you have not ceased to think of him."
"That, monsieur, is the only fault I have committed. I think of him
always; and just as you came, I was saying his name to myself."
"Absence is killing you?"
Esther's only answer was to hang her head as the sick do who
already scent the breath of the grave.
"If you could see him——?" said he.
"It would be life!" she cried.
"And do you think of him only spiritually?"
"Ah, monsieur, love cannot be dissected!"
"Child of an accursed race! I have done everything to save you; I
send you back to your fate.—You shall see him again."
"Why insult my happiness? Can I not love Lucien and be virtuous? Am
I not ready to die here for virtue, as I should be ready to die for
him? Am I not dying for these two fanaticisms—for virtue, which was
to make me worthy of him, and for him who flung me into the embrace of
virtue? Yes, and ready to die without seeing him or to live by seeing
him. God is my Judge."
The color had mounted to her face, her whiteness had recovered its
amber warmth. Esther looked beautiful again.
"The day after that on which you are washed in the waters of
baptism you shall see Lucien once more; and if you think you can live
in virtue by living for him, you shall part no more."
The priest was obliged to lift up Esther, whose knees failed her;
the poor child dropped as if the ground had slipped from under her
feet. The Abbe seated her on a bench; and when she could speak again
she asked him:
"Why not to-day?"
"Do you want to rob Monseigneur of the triumph of your baptism and
conversion? You are too close to Lucien not to be far from God."
"Yes, I was not thinking——"
"You will never be of any religion," said the priest, with a touch
of the deepest irony.
"God is good," said she; "He can read my heart."
Conquered by the exquisite artlessness and gestures, Herrera kissed
her on the forehead for the first time.
"Your libertine friends named you well; you would bewitch God the
Father.—A few days more must pass, and then you will both be free."
"Both!" she echoed in an ecstasy of joy.
This scene, observed from a distance, struck pupils and superiors
alike; they fancied they had looked on at a miracle as they compared
Esther with herself. She was completely changed; she was alive. She
reappeared her natural self, all love, sweet, coquettish, playful, and
gay; in short, it was a resurrection.
Herrera lived in the Rue Cassette, near Saint-Sulpice, the church
to which he was attached. This building, hard and stern in style,
suited this Spaniard, whose discipline was that of the Dominicans. A
lost son of Ferdinand VII.'s astute policy, he devoted himself to the
cause of the constitution, knowing that this devotion could never be
rewarded till the restoration of the Rey netto. Carlos Herrera had
thrown himself body and soul into the Camarilla at the moment when the
Cortes seemed likely to stand and hold their own. To the world this
conduct seemed to proclaim a superior soul. The Duc d'Angouleme's
expedition had been carried out, King Ferdinand was on the throne, and
Carlos Herrera did not go to claim the reward of his services at
Madrid. Fortified against curiosity by his diplomatic taciturnity, he
assigned as his reason for remaining in Paris his strong affection for
Lucien de Rubempre, to which the young man already owed the King's
patent relating to his change of name.
Herrera lived very obscurely, as priests employed on secret
missions traditionally live. He fulfilled his religious duties at
Saint- Sulpice, never went out but on business, and then after dark,
and in a hackney cab. His day was filled up with a siesta in the
Spanish fashion, which arranges for sleep between the two chief meals,
and so occupies the hours when Paris is in a busy turmoil. The Spanish
cigar also played its part, and consumed time as well as tobacco.
Laziness is a mask as gravity is, and that again is laziness.
Herrera lived on the second floor in one wing of the house, and
Lucien occupied the other wing. The two apartments were separated and
joined by a large reception room of antique magnificence, suitable
equally to the grave priest and to the young poet. The courtyard was
gloomy; large, thick trees shaded the garden. Silence and reserve are
always found in the dwellings chosen by priests. Herrera's lodging may
be described in one word—a cell. Lucien's, splendid with luxury, and
furnished with every refinement of comfort, combined everything that
the elegant life of a dandy demands—a poet, a writer, ambitious and
dissipated, at once vain and vainglorious, utterly heedless, and yet
wishing for order, one of those incomplete geniuses who have some
power to wish, to conceive—which is perhaps the same thing—but no
power at all to execute.
These two, Lucien and Herrera, formed a body politic. This, no
doubt, was the secret of their union. Old men in whom the activities
of life have been uprooted and transplanted to the sphere of interest,
often feel the need of a pleasing instrument, a young and impassioned
actor, to carry out their schemes. Richelieu, too late, found a
handsome pale face with a young moustache to cast in the way of women
whom he wanted to amuse. Misunderstood by giddy-pated younger men, he
was compelled to banish his master's mother and terrify the Queen,
after having tried to make each fall in love with him, though he was
not cut out to be loved by queens.
Do what we will, always, in the course of an ambitious life, we
find a woman in the way just when we least expect such an obstacle.
However great a political man may be, he always needs a woman to set
against a woman, just as the Dutch use a diamond to cut a diamond.
Rome at the height of its power yielded to this necessity. And observe
how immeasurably more imposing was the life of Mazarin, the Italian
cardinal, than that of Richelieu, the French cardinal. Richelieu met
with opposition from the great nobles, and he applied the axe; he died
in the flower of his success, worn out by this duel, for which he had
only a Capuchin monk as his second. Mazarin was repulsed by the
citizen class and the nobility, armed allies who sometimes
victoriously put royalty to flight; but Anne of Austria's devoted
servant took off no heads, he succeeded in vanquishing the whole of
France, and trained Louis XIV., who completed Richelieu's work by
strangling the nobility with gilded cords in the grand Seraglio of
Versailles. Madame de Pompadour dead, Choiseul fell!
Had Herrera soaked his mind in these high doctrines? Had he judged
himself at an earlier age than Richelieu? Had he chosen Lucien to be
his Cinq-Mars, but a faithful Cinq-Mars? No one could answer these
questions or measure this Spaniard's ambition, as no one could foresee
what his end might be. These questions, asked by those who were able
to see anything of this coalition, which was long kept a secret, might
have unveiled a horrible mystery which Lucien himself had known but a
few days. Carlos was ambitious for two; that was what his conduct made
plain to those persons who knew him, and who all imagined that Lucien
was the priest's illegitimate son.
Fifteen months after Lucien's reappearance at the opera ball, which
led him too soon into a world where the priest had not wished to see
him till he should have fully armed him against it, he had three fine
horses in his stable, a coupe for evening use, a cab and a tilbury to
drive by day. He dined out every day. Herrera's foresight was
justified; his pupil was carried away by dissipation; he thought it
necessary to effect some diversion in the frenzied passion for Esther
that the young man still cherished in his heart. After spending
something like forty thousand francs, every folly had brought Lucien
back with increased eagerness to La Torpille; he searched for her
persistently; and as he could not find her, she became to him what
game is to the sportsman.
Could Herrera understand the nature of a poet's love?
When once this feeling has mounted to the brain of one of these
great little men, after firing his heart and absorbing his senses, the
poet becomes as far superior to humanity through love as he already is
through the power of his imagination. A freak of intellectual heredity
has given him the faculty of expressing nature by imagery, to which he
gives the stamp both of sentiment and of thought, and he lends his
love the wings of his spirit; he feels, and he paints, he acts and
meditates, he multiplies his sensations by thought, present felicity
becomes threefold through aspiration for the future and memory of the
past; and with it he mingles the exquisite delights of the soul, which
makes him the prince of artists. Then the poet's passion becomes a
fine poem in which human proportion is often set at nought. Does not
the poet then place his mistress far higher than women crave to sit?
Like the sublime Knight of la Mancha, he transfigures a peasant girl
to be a princess. He uses for his own behoof the wand with which he
touches everything, turning it into a wonder, and thus enhances the
pleasure of loving by the glorious glamour of the ideal.
Such a love is the very essence of passion. It is extreme in all
things, in its hopes, in its despair, in its rage, in its melancholy,
in its joy; it flies, it leaps, it crawls; it is not like any of the
emotions known to ordinary men; it is to everyday love what the
perennial Alpine torrent is to the lowland brook.
These splendid geniuses are so rarely understood that they spend
themselves in hopes deceived; they are exhausted by the search for
their ideal mistress, and almost always die like gorgeous insects
splendidly adorned for their love-festival by the most poetical of
nature's inventions, and crushed under the foot of a passer-by. But
there is another danger! When they meet with the form that answers to
their soul, and which not unfrequently is that of a baker's wife, they
do as Raphael did, as the beautiful insect does, they die in the
Fornarina's arms.
Lucien was at this pass. His poetical temperament, excessive in all
things, in good as in evil, had discerned the angel in this girl, who
was tainted by corruption rather than corrupt; he always saw her
white, winged, pure, and mysterious, as she had made herself for him,
understanding that he would have her so.
Towards the end of the month of May 1825 Lucien had lost all his
good spirits; he never went out, dined with Herrera, sat pensive,
worked, read volumes of diplomatic treatises, squatted Turkish-fashion
on a divan, and smoked three or four hookahs a day. His groom had more
to do in cleaning and perfuming the tubes of this noble pipe than in
currying and brushing down the horses' coats, and dressing them with
cockades for driving in the Bois. As soon as the Spaniard saw Lucien
pale, and detected a malady in the frenzy of suppressed passion, he
determined to read to the bottom of this man's heart on which he
founded his life.
One fine evening, when Lucien, lounging in an armchair, was
mechanically contemplating the hues of the setting sun through the
trees in the garden, blowing up the mist of scented smoke in slow,
regular clouds, as pensive smokers are wont, he was roused from his
reverie by hearing a deep sigh. He turned and saw the Abbe standing by
him with folded arms.
"You were there!" said the poet.
"For some time," said the priest, "my thoughts have been following
the wide sweep of yours." Lucien understood his meaning.
"I have never affected to have an iron nature such as yours is. To
me life is by turns paradise and hell; when by chance it is neither,
it bores me; and I am bored——"
"How can you be bored when you have such splendid prospects before
you?"
"If I have no faith in those prospects, or if they are too much
shrouded?"
"Do not talk nonsense," said the priest. "It would be far more
worthy of you and of me that you should open your heart to me. There
is now that between us which ought never to have come between us—a
secret. This secret has subsisted for sixteen months. You are in
love."
"And what then?"
"A foul hussy called La Torpille——"
"Well?"
"My boy, I told you you might have a mistress, but a woman of rank,
pretty, young, influential, a Countess at least. I had chosen Madame
d'Espard for you, to make her the instrument of your fortune without
scruple; for she would never have perverted your heart, she would have
left you free.—To love a prostitute of the lowest class when you have
not, like kings, the power to give her high rank, is a monstrous
blunder."
"And am I the first man who had renounced ambition to follow the
lead of a boundless passion?"
"Good!" said the priest, stooping to pick up the mouthpiece of the
hookah which Lucien had dropped on the floor. "I understand the
retort. Cannot love and ambition be reconciled? Child, you have a
mother in old Herrera—a mother who is wholly devoted to you——"
"I know it, old friend," said Lucien, taking his hand and shaking
it.
"You wished for the toys of wealth; you have them. You want to
shine; I am guiding you into the paths of power, I kiss very dirty
hands to secure your advancement, and you will get on. A little while
yet and you will lack nothing of what can charm man or woman. Though
effeminate in your caprices, your intellect is manly. I have dreamed
all things of you; I forgive you all. You have only to speak to have
your ephemeral passions gratified. I have aggrandized your life by
introducing into it that which makes it delightful to most people—the
stamp of political influence and dominion. You will be as great as you
now are small; but you must not break the machine by which we coin
money. I grant you all you will excepting such blunders as will
destroy your future prospects. When I can open the drawing-rooms of
the Faubourg Saint-Germain to you, I forbid your wallowing in the
gutter. Lucien, I mean to be an iron stanchion in your interest; I
will endure everything from you, for you. Thus I have transformed your
lack of tact in the game of life into the shrewd stroke of a skilful
player——"
Lucien looked up with a start of furious impetuosity.
"I carried off La Torpille!"
"You?" cried Lucien.
In a fit of animal rage the poet jumped up, flung the jeweled
mouthpiece in the priest's face, and pushed him with such violence as
to throw down that strong man.
"I," said the Spaniard, getting up and preserving his terrible
gravity.
His black wig had fallen off. A bald skull, as shining as a death's
head, showed the man's real countenance. It was appalling. Lucien sat
on his divan, his hands hanging limp, overpowered, and gazing at the
Abbe with stupefaction.
"I carried her off," the priest repeated.
"What did you do with her? You took her away the day after the
opera ball."
"Yes, the day after I had seen a woman who belonged to you insulted
by wretches whom I would not have condescended to kick downstairs."
"Wretches!" interrupted Lucien, "say rather monsters, compared with
whom those who are guillotined are angels. Do you know what the
unhappy Torpille had done for three of them? One of them was her lover
for two months. She was poor, and picked up a living in the gutter; he
had not a sou; like me, when you rescued me, he was very near the
river; this fellow would get up at night and go to the cupboard where
the girl kept the remains of her dinner and eat it. At last she
discovered the trick; she understood the shameful thing, and took care
to leave a great deal; then she was happy. She never told any one but
me, that night, coming home from the opera.
"The second had stolen some money; but before the theft was found
out, she lent him the sum, which he was enabled to replace, and which
he always forgot to repay to the poor child.
"As to the third, she made his fortune by playing out a farce
worthy of Figaro's genius. She passed as his wife and became the
mistress of a man in power, who believed her to be the most innocent
of good citizens. To one she gave life, to another honor, to the third
fortune —what does it all count for to-day? And this is how they
reward her!"
"Would you like to see them dead?" said Herrera, in whose eyes
there were tears.
"Come, that is just like you! I know you by that——"
"Nay, hear all, raving poet," said the priest. "La Torpille is no
more."
Lucien flew at Herrera to seize him by the throat, with such
violence that any other man must have fallen backwards; but the
Spaniard's arm held off his assailant.
"Come, listen," said he coldly. "I have made another woman of her,
chaste, pure, well bred, religious, a perfect lady. She is being
educated. She can, if she may, under the influence of your love,
become a Ninon, a Marion Delorme, a du Barry, as the journalist at the
opera ball remarked. You may proclaim her your mistress, or you may
retire behind a curtain of your own creating, which will be wiser. By
either method you will gain profit and pride, pleasure and
advancement; but if you are as great a politician as you are a poet,
Esther will be no more to you than any other woman of the town; for,
later, perhaps she may help us out of difficulties; she is worth her
weight in gold. Drink, but do not get tipsy.
"If I had not held the reins of your passion, where would you be
now? Rolling with La Torpille in the slough of misery from which I
dragged you. Here, read this," said Herrera, as simply as Talma in
Manlius, which he had never seen.
A sheet of paper was laid on the poet's knees, and startled him
from the ecstasy and surprise with which he had listened to this
astounding speech; he took it, and read the first letter written by
Mademoiselle Esther:—
To Monsieur l'Abbe Carlos Herrera.
"MY DEAR PROTECTOR,—Will you not suppose that gratitude is
stronger in me than love, when you see that the first use I make
of the power of expressing my thoughts is to thank you, instead
of
devoting it to pouring forth a passion that Lucien has perhaps
forgotten. But to you, divine man, I can say what I should not
dare to tell him, who, to my joy, still clings to earth.
"Yesterday's ceremony has filled me with treasures of grace, and I
place my fate in your hands. Even if I must die far away from my
beloved, I shall die purified like the Magdalen, and my soul will
become to him the rival of his guardian angel. Can I ever forget
yesterday's festival? How could I wish to abdicate the glorious
throne to which I was raised? Yesterday I washed away every stain
in the waters of baptism, and received the Sacred Body of my
Redeemer; I am become one of His tabernacles. At that moment I
heard the songs of angels, I was more than a woman, born to a
life
of light amid the acclamations of the whole earth, admired by the
world in a cloud of incense and prayers that were intoxicating,
adorned like a virgin for the Heavenly Spouse.
"Thus finding myself worthy of Lucien, which I had never hoped to
be, I abjured impure love and vowed to walk only in the paths of
virtue. If my flesh is weaker than my spirit, let it perish. Be
the arbiter of my destiny; and if I die, tell Lucien that I died
to him when I was born to God."
Lucien looked up at the Abbe with eyes full of tears.
"You know the rooms fat Caroline Bellefeuille had, in the Rue
Taitbout," the Spaniard said. "The poor creature, cast off by her
magistrate, was in the greatest poverty; she was about to be sold up.
I bought the place all standing, and she turned out with her clothes.
Esther, the angel who aspired to heaven, has alighted there, and is
waiting for you."
At this moment Lucien heard his horses pawing the ground in the
courtyard; he was incapable of expressing his admiration for a
devotion which he alone could appreciate; he threw himself into the
arms of the man he had insulted, made amends for all by a look and the
speechless effusion of his feelings. Then he flew downstairs, confided
Esther's address to his tiger's ear, and the horses went off as if
their master's passion had lived in their legs.
The next day a man, who by his dress might have been mistaken by
the passers-by for a gendarme in disguise, was passing the Rue
Taitbout, opposite a house, as if he were waiting for some one to come
out; he walked with an agitated air. You will often see in Paris such
vehement promenaders, real gendarmes watching a recalcitrant National
Guardsman, bailiffs taking steps to effect an arrest, creditors
planning a trick on the debtor who has shut himself in, lovers, or
jealous and suspicious husbands, or friends doing sentry for a friend;
but rarely do you meet a face portending such coarse and fierce
thoughts as animated that of the gloomy and powerful man who paced to
and fro under Mademoiselle Esther's windows with the brooding haste of
a bear in its cage.
At noon a window was opened, and a maid-servant's hand was put out
to push back the padded shutters. A few minutes later, Esther, in her
dressing-gown, came to breathe the air, leaning on Lucien; any one who
saw them might have taken them for the originals of some pretty
English vignette. Esther was the first to recognize the basilisk eyes
of the Spanish priest; and the poor creature, stricken as if she had
been shot, gave a cry of horror.
"There is that terrible priest," said she, pointing him out to
Lucien.
"He!" said Lucien, smiling, "he is no more a priest than you are."
"What then?" she said in alarm.
"Why, an old villain who believes in nothing but the devil," said
Lucien.
This light thrown on the sham priest's secrets, if revealed to any
one less devoted than Esther, might have ruined Lucien for ever.
As they went along the corridor from their bedroom to the
dining-room, where their breakfast was served, the lovers met Carlos
Herrera.
"What have you come here for?" said Lucien roughly.
"To bless you," replied the audacious scoundrel, stopping the pair
and detaining them in the little drawing-room of the apartment.
"Listen to me, my pretty dears. Amuse yourselves, be happy—well and
good! Happiness at any price is my motto.—But you," he went on to
Esther, "you whom I dragged from the mud, and have soaped down body
and soul, you surely do not dream that you can stand in Lucien's
way?—As for you, my boy," he went on after a pause, looking at
Lucien, "you are no longer poet enough to allow yourself another
Coralie. This is sober prose. What can be done with Esther's lover?
Nothing. Can Esther become Madame de Rubempre? No.
"Well, my child," said he, laying his hand on Esther's, and making
her shiver as if some serpent had wound itself round her, "the world
must never know of your existence. Above all, the world must never
know that a certain Mademoiselle Esther loves Lucien, and that Lucien
is in love with her.—These rooms are your prison, my pigeon. If you
wish to go out—and your health will require it—you must take
exercise at night, at hours when you cannot be seen; for your youth
and beauty, and the style you have acquired at the Convent, would at
once be observed in Paris. The day when any one in the world, whoever
it be," he added in an awful voice, seconded by an awful look, "learns
that Lucien is your lover, or that you are his mistress, that day will
be your last but one on earth. I have procured that boy a patent
permitting him to bear the name and arms of his maternal ancestors.
Still, this is not all; we have not yet recovered the title of
Marquis; and to get it, he must marry a girl of good family, in whose
favor the King will grant this distinction. Such an alliance will get
Lucien on in the world and at Court. This boy, of whom I have made a
man, will be first Secretary to an Embassy; later, he shall be
Minister at some German Court, and God, or I—better still—helping
him, he will take his seat some day on the bench reserved for
peers——"
"Or on the bench reserved for——" Lucien began, interrupting the
man.
"Hold your tongue!" cried Carlos, laying his broad hand on Lucien's
mouth. "Would you tell such a secret to a woman?" he muttered in his
ear.
"Esther! A woman!" cried the poet of Les Marguerites.
"Still inditing sonnets!" said the Spaniard. "Nonsense! Sooner or
later all these angels relapse into being women, and every woman at
moments is a mixture of a monkey and a child, two creatures who can
kill us for fun.—Esther, my jewel," said he to the terrified girl, "I
have secured as your waiting-maid a creature who is as much mine as if
she were my daughter. For your cook, you shall have a mulatto woman,
which gives style to a house. With Europe and Asie you can live here
for a thousand-franc note a month like a queen—a stage queen. Europe
has been a dressmaker, a milliner, and a stage super; Asie has cooked
for an epicure Milord. These two women will serve you like two
fairies."
Seeing Lucien go completely to the wall before this man, who was
guilty at least of sacrilege and forgery, this woman, sanctified by
her love, felt an awful fear in the depths of her heart. She made no
reply, but dragged Lucien into her room, and asked him:
"Is he the devil?"
"He is far worse to me!" he vehemently replied. "But if you love
me, try to imitate that man's devotion to me, and obey him on pain of
death!——"
"Of death!" she exclaimed, more frightened than ever.
"Of death," repeated Lucien. "Alas! my darling, no death could be
compared with that which would befall me if——"
Esther turned pale at his words, and felt herself fainting.
"Well, well," cried the sacrilegious forger, "have you not yet
spelt out your daisy-petals?"
Esther and Lucien came out, and the poor girl, not daring to look
at the mysterious man, said:
"You shall be obeyed as God is obeyed, monsieur."
"Good," said he. "You may be very happy for a time, and you will
need only nightgowns and wrappers—that will be very economical."
The two lovers went on towards the dining-room, but Lucien's patron
signed to the pretty pair to stop. And they stopped.
"I have just been talking of your servants, my child," said he to
Esther. "I must introduce them to you."
The Spaniard rang twice. The women he had called Europe and Asie
came in, and it was at once easy to see the reason of these names.
Asie, who looked as if she might have been born in the Island of
Java, showed a face to scare the eye, as flat as a board, with the
copper complexion peculiar to Malays, with a nose that looked as if it
had been driven inwards by some violent pressure. The strange
conformation of the maxillary bones gave the lower part of this face a
resemblance to that of the larger species of apes. The brow, though
sloping, was not deficient in intelligence produced by habits of
cunning. Two fierce little eyes had the calm fixity of a tiger's, but
they never looked you straight in the face. Asie seemed afraid lest
she might terrify people. Her lips, a dull blue, were parted over
prominent teeth of dazzling whiteness, but grown across. The leading
expression of this animal countenance was one of meanness. Her black
hair, straight and greasy-looking like her skin, lay in two shining
bands, forming an edge to a very handsome silk handkerchief. Her ears
were remarkably pretty, and graced with two large dark pearls. Small,
short, and squat, Asie bore a likeness to the grotesque figures the
Chinese love to paint on screens, or, more exactly, to the Hindoo
idols which seem to be imitated from some non-existent type, found,
nevertheless, now and again by travelers. Esther shuddered as she
looked at this monstrosity, dressed out in a white apron over a stuff
gown.
"Asie," said the Spaniard, to whom the woman looked up with a
gesture that can only be compared to that of a dog to its master,
"this is your mistress."
And he pointed to Esther in her wrapper.
Asie looked at the young fairy with an almost distressful
expression; but at the same moment a flash, half hidden between her
thick, short eyelashes, shot like an incendiary spark at Lucien, who,
in a magnificent dressing-gown thrown open over a fine Holland linen
shirt and red trousers, with a fez on his head, beneath which his fair
hair fell in thick curls, presented a godlike appearance.
Italian genius could invent the tale of Othello; English genius
could put it on the stage; but Nature alone reserves the power of
throwing into a single glance an expression of jealousy grander and
more complete than England and Italy together could imagine. This
look, seen by Esther, made her clutch the Spaniard by the arm, setting
her nails in it as a cat sets its claws to save itself from falling
into a gulf of which it cannot see the bottom.
The Spaniard spoke a few words, in some unfamiliar tongue, to the
Asiatic monster, who crept on her knees to Esther's feet and kissed
them.
"She is not merely a good cook," said Herrera to Esther; "she is a
past-master, and might make Careme mad with jealousy. Asie can do
everything by way of cooking. She will turn you out a simple dish of
beans that will make you wonder whether the angels have not come down
to add some herb from heaven. She will go to market herself every
morning, and fight like the devil she is to get things at the lowest
prices; she will tire out curiosity by silence.
"You are to be supposed to have been in India, and Asie will help
you to give effect to this fiction, for she is one of those Parisians
who are born to be of any nationality they please. But I do not advise
that you should give yourself out to be a foreigner.—Europe, what do
you say?"
Europe was a perfect contrast to Asie, for she was the smartest
waiting-maid that Monrose could have hoped to see as her rival on the
stage. Slight, with a scatter-brain manner, a face like a weasel, and
a sharp nose, Europe's features offered to the observer a countenance
worn by the corruption of Paris life, the unhealthy complexion of a
girl fed on raw apples, lymphatic but sinewy, soft but tenacious. One
little foot was set forward, her hands were in her apron-pockets, and
she fidgeted incessantly without moving, from sheer excess of
liveliness. Grisette and stage super, in spite of her youth she must
have tried many trades. As full of evil as a dozen Madelonnettes put
together, she might have robbed her parents, and sat on the bench of a
police-court.
Asie was terrifying, but you knew her thoroughly from the first;
she descended in a straight line from Locusta; while Europe filled you
with uneasiness, which could not fail to increase the more you had to
do with her; her corruption seemed boundless. You felt that she could
set the devils by the ears.
"Madame might say she had come from Valenciennes," said Europe in a
precise little voice. "I was born there—Perhaps monsieur," she added
to Lucien in a pedantic tone, "will be good enough to say what name he
proposes to give to madame?"
"Madame van Bogseck," the Spaniard put in, reversing Esther's name.
"Madame is a Jewess, a native of Holland, the widow of a merchant, and
suffering from a liver-complaint contracted in Java. No great fortune
—not to excite curiosity."
"Enough to live on—six thousand francs a year; and we shall
complain of her stinginess?" said Europe.
"That is the thing," said the Spaniard, with a bow. "You limbs of
Satan!" he went on, catching Asie and Europe exchanging a glance that
displeased him, "remember what I have told you. You are serving a
queen; you owe her as much respect as to a queen; you are to cherish
her as you would cherish a revenge, and be as devoted to her as to me.
Neither the door-porter, nor the neighbors, nor the other inhabitants
of the house—in short, not a soul on earth is to know what goes on
here. It is your business to balk curiosity if any should be roused.—
And madame," he went on laying his broad hairy hand on Esther's arm,
"madame must not commit the smallest imprudence; you must prevent it
in case of need, but always with perfect respect.
"You, Europe, are to go out for madame in anything that concerns
her dress, and you must do her sewing from motives of economy.
Finally, nobody, not even the most insignificant creature, is ever to
set foot in this apartment. You two, between you, must do all there is
to be done.
"And you, my beauty," he went on, speaking to Esther, "when you
want to go out in your carriage by night, you can tell Europe; she
will know where to find your men, for you will have a servant in
livery, of my choosing, like those two slaves."
Esther and Lucien had not a word ready. They listened to the
Spaniard, and looked at the two precious specimens to whom he gave his
orders. What was the secret hold to which he owed the submission and
servitude that were written on these two faces—one mischievously
recalcitrant, the other so malignantly cruel?
He read the thoughts of Lucien and Esther, who seemed paralyzed, as
Paul and Virginia might have been at the sight of two dreadful snakes,
and he said in a good-natured undertone:
"You can trust them as you can me; keep no secrets from them; that
will flatter them.—Go to your work, my little Asie," he added to the
cook.—"And you, my girl, lay another place," he said to Europe; "the
children cannot do less than ask papa to breakfast."
When the two women had shut the door, and the Spaniard could hear
Europe moving to and fro, he turned to Lucien and Esther, and opening
a wide palm, he said:
"I hold them in the hollow of my hand."
The words and gesture made his hearers shudder.
"Where did you pick them up?" cried Lucien.
"What the devil! I did not look for them at the foot of the
throne!" replied the man. "Europe has risen from the mire, and is
afraid of sinking into it again. Threaten them with Monsieur Abbe when
they do not please you, and you will see them quake like mice when the
cat is mentioned. I am used to taming wild beasts," he added with a
smile.
"You strike me as being a demon," said Esther, clinging closer to
Lucien.
"My child, I tried to win you to heaven; but a repentant Magdalen
is always a practical joke on the Church. If ever there were one, she
would relapse into the courtesan in Paradise. You have gained this
much: you are forgotten, and have acquired the manners of a lady, for
you learned in the convent what you never could have learned in the
ranks of infamy in which you were living.—You owe me nothing," said
he, observing a beautiful look of gratitude on Esther's face. "I did
it all for him," and he pointed to Lucien. "You are, you will always
be, you will die a prostitute; for in spite of the delightful theories
of cattle-breeders, you can never, here below, become anything but
what you are. The man who feels bumps is right. You have the bump of
love."
The Spaniard, it will be seen, was a fatalist, like Napoleon,
Mahomet, and many other great politicians. It is a strange thing that
most men of action have a tendency to fatalism, just as most great
thinkers have a tendency to believe in Providence.
"What I am, I do not know," said Esther with angelic sweetness;
"but I love Lucien, and shall die worshiping him."
"Come to breakfast," said the Spaniard sharply. "And pray to God
that Lucien may not marry too soon, for then you would never see him
again."
"His marriage would be my death," said she.
She allowed the sham priest to lead the way, that she might stand
on tiptoe and whisper to Lucien without being seen.
"Is it your wish," said she, "that I should remain in the power of
this man who sets two hyenas to guard me?"
Lucien bowed his head.
The poor child swallowed down her grief and affected gladness, but
she felt cruelly oppressed. It needed more than a year of constant and
devoted care before she was accustomed to these two dreadful creatures
whom Carlos Herrera called the two watch-dogs.
Lucien's conduct since his return to Paris had borne the stamp of
such profound policy that it excited—and could not fail to
excite—the jealousy of all his former friends, on whom he took no
vengeance but by making them furious at his success, at his exquisite
"get up," and his way of keeping every one at a distance. The poet,
once so communicative, so genial, had turned cold and reserved. De
Marsay, the model adopted by all the youth of Paris, did not make a
greater display of reticence in speech and deed than did Lucien. As to
brains, the journalist had ere now proved his mettle. De Marsay,
against whom many people chose to pit Lucien, giving a preference to
the poet, was small-minded enough to resent this.
Lucien, now in high favor with men who secretly pulled the wires of
power, was so completely indifferent to literary fame, that he did not
care about the success of his romance, republished under its real
title, L'Archer de Charles IX., or the excitement caused by his volume
of sonnets called Les Marguerites, of which Dauriat sold out the
edition in a week.
"It is posthumous fame," said he, with a laugh, to Mademoiselle des
Touches, who congratulated him.
The terrible Spaniard held his creature with an iron hand, keeping
him in the road towards the goal where the trumpets and gifts of
victory await patient politicians. Lucien had taken Beaudenord's
bachelor quarters on the Quai Malaquais, to be near the Rue Taitbout,
and his adviser was lodging under the same roof on the fourth floor.
Lucien kept only one horse to ride and drive, a man-servant, and a
groom. When he was not dining out, he dined with Esther.
Carlos Herrera kept such a keen eye on the service in the house on
the Quai Malaquais, that Lucien did not spend ten thousand francs a
year, all told. Ten thousand more were enough for Esther, thanks to
the unfailing and inexplicable devotion of Asie and Europe. Lucien
took the utmost precautions in going in and out at the Rue Taitbout.
He never came but in a cab, with the blinds down, and always drove
into the courtyard. Thus his passion for Esther and the very existence
of the establishment in the Rue Taitbout, being unknown to the world,
did him no harm in his connections or undertakings. No rash word ever
escaped him on this delicate subject. His mistakes of this sort with
regard to Coralie, at the time of his first stay in Paris, had given
him experience.
In the first place, his life was marked by the correct regularity
under which many mysteries can be hidden; he remained in society every
night till one in the morning; he was always at home from ten till one
in the afternoon; then he drove in the Bois de Boulogne and paid calls
till five. He was rarely seen to be on foot, and thus avoided old
acquaintances. When some journalist or one of his former associates
waved him a greeting, he responded with a bow, polite enough to avert
annoyance, but significant of such deep contempt as killed all French
geniality. He thus had very soon got rid of persons whom he would
rather never have known.
An old-established aversion kept him from going to see Madame
d'Espard, who often wished to get him to her house; but when he met
her at those of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, of Mademoiselle des
Touches, of the Comtesse de Montcornet or elsewhere, he was always
exquisitely polite to her. This hatred, fully reciprocated by Madame
d'Espard, compelled Lucien to act with prudence; but it will be seen
how he had added fuel to it by allowing himself a stroke of revenge,
which gained him indeed a severe lecture from Carlos.
"You are not yet strong enough to be revenged on any one, whoever
it may be," said the Spaniard. "When we are walking under a burning
sun we do not stop to gather even the finest flowers."
Lucien was so genuinely superior, and had so fine a future before
him, that the young men who chose to be offended or puzzled by his
return to Paris and his unaccountable good fortune were enchanted
whenever they could do him an ill turn. He knew that he had many
enemies, and was well aware of those hostile feelings among his
friends. The Abbe, indeed, took admirable care of his adopted son,
putting him on his guard against the treachery of the world and the
fatal imprudence of youth. Lucien was expected to tell, and did in
fact tell the Abbe each evening, every trivial incident of the day.
Thanks to his Mentor's advice, he put the keenest curiosity—the
curiosity of the world—off the scent. Entrenched in the gravity of an
Englishman, and fortified by the redoubts cast up by diplomatic
circumspection, he never gave any one the right or the opportunity of
seeing a corner even of his concerns. His handsome young face had, by
practice, become as expressionless in society as that of a princess at
a ceremonial.
Towards the middle of 1829 his marriage began to be talked of to
the eldest daughter of the Duchesse de Grandlieu, who at that time had
no less than four daughters to provide for. No one doubted that in
honor of such an alliance the King would revive for Lucien the title
of Marquis. This distinction would establish Lucien's fortune as a
diplomate, and he would probably be accredited as Minister to some
German Court. For the last three years Lucien's life had been regular
and above reproach; indeed, de Marsay had made this remarkable speech
about him:
"That young fellow must have a very strong hand behind him."
Thus Lucien was almost a person of importance. His passion for
Esther had, in fact, helped him greatly to play his part of a serious
man. A habit of this kind guards an ambitious man from many follies;
having no connection with any woman of fashion, he cannot be caught by
the reactions of mere physical nature on his moral sense.
As to happiness, Lucien's was the realization of a poet's dreams—a
penniless poet's, hungering in a garret. Esther, the ideal courtesan
in love, while she reminded Lucien of Coralie, the actress with whom
he had lived for a year, completely eclipsed her. Every loving and
devoted woman invents seclusion, incognito, the life of a pearl in the
depths of the sea; but to most of them this is no more than one of the
delightful whims which supply a subject for conversation; a proof of
love which they dream of giving, but do not give; whereas Esther, to
whom her first enchantment was ever new, who lived perpetually in the
glow of Lucien's first incendiary glance, never, in four yours, had an
impulse of curiosity. She gave her whole mind to the task of adhering
to the terms of the programme prescribed by the sinister Spaniard.
Nay, more! In the midst of intoxicating happiness she never took
unfair advantage of the unlimited power that the constantly revived
desire of a lover gives to the woman he loves to ask Lucien a single
question regarding Herrera, of whom indeed she lived in constant awe;
she dared not even think of him. The elaborate benefactions of that
extraordinary man, to whom Esther undoubtedly owed her feminine
accomplishment and her well-bred manner, struck the poor girl as
advances on account of hell.
"I shall have to pay for all this some day," she would tell herself
with dismay.
Every fine night she went out in a hired carriage. She was driven
with a rapidity no doubt insisted on by the Abbe, in one or another of
the beautiful woods round Paris, Boulogne, Vincennes, Romainville, or
Ville-d'Avray, often with Lucien, sometimes alone with Europe. There
she could walk about without fear; for when Lucien was not with her,
she was attended by a servant dressed like the smartest of outriders,
armed with a real knife, whose face and brawny build alike proclaimed
him a ruthless athlete. This protector was also provided, in the
fashion of English footmen, with a stick, but such as single-stick
players use, with which they can keep off more than one assailant. In
obedience to an order of the Abbe's, Esther had never spoken a word to
this escort. When madame wished to go home, Europe gave a call; the
man in waiting whistled to the driver, who was always within hearing.
When Lucien was walking with Esther, Europe and this man remained
about a hundred paces behind, like two of the infernal minions that
figure in the Thousand and One Nights, which enchanters place at the
service of their devotees.
The men, and yet more the women of Paris, know nothing of the charm
of a walk in the woods on a fine night. The stillness, the moonlight
effects, the solitude, have the soothing effect of a bath. Esther
usually went out at ten, walked about from midnight till one o'clock,
and came in at half-past two. It was never daylight in her rooms till
eleven. She then bathed and went through an elaborate toilet which is
unknown to most women, for it takes up too much time, and is rarely
carried out by any but courtesans, women of the town, or fine ladies
who have the day before them. She was only just ready when Lucien
came, and appeared before him as a newly opened flower. Her only care
was that her poet should be happy; she was his toy, his chattel; she
gave him entire liberty. She never cast a glance beyond the circle
where she shone. On this the Abbe had insisted, for it was part of his
profound policy that Lucien should have gallant adventures.
Happiness has no history, and the story-tellers of all lands have
understood this so well that the words, "They are happy," are the end
of every love tale. Hence only the ways and means can be recorded of
this really romantic happiness in the heart of Paris. It was happiness
in its loveliest form, a poem, a symphony, of four years' duration.
Every woman will exclaim, "That was much!" Neither Esther nor Lucien
had ever said, "This is too much!" And the formula, "They were happy,"
was more emphatically true, than even in a fairy tale, for "they had
NO children."
So Lucien could coquet with the world, give way to his poet's
caprices, and, it may be plainly admitted, to the necessities of his
position. All this time he was slowly making his way, and was able to
render secret service to certain political personages by helping them
in their work. In such matters he was eminently discreet. He
cultivated Madame de Serizy's circle, being, it was rumored, on the
very best terms with that lady. Madame de Serizy had carried him off
from the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, who, it was said, had "thrown him
over," one of the phrases by which women avenge themselves on
happiness they envy. Lucien was in the lap, so to speak, of the High
Almoner's set, and intimate with women who were the Archbishop's
personal friends. He was modest and reserved; he waited patiently. So
de Marsay's speech—de Marsay was now married, and made his wife live
as retired a life as Esther—was significant in more ways that one.
But the submarine perils of such a course as Lucien's will be
sufficiently obvious in the course of this chronicle.
Matters were in this position when, one fine night in August, the
Baron de Nucingen was driving back to Paris from the country residence
of a foreign banker, settled in France, with whom he had been dining.
The estate lay at eight leagues from Paris in the district of la Brie.
Now, the Baron's coachman having undertaken to drive his master there
and back with his own horses, at nightfall ventured to moderate the
pace.
As they entered the forest of Vincennes the position of beast, man,
and master was as follows:—The coachman, liberally soaked in the
kitchen of the aristocrat of the Bourse, was perfectly tipsy, and
slept soundly, while still holding the reins to deceive other
wayfarers. The footman, seated behind, was snoring like a wooden top
from Germany—the land of little carved figures, of large wine-vats,
and of humming-tops. The Baron had tried to think; but after passing
the bridge at Gournay, the soft somnolence of digestion had sealed his
eyes. The horses understood the coachman's plight from the slackness
of the reins; they heard the footman's basso continuo from his perch
behind; they saw that they were masters of the situation, and took
advantage of their few minutes' freedom to make their own pace. Like
intelligent slaves, they gave highway robbers the chance of plundering
one of the richest capitalists in France, the most deeply cunning of
the race which, in France, have been energetically styled lynxes—
loups-cerviers. Finally, being independent of control, and tempted by
the curiosity which every one must have remarked in domestic animals,
they stopped where four roads met, face to face with some other
horses, whom they, no doubt, asked in horses' language: "Who may you
be? What are you doing? Are you comfortable?"
When the chaise stopped, the Baron awoke from his nap. At first he
fancied that he was still in his friend's park; then he was startled
by a celestial vision, which found him unarmed with his usual weapon—
self-interest. The moonlight was brilliant; he could have read by it—
even an evening paper. In the silence of the forest, under this pure
light, the Baron saw a woman, alone, who, as she got into a hired
chaise, looked at the strange spectacle of this sleep-stricken
carriage. At the sight of this angel the Baron felt as though a light
had flashed into glory within him. The young lady, seeing herself
admired, pulled down her veil with terrified haste. The man-servant
gave a signal which the driver perfectly understood, for the vehicle
went off like an arrow.
The old banker was fearfully agitated; the blood left his feet cold
and carried fire to his brain, his head sent the flame back to his
heart; he was chocking. The unhappy man foresaw a fit of indigestion,
but in spite of that supreme terror he stood up.
"Follow qvick, fery qvick.—Tam you, you are ashleep!" he cried. "A
hundert franc if you catch up dat chaise."
At the words "A hundred francs," the coachman woke up. The servant
behind heard them, no doubt, in his dreams. The baron reiterated his
orders, the coachman urged the horses to a gallop, and at the Barriere
du Trone had succeeded in overtaking a carriage resembling that in
which Nucingen had seen the divine fair one, but which contained a
swaggering head-clerk from some first-class shop and a lady of the Rue
Vivienne.
This blunder filled the Baron with consternation.
"If only I had prought Chorge inshtead of you, shtupid fool, he
should have fount dat voman," said he to the servant, while the excise
officers were searching the carriage.
"Indeed, Monsieur le Baron, the devil was behind the chaise, I
believe, disguised as an armed escort, and he sent this chaise instead
of hers."
"Dere is no such ting as de Teufel," said the Baron.
The Baron de Nucingen owned to sixty; he no longer cared for women,
and for his wife least of all. He boasted that he had never known such
love as makes a fool of a man. He declared that he was happy to have
done with women; the most angelic of them, he frankly said, was not
worth what she cost, even if you got her for nothing. He was supposed
to be so entirely blase, that he no longer paid two thousand francs a
month for the pleasure of being deceived. His eyes looked coldly down
from his opera box on the corps de ballet; never a glance was shot at
the capitalist by any one of that formidable swarm of old young girls,
and young old women, the cream of Paris pleasure.
Natural love, artificial and love-of-show love, love based on self-
esteem and vanity, love as a display of taste, decent, conjugal love,
eccentric love—the Baron had paid for them all, had known them all
excepting real spontaneous love. This passion had now pounced down on
him like an eagle on its prey, as it did on Gentz, the confidential
friend of His Highness the Prince of Metternich. All the world knows
what follies the old diplomate committed for Fanny Elssler, whose
rehearsals took up a great deal more of his time than the concerns of
Europe.
The woman who had just overthrown that iron-bound money-box, called
Nucingen, had appeared to him as one of those who are unique in their
generation. It is not certain that Titian's mistress, or Leonardo da
Vinci's Monna Lisa, or Raphael's Fornarina were as beautiful as this
exquisite Esther, in whom not the most practised eye of the most
experienced Parisian could have detected the faintest trace of the
ordinary courtesan. The Baron was especially startled by the noble and
stately air, the air of a well-born woman, which Esther, beloved, and
lapped in luxury, elegance, and devotedness, had in the highest
degree. Happy love is the divine unction of women; it makes them all
as lofty as empresses.
For eight nights in succession the Baron went to the forest of
Vincennes, then to the Bois de Boulogne, to the woods of Ville-
d'Avray, to Meudon, in short, everywhere in the neighborhood of Paris,
but failed to meet Esther. That beautiful Jewish face, which he called
"a face out of te Biple," was always before his eyes. By the end of a
fortnight he had lost his appetite.
Delphine de Nucingen, and her daughter Augusta, whom the Baroness
was now taking out, did not at first perceive the change that had come
over the Baron. The mother and daughter only saw him at breakfast in
the morning and at dinner in the evening, when they all dined at home,
and this was only on the evenings when Delphine received company. But
by the end of two months, tortured by a fever of impatience, and in a
state like that produced by acute home-sickness, the Baron, amazed to
find his millions impotent, grew so thin, and seemed so seriously ill,
that Delphine had secret hopes of finding herself a widow. She pitied
her husband, somewhat hypocritically, and kept her daughter in
seclusion. She bored her husband with questions; he answered as
Englishmen answer when suffering from spleen, hardly a word.
Delphine de Nucingen gave a grand dinner every Sunday. She had
chosen that day for her receptions, after observing that no people of
fashion went to the play, and that the day was pretty generally an
open one. The emancipation of the shopkeeping and middle classes makes
Sunday almost as tiresome in Paris as it is deadly in London. So the
Baroness invited the famous Desplein to dinner, to consult him in
spite of the sick man, for Nucingen persisted in asserting that he was
perfectly well.
Keller, Rastignac, de Marsay, du Tillet, all their friends had made
the Baroness understand that a man like Nucingen could not be allowed
to die without any notice being taken of it; his enormous business
transactions demanded some care; it was absolutely necessary to know
where he stood. These gentlemen also were asked to dinner, and the
Comte de Gondreville, Francois Keller's father-in-law, the Chevalier
d'Espard, des Lupeaulx, Doctor Bianchon—Desplein's best beloved pupil
—Beaudenord and his wife, the Comte and Comtesse de Montcornet,
Blondet, Mademoiselle des Touches and Conti, and finally, Lucien de
Rubempre, for whom Rastignac had for the last five years manifested
the warmest regard—by order, as the advertisements have it.
"We shall not find it easy to get rid of that young fellow," said
Blondet to Rastignac, when he saw Lucien come in handsomer than ever,
and uncommonly well dressed.
"It is wiser to make friends with him, for he is formidable," said
Rastignac.
"He?" said de Marsay. "No one is formidable to my knowledge but men
whose position is assured, and his is unattacked rather than
attackable! Look here, what does he live on? Where does his money come
from? He has, I am certain, sixty thousand francs in debts."
"He has found a friend in a very rich Spanish priest who has taken
a fancy to him," replied Rastignac.
"He is going to be married to the eldest Mademoiselle de
Grandlieu," said Mademoiselle des Touches.
"Yes," said the Chevalier d'Espard, "but they require him to buy an
estate worth thirty thousand francs a year as security for the fortune
he is to settle on the young lady, and for that he needs a million
francs, which are not to be found in any Spaniard's shoes."
"That is dear, for Clotilde is very ugly," said the Baroness.
Madame de Nucingen affected to call Mademoiselle de Grandlieu by
her Christian name, as though she, nee Goriot, frequented that
society.
"No," replied du Tillet, "the daughter of a duchess is never ugly
to the like of us, especially when she brings with her the title of
Marquis and a diplomatic appointment. But the great obstacle to the
marriage is Madame de Serizy's insane passion for Lucien. She must
give him a great deal of money."
"Then I am not surprised at seeing Lucien so serious; for Madame de
Serizy will certainly not give him a million francs to help him to
marry Mademoiselle de Grandlieu. He probably sees no way out of the
scrape," said de Marsay.
"But Mademoiselle de Grandlieu worships him," said the Comtesse de
Montcornet; "and with the young person's assistance, he may perhaps
make better terms."
"And what will he do with his sister and brother-in-law at
Angouleme?" asked the Chevalier d'Espard.
"Well, his sister is rich," replied Rastignac, "and he now speaks
of her as Madame Sechard de Marsac."
"Whatever difficulties there may be, he is a very good-looking
fellow," said Bianchon, rising to greet Lucien.
"How 'do, my dear fellow?" said Rastignac, shaking hands warmly
with Lucien.
De Marsay bowed coldly after Lucien had first bowed to him.
Before dinner Desplein and Bianchon, who studied the Baron while
amusing him, convinced themselves that this malady was entirely
nervous; but neither could guess the cause, so impossible did it seem
that the great politician of the money market could be in love. When
Bianchon, seeing nothing but love to account for the banker's
condition, hinted as much to Delphine de Nucingen, she smiled as a
woman who has long known all her husband's weaknesses. After dinner,
however, when they all adjourned to the garden, the more intimate of
the party gathered round the banker, eager to clear up this
extraordinary case when they heard Bianchon pronounce that Nucingen
must be in love.
"Do you know, Baron," said de Marsay, "that you have grown very
thin? You are suspected of violating the laws of financial Nature."
"Ach, nefer!" said the Baron.
"Yes, yes," replied de Marsay. "They dare to say that you are in
love."
"Dat is true," replied Nucingen piteously; "I am in lof for
somebody I do not know."
"You, in love, you? You are a coxcomb!" said the Chevalier
d'Espard.
"In lof, at my aje! I know dat is too ridiculous. But vat can I
help it! Dat is so."
"A woman of the world?" asked Lucien.
"Nay," said de Marsay. "The Baron would not grow so thin but for a
hopeless love, and he has money enough to buy all the women who will
or can sell themselves!"
"I do not know who she it," said the Baron. "And as Motame de
Nucingen is inside de trawing-room, I may say so, dat till now I have
nefer known what it is to lof. Lof! I tink it is to grow tin."
"And where did you meet this innocent daisy?" asked Rastignac.
"In a carriage, at mitnight, in de forest of Fincennes."
"Describe her," said de Marsay.
"A vhite gaze hat, a rose gown, a vhite scharf, a vhite feil—a
face just out of de Biple. Eyes like Feuer, an Eastern color——"
"You were dreaming," said Lucien, with a smile.
"Dat is true; I vas shleeping like a pig—a pig mit his shkin
full," he added, "for I vas on my vay home from tinner at mine
friend's——"
"Was she alone?" said du Tillet, interrupting him.
"Ja," said the Baron dolefully; "but she had ein heiduque behind
dat carriage and a maid-shervant——"
"Lucien looks as if he knew her," exclaimed Rastignac, seeing
Esther's lover smile.
"Who doesn't know the woman who would go out at midnight to meet
Nucingen?" said Lucien, turning on his heel.
"Well, she is not a woman who is seen in society, or the Baron
would have recognized the man," said the Chevalier d'Espard.
"I have nefer seen him," replied the Baron. "And for forty days now
I have had her seeked for by de Police, and dey do not find her."
"It is better that she should cost you a few hundred francs than
cost you your life," said Desplein; "and, at your age, a passion
without hope is dangerous, you might die of it."
"Ja, ja," replied the Baron, addressing Desplein. "And vat I eat
does me no goot, de air I breade feels to choke me. I go to de forest
of Fincennes to see de place vat I see her—and dat is all my life. I
could not tink of de last loan—I trust to my partners vat haf pity on
me. I could pay one million franc to see dat voman—and I should gain
by dat, for I do nothing on de Bourse.—Ask du Tillet."
"Very true," replied du Tillet; "he hates business; he is quite
unlike himself; it is a sign of death."
"A sign of lof," replied Nucingen; "and for me, dat is all de same
ting."
The simple candor of the old man, no longer the stock-jobber, who,
for the first time in his life, saw that something was more sacred and
more precious than gold, really moved these world-hardened men; some
exchanged smiles; other looked at Nucingen with an expression that
plainly said, "Such a man to have come to this!"—And then they all
returned to the drawing-room, talking over the event.
For it was indeed an event calculated to produce the greatest
sensation. Madame de Nucingen went into fits of laughter when Lucien
betrayed her husband's secret; but the Baron, when he heard his wife's
sarcasms, took her by the arm and led her into the recess of a window.
"Motame," said he in an undertone, "have I ever laughed at all at
your passions, that you should laugh at mine? A goot frau should help
her husband out of his difficulty vidout making game of him like vat
you do."
From the description given by the old banker, Lucien had recognized
his Esther. Much annoyed that his smile should have been observed, he
took advantage of a moment when coffee was served, and the
conversation became general, to vanish from the scene.
"What has become of Monsieur de Rubempre?" said the Baroness.
"He is faithful to his motto: Quid me continebit?" said Rastignac.
"Which means, 'Who can detain me?' or 'I am unconquerable,' as you
choose," added de Marsay.
"Just as Monsieur le Baron was speaking of his unknown lady, Lucien
smiled in a way that makes me fancy he may know her," said Horace
Bianchon, not thinking how dangerous such a natural remark might be.
"Goot!" said the banker to himself.
Like all incurables, the Baron clutched at everything that seemed
at all hopeful; he promised himself that he would have Lucien watched
by some one besides Louchard and his men—Louchard, the sharpest
commercial detective in Paris—to whom he had applied about a
fortnight since.
"Before going home to Esther, Lucien was due at the Hotel
Grandlieu, to spend the two hours which made Mademoiselle Clotilde
Frederique de Grandlieu the happiest girl in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain. But the prudence characteristic of this ambitious youth
warned him to inform Carlos Herrera forthwith of the effect resulting
from the smile wrung from him by the Baron's description of Esther.
The banker's passion for Esther, and the idea that had occurred to him
of setting the police to seek the unknown beauty, were indeed events
of sufficient importance to be at once communicated to the man who had
sought, under a priest's robe, the shelter which criminals of old
could find in a church. And Lucien's road from the Rue Saint-Lazare,
where Nucingen at that time lived, to the Rue Saint-Dominique, where
was the Hotel Grandlieu, led him past his lodgings on the Quai
Malaquais.
Lucien found his formidable friend smoking his breviary—that is to
say, coloring a short pipe before retiring to bed. The man, strange
rather than foreign, had given up Spanish cigarettes, finding them too
mild.
"Matters look serious," said the Spaniard, when Lucien had told him
all. "The Baron, who employs Louchard to hunt up the girl, will
certainly be sharp enough to set a spy at your heels, and everything
will come out. To-night and to-morrow morning will not give me more
than enough time to pack the cards for the game I must play against
the Baron; first and foremost, I must prove to him that the police
cannot help him. When our lynx has given up all hope of finding his
ewe-lamb, I will undertake to sell her for all she is worth to
him——"
"Sell Esther!" cried Lucien, whose first impulse was always the
right one.
"Do you forget where we stand?" cried Carlos Herrera.
"No money left," the Spaniard went on, "and sixty thousand francs
of debts to be paid! If you want to marry Clotilde de Grandlieu, you
must invest a million of francs in land as security for that ugly
creature's settlement. Well, then, Esther is the quarry I mean to set
before that lynx to help us to ease him of that million. That is my
concern."
"Esther will never——"
"That is my concern."
"She will die of it."
"That is the undertaker's concern. Besides, what then?" cried the
savage, checking Lucien's lamentations merely by his attitude. "How
many generals died in the prime of life for the Emperor Napoleon?" he
asked, after a short silence. "There are always plenty of women. In
1821 Coralie was unique in your eyes; and yet you found Esther. After
her will come—do you know who?—the unknown fair. And she of all
women is the fairest, and you will find her in the capital where the
Duc de Grandlieu's son-in-law will be Minister and representative of
the King of France.—And do you tell me now, great Baby, that Esther
will die of it? Again, can Mademoiselle de Grandlieu's husband keep
Esther?
"You have only to leave everything to me; you need not take the
trouble to think at all; that is my concern. Only you must do without
Esther for a week or two; but go to the Rue Taitbout, all the same.—
Come, be off to bill and coo on your plank of salvation, and play your
part well; slip the flaming note you wrote this morning into
Clotilde's hand, and bring me back a warm response. She will
recompense herself for many woes in writing. I take to that girl.
"You will find Esther a little depressed, but tell her to obey. We
must display our livery of virtue, our doublet of honesty, the screen
behind which all great men hide their infamy.—I must show off my
handsomer self—you must never be suspected. Chance has served us
better than my brain, which has been beating about in a void for these
two months past."
All the while he was jerking out these dreadful sentences, one by
one, like pistol shots, Carlos Herrera was dressing himself to go out.
"You are evidently delighted," cried Lucien. "You never liked poor
Esther, and you look forward with joy to the moment when you will be
rid of her."
"You have never tired of loving her, have you? Well, I have never
tired of detesting her. But have I not always behaved as though I were
sincerely attached to the hussy—I, who, through Asie, hold her life
in my hands? A few bad mushrooms in a stew—and there an end. But
Mademoiselle Esther still lives!—and is happy!—And do you know why?
Because you love her. Do not be a fool. For four years we have been
waiting for a chance to turn up, for us or against us; well, it will
take something more than mere cleverness to wash the cabbage luck has
flung at us now. There are good and bad together in this turn of the
wheel—as there are in everything. Do you know what I was thinking of
when you came in?"
"No."
"Of making myself heir here, as I did at Barcelona, to an old
bigot, by Asie's help."
"A crime?"
"I saw no other way of securing your fortune. The creditors are
making a stir. If once the bailiffs were at your heels, and you were
turned out of the Hotel Grandlieu, where would you be? There would be
the devil to pay then."
And Carlos Herrera, by a pantomimic gesture, showed the suicide of
a man throwing himself into the water; then he fixed on Lucien one of
those steady, piercing looks by which the will of a strong man is
injected, so to speak, into a weak one. This fascinating glare, which
relaxed all Lucien's fibres of resistance, revealed the existence not
merely of secrets of life and death between him and his adviser, but
also of feelings as far above ordinary feeling as the man himself was
above his vile position.
Carlos Herrera, a man at once ignoble and magnanimous, obscure and
famous, compelled to live out of the world from which the law had
banned him, exhausted by vice and by frenzied and terrible struggles,
though endowed with powers of mind that ate into his soul, consumed
especially by a fever of vitality, now lived again in the elegant
person of Lucien de Rubempre, whose soul had become his own. He was
represented in social life by the poet, to whom he lent his tenacity
and iron will. To him Lucien was more than a son, more than a woman
beloved, more than a family, more than his life; he was his revenge;
and as souls cling more closely to a feeling than to existence, he had
bound the young man to him by insoluble ties.
After rescuing Lucien's life at the moment when the poet in
desperation was on the verge of suicide, he had proposed to him one of
those infernal bargains which are heard of only in romances, but of
which the hideous possibility has often been proved in courts of
justice by celebrated criminal dramas. While lavishing on Lucien all
the delights of Paris life, and proving to him that he yet had a great
future before him, he had made him his chattel.
But, indeed, no sacrifice was too great for this strange man when
it was to gratify his second self. With all his strength, he was so
weak to this creature of his making that he had even told him all his
secrets. Perhaps this abstract complicity was a bond the more between
them.
Since the day when La Torpille had been snatched away, Lucien had
known on what a vile foundation his good fortune rested. That priest's
robe covered Jacques Collin, a man famous on the hulks, who ten years
since had lived under the homely name of Vautrin in the Maison
Vauquer, where Rastignac and Bianchon were at that time boarders.
Jacques Collin, known as Trompe-la-Mort, had escaped from Rochefort
almost as soon as he was recaptured, profiting by the example of the
famous Comte de Sainte-Helene, while modifying all that was ill
planned in Coignard's daring scheme. To take the place of an honest
man and carry on the convict's career is a proposition of which the
two terms are too contradictory for a disastrous outcome not to be
inevitable, especially in Paris; for, by establishing himself in a
family, a convict multiplies tenfold the perils of such a
substitution. And to be safe from all investigation, must not a man
assume a position far above the ordinary interests of life. A man of
the world is subject to risks such as rarely trouble those who have no
contact with the world; hence the priest's gown is the safest disguise
when it can be authenticated by an exemplary life in solitude and
inactivity.
"So a priest I will be," said the legally dead man, who was quite
determined to resuscitate as a figure in the world, and to satisfy
passions as strange as himself.
The civil war caused by the Constitution of 1812 in Spain, whither
this energetic man had betaken himself, enabled him to murder secretly
the real Carlos Herrera from an ambush. This ecclesiastic, the bastard
son of a grandee, long since deserted by his father, and not knowing
to what woman he owed his birth, was intrusted by King Ferdinand VII.,
to whom a bishop had recommended him, with a political mission to
France. The bishop, the only man who took any interest in Carlos
Herrera, died while this foundling son of the Church was on his
journey from Cadiz to Madrid, and from Madrid to France. Delighted to
have met with this longed-for opportunity, and under the most
desirable conditions, Jacques Collin scored his back to efface the
fatal letters, and altered his complexion by the use of chemicals.
Thus metamorphosing himself face to face with the corpse, he contrived
to achieve some likeness to his Sosia. And to complete a change almost
as marvelous as that related in the Arabian tale, where a dervish has
acquired the power, old as he is, of entering into a young body, by a
magic spell, the convict, who spoke Spanish, learned as much Latin as
an Andalusian priest need know.
As banker to three hulks, Collin was rich in the cash intrusted to
his known, and indeed enforced, honesty. Among such company a mistake
is paid for by a dagger thrust. To this capital he now added the money
given by the bishop to Don Carlos Herrera. Then, before leaving Spain,
he was able to possess himself of the treasure of an old bigot at
Barcelona, to whom he gave absolution, promising that he would make
restitution of the money constituting her fortune, which his penitent
had stolen by means of murder.
Jacques Collin, now a priest, and charged with a secret mission
which would secure him the most brilliant introductions in Paris,
determined to do nothing that might compromise the character he had
assumed, and had given himself up to the chances of his new life, when
he met Lucien on the road between Angouleme and Paris. In this youth
the sham priest saw a wonderful instrument for power; he saved him
from suicide saying:
"Give yourself over to me as to a man of God, as men give
themselves over to the devil, and you will have every chance of a new
career. You will live as in a dream, and the worst awakening that can
come to you will be death, which you now wish to meet."
The alliance between these two beings, who were to become one, as
it were, was based on this substantial reasoning, and Carlos Herrera
cemented it by an ingeniously plotted complicity. He had the very
genius of corruption, and undermined Lucien's honesty by plunging him
into cruel necessity, and extricating him by obtaining his tacit
consent to bad or disgraceful actions, which nevertheless left him
pure, loyal, and noble in the eyes of the world. Lucien was the social
magnificence under whose shadow the forger meant to live.
"I am the author, you are the play; if you fail, it is I who shall
be hissed," said he on the day when he confessed his sacrilegious
disguise.
Carlos prudently confessed only a little at a time, measuring the
horrors of his revelations by Lucien's progress and needs. Thus
Trompe-la-Mort did not let out his last secret till the habit of
Parisian pleasures and success, and gratified vanity, had enslaved the
weak-minded poet body and soul. Where Rastignac, when tempted by this
demon, had stood firm, Lucien, better managed, and more ingeniously
compromised, succumbed, conquered especially by his satisfaction in
having attained an eminent position. Incarnate evil, whose poetical
embodiment is called the Devil, displayed every delightful seduction
before this youth, who was half a woman, and at first gave much and
asked for little. The great argument used by Carlos was the eternal
secret promised by Tartufe to Elmire.
The repeated proofs of absolute devotion, such as that of Said to
Mahomet, put the finishing touch to the horrible achievement of
Lucien's subjugation by a Jacques Collin.
At this moment not only had Esther and Lucien devoured all the
funds intrusted to the honesty of the banker of the hulks, who, for
their sakes, had rendered himself liable to a dreadful calling to
account, but the dandy, the forger, and the courtesan were also in
debt. Thus, as the very moment of Lucien's expected success, the
smallest pebble under the foot of either of these three persons might
involve the ruin of the fantastic structure of fortune so audaciously
built up.
At the opera ball Rastignac had recognized the man he had known as
Vautrin at Madame Vauquer's; but he knew that if he did not hold his
tongue, he was a dead man. So Madame de Nucingen's lover and Lucien
had exchanged glances in which fear lurked, on both sides, under an
expression of amity. In the moment of danger, Rastignac, it is clear,
would have been delighted to provide the vehicle that should convey
Jacques Collin to the scaffold. From all this it may be understood
that Carlos heard of the Baron's passion with a glow of sombre
satisfaction, while he perceived in a single flash all the advantage a
man of his temper might derive by means of a hapless Esther.
"Go on," said he to Lucien. "The Devil is mindful of his chaplain."
"You are smoking on a powder barrel."
"Incedo per ignes," replied Carlos with a smile. "That is my
trade."
The House of Grandlieu divided into two branches about the middle
of the last century: first, the ducal line destined to lapse, since
the present duke has only daughters; and then the Vicomtes de
Grandlieu, who will now inherit the title and armorial bearings of the
elder branch. The ducal house bears gules, three broad axes or in
fess, with the famous motto: Caveo non timeo, which epitomizes the
history of the family.
The coat of the Vicomtes de Grandlieu is the same quartered with
that of Navarreins: gules, a fess crenelated or, surmounted by a
knight's helmet, with the motto: Grands faits, grand lieu. The present
Viscountess, widowed in 1813, has a son and a daughter. Though she
returned from the Emigration almost ruined, she recovered a
considerable fortune by the zealous aid of Derville the lawyer.
The Duc and Duchesse de Grandlieu, on coming home in 1804, were the
object of the Emperor's advances; indeed, Napoleon, seeing them come
to his court, restored to them all of the Grandlieu estates that had
been confiscated to the nation, to the amount of about forty thousand
francs a year. Of all the great nobles of the Faubourg Saint-Germain
who allowed themselves to be won over by Napoleon, this Duke and
Duchess—she was an Ajuda of the senior branch, and connected with the
Braganzas—were the only family who afterwards never disowned him and
his liberality. When the Faubourg Saint-Germain remembered this as a
crime against the Grandlieus, Louis XVIII. respected them for it; but
perhaps his only object was to annoy MONSIEUR.
A marriage was considered likely between the young Vicomte de
Grandlieu and Marie-Athenais, the Duke's youngest daughter, now nine
years old. Sabine, the youngest but one, married the Baron du Guenic
after the revolution of July 1830; Josephine, the third, became Madame
d'Ajuda-Pinto after the death of the Marquis' first wife, Mademoiselle
de Rochefide, or Rochegude. The eldest had taken the veil in 1822. The
second, Mademoiselle Clotilde Frederique, at this time seven-and-
twenty years of age, was deeply in love with Lucien de Rubempre. It
need not be asked whether the Duc de Grandlieu's mansion, one of the
finest in the Rue Saint-Dominique, did not exert a thousand spells
over Lucien's imagination. Every time the heavy gate turned on its
hinges to admit his cab, he experienced the gratified vanity to which
Mirabeau confessed.
"Though my father was a mere druggist at l'Houmeau, I may enter
here!" This was his thought.
And, indeed, he would have committed far worse crimes than allying
himself with a forger to preserve his right to mount the steps of that
entrance, to hear himself announced, "Monsieur de Rubempre" at the
door of the fine Louis XIV. drawing-room, decorated in the time of the
grand monarque on the pattern of those at Versailles, where that
choicest circle met, that cream of Paris society, called then le petit
chateau.
The noble Portuguese lady, one of those who never care to go out of
their own home, was usually the centre of her neighbors' attentions—
the Chaulieus, the Navarreins, the Lenoncourts. The pretty Baronne de
Macumer—nee de Chaulieu—the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, Madame
d'Espard, Madame de Camps, and Mademoiselle des Touches—a connection
of the Grandlieus, who are a Breton family—were frequent visitors on
their way to a ball or on their return from the opera. The Vicomte de
Grandlieu, the Duc de Rhetore, the Marquis de Chaulieu—afterwards Duc
de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu—his wife, Madeleine de Mortsauf, the Duc de
Lenoncourt's grand-daughter, the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto, the Prince de
Blamont-Chauvry, the Marquis de Beauseant, the Vidame de Pamiers, the
Vandenesses, the old Prince de Cadignan, and his son the Duc de
Maufrigneuse, were constantly to be seen in this stately drawing-room,
where they breathed the atmosphere of a Court, where manners, tone,
and wit were in harmony with the dignity of the Master and Mistress
whose aristocratic mien and magnificence had obliterated the memory of
their servility to Napoleon.
The old Duchesse d'Uxelles, mother of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse,
was the oracle of this circle, to which Madame de Serizy had never
gained admittance, though nee de Ronquerolles.
Lucien was brought thither by Madame de Maufrigneuse, who had won
over her mother to speak in his favor, for she had doted on him for
two years; and the engaging young poet had kept his footing there,
thanks to the influence of the high Almoner of France, and the support
of the Archbishop of Paris. Still, he had not been admitted till he
had obtained the patent restoring to him the name and arms of the
Rubempre family. The Duc de Rhetore, the Chevalier d'Espard, and some
others, jealous of Lucien, periodically stirred up the Duc de
Grandlieu's prejudices against him by retailing anecdotes of the young
man's previous career; but the Duchess, a devout Catholic surrounded
by the great prelates of the Church, and her daughter Clotilde would
not give him up.
Lucien accounted for these hostilities by his connection with
Madame de Bargeton, Madame d'Espard's cousin, and now Comtesse du
Chatelet. Then, feeling the importance of allying himself to so
powerful a family, and urged by his privy adviser to win Clotilde,
Lucien found the courage of the parvenu; he came to the house five
days in the week, he swallowed all the affronts of the envious, he
endured impertinent looks, and answered irony with wit. His
persistency, the charm of his manners, and his amiability, at last
neutralized opposition and reduced obstacles. He was still in the
highest favor with Madame de Maufrigneuse, whose ardent letters,
written under the influence of her passion, were preserved by Carlos
Herrera; he was idolized by Madame de Serizy, and stood well in
Mademoiselle des Touches' good graces; and well content with being
received in these houses, Lucien was instructed by the Abbe to be as
reserved as possible in all other quarters.
"You cannot devote yourself to several houses at once," said his
Mentor. "The man who goes everywhere finds no one to take a lively
interest in him. Great folks only patronize those who emulate their
furniture, whom they see every day, and who have the art of becoming
as necessary to them as the seat they sit on."
Thus Lucien, accustomed to regard the Grandlieus' drawing-room as
his arena, reserved his wit, his jests, his news, and his courtier's
graces for the hours he spent there every evening. Insinuating,
tactful, and warned by Clotilde of the shoals he should avoid, he
flattered Monsieur de Grandlieu's little weaknesses. Clotilde, having
begun by envying Madame de Maufrigneuse her happiness, ended by
falling desperately in love with Lucien.
Perceiving all the advantages of such a connection, Lucien played
his lover's part as well as it could have been acted by Armand, the
latest jeune premier at the Comedie Francaise.
He wrote to Clotilde, letters which were certainly masterpieces of
literary workmanship; and Clotilde replied, vying with him in genius
in the expression of perfervid love on paper, for she had no other
outlet. Lucien went to church at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin every Sunday,
giving himself out as a devout Catholic, and he poured forth
monarchical and pious harangues which were a marvel to all. He also
wrote some exceedingly remarkable articles in papers devoted to the
"Congregation," refusing to be paid for them, and signing them only
with an "L." He produced political pamphlets when required by King
Charles X. or the High Almoner, and for these he would take no
payment.
"The King," he would say, "has done so much for me, that I owe him
my blood."
For some days past there had been an idea of attaching Lucien to
the prime minister's cabinet as his private secretary; but Madame
d'Espard brought so many persons into the field in opposition to
Lucien, that Charles X.'s Maitre Jacques hesitated to clinch the
matter. Nor was Lucien's position by any means clear; not only did the
question, "What does he live on?" on everybody's lips as the young man
rose in life, require an answer, but even benevolent curiosity—as
much as malevolent curiosity—went on from one inquiry to another, and
found more than one joint in the ambitious youth's harness.
Clotilde de Grandlieu unconsciously served as a spy for her father
and mother. A few days since she had led Lucien into a recess and told
him of the difficulties raised by her family.
"Invest a million francs in land, and my hand is yours: that is my
mother's ultimatum," Clotilde had explained.
"And presently they will ask you where you got the money," said
Carlos, when Lucien reported this last word in the bargain.
"My brother-in-law will have made his fortune," remarked Lucien;
"we can make him the responsible backer."
"Then only the million is needed," said Carlos. "I will think it
over."
To be exact as to Lucien's position in the Hotel Grandlieu, he had
never dined there. Neither Clotilde, nor the Duchesse d'Uxelles, nor
Madame de Maufrigneuse, who was always extremely kind to Lucien, could
ever obtain this favor from the Duke, so persistently suspicious was
the old nobleman of the man that he designated as "le Sire de
Rubempre." This shade of distinction, understood by every one who
visited at the house, constantly wounded Lucien's self-respect, for he
felt that he was no more than tolerated. But the world is justified in
being suspicious; it is so often taken in!
To cut a figure in Paris with no known source of wealth and no
recognized employment is a position which can by no artifice be long
maintained. So Lucien, as he crept up in the world, gave more and more
weight to the question, "What does he live on?" He had been obliged
indeed to confess to Madame de Serizy, to whom he owed the patronage
of Monsieur Granville, the Public Prosecutor, and of the Comte Octave
de Bauvan, a Minister of State, and President of one of the Supreme
Courts: "I am dreadfully in debt."
As he entered the courtyard of the mansion where he found an excuse
for all his vanities, he was saying to himself as he reflected on
Trompe-la-Mort's scheming:
"I can hear the ground cracking under my feet!"
He loved Esther, and he wanted to marry Mademoiselle de Grandlieu!
A strange dilemma! One must be sold to buy the other.
Only one person could effect this bargain without damage to
Lucien's honor, and that was the supposed Spaniard. Were they not
bound to be equally secret, each for the other? Such a compact, in
which each is in turn master and slave, is not to be found twice in
any one life.
Lucien drove away the clouds that darkened his brow, and walked
into the Grandlieu drawing-room gay and beaming. At this moment the
windows were open, the fragrance from the garden scented the room, the
flower- basket in the centre displayed its pyramid of flowers. The
Duchess, seated on a sofa in the corner, was talking to the Duchesse
de Chaulieu. Several women together formed a group remarkable for
their various attitudes, stamped with the different expression which
each strove to give to an affected sorrow. In the fashionable world
nobody takes any interest in grief or suffering; everything is talk.
The men were walking up and down the room or in the garden. Clotilde
and Josephine were busy at the tea-table. The Vidame de Pamiers, the
Duc de Grandlieu, the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto, and the Duc de
Maufrigneuse were playing Wisk, as they called it, in a corner of the
room.
When Lucien was announced he walked across the room to make his bow
to the Duchess, asking the cause of the grief he could read in her
face.
"Madame de Chaulieu has just had dreadful news; her son-in-law, the
Baron de Macumer, ex-duke of Soria, is just dead. The young Duc de
Soria and his wife, who had gone to Chantepleurs to nurse their
brother, have written this sad intelligence. Louise is heart-broken."
"A women is not loved twice in her life as Louise was loved by her
husband," said Madeleine de Mortsauf.
"She will be a rich widow," observed the old Duchesse d'Uxelles,
looking at Lucien, whose face showed no change of expression.
"Poor Louise!" said Madame d'Espard. "I understand her and pity
her."
The Marquise d'Espard put on the pensive look of a woman full of
soul and feeling. Sabine de Grandlieu, who was but ten years old,
raised knowing eyes to her mother's face, but the satirical glance was
repressed by a glance from the Duchess. This is bringing children up
properly.
"If my daughter lives through the shock," said Madame de Chaulieu,
with a very maternal manner, "I shall be anxious about her future
life. Louise is so very romantic."
"It is so difficult nowadays," said a venerable Cardinal, "to
reconcile feeling with the proprieties."
Lucien, who had not a word to say, went to the tea-table to do what
was polite to the demoiselles de Grandlieu. When the poet had gone a
few yards away, the Marquise d'Espard leaned over to whisper in the
Duchess' ear:
"And do you really think that that young fellow is so much in love
with your Clotilde?"
The perfidy of this question cannot be fully understood but with
the help of a sketch of Clotilde. That young lady was, at this moment,
standing up. Her attitude allowed the Marquise d'Espard's mocking eye
to take in Clotilde's lean, narrow figure, exactly like an asparagus
stalk; the poor girl's bust was so flat that it did not allow of the
artifice known to dressmakers as fichus menteurs, or padded
habitshirts. And Clotilde, who knew that her name was a sufficient
advantage in life, far from trying to conceal this defect, heroically
made a display of it. By wearing plain, tight dresses she achieved the
effect of that stiff prim shape which medieval sculptors succeeded in
giving to the statuettes whose profiles are conspicuous against the
background of the niches in which they stand in cathedrals.
Clotilde was more than five feet four in height; if we may be
allowed to use a familiar phrase, which has the merit at any rate of
being perfectly intelligible—she was all legs. These defective
proportions gave her figure an almost deformed appearance. With a dark
complexion, harsh black hair, very thick eyebrows, fiery eyes, set in
sockets that were already deeply discolored, a side face shaped like
the moon in its first quarter, and a prominent brow, she was the
caricature of her mother, one of the handsomest women in Portugal.
Nature amuses herself with such tricks. Often we see in one family a
sister of wonderful beauty, whose features in her brother are
absolutely hideous, though the two are amazingly alike. Clotilde's
lips, excessively thin and sunken, wore a permanent expression of
disdain. And yet her mouth, better than any other feature of her face,
revealed every secret impulse of her heart, for affection lent it a
sweet expression, which was all the more remarkable because her cheeks
were too sallow for blushes, and her hard, black eyes never told
anything. Notwithstanding these defects, notwithstanding her
board-like carriage, she had by birth and education a grand air, a
proud demeanor, in short, everything that has been well named le je ne
sais quoi, due partly, perhaps, to her uncompromising simplicity of
dress, which stamped her as a woman of noble blood. She dressed her
hair to advantage, and it might be accounted to her for a beauty, for
it grew vigorously, thick and long.
She had cultivated her voice, and it could cast a spell; she sang
exquisitely. Clotilde was just the woman of whom one says, "She has
fine eyes," or, "She has a delightful temper." If any one addressed
her in the English fashion as "Your Grace," she would say, "You mean
'Your leanness.' "
"Why should not my poor Clotilde have a lover?" replied the Duchess
to the Marquise. "Do you know what she said to me yesterday? 'If I am
loved for ambition's sake, I undertake to make him love me for my own
sake.'—She is clever and ambitious, and there are men who like those
two qualities. As for him—my dear, he is as handsome as a vision; and
if he can but repurchase the Rubempre estates, out of regard for us
the King will reinstate him in the title of Marquis.—After all, his
mother was the last of the Rubempres."
"Poor fellow! where is he to find a million francs?" said the
Marquise.
"That is no concern of ours," replied the Duchess. "He is certainly
incapable of stealing the money.—Besides, we would never give
Clotilde to an intriguing or dishonest man even if he were handsome,
young, and a poet, like Monsieur de Rubempre."
"You are late this evening," said Clotilde, smiling at Lucien with
infinite graciousness.
"Yes, I have been dining out."
"You have been quite gay these last few days," said she, concealing
her jealousy and anxiety behind a smile.
"Quite gay?" replied Lucien. "No—only by the merest chance I have
been dining every day this week with bankers; to-day with the
Nucingens, yesterday with du Tillet, the day before with the
Kellers——"
Whence, it may be seen, that Lucien had succeeded in assuming the
tone of light impertinence of great people.
"You have many enemies," said Clotilde, offering him—how
graciously! —a cup of tea. "Some one told my father that you have
debts to the amount of sixty thousand francs, and that before long
Sainte-Pelagie will be your summer quarters.—If you could know what
all these calumnies are to me!—It all recoils on me.—I say nothing
of my own suffering—my father has a way of looking that crucifies
me—but of what you must be suffering if any least part of it should
be the truth."
"Do not let such nonsense worry you; love me as I love you, and
give me time—a few months——" said Lucien, replacing his empty cup
on the silver tray.
"Do not let my father see you; he would say something disagreeable;
and as you could not submit to that, we should be done for.—That
odious Marquise d'Espard told him that your mother had been a monthly
nurse and that your sister did ironing——"
"We were in the most abject poverty," replied Lucien, the tears
rising to his eyes. "That is not calumny, but it is most ill-natured
gossip. My sister now is a more than millionaire, and my mother has
been dead two years.—This information has been kept in stock to use
just when I should be on the verge of success here——"
"But what have you done to Madame d'Espard?"
"I was so rash, at Madame de Serizy's, as to tell the story, with
some added pleasantries, in the presence of MM. de Bauvan and de
Granville, of her attempt to get a commission of lunacy appointed to
sit on her husband, the Marquis d'Espard. Bianchon had told it to me.
Monsieur de Granville's opinion, supported by those of Bauvan and
Serizy, influenced the decision of the Keeper of the Seals. They all
were afraid of the Gazette des Tribunaux, and dreaded the scandal, and
the Marquise got her knuckles rapped in the summing up for the
judgment finally recorded in that miserable business.
"Though M. de Serizy by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal
foe, I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor,
and Comte Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger
in which I stood in consequence of their allowing the source of their
information to be guessed at. The Marquis d'Espard was so clumsy as to
call upon me, regarding me as the first cause of his winning the day
in that atrocious suit."
"I will rescue you from Madame d'Espard," said Clotilde.
"How?" cried Lucien.
"My mother will ask the young d'Espards here; they are charming
boys, and growing up now. The father and sons will sing your praises,
and then we are sure never to see their mother again."
"Oh, Clotilde, you are an angel! If I did not love you for
yourself, I should love you for being so clever."
"It is not cleverness," said she, all her love beaming on her lips.
"Goodnight. Do not come again for some few days. When you see me in
church, at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, with a pink scarf, my father will be
in a better temper.—You will find an answer stuck to the back of the
chair you are sitting in; it will comfort you perhaps for not seeing
me. Put the note you have brought under my handkerchief——"
This young person was evidently more than seven-and-twenty.
Lucien took a cab in the Rue de la Planche, got out of it on the
Boulevards, took another by the Madeleine, and desired the driver to
have the gates opened and drive in at the house in the Rue Taitbout.
On going in at eleven o'clock, he found Esther in tears, but
dressed as she was wont to dress to do him honor. She awaited her
Lucien reclining on a sofa covered with white satin brocaded with
yellow flowers, dressed in a bewitching wrapper of India muslin with
cherry- colored bows; without her stays, her hair simply twisted into
a knot, her feet in little velvet slippers lined with cherry-colored
satin; all the candles were burning, the hookah was prepared. But she
had not smoked her own, which stood beside her unlighted, emblematical
of her loneliness. On hearing the doors open she sprang up like a
gazelle, and threw her arms round Lucien, wrapping him like a web
caught by the wind and flung about a tree.
"Parted.—Is it true?"
"Oh, just for a few days," replied Lucien.
Esther released him, and fell back on her divan like a dead thing.
In these circumstances, most women babble like parrots. Oh! how
they love! At the end of five years they feel as if their first
happiness were a thing of yesterday, they cannot give you up, they are
magnificent in their indignation, despair, love, grief, dread,
dejection, presentiments. In short, they are as sublime as a scene
from Shakespeare. But make no mistake! These women do not love. When
they are really all that they profess, when they love truly, they do
as Esther did, as children do, as true love does; Esther did not say a
word, she lay with her face buried in the pillows, shedding bitter
tears.
Lucien, on his part, tried to lift her up, and spoke to her.
"But, my child, we are not to part. What, after four years of
happiness, is this the way you take a short absence.—What on earth do
I do to all these girls?" he added to himself, remembering that
Coralie had loved him thus.
"Ah, monsieur, you are so handsome," said Europe.
The senses have their own ideal. When added to this fascinating
beauty we find the sweetness of nature, the poetry, that characterized
Lucien, it is easy to conceive of the mad passion roused in such
women, keenly alive as they are to external gifts, and artless in
their admiration. Esther was sobbing quietly, and lay in an attitude
expressive of the deepest distress.
"But, little goose," said Lucien, "did you not understand that my
life is at stake?"
At these words, which he chose on purpose, Esther started up like a
wild animal, her hair fell, tumbling about her excited face like
wreaths of foliage. She looked steadily at Lucien.
"Your life?" she cried, throwing up her arms, and letting them drop
with a gesture known only to a courtesan in peril. "To be sure; that
friend's note speaks of serious risk."
She took a shabby scrap of paper out of her sash; then seeing
Europe, she said, "Leave us, my girl."
When Europe had shut the door she went on—"Here, this is what he
writes," and she handed to Lucien a note she had just received from
Carlos, which Lucien read aloud:—
"You must leave to-morrow at five in the morning; you will be
taken to a keeper's lodge in the heart of the Forest of Saint-
Germain, where you will have a room on the first floor. Do not
quit that room till I give you leave; you will want for nothing.
The keeper and his wife are to be trusted. Do not write to
Lucien.
Do not go to the window during daylight; but you may walk by
night
with the keeper if you wish for exercise. Keep the carriage
blinds
down on the way. Lucien's life is at stake.
"Lucien will go to-night to bid you good-bye; burn this in his
presence."
Lucien burned the note at once in the flame of a candle.
"Listen, my own Lucien," said Esther, after hearing him read this
letter as a criminal hears the sentence of death; "I will not tell you
that I love you; it would be idiotic. For nearly five years it has
been as natural to me to love you as to breathe and live. From the
first day when my happiness began under the protection of that
inscrutable being, who placed me here as you place some little curious
beast in a cage, I have known that you must marry. Marriage is a
necessary factor in your career, and God preserve me from hindering
the development of your fortunes.
"That marriage will be my death. But I will not worry you; I will
not do as the common girls do who kill themselves by means of a
brazier of charcoal; I had enough of that once; twice raises your
gorge, as Mariette says. No, I will go a long way off, out of France.
Asie knows the secrets of her country; she will help me to die
quietly. A prick— whiff, it is all over!
"I ask but one thing, my dearest, and that is that you will not
deceive me. I have had my share of living. Since the day I first saw
you, in 1824, till this day, I have known more happiness than can be
put into the lives of ten fortunate wives. So take me for what I am—a
woman as strong as I am weak. Say 'I am going to be married.' I will
ask no more of you than a fond farewell, and you shall never hear of
me again."
There was a moment's silence after this explanation as sincere as
her action and tone were guileless.
"Is it that you are going to be married?" she repeated, looking
into Lucien's blue eyes with one of her fascinating glances, as
brilliant as a steel blade.
"We have been toiling at my marriage for eighteen months past, and
it is not yet settled," replied Lucien. "I do not know when it can be
settled; but it is not in question now, child!—It is the Abbe, I,
you.—We are in real peril. Nucingen saw you——"
"Yes, in the wood at Vincennes," said she. "Did he recognize me?"
"No," said Lucien. "But he has fallen so desperately in love with
you, that he would sacrifice his coffers. After dinner, when he was
describing how he had met you, I was so foolish as to smile
involuntarily, and most imprudently, for I live in a world like a
savage surrounded by the traps of a hostile tribe. Carlos, who spares
me the pains of thinking, regards the position as dangerous, and he
has undertaken to pay Nucingen out if the Baron takes it into his head
to spy on us; and he is quite capable of it; he spoke to me of the
incapacity of the police. You have lighted a flame in an old chimney
choked with soot."
"And what does your Spaniard propose to do?" asked Esther very
softly.
"I do not know in the least," said Lucien; "he told me I might
sleep soundly and leave it to him;"—but he dared not look at Esther.
"If that is the case, I will obey him with the dog-like submission
I profess," said Esther, putting her hand through Lucien's arm and
leading him into her bedroom, saying, "At any rate, I hope you dined
well, my Lulu, at that detestable Baron's?"
"Asie's cooking prevents my ever thinking a dinner good, however
famous the chef may be, where I happen to dine. However, Careme did
the dinner to-night, as he does every Sunday."
Lucien involuntarily compared Esther with Clotilde. The mistress
was so beautiful, so unfailingly charming, that she had as yet kept at
arm's length the monster who devours the most perennial loves—
Satiety.
"What a pity," thought he, "to find one's wife in two volumes. In
one—poetry, delight, love, devotion, beauty, sweetness——"
Esther was fussing about, as women do, before going to bed; she
came and went and fluttered round, singing all the time; you might
have thought her a humming-bird.
"In the other—a noble name, family, honors, rank, knowledge of the
world!—And no earthly means of combining them!" cried Lucien to
himself.
Next morning, at seven, when the poet awoke in the pretty pink-and-
white room, he found himself alone. He rang, and Europe hurried in.
"What are monsieur's orders?"
"Esther?"
"Madame went off this morning at a quarter to five. By Monsieur
l'Abbe's order, I admitted a new face—carriage paid."
"A woman?"
"No, sir, an English woman—one of those people who do their day's
work by night, and we are ordered to treat her as if she were madame.
What can you have to say to such hack!—Poor Madame, how she cried
when she got into the carriage. 'Well, it has to be done!' cried she.
'I left that poor dear boy asleep,' said she, wiping away her tears;
'Europe, if he had looked at me or spoken my name, I should have
stayed—I could but have died with him.'— I tell you, sir, I am so
fond of madame, that I did not show her the person who has taken her
place; some waiting maids would have broken her heart by doing so."
"And is the stranger there?"
"Well, sir, she came in the chaise that took away madame, and I hid
her in my room in obedience to my instructions——"
"Is she nice-looking?"
"So far as such a second-hand article can be. But she will find her
part easy enough if you play yours, sir," said Europe, going to fetch
the false Esther.
The night before, ere going to bed, the all-powerful banker had
given his orders to his valet, who, at seven in the morning, brought
in to him the notorious Louchard, the most famous of the commercial
police, whom he left in a little sitting-room; there the Baron joined
him, in a dressing gown and slippers.
"You haf mate a fool of me!" he said, in reply to this official's
greeting.
"I could not help myself, Monsieur le Baron. I do not want to lose
my place, and I had the honor of explaining to you that I could not
meddle in a matter that had nothing to do with my functions. What did
I promise you? To put you into communication with one of our agents,
who, as it seemed to me, would be best able to serve you. But you
know, Monsieur le Baron, the sharp lines that divide men of different
trades: if you build a house, you do not set a carpenter to do smith's
work. Well, there are two branches of the police—the political police
and the judicial police. The political police never interfere with the
other branch, and vice versa. If you apply to the chief of the
political police, he must get permission from the Minister to take up
our business, and you would not dare to explain it to the head of the
police throughout the kingdom. A police-agent who should act on his
own account would lose his place.
"Well, the ordinary police are quite as cautious as the political
police. So no one, whether in the Home Office or at the Prefecture of
Police, ever moves excepting in the interests of the State or for the
ends of Justice.
"If there is a plot or a crime to be followed up, then, indeed, the
heads of the corps are at your service; but you must understand,
Monsieur le Baron, that they have other fish to fry than looking after
the fifty thousand love affairs in Paris. As to me and my men, our
only business is to arrest debtors; and as soon as anything else is to
be done, we run enormous risks if we interfere with the peace and
quiet of any man or woman. I sent you one of my men, but I told you I
could not answer for him; you instructed him to find a particular
woman in Paris; Contenson bled you of a thousand-franc note, and did
not even move. You might as well look for a needle in the river as for
a woman in Paris, who is supposed to haunt Vincennes, and of whom the
description answers to every pretty woman in the capital."
"And could not Contenson haf tolt me de truf, instead of making me
pleed out one tousand franc?"
"Listen to me, Monsieur le Baron," said Louchard. "Will you give me
a thousand crowns? I will give you—sell you—a piece of advice?"
"Is it vort one tousand crowns—your atvice?" asked Nucingen.
"I am not to be caught, Monsieur le Baron," answered Louchard. "You
are in love, you want to discover the object of your passion; you are
getting as yellow as a lettuce without water. Two physicians came to
see you yesterday, your man tells me, who think your life is in
danger; now, I alone can put you in the hands of a clever fellow.—But
the deuce is in it! If your life is not worth a thousand crowns——"
"Tell me de name of dat clefer fellow, and depent on my
generosity——"
Louchard took up his hat, bowed, and left the room.
"Wat ein teufel!" cried Nucingen. "Come back—look here——"
"Take notice," said Louchard, before taking the money, "I am only
selling a piece of information, pure and simple. I can give you the
name and address of the only man who is able to be of use to you—but
he is a master——"
"Get out mit you," cried Nucingen. "Dere is not no name dat is vort
one tousant crown but dat von Varschild—and dat only ven it is sign
at the bottom of a bank-bill.—I shall gif you one tousant franc."
Louchard, a little weasel, who had never been able to purchase an
office as lawyer, notary, clerk, or attorney, leered at the Baron in a
significant fashion.
"To you—a thousand crowns, or let it alone. You will get them back
in a few seconds on the Bourse," said he.
"I will gif you one tousant franc," repeated the Baron.
"You would cheapen a gold mine!" said Louchard, bowing and leaving.
"I shall get dat address for five hundert franc!" cried the Baron,
who desired his servant to send his secretary to him.
Turcaret is no more. In these days the smallest banker, like the
greatest, exercises his acumen in the smallest transactions; he
bargains over art, beneficence, and love; he would bargain with the
Pope for a dispensation. Thus, as he listened to Louchard, Nucingen
had hastily concluded that Contenson, Louchard's right-hand man, must
certainly know the address of that master spy. Contenson would tell
him for five hundred francs what Louchard wanted to see a thousand
crowns for. The rapid calculation plainly proves that if the man's
heart was in possession of love, his head was still that of the lynx
stock-jobber.
"Go your own self, mensieur," said the Baron to his secretary, "to
Contenson, dat spy of Louchart's de bailiff man—but go in one
capriolette, very qvick, and pring him here qvick to me. I shall vait.
—Go out trough de garten.—Here is dat key, for no man shall see dat
man in here. You shall take him into dat little garten-house. Try to
do dat little business very clefer."
Visitors called to see Nucingen on business; but he waited for
Contenson, he was dreaming of Esther, telling himself that before long
he would see again the woman who had aroused in him such unhoped-for
emotions, and he sent everybody away with vague replies and double-
edged promises. Contenson was to him the most important person in
Paris, and he looked out into the garden every minute. Finally, after
giving orders that no one else was to be admitted, he had his
breakfast served in the summer-house at one corner of the garden. In
the banker's office the conduct and hesitancy of the most knowing, the
most clearsighted, the shrewdest of Paris financiers seemed
inexplicable.
"What ails the chief?" said a stockbroker to one of the
head-clerks.
"No one knows; they are anxious about his health, it would seem.
Yesterday, Madame la Baronne got Desplein and Bianchon to meet."
One day, when Sir Isaac Newton was engaged in physicking one of his
dogs, named "Beauty" (who, as is well known, destroyed a vast amount
of work, and whom he reproved only in these words, "Ah! Beauty, you
little know the mischief you have done!"), some strangers called to
see him; but they at once retired, respecting the great man's
occupation. In every more or less lofty life, there is a little dog
"Beauty." When the Marechal de Richelieu came to pay his respects to
Louis XV. after taking Mahon, one of the greatest feats of arms of the
eighteenth century, the King said to him, "Have you heard the great
news? Poor Lansmatt is dead."—Lansmatt was a gatekeeper in the secret
of the King's intrigues.
The bankers of Paris never knew how much they owed to Contenson.
That spy was the cause of Nucingen's allowing an immense loan to be
issued in which his share was allotted to him, and which he gave over
to them. The stock-jobber could aim at a fortune any day with the
artillery of speculation, but the man was a slave to the hope of
happiness.
The great banker drank some tea, and was nibbling at a slice of
bread and butter, as a man does whose teeth have for long been
sharpened by appetite, when he heard a carriage stop at the little
garden gate. In a few minutes his secretary brought in Contenson, whom
he had run to earth in a cafe not far from Sainte-Pelagie, where the
man was breakfasting on the strength of a bribe given to him by an
imprisoned debtor for certain allowances that must be paid for.
Contenson, you must know, was a whole poem—a Paris poem. Merely to
see him would have been enough to tell you that Beaumarchais' Figaro,
Moliere's Mascarille, Marivaux's Frontin, and Dancourt's Lafleur—
those great representatives of audacious swindling, of cunning driven
to bay, of stratagem rising again from the ends of its broken wires—
were all quite second-rate by comparison with this giant of cleverness
and meanness. When in Paris you find a real type, he is no longer a
man, he is a spectacle; no longer a factor in life, but a whole life,
many lives.
Bake a plaster cast four times in a furnace, and you get a sort of
bastard imitation of Florentine bronze. Well, the thunderbolts of
numberless disasters, the pressure of terrible necessities, had
bronzed Contenson's head, as though sweating in an oven had three
times over stained his skin. Closely-set wrinkles that could no longer
be relaxed made eternal furrows, whiter in their cracks. The yellow
face was all wrinkles. The bald skull, resembling Voltaire's, was as
parched as a death's-head, and but for a few hairs at the back it
would have seemed doubtful whether it was that of a living man. Under
a rigid brow, a pair of Chinese eyes, like those of an image under a
glass shade in a tea-shop—artificial eyes, which sham life but never
vary—moved but expressed nothing. The nose, as flat as that of a
skull, sniffed at fate; and the mouth, as thin-lipped as a miser's,
was always open, but as expressionless as the grin of a letterbox.
Contenson, as apathetic as a savage, with sunburned hands, affected
that Diogenes-like indifference which can never bend to any formality
of respect.
And what a commentary on his life was written on his dress for any
one who can decipher a dress! Above all, what trousers! made, by long
wear, as black and shiny as the camlet of which lawyers' gowns are
made! A waistcoat, bought in an old clothes shop in the Temple, with a
deep embroidered collar! A rusty black coat!—and everything well
brushed, clean after a fashion, and graced by a watch and an imitation
gold chain. Contenson allowed a triangle of shirt to show, with pleats
in which glittered a sham diamond pin; his black velvet stock set
stiff like a gorget, over which lay rolls of flesh as red as that of a
Caribbee. His silk hat was as glossy as satin, but the lining would
have yielded grease enough for two street lamps if some grocer had
bought it to boil down.
But to enumerate these accessories is nothing; if only I could give
an idea of the air of immense importance that Contenson contrived to
impart to them! There was something indescribably knowing in the
collar of his coat, and the fresh blacking on a pair of boots with
gaping soles, to which no language can do justice. However, to give
some notion of this medley of effect, it may be added that any man of
intelligence would have felt, only on seeing Contenson, that if
instead of being a spy he had been a thief, all these odds and ends,
instead of raising a smile, would have made one shudder with horror.
Judging only from his dress, the observer would have said to himself,
"That is a scoundrel; he gambles, he drinks, he is full of vices; but
he does not get drunk, he does not cheat, he is neither a thief nor a
murderer." And Contenson remained inscrutable till the word spy
suggested itself.
This man had followed as many unrecognized trades as there are
recognized ones. The sly smile on his lips, the twinkle of his green
eyes, the queer twitch of his snub nose, showed that he was not
deficient in humor. He had a face of sheet-tin, and his soul must
probably be like his face. Every movement of his countenance was a
grimace wrung from him by politeness rather than by any expression of
an inmost impulse. He would have been alarming if he had not seemed so
droll.
Contenson, one of the most curious products of the scum that rises
to the top of the seething Paris caldron, where everything ferments,
prided himself on being, above all things, a philosopher. He would
say, without any bitter feeling:
"I have great talents, but of what use are they? I might as well
have been an idiot."
And he blamed himself instead of accusing mankind. Find, if you
can, many spies who have not had more venom about them than Contenson
had.
"Circumstances are against me," he would say to his chiefs. "We
might be fine crystal; we are but grains of sand, that is all."
His indifference to dress had some sense. He cared no more about
his everyday clothes than an actor does; he excelled in disguising
himself, in "make-up"; he could have given Frederic Lemaitre a lesson,
for he could be a dandy when necessary. Formerly, in his younger days,
he must have mingled in the out-at-elbows society of people living on
a humble scale. He expressed excessive disgust for the criminal police
corps; for, under the Empire, he had belonged to Fouche's police, and
looked upon him as a great man. Since the suppression of this
Government department, he had devoted his energies to the tracking of
commercial defaulters; but his well-known talents and acumen made him
a valuable auxiliary, and the unrecognized chiefs of the political
police had kept his name on their lists. Contenson, like his fellows,
was only a super in the dramas of which the leading parts were played
by his chief when a political investigation was in the wind.
"Go 'vay," said Nucingen, dismissing his secretary with a wave of
the hand.
"Why should this man live in a mansion and I in a lodging?"
wondered Contenson to himself. "He has dodged his creditors three
times; he has robbed them; I never stole a farthing; I am a cleverer
fellow than he is——"
"Contenson, mein freund," said the Baron, "you haf vat you call
pleed me of one tousand-franc note."
"My girl owed God and the devil——"
"Vat, you haf a girl, a mistress!" cried Nucingen, looking at
Contenson with admiration not unmixed with envy.
"I am but sixty-six," replied Contenson, as a man whom vice has
kept young as a bad example.
"And vat do she do?"
"She helps me," said Contenson. "When a man is a thief, and an
honest woman loves him, either she becomes a thief or he becomes an
honest man. I have always been a spy."
"And you vant money—alvays?" asked Nucingen.
"Always," said Contenson, with a smile. "It is part of my business
to want money, as it is yours to make it; we shall easily come to an
understanding. You find me a little, and I will undertake to spend it.
You shall be the well, and I the bucket."
"Vould you like to haf one note for fife hundert franc?"
"What a question! But what a fool I am!—You do not offer it out of
a disinterested desire to repair the slights of Fortune?"
"Not at all. I gif it besides the one tousand-franc note vat you
pleed me off. Dat makes fifteen hundert franc vat I gif you."
"Very good, you give me the thousand francs I have had and you will
add five hundred francs."
"Yust so," said Nucingen, nodding.
"But that still leaves only five hundred francs," said Contenson
imperturbably.
"Dat I gif," added the Baron.
"That I take. Very good; and what, Monsieur le Baron, do you want
for it?"
"I haf been told dat dere vas in Paris one man vat could find the
voman vat I lof, and dat you know his address. . . . A real master to
spy."
"Very true."
"Vell den, gif me dat address, and I gif you fife hundert franc."
"Where are they?" said Contenson.
"Here dey are," said the Baron, drawing a note out of his pocket.
"All right, hand them over," said Contenson, holding out his hand.
"Noting for noting! Le us see de man, and you get de money; you
might sell to me many address at dat price."
Contenson began to laugh.
"To be sure, you have a right to think that of me," said he, with
an air of blaming himself. "The more rascally our business is, the
more honesty is necessary. But look here, Monsieur le Baron, make it
six hundred, and I will give you a bit of advice."
"Gif it, and trust to my generosity."
"I will risk it," Contenson said, "but it is playing high. In such
matters, you see, we have to work underground. You say, 'Quick
march!'—You are rich; you think that money can do everything. Well,
money is something, no doubt. Still, money can only buy men, as the
two or three best heads in our force so often say. And there are many
things you would never think of which money cannot buy.—You cannot
buy good luck. So good police work is not done in this style. Will you
show yourself in a carriage with me? We should be seen. Chance is just
as often for us as against us."
"Really-truly?" said the Baron.
"Why, of course, sir. A horseshoe picked up in the street led the
chief of the police to the discovery of the infernal machine. Well, if
we were to go to-night in a hackney coach to Monsieur de Saint-
Germain, he would not like to see you walk in any more than you would
like to be seen going there."
"Dat is true," said the Baron.
"Ah, he is the greatest of the great! such another as the famous
Corentin, Fouche's right arm, who was, some say, his natural son, born
while he was still a priest; but that is nonsense. Fouche knew how to
be a priest as he knew how to be a Minister. Well, you will not get
this man to do anything for you, you see, for less than ten thousand-
franc notes—think of that.—But he will do the job, and do it well.
Neither seen nor heard, as they say. I ought to give Monsieur de
Saint-Germanin notice, and he will fix a time for your meeting in some
place where no one can see or hear, for it is a dangerous game to play
policeman for private interests. Still, what is to be said? He is a
good fellow, the king of good fellows, and a man who has undergone
much persecution, and for having saving his country too!—like me,
like all who helped to save it."
"Vell den, write and name de happy day," said the Baron, smiling at
his humble jest.
"And Monsieur le Baron will allow me to drink his health?" said
Contenson, with a manner at once cringing and threatening.
"Shean," cried the Baron to the gardener, "go and tell Chorge to
sent me one twenty francs, and pring dem to me——"
"Still, Monsieur le Baron, if you have no more information than you
have just given me, I doubt whether the great man can be of any use to
you."
"I know off oders!" replied the Baron with a cunning look.
"I have the honor to bid you good-morning, Monsieur le Baron," said
Contenson, taking the twenty-franc piece. "I shall have the honor of
calling again to tell Georges where you are to go this evening, for we
never write anything in such cases when they are well managed."
"It is funny how sharp dese rascals are!" said the Baron to
himself; "it is de same mit de police as it is in buss'niss."
When he left the Baron, Contenson went quietly from the Rue Saint-
Lazare to the Rue Saint-Honore, as far as the Cafe David. He looked in
through the windows, and saw an old man who was known there by the
name of le Pere Canquoelle.
The Cafe David, at the corner of the Rue de la Monnaie and the Rue
Saint-Honore, enjoyed a certain celebrity during the first thirty
years of the century, though its fame was limited to the quarter known
as that of the Bourdonnais. Here certain old retired merchants, and
large shopkeepers still in trade, were wont to meet—the Camusots, the
Lebas, the Pilleraults, the Popinots, and a few house-owners like
little old Molineux. Now and again old Guillaume might be seen there,
coming from the Rue du Colombier. Politics were discussed in a quiet
way, but cautiously, for the opinions of the Cafe David were liberal.
The gossip of the neighborhood was repeated, men so urgently feel the
need of laughing at each other!
This cafe, like all cafes for that matter, had its eccentric
character in the person of the said Pere Canquoelle, who had been
regular in his attendance there since 1811, and who seemed to be so
completely in harmony with the good folks who assembled there, that
they all talked politics in his presence without reserve. Sometimes
this old fellow, whose guilelessness was the subject of much laughter
to the customers, would disappear for a month or two; but his absence
never surprised anybody, and was always attributed to his infirmities
or his great age, for he looked more than sixty in 1811.
"What has become of old Canquoelle?" one or another would ask of
the manageress at the desk.
"I quite expect that one fine day we shall read in the
advertisement- sheet that he is dead," she would reply.
Old Canquoelle bore a perpetual certificate of his native province
in his accent. He spoke of une estatue (a statue), le peuble (the
people), and said ture for turc. His name was that of a tiny estate
called les Canquoelles, a word meaning cockchafer in some districts,
situated in the department of Vaucluse, whence he had come. At last
every one had fallen into the habit of calling him Canquoelle, instead
of des Canquoelles, and the old man took no offence, for in his
opinion the nobility had perished in 1793; and besides, the land of
les Canquoelles did not belong to him; he was a younger son's younger
son.
Nowadays old Canquoelle's costume would look strange, but between
1811 and 1820 it astonished no one. The old man wore shoes with
cut-steel buckles, silk stockings with stripes round the leg,
alternately blue and white, corded silk knee-breeches with oval
buckles cut to match those on his shoes. A white embroidered
waistcoat, an old coat of olive-brown with metal buttons, and a shirt
with a flat-pleated frill completed his costume. In the middle of the
shirt-frill twinkled a small gold locket, in which might be seen,
under glass, a little temple worked in hair, one of those pathetic
trifles which give men confidence, just as a scarecrow frightens
sparrows. Most men, like other animals, are frightened or reassured by
trifles. Old Canquoelle's breeches were kept in place by a buckle
which, in the fashion of the last century, tightened them across the
stomach; from the belt hung on each side a short steel chain, composed
of several finer chains, and ending in a bunch of seals. His white
neckcloth was fastened behind by a small gold buckle. Finally, on his
snowy and powdered hair, he still, in 1816, wore the municipal cocked
hat which Monsieur Try, the President of the Law Courts, also used to
wear. But Pere Canquoelle had recently substituted for this hat, so
dear to old men, the undignified top-hat, which no one dares to rebel
against. The good man thought he owed so much as this to the spirit of
the age. A small pigtail tied with a ribbon had traced a semicircle on
the back of his coat, the greasy mark being hidden by powder.
If you looked no further than the most conspicuous feature of his
face, a nose covered with excrescences red and swollen enough to
figure in a dish of truffles, you might have inferred that the worthy
man had an easy temper, foolish and easy-going, that of a perfect
gaby; and you would have been deceived, like all at the Cafe David,
where no one had ever remarked the studious brow, the sardonic mouth,
and the cold eyes of this old man, petted by his vices, and as calm as
Vitellius, whose imperial and portly stomach reappeared in him
palingenetically, so to speak.
In 1816 a young commercial traveler named Gaudissart, who
frequented the Cafe David, sat drinking from eleven o'clock till
midnight with a half-pay officer. He was so rash as to discuss a
conspiracy against the Bourbons, a rather serious plot then on the
point of execution. There was no one to be seen in the cafe but Pere
Canquoelle, who seemed to be asleep, two waiters who were dozing, and
the accountant at the desk. Within four-and-twenty hours Gaudissart
was arrested, the plot was discovered. Two men perished on the
scaffold. Neither Gaudissart nor any one else ever suspected that
worthy old Canquoelle of having peached. The waiters were dismissed;
for a year they were all on their guard and afraid of the police—as
Pere Canquoelle was too; indeed, he talked of retiring from the Cafe
David, such horror had he of the police.
Contenson went into the cafe, asked for a glass of brandy, and did
not look at Canquoelle, who sat reading the papers; but when he had
gulped down the brandy, he took out the Baron's gold piece, and called
the waiter by rapping three short raps on the table. The lady at the
desk and the waiter examined the coin with a minute care that was not
flattering to Contenson; but their suspicions were justified by the
astonishment produced on all the regular customers by Contenson's
appearance.
"Was that gold got by theft or by murder?"
This was the idea that rose to some clear and shrewd minds as they
looked at Contenson over their spectacles, while affecting to read the
news. Contenson, who saw everything and never was surprised at
anything, scornfully wiped his lips with a bandana, in which there
were but three darns, took his change, slipped all the coppers into
his side pocket, of which the lining, once white, was now as black as
the cloth of the trousers, and did not leave one for the waiter.
"What a gallows-bird!" said Pere Canquoelle to his neighbor
Monsieur Pillerault.
"Pshaw!" said Monsieur Camusot to all the company, for he alone had
expressed no astonishment, "it is Contenson, Louchard's right-hand
man, the police agent we employ in business. The rascals want to nab
some one who is hanging about perhaps."
It would seem necessary to explain here the terrible and profoundly
cunning man who was hidden under the guise of Pere Canquoelle, as
Vautrin was hidden under that of the Abbe Carlos.
Born at Canquoelles, the only possession of his family, which was
highly respectable, this Southerner's name was Peyrade. He belonged,
in fact, to the younger branch of the Peyrade family, an old but
impoverished house of Franche Comte, still owning the little estate of
la Peyrade. The seventh child of his father, he had come on foot to
Paris in 1772 at the age of seventeen, with two crowns of six francs
in his pocket, prompted by the vices of an ardent spirit and the
coarse desire to "get on," which brings so many men to Paris from the
south as soon as they understand that their father's property can
never supply them with means to gratify their passions. It is enough
to say of Peyrade's youth that in 1782 he was in the confidence of
chiefs of the police and the hero of the department, highly esteemed
by MM. Lenoir and d'Albert, the last Lieutenant-Generals of Police.
The Revolution had no police; it needed none. Espionage, though
common enough, was called public spirit.
The Directorate, a rather more regular government than that of the
Committee of Public Safety, was obliged to reorganize the Police, and
the first Consul completed the work by instituting a Prefect of Police
and a department of police supervision.
Peyrade, a man knowing the traditions, collected the force with the
assistance of a man named Corentin, a far cleverer man than Peyrade,
though younger; but he was a genius only in the subterranean ways of
police inquiries. In 1808 the great services Peyrade was able to
achieve were rewarded by an appointment to the eminent position of
Chief Commissioner of Police at Antwerp. In Napoleon's mind this sort
of Police Governorship was equivalent to a Minister's post, with the
duty of superintending Holland. At the end of the campaign of 1809,
Peyrade was removed from Antwerp by an order in Council from the
Emperor, carried in a chaise to Paris between two gendarmes, and
imprisoned in la Force. Two months later he was let out on bail
furnished by his friend Corentin, after having been subjected to three
examinations, each lasting six hours, in the office of the head of the
Police.
Did Peyrade owe his overthrow to the miraculous energy he displayed
in aiding Fouche in the defence of the French coast when threatened by
what was known at the time as the Walcheren expedition, when the Duke
of Otranto manifested such abilities as alarmed the Emperor? Fouche
thought it probable even then; and now, when everybody knows what went
on in the Cabinet Council called together by Cambaceres, it is
absolutely certain. The Ministers, thunderstruck by the news of
England's attempt, a retaliation on Napoleon for the Boulogne
expedition, and taken by surprise when the Master was entrenched in
the island of Lobau, where all Europe believed him to be lost, had not
an idea which way to turn. The general opinion was in favor of sending
post haste to the Emperor; Fouche alone was bold enough to sketch a
plan of campaign, which, in fact, he carried into execution.
"Do as you please," said Cambaceres; "but I, who prefer to keep my
head on my shoulders, shall send a report to the Emperor."
It is well known that the Emperor on his return found an absurd
pretext, at a full meeting of the Council of State, for discarding his
Minister and punishing him for having saved France without the
Sovereign's help. From that time forth, Napoleon had doubled the
hostility of Prince de Talleyrand and the Duke of Otranto, the only
two great politicians formed by the Revolution, who might perhaps have
been able to save Napoleon in 1813.
To get rid of Peyrade, he was simply accused of connivance in
favoring smuggling and sharing certain profits with the great
merchants. Such an indignity was hard on a man who had earned the
Marshal's baton of the Police Department by the great services he had
done. This man, who had grown old in active business, knew all the
secrets of every Government since 1775, when he had entered the
service. The Emperor, who believed himself powerful enough to create
men for his own uses, paid no heed to the representations subsequently
laid before him in favor of a man who was reckoned as one of the most
trustworthy, most capable, and most acute of the unknown genii whose
task it is to watch over the safety of a State. He thought he could
put Contenson in Peyrade's place; but Contenson was at that time
employed by Corentin for his own benefit.
Peyrade felt the blow all the more keenly because, being greedy and
a libertine, he had found himself, with regard to women, in the
position of a pastry-cook who loves sweetmeats. His habits of vice had
become to him a second nature; he could not live without a good
dinner, without gambling, in short, without the life of an
unpretentious fine gentleman, in which men of powerful faculties so
generally indulge when they have allowed excessive dissipation to
become a necessity. Hitherto, he had lived in style without ever being
expected to entertain; and living well, for no one ever looked for a
return from him, or from his friend Corentin. He was cynically witty,
and he liked his profession; he was a philosopher. And besides, a spy,
whatever grade he may hold in the machinery of the police, can no more
return to a profession regarded as honorable or liberal, than a
prisoner from the hulks can. Once branded, once matriculated, spies
and convicts, like deacons, have assumed an indelible character. There
are beings on whom social conditions impose an inevitable fate.
Peyrade, for his further woe, was very fond of a pretty little girl
whom he knew to be his own child by a celebrated actress to whom he
had done a signal service, and who, for three months, had been
grateful to him. Peyrade, who had sent for his child from Antwerp, now
found himself without employment in Paris and with no means beyond a
pension of twelve hundred francs a year allowed him by the Police
Department as Lenoir's old disciple. He took lodgings in the Rue des
Moineaux on the fourth floor, five little rooms, at a rent of two
hundred and fifty francs.
If any man should be aware of the uses and sweets of friendship, is
it not the moral leper known to the world as a spy, to the mob as a
mouchard, to the department as an "agent"? Peyrade and Corentin were
such friends as Orestes and Pylades. Peyrade had trained Corentin as
Vien trained David; but the pupil soon surpassed his master. They had
carried out more than one undertaking together. Peyrade, happy at
having discerned Corentin's superior abilities, had started him in his
career by preparing a success for him. He obliged his disciple to make
use of a mistress who had scorned him as a bait to catch a man (see
The Chouans). And Corentin at that time was hardly five-and-twenty.
Corentin, who had been retained as one of the generals of whom the
Minister of Police is the High Constable, still held under the Duc de
Rovigo the high position he had filled under the Duke of Otranto. Now
at that time the general police and the criminal police were managed
on similar principles. When any important business was on hand, an
account was opened, as it were, for the three, four, five, really
capable agents. The Minister, on being warned of some plot, by
whatever means, would say to one of his colonels of the police force:
"How much will you want to achieve this or that result?"
Corentin or Contenson would go into the matter and reply:
"Twenty, thirty, or forty thousand francs."
Then, as soon as the order was given to go ahead, all the means and
the men were left to the judgment of Corentin or the agent selected.
And the criminal police used to act in the same way to discover crimes
with the famous Vidocq.
Both branches of the police chose their men chiefly from among the
ranks of well-known agents, who have matriculated in the business, and
are, as it were, as soldiers of the secret army, so indispensable to a
government, in spite of the public orations of philanthropists or
narrow-minded moralists. But the absolute confidence placed in two men
of the temper of Peyrade and Corentin conveyed to them the right of
employing perfect strangers, under the risk, moreover, of being
responsible to the Minister in all serious cases. Peyrade's experience
and acumen were too valuable to Corentin, who, after the storm of 1820
had blown over, employed his old friend, constantly consulted him, and
contributed largely to his maintenance. Corentin managed to put about
a thousand francs a month into Peyrade's hands.
Peyrade, on his part, did Corentin good service. In 1816 Corentin,
on the strength of the discovery of the conspiracy in which the
Bonapartist Gaudissart was implicated, tried to get Peyrade reinstated
in his place in the police office; but some unknown influence was
working against Peyrade. This was the reason why.
In their anxiety to make themselves necessary, Peyrade, Corentin,
and Contenson, at the Duke of Otranto's instigation, had organized for
the benefit of Louis XVIII. a sort of opposition police in which very
capable agents were employed. Louis XVIII. died possessed of secrets
which will remain secrets from the best informed historians. The
struggle between the general police of the kingdom, and the King's
opposition police, led to many horrible disasters, of which a certain
number of executions sealed the secrets. This is neither the place nor
the occasion for entering into details on this subject, for these
"Scenes of Paris Life" are not "Scenes of Political Life." Enough has
been said to show what were the means of living of the man who at the
Cafe David was known as good old Canquoelle, and by what threads he
was tied to the terrible and mysterious powers of the police.
Between 1817 and 1822, Corentin, Contenson, Peyrade, and their
myrmidons, were often required to keep watch over the Minister of
Police himself. This perhaps explains why the Minister declined to
employ Peyrade and Contenson, on whom Corentin contrived to cast the
Minister's suspicions, in order to be able to make use of his friend
when his reinstatement was evidently out of the question. The Ministry
put their faith in Corentin; they enjoined him to keep an eye on
Peyrade, which amused Louis XVIII. Corentin and Peyrade were then
masters of the position. Contenson, long attached to Peyrade, was
still at his service. He had joined the force of the commercial police
(the Gardes du Commerce) by his friend's orders. And, in fact, as a
result of the sort of zeal that is inspired by a profession we love,
these two chiefs liked to place their best men in those posts where
information was most likely to flow in.
And, indeed, Contenson's vices and dissipated habits, which had
dragged him lower than his two friends, consumed so much money, that
he needed a great deal of business.
Contenson, without committing any indiscretion, had told Louchard
that he knew the only man who was capable of doing what the Baron de
Nucingen required. Peyrade was, in fact, the only police-agent who
could act on behalf of a private individual with impunity. At the
death of Louis XVIII., Peyrade had not only ceased to be of
consequence, but had lost the profits of his position as spy-in-
ordinary to His Majesty. Believing himself to be indispensable, he
had lived fast. Women, high feeding, and the club, the Cercle des
Etrangers, had prevented this man from saving, and, like all men cut
out for debauchery, he enjoyed an iron constitution. But between 1826
and 1829, when he was nearly seventy-four years of age, he had stuck
half-way, to use his own expression. Year by year he saw his comforts
dwindling. He followed the police department to its grave, and saw
with regret that Charles X.'s government was departing from its good
old traditions. Every session saw the estimates pared down which were
necessary to keep up the police, out of hatred for that method of
government and a firm determination to reform that institution.
"It is as if they thought they could cook in white gloves," said
Peyrade to Corentin.
In 1822 this couple foresaw 1830. They knew how bitterly Louis
XVIII. hated his successor, which accounts for his recklessness with
regard to the younger branch, and without which his reign would be an
unanswerable riddle.
As Peyrade grew older, his love for his natural daughter had
increased. For her sake he had adopted his citizen guise, for he
intended that his Lydie should marry respectably. So for the last
three years he had been especially anxious to find a corner, either at
the Prefecture of Police, or in the general Police Office—some
ostensible and recognized post. He had ended by inventing a place, of
which the necessity, as he told Corentin, would sooner or later be
felt. He was anxious to create an inquiry office at the Prefecture of
Police, to be intermediate between the Paris police in the strictest
sense, the criminal police, and the superior general police, so as to
enable the supreme board to profit by the various scattered forces. No
one but Peyrade, at his age, and after fifty-five years of
confidential work, could be the connecting link between the three
branches of the police, or the keeper of the records to whom political
and judicial authority alike could apply for the elucidation of
certain cases. By this means Peyrade hoped, with Corentin's
assistance, to find a husband and scrape together a portion for his
little Lydie. Corentin had already mentioned the matter to the
Director-General of the police forces of the realm, without naming
Peyrade; and the Director-General, a man from the south, thought it
necessary that the suggestion should come from the chief of the city
police.
At the moment when Contenson struck three raps on the table with
the gold piece, a signal conveying, "I want to speak to you," the
senior was reflecting on this problem: "By whom, and under what
pressure can the Prefet of Police be made to move?"—And he looked
like a noodle studying his Courrier Francais.
"Poor Fouche!" thought he to himself, as he made his way along the
Rue Saint-Honore, "that great man is dead! our go-betweens with Louis
XVIII. are out of favor. And besides, as Corentin said only yesterday,
nobody believes in the activity or the intelligence of a man of
seventy. Oh, why did I get into a habit of dining at Very's, of
drinking choice wines, of singing La Mere Godichon, of gambling when I
am in funds? To get a place and keep it, as Corentin says, it is not
enough to be clever, you must have the gift of management. Poor dear
M. Lenoir was right when he wrote to me in the matter of the Queen's
necklace, 'You will never do any good,' when he heard that I did not
stay under that slut Oliva's bed."
If the venerable Pere Canquoelle—he was called so in the
house—lived on in the Rue des Moineaux, on a fourth floor, you may
depend on it he had found some peculiarity in the arrangement of the
premises which favored the practice of his terrible profession.
The house, standing at the corner of the Rue Saint-Roch, had no
neighbors on one side; and as the staircase up the middle divided it
into two, there were on each floor two perfectly isolated rooms. Those
two rooms looked out on the Rue Saint-Roch. There were garret rooms
above the fourth floor, one of them a kitchen, and the other a bedroom
for Pere Canquoelle's only servant, a Fleming named Katt, formerly
Lydie's wet-nurse. Old Canquoelle had taken one of the outside rooms
for his bedroom, and the other for his study. The study ended at the
party-wall, a very thick one. The window opening on the Rue des
Moineaux looked on a blank wall at the opposite corner. As this study
was divided from the stairs by the whole width of Peyrade's bedroom,
the friends feared no eye, no ear, as they talked business in this
study made on purpose for his detestable trade.
Peyrade, as a further precaution, had furnished Katt's room with a
thick straw bed, a felt carpet, and a very heavy rug, under the
pretext of making his child's nurse comfortable. He had also stopped
up the chimney, warming his room by a stove, with a pipe through the
wall to the Rue Saint-Roch. Finally, he laid several rugs on his floor
to prevent the slightest sound being heard by the neighbors beneath.
An expert himself in the tricks of spies, he sounded the outer wall,
the ceiling, and the floor once a week, examining them as if he were
in search of noxious insects. It was the security of this room from
all witnesses or listeners that had made Corentin select it as his
council-chamber when he did not hold a meeting in his own room.
Where Corentin lived was known to no one but the Chief of the
Superior Police and to Peyrade; he received there such personages as
the Ministry or the King selected to conduct very serious cases; but
no agent or subordinate ever went there, and he plotted everything
connected with their business at Peyrade's. In this unpretentious room
schemes were matured, and resolutions passed, which would have
furnished strange records and curious dramas if only walls could talk.
Between 1816 and 1826 the highest interests were discussed there.
There first germinated the events which grew to weigh on France. There
Peyrade and Corentin, with all the foresight, and more than all the
information of Bellart, the Attorney-General, had said even in 1819:
"If Louis XVIII. does not consent to strike such or such a blow, to
make away with such or such a prince, is it because he hates his
brother? He must wish to leave him heir to a revolution."
Peyrade's door was graced with a slate, on which very strange marks
might sometimes be seen, figures scrawled in chalk. This sort of
devil's algebra bore the clearest meaning to the initiated.
Lydie's rooms, opposite to Peyrade's shabby lodging, consisted of
an ante-room, a little drawing-room, a bedroom, and a small dressing-
room. The door, like that of Peyrade's room, was constructed of a
plate of sheet-iron three lines thick, sandwiched between two strong
oak planks, fitted with locks and elaborate hinges, making it as
impossible to force it as if it were a prison door. Thus, though the
house had a public passage through it, with a shop below and no
doorkeeper, Lydie lived there without a fear. The dining-room, the
little drawing-room, and her bedroom—every window-balcony a hanging
garden—were luxurious in their Dutch cleanliness.
The Flemish nurse had never left Lydie, whom she called her
daughter. The two went to church with a regularity that gave the
royalist grocer, who lived below, in the corner shop, an excellent
opinion of the worthy Canquoelle. The grocer's family, kitchen, and
counter- jumpers occupied the first floor and the entresol; the
landlord inhabited the second floor; and the third had been let for
twenty years past to a lapidary. Each resident had a key of the street
door. The grocer's wife was all the more willing to receive letters
and parcels addressed to these three quiet households, because the
grocer's shop had a letter-box.
Without these details, strangers, or even those who know Paris
well, could not have understood the privacy and quietude, the
isolation and safety which made this house exceptional in Paris. After
midnight, Pere Canquoelle could hatch plots, receive spies or
ministers, wives or hussies, without any one on earth knowing anything
about it.
Peyrade, of whom the Flemish woman would say to the grocer's cook,
"He would not hurt a fly!" was regarded as the best of men. He grudged
his daughter nothing. Lydie, who had been taught music by Schmucke,
was herself a musician capable of composing; she could wash in a sepia
drawing, and paint in gouache and water-color. Every Sunday Peyrade
dined at home with her. On that day this worthy was wholly paternal.
Lydie, religious but not a bigot, took the Sacrament at Easter, and
confessed every month. Still, she allowed herself from time to time to
be treated to the play. She walked in the Tuileries when it was fine.
These were all her pleasures, for she led a sedentary life. Lydie, who
worshiped her father, knew absolutely nothing of his sinister gifts
and dark employments. Not a wish had ever disturbed this pure child's
pure life. Slight and handsome like her mother, gifted with an
exquisite voice, and a delicate face framed in fine fair hair, she
looked like one of those angels, mystical rather than real, which some
of the early painters grouped in the background of the Holy Family.
The glance of her blue eyes seemed to bring a beam from the sky on
those she favored with a look. Her dress, quite simple, with no
exaggeration of fashion, had a delightful middle-class modesty.
Picture to yourself an old Satan as the father of an angel, and
purified in her divine presence, and you will have an idea of Peyrade
and his daughter. If anybody had soiled this jewel, her father would
have invented, to swallow him alive, one of those dreadful plots in
which, under the Restoration, the unhappy wretches were trapped who
were designate to die on the scaffold. A thousand crowns were ample
maintenance for Lydie and Katt, whom she called nurse.
As Peyrade turned into the Rue des Moineaux, he saw Contenson; he
outstripped him, went upstairs before him, heard the man's steps on
the stairs, and admitted him before the woman had put her nose out of
the kitchen door. A bell rung by the opening of a glass door, on the
third story where the lapidary lived warned the residents on that and
the fourth floors when a visitor was coming to them. It need hardly be
said that, after midnight, Peyrade muffled this bell.
"What is up in such a hurry, Philosopher?"
Philosopher was the nickname bestowed on Contenson by Peyrade, and
well merited by the Epictetus among police agents. The name of
Contenson, alas! hid one of the most ancient names of feudal Normandy.
"Well, there is something like ten thousand francs to be netted."
"What is it? Political?"
"No, a piece of idiocy. Baron de Nucingen, you know, the old
certified swindler, is neighing after a woman he saw in the Bois de
Vincennes, and she has got to be found, or he will die of love.—They
had a consultation of doctors yesterday, by what his man tells me.—I
have already eased him of a thousand francs under pretence of seeking
the fair one."
And Contenson related Nucingen's meeting with Esther, adding that
the Baron had now some further information.
"All right," said Peyrade, "we will find his Dulcinea; tell the
Baron to come to-night in a carriage to the Champs-Elysees—the corner
of the Avenue de Gabriel and the Allee de Marigny."
Peyrade saw Contenson out, and knocked at his daughter's rooms, as
he always knocked to be let in. He was full of glee; chance had just
offered the means, at last, of getting the place he longed for.
He flung himself into a deep armchair, after kissing Lydie on the
forehead, and said:
"Play me something."
Lydie played him a composition for the piano by Beethoven.
"That is very well played, my pet," said he, taking Lydie on his
knees. "Do you know that we are one-and-twenty years old? We must get
married soon, for our old daddy is more than seventy——"
"I am quite happy here," said she.
"You love no one but your ugly old father?" asked Peyrade.
"Why, whom should I love?"
"I am dining at home, my darling; go and tell Katt. I am thinking
of settling, of getting an appointment, and finding a husband worthy
of you; some good young man, very clever, whom you may some day be
proud of——"
"I have never seen but one yet that I should have liked for a
husband——"
"You have seen one then?"
"Yes, in the Tuileries," replied Lydie. "He walked past me; he was
giving his arm to the Comtesse de Serizy."
"And his name is?"
"Lucien de Rubempre.—I was sitting with Katt under a lime-tree,
thinking of nothing. There were two ladies sitting by me, and one said
to the other, 'There are Madame de Serizy and that handsome Lucien de
Rubempre.'—I looked at the couple that the two ladies were watching.
'Oh, my dear!' said the other, 'some women are very lucky! That woman
is allowed to do everything she pleases just because she was a de
Ronquerolles, and her husband is in power.'—'But, my dear,' said the
other lady, 'Lucien costs her very dear.'—What did she mean, papa?"
"Just nonsense, such as people of fashion will talk," replied
Peyrade, with an air of perfect candor. "Perhaps they were alluding to
political matters."
"Well, in short, you asked me a question, so I answer you. If you
want me to marry, find me a husband just like that young man."
"Silly child!" replied her father. "The fact that a man is handsome
is not always a sign of goodness. Young men gifted with an attractive
appearance meet with no obstacles at the beginning of life, so they
make no use of any talent; they are corrupted by the advances made to
them by society, and they have to pay interest later for their
attractiveness!—What I should like for you is what the middle
classes, the rich, and the fools leave unholpen and unprotected——"
"What, father?"
"An unrecognized man of talent. But, there, child; I have it in my
power to hunt through every garret in Paris, and carry out your
programme by offering for your affection a man as handsome as the
young scamp you speak of; but a man of promise, with a future before
him destined to glory and fortune.—By the way, I was forgetting. I
must have a whole flock of nephews, and among them there must be one
worthy of you!—I will write, or get some one to write to Provence."
A strange coincidence! At this moment a young man, half-dead of
hunger and fatigue, who had come on foot from the department of
Vaucluse—a nephew of Pere Canquoelle's in search of his uncle, was
entering Paris through the Barriere de l'Italie. In the day-dreams of
the family, ignorant of this uncle's fate, Peyrade had supplied the
text for many hopes; he was supposed to have returned from India with
millions! Stimulated by these fireside romances, this grand-nephew,
named Theodore, had started on a voyage round the world in quest of
this eccentric uncle.
After enjoying for some hours the joys of paternity, Peyrade, his
hair washed and dyed—for his powder was a disguise—dressed in a
stout, coarse, blue frock-coat buttoned up to the chin, and a black
cloak, shod in strong, thick-soled boots, furnished himself with a
private card and walked slowly along the Avenue Gabriel, where
Contenson, dressed as an old costermonger woman, met him in front of
the gardens of the Elysee-Bourbon.
"Monsieur de Saint-Germain," said Contenson, giving his old chief
the name he was officially known by, "you have put me in the way of
making five hundred pieces (francs); but what I came here for was to
tell you that that damned Baron, before he gave me the shiners, had
been to ask questions at the house (the Prefecture of Police)."
"I shall want you, no doubt," replied Peyrade. "Look up numbers 7,
10, and 21; we can employ those men without any one finding it out,
either at the Police Ministry or at the Prefecture."
Contenson went back to a post near the carriage in which Monsieur
de Nucingen was waiting for Peyrade.
"I am Monsieur de Saint-Germain," said Peyrade to the Baron,
raising himself to look over the carriage door.
"Ver' goot; get in mit me," replied the Baron, ordering the
coachman to go on slowly to the Arc de l'Etoile.
"You have been to the Prefecture of Police, Monsieur le Baron? That
was not fair. Might I ask what you said to M. le Prefet, and what he
said in reply?" asked Peyrade.
"Before I should gif fife hundert francs to a filain like
Contenson, I vant to know if he had earned dem. I simply said to the
Prefet of Police dat I vant to employ ein agent named Peyrate to go
abroat in a delicate matter, an' should I trust him—unlimited!—The
Prefet telt me you vas a very clefer man an' ver' honest man. An' dat
vas everything."
"And now that you have learned my true name, Monsieur le Baron,
will you tell me what it is you want?"
When the Baron had given a long and copious explanation, in his
hideous Polish-Jew dialect, of his meeting with Esther and the cry of
the man behind the carriage, and his vain efforts, he ended by
relating what had occurred at his house the night before, Lucien's
involuntary smile, and the opinion expressed by Bianchon and some
other young dandies that there must be some acquaintance between him
and the unknown fair.
"Listen to me, Monsieur le Baron; you must, in the first instance,
place ten thousand francs in my hands, on account for expenses; for,
to you, this is a matter of life or death; and as your life is a
business-manufactory, nothing must be left undone to find this woman
for you. Oh, you are caught!——"
"Ja, I am caught!"
"If more money is wanted, Baron, I will let you know; put your
trust in me," said Peyrade. "I am not a spy, as you perhaps imagine.
In 1807 I was Commissioner-General of Police at Antwerp; and now that
Louis XVIII. is dead, I may tell you in confidence that for seven
years I was the chief of his counter-police. So there is no beating me
down. You must understand, Monsieur le Baron, that it is impossible to
make any estimate of the cost of each man's conscience before going
into the details of such an affair. Be quite easy; I shall succeed. Do
not fancy that you can satisfy me with a sum of money; I want
something for my reward——"
"So long as dat is not a kingtom!" said the Baron.
"It is less than nothing to you."
"Den I am your man."
"You know the Kellers?"
"Oh! ver' well."
"Francois Keller is the Comte de Gondreville's son-in-law, and the
Comte de Gondreville and his son-in-law dined with you yesterday."
"Who der teufel tolt you dat?" cried the Baron. "Dat vill be
Georche; he is always a gossip." Peyrade smiled, and the banker at
once formed strange suspicions of his man-servant.
"The Comte de Gondreville is quite in a position to obtain me a
place I covet at the Prefecture of Police; within forty-eight hours
the prefet will have notice that such a place is to be created," said
Peyrade in continuation. "Ask for it for me; get the Comte de
Gondreville to interest himself in the matter with some degree of
warmth—and you will thus repay me for the service I am about to do
you. I ask your word only; for, if you fail me, sooner or later you
will curse the day you were born—you have Peyrade's word for that."
"I gif you mein vort of honor to do vat is possible."
"If I do no more for you than is possible, it will not be enough."
"Vell, vell, I vill act qvite frankly."
"Frankly—that is all I ask," said Peyrade, "and frankness is the
only thing at all new that you and I can offer to each other."
"Frankly," echoed the Baron. "Vere shall I put you down."
"At the corner of the Pont Louis XVI."
"To the Pont de la Chambre," said the Baron to the footman at the
carriage door.
"Then I am to get dat unknown person," said the Baron to himself as
he drove home.
"What a queer business!" thought Peyrade, going back on foot to the
Palais-Royal, where he intended trying to multiply his ten thousand
francs by three, to make a little fortune for Lydie. "Here I am
required to look into the private concerns of a very young man who has
bewitched my little girl by a glance. He is, I suppose, one of those
men who have an eye for a woman," said he to himself, using an
expression of a language of his own, in which his observations, or
Corentin's, were summed up in words that were anything rather than
classical, but, for that very reason, energetic and picturesque.
The Baron de Nucingen, when he went in, was an altered man; he
astonished his household and his wife by showing them a face full of
life and color, so cheerful did he feel.
"Our shareholders had better look out for themselves," said du
Tillet to Rastignac.
They were all at tea, in Delphine de Nucingen's boudoir, having
come in from the opera.
"Ja," said the Baron, smiling; "I feel ver' much dat I shall do
some business."
"Then you have seen the fair being?" asked Madame de Nucingen.
"No," said he; "I have only hoped to see her."
"Do men ever love their wives so?" cried Madame de Nucingen,
feeling, or affecting to feel, a little jealous.
"When you have got her, you must ask us to sup with her," said du
Tillet to the Baron, "for I am very curious to study the creature who
has made you so young as you are."
"She is a cheff-d'oeufre of creation!" replied the old banker.
"He will be swindled like a boy," said Rastignac in Delphine's ear.
"Pooh! he makes quite enough money to——"
"To give a little back, I suppose," said du Tillet, interrupting
the Baroness.
Nucingen was walking up and down the room as if his legs had the
fidgets.
"Now is your time to make him pay your fresh debts," said Rastignac
in the Baroness' ear.
At this very moment Carlos was leaving the Rue Taitbout full of
hope; he had been there to give some last advice to Europe, who was to
play the principal part in the farce devised to take in the Baron de
Nucingen. He was accompanied as far as the Boulevard by Lucien, who
was not at all easy at finding this demon so perfectly disguised that
even he had only recognized him by his voice.
"Where the devil did you find a handsomer woman than Esther?" he
asked his evil genius.
"My boy, there is no such thing to be found in Paris. Such a
complexion is not made in France."
"I assure you, I am still quite amazed. Venus Callipyge has not
such a figure. A man would lose his soul for her. But where did she
spring from?"
"She was the handsomest girl in London. Drunk with gin, she killed
her lover in a fit of jealousy. The lover was a wretch of whom the
London police are well quit, and this woman was packed off to Paris
for a time to let the matter blow over. The hussy was well brought
up—the daughter of a clergyman. She speaks French as if it were her
mother tongue. She does not know, and never will know, why she is
here. She was told that if you took a fancy to her she might fleece
you of millions, but that you were as jealous as a tiger, and she was
told how Esther lived."
"But supposing Nucingen should prefer her to Esther?"
"Ah, it is out at last!" cried Carlos. "You dread now lest what
dismayed you yesterday should not take place after all! Be quite easy.
That fair and fair-haired girl has blue eyes; she is the antipodes of
the beautiful Jewess, and only such eyes as Esther's could ever stir a
man so rotten as Nucingen. What the devil! you could not hide an ugly
woman. When this puppet has played her part, I will send her off in
safe custody to Rome or to Madrid, where she will be the rage."
"If we have her only for a short time," said Lucien, "I will go
back to her——"
"Go, my boy, amuse yourself. You will be a day older to-morrow. For
my part, I must wait for some one whom I have instructed to learn what
is going on at the Baron de Nucingen's."
"Who?"
"His valet's mistress; for, after all, we must keep ourselves
informed at every moment of what is going on in the enemy's camp."
At midnight, Paccard, Esther's tall chasseur, met Carlos on the
Pont des Arts, the most favorable spot in all Paris for saying a few
words which no one must overhear. All the time they talked the servant
kept an eye on one side, while his master looked out on the other.
"The Baron went to the Prefecture of Police this morning between
four and five," said the man, "and he boasted this evening that he
should find the woman he saw in the Bois de Vincennes—he had been
promised it——"
"We are watched!" said Carlos. "By whom?"
"They have already employed Louchard the bailiff."
"That would be child's play," replied Carlos. "We need fear nothing
but the guardians of public safety, the criminal police; and so long
as that is not set in motion, we can go on!"
"That is not all."
"What else?"
"Our chums of the hulks.—I saw Lapouraille yesterday—— He has
choked off a married couple, and has bagged ten thousand five-franc
pieces—in gold."
"He will be nabbed," said Jacques Collin. "That is the Rue Boucher
crime."
"What is the order of the day?" said Paccard, with the respectful
demeanor a marshal must have assumed when taking his orders from Louis
XVIII.
"You must get out every evening at ten o'clock," replied Herrera.
"Make your way pretty briskly to the Bois de Vincennes, the Bois de
Meudon, and de Ville-d'Avray. If any one should follow you, let them
do it; be free of speech, chatty, open to a bribe. Talk about
Rubempre's jealousy and his mad passion for madame, saying that he
would not on any account have it known that he had a mistress of that
kind."
"Enough.—Must I have any weapons?"
"Never!" exclaimed Carlos vehemently. "A weapon? Of what use would
that be? To get us into a scrape. Do not under any circumstances use
your hunting-knife. When you know that you can break the strongest
man's legs by the trick I showed you—when you can hold your own
against three armed warders, feeling quite sure that you can account
for two of them before they have got out flint and steel, what is
there to be afraid of? Have not you your cane?"
"To be sure," said the man.
Paccard, nicknamed The Old Guard, Old Wide-Awake, or The Right
Man—a man with legs of iron, arms of steel, Italian whiskers, hair
like an artist's, a beard like a sapper's, and a face as colorless and
immovable as Contenson's, kept his spirit to himself, and rejoiced in
a sort of drum-major appearance which disarmed suspicion. A fugitive
from Poissy or Melun has no such serious self-consciousness and belief
in his own merit. As Giafar to the Haroun el Rasheed of the hulks, he
served him with the friendly admiration which Peyrade felt for
Corentin.
This huge fellow, with a small body in proportion to his legs,
flat- chested, and lean of limb, stalked solemnly about on his two
long pins. Whenever his right leg moved, his right eye took in
everything around him with the placid swiftness peculiar to thieves
and spies. The left eye followed the right eye's example. Wiry,
nimble, ready for anything at any time, but for a weakness of Dutch
courage Paccard would have been perfect, Jacques Collin used to say,
so completely was he endowed with the talents indispensable to a man
at war with society; but the master had succeeded in persuading his
slave to drink only in the evening. On going home at night, Paccard
tippled the liquid gold poured into small glasses out of a pot-bellied
stone jar from Danzig.
"We will make them open their eyes," said Paccard, putting on his
grand hat and feathers after bowing to Carlos, whom he called his
Confessor.
These were the events which had led three men, so clever, each in
his way, as Jacques Collin, Peyrade, and Corentin, to a hand-to-hand
fight on the same ground, each exerting his talents in a struggle for
his own passions or interests. It was one of those obscure but
terrible conflicts on which are expended in marches and
countermarches, in strategy, skill, hatred, and vexation, the powers
that might make a fine fortune. Men and means were kept absolutely
secret by Peyarde, seconded in this business by his friend Corentin—a
business they thought but a trifle. And so, as to them, history is
silent, as it is on the true causes of many revolutions.
But this was the result.
Five days after Monsieur de Nucingen's interview with Peyrade in
the Champs Elysees, a man of about fifty called in the morning,
stepping out of a handsome cab, and flinging the reins to his servant.
He had the dead-white complexion which a life in the "world" gives to
diplomates, was dressed in blue cloth, and had a general air of
fashion—almost that of a Minister of State.
He inquired of the servant who sat on a bench on the steps whether
the Baron de Nucingen were at home; and the man respectfully threw
open the splendid plate-glass doors.
"Your name, sir?" said the footman.
"Tell the Baron that I have come from the Avenue Gabriel," said
Corentin. "If anybody is with him, be sure not to say so too loud, or
you will find yourself out of place!"
A minute later the man came back and led Corentin by the back
passages to the Baron's private room.
Corentin and the banker exchanged impenetrable glances, and both
bowed politely.
"Monsieur le Baron," said Corentin, "I come in the name of
Peyrade——"
"Ver' gott!" said the Baron, fastening the bolts of both doors.
"Monsieur de Rubempre's mistress lives in the Rue Taitbout, in the
apartment formerly occupied by Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, M. de
Granville's ex-mistress—the Attorney-General——"
"Vat, so near to me?" exclaimed the Baron. "Dat is ver' strange."
"I can quite understand your being crazy about that splendid
creature; it was a pleasure to me to look at her," replied Corentin.
"Lucien is so jealous of the girl that he never allows her to be seen;
and she loves him devotedly; for in four years, since she succeeded la
Bellefeuille in those rooms, inheriting her furniture and her
profession, neither the neighbors, nor the porter, nor the other
tenants in the house have ever set eyes on her. My lady never stirs
out but at night. When she sets out, the blinds of the carriage are
pulled down, and she is closely veiled.
"Lucien has other reasons besides jealousy for concealing this
woman. He is to be married to Clotilde de Grandlieu, and he is at this
moment Madame de Serizy's favorite fancy. He naturally wishes to keep
a hold on his fashionable mistress and on his promised bride. So, you
are master of the position, for Lucien will sacrifice his pleasure to
his interests and his vanity. You are rich; this is probably your last
chance of happiness; be liberal. You can gain your end through her
waiting-maid. Give the slut ten thousand francs; she will hide you in
her mistress' bedroom. It must be quite worth that to you."
No figure of speech could describe the short, precise tone of
finality in which Corentin spoke; the Baron could not fail to observe
it, and his face expressed his astonishment—an expression he had long
expunged from his impenetrable features.
"I have also to ask you for five thousand francs for my friend
Peyrade, who has dropped five of your thousand-franc notes—a tiresome
accident," Corentin went on, in a lordly tone of command. "Peyrade
knows his Paris too well to spend money in advertising, and he trusts
entirely to you. But this is not the most important point," added
Corentin, checking himself in such a way as to make the request for
money seem quite a trifle. "If you do not want to end your days
miserably, get the place for Peyrade that he asked you to procure for
him—and it is a thing you can easily do. The Chief of the General
Police must have had notice of the matter yesterday. All that is
needed is to get Gondreville to speak to the Prefet of Police.—Very
well, just say to Malin, Comte de Gondreville, that it is to oblige
one of the men who relieved him of MM. de Simeuse, and he will work
it——"
"Here den, mensieur," said the Baron, taking out five
thousand-franc notes and handing them to Corentin.
"The waiting-maid is great friends with a tall chasseur named
Paccard, living in the Rue de Provence, over a carriage-builder's; he
goes out as heyduque to persons who give themselves princely airs. You
can get at Madame van Bogseck's woman through Paccard, a brawny
Piemontese, who has a liking for vermouth."
This information, gracefully thrown in as a postscript, was
evidently the return for the five thousand francs. The Baron was
trying to guess Corentin's place in life, for he quite understood that
the man was rather a master of spies than a spy himself; but Corentin
remained to him as mysterious as an inscription is to an archaeologist
when three- quarters of the letters are missing.
"Vat is dat maid called?" he asked.
"Eugenie," replied Corentin, who bowed and withdrew.
The Baron, in a transport of joy, left his business for the day,
shut up his office, and went up to his rooms in the happy frame of
mind of a young man of twenty looking forward to his first meeting
with his first mistress.
The Baron took all the thousand-franc notes out of his private
cash- box—a sum sufficient to make the whole village happy,
fifty-five thousand francs—and stuffed them into the pocket of his
coat. But a millionaire's lavishness can only be compared with his
eagerness for gain. As soon as a whim or a passion is to be gratified,
money is dross to a Croesus; in fact, he finds it harder to have whims
than gold. A keen pleasure is the rarest thing in these satiated
lives, full of the excitement that comes of great strokes of
speculation, in which these dried-up hearts have burned themselves
out.
For instance, one of the richest capitalists in Paris one day met
an extremely pretty little working-girl. Her mother was with her, but
the girl had taken the arm of a young fellow in very doubtful finery,
with a very smart swagger. The millionaire fell in love with the girl
at first sight; he followed her home, he went in; he heard all her
story, a record of alternations of dancing at Mabille and days of
starvation, of play-going and hard work; he took an interest in it,
and left five thousand-franc notes under a five-franc piece—an act of
generosity abused. Next day a famous upholsterer, Braschon, came to
take the damsel's orders, furnished rooms that she had chosen, and
laid out twenty thousand francs. She gave herself up to the wildest
hopes, dressed her mother to match, and flattered herself she would
find a place for her ex-lover in an insurance office. She waited—a
day, two days—then a week, two weeks. She thought herself bound to be
faithful; she got into debt. The capitalist, called away to Holland,
had forgotten the girl; he never went once to the Paradise where he
had placed her, and from which she fell as low as it is possible to
fall even in Paris.
Nucingen did not gamble, Nucingen did not patronize the Arts,
Nucingen had no hobby; thus he flung himself into his passion for
Esther with a headlong blindness, on which Carlos Herrera had
confidently counted.
After his breakfast, the Baron sent for Georges, his body-servant,
and desired him to go to the Rue Taitbout and ask Mademoiselle
Eugenie, Madame van Bogseck's maid, to come to his office on a matter
of importance.
"You shall look out for her," he added, "an' make her valk up to my
room, and tell her I shall make her fortune."
Georges had the greatest difficulty in persuading Europe-Eugenie to
come.
"Madame never lets me go out," said she; "I might lose my place,"
and so forth; and Georges sang her praises loudly to the Baron, who
gave him ten louis.
"If madame goes out without her this evening," said Georges to his
master, whose eyes glowed like carbuncles, "she will be here by ten
o'clock."
"Goot. You shall come to dress me at nine o'clock—and do my hair.
I shall look so goot as possible. I belief I shall really see dat
mistress—or money is not money any more."
The Baron spent an hour, from noon till one, in dyeing his hair and
whiskers. At nine in the evening, having taken a bath before dinner,
he made a toilet worthy of a bridegroom and scented himself—a perfect
Adonis. Madame de Nucingen, informed of this metamorphosis, gave
herself the treat of inspecting her husband.
"Good heavens!" cried she, "what a ridiculous figure! Do, at least,
put on a black satin stock instead of that white neckcloth which makes
your whiskers look so black; besides, it is so 'Empire,' quite the old
fogy. You look like some super-annuated parliamentary counsel. And
take off these diamond buttons; they are worth a hundred thousand
francs apiece—that slut will ask you for them, and you will not be
able to refuse her; and if a baggage is to have them, I may as well
wear them as earrings."
The unhappy banker, struck by the wisdom of his wife's reflections,
obeyed reluctantly.
"Ridikilous, ridikilous! I hafe never telt you dat you shall be
ridikilous when you dressed yourself so smart to see your little
Mensieur de Rastignac!"
"I should hope that you never saw me make myself ridiculous. Am I
the woman to make such blunders in the first syllable of my dress?
Come, turn about. Button your coat up to the neck, all but the two top
buttons, as the Duc de Maufrigneuse does. In short, try to look
young."
"Monsieur," said Georges, "here is Mademoiselle Eugenie."
"Adie, motame," said the banker, and he escorted his wife as far as
her own rooms, to make sure that she should not overhear their
conference.
On his return, he took Europe by the hand and led her into his room
with a sort of ironical respect.
"Vell, my chilt, you are a happy creature, for you are de maid of
dat most beautiful voman in de vorlt. And your fortune shall be made
if you vill talk to her for me and in mine interests."
"I would not do such a thing for ten thousand francs!" exclaimed
Europe. "I would have you to know, Monsieur le Baron, that I am an
honest girl."
"Oh yes. I expect to pay dear for your honesty. In business dat is
vat ve call curiosity."
"And that is not everything," Europe went on. "If you should not
take madame's fancy—and that is on the cards—she would be angry, and
I am done for!—and my place is worth a thousand francs a year."
"De capital to make ein tousant franc is twenty tousand franc; and
if I shall gif you dat, you shall not lose noting."
"Well, to be sure, if that is the tone you take about it, my worthy
old fellow," said Europe, "that is quite another story.—Where is the
money?"
"Here," replied the Baron, holding up the banknotes, one at a time.
He noted the flash struck by each in turn from Europe's eyes,
betraying the greed he had counted on.
"That pays for my place, but how about my principles, my
conscience?" said Europe, cocking her crafty little nose and giving
the Baron a serio-comic leer.
"Your conscience shall not be pait for so much as your place; but I
shall say fife tousand franc more," said he adding five thousand-franc
notes.
"No, no. Twenty thousand for my conscience, and five thousand for
my place if I lose it——"
"Yust vat you please," said he, adding the five notes. "But to earn
dem you shall hite me in your lady's room by night ven she shall be
'lone."
"If you swear never to tell who let you in, I agree. But I warn you
of one thing.—Madame is as strong as a Turk, she is madly in love
with Monsieur de Rubempre, and if you paid a million francs in
banknotes she would never be unfaithful to him. It is very silly, but
that is her way when she is in love; she is worse than an honest
woman, I tell you! When she goes out for a drive in the woods at
night, monsieur very seldom stays at home. She is gone out this
evening, so I can hide you in my room. If madame comes in alone, I
will fetch you; you can wait in the drawing-room. I will not lock the
door into her room, and then—well, the rest is your concern—so be
ready."
"I shall pay you the twenty-fife tousand francs in dat
drawing-room.— You gife—I gife!"
"Indeed!" said Europe, "you are so confiding as all that? On my
word!"
"Oh, you will hafe your chance to fleece me yet. We shall be
friends."
"Well, then, be in the Rue Taitbout at midnight; but bring thirty
thousand francs about you. A waiting-woman's honesty, like a hackney
cab, is much dearer after midnight."
"It shall be more prudent if I gif you a cheque on my bank——"
"No, no" said Europe. "Notes, or the bargain is off."
So at one in the morning the Baron de Nucingen, hidden in the
garret where Europe slept, was suffering all the anxieties of a man
who hopes to triumph. His blood seemed to him to be tingling in his
toe-nails, and his head ready to burst like an overheated steam
engine.
"I had more dan one hundert tousand crowns' vort of enjoyment—in
my mind," he said to du Tillet when telling him the story.
He listened to every little noise in the street, and at two in the
morning he heard his mistress' carriage far away on the boulevard. His
heart beat vehemently under his silk waistcoat as the gate turned on
its hinges. He was about to behold the heavenly, the glowing face of
his Esther!—the clatter of the carriage-step and the slam of the door
struck upon his heart. He was more agitated in expectation of this
supreme moment than he would have been if his fortune had been at
stake.
"Ah, ha!" cried he, "dis is vat I call to lif—it is too much to
lif; I shall be incapable of everything."
"Madame is alone; come down," said Europe, looking in. "Above all,
make no noise, great elephant."
"Great Elephant!" he repeated, laughing, and walking as if he trod
on red-hot iron.
Europe led the way, carrying a candle.
"Here—count dem!" said the Baron when he reached the drawing-room,
holding out the notes to Europe.
Europe took the thirty notes very gravely and left the room,
locking the banker in.
Nucingen went straight to the bedroom, where he found the handsome
Englishwoman.
"Is that you, Lucien?" said she.
"Nein, my peauty," said Nucingen, but he said no more.
He stood speechless on seeing a woman the very antipodes to Esther;
fair hair where he had seen black, slenderness where he had admired a
powerful frame! A soft English evening where he had looked for the
bright sun of Arabia.
"Heyday! were have you come from?—who are you?—what do you want?"
cried the Englishwoman, pulling the bell, which made no sound.
"The bells dey are in cotton-vool, but hafe not any fear—I shall
go 'vay," said he. "Dat is dirty tousant franc I hafe tron in de
vater. Are you dat mistress of Mensieur Lucien de Rubempre?"
"Rather, my son," said the lady, who spoke French well, "But vat
vas you?" she went on, mimicking Nucingen's accent.
"Ein man vat is ver' much took in," replied he lamentably.
"Is a man took in ven he finds a pretty voman?" asked she, with a
laugh.
"Permit me to sent you to-morrow some chewels as a soufenir of de
Baron von Nucingen."
"Don't know him!" said she, laughing like a crazy creature. "But
the chewels will be welcome, my fat burglar friend."
"You shall know him. Goot night, motame. You are a tidbit for ein
king; but I am only a poor banker more dan sixty year olt, and you
hafe made me feel vat power the voman I lofe hafe ofer me since your
difine beauty hafe not make me forget her."
"Vell, dat is ver' pretty vat you say," replied the Englishwoman.
"It is not so pretty vat she is dat I say it to."
"You spoke of thirty thousand francs—to whom did you give them?"
"To dat hussy, your maid——"
The Englishwoman called Europe, who was not far off.
"Oh!" shrieked Europe, "a man in madame's room, and he is not
monsieur —how shocking!"
"Did he give you thirty thousand francs to let him in?"
"No, madame, for we are not worth it, the pair of us."
And Europe set to screaming "Thief" so determinedly, that the
banker made for the door in a fright, and Europe, tripping him up,
rolled him down the stairs.
"Old wretch!" cried she, "you would tell tales to my mistress!
Thief! thief! stop thief!"
The enamored Baron, in despair, succeeded in getting unhurt to his
carriage, which he had left on the boulevard; but he was now at his
wits' end as to whom to apply to.
"And pray, madame, did you think to get my earnings out of me?"
said Europe, coming back like a fury to the lady's room.
"I know nothing of French customs," said the Englishwoman.
"But one word from me to-morrow to monsieur, and you, madame, would
find yourself in the streets," retorted Europe insolently.
"Dat dam' maid!" said the Baron to Georges, who naturally asked his
master if all had gone well, "hafe do me out of dirty tousant franc—
but it vas my own fault, my own great fault——"
"And so monsieur's dress was all wasted. The deuce is in it, I
should advise you, Monsieur le Baron, not to have taken your tonic for
nothing——"
"Georches, I shall be dying of despair. I hafe cold—I hafe ice on
mein heart—no more of Esther, my good friend."
Georges was always the Baron's friend when matters were serious.
Two days after this scene, which Europe related far more amusingly
than it can be written, because she told it with much mimicry, Carlos
and Lucien were breakfasting tete-a-tete.
"My dear boy, neither the police nor anybody else must be allowed
to poke a nose into our concerns," said Herrera in a low voice, as he
lighted his cigar from Lucien's. "It would not agree with us. I have
hit on a plan, daring but effectual, to keep our Baron and his agents
quiet. You must go to see Madame de Serizy, and make yourself very
agreeable to her. Tell her, in the course of conversation, that to
oblige Rastignac, who has long been sick of Madame de Nucingen, you
have consented to play fence for him to conceal a mistress. Monsieur
de Nucingen, desperately in love with this woman Rastignac keeps
hidden—that will make her laugh—has taken it into his head to set
the police to keep an eye on you—on you, who are innocent of all his
tricks, and whose interest with the Grandlieus may be seriously
compromised. Then you must beg the Countess to secure her husband's
support, for he is a Minister of State, to carry you to the Prefecture
of Police.
"When you have got there, face to face with the Prefet, make your
complaint, but as a man of political consequence, who will sooner or
later be one of the motor powers of the huge machine of government.
You will speak of the police as a statesman should, admiring
everything, the Prefet included. The very best machines make oil-
stains or splutter. Do not be angry till the right moment. You have no
sort of grudge against Monsieur le Prefet, but persuade him to keep a
sharp lookout on his people, and pity him for having to blow them up.
The quieter and more gentlemanly you are, the more terrible will the
Prefet be to his men. Then we shall be left in peace, and we may send
for Esther back, for she must be belling like the does in the forest."
The Prefet at that time was a retired magistrate. Retired
magistrates make far too young Prefets. Partisans of the right, riding
the high horse on points of law, they are not light-handed in arbitary
action such as critical circumstances often require; cases in which
the Prefet should be as prompt as a fireman called to a conflagration.
So, face to face with the Vice-President of the Council of State, the
Prefet confessed to more faults than the police really has, deplored
its abuses, and presently was able to recollect the visit paid to him
by the Baron de Nucingen and his inquiries as to Peyrade. The Prefet,
while promising to check the rash zeal of his agents, thanked Lucien
for having come straight to him, promised secrecy, and affected to
understand the intrigue.
A few fine speeches about personal liberty and the sacredness of
home life were bandied between the Prefet and the Minister; Monsieur
de Serizy observing in conclusion that though the high interests of
the kingdom sometimes necessitated illegal action in secret, crime
began when these State measures were applied to private cases.
Next day, just as Peyrade was going to his beloved Cafe David,
where he enjoyed watching the bourgeois eat, as an artist watches
flowers open, a gendarme in private clothes spoke to him in the
street.
"I was going to fetch you," said he in his ear. "I have orders to
take you to the Prefecture."
Peyrade called a hackney cab, and got in without saying a single
word, followed by the gendarme.
The Prefet treated Peyrade as though he were the lowest warder on
the hulks, walking to and fro in a side path of the garden of the
Prefecture, which at that time was on the Quai des Orfevres.
"It is not without good reason, monsieur, that since 1830 you have
been kept out of office. Do not you know to what risk you expose us,
not to mention yourself?"
The lecture ended in a thunderstroke. The Prefet sternly informed
poor Peyrade that not only would his yearly allowance be cut off, but
that he himself would be narrowly watched. The old man took the shock
with an air of perfect calm. Nothing can be more rigidly
expressionless than a man struck by lightning. Peyrade had lost all
his stake in the game. He had counted on getting an appointment, and
he found himself bereft of everything but the alms bestowed by his
friend Corentin.
"I have been the Prefet of Police myself; I think you perfectly
right," said the old man quietly to the functionary who stood before
him in his judicial majesty, and who answered with a significant
shrug.
"But allow me, without any attempt to justify myself, to point out
that you do not know me at all," Peyrade went on, with a keen glance
at the Prefet. "Your language is either too severe to a man who has
been the head of the police in Holland, or not severe enough for a
mere spy. But, Monsieur le Prefet," Peyrade added after a pause, while
the other kept silence, "bear in mind what I now have the honor to
telling you: I have no intention of interfering with your police nor
of attempting to justify myself, but you will presently discover that
there is some one in this business who is being deceived; at this
moment it is your humble servant; by and by you will say, 'It was I.'
"
And he bowed to the chief, who sat passive to conceal his
amazement.
Peyrade returned home, his legs and arms feeling broken, and full
of cold fury with the Baron. Nobody but that burly banker could have
betrayed a secret contained in the minds of Contenson, Peyrade, and
Corentin. The old man accused the banker of wishing to avoid paying
now that he had gained his end. A single interview had been enough to
enable him to read the astuteness of this most astute of bankers.
"He tries to compound with every one, even with us; but I will be
revenged," thought the old fellow. "I have never asked a favor of
Corentin; I will ask him now to help me to be revenged on that
imbecile money-box. Curse the Baron!—Well, you will know the stuff I
am made of one fine morning when you find your daughter disgraced!—
But does he love his daughter, I wonder?"
By the evening of the day when this catastrophe had upset the old
man's hopes he had aged by ten years. As he talked to his friend
Corentin, he mingled his lamentations with tears wrung from him by the
thought of the melancholy prospects he must bequeath to his daughter,
his idol, his treasure, his peace-offering to God.
"We will follow the matter up," said Corentin. "First of all, we
must be sure that it was the Baron who peached. Were we wise in
enlisting Gondreville's support? That old rascal owes us too much not
to be anxious to swamp us; indeed, I am keeping an eye on his
son-in-law Keller, a simpleton in politics, and quite capable of
meddling in some conspiracy to overthrow the elder Branch to the
advantage of the younger.—I shall know to-morrow what is going on at
Nucingen's, whether he has seen his beloved, and to whom we owe this
sharp pull up.—Do not be out of heart. In the first place, the Prefet
will not hold his appointment much longer; the times are big with
revolution, and revolutions make good fishing for us."
A peculiar whistle was just then heard in the street.
"That is Contenson," said Peyrade, who put a light in the window,
"and he has something to say that concerns me."
A minute later the faithful Contenson appeared in the presence of
the two gnomes of the police, whom he revered as though they were two
genii.
"What is up?" asked Corentin.
"A new thing! I was coming out of 113, where I lost everything,
when whom do I spy under the gallery? Georges! The man has been
dismissed by the Baron, who suspects him of treachery."
"That is the effect of a smile I gave him," said Peyrade.
"Bah! when I think of all the mischief I have known caused by
smiles!" said Corentin.
"To say nothing of that caused by a whip-lash," said Peyrade,
referring to the Simeuse case. (In Une Tenebreuse affaire.) "But come,
Contenson, what is going on?"
"This is what is going on," said Contenson. "I made Georges blab by
getting him to treat me to an endless series of liqueurs of every
color—I left him tipsy; I must be as full as a still myself!—Our
Baron has been to the Rue Taitbout, crammed with Pastilles du Serail.
There he found the fair one you know of; but—a good joke! The English
beauty is not his fair unknown!—And he has spent thirty thousand
francs to bribe the lady's-maid, a piece of folly!
"That creature thinks itself a great man because it does mean
things with great capital. Reverse the proposition, and you have the
problem of which a man of genius is the solution.—The Baron came home
in a pitiable condition. Next day Georges, to get his finger in the
pie, said to his master:
" 'Why, Monsieur le Baron, do you employ such blackguards? If you
would only trust to me, I would find the unknown lady, for your
description of her is enough. I shall turn Paris upside down.'—'Go
ahead,' says the Baron; 'I shall reward you handsomely!'— Georges
told me the whole story with the most absurd details. But—man is born
to be rained upon!
"Next day the Baron received an anonymous letter something to this
effect: 'Monsieur de Nucingen is dying of love for an unknown lady; he
has already spent a great deal utterly in vain; if he will repair at
midnight to the end of the Neuilly Bridge, and get into the carriage
behind which the chasseur he saw at Vincennes will be standing,
allowing himself to be blindfolded, he will see the woman he loves. As
his wealth may lead him to suspect the intentions of persons who
proceed in such a fashion, he may bring, as an escort, his faithful
Georges. And there will be nobody in the carriage.'—Off the Baron
goes, taking Georges with him, but telling him nothing. They both
submit to have their eyes bound up and their heads wrapped in veils;
the Baron recognizes the man-servant.
"Two hours later, the carriage, going at the pace of Louis
XVIII.—God rest his soul! He knew what was meant by the police, he
did!—pulled up in the middle of a wood. The Baron had the
handkerchief off, and saw, in a carriage standing still, his adored
fair—when, whiff! she vanished. And the carriage, at the same lively
pace, brought him back to the Neuilly Bridge, where he found his own.
"Some one had slipped into Georges' hand a note to this effect:
'How many banknotes will the Baron part with to be put into
communication with his unknown fair? Georges handed this to his
master; and the Baron, never doubting that Georges was in collusion
with me or with you, Monsieur Peyrade, to drive a hard bargain, turned
him out of the house. What a fool that banker is! He ought not to have
sent away Georges before he had known the unknown!"
"Then Georges saw the woman?" said Corentin.
"Yes," replied Contenson.
"Well," cried Peyrade, "and what is she like?"
"Oh," said Contenson, "he said but one word—'A sun of loveliness.'
"
"We are being tricked by some rascals who beat us at the game,"
said Peyrade. "Those villains mean to sell their woman very dear to
the Baron."
"Ja, mein Herr," said Contenson. "And so, when I heard you got
slapped in the face at the Prefecture, I made Georges blab."
"I should like very much to know who it is that has stolen a march
on me," said Peyrade. "We would measure our spurs!"
"We must play eavesdropper," said Contenson.
"He is right," said Peyrade. "We must get into chinks to listen,
and wait——"
"We will study that side of the subject," cried Corentin. "For the
present, I am out of work. You, Peyrade, be a very good boy. We must
always obey Monsieur le Prefet!"
"Monsieur de Nucingen wants bleeding," said Contenson; "he has too
many banknotes in his veins."
"But it was Lydie's marriage-portion I looked for there!" said
Peyrade, in a whisper to Corentin.
"Now, come along, Contenson, let us be off, and leave our daddy to
by-bye, by-bye!"
"Monsieur," said Contenson to Corentin on the doorstep, "what a
queer piece of brokerage our good friend was planning! Heh!—What,
marry a daughter with the price of——Ah, ha! It would make a pretty
little play, and very moral too, entitled 'A Girl's Dower.' "
"You are highly organized animals, indeed," replied Corentin. "What
ears you have! Certainly Social Nature arms all her species with the
qualities needed for the duties she expects of them! Society is second
nature."
"That is a highly philosophical view to take," cried Contenson. "A
professor would work it up into a system."
"Let us find out all we can," replied Corentin with a smile, as he
made his way down the street with the spy, "as to what goes on at
Monsieur de Nucingen's with regard to this girl—the main facts; never
mind the details——"
"Just watch to see if his chimneys are smoking!" said Contenson.
"Such a man as the Baron de Nucingen cannot be happy incognito,"
replied Corentin. "And besides, we for whom men are but cards, ought
never to be tricked by them."
"By gad! it would be the condemned jail-bird amusing himself by
cutting the executioner's throat."
"You always have something droll to say," replied Corentin, with a
dim smile, that faintly wrinkled his set white face.
This business was exceedingly important in itself, apart from its
consequences. If it were not the Baron who had betrayed Peyrade, who
could have had any interest in seeing the Prefet of Police? From
Corentin's point of view it seemed suspicious. Were there any traitors
among his men? And as he went to bed, he wondered what Peyrade, too,
was considering.
"Who can have gone to complain to the Prefet? Whom does the woman
belong to?"
And thus, without knowing each other, Jacques Collin, Peyrade, and
Corentin were converging to a common point; while the unhappy Esther,
Nucingen, and Lucien were inevitably entangled in the struggle which
had already begun, and of which the point of pride, peculiar to police
agents, was making a war to the death.
Thanks to Europe's cleverness, the more pressing half of the sixty
thousand francs of debt owed by Esther and Lucien was paid off. The
creditors did not even lose confidence. Lucien and his evil genius
could breathe for a moment. Like some pool, they could start again
along the edge of the precipice where the strong man was guiding the
weak man to the gibbet or to fortune.
"We are staking now," said Carlos to his puppet, "to win or lose
all. But, happily, the cards are beveled, and the punters young."
For some time Lucien, by his terrible Mentor's orders, had been
very attentive to Madame de Serizy. It was, in fact, indispensable
that Lucien should not be suspected of having kept a woman for his
mistress. And in the pleasure of being loved, and the excitement of
fashionable life, he found a spurious power of forgetting. He obeyed
Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu by never seeing her excepting in
the Bois or the Champs-Elysees.
On the day after Esther was shut up in the park-keeper's house, the
being who was to her so enigmatic and terrible, who weighed upon her
soul, came to desire her to sign three pieces of stamped paper, made
terrible by these fateful words: on the first, accepted payable for
sixty thousand francs; on the second, accepted payable for a hundred
and twenty thousand francs; on the third, accepted payable for a
hundred and twenty thousand francs—three hundred thousand francs in
all. By writing Bon pour, you simply promise to pay. The word ACCEPTED
constitutes a bill of exchange, and makes you liable to imprisonment.
The word entails, on the person who is so imprudent as to sign, the
risk of five years' imprisonment—a punishment which the police
magistrate hardly ever inflicts, and which is reserved at the assizes
for confirmed rogues. The law of imprisonment for debt is a relic of
the days of barbarism, which combines with its stupidity the rare
merit of being useless, inasmuch as it never catches swindlers.
"The point," said the Spaniard to Esther, "is to get Lucien out of
his difficulties. We have debts to the tune of sixty thousand francs,
and with these three hundred thousand francs we may perhaps pull
through."
Having antedated the bills by six months, Carlos had had them drawn
on Esther by a man whom the county court had "misunderstood," and
whose adventures, in spite of the excitement they had caused, were
soon forgotten, hidden, lost, in the uproar of the great symphony of
July 1830.
This young fellow, a most audacious adventurer, the son of a
lawyer's clerk of Boulogne, near Paris, was named Georges Marie
Destourny. His father, obliged by adverse circumstances to sell his
connection, died in 1824, leaving his son without the means of living,
after giving him a brilliant education, the folly of the lower middle
class. At twenty- three the clever young law-student had denied his
paternity by printing on his cards
Georges d'Estourny.
This card gave him an odor of aristocracy; and now, as a man of
fashion, he was so impudent as to set up a tilbury and a groom and
haunt the clubs. One line will account for this: he gambled on the
Bourse with the money intrusted to him by the kept women of his
acquaintance. Finally he fell into the hands of the police, and was
charged with playing at cards with too much luck.
He had accomplices, youths whom he had corrupted, his compulsory
satellites, accessory to his fashion and his credit. Compelled to fly,
he forgot to pay his differences on the Bourse. All Paris—the Paris
of the Stock Exchange and Clubs—was still shaken by this double
stroke of swindling.
In the days of his splendor Georges d'Estourny, a handsome youth,
and above all, a jolly fellow, as generous as a brigand chief, had for
a few months "protected" La Torpille. The false Abbe based his
calculations on Esther's former intimacy with this famous scoundrel,
an incident peculiar to women of her class.
Georges d'Estourny, whose ambition grew bolder with success, had
taken under his patronage a man who had come from the depths of the
country to carry on a business in Paris, and whom the Liberal party
were anxious to indemnify for certain sentences endured with much
courage in the struggle of the press with Charles X.'s government, the
persecution being relaxed, however, during the Martignac
administration. The Sieur Cerizet had then been pardoned, and he was
henceforth known as the Brave Cerizet.
Cerizet then, being patronized for form's sake by the bigwigs of
the Left, founded a house which combined the business of a general
agency with that of a bank and a commission agency. It was one of
those concerns which, in business, remind one of the servants who
advertise in the papers as being able and willing to do everything.
Cerizet was very glad to ally himself with Georges d'Estourny, who
gave him hints.
Esther, in virtue of the anecdote about Nonon, might be regarded as
the faithful guardian of part of Georges d'Estourny's fortune. An
endorsement in the name of Georges d'Estourny made Carlos Herrera
master of the money he had created. This forgery was perfectly safe so
long as Mademoiselle Esther, or some one for her, could, or was bound
to pay.
After making inquiries as to the house of Cerizet, Carlos perceived
that he had to do with one of those humble men who are bent on making
a fortune, but—lawfully. Cerizet, with whom d'Estourny had really
deposited his moneys, had in hand a considerable sum with which he was
speculating for a rise on the Bourse, a state of affairs which allowed
him to style himself a banker. Such things are done in Paris; a man
may be despised,—but money, never.
Carlos went off to Cerizet intending to work him after his manner;
for, as it happened, he was master of all this worthy's secrets—a
meet partner for d'Estourny.
Cerizet the Brave lived in an entresol in the Rue du Gros-Chenet,
and Carlos, who had himself mysteriously announced as coming from
Georges d'Estourny, found the self-styled banker quite pale at the
name. The Abbe saw in this humble private room a little man with thin,
light hair; and recognized him at once, from Lucien's description, as
the Judas who had ruined David Sechard.
"Can we talk here without risk of being overheard?" said the
Spaniard, now metamorphosed into a red-haired Englishman with blue
spectacles, as clean and prim as a Puritan going to meeting.
"Why, monsieur?" said Cerizet. "Who are you?"
"Mr. William Barker, a creditor of M. d'Estourny's; and I can prove
to you the necessity for keeping your doors closed if you wish it. We
know, monsieur, all about your connections with the Petit-Clauds, the
Cointets, and the Sechards of Angouleme——"
On hearing these words, Cerizet rushed to the door and shut it,
flew to another leading into a bedroom and bolted it; then he said to
the stranger:
"Speak lower, monsieur," and he studied the sham Englishman as he
asked him, "What do you want with me?"
"Dear me," said William Barker, "every one for himself in this
world. You had the money of that rascal d'Estourny.—Be quite easy, I
have not come to ask for it; but that scoundrel, who deserves hanging,
between you and me, gave me these bills, saying that there might be
some chance of recovering the money; and as I do not choose to
prosecute in my own name, he told me you would not refuse to back
them."
Cerizet looked at the bills.
"But he is no longer at Frankfort," said he.
"I know it," replied Barker, "but he may still have been there at
the date of those bills——"
"I will not take the responsibility," said Cerizet.
"I do not ask such a sacrifice of you," replied Barker; "you may be
instructed to receive them. Endorse them, and I will undertake to
recover the money."
"I am surprised that d'Estourny should show so little confidence in
me," said Cerizet.
"In his position," replied Barker, "you can hardly blame him for
having put his eggs in different baskets."
"Can you believe——" the little broker began, as he handed back to
the Englishman the bills of exchange formally accepted.
"I believe that you will take good care of his money," said Barker.
"I am sure of it! It is already on the green table of the Bourse."
"My fortune depends——"
"On your appearing to lose it," said Barker.
"Sir!" cried Cerizet.
"Look here, my dear Monsieur Cerizet," said Barker, coolly
interrupting him, "you will do me a service by facilitating this
payment. Be so good as to write me a letter in which you tell me that
you are sending me these bills receipted on d'Estourny's account, and
that the collecting officer is to regard the holder of the letter as
the possessor of the three bills."
"Will you give me your name?"
"No names," replied the English capitalist. "Put 'The bearer of
this letter and these bills.'—You will be handsomely repaid for
obliging me."
"How?" said Cerizet.
"In one word—You mean to stay in France, do not you?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Well, Georges d'Estourny will never re-enter the country."
"Pray why?"
"There are five persons at least to my knowledge who would murder
him, and he knows it."
"Then no wonder he is asking me for money enough to start him
trading to the Indies?" cried Cerizet. "And unfortunately he has
compelled me to risk everything in State speculation. We already owe
heavy differences to the house of du Tillet. I live from hand to
mouth."
"Withdraw your stakes."
"Oh! if only I had known this sooner!" exclaimed Cerizet. "I have
missed my chance!"
"One last word," said Barker. "Keep your own counsel, you are
capable of that; but you must be faithful too, which is perhaps less
certain. We shall meet again, and I will help you to make a fortune."
Having tossed this sordid soul a crumb of hope that would secure
silence for some time to come, Carlos, still disguised as Barker,
betook himself to a bailiff whom he could depend on, and instructed
him to get the bills brought home to Esther.
"They will be paid all right," said he to the officer. "It is an
affair of honor; only we want to do the thing regularly."
Barker got a solicitor to represent Esther in court, so that
judgment might be given in presence of both parties. The collecting
officer, who was begged to act with civility, took with him all the
warrants for procedure, and came in person to seize the furniture in
the Rue Taitbout, where he was received by Europe. Her personal
liability once proved, Esther was ostensibly liable, beyond dispute,
for three hundred and more thousand francs of debts.
In all this Carlos displayed no great powers of invention. The
farce of false debts is often played in Paris. There are many
sub-Gobsecks and sub-Gigonnets who, for a percentage, will lend
themselves to this subterfuge, and regard the infamous trick as a
jest. In France everything—even a crime—is done with a laugh. By
this means refractory parents are made to pay, or rich mistresses who
might drive a hard bargain, but who, face to face with flagrant
necessity, or some impending dishonor, pay up, if with a bad grace.
Maxime de Trailles had often used such means, borrowed from the
comedies of the old stage. Carlos Herrera, who wanted to save the
honor of his gown, as well as Lucien's, had worked the spell by a
forgery not dangerous for him, but now so frequently practised that
Justice is beginning to object. There is, it is said, a Bourse for
falsified bills near the Palais Royal, where you may get a forged
signature for three francs.
Before entering on the question of the hundred thousand crowns that
were to keep the door of the bedroom, Carlos determined first to
extract a hundred thousand more from M. de Nucingen.
And this was the way: By his orders Asie got herself up for the
Baron's benefit as an old woman fully informed as to the unknown
beauty's affairs.
Hitherto, novelists of manners have placed on the stage a great
many usurers; but the female money-lender has been overlooked, the
Madame la Ressource of the present day—a very singular figure,
euphemistically spoken of as a "ward-robe purchaser"; a part that the
ferocious Asie could play, for she had two old-clothes shops managed
by women she could trust—one in the Temple, and the other in the Rue
Neuve-Saint-Marc.
"You must get into the skin of Madame de Saint-Esteve," said he.
Herrera wished to see Asie dressed.
The go-between arrived in a dress of flowered damask, made of the
curtains of some dismantled boudoir, and one of those shawls of Indian
design—out of date, worn, and valueless, which end their career on
the backs of these women. She had a collar of magnificent lace, though
torn, and a terrible bonnet; but her shoes were of fine kid, in which
the flesh of her fat feet made a roll of black-lace stocking.
"And my waist buckle!" she exclaimed, displaying a piece of
suspicious-looking finery, prominent on her cook's stomach, "There's
style for you! and my front!—Oh, Ma'me Nourrisson has turned me out
quite spiff!"
"Be as sweet as honey at first," said Carlos; "be almost timid, as
suspicious as a cat; and, above all, make the Baron ashamed of having
employed the police, without betraying that you quake before the
constable. Finally, make your customer understand in more or less
plain terms that you defy all the police in the world to discover his
jewel. Take care to destroy your traces.
"When the Baron gives you a right to tap him on the stomach, and
call him a pot-bellied old rip, you may be as insolent as you please,
and make him trot like a footman."
Nucingen—threatened by Asie with never seeing her again if he
attempted the smallest espionage—met the woman on his way to the
Bourse, in secret, in a wretched entresol in the Rue Nueve-Saint-Marc.
How often, and with what rapture, have amorous millionaires trodden
these squalid paths! the pavements of Paris know. Madame de Saint-
Esteve, by tossing the Baron from hope to despair by turns, brought
him to the point when he insisted on being informed of all that
related to the unknown beauty at ANY COST. Meanwhile, the law was put
in force, and with such effect that the bailiffs, finding no
resistance from Esther, put in an execution on her effects without
losing a day.
Lucien, guided by his adviser, paid the recluse at Saint-Germain
five or six visits. The merciless author of all these machinations
thought this necessary to save Esther from pining to death, for her
beauty was now their capital. When the time came for them to quit the
park- keeper's lodge, he took Lucien and the poor girl to a place on
the road whence they could see Paris, where no one could overhear
them. They all three sat down in the rising sun, on the trunk of a
felled poplar, looking over one of the finest prospects in the world,
embracing the course of the Seine, with Montmartre, Paris, and Saint-
Denis.
"My children," said Carlos, "your dream is over.—You, little one,
will never see Lucien again; or if you should, you must have known him
only for a few days, five years ago."
"Death has come upon me then," said she, without shedding a tear.
"Well, you have been ill these five years," said Herrera. "Imagine
yourself to be consumptive, and die without boring us with your
lamentations. But you will see, you can still live, and very
comfortably too.—Leave us, Lucien—go and gather sonnets!" said he,
pointing to a field a little way off.
Lucien cast a look of humble entreaty at Esther, one of the looks
peculiar to such men—weak and greedy, with tender hearts and cowardly
spirits. Esther answered with a bow of her head, which said: "I will
hear the executioner, that I may know how to lay my head under the
axe, and I shall have courage enough to die decently."
The gesture was so gracious, but so full of dreadful meaning, that
the poet wept; Esther flew to him, clasped him in her arms, drank away
the tears, and said, "Be quite easy!" one of those speeches that are
spoken with the manner, the look, the tones of delirium.
Carlos then explained to her quite clearly, without attenuation,
often with horrible plainness of speech, the critical position in
which Lucien found himself, his connection with the Hotel Grandlieu,
his splendid prospects if he should succeed; and finally, how
necessary it was that Esther should sacrifice herself to secure him
this triumphant future.
"What must I do?" cried she, with the eagerness of a fanatic.
"Obey me blindly," said Carlos. "And what have you to complain of?
It rests with you to achieve a happy lot. You may be what Tullia is,
what your old friends Florine, Mariette, and la Val-Noble are—the
mistress of a rich man whom you need not love. When once our business
is settled, your lover is rich enough to make you happy."
"Happy!" said she, raising her eyes to heaven.
"You have lived in Paradise for four years," said he. "Can you not
live on such memories?"
"I will obey you," said she, wiping a tear from the corner of her
eye. "For the rest, do not worry yourself. You have said it; my love
is a mortal disease."
"That is not enough," said Carlos; "you must preserve your looks.
At a little past two-and-twenty you are in the prime of your beauty,
thanks to your past happiness. And, above all, be the 'Torpille'
again. Be roguish, extravagant, cunning, merciless to the millionaire
I put in your power. Listen to me! That man is a robber on a grand
scale; he has been ruthless to many persons; he has grown fat on the
fortunes of the widow and the orphan; you will avenge them!
"Asie is coming to fetch you in a hackney coach, and you will be in
Paris this evening. If you allow any one to suspect your connection
with Lucien, you may as well blow his brains out at once. You will be
asked where you have been for so long. You must say that you have been
traveling with a desperately jealous Englishman.—You used to have wit
enough to humbug people. Find such wit again now."
Have you ever seen a gorgeous kite, the giant butterfly of
childhood, twinkling with gilding, and soaring to the sky? The
children forget the string that holds it, some passer-by cuts it, the
gaudy toy turns head over heels, as the boys say, and falls with
terrific rapidity. Such was Esther as she listened to Carlos.
WHAT LOVE COSTS AN OLD MAN
For a whole week Nucingen went almost every day to the shop in the
Rue Nueve-Saint-Marc to bargain for the woman he was in love with.
Here, sometimes under the name of Saint-Esteve, sometimes under that
of her tool, Madame Nourrisson, Asie sat enthroned among beautiful
clothes in that hideous condition when they have ceased to be dresses
and are not yet rags.
The setting was in harmony with the appearance assumed by the
woman, for these shops are among the most hideous characteristics of
Paris. You find there the garments tossed aside by the skinny hand of
Death; you hear, as it were, the gasping of consumption under a shawl,
or you detect the agonies of beggery under a gown spangled with gold.
The horrible struggle between luxury and starvation is written on
filmy laces; you may picture the countenance of a queen under a plumed
turban placed in an attitude that recalls and almost reproduces the
absent features. It is all hideous amid prettiness! Juvenal's lash, in
the hands of the appraiser, scatters the shabby muffs, the ragged furs
of courtesans at bay.
There is a dunghill of flowers, among which here and there we find
a bright rose plucked but yesterday and worn for a day; and on this an
old hag is always to be seen crouching—first cousin to Usury, the
skinflint bargainer, bald and toothless, and ever ready to sell the
contents, so well is she used to sell the covering—the gown without
the woman, or the woman without the gown!
Here Asie was in her element, like the warder among convicts, like
a vulture red-beaked amid corpses; more terrible than the savage
horrors that made the passer-by shudder in astonishment sometimes, at
seeing one of their youngest and sweetest reminiscences hung up in a
dirty shop window, behind which a Saint-Esteve sits and grins.
From vexation to vexation, a thousand francs at a time, the banker
had gone so far as to offer sixty thousand francs to Madame de Saint-
Esteve, who still refused to help him, with a grimace that would have
outdone any monkey. After a disturbed night, after confessing to
himself that Esther completely upset his ideas, after realizing some
unexpected turns of fortune on the Bourse, he came to her one day,
intending to give the hundred thousand francs on which Asie insisted,
but he was determined to have plenty of information for the money.
"Well, have you made up your mind, old higgler?" said Asie,
clapping him on the shoulder.
The most dishonoring familiarity is the first tax these women levy
on the frantic passions or griefs that are confided to them; they
never rise to the level of their clients; they make them seem squat
beside them on their mudheap. Asie, it will be seen, obeyed her master
admirably.
"Need must!" said Nucingen.
"And you have the best of the bargain," said Asie. "Women have been
sold much dearer than this one to you—relatively speaking. There are
women and women! De Marsay paid sixty thousand francs for Coralie, who
is dead now. The woman you want cost a hundred thousand francs when
new; but to you, you old goat, it is a matter of agreement."
"But vere is she?"
"Ah! you shall see. I am like you—a gift for a gift! Oh, my good
man, your adored one has been extravagant. These girls know no
moderation. Your princess is at this moment what we call a fly by
night——"
"A fly——?"
"Come, come, don't play the simpleton.—Louchard is at her heels,
and I—I—have lent her fifty thousand francs——"
"Twenty-fife say!" cried the banker.
"Well, of course, twenty-five for fifty, that is only natural,"
replied Asie. "To do the woman justice, she is honesty itself. She had
nothing left but herself, and says she to me: 'My good Madame Saint-
Esteve, the bailiffs are after me; no one can help me but you. Give me
twenty thousand francs. I will pledge my heart to you.' Oh, she has a
sweet heart; no one but me knows where it lies. Any folly on my part,
and I should lose my twenty thousand francs.
"Formerly she lived in the Rue Taitbout. Before leaving—(her
furniture was seized for costs—those rascally bailiffs—You know
them, you who are one of the great men on the Bourse)—well, before
leaving, she is no fool, she let her rooms for two months to an
Englishwoman, a splendid creature who had a little thingummy—Rubempre
—for a lover, and he was so jealous that he only let her go out at
night. But as the furniture is to be seized, the Englishwoman has cut
her stick, all the more because she cost too much for a little
whipper-snapper like Lucien."
"You cry up de goots," said Nucingen.
"Naturally," said Asie. "I lend to the beauties; and it pays, for
you get two commissions for one job."
Asie was amusing herself by caricaturing the manners of a class of
women who are even greedier but more wheedling and mealy-mouthed than
the Malay woman, and who put a gloss of the best motives on the trade
they ply. Asie affected to have lost all her illusions, five lovers,
and some children, and to have submitted to be robbed by everybody in
spite of her experience. From time to time she exhibited some pawn-
tickets, to prove how much bad luck there was in her line of business.
She represented herself as pinched and in debt, and to crown all, she
was so undisguisedly hideous that the Baron at last believed her to be
all she said she was.
"Vell den, I shall pay the hundert tousant, and vere shall I see
her?" said he, with the air of a man who has made up his mind to any
sacrifice.
"My fat friend, you shall come this evening—in your carriage, of
course—opposite the Gymnase. It is on the way," said Asie. "Stop at
the corner of the Rue Saint-Barbe. I will be on the lookout, and we
will go and find my mortgaged beauty, with the black hair.—Oh, she
has splendid hair, has my mortgage. If she pulls out her comb, Esther
is covered as if it were a pall. But though you are knowing in
arithmetic, you strike me as a muff in other matters; and I advise you
to hide the girl safely, for if she is found she will be clapped into
Sainte-Pelagie the very next day.—And they are looking for her."
"Shall it not be possible to get holt of de bills?" said the
incorrigible bill-broker.
"The bailiffs have got them—but it is impossible. The girl has had
a passion, and has spent some money left in her hands, which she is
now called upon to pay. By the poker!—a queer thing is a heart of two
and-twenty."
"Ver' goot, ver' goot, I shall arrange all dat," said Nucingen,
assuming a cunning look. "It is qvite settled dat I shall protect
her."
"Well, old noodle, it is your business to make her fall in love
with you, and you certainly have ample means to buy sham love as good
as the real article. I will place your princess in your keeping; she
is bound to stick to you, and after that I don't care.—But she is
accustomed to luxury and the greatest consideration. I tell you, my
boy, she is quite the lady.—If not, should I have given her twenty
thousand francs?"
"Ver' goot, it is a pargain. Till dis efening."
The Baron repeated the bridal toilet he had already once achieved;
but this time, being certain of success, he took a double dose of
pillules.
At nine o'clock he found the dreadful woman at the appointed spot,
and took her into his carriage.
"Vere to?" said the Baron.
"Where?" echoed Asie. "Rue de la Perle in the Marais—an address
for the nonce; for your pearl is in the mud, but you will wash her
clean."
Having reached the spot, the false Madame de Saint-Esteve said to
Nucingen with a hideous smile:
"We must go a short way on foot; I am not such a fool as to have
given you the right address."
"You tink of eferytink!" said the baron.
"It is my business," said she.
Asie led Nucingen to the Rue Barbette, where, in furnished lodgings
kept by an upholsterer, he was led up to the fourth floor.
On finding Esther in a squalid room, dressed as a work-woman, and
employed on some embroidery, the millionaire turned pale. At the end
of a quarter of an hour, while Asie affected to talk in whispers to
Esther, the young old man could hardly speak.
"Montemisselle," said he at length to the unhappy girl, "vill you
be so goot as to let me be your protector?"
"Why, I cannot help myself, monsieur," replied Esther, letting fall
two large tears.
"Do not veep. I shall make you de happiest of vomen. Only permit
that I shall lof you—you shall see."
"Well, well, child, the gentleman is reasonable," said Asie. "He
knows that he is more than sixty, and he will be very kind to you. You
see, my beauty, I have found you quite a father—I had to say so,"
Asie whispered to the banker, who was not best pleased. "You cannot
catch swallows by firing a pistol at them.—Come here," she went on,
leading Nucingen into the adjoining room. "You remember our bargain,
my angel?"
Nucingen took out his pocketbook and counted out the hundred
thousand francs, which Carlos, hidden in a cupboard, was impatiently
waiting for, and which the cook handed over to him.
"Here are the hundred thousand francs our man stakes on Asie. Now
we must make him lay on Europe," said Carlos to his confidante when
they were on the landing.
And he vanished after giving his instruction to the Malay who went
back into the room. She found Esther weeping bitterly. The poor girl,
like a criminal condemned to death, had woven a romance of hope, and
the fatal hour had tolled.
"My dear children," said Asie, "where do you mean to go?—For the
Baron de Nucingen——"
Esther looked at the great banker with a start of surprise that was
admirably acted.
"Ja, mein kind, I am dat Baron von Nucingen."
"The Baron de Nucingen must not, cannot remain in such a room as
this," Asie went on. "Listen to me; your former maid Eugenie."
"Eugenie, from the Rue Taitbout?" cried the Baron.
"Just so; the woman placed in possession of the furniture," replied
Asie, "and who let the apartment to that handsome Englishwoman——"
"Hah! I onderstant!" said the Baron.
"Madame's former waiting-maid," Asie went on, respectfully alluding
to Esther, "will receive you very comfortably this evening; and the
commercial police will never think of looking for her in her old rooms
which she left three months ago——"
"Feerst rate, feerst rate!" cried the Baron. "An' besides, I know
dese commercial police, an' I know vat sorts shall make dem
disappear."
"You will find Eugenie a sharp customer," said Asie. "I found her
for madame."
"Hah! I know her!" cried the millionaire, laughing. "She haf
fleeced me out of dirty tousant franc."
Esther shuddered with horror in a way that would have led a man of
any feeling to trust her with his fortune.
"Oh, dat vas mein own fault," the Baron said. "I vas seeking for
you."
And he related the incident that had arisen out of the letting of
Esther's rooms to the Englishwoman.
"There, now, you see, madame, Eugenie never told you all that, the
sly thing!" said Asie.—"Still, madame is used to the hussy," she
added to the Baron. "Keep her on, all the same."
She drew Nucingen aside and said:
"If you give Eugenie five hundred francs a month, which will fill
up her stocking finely, you can know everything that madame does: make
her the lady's-maid. Eugenie will be all the more devoted to you since
she has already done you.—Nothing attaches a woman to a man more than
the fact that she has once fleeced him. But keep a tight rein on
Eugenie; she will do any earthly thing for money; she is a dreadful
creature!"
"An' vat of you?"
"I," said Asie, "I make both ends meet."
Nucingen, the astute financier, had a bandage over his eyes; he
allowed himself to be led like a child. The sight of that spotless and
adorable Esther wiping her eyes and pricking in the stitches of her
embroidery as demurely as an innocent girl, revived in the amorous old
man the sensations he had experienced in the Forest of Vincennes; he
would have given her the key of his safe. He felt so young, his heart
was so overflowing with adoration; he only waited till Asie should be
gone to throw himself at the feet of this Raphael's Madonna.
This sudden blossoming of youth in the heart of a stockbroker, of
an old man, is one of the social phenomena which must be left to
physiology to account for. Crushed under the burden of business,
stifled under endless calculations and the incessant anxieties of
million-hunting, young emotions revive with their sublime illusions,
sprout and flower like a forgotten cause or a forgotten seed, whose
effects, whose gorgeous bloom, are the sport of chance, brought out by
a late and sudden gleam of sunshine.
The Baron, a clerk by the time he was twelve years old in the
ancient house of Aldrigger at Strasbourg, had never set foot in the
world of sentiment. So there he stood in front of his idol, hearing in
his brain a thousand modes of speech, while none came to his lips,
till at length he acted on the brutal promptings of desire that
betrayed a man of sixty-six.
"Vill you come to Rue Taitbout?" said he.
"Wherever you please, monsieur," said Esther, rising.
"Verever I please!" he echoed in rapture. "You are ein anchel from
de sky, and I lofe you more as if I was a little man, vile I hafe gray
hairs——"
"You had better say white, for they are too fine a black to be only
gray," said Asie.
"Get out, foul dealer in human flesh! You hafe got your moneys; do
not slobber no more on dis flower of lofe!" cried the banker,
indemnifying himself by this violent abuse for all the insolence he
had submitted to.
"You old rip! I will pay you out for that speech!" said Asie,
threatening the banker with a gesture worthy of the Halle, at which
the Baron merely shrugged his shoulders. "Between the lip of the pot
and that of the guzzler there is often a viper, and you will find me
there!" she went on, furious at Nucingen's contempt.
Millionaires, whose money is guarded by the Bank of France, whose
mansions are guarded by a squad of footmen, whose person in the
streets is safe behind the rampart of a coach with swift English
horses, fear no ill; so the Baron looked calmly at Asie, as a man who
had just given her a hundred thousand francs.
This dignity had its effect. Asie beat a retreat, growling down the
stairs in highly revolutionary language; she spoke of the guillotine!
"What have you said to her?" asked the Madonna a la broderie, "for
she is a good soul."
"She hafe solt you, she hafe robbed you——"
"When we are beggared," said she, in a tone to rend the heart of a
diplomate, "who has ever any money or consideration for us?"
"Poor leetle ting!" said Nucingen. "Do not stop here ein moment
longer."
The Baron offered her his arm; he led her away just as she was, and
put her into his carriage with more respect perhaps than he would have
shown to the handsome Duchesse de Maufrigneuse.
"You shall hafe a fine carriage, de prettiest carriage in Paris,"
said Nucingen, as they drove along. "Everyting dat luxury shall sopply
shall be for you. Not any qveen shall be more rich dan vat you shall
be. You shall be respected like ein Cherman Braut. I shall hafe you to
be free.—Do not veep! Listen to me—I lofe you really, truly, mit de
purest lofe. Efery tear of yours breaks my heart."
"Can one truly love a woman one has bought?" said the poor girl in
the sweetest tones.
"Choseph vas solt by his broders for dat he was so comely. Dat is
so in de Biple. An' in de Eastern lants men buy deir wifes."
On arriving at the Rue Taitbout, Esther could not return to the
scene of her happiness without some pain. She remained sitting on a
couch, motionless, drying away her tears one by one, and never hearing
a word of the crazy speeches poured out by the banker. He fell at her
feet, and she let him kneel without saying a word to him, allowing him
to take her hands as he would, and never thinking of the sex of the
creature who was rubbing her feet to warm them; for Nucingen found
that they were cold.
This scene of scalding tears shed on the Baron's head, and of
ice-cold feet that he tried to warm, lasted from midnight till two in
the morning.
"Eugenie," cried the Baron at last to Europe, "persvade your
mis'ess that she shall go to bet."
"No!" cried Esther, starting to her feet like a scared horse.
"Never in this house!"
"Look her, monsieur, I know madame; she is as gentle and kind as a
lamb," said Europe to the Baron. "Only you must not rub her the wrong
way, you must get at her sideways—she had been so miserable here.—
You see how worn the furniture is.—Let her go her own way.
"Furnish some pretty little house for her, very nicely. Perhaps
when she sees everything new about her she will feel a stranger there,
and think you better looking than you are, and be angelically
sweet.—Oh! madame has not her match, and you may boast of having done
a very good stroke of business: a good heart, genteel manners, a fine
instep—and a skin, a complexion! Ah!——
"And witty enough to make a condemned wretch laugh. And madame can
feel an attachment.—And then how she can dress!—Well, if it is
costly, still, as they say, you get your money's worth.—Here all the
gowns were seized, everything she has is three months old.—But madame
is so kind, you see, that I love her, and she is my mistress!—But in
all justice—such a woman as she is, in the midst of furniture that
has been seized!—And for whom? For a young scamp who has ruined her.
Poor little thing, she is not at all herself."
"Esther, Esther; go to bet, my anchel! If it is me vat frighten
you, I shall stay here on dis sofa——" cried the Baron, fired by the
purest devotion, as he saw that Esther was still weeping.
"Well, then," said Esther, taking the "lynx's" hand, and kissing it
with an impulse of gratitude which brought something very like a tear
to his eye, "I shall be grateful to you——"
And she fled into her room and locked the door.
"Dere is someting fery strange in all dat," thought Nucingen,
excited by his pillules. "Vat shall dey say at home?"
He got up and looked out of the window. "My carriage still is dere.
It shall soon be daylight." He walked up and down the room.
"Vat Montame de Nucingen should laugh at me ven she should know how
I hafe spent dis night!"
He applied his ear to the bedroom door, thinking himself rather too
much of a simpleton.
"Esther!"
No reply.
"Mein Gott! and she is still veeping!" said he to himself, as he
stretched himself on the sofa.
About ten minutes after sunrise, the Baron de Nucingen, who was
sleeping the uneasy slumbers that are snatched by compulsion in an
awkward position on a couch, was aroused with a start by Europe from
one of those dreams that visit us in such moments, and of which the
swift complications are a phenomenon inexplicable by medical
physiology.
"Oh, God help us, madame!" she shrieked. "Madame!—the soldiers—
gendarmes—bailiffs! They have come to take us."
At the moment when Esther opened her door and appeared, hurriedly,
wrapped in her dressing-gown, her bare feet in slippers, her hair in
disorder, lovely enough to bring the angel Raphael to perdition, the
drawing-room door vomited into the room a gutter of human mire that
came on, on ten feet, towards the beautiful girl, who stood like an
angel in some Flemish church picture. One man came foremost.
Contenson, the horrible Contenson, laid his hand on Esther's dewy
shoulder.
"You are Mademoiselle van——" he began. Europe, by a back-handed
slap on Contenson's cheek, sent him sprawling to measure his length on
the carpet, and with all the more effect because at the same time she
caught his leg with the sharp kick known to those who practise the art
as a coup de savate.
"Hands off!" cried she. "No one shall touch my mistress."
"She has broken my leg!" yelled Contenson, picking himself up; "I
will have damages!"
From the group of bumbailiffs, looking like what they were, all
standing with their horrible hats on their yet more horrible heads,
with mahogany-colored faces and bleared eyes, damaged noses, and
hideous mouths, Louchard now stepped forth, more decently dressed than
his men, but keeping his hat on, his expression at once smooth-faced
and smiling.
"Mademoiselle, I arrest you!" said he to Esther. "As for you, my
girl," he added to Europe, "any resistance will be punished, and
perfectly useless."
The noise of muskets, let down with a thud of their stocks on the
floor of the dining-room, showing that the invaders had soldiers to
bake them, gave emphasis to this speech.
"And what am I arrested for?" said Esther.
"What about our little debts?" said Louchard.
"To be sure," cried Esther; "give me leave to dress."
"But, unfortunately, mademoiselle, I am obliged to make sure that
you have no way of getting out of your room," said Louchard.
All this passed so quickly that the Baron had not yet had time to
intervene.
"Well, and am I still a foul dealer in human flesh, Baron de
Nucingen?" cried the hideous Asie, forcing her way past the sheriff's
officers to the couch, where she pretended to have just discovered the
banker.
"Contemptible wretch!" exclaimed Nucingen, drawing himself up in
financial majesty.
He placed himself between Esther and Louchard, who took off his hat
as Contenson cried out, "Monsieur le Baron de Nucingen."
At a signal from Louchard the bailiffs vanished from the room,
respectfully taking their hats off. Contenson alone was left.
"Do you propose to pay, Monsieur le Baron?" asked he, hat in hand.
"I shall pay," said the banker; "but I must know vat dis is all
about."
"Three hundred and twelve thousand francs and some centimes, costs
paid; but the charges for the arrest not included."
"Three hundred thousand francs," cried the Baron; "dat is a fery
'xpensive vaking for a man vat has passed the night on a sofa," he
added in Europe's ear.
"Is that man really the Baron de Nucingen?" asked Europe to
Louchard, giving weight to the doubt by a gesture which Mademoiselle
Dupont, the low comedy servant of the Francais, might have envied.
"Yes, mademoiselle," said Louchard.
"Yes," replied Contenson.
"I shall be answerable," said the Baron, piqued in his honor by
Europe's doubt. "You shall 'llow me to say ein vort to her."
Esther and her elderly lover retired to the bedroom, Louchard
finding it necessary to apply his ear to the keyhole.
"I lofe you more as my life, Esther; but vy gife to your creditors
moneys vich shall be so much better in your pocket? Go into prison. I
shall undertake to buy up dose hundert tousant crowns for ein hundert
tousant francs, an' so you shall hafe two hundert tousant francs for
you——"
"That scheme is perfectly useless," cried Louchard through the
door. "The creditor is not in love with mademoiselle—not he! You
understand? And he means to have more than all, now he knows that you
are in love with her."
"You dam' sneak!" cried Nucingen, opening the door, and dragging
Louchard into the bedroom; "you know not dat vat you talk about. I
shall gife you, you'self, tventy per cent if you make the job."
"Impossible, M. le Baron."
"What, monsieur, you could have the heart to let my mistress go to
prison?" said Europe, intervening. "But take my wages, my savings;
take them, madame; I have forty thousand francs——"
"Ah, my good girl, I did not really know you!" cried Esther,
clasping Europe in her arms.
Europe proceeded to melt into tears.
"I shall pay," said the Baron piteously, as he drew out a
pocket-book, from which he took one of the little printed forms which
the Bank of France issues to bankers, on which they have only to write
a sum in figures and in words to make them available as cheques to
bearer.
"It is not worth the trouble, Monsieur le Baron," said Louchard; "I
have instructions not to accept payment in anything but coin of the
realm—gold or silver. As it is you, I will take banknotes."
"Der Teufel!" cried the Baron. "Well, show me your papers."
Contenson handed him three packets covered with blue paper, which
the Baron took, looking at the man, and adding in an undertone:
"It should hafe been a better day's vork for you ven you had gife
me notice."
"Why, how should I know you were here, Monsieur le Baron?" replied
the spy, heedless whether Louchard heard him. "You lost my services by
withdrawing your confidence. You are done," added this philosopher,
shrugging his shoulders.
"Qvite true," said the baron. "Ah, my chilt," he exclaimed, seeing
the bills of exchange, and turning to Esther, "you are de fictim of a
torough scoundrel, ein highway tief!"
"Alas, yes," said poor Esther; "but he loved me truly."
"Ven I should hafe known—I should hafe made you to protest——"
"You are off your head, Monsieur le Baron," said Louchard; "there
is a third endorsement."
"Yes, dere is a tird endorsement—Cerizet! A man of de opposition."
"Will you write an order on your cashier, Monsieur le Baron?" said
Louchard. "I will send Contenson to him and dismiss my men. It is
getting late, and everybody will know that——"
"Go den, Contenson," said Nucingen. "My cashier lives at de corner
of Rue des Mathurins and Rue de l'Arcate. Here is ein vort for dat he
shall go to du Tillet or to de Kellers, in case ve shall not hafe a
hundert tousant franc—for our cash shall be at de Bank.—Get dress',
my anchel," he said to Esther. "You are at liberty.—An' old vomans,"
he went on, looking at Asie, "are more dangerous as young vomans."
"I will go and give the creditor a good laugh," said Asie, "and he
will give me something for a treat to-day.—We bear no malice,
Monsieur le Baron," added Saint-Esteve with a horrible courtesy.
Louchard took the bills out of the Baron's hands, and remained
alone with him in the drawing-room, whither, half an hour later, the
cashier came, followed by Contenson. Esther then reappeared in a
bewitching, though improvised, costume. When the money had been
counted by Louchard, the Baron wished to examine the bills; but Esther
snatched them with a cat-like grab, and carried them away to her desk.
"What will you give the rabble?" said Contenson to Nucingen.
"You hafe not shown much consideration," said the Baron.
"And what about my leg?" cried Contenson.
"Louchard, you shall gife ein hundert francs to Contenson out of
the change of the tousand-franc note."
"De lady is a beauty," said the cashier to the Baron, as they left
the Rue Taitbout, "but she is costing you ver' dear, Monsieur le
Baron."
"Keep my segret," said the Baron, who had said the same to
Contenson and Louchard.
Louchard went away with Contenson; but on the boulevard Asie, who
was looking out for him, stopped Louchard.
"The bailiff and the creditor are there in a cab," said she. "They
are thirsty, and there is money going."
While Louchard counted out the cash, Contenson studied the
customers. He recognized Carlos by his eyes, and traced the form of
his forehead under the wig. The wig he shrewdly regarded as
suspicious; he took the number of the cab while seeming quite
indifferent to what was going on; Asie and Europe puzzled him beyond
measure. He thought that the Baron was the victim of excessively
clever sharpers, all the more so because Louchard, when securing his
services, had been singularly close. And besides, the twist of
Europe's foot had not struck his shin only.
"A trick like that is learned at Saint-Lazare," he had reflected as
he got up.
Carlos dismissed the bailiff, paying him liberally, and as he did
so, said to the driver of the cab, "To the Perron, Palais Royal."
"The rascal!" thought Contenson as he heard the order. "There is
something up!" Carlos drove to the Palais Royal at a pace which
precluded all fear of pursuit. He made his way in his own fashion
through the arcades, took another cab on the Place du Chateau d'Eau,
and bid the man go "to the Passage de l'Opera, the end of the Rue
Pinon."
A quarter of a hour later he was in the Rue Taitbout. On seeing
him, Esther said:
"Here are the fatal papers."
Carlos took the bills, examined them, and then burned them in the
kitchen fire.
"We have done the trick," he said, showing her three hundred and
ten thousand francs in a roll, which he took out of the pocket of his
coat. "This, and the hundred thousand francs squeezed out by Asie, set
us free to act."
"Oh God, oh God!" cried poor Esther.
"But, you idiot," said the ferocious swindler, "you have only to be
ostensibly Nucingen's mistress, and you can always see Lucien; he is
Nucingen's friend; I do not forbid your being madly in love with him."
Esther saw a glimmer of light in her darkened life; she breathed
once more.
"Europe, my girl," said Carlos, leading the creature into a corner
of the boudoir where no one could overhear a word, "Europe, I am
pleased with you."
Europe held up her head, and looked at this man with an expression
which so completely changed her faded features, that Asie, witnessing
the interview, as she watched her from the door, wondered whether the
interest by which Carlos held Europe might not perhaps be even
stronger than that by which she herself was bound to him.
"That is not all, my child. Four hundred thousand francs are a mere
nothing to me. Paccard will give you an account for some plate,
amounting to thirty thousand francs, on which money has been paid on
account; but our goldsmith, Biddin, has paid money for us. Our
furniture, seized by him, will no doubt be advertised to-morrow. Go
and see Biddin; he lives in the Rue d l'Arbre Sec; he will give you
Mont-de-Piete tickets for ten thousand francs. You understand, Esther
ordered the plate; she had not paid for it, and she put it up the
spout. She will be in danger of a little summons for swindling. So we
must pay the goldsmith the thirty thousand francs, and pay up ten
thousand francs to the Mont-de-Piete to get the plate back. Forty-
three thousand francs in all, including the costs. The silver is very
much alloyed; the Baron will give her a new service, and we shall bone
a few thousand francs out of that. You owe—what? two years' account
with the dressmaker?"
"Put it at six thousand francs," replied Europe.
"Well, if Madame Auguste wants to be paid and keep our custom, tell
her to make out a bill for thirty thousand francs over four years.
Make a similar arrangement with the milliner. The jeweler, Samuel
Frisch the Jew, in the Rue Saint-Avoie, will lend you some pawn-
tickets; we must owe him twenty-five thousand francs, and we must want
six thousand for jewels pledged at the Mont-de-Piete. We will return
the trinkets to the jeweler, half the stones will be imitation, but
the Baron will not examine them. In short, you will make him fork out
another hundred and fifty thousand francs to add to our nest-eggs
within a week."
"Madame might give me a little help," said Europe. "Tell her so,
for she sits there mumchance, and obliges me to find more inventions
than three authors for one piece."
"If Esther turns prudish, just let me know," said Carlos. "Nucingen
must give her a carriage and horses; she will have to choose and buy
everything herself. Go to the horse-dealer and the coachmaker who are
employed by the job-master where Paccard finds work. We shall get
handsome horses, very dear, which will go lame within a month, and we
shall have to change them."
"We might get six thousand francs out of a perfumer's bill," said
Europe.
"Oh!" said he, shaking his head, "we must go gently. Nucingen has
only got his arm into the press; we must have his head. Besides all
this, I must get five hundred thousand francs."
"You can get them," replied Europe. "Madame will soften towards the
fat fool for about six hundred thousand, and insist on four hundred
thousand more to love him truly!"
"Listen to me, my child," said Carlos. "The day when I get the last
hundred thousand francs, there shall be twenty thousand for you."
"What good will they do me?" said Europe, letting her arms drop
like a woman to whom life seems impossible.
"You could go back to Valenciennes, buy a good business, and set up
as an honest woman if you chose; there are many tastes in human
nature. Paccard thinks of settling sometimes; he has no encumbrances
on his hands, and not much on his conscience; you might suit each
other," replied Carlos.
"Go back to Valenciennes! What are you thinking of, monsieur?"
cried Europe in alarm.
Europe, who was born at Valenciennes, the child of very poor
parents, had been sent at seven years of age to a spinning factory,
where the demands of modern industry had impaired her physical
strength, just as vice had untimely depraved her. Corrupted at the age
of twelve, and a mother at thirteen, she found herself bound to the
most degraded of human creatures. On the occasion of a murder case,
she had been as a witness before the Court. Haunted at sixteen by a
remnant of rectitude, and the terror inspired by the law, her evidence
led to the prisoner being sentenced to twenty years of hard labor.
The convict, one of those men who have been in the hands of justice
more than once, and whose temper is apt at terrible revenge, had said
to the girl in open court:
"In ten years, as sure as you live, Prudence" (Europe's name was
Prudence Servien), "I will return to be the death of you, if I am
scragged for it."
The President of the Court tried to reassure the girl by promising
her the protection and the care of the law; but the poor child was so
terror-stricken that she fell ill, and was in hospital nearly a year.
Justice is an abstract being, represented by a collection of
individuals who are incessantly changing, whose good intentions and
memories are, like themselves, liable to many vicissitudes. Courts and
tribunals can do nothing to hinder crimes; their business is to deal
with them when done. From this point of view, a preventive police
would be a boon to a country; but the mere word Police is in these
days a bugbear to legislators, who no longer can distinguish between
the three words—Government, Administration, and Law-making. The
legislator tends to centralize everything in the State, as if the
State could act.
The convict would be sure always to remember his victim, and to
avenge himself when Justice had ceased to think of either of them.
Prudence, who instinctively appreciated the danger—in a general
sense, so to speak—left Valenciennes and came to Paris at the age of
seventeen to hide there. She tried four trades, of which the most
successful was that of a "super" at a minor theatre. She was picked up
by Paccard, and to him she told her woes. Paccard, Jacques Collin's
disciple and right-hand man, spoke of this girl to his master, and
when the master needed a slave he said to Prudence:
"If you will serve me as the devil must be served, I will rid you
of Durut."
Durut was the convict; the Damocles' sword hung over Prudence
Servien's head.
But for these details, many critics would have thought Europe's
attachment somewhat grotesque. And no one could have understood the
startling announcement that Carlos had ready.
"Yes, my girl, you can go back to Valenciennes. Here, read this."
And he held out to her yesterday's paper, pointing to this
paragraph:
"TOULON—Yesterday, Jean Francois Durut was executed here. Early
in the morning the garrison," etc.
Prudence dropped the paper; her legs gave way under the weight of
her body; she lived again; for, to use her own words, she never liked
the taste of her food since the day when Durut had threatened her.
"You see, I have kept my word. It has taken four years to bring
Durut to the scaffold by leading him into a snare.—Well, finish my
job here, and you will find yourself at the head of a little country
business in your native town, with twenty thousand francs of your own
as Paccard's wife, and I will allow him to be virtuous as a form of
pension."
Europe picked up the paper and read with greedy eyes all the
details, of which for twenty years the papers have never been tired,
as to the death of convicted criminals: the impressive scene, the
chaplain—who has always converted the victim—the hardened criminal
preaching to his fellow convicts, the battery of guns, the convicts on
their knees; and then the twaddle and reflections which never lead to
any change in the management of the prisons where eighteen hundred
crimes are herded.
"We must place Asie on the staff once more," said Carlos.
Asie came forward, not understanding Europe's pantomime.
"In bringing her back here as cook, you must begin by giving the
Baron such a dinner as he never ate in his life," he went on. "Tell
him that Asie has lost all her money at play, and has taken service
once more. We shall not need an outdoor servant. Paccard shall be
coachman. Coachmen do not leave their box, where they are safe out of
the way; and he will run less risk from spies. Madame must turn him
out in a powdered wig and a braided felt cocked hat; that will alter
his appearance. Besides, I will make him us."
"Are we going to have men-servants in the house?" asked Asie with a
leer.
"All honest folks," said Carlos.
"All soft-heads," retorted the mulatto.
"If the Baron takes a house, Paccard has a friend who will suit as
the lodge porter," said Carlos. "Then we shall only need a footman and
a kitchen-maid, and you can surely keep an eye on two strangers——"
As Carlos was leaving, Paccard made his appearance.
"Wait a little while, there are people in the street," said the
man.
This simple statement was alarming. Carlos went up to Europe's
room, and stayed there till Paccard came to fetch him, having called a
hackney cab that came into the courtyard. Carlos pulled down the
blinds, and was driven off at a pace that defied pursuit.
Having reached the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, he got out at a short
distance from a hackney coach stand, to which he went on foot, and
thence returned to the Quai Malaquais, escaping all inquiry.
"Here, child," said he to Lucien, showing him four hundred
banknotes for a thousand francs, "here is something on account for the
purchase of the estates of Rubempre. We will risk a hundred thousand.
Omnibuses have just been started; the Parisians will take to the
novelty; in three months we shall have trebled our capital. I know the
concern; they will pay splendid dividends taken out of the capital, to
put a head on the shares—an old idea of Nucingen's revived. If we
acquire the Rubempre land, we shall not have to pay on the nail.
"You must go and see des Lupeaulx, and beg him to give you a
personal recommendation to a lawyer named Desroches, a cunning dog,
whom you must call on at his office. Get him to go to Rubempre and see
how the land lies; promise him a premium of twenty thousand francs if
he manages to secure you thirty thousand francs a year by investing
eight hundred thousand francs in land round the ruins of the old
house."
"How you go on—on! on!"
"I am always going on. This is no time for joking.—You must then
invest a hundred thousand crowns in Treasury bonds, so as to lose no
interest; you may safely leave it to Desroches, he is as honest as he
is knowing.—That being done, get off to Angouleme, and persuade your
sister and your brother-in-law to pledge themselves to a little fib in
the way of business. Your relations are to have given you six hundred
thousand francs to promote your marriage with Clotilde de Grandlieu;
there is no disgrace in that."
"We are saved!" cried Lucien, dazzled.
"You are, yes!" replied Carlos. "But even you are not safe till you
walk out of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin with Clotilde as your wife."
"And what have you to fear?" said Lucien, apparently much concerned
for his counselor.
"Some inquisitive souls are on my track—I must assume the manners
of a genuine priest; it is most annoying. The Devil will cease to
protect me if he sees me with a breviary under my arm."
At this moment the Baron de Nucingen, who was leaning on his
cashier's arm, reached the door of his mansion.
"I am ver' much afrait," said he, as he went in, "dat I hafe done a
bat day's vork. Vell, we must make it up some oder vays."
"De misfortune is dat you shall hafe been caught, mein Herr Baron,"
said the worthy German, whose whole care was for appearances.
"Ja, my miss'ess en titre should be in a position vody of me," said
this Louis XIV. of the counting-house.
Feeling sure that sooner or later Esther would be his, the Baron
was now himself again, a masterly financier. He resumed the management
of his affairs, and with such effect that his cashier, finding him in
his office room at six o'clock next morning, verifying his securities,
rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
"Ah, ha! mein Herr Baron, you shall hafe saved money last night!"
said he, with a half-cunning, half-loutish German grin.
Though men who are as rich as the Baron de Nucingen have more
opportunities than others for losing money, they also have more
chances of making it, even when they indulge their follies. Though the
financial policy of the house of Nucingen has been explained
elsewhere, it may be as well to point out that such immense fortunes
are not made, are not built up, are not increased, and are not
retained in the midst of the commercial, political, and industrial
revolutions of the present day but at the cost of immense losses, or,
if you choose to view it so, of heavy taxes on private fortunes. Very
little newly-created wealth is thrown into the common treasury of the
world. Every fresh accumulation represents some new inequality in the
general distribution of wealth. What the State exacts it makes some
return for; but what a house like that of Nucingen takes, it keeps.
Such covert robbery escapes the law for the reason which would have
made a Jacques Collin of Frederick the Great, if, instead of dealing
with provinces by means of battles, he had dealt in smuggled goods or
transferable securities. The high politics of money-making consist in
forcing the States of Europe to issue loans at twenty or at ten per
cent, in making that twenty or ten per cent by the use of public
funds, in squeezing industry on a vast scale by buying up raw
material, in throwing a rope to the first founder of a business just
to keep him above water till his drowned-out enterprise is safely
landed—in short, in all the great battles for money-getting.
The banker, no doubt, like the conqueror, runs risks; but there are
so few men in a position to wage this warfare, that the sheep have no
business to meddle. Such grand struggles are between the shepherds.
Thus, as the defaulters are guilty of having wanted to win too much,
very little sympathy is felt as a rule for the misfortunes brought
about by the coalition of the Nucingens. If a speculator blows his
brains out, if a stockbroker bolts, if a lawyer makes off with the
fortune of a hundred families—which is far worse than killing a man—
if a banker is insolvent, all these catastrophes are forgotten in
Paris in few months, and buried under the oceanic surges of the great
city.
The colossal fortunes of Jacques Coeur, of the Medici, of the Angos
of Dieppe, of the Auffredis of la Rochelle, of the Fuggers, of the
Tiepolos, of the Corners, were honestly made long ago by the
advantages they had over the ignorance of the people as to the sources
of precious products; but nowadays geographical information has
reached the masses, and competition has so effectually limited the
profits, that every rapidly made fortune is the result of chance, or
of a discovery, or of some legalized robbery. The lower grades of
mercantile enterprise have retorted on the perfidious dealings of
higher commerce, especially during the last ten years, by base
adulteration of the raw material. Wherever chemistry is practised,
wine is no longer procurable; the vine industry is consequently
waning. Manufactured salt is sold to avoid the excise. The tribunals
are appalled by this universal dishonesty. In short, French trade is
regarded with suspicion by the whole world, and England too is fast
being demoralized.
With us the mischief has its origin in the political situation. The
Charter proclaimed the reign of Money, and success has become the
supreme consideration of an atheistic age. And, indeed, the corruption
of the higher ranks is infinitely more hideous, in spite of the
dazzling display and specious arguments of wealth, than that ignoble
and more personal corruption of the inferior classes, of which certain
details lend a comic element—terrible, if you will—to this drama.
The Government, always alarmed by a new idea, has banished these
materials of modern comedy from the stage. The citizen class, less
liberal than Louis XIV., dreads the advent of its Mariage de Figaro,
forbids the appearance of a political Tartuffe, and certainly would
not allow Turcaret to be represented, for Turcaret is king.
Consequently, comedy has to be narrated, and a book is now the weapon
—less swift, but no more sure—that writers wield.
In the course of this morning, amid the coming and going of
callers, orders to be given, and brief interviews, making Nucingen's
private office a sort of financial lobby, one of his stockbrokers
announced to him the disappearance of a member of the Company, one of
the richest and cleverest too—Jacques Falleix, brother of Martin
Falleix, and the successor of Jules Desmarets. Jacques Falleix was
stockbroker in ordinary to the house of Nucingen. In concert with du
Tillet and the Kellers, the Baron had plotted the ruin of this man in
cold blood, as if it had been the killing of a Passover lamb.
"He could not hafe helt on," replied the Baron quietly.
Jacques Falleix had done them immense service in stock-jobbing.
During a crisis a few months since he had saved the situation by
acting boldly. But to look for gratitude from a money-dealer is as
vain as to try to touch the heart of the wolves of the Ukraine in
winter.
"Poor fellow!" said the stockbroker. "He so little anticipated such
a catastrophe, that he had furnished a little house for his mistress
in the Rue Saint-Georges; he has spent one hundred and fifty thousand
francs in decorations and furniture. He was so devoted to Madame du
Val-Noble! The poor woman must give it all up. And nothing is paid
for."
"Goot, goot!" thought Nucingen, "dis is de very chance to make up
for vat I hafe lost dis night!—He hafe paid for noting?" he asked his
informant.
"Why," said the stockbroker, "where would you find a tradesman so
ill informed as to refuse credit to Jacques Falleix? There is a
splendid cellar of wine, it would seem. By the way, the house is for
sale; he meant to buy it. The lease is in his name.—What a piece of
folly! Plate, furniture, wine, carriage-horses, everything will be
valued in a lump, and what will the creditors get out of it?"
"Come again to-morrow," said Nucingen. "I shall hafe seen all dat;
and if it is not a declared bankruptcy, if tings can be arranged and
compromised, I shall tell you to offer some reasonaple price for dat
furniture, if I shall buy de lease——"
"That can be managed," said his friend. "If you go there this
morning, you will find one of Falleix's partners there with the
tradespeople, who want to establish a first claim; but la Val-Noble
has their accounts made out to Falleix."
The Baron sent off one of his clerks forthwith to his lawyer.
Jacques Falleix had spoken to him about this house, which was worth
sixty thousand francs at most, and he wished to be put in possession
of it at once, so as to avail himself of the privileges of the
householder.
The cashier, honest man, came to inquire whether his master had
lost anything by Falleix's bankruptcy.
"On de contrar' mein goot Volfgang, I stant to vin ein hundert
tousant francs."
"How vas dat?"
"Vell, I shall hafe de little house vat dat poor Teufel Falleix
should furnish for his mis'ess this year. I shall hafe all dat for
fifty tousant franc to de creditors; and my notary, Maitre Cardot,
shall hafe my orders to buy de house, for de lan'lord vant de money—I
knew dat, but I hat lost mein head. Ver' soon my difine Esther shall
life in a little palace. . . . I hafe been dere mit Falleix—it is
close to here.—It shall fit me like a glofe."
Falleix's failure required the Baron's presence at the Bourse; but
he could not bear to leave his house in the Rue Saint-Lazare without
going to the Rue Taitbout; he was already miserable at having been
away from Esther for so many hours. He would have liked to keep her at
his elbow. The profits he hoped to make out of his stockbrokers'
plunder made the former loss of four hundred thousand francs quite
easy to endure.
Delighted to announce to his "anchel" that she was to move from the
Rue Taitbout to the Rue Saint-Georges, where she was to have "ein
little palace" where her memories would no longer rise up in
antagonism to their happiness, the pavement felt elastic under his
feet; he walked like a young man in a young man's dream. As he turned
the corner of the Rue des Trois Freres, in the middle of his dream,
and of the road, the Baron beheld Europe coming towards him, looking
very much upset.
"Vere shall you go?" he asked.
"Well, monsieur, I was on my way to you. You were quite right
yesterday. I see now that poor madame had better have gone to prison
for a few days. But how should women understand money matters? When
madame's creditors heard that she had come home, they all came down
upon us like birds of prey.—Last evening, at seven o'clock, monsieur,
men came and stuck terrible posters up to announce a sale of furniture
on Saturday—but that is nothing.—Madame, who is all heart, once upon
a time to oblige that wretch of a man you know——"
"Vat wretch?"
"Well, the man she was in love with, d'Estourny—well, he was
charming! He was only a gambler——"
"He gambled with beveled cards!"
"Well—and what do you do at the Bourse?" said Europe. "But let me
go on. One day, to hinder Georges, as he said, from blowing out his
brains, she pawned all her plate and her jewels, which had never been
paid for. Now on hearing that she had given something to one of her
creditors, they came in a body and made a scene. They threaten her
with the police-court—your angel at that bar! Is it not enough to
make a wig stand on end? She is bathed in tears; she talks of throwing
herself into the river— and she will do it."
"If I shall go to see her, dat is goot-bye to de Bourse; an' it is
impossible but I shall go, for I shall make some money for her—you
shall compose her. I shall pay her debts; I shall go to see her at
four o'clock. But tell me, Eugenie, dat she shall lofe me a
little——"
"A little?—A great deal!—I tell you what, monsieur, nothing but
generosity can win a woman's heart. You would, no doubt, have saved a
hundred thousand francs or so by letting her go to prison. Well, you
would never have won her heart. As she said to me—'Eugenie, he has
been noble, grand—he has a great soul.' "
"She hafe said dat, Eugenie?" cried the Baron.
"Yes, monsieur, to me, myself."
"Here—take dis ten louis."
"Thank you.—But she is crying at this moment; she has been crying
ever since yesterday as much as a weeping Magdalen could have cried in
six months. The woman you love is in despair, and for debts that are
not even hers! Oh! men—they devour women as women devour old fogies—
there!"
"Dey all is de same!—She hafe pledge' herself.—Vy, no one shall
ever pledge herself.—Tell her dat she shall sign noting more.—I
shall pay; but if she shall sign something more—I——"
"What will you do?" said Europe with an air.
"Mein Gott! I hafe no power over her.—I shall take de management
of her little affairs——Dere, dere, go to comfort her, and you shall
say that in ein mont she shall live in a little palace."
"You have invested heavily, Monsieur le Baron, and for large
interest, in a woman's heart. I tell you—you look to me younger. I am
but a waiting-maid, but I have often seen such a change. It is
happiness— happiness gives a certain glow. . . . If you have spent a
little money, do not let that worry you; you will see what a good
return it will bring. And I said to madame, I told her she would be
the lowest of the low, a perfect hussy, if she did not love you, for
you have picked her out of hell.—When once she has nothing on her
mind, you will see. Between you and me, I may tell you, that night
when she cried so much—What is to be said, we value the esteem of the
man who maintains us—and she did not dare tell you everything. She
wanted to fly."
"To fly!" cried the Baron, in dismay at the notion. "But the
Bourse, the Bourse!—Go 'vay, I shall not come in.—But tell her that
I shall see her at her window—dat shall gife me courage!"
Esther smiled at Monsieur de Nucingen as he passed the house, and
he went ponderously on his way, saying:
"She is ein anchel!"
This was how Europe had succeeded in achieving the impossible. At
about half-past two Esther had finished dressing, as she was wont to
dress when she expected Lucien; she was looking charming. Seeing this,
Prudence, looking out of the window, said, "There is monsieur!"
The poor creature flew to the window, thinking she would see
Lucien; she saw Nucingen.
"Oh! how cruelly you hurt me!" she said.
"There is no other way of getting you to seem to be gracious to a
poor old man, who, after all, is going to pay your debts," said
Europe. "For they are all to be paid."
"What debts?" said the girl, who only cared to preserve her love,
which dreadful hands were scattering to the winds.
"Those which Monsieur Carlos made in your name."
"Why, here are nearly four hundred and fifty thousand francs,"
cried Esther.
"And you owe a hundred and fifty thousand more. But the Baron took
it all very well.—He is going to remove you from hence, and place you
in a little palace.—On my honor, you are not so badly off. In your
place, as you have got on the right side of this man, as soon as
Carlos is satisfied, I should make him give me a house and a settled
income. You are certainly the handsomest woman I ever saw, madame, and
the most attractive, but we so soon grow ugly! I was fresh and good-
looking, and look at me! I am twenty-three, about the same age as
madame, and I look ten years older. An illness is enough.—Well, but
when you have a house in Paris and investments, you need never be
afraid of ending in the streets."
Esther had ceased to listen to Europe-Eugenie-Prudence Servien. The
will of a man gifted with the genius of corruption had thrown Esther
back into the mud with as much force as he had used to drag her out of
it.
Those who know love in its infinitude know that those who do not
accept its virtues do not experience its pleasures. Since the scene in
the den in the Rue de Langlade, Esther had utterly forgotten her
former existence. She had since lived very virtuously, cloistered by
her passion. Hence, to avoid any obstacle, the skilful fiend had been
clever enough to lay such a train that the poor girl, prompted by her
devotion, had merely to utter her consent to swindling actions already
done, or on the point of accomplishment. This subtlety, revealing the
mastery of the tempter, also characterized the methods by which he had
subjugated Lucien. He created a terrible situation, dug a mine, filled
it with powder, and at the critical moment said to his accomplice,
"You have only to nod, and the whole will explode!"
Esther of old, knowing only the morality peculiar to courtesans,
thought all these attentions so natural, that she measured her rivals
only by what they could get men to spend on them. Ruined fortunes are
the conduct-stripes of these creatures. Carlos, in counting on
Esther's memory, had not calculated wrongly.
These tricks of warfare, these stratagems employed a thousand
times, not only by these women, but by spendthrifts too, did not
disturb Esther's mind. She felt nothing but her personal degradation;
she loved Lucien, she was to be the Baron de Nucingen's mistress "by
appointment"; this was all she thought of. The supposed Spaniard might
absorb the earnest-money, Lucien might build up his fortune with the
stones of her tomb, a single night of pleasure might cost the old
banker so many thousand-franc notes more or less, Europe might extract
a few hundred thousand francs by more or less ingenious trickery,—
none of these things troubled the enamored girl; this alone was the
canker that ate into her heart. For five years she had looked upon
herself as being as white as an angel. She loved, she was happy, she
had never committed the smallest infidelity. This beautiful pure love
was now to be defiled.
There was, in her mind, no conscious contrasting of her happy
isolated past and her foul future life. It was neither interest nor
sentiment that moved her, only an indefinable and all powerful feeling
that she had been white and was now black, pure and was now impure,
noble and was now ignoble. Desiring to be the ermine, moral taint
seemed to her unendurable. And when the Baron's passion had threatened
her, she had really thought of throwing herself out of the window. In
short, she loved Lucien wholly, and as women very rarely love a man.
Women who say they love, who often think they love best, dance, waltz,
and flirt with other men, dress for the world, and look for a harvest
of concupiscent glances; but Esther, without any sacrifice, had
achieved miracles of true love. She had loved Lucien for six years as
actresses love and courtesans—women who, having rolled in mire and
impurity, thirst for something noble, for the self-devotion of true
love, and who practice exclusiveness—the only word for an idea so
little known in real life.
Vanished nations, Greece, Rome, and the East, have at all times
kept women shut up; the woman who loves should shut herself up. So it
may easily be imagined that on quitting the palace of her fancy, where
this poem had been enacted, to go to this old man's "little palace,"
Esther felt heartsick. Urged by an iron hand, she had found herself
waist-deep in disgrace before she had time to reflect; but for the
past two days she had been reflecting, and felt a mortal chill about
her heart.
At the words, "End in the street," she started to her feet and
said:
"In the street!—No, in the Seine rather."
"In the Seine? And what about Monsieur Lucien?" said Europe.
This single word brought Esther to her seat again; she remained in
her armchair, her eyes fixed on a rosette in the carpet, the fire in
her brain drying up her tears.
At four o'clock Nucingen found his angel lost in that sea of
meditations and resolutions whereon a woman's spirit floats, and
whence she emerges with utterances that are incomprehensible to those
who have not sailed it in her convoy.
"Clear your brow, meine Schone," said the Baron, sitting down by
her. "You shall hafe no more debts—I shall arrange mit Eugenie, an'
in ein mont you shall go 'vay from dese rooms and go to dat little
palace.— Vas a pretty hant.—Gife it me dat I shall kiss it." Esther
gave him her hand as a dog gives a paw. "Ach, ja! You shall gife de
hant, but not de heart, and it is dat heart I lofe!"
The words were spoken with such sincerity of accent, that poor
Esther looked at the old man with a compassion in her eyes that almost
maddened him. Lovers, like martyrs, feel a brotherhood in their
sufferings! Nothing in the world gives such a sense of kindred as
community of sorrow.
"Poor man!" said she, "he really loves."
As he heard the words, misunderstanding their meaning, the Baron
turned pale, the blood tingled in his veins, he breathed the airs of
heaven. At his age a millionaire, for such a sensation, will pay as
much gold as a woman can ask.
"I lofe you like vat I lofe my daughter," said he. "An' I feel
dere"— and he laid her hand over his heart—"dat I shall not bear to
see you anyting but happy."
"If you would only be a father to me, I would love you very much; I
would never leave you; and you would see that I am not a bad woman,
not grasping or greedy, as I must seem to you now——"
"You hafe done some little follies," said the Baron, "like all dose
pretty vomen—dat is all. Say no more about dat. It is our pusiness to
make money for you. Be happy! I shall be your fater for some days yet,
for I know I must make you accustom' to my old carcase."
"Really!" she exclaimed, springing on to Nucingen's knees, and
clinging to him with her arm round his neck.
"Really!" repeated he, trying to force a smile.
She kissed his forehead; she believed in an impossible
combination— she might remain untouched and see Lucien.
She was so coaxing to the banker that she was La Torpille once
more. She fairly bewitched the old man, who promised to be a father to
her for forty days. Those forty days were to be employed in acquiring
and arranging the house in the Rue Saint-Georges.
When he was in the street again, as he went home, the Baron said to
himself, "I am an old flat."
But though in Esther's presence he was a mere child, away from her
he resumed his lynx's skin; just as the gambler (in le Joueur) becomes
affectionate to Angelique when he has not a liard.
"A half a million francs I hafe paid, and I hafe not yet seen vat
her leg is like.—Dat is too silly! but, happily, nobody shall hafe
known it!" said he to himself three weeks after.
And he made great resolutions to come to the point with the woman
who had cost him so dear; then, in Esther's presence once more, he
spent all the time he could spare her in making up for the roughness
of his first words.
"After all," said he, at the end of a month, "I cannot be de fater
eternal!"
Towards the end of the month of December 1829, just before
installing Esther in the house in the Rue Saint-Georges, the Baron
begged du Tillet to take Florine there, that she might see whether
everything was suitable to Nucingen's fortune, and if the description
of "a little palace" were duly realized by the artists commissioned to
make the cage worthy of the bird.
Every device known to luxury before the Revolution of 1830 made
this residence a masterpiece of taste. Grindot the architect
considered it his greatest achievement as a decorator. The staircase,
which had been reconstructed of marble, the judicious use of stucco
ornament, textiles, and gilding, the smallest details as much as the
general effect, outdid everything of the kind left in Paris from the
time of Louis XV.
"This is my dream!—This and virtue!" said Florine with a smile.
"And for whom are you spending all this money?"
"For a voman vat is going up there," replied the Baron.
"A way of playing Jupiter?" replied the actress. "And when is she
on show?"
"On the day of the house-warming," cried du Tillet.
"Not before dat," said the Baron.
"My word, how we must lace and brush and fig ourselves out,"
Florine went on. "What a dance the women will lead their dressmakers
and hairdressers for that evening's fun!—And when is it to be?"
"Dat is not for me to say."
"What a woman she must be!" cried Florine. "How much I should like
to see her!"
"An' so should I," answered the Baron artlessly.
"What! is everything new together—the house, the furniture, and
the woman?"
"Even the banker," said du Tillet, "for my old friend seems to me
quite young again."
"Well, he must go back to his twentieth year," said Florine; "at
any rate, for once."
In the early days of 1830 everybody in Paris was talking of
Nucingen's passion and the outrageous splendor of his house. The poor
Baron, pointed at, laughed at, and fuming with rage, as may easily be
imagined, took it into his head that on the occasion of giving the
house-warming he would at the same time get rid of his paternal
disguise, and get the price of so much generosity. Always circumvented
by "La Torpille," he determined to treat of their union by
correspondence, so as to win from her an autograph promise. Bankers
have no faith in anything less than a promissory note.
So one morning early in the year he rose early, locked himself into
his room, and composed the following letter in very good French; for
though he spoke the language very badly, he could write it very
well:—
"DEAR ESTHER, the flower of my thoughts and the only joy of my
life, when I told you that I loved you as I love my daughter, I
deceived you, I deceived myself. I only wished to express the
holiness of my sentiments, which are unlike those felt by other
men, in the first place, because I am an old man, and also
because
I have never loved till now. I love you so much, that if you cost
me my fortune I should not love you the less.
"Be just! Most men would not, like me, have seen the angel in you;
I have never even glanced at your past. I love you both as I love
my daughter, Augusta, and as I might love my wife, if my wife
could have loved me. Since the only excuse for an old man's love
is that he should be happy, ask yourself if I am not playing a
too
ridiculous part. I have taken you to be the consolation and joy
of
my declining days. You know that till I die you will be as happy
as a woman can be; and you know, too, that after my death you
will
be rich enough to be the envy of many women. In every stroke of
business I have effected since I have had the happiness of your
acquaintance, your share is set apart, and you have a standing
account with Nucingen's bank. In a few days you will move into a
house, which sooner or later, will be your own if you like it.
Now, plainly, will you still receive me then as a father, or will
you make me happy?
"Forgive me for writing so frankly, but when I am with you I lose
all courage; I feel too keenly that you are indeed my mistress. I
have no wish to hurt you; I only want to tell you how much I
suffer, and how hard it is to wait at my age, when every day
takes
with it some hopes and some pleasures. Besides, the delicacy of
my
conduct is a guarantee of the sincerity of my intentions. Have I
ever behaved as your creditor? You are like a citadel, and I am
not a young man. In answer to my appeals, you say your life is at
stake, and when I hear you, you make me believe it; but here I
sink into dark melancholy and doubts dishonorable to us both. You
seemed to me as sweet and innocent as you are lovely; but you
insist on destroying my convictions. Ask yourself!—You tell me
you bear a passion in your heart, an indomitable passion, but you
refuse to tell me the name of the man you love.—Is this
natural?
"You have turned a fairly strong man into an incredibly weak one.
You see what I have come to; I am induced to ask you at the end
of
five months what future hope there is for my passion. Again, I
must know what part I am to play at the opening of your house.
Money is nothing to me when it is spent for you; I will not be so
absurd as to make a merit to you of this contempt; but though my
love knows no limits, my fortune is limited, and I care for it
only for your sake. Well, if by giving you everything I possess I
might, as a poor man, win your affection, I would rather be poor
and loved than rich and scorned by you.
"You have altered me so completely, my dear Esther, that no one
knows me; I paid ten thousand francs for a picture by Joseph
Bridau because you told me that he was clever and unappreciated.
I
give every beggar I meet five francs in your name. Well, and what
does the poor man ask, who regards himself as your debtor when
you
do him the honor of accepting anything he can give you? He asks
only for a hope—and what a hope, good God! Is it not rather the
certainty of never having anything from you but what my passion
may seize? The fire in my heart will abet your cruel deceptions.
You find me ready to submit to every condition you can impose on
my happiness, on my few pleasures; but promise me at least that
on
the day when you take possession of your house you will accept
the
heart and service of him who, for the rest of his days, must sign
himself your slave,
"FREDERIC DE NUCINGEN."
"Faugh! how he bores me—this money bag!" cried Esther, a courtesan
once more. She took a small sheet of notepaper and wrote all over it,
as close as it could go, Scribe's famous phrase, which has become a
proverb, "Prenez mon ours."
A quarter of an hour later, Esther, overcome by remorse, wrote the
following letter:—
"MONSIEUR LE BARON,—
"Pay no heed to the note you have just received from me; I had
relapsed into the folly of my youth. Forgive, monsieur, a poor
girl who ought to be your slave. I never more keenly felt the
degradation of my position than on the day when I was handed over
to you. You have paid; I owe myself to you. There is nothing more
sacred than a debt of dishonor. I have no right to compound it by
throwing myself into the Seine.
"A debt can always be discharged in that dreadful coin which is
good only to the debtor; you will find me yours to command. I
will
pay off in one night all the sums for which that fatal hour has
been mortgaged; and I am sure that such an hour with me is worth
millions—all the more because it will be the only one, the last.
I shall then have paid the debt, and may get away from life. A
good woman has a chance of restoration after a fall; but we, the
like of us, fall too low.
"My determination is so fixed that I beg you will keep this letter
in evidence of the cause of death of her who remains, for one
day,
your servant,
"ESTHER."
Having sent this letter, Esther felt a pang of regret. Ten minutes
after she wrote a third note, as follows:—
"Forgive me, dear Baron—it is I once more. I did not mean either
to make game of you or to wound you; I only want you to reflect
on
this simple argument: If we were to continue in the position
towards each other of father and daughter, your pleasure would be
small, but it would be enduring. If you insist on the terms of
the
bargain, you will live to mourn for me.
"I will trouble you no more: the day when you shall choose
pleasure rather than happiness will have no morrow for me.—Your
daughter,
"ESTHER."
On receiving the first letter, the Baron fell into a cold fury such
as a millionaire may die of; he looked at himself in the glass and
rang the bell.
"An hot bat for mein feet," said he to his new valet.
While he was sitting with his feet in the bath, the second letter
came; he read it, and fainted away. He was carried to bed.
When the banker recovered consciousness, Madame de Nucingen was
sitting at the foot of the bed.
"The hussy is right!" said she. "Why do you try to buy love? Is it
to be bought in the market!—Let me see your letter to her."
The Baron gave her sundry rough drafts he had made; Madame de
Nucingen read them, and smiled. Then came Esther's third letter.
"She is a wonderful girl!" cried the Baroness, when she had read
it.
"Vat shall I do, montame?" asked the Baron of his wife.
"Wait."
"Wait? But nature is pitiless!" he cried.
"Look here, my dear, you have been admirably kind to me," said
Delphine; "I will give you some good advice."
"You are a ver' goot voman," said he. "Ven you hafe any debts I
shall pay."
"Your state on receiving these letters touches a woman far more
than the spending of millions, or than all the letters you could
write, however fine they may be. Try to let her know it, indirectly;
perhaps she will be yours! And—have no scruples, she will not die of
that," added she, looking keenly at her husband.
But Madame de Nucingen knew nothing whatever of the nature of such
women.
"Vat a clefer voman is Montame de Nucingen!" said the Baron to
himself when his wife had left him.
Still, the more the Baron admired the subtlety of his wife's
counsel, the less he could see how he might act upon it; and he not
only felt that he was stupid, but he told himself so.
The stupidity of wealthy men, though it is almost proverbial, is
only comparative. The faculties of the mind, like the dexterity of the
limbs, need exercise. The dancer's strength is in his feet; the
blacksmith's in his arms; the market porter is trained to carry loads;
the singer works his larynx; and the pianist hardens his wrist. A
banker is practised in business matters; he studies and plans them,
and pulls the wires of various interests, just as a playwright trains
his intelligence in combining situations, studying his actors, giving
life to his dramatic figures.
We should no more look for powers of conversation in the Baron de
Nucingen than for the imagery of a poet in the brain of a
mathematician. How many poets occur in an age, who are either good
prose writers, or as witty in the intercourse of daily life as Madame
Cornuel? Buffon was dull company; Newton was never in love; Lord Byron
loved nobody but himself; Rousseau was gloomy and half crazy; La
Fontaine absent-minded. Human energy, equally distributed, produces
dolts, mediocrity in all; unequally bestowed it gives rise to those
incongruities to whom the name of Genius is given, and which, if we
only could see them, would look like deformities. The same law governs
the body; perfect beauty is generally allied with coldness or
silliness. Though Pascal was both a great mathematician and a great
writer, though Beaumarchais was a good man of business, and Zamet a
profound courtier, these rare exceptions prove the general principle
of the specialization of brain faculties.
Within the sphere of speculative calculations the banker put forth
as much intelligence and skill, finesse and mental power, as a
practised diplomatist expends on national affairs. If he were equally
remarkable outside his office, the banker would be a great man.
Nucingen made one with the Prince de Ligne, with Mazarin or with
Diderot, is a human formula that is almost inconceivable, but which
has nevertheless been known as Pericles, Aristotle, Voltaire, and
Napoleon. The splendor of the Imperial crown must not blind us to the
merits of the individual; the Emperor was charming, well informed, and
witty.
Monsieur de Nucingen, a banker and nothing more, having no
inventiveness outside his business, like most bankers, had no faith in
anything but sound security. In matters of art he had the good sense
to go, cash in hand, to experts in every branch, and had recourse to
the best architect, the best surgeon, the greatest connoisseur in
pictures or statues, the cleverest lawyer, when he wished to build a
house, to attend to his health, to purchase a work of art or an
estate. But as there are no recognized experts in intrigue, no
connoisseurs in love affairs, a banker finds himself in difficulties
when he is in love, and much puzzled as to the management of a woman.
So Nucingen could think of no better method than that he had hitherto
pursued—to give a sum of money to some Frontin, male or female, to
act and think for him.
Madame de Saint-Esteve alone could carry out the plan imagined by
the Baroness. Nucingen bitterly regretted having quarreled with the
odious old clothes-seller. However, feeling confident of the
attractions of his cash-box and the soothing documents signed Garat,
he rang for his man and told him in inquire for the repulsive widow in
the Rue Saint- Marc, and desire her to come to see him.
In Paris extremes are made to meet by passion. Vice is constantly
binding the rich to the poor, the great to the mean. The Empress
consults Mademoiselle Lenormand; the fine gentleman in every age can
always find a Ramponneau.
The man returned within two hours.
"Monsieur le Baron," said he, "Madame de Saint-Esteve is ruined."
"Ah! so much de better!" cried the Baron in glee. "I shall hafe her
safe den."
"The good woman is given to gambling, it would seem," the valet
went on. "And, moreover, she is under the thumb of a third-rate actor
in a suburban theatre, whom, for decency's sake, she calls her godson.
She is a first-rate cook, it would seem, and wants a place."
"Dose teufel of geniuses of de common people hafe alvays ten vays
of making money, and ein dozen vays of spending it," said the Baron to
himself, quite unconscious that Panurge had thought the same thing.
He sent his servant off in quest of Madame de Saint-Esteve, who did
not come till the next day. Being questioned by Asie, the servant
revealed to this female spy the terrible effects of the notes written
to Monsieur le Baron by his mistress.
"Monsieur must be desperately in love with the woman," said he in
conclusion, "for he was very near dying. For my part, I advised him
never to go back to her, for he will be wheedled over at once. A woman
who has already cost Monsieur le Baron five hundred thousand francs,
they say, without counting what he has spent on the house in the Rue
Saint-Georges! But the woman cares for money, and for money only.—As
madame came out of monsieur's room, she said with a laugh: 'If this
goes on, that slut will make a widow of me!' "
"The devil!" cried Asie; "it will never do to kill the goose that
lays the golden eggs."
"Monsieur le Baron has no hope now but in you," said the valet.
"Ay! The fact is, I do know how to make a woman go."
"Well, walk in," said the man, bowing to such occult powers.
"Well," said the false Saint-Esteve, going into the sufferer's room
with an abject air, "Monsieur le Baron has met with some difficulties?
What can you expect! Everybody is open to attack on his weak side.
Dear me, I have had my troubles too. Within two months the wheel of
Fortune has turned upside down for me. Here I am looking out for a
place!—We have neither of us been very wise. If Monsieur le Baron
would take me as cook to Madame Esther, I would be the most devoted of
slaves. I should be useful to you, monsieur, to keep an eye on Eugenie
and madame."
"Dere is no hope of dat," said the Baron. "I cannot succeet in
being de master, I am let such a tance as——"
"As a top," Asie put in. "Well, you have made others dance, daddy,
and the little slut has got you, and is making a fool of you.—Heaven
is just!"
"Just?" said the Baron. "I hafe not sent for you to preach to
me——"
"Pooh, my boy! A little moralizing breaks no bones. It is the salt
of life to the like of us, as vice is to your bigots.—Come, have you
been generous? You have paid her debts?"
"Ja," said the Baron lamentably.
"That is well; and you have taken her things out of pawn, and that
is better. But you must see that it is not enough. All this gives her
no occupation, and these creatures love to cut a dash——"
"I shall hafe a surprise for her, Rue Saint-Georches—she knows
dat," said the Baron. "But I shall not be made a fool of."
"Very well then, let her go."
"I am only afrait dat she shall let me go!" cried the Baron.
"And we want our money's worth, my boy," replied Asie. "Listen to
me. We have fleeced the public of some millions, my little friend?
Twenty- five millions I am told you possess."
The Baron could not suppress a smile.
"Well, you must let one go."
"I shall let one go, but as soon as I shall let one go, I shall
hafe to give still another."
"Yes, I understand, replied Asie. "You will not say B for fear of
having to go on to Z. Still, Esther is a good girl——"
"A ver' honest girl," cried the banker. "An' she is ready to
submit; but only as in payment of a debt."
"In short, she does not want to be your mistress; she feels an
aversion.—Well, and I understand it; the child has always done just
what she pleased. When a girl has never known any but charming young
men, she cannot take to an old one. You are not handsome; you are as
big as Louis XVIII., and rather dull company, as all men are who try
to cajole fortune instead of devoting themselves to women.—Well, if
you don't think six hundred thousand francs too much," said Asie, "I
pledge myself to make her whatever you can wish."
"Six huntert tousant franc!" cried the Baron, with a start. "Esther
is to cost me a million to begin with!"
"Happiness is surely worth sixteen hundred thousand francs, you old
sinner. You must know, men in these days have certainly spent more
than one or two millions on a mistress. I even know women who have
cost men their lives, for whom heads have rolled into the basket.—You
know the doctor who poisoned his friend? He wanted the money to
gratify a woman."
"Ja, I know all dat. But if I am in lofe, I am not ein idiot, at
least vile I am here; but if I shall see her, I shall gife her my
pocket- book——"
"Well, listen Monsieur le Baron," said Asie, assuming the attitude
of a Semiramis. "You have been squeezed dry enough already. Now, as
sure as my name is Saint-Esteve—in the way of business, of course—I
will stand by you."
"Goot, I shall repay you."
"I believe you, my boy, for I have shown you that I know how to be
revenged. Besides, I tell you this, daddy, I know how to snuff out
your Madame Esther as you would snuff a candle. And I know my lady!
When the little huzzy has once made you happy, she will be even more
necessary to you than she is at this moment. You paid me well; you
have allowed yourself to be fooled, but, after all, you have forked
out.—I have fulfilled my part of the agreement, haven't I? Well, look
here, I will make a bargain with you."
"Let me hear."
"You shall get me the place as cook to Madame, engage me for ten
years, and pay the last five in advance—what is that? Just a little
earnest-money. When once I am about madame, I can bring her to these
terms. Of course, you must first order her a lovely dress from Madame
Auguste, who knows her style and taste; and order the new carriage to
be at the door at four o'clock. After the Bourse closes, go to her
rooms and take her for a little drive in the Bois de Boulogne. Well,
by that act the woman proclaims herself your mistress; she has
advertised herself to the eyes and knowledge of all Paris: A hundred
thousand francs.—You must dine with her—I know how to cook such a
dinner!—You must take her to the play, to the Varietes, to a stage-
box, and then all Paris will say, 'There is that old rascal Nucingen
with his mistress.' It is very flattering to know that such things are
said.—Well, all this, for I am not grasping, is included for the
first hundred thousand francs.—In a week, by such conduct, you will
have made some way——"
"But I shall hafe paid ein hundert tousant franc."
"In the course of the second week," Asie went on, as though she had
not heard this lamentable ejaculation, "madame, tempted by these
preliminaries, will have made up her mind to leave her little
apartment and move to the house you are giving her. Your Esther will
have seen the world again, have found her old friends; she will wish
to shine and do the honors of her palace—it is in the nature of
things: Another hundred thousand francs!—By Heaven! you are at home
there, Esther compromised—she must be yours. The rest is a mere
trifle, in which you must play the principal part, old elephant. (How
wide the monster opens his eyes!) Well, I will undertake that too:
Four hundred thousand—and that, my fine fellow, you need not pay till
the day after. What do you think of that for honesty? I have more
confidence in you than you have in me. If I persuade madame to show
herself as your mistress, to compromise herself, to take every gift
you offer her,—perhaps this very day, you will believe that I am
capable of inducing her to throw open the pass of the Great Saint
Bernard. And it is a hard job, I can tell you; it will take as much
pulling to get your artillery through as it took the first Consul to
get over the Alps."
"But vy?"
"Her heart is full of love, old shaver, rasibus, as you say who
know Latin," replied Asie. "She thinks herself the Queen of Sheba,
because she has washed herself in sacrifices made for her lover—an
idea that that sort of woman gets into her head! Well, well, old
fellow, we must be just.—It is fine! That baggage would die of grief
at being your mistress—I really should not wonder. But what I trust
to, and I tell you to give you courage, is that there is good in the
girl at bottom."
"You hafe a genius for corruption," said the Baron, who had
listened to Asie in admiring silence, "just as I hafe de knack of de
banking."
"Then it is settled, my pigeon?" said Asie.
"Done for fifty tousant franc insteat of ein hundert tousant!—An'
I shall give you fife hundert tousant de day after my triumph."
"Very good, I will set to work," said Asie. "And you may come,
monsieur," she added respectfully. "You will find madame as soft
already as a cat's back, and perhaps inclined to make herself
pleasant."
"Go, go, my goot voman," said the banker, rubbing his hands.
And after seeing the horrible mulatto out of the house, he said to
himself:
"How vise it is to hafe much money."
He sprang out of bed, went down to his office, and resumed the
conduct of his immense business with a light heart.
Nothing could be more fatal to Esther than the steps taken by
Nucingen. The hapless girl, in defending her fidelity, was defending
her life. This very natural instinct was what Carlos called prudery.
Now Asie, not without taking such precautions as usual in such cases,
went off to report to Carlos the conference she had held with the
Baron, and all the profit she had made by it. The man's rage, like
himself, was terrible; he came forthwith to Esther, in a carriage with
the blinds drawn, driving into the courtyard. Still almost white with
fury, the double-dyed forger went straight into the poor girl's room;
she looked at him—she was standing up—and she dropped on to a chair
as though her legs had snapped.
"What is the matter, monsieur?" said she, quaking in every limb.
"Leave us, Europe," said he to the maid.
Esther looked at the woman as a child might look at its mother,
from whom some assassin had snatched it to murder it.
"Do you know where you will send Lucien?" Carlos went on when he
was alone with Esther.
"Where?" asked she in a low voice, venturing to glance at her
executioner.
"Where I come from, my beauty." Esther, as she looked at the man,
saw red. "To the hulks," he added in an undertone.
Esther shut her eyes and stretched herself out, her arms dropped,
and she turned white. The man rang, and Prudence appeared.
"Bring her round," he said coldly; "I have not done."
He walked up and down the drawing-room while waiting.
Prudence-Europe was obliged to come and beg monsieur to lift Esther on
to the bed; he carried her with the ease that betrayed athletic
strength.
They had to procure all the chemist's strongest stimulants to
restore Esther to a sense of her woes. An hour later the poor girl was
able to listen to this living nightmare, seated at the foot of her
bed, his eyes fixed and glowing like two spots of molten lead.
"My little sweetheart," said he, "Lucien now stands between a
splendid life, honored, happy, and respected, and the hole full of
water, mud, and gravel into which he was going to plunge when I met
him. The house of Grandlieu requires of the dear boy an estate worth a
million francs before securing for him the title of Marquis, and
handing over to him that may-pole named Clotilde, by whose help he
will rise to power. Thanks to you, and me, Lucien has just purchased
his maternal manor, the old Chateau de Rubempre, which, indeed, did
not cost much—thirty thousand francs; but his lawyer, by clever
negotiations, has succeeded in adding to it estates worth a million,
on which three hundred thousand francs are paid. The chateau, the
expenses, and percentages to the men who were put forward as a blind
to conceal the transaction from the country people, have swallowed up
the remainder.
"We have, to be sure, a hundred thousand francs invested in a
business here, which a few months hence will be worth two to three
hundred thousand francs; but there will still be four hundred thousand
francs to be paid.
"In three days Lucien will be home from Angouleme, where he has
been, because he must not be suspected of having found a fortune in
remaking your bed——"
"Oh no!" cried she, looking up with a noble impulse.
"I ask you, then, is this a moment to scare off the Baron?" he went
on calmly. "And you very nearly killed him the day before yesterday;
he fainted like a woman on reading your second letter. You have a fine
style—I congratulate you! If the Baron had died, where should we be
now?—When Lucien walks out of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin son-in-law to the
Duc de Grandlieu, if you want to try a dip in the Seine—— Well, my
beauty, I offer you my hand for a dive together. It is one way of
ending matters.
"But consider a moment. Would it not be better to live and say to
yourself again and again 'This fine fortune, this happy family'—for
he will have children—children!—Have you ever thought of the joy of
running your fingers through the hair of his children?"
Esther closed her eyes with a little shiver.
"Well, as you gaze on that structure of happiness, you may say to
yourself, 'This is my doing!' "
There was a pause, and the two looked at each other.
"This is what I have tried to make out of such despair as saw no
issue but the river," said Carlos. "Am I selfish? That is the way to
love! Men show such devotion to none but kings! But I have anointed
Lucien king. If I were riveted for the rest of my days to my old
chain, I fancy I could stay there resigned so long as I could say, 'He
is gay, he is at Court.' My soul and mind would triumph, while my
carcase was given over to the jailers! You are a mere female; you love
like a female! But in a courtesan, as in all degraded creatures, love
should be a means to motherhood, in spite of Nature, which has
stricken you with barrenness!
"If ever, under the skin of the Abbe Carlos Herrera, any one were
to detect the convict I have been, do you know what I would do to
avoid compromising Lucien?"
Esther awaited the reply with some anxiety.
"Well," he said after a brief pause, "I would die as the Negroes
do— without a word. And you, with all your airs will put folks on my
traces. What did I require of you?—To be La Torpille again for six
months—for six weeks; and to do it to clutch a million.
"Lucien will never forget you. Men do not forget the being of whom
they are reminded day after day by the joy of awaking rich every
morning. Lucien is a better fellow than you are. He began by loving
Coralie. She died—good; but he had not enough money to bury her; he
did not do as you did just now, he did not faint, though he is a poet;
he wrote six rollicking songs, and earned three hundred francs, with
which he paid for Coralie's funeral. I have those songs; I know them
by heart. Well, then do you too compose your songs: be cheerful, be
wild, be irresistible and—insatiable! You hear me?—Do not let me
have to speak again.
"Kiss papa. Good-bye."
When, half an hour after, Europe went into her mistress' room, she
found her kneeling in front of a crucifix, in the attitude which the
most religious of painters has given to Moses before the burning bush
on Horeb, to depict his deep and complete adoration of Jehovah. After
saying her prayers, Esther had renounced her better life, the honor
she had created for herself, her glory, her virtue, and her love.
She rose.
"Oh, madame, you will never look like that again!" cried Prudence
Servien, struck by her mistress' sublime beauty.
She hastily turned the long mirror so that the poor girl should see
herself. Her eyes still had a light as of the soul flying heavenward.
The Jewess' complexion was brilliant. Sparkling with tears unshed in
the fervor of prayer, her eyelashes were like leaves after a summer
shower, for the last time they shone with the sunshine of pure love.
Her lips seemed to preserve an expression as of her last appeal to the
angels, whose palm of martyrdom she had no doubt borrowed while
placing in their hands her past unspotted life. And she had the
majesty which Mary Stuart must have shown at the moment when she bid
adieu to her crown, to earth, and to love.
"I wish Lucien could have seen me thus!" she said with a smothered
sigh. "Now," she added, in a strident tone, "now for a fling!"
Europe stood dumb at hearing the words, as though she had heard an
angel blaspheme.
"Well, why need you stare at me to see if I have cloves in my mouth
instead of teeth? I am nothing henceforth but a vile, foul creature, a
thief—and I expect milord. So get me a hot bath, and put my dress
out. It is twelve o'clock; the Baron will look in, no doubt, when the
Bourse closes; I shall tell him I was waiting for him, and Asie is to
prepare us dinner, first-chop, mind you; I mean to turn the man's
brain.—Come, hurry, hurry, my girl; we are going to have some fun—
that is to say, we must go to work."
She sat down at the table and wrote the following note:—
"MY FRIEND,—If the cook you have sent me had not already been in
my service, I might have thought that your purpose was to let me
know how often you had fainted yesterday on receiving my three
notes. (What can I say? I was very nervous that day; I was
thinking over the memories of my miserable existence.) But I know
how sincere Asie is. Still, I cannot repent of having caused you
so much pain, since it has availed to prove to me how much you
love me. This is how we are made, we luckless and despised
creatures; true affection touches us far more deeply than finding
ourselves the objects of lavish liberality. For my part, I have
always rather dreaded being a peg on which you would hang your
vanities. It annoyed me to be nothing else to you. Yes, in spite
of all your protestations, I fancied you regarded me merely as a
woman paid for.
"Well, you will now find me a good girl, but on condition of your
always obeying me a little.
"If this letter can in any way take the place of the doctor's
prescription, prove it by coming to see me after the Bourse
closes. You will find me in full fig, dressed in your gifts, for
I
am for life your pleasure-machine,
"ESTHER."
At the Bourse the Baron de Nucingen was so gay, so cheerful, seemed
so easy-going, and allowed himself so many jests, that du Tillet and
the Kellers, who were on 'change, could not help asking him the reason
of his high spirits.
"I am belofed. Ve shall soon gife dat house-varming," he told du
Tillet.
"And how much does it cost you?" asked Francois Keller rudely—it
was said that he had spent twenty-five thousand francs a year on
Madame Colleville.
"Dat voman is an anchel! She never has ask' me for one sou."
"They never do," replied du Tillet. "And it is to avoid asking that
they have always aunts or mothers."
Between the Bourse and the Rue Taitbout seven times did the Baron
say to his servant:
"You go so slow—vip de horse!"
He ran lightly upstairs, and for the first time he saw his mistress
in all the beauty of such women, who have no other occupation than the
care of their person and their dress. Just out of her bath the flower
was quite fresh, and perfumed so as to inspire desire in Robert
d'Arbrissel.
Esther was in a charming toilette. A dress of black corded silk
trimmed with rose-colored gimp opened over a petticoat of gray satin,
the costume subsequently worn by Amigo, the handsome singer, in I
Puritani. A Honiton lace kerchief fell or floated over her shoulders.
The sleeves of her gown were strapped round with cording to divide the
puffs, which for some little time fashion has substituted for the
large sleeves which had grown too monstrous. Esther had fastened a
Mechlin lace cap on her magnificent hair with a pin, a la folle, as it
is called, ready to fall, but not really falling, giving her an
appearance of being tumbled and in disorder, though the white parting
showed plainly on her little head between the waves of her hair.
"Is it not a shame to see madame so lovely in a shabby drawing-room
like this?" said Europe to the Baron, as she admitted him.
"Vel, den, come to the Rue Saint-Georches," said the Baron, coming
to a full stop like a dog marking a partridge. "The veather is
splendit, ve shall drife to the Champs Elysees, and Montame
Saint-Estefe and Eugenie shall carry dere all your clo'es an' your
linen, an' ve shall dine in de Rue Saint-Georches."
"I will do whatever you please," said Esther, "if only you will be
so kind as to call my cook Asie, and Eugenie Europe. I have given
those names to all the women who have served me ever since the first
two. I do not love change——"
"Asie, Europe! echoed the Baron, laughing. "How ver' droll you
are.— You hafe infentions.—I should hafe eaten many dinners before I
should hafe call' a cook Asie."
"It is our business to be droll," said Esther. "Come, now, may not
a poor girl be fed by Asia and dressed by Europe when you live on the
whole world? It is a myth, I say; some women would devour the earth, I
only ask for half.—You see?"
"Vat a voman is Montame Saint-Estefe!" said the Baron to himself as
he admired Esther's changed demeanor.
"Europe, my girl, I want my bonnet," said Esther. "I must have a
black silk bonnet lined with pink and trimmed with lace."
"Madame Thomas has not sent it home.—Come, Monsieur le Baron;
quick, off you go! Begin your functions as a man-of-all-work—that is
to say, of all pleasure! Happiness is burdensome. You have your
carriage here, go to Madame Thomas," said Europe to the Baron. "Make
your servant ask for the bonnet for Madame van Bogseck.—And, above
all," she added in his ear, "bring her the most beautiful bouquet to
be had in Paris. It is winter, so try to get tropical flowers."
The Baron went downstairs and told his servants to go to "Montame
Thomas."
The coachman drove to a famous pastrycook's.
"She is a milliner, you damn' idiot, and not a cake-shop!" cried
the Baron, who rushed off to Madame Prevot's in the Palais-Royal,
where he had a bouquet made up for the price of ten louis, while his
man went to the great modiste.
A superficial observer, walking about Paris, wonders who the fools
can be that buy the fabulous flowers that grace the illustrious
bouquetiere's shop window, and the choice products displayed by Chevet
of European fame—the only purveyor who can vie with the Rocher de
Cancale in a real and delicious Revue des deux Mondes.
Well, every day in Paris a hundred or more passions a la Nucingen
come into being, and find expression in offering such rarities as
queens dare not purchase, presented, kneeling, to baggages who, to use
Asie's word, like to cut a dash. But for these little details, a
decent citizen would be puzzled to conceive how a fortune melts in the
hands of these women, whose social function, in Fourier's scheme, is
perhaps to rectify the disasters caused by avarice and cupidity. Such
squandering is, no doubt, to the social body what a prick of the
lancet is to a plethoric subject. In two months Nucingen had shed
broadcast on trade more than two hundred thousand francs.
By the time the old lover returned, darkness was falling; the
bouquet was no longer of any use. The hour for driving in the
Champs-Elysees in winter is between two and four. However, the
carriage was of use to convey Esther from the Rue Taitbout to the Rue
Saint-Georges, where she took possession of the "little palace." Never
before had Esther been the object of such worship or such lavishness,
and it amazed her; but, like all royal ingrates, she took care to
express no surprise.
When you go into St. Peter's at Rome, to enable you to appreciate
the extent and height of this queen of cathedrals, you are shown the
little finger of a statue which looks of a natural size, and which
measures I know not how much. Descriptions have been so severely
criticised, necessary as they are to a history of manners, that I must
here follow the example of the Roman Cicerone. As they entered the
dining-room, the Baron could not resist asking Esther to feel the
stuff of which the window curtains were made, draped with magnificent
fulness, lined with white watered silk, and bordered with a gimp fit
to trim a Portuguese princess' bodice. The material was silk brought
from Canton, on which Chinese patience had painted Oriental birds with
a perfection only to be seen in mediaeval illuminations, or in the
Missal of Charles V., the pride of the Imperial library at Vienna.
"It hafe cost two tousand franc' an ell for a milord who brought it
from Intia——"
"It is very nice, charming," said Esther. "How I shall enjoy
drinking champagne here; the froth will not get dirty here on a bare
floor."
"Oh! madame!" cried Europe, "only look at the carpet!"
"Dis carpet hafe been made for de Duc de Torlonia, a frient of
mine, who fount it too dear, so I took it for you who are my qveen,"
said Nucingen.
By chance this carpet, by one of our cleverest designers, matched
with the whimsicalities of the Chinese curtains. The walls, painted by
Schinner and Leon de Lora, represented voluptuous scenes, in carved
ebony frames, purchased for their weight in gold from Dusommerard, and
forming panels with a narrow line of gold that coyly caught the light.
From this you may judge of the rest.
"You did well to bring me here," said Esther. "It will take me a
week to get used to my home and not to look like a parvenu in it——"
"MY home! Den you shall accept it?" cried the Baron in glee.
"Why, of course, and a thousand times of course, stupid animal,"
said she, smiling.
"Animal vas enough——"
"Stupid is a term of endearment," said she, looking at him.
The poor man took Esther's hand and pressed it to his heart. He was
animal enough to feel, but too stupid to find words.
"Feel how it beats—for ein little tender vort——"
And he conducted his goddess to her room.
"Oh, madame, I cannot stay here!" cried Eugenie. "It makes me long
to go to bed."
"Well," said Esther, "I mean to please the magician who has worked
all these wonders.—Listen, my fat elephant, after dinner we will go
to the play together. I am starving to see a play."
It was just five years since Esther had been to a theatre. All
Paris was rushing at that time to the Porte-Saint-Martin, to see one
of those pieces to which the power of the actors lends a terrible
expression of reality, Richard Darlington. Like all ingenuous natures,
Esther loved to feel the thrills of fear as much as to yield to tears
of pathos.
"Let us go to see Frederick Lemaitre," said she; "he is an actor I
adore."
"It is a horrible piece," said Nucingen foreseeing the moment when
he must show himself in public.
He sent his servant to secure one of the two stage-boxes on the
grand tier.—And this is another strange feature of Paris. Whenever
success, on feet of clay, fills a house, there is always a stage-box
to be had ten minutes before the curtain rises. The managers keep it
for themselves, unless it happens to be taken for a passion a la
Nucingen. This box, like Chevet's dainties, is a tax levied on the
whims of the Parisian Olympus.
It would be superfluous to describe the plate and china. Nucingen
had provided three services of plate—common, medium, and best; and
the best—plates, dishes, and all, was of chased silver gilt. The
banker, to avoid overloading the table with gold and silver, had
completed the array of each service with porcelain of exquisite
fragility in the style of Dresden china, which had cost more than the
plate. As to the linen—Saxony, England, Flanders, and France vied in
the perfection of flowered damask.
At dinner it was the Baron's turn to be amazed on tasting Asie's
cookery.
"I understant," said he, "vy you call her Asie; dis is Asiatic
cooking."
"I begin to think he loves me," said Esther to Europe; "he has said
something almost like a bon mot."
"I said many vorts," said he.
"Well! he is more like Turcaret than I had heard he was!" cried the
girl, laughing at this reply, worthy of the many artless speeches for
which the banker was famous.
The dishes were so highly spiced as to give the Baron an
indigestion, on purpose that he might go home early; so this was all
he got in the way of pleasure out of his first evening with Esther. At
the theatre he was obliged to drink an immense number of glasses of
eau sucree, leaving Esther alone between the acts.
By a coincidence so probable that it can scarcely be called chance,
Tullia, Mariette, and Madame du Val-Noble were at the play that
evening. Richard Darlington enjoyed a wild success—and a deserved
success—such as is seen only in Paris. The men who saw this play all
came to the conclusion that a lawful wife might be thrown out of
window, and the wives loved to see themselves unjustly persecuted.
The women said to each other: "This is too much! we are driven to
it— but it often happens!"
Now a woman as beautiful as Esther, and dressed as Esther was,
could not show off with impunity in a stage-box at the
Porte-Saint-Martin. And so, during the second act, there was quite a
commotion in the box where the two dancers were sitting, caused by the
undoubted identity of the unknown fair one with La Torpille.
"Heyday! where has she dropped from?" said Mariette to Madame du
Val- Noble. "I thought she was drowned."
"But is it she? She looks to me thirty-seven times younger and
handsomer than she was six years ago."
"Perhaps she has preserved herself in ice like Madame d'Espard and
Madame Zayonchek," said the Comte de Brambourg, who had brought the
three women to the play, to a pit-tier box. "Isn't she the 'rat' you
meant to send me to hocus my uncle?" said he, addressing Tullia.
"The very same," said the singer. "Du Bruel, go down to the stalls
and see if it is she."
"What brass she has got!" exclaimed Madame du Val-Noble, using an
expressive but vulgar phrase.
"Oh!" said the Comte de Brambourg, "she very well may. She is with
my friend the Baron de Nucingen—I will go——"
"Is that the immaculate Joan of Arc who has taken Nucingen by
storm, and who has been talked of till we are all sick of her, these
three months past?" asked Mariette.
"Good-evening, my dear Baron," said Philippe Bridau, as he went
into Nucingen's box. "So here you are, married to Mademoiselle
Esther.— Mademoiselle, I am an old officer whom you once on a time
were to have got out of a scrape—at Issoudun—Philippe Bridau——"
"I know nothing of it," said Esther, looking round the house
through her opera-glasses.
"Dis lady," said the Baron, "is no longer known as 'Esther' so
short! She is called Montame de Champy—ein little estate vat I have
bought for her——"
"Though you do things in such style," said the Comte, "these ladies
are saying that Madame de Champy gives herself too great airs.—If you
do not choose to remember me, will you condescend to recognize
Mariette, Tullia, Madame du Val-Noble?" the parvenu went on—a man for
whom the Duc de Maufrigneuse had won the Dauphin's favor.
"If these ladies are kind to me, I am willing to make myself
pleasant to them," replied Madame de Champy drily.
"Kind! Why, they are excellent; they have named you Joan of Arc,"
replied Philippe.
"Vell den, if dese ladies vill keep you company," said Nucingen, "I
shall go 'vay, for I hafe eaten too much. Your carriage shall come for
you and your people.—Dat teufel Asie!"
"The first time, and you leave me alone!" said Esther. "Come, come,
you must have courage enough to die on deck. I must have my man with
me as I go out. If I were insulted, am I to cry out for nothing?"
The old millionaire's selfishness had to give way to his duties as
a lover. The Baron suffered but stayed.
Esther had her own reasons for detaining "her man." If she admitted
her acquaintance, she would be less closely questioned in his presence
than if she were alone. Philippe Bridau hurried back to the box where
the dancers were sitting, and informed them of the state of affairs.
"Oh! so it is she who has fallen heir to my house in the Rue Saint-
Georges," observed Madame du Val-Noble with some bitterness; for she,
as she phrased it, was on the loose.
"Most likely," said the Colonel. "Du Tillet told me that the Baron
had spent three times as much there as your poor Falleix."
"Let us go round to her box," said Tullia.
"Not if I know it," said Mariette; "she is much too handsome, I
will call on her at home."
"I think myself good-looking enough to risk it," remarked Tullia.
So the much-daring leading dancer went round between the acts and
renewed acquaintance with Esther, who would talk only on general
subjects.
"And where have you come back from, my dear child?" asked Tullia,
who could not restrain her curiosity.
"Oh, I was for five years in a castle in the Alps with an
Englishman, as jealous as a tiger, a nabob; I called him a nabot, a
dwarf, for he was not so big as le bailli de Ferrette.
"And then I came across a banker—from a savage to salvation, as
Florine might say. And now here I am in Paris again; I long so for
amusement that I mean to have a rare time. I shall keep open house. I
have five years of solitary confinement to make good, and I am
beginning to do it. Five years of an Englishman is rather too much;
six weeks are the allowance according to the advertisements."
"Was it the Baron who gave you that lace?"
"No, it is a relic of the nabob.—What ill-luck I have, my dear! He
was as yellow as a friend's smile at a success; I thought he would be
dead in ten months. Pooh! he was a strong as a mountain. Always
distrust men who say they have a liver complaint. I will never listen
to a man who talks of his liver.—I have had too much of livers—who
cannot die. My nabob robbed me; he died without making a will, and the
family turned me out of doors like a leper.—So, then, I said to my
fat friend here, 'Pay for two!'—You may as well call me Joan of Arc;
I have ruined England, and perhaps I shall die at the stake——"
"Of love?" said Tullia.
"And burnt alive," answered Esther, and the question made her
thoughtful.
The Baron laughed at all this vulgar nonsense, but he did not
always follow it readily, so that his laughter sounded like the
forgotten crackers that go off after fireworks.
We all live in a sphere of some kind, and the inhabitants of every
sphere are endowed with an equal share of curiosity.
Next evening at the opera, Esther's reappearance was the great news
behind the scenes. Between two and four in the afternoon all Paris in
the Champs-Elysees had recognized La Torpille, and knew at last who
was the object of the Baron de Nucingen's passion.
"Do you know," Blondet remarked to de Marsay in the greenroom at
the opera-house, "that La Torpille vanished the very day after the
evening when we saw her here and recognized her in little Rubempre's
mistress."
In Paris, as in the provinces, everything is known. The police of
the Rue de Jerusalem are not so efficient as the world itself, for
every one is a spy on every one else, though unconsciously. Carlos had
fully understood the danger of Lucien's position during and after the
episode of the Rue Taitbout.
No position can be more dreadful than that in which Madame du Val-
Noble now found herself; and the phrase to be on the loose, or, as the
French say, left on foot, expresses it perfectly. The recklessness and
extravagance of these women precludes all care for the future. In that
strange world, far more witty and amusing than might be supposed, only
such women as are not gifted with that perfect beauty which time can
hardly impair, and which is quite unmistakable—only such women, in
short, as can be loved merely as a fancy, ever think of old age and
save a fortune. The handsomer they are, the more improvident they are.
"Are you afraid of growing ugly that you are saving money?" was a
speech of Florine's to Mariette, which may give a clue to one cause of
this thriftlessness.
Thus, if a speculator kills himself, or a spendthrift comes to the
end of his resources, these women fall with hideous promptitude from
audacious wealth to the utmost misery. They throw themselves into the
clutches of the old-clothes buyer, and sell exquisite jewels for a
mere song; they run into debt, expressly to keep up a spurious luxury,
in the hope of recovering what they have lost—a cash-box to draw
upon. These ups and downs of their career account for the costliness
of such connections, generally brought about as Asie had hooked
(another word of her vocabulary) Nucingen for Esther.
And so those who know their Paris are quite aware of the state of
affairs when, in the Champs-Elysees—that bustling and mongrel bazaar
—they meet some woman in a hired fly whom six months or a year before
they had seen in a magnificent and dazzling carriage, turned out in
the most luxurious style.
"If you fall on Sainte-Pelagie, you must contrive to rebound on the
Bois de Boulogne," said Florine, laughing with Blondet over the little
Vicomte de Portenduere.
Some clever women never run the risk of this contrast. They bury
themselves in horrible furnished lodgings, where they expiate their
extravagance by such privations as are endured by travelers lost in a
Sahara; but they never take the smallest fancy for economy. They
venture forth to masked balls; they take journeys into the provinces;
they turn out well dressed on the boulevards when the weather is fine.
And then they find in each other the devoted kindness which is known
only among proscribed races. It costs a woman in luck no effort to
bestow some help, for she says to herself, "I may be in the same
plight by Sunday!"
However, the most efficient protector still is the purchaser of
dress. When this greedy money-lender finds herself the creditor, she
stirs and works on the hearts of all the old men she knows in favor of
the mortgaged creature in thin boots and a fine bonnet.
In this way Madame du Val-Noble, unable to foresee the downfall of
one of the richest and cleverest of stockbrokers, was left quite
unprepared. She had spent Falleix's money on her whims, and trusted to
him for all necessaries and to provide for the future.
"How could I have expected such a thing in a man who seemed such a
good fellow?"
In almost every class of society the good fellow is an open-handed
man, who will lend a few crowns now and again without expecting them
back, who always behaves in accordance with a certain code of delicate
feeling above mere vulgar, obligatory, and commonplace morality.
Certain men, regarded as virtuous and honest, have, like Nucingen,
ruined their benefactors; and certain others, who have been through a
criminal court, have an ingenious kind of honesty towards women.
Perfect virtue, the dream of Moliere, an Alceste, is exceedingly rare;
still, it is to be found everywhere, even in Paris. The "good fellow"
is the product of a certain facility of nature which proves nothing. A
man is a good fellow, as a cat is silky, as a slipper is made to slip
on to the foot. And so, in the meaning given to the word by a kept
woman, Falleix ought to have warned his mistress of his approaching
bankruptcy and have given her enough to live upon.
D'Estourny, the dashing swindler, was a good fellow; he cheated at
cards, but he had set aside thirty thousand francs for his mistress.
And at carnival suppers women would retort on his accusers: "No
matter. You may say what you like, Georges was a good fellow; he had
charming manners, he deserved a better fate."
These girls laugh laws to scorn, and adore a certain kind of
generosity; they sell themselves, as Esther had done, for a secret
ideal, which is their religion.
After saving a few jewels from the wreck with great difficulty,
Madame du Val-Noble was crushed under the burden of the horrible
report: "She ruined Falleix." She was almost thirty; and though she
was in the prime of her beauty, still she might be called an old
woman, and all the more so because in such a crisis all a woman's
rivals are against her. Mariette, Florine, Tullia would ask their
friend to dinner, and gave her some help; but as they did not know the
extent of her debts, they did not dare to sound the depths of that
gulf. An interval of six years formed rather too long a gap in the ebb
and flow of the Paris tide, between La Torpille and Madame du
Val-Noble, for the woman "on foot" to speak to the woman in her
carriage; but La Val-Noble knew that Esther was too generous not to
remember sometimes that she had, as she said, fallen heir to her
possessions, and not to seek her out by some meeting which might seem
accidental though arranged. To bring about such an accident, Madame du
Val-Noble, dressed in the most lady- like way, walked out every day in
the Champs-Elysees on the arm of Theodore Gaillard, who afterwards
married her, and who, in these straits, behaved very well to his
former mistress, giving her boxes at the play, and inviting her to
every spree. She flattered herself that Esther, driving out one fine
day, would meet her face to face.
Esther's coachman was Paccard—for her household had been made up
in five days by Asie, Europe, and Paccard under Carlos' instructions,
and in such a way that the house in the Rue Saint-Georges was an
impregnable fortress.
Peyrade, on his part, prompted by deep hatred, by the thirst for
vengeance, and, above all, by his wish to see his darling Lydie
married, made the Champs-Elysees the end of his walks as soon as he
heard from Contenson that Monsieur de Nucingen's mistress might be
seen there. Peyrade could dress so exactly like an Englishman, and
spoke French so perfectly with the mincing accent that the English
give the language; he knew England itself so well, and was so familiar
with all the customs of the country, having been sent to England by
the police authorities three times between 1779 and 1786, that he
could play his part in London and at ambassadors' residences without
awaking suspicion. Peyrade, who had some resemblance to Musson the
famous juggler, could disguise himself so effectually that once
Contenson did not recognize him.
Followed by Contenson dressed as a mulatto, Peyrade examined Esther
and her servants with an eye which, seeming heedless, took everything
in. Hence it quite naturally happened that in the side alley where the
carriage-company walk in fine dry weather, he was on the spot one day
when Esther met Madame du Val-Noble. Peyrade, his mulatto in livery at
his heels, was airing himself quite naturally, like a nabob who is
thinking of no one but himself, in a line with the two women, so as to
catch a few words of their conversation.
"Well, my dear child," said Esther to Madame du Val-Noble, "come
and see me. Nucingen owes it to himself not to leave his stockbroker's
mistress without a sou——"
"All the more so because it is said that he ruined Falleix,"
remarked Theodore Gaillard, "and that we have every right to squeeze
him."
"He dines with me to-morrow," said Esther; "come and meet him."
Then she added in an undertone:
"I can do what I like with him, and as yet he has not that!" and
she put the nail of a gloved finger under the prettiest of her teeth
with the click that is familiarly known to express with peculiar
energy: "Just nothing."
"You have him safe——"
"My dear, as yet he has only paid my debts."
"How mean!" cried Suzanne du Val-Noble.
"Oh!" said Esther, "I had debts enough to frighten a minister of
finance. Now, I mean to have thirty thousand a year before the first
stroke of midnight. Oh! he is excellent, I have nothing to complain
of. He does it well.—In a week we give a house-warming; you must
come.—That morning he is to make me a present of the lease of the
house in the Rue Saint-Georges. In decency, it is impossible to live
in such a house on less than thirty thousand francs a year—of my own,
so as to have them safe in case of accident. I have known poverty, and
I want no more of it. There are certain acquaintances one has had
enough of at once."
"And you, who used to say, 'My face is my fortune!'—How you have
changed!" exclaimed Suzanne.
"It is the air of Switzerland; you grow thrifty there.—Look here;
go there yourself, my dear! Catch a Swiss, and you may perhaps catch a
husband, for they have not yet learned what such women as we are can
be. And, at any rate, you may come back with a passion for investments
in the funds—a most respectable and elegant passion!—Good-bye."
Esther got into her carriage again, a handsome carriage drawn by
the finest pair of dappled gray horses at that time to be seen in
Paris.
"The woman who is getting into the carriage is handsome," said
Peyrade to Contenson, "but I like the one who is walking best; follow
her, and find out who she is."
"That is what that Englishman has just remarked in English," said
Theodore Gaillard, repeating Peyrade's remark to Madame du Val-Noble.
Before making this speech in English, Peyrade had uttered a word or
two in that language, which had made Theodore look up in a way that
convinced him that the journalist understood English.
Madame du Val-Noble very slowly made her way home to very decent
furnished rooms in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, glancing round now and then
to see if the mulatto were following her.
This establishment was kept by a certain Madame Gerard, whom
Suzanne had obliged in the days of her splendor, and who showed her
gratitude by giving her a suitable home. This good soul, an honest and
virtuous citizen, even pious, looked on the courtesan as a woman of a
superior order; she had always seen her in the midst of luxury, and
thought of her as a fallen queen; she trusted her daughters with her;
and—which is a fact more natural than might be supposed—the
courtesan was as scrupulously careful in taking them to the play as
their mother could have been, and the two Gerard girls loved her. The
worthy, kind lodging-house keeper was like those sublime priests who
see in these outlawed women only a creature to be saved and loved.
Madame du Val-Noble respected this worth; and often, as she chatted
with the good woman, she envied her while bewailing her own ill-
fortune.
"Your are still handsome; you may make a good end yet," Madame
Gerard would say.
But, indeed, Madame du Val-Noble was only relatively impoverished.
This woman's wardrobe, so extravagant and elegant, was still
sufficiently well furnished to allow of her appearing on occasion—as
on that evening at the Porte-Saint-Martin to see Richard Darlington—
in much splendor. And Madame Gerard would most good-naturedly pay for
the cabs needed by the lady "on foot" to go out to dine, or to the
play, and to come home again.
"Well, dear Madame Gerard," said she to this worthy mother, "my
luck is about to change, I believe."
"Well, well, madame, so much the better. But be prudent; do not run
into debt any more. I have such difficulty in getting rid of the
people who are hunting for you."
"Oh, never worry yourself about those hounds! They have all made no
end of money out of me.—Here are some tickets for the Varietes for
your girls—a good box on the second tier. If any one should ask for
me this evening before I come in, show them up all the same. Adele, my
old maid, will be here; I will send her round."
Madame du Val-Noble, having neither mother nor aunt, was obliged to
have recourse to her maid—equally on foot—to play the part of a
Saint-Esteve with the unknown follower whose conquest was to enable
her to rise again in the world. She went to dine with Theodore
Gaillard, who, as it happened, had a spree on that day, that is to
say, a dinner given by Nathan in payment of a bet he had lost, one of
those orgies when a man says to his guests, "You can bring a woman."
It was not without strong reasons that Peyrade had made up his mind
to rush in person on to the field of this intrigue. At the same time,
his curiosity, like Corentin's, was so keenly excited, that, even in
the absence of reasons, he would have tried to play a part in the
drama.
At this moment Charles X.'s policy had completed its last
evolution. After confiding the helm of State to Ministers of his own
choosing, the King was preparing to conquer Algiers, and to utilize
the glory that should accrue as a passport to what has been called his
Coup d'Etat. There were no more conspiracies at home; Charles X.
believed he had no domestic enemies. But in politics, as at sea, a
calm may be deceptive.
Thus Corentin had lapsed into total idleness. In such a case a true
sportsman, to keep his hand in, for lack of larks kills sparrows.
Domitian, we know, for lack of Christians, killed flies. Contenson,
having witnessed Esther's arrest, had, with the keen instinct of a
spy, fully understood the upshot of the business. The rascal, as we
have seen, did not attempt to conceal his opinion of the Baron de
Nucingen.
"Who is benefiting by making the banker pay so dear for his
passion?" was the first question the allies asked each other.
Recognizing Asie as a leader in the piece, Contenson hoped to find out
the author through her; but she slipped through his fingers again and
again, hiding like an eel in the mud of Paris; and when he found her
again as the cook in Esther's establishment, it seemed to him
inexplicable that the half-caste woman should have had a finger in the
pie. Thus, for the first time, these two artistic spies had come on a
text that they could not decipher, while suspecting a dark plot to the
story.
After three bold attempts on the house in the Rue Taitbout,
Contenson still met with absolute dumbness. So long as Esther dwelt
there the lodge porter seemed to live in mortal terror. Asie had,
perhaps, promised poisoned meat-balls to all the family in the event
of any indiscretion.
On the day after Esther's removal, Contenson found this man rather
more amenable; he regretted the lady, he said, who had fed him with
the broken dishes from her table. Contenson, disguised as a broker,
tried to bargain for the rooms, and listened to the porter's
lamentations while he fooled him, casting a doubt on all the man said
by a questioning "Really?"
"Yes, monsieur, the lady lived here for five years without ever
going out, and more by token, her lover, desperately jealous though
she was beyond reproach, took the greatest precautions when he came in
or went out. And a very handsome young man he was too!"
Lucien was at this time still staying with his sister, Madame
Sechard; but as soon as he returned, Contenson sent the porter to the
Quai Malaquais to ask Monsieur de Rubempre whether he were willing to
part with the furniture left in the rooms lately occupied by Madame
van Bogseck. The porter then recognized Lucien as the young widow's
mysterious lover, and this was all that Contenson wanted. The deep but
suppressed astonishment may be imagined with which Lucien and Carlos
received the porter, whom they affected to regard as a madman; they
tried to upset his convictions.
Within twenty-four hours Carlos had organized a force which
detected Contenson red-handed in the act of espionage. Contenson,
disguised as a market-porter, had twice already brought home the
provisions purchased in the morning by Asie, and had twice got into
the little mansion in the Rue Saint-Georges. Corentin, on his part,
was making a stir; but he was stopped short by recognizing the certain
identity of Carlos Herrera; for he learned at once that this Abbe, the
secret envoy of Ferdinand VII., had come to Paris towards the end of
1823. Still, Corentin thought it worth while to study the reasons
which had led the Spaniard to take an interest in Lucien de Rubempre.
It was soon clear to him, beyond doubt, that Esther had for five years
been Lucien's mistress; so the substitution of the Englishwoman had
been effected for the advantage of that young dandy.
Now Lucien had no means; he was rejected as a suitor for
Mademoiselle de Grandlieu; and he had just bought up the lands of
Rubempre at the cost of a million francs.
Corentin very skilfully made the head of the General Police take
the first steps; and the Prefet de Police a propos to Peyrade,
informed his chief that the appellants in that affair had been in fact
the Comte de Serizy and Lucien de Rubempre.
"We have it!" cried Peyrade and Corentin.
The two friends had laid plans in a moment.
"This hussy," said Corentin, "has had intimacies; she must have
some women friends. Among them we shall certainly find one or another
who is down on her luck; one of us must play the part of a rich
foreigner and take her up. We will throw them together. They always
want something of each other in the game of lovers, and we shall then
be in the citadel."
Peyrade naturally proposed to assume his disguise as an Englishman.
The wild life he should lead during the time that he would take to
disentangle the plot of which he had been the victim, smiled on his
fancy; while Corentin, grown old in his functions, and weakly too, did
not care for it. Disguised as a mulatto, Contenson at once evaded
Carlos' force. Just three days before Peyrade's meeting with Madame du
Val-Noble in the Champs-Elysees, this last of the agents employed by
MM. de Sartine and Lenoir had arrived, provided with a passport, at
the Hotel Mirabeau, Rue de la Paix, having come from the Colonies via
le Havre, in a traveling chaise, as mud-splashed as though it had
really come from le Havre, instead of no further than by the road from
Saint-Denis to Paris.
Carlos Herrera, on his part, had his passport vise at the Spanish
Embassy, and arranged everything at the Quai Malaquais to start for
Madrid. And this is why. Within a few days Esther was to become the
owner of the house in the Rue Saint-Georges and of shares yielding
thirty thousand francs a year; Europe and Asie were quite cunning
enough to persuade her to sell these shares and privately transmit the
money to Lucien. Thus Lucien, proclaiming himself rich through his
sister's liberality, would pay the remainder of the price of the
Rubempre estates. Of this transaction no one could complain. Esther
alone could betray herself; but she would die rather than blink an
eyelash.
Clotilde had appeared with a little pink kerchief round her crane's
neck, so she had won her game at the Hotel de Grandlieu. The shares in
the Omnibus Company were already worth thrice their initial value.
Carlos, by disappearing for a few days, would put malice off the
scent. Human prudence had foreseen everything; no error was possible.
The false Spaniard was to start on the morrow of the day when Peyrade
met Madame du Val-Noble. But that very night, at two in the morning,
Asie came in a cab to the Quai Malaquais, and found the stoker of the
machine smoking in his room, and reconsidering all the points of the
situation here stated in a few words, like an author going over a page
in his book to discover any faults to be corrected. Such a man would
not allow himself a second time such an oversight as that of the
porter in the Rue Taitbout.
"Paccard," whispered Asie in her master's ear, "recognized
Contenson yesterday, at half-past two, in the Champs-Elysees,
disguised as a mulatto servant to an Englishman, who for the last
three days has been seen walking in the Champs-Elysees, watching
Esther. Paccard knew the hound by his eyes, as I did when he dressed
up as a market-porter. Paccard drove the girl home, taking a round so
as not to lose sight of the wretch. Contenson is at the Hotel
Mirabeau; but he exchanged so many signs of intelligence with the
Englishman, that Paccard says the other cannot possibly be an
Englishman."
"We have a gadfly behind us," said Carlos. "I will not leave till
the day after to-morrow. That Contenson is certainly the man who sent
the porter after us from the Rue Taitbout; we must ascertain whether
this sham Englishman is our foe."
At noon Mr. Samuel Johnson's black servant was solemnly waiting on
his master, who always breakfasted too heartily, with a purpose.
Peyrade wished to pass for a tippling Englishman; he never went out
till he was half-seas over. He wore black cloth gaiters up to his
knees, and padded to make his legs look stouter; his trousers were
lined with the thickest fustian; his waistcoat was buttoned up to his
cheeks; a red scratch wig hid half his forehead, and he had added
nearly three inches to his height; in short, the oldest frequenter of
the Cafe David could not have recognized him. From his squarecut coat
of black cloth with full skirts he might have been taken for an
English millionaire.
Contenson made a show of the cold insolence of a nabob's
confidential servant; he was taciturn, abrupt, scornful, and
uncommunicative, and indulged in fierce exclamations and uncouth
gestures.
Peyrade was finishing his second bottle when one of the hotel
waiters unceremoniously showed in a man in whom Peyrade and Contenson
both at once discerned a gendarme in mufti.
"Monsieur Peyrade," said the gendarme to the nabob, speaking in his
ear, "my instructions are to take you to the Prefecture."
Peyrade, without saying a word, rose and took down his hat.
"You will find a hackney coach at the door," said the man as they
went downstairs. "The Prefet thought of arresting you, but he decided
on sending for you to ask some explanation of your conduct through the
peace-officer whom you will find in the coach."
"Shall I ride with you?" asked the gendarme of the peace-officer
when Peyrade had got in.
"No," replied the other; "tell the coachman quietly to drive to the
Prefecture."
Peyrade and Carlos were now face to face in the coach. Carlos had a
stiletto under his hand. The coach-driver was a man he could trust,
quite capable of allowing Carlos to get out without seeing him, or
being surprised, on arriving at his journey's end, to find a dead body
in his cab. No inquiries are ever made about a spy. The law almost
always leaves such murders unpunished, it is so difficult to know the
rights of the case.
Peyrade looked with his keenest eye at the magistrate sent to
examine him by the Prefet of Police. Carlos struck him as
satisfactory: a bald head, deeply wrinkled at the back, and powdered
hair; a pair of very light gold spectacles, with double-green glasses
over weak eyes, with red rims, evidently needing care. These eyes
seemed the trace of some squalid malady. A cotton shirt with a
flat-pleated frill, a shabby black satin waistcoat, the trousers of a
man of law, black spun silk stockings, and shoes tied with ribbon; a
long black overcoat, cheap gloves, black, and worn for ten days, and a
gold watch-chain—in every point the lower grade of magistrate known
by a perversion of terms as a peace-officer.
"My dear Monsieur Peyrade, I regret to find such a man as you the
object of surveillance, and that you should act so as to justify it.
Your disguise is not to the Prefet's taste. If you fancy that you can
thus escape our vigilance, you are mistaken. You traveled from England
by way of Beaumont-sur-Oise, no doubt."
"Beaumont-sur-Oise?" repeated Peyrade.
"Or by Saint-Denis?" said the sham lawyer.
Peyrade lost his presence of mind. The question must be answered.
Now any reply might be dangerous. In the affirmative it was farcical;
in the negative, if this man knew the truth, it would be Peyrade's
ruin.
"He is a sharp fellow," thought he.
He tried to look at the man and smile, and he gave him a smile for
an answer; the smile passed muster without protest.
"For what purpose have you disguised yourself, taken rooms at the
Mirabeau, and dressed Contenson as a black servant?" asked the peace-
officer.
"Monsieur le Prefet may do what he chooses with me, but I owe no
account of my actions to any one but my chief," said Peyrade with
dignity.
"If you mean me to infer that you are acting by the orders of the
General Police," said the other coldly, "we will change our route, and
drive to the Rue de Grenelle instead of the Rue de Jerusalem. I have
clear instructions with regard to you. But be careful! You are not in
any deep disgrace, and you may spoil your own game in a moment. As for
me—I owe you no grudge.—Come; tell me the truth."
"Well, then, this is the truth, said Peyrade, with a glance at his
Cerberus' red eyes.
The sham lawyer's face remained expressionless, impassible; he was
doing his business, all truths were the same to him, he looked as
though he suspected the Prefet of some caprice. Prefets have their
little tantrums.
"I have fallen desperately in love with a woman—the mistress of
that stockbroker who is gone abroad for his own pleasure and the
displeasure of his creditors—Falleix."
"Madame du Val-Noble?"
"Yes," replied Peyrade. "To keep her for a month, which will not
cost me more than a thousand crowns, I have got myself up as a nabob
and taken Contenson as my servant. This is so absolutely true,
monsieur, that if you like to leave me in the coach, where I will wait
for you, on my honor as an old Commissioner-General of Police, you can
go to the hotel and question Contenson. Not only will Contenson
confirm what I have the honor of stating, but you may see Madame du
Val-Noble's waiting-maid, who is to come this morning to signify her
mistress' acceptance of my offers, or the conditions she makes.
"An old monkey knows what grimaces mean: I have offered her a
thousand francs a month and a carriage—that comes to fifteen hundred;
five hundred francs' worth of presents, and as much again in some
outings, dinners and play-going; you see, I am not deceiving you by a
centime when I say a thousand crowns.—A man of my age may well spend
a thousand crowns on his last fancy."
"Bless me, Papa Peyrade! and you still care enough for women
to——? But you are deceiving me. I am sixty myself, and I can do
without 'em. —However, if the case is as you state it, I quite
understand that you should have found it necessary to get yourself up
as a foreigner to indulge your fancy."
"You can understand that Peyrade, or old Canquoelle of the Rue des
Moineaux——"
"Ay, neither of them would have suited Madame du Val-Noble," Carlos
put in, delighted to have picked up Canquoelle's address. "Before the
Revolution," he went on, "I had for my mistress a woman who had
previously been kept by the gentleman-in-waiting, as they then called
the executioner. One evening at the play she pricked herself with a
pin, and cried out—a customary ejaculation in those days—'Ah!
Bourreau!' on which her neighbor asked her if this were a
reminiscence?—Well, my dear Peyrade, she cast off her man for that
speech.
"I suppose you have no wish to expose yourself to such a slap in
the face.—Madame du Val-Noble is a woman for gentlemen. I saw her
once at the opera, and thought her very handsome.
"Tell the driver to go back to the Rue de la Paix, my dear Peyrade.
I will go upstairs with you to your rooms and see for myself. A verbal
report will no doubt be enough for Monsieur le Prefet."
Carlos took a snuff-box from his side-pocket—a black snuff-box
lined with silver-gilt—and offered it to Peyrade with an impulse of
delightful good-fellowship. Peyrade said to himself:
"And these are their agents! Good Heavens! what would Monsieur
Lenoir say if he could come back to life, or Monsieur de Sartines?"
"That is part of the truth, no doubt, but it is not all," said the
sham lawyer, sniffing up his pinch of snuff. "You have had a finger in
the Baron de Nucingen's love affairs, and you wish, no doubt, to
entangle him in some slip-knot. You missed fire with the pistol, and
you are aiming at him with a field-piece. Madame du Val-Noble is a
friend of Madame de Champy's——"
"Devil take it. I must take care not to founder," said Peyrade to
himself. "He is a better man than I thought him. He is playing me; he
talks of letting me go, and he goes on making me blab."
"Well?" asked Carlos with a magisterial air.
"Monsieur, it is true that I have been so foolish as to seek a
woman in Monsieur de Nucingen's behoof, because he was half mad with
love. That is the cause of my being out of favor, for it would seem
that quite unconsciously I touched some important interests."
The officer of the law remained immovable.
"But after fifty-two years' experience," Peyrade went on, "I know
the police well enough to have held my hand after the blowing up I had
from Monsieur le Prefet, who, no doubt, was right——"
"Then you would give up this fancy if Monsieur le Prefet required
it of you? That, I think, would be the best proof you could give of
the sincerity of what you say."
"He is going it! he is going it!" thought Peyrade. "Ah! by all
that's holy, the police to-day is a match for that of Monsieur
Lenoir."
"Give it up?" said he aloud. "I will wait till I have Monsieur le
Prefet's orders.—But here we are at the hotel, if you wish to come
up."
"Where do you find the money?" said Carlos point-blank, with a
sagacious glance.
"Monsieur, I have a friend——"
"Get along," said Carlos; "go and tell that story to an examining
magistrate!"
This audacious stroke on Carlos' part was the outcome of one of
those calculations, so simple that none but a man of his temper would
have thought it out.
At a very early hour he had sent Lucien to Madame de Serizy's.
Lucien had begged the Count's private secretary—as from the Count—to
go and obtain from the Prefet of Police full particulars concerning
the agent employed by the Baron de Nucingen. The secretary came back
provided with a note concerning Peyrade, a copy of the summary noted
on the back of his record:—
"In the police force since 1778, having come to Paris from Avignon
two years previously.
"Without money or character; possessed of certain State secrets.
"Lives in the Rue des Moineaux under the name of Canquoelle, the
name of a little estate where his family resides in the
department
of Vaucluse; very respectable people.
"Was lately inquired for by a grand-nephew named Theodore de la
Peyrade. (See the report of an agent, No. 37 of the Documents.)"
"He must be the man to whom Contenson is playing the mulatto
servant!" cried Carlos, when Lucien returned with other information
besides this note.
Within three hours this man, with the energy of a
Commander-in-Chief, had found, by Paccard's help, an innocent
accomplice capable of playing the part of a gendarme in disguise, and
had got himself up as a peace-officer. Three times in the coach he had
thought of killing Peyrade, but he had made it a rule never to commit
a murder with his own hand; he promised himself that he would get rid
of Peyrade all in good time by pointing him out as a millionaire to
some released convicts about the town.
Peyrade and his Mentor, as they went in, heard Contenson's voice
arguing with Madame du Val-Noble's maid. Peyrade signed to Carlos to
remain in the outer room, with a look meant to convey: "Thus you can
assure yourself of my sincerity."
"Madame agrees to everything," said Adele. "Madame is at this
moment calling on a friend, Madame de Champy, who has some rooms in
the Rue Taitbout on her hands for a year, full of furniture, which she
will let her have, no doubt. Madame can receive Mr. Johnson more
suitably there, for the furniture is still very decent, and monsieur
might buy it for madame by coming to an agreement with Madame de
Champy."
"Very good, my girl. If this is not a job of fleecing, it is a bit
of the wool," said the mulatto to the astonished woman. "However, we
will go shares——"
"That is your darkey all over!" cried Mademoiselle Adele. "If your
nabob is a nabob, he can very well afford to give madame the
furniture. The lease ends in April 1830; your nabob may renew it if he
likes."
"I am quite willing," said Peyrade, speaking French with a strong
English accent, as he came in and tapped the woman on the shoulder.
He cast a knowing look back at Carlos, who replied by an assenting
nod, understanding that the nabob was to keep up his part.
But the scene suddenly changed its aspect at the entrance of a
person over whom neither Carlos nor Peyrade had the least power.
Corentin suddenly came in. He had found the door open, and looked in
as he went by to see how his old friend played his part as nabob.
"The Prefet is still bullying me!" said Peyrade in a whisper to
Corentin. "He has found me out as a nabob."
"We will spill the Prefet," Corentin muttered in reply.
Then after a cool bow he stood darkly scrutinizing the magistrate.
"Stay here till I return," said Carlos; "I will go to the
Prefecture. If you do not see me again, you may go your own way."
Having said this in an undertone to Peyrade, so as not to humiliate
him in the presence of the waiting-maid, Carlos went away, not caring
to remain under the eye of the newcomer, in whom he detected one of
those fair-haired, blue-eyed men, coldly terrifying.
"That is the peace-officer sent after me by the Prefet," said
Peyrade.
"That?" said Corentin. "You have walked into a trap. That man has
three packs of cards in his shoes; you can see that by the place of
his foot in the shoe; besides, a peace-officer need wear no disguise."
Corentin hurried downstairs to verify his suspicions: Carlos was
getting into the fly.
"Hallo! Monsieur l'Abbe!" cried Corentin.
Carlos looked around, saw Corentin, and got in quickly. Still,
Corentin had time to say:
"That was all I wanted to know.—Quai Malaquais," he shouted to the
driver with diabolical mockery in his tone and expression.
"I am done!" said Jacques Collin to himself. "They have got me. I
must get ahead of them by sheer pace, and, above all, find out what
they want of us."
Corentin had seen the Abbe Carlos Herrera five or six times, and
the man's eyes were unforgettable. Corentin had suspected him at once
from the cut of his shoulders, then by his puffy face, and the trick
of three inches of added height gained by a heel inside the shoe.
"Ah! old fellow, they have drawn you," said Corentin, finding no
one in the room but Peyrade and Contenson.
"Who?" cried Peyrade, with metallic hardness; "I will spend my last
days in putting him on a gridiron and turning him on it."
"It is the Abbe Carlos Herrera, the Corentin of Spain, as I
suppose. This explains everything. The Spaniard is a demon of the
first water, who has tried to make a fortune for that little young man
by coining money out of a pretty baggage's bolster.—It is your
lookout if you think you can measure your skill with a man who seems
to me the very devil to deal with."
"Oh!" exclaimed Contenson, "he fingered the three hundred thousand
francs the day when Esther was arrested; he was in the cab. I remember
those eyes, that brow, and those marks of the smallpox."
"Oh! what a fortune my Lydie might have had!" cried Peyrade.
"You may still play the nabob," said Corentin. "To keep an eye on
Esther you must keep up her intimacy with Val-Noble. She was really
Lucien's mistress."
"They have got more than five hundred thousand francs out of
Nucingen already," said Contenson.
"And they want as much again," Corentin went on. "The Rubempre
estate is to cost a million.—Daddy," added he, slapping Peyrade on
the shoulder, "you may get more than a hundred thousand francs to
settle on Lydie."
"Don't tell me that, Corentin. If your scheme should fail, I cannot
tell what I might not do——"
"You will have it by to-morrow perhaps! The Abbe, my dear fellow,
is most astute; we shall have to kiss his spurs; he is a very superior
devil. But I have him sure enough. He is not a fool, and he will knock
under. Try to be a gaby as well as a nabob, and fear nothing."
In the evening of this day, when the opposing forces had met face
to face on level ground, Lucien spent the evening at the Hotel
Grandlieu. The party was a large one. In the face of all the assembly,
the Duchess kept Lucien at her side for some time, and was most kind
to him.
"You are going away for a little while?" said she.
"Yes, Madame la Duchesse. My sister, in her anxiety to promote my
marriage, has made great sacrifices. and I have been enabled to
repurchase the lands of the Rubempres, to reconstitute the whole
estate. But I have found in my Paris lawyer a very clever man, who has
managed to save me from the extortionate terms that the holders would
have asked if they had known the name of the purchaser."
"Is there a chateau?" asked Clotilde, with too broad a smile.
"There is something which might be called a chateau; but the wiser
plan would be to use the building materials in the construction of a
modern residence."
Clotilde's eyes blazed with happiness above her smile of
satisfaction.
"You must play a rubber with my father this evening," said she. "In
a fortnight I hope you will be asked to dinner."
"Well, my dear sir," said the Duc de Grandlieu, "I am told that you
have bought the estate of Rubempre. I congratulate you. It is an
answer to those who say you are in debt. We bigwigs, like France or
England, are allowed to have a public debt; but men of no fortune,
beginners, you see, may not assume that privilege——"
"Indeed, Monsieur le Duc, I still owe five hundred thousand francs
on my land."
"Well, well, you must marry a wife who can bring you the money; but
you will have some difficulty in finding a match with such a fortune
in our Faubourg, where daughters do not get large dowries."
"Their name is enough," said Lucien.
"We are only three wisk players—Maufrigneuse, d'Espard, and
I—will you make a fourth?" said the Duke, pointing to the card-table.
Clotilde came to the table to watch her father's game.
"She expects me to believe that she means it for me," said the
Duke, patting his daughter's hands, and looking round at Lucien, who
remained quite grave.
Lucien, Monsieur d'Espard's partner, lost twenty louis.
"My dear mother," said Clotilde to the Duchess, "he was so
judicious as to lose."
At eleven o'clock, after a few affectionate words with Mademoiselle
de Grandlieu, Lucien went home and to bed, thinking of the complete
triumph he was to enjoy a month hence; for he had not a doubt of being
accepted as Clotilde's lover, and married before Lent in 1830.
On the morrow, when Lucien was smoking his cigarettes after
breakfast, sitting with Carlos, who had become much depressed, M. de
Saint-Esteve was announced—what a touch of irony—who begged to see
either the Abbe Carlos Herrera or Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre.
"Was he told downstairs that I had left Paris?" cried the Abbe.
"Yes, sir," replied the groom.
"Well, then, you must see the man," said he to Lucien. "But do not
say a single compromising word, do not let a sign of surprise escape
you. It is the enemy."
"You will overhear me," said Lucien.
Carlos hid in the adjoining room, and through the crack of the door
he saw Corentin, whom he recognized only by his voice, such powers of
transformation did the great man possess. This time Corentin looked
like an old paymaster-general.
"I have not had the honor of being known to you, monsieur,"
Corentin began, "but——"
"Excuse my interrupting you, monsieur, but——"
"But the matter in point is your marriage to Mademoiselle Clotilde
de Grandlieu—which will never take place," Corentin added eagerly.
Lucien sat down and made no reply.
"You are in the power of a man who is able and willing and ready to
prove to the Duc de Grandlieu that the lands of Rubempre are to be
paid for with the money that a fool has given to your mistress,
Mademoiselle Esther," Corentin went on. "It will be quite easy to find
the minutes of the legal opinions in virtue of which Mademoiselle
Esther was summoned; there are ways too of making d'Estourny speak.
The very clever manoeuvres employed against the Baron de Nucingen will
be brought to light.
"As yet all can be arranged. Pay down a hundred thousand francs,
and you will have peace.—All this is no concern of mine. I am only
the agent of those who levy this blackmail; nothing more."
Corentin might have talked for an hour; Lucien smoked his cigarette
with an air of perfect indifference.
"Monsieur," replied he, "I do not want to know who you are, for men
who undertake such jobs as these have no name—at any rate, in my
vocabulary. I have allowed you to talk at your leisure; I am at home.
—You seem to me not bereft of common sense; listen to my dilemma."
There was a pause, during which Lucien met Corentin's cat-like eye
fixed on him with a perfectly icy stare.
"Either you are building on facts that are absolutely false, and I
need pay no heed to them," said Lucien; "or you are in the right; and
in that case, by giving you a hundred thousand francs, I put you in a
position to ask me for as many hundred thousand francs as your
employer can find Saint-Esteves to ask for.
"However, to put an end, once and for all, to your kind
intervention, I would have you know that I, Lucien de Rubempre, fear
no one. I have no part in the jobbery of which you speak. If the
Grandlieus make difficulties, there are other young ladies of very
good family ready to be married. After all, it is no loss to me if I
remain single, especially if, as you imagine, I deal in blank bills to
such advantage."
"If Monsieur l'Abbe Carlos Herrera——"
"Monsieur," Lucien put in, "the Abbe Herrera is at this moment on
the way to Spain. He has nothing to do with my marriage, my interests
are no concern of his. That remarkable statesman was good enough to
assist me at one time with his advice, but he has reports to present
to his Majesty the King of Spain; if you have anything to say to him,
I recommend you to set out for Madrid."
"Monsieur," said Corentin plainly, "you will never be Mademoiselle
Clotilde de Grandlieu's husband."
"So much the worse for her!" replied Lucien, impatiently pushing
Corentin towards the door.
"You have fully considered the matter?" asked Corentin coldly.
"Monsieur, I do not recognize that you have any right either to
meddle in my affairs, or to make me waste a cigarette," said Lucien,
throwing away his cigarette that had gone out.
"Good-day, monsieur," said Corentin. "We shall not meet again.—But
there will certainly be a moment in your life when you would give half
your fortune to have called me back from these stairs."
In answer to this threat, Carlos made as though he were cutting off
a head.
"Now to business!" cried he, looking at Lucien, who was as white as
ashes after this dreadful interview.
If among the small number of my readers who take an interest in the
moral and philosophical side of this book there should be only one
capable of believing that the Baron de Nucingen was happy, that one
would prove how difficult it is to explain the heart of a courtesan by
any kind of physiological formula. Esther was resolved to make the
poor millionaire pay dearly for what he called his day of triumph. And
at the beginning of February 1830 the house-warming party had not yet
been given in the "little palace."
"Well," said Esther in confidence to her friends, who repeated it
to the Baron, "I shall open house at the Carnival, and I mean to make
my man as happy as a cock in plaster."
The phrase became proverbial among women of her kidney.
The Baron gave vent to much lamentation; like married men, he made
himself very ridiculous, he began to complain to his intimate friends,
and his dissatisfaction was generally known.
Esther, meanwhile, took quite a serious view of her position as the
Pompadour of this prince of speculators. She had given two or three
small evening parties, solely to get Lucien into the house. Lousteau,
Rastignac, du Tillet, Bixiou, Nathan, the Comte de Brambourg—all the
cream of the dissipated crew—frequented her drawing-room. And, as
leading ladies in the piece she was playing, Esther accepted Tullia,
Florentine, Fanny Beaupre, and Florine—two dancers and two actresses
—besides Madame du Val-Noble. Nothing can be more dreary than a
courtesan's home without the spice of rivalry, the display of dress,
and some variety of type.
In six weeks Esther had become the wittiest, the most amusing, the
loveliest, and the most elegant of those female pariahs who form the
class of kept women. Placed on the pedestal that became her, she
enjoyed all the delights of vanity which fascinate women in general,
but still as one who is raised above her caste by a secret thought.
She cherished in her heart an image of herself which she gloried in,
while it made her blush; the hour when she must abdicate was ever
present to her consciousness; thus she lived a double life, really
scorning herself. Her sarcastic remarks were tinged by the temper
which was roused in her by the intense contempt felt by the Angel of
Love, hidden in the courtesan, for the disgraceful and odious part
played by the body in the presence, as it were, of the soul. At once
actor and spectator, victim and judge, she was a living realization of
the beautiful Arabian Tales, in which a noble creature lies hidden
under a degrading form, and of which the type is the story of
Nebuchadnezzar in the book of books—the Bible. Having granted herself
a lease of life till the day after her infidelity, the victim might
surely play awhile with the executioner.
Moreover, the enlightenment that had come to Esther as to the
secretly disgraceful means by which the Baron had made his colossal
fortune relieved her of every scruple. She could play the part of Ate,
the goddess of vengeance, as Carlos said. And so she was by turns
enchanting and odious to the banker, who lived only for her. When the
Baron had been worked up to such a pitch of suffering that he wanted
only to be quit of Esther, she brought him round by a scene of tender
affection.
Herrera, making a great show of starting for Spain, had gone as far
as Tours. He had sent the chaise on as far as Bordeaux, with a servant
inside, engaged to play the part of master, and to wait for him at
Bordeaux. Then, returning by diligence, dressed as a commercial
traveler, he had secretly taken up his abode under Esther's roof, and
thence, aided by Asie and Europe, carefully directed all his
machinations, keeping an eye on every one, and especially on Peyrade.
About a fortnight before the day chosen for her great
entertainment, which was to be given in the evening after the first
opera ball, the courtesan, whose witticisms were beginning to make her
feared, happened to be at the Italian opera, at the back of a box
which the Baron—forced to give a box—had secured in the lowest tier,
in order to conceal his mistress, and not to flaunt her in public
within a few feet of Madame de Nucingen. Esther had taken her seat, so
as to "rake" that of Madame de Serizy, whom Lucien almost invariably
accompanied. The poor girl made her whole happiness centre in watching
Lucien on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays by Madame de Serizy's
side.
At about half-past nine in the evening Esther could see Lucien
enter the Countess' box, with a care-laden brow, pale, and with almost
drawn features. These symptoms of mental anguish were legible only to
Esther. The knowledge of a man's countenance is, to the woman who
loves him, like that of the sea to a sailor.
"Good God! what can be the matter? What has happened? Does he want
to speak with that angel of hell, who is to him a guardian angel, and
who lives in an attic between those of Europe and Asie?"
Tormented by such reflections, Esther scarcely listened to the
music. Still less, it may be believed, did she listen to the Baron,
who held one of his "Anchel's" hands in both his, talking to her in
his horrible Polish-Jewish accent, a jargon which must be as
unpleasant to read as it is to hear spoken.
"Esther," said he, releasing her hand, and pushing it away with a
slight touch of temper, "you do not listen to me."
"I tell you what, Baron, you blunder in love as you gibber in
French."
"DER TEUFEL!"
"I am not in my boudoir here, I am at the opera. If you were not a
barrel made by Huret or Fichet, metamorphosed into a man by some trick
of nature, you would not make so much noise in a box with a woman who
is fond of music. I don't listen to you? I should think not! There you
sit rustling my dress like a cockchafer in a paper-bag, and making me
laugh with contempt. You say to me, 'You are so pretty, I should like
to eat you!' Old simpleton! Supposing I were to say to you, 'You are
less intolerable this evening than you were yesterday—we will go
home?'—Well, from the way you puff and sigh—for I feel you if I
don't listen to you—I perceive that you have eaten an enormous
dinner, and your digestion is at work. Let me instruct you—for I cost
you enough to give some advice for your money now and then—let me
tell you, my dear fellow, that a man whose digestion is so troublesome
as yours is, is not justified in telling his mistress that she is
pretty at unseemly hours. An old soldier died of that very folly 'in
the arms of Religion,' as Blondet has it.
"It is now ten o'clock. You finished dinner at du Tillet's at nine
o'clock, with your pigeon the Comte de Brambourg; you have millions
and truffles to digest. Come to-morrow night at ten."
"Vat you are cruel!" cried the Baron, recognizing the profound
truth of this medical argument.
"Cruel!" echoed Esther, still looking at Lucien. "Have you not
consulted Bianchon, Desplein, old Haudry?—Since you have had a
glimpse of future happiness, do you know what you seem like to me?"
"No—vat?"
"A fat old fellow wrapped in flannel, who walks every hour from his
armchair to the window to see if the thermometer has risen to the
degree marked 'SILKWORMS,' the temperature prescribed by his
physician."
"You are really an ungrateful slut!" cried the Baron, in despair at
hearing a tune, which, however, amorous old men not unfrequently hear
at the opera.
"Ungrateful!" retorted Esther. "What have you given me till now? A
great deal of annoyance. Come, papa! Can I be proud of you? You! you
are proud of me; I wear your livery and badge with an air. You paid my
debts? So you did. But you have grabbed so many millions—come, you
need not sulk; you admitted that to me—that you need not think twice
of that. And this is your chief title to fame. A baggage and a thief—
a well-assorted couple!
"You have built a splendid cage for a parrot that amuses you. Go
and ask a Brazilian cockatoo what gratitude it owes to the man who
placed it in a gilded cage.—Don't look at me like that; you are just
like a Buddist Bonze.
"Well, you show your red-and-white cockatoo to all Paris. You say,
'Does anybody else in Paris own such a parrot? And how well it talks,
how cleverly it picks its words!' If du Tillet comes in, it says at
once, 'How'do, little swindler!'—Why, you are as happy as a Dutchman
who has grown an unique tulip, as an old nabob pensioned off in Asia
by England, when a commercial traveler sells him the first Swiss
snuff-box that opens in three places.
"You want to win my heart? Well, now, I will tell you how to do
it."
"Speak, speak, dere is noting I shall not do for you. I lofe to be
fooled by you."
"Be young, be handsome, be like Lucien de Rubempre over there by
your wife, and you shall have gratis what you can never buy with all
your millions!"
"I shall go 'vay, for really you are too bat dis evening!" said the
banker, with a lengthened face.
"Very well, good-night then," said Esther. "Tell Georches to make
your pillows very high and place your fee low, for you look apoplectic
this evening.—You cannot say, my dear, that I take no interest in
your health."
The Baron was standing up, and held the door-knob in his hand.
"Here, Nucingen," said Esther, with an imperious gesture.
The Baron bent over her with dog-like devotion.
"Do you want to see me very sweet, and giving you sugar-and-water,
and petting you in my house, this very evening, old monster?"
"You shall break my heart!"
"Break your heart—you mean bore you," she went on. "Well, bring me
Lucien that I may invite him to our Belshazzar's feast, and you may be
sure he will not fail to come. If you succeed in that little
transaction, I will tell you that I love you, my fat Frederic, in such
plain terms that you cannot but believe me."
"You are an enchantress," said the Baron, kissing Esther's glove.
"I should be villing to listen to abuse for ein hour if alvays der vas
a kiss at de ent of it."
"But if I am not obeyed, I——" and she threatened the Baron with
her finger as we threaten children.
The Baron raised his head like a bird caught in a springe and
imploring the trapper's pity.
"Dear Heaven! What ails Lucien?" said she to herself when she was
alone, making no attempt to check her falling tears; "I never saw him
so sad."
This is what had happened to Lucien that very evening.
At nine o'clock he had gone out, as he did every evening, in his
brougham to go to the Hotel de Grandlieu. Using his saddle-horse and
cab in the morning only, like all young men, he had hired a brougham
for winter evenings, and had chosen a first-class carriage and
splendid horses from one of the best job-masters. For the last month
all had gone well with him; he had dined with the Grandlieus three
times; the Duke was delightful to him; his shares in the Omnibus
Company, sold for three hundred thousand francs, had paid off a third
more of the price of the land; Clotilde de Grandlieu, who dressed
beautifully now, reddened inch thick when he went into the room, and
loudly proclaimed her attachment to him. Some personages of high
estate discussed their marriage as a probable event. The Duc de
Chaulieu, formerly Ambassador to Spain, and now for a short while
Minister for Foreign Affairs, had promised the Duchesse de Grandlieu
that he would ask for the title of Marquis for Lucien.
So that evening, after dining with Madame de Serizy, Lucien had
driven to the Faubourg Saint-Germain to pay his daily visit.
He arrives, the coachman calls for the gate to be opened, he drives
into the courtyard and stops at the steps. Lucien, on getting out,
remarks four other carriages in waiting. On seeing Monsieur de
Rubempre, one of the footmen placed to open and shut the hall-door
comes forward and out on to the steps, in front of the door, like a
soldier on guard.
"His Grace is not at home," says he.
"Madame la Duchesse is receiving company," observes Lucien to the
servant.
"Madame la Duchesse is gone out," replies the man solemnly.
"Mademoiselle Clotilde——"
"I do not think that Mademoiselle Clotilde will see you, monsieur,
in the absence of Madame la Duchesse."
"But there are people here," replies Lucien in dismay.
"I do not know, sir," says the man, trying to seem stupid and to be
respectful.
There is nothing more fatal than etiquette to those who regard it
as the most formidable arm of social law. Lucien easily interpreted
the meaning of this scene, so disastrous to him. The Duke and Duchess
would not admit him. He felt the spinal marrow freezing in the core of
his vertebral column, and a sickly cold sweat bedewed his brow. The
conversation had taken place in the presence of his own body-servant,
who held the door of the brougham, doubting whether to shut it. Lucien
signed to him that he was going away again; but as he stepped into the
carriage, he heard the noise of people coming downstairs, and the
servant called out first, "Madame la Duchesse de Chaulieu's people,"
then "Madame la Vicomtesse de Grandlieu's carriage!"
Lucien merely said, "To the Italian opera"; but in spite of his
haste, the luckless dandy could not escape the Duc de Chaulieu and his
son, the Duc de Rhetore, to whom he was obliged to bow, for they did
not speak a word to him. A great catastrophe at Court, the fall of a
formidable favorite, has ere now been pronounced on the threshold of a
royal study, in one word from an usher with a face like a plaster
cast.
"How am I to let my adviser know of this disaster—this
instant——?" thought Lucien as he drove to the opera-house. "What is
going on?"
He racked his brain with conjectures.
This was what had taken place. That morning, at eleven o'clock, the
Duc de Grandlieu, as he went into the little room where the family all
breakfasted together, said to Clotilde after kissing her, "Until
further orders, my child, think no more of the Sieur de Rubempre."
Then he had taken the Duchesse by the hand, and led her into a
window recess to say a few words in an undertone, which made poor
Clotilde turn pale; for she watched her mother as she listened to the
Duke, and saw her expression of extreme surprise.
"Jean," said the Duke to one of his servants, "take this note to
Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, and beg him to answer by you, Yes or No.
—I am asking him to dine here to-day," he added to his wife.
Breakfast had been a most melancholy meal. The Duchess was
meditative, the Duke seemed to be vexed with himself, and Clotilde
could with difficulty restrain her tears.
"My child, your father is right; you must obey him," the mother had
said to the daughter with much emotion. "I do not say as he does,
'Think no more of Lucien.' No—for I understand your suffering"—
Clotilde kissed her mother's hand—"but I do say, my darling, Wait,
take no step, suffer in silence since you love him, and put your trust
in your parents' care.—Great ladies, my child, are great just because
they can do their duty on every occasion, and do it nobly."
"But what is it about?" asked Clotilde as white as a lily.
"Matters too serious to be discussed with you, my dearest," the
Duchess replied. "For if they are untrue, your mind would be
unnecessarily sullied; and if they are true, you must never know
them."
At six o'clock the Duc de Chaulieu had come to join the Duc de
Grandlieu, who awaited him in his study.
"Tell me, Henri"—for the Dukes were on the most familiar terms,
and addressed each other by their Christian names. This is one of the
shades invented to mark a degree of intimacy, to repel the audacity of
French familiarity, and humiliate conceit—"tell me, Henri, I am in
such a desperate difficulty that I can only ask advice of an old
friend who understands business, and you have practice and experience.
My daughter Clotilde, as you know, is in love with that little
Rubempre, whom I have been almost compelled to accept as her promised
husband. I have always been averse to the marriage; however, Madame de
Grandlieu could not bear to thwart Clotilde's passion. When the young
fellow had repurchased the family estate and paid three-quarters of
the price, I could make no further objections.
"But last evening I received an anonymous letter—you know how much
that is worth—in which I am informed that the young fellow's fortune
is derived from some disreputable source, and that he is telling lies
when he says that his sister is giving him the necessary funds for his
purchase. For my daughter's happiness, and for the sake of our family,
I am adjured to make inquiries, and the means of doing so are
suggested to me. Here, read it."
"I am entirely of your opinion as to the value of anonymous
letters, my dear Ferdinand," said the Duc de Chaulieu after reading
the letter. "Still, though we may contemn them, we must make use of
them. We must treat such letters as we would treat a spy. Keep the
young man out of the house, and let us make inquiries——
"I know how to do it. Your lawyer is Derville, a man in whom we
have perfect confidence; he knows the secrets of many families, and
can certainly be trusted with this. He is an honest man, a man of
weight, and a man of honor; he is cunning and wily; but his wiliness
is only in the way of business, and you need only employ him to obtain
evidence you can depend upon.
"We have in the Foreign Office an agent of the superior police who
is unique in his power of discovering State secrets; we often send him
on such missions. Inform Derville that he will have a lieutenant in
the case. Our spy is a gentleman who will appear wearing the ribbon of
the Legion of Honor, and looking like a diplomate. This rascal will do
the hunting; Derville will only look on. Your lawyer will then tell
you if the mountain brings forth a mouse, or if you must throw over
this little Rubempre. Within a week you will know what you are doing."
"The young man is not yet so far a Marquis as to take offence at my
being 'Not at home' for a week," said the Duc de Grandlieu.
"Above all, if you end by giving him your daughter," replied the
Minister. "If the anonymous letter tells the truth, what of that? You
can send Clotilde to travel with my daughter-in-law Madeleine, who
wants to go to Italy."
"You relieve me immensely. I don't know whether I ought to thank
you."
"Wait till the end."
"By the way," exclaimed the Duc de Grandlieu, "what is your man's
name? I must mention it to Derville. Send him to me to-morrow by five
o'clock; I will have Derville here and put them in communication."
"His real name," said M. de Chaulieu, "is, I think, Corentin—a
name you must never have heard, for my gentleman will come ticketed
with his official name. He calls himself Monsieur de
Saint-Something—Saint Yves—Saint-Valere?—Something of the
kind.—You may trust him; Louis XVIII. had perfect confidence in him."
After this confabulation the steward had orders to shut the door on
Monsieur de Rubempre—which was done.
Lucien paced the waiting-room at the opera-house like a man who was
drunk. He fancied himself the talk of all Paris. He had in the Duc de
Rhetore one of those unrelenting enemies on whom a man must smile, as
he can never be revenged, since their attacks are in conformity with
the rules of society. The Duc de Rhetore knew the scene that had just
taken place on the outside steps of the Grandlieus' house. Lucien,
feeling the necessity of at once reporting the catastrophe to his high
privy councillor, nevertheless was afraid of compromising himself by
going to Esther's house, where he might find company. He actually
forgot that Esther was here, so confused were his thoughts, and in the
midst of so much perplexity he was obliged to make small talk with
Rastignac, who, knowing nothing of the news, congratulated him on his
approaching marriage.
At this moment Nucingen appeared smiling, and said to Lucien:
"Vill you do me de pleasure to come to see Montame de Champy, vat
vill infite you herself to von house-varming party——"
"With pleasure, Baron," replied Lucien, to whom the Baron appeared
as a rescuing angel.
"Leave us," said Esther to Monsieur de Nucingen, when she saw him
come in with Lucien. "Go and see Madame du Val-Noble, whom I discover
in a box on the third tier with her nabob.—A great many nabobs grow
in the Indies," she added, with a knowing glance at Lucien.
"And that one," said Lucien, smiling, "is uncommonly like yours."
"And them," said Esther, answering Lucien with another look of
intelligence, while still speaking to the Baron, "bring her here with
her nabob; he is very anxious to make your acquaintance. They say he
is very rich. The poor woman has already poured out I know not how
many elegies; she complains that her nabob is no good; and if you
relieve him of his ballast, perhaps he will sail closer to the wind."
"You tink ve are all tieves!" said the Baron as he went away.
"What ails you, my Lucien?" asked Esther in her friend's ear, just
touching it with her lips as soon as the box door was shut.
"I am lost! I have just been turned from the door of the Hotel de
Grandlieu under pretence that no one was admitted. The Duke and
Duchess were at home, and five pairs of horses were champing in the
courtyard."
"What! will the marriage not take place?" exclaimed Esther, much
agitated, for she saw a glimpse of Paradise.
"I do not yet know what is being plotted against me——"
"My Lucien," said she in a deliciously coaxing voice, "why be
worried about it? You can make a better match by and by—I will get
you the price of two estates——"
"Give us supper to-night that I may be able to speak in secret to
Carlos, and, above all, invite the sham Englishman and Val-Noble. That
nabob is my ruin; he is our enemy; we will get hold of him, and
we——"
But Lucien broke off with a gesture of despair.
"Well, what is it?" asked the poor girl.
"Oh! Madame de Serizy sees me!" cried Lucien, "and to crown our
woes, the Duc de Rhetore, who witnessed my dismissal, is with her."
In fact, at that very minute, the Duc de Rhetore was amusing
himself with Madame de Serizy's discomfiture.
"Do you allow Lucien to be seen in Mademoiselle Esther's box?" said
the young Duke, pointing to the box and to Lucien; "you, who take an
interest in him, should really tell him such things are not allowed.
He may sup at her house, he may even—But, in fact, I am no longer
surprised at the Grandlieus' coolness towards the young man. I have
just seen their door shut in his face—on the front steps——"
"Women of that sort are very dangerous," said Madame de Serizy,
turning her opera-glass on Esther's box.
"Yes," said the Duke, "as much by what they can do as by what they
wish——"
"They will ruin him!" cried Madame de Serizy, "for I am told they
cost as much whether they are paid or no."
"Not to him!" said the young Duke, affecting surprise. "They are
far from costing him anything; they give him money at need, and all
run after him."
The Countess' lips showed a little nervous twitching which could
not be included in any category of smiles.
"Well, then," said Esther, "come to supper at midnight. Bring
Blondet and Rastignac; let us have two amusing persons at any rate;
and we won't be more than nine."
"You must find some excuse for sending the Baron to fetch Eugenie
under pretence of warning Asie, and tell her what has befallen me, so
that Carlos may know before he has the nabob under his claws."
"That shall be done," said Esther.
And thus Peyrade was probably about to find himself unwittingly
under the same roof with his adversary. The tiger was coming into the
lion's den, and a lion surrounded by his guards.
When Lucien went back to Madame de Serizy's box, instead of turning
to him, smiling and arranging her skirts for him to sit by her, she
affected to pay him not the slightest attention, but looked about the
house through her glass. Lucien could see, however, by the shaking of
her hand that the Countess was suffering from one of those terrible
emotions by which illicit joys are paid for. He went to the front of
the box all the same, and sat down by her at the opposite corner,
leaving a little vacant space between himself and the Countess. He
leaned on the ledge of the box with his elbow, resting his chin on his
gloved hand; then he half turned away, waiting for a word. By the
middle of the act the Countess had still neither spoken to him nor
looked at him.
"I do not know," said she at last, "why you are here; your place is
in Mademoiselle Esther's box——"
"I will go there," said Lucien, leaving the box without looking at
the Countess.
"My dear," said Madame du Val-Noble, going into Esther's box with
Peyrade, whom the Baron de Nucingen did not recognize, "I am delighted
to introduce Mr. Samuel Johnson. He is a great admirer of M. de
Nucingen's talents."
"Indeed, monsieur," said Esther, smiling at Peyrade.
"Oh yes, bocou," said Peyrade.
"Why, Baron, here is a way of speaking French which is as much like
yours as the low Breton dialect is like that of Burgundy. It will be
most amusing to hear you discuss money matters.—Do you know, Monsieur
Nabob, what I shall require of you if you are to make acquaintance
with my Baron?" said Esther with a smile.
"Oh!—Thank you so much, you will introduce me to Sir Baronet?"
said Peyrade with an extravagant English accent.
"Yes," said she, "you must give me the pleasure of your company at
supper. There is no pitch stronger than champagne for sticking men
together. It seals every kind of business, above all such as you put
your foot in.—Come this evening; you will find some jolly fellows.—
As for you, my little Frederic," she added in the Baron's ear, "you
have your carriage here—just drive to the Rue Saint-Georges and bring
Europe to me here; I have a few words to say to her about the supper.
I have caught Lucien; he will bring two men who will be fun.—We will
draw the Englishman," she whispered to Madame du Val-Noble.
Peyrade and the Baron left the women together.
"Oh, my dear, if you ever succeed in drawing that great brute, you
will be clever indeed," said Suzanne.
"If it proves impossible, you must lend him to me for a week,"
replied Esther, laughing.
"You would but keep him half a day," replied Madame du Val-Noble.
"The bread I eat is too hard; it breaks my teeth. Never again, to my
dying day, will I try to make an Englishman happy. They are all cold
and selfish—pigs on their hind legs."
"What, no consideration?" said Esther with a smile.
"On the contrary, my dear, the monster has never shown the least
familiarity."
"Under no circumstances whatever?" asked Esther.
"The wretch always addresses me as Madame, and preserves the most
perfect coolness imaginable at moments when every man is more or less
amenable. To him love-making!—on my word, it is nothing more nor less
than shaving himself. He wipes the razor, puts it back in its case,
and looks in the glass as if he were saying, 'I have not cut myself!'
"Then he treats me with such respect as is enough to send a woman
mad. That odious Milord Potboiler amuses himself by making poor
Theodore hide in my dressing-room and stand there half the day. In
short, he tries to annoy me in every way. And as stingy!—As miserly
as Gobseck and Gigonnet rolled into one. He takes me out to dinner,
but he does not pay the cab that brings me home if I happen not to
have ordered my carriage to fetch me."
"Well," said Esther, "but what does he pay you for your services?"
"Oh, my dear, positively nothing. Five hundred francs a month and
not a penny more, and the hire of a carriage. But what is it? A
machine such as they hire out for a third-rate wedding to carry an
epicier to the Mairie, to Church, and to the Cadran bleu.—Oh, he
nettles me with his respect.
"If I try hysterics and feel ill, he is never vexed; he only says:
'I wish my lady to have her own way, for there is nothing more
detestable —no gentleman—than to say to a nice woman, "You are a
cotton bale, a bundle of merchandise."—Ha, hah! Are you a member of
the Temperance Society and anti-slavery?' And my horror sits pale, and
cold, and hard while he gives me to understand that he has as much
respect for me as he might have for a Negro, and that it has nothing
to do with his feelings, but with his opinions as an abolitionist."
"A man cannot be a worse wretch," said Esther. "But I will smash up
that outlandish Chinee."
"Smash him up?" replied Madame du Val-Noble. "Not if he does not
love me. You, yourself, would you like to ask him for two sous? He
would listen to you solemnly, and tell you, with British precision
that would make a slap in the face seem genial, that he pays dear
enough for the trifle that love can be to his poor life;" and, as
before, Madame du Val-Noble mimicked Peyrade's bad French.
"To think that in our line of life we are thrown in the way of such
men!" exclaimed Esther.
"Oh, my dear, you have been uncommonly lucky. Take good care of
your Nucingen."
"But your nabob must have got some idea in his head."
"That is what Adele says."
"Look here, my dear; that man, you may depend, has laid a bet that
he will make a woman hate him and pack him off in a certain time."
"Or else he wants to do business with Nucingen, and took me up
knowing that you and I were friends; that is what Adele thinks,"
answered Madame du Val-Noble. "That is why I introduced him to you
this evening. Oh, if only I could be sure what he is at, what tricks I
could play with you and Nucingen!"
"And you don't get angry?" asked Esther; "you don't speak your mind
now and then?"
"Try it—you are sharp and smooth.—Well, in spite of your
sweetness, he would kill you with his icy smiles. 'I am anti-slavery,'
he would say, 'and you are free.'—If you said the funniest things, he
would only look at you and say, 'Very good!' and you would see that he
regards you merely as a part of the show."
"And if you turned furious?"
"The same thing; it would still be a show. You might cut him open
under the left breast without hurting him in the least; his internals
are of tinned-iron, I am sure. I told him so. He replied, 'I am quite
satisfied with that physical constitution.'
"And always polite. My dear, he wears gloves on his soul . . .
"I shall endure this martyrdom for a few days longer to satisfy my
curiosity. But for that, I should have made Philippe slap my lord's
cheek—and he has not his match as a swordsman. There is nothing else
left for it——"
"I was just going to say so," cried Esther. "But you must ascertain
first that Philippe is a boxer; for these old English fellows, my
dear, have a depth of malignity——"
"This one has no match on earth. No. if you could but see him
asking my commands, to know at what hour he may come—to take me by
surprise, of course—and pouring out respectful speeches like a
so-called gentleman, you would say, 'Why, he adores her!' and there is
not a woman in the world who would not say the same."
"And they envy us, my dear!" exclaimed Esther.
"Ah, well!" sighed Madame du Val-Noble; "in the course of our lives
we learn more or less how little men value us. But, my dear, I have
never been so cruelly, so deeply, so utterly scorned by brutality as I
am by this great skinful of port wine.
"When he is tipsy he goes away—'not to be unpleasant,' as he tells
Adele, and not to be 'under two powers at once,' wine and woman. He
takes advantage of my carriage; he uses it more than I do.—Oh! if
only we could see him under the table to-night! But he can drink ten
bottles and only be fuddled; when his eyes are full, he still sees
clearly."
"Like people whose windows are dirty outside," said Esther, "but
who can see from inside what is going on in the street.—I know that
property in man. Du Tillet has it in the highest degree."
"Try to get du Tillet, and if he and Nucingen between them could
only catch him in some of their plots, I should at least be revenged.
They would bring him to beggary!
"Oh! my dear, to have fallen into the hands of a hypocritical
Protestant after that poor Falleix, who was so amusing, so good-
natured, so full of chaff! How we used to laugh! They say all
stockbrokers are stupid. Well, he, for one, never lacked wit but
once——"
"When he left you without a sou? That is what made you acquainted
with the unpleasant side of pleasure."
Europe, brought in by Monsieur de Nucingen, put her viperine head
in at the door, and after listening to a few words whispered in her
ear by her mistress, she vanished.
At half-past eleven that evening, five carriages were stationed in
the Rue Saint-Georges before the famous courtesan's door. There was
Lucien's, who had brought Rastignac, Bixiou, and Blondet; du Tillet's,
the Baron de Nucingen's, the Nabob's, and Florine's—she was invited
by du Tillet. The closed and doubly-shuttered windows were screened by
the splendid Chinese silk curtains. Supper was to be served at one;
wax-lights were blazing, the dining-room and little drawing-room
displayed all their magnificence. The party looked forward to such an
orgy as only three such women and such men as these could survive.
They began by playing cards, as they had to wait about two hours.
"Do you play, milord?" asked du Tillet to Peyrade.
"I have played with O'Connell, Pitt, Fox, Canning, Lord Brougham,
Lord——"
"Say at once no end of lords," said Bixiou.
"Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Hertford, Lord——"
Bixiou was looking at Peyrade's shoes, and stooped down.
"What are you looking for?" asked Blondet.
"For the spring one must touch to stop this machine," said Florine.
"Do you play for twenty francs a point?"
"I will play for as much as you like to lose."
"He does it well!" said Esther to Lucien. "They all take him for an
Englishman."
Du Tillet, Nucingen, Peyrade, and Rastignac sat down to a
whist-table; Florine, Madame du Val-Noble, Esther, Blondet, and Bixiou
sat round the fire chatting. Lucien spent the time in looking through
a book of fine engravings.
"Supper is ready," Paccard presently announced, in magnificent
livery.
Peyrade was placed at Florine's left hand, and on the other side of
him Bixiou, whom Esther had enjoined to make the Englishman drink
freely, and challenge him to beat him. Bixiou had the power of
drinking an indefinite quantity.
Never in his life had Peyrade seen such splendor, or tasted of such
cookery, or seen such fine women.
"I am getting my money's worth this evening for the thousand crowns
la Val-Noble has cost me till now," thought he; "and besides, I have
just won a thousand francs."
"This is an example for men to follow!" said Suzanne, who was
sitting by Lucien, with a wave of her hand at the splendors of the
dining- room.
Esther had placed Lucien next herself, and was holding his foot
between her own under the table.
"Do you hear?" said Madame du Val-Noble, addressing Peyrade, who
affected blindness. "This is how you ought to furnish a house! When a
man brings millions home from India, and wants to do business with the
Nucingens, he should place himself on the same level."
"I belong to a Temperance Society!"
"Then you will drink like a fish!" said Bixiou, "for the Indies are
uncommon hot, uncle!"
It was Bixiou's jest during supper to treat Peyrade as an uncle of
his, returned from India.
"Montame du Fal-Noble tolt me you shall have some iteas," said
Nucingen, scrutinizing Peyrade.
"Ah, this is what I wanted to hear," said du Tillet to Rastignac;
"the two talking gibberish together."
"You will see, they will understand each other at last," said
Bixiou, guessing what du Tillet had said to Rastignac.
"Sir Baronet, I have imagined a speculation—oh! a very comfortable
job—bocou profitable and rich in profits——"
"Now you will see," said Blondet to du Tillet, "he will not talk
one minute without dragging in the Parliament and the English
Government."
"It is in China, in the opium trade——"
"Ja, I know," said Nucingen at once, as a man who is well
acquainted with commercial geography. "But de English Gover'ment hafe
taken up de opium trate as a means dat shall open up China, and she
shall not allow dat ve——"
"Nucingen has cut him out with the Government," remarked du Tillet
to Blondet.
"Ah! you have been in the opium trade!" cried Madame du Val-Noble.
"Now I understand why you are so narcotic; some has stuck in your
soul."
"Dere! you see!" cried the Baron to the self-styled opium merchant,
and pointing to Madame du Val-Noble. "You are like me. Never shall a
millionaire be able to make a voman lofe him."
"I have loved much and often, milady," replied Peyrade.
"As a result of temperance," said Bixiou, who had just seen Peyrade
finish his third bottle of claret, and now had a bottle of port wine
uncorked.
"Oh!" cried Peyrade, "it is very fine, the Portugal of England."
Blondet, du Tillet, and Bixiou smiled at each other. Peyrade had
the power of travestying everything, even his wit. There are very few
Englishmen who will not maintain that gold and silver are better in
England than elsewhere. The fowls and eggs exported from Normandy to
the London market enable the English to maintain that the poultry and
eggs in London are superior (very fine) to those of Paris, which come
from the same district.
Esther and Lucien were dumfounded by this perfection of costume,
language, and audacity.
They all ate and drank so well and so heartily, while talking and
laughing, that it went on till four in the morning. Bixiou flattered
himself that he had achieved one of the victories so pleasantly
related by Brillat-Savarin. But at the moment when he was saying to
himself, as he offered his "uncle" some more wine, "I have vanquished
England!" Peyrade replied in good French to this malicious scoffer,
"Toujours, mon garcon" (Go it, my boy), which no one heard but Bixiou.
"Hallo, good men all, he is as English as I am!—My uncle is a
Gascon! I could have no other!"
Bixiou and Peyrade were alone, so no one heard this announcement.
Peyrade rolled off his chair on to the floor. Paccard forthwith picked
him up and carried him to an attic, where he fell sound asleep.
At six o'clock next evening, the Nabob was roused by the
application of a wet cloth, with which his face was being washed, and
awoke to find himself on a camp-bed, face to face with Asie, wearing a
mask and a black domino.
"Well, Papa Peyrade, you and I have to settle accounts," said she.
"Where am I?" asked he, looking about him.
"Listen to me," said Asie, "and that will sober you.—Though you do
not love Madame du Val-Noble, you love your daughter, I suppose?"
"My daughter?" Peyrade echoed with a roar.
"Yes, Mademoiselle Lydie."
"What then?"
"What then? She is no longer in the Rue des Moineaux; she has been
carried off."
Peyrade breathed a sigh like that of a soldier dying of a mortal
wound on the battlefield.
"While you were pretending to be an Englishman, some one else was
pretending to be Peyrade. Your little Lydie thought she was with her
father, and she is now in a safe place.—Oh! you will never find her!
unless you undo the mischief you have done."
"What mischief?"
"Yesterday Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre had the door shut in his
face at the Duc de Grandlieu's. This is due to your intrigues, and to
the man you let loose on us. Do not speak, listen!" Asie went on,
seeing Peyrade open his mouth. "You will have your daughter again,
pure and spotless," she added, emphasizing her statement by the accent
on every word, "only on the day after that on which Monsieur Lucien de
Rubempre walks out of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin as the husband of
Mademoiselle Clotilde. If, within ten days Lucien de Rubempre is not
admitted, as he has been, to the Grandlieus' house, you, to begin
with, will die a violent death, and nothing can save you from the fate
that threatens you.—Then, when you feel yourself dying, you will have
time before breathing your last to reflect, 'My daughter is a
prostitute for the rest of her life!'
"Though you have been such a fool as give us this hold for our
clutches, you still have sense enough to meditate on this ultimatum
from our government. Do not bark, say nothing to any one; go to
Contenson's, and change your dress, and then go home. Katt will tell
you that at a word from you your little Lydie went downstairs, and has
not been seen since. If you make any fuss, if you take any steps, your
daughter will begin where I tell you she will end—she is promised to
de Marsay.
"With old Canquoelle I need not mince matters, I should think, or
wear gloves, heh?—— Go on downstairs, and take care not to meddle in
our concerns any more."
Asie left Peyrade in a pitiable state; every word had been a blow
with a club. The spy had tears in his eyes, and tears hanging from his
cheeks at the end of a wet furrow.
"They are waiting dinner for Mr. Johnson," said Europe, putting her
head in a moment after.
Peyrade made no reply; he went down, walked till he reached a cab-
stand, and hurried off to undress at Contenson's, not saying a word to
him; he resumed the costume of Pere Canquoelle, and got home by eight
o'clock. He mounted the stairs with a beating heart. When the Flemish
woman heard her master, she asked him:
"Well, and where is mademoiselle?" with such simplicity, that the
old spy was obliged to lean against the wall. The blow was more than
he could bear. He went into his daughter's rooms, and ended by
fainting with grief when he found them empty, and heard Katt's story,
which was that of an abduction as skilfully planned as if he had
arranged it himself.
"Well, well," thought he, "I must knock under. I will be revenged
later; now I must go to Corentin.—This is the first time we have met
our foes. Corentin will leave that handsome boy free to marry an
Empress if he wishes!—Yes, I understand that my little girl should
have fallen in love with him at first sight.—Oh! that Spanish priest
is a knowing one. Courage, friend Peyrade! disgorge your prey!"
The poor father never dreamed of the fearful blow that awaited him.
On reaching Corentin's house, Bruno, the confidential servant, who
knew Peyrade, said:
"Monsieur is gone away."
"For a long time?"
"For ten days."
"Where?"
"I don't know.
"Good God, I am losing my wits! I ask him where—as if we ever told
them——" thought he.
A few hours before the moment when Peyrade was to be roused in his
garret in the Rue Saint-Georges, Corentin, coming in from his country
place at Passy, had made his way to the Duc de Grandlieu's, in the
costume of a retainer of a superior class. He wore the ribbon of the
Legion of Honor at his button-hole. He had made up a withered old face
with powdered hair, deep wrinkles, and a colorless skin. His eyes were
hidden by tortoise-shell spectacles. He looked like a retired office-
clerk. On giving his name as Monsieur de Saint-Denis, he was led to
the Duke's private room, where he found Derville reading a letter,
which he himself had dictated to one of his agents, the "number" whose
business it was to write documents. The Duke took Corentin aside to
tell him all he already knew. Monsieur de Saint-Denis listened coldly
and respectfully, amusing himself by studying this grand gentleman, by
penetrating the tufa beneath the velvet cover, by scrutinizing this
being, now and always absorbed in whist and in regard for the House of
Grandlieu.
"If you will take my advice, monsieur," said Corentin to Derville,
after being duly introduced to the lawyer, "we shall set out this very
afternoon for Angouleme by the Bordeaux coach, which goes quite as
fast as the mail; and we shall not need to stay there six hours to
obtain the information Monsieur le Duc requires. It will be enough—if
I have understood your Grace—to ascertain whether Monsieur de
Rubempre's sister and brother-in-law are in a position to give him
twelve hundred thousand francs?" and he turned to the Duke.
"You have understood me perfectly," said the Duke.
"We can be back again in four days," Corentin went on, addressing
Derville, "and neither of us will have neglected his business long
enough for it to suffer."
"That was the only difficulty I was about to mention to his Grace,"
said Derville. "It is now four o'clock. I am going home to say a word
to my head-clerk, and pack my traveling-bag, and after dinner, at
eight o'clock, I will be—— But shall we get places?" he said to
Monsieur de Saint-Denis, interrupting himself.
"I will answer for that," said Corentin. "Be in the yard of the
Chief Office of the Messageries at eight o'clock. If there are no
places, they shall make some, for that is the way to serve Monseigneur
le Duc de Grandlieu."
"Gentlemen," said the Duke most graciously, "I postpone my
thanks——"
Corentin and the lawyer, taking this as a dismissal, bowed, and
withdrew.
At the hour when Peyrade was questioning Corentin's servant,
Monsieur de Saint-Denis and Derville, seated in the Bordeaux coach,
were studying each other in silence as they drove out of Paris.
Next morning, between Orleans and Tours, Derville, being bored,
began to converse, and Corentin condescended to amuse him, but keeping
his distance; he left him to believe that he was in the diplomatic
service, and was hoping to become Consul-General by the good offices
of the Duc de Grandlieu. Two days after leaving Paris, Corentin and
Derville got out at Mansle, to the great surprise of the lawyer, who
thought he was going to Angouleme.
"In this little town," said Corentin, "we can get the most positive
information as regards Madame Sechard."
"Do you know her then?" asked Derville, astonished to find Corentin
so well informed.
"I made the conductor talk, finding he was a native of Angouleme.
He tells me that Madame Sechard lives at Marsac, and Marsac is but a
league away from Mansle. I thought we should be at greater advantage
here than at Angouleme for verifying the facts."
"And besides," thought Derville, "as Monsieur le Duc said, I act
merely as the witness to the inquiries made by this confidential
agent——"
The inn at Mansle, la Belle Etoile, had for its landlord one of
those fat and burly men whom we fear we may find no more on our
return; but who still, ten years after, are seen standing at their
door with as much superfluous flesh as ever, in the same linen cap,
the same apron, with the same knife, the same oiled hair, the same
triple chin,—all stereotyped by novel-writers from the immortal
Cervantes to the immortal Walter Scott. Are they not all boastful of
their cookery? have they not all "whatever you please to order"? and
do not all end by giving you the same hectic chicken, and vegetables
cooked with rank butter? They all boast of their fine wines, and all
make you drink the wine of the country.
But Corentin, from his earliest youth, had known the art of getting
out of an innkeeper things more essential to himself than doubtful
dishes and apocryphal wines. So he gave himself out as a man easy to
please, and willing to leave himself in the hands of the best cook in
Mansle, as he told the fat man.
"There is no difficulty about being the best—I am the only one,"
said the host.
"Serve us in the side room," said Corentin, winking at Derville.
"And do not be afraid of setting the chimney on fire; we want to thaw
out the frost in our fingers."
"It was not warm in the coach," said Derville.
"Is it far to Marsac?" asked Corentin of the innkeeper's wife, who
came down from the upper regions on hearing that the diligence had
dropped two travelers to sleep there.
"Are you going to Marsac, monsieur?" replied the woman.
"I don't know," he said sharply. "Is it far from hence to Marsac?"
he repeated, after giving the woman time to notice his red ribbon.
"In a chaise, a matter of half an hour," said the innkeeper's wife.
"Do you think that Monsieur and Madame Sechard are likely to be
there in winter?"
"To be sure; they live there all the year round."
"It is now five o'clock. We shall still find them up at nine."
"Oh yes, till ten. They have company every evening—the cure,
Monsieur Marron the doctor——"
"Good folks then?" said Derville.
"Oh, the best of good souls," replied the woman, "straight-forward,
honest—and not ambitious neither. Monsieur Sechard, though he is very
well off—they say he might have made millions if he had not allowed
himself to be robbed of an invention in the paper-making of which the
brothers Cointet are getting the benefit——"
"Ah, to be sure, the Brothers Cointet!" said Corentin.
"Hold your tongue," said the innkeeper. "What can it matter to
these gentlemen whether Monsieur Sechard has a right or no to a patent
for his inventions in paper-making?—If you mean to spend the night
here— at the Belle Etoile——" he went on, addressing the travelers,
"here is the book, and please to put your names down. We have an
officer in this town who has nothing to do, and spends all his time in
nagging at us——"
"The devil!" said Corentin, while Derville entered their names and
his profession as attorney to the lower Court in the department of the
Seine, "I fancied the Sechards were very rich."
"Some people say they are millionaires," replied the innkeeper.
"But as to hindering tongues from wagging, you might as well try to
stop the river from flowing. Old Sechard left two hundred thousand
francs' worth of landed property, it is said; and that is not amiss
for a man who began as a workman. Well, and he may have had as much
again in savings, for he made ten or twelve thousand francs out of his
land at last. So, supposing he were fool enough not to invest his
money for ten years, that would be all told. But even if he lent it at
high interest, as he is suspected of doing there would be three
hundred thousand francs perhaps, and that is all. Five hundred
thousand francs is a long way short of a million. I should be quite
content with the difference, and no more of the Belle Etoile for me.!"
"Really!" said Corentin. "Then Monsieur David Sechard and his wife
have not a fortune of two or three millions?"
"Why," exclaimed the innkeeper's wife, "that is what the Cointets
are supposed to have, who robbed him of his invention, and he does not
get more than twenty thousand francs out of them. Where do you suppose
such honest folks would find millions? They were very much pinched
while the father was alive. But for Kolb, their manager, and Madame
Kolb, who is as much attached to them as her husband, they could
scarcely have lived. Why, how much had they with La Verberie!—A
thousand francs a year perhaps."
Corentin drew Derville aside and said:
"In vino veritas! Truth lives under a cork. For my part, I regard
an inn as the real registry office of the countryside; the notary is
not better informed than the innkeeper as to all that goes on in a
small neighborhood.—You see! we are supposed to know all about the
Cointets and Kolb and the rest.
"Your innkeeper is the living record of every incident; he does the
work of the police without suspecting it. A government should maintain
two hundred spies at most, for in a country like France there are ten
millions of simple-minded informers.—However, we need not trust to
this report; though even in this little town something would be known
about the twelve hundred thousand francs sunk in paying for the
Rubempre estate. We will not stop here long——"
"I hope not!" Derville put in.
"And this is why," added Corentin; "I have hit on the most natural
way of extracting the truth from the mouth of the Sechard couple. I
rely upon you to support, by your authority as a lawyer, the little
trick I shall employ to enable you to hear a clear and complete
account of their affairs.—After dinner we shall set out to call on
Monsieur Sechard," said Corentin to the innkeeper's wife. "Have beds
ready for us, we want separate rooms. There can be no difficulty
'under the stars.' "
"Oh, monsieur," said the woman, "we invented the sign."
"The pun is to be found in every department," said Corentin; "it is
no monopoly of yours."
"Dinner is served, gentlemen," said the innkeeper.
"But where the devil can that young fellow have found the money? Is
the anonymous writer accurate? Can it be the earnings of some handsome
baggage?" said Derville, as they sat down to dinner.
"Ah, that will be the subject of another inquiry," said Corentin.
"Lucien de Rubempre, as the Duc de Chaulieu tells me, lives with a
converted Jewess, who passes for a Dutch woman, and is called Esther
van Bogseck."
"What a strange coincidence!" said the lawyer. "I am hunting for
the heiress of a Dutchman named Gobseck—it is the same name with a
transposition of consonants."
"Well," said Corentin, "you shall have information as to her
parentage on my return to Paris."
An hour later, the two agents for the Grandlieu family set out for
La Verberie, where Monsieur and Madame Sechard were living.
Never had Lucien felt any emotion so deep as that which overcame
him at La Verberie when comparing his own fate with that of his
brother- in-law. The two Parisians were about to witness the same
scene that had so much struck Lucien a few days since. Everything
spoke of peace and abundance.
At the hour when the two strangers were arriving, a party of four
persons were being entertained in the drawing-room of La Verberie: the
cure of Marsac, a young priest of five-and-twenty, who, at Madame
Sechard's request, had become tutor to her little boy Lucien; the
country doctor, Monsieur Marron; the Maire of the commune; and an old
colonel, who grew roses on a plot of land opposite to La Verberie on
the other side of the road. Every evening during the winter these
persons came to play an artless game of boston for centime points, to
borrow the papers, or return those they had finished.
When Monsieur and Madame Sechard had bought La Verberie, a fine
house built of stone, and roofed with slate, the pleasure-grounds
consisted of a garden of two acres. In the course of time, by devoting
her savings to the purpose, handsome Madame Sechard had extended her
garden as far as a brook, by cutting down the vines on some ground she
purchased, and replacing them with grass plots and clumps of
shrubbery. At the present time the house, surrounded by a park of
about twenty acres, and enclosed by walls, was considered the most
imposing place in the neighborhood.
Old Sechard's former residence, with the outhouses attached, was
now used as the dwelling-house for the manager of about twenty acres
of vineyard left by him, of five farmsteads, bringing in about six
thousand francs a year, and ten acres of meadow land lying on the
further side of the stream, exactly opposite the little park; indeed,
Madame Sechard hoped to include them in it the next year. La Verberie
was already spoken of in the neighborhood as a chateau, and Eve
Sechard was known as the Lady of Marsac. Lucien, while flattering her
vanity, had only followed the example of the peasants and vine-
dressers. Courtois, the owner of the mill, very picturesquely situated
a few hundred yards from the meadows of La Verberie, was in treaty, it
was said, with Madame Sechard for the sale of his property; and this
acquisition would give the finishing touch to the estate and the rank
of a "place" in the department.
Madame Sechard, who did a great deal of good, with as much judgment
as generosity, was equally esteemed and loved. Her beauty, now really
splendid, was at the height of its bloom. She was about six-and-
twenty, but had preserved all the freshness of youth from living in
the tranquillity and abundance of a country life. Still much in love
with her husband, she respected him as a clever man, who was modest
enough to renounce the display of fame; in short, to complete her
portrait, it is enough to say that in her whole existence she had
never felt a throb of her heart that was not inspired by her husband
or her children.
The tax paid to grief by this happy household was, as may be
supposed, the deep anxiety caused by Lucien's career, in which Eve
Sechard suspected mysteries, which she dreaded all the more because,
during his last visit, Lucien roughly cut short all his sister's
questions by saying that an ambitious man owed no account of his
proceedings to any one but himself.
In six years Lucien had seen his sister but three times, and had
not written her more than six letters. His first visit to La Verberie
had been on the occasion of his mother's death; and his last had been
paid with a view to asking the favor of the lie which was so necessary
to his advancement. This gave rise to a very serious scene between
Monsieur and Madame Sechard and their brother, and left their happy
and respected life troubled by the most terrible suspicions.
The interior of the house, as much altered as the surroundings, was
comfortable without luxury, as will be understood by a glance round
the room where the little party were now assembled. A pretty Aubusson
carpet, hangings of gray cotton twill bound with green silk brocade,
the woodwork painted to imitate Spa wood, carved mahogany furniture
covered with gray woolen stuff and green gimp, with flower-stands, gay
with flowers in spite of the time of year, presented a very pleasing
and homelike aspect. The window curtains, of green brocade, the
chimney ornaments, and the mirror frames were untainted by the bad
taste that spoils everything in the provinces; and the smallest
details, all elegant and appropriate, gave the mind and eye a sense of
repose and of poetry which a clever and loving woman can and ought to
infuse into her home.
Madame Sechard, still in mourning for her father, sat by the fire
working at some large piece of tapestry with the help of Madame Kolb,
the housekeeper, to whom she intrusted all the minor cares of the
household.
"A chaise has stopped at the door!" said Courtois, hearing the
sound of wheels outside; "and to judge by the clatter of metal, it
belongs to these parts——"
"Postel and his wife have come to see us, no doubt," said the
doctor.
"No," said Courtois, "the chaise has come from Mansle."
"Montame," said Kolb, the burly Alsatian we have made acquaintance
with in a former volume (Illusions perdues), "here is a lawyer from
Paris who wants to speak with monsieur."
"A lawyer!" cried Sechard; "the very word gives me the colic!"
"Thank you!" said the Maire of Marsac, named Cachan, who for twenty
years had been an attorney at Angouleme, and who had once been
required to prosecute Sechard.
"My poor David will never improve; he will always be
absent-minded!" said Eve, smiling.
"A lawyer from Paris," said Courtois. "Have you any business in
Paris?"
"No," said Eve.
"But you have a brother there," observed Courtois.
"Take care lest he should have anything to say about old Sechard's
estate," said Cachan. "HE had his finger in some very queer concerns,
worthy man!"
Corentin and Derville, on entering the room, after bowing to the
company, and giving their names, begged to have a private interview
with Monsieur and Madame Sechard.
"By all means," said Sechard. "But is it a matter of business?"
"Solely a matter regarding your father's property," said Corentin.
"Then I beg you will allow monsieur—the Maire, a lawyer formerly
at Angouleme—to be present also."
"Are you Monsieur Derville?" said Cachan, addressing Corentin.
"No, monsieur, this is Monsieur Derville," replied Corentin,
introducing the lawyer, who bowed.
"But," said Sechard, "we are, so to speak, a family party; we have
no secrets from our neighbors; there is no need to retire to my study,
where there is no fire—our life is in the sight of all men——"
"But your father's," said Corentin, "was involved in certain
mysteries which perhaps you would rather not make public."
"Is it anything we need blush for?" said Eve, in alarm.
"Oh, no! a sin of his youth," said Corentin, coldly setting one of
his mouse-traps. "Monsieur, your father left an elder son——"
"Oh, the old rascal!" cried Courtois. "He was never very fond of
you, Monsieur Sechard, and he kept that secret from you, the deep old
dog! —Now I understand what he meant when he used to say to me, 'You
shall see what you shall see when I am under the turf.' "
"Do not be dismayed, monsieur," said Corentin to Sechard, while he
watched Eve out of the corner of his eye.
"A brother!" exclaimed the doctor. "Then your inheritance is
divided into two!"
Derville was affecting to examine the fine engravings, proofs
before letters, which hung on the drawing-room walls.
"Do not be dismayed, madame," Corentin went on, seeing amazement
written on Madame Sechard's handsome features, "it is only a natural
son. The rights of a natural son are not the same as those of a
legitimate child. This man is in the depths of poverty, and he has a
right to a certain sum calculated on the amount of the estate. The
millions left by your father——"
At the word millions there was a perfectly unanimous cry from all
the persons present. And now Derville ceased to study the prints.
"Old Sechard?—Millions?" said Courtois. "Who on earth told you
that? Some peasant——"
"Monsieur," said Cachan, "you are not attached to the Treasury? You
may be told all the facts——"
"Be quite easy," said Corentin, "I give you my word of honor I am
not employed by the Treasury."
Cachan, who had just signed to everybody to say nothing, gave
expression to his satisfaction.
"Monsieur," Corentin went on, "if the whole estate were but a
million, a natural child's share would still be something
considerable. But we have not come to threaten a lawsuit; on the
contrary, our purpose is to propose that you should hand over one
hundred thousand francs, and we will depart——"
"One hundred thousand francs!" cried Cachan, interrupting him.
"But, monsieur, old Sechard left twenty acres of vineyard, five small
farms, ten acres of meadowland here, and not a sou besides——"
"Nothing on earth," cried David Sechard, "would induce me to tell a
lie, and less to a question of money than on any other.— Monsieur,"
he said, turning to Corentin and Derville, "my father left us, besides
the land——"
Courtois and Cachan signaled in vain to Sechard; he went on:
"Three hundred thousand francs, which raises the whole estate to
about five hundred thousand francs."
"Monsieur Cachan," asked Eve Sechard, "what proportion does the law
allot to a natural child?"
"Madame," said Corentin, "we are not Turks; we only require you to
swear before these gentlemen that you did not inherit more than five
hundred thousand francs from your father-in-law, and we can come to an
understanding."
"First give me your word of honor that you really are a lawyer,"
said Cachan to Derville.
"Here is my passport," replied Derville, handing him a paper folded
in four; "and monsieur is not, as you might suppose, an inspector from
the Treasury, so be easy," he added. "We had an important reason for
wanting to know the truth as to the Sechard estate, and we now know
it."
Derville took Madame Sechard's hand and led her very courteously to
the further end of the room.
"Madame," said he, in a low voice, "if it were not that the honor
and future prospects of the house of Grandlieu are implicated in this
affair, I would never have lent myself to the stratagem devised by
this gentleman of the red ribbon. But you must forgive him; it was
necessary to detect the falsehood by means of which your brother has
stolen a march on the beliefs of that ancient family. Beware now of
allowing it to be supposed that you have given your brother twelve
hundred thousand francs to repurchase the Rubempre estates——"
"Twelve hundred thousand francs!" cried Madame Sechard, turning
pale. "Where did he get them, wretched boy?"
"Ah! that is the question," replied Derville. "I fear that the
source of his wealth is far from pure."
The tears rose to Eve's eyes, as her neighbors could see.
"We have, perhaps, done you a great service by saving you from
abetting a falsehood of which the results may be positively
dangerous," the lawyer went on.
Derville left Madame Sechard sitting pale and dejected with tears
on her cheeks, and bowed to the company.
"To Mansle!" said Corentin to the little boy who drove the chaise.
There was but one vacant place in the diligence from Bordeaux to
Paris; Derville begged Corentin to allow him to take it, urging a
press of business; but in his soul he was distrustful of his traveling
companion, whose diplomatic dexterity and coolness struck him as being
the result of practice. Corentin remained three days longer at Mansle,
unable to get away; he was obliged to secure a place in the Paris
coach by writing to Bordeaux, and did not get back till nine days
after leaving home.
Peyrade, meanwhile, had called every morning, either at Passy or in
Paris, to inquire whether Corentin had returned. On the eighth day he
left at each house a note, written in their peculiar cipher, to
explain to his friend what death hung over him, and to tell him of
Lydie's abduction and the horrible end to which his enemies had
devoted them. Peyrade, bereft of Corentin, but seconded by Contenson,
still kept up his disguise as a nabob. Even though his invisible foes
had discovered him, he very wisely reflected that he might glean some
light on the matter by remaining on the field of the contest.
Contenson had brought all his experience into play in his search
for Lydie, and hoped to discover in what house she was hidden; but as
the days went by, the impossibility, absolutely demonstrated, of
tracing the slightest clue, added, hour by hour, to Peyrade's despair.
The old spy had a sort of guard about him of twelve or fifteen of the
most experienced detectives. They watched the neighborhood of the Rue
des Moineaux and the Rue Taitbout—where he lived, as a nabob, with
Madame du Val-Noble. During the last three days of the term granted by
Asie to reinstate Lucien on his old footing in the Hotel de Grandlieu,
Contenson never left the veteran of the old general police office. And
the poetic terror shed throughout the forests of America by the arts
of inimical and warring tribes, of which Cooper made such good use in
his novels, was here associated with the petty details of Paris life.
The foot-passengers, the shops, the hackney cabs, a figure standing at
a window,—everything had to the human ciphers to whom old Peyrade had
intrusted his safety the thrilling interest which attaches in Cooper's
romances to a beaver-village, a rock, a bison-robe, a floating canoe,
a weed straggling over the water.
"If the Spaniard has gone away, you have nothing to fear," said
Contenson to Peyrade, remarking on the perfect peace they lived in.
"But if he is not gone?" observed Peyrade.
"He took one of my men at the back of the chaise; but at Blois, my
man having to get down, could not catch the chaise up again."
Five days after Derville's return, Lucien one morning had a call
from Rastignac.
"I am in despair, my dear boy," said his visitor, "at finding
myself compelled to deliver a message which is intrusted to me because
we are known to be intimate. Your marriage is broken off beyond all
hope of reconciliation. Never set foot again in the Hotel de
Grandlieu. To marry Clotilde you must wait till her father dies, and
he is too selfish to die yet awhile. Old whist-players sit at
table—the card- table—very late.
"Clotilde is setting out for Italy with Madeleine de Lenoncourt-
Chaulieu. The poor girl is so madly in love with you, my dear fellow,
that they have to keep an eye on her; she was bent on coming to see
you, and had plotted an escape. That may comfort you in misfortune!"
Lucien made no reply; he sat gazing at Rastignac.
"And is it a misfortune, after all?" his friend went on. "You will
easily find a girl as well born and better looking than Clotilde!
Madame de Serizy will find you a wife out of spite; she cannot endure
the Grandlieus, who never would have anything to say to her. She has a
niece, little Clemence du Rouvre——"
"My dear boy," said Lucien at length, "since that supper I am not
on terms with Madame de Serizy—she saw me in Esther's box and made a
scene—and I left her to herself."
"A woman of forty does not long keep up a quarrel with so handsome
a man as you are," said Rastignac. "I know something of these
sunsets.— It lasts ten minutes in the sky, and ten years in a woman's
heart."
"I have waited a week to hear from her."
"Go and call."
"Yes, I must now."
"Are you coming at any rate to the Val-Noble's? Her nabob is
returning the supper given by Nucingen."
"I am asked, and I shall go," said Lucien gravely.
The day after this confirmation of his disaster, which Carlos heard
of at once from Asie, Lucien went to the Rue Taitbout with Rastignac
and Nucingen.
At midnight nearly all the personages of this drama were assembled
in the dining-room that had formerly been Esther's—a drama of which
the interest lay hidden under the very bed of these tumultuous lives,
and was known only to Esther, to Lucien, to Peyrade, to Contenson, the
mulatto, and to Paccard, who attended his mistress. Asie, without its
being known to Contenson and Peyrade, had been asked by Madame du Val-
Noble to come and help her cook.
As they sat down to table, Peyrade, who had given Madame du
Val-Noble five hundred francs that the thing might be well done, found
under his napkin a scrap of paper on which these words were written in
pencil, "The ten days are up at the moment when you sit down to
supper."
Peyrade handed the paper to Contenson, who was standing behind him,
saying in English:
"Did you put my name here?"
Contenson read by the light of the wax-candles this "Mene, Tekel,
Upharsin," and slipped the scrap into his pocket; but he knew how
difficult it is to verify a handwriting in pencil, and, above all, a
sentence written in Roman capitals, that is to say, with mathematical
lines, since capital letters are wholly made up of straight lines and
curves, in which it is impossible to detect any trick of the hand, as
in what is called running-hand.
The supper was absolutely devoid of spirit. Peyrade was visibly
absent-minded. Of the men about town who give life to a supper, only
Rastignac and Lucien were present. Lucien was gloomy and absorbed in
thought; Rastignac, who had lost two thousand francs before supper,
ate and drank with the hope of recovering them later. The three women,
stricken by this chill, looked at each other. Dulness deprived the
dishes of all relish. Suppers, like plays and books, have their good
and bad luck.
At the end of the meal ices were served, of the kind called
plombieres. As everybody knows, this kind of dessert has delicate
preserved fruits laid on the top of the ice, which is served in a
little glass, not heaped above the rim. These ices had been ordered by
Madame du Val-Noble of Tortoni, whose shop is at the corner of the Rue
Taitbout and the Boulevard.
The cook called Contenson out of the room to pay the bill.
Contenson, who thought this demand on the part of the shop-boy
rather strange, went downstairs and startled him by saying:
"Then you have not come from Tortoni's?" and then went straight
upstairs again.
Paccard had meanwhile handed the ices to the company in his
absence. The mulatto had hardly reached the door when one of the
police constables who had kept watch in the Rue des Moineaux called up
the stairs:
"Number twenty-seven."
"What's up?" replied Contenson, flying down again.
"Tell Papa that his daughter has come home; but, good God! in what
a state. Tell him to come at once; she is dying."
At the moment when Contenson re-entered the dining-room, old
Peyrade, who had drunk a great deal, was swallowing the cherry off his
ice. They were drinking to the health of Madame du Val-Noble; the
nabob filled his glass with Constantia and emptied it.
In spite of his distress at the news he had to give Peyrade,
Contenson was struck by the eager attention with which Paccard was
looking at the nabob. His eyes sparkled like two fixed flames.
Although it seemed important, still this could not delay the mulatto,
who leaned over his master, just as Peyrade set his glass down.
"Lydie is at home," said Contenson, "in a very bad state."
Peyrade rattled out the most French of all French oaths with such a
strong Southern accent that all the guests looked up in amazement.
Peyrade, discovering his blunder, acknowledged his disguise by saying
to Contenson in good French:
"Find me a coach—I'm off."
Every one rose.
"Why, who are you?" said Lucien.
"Ja—who?" said the Baron.
"Bixiou told me you shammed Englishman better than he could, and I
would not believe him," said Rastignac.
"Some bankrupt caught in disguise," said du Tillet loudly. "I
suspected as much!"
"A strange place is Paris!" said Madame du Val-Noble. "After being
bankrupt in his own part of town, a merchant turns up as a nabob or a
dandy in the Champs-Elysees with impunity!—Oh! I am unlucky!
bankrupts are my bane."
"Every flower has its peculiar blight!" said Esther quietly. "Mine
is like Cleopatra's—an asp."
"Who am I?" echoed Peyrade from the door. "You will know ere long;
for if I die, I will rise from my grave to clutch your feet every
night!"
He looked at Esther and Lucien as he spoke, then he took advantage
of the general dismay to vanish with the utmost rapidity, meaning to
run home without waiting for the coach. In the street the spy was
gripped by the arm as he crossed the threshold of the outer gate. It
was Asie, wrapped in a black hood such as ladies then wore on leaving
a ball.
"Send for the Sacraments, Papa Peyrade," said she, in the voice
that had already prophesied ill.
A coach was waiting. Asie jumped in, and the carriage vanished as
though the wind had swept it away. There were five carriages waiting;
Peyrade's men could find out nothing.
On reaching his house in the Rue des Vignes, one of the quietest
and prettiest nooks of the little town of Passy, Corentin, who was
known there as a retired merchant passionately devoted to gardening,
found his friend Peyrade's note in cipher. Instead of resting, he got
into the hackney coach that had brought him thither, and was driven to
the Rue des Moineaux, where he found only Katt. From her he heard of
Lydie's disappearance, and remained astounded at Peyrade's and his own
want of foresight.
"But they do not know me yet," said he to himself. "This crew is
capable of anything; I must find out if they are killing Peyrade; for
if so, I must not be seen any more——"
The viler a man's life is, the more he clings to it; it becomes at
every moment a protest and a revenge.
Corentin went back to the cab, and drove to his rooms to assume the
disguise of a feeble old man, in a scanty greenish overcoat and a tow
wig. Then he returned on foot, prompted by his friendship for Peyrade.
He intended to give instructions to his most devoted and cleverest
underlings.
As he went along the Rue Saint-Honore to reach the Rue Saint-Roch
from the Place Vendome, he came up behind a girl in slippers, and
dressed as a woman dresses for the night. She had on a white
bed-jacket and a nightcap, and from time to time gave vent to a sob
and an involuntary groan. Corentin out-paced her, and turning round,
recognized Lydie.
"I am a friend of your father's, of Monsieur Canquoelle's," said he
in his natural voice.
"Ah! then here is some one I can trust!" said she.
"Do not seem to have recognized me," Corentin went on, "for we are
pursued by relentless foes, and are obliged to disguise ourselves. But
tell me what has befallen you?"
"Oh, monsieur," said the poor child, "the facts but not the story
can be told—I am ruined, lost, and I do not know how——"
"Where have you come from?"
"I don't know, monsieur. I fled with such precipitancy, I have come
through so many streets, round so many turnings, fancying I was being
followed. And when I met any one that seemed decent, I asked my way to
get back to the Boulevards, so as to find the Rue de la Paix. And at
last, after walking—— What o'clock is it, monsieur?"
"Half-past eleven," said Corentin.
"I escaped at nightfall," said Lydie. "I have been walking for five
hours."
"Well, come along; you can rest now; you will find your good Katt."
"Oh, monsieur, there is no rest for me! I only want to rest in the
grave, and I will go and wait for death in a convent if I am worthy to
be admitted——"
"Poor little girl!—But you struggled?"
"Oh yes! Oh! if you could only imagine the abject creatures they
placed me with——!"
"They sent you to sleep, no doubt?"
"Ah! that is it" cried poor Lydie. "A little more strength and I
should be at home. I feel that I am dropping, and my brain is not
quite clear.—Just now I fancied I was in a garden——"
Corentin took Lydie in his arms, and she lost consciousness; he
carried her upstairs.
"Katt!" he called.
Katt came out with exclamations of joy.
"Don't be in too great a hurry to be glad!" said Corentin gravely;
"the girl is very ill."
When Lydie was laid on her bed and recognized her own room by the
light of two candles that Katt lighted, she became delirious. She sang
scraps of pretty airs, broken by vociferations of horrible sentences
she had heard. Her pretty face was mottled with purple patches. She
mixed up the reminiscences of her pure childhood with those of these
ten days of infamy. Katt sat weeping; Corentin paced the room,
stopping now and again to gaze at Lydie.
"She is paying her father's debt," said he. "Is there a Providence
above? Oh, I was wise not to have a family. On my word of honor, a
child is indeed a hostage given to misfortune, as some philosopher has
said."
"Oh!" cried the poor child, sitting up in bed and throwing back her
fine long hair, "instead of lying here, Katt, I ought to be stretched
in the sand at the bottom of the Seine!"
"Katt, instead of crying and looking at your child, which will
never cure her, you ought to go for a doctor; the medical officer in
the first instance, and then Monsieur Desplein and Monsieur
Bianchon—— We must save this innocent creature."
And Corentin wrote down the addresses of these two famous
physicians.
At this moment, up the stairs came some one to whom they were
familiar, and the door was opened. Peyrade, in a violent sweat, his
face purple, his eyes almost blood-stained, and gasping like a
dolphin, rushed from the outer door to Lydie's room, exclaiming:
"Where is my child?"
He saw a melancholy sign from Corentin, and his eyes followed his
friend's hand. Lydie's condition can only be compared to that of a
flower tenderly cherished by a gardener, now fallen from its stem, and
crushed by the iron-clamped shoes of some peasant. Ascribe this simile
to a father's heart, and you will understand the blow that fell on
Peyrade; the tears started to his eyes.
"You are crying!—It is my father!" said the girl.
She could still recognize her father; she got out of bed and fell
on her knees at the old man's side as he sank into a chair.
"Forgive me, papa," said she in a tone that pierced Peyrade's
heart, and at the same moment he was conscious of what felt like a
tremendous blow on his head.
"I am dying!—the villains!" were his last words.
Corentin tried to help his friend, and received his latest breath.
"Dead! Poisoned!" said he to himself. "Ah! here is the doctor!" he
exclaimed, hearing the sound of wheels.
Contenson, who came with his mulatto disguise removed, stood like a
bronze statue as he heard Lydie say:
"Then you do not forgive me, father?—But it was not my fault!"
She did not understand that her father was dead.
"Oh, how he stares at me!" cried the poor crazy girl.
"We must close his eyes," said Contenson, lifting Peyrade on to the
bed.
"We are doing a stupid thing," said Corentin. "Let us carry him
into his own room. His daughter is half demented, and she will go
quite mad when she sees that he is dead; she will fancy that she has
killed him."
Lydie, seeing them carry away her father, looked quite stupefied.
"There lies my only friend!" said Corentin, seeming much moved when
Peyrade was laid out on the bed in his own room. "In all his life he
never had but one impulse of cupidity, and that was for his daughter!
—Let him be an example to you, Contenson. Every line of life has its
code of honor. Peyrade did wrong when he mixed himself up with private
concerns; we have no business to meddle with any but public cases.
"But come what may, I swear," said he with a voice, an emphasis, a
look that struck horror into Contenson, "to avenge my poor Peyrade! I
will discover the men who are guilty of his death and of his
daughter's ruin. And as sure as I am myself, as I have yet a few days
to live, which I will risk to accomplish that vengeance, every man of
them shall die at four o'clock, in good health, by a clean shave on
the Place de Greve."
"And I will help you," said Contenson with feeling.
Nothing, in fact, is more heart-stirring than the spectacle of
passion in a cold, self-contained, and methodical man, in whom, for
twenty years, no one has ever detected the smallest impulse of
sentiment. It is like a molten bar of iron which melts everything it
touches. And Contenson was moved to his depths.
"Poor old Canquoelle!" said he, looking at Corentin. "He has
treated me many a time.—And, I tell you, only your bad sort know how
to do such things—but often has he given me ten francs to go and
gamble with . . ."
After this funeral oration, Peyrade's two avengers went back to
Lydie's room, hearing Katt and the medical officer from the Mairie on
the stairs.
"Go and fetch the Chief of Police," said Corentin. "The public
prosecutor will not find grounds for a prosecution in the case; still,
we will report it to the Prefecture; it may, perhaps, be of some use.
"Monsieur," he went on to the medical officer, "in this room you
will see a dead man. I do not believe that he died from natural
causes; you will be good enough to make a post-mortem in the presence
of the Chief of the Police, who will come at my request. Try to
discover some traces of poison. You will, in a few minutes, have the
opinion of Monsieur Desplein and Monsieur Bianchon, for whom I have
sent to examine the daughter of my best friend; she is in a worse
plight than he, though he is dead."
"I have no need of those gentlemen's assistance in the exercise of
my duty," said the medical officer.
"Well, well," thought Corentin. "Let us have no clashing,
monsieur," he said. "In a few words I give you my opinion—Those who
have just murdered the father have also ruined the daughter."
By daylight Lydie had yielded to fatigue; when the great surgeon
and the young physician arrived she was asleep.
The doctor, whose duty it was to sign the death certificate, had
now opened Peyrade's body, and was seeking the cause of death.
"While waiting for your patient to awake," said Corentin to the two
famous doctors, "would you join one of your professional brethren in
an examination which cannot fail to interest you, and your opinion
will be valuable in case of an inquiry."
"Your relations died of apoplexy," said the official. "There are
all the symptoms of violent congestion of the brain."
"Examine him, gentlemen, and see if there is no poison capable of
producing similar symptoms."
"The stomach is, in fact, full of food substances; but short of
chemical analysis, I find no evidence of poison.
"If the characters of cerebral congestion are well ascertained, we
have here, considering the patient's age, a sufficient cause of
death," observed Desplein, looking at the enormous mass of material.
"Did he sup here?" asked Bianchon.
"No," said Corentin; "he came here in great haste from the
Boulevard, and found his daughter ruined——"
"That was the poison if he loved his daughter," said Bianchon.
"What known poison could produce a similar effect?" asked Corentin,
clinging to his idea.
"There is but one," said Desplein, after a careful examination. "It
is a poison found in the Malayan Archipelago, and derived from trees,
as yet but little known, of the strychnos family; it is used to poison
that dangerous weapon, the Malay kris.—At least, so it is reported."
The Police Commissioner presently arrived; Corentin told him his
suspicions, and begged him to draw up a report, telling him where and
with whom Peyrade had supped, and the causes of the state in which he
found Lydie.
Corentin then went to Lydie's rooms; Desplein and Bianchon had been
examining the poor child. He met them at the door.
"Well, gentlemen?" asked Corentin.
"Place the girl under medical care; unless she recovers her wits
when her child is born—if indeed she should have a child—she will
end her days melancholy-mad. There is no hope of a cure but in the
maternal instinct, if it can be aroused."
Corentin paid each of the physicians forty francs in gold, and then
turned to the Police Commissioner, who had pulled him by the sleeve.
"The medical officer insists on it that death was natural," said
this functionary, "and I can hardly report the case, especially as the
dead man was old Canquoelle; he had his finger in too many pies, and
we should not be sure whom we might run foul of. Men like that die to
order very often——"
"And my name is Corentin," said Corentin in the man's ear.
The Commissioner started with surprise.
"So just make a note of all this," Corentin went on; "it will be
very useful by and by; send it up only as confidential information.
The crime cannot be proved, and I know that any inquiry would be
checked at the very outset.—But I will catch the criminals some day
yet. I will watch them and take them red-handed."
The police official bowed to Corentin and left.
"Monsieur," said Katt. "Mademoiselle does nothing but dance and
sing. What can I do?"
"Has any change occurred then?"
"She has understood that her father is just dead."
"Put her into a hackney coach, and simply take her to Charenton; I
will write a note to the Commissioner-General of Police to secure her
being suitably provided for.—The daughter in Charenton, the father in
a pauper's grave!" said Corentin—"Contenson, go and fetch the parish
hearse. And now, Don Carlos Herrera, you and I will fight it out!"
"Carlos?" said Contenson, "he is in Spain."
"He is in Paris," said Corentin positively. "There is a touch of
Spanish genius of the Philip II. type in all this; but I have pitfalls
for everybody, even for kings."
Five days after the nabob's disappearance, Madame du Val-Noble was
sitting by Esther's bedside weeping, for she felt herself on one of
the slopes down to poverty.
"If I only had at least a hundred louis a year! With that sum, my
dear, a woman can retire to some little town and find a husband——"
"I can get you as much as that," said Esther.
"How?" cried Madame du Val-Noble.
"Oh, in a very simple way. Listen. You must plan to kill yourself;
play your part well. Send for Asie and offer her ten thousand francs
for two black beads of very thin glass containing a poison which kills
you in a second. Bring them to me, and I will give you fifty thousand
francs for them."
"Why do you not ask her for them yourself?" said her friend.
"Asie would not sell them to me."
"They are not for yourself?" asked Madame du Val-Noble.
"Perhaps."
"You! who live in the midst of pleasure and luxury, in a house of
your own? And on the eve of an entertainment which will be the talk of
Paris for ten years—which is to cost Nucingen twenty thousand francs!
There are to be strawberries in mid-February, they say, asparagus,
grapes, melons!—and a thousand crowns' worth of flowers in the
rooms."
"What are you talking about? There are a thousand crowns' worth of
roses on the stairs alone."
"And your gown is said to have cost ten thousand francs?"
"Yes, it is of Brussels point, and Delphine, his wife, is furious.
But I had a fancy to be disguised as a bride."
"Where are the ten thousand francs?" asked Madame du Val-Noble.
"It is all the ready money I have," said Esther, smiling. "Open my
table drawer; it is under the curl-papers."
"People who talk of dying never kill themselves," said Madame du
Val- Noble. "If it were to commit——"
"A crime? For shame!" said Esther, finishing her friend's thought,
as she hesitated. "Be quite easy, I have no intention of killing
anybody. I had a friend—a very happy woman; she is dead, I must
follow her— that is all."
"How foolish!"
"How can I help it? I promised her I would."
"I should let that bill go dishonored," said her friend, smiling.
"Do as I tell you, and go at once. I hear a carriage coming. It is
Nucingen, a man who will go mad with joy! Yes, he loves me!—Why do we
not love those who love us, for indeed they do all they can to please
us?"
"Ah, that is the question!" said Madame du Val-Noble. "It is the
old story of the herring, which is the most puzzling fish that swims."
"Why?"
"Well, no one could ever find out."
"Get along, my dear!—I must ask for your fifty thousand francs."
"Good-bye then."
For three days past, Esther's ways with the Baron de Nucingen had
completely changed. The monkey had become a cat, the cat had become a
woman. Esther poured out treasures of affection on the old man; she
was quite charming. Her way of addressing him, with a total absence of
mischief or bitterness, and all sorts of tender insinuation, had
carried conviction to the banker's slow wit; she called him Fritz, and
he believed that she loved him.
"My poor Fritz, I have tried you sorely," said she. "I have teased
you shamefully. Your patience has been sublime. You loved me, I see,
and I will reward you. I like you now, I do not know how it is, but I
should prefer you to a young man. It is the result of experience
perhaps.—In the long run we discover at last that pleasure is the
coin of the soul; and it is not more flattering to be loved for the
sake of pleasure than it is to be loved for the sake of money.
"Besides, young men are too selfish; they think more of themselves
than of us; while you, now, think only of me. I am all your life to
you. And I will take nothing more from you. I want to prove to you how
disinterested I am."
"Vy, I hafe gifen you notink," cried the Baron, enchanted. "I
propose to gife you to-morrow tirty tousant francs a year in a
Government bond. Dat is mein vedding gift."
Esther kissed the Baron so sweetly that he turned pale without any
pills.
"Oh!" cried she, "do not suppose that I am sweet to you only for
your thirty thousand francs! It is because—now—I love you, my good,
fat Frederic."
"Ach, mein Gott! Vy hafe you kept me vaiting? I might hafe been so
happy all dese tree monts."
"In three or in five per cents, my pet?" said Esther, passing her
fingers through Nucingen's hair, and arranging it in a fashion of her
own.
"In trees—I hat a quantity."
So next morning the Baron brought the certificate of shares; he
came to breakfast with his dear little girl, and to take her orders
for the following evening, the famous Saturday, the great day!
"Here, my little vife, my only vife," said the banker gleefully,
his face radiant with happiness. "Here is enough money to pay for your
keep for de rest of your days."
Esther took the paper without the slightest excitement, folded it
up, and put it in her dressing-table drawer.
"So now you are quite happy, you monster of iniquity!" said she,
giving Nucingen a little slap on the cheek, "now that I have at last
accepted a present from you. I can no longer tell you home-truths, for
I share the fruit of what you call your labors. This is not a gift, my
poor old boy, it is restitution.—Come, do not put on your Bourse
face. You know that I love you."
"My lofely Esther, mein anchel of lofe," said the banker, "do not
speak to me like dat. I tell you, I should not care ven all de vorld
took me for a tief, if you should tink me ein honest man.—I lofe you
every day more and more."
"That is my intention," said Esther. "And I will never again say
anything to distress you, my pet elephant, for you are grown as
artless as a baby. Bless me, you old rascal, you have never known any
innocence; the allowance bestowed on you when you came into the world
was bound to come to the top some day; but it was buried so deep that
it is only now reappearing at the age of sixty-six. Fished up by
love's barbed hook.—This phenomenon is seen in old men.
"And this is why I have learned to love you, you are young—so
young! No one but I would ever have known this, Frederic—I alone. For
you were a banker at fifteen; even at college you must have lent your
school-fellows one marble on condition of their returning two."
Seeing him laugh, she sprang on to his knee.
"Well, you must do as you please! Bless me! plunder the men—go
ahead, and I will help. Men are not worth loving; Napoleon killed them
off like flies. Whether they pay taxes to you or to the Government,
what difference does it make to them? You don't make love over the
budget, and on my honor!—go ahead, I have thought it over, and you
are right. Shear the sheep! you will find it in the gospel according
to Beranger.
"Now, kiss your Esther.—I say, you will give that poor Val-Noble
all the furniture in the Rue Taitbout? And to-morrow I wish you would
give her fifty thousand francs—it would look handsome, my duck. You
see, you killed Falleix; people are beginning to cry out upon you, and
this liberality will look Babylonian—all the women will talk about
it! Oh! there will be no one in Paris so grand, so noble as you; and
as the world is constituted, Falleix will be forgotten. So, after all,
it will be money deposited at interest."
"You are right, mein anchel; you know the vorld," he replied. "You
shall be mein adfiser."
"Well, you see," said Esther, "how I study my man's interest, his
position and honor.—Go at once and bring those fifty thousand
francs."
She wanted to get rid of Monsieur de Nucingen so as to get a
stockbroker to sell the bond that very afternoon.
"But vy dis minute?" asked he.
"Bless me, my sweetheart, you must give it to her in a little satin
box wrapped round a fan. You must say, 'Here, madame, is a fan which I
hope may be to your taste.'—You are supposed to be a Turcaret, and
you will become a Beaujon."
"Charming, charming!" cried the Baron. "I shall be so clever
henceforth.—Yes, I shall repeat your vorts."
Just as Esther had sat down, tired with the effort of playing her
part, Europe came in.
"Madame," said she, "here is a messenger sent from the Quai
Malaquais by Celestin, M. Lucien's servant——"
"Bring him in—no, I will go into the ante-room."
"He has a letter for you, madame, from Celestin."
Esther rushed into the ante-room, looked at the messenger, and saw
that he looked like the genuine thing.
"Tell HIM to come down," said Esther, in a feeble voice and
dropping into a chair after reading the letter. "Lucien means to kill
himself," she added in a whisper to Europe. "No, take the letter up to
him."
Carlos Herrera, still in his disguise as a bagman, came downstairs
at once, and keenly scrutinized the messenger on seeing a stranger in
the ante-room.
"You said there was no one here," said he in a whisper to Europe.
And with an excess of prudence, after looking at the messenger, he
went straight into the drawing-room. Trompe-la-Mort did not know that
for some time past the famous constable of the detective force who had
arrested him at the Maison Vauquer had a rival, who, it was supposed,
would replace him. This rival was the messenger.
"They are right," said the sham messenger to Contenson, who was
waiting for him in the street. "The man you describe is in the house;
but he is not a Spaniard, and I will burn my hand off if there is not
a bird for our net under that priest's gown."
"He is no more a priest than he is a Spaniard," said Contenson.
"I am sure of that," said the detective.
"Oh, if only we were right!" said Contenson.
Lucien had been away for two days, and advantage had been taken of
his absence to lay this snare, but he returned this evening, and the
courtesan's anxieties were allayed. Next morning, at the hour when
Esther, having taken a bath, was getting into bed again, Madame du
Val-Noble arrived.
"I have the two pills!" said her friend.
"Let me see," said Esther, raising herself with her pretty elbow
buried in a pillow trimmed with lace.
Madame du Val-Noble held out to her what looked like two black
currants.
The Baron had given Esther a pair of greyhounds of famous pedigree,
which will be always known by the name of the great contemporary poet
who made them fashionable; and Esther, proud of owning them, had
called them by the names of their parents, Romeo and Juliet. No need
here to describe the whiteness and grace of these beasts, trained for
the drawing-room, with manners suggestive of English propriety. Esther
called Romeo; Romeo ran up on legs so supple and thin, so strong and
sinewy, that they seemed like steel springs, and looked up at his
mistress. Esther, to attract his attention, pretended to throw one of
the pills.
"He is doomed by his nature to die thus," said she, as she threw
the pill, which Romeo crushed between his teeth.
The dog made no sound, he rolled over, and was stark dead. It was
all over while Esther spoke these words of epitaph.
"Good God!" shrieked Madame du Val-Noble.
"You have a cab waiting. Carry away the departed Romeo," said
Esther. "His death would make a commotion here. I have given him to
you, and you have lost him—advertise for him. Make haste; you will
have your fifty thousand francs this evening."
She spoke so calmly, so entirely with the cold indifference of a
courtesan, that Madame du Val-Noble exclaimed:
"You are the Queen of us all!"
"Come early, and look very well——"
At five o'clock Esther dressed herself as a bride. She put on her
lace dress over white satin, she had a white sash, white satin shoes,
and a scarf of English point lace over her beautiful shoulders. In her
hair she placed white camellia flowers, the simple ornament of an
innocent girl. On her bosom lay a pearl necklace worth thirty thousand
francs, a gift from Nucingen.
Though she was dressed by six, she refused to see anybody, even the
banker. Europe knew that Lucien was to be admitted to her room. Lucien
came at about seven, and Europe managed to get him up to her mistress
without anybody knowing of his arrival.
Lucien, as he looked at her, said to himself, "Why not go and live
with her at Rubempre, far from the world, and never see Paris again? I
have an earnest of five years of her life, and the dear creature is
one of those who never belie themselves! Where can I find such another
perfect masterpiece?"
"My dear, you whom I have made my God," said Esther, kneeling down
on a cushion in front of Lucien, "give me your blessing."
Lucien tried to raise her and kiss her, saying, "What is this jest,
my dear love?" And he would have put his arm round her, but she freed
herself with a gesture as much of respect as of horror.
"I am no longer worthy of you, Lucien," said she, letting the tears
rise to her eyes. "I implore you, give me your blessing, and swear to
me that you will found two beds at the Hotel-Dieu—for, as to prayers
in church, God will never forgive me unless I pray myself.
"I have loved you too well, my dear. Tell me that I made you happy,
and that you will sometimes think of me.—Tell me that!"
Lucien saw that Esther was solemnly in earnest, and he sat
thinking.
"You mean to kill yourself," said he at last, in a tone of voice
that revealed deep reflection.
"No," said she. "But to-day, my dear, the woman dies, the pure,
chaste, and loving woman who once was yours.—And I am very much
afraid that I shall die of grief."
"Poor child," said Lucien, "wait! I have worked hard these two
days. I have succeeded in seeing Clotilde——"
"Always Clotilde!" cried Esther, in a tone of concentrated rage.
"Yes," said he, "we have written to each other.—On Tuesday morning
she is to set out for Italy, but I shall meet her on the road for an
interview at Fontainebleau."
"Bless me! what is it that you men want for wives? Wooden laths?"
cried poor Esther. "If I had seven or eight millions, would you not
marry me—come now?"
"Child! I was going to say that if all is over for me, I will have
no wife but you."
Esther bent her head to hide her sudden pallor and the tears she
wiped away.
"You love me?" said she, looking at Lucien with the deepest
melancholy. "Well, that is my sufficient blessing.—Do not compromise
yourself. Go away by the side door, and come in to the drawing-room
through the ante-room. Kiss me on the forehead."
She threw her arms round Lucien, clasped him to her heart with
frenzy, and said again:
"Go, only go—or I must live."
When the doomed woman appeared in the drawing-room, there was a cry
of admiration. Esther's eyes expressed infinitude in which the soul
sank as it looked into them. Her blue-black and beautiful hair set off
the camellias. In short, this exquisite creature achieved all the
effects she had intended. She had no rival. She looked like the
supreme expression of that unbridled luxury which surrounded her in
every form. Then she was brilliantly witty. She ruled the orgy with
the cold, calm power that Habeneck displays when conducting at the
Conservatoire, at those concerts where the first musicians in Europe
rise to the sublime in interpreting Mozart and Beethoven.
But she observed with terror that Nucingen ate little, drank
nothing, and was quite the master of the house.
By midnight everybody was crazy. The glasses were broken that they
might never be used again; two of the Chinese curtains were torn;
Bixiou was drunk, for the second time in his life. No one could keep
his feet, the women were asleep on the sofas, and the guests were
incapable of carrying out the practical joke they had planned of
escorting Esther and Nucingen to the bedroom, standing in two lines
with candles in their hands, and singing Buona sera from the Barber of
Seville.
Nucingen simply gave Esther his hand. Bixiou, who saw them, though
tipsy, was still able to say, like Rivarol, on the occasion of the Duc
de Richelieu's last marriage, "The police must be warned; there is
mischief brewing here."
The jester thought he was jesting; he was a prophet.
Monsieur de Nucingen did not go home till Monday at about noon. But
at one o'clock his broker informed him that Mademoiselle Esther van
Bogseck had sold the bond bearing thirty thousand francs interest on
Friday last, and had just received the money.
"But, Monsieur le Baron, Derville's head-clerk called on me just as
I was settling this transfer; and after seeing Mademoiselle Esther's
real names, he told me she had come into a fortune of seven millions."
"Pooh!"
"Yes, she is the only heir to the old bill-discounter Gobseck.—
Derville will verify the facts. If your mistress' mother was the
handsome Dutch woman, la Belle Hollandaise, as they called her, she
comes in for——"
"I know dat she is," cried the banker. "She tolt me all her life. I
shall write ein vort to Derville."
The Baron at down at his desk, wrote a line to Derville, and sent
it by one of his servants. Then, after going to the Bourse, he went
back to Esther's house at about three o'clock.
"Madame forbade our waking her on any pretence whatever. She is in
bed —asleep——"
"Ach der Teufel!" said the Baron. "But, Europe, she shall not be
angry to be tolt that she is fery, fery rich. She shall inherit seven
millions. Old Gobseck is deat, and your mis'ess is his sole heir, for
her moter vas Gobseck's own niece; and besides, he shall hafe left a
vill. I could never hafe tought that a millionaire like dat man should
hafe left Esther in misery!"
"Ah, ha! Then your reign is over, old pantaloon!" said Europe,
looking at the Baron with an effrontery worthy of one of Moliere's
waiting- maids. "Shooh! you old Alsatian crow! She loves you as we
love the plague! Heavens above us! Millions!—Why, she may marry her
lover; won't she be glad!"
And Prudence Servien left the Baron simply thunder-stricken, to be
the first to announce to her mistress this great stroke of luck. The
old man, intoxicated with superhuman enjoyment, and believing himself
happy, had just received a cold shower-bath on his passion at the
moment when it had risen to the intensest white heat.
"She vas deceiving me!" cried he, with tears in his eyes. "Yes, she
vas cheating me. Oh, Esther, my life,! Vas a fool hafe I been! Can
such flowers ever bloom for de old men! I can buy all vat I vill
except only yout!—Ach Gott, ach Gott! Vat shall I do! Vat shall
become of me!—She is right, dat cruel Europe. Esther, if she is rich,
shall not be for me. Shall I go hank myself? Vat is life midout de
divine flame of joy dat I have known? Mein Gott, mein Gott!"
The old man snatched off the false hair he had combed in with his
gray hairs these three months past.
A piercing shriek from Europe made Nucingen quail to his very
bowels. The poor banker rose and walked upstairs on legs that were
drunk with the bowl of disenchantment he had just swallowed to the
dregs, for nothing is more intoxicating than the wine of disaster.
At the door of her room he could see Esther stiff on her bed, blue
with poison—dead!
He went up to the bed and dropped on his knees.
"You are right! She tolt me so!—She is dead—of me——"
Paccard, Asie, every one hurried in. It was a spectacle, a shock,
but not despair. Every one had their doubts. The Baron was a banker
again. A suspicion crossed his mind, and he was so imprudent as to ask
what had become of the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, the
price of the bond. Paccard, Asie, and Europe looked at each other so
strangely that Monsieur de Nucingen left the house at once, believing
that robbery and murder had been committed. Europe, detecting a packet
of soft consistency, betraying the contents to be banknotes, under her
mistress' pillow, proceeded at once to "lay her out," as she said.
"Go and tell monsieur, Asie!—Oh, to die before she knew that she
had seven millions! Gobseck was poor madame's uncle!" said she.
Europe's stratagem was understood by Paccard. As soon as Asie's
back was turned, Europe opened the packet, on which the hapless
courtesan had written: "To be delivered to Monsieur Lucien de
Rubempre."
Seven hundred and fifty thousand-franc notes shone in the eyes of
Prudence Servien, who exclaimed:
"Won't we be happy and honest for the rest of our lives!"
Paccard made no objection. His instincts as a thief were stronger
than his attachment to Trompe-la-Mort.
"Durut is dead," he said at length; "my shoulder is still a proof
before letters. Let us be off together; divide the money, so as not to
have all our eggs in one basket, and then get married."
"But where can we hide?" said Prudence.
"In Paris," replied Paccard.
Prudence and Paccard went off at once, with the promptitude of two
honest folks transformed into robbers.
"My child," said Carlos to Asie, as soon as she had said three
words, "find some letter of Esther's while I write a formal will, and
then take the copy and the letter to Girard; but he must be quick. The
will must be under Esther's pillow before the lawyers affix the seals
here."
And he wrote out the following will:—
"Never having loved any one on earth but Monsieur Lucien Chardon
de Rubempre, and being resolved to end my life rather than
relapse
into vice and the life of infamy from which he rescued me, I give
and bequeath to the said Lucien Chardon de Rubempre all I may
possess at the time of my decease, on condition of his founding a
mass in perpetuity in the parish church of Saint-Roch for the
repose of her who gave him her all, to her last thought.
"ESTHER GOBSECK."
"That is quite in her style," thought Trompe-la-Mort.
By seven in the evening this document, written and sealed, was
placed by Asie under Esther's bolster.
"Jacques," said she, flying upstairs again, "just as I came out of
the room justice marched in——"
"The justice of the peace you mean?"
"No, my son. The justice of the peace was there, but he had
gendarmes with him. The public prosecutor and the examining judge are
there too, and the doors are guarded."
"This death has made a stir very quickly," remarked Jacques Collin.
"Ay, and Paccard and Europe have vanished; I am afraid they may
have scared away the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs," said
Asie.
"The low villains!" said Collin. "They have done for us by their
swindling game."
Human justice, and Paris justice, that is to say, the most
suspicious, keenest, cleverest, and omniscient type of justice—too
clever, indeed, for it insists on interpreting the law at every
turn—was at last on the point of laying its hand on the agents of
this horrible intrigue.
The Baron of Nucingen, on recognizing the evidence of poison, and
failing to find his seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, imagined
that one of two persons whom he greatly disliked—either Paccard or
Europe—was guilty of the crime. In his first impulse of rage he flew
to the prefecture of police. This was a stroke of a bell that called
up all Corentin's men. The officials of the prefecture, the legal
profession, the chief of the police, the justice of the peace, the
examining judge,—all were astir. By nine in the evening three medical
men were called in to perform an autopsy on poor Esther, and inquiries
were set on foot.
Trompe-la-Mort, warned by Asie, exclaimed:
"No one knows that I am here; I may take an airing." He pulled
himself up by the skylight of his garret, and with marvelous agility
was standing in an instant on the roof, whence he surveyed the
surroundings with the coolness of a tiler.
"Good!" said he, discerning a garden five houses off in the Rue de
Provence, "that will just do for me."
"You are paid out, Trompe-la-Mort," said Contenson, suddenly
emerging from behind a stack of chimneys. "You may explain to Monsieur
Camusot what mass you were performing on the roof, Monsieur l'Abbe,
and, above all, why you were escaping——"
"I have enemies in Spain," said Carlos Herrera.
"We can go there by way of your attic," said Contenson.
The sham Spaniard pretended to yield; but, having set his back and
feet across the opening of the skylight, he gripped Contenson and
flung him off with such violence that the spy fell in the gutter of
the Rue Saint-Georges.
Contenson was dead on his field of honor; Jacques Collin quietly
dropped into the room again and went to bed.
"Give me something that will make me very sick without killing me,"
said he to Asie; "for I must be at death's door, to avoid answering
inquisitive persons. I have just got rid of a man in the most natural
way, who might have unmasked me."
At seven o'clock on the previous evening Lucien had set out in his
own chaise to post to Fontainebleau with a passport he had procured in
the morning; he slept in the nearest inn on the Nemours side. At six
in the morning he went alone, and on foot, through the forest as far
as Bouron.
"This," said he to himself, as he sat down on one of the rocks that
command the fine landscape of Bouron, "is the fatal spot where
Napoleon dreamed of making a final tremendous effort on the eve of his
abdication."
At daybreak he heard the approach of post-horses and saw a britska
drive past, in which sat the servants of the Duchesse de Lenoncourt-
Chaulieu and Clotilde de Grandlieu's maid.
"Here they are!" thought Lucien. "Now, to play the farce well, and
I shall be saved!—the Duc de Grandlieu's son-in-law in spite of him!"
It was an hour later when he heard the peculiar sound made by a
superior traveling carriage, as the berline came near in which two
ladies were sitting. They had given orders that the drag should be put
on for the hill down to Bouron, and the man-servant behind the
carriage had it stopped.
At this instant Lucien came forward.
"Clotilde!" said he, tapping on the window.
"No," said the young Duchess to her friend, "he shall not get into
the carriage, and we will not be alone with him, my dear. Speak to him
for the last time—to that I consent; but on the road, where we will
walk on, and where Baptiste can escort us.—The morning is fine, we
are well wrapped up, and have no fear of the cold. The carriage can
follow."
The two women got out.
"Baptiste," said the Duchess, "the post-boy can follow slowly; we
want to walk a little way. You must keep near us."
Madeleine de Mortsauf took Clotilde by the arm and allowed Lucien
to talk. They thus walked on as far as the village of Grez. It was now
eight o'clock, and there Clotilde dismissed Lucien.
"Well, my friend," said she, closing this long interview with much
dignity, "I never shall marry any one but you. I would rather believe
in you than in other men, in my father and mother—no woman ever gave
greater proof of attachment surely?—Now, try to counteract the fatal
prejudices which militate against you."
Just then the tramp of galloping horses was heard, and, to the
great amazement of the ladies, a force of gendarmes surrounded the
little party.
"What do you want?" said Lucien, with the arrogance of a dandy.
"Are you Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre?" asked the public prosecutor
of Fontainebleau.
"Yes, monsieur."
"You will spend to-night in La Force," said he. "I have a warrant
for the detention of your person."
"Who are these ladies?" asked the sergeant.
"To be sure.—Excuse me, ladies—your passports? For Monsieur
Lucien, as I am instructed, had acquaintances among the fair sex, who
for him would——"
"Do you take the Duchesse de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu for a prostitute?"
said Madeleine, with a magnificent flash at the public prosecutor.
"You are handsome enough to excuse the error," the magistrate very
cleverly retorted.
"Baptiste, produce the passports," said the young Duchess with a
smile.
"And with what crime is Monsieur de Rubempre charged?" asked
Clotilde, whom the Duchess wished to see safe in the carriage.
"Of being accessory to a robbery and murder," replied the sergeant
of gendarmes.
Baptiste lifted Mademoiselle de Grandlieu into the chaise in a dead
faint.
By midnight Lucien was entering La Force, a prison situated between
the Rue Payenne and the Rue des Ballets, where he was placed in
solitary confinement.
The Abbe Carlos Herrera was also there, having been arrested that
evening.
THE END OF EVIL WAYS
At six o'clock next morning two vehicles with postilions, prison
vans, called in the vigorous language of the populace, paniers a
salade, came out of La Force to drive to the Conciergerie by the
Palais de Justice.
Few loafers in Paris can have failed to meet this prison cell on
wheels; still, though most stories are written for Parisian readers,
strangers will no doubt be satisfied to have a description of this
formidable machine. Who knows? A police of Russia, Germany, or
Austria, the legal body of countries to whom the "Salad-basket" is an
unknown machine, may profit by it; and in several foreign countries
there can be no doubt that an imitation of this vehicle would be a
boon to prisoners.
This ignominious conveyance, yellow-bodied, on high wheels, and
lined with sheet-iron, is divided into two compartments. In front is a
box- seat, with leather cushions and an apron. This is the free seat
of the van, and accommodates a sheriff's officer and a gendarme. A
strong iron trellis, reaching to the top, separates this sort of
cab-front from the back division, in which there are two wooden seats
placed sideways, as in an omnibus, on which the prisoners sit. They
get in by a step behind and a door, with no window. The nickname of
Salad-basket arose from the fact that the vehicle was originally made
entirely of lattice, and the prisoners were shaken in it just as a
salad is shaken to dry it.
For further security, in case of accident, a mounted gendarme
follows the machine, especially when it conveys criminals condemned to
death to the place of execution. Thus escape is impossible. The
vehicle, lined with sheet-iron, is impervious to any tool. The
prisoners, carefully searched when they are arrested or locked up, can
have nothing but watch-springs, perhaps, to file through bars, and
useless on a smooth surface.
So the panier a salade, improved by the genius of the Paris police,
became the model for the prison omnibus (known in London as "Black
Maria") in which convicts are transported to the hulks, instead of the
horrible tumbril which formerly disgraced civilization, though Manon
Lescaut had made it famous.
The accused are, in the first instance, despatched in the prison
van from the various prisons in Paris to the Palais de Justice, to be
questioned by the examining judge. This, in prison slang, is called
"going up for examination." Then the accused are again conveyed from
prison to the Court to be sentenced when their case is only a
misdemeanor; or if, in legal parlance, the case is one for the Upper
Court, they are transferred from the house of detention to the
Conciergerie, the "Newgate" of the Department of the Seine.
Finally, the prison van carries the criminal condemned to death
from Bicetre to the Barriere Saint-Jacques, where executions are
carried out, and have been ever since the Revolution of July. Thanks
to philanthropic interference, the poor wretches no longer have to
face the horrors of the drive from the Conciergerie to the Place de
Greve in a cart exactly like that used by wood merchants. This cart is
no longer used but to bring the body back from the scaffold.
Without this explanation the words of a famous convict to his
accomplice, "It is now the horse's business!" as he got into the van,
would be unintelligible. It is impossible to be carried to execution
more comfortably than in Paris nowadays.
At this moment the two vans, setting out at such an early hour,
were employed on the unwonted service of conveying two accused
prisoners from the jail of La Force to the Conciergerie, and each man
had a "Salad-basket" to himself.
Nine-tenths of my readers, ay, and nine-tenths of the remaining
tenth, are certainly ignorant of the vast difference of meaning in the
words incriminated, suspected, accused, and committed for trial—jail,
house of detention, and penitentiary; and they may be surprised to
learn here that it involves all our criminal procedure, of which a
clear and brief outline will presently be sketched, as much for their
information as for the elucidation of this history. However, when it
is said that the first van contained Jacques Collin and the second
Lucien, who in a few hours had fallen from the summit of social
splendor to the depths of a prison cell, curiosity will for the moment
be satisfied.
The conduct of the two accomplices was characteristic; Lucien de
Rubempre shrank back to avoid the gaze of the passers-by, who looked
at the grated window of the gloomy and fateful vehicle on its road
along the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Rue du Martroi to reach the quay
and the Arch of Saint-Jean, the way, at that time, across the Place de
l'Hotel de Ville. This archway now forms the entrance gate to the
residence of the Prefet de la Seine in the huge municipal palace. The
daring convict, on the contrary, stuck his face against the barred
grating, between the officer and the gendarme, who, sure of their van,
were chatting together.
The great days of July 1830, and the tremendous storm that then
burst, have so completely wiped out the memory of all previous events,
and politics so entirely absorbed the French during the last six
months of that year, that no one remembers—or a few scarcely
remember—the various private, judicial, and financial catastrophes,
strange as they were, which, forming the annual flood of Parisian
curiosity, were not lacking during the first six months of the year.
It is, therefore, needful to mention how Paris was, for the moment,
excited by the news of the arrest of a Spanish priest, discovered in a
courtesan's house, and that of the elegant Lucien de Rubempre, who had
been engaged to Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu, taken on the
highroad to Italy, close to the little village of Grez. Both were
charged as being concerned in a murder, of which the profits were
stated at seven millions of francs; and for some days the scandal of
this trial preponderated over the absorbing importance of the last
elections held under Charles X.
In the first place, the charge had been based on an application by
the Baron de Nucingen; then, Lucien's apprehension, just as he was
about to be appointed private secretary to the Prime Minister, made a
stir in the very highest circles of society. In every drawing-room in
Paris more than one young man could recollect having envied Lucien
when he was honored by the notice of the beautiful Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse; and every woman knew that he was the favored attache of
Madame de Serizy, the wife of one of the Government bigwigs. And
finally, his handsome person gave him a singular notoriety in the
various worlds that make up Paris—the world of fashion, the financial
world, the world of courtesans, the young men's world, the literary
world. So for two days past all Paris had been talking of these two
arrests. The examining judge in whose hands the case was put regarded
it as a chance for promotion; and, to proceed with the utmost
rapidity, he had given orders that both the accused should be
transferred from La Force to the Conciergerie as soon as Lucien de
Rubempre could be brought from Fontainebleau.
As the Abbe Carlos had spent but twelve hours in La Force, and
Lucien only half a night, it is useless to describe that prison, which
has since been entirely remodeled; and as to the details of their
consignment, it would be only a repetition of the same story at the
Conciergerie.
But before setting forth the terrible drama of a criminal inquiry,
it is indispensable, as I have said, that an account should be given
of the ordinary proceedings in a case of this kind. To begin with, its
various phases will be better understood at home and abroad, and,
besides, those who are ignorant of the action of the criminal law, as
conceived of by the lawgivers under Napoleon, will appreciate it
better. This is all the more important as, at this moment, this great
and noble institution is in danger of destruction by the system known
as penitentiary.
A crime is committed; if it is flagrant, the persons incriminated
(inculpes) are taken to the nearest lock-up and placed in the cell
known to the vulgar as the Violon—perhaps because they make a noise
there, shrieking or crying. From thence the suspected persons
(inculpes) are taken before the police commissioner or magistrate, who
holds a preliminary inquiry, and can dismiss the case if there is any
mistake; finally, they are conveyed to the Depot of the Prefecture,
where the police detains them pending the convenience of the public
prosecutor and the examining judge. They, being served with due
notice, more or less quickly, according to the gravity of the case,
come and examine the prisoners who are still provisionally detained.
Having due regard to the presumptive evidence, the examining judge
then issues a warrant for their imprisonment, and sends the suspected
persons to be confined in a jail. There are three such jails (Maisons
d'Arret) in Paris—Sainte-Pelagie, La Force, and les Madelonettes.
Observe the word inculpe, incriminated, or suspected of crime. The
French Code has created three essential degrees of criminality—
inculpe, first degree of suspicion; prevenu, under examination;
accuse, fully committed for trial. So long as the warrant for
committal remains unsigned, the supposed criminal is regarded as
merely under suspicion, inculpe of the crime or felony; when the
warrant has been issued, he becomes "the accused" (prevenu), and is
regarded as such so long as the inquiry is proceeding; when the
inquiry is closed, and as soon as the Court has decided that the
accused is to be committed for trial, he becomes "the prisoner at the
bar" (accuse) as soon as the superior court, at the instance of the
public prosecutor, has pronounced that the charge is so far proved as
to be carried to the Assizes.
Thus, persons suspected of crime go through three different stages,
three siftings, before coming up for trial before the judges of the
upper Court—the High Justice of the realm.
At the first stage, innocent persons have abundant means of
exculpating themselves—the public, the town watch, the police. At the
second state they appear before a magistrate face to face with the
witnesses, and are judged by a tribunal in Paris, or by the Collective
Court of the departments. At the third stage they are brought before a
bench of twelve councillors, and in case of any error or informality
the prisoner committed for trial at the Assizes may appeal for
protection to the Supreme court. The jury do not know what a slap in
the face they give to popular authority, to administrative and
judicial functionaries, when they acquit a prisoner. And so, in my
opinion, it is hardly possible that an innocent man should ever find
himself at the bar of an Assize Court in Paris—I say nothing of other
seats of justice.
The detenu is the convict. French criminal law recognizes
imprisonment of three degrees, corresponding in legal distinction to
these three degrees of suspicion, inquiry, and conviction. Mere
imprisonment is a light penalty for misdemeanor, but detention is
imprisonment with hard labor, a severe and sometimes degrading
punishment. Hence, those persons who nowadays are in favor of the
penitentiary system would upset an admirable scheme of criminal law in
which the penalties are judiciously graduated, and they will end by
punishing the lightest peccadilloes as severely as the greatest
crimes.
The reader may compare in the Scenes of Political Life (for
instance, in Une Tenebreuse affaire) the curious differences
subsisting between the criminal law of Brumaire in the year IV., and
that of the Code Napoleon which has taken its place.
In most trials, as in this one, the suspected persons are at once
examined (and from inculpes become prevenus); justice immediately
issues a warrant for their arrest and imprisonment. In point of fact,
in most of such cases the criminals have either fled, or have been
instantly apprehended. Indeed, as we have seen the police, which is
but an instrument, and the officers of justice had descended on
Esther's house with the swiftness of a thunderbolt. Even if there had
not been the reasons for revenge suggested to the superior police by
Corentin, there was a robbery to be investigated of seven hundred and
fifty thousand francs from the Baron de Nucingen.
Just as the first prison van, conveying Jacques Collin, reached the
archway of Saint-Jean—a narrow, dark passage, some block ahead
compelled the postilion to stop under the vault. The prisoner's eyes
shone like carbuncles through the grating, in spite of his aspect as
of a dying man, which, the day before, had led the governor of La
Force to believe that the doctor must be called in. These flaming
eyes, free to rove at this moment, for neither the officer nor the
gendarme looked round at their "customer," spoke so plain a language
that a clever examining judge, M. Popinot, for instance, would have
identified the man convicted for sacrilege.
In fact, ever since the "salad-basket" had turned out of the gate
of La Force, Jacques Collin had studied everything on his way.
Notwithstanding the pace they had made, he took in the houses with an
eager and comprehensive glance from the ground floor to the attics. He
saw and noted every passer-by. God Himself is not more clear-seeing as
to the means and ends of His creatures than this man in observing the
slightest differences in the medley of things and people. Armed with
hope, as the last of the Horatii was armed with his sword, he expected
help. To anybody but this Machiavelli of the hulks, this hope would
have seemed so absolutely impossible to realize that he would have
gone on mechanically, as all guilty men do. Not one of them ever
dreams of resistance when he finds himself in the position to which
justice and the Paris police bring suspected persons, especially those
who, like Collin and Lucien, are in solitary confinement.
It is impossible to conceive of the sudden isolation in which a
suspected criminal is placed. The gendarmes who apprehend him, the
commissioner who questions him, those who take him to prison, the
warders who lead him to his cell—which is actually called a cachot, a
dungeon or hiding-place, those again who take him by the arms to put
him into a prison-van—every being that comes near him from the moment
of his arrest is either speechless, or takes note of all he says, to
be repeated to the police or to the judge. This total severance, so
simply effected between the prisoner and the world, gives rise to a
complete overthrow of his faculties and a terrible prostration of
mind, especially when the man has not been familiarized by his
antecedents with the processes of justice. The duel between the judge
and the criminal is all the more appalling because justice has on its
side the dumbness of blank walls and the incorruptible coldness of its
agents.
But Jacques Collin, or Carlos Herrera—it will be necessary to
speak of him by one or the other of these names according to the
circumstances of the case—had long been familiar with the methods of
the police, of the jail, and of justice. This colossus of cunning and
corruption had employed all his powers of mind, and all the resources
of mimicry, to affect the surprise and anility of an innocent man,
while giving the lawyers the spectacle of his sufferings. As has been
told, Asie, that skilled Locusta, had given him a dose of poison so
qualified as to produce the effects of a dreadful illness.
Thus Monsieur Camusot, the police commissioner, and the public
prosecutor had been baffled in their proceedings and inquiries by the
effects apparently of an apoplectic attack.
"He has taken poison!" cried Monsieur Camusot, horrified by the
sufferings of the self-styled priest when he had been carried down
from the attic writhing in convulsions.
Four constables had with great difficulty brought the Abbe Carlos
downstairs to Esther's room, where the lawyers and the gendarmes were
assembled.
"That was the best thing he could do if he should be guilty,"
replied the public prosecutor.
"Do you believe that he is ill?" the police commissioner asked.
The police is always incredulous.
The three lawyers had spoken, as may be imagined, in a whisper; but
Jacques Collin had guessed from their faces the subject under
discussion, and had taken advantage of it to make the first brief
examination which is gone through on arrest absolutely impossible and
useless; he had stammered out sentences in which Spanish and French
were so mingled as to make nonsense.
At La Force this farce had been all the more successful in the
first instance because the head of the "safety" force—an abbreviation
of the title "Head of the brigade of the guardians of public safety"—
Bibi-Lupin, who had long since taken Jacques Collin into custody at
Madame Vauquer's boarding-house, had been sent on special business
into the country, and his deputy was a man who hoped to succeed him,
but to whom the convict was unknown.
Bibi-Lupin, himself formerly a convict, and a comrade of Jacques
Collin's on the hulks, was his personal enemy. This hostility had its
rise in quarrels in which Jacques Collin had always got the upper
hand, and in the supremacy over his fellow-prisoners which Trompe-la-
Mort had always assumed. And then, for ten years now, Jacques Collin
had been the ruling providence of released convicts in Paris, their
head, their adviser, and their banker, and consequently Bibi-Lupin's
antagonist.
Thus, though placed in solitary confinement, he trusted to the
intelligent and unreserved devotion of Asie, his right hand, and
perhaps, too, to Paccard, his left hand, who, as he flattered himself,
might return to his allegiance when once that thrifty subaltern had
safely bestowed the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs that he
had stolen. This was the reason why his attention had been so
superhumanly alert all along the road. And, strange to say! his hopes
were about to be amply fulfilled.
The two solid side-walls of the archway were covered, to a height
of six feet, with a permanent dado of mud formed of the splashes from
the gutter; for, in those days, the foot passenger had no protection
from the constant traffic of vehicles and from what was called the
kicking of the carts, but curbstones placed upright at intervals, and
much ground away by the naves of the wheels. More than once a heavy
truck had crushed a heedless foot-passenger under that arch-way. Such
indeed Paris remained in many districts and till long after. This
circumstance may give some idea of the narrowness of the Saint-Jean
gate and the ease with which it could be blocked. If a cab should be
coming through from the Place de Greve while a costermonger-woman was
pushing her little truck of apples in from the Rue du Martroi, a third
vehicle of any kind produced difficulties. The foot-passengers fled in
alarm, seeking a corner-stone to protect them from the old-fashioned
axles, which had attained such prominence that a law was passed at
last to reduce their length.
When the prison van came in, this passage was blocked by a market
woman with a costermonger's vegetable cart—one of a type which is all
the more strange because specimens still exist in Paris in spite of
the increasing number of green-grocers' shops. She was so thoroughly a
street hawker that a Sergeant de Ville, if that particular class of
police had been then in existence, would have allowed her to ply her
trade without inspecting her permit, in spite of a sinister
countenance that reeked of crime. Her head, wrapped in a cheap and
ragged checked cotton kerchief, was horrid with rebellious locks of
hair, like the bristles of a wild boar. Her red and wrinkled neck was
disgusting, and her little shawl failed entirely to conceal a chest
tanned brown by the sun, dust, and mud. Her gown was patchwork; her
shoes gaped as though they were grinning at a face as full of holes as
the gown. And what an apron! a plaster would have been less filthy.
This moving and fetid rag must have stunk in the nostrils of dainty
folks ten yards away. Those hands had gleaned a hundred harvest
fields. Either the woman had returned from a German witches' Sabbath,
or she had come out of a mendicity asylum. But what eyes! what
audacious intelligence, what repressed vitality when the magnetic
flash of her look and of Jacques Collin's met to exchange a thought!
"Get out of the way, you old vermin-trap!" cried the postilion in
harsh tones.
"Mind you don't crush me, you hangman's apprentice!" she retorted.
"Your cartful is not worth as much as mine."
And by trying to squeeze in between two corner-stones to make way,
the hawker managed to block the passage long enough to achieve her
purpose.
"Oh! Asie!" said Jacques Collin to himself, at once recognizing his
accomplice. "Then all is well."
The post-boy was still exchanging amenities with Asie, and vehicles
were collecting in the Rue du Martroi.
"Look out, there—Pecaire fermati. Souni la—Vedrem," shrieked old
Asie, with the Red-Indian intonations peculiar to these female
costermongers, who disfigure their words in such a way that they are
transformed into a sort onomatopoeia incomprehensible to any but
Parisians.
In the confusion in the alley, and among the outcries of all the
waiting drivers, no one paid any heed to this wild yell, which might
have been the woman's usual cry. But this gibberish, intelligible to
Jacques Collin, sent to his ear in a mongrel language of their own—a
mixture of bad Italian and Provencal—this important news:
"Your poor boy is nabbed. I am here to keep an eye on you. We shall
meet again."
In the midst of his joy at having thus triumphed over the police,
for he hoped to be able to keep up communications, Jacques Collin had
a blow which might have killed any other man.
"Lucien in custody!" said he to himself.
He almost fainted. This news was to him more terrible than the
rejection of his appeal could have been if he had been condemned to
death.
Now that both the prison vans are rolling along the Quai, the
interest of this story requires that I should add a few words about
the Conciergerie, while they are making their way thither. The
Conciergerie, a historical name—a terrible name,—a still more
terrible thing, is inseparable from the Revolutions of France, and
especially those of Paris. It has known most of our great criminals.
But if it is the most interesting of the buildings of Paris, it is
also the least known—least known to persons of the upper classes;
still, in spite of the interest of this historical digression, it
should be as short as the journey of the prison vans.
What Parisian, what foreigner, or what provincial can have failed
to observe the gloomy and mysterious features of the Quai des
Lunettes—a structure of black walls flanked by three round towers
with conical roofs, two of them almost touching each other? This quay,
beginning at the Pont du Change, ends at the Pont Neuf. A square
tower—the Clock Tower, or Tour de l'Horloge, whence the signal was
given for the massacre of Saint-Bartholomew—a tower almost as tall as
that of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, shows where the Palais de
Justice stands, and forms the corner of the quay.
These four towers and these walls are shrouded in the black winding
sheet which, in Paris, falls on every facade to the north. About half-
way along the quay at a gloomy archway we see the beginning of the
private houses which were built in consequence of the construction of
the Pont Neuf in the reign of Henry IV. The Place Royale was a replica
of the Place Dauphine. The style of architecture is the same, of brick
with binding courses of hewn stone. This archway and the Rue de Harlay
are the limit line of the Palais de Justice on the west. Formerly the
Prefecture de Police, once the residence of the Presidents of
Parlement, was a dependency of the Palace. The Court of Exchequer and
Court of Subsidies completed the Supreme Court of Justice, the
Sovereign's Court. It will be seen that before the Revolution the
Palace enjoyed that isolation which now again is aimed at.
This block, this island of residences and official buildings, in
their midst the Sainte-Chapelle—that priceless jewel of Saint-Louis'
chaplet—is the sanctuary of Paris, its holy place, its sacred ark.
For one thing, this island was at first the whole of the city, for
the plot now forming the Place Dauphine was a meadow attached to the
Royal demesne, where stood a stamping mill for coining money. Hence
the name of Rue de la Monnaie—the street leading to the Pont Neuf.
Hence, too, the name of one of the round towers—the middle
one—called the Tour d'Argent, which would seem to show that money was
originally coined there. The famous mill, to be seen marked in old
maps of Paris, may very likely be more recent than the time when money
was coined in the Palace itself, and was erected, no doubt, for the
practice of improved methods in the art of coining.
The first tower, hardly detached from the Tour d'Argent, is the
Tour de Montgomery; the third, and smallest, but the best preserved of
the three, for it still has its battlements, is the Tour Bonbec.
The Sainte-Chapelle and its four towers—counting the clock tower
as one—clearly define the precincts; or, as a surveyor would say, the
perimeter of the Palace, as it was from the time of the Merovingians
till the accession of the first race of Valois; but to us, as a result
of certain alterations, this Palace is more especially representative
of the period of Saint-Louis.
Charles V. was the first to give the Palace up to the Parlement,
then a new institution, and went to reside in the famous Hotel
Saint-Pol, under the protection of the Bastille. The Palais des
Tournelles was subsequently erected backing on to the Hotel Saint-Pol.
Thus, under the later Valois, the kings came back from the Bastille to
the Louvre, which had been their first stronghold.
The original residence of the French kings, the Palace of
Saint-Louis, which has preserved the designation of Le Palais, to
indicate the Palace of palaces, is entirely buried under the Palais de
Justice; it forms the cellars, for it was built, like the Cathedral,
in the Seine, and with such care that the highest floods in the river
scarcely cover the lowest steps. The Quai de l'Horloge covers, twenty
feet below the surface, its foundations of a thousand years old.
Carriages run on the level of the capitals of the solid columns under
these towers, and formerly their appearance must have harmonized with
the elegance of the Palace, and have had a picturesque effect over the
water, since to this day those towers vie in height with the loftiest
buildings in Paris.
As we look down on this vast capital from the lantern of the
Pantheon, the Palace with the Sainte-Chapelle is still the most
monumental of many monumental buildings. The home of our kings, over
which you tread as you pace the immense hall known as the Salle des
Pas-Perdus, was a miracle of architecture; and it is so still to the
intelligent eye of the poet who happens to study it when inspecting
the Conciergerie. Alas! for the Conciergerie has invaded the home of
kings. One's heart bleeds to see the way in which cells, cupboards,
corridors, warders' rooms, and halls devoid of light or air, have been
hewn out of that beautiful structure in which Byzantine, Gothic, and
Romanesque—the three phases of ancient art—were harmonized in one
building by the architecture of the twelfth century.
This palace is a monumental history of France in the earliest
times, just as Blois is that of a later period. As at Blois you may
admire in a single courtyard the chateau of the Counts of Blois, that
of Louis XII., that of Francis I., that of Gaston; so at the
Conciergerie you will find within the same precincts the stamp of the
early races, and, in the Sainte-Chapelle, the architecture of
Saint-Louis.
Municipal Council (to you I speak), if you bestow millions, get a
poet or two to assist your architects if you wish to save the cradle
of Paris, the cradle of kings, while endeavoring to endow Paris and
the Supreme Court with a palace worthy of France. It is a matter for
study for some years before beginning the work. Another new prison or
two like that of La Roquette, and the palace of Saint-Louis will be
safe.
In these days many grievances afflict this vast mass of buildings,
buried under the Palais de Justice and the quay, like some
antediluvian creature in the soil of Montmartre; but the worst
affliction is that it is the Conciergerie. This epigram is
intelligible. In the early days of the monarchy, noble criminals—for
the villeins (a word signifying the peasantry in French and English
alike) and the citizens came under the jurisdiction of the
municipality or of their liege lord—the lords of the greater or the
lesser fiefs, were brought before the king and guarded in the
Conciergerie. And as these noble criminals were few, the Conciergerie
was large enough for the king's prisoners.
It is difficult now to be quite certain of the exact site of the
original Conciergerie. However, the kitchens built by Saint-Louis
still exist, forming what is now called the mousetrap; and it is
probable that the original Conciergerie was situated in the place
where, till 1825, the Conciergerie prisons of the Parlement were still
in use, under the archway to the right of the wide outside steps
leading to the supreme Court. From thence, until 1825, condemned
criminals were taken to execution. From that gate came forth all the
great criminals, all the victims of political feeling—the Marechale
d'Ancre and the Queen of France, Semblancay and Malesherbes, Damien
and Danton, Desrues and Castaing. Fouquier-Tinville's private room,
like that of the public prosecutor now, was so placed that he could
see the procession of carts containing the persons whom the
Revolutionary tribunal had sentenced to death. Thus this man, who had
become a sword, could give a last glance at each batch.
After 1825, when Monsieur de Peyronnet was Minister, a great change
was made in the Palais. The old entrance to the Conciergerie, where
the ceremonies of registering the criminal and of the last toilet were
performed, was closed and removed to where it now is, between the Tour
de l'Horloge and the Tour de Montgomery, in an inner court entered
through an arched passage. To the left is the "mousetrap," to the
right the prison gates. The "salad-baskets" can drive into this
irregularly shaped courtyard, can stand there and turn with ease, and
in case of a riot find some protection behind the strong grating of
the gate under the arch; whereas they formerly had no room to move in
the narrow space dividing the outside steps from the right wing of the
palace.
In our day the Conciergerie, hardly large enough for the prisoners
committed for trial—room being needed for about three hundred, men
and women—no longer receives either suspected or remanded criminals
excepting in rare cases, as, for instance, in these of Jacques Collin
and Lucien. All who are imprisoned there are committed for trial
before the Bench. As an exception criminals of the higher ranks are
allowed to sojourn there, since, being already disgraced by a sentence
in open court, their punishment would be too severe if they served
their term of imprisonment at Melun or at Poissy. Ouvrard preferred to
be imprisoned at the Conciergerie rather than at Sainte-Pelagie. At
this moment of writing Lehon the notary and the Prince de Bergues are
serving their time there by an exercise of leniency which, though
arbitrary, is humane.
As a rule, suspected criminals, whether they are to be subjected to
a preliminary examination—to "go up," in the slang of the Courts—or
to appear before the magistrate of the lower Court, are transferred in
prison vans direct to the "mousetraps."
The "mousetraps," opposite the gate, consist of a certain number of
old cells constructed in the old kitchens of Saint-Louis' building,
whither prisoners not yet fully committed are brought to await the
hour when the Court sits, or the arrival of the examining judge. The
"mousetraps" end on the north at the quay, on the east at the
headquarters of the Municipal Guard, on the west at the courtyard of
the Conciergerie, and on the south they adjoin a large vaulted hall,
formerly, no doubt, the banqueting-room, but at present disused.
Above the "mousetraps" is an inner guardroom with a window
commanding the court of the Conciergerie; this is used by the
gendarmerie of the department, and the stairs lead up to it. When the
hour of trial strikes the sheriffs call the roll of the prisoners, the
gendarmes go down, one for each prisoner, and each gendarme takes a
criminal by the arm; and thus, in couples, they mount the stairs,
cross the guardroom, and are led along the passages to a room
contiguous to the hall where sits the famous sixth chamber of the law
(whose functions are those of an English county court). The same road
is trodden by the prisoners committed for trial on their way to and
from the Conciergerie and the Assize Court.
In the Salle des Pas-Perdus, between the door into the first court
of the inferior class and the steps leading to the sixth, the visitor
must observe the first time he goes there a doorway without a door or
any architectural adornment, a square hole of the meanest type.
Through this the judges and barristers find their way into the
passages, into the guardhouse, down into the prison cells, and to the
entrance to the Conciergerie.
The private chambers of all the examining judges are on different
floors in this part of the building. They are reached by squalid
staircases, a maze in which those to whom the place is unfamiliar
inevitably lose themselves. The windows of some look out on the quay,
others on the yard of the Conciergerie. In 1830 a few of these rooms
commanded the Rue de la Barillerie.
Thus, when a prison van turns to the left in this yard, it has
brought prisoners to be examined to the "mousetrap"; when it turns to
the right, it conveys prisoners committed for trial, to the
Conciergerie. Now it was to the right that the vehicle turned which
conveyed Jacques Collin to set him down at the prison gate. Nothing
can be more sinister. Prisoners and visitors see two barred gates of
wrought iron, with a space between them of about six feet. These are
never both opened at once, and through them everything is so
cautiously scrutinized that persons who have a visiting ticket pass
the permit through the bars before the key grinds in the lock. The
examining judges, or even the supreme judges, are not admitted without
being identified. Imagine, then, the chances of communications or
escape!— The governor of the Conciergerie would smile with an
expression on his lips that would freeze the mere suggestion in the
most daring of romancers who defy probability.
In all the annals of the Conciergerie no escape has been known but
that of Lavalette; but the certain fact of august connivance, now
amply proven, if it does not detract from the wife's devotion,
certainly diminished the risk of failure.
The most ardent lover of the marvelous, judging on the spot of the
nature of the difficulties, must admit that at all times the obstacles
must have been, as they still are, insurmountable. No words can do
justice to the strength of the walls and vaulting; they must be seen.
Though the pavement of the yard is on a lower level than that of
the quay, in crossing this Barbican you go down several steps to enter
an immense vaulted hall, with solid walls graced with magnificent
columns. This hall abuts on the Tour de Montgomery—which is now part
of the governor's residence—and on the Tour d'Argent, serving as a
dormitory for the warders, or porters, or turnkeys, as you may prefer
to call them. The number of the officials is less than might be
supposed; there are but twenty; their sleeping quarters, like their
beds, are in no respect different from those of the pistoles or
private cells. The name pistole originated, no doubt, in the fact that
the prisoners formerly paid a pistole (about ten francs) a week for
this accommodation, its bareness resembling that of the empty garrets
in which great men in poverty begin their career in Paris.
To the left, in the vast entrance hall, sits the Governor of the
Conciergerie, in a sort of office constructed of glass panes, where he
and his clerk keep the prison-registers. Here the prisoners for
examination, or committed for trial, have their names entered with a
full description, and are then searched. The question of their lodging
is also settled, this depending on the prisoner's means.
Opposite the entrance to this hall there is a glass door. This
opens into a parlor where the prisoner's relations and his counsel may
speak with him across a double grating of wood. The parlor window
opens on to the prison yard, the inner court where prisoners committed
for trial take air and exercise at certain fixed hours.
This large hall, only lighted by the doubtful daylight that comes
in through the gates—for the single window to the front court is
screened by the glass office built out in front of it—has an
atmosphere and a gloom that strike the eye in perfect harmony with the
pictures that force themselves on the imagination. Its aspect is all
the more sinister because, parallel with the Tours d'Argent and de
Montgomery, you discover those mysterious vaulted and overwhelming
crypts which lead to the cells occupied by the Queen and Madame
Elizabeth, and to those known as the secret cells. This maze of
masonry, after being of old the scene of royal festivities, is now the
basement of the Palais de Justice.
Between 1825 and 1832 the operation of the last toilet was
performed in this enormous hall, between a large stove which heats it
and the inner gate. It is impossible even now to tread without a
shudder on the paved floor that has received the shock and the
confidences of so many last glances.
The apparently dying victim on this occasion could not get out of
the horrible vehicle without the assistance of two gendarmes, who took
him under the arms to support him, and led him half unconscious into
the office. Thus dragged along, the dying man raised his eyes to
heaven in such a way as to suggest a resemblance to the Saviour taken
down from the Cross. And certainly in no picture does Jesus present a
more cadaverous or tortured countenance than this of the sham
Spaniard; he looked ready to breathe his last sigh. As soon as he was
seated in the office, he repeated in a weak voice the speech he had
made to everybody since he was arrested:
"I appeal to His Excellency the Spanish Ambassador."
"You can say that to the examining judge," replied the Governor.
"Oh Lord!" said Jacques Collin, with a sigh. "But cannot I have a
breviary! Shall I never be allowed to see a doctor? I have not two
hours to live."
As Carlos Herrera was to be placed in close confinement in the
secret cells, it was needless to ask him whether he claimed the
benefits of the pistole (as above described), that is to say, the
right of having one of the rooms where the prisoner enjoys such
comfort as the law permits. These rooms are on the other side of the
prison-yard, of which mention will presently be made. The sheriff and
the clerk calmly carried out the formalities of the consignment to
prison.
"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin to the Governor in broken French,
"I am, as you see, a dying man. Pray, if you can, tell that examining
judge as soon as possible that I crave as a favor what a criminal must
most dread, namely, to be brought before him as soon as he arrives;
for my sufferings are really unbearable, and as soon as I see him the
mistake will be cleared up——"
As an universal rule every criminal talks of a mistake. Go to the
hulks and question the convicts; they are almost all victims of a
miscarriage of justice. So this speech raises a faint smile in all who
come into contact with the suspected, accused, or condemned criminal.
"I will mention your request to the examining judge," replied the
Governor.
"And I shall bless you, monsieur!" replied the false Abbe, raising
his eyes to heaven.
As soon as his name was entered on the calendar, Carlos Herrera,
supported under each arm by a man of the municipal guard, and followed
by a turnkey instructed by the Governor as to the number of the cell
in which the prisoner was to be placed, was led through the
subterranean maze of the Conciergerie into a perfectly wholesome room,
whatever certain philanthropists may say to the contrary, but cut off
from all possible communication with the outer world.
As soon as he was removed, the warders, the Governor, and his clerk
looked at each other as though asking each other's opinion, and
suspicion was legible on every face; but at the appearance of the
second man in custody the spectators relapsed into their usual
doubting frame of mind, concealed under the air of indifference. Only
in very extraordinary cases do the functionaries of the Conciergerie
feel any curiosity; the prisoners are no more to them than a barber's
customers are to him. Hence all the formalities which appall the
imagination are carried out with less fuss than a money transaction at
a banker's, and often with greater civility.
Lucien's expression was that of a dejected criminal. He submitted
to everything, and obeyed like a machine. All the way from
Fontainebleau the poet had been facing his ruin, and telling himself
that the hour of expiation had tolled. Pale and exhausted, knowing
nothing of what had happened at Esther's house during his absence, he
only knew that he was the intimate ally of an escaped convict, a
situation which enabled him to guess at disaster worse than death.
When his mind could command a thought, it was that of suicide. He
must, at any cost, escape the ignominy that loomed before him like the
phantasm of a dreadful dream.
Jacques Collin, as the more dangerous of the two culprits, was
placed in a cell of solid masonry, deriving its light from one of the
narrow yards, of which there are several in the interior of the
Palace, in the wing where the public prosecutor's chambers are. This
little yard is the airing-ground for the female prisoners. Lucien was
taken to the same part of the building, to a cell adjoining the rooms
let to misdemeanants; for, by orders from the examining judge, the
Governor treated him with some consideration.
Persons who have never had anything to do with the action of the
law usually have the darkest notions as to the meaning of solitary or
secret confinement. Ideas as to the treatment of criminals have not
yet become disentangled from the old pictures of torture chambers, of
the unhealthiness of a prison, the chill of stone walls sweating
tears, the coarseness of the jailers and of the food—inevitable
accessories of the drama; but it is not unnecessary to explain here
that these exaggerations exist only on the stage, and only make
lawyers and judges smile, as well as those who visit prisons out of
curiosity, or who come to study them.
For a long time, no doubt, they were terrible. In the days of the
old Parlement, of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., the accused were, no
doubt, flung pell-mell into a low room underneath the old gateway. The
prisons were among the crimes of 1789, and it is enough only to see
the cells where the Queen and Madame Elizabeth were incarcerated to
conceive a horror of old judicial proceedings.
In our day, though philanthropy has brought incalculable mischief
on society, it has produced some good for the individual. It is to
Napoleon that we owe our Criminal Code; and this, even more than the
Civil Code—which still urgently needs reform on some points—will
remain one of the greatest monuments of his short reign. This new view
of criminal law put an end to a perfect abyss of misery. Indeed, it
may be said that, apart from the terrible moral torture which men of
the better classes must suffer when they find themselves in the power
of the law, the action of that power is simple and mild to a degree
that would hardly be expected. Suspected or accused criminals are
certainly not lodged as if they were at home; but every necessary is
supplied to them in the prisons of Paris. Besides, the burden of
feelings that weighs on them deprives the details of daily life of
their customary value. It is never the body that suffers. The mind is
in such a phase of violence that every form of discomfort or of brutal
treatment, if such there were, would be easily endured in such a frame
of mind. And it must be admitted that an innocent man is quickly
released, especially in Paris.
So Lucien, on entering his cell, saw an exact reproduction of the
first room he had occupied in Paris at the Hotel Cluny. A bed to
compare with those in the worst furnished apartments of the Quartier
Latin, straw chairs with the bottoms out, a table and a few utensils,
compose the furniture of such a room, in which two accused prisoners
are not unfrequently placed together when they are quiet in their
ways, and their misdeeds are not crimes of violence, but such as
forgery or bankruptcy.
This resemblance between his starting-point, in the days of his
innocency, and his goal, the lowest depths of degradation and sham,
was so direct an appeal to his last chord of poetic feeling, that the
unhappy fellow melted into tears. For four hours he wept, as rigid in
appearance as a figure of stone, but enduring the subversion of all
his hopes, the crushing of all his social vanity, and the utter
overthrow of his pride, smarting in each separate _I_ that exists in
an ambitious man—a lover, a success, a dandy, a Parisian, a poet, a
libertine, and a favorite. Everything in him was broken by this fall
as of Icarus.
Carlos Herrera, on the other hand, as soon as he was locked into
his cell and found himself alone, began pacing it to and fro like the
polar bear in his cage. He carefully examined the door and assured
himself that, with the exception of the peephole, there was not a
crack in it. He sounded all the walls, he looked up the funnel down
which a dim light came, and he said to himself, "I am safe enough!"
He sat down in a corner where the eye of a prying warder at the
grating of the peephole could not see him. Then he took off his wig,
and hastily ungummed a piece of paper that did duty as lining. The
side of the paper next his head was so greasy that it looked like the
very texture of the wig. If it had occurred to Bibi-Lupin to snatch
off the wig to establish the identity of the Spaniard with Jacques
Collin, he would never have thought twice about the paper, it looked
so exactly like part of the wigmaker's work. The other side was still
fairly white, and clean enough to have a few lines written on it. The
delicate and tiresome task of unsticking it had been begun in La
Force; two hours would not have been long enough; it had taken him
half of the day before. The prisoner began by tearing this precious
scrap of paper so as to have a strip four or five lines wide, which he
divided into several bits; he then replaced his store of paper in the
same strange hiding-place, after damping the gummed side so as to make
it stick again. He felt in a lock of his hair for one of those pencil
leads as thin as a stout pin, then recently invented by Susse, and
which he had put in with some gum; he broke off a scrap long enough to
write with and small enough to hide in his ear. Having made these
preparations with the rapidity and certainty of hand peculiar to old
convicts, who are as light-fingered as monkeys, Jacques Collin sat
down on the edge of his bed to meditate on his instructions to Asie,
in perfect confidence that he should come across her, so entirely did
he rely on the woman's genius.
"During the preliminary examination," he reflected, "I pretended to
be a Spaniard and spoke broken French, appealed to my Ambassador, and
alleged diplomatic privilege, not understanding anything I was asked,
the whole performance varied by fainting, pauses, sighs—in short, all
the vagaries of a dying man. I must stick to that. My papers are all
regular. Asie and I can eat up Monsieur Camusot; he is no great
shakes!
"Now I must think of Lucien; he must be made to pull himself
together. I must get at the boy at whatever cost, and show him some
plan of conduct, otherwise he will give himself up, give me up, lose
all! He must be taught his lesson before he is examined. And besides,
I must find some witnesses to swear to my being a priest!"
Such was the position, moral and physical, of these two prisoners,
whose fate at the moment depended on Monsieur Camusot, examining judge
to the Inferior Court of the Seine, and sovereign master, during the
time granted to him by the Code, of the smallest details of their
existence, since he alone could grant leave for them to be visited by
the chaplains, the doctor, or any one else in the world.
No human authority—neither the King, nor the Keeper of the Seals,
nor the Prime Minister, can encroach on the power of an examining
judge; nothing can stop him, no one can control him. He is a monarch,
subject only to his conscience and the Law. At the present time, when
philosophers, philanthropists, and politicians are constantly
endeavoring to reduce every social power, the rights conferred on the
examining judges have become the object of attacks that are all the
more serious because they are almost justified by those rights, which,
it must be owned, are enormous. And yet, as every man of sense will
own, that power ought to remain unimpaired; in certain cases, its
exercise can be mitigated by a strong infusion of caution; but society
is already threatened by the ineptitude and weakness of the jury—
which is, in fact, the really supreme bench, and which ought to be
composed only of choice and elected men—and it would be in danger of
ruin if this pillar were broken which now upholds our criminal
procedure.
Arrest on suspicion is one of the terrible but necessary powers of
which the risk to society is counterbalanced by its immense
importance. And besides, distrust of the magistracy in general is a
beginning of social dissolution. Destroy that institution, and
reconstruct it on another basis; insist—as was the case before the
Revolution—that judges should show a large guarantee of fortune; but,
at any cost, believe in it! Do not make it an image of society to be
insulted!
In these days a judge, paid as a functionary, and generally a poor
man, has in the place of his dignity of old a haughtiness of demeanor
that seems odious to the men raised to be his equals; for haughtiness
is dignity without a solid basis. That is the vicious element in the
present system. If France were divided into ten circuits, the
magistracy might be reinstated by conferring its dignities on men of
fortune; but with six-and-twenty circuits this is impossible.
The only real improvement to be insisted on in the exercise of the
power intrusted to the examining judge, is an alteration in the
conditions of preliminary imprisonment. The mere fact of suspicion
ought to make no difference in the habits of life of the suspected
parties. Houses of detention for them ought to be constructed in
Paris, furnished and arranged in such a way as greatly to modify the
feeling of the public with regard to suspected persons. The law is
good, and is necessary; its application is in fault, and public
feeling judges the laws from the way in which they are carried out.
And public opinion in France condemns persons under suspicion, while,
by an inexplicable reaction, it justifies those committed for trial.
This, perhaps, is a result of the essentially refractory nature of the
French.
This illogical temper of the Parisian people was one of the factors
which contributed to the climax of this drama; nay, as may be seen, it
was one of the most important.
To enter into the secret of the terrible scenes which are acted out
in the examining judge's chambers; to understand the respective
positions of the two belligerent powers, the Law and the examinee, the
object of whose contest is a certain secret kept by the prisoner from
the inquisition of the magistrate—well named in prison slang, "the
curious man"—it must always be remembered that persons imprisoned
under suspicion know nothing of what is being said by the seven or
eight publics that compose THE PUBLIC, nothing of how much the police
know, or the authorities, or the little that newspapers can publish as
to the circumstances of the crime.
Thus, to give a man in custody such information as Jacques Collin
had just received from Asie as to Lucien's arrest, is throwing a rope
to a drowning man. As will be seen, in consequence of this ignorance,
a stratagem which, without this warning, must certainly have been
equally fatal to the convict, was doomed to failure.
Monsieur Camusot, the son-in-law of one of the clerks of the
cabinet, too well known for any account of his position and connection
to be necessary here, was at this moment almost as much perplexed as
Carlos Herrera in view of the examination he was to conduct. He had
formerly been President of a Court of the Paris circuit; he had been
raised from that position and called to be a judge in Paris—one of
the most coveted posts in the magistracy—by the influence of the
celebrated Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, whose husband, attached to the
Dauphin's person, and Colonel of a cavalry regiment of the Guards, was
as much in favor with the King as she was with MADAME. In return for a
very small service which he had done the Duchess—an important matter
to her—on occasion of a charge of forgery brought against the young
Comte d'Esgrignon by a banker of Alencon (see La Cabinet des Antiques;
Scenes de la vie de Province), he was promoted from being a provincial
judge to be president of his Court, and from being president to being
an examining judge in Paris.
For eighteen months now he had sat on the most important Bench in
the kingdom; and had once, at the desire of the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse, had an opportunity of forwarding the ends of a lady not
less influential than the Duchess, namely, the Marquise d'Espard, but
he had failed. (See the Commission in Lunacy.)
Lucien, as was told at the beginning of the Scene, to be revenged
on Madame d'Espard, who aimed at depriving her husband of his liberty
of action, was able to put the true facts before the Public Prosecutor
and the Comte de Serizy. These two important authorities being thus
won over to the Marquis d'Espard's party, his wife had barely escaped
the censure of the Bench by her husband's generous intervention.
On hearing, yesterday, of Lucien's arrest, the Marquise d'Espard
had sent her brother-in-law, the Chevalier d'Espard, to see Madame
Camusot. Madame Camusot had set off forthwith to call on the notorious
Marquise. Just before dinner, on her return home, she had called her
husband aside in the bedroom.
"If you can commit that little fop Lucien de Rubempre for trial,
and secure his condemnation," said she in his ear, "you will be
Councillor to the Supreme Court——"
"How?"
"Madame d'Espard longs to see that poor young man guillotined. I
shivered as I heard what a pretty woman's hatred can be!"
"Do not meddle in questions of the law," said Camusot.
"I! meddle!" said she. "If a third person could have heard us, he
could not have guessed what we were talking about. The Marquise and I
were as exquisitely hypocritical to each other as you are to me at
this moment. She began by thanking me for your good offices in her
suit, saying that she was grateful in spite of its having failed. She
spoke of the terrible functions devolved on you by the law, 'It is
fearful to have to send a man to the scaffold—but as to that man, it
would be no more than justice,' and so forth. Then she lamented that
such a handsome young fellow, brought to Paris by her cousin, Madame
du Chatelet, should have turned out so badly. 'That,' said she, 'is
what bad women like Coralie and Esther bring young men to when they
are corrupt enough to share their disgraceful profits!' Next came some
fine speeches about charity and religion! Madame du Chatelet had said
that Lucien deserved a thousand deaths for having half killed his
mother and his sister
"Then she spoke of a vacancy in the Supreme Court—she knows the
Keeper of the Seals. 'Your husband, madame, has a fine opportunity of
distinguishing himself,' she said in conclusion—and that is all."
"We distinguish ourselves every day when we do our duty," said
Camusot.
"You will go far if you are always the lawyer even to your wife,"
cried Madame Camusot. "Well, I used to think you a goose. Now I admire
you."
The lawyer's lips wore one of those smiles which are as peculiar to
them as dancers' smiles are to dancers.
"Madame, can I come in?" said the maid.
"What is it?" said her mistress.
"Madame, the head lady's-maid came from the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse while you were out, and she will be obliged if you would
go at once to the Hotel de Cadignan."
"Keep dinner back," said the lawyer's wife, remembering that the
driver of the hackney coach that had brought her home was waiting to
be paid.
She put her bonnet on again, got into the coach, and in twenty
minutes was at the Hotel de Cadignan. Madame Camusot was led up the
private stairs, and sat alone for ten minutes in a boudoir adjoining
the Duchess' bedroom. The Duchess presently appeared, splendidly
dressed, for she was starting for Saint-Cloud in obedience to a Royal
invitation.
"Between you and me, my dear, a few words are enough."
"Yes, Madame la Duchesse."
"Lucien de Rubempre is in custody, your husband is conducting the
inquiry; I will answer for the poor boy's innocence; see that he is
released within twenty-four hours.—This is not all. Some one will ask
to-morrow to see Lucien in private in his cell; your husband may be
present if he chooses, so long as he is not discovered. The King looks
for high courage in his magistrates in the difficult position in which
he will presently find himself; I will bring your husband forward, and
recommend him as a man devoted to the King even at the risk of his
head. Our friend Camusot will be made first a councillor, and then the
President of Court somewhere or other.—Good-bye.—I am under orders,
you will excuse me, I know?
"You will not only oblige the public prosecutor, who cannot give an
opinion in this affair; you will save the life of a dying woman,
Madame de Serizy. So you will not lack support.
"In short, you see, I put my trust in you, I need not say—you
know——"
She laid a finger to her lips and disappeared.
"And I had not a chance of telling her that Madame d'Espard wants
to see Lucien on the scaffold!" thought the judge's wife as she
returned to her hackney cab.
She got home in such a state of anxiety that her husband, on seeing
her, asked:
"What is the matter, Amelie?"
"We stand between two fires."
She told her husband of her interview with the Duchess, speaking in
his ear for fear the maid should be listening at the door.
"Now, which of them has the most power?" she said in conclusion.
"The Marquise was very near getting you into trouble in the silly
business of the commission on her husband, and we owe everything to
the Duchess.
"One made vague promises, while the other tells you you shall first
be Councillor and then President.—Heaven forbid I should advise you;
I will never meddle in matters of business; still, I am bound to
repeat exactly what is said at Court and what goes on——"
"But, Amelie, you do not know what the Prefet of police sent me
this morning, and by whom? By one of the most important agents of the
superior police, the Bibi-Lupin of politics, who told me that the
Government had a secret interest in this trial.—Now let us dine and
go to the Varietes. We will talk all this over to-night in my private
room, for I shall need your intelligence; that of a judge may not
perhaps be enough——"
Nine magistrates out of ten would deny the influence of the wife
over her husband in such cases; but though this may be a remarkable
exception in society, it may be insisted on as true, even if
improbable. The magistrate is like the priest, especially in Paris,
where the best of the profession are to be found; he rarely speaks of
his business in the Courts, excepting of settled cases. Not only do
magistrates' wives affect to know nothing; they have enough sense of
propriety to understand that it would damage their husbands if, when
they are told some secret, they allowed their knowledge to be
suspected.
Nevertheless, on some great occasions, when promotion depends on
the decision taken, many a wife, like Amelie, has helped the lawyer in
his study of a case. And, after all, these exceptions, which, of
course, are easily denied, since they remain unknown, depend entirely
on the way in which the struggle between two natures has worked out in
home- life. Now, Madame Camusot controlled her husband completely.
When all in the house were asleep, the lawyer and his wife sat down
to the desk, where the magistrate had already laid out the documents
in the case.
"Here are the notes, forwarded to me, at my request, by the Prefet
of police," said Camusot.
"THE ABBE CARLOS HERRERA.
"This individual is undoubtedly the man named Jacques Collin,
known as Trompe-la-Mort, who was last arrested in 1819, in the
dwelling-house of a certain Madame Vauquer, who kept a common
boarding-house in the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, where he lived
in concealment under the alias of Vautrin."
A marginal note in the Prefet's handwriting ran thus:
"Orders have been sent by telegraph to Bibi-Lupin, chief of the
Safety department, to return forthwith, to be confronted with the
prisoner, as he is personally acquainted with Jacques Collin,
whom
he, in fact, arrested in 1819 with the connivance of a
Mademoiselle Michonneau.
"The boarders who then lived in the Maison Vauquer are still
living, and may be called to establish his identity.
"The self-styled Carlos Herrera is Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre's
intimate friend and adviser, and for three years past has
furnished him with considerable sums, evidently obtained by
dishonest means.
"This partnership, if the identity of the Spaniard with Jacques
Collin can be proved, must involve the condemnation of Lucien de
Rubempre.
"The sudden death of Peyrade, the police agent, is attributable to
poison administered at the instigation of Jacques Collin,
Rubempre, or their accomplices. The reason for this murder is the
fact that justice had for a long time been on the traces of these
clever criminals."
And again, on the margin, the magistrate pointed to this note
written by the Prefet himself:
"This is the fact to my personal knowledge; and I also know that
the Sieur Lucien de Rubempre has disgracefully tricked the Comte
de Serizy and the Public Prosecutor."
"What do you say to this, Amelie?"
"It is frightful!" repled his wife. "Go on."
"The transformation of the convict Jacques Collin into a Spanish
priest is the result of some crime more clever than that by which
Coignard made himself Comte de Sainte-Helene."
"LUCIEN DE RUBEMBPRE.
"Lucien Chardon, son of an apothecary at Angouleme—his mother a
Demoiselle de Rubempre—bears the name of Rubempre in virtue of a
royal patent. This was granted by the request of Madame la
Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Monsieur le Comte de Serizy.
"This young man came to Paris in 182 . . . without any means of
subsistence, following Madame la Comtesse Sixte du Chatelet, then
Madame de Bargeton, a cousin of Madame d'Espard's.
"He was ungrateful to Madame de Bargeton, and cohabited with a
girl named Coralie, an actress at the Gymnase, now dead, who left
Monsieur Camusot, a silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, to
live with Rubempre.
"Ere long, having sunk into poverty through the insufficiency of
the money allowed him by this actress, he seriously compromised
his brother-in-law, a highly respected printer of Angouleme, by
giving forged bills, for which David Sechard was arrested, during
a short visit paid to Angouleme by Lucien. In consequence of this
affair Rubempre fled, but suddenly reappeared in Paris with the
Abbe Carlos Herrera.
"Though having no visible means of subsistence, the said Lucien de
Rubempre spent on an average three hundred thousand francs during
the three years of his second residence in Paris, and can only
have obtained the money from the self-styled Abbe Carlos
Herrera—
but how did he come by it?
"He has recently laid out above a million francs in repurchasing
the Rubempre estates to fulfil the conditions on which he was to
be allowed to marry Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu. This
marriage has been broken off in consequence of inquiries made by
the Grandlieu family, the said Lucien having told them that he
had
obtained the money from his brother-in-law and his sister; but
the
information obtained, more especially by Monsieur Derville,
attorney-at-law, proves that not only were that worthy couple
ignorant of his having made this purchase, but that they believed
the said Lucien to be deeply in debt.
"Moreover, the property inherited by the Sechards consists of
houses; and the ready money, by their affidavit, amounted to
about
two hundred thousand francs.
"Lucien was secretly cohabiting with Esther Gobseck; hence there
can be no doubt that all the lavish gifts of the Baron de
Nucingen, the girl's protector, were handed over to the said
Lucien.
"Lucien and his companion, the convict, have succeeded in keeping
their footing in the face of the world longer than Coignard did,
deriving their income from the prostitution of the said Esther,
formerly on the register of the town."
Though these notes are to a great extent a repetition of the story
already told, it was necessary to reproduce them to show the part
played by the police in Paris. As has already been seen from the note
on Peyrade, the police has summaries, almost invariably correct,
concerning every family or individual whose life is under suspicion,
or whose actions are of a doubtful character. It knows every
circumstance of their delinquencies. This universal register and
account of consciences is as accurately kept as the register of the
Bank of France and its accounts of fortunes. Just as the Bank notes
the slightest delay in payment, gauges every credit, takes stock of
every capitalist, and watches their proceedings, so does the police
weigh and measure the honesty of each citizen. With it, as in a Court
of Law, innocence has nothing to fear; it has no hold on anything but
crime.
However high the rank of a family, it cannot evade this social
providence.
And its discretion is equal to the extent of its power. This vast
mass of written evidence compiled by the police—reports, notes, and
summaries—an ocean of information, sleeps undisturbed, as deep and
calm as the sea. Some accident occurs, some crime or misdemeanor
becomes aggressive,—then the law refers to the police, and
immediately, if any documents bear on the suspected criminal, the
judge is informed. These records, an analysis of his antecedents, are
merely side-lights, and unknown beyond the walls of the Palais de
Justice. No legal use can be made of them; Justice is informed by
them, and takes advantage of them; but that is all. These documents
form, as it were, the inner lining of the tissue of crimes, their
first cause, which is hardly ever made public. No jury would accept
it; and the whole country would rise up in wrath if excerpts from
those documents came out in the trial at the Assizes. In fact, it is
the truth which is doomed to remain in the well, as it is everywhere
and at all times. There is not a magistrate who, after twelve years'
experience in Paris, is not fully aware that the Assize Court and the
police authorities keep the secret of half these squalid atrocities,
or who does not admit that half the crimes that are committed are
never punished by the law.
If the public could know how reserved the employes of the police
are— who do not forget—they would reverence these honest men as much
as they do Cheverus. The police is supposed to be astute,
Machiavellian; it is, in fact most benign. But it hears every passion
in its paroxysms, it listens to every kind of treachery, and keeps
notes of all. The police is terrible on one side only. What it does
for justice it does no less for political interests; but in these it
is as ruthless and as one-sided as the fires of the Inquisition.
"Put this aside," said the lawyer, replacing the notes in their
cover; "this is a secret between the police and the law. The judge
will estimate its value, but Monsieur and Madame Camusot must know
nothing of it."
"As if I needed telling that!" said his wife.
"Lucien is guilty," he went on; "but of what?"
"A man who is the favorite of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, of the
Comtesse de Serizy, and loved by Clotilde de Grandlieu, is not
guilty," said Amelie. "The other MUST be answerable for everything."
"But Lucien is his accomplice," cried Camusot.
"Take my advice," said Amelie. "Restore this priest to the
diplomatic career he so greatly adorns, exculpate this little wretch,
and find some other criminal——"
"How you run on!" said the magistrate with a smile. "Women go to
the point, plunging through the law as birds fly through the air, and
find nothing to stop them."
"But," said Amelie, "whether he is a diplomate or a convict, the
Abbe Carlos will find some one to get him out of the scrape."
"I am only a considering cap; you are the brain," said Camusot.
"Well, the sitting is closed; give your Melie a kiss; it is one
o'clock.
And Madame Camusot went to bed, leaving her husband to arrange his
papers and his ideas in preparation for the task of examining the two
prisoners next morning.
And thus, while the prison vans were conveying Jacques Collin and
Lucien to the Conciergerie, the examining judge, having breakfasted,
was making his way across Paris on foot, after the unpretentious
fashion of Parisian magistrates, to go to his chambers, where all the
documents in the case were laid ready for him.
This was the way of it: Every examining judge has a head-clerk, a
sort of sworn legal secretary—a race that perpetuates itself without
any premiums or encouragement, producing a number of excellent souls
in whom secrecy is natural and incorruptible. From the origin of the
Parlement to the present day, no case has ever been known at the
Palais de Justice of any gossip or indiscretion on the part of a clerk
bound to the Courts of Inquiry. Gentil sold the release given by
Louise de Savoie to Semblancay; a War Office clerk sold the plan of
the Russian campaign to Czernitchef; and these traitors were more or
less rich. The prospect of a post in the Palais and professional
conscientiousness are enough to make a judge's clerk a successful
rival of the tomb—for the tomb has betrayed many secrets since
chemistry has made such progress.
This official is, in fact, the magistrate's pen. It will be
understood by many readers that a man may gladly be the shaft of a
machine, while they wonder why he is content to remain a bolt; still a
bolt is content—perhaps the machinery terrifies him.
Camusot's clerk, a young man of two-and-twenty, named Coquart, had
come in the morning to fetch all the documents and the judge's notes,
and laid everything ready in his chambers, while the lawyer himself
was wandering along the quays, looking at the curiosities in the
shops, and wondering within himself:—
"How on earth am I to set to work with such a clever rascal as this
Jacques Collin, supposing it is he? The head of the Safety will know
him. I must look as if I knew what I was about, if only for the sake
of the police! I see so many insuperable difficulties, that the best
plan would be to enlighten the Marquise and the Duchess by showing
them the notes of the police, and I should avenge my father, from whom
Lucien stole Coralie.—If I can unveil these scoundrels, my skill will
be loudly proclaimed, and Lucien will soon be thrown over by his
friends.—Well, well, the examination will settle all that."
He turned into a curiosity shop, tempted by a Boule clock.
"Not to be false to my conscience, and yet to oblige two great
ladies —that will be a triumph of skill," thought he. "What, do you
collect coins too, monsieur?" said Camusot to the Public Prosecutor,
whom he found in the shop.
"It is a taste dear to all dispensers of justice," said the Comte
de Granville, laughing. "They look at the reverse side of every
medal."
And after looking about the shop for some minutes, as if continuing
his search, he accompanied Camusot on his way down the quay without
it ever occurring to Camusot that anything but chance had brought them
together.
"You are examining Monsieur de Rubempre this morning," said the
Public Prosecutor. "Poor fellow—I liked him."
"There are several charges against him," said Camusot.
"Yes, I saw the police papers; but some of the information came
from an agent who is independent of the Prefet, the notorious
Corentin, who had caused the death of more innocent men than you will
ever send guilty men to the scaffold, and—— But that rascal is out
of your reach.—Without trying to influence the conscience of such a
magistrate as you are, I may point out to you that if you could be
perfectly sure that Lucien was ignorant of the contents of that
woman's will, it would be self-evident that he had no interest in her
death, for she gave him enormous sums of money."
"We can prove his absence at the time when this Esther was
poisoned," said Camusot. "He was at Fontainebleau, on the watch for
Mademoiselle de Grandlieu and the Duchesse de Lenoncourt."
"And he still cherished such hopes of marrying Mademoiselle de
Grandlieu," said the Public Prosecutor—"I have it from the Duchesse
de Grandlieu herself—that it is inconceivable that such a clever
young fellow should compromise his chances by a perfectly aimless
crime."
"Yes," said Camusot, "especially if Esther gave him all she got."
"Derville and Nucingen both say that she died in ignorance of the
inheritance she had long since come into," added Granville.
"But then what do you suppose is the meaning of it all?" asked
Camusot. "For there is something at the bottom of it."
"A crime committed by some servant," said the Public Prosecutor.
"Unfortunately," remarked Camusot, "it would be quite like Jacques
Collin—for the Spanish priest is certainly none other than that
escaped convict—to have taken possession of the seven hundred and
fifty thousand francs derived from the sale of the certificate of
shares given to Esther by Nucingen."
"Weigh everything with care, my dear Camusot. Be prudent. The Abbe
Carlos Herrera has diplomatic connections; still, an envoy who had
committed a crime would not be sheltered by his position. Is he or is
he not the Abbe Carlos Herrera? That is the important question."
And Monsieur de Granville bowed, and turned away, as requiring no
answer.
"So he too wants to save Lucien!" thought Camusot, going on by the
Quai des Lunettes, while the Public Prosecutor entered the Palais
through the Cour de Harlay.
On reaching the courtyard of the Conciergerie, Camusot went to the
Governor's room and led him into the middle of the pavement, where no
one could overhear them.
"My dear sir, do me the favor of going to La Force, and inquiring
of your colleague there whether he happens at this moment to have
there any convicts who were on the hulks at Toulon between 1810 and
1815; or have you any imprisoned here? We will transfer those of La
Force here for a few days, and you will let me know whether this
so-called Spanish priest is known to them as Jacques Collin, otherwise
Trompe- la-Mort."
"Very good, Monsieur Camusot.—But Bibi-Lupin is come . . ."
"What, already?" said the judge.
"He was at Melun. He was told that Trompe-la-Mort had to be
identified, and he smiled with joy. He awaits your orders."
"Send him to me."
The Governor was then able to lay before Monsieur Camusot Jacques
Collin's request, and he described the man's deplorable condition.
"I intended to examine him first," replied the magistrate, "but not
on account of his health. I received a note this morning from the
Governor of La Force. Well, this rascal, who described himself to you
as having been dying for twenty-four hours past, slept so soundly that
they went into his cell there, with the doctor for whom the Governor
had sent, without his hearing them; the doctor did not even feel his
pulse, he left him to sleep—which proves that his conscience is as
tough as his health. I shall accept this feigned illness only so far
as it may enable me to study my man," added Monsieur Camusot, smiling.
"We live to learn every day with these various grades of
prisoners," said the Governor of the prison.
The Prefecture of police adjoins the Conciergerie, and the
magistrates, like the Governor, knowing all the subterranean passages,
can get to and fro with the greatest rapidity. This explains the
miraculous ease with which information can be conveyed, during the
sitting of the Courts, to the officials and the presidents of the
Assize Courts. And by the time Monsieur Camusot had reached the top of
the stairs leading to his chambers, Bibi-Lupin was there too, having
come by the Salle des Pas-Perdus.
"What zeal!" said Camusot, with a smile.
"Ah, well, you see if it is HE," replied the man, "you will see
great fun in the prison-yard if by chance there are any old stagers
here."
"Why?"
"Trompe-la-Mort sneaked their chips, and I know that they have
vowed to be the death of him."
THEY were the convicts whose money, intrusted to Trompe-la-Mort,
had all been made away with by him for Lucien, as has been told.
"Could you lay your hand on the witnesses of his former arrest?"
"Give me two summonses of witnesses and I will find you some
to-day."
"Coquart," said the lawyer, as he took off his gloves, and placed
his hat and stick in a corner, "fill up two summonses by monsieur's
directions."
He looked at himself in the glass over the chimney shelf, where
stood, in the place of a clock, a basin and jug. On one side was a
bottle of water and a glass, on the other a lamp. He rang the bell;
his usher came in a few minutes after.
"Is anybody here for me yet?" he asked the man, whose business it
was to receive the witnesses, to verify their summons, and to set them
in the order of their arrival.
"Yes, sir."
"Take their names, and bring me the list."
The examining judges, to save time, are often obliged to carry on
several inquiries at once. Hence the long waiting inflicted on the
witnesses, who have seats in the ushers' hall, where the judges' bells
are constantly ringing.
"And then," Camusot went on, "bring up the Abbe Carlos Herrera."
"Ah, ha! I was told that he was a priest in Spanish. Pooh! It is a
new edition of Collet, Monsieur Camusot," said the head of the Safety
department.
"There is nothing new!" replied Camusot.
And he signed the two formidable documents which alarm everybody,
even the most innocent witnesses, whom the law thus requires to
appear, under severe penalties in case of failure.
By this time Jacques Collin had, about half an hour since, finished
his deep meditations, and was armed for the fray. Nothing is more
perfectly characteristic of this type of the mob in rebellion against
the law than the few words he had written on the greasy scraps of
paper.
The sense of the first—for it was written in the language, the
very slang of slang, agreed upon by Asie and himself, a cipher of
words— was as follows:—
"Go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse or Madame de Serizy: one of
them must see Lucien before he is examined, and give him the
enclosed paper to read. Then find Europe and Paccard; those two
thieves must be at my orders, and ready to play any part I may
set them.
"Go to Rastignac; tell him, from the man he met at the opera-ball,
to come and swear that the Abbe Carlos Herrera has no resemblance
to Jacques Collin who was apprehended at Vauquer's. Do the same
with Dr. Bianchon, and get Lucien's two women to work to the same
end."
On the enclosed fragment were these words in good French:
"Lucien, confess nothing about me. I am the Abbe Carlos Herrera.
Not only will this be your exculpation; but, if you do not lose
your head, you will have seven millions and your honor cleared."
These two bits of paper, gummed on the side of the writing so as to
look like one piece, were then rolled tightly, with a dexterity
peculiar to men who have dreamed of getting free from the hulks. The
whole thing assumed the shape and consistency of a ball of dirty
rubbish, about as big as the sealing-wax heads which thrifty women
stick on the head of a large needle when the eye is broken.
"If I am examined first, we are saved; if it is the boy, all is
lost," said he to himself while he waited.
His plight was so sore that the strong man's face was wet with
white sweat. Indeed, this wonderful man saw as clearly in his sphere
of crime as Moliere did in his sphere of dramatic poetry, or Cuvier in
that of extinct organisms. Genius of whatever kind is intuition. Below
this highest manifestation other remarkable achievements may be due to
talent. This is what divides men of the first rank from those of the
second.
Crime has its men of genius. Jacques Collin, driven to bay, had hit
on the same notion as Madame Camusot's ambition and Madame de Serizy's
passion, suddenly revived by the shock of the dreadful disaster which
was overwhelming Lucien. This was the supreme effort of human
intellect directed against the steel armor of Justice.
On hearing the rasping of the heavy locks and bolts of his door,
Jacques Collin resumed his mask of a dying man; he was helped in this
by the intoxicating joy that he felt at the sound of the warder's
shoes in the passage. He had no idea how Asie would get near him; but
he relied on meeting her on the way, especially after her promise
given in the Saint-Jean gateway.
After that fortunate achievement she had gone on to the Place de
Greve.
Till 1830 the name of La Greve (the Strand) had a meaning that is
now lost. Every part of the river-shore from the Pont d'Arcole to the
Pont Louis-Philippe was then as nature had made it, excepting the
paved way which was at the top of the bank. When the river was in
flood a boat could pass close under the houses and at the end of the
streets running down to the river. On the quay the footpath was for
the most part raised with a few steps; and when the river was up to
the houses, vehicles had to pass along the horrible Rue de la
Mortellerie, which has now been completely removed to make room for
enlarging the Hotel de Ville.
So the sham costermonger could easily and quickly run her truck
down to the bottom of the quay, and hide it there till the real
owner—who was, in fact, drinking the price of her wares, sold bodily
to Asie, in one of the abominable taverns in the Rue de la
Mortellerie—should return to claim it. At that time the Quai
Pelletier was being extended, the entrance to the works was guarded by
a crippled soldier, and the barrow would be quite safe in his keeping.
Asie then jumped into a hackney cab on the Place de l'Hotel de
Ville, and said to the driver, "To the Temple, and look sharp, I'll
tip you well."
A woman dressed like Asie could disappear, without any questions
being asked, in the huge market-place, where all the rags in Paris are
gathered together, where a thousand costermongers wander round, and
two hundred old-clothes sellers are chaffering.
The two prisoners had hardly been locked up when she was dressing
herself in a low, damp entresol over one of those foul shops where
remnants are sold, pieces stolen by tailors and dressmakers—an
establishment kept by an old maid known as La Romette, from her
Christian name Jeromette. La Romette was to the "purchasers of
wardrobes" what these women are to the better class of so-called
ladies in difficulties—Madame la Ressource, that is to say, money-
lenders at a hundred per cent.
"Now, child," said Asie, "I have got to be figged out. I must be a
Baroness of the Faubourg Saint-Germain at the very least. And sharp's
the word, for my feet are in hot oil. You know what gowns suit me.
Hand up the rouge-pot, find me some first-class bits of lace, and the
swaggerest jewelry you can pick out.—Send the girl to call a coach,
and have it brought to the back door."
"Yes, madame," the woman replied very humbly, and with the
eagerness of a maid waiting on her mistress.
If there had been any one to witness the scene, he would have
understood that the woman known as Asie was at home here.
"I have had some diamonds offered me," said la Romette as she
dressed Asie's head.
"Stolen?"
"I should think so."
"Well, then, however cheap they may be, we must do without 'em. We
must fight shy of the beak for a long time to come."
It will now be understood how Asie contrived to be in the Salle des
Pas-Perdus of the Palais de Justice with a summons in her hand, asking
her way along the passages and stairs leading to the examining judge's
chambers, and inquiring for Monsieur Camusot, about a quarter of an
hour before that gentleman's arrival.
Asie was not recognizable. After washing off her "make-up" as an
old woman, like an actress, she applied rouge and pearl powder, and
covered her head with a well-made fair wig. Dressed exactly as a lady
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain might be if in search of a dog she had
lost, she looked about forty, for she shrouded her features under a
splendid black lace veil. A pair of stays, severely laced, disguised
her cook's figure. With very good gloves and a rather large bustle,
she exhaled the perfume of powder a la Marechale. Playing with a bag
mounted in gold, she divided her attention between the walls of the
building, where she found herself evidently for the first time, and
the string by which she led a dainty little spaniel. Such a dowager
could not fail to attract the notice of the black-robed natives of the
Salle des Pas-Perdus.
Besides the briefless lawyers who sweep this hall with their gowns,
and speak of the leading advocates by their Christian names, as fine
gentlemen address each other, to produce the impression that they are
of the aristocracy of the law, patient youths are often to be seen,
hangers-on of the attorneys, waiting, waiting, in hope of a case put
down for the end of the day, which they may be so lucky as to be
called to plead if the advocates retained for the earlier cases should
not come out in time.
A very curious study would be that of the differences between these
various black gowns, pacing the immense hall in threes, or sometimes
in fours, their persistent talk filling the place with a loud, echoing
hum—a hall well named indeed, for this slow walk exhausts the lawyers
as much as the waste of words. But such a study has its place in the
volumes destined to reveal the life of Paris pleaders.
Asie had counted on the presence of these youths; she laughed in
her sleeve at some of the pleasantries she overheard, and finally
succeeded in attracting the attention of Massol, a young lawyer whose
time was more taken up by the Police Gazette than by clients, and who
came up with a laugh to place himself at the service of a woman so
elegantly scented and so handsomely dressed.
Asie put on a little, thin voice to explain to this obliging
gentleman that she appeared in answer to a summons from a judge named
Camusot.
"Oh! in the Rubempre case?"
So the affair had its name already.
"Oh, it is not my affair. It is my maid's, a girl named Europe, who
was with me twenty-four hours, and who fled when she saw my servant
bring in a piece of stamped paper."
Then, like any old woman who spends her life gossiping in the
chimney- corner, prompted by Massol, she poured out the story of her
woes with her first husband, one of the three Directors of the land
revenue. She consulted the young lawyer as to whether she would do
well to enter on a lawsuit with her son-in-law, the Comte de
Gross-Narp, who made her daughter very miserable, and whether the law
allowed her to dispose of her fortune.
In spite of all his efforts, Massol could not be sure whether the
summons were addressed to the mistress or the maid. At the first
moment he had only glanced at this legal document of the most familiar
aspect; for, to save time, it is printed, and the magistrates' clerks
have only to fill in the blanks left for the names and addresses of
the witnesses, the hour for which they are called, and so forth.
Asie made him tell her all about the Palais, which she knew more
intimately than the lawyer did. Finally, she inquired at what hour
Monsieur Camusot would arrive.
"Well, the examining judges generally are here by about ten
o'clock."
"It is now a quarter to ten," said she, looking at a pretty little
watch, a perfect gem of goldsmith's work, which made Massol say to
himself:
"Where the devil will Fortune make herself at home next!"
At this moment Asie had come to the dark hall looking out on the
yard of the Conciergerie, where the ushers wait. On seeing the gate
through the window, she exclaimed:
"What are those high walls?"
"That is the Conciergerie."
"Oh! so that is the Conciergerie where our poor queen—— Oh! I
should so like to see her cell!"
"Impossible, Madame la Baronne," replied the young lawyer, on whose
arm the dowager was now leaning. "A permit is indispensable, and very
difficult to procure."
"I have been told," she went on, "that Louis XVIII. himself
composed the inscription that is to be seen in Marie-Antoinette's
cell."
"Yes, Madame la Baronne."
"How much I should like to know Latin that I might study the words
of that inscription!" said she. "Do you think that Monsieur Camusot
could give me a permit?"
"That is not in his power; but he could take you there."
"But his business——" objected she.
"Oh!" said Massol, "prisoners under suspicion can wait."
"To be sure," said she artlessly, "they are under suspicion.—But I
know Monsieur de Granville, your public prosecutor——"
This hint had a magical effect on the ushers and the young lawyer.
"Ah, you know Monsieur de Granville?" said Massol, who was inclined
to ask the client thus sent to him by chance her name and address.
"I often see him at my friend Monsieur de Serizy's house. Madame de
Serizy is a connection of mine through the Ronquerolles."
"Well, if Madame wishes to go down to the Conciergerie," said an
usher, "she——"
"Yes," said Massol.
So the Baroness and the lawyer were allowed to pass, and they
presently found themselves in the little guard-room at the top of the
stairs leading to the "mousetrap," a spot well known to Asie, forming,
as has been said, a post of observation between those cells and the
Court of the Sixth Chamber, through which everybody is obliged to
pass.
"Will you ask if Monsieur Camusot is come yet?" said she, seeing
some gendarmes playing cards.
"Yes, madame, he has just come up from the 'mousetrap.' "
"The mousetrap!" said she. "What is that?—Oh! how stupid of me not
to have gone straight to the Comte de Granville.—But I have not time
now. Pray take me to speak to Monsieur Camusot before he is otherwise
engaged."
"Oh, you have plenty of time for seeing Monsieur Camusot," said
Massol. "If you send him in your card, he will spare you the
discomfort of waiting in the ante-room with the witnesses.—We can be
civil here to ladies like you.—You have a card about you?"
At this instant Asie and her lawyer were exactly in front of the
window of the guardroom whence the gendarmes could observe the gate of
the Conciergerie. The gendarmes, brought up to respect the defenders
of the widow and the orphan, were aware too of the prerogative of the
gown, and for a few minutes allowed the Baroness to remain there
escorted by a pleader. Asie listened to the terrible tales which a
young lawyer is ready to tell about that prison-gate. She would not
believe that those who were condemned to death were prepared for the
scaffold behind those bars; but the sergeant-at-arms assured her it
was so.
"How much I should like to see it done!" cried she.
And there she remained, prattling to the lawyer and the sergeant,
till she saw Jacques Collin come out supported by two gendarmes, and
preceded by Monsieur Camusot's clerk.
"Ah, there is a chaplain no doubt going to prepare a poor
wretch——"
"Not at all, Madame la Baronne," said the gendarme. "He is a
prisoner coming to be examined."
"What is he accused of?"
"He is concerned in this poisoning case."
"Oh! I should like to see him."
"You cannot stay here," said the sergeant, "for he is under close
arrest, and he must pass through here. You see, madame, that door
leads to the stairs——"
"Oh! thank you!" cried the Baroness, making for the door, to rush
down the stairs, where she at once shrieked out, "Oh! where am I?"
This cry reached the ear of Jacques Collin, who was thus prepared
to see her. The sergeant flew after Madame la Baronne, seized her by
the middle, and lifted her back like a feather into the midst of a
group of five gendarmes, who started up as one man; for in that
guardroom everything is regarded as suspicious. The proceeding was
arbitrary, but the arbitrariness was necessary. The young lawyer
himself had cried out twice, "Madame! madame!" in his horror, so much
did he fear finding himself in the wrong.
The Abbe Carlos Herrera, half fainting, sank on a chair in the
guardroom.
"Poor man!" said the Baroness. "Can he be a criminal?"
The words, though spoken low to the young advocate, could be heard
by all, for the silence of death reigned in that terrible guardroom.
Certain privileged persons are sometimes allowed to see famous
criminals on their way through this room or through the passages, so
that the clerk and the gendarmes who had charge of the Abbe Carlos
made no remark. Also, in consequence of the devoted zeal of the
sergeant who had snatched up the Baroness to hinder any communication
between the prisoner and the visitors, there was a considerable space
between them.
"Let us go on," said Jacques Collin, making an effort to rise.
At the same moment the little ball rolled out of his sleeve, and
the spot where it fell was noted by the Baroness, who could look about
her freely from under her veil. The little pellet, being damp and
sticky, did not roll; for such trivial details, apparently
unimportant, had all been duly considered by Jacques Collin to insure
success.
When the prisoner had been led up the higher part of the steps,
Asie very unaffectedly dropped her bag and picked it up again; but in
stooping she seized the pellet which had escaped notice, its color
being exactly like that of the dust and mud on the floor.
"Oh dear!" cried she, "it goes to my heart.—He is dying——"
"Or seems to be," replied the sergeant.
"Monsieur," said Asie to the lawyer, "take me at once to Monsieur
Camusot; I have come about this case; and he might be very glad to see
me before examining that poor priest."
The lawyer and the Baroness left the guardroom, with its greasy,
fuliginous walls; but as soon as they reached the top of the stairs,
Asie exclaimed:
"Oh, and my dog! My poor little dog!" and she rushed off like a mad
creature down the Salle des Pas-Perdus, asking every one where her dog
was. She got to the corridor beyond (la Galerie Marchande, or
Merchant's Hall, as it is called), and flew to the staircase, saying,
"There he is!"
These stairs lead to the Cour de Harlay, through which Asie, having
played out the farce, passed out and took a hackney cab on the Quai
des Orfevres, where there is a stand; thus she vanished with the
summons requiring "Europe" to appear, her real name being unknown to
the police and the lawyers.
"Rue Neuve-Saint-Marc," cried she to the driver.
Asie could depend on the absolute secrecy of an old-clothes
purchaser, known as Madame Nourrisson, who also called herself Madame
de Saint- Esteve; and who would lend Asie not merely her personality,
but her shop at need, for it was there that Nucingen had bargained for
the surrender of Esther. Asie was quite at home there, for she had a
bedroom in Madame Nourrisson's establishment.
She paid the driver, and went up to her room, nodding to Madame
Nourrisson in a way to make her understand that she had not time to
say two words to her.
As soon as she was safe from observation, Asie unwrapped the papers
with the care of a savant unrolling a palimpsest. After reading the
instructions, she thought it wise to copy the lines intended for
Lucien on a sheet of letter-paper; then she went down to Madame
Nourrisson, to whom she talked while a little shop-girl went to fetch
a cab from the Boulevard des Italiens. She thus extracted the
addresses of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and of Madame de Serizy,
which were known to Madame Nourrisson by her dealings with their
maids.
All this running about and elaborate business took up more than two
hours. Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, who lived at the top of the
Faubourg Saint-Honore, kept Madame de Saint-Esteve waiting an hour,
although the lady's-maid, after knocking at the boudoir door, had
handed in to her mistress a card with Madame de Saint-Esteve's name,
on which Asie had written, "Called about pressing business concerning
Lucien."
Her first glance at the Duchess' face showed her how till-timed her
visit must be; she apologized for disturbing Madame la Duchesse when
she was resting, on the plea of the danger in which Lucien stood.
"Who are you?" asked the Duchess, without any pretence at
politeness, as she looked at Asie from head to foot; for Asie, though
she might be taken for a Baroness by Maitre Massol in the Salle des
Pas-Perdus, when she stood on the carpet in the boudoir of the Hotel
de Cadignan, looked like a splash of mud on a white satin gown.
"I am a dealer in cast-off clothes, Madame la Duchesse; for in such
matters every lady applies to women whose business rests on a basis of
perfect secrecy. I have never betrayed anybody, though God knows how
many great ladies have intrusted their diamonds to me by the month
while wearing false jewels made to imitate them exactly."
"You have some other name?" said the Duchess, smiling at a
reminiscence recalled to her by this reply.
"Yes, Madame la Duchesse, I am Madame de Saint-Esteve on great
occasions, but in the trade I am Madame Nourrisson."
"Well, well," said the Duchess in an altered tone.
"I am able to be of great service," Asie went on, "for we hear the
husbands' secrets as well as the wives'. I have done many little jobs
for Monsieur de Marsay, whom Madame la Duchesse——"
"That will do, that will do!" cried the Duchess. "What about
Lucien?"
"If you wish to save him, madame, you must have courage enough to
lose no time in dressing. But, indeed, Madame la Duchesse, you could
not look more charming than you do at this moment. You are sweet
enough to charm anybody, take an old woman's word for it! In short,
madame, do not wait for your carriage, but get into my hackney coach.
Come to Madame de Serizy's if you hope to avert worse misfortunes than
the death of that cherub——"
"Go on, I will follow you," said the Duchess after a moment's
hesitation. "Between us we may give Leontine some courage . . ."
Notwithstanding the really demoniacal activity of this Dorine of
the hulks, the clock was striking two when she and the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse went into the Comtesse de Serizy's house in the Rue de la
Chaussee-d'Antin. Once there, thanks to the Duchess, not an instant
was lost. The two women were at once shown up to the Countess, whom
they found reclining on a couch in a miniature chalet, surrounded by a
garden fragrant with the rarest flowers.
"That is well," said Asie, looking about her. "No one can overhear
us."
"Oh! my dear, I am half dead! Tell me, Diane, what have you done?"
cried the Duchess, starting up like a fawn, and, seizing the Duchess
by the shoulders, she melted into tears.
"Come, come, Leontine; there are occasions when women like us must
not cry, but act," said the Duchess, forcing the Countess to sit down
on the sofa by her side.
Asie studied the Countess' face with the scrutiny peculiar to those
old hands, which pierces to the soul of a woman as certainly as a
surgeon's instrument probes a wound!—the sorrow that engraves
ineradicable lines on the heart and on the features. She was dressed
without the least touch of vanity. She was now forty-five, and her
printed muslin wrapper, tumbled and untidy, showed her bosom without
any art or even stays! Her eyes were set in dark circles, and her
mottled cheeks showed the traces of bitter tears. She wore no sash
round her waist; the embroidery on her petticoat and shift was all
crumpled. Her hair, knotted up under a lace cap, had not been combed
for four-and-twenty hours, and showed as a thin, short plait and
ragged little curls. Leontine had forgotten to put on her false hair.
"You are in love for the first time in your life?" said Asie
sententiously.
Leontine then saw the woman and started with horror.
"Who is that, my dear Diane?" she asked of the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse.
"Whom should I bring with me but a woman who is devoted to Lucien
and willing to help us?"
Asie had hit the truth. Madame de Serizy, who was regarded as one
of the most fickle of fashionable women, had had an attachment of ten
years' standing for the Marquis d'Aiglemont. Since the Marquis'
departure for the colonies, she had gone wild about Lucien, and had
won him from the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, knowing nothing—like the
Paris world generally—of Lucien's passion for Esther. In the world of
fashion a recognized attachment does more to ruin a woman's reputation
than ten unconfessed liaisons; how much more then two such
attachments? However, as no one thought of Madame de Serizy as a
responsible person, the historian cannot undertake to speak for her
virtue thus doubly dog's-eared.
She was fair, of medium height, and well preserved, as a fair woman
can be who is well preserved at all; that is to say, she did not look
more than thirty, being slender, but not lean, with a white skin and
flaxen hair; she had hands, feet, and a shape of aristocratic
elegance, and was as witty as all the Ronquerolles, spiteful,
therefore, to women, and good-natured to men. Her large fortune, her
husband's fine position, and that of her brother, the Marquis de
Ronquerolles, had protected her from the mortifications with which any
other woman would have been overwhelmed. She had this great merit—
that she was honest in her depravity, and confessed her worship of the
manners and customs of the Regency.
Now, at forty-two this woman—who had hitherto regarded men as no
more than pleasing playthings, to whom, indeed, she had, strange to
say, granted much, regarding love as merely a matter of sacrifice to
gain the upper hand,—this woman, on first seeing Lucien, had been
seized with such a passion as the Baron de Nucingen's for Esther. She
had loved, as Asie had just told her, for the first time in her life.
This postponement of youth is more common with Parisian women than
might be supposed, and causes the ruin of some virtuous souls just as
they are reaching the haven of forty. The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was
the only person in the secret of the vehement and absorbing passion,
of which the joys, from the girlish suspicion of first love to the
preposterous follies of fulfilment, had made Leontine half crazy and
insatiable.
True love, as we know, is merciless. The discovery of Esther's
existence had been followed by one of those outbursts of rage which in
a woman rise even to the pitch of murder; then came the phase of
meanness, to which a sincere affection humbles itself so gladly.
Indeed, for the last month the Countess would have given ten years of
her life to have Lucien again for one week. At last she had even
resigned herself to accept Esther as her rival, just when the news of
her lover's arrest had come like the last trump on this paroxysm of
devotion.
The Countess had nearly died of it. Her husband had himself nursed
her in bed, fearing the betrayal of delirium, and for twenty-four
hours she had been living with a knife in her heart. She said to her
husband in her fever:
"Save Lucien, and I will live henceforth for you alone."
"Indeed, as Madame la Duchesse tells you, it is of no use to make
your eyes like boiled gooseberries," cried the dreadful Asie, shaking
the Countess by the arm. "If you want to save him, there is not a
minute to lose. He is innocent—I swear it by my mother's bones!"
"Yes, yes, of course he is!" cried the Countess, looking quite
kindly at the dreadful old woman.
"But," Asie went on, "if Monsieur Camusot questions him the wrong
way, he can make a guilty man of him with two sentences; so, if it is
in your power to get the Conciergerie opened to you, and to say a few
words to him, go at once, and give him this paper.—He will be
released to-morrow; I will answer for it. Now, get him out of the
scrape, for you got him into it."
"I?"
"Yes, you!—You fine ladies never have a son even when you own
millions. When I allowed myself the luxury of keeping boys, they
always had their pockets full of gold! Their amusements amused me. It
is delightful to be mother and mistress in one. Now, you—you let the
men you love die of hunger without asking any questions. Esther, now,
made no speeches; she gave, at the cost of perdition, soul and body,
the million your Lucien was required to show, and that is what has
brought him to this pass——"
"Poor girl! Did she do that! I love her!" said Leontine.
"Yes—now!" said Asie, with freezing irony.
"She was a real beauty; but now, my angel, you are better looking
than she is.—And Lucien's marriage is so effectually broken off, that
nothing can mend it," said the Duchess in a whisper to Leontine.
The effect of this revelation and forecast was so great on the
Countess that she was well again. She passed her hand over her brow;
she was young once more.
"Now, my lady, hot foot, and make haste!" said Asie, seeing the
change, and guessing what had caused it.
"But," said Madame de Maufrigneuse, "if the first thing is to
prevent Lucien's being examined by Monsieur Camusot, we can do that by
writing two words to the judge and sending your man with it to the
Palais, Leontine."
"Then come into my room," said Madame de Serizy.
This is what was taking place at the Palais while Lucien's
protectresses were obeying the orders issued by Jacques Collin. The
gendarmes placed the moribund prisoner on a chair facing the window in
Monsieur Camusot's room; he was sitting in his place in front of his
table. Coquart, pen in hand, had a little table to himself a few yards
off.
The aspect of a magistrate's chambers is not a matter of
indifference; and if this room had not been chosen intentionally, it
must be owned that chance had favored justice. An examining judge,
like a painter, requires the clear equable light of a north window,
for the criminal's face is a picture which he must constantly study.
Hence most magistrates place their table, as this of Camusot's was
arranged, so as to sit with their back to the window and leave the
face of the examinee in broad daylight. Not one of them all but, by
the end of six months, has assumed an absent-minded and indifferent
expression, if he does not wear spectacles, and maintains it
throughout the examination.
It was a sudden change of expression in the prisoner's face,
detected by these means, and caused by a sudden point-blank question,
that led to the discovery of the crime committed by Castaing at the
very moment when, after a long consultation with the public
prosecutor, the magistrate was about to let the criminal loose on
society for lack of evidence. This detail will show the least
intelligent person how living, interesting, curious, and dramatically
terrible is the conflict of an examination—a conflict without
witnesses, but always recorded. God knows what remains on the paper of
the scenes at white heat in which a look, a tone, a quiver of the
features, the faintest touch of color lent by some emotion, has been
fraught with danger, as though the adversaries were savages watching
each other to plant a fatal stroke. A report is no more than the ashes
of the fire.
"What is your real name?" Camusot asked Jacques Collin.
"Don Carlos Herrera, canon of the Royal Chapter of Toledo, and
secret envoy of His Majesty Ferdinand VII."
It must here be observed that Jacques Collin spoke French like a
Spanish trollop, blundering over it in such a way as to make his
answers almost unintelligible, and to require them to be repeated. But
Monsieur de Nucingen's German barbarisms have already weighted this
Scene too much to allow of the introduction of other sentences no less
difficult to read, and hindering the rapid progress of the tale.
"Then you have papers to prove your right to the dignities of which
you speak?" asked Camusot.
"Yes, monsieur—my passport, a letter from his Catholic Majesty
authorizing my mission.—In short, if you will but send at once to the
Spanish Embassy two lines, which I will write in your presence, I
shall be identified. Then, if you wish for further evidence, I will
write to His Eminence the High Almoner of France, and he will
immediately send his private secretary."
"And do you still pretend that you are dying?" asked the
magistrate. "If you have really gone through all the sufferings you
have complained of since your arrest, you ought to be dead by this
time," said Camusot ironically.
"You are simply trying the courage of an innocent man and the
strength of his constitution," said the prisoner mildly.
"Coquart, ring. Send for the prison doctor and an infirmary
attendant. —We shall be obliged to remove your coat and proceed to
verify the marks on your shoulder," Camusot went on.
"I am in your hands, monsieur."
The prisoner then inquired whether the magistrate would be kind
enough to explain to him what he meant by "the marks," and why they
should be sought on his shoulder. The judge was prepared for this
question.
"You are suspected of being Jacques Collin, an escaped convict,
whose daring shrinks at nothing, not even at sacrilege!" said Camusot
promptly, his eyes fixed on those of the prisoner.
Jacques Collin gave no sign, and did not color; he remained quite
calm, and assumed an air of guileless curiosity as he gazed at
Camusot.
"I, monsieur? A convict? May the Order I belong to and God above
forgive you for such an error. Tell me what I can do to prevent your
continuing to offer such an insult to the rights of free men, to the
Church, and to the King my master."
The judge made no reply to this, but explained to the Abbe that if
he had been branded, a penalty at that time inflicted by law on all
convicts sent to the hulks, the letters could be made to show by
giving him a slap on the shoulder.
"Oh, monsieur," said Jacques Collin, "it would indeed be
unfortunate if my devotion to the Royal cause should prove fatal to
me."
"Explain yourself," said the judge, "that is what you are here
for."
"Well, monsieur, I must have a great many scars on my back, for I
was shot in the back as a traitor to my country while I was faithful
to my King, by constitutionalists who left me for dead."
"You were shot, and you are alive!" said Camusot.
"I had made friends with some of the soldiers, to whom certain
pious persons had sent money, so they placed me so far off that only
spent balls reached me, and the men aimed at my back. This is a fact
that His Excellency the Ambassador can bear witness to——"
"This devil of a man has an answer for everything! However, so much
the better," thought Camusot, who assumed so much severity only to
satisfy the demands of justice and of the police. "How is it that a
man of your character," he went on, addressing the convict, "should
have been found in the house of the Baron de Nucingen's mistress—and
such a mistress, a girl who had been a common prostitute!"
"This is why I was found in a courtesan's house, monsieur," replied
Jacques Collin. "But before telling you the reasons for my being
there, I ought to mention that at the moment when I was just going
upstairs I was seized with the first attack of my illness, and I had
no time to speak to the girl. I knew of Mademoiselle Esther's
intention of killing herself; and as young Lucien de Rubempre's
interests were involved, and I have a particular affection for him for
sacredly secret reasons, I was going to try to persuade the poor
creature to give up the idea, suggested to her by despair. I meant to
tell her that Lucien must certainly fail in his last attempt to win
Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu; and I hoped that by telling her
she had inherited seven millions of francs, I might give her courage
to live.
"I am convinced, Monsieur le Juge, that I am a martyr to the
secrets confided to me. By the suddenness of my illness I believe that
I had been poisoned that very morning, but my strong constitution has
saved me. I know that a certain agent of the political police is
dogging me, and trying to entangle me in some discreditable business.
"If, at my request, you had sent for a doctor on my arrival here,
you would have had ample proof of what I am telling you as to the
state of my health. Believe me, monsieur, some persons far above our
heads have some strong interest in getting me mistaken for some
villain, so as to have a right to get rid of me. It is not all profit
to serve a king; they have their meannesses. The Church alone is
faultless."
It is impossible to do justice to the play of Jacques Collin's
countenance as he carefully spun out his speech, sentence by sentence,
for ten minutes; and it was all so plausible, especially the mention
of Corentin, that the lawyer was shaken.
"Will you confide to me the reasons of your affection for Monsieur
Lucien de Rubempre?"
"Can you not guess them? I am sixty years of age, monsieur—I
implore you do not write it.—It is because—must I say it?"
"It will be to your own advantage, and more particularly to
Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre's, if you tell everything," replied the
judge.
"Because he is—Oh, God! he is my son," he gasped out with an
effort.
And he fainted away.
"Do not write that down, Coquart," said Camusot in an undertone.
Coquart rose to fetch a little phial of "Four thieves' Vinegar."
"If he is Jacques Collin, he is a splendid actor!" thought Camusot.
Coquart held the phial under the convict's nose, while the judge
examined him with the keen eye of a lynx—and a magistrate.
"Take his wig off," said Camusot, after waiting till the man
recovered consciousness.
Jacques Collin heard, and quaked with terror, for he knew how vile
an expression his face would assume.
"If you have not strength enough to take your wig off yourself——
Yes, Coquart, remove it," said Camusot to his clerk.
Jacques Collin bent his head to the clerk with admirable
resignation; but then his head, bereft of that adornment, was hideous
to behold in its natural aspect.
The sight of it left Camusot in the greatest uncertainty. While
waiting for the doctor and the man from the infirmary, he set to work
to classify and examine the various papers and the objects seized in
Lucien's rooms. After carrying out their functions in the Rue Saint-
Georges at Mademoiselle Esther's house, the police had searched the
rooms at the Quai Malaquais.
"You have your hand on some letters from the Comtesse de Serizy,"
said Carlos Herrera. "But I cannot imagine why you should have almost
all Lucien's papers," he added, with a smile of overwhelming irony at
the judge.
Camusot, as he saw the smile, understood the bearing of the word
"almost."
"Lucien de Rubempre is in custody under suspicion of being your
accomplice," said he, watching to see the effect of this news on his
examinee.
"You have brought about a great misfortune, for he is as innocent
as I am," replied the sham Spaniard, without betraying the smallest
agitation.
"We shall see. We have not as yet established your identity,"
Camusot observed, surprised at the prisoner's indifference. "If you
are really Don Carlos Herrera, the position of Lucien Chardon will at
once be completely altered."
"To be sure, she became Madame Chardon—Mademoiselle de Rubempre!"
murmured Carlos. "Ah! that was one of the greatest sins of my life."
He raised his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips
seemed to be uttering a fervent prayer.
"But if you are Jacques Collin, and if he was, and knew that he
was, the companion of an escaped convict, a sacrilegious wretch, all
the crimes of which he is suspected by the law are more than probably
true."
Carlos Herrera sat like bronze as he heard this speech, very
cleverly delivered by the judge, and his only reply to the words "KNEW
THAT HE WAS" and "ESCAPED CONVICT" was to lift his hands to heaven
with a gesture of noble and dignified sorrow.
"Monsieur l'Abbe," Camusot went on, with the greatest politeness,
"if you are Don Carlos Herrera, you will forgive us for what we are
obliged to do in the interests of justice and truth."
Jacques Collin detected a snare in the lawyer's very voice as he
spoke the words "Monsieur l'Abbe." The man's face never changed;
Camusot had looked for a gleam of joy, which might have been the first
indication of his being a convict, betraying the exquisite
satisfaction of a criminal deceiving his judge; but this hero of the
hulks was strong in Machiavellian dissimulation.
"I am accustomed to diplomacy, and I belong to an Order of very
austere discipline," replied Jacques Collin, with apostolic mildness.
"I understand everything, and am inured to suffering. I should be free
by this time if you had discovered in my room the hiding-place where I
keep my papers—for I see you have none but unimportant documents."
This was a finishing stroke to Camusot: Jacques Collin by his air
of ease and simplicity had counteracted all the suspicions to which
his appearance, unwigged, had given rise.
"Where are these papers?"
"I will tell you exactly if you will get a secretary from the
Spanish Embassy to accompany your messenger. He will take them and be
answerable to you for the documents, for it is to me a matter of
confidential duty—diplomatic secrets which would compromise his late
Majesty Louis XVIII—Indeed, monsieur, it would be better—— However,
you are a magistrate—and, after all, the Ambassador, to whom I refer
the whole question, must decide."
At this juncture the usher announced the arrival of the doctor and
the infirmary attendant, who came in.
"Good-morning, Monsieur Lebrun," said Camusot to the doctor. "I
have sent for you to examine the state of health of this prisoner
under suspicion. He says he had been poisoned and at the point of
death since the day before yesterday; see if there is any risk in
undressing him to look for the brand."
Doctor Lebrun took Jacques Collin's hand, felt his pulse, asked to
look at his tongue, and scrutinized him steadily. This inspection
lasted about ten minutes.
"The prisoner has been suffering severely," said the medical
officer, "but at this moment he is amazingly strong——"
"That spurious energy, monsieur, is due to nervous excitement
caused by my strange position," said Jacques Collin, with the dignity
of a bishop.
"That is possible," said Monsieur Lebrun.
At a sign from Camusot the prisoner was stripped of everything but
his trousers, even of his shirt, and the spectators might admire the
hairy torso of a Cyclops. It was that of the Farnese Hercules at
Naples in its colossal exaggeration.
"For what does nature intend a man of this build?" said Lebrun to
the judge.
The usher brought in the ebony staff, which from time immemorial
has been the insignia of his office, and is called his rod; he struck
it several times over the place where the executioner had branded the
fatal letters. Seventeen spots appeared, irregularly distributed, but
the most careful scrutiny could not recognize the shape of any
letters. The usher indeed pointed out that the top bar of the letter T
was shown by two spots, with an interval between of the length of that
bar between the two points at each end of it, and there was another
spot where the bottom of the T should be.
"Still that is quite uncertain," said Camusot, seeing doubt in the
expression of the prison doctor's countenance.
Carlos begged them to make the same experiment on the other
shoulder and the middle of his back. About fifteen more such scars
appeared, which, at the Spaniard's request, the doctor made a note of;
and he pronounced that the man's back had been so extensively seamed
by wounds that the brand would not show even if it had been made by
the executioner.
An office-clerk now came in from the Prefecture, and handed a note
to Monsieur Camusot, requesting an answer. After reading it the lawyer
went to speak to Coquart, but in such a low voice that no one could
catch a word. Only, by a glance from Camusot, Jacques Collin could
guess that some information concerning him had been sent by the Prefet
of Police.
"That friend of Peyrade's is still at my heels," thought Jacques
Collin. "If only I knew him, I would get rid of him as I did of
Contenson. If only I could see Asie once more!"
After signing a paper written by Coquart, the judge put it into an
envelope and handed it to the clerk of the Delegate's office.
This is an indispensable auxiliary to justice. It is under the
direction of a police commissioner, and consists of peace-officers
who, with the assistance of the police commissioners of each district,
carry into effect orders for searching the houses or apprehending the
persons of those who are suspected of complicity in crimes and
felonies. These functionaries in authority save the examining
magistrates a great deal of very precious time.
At a sign from the judge the prisoner was dressed by Monsieur
Lebrun and the attendant, who then withdrew with the usher. Camusot
sat down at his table and played with his pen.
"You have an aunt," he suddenly said to Jacques Collin.
"An aunt?" echoed Don Carlos Herrera with amazement. "Why,
monsieur, I have no relations. I am the unacknowledged son of the late
Duke of Ossuna."
But to himself he said, "They are burning"—an allusion to the game
of hot cockles, which is indeed a childlike symbol of the dreadful
struggle between justice and the criminal.
"Pooh!" said Camusot. "You still have an aunt living, Mademoiselle
Jacqueline Collin, whom you placed in Esther's service under the
eccentric name of Asie."
Jacques Collin shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that was
in perfect harmony with the cool curiosity he gave throughout to the
judge's words, while Camusot studied him with cunning attention.
"Take care," said Camusot; "listen to me."
"I am listening, sir."
"You aunt is a wardrobe dealer at the Temple; her business is
managed by a demoiselle Paccard, the sister of a convict—herself a
very good girl, known as la Romette. Justice is on the traces of your
aunt, and in a few hours we shall have decisive evidence. The woman is
wholly devoted to you——"
"Pray go on, Monsieur le Juge," said Collin coolly, in answer to a
pause; "I am listening to you."
"Your aunt, who is about five years older than you are, was
formerly Marat's mistress—of odious memory. From that blood-stained
source she derived the little fortune she possesses.
"From information I have received she must be a very clever
receiver of stolen goods, for no proofs have yet been found to commit
her on. After Marat's death she seems, from the notes I have here, to
have lived with a chemist who was condemned to death in the year XII.
for issuing false coin. She was called as witness in the case. It was
from this intimacy that she derived her knowledge of poisons.
"In 1812 and in 1816 she spent two years in prison for placing
girls under age upon the streets.
"You were already convicted of forgery; you had left the banking
house where your aunt had been able to place you as clerk, thanks to
the education you had had, and the favor enjoyed by your aunt with
certain persons for whose debaucheries she supplied victims.
"All this, prisoner, is not much like the dignity of the Dukes
d'Ossuna.
"Do you persist in your denial?"
Jacques Collin sat listening to Monsieur Camusot, and thinking of
his happy childhood at the College of the Oratorians, where he had
been brought up, a meditation which lent him a truly amazed look. And
in spite of his skill as a practised examiner, Camusot could bring no
sort of expression to those placid features.
"If you have accurately recorded the account of myself I gave you
at first," said Jacques Collin, "you can read it through again. I
cannot alter the facts. I never went to the woman's house; how should
I know who her cook was? The persons of whom you speak are utterly
unknown to me."
"Notwithstanding your denial, we shall proceed to confront you with
persons who may succeed in diminishing your assurance"
"A man who has been three times shot is used to anything," replied
Jacques Collin meekly.
Camusot proceeded to examine the seized papers while awaiting the
return of the famous Bibi-Lupin, whose expedition was amazing; for at
half-past eleven, the inquiry having begun at ten o'clock, the usher
came in to inform the judge in an undertone of Bibi-Lupin's arrival.
"Show him in," replied M. Camusot.
Bibi-Lupin, who had been expected to exclaim, "It is he," as he
came in, stood puzzled. He did not recognize his man in a face pitted
with smallpox. This hesitancy startled the magistrate.
"It is his build, his height," said the agent. "Oh! yes, it is you,
Jacques Collin!" he went on, as he examined his eyes, forehead, and
ears. "There are some things which no disguise can alter. . . .
Certainly it is he, Monsieur Camusot. Jacques has the scar of a cut on
his left arm. Take off his coat, and you will see . . ."
Jacques Collin was again obliged to take off his coat; Bibi-Lupin
turned up his sleeve and showed the scar he had spoken of.
"It is the scar of a bullet," replied Don Carlos Herrera. "Here are
several more."
"Ah! It is certainly his voice," cried Bibi-Lupin.
"Your certainty," said Camusot, "is merely an opinion; it is not
proof."
"I know that," said Bibi-Lupin with deference. "But I will bring
witnesses. One of the boarders from the Maison Vauquer is here
already," said he, with an eye on Collin.
But the prisoner's set, calm face did not move a muscle.
"Show the person in," said Camusot roughly, his dissatisfaction
betraying itself in spite of his seeming indifference.
This irritation was not lost on Jacques Collin, who had not counted
on the judge's sympathy, and sat lost in apathy, produced by his deep
meditations in the effort to guess what the cause could be.
The usher now showed in Madame Poiret. At this unexpected
appearance the prisoner had a slight shiver, but his trepidation was
not remarked by Camusot, who seemed to have made up his mind.
"What is your name?" asked he, proceeding to carry out the
formalities introductory to all depositions and examinations.
Madame Poiret, a little old woman as white and wrinkled as a
sweetbread, dressed in a dark-blue silk gown, gave her name as
Christine Michelle Michonneau, wife of one Poiret, and her age as
fifty-one years, said that she was born in Paris, lived in the Rue des
Poules at the corner of the Rue des Postes, and that her business was
that of lodging-house keeper.
"In 1818 and 1819," said the judge, "you lived, madame, in a
boarding- house kept by a Madame Vauquer?"
"Yes, monsieur; it was there that I met Monsieur Poiret, a retired
official, who became my husband, and whom I have nursed in his bed
this twelvemonth past. Poor man! he is very bad; and I cannot be long
away from him."
"There was a certain Vautrin in the house at the time?" asked
Camusot.
"Oh, monsieur, that is quite a long story; he was a horrible man,
from the galleys——"
"You helped to get him arrested?"
"That is not true sir."
"You are in the presence of the Law; be careful," said Monsieur
Camusot severely.
Madame Poiret was silent.
"Try to remember," Camusot went on. "Do you recollect the man?
Would you know him again?"
"I think so."
"Is this the man?"
Madame Poiret put on her "eye-preservers," and looked at the Abbe
Carlos Herrera.
"It is his build, his height; and yet—no—if—Monsieur le Juge,"
she said, "if I could see his chest I should recognize him at once."
The magistrate and his clerk could not help laughing,
notwithstanding the gravity of their office; Jacques Collin joined in
their hilarity, but discreetly. The prisoner had not put on his coat
after Bibi-Lupin had removed it, and at a sign from the judge he
obligingly opened his shirt.
"Yes, that is his fur trimming, sure enough!—But it has worn gray,
Monsieur Vautrin," cried Madame Poiret.
"What have you to say to that?" asked the judge of the prisoner.
"That she is mad," replied Jacques Collin.
"Bless me! If I had a doubt—for his face is altered—that voice
would be enough. He is the man who threatened me. Ah! and those are
his eyes!"
"The police agent and this woman," said Camusot, speaking to
Jacques Collin, "cannot possibly have conspired to say the same thing,
for neither of them had seen you till now. How do you account for
that?"
"Justice has blundered more conspicuously even than it does now in
accepting the evidence of a woman who recognizes a man by the hair on
his chest and the suspicions of a police agent," replied Jacques
Collin. "I am said to resemble a great criminal in voice, eyes, and
build; that seems a little vague. As to the memory which would prove
certain relations between Madame and my Sosie—which she does not
blush to own—you yourself laughed at. Allow me, monsieur, in the
interests of truth, which I am far more anxious to establish for my
own sake than you can be for the sake of justice, to ask this lady—
Madame Foiret——"
"Poiret."
"Poret—excuse me, I am a Spaniard—whether she remembers the other
persons who lived in this—what did you call the house?"
"A boarding-house," said Madame Poiret.
"I do not know what that is."
"A house where you can dine and breakfast by subscription."
"You are right," said Camusot, with a favorable nod to Jacques
Collin, whose apparent good faith in suggesting means to arrive at
some conclusion struck him greatly. "Try to remember the boarders who
were in the house when Jacques Collin was apprehended."
"There were Monsieur de Rastignac, Doctor Bianchon, Pere Goriot,
Mademoiselle Taillefer——"
"That will do," said Camusot, steadily watching Jacques Collin,
whose expression did not change. "Well, about this Pere Goriot?"
"He is dead," said Madame Poiret.
"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin, "I have several times met Monsieur
de Rastignac, a friend, I believe, of Madame de Nucingen's; and if it
is the same, he certainly never supposed me to be the convict with
whom these persons try to identify me."
"Monsieur de Rastignac and Doctor Bianchon," said the magistrate,
"both hold such a social position that their evidence, if it is in
your favor, will be enough to procure your release.—Coquart, fill up
a summons for each of them."
The formalities attending Madame Poiret's examination were over in
a few minutes; Coquart read aloud to her the notes he had made of the
little scene, and she signed the paper; but the prisoner refused to
sign, alleging his ignorance of the forms of French law.
"That is enough for to-day," said Monsieur Camusot. "You must be
wanting food. I will have you taken back to the Conciergerie."
"Alas! I am suffering too much to be able to eat," said Jacques
Collin.
Camusot was anxious to time Jacques Collin's return to coincide
with the prisoners' hour of exercise in the prison yard; but he needed
a reply from the Governor of the Conciergerie to the order he had
given him in the morning, and he rang for the usher. The usher
appeared, and told him that the porter's wife, from the house on the
Quai Malaquais, had an important document to communicate with
reference to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre. This was so serious a matter
that it put Camusot's intentions out of his head.
"Show her in," said he.
"Beg your pardon; pray excuse me, gentlemen all," said the woman,
courtesying to the judge and the Abbe Carlos by turns. "We were so
worried by the Law—my husband and me—the twice when it has marched
into our house, that we had forgotten a letter that was lying, for
Monsieur Lucien, in our chest of drawers, which we paid ten sous for
it, though it was posted in Paris, for it is very heavy, sir. Would
you please to pay me back the postage? For God knows when we shall see
our lodgers again!"
"Was this letter handed to you by the postman?" asked Camusot,
after carefully examining the envelope.
"Yes, monsieur."
"Coquart, write full notes of this deposition.—Go on, my good
woman; tell us your name and your business." Camusot made the woman
take the oath, and then he dictated the document.
While these formalities were being carried out, he was scrutinizing
the postmark, which showed the hours of posting and delivery, as well
at the date of the day. And this letter, left for Lucien the day after
Esther's death, had beyond a doubt been written and posted on the day
of the catastrophe. Monsieur Camusot's amazement may therefore be
imagined when he read this letter written and signed by her whom the
law believed to have been the victim of a crime:—
"ESTHER TO LUCIEN.
MONDAY, May 13th, 1830.
"My last day; ten in the morning.
"MY LUCIEN,—I have not an hour to live. At eleven o'clock I shall
be dead, and I shall die without a pang. I have paid fifty
thousand francs for a neat little black currant, containing a
poison that will kill me with the swiftness of lightning. And so,
my darling, you may tell yourself, 'My little Esther had no
suffering.'—and yet I shall suffer in writing these pages.
"The monster who has paid so dear for me, knowing that the day
when I should know myself to be his would have no
morrow—Nucingen
has just left me, as drunk as a bear with his skin full of wind.
For the first and last time in my life I have had the opportunity
of comparing my old trade as a street hussy with the life of true
love, of placing the tenderness which unfolds in the infinite
above the horrors of a duty which longs to destroy itself and
leave no room even for a kiss. Only such loathing could make
death
delightful.
"I have taken a bath; I should have liked to send for the father
confessor of the convent where I was baptized, to have confessed
and washed my soul. But I have had enough of prostitution; it
would be profaning a sacrament; and besides, I feel myself
cleansed in the waters of sincere repentance. God must do what He
will with me.
"But enough of all this maudlin; for you I want to be your Esther
to the last moment, not to bore you with my death, or the future,
or God, who is good, and who would not be good if He were to
torture me in the next world when I have endured so much misery
in
this.
"I have before me your beautiful portrait, painted by Madame de
Mirbel. That sheet of ivory used to comfort me in your absence, I
look at it with rapture as I write you my last thoughts, and tell
you of the last throbbing of my heart. I shall enclose the
miniature in this letter, for I cannot bear that it should be
stolen or sold. The mere thought that what has been my great joy
may lie behind a shop window, mixed up with the ladies and
officers of the Empire, or a parcel of Chinese absurdities, is a
small death to me. Destroy that picture, my sweetheart, wipe it
out, never give it to any one—unless, indeed, the gift might win
back the heart of that walking, well-dressed maypole, that
Clotilde de Grandlieu, who will make you black and blue in her
sleep, her bones are so sharp.—Yes, to that I consent, and then
I
shall still be of some use to you, as when I was alive. Oh! to
give you pleasure, or only to make you laugh, I would have stood
over a brazier with an apple in my mouth to cook it for you.—So
my death even will be of service to you.—I should have marred
your home.
"Oh! that Clotilde! I cannot understand her.—She might have been
your wife, have borne your name, have never left you day or
night,
have belonged to you—and she could make difficulties! Only the
Faubourg Saint-Germain can do that! and yet she has not ten
pounds
of flesh on her bones!
"Poor Lucien! Dear ambitious failure! I am thinking of your future
life. Well, well! you will more than once regret your poor
faithful dog, the good girl who would fly to serve you, who would
have been dragged into a police court to secure your happiness,
whose only occupation was to think of your pleasures and invent
new ones, who was so full of love for you—in her hair, her feet,
her ears—your ballerina, in short, whose every look was a
benediction; who for six years has thought of nothing but you,
who
was so entirely your chattel that I have never been anything but
an effluence of your soul, as light is that of the sun. However,
for lack of money and of honor, I can never be your wife. I have
at any rate provided for your future by giving you all I have.
"Come as soon as you get this letter and take what you find under
my pillow, for I do not trust the people about me. Understand
that
I mean to look beautiful when I am dead. I shall go to bed, and
lay myself flat in an attitude—why not? Then I shall break the
little pill against the roof of my mouth, and shall not be
disfigured by any convulsion or by a ridiculous position.
"Madame de Serizy has quarreled with you, I know, because of me;
but when she hears that I am dead, you see, dear pet, she will
forgive. Make it up with her, and she will find you a suitable
wife if the Grandlieus persist in their refusal.
"My dear, I do not want you to grieve too much when you hear of my
death. To begin with, I must tell you that the hour of eleven on
Monday morning, the thirteenth of May, is only the end of a long
illness, which began on the day when, on the Terrace of Saint-
Germain, you threw me back on my former line of life. The soul
may
be sick, as the body is. But the soul cannot submit stupidly to
suffering like the body; the body does not uphold the soul as the
soul upholds the body, and the soul sees a means of cure in the
reflection which leads to the needlewoman's resource—the bushel
of charcoal. You gave me a whole life the day before yesterday,
when you said that if Clotilde still refused you, you would marry
me. It would have been a great misfortune for us both; I should
have been still more dead, so to speak—for there are more and
less bitter deaths. The world would never have recognized us.
"For two months past I have been thinking of many things, I can
tell you. A poor girl is in the mire, as I was before I went into
the convent; men think her handsome, they make her serve their
pleasure without thinking any consideration necessary; they pack
her off on foot after fetching her in a carriage; if they do not
spit in her face, it is only because her beauty preserves her
from
such indignity; but, morally speaking they do worse. Well, and if
this despised creature were to inherit five or six millions of
francs, she would be courted by princes, bowed to with respect as
she went past in her carriage, and might choose among the oldest
names in France and Navarre. That world which would have cried
Raca to us, on seeing two handsome creatures united and happy,
always did honor to Madame de Stael, in spite of her 'romances in
real life,' because she had two hundred thousand francs a year.
The world, which grovels before money or glory, will not bow down
before happiness or virtue—for I could have done good. Oh! how
many tears I would have dried—as many as I have shed—I believe!
Yes, I would have lived only for you and for charity.
"These are the thoughts that make death beautiful. So do not
lament, my dear. Say often to yourself, 'There were two good
creatures, two beautiful creatures, who both died for me
ungrudgingly, and who adored me.' Keep a memory in your heart of
Coralie and Esther, and go your way and prosper. Do you recollect
the day when you pointed out to me a shriveled old woman, in a
melon-green bonnet and a puce wrapper, all over black grease-
spots, the mistress of a poet before the Revolution, hardly
thawed
by the sun though she was sitting against the wall of the
Tuileries and fussing over a pug—the vilest of pugs? She had had
footmen and carriages, you know, and a fine house! And I said to
you then, 'How much better to be dead at thirty!'—Well, you
thought I was melancholy, and you played all sorts of pranks to
amuse me, and between two kisses I said, 'Every day some pretty
woman leaves the play before it is over!'—And I do not want to
see the last piece; that is all.
"You must think me a great chatterbox; but this is my last
effusion. I write as if I were talking to you, and I like to talk
cheerfully. I have always had a horror of a dressmaker pitying
herself. You know I knew how to die decently once before, on my
return from that fatal opera-ball where the men said I had been a
prostitute.
"No, no, my dear love, never give this portrait to any one! If you
could know with what a gush of love I have sat losing myself in
your eyes, looking at them with rapture during a pause I allowed
myself, you would feel as you gathered up the affection with
which
I have tried to overlay the ivory, that the soul of your little
pet is indeed there.
"A dead woman craving alms! That is a funny idea.—Come, I must
learn to lie quiet in my grave.
"You have no idea how heroic my death would seem to some fools if
they could know Nucingen last night offered me two millions of
francs if I would love him as I love you. He will be handsomely
robbed when he hears that I have kept my word and died of him. I
tried all I could still to breathe the air you breathe. I said to
the fat scoundrel, 'Do you want me to love you as you wish? To
promise even that I will never see Lucien again?'—'What must I
do?' he asked.—'Give me the two millions for him.'—You should
have seen his face! I could have laughed, if it had not been so
tragical for me.
" 'Spare yourself the trouble of refusing,' said I; 'I see you
care more for your two millions than for me. A woman is always
glad to know at what she is valued!' and I turned my back on
him.
"In a few hours the old rascal will know that I was not in jest.
"Who will part your hair as nicely as I do? Pooh!—I will think no
more of anything in life; I have but five minutes, I give them to
God. Do not be jealous of Him, dear heart; I shall speak to Him
of
you, beseeching Him for your happiness as the price of my death,
and my punishment in the next world. I am vexed enough at having
to go to hell. I should have liked to see the angels, to know if
they are like you.
"Good-bye, my darling, good-bye! I give you all the blessing of my
woes. Even in the grave I am your Esther.
"It is striking eleven. I have said my last prayers. I am going to
bed to die. Once more, farewell! I wish that the warmth of my
hand
could leave my soul there where I press a last kiss—and once
more
I must call you my dearest love, though you are the cause of the
death of your Esther."
A vague feeling of jealousy tightened on the magistrate's heart as
he read this letter, the only letter from a suicide he had ever found
written with such lightness, though it was a feverish lightness, and
the last effort of a blind affection.
"What is there in the man that he should be loved so well?" thought
he, saying what every man says who has not the gift of attracting
women.
"If you can prove not merely that you are not Jacques Collin and an
escaped convict, but that you are in fact Don Carlos Herrera, canon of
Toledo, and secret envoy of this Majesty Ferdinand VII.," said he,
addressing the prisoner "you will be released; for the impartiality
demanded by my office requires me to tell you that I have this moment
received a letter, written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, in which
she declares her intention of killing herself, and expresses
suspicions as to her servants, which would seem to point to them as
the thieves who have made off with the seven hundred and fifty
thousand francs."
As he spoke Monsieur Camusot was comparing the writing of the
letter with that of the will; and it seemed to him self-evident that
the same person had written both
"Monsieur, you were in too great a hurry to believe in a murder; do
not be too hasty in believing in a theft."
"Heh!" said Camusot, scrutinizing the prisoner with a piercing eye.
"Do not suppose that I am compromising myself by telling you that
the sum may possibly be recovered," said Jacques Collin, making the
judge understand that he saw his suspicions. "That poor girl was much
loved by those about her; and if I were free, I would undertake to
search for this money, which no doubt belongs to the being I love best
in the world—to Lucien!—Will you allow me to read that letter; it
will not take long? It is evidence of my dear boy's innocence—you
cannot fear that I shall destroy it—nor that I shall talk about it; I
am in solitary confinement."
"In confinement! You will be so no longer," cried the magistrate.
"It is I who must beg you to get well as soon as possible. Refer to
your ambassador if you choose——"
And he handed the letter to Jacques Collin. Camusot was glad to be
out of a difficulty, to be able to satisfy the public prosecutor,
Mesdames de Maufrigneuse and de Serizy. Nevertheless, he studied his
prisoner's face with cold curiosity while Collin read Esther's letter;
in spite of the apparent genuineness of the feelings it expressed, he
said to himself:
"But it is a face worthy of the hulks, all the same!"
"That is the way to love!" said Jacques Collin, returning the
letter. And he showed Camusot a face bathed in tears.
"If only you knew him," he went on, "so youthful, so innocent a
soul, so splendidly handsome, a child, a poet!—The impulse to
sacrifice oneself to him is irresistible, to satisfy his lightest
wish. That dear boy is so fascinating when he chooses——"
"And so," said the magistrate, making a final effort to discover
the truth, "you cannot possibly be Jacques Collin——"
"No, monsieur," replied the convict.
And Jacques Collin was more entirely Don Carlos Herrera than ever.
In his anxiety to complete his work he went up to the judge, led him
to the window, and gave himself the airs of a prince of the Church,
assuming a confidential tone:
"I am so fond of that boy, monsieur, that if it were needful, to
spare that idol of my heart a mere discomfort even, that I should be
the criminal you take me for, I would surrender," said he in an
undertone. "I would follow the example of the poor girl who has killed
herself for his benefit. And I beg you, monsieur, to grant me a
favor—namely, to set Lucien at liberty forthwith."
"My duty forbids it," said Camusot very good-naturedly; "but if a
sinner may make a compromise with heaven, justice too has its softer
side, and if you can give me sufficient reasons—speak; your words
will not be taken down."
"Well, then," Jacques Collin went on, taken in by Camusot's
apparent goodwill, "I know what that poor boy is suffering at this
moment; he is capable of trying to kill himself when he finds himself
a prisoner——"
"Oh! as to that!" said Camusot with a shrug.
"You do not know whom you will oblige by obliging me," added
Jacques Collin, trying to harp on another string. "You will be doing a
service to others more powerful than any Comtesse de Serizy or
Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, who will never forgive you for having had
their letters in your chambers——" and he pointed to two packets of
perfumed papers. "My Order has a good memory."
"Monsieur," said Camusot, "that is enough. You must find better
reasons to give me. I am as much interested in the prisoner as in
public vengeance."
"Believe me, then, I know Lucien; he has a soul of a woman, of a
poet, and a southerner, without persistency or will," said Jacques
Collin, who fancied that he saw that he had won the judge over. "You
are convinced of the young man's innocence, do not torture him, do not
question him. Give him that letter, tell him that he is Esther's heir,
and restore him to freedom. If you act otherwise, you will bring
despair on yourself; whereas, if you simply release him, I will
explain to you—keep me still in solitary confinement—to-morrow or
this evening, everything that may strike you as mysterious in the
case, and the reasons for the persecution of which I am the object.
But it will be at the risk of my life, a price has been set on my head
these six years past. . . . Lucien free, rich, and married to Clotilde
de Grandlieu, and my task on earth will be done; I shall no longer try
to save my skin.—My persecutor was a spy under your late King."
"What, Corentin?"
"Ah! Is his name Corentin? Thank you, monsieur. Well, will you
promise to do as I ask you?"
"A magistrate can make no promises.—Coquart, tell the usher and
the gendarmes to take the prisoner back to the Conciergerie.—I will
give orders that you are to have a private room," he added pleasantly,
with a slight nod to the convict.
Struck by Jacques Collin's request, and remembering how he had
insisted that he wished to be examined first as a privilege to his
state of health, Camusot's suspicions were aroused once more. Allowing
his vague doubts to make themselves heard, he noticed that the self-
styled dying man was walking off with the strength of a Hercules,
having abandoned all the tricks he had aped so well on appearing
before the magistrate.
"Monsieur!"
Jacques Collin turned round.
"Notwithstanding your refusal to sign the document, my clerk will
read you the minutes of your examination."
The prisoner was evidently in excellent health; the readiness with
which he came back, and sat down by the clerk, was a fresh light to
the magistrate's mind.
"You have got well very suddenly!" said Camusot.
"Caught!" thought Jacques Collin; and he replied:
"Joy, monsieur, is the only panacea.—That letter, the proof of
innocence of which I had no doubt—these are the grand remedy."
The judge kept a meditative eye on the prisoner when the usher and
the gendarmes again took him in charge. Then, with a start like a
waking man, he tossed Esther's letter across to the table where his
clerk sat, saying:
"Coquart, copy that letter."
If it is natural to man to be suspicious as to some favor required
of him when it is antagonistic to his interests or his duty, and
sometimes even when it is a matter of indifference, this feeling is
law to an examining magistrate. The more this prisoner—whose identity
was not yet ascertained—pointed to clouds on the horizon in the event
of Lucien's being examined, the more necessary did the interrogatory
seem to Camusot. Even if this formality had not been required by the
Code and by common practice, it was indispensable as bearing on the
identification of the Abbe Carlos. There is in every walk of life the
business conscience. In default of curiosity Camusot would have
examined Lucien as he had examined Jacques Collin, with all the
cunning which the most honest magistrate allows himself to use in such
cases. The services he might render and his own promotion were
secondary in Camusot's mind to his anxiety to know or guess the truth,
even if he should never tell it.
He stood drumming on the window-pane while following the river-like
current of his conjectures, for in these moods thought is like a
stream flowing through many countries. Magistrates, in love with
truth, are like jealous women; they give way to a thousand hypotheses,
and probe them with the dagger-point of suspicion, as the sacrificing
priest of old eviscerated his victims; thus they arrive, not perhaps
at truth, but at probability, and at last see the truth beyond. A
woman cross-questions the man she loves as the judge cross-questions a
criminal. In such a frame of mind, a glance, a word, a tone of voice,
the slightest hesitation is enough to certify the hidden fact—treason
or crime.
"The style in which he depicted his devotion to his son—if he is
his son—is enough to make me think that he was in the girl's house to
keep an eye on the plunder; and never suspecting that the dead woman's
pillow covered a will, he no doubt annexed, for his son, the seven
hundred and fifty thousand francs as a precaution. That is why he can
promise to recover the money.
"M. de Rubempre owes it to himself and to justice to account for
his father's position in the world——
"And he offers me the protection of his Order—His Order!—if I do
not examine Lucien——"
As has been seen, a magistrate conducts an examination exactly as
he thinks proper. He is at liberty to display his acumen or be
absolutely blunt. An examination may be everything or nothing. Therein
lies the favor.
Camusot rang. The usher had returned. He was sent to fetch Monsieur
Lucien de Rubempre with an injunction to prohibit his speaking to
anybody on his way up. It was by this time two in the afternoon.
"There is some secret," said the judge to himself, "and that secret
must be very important. My amphibious friend—since he is neither
priest, nor secular, nor convict, nor Spaniard, though he wants to
hinder his protege from letting out something dreadful—argues thus:
'The poet is weak and effeminate; he is not like me, a Hercules in
diplomacy, and you will easily wring our secret from him.'—Well, we
will get everything out of this innocent."
And he sat tapping the edge of his table with the ivory
paper-knife, while Coquart copied Esther's letter.
How whimsical is the action of our faculties! Camusot conceived of
every crime as possible, and overlooked the only one that the prisoner
had now committed—the forgery of the will for Lucien's advantage. Let
those whose envy vents itself on magistrates think for a moment of
their life spent in perpetual suspicion, of the torments these men
must inflict on their minds, for civil cases are not less tortuous
than criminal examinations, and it will occur to them perhaps that the
priest and the lawyer wear an equally heavy coat of mail, equally
furnished with spikes in the lining. However, every profession has its
hair shirt and its Chinese puzzles.
It was about two o'clock when Monsieur Camusot saw Lucien de
Rubempre come in, pale, worn, his eyes red and swollen, in short, in a
state of dejection which enabled the magistrate to compare nature with
art, the really dying man with the stage performance. His walk from
the Conciergerie to the judge's chambers, between two gendarmes, and
preceded by the usher, had put the crowning touch to Lucien's despair.
It is the poet's nature to prefer execution to condemnation.
As he saw this being, so completely bereft of the moral courage
which is the essence of a judge, and which the last prisoner had so
strongly manifested, Monsieur Camusot disdained the easy victory; and
this scorn enabled him to strike a decisive blow, since it left him,
on the ground, that horrible clearness of mind which the marksman
feels when he is firing at a puppet.
"Collect yourself, Monsieur de Rubempre; you are in the presence of
a magistrate who is eager to repair the mischief done involuntarily by
the law when a man is taken into custody on suspicion that has no
foundation. I believe you to be innocent, and you will soon be at
liberty.—Here is the evidence of your innocence; it is a letter kept
for you during your absence by your porter's wife; she has just
brought it here. In the commotion caused by the visitation of justice
and the news of your arrest at Fontainebleau, the woman forgot the
letter which was written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck.—Read it!"
Lucien took the letter, read it, and melted into tears. He sobbed,
and could not say a single word. At the end of a quarter of an hour,
during which Lucien with great difficulty recovered his self-command,
the clerk laid before him the copy of the letter and begged him to
sign a footnote certifying that the copy was faithful to the original,
and might be used in its stead "on all occasions in the course of this
preliminary inquiry," giving him the option of comparing the two; but
Lucien, of course, took Coquart's word for its accuracy.
"Monsieur," said the lawyer, with friendly good nature, "it is
nevertheless impossible that I should release you without carrying out
the legal formalities, and asking you some questions.—It is almost as
a witness that I require you to answer. To such a man as you I think
it is almost unnecessary to point out that the oath to tell the whole
truth is not in this case a mere appeal to your conscience, but a
necessity for your own sake, your position having been for a time
somewhat ambiguous. The truth can do you no harm, be it what it may;
falsehood will send you to trial, and compel me to send you back to
the Conciergerie; whereas if you answer fully to my questions, you
will sleep to-night in your own house, and be rehabilitated by this
paragraph in the papers: 'Monsieur de Rubempre, who was arrested
yesterday at Fontainebleau, was set at liberty after a very brief
examination.' "
This speech made a deep impression on Lucien; and the judge, seeing
the temper of his prisoner, added:
"I may repeat to you that you were suspected of being accessory to
the murder by poison of this Demoiselle Esther. Her suicide is clearly
proved, and there is an end of that; but a sum of seven hundred and
fifty thousand francs has been stolen, which she had disposed of by
will, and you are the legatee. This is a felony. The crime was
perpetrated before the discovery of the will.
"Now there is reason to suppose that a person who loves you as much
as you loved Mademoiselle Esther committed the theft for your
benefit.— Do not interrupt me," Camusot went on, seeing that Lucien
was about to speak, and commanding silence by a gesture; "I am asking
you nothing so far. I am anxious to make you understand how deeply
your honor is concerned in this question. Give up the false and
contemptible notion of the honor binding two accomplices, and tell the
whole truth."
The reader must already have observed the extreme disproportion of
the weapons in this conflict between the prisoner under suspicion and
the examining judge. Absolute denial when skilfully used has in its
favor its positive simplicity, and sufficiently defends the criminal;
but it is, in a way, a coat of mail which becomes crushing as soon as
the stiletto of cross-examination finds a joint to it. As soon as mere
denial is ineffectual in face of certain proven facts, the examinee is
entirely at the judge's mercy.
Now, supposing that a sort of half-criminal, like Lucien, might, if
he were saved from the first shipwreck of his honesty, amend his ways,
and become a useful member of society, he will be lost in the pitfalls
of his examination.
The judge has the driest possible record drawn up of the
proceedings, a faithful analysis of the questions and answers; but no
trace remains of his insidiously paternal addresses or his captious
remonstrances, such as this speech. The judges of the superior courts
see the results, but see nothing of the means. Hence, as some
experienced persons have thought, it would be a good plan that, as in
England, a jury should hear the examination. For a short while France
enjoyed the benefit of this system. Under the Code of Brumaire of the
year IV., this body was known as the examining jury, as distinguished
from the trying jury. As to the final trial, if we should restore the
examining jury, it would have to be the function of the superior
courts without the aid of a jury.
"And now," said Camusot, after a pause, "what is your name?—
Attention, Monsieur Coquart!" said he to the clerk.
"Lucien Chardon de Rubempre."
"And you were born——?"
"At Angouleme." And Lucien named the day, month, and year.
"You inherited no fortune?"
"None whatever."
"And yet, during your first residence in Paris, you spent a great
deal, as compared with your small income?"
"Yes, monsieur; but at that time I had a most devoted friend in
Mademoiselle Coralie, and I was so unhappy as to lose her. It was my
grief at her death that made me return to my country home."
"That is right, monsieur," said Camusot; "I commend your frankness;
it will be thoroughly appreciated."
Lucien, it will be seen, was prepared to make a clean breast of it.
"On your return to Paris you lived even more expensively than
before," Camusot went on. "You lived like a man who might have about
sixty thousand francs a year."
"Yes, monsieur."
"Who supplied you with the money?"
"My protector, the Abbe Carlos Herrera."
"Where did you meet him?"
"We met when traveling, just as I was about to be quit of life by
committing suicide."
"You never heard him spoken of by your family—by your mother?"
"Never."
"Can you remember the year and the month when you first became
connected with Mademoiselle Esther?"
"Towards the end of 1823, at a small theatre on the Boulevard."
"At first she was an expense to you?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Lately, in the hope of marrying Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, you
purchased the ruins of the Chateau de Rubempre, you added land to the
value of a million francs, and you told the family of Grandlieu that
your sister and your brother-in-law had just come into a considerable
fortune, and that their liberality had supplied you with the money.—
Did you tell the Grandlieus this, monsieur?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"You do not know the reason why the marriage was broken off?"
"Not in the least, monsieur."
"Well, the Grandlieus sent one of the most respectable attorneys in
Paris to see your brother-in-law and inquire into the facts. At
Angouleme this lawyer, from the statements of your sister and brother-
in-law, learned that they not only had hardly lent you any money, but
also that their inheritance consisted of land, of some extent no
doubt, but that the whole amount of invested capital was not more than
about two hundred thousand francs.—Now you cannot wonder that such
people as the Grandlieus should reject a fortune of which the source
is more than doubtful. This, monsieur, is what a lie has led to——"
Lucien was petrified by this revelation, and the little presence of
mind he had preserved deserted him.
"Remember," said Camusot, "that the police and the law know all
they want to know.—And now," he went on, recollecting Jacques
Collin's assumed paternity, "do you know who this pretended Carlos
Herrera is?"
"Yes, monsieur; but I knew it too late."
"Too late! How? Explain yourself."
"He is not a priest, not a Spaniard, he is——"
"An escaped convict?" said the judge eagerly.
"Yes," replied Lucien, "when he told me the fatal secret, I was
already under obligations to him; I had fancied I was befriended by a
respectable priest."
"Jacques Collin——" said Monsieur Camusot, beginning a sentence.
"Yes, said Lucien, "his name is Jacques Collin."
"Very good. Jacques Collin has just now been identified by another
person, and though he denies it, he does so, I believe, in your
interest. But I asked whether you knew who the man is in order to
prove another of Jacques Collin's impostures."
Lucien felt as though he had hot iron in his inside as he heard
this alarming statement.
"Do you not know," Camusot went on, "that in order to give color to
the extraordinary affection he has for you, he declares that he is
your father?"
"He! My father?—Oh, monsieur, did he tell you that?"
"Have you any suspicion of where the money came from that he used
to give you? For, if I am to believe the evidence of the letter you
have in your hand, that poor girl, Mademoiselle Esther, must have done
you lately the same services as Coralie formerly rendered you. Still,
for some years, as you have just admitted, you lived very handsomely
without receiving anything from her."
"It is I who should ask you, monsieur, whence convicts get their
money! Jacques Collin my father!—Oh, my poor mother!" and Lucien
burst into tears.
"Coquart, read out to the prisoner that part of Carlos Herrera's
examination in which he said that Lucien de Rubempre was his son."
The poet listened in silence, and with a look that was terrible to
behold.
"I am done for!" he cried.
"A man is not done for who is faithful to the path of honor and
truth," said the judge.
"But you will commit Jacques Collin for trial?" said Lucien.
"Undoubtedly," said Camusot, who aimed at making Lucien talk.
"Speak out."
But in spite of all his persuasion and remonstrances, Lucien would
say no more. Reflection had come too late, as it does to all men who
are the slaves of impulse. There lies the difference between the poet
and the man of action; one gives way to feeling to reproduce it in
living images, his judgement comes in after; the other feels and
judges both at once.
Lucien remained pale and gloomy; he saw himself at the bottom of
the precipice, down which the examining judge had rolled him by the
apparent candor which had entrapped his poet's soul. He had betrayed,
not his benefactor, but an accomplice who had defended their position
with the courage of a lion, and a skill that showed no flaw. Where
Jacques Collin had saved everything by his daring, Lucien, the man of
brains, had lost all by his lack of intelligence and reflection. This
infamous lie against which he revolted had screened a yet more
infamous truth.
Utterly confounded by the judge's skill, overpowered by his cruel
dexterity, by the swiftness of the blows he had dealt him while making
use of the errors of a life laid bare as probes to search his
conscience, Lucien sat like an animal which the butcher's pole-axe had
failed to kill. Free and innocent when he came before the judge, in a
moment his own avowal had made him feel criminal.
To crown all, as a final grave irony, Camusot, cold and calm,
pointed out to Lucien that his self-betrayal was the result of a
misapprehension. Camusot was thinking of Jacques Collin's announcing
himself as Lucien's father; while Lucien, wholly absorbed by his fear
of seeing his confederacy with an escaped convict made public, had
imitated the famous inadvertency of the murderers of Ibycus.
One of Royer-Collard's most famous achievements was proclaiming the
constant triumph of natural feeling over engrafted sentiments, and
defending the cause of anterior oaths by asserting that the law of
hospitality, for instance, ought to be regarded as binding to the
point of negativing the obligation of a judicial oath. He promulgated
this theory, in the face of the world, from the French tribune; he
boldly upheld conspirators, showing that it was human to be true to
friendship rather than to the tyrannical laws brought out of the
social arsenal to be adjusted to circumstances. And, indeed, natural
rights have laws which have never been codified, but which are more
effectual and better known than those laid down by society. Lucien had
misapprehended, to his cost, the law of cohesion, which required him
to be silent and leave Jacques Collin to protect himself; nay, more,
he had accused him. In his own interests the man ought always to be,
to him, Carlos Herrera.
Monsieur Camusot was rejoicing in his triumph; he had secured two
criminals. He had crushed with the hand of justice one of the
favorites of fashion, and he had found the undiscoverable Jacques
Collin. He would be regarded as one of the cleverest of examining
judges. So he left his prisoner in peace; but he was studying this
speechless consternation, and he saw drops of sweat collect on the
miserable face, swell and fall, mingled with two streams of tears.
"Why should you weep, Monsieur de Rubempre? You are, as I have told
you, Mademoiselle Esther's legatee, she having no heirs nor near
relations, and her property amounts to nearly eight millions of francs
if the lost seven hundred and fifty thousand francs are recovered."
This was the last blow to the poor wretch. "If you do not lose your
head for ten minutes," Jacques Collin had said in his note, and Lucien
by keeping cool would have gained all his desire. He might have paid
his debt to Jacques Collin and have cut him adrift, have been rich,
and have married Mademoiselle de Grandlieu. Nothing could more
eloquently demonstrate the power with which the examining judge is
armed, as a consequence of the isolation or separation of persons
under suspicion, or the value of such a communication as Asie had
conveyed to Jacques Collin.
"Ah, monsieur!" replied Lucien, with the satirical bitterness of a
man who makes a pedestal of his utter overthrow, "how appropriate is
the phrase in legal slang 'to UNDERGO examination.' For my part, if I
had to choose between the physical torture of past ages and the moral
torture of our day, I would not hesitate to prefer the sufferings
inflicted of old by the executioner.—What more do you want of me?" he
added haughtily.
"In this place, monsieur," said the magistrate, answering the
poet's pride with mocking arrogance, "I alone have a right to ask
questions."
"I had the right to refuse to answer them," muttered the hapless
Lucien, whose wits had come back to him with perfect lucidity.
"Coquart, read the minutes to the prisoner."
"I am the prisoner once more," said Lucien to himself.
While the clerk was reading, Lucien came to a determination which
compelled him to smooth down Monsieur Camusot. When Coquart's drone
ceased, the poet started like a man who has slept through a noise to
which his ears are accustomed, and who is roused by its cessation.
"You have to sign the report of your examination," said the judge.
"And am I at liberty?" asked Lucien, ironical in his turn.
"Not yet," said Camusot; "but to-morrow, after being confronted
with Jacques Collin, you will no doubt be free. Justice must now
ascertain whether or no you are accessory to the crimes this man may
have committed since his escape so long ago as 1820. However, you are
no longer in the secret cells. I will write to the Governor to give
you a better room."
"Shall I find writing materials?"
"You can have anything supplied to you that you ask for; I will
give orders to that effect by the usher who will take you back."
Lucien mechanically signed the minutes and initialed the notes in
obedience to Coquart's indications with the meekness of a resigned
victim. A single fact will show what a state he was in better than the
minutest description. The announcement that he would be confronted
with Jacques Collin had at once dried the drops of sweat from his
brow, and his dry eyes glittered with a terrible light. In short, he
became, in an instant as brief as a lightning flash, what Jacques
Collin was—a man of iron.
In men whose nature is like Lucien's, a nature which Jacques Collin
had so thoroughly fathomed, these sudden transitions from a state of
absolute demoralization to one that is, so to speak, metallic,—so
extreme is the tension of every vital force,—are the most startling
phenomena of mental vitality. The will surges up like the lost waters
of a spring; it diffuses itself throughout the machinery that lies
ready for the action of the unknown matter that constitutes it; and
then the corpse is a man again, and the man rushes on full of energy
for a supreme struggle.
Lucien laid Esther's letter next his heart, with the miniature she
had returned to him. Then he haughtily bowed to Monsieur Camusot, and
went off with a firm step down the corridors, between two gendarmes.
"That is a deep scoundrel!" said the judge to his clerk, to avenge
himself for the crushing scorn the poet had displayed. "He thought he
might save himself by betraying his accomplice."
"Of the two," said Coquart timidly, "the convict is the most
thorough- paced."
"You are free for the rest of the day, Coquart," said the lawyer.
"We have done enough. Send away any case that is waiting, to be called
to-morrow.—Ah! and you must go at once to the public prosecutor's
chambers and ask if he is still there; if so, ask him if he can give
me a few minutes. Yes; he will not be gone," he added, looking at a
common clock in a wooden case painted green with gilt lines. "It is
but a quarter-past three."
These examinations, which are so quickly read, being written down
at full length, questions and answers alike, take up an enormous
amount of time. This is one of the reasons of the slowness of these
preliminaries to a trial and of these imprisonments "on suspicion." To
the poor this is ruin, to the rich it is disgrace; to them only
immediate release can in any degree repair, so far as possible, the
disaster of an arrest.
This is why the two scenes here related had taken up the whole of
the time spent by Asie in deciphering her master's orders, in getting
a Duchess out of her boudoir, and putting some energy into Madame de
Serizy.
At this moment Camusot, who was anxious to get the full benefit of
his cleverness, took the two documents, read them through, and
promised himself that he would show them to the public prosecutor and
take his opinion on them. During this meditation, his usher came back
to tell him that Madame la Comtesse de Serizy's man-servant insisted
on speaking with him. At a nod from Camusot, a servant out of livery
came in, looked first at the usher, and then at the magistrate, and
said, "I have the honor of speaking to Monsieur Camusot?"
"Yes," replied the lawyer and his clerk.
Camusot took a note which the servant offered him, and read as
follows:—
"For the sake of many interests which will be obvious to you, my
dear Camusot, do not examine Monsieur de Rubempre. We have
brought
ample proofs of his innocence that he may be released forthwith.
"D. DE MAUFRIGNEUSE. "L. DE SERIZY.
"P. S.—Burn this note."
Camusot understood at once that he had blundered preposterously in
laying snares for Lucien, and he began by obeying the two fine ladies
—he lighted a taper, and burned the letter written by the Duchess.
The man bowed respectfully.
"Then Madame de Serizy is coming here?" asked Camusot.
"The carriage is being brought round."
At this moment Coquart came in to tell Monsieur Camusot that the
public prosecutor expected him.
Oppressed by the blunder he had committed, in view of his
ambitions, though to the better ends of justice, the lawyer, in whom
seven years' experience had perfected the sharpness that comes to a
man who in his practice has had to measure his wits against the
grisettes of Paris, was anxious to have some shield against the
resentment of two women of fashion. The taper in which he had burned
the note was still alight, and he used it to seal up the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse's notes to Lucien—about thirty in all—and Madame de
Serizy's somewhat voluminous correspondence.
Then he waited on the public prosecutor.
The Palais de Justice is a perplexing maze of buildings piled one
above another, some fine and dignified, others very mean, the whole
disfigured by its lack of unity. The Salle des Pas-Perdus is the
largest known hall, but its nakedness is hideous, and distresses the
eye. This vast Cathedral of the Law crushes the Supreme Court. The
Galerie Marchande ends in two drain-like passages. From this corridor
there is a double staircase, a little larger than that of the Criminal
Courts, and under it a large double door. The stairs lead down to one
of the Assize Courts, and the doors open into another. In some years
the number of crimes committed in the circuit of the Seine is great
enough to necessitate the sitting of two Benches.
Close by are the public prosecutor's offices, the attorney's room
and library, the chambers of the attorney-general, and those of the
public prosecutor's deputies. All these purlieus, to use a generic
term, communicate by narrow spiral stairs and the dark passages, which
are a disgrace to the architecture not of Paris only, but of all
France. The interior arrangement of the sovereign court of justice
outdoes our prisons in all that is most hideous. The writer describing
our manners and customs would shrink from the necessity of depicting
the squalid corridor of about a metre in width, in which the witnesses
wait in the Superior Criminal Court. As to the stove which warms the
court itself, it would disgrace a cafe on the Boulevard Mont-Parnasse.
The public prosecutor's private room forms part of an octagon wing
flanking the Galerie Marchande, built out recently in regard to the
age of the structure, over the prison yard, outside the women's
quarters. All this part of the Palais is overshadowed by the lofty and
noble edifice of the Sainte-Chapelle. And all is solemn and silent.
Monsieur de Granville, a worthy successor of the great magistrates
of the ancient Parlement, would not leave Paris without coming to some
conclusion in the matter of Lucien. He expected to hear from Camusot,
and the judge's message had plunged him into the involuntary suspense
which waiting produces on even the strongest minds. He had been
sitting in the window-bay of his private room; he rose, and walked up
and down, for having lingered in the morning to intercept Camusot, he
had found him dull of apprehension; he was vaguely uneasy and worried.
And this was why.
The dignity of his high functions forbade his attempting to fetter
the perfect independence of the inferior judge, and yet this trial
nearly touched the honor and good name of his best friend and warmest
supporter, the Comte de Serizy, Minister of State, member of the Privy
Council, Vice-President of the State Council, and prospective
Chancellor of the Realm, in the event of the death of the noble old
man who held that august office. It was Monsieur de Serizy's
misfortune to adore his wife "through fire and water," and he always
shielded her with his protection. Now the public prosecutor fully
understood the terrible fuss that would be made in the world and at
court if a crime should be proved against a man whose name had been so
often and so malignantly linked with that of the Countess.
"Ah!" he sighed, folding his arms, "formerly the supreme authority
could take refuge in an appeal. Nowadays our mania for equality"—he
dared not say FOR LEGALITY, as a poetic orator in the Chamber
courageously admitted a short while since—"is the death of us."
This noble magistrate knew all the fascination and the miseries of
an illicit attachment. Esther and Lucien, as we have seen, had taken
the rooms where the Comte de Granville had lived secretly on connubial
terms with Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, and whence she had fled one
day, lured away by a villain. (See A Double Marriage.)
At the very moment when the public prosecutor was saying to
himself, "Camusot is sure to have done something silly," the examining
magistrate knocked twice at the door of his room.
"Well, my dear Camusot, how is that case going on that I spoke of
this morning?"
"Badly, Monsieur le Comte; read and judge for yourself."
He held out the minutes of the two examinations to Monsieur de
Granville, who took up his eyeglass and went to the window to read
them. He had soon run through them.
"You have done your duty," said the Count in an agitated voice. "It
is all over. The law must take its course. You have shown so much
skill, that you need never fear being deprived of your appointment as
examining judge—-"
If Monsieur de Granville had said to Camusot, "You will remain an
examining judge to your dying day," he could not have been more
explicit than in making this polite speech. Camusot was cold in the
very marrow.
"Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, to whom I owe much, had
desired me . . ."
"Oh yes, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse is Madame de Serizy's
friend," said Granville, interrupting him. "To be sure.—You have
allowed nothing to influence you, I perceive. And you did well, sir;
you will be a great magistrate."
At this instant the Comte Octave de Bauvan opened the door without
knocking, and said to the Comte de Granville:
"I have brought you a fair lady, my dear fellow, who did not know
which way to turn; she was on the point of losing herself in our
labyrinth——"
And Comte Octave led in by the hand the Comtesse de Serizy, who had
been wandering about the place for the last quarter of an hour.
"What, you here, madame!" exclaimed the public prosecutor, pushing
forward his own armchair, "and at this moment! This, madame, is
Monsieur Camusot," he added, introducing the judge.—"Bauvan," said he
to the distinguished ministerial orator of the Restoration, "wait for
me in the president's chambers; he is still there, and I will join
you."
Comte Octave de Bauvan understood that not merely was he in the
way, but that Monsieur de Granville wanted an excuse for leaving his
room.
Madame de Serizy had not made the mistake of coming to the Palais
de Justice in her handsome carriage with a blue hammer-cloth and
coats- of-arms, her coachman in gold lace, and two footmen in breeches
and silk stockings. Just as they were starting Asie impressed on the
two great ladies the need for taking the hackney coach in which she
and the Duchess had arrived, and she had likewise insisted on Lucien's
mistress adopting the costume which is to women what a gray cloak was
of yore to men. The Countess wore a plain brown dress, an old black
shawl, and a velvet bonnet from which the flowers had been removed,
and the whole covered up under a thick lace veil.
"You received our note?" said she to Camusot, whose dismay she
mistook for respectful admiration.
"Alas! but too late, Madame la Comtesse," replied the lawyer, whose
tact and wit failed him excepting in his chambers and in presence of a
prisoner.
"Too late! How?"
She looked at Monsieur de Granville, and saw consternation written
in his face. "It cannot be, it must not be too late!" she added, in
the tone of a despot.
Women, pretty women, in the position of Madame de Serizy, are the
spoiled children of French civilization. If the women of other
countries knew what a woman of fashion is in Paris, a woman of wealth
and rank, they would all want to come and enjoy that splendid royalty.
The women who recognize no bonds but those of propriety, no law but
the petty charter which has been more than once alluded to in this
Comedie Humaine as the ladies' Code, laugh at the statutes framed by
men. They say everything, they do not shrink from any blunder or
hesitate at any folly, for they all accept the fact that they are
irresponsible beings, answerable for nothing on earth but their good
repute and their children. They say the most preposterous things with
a laugh, and are ready on every occasion to repeat the speech made in
the early days of her married life by pretty Madame de Bauvan to her
husband, whom she came to fetch away from the Palais: "Make haste and
pass sentence, and come away."
"Madame," said the public prosecutor, "Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre
is not guilty either of robbery or of poisoning; but Monsieur Camusot
has led him to confess a still greater crime."
"What is that?" she asked.
"He acknowledged," said Monsieur Camusot in her ear, "that he is
the friend and pupil of an escaped convict. The Abbe Carlos Herrera,
the Spaniard with whom he has been living for the last seven years, is
the notorious Jacques Collin."
Madame de Serizy felt as if it were a blow from an iron rod at each
word spoken by the judge, but this name was the finishing stroke.
"And the upshot of all this?" she said, in a voice that was no more
than a breath.
"Is," Monsieur de Granville went on, finishing the Countess'
sentence in an undertone, "that the convict will be committed for
trial, and that if Lucien is not committed with him as having profited
as an accessory to the man's crimes, he must appear as a witness very
seriously compromised."
"Oh! never, never!" she cried aloud, with amazing firmness. "For my
part, I should not hesitate between death and the disaster of seeing a
man whom the world has known to be my dearest friend declared by the
bench to be the accomplice of a convict.—The King has a great regard
for my husband——"
"Madame," said the public prosecutor, also aloud, and with a smile,
"the King has not the smallest power over the humblest examining judge
in his kingdom, nor over the proceedings in any court of justice. That
is the grand feature of our new code of laws. I myself have just
congratulated M. Camusot on his skill——"
"On his clumsiness," said the Countess sharply, though Lucien's
intimacy with a scoundrel really disturbed her far less than his
attachment to Esther.
"If you will read the minutes of the examination of the two
prisoners by Monsieur Camusot, you will see that everything is in his
hands——"
After this speech, the only thing the public prosecutor could
venture to say, and a flash of feminine—or, if you will,
lawyer-like— cunning, he went to the door; then, turning round on the
threshold, he added:
"Excuse me, madame; I have two words to say to Bauvan." Which,
translated by the worldly wise, conveyed to the Countess: "I do not
want to witness the scene between you and Camusot."
"What is this examination business?" said Leontine very blandly to
Camusot, who stood downcast in the presence of the wife of one of the
most important personages in the realm.
"Madame," said Camusot, "a clerk writes down all the magistrate's
questions and the prisoner's replies. This document is signed by the
clerk, by the judge, and by the prisoner. This evidence is the raw
material of the subsequent proceedings; on it the accused are
committed for trial, and remanded to appear before the Criminal
Court."
"Well, then," said she, "if the evidence were suppressed——?"
"Oh, madame, that is a crime which no magistrate could possibly
commit —a crime against society."
"It is a far worse crime against me to have ever allowed it to be
recorded; still, at this moment it is the only evidence against
Lucien. Come, read me the minutes of his examination that I may see if
there is still a way of salvation for us all, monsieur. I do not speak
for myself alone—I should quite calmly kill myself—but Monsieur de
Serizy's happiness is also at stake."
"Pray, madame, do not suppose that I have forgotten the respect due
you," said Camusot. "If Monsieur Popinot, for instance, had undertaken
this case, you would have had worse luck than you have found with me;
for he would not have come to consult Monsieur de Granville; no one
would have heard anything about it. I tell you, madame, everything has
been seized in Monsieur Lucien's lodging, even your letters——"
"What! my letters!"
"Here they are, madame, in a sealed packet."
The Countess in her agitation rang as if she had been at home, and
the office-boy came in.
"A light," said she.
The boy lighted a taper and placed it on the chimney-piece, while
the Countess looked through the letters, counted them, crushed them in
her hand, and flung them on the hearth. In a few minutes she set the
whole mass in a blaze, twisting up the last note to serve as a torch.
Camusot stood, looking rather foolish as he watched the papers
burn, holding the legal documents in his hand. The Countess, who
seemed absorbed in the work of destroying the proofs of her passion,
studied him out of the corner of her eye. She took her time, she
calculated her distance; with the spring of a cat she seized the two
documents and threw them on the flames. But Camusot saved them; the
Countess rushed on him and snatched back the burning papers. A
struggle ensued, Camusot calling out: "Madame, but madame! This is
contempt—madame!"
A man hurried into the room, and the Countess could not repress a
scream as she beheld the Comte de Serizy, followed by Monsieur de
Granville and the Comte de Bauvan. Leontine, however, determined to
save Lucien at any cost, would not let go of the terrible stamped
documents, which she clutched with the tenacity of a vise, though the
flame had already burnt her delicate skin like a moxa.
At last Camusot, whose fingers also were smarting from the fire,
seemed to be ashamed of the position; he let the papers go; there was
nothing left of them but the portions so tightly held by the
antagonists that the flame could not touch them. The whole scene had
taken less time than is needed to read this account of it.
"What discussion can have arisen between you and Madame de Serizy?"
the husband asked of Camusot.
Before the lawyer could reply, the Countess held the fragments in
the candle and threw them on the remains of her letters, which were
not entirely consumed.
"I shall be compelled," said Camusot, "to lay a complaint against
Madame la Comtesse——"
"Heh! What has she done?" asked the public prosecutor, looking
alternately at the lady and the magistrate.
"I have burned the record of the examinations," said the lady of
fashion with a laugh, so pleased at her high-handed conduct that she
did not yet feel the pain of the burns, "If that is a crime—well,
monsieur must get his odious scrawl written out again."
"Very true," said Camusot, trying to recover his dignity.
"Well, well, 'All's well that ends well,' " said Monsieur de
Granville. "But, my dear Countess, you must not often take such
liberties with the Law; it might fail to discern who and what you
are."
"Monsieur Camusot valiantly resisted a woman whom none can resist;
the Honor of the Robe is safe!" said the Comte de Bauvan, laughing.
"Indeed! Monsieur Camusot was resisting?" said the public
prosecutor, laughing too. "He is a brave man indeed; I should not dare
resist the Countess."
And thus for the moment this serious affair was no more than a
pretty woman's jest, at which Camusot himself must laugh.
But Monsieur de Granville saw one man who was not amused. Not a
little alarmed by the Comte de Serizy's attitude and expression, his
friend led him aside.
"My dear fellow," said he in a whisper, "your distress persuades me
for the first and only time in my life to compromise with my duty."
The public prosecutor rang, and the office-boy appeared.
"Desire Monsieur de Chargeboeuf to come here."
Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, a sucking barrister, was his private
secretary.
"My good friend," said the Comte de Granville to Camusot, whom he
took to the window, "go back to your chambers, get your clerk to
reconstruct the report of the Abbe Carlos Herrera's depositions; as he
had not signed the first copy, there will be no difficulty about that.
To-morrow you must confront your Spanish diplomate with Rastignac and
Bianchon, who will not recognize him as Jacques Collin. Then, being
sure of his release, the man will sign the document.
"As to Lucien de Rubempre, set him free this evening; he is not
likely to talk about an examination of which the evidence is
destroyed, especially after such a lecture as I shall give him.
"Now you will see how little justice suffers by these proceedings.
If the Spaniard really is the convict, we have fifty ways of
recapturing him and committing him for trial—for we will have his
conduct in Spain thoroughly investigated. Corentin, the police agent,
will take care of him for us, and we ourselves will keep an eye on
him. So treat him decently; do not send him down to the cells again.
"Can we be the death of the Comte and Comtesse de Serizy, as well
as of Lucien, for the theft of seven hundred and fifty thousand francs
as yet unproven, and to Lucien's personal loss? Will it not be better
for him to lose the money than to lose his character? Above all, if he
is to drag with him in his fall a Minister of State, and his wife, and
the Duchesse du Maufrigneuse.
"This young man is a speckled orange; do not leave it to rot.
"All this will take you about half an hour; go and get it done; we
will wait for you. It is half-past three; you will find some judges
about. Let me know if you can get a rule of insufficient evidence—or
Lucien must wait till to-morrow morning."
Camusot bowed to the company and went; but Madame de Serizy, who
was suffering a good deal from her burns, did not return his bow.
Monsieur de Serizy, who had suddenly rushed away while the public
prosecutor and the magistrate were talking together, presently
returned, having fetched a small jar of virgin wax. With this he
dressed his wife's fingers, saying in an undertone:
"Leontine, why did you come here without letting me know?"
"My dear," replied she in a whisper, "forgive me. I seem mad, but
indeed your interests were as much involved as mine."
"Love this young fellow if fatality requires it, but do not display
your passion to all the world," said the luckless husband.
"Well, my dear Countess," said Monsieur de Granville, who had been
engaged in conversation with Comte Octave, "I hope you may take
Monsieur de Rubempre home to dine with you this evening."
This half promise produced a reaction; Madame de Serizy melted into
tears.
"I thought I had no tears left," said she with a smile. "But could
you not bring Monsieur de Rubempre to wait here?"
"I will try if I can find the ushers to fetch him, so that he may
not be seen under the escort of the gendarmes," said Monsieur de
Granville.
"You are as good as God!" cried she, with a gush of feeling that
made her voice sound like heavenly music.
"These are the women," said Comte Octave, "who are fascinating,
irresistible!"
And he became melancholy as he thought of his own wife. (See
Honorine.)
As he left the room, Monsieur de Granville was stopped by young
Chargeboeuf, to whom he spoke to give him instructions as to what he
was to say to Massol, one of the editors of the Gazette des Tribunaux.
While beauties, ministers, and magistrates were conspiring to save
Lucien, this was what he was doing at the Conciergerie. As he passed
the gate the poet told the keeper that Monsieur Camusot had granted
him leave to write, and he begged to have pens, ink, and paper. At a
whispered word to the Governor from Camusot's usher a warder was
instructed to take them to him at once. During the short time that it
took for the warder to fetch these things and carry them up to Lucien,
the hapless young man, to whom the idea of facing Jacques Collin had
become intolerable, sank into one of those fatal moods in which the
idea of suicide—to which he had yielded before now, but without
succeeding in carrying it out—rises to the pitch of mania. According
to certain mad-doctors, suicide is in some temperaments the closing
phase of mental aberration; and since his arrest Lucien had been
possessed by that single idea. Esther's letter, read and reread many
times, increased the vehemence of his desire to die by reminding him
of the catastrophe of Romeo dying to be with Juliet.
This is what he wrote:—
"THIS IS MY LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.
"AT THE CONCIERGERIE, May 15th, 1830.
"I, the undersigned, give and bequeath to the children of my
sister, Madame Eve Chardon, wife of David Sechard, formerly a
printer at Angouleme, and of Monsieur David Sechard, all the
property, real and personal, of which I may be possessed at the
time of my decease, due deduction being made for the payments and
legacies, which I desire my executor to provide for.
"And I earnestly beg Monsieur de Serizy to undertake the charge of
being the executor of this my will.
"First, to Monsieur l'Abbe Carlos Herrera I direct the payment of
the sum of three hundred thousand francs. Secondly, to Monsieur
le
Baron de Nucingen the sum of fourteen hundred thousand francs,
less seven hundred and fifty thousand if the sum stolen from
Mademoiselle Esther should be recovered.
"As universal legatee to Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, I give and
bequeath the sum of seven hundred and sixty thousand francs to
the
Board of Asylums of Paris for the foundation of a refuge
especially dedicated to the use of public prostitutes who may
wish
to forsake their life of vice and ruin.
"I also bequeath to the Asylums of Paris the sum of money
necessary for the purchase of a certificate for dividends to the
amount of thirty thousand francs per annum in five per cents, the
annual income to be devoted every six months to the release of
prisoners for debts not exceeding two thousand francs. The Board
of Asylums to select the most respectable of such persons
imprisoned for debt.
"I beg Monsieur de Serizy to devote the sum of forty thousand
francs to erecting a monument to Mademoiselle Esther in the
Eastern cemetery, and I desire to be buried by her side. The tomb
is to be like an antique tomb—square, our two effigies lying
thereon, in white marble, the heads on pillows, the hands folded
and raised to heaven. There is to be no inscription whatever.
"I beg Monsieur de Serizy to give to Monsieur de Rastignac a gold
toilet-set that is in my room as a remembrance.
"And as a remembrance, I beg my executor to accept my library of
books as a gift from me.
"LUCIEN CHARDON DE RUBEMPRE."
This Will was enclosed in a letter addressed to Monsieur le Comte
de Granville, Public Prosecutor in the Supreme Court at Paris, as
follows:
"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,—
"I place my Will in your hands. When you open this letter I shall
be no more. In my desire to be free, I made such cowardly replies
to Monsieur Camusot's insidious questions, that, in spite of my
innocence, I may find myself entangled in a disgraceful trial.
Even if I were acquitted, a blameless life would henceforth be
impossible to me in view of the opinions of the world.
"I beg you to transmit the enclosed letter to the Abbe Carlos
Herrera without opening it, and deliver to Monsieur Camusot the
formal retraction I also enclose.
"I suppose no one will dare to break the seal of a packet
addressed to you. In this belief I bid you adieu, offering you my
best respects for the last time, and begging you to believe that
in writing to you I am giving you a token of my gratitude for all
the kindness you have shown to your deceased humble servant,
"LUCIEN DE R."
"TO THE ABBE CARLOS HERRERA.
"MY DEAR ABBE,—I have had only benefits from you, and I have
betrayed you. This involuntary ingratitude is killing me, and
when
you read these lines I shall have ceased to exist. You are not
here now to save me.
"You had given me full liberty, if I should find it advantageous,
to destroy you by flinging you on the ground like a cigar-end;
but
I have ruined you by a blunder. To escape from a difficulty,
deluded by a clever question from the examining judge, your son
by
adoption and grace went over to the side of those who aim at
killing you at any cost, and insist on proving an identity, which
I know to be impossible, between you and a French villain. All is
said.
"Between a man of your calibre and me—me of whom you tried to
make a greater man than I am capable of being—no foolish
sentiment can come at the moment of final parting. You hoped to
make me powerful and famous, and you have thrown me into the gulf
of suicide, that is all. I have long heard the broad pinions of
that vertigo beating over my head.
"As you have sometimes said, there is the posterity of Cain and
the posterity of Abel. In the great human drama Cain is in
opposition. You are descended from Adam through that line, in
which the devil still fans the fire of which the first spark was
flung on Eve. Among the demons of that pedigree, from time to
time
we see one of stupendous power, summing up every form of human
energy, and resembling the fevered beasts of the desert, whose
vitality demands the vast spaces they find there. Such men are as
dangerous as lions would be in the heart of Normandy; they must
have their prey, and they devour common men and crop the money of
fools. Their sport is so dangerous that at last they kill the
humble dog whom they have taken for a companion and made an idol
of.
"When it is God's will, these mysterious beings may be a Moses, an
Attila, Charlemagne, Mahomet, or Napoleon; but when He leaves a
generation of these stupendous tools to rust at the bottom of the
ocean, they are no more than a Pugatschef, a Fouche, a Louvel, or
the Abbe Carlos Herrera. Gifted with immense power over tenderer
souls, they entrap them and mangle them. It is grand, it is
fine—
in its way. It is the poisonous plant with gorgeous coloring that
fascinates children in the woods. It is the poetry of evil. Men
like you ought to dwell in caves and never come out of them. You
have made me live that vast life, and I have had all my share of
existence; so I may very well take my head out of the Gordian
knot
of your policy and slip it into the running knot of my cravat.
"To repair the mischief I have done, I am forwarding to the public
prosecutor a retraction of my deposition. You will know how to
take advantage of this document.
"In virtue of a will formally drawn up, restitution will be made,
Monsieur l'Abbe, of the moneys belonging to your Order which you
so imprudently devoted to my use, as a result of your paternal
affection for me.
"And so, farewell. Farewell, colossal image of Evil and
Corruption; farewell—to you who, if started on the right road,
might have been greater than Ximenes, greater than Richelieu! You
have kept your promises. I find myself once more just as I was on
the banks of the Charente, after enjoying, by your help, the
enchantments of a dream. But, unfortunately, it is not now in the
waters of my native place that I shall drown the errors of a boy;
but in the Seine, and my hole is a cell in the Conciergerie.
"Do not regret me: my contempt for you is as great as my
admiration.
"LUCIEN."
"Recantation.
"I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I retract, without
reservation, all that I deposed at my examination to-day before
Monsieur Camusot.
"The Abbe Carlos Herrera always called himself my spiritual
father, and I was misled by the word father used in another sense
by the judge, no doubt under a misapprehension.
"I am aware that, for political ends, and to quash certain secrets
concerning the Cabinets of Spain and of the Tuileries, some
obscure diplomatic agents tried to show that the Abbe Carlos
Herrera was a forger named Jacques Collin; but the Abbe Carlos
Herrera never told me anything about the matter excepting that he
was doing his best to obtain evidence of the death or of the
continued existence of Jacques Collin.
"LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE.
"AT THE CONCIERGERIE, May 15th, 1830."
The fever for suicide had given Lucien immense clearness of mind,
and the swiftness of hand familiar to authors in the fever of
composition. The impetus was so strong within him that these four
documents were all written within half an hour; he folded them in a
wrapper, fastened with wafers, on which he impressed with the strength
of delirium the coat-of-arms engraved on a seal-ring he wore, and he
then laid the packet very conspicuously in the middle of the floor.
Certainly it would have been impossible to conduct himself with
greater dignity, in the false position to which all this infamy had
led him; he was rescuing his memory from opprobrium, and repairing the
injury done to his accomplice, so far as the wit of a man of the world
could nullify the result of the poet's trustfulness.
If Lucien had been taken back to one of the lower cells, he would
have been wrecked on the impossibility of carrying out his intentions,
for those boxes of masonry have no furniture but a sort of camp-bed
and a pail for necessary uses. There is not a nail, not a chair, not
even a stool. The camp-bed is so firmly fixed that it is impossible to
move it without an amount of labor that the warder would not fail to
detect, for the iron-barred peephole is always open. Indeed, if a
prisoner under suspicion gives reason for uneasiness, he is watched by
a gendarme or a constable.
In the private rooms for which prisoners pay, and in that whither
Lucien had been conveyed by the judge's courtesy to a young man
belonging to the upper ranks of society, the movable bed, table, and
chair might serve to carry out his purpose of suicide, though they
hardly made it easy. Lucien wore a long blue silk necktie, and on his
way back from examination he was already meditating on the means by
which Pichegru, more or less voluntarily, ended his days. Still, to
hang himself, a man must find a purchase, and have a sufficient space
between it and the ground for his feet to find no support. Now the
window of his room, looking out on the prison-yard, had no handle to
the fastening; and the bars, being fixed outside, were divided from
his reach by the thickness of the wall, and could not be used for a
support.
This, then, was the plan hit upon by Lucien to put himself out of
the world. The boarding of the lower part of the opening, which
prevented his seeing out into the yard, also hindered the warders
outside from seeing what was done in the room; but while the lower
portion of the window was replaced by two thick planks, the upper part
of both halves still was filled with small panes, held in place by the
cross pieces in which they were set. By standing on his table Lucien
could reach the glazed part of the window, and take or break out two
panes, so as to have a firm point of attachment in the angle of the
lower bar. Round this he would tie his cravat, turn round once to
tighten it round his neck after securing it firmly, and kick the table
from under his feet.
He drew the table up under the window without making any noise,
took off his coat and waistcoat, and got on the table unhesitatingly
to break a pane above and one below the iron cross-bar. Standing on
the table, he could look out across the yard on a magical view, which
he then beheld for the first time. The Governor of the prison, in
deference to Monsieur Camusot's request that he should deal as
leniently as possible with Lucien, had led him, as we have seen,
through the dark passages of the Conciergerie, entered from the dark
vault opposite the Tour d'Argent, thus avoiding the exhibition of a
young man of fashion to the crowd of prisoners airing themselves in
the yard. It will be for the reader to judge whether the aspect of the
promenade was not such as to appeal deeply to a poet's soul.
The yard of the Conciergerie ends at the quai between the Tour
d'Argent and the Tour Bonbec; thus the distance between them exactly
shows from the outside the width of the plot of ground. The corridor
called the Galerie de Saint-Louis, which extends from the Galerie
Marchande to the Courts of Appeals and the Tour Bonbec—in which, it
is said, Saint-Louis' room still exists—may enable the curious to
estimate the depths of the yard, as it is of the same length. Thus the
dark cells and the private rooms are under the Galerie Marchande. And
Queen Marie Antoinette, whose dungeon was under the present cells, was
conducted to the presence of the Revolutionary Tribunal, which held
its sittings in the place where the Court of Appeals now performs its
solemn functions, up a horrible flight of steps, now never used, in
the very thickness of the wall on which the Galerie Marchande is
built.
One side of the prison-yard—that on which the Hall of Saint-Louis
forms the first floor—displays a long row of Gothic columns, between
which the architects of I know not what period have built up two
floors of cells to accommodate as many prisoners as possible, by
choking the capitals, the arches, and the vaults of this magnificent
cloister with plaster, barred loopholes, and partitions. Under the
room known as the Cabinet de Saint-Louis, in the Tour Bonbec, there is
a spiral stair leading to these dens. This degradation of one of the
immemorial buildings of France is hideous to behold.
From the height at which Lucien was standing he saw this cloister,
and the details of the building that joins the two towers, in sharp
perspective; before him were the pointed caps of the towers. He stood
amazed; his suicide was postponed to his admiration. The phenomena of
hallucination are in these days so fully recognized by the medical
faculty that this mirage of the senses, this strange illusion of the
mind is beyond dispute. A man under the stress of a feeling which by
its intensity has become a monomania, often finds himself in the frame
of mind to which opium, hasheesh, or the protoxyde of azote might have
brought him. Spectres appear, phantoms and dreams take shape, things
of the past live again as they once were. What was but an image of the
brain becomes a moving or a living object. Science is now beginning to
believe that under the action of a paroxysm of passion the blood
rushes to the brain, and that such congestion has the terrible effects
of a dream in a waking state, so averse are we to regard thought as a
physical and generative force. (See Louis Lambert.)
Lucien saw the building in all its pristine beauty; the columns
were new, slender and bright; Saint-Louis' Palace rose before him as
it had once appeared; he admired its Babylonian proportions and
Oriental fancy. He took this exquisite vision as a poetic farewell
from civilized creation. While making his arrangements to die, he
wondered how this marvel of architecture could exist in Paris so
utterly unknown. He was two Luciens—one Lucien the poet, wandering
through the Middle Ages under the vaults and the turrets of
Saint-Louis, the other Lucien ready for suicide.
Just as Monsieur de Granville had ended giving his instructions to
the young secretary, the Governor of the Conciergerie came in, and the
expression of his face was such as to give the public prosecutor a
presentiment of disaster.
"Have you met Monsieur Camusot?" he asked.
"No, monsieur," said the Governor; "his clerk Coquart instructed me
to give the Abbe Carlos a private room and to liberate Monsieur de
Rubempre—but it is too late."
"Good God! what has happened?"
"Here, monsieur, is a letter for you which will explain the
catastrophe. The warder on duty in the prison-yard heard a noise of
breaking glass in the upper room, and Monsieur Lucien's next neighbor
shrieking wildly, for he heard the young man's dying struggles. The
warder came to me pale from the sight that met his eyes. He found the
prisoner hanged from the window bar by his necktie."
Though the Governor spoke in a low voice, a fearful scream from
Madame de Serizy showed that under stress of feeling our faculties are
incalculably keen. The Countess heard, or guessed. Before Monsieur de
Granville could turn round, or Monsieur de Bauvan or her husband could
stop her, she fled like a flash out of the door, and reached the
Galerie Marchande, where she ran on to the stairs leading out to the
Rue de la Barillerie.
A pleader was taking off his gown at the door of one of the shops
which from time immemorial have choked up this arcade, where shoes are
sold, and gowns and caps kept for hire.
The Countess asked the way to the Conciergerie.
"Go down the steps and turn to the left. The entrance is from the
Quai de l'Horloge, the first archway."
"That woman is crazy," said the shop-woman; "some one ought to
follow her."
But no one could have kept up with Leontine; she flew.
A physician may explain how it is that these ladies of fashion,
whose strength never finds employment, reveal such powers in the
critical moments of life.
The Countess rushed so swiftly through the archway to the
wicket-gate that the gendarme on sentry did not see her pass. She flew
at the barred gate like a feather driven by the wind, and shook the
iron bars with such fury that she broke the one she grasped. The bent
ends were thrust into her breast, making the blood flow, and she
dropped on the ground, shrieking, "Open it, open it!" in a tone that
struck terror into the warders.
The gatekeepers hurried out.
"Open the gate—the public prosecutor sent me—to save the dead
man!——"
While the Countess was going round by the Rue de la Barillerie and
the Quai de l'Horloge, Monsieur de Granville and Monsieur de Serizy
went down to the Conciergerie through the inner passages, suspecting
Leontine's purpose; but notwithstanding their haste, they only arrived
in time to see her fall fainting at the outer gate, where she was
picked up by two gendarmes who had come down from the guardroom.
On seeing the Governor of the prison, the gate was opened, and the
Countess was carried into the office, but she stood up and fell on her
knees, clasping her hands.
"Only to see him—to see him! Oh! I will do no wrong! But if you do
not want to see me die on the spot, let me look at Lucien dead or
living.—Ah, my dear, are you here? Choose between my death and——"
She sank in a heap.
"You are kind," she said; "I will always love you——"
"Carry her away," said Monsieur de Bauvan.
"No, we will go to Lucien's cell," said Monsieur de Granville,
reading a purpose in Monsieur de Serizy's wild looks.
And he lifted up the Countess, and took her under one arm, while
Monsieur de Bauvan supported her on the other side.
"Monsieur," said the Comte de Serizy to the Governor, "silence as
of the grave about all this."
"Be easy," replied the Governor; "you have done the wisest
thing.—If this lady——"
"She is my wife."
"Oh! I beg your pardon. Well, she will certainly faint away when
she sees the poor man, and while she is unconscious she can be taken
home in a carriage.
"That is what I thought," replied the Count. "Pray send one of your
men to tell my servants in the Cour de Harlay to come round to the
gate. Mine is the only carriage there."
"We can save him yet," said the Countess, walking on with a degree
of strength and spirit that surprised her friends. "There are ways of
restoring life——"
And she dragged the gentlemen along, crying to the warder:
"Come on, come faster—one second may cost three lives!"
When the cell door was opened, and the Countess saw Lucien hanging
as though his clothes had been hung on a peg, she made a spring
towards him as if to embrace him and cling to him; but she fell on her
face on the floor with smothered shrieks and a sort of rattle in her
throat.
Five minutes later she was being taken home stretched on the seat
in the Count's carriage, her husband kneeling by her side. Monsieur de
Bauvan went off to fetch a doctor to give her the care she needed.
The Governor of the Conciergerie meanwhile was examining the outer
gate, and saying to his clerk:
"No expense was spared; the bars are of wrought iron, they were
properly tested, and cost a large sum; and yet there was a flaw in
that bar."
Monsieur de Granville on returning to his room had other
instructions to give to his private secretary. Massol, happily had not
yet arrived.
Soon after Monsieur de Granville had left, anxious to go to see
Monsieur de Serizy, Massol came and found his ally Chargeboeuf in the
public prosecutor's Court.
"My dear fellow," said the young secretary, "if you will do me a
great favor, you will put what I dictate to you in your Gazette
to-morrow under the heading of Law Reports; you can compose the
heading. Write now."
And he dictated as follows:—
"It has been ascertained that the Demoiselle Esther Gobseck killed
herself of her own free will.
"Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre satisfactorily proved an alibi, and
his innocence leaves his arrest to be regretted, all the more
because just as the examining judge had given the order for his
release the young gentleman died suddenly."
"I need not point out to you," said the young lawyer to Massol,
"how necessary it is to preserve absolute silence as to the little
service requested of you."
"Since it is you who do me the honor of so much confidence,"
replied Massol, "allow me to make one observation. This paragraph will
give rise to odious comments on the course of justice——"
"Justice is strong enough to bear them," said the young attache to
the Courts, with the pride of a coming magistrate trained by Monsieur
de Granville.
"Allow me, my dear sir; with two sentences this difficulty may be
avoided."
And the journalist-lawyer wrote as follows:—
"The forms of the law have nothing to do with this sad event. The
post-mortem examination, which was at once made, proved that
sudden death was due to the rupture of an aneurism in its last
stage. If Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre had been upset by his
arrest, death must have ensued sooner. But we are in a position
to
state that, far from being distressed at being taken into
custody,
the young man, whom all must lament, only laughed at it, and told
those who escorted him from Fontainebleau to Paris that as soon
as
he was brought before a magistrate his innocence would be
acknowledged."
"That saves it, I think?" said Massol.
"You are perfectly right."
"The public prosecutor will thank you for it to-morrow," said
Massol slyly.
Now to the great majority, as to the more choice reader, it will
perhaps seem that this Study is not completed by the death of Esther
and of Lucien; Jacques Collin and Asie, Europe and Paccard, in spite
of their villainous lives, may have been interesting enough to make
their fate a matter of curiosity.
The last act of the drama will also complete the picture of life
which this Study is intended to present, and give the issue of various
interests which Lucien's career had strangely tangled by bringing some
ignoble personages from the hulks into contact with those of the
highest rank.
Thus, as may be seen, the greatest events of life find their
expression in the more or less veracious gossip of the Paris papers.
And this is the case with many things of greater importance than are
here recorded.
VAUTRIN'S LAST AVATAR
"What is it, Madeleine?" asked Madame Camusot, seeing her maid come
into the room with the particular air that servants assume in critical
moments.
"Madame," said Madeleine, "monsieur has just come in from Court;
but he looks so upset, and is in such a state, that I think perhaps it
would be well for you to go to his room."
"Did he say anything?" asked Madame Camusot.
"No, madame; but we never have seen monsieur look like that; he
looks as if he were going to be ill, his face is yellow—he seems all
to pieces——"
Madame Camusot waited for no more; she rushed out of her room and
flew to her husband's study. She found the lawyer sitting in an
armchair, pale and dazed, his legs stretched out, his head against the
back of it, his hands hanging limp, exactly as if he were sinking into
idiotcy.
"What is the matter, my dear?" said the young woman in alarm.
"Oh! my poor Amelie, the most dreadful thing has happened—I am
still trembling. Imagine, the public prosecutor—no, Madame de
Serizy—that is—I do not know where to begin."
"Begin at the end," said Madame Camusot.
"Well, just as Monsieur Popinot, in the council room of the first
Court, had put the last signature to the ruling of 'insufficient
cause' for the apprehension of Lucien de Rubempre on the ground of my
report, setting him at liberty—in fact, the whole thing was done, the
clerk was going off with the minute book, and I was quit of the whole
business—the President of the Court came in and took up the papers.
'You are releasing a dead man,' said he, with chilly irony; 'the young
man is gone, as Monsieur de Bonald says, to appear before his natural
Judge. He died of apoplexy——'
"I breathed again, thinking it was sudden illness.
" 'As I understand you, Monsieur le President,' said Monsieur
Popinot, 'it is a case of apoplexy like Pichegru's.'
" 'Gentlemen,' said the President then, very gravely, 'you must
please to understand that for the outside world Lucien de Rubempre
died of an aneurism.'
"We all looked at each other. 'Very great people are concerned in
this deplorable business,' said the President. 'God grant for your
sake, Monsieur Camusot, though you did no less than your duty, that
Madame de Serizy may not go mad from the shock she has had. She was
carried away almost dead. I have just met our public prosecutor in a
painful state of despair.'—'You have made a mess of it, my dear
Camusot,' he added in my ear.—I assure you, my dear, as I came away I
could hardly stand. My legs shook so that I dared not venture into the
street. I went back to my room to rest. Then Coquart, who was putting
away the papers of this wretched case, told me that a very handsome
woman had taken the Conciergerie by storm, wanting to save Lucien,
whom she was quite crazy about, and that she fainted away on seeing
him hanging by his necktie to the window-bar of his room. The idea
that the way in which I questioned that unhappy young fellow—who,
between ourselves, was guilty in many ways—can have led to his
committing suicide has haunted me ever since I left the Palais, and I
feel constantly on the point of fainting——"
"What next? Are you going to think yourself a murderer because a
suspected criminal hangs himself in prison just as you were about to
release him?" cried Madame Camusot. "Why, an examining judge in such a
case is like a general whose horse is killed under him!—That is all."
"Such a comparison, my dear, is at best but a jest, and jesting is
out of place now. In this case the dead man clutches the living. All
our hopes are buried in Lucien's coffin."
"Indeed?" said Madame Camusot, with deep irony.
"Yes, my career is closed. I shall be no more than an examining
judge all my life. Before this fatal termination Monsieur de Granville
was annoyed at the turn the preliminaries had taken; his speech to our
President makes me quite certain that so long as Monsieur de Granville
is public prosecutor I shall get no promotion."
Promotion! The terrible thought, which in these days makes a judge
a mere functionary.
Formerly a magistrate was made at once what he was to remain. The
three or four presidents' caps satisfied the ambitions of lawyers in
each Parlement. An appointment as councillor was enough for a de
Brosses or a Mole, at Dijon as much as in Paris. This office, in
itself a fortune, required a fortune brought to it to keep it up.
In Paris, outside the Parlement, men of the long robe could hope
only for three supreme appointments: those of Controller-General,
Keeper of the Seals, or Chancellor. Below the Parlement, in the lower
grades, the president of a lower Court thought himself quite of
sufficient importance to be content to fill his chair to the end of
his days.
Compare the position of a councillor in the High Court of Justice
in Paris, in 1829, who has nothing but his salary, with that of a
councillor to the Parlement in 1729. How great is the difference! In
these days, when money is the universal social guarantee, magistrates
are not required to have—as they used to have—fine private fortunes:
hence we see deputies and peers of France heaping office on office, at
once magistrates and legislators, borrowing dignity from other
positions than those which ought to give them all their importance.
In short, a magistrate tries to distinguish himself for promotion
as men do in the army, or in a Government office.
This prevailing thought, even if it does not affect his
independence, is so well known and so natural, and its effects are so
evident, that the law inevitably loses some of its majesty in the eyes
of the public. And, in fact, the salaries paid by the State makes
priests and magistrates mere employes. Steps to be gained foster
ambition, ambition engenders subservience to power, and modern
equality places the judge and the person to be judged in the same
category at the bar of society. And so the two pillars of social
order, Religion and Justice, are lowered in this nineteenth century,
which asserts itself as progressive in all things.
"And why should you never be promoted?" said Amelie Camusot.
She looked half-jestingly at her husband, feeling the necessity of
reviving the energies of the man who embodied her ambitions, and on
whom she could play as on an instrument.
"Why despair?" she went on, with a shrug that sufficiently
expressed her indifference as to the prisoner's end. "This suicide
will delight Lucien's two enemies, Madame d'Espard and her cousin, the
Comtesse du Chatelet. Madame d'Espard is on the best terms with the
Keeper of the Seals; through her you can get an audience of His
Excellency and tell him all the secrets of this business. Then, if the
head of the law is on your side, what have you to fear from the
president of your Court or the public prosecutor?"
"But, Monsieur and Madame de Serizy?" cried the poor man. "Madame
de Serizy is gone mad, I tell you, and her madness is my doing, they
say."
"Well, if she is out of her mind, O judge devoid of judgment," said
Madame Camusot, laughing, "she can do you no harm.—Come, tell me all
the incidents of the day."
"Bless me!" said Camusot, "just as I had cross-questioned the
unhappy youth, and he had deposed that the self-styled Spanish priest
is really Jacques Collin, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Madame de
Serizy sent me a note by a servant begging me not to examine him. It
was all over!——"
"But you must have lost your head!" said Amelie. "What was to
prevent you, being so sure as you are of your clerk's fidelity, from
calling Lucien back, reassuring him cleverly, and revising the
examination?"
"Why, you are as bad as Madame de Serizy; you laugh justice to
scorn," said Camusot, who was incapable of flouting his profession.
"Madame de Serizy seized the minutes and threw them into the fire."
"That is the right sort of woman! Bravo!" cried Madame Camusot.
"Madame de Serizy declared she would sooner see the Palais blown up
than leave a young man who had enjoyed the favors of the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse and her own to stand at the bar of a Criminal court by
the side of a convict!"
"But, Camusot," said Amelie, unable to suppress a superior smile,
"your position is splendid——"
"Ah! yes, splendid!"
"You did your duty."
"But all wrong; and in spite of the jesuitical advice of Monsieur
de Granville, who met me on the Quai Malaquais."
"This morning!"
"This morning."
"At what hour?"
"At nine o'clock."
"Oh, Camusot!" cried Amelie, clasping and wringing her hands, "and
I am always imploring you to be constantly on the alert.—Good
heavens! it is not a man, but a barrow-load of stones that I have to
drag on!— Why, Camusot, your public prosecutor was waiting for
you.—He must have given you some warning."
"Yes, indeed——"
"And you failed to understand him! If you are so deaf, you will
indeed be an examining judge all your life without any knowledge
whatever of the question.—At any rate, have sense enough to listen to
me," she went on, silencing her husband, who was about to speak. "You
think the matter is done for?" she asked.
Camusot looked at his wife as a country bumpkin looks at a
conjurer.
"If the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Serizy are
compromised, you will find them both ready to patronize you," said
Amelie. "Madame de Serizy will get you admission to the Keeper of the
Seals, and you will tell him the secret history of the affair; then he
will amuse the King with the story, for sovereigns always wish to see
the wrong side of the tapestry and to know the real meaning of the
events the public stare at open-mouthed. Henceforth there will be no
cause to fear either the public prosecutor or Monsieur de Serizy."
"What a treasure such a wife is!" cried the lawyer, plucking up
courage. "After all, I have unearthed Jacques Collin; I shall send him
to his account at the Assize Court and unmask his crimes. Such a trial
is a triumph in the career of an examining judge!"
"Camusot," Amelie began, pleased to see her husband rally from the
moral and physical prostration into which he had been thrown by
Lucien's suicide, "the President told you that you had blundered to
the wrong side. Now you are blundering as much to the other—you are
losing your way again, my dear."
The magistrate stood up, looking at his wife with a stupid stare.
"The King and the Keeper of the Seals will be glad, no doubt, to
know the truth of this business, and at the same time much annoyed at
seeing the lawyers on the Liberal side dragging important persons to
the bar of opinion and of the Assize Court by their special pleading—
such people as the Maufrigneuses, the Serizys, and the Grandlieus, in
short, all who are directly or indirectly mixed up with this case."
"They are all in it; I have them all!" cried Camusot.
And Camusot walked up and down the room like Sganarelle on the
stage when he is trying to get out of a scrape.
"Listen, Amelie," said he, standing in front of his wife. "An
incident recurs to my mind, a trifle in itself, but, in my position,
of vital importance.
"Realize, my dear, that this Jacques Collin is a giant of cunning,
of dissimulation, of deceit.—He is—what shall I say?—the Cromwell
of the hulks!—I never met such a scoundrel; he almost took me
in.—But in examining a criminal, a little end of thread leads you to
find a ball, is a clue to the investigation of the darkest consciences
and obscurest facts.—When Jacques Collin saw me turning over the
letters seized in Lucien de Rubempre's lodgings, the villain glanced
at them with the evident intention of seeing whether some particular
packet were among them, and he allowed himself to give a visible
expression of satisfaction. This look, as of a thief valuing his
booty, this movement, as of a man in danger saying to himself, 'My
weapons are safe,' betrayed a world of things.
"Only you women, besides us and our examinees, can in a single
flash epitomize a whole scene, revealing trickery as complicated as
safety- locks. Volumes of suspicion may thus be communicated in a
second. It is terrifying—life or death lies in a wink.
"Said I to myself, "The rascal has more letters in his hands than
these!'—Then the other details of the case filled my mind; I
overlooked the incident, for I thought I should have my men face to
face, and clear up this point afterwards. But it may be considered as
quite certain that Jacques Collin, after the fashion of such wretches,
has hidden in some safe place the most compromising of the young
fellow's letters, adored as he was by——"
"And yet you are afraid, Camusot? Why, you will be President of the
Supreme Court much sooner than I expected!" cried Madame Camusot, her
face beaming. "Now, then, you must proceed so as to give satisfaction
to everybody, for the matter is looking so serious that it might quite
possibly be snatched from us.—Did they not take the proceedings out
of Popinot's hands to place them in yours when Madame d'Espard tried
to get a Commission in Lunacy to incapacitate her husband?" she added,
in reply to her husband's gesture of astonishment. "Well, then, might
not the public prosecutor, who takes such keen interest in the honor
of Monsieur and Madame de Serizy, carry the case to the Upper Court
and get a councillor in his interest to open a fresh inquiry?"
"Bless me, my dear, where did you study criminal law?" cried
Camusot. "You know everything; you can give me points."
"Why, do you believe that, by to-morrow morning, Monsieur de
Granville will not have taken fright at the possible line of defence
that might be adopted by some liberal advocate whom Jacques Collin
would manage to secure; for lawyers will be ready to pay him to place
the case in their hands!—And those ladies know their danger quite as
well as you do—not to say better; they will put themselves under the
protection of the public prosecutor, who already sees their families
unpleasantly close to the prisoner's bench, as a consequence of the
coalition between this convict and Lucien de Rubempre, betrothed to
Mademoiselle de Grandlieu—Lucien, Esther's lover, Madame de
Maufrigneuse's former lover, Madame de Serizy's darling. So you must
conduct the affair in such a way as to conciliate the favor of your
public prosecutor, the gratitude of Monsieur de Serizy, and that of
the Marquise d'Espard and the Comtesse du Chatelet, to reinforce
Madame de Maufrigneuse's influence by that of the Grandlieus, and to
gain the complimentary approval of your President.
"I will undertake to deal with the ladies—d'Espard, de
Maufrigneuse, and de Grandlieu.
"You must go to-morrow morning to see the public prosecutor.
Monsieur de Granville is a man who does not live with his wife; for
ten years he had for his mistress a Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, who
bore him illegitimate children—didn't she? Well, such a magistrate is
no saint; he is a man like any other; he can be won over; he must give
a hold somewhere; you must discover the weak spot and flatter him; ask
his advice, point out the dangers of attending the case; in short, try
to get him into the same boat, and you will be——"
"I ought to kiss your footprints!" exclaimed Camusot, interrupting
his wife, putting his arm round her, and pressing her to his heart.
"Amelie, you have saved me!"
"I brought you in tow from Alencon to Mantes, and from Mantes to
the Metropolitan Court," replied Amelie. "Well, well, be quite
easy!—I intend to be called Madame la Presidente within five years'
time. But, my dear, pray always think over everything a long time
before you come to any determination. A judge's business is not that
of a fireman; your papers are never in a blaze, you have plenty of
time to think; so in your place blunders are inexcusable."
"The whole strength of my position lies in identifying the sham
Spanish priest with Jacques Collin," the judge said, after a long
pause. "When once that identity is established, even if the Bench
should take the credit of the whole affair, that will still be an
ascertained fact which no magistrate, judge, or councillor can get rid
of. I shall do like the boys who tie a tin kettle to a cat's tail; the
inquiry, whoever carries it on, will make Jacques Collin's tin kettle
clank."
"Bravo!" said Amelie.
"And the public prosecutor would rather come to an understanding
with me than with any one else, since I am the only man who can remove
the Damocles' sword that hangs over the heart of the Faubourg Saint-
Germain.
"Only you have no idea how hard it will be to achieve that
magnificent result. Just now, when I was with Monsieur de Granville in
his private office, we agreed, he and I, to take Jacques Collin at his
own valuation—a canon of the Chapter of Toledo, Carlos Herrera. We
consented to recognize his position as a diplomatic envoy, and allow
him to be claimed by the Spanish Embassy. It was in consequence of
this plan that I made out the papers by which Lucien de Rubempre was
released, and revised the minutes of the examinations, washing the
prisoners as white as snow.
"To-morrow, Rastignac, Bianchon, and some others are to be
confronted with the self-styled Canon of Toledo; they will not
recognize him as Jacques Collin who was arrested in their presence ten
years ago in a cheap boarding-house, where they knew him under the
name of Vautrin."
There was a short silence, while Madame Camusot sat thinking.
"Are you sure your man is Jacques Collin?" she asked.
"Positive," said the lawyer, "and so is the public prosecutor."
"Well, then, try to make some exposure at the Palais de Justice
without showing your claws too much under your furred cat's paws. If
your man is still in the secret cells, go straight to the Governor of
the Conciergerie and contrive to have the convict publicly identified.
Instead of behaving like a child, act like the ministers of police
under despotic governments, who invent conspiracies against the
monarch to have the credit of discovering them and making themselves
indispensable. Put three families in danger to have the glory of
rescuing them."
"That luckily reminds me!" cried Camusot. "My brain is so
bewildered that I had quite forgotten an important point. The
instructions to place Jacques Collin in a private room were taken by
Coquart to Monsieur Gault, the Governor of the prison. Now,
Bibi-Lupin, Jacques Collin's great enemy, has taken steps to have
three criminals, who know the man, transferred from La Force to the
Conciergerie; if he appears in the prison-yard to-morrow, a terrific
scene is expected——"
"Why?"
"Jacques Collin, my dear, was treasurer of the money owned by the
prisoners in the hulks, amounting to considerable sums; now, he is
supposed to have spent it all to maintain the deceased Lucien in
luxury, and he will be called to account. There will be such a battle,
Bibi-Lupin tells me, as will require the intervention of the warders,
and the secret will be out. Jacques Collin's life is in danger.
"Now, if I get to the Palais early enough I may record the evidence
of identity."
"Oh, if only his creditors should take him off your hands! You
would be thought such a clever fellow!—Do not go to Monsieur de
Granville's room; wait for him in his Court with that formidable great
gun. It is a loaded cannon turned on the three most important families
of the Court and Peerage. Be bold: propose to Monsieur de Granville
that he should relieve you of Jacques Collin by transferring him to La
Force, where the convicts know how to deal with those who betray them.
"I will go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, who will take me to the
Grandlieus. Possibly I may see Monsieur de Serizy. Trust me to sound
the alarm everywhere. Above all, send me a word we will agree upon to
let me know if the Spanish priest is officially recognized as Jacques
Collin. Get your business at the Palais over by two o'clock, and I
will have arranged for you to have an interview with the Keeper of the
Seals; perhaps I may find him with the Marquise d'Espard."
Camusot stood squarely with a look of admiration that made his
knowing wife smile.
"Now, come to dinner and be cheerful," said she in conclusion.
"Why, you see! We have been only two years in Paris, and here you are
on the highroad to be made Councillor before the end of the year. From
that to the Presidency of a court, my dear, there is no gulf but what
some political service may bridge."
This conjugal sitting shows how greatly the deeds and the lightest
words of Jacques Collin, the lowest personage in this drama, involved
the honor of the families among whom he had planted his now dead
protege.
At the Conciergerie Lucien's death and Madame de Serizy's incursion
had produced such a block in the wheels of the machinery that the
Governor had forgotten to remove the sham priest from his dungeon-
cell.
Though more than one instance is on record of the death of a
prisoner during his preliminary examination, it was a sufficiently
rare event to disturb the warders, the clerk, and the Governor, and
hinder their working with their usual serenity. At the same time, to
them the important fact was not the handsome young fellow so suddenly
become a corpse, but the breakage of the wrought-iron bar of the outer
prison gate by the frail hands of a fine lady. And indeed, as soon as
the public prosecutor and Comte Octave de Bauvan had gone off with
Monsieur de Serizy and his unconscious wife, the Governor, clerk, and
turnkeys gathered round the gate, after letting out Monsieur Lebrun,
the prison doctor, who had been called in to certify to Lucien's
death, in concert with the "death doctor" of the district in which the
unfortunate youth had been lodging.
In Paris, the "death doctor" is the medical officer whose duty it
is in each district to register deaths and certify to their causes.
With the rapid insight for which he was known, Monsieur de
Granville had judged it necessary, for the honor of the families
concerned, to have the certificate of Lucien's death deposited at the
Mairie of the district in which the Quai Malaquais lies, as the
deceased had resided there, and to have the body carried from his
lodgings to the Church of Saint-Germain des Pres, where the service
was to be held. Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, Monsieur de Granville's
private secretary, had orders to this effect. The body was to be
transferred from the prison during the night. The secretary was
desired to go at once and settle matters at the Mairie with the parish
authorities and with the official undertakers. Thus, to the world in
general, Lucien would have died at liberty in his own lodgings, the
funeral would start from thence, and his friends would be invited
there for the ceremony.
So, when Camusot, his mind at ease, was sitting down to dinner with
his ambitious better-half, the Governor of the Conciergerie and
Monsieur Lebrun, the prison doctor, were standing outside the gate
bewailing the fragility of iron bars and the strength of ladies in
love.
"No one knows," said the doctor to Monsieur Gault, "what an amount
of nervous force there is in a man wound up to the highest pitch of
passion. Dynamics and mathematics have no formulas or symbols to
express that power. Why, only yesterday, I witnessed an experiment
which gave me a shudder, and which accounts for the terrible strength
put forth just now by that little woman."
"Tell me about it," said Monsieur Gault, "for I am so foolish as to
take an interest in magnetism; I do not believe in it, but it
mystifies me."
"A physician who magnetizes—for there are men among us who believe
in magnetism," Lebrun went on, "offered to experiment on me in proof
of a phenomenon that he described and I doubted. Curious to see with
my own eyes one of the strange states of nervous tension by which the
existence of magnetism is demonstrated, I consented.
"These are the facts.—I should very much like to know what our
College of Medicine would say if each of its members in turn were
subjected to this influence, which leaves no loophole for incredulity.
"My old friend—this doctor," said Doctor Lebrun parenthetically,
"is an old man persecuted for his opinions since Mesmer's time by all
the faculty; he is seventy or seventy-two years of age, and his name
is Bouvard. At the present day he is the patriarchal representative of
the theory of animal magnetism. This good man regards me as a son; I
owe my training to him.—Well, this worthy old Bouvard it was who
proposed to prove to me that nerve-force put in motion by the
magnetizer was, not indeed infinite, for man is under immutable laws,
but a power acting like other powers of nature whose elemental essence
escapes our observation.
" 'For instance,' said he, 'if you place your hand in that of a
somnambulist who, when awake, can press it only up to a certain
average of tightness, you will see that in the somnambulistic state—
as it is stupidly termed—his fingers can clutch like a vise screwed
up by a blacksmith.'—Well, monsieur, I placed my hand in that of a
woman, not asleep, for Bouvard rejects the word, but isolated, and
when the old man bid her squeeze my wrist as long and as tightly as
she could, I begged him to stop when the blood was almost bursting
from my finger tips. Look, you can see the marks of her clutch, which
I shall not lose for these three months."
"The deuce!" exclaimed Monsieur Gault, as he saw a band of bruised
flesh, looking like the scar of a burn.
"My dear Gault," the doctor went on, "if my wrist had been gripped
in an iron manacle screwed tight by a locksmith, I should not have
felt the bracelet of metal so hard as that woman's fingers; her hand
was of unyielding steel, and I am convinced that she could have
crushed my bones and broken my hand from the wrist. The pressure,
beginning almost insensibly, increased without relaxing, fresh force
being constantly added to the former grip; a tourniquet could not have
been more effectual than that hand used as an instrument of
torture.—To me, therefore, it seems proven that under the influence
of passion, which is the will concentrated on one point and raised to
an incalculable power of animal force, as the different varieties of
electric force are also, man may direct his whole vitality, whether
for attack or resistance, to one of his organs.—Now, this little
lady, under the stress of her despair, had concentrated her vital
force in her hands."
"She must have a good deal too, to break a wrought-iron bar," said
the chief warder, with a shake of the head.
"There was a flaw in it," Monsieur Gault observed.
"For my part," said the doctor, "I dare assign no limits to nervous
force. And indeed it is by this that mothers, to save their children,
can magnetize lions, climb, in a fire, along a parapet where a cat
would not venture, and endure the torments that sometimes attend
childbirth. In this lies the secret of the attempts made by convicts
and prisoners to regain their liberty. The extent of our vital
energies is as yet unknown; they are part of the energy of nature
itself, and we draw them from unknown reservoirs."
"Monsieur," said the warder in an undertone to the Governor, coming
close to him as he was escorting Doctor Lebrun as far as the outer
gates of the Conciergerie, "Number 2 in the secret cells says he is
ill, and needs the doctor; he declares he is dying," added the
turnkey.
"Indeed," said the Governor.
"His breath rattles in his throat," replied the man.
"It is five o'clock," said the doctor; "I have had no dinner. But,
after all, I am at hand. Come, let us see."
"Number 2, as it happens, is the Spanish priest suspected of being
Jacques Collin," said Monsieur Gault to the doctor, "and one of the
persons suspected of the crime in which that poor young man was
implicated."
"I saw him this morning," replied the doctor. "Monsieur Camusot
sent for me to give evidence as to the state of the rascal's health,
and I may assure you that he is perfectly well, and could make a
fortune by playing the part of Hercules in a troupe of athletes."
"Perhaps he wants to kill himself too," said Monsieur Gault. "Let
us both go down to the cells together, for I ought to go there if only
to transfer him to an upper room. Monsieur Camusot has given orders to
mitigate this anonymous gentleman's confinement."
Jacques Collin, known as Trompe-la-Mort in the world of the hulks,
who must henceforth be called only by his real name, had gone through
terrible distress of mind since, after hearing Camusot's order, he had
been taken back to the underground cell—an anguish such as he had
never before known in the course of a life diversified by many crimes,
by three escapes, and two sentences at the Assizes. And is there not
something monstrously fine in the dog-like attachment shown to the man
he had made his friend by this wretch in whom were concentrated all
the life, the powers, the spirit, and the passions of the hulks, who
was, so to speak, their highest expression?
Wicked, infamous, and in so many ways horrible, this absolute
worship of his idol makes him so truly interesting that this Study,
long as it is already, would seem incomplete and cut short if the
close of this criminal career did not come as a sequel to Lucien de
Rubempre's end. The little spaniel being dead, we want to know whether
his terrible playfellow the lion will live on.
In real life, in society, every event is so inevitably linked to
other events, that one cannot occur without the rest. The water of the
great river forms a sort of fluid floor; not a wave, however
rebellious, however high it may toss itself, but its powerful crest
must sink to the level of the mass of waters, stronger by the momentum
of its course than the revolt of the surges it bears with it.
And just as you watch the current flow, seeing in it a confused
sheet of images, so perhaps you would like to measure the pressure
exerted by social energy on the vortex called Vautrin; to see how far
away the rebellious eddy will be carried ere it is lost, and what the
end will be of this really diabolical man, human still by the power of
loving— so hardly can that heavenly grace perish, even in the most
cankered heart.
This wretched convict, embodying the poem that has smiled on many a
poet's fancy—on Moore, on Lord Byron, on Mathurin, on Canalis—the
demon who has drawn an angel down to hell to refresh him with dews
stolen from heaven,—this Jacques Collin will be seen, by the reader
who has understood that iron soul, to have sacrificed his own life for
seven years past. His vast powers, absorbed in Lucien, acted solely
for Lucien; he lived for his progress, his loves, his ambitions. To
him, Lucien was his own soul made visible.
It was Trompe-la-Mort who dined with the Grandlieus, stole into
ladies' boudoirs, and loved Esther by proxy. In fact, in Lucien he saw
Jacques Collin, young, handsome, noble, and rising to the dignity of
an ambassador.
Trompe-la-Mort had realized the German superstition of a
doppelganger by means of a spiritual paternity, a phenomenon which
will be quite intelligible to those women who have ever truly loved,
who have felt their soul merge in that of the man they adore, who have
lived his life, whether noble or infamous, happy or unhappy, obscure
or brilliant; who, in defiance of distance, have felt a pain in their
leg if he were wounded in his; who if he fought a duel would have been
aware of it; and who, to put the matter in a nutshell, did not need to
be told he was unfaithful to know it.
As he went back to his cell Jacques Collin said to himself, "The
boy is being examined."
And he shivered—he who thought no more of killing a man than a
laborer does of drinking.
"Has he been able to see his mistresses?" he wondered. "Has my aunt
succeeded in catching those damned females? Have the Duchesses and
Countesses bestirred themselves and prevented his being examined? Has
Lucien had my instructions? And if ill-luck will have it that he is
cross-questioned, how will he carry it off? Poor boy, and I have
brought him to this! It is that rascal Paccard and that sneak Europe
who have caused all this rumpus by collaring the seven hundred and
fifty thousand francs for the certificate Nucingen gave Esther. That
precious pair tripped us up at the last step; but I will make them pay
dear for their pranks.
"One day more and Lucien would have been a rich man; he might have
married his Clotilde de Grandlieu.—Then the boy would have been all
my own!—And to think that our fate depends on a look, on a blush of
Lucien's under Camusot's eye, who sees everything, and has all a
judge's wits about him! For when he showed me the letters we tipped
each other a wink in which we took each other's measure, and he
guessed that I can make Lucien's lady-loves fork out."
This soliloquy lasted for three hours. His torments were so great
that they were too much for that frame of iron and vitriol; Jacques
Collin, whose brain felt on fire with insanity, suffered such fearful
thirst that he unconsciously drank up all the water contained in one
of the pails with which the cell was supplied, forming, with the bed,
all its furniture.
"If he loses his head, what will become of him?—for the poor child
has not Theodore's tenacity," said he to himself, as he lay down on
the camp-bed—like a bed in a guard-room.
A word must here be said about this Theodore, remembered by Jacques
Collin at such a critical moment. Theodore Calvi, a young Corsican,
imprisoned for life at the age of eighteen for eleven murders, thanks
to the influential interference paid for with vast sums, had been made
the fellow convict of Jacques Collin, to whom he was chained, in 1819
and 1820. Jacques Collin's last escape, one of his finest inventions—
for he had got out disguised as a gendarme leading Theodore Calvi as
he was, a convict called before the commissary of police—had been
effected in the seaport of Rochefort, where the convicts die by
dozens, and where, it was hoped, these two dangerous rascals would
have ended their days. Though they escaped together, the difficulties
of their flight had forced them to separate. Theodore was caught and
restored to the hulks.
Indeed, a life with Lucien, a youth innocent of all crime, who had
only minor sins on his conscience, dawned on him as bright and
glorious as a summer sun; while with Theodore, Jacques Collin could
look forward to no end but the scaffold after a career of
indispensable crimes.
The thought of disaster as a result of Lucien's weakness—for his
experience of an underground cell would certainly have turned his
brain—took vast proportions in Jacques Collin's mind; and,
contemplating the probabilities of such a misfortune, the unhappy man
felt his eyes fill with tears, a phenomenon that had been utterly
unknown to him since his earliest childhood.
"I must be in a furious fever," said he to himself; "and perhaps if
I send for the doctor and offer him a handsome sum, he will put me in
communication with Lucien."
At this moment the turnkey brought in his dinner.
"It is quite useless my boy; I cannot eat. Tell the governor of
this prison to send the doctor to see me. I am very bad, and I believe
my last hour has come."
Hearing the guttural rattle that accompanied these words, the
warder bowed and went. Jacques Collin clung wildly to this hope; but
when he saw the doctor and the governor come in together, he perceived
that the attempt was abortive, and coolly awaited the upshot of the
visit, holding out his wrist for the doctor to feel his pulse.
"The Abbe is feverish," said the doctor to Monsieur Gault, "but it
is the type of fever we always find in inculpated prisoners—and to
me," he added, in the governor's ear, "it is always a sign of some
degree of guilt."
Just then the governor, to whom the public prosecutor had intrusted
Lucien's letter to be given to Jacques Collin, left the doctor and the
prisoner together under the guard of the warder, and went to fetch the
letter.
"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin, seeing the warder outside the
door, and not understanding why the governor had left them, "I should
think nothing of thirty thousand francs if I might send five lines to
Lucien de Rubempre."
"I will not rob you of your money," said Doctor Lebrun; "no one in
this world can ever communicate with him again——"
"No one?" said the prisoner in amazement. "Why?"
"He has hanged himself——"
No tigress robbed of her whelps ever startled an Indian jungle with
a yell so fearful as that of Jacques Collin, who rose to his feet as a
tiger rears to spring, and fired a glance at the doctor as scorching
as the flash of a falling thunderbolt. Then he fell back on the bed,
exclaiming:
"Oh, my son!"
"Poor man!" said the doctor, moved by this terrific convulsion of
nature.
In fact, the first explosion gave way to such utter collapse, that
the words, "Oh, my son," were but a murmur.
"Is this one going to die in our hands too?" said the turnkey.
"No; it is impossible!" Jacques Collin went on, raising himself and
looking at the two witnesses of the scene with a dead, cold eye. "You
are mistaken; it is not Lucien; you did not see. A man cannot hang
himself in one of these cells. Look—how could I hang myself here? All
Paris shall answer to me for that boy's life! God owes it to me."
The warder and the doctor were amazed in their turn—they, whom
nothing had astonished for many a long day.
On seeing the governor, Jacques Collin, crushed by the very
violence of this outburst of grief, seemed somewhat calmer.
"Here is a letter which the public prosecutor placed in my hands
for you, with permission to give it to you sealed," said Monsieur
Gault.
"From Lucien?" said Jacques Collin.
"Yes, monsieur."
"Is not that young man——"
"He is dead," said the governor. "Even if the doctor had been on
the spot, he would, unfortunately, have been too late. The young man
died —there—in one of the rooms——"
"May I see him with my own eyes?" asked Jacques Collin timidly.
"Will you allow a father to weep over the body of his son?"
"You can, if you like, take his room, for I have orders to remove
you from these cells; you are no longer in such close confinement,
monsieur."
The prisoner's eyes, from which all light and warmth had fled,
turned slowly from the governor to the doctor; Jacques Collin was
examining them, fearing some trap, and he was afraid to go out of the
cell.
"If you wish to see the body," said Lebrun, "you have no time to
lose; it is to be carried away to-night."
"If you have children, gentlemen," said Jacques Collin, "you will
understand my state of mind; I hardly know what I am doing. This blow
is worse to me than death; but you cannot know what I am saying. Even
if you are fathers, it is only after a fashion—I am a mother too—I—
I am going mad—I feel it!"
By going through certain passages which open only to the governor,
it is possible to get very quickly from the cells to the private
rooms. The two sets of rooms are divided by an underground corridor
formed of two massive walls supporting the vault over which Galerie
Marchande, as it is called, is built. So Jacques Collin, escorted by
the warder, who took his arm, preceded by the governor, and followed
by the doctor, in a few minutes reached the cell where Lucien was
lying stretched on the bed.
On seeing the body, he threw himself upon it, seizing it in a
desperate embrace with a passion and impulse that made these
spectators shudder.
"There," said the doctor to Monsieur Gault, "that is an instance of
what I was telling you. You see that man clutching the body, and you
do not know what a corpse is; it is stone——"
"Leave me alone!" said Jacques Collin in a smothered voice; "I have
not long to look at him. They will take him away to——"
He paused at the word "bury him."
"You will allow me to have some relic of my dear boy! Will you be
so kind as to cut off a lock of his hair for me, monsieur," he said to
the doctor, "for I cannot——"
"He was certainly his son," said Lebrun.
"Do you think so?" replied the governor in a meaning tone, which
made the doctor thoughtful for a few minutes.
The governor gave orders that the prisoner should be left in this
cell, and that some locks of hair should be cut for the self-styled
father before the body should be removed.
At half-past five in the month of May it is easy to read a letter
in the Conciergerie in spite of the iron bars and the close wire
trellis that guard the windows. So Jacques Collin read the dreadful
letter while he still held Lucien's hand.
The man is not known who can hold a lump of ice for ten minutes
tightly clutched in the hollow of his hand. The cold penetrates to the
very life-springs with mortal rapidity. But the effect of that cruel
chill, acting like a poison, is as nothing to that which strikes to
the soul from the cold, rigid hand of the dead thus held. Thus Death
speaks to Life; it tells many dark secrets which kill many feelings;
for in matters of feeling is not change death?
As we read through once more, with Jacques Collin, Lucien's last
letter, it will strike us as being what it was to this man—a cup of
poison:—
"TO THE ABBE CARLOS HERRERA.
"MY DEAR ABBE,—I have had only benefits from you, and I have
betrayed you. This involuntary ingratitude is killing me, and
when
you read these lines I shall have ceased to exist. You are not
here now to save me.
"You had given me full liberty, if I should find it advantageous,
to destroy you by flinging you on the ground like a cigar-end;
but
I have ruined you by a blunder. To escape from a difficulty,
deluded by a clever question from the examining judge, your son
by
adoption and grace went over to the side of those who aim at
killing you at any cost, and insist on proving an identity, which
I know to be impossible, between you and a French villain. All is
said.
"Between a man of your calibre and me—me of whom you tried to
make a greater man than I am capable of being—no foolish
sentiment can come at the moment of final parting. You hoped to
make me powerful and famous, and you have thrown me into the gulf
of suicide, that is all. I have long heard the broad pinions of
that vertigo beating over my head.
"As you have sometimes said, there is the posterity of Cain and
the posterity of Abel. In the great human drama Cain is in
opposition. You are descended from Adam through that line, in
which the devil still fans the fire of which the first spark was
flung on Eve. Among the demons of that pedigree, from time to
time
we see one of stupendous power, summing up every form of human
energy, and resembling the fevered beasts of the desert, whose
vitality demands the vast spaces they find there. Such men are as
dangerous as lions would be in the heart of Normandy; they must
have their prey, and they devour common men and crop the money of
fools. Their sport is so dangerous that at last they kill the
humble dog whom they have taken for a companion and made an idol
of.
"When it is God's will, these mysterious beings may be a Moses, an
Attila, Charlemagne, Mahomet, or Napoleon; but when He leaves a
generation of these stupendous tools to rust at the bottom of the
ocean, they are no more than a Pugatschef, a Fouche, a Louvel, or
the Abbe Carlos Herrera. Gifted with immense power over tenderer
souls, they entrap them and mangle them. It is grand, it is
fine—
in its way. It is the poisonous plant with gorgeous coloring that
fascinates children in the woods. It is the poetry of evil. Men
like you ought to dwell in caves and never come out of them. You
have made me live that vast life, and I have had all my share of
existence; so I may very well take my head out of the Gordian
knot
of your policy and slip it into the running knot of my cravat.
"To repair the mischief I have done, I am forwarding to the public
prosecutor a retraction of my deposition. You will know how to
take advantage of this document.
"In virtue of a will formally drawn up, restitution will be made,
Monsieur l'Abbe, of the moneys belonging to your Order which you
so imprudently devoted to my use, as a result of your paternal
affection for me.
"And so, farewell. Farewell, colossal image of Evil and
Corruption; farewell—to you who, if started on the right road,
might have been greater than Ximenes, greater than Richelieu! You
have kept your promises. I find myself once more just as I was on
the banks of the Charente, after enjoying, by your help, the
enchantments of a dream. But, unfortunately, it is not now in the
waters of my native place that I shall drown the errors of a boy;
but in the Seine, and my hole is a cell in the Conciergerie.
"Do not regret me: my contempt for you is as great as my
admiration.
"LUCIEN."
A little before one in the morning, when the men came to fetch away
the body, they found Jacques Collin kneeling by the bed, the letter on
the floor, dropped, no doubt, as a suicide drops the pistol that has
shot him; but the unhappy man still held Lucien's hand between his
own, and was praying to God.
On seeing this man, the porters paused for a moment, for he looked
like one of those stone images, kneeling to all eternity on a
mediaeval tomb, the work of some stone-carver's genius. The sham
priest, with eyes as bright as a tiger's, but stiffened into
supernatural rigidity, so impressed the men that they gently bid him
rise.
"Why?" he asked mildly. The audacious Trompe-la-Mort was as meek as
a child.
The governor pointed him out to Monsieur de Chargeboeuf; and he,
respecting such grief, and believing that Jacques Collin was indeed
the priest he called himself, explained the orders given by Monsieur
de Granville with regard to the funeral service and arrangements,
showing that it was absolutely necessary that the body should be
transferred to Lucien's lodgings, Quai Malaquais, where the priests
were waiting to watch by it for the rest of the night.
"It is worthy of that gentleman's well-known magnanimity," said
Jacques Collin sadly. "Tell him, monsieur, that he may rely on my
gratitude. Yes, I am in a position to do him great service. Do not
forget these words; they are of the utmost importance to him.
"Oh, monsieur! strange changes come over a man's spirit when for
seven hours he has wept over such a son as he—— And I shall see him
no more!"
After gazing once more at Lucien with an expression of a mother
bereft of her child's remains, Jacques Collin sank in a heap. As he
saw Lucien's body carried away, he uttered a groan that made the men
hurry off. The public prosecutor's private secretary and the governor
of the prison had already made their escape from the scene.
What had become of that iron spirit; of the decision which was a
match in swiftness for the eye; of the nature in which thought and
action flashed forth together like one flame; of the sinews hardened
by three spells of labor on the hulks, and by three escapes, the
muscles which had acquired the metallic temper of a savage's limbs?
Iron will yield to a certain amount of hammering or persistent
pressure; its impenetrable molecules, purified and made homogeneous by
man, may become disintegrated, and without being in a state of fusion
the metal had lost its power of resistance. Blacksmiths, locksmiths,
tool-makers sometimes express this state by saying the iron is
retting, appropriating a word applied exclusively to hemp, which is
reduced to pulp and fibre by maceration. Well, the human soul, or, if
you will, the threefold powers of body, heart, and intellect, under
certain repeated shocks, get into such a condition as fibrous iron.
They too are disintegrated. Science and law and the public seek a
thousand causes for the terrible catastrophes on railways caused by
the rupture of an iron rail, that of Bellevue being a famous instance;
but no one has asked the evidence of real experts in such matters, the
blacksmiths, who all say the same thing, "The iron was stringy!" The
danger cannot be foreseen. Metal that has gone soft, and metal that
has preserved its tenacity, both look exactly alike.
Priests and examining judges often find great criminals in this
state. The awful experiences of the Assize Court and the "last toilet"
commonly produce this dissolution of the nervous system, even in the
strongest natures. Then confessions are blurted by the most firmly set
lips; then the toughest hearts break; and, strange to say, always at
the moment when these confessions are useless, when this weakness as
of death snatches from the man the mask of innocence which made
Justice uneasy—for it always is uneasy when the criminal dies without
confessing his crime.
Napoleon went through this collapse of every human power on the
field of Waterloo.
At eight in the morning, when the warder of the better cells
entered the room where Jacques Collin was confined, he found him pale
and calm, like a man who has collected all his strength by sheer
determination.
"It is the hour for airing in the prison-yard," said the turnkey;
"you have not been out for three days; if you choose to take air and
exercise, you may."
Jacques Collin, lost in his absorbing thoughts, and taking no
interest in himself, regarding himself as a garment with no body in
it, a perfect rag, never suspected the trap laid for him by
Bibi-Lupin, nor the importance attaching to his walk in the
prison-yard.
The unhappy man went out mechanically, along the corridor, by the
cells built into the magnificent cloisters of the Palace of the Kings,
over which is the corridor Saint-Louis, as it is called, leading to
the various purlieus of the Court of Appeals. This passage joins that
of the better cells; and it is worth noting that the cell in which
Louvel was imprisoned, one of the most famous of the regicides, is the
room at the right angle formed by the junction of the two corridors.
Under the pretty room in the Tour Bonbec there is a spiral staircase
leading from the dark passage, and serving the prisoners who are
lodged in these cells to go up and down on their way from or to the
yard.
Every prisoner, whether committed for trial or already sentenced,
and the prisoners under suspicion who have been reprieved from the
closest cells—in short, every one in confinement in the Conciergerie
takes exercise in this narrow paved courtyard for some hours every
day, especially the early hours of summer mornings. This recreation
ground, the ante-room to the scaffold or the hulks on one side, on the
other still clings to the world through the gendarme, the examining
judge, and the Assize Court. It strikes a greater chill perhaps than
even the scaffold. The scaffold may be a pedestal to soar to heaven
from; but the prison-yard is every infamy on earth concentrated and
unavoidable.
Whether at La Force or at Poissy, at Melun or at Sainte-Pelagie, a
prison-yard is a prison-yard. The same details are exactly repeated,
all but the color of the walls, their height, and the space enclosed.
So this Study of Manners would be false to its name if it did not
include an exact description of this Pandemonium of Paris.
Under the mighty vaulting which supports the lower courts and the
Court of Appeals there is, close to the fourth arch, a stone slab,
used by Saint-Louis, it is said, for the distribution of alms, and
doing duty in our day as a counter for the sale of eatables to the
prisoners. So as soon as the prison-yard is open to the prisoners,
they gather round this stone table, which displays such dainties as
jail-birds desire—brandy, rum, and the like.
The first two archways on that side of the yard, facing the fine
Byzantine corridor—the only vestige now of Saint-Louis' elegant
palace—form a parlor, where the prisoners and their counsel may meet,
to which the prisoners have access through a formidable gateway—a
double passage, railed off by enormous bars, within the width of the
third archway. This double way is like the temporary passages arranged
at the door of a theatre to keep a line on occasions when a great
success brings a crowd. This parlor, at the very end of the vast
entrance-hall of the Conciergerie, and lighted by loop-holes on the
yard side, has lately been opened out towards the back, and the
opening filled with glass, so that the interviews of the lawyers with
their clients are under supervision. This innovation was made
necessary by the too great fascinations brought to bear by pretty
women on their counsel. Where will morality stop short? Such
precautions are like the ready-made sets of questions for self-
examination, where pure imaginations are defiled by meditating on
unknown and monstrous depravity. In this parlor, too, parents and
friends may be allowed by the authorities to meet the prisoners,
whether on remand or awaiting their sentence.
The reader may now understand what the prison-yard is to the two
hundred prisoners in the Conciergerie: their garden—a garden without
trees, beds, or flowers—in short, a prison-yard. The parlor, and the
stone of Saint-Louis, where such food and liquor as are allowed are
dispensed, are the only possible means of communication with the outer
world.
The hour spent in the yard is the only time when the prisoner is in
the open air or the society of his kind; in other prisons those who
are sentenced for a term are brought together in workshops; but in the
Conciergerie no occupation is allowed, excepting in the privileged
cells. There the absorbing idea in every mind is the drama of the
Assize Court, since the culprit comes only to be examined or to be
sentenced.
This yard is indeed terrible to behold; it cannot be imagined, it
must be seen.
In the first place, the assemblage, in a space forty metres long by
thirty wide, of a hundred condemned or suspected criminals, does not
constitute the cream of society. These creatures, belonging for the
most part to the lowest ranks, are poorly clad; their countenances are
base or horrible, for a criminal from the upper sphere of society is
happily, a rare exception. Peculation, forgery, or fraudulent
bankruptcy, the only crimes that can bring decent folks so low, enjoy
the privilege of the better cells, and then the prisoner scarcely ever
quits it.
This promenade, bounded by fine but formidable blackened walls, by
a cloister divided up into cells, by fortifications on the side
towards the quay, by the barred cells of the better class on the
north, watched by vigilant warders, and filled with a herd of
criminals, all meanly suspicious of each other, is depressing enough
in itself; and it becomes terrifying when you find yourself the centre
of all those eyes full of hatred, curiosity, and despair, face to face
with that degraded crew. Not a gleam of gladness! all is gloom—the
place and the men. All is speechless—the walls and men's consciences.
To these hapless creatures danger lies everywhere; excepting in the
case of an alliance as ominous as the prison where it was formed, they
dare not trust each other.
The police, all-pervading, poisons the atmosphere and taints
everything, even the hand-grasp of two criminals who have been
intimate. A convict who meets his most familiar comrade does not know
that he may not have repented and have made a confession to save his
life. This absence of confidence, this dread of the nark, marks the
liberty, already so illusory, of the prison-yard. The "nark" (in
French, le Mouton or le coqueur) is a spy who affects to be sentenced
for some serious offence, and whose skill consists in pretending to be
a chum. The "chum," in thieves' slang, is a skilled thief, a
professional who has cut himself adrift from society, and means to
remain a thief all his days, and continues faithful through thick and
thin to the laws of the swell-mob.
Crime and madness have a certain resemblance. To see the prisoners
of the Conciergerie in the yard, or the madmen in the garden of an
asylum, is much the same thing. Prisoners and lunatics walk to and
fro, avoiding each other, looking up with more or less strange or
vicious glances, according to the mood of the moment, but never
cheerful, never grave; they know each other, or they dread each other.
The anticipation of their sentence, remorse, and apprehension give all
these men exercising, the anxious, furtive look of the insane. Only
the most consummate criminals have the audacity that apes the quietude
of respectability, the sincerity of a clear conscience.
As men of the better class are few, and shame keeps the few whose
crimes have brought them within doors, the frequenters of the prison-
yard are for the most part dressed as workmen. Blouses, long and
short, and velveteen jackets preponderate. These coarse or dirty
garments, harmonizing with the coarse and sinister faces and brutal
manner—somewhat subdued, indeed, by the gloomy reflections that weigh
on men in prison—everything, to the silence that reigns, contributes
to strike terror or disgust into the rare visitor who, by high
influence, has obtained the privilege, seldom granted, of going over
the Conciergerie.
Just as the sight of an anatomical museum, where foul diseases are
represented by wax models, makes the youth who may be taken there more
chaste and apt for nobler and purer love, so the sight of the
Conciergerie and of the prison-yard, filled with men marked for the
hulks or the scaffold or some disgraceful punishment, inspires many,
who might not fear that Divine Justice whose voice speaks so loudly to
the conscience, with a fear of human justice; and they come out honest
men for a long time after.
As the men who were exercising in the prison-yard, when
Trompe-la-Mort appeared there, were to be the actors in a scene of
crowning importance in the life of Jacques Collin, it will be well to
depict a few of the principal personages of this sinister crowd.
Here, as everywhere when men are thrown together, here, as at
school even, force, physical and moral, wins the day. Here, then, as
on the hulks, crime stamps the man's rank. Those whose head is doomed
are the aristocracy. The prison-yard, as may be supposed, is a school
of criminal law, which is far better learned there than at the Hall on
the Place du Pantheon.
A never-failing pleasantry is to rehearse the drama of the Assize
Court; to elect a president, a jury, a public prosecutor, a counsel,
and to go through the whole trial. This hideous farce is played before
almost every great trial. At this time a famous case was proceeding in
the Criminal Court, that of the dreadful murder committed on the
persons of Monsieur and Madame Crottat, the notary's father and
mother, retired farmers who, as this horrible business showed, kept
eight hundred thousand francs in gold in their house.
One of the men concerned in this double murder was the notorious
Dannepont, known as la Pouraille, a released convict, who for five
years had eluded the most active search on the part of the police,
under the protection of seven or eight different names. This villain's
disguises were so perfect, that he had served two years of
imprisonment under the name of Delsouq, who was one of his own
disciples, and a famous thief, though he never, in any of his
achievements, went beyond the jurisdiction of the lower Courts. La
Pouraille had committed no less than three murders since his dismissal
from the hulks. The certainty that he would be executed, not less than
the large fortune he was supposed to have, made this man an object of
terror and admiration to his fellow-prisoners; for not a farthing of
the stolen money had ever been recovered. Even after the events of
July 1830, some persons may remember the terror caused in Paris by
this daring crime, worthy to compare in importance with the robbery of
medals from the Public Library; for the unhappy tendency of our age is
to make a murder the more interesting in proportion to the greater sum
of money secured by it.
La Pouraille, a small, lean, dry man, with a face like a ferret,
forty-five years old, and one of the celebrities of the prisons he had
successively lived in since the age of nineteen, knew Jacques Collin
well, how and why will be seen.
Two other convicts, brought with la Pouraille from La Force within
these twenty-four hours, had at once acknowledged and made the whole
prison-yard acknowledge the supremacy of this past-master sealed to
the scaffold. One of these convicts, a ticket-of-leave man, named
Selerier, alias l'Avuergnat, Pere Ralleau, and le Rouleur, who in the
sphere known to the hulks as the swell-mob was called Fil-de-Soie (or
silken thread)—a nickname he owed to the skill with which he slipped
through the various perils of the business—was an old ally of Jacques
Collin's.
Trompe-la-Mort so keenly suspected Fil-de-Soie of playing a double
part, of being at once in the secrets of the swell-mob and a spy laid
by the police, that he had supposed him to be the prime mover of his
arrest in the Maison Vauquer in 1819 (Le Pere Goriot). Selerier, whom
we must call Fil-de-Soie, as we shall also call Dannepont la
Pouraille, already guilty of evading surveillance, was concerned in
certain well-known robberies without bloodshed, which would certainly
take him back to the hulks for at least twenty years.
The other convict, named Riganson, and his kept woman, known as la
Biffe, were a most formidable couple, members of the swell-mob.
Riganson, on very distant terms with the police from his earliest
years, was nicknamed le Biffon. Biffon was the male of la Biffe—for
nothing is sacred to the swell-mob. These fiends respect nothing,
neither the law nor religions, not even natural history, whose solemn
nomenclature, it is seen, is parodied by them.
Here a digression is necessary; for Jacques Collin's appearance in
the prison-yard in the midst of his foes, as had been so cleverly
contrived by Bibi-Lupin and the examining judge, and the strange
scenes to ensue, would be incomprehensible and impossible without some
explanation as to the world of thieves and of the hulks, its laws, its
manners, and above all, its language, its hideous figures of speech
being indispensable in this portion of my tale.
So, first of all, a few words must be said as to the vocabulary of
sharpers, pickpockets, thieves, and murderers, known as Argot, or
thieves' cant, which has of late been introduced into literature with
so much success that more than one word of that strange lingo is
familiar on the rosy lips of ladies, has been heard in gilded
boudoirs, and become the delight of princes, who have often proclaimed
themselves "done brown" (floue)! And it must be owned, to the surprise
no doubt of many persons, that no language is more vigorous or more
vivid than that of this underground world which, from the beginnings
of countries with capitals, has dwelt in cellars and slums, in the
third limbo of society everywhere (le troisieme dessous, as the
expressive and vivid slang of the theatres has it). For is not the
world a stage? Le troisieme dessous is the lowest cellar under the
stage at the Opera where the machinery is kept and men stay who work
it, whence the footlights are raised, the ghosts, the blue-devils shot
up from hell, and so forth.
Every word of this language is a bold metaphor, ingenious or
horrible. A man's breeches are his kicks or trucks (montante, a word
that need not be explained). In this language you do not sleep, you
snooze, or doze (pioncer—and note how vigorously expressive the word
is of the sleep of the hunted, weary, distrustful animal called a
thief, which as soon as it is in safety drops—rolls—into the gulf of
deep slumber so necessary under the mighty wings of suspicion always
hovering over it; a fearful sleep, like that of a wild beast that can
sleep, nay, and snore, and yet its ears are alert with caution).
In this idiom everything is savage. The syllables which begin or
end the words are harsh and curiously startling. A woman is a trip or
a moll (une largue). And it is poetical too: straw is la plume de
Beauce, a farmyard feather bed. The word midnight is paraphrased by
twelve leads striking—it makes one shiver! Rincer une cambriole is to
"screw the shop," to rifle a room. What a feeble expression is to go
to bed in comparison with "to doss" (piausser, make a new skin). What
picturesque imagery! Work your dominoes (jouer des dominos) is to eat;
how can men eat with the police at their heels?
And this language is always growing; it keeps pace with
civilization, and is enriched with some new expression by every fresh
invention. The potato, discovered and introduced by Louis XVI. and
Parmentier, was at once dubbed in French slang as the pig's orange
(Orange a Cochons)[the Irish have called them bog oranges]. Banknotes
are invented; the "mob" at once call them Flimsies (fafiots garotes,
from "Garot," the name of the cashier whose signature they bear).
Flimsy! (fafiot.) Cannot you hear the rustle of the thin paper? The
thousand franc-note is male flimsy (in French), the five hundred
franc-note is the female; and convicts will, you may be sure, find
some whimsical name for the hundred and two hundred franc-notes.
In 1790 Guillotin invented, with humane intent, the expeditious
machine which solved all the difficulties involved in the problem of
capital punishment. Convicts and prisoners from the hulks forthwith
investigated this contrivance, standing as it did on the monarchical
borderland of the old system and the frontier of modern legislation;
they instantly gave it the name of l'Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret. They
looked at the angle formed by the steel blade, and described its
action as repeating (faucher); and when it is remembered that the
hulks are called the meadow (le pre), philologists must admire the
inventiveness of these horrible vocables, as Charles Nodier would have
said.
The high antiquity of this kind of slang is also noteworthy. A
tenth of the words are of old Romanesque origin, another tenth are the
old Gaulish French of Rabelais. Effondrer, to thrash a man, to give
him what for; otolondrer, to annoy or to "spur" him; cambrioler, doing
anything in a room; aubert, money; Gironde, a beauty (the name of a
river of Languedoc); fouillousse, a pocket—a "cly"—are all French of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The word affe, meaning life,
is of the highest antiquity. From affe anything that disturbs life is
called affres (a rowing or scolding), hence affreux, anything that
troubles life.
About a hundred words are derived from the language of Panurge, a
name symbolizing the people, for it is derived from two Greek words
signifying All-working.
Science is changing the face of the world by constructing
railroads. In Argot the train is le roulant Vif, the Rattler.
The name given to the head while still on the shoulders—la
Sorbonne— shows the antiquity of this dialect which is mentioned by
very early romance-writers, as Cervantes, the Italian story-tellers,
and Aretino. In all ages the moll, the prostitute, the heroine of so
many old-world romances, has been the protectress, companion, and
comfort of the sharper, the thief, the pickpocket, the area-sneak, and
the burglar.
Prostitution and robbery are the male and female forms of protest
made by the natural state against the social state. Even philosophers,
the innovators of to-day, the humanitarians with the communists and
Fourierists in their train, come at last, without knowing it, to the
same conclusion—prostitution and theft. The thief does not argue out
questions of property, of inheritance, and social responsibility, in
sophistical books; he absolutely ignores them. To him theft is
appropriating his own. He does not discuss marriage; he does not
complain of it; he does not insist, in printed Utopian dreams, on the
mutual consent and bond of souls which can never become general; he
pairs with a vehemence of which the bonds are constantly riveted by
the hammer of necessity. Modern innovators write unctuous theories,
long drawn, and nebulous or philanthropical romances; but the thief
acts. He is as clear as a fact, as logical as a blow; and then his
style!
Another thing worth noting: the world of prostitutes, thieves, and
murders of the galleys and the prisons forms a population of about
sixty to eighty thousand souls, men and women. Such a world is not to
be disdained in a picture of modern manners and a literary
reproduction of the social body. The law, the gendarmerie, and the
police constitute a body almost equal in number; is not that strange?
This antagonism of persons perpetually seeking and avoiding each
other, and fighting a vast and highly dramatic duel, are what are
sketched in this Study. It has been the same thing with thieving and
public harlotry as with the stage, the police, the priesthood, and the
gendarmerie. In these six walks of life the individual contracts an
indelible character. He can no longer be himself. The stigmata of
ordination are as immutable as those of the soldier are. And it is the
same in other callings which are strongly in opposition, strong
contrasts with civilization. These violent, eccentric, singular signs
—sui generis—are what make the harlot, the robber, the murderer, the
ticket-of-leave man, so easily recognizable by their foes, the spy and
the police, to whom they are as game to the sportsman: they have a
gait, a manner, a complexion, a look, a color, a smell—in short,
infallible marks about them. Hence the highly-developed art of
disguise which the heroes of the hulks acquire.
One word yet as to the constitution of this world apart, which the
abolition of branding, the mitigation of penalties, and the silly
leniency of furies are making a threatening evil. In about twenty
years Paris will be beleaguered by an army of forty thousand reprieved
criminals; the department of the Seine and its fifteen hundred
thousand inhabitants being the only place in France where these poor
wretches can be hidden. To them Paris is what the virgin forest is to
beasts of prey.
The swell-mob, or more exactly, the upper class of thieves, which
is the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the aristocracy of the tribe, had, in
1816, after the peace which made life hard for so many men, formed an
association called les grands fanandels—the Great Pals—consisting of
the most noted master-thieves and certain bold spirits at that time
bereft of any means of living. This word pal means brother, friend,
and comrade all in one. And these "Great Pals," the cream of the
thieving fraternity, for more than twenty years were the Court of
Appeal, the Institute of Learning, and the Chamber of Peers of this
community. These men all had their private means, with funds in
common, and a code of their own. They knew each other, and were
pledged to help and succor each other in difficulties. And they were
all superior to the tricks or snares of the police, had a charter of
their own, passwords and signs of recognition.
From 1815 to 1819 these dukes and peers of the prison world had
formed the famous association of the Ten-thousand (see le Pere
Goriot), so styled by reason of an agreement in virtue of which no job
was to be undertaken by which less than ten thousand francs could be
got.
At that very time, in 1829-30, some memoirs were brought out in
which the collective force of this association and the names of the
leaders were published by a famous member of the police-force. It was
terrifying to find there an army of skilled rogues, male and female;
so numerous, so clever, so constantly lucky, that such thieves as
Pastourel, Collonge, or Chimaux, men of fifty and sixty, were
described as outlaws from society from their earliest years! What a
confession of the ineptitude of justice that rogues so old should be
at large!
Jacques Collin had been the cashier, not only of the
"Ten-thousand," but also of the "Great Pals," the heroes of the hulks.
Competent authorities admit that the hulks have always owned large
sums. This curious fact is quite conceivable. Stolen goods are never
recovered but in very singular cases. The condemned criminal, who can
take nothing with him, is obliged to trust somebody's honesty and
capacity, and to deposit his money; as in the world of honest folks,
money is placed in a bank.
Long ago Bibi-Lupin, now for ten years a chief of the department of
Public Safety, had been a member of the aristocracy of "Pals." His
treason had resulted from offended pride; he had been constantly set
aside in favor of Trompe-la-Mort's superior intelligence and
prodigious strength. Hence his persistent vindictiveness against
Jacques Collin. Hence, also, certain compromises between Bibi-Lupin
and his old companions, which the magistrates were beginning to take
seriously.
So in his desire for vengeance, to which the examining judge had
given play under the necessity of identifying Jacques Collin, the
chief of the "Safety" had very skilfully chosen his allies by setting
la Pouraille, Fil-de-Soie, and le Biffon on the sham Spaniard—for la
Pouraille and Fil-de-Soie both belonged to the "Ten-thousand," and le
Biffon was a "Great Pal."
La Biffe, le Biffon's formidable trip, who to this day evades all
the pursuit of the police by her skill in disguising herself as a
lady, was at liberty. This woman, who successfully apes a marquise, a
countess, a baroness, keeps a carriage and men-servants. This Jacques
Collin in petticoats is the only woman who can compare with Asie,
Jacques Collin's right hand. And, in fact, every hero of the hulks is
backed up by a devoted woman. Prison records and the secret papers of
the law courts will tell you this; no honest woman's love, not even
that of the bigot for her spiritual director, has ever been greater
than the attachment of a mistress who shares the dangers of a great
criminal.
With these men a passion is almost always the first cause of their
daring enterprises and murders. The excessive love which—
constitutionally, |