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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bureaucracy
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: June, 1998  [Etext #1343]
+Posting Date: February 22, 2010
+Last Updated: November 22, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUREAUCRACY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+BUREAUCRACY
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+    To the Comtesse Seraphina San Severino, with the respectful
+               homage of sincere and deep admiration
+                                                  De Balzac
+
+
+
+
+
+BUREAUCRACY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE RABOURDIN HOUSEHOLD
+
+
+In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain likeness to one
+another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met with
+several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are about
+to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our most
+important ministries. At this period he was forty years old, with gray
+hair of so pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch fall in love
+with it for it softened a somewhat melancholy countenance, blue eyes
+full of fire, a skin that was still fair, though rather ruddy and
+touched here and there with strong red marks; a forehead and nose a la
+Louis XV., a serious mouth, a tall figure, thin, or perhaps wasted, like
+that of a man just recovering from illness, and finally, a bearing that
+was midway between the indolence of a mere idler and the thoughtfulness
+of a busy man. If this portrait serves to depict his character, a sketch
+of this man’s dress will bring it still further into relief. Rabourdin
+wore habitually a blue surcoat, a white cravat, a waistcoat crossed a la
+Robespierre, black trousers without straps, gray silk stockings and low
+shoes. Well-shaved, and with his stomach warmed by a cup of coffee, he
+left home at eight in the morning with the regularity of clock-work,
+always passing along the same streets on his way to the ministry: so
+neat was he, so formal, so starched that he might have been taken for an
+Englishman on the road to his embassy.
+
+From these general signs you will readily discern a family man,
+harassed by vexations in his own household, worried by annoyances at the
+ministry, yet philosopher enough to take life as he found it; an honest
+man, loving his country and serving it, not concealing from himself the
+obstacles in the way of those who seek to do right; prudent, because he
+knew men; exquisitely courteous with women, of whom he asked nothing,--a
+man full of acquirements, affable with his inferiors, holding his equals
+at great distance, and dignified towards his superiors. At the epoch of
+which we write, you would have noticed in him the coldly resigned air of
+one who has buried the illusions of his youth and renounced every secret
+ambition; you would have recognized a discouraged, but not disgusted
+man, one who still clings to his first projects,--more perhaps to
+employ his faculties than in the hope of a doubtful success. He was not
+decorated with any order, and always accused himself of weakness
+for having worn that of the Fleur-de-lis in the early days of the
+Restoration.
+
+The life of this man was marked by certain mysterious peculiarities.
+He had never known his father; his mother, a woman to whom luxury was
+everything, always elegantly dressed, always on pleasure bent, whose
+beauty seemed to him miraculous and whom he very seldom saw, left
+him little at her death; but she had given him that too common and
+incomplete education which produces so much ambition and so little
+ability. A few days before his mother’s death, when he was just sixteen,
+he left the Lycee Napoleon to enter as supernumerary a government
+office, where an unknown protector had provided him with a place.
+At twenty-two years of age Rabourdin became under-head-clerk; at
+twenty-five, head-clerk, or, as it was termed, head of the bureau. From
+that day the hand that assisted the young man to start in life was never
+felt again in his career, except as to a single circumstance; it led
+him, poor and friendless, to the house of a Monsieur Leprince, formerly
+an auctioneer, a widower said to be extremely rich, and father of
+an only daughter. Xavier Rabourdin fell desperately in love with
+Mademoiselle Celestine Leprince, then seventeen years of age, who had
+all the matrimonial claims of a dowry of two hundred thousand francs.
+Carefully educated by an artistic mother, who transmitted her own
+talents to her daughter, this young lady was fitted to attract
+distinguished men. Tall, handsome, and finely-formed, she was a good
+musician, drew and painted, spoke several languages, and even knew
+something of science,--a dangerous advantage, which requires a woman
+to avoid carefully all appearance of pedantry. Blinded by mistaken
+tenderness, the mother gave the daughter false ideas as to her probable
+future; to the maternal eyes a duke or an ambassador, a marshal of
+France or a minister of State, could alone give her Celestine her due
+place in society. The young lady had, moreover, the manners, language,
+and habits of the great world. Her dress was richer and more elegant
+than was suitable for an unmarried girl; a husband could give her
+nothing more than she now had, except happiness. Besides all such
+indulgences, the foolish spoiling of the mother, who died a year after
+the girl’s marriage, made a husband’s task all the more difficult.
+What coolness and composure of mind were needed to rule such a woman!
+Commonplace suitors held back in fear. Xavier Rabourdin, without parents
+and without fortune other than his situation under government, was
+proposed to Celestine by her father. She resisted for a long time;
+not that she had any personal objection to her suitor, who was young,
+handsome, and much in love, but she shrank from the plain name of Madame
+Rabourdin. Monsieur Leprince assured his daughter that Xavier was of
+the stock that statesmen came of. Celestine answered that a man named
+Rabourdin would never be anything under the government of the Bourbons,
+etc. Forced back to his intrenchments, the father made the serious
+mistake of telling his daughter that her future husband was certain of
+becoming Rabourdin “de something or other” before he reached the age
+of admission to the Chamber. Xavier was soon to be appointed Master of
+petitions, and general-secretary at his ministry. From these lower steps
+of the ladder the young man would certainly rise to the higher ranks of
+the administration, possessed of a fortune and a name bequeathed to him
+in a certain will of which he, Monsieur Leprince, was cognizant. On this
+the marriage took place.
+
+Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious protector to whom
+the auctioneer alluded. Led away by such hopes and by the natural
+extravagance of happy love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin spent nearly
+one hundred thousand francs of their capital in the first five years
+of married life. By the end of this time Celestine, alarmed at the
+non-advancement of her husband, insisted on investing the remaining
+hundred thousand francs of her dowry in landed property, which returned
+only a slender income; but her future inheritance from her father would
+amply repay all present privations with perfect comfort and ease of
+life. When the worthy auctioneer saw his son-in-law disappointed of the
+hopes they had placed on the nameless protector, he tried, for the
+sake of his daughter, to repair the secret loss by risking part of his
+fortune in a speculation which had favourable chances of success. But
+the poor man became involved in one of the liquidations of the house of
+Nucingen, and died of grief, leaving nothing behind him but a dozen fine
+pictures which adorned his daughter’s salon, and a few old-fashioned
+pieces of furniture, which she put in the garret.
+
+Eight years of fruitless expectation made Madame Rabourdin at last
+understand that the paternal protector of her husband must have died,
+and that his will, if it ever existed, was lost or destroyed. Two years
+before her father’s death the place of chief of division, which became
+vacant, was given, over her husband’s head, to a certain Monsieur de la
+Billardiere, related to a deputy of the Right who was made minister in
+1823. It was enough to drive Rabourdin out of the service; but how could
+he give up his salary of eight thousand francs and perquisites, when
+they constituted three fourths of his income and his household was
+accustomed to spend them? Besides, if he had patience for a few more
+years he would then be entitled to a pension. What a fall was this for
+a woman whose high expectations at the opening of her life were more or
+less warranted, and one who was admitted on all sides to be a superior
+woman.
+
+Madame Rabourdin had justified the expectations formed of Mademoiselle
+Leprince; she possessed the elements of that apparent superiority which
+pleases the world; her liberal education enabled her to speak to every
+one in his or her own language; her talents were real; she showed an
+independent and elevated mind; her conversation charmed as much by its
+variety and ease as by the oddness and originality of her ideas. Such
+qualities, useful and appropriate in a sovereign or an ambassadress,
+were of little service to a household compelled to jog in the common
+round. Those who have the gift of speaking well desire an audience;
+they like to talk, even if they sometimes weary others. To satisfy the
+requirements of her mind Madame Rabourdin took a weekly reception-day
+and went a great deal into society to obtain the consideration her
+self-love was accustomed to enjoy. Those who know Parisian life will
+readily understand how a woman of her temperament suffered, and was
+martyrized at heart by the scantiness of her pecuniary means. No matter
+what foolish declarations people make about money, they one and all, if
+they live in Paris, must grovel before accounts, do homage to figures,
+and kiss the forked hoof of the golden calf. What a problem was hers!
+twelve thousand francs a year to defray the costs of a household
+consisting of father, mother, two children, a chambermaid and cook,
+living on the second floor of a house in the rue Duphot, in an apartment
+costing two thousand francs a year. Deduct the dress and the carriage of
+Madame before you estimate the gross expenses of the family, for dress
+precedes everything; then see what remains for the education of the
+children (a girl of eight and a boy of nine, whose maintenance must
+cost at least two thousand francs besides) and you will find that Madame
+Rabourdin could barely afford to give her husband thirty francs a month.
+That is the position of half the husbands in Paris, under penalty of
+being thought monsters.
+
+Thus it was that this woman who believed herself destined to shine in
+the world was condemned to use her mind and her faculties in a sordid
+struggle, fighting hand to hand with an account-book. Already, terrible
+sacrifice of pride! she had dismissed her man-servant, not long after
+the death of her father. Most women grow weary of this daily struggle;
+they complain but they usually end by giving up to fate and taking what
+comes to them; Celestine’s ambition, far from lessening, only increased
+through difficulties, and led her, when she found she could not conquer
+them, to sweep them aside. To her mind this complicated tangle of the
+affairs of life was a Gordian knot impossible to untie and which
+genius ought to cut. Far from accepting the pettiness of middle-class
+existence, she was angry at the delay which kept the great things of
+life from her grasp,--blaming fate as deceptive. Celestine sincerely
+believed herself a superior woman. Perhaps she was right; perhaps she
+would have been great under great circumstances; perhaps she was not in
+her right place. Let us remember there are as many varieties of woman as
+there are of man, all of which society fashions to meet its needs. Now
+in the social order, as in Nature’s order, there are more young shoots
+than there are trees, more spawn than full-grown fish, and many great
+capacities (Athanase Granson, for instance) which die withered for want
+of moisture, like seeds on stony ground. There are, unquestionably,
+household women, accomplished women, ornamental women, women who are
+exclusively wives, or mothers, or sweethearts, women purely spiritual
+or purely material; just as there are soldiers, artists, artisans,
+mathematicians, poets, merchants, men who understand money, or
+agriculture, or government, and nothing else. Besides all this, the
+eccentricity of events leads to endless cross-purposes; many are called
+and few are chosen is the law of earth as of heaven. Madame Rabourdin
+conceived herself fully capable of directing a statesman, inspiring an
+artist, helping an inventor and pushing his interests, or of devoting
+her powers to the financial politics of a Nucingen, and playing a
+brilliant part in the great world. Perhaps she was only endeavouring to
+excuse to her own mind a hatred for the laundry lists and the duty of
+overlooking the housekeeping bills, together with the petty economies
+and cares of a small establishment. She was superior only in those
+things where it gave her pleasure to be so. Feeling as keenly as she
+did the thorns of a position which can only be likened to that of
+Saint-Laurence on his grid-iron, is it any wonder that she sometimes
+cried out? So, in her paroxysms of thwarted ambition, in the moments
+when her wounded vanity gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine
+turned upon Xavier Rabourdin. Was it not her husband’s duty to give her
+a suitable position in the world? If she were a man she would have had
+the energy to make a rapid fortune for the sake of rendering an adored
+wife happy! She reproached him for being too honest a man. In the mouth
+of some women this accusation is a charge of imbecility. She sketched
+out for him certain brilliant plans in which she took no account of the
+hindrances imposed by men and things; then, like all women under the
+influence of vehement feeling, she became in thought as Machiavellian
+as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than Maxime de Trailles. At such
+times Celestine’s mind took a wide range, and she imagined herself at
+the summit of her ideas.
+
+When these fine visions first began Rabourdin, who saw the practical
+side, was cool. Celestine, much grieved, thought her husband
+narrow-minded, timid, unsympathetic; and she acquired, insensibly, a
+wholly false opinion of the companion of her life. In the first place,
+she often extinguished him by the brilliancy of her arguments. Her ideas
+came to her in flashes, and she sometimes stopped him short when he
+began an explanation, because she did not choose to lose the slightest
+sparkle of her own mind. From the earliest days of their marriage
+Celestine, feeling herself beloved and admired by her husband, treated
+him without ceremony; she put herself above conjugal laws and the
+rules of private courtesy by expecting love to pardon all her little
+wrong-doings; and, as she never in any way corrected herself, she was
+always in the ascendant. In such a situation the man holds to the wife
+very much the position of a child to a teacher when the latter cannot or
+will not recognize that the mind he has ruled in childhood is becoming
+mature. Like Madame de Stael, who exclaimed in a room full of people,
+addressing, as we may say, a greater man than herself, “Do you know you
+have really said something very profound!” Madame Rabourdin said of
+her husband: “He certainly has a good deal of sense at times.” Her
+disparaging opinion of him gradually appeared in her behavior through
+almost imperceptible motions. Her attitude and manners expressed a want
+of respect. Without being aware of it she injured her husband in the
+eyes of others; for in all countries society, before making up its mind
+about a man, listens for what his wife thinks of him, and obtains from
+her what the Genevese term “pre-advice.”
+
+When Rabourdin became aware of the mistakes which love had led him to
+commit it was too late,--the groove had been cut; he suffered and
+was silent. Like other men in whom sentiments and ideas are of equal
+strength, whose souls are noble and their brains well balanced, he was
+the defender of his wife before the tribunal of his own judgment; he
+told himself that nature doomed her to a disappointed life through his
+fault; HIS; she was like a thoroughbred English horse, a racer harnessed
+to a cart full of stones; she it was who suffered; and he blamed
+himself. His wife, by dint of constant repetition, had inoculated him
+with her own belief in herself. Ideas are contagious in a household; the
+ninth thermidor, like so many other portentous events, was the result
+of female influence. Thus, goaded by Celestine’s ambition, Rabourdin had
+long considered the means of satisfying it, though he hid his hopes, so
+as to spare her the tortures of uncertainty. The man was firmly resolved
+to make his way in the administration by bringing a strong light to bear
+upon it. He intended to bring about one of those revolutions which send
+a man to the head of either one party or another in society; but being
+incapable of so doing in his own interests, he merely pondered useful
+thoughts and dreamed of triumphs won for his country by noble means. His
+ideas were both generous and ambitious; few officials have not
+conceived the like; but among officials as among artists there are more
+miscarriages than births; which is tantamount to Buffon’s saying that
+“Genius is patience.”
+
+Placed in a position where he could study French administration and
+observe its mechanism, Rabourdin worked in the circle where his thought
+revolved, which, we may remark parenthetically, is the secret of much
+human accomplishment; and his labor culminated finally in the invention
+of a new system for the Civil Service of government. Knowing the people
+with whom he had to do, he maintained the machine as it then worked, so
+it still works and will continue to work; for everybody fears to remodel
+it, though no one, according to Rabourdin, ought to be unwilling to
+simplify it. In his opinion, the problem to be resolved lay in a better
+use of the same forces. His plan, in its simplest form, was to revise
+taxation and lower it in a way that should not diminish the revenues of
+the State, and to obtain, from a budget equal to the budgets which now
+excite such rabid discussion, results that should be two-fold greater
+than the present results. Long practical experience had taught Rabourdin
+that perfection is brought about in all things by changes in the
+direction of simplicity. To economize is to simplify. To simplify
+means to suppress unnecessary machinery; removals naturally follow.
+His system, therefore, depended on the weeding out of officials and the
+establishment of a new order of administrative offices. No doubt the
+hatred which all reformers incur takes its rise here. Removals required
+by this perfecting process, always ill-understood, threaten the
+well-being of those on whom a change in their condition is thus forced.
+What rendered Rabourdin really great was that he was able to restrain
+the enthusiasm that possesses all reformers, and to patiently seek out a
+slow evolving medium for all changes so as to avoid shocks, leaving time
+and experience to prove the excellence of each reform. The grandeur of
+the result anticipated might make us doubt its possibility if we lose
+sight of this essential point in our rapid analysis of his system. It
+is, therefore, not unimportant to show through his self-communings,
+however incomplete they might be, the point of view from which he looked
+at the administrative horizon. This tale, which is evolved from the very
+heart of the Civil Service, may also serve to show some of the evils of
+our present social customs.
+
+Xavier Rabourdin, deeply impressed by the trials and poverty which he
+witnessed in the lives of the government clerks, endeavored to ascertain
+the cause of their growing deterioration. He found it in those petty
+partial revolutions, the eddies, as it were, of the storm of 1789,
+which the historians of great social movements neglect to inquire into,
+although as a matter of fact it is they which have made our manners and
+customs what they are now.
+
+Formerly, under the monarchy, the bureaucratic armies did not exist.
+The clerks, few in number, were under the orders of a prime minister who
+communicated with the sovereign; thus they directly served the king. The
+superiors of these zealous servants were simply called head-clerks. In
+those branches of administration which the king did not himself direct,
+such for instance as the “fermes” (the public domains throughout
+the country on which a revenue was levied), the clerks were to their
+superior what the clerks of a business-house are to their employer; they
+learned a science which would one day advance them to prosperity. Thus,
+all points of the circumference were fastened to the centre and derived
+their life from it. The result was devotion and confidence. Since 1789
+the State, call it the Nation if you like, has replaced the sovereign.
+Instead of looking directly to the chief magistrate of this nation,
+the clerks have become, in spite of our fine patriotic ideas, the
+subsidiaries of the government; their superiors are blown about by the
+winds of a power called “the administration,” and do not know from
+day to day where they may be on the morrow. As the routine of public
+business must go on, a certain number of indispensable clerks are kept
+in their places, though they hold these places on sufferance, anxious as
+they are to retain them. Bureaucracy, a gigantic power set in motion by
+dwarfs, was generated in this way. Though Napoleon, by subordinating
+all things and all men to his will, retarded for a time the influence of
+bureaucracy (that ponderous curtain hung between the service to be
+done and the man who orders it), it was permanently organized under
+the constitutional government, which was, inevitably, the friend of
+all mediocrities, the lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as
+meddlesome as an old tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers
+constantly struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the
+Elected of the Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and
+dishonest leaders, the Civil Service officials hastened to make
+themselves essential to the warfare by adding their quota of assistance
+under the form of written action; they created a power of inertia and
+named it “Report.” Let us explain the Report.
+
+When the kings of France took to themselves ministers, which first
+happened under Louis XV., they made them render reports on all important
+questions, instead of holding, as formerly, grand councils of state with
+the nobles. Under the constitutional government, the ministers of the
+various departments were insensibly led by their bureaus to imitate this
+practice of kings. Their time being taken up in defending themselves
+before the two Chambers and the court, they let themselves be guided by
+the leading-strings of the Report. Nothing important was ever brought
+before the government that a minister did not say, even when the case
+was urgent, “I have called for a report.” The Report thus became, both
+as to the matter concerned and for the minister himself, the same as
+a report to the Chamber of Deputies on a question of laws,--namely, a
+disquisition in which the reasons for and against are stated with more
+or less partiality. No real result is attained; the minister, like
+the Chamber, is fully as well prepared before as after the report is
+rendered. A determination, in whatever matter, is reached in an instant.
+Do what we will, the moment comes when the decision must be made. The
+greater the array of reasons for and against, the less sound will be
+the judgment. The finest things of which France can boast have been
+accomplished without reports and where decisions were prompt and
+spontaneous. The dominant law of a statesman is to apply precise formula
+to all cases, after the manner of judges and physicians.
+
+Rabourdin, who said to himself: “A minister should have decision, should
+know public affairs, and direct their course,” saw “Report” rampant
+throughout France, from the colonel to the marshal, from the commissary
+of police to the king, from the prefects to the ministers of state,
+from the Chamber to the courts. After 1818 everything was discussed,
+compared, and weighed, either in speech or writing; public business
+took a literary form. France went to ruin in spite of this array of
+documents; dissertations stood in place of action; a million of reports
+were written every year; bureaucracy was enthroned! Records, statistics,
+documents, failing which France would have been ruined, circumlocution,
+without which there could be no advance, increased, multiplied, and grew
+majestic. From that day forth bureaucracy used to its own profit the
+mistrust that stands between receipts and expenditures; it degraded the
+administration for the benefit of the administrators; in short, it
+spun those lilliputian threads which have chained France to Parisian
+centralization,--as if from 1500 to 1800 France had undertaken nothing
+for want of thirty thousand government clerks! In fastening upon public
+offices, like a mistletoe on a pear-tree, these officials indemnified
+themselves amply, and in the following manner.
+
+The ministers, compelled to obey the princes or the Chambers who impose
+upon them the distribution of the public moneys, and forced to retain
+the workers in office, proceeded to diminish salaries and increase the
+number of those workers, thinking that if more persons were employed by
+government the stronger the government would be. And yet the contrary
+law is an axiom written on the universe; there is no vigor except where
+there are few active principles. Events proved in July, 1830, the error
+of the materialism of the Restoration. To plant a government in the
+hearts of a nation it is necessary to bind INTERESTS to it, not MEN. The
+government-clerks being led to detest the administrations which lessened
+both their salaries and their importance, treated them as a courtesan
+treats an aged lover, and gave them mere work for money; a state of
+things which would have seemed as intolerable to the administration as
+to the clerks, had the two parties dared to feel each other’s pulse,
+or had the higher salaries not succeeded in stifling the voices of the
+lower. Thus wholly and solely occupied in retaining his place, drawing
+his pay, and securing his pension, the government official thought
+everything permissible that conduced to these results. This state
+of things led to servility on the part of the clerks and to endless
+intrigues within the various departments, where the humbler clerks
+struggled vainly against degenerate members of the aristocracy, who
+sought positions in the government bureaus for their ruined sons.
+
+Superior men could scarcely bring themselves to tread these tortuous
+ways, to stoop, to cringe, and creep through the mire of these cloacas,
+where the presence of a fine mind only alarmed the other denizens. The
+ambitious man of genius grows old in obtaining his triple crown; he does
+not follow in the steps of Sixtus the Fifth merely to become head of
+a bureau. No one comes or stays in the government offices but idlers,
+incapables, or fools. Thus the mediocrity of French administration has
+slowly come about. Bureaucracy, made up entirely of petty minds, stands
+as an obstacle to the prosperity of the nation; delays for seven years,
+by its machinery, the project of a canal which would have stimulated
+the production of a province; is afraid of everything, prolongs
+procrastination, and perpetuates the abuses which in turn perpetuate and
+consolidate itself. Bureaucracy holds all things and the administration
+itself in leading strings; it stifles men of talent who are bold enough
+to be independent of it or to enlighten it on its own follies. About the
+time of which we write the pension list had just been issued, and on it
+Rabourdin saw the name of an underling in office rated for a larger sum
+than the old colonels, maimed and wounded for their country. In that
+fact lies the whole history of bureaucracy.
+
+Another evil, brought about by modern customs, which Rabourdin counted
+among the causes of this secret demoralization, was the fact that
+there is no real subordination in the administration in Paris; complete
+equality reigns between the head of an important division and the
+humblest copying-clerk; one is as powerful as the other in an arena
+outside of which each lords it in his own way. Education, equally
+distributed through the masses, brings the son of a porter into a
+government office to decide the fate of some man of merit or some landed
+proprietor whose door-bell his father may have answered. The last comer
+is therefore on equal terms with the oldest veteran in the service. A
+wealthy supernumerary splashes his superior as he drives his tilbury
+to Longchamps and points with his whip to the poor father of a family,
+remarking to the pretty woman at his side, “That’s my chief.” The
+Liberals call this state of things Progress; Rabourdin thought it
+Anarchy at the heart of power. He saw how it resulted in restless
+intrigues, like those of a harem between eunuchs and women and imbecile
+sultans, or the petty troubles of nuns full of underhand vexations,
+or college tyrannies, or diplomatic manoeuvrings fit to terrify an
+ambassador, all put in motion to obtain a fee or an increase in salary;
+it was like the hopping of fleas harnessed to pasteboard cars, the
+spitefulness of slaves, often visited on the minister himself. With all
+this were the really useful men, the workers, victims of such parasites;
+men sincerely devoted to their country, who stood vigorously out from
+the background of the other incapables, yet who were often forced to
+succumb through unworthy trickery.
+
+All the higher offices were gained through parliamentary influence,
+royalty had nothing to do now with them, and the subordinate clerks
+became, after a time, merely the running-gear of the machine; the
+most important considerations with them being to keep the wheels well
+greased. This fatal conviction entering some of the best minds smothered
+many statements conscientiously written on the secret evils of the
+national government; lowered the courage of many hearts, and corrupted
+sterling honesty, weary of injustice and won to indifference by
+deteriorating annoyances. A clerk in the employ of the Rothchilds
+corresponds with all England; another, in a government office, may
+communicate with all the prefects; but where the one learns the way to
+make his fortune, the other loses time and health and life to no
+avail. An undermining evil lies here. Certainly a nation does not seem
+threatened with immediate dissolution because an able clerk is sent away
+and a middling sort of man replaces him. Unfortunately for the welfare
+of nations individual men never seem essential to their existence. But
+in the long run when the belittling process is fully carried out nations
+will disappear. Every one who seeks instruction on this point can look
+at Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Rome; all places which were
+formerly resplendent with mighty powers and are now destroyed by the
+infiltrating littleness which gradually attained the highest eminence.
+When the day of struggle came, all was found rotten, the State succumbed
+to a weak attack. To worship the fool who succeeds, and not to grieve
+over the fall of an able man is the result of our melancholy education,
+of our manners and customs which drive men of intellect into disgust,
+and genius to despair.
+
+What a difficult undertaking is the rehabilitation of the Civil Service
+while the liberal cries aloud in his newspapers that the salaries of
+clerks are a standing theft, calls the items of the budget a cluster of
+leeches, and every year demands why the nation should be saddled with
+a thousand millions of taxes. In Monsieur Rabourdin’s eyes the clerk in
+relation to the budget was very much what the gambler is to the
+game; that which he wins he puts back again. All remuneration implies
+something furnished. To pay a man a thousand francs a year and demand
+his whole time was surely to organize theft and poverty. A galley-slave
+costs nearly as much, and does less. But to expect a man whom the State
+remunerated with twelve thousand francs a year to devote himself to
+his country was a profitable contract for both sides, fit to allure all
+capacities.
+
+These reflections had led Rabourdin to desire the recasting of the
+clerical official staff. To employ fewer man, to double or treble
+salaries, and do away with pensions, to choose only young clerks (as did
+Napoleon, Louis XIV., Richelieu, and Ximenes), but to keep them long and
+train them for the higher offices and greatest honors, these were the
+chief features of a reform which if carried out would be as beneficial
+to the State as to the clerks themselves. It is difficult to recount in
+detail, chapter by chapter, a plan which embraced the whole budget and
+continued down through the minutest details of administration in order
+to keep the whole synthetical; but perhaps a slight sketch of the
+principal reforms will suffice for those who understand such matters, as
+well as for those who are wholly ignorant of the administrative system.
+Though the historian’s position is rather hazardous in reproducing
+a plan which may be thought the politics of a chimney-corner, it is,
+nevertheless, necessary to sketch it so as to explain the author of
+it by his own work. Were the recital of his efforts to be omitted, the
+reader would not believe the narrator’s word if he merely declared the
+talent and the courage of this official.
+
+Rabourdin’s plan divided the government into three ministries, or
+departments. He thought that if the France of former days possessed
+brains strong enough to comprehend in one system both foreign and
+domestic affairs, the France of to-day was not likely to be without its
+Mazarin, its Suger, its Sully, its de Choiseul, or its Colbert to
+direct even vast administrative departments. Besides, constitutionally
+speaking, three ministries will agree better than seven; and, in the
+restricted number there is less chance for mistaken choice; moreover,
+it might be that the kingdom would some day escape from those perpetual
+ministerial oscillations which interfered with all plans of foreign
+policy and prevented all ameliorations of home rule. In Austria, where
+many diverse united nations present so many conflicting interests to
+be conciliated and carried forward under one crown, two statesmen alone
+bear the burden of public affairs and are not overwhelmed by it. Was
+France less prolific of political capacities than Germany? The rather
+silly game of what are called “constitutional institutions” carried
+beyond bounds has ended, as everybody knows, in requiring a great many
+offices to satisfy the multifarious ambition of the middle classes. It
+seemed to Rabourdin, in the first place, natural to unite the ministry
+of war with the ministry of the navy. To his thinking the navy was
+one of the current expenses of the war department, like the artillery,
+cavalry, infantry, and commissariat. Surely it was an absurdity to
+give separate administrations to admirals and marshals when both were
+employed to one end, namely, the defense of the nation, the overthrow of
+an enemy, and the security of the national possessions. The ministry
+of the interior ought in like manner to combine the departments of
+commerce, police, and finances, or it belied its own name. To the
+ministry of foreign affairs belonged the administration of justice, the
+household of the king, and all that concerned arts, sciences, and belles
+lettres. All patronage ought to flow directly from the sovereign. Such
+ministries necessitated the supremacy of a council. Each required
+the work of two hundred officials, and no more, in its central
+administration offices, where Rabourdin proposed that they should live,
+as in former days under the monarchy. Taking the sum of twelve thousand
+francs a year for each official as an average, he estimated seven
+millions as the cost of the whole body of such officials, which actually
+stood at twenty in the budget.
+
+By thus reducing the ministers to three heads he suppressed departments
+which had come to be useless, together with the enormous costs of their
+maintenance in Paris. He proved that an arrondissement could be managed
+by ten men; a prefecture by a dozen at the most; which reduced the
+entire civil service force throughout France to five thousand men,
+exclusive of the departments of war and justice. Under this plan the
+clerks of the court were charged with the system of loans, and the
+ministry of the interior with that of registration and the management
+of domains. Thus Rabourdin united in one centre all divisions that were
+allied in nature. The mortgage system, inheritance, and registration did
+not pass outside of their own sphere of action and only required three
+additional clerks in the justice courts and three in the royal courts.
+The steady application of this principle brought Rabourdin to reforms
+in the finance system. He merged the collection of revenue into
+one channel, taxing consumption in bulk instead of taxing property.
+According to his ideas, consumption was the sole thing properly taxable
+in times of peace. Land-taxes should always be held in reserve in case
+of war; for then only could the State justly demand sacrifices from
+the soil, which was in danger; but in times of peace it was a serious
+political fault to burden it beyond a certain limit; otherwise it could
+never be depended on in great emergencies. Thus a loan should be put on
+the market when the country was tranquil, for at such times it could be
+placed at par, instead of at fifty per cent loss as in bad times; in war
+times resort should be had to a land-tax.
+
+“The invasion of 1814 and 1815,” Rabourdin would say to his friends,
+“founded in France and practically explained an institution which
+neither Law nor Napoleon had been able to establish,--I mean Credit.”
+
+Unfortunately, Xavier considered the true principles of this admirable
+machine of civil service very little understood at the period when
+he began his labor of reform in 1820. His scheme levied a toll on
+the consumption by means of direct taxation and suppressed the whole
+machinery of indirect taxation. The levying of the taxes was simplified
+by a single classification of a great number of articles. This did away
+with the more harassing customs at the gates of the cities, and obtained
+the largest revenues from the remainder, by lessening the enormous
+expense of collecting them. To lighten the burden of taxation is not, in
+matters of finance, to diminish the taxes, but to assess them better; if
+lightened, you increase the volume of business by giving it freer play;
+the individual pays less and the State receives more. This reform, which
+may seem immense, rests on very simple machinery. Rabourdin regarded
+the tax on personal property as the most trustworthy representative of
+general consumption. Individual fortunes are usually revealed in France
+by rentals, by the number of servants, horses, carriages, and luxuries,
+the costs of which are all to the interest of the public treasury.
+Houses and what they contain vary comparatively but little, and are not
+liable to disappear. After pointing out the means of making a tax-list
+on personal property which should be more impartial than the existing
+list, Rabourdin assessed the sums to be brought into the treasury by
+indirect taxation as so much per cent on each individual share. A tax
+is a levy of money on things or persons under disguises that are more or
+less specious. These disguises, excellent when the object is to extort
+money, become ridiculous in the present day, when the class on which the
+taxes weigh the heaviest knows why the State imposes them and by what
+machinery they are given back. In fact the budget is not a strong-box to
+hold what is put into it, but a watering-pot; the more it takes in and
+the more it pours out the better for the prosperity of the country.
+Therefore, supposing there are six millions of tax-payers in easy
+circumstances (Rabourdin proved their existence, including the rich) is
+it not better to make them pay a duty on the consumption of wine, which
+would not be more offensive than that on doors and windows and would
+return a hundred millions, rather than harass them by taxing the thing
+itself. By this system of taxation, each individual tax-payer pays less
+in reality, while the State receives more, and consumers profit by a
+vast reduction in the price of things which the State releases from its
+perpetual and harassing interference. Rabourdin’s scheme retained a tax
+on the cultivation of vineyards, so as to protect that industry from the
+too great abundance of its own products. Then, to reach the consumption
+of the poorer tax-payers, the licences of retail dealers were taxed
+according to the population of the neighborhoods in which they lived.
+
+In this way, the State would receive without cost or vexatious
+hindrances an enormous revenue under three forms; namely, a duty on
+wine, on the cultivation of vineyards, and on licenses, where now
+an irritating array of taxes existed as a burden on itself and its
+officials. Taxation was thus imposed upon the rich without overburdening
+the poor. To give another example. Suppose a share assessed to each
+person of one or two francs for the consumption of salt and you obtain
+ten or a dozen millions; the modern “gabelle” disappears, the poor
+breathe freer, agriculture is relieved, the State receives as much,
+and no tax-payer complains. All persons, whether they belong to the
+industrial classes or to the capitalists, will see at once the benefits
+of a tax so assessed when they discover how commerce increases, and life
+is ameliorated in the country districts. In short, the State will see
+from year to year the number of her well-to-do tax-payers increasing. By
+doing away with the machinery of indirect taxation, which is very costly
+(a State, as it were, within a State), both the public finances and the
+individual tax-payer are greatly benefited, not to speak of the saving
+in costs of collecting.
+
+The whole subject is indeed less a question of finance than a question
+of government. The State should possess nothing of its own, neither
+forests, nor mines, nor public works. That it should be the owner of
+domains was, in Rabourdin’s opinion, an administrative contradiction.
+The State cannot turn its possessions to profit and it deprives itself
+of taxes; it thus loses two forms of production. As to the manufactories
+of the government, they are just as unreasonable in the sphere of
+industry. The State obtains products at a higher cost than those
+of commerce, produces them more slowly, and loses its tax upon the
+industry, the maintenance of which it, in turn, reduces. Can it be
+thought a proper method of governing a country to manufacture instead
+of promoting manufactures? to possess property instead of creating
+more possessions and more diverse ones? In Rabourdin’s system the State
+exacted no money security; he allowed only mortgage securities; and for
+this reason: Either the State holds the security in specie, and that
+embarrasses business and the movement of money; or it invests it at
+a higher rate than the State itself pays, and that is a contemptible
+robbery; or else it loses on the transaction, and that is folly;
+moreover, if it is obliged at any time to dispose of a mass of these
+securities it gives rises in certain cases to terrible bankruptcy.
+
+The territorial tax did not entirely disappear in Rabourdin’s plan,--he
+kept a minute portion of it as a point of departure in case of war;
+but the productions of the soil were freed, and industry, finding raw
+material at a low price, could compete with foreign nations without the
+deceptive help of customs. The rich carried on the administration of the
+provinces without compensation except that of receiving a peerage under
+certain conditions. Magistrates, learned bodies, officers of the lower
+grades found their services honorably rewarded; no man employed by the
+government failed to obtain great consideration through the value and
+extent of his labors and the excellence of his salary; every one was
+able to provide for his own future and France was delivered from the
+cancer of pensions. As a result Rabourdin’s scheme exhibited only
+seven hundred millions of expenditures and twelve hundred millions of
+receipts. A saving of five hundred millions annually had far more virtue
+than the accumulation of a sinking fund whose dangers were plainly to
+be seen. In that fund the State, according to Rabourdin, became
+a stockholder, just as it persisted in being a land-holder and a
+manufacturer. To bring about these reforms without too roughly jarring
+the existing state of things or incurring a Saint-Bartholomew of
+clerks, Rabourdin considered that an evolution of twenty years would be
+required.
+
+Such were the thoughts maturing in Rabourdin’s mind ever since his
+promised place had been given to Monsieur de la Billardiere, a man of
+sheer incapacity. This plan, so vast apparently yet so simple in point
+of fact, which did away with so many large staffs and so many little
+offices all equally useless, required for its presentation to the public
+mind close calculations, precise statistics, and self-evident proof.
+Rabourdin had long studied the budget under its double-aspect of ways
+and means and of expenditure. Many a night he had lain awake unknown to
+his wife. But so far he had only dared to conceive the plan and fit it
+prospectively to the administrative skeleton; all of which counted for
+nothing,--he must gain the ear of a minister capable of appreciating
+his ideas. Rabourdin’s success depended on the tranquil condition of
+political affairs, which up to this time were still unsettled. He had
+not considered the government as permanently secure until three
+hundred deputies at least had the courage to form a compact majority
+systematically ministerial. An administration founded on that basis had
+come into power since Rabourdin had finished his elaborate plan. At this
+time the luxury of peace under the Bourbons had eclipsed the warlike
+luxury of the days when France shone like a vast encampment, prodigal
+and magnificent because it was victorious. After the Spanish campaign,
+the administration seemed to enter upon an era of tranquillity in which
+some good might be accomplished; and three months before the opening of
+our story a new reign had begun without any apparent opposition; for the
+liberalism of the Left had welcomed Charles X. with as much enthusiasm
+as the Right. Even clear-sighted and suspicious persons were misled. The
+moment seemed propitious for Rabourdin. What could better conduce to the
+stability of the government than to propose and carry through a reform
+whose beneficial results were to be so vast?
+
+Never had Rabourdin seemed so anxious and preoccupied as he now did
+in the mornings as he walked from his house to the ministry, or at
+half-past four in the afternoon, when he returned. Madame Rabourdin, on
+her part, disconsolate over her wasted life, weary of secretly
+working to obtain a few luxuries of dress, never appeared so bitterly
+discontented as now; but, like any wife who is really attached to her
+husband, she considered it unworthy of a superior woman to condescend
+to the shameful devices by which the wives of some officials eke out the
+insufficiency of their husband’s salary. This feeling made her refuse
+all intercourse with Madame Colleville, then very intimate with Francois
+Keller, whose parties eclipsed those of the rue Duphot. Nevertheless,
+she mistook the quietude of the political thinker and the preoccupation
+of the intrepid worker for the apathetic torpor of an official broken
+down by the dulness of routine, vanquished by that most hateful of all
+miseries, the mediocrity that simply earns a living; and she groaned at
+being married to a man without energy.
+
+Thus it was that about this period in their lives she resolved to take
+the making of her husband’s fortune on herself; to thrust him at any
+cost into a higher sphere, and to hide from him the secret springs of
+her machinations. She carried into all her plans the independence of
+ideas which characterized her, and was proud to think that she could
+rise above other women by sharing none of their petty prejudices and by
+keeping herself untrammelled by the restraints which society imposes.
+In her anger she resolved to fight fools with their own weapons, and to
+make herself a fool if need be. She saw things coming to a crisis. The
+time was favorable. Monsieur de la Billardiere, attacked by a dangerous
+illness, was likely to die in a few days. If Rabourdin succeeded him,
+his talents (for Celestine did vouchsafe him an administrative gift)
+would be so thoroughly appreciated that the office of Master of
+petitions, formerly promised, would now be given to him; she fancied she
+saw him the king’s commissioner, presenting bills to the Chambers and
+defending them; then indeed she could help him; she would even be, if
+needful, his secretary; she would sit up all night to do the work! All
+this to drive in the Bois in a pretty carriage, to equal Madame Delphine
+de Nucingen, to raise her salon to the level of Madame Colleville’s, to
+be invited to the great ministerial solemnities, to win listeners and
+make them talk of her as “Madame Rabourdin DE something or other”
+ (she had not yet determined on the estate), just as they did of Madame
+Firmiani, Madame d’Espard, Madame d’Aiglemont, Madame de Carigliano, and
+thus efface forever the odious name of Rabourdin.
+
+These secret schemes brought some changes into the household. Madame
+Rabourdin began to walk with a firm step in the path of /debt/. She set
+up a man-servant, and put him in livery of brown cloth with red pipins,
+she renewed parts of her furniture, hung new papers on the walls,
+adorned her salon with plants and flowers, always fresh, and crowded
+it with knick-knacks that were then in vogue; then she, who had always
+shown scruples as to her personal expenses, did not hesitate to put
+her dress in keeping with the rank to which she aspired, the profits of
+which were discounted in several of the shops where she equipped herself
+for war. To make her “Wednesdays” fashionable she gave a dinner on
+Fridays, the guests being expected to pay their return visit and take
+a cup of tea on the following Wednesday. She chose her guests cleverly
+among influential deputies or other persons of note who, sooner or
+later, might advance her interests. In short, she gathered an agreeable
+and befitting circle about her. People amused themselves at her house;
+they said so at least, which is quite enough to attract society in
+Paris. Rabourdin was so absorbed in completing his great and serious
+work that he took no notice of the sudden reappearance of luxury in the
+bosom of his family.
+
+Thus the wife and the husband were besieging the same fortress, working
+on parallel lines, but without each other’s knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. MONSIEUR DES LUPEAULX
+
+
+At the ministry to which Rabourdin belonged there flourished, as
+general-secretary, a certain Monsieur Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, one
+of those men whom the tide of political events sends to the surface for
+a few years, then engulfs on a stormy night, but whom we find again on a
+distant shore, tossed up like the carcass of a wrecked ship which still
+seems to have life in her. We ask ourselves if that derelict could ever
+have held goodly merchandise or served a high emprise, co-operated
+in some defence, held up the trappings of a throne, or borne away the
+corpse of a monarchy. At this particular time Clement des Lupeaulx (the
+“Lupeaulx” absorbed the “Chardin”) had reached his culminating period.
+In the most illustrious lives as in the most obscure, in animals as in
+secretary-generals, there is a zenith and there is a nadir, a period
+when the fur is magnificent, the fortune dazzling. In the nomenclature
+which we derive from fabulists, des Lupeaulx belonged to the species
+Bertrand, and was always in search of Ratons. As he is one of the
+principal actors in this drama he deserves a description, all the
+more precise because the revolution of July has suppressed his office,
+eminently useful as it was, to a constitutional ministry.
+
+Moralists usually employ their weapons against obstructive
+administrations. In their eyes, crime belongs to the assizes or the
+police-courts; but the socially refined evils escape their ken; the
+adroitness that triumphs under shield of the Code is above them or
+beneath them; they have neither eye-glass nor telescope; they want good
+stout horrors easily visible. With their eyes fixed on the carnivora,
+they pay no attention to the reptiles; happily, they abandon to the
+writers of comedy the shading and colorings of a Chardin des Lupeaulx.
+Vain and egotistical, supple and proud, libertine and gourmand, grasping
+from the pressure of debt, discreet as a tomb out of which nought
+issues to contradict the epitaph intended for the passer’s eye, bold and
+fearless when soliciting, good-natured and witty in all acceptations
+of the word, a timely jester, full of tact, knowing how to compromise
+others by a glance or a nudge, shrinking from no mudhole, but gracefully
+leaping it, intrepid Voltairean, yet punctual at mass if a fashionable
+company could be met in Saint Thomas Aquinas,--such a man as this
+secretary-general resembled, in one way or another, all the mediocrities
+who form the kernel of the political world. Knowing in the science of
+human nature, he assumed the character of a listener, and none was ever
+more attentive. Not to awaken suspicion he was flattering ad nauseum,
+insinuating as a perfume, and cajoling as a woman.
+
+Des Lupeaulx was just forty years old. His youth had long been a
+vexation to him, for he felt that the making of his career depended on
+his becoming a deputy. How had he reached his present position? may
+be asked. By very simple means. He began by taking charge of certain
+delicate missions which can be given neither to a man who respects
+himself nor to a man who does not respect himself, but are confided to
+grave and enigmatic individuals who can be acknowledged or disavowed
+at will. His business was that of being always compromised; but his
+fortunes were pushed as much by defeat as by success. He well understood
+that under the Restoration, a period of continual compromises between
+men, between things, between accomplished facts and other facts looking
+on the horizon, it was all-important for the ruling powers to have a
+household drudge. Observe in a family some old charwoman who can make
+beds, sweep the floors, carry away the dirty linen, who knows where
+the silver is kept, how the creditors should be pacified, what persons
+should be let in and who must be kept out of the house, and such a
+creature, even if she has all the vices, and is dirty, decrepit, and
+toothless, or puts into the lottery and steals thirty sous a day for
+her stake, and you will find the masters like her from habit, talk and
+consult in her hearing upon even critical matters; she comes and goes,
+suggests resources, gets on the scent of secrets, brings the rouge
+or the shawl at the right moment, lets herself be scolded and pushed
+downstairs, and the next morning reappears smiling with an excellent
+bouillon. No matter how high a statesman may stand, he is certain
+to have some household drudge, before whom he is weak, undecided,
+disputations with fate, self-questioning, self-answering, and buckling
+for the fight. Such a familiar is like the soft wood of savages,
+which, when rubbed against the hard wood, strikes fire. Sometimes great
+geniuses illumine themselves in this way. Napoleon lived with Berthier,
+Richelieu with Pere Joseph; des Lupeaulx was the familiar of everybody.
+He continued friends with fallen ministers and made himself their
+intermediary with their successors, diffusing thus the perfume of
+the last flattery and the first compliment. He well understood how
+to arrange all the little matters which a statesman has no leisure to
+attend to. He saw necessities as they arose; he obeyed well; he could
+gloss a base act with a jest and get the whole value of it; and he chose
+for the services he thus rendered those that the recipients were not
+likely to forget.
+
+Thus, when it was necessary to cross the ditch between the Empire and
+the Restoration, at a time when every one was looking about for planks,
+and the curs of the Empire were howling their devotion right and left,
+des Lupeaulx borrowed large sums from the usurers and crossed the
+frontier. Risking all to win all, he bought up Louis XVIII.’s most
+pressing debts, and was the first to settle nearly three million of them
+at twenty per cent--for he was lucky enough to be backed by Gobseck in
+1814 and 1815. It is true that Messrs. Gobseck, Werdet, and Gigonnet
+swallowed the profits, but des Lupeaulx had agreed that they should
+have them; he was not playing for a stake; he challenged the bank, as it
+were, knowing very well that the king was not a man to forget this debt
+of honor. Des Lupeaulx was not mistaken; he was appointed Master of
+petitions, Knight of the order of Saint Louis, and officer of the Legion
+of honor. Once on the ladder of political success, his clever mind
+looked about for the means to maintain his foothold; for in the
+fortified city into which he had wormed himself, generals do not long
+keep useless mouths. So to his general trade of household drudge and
+go-between he added that of gratuitous consultation on the secret
+maladies of power.
+
+After discovering in the so-called superior men of the Restoration their
+utter inferiority in comparison with the events which had brought them
+to the front, he overcame their political mediocrity by putting into
+their mouths, at a crisis, the word of command for which men of real
+talent were listening. It must not be thought that this word was the
+outcome of his own mind. Were it so, des Lupeaulx would have been a
+man of genius, whereas he was only a man of talent. He went everywhere,
+collected opinions, sounded consciences, and caught all the tones they
+gave out. He gathered knowledge like a true and indefatigable political
+bee. This walking Bayle dictionary did not act, however, like that
+famous lexicon; he did not report all opinions without drawing his own
+conclusions; he had the talent of a fly which drops plumb upon the
+best bit of meat in the middle of a kitchen. In this way he came to
+be regarded as an indispensable helper to statesmen. A belief in his
+capacity had taken such deep root in all minds that the more ambitious
+public men felt it was necessary to compromise des Lupeaulx in some way
+to prevent his rising higher; they made up to him for his subordinate
+public position by their secret confidence.
+
+Nevertheless, feeling that such men were dependent on him, this gleaner
+of ideas exacted certain dues. He received a salary on the staff of the
+National Guard, where he held a sinecure which was paid for by the city
+of Paris; he was government commissioner to a secret society; and filled
+a position of superintendence in the royal household. His two official
+posts which appeared on the budget were those of secretary-general to
+his ministry and Master of petitions. What he now wanted was to be made
+commander of the Legion of honor, gentleman of the bed-chamber, count,
+and deputy. To be elected deputy it was necessary to pay taxes to the
+amount of a thousand francs; and the miserable homestead of the des
+Lupeaulx was rated at only five hundred. Where could he get money to
+build a mansion and surround it with sufficient domain to throw dust
+in the eyes of a constituency? Though he dined out every day, and was
+lodged for the last nine years at the cost of the State, and driven
+about in the minister’s equipage, des Lupeaulx possessed absolutely
+nothing, at the time when our tale opens, but thirty thousand francs
+of debt--undisputed property. A marriage might float him and pump the
+waters of debt out of his bark; but a good marriage depended on his
+advancement, and his advancement required that he should be a deputy.
+Searching about him for the means of breaking through this vicious
+circle, he could think of nothing better than some immense service to
+render or some delicate intrigue to carry through for persons in power.
+Alas! conspiracies were out of date; the Bourbons were apparently on
+good terms with all parties; and, unfortunately, for the last few years
+the government had been so thoroughly held up to the light of day by the
+silly discussions of the Left, whose aim seemed to be to make government
+of any kind impossible in France, that no good strokes of business could
+be made. The last were tried in Spain, and what an outcry that excited!
+
+In addition to all this, des Lupeaulx complicated matters by believing
+in the friendship of his minister, to whom he had the imprudence to
+express the wish to sit on the ministerial benches. The minister guessed
+at the real meaning of the desire, which simply was that des Lupeaulx
+wanted to strengthen a precarious position, so that he might throw off
+all dependence on his chief. The harrier turned against the huntsman;
+the minister gave him cuts with the whip and caresses, alternately, and
+set up rivals to him. But des Lupeaulx behaved like an adroit courtier
+with all competitors; he laid traps into which they fell, and then he
+did prompt justice upon them. The more he felt himself in danger the
+more anxious he became for an irremovable position; yet he was compelled
+to play low; one moment’s indiscretion, and he might lose everything. A
+pen-stroke might demolish his civilian epaulets, his place at court,
+his sinecure, his two offices and their advantages; in all, six
+salaries retained under fire of the law against pluralists. Sometimes he
+threatened his minister as a mistress threatens her lover; telling him
+he was about to marry a rich widow. At such times the minister petted
+and cajoled des Lupeaulx. After one of these reconciliations he received
+the formal promise of a place in the Academy of Belles-lettres on the
+first vacancy. “It would pay,” he said, “the keep of a horse.” His
+position, so far as it went, was a good one, and Clement Chardin des
+Lupeaulx flourished in it like a tree planted in good soil. He could
+satisfy his vices, his caprices, his virtues and his defects.
+
+The following were the toils of his life. He was obliged to choose,
+among five or six daily invitations, the house where he could be sure
+of the best dinner. Every morning he went to his minister’s morning
+reception to amuse that official and his wife, and to pet their
+children. Then he worked an hour or two; that is to say, he lay back in
+a comfortable chair and read the newspapers, dictated the meaning of a
+letter, received visitors when the minister was not present, explained
+the work in a general way, caught or shed a few drops of the holy-water
+of the court, looked over the petitions with an eyeglass, or wrote his
+name on the margin,--a signature which meant “I think it absurd; do
+what you like about it.” Every body knew that when des Lupeaulx was
+interested in any person or in any thing he attended to the matter
+personally. He allowed the head-clerks to converse privately about
+affairs of delicacy, but he listened to their gossip. From time to time
+he went to the Tuileries to get his cue. And he always waited for the
+minister’s return from the Chamber, if in session, to hear from him
+what intrigue or manoeuvre he was to set about. This official sybarite
+dressed, dined, and visited a dozen or fifteen salons between eight at
+night and three in the morning. At the opera he talked with journalists,
+for he stood high in their favor; a perpetual exchange of little
+services went on between them; he poured into their ears his misleading
+news and swallowed theirs; he prevented them from attacking this or that
+minister on such or such a matter, on the plea that it would cause real
+pain to their wives or their mistresses.
+
+“Say that his bill is worth nothing, and prove it if you can, but do
+not say that Mariette danced badly. The devil! haven’t we all played
+our little plays; and which of us knows what will become of him in times
+like these? You may be minister yourself to-morrow, you who are spicing
+the cakes of the ‘Constitutionel’ to-day.”
+
+Sometimes, in return, he helped editors, or got rid of obstacles to the
+performances of some play; gave gratuities and good dinners at the
+right moment, or promised his services to bring some affair to a happy
+conclusion. Moreover, he really liked literature and the arts; he
+collected autographs, obtained splendid albums gratis, and possessed
+sketches, engravings, and pictures. He did a great deal of good to
+artists by simply not injuring them and by furthering their wishes
+on certain occasions when their self-love wanted some rather costly
+gratification. Consequently, he was much liked in the world of actors
+and actresses, journalists and artists. For one thing, they had the
+same vices and the same indolence as himself. Men who could all say such
+witty things in their cups or in company with a danseuse, how could they
+help being friends? If des Lupeaulx had not been a general-secretary
+he would certainly have been a journalist. Thus, in that fifteen years’
+struggle in which the harlequin sabre of epigram opened a breach by
+which insurrection entered the citadel, des Lupeaulx never received so
+much as a scratch.
+
+As the young fry of clerks looked at this man playing bowls in the
+gardens of the ministry with the minister’s children, they cracked
+their brains to guess the secret of his influence and the nature of his
+services; while, on the other hand, the aristocrats in all the various
+ministries looked upon him as a dangerous Mephistopheles, courted him,
+and gave him back with usury the flatteries he bestowed in the higher
+sphere. As difficult to decipher as a hieroglyphic inscription to the
+clerks, the vocation of the secretary and his usefulness were as plain
+as the rule of three to the self-interested. This lesser Prince de
+Wagram of the administration, to whom the duty of gathering opinions
+and ideas and making verbal reports thereon was entrusted, knew all the
+secrets of parliamentary politics; dragged in the lukewarm, fetched,
+carried, and buried propositions, said the Yes and the No that the
+ministers dared not say for themselves. Compelled to receive the first
+fire and the first blows of despair and wrath, he laughed or bemoaned
+himself with the minister, as the case might be. Mysterious link by
+which many interests were in some way connected with the Tuileries, and
+safe as a confessor, he sometimes knew everything and sometimes nothing;
+and, in addition to all these functions came that of saying for the
+minister those things that a minister cannot say for himself. In short,
+with his political Hephaestion the minister might dare to be himself; to
+take off his wig and his false teeth, lay aside his scruples, put on
+his slippers, unbutton his conscience, and give way to his trickery.
+However, it was not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he flattered
+and advised his master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to advise
+while flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All
+politicians who follow this trade have bilious faces; and their constant
+habit of giving affirmative nods acquiescing in what is said to them,
+or seeming to do so, gives a certain peculiar turn to their heads. They
+agree indifferently with whatever is said before them. Their talk is
+full of “buts,” “notwithstandings,” “for myself I should,” “were I in
+your place” (they often say “in your place”),--phrases, however, which
+pave the way to opposition.
+
+In person, Clement des Lupeaulx had the remains of a handsome man; five
+feet six inches tall, tolerably stout, complexion flushed with good
+living, powdered head, delicate spectacles, and a worn-out air; the
+natural skin blond, as shown by the hand, puffy like that of an old
+woman, rather too square, and with short nails--the hand of a satrap.
+His foot was elegant. After five o’clock in the afternoon des Lupeaulx
+was always to be seen in open-worked silk stockings, low shoes, black
+trousers, cashmere waistcoat, cambric handkerchief (without perfume),
+gold chain, blue coat of the shade called “king’s blue,” with brass
+buttons and a string of orders. In the morning he wore creaking boots
+and gray trousers, and the short close surtout coat of the politician.
+His general appearance early in the day was that of a sharp lawyer
+rather than that of a ministerial officer. Eyes glazed by the constant
+use of spectacles made him plainer than he really was, if by chance he
+took those appendages off. To real judges of character, as well as to
+upright men who are at ease only with honest natures, des Lupeaulx was
+intolerable. To them, his gracious manners only draped his lies; his
+amiable protestations and hackneyed courtesies, new to the foolish and
+ignorant, too plainly showed their texture to an observing mind. Such
+minds considered him a rotten plank, on which no foot should trust
+itself.
+
+No sooner had the beautiful Madame Rabourdin decided to interfere in
+her husband’s administrative advancement than she fathomed Clement des
+Lupeaulx’s true character, and studied him thoughtfully to discover
+whether in this thin strip of deal there were ligneous fibres strong
+enough to let her lightly trip across it from the bureau to the
+department, from a salary of eight thousand a year to twelve thousand.
+The clever woman believed she could play her own game with this
+political roue; and Monsieur des Lupeaulx was partly the cause of the
+unusual expenditures which now began and were continued in the Rabourdin
+household.
+
+The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for several
+houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are skilfully
+laid out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well arranged,--a
+domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of private
+lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from the courtyard,
+led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked on the street. To
+the right of the salon were Rabourdin’s study and bedroom, and behind
+them the dining-room, which was entered from the antechamber; to
+the left was Madame’s bedroom and dressing-room, and behind them her
+daughter’s little bedroom. On reception days the door of Rabourdin’s
+study and that of his wife’s bedroom were thrown open. The rooms were
+thus spacious enough to contain a select company, without the
+absurdity which attends many middle-class entertainments, where
+unusual preparations are made at the expense of the daily comfort, and
+consequently give the effect of exceptional effort. The salon had
+lately been rehung in gold-colored silk with carmelite touches. Madame’s
+bedroom was draped in a fabric of true blue and furnished in a rococo
+manner. Rabourdin’s study had inherited the late hangings of the salon,
+carefully cleaned, and was adorned by the fine pictures once belonging
+to Monsieur Leprince. The daughter of the late auctioneer had utilized
+in her dining-room certain exquisite Turkish rugs which her father had
+bought at a bargain; panelling them on the walls in ebony, the cost of
+which has since become exorbitant. Elegant buffets made by Boulle, also
+purchased by the auctioneer, furnished the sides of the room, at the end
+of which sparkled the brass arabesques inlaid in tortoise-shell of the
+first tall clock that reappeared in the nineteenth century to claim
+honor for the masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers perfumed these
+rooms so full of good taste and of exquisite things, where each detail
+was a work of art well placed and well surrounded, and where Madame
+Rabourdin, dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone
+attain, gave the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies,
+though she never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind
+to complete the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful
+surroundings. Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society
+talk of her as soon as the rococo became fashionable.
+
+Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real magnificence in
+all their stages, he was, nevertheless, surprised at Madame Rabourdin’s
+home. The charm it exercised over this Parisian Asmodeus can be
+explained by a comparison. A traveller wearied with the rich aspects of
+Italy, Brazil, or India, returns to his own land and finds on his way a
+delightful little lake, like the Lac d’Orta at the foot of Monte Rosa,
+with an island resting on the calm waters, bewitchingly simple; a scene
+of nature and yet adorned; solitary, but well surrounded with choice
+plantations and foliage and statues of fine effect. Beyond lies a vista
+of shores both wild and cultivated; tumultuous grandeur towers above,
+but in itself all proportions are human. The world that the traveller
+has lately viewed is here in miniature, modest and pure; his soul,
+refreshed, bids him remain where a charm of melody and poesy surrounds
+him with harmony and awakens ideas within his mind. Such a scene
+represents both life and a monastery.
+
+A few days earlier the beautiful Madame Firmiani, one of the charming
+women of the faubourg Saint-Germain who visited and liked Madame
+Rabourdin, had said to des Lupeaulx (invited expressly to hear this
+remark), “Why do you not call on Madame ----?” with a motion towards
+Celestine; “she gives delightful parties, and her dinners, above all,
+are--better than mine.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx allowed himself to be drawn into an engagement by the
+handsome Madame Rabourdin, who, for the first time, turned her eyes on
+him as she spoke. He had, accordingly, gone to the rue Duphot, and
+that tells the tale. Woman has but one trick, cries Figaro, but that’s
+infallible. After dining once at the house of this unimportant official,
+des Lupeaulx made up his mind to dine there often. Thanks to the
+perfectly proper and becoming advances of the beautiful woman, whom her
+rival, Madame Colleville, called the Celimene of the rue Duphot, he had
+dined there every Friday for the last month, and returned of his own
+accord for a cup of tea on Wednesdays.
+
+Within a few days Madame Rabourdin, having watched him narrowly and
+knowingly, believed she had found on the secretarial plank a spot where
+she might safely set her foot. She was no longer doubtful of success.
+Her inward joy can be realized only in the families of government
+officials where for three or four years prosperity has been counted
+on through some appointment, long expected and long sought. How many
+troubles are to be allayed! how many entreaties and pledges given to the
+ministerial divinities! how many visits of self-interest paid! At last,
+thanks to her boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard the hour strike when she
+was to have twenty thousand francs a year instead of eight thousand.
+
+“And I shall have managed well,” she said to herself. “I have had
+to make a little outlay; but these are times when hidden merit is
+overlooked, whereas if a man keeps himself well in sight before the
+world, cultivates social relations and extends them, he succeeds. After
+all, ministers and their friends interest themselves only in the people
+they see; but Rabourdin knows nothing of the world! If I had not cajoled
+those three deputies they might have wanted La Billardiere’s place
+themselves; whereas, now that I have invited them here, they will be
+ashamed to do so and will become our supporters instead of rivals. I
+have rather played the coquette, but--it is delightful that the first
+nonsense with which one fools a man sufficed.”
+
+The day on which a serious and unlooked-for struggle about this
+appointment began, after a ministerial dinner which preceded one of
+those receptions which ministers regard as public, des Lupeaulx was
+standing beside the fireplace near the minister’s wife. While taking his
+coffee he once more included Madame Rabourdin among the seven or eight
+really superior women in Paris. Several times already he had staked
+Madame Rabourdin very much as Corporal Trim staked his cap.
+
+“Don’t say that too often, my dear friend, or you will injure her,” said
+the minister’s wife, half-laughing.
+
+Women never like to hear the praise of other women; they keep silence
+themselves to lessen its effect.
+
+“Poor La Billardiere is dying,” remarked his Excellency the minister;
+“that place falls to Rabourdin, one of our most able men, and to whom
+our predecessors did not behave well, though one of them actually owed
+his position in the prefecture of police under the Empire to a certain
+great personage who was interested in Rabourdin. But, my dear friend,
+you are still young enough to be loved by a pretty woman for yourself--”
+
+“If La Billardiere’s place is given to Rabourdin I may be believed when
+I praise the superiority of his wife,” replied des Lupeaulx, piqued by
+the minister’s sarcasm; “but if Madame la Comtesse would be willing to
+judge for herself--”
+
+“You want me to invite her to my next ball, don’t you? Your clever woman
+will meet a knot of other women who only come here to laugh at us, and
+when they hear ‘Madame Rabourdin’ announced--”
+
+“But Madame Firmiani is announced at the Foreign Office parties?”
+
+“Ah, but she was born a Cadignan!” said the newly created count, with a
+savage look at his general-secretary, for neither he nor his wife were
+noble.
+
+The persons present thought important matters were being talked
+over, and the solicitors for favors and appointments kept at a little
+distance. When des Lupeaulx left the room the countess said to her
+husband, “I think des Lupeaulx is in love.”
+
+“For the first time in his life, then,” he replied, shrugging his
+shoulders, as much as to inform his wife that des Lupeaulx did not
+concern himself with such nonsense.
+
+Just then the minister saw a deputy of the Right Centre enter the room,
+and he left his wife abruptly to cajole an undecided vote. But the
+deputy, under the blow of a sudden and unexpected disaster, wanted to
+make sure of a protector and he had come to announce privately that in a
+few days he should be compelled to resign. Thus forewarned, the minister
+would be able to open his batteries for the new election before those of
+the opposition.
+
+The minister, or to speak correctly, des Lupeaulx had invited to dinner
+on this occasion one of those irremovable officials who, as we have
+said, are to be found in every ministry; an individual much embarrassed
+by his own person, who, in his desire to maintain a dignified
+appearance, was standing erect and rigid on his two legs, held well
+together like the Greek hermae. This functionary waited near the
+fireplace to thank the secretary, whose abrupt and unexpected departure
+from the room disconcerted him at the moment when he was about to turn
+a compliment. This official was the cashier of the ministry, the only
+clerk who did not tremble when the government changed hands.
+
+At the time of which we write, the Chamber did not meddle shabbily with
+the budget, as it does in the deplorable days in which we now live; it
+did not contemptibly reduce ministerial emoluments, nor save, as they
+say in the kitchen, the candle-ends; on the contrary, it granted to each
+minister taking charge of a public department an indemnity, called an
+“outfit.” It costs, alas, as much to enter on the duties of a minister
+as to retire from them; indeed, the entrance involves expenses of all
+kinds which it is quite impossible to inventory. This indemnity amounted
+to the pretty little sum of twenty-five thousand francs. When the
+appointment of a new minister was gazetted in the “Moniteur,” and the
+greater or lesser officials, clustering round the stoves or before the
+fireplaces and shaking in their shoes, asked themselves: “What will he
+do? will he increase the number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make
+room for three?” the cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean
+bank-bills and pinned them together with a satisfied expression on
+his beadle face. The next day he mounted the private staircase and
+had himself ushered into the minister’s presence by the lackeys, who
+considered the money and the keeper of money, the contents and the
+container, the idea and the form, as one and the same power. The cashier
+caught the ministerial pair at the dawn of official delight, when the
+newly appointed statesman is benign and affable. To the minister’s
+inquiry as to what brings him there, he replies with the
+bank-notes,--informing his Excellency that he hastens to pay him the
+customary indemnity. Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister’s
+wife, who never fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes
+all, for the “outfit” is looked upon as a household affair. The cashier
+then proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a few politic
+phrases: “If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if, satisfied
+with his purely mechanical services, he would,” etc. As a man who brings
+twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the cashier is
+sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from which he has
+seen a succession of ministers come and go during a period of, perhaps,
+twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at the orders of
+Madame; he brings the monthly thirteen thousand francs whenever wanted;
+he advances or delays the payment as requested, and thus manages to
+obtain, as they said in the monasteries, a voice in the chapter.
+
+Formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, when that establishment kept its
+books by double entry, the Sieur Saillard was compensated for the loss
+of that position by his appointment as cashier of a ministry. He was a
+bulky, fat man, very strong in the matter of book-keeping, and very weak
+in everything else; round as a round O, simple as how-do-you-do,--a man
+who came to his office with measured steps, like those of an elephant,
+and returned with the same measured tread to the place Royale, where he
+lived on the ground-floor of an old mansion belonging to him. He usually
+had a companion on the way in the person of Monsieur Isidore Baudoyer,
+head of a bureau in Monsieur de la Billardiere’s division, consequently
+one of Rabourdin’s colleagues. Baudoyer was married to Elisabeth
+Saillard, the cashier’s only daughter, and had hired, very naturally,
+the apartments above those of his father-in-law. No one at the ministry
+had the slightest doubt that Saillard was a blockhead, but neither
+had any one ever found out how far his stupidity could go; it was too
+compact to be examined; it did not ring hollow; it absorbed everything
+and gave nothing out. Bixiou (a clerk of whom more anon) caricatured the
+cashier by drawing a head in a wig at the top of an egg, and two little
+legs at the other end, with this inscription: “Born to pay out and take
+in without blundering. A little less luck, and he might have been lackey
+to the bank of France; a little more ambition, and he could have been
+honorably discharged.”
+
+At the moment of which we are now writing, the minister was looking
+at his cashier very much as we gaze at a window or a cornice, without
+supposing that either can hear us, or fathom our secret thoughts.
+
+“I am all the more anxious that we should settle everything with the
+prefect in the quietest way, because des Lupeaulx has designs upon the
+place for himself,” said the minister, continuing his talk with the
+deputy; “his paltry little estate is in your arrondissement; we won’t
+want him as deputy.”
+
+“He has neither years nor rentals enough to be eligible,” said the
+deputy.
+
+“That may be; but you know how it was decided for Casimir Perier as
+to age; and as to worldly possessions, des Lupeaulx does possess
+something,--not much, it is true, but the law does not take into account
+increase, which he may very well obtain; commissions have wide margins
+for the deputies of the Centre, you know, and we cannot openly oppose
+the good-will that is shown to this dear friend.”
+
+“But where would he get the money?”
+
+“How did Manuel manage to become the owner of a house in Paris?” cried
+the minister.
+
+The cashier listened and heard, but reluctantly and against his will.
+These rapid remarks, murmured as they were, struck his ear by one of
+those acoustic rebounds which are very little studied. As he heard these
+political confidences, however, a keen alarm took possession of his
+soul. He was one of those simple-minded beings, who are shocked at
+listening to anything they are not intended to hear, or entering where
+they are not invited, and seeming bold when they are really timid,
+inquisitive where they are truly discreet. The cashier accordingly began
+to glide along the carpet and edge himself away, so that the minister
+saw him at a distance when he first took notice of him. Saillard was a
+ministerial henchman absolutely incapable of indiscretion; even if the
+minister had known that he had overheard a secret he had only to whisper
+“motus” in his ear to be sure it was perfectly safe. The cashier,
+however, took advantage of an influx of office-seekers, to slip out
+and get into his hackney-coach (hired by the hour for these costly
+entertainments), and to return to his home in the place Royale.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE TEREDOS NAVALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED SHIP-WORM
+
+While old Saillard was driving across Paris his son-in-law, Isidore
+Baudoyer, and his daughter, Elisabeth, Baudoyer’s wife, were playing
+a virtuous game of boston with their confessor, the Abbe Gaudron,
+in company with a few neighbors and a certain Martin Falleix, a
+brass-founder in the fauborg Saint-Antoine, to whom Saillard had loaned
+the necessary money to establish a business. This Falleix, a
+respectable Auvergnat who had come to seek his fortune in Paris with his
+smelting-pot on his back, had found immediate employment with the firm
+of Brezac, collectors of metals and other relics from all chateaux
+in the provinces. About twenty-seven years of age, and spoiled, like
+others, by success, Martin Falleix had had the luck to become the active
+agent of Monsieur Saillard, the sleeping-partner in the working out of
+a discovery made by Falleix in smelting (patent of invention and gold
+medal granted at the exposition of 1825). Madame Baudoyer, whose only
+daughter was treading--to use an expression of old Saillard’s--on the
+tail of her twelve years, laid claim to Falleix, a thickset, swarthy,
+active young fellow, of shrewd principles, whose education she was
+superintending. The said education, according to her ideas, consisted in
+teaching him to play boston, to hold his cards properly, and not to let
+others see his game; to shave himself regularly before he came to the
+house, and to wash his hands with good cleansing soap; not to swear, to
+speak her kind of French, to wear boots instead of shoes, cotton shirts
+instead of sacking, and to brush up his hair instead of plastering
+it flat. During the preceding week Elisabeth had finally succeeded in
+persuading Falleix to give up wearing a pair of enormous flat earrings
+resembling hoops.
+
+“You go too far, Madame Baudoyer,” he said, seeing her satisfaction at
+the final sacrifice; “you order me about too much. You make me clean my
+teeth, which loosens them; presently you will want me to brush my nails
+and curl my hair, which won’t do at all in our business; we don’t like
+dandies.”
+
+Elisabeth Baudoyer, nee Saillard, is one of those persons who escape
+portraiture through their utter commonness; yet who ought to be
+sketched, because they are specimens of that second-rate Parisian
+bourgeoisie which occupies a place above the well-to-do artisan and
+below the upper middle classes,--a tribe whose virtues are well-nigh
+vices, whose defects are never kindly, but whose habits and manners,
+dull and insipid though they be, are not without a certain originality.
+Something pinched and puny about Elisabeth Saillard was painful to the
+eye. Her figure, scarcely over four feet in height, was so thin that
+the waist measured less than twenty inches. Her small features, which
+clustered close about the nose, gave her face a vague resemblance to a
+weasel’s snout. Though she was past thirty years old she looked scarcely
+more than sixteen. Her eyes, of porcelain blue, overweighted by heavy
+eyelids which fell nearly straight from the arch of the eyebrows, had
+little light in them. Everything about her appearance was commonplace:
+witness her flaxen hair, tending to whiteness; her flat forehead, from
+which the light did not reflect; and her dull complexion, with gray,
+almost leaden, tones. The lower part of the face, more triangular than
+oval, ended irregularly the otherwise irregular outline of her face.
+Her voice had a rather pretty range of intonation, from sharp to sweet.
+Elisabeth was a perfect specimen of the second-rate little bourgeoisie
+who lectures her husband behind the curtains; obtains no credit for her
+virtues; is ambitious without intelligent object, and solely through the
+development of her domestic selfishness. Had she lived in the country
+she would have bought up adjacent land; being, as she was, connected
+with the administration, she was determined to push her way. If we
+relate the life of her father and mother, we shall show the sort of
+woman she was by a picture of her childhood and youth.
+
+Monsieur Saillard married the daughter of an upholsterer keeping shop
+under the arcades of the Market. Limited means compelled Monsieur and
+Madame Saillard at their start in life to bear constant privation. After
+thirty-three years of married life, and twenty-nine years of toil in
+a government office, the property of “the Saillards”--their circle
+of acquaintance called them so--consisted of sixty thousand francs
+entrusted to Falleix, the house in the place Royale, bought for forty
+thousand in 1804, and thirty-six thousand francs given in dowry to their
+daughter Elisabeth. Out of this capital about fifty thousand came
+to them by the will of the widow Bidault, Madame Saillard’s mother.
+Saillard’s salary from the government had always been four thousand five
+hundred francs a year, and no more; his situation was a blind alley
+that led nowhere, and had tempted no one to supersede him. Those ninety
+thousand francs, put together sou by sou, were the fruit therefore of a
+sordid economy unintelligently employed. In fact, the Saillards did
+not know how better to manage their savings than to carry them, five
+thousand francs at a time, to their notary, Monsieur Sorbier, Cardot’s
+predecessor, and let him invest them at five per cent in first
+mortgages, with the wife’s rights reserved in case the borrower was
+married! In 1804 Madame Saillard obtained a government office for the
+sale of stamped papers, a circumstance which brought a servant into the
+household for the first time. At the time of which we write, the house,
+which was worth a hundred thousand francs, brought in a rental of eight
+thousand. Falleix paid seven per cent for the sixty thousand invested
+in the foundry, besides an equal division of profits. The Saillards were
+therefore enjoying an income of not less than seventeen thousand francs
+a year. The whole ambition of the good man now centred on obtaining the
+cross of the Legion and his retiring pension.
+
+Elisabeth, the only child, had toiled steadily from infancy in a home
+where the customs of life were rigid and the ideas simple. A new hat for
+Saillard was a matter of deliberation; the time a coat could last was
+estimated and discussed; umbrellas were carefully hung up by means of
+a brass buckle. Since 1804 no repairs of any kind had been done to the
+house. The Saillards kept the ground-floor in precisely the state in
+which their predecessor left it. The gilding of the pier-glasses was
+rubbed off; the paint on the cornices was hardly visible through the
+layers of dust that time had collected. The fine large rooms still
+retained certain sculptured marble mantel-pieces and ceilings, worthy
+of Versailles, together with the old furniture of the widow Bidault. The
+latter consisted of a curious mixture of walnut armchairs, disjointed,
+and covered with tapestry; rosewood bureaus; round tables on single
+pedestals, with brass railings and cracked marble tops; one superb
+Boulle secretary, the value of which style had not yet been recognized;
+in short, a chaos of bargains picked up by the worthy widow,--pictures
+bought for the sake of the frames, china services of a composite order;
+to wit, a magnificent Japanese dessert set, and all the rest porcelains
+of various makes, unmatched silver plate, old glass, fine damask, and a
+four-post bedstead, hung with curtains and garnished with plumes.
+
+Amid these curious relics, Madame Saillard always sat on a sofa of
+modern mahogany, near a fireplace full of ashes and without fire, on the
+mantel-shelf of which stood a clock, some antique bronzes, candelabra
+with paper flowers but no candles, for the careful housewife lighted the
+room with a tall tallow candle always guttering down into the flat brass
+candlestick which held it. Madame Saillard’s face, despite its wrinkles,
+was expressive of obstinacy and severity, narrowness of ideas, an
+uprightness that might be called quadrangular, a religion without piety,
+straightforward, candid avarice, and the peace of a quiet conscience.
+You may see in certain Flemish pictures the wives of burgomasters cut
+out by nature on the same pattern and wonderfully reproduced on canvas;
+but these dames wear fine robes of velvet and precious stuffs, whereas
+Madame Saillard possessed no robes, only that venerable garment called
+in Touraine and Picardy “cottes,” elsewhere petticoats, or skirts
+pleated behind and on each side, with other skirts hanging over them.
+Her bust was inclosed in what was called a “casaquin,” another obsolete
+name for a short gown or jacket. She continued to wear a cap with
+starched wings, and shoes with high heels. Though she was now
+fifty-seven years old, and her lifetime of vigorous household work ought
+now to be rewarded with well-earned repose, she was incessantly employed
+in knitting her husband’s stockings and her own, and those of an uncle,
+just as her countrywomen knit them, moving about the room, talking,
+pacing up and down the garden, or looking round the kitchen to watch
+what was going on.
+
+The Saillard’s avarice, which was really imposed on them in the first
+instance by dire necessity, was now a second nature. When the cashier
+got back from the office, he laid aside his coat, and went to work in
+the large garden, shut off from the courtyard by an iron railing, and
+which the family reserved to itself. For years Elisabeth, the daughter,
+went to market every morning with her mother, and the two did all
+the work of the house. The mother cooked well, especially a duck with
+turnips; but, according to Saillard, no one could equal Elisabeth in
+hashing the remains of a leg of mutton with onions. “You might eat
+your boots with those onions and not know it,” he remarked. As soon
+as Elisabeth knew how to hold a needle, her mother had her mend the
+household linen and her father’s coats. Always at work, like a servant,
+she never went out alone. Though living close by the boulevard du
+Temple, where Franconi, La Gaite, and l’Ambigu-Comique were within a
+stone’s throw, and, further on, the Porte-Saint-Martin, Elisabeth had
+never seen a comedy. When she asked to “see what it was like” (with the
+Abbe Gaudron’s permission, be it understood), Monsieur Baudoyer took
+her--for the glory of the thing, and to show her the finest that was to
+be seen--to the Opera, where they were playing “The Chinese Laborer.”
+ Elisabeth thought “the comedy” as wearisome as the plague of flies, and
+never wished to see another. On Sundays, after walking four times to
+and fro between the place Royale and Saint-Paul’s church (for her mother
+made her practise the precepts and the duties of religion), her parents
+took her to the pavement in front of the Cafe Ture, where they sat on
+chairs placed between a railing and the wall. The Saillards always made
+haste to reach the place early so as to choose the best seats, and found
+much entertainment in watching the passers-by. In those days the Cafe
+Ture was the rendezvous of the fashionable society of the Marais, the
+faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the circumjacent regions.
+
+Elisabeth never wore anything but cotton gowns in summer and merino in
+the winter, which she made herself. Her mother gave her twenty francs
+a month for her expenses, but her father, who was very fond of her,
+mitigated this rigorous treatment with a few presents. She never read
+what the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul’s and the family director,
+called profane books. This discipline had borne fruit. Forced to employ
+her feelings on some passion or other, Elisabeth became eager after
+gain. Though she was not lacking in sense or perspicacity, religious
+theories, and her complete ignorance of higher emotions had encircled
+all her faculties with an iron hand; they were exercised solely on the
+commonest things of life; spent in a few directions they were able
+to concentrate themselves on a matter in hand. Repressed by religious
+devotion, her natural intelligence exercised itself within the limits
+marked out by cases of conscience, which form a mine of subtleties
+among which self-interest selects its subterfuges. Like those saintly
+personages in whom religion does not stifle ambition, Elisabeth was
+capable of requiring others to do a blamable action that she might reap
+the fruits; and she would have been, like them again, implacable as to
+her dues and dissembling in her actions. Once offended, she watched her
+adversaries with the perfidious patience of a cat, and was capable of
+bringing about some cold and complete vengeance, and then laying it to
+the account of God. Until her marriage the Saillards lived without other
+society than that of the Abbe Gaudron, a priest from Auvergne appointed
+vicar of Saint-Paul’s after the restoration of Catholic worship. Besides
+this ecclesiastic, who was a friend of the late Madame Bidault, a
+paternal uncle of Madame Saillard, an old paper-dealer retired from
+business ever since the year II. of the Republic, and now sixty-nine
+years old, came to see them on Sundays only, because on that day no
+government business went on.
+
+This little old man, with a livid face blazoned by the red nose of a
+tippler and lighted by two gleaming vulture eyes, allowed his gray hair
+to hang loose under a three-cornered hat, wore breeches with straps that
+extended beyond the buckles, cotton stockings of mottled thread knitted
+by his niece, whom he always called “the little Saillard,” stout shoes
+with silver buckles, and a surtout coat of mixed colors. He looked very
+much like those verger-beadle-bell-ringing-grave-digging-parish-clerks
+who are taken to be caricatures until we see them performing their
+various functions. On the present occasion he had come on foot to dine
+with the Saillards, intending to return in the same way to the rue
+Greneta, where he lived on the third floor of an old house. His business
+was that of discounting commercial paper in the quartier Saint-Martin,
+where he was known by the nickname of “Gigonnet,” from the nervous
+convulsive movement with which he lifted his legs in walking, like a
+cat. Monsieur Bidault began this business in the year II. in partnership
+with a dutchman named Werbrust, a friend of Gobseck.
+
+Some time later Saillard made the acquaintance of Monsieur and Madame
+Transon, wholesale dealers in pottery, with an establishment in the rue
+de Lesdiguieres, who took an interest in Elisabeth and introduced young
+Isadore Baudoyer to the family with the intention of marrying her.
+Gigonnet approved of the match, for he had long employed a certain
+Mitral, uncle of the young man, as clerk. Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer,
+father and mother of Isidore, highly respected leather-dressers in the
+rue Censier, had slowly made a moderate fortune out of a small trade.
+After marrying their only son, on whom they settled fifty thousand
+francs, they determined to live in the country, and had lately removed
+to the neighborhood of Ile-d’Adam, where after a time they were joined
+by Mitral. They frequently came to Paris, however, where they kept a
+corner in the house in the rue Censier which they gave to Isidore on
+his marriage. The elder Baudoyers had an income of about three thousand
+francs left to live upon after establishing their son.
+
+Mitral was a being with a sinister wig, a face the color of Seine water,
+lighted by a pair of Spanish-tobacco-colored eyes, cold as a well-rope,
+always smelling a rat, and close-mouthed about his property. He probably
+made his fortune in his own hole and corner, just as Werbrust and
+Gigonnet made theirs in the quartier Saint-Martin.
+
+Though the Saillards’ circle of acquaintance increased, neither their
+ideas nor their manners and customs changed. The saint’s-days of father,
+mother, daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild were carefully observed,
+also the anniversaries of birth and marriage, Easter, Christmas,
+New Year’s day, and Epiphany. These festivals were preceded by great
+domestic sweepings and a universal clearing up of the house, which added
+an element of usefulness to the ceremonies. When the festival day
+came, the presents were offered with much pomp and an accompaniment of
+flowers,--silk stockings or a fur cap for old Saillard; gold earrings
+and articles of plate for Elisabeth or her husband, for whom, little
+by little, the parents were accumulating a whole silver service; silk
+petticoats for Madame Saillard, who laid the stuff by and never made it
+up. The recipient of these gifts was placed in an armchair and asked
+by those present for a certain length of time, “Guess what we have for
+you!” Then came a splendid dinner, lasting at least five hours, to which
+were invited the Abbe Gaudron, Falleix, Rabourdin, Monsieur Godard,
+under-head-clerk to Monsieur Baudoyer, Monsieur Bataille, captain of
+the company of the National Guard to which Saillard and his son-in-law
+belonged. Monsieur Cardot, who was invariably asked, did as Rabourdin
+did, namely, accepted one invitation out of six. The company sang at
+dessert, shook hands and embraced with enthusiasm, wishing each other
+all manner of happiness; the presents were exhibited and the opinion of
+the guests asked about them. The day Saillard received his fur cap
+he wore it during the dessert, to the satisfaction of all present. At
+night, mere ordinary acquaintances were bidden, and dancing went on till
+very late, formerly to the music of one violin, but for the last six
+years Monsieur Godard, who was a great flute player, contributed
+the piercing tones of a flageolet to the festivity. The cook, Madame
+Baudoyer’s nurse, and old Catherine, Madame Saillard’s woman-servant,
+together with the porter or his wife, stood looking on at the door of
+the salon. The servants always received three francs on these occasions
+to buy themselves wine or coffee.
+
+This little circle looked upon Saillard and Baudoyer as transcendent
+beings; they were government officers; they had risen by their own
+merits; they worked, it was said, with the minister himself; they owed
+their fortune to their talents; they were politicians. Baudoyer was
+considered the more able of the two; his position as head of a bureau
+presupposed labor that was more intricate and arduous than that of a
+cashier. Moreover, Isidore, though the son of a leather-dresser, had had
+the genius to study and to cast aside his father’s business and find a
+career in politics, which had led him to a post of eminence. In short,
+silent and uncommunicative as he was, he was looked upon as a deep
+thinker, and perhaps, said the admiring circle, he would some day
+become deputy of the eighth arrondissement. As Gigonnet listened to such
+remarks as these, he pressed his already pinched lips closer together,
+and threw a glance at his great-niece, Elisabeth.
+
+In person, Isidore was a tall, stout man of thirty-seven, who perspired
+freely, and whose head looked as if he had water on the brain. This
+enormous head, covered with chestnut hair cropped close, was joined to
+the neck by rolls of flesh which overhung the collar of his coat. He had
+the arms of Hercules, hands worthy of Domitian, a stomach which
+sobriety held within the limits of the majestic, to use a saying of
+Brillaet-Savarin. His face was a good deal like that of the Emperor
+Alexander. The Tartar type was in the little eyes and the flattened nose
+turned slightly up, in the frigid lips and the short chin. The forehead
+was low and narrow. Though his temperament was lymphatic, the devout
+Isidore was under the influence of a conjugal passion which time did not
+lessen.
+
+In spite, however, of his resemblance to the handsome Russian Emperor
+and the terrible Domitian, Isidore Baudoyer was nothing more than a
+political office-holder, of little ability as head of his department, a
+cut-and-dried routine man, who concealed the fact that he was a flabby
+cipher by so ponderous a personality that no scalpel could cut deep
+enough to let the operator see into him. His severe studies, in which
+he had shown the patience and sagacity of an ox, and his square head,
+deceived his parents, who firmly believed him an extraordinary man.
+Pedantic and hypercritical, meddlesome and fault-finding, he was a
+terror to the clerks under him, whom he worried in their work,
+enforcing the rules rigorously, and arriving himself with such terrible
+punctuality that not one of them dared to be a moment late. Baudoyer
+wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, a chamois waistcoat, gray trousers
+and cravats of various colors. His feet were large and ill-shod. From
+the chain of his watch depended an enormous bunch of old trinkets, among
+which in 1824 he still wore “American beads,” which were very much the
+fashion in the year VII.
+
+In the bosom of this family, bound together by the force of religious
+ties, by the inflexibility of its customs, by one solitary emotion, that
+of avarice, a passion which was now as it were its compass, Elisabeth
+was forced to commune with herself, instead of imparting her ideas to
+those around her, for she felt herself without equals in mind who could
+comprehend her. Though facts compelled her to judge her husband, her
+religious duty led her to keep up as best she could a favorable opinion
+of him; she showed him marked respect; honored him as the father of her
+child, her husband, the temporal power, as the vicar of Saint-Paul’s
+told her. She would have thought it a mortal sin to make a single
+gesture, or give a single glance, or say a single word which would
+reveal to others her real opinion of the imbecile Baudoyer. She even
+professed to obey passively all his wishes. But her ears were receptive
+of many things; she thought them over, weighed and compared them in the
+solitude of her mind, and judged so soberly of men and events that at
+the time when our history begins she was the hidden oracle of the two
+functionaries, her husband and father, who had, unconsciously, come
+to do nothing whatever without consulting her. Old Saillard would say,
+innocently, “Isn’t she clever, that Elisabeth of mine?” But Baudoyer,
+too great a fool not to be puffed up by the false reputation the
+quartier Saint-Antoine bestowed upon him, denied his wife’s cleverness
+all the while that he was making use of it.
+
+Elisabeth had long felt sure that her uncle Bidault, otherwise called
+Gigonnet, was rich and handled vast sums of money. Enlightened by
+self-interest, she had come to understand Monsieur des Lupeaulx far
+better than the minister understood him. Finding herself married to
+a fool, she never allowed herself to think that life might have gone
+better with her, she only imagined the possibility of better things
+without expecting or wishing to attain them. All her best affections
+found their vocation in her love for her daughter, to whom she spared
+the pains and privations she had borne in her own childhood; she
+believed that in this affection she had her full share in the world of
+feeling. Solely for her daughter’s sake she had persuaded her father to
+take the important step of going into partnership with Falleix. Falleix
+had been brought to the Saillard’s house by old Bidault, who lent
+him money on his merchandise. Falleix thought his old countryman
+extortionate, and complained to the Saillards that Gigonnet demanded
+eighteen per cent from an Auvergnat. Madame Saillard ventured to
+remonstrate with her uncle.
+
+“It is just because he is an Auvergnat that I take only eighteen per
+cent,” said Gigonnet, when she spoke of him.
+
+Falleix, who had made a discovery at the age of twenty-eight, and
+communicated it to Saillard, seemed to carry his heart in his hand (an
+expression of old Saillard’s), and also seemed likely to make a great
+fortune. Elisabeth determined to husband him for her daughter and train
+him herself, having, as she calculated, seven years to do it in. Martin
+Falleix felt and showed the deepest respect for Madame Baudoyer, whose
+superior qualities he was able to recognize. If he were fated to make
+millions he would always belong to her family, where he had found a
+home. The little Baudoyer girl was already trained to bring him his tea
+and to take his hat.
+
+On the evening of which we write, Monsieur Saillard, returning from the
+ministry, found a game of boston in full blast; Elisabeth was advising
+Falleix how to play; Madame Saillard was knitting in the chimney-corner
+and overlooking the cards of the vicar; Monsieur Baudoyer, motionless as
+a mile-stone, was employing his mental capacity in calculating how the
+cards were placed, and sat opposite to Mitral, who had come up from
+Ile-d’Adam for the Christmas holidays. No one moved as the cashier
+entered, and for some minutes he walked up and down the room, his fat
+face contracted with unaccustomed thought.
+
+“He is always so when he dines at the ministry,” remarked Madame
+Saillard; “happily, it is only twice a year, or he’d die of it. Saillard
+was never made to be in the government--Well, now, I do hope, Saillard,”
+ she continued in a loud tone, “that you are not going to keep on those
+silk breeches and that handsome coat. Go and take them off; don’t wear
+them at home, my man.”
+
+“Your father has something on his mind,” said Baudoyer to his wife, when
+the cashier was in his bedroom, undressing without any fire.
+
+“Perhaps Monsieur de la Billardiere is dead,” said Elisabeth, simply;
+“and as he is anxious you should have the place, it worries him.”
+
+“Can I be useful in any way?” said the vicar of Saint-Paul’s; “if
+so, pray use my services. I have the honor to be known to Madame la
+Dauphine. These are days when public offices should be given only to
+faithful men, whose religious principles are not to be shaken.”
+
+“Dear me!” said Falleix, “do men of merit need protectors and influence
+to get places in the government service? I am glad I am an iron-master;
+my customers know where to find a good article--”
+
+“Monsieur,” interrupted Baudoyer, “the government is the government;
+never attack it in this house.”
+
+“You speak like the ‘Constitutionel,’” said the vicar.
+
+“The ‘Constitutionel’ never says anything different from that,” replied
+Baudoyer, who never read it.
+
+The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in talent
+to Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his
+own expression; but the good man coveted this appointment in a
+straightforward, honest way. Influenced by the feeling which leads all
+officials to seek promotion,--a violent, unreflecting, almost brutal
+passion,--he desired success, just as he desired the cross of the Legion
+of honor, without doing anything against his conscience to obtain it,
+and solely, as he believed, on the strength of his son-in-law’s merits.
+To his thinking, a man who had patiently spent twenty-five years in a
+government office behind an iron railing had sacrificed himself to his
+country and deserved the cross. But all that he dreamed of doing to
+promote his son-in-law’s appointment in La Billardiere’s place was to
+say a word to his Excellency’s wife when he took her the month’s salary.
+
+“Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends! Do speak;
+do, pray, tell us something,” cried his wife when he came back into the
+room.
+
+Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his heel
+to keep himself from talking politics before strangers. When Monsieur
+Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the card-table
+and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always assumed when about
+to tell some office-gossip,--a series of movements which answered the
+purpose of the three knocks given at the Theatre-Francais. After binding
+his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to the deepest secrecy,--for,
+however petty the gossip, their places, as he thought, depended on their
+discretion,--he related the incomprehensible enigma of the resignation
+of a deputy, the very legitimate desire of the general-secretary to get
+elected to the place, and the secret opposition of the minister to this
+wish of a man who was one of his firmest supporters and most zealous
+workers. This, of course, brought down an avalanche of suppositions,
+flooded with the sapient arguments of the two officials, who sent back
+and forth to each other a wearisome flood of nonsense. Elisabeth quietly
+asked three questions:--
+
+“If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is on our side, will Monsieur Baudoyer be
+appointed in Monsieur de la Billardiere’s place?”
+
+“Heavens! I should think so,” cried the cashier.
+
+“My uncle Bidault and Monsieur Gobseck helped in him 1814,” thought she.
+“Is he in debt?” she asked, aloud.
+
+“Yes,” cried the cashier with a hissing and prolonged sound on the last
+letter; “his salary was attached, but some of the higher powers released
+it by a bill at sight.”
+
+“Where is the des Lupeaulx estate?”
+
+“Why, don’t you know? in the part of the country where your grandfather
+and your great-uncle Bidault belong, in the arrondissement of the deputy
+who wants to resign.”
+
+When her colossus of a husband had gone to bed, Elisabeth leaned over
+him, and though he always treated her remarks as women’s nonsense, she
+said, “Perhaps you will really get Monsieur de la Billardiere’s place.”
+
+“There you go with your imaginations!” said Baudoyer; “leave Monsieur
+Gaudron to speak to the Dauphine and don’t meddle with politics.”
+
+At eleven o’clock, when all were asleep in the place Royale, Monsieur
+des Lupeaulx was leaving the Opera for the rue Duphot. This particular
+Wednesday was one of Madame Rabourdin’s most brilliant evenings. Many of
+her customary guests came in from the theatres and swelled the company
+already assembled, among whom were several celebrities, such as: Canalis
+the poet, Schinner the painter, Dr. Bianchon, Lucien de Rubempre, Octave
+de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de Fontaine, du Bruel the
+vaudevillist, Andoche Finot the journalist, Derville, one of the best
+heads in the law courts, the Comte du Chatelet, deputy, du Tillet,
+banker, and several elegant young men, such as Paul de Manerville and
+the Vicomte de Portenduere. Celestine was pouring out tea when the
+general-secretary entered. Her dress that evening was very becoming;
+she wore a black velvet robe without ornament of any kind, a black gauze
+scarf, her hair smoothly bound about her head and raised in a heavy
+braided mass, with long curls a l’Anglaise falling on either side of her
+face. The charms which particularly distinguished this woman were the
+Italian ease of her artistic nature, her ready comprehension, and the
+grace with which she welcomed and promoted the least appearance of a
+wish on the part of others. Nature had given her an elegant, slender
+figure, which could sway lightly at a word, black eyes of oriental
+shape, able, like those of the Chinese women, to see out of their
+corners. She well knew how to manage a soft, insinuating voice, which
+threw a tender charm into every word, even such as she merely chanced
+to utter; her feet were like those we see in portraits where the painter
+boldly lies and flatters his sitter in the only way which does not
+compromise anatomy. Her complexion, a little yellow by day, like that
+of most brunettes, was dazzling at night under the wax candles, which
+brought out the brilliancy of her black hair and eyes. Her slender and
+well-defined outlines reminded an artist of the Venus of the Middle Ages
+rendered by Jean Goujon, the illustrious sculptor of Diane de Poitiers.
+
+Des Lupeaulx stopped in the doorway, and leaned against the woodwork.
+This ferret of ideas did not deny himself the pleasure of spying upon
+sentiment, and this woman interested him more than any of the others to
+whom he had attached himself. Des Lupeaulx had reached an age when men
+assert pretensions in regard to women. The first white hairs lead to
+the latest passions, all the more violent because they are astride of
+vanishing powers and dawning weakness. The age of forty is the age
+of folly,--an age when man wants to be loved for himself; whereas at
+twenty-five life is so full that he has no wants. At twenty-five he
+overflows with vigor and wastes it with impunity, but at forty he learns
+that to use it in that way is to abuse it. The thoughts that came into
+des Lupeaulx’s mind at this moment were melancholy ones. The nerves of
+the old beau relaxed; the agreeable smile, which served as a mask and
+made the character of his countenance, faded; the real man appeared, and
+he was horrible. Rabourdin caught sight of him and thought, “What has
+happened to him? can he be disgraced in any way?” The general-secretary
+was, however, only thinking how the pretty Madame Colleville, whose
+intentions were exactly those of Madame Rabourdin, had summarily
+abandoned him when it suited her to do so. Rabourdin caught the sham
+statesman’s eyes fixed on his wife, and he recorded the look in his
+memory. He was too keen an observer not to understand des Lupeaulx to
+the bottom, and he deeply despised him; but, as with most busy men,
+his feelings and sentiments seldom came to the surface. Absorption in a
+beloved work is practically equivalent to the cleverest dissimulation,
+and thus it was that the opinions and ideas of Rabourdin were a sealed
+book to des Lupeaulx. The former was sorry to see the man in his house,
+but he was never willing to oppose his wife’s wishes. At this particular
+moment, while he talked confidentially with a supernumerary of his
+office who was destined, later, to play an unconscious part in a
+political intrigue resulting from the death of La Billardiere, he
+watched, though half-abstractedly, his wife and des Lupeaulx.
+
+Here we must explain, as much for foreigners as for our own
+grandchildren, what a supernumerary in a government office in Paris
+means.
+
+The supernumerary is to the administration what a choir-boy is to a
+church, what the company’s child is to the regiment, what the figurante
+is to a theatre; something artless, naive, innocent, a being blinded by
+illusions. Without illusions what would become of any of us? They give
+strength to bear the res angusta domi of arts and the beginnings of all
+science by inspiring us with faith. Illusion is illimitable faith. Now
+the supernumerary has faith in the administration; he never thinks
+it cold, cruel, and hard, as it really is. There are two kinds of
+supernumeraries, or hangers-on,--one poor, the other rich. The poor one
+is rich in hope and wants a place, the rich one is poor in spirit and
+wants nothing. A wealthy family is not so foolish as to put its able
+men into the administration. It confides an unfledged scion to some
+head-clerk, or gives him in charge of a directory who initiates him into
+what Bilboquet, that profound philosopher, called the high comedy of
+government; he is spared all the horrors of drudgery and is finally
+appointed to some important office. The rich supernumerary never alarms
+the other clerks; they know he does not endanger their interests, for he
+seeks only the highest posts in the administration. About the period of
+which we write many families were saying to themselves: “What can we do
+with our sons?” The army no longer offered a chance for fortune. Special
+careers, such as civil and military engineering, the navy, mining, and
+the professorial chair were all fenced about by strict regulations or
+to be obtained only by competition; whereas in the civil service
+the revolving wheel which turned clerks into prefects, sub-prefects,
+assessors, and collectors, like the figures in a magic lantern, was
+subjected to no such rules and entailed no drudgery. Through this easy
+gap emerged into life the rich supernumeraries who drove their tilburys,
+dressed well, and wore moustachios, all of them as impudent as parvenus.
+Journalists were apt to persecute the tribe, who were cousins, nephews,
+brothers, or other relatives of some minister, some deputy, or an
+influential peer. The humbler clerks regarded them as a means of
+influence.
+
+The poor supernumerary, on the other hand, who is the only real worker,
+is almost always the son of some former clerk’s widow, who lives on a
+meagre pension and sacrifices herself to support her son until he can
+get a place as copying-clerk, and then dies leaving him no nearer the
+head of his department than writer of deeds, order-clerks, or, possibly,
+under-head-clerk. Living always in some locality where rents are low,
+this humble supernumerary starts early from home. For him the Eastern
+question relates only to the morning skies. To go on foot and not get
+muddied, to save his clothes, and allow for the time he may lose in
+standing under shelter during a shower, are the preoccupations of
+his mind. The street pavements, the flaggings of the quays and the
+boulevards, when first laid down, were a boon to him. If, for some
+extraordinary reason, you happen to be in the streets of Paris at
+half-past seven or eight o’clock of a winter’s morning, and see through
+piercing cold or fog or rain a timid, pale young man loom up, cigarless,
+take notice of his pockets. You will be sure to see the outline of
+a roll which his mother has given him to stay his stomach between
+breakfast and dinner. The guilelessness of the supernumerary does not
+last long. A youth enlightened by gleams by Parisian life soon measures
+the frightful distance that separates him from the head-clerkship, a
+distance which no mathematician, neither Archimedes, nor Leibnitz, nor
+Laplace has ever reckoned, the distance that exists between 0 and the
+figure 1. He begins to perceive the impossibilities of his career; he
+hears talk of favoritism; he discovers the intrigues of officials: he
+sees the questionable means by which his superiors have pushed their
+way,--one has married a young woman who made a false step; another, the
+natural daughter of a minister; this one shouldered the responsibility
+of another’s fault; that one, full of talent, risks his health in doing,
+with the perseverance of a mole, prodigies of work which the man of
+influence feels incapable of doing for himself, though he takes the
+credit. Everything is known in a government office. The incapable man
+has a wife with a clear head, who has pushed him along and got him
+nominated for deputy; if he has not talent enough for an office, he
+cabals in the Chamber. The wife of another has a statesman at her feet.
+A third is the hidden informant of a powerful journalist. Often the
+disgusted and hopeless supernumerary sends in his resignation. About
+three fourths of his class leave the government employ without ever
+obtaining an appointment, and their number is winnowed down to
+either those young men who are foolish or obstinate enough to say to
+themselves, “I have been here three years, and I must end sooner or
+later by getting a place,” or to those who are conscious of a vocation
+for the work. Undoubtedly the position of supernumerary in a government
+office is precisely what the novitiate is in a religious order,--a
+trial. It is a rough trial. The State discovers how many of them can
+bear hunger, thirst, and penury without breaking down, how many can toil
+without revolting against it; it learns which temperaments can bear
+up under the horrible experience--or if you like, the disease--of
+government official life. From this point of view the apprenticeship of
+the supernumerary, instead of being an infamous device of the government
+to obtain labor gratis, becomes a useful institution.
+
+The young man with whom Rabourdin was talking was a poor supernumerary
+named Sebastien de la Roche, who had picked his way on the points of his
+toes, without incurring the least splash upon his boots, from the rue du
+Roi-Dore in the Marais. He talked of his mamma, and dared not raise his
+eyes to Madame Rabourdin, whose house appeared to him as gorgeous as
+the Louvre. He was careful to show his gloves, well cleaned with
+india-rubber, as little as he could. His poor mother had put five francs
+in his pocket in case it became absolutely necessary that he should play
+cards; but she enjoined him to take nothing, to remain standing, and
+to be very careful not to knock over a lamp or the bric-a-brac from an
+etagere. His dress was all of the strictest black. His fair face, his
+eyes, of a fine shade of green with golden reflections, were in keeping
+with a handsome head of auburn hair. The poor lad looked furtively at
+Madame Rabourdin, whispering to himself, “How beautiful!” and was likely
+to dream of that fairy when he went to bed.
+
+Rabourdin had noted a vocation for his work in the lad, and as he
+himself took the whole service seriously, he felt a lively interest in
+him. He guessed the poverty of his mother’s home, kept together on a
+widow’s pension of seven hundred francs a year--for the education of
+the son, who was just out of college, had absorbed all her savings. He
+therefore treated the youth almost paternally; often endeavoured to
+get him some fee from the Council, or paid it from his own pocket. He
+overwhelmed Sebastien with work, trained him, and allowed him to do the
+work of du Bruel’s place, for which that vaudevillist, otherwise known
+as Cursy, paid him three hundred francs out of his salary. In the minds
+of Madame de la Roche and her son, Rabourdin was at once a great man, a
+tyrant, and an angel. On him all the poor fellow’s hopes of getting an
+appointment depended, and the lad’s devotion to his chief was boundless.
+He dined once a fortnight in the rue Duphot; but always at a family
+dinner, invited by Rabourdin himself; Madame asked him to evening
+parties only when she wanted partners.
+
+At that moment Rabourdin was scolding poor Sebastien, the only human
+being who was in the secret of his immense labors. The youth copied and
+recopied the famous “statement,” written on a hundred and fifty
+folio sheets, besides the corroborative documents, and the summing up
+(contained in one page), with the estimates bracketed, the captions in a
+running hand, and the sub-titles in a round one. Full of enthusiasm, in
+spite of his merely mechanical participation in the great idea, the lad
+of twenty would rewrite whole pages for a single blot, and made it his
+glory to touch up the writing, regarding it as the element of a noble
+undertaking. Sebastien had that afternoon committed the great imprudence
+of carrying into the general office, for the purpose of copying, a paper
+which contained the most dangerous facts to make known prematurely,
+namely, a memorandum relating to the officials in the central offices
+of all ministries, with facts concerning their fortunes, actual and
+prospective, together with the individual enterprises of each outside of
+his government employment.
+
+All government clerks in Paris who are not endowed, like Rabourdin, with
+patriotic ambition or other marked capacity, usually add the profits
+of some industry to the salary of their office, in order to eke out a
+living. A number do as Monsieur Saillard did,--put their money into a
+business carried on by others, and spend their evenings in keeping
+the books of their associates. Many clerks are married to milliners,
+licensed tobacco dealers, women who have charge of the public lotteries
+or reading-rooms. Some, like the husband of Madame Colleville,
+Celestine’s rival, play in the orchestra of a theatre; others like du
+Bruel, write vaudeville, comic operas, melodramas, or act as prompters
+behind the scenes. We may mention among them Messrs. Planard, Sewrin,
+etc. Pigault-Lebrun, Piis, Duvicquet, in their day, were in government
+employ. Monsieur Scribe’s head-librarian was a clerk in the Treasury.
+
+Besides such information as this, Rabourdin’s memorandum contained an
+inquiry into the moral and physical capacities and faculties necessary
+in those who were to examine the intelligence, aptitude for labor,
+and sound health of the applicants for government service,--three
+indispensable qualities in men who are to bear the burden of public
+affairs and should do their business well and quickly. But this careful
+study, the result of ten years’ observation and experience, and of a
+long acquaintance with men and things obtained by intercourse with the
+various functionaries in the different ministries, would assuredly have,
+to those who did not see its purport and connection, an air of treachery
+and police espial. If a single page of these papers were to fall under
+the eye of those concerned, Monsieur Rabourdin was lost. Sebastien,
+who admired his chief without reservation, and who was, as yet, wholly
+ignorant of the evils of bureaucracy, had the follies of guilelessness
+as well as its grace. Blamed on a former occasion for carrying away
+these papers, he now bravely acknowledged his fault to its fullest
+extent; he related how he had put away both the memorandum and the copy
+carefully in a box in the office where no one would ever find them.
+Tears rolled from his eyes as he realized the greatness of his offence.
+
+“Come, come!” said Rabourdin, kindly. “Don’t be so imprudent again, but
+never mind now. Go to the office very early tomorrow morning; here is
+the key of a small safe which is in my roller secretary; it shuts with
+a combination lock. You can open it with the word ‘sky’; put the
+memorandum and your copy into it and shut it carefully.”
+
+This proof of confidence dried the poor fellow’s tears. Rabourdin
+advised him to take a cup of tea and some cakes.
+
+“Mamma forbids me to drink tea, on account of my chest,” said Sebastien.
+
+“Well, then, my dear child,” said the imposing Madame Rabourdin, who
+wished to appear gracious, “here are some sandwiches and cream; come and
+sit by me.”
+
+She made Sebastien sit down beside her, and the lad’s heart rose in
+his throat as he felt the robe of this divinity brush the sleeve of
+his coat. Just then the beautiful woman caught sight of Monsieur des
+Lupeaulx standing in the doorway. She smiled, and not waiting till he
+came to her, she went to him.
+
+“Why do you stay there as if you were sulking?” she asked.
+
+“I am not sulking,” he returned; “I came to announce some good news,
+but the thought has overtaken me that it will only add to your severity
+towards me. I fancy myself six months hence almost a stranger to you.
+Yes, you are too clever, and I too experienced,--too blase, if you
+like,--for either of us to deceive the other. Your end is attained
+without its costing you more than a few smiles and gracious words.”
+
+“Deceive each other! what can you mean?” she cried, in a hurt tone.
+
+“Yes; Monsieur de la Billardiere is dying, and from what the minister
+told me this evening I judge that your husband will be appointed in his
+place.”
+
+He thereupon related what he called his scene at the ministry and the
+jealousy of the countess, repeating her remarks about the invitation he
+had asked her to send to Madame Rabourdin.
+
+“Monsieur des Lupeaulx,” said Madame Rabourdin, with dignity, “permit me
+to tell you that my husband is the oldest head-clerk as well as the most
+capable man in the division; also that the appointment of La Billardiere
+over his head made much talk in the service, and that my husband has
+stayed on for the last year expecting this promotion, for which he has
+really no competitor and no rival.”
+
+“That is true.”
+
+“Well, then,” she resumed, smiling and showing her handsome teeth,
+“how can you suppose that the friendship I feel for you is marred by a
+thought of self-interest? Why should you think me capable of that?”
+
+Des Lupeaulx made a gesture of admiring denial.
+
+“Ah!” she continued, “the heart of woman will always remain a secret
+for even the cleverest of men. Yes, I welcomed you to my house with the
+greatest pleasure; and there was, I admit, a motive of self-interest
+behind my pleasure--”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“You have a career before you,” she whispered in his ear, “a future
+without limit; you will be deputy, minister!” (What happiness for an
+ambitious man when such things as these are warbled in his ear by the
+sweet voice of a pretty woman!) “Oh, yes! I know you better than you
+know yourself. Rabourdin is a man who could be of immense service to
+you in such a career; he could do the steady work while you were in
+the Chamber. Just as you dream of the ministry, so I dream of seeing
+Rabourdin in the Council of State, and general director. It is therefore
+my object to draw together two men who can never injure, but, on the
+contrary, must greatly help each other. Isn’t that a woman’s mission?
+If you are friends, you will both rise the faster, and it is surely
+high time that each of you made hay. I have burned my ships,” she added,
+smiling. “But you are not as frank with me as I have been with you.”
+
+“You would not listen to me if I were,” he replied, with a melancholy
+air, in spite of the deep inward satisfaction her remarks gave him.
+“What would such future promotions avail me, if you dismiss me now?”
+
+“Before I listen to you,” she replied, with naive Parisian liveliness,
+“we must be able to understand each other.”
+
+And she left the old fop to go and speak with Madame de Chessel, a
+countess from the provinces, who seemed about to take leave.
+
+“That is a very extraordinary woman,” said des Lupeaulx to himself. “I
+don’t know my own self when I am with her.”
+
+Accordingly, this man of no principle, who six years earlier had kept
+a ballet-girl, and who now, thanks to his position, made himself a
+seraglio with the pretty wives of the under-clerks, and lived in the
+world of journalists and actresses, became devotedly attentive all the
+evening to Celestine, and was the last to leave the house.
+
+“At last!” thought Madame Rabourdin, as she undressed that night, “we
+have the place! Twelve thousand francs a year and perquisites, beside
+the rents of our farms at Grajeux,--nearly twenty thousand francs a
+year. It is not affluence, but at least it isn’t poverty.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT
+OFFICIALS
+
+If it were possible for literature to use the microscope of the
+Leuwenhoeks, the Malpighis, and the Raspails (an attempt once made
+by Hoffman, of Berlin), and if we could magnify and then picture the
+teredos navalis, in other words, those ship-worms which brought Holland
+within an inch of collapsing by honey-combing her dykes, we might have
+been able to give a more distinct idea of Messieurs Gigonnet, Baudoyer,
+Saillard, Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard and company, borers and
+burrowers, who proved their undermining power in the thirtieth year of
+this century.
+
+But now it is time to show another set of teredos, who burrowed and
+swarmed in the government offices where the principal scenes of our
+present study took place.
+
+In Paris nearly all these government bureaus resemble each other. Into
+whatever ministry you penetrate to ask some slight favor, or to get
+redress for a trifling wrong, you will find the same dark corridors,
+ill-lighted stairways, doors with oval panes of glass like eyes, as at
+the theatre. In the first room as you enter you will find the office
+servant; in the second, the under-clerks; the private office of the
+second head-clerk is to the right or left, and further on is that of
+the head of the bureau. As to the important personage called, under the
+Empire, head of division, then, under the Restoration, director, and now
+by the former name, head or chief of division, he lives either above or
+below the offices of his three or four different bureaus.
+
+Speaking in the administrative sense, a bureau consists of a
+man-servant, several supernumeraries (who do the work gratis for a
+certain number of years), various copying clerks, writers of bills and
+deeds, order clerks, principal clerks, second or under head-clerk,
+and head-clerk, otherwise called head or chief of the bureau. These
+denominational titles vary under some administrations; for instance, the
+order-clerks are sometimes called auditors, or again, book-keepers.
+
+Paved like the corridor, and hung with a shabby paper, the first room,
+where the servant is stationed, is furnished with a stove, a large black
+table with inkstand, pens, and paper, and benches, but no mats on which
+to wipe the public feet. The clerk’s office beyond is a large room,
+tolerably well lighted, but seldom floored with wood. Wooden floors and
+fireplaces are commonly kept sacred to heads of bureaus and divisions;
+and so are closets, wardrobes, mahogany tables, sofas and armchairs
+covered with red or green morocco, silk curtains, and other articles of
+administrative luxury. The clerk’s office contents itself with a stove,
+the pipe of which goes into the chimney, if there be a chimney. The wall
+paper is plain and all of one color, usually green or brown. The tables
+are of black wood. The private characteristics of the several clerks
+often crop out in their method of settling themselves at their
+desks,--the chilly one has a wooden footstool under his feet; the man
+with a bilious temperament has a metal mat; the lymphatic being who
+dreads draughts constructs a fortification of boxes on a screen. The
+door of the under-head-clerk’s office always stands open so that he may
+keep an eye to some extent on his subordinates.
+
+Perhaps an exact description of Monsieur de la Billardiere’s division
+will suffice to give foreigners and provincials an idea of the internal
+manners and customs of a government office; the chief features of
+which are probably much the same in the civil service of all European
+governments.
+
+In the first place, picture to yourself the man who is thus described in
+the Yearly Register:--
+
+  “Chief of Division.--Monsieur la baron Flamet de la Billardiere
+  (Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel) formerly provost-marshal of
+  the department of the Correze, gentleman in ordinary of the
+  bed-chamber, president of the college of the department of the
+  Dordogne, officer of the Legion of honor, knight of Saint Louis
+  and of the foreign orders of Christ, Isabella, Saint Wladimir,
+  etc., member of the Academy of Gers, and other learned bodies,
+  vice-president of the Society of Belles-lettres, member of the
+  Association of Saint-Joseph and of the Society of Prisons, one of
+  the mayors of Paris, etc.”
+
+The person who requires so much typographic space was at this time
+occupying an area five feet six in length by thirty-six inches in
+width in a bed, his head adorned with a cotton night-cap tied on by
+flame-colored ribbons; attended by Despleins, the King’s surgeon, and
+young doctor Bianchon, flanked by two old female relatives, surrounded
+by phials of all kinds, bandages, appliances, and various mortuary
+instruments, and watched over by the curate of Saint-Roch, who was
+advising him to think of his salvation.
+
+La Billardiere’s division occupied the upper floor of a magnificent
+mansion, in which the vast official ocean of a ministry was contained.
+A wide landing separated its two bureaus, the doors of which were duly
+labelled. The private offices and antechambers of the heads of the two
+bureaus, Monsieur Rabourdin and Monsieur Baudoyer, were below on
+the second floor, and beyond that of Monsieur Rabourdin were the
+antechamber, salon, and two offices of Monsieur de la Billardiere.
+
+On the first floor, divided in two by an entresol, were the living
+rooms and office of Monsieur Ernest de la Briere, an occult and powerful
+personage who must be described in a few words, for he well deserves
+the parenthesis. This young man held, during the whole time that this
+particular administration lasted, the position of private secretary
+to the minister. His apartment was connected by a secret door with the
+private office of his Excellency. A private secretary is to the minister
+himself what des Lupeaulx was to the ministry at large. The same
+difference existed between young La Briere and des Lupeaulx that there
+is between an aide-de-camp and a chief of staff. This ministerial
+apprentice decamps when his protector leaves office, returning sometimes
+when he returns. If the minister enjoys the royal favor when he falls,
+or still has parliamentary hopes, he takes his secretary with him into
+retirement only to bring him back on his return; otherwise he puts him
+to grass in some of the various administrative pastures,--for instance,
+in the Court of Exchequer, that wayside refuge where private secretaries
+wait for the storm to blow over. The young man is not precisely a
+government official; he is a political character, however; and sometimes
+his politics are limited to those of one man. When we think of the
+number of letters it is the private secretary’s fate to open and read,
+besides all his other avocations, it is very evident that under a
+monarchical government his services would be well paid for. A drudge
+of this kind costs ten or twenty thousand francs a year; and he enjoys,
+moreover, the opera-boxes, the social invitations, and the carriages of
+the minister. The Emperor of Russia would be thankful to be able to pay
+fifty thousand a year to one of these amiable constitutional poodles,
+so gentle, so nicely curled, so caressing, so docile, always spick and
+span,--careful watch-dogs besides, and faithful to a degree! But
+the private secretary is a product of the representative government
+hot-house; he is propagated and developed there, and there only. Under
+a monarchy you will find none but courtiers and vassals, whereas under a
+constitutional government you may be flattered, served, and adulated by
+free men. In France ministers are better off than kings or women; they
+have some one who thoroughly understands them. Perhaps, indeed, the
+private secretary is to be pitied as much as women and white paper. They
+are nonentities who are made to bear all things. They are allowed no
+talents except hidden ones, which must be employed in the service of
+their ministers. A public show of talent would ruin them. The
+private secretary is therefore an intimate friend in the gift of
+government--However, let us return to the bureaus.
+
+Three men-servants lived in peace in the Billardiere division, to wit: a
+footman for the two bureaus, another for the service of the two chiefs,
+and a third for the director of the division himself. All three were
+lodged, warmed, and clothed by the State, and wore the well-known livery
+of the State, blue coat with red pipings for undress, and broad red,
+white, and blue braid for great occasions. La Billardiere’s man had the
+air of a gentleman-usher, an innovation which gave an aspect of dignity
+to the division.
+
+Pillars of the ministry, experts in all manners and customs
+bureaucratic, well-warmed and clothed at the State’s expense, growing
+rich by reason of their few wants, these lackeys saw completely through
+the government officials, collectively and individually. They had
+no better way of amusing their idle hours than by observing these
+personages and studying their peculiarities. They knew how far to trust
+the clerks with loans of money, doing their various commissions with
+absolute discretion; they pawned and took out of pawn, bought up bills
+when due, and lent money without interest, albeit no clerk ever borrowed
+of them without returning a “gratification.” These servants without a
+master received a salary of nine hundred francs a year; new years’ gifts
+and “gratifications” brought their emoluments to twelve hundred francs,
+and they made almost as much money by serving breakfasts to the clerks
+at the office.
+
+The elder of these men, who was also the richest, waited upon the main
+body of the clerks. He was sixty years of age, with white hair cropped
+short like a brush; stout, thickset, and apoplectic about the neck, with
+a vulgar pimpled face, gray eyes, and a mouth like a furnace door;
+such was the profile portrait of Antoine, the oldest attendant in the
+ministry. He had brought his two nephews, Laurent and Gabriel, from
+Echelles in Savoie,--one to serve the heads of the bureaus, the other
+the director himself. All three came to open the offices and clean them,
+between seven and eight o’clock in the morning; at which time they read
+the newspapers and talked civil service politics from their point of
+view with the servants of other divisions, exchanging the bureaucratic
+gossip. In common with servants of modern houses who know their masters’
+private affairs thoroughly, they lived at the ministry like spiders at
+the centre of a web, where they felt the slightest jar of the fabric.
+
+On a Thursday evening, the day after the ministerial reception and
+Madame Rabourdin’s evening party, just as Antoine was trimming his beard
+and his nephews were assisting him in the antechamber of the division on
+the upper floor, they were surprised by the unexpected arrival of one of
+the clerks.
+
+“That’s Monsieur Dutocq,” said Antoine. “I know him by that pickpocket
+step of his. He is always moving round on the sly, that man. He is on
+your back before you know it. Yesterday, contrary to his usual ways, he
+outstayed the last man in the office; such a thing hasn’t happened three
+times since he has been at the ministry.”
+
+Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in the
+Rabourdin bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and bilious skin,
+grizzled hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy eyebrows meeting
+together, a crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the right shoulder
+slightly higher than the left; brown coat, black waistcoat, silk cravat,
+yellowish trousers, black woollen stockings, and shoes with
+flapping bows; thus you behold him. Idle and incapable, he hated
+Rabourdin,--naturally enough, for Rabourdin had no vice to flatter, and
+no bad or weak side on which Dutocq could make himself useful. Far too
+noble to injure a clerk, the chief was also too clear-sighted to be
+deceived by any make-believe. Dutocq kept his place therefore solely
+through Rabourdin’s generosity, and was very certain that he could
+never be promoted if the latter succeeded La Billardiere. Though he knew
+himself incapable of important work, Dutocq was well aware that in
+a government office incapacity was no hindrance to advancement; La
+Billardiere’s own appointment over the head of so capable a man as
+Rabourdin had been a striking and fatal example of this. Wickedness
+combined with self-interest works with a power equivalent to that
+of intellect; evilly disposed and wholly self-interested, Dutocq had
+endeavoured to strengthen his position by becoming a spy in all the
+offices. After 1816 he assumed a marked religious tone, foreseeing
+the favor which the fools of those days would bestow on those they
+indiscriminately called Jesuits. Belonging to that fraternity in spirit,
+though not admitted to its rites, Dutocq went from bureau to bureau,
+sounded consciences by recounting immoral jests, and then reported and
+paraphrased results to des Lupeaulx; the latter thus learned all the
+trivial events of the ministry, and often surprised the minister by his
+consummate knowledge of what was going on. He tolerated Dutocq under the
+idea that circumstances might some day make him useful, were it only
+to get him or some distinguished friend of his out of a scrape by a
+disgraceful marriage. The two understood each other well. Dutocq had
+succeeded Monsieur Poiret the elder, who had retired in 1814, and now
+lived in the pension Vanquer in the Latin quarter. Dutocq himself
+lived in a pension in the rue de Beaune, and spent his evenings in the
+Palais-Royal, sometimes going to the theatre, thanks to du Bruel, who
+gave him an author’s ticket about once a week. And now, a word on du
+Bruel.
+
+Though Sebastien did his work at the office for the small compensation
+we have mentioned, du Bruel was in the habit of coming there to
+advertise the fact that he was the under-head-clerk and to draw
+his salary. His real work was that of dramatic critic to a leading
+ministerial journal, in which he also wrote articles inspired by
+the ministers,--a very well understood, clearly defined, and quite
+unassailable position. Du Bruel was not lacking in those diplomatic
+little tricks which go so far to conciliate general good-will. He sent
+Madame Rabourdin an opera-box for a first representation, took her
+there in a carriage and brought her back,--an attention which evidently
+pleased her. Rabourdin, who was never exacting with his subordinates
+allowed du Bruel to go off to rehearsals, come to the office at his
+own hours, and work at his vaudevilles when there. Monsieur le Duc de
+Chaulieu, the minister, knew that du Bruel was writing a novel which was
+to be dedicated to himself. Dressed with the careless ease of a theatre
+man, du Bruel wore, in the morning, trousers strapped under his feet,
+shoes with gaiters, a waistcoat evidently vamped over, an olive surtout,
+and a black cravat. At night he played the gentleman in elegant clothes.
+He lived, for good reasons, in the same house as Florine, an actress for
+whom he wrote plays. Du Bruel, or to give him his pen name, Cursy, was
+working just now at a piece in five acts for the Francais. Sebastien
+was devoted to the author,--who occasionally gave him tickets to the
+pit,--and applauded his pieces at the parts which du Bruel told him were
+of doubtful interest, with all the faith and enthusiasm of his years. In
+fact, the youth looked upon the playwright as a great author, and it was
+to Sebastien that du Bruel said, the day after a first representation
+of a vaudeville produced, like all vaudevilles, by three collaborators,
+“The audience preferred the scenes written by two.”
+
+“Why don’t you write alone?” asked Sebastien naively.
+
+There were good reasons why du Bruel did not write alone. He was the
+third of an author. A dramatic writer, as few people know, is made up
+of three individuals; first, the man with brains who invents the subject
+and maps out the structure, or scenario, of the vaudeville; second, the
+plodder, who works the piece into shape; and third, the toucher-up, who
+sets the songs to music, arranges the chorus and concerted pieces and
+fits them into their right place, and finally writes the puffs and
+advertisements. Du Bruel was a plodder; at the office he read the newest
+books, extracted their wit, and laid it by for use in his dialogues. He
+was liked by his collaborators on account of his carefulness; the man
+with brains, sure of being understood, could cross his arms and feel
+that his ideas would be well rendered. The clerks in the office liked
+their companion well enough to attend a first performance of his plays
+in a body and applaud them, for he really deserved the title of a
+good fellow. His hand went readily to his pocket; ices and punch were
+bestowed without prodding, and he loaned fifty francs without asking
+them back. He owned a country-house at Aulnay, laid by his money, and
+had, besides the four thousand five hundred francs of his salary under
+government, twelve hundred francs pension from the civil list, and
+eight hundred from the three hundred thousand francs fund voted by the
+Chambers for encouragement of the Arts. Add to these diverse emoluments
+nine thousand francs earned by his quarters, thirds, and halves of plays
+in three different theatres, and you will readily understand that such
+a man must be physically round, fat, and comfortable, with the face of
+a worthy capitalist. As to morals, he was the lover and the beloved
+of Tullia and felt himself preferred in heart to the brilliant Duc de
+Rhetore, the lover in chief.
+
+Dutocq had seen with great uneasiness what he called the liaison of des
+Lupeaulx with Madame Rabourdin, and his silent wrath on the subject
+was accumulating. He had too prying an eye not to have guessed that
+Rabourdin was engaged in some great work outside of his official labors,
+and he was provoked to feel that he knew nothing about it, whereas
+that little Sebastien was, wholly or in part, in the secret. Dutocq was
+intimate with Godard, under-head-clerk to Baudoyer, and the high esteem
+in which Dutocq held Baudoyer was the original cause of his acquaintance
+with Godard; not that Dutocq was sincere even in this; but by praising
+Baudoyer and saying nothing of Rabourdin he satisfied his hatred after
+the fashion of little minds.
+
+Joseph Godard, a cousin of Mitral on the mother’s side, made pretension
+to the hand of Mademoiselle Baudoyer, not perceiving that her mother was
+laying siege to Falliex as a son-in-law. He brought little gifts to the
+young lady, artificial flowers, bonbons on New-Year’s day and pretty
+boxes for her birthday. Twenty-six years of age, a worker working
+without purpose, steady as a girl, monotonous and apathetic, holding
+cafes, cigars, and horsemanship in detestation, going to bed regularly
+at ten o’clock and rising at seven, gifted with some social talents,
+such as playing quadrille music on the flute, which first brought him
+into favor with the Saillards and the Baudoyers. He was moreover a fifer
+in the National Guard,--to escape his turn of sitting up all night in a
+barrack-room. Godard was devoted more especially to natural history. He
+made collections of shells and minerals, knew how to stuff birds, kept
+a mass of curiosities bought for nothing in his bedroom; took
+possession of phials and empty perfume bottles for his specimens; pinned
+butterflies and beetles under glass, hung Chinese parasols on the
+walls, together with dried fishskins. He lived with his sister, an
+artificial-flower maker, in the due de Richelieu. Though much admired
+by mammas this model young man was looked down upon by his sister’s
+shop-girls, who had tried to inveigle him. Slim and lean, of medium
+height, with dark circles round his eyes, Joseph Godard took little care
+of his person; his clothes were ill-cut, his trousers bagged, he wore
+white stockings at all seasons of the year, a hat with a narrow brim and
+laced shoes. He was always complaining of his digestion. His principal
+vice was a mania for proposing rural parties during the summer
+season, excursions to Montmorency, picnics on the grass, and visits to
+creameries on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. For the last six months
+Dutocq had taken to visiting Mademoiselle Godard from time to time, with
+certain views of his own, hoping to discover in her establishment some
+female treasure.
+
+Thus Baudoyer had a pair of henchmen in Dutocq and Godard. Monsieur
+Saillard, too innocent to judge rightly of Dutocq, was in the habit of
+paying him frequent little visits at the office. Young La Billardiere,
+the director’s son, placed as supernumerary with Baudoyer, made another
+member of the clique. The clever heads in the offices laughed much at
+this alliance of incapables. Bixiou named Baudoyer, Godard, and Dutocq
+a “Trinity without the Spirit,” and little La Billardiere the “Pascal
+Lamb.”
+
+“You are early this morning,” said Antoine to Dutocq, laughing.
+
+“So are you, Antoine,” answered Dutocq; “you see, the newspapers do come
+earlier than you let us have them at the office.”
+
+“They did to-day, by chance,” replied Antoine, not disconcerted; “they
+never come two days together at the same hour.”
+
+The two nephews looked at each other as if to say, in admiration of
+their uncle, “What cheek he has!”
+
+“Though I make two sous by all his breakfasts,” muttered Antoine, as he
+heard Monsieur Dutocq close the office door, “I’d give them up to get
+that man out of our division.”
+
+“Ah, Monsieur Sebastien, you are not the first here to-day,” said
+Antoine, a quarter of an hour later, to the supernumerary.
+
+“Who is here?” asked the poor lad, turning pale.
+
+“Monsieur Dutocq,” answered Laurent.
+
+Virgin natures have, beyond all others, the inexplicable gift of
+second-sight, the reason of which lies perhaps in the purity of their
+nervous systems, which are, as it were, brand-new. Sebastien had long
+guessed Dutocq’s hatred to his revered Rabourdin. So that when Laurent
+uttered his name a dreadful presentiment took possession of the lad’s
+mind, and crying out, “I feared it!” he flew like an arrow into the
+corridor.
+
+“There is going to be a row in the division,” said Antoine, shaking his
+white head as he put on his livery. “It is very certain that Monsieur le
+baron is off to his account. Yes, Madame Gruget, the nurse, told me he
+couldn’t live through the day. What a stir there’ll be! oh! won’t there!
+Go along, you fellows, and see if the stoves are drawing properly.
+Heavens and earth! our world is coming down about our ears.”
+
+“That poor young one,” said Laurent, “had a sort of sunstroke when he
+heard that Jesuit of a Dutocq had got here before him.”
+
+“I have told him a dozen times,--for after all one ought to tell the
+truth to an honest clerk, and what I call an honest clerk is one like
+that little fellow who gives us ‘recta’ his ten francs on New-Year’s
+day,--I have said to him again and again: The more you work the more
+they’ll make you work, and they won’t promote you. He doesn’t listen to
+me; he tires himself out staying here till five o’clock, an hour after
+all the others have gone. Folly! he’ll never get on that way! The proof
+is that not a word has been said about giving him an appointment, though
+he has been here two years. It’s a shame! it makes my blood boil.”
+
+“Monsieur Rabourdin is very fond of Monsieur Sebastien,” said Laurent.
+
+“But Monsieur Rabourdin isn’t a minister,” retorted Antoine; “it will
+be a hot day when that happens, and the hens will have teeth; he is
+too--but mum! When I think that I carry salaries to those humbugs who
+stay away and do as they please, while that poor little La Roche works
+himself to death, I ask myself if God ever thinks of the civil service.
+And what do they give you, these pets of Monsieur le marechal and
+Monsieur le duc? ‘Thank you, my dear Antoine, thank you,’ with a
+gracious nod! Pack of sluggards! go to work, or you’ll bring another
+revolution about your ears. Didn’t see such goings-on under Monsieur
+Robert Lindet. I know, for I served my apprenticeship under Robert
+Lindet. The clerks had to work in his day! You ought to have seen how
+they scratched paper here till midnight; why, the stoves went out
+and nobody noticed it. It was all because the guillotine was there!
+now-a-days they only mark ‘em when they come in late!”
+
+“Uncle Antoine,” said Gabriel, “as you are so talkative this morning,
+just tell us what you think a clerk really ought to be.”
+
+“A government clerk,” replied Antoine, gravely, “is a man who sits in a
+government office and writes. But there, there, what am I talking about?
+Without the clerks, where should we be, I’d like to know? Go along
+and look after your stoves and mind you never say harm of a government
+clerk, you fellows. Gabriel, the stove in the large office draws like
+the devil; you must turn the damper.”
+
+Antoine stationed himself at a corner of the landing whence he could see
+all the officials as they entered the porte-cochere; he knew every one
+at the ministry, and watched their behavior, observing narrowly the
+contrasts in their dress and appearance.
+
+The first to arrive after Sebastien was a clerk of deeds in Rabourdin’s
+office named Phellion, a respectable family-man. To the influence of his
+chief he owed a half-scholarship for each of his two sons in the College
+Henri IV.; while his daughter was being educated gratis at a boarding
+school where his wife gave music lessons and he himself a course of
+history and one of geography in the evenings. He was about forty-five
+years of age, sergeant-major of his company in the National Guard, very
+compassionate in feeling and words, but wholly unable to give away
+a penny. Proud of his post, however, and satisfied with his lot, he
+applied himself faithfully to serve the government, believed he was
+useful to his country, and boasted of his indifference to politics,
+knowing none but those of the men in power. Monsieur Rabourdin pleased
+him highly whenever he asked him to stay half an hour longer to finish
+a piece of work. On such occasions he would say, when he reached home,
+“Public affairs detained me; when a man belongs to the government he is
+no longer master of himself.” He compiled books of questions and answers
+on various studies for the use of young ladies in boarding-schools.
+These little “solid treatises,” as he called them, were sold at
+the University library under the name of “Historical and Geographic
+Catechisms.” Feeling himself in duty bound to offer a copy of each
+volume, bound in red morocco, to Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in
+full dress to present them,--breeches and silk stockings, and shoes
+with gold buckles. Monsieur Phellion received his friends on Thursday
+evenings, on which occasions the company played bouillote, at five sous
+a game, and were regaled with cakes and beer. He had never yet dared
+to invite Monsieur Rabourdin to honor him with his presence, though he
+would have regarded such an event as the most distinguished of his life.
+He said if he could leave one of his sons following in the steps of
+Monsieur Rabourdin he should die the happiest father in the world.
+
+One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of Paris,
+which he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre,
+Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great
+writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the country
+around Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into a government office
+and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique. He often said to the elder,
+“When you have the honor to be a government clerk”; though he suspected
+him of a preference for the exact sciences and did his best to repress
+it, mentally resolved to abandon the lad to his own devices if he
+persisted. When Rabourdin sent for him to come down and receive
+instructions about some particular piece of work, Phellion gave all his
+mind to it,--listening to every word the chief said, as a dilettante
+listens to an air at the Opera. Silent in the office, with his feet in
+the air resting on a wooden desk, and never moving them, he studied his
+task conscientiously. His official letters were written with the utmost
+gravity, and transmitted the commands of the minister in solemn phrases.
+Monsieur Phellion’s face was that of a pensive ram, with little color
+and pitted by the small-pox; the lips were thick and the lower one
+pendent; the eyes light-blue, and his figure above the common height.
+Neat and clean as a master of history and geography in a young ladies’
+school ought to be, he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black
+cashmere waistcoat, left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered
+by his daughter, a diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat,
+and blue trousers. In winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with
+three capes, and carried a loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the
+profound solitude of the quarter in which he lived. He had given up
+taking snuff, and referred to this reform as a striking example of the
+empire a man could exercise over himself. Monsieur Phellion came slowly
+up the stairs, for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an
+“adipose chest.” He saluted Antoine with dignity.
+
+The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange contrast
+to the virtuous Phellion. Vimeux was a young man of twenty-five, with
+a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and graceful, with a
+romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as black as jet, fine
+teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so carefully trimmed
+that he seemed to have made it the business and occupation of his life.
+Vimeux had such aptitude for work that he despatched it much quicker
+than any of the other clerks. “He has a gift, that young man!” Phellion
+said of him when he saw him cross his legs and have nothing to do for
+the rest of the day, having got through his appointed task; “and see
+what a little dandy he is!” Vimeux breakfasted on a roll and a glass
+of water, dined for twenty sous at Katcomb’s, and lodged in a furnished
+room, for which he paid twelve francs a month. His happiness, his sole
+pleasure in life, was dress. He ruined himself in miraculous waistcoats,
+in trousers that were tight, half-tight, pleated, or embroidered; in
+superfine boots, well-made coats which outlined his elegant figure; in
+bewitching collars, spotless gloves, and immaculate hats. A ring with a
+coat of arms adorned his hand, outside his glove, from which dangled a
+handsome cane; with these accessories he endeavoured to assume the air
+and manner of a wealthy young man. After the office closed he appeared
+in the great walk of the Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as
+though he were a millionaire who had just dined. Always on the
+lookout for a woman,--an Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or
+a widow,--who might fall in love with him, he practised the art of
+twirling his cane and of flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told
+him was American. He smiled to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks
+under his boots, but he had his hair curled every day. Vimeux was
+prepared, in accordance with fixed principles, to marry a hunch-back
+with six thousand a year, or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or
+an Englishwoman for half that sum. Phellion, who delighted in his
+neat hand-writing, and was full of compassion for the fellow, read him
+lectures on the duty of giving lessons in penmanship,--an honorable
+career, he said, which would ameliorate existence and even render
+it agreeable; he promised him a situation in a young ladies’
+boarding-school. But Vimeux’s head was so full of his own idea that
+no human being could prevent him from having faith in his star. He
+continued to lay himself out, like a salmon at a fishmonger’s, in spite
+of his empty stomach and the fact that he had fruitlessly exhibited his
+enormous moustache and his fine clothes for over three years. As he owed
+Antoine more than thirty francs for his breakfasts, he lowered his eyes
+every time he passed him; and yet he never failed at midday to ask the
+man to buy him a roll.
+
+After trying to get a few reasonable ideas into this foolish head,
+Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe (his
+family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and lived
+entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-whip.
+Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in the
+spirit of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was really a
+kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one but himself.
+A standing joke in the two bureaus was the question whether he wore
+corsets, and bets depended on it. Vimeux was originally appointed to
+Baudoyer’s bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself transferred to
+Rabourdin’s, on account of Baudoyer’s extreme severity in relation to
+what were called “the English,”--a name given by the government clerks
+to their creditors. “English day” means the day on which the government
+offices are thrown open to the public. Certain then of finding their
+delinquent debtors, the creditors swarm in and torment them, asking
+when they intend to pay, and threatening to attach their salaries. The
+implacable Baudoyer compelled the clerks to remain at their desks and
+endure this torture. “It was their place not to make debts,” he said;
+and he considered his severity as a duty which he owed to the public
+weal. Rabourdin, on the contrary, protected the clerks against their
+creditors, and turned the latter away, saying that the government
+bureaus were open for public business, not private. Much ridicule
+pursued Vimeux in both bureaus when the clank of his spurs resounded in
+the corridors and on the staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou,
+sent round a paper, headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard
+horse, asking for subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur
+Baudoyer was down for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance,
+and each of the clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself,
+good-natured fellow that he was, subscribed under the name of “Miss
+Fairfax.”
+
+Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to
+live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to
+masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though it
+often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners, or
+old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with their
+handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance illustrated with
+stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem to answer their purpose.
+
+Bixiou (pronounce it Bisiou) was a draughtsman, who ridiculed Dutocq
+as readily as he did Rabourdin, whom he nicknamed “the virtuous woman.”
+ Without doubt the cleverest man in the division or even in the ministry
+(but clever after the fashion of a monkey, without aim or sequence),
+Bixiou was so essentially useful to Baudoyer and Godard that they upheld
+and protected him in spite of his misconduct; for he did their work when
+they were incapable of doing it for themselves. Bixiou wanted either
+Godard’s or du Bruel’s place as under-head-clerk, but his conduct
+interfered with his promotion. Sometimes he sneered at the public
+service; this was usually after he had made some happy hit, such as the
+publication of portraits in the famous Fualdes case (for which he drew
+faces hap-hazard), or his sketch of the debate on the Castaing affair.
+At other times, when possessed with a desire to get on, he really
+applied himself to work, though he would soon leave off to write a
+vaudeville, which was never finished. A thorough egoist, a spendthrift
+and a miser in one,--that is to say, spending his money solely on
+himself,--sharp, aggressive, and indiscreet, he did mischief for
+mischief’s sake; above all, he attacked the weak, respected nothing and
+believed in nothing, neither in France, nor in God, nor in art, nor
+in the Greeks, nor in the Turks, nor in the monarchy,--insulting and
+disparaging everything that he could not comprehend. He was the first
+to paint a black cap on Charles X.’s head on the five-franc coins. He
+mimicked Dr. Gall when lecturing, till he made the most starched of
+diplomatists burst their buttons. Famous for his practical jokes, he
+varied them with such elaborate care that he always obtained a victim.
+His great secret in this was the power of guessing the inmost wishes of
+others; he knew the way to many a castle in the air, to the dreams about
+which a man may be fooled because he wants to be; and he made such men
+sit to him for hours.
+
+Thus it happened that this close observer, who could display unrivalled
+tact in developing a joke or driving home a sarcasm, was unable to use
+the same power to make men further his fortunes and promote him. The
+person he most liked to annoy was young La Billardiere, his nightmare,
+his detestation, whom he was nevertheless constantly wheedling so as
+the better to torment him on his weakest side. He wrote him love letters
+signed “Comtesse de M----” or “Marquise de B--“; took him to the Opera
+on gala days and presented him to some grisette under the clock, after
+calling everybody’s attention to the young fool. He allied himself with
+Dutocq (whom he regarded as a solemn juggler) in his hatred to Rabourdin
+and his praise of Baudoyer, and did his best to support him. Jean-Jaques
+Bixiou was the grandson of a Parisian grocer. His father, who died
+a colonel, left him to the care of his grandmother, who married her
+head-clerk, named Descoings, after the death of her first husband, and
+died in 1822. Finding himself without prospects on leaving college, he
+attempted painting, but in spite of his intimacy with Joseph Bridau,
+his life-long friend, he abandoned art to take up caricature, vignette
+designing, and drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the
+name of “illustration.” The influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and
+de Rhetore, whom he knew in the society of actresses, procured him his
+employment under government in 1819. On good terms with des Lupeaulx,
+with whom in society he stood on an equality, and intimate with du
+Bruel, he was a living proof of Rabourdin’s theory as to the steady
+deterioration of the administrative hierarchy in Paris through the
+personal importance which a government official may acquire outside of
+a government office. Short in stature but well-formed, with a delicate
+face remarkable for its vague likeness to Napoleon’s, thin lips, a
+straight chin, chestnut whiskers, twenty-seven years old, fair-skinned,
+with a piercing voice and sparkling eye,--such was Bixiou; a man, all
+sense and all wit, who abandoned himself to a mad pursuit of pleasure of
+every description, which threw him into a constant round of dissipation.
+Hunter of grisettes, smoker, jester, diner-out and frequenter of
+supper-parties, always tuned to the highest pitch, shining equally in
+the greenroom and at the balls given among the grisettes of the Allee
+des Veuves, he was just as surprisingly entertaining at table as at a
+picnic, as gay and lively at midnight on the streets as in the morning
+when he jumped out of bed, and yet at heart gloomy and melancholy, like
+most of the great comic players.
+
+Launched into the world of actors and actresses, writers, artists, and
+certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre
+without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature and
+really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in life
+like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord would
+break. The liveliness of his wit and the prodigal flow of his ideas
+made him acceptable to all persons who took pleasure in the lights of
+intellect; but none of his friends liked him. Incapable of checking a
+witty saying, he would scarify his two neighbors before a dinner was
+half over. In spite of his skin-deep gayety, a secret dissatisfaction
+with his social position could be detected in his speech; he aspired
+to something better, but the fatal demon hiding in his wit hindered
+him from acquiring the gravity which imposes on fools. He lived on the
+second floor of a house in the rue de Ponthieu, where he had three rooms
+delivered over to the untidiness of a bachelor’s establishment, in fact,
+a regular bivouac. He often talked of leaving France and seeking his
+fortune in America. No wizard could foretell the future of this
+young man in whom all talents were incomplete; who was incapable of
+perseverance, intoxicated with pleasure, and who acted on the belief
+that the world ended on the morrow.
+
+In the matter of dress Bixiou had the merit of never being ridiculous;
+he was perhaps the only official of the ministry whose dress did not
+lead outsiders to say, “That man is a government clerk!” He wore elegant
+boots with black trousers strapped under them, a fancy waistcoat,
+a becoming blue coat, collars that were the never-ending gift of
+grisettes, one of Bandoni’s hats, and a pair of dark-colored kid gloves.
+His walk and bearing, cavalier and simple both, were not without grace.
+He knew all this, and when des Lupeaulx summoned him for a piece
+of impertinence said and done about Monsieur de la Billardiere and
+threatened him with dismissal, Bixiou replied, “You will take me back
+because my clothes do credit to the ministry”; and des Lupeaulx,
+unable to keep from laughing, let the matter pass. The most harmless of
+Bixiou’s jokes perpetrated among the clerks was the one he played off
+upon Godard, presenting him with a butterfly just brought from China,
+which the worthy man keeps in his collection and exhibits to this day,
+blissfully unconscious that it is only painted paper. Bixiou had the
+patience to work up the little masterpiece for the sole purpose of
+hoaxing his superior.
+
+The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer’s bureau held the
+martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a salary of
+fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard. Minard had
+married for love the daughter of a porter, an artificial-flower maker
+employed by Mademoiselle Godard. Zelie Lorrain, a pupil, in the first
+place, of the Conservatoire, then by turns a danseuse, a singer, and an
+actress, had thought of doing as so many of the working-women do;
+but the fear of consequences kept her from vice. She was floating
+undecidedly along, when Minard appeared upon the scene with a definite
+proposal of marriage. Zelie earned five hundred francs a year, Minard
+had fifteen hundred. Believing that they could live on two thousand,
+they married without settlements, and started with the utmost economy.
+They went to live, like dove-turtles, near the barriere de Courcelles,
+in a little apartment at three hundred francs a year, with white cotton
+curtains to the windows, a Scotch paper costing fifteen sous a roll on
+the walls, brick floors well polished, walnut furniture in the parlor,
+and a tiny kitchen that was very clean. Zelie nursed her children
+herself when they came, cooked, made her flowers, and kept the
+house. There was something very touching in this happy and laborious
+mediocrity. Feeling that Minard truly loved her, Zelie loved him. Love
+begets love,--it is the abyssus abyssum of the Bible. The poor man
+left his bed in the morning before his wife was up, that he might fetch
+provisions. He carried the flowers she had finished, on his way to the
+bureau, and bought her materials on his way back; then, while waiting
+for dinner, he stamped out her leaves, trimmed the twigs, or rubbed
+her colors. Small, slim, and wiry, with crisp red hair, eyes of a light
+yellow, a skin of dazzling fairness, though blotched with red, the man
+had a sturdy courage that made no show. He knew the science of writing
+quite as well as Vimeux. At the office he kept in the background,
+doing his allotted task with the collected air of a man who thinks and
+suffers. His white eyelashes and lack of eyebrows induced the relentless
+Bixiou to name him “the white rabbit.” Minard--the Rabourdin of a
+lower sphere--was filled with the desire of placing his Zelie in better
+circumstances, and his mind searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in
+hopes of finding an idea, of making some discovery or some improvement
+which would bring him a rapid fortune. His apparent dulness was really
+caused by the continual tension of his mind; he went over the history
+of Cephalic Oils and the Paste of Sultans, lucifer matches and
+portable gas, jointed sockets for hydrostatic lamps,--in short, all the
+infinitely little inventions of material civilization which pay so well.
+He bore Bixiou’s jests as a busy man bears the buzzing of an insect; he
+was not even annoyed by them. In spite of his cleverness, Bixiou never
+perceived the profound contempt which Minard felt for him. Minard never
+dreamed of quarrelling, however,--regarding it as a loss of time. After
+a while his composure tired out his tormentor. He always breakfasted
+with his wife, and ate nothing at the office. Once a month he took Zelie
+to the theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or Bixiou; for Bixiou
+was capable of anything, even of doing a kindness. Monsieur and Madame
+Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year’s day. Those who saw
+them often asked how it was that a woman could keep her husband in good
+clothes, wear a Leghorn bonnet with flowers, embroidered muslin dresses,
+silk mantles, prunella boots, handsome fichus, a Chinese parasol,
+and drive home in a hackney-coach, and yet be virtuous; while Madame
+Colleville and other “ladies” of her kind could scarcely make ends meet,
+though they had double Madame Minard’s means.
+
+In the two bureaus were two clerks so devoted to each other that their
+friendship became the butt of all the rest. He of the bureau Baudoyer,
+named Colleville, was chief-clerk, and would have been head of the
+bureau long before if the Restoration had never happened. His wife was
+as clever in her way as Madame Rabourdin in hers. Colleville, who was
+son of a first violin at the opera, fell in love with the daughter of a
+celebrated danseuse. Flavie Minoret, one of those capable and charming
+Parisian women who know how to make their husbands happy and yet
+preserve their own liberty, made the Colleville home a rendezvous for
+all our best artists and orators. Colleville’s humble position under
+government was forgotten there. Flavie’s conduct gave such food for
+gossip, however, that Madame Rabourdin had declined all her invitations.
+The friend in Rabourdin’s bureau to whom Colleville was so attached was
+named Thuillier. All who knew one knew the other. Thuillier, called “the
+handsome Thuillier,” an ex-Lothario, led as idle a life as Colleville
+led a busy one. Colleville, government official in the mornings and
+first clarionet at the Opera-Comique at night, worked hard to maintain
+his family, though he was not without influential friends. He was looked
+upon as a very shrewd man,--all the more, perhaps, because he hid his
+ambitions under a show of indifference. Apparently content with his lot
+and liking work, he found every one, even the chiefs, ready to protect
+his brave career. During the last few weeks Madame Colleville had made
+an evident change in the household, and seemed to be taking to piety.
+This gave rise to a vague report in the bureaus that she thought of
+securing some more powerful influence than that of Francois Keller, the
+famous orator, who had been one of her chief adorers, but who, so far,
+had failed to obtain a better place for her husband. Flavie had, about
+this time--and it was one of her mistakes--turned for help to des
+Lupeaulx.
+
+Colleville had a passion for reading the horoscopes of famous men in
+the anagram of their names. He passed whole months in decomposing
+and recomposing words and fitting them to new meanings. “Un Corse la
+finira,” found within the words, “Revolution Francaise”; “Eh, c’est
+large nez,” in “Charles Genest,” an abbe at the court of Louis XIV.,
+whose huge nose is recorded by Saint-Simon as the delight of the Duc de
+Bourgogne (the exigencies of this last anagram required the substitution
+of a z for an s),--were a never-ending marvel to Colleville. Raising
+the anagram to the height of a science, he declared that the destiny of
+every man was written in the words or phrase given by the transposition
+of the letters of his names and titles; and his patriotism struggled
+hard to suppress the fact--signal evidence for his theory--that in
+Horatio Nelson, “honor est a Nilo.” Ever since the accession of Charles
+X., he had bestowed much thought on the king’s anagram. Thuillier, who
+was fond of making puns, declared that an anagram was nothing more than
+a pun on letters. The sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound
+almost indissolubly to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a
+difficult problem to the mind of an observer. The clerks in the offices
+explained it by saying, “Thuillier is rich, and the Colleville household
+costly.” This friendship, however, consolidated by time, was based on
+feelings and on facts which naturally explained it; an account of which
+may be found elsewhere (see “Les Petits Bourgeois”). We may remark in
+passing that though Madame Colleville was well known in the bureaus, the
+existence of Madame Thuillier was almost unknown there. Colleville,
+an active man, burdened with a family of children, was fat, round, and
+jolly, whereas Thuillier, “the beau of the Empire” without apparent
+anxieties and always at leisure, was slender and thin, with a livid face
+and a melancholy air. “We never know,” said Rabourdin, speaking of the
+two men, “whether our friendships are born of likeness or of contrast.”
+
+Unlike these Siamese twins, two other clerks, Chazelle and Paulmier,
+were forever squabbling. One smoked, the other took snuff, and the
+merits of their respective use of tobacco were the origin of ceaseless
+disputes. Chazelle’s home, which was tyrannized over by a wife,
+furnished a subject of endless ridicule to Paulmier; whereas Paulmier,
+a bachelor, often half-starved like Vimeux, with ragged clothes and
+half-concealed penury was a fruitful source of ridicule to Chazelle.
+Both were beginning to show a protuberant stomach; Chazelle’s, which was
+round and projecting, had the impertinence, so Bixiou said, to enter the
+room first; Paulmier’s corporation spread to right and left. A favorite
+amusement with Bixiou was to measure them quarterly. The two clerks, by
+dint of quarrelling over the details of their lives, and washing much of
+their dirty linen at the office, had obtained the disrepute which they
+merited. “Do you take me for a Chazelle?” was a frequent saying that
+served to end many an annoying discussion.
+
+Monsieur Poiret junior, called “junior” to distinguish him from his
+brother Monsieur Poiret senior (now living in the Maison Vanquer, where
+Poiret junior sometimes dined, intending to end his days in the same
+retreat), had spent thirty years in the Civil Service. Nature herself is
+not so fixed and unvarying in her evolutions as was Poiret junior in all
+the acts of his daily life; he always laid his things in precisely the
+same place, put his pen in the same rack, sat down in his seat at the
+same hour, warmed himself at the stove at the same moment of the day.
+His sole vanity consisted in wearing an infallible watch, timed daily at
+the Hotel de Ville as he passed it on his way to the office. From six
+to eight o’clock in the morning he kept the books of a large shop in the
+rue Saint-Antoine, and from six to eight o’clock in the evening those
+of the Maison Camusot, in the rue des Bourdonnais. He thus earned three
+thousand francs a year, counting his salary from the government. In a
+few months his term of service would be up, when he would retire on a
+pension; he therefore showed the utmost indifference to the political
+intrigues of the bureaus. Like his elder brother, to whom retirement
+from active service had proved a fatal blow, he would probably grow an
+old man when he could no longer come from his home to the ministry, sit
+in the same chair and copy a certain number of pages. Poiret’s eyes were
+dim, his glance weak and lifeless, his skin discolored and wrinkled,
+gray in tone and speckled with bluish dots; his nose flat, his lips
+drawn inward to the mouth, where a few defective teeth still lingered.
+His gray hair, flattened to the head by the pressure of his hat, gave
+him the look of an ecclesiastic,--a resemblance he would scarcely have
+liked, for he hated priests and clergy, though he could give no reasons
+for his anti-religious views. This antipathy, however, did not prevent
+him from being extremely attached to whatever administration happened to
+be in power. He never buttoned his old green coat, even on the coldest
+days, and he always wore shoes with ties, and black trousers.
+
+No human life was ever lived so thoroughly by rule. Poiret kept all
+his receipted bills, even the most trifling, and all his account-books,
+wrapped in old shirts and put away according to their respective years
+from the time of his entrance at the ministry. Rough copies of his
+letters were dated and put away in a box, ticketed “My Correspondence.”
+ He dined at the same restaurant (the Sucking Calf in the place du
+Chatelet), and sat in the same place, which the waiters kept for him. He
+never gave five minutes more time to the shop in the rue Saint Antoine
+than justly belonged to it, and at half-past eight precisely he reached
+the Cafe David, where he breakfasted and remained till eleven. There
+he listened to political discussions, his arms crossed on his cane, his
+chin in his right hand, never saying a word. The dame du comptoir, the
+only woman to whom he ever spoke with pleasure, was the sole confidant
+of the little events of his life, for his seat was close to her counter.
+He played dominoes, the only game he was capable of understanding. When
+his partners did not happen to be present, he usually went to sleep
+with his back against the wainscot, holding a newspaper in his hand, the
+wooden file resting on the marble of his table. He was interested in the
+buildings going up in Paris, and spent his Sundays in walking about to
+examine them. He was often heard to say, “I saw the Louvre emerge from
+its rubbish; I saw the birth of the place du Chatelet, the quai aux
+Fleurs and the Markets.” He and his brother, both born at Troyes, were
+sent in youth to serve their apprenticeship in a government office.
+Their mother made herself notorious by misconduct, and the two brothers
+had the grief of hearing of her death in the hospital at Troyes,
+although they had frequently sent money for her support. This event led
+them both not only to abjure marriage, but to feel a horror of children;
+ill at ease with them, they feared them as others fear madmen, and
+watched them with haggard eyes.
+
+Since the day when he first came to Paris Poiret junior had never gone
+outside the city. He began at that time to keep a journal of his life,
+in which he noted down all the striking events of his day. Du Bruel
+told him that Lord Byron did the same thing. This likeness filled
+Poiret junior with delight, and led him to buy the works of Lord Byron,
+translated by Chastopalli, of which he did not understand a word. At the
+office he was often seen in a melancholy attitude, as though absorbed in
+thought, when in fact he was thinking of nothing at all. He did not know
+a single person in the house where he lived, and always carried the keys
+of his apartment about with him. On New-Year’s day he went round and
+left his own cards on all the clerks of the division. Bixiou took it
+into his head on one of the hottest of dog-days to put a layer of lard
+under the lining of a certain old hat which Poiret junior (he was, by
+the bye, fifty-two years old) had worn for the last nine years. Bixiou,
+who had never seen any other hat on Poiret’s head, dreamed of it
+and declared he tasted it in his food; he therefore resolved, in the
+interests of his digestion, to relieve the bureau of the sight of that
+amorphous old hat. Poiret junior left the office regularly at four
+o’clock. As he walked along, the sun’s rays reflected from the
+pavements and walls produced a tropical heat; he felt that his head was
+inundated,--he, who never perspired! Feeling that he was ill, or on the
+point of being so, instead of going as usual to the Sucking Calf he went
+home, drew out from his desk the journal of his life, and recorded the
+fact in the following manner:--
+
+  “To-day, July 3, 1823, overtaken by extraordinary perspiration, a
+  sign, perhaps, of the sweating-sickness, a malady which prevails
+  in Champagne. I am about to consult Doctor Haudry. The disease
+  first appeared as I reached the highest part of the quai des
+  Ecoles.”
+
+Suddenly, having taken off his hat, he became aware that the mysterious
+sweat had some cause independent of his own person. He wiped his face,
+examined the hat, and could find nothing, for he did not venture to take
+out the lining. All this he noted in his journal:--
+
+  “Carried my hat to the Sieur Tournan, hat-maker in the rue
+  Saint-Martin, for the reason that I suspect some unknown cause for
+  this perspiration, which, in that case, might not be perspiration,
+  but, possibly, the effect of something lately added, or formerly
+  done, to my hat.”
+
+Monsieur Tournan at once informed his customer of the presence of a
+greasy substance, obtained by the trying-out of the fat of a pig or sow.
+The next day Poiret appeared at the office with another hat, lent by
+Monsieur Tournan while a new one was making; but he did not sleep that
+night until he had added the following sentence to the preceding entries
+in his journal: “It is asserted that my hat contained lard, the fat of a
+pig.”
+
+This inexplicable fact occupied the intellect of Poiret junior for the
+space of two weeks; and he never knew how the phenomenon was produced.
+The clerks told him tales of showers of frogs, and other dog-day
+wonders, also the startling fact that an imprint of the head of Napoleon
+had been found in the root of a young elm, with other eccentricities
+of natural history. Vimeux informed him that one day his hat--his,
+Vimeux’s--had stained his forehead black, and that hat-makers were in
+the habit of using drugs. After that Poiret paid many visits to Monsieur
+Tournan to inquire into his methods of manufacture.
+
+In the Rabourdin bureau was a clerk who played the man of courage
+and audacity, professed the opinions of the Left centre, and rebelled
+against the tyrannies of Baudoyer as exercised upon what he called the
+unhappy slaves of that office. His name was Fleury. He boldly subscribed
+to an opposition newspaper, wore a gray hat with a broad brim, red bands
+on his blue trousers, a blue waistcoat with gilt buttons, and a
+surtout coat crossed over the breast like that of a quartermaster of
+gendarmerie. Though unyielding in his opinions, he continued to be
+employed in the service, all the while predicting a fatal end to a
+government which persisted in upholding religion. He openly avowed his
+sympathy for Napoleon, now that the death of that great man put an end
+to the laws enacted against “the partisans of the usurper.” Fleury,
+ex-captain of a regiment of the line under the Emperor, a tall, dark,
+handsome fellow, was now, in addition to his civil-service post,
+box-keeper at the Cirque-Olympique. Bixiou never ventured on tormenting
+Fleury, for the rough trooper, who was a good shot and clever at
+fencing, seemed quite capable of extreme brutality if provoked. An
+ardent subscriber to “Victoires et Conquetes,” Fleury nevertheless
+refused to pay his subscription, though he kept and read the copies,
+alleging that they exceeded the number proposed in the prospectus. He
+adored Monsieur Rabourdin, who had saved him from dismissal, and was
+even heard to say that if any misfortune happened to the chief through
+anybody’s fault he would kill that person. Dutocq meanly courted Fleury
+because he feared him. Fleury, crippled with debt, played many a trick
+on his creditors. Expert in legal matters, he never signed a promissory
+note; and had prudently attached his own salary under the names of
+fictitious creditors, so that he was able to draw nearly the whole of it
+himself. He played ecarte, was the life of evening parties, tossed off
+glasses of champagne without wetting his lips, and knew all the songs of
+Beranger by heart. He was proud of his full, sonorous voice. His three
+great admirations were Napoleon, Bolivar, and Beranger. Foy, Lafitte,
+and Casimir Delavigne he only esteemed. Fleury, as you will have guessed
+already, was a Southerner, destined, no doubt, to become the responsible
+editor of a liberal journal.
+
+Desroys, the mysterious clerk of the division, consorted with no one,
+talked little, and hid his private life so carefully that no one knew
+where he lived, nor who were his protectors, nor what were his means of
+subsistence. Looking about them for the causes of this reserve, some
+of his colleagues thought him a “carbonaro,” others an Orleanist; there
+were others again who doubted whether to call him a spy or a man of
+solid merit. Desroys was, however, simple and solely the son of a
+“Conventionel,” who did not vote the king’s death. Cold and prudent by
+temperament, he had judged the world and ended by relying on no one but
+himself. Republican in secret, an admirer of Paul-Louis Courier and a
+friend of Michael Chrestien, he looked to time and public intelligence
+to bring about the triumph of his opinions from end to end of Europe.
+He dreamed of a new Germany and a new Italy. His heart swelled with that
+dull, collective love which we must call humanitarianism, the eldest son
+of deceased philanthropy, and which is to the divine catholic charity
+what system is to art, or reasoning to deed. This conscientious puritan
+of freedom, this apostle of an impossible equality, regretted keenly
+that his poverty forced him to serve the government, and he made various
+efforts to find a place elsewhere. Tall, lean, lanky, and solemn in
+appearance, like a man who expects to be called some day to lay down his
+life for a cause, he lived on a page of Volney, studied Saint-Just, and
+employed himself on a vindication of Robespierre, whom he regarded as
+the successor of Jesus Christ.
+
+The last of the individuals belonging to these bureaus who merits
+a sketch here is the little La Billardiere. Having, to his great
+misfortune, lost his mother, and being under the protection of the
+minister, safe therefore from the tyrannies of Baudoyer, and received
+in all the ministerial salons, he was nevertheless detested by every one
+because of his impertinence and conceit. The two chiefs were polite
+to him, but the clerks held him at arm’s length and prevented all
+companionship by means of the extreme and grotesque politeness which
+they bestowed upon him. A pretty youth of twenty-two, tall and slender,
+with the manners of an Englishman, a dandy in dress, curled and
+perfumed, gloved and booted in the latest fashion, and twirling an
+eyeglass, Benjamin de la Billardiere thought himself a charming fellow
+and possessed all the vices of the world with none of its graces. He
+was now looking forward impatiently to the death of his father, that
+he might succeed to the title of baron. His cards were printed “le
+Chevalier de la Billardiere” and on the wall of his office hung, in a
+frame, his coat of arms (sable, two swords in saltire, on a chief azure
+three mullets argent; with the motto; “Toujours fidele”). Possessed
+with a mania for talking heraldry, he once asked the young Vicomte de
+Portenduere why his arms were charged in a certain way, and drew down
+upon himself the happy answer, “I did not make them.” He talked of his
+devotion to the monarchy and the attentions the Dauphine paid him. He
+stood very well with des Lupeaulx, whom he thought his friend, and they
+often breakfasted together. Bixiou posed as his mentor, and hoped to rid
+the division and France of the young fool by tempting him to excesses,
+and openly avowed that intention.
+
+Such were the principal figures of La Billardiere’s division of the
+ministry, where also were other clerks of less account, who resembled
+more or less those that are represented here. It is difficult even for
+an observer to decide from the aspect of these strange personalities
+whether the goose-quill tribe were becoming idiots from the effects of
+their employment or whether they entered the service because they were
+natural born fools. Possibly the making of them lies at the door of
+Nature and of the government both. Nature, to a civil-service clerk is,
+in fact, the sphere of the office; his horizon is bounded on all
+sides by green boxes; to him, atmospheric changes are the air of
+the corridors, the masculine exhalations contained in rooms without
+ventilators, the odor of paper, pens, and ink; the soil he treads is
+a tiled pavement or a wooden floor, strewn with a curious litter and
+moistened by the attendant’s watering-pot; his sky is the ceiling toward
+which he yawns; his element is dust. Several distinguished doctors have
+remonstrated against the influence of this second nature, both savage
+and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in those dreadful pens
+called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates, where thoughts are tied
+down to occupations like that of horses who turn a crank and who, poor
+beasts, yawn distressingly and die quickly. Rabourdin was, therefore,
+fully justified in seeking to reform their present condition, by
+lessening their numbers and giving to each a larger salary and far
+heavier work. Men are neither wearied nor bored when doing great things.
+Under the present system government loses fully four hours out of the
+nine which the clerks owe to the service,--hours wasted, as we shall
+see, in conversations, in gossip, in disputes, and, above all, in
+underhand intriguing. The reader must have haunted the bureaus of the
+ministerial departments before he can realize how much their petty
+and belittling life resembles that of seminaries. Wherever men live
+collectively this likeness is obvious; in regiments, in law-courts, you
+will find the elements of the school on a smaller or larger scale. The
+government clerks, forced to be together for nine hours of the day,
+looked upon their office as a sort of class-room where they had tasks to
+perform, where the head of the bureau was no other than a schoolmaster,
+and where the gratuities bestowed took the place of prizes given out to
+proteges,--a place, moreover, where they teased and hated each other,
+and yet felt a certain comradeship, colder than that of a regiment,
+which itself is less hearty than that of seminaries. As a man advances
+in life he grows more selfish; egoism develops, and relaxes all the
+secondary bonds of affection. A government office is, in short, a
+microcosm of society, with its oddities and hatreds, its envy and its
+cupidity, its determination to push on, no matter who goes under, its
+frivolous gossip which gives so many wounds, and its perpetual spying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE MACHINE IN MOTION
+
+
+At this moment the division of Monsieur de la Billardiere was in a state
+of unusual excitement, resulting very naturally from the event which was
+about to happen; for heads of divisions do not die every day, and
+there is no insurance office where the chances of life and death are
+calculated with more sagacity than in a government bureau. Self-interest
+stifles all compassion, as it does in children, but the government
+service adds hypocrisy to boot.
+
+The clerks of the bureau Baudoyer arrived at eight o’clock in the
+morning, whereas those of the bureau Rabourdin seldom appeared till
+nine,--a circumstance which did not prevent the work in the latter
+office from being more rapidly dispatched than that of the former.
+Dutocq had important reasons for coming early on this particular
+morning. The previous evening he had furtively entered the study
+where Sebastien was at work, and had seen him copying some papers
+for Rabourdin; he concealed himself until he saw Sebastien leave the
+premises without taking any papers away with him. Certain, therefore,
+of finding the rather voluminous memorandum which he had seen, together
+with its copy, in some corner of the study, he searched through the
+boxes one after another until he finally came upon the fatal list.
+He carried it in hot haste to an autograph-printing house, where he
+obtained two pressed copies of the memorandum, showing, of course,
+Rabourdin’s own writing. Anxious not to arouse suspicion, he had
+gone very early to the office and replaced both the memorandum and
+Sebastien’s copy in the box from which he had taken them. Sebastien,
+who was kept up till after midnight at Madame Rabourdin’s party, was, in
+spite of his desire to get to the office early, preceded by the spirit
+of hatred. Hatred lived in the rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore, whereas
+love and devotion lived far-off in the rue du Roi-Dore in the Marais.
+This slight delay was destined to affect Rabourdin’s whole career.
+
+Sebastien opened his box eagerly, found the memorandum and his own
+unfinished copy all in order, and locked them at once into the desk as
+Rabourdin had directed. The mornings are dark in these offices towards
+the end of December, sometimes indeed the lamps are lit till after ten
+o’clock; consequently Sebastien did not happen to notice the pressure
+of the copying-machine upon the paper. But when, about half-past nine
+o’clock, Rabourdin looked at his memorandum he saw at once the effects
+of the copying process, and all the more readily because he was then
+considering whether these autographic presses could not be made to do
+the work of copying clerks.
+
+“Did any one get to the office before you?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” replied Sebastien,--“Monsieur Dutocq.”
+
+“Ah! well, he was punctual. Send Antoine to me.”
+
+Too noble to distress Sebastien uselessly by blaming him for a
+misfortune now beyond remedy, Rabourdin said no more. Antoine came.
+Rabourdin asked if any clerk had remained at the office after four
+o’clock the previous evening. The man replied that Monsieur Dutocq had
+worked there later than Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually the last
+to leave. Rabourdin dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the thread of
+his reflections.
+
+“Twice I have prevented his dismissal,” he said to himself, “and this is
+my reward.”
+
+This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which great
+commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances. Knowing the
+spirit of official life better than any one, he well knew that it would
+never pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the army pardon,
+what looked like espionage or tale-bearing. A man capable of informing
+against his comrades is disgraced, dishonored, despised; the ministers
+in such a case would disavow their own agents. Nothing was left to an
+official so placed but to send in his resignation and leave Paris; his
+honor is permanently stained; explanations are of no avail; no one will
+either ask for them or listen to them. A minister may well do the same
+thing and be thought a great man, able to choose the right instruments;
+but a mere subordinate will be judged as a spy, no matter what may
+be his motives. While justly measuring the folly of such judgment,
+Rabourdin knew that it was all-powerful; and he knew, too, that he was
+crushed. More surprised than overwhelmed, he now sought for the best
+course to follow under the circumstances; and with such thoughts in his
+mind he was necessarily aloof from the excitement caused in the division
+by the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere; in fact he did not hear of
+it until young La Briere, who was able to appreciate his sterling value,
+came to tell him. About ten o’clock, in the bureau Baudoyer, Bixiou
+was relating the last moments of the life of the director to Minard,
+Desroys, Monsieur Godard, whom he had called from his private office,
+and Dutocq, who had rushed in with private motives of his own.
+Colleville and Chazelle were absent.
+
+Bixiou [standing with his back to the stove and holding up the sole
+of each boot alternately to dry at the open door]. “This morning, at
+half-past seven, I went to inquire after our most worthy and respectable
+director, knight of the order of Christ, et caetera, et caetera. Yes,
+gentlemen, last night he was a being with twenty et caeteras, to-day he
+is nothing, not even a government clerk. I asked all particulars of his
+nurse. She told me that this morning at five o’clock he became uneasy
+about the royal family. He asked for the names of all the clerks who had
+called to inquire after him; and then he said: ‘Fill my snuff-box,
+give me the newspaper, bring my spectacles, and change my ribbon of the
+Legion of honor,--it is very dirty.’ I suppose you know he always wore
+his orders in bed. He was fully conscious, retained his senses and all
+his usual ideas. But, presto! ten minutes later the water rose, rose,
+rose and flooded his chest; he knew he was dying for he felt the cysts
+break. At that fatal moment he gave evident proof of his powerful mind
+and vast intellect. Ah, we never rightly appreciated him! We used to
+laugh at him and call him a booby--didn’t you, Monsieur Godard?”
+
+Godard. “I? I always rated Monsieur de la Billardiere’s talents higher
+than the rest of you.”
+
+Bixiou. “You and he could understand each other!”
+
+Godard. “He wasn’t a bad man; he never harmed any one.”
+
+Bixiou. “To do harm you must do something, and he never did anything. If
+it wasn’t you who said he was a dolt, it must have been Minard.”
+
+Minard [shrugging his shoulders]. “I!”
+
+Bixiou. “Well, then it was you, Dutocq!” [Dutocq made a vehement gesture
+of denial.] “Oh! very good, then it was nobody. Every one in this office
+knew his intellect was herculean. Well, you were right. He ended, as I
+have said, like the great man that he was.”
+
+Desroys [impatiently]. “Pray what did he do that was so great? he had
+the weakness to confess himself.”
+
+Bixiou. “Yes, monsieur, he received the holy sacraments. But do you
+know what he did in order to receive them? He put on his uniform as
+gentleman-in-ordinary of the Bedchamber, with all his orders, and had
+himself powdered; they tied his queue (that poor queue!) with a fresh
+ribbon. Now I say that none but a man of remarkable character would have
+his queue tied with a fresh ribbon just as he was dying. There are eight
+of us here, and I don’t believe one among us is capable of such an act.
+But that’s not all; he said,--for you know all celebrated men make a
+dying speech; he said,--stop now, what did he say? Ah! he said, ‘I must
+attire myself to meet the King of Heaven,--I, who have so often dressed
+in my best for audience with the kings of earth.’ That’s how Monsieur de
+la Billardiere departed this life. He took upon himself to justify the
+saying of Pythagoras, ‘No man is known until he dies.’”
+
+Colleville [rushing in]. “Gentlemen, great news!”
+
+All. “We know it.”
+
+Colleville. “I defy you to know it! I have been hunting for it ever
+since the accession of His Majesty to the thrones of France and of
+Navarre. Last night I succeeded! but with what labor! Madame Colleville
+asked me what was the matter.”
+
+Dutocq. “Do you think we have time to bother ourselves with your
+intolerable anagrams when the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere has just
+expired?”
+
+Colleville. “That’s Bixiou’s nonsense! I have just come from Monsieur
+de la Billardiere’s; he is still living, though they expect him to die
+soon.” [Godard, indignant at the hoax, goes off grumbling.] “Gentlemen!
+you would never guess what extraordinary events are revealed by the
+anagram of this sacramental sentence” [he pulls out a piece of paper
+and reads], “Charles dix, par la grace de Dieu, roi de France et de
+Navarre.”
+
+Godard [re-entering]. “Tell what it is at once, and don’t keep people
+waiting.”
+
+Colleville [triumphantly unfolding the rest of the paper]. “Listen!
+
+  “A H. V. il cedera;
+  De S. C. l. d. partira;
+  Eh nauf errera,
+  Decide a Gorix.
+
+“Every letter is there!” [He repeats it.] “A Henry cinq cedera (his
+crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that’s an old French
+word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like) errera--”
+
+Dutocq. “What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown
+to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson,
+when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the Dauphin’s
+death?”
+
+Bixiou. “What’s Gorix, pray?--the name of a cat?”
+
+Colleville [provoked]. “It is the archaeological and lapidarial
+abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it out in
+Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or Hungary, or
+it may be Austria--”
+
+Bixiou. “Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why don’t you
+set it all to music and play it on the clarionet?”
+
+Godard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. “What utter nonsense!”
+
+Colleville. “Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don’t take the
+trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor Napoleon.”
+
+Godard [irritated at Colleville’s tone]. “Monsieur Colleville, let me
+tell you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by historians,
+but it is extremely out of place to refer to him as such in a government
+office.”
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. “Get an anagram out of that, my dear fellow.”
+
+Colleville [angrily]. “Let me tell you that if Napoleon Bonaparte had
+studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he might
+perhaps be Emperor still.”
+
+Bixiou. “How do you make that out?”
+
+Colleville [solemnly]. “Napoleon Bonaparte.--No, appear not at Elba!”
+
+Dutocq. “You’ll lose your place for talking such nonsense.”
+
+Colleville. “If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make it
+hot for your minister.” [Dead silence.] “I’d have you to know, Master
+Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pass. Look
+here,--you, yourself,--don’t you marry, for there’s ‘coqu’ in your
+name.”
+
+Bixiou [interrupting]. “And d, t, for de-testable.”
+
+Dutocq [without seeming angry]. “I don’t care, as long as it is only in
+my name. Why don’t you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it, ‘Xavier
+Rabourdin, chef du bureau’?”
+
+Colleville. “Bless you, so I have!”
+
+Bixiou [mending his pen]. “And what did you make of it?”
+
+Colleville. “It comes out as follows: D’abord reva bureaux, E-u,--(you
+catch the meaning? et eut--and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies that
+after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and got rich
+elsewhere.” [Repeats.] “D’abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche.”
+
+Dutocq. “That IS queer!”
+
+Bixiou. “Try Isidore Baudoyer.”
+
+Colleville [mysteriously]. “I sha’n’t tell the other anagrams to any one
+but Thuillier.”
+
+Bixiou. “I’ll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself.”
+
+Colleville. “And I’ll pay if you find it out.”
+
+Bixiou. “Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won’t be angry,
+will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict. ‘Isidore
+Baudoyer’ anagrams into ‘Ris d’aboyeur d’oie.’”
+
+Colleville [petrified with amazement]. “You stole it from me!”
+
+Bixiou [with dignity]. “Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to believe
+that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor’s nonsense.”
+
+Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand]. “Gentlemen, I
+request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such
+high repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur
+Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he
+heard the noise you are making” [passes into Monsieur Godard’s room].
+
+Bixiou [in a low voice]. “The watch-dog is very tame this morning;
+there’ll be a change of weather before night.”
+
+Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. “I have something I want to say to you.”
+
+Bixiou [fingering Dutocq’s waistcoat]. “You’ve a pretty waistcoat, that
+cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?”
+
+Dutocq. “Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in my life.
+That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de la
+Paix,--a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning.”
+
+Bixiou. “You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow, but
+you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no man can be
+a universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in deep mourning.
+Don’t you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur Rabourdin, Monsieur
+Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is the faubourg
+Saint-Germain. There’s no one here but Minard who doesn’t wear woollen;
+he’s afraid of being taken for a sheep. That’s the reason why he didn’t
+put on mourning for Louis XVIII.”
+
+[During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in Godard’s
+room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]
+
+Baudoyer. “Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are both with
+him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If you want to do
+me a signal service you will take a cab and go and let Madame Baudoyer
+know what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can’t leave his desk, nor
+I my office. Put yourself at my wife’s orders; do whatever she wishes.
+She has, I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants to take certain
+steps simultaneously.” [The two functionaries go out together.]
+
+Godard. “Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for the rest
+of the day. You will take my place.”
+
+Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. “Consult me, if there is any necessity.”
+
+Bixiou. “This time, La Billardiere is really dead.”
+
+Dutocq [in Bixiou’s ear]. “Come outside a minute.” [The two go into the
+corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]
+
+Dutocq [whispering]. “Listen. Now is the time for us to understand each
+other and push our way. What would you say to your being made head of
+the bureau, and I under you?”
+
+Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. “Come, come, don’t talk nonsense!”
+
+Dutocq. “If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere’s place Rabourdin won’t stay
+on where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that if du
+Bruel and you don’t help him he will certainly be dismissed in a couple
+of months. If I know arithmetic that will give three empty places for us
+to fill--”
+
+Bixiou. “Three places right under our noses, which will certainly
+be given to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious fraud,--to
+Colleville perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women end--in
+piety.”
+
+Dutocq. “No, to /you/, my dear fellow, if you will only, for once in
+your life, use your wits logically.” [He stopped as if to study the
+effect of his adverb in Bixiou’s face.] “Come, let us play fair.”
+
+Bixiou [stolidly]. “Let me see your game.”
+
+Dutocq. “I don’t wish to be anything more than under-head-clerk. I know
+myself perfectly well, and I know I haven’t the ability, like you, to
+be head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you the head of this
+bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he has made his pile;
+and as for me, I shall swim with the tide comfortably, under your
+protection, till I can retire on a pension.”
+
+Bixiou. “Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan which
+means forcing the minister’s hand and ejecting a man of talent? Between
+ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge of the
+division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that they talk
+of putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness, that cube of
+idiocy, Baudoyer?”
+
+Dutocq [consequentially]. “My dear fellow, I am in a position to rouse
+the whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted Fleury is to
+him? Well, I can make Fleury despise him.”
+
+Bixiou. “Despised by Fleury!”
+
+Dutocq. “Not a soul will stand by Rabourdin; the clerks will go in a
+body and complain of him to the minister,--not only in our division, but
+in all the divisions--”
+
+Bixiou. “Forward, march! infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marines of
+the guard! You rave, my good fellow! And I, what part am I to take in
+the business?”
+
+Dutocq. “You are to make a cutting caricature,--sharp enough to kill a
+man.”
+
+Bixiou. “How much will you pay for it?”
+
+Dutocq. “A hundred francs.”
+
+Bixiou [to himself]. “Then there is something in it.”
+
+Dutocq [continuing]. “You must represent Rabourdin dressed as a butcher
+(make it a good likeness), find analogies between a kitchen and a
+bureau, put a skewer in his hand, draw portraits of the principal clerks
+and stick their heads on fowls, put them in a monstrous coop labelled
+‘Civil Service executions’; make him cutting the throat of one, and
+supposed to take the others in turn. You can have geese and ducks with
+heads like ours,--you understand! Baudoyer, for instance, he’ll make an
+excellent turkey-buzzard.”
+
+Bixiou. “Ris d’aboyeur d’oie!” [He has watched Dutocq carefully for some
+time.] “Did you think of that yourself?”
+
+Dutocq. “Yes, I myself.”
+
+Bixiou [to himself]. “Do evil feelings bring men to the same result as
+talents?” [Aloud] “Well, I’ll do it” [Dutocq makes a motion of delight]
+“--when” [full stop] “--I know where I am and what I can rely on. If you
+don’t succeed I shall lose my place, and I must make a living. You are a
+curious kind of innocent still, my dear colleague.”
+
+Dutocq. “Well, you needn’t make the lithograph till success is proved.”
+
+Bixiou. “Why don’t you come out and tell me the whole truth?”
+
+Dutocq. “I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we will talk
+about it later” [goes off].
+
+Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. “That fish, for he’s more a fish than
+a bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head--I’m sure I don’t know
+where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it would
+be fun, more than fun--profit!” [Returns to the office.] “Gentlemen, I
+announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really dead,--no
+nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for our excellent
+chief Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the deceased.” [Minard,
+Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads in amazement; they all lay
+down their pens, and Colleville blows his nose.] “Every one of us is
+to be promoted! Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the very least.
+Minard may have my place as chief clerk--why not? he is quite as dull as
+I am. Hey, Minard, if you should get twenty-five hundred francs a-year
+your little wife would be uncommonly pleased, and you could buy yourself
+a pair of boots now and then.”
+
+Colleville. “But you don’t get twenty-five hundred francs.”
+
+Bixiou. “Monsieur Dutocq gets that in Rabourdin’s office; why shouldn’t
+I get it this year? Monsieur Baudoyer gets it.”
+
+Colleville. “Only through the influence of Monsieur Saillard. No other
+chief clerk gets that in any of the divisions.”
+
+Paulmier. “Bah! Hasn’t Monsieur Cochin three thousand? He succeeded
+Monsieur Vavasseur, who served ten years under the Empire at four
+thousand. His salary was dropped to three when the King first returned;
+then to two thousand five hundred before Vavasseur died. But Monsieur
+Cochin, who succeeded him, had influence enough to get the salary put
+back to three thousand.”
+
+Colleville. “Monsieur Cochin signs E. A. L. Cochin (he is named
+Emile-Adolphe-Lucian), which, when anagrammed, gives Cochineal.
+Now observe, he’s a partner in a druggist’s business in the rue des
+Lombards, the Maison Matifat, which made its fortune by that identical
+colonial product.”
+
+Baudoyer [entering]. “Monsieur Chazelle, I see, is not here; you will be
+good enough to say I asked for him, gentlemen.”
+
+Bixiou [who had hastily stuck a hat on Chazelle’s chair when he heard
+Baudoyer’s step]. “Excuse me, Monsieur, but Chazelle has gone to the
+Rabourdins’ to make an inquiry.”
+
+Chazelle [entering with his hat on his head, and not seeing Baudoyer].
+“La Billardiere is done for, gentlemen! Rabourdin is head of the
+division and Master of petitions; he hasn’t stolen /his/ promotion,
+that’s very certain.”
+
+Baudoyer [to Chazelle]. “You found that appointment in your second hat,
+I presume” [points to the hat on the chair]. “This is the third time
+within a month that you have come after nine o’clock. If you continue
+the practice you will get on--elsewhere.” [To Bixiou, who is reading the
+newspaper.] “My dear Monsieur Bixiou, do pray leave the newspapers to
+these gentlemen who are going to breakfast, and come into my office for
+your orders for the day. I don’t know what Monsieur Rabourdin wants with
+Gabriel; he keeps him to do his private errands, I believe. I’ve rung
+three times and can’t get him.” [Baudoyer and Bixiou retire into the
+private office.]
+
+Chazelle. “Damned unlucky!”
+
+Paulmier [delighted to annoy Chazelle]. “Why didn’t you look about when
+you came into the room? You might have seen the elephant, and the hat
+too; they are big enough to be visible.”
+
+Chazelle [dismally]. “Disgusting business! I don’t see why we should
+be treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and
+sixty-five centimes a day.”
+
+Fleury [entering]. “Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for Rabourdin!--that’s
+the cry in the division.”
+
+Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. “Baudoyer can turn off me if
+he likes, I sha’n’t care. In Paris there are a thousand ways of earning
+five francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais de Justice,
+copying briefs for the lawyers.”
+
+Paulmier [still prodding him]. “It is very easy to say that; but a
+government place is a government place, and that plucky Colleville, who
+works like a galley-slave outside of this office, and who could earn,
+if he lost his appointment, more than his salary, prefers to keep his
+place. Who the devil is fool enough to give up his expectations?”
+
+Chazelle [continuing his philippic]. “You may not be, but I am! We have
+no chances at all. Time was when nothing was more encouraging than a
+civil-service career. So many men were in the army that there were not
+enough for the government work; the maimed and the halt and the sick
+ones, like Paulmier, and the near-sighted ones, all had their chance of
+a rapid promotion. But now, ever since the Chamber invented what they
+called special training, and the rules and regulations for civil-service
+examiners, we are worse off than common soldiers. The poorest places
+are at the mercy of a thousand mischances because we are now ruled by a
+thousand sovereigns.”
+
+Bixiou [returning]. “Are you crazy, Chazelle? Where do you find a
+thousand sovereigns?--not in your pocket, are they?”
+
+Chazelle. “Count them up. There are four hundred over there at the end
+of the pont de la Concorde (so called because it leads to the scene
+of perpetual discord between the Right and Left of the Chamber); three
+hundred more at the end of the rue de Tournon. The court, which ought to
+count for the other three hundred, has seven hundred parts less power
+to get a man appointed to a place under government than the Emperor
+Napoleon had.”
+
+Fleury. “All of which signifies that in a country where there are three
+powers you may bet a thousand to one that a government clerk who has no
+influence but his own merits to advance him will remain in obscurity.”
+
+Bixiou [looking alternately at Chazelle and Fleury]. “My sons, you have
+yet to learn that in these days the worst state of life is the state of
+belonging to the State.”
+
+Fleury. “Because it has a constitutional government.”
+
+Colleville. “Gentlemen, gentlemen! no politics!”
+
+Bixiou. “Fleury is right. Serving the State in these days is no longer
+serving a prince who knew how to punish and reward. The State now is
+/everybody/. Everybody of course cares for nobody. Serve everybody, and
+you serve nobody. Nobody is interested in nobody; the government clerk
+lives between two negations. The world has neither pity nor respect,
+neither heart nor head; everybody forgets to-morrow the service of
+yesterday. Now each one of you may be, like Monsieur Baudoyer, an
+administrative genius, a Chateaubriand of reports, a Bossouet of
+circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the gifted son of diplomatic
+despatches; but I tell you there is a fatal law which interferes with
+all administrative genius,--I mean the law of promotion by average. This
+average is based on the statistics of promotion and the statistics
+of mortality combined. It is very certain that on entering whichever
+section of the Civil Service you please at the age of eighteen, you
+can’t get eighteen hundred francs a year till you reach the age of
+thirty. Now there’s no free and independent career in which, in
+the course of twelve years, a young man who has gone through the
+grammar-school, been vaccinated, is exempt from military service, and
+possesses all his faculties (I don’t mean transcendent ones) can’t amass
+a capital of forty-five thousand francs in centimes, which represents
+a permanent income equal to our salaries, which are, after all,
+precarious. In twelve years a grocer can earn enough to give him ten
+thousand francs a year; a painter can daub a mile of canvas and be
+decorated with the Legion of honor, or pose as a neglected genius. A
+literary man becomes professor of something or other, or a journalist
+at a hundred francs for a thousand lines; he writes ‘feuilletons,’ or
+he gets into Saint-Pelagie for a brilliant article that offends the
+Jesuits,--which of course is an immense benefit to him and makes him a
+politician at once. Even a lazy man, who does nothing but make debts,
+has time to marry a widow who pays them; a priest finds time to become a
+bishop ‘in partibus.’ A sober, intelligent young fellow, who begins
+with a small capital as a money-changer, soon buys a share in a broker’s
+business; and, to go even lower, a petty clerk becomes a notary, a
+rag-picker lays by two or three thousand francs a year, and the poorest
+workmen often become manufacturers; whereas, in the rotatory movement
+of this present civilization, which mistakes perpetual division and
+redivision for progress, an unhappy civil service clerk, like Chazelle
+for instance, is forced to dine for twenty-two sous a meal, struggles
+with his tailor and bootmaker, gets into debt, and is an absolute
+nothing; worse than that, he becomes an idiot! Come, gentlemen, now’s
+the time to make a stand! Let us all give in our resignations! Fleury,
+Chazelle, fling yourselves into other employments and become the great
+men you really are.”
+
+Chazelle [calmed down by Bixiou’s allocution]. “No, I thank you”
+ [general laughter].
+
+Bixiou. “You are wrong; in your situation I should try to get ahead of
+the general-secretary.”
+
+Chazelle [uneasily]. “What has he to do with me?”
+
+Bixiou. “You’ll find out; do you suppose Baudoyer will overlook what
+happened just now?”
+
+Fleury. “Another piece of Bixiou’s spite! You’ve a queer fellow to deal
+with in there. Now, Monsieur Rabourdin,--there’s a man for you! He put
+work on my table to-day that you couldn’t get through within this office
+in three days; well, he expects me to have it done by four o’clock
+to-day. But he is not always at my heels to hinder me from talking to my
+friends.”
+
+Baudoyer [appearing at the door]. “Gentlemen, you will admit that if
+you have the legal right to find fault with the chamber and the
+administration you must at least do so elsewhere than in this office.”
+ [To Fleury.] “What are you doing here, monsieur?”
+
+Fleury [insolently]. “I came to tell these gentlemen that there was to
+be a general turn-out. Du Bruel is sent for to the ministry, and Dutocq
+also. Everybody is asking who will be appointed.”
+
+Baudoyer [retiring]. “It is not your affair, sir; go back to your own
+office, and do not disturb mine.”
+
+Fleury [in the doorway]. “It would be a shameful injustice if Rabourdin
+lost the place; I swear I’d leave the service. Did you find that
+anagram, papa Colleville?”
+
+Colleville. “Yes, here it is.”
+
+Fleury [leaning over Colleville’s desk]. “Capital! famous! This is just
+what will happen if the administration continues to play the hypocrite.”
+ [He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is listening.] “If the
+government would frankly state its intentions without concealments
+of any kind, the liberals would know what they had to deal with. An
+administration which sets its best friends against itself, such men as
+those of the ‘Debats,’ Chateaubriand, and Royer-Collard, is only to be
+pitied!”
+
+Colleville [after consulting his colleagues]. “Come, Fleury, you’re a
+good fellow, but don’t talk politics here; you don’t know what harm you
+may do us.”
+
+Fleury [dryly]. “Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do by four
+o’clock.”
+
+While this idle talk had been going on, des Lupeaulx was closeted in
+his office with du Bruel, where, a little later, Dutocq joined them. Des
+Lupeaulx had heard from his valet of La Billardiere’s death, and wishing
+to please the two ministers, he wanted an obituary article to appear in
+the evening papers.
+
+“Good morning, my dear du Bruel,” said the semi-minister to the
+head-clerk as he entered, and not inviting him to sit down. “You have
+heard the news? La Billardiere is dead. The ministers were both
+present when he received the last sacraments. The worthy man strongly
+recommended Rabourdin, saying he should die with less regret if he could
+know that his successor were the man who had so constantly done his
+work. Death is a torture which makes a man confess everything. The
+minister agreed the more readily because his intention and that of the
+Council was to reward Monsieur Rabourdin’s numerous services. In fact,
+the Council of State needs his experience. They say that young La
+Billardiere is to leave the division of his father and go to the
+Commission of Seals; that’s just the same as if the King had made him a
+present of a hundred thousand francs,--the place can always be sold. But
+I know the news will delight your division, which will thus get rid of
+him. Du Bruel, we must get ten or a dozen lines about the worthy late
+director into the papers; his Excellency will glance them over,--he
+reads the papers. Do you know the particulars of old La Billardiere’s
+life?”
+
+Du Bruel made a sign in the negative.
+
+“No?” continued des Lupeaulx. “Well then; he was mixed up in the affairs
+of La Vendee, and he was one of the confidants of the late King. Like
+Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine he always refused to hold communication
+with the First Consul. He was a bit of a ‘chouan’; born in Brittany of a
+parliamentary family, and ennobled by Louis XVIII. How old was he? never
+mind about that; just say his loyalty was untarnished, his religion
+enlightened,--the poor old fellow hated churches and never set foot
+in one, but you had better make him out a ‘pious vassal.’ Bring in,
+gracefully, that he sang the song of Simeon at the accession of Charles
+X. The Comte d’Artois thought very highly of La Billardiere, for he
+co-operated in the unfortunate affair of Quiberon and took the
+whole responsibility on himself. You know about that, don’t you? La
+Billardiere defended the King in a printed pamphlet in reply to an
+impudent history of the Revolution written by a journalist; you can
+allude to his loyalty and devotion. But be very careful what you say;
+weigh your words, so that the other newspapers can’t laugh at us; and
+bring me the article when you’ve written it. Were you at Rabourdin’s
+yesterday?”
+
+“Yes, monseigneur,” said du Bruel, “Ah! beg pardon.”
+
+“No harm done,” answered des Lupeaulx, laughing.
+
+“Madame Rabourdin looked delightfully handsome,” added du Bruel. “There
+are not two women like her in Paris. Some are as clever as she, but
+there’s not one so gracefully witty. Many women may even be handsomer,
+but it would be hard to find one with such variety of beauty. Madame
+Rabourdin is far superior to Madame Colleville,” said the vaudevillist,
+remembering des Lupeaulx’s former affair. “Flavie owes what she is to
+the men about her, whereas Madame Rabourdin is all things in herself. It
+is wonderful too what she knows; you can’t tell secrets in Latin before
+/her/. If I had such a wife, I know I should succeed in everything.”
+
+“You have more mind than an author ought to have,” returned des
+Lupeaulx, with a conceited air. Then he turned round and perceived
+Dutocq. “Ah, good-morning, Dutocq,” he said. “I sent for you to lend me
+your Charlet--if you have the whole complete. Madame la comtesse knows
+nothing of Charlet.”
+
+Du Bruel retired.
+
+“Why do you come in without being summoned?” said des Lupeaulx, harshly,
+when he and Dutocq were left alone. “Is the State in danger that you
+must come here at ten o’clock in the morning, just as I am going to
+breakfast with his Excellency?”
+
+“Perhaps it is, monsieur,” said Dutocq, dryly. “If I had had the honor
+to see you earlier, you would probably have not been so willing to
+support Monsieur Rabourdin, after reading his opinion of you.”
+
+Dutocq opened his coat, took a paper from the left-hand breast-pocket
+and laid it on des Lupeaulx’s desk, pointing to a marked passage. Then
+he went to the door and slipped the bolt, fearing interruption. While
+he was thus employed, the secretary-general read the opening sentence of
+the article, which was as follows:
+
+  “Monsieur des Lupeaulx. A government degrades itself by openly
+  employing such a man, whose real vocation is for police diplomacy.
+  He is fitted to deal with the political filibusters of other
+  cabinets, and it would be a pity therefore to employ him on our
+  internal detective police. He is above a common spy, for he is
+  able to understand a plan; he could skilfully carry through a dark
+  piece of work and cover his retreat safely.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx was succinctly analyzed in five or six such
+paragraphs,--the essence, in fact, of the biographical portrait which
+we gave at the beginning of this history. As he read the words the
+secretary felt that a man stronger than himself sat in judgment on
+him; and he at once resolved to examine the memorandum, which evidently
+reached far and high, without allowing Dutocq to know his secret
+thoughts. He therefore showed a calm, grave face when the spy returned
+to him. Des Lupeaulx, like lawyers, magistrates, diplomatists, and all
+whose work obliges them to pry into the human heart, was past being
+surprised at anything. Hardened in treachery and in all the tricks and
+wiles of hatred, he could take a stab in the back and not let his face
+tell of it.
+
+“How did you get hold of this paper?”
+
+Dutocq related his good luck; des Lupeaulx’s face as he listened
+expressed no approbation; and the spy ended in terror an account which
+began triumphantly.
+
+“Dutocq, you have put your finger between the bark and the tree,” said
+the secretary, coldly. “If you don’t want to make powerful enemies I
+advise you to keep this paper a profound secret; it is a work of the
+utmost importance and already well known to me.”
+
+So saying, des Lupeaulx dismissed Dutocq by one of those glances that
+are more expressive than words.
+
+“Ha! that scoundrel of a Rabourdin has put his finger in this!” thought
+Dutocq, alarmed on finding himself anticipated; “he has reached the ear
+of the administration, while I am left out in the cold. I shouldn’t have
+thought it!”
+
+To all his other motives of aversion to Rabourdin he now added the
+jealousy of one man to another man of the same calling,--a most powerful
+ingredient in hatred.
+
+When des Lupeaulx was left alone, he dropped into a strange meditation.
+What power was it of which Rabourdin was the instrument? Should he, des
+Lupeaulx, use this singular document to destroy him, or should he keep
+it as a weapon to succeed with the wife? The mystery that lay behind
+this paper was all darkness to des Lupeaulx, who read with something
+akin to terror page after page, in which the men of his acquaintance
+were judged with unerring wisdom. He admired Rabourdin, though stabbed
+to his vitals by what he said of him. The breakfast-hour suddenly cut
+short his meditation.
+
+“His Excellency is waiting for you to come down,” announced the
+minister’s footman.
+
+The minister always breakfasted with his wife and children and des
+Lupeaulx, without the presence of servants. The morning meal affords the
+only moment of privacy which public men can snatch from the current of
+overwhelming business. Yet in spite of the precautions they take to keep
+this hour for private intimacies and affections, a good many great and
+little people manage to infringe upon it. Business itself will, as at
+this moment, thrust itself in the way of their scanty comfort.
+
+“I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty manoeuvres,”
+ began the minister; “and yet here, not ten minutes after La
+Billardiere’s death, he sends me this note by La Briere,--it is like a
+stage missive. Look,” said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a paper
+which he was twirling in his fingers.
+
+Too noble in mind to think for a moment of the shameful meaning
+La Billardiere’s death might lend to his letter, Rabourdin had not
+withdrawn it from La Briere’s hands after the news reached him. Des
+Lupeaulx read as follows:--
+
+  “Monseigneur,--If twenty-three years of irreproachable services
+  may claim a favor, I entreat your Excellency to grant me an
+  audience this very day. My honor is involved in the matter of
+  which I desire to speak.”
+
+“Poor man!” said des Lupeaulx, in a tone of compassion which confirmed
+the minister in his error. “We are alone; I advise you to see him now.
+You have a meeting of the Council when the Chamber rises; moreover, your
+Excellency has to reply to-day to the opposition; this is really the
+only hour when you can receive him.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx rose, called the servant, said a few words, and returned to
+his seat. “I have told them to bring him in at dessert,” he said.
+
+Like all other ministers under the Restoration, this particular minister
+was a man without youth. The charter granted by Louis XVIII. had the
+defect of tying the hands of the kings by compelling them to deliver the
+destinies of the nation into the control of the middle-aged men of the
+Chamber and the septuagenarians of the peerage; it robbed them of the
+right to lay hands on a man of statesmanlike talent wherever they
+could find him, no matter how young he was or how poverty-stricken his
+condition might be. Napoleon alone was able to employ young men as
+he chose, without being restrained by any consideration. After the
+overthrow of that mighty will, vigor deserted power. Now the period
+when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents a contrast that is far
+more dangerous in France than in other countries. As a general thing,
+ministers who were old before they entered office have proved second
+or third rate, while those who were taken young have been an honor
+to European monarchies and to the republics whose affairs they have
+directed. The world still rings with the struggle between Pitt and
+Napoleon, two men who conducted the politics of their respective
+countries at an age when Henri de Navarre, Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert,
+Louvois, the Prince of Orange, the Guises, Machiavelli, in short, all
+the best known of our great men, coming from the ranks or born to
+a throne, began to rule the State. The Convention--that model of
+energy--was made up in a great measure of young heads; no sovereign
+can ever forget that it was able to put fourteen armies into the field
+against Europe. Its policy, fatal in the eyes of those who cling to
+what is called absolute power, was nevertheless dictated by strictly
+monarchical principles, and it behaved itself like any of the great
+kings.
+
+After ten or a dozen years of parliamentary struggle, having studied
+the science of politics until he was worn down by it, this particular
+minister had come to be enthroned by his party, who considered him in
+the light of their business man. Happily for him he was now nearer sixty
+than fifty years of age; had he retained even a vestige of juvenile
+vigor he would quickly have quenched it. But, accustomed to back and
+fill, retreat and return to the charge, he was able to endure being
+struck at, turn and turn about, by his own party, by the opposition,
+by the court, by the clergy, because to all such attacks he opposed the
+inert force of a substance which was equally soft and consistent; thus
+he reaped the benefits of what was really his misfortune. Harassed by a
+thousand questions of government, his mind, like that of an old lawyer
+who has tried every species of case, no longer possessed the spring
+which solitary minds are able to retain, nor that power of prompt
+decision which distinguishes men who are early accustomed to action, and
+young soldiers. How could it be otherwise? He had practised sophistries
+and quibbled instead of judging; he had criticised effects and done
+nothing for causes; his head was full of plans such as a political
+party lays upon the shoulders of a leader,--matters of private interest
+brought to an orator supposed to have a future, a jumble of schemes and
+impractical requests. Far from coming fresh to his work, he was wearied
+out with marching and counter-marching, and when he finally reached
+the much desired height of his present position, he found himself in
+a thicket of thorny bushes with a thousand conflicting wills to
+conciliate. If the statesmen of the Restoration had been allowed to
+follow out their own ideas, their capacity would doubtless have been
+criticised; but though their wills were often forced, their age saved
+them from attempting the resistance which youth opposes to intrigues,
+both high and low,--intrigues which vanquished Richelieu, and to which,
+in a lower sphere, Rabourdin was to succumb.
+
+After the rough and tumble of their first struggles in political life
+these men, less old than aged, have to endure the additional wear and
+tear of a ministry. Thus it is that their eyes begin to weaken just as
+they need to have the clear-sightedness of eagles; their mind is weary
+when its youth and fire need to be redoubled. The minister in whom
+Rabourdin sought to confide was in the habit of listening to men
+of undoubted superiority as they explained ingenious theories of
+government, applicable or inapplicable to the affairs of France. Such
+men, by whom the difficulties of national policy were never apprehended,
+were in the habit of attacking this minister personally whenever a
+parliamentary battle or a contest with the secret follies of the court
+took place,--on the eve of a struggle with the popular mind, or on the
+morrow of a diplomatic discussion which divided the Council into three
+separate parties. Caught in such a predicament, a statesman naturally
+keeps a yawn ready for the first sentence designed to show him how the
+public service could be better managed. At such periods not a dinner
+took place among bold schemers or financial and political lobbyists
+where the opinions of the Bourse and the Bank, the secrets of diplomacy,
+and the policy necessitated by the state of affairs in Europe were not
+canvassed and discussed. The minister has his own private councillors in
+des Lupeaulx and his secretary, who collected and pondered all opinions
+and discussions for the purpose of analyzing and controlling the various
+interests proclaimed and supported by so many clever men. In fact, his
+misfortune was that of most other ministers who have passed the prime
+of life; he trimmed and shuffled under all his difficulties,--with
+journalism, which at this period it was thought advisable to repress
+in an underhand way rather than fight openly; with financial as well as
+labor questions; with the clergy as well as with that other question
+of the public lands; with liberalism as with the Chamber. After
+manoeuvering his way to power in the course of seven years, the minister
+believed that he could manage all questions of administration in the
+same way. It is so natural to think we can maintain a position by the
+same methods which served us to reach it that no one ventured to blame
+a system invented by mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The
+Restoration, like the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes
+the true value of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is
+wanting. The last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the
+Restoration was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries
+employed the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies,
+and let loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the
+unintelligent masses, able only to understand revolt.
+
+Rabourdin told himself all these things. But he had made up his mind
+to win or lose, like a man weary of gambling who allows himself a last
+stake; ill-luck had given him as adversary in the game a sharper like
+des Lupeaulx. With all his sagacity, Rabourdin was better versed in
+matters of administration than in parliamentary optics, and he was far
+indeed from imagining how his confidence would be received; he little
+thought that the great work that filled his mind would seem to the
+minister nothing more than a theory, and that a man who held the
+position of a statesman would confound his reform with the schemes of
+political and self-interested talkers.
+
+As the minister rose from table, thinking of Francois Keller, his wife
+detained him with the offer of a bunch of grapes, and at that moment
+Rabourdin was announced. Des Lupeaulx had counted on the minister’s
+preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the moment
+occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to meet
+Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low tone of
+voice:--
+
+“His Excellency and I know what the subject is that occupies your mind;
+you have nothing to fear”; then, raising his voice, he added, “neither
+from Dutocq nor from any one else.”
+
+“Don’t feel uneasy, Rabourdin,” said his Excellency, kindly, but making
+a movement to get away.
+
+Rabourdin came forward respectfully, and the minister could not evade
+him.
+
+“Will your Excellency permit me to see you for a moment in private?” he
+said, with a mysterious glance.
+
+The minister looked at the clock and went towards the window, whither
+the poor man followed him.
+
+“When may I have the honor of submitting the matter of which I spoke to
+your Excellency? I desire to fully explain the plan of administration to
+which the paper that was taken belongs--”
+
+“Plan of administration!” exclaimed the minister, frowning, and
+hurriedly interrupting him. “If you have anything of that kind to
+communicate you must wait for the regular day when we do business
+together. I ought to be at the Council now; and I have an answer to
+make to the Chamber on that point which the opposition raised before the
+session ended yesterday. Your day is Wednesday next; I could not work
+yesterday, for I had other things to attend to; political matters are
+apt to interfere with purely administrative ones.”
+
+“I place my honor with all confidence in your Excellency’s hands,” said
+Rabourdin gravely, “and I entreat you to remember that you have not
+allowed me time to give you an immediate explanation of the stolen
+paper--”
+
+“Don’t be uneasy,” said des Lupeaulx, interposing between the minister
+and Rabourdin, whom he thus interrupted; “in another week you will
+probably be appointed--”
+
+The minister smiled as he thought of des Lupeaulx’s enthusiasm for
+Madame Rabourdin, and he glanced knowingly at his wife. Rabourdin saw
+the look, and tried to imagine its meaning; his attention was diverted
+for a moment, and his Excellency took advantage of the fact to make his
+escape.
+
+“We will talk of all this, you and I,” said des Lupeaulx, with whom
+Rabourdin, much to his surprise, now found himself alone. “Don’t be
+angry with Dutocq; I’ll answer for his discretion.”
+
+“Madame Rabourdin is charming,” said the minister’s wife, wishing to say
+the civil thing to the head of a bureau.
+
+The children all gazed at Rabourdin with curiosity. The poor man had
+come there expecting some serious, even solemn, result, and he was like
+a great fish caught in the threads of a flimsy net; he struggled with
+himself.
+
+“Madame la comtesse is very good,” he said.
+
+“Shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Madame here some Wednesday?”
+ said the countess. “Pray bring her; it will give me pleasure.”
+
+“Madame Rabourdin herself receives on Wednesdays,” interrupted des
+Lupeaulx, who knew the empty civility of an invitation to the official
+Wednesdays; “but since you are so kind as to wish for her, you will soon
+give one of your private parties, and--”
+
+The countess rose with some irritation.
+
+“You are the master of my ceremonies,” she said to des
+Lupeaulx,--ambiguous words, by which she expressed the annoyance she
+felt with the secretary for presuming to interfere with her private
+parties, to which she admitted only a select few. She left the room
+without bowing to Rabourdin, who remained alone with des Lupeaulx;
+the latter was twisting in his fingers the confidential letter to
+the minister which Rabourdin had intrusted to La Briere. Rabourdin
+recognized it.
+
+“You have never really known me,” said des Lupeaulx. “Friday evening
+we will come to a full understanding. Just now I must go and receive
+callers; his Excellency saddles me with that burden when he has other
+matters to attend to. But I repeat, Rabourdin, don’t worry yourself; you
+have nothing to fear.”
+
+Rabourdin walked slowly through the corridors, amazed and confounded by
+this singular turn of events. He had expected Dutocq to denounce him,
+and found he had not been mistaken; des Lupeaulx had certainly seen the
+document which judged him so severely, and yet des Lupeaulx was fawning
+on his judge! It was all incomprehensible. Men of upright minds are
+often at a loss to understand complicated intrigues, and Rabourdin was
+lost in a maze of conjecture without being able to discover the object
+of the game which the secretary was playing.
+
+“Either he has not read the part about himself, or he loves my wife.”
+
+Such were the two thoughts to which his mind arrived as he crossed the
+courtyard; for the glance he had intercepted the night before between
+des Lupeaulx and Celestine came back to his memory like a flash of
+lightning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE WORMS AT WORK
+
+
+Rabourdin’s bureau was during his absence a prey to the keenest
+excitement; for the relation between the head officials and the clerks
+in a government office is so regulated that, when a minister’s messenger
+summons the head of a bureau to his Excellency’s presence (above all at
+the latter’s breakfast hour), there is no end to the comments that are
+made. The fact that the present unusual summons followed so closely
+on the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere seemed to give special
+importance to the circumstance, which was made known to Monsieur
+Saillard, who came at once to confer with Baudoyer. Bixiou, who happened
+at the moment to be at work with the latter, left him to converse with
+his father-in-law and betook himself to the bureau Rabourdin, where the
+usual routine was of course interrupted.
+
+Bixiou [entering]. “I thought I should find you at a white heat! Don’t
+you know what’s going on down below? The virtuous woman is done for!
+yes, done for, crushed! Terrible scene at the ministry!”
+
+Dutocq [looking fixedly at him]. “Are you telling the truth?”
+
+Bixiou. “Pray, who would regret it? Not you, certainly, for you will be
+made under-head-clerk and du Bruel head of the bureau. Monsieur Baudoyer
+gets the division.”
+
+Fleury. “I’ll bet a hundred francs that Baudoyer will never be head of
+the division.”
+
+Vimeux. “I’ll join in the bet; will you, Monsieur Poiret?”
+
+Poiret. “I retire in January.”
+
+Bixiou. “Is it possible? are we to lose the sight of those shoe-ties?
+What will the ministry be without you? Will nobody take up the bet on my
+side?”
+
+Dutocq. “I can’t, for I know the facts. Monsieur Rabourdin is appointed.
+Monsieur de la Billardiere requested it of the two ministers on his
+death-bed, blaming himself for having taken the emoluments of an office
+of which Rabourdin did all the work; he felt remorse of conscience, and
+the ministers, to quiet him, promised to appoint Rabourdin unless higher
+powers intervened.”
+
+Bixiou. “Gentlemen, are you all against me? seven to one,--for I know
+which side you’ll take, Monsieur Phellion. Well, I’ll bet a dinner
+costing five hundred francs at the Rocher de Cancale that Rabourdin does
+not get La Billardiere’s place. That will cost you only a hundred francs
+each, and I’m risking five hundred,--five to one against me! Do you take
+it up?” [Shouting into the next room.] “Du Bruel, what say you?”
+
+Phellion [laying down his pen]. “Monsieur, may I ask on what you base
+that contingent proposal?--for contingent it is. But stay, I am wrong
+to call it a proposal; I should say contract. A wager constitutes a
+contract.”
+
+Fleury. “No, no; you can only apply the word ‘contract’ to agreements
+that are recognized in the Code. Now the Code allows of no action for
+the recovery of a bet.”
+
+Dutocq. “Proscribe a thing and you recognize it.”
+
+Bixiou. “Good! my little man.”
+
+Poiret. “Dear me!”
+
+Fleury. “True! when one refuses to pay one’s debts, that’s recognizing
+them.”
+
+Thuillier. “You would make famous lawyers.”
+
+Poiret. “I am as curious as Monsieur Phellion to know what grounds
+Monsieur Bixiou has for--”
+
+Bixiou [shouting across the office]. “Du Bruel! Will you bet?”
+
+Du Bruel [appearing at the door]. “Heavens and earth, gentlemen, I’m
+very busy; I have something very difficult to do; I’ve got to write an
+obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere. I do beg you to be quiet;
+you can laugh and bet afterwards.”
+
+Bixiou. “That’s true, du Bruel; the praise of an honest man is a very
+difficult thing to write. I’d rather any day draw a caricature of him.”
+
+Du Bruel. “Do come and help me, Bixiou.”
+
+Bixiou [following him]. “I’m willing; though I can do such things much
+better when eating.”
+
+Du Bruel. “Well, we will go and dine together afterwards. But listen,
+this is what I have written” [reads] “‘The Church and the Monarchy are
+daily losing many of those who fought for them in Revolutionary times.’”
+
+Bixiou. “Bad, very bad; why don’t you say, ‘Death carries on its ravages
+amongst the few surviving defenders of the monarchy and the old and
+faithful servants of the King, whose heart bleeds under these reiterated
+blows?’” [Du Bruel writes rapidly.] “‘Monsieur le Baron Flamet de la
+Billardiere died this morning of dropsy, caused by heart disease.’ You
+see, it is just as well to show there are hearts in government offices;
+and you ought to slip in a little flummery about the emotions of the
+Royalists during the Terror,--might be useful, hey! But stay,--no!
+the petty papers would be sure to say the emotions came more from the
+stomach than the heart. Better leave that out. What are you writing
+now?”
+
+Du Bruel [reading]. “‘Issuing from an old parliamentary stock in which
+devotion to the throne was hereditary, as was also attachment to the
+faith of our fathers, Monsieur de la Billardiere--’”
+
+Bixiou. “Better say Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere.”
+
+Du Bruel. “But he wasn’t baron in 1793.”
+
+Bixiou. “No matter. Don’t you remember that under the Empire Fouche
+was telling an anecdote about the Convention, in which he had to quote
+Robespierre, and he said, ‘Robespierre called out to me, “Duc d’Otrante,
+go to the Hotel de Ville.”’ There’s a precedent for you!”
+
+Du Bruel. “Let me just write that down; I can use it in a
+vaudeville.--But to go back to what we were saying. I don’t want to put
+‘Monsieur le baron,’ because I am reserving his honors till the last,
+when they rained upon him.”
+
+Bixiou. “Oh! very good; that’s theatrical,--the finale of the article.”
+
+Du Bruel [continuing]. “‘In appointing Monsieur de la Billardiere
+gentleman-in-ordinary--’”
+
+Bixiou. “Very ordinary!”
+
+Du Bruel. “‘--of the Bedchamber, the King rewarded not only the services
+rendered by the Provost, who knew how to harmonize the severity of his
+functions with the customary urbanity of the Bourbons, but the bravery
+of the Vendean hero, who never bent the knee to the imperial idol. He
+leaves a son, who inherits his loyalty and his talents.’”
+
+Bixiou. “Don’t you think all that is a little too florid? I should tone
+down the poetry. ‘Imperial idol!’ ‘bent the knee!’ damn it, my dear
+fellow, writing vaudevilles has ruined your style; you can’t come down
+to pedestrial prose. I should say, ‘He belonged to the small number of
+those who.’ Simplify, simplify! the man himself was a simpleton.”
+
+Du Bruel. “That’s vaudeville, if you like! You would make your fortune
+at the theatre, Bixiou.”
+
+Bixiou. “What have you said about Quiberon?” [Reads over du Bruel’s
+shoulder.] “Oh, that won’t do! Here, this is what you must say: ‘He took
+upon himself, in a book recently published, the responsibility for all
+the blunders of the expedition to Quiberon,--thus proving the nature of
+his loyalty, which did not shrink from any sacrifice.’ That’s clever and
+witty, and exalts La Billardiere.”
+
+Du Bruel. “At whose expense?”
+
+Bixiou [solemn as a priest in a pulpit]. “Why, Hoche and Tallien, of
+course; don’t you read history?”
+
+Du Bruel. “No. I subscribed to the Baudouin series, but I’ve never had
+time to open a volume; one can’t find matter for vaudevilles there.”
+
+Phellion [at the door]. “We all want to know, Monsieur Bixiou, what made
+you think that the worthy and honorable Monsieur Rabourdin, who has so
+long done the work of this division for Monsieur de la Billardiere,--he,
+who is the senior head of all the bureaus, and whom, moreover, the
+minister summoned as soon as he heard of the departure of the late
+Monsieur de la Billardiere,--will not be appointed head of the
+division.”
+
+Bixiou. “Papa Phellion, you know geography?”
+
+Phellion [bridling up]. “I should say so!”
+
+Bixiou. “And history?”
+
+Phellion [affecting modesty]. “Possibly.”
+
+Bixiou [looking fixedly at him]. “Your diamond pin is loose, it is
+coming out. Well, you may know all that, but you don’t know the human
+heart; you have gone no further in the geography and history of that
+organ than you have in the environs of the city of Paris.”
+
+Poiret [to Vimeux]. “Environs of Paris? I thought they were talking of
+Monsieur Rabourdin.”
+
+Bixiou. “About that bet? Does the entire bureau Rabourdin bet against
+me?”
+
+All. “Yes.”
+
+Bixiou. “Du Bruel, do you count in?”
+
+Du Bruel. “Of course I do. We want Rabourdin to go up a step and make
+room for others.”
+
+Bixiou. “Well, I accept the bet,--for this reason; you can hardly
+understand it, but I’ll tell it to you all the same. It would be right
+and just to appoint Monsieur Rabourdin” [looking full at Dutocq],
+“because, in that case, long and faithful service, honor, and talent
+would be recognized, appreciated, and properly rewarded. Such an
+appointment is in the best interests of the administration.” [Phellion,
+Poiret, and Thuillier listen stupidly, with the look of those who try
+to peer before them in the darkness.] “Well, it is just because the
+promotion would be so fitting, and because the man has such merit,
+and because the measure is so eminently wise and equitable that I bet
+Rabourdin will not be appointed. Yes, you’ll see, that appointment will
+slip up, just like the invasion from Boulogne, and the march to Russia,
+for the success of which a great genius has gathered together all the
+chances. It will fail as all good and just things do fail in this low
+world. I am only backing the devil’s game.”
+
+Du Bruel. “Who do you think will be appointed?”
+
+Bixiou. “The more I think about Baudoyer, the more sure I feel that he
+unites all the opposite qualities; therefore I think he will be the next
+head of this division.”
+
+Dutocq. “But Monsieur des Lupeaulx, who sent for me to borrow my
+Charlet, told me positively that Monsieur Rabourdin was appointed, and
+that the little La Billardiere would be made Clerk of the Seals.”
+
+Bixiou. “Appointed, indeed! The appointment can’t be made and signed
+under ten days. It will certainly not be known before New-Year’s day.
+There he goes now across the courtyard; look at him, and say if the
+virtuous Rabourdin looks like a man in the sunshine of favor. I should
+say he knows he’s dismissed.” [Fleury rushes to the window.] “Gentlemen,
+adieu; I’ll go and tell Monsieur Baudoyer that I hear from you that
+Rabourdin is appointed; it will make him furious, the pious creature!
+Then I’ll tell him of our wager, to cool him down,--a process we call at
+the theatre turning the Wheel of Fortune, don’t we, du Bruel? Why do I
+care who gets the place? simply because if Baudoyer does he will make me
+under-head-clerk” [goes out].
+
+Poiret. “Everybody says that man is clever, but as for me, I can never
+understand a word he says” [goes on copying]. “I listen and listen; I
+hear words, but I never get at any meaning; he talks about the environs
+of Paris when he discusses the human heart and” [lays down his pen and
+goes to the stove] “declares he backs the devil’s game when it is a
+question of Russia and Boulogne; now what is there so clever in that,
+I’d like to know? We must first admit that the devil plays any game at
+all, and then find out what game; possibly dominoes” [blows his nose].
+
+Fleury [interrupting]. “Pere Poiret is blowing his nose; it must be
+eleven o’clock.”
+
+Du Bruel. “So it is! Goodness! I’m off to the secretary; he wants to
+read the obituary.”
+
+Poiret. “What was I saying?”
+
+Thuillier. “Dominoes,--perhaps the devil plays dominoes.” [Sebastien
+enters to gather up the different papers and circulars for signature.]
+
+Vimeux. “Ah! there you are, my fine young man. Your days of hardship are
+nearly over; you’ll get a post. Monsieur Rabourdin will be appointed.
+Weren’t you at Madame Rabourdin’s last night? Lucky fellow! they say
+that really superb women go there.”
+
+Sebastien. “Do they? I didn’t know.”
+
+Fleury. “Are you blind?”
+
+Sebastien. “I don’t like to look at what I ought not to see.”
+
+Phellion [delighted]. “Well said, young man!”
+
+Vimeux. “The devil! well, you looked at Madame Rabourdin enough, any
+how; a charming woman.”
+
+Fleury. “Pooh! thin as a rail. I saw her in the Tuileries, and I much
+prefer Percilliee, the ballet-mistress, Castaing’s victim.”
+
+Phellion. “What has an actress to do with the wife of a government
+official?”
+
+Dutocq. “They both play comedy.”
+
+Fleury [looking askance at Dutocq]. “The physical has nothing to do with
+the moral, and if you mean--”
+
+Dutocq. “I mean nothing.”
+
+Fleury. “Do you all want to know which of us will really be made head of
+this bureau?”
+
+All. “Yes, tell us.”
+
+Fleury. “Colleville.”
+
+Thuillier. “Why?”
+
+Fleury. “Because Madame Colleville has taken the shortest way to
+it--through the sacristy.”
+
+Thuillier. “I am too much Colleville’s friend not to beg you, Monsieur
+Fleury, to speak respectfully of his wife.”
+
+Phellion. “A defenceless woman should never be made the subject of
+conversation here--”
+
+Vimeux. “All the more because the charming Madame Colleville won’t
+invite Fleury to her house. He backbites her in revenge.”
+
+Fleury. “She may not receive me on the same footing that she does
+Thuillier, but I go there--”
+
+Thuillier. “When? how?--under her windows?”
+
+Though Fleury was dreaded as a bully in all the offices, he received
+Thuillier’s speech in silence. This meekness, which surprised the other
+clerks, was owing to a certain note for two hundred francs, of doubtful
+value, which Thuillier agreed to pass over to his sister. After this
+skirmish dead silence prevailed. They all wrote steadily from one to
+three o’clock. Du Bruel did not return.
+
+About half-past three the usual preparations for departure, the brushing
+of hats, the changing of coats, went on in all the ministerial offices.
+That precious thirty minutes thus employed served to shorten by just so
+much the day’s labor. At this hour the over-heated rooms cool off;
+the peculiar odor that hangs about the bureaus evaporates; silence
+is restored. By four o’clock none but a few clerks who do their duty
+conscientiously remain. A minister may know who are the real workers
+under him if he will take the trouble to walk through the divisions
+after four o’clock,--a species of prying, however, that no one of his
+dignity would condescend to.
+
+The various heads of divisions and bureaus usually encountered each
+other in the courtyards at this hour and exchanged opinions on the
+events of the day. On this occasion they departed by twos and threes,
+most of them agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old stagers,
+like Monsieur Clergeot, shook their heads and said, “Habent sua sidera
+lites.” Saillard and Baudoyer were politely avoided, for nobody knew
+what to say to them about La Billardiere’s death, it being fully
+understood that Baudoyer wanted the place, though it was certainly not
+due to him.
+
+When Saillard and his son-in-law had gone a certain distance from the
+ministry the former broke silence and said: “Things look badly for you,
+my poor Baudoyer.”
+
+“I can’t understand,” replied the other, “what Elisabeth was dreaming
+of when she sent Godard in such a hurry to get a passport for Falleix;
+Godard tells me she hired a post-chaise by the advice of my uncle
+Mitral, and that Falleix has already started for his own part of the
+country.”
+
+“Some matter connected with our business,” suggested Saillard.
+
+“Our most pressing business just now is to look after Monsieur La
+Billardiere’s place,” returned Baudoyer, crossly.
+
+They were just then near the entrance of the Palais-Royal on the rue
+Saint-Honore. Dutocq came up, bowing, and joined them.
+
+“Monsieur,” he said to Baudoyer, “if I can be useful to you in any way
+under the circumstances in which you find yourself, pray command me, for
+I am not less devoted to your interests than Monsieur Godard.”
+
+“Such an assurance is at least consoling,” replied Baudoyer; “it makes
+me aware that I have the confidence of honest men.”
+
+“If you would kindly employ your influence to get me placed in
+your division, taking Bixiou as head of the bureau and me as
+under-head-clerk, you will secure the future of two men who are ready to
+do anything for your advancement.”
+
+“Are you making fun of us, monsieur?” asked Saillard, staring at him
+stupidly.
+
+“Far be it from me to do that,” said Dutocq. “I have just come from the
+printing-office of the ministerial journal (where I carried from the
+general-secretary an obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere), and
+I there read an article which will appear to-night about you, which has
+given me the highest opinion of your character and talents. If it is
+necessary to crush Rabourdin, I’m in a position to give him the final
+blow; please to remember that.”
+
+Dutocq disappeared.
+
+“May I be shot if I understand a single word of it,” said Saillard,
+looking at Baudoyer, whose little eyes were expressive of stupid
+bewilderment. “I must buy the newspaper to-night.”
+
+When the two reached home and entered the salon on the ground-floor,
+they found a large fire lighted, and Madame Saillard, Elisabeth,
+Monsieur Gaudron and the curate of Saint-Paul’s sitting by it. The
+curate turned at once to Monsieur Baudoyer, to whom Elisabeth made a
+sign which he failed to understand.
+
+“Monsieur,” said the curate, “I have lost no time in coming in person to
+thank you for the magnificent gift with which you have adorned my poor
+church. I dared not run in debt to buy that beautiful monstrance,
+worthy of a cathedral. You, who are one of our most pious and faithful
+parishioners, must have keenly felt the bareness of the high altar. I am
+on my way to see Monseigneur the coadjutor, and he will, I am sure, send
+you his own thanks later.”
+
+“I have done nothing as yet--” began Baudoyer.
+
+“Monsieur le cure,” interposed his wife, cutting him short. “I see I am
+forced to betray the whole secret. Monsieur Baudoyer hopes to complete
+the gift by sending you a dais for the coming Fete-Dieu. But the
+purchase must depend on the state of our finances, and our finances
+depend on my husband’s promotion.”
+
+“God will reward those who honor him,” said Monsieur Gaudron, preparing,
+with the curate, to take leave.
+
+“But will you not,” said Saillard to the two ecclesiastics, “do us the
+honor to take pot luck with us?”
+
+“You can stay, my dear vicar,” said the curate to Gaudron; “you know I
+am engaged to dine with the curate of Saint-Roch, who, by the bye, is to
+bury Monsieur de la Billardiere to-morrow.”
+
+“Monsieur le cure de Saint-Roch might say a word for us,” began
+Baudoyer. His wife pulled the skirt of his coat violently.
+
+“Do hold your tongue, Baudoyer,” she said, leading him aside and
+whispering in his ear. “You have given a monstrance to the church, that
+cost five thousand francs. I’ll explain it all later.”
+
+The miserly Baudoyer make a sulky grimace, and continued gloomy and
+cross for the rest of the day.
+
+“What did you busy yourself about Falleix’s passport for? Why do you
+meddle in other people’s affairs?” he presently asked her.
+
+“I must say, I think Falleix’s affairs are as much ours as his,”
+ returned Elisabeth, dryly, glancing at her husband to make him notice
+Monsieur Gaudron, before whom he ought to be silent.
+
+“Certainly, certainly,” said old Saillard, thinking of his
+co-partnership.
+
+“I hope you reached the newspaper office in time?” remarked Elisabeth to
+Monsieur Gaudron, as she helped him to soup.
+
+“Yes, my dear lady,” answered the vicar; “when the editor read the
+little article I gave him, written by the secretary of the Grand
+Almoner, he made no difficulty. He took pains to insert it in a
+conspicuous place. I should never have thought of that; but this young
+journalist has a wide-awake mind. The defenders of religion can enter
+the lists against impiety without disadvantage at the present moment,
+for there is a great deal of talent in the royalist press. I have every
+reason to believe that success will crown your hopes. But you must
+remember, my dear Baudoyer, to promote Monsieur Colleville; he is an
+object of great interest to his Eminence; in fact, I am desired to
+mention him to you.”
+
+“If I am head of the division, I will make him head of one of my
+bureaus, if you want me to,” said Baudoyer.
+
+The matter thus referred to was explained after dinner, when the
+ministerial organ (bought and sent up by the porter) proved to contain
+among its Paris news the following articles, called items:--
+
+  “Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere died this morning, after a
+  long and painful illness. The king loses a devoted servant, the
+  Church a most pious son. Monsieur de la Billardiere’s end has
+  fitly crowned a noble life, consecrated in dark and troublesome
+  times to perilous missions, and of late years to arduous civic
+  duties. Monsieur de la Billardiere was provost of a department,
+  where his force of character triumphed over all the obstacles that
+  rebellion arrayed against him. He subsequently accepted the
+  difficult post of director of a division (in which his great
+  acquirements were not less useful than the truly French affability
+  of his manners) for the express purpose of conciliating the
+  serious interests that arise under its administration. No rewards
+  have ever been more truly deserved than those by which the King,
+  Louis XVIII., and his present Majesty took pleasure in crowning a
+  loyalty which never faltered under the usurper. This old family
+  still survives in the person of a single heir to the excellent man
+  whose death now afflicts so many warm friends. His Majesty has
+  already graciously made known that Monsieur Benjamin de la
+  Billardiere will be included among the gentlemen-in-ordinary of
+  the Bedchamber.
+
+  “The numerous friends who have not already received their
+  notification of this sad event are hereby informed that the
+  funeral will take place to-morrow at four o’clock, in the church
+  of Saint-Roch. The memorial address will be delivered by Monsieur
+  l’Abbe Fontanon.”----
+
+  “Monsieur Isidore-Charles-Thomas Baudoyer, representing one of the
+  oldest bourgeois families of Paris, and head of a bureau in the
+  late Monsieur de la Billardiere’s division, has lately recalled
+  the old traditions of piety and devotion which formerly
+  distinguished these great families, so jealous for the honor and
+  glory of religion, and so faithful in preserving its monuments.
+  The church of Saint-Paul has long needed a monstrance in keeping
+  with the magnificence of that basilica, itself due to the Company
+  of Jesus. Neither the vestry nor the curate were rich enough to
+  decorate the altar. Monsieur Baudoyer has bestowed upon the parish
+  a monstrance that many persons have seen and admired at Monsieur
+  Gohier’s, the king’s jeweller. Thanks to the piety of this
+  gentleman, who did not shrink from the immensity of the price, the
+  church of Saint-Paul possesses to-day a masterpiece of the
+  jeweller’s art designed by Monsieur de Sommervieux. It gives us
+  pleasure to make known this fact, which proves how powerless the
+  declamations of liberals have been on the mind of the Parisian
+  bourgeoisie. The upper ranks of that body have at all times been
+  royalist and they prove it when occasion offers.”
+
+“The price was five thousand francs,” said the Abbe Gaudron; “but as the
+payment was in cash, the court jeweller reduced the amount.”
+
+“Representing one of the oldest bourgeois families in Paris!” Saillard
+was saying to himself; “there it is printed,--in the official paper,
+too!”
+
+“Dear Monsieur Gaudron,” said Madame Baudoyer, “please help my father to
+compose a little speech that he could slip into the countess’s ear when
+he takes her the monthly stipend,--a single sentence that would cover
+all! I must leave you. I am obliged to go out with my uncle Mitral.
+Would you believe it? I was unable to find my uncle Bidault at home this
+afternoon. Oh, what a dog-kennel he lives in! But Monsieur Mitral, who
+knows his ways, says he does all his business between eight o’clock in
+the morning and midday, and that after that hour he can be found only at
+a certain cafe called the Cafe Themis,--a singular name.”
+
+“Is justice done there?” said the abbe, laughing.
+
+“Do you ask why he goes to a cafe at the corner of the rue Dauphine and
+the quai des Augustins? They say he plays dominoes there every night
+with his friend Monsieur Gobseck. I don’t wish to go to such a place
+alone; my uncle Mitral will take me there and bring me back.”
+
+At this instant Mitral showed his yellow face, surmounted by a wig which
+looked as though it might be made of hay, and made a sign to his niece
+to come at once, and not keep a carriage waiting at two francs an hour.
+Madame Baudoyer rose and went away without giving any explanation to her
+husband or father.
+
+“Heaven has given you in that woman,” said Monsieur Gaudron to Baudoyer
+when Elisabeth had disappeared, “a perfect treasure of prudence
+and virtue, a model of wisdom, a Christian who gives sure signs of
+possessing the Divine spirit. Religion alone is able to form such
+perfect characters. To-morrow I shall say a mass for the success of your
+good cause. It is all-important, for the sake of the monarchy and of
+religion itself that you should receive this appointment. Monsieur
+Rabourdin is a liberal; he subscribes to the ‘Journal des Debats,’ a
+dangerous newspaper, which made war on Monsieur le Comte de Villele to
+please the wounded vanity of Monsieur de Chateaubriand. His Eminence
+will read the newspaper to-night, if only to see what is said of his
+poor friend Monsieur de la Billardiere; and Monseigneur the coadjutor
+will speak of you to the King. When I think of what you have now done
+for his dear church, I feel sure he will not forget you in his prayers;
+more than that, he is dining at this moment with the coadjutor at the
+house of the curate of Saint-Roch.”
+
+These words made Saillard and Baudoyer begin to perceive that Elisabeth
+had not been idle ever since Godard had informed her of Monsieur de la
+Billardiere’s decease.
+
+“Isn’t she clever, that Elisabeth of mine?” cried Saillard,
+comprehending more clearly than Monsieur l’abbe the rapid undermining,
+like the path of a mole, which his daughter had undertaken.
+
+“She sent Godard to Rabourdin’s door to find out what newspaper he
+takes,” said Gaudron; “and I mentioned the name to the secretary of his
+Eminence,--for we live at a crisis when the Church and Throne must keep
+themselves informed as to who are their friends and who their enemies.”
+
+“For the last five days I have been trying to find the right thing to
+say to his Excellency’s wife,” said Saillard.
+
+“All Paris will read that,” cried Baudoyer, whose eyes were still
+riveted on the paper.
+
+“Your eulogy costs us four thousand eight hundred francs, son-in-law!”
+ exclaimed Madame Saillard.
+
+“You have adorned the house of God,” said the Abbe Gaudron.
+
+“We might have got salvation without doing that,” she returned. “But
+if Baudoyer gets the place, which is worth eight thousand more, the
+sacrifice is not so great. If he doesn’t get it! hey, papa,” she added,
+looking at her husband, “how we shall have bled!--”
+
+“Well, never mind,” said Saillard, enthusiastically, “we can always make
+it up through Falleix, who is going to extend his business and use his
+brother, whom he has made a stockbroker on purpose. Elisabeth might have
+told us, I think, why Falleix went off in such a hurry. But let’s invent
+my little speech. This is what I thought of: ‘Madame, if you would say a
+word to his Excellency--’”
+
+“‘If you would deign,’” said Gaudron; “add the word ‘deign,’ it is
+more respectful. But you ought to know, first of all, whether Madame la
+Dauphine will grant you her protection, and then you could suggest to
+Madame la comtesse the idea of co-operating with the wishes of her Royal
+Highness.”
+
+“You ought to designate the vacant post,” said Baudoyer.
+
+“‘Madame la comtesse,’” began Saillard, rising, and bowing to his wife,
+with an agreeable smile.
+
+“Goodness! Saillard; how ridiculous you look. Take care, my man, you’ll
+make the woman laugh.”
+
+“‘Madame la comtesse,’” resumed Saillard. “Is that better, wife?”
+
+“Yes, my duck.”
+
+“‘The place of the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer--’”
+
+“‘Man of talent and extreme piety,’” prompted Gaudron.
+
+“Write it down, Baudoyer,” cried old Saillard, “write that sentence
+down.”
+
+Baudoyer proceeded to take a pen and wrote, without a blush, his own
+praises, precisely as Nathan or Canalis might have reviewed one of their
+own books.
+
+“‘Madame la comtesse’--Don’t you see, mother?” said Saillard to his
+wife; “I am supposing you to be the minister’s wife.”
+
+“Do you take me for a fool?” she answered sharply. “I know that.”
+
+“‘The place of the late worthy de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer, a man of consummate talent and extreme
+piety--’” After looking at Monsieur Gaudron, who was reflecting, he
+added, “‘will be very glad if he gets it.’ That’s not bad; it’s brief
+and it says the whole thing.”
+
+“But do wait, Saillard; don’t you see that Monsieur l’abbe is turning it
+over in his mind?” said Madame Saillard; “don’t disturb him.”
+
+“‘Will be very thankful if you would deign to interest yourself in his
+behalf,’” resumed Gaudron. “‘And in saying a word to his Excellency you
+will particularly please Madame la Dauphine, by whom he has the honor
+and the happiness to be protected.’”
+
+“Ah! Monsieur Gaudron, that sentence is worth more than the monstrance;
+I don’t regret the four thousand eight hundred--Besides, Baudoyer, my
+lad, you’ll pay them, won’t you? Have you written it all down?”
+
+“I shall make you repeat it, father, morning and evening,” said Madame
+Saillard. “Yes, that’s a good speech. How lucky you are, Monsieur
+Gaudron, to know so much. That’s what it is to be brought up in a
+seminary; they learn there how to speak to God and his saints.”
+
+“He is as good as he is learned,” said Baudoyer, pressing the priest’s
+hand. “Did you write that article?” he added, pointing to the newspaper.
+
+“No, it was written by the secretary of his Eminence, a young abbe
+who is under obligations to me, and who takes an interest in Monsieur
+Colleville; he was educated at my expense.”
+
+“A good deed is always rewarded,” said Baudoyer.
+
+While these four personages were sitting down to their game of boston,
+Elisabeth and her uncle Mitral reached the cafe Themis, with much
+discourse as they drove along about a matter which Elisabeth’s keen
+perceptions told her was the most powerful lever that could be used to
+force the minister’s hand in the affair of her husband’s appointment.
+Uncle Mitral, a former sheriff’s officer, crafty, clever at sharp
+practice, and full of expedients and judicial precautions, believed the
+honor of his family to be involved in the appointment of his nephew.
+His avarice had long led him to estimate the contents of old Gigonnet’s
+strong-box, for he knew very well they would go in the end to benefit
+his nephew Baudoyer; and it was therefore important that the latter
+should obtain a position which would be in keeping with the combined
+fortunes of the Saillards and the old Gigonnet, which would finally
+devolve on the Baudoyer’s little daughter; and what an heiress she would
+be with an income of a hundred thousand francs! to what social position
+might she not aspire with that fortune? He adopted all the ideas of his
+niece Elisabeth and thoroughly understood them. He had helped in sending
+off Falleix expeditiously, explaining to him the advantage of taking
+post horses. After which, while eating his dinner, he reflected that
+it be as well to give a twist of his own to the clever plan invented by
+Elisabeth.
+
+When they reached the Cafe Themis he told his niece that he alone could
+manage Gigonnet in the matter they both had in view, and he made her
+wait in the hackney-coach and bide her time to come forward at the right
+moment. Elisabeth saw through the window-panes the two faces of Gobseck
+and Gigonnet (her uncle Bidault), which stood out in relief against
+the yellow wood-work of the old cafe, like two cameo heads, cold and
+impassible, in the rigid attitude that their gravity gave them. The two
+Parisian misers were surrounded by a number of other old faces, on which
+“thirty per cent discount” was written in circular wrinkles that started
+from the nose and turned round the glacial cheek-bones. These remarkable
+physiognomies brightened up on seeing Mitral, and their eyes gleamed
+with tigerish curiosity.
+
+“Hey, hey! it is papa Mitral!” cried one of them, named Chaboisseau, a
+little old man who discounted for a publisher.
+
+“Bless me, so it is!” said another, a broker named Metivier, “ha, that’s
+an old monkey well up in his tricks.”
+
+“And you,” retorted Mitral, “you are an old crow who knows all about
+carcasses.”
+
+“True,” said the stern Gobseck.
+
+“What are you here for? Have you come to seize friend Metivier?” asked
+Gigonnet, pointing to the broker, who had the bluff face of a porter.
+
+“Your great-niece Elisabeth is out there, papa Gigonnet,” whispered
+Mitral.
+
+“What! some misfortune?” said Bidault. The old man drew his eyebrows
+together and assumed a tender look like that of an executioner when
+about to go to work officially. In spite of his Roman virtue he must
+have been touched, for his red nose lost somewhat of its color.
+
+“Well, suppose it is misfortune, won’t you help Saillard’s daughter?--a
+girl who has knitted your stockings for the last thirty years!” cried
+Mitral.
+
+“If there’s good security I don’t say I won’t,” replied Gigonnet.
+“Falleix is in with them. Falleix has just set up his brother as a
+broker, and he is doing as much business as the Brezacs; and what with?
+his mind, perhaps! Saillard is no simpleton.”
+
+“He knows the value of money,” put in Chaboisseau.
+
+That remark, uttered among those old men, would have made an artist and
+thinker shudder as they all nodded their heads.
+
+“But it is none of my business,” resumed Bidault-Gigonnet. “I’m not
+bound to care for my neighbors’ misfortunes. My principle is never to be
+off my guard with friends or relatives; you can’t perish except through
+weakness. Apply to Gobseck; he is softer.”
+
+The usurers all applauded these doctrines with a shake of their metallic
+heads. An onlooker would have fancied he heard the creaking of ill-oiled
+machinery.
+
+“Come, Gigonnet, show a little feeling,” said Chaboisseau, “they’ve knit
+your stockings for thirty years.”
+
+“That counts for something,” remarked Gobseck.
+
+“Are you all alone? Is it safe to speak?” said Mitral, looking carefully
+about him. “I come about a good piece of business.”
+
+“If it is good, why do you come to us?” said Gigonnet, sharply,
+interrupting Mitral.
+
+“A fellow who was a gentleman of the Bedchamber,” went on Mitral, “a
+former ‘chouan,’--what’s his name?--La Billardiere is dead.”
+
+“True,” said Gobseck.
+
+“And our nephew is giving monstrances to the church,” snarled Gigonnet.
+
+“He is not such a fool as to give them, he sells them, old man,” said
+Mitral, proudly. “He wants La Billardiere’s place, and in order to get
+it, we must seize--”
+
+“Seize! You’ll never be anything but a sheriff’s officer,” put in
+Metivier, striking Mitral amicably on the shoulder; “I like that, I do!”
+
+“Seize Monsieur Clement des Lupeaulx in our clutches,” continued Mitral;
+“Elisabeth has discovered how to do it, and he is--”
+
+“Elisabeth”; cried Gigonnet, interrupting again; “dear little creature!
+she takes after her grandfather, my poor brother! he never had his
+equal! Ah, you should have seen him buying up old furniture; what tact!
+what shrewdness! What does Elisabeth want?”
+
+“Hey! hey!” cried Mitral, “you’ve got back your bowels of compassion,
+papa Gigonnet! That phenomenon has a cause.”
+
+“Always a child,” said Gobseck to Gigonnet, “you are too quick on the
+trigger.”
+
+“Come, Gobseck and Gigonnet, listen to me; you want to keep well with
+des Lupeaulx, don’t you? You’ve not forgotten how you plucked him in
+that affair about the king’s debts, and you are afraid he’ll ask you to
+return some of his feathers,” said Mitral.
+
+“Shall we tell him the whole thing?” asked Gobseck, whispering to
+Gigonnet.
+
+“Mitral is one of us; he wouldn’t play a shabby trick on his former
+customers,” replied Gigonnet. “You see, Mitral,” he went on, speaking to
+the ex-sheriff in a low voice, “we three have just bought up all those
+debts, the payment of which depends on the decision of the liquidation
+committee.”
+
+“How much will you lose?” asked Mitral.
+
+“Nothing,” said Gobseck.
+
+“Nobody knows we are in it,” added Gigonnet; “Samanon screens us.”
+
+“Come, listen to me, Gigonnet; it is cold, and your niece is waiting
+outside. You’ll understand what I want in two words. You must at
+once, between you, send two hundred and fifty thousand francs (without
+interest) into the country after Falleix, who has gone post-haste, with
+a courier in advance of him.”
+
+“Is it possible!” said Gobseck.
+
+“What for?” cried Gigonnet, “and where to?”
+
+“To des Lupeaulx’s magnificent country-seat,” replied Mitral. “Falleix
+knows the country, for he was born there; and he is going to buy up
+land all round the secretary’s miserable hovel, with the two hundred
+and fifty thousand francs I speak of,--good land, well worth the price.
+There are only nine days before us for drawing up and recording the
+notarial deeds (bear that in mind). With the addition of this land, des
+Lupeaulx’s present miserable property would pay taxes to the amount of
+one thousand francs, the sum necessary to make a man eligible to the
+Chamber. Ergo, with it des Lupeaulx goes into the electoral college,
+becomes eligible, count, and whatever he pleases. You know the deputy
+who has slipped out and left a vacancy, don’t you?”
+
+The two misers nodded.
+
+“Des Lupeaulx would cut off a leg to get elected in his place,”
+ continued Mitral; “but he must have the title-deeds of the property in
+his own name, and then mortgage them back to us for the amount of the
+purchase-money. Ah! now you begin to see what I am after! First of all,
+we must make sure of Baudoyer’s appointment, and des Lupeaulx will get
+it for us on these terms; after that is settled we will hand him back
+to you. Falleix is now canvassing the electoral vote. Don’t you
+perceive that you have Lupeaulx completely in your power until after the
+election?--for Falleix’s friends are a large majority. Now do you see
+what I mean, papa Gigonnet?”
+
+“It’s a clever game,” said Metivier.
+
+“We’ll do it,” said Gigonnet; “you agree, don’t you, Gobseck? Falleix
+can give us security and put mortgages on the property in my name; we’ll
+go and see des Lupeaulx when all is ready.”
+
+“We’re robbed,” said Gobseck.
+
+“Ha, ha!” laughed Mitral, “I’d like to know the robber!”
+
+“Nobody can rob us but ourselves,” answered Gigonnet. “I told you we
+were doing a good thing in buying up all des Lupeaulx’s paper from his
+creditors at sixty per cent discount.”
+
+“Take this mortgage on his estate and you’ll hold him tighter still
+through the interest,” answered Mitral.
+
+“Possibly,” said Gobseck.
+
+After exchanging a shrewd look with Gobseck, Gigonnet went to the door
+of the cafe.
+
+“Elisabeth! follow it up, my dear,” he said to his niece. “We hold your
+man securely; but don’t neglect accessories. You have begun well, clever
+woman! go on as you began and you’ll have your uncle’s esteem,” and he
+grasped her hand, gayly.
+
+“But,” said Mitral, “Metivier and Chaboisseau heard it all, and they
+may play us a trick and tell the matter to some opposition journal
+which would catch the ball on its way and counteract the effect of the
+ministerial article. You must go alone, my dear; I dare not let those
+two cormorants out of my sight.” So saying he re-entered the cafe.
+
+The next day the numerous subscribers to a certain liberal journal read,
+among the Paris items, the following article, inserted authoritatively
+by Chaboisseau and Metivier, share-holders in the said journal, brokers
+for publishers, printers, and paper-makers, whose behests no editor
+dared refuse:--
+
+  “Yesterday a ministerial journal plainly indicated as the probable
+  successor of Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere, Monsieur
+  Baudoyer, one of the worthiest citizens of a populous quarter,
+  where his benevolence is scarcely less known than the piety on
+  which the ministerial organ laid so much stress. Why was that
+  sheet silent as to his talents? Did it reflect that in boasting of
+  the bourgeoise nobility of Monsieur Baudoyer--which, certainly, is
+  a nobility as good as any other--it was pointing out a reason for
+  the exclusion of the candidate? A gratuitous piece of perfidy! an
+  attempt to kill with a caress! To appoint Monsieur Baudoyer is to
+  do honor to the virtues, the talents of the middle classes, of
+  whom we shall ever be the supporters, though their cause seems at
+  times a lost one. This appointment, we repeat, will be an act of
+  justice and good policy; consequently we may be sure it will not
+  be made.”
+
+On the morrow, Friday, the usual day for the dinner given by Madame
+Rabourdin, whom des Lupeaulx had left at midnight, radiant in beauty, on
+the staircase of the Bouffons, arm in arm with Madame de Camps (Madame
+Firmiani had lately married), the old roue awoke with his thoughts
+of vengeance calmed, or rather refreshed, and his mind full of a last
+glance exchanged with Celestine.
+
+“I’ll make sure of Rabourdin’s support by forgiving him now,--I’ll get
+even with him later. If he hasn’t this place for the time being I should
+have to give up a woman who is capable of becoming a most precious
+instrument in the pursuit of high political fortune. She understands
+everything; shrinks from nothing, from no idea whatever!--and besides,
+I can’t know before his Excellency what new scheme of administration
+Rabourdin has invented. No, my dear des Lupeaulx, the thing in hand is
+to win all now for your Celestine. You may make as many faces as you
+please, Madame la comtesse, but you will invite Madame Rabourdin to your
+next select party.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx was one of those men who to satisfy a passion are quite
+able to put away revenge in some dark corner of their minds. His course
+was taken; he was resolved to get Rabourdin appointed.
+
+“I will prove to you, my dear fellow, that I deserve a good place in
+your galley,” thought he as he seated himself in his study and began to
+unfold a newspaper.
+
+He knew so well what the ministerial organ would contain that he rarely
+took the trouble to read it, but on this occasion he did open it to
+look at the article on La Billardiere, recollecting with amusement the
+dilemma in which du Bruel had put him by bringing him the night before
+Bixiou’s amendments to the obituary. He was laughing to himself as he
+reread the biography of the late Comte da Fontaine, dead a few months
+earlier, which he had hastily substituted for that of La Billardiere,
+when his eyes were dazzled by the name of Baudoyer. He read with fury
+the article which pledged the minister, and then he rang violently for
+Dutocq, to send him at once to the editor. But what was his astonishment
+on reading the reply of the opposition paper! The situation was
+evidently serious. He knew the game, and he saw that the man who was
+shuffling his cards for him was a Greek of the first order. To dictate
+in this way through two opposing newspapers in one evening, and to begin
+the fight by forestalling the intentions of the minister was a daring
+game! He recognized the pen of a liberal editor, and resolved to
+question him that night at the opera. Dutocq appeared.
+
+“Read that,” said des Lupeaulx, handing him over the two journals, and
+continuing to run his eye over others to see if Baudoyer had pulled
+any further wires. “Go to the office and ask who has dared to thus
+compromise the minister.”
+
+“It was not Monsieur Baudoyer himself,” answered Dutocq, “for he never
+left the ministry yesterday. I need not go and inquire; for when I took
+your article to the newspaper office I met a young abbe who brought in a
+letter from the Grand Almoner, before which you yourself would have had
+to bow.”
+
+“Dutocq, you have a grudge against Monsieur Rabourdin, and it isn’t
+right; for he has twice saved you from being turned out. However, we
+are not masters of our own feelings; we sometimes hate our benefactors.
+Only, remember this; if you show the slightest treachery to Rabourdin,
+without my permission, it will be your ruin. As to that newspaper,
+let the Grand Almoner subscribe as largely as we do, if he wants
+its services. Here we are at the end of the year; the matter of
+subscriptions will come up for discussion, and I shall have something to
+say on that head. As to La Billardiere’s place, there is only one way to
+settle the matter; and that is to appoint Rabourdin this very day.”
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Dutocq, returning to the clerks’ office and addressing
+his colleagues. “I don’t know if Bixiou has the art of looking into
+futurity, but if you have not read the ministerial journal I advise you
+to study the article about Baudoyer; then, as Monsieur Fleury takes the
+opposition sheet, you can see the reply. Monsieur Rabourdin certainly
+has talent, but a man who in these days gives a six-thousand-franc
+monstrance to the Church has a devilish deal more talent than he.”
+
+Bixiou [entering]. “What say you, gentlemen, to the First Epistle to the
+Corinthians in our pious ministerial journal, and the reply Epistle to
+the Ministers in the opposition sheet? How does Monsieur Rabourdin feel
+now, du Bruel?”
+
+Du Bruel [rushing in]. “I don’t know.” [He drags Bixiou back into his
+cabinet, and says in a low voice] “My good fellow, your way of helping
+people is like that of the hangman who jumps upon a victim’s shoulders
+to break his neck. You got me into a scrape with des Lupeaulx, which my
+folly in ever trusting you richly deserved. A fine thing indeed, that
+article on La Billardiere. I sha’n’t forget the trick! Why, the very
+first sentence was as good as telling the King he was superannuated and
+it was time for him to die. And as to that Quiberon bit, it said plainly
+that the King was a--What a fool I was!”
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. “Bless my heart! are you getting angry? Can’t a
+fellow joke any more?”
+
+Du Bruel. “Joke! joke indeed. When you want to be made head-clerk
+somebody shall joke with you, my dear fellow.”
+
+Bixiou [in a bullying tone]. “Angry, are we?”
+
+Du Bruel. “Yes!”
+
+Bixiou [dryly]. “So much the worse for you.”
+
+Du Bruel [uneasy]. “You wouldn’t pardon such a thing yourself, I know.”
+
+Bixiou [in a wheedling tone]. “To a friend? indeed I would.” [They hear
+Fleury’s voice.] “There’s Fleury cursing Baudoyer. Hey, how well
+the thing has been managed! Baudoyer will get the appointment.”
+ [Confidentially] “After all, so much the better. Du Bruel, just keep
+your eye on the consequences. Rabourdin would be a mean-spirited
+creature to stay under Baudoyer; he will send in his registration, and
+that will give us two places. You can be head of the bureau and take me
+for under-head-clerk. We will make vaudevilles together, and I’ll fag at
+your work in the office.”
+
+Du Bruel [smiling]. “Dear me, I never thought of that. Poor Rabourdin! I
+shall be sorry for him, though.”
+
+Bixiou. “That shows how much you love him!” [Changing his tone] “Ah,
+well, I don’t pity him any longer. He’s rich; his wife gives parties and
+doesn’t ask me,--me, who go everywhere! Well, good-bye, my dear fellow,
+good-bye, and don’t owe me a grudge!” [He goes out through the clerks’
+office.] “Adieu, gentlemen; didn’t I tell you yesterday that a man who
+has nothing but virtues and talents will always be poor, even though he
+has a pretty wife?”
+
+Henry. “You are so rich, you!”
+
+Bixiou. “Not bad, my Cincinnatus! But you’ll give me that dinner at the
+Rocher de Cancale.”
+
+Poiret. “It is absolutely impossible for me to understand Monsieur
+Bixiou.”
+
+Phellion [with an elegaic air]. “Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom reads the
+newspapers that it might perhaps be serviceable to deprive ourselves
+momentarily by taking them in to him.” [Fleury hands over his paper,
+Vimeux the office sheet, and Phellion departs with them.]
+
+At that moment des Lupeaulx, coming leisurely downstairs to breakfast
+with the minister, was asking himself whether, before playing a trump
+card for the husband, it might not be prudent to probe the wife’s heart
+and make sure of a reward for his devotion. He was feeling about for
+the small amount of heart that he possessed, when, at a turn of the
+staircase, he encountered his lawyer, who said to him, smiling, “Just a
+word, Monseigneur,” in the tone of familiarity assumed by men who know
+they are indispensable.
+
+“What is it, my dear Desroches?” exclaimed the politician. “Has anything
+happened?”
+
+“I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been brought
+up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain Samanon.”
+
+“Men whom I helped to make their millions!”
+
+“Listen,” whispered the lawyer. “Gigonnet (really named Bidault) is
+the uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is father-in-law to a
+certain Baudoyer, who thinks he has a right to the vacant place in your
+ministry. Don’t you think I have done right to come and tell you?”
+
+“Thank you,” said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a shrewd
+look.
+
+“One stroke of your pen will buy them off,” said Desroches, leaving him.
+
+“What an immense sacrifice!” muttered des Lupeaulx. “It would be
+impossible to explain it to a woman,” thought he. “Is Celestine worth
+more than the clearing off of my debts?--that is the question. I’ll go
+and see her this morning.”
+
+So the beautiful Madame Rabourdin was to be, within an hour, the arbiter
+of her husband’s fate, and no power on earth could warn her of the
+importance of her replies, or give her the least hint to guard her
+conduct and compose her voice. Moreover, in addition to her mischances,
+she believed herself certain of success, never dreaming that Rabourdin
+was undermined in all directions by the secret sapping of the mollusks.
+
+“Well, Monseigneur,” said des Lupeaulx, entering the little salon where
+they breakfasted, “have you seen the articles on Baudoyer?”
+
+“For God’s sake, my dear friend,” replied the minister, “don’t talk of
+those appointments just now; let me have an hour’s peace! They cracked
+my ears last night with that monstrance. The only way to save Rabourdin
+is to bring his appointment before the Council, unless I submit to
+having my hand forced. It is enough to disgust a man with the public
+service. I must purchase the right to keep that excellent Rabourdin by
+promoting a certain Colleville!”
+
+“Why not make over the management of this pretty little comedy to me,
+and rid yourself of the worry of it? I’ll amuse you every morning with
+an account of the game of chess I should play with the Grand Almoner,”
+ said des Lupeaulx.
+
+“Very good,” said the minister, “settle it with the head examiner. But
+you know perfectly well that nothing is more likely to strike the king’s
+mind than just those reasons the opposition journal has chosen to put
+forth. Good heavens! fancy managing a ministry with such men as Baudoyer
+under me!”
+
+“An imbecile bigot,” said des Lupeaulx, “and as utterly incapable as--”
+
+“--as La Billardiere,” added the minister.
+
+“But La Billardiere had the manners of a gentleman-in-ordinary,” replied
+des Lupeaulx. “Madame,” he continued, addressing the countess, “it
+is now an absolute necessity to invite Madame Rabourdin to your next
+private party. I must assure you she is the intimate friend of Madame
+de Camps; they were at the Opera together last night. I first met her at
+the hotel Firmiani. Besides, you will see that she is not of a kind to
+compromise a salon.”
+
+“Invite Madame Rabourdin, my dear,” said the minister, “and pray let us
+talk of something else.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. SCENES FROM DOMESTIC LIFE
+
+
+Parisian households are literally eaten up with the desire to be in
+keeping with the luxury that surrounds them on all sides, and few there
+are who have the wisdom to let their external situation conform to
+their internal revenue. But this vice may perhaps denote a truly French
+patriotism, which seeks to maintain the supremacy of the nation in the
+matter of dress. France reigns through clothes over the whole of Europe;
+and every one must feel the importance of retaining a commercial sceptre
+that makes fashion in France what the navy is to England. This patriotic
+ardor which leads a nation to sacrifice everything to appearances--to
+the “paroistre,” as d’Aubigne said in the days of Henri IV.--is the
+cause of those vast secret labors which employ the whole of a Parisian
+woman’s morning, when she wishes, as Madame Rabourdin wished, to keep
+up on twelve thousand francs a year the style that many a family with
+thirty thousand does not indulge in. Consequently, every Friday,--the
+day of her dinner parties,--Madame Rabourdin helped the chambermaid to
+do the rooms; for the cook went early to market, and the man-servant was
+cleaning the silver, folding the napkins, and polishing the glasses.
+The ill-advised individual who might happen, through an oversight of the
+porter, to enter Madame Rabourdin’s establishment about eleven o’clock
+in the morning would have found her in the midst of a disorder
+the reverse of picturesque, wrapped in a dressing-gown, her hair
+ill-dressed, and her feet in old slippers, attending to the lamps,
+arranging the flowers, or cooking in haste an extremely unpoetic
+breakfast. The visitor to whom the mysteries of Parisian life were
+unknown would certainly have learned for the rest of his life not to
+set foot in these greenrooms at the wrong moment; a woman caught in her
+matin mysteries would ever after point him out as a man capable of the
+blackest crimes; or she would talk of his stupidity and indiscretion
+in a manner to ruin him. The true Parisian woman, indulgent to all
+curiosity that she can put to profit, is implacable to that which makes
+her lose her prestige. Such a domiciliary invasion may be called,
+not only (as they say in police reports) an attack on privacy, but a
+burglary, a robbery of all that is most precious, namely, CREDIT. A
+woman is quite willing to let herself be surprised half-dressed, with
+her hair about her shoulders. If her hair is all her own she scores one;
+but she will never allow herself to be seen “doing” her own rooms, or
+she loses her pariostre,--that precious /seeming-to-be/!
+
+Madame Rabourdin was in full tide of preparation for her Friday dinner,
+standing in the midst of provisions the cook had just fished from the
+vast ocean of the markets, when Monsieur des Lupeaulx made his way
+stealthily in. The general-secretary was certainly the last man Madame
+Rabourdin expected to see, and so, when she heard his boots creaking
+in the ante-chamber, she exclaimed, impatiently, “The hair-dresser
+already!”--an exclamation as little agreeable to des Lupeaulx as the
+sight of des Lupeaulx was agreeable to her. She immediately escaped into
+her bedroom, where chaos reigned; a jumble of furniture to be put out
+of sight, with other heterogeneous articles of more or rather less
+elegance,--a domestic carnival, in short. The bold des Lupeaulx followed
+the handsome figure, so piquant did she seem to him in her dishabille.
+There is something indescribably alluring to the eye in a portion of
+flesh seen through an hiatus in the undergarment, more attractive far
+than when it rises gracefully above the circular curve of the velvet
+bodice, to the vanishing line of the prettiest swan’s-neck that ever
+lover kissed before a ball. When the eye dwells on a woman in full dress
+making exhibition of her magnificent white shoulders, do we not fancy
+that we see the elegant dessert of a grand dinner? But the glance that
+glides through the disarray of muslins rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it
+were, a feast of stolen fruit glowing between the leaves on a garden
+wall.
+
+“Stop! wait!” cried the pretty Parisian, bolting the door of the
+disordered room.
+
+She rang for Therese, called for her daughter, the cook, and the
+man-servant, wishing she possessed the whistle of the machinist at
+the Opera. Her call, however, answered the same purpose. In a moment,
+another phenomenon! the salon assumed a piquant morning look, quite in
+keeping with the becoming toilet hastily got together by the fugitive;
+we say it to her glory, for she was evidently a clever woman, in this at
+least.
+
+“You!” she said, coming forward, “at this hour? What has happened?”
+
+“Very serious things,” answered des Lupeaulx. “You and I must understand
+each other now.”
+
+Celestine looked at the man behind his glasses, and understood the
+matter.
+
+“My principle vice,” she said, “is oddity. For instance, I do not mix
+up affections with politics; let us talk politics,--business, if you
+will,--the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor
+a whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together
+things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; it is my
+natural instinct as an artist. We women have politics of our own.”
+
+Already the tones of her voice and the charm of her manners were
+producing their effect on the secretary and metamorphosing his roughness
+into sentimental courtesy; she had recalled him to his obligations as a
+lover. A clever pretty woman makes an atmosphere about her in which the
+nerves relax and the feelings soften.
+
+“You are ignorant of what is happening,” said des Lupeaulx, harshly, for
+he still thought it best to make a show of harshness. “Read that.”
+
+He gave the two newspapers to the graceful woman, having drawn a line in
+red ink round each of the famous articles.
+
+“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, “but this is dreadful! Who is this
+Baudoyer?”
+
+“A donkey,” answered des Lupeaulx; “but, as you see, he uses means,--he
+gives monstrances; he succeeds, thanks to some clever hand that pulls
+the wires.”
+
+The thought of her debts crossed Madame Rabourdin’s mind and blurred
+her sight, as if two lightning flashes had blinded her eyes at the same
+moment; her ears hummed under the pressure of the blood that began to
+beat in her arteries; she remained for a moment quite bewildered, gazing
+at a window which she did not see.
+
+“But are you faithful to us?” she said at last, with a winning glance at
+des Lupeaulx, as if to attach him to her.
+
+“That is as it may be,” he replied, answering her glance with an
+interrogative look which made the poor woman blush.
+
+“If you demand caution-money you may lose all,” she said, laughing; “I
+thought you more magnanimous than you are. And you, you thought me less
+a person than I am,--a sort of school-girl.”
+
+“You have misunderstood me,” he said, with a covert smile; “I meant that
+I could not assist a man who plays against me just as l’Etourdi played
+against Mascarille.”
+
+“What can you mean?”
+
+“This will prove to you whether I am magnanimous or not.”
+
+He gave Madame Rabourdin the memorandum stolen by Dutocq, pointing out
+to her the passage in which her husband had so ably analyzed him.
+
+“Read that.”
+
+Celestine recognized the handwriting, read the paper, and turned pale
+under the blow.
+
+“All the ministries, the whole service is treated in the same way,” said
+des Lupeaulx.
+
+“Happily,” she said, “you alone possess this document. I cannot explain
+it, even to myself.”
+
+“The man who stole it is not such a fool as to let me have it without
+keeping a copy for himself; he is too great a liar to admit it, and too
+clever in his business to give it up. I did not even ask him for it.”
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+“Your chief clerk.”
+
+“Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses! But,” she
+added, “he is only a dog who wants a bone.”
+
+“Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a
+general-secretary?”
+
+“What?”
+
+“I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,--you will despise me
+because it isn’t more, but here, I grant you, I am significant. Well,
+Baudoyer’s uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to
+give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed.”
+
+“But all that is monstrous.”
+
+“Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand Almoner is
+concerned in it. Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in return for
+ecclesiastical assistance.”
+
+“What shall you do?”
+
+“What will you bid me do?” he said, with charming grace, holding out his
+hand.
+
+Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and chilling as
+a hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and offensive, but she
+did not give him her hand. At night, in her salon, she would have let
+him take it a hundred times, but here, alone and in the morning, the
+action seemed too like a promise that might lead her far.
+
+“And they say that statesmen have no hearts!” she cried
+enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under
+the grace of her words. “The thought used to terrify me,” she added,
+assuming an innocent, ingenuous air.
+
+“What a calumny!” cried des Lupeaulx. “Only this week one of the
+stiffest of diplomatists, a man who has been in the service ever since
+he came to manhood, has married the daughter of an actress, and has
+introduced her at the most iron-bound court in Europe as to quarterings
+of nobility.”
+
+“You will continue to support us?”
+
+“I am to draw up your husband’s appointment--But no cheating, remember.”
+
+She gave him her hand to kiss, and tapped him on the cheek as she did
+so. “You are mine!” she said.
+
+Des Lupeaulx admired the expression.
+
+[That night, at the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as
+follows: “A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,--an
+acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,--changed
+the words into ‘You are mine.’ Don’t you think the evasion charming?”]
+
+“But you must be my ally,” he answered. “Now listen, your husband has
+spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the administration;
+the paper I have shown you is a part of that plan. I want to know what
+it is. Find out, and tell me to-night.”
+
+“I will,” she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature of the
+errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.
+
+“Madame, the hair-dresser.”
+
+“At last!” thought Celestine. “I don’t see how I should have got out of
+it if he had delayed much longer.”
+
+“You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go,” said des Lupeaulx,
+rising. “You shall be invited to the first select party given by his
+Excellency’s wife.”
+
+“Ah, you are an angel!” she cried. “And I see now how much you love me;
+you love me intelligently.”
+
+“To-night, dear child,” he said, “I shall find out at the Opera what
+journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure swords
+together.”
+
+“Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not? I have taken pains to get
+the things you like best--”
+
+“All that is so like love,” said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went
+downstairs, “that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a
+long time. Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I’ll set the
+cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and I’ll
+read her heart. Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after all, women
+are just what we men are. Twenty-eight years old, virtuous, and living
+here in the rue Duphot!--a rare piece of luck and worth cultivating,”
+ thought the elderly butterfly as he fluttered down the staircase.
+
+“Good heavens! that man, without his glasses, must look funny enough in
+a dressing-gown!” thought Celestine, “but the harpoon is in his back and
+he’ll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of that invitation. He
+has played his part in my comedy.”
+
+When, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to dress for
+dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid before him
+the fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the Arabian Nights, the
+luckless man was fated to meet at every turn.
+
+“Who gave you that?” he asked, thunderstruck.
+
+“Monsieur des Lupeaulx.”
+
+“So he has been here!” cried Rabourdin, with a look which would
+certainly have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which Celestine
+received with unruffled brow and a laughing eye.
+
+“And he is coming back to dinner,” she said. “Why that startled air?”
+
+“My dear,” replied Rabourdin, “I have mortally offended des Lupeaulx;
+such men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me! Do you think I don’t
+see why?”
+
+“The man seems to me,” she said, “to have good taste; you can’t expect
+me to blame him. I really don’t know anything more flattering to a woman
+than to please a worn-out palate. After--”
+
+“A truce to nonsense, Celestine. Spare a much-tried man. I cannot get an
+audience of the minister, and my honor is at stake.”
+
+“Good heavens, no! Dutocq can have the promise of a good place as soon
+as you are named head of the division.”
+
+“Ah! I see what you are about, dear child,” said Rabourdin; “but the
+game you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing that is
+going on around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman--”
+
+“Let me use the weapons employed against us.”
+
+“Celestine, the more that man des Lupeaulx feels he is foolishly caught
+in a trap, the more bitter he will be against me.”
+
+“What if I get him dismissed altogether?”
+
+Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.
+
+“I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my poor
+husband,” continued Celestine. “But you are mistaking the dog for the
+game,” she added, after a pause. “In a few days des Lupeaulx will have
+accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to speak to
+the minister, and before you can even see him on business, I shall have
+seen him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to bring that
+plan of your brain to birth,--a plan which you have been hiding from me;
+but you will find that in three months your wife has accomplished more
+than you have done in six years. Come, tell me this fine scheme of
+yours.”
+
+Rabourdin, continuing to shave, cautioned his wife not to say a word
+about his work, and after assuring her that to confide a single idea
+to des Lupeaulx would be to put the cat near the milk-jug, he began an
+explanation of his labors.
+
+“Why didn’t you tell me this before, Rabourdin?” said Celestine, cutting
+her husband short at his fifth sentence. “You might have saved yourself
+a world of trouble. I can understand that a man should be blinded by an
+idea for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or seven years, that’s a
+thing I cannot comprehend! You want to reduce the budget,--a vulgar
+and commonplace idea! The budget ought, on the contrary, to reach two
+hundred millions. Then, indeed, France would be great. If you want a new
+system let it be one of loans, as Monsieur de Nucingen keeps saying. The
+poorest of all treasuries is the one with a surplus that it never
+uses; the mission of a minister of finance is to fling gold out of the
+windows. It will come back to him through the cellars; and you, you
+want to hoard it! The thing to do is to increase the offices and all
+government employments, instead of reducing them! So far from lessening
+the public debt, you ought to increase the creditors. If the Bourbons
+want to reign in peace, let them seek creditors in the towns and
+villages, and place their loans there; above all, they ought not to
+let foreigners draw interest away from France; some day an alien nation
+might ask us for the capital. Whereas if capital and interest are held
+only in France, neither France nor credit can perish. That’s what saved
+England. Your plan is the tradesman’s plan. An ambitious public man
+should produce some bold scheme,--he should make himself another Law,
+without Law’s fatal ill-luck; he ought to exhibit the power of credit,
+and show that we should reduce, not principal, but interest, as they do
+in England.”
+
+“Come, come, Celestine,” said Rabourdin; “mix up ideas as much as
+you please, and make fun of them,--I’m accustomed to that; but don’t
+criticise a work of which you know nothing as yet.”
+
+“Do I need,” she asked, “to know a scheme the essence of which is to
+govern France with a civil service of six thousand men instead of twenty
+thousand? My dear friend, even allowing it were the plan of a man of
+genius, a king of France who attempted to carry it out would get himself
+dethroned. You can keep down a feudal aristocracy by levelling a few
+heads, but you can’t subdue a hydra with thousands. And is it with the
+present ministers--between ourselves, a wretched crew--that you expect
+to carry out your reform? No, no; change the monetary system if you
+will, but do not meddle with men, with little men; they cry out too
+much, whereas gold is dumb.”
+
+“But, Celestine, if you will talk, and put wit before argument, we shall
+never understand each other.”
+
+“Understand! I understand what that paper, in which you have analyzed
+the capacities of the men in office, will lead to,” she replied, paying
+no attention to what her husband said. “Good heavens! you have sharpened
+the axe to cut off your own head. Holy Virgin! why didn’t you consult
+me? I could have at least prevented you from committing anything to
+writing, or, at any rate, if you insisted on putting it to paper, I
+would have written it down myself, and it should never have left this
+house. Good God! to think that he never told me! That’s what men are!
+capable of sleeping with the wife of their bosom for seven years, and
+keeping a secret from her! Hiding their thoughts from a poor woman for
+seven years!--doubting her devotion!”
+
+“But,” cried Rabourdin, provoked, “for eleven years and more I have been
+unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on cutting me
+short and substituting your ideas for mine. You know nothing at all
+about my scheme.”
+
+“Nothing! I know all.”
+
+“Then tell it to me!” cried Rabourdin, angry for the first time since
+his marriage.
+
+“There! it is half-past six o’clock; finish shaving and dress at once,”
+ she cried hastily, after the fashion of women when pressed on a point
+they are not ready to talk of. “I must go; we’ll adjourn the discussion,
+for I don’t want to be nervous on a reception-day. Good heavens! the
+poor soul!” she thought, as she left the room, “it /is/ hard to be in
+labor for seven years and bring forth a dead child! And not trust his
+wife!”
+
+She went back into the room.
+
+“If you had listened to me you would never had interceded to keep your
+chief clerk; he stole that abominable paper, and has, no doubt, kept a
+fac-simile of it. Adieu, man of genius!”
+
+Then she noticed the almost tragic expression of her husband’s grief;
+she felt she had gone too far, and ran to him, seized him just as he
+was, all lathered with soap-suds, and kissed him tenderly.
+
+“Dear Xavier, don’t be vexed,” she said. “To-night, after the people
+are gone, we will study your plan; you shall speak at your ease,--I will
+listen just as long as you wish me to. Isn’t that nice of me? What do I
+want better than to be the wife of Mohammed?”
+
+She began to laugh; and Rabourdin laughed too, for the soapsuds were
+clinging to Celestine’s lips, and her voice had the tones of the purest
+and most steadfast affection.
+
+“Go and dress, dear child; and above all, don’t say a word of this to
+des Lupeaulx. Swear you will not. That is the only punishment that I
+impose--”
+
+“/Impose/!” she cried. “Then I won’t swear anything.”
+
+“Come, come, Celestine, I said in jest a really serious thing.”
+
+“To-night,” she said, “I mean your general-secretary to know whom I am
+really intending to attack; he has given me the means.”
+
+“Attack whom?”
+
+“The minister,” she answered, drawing himself up. “We are to be invited
+to his wife’s private parties.”
+
+In spite of his Celestine’s loving caresses, Rabourdin, as he finished
+dressing, could not prevent certain painful thoughts from clouding his
+brow.
+
+“Will she ever appreciate me?” he said to himself. “She does not
+even understand that she is the sole incentive of my whole work. How
+wrong-headed, and yet how excellent a mind!--If I had not married I
+might now have been high in office and rich. I could have saved half my
+salary; my savings well-invested would have given me to-day ten thousand
+francs a year outside of my office, and I might then have become,
+through a good marriage--Yes, that is all true,” he exclaimed,
+interrupting himself, “but I have Celestine and my two children.” The
+man flung himself back on his happiness. To the best of married lives
+there come moments of regret. He entered the salon and looked around
+him. “There are not two women in Paris who understand making life
+pleasant as she does. To keep such a home as this on twelve thousand
+francs a year!” he thought, looking at the flower-stands bright with
+bloom, and thinking of the social enjoyments that were about to gratify
+his vanity. “She was made to be the wife of a minister. When I think of
+his Excellency’s wife, and how little she helps him! the good woman is a
+comfortable middle-class dowdy, and when she goes to the palace or into
+society--” He pinched his lips together. Very busy men are apt to have
+very ignorant notions about household matters, and you can make them
+believe that a hundred thousand francs afford little or that twelve
+thousand afford all.
+
+Though impatiently expected, and in spite of the flattering dishes
+prepared for the palate of the gourmet-emeritus, des Lupeaulx did not
+come to dinner; in fact he came in very late, about midnight, an
+hour when company dwindles and conversations become intimate and
+confidential. Andoche Finot, the journalist, was one of the few
+remaining guests.
+
+“I now know all,” said des Lupeaulx, when he was comfortably seated on a
+sofa at the corner of the fireplace, a cup of tea in his hand and Madame
+Rabourdin standing before him with a plate of sandwiches and some slices
+of cake very appropriately called “leaden cake.” “Finot, my dear and
+witty friend, you can render a great service to our gracious queen
+by letting loose a few dogs upon the men we were talking of. You have
+against you,” he said to Rabourdin, lowering his voice so as to be
+heard only by the three persons whom he addressed, “a set of usurers and
+priests--money and the church. The article in the liberal journal
+was instituted by an old money-lender to whom the paper was under
+obligations; but the young fellow who wrote it cares nothing about it.
+The paper is about to change hands, and in three days more will be on
+our side. The royalist opposition,--for we have, thanks to Monsieur de
+Chateaubriand, a royalist opposition, that is to say, royalists who
+have gone over to the liberals,--however, there’s no need to discuss
+political matters now,--these assassins of Charles X. have promised me
+to support your appointment at the price of our acquiescence in one of
+their amendments. All my batteries are manned. If they threaten us with
+Baudoyer we shall say to the clerical phalanx, ‘Such and such a paper
+and such and such men will attack your measures and the whole press will
+be against you’ (for even the ministerial journals which I influence
+will be deaf and dumb, won’t they, Finot?). ‘Appoint Rabourdin, a
+faithful servant, and public opinion is with you--’”
+
+“Hi, hi!” laughed Finot.
+
+“So, there’s no need to be uneasy,” said des Lupeaulx. “I have arranged
+it all to-night; the Grand Almoner must yield.”
+
+“I would rather have had less hope, and you to dinner,” whispered
+Celestine, looking at him with a vexed air which might very well pass
+for an expression of wounded love.
+
+“This must win my pardon,” he returned, giving her an invitation to the
+ministry for the following Tuesday.
+
+Celestine opened the letter, and a flush of pleasure came into her face.
+No enjoyment can be compared to that of gratified vanity.
+
+“You know what the countess’s Tuesdays are,” said des Lupeaulx, with a
+confidential air. “To the usual ministerial parties they are what the
+‘Petit-Chateau’ is to a court ball. You will be at the heart of
+power! You will see there the Comtesse Feraud, who is still in favor
+notwithstanding Louis XVIII.’s death, Delphine de Nucingen, Madame de
+Listomere, the Marquise d’Espard, and your dear Firmiani; I have had
+her invited to give you her support in case the other women attempt to
+black-ball you. I long to see you in the midst of them.”
+
+Celestine threw up her head like a thoroughbred before the race, and
+re-read the invitation just as Baudoyer and Saillard had re-read the
+articles about themselves in the newspapers, without being able to quaff
+enough of it.
+
+“/There/ first, and /next/ at the Tuileries,” she said to des Lupeaulx,
+who was startled by the words and by the attitude of the speaker, so
+expressive were they of ambition and security.
+
+“Can it be that I am only a stepping-stone?” he asked himself. He
+rose, and went into Madame Rabourdin’s bedroom, where she followed him,
+understanding from a motion of his head that he wished to speak to her
+privately.
+
+“Well, your husband’s plan,” he said; “what of it?”
+
+“Bah! the useless nonsense of an honest man!” she replied. “He wants
+to suppress fifteen thousand offices and do the work with five or six
+thousand. You never heard of such nonsense; I will let you read the
+whole document when copied; it is written in perfect good faith.
+His analysis of the officials was prompted only by his honesty and
+rectitude,--poor dear man!”
+
+Des Lupeaulx was all the more reassured by the genuine laugh which
+accompanied these jesting and contemptuous words, because he was a judge
+of lying and knew that Celestine spoke in good faith.
+
+“But still, what is at the bottom of it all?” he asked.
+
+“Well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and substitute taxes on
+consumption.”
+
+“Why it is over a year since Francois Keller and Nucingen proposed some
+such plan, and the minister himself is thinking of a reduction of the
+land-tax.”
+
+“There!” exclaimed Celestine, “I told him there was nothing new in his
+scheme.”
+
+“No; but he is on the same ground with the best financier of the
+epoch,--the Napoleon of finance. Something may come of it. Your husband
+must surely have some special ideas in his method of putting the scheme
+into practice.”
+
+“No, it is all commonplace,” she said, with a disdainful curl of her
+lip. “Just think of governing France with five or six thousand offices,
+when what is really needed is that everybody in France should be
+personally enlisted in the support of the government.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx seemed satisfied that Rabourdin, to whom in his own mind he
+had granted remarkable talents, was really a man of mediocrity.
+
+“Are you quite sure of the appointment? You don’t want a bit of feminine
+advice?” she said.
+
+“You women are greater adepts than we in refined treachery,” he said,
+nodding.
+
+“Well, then, say /Baudoyer/ to the court and clergy, to divert suspicion
+and put them to sleep, and then, at the last moment, write /Rabourdin/.”
+
+“There are some women who say /yes/ as long as they need a man, and /no/
+when he has played his part,” returned des Lupeaulx, significantly.
+
+“I know they do,” she answered, laughing; “but they are very foolish,
+for in politics everything recommences. Such proceedings may do with
+fools, but you are a man of sense. In my opinion the greatest folly any
+one can commit is to quarrel with a clever man.”
+
+“You are mistaken,” said des Lupeaulx, “for such a man pardons. The real
+danger is with the petty spiteful natures who have nothing to do but
+study revenge,--I spend my life among them.”
+
+When all the guests were gone, Rabourdin came into his wife’s room, and
+after asking for her strict attention, he explained his plan and
+made her see that it did not cut down the revenue but on the contrary
+increased it; he showed her in what ways the public funds were employed,
+and how the State could increase tenfold the circulation of money by
+putting its own, in the proportion of a third, or a quarter, into the
+expenditures which would be sustained by private or local interests. He
+finally proved to her plainly that his plan was not mere theory, but
+a system teeming with methods of execution. Celestine, brightly
+enthusiastic, sprang into her husband’s arms and sat upon his knee in
+the chimney-corner.
+
+“At last I find the husband of my dreams!” she cried. “My ignorance of
+your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx’s claws. I calumniated
+you to him gloriously and in good faith.”
+
+The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last. Having
+labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great man
+in the eyes of his sole public.
+
+“To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger,
+how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But,” she added, “a man of
+genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly
+beloved child,” she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation
+from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and
+showed it to him.
+
+“Here is what I wanted,” she said; “Des Lupeaulx has put me face to face
+with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency shall be
+made for a time to bend the knee to me.”
+
+The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the
+inner circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her own! Never
+courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman bestowed
+upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers. Madame
+Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where she hired
+carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor bourgeois, nor
+showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great houses, had the dress
+and appearance of a master. About ten on the evening of the eventful
+Tuesday, she left home in a charming full mourning attire. Her hair was
+dressed with jet grapes of exquisite workmanship,--an ornament costing
+three thousand francs, made by Fossin for an Englishwoman who had left
+Paris before it was finished. The leaves were of stamped iron-work, as
+light as the vine-leaves themselves, and the artist had not forgotten
+the graceful tendrils, which twined in the wearer’s curls just as,
+in nature, they catch upon the branches. The bracelets, necklace, and
+earrings were all what is called Berlin iron-work; but these delicate
+arabesques were made in Vienna, and seemed to have been fashioned by the
+fairies who, the stories tell us, are condemned by a jealous Carabosse
+to collect the eyes of ants, or weave a fabric so diaphanous that a
+nutshell can contain it. Madame Rabourdin’s graceful figure, made
+more slender still by the black draperies, was shown to advantage by a
+carefully cut dress, the two sides of which met at the shoulders in
+a single strap without sleeves. At every motion she seemed, like a
+butterfly, to be about to leave her covering; but the gown held firmly
+on by some contrivance of the wonderful dressmaker. The robe was of
+mousseline de laine--a material which the manufacturers had not yet sent
+to the Paris markets; a delightful stuff which some months later was to
+have a wild success, a success which went further and lasted longer than
+most French fashions. The actual economy of mousseline de laine, which
+needs no washing, has since injured the sale of cotton fabrics enough to
+revolutionize the Rouen manufactories. Celestine’s little feet, covered
+with fine silk stockings and turk-satin shoes (for silk-satin is
+inadmissible in deep mourning) were of elegant proportions. Thus
+dressed, she was very handsome. Her complexion, beautified by a
+bran-bath, was softly radiant. Her eyes, suffused with the light of
+hope, and sparkling with intelligence, justified her claims to the
+superiority which des Lupeaulx, proud and happy on this occasion,
+asserted for her.
+
+She entered the room well (women will understand the meaning of that
+expression), bowed gracefully to the minister’s wife, with a happy
+mixture of deference and of self-respect, and gave no offence by a
+certain reliance on her own dignity; for every beautiful woman has the
+right to seem a queen. With the minister himself she took the pretty air
+of sauciness which women may properly allow themselves with men, even
+when they are grand dukes. She reconnoitred the field, as it were,
+while taking her seat, and saw that she was in the midst of one of those
+select parties of few persons, where the women eye and appraise each
+other, and every word said echoes in all ears; where every glance is
+a stab, and conversation a duel with witnesses; where all that is
+commonplace seems commoner still, and where every form of merit or
+distinction is silently accepted as though it were the natural level of
+all present. Rabourdin betook himself to the adjoining salon in which
+a few persons were playing cards; and there he planted himself on
+exhibition, as it were, which proved that he was not without social
+intelligence.
+
+“My dear,” said the Marquise d’Espard to the Comtesse Feraud, Louis
+XVIII.’s last mistress, “Paris is certainly unique. It produces--whence
+and how, who knows?--women like this person, who seems ready to will and
+to do anything.”
+
+“She really does will, and does do everything,” put in des Lupeaulx,
+puffed up with satisfaction.
+
+At this moment the wily Madame Rabourdin was courting the minister’s
+wife. Carefully coached the evening before by des Lupeaulx, who knew all
+the countess’s weak spots, she was flattering her without seeming to do
+so. Every now and then she kept silence; for des Lupeaulx, in love as he
+was, knew her defects, and said to her the night before, “Be careful
+not to talk too much,”--words which were really an immense proof of
+attachment. Bertrand Barrere left behind him this sublime axiom: “Never
+interrupt a woman when dancing to give her advice,” to which we may add
+(to make this chapter of the female code complete), “Never blame a woman
+for scattering her pearls.”
+
+The conversation became general. From time to time Madame Rabourdin
+joined in, just as a well-trained cat puts a velvet paw on her
+mistress’s laces with the claws carefully drawn in. The minister, in
+matters of the heart, had few emotions. There was not another statesman
+under the Restoration who had so completely done with gallantry as he;
+even the opposition papers, the “Miroir,” “Pandora,” and “Figaro,” could
+not find a single throbbing artery with which to reproach him. Madame
+Rabourdin knew this, but she knew also that ghosts return to old
+castles, and she had taken it into her head to make the minister jealous
+of the happiness which des Lupeaulx was appearing to enjoy. The latter’s
+throat literally gurgled with the name of his divinity. To launch his
+supposed mistress successfully, he was endeavoring to persuade the
+Marquise d’Espard, Madame de Nucingen, and the countess, in an eight-ear
+conversation, that they had better admit Madame Rabourdin to their
+coalition; and Madame de Camps was supporting him. At the end of the
+hour the minister’s vanity was greatly tickled; Madame Rabourdin’s
+cleverness pleased him, and she had won his wife, who, delighted with
+the siren, invited her to come to all her receptions whenever she
+pleased.
+
+“For your husband, my dear,” she said, “will soon be director; the
+minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under one
+director; you will then be one of us, you know.”
+
+His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show her a
+certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the opposition
+journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and together they
+laughed over the absurdities of journalism.
+
+“Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the pleasure of
+seeing you here often.”
+
+And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.
+
+“But, Monseigneur,” she replied, with one of those glances which women
+hold in reserve, “it seems to me that that depends on you.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“You alone can give me the right to come here.”
+
+“Pray explain.”
+
+“No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not have the
+bad taste to seem a petitioner.”
+
+“No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out of place,”
+ said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too silly to amuse a
+solemn man.
+
+“Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a
+bureau is out of place here; a director’s wife is not.”
+
+“That point need not be considered,” said the minister, “your husband is
+indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed.”
+
+“Is that a veritable fact?”
+
+“Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are already drawn
+up.”
+
+“Then,” she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the
+minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, “let me tell you
+that I can make you a return.”
+
+She was on the point of revealing her husband’s plan, when des Lupeaulx,
+who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry sound, which
+meant that he did not wish to appear to have overheard what, in fact, he
+had been listening to. The minister gave an ill-tempered look at the
+old beau, who, impatient to win his reward, had hurried, beyond all
+precedent, the preliminary work of the appointment. He had carried the
+papers to his Excellency that evening, and desired to take himself,
+on the morrow, the news of the appointment to her whom he was now
+endeavoring to exhibit as his mistress. Just then the minister’s valet
+approached des Lupeaulx in a mysterious manner, and told him that his
+own servant wished him to deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost
+importance.
+
+The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:--
+
+
+   Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see
+   you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms
+   with
+
+Your obedient servant, Gobseck.
+
+
+The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we
+cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like to
+guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of signature.
+If ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it was assuredly this
+written name, in which the first and the final letter approached each
+other like the voracious jaws of a shark,--insatiable, always open,
+seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak. As for the wording of
+the note, the spirit of usury alone could have inspired a sentence so
+imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said all and revealed
+nothing. Those who had never heard of Gobseck would have felt, on
+reading words which compelled him to whom they were addressed to obey,
+yet gave no order, the presence of the implacable money-lender of the
+rue des Gres. Like a dog called to heel by the huntsman, des Lupeaulx
+left his present quest and went immediately to his own rooms, thinking
+of his hazardous position. Imagine a general to whom an aide-de-camp
+rides up and says: “The enemy with thirty thousand fresh troops is
+attacking on our right flank.”
+
+A very few words will serve to explain this sudden arrival of Gigonnet
+and Gobseck on the field of battle,--for des Lupeaulx found them both
+waiting. At eight o’clock that evening, Martin Falleix, returning on the
+wings of the wind,--thanks to three francs to the postboys and a courier
+in advance,--had brought back with him the deeds of the property signed
+the night before. Taken at once to the Cafe Themis by Mitral, these
+securities passed into the hands of the two usurers, who hastened
+(though on foot) to the ministry. It was past eleven o’clock. Des
+Lupeaulx trembled when he saw those sinister faces, emitting a
+simultaneous look as direct as a pistol shot and as brilliant as the
+flash itself.
+
+“What is it, my masters?” he said.
+
+The two extortioners continued cold and motionless. Gigonnet silently
+pointed to the documents in his hand, and then at the servant.
+
+“Come into my study,” said des Lupeaulx, dismissing his valet by a sign.
+
+“You understand French very well,” remarked Gigonnet, approvingly.
+
+“Have you come here to torment a man who enabled each of you to make a
+couple of hundred thousand francs?”
+
+“And who will help us to make more, I hope,” said Gigonnet.
+
+“Some new affair?” asked des Lupeaulx. “If you want me to help you,
+consider that I recollect the past.”
+
+“So do we,” answered Gigonnet.
+
+“My debts must be paid,” said des Lupeaulx, disdainfully, so as not to
+seem worsted at the outset.
+
+“True,” said Gobseck.
+
+“Let us come to the point, my son,” said Gigonnet. “Don’t stiffen your
+chin in your cravat; with us all that is useless. Take these deeds and
+read them.”
+
+The two usurers took a mental inventory of des Lupeaulx’s study while
+he read with amazement and stupefaction a deed of purchase which seemed
+wafted to him from the clouds by angels.
+
+“Don’t you think you have a pair of intelligent business agents in
+Gobseck and me?” asked Gigonnet.
+
+“But tell me, to what do I owe such able co-operation?” said des
+Lupeaulx, suspicious and uneasy.
+
+“We knew eight days ago a fact that without us you would not have known
+till to-morrow morning. The president of the chamber of commerce, a
+deputy, as you know, feels himself obliged to resign.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx’s eyes dilated, and were as big as daisies.
+
+“Your minister has been tricking you about this event,” said the concise
+Gobseck.
+
+“You master me,” said the general-secretary, bowing with an air of
+profound respect, bordering however, on sarcasm.
+
+“True,” said Gobseck.
+
+“Can you mean to strangle me?”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+“Well, then, begin your work, executioners,” said the secretary,
+smiling.
+
+“You will see,” resumed Gigonnet, “that the sum total of your debts is
+added to the sum loaned by us for the purchase of the property; we have
+bought them up.”
+
+“Here are the deeds,” said Gobseck, taking from the pocket of his
+greenish overcoat a number of legal papers.
+
+“You have three years in which to pay off the whole sum,” said Gigonnet.
+
+“But,” said des Lupeaulx, frightened at such kindness, and also by so
+apparently fantastic an arrangement. “What do you want of me?”
+
+“La Billardiere’s place for Baudoyer,” said Gigonnet, quickly.
+
+“That’s a small matter, though it will be next to impossible for me to
+do it,” said des Lupeaulx. “I have just tied my hands.”
+
+“Bite the cords with your teeth,” said Gigonnet.
+
+“They are sharp,” added Gobseck.
+
+“Is that all?” asked des Lupeaulx.
+
+“We keep the title-deeds of the property till the debts are paid,” said
+Gigonnet, putting one of the papers before des Lupeaulx; “and if the
+matter of the appointment is not satisfactorily arranged within six days
+our names will be substituted in place of yours.”
+
+“You are deep,” cried the secretary.
+
+“Exactly,” said Gobseck.
+
+“And this is all?” exclaimed des Lupeaulx.
+
+“All,” said Gobseck.
+
+“You agree?” asked Gigonnet.
+
+Des Lupeaulx nodded his head.
+
+“Well, then, sign this power of attorney. Within two days Baudoyer is to
+be nominated; within six your debts will be cleared off, and--”
+
+“And what?” asked des Lupeaulx.
+
+“We guarantee--”
+
+“Guarantee!--what?” said the secretary, more and more astonished.
+
+“Your election to the Chamber,” said Gigonnet, rising on his heels.
+“We have secured a majority of fifty-two farmers’ and mechanics’
+votes, which will be thrown precisely as those who lend you this money
+dictate.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx wrung Gigonnet’s hand.
+
+“It is only such as we who never misunderstand each other,” he said;
+“this is what I call doing business. I’ll make you a return gift.”
+
+“Right,” said Gobseck.
+
+“What is it?” asked Gigonnet.
+
+“The cross of the Legion of honor for your imbecile of a nephew.”
+
+“Good,” said Gigonnet, “I see you know him well.”
+
+The pair took leave of des Lupeaulx, who conducted them to the
+staircase.
+
+“They must be secret envoys from foreign powers,” whispered the footmen
+to each other.
+
+Once in the street, the two usurers looked at each other under a street
+lamp and laughed.
+
+“He will owe us nine thousand francs interest a year,” said Gigonnet;
+“that property doesn’t bring him in five.”
+
+“He is under our thumb for a long time,” said Gobseck.
+
+“He’ll build; he’ll commit extravagancies,” continued Gigonnet; “Falleix
+will get his land.”
+
+“His interest is only to be made deputy; the old fox laughs at the
+rest,” said Gobseck.
+
+“Hey! hey!”
+
+“Hi! hi!”
+
+These dry little exclamations served as a laugh to the two old men, who
+took their way back (always on foot) to the Cafe Themis.
+
+Des Lupeaulx returned to the salon and found Madame Rabourdin sailing
+with the wind of success, and very charming; while his Excellency,
+usually so gloomy, showed a smooth and gracious countenance.
+
+“She performs miracles,” thought des Lupeaulx. “What a wonderfully
+clever woman! I must get to the bottom of her heart.”
+
+“Your little lady is decidedly handsome,” said the Marquise to the
+secretary; “now if she only had your name.”
+
+“Yes, her defect is that she is the daughter of an auctioneer. She will
+fail for want of birth,” replied des Lupeaulx, with a cold manner
+that contrasted strangely with the ardor of his remarks about Madame
+Rabourdin not half an hour earlier.
+
+The marquise looked at him fixedly.
+
+“The glance you gave them did not escape me,” she said, motioning
+towards the minister and Madame Rabourdin; “it pierced the mask of your
+spectacles. How amusing you both are, to quarrel over that bone!”
+
+As the marquise turned to leave the room the minister joined her and
+escorted her to the door.
+
+“Well,” said des Lupeaulx to Madame Rabourdin, “what do you think of his
+Excellency?”
+
+“He is charming. We must know these poor ministers to appreciate
+them,” she added, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard by his
+Excellency’s wife. “The newspapers and the opposition calumnies are so
+misleading about men in politics that we are all more or less influenced
+by them; but such prejudices turn to the advantage of statesmen when we
+come to know them personally.”
+
+“He is very good-looking,” said des Lupeaulx.
+
+“Yes, and I assure you he is quite lovable,” she said, heartily.
+
+“Dear child,” said des Lupeaulx, with a genial, caressing manner; “you
+have actually done the impossible.”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“Resuscitated the dead. I did not think that man had a heart; ask his
+wife. But he may have just enough for a passing fancy. Therefore profit
+by it. Come this way, and don’t be surprised.” He led Madame Rabourdin
+into the boudoir, placed her on a sofa, and sat down beside her. “You
+are very sly,” he said, “and I like you the better for it. Between
+ourselves, you are a clever woman. Des Lupeaulx served to bring you
+into this house, and that is all you wanted of him, isn’t it? Now when a
+woman decides to love a man for what she can get out of him it is better
+to take a sexagenarian Excellency than a quadragenarian secretary;
+there’s more profit and less annoyance. I’m a man with spectacles,
+grizzled hair, worn out with dissipation,--a fine lover, truly! I tell
+myself all this again and again. It must be admitted, of course, that I
+can sometimes be useful, but never agreeable. Isn’t that so? A man must
+be a fool if he cannot reason about himself. You can safely admit the
+truth and let me see to the depths of your heart; we are partners, not
+lovers. If I show some tenderness at times, you are too superior a woman
+to pay any attention to such follies; you will forgive me,--you are not
+a school-girl, or a bourgeoise of the rue Saint-Denis. Bah! you and I
+are too well brought up for that. There’s the Marquise d’Espard who has
+just left the room; this is precisely what she thinks and does. She and
+I came to an understanding two years ago [the coxcomb!], and now she has
+only to write me a line and say, ‘My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige
+me by doing such and such a thing,’ and it is done at once. We are
+engaged at this very moment in getting a commission of lunacy on her
+husband. Ah! you women, you can get what you want by the bestowal of a
+few favors. Well, then, my dear child, bewitch the minister. I’ll help
+you; it is my interest to do so. Yes, I wish he had a woman who could
+influence him; he wouldn’t escape me,--for he does escape me quite
+often, and the reason is that I hold him only through his intellect.
+Now if I were one with a pretty woman who was also intimate with him,
+I should hold him by his weaknesses, and that is much the firmest grip.
+Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the advantages of the
+conquest you are making.”
+
+Madame Rabourdin listened in amazement to this singular profession of
+rascality. The apparent artlessness of this political swindler prevented
+her from suspecting a trick.
+
+“Do you believe he really thinks of me?” she asked, falling into the
+trap.
+
+“I know it; I am certain of it.”
+
+“Is it true that Rabourdin’s appointment is signed?”
+
+“I gave him the papers this morning. But it is not enough that your
+husband should be made director; he must be Master of petitions.”
+
+“Yes,” she said.
+
+“Well, then, go back to the salon and coquette a little more with his
+Excellency.”
+
+“It is true,” she said, “that I never fully understood you till
+to-night. There is nothing commonplace about /you/.”
+
+“We will be two old friends,” said des Lupeaulx, “and suppress all
+tender nonsense and tormenting love; we will take things as they did
+under the Regency. Ah! they had plenty of wit and wisdom in those days!”
+
+“You are really strong; you deserve my admiration,” she said, smiling,
+and holding out her hand to him, “one does more for one’s friend, you
+know, than for one’s--”
+
+She left him without finishing her sentence.
+
+“Dear creature!” thought des Lupeaulx, as he saw her approach the
+minister, “des Lupeaulx has no longer the slightest remorse in turning
+against you. To-morrow evening when you offer me a cup of tea, you will
+be offering me a thing I no longer care for. All is over. Ah! when a man
+is forty years of age women may take pains to catch him, but they won’t
+love him.”
+
+He looked himself over in a mirror, admitting honestly that though he
+did very well as a politician he was a wreck on the shores of Cythera.
+At the same moment Madame Rabourdin was gathering herself together for
+a becoming exit. She wished to make a last graceful impression on
+the minds of all, and she succeeded. Contrary to the usual custom in
+society, every one cried out as soon as she was gone, “What a charming
+woman!” and the minister himself took her to the outer door.
+
+“I am quite sure you will think of me to-morrow,” he said, alluding to
+the appointment.
+
+“There are so few high functionaries who have agreeable wives,” remarked
+his Excellency on re-entering the room, “that I am very well satisfied
+with our new acquisition.”
+
+“Don’t you think her a little overpowering?” said des Lupeaulx with a
+piqued air.
+
+The women present all exchanged expressive glances; the rivalry between
+the minister and his secretary amused them and instigated one of those
+pretty little comedies which Parisian women play so well. They excited
+and led on his Excellency and des Lupeaulx by a series of comments on
+Madame Rabourdin: one thought her too studied in manner, too eager to
+appear clever; another compared the graces of the middle classes with
+the manners of high life, while des Lupeaulx defended his pretended
+mistress as we all defend an enemy in society.
+
+“Do her justice, ladies,” he said; “is it not extraordinary that the
+daughter of an auctioneer should appear as well as she does? See where
+she came from, and what she is. She will end in the Tuileries; that is
+what she intends,--she told me so.”
+
+“Suppose she is the daughter of an auctioneer,” said the Comtesse
+Feraud, smiling, “that will not hinder her husband’s rise to power.”
+
+“Not in these days, you mean,” said the minister’s wife, tightening her
+lips.
+
+“Madame,” said his Excellency to the countess, sternly, “such sentiments
+and such speeches lead to revolutions; unhappily, the court and the
+great world do not restrain them. You would hardly believe, however, how
+the injudicious conduct of the aristocracy in this respect displeases
+certain clear-sighted personages at the palace. If I were a great lord,
+instead of being, as I am, a mere country gentleman who seems to be
+placed where he is to transact your business for you, the monarchy would
+not be as insecure as I now think it is. What becomes of a throne which
+does not bestow dignity on those who administer its government? We are
+far indeed from the days when a king could make men great at will,--such
+men as Louvois, Colbert, Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,--Sully,
+in his origin, was no greater than I. I speak to you thus because we
+are here in private among ourselves. I should be very paltry indeed if
+I were personally offended by such speeches. After all, it is for us and
+not for others to make us great.”
+
+“You are appointed, dear,” cried Celestine, pressing her husband’s hand
+as they drove away. “If it had not been for des Lupeaulx I should have
+explained your scheme to his Excellency. But I will do it next Tuesday,
+and it will help the further matter of making you Master of petitions.”
+
+In the life of every woman there comes a day when she shines in all
+her glory; a day which gives her an unfading recollection to which she
+recurs with happiness all her life. As Madame Rabourdin took off one by
+one the ornaments of her apparel, she thought over the events of this
+evening, and marked the day among the triumphs and glories of her
+life,--all her beauties had been seen and envied, she had been praised
+and flattered by the minister’s wife, delighted thus to make the other
+women jealous of her; but, above all, her grace and vanities had shone
+to the profit of conjugal love. Her husband was appointed.
+
+“Did you think I looked well to-night?” she said to him, joyously.
+
+At the same instant Mitral, waiting at the Cafe Themis, saw the two
+usurers returning, but was unable to perceive the slightest indications
+of the result on their impassible faces.
+
+“What of it?” he said, when they were all seated at table.
+
+“Same as ever,” replied Gigonnet, rubbing his hands, “victory with
+gold.”
+
+“True,” said Gobseck.
+
+Mitral took a cabriolet and went straight to the Saillards and
+Baudoyers, who were still playing boston at a late hour. No one was
+present but the Abbe Gaudron. Falleix, half-dead with the fatigue of his
+journey, had gone to bed.
+
+“You will be appointed, nephew,” said Mitral; “and there’s a surprise in
+store for you.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Saillard.
+
+“The cross of the Legion of honor?” cried Mitral.
+
+“God protects those who guard his altars,” said Gaudron.
+
+Thus the Te Deum was sung with equal joy and confidence in both camps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FORWARD, MOLLUSKS!
+
+
+The next day, Wednesday, Monsieur Rabourdin was to transact business
+with the minister, for he had filled the late La Billardiere’s place
+since the beginning of the latter’s illness. On such days the clerks
+came punctually, the servants were specially attentive, there was always
+a certain excitement in the offices on these signing-days,--and why,
+nobody ever knew. On this occasion the three servants were at their
+post, flattering themselves they should get a few fees; for a rumor of
+Rabourdin’s nomination had spread through the ministry the night before,
+thanks to Dutocq. Uncle Antoine and Laurent had donned their full
+uniform, when, at a quarter to eight, des Lupeaulx’s servant came in
+with a letter, which he begged Antoine to give secretly to Dutocq,
+saying that the general-secretary had ordered him to deliver it without
+fail at Monsieur Dutocq’s house by seven o’clock.
+
+“I’m sure I don’t know how it happened,” he said, “but I overslept
+myself. I’ve only just waked up, and he’d play the devil’s tattoo on me
+if he knew the letter hadn’t gone. I know a famous secret, Antoine; but
+don’t say anything about it to the clerks if I tell you; promise? He
+would send me off if he knew I had said a single word; he told me so.”
+
+“What’s inside the letter?” asked Antoine, eying it.
+
+“Nothing; I looked this way--see.”
+
+He made the letter gape open, and showed Antoine that there was nothing
+but blank paper to be seen.
+
+“This is going to be a great day for you, Laurent,” went on the
+secretary’s man. “You are to have a new director. Economy must be the
+order of the day, for they are going to unite the two divisions under
+one director--you fellows will have to look out!”
+
+“Yes, nine clerks are put on the retired list,” said Dutocq, who came in
+at the moment; “how did you hear that?”
+
+Antoine gave him the letter, and he had no sooner opened it than he
+rushed headlong downstairs in the direction of the secretary’s office.
+
+The bureaus Rabourdin and Baudoyer, after idling and gossiping since
+the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere, were now recovering their usual
+official look and the dolce far niente habits of a government office.
+Nevertheless, the approaching end of the year did cause rather more
+application among the clerks, just as porters and servants become at
+that season more unctuously civil. They all came punctually, for one
+thing; more remained after four o’clock than was usual at other times.
+It was not forgotten that fees and gratuities depend on the last
+impressions made upon the minds of masters. The news of the union of the
+two divisions, that of La Billardiere and that of Clergeot, under one
+director, had spread through the various offices. The number of the
+clerks to be retired was known, but all were in ignorance of the names.
+It was taken for granted that Poiret would not be replaced, and that
+would be a retrenchment. Little La Billardiere had already departed.
+Two new supernumeraries had made their appearance, and, alarming
+circumstance! they were both sons of deputies. The news told about
+in the offices the night before, just as the clerks were dispersing,
+agitated all minds, and for the first half-hour after arrival in the
+morning they stood around the stoves and talked it over. But earlier
+than that, Dutocq, as we have seen, had rushed to des Lupeaulx on
+receiving his note, and found him dressing. Without laying down his
+razor, the general-secretary cast upon his subordinate the glance of a
+general issuing an order.
+
+“Are we alone?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, monsieur.”
+
+“Very good. March on Rabourdin; forward! steady! Of course you kept a
+copy of that paper?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You understand me? Inde iroe! There must be a general hue and cry
+raised against him. Find some way to start a clamor--”
+
+“I could get a man to make a caricature, but I haven’t five hundred
+francs to pay for it.”
+
+“Who would make it?”
+
+“Bixou.”
+
+“He shall have a thousand and be under-head-clerk to Colleville, who
+will arrange with them; tell him so.”
+
+“But he wouldn’t believe it on nothing more than my word.”
+
+“Are you trying to make me compromise myself? Either do the thing or let
+it alone; do you hear me?”
+
+“If Monsieur Baudoyer were director--”
+
+“Well, he will be. Go now, and make haste; you have no time to lose.
+Go down the back-stairs; I don’t want people to know you have just seen
+me.”
+
+While Dutocq was returning to the clerks’ office and asking himself how
+he could best incite a clamor against his chief without compromising
+himself, Bixiou rushed to the Rabourdin office for a word of greeting.
+Believing that he had lost his bet the incorrigible joker thought it
+amusing to pretend that he had won it.
+
+Bixiou [mimicking Phellion’s voice]. “Gentlemen, I salute you with a
+collective how d’ye do, and I appoint Sunday next for the dinner at
+the Rocher de Cancale. But a serious question presents itself. Is that
+dinner to include the clerks who are dismissed?”
+
+Poiret. “And those who retire?”
+
+Bixiou. “Not that I care, for it isn’t I who pay.” [General
+stupefaction.] “Baudoyer is appointed. I think I already hear him
+calling Laurent” [mimicking Baudoyer], “Laurent! lock up my hair-shirt,
+and my scourge.” [They all roar with laughter.] “Yes, yes, he laughs
+well who laughs last. Gentlemen, there’s a great deal in that anagram of
+Colleville’s. ‘Xavier Rabourdin, chef de bureau--D’abord reva bureaux,
+e-u fin riche.’ If I were named ‘Charles X., par la grace de Dieu roi
+de France et de Navarre,’ I should tremble in my shoes at the fate those
+letters anagrammatize.”
+
+Thuillier. “Look here! are you making fun?”
+
+Bixiou. “No, I am not. Rabourdin resigns in a rage at finding Baudoyer
+appointed director.”
+
+Vimeux [entering.] “Nonsense, no such thing! Antoine (to whom I have
+just been paying forty francs that I owed him) tells me that Monsieur
+and Madame Rabourdin were at the minister’s private party last night and
+stayed till midnight. His Excellency escorted Madame Rabourdin to the
+staircase. It seems she was divinely dressed. In short, it is quite
+certain that Rabourdin is to be director. Riffe, the secretary’s copying
+clerk, told me he sat up all the night before to draw the papers; it is
+no longer a secret. Monsieur Clergeot is retired. After thirty years’
+service that’s no misfortune. Monsieur Cochlin, who is rich--”
+
+Bixiou. “By cochineal.”
+
+Vimeux. “Yes, cochineal; he’s a partner in the house of Matifat, rue des
+Lombards. Well, he is retired; so is Poiret. Neither is to be replaced.
+So much is certain; the rest is all conjecture. The appointment of
+Monsieur Rabourdin is to be announced this morning; they are afraid of
+intrigues.”
+
+Bixiou. “What intrigues?”
+
+Fleury. “Baudoyer’s, confound him! The priests uphold him; here’s
+another article in the liberal journal,--only half a dozen lines, but
+they are queer” [reads]:
+
+  “Certain persons spoke last night in the lobby of the Opera-house
+  of the return of Monsieur de Chateaubriand to the ministry, basing
+  their opinion on the choice made of Monsieur Rabourdin (the
+  protege of friends of the noble viscount) to fill the office for
+  which Monsieur Baudoyer was first selected. The clerical party is
+  not likely to withdraw unless in deference to the great writer.
+
+“Blackguards!”
+
+Dutocq [entering, having heard the whole discussion]. “Blackguards! Who?
+Rabourdin? Then you know the news?”
+
+Fleury [rolling his eyes savagely]. “Rabourdin a blackguard! Are you
+mad, Dutocq? do you want a ball in your brains to give them weight?”
+
+Dutocq. “I said nothing against Monsieur Rabourdin; only it has just
+been told to me in confidence that he has written a paper denouncing all
+the clerks and officials, and full of facts about their lives; in short,
+the reason why his friends support him is because he has written this
+paper against the administration, in which we are all exposed--”
+
+Phellion [in a loud voice]. “Monsieur Rabourdin is incapable of--”
+
+Bixiou. “Very proper in you to say so. Tell me, Dutocq” [they whisper
+together and then go into the corridor].
+
+Bixiou. “What has happened?”
+
+Dutocq. “Do you remember what I said to you about that caricature?”
+
+Bixiou. “Yes, what then?”
+
+Dutocq. “Make it, and you shall be under-head-clerk with a famous fee.
+The fact is, my dear fellow, there’s dissension among the powers that
+be. The minister is pledged to Rabourdin, but if he doesn’t appoint
+Baudoyer he offends the priests and their party. You see, the King, the
+Dauphin and the Dauphine, the clergy, and lastly the court, all want
+Baudoyer; the minister wants Rabourdin.”
+
+Bixiou. “Good!”
+
+Dutocq. “To ease the matter off, the minister, who sees he must give
+way, wants to strangle the difficulty. We must find some good reason for
+getting rid of Rabourdin. Now somebody has lately unearthed a paper of
+his, exposing the present system of administration and wanting to
+reform it; and that paper is going the rounds,--at least, this is how I
+understand the matter. Make the drawing we talked of; in so doing you’ll
+play the game of all the big people, and help the minister, the court,
+the clergy,--in short, everybody; and you’ll get your appointment. Now
+do you understand me?”
+
+Bixiou. “I don’t understand how you came to know all that; perhaps you
+are inventing it.”
+
+Dutocq. “Do you want me to let you see what Rabourdin wrote about you?”
+
+Bixiou. “Yes.”
+
+Dutocq. “Then come home with me; for I must put the document into safe
+keeping.”
+
+Bixiou. “You go first alone.” [Re-enters the bureau Rabourdin.] “What
+Dutocq told you is really all true, word of honor! It seems that
+Monsieur Rabourdin has written and sent in very unflattering
+descriptions of the clerks whom he wants to ‘reform.’ That’s the real
+reason why his secret friends wish him appointed. Well, well; we live in
+days when nothing astonishes me” [flings his cloak about him like Talma,
+and declaims]:--
+
+  “Thou who has seen the fall of grand, illustrious heads,
+  Why thus amazed, insensate that thou art,
+
+to find a man like Rabourdin employing such means? Baudoyer is too much
+of a fool to know how to use them. Accept my congratulations, gentlemen;
+either way you are under a most illustrious chief” [goes off].
+
+Poiret. “I shall leave this ministry without ever comprehending a single
+word that gentleman utters. What does he mean with his ‘heads that
+fall’?”
+
+Fleury. “‘Heads that fell?’ why, think of the four sergeants of
+Rochelle, Ney, Berton, Caron, the brothers Faucher, and the massacres.”
+
+Phellion. “He asserts very flippantly things that he only guesses at.”
+
+Fleury. “Say at once that he lies; in his mouth truth itself turns to
+corrosion.”
+
+Phellion. “Your language is unparliamentary and lacks the courtesy and
+consideration which are due to a colleague.”
+
+Vimeux. “It seems to me that if what he says is false, the proper
+name for it is calumny, defamation of character; and such a slanderer
+deserves the thrashing.”
+
+Fleury [getting hot]. “If the government offices are public places, the
+matter ought to be taken into the police-courts.”
+
+Phellion [wishing to avert a quarrel, tries to turn the conversation].
+“Gentleman, might I ask you to keep quiet? I am writing a little
+treatise on moral philosophy, and I am just at the heart of it.”
+
+Fleury [interrupting]. “What are you saying about it, Monsieur
+Phellion?”
+
+Phellion [reading]. “Question.--What is the soul of man?
+
+“Answer.--A spiritual substance which thinks and reasons.”
+
+Thuillier. “Spiritual substance! you might as well talk about immaterial
+stone.”
+
+Poiret. “Don’t interrupt; let him go on.”
+
+Phellion [continuing]. “Quest.--Whence comes the soul?
+
+“Ans.--From God, who created it of a nature one and indivisible; the
+destructibility thereof is, consequently, not conceivable, and he hath
+said--”
+
+Poiret [amazed]. “God said?”
+
+Phellion. “Yes, monsieur; tradition authorizes the statement.”
+
+Fleury [to Poiret]. “Come, don’t interrupt, yourself.”
+
+Phellion [resuming]. “--and he hath said that he created it immortal; in
+other words, the soul can never die.
+
+“Quest.--What are the uses of the soul?
+
+“Ans.--To comprehend, to will, to remember; these constitute
+understanding, volition, memory.
+
+“Quest.--What are the uses of the understanding?
+
+“Ans.--To know. It is the eye of the soul.”
+
+Fleury. “And the soul is the eye of what?”
+
+Phellion [continuing]. “Quest.--What ought the understanding to know?
+
+“Ans.--Truth.
+
+“Quest.--Why does man possess volition?
+
+“Ans.--To love good and hate evil.
+
+“Quest.--What is good?
+
+“Ans.--That which makes us happy.”
+
+Vimeux. “Heavens! do you teach that to young ladies?”
+
+Phellion. “Yes” [continuing]. “Quest.--How many kinds of good are
+there?”
+
+Fleury. “Amazingly indecorous, to say the least.”
+
+Phellion [aggrieved]. “Oh, monsieur!” [Controlling himself.] “But here’s
+the answer,--that’s as far as I have got” [reads]:--
+
+“Ans.--There are two kinds of good,--eternal good and temporal good.”
+
+Poiret [with a look of contempt]. “And does that sell for anything?”
+
+Phellion. “I hope it will. It requires great application of mind to
+carry on a system of questions and answers; that is why I ask you to be
+quiet and let me think, for the answers--”
+
+Thuillier [interrupting]. “The answers might be sold separately.”
+
+Poiret. “Is that a pun?”
+
+Thuillier. “No; a riddle.”
+
+Phellion. “I am sorry I interrupted you” [he dives into his office
+desk]. “But” [to himself] “at any rate, I have stopped their talking
+about Monsieur Rabourdin.”
+
+At this moment a scene was taking place between the minister and des
+Lupeaulx which decided Rabourdin’s fate. The general-secretary had gone
+to see the minister in his private study before the breakfast-hour, to
+make sure that La Briere was not within hearing.
+
+“Your Excellency is not treating me frankly--”
+
+“He means a quarrel,” thought the minister; “and all because his
+mistress coquetted with me last night. I did not think you so juvenile,
+my dear friend,” he said aloud.
+
+“Friend?” said the general-secretary, “that is what I want to find out.”
+
+The minister looked haughtily at des Lupeaulx.
+
+“We are alone,” continued the secretary, “and we can come to an
+understanding. The deputy of the arrondissement in which my estate is
+situated--”
+
+“So it is really an estate!” said the minister, laughing, to hide his
+surprise.
+
+“Increased by a recent purchase of two hundred thousand francs’ worth of
+adjacent property,” replied des Lupeaulx, carelessly. “You knew of the
+deputy’s approaching resignation at least ten days ago, and you did not
+tell me of it. You were perhaps not bound to do so, but you knew very
+well that I am most anxious to take my seat in the centre. Has
+it occurred to you that I might fling myself back on the
+‘Doctrine’?--which, let me tell you, will destroy the administration and
+the monarchy both if you continue to allow the party of representative
+government to be recruited from men of talent whom you ignore. Don’t you
+know that in every nation there are fifty to sixty, not more, dangerous
+heads, whose schemes are in proportion to their ambition? The secret of
+knowing how to govern is to know those heads well, and either to chop
+them off or buy them. I don’t know how much talent I have, but I know
+that I have ambition; and you are committing a serious blunder when you
+set aside a man who wishes you well. The anointed head dazzles for the
+time being, but what next?--Why, a war of words; discussions will spring
+up once more and grow embittered, envenomed. Then, for your own sake, I
+advise you not to find me at the Left Centre. In spite of your
+prefect’s manoeuvres (instructions for which no doubt went from here
+confidentially) I am secure of a majority. The time has come for you and
+me to understand each other. After a breeze like this people sometimes
+become closer friends than ever. I must be made count and receive the
+grand cordon of the Legion of honor as a reward for my public services.
+However, I care less for those things just now than I do for something
+else in which you are more personally concerned. You have not yet
+appointed Rabourdin, and I have news this morning which tends to show
+that most persons will be better satisfied if you appoint Baudoyer.”
+
+“Appoint Baudoyer!” echoed the minister. “Do you know him?”
+
+“Yes,” said des Lupeaulx; “but suppose he proves incapable, as he will,
+you can then get rid of him by asking those who protect him to employ
+him elsewhere. You will thus get back an important office to give
+to friends; it may come in at the right moment to facilitate some
+compromise.”
+
+“But I have pledged it to Rabourdin.”
+
+“That may be; and I don’t ask you to make the change this very day.
+I know the danger of saying yes and no within twenty-four hours. But
+postpone the appointment, and don’t sign the papers till the day
+after to-morrow; by that time you may find it impossible to retain
+Rabourdin,--in fact, in all probability, he will send you his
+resignation--”
+
+“His resignation?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“He is the tool of a secret power in whose interests he has carried on
+a system of espionage in all the ministries, and the thing has been
+discovered by mere accident. He has written a paper of some kind, giving
+short histories of all the officials. Everybody is talking of it; the
+clerks are furious. For heaven’s sake, don’t transact business with him
+to-day; let me find some means for you to avoid it. Ask an audience
+of the King; I am sure you will find great satisfaction there if you
+concede the point about Baudoyer; and you can obtain something as an
+equivalent. Your position will be better than ever if you are forced
+later to dismiss a fool whom the court party impose upon you.”
+
+“What has made you turn against Rabourdin?”
+
+“Would you forgive Monsieur de Chateaubriand for writing an article
+against the ministry? Well, read that, and see how Rabourdin has treated
+me in his secret document,” said des Lupeaulx, giving the paper to the
+minister. “He pretends to reorganize the government from beginning to
+end,--no doubt in the interests of some secret society of which, as
+yet, we know nothing. I shall continue to be his friend for the sake
+of watching him; by that means I may render the government such signal
+service that they will have to make me count; for the peerage is the
+only thing I really care for. I want you fully to understand that I am
+not seeking office or anything else that would cause me to stand in your
+way; I am simply aiming for the peerage, which will enable me to marry a
+banker’s daughter with an income of a couple of hundred thousand francs.
+And so, allow me to render you a few signal services which will make the
+King feel that I have saved the throne. I have long said that Liberalism
+would never offer us a pitched battle. It has given up conspiracies,
+Carbonaroism, and revolts with weapons; it is now sapping and mining,
+and the day is coming when it will be able to say, ‘Out of that and let
+me in!’ Do you think I have been courting Rabourdin’s wife for my own
+pleasure? No, but I got much information from her. So now, let us agree
+on two things; first, the postponement of the appointment; second,
+your /sincere/ support of my election. You shall find at the end of the
+session that I have amply repaid you.”
+
+For all answer, the minister took the appointment papers and placed them
+in des Lupeaulx’s hand.
+
+“I will go and tell Rabourdin,” added des Lupeaulx, “that you cannot
+transact business with him till Saturday.”
+
+The minister replied with an assenting gesture. The secretary despatched
+his man with a message to Rabourdin that the minister could not work
+with him until Saturday, on which day the Chamber was occupied with
+private bills, and his Excellency had more time at his disposal.
+
+Just at this moment Saillard, having brought the monthly stipend, was
+slipping his little speech into the ear of the minister’s wife, who
+drew herself up and answered with dignity that she did not meddle in
+political matters, and besides, she had heard that Monsieur Rabourdin
+was already appointed. Saillard, terrified, rushed up to Baudoyer’s
+office, where he found Dutocq, Godard, and Bixiou in a state of
+exasperation difficult to describe; for they were reading the terrible
+paper on the administration in which they were all discussed.
+
+Bixiou [with his finger on a paragraph]. “Here /you/ are, pere Saillard.
+Listen” [reads]:--
+
+“Saillard.--The office of cashier to be suppressed in all the
+ministries; their accounts to be kept in future at the Treasury.
+Saillard is rich and does not need a pension.
+
+“Do you want to hear about your son-in-law?” [Turns over the leaves.]
+“Here he is” [reads]:--
+
+“Baudoyer.--Utterly incapable. To be thanked and dismissed. Rich; does
+not need a pension.
+
+“And here’s for Godard” [reads]:--
+
+“Godard.--Should be dismissed; pension one-third of his present salary.
+
+“In short, here we all are. Listen to what I am” [reads]: “An artist
+who might be employed by the civil list, at the Opera, or the
+Menus-Plaisirs, or the Museum. Great deal of capacity, little
+self-respect, no application,--a restless spirit. Ha! I’ll give you a
+touch of the artist, Monsieur Rabourdin!”
+
+Saillard. “Suppress cashiers! Why, the man’s a monster?”
+
+Bixiou. “Let us see what he says of our mysterious Desroys.” [Turns over
+the pages; reads.]
+
+“Desroys.--Dangerous; because he cannot be shaken in principles that are
+subversive of monarchial power. He is the son of the Conventionel, and
+he admires the Convention. He may become a very mischievous journalist.”
+
+Baudoyer. “The police are not worse spies!”
+
+Godard. “I shall go the general-secretary and lay a complaint in form;
+we must all resign in a body if such a man as that is put over us.”
+
+Dutocq. “Gentlemen, listen to me; let us be prudent. If you rise at
+once in a body, we may all be accused of rancor and revenge. No, let
+the thing work, let the rumor spread quietly. When the whole ministry is
+aroused your remonstrances will meet with general approval.”
+
+Bixiou. “Dutocq believes in the principles of the grand air composed by
+the sublime Rossini for Basilio,--which goes to show, by the bye, that
+the great composer was also a great politician. I shall leave my card
+on Monsieur Rabourdin to-morrow morning, inscribed thus: ‘Bixiou; no
+self-respect, no application, restless mind.’”
+
+Godard. “A good idea, gentlemen. Let us all leave our cards to-morrow on
+Rabourdin inscribed in the same way.”
+
+Dutocq [leading Bixiou apart]. “Come, you’ll agree to make that
+caricature now, won’t you?”
+
+Bixiou. “I see plainly, my dear fellow, that you knew all about
+this affair ten days ago” [looks him in the eye]. “Am I to be
+under-head-clerk?”
+
+Dutocq. “On my word of honor, yes, and a thousand-franc fee beside,
+just as I told you. You don’t know what a service you’ll be rendering to
+powerful personages.”
+
+Bixiou. “You know them?”
+
+Dutocq. “Yes.”
+
+Bixiou. “Well, then I want to speak with them.”
+
+Dutocq [dryly]. “You can make the caricature or not, and you can be
+under-head-clerk or not,--as you please.”
+
+Bixiou. “At any rate, let me see that thousand francs.”
+
+Dutocq. “You shall have them when you bring the drawing.”
+
+Bixiou. “Forward, march! that lampoon shall go from end to end of the
+bureaus to-morrow morning. Let us go and torment the Rabourdins.” [Then
+speaking to Saillard, Godard, and Baudoyer, who were talking together in
+a low voice.] “We are going to stir up the neighbors.” [Goes with Dutocq
+into the Rabourdin bureau. Fleury, Thuillier, and Vimeux are there,
+talking excitedly.] “What’s the matter, gentlemen? All that I told you
+turns out to be true; you can go and see for yourselves the work of
+this infamous informer; for it is in the hands of the virtuous, honest,
+estimable, upright, and pious Baudoyer, who is indeed utterly incapable
+of doing any such thing. Your chief has got every one of you under the
+guillotine. Go and see; follow the crowd; money returned if you are not
+satisfied; execution /gratis/! The appointments are postponed. All the
+bureaus are in arms; Rabourdin has been informed that the minister will
+not work with him. Come, be off; go and see for yourselves.”
+
+They all depart except Phellion and Poiret, who are left alone. The
+former loved Rabourdin too well to look for proof that might injure a
+man he was determined not to judge; the other had only five days more to
+remain in the office, and cared nothing either way. Just then Sebastien
+came down to collect the papers for signature. He was a good deal
+surprised, though he did not show it, to find the office deserted.
+
+Phellion. “My young friend” [he rose, a rare thing], “do you know what
+is going on? what scandals are rife about Monsieur Rabourdin whom you
+love, and” [bending to whisper in Sebastien’s ear] “whom I love as much
+as I respect him. They say he has committed the imprudence to leave a
+paper containing comments on the officials lying about in the office--”
+ [Phellion stopped short, caught the young man in his strong arms, seeing
+that he turned pale and was near fainting, and placed him on a chair.]
+“A key, Monsieur Poiret, to put down his back; have you a key?”
+
+Poiret. “I have the key of my domicile.”
+
+[Old Poiret junior promptly inserted the said key between Sebastien’s
+shoulders, while Phellion gave him some water to drink. The poor lad
+no sooner opened his eyes than he began to weep. He laid his head on
+Phellion’s desk, and all his limbs were limp as if struck by lightning;
+while his sobs were so heartrending, so genuine, that for the first
+time in his life Poiret’s feelings were stirred by the sufferings of
+another.]
+
+Phellion [speaking firmly]. “Come, come, my young friend; courage! In
+times of trial we must show courage. You are a man. What is the matter?
+What has happened to distress you so terribly?”
+
+Sebastien [sobbing]. “It is I who have ruined Monsieur Rabourdin. I left
+that paper lying about when I copied it. I have killed my benefactor; I
+shall die myself. Such a noble man!--a man who ought to be minister!”
+
+Poiret [blowing his nose]. “Then it is true he wrote the report.”
+
+Sebastien [still sobbing]. “But it was to--there, I was going to tell
+his secrets! Ah! that wretch of a Dutocq; it was he who stole the
+paper.”
+
+His tears and sobs recommenced and made so much noise that Rabourdin
+came up to see what was the matter. He found the young fellow almost
+fainting in the arms of Poiret and Phellion.
+
+Rabourdin. “What is the matter, gentlemen?”
+
+Sebastien [struggling to his feet, and then falling on his knees before
+Rabourdin]. “I have ruined you, monsieur. That memorandum,--Dutocq, the
+monster, he must have taken it.”
+
+Rabourdin [calmly]. “I knew that already” [he lifts Sebastien]. “You are
+a child, my young friend.” [Speaks to Phellion.] “Where are the other
+gentlemen?”
+
+Phellion. “They have gone into Monsieur Baudoyer’s office to see a paper
+which it is said--”
+
+Rabourdin [interrupting him]. “Enough.” [Goes out, taking Sebastien with
+him. Poiret and Phellion look at each other in amazement, and do not
+know what to say.]
+
+Poiret [to Phellion]. “Monsieur Rabourdin--”
+
+Phellion [to Poiret]. “Monsieur Rabourdin--”
+
+Poiret. “Well, I never! Monsieur Rabourdin!”
+
+Phellion. “But did you notice how calm and dignified he was?”
+
+Poiret [with a sly look that was more like a grimace]. “I shouldn’t be
+surprised if there were something under it all.”
+
+Phellion. “A man of honor; pure and spotless.”
+
+Poiret. “Who is?”
+
+Phellion. “Monsieur Poiret, you think as I think about Dutocq; surely
+you understand me?”
+
+Poiret [nodding his head three times and answering with a shrewd look].
+“Yes.” [The other clerks return.]
+
+Fleury. “A great shock; I still don’t believe the thing. Monsieur
+Rabourdin, a king among men! If such men are spies, it is enough to
+disgust one with virtue. I have always put Rabourdin among Plutarch’s
+heroes.”
+
+Vimeux. “It is all true.”
+
+Poiret [reflecting that he had only five days more to stay in the
+office]. “But, gentlemen, what do you say about the man who stole that
+paper, who spied upon Rabourdin?” [Dutocq left the room.]
+
+Fleury. “I say he is a Judas Iscariot. Who is he?”
+
+Phellion [significantly]. “He is not here at /this moment/.”
+
+Vimeux [enlightened]. “It is Dutocq!”
+
+Phellion. “I have no proof of it, gentlemen. While you were gone, that
+young man, Monsieur de la Roche, nearly fainted here. See his tears on
+my desk!”
+
+Poiret. “We held him fainting in our arms.--My key, the key of my
+domicile!--dear, dear! it is down his back.” [Poiret goes hastily out.]
+
+Vimeux. “The minister refused to transact business with Rabourdin
+to-day; and Monsieur Saillard, to whom the secretary said a few words,
+came to tell Monsieur Baudoyer to apply for the cross of the Legion of
+honor,--there is one to be granted, you know, on New-Year’s day, to all
+the heads of divisions. It is quite clear what it all means. Monsieur
+Rabourdin is sacrificed by the very persons who employed him. Bixiou
+says so. We were all to be turned out, except Sebastien and Phellion.”
+
+Du Bruel [entering]. “Well, gentlemen, is it true?”
+
+Thuillier. “To the last word.”
+
+Du Bruel [putting his hat on again]. “Good-bye.” [Hurries out.]
+
+Thuillier. “He may rush as much as he pleases to his Duc de Rhetore
+and Duc de Maufrigneuse, but Colleville is to be our under-head-clerk,
+that’s certain.”
+
+Phellion. “Du Bruel always seemed to be attached to Monsieur Rabourdin.”
+
+Poiret [returning]. “I have had a world of trouble to get back my key.
+That boy is crying still, and Monsieur Rabourdin has disappeared.”
+ [Dutocq and Bixiou enter.]
+
+Bixiou. “Ha, gentlemen! strange things are going on in your bureau. Du
+Bruel! I want you.” [Looks into the adjoining room.] “Gone?”
+
+Thuillier. “Full speed.”
+
+Bixiou. “What about Rabourdin?”
+
+Fleury. “Distilled, evaporated, melted! Such a man, the king of men,
+that he--”
+
+Poiret [to Dutocq]. “That little Sebastien, in his trouble, said that
+you, Monsieur Dutocq, had taken the paper from him ten days ago.”
+
+Bixiou [looking at Dutocq]. “You must clear yourself of /that/, my good
+friend.” [All the clerks look fixedly at Dutocq.]
+
+Dutocq. “Where’s the little viper who copied it?”
+
+Bixiou. “Copied it? How did you know he copied it? Ha! ha! it is only
+the diamond that cuts the diamond.” [Dutocq leaves the room.]
+
+Poiret. “Would you listen to me, Monsieur Bixiou? I have only five days
+and a half to stay in this office, and I do wish that once, only once, I
+might have the pleasure of understanding what you mean. Do me the honor
+to explain what diamonds have to do with these present circumstances.”
+
+Bixiou. “I meant papa,--for I’m willing for once to bring my intellect
+down to the level of yours,--that just as the diamond alone can cut
+the diamond, so it is only one inquisitive man who can defeat another
+inquisitive man.”
+
+Fleury. “‘Inquisitive man’ stands for ‘spy.’”
+
+Poiret. “I don’t understand.”
+
+Bixiou. “Very well; try again some other time.”
+
+Monsieur Rabourdin, after taking Sebastien to his room, had gone
+straight to the minister; but the minister was at the Chamber of
+Deputies. Rabourdin went at once to the Chamber, where he wrote a note
+to his Excellency, who was at that moment in the tribune engaged in a
+hot discussion. Rabourdin waited, not in the conference hall, but in
+the courtyard, where, in spite of the cold, he resolved to remain and
+intercept his Excellency as he got into his carriage. The usher of the
+Chamber had told him that the minister was in the thick of a controversy
+raised by the nineteen members of the extreme Left, and that the session
+was likely to be stormy. Rabourdin walked to and for in the courtyard
+of the palace for five mortal hours, a prey to feverish agitation. At
+half-past six o’clock the session broke up, and the members filed out.
+The minister’s chasseur came up to find the coachman.
+
+“Hi, Jean!” he called out to him; “Monseigneur has gone with the
+minister of war; they are going to see the King, and after that they
+dine together, and we are to fetch him at ten o’clock. There’s a Council
+this evening.”
+
+Rabourdin walked slowly home, in a state of despondency not difficult to
+imagine. It was seven o’clock, and he had barely time to dress.
+
+“Well, you are appointed?” cried his wife, joyously, as he entered the
+salon.
+
+Rabourdin raised his head with a grievous motion of distress and
+answered, “I fear I shall never again set foot in the ministry.”
+
+“What?” said his wife, quivering with sudden anxiety.
+
+“My memorandum on the officials is known in all the offices; and I have
+not been able to see the minister.”
+
+Celestine’s eyes were opened to a sudden vision in which the devil,
+in one of his infernal flashes, showed her the meaning of her last
+conversation with des Lupeaulx.
+
+“If I had behaved like a low woman,” she thought, “we should have had
+the place.”
+
+She looked at Rabourdin with grief in her heart. A sad silence fell
+between them, and dinner was eaten in the midst of gloomy meditations.
+
+“And it is my Wednesday,” she said at last.
+
+“All is not lost, dear Celestine,” said Rabourdin, laying a kiss on his
+wife’s forehead; “perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to see the minister
+and explain everything. Sebastien sat up all last night to finish the
+writing; the papers are copied and collated; I shall place them on the
+minister’s desk and beg him to read them through. La Briere will help
+me. A man is never condemned without a hearing.”
+
+“I am curious to see if Monsieur des Lupeaulx will come here to-night.”
+
+“He? Of course he will come,” said Rabourdin; “there’s something of the
+tiger in him; he likes to lick the blood of the wounds he has given.”
+
+“My poor husband,” said his wife, taking his hand, “I don’t see how it
+is that a man who could conceive so noble a reform did not also see that
+it ought not to be communicated to a single person. It is one of those
+ideas that a man should keep in his own mind, for he alone can apply
+them. A statesman must do in our political sphere as Napoleon did in
+his; he stooped, twisted, crawled. Yes, Bonaparte crawled! To be made
+commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy he married Barrere’s mistress.
+You should have waited, got yourself elected deputy, followed the
+politics of a party, sometimes down in the depths, at other times on the
+crest of the wave, and you should have taken, like Monsieur de Villele,
+the Italian motto ‘Col tempo,’ in other words, ‘All things are given to
+him who knows how to wait.’ That great orator worked for seven years to
+get into power; he began in 1814 by protesting against the Charter
+when he was the same age that you are now. Here’s your fault; you have
+allowed yourself to be kept subordinate, when you were born to rule.”
+
+The entrance of the painter Schinner imposed silence on the wife and
+husband, but these words made the latter thoughtful.
+
+“Dear friend,” said the painter, grasping Rabourdin’s hand, “the
+support of artists is a useless thing enough, but let me say under these
+circumstances that we are all faithful to you. I have just read the
+evening papers. Baudoyer is appointed director and receives the cross of
+the Legion of honor--”
+
+“I have been longer in the department, I have served twenty-four hours,”
+ said Rabourdin with a smile.
+
+“I know Monsieur le Comte de Serizy, the minister of State, pretty well,
+and if he can help you, I will go and see him,” said Schinner.
+
+The salon soon filled with persons who knew nothing of the government
+proceedings. Du Bruel did not appear. Madame Rabourdin was gayer and
+more graceful than ever, like the charger wounded in battle, that still
+finds strength to carry his master from the field.
+
+“She is very courageous,” said a few women who knew the truth, and who
+were charmingly attentive to her, understanding her misfortunes.
+
+“But she certainly did a great deal to attract des Lupeaulx,” said the
+Baronne du Chatelet to the Vicomtesse de Fontaine.
+
+“Do you think--” began the vicomtesse.
+
+“If so,” interrupted Madame de Camps, in defence of her friend,
+“Monsieur Rabourdin would at least have had the cross.”
+
+About eleven o’clock des Lupeaulx appeared; and we can only describe him
+by saying that his spectacles were sad and his eyes joyous; the glasses,
+however, obscured the glances so successfully that only a physiognomist
+would have seen the diabolical expression which they wore. He went up to
+Rabourdin and pressed the hand which the latter could not avoid giving
+him.
+
+Then he approached Madame Rabourdin.
+
+“We have much to say to each other,” he remarked as he seated himself
+beside the beautiful woman, who received him admirably.
+
+“Ah!” he continued, giving her a side glance, “you are grand indeed; I
+find you just what I expected, glorious under defeat. Do you know that
+it is a very rare thing to find a superior woman who answers to the
+expectations formed of her. So defeat doesn’t dishearten you? You are
+right; we shall triumph in the end,” he whispered in her ear. “Your fate
+is always in your own hands,--so long, I mean, as your ally is a man who
+adores you. We will hold counsel together.”
+
+“But is Baudoyer appointed?” she asked.
+
+“Yes,” said the secretary.
+
+“Does he get the cross?”
+
+“Not yet; but he will have it later.”
+
+“Amazing!”
+
+“Ah! you don’t understand political exigencies.”
+
+During this evening, which seemed interminable to Madame Rabourdin,
+another scene was occurring in the place Royale,--one of those comedies
+which are played in seven Parisian salons whenever there is a change of
+ministry. The Saillards’ salon was crowded. Monsieur and Madame Transon
+arrived at eight o’clock; Madame Transon kissed Madame Baudoyer, nee
+Saillard. Monsieur Bataille, captain of the National Guard, came with
+his wife and the curate of Saint Paul’s.
+
+“Monsieur Baudoyer,” said Madame Transon. “I wish to be the first to
+congratulate you; they have done justice to your talents. You have
+indeed earned your promotion.”
+
+“Here you are, director,” said Monsieur Transon, rubbing his hands, “and
+the appointment is very flattering to this neighborhood.”
+
+“And we can truly say it came to pass without any intriguing,” said the
+worthy Saillard. “We are none of us political intriguers; /we/ don’t go
+to select parties at the ministry.”
+
+Uncle Mitral rubbed his nose and grinned as he glanced at his niece
+Elisabeth, the woman whose hand had pulled the wires, who was talking
+with Gigonnet. Falleix, honest fellow, did not know what to make of the
+stupid blindness of Saillard and Baudoyer. Messieurs Dutocq, Bixiou, du
+Bruel, Godard, and Colleville (the latter appointed head of the bureau)
+entered.
+
+“What a crew!” whispered Bixiou to du Bruel. “I could make a fine
+caricature of them in the shapes of fishes,--dorys, flounders, sharks,
+and snappers, all dancing a saraband!”
+
+“Monsieur,” said Colleville, “I come to offer you my congratulations;
+or rather we congratulate ourselves in having such a man placed over us;
+and we desire to assure you of the zeal with which we shall co-operate
+in your labors. Allow me to say that this event affords a signal proof
+to the truth of my axiom that a man’s destiny lies in the letters of his
+name. I may say that I knew of this appointment and of your other honors
+before I heard of them, for I spend the night in anagrammatizing
+your name as follows:” [proudly] “Isidore C. T. Baudoyer,--Director,
+decorated by us (his Majesty the King, of course).”
+
+Baudoyer bowed and remarked piously that names were given in baptism.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer, senior, father and mother of the
+new director, were there to enjoy the glory of their son and
+daughter-in-law. Uncle Gigonnet-Bidault, who had dined at the house, had
+a restless, fidgety look in his eye which frightened Bixiou.
+
+“There’s a queer one,” said the latter to du Bruel, calling his
+attention to Gigonnet, “who would do in a vaudeville. I wonder if he
+could be bought. Such an old scarecrow is just the thing for a sign
+over the Two Baboons. And what a coat! I did think there was nobody
+but Poiret who could show the like after that after ten years’ public
+exposure to the inclemencies of Parisian weather.”
+
+“Baudoyer is magnificent,” said du Bruel.
+
+“Dazzling,” answered Bixiou.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Baudoyer, “let me present you to my own uncle,
+Monsieur Mitral, and to my great-uncle through my wife, Monsieur
+Bidault.”
+
+Gigonnet and Mitral gave a glance at the three clerks so penetrating,
+so glittering with gleams of gold, that the two scoffers were sobered at
+once.
+
+“Hein?” said Bixiou, when they were safely under the arcades in the
+place Royale; “did you examine those uncles?--two copies of Shylock.
+I’ll bet their money is lent in the market at a hundred per cent per
+week. They lend on pawn; and sell most that they lay hold of, coats,
+gold lace, cheese, men, women, and children; they are a conglomeration
+of Arabs, Jews, Genoese, Genevese, Greeks, Lombards, and Parisians,
+suckled by a wolf and born of a Turkish woman.”
+
+“I believe you,” said Godard. “Uncle Mitral used to be a sheriff’s
+officer.”
+
+“That settles it,” said du Bruel.
+
+“I’m off to see the proof of my caricature,” said Bixiou; “but I should
+like to study the state of things in Rabourdin’s salon to-night. You are
+lucky to be able to go there, du Bruel.”
+
+“I!” said the vaudevillist, “what should I do there? My face doesn’t
+lend itself to condolences. And it is very vulgar in these days to go
+and see people who are down.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE RESIGNATION
+
+
+By midnight Madame Rabourdin’s salon was deserted; only two or three
+guests remained with des Lupeaulx and the master and mistress of the
+house. When Schinner and Monsieur and Madame de Camps had likewise
+departed, des Lupeaulx rose with a mysterious air, stood with his back
+to the fireplace and looked alternately at the husband and wife.
+
+“My friends,” he said, “nothing is really lost, for the minister and I
+are faithful to you. Dutocq simply chose between two powers the one he
+thought strongest. He has served the court and the Grand Almoner; he
+has betrayed me. But that is in the order of things; a politician never
+complains of treachery. Nevertheless, Baudoyer will be dismissed as
+incapable in a few months; no doubt his protectors will find him a
+place,--in the prefecture of police, perhaps,--for the clergy will not
+desert him.”
+
+From this point des Lupeaulx went on with a long tirade about the Grand
+Almoner and the dangers the government ran in relying upon the
+church and upon the Jesuits. We need not, we think, point out to the
+intelligent reader that the court and the Grand Almoner, to whom
+the liberal journals attributed an enormous influence under the
+administration, had little really to do with Monsieur Baudoyer’s
+appointment. Such petty intrigues die in the upper sphere of great
+self-interests. If a few words in favor of Baudoyer were obtained by
+the importunity of the curate of Saint-Paul’s and the Abbe Gaudron, they
+would have been withdrawn immediately at a suggestion from the minister.
+The occult power of the Congregation of Jesus (admissible certainly as
+confronting the bold society of the “Doctrine,” entitled “Help yourself
+and heaven will help you,”) was formidable only through the imaginary
+force conferred on it by subordinate powers who perpetually threatened
+each other with its evils. The liberal scandal-mongers delighted in
+representing the Grand Almoner and the whole Jesuitical Chapter as
+political, administrative, civil, and military giants. Fear creates
+bugbears. At this crisis Baudoyer firmly believed in the said Chapter,
+little aware that the only Jesuits who had put him where he now was sat
+by his own fireside, and in the Cafe Themis playing dominoes.
+
+At certain epochs in history certain powers appear, to whom all evils
+are attributed, though at the same time their genius is denied; they
+form an efficient argument in the mouth of fools. Just as Monsieur de
+Talleyrand was supposed to hail all events of whatever kind with a bon
+mot, so in these days of the Restoration the clerical party had the
+credit of doing and undoing everything. Unfortunately, it did and undid
+nothing. Its influence was not wielded by a Cardinal Richelieu or
+a Cardinal Mazarin; it was in the hands of a species of Cardinal
+de Fleury, who, timid for over five years, turned bold for one day,
+injudiciously bold. Later on, the “Doctrine” did more, with impunity,
+at Saint-Merri, than Charles X. pretended to do in July, 1830. If the
+section on the censorship so foolishly introduced into the new charter
+had been omitted, journalism also would have had its Saint-Merri. The
+younger Branch could have legally carried out Charles X.’s plan.
+
+“Remain where you are, head of a bureau under Baudoyer,” went on des
+Lupeaulx. “Have the nerve to do this; make yourself a true politician;
+put ideas and generous impulses aside; attend only to your functions;
+don’t say a word to your new director; don’t help him with a suggestion;
+and do nothing yourself without his order. In three months Baudoyer
+will be out of the ministry, either dismissed, or stranded on some other
+administrative shore. They may attach him to the king’s household.
+Twice in my life I have been set aside as you are, and overwhelmed by an
+avalanche of folly; I have quietly waited and let it pass.”
+
+“Yes,” said Rabourdin, “but you were not calumniated; your honor was not
+assailed, compromised--”
+
+“Ha, ha, ha!” cried des Lupeaulx, interrupting him with a burst of
+Homeric laughter. “Why, that’s the daily bread of every remarkable man
+in this glorious kingdom of France! And there are but two ways to meet
+such calumny,--either yield to it, pack up, and go plant cabbages in the
+country; or else rise above it, march on, fearless, and don’t turn your
+head.”
+
+“For me, there is but one way of untying the noose which treachery and
+the work of spies have fastened round my throat,” replied Rabourdin.
+“I must explain the matter at once to his Excellency, and if you are
+as sincerely attached to me as you say you are, you will put me face to
+face with him to-morrow.”
+
+“You mean that you wish to explain to him your plan for the reform of
+the service?”
+
+Rabourdin bowed.
+
+“Well, then, trust the papers with me,--your memoranda, all the
+documents. I promise you that he shall sit up all night and examine
+them.”
+
+“Let us go to him, then!” cried Rabourdin, eagerly; “six years’
+toil certainly deserves two or three hours attention from the king’s
+minister, who will be forced to recognize, if he does not applaud, such
+perseverance.”
+
+Compelled by Rabourdin’s tenacity to take a straightforward path,
+without ambush or angle where his treachery could hide itself, des
+Lupeaulx hesitated for a single instant, and looked at Madame Rabourdin,
+while he inwardly asked himself, “Which shall I permit to triumph, my
+hatred for him, or my fancy for her?”
+
+“You have no confidence in my honor,” he said, after a pause. “I see
+that you will always be to me the author of your /secret analysis/.
+Adieu, madame.”
+
+Madame Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier returned at once to
+their own rooms without a word; both were overcome by their misfortune.
+The wife thought of the dreadful situation in which she stood toward her
+husband. The husband, resolving slowly not to remain at the ministry but
+to send in his resignation at once, was lost in a sea of reflections;
+the crisis for him meant a total change of life and the necessity of
+starting on a new career. All night he sat before his fire, taking
+no notice of Celestine, who came in several times on tiptoe, in her
+night-dress.
+
+“I must go once more to the ministry, to bring away my papers, and show
+Baudoyer the routine of the business,” he said to himself at last. “I
+had better write my resignation now.”
+
+He turned to his table and began to write, thinking over each clause of
+the letter, which was as follows:--
+
+  Monseigneur,--I have the honor to inclose to your Excellency my
+  resignation. I venture to hope that you still remember hearing me
+  say that I left my honor in your hands, and that everything, for
+  me, depended on my being able to give you an immediate
+  explanation.
+
+  This explanation I have vainly sought to give. To-day it would,
+  perhaps, be useless; for a fragment of my work relating to the
+  administration, stolen and misused, has gone the rounds of the
+  offices and is misinterpreted by hatred; in consequence, I find
+  myself compelled to resign, under the tacit condemnation of my
+  superiors.
+
+  Your Excellency may have thought, on the morning when I first
+  sought to speak with you, that my purpose was to ask for my
+  promotion, when, in fact, I was thinking only of the glory and
+  usefulness of your ministry and of the public good. It is
+  all-important, I think, to correct that impression.
+
+Then followed the usual epistolary formulas.
+
+It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated the
+sacrifice of his ideas; he burned everything, the toil of years.
+Fatigued by the pressure of thought, overcome by mental suffering, he
+fell asleep with his head on the back of his armchair. He was wakened by
+a curious sensation, and found his hands covered with his wife’s tears
+and saw her kneeling before him. Celestine had read the resignation. She
+could measure the depth of his fall. They were now to be reduced to
+live on four thousand francs a year; and that day she had counted up her
+debts,--they amounted to something like thirty-two thousand francs! The
+most ignoble of all wretchedness had come upon them. And that noble man
+who had trusted her was ignorant that she had abused the fortune he
+had confided to her care. She was sobbing at his feet, beautiful as the
+Magdalen.
+
+“My cup is full,” cried Xavier, in terror. “I am dishonored at the
+ministry, and dishonored--”
+
+The light of her pure honor flashed from Celestine’s eyes; she sprang up
+like a startled horse and cast a fulminating glance at Rabourdin.
+
+“I! I!” she said, on two sublime tones. “Am I a base wife? If I were,
+you would have been appointed. But,” she added mournfully, “it is easier
+to believe that than to believe what is the truth.”
+
+“Then what is it?” said Rabourdin.
+
+“All in three words,” she said; “I owe thirty thousand francs.”
+
+Rabourdin caught his wife to his heart with a gesture of almost frantic
+joy, and seated her on his knee.
+
+“Take comfort, dear,” he said, in a tone of voice so adorably kind
+that the bitterness of her grief was changed to something inexpressibly
+tender. “I too have made mistakes; I have worked uselessly for my
+country when I thought I was being useful to her. But now I mean to take
+another path. If I had sold groceries we should now be millionaires.
+Well, let us be grocers. You are only twenty-eight, dear angel; in ten
+years you shall recover the luxury that you love, which we must needs
+renounce for a short time. I, too, dear heart, am not a base or common
+husband. We will sell our farm; its value has increased of late. That
+and the sale of our furniture will pay my debts.”
+
+/My/ debts! Celestine embraced her husband a thousand times in the
+single kiss with which she thanked him for that generous word.
+
+“We shall still have a hundred thousand francs to put into business.
+Before the month is out I shall find some favorable opening. If luck
+gave a Martin Falleix to a Saillard, why should we despair? Wait
+breakfast for me. I am going now to the ministry, but I shall come back
+with my neck free of the yoke.”
+
+Celestine clasped her husband in her arms with a force men do not
+possess, even in their passionate moments; for women are stronger
+through emotion than men through power. She wept and laughed and sobbed
+in turns.
+
+When Rabourdin left the house at eight o’clock, the porter gave him
+the satirical cards suggested by Bixiou. Nevertheless, he went to the
+ministry, where he found Sebastien waiting near the door to entreat him
+not to enter any of the bureaus, because an infamous caricature of him
+was making the round of the offices.
+
+“If you wish to soften the pain of my downfall,” he said to the lad,
+“bring me that drawing; I am now taking my resignation to Ernest de la
+Briere myself, that it may not be altered or distorted while passing
+through the routine channels. I have my own reasons for wishing to see
+that caricature.”
+
+When Rabourdin came back to the courtyard, after making sure that his
+letter would go straight into the minister’s hands, he found Sebastien
+in tears, with a copy of the lithograph, which the lad reluctantly
+handed over to him.
+
+“It is very clever,” said Rabourdin, showing a serene brow to his
+companion, though the crown of thorns was on it all the same.
+
+He entered the bureaus with a calm air, and went at once into Baudoyer’s
+section to ask him to come to the office of the head of the division and
+receive instructions as to the business which that incapable being was
+henceforth to direct.
+
+“Tell Monsieur Baudoyer that there must be no delay,” he added, in the
+hearing of all the clerks; “my resignation is already in the minister’s
+hands, and I do not wish to stay here longer than is necessary.”
+
+Seeing Bixiou, Rabourdin went straight up to him, showed him the
+lithograph, and said, to the great astonishment of all present,--
+
+“Was I not right in saying you were an artist? Still, it is a pity you
+directed the point of your pencil against a man who cannot be judged in
+this way, nor indeed by the bureaus at all;--but everything is laughed
+at in France, even God.”
+
+Then he took Baudoyer into the office of the late La Billardiere. At the
+door he found Phellion and Sebastien, the only two who, under his great
+disaster, dared to remain openly faithful to the fallen man. Rabourdin
+noticed that Phellion’s eyes were moist, and he could not refrain from
+wringing his hand.
+
+“Monsieur,” said the good man, “if we can serve you in any way, make use
+of us.”
+
+Monsieur Rabourdin shut himself up in the late chief’s office with
+Monsieur Baudoyer, and Phellion helped him to show the new incumbent all
+the administrative difficulties of his new position. At each separate
+affair which Rabourdin carefully explained, Baudoyer’s little eyes grew
+big as saucers.
+
+“Farewell, monsieur,” said Rabourdin at last, with a manner that was
+half-solemn, half-satirical.
+
+Sebastien meanwhile had made up a package of papers and letters
+belonging to his chief and had carried them away in a hackney coach.
+Rabourdin passed through the grand courtyard, while all the clerks
+were watching from the windows, and waited there a moment to see if the
+minister would send him any message. His Excellency was dumb. Phellion
+courageously escorted the fallen man to his home, expressing his
+feelings of respectful admiration; then he returned to the office, and
+took up his work, satisfied with his own conduct in rendering these
+funeral honors to the neglected and misjudged administrative talent.
+
+Bixiou [seeing Phellion re-enter]. “Victrix cause diis placuit, sed
+victa Catoni.”
+
+Phellion. “Yes, monsieur.”
+
+Poiret. “What does that mean?”
+
+Fleury. “That priests rejoice, and Monsieur Rabourdin has the respect of
+men of honor.”
+
+Dutocq [annoyed]. “You didn’t say that yesterday.”
+
+Fleury. “If you address me you’ll have my hand in your face. It is known
+for certain that you filched those papers from Monsieur Rabourdin.”
+ [Dutocq leaves the office.] “Oh, yes, go and complain to your Monsieur
+des Lupeaulx, spy!”
+
+Bixiou [laughing and grimacing like a monkey]. “I am curious to know how
+the division will get along. Monsieur Rabourdin is so remarkable a man
+that he must have had some special views in that work of his. Well, the
+minister loses a fine mind.” [Rubs his hands.]
+
+Laurent [entering]. “Monsieur Fleury is requested to go to the
+secretary’s office.”
+
+All the clerks. “Done for!”
+
+Fleury [leaving the room]. “I don’t care; I am offered a place as
+responsible editor. I shall have all my time to myself to lounge the
+streets or do amusing work in a newspaper office.”
+
+Bixiou. “Dutocq has already made them cut off the head of that poor
+Desroys.”
+
+Colleville [entering joyously]. “Gentlemen, I am appointed head of this
+bureau.”
+
+Thuillier. “Ah, my friend, if it were I myself, I couldn’t be better
+pleased.”
+
+Bixiou. “His wife has managed it.” [Laughter.]
+
+Poiret. “Will any one tell me the meaning of all that is happening here
+to-day?”
+
+Bixiou. “Do you really want to know? Then listen. The antechamber of the
+administration is henceforth a chamber, the court is a boudoir, the best
+way to get in is through the cellar, and the bed is more than ever a
+cross-cut.”
+
+Poiret. “Monsieur Bixiou, may I entreat you, explain?”
+
+Bixiou. “I’ll paraphrase my opinion. To be anything at all you must
+begin by being everything. It is quite certain that a reform of this
+service is needed; for on my word of honor, the State robs the poor
+officials as much as the officials rob the State in the matter of hours.
+But why is it that we idle as we do? because they pay us too little; and
+the reason of that is we are too many for the work, and your late
+chief, the virtuous Rabourdin, saw all this plainly. That great
+administrator,--for he was that, gentlemen,--saw what the thing
+is coming to, the thing that these idiots call the ‘working of
+our admirable institutions.’ The chamber will want before long to
+administrate, and the administrators will want to legislate. The
+government will try to administrate and the administrators will want to
+govern, and so it will go on. Laws will come to be mere regulations, and
+ordinances will be thought laws. God made this epoch of the world for
+those who like to laugh. I live in a state of jovial admiration of
+the spectacle which the greatest joker of modern times, Louis XVIII.,
+bequeathed to us” [general stupefaction]. “Gentlemen, if France, the
+country with the best civil service in Europe, is managed thus, what
+do you suppose the other nations are like? Poor unhappy nations! I ask
+myself how they can possibly get along without two Chambers, without the
+liberty of the press, without reports, without circulars even, without
+an army of clerks? Dear, dear, how do you suppose they have armies and
+navies? how can they exist at all without political discussions?
+Can they even be called nations, or governments? It is said (mere
+traveller’s tales) that these strange peoples claim to have a policy,
+to wield a certain influence; but that’s absurd! how can they when
+they haven’t ‘progress’ or ‘new lights’? They can’t stir up ideas,
+they haven’t an independent forum; they are still in the twilight of
+barbarism. There are no people in the world but the French people who
+have ideas. Can you understand, Monsieur Poiret,” [Poiret jumped as
+if he had been shot] “how a nation can do without heads of divisions,
+general-secretaries and directors, and all this splendid array of
+officials, the glory of France and of the Emperor Napoleon,--who had his
+own good reasons for creating a myriad of offices? I don’t see how those
+nations have the audacity to live at all. There’s Austria, which has
+less than a hundred clerks in her war ministry, while the salaries and
+pensions of ours amount to a third of our whole budget, a thing that was
+unheard of before the Revolution. I sum up all I’ve been saying in
+one single remark, namely, that the Academy of Inscriptions and
+Belles-lettres, which seems to have very little to do, had better offer
+a prize for the ablest answer to the following question: Which is the
+best organized State; the one that does many things with few officials,
+or the one that does next to nothing with an army of them?”
+
+Poiret. “Is that your last word?”
+
+Bixiou. “Yes, sir! whether English, French, German or Italian,--I let
+you off the other languages.”
+
+Poiret [lifting his hands to heaven]. “Gracious goodness! and they call
+you a witty man!”
+
+Bixiou. “Haven’t you understood me yet?”
+
+Phellion. “Your last observation was full of excellent sense.”
+
+Bixiou. “Just as full as the budget itself, and like the budget again,
+as complicated as it looks simple; and I set it as a warning, a beacon,
+at the edge of this hole, this gulf, this volcano, called, in the
+language of the ‘Constitutionel,’ ‘the political horizon.’”
+
+Poiret. “I should much prefer a comprehensible explanation.”
+
+Bixiou. “Hurrah for Rabourdin! there’s my explanation; that’s my
+opinion. Are you satisfied?”
+
+Colleville [gravely]. “Monsieur Rabourdin had but one defect.”
+
+Poiret. “What was it?”
+
+Colleville. “That of being a statesman instead of a subordinate
+official.”
+
+Phellion [standing before Bixiou]. “Monsieur! why did you, who
+understand Monsieur Rabourdin so well, why did you make that inf--that
+odi--that hideous caricature?”
+
+Bixiou. “Do you forget our bet? don’t you know I was backing the devil’s
+game, and that your bureau owes me a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale?”
+
+Poiret [much put-out]. “Then it is a settled thing that I am to leave
+this government office without ever understanding a sentence, or a
+single word uttered by Monsieur Bixiou.”
+
+Bixiou. “It is your own fault; ask these gentlemen. Gentlemen, have you
+understood the meaning of my observations? and were those observations
+just, and brilliant?”
+
+All. “Alas, yes!”
+
+Minard. “And the proof is that I shall send in my resignation. I shall
+plunge into industrial avocations.”
+
+Bixiou. “What! have you managed to invent a mechanical corset, or a
+baby’s bottle, or a fire engine, or chimneys that consume no fuel, or
+ovens which cook cutlets with three sheets of paper?”
+
+Minard [departing.] “Adieu, I shall keep my secret.”
+
+Bixiou. “Well, young Poiret junior, you see,--all these gentlemen
+understand me.”
+
+Poiret [crest-fallen]. “Monsieur Bixiou, would you do me the honor
+to come down for once to my level and speak in a language I can
+understand?”
+
+Bixiou [winking at the rest]. “Willingly.” [Takes Poiret by the button
+of his frock-coat.] “Before you leave this office forever perhaps you
+would be glad to know what you are--”
+
+Poiret [quickly]. “An honest man, monsieur.”
+
+Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. “--to be able to define, explain, and
+analyze precisely what a government clerk is? Do you know what he is?”
+
+Poiret. “I think I do.”
+
+Bixiou [twisting the button]. “I doubt it.”
+
+Poiret. “He is a man paid by government to do work.”
+
+Bixiou. “Oh! then a soldier is a government clerk?”
+
+Poiret [puzzled]. “Why, no.”
+
+Bixiou. “But he is paid by the government to do work, to mount guard and
+show off at reviews. You may perhaps tell me that he longs to get out of
+his place,--that he works too hard and fingers too little metal, except
+that of his musket.”
+
+Poiret [his eyes wide open]. “Monsieur, a government clerk is, logically
+speaking, a man who needs the salary to maintain himself, and is not
+free to get out of his place; for he doesn’t know how to do anything but
+copy papers.”
+
+Bixiou. “Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion. So the bureau is the
+clerk’s shell, husk, pod. No clerk without a bureau, no bureau without
+a clerk. But what do you make, then, of a customs officer?” [Poiret
+shuffles his feet and tries to edge away; Bixiou twists off one button
+and catches him by another.] “He is, from the bureaucratic point of
+view, a neutral being. The excise-man is only half a clerk; he is on the
+confines between civil and military service; neither altogether soldier
+nor altogether clerk--Here, here, where are you going?” [Twists the
+button.] “Where does the government clerk proper end? That’s a serious
+question. Is a prefect a clerk?”
+
+Poiret [hesitating]. “He is a functionary.”
+
+Bixiou. “But you don’t mean that a functionary is not a clerk? that’s an
+absurdity.”
+
+Poiret [weary and looking round for escape]. “I think Monsieur Godard
+wants to say something.”
+
+Godard. “The clerk is the order, the functionary the species.”
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. “I shouldn’t have thought you capable of that
+distinction, my brave subordinate.”
+
+Poiret [trying to get away]. “Incomprehensible!”
+
+Bixiou. “La, la, papa, don’t step on your tether. If you stand still and
+listen, we shall come to an understanding before long. Now, here’s an
+axiom which I bequeath to this bureau and to all bureaus: Where the
+clerk ends, the functionary begins; where the functionary ends, the
+statesman rises. There are very few statesmen among the prefects. The
+prefect is therefore a neutral being among the higher species. He comes
+between the statesman and the clerk, just as the custom-house officer
+stands between the civil and the military. Let us continue to clear up
+these important points.” [Poiret turns crimson with distress.] “Suppose
+we formulate the whole matter in a maxim worthy of Larochefoucault:
+Officials with salaries of twenty thousand francs are not clerks. From
+which we may deduce mathematically this corollary: The statesman first
+looms up in the sphere of higher salaries; and also this second and
+not less logical and important corollary: Directors-general may be
+statesmen. Perhaps it is in that sense that more than one deputy says
+in his heart, ‘It is a fine thing to be a director-general.’ But in the
+interests of our noble French language and of the Academy--”
+
+Poiret [magnetized by the fixity of Bixiou’s eye]. “The French language!
+the Academy!”
+
+Bixiou [twisting off the second button and seizing another]. “Yes, in
+the interests of our noble tongue, it is proper to observe that although
+the head of a bureau, strictly speaking, may be called a clerk, the head
+of a division must be called a bureaucrat. These gentlemen” [turning
+to the clerks and privately showing them the third button off Poiret’s
+coat] “will appreciate this delicate shade of meaning. And so, papa
+Poiret, don’t you see it is clear that the government clerk comes to
+a final end at the head of a division? Now that question once settled,
+there is no longer any uncertainty; the government clerk who has
+hitherto seemed undefinable is defined.”
+
+Poiret. “Yes, that appears to me beyond a doubt.”
+
+Bixiou. “Nevertheless, do me the kindness to answer the following
+question: A judge being irremovable, and consequently debarred from
+being, according to your subtle distinction, a functionary, and
+receiving a salary which is not the equivalent of the work he does, is
+he to be included in the class of clerks?”
+
+Poiret [gazing at the cornice]. “Monsieur, I don’t follow you.”
+
+Bixiou [getting off the fourth button]. “I wanted to prove to you,
+monsieur, that nothing is simple; but above all--and what I am going to
+say is intended for philosophers--I wish (if you’ll allow me to misquote
+a saying of Louis XVIII.),--I wish to make you see that definitions lead
+to muddles.”
+
+Poiret [wiping his forehead]. “Excuse me, I am sick at my stomach”
+ [tries to button his coat]. “Ah! you have cut off all my buttons!”
+
+Bixiou. “But the point is, /do you understand me/?”
+
+Poiret [angrily]. “Yes, monsieur, I do; I understand that you have been
+playing me a shameful trick and twisting off my buttons while I have
+been standing here unconscious of it.”
+
+Bixiou [solemnly]. “Old man, you are mistaken! I wished to stamp upon
+your brain the clearest possible image of constitutional government”
+ [all the clerks look at Bixiou; Poiret, stupefied, gazes at him
+uneasily], “and also to keep my word to you. In so doing I employed
+the parabolical method of savages. Listen and comprehend: While the
+ministers start discussions in the Chambers that are just about
+as useful and as conclusive as the one we are engaged in, the
+administration cuts the buttons off the tax-payers.”
+
+All. “Bravo, Bixiou!”
+
+Poiret [who comprehends]. “I don’t regret my buttons.”
+
+Bixiou. “I shall follow Minard’s example; I won’t pocket such a
+paltry salary as mine any longer; I shall deprive the government of my
+co-operation.” [Departs amid general laughter.]
+
+Another scene was taking place in the minister’s reception-room, more
+instructive than the one we have just related, because it shows how
+great ideas are allowed to perish in the higher regions of State
+affairs, and in what way statesmen console themselves.
+
+Des Lupeaulx was presenting the new director, Monsieur Baudoyer, to the
+minister. A number of persons were assembled in the salon,--two or three
+ministerial deputies, a few men of influence, and Monsieur Clergeot
+(whose division was now merged with La Billardiere’s under Baudoyer’s
+direction), to whom the minister was promising an honorable pension.
+After a few general remarks, the great event of the day was brought up.
+
+A deputy. “So you lose Rabourdin?”
+
+Des Lupeaulx. “He has resigned.”
+
+Clergeot. “They say he wanted to reform the administration.”
+
+The Minister [looking at the deputies]. “Salaries are not really in
+proportion to the exigencies of the civil service.”
+
+De la Briere. “According to Monsieur Rabourdin, one hundred clerks with
+a salary of twelve thousand francs would do better and quicker work than
+a thousand clerks at twelve hundred.”
+
+Clergeot. “Perhaps he is right.”
+
+The Minister. “But what is to be done? The machine is built in that way.
+Must we take it to pieces and remake it? No one would have the courage
+to attempt that in face of the Chamber, and the foolish outcries of the
+Opposition, and the fierce denunciations of the press. It follows
+that there will happen, one of these days, some damaging ‘solution of
+continuity’ between the government and the administration.”
+
+A deputy. “In what way?”
+
+The Minister. “In many ways. A minister will want to serve the public
+good, and will not be allowed to do so. You will create interminable
+delays between things and their results. You may perhaps render the
+theft of a penny actually impossible, but you cannot prevent the buying
+and selling of influence, the collusions of self-interest. The day will
+come when nothing will be conceded without secret stipulations, which
+may never see the light. Moreover, the clerks, one and all, from the
+least to the greatest, are acquiring opinions of their own; they will
+soon be no longer the hands of a brain, the scribes of governmental
+thought; the Opposition even now tends towards giving them a right to
+judge the government and to talk and vote against it.”
+
+Baudoyer [in a low voice, but meaning to be heard]. “Monseigneur is
+really fine.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx. “Of course bureaucracy has its defects. I myself think it
+slow and insolent; it hampers ministerial action, stifles projects, and
+arrests progress. But, after all, French administration is amazingly
+useful.”
+
+Baudoyer. “Certainly!”
+
+Des Lupeaulx. “If only to maintain the paper and stamp industries!
+Suppose it is rather fussy and provoking, like all good
+housekeepers,--it can at any moment render an account of its
+disbursements. Where is the merchant who would not gladly give five
+per cent of his entire capital if he could insure himself against
+/leakage/?”
+
+The Deputy [a manufacturer]. “The manufacturing interests of all nations
+would joyfully unite against that evil genius of theirs called leakage.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx. “After all, though statistics are the childish foible of
+modern statesmen, who think that figures are estimates, we must cipher
+to estimate. Figures are, moreover, the convincing argument of societies
+based on self-interest and money, and that is the sort of society the
+Charter has given us,--in my opinion, at any rate. Nothing convinces the
+‘intelligent masses’ as much as a row of figures. All things in the long
+run, say the statesmen of the Left, resolve themselves into figures.
+Well then, let us figure” [the minister here goes off into a corner with
+a deputy, to whom he talks in a low voice]. “There are forty thousand
+government clerks in France. The average of their salaries is fifteen
+hundred francs. Multiply forty thousand by fifteen hundred and you have
+sixty millions. Now, in the first place, a publicist would call the
+attention of Russia and China (where all government officials steal),
+also that of Austria, the American republics, and indeed that of the
+whole world, to the fact that for this price France possesses the
+most inquisitorial, fussy, ferreting, scribbling, paper-blotting,
+fault-finding old housekeeper of a civil service on God’s earth. Not a
+copper farthing of the nation’s money is spent or hoarded that is not
+ordered by a note, proved by vouchers, produced and re-produced on
+balance-sheets, and receipted for when paid; orders and receipts are
+registered on the rolls, and checked and verified by an army of men
+in spectacles. If there is the slightest mistake in the form of these
+precious documents, the clerk is terrified, for he lives on such
+minutiae. Some nations would be satisfied to get as far as this;
+but Napoleon went further. That great organizer appointed supreme
+magistrates of a court which is absolutely unique in the world. These
+officials pass their days in verifying money-orders, documents, roles,
+registers, lists, permits, custom-house receipts, payments, taxes
+received, taxes spent, etc.; all of which the clerks write or
+copy. These stern judges push the gift of exactitude, the genius of
+inquisition, the sharp-sightedness of lynxes, the perspicacity of
+account-books to the point of going over all the additions in search of
+subtractions. These sublime martyrs to figures have been known to return
+to an army commissary, after a delay of two years, some account in which
+there was an error of two farthings. This is how and why it is that the
+French system of administration, the purest and best on the globe
+has rendered robbery, as his Excellency has just told you, next to
+impossible, and as for peculation, it is a myth. France at this present
+time possesses a revenue of twelve hundred millions, and she spends it.
+That sum enters her treasury, and that sum goes out of it. She handles,
+therefore, two thousand four hundred millions, and all she pays for the
+labor of those who do the work is sixty millions,--two and a half per
+cent; and for that she obtains the certainty that there is no leakage.
+Our political and administrative kitchen costs us sixty millions, but
+the gendarmerie, the courts of law, the galleys and the police cost just
+as much, and give no return. Moreover, we employ a body of men who could
+do no other work. Waste and disorder, if such there be, can only be
+legislative; the Chambers lead to them and render them legal. Leakage
+follows in the form of public works which are neither urgent nor
+necessary; troops re-uniformed and gold-laced over and over again;
+vessels sent on useless cruises; preparations for war without ever
+making it; paying the debts of a State, and not requiring reimbursement
+or insisting on security.”
+
+Baudoyer. “But such leakage has nothing to do with the subordinate
+officials; this bad management of national affairs concerns the
+statesmen who guide the ship.”
+
+The Minister [who has finished his conversation]. “There is a great deal
+of truth in what des Lupeaulx has just said; but let me tell you” [to
+Baudoyer], “Monsieur le directeur, that few men see from the standpoint
+of a statesman. To order expenditure of all kinds, even useless ones,
+does not constitute bad management. Such acts contribute to the movement
+of money, the stagnation of which becomes, especially in France,
+dangerous to the public welfare, by reason of the miserly and profoundly
+illogical habits of the provinces which hoard their gold.”
+
+The Deputy [who listened to des Lupeaulx]. “But it seems to me that
+if your Excellency was right just now, and if our clever friend here”
+ [takes Lupeaulx by the arm] “was not wrong, it will be difficult to come
+to any conclusion on the subject.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx [after looking at the minister]. “No doubt something ought
+to be done.”
+
+De la Briere [timidly]. “Monsieur Rabourdin seems to have judged
+rightly.”
+
+The Minister. “I will see Rabourdin.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx. “The poor man made the blunder of constituting himself
+supreme judge of the administration and of all the officials who compose
+it; he wants to do away with the present state of things, and he demands
+that there be only three ministries.”
+
+The Minister. “He must be crazy.”
+
+The Deputy. “How do you represent in three ministries the heads of all
+the parties in the Chamber?”
+
+Baudoyer [with an air that he imagined to be shrewd]. “Perhaps Monsieur
+Rabourdin desired to change the Constitution, which we owe to our
+legislative sovereign.”
+
+The Minister [thoughtful, takes La Briere’s arm and leads him into the
+study]. “I want to see that work of Rabourdin’s, and as you know about
+it--”
+
+De la Briere. “He has burned it. You allowed him to be dishonored and he
+has resigned from the ministry. Do not think for a moment, Monseigneur,
+that Rabourdin ever had the absurd thought (as des Lupeaulx tries to
+make it believed) to change the admirable centralization of power.”
+
+The Minister [to himself]. “I have made a mistake” [is silent a moment].
+“No matter; we shall never be lacking in plans for reform.”
+
+De la Briere. “It is not ideas, but men capable of executing them that
+we lack.”
+
+Des Lupeaulx, that adroit advocate of abuses came into the minister’s
+study at this moment.
+
+“Monseigneur, I start at once for my election.”
+
+“Wait a moment,” said his Excellency, leaving the private secretary and
+taking des Lupeaulx by the arm into the recess of a window. “My dear
+friend, let me have that arrondissement,--if you will, you shall be
+made count and I will pay your debts. Later, if I remain in the ministry
+after the new Chamber is elected, I will find a way to send in your name
+in a batch for the peerage.”
+
+“You are a man of honor, and I accept.”
+
+This is how it came to pass that Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, whose
+father was ennobled under Louis XV., and who beareth quarterly, first,
+argent, a wolf ravisant carrying a lamb gules; second, purpure, three
+mascles argent, two and one; third, paly of twelve, gules and argent;
+fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises gules;
+supported by four griffon’s-claws jessant from the sides of the
+escutcheon, with the motto “En Lupus in Historia,” was able to surmount
+these rather satirical arms with a count’s coronet.
+
+Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did some business
+on hand which required him to visit the old ministry, where the
+bureaus had all been in great commotion, owing to a general removal
+of officials, from the highest to the lowest. This revolution bore
+heaviest, in point of fact, upon the lackeys, who are not fond of seeing
+new faces. Rabourdin had come early, knowing all the ways of the place,
+and he thus chanced to overhear a dialogue between the two nephews of
+old Antoine, who had recently retired on a pension.
+
+“Well, Laurent, how is your chief of division going on?”
+
+“Oh, don’t talk to me about him; I can’t do anything with him. He
+rings me up to ask if I have seen his handkerchief or his snuff-box. He
+receives people without making them wait; in short, he hasn’t a bit of
+dignity. I’m often obliged to say to him: But, monsieur, monsieur le
+comte your predecessor, for the credit of the thing, used to punch
+holes with his penknife in the arms of his chair to make believe he
+was working. And he makes such a mess of his room. I find everything
+topsy-turvy. He has a very small mind. How about your man?”
+
+“Mine? Oh, I have succeeded in training him. He knows exactly where his
+letter-paper and envelopes, his wood, and his boxes and all the rest of
+his things are. The other man used to swear at me, but this one is as
+meek as a lamb,--still, he hasn’t the grand style! Moreover, he isn’t
+decorated, and I don’t like to serve a chief who isn’t; he might be
+taken for one of us, and that’s humiliating. He carries the office
+letter-paper home, and asked me if I couldn’t go there and wait at table
+when there was company.”
+
+“Hey! what a government, my dear fellow!”
+
+“Yes, indeed; everybody plays low in these days.”
+
+“I hope they won’t cut down our poor wages.”
+
+“I’m afraid they will. The Chambers are prying into everything. Why,
+they even count the sticks of wood.”
+
+“Well, it can’t last long if they go on that way.”
+
+“Hush, we’re caught! somebody is listening.”
+
+“Hey! it is the late Monsieur Rabourdin. Ah, monsieur, I knew your step.
+If you have business to transact here I am afraid you will not find any
+one who is aware of the respect that ought to be paid to you; Laurent
+and I are the only persons remaining about the place who were here in
+your day. Messieurs Colleville and Baudoyer didn’t wear out the morocco
+of the chairs after you left. Heavens, no! six months later they were
+made Collectors of Paris.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+Note.--Anagrams cannot, of course, be translated; that is why three
+English ones have been substituted for some in French. [Tr.]
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Baudoyer, Isidore
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Bianchon, Horace
+       Father Goriot
+       The Atheist’s Mass
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       Pierrette
+       A Study of Woman
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Honorine
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Second Home
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Country Parson
+     In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+       Another Study of Woman
+       La Grande Breteche
+
+     Bidault (known as Gigonnet)
+       Gobseck
+       The Vendetta
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Modeste Mignon
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Member for Arcis
+       Beatrix
+       A Man of Business
+       Gaudissart II.
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Brezacs (The)
+       The Country Parson
+
+     Bruel, Jean Francois du
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       A Start in Life
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       The Middle Classes
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Camps, Madame Octave de
+       Madame Firmiani
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Chaboisseau
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Man of Business
+
+     Chatelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, Baronne du
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+
+     Chessel, Madame de
+       The Lily of the Valley
+
+     Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Colleville
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Desplein
+       The Atheist’s Mass
+       Cousin Pons
+       Lost Illusions
+       The Thirteen
+       Pierrette
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       Modest Mignon
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Honorine
+
+     Desroches (son)
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Colonel Chabert
+       A Start in Life
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       A Man of Business
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Dutocq
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Falleix, Martin
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Falleix, Jacques
+       The Thirteen
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Ferraud, Comtesse
+       Colonel Chabert
+
+     Finot, Andoche
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       A Start in Life
+       Gaudissart the Great
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Fleury
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Fontaine, Comte de
+       The Chouans
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Fontanon, Abbe
+       A Second Home
+       Honorine
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Gaudron, Abbe
+       Honorine
+       A Start in Life
+
+     Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
+       Gobseck
+       Father Goriot
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Godard, Joseph
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Granson, Athanase
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+
+     Gruget, Madame Etienne
+       The Thirteen
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+
+     Keller, Francois
+       Domestic Peace
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     La Bastie la Briere, Ernest de
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     La Billardiere, Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel, Baron Flamet de
+       The Chouans
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Laudigeois
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier
+       The Chouans
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Colonel Chabert
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Metivier
+       Lost Illusions
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minard, Madame
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minorets, The
+       The Peasantry
+
+     Mitral
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Phellion
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Poiret, the elder
+       Father Goriot
+       A Start in Life
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Rabourdin, Xavier
+       At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Rabourdin, Madame
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+
+     Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Saillard
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Samanon
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Schinner, Hippolyte
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Pierre Grassou
+       A Start in Life
+       Albert Savarus
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Sommervieux, Theodore de
+       At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     Thuillier
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier, Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier, Louis-Jerome
+       The Middle Classes
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUREAUCRACY ***
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bureaucracy
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: February 22, 2010 [EBook #1343]
+Last Updated: November 22, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUREAUCRACY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and Dagny, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      BUREAUCRACY
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Honore De Balzac
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      DEDICATION<br /><br /> To the Comtesse Seraphina San Severino, with the
+      respectful<br /> homage of sincere and deep admiration<br /><br /> De Balzac<br />
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>BUREAUCRACY</b> </a>
+    </h3>
+    <h3>
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE RABOURDIN HOUSEHOLD
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MONSIEUR DES LUPEAULX
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE TEREDOS NAVALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED SHIP-WORM
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE MACHINE IN MOTION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE WORMS AT WORK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SCENES FROM DOMESTIC LIFE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. &nbsp;&nbsp;</a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          FORWARD, MOLLUSKS!
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE RESIGNATION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <h3>
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> ADDENDUM </a>
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      BUREAUCRACY
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. THE RABOURDIN HOUSEHOLD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain likeness to one
+      another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met with
+      several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are about to
+      make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our most important
+      ministries. At this period he was forty years old, with gray hair of so
+      pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch fall in love with it for it
+      softened a somewhat melancholy countenance, blue eyes full of fire, a skin
+      that was still fair, though rather ruddy and touched here and there with
+      strong red marks; a forehead and nose a la Louis XV., a serious mouth, a
+      tall figure, thin, or perhaps wasted, like that of a man just recovering
+      from illness, and finally, a bearing that was midway between the indolence
+      of a mere idler and the thoughtfulness of a busy man. If this portrait
+      serves to depict his character, a sketch of this man&rsquo;s dress will bring it
+      still further into relief. Rabourdin wore habitually a blue surcoat, a
+      white cravat, a waistcoat crossed a la Robespierre, black trousers without
+      straps, gray silk stockings and low shoes. Well-shaved, and with his
+      stomach warmed by a cup of coffee, he left home at eight in the morning
+      with the regularity of clock-work, always passing along the same streets
+      on his way to the ministry: so neat was he, so formal, so starched that he
+      might have been taken for an Englishman on the road to his embassy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From these general signs you will readily discern a family man, harassed
+      by vexations in his own household, worried by annoyances at the ministry,
+      yet philosopher enough to take life as he found it; an honest man, loving
+      his country and serving it, not concealing from himself the obstacles in
+      the way of those who seek to do right; prudent, because he knew men;
+      exquisitely courteous with women, of whom he asked nothing,&mdash;a man
+      full of acquirements, affable with his inferiors, holding his equals at
+      great distance, and dignified towards his superiors. At the epoch of which
+      we write, you would have noticed in him the coldly resigned air of one who
+      has buried the illusions of his youth and renounced every secret ambition;
+      you would have recognized a discouraged, but not disgusted man, one who
+      still clings to his first projects,&mdash;more perhaps to employ his
+      faculties than in the hope of a doubtful success. He was not decorated
+      with any order, and always accused himself of weakness for having worn
+      that of the Fleur-de-lis in the early days of the Restoration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The life of this man was marked by certain mysterious peculiarities. He
+      had never known his father; his mother, a woman to whom luxury was
+      everything, always elegantly dressed, always on pleasure bent, whose
+      beauty seemed to him miraculous and whom he very seldom saw, left him
+      little at her death; but she had given him that too common and incomplete
+      education which produces so much ambition and so little ability. A few
+      days before his mother&rsquo;s death, when he was just sixteen, he left the
+      Lycee Napoleon to enter as supernumerary a government office, where an
+      unknown protector had provided him with a place. At twenty-two years of
+      age Rabourdin became under-head-clerk; at twenty-five, head-clerk, or, as
+      it was termed, head of the bureau. From that day the hand that assisted
+      the young man to start in life was never felt again in his career, except
+      as to a single circumstance; it led him, poor and friendless, to the house
+      of a Monsieur Leprince, formerly an auctioneer, a widower said to be
+      extremely rich, and father of an only daughter. Xavier Rabourdin fell
+      desperately in love with Mademoiselle Celestine Leprince, then seventeen
+      years of age, who had all the matrimonial claims of a dowry of two hundred
+      thousand francs. Carefully educated by an artistic mother, who transmitted
+      her own talents to her daughter, this young lady was fitted to attract
+      distinguished men. Tall, handsome, and finely-formed, she was a good
+      musician, drew and painted, spoke several languages, and even knew
+      something of science,&mdash;a dangerous advantage, which requires a woman
+      to avoid carefully all appearance of pedantry. Blinded by mistaken
+      tenderness, the mother gave the daughter false ideas as to her probable
+      future; to the maternal eyes a duke or an ambassador, a marshal of France
+      or a minister of State, could alone give her Celestine her due place in
+      society. The young lady had, moreover, the manners, language, and habits
+      of the great world. Her dress was richer and more elegant than was
+      suitable for an unmarried girl; a husband could give her nothing more than
+      she now had, except happiness. Besides all such indulgences, the foolish
+      spoiling of the mother, who died a year after the girl&rsquo;s marriage, made a
+      husband&rsquo;s task all the more difficult. What coolness and composure of mind
+      were needed to rule such a woman! Commonplace suitors held back in fear.
+      Xavier Rabourdin, without parents and without fortune other than his
+      situation under government, was proposed to Celestine by her father. She
+      resisted for a long time; not that she had any personal objection to her
+      suitor, who was young, handsome, and much in love, but she shrank from the
+      plain name of Madame Rabourdin. Monsieur Leprince assured his daughter
+      that Xavier was of the stock that statesmen came of. Celestine answered
+      that a man named Rabourdin would never be anything under the government of
+      the Bourbons, etc. Forced back to his intrenchments, the father made the
+      serious mistake of telling his daughter that her future husband was
+      certain of becoming Rabourdin &ldquo;de something or other&rdquo; before he reached
+      the age of admission to the Chamber. Xavier was soon to be appointed
+      Master of petitions, and general-secretary at his ministry. From these
+      lower steps of the ladder the young man would certainly rise to the higher
+      ranks of the administration, possessed of a fortune and a name bequeathed
+      to him in a certain will of which he, Monsieur Leprince, was cognizant. On
+      this the marriage took place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious protector to whom the
+      auctioneer alluded. Led away by such hopes and by the natural extravagance
+      of happy love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin spent nearly one hundred
+      thousand francs of their capital in the first five years of married life.
+      By the end of this time Celestine, alarmed at the non-advancement of her
+      husband, insisted on investing the remaining hundred thousand francs of
+      her dowry in landed property, which returned only a slender income; but
+      her future inheritance from her father would amply repay all present
+      privations with perfect comfort and ease of life. When the worthy
+      auctioneer saw his son-in-law disappointed of the hopes they had placed on
+      the nameless protector, he tried, for the sake of his daughter, to repair
+      the secret loss by risking part of his fortune in a speculation which had
+      favourable chances of success. But the poor man became involved in one of
+      the liquidations of the house of Nucingen, and died of grief, leaving
+      nothing behind him but a dozen fine pictures which adorned his daughter&rsquo;s
+      salon, and a few old-fashioned pieces of furniture, which she put in the
+      garret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eight years of fruitless expectation made Madame Rabourdin at last
+      understand that the paternal protector of her husband must have died, and
+      that his will, if it ever existed, was lost or destroyed. Two years before
+      her father&rsquo;s death the place of chief of division, which became vacant,
+      was given, over her husband&rsquo;s head, to a certain Monsieur de la
+      Billardiere, related to a deputy of the Right who was made minister in
+      1823. It was enough to drive Rabourdin out of the service; but how could
+      he give up his salary of eight thousand francs and perquisites, when they
+      constituted three fourths of his income and his household was accustomed
+      to spend them? Besides, if he had patience for a few more years he would
+      then be entitled to a pension. What a fall was this for a woman whose high
+      expectations at the opening of her life were more or less warranted, and
+      one who was admitted on all sides to be a superior woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Rabourdin had justified the expectations formed of Mademoiselle
+      Leprince; she possessed the elements of that apparent superiority which
+      pleases the world; her liberal education enabled her to speak to every one
+      in his or her own language; her talents were real; she showed an
+      independent and elevated mind; her conversation charmed as much by its
+      variety and ease as by the oddness and originality of her ideas. Such
+      qualities, useful and appropriate in a sovereign or an ambassadress, were
+      of little service to a household compelled to jog in the common round.
+      Those who have the gift of speaking well desire an audience; they like to
+      talk, even if they sometimes weary others. To satisfy the requirements of
+      her mind Madame Rabourdin took a weekly reception-day and went a great
+      deal into society to obtain the consideration her self-love was accustomed
+      to enjoy. Those who know Parisian life will readily understand how a woman
+      of her temperament suffered, and was martyrized at heart by the scantiness
+      of her pecuniary means. No matter what foolish declarations people make
+      about money, they one and all, if they live in Paris, must grovel before
+      accounts, do homage to figures, and kiss the forked hoof of the golden
+      calf. What a problem was hers! twelve thousand francs a year to defray the
+      costs of a household consisting of father, mother, two children, a
+      chambermaid and cook, living on the second floor of a house in the rue
+      Duphot, in an apartment costing two thousand francs a year. Deduct the
+      dress and the carriage of Madame before you estimate the gross expenses of
+      the family, for dress precedes everything; then see what remains for the
+      education of the children (a girl of eight and a boy of nine, whose
+      maintenance must cost at least two thousand francs besides) and you will
+      find that Madame Rabourdin could barely afford to give her husband thirty
+      francs a month. That is the position of half the husbands in Paris, under
+      penalty of being thought monsters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was that this woman who believed herself destined to shine in the
+      world was condemned to use her mind and her faculties in a sordid
+      struggle, fighting hand to hand with an account-book. Already, terrible
+      sacrifice of pride! she had dismissed her man-servant, not long after the
+      death of her father. Most women grow weary of this daily struggle; they
+      complain but they usually end by giving up to fate and taking what comes
+      to them; Celestine&rsquo;s ambition, far from lessening, only increased through
+      difficulties, and led her, when she found she could not conquer them, to
+      sweep them aside. To her mind this complicated tangle of the affairs of
+      life was a Gordian knot impossible to untie and which genius ought to cut.
+      Far from accepting the pettiness of middle-class existence, she was angry
+      at the delay which kept the great things of life from her grasp,&mdash;blaming
+      fate as deceptive. Celestine sincerely believed herself a superior woman.
+      Perhaps she was right; perhaps she would have been great under great
+      circumstances; perhaps she was not in her right place. Let us remember
+      there are as many varieties of woman as there are of man, all of which
+      society fashions to meet its needs. Now in the social order, as in
+      Nature&rsquo;s order, there are more young shoots than there are trees, more
+      spawn than full-grown fish, and many great capacities (Athanase Granson,
+      for instance) which die withered for want of moisture, like seeds on stony
+      ground. There are, unquestionably, household women, accomplished women,
+      ornamental women, women who are exclusively wives, or mothers, or
+      sweethearts, women purely spiritual or purely material; just as there are
+      soldiers, artists, artisans, mathematicians, poets, merchants, men who
+      understand money, or agriculture, or government, and nothing else. Besides
+      all this, the eccentricity of events leads to endless cross-purposes; many
+      are called and few are chosen is the law of earth as of heaven. Madame
+      Rabourdin conceived herself fully capable of directing a statesman,
+      inspiring an artist, helping an inventor and pushing his interests, or of
+      devoting her powers to the financial politics of a Nucingen, and playing a
+      brilliant part in the great world. Perhaps she was only endeavouring to
+      excuse to her own mind a hatred for the laundry lists and the duty of
+      overlooking the housekeeping bills, together with the petty economies and
+      cares of a small establishment. She was superior only in those things
+      where it gave her pleasure to be so. Feeling as keenly as she did the
+      thorns of a position which can only be likened to that of Saint-Laurence
+      on his grid-iron, is it any wonder that she sometimes cried out? So, in
+      her paroxysms of thwarted ambition, in the moments when her wounded vanity
+      gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine turned upon Xavier Rabourdin.
+      Was it not her husband&rsquo;s duty to give her a suitable position in the
+      world? If she were a man she would have had the energy to make a rapid
+      fortune for the sake of rendering an adored wife happy! She reproached him
+      for being too honest a man. In the mouth of some women this accusation is
+      a charge of imbecility. She sketched out for him certain brilliant plans
+      in which she took no account of the hindrances imposed by men and things;
+      then, like all women under the influence of vehement feeling, she became
+      in thought as Machiavellian as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than
+      Maxime de Trailles. At such times Celestine&rsquo;s mind took a wide range, and
+      she imagined herself at the summit of her ideas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When these fine visions first began Rabourdin, who saw the practical side,
+      was cool. Celestine, much grieved, thought her husband narrow-minded,
+      timid, unsympathetic; and she acquired, insensibly, a wholly false opinion
+      of the companion of her life. In the first place, she often extinguished
+      him by the brilliancy of her arguments. Her ideas came to her in flashes,
+      and she sometimes stopped him short when he began an explanation, because
+      she did not choose to lose the slightest sparkle of her own mind. From the
+      earliest days of their marriage Celestine, feeling herself beloved and
+      admired by her husband, treated him without ceremony; she put herself
+      above conjugal laws and the rules of private courtesy by expecting love to
+      pardon all her little wrong-doings; and, as she never in any way corrected
+      herself, she was always in the ascendant. In such a situation the man
+      holds to the wife very much the position of a child to a teacher when the
+      latter cannot or will not recognize that the mind he has ruled in
+      childhood is becoming mature. Like Madame de Stael, who exclaimed in a
+      room full of people, addressing, as we may say, a greater man than
+      herself, &ldquo;Do you know you have really said something very profound!&rdquo;
+       Madame Rabourdin said of her husband: &ldquo;He certainly has a good deal of
+      sense at times.&rdquo; Her disparaging opinion of him gradually appeared in her
+      behavior through almost imperceptible motions. Her attitude and manners
+      expressed a want of respect. Without being aware of it she injured her
+      husband in the eyes of others; for in all countries society, before making
+      up its mind about a man, listens for what his wife thinks of him, and
+      obtains from her what the Genevese term &ldquo;pre-advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Rabourdin became aware of the mistakes which love had led him to
+      commit it was too late,&mdash;the groove had been cut; he suffered and was
+      silent. Like other men in whom sentiments and ideas are of equal strength,
+      whose souls are noble and their brains well balanced, he was the defender
+      of his wife before the tribunal of his own judgment; he told himself that
+      nature doomed her to a disappointed life through his fault; HIS; she was
+      like a thoroughbred English horse, a racer harnessed to a cart full of
+      stones; she it was who suffered; and he blamed himself. His wife, by dint
+      of constant repetition, had inoculated him with her own belief in herself.
+      Ideas are contagious in a household; the ninth thermidor, like so many
+      other portentous events, was the result of female influence. Thus, goaded
+      by Celestine&rsquo;s ambition, Rabourdin had long considered the means of
+      satisfying it, though he hid his hopes, so as to spare her the tortures of
+      uncertainty. The man was firmly resolved to make his way in the
+      administration by bringing a strong light to bear upon it. He intended to
+      bring about one of those revolutions which send a man to the head of
+      either one party or another in society; but being incapable of so doing in
+      his own interests, he merely pondered useful thoughts and dreamed of
+      triumphs won for his country by noble means. His ideas were both generous
+      and ambitious; few officials have not conceived the like; but among
+      officials as among artists there are more miscarriages than births; which
+      is tantamount to Buffon&rsquo;s saying that &ldquo;Genius is patience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Placed in a position where he could study French administration and
+      observe its mechanism, Rabourdin worked in the circle where his thought
+      revolved, which, we may remark parenthetically, is the secret of much
+      human accomplishment; and his labor culminated finally in the invention of
+      a new system for the Civil Service of government. Knowing the people with
+      whom he had to do, he maintained the machine as it then worked, so it
+      still works and will continue to work; for everybody fears to remodel it,
+      though no one, according to Rabourdin, ought to be unwilling to simplify
+      it. In his opinion, the problem to be resolved lay in a better use of the
+      same forces. His plan, in its simplest form, was to revise taxation and
+      lower it in a way that should not diminish the revenues of the State, and
+      to obtain, from a budget equal to the budgets which now excite such rabid
+      discussion, results that should be two-fold greater than the present
+      results. Long practical experience had taught Rabourdin that perfection is
+      brought about in all things by changes in the direction of simplicity. To
+      economize is to simplify. To simplify means to suppress unnecessary
+      machinery; removals naturally follow. His system, therefore, depended on
+      the weeding out of officials and the establishment of a new order of
+      administrative offices. No doubt the hatred which all reformers incur
+      takes its rise here. Removals required by this perfecting process, always
+      ill-understood, threaten the well-being of those on whom a change in their
+      condition is thus forced. What rendered Rabourdin really great was that he
+      was able to restrain the enthusiasm that possesses all reformers, and to
+      patiently seek out a slow evolving medium for all changes so as to avoid
+      shocks, leaving time and experience to prove the excellence of each
+      reform. The grandeur of the result anticipated might make us doubt its
+      possibility if we lose sight of this essential point in our rapid analysis
+      of his system. It is, therefore, not unimportant to show through his
+      self-communings, however incomplete they might be, the point of view from
+      which he looked at the administrative horizon. This tale, which is evolved
+      from the very heart of the Civil Service, may also serve to show some of
+      the evils of our present social customs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xavier Rabourdin, deeply impressed by the trials and poverty which he
+      witnessed in the lives of the government clerks, endeavored to ascertain
+      the cause of their growing deterioration. He found it in those petty
+      partial revolutions, the eddies, as it were, of the storm of 1789, which
+      the historians of great social movements neglect to inquire into, although
+      as a matter of fact it is they which have made our manners and customs
+      what they are now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Formerly, under the monarchy, the bureaucratic armies did not exist. The
+      clerks, few in number, were under the orders of a prime minister who
+      communicated with the sovereign; thus they directly served the king. The
+      superiors of these zealous servants were simply called head-clerks. In
+      those branches of administration which the king did not himself direct,
+      such for instance as the &ldquo;fermes&rdquo; (the public domains throughout the
+      country on which a revenue was levied), the clerks were to their superior
+      what the clerks of a business-house are to their employer; they learned a
+      science which would one day advance them to prosperity. Thus, all points
+      of the circumference were fastened to the centre and derived their life
+      from it. The result was devotion and confidence. Since 1789 the State,
+      call it the Nation if you like, has replaced the sovereign. Instead of
+      looking directly to the chief magistrate of this nation, the clerks have
+      become, in spite of our fine patriotic ideas, the subsidiaries of the
+      government; their superiors are blown about by the winds of a power called
+      &ldquo;the administration,&rdquo; and do not know from day to day where they may be on
+      the morrow. As the routine of public business must go on, a certain number
+      of indispensable clerks are kept in their places, though they hold these
+      places on sufferance, anxious as they are to retain them. Bureaucracy, a
+      gigantic power set in motion by dwarfs, was generated in this way. Though
+      Napoleon, by subordinating all things and all men to his will, retarded
+      for a time the influence of bureaucracy (that ponderous curtain hung
+      between the service to be done and the man who orders it), it was
+      permanently organized under the constitutional government, which was,
+      inevitably, the friend of all mediocrities, the lover of authentic
+      documents and accounts, and as meddlesome as an old tradeswoman. Delighted
+      to see the various ministers constantly struggling against the four
+      hundred petty minds of the Elected of the Chamber, with their ten or a
+      dozen ambitious and dishonest leaders, the Civil Service officials
+      hastened to make themselves essential to the warfare by adding their quota
+      of assistance under the form of written action; they created a power of
+      inertia and named it &ldquo;Report.&rdquo; Let us explain the Report.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the kings of France took to themselves ministers, which first
+      happened under Louis XV., they made them render reports on all important
+      questions, instead of holding, as formerly, grand councils of state with
+      the nobles. Under the constitutional government, the ministers of the
+      various departments were insensibly led by their bureaus to imitate this
+      practice of kings. Their time being taken up in defending themselves
+      before the two Chambers and the court, they let themselves be guided by
+      the leading-strings of the Report. Nothing important was ever brought
+      before the government that a minister did not say, even when the case was
+      urgent, &ldquo;I have called for a report.&rdquo; The Report thus became, both as to
+      the matter concerned and for the minister himself, the same as a report to
+      the Chamber of Deputies on a question of laws,&mdash;namely, a
+      disquisition in which the reasons for and against are stated with more or
+      less partiality. No real result is attained; the minister, like the
+      Chamber, is fully as well prepared before as after the report is rendered.
+      A determination, in whatever matter, is reached in an instant. Do what we
+      will, the moment comes when the decision must be made. The greater the
+      array of reasons for and against, the less sound will be the judgment. The
+      finest things of which France can boast have been accomplished without
+      reports and where decisions were prompt and spontaneous. The dominant law
+      of a statesman is to apply precise formula to all cases, after the manner
+      of judges and physicians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin, who said to himself: &ldquo;A minister should have decision, should
+      know public affairs, and direct their course,&rdquo; saw &ldquo;Report&rdquo; rampant
+      throughout France, from the colonel to the marshal, from the commissary of
+      police to the king, from the prefects to the ministers of state, from the
+      Chamber to the courts. After 1818 everything was discussed, compared, and
+      weighed, either in speech or writing; public business took a literary
+      form. France went to ruin in spite of this array of documents;
+      dissertations stood in place of action; a million of reports were written
+      every year; bureaucracy was enthroned! Records, statistics, documents,
+      failing which France would have been ruined, circumlocution, without which
+      there could be no advance, increased, multiplied, and grew majestic. From
+      that day forth bureaucracy used to its own profit the mistrust that stands
+      between receipts and expenditures; it degraded the administration for the
+      benefit of the administrators; in short, it spun those lilliputian threads
+      which have chained France to Parisian centralization,&mdash;as if from
+      1500 to 1800 France had undertaken nothing for want of thirty thousand
+      government clerks! In fastening upon public offices, like a mistletoe on a
+      pear-tree, these officials indemnified themselves amply, and in the
+      following manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ministers, compelled to obey the princes or the Chambers who impose
+      upon them the distribution of the public moneys, and forced to retain the
+      workers in office, proceeded to diminish salaries and increase the number
+      of those workers, thinking that if more persons were employed by
+      government the stronger the government would be. And yet the contrary law
+      is an axiom written on the universe; there is no vigor except where there
+      are few active principles. Events proved in July, 1830, the error of the
+      materialism of the Restoration. To plant a government in the hearts of a
+      nation it is necessary to bind INTERESTS to it, not MEN. The
+      government-clerks being led to detest the administrations which lessened
+      both their salaries and their importance, treated them as a courtesan
+      treats an aged lover, and gave them mere work for money; a state of things
+      which would have seemed as intolerable to the administration as to the
+      clerks, had the two parties dared to feel each other&rsquo;s pulse, or had the
+      higher salaries not succeeded in stifling the voices of the lower. Thus
+      wholly and solely occupied in retaining his place, drawing his pay, and
+      securing his pension, the government official thought everything
+      permissible that conduced to these results. This state of things led to
+      servility on the part of the clerks and to endless intrigues within the
+      various departments, where the humbler clerks struggled vainly against
+      degenerate members of the aristocracy, who sought positions in the
+      government bureaus for their ruined sons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Superior men could scarcely bring themselves to tread these tortuous ways,
+      to stoop, to cringe, and creep through the mire of these cloacas, where
+      the presence of a fine mind only alarmed the other denizens. The ambitious
+      man of genius grows old in obtaining his triple crown; he does not follow
+      in the steps of Sixtus the Fifth merely to become head of a bureau. No one
+      comes or stays in the government offices but idlers, incapables, or fools.
+      Thus the mediocrity of French administration has slowly come about.
+      Bureaucracy, made up entirely of petty minds, stands as an obstacle to the
+      prosperity of the nation; delays for seven years, by its machinery, the
+      project of a canal which would have stimulated the production of a
+      province; is afraid of everything, prolongs procrastination, and
+      perpetuates the abuses which in turn perpetuate and consolidate itself.
+      Bureaucracy holds all things and the administration itself in leading
+      strings; it stifles men of talent who are bold enough to be independent of
+      it or to enlighten it on its own follies. About the time of which we write
+      the pension list had just been issued, and on it Rabourdin saw the name of
+      an underling in office rated for a larger sum than the old colonels,
+      maimed and wounded for their country. In that fact lies the whole history
+      of bureaucracy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another evil, brought about by modern customs, which Rabourdin counted
+      among the causes of this secret demoralization, was the fact that there is
+      no real subordination in the administration in Paris; complete equality
+      reigns between the head of an important division and the humblest
+      copying-clerk; one is as powerful as the other in an arena outside of
+      which each lords it in his own way. Education, equally distributed through
+      the masses, brings the son of a porter into a government office to decide
+      the fate of some man of merit or some landed proprietor whose door-bell
+      his father may have answered. The last comer is therefore on equal terms
+      with the oldest veteran in the service. A wealthy supernumerary splashes
+      his superior as he drives his tilbury to Longchamps and points with his
+      whip to the poor father of a family, remarking to the pretty woman at his
+      side, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s my chief.&rdquo; The Liberals call this state of things Progress;
+      Rabourdin thought it Anarchy at the heart of power. He saw how it resulted
+      in restless intrigues, like those of a harem between eunuchs and women and
+      imbecile sultans, or the petty troubles of nuns full of underhand
+      vexations, or college tyrannies, or diplomatic manoeuvrings fit to terrify
+      an ambassador, all put in motion to obtain a fee or an increase in salary;
+      it was like the hopping of fleas harnessed to pasteboard cars, the
+      spitefulness of slaves, often visited on the minister himself. With all
+      this were the really useful men, the workers, victims of such parasites;
+      men sincerely devoted to their country, who stood vigorously out from the
+      background of the other incapables, yet who were often forced to succumb
+      through unworthy trickery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the higher offices were gained through parliamentary influence,
+      royalty had nothing to do now with them, and the subordinate clerks
+      became, after a time, merely the running-gear of the machine; the most
+      important considerations with them being to keep the wheels well greased.
+      This fatal conviction entering some of the best minds smothered many
+      statements conscientiously written on the secret evils of the national
+      government; lowered the courage of many hearts, and corrupted sterling
+      honesty, weary of injustice and won to indifference by deteriorating
+      annoyances. A clerk in the employ of the Rothchilds corresponds with all
+      England; another, in a government office, may communicate with all the
+      prefects; but where the one learns the way to make his fortune, the other
+      loses time and health and life to no avail. An undermining evil lies here.
+      Certainly a nation does not seem threatened with immediate dissolution
+      because an able clerk is sent away and a middling sort of man replaces
+      him. Unfortunately for the welfare of nations individual men never seem
+      essential to their existence. But in the long run when the belittling
+      process is fully carried out nations will disappear. Every one who seeks
+      instruction on this point can look at Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam,
+      Stockholm, Rome; all places which were formerly resplendent with mighty
+      powers and are now destroyed by the infiltrating littleness which
+      gradually attained the highest eminence. When the day of struggle came,
+      all was found rotten, the State succumbed to a weak attack. To worship the
+      fool who succeeds, and not to grieve over the fall of an able man is the
+      result of our melancholy education, of our manners and customs which drive
+      men of intellect into disgust, and genius to despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a difficult undertaking is the rehabilitation of the Civil Service
+      while the liberal cries aloud in his newspapers that the salaries of
+      clerks are a standing theft, calls the items of the budget a cluster of
+      leeches, and every year demands why the nation should be saddled with a
+      thousand millions of taxes. In Monsieur Rabourdin&rsquo;s eyes the clerk in
+      relation to the budget was very much what the gambler is to the game; that
+      which he wins he puts back again. All remuneration implies something
+      furnished. To pay a man a thousand francs a year and demand his whole time
+      was surely to organize theft and poverty. A galley-slave costs nearly as
+      much, and does less. But to expect a man whom the State remunerated with
+      twelve thousand francs a year to devote himself to his country was a
+      profitable contract for both sides, fit to allure all capacities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These reflections had led Rabourdin to desire the recasting of the
+      clerical official staff. To employ fewer man, to double or treble
+      salaries, and do away with pensions, to choose only young clerks (as did
+      Napoleon, Louis XIV., Richelieu, and Ximenes), but to keep them long and
+      train them for the higher offices and greatest honors, these were the
+      chief features of a reform which if carried out would be as beneficial to
+      the State as to the clerks themselves. It is difficult to recount in
+      detail, chapter by chapter, a plan which embraced the whole budget and
+      continued down through the minutest details of administration in order to
+      keep the whole synthetical; but perhaps a slight sketch of the principal
+      reforms will suffice for those who understand such matters, as well as for
+      those who are wholly ignorant of the administrative system. Though the
+      historian&rsquo;s position is rather hazardous in reproducing a plan which may
+      be thought the politics of a chimney-corner, it is, nevertheless,
+      necessary to sketch it so as to explain the author of it by his own work.
+      Were the recital of his efforts to be omitted, the reader would not
+      believe the narrator&rsquo;s word if he merely declared the talent and the
+      courage of this official.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin&rsquo;s plan divided the government into three ministries, or
+      departments. He thought that if the France of former days possessed brains
+      strong enough to comprehend in one system both foreign and domestic
+      affairs, the France of to-day was not likely to be without its Mazarin,
+      its Suger, its Sully, its de Choiseul, or its Colbert to direct even vast
+      administrative departments. Besides, constitutionally speaking, three
+      ministries will agree better than seven; and, in the restricted number
+      there is less chance for mistaken choice; moreover, it might be that the
+      kingdom would some day escape from those perpetual ministerial
+      oscillations which interfered with all plans of foreign policy and
+      prevented all ameliorations of home rule. In Austria, where many diverse
+      united nations present so many conflicting interests to be conciliated and
+      carried forward under one crown, two statesmen alone bear the burden of
+      public affairs and are not overwhelmed by it. Was France less prolific of
+      political capacities than Germany? The rather silly game of what are
+      called &ldquo;constitutional institutions&rdquo; carried beyond bounds has ended, as
+      everybody knows, in requiring a great many offices to satisfy the
+      multifarious ambition of the middle classes. It seemed to Rabourdin, in
+      the first place, natural to unite the ministry of war with the ministry of
+      the navy. To his thinking the navy was one of the current expenses of the
+      war department, like the artillery, cavalry, infantry, and commissariat.
+      Surely it was an absurdity to give separate administrations to admirals
+      and marshals when both were employed to one end, namely, the defense of
+      the nation, the overthrow of an enemy, and the security of the national
+      possessions. The ministry of the interior ought in like manner to combine
+      the departments of commerce, police, and finances, or it belied its own
+      name. To the ministry of foreign affairs belonged the administration of
+      justice, the household of the king, and all that concerned arts, sciences,
+      and belles lettres. All patronage ought to flow directly from the
+      sovereign. Such ministries necessitated the supremacy of a council. Each
+      required the work of two hundred officials, and no more, in its central
+      administration offices, where Rabourdin proposed that they should live, as
+      in former days under the monarchy. Taking the sum of twelve thousand
+      francs a year for each official as an average, he estimated seven millions
+      as the cost of the whole body of such officials, which actually stood at
+      twenty in the budget.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By thus reducing the ministers to three heads he suppressed departments
+      which had come to be useless, together with the enormous costs of their
+      maintenance in Paris. He proved that an arrondissement could be managed by
+      ten men; a prefecture by a dozen at the most; which reduced the entire
+      civil service force throughout France to five thousand men, exclusive of
+      the departments of war and justice. Under this plan the clerks of the
+      court were charged with the system of loans, and the ministry of the
+      interior with that of registration and the management of domains. Thus
+      Rabourdin united in one centre all divisions that were allied in nature.
+      The mortgage system, inheritance, and registration did not pass outside of
+      their own sphere of action and only required three additional clerks in
+      the justice courts and three in the royal courts. The steady application
+      of this principle brought Rabourdin to reforms in the finance system. He
+      merged the collection of revenue into one channel, taxing consumption in
+      bulk instead of taxing property. According to his ideas, consumption was
+      the sole thing properly taxable in times of peace. Land-taxes should
+      always be held in reserve in case of war; for then only could the State
+      justly demand sacrifices from the soil, which was in danger; but in times
+      of peace it was a serious political fault to burden it beyond a certain
+      limit; otherwise it could never be depended on in great emergencies. Thus
+      a loan should be put on the market when the country was tranquil, for at
+      such times it could be placed at par, instead of at fifty per cent loss as
+      in bad times; in war times resort should be had to a land-tax.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The invasion of 1814 and 1815,&rdquo; Rabourdin would say to his friends,
+      &ldquo;founded in France and practically explained an institution which neither
+      Law nor Napoleon had been able to establish,&mdash;I mean Credit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunately, Xavier considered the true principles of this admirable
+      machine of civil service very little understood at the period when he
+      began his labor of reform in 1820. His scheme levied a toll on the
+      consumption by means of direct taxation and suppressed the whole machinery
+      of indirect taxation. The levying of the taxes was simplified by a single
+      classification of a great number of articles. This did away with the more
+      harassing customs at the gates of the cities, and obtained the largest
+      revenues from the remainder, by lessening the enormous expense of
+      collecting them. To lighten the burden of taxation is not, in matters of
+      finance, to diminish the taxes, but to assess them better; if lightened,
+      you increase the volume of business by giving it freer play; the
+      individual pays less and the State receives more. This reform, which may
+      seem immense, rests on very simple machinery. Rabourdin regarded the tax
+      on personal property as the most trustworthy representative of general
+      consumption. Individual fortunes are usually revealed in France by
+      rentals, by the number of servants, horses, carriages, and luxuries, the
+      costs of which are all to the interest of the public treasury. Houses and
+      what they contain vary comparatively but little, and are not liable to
+      disappear. After pointing out the means of making a tax-list on personal
+      property which should be more impartial than the existing list, Rabourdin
+      assessed the sums to be brought into the treasury by indirect taxation as
+      so much per cent on each individual share. A tax is a levy of money on
+      things or persons under disguises that are more or less specious. These
+      disguises, excellent when the object is to extort money, become ridiculous
+      in the present day, when the class on which the taxes weigh the heaviest
+      knows why the State imposes them and by what machinery they are given
+      back. In fact the budget is not a strong-box to hold what is put into it,
+      but a watering-pot; the more it takes in and the more it pours out the
+      better for the prosperity of the country. Therefore, supposing there are
+      six millions of tax-payers in easy circumstances (Rabourdin proved their
+      existence, including the rich) is it not better to make them pay a duty on
+      the consumption of wine, which would not be more offensive than that on
+      doors and windows and would return a hundred millions, rather than harass
+      them by taxing the thing itself. By this system of taxation, each
+      individual tax-payer pays less in reality, while the State receives more,
+      and consumers profit by a vast reduction in the price of things which the
+      State releases from its perpetual and harassing interference. Rabourdin&rsquo;s
+      scheme retained a tax on the cultivation of vineyards, so as to protect
+      that industry from the too great abundance of its own products. Then, to
+      reach the consumption of the poorer tax-payers, the licences of retail
+      dealers were taxed according to the population of the neighborhoods in
+      which they lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this way, the State would receive without cost or vexatious hindrances
+      an enormous revenue under three forms; namely, a duty on wine, on the
+      cultivation of vineyards, and on licenses, where now an irritating array
+      of taxes existed as a burden on itself and its officials. Taxation was
+      thus imposed upon the rich without overburdening the poor. To give another
+      example. Suppose a share assessed to each person of one or two francs for
+      the consumption of salt and you obtain ten or a dozen millions; the modern
+      &ldquo;gabelle&rdquo; disappears, the poor breathe freer, agriculture is relieved, the
+      State receives as much, and no tax-payer complains. All persons, whether
+      they belong to the industrial classes or to the capitalists, will see at
+      once the benefits of a tax so assessed when they discover how commerce
+      increases, and life is ameliorated in the country districts. In short, the
+      State will see from year to year the number of her well-to-do tax-payers
+      increasing. By doing away with the machinery of indirect taxation, which
+      is very costly (a State, as it were, within a State), both the public
+      finances and the individual tax-payer are greatly benefited, not to speak
+      of the saving in costs of collecting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole subject is indeed less a question of finance than a question of
+      government. The State should possess nothing of its own, neither forests,
+      nor mines, nor public works. That it should be the owner of domains was,
+      in Rabourdin&rsquo;s opinion, an administrative contradiction. The State cannot
+      turn its possessions to profit and it deprives itself of taxes; it thus
+      loses two forms of production. As to the manufactories of the government,
+      they are just as unreasonable in the sphere of industry. The State obtains
+      products at a higher cost than those of commerce, produces them more
+      slowly, and loses its tax upon the industry, the maintenance of which it,
+      in turn, reduces. Can it be thought a proper method of governing a country
+      to manufacture instead of promoting manufactures? to possess property
+      instead of creating more possessions and more diverse ones? In Rabourdin&rsquo;s
+      system the State exacted no money security; he allowed only mortgage
+      securities; and for this reason: Either the State holds the security in
+      specie, and that embarrasses business and the movement of money; or it
+      invests it at a higher rate than the State itself pays, and that is a
+      contemptible robbery; or else it loses on the transaction, and that is
+      folly; moreover, if it is obliged at any time to dispose of a mass of
+      these securities it gives rises in certain cases to terrible bankruptcy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The territorial tax did not entirely disappear in Rabourdin&rsquo;s plan,&mdash;he
+      kept a minute portion of it as a point of departure in case of war; but
+      the productions of the soil were freed, and industry, finding raw material
+      at a low price, could compete with foreign nations without the deceptive
+      help of customs. The rich carried on the administration of the provinces
+      without compensation except that of receiving a peerage under certain
+      conditions. Magistrates, learned bodies, officers of the lower grades
+      found their services honorably rewarded; no man employed by the government
+      failed to obtain great consideration through the value and extent of his
+      labors and the excellence of his salary; every one was able to provide for
+      his own future and France was delivered from the cancer of pensions. As a
+      result Rabourdin&rsquo;s scheme exhibited only seven hundred millions of
+      expenditures and twelve hundred millions of receipts. A saving of five
+      hundred millions annually had far more virtue than the accumulation of a
+      sinking fund whose dangers were plainly to be seen. In that fund the
+      State, according to Rabourdin, became a stockholder, just as it persisted
+      in being a land-holder and a manufacturer. To bring about these reforms
+      without too roughly jarring the existing state of things or incurring a
+      Saint-Bartholomew of clerks, Rabourdin considered that an evolution of
+      twenty years would be required.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were the thoughts maturing in Rabourdin&rsquo;s mind ever since his
+      promised place had been given to Monsieur de la Billardiere, a man of
+      sheer incapacity. This plan, so vast apparently yet so simple in point of
+      fact, which did away with so many large staffs and so many little offices
+      all equally useless, required for its presentation to the public mind
+      close calculations, precise statistics, and self-evident proof. Rabourdin
+      had long studied the budget under its double-aspect of ways and means and
+      of expenditure. Many a night he had lain awake unknown to his wife. But so
+      far he had only dared to conceive the plan and fit it prospectively to the
+      administrative skeleton; all of which counted for nothing,&mdash;he must
+      gain the ear of a minister capable of appreciating his ideas. Rabourdin&rsquo;s
+      success depended on the tranquil condition of political affairs, which up
+      to this time were still unsettled. He had not considered the government as
+      permanently secure until three hundred deputies at least had the courage
+      to form a compact majority systematically ministerial. An administration
+      founded on that basis had come into power since Rabourdin had finished his
+      elaborate plan. At this time the luxury of peace under the Bourbons had
+      eclipsed the warlike luxury of the days when France shone like a vast
+      encampment, prodigal and magnificent because it was victorious. After the
+      Spanish campaign, the administration seemed to enter upon an era of
+      tranquillity in which some good might be accomplished; and three months
+      before the opening of our story a new reign had begun without any apparent
+      opposition; for the liberalism of the Left had welcomed Charles X. with as
+      much enthusiasm as the Right. Even clear-sighted and suspicious persons
+      were misled. The moment seemed propitious for Rabourdin. What could better
+      conduce to the stability of the government than to propose and carry
+      through a reform whose beneficial results were to be so vast?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had Rabourdin seemed so anxious and preoccupied as he now did in the
+      mornings as he walked from his house to the ministry, or at half-past four
+      in the afternoon, when he returned. Madame Rabourdin, on her part,
+      disconsolate over her wasted life, weary of secretly working to obtain a
+      few luxuries of dress, never appeared so bitterly discontented as now;
+      but, like any wife who is really attached to her husband, she considered
+      it unworthy of a superior woman to condescend to the shameful devices by
+      which the wives of some officials eke out the insufficiency of their
+      husband&rsquo;s salary. This feeling made her refuse all intercourse with Madame
+      Colleville, then very intimate with Francois Keller, whose parties
+      eclipsed those of the rue Duphot. Nevertheless, she mistook the quietude
+      of the political thinker and the preoccupation of the intrepid worker for
+      the apathetic torpor of an official broken down by the dulness of routine,
+      vanquished by that most hateful of all miseries, the mediocrity that
+      simply earns a living; and she groaned at being married to a man without
+      energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was that about this period in their lives she resolved to take the
+      making of her husband&rsquo;s fortune on herself; to thrust him at any cost into
+      a higher sphere, and to hide from him the secret springs of her
+      machinations. She carried into all her plans the independence of ideas
+      which characterized her, and was proud to think that she could rise above
+      other women by sharing none of their petty prejudices and by keeping
+      herself untrammelled by the restraints which society imposes. In her anger
+      she resolved to fight fools with their own weapons, and to make herself a
+      fool if need be. She saw things coming to a crisis. The time was
+      favorable. Monsieur de la Billardiere, attacked by a dangerous illness,
+      was likely to die in a few days. If Rabourdin succeeded him, his talents
+      (for Celestine did vouchsafe him an administrative gift) would be so
+      thoroughly appreciated that the office of Master of petitions, formerly
+      promised, would now be given to him; she fancied she saw him the king&rsquo;s
+      commissioner, presenting bills to the Chambers and defending them; then
+      indeed she could help him; she would even be, if needful, his secretary;
+      she would sit up all night to do the work! All this to drive in the Bois
+      in a pretty carriage, to equal Madame Delphine de Nucingen, to raise her
+      salon to the level of Madame Colleville&rsquo;s, to be invited to the great
+      ministerial solemnities, to win listeners and make them talk of her as
+      &ldquo;Madame Rabourdin DE something or other&rdquo; (she had not yet determined on
+      the estate), just as they did of Madame Firmiani, Madame d&rsquo;Espard, Madame
+      d&rsquo;Aiglemont, Madame de Carigliano, and thus efface forever the odious name
+      of Rabourdin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These secret schemes brought some changes into the household. Madame
+      Rabourdin began to walk with a firm step in the path of /debt/. She set up
+      a man-servant, and put him in livery of brown cloth with red pipins, she
+      renewed parts of her furniture, hung new papers on the walls, adorned her
+      salon with plants and flowers, always fresh, and crowded it with
+      knick-knacks that were then in vogue; then she, who had always shown
+      scruples as to her personal expenses, did not hesitate to put her dress in
+      keeping with the rank to which she aspired, the profits of which were
+      discounted in several of the shops where she equipped herself for war. To
+      make her &ldquo;Wednesdays&rdquo; fashionable she gave a dinner on Fridays, the guests
+      being expected to pay their return visit and take a cup of tea on the
+      following Wednesday. She chose her guests cleverly among influential
+      deputies or other persons of note who, sooner or later, might advance her
+      interests. In short, she gathered an agreeable and befitting circle about
+      her. People amused themselves at her house; they said so at least, which
+      is quite enough to attract society in Paris. Rabourdin was so absorbed in
+      completing his great and serious work that he took no notice of the sudden
+      reappearance of luxury in the bosom of his family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the wife and the husband were besieging the same fortress, working on
+      parallel lines, but without each other&rsquo;s knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. MONSIEUR DES LUPEAULX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At the ministry to which Rabourdin belonged there flourished, as
+      general-secretary, a certain Monsieur Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, one of
+      those men whom the tide of political events sends to the surface for a few
+      years, then engulfs on a stormy night, but whom we find again on a distant
+      shore, tossed up like the carcass of a wrecked ship which still seems to
+      have life in her. We ask ourselves if that derelict could ever have held
+      goodly merchandise or served a high emprise, co-operated in some defence,
+      held up the trappings of a throne, or borne away the corpse of a monarchy.
+      At this particular time Clement des Lupeaulx (the &ldquo;Lupeaulx&rdquo; absorbed the
+      &ldquo;Chardin&rdquo;) had reached his culminating period. In the most illustrious
+      lives as in the most obscure, in animals as in secretary-generals, there
+      is a zenith and there is a nadir, a period when the fur is magnificent,
+      the fortune dazzling. In the nomenclature which we derive from fabulists,
+      des Lupeaulx belonged to the species Bertrand, and was always in search of
+      Ratons. As he is one of the principal actors in this drama he deserves a
+      description, all the more precise because the revolution of July has
+      suppressed his office, eminently useful as it was, to a constitutional
+      ministry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moralists usually employ their weapons against obstructive
+      administrations. In their eyes, crime belongs to the assizes or the
+      police-courts; but the socially refined evils escape their ken; the
+      adroitness that triumphs under shield of the Code is above them or beneath
+      them; they have neither eye-glass nor telescope; they want good stout
+      horrors easily visible. With their eyes fixed on the carnivora, they pay
+      no attention to the reptiles; happily, they abandon to the writers of
+      comedy the shading and colorings of a Chardin des Lupeaulx. Vain and
+      egotistical, supple and proud, libertine and gourmand, grasping from the
+      pressure of debt, discreet as a tomb out of which nought issues to
+      contradict the epitaph intended for the passer&rsquo;s eye, bold and fearless
+      when soliciting, good-natured and witty in all acceptations of the word, a
+      timely jester, full of tact, knowing how to compromise others by a glance
+      or a nudge, shrinking from no mudhole, but gracefully leaping it, intrepid
+      Voltairean, yet punctual at mass if a fashionable company could be met in
+      Saint Thomas Aquinas,&mdash;such a man as this secretary-general
+      resembled, in one way or another, all the mediocrities who form the kernel
+      of the political world. Knowing in the science of human nature, he assumed
+      the character of a listener, and none was ever more attentive. Not to
+      awaken suspicion he was flattering ad nauseum, insinuating as a perfume,
+      and cajoling as a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx was just forty years old. His youth had long been a vexation
+      to him, for he felt that the making of his career depended on his becoming
+      a deputy. How had he reached his present position? may be asked. By very
+      simple means. He began by taking charge of certain delicate missions which
+      can be given neither to a man who respects himself nor to a man who does
+      not respect himself, but are confided to grave and enigmatic individuals
+      who can be acknowledged or disavowed at will. His business was that of
+      being always compromised; but his fortunes were pushed as much by defeat
+      as by success. He well understood that under the Restoration, a period of
+      continual compromises between men, between things, between accomplished
+      facts and other facts looking on the horizon, it was all-important for the
+      ruling powers to have a household drudge. Observe in a family some old
+      charwoman who can make beds, sweep the floors, carry away the dirty linen,
+      who knows where the silver is kept, how the creditors should be pacified,
+      what persons should be let in and who must be kept out of the house, and
+      such a creature, even if she has all the vices, and is dirty, decrepit,
+      and toothless, or puts into the lottery and steals thirty sous a day for
+      her stake, and you will find the masters like her from habit, talk and
+      consult in her hearing upon even critical matters; she comes and goes,
+      suggests resources, gets on the scent of secrets, brings the rouge or the
+      shawl at the right moment, lets herself be scolded and pushed downstairs,
+      and the next morning reappears smiling with an excellent bouillon. No
+      matter how high a statesman may stand, he is certain to have some
+      household drudge, before whom he is weak, undecided, disputations with
+      fate, self-questioning, self-answering, and buckling for the fight. Such a
+      familiar is like the soft wood of savages, which, when rubbed against the
+      hard wood, strikes fire. Sometimes great geniuses illumine themselves in
+      this way. Napoleon lived with Berthier, Richelieu with Pere Joseph; des
+      Lupeaulx was the familiar of everybody. He continued friends with fallen
+      ministers and made himself their intermediary with their successors,
+      diffusing thus the perfume of the last flattery and the first compliment.
+      He well understood how to arrange all the little matters which a statesman
+      has no leisure to attend to. He saw necessities as they arose; he obeyed
+      well; he could gloss a base act with a jest and get the whole value of it;
+      and he chose for the services he thus rendered those that the recipients
+      were not likely to forget.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, when it was necessary to cross the ditch between the Empire and the
+      Restoration, at a time when every one was looking about for planks, and
+      the curs of the Empire were howling their devotion right and left, des
+      Lupeaulx borrowed large sums from the usurers and crossed the frontier.
+      Risking all to win all, he bought up Louis XVIII.&lsquo;s most pressing debts,
+      and was the first to settle nearly three million of them at twenty per
+      cent&mdash;for he was lucky enough to be backed by Gobseck in 1814 and
+      1815. It is true that Messrs. Gobseck, Werdet, and Gigonnet swallowed the
+      profits, but des Lupeaulx had agreed that they should have them; he was
+      not playing for a stake; he challenged the bank, as it were, knowing very
+      well that the king was not a man to forget this debt of honor. Des
+      Lupeaulx was not mistaken; he was appointed Master of petitions, Knight of
+      the order of Saint Louis, and officer of the Legion of honor. Once on the
+      ladder of political success, his clever mind looked about for the means to
+      maintain his foothold; for in the fortified city into which he had wormed
+      himself, generals do not long keep useless mouths. So to his general trade
+      of household drudge and go-between he added that of gratuitous
+      consultation on the secret maladies of power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After discovering in the so-called superior men of the Restoration their
+      utter inferiority in comparison with the events which had brought them to
+      the front, he overcame their political mediocrity by putting into their
+      mouths, at a crisis, the word of command for which men of real talent were
+      listening. It must not be thought that this word was the outcome of his
+      own mind. Were it so, des Lupeaulx would have been a man of genius,
+      whereas he was only a man of talent. He went everywhere, collected
+      opinions, sounded consciences, and caught all the tones they gave out. He
+      gathered knowledge like a true and indefatigable political bee. This
+      walking Bayle dictionary did not act, however, like that famous lexicon;
+      he did not report all opinions without drawing his own conclusions; he had
+      the talent of a fly which drops plumb upon the best bit of meat in the
+      middle of a kitchen. In this way he came to be regarded as an
+      indispensable helper to statesmen. A belief in his capacity had taken such
+      deep root in all minds that the more ambitious public men felt it was
+      necessary to compromise des Lupeaulx in some way to prevent his rising
+      higher; they made up to him for his subordinate public position by their
+      secret confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, feeling that such men were dependent on him, this gleaner of
+      ideas exacted certain dues. He received a salary on the staff of the
+      National Guard, where he held a sinecure which was paid for by the city of
+      Paris; he was government commissioner to a secret society; and filled a
+      position of superintendence in the royal household. His two official posts
+      which appeared on the budget were those of secretary-general to his
+      ministry and Master of petitions. What he now wanted was to be made
+      commander of the Legion of honor, gentleman of the bed-chamber, count, and
+      deputy. To be elected deputy it was necessary to pay taxes to the amount
+      of a thousand francs; and the miserable homestead of the des Lupeaulx was
+      rated at only five hundred. Where could he get money to build a mansion
+      and surround it with sufficient domain to throw dust in the eyes of a
+      constituency? Though he dined out every day, and was lodged for the last
+      nine years at the cost of the State, and driven about in the minister&rsquo;s
+      equipage, des Lupeaulx possessed absolutely nothing, at the time when our
+      tale opens, but thirty thousand francs of debt&mdash;undisputed property.
+      A marriage might float him and pump the waters of debt out of his bark;
+      but a good marriage depended on his advancement, and his advancement
+      required that he should be a deputy. Searching about him for the means of
+      breaking through this vicious circle, he could think of nothing better
+      than some immense service to render or some delicate intrigue to carry
+      through for persons in power. Alas! conspiracies were out of date; the
+      Bourbons were apparently on good terms with all parties; and,
+      unfortunately, for the last few years the government had been so
+      thoroughly held up to the light of day by the silly discussions of the
+      Left, whose aim seemed to be to make government of any kind impossible in
+      France, that no good strokes of business could be made. The last were
+      tried in Spain, and what an outcry that excited!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to all this, des Lupeaulx complicated matters by believing in
+      the friendship of his minister, to whom he had the imprudence to express
+      the wish to sit on the ministerial benches. The minister guessed at the
+      real meaning of the desire, which simply was that des Lupeaulx wanted to
+      strengthen a precarious position, so that he might throw off all
+      dependence on his chief. The harrier turned against the huntsman; the
+      minister gave him cuts with the whip and caresses, alternately, and set up
+      rivals to him. But des Lupeaulx behaved like an adroit courtier with all
+      competitors; he laid traps into which they fell, and then he did prompt
+      justice upon them. The more he felt himself in danger the more anxious he
+      became for an irremovable position; yet he was compelled to play low; one
+      moment&rsquo;s indiscretion, and he might lose everything. A pen-stroke might
+      demolish his civilian epaulets, his place at court, his sinecure, his two
+      offices and their advantages; in all, six salaries retained under fire of
+      the law against pluralists. Sometimes he threatened his minister as a
+      mistress threatens her lover; telling him he was about to marry a rich
+      widow. At such times the minister petted and cajoled des Lupeaulx. After
+      one of these reconciliations he received the formal promise of a place in
+      the Academy of Belles-lettres on the first vacancy. &ldquo;It would pay,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;the keep of a horse.&rdquo; His position, so far as it went, was a good
+      one, and Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx flourished in it like a tree planted
+      in good soil. He could satisfy his vices, his caprices, his virtues and
+      his defects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following were the toils of his life. He was obliged to choose, among
+      five or six daily invitations, the house where he could be sure of the
+      best dinner. Every morning he went to his minister&rsquo;s morning reception to
+      amuse that official and his wife, and to pet their children. Then he
+      worked an hour or two; that is to say, he lay back in a comfortable chair
+      and read the newspapers, dictated the meaning of a letter, received
+      visitors when the minister was not present, explained the work in a
+      general way, caught or shed a few drops of the holy-water of the court,
+      looked over the petitions with an eyeglass, or wrote his name on the
+      margin,&mdash;a signature which meant &ldquo;I think it absurd; do what you like
+      about it.&rdquo; Every body knew that when des Lupeaulx was interested in any
+      person or in any thing he attended to the matter personally. He allowed
+      the head-clerks to converse privately about affairs of delicacy, but he
+      listened to their gossip. From time to time he went to the Tuileries to
+      get his cue. And he always waited for the minister&rsquo;s return from the
+      Chamber, if in session, to hear from him what intrigue or manoeuvre he was
+      to set about. This official sybarite dressed, dined, and visited a dozen
+      or fifteen salons between eight at night and three in the morning. At the
+      opera he talked with journalists, for he stood high in their favor; a
+      perpetual exchange of little services went on between them; he poured into
+      their ears his misleading news and swallowed theirs; he prevented them
+      from attacking this or that minister on such or such a matter, on the plea
+      that it would cause real pain to their wives or their mistresses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say that his bill is worth nothing, and prove it if you can, but do not
+      say that Mariette danced badly. The devil! haven&rsquo;t we all played our
+      little plays; and which of us knows what will become of him in times like
+      these? You may be minister yourself to-morrow, you who are spicing the
+      cakes of the &lsquo;Constitutionel&rsquo; to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes, in return, he helped editors, or got rid of obstacles to the
+      performances of some play; gave gratuities and good dinners at the right
+      moment, or promised his services to bring some affair to a happy
+      conclusion. Moreover, he really liked literature and the arts; he
+      collected autographs, obtained splendid albums gratis, and possessed
+      sketches, engravings, and pictures. He did a great deal of good to artists
+      by simply not injuring them and by furthering their wishes on certain
+      occasions when their self-love wanted some rather costly gratification.
+      Consequently, he was much liked in the world of actors and actresses,
+      journalists and artists. For one thing, they had the same vices and the
+      same indolence as himself. Men who could all say such witty things in
+      their cups or in company with a danseuse, how could they help being
+      friends? If des Lupeaulx had not been a general-secretary he would
+      certainly have been a journalist. Thus, in that fifteen years&rsquo; struggle in
+      which the harlequin sabre of epigram opened a breach by which insurrection
+      entered the citadel, des Lupeaulx never received so much as a scratch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the young fry of clerks looked at this man playing bowls in the gardens
+      of the ministry with the minister&rsquo;s children, they cracked their brains to
+      guess the secret of his influence and the nature of his services; while,
+      on the other hand, the aristocrats in all the various ministries looked
+      upon him as a dangerous Mephistopheles, courted him, and gave him back
+      with usury the flatteries he bestowed in the higher sphere. As difficult
+      to decipher as a hieroglyphic inscription to the clerks, the vocation of
+      the secretary and his usefulness were as plain as the rule of three to the
+      self-interested. This lesser Prince de Wagram of the administration, to
+      whom the duty of gathering opinions and ideas and making verbal reports
+      thereon was entrusted, knew all the secrets of parliamentary politics;
+      dragged in the lukewarm, fetched, carried, and buried propositions, said
+      the Yes and the No that the ministers dared not say for themselves.
+      Compelled to receive the first fire and the first blows of despair and
+      wrath, he laughed or bemoaned himself with the minister, as the case might
+      be. Mysterious link by which many interests were in some way connected
+      with the Tuileries, and safe as a confessor, he sometimes knew everything
+      and sometimes nothing; and, in addition to all these functions came that
+      of saying for the minister those things that a minister cannot say for
+      himself. In short, with his political Hephaestion the minister might dare
+      to be himself; to take off his wig and his false teeth, lay aside his
+      scruples, put on his slippers, unbutton his conscience, and give way to
+      his trickery. However, it was not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he
+      flattered and advised his master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to
+      advise while flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All
+      politicians who follow this trade have bilious faces; and their constant
+      habit of giving affirmative nods acquiescing in what is said to them, or
+      seeming to do so, gives a certain peculiar turn to their heads. They agree
+      indifferently with whatever is said before them. Their talk is full of
+      &ldquo;buts,&rdquo; &ldquo;notwithstandings,&rdquo; &ldquo;for myself I should,&rdquo; &ldquo;were I in your place&rdquo;
+       (they often say &ldquo;in your place&rdquo;),&mdash;phrases, however, which pave the
+      way to opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In person, Clement des Lupeaulx had the remains of a handsome man; five
+      feet six inches tall, tolerably stout, complexion flushed with good
+      living, powdered head, delicate spectacles, and a worn-out air; the
+      natural skin blond, as shown by the hand, puffy like that of an old woman,
+      rather too square, and with short nails&mdash;the hand of a satrap. His
+      foot was elegant. After five o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon des Lupeaulx was
+      always to be seen in open-worked silk stockings, low shoes, black
+      trousers, cashmere waistcoat, cambric handkerchief (without perfume), gold
+      chain, blue coat of the shade called &ldquo;king&rsquo;s blue,&rdquo; with brass buttons and
+      a string of orders. In the morning he wore creaking boots and gray
+      trousers, and the short close surtout coat of the politician. His general
+      appearance early in the day was that of a sharp lawyer rather than that of
+      a ministerial officer. Eyes glazed by the constant use of spectacles made
+      him plainer than he really was, if by chance he took those appendages off.
+      To real judges of character, as well as to upright men who are at ease
+      only with honest natures, des Lupeaulx was intolerable. To them, his
+      gracious manners only draped his lies; his amiable protestations and
+      hackneyed courtesies, new to the foolish and ignorant, too plainly showed
+      their texture to an observing mind. Such minds considered him a rotten
+      plank, on which no foot should trust itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the beautiful Madame Rabourdin decided to interfere in her
+      husband&rsquo;s administrative advancement than she fathomed Clement des
+      Lupeaulx&rsquo;s true character, and studied him thoughtfully to discover
+      whether in this thin strip of deal there were ligneous fibres strong
+      enough to let her lightly trip across it from the bureau to the
+      department, from a salary of eight thousand a year to twelve thousand. The
+      clever woman believed she could play her own game with this political
+      roue; and Monsieur des Lupeaulx was partly the cause of the unusual
+      expenditures which now began and were continued in the Rabourdin
+      household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for several
+      houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are skilfully laid
+      out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well arranged,&mdash;a
+      domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of private
+      lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from the courtyard,
+      led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked on the street. To the
+      right of the salon were Rabourdin&rsquo;s study and bedroom, and behind them the
+      dining-room, which was entered from the antechamber; to the left was
+      Madame&rsquo;s bedroom and dressing-room, and behind them her daughter&rsquo;s little
+      bedroom. On reception days the door of Rabourdin&rsquo;s study and that of his
+      wife&rsquo;s bedroom were thrown open. The rooms were thus spacious enough to
+      contain a select company, without the absurdity which attends many
+      middle-class entertainments, where unusual preparations are made at the
+      expense of the daily comfort, and consequently give the effect of
+      exceptional effort. The salon had lately been rehung in gold-colored silk
+      with carmelite touches. Madame&rsquo;s bedroom was draped in a fabric of true
+      blue and furnished in a rococo manner. Rabourdin&rsquo;s study had inherited the
+      late hangings of the salon, carefully cleaned, and was adorned by the fine
+      pictures once belonging to Monsieur Leprince. The daughter of the late
+      auctioneer had utilized in her dining-room certain exquisite Turkish rugs
+      which her father had bought at a bargain; panelling them on the walls in
+      ebony, the cost of which has since become exorbitant. Elegant buffets made
+      by Boulle, also purchased by the auctioneer, furnished the sides of the
+      room, at the end of which sparkled the brass arabesques inlaid in
+      tortoise-shell of the first tall clock that reappeared in the nineteenth
+      century to claim honor for the masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers
+      perfumed these rooms so full of good taste and of exquisite things, where
+      each detail was a work of art well placed and well surrounded, and where
+      Madame Rabourdin, dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone
+      attain, gave the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies,
+      though she never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind to
+      complete the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful
+      surroundings. Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society
+      talk of her as soon as the rococo became fashionable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real magnificence in
+      all their stages, he was, nevertheless, surprised at Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s
+      home. The charm it exercised over this Parisian Asmodeus can be explained
+      by a comparison. A traveller wearied with the rich aspects of Italy,
+      Brazil, or India, returns to his own land and finds on his way a
+      delightful little lake, like the Lac d&rsquo;Orta at the foot of Monte Rosa,
+      with an island resting on the calm waters, bewitchingly simple; a scene of
+      nature and yet adorned; solitary, but well surrounded with choice
+      plantations and foliage and statues of fine effect. Beyond lies a vista of
+      shores both wild and cultivated; tumultuous grandeur towers above, but in
+      itself all proportions are human. The world that the traveller has lately
+      viewed is here in miniature, modest and pure; his soul, refreshed, bids
+      him remain where a charm of melody and poesy surrounds him with harmony
+      and awakens ideas within his mind. Such a scene represents both life and a
+      monastery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days earlier the beautiful Madame Firmiani, one of the charming
+      women of the faubourg Saint-Germain who visited and liked Madame
+      Rabourdin, had said to des Lupeaulx (invited expressly to hear this
+      remark), &ldquo;Why do you not call on Madame &mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo; with a motion
+      towards Celestine; &ldquo;she gives delightful parties, and her dinners, above
+      all, are&mdash;better than mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx allowed himself to be drawn into an engagement by the
+      handsome Madame Rabourdin, who, for the first time, turned her eyes on him
+      as she spoke. He had, accordingly, gone to the rue Duphot, and that tells
+      the tale. Woman has but one trick, cries Figaro, but that&rsquo;s infallible.
+      After dining once at the house of this unimportant official, des Lupeaulx
+      made up his mind to dine there often. Thanks to the perfectly proper and
+      becoming advances of the beautiful woman, whom her rival, Madame
+      Colleville, called the Celimene of the rue Duphot, he had dined there
+      every Friday for the last month, and returned of his own accord for a cup
+      of tea on Wednesdays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within a few days Madame Rabourdin, having watched him narrowly and
+      knowingly, believed she had found on the secretarial plank a spot where
+      she might safely set her foot. She was no longer doubtful of success. Her
+      inward joy can be realized only in the families of government officials
+      where for three or four years prosperity has been counted on through some
+      appointment, long expected and long sought. How many troubles are to be
+      allayed! how many entreaties and pledges given to the ministerial
+      divinities! how many visits of self-interest paid! At last, thanks to her
+      boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard the hour strike when she was to have
+      twenty thousand francs a year instead of eight thousand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I shall have managed well,&rdquo; she said to herself. &ldquo;I have had to make
+      a little outlay; but these are times when hidden merit is overlooked,
+      whereas if a man keeps himself well in sight before the world, cultivates
+      social relations and extends them, he succeeds. After all, ministers and
+      their friends interest themselves only in the people they see; but
+      Rabourdin knows nothing of the world! If I had not cajoled those three
+      deputies they might have wanted La Billardiere&rsquo;s place themselves;
+      whereas, now that I have invited them here, they will be ashamed to do so
+      and will become our supporters instead of rivals. I have rather played the
+      coquette, but&mdash;it is delightful that the first nonsense with which
+      one fools a man sufficed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The day on which a serious and unlooked-for struggle about this
+      appointment began, after a ministerial dinner which preceded one of those
+      receptions which ministers regard as public, des Lupeaulx was standing
+      beside the fireplace near the minister&rsquo;s wife. While taking his coffee he
+      once more included Madame Rabourdin among the seven or eight really
+      superior women in Paris. Several times already he had staked Madame
+      Rabourdin very much as Corporal Trim staked his cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say that too often, my dear friend, or you will injure her,&rdquo; said
+      the minister&rsquo;s wife, half-laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Women never like to hear the praise of other women; they keep silence
+      themselves to lessen its effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor La Billardiere is dying,&rdquo; remarked his Excellency the minister;
+      &ldquo;that place falls to Rabourdin, one of our most able men, and to whom our
+      predecessors did not behave well, though one of them actually owed his
+      position in the prefecture of police under the Empire to a certain great
+      personage who was interested in Rabourdin. But, my dear friend, you are
+      still young enough to be loved by a pretty woman for yourself&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If La Billardiere&rsquo;s place is given to Rabourdin I may be believed when I
+      praise the superiority of his wife,&rdquo; replied des Lupeaulx, piqued by the
+      minister&rsquo;s sarcasm; &ldquo;but if Madame la Comtesse would be willing to judge
+      for herself&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want me to invite her to my next ball, don&rsquo;t you? Your clever woman
+      will meet a knot of other women who only come here to laugh at us, and
+      when they hear &lsquo;Madame Rabourdin&rsquo; announced&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Madame Firmiani is announced at the Foreign Office parties?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but she was born a Cadignan!&rdquo; said the newly created count, with a
+      savage look at his general-secretary, for neither he nor his wife were
+      noble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The persons present thought important matters were being talked over, and
+      the solicitors for favors and appointments kept at a little distance. When
+      des Lupeaulx left the room the countess said to her husband, &ldquo;I think des
+      Lupeaulx is in love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the first time in his life, then,&rdquo; he replied, shrugging his
+      shoulders, as much as to inform his wife that des Lupeaulx did not concern
+      himself with such nonsense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then the minister saw a deputy of the Right Centre enter the room,
+      and he left his wife abruptly to cajole an undecided vote. But the deputy,
+      under the blow of a sudden and unexpected disaster, wanted to make sure of
+      a protector and he had come to announce privately that in a few days he
+      should be compelled to resign. Thus forewarned, the minister would be able
+      to open his batteries for the new election before those of the opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister, or to speak correctly, des Lupeaulx had invited to dinner on
+      this occasion one of those irremovable officials who, as we have said, are
+      to be found in every ministry; an individual much embarrassed by his own
+      person, who, in his desire to maintain a dignified appearance, was
+      standing erect and rigid on his two legs, held well together like the
+      Greek hermae. This functionary waited near the fireplace to thank the
+      secretary, whose abrupt and unexpected departure from the room
+      disconcerted him at the moment when he was about to turn a compliment.
+      This official was the cashier of the ministry, the only clerk who did not
+      tremble when the government changed hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time of which we write, the Chamber did not meddle shabbily with
+      the budget, as it does in the deplorable days in which we now live; it did
+      not contemptibly reduce ministerial emoluments, nor save, as they say in
+      the kitchen, the candle-ends; on the contrary, it granted to each minister
+      taking charge of a public department an indemnity, called an &ldquo;outfit.&rdquo; It
+      costs, alas, as much to enter on the duties of a minister as to retire
+      from them; indeed, the entrance involves expenses of all kinds which it is
+      quite impossible to inventory. This indemnity amounted to the pretty
+      little sum of twenty-five thousand francs. When the appointment of a new
+      minister was gazetted in the &ldquo;Moniteur,&rdquo; and the greater or lesser
+      officials, clustering round the stoves or before the fireplaces and
+      shaking in their shoes, asked themselves: &ldquo;What will he do? will he
+      increase the number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make room for
+      three?&rdquo; the cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean bank-bills and
+      pinned them together with a satisfied expression on his beadle face. The
+      next day he mounted the private staircase and had himself ushered into the
+      minister&rsquo;s presence by the lackeys, who considered the money and the
+      keeper of money, the contents and the container, the idea and the form, as
+      one and the same power. The cashier caught the ministerial pair at the
+      dawn of official delight, when the newly appointed statesman is benign and
+      affable. To the minister&rsquo;s inquiry as to what brings him there, he replies
+      with the bank-notes,&mdash;informing his Excellency that he hastens to pay
+      him the customary indemnity. Moreover, he explains the matter to the
+      minister&rsquo;s wife, who never fails to draw freely upon the fund, and
+      sometimes takes all, for the &ldquo;outfit&rdquo; is looked upon as a household
+      affair. The cashier then proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a
+      few politic phrases: &ldquo;If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if,
+      satisfied with his purely mechanical services, he would,&rdquo; etc. As a man
+      who brings twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the
+      cashier is sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from
+      which he has seen a succession of ministers come and go during a period
+      of, perhaps, twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at the
+      orders of Madame; he brings the monthly thirteen thousand francs whenever
+      wanted; he advances or delays the payment as requested, and thus manages
+      to obtain, as they said in the monasteries, a voice in the chapter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, when that establishment kept its
+      books by double entry, the Sieur Saillard was compensated for the loss of
+      that position by his appointment as cashier of a ministry. He was a bulky,
+      fat man, very strong in the matter of book-keeping, and very weak in
+      everything else; round as a round O, simple as how-do-you-do,&mdash;a man
+      who came to his office with measured steps, like those of an elephant, and
+      returned with the same measured tread to the place Royale, where he lived
+      on the ground-floor of an old mansion belonging to him. He usually had a
+      companion on the way in the person of Monsieur Isidore Baudoyer, head of a
+      bureau in Monsieur de la Billardiere&rsquo;s division, consequently one of
+      Rabourdin&rsquo;s colleagues. Baudoyer was married to Elisabeth Saillard, the
+      cashier&rsquo;s only daughter, and had hired, very naturally, the apartments
+      above those of his father-in-law. No one at the ministry had the slightest
+      doubt that Saillard was a blockhead, but neither had any one ever found
+      out how far his stupidity could go; it was too compact to be examined; it
+      did not ring hollow; it absorbed everything and gave nothing out. Bixiou
+      (a clerk of whom more anon) caricatured the cashier by drawing a head in a
+      wig at the top of an egg, and two little legs at the other end, with this
+      inscription: &ldquo;Born to pay out and take in without blundering. A little
+      less luck, and he might have been lackey to the bank of France; a little
+      more ambition, and he could have been honorably discharged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment of which we are now writing, the minister was looking at his
+      cashier very much as we gaze at a window or a cornice, without supposing
+      that either can hear us, or fathom our secret thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am all the more anxious that we should settle everything with the
+      prefect in the quietest way, because des Lupeaulx has designs upon the
+      place for himself,&rdquo; said the minister, continuing his talk with the
+      deputy; &ldquo;his paltry little estate is in your arrondissement; we won&rsquo;t want
+      him as deputy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has neither years nor rentals enough to be eligible,&rdquo; said the deputy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That may be; but you know how it was decided for Casimir Perier as to
+      age; and as to worldly possessions, des Lupeaulx does possess something,&mdash;not
+      much, it is true, but the law does not take into account increase, which
+      he may very well obtain; commissions have wide margins for the deputies of
+      the Centre, you know, and we cannot openly oppose the good-will that is
+      shown to this dear friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where would he get the money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did Manuel manage to become the owner of a house in Paris?&rdquo; cried the
+      minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cashier listened and heard, but reluctantly and against his will.
+      These rapid remarks, murmured as they were, struck his ear by one of those
+      acoustic rebounds which are very little studied. As he heard these
+      political confidences, however, a keen alarm took possession of his soul.
+      He was one of those simple-minded beings, who are shocked at listening to
+      anything they are not intended to hear, or entering where they are not
+      invited, and seeming bold when they are really timid, inquisitive where
+      they are truly discreet. The cashier accordingly began to glide along the
+      carpet and edge himself away, so that the minister saw him at a distance
+      when he first took notice of him. Saillard was a ministerial henchman
+      absolutely incapable of indiscretion; even if the minister had known that
+      he had overheard a secret he had only to whisper &ldquo;motus&rdquo; in his ear to be
+      sure it was perfectly safe. The cashier, however, took advantage of an
+      influx of office-seekers, to slip out and get into his hackney-coach
+      (hired by the hour for these costly entertainments), and to return to his
+      home in the place Royale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. THE TEREDOS NAVALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED SHIP-WORM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While old Saillard was driving across Paris his son-in-law, Isidore
+      Baudoyer, and his daughter, Elisabeth, Baudoyer&rsquo;s wife, were playing a
+      virtuous game of boston with their confessor, the Abbe Gaudron, in company
+      with a few neighbors and a certain Martin Falleix, a brass-founder in the
+      fauborg Saint-Antoine, to whom Saillard had loaned the necessary money to
+      establish a business. This Falleix, a respectable Auvergnat who had come
+      to seek his fortune in Paris with his smelting-pot on his back, had found
+      immediate employment with the firm of Brezac, collectors of metals and
+      other relics from all chateaux in the provinces. About twenty-seven years
+      of age, and spoiled, like others, by success, Martin Falleix had had the
+      luck to become the active agent of Monsieur Saillard, the sleeping-partner
+      in the working out of a discovery made by Falleix in smelting (patent of
+      invention and gold medal granted at the exposition of 1825). Madame
+      Baudoyer, whose only daughter was treading&mdash;to use an expression of
+      old Saillard&rsquo;s&mdash;on the tail of her twelve years, laid claim to
+      Falleix, a thickset, swarthy, active young fellow, of shrewd principles,
+      whose education she was superintending. The said education, according to
+      her ideas, consisted in teaching him to play boston, to hold his cards
+      properly, and not to let others see his game; to shave himself regularly
+      before he came to the house, and to wash his hands with good cleansing
+      soap; not to swear, to speak her kind of French, to wear boots instead of
+      shoes, cotton shirts instead of sacking, and to brush up his hair instead
+      of plastering it flat. During the preceding week Elisabeth had finally
+      succeeded in persuading Falleix to give up wearing a pair of enormous flat
+      earrings resembling hoops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go too far, Madame Baudoyer,&rdquo; he said, seeing her satisfaction at the
+      final sacrifice; &ldquo;you order me about too much. You make me clean my teeth,
+      which loosens them; presently you will want me to brush my nails and curl
+      my hair, which won&rsquo;t do at all in our business; we don&rsquo;t like dandies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Elisabeth Baudoyer, nee Saillard, is one of those persons who escape
+      portraiture through their utter commonness; yet who ought to be sketched,
+      because they are specimens of that second-rate Parisian bourgeoisie which
+      occupies a place above the well-to-do artisan and below the upper middle
+      classes,&mdash;a tribe whose virtues are well-nigh vices, whose defects
+      are never kindly, but whose habits and manners, dull and insipid though
+      they be, are not without a certain originality. Something pinched and puny
+      about Elisabeth Saillard was painful to the eye. Her figure, scarcely over
+      four feet in height, was so thin that the waist measured less than twenty
+      inches. Her small features, which clustered close about the nose, gave her
+      face a vague resemblance to a weasel&rsquo;s snout. Though she was past thirty
+      years old she looked scarcely more than sixteen. Her eyes, of porcelain
+      blue, overweighted by heavy eyelids which fell nearly straight from the
+      arch of the eyebrows, had little light in them. Everything about her
+      appearance was commonplace: witness her flaxen hair, tending to whiteness;
+      her flat forehead, from which the light did not reflect; and her dull
+      complexion, with gray, almost leaden, tones. The lower part of the face,
+      more triangular than oval, ended irregularly the otherwise irregular
+      outline of her face. Her voice had a rather pretty range of intonation,
+      from sharp to sweet. Elisabeth was a perfect specimen of the second-rate
+      little bourgeoisie who lectures her husband behind the curtains; obtains
+      no credit for her virtues; is ambitious without intelligent object, and
+      solely through the development of her domestic selfishness. Had she lived
+      in the country she would have bought up adjacent land; being, as she was,
+      connected with the administration, she was determined to push her way. If
+      we relate the life of her father and mother, we shall show the sort of
+      woman she was by a picture of her childhood and youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Saillard married the daughter of an upholsterer keeping shop
+      under the arcades of the Market. Limited means compelled Monsieur and
+      Madame Saillard at their start in life to bear constant privation. After
+      thirty-three years of married life, and twenty-nine years of toil in a
+      government office, the property of &ldquo;the Saillards&rdquo;&mdash;their circle of
+      acquaintance called them so&mdash;consisted of sixty thousand francs
+      entrusted to Falleix, the house in the place Royale, bought for forty
+      thousand in 1804, and thirty-six thousand francs given in dowry to their
+      daughter Elisabeth. Out of this capital about fifty thousand came to them
+      by the will of the widow Bidault, Madame Saillard&rsquo;s mother. Saillard&rsquo;s
+      salary from the government had always been four thousand five hundred
+      francs a year, and no more; his situation was a blind alley that led
+      nowhere, and had tempted no one to supersede him. Those ninety thousand
+      francs, put together sou by sou, were the fruit therefore of a sordid
+      economy unintelligently employed. In fact, the Saillards did not know how
+      better to manage their savings than to carry them, five thousand francs at
+      a time, to their notary, Monsieur Sorbier, Cardot&rsquo;s predecessor, and let
+      him invest them at five per cent in first mortgages, with the wife&rsquo;s
+      rights reserved in case the borrower was married! In 1804 Madame Saillard
+      obtained a government office for the sale of stamped papers, a
+      circumstance which brought a servant into the household for the first
+      time. At the time of which we write, the house, which was worth a hundred
+      thousand francs, brought in a rental of eight thousand. Falleix paid seven
+      per cent for the sixty thousand invested in the foundry, besides an equal
+      division of profits. The Saillards were therefore enjoying an income of
+      not less than seventeen thousand francs a year. The whole ambition of the
+      good man now centred on obtaining the cross of the Legion and his retiring
+      pension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elisabeth, the only child, had toiled steadily from infancy in a home
+      where the customs of life were rigid and the ideas simple. A new hat for
+      Saillard was a matter of deliberation; the time a coat could last was
+      estimated and discussed; umbrellas were carefully hung up by means of a
+      brass buckle. Since 1804 no repairs of any kind had been done to the
+      house. The Saillards kept the ground-floor in precisely the state in which
+      their predecessor left it. The gilding of the pier-glasses was rubbed off;
+      the paint on the cornices was hardly visible through the layers of dust
+      that time had collected. The fine large rooms still retained certain
+      sculptured marble mantel-pieces and ceilings, worthy of Versailles,
+      together with the old furniture of the widow Bidault. The latter consisted
+      of a curious mixture of walnut armchairs, disjointed, and covered with
+      tapestry; rosewood bureaus; round tables on single pedestals, with brass
+      railings and cracked marble tops; one superb Boulle secretary, the value
+      of which style had not yet been recognized; in short, a chaos of bargains
+      picked up by the worthy widow,&mdash;pictures bought for the sake of the
+      frames, china services of a composite order; to wit, a magnificent
+      Japanese dessert set, and all the rest porcelains of various makes,
+      unmatched silver plate, old glass, fine damask, and a four-post bedstead,
+      hung with curtains and garnished with plumes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid these curious relics, Madame Saillard always sat on a sofa of modern
+      mahogany, near a fireplace full of ashes and without fire, on the
+      mantel-shelf of which stood a clock, some antique bronzes, candelabra with
+      paper flowers but no candles, for the careful housewife lighted the room
+      with a tall tallow candle always guttering down into the flat brass
+      candlestick which held it. Madame Saillard&rsquo;s face, despite its wrinkles,
+      was expressive of obstinacy and severity, narrowness of ideas, an
+      uprightness that might be called quadrangular, a religion without piety,
+      straightforward, candid avarice, and the peace of a quiet conscience. You
+      may see in certain Flemish pictures the wives of burgomasters cut out by
+      nature on the same pattern and wonderfully reproduced on canvas; but these
+      dames wear fine robes of velvet and precious stuffs, whereas Madame
+      Saillard possessed no robes, only that venerable garment called in
+      Touraine and Picardy &ldquo;cottes,&rdquo; elsewhere petticoats, or skirts pleated
+      behind and on each side, with other skirts hanging over them. Her bust was
+      inclosed in what was called a &ldquo;casaquin,&rdquo; another obsolete name for a
+      short gown or jacket. She continued to wear a cap with starched wings, and
+      shoes with high heels. Though she was now fifty-seven years old, and her
+      lifetime of vigorous household work ought now to be rewarded with
+      well-earned repose, she was incessantly employed in knitting her husband&rsquo;s
+      stockings and her own, and those of an uncle, just as her countrywomen
+      knit them, moving about the room, talking, pacing up and down the garden,
+      or looking round the kitchen to watch what was going on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Saillard&rsquo;s avarice, which was really imposed on them in the first
+      instance by dire necessity, was now a second nature. When the cashier got
+      back from the office, he laid aside his coat, and went to work in the
+      large garden, shut off from the courtyard by an iron railing, and which
+      the family reserved to itself. For years Elisabeth, the daughter, went to
+      market every morning with her mother, and the two did all the work of the
+      house. The mother cooked well, especially a duck with turnips; but,
+      according to Saillard, no one could equal Elisabeth in hashing the remains
+      of a leg of mutton with onions. &ldquo;You might eat your boots with those
+      onions and not know it,&rdquo; he remarked. As soon as Elisabeth knew how to
+      hold a needle, her mother had her mend the household linen and her
+      father&rsquo;s coats. Always at work, like a servant, she never went out alone.
+      Though living close by the boulevard du Temple, where Franconi, La Gaite,
+      and l&rsquo;Ambigu-Comique were within a stone&rsquo;s throw, and, further on, the
+      Porte-Saint-Martin, Elisabeth had never seen a comedy. When she asked to
+      &ldquo;see what it was like&rdquo; (with the Abbe Gaudron&rsquo;s permission, be it
+      understood), Monsieur Baudoyer took her&mdash;for the glory of the thing,
+      and to show her the finest that was to be seen&mdash;to the Opera, where
+      they were playing &ldquo;The Chinese Laborer.&rdquo; Elisabeth thought &ldquo;the comedy&rdquo; as
+      wearisome as the plague of flies, and never wished to see another. On
+      Sundays, after walking four times to and fro between the place Royale and
+      Saint-Paul&rsquo;s church (for her mother made her practise the precepts and the
+      duties of religion), her parents took her to the pavement in front of the
+      Cafe Ture, where they sat on chairs placed between a railing and the wall.
+      The Saillards always made haste to reach the place early so as to choose
+      the best seats, and found much entertainment in watching the passers-by.
+      In those days the Cafe Ture was the rendezvous of the fashionable society
+      of the Marais, the faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the circumjacent regions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elisabeth never wore anything but cotton gowns in summer and merino in the
+      winter, which she made herself. Her mother gave her twenty francs a month
+      for her expenses, but her father, who was very fond of her, mitigated this
+      rigorous treatment with a few presents. She never read what the Abbe
+      Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul&rsquo;s and the family director, called profane
+      books. This discipline had borne fruit. Forced to employ her feelings on
+      some passion or other, Elisabeth became eager after gain. Though she was
+      not lacking in sense or perspicacity, religious theories, and her complete
+      ignorance of higher emotions had encircled all her faculties with an iron
+      hand; they were exercised solely on the commonest things of life; spent in
+      a few directions they were able to concentrate themselves on a matter in
+      hand. Repressed by religious devotion, her natural intelligence exercised
+      itself within the limits marked out by cases of conscience, which form a
+      mine of subtleties among which self-interest selects its subterfuges. Like
+      those saintly personages in whom religion does not stifle ambition,
+      Elisabeth was capable of requiring others to do a blamable action that she
+      might reap the fruits; and she would have been, like them again,
+      implacable as to her dues and dissembling in her actions. Once offended,
+      she watched her adversaries with the perfidious patience of a cat, and was
+      capable of bringing about some cold and complete vengeance, and then
+      laying it to the account of God. Until her marriage the Saillards lived
+      without other society than that of the Abbe Gaudron, a priest from
+      Auvergne appointed vicar of Saint-Paul&rsquo;s after the restoration of Catholic
+      worship. Besides this ecclesiastic, who was a friend of the late Madame
+      Bidault, a paternal uncle of Madame Saillard, an old paper-dealer retired
+      from business ever since the year II. of the Republic, and now sixty-nine
+      years old, came to see them on Sundays only, because on that day no
+      government business went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This little old man, with a livid face blazoned by the red nose of a
+      tippler and lighted by two gleaming vulture eyes, allowed his gray hair to
+      hang loose under a three-cornered hat, wore breeches with straps that
+      extended beyond the buckles, cotton stockings of mottled thread knitted by
+      his niece, whom he always called &ldquo;the little Saillard,&rdquo; stout shoes with
+      silver buckles, and a surtout coat of mixed colors. He looked very much
+      like those verger-beadle-bell-ringing-grave-digging-parish-clerks who are
+      taken to be caricatures until we see them performing their various
+      functions. On the present occasion he had come on foot to dine with the
+      Saillards, intending to return in the same way to the rue Greneta, where
+      he lived on the third floor of an old house. His business was that of
+      discounting commercial paper in the quartier Saint-Martin, where he was
+      known by the nickname of &ldquo;Gigonnet,&rdquo; from the nervous convulsive movement
+      with which he lifted his legs in walking, like a cat. Monsieur Bidault
+      began this business in the year II. in partnership with a dutchman named
+      Werbrust, a friend of Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some time later Saillard made the acquaintance of Monsieur and Madame
+      Transon, wholesale dealers in pottery, with an establishment in the rue de
+      Lesdiguieres, who took an interest in Elisabeth and introduced young
+      Isadore Baudoyer to the family with the intention of marrying her.
+      Gigonnet approved of the match, for he had long employed a certain Mitral,
+      uncle of the young man, as clerk. Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer, father and
+      mother of Isidore, highly respected leather-dressers in the rue Censier,
+      had slowly made a moderate fortune out of a small trade. After marrying
+      their only son, on whom they settled fifty thousand francs, they
+      determined to live in the country, and had lately removed to the
+      neighborhood of Ile-d&rsquo;Adam, where after a time they were joined by Mitral.
+      They frequently came to Paris, however, where they kept a corner in the
+      house in the rue Censier which they gave to Isidore on his marriage. The
+      elder Baudoyers had an income of about three thousand francs left to live
+      upon after establishing their son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mitral was a being with a sinister wig, a face the color of Seine water,
+      lighted by a pair of Spanish-tobacco-colored eyes, cold as a well-rope,
+      always smelling a rat, and close-mouthed about his property. He probably
+      made his fortune in his own hole and corner, just as Werbrust and Gigonnet
+      made theirs in the quartier Saint-Martin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Saillards&rsquo; circle of acquaintance increased, neither their
+      ideas nor their manners and customs changed. The saint&rsquo;s-days of father,
+      mother, daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild were carefully observed, also
+      the anniversaries of birth and marriage, Easter, Christmas, New Year&rsquo;s
+      day, and Epiphany. These festivals were preceded by great domestic
+      sweepings and a universal clearing up of the house, which added an element
+      of usefulness to the ceremonies. When the festival day came, the presents
+      were offered with much pomp and an accompaniment of flowers,&mdash;silk
+      stockings or a fur cap for old Saillard; gold earrings and articles of
+      plate for Elisabeth or her husband, for whom, little by little, the
+      parents were accumulating a whole silver service; silk petticoats for
+      Madame Saillard, who laid the stuff by and never made it up. The recipient
+      of these gifts was placed in an armchair and asked by those present for a
+      certain length of time, &ldquo;Guess what we have for you!&rdquo; Then came a splendid
+      dinner, lasting at least five hours, to which were invited the Abbe
+      Gaudron, Falleix, Rabourdin, Monsieur Godard, under-head-clerk to Monsieur
+      Baudoyer, Monsieur Bataille, captain of the company of the National Guard
+      to which Saillard and his son-in-law belonged. Monsieur Cardot, who was
+      invariably asked, did as Rabourdin did, namely, accepted one invitation
+      out of six. The company sang at dessert, shook hands and embraced with
+      enthusiasm, wishing each other all manner of happiness; the presents were
+      exhibited and the opinion of the guests asked about them. The day Saillard
+      received his fur cap he wore it during the dessert, to the satisfaction of
+      all present. At night, mere ordinary acquaintances were bidden, and
+      dancing went on till very late, formerly to the music of one violin, but
+      for the last six years Monsieur Godard, who was a great flute player,
+      contributed the piercing tones of a flageolet to the festivity. The cook,
+      Madame Baudoyer&rsquo;s nurse, and old Catherine, Madame Saillard&rsquo;s
+      woman-servant, together with the porter or his wife, stood looking on at
+      the door of the salon. The servants always received three francs on these
+      occasions to buy themselves wine or coffee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This little circle looked upon Saillard and Baudoyer as transcendent
+      beings; they were government officers; they had risen by their own merits;
+      they worked, it was said, with the minister himself; they owed their
+      fortune to their talents; they were politicians. Baudoyer was considered
+      the more able of the two; his position as head of a bureau presupposed
+      labor that was more intricate and arduous than that of a cashier.
+      Moreover, Isidore, though the son of a leather-dresser, had had the genius
+      to study and to cast aside his father&rsquo;s business and find a career in
+      politics, which had led him to a post of eminence. In short, silent and
+      uncommunicative as he was, he was looked upon as a deep thinker, and
+      perhaps, said the admiring circle, he would some day become deputy of the
+      eighth arrondissement. As Gigonnet listened to such remarks as these, he
+      pressed his already pinched lips closer together, and threw a glance at
+      his great-niece, Elisabeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In person, Isidore was a tall, stout man of thirty-seven, who perspired
+      freely, and whose head looked as if he had water on the brain. This
+      enormous head, covered with chestnut hair cropped close, was joined to the
+      neck by rolls of flesh which overhung the collar of his coat. He had the
+      arms of Hercules, hands worthy of Domitian, a stomach which sobriety held
+      within the limits of the majestic, to use a saying of Brillaet-Savarin.
+      His face was a good deal like that of the Emperor Alexander. The Tartar
+      type was in the little eyes and the flattened nose turned slightly up, in
+      the frigid lips and the short chin. The forehead was low and narrow.
+      Though his temperament was lymphatic, the devout Isidore was under the
+      influence of a conjugal passion which time did not lessen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite, however, of his resemblance to the handsome Russian Emperor and
+      the terrible Domitian, Isidore Baudoyer was nothing more than a political
+      office-holder, of little ability as head of his department, a
+      cut-and-dried routine man, who concealed the fact that he was a flabby
+      cipher by so ponderous a personality that no scalpel could cut deep enough
+      to let the operator see into him. His severe studies, in which he had
+      shown the patience and sagacity of an ox, and his square head, deceived
+      his parents, who firmly believed him an extraordinary man. Pedantic and
+      hypercritical, meddlesome and fault-finding, he was a terror to the clerks
+      under him, whom he worried in their work, enforcing the rules rigorously,
+      and arriving himself with such terrible punctuality that not one of them
+      dared to be a moment late. Baudoyer wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, a
+      chamois waistcoat, gray trousers and cravats of various colors. His feet
+      were large and ill-shod. From the chain of his watch depended an enormous
+      bunch of old trinkets, among which in 1824 he still wore &ldquo;American beads,&rdquo;
+       which were very much the fashion in the year VII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the bosom of this family, bound together by the force of religious
+      ties, by the inflexibility of its customs, by one solitary emotion, that
+      of avarice, a passion which was now as it were its compass, Elisabeth was
+      forced to commune with herself, instead of imparting her ideas to those
+      around her, for she felt herself without equals in mind who could
+      comprehend her. Though facts compelled her to judge her husband, her
+      religious duty led her to keep up as best she could a favorable opinion of
+      him; she showed him marked respect; honored him as the father of her
+      child, her husband, the temporal power, as the vicar of Saint-Paul&rsquo;s told
+      her. She would have thought it a mortal sin to make a single gesture, or
+      give a single glance, or say a single word which would reveal to others
+      her real opinion of the imbecile Baudoyer. She even professed to obey
+      passively all his wishes. But her ears were receptive of many things; she
+      thought them over, weighed and compared them in the solitude of her mind,
+      and judged so soberly of men and events that at the time when our history
+      begins she was the hidden oracle of the two functionaries, her husband and
+      father, who had, unconsciously, come to do nothing whatever without
+      consulting her. Old Saillard would say, innocently, &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t she clever,
+      that Elisabeth of mine?&rdquo; But Baudoyer, too great a fool not to be puffed
+      up by the false reputation the quartier Saint-Antoine bestowed upon him,
+      denied his wife&rsquo;s cleverness all the while that he was making use of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elisabeth had long felt sure that her uncle Bidault, otherwise called
+      Gigonnet, was rich and handled vast sums of money. Enlightened by
+      self-interest, she had come to understand Monsieur des Lupeaulx far better
+      than the minister understood him. Finding herself married to a fool, she
+      never allowed herself to think that life might have gone better with her,
+      she only imagined the possibility of better things without expecting or
+      wishing to attain them. All her best affections found their vocation in
+      her love for her daughter, to whom she spared the pains and privations she
+      had borne in her own childhood; she believed that in this affection she
+      had her full share in the world of feeling. Solely for her daughter&rsquo;s sake
+      she had persuaded her father to take the important step of going into
+      partnership with Falleix. Falleix had been brought to the Saillard&rsquo;s house
+      by old Bidault, who lent him money on his merchandise. Falleix thought his
+      old countryman extortionate, and complained to the Saillards that Gigonnet
+      demanded eighteen per cent from an Auvergnat. Madame Saillard ventured to
+      remonstrate with her uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is just because he is an Auvergnat that I take only eighteen per
+      cent,&rdquo; said Gigonnet, when she spoke of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Falleix, who had made a discovery at the age of twenty-eight, and
+      communicated it to Saillard, seemed to carry his heart in his hand (an
+      expression of old Saillard&rsquo;s), and also seemed likely to make a great
+      fortune. Elisabeth determined to husband him for her daughter and train
+      him herself, having, as she calculated, seven years to do it in. Martin
+      Falleix felt and showed the deepest respect for Madame Baudoyer, whose
+      superior qualities he was able to recognize. If he were fated to make
+      millions he would always belong to her family, where he had found a home.
+      The little Baudoyer girl was already trained to bring him his tea and to
+      take his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of which we write, Monsieur Saillard, returning from the
+      ministry, found a game of boston in full blast; Elisabeth was advising
+      Falleix how to play; Madame Saillard was knitting in the chimney-corner
+      and overlooking the cards of the vicar; Monsieur Baudoyer, motionless as a
+      mile-stone, was employing his mental capacity in calculating how the cards
+      were placed, and sat opposite to Mitral, who had come up from Ile-d&rsquo;Adam
+      for the Christmas holidays. No one moved as the cashier entered, and for
+      some minutes he walked up and down the room, his fat face contracted with
+      unaccustomed thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is always so when he dines at the ministry,&rdquo; remarked Madame Saillard;
+      &ldquo;happily, it is only twice a year, or he&rsquo;d die of it. Saillard was never
+      made to be in the government&mdash;Well, now, I do hope, Saillard,&rdquo; she
+      continued in a loud tone, &ldquo;that you are not going to keep on those silk
+      breeches and that handsome coat. Go and take them off; don&rsquo;t wear them at
+      home, my man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father has something on his mind,&rdquo; said Baudoyer to his wife, when
+      the cashier was in his bedroom, undressing without any fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps Monsieur de la Billardiere is dead,&rdquo; said Elisabeth, simply; &ldquo;and
+      as he is anxious you should have the place, it worries him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I be useful in any way?&rdquo; said the vicar of Saint-Paul&rsquo;s; &ldquo;if so, pray
+      use my services. I have the honor to be known to Madame la Dauphine. These
+      are days when public offices should be given only to faithful men, whose
+      religious principles are not to be shaken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; said Falleix, &ldquo;do men of merit need protectors and influence to
+      get places in the government service? I am glad I am an iron-master; my
+      customers know where to find a good article&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; interrupted Baudoyer, &ldquo;the government is the government; never
+      attack it in this house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak like the &lsquo;Constitutionel,&rsquo;&rdquo; said the vicar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The &lsquo;Constitutionel&rsquo; never says anything different from that,&rdquo; replied
+      Baudoyer, who never read it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in talent to
+      Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his own expression;
+      but the good man coveted this appointment in a straightforward, honest
+      way. Influenced by the feeling which leads all officials to seek
+      promotion,&mdash;a violent, unreflecting, almost brutal passion,&mdash;he
+      desired success, just as he desired the cross of the Legion of honor,
+      without doing anything against his conscience to obtain it, and solely, as
+      he believed, on the strength of his son-in-law&rsquo;s merits. To his thinking,
+      a man who had patiently spent twenty-five years in a government office
+      behind an iron railing had sacrificed himself to his country and deserved
+      the cross. But all that he dreamed of doing to promote his son-in-law&rsquo;s
+      appointment in La Billardiere&rsquo;s place was to say a word to his
+      Excellency&rsquo;s wife when he took her the month&rsquo;s salary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends! Do speak;
+      do, pray, tell us something,&rdquo; cried his wife when he came back into the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his heel
+      to keep himself from talking politics before strangers. When Monsieur
+      Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the card-table and
+      sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always assumed when about to
+      tell some office-gossip,&mdash;a series of movements which answered the
+      purpose of the three knocks given at the Theatre-Francais. After binding
+      his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to the deepest secrecy,&mdash;for,
+      however petty the gossip, their places, as he thought, depended on their
+      discretion,&mdash;he related the incomprehensible enigma of the
+      resignation of a deputy, the very legitimate desire of the
+      general-secretary to get elected to the place, and the secret opposition
+      of the minister to this wish of a man who was one of his firmest
+      supporters and most zealous workers. This, of course, brought down an
+      avalanche of suppositions, flooded with the sapient arguments of the two
+      officials, who sent back and forth to each other a wearisome flood of
+      nonsense. Elisabeth quietly asked three questions:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is on our side, will Monsieur Baudoyer be
+      appointed in Monsieur de la Billardiere&rsquo;s place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! I should think so,&rdquo; cried the cashier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My uncle Bidault and Monsieur Gobseck helped in him 1814,&rdquo; thought she.
+      &ldquo;Is he in debt?&rdquo; she asked, aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; cried the cashier with a hissing and prolonged sound on the last
+      letter; &ldquo;his salary was attached, but some of the higher powers released
+      it by a bill at sight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the des Lupeaulx estate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, don&rsquo;t you know? in the part of the country where your grandfather
+      and your great-uncle Bidault belong, in the arrondissement of the deputy
+      who wants to resign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When her colossus of a husband had gone to bed, Elisabeth leaned over him,
+      and though he always treated her remarks as women&rsquo;s nonsense, she said,
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you will really get Monsieur de la Billardiere&rsquo;s place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you go with your imaginations!&rdquo; said Baudoyer; &ldquo;leave Monsieur
+      Gaudron to speak to the Dauphine and don&rsquo;t meddle with politics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At eleven o&rsquo;clock, when all were asleep in the place Royale, Monsieur des
+      Lupeaulx was leaving the Opera for the rue Duphot. This particular
+      Wednesday was one of Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s most brilliant evenings. Many of
+      her customary guests came in from the theatres and swelled the company
+      already assembled, among whom were several celebrities, such as: Canalis
+      the poet, Schinner the painter, Dr. Bianchon, Lucien de Rubempre, Octave
+      de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de Fontaine, du Bruel the
+      vaudevillist, Andoche Finot the journalist, Derville, one of the best
+      heads in the law courts, the Comte du Chatelet, deputy, du Tillet, banker,
+      and several elegant young men, such as Paul de Manerville and the Vicomte
+      de Portenduere. Celestine was pouring out tea when the general-secretary
+      entered. Her dress that evening was very becoming; she wore a black velvet
+      robe without ornament of any kind, a black gauze scarf, her hair smoothly
+      bound about her head and raised in a heavy braided mass, with long curls a
+      l&rsquo;Anglaise falling on either side of her face. The charms which
+      particularly distinguished this woman were the Italian ease of her
+      artistic nature, her ready comprehension, and the grace with which she
+      welcomed and promoted the least appearance of a wish on the part of
+      others. Nature had given her an elegant, slender figure, which could sway
+      lightly at a word, black eyes of oriental shape, able, like those of the
+      Chinese women, to see out of their corners. She well knew how to manage a
+      soft, insinuating voice, which threw a tender charm into every word, even
+      such as she merely chanced to utter; her feet were like those we see in
+      portraits where the painter boldly lies and flatters his sitter in the
+      only way which does not compromise anatomy. Her complexion, a little
+      yellow by day, like that of most brunettes, was dazzling at night under
+      the wax candles, which brought out the brilliancy of her black hair and
+      eyes. Her slender and well-defined outlines reminded an artist of the
+      Venus of the Middle Ages rendered by Jean Goujon, the illustrious sculptor
+      of Diane de Poitiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx stopped in the doorway, and leaned against the woodwork. This
+      ferret of ideas did not deny himself the pleasure of spying upon
+      sentiment, and this woman interested him more than any of the others to
+      whom he had attached himself. Des Lupeaulx had reached an age when men
+      assert pretensions in regard to women. The first white hairs lead to the
+      latest passions, all the more violent because they are astride of
+      vanishing powers and dawning weakness. The age of forty is the age of
+      folly,&mdash;an age when man wants to be loved for himself; whereas at
+      twenty-five life is so full that he has no wants. At twenty-five he
+      overflows with vigor and wastes it with impunity, but at forty he learns
+      that to use it in that way is to abuse it. The thoughts that came into des
+      Lupeaulx&rsquo;s mind at this moment were melancholy ones. The nerves of the old
+      beau relaxed; the agreeable smile, which served as a mask and made the
+      character of his countenance, faded; the real man appeared, and he was
+      horrible. Rabourdin caught sight of him and thought, &ldquo;What has happened to
+      him? can he be disgraced in any way?&rdquo; The general-secretary was, however,
+      only thinking how the pretty Madame Colleville, whose intentions were
+      exactly those of Madame Rabourdin, had summarily abandoned him when it
+      suited her to do so. Rabourdin caught the sham statesman&rsquo;s eyes fixed on
+      his wife, and he recorded the look in his memory. He was too keen an
+      observer not to understand des Lupeaulx to the bottom, and he deeply
+      despised him; but, as with most busy men, his feelings and sentiments
+      seldom came to the surface. Absorption in a beloved work is practically
+      equivalent to the cleverest dissimulation, and thus it was that the
+      opinions and ideas of Rabourdin were a sealed book to des Lupeaulx. The
+      former was sorry to see the man in his house, but he was never willing to
+      oppose his wife&rsquo;s wishes. At this particular moment, while he talked
+      confidentially with a supernumerary of his office who was destined, later,
+      to play an unconscious part in a political intrigue resulting from the
+      death of La Billardiere, he watched, though half-abstractedly, his wife
+      and des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here we must explain, as much for foreigners as for our own grandchildren,
+      what a supernumerary in a government office in Paris means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The supernumerary is to the administration what a choir-boy is to a
+      church, what the company&rsquo;s child is to the regiment, what the figurante is
+      to a theatre; something artless, naive, innocent, a being blinded by
+      illusions. Without illusions what would become of any of us? They give
+      strength to bear the res angusta domi of arts and the beginnings of all
+      science by inspiring us with faith. Illusion is illimitable faith. Now the
+      supernumerary has faith in the administration; he never thinks it cold,
+      cruel, and hard, as it really is. There are two kinds of supernumeraries,
+      or hangers-on,&mdash;one poor, the other rich. The poor one is rich in
+      hope and wants a place, the rich one is poor in spirit and wants nothing.
+      A wealthy family is not so foolish as to put its able men into the
+      administration. It confides an unfledged scion to some head-clerk, or
+      gives him in charge of a directory who initiates him into what Bilboquet,
+      that profound philosopher, called the high comedy of government; he is
+      spared all the horrors of drudgery and is finally appointed to some
+      important office. The rich supernumerary never alarms the other clerks;
+      they know he does not endanger their interests, for he seeks only the
+      highest posts in the administration. About the period of which we write
+      many families were saying to themselves: &ldquo;What can we do with our sons?&rdquo;
+       The army no longer offered a chance for fortune. Special careers, such as
+      civil and military engineering, the navy, mining, and the professorial
+      chair were all fenced about by strict regulations or to be obtained only
+      by competition; whereas in the civil service the revolving wheel which
+      turned clerks into prefects, sub-prefects, assessors, and collectors, like
+      the figures in a magic lantern, was subjected to no such rules and
+      entailed no drudgery. Through this easy gap emerged into life the rich
+      supernumeraries who drove their tilburys, dressed well, and wore
+      moustachios, all of them as impudent as parvenus. Journalists were apt to
+      persecute the tribe, who were cousins, nephews, brothers, or other
+      relatives of some minister, some deputy, or an influential peer. The
+      humbler clerks regarded them as a means of influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor supernumerary, on the other hand, who is the only real worker, is
+      almost always the son of some former clerk&rsquo;s widow, who lives on a meagre
+      pension and sacrifices herself to support her son until he can get a place
+      as copying-clerk, and then dies leaving him no nearer the head of his
+      department than writer of deeds, order-clerks, or, possibly,
+      under-head-clerk. Living always in some locality where rents are low, this
+      humble supernumerary starts early from home. For him the Eastern question
+      relates only to the morning skies. To go on foot and not get muddied, to
+      save his clothes, and allow for the time he may lose in standing under
+      shelter during a shower, are the preoccupations of his mind. The street
+      pavements, the flaggings of the quays and the boulevards, when first laid
+      down, were a boon to him. If, for some extraordinary reason, you happen to
+      be in the streets of Paris at half-past seven or eight o&rsquo;clock of a
+      winter&rsquo;s morning, and see through piercing cold or fog or rain a timid,
+      pale young man loom up, cigarless, take notice of his pockets. You will be
+      sure to see the outline of a roll which his mother has given him to stay
+      his stomach between breakfast and dinner. The guilelessness of the
+      supernumerary does not last long. A youth enlightened by gleams by
+      Parisian life soon measures the frightful distance that separates him from
+      the head-clerkship, a distance which no mathematician, neither Archimedes,
+      nor Leibnitz, nor Laplace has ever reckoned, the distance that exists
+      between 0 and the figure 1. He begins to perceive the impossibilities of
+      his career; he hears talk of favoritism; he discovers the intrigues of
+      officials: he sees the questionable means by which his superiors have
+      pushed their way,&mdash;one has married a young woman who made a false
+      step; another, the natural daughter of a minister; this one shouldered the
+      responsibility of another&rsquo;s fault; that one, full of talent, risks his
+      health in doing, with the perseverance of a mole, prodigies of work which
+      the man of influence feels incapable of doing for himself, though he takes
+      the credit. Everything is known in a government office. The incapable man
+      has a wife with a clear head, who has pushed him along and got him
+      nominated for deputy; if he has not talent enough for an office, he cabals
+      in the Chamber. The wife of another has a statesman at her feet. A third
+      is the hidden informant of a powerful journalist. Often the disgusted and
+      hopeless supernumerary sends in his resignation. About three fourths of
+      his class leave the government employ without ever obtaining an
+      appointment, and their number is winnowed down to either those young men
+      who are foolish or obstinate enough to say to themselves, &ldquo;I have been
+      here three years, and I must end sooner or later by getting a place,&rdquo; or
+      to those who are conscious of a vocation for the work. Undoubtedly the
+      position of supernumerary in a government office is precisely what the
+      novitiate is in a religious order,&mdash;a trial. It is a rough trial. The
+      State discovers how many of them can bear hunger, thirst, and penury
+      without breaking down, how many can toil without revolting against it; it
+      learns which temperaments can bear up under the horrible experience&mdash;or
+      if you like, the disease&mdash;of government official life. From this
+      point of view the apprenticeship of the supernumerary, instead of being an
+      infamous device of the government to obtain labor gratis, becomes a useful
+      institution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man with whom Rabourdin was talking was a poor supernumerary
+      named Sebastien de la Roche, who had picked his way on the points of his
+      toes, without incurring the least splash upon his boots, from the rue du
+      Roi-Dore in the Marais. He talked of his mamma, and dared not raise his
+      eyes to Madame Rabourdin, whose house appeared to him as gorgeous as the
+      Louvre. He was careful to show his gloves, well cleaned with india-rubber,
+      as little as he could. His poor mother had put five francs in his pocket
+      in case it became absolutely necessary that he should play cards; but she
+      enjoined him to take nothing, to remain standing, and to be very careful
+      not to knock over a lamp or the bric-a-brac from an etagere. His dress was
+      all of the strictest black. His fair face, his eyes, of a fine shade of
+      green with golden reflections, were in keeping with a handsome head of
+      auburn hair. The poor lad looked furtively at Madame Rabourdin, whispering
+      to himself, &ldquo;How beautiful!&rdquo; and was likely to dream of that fairy when he
+      went to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin had noted a vocation for his work in the lad, and as he himself
+      took the whole service seriously, he felt a lively interest in him. He
+      guessed the poverty of his mother&rsquo;s home, kept together on a widow&rsquo;s
+      pension of seven hundred francs a year&mdash;for the education of the son,
+      who was just out of college, had absorbed all her savings. He therefore
+      treated the youth almost paternally; often endeavoured to get him some fee
+      from the Council, or paid it from his own pocket. He overwhelmed Sebastien
+      with work, trained him, and allowed him to do the work of du Bruel&rsquo;s
+      place, for which that vaudevillist, otherwise known as Cursy, paid him
+      three hundred francs out of his salary. In the minds of Madame de la Roche
+      and her son, Rabourdin was at once a great man, a tyrant, and an angel. On
+      him all the poor fellow&rsquo;s hopes of getting an appointment depended, and
+      the lad&rsquo;s devotion to his chief was boundless. He dined once a fortnight
+      in the rue Duphot; but always at a family dinner, invited by Rabourdin
+      himself; Madame asked him to evening parties only when she wanted
+      partners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment Rabourdin was scolding poor Sebastien, the only human being
+      who was in the secret of his immense labors. The youth copied and recopied
+      the famous &ldquo;statement,&rdquo; written on a hundred and fifty folio sheets,
+      besides the corroborative documents, and the summing up (contained in one
+      page), with the estimates bracketed, the captions in a running hand, and
+      the sub-titles in a round one. Full of enthusiasm, in spite of his merely
+      mechanical participation in the great idea, the lad of twenty would
+      rewrite whole pages for a single blot, and made it his glory to touch up
+      the writing, regarding it as the element of a noble undertaking. Sebastien
+      had that afternoon committed the great imprudence of carrying into the
+      general office, for the purpose of copying, a paper which contained the
+      most dangerous facts to make known prematurely, namely, a memorandum
+      relating to the officials in the central offices of all ministries, with
+      facts concerning their fortunes, actual and prospective, together with the
+      individual enterprises of each outside of his government employment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All government clerks in Paris who are not endowed, like Rabourdin, with
+      patriotic ambition or other marked capacity, usually add the profits of
+      some industry to the salary of their office, in order to eke out a living.
+      A number do as Monsieur Saillard did,&mdash;put their money into a
+      business carried on by others, and spend their evenings in keeping the
+      books of their associates. Many clerks are married to milliners, licensed
+      tobacco dealers, women who have charge of the public lotteries or
+      reading-rooms. Some, like the husband of Madame Colleville, Celestine&rsquo;s
+      rival, play in the orchestra of a theatre; others like du Bruel, write
+      vaudeville, comic operas, melodramas, or act as prompters behind the
+      scenes. We may mention among them Messrs. Planard, Sewrin, etc.
+      Pigault-Lebrun, Piis, Duvicquet, in their day, were in government employ.
+      Monsieur Scribe&rsquo;s head-librarian was a clerk in the Treasury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides such information as this, Rabourdin&rsquo;s memorandum contained an
+      inquiry into the moral and physical capacities and faculties necessary in
+      those who were to examine the intelligence, aptitude for labor, and sound
+      health of the applicants for government service,&mdash;three indispensable
+      qualities in men who are to bear the burden of public affairs and should
+      do their business well and quickly. But this careful study, the result of
+      ten years&rsquo; observation and experience, and of a long acquaintance with men
+      and things obtained by intercourse with the various functionaries in the
+      different ministries, would assuredly have, to those who did not see its
+      purport and connection, an air of treachery and police espial. If a single
+      page of these papers were to fall under the eye of those concerned,
+      Monsieur Rabourdin was lost. Sebastien, who admired his chief without
+      reservation, and who was, as yet, wholly ignorant of the evils of
+      bureaucracy, had the follies of guilelessness as well as its grace. Blamed
+      on a former occasion for carrying away these papers, he now bravely
+      acknowledged his fault to its fullest extent; he related how he had put
+      away both the memorandum and the copy carefully in a box in the office
+      where no one would ever find them. Tears rolled from his eyes as he
+      realized the greatness of his offence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come!&rdquo; said Rabourdin, kindly. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be so imprudent again, but
+      never mind now. Go to the office very early tomorrow morning; here is the
+      key of a small safe which is in my roller secretary; it shuts with a
+      combination lock. You can open it with the word &lsquo;sky&rsquo;; put the memorandum
+      and your copy into it and shut it carefully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This proof of confidence dried the poor fellow&rsquo;s tears. Rabourdin advised
+      him to take a cup of tea and some cakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamma forbids me to drink tea, on account of my chest,&rdquo; said Sebastien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, my dear child,&rdquo; said the imposing Madame Rabourdin, who
+      wished to appear gracious, &ldquo;here are some sandwiches and cream; come and
+      sit by me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made Sebastien sit down beside her, and the lad&rsquo;s heart rose in his
+      throat as he felt the robe of this divinity brush the sleeve of his coat.
+      Just then the beautiful woman caught sight of Monsieur des Lupeaulx
+      standing in the doorway. She smiled, and not waiting till he came to her,
+      she went to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you stay there as if you were sulking?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sulking,&rdquo; he returned; &ldquo;I came to announce some good news, but
+      the thought has overtaken me that it will only add to your severity
+      towards me. I fancy myself six months hence almost a stranger to you. Yes,
+      you are too clever, and I too experienced,&mdash;too blase, if you like,&mdash;for
+      either of us to deceive the other. Your end is attained without its
+      costing you more than a few smiles and gracious words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deceive each other! what can you mean?&rdquo; she cried, in a hurt tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; Monsieur de la Billardiere is dying, and from what the minister told
+      me this evening I judge that your husband will be appointed in his place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thereupon related what he called his scene at the ministry and the
+      jealousy of the countess, repeating her remarks about the invitation he
+      had asked her to send to Madame Rabourdin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur des Lupeaulx,&rdquo; said Madame Rabourdin, with dignity, &ldquo;permit me
+      to tell you that my husband is the oldest head-clerk as well as the most
+      capable man in the division; also that the appointment of La Billardiere
+      over his head made much talk in the service, and that my husband has
+      stayed on for the last year expecting this promotion, for which he has
+      really no competitor and no rival.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; she resumed, smiling and showing her handsome teeth, &ldquo;how
+      can you suppose that the friendship I feel for you is marred by a thought
+      of self-interest? Why should you think me capable of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx made a gesture of admiring denial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;the heart of woman will always remain a secret for
+      even the cleverest of men. Yes, I welcomed you to my house with the
+      greatest pleasure; and there was, I admit, a motive of self-interest
+      behind my pleasure&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have a career before you,&rdquo; she whispered in his ear, &ldquo;a future
+      without limit; you will be deputy, minister!&rdquo; (What happiness for an
+      ambitious man when such things as these are warbled in his ear by the
+      sweet voice of a pretty woman!) &ldquo;Oh, yes! I know you better than you know
+      yourself. Rabourdin is a man who could be of immense service to you in
+      such a career; he could do the steady work while you were in the Chamber.
+      Just as you dream of the ministry, so I dream of seeing Rabourdin in the
+      Council of State, and general director. It is therefore my object to draw
+      together two men who can never injure, but, on the contrary, must greatly
+      help each other. Isn&rsquo;t that a woman&rsquo;s mission? If you are friends, you
+      will both rise the faster, and it is surely high time that each of you
+      made hay. I have burned my ships,&rdquo; she added, smiling. &ldquo;But you are not as
+      frank with me as I have been with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would not listen to me if I were,&rdquo; he replied, with a melancholy air,
+      in spite of the deep inward satisfaction her remarks gave him. &ldquo;What would
+      such future promotions avail me, if you dismiss me now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before I listen to you,&rdquo; she replied, with naive Parisian liveliness, &ldquo;we
+      must be able to understand each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she left the old fop to go and speak with Madame de Chessel, a
+      countess from the provinces, who seemed about to take leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is a very extraordinary woman,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx to himself. &ldquo;I
+      don&rsquo;t know my own self when I am with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, this man of no principle, who six years earlier had kept a
+      ballet-girl, and who now, thanks to his position, made himself a seraglio
+      with the pretty wives of the under-clerks, and lived in the world of
+      journalists and actresses, became devotedly attentive all the evening to
+      Celestine, and was the last to leave the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At last!&rdquo; thought Madame Rabourdin, as she undressed that night, &ldquo;we have
+      the place! Twelve thousand francs a year and perquisites, beside the rents
+      of our farms at Grajeux,&mdash;nearly twenty thousand francs a year. It is
+      not affluence, but at least it isn&rsquo;t poverty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      OFFICIALS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      If it were possible for literature to use the microscope of the
+      Leuwenhoeks, the Malpighis, and the Raspails (an attempt once made by
+      Hoffman, of Berlin), and if we could magnify and then picture the teredos
+      navalis, in other words, those ship-worms which brought Holland within an
+      inch of collapsing by honey-combing her dykes, we might have been able to
+      give a more distinct idea of Messieurs Gigonnet, Baudoyer, Saillard,
+      Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard and company, borers and burrowers, who
+      proved their undermining power in the thirtieth year of this century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now it is time to show another set of teredos, who burrowed and
+      swarmed in the government offices where the principal scenes of our
+      present study took place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Paris nearly all these government bureaus resemble each other. Into
+      whatever ministry you penetrate to ask some slight favor, or to get
+      redress for a trifling wrong, you will find the same dark corridors,
+      ill-lighted stairways, doors with oval panes of glass like eyes, as at the
+      theatre. In the first room as you enter you will find the office servant;
+      in the second, the under-clerks; the private office of the second
+      head-clerk is to the right or left, and further on is that of the head of
+      the bureau. As to the important personage called, under the Empire, head
+      of division, then, under the Restoration, director, and now by the former
+      name, head or chief of division, he lives either above or below the
+      offices of his three or four different bureaus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Speaking in the administrative sense, a bureau consists of a man-servant,
+      several supernumeraries (who do the work gratis for a certain number of
+      years), various copying clerks, writers of bills and deeds, order clerks,
+      principal clerks, second or under head-clerk, and head-clerk, otherwise
+      called head or chief of the bureau. These denominational titles vary under
+      some administrations; for instance, the order-clerks are sometimes called
+      auditors, or again, book-keepers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paved like the corridor, and hung with a shabby paper, the first room,
+      where the servant is stationed, is furnished with a stove, a large black
+      table with inkstand, pens, and paper, and benches, but no mats on which to
+      wipe the public feet. The clerk&rsquo;s office beyond is a large room, tolerably
+      well lighted, but seldom floored with wood. Wooden floors and fireplaces
+      are commonly kept sacred to heads of bureaus and divisions; and so are
+      closets, wardrobes, mahogany tables, sofas and armchairs covered with red
+      or green morocco, silk curtains, and other articles of administrative
+      luxury. The clerk&rsquo;s office contents itself with a stove, the pipe of which
+      goes into the chimney, if there be a chimney. The wall paper is plain and
+      all of one color, usually green or brown. The tables are of black wood.
+      The private characteristics of the several clerks often crop out in their
+      method of settling themselves at their desks,&mdash;the chilly one has a
+      wooden footstool under his feet; the man with a bilious temperament has a
+      metal mat; the lymphatic being who dreads draughts constructs a
+      fortification of boxes on a screen. The door of the under-head-clerk&rsquo;s
+      office always stands open so that he may keep an eye to some extent on his
+      subordinates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps an exact description of Monsieur de la Billardiere&rsquo;s division will
+      suffice to give foreigners and provincials an idea of the internal manners
+      and customs of a government office; the chief features of which are
+      probably much the same in the civil service of all European governments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, picture to yourself the man who is thus described in
+      the Yearly Register:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Chief of Division.&mdash;Monsieur la baron Flamet de la Billardiere
+  (Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel) formerly provost-marshal of
+  the department of the Correze, gentleman in ordinary of the
+  bed-chamber, president of the college of the department of the
+  Dordogne, officer of the Legion of honor, knight of Saint Louis
+  and of the foreign orders of Christ, Isabella, Saint Wladimir,
+  etc., member of the Academy of Gers, and other learned bodies,
+  vice-president of the Society of Belles-lettres, member of the
+  Association of Saint-Joseph and of the Society of Prisons, one of
+  the mayors of Paris, etc.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The person who requires so much typographic space was at this time
+      occupying an area five feet six in length by thirty-six inches in width in
+      a bed, his head adorned with a cotton night-cap tied on by flame-colored
+      ribbons; attended by Despleins, the King&rsquo;s surgeon, and young doctor
+      Bianchon, flanked by two old female relatives, surrounded by phials of all
+      kinds, bandages, appliances, and various mortuary instruments, and watched
+      over by the curate of Saint-Roch, who was advising him to think of his
+      salvation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      La Billardiere&rsquo;s division occupied the upper floor of a magnificent
+      mansion, in which the vast official ocean of a ministry was contained. A
+      wide landing separated its two bureaus, the doors of which were duly
+      labelled. The private offices and antechambers of the heads of the two
+      bureaus, Monsieur Rabourdin and Monsieur Baudoyer, were below on the
+      second floor, and beyond that of Monsieur Rabourdin were the antechamber,
+      salon, and two offices of Monsieur de la Billardiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the first floor, divided in two by an entresol, were the living rooms
+      and office of Monsieur Ernest de la Briere, an occult and powerful
+      personage who must be described in a few words, for he well deserves the
+      parenthesis. This young man held, during the whole time that this
+      particular administration lasted, the position of private secretary to the
+      minister. His apartment was connected by a secret door with the private
+      office of his Excellency. A private secretary is to the minister himself
+      what des Lupeaulx was to the ministry at large. The same difference
+      existed between young La Briere and des Lupeaulx that there is between an
+      aide-de-camp and a chief of staff. This ministerial apprentice decamps
+      when his protector leaves office, returning sometimes when he returns. If
+      the minister enjoys the royal favor when he falls, or still has
+      parliamentary hopes, he takes his secretary with him into retirement only
+      to bring him back on his return; otherwise he puts him to grass in some of
+      the various administrative pastures,&mdash;for instance, in the Court of
+      Exchequer, that wayside refuge where private secretaries wait for the
+      storm to blow over. The young man is not precisely a government official;
+      he is a political character, however; and sometimes his politics are
+      limited to those of one man. When we think of the number of letters it is
+      the private secretary&rsquo;s fate to open and read, besides all his other
+      avocations, it is very evident that under a monarchical government his
+      services would be well paid for. A drudge of this kind costs ten or twenty
+      thousand francs a year; and he enjoys, moreover, the opera-boxes, the
+      social invitations, and the carriages of the minister. The Emperor of
+      Russia would be thankful to be able to pay fifty thousand a year to one of
+      these amiable constitutional poodles, so gentle, so nicely curled, so
+      caressing, so docile, always spick and span,&mdash;careful watch-dogs
+      besides, and faithful to a degree! But the private secretary is a product
+      of the representative government hot-house; he is propagated and developed
+      there, and there only. Under a monarchy you will find none but courtiers
+      and vassals, whereas under a constitutional government you may be
+      flattered, served, and adulated by free men. In France ministers are
+      better off than kings or women; they have some one who thoroughly
+      understands them. Perhaps, indeed, the private secretary is to be pitied
+      as much as women and white paper. They are nonentities who are made to
+      bear all things. They are allowed no talents except hidden ones, which
+      must be employed in the service of their ministers. A public show of
+      talent would ruin them. The private secretary is therefore an intimate
+      friend in the gift of government&mdash;However, let us return to the
+      bureaus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three men-servants lived in peace in the Billardiere division, to wit: a
+      footman for the two bureaus, another for the service of the two chiefs,
+      and a third for the director of the division himself. All three were
+      lodged, warmed, and clothed by the State, and wore the well-known livery
+      of the State, blue coat with red pipings for undress, and broad red,
+      white, and blue braid for great occasions. La Billardiere&rsquo;s man had the
+      air of a gentleman-usher, an innovation which gave an aspect of dignity to
+      the division.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pillars of the ministry, experts in all manners and customs bureaucratic,
+      well-warmed and clothed at the State&rsquo;s expense, growing rich by reason of
+      their few wants, these lackeys saw completely through the government
+      officials, collectively and individually. They had no better way of
+      amusing their idle hours than by observing these personages and studying
+      their peculiarities. They knew how far to trust the clerks with loans of
+      money, doing their various commissions with absolute discretion; they
+      pawned and took out of pawn, bought up bills when due, and lent money
+      without interest, albeit no clerk ever borrowed of them without returning
+      a &ldquo;gratification.&rdquo; These servants without a master received a salary of
+      nine hundred francs a year; new years&rsquo; gifts and &ldquo;gratifications&rdquo; brought
+      their emoluments to twelve hundred francs, and they made almost as much
+      money by serving breakfasts to the clerks at the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder of these men, who was also the richest, waited upon the main
+      body of the clerks. He was sixty years of age, with white hair cropped
+      short like a brush; stout, thickset, and apoplectic about the neck, with a
+      vulgar pimpled face, gray eyes, and a mouth like a furnace door; such was
+      the profile portrait of Antoine, the oldest attendant in the ministry. He
+      had brought his two nephews, Laurent and Gabriel, from Echelles in Savoie,&mdash;one
+      to serve the heads of the bureaus, the other the director himself. All
+      three came to open the offices and clean them, between seven and eight
+      o&rsquo;clock in the morning; at which time they read the newspapers and talked
+      civil service politics from their point of view with the servants of other
+      divisions, exchanging the bureaucratic gossip. In common with servants of
+      modern houses who know their masters&rsquo; private affairs thoroughly, they
+      lived at the ministry like spiders at the centre of a web, where they felt
+      the slightest jar of the fabric.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a Thursday evening, the day after the ministerial reception and Madame
+      Rabourdin&rsquo;s evening party, just as Antoine was trimming his beard and his
+      nephews were assisting him in the antechamber of the division on the upper
+      floor, they were surprised by the unexpected arrival of one of the clerks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Monsieur Dutocq,&rdquo; said Antoine. &ldquo;I know him by that pickpocket
+      step of his. He is always moving round on the sly, that man. He is on your
+      back before you know it. Yesterday, contrary to his usual ways, he
+      outstayed the last man in the office; such a thing hasn&rsquo;t happened three
+      times since he has been at the ministry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in the Rabourdin
+      bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and bilious skin, grizzled
+      hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy eyebrows meeting together, a
+      crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the right shoulder slightly higher
+      than the left; brown coat, black waistcoat, silk cravat, yellowish
+      trousers, black woollen stockings, and shoes with flapping bows; thus you
+      behold him. Idle and incapable, he hated Rabourdin,&mdash;naturally
+      enough, for Rabourdin had no vice to flatter, and no bad or weak side on
+      which Dutocq could make himself useful. Far too noble to injure a clerk,
+      the chief was also too clear-sighted to be deceived by any make-believe.
+      Dutocq kept his place therefore solely through Rabourdin&rsquo;s generosity, and
+      was very certain that he could never be promoted if the latter succeeded
+      La Billardiere. Though he knew himself incapable of important work, Dutocq
+      was well aware that in a government office incapacity was no hindrance to
+      advancement; La Billardiere&rsquo;s own appointment over the head of so capable
+      a man as Rabourdin had been a striking and fatal example of this.
+      Wickedness combined with self-interest works with a power equivalent to
+      that of intellect; evilly disposed and wholly self-interested, Dutocq had
+      endeavoured to strengthen his position by becoming a spy in all the
+      offices. After 1816 he assumed a marked religious tone, foreseeing the
+      favor which the fools of those days would bestow on those they
+      indiscriminately called Jesuits. Belonging to that fraternity in spirit,
+      though not admitted to its rites, Dutocq went from bureau to bureau,
+      sounded consciences by recounting immoral jests, and then reported and
+      paraphrased results to des Lupeaulx; the latter thus learned all the
+      trivial events of the ministry, and often surprised the minister by his
+      consummate knowledge of what was going on. He tolerated Dutocq under the
+      idea that circumstances might some day make him useful, were it only to
+      get him or some distinguished friend of his out of a scrape by a
+      disgraceful marriage. The two understood each other well. Dutocq had
+      succeeded Monsieur Poiret the elder, who had retired in 1814, and now
+      lived in the pension Vanquer in the Latin quarter. Dutocq himself lived in
+      a pension in the rue de Beaune, and spent his evenings in the
+      Palais-Royal, sometimes going to the theatre, thanks to du Bruel, who gave
+      him an author&rsquo;s ticket about once a week. And now, a word on du Bruel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Sebastien did his work at the office for the small compensation we
+      have mentioned, du Bruel was in the habit of coming there to advertise the
+      fact that he was the under-head-clerk and to draw his salary. His real
+      work was that of dramatic critic to a leading ministerial journal, in
+      which he also wrote articles inspired by the ministers,&mdash;a very well
+      understood, clearly defined, and quite unassailable position. Du Bruel was
+      not lacking in those diplomatic little tricks which go so far to
+      conciliate general good-will. He sent Madame Rabourdin an opera-box for a
+      first representation, took her there in a carriage and brought her back,&mdash;an
+      attention which evidently pleased her. Rabourdin, who was never exacting
+      with his subordinates allowed du Bruel to go off to rehearsals, come to
+      the office at his own hours, and work at his vaudevilles when there.
+      Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, the minister, knew that du Bruel was writing
+      a novel which was to be dedicated to himself. Dressed with the careless
+      ease of a theatre man, du Bruel wore, in the morning, trousers strapped
+      under his feet, shoes with gaiters, a waistcoat evidently vamped over, an
+      olive surtout, and a black cravat. At night he played the gentleman in
+      elegant clothes. He lived, for good reasons, in the same house as Florine,
+      an actress for whom he wrote plays. Du Bruel, or to give him his pen name,
+      Cursy, was working just now at a piece in five acts for the Francais.
+      Sebastien was devoted to the author,&mdash;who occasionally gave him
+      tickets to the pit,&mdash;and applauded his pieces at the parts which du
+      Bruel told him were of doubtful interest, with all the faith and
+      enthusiasm of his years. In fact, the youth looked upon the playwright as
+      a great author, and it was to Sebastien that du Bruel said, the day after
+      a first representation of a vaudeville produced, like all vaudevilles, by
+      three collaborators, &ldquo;The audience preferred the scenes written by two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you write alone?&rdquo; asked Sebastien naively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were good reasons why du Bruel did not write alone. He was the third
+      of an author. A dramatic writer, as few people know, is made up of three
+      individuals; first, the man with brains who invents the subject and maps
+      out the structure, or scenario, of the vaudeville; second, the plodder,
+      who works the piece into shape; and third, the toucher-up, who sets the
+      songs to music, arranges the chorus and concerted pieces and fits them
+      into their right place, and finally writes the puffs and advertisements.
+      Du Bruel was a plodder; at the office he read the newest books, extracted
+      their wit, and laid it by for use in his dialogues. He was liked by his
+      collaborators on account of his carefulness; the man with brains, sure of
+      being understood, could cross his arms and feel that his ideas would be
+      well rendered. The clerks in the office liked their companion well enough
+      to attend a first performance of his plays in a body and applaud them, for
+      he really deserved the title of a good fellow. His hand went readily to
+      his pocket; ices and punch were bestowed without prodding, and he loaned
+      fifty francs without asking them back. He owned a country-house at Aulnay,
+      laid by his money, and had, besides the four thousand five hundred francs
+      of his salary under government, twelve hundred francs pension from the
+      civil list, and eight hundred from the three hundred thousand francs fund
+      voted by the Chambers for encouragement of the Arts. Add to these diverse
+      emoluments nine thousand francs earned by his quarters, thirds, and halves
+      of plays in three different theatres, and you will readily understand that
+      such a man must be physically round, fat, and comfortable, with the face
+      of a worthy capitalist. As to morals, he was the lover and the beloved of
+      Tullia and felt himself preferred in heart to the brilliant Duc de
+      Rhetore, the lover in chief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq had seen with great uneasiness what he called the liaison of des
+      Lupeaulx with Madame Rabourdin, and his silent wrath on the subject was
+      accumulating. He had too prying an eye not to have guessed that Rabourdin
+      was engaged in some great work outside of his official labors, and he was
+      provoked to feel that he knew nothing about it, whereas that little
+      Sebastien was, wholly or in part, in the secret. Dutocq was intimate with
+      Godard, under-head-clerk to Baudoyer, and the high esteem in which Dutocq
+      held Baudoyer was the original cause of his acquaintance with Godard; not
+      that Dutocq was sincere even in this; but by praising Baudoyer and saying
+      nothing of Rabourdin he satisfied his hatred after the fashion of little
+      minds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph Godard, a cousin of Mitral on the mother&rsquo;s side, made pretension to
+      the hand of Mademoiselle Baudoyer, not perceiving that her mother was
+      laying siege to Falliex as a son-in-law. He brought little gifts to the
+      young lady, artificial flowers, bonbons on New-Year&rsquo;s day and pretty boxes
+      for her birthday. Twenty-six years of age, a worker working without
+      purpose, steady as a girl, monotonous and apathetic, holding cafes,
+      cigars, and horsemanship in detestation, going to bed regularly at ten
+      o&rsquo;clock and rising at seven, gifted with some social talents, such as
+      playing quadrille music on the flute, which first brought him into favor
+      with the Saillards and the Baudoyers. He was moreover a fifer in the
+      National Guard,&mdash;to escape his turn of sitting up all night in a
+      barrack-room. Godard was devoted more especially to natural history. He
+      made collections of shells and minerals, knew how to stuff birds, kept a
+      mass of curiosities bought for nothing in his bedroom; took possession of
+      phials and empty perfume bottles for his specimens; pinned butterflies and
+      beetles under glass, hung Chinese parasols on the walls, together with
+      dried fishskins. He lived with his sister, an artificial-flower maker, in
+      the due de Richelieu. Though much admired by mammas this model young man
+      was looked down upon by his sister&rsquo;s shop-girls, who had tried to inveigle
+      him. Slim and lean, of medium height, with dark circles round his eyes,
+      Joseph Godard took little care of his person; his clothes were ill-cut,
+      his trousers bagged, he wore white stockings at all seasons of the year, a
+      hat with a narrow brim and laced shoes. He was always complaining of his
+      digestion. His principal vice was a mania for proposing rural parties
+      during the summer season, excursions to Montmorency, picnics on the grass,
+      and visits to creameries on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. For the last
+      six months Dutocq had taken to visiting Mademoiselle Godard from time to
+      time, with certain views of his own, hoping to discover in her
+      establishment some female treasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus Baudoyer had a pair of henchmen in Dutocq and Godard. Monsieur
+      Saillard, too innocent to judge rightly of Dutocq, was in the habit of
+      paying him frequent little visits at the office. Young La Billardiere, the
+      director&rsquo;s son, placed as supernumerary with Baudoyer, made another member
+      of the clique. The clever heads in the offices laughed much at this
+      alliance of incapables. Bixiou named Baudoyer, Godard, and Dutocq a
+      &ldquo;Trinity without the Spirit,&rdquo; and little La Billardiere the &ldquo;Pascal Lamb.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are early this morning,&rdquo; said Antoine to Dutocq, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So are you, Antoine,&rdquo; answered Dutocq; &ldquo;you see, the newspapers do come
+      earlier than you let us have them at the office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They did to-day, by chance,&rdquo; replied Antoine, not disconcerted; &ldquo;they
+      never come two days together at the same hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two nephews looked at each other as if to say, in admiration of their
+      uncle, &ldquo;What cheek he has!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though I make two sous by all his breakfasts,&rdquo; muttered Antoine, as he
+      heard Monsieur Dutocq close the office door, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d give them up to get that
+      man out of our division.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Monsieur Sebastien, you are not the first here to-day,&rdquo; said Antoine,
+      a quarter of an hour later, to the supernumerary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is here?&rdquo; asked the poor lad, turning pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Dutocq,&rdquo; answered Laurent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Virgin natures have, beyond all others, the inexplicable gift of
+      second-sight, the reason of which lies perhaps in the purity of their
+      nervous systems, which are, as it were, brand-new. Sebastien had long
+      guessed Dutocq&rsquo;s hatred to his revered Rabourdin. So that when Laurent
+      uttered his name a dreadful presentiment took possession of the lad&rsquo;s
+      mind, and crying out, &ldquo;I feared it!&rdquo; he flew like an arrow into the
+      corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is going to be a row in the division,&rdquo; said Antoine, shaking his
+      white head as he put on his livery. &ldquo;It is very certain that Monsieur le
+      baron is off to his account. Yes, Madame Gruget, the nurse, told me he
+      couldn&rsquo;t live through the day. What a stir there&rsquo;ll be! oh! won&rsquo;t there!
+      Go along, you fellows, and see if the stoves are drawing properly. Heavens
+      and earth! our world is coming down about our ears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That poor young one,&rdquo; said Laurent, &ldquo;had a sort of sunstroke when he
+      heard that Jesuit of a Dutocq had got here before him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told him a dozen times,&mdash;for after all one ought to tell the
+      truth to an honest clerk, and what I call an honest clerk is one like that
+      little fellow who gives us &lsquo;recta&rsquo; his ten francs on New-Year&rsquo;s day,&mdash;I
+      have said to him again and again: The more you work the more they&rsquo;ll make
+      you work, and they won&rsquo;t promote you. He doesn&rsquo;t listen to me; he tires
+      himself out staying here till five o&rsquo;clock, an hour after all the others
+      have gone. Folly! he&rsquo;ll never get on that way! The proof is that not a
+      word has been said about giving him an appointment, though he has been
+      here two years. It&rsquo;s a shame! it makes my blood boil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Rabourdin is very fond of Monsieur Sebastien,&rdquo; said Laurent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Monsieur Rabourdin isn&rsquo;t a minister,&rdquo; retorted Antoine; &ldquo;it will be a
+      hot day when that happens, and the hens will have teeth; he is too&mdash;but
+      mum! When I think that I carry salaries to those humbugs who stay away and
+      do as they please, while that poor little La Roche works himself to death,
+      I ask myself if God ever thinks of the civil service. And what do they
+      give you, these pets of Monsieur le marechal and Monsieur le duc? &lsquo;Thank
+      you, my dear Antoine, thank you,&rsquo; with a gracious nod! Pack of sluggards!
+      go to work, or you&rsquo;ll bring another revolution about your ears. Didn&rsquo;t see
+      such goings-on under Monsieur Robert Lindet. I know, for I served my
+      apprenticeship under Robert Lindet. The clerks had to work in his day! You
+      ought to have seen how they scratched paper here till midnight; why, the
+      stoves went out and nobody noticed it. It was all because the guillotine
+      was there! now-a-days they only mark &lsquo;em when they come in late!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Antoine,&rdquo; said Gabriel, &ldquo;as you are so talkative this morning, just
+      tell us what you think a clerk really ought to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A government clerk,&rdquo; replied Antoine, gravely, &ldquo;is a man who sits in a
+      government office and writes. But there, there, what am I talking about?
+      Without the clerks, where should we be, I&rsquo;d like to know? Go along and
+      look after your stoves and mind you never say harm of a government clerk,
+      you fellows. Gabriel, the stove in the large office draws like the devil;
+      you must turn the damper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine stationed himself at a corner of the landing whence he could see
+      all the officials as they entered the porte-cochere; he knew every one at
+      the ministry, and watched their behavior, observing narrowly the contrasts
+      in their dress and appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first to arrive after Sebastien was a clerk of deeds in Rabourdin&rsquo;s
+      office named Phellion, a respectable family-man. To the influence of his
+      chief he owed a half-scholarship for each of his two sons in the College
+      Henri IV.; while his daughter was being educated gratis at a boarding
+      school where his wife gave music lessons and he himself a course of
+      history and one of geography in the evenings. He was about forty-five
+      years of age, sergeant-major of his company in the National Guard, very
+      compassionate in feeling and words, but wholly unable to give away a
+      penny. Proud of his post, however, and satisfied with his lot, he applied
+      himself faithfully to serve the government, believed he was useful to his
+      country, and boasted of his indifference to politics, knowing none but
+      those of the men in power. Monsieur Rabourdin pleased him highly whenever
+      he asked him to stay half an hour longer to finish a piece of work. On
+      such occasions he would say, when he reached home, &ldquo;Public affairs
+      detained me; when a man belongs to the government he is no longer master
+      of himself.&rdquo; He compiled books of questions and answers on various studies
+      for the use of young ladies in boarding-schools. These little &ldquo;solid
+      treatises,&rdquo; as he called them, were sold at the University library under
+      the name of &ldquo;Historical and Geographic Catechisms.&rdquo; Feeling himself in
+      duty bound to offer a copy of each volume, bound in red morocco, to
+      Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in full dress to present them,&mdash;breeches
+      and silk stockings, and shoes with gold buckles. Monsieur Phellion
+      received his friends on Thursday evenings, on which occasions the company
+      played bouillote, at five sous a game, and were regaled with cakes and
+      beer. He had never yet dared to invite Monsieur Rabourdin to honor him
+      with his presence, though he would have regarded such an event as the most
+      distinguished of his life. He said if he could leave one of his sons
+      following in the steps of Monsieur Rabourdin he should die the happiest
+      father in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of Paris, which
+      he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre,
+      Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great writers,
+      and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the country around
+      Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into a government office and his
+      second into the Ecole Polytechnique. He often said to the elder, &ldquo;When you
+      have the honor to be a government clerk&rdquo;; though he suspected him of a
+      preference for the exact sciences and did his best to repress it, mentally
+      resolved to abandon the lad to his own devices if he persisted. When
+      Rabourdin sent for him to come down and receive instructions about some
+      particular piece of work, Phellion gave all his mind to it,&mdash;listening
+      to every word the chief said, as a dilettante listens to an air at the
+      Opera. Silent in the office, with his feet in the air resting on a wooden
+      desk, and never moving them, he studied his task conscientiously. His
+      official letters were written with the utmost gravity, and transmitted the
+      commands of the minister in solemn phrases. Monsieur Phellion&rsquo;s face was
+      that of a pensive ram, with little color and pitted by the small-pox; the
+      lips were thick and the lower one pendent; the eyes light-blue, and his
+      figure above the common height. Neat and clean as a master of history and
+      geography in a young ladies&rsquo; school ought to be, he wore fine linen, a
+      pleated shirt-frill, a black cashmere waistcoat, left open and showing a
+      pair of braces embroidered by his daughter, a diamond in the bosom of his
+      shirt, a black coat, and blue trousers. In winter he added a nut-colored
+      box-coat with three capes, and carried a loaded stick, necessitated, he
+      said, by the profound solitude of the quarter in which he lived. He had
+      given up taking snuff, and referred to this reform as a striking example
+      of the empire a man could exercise over himself. Monsieur Phellion came
+      slowly up the stairs, for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called
+      an &ldquo;adipose chest.&rdquo; He saluted Antoine with dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange contrast
+      to the virtuous Phellion. Vimeux was a young man of twenty-five, with a
+      salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and graceful, with a romantic
+      face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as black as jet, fine teeth,
+      charming hands, and wearing a moustache so carefully trimmed that he
+      seemed to have made it the business and occupation of his life. Vimeux had
+      such aptitude for work that he despatched it much quicker than any of the
+      other clerks. &ldquo;He has a gift, that young man!&rdquo; Phellion said of him when
+      he saw him cross his legs and have nothing to do for the rest of the day,
+      having got through his appointed task; &ldquo;and see what a little dandy he
+      is!&rdquo; Vimeux breakfasted on a roll and a glass of water, dined for twenty
+      sous at Katcomb&rsquo;s, and lodged in a furnished room, for which he paid
+      twelve francs a month. His happiness, his sole pleasure in life, was
+      dress. He ruined himself in miraculous waistcoats, in trousers that were
+      tight, half-tight, pleated, or embroidered; in superfine boots, well-made
+      coats which outlined his elegant figure; in bewitching collars, spotless
+      gloves, and immaculate hats. A ring with a coat of arms adorned his hand,
+      outside his glove, from which dangled a handsome cane; with these
+      accessories he endeavoured to assume the air and manner of a wealthy young
+      man. After the office closed he appeared in the great walk of the
+      Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as though he were a millionaire
+      who had just dined. Always on the lookout for a woman,&mdash;an
+      Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or a widow,&mdash;who might fall
+      in love with him, he practised the art of twirling his cane and of
+      flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told him was American. He smiled
+      to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks under his boots, but he had his
+      hair curled every day. Vimeux was prepared, in accordance with fixed
+      principles, to marry a hunch-back with six thousand a year, or a woman of
+      forty-five at eight thousand, or an Englishwoman for half that sum.
+      Phellion, who delighted in his neat hand-writing, and was full of
+      compassion for the fellow, read him lectures on the duty of giving lessons
+      in penmanship,&mdash;an honorable career, he said, which would ameliorate
+      existence and even render it agreeable; he promised him a situation in a
+      young ladies&rsquo; boarding-school. But Vimeux&rsquo;s head was so full of his own
+      idea that no human being could prevent him from having faith in his star.
+      He continued to lay himself out, like a salmon at a fishmonger&rsquo;s, in spite
+      of his empty stomach and the fact that he had fruitlessly exhibited his
+      enormous moustache and his fine clothes for over three years. As he owed
+      Antoine more than thirty francs for his breakfasts, he lowered his eyes
+      every time he passed him; and yet he never failed at midday to ask the man
+      to buy him a roll.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After trying to get a few reasonable ideas into this foolish head,
+      Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe (his
+      family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and lived
+      entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-whip.
+      Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in the spirit
+      of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was really a
+      kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one but himself. A
+      standing joke in the two bureaus was the question whether he wore corsets,
+      and bets depended on it. Vimeux was originally appointed to Baudoyer&rsquo;s
+      bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself transferred to Rabourdin&rsquo;s, on
+      account of Baudoyer&rsquo;s extreme severity in relation to what were called
+      &ldquo;the English,&rdquo;&mdash;a name given by the government clerks to their
+      creditors. &ldquo;English day&rdquo; means the day on which the government offices are
+      thrown open to the public. Certain then of finding their delinquent
+      debtors, the creditors swarm in and torment them, asking when they intend
+      to pay, and threatening to attach their salaries. The implacable Baudoyer
+      compelled the clerks to remain at their desks and endure this torture. &ldquo;It
+      was their place not to make debts,&rdquo; he said; and he considered his
+      severity as a duty which he owed to the public weal. Rabourdin, on the
+      contrary, protected the clerks against their creditors, and turned the
+      latter away, saying that the government bureaus were open for public
+      business, not private. Much ridicule pursued Vimeux in both bureaus when
+      the clank of his spurs resounded in the corridors and on the staircases.
+      The wag of the ministry, Bixiou, sent round a paper, headed by a
+      caricature of his victim on a pasteboard horse, asking for subscriptions
+      to buy him a live charger. Monsieur Baudoyer was down for a bale of hay
+      taken from his own forage allowance, and each of the clerks wrote his
+      little epigram; Vimeux himself, good-natured fellow that he was,
+      subscribed under the name of &ldquo;Miss Fairfax.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to live,
+      and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to masked
+      balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though it often
+      escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners, or old
+      women,&mdash;sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with their
+      handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance illustrated with
+      stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem to answer their purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou (pronounce it Bisiou) was a draughtsman, who ridiculed Dutocq as
+      readily as he did Rabourdin, whom he nicknamed &ldquo;the virtuous woman.&rdquo;
+       Without doubt the cleverest man in the division or even in the ministry
+      (but clever after the fashion of a monkey, without aim or sequence),
+      Bixiou was so essentially useful to Baudoyer and Godard that they upheld
+      and protected him in spite of his misconduct; for he did their work when
+      they were incapable of doing it for themselves. Bixiou wanted either
+      Godard&rsquo;s or du Bruel&rsquo;s place as under-head-clerk, but his conduct
+      interfered with his promotion. Sometimes he sneered at the public service;
+      this was usually after he had made some happy hit, such as the publication
+      of portraits in the famous Fualdes case (for which he drew faces
+      hap-hazard), or his sketch of the debate on the Castaing affair. At other
+      times, when possessed with a desire to get on, he really applied himself
+      to work, though he would soon leave off to write a vaudeville, which was
+      never finished. A thorough egoist, a spendthrift and a miser in one,&mdash;that
+      is to say, spending his money solely on himself,&mdash;sharp, aggressive,
+      and indiscreet, he did mischief for mischief&rsquo;s sake; above all, he
+      attacked the weak, respected nothing and believed in nothing, neither in
+      France, nor in God, nor in art, nor in the Greeks, nor in the Turks, nor
+      in the monarchy,&mdash;insulting and disparaging everything that he could
+      not comprehend. He was the first to paint a black cap on Charles X.&lsquo;s head
+      on the five-franc coins. He mimicked Dr. Gall when lecturing, till he made
+      the most starched of diplomatists burst their buttons. Famous for his
+      practical jokes, he varied them with such elaborate care that he always
+      obtained a victim. His great secret in this was the power of guessing the
+      inmost wishes of others; he knew the way to many a castle in the air, to
+      the dreams about which a man may be fooled because he wants to be; and he
+      made such men sit to him for hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it happened that this close observer, who could display unrivalled
+      tact in developing a joke or driving home a sarcasm, was unable to use the
+      same power to make men further his fortunes and promote him. The person he
+      most liked to annoy was young La Billardiere, his nightmare, his
+      detestation, whom he was nevertheless constantly wheedling so as the
+      better to torment him on his weakest side. He wrote him love letters
+      signed &ldquo;Comtesse de M&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; or &ldquo;Marquise de B&mdash;&ldquo;; took him
+      to the Opera on gala days and presented him to some grisette under the
+      clock, after calling everybody&rsquo;s attention to the young fool. He allied
+      himself with Dutocq (whom he regarded as a solemn juggler) in his hatred
+      to Rabourdin and his praise of Baudoyer, and did his best to support him.
+      Jean-Jaques Bixiou was the grandson of a Parisian grocer. His father, who
+      died a colonel, left him to the care of his grandmother, who married her
+      head-clerk, named Descoings, after the death of her first husband, and
+      died in 1822. Finding himself without prospects on leaving college, he
+      attempted painting, but in spite of his intimacy with Joseph Bridau, his
+      life-long friend, he abandoned art to take up caricature, vignette
+      designing, and drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the
+      name of &ldquo;illustration.&rdquo; The influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and de
+      Rhetore, whom he knew in the society of actresses, procured him his
+      employment under government in 1819. On good terms with des Lupeaulx, with
+      whom in society he stood on an equality, and intimate with du Bruel, he
+      was a living proof of Rabourdin&rsquo;s theory as to the steady deterioration of
+      the administrative hierarchy in Paris through the personal importance
+      which a government official may acquire outside of a government office.
+      Short in stature but well-formed, with a delicate face remarkable for its
+      vague likeness to Napoleon&rsquo;s, thin lips, a straight chin, chestnut
+      whiskers, twenty-seven years old, fair-skinned, with a piercing voice and
+      sparkling eye,&mdash;such was Bixiou; a man, all sense and all wit, who
+      abandoned himself to a mad pursuit of pleasure of every description, which
+      threw him into a constant round of dissipation. Hunter of grisettes,
+      smoker, jester, diner-out and frequenter of supper-parties, always tuned
+      to the highest pitch, shining equally in the greenroom and at the balls
+      given among the grisettes of the Allee des Veuves, he was just as
+      surprisingly entertaining at table as at a picnic, as gay and lively at
+      midnight on the streets as in the morning when he jumped out of bed, and
+      yet at heart gloomy and melancholy, like most of the great comic players.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Launched into the world of actors and actresses, writers, artists, and
+      certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre
+      without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature and
+      really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in life like
+      a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord would break.
+      The liveliness of his wit and the prodigal flow of his ideas made him
+      acceptable to all persons who took pleasure in the lights of intellect;
+      but none of his friends liked him. Incapable of checking a witty saying,
+      he would scarify his two neighbors before a dinner was half over. In spite
+      of his skin-deep gayety, a secret dissatisfaction with his social position
+      could be detected in his speech; he aspired to something better, but the
+      fatal demon hiding in his wit hindered him from acquiring the gravity
+      which imposes on fools. He lived on the second floor of a house in the rue
+      de Ponthieu, where he had three rooms delivered over to the untidiness of
+      a bachelor&rsquo;s establishment, in fact, a regular bivouac. He often talked of
+      leaving France and seeking his fortune in America. No wizard could
+      foretell the future of this young man in whom all talents were incomplete;
+      who was incapable of perseverance, intoxicated with pleasure, and who
+      acted on the belief that the world ended on the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the matter of dress Bixiou had the merit of never being ridiculous; he
+      was perhaps the only official of the ministry whose dress did not lead
+      outsiders to say, &ldquo;That man is a government clerk!&rdquo; He wore elegant boots
+      with black trousers strapped under them, a fancy waistcoat, a becoming
+      blue coat, collars that were the never-ending gift of grisettes, one of
+      Bandoni&rsquo;s hats, and a pair of dark-colored kid gloves. His walk and
+      bearing, cavalier and simple both, were not without grace. He knew all
+      this, and when des Lupeaulx summoned him for a piece of impertinence said
+      and done about Monsieur de la Billardiere and threatened him with
+      dismissal, Bixiou replied, &ldquo;You will take me back because my clothes do
+      credit to the ministry&rdquo;; and des Lupeaulx, unable to keep from laughing,
+      let the matter pass. The most harmless of Bixiou&rsquo;s jokes perpetrated among
+      the clerks was the one he played off upon Godard, presenting him with a
+      butterfly just brought from China, which the worthy man keeps in his
+      collection and exhibits to this day, blissfully unconscious that it is
+      only painted paper. Bixiou had the patience to work up the little
+      masterpiece for the sole purpose of hoaxing his superior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer&rsquo;s bureau held the
+      martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a salary of
+      fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard. Minard had
+      married for love the daughter of a porter, an artificial-flower maker
+      employed by Mademoiselle Godard. Zelie Lorrain, a pupil, in the first
+      place, of the Conservatoire, then by turns a danseuse, a singer, and an
+      actress, had thought of doing as so many of the working-women do; but the
+      fear of consequences kept her from vice. She was floating undecidedly
+      along, when Minard appeared upon the scene with a definite proposal of
+      marriage. Zelie earned five hundred francs a year, Minard had fifteen
+      hundred. Believing that they could live on two thousand, they married
+      without settlements, and started with the utmost economy. They went to
+      live, like dove-turtles, near the barriere de Courcelles, in a little
+      apartment at three hundred francs a year, with white cotton curtains to
+      the windows, a Scotch paper costing fifteen sous a roll on the walls,
+      brick floors well polished, walnut furniture in the parlor, and a tiny
+      kitchen that was very clean. Zelie nursed her children herself when they
+      came, cooked, made her flowers, and kept the house. There was something
+      very touching in this happy and laborious mediocrity. Feeling that Minard
+      truly loved her, Zelie loved him. Love begets love,&mdash;it is the
+      abyssus abyssum of the Bible. The poor man left his bed in the morning
+      before his wife was up, that he might fetch provisions. He carried the
+      flowers she had finished, on his way to the bureau, and bought her
+      materials on his way back; then, while waiting for dinner, he stamped out
+      her leaves, trimmed the twigs, or rubbed her colors. Small, slim, and
+      wiry, with crisp red hair, eyes of a light yellow, a skin of dazzling
+      fairness, though blotched with red, the man had a sturdy courage that made
+      no show. He knew the science of writing quite as well as Vimeux. At the
+      office he kept in the background, doing his allotted task with the
+      collected air of a man who thinks and suffers. His white eyelashes and
+      lack of eyebrows induced the relentless Bixiou to name him &ldquo;the white
+      rabbit.&rdquo; Minard&mdash;the Rabourdin of a lower sphere&mdash;was filled
+      with the desire of placing his Zelie in better circumstances, and his mind
+      searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in hopes of finding an idea, of
+      making some discovery or some improvement which would bring him a rapid
+      fortune. His apparent dulness was really caused by the continual tension
+      of his mind; he went over the history of Cephalic Oils and the Paste of
+      Sultans, lucifer matches and portable gas, jointed sockets for hydrostatic
+      lamps,&mdash;in short, all the infinitely little inventions of material
+      civilization which pay so well. He bore Bixiou&rsquo;s jests as a busy man bears
+      the buzzing of an insect; he was not even annoyed by them. In spite of his
+      cleverness, Bixiou never perceived the profound contempt which Minard felt
+      for him. Minard never dreamed of quarrelling, however,&mdash;regarding it
+      as a loss of time. After a while his composure tired out his tormentor. He
+      always breakfasted with his wife, and ate nothing at the office. Once a
+      month he took Zelie to the theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or
+      Bixiou; for Bixiou was capable of anything, even of doing a kindness.
+      Monsieur and Madame Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year&rsquo;s day.
+      Those who saw them often asked how it was that a woman could keep her
+      husband in good clothes, wear a Leghorn bonnet with flowers, embroidered
+      muslin dresses, silk mantles, prunella boots, handsome fichus, a Chinese
+      parasol, and drive home in a hackney-coach, and yet be virtuous; while
+      Madame Colleville and other &ldquo;ladies&rdquo; of her kind could scarcely make ends
+      meet, though they had double Madame Minard&rsquo;s means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the two bureaus were two clerks so devoted to each other that their
+      friendship became the butt of all the rest. He of the bureau Baudoyer,
+      named Colleville, was chief-clerk, and would have been head of the bureau
+      long before if the Restoration had never happened. His wife was as clever
+      in her way as Madame Rabourdin in hers. Colleville, who was son of a first
+      violin at the opera, fell in love with the daughter of a celebrated
+      danseuse. Flavie Minoret, one of those capable and charming Parisian women
+      who know how to make their husbands happy and yet preserve their own
+      liberty, made the Colleville home a rendezvous for all our best artists
+      and orators. Colleville&rsquo;s humble position under government was forgotten
+      there. Flavie&rsquo;s conduct gave such food for gossip, however, that Madame
+      Rabourdin had declined all her invitations. The friend in Rabourdin&rsquo;s
+      bureau to whom Colleville was so attached was named Thuillier. All who
+      knew one knew the other. Thuillier, called &ldquo;the handsome Thuillier,&rdquo; an
+      ex-Lothario, led as idle a life as Colleville led a busy one. Colleville,
+      government official in the mornings and first clarionet at the
+      Opera-Comique at night, worked hard to maintain his family, though he was
+      not without influential friends. He was looked upon as a very shrewd man,&mdash;all
+      the more, perhaps, because he hid his ambitions under a show of
+      indifference. Apparently content with his lot and liking work, he found
+      every one, even the chiefs, ready to protect his brave career. During the
+      last few weeks Madame Colleville had made an evident change in the
+      household, and seemed to be taking to piety. This gave rise to a vague
+      report in the bureaus that she thought of securing some more powerful
+      influence than that of Francois Keller, the famous orator, who had been
+      one of her chief adorers, but who, so far, had failed to obtain a better
+      place for her husband. Flavie had, about this time&mdash;and it was one of
+      her mistakes&mdash;turned for help to des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville had a passion for reading the horoscopes of famous men in the
+      anagram of their names. He passed whole months in decomposing and
+      recomposing words and fitting them to new meanings. &ldquo;Un Corse la finira,&rdquo;
+       found within the words, &ldquo;Revolution Francaise&rdquo;; &ldquo;Eh, c&rsquo;est large nez,&rdquo; in
+      &ldquo;Charles Genest,&rdquo; an abbe at the court of Louis XIV., whose huge nose is
+      recorded by Saint-Simon as the delight of the Duc de Bourgogne (the
+      exigencies of this last anagram required the substitution of a z for an
+      s),&mdash;were a never-ending marvel to Colleville. Raising the anagram to
+      the height of a science, he declared that the destiny of every man was
+      written in the words or phrase given by the transposition of the letters
+      of his names and titles; and his patriotism struggled hard to suppress the
+      fact&mdash;signal evidence for his theory&mdash;that in Horatio Nelson,
+      &ldquo;honor est a Nilo.&rdquo; Ever since the accession of Charles X., he had
+      bestowed much thought on the king&rsquo;s anagram. Thuillier, who was fond of
+      making puns, declared that an anagram was nothing more than a pun on
+      letters. The sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound almost
+      indissolubly to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a difficult
+      problem to the mind of an observer. The clerks in the offices explained it
+      by saying, &ldquo;Thuillier is rich, and the Colleville household costly.&rdquo; This
+      friendship, however, consolidated by time, was based on feelings and on
+      facts which naturally explained it; an account of which may be found
+      elsewhere (see &ldquo;Les Petits Bourgeois&rdquo;). We may remark in passing that
+      though Madame Colleville was well known in the bureaus, the existence of
+      Madame Thuillier was almost unknown there. Colleville, an active man,
+      burdened with a family of children, was fat, round, and jolly, whereas
+      Thuillier, &ldquo;the beau of the Empire&rdquo; without apparent anxieties and always
+      at leisure, was slender and thin, with a livid face and a melancholy air.
+      &ldquo;We never know,&rdquo; said Rabourdin, speaking of the two men, &ldquo;whether our
+      friendships are born of likeness or of contrast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Unlike these Siamese twins, two other clerks, Chazelle and Paulmier, were
+      forever squabbling. One smoked, the other took snuff, and the merits of
+      their respective use of tobacco were the origin of ceaseless disputes.
+      Chazelle&rsquo;s home, which was tyrannized over by a wife, furnished a subject
+      of endless ridicule to Paulmier; whereas Paulmier, a bachelor, often
+      half-starved like Vimeux, with ragged clothes and half-concealed penury
+      was a fruitful source of ridicule to Chazelle. Both were beginning to show
+      a protuberant stomach; Chazelle&rsquo;s, which was round and projecting, had the
+      impertinence, so Bixiou said, to enter the room first; Paulmier&rsquo;s
+      corporation spread to right and left. A favorite amusement with Bixiou was
+      to measure them quarterly. The two clerks, by dint of quarrelling over the
+      details of their lives, and washing much of their dirty linen at the
+      office, had obtained the disrepute which they merited. &ldquo;Do you take me for
+      a Chazelle?&rdquo; was a frequent saying that served to end many an annoying
+      discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Poiret junior, called &ldquo;junior&rdquo; to distinguish him from his
+      brother Monsieur Poiret senior (now living in the Maison Vanquer, where
+      Poiret junior sometimes dined, intending to end his days in the same
+      retreat), had spent thirty years in the Civil Service. Nature herself is
+      not so fixed and unvarying in her evolutions as was Poiret junior in all
+      the acts of his daily life; he always laid his things in precisely the
+      same place, put his pen in the same rack, sat down in his seat at the same
+      hour, warmed himself at the stove at the same moment of the day. His sole
+      vanity consisted in wearing an infallible watch, timed daily at the Hotel
+      de Ville as he passed it on his way to the office. From six to eight
+      o&rsquo;clock in the morning he kept the books of a large shop in the rue
+      Saint-Antoine, and from six to eight o&rsquo;clock in the evening those of the
+      Maison Camusot, in the rue des Bourdonnais. He thus earned three thousand
+      francs a year, counting his salary from the government. In a few months
+      his term of service would be up, when he would retire on a pension; he
+      therefore showed the utmost indifference to the political intrigues of the
+      bureaus. Like his elder brother, to whom retirement from active service
+      had proved a fatal blow, he would probably grow an old man when he could
+      no longer come from his home to the ministry, sit in the same chair and
+      copy a certain number of pages. Poiret&rsquo;s eyes were dim, his glance weak
+      and lifeless, his skin discolored and wrinkled, gray in tone and speckled
+      with bluish dots; his nose flat, his lips drawn inward to the mouth, where
+      a few defective teeth still lingered. His gray hair, flattened to the head
+      by the pressure of his hat, gave him the look of an ecclesiastic,&mdash;a
+      resemblance he would scarcely have liked, for he hated priests and clergy,
+      though he could give no reasons for his anti-religious views. This
+      antipathy, however, did not prevent him from being extremely attached to
+      whatever administration happened to be in power. He never buttoned his old
+      green coat, even on the coldest days, and he always wore shoes with ties,
+      and black trousers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No human life was ever lived so thoroughly by rule. Poiret kept all his
+      receipted bills, even the most trifling, and all his account-books,
+      wrapped in old shirts and put away according to their respective years
+      from the time of his entrance at the ministry. Rough copies of his letters
+      were dated and put away in a box, ticketed &ldquo;My Correspondence.&rdquo; He dined
+      at the same restaurant (the Sucking Calf in the place du Chatelet), and
+      sat in the same place, which the waiters kept for him. He never gave five
+      minutes more time to the shop in the rue Saint Antoine than justly
+      belonged to it, and at half-past eight precisely he reached the Cafe
+      David, where he breakfasted and remained till eleven. There he listened to
+      political discussions, his arms crossed on his cane, his chin in his right
+      hand, never saying a word. The dame du comptoir, the only woman to whom he
+      ever spoke with pleasure, was the sole confidant of the little events of
+      his life, for his seat was close to her counter. He played dominoes, the
+      only game he was capable of understanding. When his partners did not
+      happen to be present, he usually went to sleep with his back against the
+      wainscot, holding a newspaper in his hand, the wooden file resting on the
+      marble of his table. He was interested in the buildings going up in Paris,
+      and spent his Sundays in walking about to examine them. He was often heard
+      to say, &ldquo;I saw the Louvre emerge from its rubbish; I saw the birth of the
+      place du Chatelet, the quai aux Fleurs and the Markets.&rdquo; He and his
+      brother, both born at Troyes, were sent in youth to serve their
+      apprenticeship in a government office. Their mother made herself notorious
+      by misconduct, and the two brothers had the grief of hearing of her death
+      in the hospital at Troyes, although they had frequently sent money for her
+      support. This event led them both not only to abjure marriage, but to feel
+      a horror of children; ill at ease with them, they feared them as others
+      fear madmen, and watched them with haggard eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the day when he first came to Paris Poiret junior had never gone
+      outside the city. He began at that time to keep a journal of his life, in
+      which he noted down all the striking events of his day. Du Bruel told him
+      that Lord Byron did the same thing. This likeness filled Poiret junior
+      with delight, and led him to buy the works of Lord Byron, translated by
+      Chastopalli, of which he did not understand a word. At the office he was
+      often seen in a melancholy attitude, as though absorbed in thought, when
+      in fact he was thinking of nothing at all. He did not know a single person
+      in the house where he lived, and always carried the keys of his apartment
+      about with him. On New-Year&rsquo;s day he went round and left his own cards on
+      all the clerks of the division. Bixiou took it into his head on one of the
+      hottest of dog-days to put a layer of lard under the lining of a certain
+      old hat which Poiret junior (he was, by the bye, fifty-two years old) had
+      worn for the last nine years. Bixiou, who had never seen any other hat on
+      Poiret&rsquo;s head, dreamed of it and declared he tasted it in his food; he
+      therefore resolved, in the interests of his digestion, to relieve the
+      bureau of the sight of that amorphous old hat. Poiret junior left the
+      office regularly at four o&rsquo;clock. As he walked along, the sun&rsquo;s rays
+      reflected from the pavements and walls produced a tropical heat; he felt
+      that his head was inundated,&mdash;he, who never perspired! Feeling that
+      he was ill, or on the point of being so, instead of going as usual to the
+      Sucking Calf he went home, drew out from his desk the journal of his life,
+      and recorded the fact in the following manner:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;To-day, July 3, 1823, overtaken by extraordinary perspiration, a
+  sign, perhaps, of the sweating-sickness, a malady which prevails
+  in Champagne. I am about to consult Doctor Haudry. The disease
+  first appeared as I reached the highest part of the quai des
+  Ecoles.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, having taken off his hat, he became aware that the mysterious
+      sweat had some cause independent of his own person. He wiped his face,
+      examined the hat, and could find nothing, for he did not venture to take
+      out the lining. All this he noted in his journal:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Carried my hat to the Sieur Tournan, hat-maker in the rue
+  Saint-Martin, for the reason that I suspect some unknown cause for
+  this perspiration, which, in that case, might not be perspiration,
+  but, possibly, the effect of something lately added, or formerly
+  done, to my hat.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Tournan at once informed his customer of the presence of a greasy
+      substance, obtained by the trying-out of the fat of a pig or sow. The next
+      day Poiret appeared at the office with another hat, lent by Monsieur
+      Tournan while a new one was making; but he did not sleep that night until
+      he had added the following sentence to the preceding entries in his
+      journal: &ldquo;It is asserted that my hat contained lard, the fat of a pig.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This inexplicable fact occupied the intellect of Poiret junior for the
+      space of two weeks; and he never knew how the phenomenon was produced. The
+      clerks told him tales of showers of frogs, and other dog-day wonders, also
+      the startling fact that an imprint of the head of Napoleon had been found
+      in the root of a young elm, with other eccentricities of natural history.
+      Vimeux informed him that one day his hat&mdash;his, Vimeux&rsquo;s&mdash;had
+      stained his forehead black, and that hat-makers were in the habit of using
+      drugs. After that Poiret paid many visits to Monsieur Tournan to inquire
+      into his methods of manufacture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Rabourdin bureau was a clerk who played the man of courage and
+      audacity, professed the opinions of the Left centre, and rebelled against
+      the tyrannies of Baudoyer as exercised upon what he called the unhappy
+      slaves of that office. His name was Fleury. He boldly subscribed to an
+      opposition newspaper, wore a gray hat with a broad brim, red bands on his
+      blue trousers, a blue waistcoat with gilt buttons, and a surtout coat
+      crossed over the breast like that of a quartermaster of gendarmerie.
+      Though unyielding in his opinions, he continued to be employed in the
+      service, all the while predicting a fatal end to a government which
+      persisted in upholding religion. He openly avowed his sympathy for
+      Napoleon, now that the death of that great man put an end to the laws
+      enacted against &ldquo;the partisans of the usurper.&rdquo; Fleury, ex-captain of a
+      regiment of the line under the Emperor, a tall, dark, handsome fellow, was
+      now, in addition to his civil-service post, box-keeper at the
+      Cirque-Olympique. Bixiou never ventured on tormenting Fleury, for the
+      rough trooper, who was a good shot and clever at fencing, seemed quite
+      capable of extreme brutality if provoked. An ardent subscriber to
+      &ldquo;Victoires et Conquetes,&rdquo; Fleury nevertheless refused to pay his
+      subscription, though he kept and read the copies, alleging that they
+      exceeded the number proposed in the prospectus. He adored Monsieur
+      Rabourdin, who had saved him from dismissal, and was even heard to say
+      that if any misfortune happened to the chief through anybody&rsquo;s fault he
+      would kill that person. Dutocq meanly courted Fleury because he feared
+      him. Fleury, crippled with debt, played many a trick on his creditors.
+      Expert in legal matters, he never signed a promissory note; and had
+      prudently attached his own salary under the names of fictitious creditors,
+      so that he was able to draw nearly the whole of it himself. He played
+      ecarte, was the life of evening parties, tossed off glasses of champagne
+      without wetting his lips, and knew all the songs of Beranger by heart. He
+      was proud of his full, sonorous voice. His three great admirations were
+      Napoleon, Bolivar, and Beranger. Foy, Lafitte, and Casimir Delavigne he
+      only esteemed. Fleury, as you will have guessed already, was a Southerner,
+      destined, no doubt, to become the responsible editor of a liberal journal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desroys, the mysterious clerk of the division, consorted with no one,
+      talked little, and hid his private life so carefully that no one knew
+      where he lived, nor who were his protectors, nor what were his means of
+      subsistence. Looking about them for the causes of this reserve, some of
+      his colleagues thought him a &ldquo;carbonaro,&rdquo; others an Orleanist; there were
+      others again who doubted whether to call him a spy or a man of solid
+      merit. Desroys was, however, simple and solely the son of a
+      &ldquo;Conventionel,&rdquo; who did not vote the king&rsquo;s death. Cold and prudent by
+      temperament, he had judged the world and ended by relying on no one but
+      himself. Republican in secret, an admirer of Paul-Louis Courier and a
+      friend of Michael Chrestien, he looked to time and public intelligence to
+      bring about the triumph of his opinions from end to end of Europe. He
+      dreamed of a new Germany and a new Italy. His heart swelled with that
+      dull, collective love which we must call humanitarianism, the eldest son
+      of deceased philanthropy, and which is to the divine catholic charity what
+      system is to art, or reasoning to deed. This conscientious puritan of
+      freedom, this apostle of an impossible equality, regretted keenly that his
+      poverty forced him to serve the government, and he made various efforts to
+      find a place elsewhere. Tall, lean, lanky, and solemn in appearance, like
+      a man who expects to be called some day to lay down his life for a cause,
+      he lived on a page of Volney, studied Saint-Just, and employed himself on
+      a vindication of Robespierre, whom he regarded as the successor of Jesus
+      Christ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last of the individuals belonging to these bureaus who merits a sketch
+      here is the little La Billardiere. Having, to his great misfortune, lost
+      his mother, and being under the protection of the minister, safe therefore
+      from the tyrannies of Baudoyer, and received in all the ministerial
+      salons, he was nevertheless detested by every one because of his
+      impertinence and conceit. The two chiefs were polite to him, but the
+      clerks held him at arm&rsquo;s length and prevented all companionship by means
+      of the extreme and grotesque politeness which they bestowed upon him. A
+      pretty youth of twenty-two, tall and slender, with the manners of an
+      Englishman, a dandy in dress, curled and perfumed, gloved and booted in
+      the latest fashion, and twirling an eyeglass, Benjamin de la Billardiere
+      thought himself a charming fellow and possessed all the vices of the world
+      with none of its graces. He was now looking forward impatiently to the
+      death of his father, that he might succeed to the title of baron. His
+      cards were printed &ldquo;le Chevalier de la Billardiere&rdquo; and on the wall of his
+      office hung, in a frame, his coat of arms (sable, two swords in saltire,
+      on a chief azure three mullets argent; with the motto; &ldquo;Toujours fidele&rdquo;).
+      Possessed with a mania for talking heraldry, he once asked the young
+      Vicomte de Portenduere why his arms were charged in a certain way, and
+      drew down upon himself the happy answer, &ldquo;I did not make them.&rdquo; He talked
+      of his devotion to the monarchy and the attentions the Dauphine paid him.
+      He stood very well with des Lupeaulx, whom he thought his friend, and they
+      often breakfasted together. Bixiou posed as his mentor, and hoped to rid
+      the division and France of the young fool by tempting him to excesses, and
+      openly avowed that intention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were the principal figures of La Billardiere&rsquo;s division of the
+      ministry, where also were other clerks of less account, who resembled more
+      or less those that are represented here. It is difficult even for an
+      observer to decide from the aspect of these strange personalities whether
+      the goose-quill tribe were becoming idiots from the effects of their
+      employment or whether they entered the service because they were natural
+      born fools. Possibly the making of them lies at the door of Nature and of
+      the government both. Nature, to a civil-service clerk is, in fact, the
+      sphere of the office; his horizon is bounded on all sides by green boxes;
+      to him, atmospheric changes are the air of the corridors, the masculine
+      exhalations contained in rooms without ventilators, the odor of paper,
+      pens, and ink; the soil he treads is a tiled pavement or a wooden floor,
+      strewn with a curious litter and moistened by the attendant&rsquo;s
+      watering-pot; his sky is the ceiling toward which he yawns; his element is
+      dust. Several distinguished doctors have remonstrated against the
+      influence of this second nature, both savage and civilized, on the moral
+      being vegetating in those dreadful pens called bureaus, where the sun
+      seldom penetrates, where thoughts are tied down to occupations like that
+      of horses who turn a crank and who, poor beasts, yawn distressingly and
+      die quickly. Rabourdin was, therefore, fully justified in seeking to
+      reform their present condition, by lessening their numbers and giving to
+      each a larger salary and far heavier work. Men are neither wearied nor
+      bored when doing great things. Under the present system government loses
+      fully four hours out of the nine which the clerks owe to the service,&mdash;hours
+      wasted, as we shall see, in conversations, in gossip, in disputes, and,
+      above all, in underhand intriguing. The reader must have haunted the
+      bureaus of the ministerial departments before he can realize how much
+      their petty and belittling life resembles that of seminaries. Wherever men
+      live collectively this likeness is obvious; in regiments, in law-courts,
+      you will find the elements of the school on a smaller or larger scale. The
+      government clerks, forced to be together for nine hours of the day, looked
+      upon their office as a sort of class-room where they had tasks to perform,
+      where the head of the bureau was no other than a schoolmaster, and where
+      the gratuities bestowed took the place of prizes given out to proteges,&mdash;a
+      place, moreover, where they teased and hated each other, and yet felt a
+      certain comradeship, colder than that of a regiment, which itself is less
+      hearty than that of seminaries. As a man advances in life he grows more
+      selfish; egoism develops, and relaxes all the secondary bonds of
+      affection. A government office is, in short, a microcosm of society, with
+      its oddities and hatreds, its envy and its cupidity, its determination to
+      push on, no matter who goes under, its frivolous gossip which gives so
+      many wounds, and its perpetual spying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. THE MACHINE IN MOTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the division of Monsieur de la Billardiere was in a state
+      of unusual excitement, resulting very naturally from the event which was
+      about to happen; for heads of divisions do not die every day, and there is
+      no insurance office where the chances of life and death are calculated
+      with more sagacity than in a government bureau. Self-interest stifles all
+      compassion, as it does in children, but the government service adds
+      hypocrisy to boot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerks of the bureau Baudoyer arrived at eight o&rsquo;clock in the morning,
+      whereas those of the bureau Rabourdin seldom appeared till nine,&mdash;a
+      circumstance which did not prevent the work in the latter office from
+      being more rapidly dispatched than that of the former. Dutocq had
+      important reasons for coming early on this particular morning. The
+      previous evening he had furtively entered the study where Sebastien was at
+      work, and had seen him copying some papers for Rabourdin; he concealed
+      himself until he saw Sebastien leave the premises without taking any
+      papers away with him. Certain, therefore, of finding the rather voluminous
+      memorandum which he had seen, together with its copy, in some corner of
+      the study, he searched through the boxes one after another until he
+      finally came upon the fatal list. He carried it in hot haste to an
+      autograph-printing house, where he obtained two pressed copies of the
+      memorandum, showing, of course, Rabourdin&rsquo;s own writing. Anxious not to
+      arouse suspicion, he had gone very early to the office and replaced both
+      the memorandum and Sebastien&rsquo;s copy in the box from which he had taken
+      them. Sebastien, who was kept up till after midnight at Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s
+      party, was, in spite of his desire to get to the office early, preceded by
+      the spirit of hatred. Hatred lived in the rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore,
+      whereas love and devotion lived far-off in the rue du Roi-Dore in the
+      Marais. This slight delay was destined to affect Rabourdin&rsquo;s whole career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sebastien opened his box eagerly, found the memorandum and his own
+      unfinished copy all in order, and locked them at once into the desk as
+      Rabourdin had directed. The mornings are dark in these offices towards the
+      end of December, sometimes indeed the lamps are lit till after ten
+      o&rsquo;clock; consequently Sebastien did not happen to notice the pressure of
+      the copying-machine upon the paper. But when, about half-past nine
+      o&rsquo;clock, Rabourdin looked at his memorandum he saw at once the effects of
+      the copying process, and all the more readily because he was then
+      considering whether these autographic presses could not be made to do the
+      work of copying clerks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did any one get to the office before you?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Sebastien,&mdash;&ldquo;Monsieur Dutocq.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! well, he was punctual. Send Antoine to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Too noble to distress Sebastien uselessly by blaming him for a misfortune
+      now beyond remedy, Rabourdin said no more. Antoine came. Rabourdin asked
+      if any clerk had remained at the office after four o&rsquo;clock the previous
+      evening. The man replied that Monsieur Dutocq had worked there later than
+      Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually the last to leave. Rabourdin
+      dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the thread of his reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twice I have prevented his dismissal,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;and this is
+      my reward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which great
+      commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances. Knowing the spirit
+      of official life better than any one, he well knew that it would never
+      pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the army pardon, what
+      looked like espionage or tale-bearing. A man capable of informing against
+      his comrades is disgraced, dishonored, despised; the ministers in such a
+      case would disavow their own agents. Nothing was left to an official so
+      placed but to send in his resignation and leave Paris; his honor is
+      permanently stained; explanations are of no avail; no one will either ask
+      for them or listen to them. A minister may well do the same thing and be
+      thought a great man, able to choose the right instruments; but a mere
+      subordinate will be judged as a spy, no matter what may be his motives.
+      While justly measuring the folly of such judgment, Rabourdin knew that it
+      was all-powerful; and he knew, too, that he was crushed. More surprised
+      than overwhelmed, he now sought for the best course to follow under the
+      circumstances; and with such thoughts in his mind he was necessarily aloof
+      from the excitement caused in the division by the death of Monsieur de la
+      Billardiere; in fact he did not hear of it until young La Briere, who was
+      able to appreciate his sterling value, came to tell him. About ten
+      o&rsquo;clock, in the bureau Baudoyer, Bixiou was relating the last moments of
+      the life of the director to Minard, Desroys, Monsieur Godard, whom he had
+      called from his private office, and Dutocq, who had rushed in with private
+      motives of his own. Colleville and Chazelle were absent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [standing with his back to the stove and holding up the sole of
+      each boot alternately to dry at the open door]. &ldquo;This morning, at
+      half-past seven, I went to inquire after our most worthy and respectable
+      director, knight of the order of Christ, et caetera, et caetera. Yes,
+      gentlemen, last night he was a being with twenty et caeteras, to-day he is
+      nothing, not even a government clerk. I asked all particulars of his
+      nurse. She told me that this morning at five o&rsquo;clock he became uneasy
+      about the royal family. He asked for the names of all the clerks who had
+      called to inquire after him; and then he said: &lsquo;Fill my snuff-box, give me
+      the newspaper, bring my spectacles, and change my ribbon of the Legion of
+      honor,&mdash;it is very dirty.&rsquo; I suppose you know he always wore his
+      orders in bed. He was fully conscious, retained his senses and all his
+      usual ideas. But, presto! ten minutes later the water rose, rose, rose and
+      flooded his chest; he knew he was dying for he felt the cysts break. At
+      that fatal moment he gave evident proof of his powerful mind and vast
+      intellect. Ah, we never rightly appreciated him! We used to laugh at him
+      and call him a booby&mdash;didn&rsquo;t you, Monsieur Godard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard. &ldquo;I? I always rated Monsieur de la Billardiere&rsquo;s talents higher
+      than the rest of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;You and he could understand each other!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t a bad man; he never harmed any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;To do harm you must do something, and he never did anything. If
+      it wasn&rsquo;t you who said he was a dolt, it must have been Minard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minard [shrugging his shoulders]. &ldquo;I!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Well, then it was you, Dutocq!&rdquo; [Dutocq made a vehement gesture
+      of denial.] &ldquo;Oh! very good, then it was nobody. Every one in this office
+      knew his intellect was herculean. Well, you were right. He ended, as I
+      have said, like the great man that he was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Desroys [impatiently]. &ldquo;Pray what did he do that was so great? he had the
+      weakness to confess himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Yes, monsieur, he received the holy sacraments. But do you know
+      what he did in order to receive them? He put on his uniform as
+      gentleman-in-ordinary of the Bedchamber, with all his orders, and had
+      himself powdered; they tied his queue (that poor queue!) with a fresh
+      ribbon. Now I say that none but a man of remarkable character would have
+      his queue tied with a fresh ribbon just as he was dying. There are eight
+      of us here, and I don&rsquo;t believe one among us is capable of such an act.
+      But that&rsquo;s not all; he said,&mdash;for you know all celebrated men make a
+      dying speech; he said,&mdash;stop now, what did he say? Ah! he said, &lsquo;I
+      must attire myself to meet the King of Heaven,&mdash;I, who have so often
+      dressed in my best for audience with the kings of earth.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s how
+      Monsieur de la Billardiere departed this life. He took upon himself to
+      justify the saying of Pythagoras, &lsquo;No man is known until he dies.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [rushing in]. &ldquo;Gentlemen, great news!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All. &ldquo;We know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;I defy you to know it! I have been hunting for it ever since
+      the accession of His Majesty to the thrones of France and of Navarre. Last
+      night I succeeded! but with what labor! Madame Colleville asked me what
+      was the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Do you think we have time to bother ourselves with your
+      intolerable anagrams when the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere has just
+      expired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Bixiou&rsquo;s nonsense! I have just come from Monsieur de
+      la Billardiere&rsquo;s; he is still living, though they expect him to die soon.&rdquo;
+       [Godard, indignant at the hoax, goes off grumbling.] &ldquo;Gentlemen! you would
+      never guess what extraordinary events are revealed by the anagram of this
+      sacramental sentence&rdquo; [he pulls out a piece of paper and reads], &ldquo;Charles
+      dix, par la grace de Dieu, roi de France et de Navarre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard [re-entering]. &ldquo;Tell what it is at once, and don&rsquo;t keep people
+      waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [triumphantly unfolding the rest of the paper]. &ldquo;Listen!
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;A H. V. il cedera;
+  De S. C. l. d. partira;
+  Eh nauf errera,
+  Decide a Gorix.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every letter is there!&rdquo; [He repeats it.] &ldquo;A Henry cinq cedera (his crown
+      of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that&rsquo;s an old French word for
+      skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like) errera&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown to
+      Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson, when
+      Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the Dauphin&rsquo;s
+      death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s Gorix, pray?&mdash;the name of a cat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [provoked]. &ldquo;It is the archaeological and lapidarial
+      abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it out in
+      Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or Hungary, or
+      it may be Austria&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why don&rsquo;t you set
+      it all to music and play it on the clarionet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. &ldquo;What utter nonsense!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don&rsquo;t take the
+      trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor Napoleon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard [irritated at Colleville&rsquo;s tone]. &ldquo;Monsieur Colleville, let me tell
+      you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by historians, but it is
+      extremely out of place to refer to him as such in a government office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [laughing]. &ldquo;Get an anagram out of that, my dear fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [angrily]. &ldquo;Let me tell you that if Napoleon Bonaparte had
+      studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he might
+      perhaps be Emperor still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;How do you make that out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [solemnly]. &ldquo;Napoleon Bonaparte.&mdash;No, appear not at Elba!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll lose your place for talking such nonsense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make it
+      hot for your minister.&rdquo; [Dead silence.] &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have you to know, Master
+      Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pass. Look here,&mdash;you,
+      yourself,&mdash;don&rsquo;t you marry, for there&rsquo;s &lsquo;coqu&rsquo; in your name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [interrupting]. &ldquo;And d, t, for de-testable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [without seeming angry]. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care, as long as it is only in my
+      name. Why don&rsquo;t you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it, &lsquo;Xavier
+      Rabourdin, chef du bureau&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;Bless you, so I have!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [mending his pen]. &ldquo;And what did you make of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;It comes out as follows: D&rsquo;abord reva bureaux, E-u,&mdash;(you
+      catch the meaning? et eut&mdash;and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies
+      that after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and got
+      rich elsewhere.&rdquo; [Repeats.] &ldquo;D&rsquo;abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;That IS queer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Try Isidore Baudoyer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [mysteriously]. &ldquo;I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t tell the other anagrams to any one
+      but Thuillier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll pay if you find it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won&rsquo;t be angry,
+      will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict. &lsquo;Isidore
+      Baudoyer&rsquo; anagrams into &lsquo;Ris d&rsquo;aboyeur d&rsquo;oie.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [petrified with amazement]. &ldquo;You stole it from me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [with dignity]. &ldquo;Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to believe
+      that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor&rsquo;s nonsense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand]. &ldquo;Gentlemen, I
+      request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such high
+      repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur Clergeot,
+      did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he heard the
+      noise you are making&rdquo; [passes into Monsieur Godard&rsquo;s room].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [in a low voice]. &ldquo;The watch-dog is very tame this morning;
+      there&rsquo;ll be a change of weather before night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. &ldquo;I have something I want to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [fingering Dutocq&rsquo;s waistcoat]. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve a pretty waistcoat, that
+      cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in my life.
+      That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de la Paix,&mdash;a
+      fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow, but
+      you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no man can be a
+      universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in deep mourning.
+      Don&rsquo;t you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur Rabourdin, Monsieur Baudoyer,
+      and the minister are all in woollen; so is the faubourg Saint-Germain.
+      There&rsquo;s no one here but Minard who doesn&rsquo;t wear woollen; he&rsquo;s afraid of
+      being taken for a sheep. That&rsquo;s the reason why he didn&rsquo;t put on mourning
+      for Louis XVIII.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      [During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in Godard&rsquo;s
+      room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer. &ldquo;Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are both with
+      him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If you want to do me
+      a signal service you will take a cab and go and let Madame Baudoyer know
+      what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can&rsquo;t leave his desk, nor I my
+      office. Put yourself at my wife&rsquo;s orders; do whatever she wishes. She has,
+      I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants to take certain steps
+      simultaneously.&rdquo; [The two functionaries go out together.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard. &ldquo;Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for the rest of
+      the day. You will take my place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. &ldquo;Consult me, if there is any necessity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;This time, La Billardiere is really dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [in Bixiou&rsquo;s ear]. &ldquo;Come outside a minute.&rdquo; [The two go into the
+      corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [whispering]. &ldquo;Listen. Now is the time for us to understand each
+      other and push our way. What would you say to your being made head of the
+      bureau, and I under you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. &ldquo;Come, come, don&rsquo;t talk nonsense!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere&rsquo;s place Rabourdin won&rsquo;t stay on
+      where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that if du Bruel
+      and you don&rsquo;t help him he will certainly be dismissed in a couple of
+      months. If I know arithmetic that will give three empty places for us to
+      fill&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Three places right under our noses, which will certainly be given
+      to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious fraud,&mdash;to Colleville
+      perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women end&mdash;in piety.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;No, to /you/, my dear fellow, if you will only, for once in your
+      life, use your wits logically.&rdquo; [He stopped as if to study the effect of
+      his adverb in Bixiou&rsquo;s face.] &ldquo;Come, let us play fair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [stolidly]. &ldquo;Let me see your game.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wish to be anything more than under-head-clerk. I know
+      myself perfectly well, and I know I haven&rsquo;t the ability, like you, to be
+      head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you the head of this
+      bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he has made his pile; and
+      as for me, I shall swim with the tide comfortably, under your protection,
+      till I can retire on a pension.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan which means
+      forcing the minister&rsquo;s hand and ejecting a man of talent? Between
+      ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge of the
+      division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that they talk of
+      putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness, that cube of
+      idiocy, Baudoyer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [consequentially]. &ldquo;My dear fellow, I am in a position to rouse the
+      whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted Fleury is to him?
+      Well, I can make Fleury despise him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Despised by Fleury!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Not a soul will stand by Rabourdin; the clerks will go in a body
+      and complain of him to the minister,&mdash;not only in our division, but
+      in all the divisions&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Forward, march! infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marines of the
+      guard! You rave, my good fellow! And I, what part am I to take in the
+      business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;You are to make a cutting caricature,&mdash;sharp enough to kill
+      a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;How much will you pay for it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;A hundred francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [to himself]. &ldquo;Then there is something in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [continuing]. &ldquo;You must represent Rabourdin dressed as a butcher
+      (make it a good likeness), find analogies between a kitchen and a bureau,
+      put a skewer in his hand, draw portraits of the principal clerks and stick
+      their heads on fowls, put them in a monstrous coop labelled &lsquo;Civil Service
+      executions&rsquo;; make him cutting the throat of one, and supposed to take the
+      others in turn. You can have geese and ducks with heads like ours,&mdash;you
+      understand! Baudoyer, for instance, he&rsquo;ll make an excellent
+      turkey-buzzard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Ris d&rsquo;aboyeur d&rsquo;oie!&rdquo; [He has watched Dutocq carefully for some
+      time.] &ldquo;Did you think of that yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Yes, I myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [to himself]. &ldquo;Do evil feelings bring men to the same result as
+      talents?&rdquo; [Aloud] &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll do it&rdquo; [Dutocq makes a motion of delight] &ldquo;&mdash;when&rdquo;
+       [full stop] &ldquo;&mdash;I know where I am and what I can rely on. If you don&rsquo;t
+      succeed I shall lose my place, and I must make a living. You are a curious
+      kind of innocent still, my dear colleague.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Well, you needn&rsquo;t make the lithograph till success is proved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you come out and tell me the whole truth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we will talk
+      about it later&rdquo; [goes off].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. &ldquo;That fish, for he&rsquo;s more a fish than a
+      bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head&mdash;I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t know
+      where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it would be
+      fun, more than fun&mdash;profit!&rdquo; [Returns to the office.] &ldquo;Gentlemen, I
+      announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really dead,&mdash;no
+      nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for our excellent chief
+      Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the deceased.&rdquo; [Minard, Desroys, and
+      Colleville raise their heads in amazement; they all lay down their pens,
+      and Colleville blows his nose.] &ldquo;Every one of us is to be promoted!
+      Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the very least. Minard may have my
+      place as chief clerk&mdash;why not? he is quite as dull as I am. Hey,
+      Minard, if you should get twenty-five hundred francs a-year your little
+      wife would be uncommonly pleased, and you could buy yourself a pair of
+      boots now and then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t get twenty-five hundred francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Monsieur Dutocq gets that in Rabourdin&rsquo;s office; why shouldn&rsquo;t I
+      get it this year? Monsieur Baudoyer gets it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;Only through the influence of Monsieur Saillard. No other
+      chief clerk gets that in any of the divisions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paulmier. &ldquo;Bah! Hasn&rsquo;t Monsieur Cochin three thousand? He succeeded
+      Monsieur Vavasseur, who served ten years under the Empire at four
+      thousand. His salary was dropped to three when the King first returned;
+      then to two thousand five hundred before Vavasseur died. But Monsieur
+      Cochin, who succeeded him, had influence enough to get the salary put back
+      to three thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;Monsieur Cochin signs E. A. L. Cochin (he is named
+      Emile-Adolphe-Lucian), which, when anagrammed, gives Cochineal. Now
+      observe, he&rsquo;s a partner in a druggist&rsquo;s business in the rue des Lombards,
+      the Maison Matifat, which made its fortune by that identical colonial
+      product.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer [entering]. &ldquo;Monsieur Chazelle, I see, is not here; you will be
+      good enough to say I asked for him, gentlemen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [who had hastily stuck a hat on Chazelle&rsquo;s chair when he heard
+      Baudoyer&rsquo;s step]. &ldquo;Excuse me, Monsieur, but Chazelle has gone to the
+      Rabourdins&rsquo; to make an inquiry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chazelle [entering with his hat on his head, and not seeing Baudoyer]. &ldquo;La
+      Billardiere is done for, gentlemen! Rabourdin is head of the division and
+      Master of petitions; he hasn&rsquo;t stolen /his/ promotion, that&rsquo;s very
+      certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer [to Chazelle]. &ldquo;You found that appointment in your second hat, I
+      presume&rdquo; [points to the hat on the chair]. &ldquo;This is the third time within
+      a month that you have come after nine o&rsquo;clock. If you continue the
+      practice you will get on&mdash;elsewhere.&rdquo; [To Bixiou, who is reading the
+      newspaper.] &ldquo;My dear Monsieur Bixiou, do pray leave the newspapers to
+      these gentlemen who are going to breakfast, and come into my office for
+      your orders for the day. I don&rsquo;t know what Monsieur Rabourdin wants with
+      Gabriel; he keeps him to do his private errands, I believe. I&rsquo;ve rung
+      three times and can&rsquo;t get him.&rdquo; [Baudoyer and Bixiou retire into the
+      private office.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chazelle. &ldquo;Damned unlucky!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paulmier [delighted to annoy Chazelle]. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you look about when
+      you came into the room? You might have seen the elephant, and the hat too;
+      they are big enough to be visible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chazelle [dismally]. &ldquo;Disgusting business! I don&rsquo;t see why we should be
+      treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and
+      sixty-five centimes a day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [entering]. &ldquo;Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for Rabourdin!&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      the cry in the division.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. &ldquo;Baudoyer can turn off me if he
+      likes, I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t care. In Paris there are a thousand ways of earning five
+      francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais de Justice, copying
+      briefs for the lawyers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paulmier [still prodding him]. &ldquo;It is very easy to say that; but a
+      government place is a government place, and that plucky Colleville, who
+      works like a galley-slave outside of this office, and who could earn, if
+      he lost his appointment, more than his salary, prefers to keep his place.
+      Who the devil is fool enough to give up his expectations?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chazelle [continuing his philippic]. &ldquo;You may not be, but I am! We have no
+      chances at all. Time was when nothing was more encouraging than a
+      civil-service career. So many men were in the army that there were not
+      enough for the government work; the maimed and the halt and the sick ones,
+      like Paulmier, and the near-sighted ones, all had their chance of a rapid
+      promotion. But now, ever since the Chamber invented what they called
+      special training, and the rules and regulations for civil-service
+      examiners, we are worse off than common soldiers. The poorest places are
+      at the mercy of a thousand mischances because we are now ruled by a
+      thousand sovereigns.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [returning]. &ldquo;Are you crazy, Chazelle? Where do you find a thousand
+      sovereigns?&mdash;not in your pocket, are they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chazelle. &ldquo;Count them up. There are four hundred over there at the end of
+      the pont de la Concorde (so called because it leads to the scene of
+      perpetual discord between the Right and Left of the Chamber); three
+      hundred more at the end of the rue de Tournon. The court, which ought to
+      count for the other three hundred, has seven hundred parts less power to
+      get a man appointed to a place under government than the Emperor Napoleon
+      had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;All of which signifies that in a country where there are three
+      powers you may bet a thousand to one that a government clerk who has no
+      influence but his own merits to advance him will remain in obscurity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [looking alternately at Chazelle and Fleury]. &ldquo;My sons, you have
+      yet to learn that in these days the worst state of life is the state of
+      belonging to the State.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Because it has a constitutional government.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;Gentlemen, gentlemen! no politics!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Fleury is right. Serving the State in these days is no longer
+      serving a prince who knew how to punish and reward. The State now is
+      /everybody/. Everybody of course cares for nobody. Serve everybody, and
+      you serve nobody. Nobody is interested in nobody; the government clerk
+      lives between two negations. The world has neither pity nor respect,
+      neither heart nor head; everybody forgets to-morrow the service of
+      yesterday. Now each one of you may be, like Monsieur Baudoyer, an
+      administrative genius, a Chateaubriand of reports, a Bossouet of
+      circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the gifted son of diplomatic
+      despatches; but I tell you there is a fatal law which interferes with all
+      administrative genius,&mdash;I mean the law of promotion by average. This
+      average is based on the statistics of promotion and the statistics of
+      mortality combined. It is very certain that on entering whichever section
+      of the Civil Service you please at the age of eighteen, you can&rsquo;t get
+      eighteen hundred francs a year till you reach the age of thirty. Now
+      there&rsquo;s no free and independent career in which, in the course of twelve
+      years, a young man who has gone through the grammar-school, been
+      vaccinated, is exempt from military service, and possesses all his
+      faculties (I don&rsquo;t mean transcendent ones) can&rsquo;t amass a capital of
+      forty-five thousand francs in centimes, which represents a permanent
+      income equal to our salaries, which are, after all, precarious. In twelve
+      years a grocer can earn enough to give him ten thousand francs a year; a
+      painter can daub a mile of canvas and be decorated with the Legion of
+      honor, or pose as a neglected genius. A literary man becomes professor of
+      something or other, or a journalist at a hundred francs for a thousand
+      lines; he writes &lsquo;feuilletons,&rsquo; or he gets into Saint-Pelagie for a
+      brilliant article that offends the Jesuits,&mdash;which of course is an
+      immense benefit to him and makes him a politician at once. Even a lazy
+      man, who does nothing but make debts, has time to marry a widow who pays
+      them; a priest finds time to become a bishop &lsquo;in partibus.&rsquo; A sober,
+      intelligent young fellow, who begins with a small capital as a
+      money-changer, soon buys a share in a broker&rsquo;s business; and, to go even
+      lower, a petty clerk becomes a notary, a rag-picker lays by two or three
+      thousand francs a year, and the poorest workmen often become
+      manufacturers; whereas, in the rotatory movement of this present
+      civilization, which mistakes perpetual division and redivision for
+      progress, an unhappy civil service clerk, like Chazelle for instance, is
+      forced to dine for twenty-two sous a meal, struggles with his tailor and
+      bootmaker, gets into debt, and is an absolute nothing; worse than that, he
+      becomes an idiot! Come, gentlemen, now&rsquo;s the time to make a stand! Let us
+      all give in our resignations! Fleury, Chazelle, fling yourselves into
+      other employments and become the great men you really are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chazelle [calmed down by Bixiou&rsquo;s allocution]. &ldquo;No, I thank you&rdquo; [general
+      laughter].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;You are wrong; in your situation I should try to get ahead of the
+      general-secretary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chazelle [uneasily]. &ldquo;What has he to do with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find out; do you suppose Baudoyer will overlook what
+      happened just now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Another piece of Bixiou&rsquo;s spite! You&rsquo;ve a queer fellow to deal
+      with in there. Now, Monsieur Rabourdin,&mdash;there&rsquo;s a man for you! He
+      put work on my table to-day that you couldn&rsquo;t get through within this
+      office in three days; well, he expects me to have it done by four o&rsquo;clock
+      to-day. But he is not always at my heels to hinder me from talking to my
+      friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer [appearing at the door]. &ldquo;Gentlemen, you will admit that if you
+      have the legal right to find fault with the chamber and the administration
+      you must at least do so elsewhere than in this office.&rdquo; [To Fleury.] &ldquo;What
+      are you doing here, monsieur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [insolently]. &ldquo;I came to tell these gentlemen that there was to be
+      a general turn-out. Du Bruel is sent for to the ministry, and Dutocq also.
+      Everybody is asking who will be appointed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer [retiring]. &ldquo;It is not your affair, sir; go back to your own
+      office, and do not disturb mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [in the doorway]. &ldquo;It would be a shameful injustice if Rabourdin
+      lost the place; I swear I&rsquo;d leave the service. Did you find that anagram,
+      papa Colleville?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;Yes, here it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [leaning over Colleville&rsquo;s desk]. &ldquo;Capital! famous! This is just
+      what will happen if the administration continues to play the hypocrite.&rdquo;
+       [He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is listening.] &ldquo;If the
+      government would frankly state its intentions without concealments of any
+      kind, the liberals would know what they had to deal with. An
+      administration which sets its best friends against itself, such men as
+      those of the &lsquo;Debats,&rsquo; Chateaubriand, and Royer-Collard, is only to be
+      pitied!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [after consulting his colleagues]. &ldquo;Come, Fleury, you&rsquo;re a good
+      fellow, but don&rsquo;t talk politics here; you don&rsquo;t know what harm you may do
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [dryly]. &ldquo;Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do by four
+      o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While this idle talk had been going on, des Lupeaulx was closeted in his
+      office with du Bruel, where, a little later, Dutocq joined them. Des
+      Lupeaulx had heard from his valet of La Billardiere&rsquo;s death, and wishing
+      to please the two ministers, he wanted an obituary article to appear in
+      the evening papers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, my dear du Bruel,&rdquo; said the semi-minister to the head-clerk
+      as he entered, and not inviting him to sit down. &ldquo;You have heard the news?
+      La Billardiere is dead. The ministers were both present when he received
+      the last sacraments. The worthy man strongly recommended Rabourdin, saying
+      he should die with less regret if he could know that his successor were
+      the man who had so constantly done his work. Death is a torture which
+      makes a man confess everything. The minister agreed the more readily
+      because his intention and that of the Council was to reward Monsieur
+      Rabourdin&rsquo;s numerous services. In fact, the Council of State needs his
+      experience. They say that young La Billardiere is to leave the division of
+      his father and go to the Commission of Seals; that&rsquo;s just the same as if
+      the King had made him a present of a hundred thousand francs,&mdash;the
+      place can always be sold. But I know the news will delight your division,
+      which will thus get rid of him. Du Bruel, we must get ten or a dozen lines
+      about the worthy late director into the papers; his Excellency will glance
+      them over,&mdash;he reads the papers. Do you know the particulars of old
+      La Billardiere&rsquo;s life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel made a sign in the negative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No?&rdquo; continued des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;Well then; he was mixed up in the affairs
+      of La Vendee, and he was one of the confidants of the late King. Like
+      Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine he always refused to hold communication with
+      the First Consul. He was a bit of a &lsquo;chouan&rsquo;; born in Brittany of a
+      parliamentary family, and ennobled by Louis XVIII. How old was he? never
+      mind about that; just say his loyalty was untarnished, his religion
+      enlightened,&mdash;the poor old fellow hated churches and never set foot
+      in one, but you had better make him out a &lsquo;pious vassal.&rsquo; Bring in,
+      gracefully, that he sang the song of Simeon at the accession of Charles X.
+      The Comte d&rsquo;Artois thought very highly of La Billardiere, for he
+      co-operated in the unfortunate affair of Quiberon and took the whole
+      responsibility on himself. You know about that, don&rsquo;t you? La Billardiere
+      defended the King in a printed pamphlet in reply to an impudent history of
+      the Revolution written by a journalist; you can allude to his loyalty and
+      devotion. But be very careful what you say; weigh your words, so that the
+      other newspapers can&rsquo;t laugh at us; and bring me the article when you&rsquo;ve
+      written it. Were you at Rabourdin&rsquo;s yesterday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, monseigneur,&rdquo; said du Bruel, &ldquo;Ah! beg pardon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No harm done,&rdquo; answered des Lupeaulx, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Rabourdin looked delightfully handsome,&rdquo; added du Bruel. &ldquo;There
+      are not two women like her in Paris. Some are as clever as she, but
+      there&rsquo;s not one so gracefully witty. Many women may even be handsomer, but
+      it would be hard to find one with such variety of beauty. Madame Rabourdin
+      is far superior to Madame Colleville,&rdquo; said the vaudevillist, remembering
+      des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s former affair. &ldquo;Flavie owes what she is to the men about
+      her, whereas Madame Rabourdin is all things in herself. It is wonderful
+      too what she knows; you can&rsquo;t tell secrets in Latin before /her/. If I had
+      such a wife, I know I should succeed in everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have more mind than an author ought to have,&rdquo; returned des Lupeaulx,
+      with a conceited air. Then he turned round and perceived Dutocq. &ldquo;Ah,
+      good-morning, Dutocq,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I sent for you to lend me your Charlet&mdash;if
+      you have the whole complete. Madame la comtesse knows nothing of Charlet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel retired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you come in without being summoned?&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, harshly,
+      when he and Dutocq were left alone. &ldquo;Is the State in danger that you must
+      come here at ten o&rsquo;clock in the morning, just as I am going to breakfast
+      with his Excellency?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it is, monsieur,&rdquo; said Dutocq, dryly. &ldquo;If I had had the honor to
+      see you earlier, you would probably have not been so willing to support
+      Monsieur Rabourdin, after reading his opinion of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq opened his coat, took a paper from the left-hand breast-pocket and
+      laid it on des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s desk, pointing to a marked passage. Then he went
+      to the door and slipped the bolt, fearing interruption. While he was thus
+      employed, the secretary-general read the opening sentence of the article,
+      which was as follows:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Monsieur des Lupeaulx. A government degrades itself by openly
+  employing such a man, whose real vocation is for police diplomacy.
+  He is fitted to deal with the political filibusters of other
+  cabinets, and it would be a pity therefore to employ him on our
+  internal detective police. He is above a common spy, for he is
+  able to understand a plan; he could skilfully carry through a dark
+  piece of work and cover his retreat safely.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx was succinctly analyzed in five or six such paragraphs,&mdash;the
+      essence, in fact, of the biographical portrait which we gave at the
+      beginning of this history. As he read the words the secretary felt that a
+      man stronger than himself sat in judgment on him; and he at once resolved
+      to examine the memorandum, which evidently reached far and high, without
+      allowing Dutocq to know his secret thoughts. He therefore showed a calm,
+      grave face when the spy returned to him. Des Lupeaulx, like lawyers,
+      magistrates, diplomatists, and all whose work obliges them to pry into the
+      human heart, was past being surprised at anything. Hardened in treachery
+      and in all the tricks and wiles of hatred, he could take a stab in the
+      back and not let his face tell of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you get hold of this paper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq related his good luck; des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s face as he listened expressed
+      no approbation; and the spy ended in terror an account which began
+      triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dutocq, you have put your finger between the bark and the tree,&rdquo; said the
+      secretary, coldly. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t want to make powerful enemies I advise
+      you to keep this paper a profound secret; it is a work of the utmost
+      importance and already well known to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, des Lupeaulx dismissed Dutocq by one of those glances that are
+      more expressive than words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! that scoundrel of a Rabourdin has put his finger in this!&rdquo; thought
+      Dutocq, alarmed on finding himself anticipated; &ldquo;he has reached the ear of
+      the administration, while I am left out in the cold. I shouldn&rsquo;t have
+      thought it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To all his other motives of aversion to Rabourdin he now added the
+      jealousy of one man to another man of the same calling,&mdash;a most
+      powerful ingredient in hatred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When des Lupeaulx was left alone, he dropped into a strange meditation.
+      What power was it of which Rabourdin was the instrument? Should he, des
+      Lupeaulx, use this singular document to destroy him, or should he keep it
+      as a weapon to succeed with the wife? The mystery that lay behind this
+      paper was all darkness to des Lupeaulx, who read with something akin to
+      terror page after page, in which the men of his acquaintance were judged
+      with unerring wisdom. He admired Rabourdin, though stabbed to his vitals
+      by what he said of him. The breakfast-hour suddenly cut short his
+      meditation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Excellency is waiting for you to come down,&rdquo; announced the minister&rsquo;s
+      footman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister always breakfasted with his wife and children and des
+      Lupeaulx, without the presence of servants. The morning meal affords the
+      only moment of privacy which public men can snatch from the current of
+      overwhelming business. Yet in spite of the precautions they take to keep
+      this hour for private intimacies and affections, a good many great and
+      little people manage to infringe upon it. Business itself will, as at this
+      moment, thrust itself in the way of their scanty comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty manoeuvres,&rdquo; began
+      the minister; &ldquo;and yet here, not ten minutes after La Billardiere&rsquo;s death,
+      he sends me this note by La Briere,&mdash;it is like a stage missive.
+      Look,&rdquo; said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a paper which he was
+      twirling in his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Too noble in mind to think for a moment of the shameful meaning La
+      Billardiere&rsquo;s death might lend to his letter, Rabourdin had not withdrawn
+      it from La Briere&rsquo;s hands after the news reached him. Des Lupeaulx read as
+      follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Monseigneur,&mdash;If twenty-three years of irreproachable services
+  may claim a favor, I entreat your Excellency to grant me an
+  audience this very day. My honor is involved in the matter of
+  which I desire to speak.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor man!&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, in a tone of compassion which confirmed the
+      minister in his error. &ldquo;We are alone; I advise you to see him now. You
+      have a meeting of the Council when the Chamber rises; moreover, your
+      Excellency has to reply to-day to the opposition; this is really the only
+      hour when you can receive him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx rose, called the servant, said a few words, and returned to
+      his seat. &ldquo;I have told them to bring him in at dessert,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like all other ministers under the Restoration, this particular minister
+      was a man without youth. The charter granted by Louis XVIII. had the
+      defect of tying the hands of the kings by compelling them to deliver the
+      destinies of the nation into the control of the middle-aged men of the
+      Chamber and the septuagenarians of the peerage; it robbed them of the
+      right to lay hands on a man of statesmanlike talent wherever they could
+      find him, no matter how young he was or how poverty-stricken his condition
+      might be. Napoleon alone was able to employ young men as he chose, without
+      being restrained by any consideration. After the overthrow of that mighty
+      will, vigor deserted power. Now the period when effeminacy succeeds to
+      vigor presents a contrast that is far more dangerous in France than in
+      other countries. As a general thing, ministers who were old before they
+      entered office have proved second or third rate, while those who were
+      taken young have been an honor to European monarchies and to the republics
+      whose affairs they have directed. The world still rings with the struggle
+      between Pitt and Napoleon, two men who conducted the politics of their
+      respective countries at an age when Henri de Navarre, Richelieu, Mazarin,
+      Colbert, Louvois, the Prince of Orange, the Guises, Machiavelli, in short,
+      all the best known of our great men, coming from the ranks or born to a
+      throne, began to rule the State. The Convention&mdash;that model of energy&mdash;was
+      made up in a great measure of young heads; no sovereign can ever forget
+      that it was able to put fourteen armies into the field against Europe. Its
+      policy, fatal in the eyes of those who cling to what is called absolute
+      power, was nevertheless dictated by strictly monarchical principles, and
+      it behaved itself like any of the great kings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After ten or a dozen years of parliamentary struggle, having studied the
+      science of politics until he was worn down by it, this particular minister
+      had come to be enthroned by his party, who considered him in the light of
+      their business man. Happily for him he was now nearer sixty than fifty
+      years of age; had he retained even a vestige of juvenile vigor he would
+      quickly have quenched it. But, accustomed to back and fill, retreat and
+      return to the charge, he was able to endure being struck at, turn and turn
+      about, by his own party, by the opposition, by the court, by the clergy,
+      because to all such attacks he opposed the inert force of a substance
+      which was equally soft and consistent; thus he reaped the benefits of what
+      was really his misfortune. Harassed by a thousand questions of government,
+      his mind, like that of an old lawyer who has tried every species of case,
+      no longer possessed the spring which solitary minds are able to retain,
+      nor that power of prompt decision which distinguishes men who are early
+      accustomed to action, and young soldiers. How could it be otherwise? He
+      had practised sophistries and quibbled instead of judging; he had
+      criticised effects and done nothing for causes; his head was full of plans
+      such as a political party lays upon the shoulders of a leader,&mdash;matters
+      of private interest brought to an orator supposed to have a future, a
+      jumble of schemes and impractical requests. Far from coming fresh to his
+      work, he was wearied out with marching and counter-marching, and when he
+      finally reached the much desired height of his present position, he found
+      himself in a thicket of thorny bushes with a thousand conflicting wills to
+      conciliate. If the statesmen of the Restoration had been allowed to follow
+      out their own ideas, their capacity would doubtless have been criticised;
+      but though their wills were often forced, their age saved them from
+      attempting the resistance which youth opposes to intrigues, both high and
+      low,&mdash;intrigues which vanquished Richelieu, and to which, in a lower
+      sphere, Rabourdin was to succumb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the rough and tumble of their first struggles in political life
+      these men, less old than aged, have to endure the additional wear and tear
+      of a ministry. Thus it is that their eyes begin to weaken just as they
+      need to have the clear-sightedness of eagles; their mind is weary when its
+      youth and fire need to be redoubled. The minister in whom Rabourdin sought
+      to confide was in the habit of listening to men of undoubted superiority
+      as they explained ingenious theories of government, applicable or
+      inapplicable to the affairs of France. Such men, by whom the difficulties
+      of national policy were never apprehended, were in the habit of attacking
+      this minister personally whenever a parliamentary battle or a contest with
+      the secret follies of the court took place,&mdash;on the eve of a struggle
+      with the popular mind, or on the morrow of a diplomatic discussion which
+      divided the Council into three separate parties. Caught in such a
+      predicament, a statesman naturally keeps a yawn ready for the first
+      sentence designed to show him how the public service could be better
+      managed. At such periods not a dinner took place among bold schemers or
+      financial and political lobbyists where the opinions of the Bourse and the
+      Bank, the secrets of diplomacy, and the policy necessitated by the state
+      of affairs in Europe were not canvassed and discussed. The minister has
+      his own private councillors in des Lupeaulx and his secretary, who
+      collected and pondered all opinions and discussions for the purpose of
+      analyzing and controlling the various interests proclaimed and supported
+      by so many clever men. In fact, his misfortune was that of most other
+      ministers who have passed the prime of life; he trimmed and shuffled under
+      all his difficulties,&mdash;with journalism, which at this period it was
+      thought advisable to repress in an underhand way rather than fight openly;
+      with financial as well as labor questions; with the clergy as well as with
+      that other question of the public lands; with liberalism as with the
+      Chamber. After manoeuvering his way to power in the course of seven years,
+      the minister believed that he could manage all questions of administration
+      in the same way. It is so natural to think we can maintain a position by
+      the same methods which served us to reach it that no one ventured to blame
+      a system invented by mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The
+      Restoration, like the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes
+      the true value of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is
+      wanting. The last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the
+      Restoration was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries
+      employed the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies, and
+      let loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the
+      unintelligent masses, able only to understand revolt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin told himself all these things. But he had made up his mind to
+      win or lose, like a man weary of gambling who allows himself a last stake;
+      ill-luck had given him as adversary in the game a sharper like des
+      Lupeaulx. With all his sagacity, Rabourdin was better versed in matters of
+      administration than in parliamentary optics, and he was far indeed from
+      imagining how his confidence would be received; he little thought that the
+      great work that filled his mind would seem to the minister nothing more
+      than a theory, and that a man who held the position of a statesman would
+      confound his reform with the schemes of political and self-interested
+      talkers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the minister rose from table, thinking of Francois Keller, his wife
+      detained him with the offer of a bunch of grapes, and at that moment
+      Rabourdin was announced. Des Lupeaulx had counted on the minister&rsquo;s
+      preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the moment
+      occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to meet
+      Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low tone of
+      voice:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Excellency and I know what the subject is that occupies your mind;
+      you have nothing to fear&rdquo;; then, raising his voice, he added, &ldquo;neither
+      from Dutocq nor from any one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t feel uneasy, Rabourdin,&rdquo; said his Excellency, kindly, but making a
+      movement to get away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin came forward respectfully, and the minister could not evade him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will your Excellency permit me to see you for a moment in private?&rdquo; he
+      said, with a mysterious glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister looked at the clock and went towards the window, whither the
+      poor man followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When may I have the honor of submitting the matter of which I spoke to
+      your Excellency? I desire to fully explain the plan of administration to
+      which the paper that was taken belongs&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plan of administration!&rdquo; exclaimed the minister, frowning, and hurriedly
+      interrupting him. &ldquo;If you have anything of that kind to communicate you
+      must wait for the regular day when we do business together. I ought to be
+      at the Council now; and I have an answer to make to the Chamber on that
+      point which the opposition raised before the session ended yesterday. Your
+      day is Wednesday next; I could not work yesterday, for I had other things
+      to attend to; political matters are apt to interfere with purely
+      administrative ones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I place my honor with all confidence in your Excellency&rsquo;s hands,&rdquo; said
+      Rabourdin gravely, &ldquo;and I entreat you to remember that you have not
+      allowed me time to give you an immediate explanation of the stolen paper&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be uneasy,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, interposing between the minister and
+      Rabourdin, whom he thus interrupted; &ldquo;in another week you will probably be
+      appointed&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister smiled as he thought of des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s enthusiasm for Madame
+      Rabourdin, and he glanced knowingly at his wife. Rabourdin saw the look,
+      and tried to imagine its meaning; his attention was diverted for a moment,
+      and his Excellency took advantage of the fact to make his escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will talk of all this, you and I,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, with whom
+      Rabourdin, much to his surprise, now found himself alone. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be angry
+      with Dutocq; I&rsquo;ll answer for his discretion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Rabourdin is charming,&rdquo; said the minister&rsquo;s wife, wishing to say
+      the civil thing to the head of a bureau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The children all gazed at Rabourdin with curiosity. The poor man had come
+      there expecting some serious, even solemn, result, and he was like a great
+      fish caught in the threads of a flimsy net; he struggled with himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame la comtesse is very good,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Madame here some Wednesday?&rdquo; said
+      the countess. &ldquo;Pray bring her; it will give me pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Rabourdin herself receives on Wednesdays,&rdquo; interrupted des
+      Lupeaulx, who knew the empty civility of an invitation to the official
+      Wednesdays; &ldquo;but since you are so kind as to wish for her, you will soon
+      give one of your private parties, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The countess rose with some irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the master of my ceremonies,&rdquo; she said to des Lupeaulx,&mdash;ambiguous
+      words, by which she expressed the annoyance she felt with the secretary
+      for presuming to interfere with her private parties, to which she admitted
+      only a select few. She left the room without bowing to Rabourdin, who
+      remained alone with des Lupeaulx; the latter was twisting in his fingers
+      the confidential letter to the minister which Rabourdin had intrusted to
+      La Briere. Rabourdin recognized it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have never really known me,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;Friday evening we
+      will come to a full understanding. Just now I must go and receive callers;
+      his Excellency saddles me with that burden when he has other matters to
+      attend to. But I repeat, Rabourdin, don&rsquo;t worry yourself; you have nothing
+      to fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin walked slowly through the corridors, amazed and confounded by
+      this singular turn of events. He had expected Dutocq to denounce him, and
+      found he had not been mistaken; des Lupeaulx had certainly seen the
+      document which judged him so severely, and yet des Lupeaulx was fawning on
+      his judge! It was all incomprehensible. Men of upright minds are often at
+      a loss to understand complicated intrigues, and Rabourdin was lost in a
+      maze of conjecture without being able to discover the object of the game
+      which the secretary was playing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Either he has not read the part about himself, or he loves my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were the two thoughts to which his mind arrived as he crossed the
+      courtyard; for the glance he had intercepted the night before between des
+      Lupeaulx and Celestine came back to his memory like a flash of lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. THE WORMS AT WORK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin&rsquo;s bureau was during his absence a prey to the keenest
+      excitement; for the relation between the head officials and the clerks in
+      a government office is so regulated that, when a minister&rsquo;s messenger
+      summons the head of a bureau to his Excellency&rsquo;s presence (above all at
+      the latter&rsquo;s breakfast hour), there is no end to the comments that are
+      made. The fact that the present unusual summons followed so closely on the
+      death of Monsieur de la Billardiere seemed to give special importance to
+      the circumstance, which was made known to Monsieur Saillard, who came at
+      once to confer with Baudoyer. Bixiou, who happened at the moment to be at
+      work with the latter, left him to converse with his father-in-law and
+      betook himself to the bureau Rabourdin, where the usual routine was of
+      course interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [entering]. &ldquo;I thought I should find you at a white heat! Don&rsquo;t you
+      know what&rsquo;s going on down below? The virtuous woman is done for! yes, done
+      for, crushed! Terrible scene at the ministry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [looking fixedly at him]. &ldquo;Are you telling the truth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Pray, who would regret it? Not you, certainly, for you will be
+      made under-head-clerk and du Bruel head of the bureau. Monsieur Baudoyer
+      gets the division.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bet a hundred francs that Baudoyer will never be head of the
+      division.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll join in the bet; will you, Monsieur Poiret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;I retire in January.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Is it possible? are we to lose the sight of those shoe-ties? What
+      will the ministry be without you? Will nobody take up the bet on my side?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t, for I know the facts. Monsieur Rabourdin is appointed.
+      Monsieur de la Billardiere requested it of the two ministers on his
+      death-bed, blaming himself for having taken the emoluments of an office of
+      which Rabourdin did all the work; he felt remorse of conscience, and the
+      ministers, to quiet him, promised to appoint Rabourdin unless higher
+      powers intervened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Gentlemen, are you all against me? seven to one,&mdash;for I know
+      which side you&rsquo;ll take, Monsieur Phellion. Well, I&rsquo;ll bet a dinner costing
+      five hundred francs at the Rocher de Cancale that Rabourdin does not get
+      La Billardiere&rsquo;s place. That will cost you only a hundred francs each, and
+      I&rsquo;m risking five hundred,&mdash;five to one against me! Do you take it
+      up?&rdquo; [Shouting into the next room.] &ldquo;Du Bruel, what say you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [laying down his pen]. &ldquo;Monsieur, may I ask on what you base that
+      contingent proposal?&mdash;for contingent it is. But stay, I am wrong to
+      call it a proposal; I should say contract. A wager constitutes a
+      contract.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;No, no; you can only apply the word &lsquo;contract&rsquo; to agreements that
+      are recognized in the Code. Now the Code allows of no action for the
+      recovery of a bet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Proscribe a thing and you recognize it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Good! my little man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;True! when one refuses to pay one&rsquo;s debts, that&rsquo;s recognizing
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;You would make famous lawyers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;I am as curious as Monsieur Phellion to know what grounds
+      Monsieur Bixiou has for&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [shouting across the office]. &ldquo;Du Bruel! Will you bet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel [appearing at the door]. &ldquo;Heavens and earth, gentlemen, I&rsquo;m very
+      busy; I have something very difficult to do; I&rsquo;ve got to write an obituary
+      notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere. I do beg you to be quiet; you can
+      laugh and bet afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true, du Bruel; the praise of an honest man is a very
+      difficult thing to write. I&rsquo;d rather any day draw a caricature of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;Do come and help me, Bixiou.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [following him]. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m willing; though I can do such things much
+      better when eating.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;Well, we will go and dine together afterwards. But listen, this
+      is what I have written&rdquo; [reads] &ldquo;&lsquo;The Church and the Monarchy are daily
+      losing many of those who fought for them in Revolutionary times.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Bad, very bad; why don&rsquo;t you say, &lsquo;Death carries on its ravages
+      amongst the few surviving defenders of the monarchy and the old and
+      faithful servants of the King, whose heart bleeds under these reiterated
+      blows?&rsquo;&rdquo; [Du Bruel writes rapidly.] &ldquo;&lsquo;Monsieur le Baron Flamet de la
+      Billardiere died this morning of dropsy, caused by heart disease.&rsquo; You
+      see, it is just as well to show there are hearts in government offices;
+      and you ought to slip in a little flummery about the emotions of the
+      Royalists during the Terror,&mdash;might be useful, hey! But stay,&mdash;no!
+      the petty papers would be sure to say the emotions came more from the
+      stomach than the heart. Better leave that out. What are you writing now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel [reading]. &ldquo;&lsquo;Issuing from an old parliamentary stock in which
+      devotion to the throne was hereditary, as was also attachment to the faith
+      of our fathers, Monsieur de la Billardiere&mdash;&lsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Better say Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;But he wasn&rsquo;t baron in 1793.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;No matter. Don&rsquo;t you remember that under the Empire Fouche was
+      telling an anecdote about the Convention, in which he had to quote
+      Robespierre, and he said, &lsquo;Robespierre called out to me, &ldquo;Duc d&rsquo;Otrante,
+      go to the Hotel de Ville.&rdquo;&rsquo; There&rsquo;s a precedent for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;Let me just write that down; I can use it in a vaudeville.&mdash;But
+      to go back to what we were saying. I don&rsquo;t want to put &lsquo;Monsieur le
+      baron,&rsquo; because I am reserving his honors till the last, when they rained
+      upon him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Oh! very good; that&rsquo;s theatrical,&mdash;the finale of the
+      article.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel [continuing]. &ldquo;&lsquo;In appointing Monsieur de la Billardiere
+      gentleman-in-ordinary&mdash;&lsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Very ordinary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;&lsquo;&mdash;of the Bedchamber, the King rewarded not only the
+      services rendered by the Provost, who knew how to harmonize the severity
+      of his functions with the customary urbanity of the Bourbons, but the
+      bravery of the Vendean hero, who never bent the knee to the imperial idol.
+      He leaves a son, who inherits his loyalty and his talents.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think all that is a little too florid? I should tone
+      down the poetry. &lsquo;Imperial idol!&rsquo; &lsquo;bent the knee!&rsquo; damn it, my dear
+      fellow, writing vaudevilles has ruined your style; you can&rsquo;t come down to
+      pedestrial prose. I should say, &lsquo;He belonged to the small number of those
+      who.&rsquo; Simplify, simplify! the man himself was a simpleton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s vaudeville, if you like! You would make your fortune at
+      the theatre, Bixiou.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;What have you said about Quiberon?&rdquo; [Reads over du Bruel&rsquo;s
+      shoulder.] &ldquo;Oh, that won&rsquo;t do! Here, this is what you must say: &lsquo;He took
+      upon himself, in a book recently published, the responsibility for all the
+      blunders of the expedition to Quiberon,&mdash;thus proving the nature of
+      his loyalty, which did not shrink from any sacrifice.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s clever and
+      witty, and exalts La Billardiere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;At whose expense?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [solemn as a priest in a pulpit]. &ldquo;Why, Hoche and Tallien, of
+      course; don&rsquo;t you read history?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;No. I subscribed to the Baudouin series, but I&rsquo;ve never had
+      time to open a volume; one can&rsquo;t find matter for vaudevilles there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [at the door]. &ldquo;We all want to know, Monsieur Bixiou, what made
+      you think that the worthy and honorable Monsieur Rabourdin, who has so
+      long done the work of this division for Monsieur de la Billardiere,&mdash;he,
+      who is the senior head of all the bureaus, and whom, moreover, the
+      minister summoned as soon as he heard of the departure of the late
+      Monsieur de la Billardiere,&mdash;will not be appointed head of the
+      division.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Papa Phellion, you know geography?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [bridling up]. &ldquo;I should say so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;And history?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [affecting modesty]. &ldquo;Possibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [looking fixedly at him]. &ldquo;Your diamond pin is loose, it is coming
+      out. Well, you may know all that, but you don&rsquo;t know the human heart; you
+      have gone no further in the geography and history of that organ than you
+      have in the environs of the city of Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [to Vimeux]. &ldquo;Environs of Paris? I thought they were talking of
+      Monsieur Rabourdin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;About that bet? Does the entire bureau Rabourdin bet against me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All. &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Du Bruel, do you count in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;Of course I do. We want Rabourdin to go up a step and make room
+      for others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Well, I accept the bet,&mdash;for this reason; you can hardly
+      understand it, but I&rsquo;ll tell it to you all the same. It would be right and
+      just to appoint Monsieur Rabourdin&rdquo; [looking full at Dutocq], &ldquo;because, in
+      that case, long and faithful service, honor, and talent would be
+      recognized, appreciated, and properly rewarded. Such an appointment is in
+      the best interests of the administration.&rdquo; [Phellion, Poiret, and
+      Thuillier listen stupidly, with the look of those who try to peer before
+      them in the darkness.] &ldquo;Well, it is just because the promotion would be so
+      fitting, and because the man has such merit, and because the measure is so
+      eminently wise and equitable that I bet Rabourdin will not be appointed.
+      Yes, you&rsquo;ll see, that appointment will slip up, just like the invasion
+      from Boulogne, and the march to Russia, for the success of which a great
+      genius has gathered together all the chances. It will fail as all good and
+      just things do fail in this low world. I am only backing the devil&rsquo;s
+      game.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;Who do you think will be appointed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;The more I think about Baudoyer, the more sure I feel that he
+      unites all the opposite qualities; therefore I think he will be the next
+      head of this division.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;But Monsieur des Lupeaulx, who sent for me to borrow my Charlet,
+      told me positively that Monsieur Rabourdin was appointed, and that the
+      little La Billardiere would be made Clerk of the Seals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Appointed, indeed! The appointment can&rsquo;t be made and signed under
+      ten days. It will certainly not be known before New-Year&rsquo;s day. There he
+      goes now across the courtyard; look at him, and say if the virtuous
+      Rabourdin looks like a man in the sunshine of favor. I should say he knows
+      he&rsquo;s dismissed.&rdquo; [Fleury rushes to the window.] &ldquo;Gentlemen, adieu; I&rsquo;ll go
+      and tell Monsieur Baudoyer that I hear from you that Rabourdin is
+      appointed; it will make him furious, the pious creature! Then I&rsquo;ll tell
+      him of our wager, to cool him down,&mdash;a process we call at the theatre
+      turning the Wheel of Fortune, don&rsquo;t we, du Bruel? Why do I care who gets
+      the place? simply because if Baudoyer does he will make me
+      under-head-clerk&rdquo; [goes out].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Everybody says that man is clever, but as for me, I can never
+      understand a word he says&rdquo; [goes on copying]. &ldquo;I listen and listen; I hear
+      words, but I never get at any meaning; he talks about the environs of
+      Paris when he discusses the human heart and&rdquo; [lays down his pen and goes
+      to the stove] &ldquo;declares he backs the devil&rsquo;s game when it is a question of
+      Russia and Boulogne; now what is there so clever in that, I&rsquo;d like to
+      know? We must first admit that the devil plays any game at all, and then
+      find out what game; possibly dominoes&rdquo; [blows his nose].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [interrupting]. &ldquo;Pere Poiret is blowing his nose; it must be eleven
+      o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;So it is! Goodness! I&rsquo;m off to the secretary; he wants to read
+      the obituary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;What was I saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;Dominoes,&mdash;perhaps the devil plays dominoes.&rdquo; [Sebastien
+      enters to gather up the different papers and circulars for signature.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;Ah! there you are, my fine young man. Your days of hardship are
+      nearly over; you&rsquo;ll get a post. Monsieur Rabourdin will be appointed.
+      Weren&rsquo;t you at Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s last night? Lucky fellow! they say that
+      really superb women go there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sebastien. &ldquo;Do they? I didn&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Are you blind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sebastien. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to look at what I ought not to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [delighted]. &ldquo;Well said, young man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;The devil! well, you looked at Madame Rabourdin enough, any how;
+      a charming woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Pooh! thin as a rail. I saw her in the Tuileries, and I much
+      prefer Percilliee, the ballet-mistress, Castaing&rsquo;s victim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;What has an actress to do with the wife of a government
+      official?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;They both play comedy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [looking askance at Dutocq]. &ldquo;The physical has nothing to do with
+      the moral, and if you mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;I mean nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Do you all want to know which of us will really be made head of
+      this bureau?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All. &ldquo;Yes, tell us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Colleville.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Because Madame Colleville has taken the shortest way to it&mdash;through
+      the sacristy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;I am too much Colleville&rsquo;s friend not to beg you, Monsieur
+      Fleury, to speak respectfully of his wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;A defenceless woman should never be made the subject of
+      conversation here&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;All the more because the charming Madame Colleville won&rsquo;t invite
+      Fleury to her house. He backbites her in revenge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;She may not receive me on the same footing that she does
+      Thuillier, but I go there&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;When? how?&mdash;under her windows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Fleury was dreaded as a bully in all the offices, he received
+      Thuillier&rsquo;s speech in silence. This meekness, which surprised the other
+      clerks, was owing to a certain note for two hundred francs, of doubtful
+      value, which Thuillier agreed to pass over to his sister. After this
+      skirmish dead silence prevailed. They all wrote steadily from one to three
+      o&rsquo;clock. Du Bruel did not return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About half-past three the usual preparations for departure, the brushing
+      of hats, the changing of coats, went on in all the ministerial offices.
+      That precious thirty minutes thus employed served to shorten by just so
+      much the day&rsquo;s labor. At this hour the over-heated rooms cool off; the
+      peculiar odor that hangs about the bureaus evaporates; silence is
+      restored. By four o&rsquo;clock none but a few clerks who do their duty
+      conscientiously remain. A minister may know who are the real workers under
+      him if he will take the trouble to walk through the divisions after four
+      o&rsquo;clock,&mdash;a species of prying, however, that no one of his dignity
+      would condescend to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The various heads of divisions and bureaus usually encountered each other
+      in the courtyards at this hour and exchanged opinions on the events of the
+      day. On this occasion they departed by twos and threes, most of them
+      agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old stagers, like Monsieur
+      Clergeot, shook their heads and said, &ldquo;Habent sua sidera lites.&rdquo; Saillard
+      and Baudoyer were politely avoided, for nobody knew what to say to them
+      about La Billardiere&rsquo;s death, it being fully understood that Baudoyer
+      wanted the place, though it was certainly not due to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Saillard and his son-in-law had gone a certain distance from the
+      ministry the former broke silence and said: &ldquo;Things look badly for you, my
+      poor Baudoyer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t understand,&rdquo; replied the other, &ldquo;what Elisabeth was dreaming of
+      when she sent Godard in such a hurry to get a passport for Falleix; Godard
+      tells me she hired a post-chaise by the advice of my uncle Mitral, and
+      that Falleix has already started for his own part of the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some matter connected with our business,&rdquo; suggested Saillard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our most pressing business just now is to look after Monsieur La
+      Billardiere&rsquo;s place,&rdquo; returned Baudoyer, crossly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were just then near the entrance of the Palais-Royal on the rue
+      Saint-Honore. Dutocq came up, bowing, and joined them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; he said to Baudoyer, &ldquo;if I can be useful to you in any way
+      under the circumstances in which you find yourself, pray command me, for I
+      am not less devoted to your interests than Monsieur Godard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such an assurance is at least consoling,&rdquo; replied Baudoyer; &ldquo;it makes me
+      aware that I have the confidence of honest men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would kindly employ your influence to get me placed in your
+      division, taking Bixiou as head of the bureau and me as under-head-clerk,
+      you will secure the future of two men who are ready to do anything for
+      your advancement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you making fun of us, monsieur?&rdquo; asked Saillard, staring at him
+      stupidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Far be it from me to do that,&rdquo; said Dutocq. &ldquo;I have just come from the
+      printing-office of the ministerial journal (where I carried from the
+      general-secretary an obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere), and I
+      there read an article which will appear to-night about you, which has
+      given me the highest opinion of your character and talents. If it is
+      necessary to crush Rabourdin, I&rsquo;m in a position to give him the final
+      blow; please to remember that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I be shot if I understand a single word of it,&rdquo; said Saillard,
+      looking at Baudoyer, whose little eyes were expressive of stupid
+      bewilderment. &ldquo;I must buy the newspaper to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the two reached home and entered the salon on the ground-floor, they
+      found a large fire lighted, and Madame Saillard, Elisabeth, Monsieur
+      Gaudron and the curate of Saint-Paul&rsquo;s sitting by it. The curate turned at
+      once to Monsieur Baudoyer, to whom Elisabeth made a sign which he failed
+      to understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; said the curate, &ldquo;I have lost no time in coming in person to
+      thank you for the magnificent gift with which you have adorned my poor
+      church. I dared not run in debt to buy that beautiful monstrance, worthy
+      of a cathedral. You, who are one of our most pious and faithful
+      parishioners, must have keenly felt the bareness of the high altar. I am
+      on my way to see Monseigneur the coadjutor, and he will, I am sure, send
+      you his own thanks later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done nothing as yet&mdash;&rdquo; began Baudoyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur le cure,&rdquo; interposed his wife, cutting him short. &ldquo;I see I am
+      forced to betray the whole secret. Monsieur Baudoyer hopes to complete the
+      gift by sending you a dais for the coming Fete-Dieu. But the purchase must
+      depend on the state of our finances, and our finances depend on my
+      husband&rsquo;s promotion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God will reward those who honor him,&rdquo; said Monsieur Gaudron, preparing,
+      with the curate, to take leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But will you not,&rdquo; said Saillard to the two ecclesiastics, &ldquo;do us the
+      honor to take pot luck with us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can stay, my dear vicar,&rdquo; said the curate to Gaudron; &ldquo;you know I am
+      engaged to dine with the curate of Saint-Roch, who, by the bye, is to bury
+      Monsieur de la Billardiere to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur le cure de Saint-Roch might say a word for us,&rdquo; began Baudoyer.
+      His wife pulled the skirt of his coat violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do hold your tongue, Baudoyer,&rdquo; she said, leading him aside and
+      whispering in his ear. &ldquo;You have given a monstrance to the church, that
+      cost five thousand francs. I&rsquo;ll explain it all later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The miserly Baudoyer make a sulky grimace, and continued gloomy and cross
+      for the rest of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you busy yourself about Falleix&rsquo;s passport for? Why do you
+      meddle in other people&rsquo;s affairs?&rdquo; he presently asked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must say, I think Falleix&rsquo;s affairs are as much ours as his,&rdquo; returned
+      Elisabeth, dryly, glancing at her husband to make him notice Monsieur
+      Gaudron, before whom he ought to be silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly,&rdquo; said old Saillard, thinking of his co-partnership.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you reached the newspaper office in time?&rdquo; remarked Elisabeth to
+      Monsieur Gaudron, as she helped him to soup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my dear lady,&rdquo; answered the vicar; &ldquo;when the editor read the little
+      article I gave him, written by the secretary of the Grand Almoner, he made
+      no difficulty. He took pains to insert it in a conspicuous place. I should
+      never have thought of that; but this young journalist has a wide-awake
+      mind. The defenders of religion can enter the lists against impiety
+      without disadvantage at the present moment, for there is a great deal of
+      talent in the royalist press. I have every reason to believe that success
+      will crown your hopes. But you must remember, my dear Baudoyer, to promote
+      Monsieur Colleville; he is an object of great interest to his Eminence; in
+      fact, I am desired to mention him to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I am head of the division, I will make him head of one of my bureaus,
+      if you want me to,&rdquo; said Baudoyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The matter thus referred to was explained after dinner, when the
+      ministerial organ (bought and sent up by the porter) proved to contain
+      among its Paris news the following articles, called items:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere died this morning, after a
+  long and painful illness. The king loses a devoted servant, the
+  Church a most pious son. Monsieur de la Billardiere&rsquo;s end has
+  fitly crowned a noble life, consecrated in dark and troublesome
+  times to perilous missions, and of late years to arduous civic
+  duties. Monsieur de la Billardiere was provost of a department,
+  where his force of character triumphed over all the obstacles that
+  rebellion arrayed against him. He subsequently accepted the
+  difficult post of director of a division (in which his great
+  acquirements were not less useful than the truly French affability
+  of his manners) for the express purpose of conciliating the
+  serious interests that arise under its administration. No rewards
+  have ever been more truly deserved than those by which the King,
+  Louis XVIII., and his present Majesty took pleasure in crowning a
+  loyalty which never faltered under the usurper. This old family
+  still survives in the person of a single heir to the excellent man
+  whose death now afflicts so many warm friends. His Majesty has
+  already graciously made known that Monsieur Benjamin de la
+  Billardiere will be included among the gentlemen-in-ordinary of
+  the Bedchamber.
+
+  &ldquo;The numerous friends who have not already received their
+  notification of this sad event are hereby informed that the
+  funeral will take place to-morrow at four o&rsquo;clock, in the church
+  of Saint-Roch. The memorial address will be delivered by Monsieur
+  l&rsquo;Abbe Fontanon.&rdquo;&mdash;&mdash;
+
+  &ldquo;Monsieur Isidore-Charles-Thomas Baudoyer, representing one of the
+  oldest bourgeois families of Paris, and head of a bureau in the
+  late Monsieur de la Billardiere&rsquo;s division, has lately recalled
+  the old traditions of piety and devotion which formerly
+  distinguished these great families, so jealous for the honor and
+  glory of religion, and so faithful in preserving its monuments.
+  The church of Saint-Paul has long needed a monstrance in keeping
+  with the magnificence of that basilica, itself due to the Company
+  of Jesus. Neither the vestry nor the curate were rich enough to
+  decorate the altar. Monsieur Baudoyer has bestowed upon the parish
+  a monstrance that many persons have seen and admired at Monsieur
+  Gohier&rsquo;s, the king&rsquo;s jeweller. Thanks to the piety of this
+  gentleman, who did not shrink from the immensity of the price, the
+  church of Saint-Paul possesses to-day a masterpiece of the
+  jeweller&rsquo;s art designed by Monsieur de Sommervieux. It gives us
+  pleasure to make known this fact, which proves how powerless the
+  declamations of liberals have been on the mind of the Parisian
+  bourgeoisie. The upper ranks of that body have at all times been
+  royalist and they prove it when occasion offers.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The price was five thousand francs,&rdquo; said the Abbe Gaudron; &ldquo;but as the
+      payment was in cash, the court jeweller reduced the amount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Representing one of the oldest bourgeois families in Paris!&rdquo; Saillard was
+      saying to himself; &ldquo;there it is printed,&mdash;in the official paper,
+      too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Monsieur Gaudron,&rdquo; said Madame Baudoyer, &ldquo;please help my father to
+      compose a little speech that he could slip into the countess&rsquo;s ear when he
+      takes her the monthly stipend,&mdash;a single sentence that would cover
+      all! I must leave you. I am obliged to go out with my uncle Mitral. Would
+      you believe it? I was unable to find my uncle Bidault at home this
+      afternoon. Oh, what a dog-kennel he lives in! But Monsieur Mitral, who
+      knows his ways, says he does all his business between eight o&rsquo;clock in the
+      morning and midday, and that after that hour he can be found only at a
+      certain cafe called the Cafe Themis,&mdash;a singular name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is justice done there?&rdquo; said the abbe, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you ask why he goes to a cafe at the corner of the rue Dauphine and
+      the quai des Augustins? They say he plays dominoes there every night with
+      his friend Monsieur Gobseck. I don&rsquo;t wish to go to such a place alone; my
+      uncle Mitral will take me there and bring me back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this instant Mitral showed his yellow face, surmounted by a wig which
+      looked as though it might be made of hay, and made a sign to his niece to
+      come at once, and not keep a carriage waiting at two francs an hour.
+      Madame Baudoyer rose and went away without giving any explanation to her
+      husband or father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven has given you in that woman,&rdquo; said Monsieur Gaudron to Baudoyer
+      when Elisabeth had disappeared, &ldquo;a perfect treasure of prudence and
+      virtue, a model of wisdom, a Christian who gives sure signs of possessing
+      the Divine spirit. Religion alone is able to form such perfect characters.
+      To-morrow I shall say a mass for the success of your good cause. It is
+      all-important, for the sake of the monarchy and of religion itself that
+      you should receive this appointment. Monsieur Rabourdin is a liberal; he
+      subscribes to the &lsquo;Journal des Debats,&rsquo; a dangerous newspaper, which made
+      war on Monsieur le Comte de Villele to please the wounded vanity of
+      Monsieur de Chateaubriand. His Eminence will read the newspaper to-night,
+      if only to see what is said of his poor friend Monsieur de la Billardiere;
+      and Monseigneur the coadjutor will speak of you to the King. When I think
+      of what you have now done for his dear church, I feel sure he will not
+      forget you in his prayers; more than that, he is dining at this moment
+      with the coadjutor at the house of the curate of Saint-Roch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words made Saillard and Baudoyer begin to perceive that Elisabeth
+      had not been idle ever since Godard had informed her of Monsieur de la
+      Billardiere&rsquo;s decease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t she clever, that Elisabeth of mine?&rdquo; cried Saillard, comprehending
+      more clearly than Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe the rapid undermining, like the path of
+      a mole, which his daughter had undertaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She sent Godard to Rabourdin&rsquo;s door to find out what newspaper he takes,&rdquo;
+       said Gaudron; &ldquo;and I mentioned the name to the secretary of his Eminence,&mdash;for
+      we live at a crisis when the Church and Throne must keep themselves
+      informed as to who are their friends and who their enemies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the last five days I have been trying to find the right thing to say
+      to his Excellency&rsquo;s wife,&rdquo; said Saillard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All Paris will read that,&rdquo; cried Baudoyer, whose eyes were still riveted
+      on the paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your eulogy costs us four thousand eight hundred francs, son-in-law!&rdquo;
+       exclaimed Madame Saillard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have adorned the house of God,&rdquo; said the Abbe Gaudron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We might have got salvation without doing that,&rdquo; she returned. &ldquo;But if
+      Baudoyer gets the place, which is worth eight thousand more, the sacrifice
+      is not so great. If he doesn&rsquo;t get it! hey, papa,&rdquo; she added, looking at
+      her husband, &ldquo;how we shall have bled!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, never mind,&rdquo; said Saillard, enthusiastically, &ldquo;we can always make
+      it up through Falleix, who is going to extend his business and use his
+      brother, whom he has made a stockbroker on purpose. Elisabeth might have
+      told us, I think, why Falleix went off in such a hurry. But let&rsquo;s invent
+      my little speech. This is what I thought of: &lsquo;Madame, if you would say a
+      word to his Excellency&mdash;&lsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;If you would deign,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Gaudron; &ldquo;add the word &lsquo;deign,&rsquo; it is more
+      respectful. But you ought to know, first of all, whether Madame la
+      Dauphine will grant you her protection, and then you could suggest to
+      Madame la comtesse the idea of co-operating with the wishes of her Royal
+      Highness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to designate the vacant post,&rdquo; said Baudoyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Madame la comtesse,&rsquo;&rdquo; began Saillard, rising, and bowing to his wife,
+      with an agreeable smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness! Saillard; how ridiculous you look. Take care, my man, you&rsquo;ll
+      make the woman laugh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Madame la comtesse,&rsquo;&rdquo; resumed Saillard. &ldquo;Is that better, wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my duck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;The place of the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+      son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer&mdash;&lsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Man of talent and extreme piety,&rsquo;&rdquo; prompted Gaudron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write it down, Baudoyer,&rdquo; cried old Saillard, &ldquo;write that sentence down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer proceeded to take a pen and wrote, without a blush, his own
+      praises, precisely as Nathan or Canalis might have reviewed one of their
+      own books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Madame la comtesse&rsquo;&mdash;Don&rsquo;t you see, mother?&rdquo; said Saillard to his
+      wife; &ldquo;I am supposing you to be the minister&rsquo;s wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you take me for a fool?&rdquo; she answered sharply. &ldquo;I know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;The place of the late worthy de la Billardiere is vacant; my son-in-law,
+      Monsieur Baudoyer, a man of consummate talent and extreme piety&mdash;&lsquo;&rdquo;
+       After looking at Monsieur Gaudron, who was reflecting, he added, &ldquo;&lsquo;will be
+      very glad if he gets it.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s not bad; it&rsquo;s brief and it says the whole
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But do wait, Saillard; don&rsquo;t you see that Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe is turning it
+      over in his mind?&rdquo; said Madame Saillard; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t disturb him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Will be very thankful if you would deign to interest yourself in his
+      behalf,&rsquo;&rdquo; resumed Gaudron. &ldquo;&lsquo;And in saying a word to his Excellency you
+      will particularly please Madame la Dauphine, by whom he has the honor and
+      the happiness to be protected.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Monsieur Gaudron, that sentence is worth more than the monstrance; I
+      don&rsquo;t regret the four thousand eight hundred&mdash;Besides, Baudoyer, my
+      lad, you&rsquo;ll pay them, won&rsquo;t you? Have you written it all down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall make you repeat it, father, morning and evening,&rdquo; said Madame
+      Saillard. &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s a good speech. How lucky you are, Monsieur Gaudron,
+      to know so much. That&rsquo;s what it is to be brought up in a seminary; they
+      learn there how to speak to God and his saints.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is as good as he is learned,&rdquo; said Baudoyer, pressing the priest&rsquo;s
+      hand. &ldquo;Did you write that article?&rdquo; he added, pointing to the newspaper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it was written by the secretary of his Eminence, a young abbe who is
+      under obligations to me, and who takes an interest in Monsieur Colleville;
+      he was educated at my expense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good deed is always rewarded,&rdquo; said Baudoyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these four personages were sitting down to their game of boston,
+      Elisabeth and her uncle Mitral reached the cafe Themis, with much
+      discourse as they drove along about a matter which Elisabeth&rsquo;s keen
+      perceptions told her was the most powerful lever that could be used to
+      force the minister&rsquo;s hand in the affair of her husband&rsquo;s appointment.
+      Uncle Mitral, a former sheriff&rsquo;s officer, crafty, clever at sharp
+      practice, and full of expedients and judicial precautions, believed the
+      honor of his family to be involved in the appointment of his nephew. His
+      avarice had long led him to estimate the contents of old Gigonnet&rsquo;s
+      strong-box, for he knew very well they would go in the end to benefit his
+      nephew Baudoyer; and it was therefore important that the latter should
+      obtain a position which would be in keeping with the combined fortunes of
+      the Saillards and the old Gigonnet, which would finally devolve on the
+      Baudoyer&rsquo;s little daughter; and what an heiress she would be with an
+      income of a hundred thousand francs! to what social position might she not
+      aspire with that fortune? He adopted all the ideas of his niece Elisabeth
+      and thoroughly understood them. He had helped in sending off Falleix
+      expeditiously, explaining to him the advantage of taking post horses.
+      After which, while eating his dinner, he reflected that it be as well to
+      give a twist of his own to the clever plan invented by Elisabeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they reached the Cafe Themis he told his niece that he alone could
+      manage Gigonnet in the matter they both had in view, and he made her wait
+      in the hackney-coach and bide her time to come forward at the right
+      moment. Elisabeth saw through the window-panes the two faces of Gobseck
+      and Gigonnet (her uncle Bidault), which stood out in relief against the
+      yellow wood-work of the old cafe, like two cameo heads, cold and
+      impassible, in the rigid attitude that their gravity gave them. The two
+      Parisian misers were surrounded by a number of other old faces, on which
+      &ldquo;thirty per cent discount&rdquo; was written in circular wrinkles that started
+      from the nose and turned round the glacial cheek-bones. These remarkable
+      physiognomies brightened up on seeing Mitral, and their eyes gleamed with
+      tigerish curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey, hey! it is papa Mitral!&rdquo; cried one of them, named Chaboisseau, a
+      little old man who discounted for a publisher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless me, so it is!&rdquo; said another, a broker named Metivier, &ldquo;ha, that&rsquo;s
+      an old monkey well up in his tricks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you,&rdquo; retorted Mitral, &ldquo;you are an old crow who knows all about
+      carcasses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said the stern Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you here for? Have you come to seize friend Metivier?&rdquo; asked
+      Gigonnet, pointing to the broker, who had the bluff face of a porter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your great-niece Elisabeth is out there, papa Gigonnet,&rdquo; whispered
+      Mitral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! some misfortune?&rdquo; said Bidault. The old man drew his eyebrows
+      together and assumed a tender look like that of an executioner when about
+      to go to work officially. In spite of his Roman virtue he must have been
+      touched, for his red nose lost somewhat of its color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, suppose it is misfortune, won&rsquo;t you help Saillard&rsquo;s daughter?&mdash;a
+      girl who has knitted your stockings for the last thirty years!&rdquo; cried
+      Mitral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there&rsquo;s good security I don&rsquo;t say I won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; replied Gigonnet. &ldquo;Falleix
+      is in with them. Falleix has just set up his brother as a broker, and he
+      is doing as much business as the Brezacs; and what with? his mind,
+      perhaps! Saillard is no simpleton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He knows the value of money,&rdquo; put in Chaboisseau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That remark, uttered among those old men, would have made an artist and
+      thinker shudder as they all nodded their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it is none of my business,&rdquo; resumed Bidault-Gigonnet. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not bound
+      to care for my neighbors&rsquo; misfortunes. My principle is never to be off my
+      guard with friends or relatives; you can&rsquo;t perish except through weakness.
+      Apply to Gobseck; he is softer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The usurers all applauded these doctrines with a shake of their metallic
+      heads. An onlooker would have fancied he heard the creaking of ill-oiled
+      machinery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Gigonnet, show a little feeling,&rdquo; said Chaboisseau, &ldquo;they&rsquo;ve knit
+      your stockings for thirty years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That counts for something,&rdquo; remarked Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you all alone? Is it safe to speak?&rdquo; said Mitral, looking carefully
+      about him. &ldquo;I come about a good piece of business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is good, why do you come to us?&rdquo; said Gigonnet, sharply,
+      interrupting Mitral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fellow who was a gentleman of the Bedchamber,&rdquo; went on Mitral, &ldquo;a
+      former &lsquo;chouan,&rsquo;&mdash;what&rsquo;s his name?&mdash;La Billardiere is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And our nephew is giving monstrances to the church,&rdquo; snarled Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not such a fool as to give them, he sells them, old man,&rdquo; said
+      Mitral, proudly. &ldquo;He wants La Billardiere&rsquo;s place, and in order to get it,
+      we must seize&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seize! You&rsquo;ll never be anything but a sheriff&rsquo;s officer,&rdquo; put in
+      Metivier, striking Mitral amicably on the shoulder; &ldquo;I like that, I do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seize Monsieur Clement des Lupeaulx in our clutches,&rdquo; continued Mitral;
+      &ldquo;Elisabeth has discovered how to do it, and he is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elisabeth&rdquo;; cried Gigonnet, interrupting again; &ldquo;dear little creature!
+      she takes after her grandfather, my poor brother! he never had his equal!
+      Ah, you should have seen him buying up old furniture; what tact! what
+      shrewdness! What does Elisabeth want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey! hey!&rdquo; cried Mitral, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve got back your bowels of compassion, papa
+      Gigonnet! That phenomenon has a cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Always a child,&rdquo; said Gobseck to Gigonnet, &ldquo;you are too quick on the
+      trigger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Gobseck and Gigonnet, listen to me; you want to keep well with des
+      Lupeaulx, don&rsquo;t you? You&rsquo;ve not forgotten how you plucked him in that
+      affair about the king&rsquo;s debts, and you are afraid he&rsquo;ll ask you to return
+      some of his feathers,&rdquo; said Mitral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we tell him the whole thing?&rdquo; asked Gobseck, whispering to
+      Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mitral is one of us; he wouldn&rsquo;t play a shabby trick on his former
+      customers,&rdquo; replied Gigonnet. &ldquo;You see, Mitral,&rdquo; he went on, speaking to
+      the ex-sheriff in a low voice, &ldquo;we three have just bought up all those
+      debts, the payment of which depends on the decision of the liquidation
+      committee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much will you lose?&rdquo; asked Mitral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody knows we are in it,&rdquo; added Gigonnet; &ldquo;Samanon screens us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, listen to me, Gigonnet; it is cold, and your niece is waiting
+      outside. You&rsquo;ll understand what I want in two words. You must at once,
+      between you, send two hundred and fifty thousand francs (without interest)
+      into the country after Falleix, who has gone post-haste, with a courier in
+      advance of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it possible!&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for?&rdquo; cried Gigonnet, &ldquo;and where to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s magnificent country-seat,&rdquo; replied Mitral. &ldquo;Falleix
+      knows the country, for he was born there; and he is going to buy up land
+      all round the secretary&rsquo;s miserable hovel, with the two hundred and fifty
+      thousand francs I speak of,&mdash;good land, well worth the price. There
+      are only nine days before us for drawing up and recording the notarial
+      deeds (bear that in mind). With the addition of this land, des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s
+      present miserable property would pay taxes to the amount of one thousand
+      francs, the sum necessary to make a man eligible to the Chamber. Ergo,
+      with it des Lupeaulx goes into the electoral college, becomes eligible,
+      count, and whatever he pleases. You know the deputy who has slipped out
+      and left a vacancy, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two misers nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Des Lupeaulx would cut off a leg to get elected in his place,&rdquo; continued
+      Mitral; &ldquo;but he must have the title-deeds of the property in his own name,
+      and then mortgage them back to us for the amount of the purchase-money.
+      Ah! now you begin to see what I am after! First of all, we must make sure
+      of Baudoyer&rsquo;s appointment, and des Lupeaulx will get it for us on these
+      terms; after that is settled we will hand him back to you. Falleix is now
+      canvassing the electoral vote. Don&rsquo;t you perceive that you have Lupeaulx
+      completely in your power until after the election?&mdash;for Falleix&rsquo;s
+      friends are a large majority. Now do you see what I mean, papa Gigonnet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a clever game,&rdquo; said Metivier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll do it,&rdquo; said Gigonnet; &ldquo;you agree, don&rsquo;t you, Gobseck? Falleix can
+      give us security and put mortgages on the property in my name; we&rsquo;ll go
+      and see des Lupeaulx when all is ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;re robbed,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha, ha!&rdquo; laughed Mitral, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to know the robber!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody can rob us but ourselves,&rdquo; answered Gigonnet. &ldquo;I told you we were
+      doing a good thing in buying up all des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s paper from his
+      creditors at sixty per cent discount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take this mortgage on his estate and you&rsquo;ll hold him tighter still
+      through the interest,&rdquo; answered Mitral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After exchanging a shrewd look with Gobseck, Gigonnet went to the door of
+      the cafe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elisabeth! follow it up, my dear,&rdquo; he said to his niece. &ldquo;We hold your
+      man securely; but don&rsquo;t neglect accessories. You have begun well, clever
+      woman! go on as you began and you&rsquo;ll have your uncle&rsquo;s esteem,&rdquo; and he
+      grasped her hand, gayly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; said Mitral, &ldquo;Metivier and Chaboisseau heard it all, and they may
+      play us a trick and tell the matter to some opposition journal which would
+      catch the ball on its way and counteract the effect of the ministerial
+      article. You must go alone, my dear; I dare not let those two cormorants
+      out of my sight.&rdquo; So saying he re-entered the cafe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day the numerous subscribers to a certain liberal journal read,
+      among the Paris items, the following article, inserted authoritatively by
+      Chaboisseau and Metivier, share-holders in the said journal, brokers for
+      publishers, printers, and paper-makers, whose behests no editor dared
+      refuse:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Yesterday a ministerial journal plainly indicated as the probable
+  successor of Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere, Monsieur
+  Baudoyer, one of the worthiest citizens of a populous quarter,
+  where his benevolence is scarcely less known than the piety on
+  which the ministerial organ laid so much stress. Why was that
+  sheet silent as to his talents? Did it reflect that in boasting of
+  the bourgeoise nobility of Monsieur Baudoyer&mdash;which, certainly, is
+  a nobility as good as any other&mdash;it was pointing out a reason for
+  the exclusion of the candidate? A gratuitous piece of perfidy! an
+  attempt to kill with a caress! To appoint Monsieur Baudoyer is to
+  do honor to the virtues, the talents of the middle classes, of
+  whom we shall ever be the supporters, though their cause seems at
+  times a lost one. This appointment, we repeat, will be an act of
+  justice and good policy; consequently we may be sure it will not
+  be made.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow, Friday, the usual day for the dinner given by Madame
+      Rabourdin, whom des Lupeaulx had left at midnight, radiant in beauty, on
+      the staircase of the Bouffons, arm in arm with Madame de Camps (Madame
+      Firmiani had lately married), the old roue awoke with his thoughts of
+      vengeance calmed, or rather refreshed, and his mind full of a last glance
+      exchanged with Celestine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll make sure of Rabourdin&rsquo;s support by forgiving him now,&mdash;I&rsquo;ll
+      get even with him later. If he hasn&rsquo;t this place for the time being I
+      should have to give up a woman who is capable of becoming a most precious
+      instrument in the pursuit of high political fortune. She understands
+      everything; shrinks from nothing, from no idea whatever!&mdash;and
+      besides, I can&rsquo;t know before his Excellency what new scheme of
+      administration Rabourdin has invented. No, my dear des Lupeaulx, the thing
+      in hand is to win all now for your Celestine. You may make as many faces
+      as you please, Madame la comtesse, but you will invite Madame Rabourdin to
+      your next select party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx was one of those men who to satisfy a passion are quite able
+      to put away revenge in some dark corner of their minds. His course was
+      taken; he was resolved to get Rabourdin appointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will prove to you, my dear fellow, that I deserve a good place in your
+      galley,&rdquo; thought he as he seated himself in his study and began to unfold
+      a newspaper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew so well what the ministerial organ would contain that he rarely
+      took the trouble to read it, but on this occasion he did open it to look
+      at the article on La Billardiere, recollecting with amusement the dilemma
+      in which du Bruel had put him by bringing him the night before Bixiou&rsquo;s
+      amendments to the obituary. He was laughing to himself as he reread the
+      biography of the late Comte da Fontaine, dead a few months earlier, which
+      he had hastily substituted for that of La Billardiere, when his eyes were
+      dazzled by the name of Baudoyer. He read with fury the article which
+      pledged the minister, and then he rang violently for Dutocq, to send him
+      at once to the editor. But what was his astonishment on reading the reply
+      of the opposition paper! The situation was evidently serious. He knew the
+      game, and he saw that the man who was shuffling his cards for him was a
+      Greek of the first order. To dictate in this way through two opposing
+      newspapers in one evening, and to begin the fight by forestalling the
+      intentions of the minister was a daring game! He recognized the pen of a
+      liberal editor, and resolved to question him that night at the opera.
+      Dutocq appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read that,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, handing him over the two journals, and
+      continuing to run his eye over others to see if Baudoyer had pulled any
+      further wires. &ldquo;Go to the office and ask who has dared to thus compromise
+      the minister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not Monsieur Baudoyer himself,&rdquo; answered Dutocq, &ldquo;for he never
+      left the ministry yesterday. I need not go and inquire; for when I took
+      your article to the newspaper office I met a young abbe who brought in a
+      letter from the Grand Almoner, before which you yourself would have had to
+      bow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dutocq, you have a grudge against Monsieur Rabourdin, and it isn&rsquo;t right;
+      for he has twice saved you from being turned out. However, we are not
+      masters of our own feelings; we sometimes hate our benefactors. Only,
+      remember this; if you show the slightest treachery to Rabourdin, without
+      my permission, it will be your ruin. As to that newspaper, let the Grand
+      Almoner subscribe as largely as we do, if he wants its services. Here we
+      are at the end of the year; the matter of subscriptions will come up for
+      discussion, and I shall have something to say on that head. As to La
+      Billardiere&rsquo;s place, there is only one way to settle the matter; and that
+      is to appoint Rabourdin this very day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Dutocq, returning to the clerks&rsquo; office and addressing
+      his colleagues. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if Bixiou has the art of looking into
+      futurity, but if you have not read the ministerial journal I advise you to
+      study the article about Baudoyer; then, as Monsieur Fleury takes the
+      opposition sheet, you can see the reply. Monsieur Rabourdin certainly has
+      talent, but a man who in these days gives a six-thousand-franc monstrance
+      to the Church has a devilish deal more talent than he.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [entering]. &ldquo;What say you, gentlemen, to the First Epistle to the
+      Corinthians in our pious ministerial journal, and the reply Epistle to the
+      Ministers in the opposition sheet? How does Monsieur Rabourdin feel now,
+      du Bruel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel [rushing in]. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo; [He drags Bixiou back into his
+      cabinet, and says in a low voice] &ldquo;My good fellow, your way of helping
+      people is like that of the hangman who jumps upon a victim&rsquo;s shoulders to
+      break his neck. You got me into a scrape with des Lupeaulx, which my folly
+      in ever trusting you richly deserved. A fine thing indeed, that article on
+      La Billardiere. I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t forget the trick! Why, the very first sentence
+      was as good as telling the King he was superannuated and it was time for
+      him to die. And as to that Quiberon bit, it said plainly that the King was
+      a&mdash;What a fool I was!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [laughing]. &ldquo;Bless my heart! are you getting angry? Can&rsquo;t a fellow
+      joke any more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;Joke! joke indeed. When you want to be made head-clerk somebody
+      shall joke with you, my dear fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [in a bullying tone]. &ldquo;Angry, are we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel. &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [dryly]. &ldquo;So much the worse for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel [uneasy]. &ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t pardon such a thing yourself, I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [in a wheedling tone]. &ldquo;To a friend? indeed I would.&rdquo; [They hear
+      Fleury&rsquo;s voice.] &ldquo;There&rsquo;s Fleury cursing Baudoyer. Hey, how well the thing
+      has been managed! Baudoyer will get the appointment.&rdquo; [Confidentially]
+      &ldquo;After all, so much the better. Du Bruel, just keep your eye on the
+      consequences. Rabourdin would be a mean-spirited creature to stay under
+      Baudoyer; he will send in his registration, and that will give us two
+      places. You can be head of the bureau and take me for under-head-clerk. We
+      will make vaudevilles together, and I&rsquo;ll fag at your work in the office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel [smiling]. &ldquo;Dear me, I never thought of that. Poor Rabourdin! I
+      shall be sorry for him, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;That shows how much you love him!&rdquo; [Changing his tone] &ldquo;Ah, well,
+      I don&rsquo;t pity him any longer. He&rsquo;s rich; his wife gives parties and doesn&rsquo;t
+      ask me,&mdash;me, who go everywhere! Well, good-bye, my dear fellow,
+      good-bye, and don&rsquo;t owe me a grudge!&rdquo; [He goes out through the clerks&rsquo; 
+      office.] &ldquo;Adieu, gentlemen; didn&rsquo;t I tell you yesterday that a man who has
+      nothing but virtues and talents will always be poor, even though he has a
+      pretty wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry. &ldquo;You are so rich, you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Not bad, my Cincinnatus! But you&rsquo;ll give me that dinner at the
+      Rocher de Cancale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;It is absolutely impossible for me to understand Monsieur
+      Bixiou.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [with an elegaic air]. &ldquo;Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom reads the
+      newspapers that it might perhaps be serviceable to deprive ourselves
+      momentarily by taking them in to him.&rdquo; [Fleury hands over his paper,
+      Vimeux the office sheet, and Phellion departs with them.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment des Lupeaulx, coming leisurely downstairs to breakfast with
+      the minister, was asking himself whether, before playing a trump card for
+      the husband, it might not be prudent to probe the wife&rsquo;s heart and make
+      sure of a reward for his devotion. He was feeling about for the small
+      amount of heart that he possessed, when, at a turn of the staircase, he
+      encountered his lawyer, who said to him, smiling, &ldquo;Just a word,
+      Monseigneur,&rdquo; in the tone of familiarity assumed by men who know they are
+      indispensable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, my dear Desroches?&rdquo; exclaimed the politician. &ldquo;Has anything
+      happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been brought
+      up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain Samanon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men whom I helped to make their millions!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; whispered the lawyer. &ldquo;Gigonnet (really named Bidault) is the
+      uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is father-in-law to a
+      certain Baudoyer, who thinks he has a right to the vacant place in your
+      ministry. Don&rsquo;t you think I have done right to come and tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a shrewd look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One stroke of your pen will buy them off,&rdquo; said Desroches, leaving him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What an immense sacrifice!&rdquo; muttered des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;It would be
+      impossible to explain it to a woman,&rdquo; thought he. &ldquo;Is Celestine worth more
+      than the clearing off of my debts?&mdash;that is the question. I&rsquo;ll go and
+      see her this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So the beautiful Madame Rabourdin was to be, within an hour, the arbiter
+      of her husband&rsquo;s fate, and no power on earth could warn her of the
+      importance of her replies, or give her the least hint to guard her conduct
+      and compose her voice. Moreover, in addition to her mischances, she
+      believed herself certain of success, never dreaming that Rabourdin was
+      undermined in all directions by the secret sapping of the mollusks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Monseigneur,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, entering the little salon where
+      they breakfasted, &ldquo;have you seen the articles on Baudoyer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake, my dear friend,&rdquo; replied the minister, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t talk of
+      those appointments just now; let me have an hour&rsquo;s peace! They cracked my
+      ears last night with that monstrance. The only way to save Rabourdin is to
+      bring his appointment before the Council, unless I submit to having my
+      hand forced. It is enough to disgust a man with the public service. I must
+      purchase the right to keep that excellent Rabourdin by promoting a certain
+      Colleville!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not make over the management of this pretty little comedy to me, and
+      rid yourself of the worry of it? I&rsquo;ll amuse you every morning with an
+      account of the game of chess I should play with the Grand Almoner,&rdquo; said
+      des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said the minister, &ldquo;settle it with the head examiner. But you
+      know perfectly well that nothing is more likely to strike the king&rsquo;s mind
+      than just those reasons the opposition journal has chosen to put forth.
+      Good heavens! fancy managing a ministry with such men as Baudoyer under
+      me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An imbecile bigot,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, &ldquo;and as utterly incapable as&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;as La Billardiere,&rdquo; added the minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But La Billardiere had the manners of a gentleman-in-ordinary,&rdquo; replied
+      des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; he continued, addressing the countess, &ldquo;it is now
+      an absolute necessity to invite Madame Rabourdin to your next private
+      party. I must assure you she is the intimate friend of Madame de Camps;
+      they were at the Opera together last night. I first met her at the hotel
+      Firmiani. Besides, you will see that she is not of a kind to compromise a
+      salon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Invite Madame Rabourdin, my dear,&rdquo; said the minister, &ldquo;and pray let us
+      talk of something else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. SCENES FROM DOMESTIC LIFE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Parisian households are literally eaten up with the desire to be in
+      keeping with the luxury that surrounds them on all sides, and few there
+      are who have the wisdom to let their external situation conform to their
+      internal revenue. But this vice may perhaps denote a truly French
+      patriotism, which seeks to maintain the supremacy of the nation in the
+      matter of dress. France reigns through clothes over the whole of Europe;
+      and every one must feel the importance of retaining a commercial sceptre
+      that makes fashion in France what the navy is to England. This patriotic
+      ardor which leads a nation to sacrifice everything to appearances&mdash;to
+      the &ldquo;paroistre,&rdquo; as d&rsquo;Aubigne said in the days of Henri IV.&mdash;is the
+      cause of those vast secret labors which employ the whole of a Parisian
+      woman&rsquo;s morning, when she wishes, as Madame Rabourdin wished, to keep up
+      on twelve thousand francs a year the style that many a family with thirty
+      thousand does not indulge in. Consequently, every Friday,&mdash;the day of
+      her dinner parties,&mdash;Madame Rabourdin helped the chambermaid to do
+      the rooms; for the cook went early to market, and the man-servant was
+      cleaning the silver, folding the napkins, and polishing the glasses. The
+      ill-advised individual who might happen, through an oversight of the
+      porter, to enter Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s establishment about eleven o&rsquo;clock in
+      the morning would have found her in the midst of a disorder the reverse of
+      picturesque, wrapped in a dressing-gown, her hair ill-dressed, and her
+      feet in old slippers, attending to the lamps, arranging the flowers, or
+      cooking in haste an extremely unpoetic breakfast. The visitor to whom the
+      mysteries of Parisian life were unknown would certainly have learned for
+      the rest of his life not to set foot in these greenrooms at the wrong
+      moment; a woman caught in her matin mysteries would ever after point him
+      out as a man capable of the blackest crimes; or she would talk of his
+      stupidity and indiscretion in a manner to ruin him. The true Parisian
+      woman, indulgent to all curiosity that she can put to profit, is
+      implacable to that which makes her lose her prestige. Such a domiciliary
+      invasion may be called, not only (as they say in police reports) an attack
+      on privacy, but a burglary, a robbery of all that is most precious,
+      namely, CREDIT. A woman is quite willing to let herself be surprised
+      half-dressed, with her hair about her shoulders. If her hair is all her
+      own she scores one; but she will never allow herself to be seen &ldquo;doing&rdquo;
+       her own rooms, or she loses her pariostre,&mdash;that precious
+      /seeming-to-be/!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Rabourdin was in full tide of preparation for her Friday dinner,
+      standing in the midst of provisions the cook had just fished from the vast
+      ocean of the markets, when Monsieur des Lupeaulx made his way stealthily
+      in. The general-secretary was certainly the last man Madame Rabourdin
+      expected to see, and so, when she heard his boots creaking in the
+      ante-chamber, she exclaimed, impatiently, &ldquo;The hair-dresser already!&rdquo;&mdash;an
+      exclamation as little agreeable to des Lupeaulx as the sight of des
+      Lupeaulx was agreeable to her. She immediately escaped into her bedroom,
+      where chaos reigned; a jumble of furniture to be put out of sight, with
+      other heterogeneous articles of more or rather less elegance,&mdash;a
+      domestic carnival, in short. The bold des Lupeaulx followed the handsome
+      figure, so piquant did she seem to him in her dishabille. There is
+      something indescribably alluring to the eye in a portion of flesh seen
+      through an hiatus in the undergarment, more attractive far than when it
+      rises gracefully above the circular curve of the velvet bodice, to the
+      vanishing line of the prettiest swan&rsquo;s-neck that ever lover kissed before
+      a ball. When the eye dwells on a woman in full dress making exhibition of
+      her magnificent white shoulders, do we not fancy that we see the elegant
+      dessert of a grand dinner? But the glance that glides through the disarray
+      of muslins rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it were, a feast of stolen fruit
+      glowing between the leaves on a garden wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! wait!&rdquo; cried the pretty Parisian, bolting the door of the
+      disordered room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rang for Therese, called for her daughter, the cook, and the
+      man-servant, wishing she possessed the whistle of the machinist at the
+      Opera. Her call, however, answered the same purpose. In a moment, another
+      phenomenon! the salon assumed a piquant morning look, quite in keeping
+      with the becoming toilet hastily got together by the fugitive; we say it
+      to her glory, for she was evidently a clever woman, in this at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; she said, coming forward, &ldquo;at this hour? What has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very serious things,&rdquo; answered des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;You and I must understand
+      each other now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Celestine looked at the man behind his glasses, and understood the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My principle vice,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is oddity. For instance, I do not mix up
+      affections with politics; let us talk politics,&mdash;business, if you
+      will,&mdash;the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor
+      a whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together
+      things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; it is my
+      natural instinct as an artist. We women have politics of our own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Already the tones of her voice and the charm of her manners were producing
+      their effect on the secretary and metamorphosing his roughness into
+      sentimental courtesy; she had recalled him to his obligations as a lover.
+      A clever pretty woman makes an atmosphere about her in which the nerves
+      relax and the feelings soften.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are ignorant of what is happening,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, harshly, for
+      he still thought it best to make a show of harshness. &ldquo;Read that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave the two newspapers to the graceful woman, having drawn a line in
+      red ink round each of the famous articles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;but this is dreadful! Who is this
+      Baudoyer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A donkey,&rdquo; answered des Lupeaulx; &ldquo;but, as you see, he uses means,&mdash;he
+      gives monstrances; he succeeds, thanks to some clever hand that pulls the
+      wires.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of her debts crossed Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s mind and blurred her
+      sight, as if two lightning flashes had blinded her eyes at the same
+      moment; her ears hummed under the pressure of the blood that began to beat
+      in her arteries; she remained for a moment quite bewildered, gazing at a
+      window which she did not see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But are you faithful to us?&rdquo; she said at last, with a winning glance at
+      des Lupeaulx, as if to attach him to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is as it may be,&rdquo; he replied, answering her glance with an
+      interrogative look which made the poor woman blush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you demand caution-money you may lose all,&rdquo; she said, laughing; &ldquo;I
+      thought you more magnanimous than you are. And you, you thought me less a
+      person than I am,&mdash;a sort of school-girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have misunderstood me,&rdquo; he said, with a covert smile; &ldquo;I meant that I
+      could not assist a man who plays against me just as l&rsquo;Etourdi played
+      against Mascarille.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This will prove to you whether I am magnanimous or not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave Madame Rabourdin the memorandum stolen by Dutocq, pointing out to
+      her the passage in which her husband had so ably analyzed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Celestine recognized the handwriting, read the paper, and turned pale
+      under the blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the ministries, the whole service is treated in the same way,&rdquo; said
+      des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happily,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you alone possess this document. I cannot explain
+      it, even to myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man who stole it is not such a fool as to let me have it without
+      keeping a copy for himself; he is too great a liar to admit it, and too
+      clever in his business to give it up. I did not even ask him for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your chief clerk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses! But,&rdquo; she
+      added, &ldquo;he is only a dog who wants a bone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a
+      general-secretary?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,&mdash;you will despise me
+      because it isn&rsquo;t more, but here, I grant you, I am significant. Well,
+      Baudoyer&rsquo;s uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to give
+      me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But all that is monstrous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand Almoner is
+      concerned in it. Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in return for
+      ecclesiastical assistance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What will you bid me do?&rdquo; he said, with charming grace, holding out his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and chilling as a
+      hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and offensive, but she did
+      not give him her hand. At night, in her salon, she would have let him take
+      it a hundred times, but here, alone and in the morning, the action seemed
+      too like a promise that might lead her far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they say that statesmen have no hearts!&rdquo; she cried enthusiastically,
+      trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under the grace of her words.
+      &ldquo;The thought used to terrify me,&rdquo; she added, assuming an innocent,
+      ingenuous air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a calumny!&rdquo; cried des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;Only this week one of the stiffest
+      of diplomatists, a man who has been in the service ever since he came to
+      manhood, has married the daughter of an actress, and has introduced her at
+      the most iron-bound court in Europe as to quarterings of nobility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will continue to support us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am to draw up your husband&rsquo;s appointment&mdash;But no cheating,
+      remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave him her hand to kiss, and tapped him on the cheek as she did so.
+      &ldquo;You are mine!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx admired the expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [That night, at the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as
+      follows: &ldquo;A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,&mdash;an
+      acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,&mdash;changed
+      the words into &lsquo;You are mine.&rsquo; Don&rsquo;t you think the evasion charming?&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must be my ally,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Now listen, your husband has
+      spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the administration; the
+      paper I have shown you is a part of that plan. I want to know what it is.
+      Find out, and tell me to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature of the
+      errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, the hair-dresser.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At last!&rdquo; thought Celestine. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how I should have got out of it
+      if he had delayed much longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx,
+      rising. &ldquo;You shall be invited to the first select party given by his
+      Excellency&rsquo;s wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you are an angel!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;And I see now how much you love me;
+      you love me intelligently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-night, dear child,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I shall find out at the Opera what
+      journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure swords
+      together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not? I have taken pains to get
+      the things you like best&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that is so like love,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went
+      downstairs, &ldquo;that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a long time.
+      Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I&rsquo;ll set the cleverest of all
+      traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and I&rsquo;ll read her heart.
+      Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after all, women are just what we men
+      are. Twenty-eight years old, virtuous, and living here in the rue Duphot!&mdash;a
+      rare piece of luck and worth cultivating,&rdquo; thought the elderly butterfly
+      as he fluttered down the staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens! that man, without his glasses, must look funny enough in a
+      dressing-gown!&rdquo; thought Celestine, &ldquo;but the harpoon is in his back and
+      he&rsquo;ll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of that invitation. He has
+      played his part in my comedy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When, at five o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to dress for
+      dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid before him the
+      fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the Arabian Nights, the
+      luckless man was fated to meet at every turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who gave you that?&rdquo; he asked, thunderstruck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur des Lupeaulx.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So he has been here!&rdquo; cried Rabourdin, with a look which would certainly
+      have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which Celestine received with
+      unruffled brow and a laughing eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he is coming back to dinner,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Why that startled air?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; replied Rabourdin, &ldquo;I have mortally offended des Lupeaulx; such
+      men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me! Do you think I don&rsquo;t see
+      why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man seems to me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to have good taste; you can&rsquo;t expect me
+      to blame him. I really don&rsquo;t know anything more flattering to a woman than
+      to please a worn-out palate. After&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A truce to nonsense, Celestine. Spare a much-tried man. I cannot get an
+      audience of the minister, and my honor is at stake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens, no! Dutocq can have the promise of a good place as soon as
+      you are named head of the division.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I see what you are about, dear child,&rdquo; said Rabourdin; &ldquo;but the game
+      you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing that is going on
+      around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me use the weapons employed against us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Celestine, the more that man des Lupeaulx feels he is foolishly caught in
+      a trap, the more bitter he will be against me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What if I get him dismissed altogether?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my poor
+      husband,&rdquo; continued Celestine. &ldquo;But you are mistaking the dog for the
+      game,&rdquo; she added, after a pause. &ldquo;In a few days des Lupeaulx will have
+      accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to speak to the
+      minister, and before you can even see him on business, I shall have seen
+      him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to bring that plan of
+      your brain to birth,&mdash;a plan which you have been hiding from me; but
+      you will find that in three months your wife has accomplished more than
+      you have done in six years. Come, tell me this fine scheme of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin, continuing to shave, cautioned his wife not to say a word about
+      his work, and after assuring her that to confide a single idea to des
+      Lupeaulx would be to put the cat near the milk-jug, he began an
+      explanation of his labors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me this before, Rabourdin?&rdquo; said Celestine, cutting
+      her husband short at his fifth sentence. &ldquo;You might have saved yourself a
+      world of trouble. I can understand that a man should be blinded by an idea
+      for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or seven years, that&rsquo;s a thing I
+      cannot comprehend! You want to reduce the budget,&mdash;a vulgar and
+      commonplace idea! The budget ought, on the contrary, to reach two hundred
+      millions. Then, indeed, France would be great. If you want a new system
+      let it be one of loans, as Monsieur de Nucingen keeps saying. The poorest
+      of all treasuries is the one with a surplus that it never uses; the
+      mission of a minister of finance is to fling gold out of the windows. It
+      will come back to him through the cellars; and you, you want to hoard it!
+      The thing to do is to increase the offices and all government employments,
+      instead of reducing them! So far from lessening the public debt, you ought
+      to increase the creditors. If the Bourbons want to reign in peace, let
+      them seek creditors in the towns and villages, and place their loans
+      there; above all, they ought not to let foreigners draw interest away from
+      France; some day an alien nation might ask us for the capital. Whereas if
+      capital and interest are held only in France, neither France nor credit
+      can perish. That&rsquo;s what saved England. Your plan is the tradesman&rsquo;s plan.
+      An ambitious public man should produce some bold scheme,&mdash;he should
+      make himself another Law, without Law&rsquo;s fatal ill-luck; he ought to
+      exhibit the power of credit, and show that we should reduce, not
+      principal, but interest, as they do in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, Celestine,&rdquo; said Rabourdin; &ldquo;mix up ideas as much as you
+      please, and make fun of them,&mdash;I&rsquo;m accustomed to that; but don&rsquo;t
+      criticise a work of which you know nothing as yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I need,&rdquo; she asked, &ldquo;to know a scheme the essence of which is to
+      govern France with a civil service of six thousand men instead of twenty
+      thousand? My dear friend, even allowing it were the plan of a man of
+      genius, a king of France who attempted to carry it out would get himself
+      dethroned. You can keep down a feudal aristocracy by levelling a few
+      heads, but you can&rsquo;t subdue a hydra with thousands. And is it with the
+      present ministers&mdash;between ourselves, a wretched crew&mdash;that you
+      expect to carry out your reform? No, no; change the monetary system if you
+      will, but do not meddle with men, with little men; they cry out too much,
+      whereas gold is dumb.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Celestine, if you will talk, and put wit before argument, we shall
+      never understand each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Understand! I understand what that paper, in which you have analyzed the
+      capacities of the men in office, will lead to,&rdquo; she replied, paying no
+      attention to what her husband said. &ldquo;Good heavens! you have sharpened the
+      axe to cut off your own head. Holy Virgin! why didn&rsquo;t you consult me? I
+      could have at least prevented you from committing anything to writing, or,
+      at any rate, if you insisted on putting it to paper, I would have written
+      it down myself, and it should never have left this house. Good God! to
+      think that he never told me! That&rsquo;s what men are! capable of sleeping with
+      the wife of their bosom for seven years, and keeping a secret from her!
+      Hiding their thoughts from a poor woman for seven years!&mdash;doubting
+      her devotion!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; cried Rabourdin, provoked, &ldquo;for eleven years and more I have been
+      unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on cutting me short
+      and substituting your ideas for mine. You know nothing at all about my
+      scheme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing! I know all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then tell it to me!&rdquo; cried Rabourdin, angry for the first time since his
+      marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! it is half-past six o&rsquo;clock; finish shaving and dress at once,&rdquo;
+       she cried hastily, after the fashion of women when pressed on a point they
+      are not ready to talk of. &ldquo;I must go; we&rsquo;ll adjourn the discussion, for I
+      don&rsquo;t want to be nervous on a reception-day. Good heavens! the poor soul!&rdquo;
+       she thought, as she left the room, &ldquo;it /is/ hard to be in labor for seven
+      years and bring forth a dead child! And not trust his wife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went back into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had listened to me you would never had interceded to keep your
+      chief clerk; he stole that abominable paper, and has, no doubt, kept a
+      fac-simile of it. Adieu, man of genius!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she noticed the almost tragic expression of her husband&rsquo;s grief; she
+      felt she had gone too far, and ran to him, seized him just as he was, all
+      lathered with soap-suds, and kissed him tenderly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Xavier, don&rsquo;t be vexed,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;To-night, after the people are
+      gone, we will study your plan; you shall speak at your ease,&mdash;I will
+      listen just as long as you wish me to. Isn&rsquo;t that nice of me? What do I
+      want better than to be the wife of Mohammed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to laugh; and Rabourdin laughed too, for the soapsuds were
+      clinging to Celestine&rsquo;s lips, and her voice had the tones of the purest
+      and most steadfast affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go and dress, dear child; and above all, don&rsquo;t say a word of this to des
+      Lupeaulx. Swear you will not. That is the only punishment that I impose&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;/Impose/!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Then I won&rsquo;t swear anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, Celestine, I said in jest a really serious thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-night,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I mean your general-secretary to know whom I am
+      really intending to attack; he has given me the means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attack whom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The minister,&rdquo; she answered, drawing himself up. &ldquo;We are to be invited to
+      his wife&rsquo;s private parties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of his Celestine&rsquo;s loving caresses, Rabourdin, as he finished
+      dressing, could not prevent certain painful thoughts from clouding his
+      brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will she ever appreciate me?&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;She does not even
+      understand that she is the sole incentive of my whole work. How
+      wrong-headed, and yet how excellent a mind!&mdash;If I had not married I
+      might now have been high in office and rich. I could have saved half my
+      salary; my savings well-invested would have given me to-day ten thousand
+      francs a year outside of my office, and I might then have become, through
+      a good marriage&mdash;Yes, that is all true,&rdquo; he exclaimed, interrupting
+      himself, &ldquo;but I have Celestine and my two children.&rdquo; The man flung himself
+      back on his happiness. To the best of married lives there come moments of
+      regret. He entered the salon and looked around him. &ldquo;There are not two
+      women in Paris who understand making life pleasant as she does. To keep
+      such a home as this on twelve thousand francs a year!&rdquo; he thought, looking
+      at the flower-stands bright with bloom, and thinking of the social
+      enjoyments that were about to gratify his vanity. &ldquo;She was made to be the
+      wife of a minister. When I think of his Excellency&rsquo;s wife, and how little
+      she helps him! the good woman is a comfortable middle-class dowdy, and
+      when she goes to the palace or into society&mdash;&rdquo; He pinched his lips
+      together. Very busy men are apt to have very ignorant notions about
+      household matters, and you can make them believe that a hundred thousand
+      francs afford little or that twelve thousand afford all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though impatiently expected, and in spite of the flattering dishes
+      prepared for the palate of the gourmet-emeritus, des Lupeaulx did not come
+      to dinner; in fact he came in very late, about midnight, an hour when
+      company dwindles and conversations become intimate and confidential.
+      Andoche Finot, the journalist, was one of the few remaining guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I now know all,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, when he was comfortably seated on a
+      sofa at the corner of the fireplace, a cup of tea in his hand and Madame
+      Rabourdin standing before him with a plate of sandwiches and some slices
+      of cake very appropriately called &ldquo;leaden cake.&rdquo; &ldquo;Finot, my dear and witty
+      friend, you can render a great service to our gracious queen by letting
+      loose a few dogs upon the men we were talking of. You have against you,&rdquo;
+       he said to Rabourdin, lowering his voice so as to be heard only by the
+      three persons whom he addressed, &ldquo;a set of usurers and priests&mdash;money
+      and the church. The article in the liberal journal was instituted by an
+      old money-lender to whom the paper was under obligations; but the young
+      fellow who wrote it cares nothing about it. The paper is about to change
+      hands, and in three days more will be on our side. The royalist
+      opposition,&mdash;for we have, thanks to Monsieur de Chateaubriand, a
+      royalist opposition, that is to say, royalists who have gone over to the
+      liberals,&mdash;however, there&rsquo;s no need to discuss political matters now,&mdash;these
+      assassins of Charles X. have promised me to support your appointment at
+      the price of our acquiescence in one of their amendments. All my batteries
+      are manned. If they threaten us with Baudoyer we shall say to the clerical
+      phalanx, &lsquo;Such and such a paper and such and such men will attack your
+      measures and the whole press will be against you&rsquo; (for even the
+      ministerial journals which I influence will be deaf and dumb, won&rsquo;t they,
+      Finot?). &lsquo;Appoint Rabourdin, a faithful servant, and public opinion is
+      with you&mdash;&lsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi, hi!&rdquo; laughed Finot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, there&rsquo;s no need to be uneasy,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;I have arranged it
+      all to-night; the Grand Almoner must yield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would rather have had less hope, and you to dinner,&rdquo; whispered
+      Celestine, looking at him with a vexed air which might very well pass for
+      an expression of wounded love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This must win my pardon,&rdquo; he returned, giving her an invitation to the
+      ministry for the following Tuesday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Celestine opened the letter, and a flush of pleasure came into her face.
+      No enjoyment can be compared to that of gratified vanity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what the countess&rsquo;s Tuesdays are,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, with a
+      confidential air. &ldquo;To the usual ministerial parties they are what the
+      &lsquo;Petit-Chateau&rsquo; is to a court ball. You will be at the heart of power! You
+      will see there the Comtesse Feraud, who is still in favor notwithstanding
+      Louis XVIII.&lsquo;s death, Delphine de Nucingen, Madame de Listomere, the
+      Marquise d&rsquo;Espard, and your dear Firmiani; I have had her invited to give
+      you her support in case the other women attempt to black-ball you. I long
+      to see you in the midst of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Celestine threw up her head like a thoroughbred before the race, and
+      re-read the invitation just as Baudoyer and Saillard had re-read the
+      articles about themselves in the newspapers, without being able to quaff
+      enough of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;/There/ first, and /next/ at the Tuileries,&rdquo; she said to des Lupeaulx,
+      who was startled by the words and by the attitude of the speaker, so
+      expressive were they of ambition and security.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can it be that I am only a stepping-stone?&rdquo; he asked himself. He rose,
+      and went into Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s bedroom, where she followed him,
+      understanding from a motion of his head that he wished to speak to her
+      privately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, your husband&rsquo;s plan,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;what of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah! the useless nonsense of an honest man!&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;He wants to
+      suppress fifteen thousand offices and do the work with five or six
+      thousand. You never heard of such nonsense; I will let you read the whole
+      document when copied; it is written in perfect good faith. His analysis of
+      the officials was prompted only by his honesty and rectitude,&mdash;poor
+      dear man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx was all the more reassured by the genuine laugh which
+      accompanied these jesting and contemptuous words, because he was a judge
+      of lying and knew that Celestine spoke in good faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But still, what is at the bottom of it all?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and substitute taxes on
+      consumption.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why it is over a year since Francois Keller and Nucingen proposed some
+      such plan, and the minister himself is thinking of a reduction of the
+      land-tax.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; exclaimed Celestine, &ldquo;I told him there was nothing new in his
+      scheme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but he is on the same ground with the best financier of the epoch,&mdash;the
+      Napoleon of finance. Something may come of it. Your husband must surely
+      have some special ideas in his method of putting the scheme into
+      practice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it is all commonplace,&rdquo; she said, with a disdainful curl of her lip.
+      &ldquo;Just think of governing France with five or six thousand offices, when
+      what is really needed is that everybody in France should be personally
+      enlisted in the support of the government.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx seemed satisfied that Rabourdin, to whom in his own mind he
+      had granted remarkable talents, was really a man of mediocrity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you quite sure of the appointment? You don&rsquo;t want a bit of feminine
+      advice?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You women are greater adepts than we in refined treachery,&rdquo; he said,
+      nodding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, say /Baudoyer/ to the court and clergy, to divert suspicion
+      and put them to sleep, and then, at the last moment, write /Rabourdin/.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are some women who say /yes/ as long as they need a man, and /no/
+      when he has played his part,&rdquo; returned des Lupeaulx, significantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know they do,&rdquo; she answered, laughing; &ldquo;but they are very foolish, for
+      in politics everything recommences. Such proceedings may do with fools,
+      but you are a man of sense. In my opinion the greatest folly any one can
+      commit is to quarrel with a clever man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, &ldquo;for such a man pardons. The real
+      danger is with the petty spiteful natures who have nothing to do but study
+      revenge,&mdash;I spend my life among them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When all the guests were gone, Rabourdin came into his wife&rsquo;s room, and
+      after asking for her strict attention, he explained his plan and made her
+      see that it did not cut down the revenue but on the contrary increased it;
+      he showed her in what ways the public funds were employed, and how the
+      State could increase tenfold the circulation of money by putting its own,
+      in the proportion of a third, or a quarter, into the expenditures which
+      would be sustained by private or local interests. He finally proved to her
+      plainly that his plan was not mere theory, but a system teeming with
+      methods of execution. Celestine, brightly enthusiastic, sprang into her
+      husband&rsquo;s arms and sat upon his knee in the chimney-corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At last I find the husband of my dreams!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;My ignorance of
+      your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s claws. I calumniated you
+      to him gloriously and in good faith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last. Having labored
+      for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great man in the
+      eyes of his sole public.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger, how
+      loving, you are tenfold greater still. But,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;a man of genius
+      is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly beloved
+      child,&rdquo; she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation from that
+      particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and showed it to
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is what I wanted,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;Des Lupeaulx has put me face to face
+      with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency shall be made
+      for a time to bend the knee to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the inner
+      circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her own! Never
+      courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman bestowed upon
+      her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers. Madame Rabourdin
+      forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where she hired carriages,
+      and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor bourgeois, nor showy. Her
+      footman, like the footmen of great houses, had the dress and appearance of
+      a master. About ten on the evening of the eventful Tuesday, she left home
+      in a charming full mourning attire. Her hair was dressed with jet grapes
+      of exquisite workmanship,&mdash;an ornament costing three thousand francs,
+      made by Fossin for an Englishwoman who had left Paris before it was
+      finished. The leaves were of stamped iron-work, as light as the
+      vine-leaves themselves, and the artist had not forgotten the graceful
+      tendrils, which twined in the wearer&rsquo;s curls just as, in nature, they
+      catch upon the branches. The bracelets, necklace, and earrings were all
+      what is called Berlin iron-work; but these delicate arabesques were made
+      in Vienna, and seemed to have been fashioned by the fairies who, the
+      stories tell us, are condemned by a jealous Carabosse to collect the eyes
+      of ants, or weave a fabric so diaphanous that a nutshell can contain it.
+      Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s graceful figure, made more slender still by the black
+      draperies, was shown to advantage by a carefully cut dress, the two sides
+      of which met at the shoulders in a single strap without sleeves. At every
+      motion she seemed, like a butterfly, to be about to leave her covering;
+      but the gown held firmly on by some contrivance of the wonderful
+      dressmaker. The robe was of mousseline de laine&mdash;a material which the
+      manufacturers had not yet sent to the Paris markets; a delightful stuff
+      which some months later was to have a wild success, a success which went
+      further and lasted longer than most French fashions. The actual economy of
+      mousseline de laine, which needs no washing, has since injured the sale of
+      cotton fabrics enough to revolutionize the Rouen manufactories.
+      Celestine&rsquo;s little feet, covered with fine silk stockings and turk-satin
+      shoes (for silk-satin is inadmissible in deep mourning) were of elegant
+      proportions. Thus dressed, she was very handsome. Her complexion,
+      beautified by a bran-bath, was softly radiant. Her eyes, suffused with the
+      light of hope, and sparkling with intelligence, justified her claims to
+      the superiority which des Lupeaulx, proud and happy on this occasion,
+      asserted for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She entered the room well (women will understand the meaning of that
+      expression), bowed gracefully to the minister&rsquo;s wife, with a happy mixture
+      of deference and of self-respect, and gave no offence by a certain
+      reliance on her own dignity; for every beautiful woman has the right to
+      seem a queen. With the minister himself she took the pretty air of
+      sauciness which women may properly allow themselves with men, even when
+      they are grand dukes. She reconnoitred the field, as it were, while taking
+      her seat, and saw that she was in the midst of one of those select parties
+      of few persons, where the women eye and appraise each other, and every
+      word said echoes in all ears; where every glance is a stab, and
+      conversation a duel with witnesses; where all that is commonplace seems
+      commoner still, and where every form of merit or distinction is silently
+      accepted as though it were the natural level of all present. Rabourdin
+      betook himself to the adjoining salon in which a few persons were playing
+      cards; and there he planted himself on exhibition, as it were, which
+      proved that he was not without social intelligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; said the Marquise d&rsquo;Espard to the Comtesse Feraud, Louis
+      XVIII.&lsquo;s last mistress, &ldquo;Paris is certainly unique. It produces&mdash;whence
+      and how, who knows?&mdash;women like this person, who seems ready to will
+      and to do anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She really does will, and does do everything,&rdquo; put in des Lupeaulx,
+      puffed up with satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the wily Madame Rabourdin was courting the minister&rsquo;s wife.
+      Carefully coached the evening before by des Lupeaulx, who knew all the
+      countess&rsquo;s weak spots, she was flattering her without seeming to do so.
+      Every now and then she kept silence; for des Lupeaulx, in love as he was,
+      knew her defects, and said to her the night before, &ldquo;Be careful not to
+      talk too much,&rdquo;&mdash;words which were really an immense proof of
+      attachment. Bertrand Barrere left behind him this sublime axiom: &ldquo;Never
+      interrupt a woman when dancing to give her advice,&rdquo; to which we may add
+      (to make this chapter of the female code complete), &ldquo;Never blame a woman
+      for scattering her pearls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation became general. From time to time Madame Rabourdin joined
+      in, just as a well-trained cat puts a velvet paw on her mistress&rsquo;s laces
+      with the claws carefully drawn in. The minister, in matters of the heart,
+      had few emotions. There was not another statesman under the Restoration
+      who had so completely done with gallantry as he; even the opposition
+      papers, the &ldquo;Miroir,&rdquo; &ldquo;Pandora,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Figaro,&rdquo; could not find a single
+      throbbing artery with which to reproach him. Madame Rabourdin knew this,
+      but she knew also that ghosts return to old castles, and she had taken it
+      into her head to make the minister jealous of the happiness which des
+      Lupeaulx was appearing to enjoy. The latter&rsquo;s throat literally gurgled
+      with the name of his divinity. To launch his supposed mistress
+      successfully, he was endeavoring to persuade the Marquise d&rsquo;Espard, Madame
+      de Nucingen, and the countess, in an eight-ear conversation, that they had
+      better admit Madame Rabourdin to their coalition; and Madame de Camps was
+      supporting him. At the end of the hour the minister&rsquo;s vanity was greatly
+      tickled; Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s cleverness pleased him, and she had won his
+      wife, who, delighted with the siren, invited her to come to all her
+      receptions whenever she pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For your husband, my dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;will soon be director; the
+      minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under one
+      director; you will then be one of us, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show her a
+      certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the opposition
+      journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and together they
+      laughed over the absurdities of journalism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the pleasure of
+      seeing you here often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Monseigneur,&rdquo; she replied, with one of those glances which women
+      hold in reserve, &ldquo;it seems to me that that depends on you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You alone can give me the right to come here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray explain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not have the
+      bad taste to seem a petitioner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out of place,&rdquo;
+       said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too silly to amuse a
+      solemn man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a bureau
+      is out of place here; a director&rsquo;s wife is not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That point need not be considered,&rdquo; said the minister, &ldquo;your husband is
+      indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that a veritable fact?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are already drawn up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the
+      minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, &ldquo;let me tell you
+      that I can make you a return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was on the point of revealing her husband&rsquo;s plan, when des Lupeaulx,
+      who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry sound, which meant
+      that he did not wish to appear to have overheard what, in fact, he had
+      been listening to. The minister gave an ill-tempered look at the old beau,
+      who, impatient to win his reward, had hurried, beyond all precedent, the
+      preliminary work of the appointment. He had carried the papers to his
+      Excellency that evening, and desired to take himself, on the morrow, the
+      news of the appointment to her whom he was now endeavoring to exhibit as
+      his mistress. Just then the minister&rsquo;s valet approached des Lupeaulx in a
+      mysterious manner, and told him that his own servant wished him to deliver
+      to him at once a letter of the utmost importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see
+   you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms
+   with
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Your obedient servant, Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we
+      cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like to
+      guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of signature. If
+      ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it was assuredly this
+      written name, in which the first and the final letter approached each
+      other like the voracious jaws of a shark,&mdash;insatiable, always open,
+      seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak. As for the wording of the
+      note, the spirit of usury alone could have inspired a sentence so
+      imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said all and revealed
+      nothing. Those who had never heard of Gobseck would have felt, on reading
+      words which compelled him to whom they were addressed to obey, yet gave no
+      order, the presence of the implacable money-lender of the rue des Gres.
+      Like a dog called to heel by the huntsman, des Lupeaulx left his present
+      quest and went immediately to his own rooms, thinking of his hazardous
+      position. Imagine a general to whom an aide-de-camp rides up and says:
+      &ldquo;The enemy with thirty thousand fresh troops is attacking on our right
+      flank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A very few words will serve to explain this sudden arrival of Gigonnet and
+      Gobseck on the field of battle,&mdash;for des Lupeaulx found them both
+      waiting. At eight o&rsquo;clock that evening, Martin Falleix, returning on the
+      wings of the wind,&mdash;thanks to three francs to the postboys and a
+      courier in advance,&mdash;had brought back with him the deeds of the
+      property signed the night before. Taken at once to the Cafe Themis by
+      Mitral, these securities passed into the hands of the two usurers, who
+      hastened (though on foot) to the ministry. It was past eleven o&rsquo;clock. Des
+      Lupeaulx trembled when he saw those sinister faces, emitting a
+      simultaneous look as direct as a pistol shot and as brilliant as the flash
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, my masters?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two extortioners continued cold and motionless. Gigonnet silently
+      pointed to the documents in his hand, and then at the servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come into my study,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, dismissing his valet by a sign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand French very well,&rdquo; remarked Gigonnet, approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you come here to torment a man who enabled each of you to make a
+      couple of hundred thousand francs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who will help us to make more, I hope,&rdquo; said Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some new affair?&rdquo; asked des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;If you want me to help you,
+      consider that I recollect the past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do we,&rdquo; answered Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My debts must be paid,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, disdainfully, so as not to
+      seem worsted at the outset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us come to the point, my son,&rdquo; said Gigonnet. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t stiffen your
+      chin in your cravat; with us all that is useless. Take these deeds and
+      read them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two usurers took a mental inventory of des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s study while he
+      read with amazement and stupefaction a deed of purchase which seemed
+      wafted to him from the clouds by angels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think you have a pair of intelligent business agents in Gobseck
+      and me?&rdquo; asked Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But tell me, to what do I owe such able co-operation?&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx,
+      suspicious and uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We knew eight days ago a fact that without us you would not have known
+      till to-morrow morning. The president of the chamber of commerce, a
+      deputy, as you know, feels himself obliged to resign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s eyes dilated, and were as big as daisies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your minister has been tricking you about this event,&rdquo; said the concise
+      Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You master me,&rdquo; said the general-secretary, bowing with an air of
+      profound respect, bordering however, on sarcasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you mean to strangle me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, begin your work, executioners,&rdquo; said the secretary, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will see,&rdquo; resumed Gigonnet, &ldquo;that the sum total of your debts is
+      added to the sum loaned by us for the purchase of the property; we have
+      bought them up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here are the deeds,&rdquo; said Gobseck, taking from the pocket of his greenish
+      overcoat a number of legal papers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have three years in which to pay off the whole sum,&rdquo; said Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, frightened at such kindness, and also by so
+      apparently fantastic an arrangement. &ldquo;What do you want of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;La Billardiere&rsquo;s place for Baudoyer,&rdquo; said Gigonnet, quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a small matter, though it will be next to impossible for me to do
+      it,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;I have just tied my hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bite the cords with your teeth,&rdquo; said Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are sharp,&rdquo; added Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all?&rdquo; asked des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We keep the title-deeds of the property till the debts are paid,&rdquo; said
+      Gigonnet, putting one of the papers before des Lupeaulx; &ldquo;and if the
+      matter of the appointment is not satisfactorily arranged within six days
+      our names will be substituted in place of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are deep,&rdquo; cried the secretary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this is all?&rdquo; exclaimed des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You agree?&rdquo; asked Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx nodded his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, sign this power of attorney. Within two days Baudoyer is to
+      be nominated; within six your debts will be cleared off, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what?&rdquo; asked des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We guarantee&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guarantee!&mdash;what?&rdquo; said the secretary, more and more astonished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your election to the Chamber,&rdquo; said Gigonnet, rising on his heels. &ldquo;We
+      have secured a majority of fifty-two farmers&rsquo; and mechanics&rsquo; votes, which
+      will be thrown precisely as those who lend you this money dictate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx wrung Gigonnet&rsquo;s hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only such as we who never misunderstand each other,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;this
+      is what I call doing business. I&rsquo;ll make you a return gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Gigonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cross of the Legion of honor for your imbecile of a nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good,&rdquo; said Gigonnet, &ldquo;I see you know him well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pair took leave of des Lupeaulx, who conducted them to the staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They must be secret envoys from foreign powers,&rdquo; whispered the footmen to
+      each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once in the street, the two usurers looked at each other under a street
+      lamp and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will owe us nine thousand francs interest a year,&rdquo; said Gigonnet;
+      &ldquo;that property doesn&rsquo;t bring him in five.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is under our thumb for a long time,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll build; he&rsquo;ll commit extravagancies,&rdquo; continued Gigonnet; &ldquo;Falleix
+      will get his land.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His interest is only to be made deputy; the old fox laughs at the rest,&rdquo;
+       said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey! hey!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi! hi!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These dry little exclamations served as a laugh to the two old men, who
+      took their way back (always on foot) to the Cafe Themis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx returned to the salon and found Madame Rabourdin sailing with
+      the wind of success, and very charming; while his Excellency, usually so
+      gloomy, showed a smooth and gracious countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She performs miracles,&rdquo; thought des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;What a wonderfully clever
+      woman! I must get to the bottom of her heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your little lady is decidedly handsome,&rdquo; said the Marquise to the
+      secretary; &ldquo;now if she only had your name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, her defect is that she is the daughter of an auctioneer. She will
+      fail for want of birth,&rdquo; replied des Lupeaulx, with a cold manner that
+      contrasted strangely with the ardor of his remarks about Madame Rabourdin
+      not half an hour earlier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquise looked at him fixedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The glance you gave them did not escape me,&rdquo; she said, motioning towards
+      the minister and Madame Rabourdin; &ldquo;it pierced the mask of your
+      spectacles. How amusing you both are, to quarrel over that bone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the marquise turned to leave the room the minister joined her and
+      escorted her to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx to Madame Rabourdin, &ldquo;what do you think of his
+      Excellency?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is charming. We must know these poor ministers to appreciate them,&rdquo;
+       she added, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard by his
+      Excellency&rsquo;s wife. &ldquo;The newspapers and the opposition calumnies are so
+      misleading about men in politics that we are all more or less influenced
+      by them; but such prejudices turn to the advantage of statesmen when we
+      come to know them personally.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is very good-looking,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and I assure you he is quite lovable,&rdquo; she said, heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear child,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, with a genial, caressing manner; &ldquo;you
+      have actually done the impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Resuscitated the dead. I did not think that man had a heart; ask his
+      wife. But he may have just enough for a passing fancy. Therefore profit by
+      it. Come this way, and don&rsquo;t be surprised.&rdquo; He led Madame Rabourdin into
+      the boudoir, placed her on a sofa, and sat down beside her. &ldquo;You are very
+      sly,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I like you the better for it. Between ourselves, you
+      are a clever woman. Des Lupeaulx served to bring you into this house, and
+      that is all you wanted of him, isn&rsquo;t it? Now when a woman decides to love
+      a man for what she can get out of him it is better to take a sexagenarian
+      Excellency than a quadragenarian secretary; there&rsquo;s more profit and less
+      annoyance. I&rsquo;m a man with spectacles, grizzled hair, worn out with
+      dissipation,&mdash;a fine lover, truly! I tell myself all this again and
+      again. It must be admitted, of course, that I can sometimes be useful, but
+      never agreeable. Isn&rsquo;t that so? A man must be a fool if he cannot reason
+      about himself. You can safely admit the truth and let me see to the depths
+      of your heart; we are partners, not lovers. If I show some tenderness at
+      times, you are too superior a woman to pay any attention to such follies;
+      you will forgive me,&mdash;you are not a school-girl, or a bourgeoise of
+      the rue Saint-Denis. Bah! you and I are too well brought up for that.
+      There&rsquo;s the Marquise d&rsquo;Espard who has just left the room; this is
+      precisely what she thinks and does. She and I came to an understanding two
+      years ago [the coxcomb!], and now she has only to write me a line and say,
+      &lsquo;My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige me by doing such and such a thing,&rsquo; 
+      and it is done at once. We are engaged at this very moment in getting a
+      commission of lunacy on her husband. Ah! you women, you can get what you
+      want by the bestowal of a few favors. Well, then, my dear child, bewitch
+      the minister. I&rsquo;ll help you; it is my interest to do so. Yes, I wish he
+      had a woman who could influence him; he wouldn&rsquo;t escape me,&mdash;for he
+      does escape me quite often, and the reason is that I hold him only through
+      his intellect. Now if I were one with a pretty woman who was also intimate
+      with him, I should hold him by his weaknesses, and that is much the
+      firmest grip. Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the
+      advantages of the conquest you are making.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Rabourdin listened in amazement to this singular profession of
+      rascality. The apparent artlessness of this political swindler prevented
+      her from suspecting a trick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe he really thinks of me?&rdquo; she asked, falling into the trap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it; I am certain of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it true that Rabourdin&rsquo;s appointment is signed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gave him the papers this morning. But it is not enough that your
+      husband should be made director; he must be Master of petitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, go back to the salon and coquette a little more with his
+      Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that I never fully understood you till to-night.
+      There is nothing commonplace about /you/.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will be two old friends,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, &ldquo;and suppress all tender
+      nonsense and tormenting love; we will take things as they did under the
+      Regency. Ah! they had plenty of wit and wisdom in those days!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are really strong; you deserve my admiration,&rdquo; she said, smiling, and
+      holding out her hand to him, &ldquo;one does more for one&rsquo;s friend, you know,
+      than for one&rsquo;s&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left him without finishing her sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear creature!&rdquo; thought des Lupeaulx, as he saw her approach the
+      minister, &ldquo;des Lupeaulx has no longer the slightest remorse in turning
+      against you. To-morrow evening when you offer me a cup of tea, you will be
+      offering me a thing I no longer care for. All is over. Ah! when a man is
+      forty years of age women may take pains to catch him, but they won&rsquo;t love
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked himself over in a mirror, admitting honestly that though he did
+      very well as a politician he was a wreck on the shores of Cythera. At the
+      same moment Madame Rabourdin was gathering herself together for a becoming
+      exit. She wished to make a last graceful impression on the minds of all,
+      and she succeeded. Contrary to the usual custom in society, every one
+      cried out as soon as she was gone, &ldquo;What a charming woman!&rdquo; and the
+      minister himself took her to the outer door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite sure you will think of me to-morrow,&rdquo; he said, alluding to the
+      appointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are so few high functionaries who have agreeable wives,&rdquo; remarked
+      his Excellency on re-entering the room, &ldquo;that I am very well satisfied
+      with our new acquisition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think her a little overpowering?&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx with a
+      piqued air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The women present all exchanged expressive glances; the rivalry between
+      the minister and his secretary amused them and instigated one of those
+      pretty little comedies which Parisian women play so well. They excited and
+      led on his Excellency and des Lupeaulx by a series of comments on Madame
+      Rabourdin: one thought her too studied in manner, too eager to appear
+      clever; another compared the graces of the middle classes with the manners
+      of high life, while des Lupeaulx defended his pretended mistress as we all
+      defend an enemy in society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do her justice, ladies,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;is it not extraordinary that the
+      daughter of an auctioneer should appear as well as she does? See where she
+      came from, and what she is. She will end in the Tuileries; that is what
+      she intends,&mdash;she told me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose she is the daughter of an auctioneer,&rdquo; said the Comtesse Feraud,
+      smiling, &ldquo;that will not hinder her husband&rsquo;s rise to power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in these days, you mean,&rdquo; said the minister&rsquo;s wife, tightening her
+      lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; said his Excellency to the countess, sternly, &ldquo;such sentiments
+      and such speeches lead to revolutions; unhappily, the court and the great
+      world do not restrain them. You would hardly believe, however, how the
+      injudicious conduct of the aristocracy in this respect displeases certain
+      clear-sighted personages at the palace. If I were a great lord, instead of
+      being, as I am, a mere country gentleman who seems to be placed where he
+      is to transact your business for you, the monarchy would not be as
+      insecure as I now think it is. What becomes of a throne which does not
+      bestow dignity on those who administer its government? We are far indeed
+      from the days when a king could make men great at will,&mdash;such men as
+      Louvois, Colbert, Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,&mdash;Sully, in his
+      origin, was no greater than I. I speak to you thus because we are here in
+      private among ourselves. I should be very paltry indeed if I were
+      personally offended by such speeches. After all, it is for us and not for
+      others to make us great.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are appointed, dear,&rdquo; cried Celestine, pressing her husband&rsquo;s hand as
+      they drove away. &ldquo;If it had not been for des Lupeaulx I should have
+      explained your scheme to his Excellency. But I will do it next Tuesday,
+      and it will help the further matter of making you Master of petitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the life of every woman there comes a day when she shines in all her
+      glory; a day which gives her an unfading recollection to which she recurs
+      with happiness all her life. As Madame Rabourdin took off one by one the
+      ornaments of her apparel, she thought over the events of this evening, and
+      marked the day among the triumphs and glories of her life,&mdash;all her
+      beauties had been seen and envied, she had been praised and flattered by
+      the minister&rsquo;s wife, delighted thus to make the other women jealous of
+      her; but, above all, her grace and vanities had shone to the profit of
+      conjugal love. Her husband was appointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you think I looked well to-night?&rdquo; she said to him, joyously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same instant Mitral, waiting at the Cafe Themis, saw the two
+      usurers returning, but was unable to perceive the slightest indications of
+      the result on their impassible faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What of it?&rdquo; he said, when they were all seated at table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Same as ever,&rdquo; replied Gigonnet, rubbing his hands, &ldquo;victory with gold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Gobseck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mitral took a cabriolet and went straight to the Saillards and Baudoyers,
+      who were still playing boston at a late hour. No one was present but the
+      Abbe Gaudron. Falleix, half-dead with the fatigue of his journey, had gone
+      to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be appointed, nephew,&rdquo; said Mitral; &ldquo;and there&rsquo;s a surprise in
+      store for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Saillard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cross of the Legion of honor?&rdquo; cried Mitral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God protects those who guard his altars,&rdquo; said Gaudron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the Te Deum was sung with equal joy and confidence in both camps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. FORWARD, MOLLUSKS!
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The next day, Wednesday, Monsieur Rabourdin was to transact business with
+      the minister, for he had filled the late La Billardiere&rsquo;s place since the
+      beginning of the latter&rsquo;s illness. On such days the clerks came
+      punctually, the servants were specially attentive, there was always a
+      certain excitement in the offices on these signing-days,&mdash;and why,
+      nobody ever knew. On this occasion the three servants were at their post,
+      flattering themselves they should get a few fees; for a rumor of
+      Rabourdin&rsquo;s nomination had spread through the ministry the night before,
+      thanks to Dutocq. Uncle Antoine and Laurent had donned their full uniform,
+      when, at a quarter to eight, des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s servant came in with a letter,
+      which he begged Antoine to give secretly to Dutocq, saying that the
+      general-secretary had ordered him to deliver it without fail at Monsieur
+      Dutocq&rsquo;s house by seven o&rsquo;clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t know how it happened,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I overslept myself.
+      I&rsquo;ve only just waked up, and he&rsquo;d play the devil&rsquo;s tattoo on me if he knew
+      the letter hadn&rsquo;t gone. I know a famous secret, Antoine; but don&rsquo;t say
+      anything about it to the clerks if I tell you; promise? He would send me
+      off if he knew I had said a single word; he told me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s inside the letter?&rdquo; asked Antoine, eying it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing; I looked this way&mdash;see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made the letter gape open, and showed Antoine that there was nothing
+      but blank paper to be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is going to be a great day for you, Laurent,&rdquo; went on the
+      secretary&rsquo;s man. &ldquo;You are to have a new director. Economy must be the
+      order of the day, for they are going to unite the two divisions under one
+      director&mdash;you fellows will have to look out!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, nine clerks are put on the retired list,&rdquo; said Dutocq, who came in
+      at the moment; &ldquo;how did you hear that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoine gave him the letter, and he had no sooner opened it than he rushed
+      headlong downstairs in the direction of the secretary&rsquo;s office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bureaus Rabourdin and Baudoyer, after idling and gossiping since the
+      death of Monsieur de la Billardiere, were now recovering their usual
+      official look and the dolce far niente habits of a government office.
+      Nevertheless, the approaching end of the year did cause rather more
+      application among the clerks, just as porters and servants become at that
+      season more unctuously civil. They all came punctually, for one thing;
+      more remained after four o&rsquo;clock than was usual at other times. It was not
+      forgotten that fees and gratuities depend on the last impressions made
+      upon the minds of masters. The news of the union of the two divisions,
+      that of La Billardiere and that of Clergeot, under one director, had
+      spread through the various offices. The number of the clerks to be retired
+      was known, but all were in ignorance of the names. It was taken for
+      granted that Poiret would not be replaced, and that would be a
+      retrenchment. Little La Billardiere had already departed. Two new
+      supernumeraries had made their appearance, and, alarming circumstance!
+      they were both sons of deputies. The news told about in the offices the
+      night before, just as the clerks were dispersing, agitated all minds, and
+      for the first half-hour after arrival in the morning they stood around the
+      stoves and talked it over. But earlier than that, Dutocq, as we have seen,
+      had rushed to des Lupeaulx on receiving his note, and found him dressing.
+      Without laying down his razor, the general-secretary cast upon his
+      subordinate the glance of a general issuing an order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we alone?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good. March on Rabourdin; forward! steady! Of course you kept a copy
+      of that paper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand me? Inde iroe! There must be a general hue and cry raised
+      against him. Find some way to start a clamor&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could get a man to make a caricature, but I haven&rsquo;t five hundred francs
+      to pay for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who would make it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bixou.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall have a thousand and be under-head-clerk to Colleville, who will
+      arrange with them; tell him so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he wouldn&rsquo;t believe it on nothing more than my word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you trying to make me compromise myself? Either do the thing or let
+      it alone; do you hear me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Monsieur Baudoyer were director&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he will be. Go now, and make haste; you have no time to lose. Go
+      down the back-stairs; I don&rsquo;t want people to know you have just seen me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Dutocq was returning to the clerks&rsquo; office and asking himself how he
+      could best incite a clamor against his chief without compromising himself,
+      Bixiou rushed to the Rabourdin office for a word of greeting. Believing
+      that he had lost his bet the incorrigible joker thought it amusing to
+      pretend that he had won it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [mimicking Phellion&rsquo;s voice]. &ldquo;Gentlemen, I salute you with a
+      collective how d&rsquo;ye do, and I appoint Sunday next for the dinner at the
+      Rocher de Cancale. But a serious question presents itself. Is that dinner
+      to include the clerks who are dismissed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;And those who retire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Not that I care, for it isn&rsquo;t I who pay.&rdquo; [General stupefaction.]
+      &ldquo;Baudoyer is appointed. I think I already hear him calling Laurent&rdquo;
+       [mimicking Baudoyer], &ldquo;Laurent! lock up my hair-shirt, and my scourge.&rdquo;
+       [They all roar with laughter.] &ldquo;Yes, yes, he laughs well who laughs last.
+      Gentlemen, there&rsquo;s a great deal in that anagram of Colleville&rsquo;s. &lsquo;Xavier
+      Rabourdin, chef de bureau&mdash;D&rsquo;abord reva bureaux, e-u fin riche.&rsquo; If I
+      were named &lsquo;Charles X., par la grace de Dieu roi de France et de Navarre,&rsquo; 
+      I should tremble in my shoes at the fate those letters anagrammatize.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;Look here! are you making fun?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;No, I am not. Rabourdin resigns in a rage at finding Baudoyer
+      appointed director.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux [entering.] &ldquo;Nonsense, no such thing! Antoine (to whom I have just
+      been paying forty francs that I owed him) tells me that Monsieur and
+      Madame Rabourdin were at the minister&rsquo;s private party last night and
+      stayed till midnight. His Excellency escorted Madame Rabourdin to the
+      staircase. It seems she was divinely dressed. In short, it is quite
+      certain that Rabourdin is to be director. Riffe, the secretary&rsquo;s copying
+      clerk, told me he sat up all the night before to draw the papers; it is no
+      longer a secret. Monsieur Clergeot is retired. After thirty years&rsquo; service
+      that&rsquo;s no misfortune. Monsieur Cochlin, who is rich&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;By cochineal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;Yes, cochineal; he&rsquo;s a partner in the house of Matifat, rue des
+      Lombards. Well, he is retired; so is Poiret. Neither is to be replaced. So
+      much is certain; the rest is all conjecture. The appointment of Monsieur
+      Rabourdin is to be announced this morning; they are afraid of intrigues.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;What intrigues?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Baudoyer&rsquo;s, confound him! The priests uphold him; here&rsquo;s another
+      article in the liberal journal,&mdash;only half a dozen lines, but they
+      are queer&rdquo; [reads]:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Certain persons spoke last night in the lobby of the Opera-house
+  of the return of Monsieur de Chateaubriand to the ministry, basing
+  their opinion on the choice made of Monsieur Rabourdin (the
+  protege of friends of the noble viscount) to fill the office for
+  which Monsieur Baudoyer was first selected. The clerical party is
+  not likely to withdraw unless in deference to the great writer.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blackguards!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [entering, having heard the whole discussion]. &ldquo;Blackguards! Who?
+      Rabourdin? Then you know the news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [rolling his eyes savagely]. &ldquo;Rabourdin a blackguard! Are you mad,
+      Dutocq? do you want a ball in your brains to give them weight?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;I said nothing against Monsieur Rabourdin; only it has just been
+      told to me in confidence that he has written a paper denouncing all the
+      clerks and officials, and full of facts about their lives; in short, the
+      reason why his friends support him is because he has written this paper
+      against the administration, in which we are all exposed&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [in a loud voice]. &ldquo;Monsieur Rabourdin is incapable of&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Very proper in you to say so. Tell me, Dutocq&rdquo; [they whisper
+      together and then go into the corridor].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;What has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Do you remember what I said to you about that caricature?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Yes, what then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Make it, and you shall be under-head-clerk with a famous fee. The
+      fact is, my dear fellow, there&rsquo;s dissension among the powers that be. The
+      minister is pledged to Rabourdin, but if he doesn&rsquo;t appoint Baudoyer he
+      offends the priests and their party. You see, the King, the Dauphin and
+      the Dauphine, the clergy, and lastly the court, all want Baudoyer; the
+      minister wants Rabourdin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;To ease the matter off, the minister, who sees he must give way,
+      wants to strangle the difficulty. We must find some good reason for
+      getting rid of Rabourdin. Now somebody has lately unearthed a paper of
+      his, exposing the present system of administration and wanting to reform
+      it; and that paper is going the rounds,&mdash;at least, this is how I
+      understand the matter. Make the drawing we talked of; in so doing you&rsquo;ll
+      play the game of all the big people, and help the minister, the court, the
+      clergy,&mdash;in short, everybody; and you&rsquo;ll get your appointment. Now do
+      you understand me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand how you came to know all that; perhaps you are
+      inventing it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Do you want me to let you see what Rabourdin wrote about you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Then come home with me; for I must put the document into safe
+      keeping.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;You go first alone.&rdquo; [Re-enters the bureau Rabourdin.] &ldquo;What
+      Dutocq told you is really all true, word of honor! It seems that Monsieur
+      Rabourdin has written and sent in very unflattering descriptions of the
+      clerks whom he wants to &lsquo;reform.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s the real reason why his secret
+      friends wish him appointed. Well, well; we live in days when nothing
+      astonishes me&rdquo; [flings his cloak about him like Talma, and declaims]:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Thou who has seen the fall of grand, illustrious heads,
+  Why thus amazed, insensate that thou art,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      to find a man like Rabourdin employing such means? Baudoyer is too much of
+      a fool to know how to use them. Accept my congratulations, gentlemen;
+      either way you are under a most illustrious chief&rdquo; [goes off].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;I shall leave this ministry without ever comprehending a single
+      word that gentleman utters. What does he mean with his &lsquo;heads that fall&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;&lsquo;Heads that fell?&rsquo; why, think of the four sergeants of Rochelle,
+      Ney, Berton, Caron, the brothers Faucher, and the massacres.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;He asserts very flippantly things that he only guesses at.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Say at once that he lies; in his mouth truth itself turns to
+      corrosion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;Your language is unparliamentary and lacks the courtesy and
+      consideration which are due to a colleague.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;It seems to me that if what he says is false, the proper name for
+      it is calumny, defamation of character; and such a slanderer deserves the
+      thrashing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [getting hot]. &ldquo;If the government offices are public places, the
+      matter ought to be taken into the police-courts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [wishing to avert a quarrel, tries to turn the conversation].
+      &ldquo;Gentleman, might I ask you to keep quiet? I am writing a little treatise
+      on moral philosophy, and I am just at the heart of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [interrupting]. &ldquo;What are you saying about it, Monsieur Phellion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [reading]. &ldquo;Question.&mdash;What is the soul of man?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Answer.&mdash;A spiritual substance which thinks and reasons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;Spiritual substance! you might as well talk about immaterial
+      stone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interrupt; let him go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [continuing]. &ldquo;Quest.&mdash;Whence comes the soul?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ans.&mdash;From God, who created it of a nature one and indivisible; the
+      destructibility thereof is, consequently, not conceivable, and he hath
+      said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [amazed]. &ldquo;God said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;Yes, monsieur; tradition authorizes the statement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [to Poiret]. &ldquo;Come, don&rsquo;t interrupt, yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [resuming]. &ldquo;&mdash;and he hath said that he created it immortal;
+      in other words, the soul can never die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quest.&mdash;What are the uses of the soul?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ans.&mdash;To comprehend, to will, to remember; these constitute
+      understanding, volition, memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quest.&mdash;What are the uses of the understanding?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ans.&mdash;To know. It is the eye of the soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;And the soul is the eye of what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [continuing]. &ldquo;Quest.&mdash;What ought the understanding to know?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ans.&mdash;Truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quest.&mdash;Why does man possess volition?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ans.&mdash;To love good and hate evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quest.&mdash;What is good?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ans.&mdash;That which makes us happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;Heavens! do you teach that to young ladies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;Yes&rdquo; [continuing]. &ldquo;Quest.&mdash;How many kinds of good are
+      there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Amazingly indecorous, to say the least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [aggrieved]. &ldquo;Oh, monsieur!&rdquo; [Controlling himself.] &ldquo;But here&rsquo;s
+      the answer,&mdash;that&rsquo;s as far as I have got&rdquo; [reads]:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ans.&mdash;There are two kinds of good,&mdash;eternal good and temporal
+      good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [with a look of contempt]. &ldquo;And does that sell for anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;I hope it will. It requires great application of mind to carry
+      on a system of questions and answers; that is why I ask you to be quiet
+      and let me think, for the answers&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier [interrupting]. &ldquo;The answers might be sold separately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Is that a pun?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;No; a riddle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;I am sorry I interrupted you&rdquo; [he dives into his office desk].
+      &ldquo;But&rdquo; [to himself] &ldquo;at any rate, I have stopped their talking about
+      Monsieur Rabourdin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment a scene was taking place between the minister and des
+      Lupeaulx which decided Rabourdin&rsquo;s fate. The general-secretary had gone to
+      see the minister in his private study before the breakfast-hour, to make
+      sure that La Briere was not within hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Excellency is not treating me frankly&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He means a quarrel,&rdquo; thought the minister; &ldquo;and all because his mistress
+      coquetted with me last night. I did not think you so juvenile, my dear
+      friend,&rdquo; he said aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friend?&rdquo; said the general-secretary, &ldquo;that is what I want to find out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister looked haughtily at des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are alone,&rdquo; continued the secretary, &ldquo;and we can come to an
+      understanding. The deputy of the arrondissement in which my estate is
+      situated&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is really an estate!&rdquo; said the minister, laughing, to hide his
+      surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Increased by a recent purchase of two hundred thousand francs&rsquo; worth of
+      adjacent property,&rdquo; replied des Lupeaulx, carelessly. &ldquo;You knew of the
+      deputy&rsquo;s approaching resignation at least ten days ago, and you did not
+      tell me of it. You were perhaps not bound to do so, but you knew very well
+      that I am most anxious to take my seat in the centre. Has it occurred to
+      you that I might fling myself back on the &lsquo;Doctrine&rsquo;?&mdash;which, let me
+      tell you, will destroy the administration and the monarchy both if you
+      continue to allow the party of representative government to be recruited
+      from men of talent whom you ignore. Don&rsquo;t you know that in every nation
+      there are fifty to sixty, not more, dangerous heads, whose schemes are in
+      proportion to their ambition? The secret of knowing how to govern is to
+      know those heads well, and either to chop them off or buy them. I don&rsquo;t
+      know how much talent I have, but I know that I have ambition; and you are
+      committing a serious blunder when you set aside a man who wishes you well.
+      The anointed head dazzles for the time being, but what next?&mdash;Why, a
+      war of words; discussions will spring up once more and grow embittered,
+      envenomed. Then, for your own sake, I advise you not to find me at the
+      Left Centre. In spite of your prefect&rsquo;s manoeuvres (instructions for which
+      no doubt went from here confidentially) I am secure of a majority. The
+      time has come for you and me to understand each other. After a breeze like
+      this people sometimes become closer friends than ever. I must be made
+      count and receive the grand cordon of the Legion of honor as a reward for
+      my public services. However, I care less for those things just now than I
+      do for something else in which you are more personally concerned. You have
+      not yet appointed Rabourdin, and I have news this morning which tends to
+      show that most persons will be better satisfied if you appoint Baudoyer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Appoint Baudoyer!&rdquo; echoed the minister. &ldquo;Do you know him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx; &ldquo;but suppose he proves incapable, as he will,
+      you can then get rid of him by asking those who protect him to employ him
+      elsewhere. You will thus get back an important office to give to friends;
+      it may come in at the right moment to facilitate some compromise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have pledged it to Rabourdin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That may be; and I don&rsquo;t ask you to make the change this very day. I know
+      the danger of saying yes and no within twenty-four hours. But postpone the
+      appointment, and don&rsquo;t sign the papers till the day after to-morrow; by
+      that time you may find it impossible to retain Rabourdin,&mdash;in fact,
+      in all probability, he will send you his resignation&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His resignation?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the tool of a secret power in whose interests he has carried on a
+      system of espionage in all the ministries, and the thing has been
+      discovered by mere accident. He has written a paper of some kind, giving
+      short histories of all the officials. Everybody is talking of it; the
+      clerks are furious. For heaven&rsquo;s sake, don&rsquo;t transact business with him
+      to-day; let me find some means for you to avoid it. Ask an audience of the
+      King; I am sure you will find great satisfaction there if you concede the
+      point about Baudoyer; and you can obtain something as an equivalent. Your
+      position will be better than ever if you are forced later to dismiss a
+      fool whom the court party impose upon you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has made you turn against Rabourdin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you forgive Monsieur de Chateaubriand for writing an article
+      against the ministry? Well, read that, and see how Rabourdin has treated
+      me in his secret document,&rdquo; said des Lupeaulx, giving the paper to the
+      minister. &ldquo;He pretends to reorganize the government from beginning to end,&mdash;no
+      doubt in the interests of some secret society of which, as yet, we know
+      nothing. I shall continue to be his friend for the sake of watching him;
+      by that means I may render the government such signal service that they
+      will have to make me count; for the peerage is the only thing I really
+      care for. I want you fully to understand that I am not seeking office or
+      anything else that would cause me to stand in your way; I am simply aiming
+      for the peerage, which will enable me to marry a banker&rsquo;s daughter with an
+      income of a couple of hundred thousand francs. And so, allow me to render
+      you a few signal services which will make the King feel that I have saved
+      the throne. I have long said that Liberalism would never offer us a
+      pitched battle. It has given up conspiracies, Carbonaroism, and revolts
+      with weapons; it is now sapping and mining, and the day is coming when it
+      will be able to say, &lsquo;Out of that and let me in!&rsquo; Do you think I have been
+      courting Rabourdin&rsquo;s wife for my own pleasure? No, but I got much
+      information from her. So now, let us agree on two things; first, the
+      postponement of the appointment; second, your /sincere/ support of my
+      election. You shall find at the end of the session that I have amply
+      repaid you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For all answer, the minister took the appointment papers and placed them
+      in des Lupeaulx&rsquo;s hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go and tell Rabourdin,&rdquo; added des Lupeaulx, &ldquo;that you cannot
+      transact business with him till Saturday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister replied with an assenting gesture. The secretary despatched
+      his man with a message to Rabourdin that the minister could not work with
+      him until Saturday, on which day the Chamber was occupied with private
+      bills, and his Excellency had more time at his disposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just at this moment Saillard, having brought the monthly stipend, was
+      slipping his little speech into the ear of the minister&rsquo;s wife, who drew
+      herself up and answered with dignity that she did not meddle in political
+      matters, and besides, she had heard that Monsieur Rabourdin was already
+      appointed. Saillard, terrified, rushed up to Baudoyer&rsquo;s office, where he
+      found Dutocq, Godard, and Bixiou in a state of exasperation difficult to
+      describe; for they were reading the terrible paper on the administration
+      in which they were all discussed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [with his finger on a paragraph]. &ldquo;Here /you/ are, pere Saillard.
+      Listen&rdquo; [reads]:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saillard.&mdash;The office of cashier to be suppressed in all the
+      ministries; their accounts to be kept in future at the Treasury. Saillard
+      is rich and does not need a pension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to hear about your son-in-law?&rdquo; [Turns over the leaves.]
+      &ldquo;Here he is&rdquo; [reads]:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Baudoyer.&mdash;Utterly incapable. To be thanked and dismissed. Rich;
+      does not need a pension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And here&rsquo;s for Godard&rdquo; [reads]:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Godard.&mdash;Should be dismissed; pension one-third of his present
+      salary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In short, here we all are. Listen to what I am&rdquo; [reads]: &ldquo;An artist who
+      might be employed by the civil list, at the Opera, or the Menus-Plaisirs,
+      or the Museum. Great deal of capacity, little self-respect, no
+      application,&mdash;a restless spirit. Ha! I&rsquo;ll give you a touch of the
+      artist, Monsieur Rabourdin!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Saillard. &ldquo;Suppress cashiers! Why, the man&rsquo;s a monster?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Let us see what he says of our mysterious Desroys.&rdquo; [Turns over
+      the pages; reads.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Desroys.&mdash;Dangerous; because he cannot be shaken in principles that
+      are subversive of monarchial power. He is the son of the Conventionel, and
+      he admires the Convention. He may become a very mischievous journalist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer. &ldquo;The police are not worse spies!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard. &ldquo;I shall go the general-secretary and lay a complaint in form; we
+      must all resign in a body if such a man as that is put over us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Gentlemen, listen to me; let us be prudent. If you rise at once
+      in a body, we may all be accused of rancor and revenge. No, let the thing
+      work, let the rumor spread quietly. When the whole ministry is aroused
+      your remonstrances will meet with general approval.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Dutocq believes in the principles of the grand air composed by
+      the sublime Rossini for Basilio,&mdash;which goes to show, by the bye,
+      that the great composer was also a great politician. I shall leave my card
+      on Monsieur Rabourdin to-morrow morning, inscribed thus: &lsquo;Bixiou; no
+      self-respect, no application, restless mind.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard. &ldquo;A good idea, gentlemen. Let us all leave our cards to-morrow on
+      Rabourdin inscribed in the same way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [leading Bixiou apart]. &ldquo;Come, you&rsquo;ll agree to make that caricature
+      now, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;I see plainly, my dear fellow, that you knew all about this
+      affair ten days ago&rdquo; [looks him in the eye]. &ldquo;Am I to be
+      under-head-clerk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;On my word of honor, yes, and a thousand-franc fee beside, just
+      as I told you. You don&rsquo;t know what a service you&rsquo;ll be rendering to
+      powerful personages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;You know them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Well, then I want to speak with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [dryly]. &ldquo;You can make the caricature or not, and you can be
+      under-head-clerk or not,&mdash;as you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;At any rate, let me see that thousand francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;You shall have them when you bring the drawing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Forward, march! that lampoon shall go from end to end of the
+      bureaus to-morrow morning. Let us go and torment the Rabourdins.&rdquo; [Then
+      speaking to Saillard, Godard, and Baudoyer, who were talking together in a
+      low voice.] &ldquo;We are going to stir up the neighbors.&rdquo; [Goes with Dutocq
+      into the Rabourdin bureau. Fleury, Thuillier, and Vimeux are there,
+      talking excitedly.] &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter, gentlemen? All that I told you
+      turns out to be true; you can go and see for yourselves the work of this
+      infamous informer; for it is in the hands of the virtuous, honest,
+      estimable, upright, and pious Baudoyer, who is indeed utterly incapable of
+      doing any such thing. Your chief has got every one of you under the
+      guillotine. Go and see; follow the crowd; money returned if you are not
+      satisfied; execution /gratis/! The appointments are postponed. All the
+      bureaus are in arms; Rabourdin has been informed that the minister will
+      not work with him. Come, be off; go and see for yourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They all depart except Phellion and Poiret, who are left alone. The former
+      loved Rabourdin too well to look for proof that might injure a man he was
+      determined not to judge; the other had only five days more to remain in
+      the office, and cared nothing either way. Just then Sebastien came down to
+      collect the papers for signature. He was a good deal surprised, though he
+      did not show it, to find the office deserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;My young friend&rdquo; [he rose, a rare thing], &ldquo;do you know what is
+      going on? what scandals are rife about Monsieur Rabourdin whom you love,
+      and&rdquo; [bending to whisper in Sebastien&rsquo;s ear] &ldquo;whom I love as much as I
+      respect him. They say he has committed the imprudence to leave a paper
+      containing comments on the officials lying about in the office&mdash;&rdquo;
+       [Phellion stopped short, caught the young man in his strong arms, seeing
+      that he turned pale and was near fainting, and placed him on a chair.] &ldquo;A
+      key, Monsieur Poiret, to put down his back; have you a key?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;I have the key of my domicile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      [Old Poiret junior promptly inserted the said key between Sebastien&rsquo;s
+      shoulders, while Phellion gave him some water to drink. The poor lad no
+      sooner opened his eyes than he began to weep. He laid his head on
+      Phellion&rsquo;s desk, and all his limbs were limp as if struck by lightning;
+      while his sobs were so heartrending, so genuine, that for the first time
+      in his life Poiret&rsquo;s feelings were stirred by the sufferings of another.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [speaking firmly]. &ldquo;Come, come, my young friend; courage! In
+      times of trial we must show courage. You are a man. What is the matter?
+      What has happened to distress you so terribly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sebastien [sobbing]. &ldquo;It is I who have ruined Monsieur Rabourdin. I left
+      that paper lying about when I copied it. I have killed my benefactor; I
+      shall die myself. Such a noble man!&mdash;a man who ought to be minister!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [blowing his nose]. &ldquo;Then it is true he wrote the report.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sebastien [still sobbing]. &ldquo;But it was to&mdash;there, I was going to tell
+      his secrets! Ah! that wretch of a Dutocq; it was he who stole the paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His tears and sobs recommenced and made so much noise that Rabourdin came
+      up to see what was the matter. He found the young fellow almost fainting
+      in the arms of Poiret and Phellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin. &ldquo;What is the matter, gentlemen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sebastien [struggling to his feet, and then falling on his knees before
+      Rabourdin]. &ldquo;I have ruined you, monsieur. That memorandum,&mdash;Dutocq,
+      the monster, he must have taken it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin [calmly]. &ldquo;I knew that already&rdquo; [he lifts Sebastien]. &ldquo;You are a
+      child, my young friend.&rdquo; [Speaks to Phellion.] &ldquo;Where are the other
+      gentlemen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;They have gone into Monsieur Baudoyer&rsquo;s office to see a paper
+      which it is said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin [interrupting him]. &ldquo;Enough.&rdquo; [Goes out, taking Sebastien with
+      him. Poiret and Phellion look at each other in amazement, and do not know
+      what to say.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [to Phellion]. &ldquo;Monsieur Rabourdin&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [to Poiret]. &ldquo;Monsieur Rabourdin&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Well, I never! Monsieur Rabourdin!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;But did you notice how calm and dignified he was?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [with a sly look that was more like a grimace]. &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t be
+      surprised if there were something under it all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;A man of honor; pure and spotless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Who is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;Monsieur Poiret, you think as I think about Dutocq; surely you
+      understand me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [nodding his head three times and answering with a shrewd look].
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; [The other clerks return.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;A great shock; I still don&rsquo;t believe the thing. Monsieur
+      Rabourdin, a king among men! If such men are spies, it is enough to
+      disgust one with virtue. I have always put Rabourdin among Plutarch&rsquo;s
+      heroes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;It is all true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [reflecting that he had only five days more to stay in the office].
+      &ldquo;But, gentlemen, what do you say about the man who stole that paper, who
+      spied upon Rabourdin?&rdquo; [Dutocq left the room.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;I say he is a Judas Iscariot. Who is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [significantly]. &ldquo;He is not here at /this moment/.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux [enlightened]. &ldquo;It is Dutocq!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;I have no proof of it, gentlemen. While you were gone, that
+      young man, Monsieur de la Roche, nearly fainted here. See his tears on my
+      desk!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;We held him fainting in our arms.&mdash;My key, the key of my
+      domicile!&mdash;dear, dear! it is down his back.&rdquo; [Poiret goes hastily
+      out.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vimeux. &ldquo;The minister refused to transact business with Rabourdin to-day;
+      and Monsieur Saillard, to whom the secretary said a few words, came to
+      tell Monsieur Baudoyer to apply for the cross of the Legion of honor,&mdash;there
+      is one to be granted, you know, on New-Year&rsquo;s day, to all the heads of
+      divisions. It is quite clear what it all means. Monsieur Rabourdin is
+      sacrificed by the very persons who employed him. Bixiou says so. We were
+      all to be turned out, except Sebastien and Phellion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel [entering]. &ldquo;Well, gentlemen, is it true?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;To the last word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Du Bruel [putting his hat on again]. &ldquo;Good-bye.&rdquo; [Hurries out.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;He may rush as much as he pleases to his Duc de Rhetore and
+      Duc de Maufrigneuse, but Colleville is to be our under-head-clerk, that&rsquo;s
+      certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;Du Bruel always seemed to be attached to Monsieur Rabourdin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [returning]. &ldquo;I have had a world of trouble to get back my key.
+      That boy is crying still, and Monsieur Rabourdin has disappeared.&rdquo; [Dutocq
+      and Bixiou enter.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Ha, gentlemen! strange things are going on in your bureau. Du
+      Bruel! I want you.&rdquo; [Looks into the adjoining room.] &ldquo;Gone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;Full speed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;What about Rabourdin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;Distilled, evaporated, melted! Such a man, the king of men, that
+      he&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [to Dutocq]. &ldquo;That little Sebastien, in his trouble, said that you,
+      Monsieur Dutocq, had taken the paper from him ten days ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [looking at Dutocq]. &ldquo;You must clear yourself of /that/, my good
+      friend.&rdquo; [All the clerks look fixedly at Dutocq.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq. &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the little viper who copied it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Copied it? How did you know he copied it? Ha! ha! it is only the
+      diamond that cuts the diamond.&rdquo; [Dutocq leaves the room.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Would you listen to me, Monsieur Bixiou? I have only five days
+      and a half to stay in this office, and I do wish that once, only once, I
+      might have the pleasure of understanding what you mean. Do me the honor to
+      explain what diamonds have to do with these present circumstances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;I meant papa,&mdash;for I&rsquo;m willing for once to bring my
+      intellect down to the level of yours,&mdash;that just as the diamond alone
+      can cut the diamond, so it is only one inquisitive man who can defeat
+      another inquisitive man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;&lsquo;Inquisitive man&rsquo; stands for &lsquo;spy.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Very well; try again some other time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Rabourdin, after taking Sebastien to his room, had gone straight
+      to the minister; but the minister was at the Chamber of Deputies.
+      Rabourdin went at once to the Chamber, where he wrote a note to his
+      Excellency, who was at that moment in the tribune engaged in a hot
+      discussion. Rabourdin waited, not in the conference hall, but in the
+      courtyard, where, in spite of the cold, he resolved to remain and
+      intercept his Excellency as he got into his carriage. The usher of the
+      Chamber had told him that the minister was in the thick of a controversy
+      raised by the nineteen members of the extreme Left, and that the session
+      was likely to be stormy. Rabourdin walked to and for in the courtyard of
+      the palace for five mortal hours, a prey to feverish agitation. At
+      half-past six o&rsquo;clock the session broke up, and the members filed out. The
+      minister&rsquo;s chasseur came up to find the coachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi, Jean!&rdquo; he called out to him; &ldquo;Monseigneur has gone with the minister
+      of war; they are going to see the King, and after that they dine together,
+      and we are to fetch him at ten o&rsquo;clock. There&rsquo;s a Council this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin walked slowly home, in a state of despondency not difficult to
+      imagine. It was seven o&rsquo;clock, and he had barely time to dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you are appointed?&rdquo; cried his wife, joyously, as he entered the
+      salon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin raised his head with a grievous motion of distress and answered,
+      &ldquo;I fear I shall never again set foot in the ministry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; said his wife, quivering with sudden anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My memorandum on the officials is known in all the offices; and I have
+      not been able to see the minister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Celestine&rsquo;s eyes were opened to a sudden vision in which the devil, in one
+      of his infernal flashes, showed her the meaning of her last conversation
+      with des Lupeaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had behaved like a low woman,&rdquo; she thought, &ldquo;we should have had the
+      place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at Rabourdin with grief in her heart. A sad silence fell
+      between them, and dinner was eaten in the midst of gloomy meditations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is my Wednesday,&rdquo; she said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All is not lost, dear Celestine,&rdquo; said Rabourdin, laying a kiss on his
+      wife&rsquo;s forehead; &ldquo;perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to see the minister
+      and explain everything. Sebastien sat up all last night to finish the
+      writing; the papers are copied and collated; I shall place them on the
+      minister&rsquo;s desk and beg him to read them through. La Briere will help me.
+      A man is never condemned without a hearing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am curious to see if Monsieur des Lupeaulx will come here to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He? Of course he will come,&rdquo; said Rabourdin; &ldquo;there&rsquo;s something of the
+      tiger in him; he likes to lick the blood of the wounds he has given.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor husband,&rdquo; said his wife, taking his hand, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how it is
+      that a man who could conceive so noble a reform did not also see that it
+      ought not to be communicated to a single person. It is one of those ideas
+      that a man should keep in his own mind, for he alone can apply them. A
+      statesman must do in our political sphere as Napoleon did in his; he
+      stooped, twisted, crawled. Yes, Bonaparte crawled! To be made
+      commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy he married Barrere&rsquo;s mistress. You
+      should have waited, got yourself elected deputy, followed the politics of
+      a party, sometimes down in the depths, at other times on the crest of the
+      wave, and you should have taken, like Monsieur de Villele, the Italian
+      motto &lsquo;Col tempo,&rsquo; in other words, &lsquo;All things are given to him who knows
+      how to wait.&rsquo; That great orator worked for seven years to get into power;
+      he began in 1814 by protesting against the Charter when he was the same
+      age that you are now. Here&rsquo;s your fault; you have allowed yourself to be
+      kept subordinate, when you were born to rule.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The entrance of the painter Schinner imposed silence on the wife and
+      husband, but these words made the latter thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear friend,&rdquo; said the painter, grasping Rabourdin&rsquo;s hand, &ldquo;the support
+      of artists is a useless thing enough, but let me say under these
+      circumstances that we are all faithful to you. I have just read the
+      evening papers. Baudoyer is appointed director and receives the cross of
+      the Legion of honor&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been longer in the department, I have served twenty-four hours,&rdquo;
+       said Rabourdin with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know Monsieur le Comte de Serizy, the minister of State, pretty well,
+      and if he can help you, I will go and see him,&rdquo; said Schinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The salon soon filled with persons who knew nothing of the government
+      proceedings. Du Bruel did not appear. Madame Rabourdin was gayer and more
+      graceful than ever, like the charger wounded in battle, that still finds
+      strength to carry his master from the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is very courageous,&rdquo; said a few women who knew the truth, and who
+      were charmingly attentive to her, understanding her misfortunes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she certainly did a great deal to attract des Lupeaulx,&rdquo; said the
+      Baronne du Chatelet to the Vicomtesse de Fontaine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think&mdash;&rdquo; began the vicomtesse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If so,&rdquo; interrupted Madame de Camps, in defence of her friend, &ldquo;Monsieur
+      Rabourdin would at least have had the cross.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      About eleven o&rsquo;clock des Lupeaulx appeared; and we can only describe him
+      by saying that his spectacles were sad and his eyes joyous; the glasses,
+      however, obscured the glances so successfully that only a physiognomist
+      would have seen the diabolical expression which they wore. He went up to
+      Rabourdin and pressed the hand which the latter could not avoid giving
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he approached Madame Rabourdin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have much to say to each other,&rdquo; he remarked as he seated himself
+      beside the beautiful woman, who received him admirably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he continued, giving her a side glance, &ldquo;you are grand indeed; I
+      find you just what I expected, glorious under defeat. Do you know that it
+      is a very rare thing to find a superior woman who answers to the
+      expectations formed of her. So defeat doesn&rsquo;t dishearten you? You are
+      right; we shall triumph in the end,&rdquo; he whispered in her ear. &ldquo;Your fate
+      is always in your own hands,&mdash;so long, I mean, as your ally is a man
+      who adores you. We will hold counsel together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But is Baudoyer appointed?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the secretary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he get the cross?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet; but he will have it later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amazing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! you don&rsquo;t understand political exigencies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      During this evening, which seemed interminable to Madame Rabourdin,
+      another scene was occurring in the place Royale,&mdash;one of those
+      comedies which are played in seven Parisian salons whenever there is a
+      change of ministry. The Saillards&rsquo; salon was crowded. Monsieur and Madame
+      Transon arrived at eight o&rsquo;clock; Madame Transon kissed Madame Baudoyer,
+      nee Saillard. Monsieur Bataille, captain of the National Guard, came with
+      his wife and the curate of Saint Paul&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Baudoyer,&rdquo; said Madame Transon. &ldquo;I wish to be the first to
+      congratulate you; they have done justice to your talents. You have indeed
+      earned your promotion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here you are, director,&rdquo; said Monsieur Transon, rubbing his hands, &ldquo;and
+      the appointment is very flattering to this neighborhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And we can truly say it came to pass without any intriguing,&rdquo; said the
+      worthy Saillard. &ldquo;We are none of us political intriguers; /we/ don&rsquo;t go to
+      select parties at the ministry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Mitral rubbed his nose and grinned as he glanced at his niece
+      Elisabeth, the woman whose hand had pulled the wires, who was talking with
+      Gigonnet. Falleix, honest fellow, did not know what to make of the stupid
+      blindness of Saillard and Baudoyer. Messieurs Dutocq, Bixiou, du Bruel,
+      Godard, and Colleville (the latter appointed head of the bureau) entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a crew!&rdquo; whispered Bixiou to du Bruel. &ldquo;I could make a fine
+      caricature of them in the shapes of fishes,&mdash;dorys, flounders,
+      sharks, and snappers, all dancing a saraband!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; said Colleville, &ldquo;I come to offer you my congratulations; or
+      rather we congratulate ourselves in having such a man placed over us; and
+      we desire to assure you of the zeal with which we shall co-operate in your
+      labors. Allow me to say that this event affords a signal proof to the
+      truth of my axiom that a man&rsquo;s destiny lies in the letters of his name. I
+      may say that I knew of this appointment and of your other honors before I
+      heard of them, for I spend the night in anagrammatizing your name as
+      follows:&rdquo; [proudly] &ldquo;Isidore C. T. Baudoyer,&mdash;Director, decorated by
+      us (his Majesty the King, of course).&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer bowed and remarked piously that names were given in baptism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer, senior, father and mother of the new
+      director, were there to enjoy the glory of their son and daughter-in-law.
+      Uncle Gigonnet-Bidault, who had dined at the house, had a restless,
+      fidgety look in his eye which frightened Bixiou.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a queer one,&rdquo; said the latter to du Bruel, calling his attention
+      to Gigonnet, &ldquo;who would do in a vaudeville. I wonder if he could be
+      bought. Such an old scarecrow is just the thing for a sign over the Two
+      Baboons. And what a coat! I did think there was nobody but Poiret who
+      could show the like after that after ten years&rsquo; public exposure to the
+      inclemencies of Parisian weather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Baudoyer is magnificent,&rdquo; said du Bruel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dazzling,&rdquo; answered Bixiou.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Baudoyer, &ldquo;let me present you to my own uncle, Monsieur
+      Mitral, and to my great-uncle through my wife, Monsieur Bidault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gigonnet and Mitral gave a glance at the three clerks so penetrating, so
+      glittering with gleams of gold, that the two scoffers were sobered at
+      once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hein?&rdquo; said Bixiou, when they were safely under the arcades in the place
+      Royale; &ldquo;did you examine those uncles?&mdash;two copies of Shylock. I&rsquo;ll
+      bet their money is lent in the market at a hundred per cent per week. They
+      lend on pawn; and sell most that they lay hold of, coats, gold lace,
+      cheese, men, women, and children; they are a conglomeration of Arabs,
+      Jews, Genoese, Genevese, Greeks, Lombards, and Parisians, suckled by a
+      wolf and born of a Turkish woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you,&rdquo; said Godard. &ldquo;Uncle Mitral used to be a sheriff&rsquo;s
+      officer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That settles it,&rdquo; said du Bruel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m off to see the proof of my caricature,&rdquo; said Bixiou; &ldquo;but I should
+      like to study the state of things in Rabourdin&rsquo;s salon to-night. You are
+      lucky to be able to go there, du Bruel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I!&rdquo; said the vaudevillist, &ldquo;what should I do there? My face doesn&rsquo;t lend
+      itself to condolences. And it is very vulgar in these days to go and see
+      people who are down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. THE RESIGNATION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      By midnight Madame Rabourdin&rsquo;s salon was deserted; only two or three
+      guests remained with des Lupeaulx and the master and mistress of the
+      house. When Schinner and Monsieur and Madame de Camps had likewise
+      departed, des Lupeaulx rose with a mysterious air, stood with his back to
+      the fireplace and looked alternately at the husband and wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friends,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;nothing is really lost, for the minister and I are
+      faithful to you. Dutocq simply chose between two powers the one he thought
+      strongest. He has served the court and the Grand Almoner; he has betrayed
+      me. But that is in the order of things; a politician never complains of
+      treachery. Nevertheless, Baudoyer will be dismissed as incapable in a few
+      months; no doubt his protectors will find him a place,&mdash;in the
+      prefecture of police, perhaps,&mdash;for the clergy will not desert him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From this point des Lupeaulx went on with a long tirade about the Grand
+      Almoner and the dangers the government ran in relying upon the church and
+      upon the Jesuits. We need not, we think, point out to the intelligent
+      reader that the court and the Grand Almoner, to whom the liberal journals
+      attributed an enormous influence under the administration, had little
+      really to do with Monsieur Baudoyer&rsquo;s appointment. Such petty intrigues
+      die in the upper sphere of great self-interests. If a few words in favor
+      of Baudoyer were obtained by the importunity of the curate of Saint-Paul&rsquo;s
+      and the Abbe Gaudron, they would have been withdrawn immediately at a
+      suggestion from the minister. The occult power of the Congregation of
+      Jesus (admissible certainly as confronting the bold society of the
+      &ldquo;Doctrine,&rdquo; entitled &ldquo;Help yourself and heaven will help you,&rdquo;) was
+      formidable only through the imaginary force conferred on it by subordinate
+      powers who perpetually threatened each other with its evils. The liberal
+      scandal-mongers delighted in representing the Grand Almoner and the whole
+      Jesuitical Chapter as political, administrative, civil, and military
+      giants. Fear creates bugbears. At this crisis Baudoyer firmly believed in
+      the said Chapter, little aware that the only Jesuits who had put him where
+      he now was sat by his own fireside, and in the Cafe Themis playing
+      dominoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At certain epochs in history certain powers appear, to whom all evils are
+      attributed, though at the same time their genius is denied; they form an
+      efficient argument in the mouth of fools. Just as Monsieur de Talleyrand
+      was supposed to hail all events of whatever kind with a bon mot, so in
+      these days of the Restoration the clerical party had the credit of doing
+      and undoing everything. Unfortunately, it did and undid nothing. Its
+      influence was not wielded by a Cardinal Richelieu or a Cardinal Mazarin;
+      it was in the hands of a species of Cardinal de Fleury, who, timid for
+      over five years, turned bold for one day, injudiciously bold. Later on,
+      the &ldquo;Doctrine&rdquo; did more, with impunity, at Saint-Merri, than Charles X.
+      pretended to do in July, 1830. If the section on the censorship so
+      foolishly introduced into the new charter had been omitted, journalism
+      also would have had its Saint-Merri. The younger Branch could have legally
+      carried out Charles X.&lsquo;s plan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remain where you are, head of a bureau under Baudoyer,&rdquo; went on des
+      Lupeaulx. &ldquo;Have the nerve to do this; make yourself a true politician; put
+      ideas and generous impulses aside; attend only to your functions; don&rsquo;t
+      say a word to your new director; don&rsquo;t help him with a suggestion; and do
+      nothing yourself without his order. In three months Baudoyer will be out
+      of the ministry, either dismissed, or stranded on some other
+      administrative shore. They may attach him to the king&rsquo;s household. Twice
+      in my life I have been set aside as you are, and overwhelmed by an
+      avalanche of folly; I have quietly waited and let it pass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Rabourdin, &ldquo;but you were not calumniated; your honor was not
+      assailed, compromised&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha, ha, ha!&rdquo; cried des Lupeaulx, interrupting him with a burst of Homeric
+      laughter. &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s the daily bread of every remarkable man in this
+      glorious kingdom of France! And there are but two ways to meet such
+      calumny,&mdash;either yield to it, pack up, and go plant cabbages in the
+      country; or else rise above it, march on, fearless, and don&rsquo;t turn your
+      head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For me, there is but one way of untying the noose which treachery and the
+      work of spies have fastened round my throat,&rdquo; replied Rabourdin. &ldquo;I must
+      explain the matter at once to his Excellency, and if you are as sincerely
+      attached to me as you say you are, you will put me face to face with him
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that you wish to explain to him your plan for the reform of the
+      service?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, trust the papers with me,&mdash;your memoranda, all the
+      documents. I promise you that he shall sit up all night and examine them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go to him, then!&rdquo; cried Rabourdin, eagerly; &ldquo;six years&rsquo; toil
+      certainly deserves two or three hours attention from the king&rsquo;s minister,
+      who will be forced to recognize, if he does not applaud, such
+      perseverance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Compelled by Rabourdin&rsquo;s tenacity to take a straightforward path, without
+      ambush or angle where his treachery could hide itself, des Lupeaulx
+      hesitated for a single instant, and looked at Madame Rabourdin, while he
+      inwardly asked himself, &ldquo;Which shall I permit to triumph, my hatred for
+      him, or my fancy for her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no confidence in my honor,&rdquo; he said, after a pause. &ldquo;I see that
+      you will always be to me the author of your /secret analysis/. Adieu,
+      madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier returned at once to
+      their own rooms without a word; both were overcome by their misfortune.
+      The wife thought of the dreadful situation in which she stood toward her
+      husband. The husband, resolving slowly not to remain at the ministry but
+      to send in his resignation at once, was lost in a sea of reflections; the
+      crisis for him meant a total change of life and the necessity of starting
+      on a new career. All night he sat before his fire, taking no notice of
+      Celestine, who came in several times on tiptoe, in her night-dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go once more to the ministry, to bring away my papers, and show
+      Baudoyer the routine of the business,&rdquo; he said to himself at last. &ldquo;I had
+      better write my resignation now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to his table and began to write, thinking over each clause of
+      the letter, which was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Monseigneur,&mdash;I have the honor to inclose to your Excellency my
+  resignation. I venture to hope that you still remember hearing me
+  say that I left my honor in your hands, and that everything, for
+  me, depended on my being able to give you an immediate
+  explanation.
+
+  This explanation I have vainly sought to give. To-day it would,
+  perhaps, be useless; for a fragment of my work relating to the
+  administration, stolen and misused, has gone the rounds of the
+  offices and is misinterpreted by hatred; in consequence, I find
+  myself compelled to resign, under the tacit condemnation of my
+  superiors.
+
+  Your Excellency may have thought, on the morning when I first
+  sought to speak with you, that my purpose was to ask for my
+  promotion, when, in fact, I was thinking only of the glory and
+  usefulness of your ministry and of the public good. It is
+  all-important, I think, to correct that impression.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Then followed the usual epistolary formulas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated the
+      sacrifice of his ideas; he burned everything, the toil of years. Fatigued
+      by the pressure of thought, overcome by mental suffering, he fell asleep
+      with his head on the back of his armchair. He was wakened by a curious
+      sensation, and found his hands covered with his wife&rsquo;s tears and saw her
+      kneeling before him. Celestine had read the resignation. She could measure
+      the depth of his fall. They were now to be reduced to live on four
+      thousand francs a year; and that day she had counted up her debts,&mdash;they
+      amounted to something like thirty-two thousand francs! The most ignoble of
+      all wretchedness had come upon them. And that noble man who had trusted
+      her was ignorant that she had abused the fortune he had confided to her
+      care. She was sobbing at his feet, beautiful as the Magdalen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My cup is full,&rdquo; cried Xavier, in terror. &ldquo;I am dishonored at the
+      ministry, and dishonored&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The light of her pure honor flashed from Celestine&rsquo;s eyes; she sprang up
+      like a startled horse and cast a fulminating glance at Rabourdin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I! I!&rdquo; she said, on two sublime tones. &ldquo;Am I a base wife? If I were, you
+      would have been appointed. But,&rdquo; she added mournfully, &ldquo;it is easier to
+      believe that than to believe what is the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what is it?&rdquo; said Rabourdin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All in three words,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I owe thirty thousand francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rabourdin caught his wife to his heart with a gesture of almost frantic
+      joy, and seated her on his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take comfort, dear,&rdquo; he said, in a tone of voice so adorably kind that
+      the bitterness of her grief was changed to something inexpressibly tender.
+      &ldquo;I too have made mistakes; I have worked uselessly for my country when I
+      thought I was being useful to her. But now I mean to take another path. If
+      I had sold groceries we should now be millionaires. Well, let us be
+      grocers. You are only twenty-eight, dear angel; in ten years you shall
+      recover the luxury that you love, which we must needs renounce for a short
+      time. I, too, dear heart, am not a base or common husband. We will sell
+      our farm; its value has increased of late. That and the sale of our
+      furniture will pay my debts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      /My/ debts! Celestine embraced her husband a thousand times in the single
+      kiss with which she thanked him for that generous word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall still have a hundred thousand francs to put into business.
+      Before the month is out I shall find some favorable opening. If luck gave
+      a Martin Falleix to a Saillard, why should we despair? Wait breakfast for
+      me. I am going now to the ministry, but I shall come back with my neck
+      free of the yoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Celestine clasped her husband in her arms with a force men do not possess,
+      even in their passionate moments; for women are stronger through emotion
+      than men through power. She wept and laughed and sobbed in turns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Rabourdin left the house at eight o&rsquo;clock, the porter gave him the
+      satirical cards suggested by Bixiou. Nevertheless, he went to the
+      ministry, where he found Sebastien waiting near the door to entreat him
+      not to enter any of the bureaus, because an infamous caricature of him was
+      making the round of the offices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you wish to soften the pain of my downfall,&rdquo; he said to the lad,
+      &ldquo;bring me that drawing; I am now taking my resignation to Ernest de la
+      Briere myself, that it may not be altered or distorted while passing
+      through the routine channels. I have my own reasons for wishing to see
+      that caricature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Rabourdin came back to the courtyard, after making sure that his
+      letter would go straight into the minister&rsquo;s hands, he found Sebastien in
+      tears, with a copy of the lithograph, which the lad reluctantly handed
+      over to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very clever,&rdquo; said Rabourdin, showing a serene brow to his
+      companion, though the crown of thorns was on it all the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He entered the bureaus with a calm air, and went at once into Baudoyer&rsquo;s
+      section to ask him to come to the office of the head of the division and
+      receive instructions as to the business which that incapable being was
+      henceforth to direct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell Monsieur Baudoyer that there must be no delay,&rdquo; he added, in the
+      hearing of all the clerks; &ldquo;my resignation is already in the minister&rsquo;s
+      hands, and I do not wish to stay here longer than is necessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing Bixiou, Rabourdin went straight up to him, showed him the
+      lithograph, and said, to the great astonishment of all present,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was I not right in saying you were an artist? Still, it is a pity you
+      directed the point of your pencil against a man who cannot be judged in
+      this way, nor indeed by the bureaus at all;&mdash;but everything is
+      laughed at in France, even God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he took Baudoyer into the office of the late La Billardiere. At the
+      door he found Phellion and Sebastien, the only two who, under his great
+      disaster, dared to remain openly faithful to the fallen man. Rabourdin
+      noticed that Phellion&rsquo;s eyes were moist, and he could not refrain from
+      wringing his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; said the good man, &ldquo;if we can serve you in any way, make use
+      of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Rabourdin shut himself up in the late chief&rsquo;s office with
+      Monsieur Baudoyer, and Phellion helped him to show the new incumbent all
+      the administrative difficulties of his new position. At each separate
+      affair which Rabourdin carefully explained, Baudoyer&rsquo;s little eyes grew
+      big as saucers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, monsieur,&rdquo; said Rabourdin at last, with a manner that was
+      half-solemn, half-satirical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sebastien meanwhile had made up a package of papers and letters belonging
+      to his chief and had carried them away in a hackney coach. Rabourdin
+      passed through the grand courtyard, while all the clerks were watching
+      from the windows, and waited there a moment to see if the minister would
+      send him any message. His Excellency was dumb. Phellion courageously
+      escorted the fallen man to his home, expressing his feelings of respectful
+      admiration; then he returned to the office, and took up his work,
+      satisfied with his own conduct in rendering these funeral honors to the
+      neglected and misjudged administrative talent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [seeing Phellion re-enter]. &ldquo;Victrix cause diis placuit, sed victa
+      Catoni.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;Yes, monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;What does that mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;That priests rejoice, and Monsieur Rabourdin has the respect of
+      men of honor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dutocq [annoyed]. &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t say that yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury. &ldquo;If you address me you&rsquo;ll have my hand in your face. It is known
+      for certain that you filched those papers from Monsieur Rabourdin.&rdquo;
+       [Dutocq leaves the office.] &ldquo;Oh, yes, go and complain to your Monsieur des
+      Lupeaulx, spy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [laughing and grimacing like a monkey]. &ldquo;I am curious to know how
+      the division will get along. Monsieur Rabourdin is so remarkable a man
+      that he must have had some special views in that work of his. Well, the
+      minister loses a fine mind.&rdquo; [Rubs his hands.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Laurent [entering]. &ldquo;Monsieur Fleury is requested to go to the secretary&rsquo;s
+      office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All the clerks. &ldquo;Done for!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fleury [leaving the room]. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care; I am offered a place as
+      responsible editor. I shall have all my time to myself to lounge the
+      streets or do amusing work in a newspaper office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Dutocq has already made them cut off the head of that poor
+      Desroys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [entering joyously]. &ldquo;Gentlemen, I am appointed head of this
+      bureau.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuillier. &ldquo;Ah, my friend, if it were I myself, I couldn&rsquo;t be better
+      pleased.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;His wife has managed it.&rdquo; [Laughter.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Will any one tell me the meaning of all that is happening here
+      to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Do you really want to know? Then listen. The antechamber of the
+      administration is henceforth a chamber, the court is a boudoir, the best
+      way to get in is through the cellar, and the bed is more than ever a
+      cross-cut.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Monsieur Bixiou, may I entreat you, explain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll paraphrase my opinion. To be anything at all you must begin
+      by being everything. It is quite certain that a reform of this service is
+      needed; for on my word of honor, the State robs the poor officials as much
+      as the officials rob the State in the matter of hours. But why is it that
+      we idle as we do? because they pay us too little; and the reason of that
+      is we are too many for the work, and your late chief, the virtuous
+      Rabourdin, saw all this plainly. That great administrator,&mdash;for he
+      was that, gentlemen,&mdash;saw what the thing is coming to, the thing that
+      these idiots call the &lsquo;working of our admirable institutions.&rsquo; The chamber
+      will want before long to administrate, and the administrators will want to
+      legislate. The government will try to administrate and the administrators
+      will want to govern, and so it will go on. Laws will come to be mere
+      regulations, and ordinances will be thought laws. God made this epoch of
+      the world for those who like to laugh. I live in a state of jovial
+      admiration of the spectacle which the greatest joker of modern times,
+      Louis XVIII., bequeathed to us&rdquo; [general stupefaction]. &ldquo;Gentlemen, if
+      France, the country with the best civil service in Europe, is managed
+      thus, what do you suppose the other nations are like? Poor unhappy
+      nations! I ask myself how they can possibly get along without two
+      Chambers, without the liberty of the press, without reports, without
+      circulars even, without an army of clerks? Dear, dear, how do you suppose
+      they have armies and navies? how can they exist at all without political
+      discussions? Can they even be called nations, or governments? It is said
+      (mere traveller&rsquo;s tales) that these strange peoples claim to have a
+      policy, to wield a certain influence; but that&rsquo;s absurd! how can they when
+      they haven&rsquo;t &lsquo;progress&rsquo; or &lsquo;new lights&rsquo;? They can&rsquo;t stir up ideas, they
+      haven&rsquo;t an independent forum; they are still in the twilight of barbarism.
+      There are no people in the world but the French people who have ideas. Can
+      you understand, Monsieur Poiret,&rdquo; [Poiret jumped as if he had been shot]
+      &ldquo;how a nation can do without heads of divisions, general-secretaries and
+      directors, and all this splendid array of officials, the glory of France
+      and of the Emperor Napoleon,&mdash;who had his own good reasons for
+      creating a myriad of offices? I don&rsquo;t see how those nations have the
+      audacity to live at all. There&rsquo;s Austria, which has less than a hundred
+      clerks in her war ministry, while the salaries and pensions of ours amount
+      to a third of our whole budget, a thing that was unheard of before the
+      Revolution. I sum up all I&rsquo;ve been saying in one single remark, namely,
+      that the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, which seems to have
+      very little to do, had better offer a prize for the ablest answer to the
+      following question: Which is the best organized State; the one that does
+      many things with few officials, or the one that does next to nothing with
+      an army of them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Is that your last word?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Yes, sir! whether English, French, German or Italian,&mdash;I let
+      you off the other languages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [lifting his hands to heaven]. &ldquo;Gracious goodness! and they call
+      you a witty man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you understood me yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion. &ldquo;Your last observation was full of excellent sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Just as full as the budget itself, and like the budget again, as
+      complicated as it looks simple; and I set it as a warning, a beacon, at
+      the edge of this hole, this gulf, this volcano, called, in the language of
+      the &lsquo;Constitutionel,&rsquo; &lsquo;the political horizon.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;I should much prefer a comprehensible explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Hurrah for Rabourdin! there&rsquo;s my explanation; that&rsquo;s my opinion.
+      Are you satisfied?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville [gravely]. &ldquo;Monsieur Rabourdin had but one defect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;What was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colleville. &ldquo;That of being a statesman instead of a subordinate official.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Phellion [standing before Bixiou]. &ldquo;Monsieur! why did you, who understand
+      Monsieur Rabourdin so well, why did you make that inf&mdash;that odi&mdash;that
+      hideous caricature?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Do you forget our bet? don&rsquo;t you know I was backing the devil&rsquo;s
+      game, and that your bureau owes me a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [much put-out]. &ldquo;Then it is a settled thing that I am to leave this
+      government office without ever understanding a sentence, or a single word
+      uttered by Monsieur Bixiou.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;It is your own fault; ask these gentlemen. Gentlemen, have you
+      understood the meaning of my observations? and were those observations
+      just, and brilliant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All. &ldquo;Alas, yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minard. &ldquo;And the proof is that I shall send in my resignation. I shall
+      plunge into industrial avocations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;What! have you managed to invent a mechanical corset, or a baby&rsquo;s
+      bottle, or a fire engine, or chimneys that consume no fuel, or ovens which
+      cook cutlets with three sheets of paper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minard [departing.] &ldquo;Adieu, I shall keep my secret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Well, young Poiret junior, you see,&mdash;all these gentlemen
+      understand me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [crest-fallen]. &ldquo;Monsieur Bixiou, would you do me the honor to come
+      down for once to my level and speak in a language I can understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [winking at the rest]. &ldquo;Willingly.&rdquo; [Takes Poiret by the button of
+      his frock-coat.] &ldquo;Before you leave this office forever perhaps you would
+      be glad to know what you are&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [quickly]. &ldquo;An honest man, monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. &ldquo;&mdash;to be able to define, explain,
+      and analyze precisely what a government clerk is? Do you know what he is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;I think I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [twisting the button]. &ldquo;I doubt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;He is a man paid by government to do work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Oh! then a soldier is a government clerk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [puzzled]. &ldquo;Why, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;But he is paid by the government to do work, to mount guard and
+      show off at reviews. You may perhaps tell me that he longs to get out of
+      his place,&mdash;that he works too hard and fingers too little metal,
+      except that of his musket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [his eyes wide open]. &ldquo;Monsieur, a government clerk is, logically
+      speaking, a man who needs the salary to maintain himself, and is not free
+      to get out of his place; for he doesn&rsquo;t know how to do anything but copy
+      papers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion. So the bureau is the
+      clerk&rsquo;s shell, husk, pod. No clerk without a bureau, no bureau without a
+      clerk. But what do you make, then, of a customs officer?&rdquo; [Poiret shuffles
+      his feet and tries to edge away; Bixiou twists off one button and catches
+      him by another.] &ldquo;He is, from the bureaucratic point of view, a neutral
+      being. The excise-man is only half a clerk; he is on the confines between
+      civil and military service; neither altogether soldier nor altogether
+      clerk&mdash;Here, here, where are you going?&rdquo; [Twists the button.] &ldquo;Where
+      does the government clerk proper end? That&rsquo;s a serious question. Is a
+      prefect a clerk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [hesitating]. &ldquo;He is a functionary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t mean that a functionary is not a clerk? that&rsquo;s an
+      absurdity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [weary and looking round for escape]. &ldquo;I think Monsieur Godard
+      wants to say something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Godard. &ldquo;The clerk is the order, the functionary the species.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [laughing]. &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have thought you capable of that
+      distinction, my brave subordinate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [trying to get away]. &ldquo;Incomprehensible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;La, la, papa, don&rsquo;t step on your tether. If you stand still and
+      listen, we shall come to an understanding before long. Now, here&rsquo;s an
+      axiom which I bequeath to this bureau and to all bureaus: Where the clerk
+      ends, the functionary begins; where the functionary ends, the statesman
+      rises. There are very few statesmen among the prefects. The prefect is
+      therefore a neutral being among the higher species. He comes between the
+      statesman and the clerk, just as the custom-house officer stands between
+      the civil and the military. Let us continue to clear up these important
+      points.&rdquo; [Poiret turns crimson with distress.] &ldquo;Suppose we formulate the
+      whole matter in a maxim worthy of Larochefoucault: Officials with salaries
+      of twenty thousand francs are not clerks. From which we may deduce
+      mathematically this corollary: The statesman first looms up in the sphere
+      of higher salaries; and also this second and not less logical and
+      important corollary: Directors-general may be statesmen. Perhaps it is in
+      that sense that more than one deputy says in his heart, &lsquo;It is a fine
+      thing to be a director-general.&rsquo; But in the interests of our noble French
+      language and of the Academy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [magnetized by the fixity of Bixiou&rsquo;s eye]. &ldquo;The French language!
+      the Academy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [twisting off the second button and seizing another]. &ldquo;Yes, in the
+      interests of our noble tongue, it is proper to observe that although the
+      head of a bureau, strictly speaking, may be called a clerk, the head of a
+      division must be called a bureaucrat. These gentlemen&rdquo; [turning to the
+      clerks and privately showing them the third button off Poiret&rsquo;s coat]
+      &ldquo;will appreciate this delicate shade of meaning. And so, papa Poiret,
+      don&rsquo;t you see it is clear that the government clerk comes to a final end
+      at the head of a division? Now that question once settled, there is no
+      longer any uncertainty; the government clerk who has hitherto seemed
+      undefinable is defined.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret. &ldquo;Yes, that appears to me beyond a doubt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;Nevertheless, do me the kindness to answer the following
+      question: A judge being irremovable, and consequently debarred from being,
+      according to your subtle distinction, a functionary, and receiving a
+      salary which is not the equivalent of the work he does, is he to be
+      included in the class of clerks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [gazing at the cornice]. &ldquo;Monsieur, I don&rsquo;t follow you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [getting off the fourth button]. &ldquo;I wanted to prove to you,
+      monsieur, that nothing is simple; but above all&mdash;and what I am going
+      to say is intended for philosophers&mdash;I wish (if you&rsquo;ll allow me to
+      misquote a saying of Louis XVIII.),&mdash;I wish to make you see that
+      definitions lead to muddles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [wiping his forehead]. &ldquo;Excuse me, I am sick at my stomach&rdquo; [tries
+      to button his coat]. &ldquo;Ah! you have cut off all my buttons!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;But the point is, /do you understand me/?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [angrily]. &ldquo;Yes, monsieur, I do; I understand that you have been
+      playing me a shameful trick and twisting off my buttons while I have been
+      standing here unconscious of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou [solemnly]. &ldquo;Old man, you are mistaken! I wished to stamp upon your
+      brain the clearest possible image of constitutional government&rdquo; [all the
+      clerks look at Bixiou; Poiret, stupefied, gazes at him uneasily], &ldquo;and
+      also to keep my word to you. In so doing I employed the parabolical method
+      of savages. Listen and comprehend: While the ministers start discussions
+      in the Chambers that are just about as useful and as conclusive as the one
+      we are engaged in, the administration cuts the buttons off the
+      tax-payers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All. &ldquo;Bravo, Bixiou!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poiret [who comprehends]. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t regret my buttons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bixiou. &ldquo;I shall follow Minard&rsquo;s example; I won&rsquo;t pocket such a paltry
+      salary as mine any longer; I shall deprive the government of my
+      co-operation.&rdquo; [Departs amid general laughter.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another scene was taking place in the minister&rsquo;s reception-room, more
+      instructive than the one we have just related, because it shows how great
+      ideas are allowed to perish in the higher regions of State affairs, and in
+      what way statesmen console themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx was presenting the new director, Monsieur Baudoyer, to the
+      minister. A number of persons were assembled in the salon,&mdash;two or
+      three ministerial deputies, a few men of influence, and Monsieur Clergeot
+      (whose division was now merged with La Billardiere&rsquo;s under Baudoyer&rsquo;s
+      direction), to whom the minister was promising an honorable pension. After
+      a few general remarks, the great event of the day was brought up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A deputy. &ldquo;So you lose Rabourdin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;He has resigned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clergeot. &ldquo;They say he wanted to reform the administration.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister [looking at the deputies]. &ldquo;Salaries are not really in
+      proportion to the exigencies of the civil service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      De la Briere. &ldquo;According to Monsieur Rabourdin, one hundred clerks with a
+      salary of twelve thousand francs would do better and quicker work than a
+      thousand clerks at twelve hundred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clergeot. &ldquo;Perhaps he is right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister. &ldquo;But what is to be done? The machine is built in that way.
+      Must we take it to pieces and remake it? No one would have the courage to
+      attempt that in face of the Chamber, and the foolish outcries of the
+      Opposition, and the fierce denunciations of the press. It follows that
+      there will happen, one of these days, some damaging &lsquo;solution of
+      continuity&rsquo; between the government and the administration.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A deputy. &ldquo;In what way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister. &ldquo;In many ways. A minister will want to serve the public
+      good, and will not be allowed to do so. You will create interminable
+      delays between things and their results. You may perhaps render the theft
+      of a penny actually impossible, but you cannot prevent the buying and
+      selling of influence, the collusions of self-interest. The day will come
+      when nothing will be conceded without secret stipulations, which may never
+      see the light. Moreover, the clerks, one and all, from the least to the
+      greatest, are acquiring opinions of their own; they will soon be no longer
+      the hands of a brain, the scribes of governmental thought; the Opposition
+      even now tends towards giving them a right to judge the government and to
+      talk and vote against it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer [in a low voice, but meaning to be heard]. &ldquo;Monseigneur is really
+      fine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;Of course bureaucracy has its defects. I myself think it
+      slow and insolent; it hampers ministerial action, stifles projects, and
+      arrests progress. But, after all, French administration is amazingly
+      useful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer. &ldquo;Certainly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;If only to maintain the paper and stamp industries! Suppose
+      it is rather fussy and provoking, like all good housekeepers,&mdash;it can
+      at any moment render an account of its disbursements. Where is the
+      merchant who would not gladly give five per cent of his entire capital if
+      he could insure himself against /leakage/?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Deputy [a manufacturer]. &ldquo;The manufacturing interests of all nations
+      would joyfully unite against that evil genius of theirs called leakage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;After all, though statistics are the childish foible of
+      modern statesmen, who think that figures are estimates, we must cipher to
+      estimate. Figures are, moreover, the convincing argument of societies
+      based on self-interest and money, and that is the sort of society the
+      Charter has given us,&mdash;in my opinion, at any rate. Nothing convinces
+      the &lsquo;intelligent masses&rsquo; as much as a row of figures. All things in the
+      long run, say the statesmen of the Left, resolve themselves into figures.
+      Well then, let us figure&rdquo; [the minister here goes off into a corner with a
+      deputy, to whom he talks in a low voice]. &ldquo;There are forty thousand
+      government clerks in France. The average of their salaries is fifteen
+      hundred francs. Multiply forty thousand by fifteen hundred and you have
+      sixty millions. Now, in the first place, a publicist would call the
+      attention of Russia and China (where all government officials steal), also
+      that of Austria, the American republics, and indeed that of the whole
+      world, to the fact that for this price France possesses the most
+      inquisitorial, fussy, ferreting, scribbling, paper-blotting, fault-finding
+      old housekeeper of a civil service on God&rsquo;s earth. Not a copper farthing
+      of the nation&rsquo;s money is spent or hoarded that is not ordered by a note,
+      proved by vouchers, produced and re-produced on balance-sheets, and
+      receipted for when paid; orders and receipts are registered on the rolls,
+      and checked and verified by an army of men in spectacles. If there is the
+      slightest mistake in the form of these precious documents, the clerk is
+      terrified, for he lives on such minutiae. Some nations would be satisfied
+      to get as far as this; but Napoleon went further. That great organizer
+      appointed supreme magistrates of a court which is absolutely unique in the
+      world. These officials pass their days in verifying money-orders,
+      documents, roles, registers, lists, permits, custom-house receipts,
+      payments, taxes received, taxes spent, etc.; all of which the clerks write
+      or copy. These stern judges push the gift of exactitude, the genius of
+      inquisition, the sharp-sightedness of lynxes, the perspicacity of
+      account-books to the point of going over all the additions in search of
+      subtractions. These sublime martyrs to figures have been known to return
+      to an army commissary, after a delay of two years, some account in which
+      there was an error of two farthings. This is how and why it is that the
+      French system of administration, the purest and best on the globe has
+      rendered robbery, as his Excellency has just told you, next to impossible,
+      and as for peculation, it is a myth. France at this present time possesses
+      a revenue of twelve hundred millions, and she spends it. That sum enters
+      her treasury, and that sum goes out of it. She handles, therefore, two
+      thousand four hundred millions, and all she pays for the labor of those
+      who do the work is sixty millions,&mdash;two and a half per cent; and for
+      that she obtains the certainty that there is no leakage. Our political and
+      administrative kitchen costs us sixty millions, but the gendarmerie, the
+      courts of law, the galleys and the police cost just as much, and give no
+      return. Moreover, we employ a body of men who could do no other work.
+      Waste and disorder, if such there be, can only be legislative; the
+      Chambers lead to them and render them legal. Leakage follows in the form
+      of public works which are neither urgent nor necessary; troops
+      re-uniformed and gold-laced over and over again; vessels sent on useless
+      cruises; preparations for war without ever making it; paying the debts of
+      a State, and not requiring reimbursement or insisting on security.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer. &ldquo;But such leakage has nothing to do with the subordinate
+      officials; this bad management of national affairs concerns the statesmen
+      who guide the ship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister [who has finished his conversation]. &ldquo;There is a great deal
+      of truth in what des Lupeaulx has just said; but let me tell you&rdquo; [to
+      Baudoyer], &ldquo;Monsieur le directeur, that few men see from the standpoint of
+      a statesman. To order expenditure of all kinds, even useless ones, does
+      not constitute bad management. Such acts contribute to the movement of
+      money, the stagnation of which becomes, especially in France, dangerous to
+      the public welfare, by reason of the miserly and profoundly illogical
+      habits of the provinces which hoard their gold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Deputy [who listened to des Lupeaulx]. &ldquo;But it seems to me that if
+      your Excellency was right just now, and if our clever friend here&rdquo; [takes
+      Lupeaulx by the arm] &ldquo;was not wrong, it will be difficult to come to any
+      conclusion on the subject.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx [after looking at the minister]. &ldquo;No doubt something ought to
+      be done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      De la Briere [timidly]. &ldquo;Monsieur Rabourdin seems to have judged rightly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister. &ldquo;I will see Rabourdin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx. &ldquo;The poor man made the blunder of constituting himself
+      supreme judge of the administration and of all the officials who compose
+      it; he wants to do away with the present state of things, and he demands
+      that there be only three ministries.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister. &ldquo;He must be crazy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Deputy. &ldquo;How do you represent in three ministries the heads of all the
+      parties in the Chamber?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudoyer [with an air that he imagined to be shrewd]. &ldquo;Perhaps Monsieur
+      Rabourdin desired to change the Constitution, which we owe to our
+      legislative sovereign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister [thoughtful, takes La Briere&rsquo;s arm and leads him into the
+      study]. &ldquo;I want to see that work of Rabourdin&rsquo;s, and as you know about it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      De la Briere. &ldquo;He has burned it. You allowed him to be dishonored and he
+      has resigned from the ministry. Do not think for a moment, Monseigneur,
+      that Rabourdin ever had the absurd thought (as des Lupeaulx tries to make
+      it believed) to change the admirable centralization of power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister [to himself]. &ldquo;I have made a mistake&rdquo; [is silent a moment].
+      &ldquo;No matter; we shall never be lacking in plans for reform.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      De la Briere. &ldquo;It is not ideas, but men capable of executing them that we
+      lack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Des Lupeaulx, that adroit advocate of abuses came into the minister&rsquo;s
+      study at this moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monseigneur, I start at once for my election.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a moment,&rdquo; said his Excellency, leaving the private secretary and
+      taking des Lupeaulx by the arm into the recess of a window. &ldquo;My dear
+      friend, let me have that arrondissement,&mdash;if you will, you shall be
+      made count and I will pay your debts. Later, if I remain in the ministry
+      after the new Chamber is elected, I will find a way to send in your name
+      in a batch for the peerage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a man of honor, and I accept.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This is how it came to pass that Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, whose
+      father was ennobled under Louis XV., and who beareth quarterly, first,
+      argent, a wolf ravisant carrying a lamb gules; second, purpure, three
+      mascles argent, two and one; third, paly of twelve, gules and argent;
+      fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises gules; supported
+      by four griffon&rsquo;s-claws jessant from the sides of the escutcheon, with the
+      motto &ldquo;En Lupus in Historia,&rdquo; was able to surmount these rather satirical
+      arms with a count&rsquo;s coronet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did some business on
+      hand which required him to visit the old ministry, where the bureaus had
+      all been in great commotion, owing to a general removal of officials, from
+      the highest to the lowest. This revolution bore heaviest, in point of
+      fact, upon the lackeys, who are not fond of seeing new faces. Rabourdin
+      had come early, knowing all the ways of the place, and he thus chanced to
+      overhear a dialogue between the two nephews of old Antoine, who had
+      recently retired on a pension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Laurent, how is your chief of division going on?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t talk to me about him; I can&rsquo;t do anything with him. He rings me
+      up to ask if I have seen his handkerchief or his snuff-box. He receives
+      people without making them wait; in short, he hasn&rsquo;t a bit of dignity. I&rsquo;m
+      often obliged to say to him: But, monsieur, monsieur le comte your
+      predecessor, for the credit of the thing, used to punch holes with his
+      penknife in the arms of his chair to make believe he was working. And he
+      makes such a mess of his room. I find everything topsy-turvy. He has a
+      very small mind. How about your man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine? Oh, I have succeeded in training him. He knows exactly where his
+      letter-paper and envelopes, his wood, and his boxes and all the rest of
+      his things are. The other man used to swear at me, but this one is as meek
+      as a lamb,&mdash;still, he hasn&rsquo;t the grand style! Moreover, he isn&rsquo;t
+      decorated, and I don&rsquo;t like to serve a chief who isn&rsquo;t; he might be taken
+      for one of us, and that&rsquo;s humiliating. He carries the office letter-paper
+      home, and asked me if I couldn&rsquo;t go there and wait at table when there was
+      company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey! what a government, my dear fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed; everybody plays low in these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope they won&rsquo;t cut down our poor wages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid they will. The Chambers are prying into everything. Why, they
+      even count the sticks of wood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it can&rsquo;t last long if they go on that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, we&rsquo;re caught! somebody is listening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey! it is the late Monsieur Rabourdin. Ah, monsieur, I knew your step.
+      If you have business to transact here I am afraid you will not find any
+      one who is aware of the respect that ought to be paid to you; Laurent and
+      I are the only persons remaining about the place who were here in your
+      day. Messieurs Colleville and Baudoyer didn&rsquo;t wear out the morocco of the
+      chairs after you left. Heavens, no! six months later they were made
+      Collectors of Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      Note.&mdash;Anagrams cannot, of course, be translated; that is why three
+      English ones have been substituted for some in French. [Tr.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ADDENDUM
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Baudoyer, Isidore
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Bianchon, Horace
+       Father Goriot
+       The Atheist&rsquo;s Mass
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       Pierrette
+       A Study of Woman
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Honorine
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Second Home
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Country Parson
+     In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+       Another Study of Woman
+       La Grande Breteche
+
+     Bidault (known as Gigonnet)
+       Gobseck
+       The Vendetta
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       Modeste Mignon
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Member for Arcis
+       Beatrix
+       A Man of Business
+       Gaudissart II.
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Brezacs (The)
+       The Country Parson
+
+     Bruel, Jean Francois du
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       A Start in Life
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       The Middle Classes
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Camps, Madame Octave de
+       Madame Firmiani
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Chaboisseau
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Man of Business
+
+     Chatelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, Baronne du
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+
+     Chessel, Madame de
+       The Lily of the Valley
+
+     Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Colleville
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Desplein
+       The Atheist&rsquo;s Mass
+       Cousin Pons
+       Lost Illusions
+       The Thirteen
+       Pierrette
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       Modest Mignon
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Honorine
+
+     Desroches (son)
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       Colonel Chabert
+       A Start in Life
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       A Man of Business
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Dutocq
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Falleix, Martin
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Falleix, Jacques
+       The Thirteen
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+     Ferraud, Comtesse
+       Colonel Chabert
+
+     Finot, Andoche
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       A Start in Life
+       Gaudissart the Great
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Fleury
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Fontaine, Comte de
+       The Chouans
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Fontanon, Abbe
+       A Second Home
+       Honorine
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Gaudron, Abbe
+       Honorine
+       A Start in Life
+
+     Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
+       Gobseck
+       Father Goriot
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Godard, Joseph
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Granson, Athanase
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+
+     Gruget, Madame Etienne
+       The Thirteen
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+
+     Keller, Francois
+       Domestic Peace
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     La Bastie la Briere, Ernest de
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     La Billardiere, Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel, Baron Flamet de
+       The Chouans
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Laudigeois
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier
+       The Chouans
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Colonel Chabert
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Metivier
+       Lost Illusions
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minard, Madame
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minorets, The
+       The Peasantry
+
+     Mitral
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Phellion
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Poiret, the elder
+       Father Goriot
+       A Start in Life
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Rabourdin, Xavier
+       At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Rabourdin, Madame
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+
+     Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+     Saillard
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Samanon
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Schinner, Hippolyte
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       Pierre Grassou
+       A Start in Life
+       Albert Savarus
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Sommervieux, Theodore de
+       At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     Thuillier
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier, Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier, Louis-Jerome
+       The Middle Classes
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bureaucracy
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: June, 1998  [Etext #1343]
+Posting Date: February 22, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUREAUCRACY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+BUREAUCRACY
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+    To the Comtesse Seraphina San Severino, with the respectful
+               homage of sincere and deep admiration
+                                                  De Balzac
+
+
+
+
+
+BUREAUCRACY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE RABOURDIN HOUSEHOLD
+
+
+In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain likeness to one
+another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met with
+several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are about
+to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our most
+important ministries. At this period he was forty years old, with gray
+hair of so pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch fall in love
+with it for it softened a somewhat melancholy countenance, blue eyes
+full of fire, a skin that was still fair, though rather ruddy and
+touched here and there with strong red marks; a forehead and nose a la
+Louis XV., a serious mouth, a tall figure, thin, or perhaps wasted, like
+that of a man just recovering from illness, and finally, a bearing that
+was midway between the indolence of a mere idler and the thoughtfulness
+of a busy man. If this portrait serves to depict his character, a sketch
+of this man's dress will bring it still further into relief. Rabourdin
+wore habitually a blue surcoat, a white cravat, a waistcoat crossed a la
+Robespierre, black trousers without straps, gray silk stockings and low
+shoes. Well-shaved, and with his stomach warmed by a cup of coffee, he
+left home at eight in the morning with the regularity of clock-work,
+always passing along the same streets on his way to the ministry: so
+neat was he, so formal, so starched that he might have been taken for an
+Englishman on the road to his embassy.
+
+From these general signs you will readily discern a family man,
+harassed by vexations in his own household, worried by annoyances at the
+ministry, yet philosopher enough to take life as he found it; an honest
+man, loving his country and serving it, not concealing from himself the
+obstacles in the way of those who seek to do right; prudent, because he
+knew men; exquisitely courteous with women, of whom he asked nothing,--a
+man full of acquirements, affable with his inferiors, holding his equals
+at great distance, and dignified towards his superiors. At the epoch of
+which we write, you would have noticed in him the coldly resigned air of
+one who has buried the illusions of his youth and renounced every secret
+ambition; you would have recognized a discouraged, but not disgusted
+man, one who still clings to his first projects,--more perhaps to
+employ his faculties than in the hope of a doubtful success. He was not
+decorated with any order, and always accused himself of weakness
+for having worn that of the Fleur-de-lis in the early days of the
+Restoration.
+
+The life of this man was marked by certain mysterious peculiarities.
+He had never known his father; his mother, a woman to whom luxury was
+everything, always elegantly dressed, always on pleasure bent, whose
+beauty seemed to him miraculous and whom he very seldom saw, left
+him little at her death; but she had given him that too common and
+incomplete education which produces so much ambition and so little
+ability. A few days before his mother's death, when he was just sixteen,
+he left the Lycee Napoleon to enter as supernumerary a government
+office, where an unknown protector had provided him with a place.
+At twenty-two years of age Rabourdin became under-head-clerk; at
+twenty-five, head-clerk, or, as it was termed, head of the bureau. From
+that day the hand that assisted the young man to start in life was never
+felt again in his career, except as to a single circumstance; it led
+him, poor and friendless, to the house of a Monsieur Leprince, formerly
+an auctioneer, a widower said to be extremely rich, and father of
+an only daughter. Xavier Rabourdin fell desperately in love with
+Mademoiselle Celestine Leprince, then seventeen years of age, who had
+all the matrimonial claims of a dowry of two hundred thousand francs.
+Carefully educated by an artistic mother, who transmitted her own
+talents to her daughter, this young lady was fitted to attract
+distinguished men. Tall, handsome, and finely-formed, she was a good
+musician, drew and painted, spoke several languages, and even knew
+something of science,--a dangerous advantage, which requires a woman
+to avoid carefully all appearance of pedantry. Blinded by mistaken
+tenderness, the mother gave the daughter false ideas as to her probable
+future; to the maternal eyes a duke or an ambassador, a marshal of
+France or a minister of State, could alone give her Celestine her due
+place in society. The young lady had, moreover, the manners, language,
+and habits of the great world. Her dress was richer and more elegant
+than was suitable for an unmarried girl; a husband could give her
+nothing more than she now had, except happiness. Besides all such
+indulgences, the foolish spoiling of the mother, who died a year after
+the girl's marriage, made a husband's task all the more difficult.
+What coolness and composure of mind were needed to rule such a woman!
+Commonplace suitors held back in fear. Xavier Rabourdin, without parents
+and without fortune other than his situation under government, was
+proposed to Celestine by her father. She resisted for a long time;
+not that she had any personal objection to her suitor, who was young,
+handsome, and much in love, but she shrank from the plain name of Madame
+Rabourdin. Monsieur Leprince assured his daughter that Xavier was of
+the stock that statesmen came of. Celestine answered that a man named
+Rabourdin would never be anything under the government of the Bourbons,
+etc. Forced back to his intrenchments, the father made the serious
+mistake of telling his daughter that her future husband was certain of
+becoming Rabourdin "de something or other" before he reached the age
+of admission to the Chamber. Xavier was soon to be appointed Master of
+petitions, and general-secretary at his ministry. From these lower steps
+of the ladder the young man would certainly rise to the higher ranks of
+the administration, possessed of a fortune and a name bequeathed to him
+in a certain will of which he, Monsieur Leprince, was cognizant. On this
+the marriage took place.
+
+Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious protector to whom
+the auctioneer alluded. Led away by such hopes and by the natural
+extravagance of happy love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin spent nearly
+one hundred thousand francs of their capital in the first five years
+of married life. By the end of this time Celestine, alarmed at the
+non-advancement of her husband, insisted on investing the remaining
+hundred thousand francs of her dowry in landed property, which returned
+only a slender income; but her future inheritance from her father would
+amply repay all present privations with perfect comfort and ease of
+life. When the worthy auctioneer saw his son-in-law disappointed of the
+hopes they had placed on the nameless protector, he tried, for the
+sake of his daughter, to repair the secret loss by risking part of his
+fortune in a speculation which had favourable chances of success. But
+the poor man became involved in one of the liquidations of the house of
+Nucingen, and died of grief, leaving nothing behind him but a dozen fine
+pictures which adorned his daughter's salon, and a few old-fashioned
+pieces of furniture, which she put in the garret.
+
+Eight years of fruitless expectation made Madame Rabourdin at last
+understand that the paternal protector of her husband must have died,
+and that his will, if it ever existed, was lost or destroyed. Two years
+before her father's death the place of chief of division, which became
+vacant, was given, over her husband's head, to a certain Monsieur de la
+Billardiere, related to a deputy of the Right who was made minister in
+1823. It was enough to drive Rabourdin out of the service; but how could
+he give up his salary of eight thousand francs and perquisites, when
+they constituted three fourths of his income and his household was
+accustomed to spend them? Besides, if he had patience for a few more
+years he would then be entitled to a pension. What a fall was this for
+a woman whose high expectations at the opening of her life were more or
+less warranted, and one who was admitted on all sides to be a superior
+woman.
+
+Madame Rabourdin had justified the expectations formed of Mademoiselle
+Leprince; she possessed the elements of that apparent superiority which
+pleases the world; her liberal education enabled her to speak to every
+one in his or her own language; her talents were real; she showed an
+independent and elevated mind; her conversation charmed as much by its
+variety and ease as by the oddness and originality of her ideas. Such
+qualities, useful and appropriate in a sovereign or an ambassadress,
+were of little service to a household compelled to jog in the common
+round. Those who have the gift of speaking well desire an audience;
+they like to talk, even if they sometimes weary others. To satisfy the
+requirements of her mind Madame Rabourdin took a weekly reception-day
+and went a great deal into society to obtain the consideration her
+self-love was accustomed to enjoy. Those who know Parisian life will
+readily understand how a woman of her temperament suffered, and was
+martyrized at heart by the scantiness of her pecuniary means. No matter
+what foolish declarations people make about money, they one and all, if
+they live in Paris, must grovel before accounts, do homage to figures,
+and kiss the forked hoof of the golden calf. What a problem was hers!
+twelve thousand francs a year to defray the costs of a household
+consisting of father, mother, two children, a chambermaid and cook,
+living on the second floor of a house in the rue Duphot, in an apartment
+costing two thousand francs a year. Deduct the dress and the carriage of
+Madame before you estimate the gross expenses of the family, for dress
+precedes everything; then see what remains for the education of the
+children (a girl of eight and a boy of nine, whose maintenance must
+cost at least two thousand francs besides) and you will find that Madame
+Rabourdin could barely afford to give her husband thirty francs a month.
+That is the position of half the husbands in Paris, under penalty of
+being thought monsters.
+
+Thus it was that this woman who believed herself destined to shine in
+the world was condemned to use her mind and her faculties in a sordid
+struggle, fighting hand to hand with an account-book. Already, terrible
+sacrifice of pride! she had dismissed her man-servant, not long after
+the death of her father. Most women grow weary of this daily struggle;
+they complain but they usually end by giving up to fate and taking what
+comes to them; Celestine's ambition, far from lessening, only increased
+through difficulties, and led her, when she found she could not conquer
+them, to sweep them aside. To her mind this complicated tangle of the
+affairs of life was a Gordian knot impossible to untie and which
+genius ought to cut. Far from accepting the pettiness of middle-class
+existence, she was angry at the delay which kept the great things of
+life from her grasp,--blaming fate as deceptive. Celestine sincerely
+believed herself a superior woman. Perhaps she was right; perhaps she
+would have been great under great circumstances; perhaps she was not in
+her right place. Let us remember there are as many varieties of woman as
+there are of man, all of which society fashions to meet its needs. Now
+in the social order, as in Nature's order, there are more young shoots
+than there are trees, more spawn than full-grown fish, and many great
+capacities (Athanase Granson, for instance) which die withered for want
+of moisture, like seeds on stony ground. There are, unquestionably,
+household women, accomplished women, ornamental women, women who are
+exclusively wives, or mothers, or sweethearts, women purely spiritual
+or purely material; just as there are soldiers, artists, artisans,
+mathematicians, poets, merchants, men who understand money, or
+agriculture, or government, and nothing else. Besides all this, the
+eccentricity of events leads to endless cross-purposes; many are called
+and few are chosen is the law of earth as of heaven. Madame Rabourdin
+conceived herself fully capable of directing a statesman, inspiring an
+artist, helping an inventor and pushing his interests, or of devoting
+her powers to the financial politics of a Nucingen, and playing a
+brilliant part in the great world. Perhaps she was only endeavouring to
+excuse to her own mind a hatred for the laundry lists and the duty of
+overlooking the housekeeping bills, together with the petty economies
+and cares of a small establishment. She was superior only in those
+things where it gave her pleasure to be so. Feeling as keenly as she
+did the thorns of a position which can only be likened to that of
+Saint-Laurence on his grid-iron, is it any wonder that she sometimes
+cried out? So, in her paroxysms of thwarted ambition, in the moments
+when her wounded vanity gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine
+turned upon Xavier Rabourdin. Was it not her husband's duty to give her
+a suitable position in the world? If she were a man she would have had
+the energy to make a rapid fortune for the sake of rendering an adored
+wife happy! She reproached him for being too honest a man. In the mouth
+of some women this accusation is a charge of imbecility. She sketched
+out for him certain brilliant plans in which she took no account of the
+hindrances imposed by men and things; then, like all women under the
+influence of vehement feeling, she became in thought as Machiavellian
+as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than Maxime de Trailles. At such
+times Celestine's mind took a wide range, and she imagined herself at
+the summit of her ideas.
+
+When these fine visions first began Rabourdin, who saw the practical
+side, was cool. Celestine, much grieved, thought her husband
+narrow-minded, timid, unsympathetic; and she acquired, insensibly, a
+wholly false opinion of the companion of her life. In the first place,
+she often extinguished him by the brilliancy of her arguments. Her ideas
+came to her in flashes, and she sometimes stopped him short when he
+began an explanation, because she did not choose to lose the slightest
+sparkle of her own mind. From the earliest days of their marriage
+Celestine, feeling herself beloved and admired by her husband, treated
+him without ceremony; she put herself above conjugal laws and the
+rules of private courtesy by expecting love to pardon all her little
+wrong-doings; and, as she never in any way corrected herself, she was
+always in the ascendant. In such a situation the man holds to the wife
+very much the position of a child to a teacher when the latter cannot or
+will not recognize that the mind he has ruled in childhood is becoming
+mature. Like Madame de Stael, who exclaimed in a room full of people,
+addressing, as we may say, a greater man than herself, "Do you know you
+have really said something very profound!" Madame Rabourdin said of
+her husband: "He certainly has a good deal of sense at times." Her
+disparaging opinion of him gradually appeared in her behavior through
+almost imperceptible motions. Her attitude and manners expressed a want
+of respect. Without being aware of it she injured her husband in the
+eyes of others; for in all countries society, before making up its mind
+about a man, listens for what his wife thinks of him, and obtains from
+her what the Genevese term "pre-advice."
+
+When Rabourdin became aware of the mistakes which love had led him to
+commit it was too late,--the groove had been cut; he suffered and
+was silent. Like other men in whom sentiments and ideas are of equal
+strength, whose souls are noble and their brains well balanced, he was
+the defender of his wife before the tribunal of his own judgment; he
+told himself that nature doomed her to a disappointed life through his
+fault; HIS; she was like a thoroughbred English horse, a racer harnessed
+to a cart full of stones; she it was who suffered; and he blamed
+himself. His wife, by dint of constant repetition, had inoculated him
+with her own belief in herself. Ideas are contagious in a household; the
+ninth thermidor, like so many other portentous events, was the result
+of female influence. Thus, goaded by Celestine's ambition, Rabourdin had
+long considered the means of satisfying it, though he hid his hopes, so
+as to spare her the tortures of uncertainty. The man was firmly resolved
+to make his way in the administration by bringing a strong light to bear
+upon it. He intended to bring about one of those revolutions which send
+a man to the head of either one party or another in society; but being
+incapable of so doing in his own interests, he merely pondered useful
+thoughts and dreamed of triumphs won for his country by noble means. His
+ideas were both generous and ambitious; few officials have not
+conceived the like; but among officials as among artists there are more
+miscarriages than births; which is tantamount to Buffon's saying that
+"Genius is patience."
+
+Placed in a position where he could study French administration and
+observe its mechanism, Rabourdin worked in the circle where his thought
+revolved, which, we may remark parenthetically, is the secret of much
+human accomplishment; and his labor culminated finally in the invention
+of a new system for the Civil Service of government. Knowing the people
+with whom he had to do, he maintained the machine as it then worked, so
+it still works and will continue to work; for everybody fears to remodel
+it, though no one, according to Rabourdin, ought to be unwilling to
+simplify it. In his opinion, the problem to be resolved lay in a better
+use of the same forces. His plan, in its simplest form, was to revise
+taxation and lower it in a way that should not diminish the revenues of
+the State, and to obtain, from a budget equal to the budgets which now
+excite such rabid discussion, results that should be two-fold greater
+than the present results. Long practical experience had taught Rabourdin
+that perfection is brought about in all things by changes in the
+direction of simplicity. To economize is to simplify. To simplify
+means to suppress unnecessary machinery; removals naturally follow.
+His system, therefore, depended on the weeding out of officials and the
+establishment of a new order of administrative offices. No doubt the
+hatred which all reformers incur takes its rise here. Removals required
+by this perfecting process, always ill-understood, threaten the
+well-being of those on whom a change in their condition is thus forced.
+What rendered Rabourdin really great was that he was able to restrain
+the enthusiasm that possesses all reformers, and to patiently seek out a
+slow evolving medium for all changes so as to avoid shocks, leaving time
+and experience to prove the excellence of each reform. The grandeur of
+the result anticipated might make us doubt its possibility if we lose
+sight of this essential point in our rapid analysis of his system. It
+is, therefore, not unimportant to show through his self-communings,
+however incomplete they might be, the point of view from which he looked
+at the administrative horizon. This tale, which is evolved from the very
+heart of the Civil Service, may also serve to show some of the evils of
+our present social customs.
+
+Xavier Rabourdin, deeply impressed by the trials and poverty which he
+witnessed in the lives of the government clerks, endeavored to ascertain
+the cause of their growing deterioration. He found it in those petty
+partial revolutions, the eddies, as it were, of the storm of 1789,
+which the historians of great social movements neglect to inquire into,
+although as a matter of fact it is they which have made our manners and
+customs what they are now.
+
+Formerly, under the monarchy, the bureaucratic armies did not exist.
+The clerks, few in number, were under the orders of a prime minister who
+communicated with the sovereign; thus they directly served the king. The
+superiors of these zealous servants were simply called head-clerks. In
+those branches of administration which the king did not himself direct,
+such for instance as the "fermes" (the public domains throughout
+the country on which a revenue was levied), the clerks were to their
+superior what the clerks of a business-house are to their employer; they
+learned a science which would one day advance them to prosperity. Thus,
+all points of the circumference were fastened to the centre and derived
+their life from it. The result was devotion and confidence. Since 1789
+the State, call it the Nation if you like, has replaced the sovereign.
+Instead of looking directly to the chief magistrate of this nation,
+the clerks have become, in spite of our fine patriotic ideas, the
+subsidiaries of the government; their superiors are blown about by the
+winds of a power called "the administration," and do not know from
+day to day where they may be on the morrow. As the routine of public
+business must go on, a certain number of indispensable clerks are kept
+in their places, though they hold these places on sufferance, anxious as
+they are to retain them. Bureaucracy, a gigantic power set in motion by
+dwarfs, was generated in this way. Though Napoleon, by subordinating
+all things and all men to his will, retarded for a time the influence of
+bureaucracy (that ponderous curtain hung between the service to be
+done and the man who orders it), it was permanently organized under
+the constitutional government, which was, inevitably, the friend of
+all mediocrities, the lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as
+meddlesome as an old tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers
+constantly struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the
+Elected of the Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and
+dishonest leaders, the Civil Service officials hastened to make
+themselves essential to the warfare by adding their quota of assistance
+under the form of written action; they created a power of inertia and
+named it "Report." Let us explain the Report.
+
+When the kings of France took to themselves ministers, which first
+happened under Louis XV., they made them render reports on all important
+questions, instead of holding, as formerly, grand councils of state with
+the nobles. Under the constitutional government, the ministers of the
+various departments were insensibly led by their bureaus to imitate this
+practice of kings. Their time being taken up in defending themselves
+before the two Chambers and the court, they let themselves be guided by
+the leading-strings of the Report. Nothing important was ever brought
+before the government that a minister did not say, even when the case
+was urgent, "I have called for a report." The Report thus became, both
+as to the matter concerned and for the minister himself, the same as
+a report to the Chamber of Deputies on a question of laws,--namely, a
+disquisition in which the reasons for and against are stated with more
+or less partiality. No real result is attained; the minister, like
+the Chamber, is fully as well prepared before as after the report is
+rendered. A determination, in whatever matter, is reached in an instant.
+Do what we will, the moment comes when the decision must be made. The
+greater the array of reasons for and against, the less sound will be
+the judgment. The finest things of which France can boast have been
+accomplished without reports and where decisions were prompt and
+spontaneous. The dominant law of a statesman is to apply precise formula
+to all cases, after the manner of judges and physicians.
+
+Rabourdin, who said to himself: "A minister should have decision, should
+know public affairs, and direct their course," saw "Report" rampant
+throughout France, from the colonel to the marshal, from the commissary
+of police to the king, from the prefects to the ministers of state,
+from the Chamber to the courts. After 1818 everything was discussed,
+compared, and weighed, either in speech or writing; public business
+took a literary form. France went to ruin in spite of this array of
+documents; dissertations stood in place of action; a million of reports
+were written every year; bureaucracy was enthroned! Records, statistics,
+documents, failing which France would have been ruined, circumlocution,
+without which there could be no advance, increased, multiplied, and grew
+majestic. From that day forth bureaucracy used to its own profit the
+mistrust that stands between receipts and expenditures; it degraded the
+administration for the benefit of the administrators; in short, it
+spun those lilliputian threads which have chained France to Parisian
+centralization,--as if from 1500 to 1800 France had undertaken nothing
+for want of thirty thousand government clerks! In fastening upon public
+offices, like a mistletoe on a pear-tree, these officials indemnified
+themselves amply, and in the following manner.
+
+The ministers, compelled to obey the princes or the Chambers who impose
+upon them the distribution of the public moneys, and forced to retain
+the workers in office, proceeded to diminish salaries and increase the
+number of those workers, thinking that if more persons were employed by
+government the stronger the government would be. And yet the contrary
+law is an axiom written on the universe; there is no vigor except where
+there are few active principles. Events proved in July, 1830, the error
+of the materialism of the Restoration. To plant a government in the
+hearts of a nation it is necessary to bind INTERESTS to it, not MEN. The
+government-clerks being led to detest the administrations which lessened
+both their salaries and their importance, treated them as a courtesan
+treats an aged lover, and gave them mere work for money; a state of
+things which would have seemed as intolerable to the administration as
+to the clerks, had the two parties dared to feel each other's pulse,
+or had the higher salaries not succeeded in stifling the voices of the
+lower. Thus wholly and solely occupied in retaining his place, drawing
+his pay, and securing his pension, the government official thought
+everything permissible that conduced to these results. This state
+of things led to servility on the part of the clerks and to endless
+intrigues within the various departments, where the humbler clerks
+struggled vainly against degenerate members of the aristocracy, who
+sought positions in the government bureaus for their ruined sons.
+
+Superior men could scarcely bring themselves to tread these tortuous
+ways, to stoop, to cringe, and creep through the mire of these cloacas,
+where the presence of a fine mind only alarmed the other denizens. The
+ambitious man of genius grows old in obtaining his triple crown; he does
+not follow in the steps of Sixtus the Fifth merely to become head of
+a bureau. No one comes or stays in the government offices but idlers,
+incapables, or fools. Thus the mediocrity of French administration has
+slowly come about. Bureaucracy, made up entirely of petty minds, stands
+as an obstacle to the prosperity of the nation; delays for seven years,
+by its machinery, the project of a canal which would have stimulated
+the production of a province; is afraid of everything, prolongs
+procrastination, and perpetuates the abuses which in turn perpetuate and
+consolidate itself. Bureaucracy holds all things and the administration
+itself in leading strings; it stifles men of talent who are bold enough
+to be independent of it or to enlighten it on its own follies. About the
+time of which we write the pension list had just been issued, and on it
+Rabourdin saw the name of an underling in office rated for a larger sum
+than the old colonels, maimed and wounded for their country. In that
+fact lies the whole history of bureaucracy.
+
+Another evil, brought about by modern customs, which Rabourdin counted
+among the causes of this secret demoralization, was the fact that
+there is no real subordination in the administration in Paris; complete
+equality reigns between the head of an important division and the
+humblest copying-clerk; one is as powerful as the other in an arena
+outside of which each lords it in his own way. Education, equally
+distributed through the masses, brings the son of a porter into a
+government office to decide the fate of some man of merit or some landed
+proprietor whose door-bell his father may have answered. The last comer
+is therefore on equal terms with the oldest veteran in the service. A
+wealthy supernumerary splashes his superior as he drives his tilbury
+to Longchamps and points with his whip to the poor father of a family,
+remarking to the pretty woman at his side, "That's my chief." The
+Liberals call this state of things Progress; Rabourdin thought it
+Anarchy at the heart of power. He saw how it resulted in restless
+intrigues, like those of a harem between eunuchs and women and imbecile
+sultans, or the petty troubles of nuns full of underhand vexations,
+or college tyrannies, or diplomatic manoeuvrings fit to terrify an
+ambassador, all put in motion to obtain a fee or an increase in salary;
+it was like the hopping of fleas harnessed to pasteboard cars, the
+spitefulness of slaves, often visited on the minister himself. With all
+this were the really useful men, the workers, victims of such parasites;
+men sincerely devoted to their country, who stood vigorously out from
+the background of the other incapables, yet who were often forced to
+succumb through unworthy trickery.
+
+All the higher offices were gained through parliamentary influence,
+royalty had nothing to do now with them, and the subordinate clerks
+became, after a time, merely the running-gear of the machine; the
+most important considerations with them being to keep the wheels well
+greased. This fatal conviction entering some of the best minds smothered
+many statements conscientiously written on the secret evils of the
+national government; lowered the courage of many hearts, and corrupted
+sterling honesty, weary of injustice and won to indifference by
+deteriorating annoyances. A clerk in the employ of the Rothchilds
+corresponds with all England; another, in a government office, may
+communicate with all the prefects; but where the one learns the way to
+make his fortune, the other loses time and health and life to no
+avail. An undermining evil lies here. Certainly a nation does not seem
+threatened with immediate dissolution because an able clerk is sent away
+and a middling sort of man replaces him. Unfortunately for the welfare
+of nations individual men never seem essential to their existence. But
+in the long run when the belittling process is fully carried out nations
+will disappear. Every one who seeks instruction on this point can look
+at Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Rome; all places which were
+formerly resplendent with mighty powers and are now destroyed by the
+infiltrating littleness which gradually attained the highest eminence.
+When the day of struggle came, all was found rotten, the State succumbed
+to a weak attack. To worship the fool who succeeds, and not to grieve
+over the fall of an able man is the result of our melancholy education,
+of our manners and customs which drive men of intellect into disgust,
+and genius to despair.
+
+What a difficult undertaking is the rehabilitation of the Civil Service
+while the liberal cries aloud in his newspapers that the salaries of
+clerks are a standing theft, calls the items of the budget a cluster of
+leeches, and every year demands why the nation should be saddled with
+a thousand millions of taxes. In Monsieur Rabourdin's eyes the clerk in
+relation to the budget was very much what the gambler is to the
+game; that which he wins he puts back again. All remuneration implies
+something furnished. To pay a man a thousand francs a year and demand
+his whole time was surely to organize theft and poverty. A galley-slave
+costs nearly as much, and does less. But to expect a man whom the State
+remunerated with twelve thousand francs a year to devote himself to
+his country was a profitable contract for both sides, fit to allure all
+capacities.
+
+These reflections had led Rabourdin to desire the recasting of the
+clerical official staff. To employ fewer man, to double or treble
+salaries, and do away with pensions, to choose only young clerks (as did
+Napoleon, Louis XIV., Richelieu, and Ximenes), but to keep them long and
+train them for the higher offices and greatest honors, these were the
+chief features of a reform which if carried out would be as beneficial
+to the State as to the clerks themselves. It is difficult to recount in
+detail, chapter by chapter, a plan which embraced the whole budget and
+continued down through the minutest details of administration in order
+to keep the whole synthetical; but perhaps a slight sketch of the
+principal reforms will suffice for those who understand such matters, as
+well as for those who are wholly ignorant of the administrative system.
+Though the historian's position is rather hazardous in reproducing
+a plan which may be thought the politics of a chimney-corner, it is,
+nevertheless, necessary to sketch it so as to explain the author of
+it by his own work. Were the recital of his efforts to be omitted, the
+reader would not believe the narrator's word if he merely declared the
+talent and the courage of this official.
+
+Rabourdin's plan divided the government into three ministries, or
+departments. He thought that if the France of former days possessed
+brains strong enough to comprehend in one system both foreign and
+domestic affairs, the France of to-day was not likely to be without its
+Mazarin, its Suger, its Sully, its de Choiseul, or its Colbert to
+direct even vast administrative departments. Besides, constitutionally
+speaking, three ministries will agree better than seven; and, in the
+restricted number there is less chance for mistaken choice; moreover,
+it might be that the kingdom would some day escape from those perpetual
+ministerial oscillations which interfered with all plans of foreign
+policy and prevented all ameliorations of home rule. In Austria, where
+many diverse united nations present so many conflicting interests to
+be conciliated and carried forward under one crown, two statesmen alone
+bear the burden of public affairs and are not overwhelmed by it. Was
+France less prolific of political capacities than Germany? The rather
+silly game of what are called "constitutional institutions" carried
+beyond bounds has ended, as everybody knows, in requiring a great many
+offices to satisfy the multifarious ambition of the middle classes. It
+seemed to Rabourdin, in the first place, natural to unite the ministry
+of war with the ministry of the navy. To his thinking the navy was
+one of the current expenses of the war department, like the artillery,
+cavalry, infantry, and commissariat. Surely it was an absurdity to
+give separate administrations to admirals and marshals when both were
+employed to one end, namely, the defense of the nation, the overthrow of
+an enemy, and the security of the national possessions. The ministry
+of the interior ought in like manner to combine the departments of
+commerce, police, and finances, or it belied its own name. To the
+ministry of foreign affairs belonged the administration of justice, the
+household of the king, and all that concerned arts, sciences, and belles
+lettres. All patronage ought to flow directly from the sovereign. Such
+ministries necessitated the supremacy of a council. Each required
+the work of two hundred officials, and no more, in its central
+administration offices, where Rabourdin proposed that they should live,
+as in former days under the monarchy. Taking the sum of twelve thousand
+francs a year for each official as an average, he estimated seven
+millions as the cost of the whole body of such officials, which actually
+stood at twenty in the budget.
+
+By thus reducing the ministers to three heads he suppressed departments
+which had come to be useless, together with the enormous costs of their
+maintenance in Paris. He proved that an arrondissement could be managed
+by ten men; a prefecture by a dozen at the most; which reduced the
+entire civil service force throughout France to five thousand men,
+exclusive of the departments of war and justice. Under this plan the
+clerks of the court were charged with the system of loans, and the
+ministry of the interior with that of registration and the management
+of domains. Thus Rabourdin united in one centre all divisions that were
+allied in nature. The mortgage system, inheritance, and registration did
+not pass outside of their own sphere of action and only required three
+additional clerks in the justice courts and three in the royal courts.
+The steady application of this principle brought Rabourdin to reforms
+in the finance system. He merged the collection of revenue into
+one channel, taxing consumption in bulk instead of taxing property.
+According to his ideas, consumption was the sole thing properly taxable
+in times of peace. Land-taxes should always be held in reserve in case
+of war; for then only could the State justly demand sacrifices from
+the soil, which was in danger; but in times of peace it was a serious
+political fault to burden it beyond a certain limit; otherwise it could
+never be depended on in great emergencies. Thus a loan should be put on
+the market when the country was tranquil, for at such times it could be
+placed at par, instead of at fifty per cent loss as in bad times; in war
+times resort should be had to a land-tax.
+
+"The invasion of 1814 and 1815," Rabourdin would say to his friends,
+"founded in France and practically explained an institution which
+neither Law nor Napoleon had been able to establish,--I mean Credit."
+
+Unfortunately, Xavier considered the true principles of this admirable
+machine of civil service very little understood at the period when
+he began his labor of reform in 1820. His scheme levied a toll on
+the consumption by means of direct taxation and suppressed the whole
+machinery of indirect taxation. The levying of the taxes was simplified
+by a single classification of a great number of articles. This did away
+with the more harassing customs at the gates of the cities, and obtained
+the largest revenues from the remainder, by lessening the enormous
+expense of collecting them. To lighten the burden of taxation is not, in
+matters of finance, to diminish the taxes, but to assess them better; if
+lightened, you increase the volume of business by giving it freer play;
+the individual pays less and the State receives more. This reform, which
+may seem immense, rests on very simple machinery. Rabourdin regarded
+the tax on personal property as the most trustworthy representative of
+general consumption. Individual fortunes are usually revealed in France
+by rentals, by the number of servants, horses, carriages, and luxuries,
+the costs of which are all to the interest of the public treasury.
+Houses and what they contain vary comparatively but little, and are not
+liable to disappear. After pointing out the means of making a tax-list
+on personal property which should be more impartial than the existing
+list, Rabourdin assessed the sums to be brought into the treasury by
+indirect taxation as so much per cent on each individual share. A tax
+is a levy of money on things or persons under disguises that are more or
+less specious. These disguises, excellent when the object is to extort
+money, become ridiculous in the present day, when the class on which the
+taxes weigh the heaviest knows why the State imposes them and by what
+machinery they are given back. In fact the budget is not a strong-box to
+hold what is put into it, but a watering-pot; the more it takes in and
+the more it pours out the better for the prosperity of the country.
+Therefore, supposing there are six millions of tax-payers in easy
+circumstances (Rabourdin proved their existence, including the rich) is
+it not better to make them pay a duty on the consumption of wine, which
+would not be more offensive than that on doors and windows and would
+return a hundred millions, rather than harass them by taxing the thing
+itself. By this system of taxation, each individual tax-payer pays less
+in reality, while the State receives more, and consumers profit by a
+vast reduction in the price of things which the State releases from its
+perpetual and harassing interference. Rabourdin's scheme retained a tax
+on the cultivation of vineyards, so as to protect that industry from the
+too great abundance of its own products. Then, to reach the consumption
+of the poorer tax-payers, the licences of retail dealers were taxed
+according to the population of the neighborhoods in which they lived.
+
+In this way, the State would receive without cost or vexatious
+hindrances an enormous revenue under three forms; namely, a duty on
+wine, on the cultivation of vineyards, and on licenses, where now
+an irritating array of taxes existed as a burden on itself and its
+officials. Taxation was thus imposed upon the rich without overburdening
+the poor. To give another example. Suppose a share assessed to each
+person of one or two francs for the consumption of salt and you obtain
+ten or a dozen millions; the modern "gabelle" disappears, the poor
+breathe freer, agriculture is relieved, the State receives as much,
+and no tax-payer complains. All persons, whether they belong to the
+industrial classes or to the capitalists, will see at once the benefits
+of a tax so assessed when they discover how commerce increases, and life
+is ameliorated in the country districts. In short, the State will see
+from year to year the number of her well-to-do tax-payers increasing. By
+doing away with the machinery of indirect taxation, which is very costly
+(a State, as it were, within a State), both the public finances and the
+individual tax-payer are greatly benefited, not to speak of the saving
+in costs of collecting.
+
+The whole subject is indeed less a question of finance than a question
+of government. The State should possess nothing of its own, neither
+forests, nor mines, nor public works. That it should be the owner of
+domains was, in Rabourdin's opinion, an administrative contradiction.
+The State cannot turn its possessions to profit and it deprives itself
+of taxes; it thus loses two forms of production. As to the manufactories
+of the government, they are just as unreasonable in the sphere of
+industry. The State obtains products at a higher cost than those
+of commerce, produces them more slowly, and loses its tax upon the
+industry, the maintenance of which it, in turn, reduces. Can it be
+thought a proper method of governing a country to manufacture instead
+of promoting manufactures? to possess property instead of creating
+more possessions and more diverse ones? In Rabourdin's system the State
+exacted no money security; he allowed only mortgage securities; and for
+this reason: Either the State holds the security in specie, and that
+embarrasses business and the movement of money; or it invests it at
+a higher rate than the State itself pays, and that is a contemptible
+robbery; or else it loses on the transaction, and that is folly;
+moreover, if it is obliged at any time to dispose of a mass of these
+securities it gives rises in certain cases to terrible bankruptcy.
+
+The territorial tax did not entirely disappear in Rabourdin's plan,--he
+kept a minute portion of it as a point of departure in case of war;
+but the productions of the soil were freed, and industry, finding raw
+material at a low price, could compete with foreign nations without the
+deceptive help of customs. The rich carried on the administration of the
+provinces without compensation except that of receiving a peerage under
+certain conditions. Magistrates, learned bodies, officers of the lower
+grades found their services honorably rewarded; no man employed by the
+government failed to obtain great consideration through the value and
+extent of his labors and the excellence of his salary; every one was
+able to provide for his own future and France was delivered from the
+cancer of pensions. As a result Rabourdin's scheme exhibited only
+seven hundred millions of expenditures and twelve hundred millions of
+receipts. A saving of five hundred millions annually had far more virtue
+than the accumulation of a sinking fund whose dangers were plainly to
+be seen. In that fund the State, according to Rabourdin, became
+a stockholder, just as it persisted in being a land-holder and a
+manufacturer. To bring about these reforms without too roughly jarring
+the existing state of things or incurring a Saint-Bartholomew of
+clerks, Rabourdin considered that an evolution of twenty years would be
+required.
+
+Such were the thoughts maturing in Rabourdin's mind ever since his
+promised place had been given to Monsieur de la Billardiere, a man of
+sheer incapacity. This plan, so vast apparently yet so simple in point
+of fact, which did away with so many large staffs and so many little
+offices all equally useless, required for its presentation to the public
+mind close calculations, precise statistics, and self-evident proof.
+Rabourdin had long studied the budget under its double-aspect of ways
+and means and of expenditure. Many a night he had lain awake unknown to
+his wife. But so far he had only dared to conceive the plan and fit it
+prospectively to the administrative skeleton; all of which counted for
+nothing,--he must gain the ear of a minister capable of appreciating
+his ideas. Rabourdin's success depended on the tranquil condition of
+political affairs, which up to this time were still unsettled. He had
+not considered the government as permanently secure until three
+hundred deputies at least had the courage to form a compact majority
+systematically ministerial. An administration founded on that basis had
+come into power since Rabourdin had finished his elaborate plan. At this
+time the luxury of peace under the Bourbons had eclipsed the warlike
+luxury of the days when France shone like a vast encampment, prodigal
+and magnificent because it was victorious. After the Spanish campaign,
+the administration seemed to enter upon an era of tranquillity in which
+some good might be accomplished; and three months before the opening of
+our story a new reign had begun without any apparent opposition; for the
+liberalism of the Left had welcomed Charles X. with as much enthusiasm
+as the Right. Even clear-sighted and suspicious persons were misled. The
+moment seemed propitious for Rabourdin. What could better conduce to the
+stability of the government than to propose and carry through a reform
+whose beneficial results were to be so vast?
+
+Never had Rabourdin seemed so anxious and preoccupied as he now did
+in the mornings as he walked from his house to the ministry, or at
+half-past four in the afternoon, when he returned. Madame Rabourdin, on
+her part, disconsolate over her wasted life, weary of secretly
+working to obtain a few luxuries of dress, never appeared so bitterly
+discontented as now; but, like any wife who is really attached to her
+husband, she considered it unworthy of a superior woman to condescend
+to the shameful devices by which the wives of some officials eke out the
+insufficiency of their husband's salary. This feeling made her refuse
+all intercourse with Madame Colleville, then very intimate with Francois
+Keller, whose parties eclipsed those of the rue Duphot. Nevertheless,
+she mistook the quietude of the political thinker and the preoccupation
+of the intrepid worker for the apathetic torpor of an official broken
+down by the dulness of routine, vanquished by that most hateful of all
+miseries, the mediocrity that simply earns a living; and she groaned at
+being married to a man without energy.
+
+Thus it was that about this period in their lives she resolved to take
+the making of her husband's fortune on herself; to thrust him at any
+cost into a higher sphere, and to hide from him the secret springs of
+her machinations. She carried into all her plans the independence of
+ideas which characterized her, and was proud to think that she could
+rise above other women by sharing none of their petty prejudices and by
+keeping herself untrammelled by the restraints which society imposes.
+In her anger she resolved to fight fools with their own weapons, and to
+make herself a fool if need be. She saw things coming to a crisis. The
+time was favorable. Monsieur de la Billardiere, attacked by a dangerous
+illness, was likely to die in a few days. If Rabourdin succeeded him,
+his talents (for Celestine did vouchsafe him an administrative gift)
+would be so thoroughly appreciated that the office of Master of
+petitions, formerly promised, would now be given to him; she fancied she
+saw him the king's commissioner, presenting bills to the Chambers and
+defending them; then indeed she could help him; she would even be, if
+needful, his secretary; she would sit up all night to do the work! All
+this to drive in the Bois in a pretty carriage, to equal Madame Delphine
+de Nucingen, to raise her salon to the level of Madame Colleville's, to
+be invited to the great ministerial solemnities, to win listeners and
+make them talk of her as "Madame Rabourdin DE something or other"
+(she had not yet determined on the estate), just as they did of Madame
+Firmiani, Madame d'Espard, Madame d'Aiglemont, Madame de Carigliano, and
+thus efface forever the odious name of Rabourdin.
+
+These secret schemes brought some changes into the household. Madame
+Rabourdin began to walk with a firm step in the path of /debt/. She set
+up a man-servant, and put him in livery of brown cloth with red pipins,
+she renewed parts of her furniture, hung new papers on the walls,
+adorned her salon with plants and flowers, always fresh, and crowded
+it with knick-knacks that were then in vogue; then she, who had always
+shown scruples as to her personal expenses, did not hesitate to put
+her dress in keeping with the rank to which she aspired, the profits of
+which were discounted in several of the shops where she equipped herself
+for war. To make her "Wednesdays" fashionable she gave a dinner on
+Fridays, the guests being expected to pay their return visit and take
+a cup of tea on the following Wednesday. She chose her guests cleverly
+among influential deputies or other persons of note who, sooner or
+later, might advance her interests. In short, she gathered an agreeable
+and befitting circle about her. People amused themselves at her house;
+they said so at least, which is quite enough to attract society in
+Paris. Rabourdin was so absorbed in completing his great and serious
+work that he took no notice of the sudden reappearance of luxury in the
+bosom of his family.
+
+Thus the wife and the husband were besieging the same fortress, working
+on parallel lines, but without each other's knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. MONSIEUR DES LUPEAULX
+
+
+At the ministry to which Rabourdin belonged there flourished, as
+general-secretary, a certain Monsieur Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, one
+of those men whom the tide of political events sends to the surface for
+a few years, then engulfs on a stormy night, but whom we find again on a
+distant shore, tossed up like the carcass of a wrecked ship which still
+seems to have life in her. We ask ourselves if that derelict could ever
+have held goodly merchandise or served a high emprise, co-operated
+in some defence, held up the trappings of a throne, or borne away the
+corpse of a monarchy. At this particular time Clement des Lupeaulx (the
+"Lupeaulx" absorbed the "Chardin") had reached his culminating period.
+In the most illustrious lives as in the most obscure, in animals as in
+secretary-generals, there is a zenith and there is a nadir, a period
+when the fur is magnificent, the fortune dazzling. In the nomenclature
+which we derive from fabulists, des Lupeaulx belonged to the species
+Bertrand, and was always in search of Ratons. As he is one of the
+principal actors in this drama he deserves a description, all the
+more precise because the revolution of July has suppressed his office,
+eminently useful as it was, to a constitutional ministry.
+
+Moralists usually employ their weapons against obstructive
+administrations. In their eyes, crime belongs to the assizes or the
+police-courts; but the socially refined evils escape their ken; the
+adroitness that triumphs under shield of the Code is above them or
+beneath them; they have neither eye-glass nor telescope; they want good
+stout horrors easily visible. With their eyes fixed on the carnivora,
+they pay no attention to the reptiles; happily, they abandon to the
+writers of comedy the shading and colorings of a Chardin des Lupeaulx.
+Vain and egotistical, supple and proud, libertine and gourmand, grasping
+from the pressure of debt, discreet as a tomb out of which nought
+issues to contradict the epitaph intended for the passer's eye, bold and
+fearless when soliciting, good-natured and witty in all acceptations
+of the word, a timely jester, full of tact, knowing how to compromise
+others by a glance or a nudge, shrinking from no mudhole, but gracefully
+leaping it, intrepid Voltairean, yet punctual at mass if a fashionable
+company could be met in Saint Thomas Aquinas,--such a man as this
+secretary-general resembled, in one way or another, all the mediocrities
+who form the kernel of the political world. Knowing in the science of
+human nature, he assumed the character of a listener, and none was ever
+more attentive. Not to awaken suspicion he was flattering ad nauseum,
+insinuating as a perfume, and cajoling as a woman.
+
+Des Lupeaulx was just forty years old. His youth had long been a
+vexation to him, for he felt that the making of his career depended on
+his becoming a deputy. How had he reached his present position? may
+be asked. By very simple means. He began by taking charge of certain
+delicate missions which can be given neither to a man who respects
+himself nor to a man who does not respect himself, but are confided to
+grave and enigmatic individuals who can be acknowledged or disavowed
+at will. His business was that of being always compromised; but his
+fortunes were pushed as much by defeat as by success. He well understood
+that under the Restoration, a period of continual compromises between
+men, between things, between accomplished facts and other facts looking
+on the horizon, it was all-important for the ruling powers to have a
+household drudge. Observe in a family some old charwoman who can make
+beds, sweep the floors, carry away the dirty linen, who knows where
+the silver is kept, how the creditors should be pacified, what persons
+should be let in and who must be kept out of the house, and such a
+creature, even if she has all the vices, and is dirty, decrepit, and
+toothless, or puts into the lottery and steals thirty sous a day for
+her stake, and you will find the masters like her from habit, talk and
+consult in her hearing upon even critical matters; she comes and goes,
+suggests resources, gets on the scent of secrets, brings the rouge
+or the shawl at the right moment, lets herself be scolded and pushed
+downstairs, and the next morning reappears smiling with an excellent
+bouillon. No matter how high a statesman may stand, he is certain
+to have some household drudge, before whom he is weak, undecided,
+disputations with fate, self-questioning, self-answering, and buckling
+for the fight. Such a familiar is like the soft wood of savages,
+which, when rubbed against the hard wood, strikes fire. Sometimes great
+geniuses illumine themselves in this way. Napoleon lived with Berthier,
+Richelieu with Pere Joseph; des Lupeaulx was the familiar of everybody.
+He continued friends with fallen ministers and made himself their
+intermediary with their successors, diffusing thus the perfume of
+the last flattery and the first compliment. He well understood how
+to arrange all the little matters which a statesman has no leisure to
+attend to. He saw necessities as they arose; he obeyed well; he could
+gloss a base act with a jest and get the whole value of it; and he chose
+for the services he thus rendered those that the recipients were not
+likely to forget.
+
+Thus, when it was necessary to cross the ditch between the Empire and
+the Restoration, at a time when every one was looking about for planks,
+and the curs of the Empire were howling their devotion right and left,
+des Lupeaulx borrowed large sums from the usurers and crossed the
+frontier. Risking all to win all, he bought up Louis XVIII.'s most
+pressing debts, and was the first to settle nearly three million of them
+at twenty per cent--for he was lucky enough to be backed by Gobseck in
+1814 and 1815. It is true that Messrs. Gobseck, Werdet, and Gigonnet
+swallowed the profits, but des Lupeaulx had agreed that they should
+have them; he was not playing for a stake; he challenged the bank, as it
+were, knowing very well that the king was not a man to forget this debt
+of honor. Des Lupeaulx was not mistaken; he was appointed Master of
+petitions, Knight of the order of Saint Louis, and officer of the Legion
+of honor. Once on the ladder of political success, his clever mind
+looked about for the means to maintain his foothold; for in the
+fortified city into which he had wormed himself, generals do not long
+keep useless mouths. So to his general trade of household drudge and
+go-between he added that of gratuitous consultation on the secret
+maladies of power.
+
+After discovering in the so-called superior men of the Restoration their
+utter inferiority in comparison with the events which had brought them
+to the front, he overcame their political mediocrity by putting into
+their mouths, at a crisis, the word of command for which men of real
+talent were listening. It must not be thought that this word was the
+outcome of his own mind. Were it so, des Lupeaulx would have been a
+man of genius, whereas he was only a man of talent. He went everywhere,
+collected opinions, sounded consciences, and caught all the tones they
+gave out. He gathered knowledge like a true and indefatigable political
+bee. This walking Bayle dictionary did not act, however, like that
+famous lexicon; he did not report all opinions without drawing his own
+conclusions; he had the talent of a fly which drops plumb upon the
+best bit of meat in the middle of a kitchen. In this way he came to
+be regarded as an indispensable helper to statesmen. A belief in his
+capacity had taken such deep root in all minds that the more ambitious
+public men felt it was necessary to compromise des Lupeaulx in some way
+to prevent his rising higher; they made up to him for his subordinate
+public position by their secret confidence.
+
+Nevertheless, feeling that such men were dependent on him, this gleaner
+of ideas exacted certain dues. He received a salary on the staff of the
+National Guard, where he held a sinecure which was paid for by the city
+of Paris; he was government commissioner to a secret society; and filled
+a position of superintendence in the royal household. His two official
+posts which appeared on the budget were those of secretary-general to
+his ministry and Master of petitions. What he now wanted was to be made
+commander of the Legion of honor, gentleman of the bed-chamber, count,
+and deputy. To be elected deputy it was necessary to pay taxes to the
+amount of a thousand francs; and the miserable homestead of the des
+Lupeaulx was rated at only five hundred. Where could he get money to
+build a mansion and surround it with sufficient domain to throw dust
+in the eyes of a constituency? Though he dined out every day, and was
+lodged for the last nine years at the cost of the State, and driven
+about in the minister's equipage, des Lupeaulx possessed absolutely
+nothing, at the time when our tale opens, but thirty thousand francs
+of debt--undisputed property. A marriage might float him and pump the
+waters of debt out of his bark; but a good marriage depended on his
+advancement, and his advancement required that he should be a deputy.
+Searching about him for the means of breaking through this vicious
+circle, he could think of nothing better than some immense service to
+render or some delicate intrigue to carry through for persons in power.
+Alas! conspiracies were out of date; the Bourbons were apparently on
+good terms with all parties; and, unfortunately, for the last few years
+the government had been so thoroughly held up to the light of day by the
+silly discussions of the Left, whose aim seemed to be to make government
+of any kind impossible in France, that no good strokes of business could
+be made. The last were tried in Spain, and what an outcry that excited!
+
+In addition to all this, des Lupeaulx complicated matters by believing
+in the friendship of his minister, to whom he had the imprudence to
+express the wish to sit on the ministerial benches. The minister guessed
+at the real meaning of the desire, which simply was that des Lupeaulx
+wanted to strengthen a precarious position, so that he might throw off
+all dependence on his chief. The harrier turned against the huntsman;
+the minister gave him cuts with the whip and caresses, alternately, and
+set up rivals to him. But des Lupeaulx behaved like an adroit courtier
+with all competitors; he laid traps into which they fell, and then he
+did prompt justice upon them. The more he felt himself in danger the
+more anxious he became for an irremovable position; yet he was compelled
+to play low; one moment's indiscretion, and he might lose everything. A
+pen-stroke might demolish his civilian epaulets, his place at court,
+his sinecure, his two offices and their advantages; in all, six
+salaries retained under fire of the law against pluralists. Sometimes he
+threatened his minister as a mistress threatens her lover; telling him
+he was about to marry a rich widow. At such times the minister petted
+and cajoled des Lupeaulx. After one of these reconciliations he received
+the formal promise of a place in the Academy of Belles-lettres on the
+first vacancy. "It would pay," he said, "the keep of a horse." His
+position, so far as it went, was a good one, and Clement Chardin des
+Lupeaulx flourished in it like a tree planted in good soil. He could
+satisfy his vices, his caprices, his virtues and his defects.
+
+The following were the toils of his life. He was obliged to choose,
+among five or six daily invitations, the house where he could be sure
+of the best dinner. Every morning he went to his minister's morning
+reception to amuse that official and his wife, and to pet their
+children. Then he worked an hour or two; that is to say, he lay back in
+a comfortable chair and read the newspapers, dictated the meaning of a
+letter, received visitors when the minister was not present, explained
+the work in a general way, caught or shed a few drops of the holy-water
+of the court, looked over the petitions with an eyeglass, or wrote his
+name on the margin,--a signature which meant "I think it absurd; do
+what you like about it." Every body knew that when des Lupeaulx was
+interested in any person or in any thing he attended to the matter
+personally. He allowed the head-clerks to converse privately about
+affairs of delicacy, but he listened to their gossip. From time to time
+he went to the Tuileries to get his cue. And he always waited for the
+minister's return from the Chamber, if in session, to hear from him
+what intrigue or manoeuvre he was to set about. This official sybarite
+dressed, dined, and visited a dozen or fifteen salons between eight at
+night and three in the morning. At the opera he talked with journalists,
+for he stood high in their favor; a perpetual exchange of little
+services went on between them; he poured into their ears his misleading
+news and swallowed theirs; he prevented them from attacking this or that
+minister on such or such a matter, on the plea that it would cause real
+pain to their wives or their mistresses.
+
+"Say that his bill is worth nothing, and prove it if you can, but do
+not say that Mariette danced badly. The devil! haven't we all played
+our little plays; and which of us knows what will become of him in times
+like these? You may be minister yourself to-morrow, you who are spicing
+the cakes of the 'Constitutionel' to-day."
+
+Sometimes, in return, he helped editors, or got rid of obstacles to the
+performances of some play; gave gratuities and good dinners at the
+right moment, or promised his services to bring some affair to a happy
+conclusion. Moreover, he really liked literature and the arts; he
+collected autographs, obtained splendid albums gratis, and possessed
+sketches, engravings, and pictures. He did a great deal of good to
+artists by simply not injuring them and by furthering their wishes
+on certain occasions when their self-love wanted some rather costly
+gratification. Consequently, he was much liked in the world of actors
+and actresses, journalists and artists. For one thing, they had the
+same vices and the same indolence as himself. Men who could all say such
+witty things in their cups or in company with a danseuse, how could they
+help being friends? If des Lupeaulx had not been a general-secretary
+he would certainly have been a journalist. Thus, in that fifteen years'
+struggle in which the harlequin sabre of epigram opened a breach by
+which insurrection entered the citadel, des Lupeaulx never received so
+much as a scratch.
+
+As the young fry of clerks looked at this man playing bowls in the
+gardens of the ministry with the minister's children, they cracked
+their brains to guess the secret of his influence and the nature of his
+services; while, on the other hand, the aristocrats in all the various
+ministries looked upon him as a dangerous Mephistopheles, courted him,
+and gave him back with usury the flatteries he bestowed in the higher
+sphere. As difficult to decipher as a hieroglyphic inscription to the
+clerks, the vocation of the secretary and his usefulness were as plain
+as the rule of three to the self-interested. This lesser Prince de
+Wagram of the administration, to whom the duty of gathering opinions
+and ideas and making verbal reports thereon was entrusted, knew all the
+secrets of parliamentary politics; dragged in the lukewarm, fetched,
+carried, and buried propositions, said the Yes and the No that the
+ministers dared not say for themselves. Compelled to receive the first
+fire and the first blows of despair and wrath, he laughed or bemoaned
+himself with the minister, as the case might be. Mysterious link by
+which many interests were in some way connected with the Tuileries, and
+safe as a confessor, he sometimes knew everything and sometimes nothing;
+and, in addition to all these functions came that of saying for the
+minister those things that a minister cannot say for himself. In short,
+with his political Hephaestion the minister might dare to be himself; to
+take off his wig and his false teeth, lay aside his scruples, put on
+his slippers, unbutton his conscience, and give way to his trickery.
+However, it was not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he flattered
+and advised his master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to advise
+while flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All
+politicians who follow this trade have bilious faces; and their constant
+habit of giving affirmative nods acquiescing in what is said to them,
+or seeming to do so, gives a certain peculiar turn to their heads. They
+agree indifferently with whatever is said before them. Their talk is
+full of "buts," "notwithstandings," "for myself I should," "were I in
+your place" (they often say "in your place"),--phrases, however, which
+pave the way to opposition.
+
+In person, Clement des Lupeaulx had the remains of a handsome man; five
+feet six inches tall, tolerably stout, complexion flushed with good
+living, powdered head, delicate spectacles, and a worn-out air; the
+natural skin blond, as shown by the hand, puffy like that of an old
+woman, rather too square, and with short nails--the hand of a satrap.
+His foot was elegant. After five o'clock in the afternoon des Lupeaulx
+was always to be seen in open-worked silk stockings, low shoes, black
+trousers, cashmere waistcoat, cambric handkerchief (without perfume),
+gold chain, blue coat of the shade called "king's blue," with brass
+buttons and a string of orders. In the morning he wore creaking boots
+and gray trousers, and the short close surtout coat of the politician.
+His general appearance early in the day was that of a sharp lawyer
+rather than that of a ministerial officer. Eyes glazed by the constant
+use of spectacles made him plainer than he really was, if by chance he
+took those appendages off. To real judges of character, as well as to
+upright men who are at ease only with honest natures, des Lupeaulx was
+intolerable. To them, his gracious manners only draped his lies; his
+amiable protestations and hackneyed courtesies, new to the foolish and
+ignorant, too plainly showed their texture to an observing mind. Such
+minds considered him a rotten plank, on which no foot should trust
+itself.
+
+No sooner had the beautiful Madame Rabourdin decided to interfere in
+her husband's administrative advancement than she fathomed Clement des
+Lupeaulx's true character, and studied him thoughtfully to discover
+whether in this thin strip of deal there were ligneous fibres strong
+enough to let her lightly trip across it from the bureau to the
+department, from a salary of eight thousand a year to twelve thousand.
+The clever woman believed she could play her own game with this
+political roue; and Monsieur des Lupeaulx was partly the cause of the
+unusual expenditures which now began and were continued in the Rabourdin
+household.
+
+The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for several
+houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are skilfully
+laid out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well arranged,--a
+domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of private
+lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from the courtyard,
+led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked on the street. To
+the right of the salon were Rabourdin's study and bedroom, and behind
+them the dining-room, which was entered from the antechamber; to
+the left was Madame's bedroom and dressing-room, and behind them her
+daughter's little bedroom. On reception days the door of Rabourdin's
+study and that of his wife's bedroom were thrown open. The rooms were
+thus spacious enough to contain a select company, without the
+absurdity which attends many middle-class entertainments, where
+unusual preparations are made at the expense of the daily comfort, and
+consequently give the effect of exceptional effort. The salon had
+lately been rehung in gold-colored silk with carmelite touches. Madame's
+bedroom was draped in a fabric of true blue and furnished in a rococo
+manner. Rabourdin's study had inherited the late hangings of the salon,
+carefully cleaned, and was adorned by the fine pictures once belonging
+to Monsieur Leprince. The daughter of the late auctioneer had utilized
+in her dining-room certain exquisite Turkish rugs which her father had
+bought at a bargain; panelling them on the walls in ebony, the cost of
+which has since become exorbitant. Elegant buffets made by Boulle, also
+purchased by the auctioneer, furnished the sides of the room, at the end
+of which sparkled the brass arabesques inlaid in tortoise-shell of the
+first tall clock that reappeared in the nineteenth century to claim
+honor for the masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers perfumed these
+rooms so full of good taste and of exquisite things, where each detail
+was a work of art well placed and well surrounded, and where Madame
+Rabourdin, dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone
+attain, gave the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies,
+though she never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind
+to complete the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful
+surroundings. Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society
+talk of her as soon as the rococo became fashionable.
+
+Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real magnificence in
+all their stages, he was, nevertheless, surprised at Madame Rabourdin's
+home. The charm it exercised over this Parisian Asmodeus can be
+explained by a comparison. A traveller wearied with the rich aspects of
+Italy, Brazil, or India, returns to his own land and finds on his way a
+delightful little lake, like the Lac d'Orta at the foot of Monte Rosa,
+with an island resting on the calm waters, bewitchingly simple; a scene
+of nature and yet adorned; solitary, but well surrounded with choice
+plantations and foliage and statues of fine effect. Beyond lies a vista
+of shores both wild and cultivated; tumultuous grandeur towers above,
+but in itself all proportions are human. The world that the traveller
+has lately viewed is here in miniature, modest and pure; his soul,
+refreshed, bids him remain where a charm of melody and poesy surrounds
+him with harmony and awakens ideas within his mind. Such a scene
+represents both life and a monastery.
+
+A few days earlier the beautiful Madame Firmiani, one of the charming
+women of the faubourg Saint-Germain who visited and liked Madame
+Rabourdin, had said to des Lupeaulx (invited expressly to hear this
+remark), "Why do you not call on Madame ----?" with a motion towards
+Celestine; "she gives delightful parties, and her dinners, above all,
+are--better than mine."
+
+Des Lupeaulx allowed himself to be drawn into an engagement by the
+handsome Madame Rabourdin, who, for the first time, turned her eyes on
+him as she spoke. He had, accordingly, gone to the rue Duphot, and
+that tells the tale. Woman has but one trick, cries Figaro, but that's
+infallible. After dining once at the house of this unimportant official,
+des Lupeaulx made up his mind to dine there often. Thanks to the
+perfectly proper and becoming advances of the beautiful woman, whom her
+rival, Madame Colleville, called the Celimene of the rue Duphot, he had
+dined there every Friday for the last month, and returned of his own
+accord for a cup of tea on Wednesdays.
+
+Within a few days Madame Rabourdin, having watched him narrowly and
+knowingly, believed she had found on the secretarial plank a spot where
+she might safely set her foot. She was no longer doubtful of success.
+Her inward joy can be realized only in the families of government
+officials where for three or four years prosperity has been counted
+on through some appointment, long expected and long sought. How many
+troubles are to be allayed! how many entreaties and pledges given to the
+ministerial divinities! how many visits of self-interest paid! At last,
+thanks to her boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard the hour strike when she
+was to have twenty thousand francs a year instead of eight thousand.
+
+"And I shall have managed well," she said to herself. "I have had
+to make a little outlay; but these are times when hidden merit is
+overlooked, whereas if a man keeps himself well in sight before the
+world, cultivates social relations and extends them, he succeeds. After
+all, ministers and their friends interest themselves only in the people
+they see; but Rabourdin knows nothing of the world! If I had not cajoled
+those three deputies they might have wanted La Billardiere's place
+themselves; whereas, now that I have invited them here, they will be
+ashamed to do so and will become our supporters instead of rivals. I
+have rather played the coquette, but--it is delightful that the first
+nonsense with which one fools a man sufficed."
+
+The day on which a serious and unlooked-for struggle about this
+appointment began, after a ministerial dinner which preceded one of
+those receptions which ministers regard as public, des Lupeaulx was
+standing beside the fireplace near the minister's wife. While taking his
+coffee he once more included Madame Rabourdin among the seven or eight
+really superior women in Paris. Several times already he had staked
+Madame Rabourdin very much as Corporal Trim staked his cap.
+
+"Don't say that too often, my dear friend, or you will injure her," said
+the minister's wife, half-laughing.
+
+Women never like to hear the praise of other women; they keep silence
+themselves to lessen its effect.
+
+"Poor La Billardiere is dying," remarked his Excellency the minister;
+"that place falls to Rabourdin, one of our most able men, and to whom
+our predecessors did not behave well, though one of them actually owed
+his position in the prefecture of police under the Empire to a certain
+great personage who was interested in Rabourdin. But, my dear friend,
+you are still young enough to be loved by a pretty woman for yourself--"
+
+"If La Billardiere's place is given to Rabourdin I may be believed when
+I praise the superiority of his wife," replied des Lupeaulx, piqued by
+the minister's sarcasm; "but if Madame la Comtesse would be willing to
+judge for herself--"
+
+"You want me to invite her to my next ball, don't you? Your clever woman
+will meet a knot of other women who only come here to laugh at us, and
+when they hear 'Madame Rabourdin' announced--"
+
+"But Madame Firmiani is announced at the Foreign Office parties?"
+
+"Ah, but she was born a Cadignan!" said the newly created count, with a
+savage look at his general-secretary, for neither he nor his wife were
+noble.
+
+The persons present thought important matters were being talked
+over, and the solicitors for favors and appointments kept at a little
+distance. When des Lupeaulx left the room the countess said to her
+husband, "I think des Lupeaulx is in love."
+
+"For the first time in his life, then," he replied, shrugging his
+shoulders, as much as to inform his wife that des Lupeaulx did not
+concern himself with such nonsense.
+
+Just then the minister saw a deputy of the Right Centre enter the room,
+and he left his wife abruptly to cajole an undecided vote. But the
+deputy, under the blow of a sudden and unexpected disaster, wanted to
+make sure of a protector and he had come to announce privately that in a
+few days he should be compelled to resign. Thus forewarned, the minister
+would be able to open his batteries for the new election before those of
+the opposition.
+
+The minister, or to speak correctly, des Lupeaulx had invited to dinner
+on this occasion one of those irremovable officials who, as we have
+said, are to be found in every ministry; an individual much embarrassed
+by his own person, who, in his desire to maintain a dignified
+appearance, was standing erect and rigid on his two legs, held well
+together like the Greek hermae. This functionary waited near the
+fireplace to thank the secretary, whose abrupt and unexpected departure
+from the room disconcerted him at the moment when he was about to turn
+a compliment. This official was the cashier of the ministry, the only
+clerk who did not tremble when the government changed hands.
+
+At the time of which we write, the Chamber did not meddle shabbily with
+the budget, as it does in the deplorable days in which we now live; it
+did not contemptibly reduce ministerial emoluments, nor save, as they
+say in the kitchen, the candle-ends; on the contrary, it granted to each
+minister taking charge of a public department an indemnity, called an
+"outfit." It costs, alas, as much to enter on the duties of a minister
+as to retire from them; indeed, the entrance involves expenses of all
+kinds which it is quite impossible to inventory. This indemnity amounted
+to the pretty little sum of twenty-five thousand francs. When the
+appointment of a new minister was gazetted in the "Moniteur," and the
+greater or lesser officials, clustering round the stoves or before the
+fireplaces and shaking in their shoes, asked themselves: "What will he
+do? will he increase the number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make
+room for three?" the cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean
+bank-bills and pinned them together with a satisfied expression on
+his beadle face. The next day he mounted the private staircase and
+had himself ushered into the minister's presence by the lackeys, who
+considered the money and the keeper of money, the contents and the
+container, the idea and the form, as one and the same power. The cashier
+caught the ministerial pair at the dawn of official delight, when the
+newly appointed statesman is benign and affable. To the minister's
+inquiry as to what brings him there, he replies with the
+bank-notes,--informing his Excellency that he hastens to pay him the
+customary indemnity. Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister's
+wife, who never fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes
+all, for the "outfit" is looked upon as a household affair. The cashier
+then proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a few politic
+phrases: "If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if, satisfied
+with his purely mechanical services, he would," etc. As a man who brings
+twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the cashier is
+sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from which he has
+seen a succession of ministers come and go during a period of, perhaps,
+twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at the orders of
+Madame; he brings the monthly thirteen thousand francs whenever wanted;
+he advances or delays the payment as requested, and thus manages to
+obtain, as they said in the monasteries, a voice in the chapter.
+
+Formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, when that establishment kept its
+books by double entry, the Sieur Saillard was compensated for the loss
+of that position by his appointment as cashier of a ministry. He was a
+bulky, fat man, very strong in the matter of book-keeping, and very weak
+in everything else; round as a round O, simple as how-do-you-do,--a man
+who came to his office with measured steps, like those of an elephant,
+and returned with the same measured tread to the place Royale, where he
+lived on the ground-floor of an old mansion belonging to him. He usually
+had a companion on the way in the person of Monsieur Isidore Baudoyer,
+head of a bureau in Monsieur de la Billardiere's division, consequently
+one of Rabourdin's colleagues. Baudoyer was married to Elisabeth
+Saillard, the cashier's only daughter, and had hired, very naturally,
+the apartments above those of his father-in-law. No one at the ministry
+had the slightest doubt that Saillard was a blockhead, but neither
+had any one ever found out how far his stupidity could go; it was too
+compact to be examined; it did not ring hollow; it absorbed everything
+and gave nothing out. Bixiou (a clerk of whom more anon) caricatured the
+cashier by drawing a head in a wig at the top of an egg, and two little
+legs at the other end, with this inscription: "Born to pay out and take
+in without blundering. A little less luck, and he might have been lackey
+to the bank of France; a little more ambition, and he could have been
+honorably discharged."
+
+At the moment of which we are now writing, the minister was looking
+at his cashier very much as we gaze at a window or a cornice, without
+supposing that either can hear us, or fathom our secret thoughts.
+
+"I am all the more anxious that we should settle everything with the
+prefect in the quietest way, because des Lupeaulx has designs upon the
+place for himself," said the minister, continuing his talk with the
+deputy; "his paltry little estate is in your arrondissement; we won't
+want him as deputy."
+
+"He has neither years nor rentals enough to be eligible," said the
+deputy.
+
+"That may be; but you know how it was decided for Casimir Perier as
+to age; and as to worldly possessions, des Lupeaulx does possess
+something,--not much, it is true, but the law does not take into account
+increase, which he may very well obtain; commissions have wide margins
+for the deputies of the Centre, you know, and we cannot openly oppose
+the good-will that is shown to this dear friend."
+
+"But where would he get the money?"
+
+"How did Manuel manage to become the owner of a house in Paris?" cried
+the minister.
+
+The cashier listened and heard, but reluctantly and against his will.
+These rapid remarks, murmured as they were, struck his ear by one of
+those acoustic rebounds which are very little studied. As he heard these
+political confidences, however, a keen alarm took possession of his
+soul. He was one of those simple-minded beings, who are shocked at
+listening to anything they are not intended to hear, or entering where
+they are not invited, and seeming bold when they are really timid,
+inquisitive where they are truly discreet. The cashier accordingly began
+to glide along the carpet and edge himself away, so that the minister
+saw him at a distance when he first took notice of him. Saillard was a
+ministerial henchman absolutely incapable of indiscretion; even if the
+minister had known that he had overheard a secret he had only to whisper
+"motus" in his ear to be sure it was perfectly safe. The cashier,
+however, took advantage of an influx of office-seekers, to slip out
+and get into his hackney-coach (hired by the hour for these costly
+entertainments), and to return to his home in the place Royale.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE TEREDOS NAVALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED SHIP-WORM
+
+While old Saillard was driving across Paris his son-in-law, Isidore
+Baudoyer, and his daughter, Elisabeth, Baudoyer's wife, were playing
+a virtuous game of boston with their confessor, the Abbe Gaudron,
+in company with a few neighbors and a certain Martin Falleix, a
+brass-founder in the fauborg Saint-Antoine, to whom Saillard had loaned
+the necessary money to establish a business. This Falleix, a
+respectable Auvergnat who had come to seek his fortune in Paris with his
+smelting-pot on his back, had found immediate employment with the firm
+of Brezac, collectors of metals and other relics from all chateaux
+in the provinces. About twenty-seven years of age, and spoiled, like
+others, by success, Martin Falleix had had the luck to become the active
+agent of Monsieur Saillard, the sleeping-partner in the working out of
+a discovery made by Falleix in smelting (patent of invention and gold
+medal granted at the exposition of 1825). Madame Baudoyer, whose only
+daughter was treading--to use an expression of old Saillard's--on the
+tail of her twelve years, laid claim to Falleix, a thickset, swarthy,
+active young fellow, of shrewd principles, whose education she was
+superintending. The said education, according to her ideas, consisted in
+teaching him to play boston, to hold his cards properly, and not to let
+others see his game; to shave himself regularly before he came to the
+house, and to wash his hands with good cleansing soap; not to swear, to
+speak her kind of French, to wear boots instead of shoes, cotton shirts
+instead of sacking, and to brush up his hair instead of plastering
+it flat. During the preceding week Elisabeth had finally succeeded in
+persuading Falleix to give up wearing a pair of enormous flat earrings
+resembling hoops.
+
+"You go too far, Madame Baudoyer," he said, seeing her satisfaction at
+the final sacrifice; "you order me about too much. You make me clean my
+teeth, which loosens them; presently you will want me to brush my nails
+and curl my hair, which won't do at all in our business; we don't like
+dandies."
+
+Elisabeth Baudoyer, nee Saillard, is one of those persons who escape
+portraiture through their utter commonness; yet who ought to be
+sketched, because they are specimens of that second-rate Parisian
+bourgeoisie which occupies a place above the well-to-do artisan and
+below the upper middle classes,--a tribe whose virtues are well-nigh
+vices, whose defects are never kindly, but whose habits and manners,
+dull and insipid though they be, are not without a certain originality.
+Something pinched and puny about Elisabeth Saillard was painful to the
+eye. Her figure, scarcely over four feet in height, was so thin that
+the waist measured less than twenty inches. Her small features, which
+clustered close about the nose, gave her face a vague resemblance to a
+weasel's snout. Though she was past thirty years old she looked scarcely
+more than sixteen. Her eyes, of porcelain blue, overweighted by heavy
+eyelids which fell nearly straight from the arch of the eyebrows, had
+little light in them. Everything about her appearance was commonplace:
+witness her flaxen hair, tending to whiteness; her flat forehead, from
+which the light did not reflect; and her dull complexion, with gray,
+almost leaden, tones. The lower part of the face, more triangular than
+oval, ended irregularly the otherwise irregular outline of her face.
+Her voice had a rather pretty range of intonation, from sharp to sweet.
+Elisabeth was a perfect specimen of the second-rate little bourgeoisie
+who lectures her husband behind the curtains; obtains no credit for her
+virtues; is ambitious without intelligent object, and solely through the
+development of her domestic selfishness. Had she lived in the country
+she would have bought up adjacent land; being, as she was, connected
+with the administration, she was determined to push her way. If we
+relate the life of her father and mother, we shall show the sort of
+woman she was by a picture of her childhood and youth.
+
+Monsieur Saillard married the daughter of an upholsterer keeping shop
+under the arcades of the Market. Limited means compelled Monsieur and
+Madame Saillard at their start in life to bear constant privation. After
+thirty-three years of married life, and twenty-nine years of toil in
+a government office, the property of "the Saillards"--their circle
+of acquaintance called them so--consisted of sixty thousand francs
+entrusted to Falleix, the house in the place Royale, bought for forty
+thousand in 1804, and thirty-six thousand francs given in dowry to their
+daughter Elisabeth. Out of this capital about fifty thousand came
+to them by the will of the widow Bidault, Madame Saillard's mother.
+Saillard's salary from the government had always been four thousand five
+hundred francs a year, and no more; his situation was a blind alley
+that led nowhere, and had tempted no one to supersede him. Those ninety
+thousand francs, put together sou by sou, were the fruit therefore of a
+sordid economy unintelligently employed. In fact, the Saillards did
+not know how better to manage their savings than to carry them, five
+thousand francs at a time, to their notary, Monsieur Sorbier, Cardot's
+predecessor, and let him invest them at five per cent in first
+mortgages, with the wife's rights reserved in case the borrower was
+married! In 1804 Madame Saillard obtained a government office for the
+sale of stamped papers, a circumstance which brought a servant into the
+household for the first time. At the time of which we write, the house,
+which was worth a hundred thousand francs, brought in a rental of eight
+thousand. Falleix paid seven per cent for the sixty thousand invested
+in the foundry, besides an equal division of profits. The Saillards were
+therefore enjoying an income of not less than seventeen thousand francs
+a year. The whole ambition of the good man now centred on obtaining the
+cross of the Legion and his retiring pension.
+
+Elisabeth, the only child, had toiled steadily from infancy in a home
+where the customs of life were rigid and the ideas simple. A new hat for
+Saillard was a matter of deliberation; the time a coat could last was
+estimated and discussed; umbrellas were carefully hung up by means of
+a brass buckle. Since 1804 no repairs of any kind had been done to the
+house. The Saillards kept the ground-floor in precisely the state in
+which their predecessor left it. The gilding of the pier-glasses was
+rubbed off; the paint on the cornices was hardly visible through the
+layers of dust that time had collected. The fine large rooms still
+retained certain sculptured marble mantel-pieces and ceilings, worthy
+of Versailles, together with the old furniture of the widow Bidault. The
+latter consisted of a curious mixture of walnut armchairs, disjointed,
+and covered with tapestry; rosewood bureaus; round tables on single
+pedestals, with brass railings and cracked marble tops; one superb
+Boulle secretary, the value of which style had not yet been recognized;
+in short, a chaos of bargains picked up by the worthy widow,--pictures
+bought for the sake of the frames, china services of a composite order;
+to wit, a magnificent Japanese dessert set, and all the rest porcelains
+of various makes, unmatched silver plate, old glass, fine damask, and a
+four-post bedstead, hung with curtains and garnished with plumes.
+
+Amid these curious relics, Madame Saillard always sat on a sofa of
+modern mahogany, near a fireplace full of ashes and without fire, on the
+mantel-shelf of which stood a clock, some antique bronzes, candelabra
+with paper flowers but no candles, for the careful housewife lighted the
+room with a tall tallow candle always guttering down into the flat brass
+candlestick which held it. Madame Saillard's face, despite its wrinkles,
+was expressive of obstinacy and severity, narrowness of ideas, an
+uprightness that might be called quadrangular, a religion without piety,
+straightforward, candid avarice, and the peace of a quiet conscience.
+You may see in certain Flemish pictures the wives of burgomasters cut
+out by nature on the same pattern and wonderfully reproduced on canvas;
+but these dames wear fine robes of velvet and precious stuffs, whereas
+Madame Saillard possessed no robes, only that venerable garment called
+in Touraine and Picardy "cottes," elsewhere petticoats, or skirts
+pleated behind and on each side, with other skirts hanging over them.
+Her bust was inclosed in what was called a "casaquin," another obsolete
+name for a short gown or jacket. She continued to wear a cap with
+starched wings, and shoes with high heels. Though she was now
+fifty-seven years old, and her lifetime of vigorous household work ought
+now to be rewarded with well-earned repose, she was incessantly employed
+in knitting her husband's stockings and her own, and those of an uncle,
+just as her countrywomen knit them, moving about the room, talking,
+pacing up and down the garden, or looking round the kitchen to watch
+what was going on.
+
+The Saillard's avarice, which was really imposed on them in the first
+instance by dire necessity, was now a second nature. When the cashier
+got back from the office, he laid aside his coat, and went to work in
+the large garden, shut off from the courtyard by an iron railing, and
+which the family reserved to itself. For years Elisabeth, the daughter,
+went to market every morning with her mother, and the two did all
+the work of the house. The mother cooked well, especially a duck with
+turnips; but, according to Saillard, no one could equal Elisabeth in
+hashing the remains of a leg of mutton with onions. "You might eat
+your boots with those onions and not know it," he remarked. As soon
+as Elisabeth knew how to hold a needle, her mother had her mend the
+household linen and her father's coats. Always at work, like a servant,
+she never went out alone. Though living close by the boulevard du
+Temple, where Franconi, La Gaite, and l'Ambigu-Comique were within a
+stone's throw, and, further on, the Porte-Saint-Martin, Elisabeth had
+never seen a comedy. When she asked to "see what it was like" (with the
+Abbe Gaudron's permission, be it understood), Monsieur Baudoyer took
+her--for the glory of the thing, and to show her the finest that was to
+be seen--to the Opera, where they were playing "The Chinese Laborer."
+Elisabeth thought "the comedy" as wearisome as the plague of flies, and
+never wished to see another. On Sundays, after walking four times to
+and fro between the place Royale and Saint-Paul's church (for her mother
+made her practise the precepts and the duties of religion), her parents
+took her to the pavement in front of the Cafe Ture, where they sat on
+chairs placed between a railing and the wall. The Saillards always made
+haste to reach the place early so as to choose the best seats, and found
+much entertainment in watching the passers-by. In those days the Cafe
+Ture was the rendezvous of the fashionable society of the Marais, the
+faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the circumjacent regions.
+
+Elisabeth never wore anything but cotton gowns in summer and merino in
+the winter, which she made herself. Her mother gave her twenty francs
+a month for her expenses, but her father, who was very fond of her,
+mitigated this rigorous treatment with a few presents. She never read
+what the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's and the family director,
+called profane books. This discipline had borne fruit. Forced to employ
+her feelings on some passion or other, Elisabeth became eager after
+gain. Though she was not lacking in sense or perspicacity, religious
+theories, and her complete ignorance of higher emotions had encircled
+all her faculties with an iron hand; they were exercised solely on the
+commonest things of life; spent in a few directions they were able
+to concentrate themselves on a matter in hand. Repressed by religious
+devotion, her natural intelligence exercised itself within the limits
+marked out by cases of conscience, which form a mine of subtleties
+among which self-interest selects its subterfuges. Like those saintly
+personages in whom religion does not stifle ambition, Elisabeth was
+capable of requiring others to do a blamable action that she might reap
+the fruits; and she would have been, like them again, implacable as to
+her dues and dissembling in her actions. Once offended, she watched her
+adversaries with the perfidious patience of a cat, and was capable of
+bringing about some cold and complete vengeance, and then laying it to
+the account of God. Until her marriage the Saillards lived without other
+society than that of the Abbe Gaudron, a priest from Auvergne appointed
+vicar of Saint-Paul's after the restoration of Catholic worship. Besides
+this ecclesiastic, who was a friend of the late Madame Bidault, a
+paternal uncle of Madame Saillard, an old paper-dealer retired from
+business ever since the year II. of the Republic, and now sixty-nine
+years old, came to see them on Sundays only, because on that day no
+government business went on.
+
+This little old man, with a livid face blazoned by the red nose of a
+tippler and lighted by two gleaming vulture eyes, allowed his gray hair
+to hang loose under a three-cornered hat, wore breeches with straps that
+extended beyond the buckles, cotton stockings of mottled thread knitted
+by his niece, whom he always called "the little Saillard," stout shoes
+with silver buckles, and a surtout coat of mixed colors. He looked very
+much like those verger-beadle-bell-ringing-grave-digging-parish-clerks
+who are taken to be caricatures until we see them performing their
+various functions. On the present occasion he had come on foot to dine
+with the Saillards, intending to return in the same way to the rue
+Greneta, where he lived on the third floor of an old house. His business
+was that of discounting commercial paper in the quartier Saint-Martin,
+where he was known by the nickname of "Gigonnet," from the nervous
+convulsive movement with which he lifted his legs in walking, like a
+cat. Monsieur Bidault began this business in the year II. in partnership
+with a dutchman named Werbrust, a friend of Gobseck.
+
+Some time later Saillard made the acquaintance of Monsieur and Madame
+Transon, wholesale dealers in pottery, with an establishment in the rue
+de Lesdiguieres, who took an interest in Elisabeth and introduced young
+Isadore Baudoyer to the family with the intention of marrying her.
+Gigonnet approved of the match, for he had long employed a certain
+Mitral, uncle of the young man, as clerk. Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer,
+father and mother of Isidore, highly respected leather-dressers in the
+rue Censier, had slowly made a moderate fortune out of a small trade.
+After marrying their only son, on whom they settled fifty thousand
+francs, they determined to live in the country, and had lately removed
+to the neighborhood of Ile-d'Adam, where after a time they were joined
+by Mitral. They frequently came to Paris, however, where they kept a
+corner in the house in the rue Censier which they gave to Isidore on
+his marriage. The elder Baudoyers had an income of about three thousand
+francs left to live upon after establishing their son.
+
+Mitral was a being with a sinister wig, a face the color of Seine water,
+lighted by a pair of Spanish-tobacco-colored eyes, cold as a well-rope,
+always smelling a rat, and close-mouthed about his property. He probably
+made his fortune in his own hole and corner, just as Werbrust and
+Gigonnet made theirs in the quartier Saint-Martin.
+
+Though the Saillards' circle of acquaintance increased, neither their
+ideas nor their manners and customs changed. The saint's-days of father,
+mother, daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild were carefully observed,
+also the anniversaries of birth and marriage, Easter, Christmas,
+New Year's day, and Epiphany. These festivals were preceded by great
+domestic sweepings and a universal clearing up of the house, which added
+an element of usefulness to the ceremonies. When the festival day
+came, the presents were offered with much pomp and an accompaniment of
+flowers,--silk stockings or a fur cap for old Saillard; gold earrings
+and articles of plate for Elisabeth or her husband, for whom, little
+by little, the parents were accumulating a whole silver service; silk
+petticoats for Madame Saillard, who laid the stuff by and never made it
+up. The recipient of these gifts was placed in an armchair and asked
+by those present for a certain length of time, "Guess what we have for
+you!" Then came a splendid dinner, lasting at least five hours, to which
+were invited the Abbe Gaudron, Falleix, Rabourdin, Monsieur Godard,
+under-head-clerk to Monsieur Baudoyer, Monsieur Bataille, captain of
+the company of the National Guard to which Saillard and his son-in-law
+belonged. Monsieur Cardot, who was invariably asked, did as Rabourdin
+did, namely, accepted one invitation out of six. The company sang at
+dessert, shook hands and embraced with enthusiasm, wishing each other
+all manner of happiness; the presents were exhibited and the opinion of
+the guests asked about them. The day Saillard received his fur cap
+he wore it during the dessert, to the satisfaction of all present. At
+night, mere ordinary acquaintances were bidden, and dancing went on till
+very late, formerly to the music of one violin, but for the last six
+years Monsieur Godard, who was a great flute player, contributed
+the piercing tones of a flageolet to the festivity. The cook, Madame
+Baudoyer's nurse, and old Catherine, Madame Saillard's woman-servant,
+together with the porter or his wife, stood looking on at the door of
+the salon. The servants always received three francs on these occasions
+to buy themselves wine or coffee.
+
+This little circle looked upon Saillard and Baudoyer as transcendent
+beings; they were government officers; they had risen by their own
+merits; they worked, it was said, with the minister himself; they owed
+their fortune to their talents; they were politicians. Baudoyer was
+considered the more able of the two; his position as head of a bureau
+presupposed labor that was more intricate and arduous than that of a
+cashier. Moreover, Isidore, though the son of a leather-dresser, had had
+the genius to study and to cast aside his father's business and find a
+career in politics, which had led him to a post of eminence. In short,
+silent and uncommunicative as he was, he was looked upon as a deep
+thinker, and perhaps, said the admiring circle, he would some day
+become deputy of the eighth arrondissement. As Gigonnet listened to such
+remarks as these, he pressed his already pinched lips closer together,
+and threw a glance at his great-niece, Elisabeth.
+
+In person, Isidore was a tall, stout man of thirty-seven, who perspired
+freely, and whose head looked as if he had water on the brain. This
+enormous head, covered with chestnut hair cropped close, was joined to
+the neck by rolls of flesh which overhung the collar of his coat. He had
+the arms of Hercules, hands worthy of Domitian, a stomach which
+sobriety held within the limits of the majestic, to use a saying of
+Brillaet-Savarin. His face was a good deal like that of the Emperor
+Alexander. The Tartar type was in the little eyes and the flattened nose
+turned slightly up, in the frigid lips and the short chin. The forehead
+was low and narrow. Though his temperament was lymphatic, the devout
+Isidore was under the influence of a conjugal passion which time did not
+lessen.
+
+In spite, however, of his resemblance to the handsome Russian Emperor
+and the terrible Domitian, Isidore Baudoyer was nothing more than a
+political office-holder, of little ability as head of his department, a
+cut-and-dried routine man, who concealed the fact that he was a flabby
+cipher by so ponderous a personality that no scalpel could cut deep
+enough to let the operator see into him. His severe studies, in which
+he had shown the patience and sagacity of an ox, and his square head,
+deceived his parents, who firmly believed him an extraordinary man.
+Pedantic and hypercritical, meddlesome and fault-finding, he was a
+terror to the clerks under him, whom he worried in their work,
+enforcing the rules rigorously, and arriving himself with such terrible
+punctuality that not one of them dared to be a moment late. Baudoyer
+wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, a chamois waistcoat, gray trousers
+and cravats of various colors. His feet were large and ill-shod. From
+the chain of his watch depended an enormous bunch of old trinkets, among
+which in 1824 he still wore "American beads," which were very much the
+fashion in the year VII.
+
+In the bosom of this family, bound together by the force of religious
+ties, by the inflexibility of its customs, by one solitary emotion, that
+of avarice, a passion which was now as it were its compass, Elisabeth
+was forced to commune with herself, instead of imparting her ideas to
+those around her, for she felt herself without equals in mind who could
+comprehend her. Though facts compelled her to judge her husband, her
+religious duty led her to keep up as best she could a favorable opinion
+of him; she showed him marked respect; honored him as the father of her
+child, her husband, the temporal power, as the vicar of Saint-Paul's
+told her. She would have thought it a mortal sin to make a single
+gesture, or give a single glance, or say a single word which would
+reveal to others her real opinion of the imbecile Baudoyer. She even
+professed to obey passively all his wishes. But her ears were receptive
+of many things; she thought them over, weighed and compared them in the
+solitude of her mind, and judged so soberly of men and events that at
+the time when our history begins she was the hidden oracle of the two
+functionaries, her husband and father, who had, unconsciously, come
+to do nothing whatever without consulting her. Old Saillard would say,
+innocently, "Isn't she clever, that Elisabeth of mine?" But Baudoyer,
+too great a fool not to be puffed up by the false reputation the
+quartier Saint-Antoine bestowed upon him, denied his wife's cleverness
+all the while that he was making use of it.
+
+Elisabeth had long felt sure that her uncle Bidault, otherwise called
+Gigonnet, was rich and handled vast sums of money. Enlightened by
+self-interest, she had come to understand Monsieur des Lupeaulx far
+better than the minister understood him. Finding herself married to
+a fool, she never allowed herself to think that life might have gone
+better with her, she only imagined the possibility of better things
+without expecting or wishing to attain them. All her best affections
+found their vocation in her love for her daughter, to whom she spared
+the pains and privations she had borne in her own childhood; she
+believed that in this affection she had her full share in the world of
+feeling. Solely for her daughter's sake she had persuaded her father to
+take the important step of going into partnership with Falleix. Falleix
+had been brought to the Saillard's house by old Bidault, who lent
+him money on his merchandise. Falleix thought his old countryman
+extortionate, and complained to the Saillards that Gigonnet demanded
+eighteen per cent from an Auvergnat. Madame Saillard ventured to
+remonstrate with her uncle.
+
+"It is just because he is an Auvergnat that I take only eighteen per
+cent," said Gigonnet, when she spoke of him.
+
+Falleix, who had made a discovery at the age of twenty-eight, and
+communicated it to Saillard, seemed to carry his heart in his hand (an
+expression of old Saillard's), and also seemed likely to make a great
+fortune. Elisabeth determined to husband him for her daughter and train
+him herself, having, as she calculated, seven years to do it in. Martin
+Falleix felt and showed the deepest respect for Madame Baudoyer, whose
+superior qualities he was able to recognize. If he were fated to make
+millions he would always belong to her family, where he had found a
+home. The little Baudoyer girl was already trained to bring him his tea
+and to take his hat.
+
+On the evening of which we write, Monsieur Saillard, returning from the
+ministry, found a game of boston in full blast; Elisabeth was advising
+Falleix how to play; Madame Saillard was knitting in the chimney-corner
+and overlooking the cards of the vicar; Monsieur Baudoyer, motionless as
+a mile-stone, was employing his mental capacity in calculating how the
+cards were placed, and sat opposite to Mitral, who had come up from
+Ile-d'Adam for the Christmas holidays. No one moved as the cashier
+entered, and for some minutes he walked up and down the room, his fat
+face contracted with unaccustomed thought.
+
+"He is always so when he dines at the ministry," remarked Madame
+Saillard; "happily, it is only twice a year, or he'd die of it. Saillard
+was never made to be in the government--Well, now, I do hope, Saillard,"
+she continued in a loud tone, "that you are not going to keep on those
+silk breeches and that handsome coat. Go and take them off; don't wear
+them at home, my man."
+
+"Your father has something on his mind," said Baudoyer to his wife, when
+the cashier was in his bedroom, undressing without any fire.
+
+"Perhaps Monsieur de la Billardiere is dead," said Elisabeth, simply;
+"and as he is anxious you should have the place, it worries him."
+
+"Can I be useful in any way?" said the vicar of Saint-Paul's; "if
+so, pray use my services. I have the honor to be known to Madame la
+Dauphine. These are days when public offices should be given only to
+faithful men, whose religious principles are not to be shaken."
+
+"Dear me!" said Falleix, "do men of merit need protectors and influence
+to get places in the government service? I am glad I am an iron-master;
+my customers know where to find a good article--"
+
+"Monsieur," interrupted Baudoyer, "the government is the government;
+never attack it in this house."
+
+"You speak like the 'Constitutionel,'" said the vicar.
+
+"The 'Constitutionel' never says anything different from that," replied
+Baudoyer, who never read it.
+
+The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in talent
+to Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his
+own expression; but the good man coveted this appointment in a
+straightforward, honest way. Influenced by the feeling which leads all
+officials to seek promotion,--a violent, unreflecting, almost brutal
+passion,--he desired success, just as he desired the cross of the Legion
+of honor, without doing anything against his conscience to obtain it,
+and solely, as he believed, on the strength of his son-in-law's merits.
+To his thinking, a man who had patiently spent twenty-five years in a
+government office behind an iron railing had sacrificed himself to his
+country and deserved the cross. But all that he dreamed of doing to
+promote his son-in-law's appointment in La Billardiere's place was to
+say a word to his Excellency's wife when he took her the month's salary.
+
+"Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends! Do speak;
+do, pray, tell us something," cried his wife when he came back into the
+room.
+
+Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his heel
+to keep himself from talking politics before strangers. When Monsieur
+Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the card-table
+and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always assumed when about
+to tell some office-gossip,--a series of movements which answered the
+purpose of the three knocks given at the Theatre-Francais. After binding
+his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to the deepest secrecy,--for,
+however petty the gossip, their places, as he thought, depended on their
+discretion,--he related the incomprehensible enigma of the resignation
+of a deputy, the very legitimate desire of the general-secretary to get
+elected to the place, and the secret opposition of the minister to this
+wish of a man who was one of his firmest supporters and most zealous
+workers. This, of course, brought down an avalanche of suppositions,
+flooded with the sapient arguments of the two officials, who sent back
+and forth to each other a wearisome flood of nonsense. Elisabeth quietly
+asked three questions:--
+
+"If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is on our side, will Monsieur Baudoyer be
+appointed in Monsieur de la Billardiere's place?"
+
+"Heavens! I should think so," cried the cashier.
+
+"My uncle Bidault and Monsieur Gobseck helped in him 1814," thought she.
+"Is he in debt?" she asked, aloud.
+
+"Yes," cried the cashier with a hissing and prolonged sound on the last
+letter; "his salary was attached, but some of the higher powers released
+it by a bill at sight."
+
+"Where is the des Lupeaulx estate?"
+
+"Why, don't you know? in the part of the country where your grandfather
+and your great-uncle Bidault belong, in the arrondissement of the deputy
+who wants to resign."
+
+When her colossus of a husband had gone to bed, Elisabeth leaned over
+him, and though he always treated her remarks as women's nonsense, she
+said, "Perhaps you will really get Monsieur de la Billardiere's place."
+
+"There you go with your imaginations!" said Baudoyer; "leave Monsieur
+Gaudron to speak to the Dauphine and don't meddle with politics."
+
+At eleven o'clock, when all were asleep in the place Royale, Monsieur
+des Lupeaulx was leaving the Opera for the rue Duphot. This particular
+Wednesday was one of Madame Rabourdin's most brilliant evenings. Many of
+her customary guests came in from the theatres and swelled the company
+already assembled, among whom were several celebrities, such as: Canalis
+the poet, Schinner the painter, Dr. Bianchon, Lucien de Rubempre, Octave
+de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de Fontaine, du Bruel the
+vaudevillist, Andoche Finot the journalist, Derville, one of the best
+heads in the law courts, the Comte du Chatelet, deputy, du Tillet,
+banker, and several elegant young men, such as Paul de Manerville and
+the Vicomte de Portenduere. Celestine was pouring out tea when the
+general-secretary entered. Her dress that evening was very becoming;
+she wore a black velvet robe without ornament of any kind, a black gauze
+scarf, her hair smoothly bound about her head and raised in a heavy
+braided mass, with long curls a l'Anglaise falling on either side of her
+face. The charms which particularly distinguished this woman were the
+Italian ease of her artistic nature, her ready comprehension, and the
+grace with which she welcomed and promoted the least appearance of a
+wish on the part of others. Nature had given her an elegant, slender
+figure, which could sway lightly at a word, black eyes of oriental
+shape, able, like those of the Chinese women, to see out of their
+corners. She well knew how to manage a soft, insinuating voice, which
+threw a tender charm into every word, even such as she merely chanced
+to utter; her feet were like those we see in portraits where the painter
+boldly lies and flatters his sitter in the only way which does not
+compromise anatomy. Her complexion, a little yellow by day, like that
+of most brunettes, was dazzling at night under the wax candles, which
+brought out the brilliancy of her black hair and eyes. Her slender and
+well-defined outlines reminded an artist of the Venus of the Middle Ages
+rendered by Jean Goujon, the illustrious sculptor of Diane de Poitiers.
+
+Des Lupeaulx stopped in the doorway, and leaned against the woodwork.
+This ferret of ideas did not deny himself the pleasure of spying upon
+sentiment, and this woman interested him more than any of the others to
+whom he had attached himself. Des Lupeaulx had reached an age when men
+assert pretensions in regard to women. The first white hairs lead to
+the latest passions, all the more violent because they are astride of
+vanishing powers and dawning weakness. The age of forty is the age
+of folly,--an age when man wants to be loved for himself; whereas at
+twenty-five life is so full that he has no wants. At twenty-five he
+overflows with vigor and wastes it with impunity, but at forty he learns
+that to use it in that way is to abuse it. The thoughts that came into
+des Lupeaulx's mind at this moment were melancholy ones. The nerves of
+the old beau relaxed; the agreeable smile, which served as a mask and
+made the character of his countenance, faded; the real man appeared, and
+he was horrible. Rabourdin caught sight of him and thought, "What has
+happened to him? can he be disgraced in any way?" The general-secretary
+was, however, only thinking how the pretty Madame Colleville, whose
+intentions were exactly those of Madame Rabourdin, had summarily
+abandoned him when it suited her to do so. Rabourdin caught the sham
+statesman's eyes fixed on his wife, and he recorded the look in his
+memory. He was too keen an observer not to understand des Lupeaulx to
+the bottom, and he deeply despised him; but, as with most busy men,
+his feelings and sentiments seldom came to the surface. Absorption in a
+beloved work is practically equivalent to the cleverest dissimulation,
+and thus it was that the opinions and ideas of Rabourdin were a sealed
+book to des Lupeaulx. The former was sorry to see the man in his house,
+but he was never willing to oppose his wife's wishes. At this particular
+moment, while he talked confidentially with a supernumerary of his
+office who was destined, later, to play an unconscious part in a
+political intrigue resulting from the death of La Billardiere, he
+watched, though half-abstractedly, his wife and des Lupeaulx.
+
+Here we must explain, as much for foreigners as for our own
+grandchildren, what a supernumerary in a government office in Paris
+means.
+
+The supernumerary is to the administration what a choir-boy is to a
+church, what the company's child is to the regiment, what the figurante
+is to a theatre; something artless, naive, innocent, a being blinded by
+illusions. Without illusions what would become of any of us? They give
+strength to bear the res angusta domi of arts and the beginnings of all
+science by inspiring us with faith. Illusion is illimitable faith. Now
+the supernumerary has faith in the administration; he never thinks
+it cold, cruel, and hard, as it really is. There are two kinds of
+supernumeraries, or hangers-on,--one poor, the other rich. The poor one
+is rich in hope and wants a place, the rich one is poor in spirit and
+wants nothing. A wealthy family is not so foolish as to put its able
+men into the administration. It confides an unfledged scion to some
+head-clerk, or gives him in charge of a directory who initiates him into
+what Bilboquet, that profound philosopher, called the high comedy of
+government; he is spared all the horrors of drudgery and is finally
+appointed to some important office. The rich supernumerary never alarms
+the other clerks; they know he does not endanger their interests, for he
+seeks only the highest posts in the administration. About the period of
+which we write many families were saying to themselves: "What can we do
+with our sons?" The army no longer offered a chance for fortune. Special
+careers, such as civil and military engineering, the navy, mining, and
+the professorial chair were all fenced about by strict regulations or
+to be obtained only by competition; whereas in the civil service
+the revolving wheel which turned clerks into prefects, sub-prefects,
+assessors, and collectors, like the figures in a magic lantern, was
+subjected to no such rules and entailed no drudgery. Through this easy
+gap emerged into life the rich supernumeraries who drove their tilburys,
+dressed well, and wore moustachios, all of them as impudent as parvenus.
+Journalists were apt to persecute the tribe, who were cousins, nephews,
+brothers, or other relatives of some minister, some deputy, or an
+influential peer. The humbler clerks regarded them as a means of
+influence.
+
+The poor supernumerary, on the other hand, who is the only real worker,
+is almost always the son of some former clerk's widow, who lives on a
+meagre pension and sacrifices herself to support her son until he can
+get a place as copying-clerk, and then dies leaving him no nearer the
+head of his department than writer of deeds, order-clerks, or, possibly,
+under-head-clerk. Living always in some locality where rents are low,
+this humble supernumerary starts early from home. For him the Eastern
+question relates only to the morning skies. To go on foot and not get
+muddied, to save his clothes, and allow for the time he may lose in
+standing under shelter during a shower, are the preoccupations of
+his mind. The street pavements, the flaggings of the quays and the
+boulevards, when first laid down, were a boon to him. If, for some
+extraordinary reason, you happen to be in the streets of Paris at
+half-past seven or eight o'clock of a winter's morning, and see through
+piercing cold or fog or rain a timid, pale young man loom up, cigarless,
+take notice of his pockets. You will be sure to see the outline of
+a roll which his mother has given him to stay his stomach between
+breakfast and dinner. The guilelessness of the supernumerary does not
+last long. A youth enlightened by gleams by Parisian life soon measures
+the frightful distance that separates him from the head-clerkship, a
+distance which no mathematician, neither Archimedes, nor Leibnitz, nor
+Laplace has ever reckoned, the distance that exists between 0 and the
+figure 1. He begins to perceive the impossibilities of his career; he
+hears talk of favoritism; he discovers the intrigues of officials: he
+sees the questionable means by which his superiors have pushed their
+way,--one has married a young woman who made a false step; another, the
+natural daughter of a minister; this one shouldered the responsibility
+of another's fault; that one, full of talent, risks his health in doing,
+with the perseverance of a mole, prodigies of work which the man of
+influence feels incapable of doing for himself, though he takes the
+credit. Everything is known in a government office. The incapable man
+has a wife with a clear head, who has pushed him along and got him
+nominated for deputy; if he has not talent enough for an office, he
+cabals in the Chamber. The wife of another has a statesman at her feet.
+A third is the hidden informant of a powerful journalist. Often the
+disgusted and hopeless supernumerary sends in his resignation. About
+three fourths of his class leave the government employ without ever
+obtaining an appointment, and their number is winnowed down to
+either those young men who are foolish or obstinate enough to say to
+themselves, "I have been here three years, and I must end sooner or
+later by getting a place," or to those who are conscious of a vocation
+for the work. Undoubtedly the position of supernumerary in a government
+office is precisely what the novitiate is in a religious order,--a
+trial. It is a rough trial. The State discovers how many of them can
+bear hunger, thirst, and penury without breaking down, how many can toil
+without revolting against it; it learns which temperaments can bear
+up under the horrible experience--or if you like, the disease--of
+government official life. From this point of view the apprenticeship of
+the supernumerary, instead of being an infamous device of the government
+to obtain labor gratis, becomes a useful institution.
+
+The young man with whom Rabourdin was talking was a poor supernumerary
+named Sebastien de la Roche, who had picked his way on the points of his
+toes, without incurring the least splash upon his boots, from the rue du
+Roi-Dore in the Marais. He talked of his mamma, and dared not raise his
+eyes to Madame Rabourdin, whose house appeared to him as gorgeous as
+the Louvre. He was careful to show his gloves, well cleaned with
+india-rubber, as little as he could. His poor mother had put five francs
+in his pocket in case it became absolutely necessary that he should play
+cards; but she enjoined him to take nothing, to remain standing, and
+to be very careful not to knock over a lamp or the bric-a-brac from an
+etagere. His dress was all of the strictest black. His fair face, his
+eyes, of a fine shade of green with golden reflections, were in keeping
+with a handsome head of auburn hair. The poor lad looked furtively at
+Madame Rabourdin, whispering to himself, "How beautiful!" and was likely
+to dream of that fairy when he went to bed.
+
+Rabourdin had noted a vocation for his work in the lad, and as he
+himself took the whole service seriously, he felt a lively interest in
+him. He guessed the poverty of his mother's home, kept together on a
+widow's pension of seven hundred francs a year--for the education of
+the son, who was just out of college, had absorbed all her savings. He
+therefore treated the youth almost paternally; often endeavoured to
+get him some fee from the Council, or paid it from his own pocket. He
+overwhelmed Sebastien with work, trained him, and allowed him to do the
+work of du Bruel's place, for which that vaudevillist, otherwise known
+as Cursy, paid him three hundred francs out of his salary. In the minds
+of Madame de la Roche and her son, Rabourdin was at once a great man, a
+tyrant, and an angel. On him all the poor fellow's hopes of getting an
+appointment depended, and the lad's devotion to his chief was boundless.
+He dined once a fortnight in the rue Duphot; but always at a family
+dinner, invited by Rabourdin himself; Madame asked him to evening
+parties only when she wanted partners.
+
+At that moment Rabourdin was scolding poor Sebastien, the only human
+being who was in the secret of his immense labors. The youth copied and
+recopied the famous "statement," written on a hundred and fifty
+folio sheets, besides the corroborative documents, and the summing up
+(contained in one page), with the estimates bracketed, the captions in a
+running hand, and the sub-titles in a round one. Full of enthusiasm, in
+spite of his merely mechanical participation in the great idea, the lad
+of twenty would rewrite whole pages for a single blot, and made it his
+glory to touch up the writing, regarding it as the element of a noble
+undertaking. Sebastien had that afternoon committed the great imprudence
+of carrying into the general office, for the purpose of copying, a paper
+which contained the most dangerous facts to make known prematurely,
+namely, a memorandum relating to the officials in the central offices
+of all ministries, with facts concerning their fortunes, actual and
+prospective, together with the individual enterprises of each outside of
+his government employment.
+
+All government clerks in Paris who are not endowed, like Rabourdin, with
+patriotic ambition or other marked capacity, usually add the profits
+of some industry to the salary of their office, in order to eke out a
+living. A number do as Monsieur Saillard did,--put their money into a
+business carried on by others, and spend their evenings in keeping
+the books of their associates. Many clerks are married to milliners,
+licensed tobacco dealers, women who have charge of the public lotteries
+or reading-rooms. Some, like the husband of Madame Colleville,
+Celestine's rival, play in the orchestra of a theatre; others like du
+Bruel, write vaudeville, comic operas, melodramas, or act as prompters
+behind the scenes. We may mention among them Messrs. Planard, Sewrin,
+etc. Pigault-Lebrun, Piis, Duvicquet, in their day, were in government
+employ. Monsieur Scribe's head-librarian was a clerk in the Treasury.
+
+Besides such information as this, Rabourdin's memorandum contained an
+inquiry into the moral and physical capacities and faculties necessary
+in those who were to examine the intelligence, aptitude for labor,
+and sound health of the applicants for government service,--three
+indispensable qualities in men who are to bear the burden of public
+affairs and should do their business well and quickly. But this careful
+study, the result of ten years' observation and experience, and of a
+long acquaintance with men and things obtained by intercourse with the
+various functionaries in the different ministries, would assuredly have,
+to those who did not see its purport and connection, an air of treachery
+and police espial. If a single page of these papers were to fall under
+the eye of those concerned, Monsieur Rabourdin was lost. Sebastien,
+who admired his chief without reservation, and who was, as yet, wholly
+ignorant of the evils of bureaucracy, had the follies of guilelessness
+as well as its grace. Blamed on a former occasion for carrying away
+these papers, he now bravely acknowledged his fault to its fullest
+extent; he related how he had put away both the memorandum and the copy
+carefully in a box in the office where no one would ever find them.
+Tears rolled from his eyes as he realized the greatness of his offence.
+
+"Come, come!" said Rabourdin, kindly. "Don't be so imprudent again, but
+never mind now. Go to the office very early tomorrow morning; here is
+the key of a small safe which is in my roller secretary; it shuts with
+a combination lock. You can open it with the word 'sky'; put the
+memorandum and your copy into it and shut it carefully."
+
+This proof of confidence dried the poor fellow's tears. Rabourdin
+advised him to take a cup of tea and some cakes.
+
+"Mamma forbids me to drink tea, on account of my chest," said Sebastien.
+
+"Well, then, my dear child," said the imposing Madame Rabourdin, who
+wished to appear gracious, "here are some sandwiches and cream; come and
+sit by me."
+
+She made Sebastien sit down beside her, and the lad's heart rose in
+his throat as he felt the robe of this divinity brush the sleeve of
+his coat. Just then the beautiful woman caught sight of Monsieur des
+Lupeaulx standing in the doorway. She smiled, and not waiting till he
+came to her, she went to him.
+
+"Why do you stay there as if you were sulking?" she asked.
+
+"I am not sulking," he returned; "I came to announce some good news,
+but the thought has overtaken me that it will only add to your severity
+towards me. I fancy myself six months hence almost a stranger to you.
+Yes, you are too clever, and I too experienced,--too blase, if you
+like,--for either of us to deceive the other. Your end is attained
+without its costing you more than a few smiles and gracious words."
+
+"Deceive each other! what can you mean?" she cried, in a hurt tone.
+
+"Yes; Monsieur de la Billardiere is dying, and from what the minister
+told me this evening I judge that your husband will be appointed in his
+place."
+
+He thereupon related what he called his scene at the ministry and the
+jealousy of the countess, repeating her remarks about the invitation he
+had asked her to send to Madame Rabourdin.
+
+"Monsieur des Lupeaulx," said Madame Rabourdin, with dignity, "permit me
+to tell you that my husband is the oldest head-clerk as well as the most
+capable man in the division; also that the appointment of La Billardiere
+over his head made much talk in the service, and that my husband has
+stayed on for the last year expecting this promotion, for which he has
+really no competitor and no rival."
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Well, then," she resumed, smiling and showing her handsome teeth,
+"how can you suppose that the friendship I feel for you is marred by a
+thought of self-interest? Why should you think me capable of that?"
+
+Des Lupeaulx made a gesture of admiring denial.
+
+"Ah!" she continued, "the heart of woman will always remain a secret
+for even the cleverest of men. Yes, I welcomed you to my house with the
+greatest pleasure; and there was, I admit, a motive of self-interest
+behind my pleasure--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"You have a career before you," she whispered in his ear, "a future
+without limit; you will be deputy, minister!" (What happiness for an
+ambitious man when such things as these are warbled in his ear by the
+sweet voice of a pretty woman!) "Oh, yes! I know you better than you
+know yourself. Rabourdin is a man who could be of immense service to
+you in such a career; he could do the steady work while you were in
+the Chamber. Just as you dream of the ministry, so I dream of seeing
+Rabourdin in the Council of State, and general director. It is therefore
+my object to draw together two men who can never injure, but, on the
+contrary, must greatly help each other. Isn't that a woman's mission?
+If you are friends, you will both rise the faster, and it is surely
+high time that each of you made hay. I have burned my ships," she added,
+smiling. "But you are not as frank with me as I have been with you."
+
+"You would not listen to me if I were," he replied, with a melancholy
+air, in spite of the deep inward satisfaction her remarks gave him.
+"What would such future promotions avail me, if you dismiss me now?"
+
+"Before I listen to you," she replied, with naive Parisian liveliness,
+"we must be able to understand each other."
+
+And she left the old fop to go and speak with Madame de Chessel, a
+countess from the provinces, who seemed about to take leave.
+
+"That is a very extraordinary woman," said des Lupeaulx to himself. "I
+don't know my own self when I am with her."
+
+Accordingly, this man of no principle, who six years earlier had kept
+a ballet-girl, and who now, thanks to his position, made himself a
+seraglio with the pretty wives of the under-clerks, and lived in the
+world of journalists and actresses, became devotedly attentive all the
+evening to Celestine, and was the last to leave the house.
+
+"At last!" thought Madame Rabourdin, as she undressed that night, "we
+have the place! Twelve thousand francs a year and perquisites, beside
+the rents of our farms at Grajeux,--nearly twenty thousand francs a
+year. It is not affluence, but at least it isn't poverty."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT
+OFFICIALS
+
+If it were possible for literature to use the microscope of the
+Leuwenhoeks, the Malpighis, and the Raspails (an attempt once made
+by Hoffman, of Berlin), and if we could magnify and then picture the
+teredos navalis, in other words, those ship-worms which brought Holland
+within an inch of collapsing by honey-combing her dykes, we might have
+been able to give a more distinct idea of Messieurs Gigonnet, Baudoyer,
+Saillard, Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard and company, borers and
+burrowers, who proved their undermining power in the thirtieth year of
+this century.
+
+But now it is time to show another set of teredos, who burrowed and
+swarmed in the government offices where the principal scenes of our
+present study took place.
+
+In Paris nearly all these government bureaus resemble each other. Into
+whatever ministry you penetrate to ask some slight favor, or to get
+redress for a trifling wrong, you will find the same dark corridors,
+ill-lighted stairways, doors with oval panes of glass like eyes, as at
+the theatre. In the first room as you enter you will find the office
+servant; in the second, the under-clerks; the private office of the
+second head-clerk is to the right or left, and further on is that of
+the head of the bureau. As to the important personage called, under the
+Empire, head of division, then, under the Restoration, director, and now
+by the former name, head or chief of division, he lives either above or
+below the offices of his three or four different bureaus.
+
+Speaking in the administrative sense, a bureau consists of a
+man-servant, several supernumeraries (who do the work gratis for a
+certain number of years), various copying clerks, writers of bills and
+deeds, order clerks, principal clerks, second or under head-clerk,
+and head-clerk, otherwise called head or chief of the bureau. These
+denominational titles vary under some administrations; for instance, the
+order-clerks are sometimes called auditors, or again, book-keepers.
+
+Paved like the corridor, and hung with a shabby paper, the first room,
+where the servant is stationed, is furnished with a stove, a large black
+table with inkstand, pens, and paper, and benches, but no mats on which
+to wipe the public feet. The clerk's office beyond is a large room,
+tolerably well lighted, but seldom floored with wood. Wooden floors and
+fireplaces are commonly kept sacred to heads of bureaus and divisions;
+and so are closets, wardrobes, mahogany tables, sofas and armchairs
+covered with red or green morocco, silk curtains, and other articles of
+administrative luxury. The clerk's office contents itself with a stove,
+the pipe of which goes into the chimney, if there be a chimney. The wall
+paper is plain and all of one color, usually green or brown. The tables
+are of black wood. The private characteristics of the several clerks
+often crop out in their method of settling themselves at their
+desks,--the chilly one has a wooden footstool under his feet; the man
+with a bilious temperament has a metal mat; the lymphatic being who
+dreads draughts constructs a fortification of boxes on a screen. The
+door of the under-head-clerk's office always stands open so that he may
+keep an eye to some extent on his subordinates.
+
+Perhaps an exact description of Monsieur de la Billardiere's division
+will suffice to give foreigners and provincials an idea of the internal
+manners and customs of a government office; the chief features of
+which are probably much the same in the civil service of all European
+governments.
+
+In the first place, picture to yourself the man who is thus described in
+the Yearly Register:--
+
+  "Chief of Division.--Monsieur la baron Flamet de la Billardiere
+  (Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel) formerly provost-marshal of
+  the department of the Correze, gentleman in ordinary of the
+  bed-chamber, president of the college of the department of the
+  Dordogne, officer of the Legion of honor, knight of Saint Louis
+  and of the foreign orders of Christ, Isabella, Saint Wladimir,
+  etc., member of the Academy of Gers, and other learned bodies,
+  vice-president of the Society of Belles-lettres, member of the
+  Association of Saint-Joseph and of the Society of Prisons, one of
+  the mayors of Paris, etc."
+
+The person who requires so much typographic space was at this time
+occupying an area five feet six in length by thirty-six inches in
+width in a bed, his head adorned with a cotton night-cap tied on by
+flame-colored ribbons; attended by Despleins, the King's surgeon, and
+young doctor Bianchon, flanked by two old female relatives, surrounded
+by phials of all kinds, bandages, appliances, and various mortuary
+instruments, and watched over by the curate of Saint-Roch, who was
+advising him to think of his salvation.
+
+La Billardiere's division occupied the upper floor of a magnificent
+mansion, in which the vast official ocean of a ministry was contained.
+A wide landing separated its two bureaus, the doors of which were duly
+labelled. The private offices and antechambers of the heads of the two
+bureaus, Monsieur Rabourdin and Monsieur Baudoyer, were below on
+the second floor, and beyond that of Monsieur Rabourdin were the
+antechamber, salon, and two offices of Monsieur de la Billardiere.
+
+On the first floor, divided in two by an entresol, were the living
+rooms and office of Monsieur Ernest de la Briere, an occult and powerful
+personage who must be described in a few words, for he well deserves
+the parenthesis. This young man held, during the whole time that this
+particular administration lasted, the position of private secretary
+to the minister. His apartment was connected by a secret door with the
+private office of his Excellency. A private secretary is to the minister
+himself what des Lupeaulx was to the ministry at large. The same
+difference existed between young La Briere and des Lupeaulx that there
+is between an aide-de-camp and a chief of staff. This ministerial
+apprentice decamps when his protector leaves office, returning sometimes
+when he returns. If the minister enjoys the royal favor when he falls,
+or still has parliamentary hopes, he takes his secretary with him into
+retirement only to bring him back on his return; otherwise he puts him
+to grass in some of the various administrative pastures,--for instance,
+in the Court of Exchequer, that wayside refuge where private secretaries
+wait for the storm to blow over. The young man is not precisely a
+government official; he is a political character, however; and sometimes
+his politics are limited to those of one man. When we think of the
+number of letters it is the private secretary's fate to open and read,
+besides all his other avocations, it is very evident that under a
+monarchical government his services would be well paid for. A drudge
+of this kind costs ten or twenty thousand francs a year; and he enjoys,
+moreover, the opera-boxes, the social invitations, and the carriages of
+the minister. The Emperor of Russia would be thankful to be able to pay
+fifty thousand a year to one of these amiable constitutional poodles,
+so gentle, so nicely curled, so caressing, so docile, always spick and
+span,--careful watch-dogs besides, and faithful to a degree! But
+the private secretary is a product of the representative government
+hot-house; he is propagated and developed there, and there only. Under
+a monarchy you will find none but courtiers and vassals, whereas under a
+constitutional government you may be flattered, served, and adulated by
+free men. In France ministers are better off than kings or women; they
+have some one who thoroughly understands them. Perhaps, indeed, the
+private secretary is to be pitied as much as women and white paper. They
+are nonentities who are made to bear all things. They are allowed no
+talents except hidden ones, which must be employed in the service of
+their ministers. A public show of talent would ruin them. The
+private secretary is therefore an intimate friend in the gift of
+government--However, let us return to the bureaus.
+
+Three men-servants lived in peace in the Billardiere division, to wit: a
+footman for the two bureaus, another for the service of the two chiefs,
+and a third for the director of the division himself. All three were
+lodged, warmed, and clothed by the State, and wore the well-known livery
+of the State, blue coat with red pipings for undress, and broad red,
+white, and blue braid for great occasions. La Billardiere's man had the
+air of a gentleman-usher, an innovation which gave an aspect of dignity
+to the division.
+
+Pillars of the ministry, experts in all manners and customs
+bureaucratic, well-warmed and clothed at the State's expense, growing
+rich by reason of their few wants, these lackeys saw completely through
+the government officials, collectively and individually. They had
+no better way of amusing their idle hours than by observing these
+personages and studying their peculiarities. They knew how far to trust
+the clerks with loans of money, doing their various commissions with
+absolute discretion; they pawned and took out of pawn, bought up bills
+when due, and lent money without interest, albeit no clerk ever borrowed
+of them without returning a "gratification." These servants without a
+master received a salary of nine hundred francs a year; new years' gifts
+and "gratifications" brought their emoluments to twelve hundred francs,
+and they made almost as much money by serving breakfasts to the clerks
+at the office.
+
+The elder of these men, who was also the richest, waited upon the main
+body of the clerks. He was sixty years of age, with white hair cropped
+short like a brush; stout, thickset, and apoplectic about the neck, with
+a vulgar pimpled face, gray eyes, and a mouth like a furnace door;
+such was the profile portrait of Antoine, the oldest attendant in the
+ministry. He had brought his two nephews, Laurent and Gabriel, from
+Echelles in Savoie,--one to serve the heads of the bureaus, the other
+the director himself. All three came to open the offices and clean them,
+between seven and eight o'clock in the morning; at which time they read
+the newspapers and talked civil service politics from their point of
+view with the servants of other divisions, exchanging the bureaucratic
+gossip. In common with servants of modern houses who know their masters'
+private affairs thoroughly, they lived at the ministry like spiders at
+the centre of a web, where they felt the slightest jar of the fabric.
+
+On a Thursday evening, the day after the ministerial reception and
+Madame Rabourdin's evening party, just as Antoine was trimming his beard
+and his nephews were assisting him in the antechamber of the division on
+the upper floor, they were surprised by the unexpected arrival of one of
+the clerks.
+
+"That's Monsieur Dutocq," said Antoine. "I know him by that pickpocket
+step of his. He is always moving round on the sly, that man. He is on
+your back before you know it. Yesterday, contrary to his usual ways, he
+outstayed the last man in the office; such a thing hasn't happened three
+times since he has been at the ministry."
+
+Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in the
+Rabourdin bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and bilious skin,
+grizzled hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy eyebrows meeting
+together, a crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the right shoulder
+slightly higher than the left; brown coat, black waistcoat, silk cravat,
+yellowish trousers, black woollen stockings, and shoes with
+flapping bows; thus you behold him. Idle and incapable, he hated
+Rabourdin,--naturally enough, for Rabourdin had no vice to flatter, and
+no bad or weak side on which Dutocq could make himself useful. Far too
+noble to injure a clerk, the chief was also too clear-sighted to be
+deceived by any make-believe. Dutocq kept his place therefore solely
+through Rabourdin's generosity, and was very certain that he could
+never be promoted if the latter succeeded La Billardiere. Though he knew
+himself incapable of important work, Dutocq was well aware that in
+a government office incapacity was no hindrance to advancement; La
+Billardiere's own appointment over the head of so capable a man as
+Rabourdin had been a striking and fatal example of this. Wickedness
+combined with self-interest works with a power equivalent to that
+of intellect; evilly disposed and wholly self-interested, Dutocq had
+endeavoured to strengthen his position by becoming a spy in all the
+offices. After 1816 he assumed a marked religious tone, foreseeing
+the favor which the fools of those days would bestow on those they
+indiscriminately called Jesuits. Belonging to that fraternity in spirit,
+though not admitted to its rites, Dutocq went from bureau to bureau,
+sounded consciences by recounting immoral jests, and then reported and
+paraphrased results to des Lupeaulx; the latter thus learned all the
+trivial events of the ministry, and often surprised the minister by his
+consummate knowledge of what was going on. He tolerated Dutocq under the
+idea that circumstances might some day make him useful, were it only
+to get him or some distinguished friend of his out of a scrape by a
+disgraceful marriage. The two understood each other well. Dutocq had
+succeeded Monsieur Poiret the elder, who had retired in 1814, and now
+lived in the pension Vanquer in the Latin quarter. Dutocq himself
+lived in a pension in the rue de Beaune, and spent his evenings in the
+Palais-Royal, sometimes going to the theatre, thanks to du Bruel, who
+gave him an author's ticket about once a week. And now, a word on du
+Bruel.
+
+Though Sebastien did his work at the office for the small compensation
+we have mentioned, du Bruel was in the habit of coming there to
+advertise the fact that he was the under-head-clerk and to draw
+his salary. His real work was that of dramatic critic to a leading
+ministerial journal, in which he also wrote articles inspired by
+the ministers,--a very well understood, clearly defined, and quite
+unassailable position. Du Bruel was not lacking in those diplomatic
+little tricks which go so far to conciliate general good-will. He sent
+Madame Rabourdin an opera-box for a first representation, took her
+there in a carriage and brought her back,--an attention which evidently
+pleased her. Rabourdin, who was never exacting with his subordinates
+allowed du Bruel to go off to rehearsals, come to the office at his
+own hours, and work at his vaudevilles when there. Monsieur le Duc de
+Chaulieu, the minister, knew that du Bruel was writing a novel which was
+to be dedicated to himself. Dressed with the careless ease of a theatre
+man, du Bruel wore, in the morning, trousers strapped under his feet,
+shoes with gaiters, a waistcoat evidently vamped over, an olive surtout,
+and a black cravat. At night he played the gentleman in elegant clothes.
+He lived, for good reasons, in the same house as Florine, an actress for
+whom he wrote plays. Du Bruel, or to give him his pen name, Cursy, was
+working just now at a piece in five acts for the Francais. Sebastien
+was devoted to the author,--who occasionally gave him tickets to the
+pit,--and applauded his pieces at the parts which du Bruel told him were
+of doubtful interest, with all the faith and enthusiasm of his years. In
+fact, the youth looked upon the playwright as a great author, and it was
+to Sebastien that du Bruel said, the day after a first representation
+of a vaudeville produced, like all vaudevilles, by three collaborators,
+"The audience preferred the scenes written by two."
+
+"Why don't you write alone?" asked Sebastien naively.
+
+There were good reasons why du Bruel did not write alone. He was the
+third of an author. A dramatic writer, as few people know, is made up
+of three individuals; first, the man with brains who invents the subject
+and maps out the structure, or scenario, of the vaudeville; second, the
+plodder, who works the piece into shape; and third, the toucher-up, who
+sets the songs to music, arranges the chorus and concerted pieces and
+fits them into their right place, and finally writes the puffs and
+advertisements. Du Bruel was a plodder; at the office he read the newest
+books, extracted their wit, and laid it by for use in his dialogues. He
+was liked by his collaborators on account of his carefulness; the man
+with brains, sure of being understood, could cross his arms and feel
+that his ideas would be well rendered. The clerks in the office liked
+their companion well enough to attend a first performance of his plays
+in a body and applaud them, for he really deserved the title of a
+good fellow. His hand went readily to his pocket; ices and punch were
+bestowed without prodding, and he loaned fifty francs without asking
+them back. He owned a country-house at Aulnay, laid by his money, and
+had, besides the four thousand five hundred francs of his salary under
+government, twelve hundred francs pension from the civil list, and
+eight hundred from the three hundred thousand francs fund voted by the
+Chambers for encouragement of the Arts. Add to these diverse emoluments
+nine thousand francs earned by his quarters, thirds, and halves of plays
+in three different theatres, and you will readily understand that such
+a man must be physically round, fat, and comfortable, with the face of
+a worthy capitalist. As to morals, he was the lover and the beloved
+of Tullia and felt himself preferred in heart to the brilliant Duc de
+Rhetore, the lover in chief.
+
+Dutocq had seen with great uneasiness what he called the liaison of des
+Lupeaulx with Madame Rabourdin, and his silent wrath on the subject
+was accumulating. He had too prying an eye not to have guessed that
+Rabourdin was engaged in some great work outside of his official labors,
+and he was provoked to feel that he knew nothing about it, whereas
+that little Sebastien was, wholly or in part, in the secret. Dutocq was
+intimate with Godard, under-head-clerk to Baudoyer, and the high esteem
+in which Dutocq held Baudoyer was the original cause of his acquaintance
+with Godard; not that Dutocq was sincere even in this; but by praising
+Baudoyer and saying nothing of Rabourdin he satisfied his hatred after
+the fashion of little minds.
+
+Joseph Godard, a cousin of Mitral on the mother's side, made pretension
+to the hand of Mademoiselle Baudoyer, not perceiving that her mother was
+laying siege to Falliex as a son-in-law. He brought little gifts to the
+young lady, artificial flowers, bonbons on New-Year's day and pretty
+boxes for her birthday. Twenty-six years of age, a worker working
+without purpose, steady as a girl, monotonous and apathetic, holding
+cafes, cigars, and horsemanship in detestation, going to bed regularly
+at ten o'clock and rising at seven, gifted with some social talents,
+such as playing quadrille music on the flute, which first brought him
+into favor with the Saillards and the Baudoyers. He was moreover a fifer
+in the National Guard,--to escape his turn of sitting up all night in a
+barrack-room. Godard was devoted more especially to natural history. He
+made collections of shells and minerals, knew how to stuff birds, kept
+a mass of curiosities bought for nothing in his bedroom; took
+possession of phials and empty perfume bottles for his specimens; pinned
+butterflies and beetles under glass, hung Chinese parasols on the
+walls, together with dried fishskins. He lived with his sister, an
+artificial-flower maker, in the due de Richelieu. Though much admired
+by mammas this model young man was looked down upon by his sister's
+shop-girls, who had tried to inveigle him. Slim and lean, of medium
+height, with dark circles round his eyes, Joseph Godard took little care
+of his person; his clothes were ill-cut, his trousers bagged, he wore
+white stockings at all seasons of the year, a hat with a narrow brim and
+laced shoes. He was always complaining of his digestion. His principal
+vice was a mania for proposing rural parties during the summer
+season, excursions to Montmorency, picnics on the grass, and visits to
+creameries on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. For the last six months
+Dutocq had taken to visiting Mademoiselle Godard from time to time, with
+certain views of his own, hoping to discover in her establishment some
+female treasure.
+
+Thus Baudoyer had a pair of henchmen in Dutocq and Godard. Monsieur
+Saillard, too innocent to judge rightly of Dutocq, was in the habit of
+paying him frequent little visits at the office. Young La Billardiere,
+the director's son, placed as supernumerary with Baudoyer, made another
+member of the clique. The clever heads in the offices laughed much at
+this alliance of incapables. Bixiou named Baudoyer, Godard, and Dutocq
+a "Trinity without the Spirit," and little La Billardiere the "Pascal
+Lamb."
+
+"You are early this morning," said Antoine to Dutocq, laughing.
+
+"So are you, Antoine," answered Dutocq; "you see, the newspapers do come
+earlier than you let us have them at the office."
+
+"They did to-day, by chance," replied Antoine, not disconcerted; "they
+never come two days together at the same hour."
+
+The two nephews looked at each other as if to say, in admiration of
+their uncle, "What cheek he has!"
+
+"Though I make two sous by all his breakfasts," muttered Antoine, as he
+heard Monsieur Dutocq close the office door, "I'd give them up to get
+that man out of our division."
+
+"Ah, Monsieur Sebastien, you are not the first here to-day," said
+Antoine, a quarter of an hour later, to the supernumerary.
+
+"Who is here?" asked the poor lad, turning pale.
+
+"Monsieur Dutocq," answered Laurent.
+
+Virgin natures have, beyond all others, the inexplicable gift of
+second-sight, the reason of which lies perhaps in the purity of their
+nervous systems, which are, as it were, brand-new. Sebastien had long
+guessed Dutocq's hatred to his revered Rabourdin. So that when Laurent
+uttered his name a dreadful presentiment took possession of the lad's
+mind, and crying out, "I feared it!" he flew like an arrow into the
+corridor.
+
+"There is going to be a row in the division," said Antoine, shaking his
+white head as he put on his livery. "It is very certain that Monsieur le
+baron is off to his account. Yes, Madame Gruget, the nurse, told me he
+couldn't live through the day. What a stir there'll be! oh! won't there!
+Go along, you fellows, and see if the stoves are drawing properly.
+Heavens and earth! our world is coming down about our ears."
+
+"That poor young one," said Laurent, "had a sort of sunstroke when he
+heard that Jesuit of a Dutocq had got here before him."
+
+"I have told him a dozen times,--for after all one ought to tell the
+truth to an honest clerk, and what I call an honest clerk is one like
+that little fellow who gives us 'recta' his ten francs on New-Year's
+day,--I have said to him again and again: The more you work the more
+they'll make you work, and they won't promote you. He doesn't listen to
+me; he tires himself out staying here till five o'clock, an hour after
+all the others have gone. Folly! he'll never get on that way! The proof
+is that not a word has been said about giving him an appointment, though
+he has been here two years. It's a shame! it makes my blood boil."
+
+"Monsieur Rabourdin is very fond of Monsieur Sebastien," said Laurent.
+
+"But Monsieur Rabourdin isn't a minister," retorted Antoine; "it will
+be a hot day when that happens, and the hens will have teeth; he is
+too--but mum! When I think that I carry salaries to those humbugs who
+stay away and do as they please, while that poor little La Roche works
+himself to death, I ask myself if God ever thinks of the civil service.
+And what do they give you, these pets of Monsieur le marechal and
+Monsieur le duc? 'Thank you, my dear Antoine, thank you,' with a
+gracious nod! Pack of sluggards! go to work, or you'll bring another
+revolution about your ears. Didn't see such goings-on under Monsieur
+Robert Lindet. I know, for I served my apprenticeship under Robert
+Lindet. The clerks had to work in his day! You ought to have seen how
+they scratched paper here till midnight; why, the stoves went out
+and nobody noticed it. It was all because the guillotine was there!
+now-a-days they only mark 'em when they come in late!"
+
+"Uncle Antoine," said Gabriel, "as you are so talkative this morning,
+just tell us what you think a clerk really ought to be."
+
+"A government clerk," replied Antoine, gravely, "is a man who sits in a
+government office and writes. But there, there, what am I talking about?
+Without the clerks, where should we be, I'd like to know? Go along
+and look after your stoves and mind you never say harm of a government
+clerk, you fellows. Gabriel, the stove in the large office draws like
+the devil; you must turn the damper."
+
+Antoine stationed himself at a corner of the landing whence he could see
+all the officials as they entered the porte-cochere; he knew every one
+at the ministry, and watched their behavior, observing narrowly the
+contrasts in their dress and appearance.
+
+The first to arrive after Sebastien was a clerk of deeds in Rabourdin's
+office named Phellion, a respectable family-man. To the influence of his
+chief he owed a half-scholarship for each of his two sons in the College
+Henri IV.; while his daughter was being educated gratis at a boarding
+school where his wife gave music lessons and he himself a course of
+history and one of geography in the evenings. He was about forty-five
+years of age, sergeant-major of his company in the National Guard, very
+compassionate in feeling and words, but wholly unable to give away
+a penny. Proud of his post, however, and satisfied with his lot, he
+applied himself faithfully to serve the government, believed he was
+useful to his country, and boasted of his indifference to politics,
+knowing none but those of the men in power. Monsieur Rabourdin pleased
+him highly whenever he asked him to stay half an hour longer to finish
+a piece of work. On such occasions he would say, when he reached home,
+"Public affairs detained me; when a man belongs to the government he is
+no longer master of himself." He compiled books of questions and answers
+on various studies for the use of young ladies in boarding-schools.
+These little "solid treatises," as he called them, were sold at
+the University library under the name of "Historical and Geographic
+Catechisms." Feeling himself in duty bound to offer a copy of each
+volume, bound in red morocco, to Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in
+full dress to present them,--breeches and silk stockings, and shoes
+with gold buckles. Monsieur Phellion received his friends on Thursday
+evenings, on which occasions the company played bouillote, at five sous
+a game, and were regaled with cakes and beer. He had never yet dared
+to invite Monsieur Rabourdin to honor him with his presence, though he
+would have regarded such an event as the most distinguished of his life.
+He said if he could leave one of his sons following in the steps of
+Monsieur Rabourdin he should die the happiest father in the world.
+
+One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of Paris,
+which he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre,
+Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great
+writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the country
+around Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into a government office
+and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique. He often said to the elder,
+"When you have the honor to be a government clerk"; though he suspected
+him of a preference for the exact sciences and did his best to repress
+it, mentally resolved to abandon the lad to his own devices if he
+persisted. When Rabourdin sent for him to come down and receive
+instructions about some particular piece of work, Phellion gave all his
+mind to it,--listening to every word the chief said, as a dilettante
+listens to an air at the Opera. Silent in the office, with his feet in
+the air resting on a wooden desk, and never moving them, he studied his
+task conscientiously. His official letters were written with the utmost
+gravity, and transmitted the commands of the minister in solemn phrases.
+Monsieur Phellion's face was that of a pensive ram, with little color
+and pitted by the small-pox; the lips were thick and the lower one
+pendent; the eyes light-blue, and his figure above the common height.
+Neat and clean as a master of history and geography in a young ladies'
+school ought to be, he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black
+cashmere waistcoat, left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered
+by his daughter, a diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat,
+and blue trousers. In winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with
+three capes, and carried a loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the
+profound solitude of the quarter in which he lived. He had given up
+taking snuff, and referred to this reform as a striking example of the
+empire a man could exercise over himself. Monsieur Phellion came slowly
+up the stairs, for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an
+"adipose chest." He saluted Antoine with dignity.
+
+The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange contrast
+to the virtuous Phellion. Vimeux was a young man of twenty-five, with
+a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and graceful, with a
+romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as black as jet, fine
+teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so carefully trimmed
+that he seemed to have made it the business and occupation of his life.
+Vimeux had such aptitude for work that he despatched it much quicker
+than any of the other clerks. "He has a gift, that young man!" Phellion
+said of him when he saw him cross his legs and have nothing to do for
+the rest of the day, having got through his appointed task; "and see
+what a little dandy he is!" Vimeux breakfasted on a roll and a glass
+of water, dined for twenty sous at Katcomb's, and lodged in a furnished
+room, for which he paid twelve francs a month. His happiness, his sole
+pleasure in life, was dress. He ruined himself in miraculous waistcoats,
+in trousers that were tight, half-tight, pleated, or embroidered; in
+superfine boots, well-made coats which outlined his elegant figure; in
+bewitching collars, spotless gloves, and immaculate hats. A ring with a
+coat of arms adorned his hand, outside his glove, from which dangled a
+handsome cane; with these accessories he endeavoured to assume the air
+and manner of a wealthy young man. After the office closed he appeared
+in the great walk of the Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as
+though he were a millionaire who had just dined. Always on the
+lookout for a woman,--an Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or
+a widow,--who might fall in love with him, he practised the art of
+twirling his cane and of flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told
+him was American. He smiled to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks
+under his boots, but he had his hair curled every day. Vimeux was
+prepared, in accordance with fixed principles, to marry a hunch-back
+with six thousand a year, or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or
+an Englishwoman for half that sum. Phellion, who delighted in his
+neat hand-writing, and was full of compassion for the fellow, read him
+lectures on the duty of giving lessons in penmanship,--an honorable
+career, he said, which would ameliorate existence and even render
+it agreeable; he promised him a situation in a young ladies'
+boarding-school. But Vimeux's head was so full of his own idea that
+no human being could prevent him from having faith in his star. He
+continued to lay himself out, like a salmon at a fishmonger's, in spite
+of his empty stomach and the fact that he had fruitlessly exhibited his
+enormous moustache and his fine clothes for over three years. As he owed
+Antoine more than thirty francs for his breakfasts, he lowered his eyes
+every time he passed him; and yet he never failed at midday to ask the
+man to buy him a roll.
+
+After trying to get a few reasonable ideas into this foolish head,
+Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe (his
+family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and lived
+entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-whip.
+Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in the
+spirit of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was really a
+kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one but himself.
+A standing joke in the two bureaus was the question whether he wore
+corsets, and bets depended on it. Vimeux was originally appointed to
+Baudoyer's bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself transferred to
+Rabourdin's, on account of Baudoyer's extreme severity in relation to
+what were called "the English,"--a name given by the government clerks
+to their creditors. "English day" means the day on which the government
+offices are thrown open to the public. Certain then of finding their
+delinquent debtors, the creditors swarm in and torment them, asking
+when they intend to pay, and threatening to attach their salaries. The
+implacable Baudoyer compelled the clerks to remain at their desks and
+endure this torture. "It was their place not to make debts," he said;
+and he considered his severity as a duty which he owed to the public
+weal. Rabourdin, on the contrary, protected the clerks against their
+creditors, and turned the latter away, saying that the government
+bureaus were open for public business, not private. Much ridicule
+pursued Vimeux in both bureaus when the clank of his spurs resounded in
+the corridors and on the staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou,
+sent round a paper, headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard
+horse, asking for subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur
+Baudoyer was down for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance,
+and each of the clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself,
+good-natured fellow that he was, subscribed under the name of "Miss
+Fairfax."
+
+Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to
+live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to
+masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though it
+often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners, or
+old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with their
+handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance illustrated with
+stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem to answer their purpose.
+
+Bixiou (pronounce it Bisiou) was a draughtsman, who ridiculed Dutocq
+as readily as he did Rabourdin, whom he nicknamed "the virtuous woman."
+Without doubt the cleverest man in the division or even in the ministry
+(but clever after the fashion of a monkey, without aim or sequence),
+Bixiou was so essentially useful to Baudoyer and Godard that they upheld
+and protected him in spite of his misconduct; for he did their work when
+they were incapable of doing it for themselves. Bixiou wanted either
+Godard's or du Bruel's place as under-head-clerk, but his conduct
+interfered with his promotion. Sometimes he sneered at the public
+service; this was usually after he had made some happy hit, such as the
+publication of portraits in the famous Fualdes case (for which he drew
+faces hap-hazard), or his sketch of the debate on the Castaing affair.
+At other times, when possessed with a desire to get on, he really
+applied himself to work, though he would soon leave off to write a
+vaudeville, which was never finished. A thorough egoist, a spendthrift
+and a miser in one,--that is to say, spending his money solely on
+himself,--sharp, aggressive, and indiscreet, he did mischief for
+mischief's sake; above all, he attacked the weak, respected nothing and
+believed in nothing, neither in France, nor in God, nor in art, nor
+in the Greeks, nor in the Turks, nor in the monarchy,--insulting and
+disparaging everything that he could not comprehend. He was the first
+to paint a black cap on Charles X.'s head on the five-franc coins. He
+mimicked Dr. Gall when lecturing, till he made the most starched of
+diplomatists burst their buttons. Famous for his practical jokes, he
+varied them with such elaborate care that he always obtained a victim.
+His great secret in this was the power of guessing the inmost wishes of
+others; he knew the way to many a castle in the air, to the dreams about
+which a man may be fooled because he wants to be; and he made such men
+sit to him for hours.
+
+Thus it happened that this close observer, who could display unrivalled
+tact in developing a joke or driving home a sarcasm, was unable to use
+the same power to make men further his fortunes and promote him. The
+person he most liked to annoy was young La Billardiere, his nightmare,
+his detestation, whom he was nevertheless constantly wheedling so as
+the better to torment him on his weakest side. He wrote him love letters
+signed "Comtesse de M----" or "Marquise de B--"; took him to the Opera
+on gala days and presented him to some grisette under the clock, after
+calling everybody's attention to the young fool. He allied himself with
+Dutocq (whom he regarded as a solemn juggler) in his hatred to Rabourdin
+and his praise of Baudoyer, and did his best to support him. Jean-Jaques
+Bixiou was the grandson of a Parisian grocer. His father, who died
+a colonel, left him to the care of his grandmother, who married her
+head-clerk, named Descoings, after the death of her first husband, and
+died in 1822. Finding himself without prospects on leaving college, he
+attempted painting, but in spite of his intimacy with Joseph Bridau,
+his life-long friend, he abandoned art to take up caricature, vignette
+designing, and drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the
+name of "illustration." The influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and
+de Rhetore, whom he knew in the society of actresses, procured him his
+employment under government in 1819. On good terms with des Lupeaulx,
+with whom in society he stood on an equality, and intimate with du
+Bruel, he was a living proof of Rabourdin's theory as to the steady
+deterioration of the administrative hierarchy in Paris through the
+personal importance which a government official may acquire outside of
+a government office. Short in stature but well-formed, with a delicate
+face remarkable for its vague likeness to Napoleon's, thin lips, a
+straight chin, chestnut whiskers, twenty-seven years old, fair-skinned,
+with a piercing voice and sparkling eye,--such was Bixiou; a man, all
+sense and all wit, who abandoned himself to a mad pursuit of pleasure of
+every description, which threw him into a constant round of dissipation.
+Hunter of grisettes, smoker, jester, diner-out and frequenter of
+supper-parties, always tuned to the highest pitch, shining equally in
+the greenroom and at the balls given among the grisettes of the Allee
+des Veuves, he was just as surprisingly entertaining at table as at a
+picnic, as gay and lively at midnight on the streets as in the morning
+when he jumped out of bed, and yet at heart gloomy and melancholy, like
+most of the great comic players.
+
+Launched into the world of actors and actresses, writers, artists, and
+certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre
+without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature and
+really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in life
+like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord would
+break. The liveliness of his wit and the prodigal flow of his ideas
+made him acceptable to all persons who took pleasure in the lights of
+intellect; but none of his friends liked him. Incapable of checking a
+witty saying, he would scarify his two neighbors before a dinner was
+half over. In spite of his skin-deep gayety, a secret dissatisfaction
+with his social position could be detected in his speech; he aspired
+to something better, but the fatal demon hiding in his wit hindered
+him from acquiring the gravity which imposes on fools. He lived on the
+second floor of a house in the rue de Ponthieu, where he had three rooms
+delivered over to the untidiness of a bachelor's establishment, in fact,
+a regular bivouac. He often talked of leaving France and seeking his
+fortune in America. No wizard could foretell the future of this
+young man in whom all talents were incomplete; who was incapable of
+perseverance, intoxicated with pleasure, and who acted on the belief
+that the world ended on the morrow.
+
+In the matter of dress Bixiou had the merit of never being ridiculous;
+he was perhaps the only official of the ministry whose dress did not
+lead outsiders to say, "That man is a government clerk!" He wore elegant
+boots with black trousers strapped under them, a fancy waistcoat,
+a becoming blue coat, collars that were the never-ending gift of
+grisettes, one of Bandoni's hats, and a pair of dark-colored kid gloves.
+His walk and bearing, cavalier and simple both, were not without grace.
+He knew all this, and when des Lupeaulx summoned him for a piece
+of impertinence said and done about Monsieur de la Billardiere and
+threatened him with dismissal, Bixiou replied, "You will take me back
+because my clothes do credit to the ministry"; and des Lupeaulx,
+unable to keep from laughing, let the matter pass. The most harmless of
+Bixiou's jokes perpetrated among the clerks was the one he played off
+upon Godard, presenting him with a butterfly just brought from China,
+which the worthy man keeps in his collection and exhibits to this day,
+blissfully unconscious that it is only painted paper. Bixiou had the
+patience to work up the little masterpiece for the sole purpose of
+hoaxing his superior.
+
+The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer's bureau held the
+martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a salary of
+fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard. Minard had
+married for love the daughter of a porter, an artificial-flower maker
+employed by Mademoiselle Godard. Zelie Lorrain, a pupil, in the first
+place, of the Conservatoire, then by turns a danseuse, a singer, and an
+actress, had thought of doing as so many of the working-women do;
+but the fear of consequences kept her from vice. She was floating
+undecidedly along, when Minard appeared upon the scene with a definite
+proposal of marriage. Zelie earned five hundred francs a year, Minard
+had fifteen hundred. Believing that they could live on two thousand,
+they married without settlements, and started with the utmost economy.
+They went to live, like dove-turtles, near the barriere de Courcelles,
+in a little apartment at three hundred francs a year, with white cotton
+curtains to the windows, a Scotch paper costing fifteen sous a roll on
+the walls, brick floors well polished, walnut furniture in the parlor,
+and a tiny kitchen that was very clean. Zelie nursed her children
+herself when they came, cooked, made her flowers, and kept the
+house. There was something very touching in this happy and laborious
+mediocrity. Feeling that Minard truly loved her, Zelie loved him. Love
+begets love,--it is the abyssus abyssum of the Bible. The poor man
+left his bed in the morning before his wife was up, that he might fetch
+provisions. He carried the flowers she had finished, on his way to the
+bureau, and bought her materials on his way back; then, while waiting
+for dinner, he stamped out her leaves, trimmed the twigs, or rubbed
+her colors. Small, slim, and wiry, with crisp red hair, eyes of a light
+yellow, a skin of dazzling fairness, though blotched with red, the man
+had a sturdy courage that made no show. He knew the science of writing
+quite as well as Vimeux. At the office he kept in the background,
+doing his allotted task with the collected air of a man who thinks and
+suffers. His white eyelashes and lack of eyebrows induced the relentless
+Bixiou to name him "the white rabbit." Minard--the Rabourdin of a
+lower sphere--was filled with the desire of placing his Zelie in better
+circumstances, and his mind searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in
+hopes of finding an idea, of making some discovery or some improvement
+which would bring him a rapid fortune. His apparent dulness was really
+caused by the continual tension of his mind; he went over the history
+of Cephalic Oils and the Paste of Sultans, lucifer matches and
+portable gas, jointed sockets for hydrostatic lamps,--in short, all the
+infinitely little inventions of material civilization which pay so well.
+He bore Bixiou's jests as a busy man bears the buzzing of an insect; he
+was not even annoyed by them. In spite of his cleverness, Bixiou never
+perceived the profound contempt which Minard felt for him. Minard never
+dreamed of quarrelling, however,--regarding it as a loss of time. After
+a while his composure tired out his tormentor. He always breakfasted
+with his wife, and ate nothing at the office. Once a month he took Zelie
+to the theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or Bixiou; for Bixiou
+was capable of anything, even of doing a kindness. Monsieur and Madame
+Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year's day. Those who saw
+them often asked how it was that a woman could keep her husband in good
+clothes, wear a Leghorn bonnet with flowers, embroidered muslin dresses,
+silk mantles, prunella boots, handsome fichus, a Chinese parasol,
+and drive home in a hackney-coach, and yet be virtuous; while Madame
+Colleville and other "ladies" of her kind could scarcely make ends meet,
+though they had double Madame Minard's means.
+
+In the two bureaus were two clerks so devoted to each other that their
+friendship became the butt of all the rest. He of the bureau Baudoyer,
+named Colleville, was chief-clerk, and would have been head of the
+bureau long before if the Restoration had never happened. His wife was
+as clever in her way as Madame Rabourdin in hers. Colleville, who was
+son of a first violin at the opera, fell in love with the daughter of a
+celebrated danseuse. Flavie Minoret, one of those capable and charming
+Parisian women who know how to make their husbands happy and yet
+preserve their own liberty, made the Colleville home a rendezvous for
+all our best artists and orators. Colleville's humble position under
+government was forgotten there. Flavie's conduct gave such food for
+gossip, however, that Madame Rabourdin had declined all her invitations.
+The friend in Rabourdin's bureau to whom Colleville was so attached was
+named Thuillier. All who knew one knew the other. Thuillier, called "the
+handsome Thuillier," an ex-Lothario, led as idle a life as Colleville
+led a busy one. Colleville, government official in the mornings and
+first clarionet at the Opera-Comique at night, worked hard to maintain
+his family, though he was not without influential friends. He was looked
+upon as a very shrewd man,--all the more, perhaps, because he hid his
+ambitions under a show of indifference. Apparently content with his lot
+and liking work, he found every one, even the chiefs, ready to protect
+his brave career. During the last few weeks Madame Colleville had made
+an evident change in the household, and seemed to be taking to piety.
+This gave rise to a vague report in the bureaus that she thought of
+securing some more powerful influence than that of Francois Keller, the
+famous orator, who had been one of her chief adorers, but who, so far,
+had failed to obtain a better place for her husband. Flavie had, about
+this time--and it was one of her mistakes--turned for help to des
+Lupeaulx.
+
+Colleville had a passion for reading the horoscopes of famous men in
+the anagram of their names. He passed whole months in decomposing
+and recomposing words and fitting them to new meanings. "Un Corse la
+finira," found within the words, "Revolution Francaise"; "Eh, c'est
+large nez," in "Charles Genest," an abbe at the court of Louis XIV.,
+whose huge nose is recorded by Saint-Simon as the delight of the Duc de
+Bourgogne (the exigencies of this last anagram required the substitution
+of a z for an s),--were a never-ending marvel to Colleville. Raising
+the anagram to the height of a science, he declared that the destiny of
+every man was written in the words or phrase given by the transposition
+of the letters of his names and titles; and his patriotism struggled
+hard to suppress the fact--signal evidence for his theory--that in
+Horatio Nelson, "honor est a Nilo." Ever since the accession of Charles
+X., he had bestowed much thought on the king's anagram. Thuillier, who
+was fond of making puns, declared that an anagram was nothing more than
+a pun on letters. The sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound
+almost indissolubly to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a
+difficult problem to the mind of an observer. The clerks in the offices
+explained it by saying, "Thuillier is rich, and the Colleville household
+costly." This friendship, however, consolidated by time, was based on
+feelings and on facts which naturally explained it; an account of which
+may be found elsewhere (see "Les Petits Bourgeois"). We may remark in
+passing that though Madame Colleville was well known in the bureaus, the
+existence of Madame Thuillier was almost unknown there. Colleville,
+an active man, burdened with a family of children, was fat, round, and
+jolly, whereas Thuillier, "the beau of the Empire" without apparent
+anxieties and always at leisure, was slender and thin, with a livid face
+and a melancholy air. "We never know," said Rabourdin, speaking of the
+two men, "whether our friendships are born of likeness or of contrast."
+
+Unlike these Siamese twins, two other clerks, Chazelle and Paulmier,
+were forever squabbling. One smoked, the other took snuff, and the
+merits of their respective use of tobacco were the origin of ceaseless
+disputes. Chazelle's home, which was tyrannized over by a wife,
+furnished a subject of endless ridicule to Paulmier; whereas Paulmier,
+a bachelor, often half-starved like Vimeux, with ragged clothes and
+half-concealed penury was a fruitful source of ridicule to Chazelle.
+Both were beginning to show a protuberant stomach; Chazelle's, which was
+round and projecting, had the impertinence, so Bixiou said, to enter the
+room first; Paulmier's corporation spread to right and left. A favorite
+amusement with Bixiou was to measure them quarterly. The two clerks, by
+dint of quarrelling over the details of their lives, and washing much of
+their dirty linen at the office, had obtained the disrepute which they
+merited. "Do you take me for a Chazelle?" was a frequent saying that
+served to end many an annoying discussion.
+
+Monsieur Poiret junior, called "junior" to distinguish him from his
+brother Monsieur Poiret senior (now living in the Maison Vanquer, where
+Poiret junior sometimes dined, intending to end his days in the same
+retreat), had spent thirty years in the Civil Service. Nature herself is
+not so fixed and unvarying in her evolutions as was Poiret junior in all
+the acts of his daily life; he always laid his things in precisely the
+same place, put his pen in the same rack, sat down in his seat at the
+same hour, warmed himself at the stove at the same moment of the day.
+His sole vanity consisted in wearing an infallible watch, timed daily at
+the Hotel de Ville as he passed it on his way to the office. From six
+to eight o'clock in the morning he kept the books of a large shop in the
+rue Saint-Antoine, and from six to eight o'clock in the evening those
+of the Maison Camusot, in the rue des Bourdonnais. He thus earned three
+thousand francs a year, counting his salary from the government. In a
+few months his term of service would be up, when he would retire on a
+pension; he therefore showed the utmost indifference to the political
+intrigues of the bureaus. Like his elder brother, to whom retirement
+from active service had proved a fatal blow, he would probably grow an
+old man when he could no longer come from his home to the ministry, sit
+in the same chair and copy a certain number of pages. Poiret's eyes were
+dim, his glance weak and lifeless, his skin discolored and wrinkled,
+gray in tone and speckled with bluish dots; his nose flat, his lips
+drawn inward to the mouth, where a few defective teeth still lingered.
+His gray hair, flattened to the head by the pressure of his hat, gave
+him the look of an ecclesiastic,--a resemblance he would scarcely have
+liked, for he hated priests and clergy, though he could give no reasons
+for his anti-religious views. This antipathy, however, did not prevent
+him from being extremely attached to whatever administration happened to
+be in power. He never buttoned his old green coat, even on the coldest
+days, and he always wore shoes with ties, and black trousers.
+
+No human life was ever lived so thoroughly by rule. Poiret kept all
+his receipted bills, even the most trifling, and all his account-books,
+wrapped in old shirts and put away according to their respective years
+from the time of his entrance at the ministry. Rough copies of his
+letters were dated and put away in a box, ticketed "My Correspondence."
+He dined at the same restaurant (the Sucking Calf in the place du
+Chatelet), and sat in the same place, which the waiters kept for him. He
+never gave five minutes more time to the shop in the rue Saint Antoine
+than justly belonged to it, and at half-past eight precisely he reached
+the Cafe David, where he breakfasted and remained till eleven. There
+he listened to political discussions, his arms crossed on his cane, his
+chin in his right hand, never saying a word. The dame du comptoir, the
+only woman to whom he ever spoke with pleasure, was the sole confidant
+of the little events of his life, for his seat was close to her counter.
+He played dominoes, the only game he was capable of understanding. When
+his partners did not happen to be present, he usually went to sleep
+with his back against the wainscot, holding a newspaper in his hand, the
+wooden file resting on the marble of his table. He was interested in the
+buildings going up in Paris, and spent his Sundays in walking about to
+examine them. He was often heard to say, "I saw the Louvre emerge from
+its rubbish; I saw the birth of the place du Chatelet, the quai aux
+Fleurs and the Markets." He and his brother, both born at Troyes, were
+sent in youth to serve their apprenticeship in a government office.
+Their mother made herself notorious by misconduct, and the two brothers
+had the grief of hearing of her death in the hospital at Troyes,
+although they had frequently sent money for her support. This event led
+them both not only to abjure marriage, but to feel a horror of children;
+ill at ease with them, they feared them as others fear madmen, and
+watched them with haggard eyes.
+
+Since the day when he first came to Paris Poiret junior had never gone
+outside the city. He began at that time to keep a journal of his life,
+in which he noted down all the striking events of his day. Du Bruel
+told him that Lord Byron did the same thing. This likeness filled
+Poiret junior with delight, and led him to buy the works of Lord Byron,
+translated by Chastopalli, of which he did not understand a word. At the
+office he was often seen in a melancholy attitude, as though absorbed in
+thought, when in fact he was thinking of nothing at all. He did not know
+a single person in the house where he lived, and always carried the keys
+of his apartment about with him. On New-Year's day he went round and
+left his own cards on all the clerks of the division. Bixiou took it
+into his head on one of the hottest of dog-days to put a layer of lard
+under the lining of a certain old hat which Poiret junior (he was, by
+the bye, fifty-two years old) had worn for the last nine years. Bixiou,
+who had never seen any other hat on Poiret's head, dreamed of it
+and declared he tasted it in his food; he therefore resolved, in the
+interests of his digestion, to relieve the bureau of the sight of that
+amorphous old hat. Poiret junior left the office regularly at four
+o'clock. As he walked along, the sun's rays reflected from the
+pavements and walls produced a tropical heat; he felt that his head was
+inundated,--he, who never perspired! Feeling that he was ill, or on the
+point of being so, instead of going as usual to the Sucking Calf he went
+home, drew out from his desk the journal of his life, and recorded the
+fact in the following manner:--
+
+  "To-day, July 3, 1823, overtaken by extraordinary perspiration, a
+  sign, perhaps, of the sweating-sickness, a malady which prevails
+  in Champagne. I am about to consult Doctor Haudry. The disease
+  first appeared as I reached the highest part of the quai des
+  Ecoles."
+
+Suddenly, having taken off his hat, he became aware that the mysterious
+sweat had some cause independent of his own person. He wiped his face,
+examined the hat, and could find nothing, for he did not venture to take
+out the lining. All this he noted in his journal:--
+
+  "Carried my hat to the Sieur Tournan, hat-maker in the rue
+  Saint-Martin, for the reason that I suspect some unknown cause for
+  this perspiration, which, in that case, might not be perspiration,
+  but, possibly, the effect of something lately added, or formerly
+  done, to my hat."
+
+Monsieur Tournan at once informed his customer of the presence of a
+greasy substance, obtained by the trying-out of the fat of a pig or sow.
+The next day Poiret appeared at the office with another hat, lent by
+Monsieur Tournan while a new one was making; but he did not sleep that
+night until he had added the following sentence to the preceding entries
+in his journal: "It is asserted that my hat contained lard, the fat of a
+pig."
+
+This inexplicable fact occupied the intellect of Poiret junior for the
+space of two weeks; and he never knew how the phenomenon was produced.
+The clerks told him tales of showers of frogs, and other dog-day
+wonders, also the startling fact that an imprint of the head of Napoleon
+had been found in the root of a young elm, with other eccentricities
+of natural history. Vimeux informed him that one day his hat--his,
+Vimeux's--had stained his forehead black, and that hat-makers were in
+the habit of using drugs. After that Poiret paid many visits to Monsieur
+Tournan to inquire into his methods of manufacture.
+
+In the Rabourdin bureau was a clerk who played the man of courage
+and audacity, professed the opinions of the Left centre, and rebelled
+against the tyrannies of Baudoyer as exercised upon what he called the
+unhappy slaves of that office. His name was Fleury. He boldly subscribed
+to an opposition newspaper, wore a gray hat with a broad brim, red bands
+on his blue trousers, a blue waistcoat with gilt buttons, and a
+surtout coat crossed over the breast like that of a quartermaster of
+gendarmerie. Though unyielding in his opinions, he continued to be
+employed in the service, all the while predicting a fatal end to a
+government which persisted in upholding religion. He openly avowed his
+sympathy for Napoleon, now that the death of that great man put an end
+to the laws enacted against "the partisans of the usurper." Fleury,
+ex-captain of a regiment of the line under the Emperor, a tall, dark,
+handsome fellow, was now, in addition to his civil-service post,
+box-keeper at the Cirque-Olympique. Bixiou never ventured on tormenting
+Fleury, for the rough trooper, who was a good shot and clever at
+fencing, seemed quite capable of extreme brutality if provoked. An
+ardent subscriber to "Victoires et Conquetes," Fleury nevertheless
+refused to pay his subscription, though he kept and read the copies,
+alleging that they exceeded the number proposed in the prospectus. He
+adored Monsieur Rabourdin, who had saved him from dismissal, and was
+even heard to say that if any misfortune happened to the chief through
+anybody's fault he would kill that person. Dutocq meanly courted Fleury
+because he feared him. Fleury, crippled with debt, played many a trick
+on his creditors. Expert in legal matters, he never signed a promissory
+note; and had prudently attached his own salary under the names of
+fictitious creditors, so that he was able to draw nearly the whole of it
+himself. He played ecarte, was the life of evening parties, tossed off
+glasses of champagne without wetting his lips, and knew all the songs of
+Beranger by heart. He was proud of his full, sonorous voice. His three
+great admirations were Napoleon, Bolivar, and Beranger. Foy, Lafitte,
+and Casimir Delavigne he only esteemed. Fleury, as you will have guessed
+already, was a Southerner, destined, no doubt, to become the responsible
+editor of a liberal journal.
+
+Desroys, the mysterious clerk of the division, consorted with no one,
+talked little, and hid his private life so carefully that no one knew
+where he lived, nor who were his protectors, nor what were his means of
+subsistence. Looking about them for the causes of this reserve, some
+of his colleagues thought him a "carbonaro," others an Orleanist; there
+were others again who doubted whether to call him a spy or a man of
+solid merit. Desroys was, however, simple and solely the son of a
+"Conventionel," who did not vote the king's death. Cold and prudent by
+temperament, he had judged the world and ended by relying on no one but
+himself. Republican in secret, an admirer of Paul-Louis Courier and a
+friend of Michael Chrestien, he looked to time and public intelligence
+to bring about the triumph of his opinions from end to end of Europe.
+He dreamed of a new Germany and a new Italy. His heart swelled with that
+dull, collective love which we must call humanitarianism, the eldest son
+of deceased philanthropy, and which is to the divine catholic charity
+what system is to art, or reasoning to deed. This conscientious puritan
+of freedom, this apostle of an impossible equality, regretted keenly
+that his poverty forced him to serve the government, and he made various
+efforts to find a place elsewhere. Tall, lean, lanky, and solemn in
+appearance, like a man who expects to be called some day to lay down his
+life for a cause, he lived on a page of Volney, studied Saint-Just, and
+employed himself on a vindication of Robespierre, whom he regarded as
+the successor of Jesus Christ.
+
+The last of the individuals belonging to these bureaus who merits
+a sketch here is the little La Billardiere. Having, to his great
+misfortune, lost his mother, and being under the protection of the
+minister, safe therefore from the tyrannies of Baudoyer, and received
+in all the ministerial salons, he was nevertheless detested by every one
+because of his impertinence and conceit. The two chiefs were polite
+to him, but the clerks held him at arm's length and prevented all
+companionship by means of the extreme and grotesque politeness which
+they bestowed upon him. A pretty youth of twenty-two, tall and slender,
+with the manners of an Englishman, a dandy in dress, curled and
+perfumed, gloved and booted in the latest fashion, and twirling an
+eyeglass, Benjamin de la Billardiere thought himself a charming fellow
+and possessed all the vices of the world with none of its graces. He
+was now looking forward impatiently to the death of his father, that
+he might succeed to the title of baron. His cards were printed "le
+Chevalier de la Billardiere" and on the wall of his office hung, in a
+frame, his coat of arms (sable, two swords in saltire, on a chief azure
+three mullets argent; with the motto; "Toujours fidele"). Possessed
+with a mania for talking heraldry, he once asked the young Vicomte de
+Portenduere why his arms were charged in a certain way, and drew down
+upon himself the happy answer, "I did not make them." He talked of his
+devotion to the monarchy and the attentions the Dauphine paid him. He
+stood very well with des Lupeaulx, whom he thought his friend, and they
+often breakfasted together. Bixiou posed as his mentor, and hoped to rid
+the division and France of the young fool by tempting him to excesses,
+and openly avowed that intention.
+
+Such were the principal figures of La Billardiere's division of the
+ministry, where also were other clerks of less account, who resembled
+more or less those that are represented here. It is difficult even for
+an observer to decide from the aspect of these strange personalities
+whether the goose-quill tribe were becoming idiots from the effects of
+their employment or whether they entered the service because they were
+natural born fools. Possibly the making of them lies at the door of
+Nature and of the government both. Nature, to a civil-service clerk is,
+in fact, the sphere of the office; his horizon is bounded on all
+sides by green boxes; to him, atmospheric changes are the air of
+the corridors, the masculine exhalations contained in rooms without
+ventilators, the odor of paper, pens, and ink; the soil he treads is
+a tiled pavement or a wooden floor, strewn with a curious litter and
+moistened by the attendant's watering-pot; his sky is the ceiling toward
+which he yawns; his element is dust. Several distinguished doctors have
+remonstrated against the influence of this second nature, both savage
+and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in those dreadful pens
+called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates, where thoughts are tied
+down to occupations like that of horses who turn a crank and who, poor
+beasts, yawn distressingly and die quickly. Rabourdin was, therefore,
+fully justified in seeking to reform their present condition, by
+lessening their numbers and giving to each a larger salary and far
+heavier work. Men are neither wearied nor bored when doing great things.
+Under the present system government loses fully four hours out of the
+nine which the clerks owe to the service,--hours wasted, as we shall
+see, in conversations, in gossip, in disputes, and, above all, in
+underhand intriguing. The reader must have haunted the bureaus of the
+ministerial departments before he can realize how much their petty
+and belittling life resembles that of seminaries. Wherever men live
+collectively this likeness is obvious; in regiments, in law-courts, you
+will find the elements of the school on a smaller or larger scale. The
+government clerks, forced to be together for nine hours of the day,
+looked upon their office as a sort of class-room where they had tasks to
+perform, where the head of the bureau was no other than a schoolmaster,
+and where the gratuities bestowed took the place of prizes given out to
+proteges,--a place, moreover, where they teased and hated each other,
+and yet felt a certain comradeship, colder than that of a regiment,
+which itself is less hearty than that of seminaries. As a man advances
+in life he grows more selfish; egoism develops, and relaxes all the
+secondary bonds of affection. A government office is, in short, a
+microcosm of society, with its oddities and hatreds, its envy and its
+cupidity, its determination to push on, no matter who goes under, its
+frivolous gossip which gives so many wounds, and its perpetual spying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE MACHINE IN MOTION
+
+
+At this moment the division of Monsieur de la Billardiere was in a state
+of unusual excitement, resulting very naturally from the event which was
+about to happen; for heads of divisions do not die every day, and
+there is no insurance office where the chances of life and death are
+calculated with more sagacity than in a government bureau. Self-interest
+stifles all compassion, as it does in children, but the government
+service adds hypocrisy to boot.
+
+The clerks of the bureau Baudoyer arrived at eight o'clock in the
+morning, whereas those of the bureau Rabourdin seldom appeared till
+nine,--a circumstance which did not prevent the work in the latter
+office from being more rapidly dispatched than that of the former.
+Dutocq had important reasons for coming early on this particular
+morning. The previous evening he had furtively entered the study
+where Sebastien was at work, and had seen him copying some papers
+for Rabourdin; he concealed himself until he saw Sebastien leave the
+premises without taking any papers away with him. Certain, therefore,
+of finding the rather voluminous memorandum which he had seen, together
+with its copy, in some corner of the study, he searched through the
+boxes one after another until he finally came upon the fatal list.
+He carried it in hot haste to an autograph-printing house, where he
+obtained two pressed copies of the memorandum, showing, of course,
+Rabourdin's own writing. Anxious not to arouse suspicion, he had
+gone very early to the office and replaced both the memorandum and
+Sebastien's copy in the box from which he had taken them. Sebastien,
+who was kept up till after midnight at Madame Rabourdin's party, was, in
+spite of his desire to get to the office early, preceded by the spirit
+of hatred. Hatred lived in the rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore, whereas
+love and devotion lived far-off in the rue du Roi-Dore in the Marais.
+This slight delay was destined to affect Rabourdin's whole career.
+
+Sebastien opened his box eagerly, found the memorandum and his own
+unfinished copy all in order, and locked them at once into the desk as
+Rabourdin had directed. The mornings are dark in these offices towards
+the end of December, sometimes indeed the lamps are lit till after ten
+o'clock; consequently Sebastien did not happen to notice the pressure
+of the copying-machine upon the paper. But when, about half-past nine
+o'clock, Rabourdin looked at his memorandum he saw at once the effects
+of the copying process, and all the more readily because he was then
+considering whether these autographic presses could not be made to do
+the work of copying clerks.
+
+"Did any one get to the office before you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Sebastien,--"Monsieur Dutocq."
+
+"Ah! well, he was punctual. Send Antoine to me."
+
+Too noble to distress Sebastien uselessly by blaming him for a
+misfortune now beyond remedy, Rabourdin said no more. Antoine came.
+Rabourdin asked if any clerk had remained at the office after four
+o'clock the previous evening. The man replied that Monsieur Dutocq had
+worked there later than Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually the last
+to leave. Rabourdin dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the thread of
+his reflections.
+
+"Twice I have prevented his dismissal," he said to himself, "and this is
+my reward."
+
+This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which great
+commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances. Knowing the
+spirit of official life better than any one, he well knew that it would
+never pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the army pardon,
+what looked like espionage or tale-bearing. A man capable of informing
+against his comrades is disgraced, dishonored, despised; the ministers
+in such a case would disavow their own agents. Nothing was left to an
+official so placed but to send in his resignation and leave Paris; his
+honor is permanently stained; explanations are of no avail; no one will
+either ask for them or listen to them. A minister may well do the same
+thing and be thought a great man, able to choose the right instruments;
+but a mere subordinate will be judged as a spy, no matter what may
+be his motives. While justly measuring the folly of such judgment,
+Rabourdin knew that it was all-powerful; and he knew, too, that he was
+crushed. More surprised than overwhelmed, he now sought for the best
+course to follow under the circumstances; and with such thoughts in his
+mind he was necessarily aloof from the excitement caused in the division
+by the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere; in fact he did not hear of
+it until young La Briere, who was able to appreciate his sterling value,
+came to tell him. About ten o'clock, in the bureau Baudoyer, Bixiou
+was relating the last moments of the life of the director to Minard,
+Desroys, Monsieur Godard, whom he had called from his private office,
+and Dutocq, who had rushed in with private motives of his own.
+Colleville and Chazelle were absent.
+
+Bixiou [standing with his back to the stove and holding up the sole
+of each boot alternately to dry at the open door]. "This morning, at
+half-past seven, I went to inquire after our most worthy and respectable
+director, knight of the order of Christ, et caetera, et caetera. Yes,
+gentlemen, last night he was a being with twenty et caeteras, to-day he
+is nothing, not even a government clerk. I asked all particulars of his
+nurse. She told me that this morning at five o'clock he became uneasy
+about the royal family. He asked for the names of all the clerks who had
+called to inquire after him; and then he said: 'Fill my snuff-box,
+give me the newspaper, bring my spectacles, and change my ribbon of the
+Legion of honor,--it is very dirty.' I suppose you know he always wore
+his orders in bed. He was fully conscious, retained his senses and all
+his usual ideas. But, presto! ten minutes later the water rose, rose,
+rose and flooded his chest; he knew he was dying for he felt the cysts
+break. At that fatal moment he gave evident proof of his powerful mind
+and vast intellect. Ah, we never rightly appreciated him! We used to
+laugh at him and call him a booby--didn't you, Monsieur Godard?"
+
+Godard. "I? I always rated Monsieur de la Billardiere's talents higher
+than the rest of you."
+
+Bixiou. "You and he could understand each other!"
+
+Godard. "He wasn't a bad man; he never harmed any one."
+
+Bixiou. "To do harm you must do something, and he never did anything. If
+it wasn't you who said he was a dolt, it must have been Minard."
+
+Minard [shrugging his shoulders]. "I!"
+
+Bixiou. "Well, then it was you, Dutocq!" [Dutocq made a vehement gesture
+of denial.] "Oh! very good, then it was nobody. Every one in this office
+knew his intellect was herculean. Well, you were right. He ended, as I
+have said, like the great man that he was."
+
+Desroys [impatiently]. "Pray what did he do that was so great? he had
+the weakness to confess himself."
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, monsieur, he received the holy sacraments. But do you
+know what he did in order to receive them? He put on his uniform as
+gentleman-in-ordinary of the Bedchamber, with all his orders, and had
+himself powdered; they tied his queue (that poor queue!) with a fresh
+ribbon. Now I say that none but a man of remarkable character would have
+his queue tied with a fresh ribbon just as he was dying. There are eight
+of us here, and I don't believe one among us is capable of such an act.
+But that's not all; he said,--for you know all celebrated men make a
+dying speech; he said,--stop now, what did he say? Ah! he said, 'I must
+attire myself to meet the King of Heaven,--I, who have so often dressed
+in my best for audience with the kings of earth.' That's how Monsieur de
+la Billardiere departed this life. He took upon himself to justify the
+saying of Pythagoras, 'No man is known until he dies.'"
+
+Colleville [rushing in]. "Gentlemen, great news!"
+
+All. "We know it."
+
+Colleville. "I defy you to know it! I have been hunting for it ever
+since the accession of His Majesty to the thrones of France and of
+Navarre. Last night I succeeded! but with what labor! Madame Colleville
+asked me what was the matter."
+
+Dutocq. "Do you think we have time to bother ourselves with your
+intolerable anagrams when the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere has just
+expired?"
+
+Colleville. "That's Bixiou's nonsense! I have just come from Monsieur
+de la Billardiere's; he is still living, though they expect him to die
+soon." [Godard, indignant at the hoax, goes off grumbling.] "Gentlemen!
+you would never guess what extraordinary events are revealed by the
+anagram of this sacramental sentence" [he pulls out a piece of paper
+and reads], "Charles dix, par la grace de Dieu, roi de France et de
+Navarre."
+
+Godard [re-entering]. "Tell what it is at once, and don't keep people
+waiting."
+
+Colleville [triumphantly unfolding the rest of the paper]. "Listen!
+
+  "A H. V. il cedera;
+  De S. C. l. d. partira;
+  Eh nauf errera,
+  Decide a Gorix.
+
+"Every letter is there!" [He repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera (his
+crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an old French
+word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like) errera--"
+
+Dutocq. "What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown
+to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson,
+when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the Dauphin's
+death?"
+
+Bixiou. "What's Gorix, pray?--the name of a cat?"
+
+Colleville [provoked]. "It is the archaeological and lapidarial
+abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it out in
+Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or Hungary, or
+it may be Austria--"
+
+Bixiou. "Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why don't you
+set it all to music and play it on the clarionet?"
+
+Godard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. "What utter nonsense!"
+
+Colleville. "Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don't take the
+trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor Napoleon."
+
+Godard [irritated at Colleville's tone]. "Monsieur Colleville, let me
+tell you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by historians,
+but it is extremely out of place to refer to him as such in a government
+office."
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "Get an anagram out of that, my dear fellow."
+
+Colleville [angrily]. "Let me tell you that if Napoleon Bonaparte had
+studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he might
+perhaps be Emperor still."
+
+Bixiou. "How do you make that out?"
+
+Colleville [solemnly]. "Napoleon Bonaparte.--No, appear not at Elba!"
+
+Dutocq. "You'll lose your place for talking such nonsense."
+
+Colleville. "If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make it
+hot for your minister." [Dead silence.] "I'd have you to know, Master
+Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pass. Look
+here,--you, yourself,--don't you marry, for there's 'coqu' in your
+name."
+
+Bixiou [interrupting]. "And d, t, for de-testable."
+
+Dutocq [without seeming angry]. "I don't care, as long as it is only in
+my name. Why don't you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it, 'Xavier
+Rabourdin, chef du bureau'?"
+
+Colleville. "Bless you, so I have!"
+
+Bixiou [mending his pen]. "And what did you make of it?"
+
+Colleville. "It comes out as follows: D'abord reva bureaux, E-u,--(you
+catch the meaning? et eut--and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies that
+after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and got rich
+elsewhere." [Repeats.] "D'abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche."
+
+Dutocq. "That IS queer!"
+
+Bixiou. "Try Isidore Baudoyer."
+
+Colleville [mysteriously]. "I sha'n't tell the other anagrams to any one
+but Thuillier."
+
+Bixiou. "I'll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself."
+
+Colleville. "And I'll pay if you find it out."
+
+Bixiou. "Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won't be angry,
+will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict. 'Isidore
+Baudoyer' anagrams into 'Ris d'aboyeur d'oie.'"
+
+Colleville [petrified with amazement]. "You stole it from me!"
+
+Bixiou [with dignity]. "Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to believe
+that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor's nonsense."
+
+Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand]. "Gentlemen, I
+request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such
+high repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur
+Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he
+heard the noise you are making" [passes into Monsieur Godard's room].
+
+Bixiou [in a low voice]. "The watch-dog is very tame this morning;
+there'll be a change of weather before night."
+
+Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. "I have something I want to say to you."
+
+Bixiou [fingering Dutocq's waistcoat]. "You've a pretty waistcoat, that
+cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?"
+
+Dutocq. "Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in my life.
+That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de la
+Paix,--a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning."
+
+Bixiou. "You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow, but
+you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no man can be
+a universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in deep mourning.
+Don't you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur Rabourdin, Monsieur
+Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is the faubourg
+Saint-Germain. There's no one here but Minard who doesn't wear woollen;
+he's afraid of being taken for a sheep. That's the reason why he didn't
+put on mourning for Louis XVIII."
+
+[During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in Godard's
+room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]
+
+Baudoyer. "Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are both with
+him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If you want to do
+me a signal service you will take a cab and go and let Madame Baudoyer
+know what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can't leave his desk, nor
+I my office. Put yourself at my wife's orders; do whatever she wishes.
+She has, I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants to take certain
+steps simultaneously." [The two functionaries go out together.]
+
+Godard. "Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for the rest
+of the day. You will take my place."
+
+Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. "Consult me, if there is any necessity."
+
+Bixiou. "This time, La Billardiere is really dead."
+
+Dutocq [in Bixiou's ear]. "Come outside a minute." [The two go into the
+corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]
+
+Dutocq [whispering]. "Listen. Now is the time for us to understand each
+other and push our way. What would you say to your being made head of
+the bureau, and I under you?"
+
+Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "Come, come, don't talk nonsense!"
+
+Dutocq. "If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere's place Rabourdin won't stay
+on where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that if du
+Bruel and you don't help him he will certainly be dismissed in a couple
+of months. If I know arithmetic that will give three empty places for us
+to fill--"
+
+Bixiou. "Three places right under our noses, which will certainly
+be given to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious fraud,--to
+Colleville perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women end--in
+piety."
+
+Dutocq. "No, to /you/, my dear fellow, if you will only, for once in
+your life, use your wits logically." [He stopped as if to study the
+effect of his adverb in Bixiou's face.] "Come, let us play fair."
+
+Bixiou [stolidly]. "Let me see your game."
+
+Dutocq. "I don't wish to be anything more than under-head-clerk. I know
+myself perfectly well, and I know I haven't the ability, like you, to
+be head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you the head of this
+bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he has made his pile;
+and as for me, I shall swim with the tide comfortably, under your
+protection, till I can retire on a pension."
+
+Bixiou. "Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan which
+means forcing the minister's hand and ejecting a man of talent? Between
+ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge of the
+division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that they talk
+of putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness, that cube of
+idiocy, Baudoyer?"
+
+Dutocq [consequentially]. "My dear fellow, I am in a position to rouse
+the whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted Fleury is to
+him? Well, I can make Fleury despise him."
+
+Bixiou. "Despised by Fleury!"
+
+Dutocq. "Not a soul will stand by Rabourdin; the clerks will go in a
+body and complain of him to the minister,--not only in our division, but
+in all the divisions--"
+
+Bixiou. "Forward, march! infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marines of
+the guard! You rave, my good fellow! And I, what part am I to take in
+the business?"
+
+Dutocq. "You are to make a cutting caricature,--sharp enough to kill a
+man."
+
+Bixiou. "How much will you pay for it?"
+
+Dutocq. "A hundred francs."
+
+Bixiou [to himself]. "Then there is something in it."
+
+Dutocq [continuing]. "You must represent Rabourdin dressed as a butcher
+(make it a good likeness), find analogies between a kitchen and a
+bureau, put a skewer in his hand, draw portraits of the principal clerks
+and stick their heads on fowls, put them in a monstrous coop labelled
+'Civil Service executions'; make him cutting the throat of one, and
+supposed to take the others in turn. You can have geese and ducks with
+heads like ours,--you understand! Baudoyer, for instance, he'll make an
+excellent turkey-buzzard."
+
+Bixiou. "Ris d'aboyeur d'oie!" [He has watched Dutocq carefully for some
+time.] "Did you think of that yourself?"
+
+Dutocq. "Yes, I myself."
+
+Bixiou [to himself]. "Do evil feelings bring men to the same result as
+talents?" [Aloud] "Well, I'll do it" [Dutocq makes a motion of delight]
+"--when" [full stop] "--I know where I am and what I can rely on. If you
+don't succeed I shall lose my place, and I must make a living. You are a
+curious kind of innocent still, my dear colleague."
+
+Dutocq. "Well, you needn't make the lithograph till success is proved."
+
+Bixiou. "Why don't you come out and tell me the whole truth?"
+
+Dutocq. "I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we will talk
+about it later" [goes off].
+
+Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. "That fish, for he's more a fish than
+a bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head--I'm sure I don't know
+where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it would
+be fun, more than fun--profit!" [Returns to the office.] "Gentlemen, I
+announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really dead,--no
+nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for our excellent
+chief Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the deceased." [Minard,
+Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads in amazement; they all lay
+down their pens, and Colleville blows his nose.] "Every one of us is
+to be promoted! Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the very least.
+Minard may have my place as chief clerk--why not? he is quite as dull as
+I am. Hey, Minard, if you should get twenty-five hundred francs a-year
+your little wife would be uncommonly pleased, and you could buy yourself
+a pair of boots now and then."
+
+Colleville. "But you don't get twenty-five hundred francs."
+
+Bixiou. "Monsieur Dutocq gets that in Rabourdin's office; why shouldn't
+I get it this year? Monsieur Baudoyer gets it."
+
+Colleville. "Only through the influence of Monsieur Saillard. No other
+chief clerk gets that in any of the divisions."
+
+Paulmier. "Bah! Hasn't Monsieur Cochin three thousand? He succeeded
+Monsieur Vavasseur, who served ten years under the Empire at four
+thousand. His salary was dropped to three when the King first returned;
+then to two thousand five hundred before Vavasseur died. But Monsieur
+Cochin, who succeeded him, had influence enough to get the salary put
+back to three thousand."
+
+Colleville. "Monsieur Cochin signs E. A. L. Cochin (he is named
+Emile-Adolphe-Lucian), which, when anagrammed, gives Cochineal.
+Now observe, he's a partner in a druggist's business in the rue des
+Lombards, the Maison Matifat, which made its fortune by that identical
+colonial product."
+
+Baudoyer [entering]. "Monsieur Chazelle, I see, is not here; you will be
+good enough to say I asked for him, gentlemen."
+
+Bixiou [who had hastily stuck a hat on Chazelle's chair when he heard
+Baudoyer's step]. "Excuse me, Monsieur, but Chazelle has gone to the
+Rabourdins' to make an inquiry."
+
+Chazelle [entering with his hat on his head, and not seeing Baudoyer].
+"La Billardiere is done for, gentlemen! Rabourdin is head of the
+division and Master of petitions; he hasn't stolen /his/ promotion,
+that's very certain."
+
+Baudoyer [to Chazelle]. "You found that appointment in your second hat,
+I presume" [points to the hat on the chair]. "This is the third time
+within a month that you have come after nine o'clock. If you continue
+the practice you will get on--elsewhere." [To Bixiou, who is reading the
+newspaper.] "My dear Monsieur Bixiou, do pray leave the newspapers to
+these gentlemen who are going to breakfast, and come into my office for
+your orders for the day. I don't know what Monsieur Rabourdin wants with
+Gabriel; he keeps him to do his private errands, I believe. I've rung
+three times and can't get him." [Baudoyer and Bixiou retire into the
+private office.]
+
+Chazelle. "Damned unlucky!"
+
+Paulmier [delighted to annoy Chazelle]. "Why didn't you look about when
+you came into the room? You might have seen the elephant, and the hat
+too; they are big enough to be visible."
+
+Chazelle [dismally]. "Disgusting business! I don't see why we should
+be treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and
+sixty-five centimes a day."
+
+Fleury [entering]. "Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for Rabourdin!--that's
+the cry in the division."
+
+Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. "Baudoyer can turn off me if
+he likes, I sha'n't care. In Paris there are a thousand ways of earning
+five francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais de Justice,
+copying briefs for the lawyers."
+
+Paulmier [still prodding him]. "It is very easy to say that; but a
+government place is a government place, and that plucky Colleville, who
+works like a galley-slave outside of this office, and who could earn,
+if he lost his appointment, more than his salary, prefers to keep his
+place. Who the devil is fool enough to give up his expectations?"
+
+Chazelle [continuing his philippic]. "You may not be, but I am! We have
+no chances at all. Time was when nothing was more encouraging than a
+civil-service career. So many men were in the army that there were not
+enough for the government work; the maimed and the halt and the sick
+ones, like Paulmier, and the near-sighted ones, all had their chance of
+a rapid promotion. But now, ever since the Chamber invented what they
+called special training, and the rules and regulations for civil-service
+examiners, we are worse off than common soldiers. The poorest places
+are at the mercy of a thousand mischances because we are now ruled by a
+thousand sovereigns."
+
+Bixiou [returning]. "Are you crazy, Chazelle? Where do you find a
+thousand sovereigns?--not in your pocket, are they?"
+
+Chazelle. "Count them up. There are four hundred over there at the end
+of the pont de la Concorde (so called because it leads to the scene
+of perpetual discord between the Right and Left of the Chamber); three
+hundred more at the end of the rue de Tournon. The court, which ought to
+count for the other three hundred, has seven hundred parts less power
+to get a man appointed to a place under government than the Emperor
+Napoleon had."
+
+Fleury. "All of which signifies that in a country where there are three
+powers you may bet a thousand to one that a government clerk who has no
+influence but his own merits to advance him will remain in obscurity."
+
+Bixiou [looking alternately at Chazelle and Fleury]. "My sons, you have
+yet to learn that in these days the worst state of life is the state of
+belonging to the State."
+
+Fleury. "Because it has a constitutional government."
+
+Colleville. "Gentlemen, gentlemen! no politics!"
+
+Bixiou. "Fleury is right. Serving the State in these days is no longer
+serving a prince who knew how to punish and reward. The State now is
+/everybody/. Everybody of course cares for nobody. Serve everybody, and
+you serve nobody. Nobody is interested in nobody; the government clerk
+lives between two negations. The world has neither pity nor respect,
+neither heart nor head; everybody forgets to-morrow the service of
+yesterday. Now each one of you may be, like Monsieur Baudoyer, an
+administrative genius, a Chateaubriand of reports, a Bossouet of
+circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the gifted son of diplomatic
+despatches; but I tell you there is a fatal law which interferes with
+all administrative genius,--I mean the law of promotion by average. This
+average is based on the statistics of promotion and the statistics
+of mortality combined. It is very certain that on entering whichever
+section of the Civil Service you please at the age of eighteen, you
+can't get eighteen hundred francs a year till you reach the age of
+thirty. Now there's no free and independent career in which, in
+the course of twelve years, a young man who has gone through the
+grammar-school, been vaccinated, is exempt from military service, and
+possesses all his faculties (I don't mean transcendent ones) can't amass
+a capital of forty-five thousand francs in centimes, which represents
+a permanent income equal to our salaries, which are, after all,
+precarious. In twelve years a grocer can earn enough to give him ten
+thousand francs a year; a painter can daub a mile of canvas and be
+decorated with the Legion of honor, or pose as a neglected genius. A
+literary man becomes professor of something or other, or a journalist
+at a hundred francs for a thousand lines; he writes 'feuilletons,' or
+he gets into Saint-Pelagie for a brilliant article that offends the
+Jesuits,--which of course is an immense benefit to him and makes him a
+politician at once. Even a lazy man, who does nothing but make debts,
+has time to marry a widow who pays them; a priest finds time to become a
+bishop 'in partibus.' A sober, intelligent young fellow, who begins
+with a small capital as a money-changer, soon buys a share in a broker's
+business; and, to go even lower, a petty clerk becomes a notary, a
+rag-picker lays by two or three thousand francs a year, and the poorest
+workmen often become manufacturers; whereas, in the rotatory movement
+of this present civilization, which mistakes perpetual division and
+redivision for progress, an unhappy civil service clerk, like Chazelle
+for instance, is forced to dine for twenty-two sous a meal, struggles
+with his tailor and bootmaker, gets into debt, and is an absolute
+nothing; worse than that, he becomes an idiot! Come, gentlemen, now's
+the time to make a stand! Let us all give in our resignations! Fleury,
+Chazelle, fling yourselves into other employments and become the great
+men you really are."
+
+Chazelle [calmed down by Bixiou's allocution]. "No, I thank you"
+[general laughter].
+
+Bixiou. "You are wrong; in your situation I should try to get ahead of
+the general-secretary."
+
+Chazelle [uneasily]. "What has he to do with me?"
+
+Bixiou. "You'll find out; do you suppose Baudoyer will overlook what
+happened just now?"
+
+Fleury. "Another piece of Bixiou's spite! You've a queer fellow to deal
+with in there. Now, Monsieur Rabourdin,--there's a man for you! He put
+work on my table to-day that you couldn't get through within this office
+in three days; well, he expects me to have it done by four o'clock
+to-day. But he is not always at my heels to hinder me from talking to my
+friends."
+
+Baudoyer [appearing at the door]. "Gentlemen, you will admit that if
+you have the legal right to find fault with the chamber and the
+administration you must at least do so elsewhere than in this office."
+[To Fleury.] "What are you doing here, monsieur?"
+
+Fleury [insolently]. "I came to tell these gentlemen that there was to
+be a general turn-out. Du Bruel is sent for to the ministry, and Dutocq
+also. Everybody is asking who will be appointed."
+
+Baudoyer [retiring]. "It is not your affair, sir; go back to your own
+office, and do not disturb mine."
+
+Fleury [in the doorway]. "It would be a shameful injustice if Rabourdin
+lost the place; I swear I'd leave the service. Did you find that
+anagram, papa Colleville?"
+
+Colleville. "Yes, here it is."
+
+Fleury [leaning over Colleville's desk]. "Capital! famous! This is just
+what will happen if the administration continues to play the hypocrite."
+[He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is listening.] "If the
+government would frankly state its intentions without concealments
+of any kind, the liberals would know what they had to deal with. An
+administration which sets its best friends against itself, such men as
+those of the 'Debats,' Chateaubriand, and Royer-Collard, is only to be
+pitied!"
+
+Colleville [after consulting his colleagues]. "Come, Fleury, you're a
+good fellow, but don't talk politics here; you don't know what harm you
+may do us."
+
+Fleury [dryly]. "Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do by four
+o'clock."
+
+While this idle talk had been going on, des Lupeaulx was closeted in
+his office with du Bruel, where, a little later, Dutocq joined them. Des
+Lupeaulx had heard from his valet of La Billardiere's death, and wishing
+to please the two ministers, he wanted an obituary article to appear in
+the evening papers.
+
+"Good morning, my dear du Bruel," said the semi-minister to the
+head-clerk as he entered, and not inviting him to sit down. "You have
+heard the news? La Billardiere is dead. The ministers were both
+present when he received the last sacraments. The worthy man strongly
+recommended Rabourdin, saying he should die with less regret if he could
+know that his successor were the man who had so constantly done his
+work. Death is a torture which makes a man confess everything. The
+minister agreed the more readily because his intention and that of the
+Council was to reward Monsieur Rabourdin's numerous services. In fact,
+the Council of State needs his experience. They say that young La
+Billardiere is to leave the division of his father and go to the
+Commission of Seals; that's just the same as if the King had made him a
+present of a hundred thousand francs,--the place can always be sold. But
+I know the news will delight your division, which will thus get rid of
+him. Du Bruel, we must get ten or a dozen lines about the worthy late
+director into the papers; his Excellency will glance them over,--he
+reads the papers. Do you know the particulars of old La Billardiere's
+life?"
+
+Du Bruel made a sign in the negative.
+
+"No?" continued des Lupeaulx. "Well then; he was mixed up in the affairs
+of La Vendee, and he was one of the confidants of the late King. Like
+Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine he always refused to hold communication
+with the First Consul. He was a bit of a 'chouan'; born in Brittany of a
+parliamentary family, and ennobled by Louis XVIII. How old was he? never
+mind about that; just say his loyalty was untarnished, his religion
+enlightened,--the poor old fellow hated churches and never set foot
+in one, but you had better make him out a 'pious vassal.' Bring in,
+gracefully, that he sang the song of Simeon at the accession of Charles
+X. The Comte d'Artois thought very highly of La Billardiere, for he
+co-operated in the unfortunate affair of Quiberon and took the
+whole responsibility on himself. You know about that, don't you? La
+Billardiere defended the King in a printed pamphlet in reply to an
+impudent history of the Revolution written by a journalist; you can
+allude to his loyalty and devotion. But be very careful what you say;
+weigh your words, so that the other newspapers can't laugh at us; and
+bring me the article when you've written it. Were you at Rabourdin's
+yesterday?"
+
+"Yes, monseigneur," said du Bruel, "Ah! beg pardon."
+
+"No harm done," answered des Lupeaulx, laughing.
+
+"Madame Rabourdin looked delightfully handsome," added du Bruel. "There
+are not two women like her in Paris. Some are as clever as she, but
+there's not one so gracefully witty. Many women may even be handsomer,
+but it would be hard to find one with such variety of beauty. Madame
+Rabourdin is far superior to Madame Colleville," said the vaudevillist,
+remembering des Lupeaulx's former affair. "Flavie owes what she is to
+the men about her, whereas Madame Rabourdin is all things in herself. It
+is wonderful too what she knows; you can't tell secrets in Latin before
+/her/. If I had such a wife, I know I should succeed in everything."
+
+"You have more mind than an author ought to have," returned des
+Lupeaulx, with a conceited air. Then he turned round and perceived
+Dutocq. "Ah, good-morning, Dutocq," he said. "I sent for you to lend me
+your Charlet--if you have the whole complete. Madame la comtesse knows
+nothing of Charlet."
+
+Du Bruel retired.
+
+"Why do you come in without being summoned?" said des Lupeaulx, harshly,
+when he and Dutocq were left alone. "Is the State in danger that you
+must come here at ten o'clock in the morning, just as I am going to
+breakfast with his Excellency?"
+
+"Perhaps it is, monsieur," said Dutocq, dryly. "If I had had the honor
+to see you earlier, you would probably have not been so willing to
+support Monsieur Rabourdin, after reading his opinion of you."
+
+Dutocq opened his coat, took a paper from the left-hand breast-pocket
+and laid it on des Lupeaulx's desk, pointing to a marked passage. Then
+he went to the door and slipped the bolt, fearing interruption. While
+he was thus employed, the secretary-general read the opening sentence of
+the article, which was as follows:
+
+  "Monsieur des Lupeaulx. A government degrades itself by openly
+  employing such a man, whose real vocation is for police diplomacy.
+  He is fitted to deal with the political filibusters of other
+  cabinets, and it would be a pity therefore to employ him on our
+  internal detective police. He is above a common spy, for he is
+  able to understand a plan; he could skilfully carry through a dark
+  piece of work and cover his retreat safely."
+
+Des Lupeaulx was succinctly analyzed in five or six such
+paragraphs,--the essence, in fact, of the biographical portrait which
+we gave at the beginning of this history. As he read the words the
+secretary felt that a man stronger than himself sat in judgment on
+him; and he at once resolved to examine the memorandum, which evidently
+reached far and high, without allowing Dutocq to know his secret
+thoughts. He therefore showed a calm, grave face when the spy returned
+to him. Des Lupeaulx, like lawyers, magistrates, diplomatists, and all
+whose work obliges them to pry into the human heart, was past being
+surprised at anything. Hardened in treachery and in all the tricks and
+wiles of hatred, he could take a stab in the back and not let his face
+tell of it.
+
+"How did you get hold of this paper?"
+
+Dutocq related his good luck; des Lupeaulx's face as he listened
+expressed no approbation; and the spy ended in terror an account which
+began triumphantly.
+
+"Dutocq, you have put your finger between the bark and the tree," said
+the secretary, coldly. "If you don't want to make powerful enemies I
+advise you to keep this paper a profound secret; it is a work of the
+utmost importance and already well known to me."
+
+So saying, des Lupeaulx dismissed Dutocq by one of those glances that
+are more expressive than words.
+
+"Ha! that scoundrel of a Rabourdin has put his finger in this!" thought
+Dutocq, alarmed on finding himself anticipated; "he has reached the ear
+of the administration, while I am left out in the cold. I shouldn't have
+thought it!"
+
+To all his other motives of aversion to Rabourdin he now added the
+jealousy of one man to another man of the same calling,--a most powerful
+ingredient in hatred.
+
+When des Lupeaulx was left alone, he dropped into a strange meditation.
+What power was it of which Rabourdin was the instrument? Should he, des
+Lupeaulx, use this singular document to destroy him, or should he keep
+it as a weapon to succeed with the wife? The mystery that lay behind
+this paper was all darkness to des Lupeaulx, who read with something
+akin to terror page after page, in which the men of his acquaintance
+were judged with unerring wisdom. He admired Rabourdin, though stabbed
+to his vitals by what he said of him. The breakfast-hour suddenly cut
+short his meditation.
+
+"His Excellency is waiting for you to come down," announced the
+minister's footman.
+
+The minister always breakfasted with his wife and children and des
+Lupeaulx, without the presence of servants. The morning meal affords the
+only moment of privacy which public men can snatch from the current of
+overwhelming business. Yet in spite of the precautions they take to keep
+this hour for private intimacies and affections, a good many great and
+little people manage to infringe upon it. Business itself will, as at
+this moment, thrust itself in the way of their scanty comfort.
+
+"I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty manoeuvres,"
+began the minister; "and yet here, not ten minutes after La
+Billardiere's death, he sends me this note by La Briere,--it is like a
+stage missive. Look," said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a paper
+which he was twirling in his fingers.
+
+Too noble in mind to think for a moment of the shameful meaning
+La Billardiere's death might lend to his letter, Rabourdin had not
+withdrawn it from La Briere's hands after the news reached him. Des
+Lupeaulx read as follows:--
+
+  "Monseigneur,--If twenty-three years of irreproachable services
+  may claim a favor, I entreat your Excellency to grant me an
+  audience this very day. My honor is involved in the matter of
+  which I desire to speak."
+
+"Poor man!" said des Lupeaulx, in a tone of compassion which confirmed
+the minister in his error. "We are alone; I advise you to see him now.
+You have a meeting of the Council when the Chamber rises; moreover, your
+Excellency has to reply to-day to the opposition; this is really the
+only hour when you can receive him."
+
+Des Lupeaulx rose, called the servant, said a few words, and returned to
+his seat. "I have told them to bring him in at dessert," he said.
+
+Like all other ministers under the Restoration, this particular minister
+was a man without youth. The charter granted by Louis XVIII. had the
+defect of tying the hands of the kings by compelling them to deliver the
+destinies of the nation into the control of the middle-aged men of the
+Chamber and the septuagenarians of the peerage; it robbed them of the
+right to lay hands on a man of statesmanlike talent wherever they
+could find him, no matter how young he was or how poverty-stricken his
+condition might be. Napoleon alone was able to employ young men as
+he chose, without being restrained by any consideration. After the
+overthrow of that mighty will, vigor deserted power. Now the period
+when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents a contrast that is far
+more dangerous in France than in other countries. As a general thing,
+ministers who were old before they entered office have proved second
+or third rate, while those who were taken young have been an honor
+to European monarchies and to the republics whose affairs they have
+directed. The world still rings with the struggle between Pitt and
+Napoleon, two men who conducted the politics of their respective
+countries at an age when Henri de Navarre, Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert,
+Louvois, the Prince of Orange, the Guises, Machiavelli, in short, all
+the best known of our great men, coming from the ranks or born to
+a throne, began to rule the State. The Convention--that model of
+energy--was made up in a great measure of young heads; no sovereign
+can ever forget that it was able to put fourteen armies into the field
+against Europe. Its policy, fatal in the eyes of those who cling to
+what is called absolute power, was nevertheless dictated by strictly
+monarchical principles, and it behaved itself like any of the great
+kings.
+
+After ten or a dozen years of parliamentary struggle, having studied
+the science of politics until he was worn down by it, this particular
+minister had come to be enthroned by his party, who considered him in
+the light of their business man. Happily for him he was now nearer sixty
+than fifty years of age; had he retained even a vestige of juvenile
+vigor he would quickly have quenched it. But, accustomed to back and
+fill, retreat and return to the charge, he was able to endure being
+struck at, turn and turn about, by his own party, by the opposition,
+by the court, by the clergy, because to all such attacks he opposed the
+inert force of a substance which was equally soft and consistent; thus
+he reaped the benefits of what was really his misfortune. Harassed by a
+thousand questions of government, his mind, like that of an old lawyer
+who has tried every species of case, no longer possessed the spring
+which solitary minds are able to retain, nor that power of prompt
+decision which distinguishes men who are early accustomed to action, and
+young soldiers. How could it be otherwise? He had practised sophistries
+and quibbled instead of judging; he had criticised effects and done
+nothing for causes; his head was full of plans such as a political
+party lays upon the shoulders of a leader,--matters of private interest
+brought to an orator supposed to have a future, a jumble of schemes and
+impractical requests. Far from coming fresh to his work, he was wearied
+out with marching and counter-marching, and when he finally reached
+the much desired height of his present position, he found himself in
+a thicket of thorny bushes with a thousand conflicting wills to
+conciliate. If the statesmen of the Restoration had been allowed to
+follow out their own ideas, their capacity would doubtless have been
+criticised; but though their wills were often forced, their age saved
+them from attempting the resistance which youth opposes to intrigues,
+both high and low,--intrigues which vanquished Richelieu, and to which,
+in a lower sphere, Rabourdin was to succumb.
+
+After the rough and tumble of their first struggles in political life
+these men, less old than aged, have to endure the additional wear and
+tear of a ministry. Thus it is that their eyes begin to weaken just as
+they need to have the clear-sightedness of eagles; their mind is weary
+when its youth and fire need to be redoubled. The minister in whom
+Rabourdin sought to confide was in the habit of listening to men
+of undoubted superiority as they explained ingenious theories of
+government, applicable or inapplicable to the affairs of France. Such
+men, by whom the difficulties of national policy were never apprehended,
+were in the habit of attacking this minister personally whenever a
+parliamentary battle or a contest with the secret follies of the court
+took place,--on the eve of a struggle with the popular mind, or on the
+morrow of a diplomatic discussion which divided the Council into three
+separate parties. Caught in such a predicament, a statesman naturally
+keeps a yawn ready for the first sentence designed to show him how the
+public service could be better managed. At such periods not a dinner
+took place among bold schemers or financial and political lobbyists
+where the opinions of the Bourse and the Bank, the secrets of diplomacy,
+and the policy necessitated by the state of affairs in Europe were not
+canvassed and discussed. The minister has his own private councillors in
+des Lupeaulx and his secretary, who collected and pondered all opinions
+and discussions for the purpose of analyzing and controlling the various
+interests proclaimed and supported by so many clever men. In fact, his
+misfortune was that of most other ministers who have passed the prime
+of life; he trimmed and shuffled under all his difficulties,--with
+journalism, which at this period it was thought advisable to repress
+in an underhand way rather than fight openly; with financial as well as
+labor questions; with the clergy as well as with that other question
+of the public lands; with liberalism as with the Chamber. After
+manoeuvering his way to power in the course of seven years, the minister
+believed that he could manage all questions of administration in the
+same way. It is so natural to think we can maintain a position by the
+same methods which served us to reach it that no one ventured to blame
+a system invented by mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The
+Restoration, like the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes
+the true value of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is
+wanting. The last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the
+Restoration was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries
+employed the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies,
+and let loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the
+unintelligent masses, able only to understand revolt.
+
+Rabourdin told himself all these things. But he had made up his mind
+to win or lose, like a man weary of gambling who allows himself a last
+stake; ill-luck had given him as adversary in the game a sharper like
+des Lupeaulx. With all his sagacity, Rabourdin was better versed in
+matters of administration than in parliamentary optics, and he was far
+indeed from imagining how his confidence would be received; he little
+thought that the great work that filled his mind would seem to the
+minister nothing more than a theory, and that a man who held the
+position of a statesman would confound his reform with the schemes of
+political and self-interested talkers.
+
+As the minister rose from table, thinking of Francois Keller, his wife
+detained him with the offer of a bunch of grapes, and at that moment
+Rabourdin was announced. Des Lupeaulx had counted on the minister's
+preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the moment
+occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to meet
+Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low tone of
+voice:--
+
+"His Excellency and I know what the subject is that occupies your mind;
+you have nothing to fear"; then, raising his voice, he added, "neither
+from Dutocq nor from any one else."
+
+"Don't feel uneasy, Rabourdin," said his Excellency, kindly, but making
+a movement to get away.
+
+Rabourdin came forward respectfully, and the minister could not evade
+him.
+
+"Will your Excellency permit me to see you for a moment in private?" he
+said, with a mysterious glance.
+
+The minister looked at the clock and went towards the window, whither
+the poor man followed him.
+
+"When may I have the honor of submitting the matter of which I spoke to
+your Excellency? I desire to fully explain the plan of administration to
+which the paper that was taken belongs--"
+
+"Plan of administration!" exclaimed the minister, frowning, and
+hurriedly interrupting him. "If you have anything of that kind to
+communicate you must wait for the regular day when we do business
+together. I ought to be at the Council now; and I have an answer to
+make to the Chamber on that point which the opposition raised before the
+session ended yesterday. Your day is Wednesday next; I could not work
+yesterday, for I had other things to attend to; political matters are
+apt to interfere with purely administrative ones."
+
+"I place my honor with all confidence in your Excellency's hands," said
+Rabourdin gravely, "and I entreat you to remember that you have not
+allowed me time to give you an immediate explanation of the stolen
+paper--"
+
+"Don't be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx, interposing between the minister
+and Rabourdin, whom he thus interrupted; "in another week you will
+probably be appointed--"
+
+The minister smiled as he thought of des Lupeaulx's enthusiasm for
+Madame Rabourdin, and he glanced knowingly at his wife. Rabourdin saw
+the look, and tried to imagine its meaning; his attention was diverted
+for a moment, and his Excellency took advantage of the fact to make his
+escape.
+
+"We will talk of all this, you and I," said des Lupeaulx, with whom
+Rabourdin, much to his surprise, now found himself alone. "Don't be
+angry with Dutocq; I'll answer for his discretion."
+
+"Madame Rabourdin is charming," said the minister's wife, wishing to say
+the civil thing to the head of a bureau.
+
+The children all gazed at Rabourdin with curiosity. The poor man had
+come there expecting some serious, even solemn, result, and he was like
+a great fish caught in the threads of a flimsy net; he struggled with
+himself.
+
+"Madame la comtesse is very good," he said.
+
+"Shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Madame here some Wednesday?"
+said the countess. "Pray bring her; it will give me pleasure."
+
+"Madame Rabourdin herself receives on Wednesdays," interrupted des
+Lupeaulx, who knew the empty civility of an invitation to the official
+Wednesdays; "but since you are so kind as to wish for her, you will soon
+give one of your private parties, and--"
+
+The countess rose with some irritation.
+
+"You are the master of my ceremonies," she said to des
+Lupeaulx,--ambiguous words, by which she expressed the annoyance she
+felt with the secretary for presuming to interfere with her private
+parties, to which she admitted only a select few. She left the room
+without bowing to Rabourdin, who remained alone with des Lupeaulx;
+the latter was twisting in his fingers the confidential letter to
+the minister which Rabourdin had intrusted to La Briere. Rabourdin
+recognized it.
+
+"You have never really known me," said des Lupeaulx. "Friday evening
+we will come to a full understanding. Just now I must go and receive
+callers; his Excellency saddles me with that burden when he has other
+matters to attend to. But I repeat, Rabourdin, don't worry yourself; you
+have nothing to fear."
+
+Rabourdin walked slowly through the corridors, amazed and confounded by
+this singular turn of events. He had expected Dutocq to denounce him,
+and found he had not been mistaken; des Lupeaulx had certainly seen the
+document which judged him so severely, and yet des Lupeaulx was fawning
+on his judge! It was all incomprehensible. Men of upright minds are
+often at a loss to understand complicated intrigues, and Rabourdin was
+lost in a maze of conjecture without being able to discover the object
+of the game which the secretary was playing.
+
+"Either he has not read the part about himself, or he loves my wife."
+
+Such were the two thoughts to which his mind arrived as he crossed the
+courtyard; for the glance he had intercepted the night before between
+des Lupeaulx and Celestine came back to his memory like a flash of
+lightning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE WORMS AT WORK
+
+
+Rabourdin's bureau was during his absence a prey to the keenest
+excitement; for the relation between the head officials and the clerks
+in a government office is so regulated that, when a minister's messenger
+summons the head of a bureau to his Excellency's presence (above all at
+the latter's breakfast hour), there is no end to the comments that are
+made. The fact that the present unusual summons followed so closely
+on the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere seemed to give special
+importance to the circumstance, which was made known to Monsieur
+Saillard, who came at once to confer with Baudoyer. Bixiou, who happened
+at the moment to be at work with the latter, left him to converse with
+his father-in-law and betook himself to the bureau Rabourdin, where the
+usual routine was of course interrupted.
+
+Bixiou [entering]. "I thought I should find you at a white heat! Don't
+you know what's going on down below? The virtuous woman is done for!
+yes, done for, crushed! Terrible scene at the ministry!"
+
+Dutocq [looking fixedly at him]. "Are you telling the truth?"
+
+Bixiou. "Pray, who would regret it? Not you, certainly, for you will be
+made under-head-clerk and du Bruel head of the bureau. Monsieur Baudoyer
+gets the division."
+
+Fleury. "I'll bet a hundred francs that Baudoyer will never be head of
+the division."
+
+Vimeux. "I'll join in the bet; will you, Monsieur Poiret?"
+
+Poiret. "I retire in January."
+
+Bixiou. "Is it possible? are we to lose the sight of those shoe-ties?
+What will the ministry be without you? Will nobody take up the bet on my
+side?"
+
+Dutocq. "I can't, for I know the facts. Monsieur Rabourdin is appointed.
+Monsieur de la Billardiere requested it of the two ministers on his
+death-bed, blaming himself for having taken the emoluments of an office
+of which Rabourdin did all the work; he felt remorse of conscience, and
+the ministers, to quiet him, promised to appoint Rabourdin unless higher
+powers intervened."
+
+Bixiou. "Gentlemen, are you all against me? seven to one,--for I know
+which side you'll take, Monsieur Phellion. Well, I'll bet a dinner
+costing five hundred francs at the Rocher de Cancale that Rabourdin does
+not get La Billardiere's place. That will cost you only a hundred francs
+each, and I'm risking five hundred,--five to one against me! Do you take
+it up?" [Shouting into the next room.] "Du Bruel, what say you?"
+
+Phellion [laying down his pen]. "Monsieur, may I ask on what you base
+that contingent proposal?--for contingent it is. But stay, I am wrong
+to call it a proposal; I should say contract. A wager constitutes a
+contract."
+
+Fleury. "No, no; you can only apply the word 'contract' to agreements
+that are recognized in the Code. Now the Code allows of no action for
+the recovery of a bet."
+
+Dutocq. "Proscribe a thing and you recognize it."
+
+Bixiou. "Good! my little man."
+
+Poiret. "Dear me!"
+
+Fleury. "True! when one refuses to pay one's debts, that's recognizing
+them."
+
+Thuillier. "You would make famous lawyers."
+
+Poiret. "I am as curious as Monsieur Phellion to know what grounds
+Monsieur Bixiou has for--"
+
+Bixiou [shouting across the office]. "Du Bruel! Will you bet?"
+
+Du Bruel [appearing at the door]. "Heavens and earth, gentlemen, I'm
+very busy; I have something very difficult to do; I've got to write an
+obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere. I do beg you to be quiet;
+you can laugh and bet afterwards."
+
+Bixiou. "That's true, du Bruel; the praise of an honest man is a very
+difficult thing to write. I'd rather any day draw a caricature of him."
+
+Du Bruel. "Do come and help me, Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou [following him]. "I'm willing; though I can do such things much
+better when eating."
+
+Du Bruel. "Well, we will go and dine together afterwards. But listen,
+this is what I have written" [reads] "'The Church and the Monarchy are
+daily losing many of those who fought for them in Revolutionary times.'"
+
+Bixiou. "Bad, very bad; why don't you say, 'Death carries on its ravages
+amongst the few surviving defenders of the monarchy and the old and
+faithful servants of the King, whose heart bleeds under these reiterated
+blows?'" [Du Bruel writes rapidly.] "'Monsieur le Baron Flamet de la
+Billardiere died this morning of dropsy, caused by heart disease.' You
+see, it is just as well to show there are hearts in government offices;
+and you ought to slip in a little flummery about the emotions of the
+Royalists during the Terror,--might be useful, hey! But stay,--no!
+the petty papers would be sure to say the emotions came more from the
+stomach than the heart. Better leave that out. What are you writing
+now?"
+
+Du Bruel [reading]. "'Issuing from an old parliamentary stock in which
+devotion to the throne was hereditary, as was also attachment to the
+faith of our fathers, Monsieur de la Billardiere--'"
+
+Bixiou. "Better say Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere."
+
+Du Bruel. "But he wasn't baron in 1793."
+
+Bixiou. "No matter. Don't you remember that under the Empire Fouche
+was telling an anecdote about the Convention, in which he had to quote
+Robespierre, and he said, 'Robespierre called out to me, "Duc d'Otrante,
+go to the Hotel de Ville."' There's a precedent for you!"
+
+Du Bruel. "Let me just write that down; I can use it in a
+vaudeville.--But to go back to what we were saying. I don't want to put
+'Monsieur le baron,' because I am reserving his honors till the last,
+when they rained upon him."
+
+Bixiou. "Oh! very good; that's theatrical,--the finale of the article."
+
+Du Bruel [continuing]. "'In appointing Monsieur de la Billardiere
+gentleman-in-ordinary--'"
+
+Bixiou. "Very ordinary!"
+
+Du Bruel. "'--of the Bedchamber, the King rewarded not only the services
+rendered by the Provost, who knew how to harmonize the severity of his
+functions with the customary urbanity of the Bourbons, but the bravery
+of the Vendean hero, who never bent the knee to the imperial idol. He
+leaves a son, who inherits his loyalty and his talents.'"
+
+Bixiou. "Don't you think all that is a little too florid? I should tone
+down the poetry. 'Imperial idol!' 'bent the knee!' damn it, my dear
+fellow, writing vaudevilles has ruined your style; you can't come down
+to pedestrial prose. I should say, 'He belonged to the small number of
+those who.' Simplify, simplify! the man himself was a simpleton."
+
+Du Bruel. "That's vaudeville, if you like! You would make your fortune
+at the theatre, Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou. "What have you said about Quiberon?" [Reads over du Bruel's
+shoulder.] "Oh, that won't do! Here, this is what you must say: 'He took
+upon himself, in a book recently published, the responsibility for all
+the blunders of the expedition to Quiberon,--thus proving the nature of
+his loyalty, which did not shrink from any sacrifice.' That's clever and
+witty, and exalts La Billardiere."
+
+Du Bruel. "At whose expense?"
+
+Bixiou [solemn as a priest in a pulpit]. "Why, Hoche and Tallien, of
+course; don't you read history?"
+
+Du Bruel. "No. I subscribed to the Baudouin series, but I've never had
+time to open a volume; one can't find matter for vaudevilles there."
+
+Phellion [at the door]. "We all want to know, Monsieur Bixiou, what made
+you think that the worthy and honorable Monsieur Rabourdin, who has so
+long done the work of this division for Monsieur de la Billardiere,--he,
+who is the senior head of all the bureaus, and whom, moreover, the
+minister summoned as soon as he heard of the departure of the late
+Monsieur de la Billardiere,--will not be appointed head of the
+division."
+
+Bixiou. "Papa Phellion, you know geography?"
+
+Phellion [bridling up]. "I should say so!"
+
+Bixiou. "And history?"
+
+Phellion [affecting modesty]. "Possibly."
+
+Bixiou [looking fixedly at him]. "Your diamond pin is loose, it is
+coming out. Well, you may know all that, but you don't know the human
+heart; you have gone no further in the geography and history of that
+organ than you have in the environs of the city of Paris."
+
+Poiret [to Vimeux]. "Environs of Paris? I thought they were talking of
+Monsieur Rabourdin."
+
+Bixiou. "About that bet? Does the entire bureau Rabourdin bet against
+me?"
+
+All. "Yes."
+
+Bixiou. "Du Bruel, do you count in?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Of course I do. We want Rabourdin to go up a step and make
+room for others."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, I accept the bet,--for this reason; you can hardly
+understand it, but I'll tell it to you all the same. It would be right
+and just to appoint Monsieur Rabourdin" [looking full at Dutocq],
+"because, in that case, long and faithful service, honor, and talent
+would be recognized, appreciated, and properly rewarded. Such an
+appointment is in the best interests of the administration." [Phellion,
+Poiret, and Thuillier listen stupidly, with the look of those who try
+to peer before them in the darkness.] "Well, it is just because the
+promotion would be so fitting, and because the man has such merit,
+and because the measure is so eminently wise and equitable that I bet
+Rabourdin will not be appointed. Yes, you'll see, that appointment will
+slip up, just like the invasion from Boulogne, and the march to Russia,
+for the success of which a great genius has gathered together all the
+chances. It will fail as all good and just things do fail in this low
+world. I am only backing the devil's game."
+
+Du Bruel. "Who do you think will be appointed?"
+
+Bixiou. "The more I think about Baudoyer, the more sure I feel that he
+unites all the opposite qualities; therefore I think he will be the next
+head of this division."
+
+Dutocq. "But Monsieur des Lupeaulx, who sent for me to borrow my
+Charlet, told me positively that Monsieur Rabourdin was appointed, and
+that the little La Billardiere would be made Clerk of the Seals."
+
+Bixiou. "Appointed, indeed! The appointment can't be made and signed
+under ten days. It will certainly not be known before New-Year's day.
+There he goes now across the courtyard; look at him, and say if the
+virtuous Rabourdin looks like a man in the sunshine of favor. I should
+say he knows he's dismissed." [Fleury rushes to the window.] "Gentlemen,
+adieu; I'll go and tell Monsieur Baudoyer that I hear from you that
+Rabourdin is appointed; it will make him furious, the pious creature!
+Then I'll tell him of our wager, to cool him down,--a process we call at
+the theatre turning the Wheel of Fortune, don't we, du Bruel? Why do I
+care who gets the place? simply because if Baudoyer does he will make me
+under-head-clerk" [goes out].
+
+Poiret. "Everybody says that man is clever, but as for me, I can never
+understand a word he says" [goes on copying]. "I listen and listen; I
+hear words, but I never get at any meaning; he talks about the environs
+of Paris when he discusses the human heart and" [lays down his pen and
+goes to the stove] "declares he backs the devil's game when it is a
+question of Russia and Boulogne; now what is there so clever in that,
+I'd like to know? We must first admit that the devil plays any game at
+all, and then find out what game; possibly dominoes" [blows his nose].
+
+Fleury [interrupting]. "Pere Poiret is blowing his nose; it must be
+eleven o'clock."
+
+Du Bruel. "So it is! Goodness! I'm off to the secretary; he wants to
+read the obituary."
+
+Poiret. "What was I saying?"
+
+Thuillier. "Dominoes,--perhaps the devil plays dominoes." [Sebastien
+enters to gather up the different papers and circulars for signature.]
+
+Vimeux. "Ah! there you are, my fine young man. Your days of hardship are
+nearly over; you'll get a post. Monsieur Rabourdin will be appointed.
+Weren't you at Madame Rabourdin's last night? Lucky fellow! they say
+that really superb women go there."
+
+Sebastien. "Do they? I didn't know."
+
+Fleury. "Are you blind?"
+
+Sebastien. "I don't like to look at what I ought not to see."
+
+Phellion [delighted]. "Well said, young man!"
+
+Vimeux. "The devil! well, you looked at Madame Rabourdin enough, any
+how; a charming woman."
+
+Fleury. "Pooh! thin as a rail. I saw her in the Tuileries, and I much
+prefer Percilliee, the ballet-mistress, Castaing's victim."
+
+Phellion. "What has an actress to do with the wife of a government
+official?"
+
+Dutocq. "They both play comedy."
+
+Fleury [looking askance at Dutocq]. "The physical has nothing to do with
+the moral, and if you mean--"
+
+Dutocq. "I mean nothing."
+
+Fleury. "Do you all want to know which of us will really be made head of
+this bureau?"
+
+All. "Yes, tell us."
+
+Fleury. "Colleville."
+
+Thuillier. "Why?"
+
+Fleury. "Because Madame Colleville has taken the shortest way to
+it--through the sacristy."
+
+Thuillier. "I am too much Colleville's friend not to beg you, Monsieur
+Fleury, to speak respectfully of his wife."
+
+Phellion. "A defenceless woman should never be made the subject of
+conversation here--"
+
+Vimeux. "All the more because the charming Madame Colleville won't
+invite Fleury to her house. He backbites her in revenge."
+
+Fleury. "She may not receive me on the same footing that she does
+Thuillier, but I go there--"
+
+Thuillier. "When? how?--under her windows?"
+
+Though Fleury was dreaded as a bully in all the offices, he received
+Thuillier's speech in silence. This meekness, which surprised the other
+clerks, was owing to a certain note for two hundred francs, of doubtful
+value, which Thuillier agreed to pass over to his sister. After this
+skirmish dead silence prevailed. They all wrote steadily from one to
+three o'clock. Du Bruel did not return.
+
+About half-past three the usual preparations for departure, the brushing
+of hats, the changing of coats, went on in all the ministerial offices.
+That precious thirty minutes thus employed served to shorten by just so
+much the day's labor. At this hour the over-heated rooms cool off;
+the peculiar odor that hangs about the bureaus evaporates; silence
+is restored. By four o'clock none but a few clerks who do their duty
+conscientiously remain. A minister may know who are the real workers
+under him if he will take the trouble to walk through the divisions
+after four o'clock,--a species of prying, however, that no one of his
+dignity would condescend to.
+
+The various heads of divisions and bureaus usually encountered each
+other in the courtyards at this hour and exchanged opinions on the
+events of the day. On this occasion they departed by twos and threes,
+most of them agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old stagers,
+like Monsieur Clergeot, shook their heads and said, "Habent sua sidera
+lites." Saillard and Baudoyer were politely avoided, for nobody knew
+what to say to them about La Billardiere's death, it being fully
+understood that Baudoyer wanted the place, though it was certainly not
+due to him.
+
+When Saillard and his son-in-law had gone a certain distance from the
+ministry the former broke silence and said: "Things look badly for you,
+my poor Baudoyer."
+
+"I can't understand," replied the other, "what Elisabeth was dreaming
+of when she sent Godard in such a hurry to get a passport for Falleix;
+Godard tells me she hired a post-chaise by the advice of my uncle
+Mitral, and that Falleix has already started for his own part of the
+country."
+
+"Some matter connected with our business," suggested Saillard.
+
+"Our most pressing business just now is to look after Monsieur La
+Billardiere's place," returned Baudoyer, crossly.
+
+They were just then near the entrance of the Palais-Royal on the rue
+Saint-Honore. Dutocq came up, bowing, and joined them.
+
+"Monsieur," he said to Baudoyer, "if I can be useful to you in any way
+under the circumstances in which you find yourself, pray command me, for
+I am not less devoted to your interests than Monsieur Godard."
+
+"Such an assurance is at least consoling," replied Baudoyer; "it makes
+me aware that I have the confidence of honest men."
+
+"If you would kindly employ your influence to get me placed in
+your division, taking Bixiou as head of the bureau and me as
+under-head-clerk, you will secure the future of two men who are ready to
+do anything for your advancement."
+
+"Are you making fun of us, monsieur?" asked Saillard, staring at him
+stupidly.
+
+"Far be it from me to do that," said Dutocq. "I have just come from the
+printing-office of the ministerial journal (where I carried from the
+general-secretary an obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere), and
+I there read an article which will appear to-night about you, which has
+given me the highest opinion of your character and talents. If it is
+necessary to crush Rabourdin, I'm in a position to give him the final
+blow; please to remember that."
+
+Dutocq disappeared.
+
+"May I be shot if I understand a single word of it," said Saillard,
+looking at Baudoyer, whose little eyes were expressive of stupid
+bewilderment. "I must buy the newspaper to-night."
+
+When the two reached home and entered the salon on the ground-floor,
+they found a large fire lighted, and Madame Saillard, Elisabeth,
+Monsieur Gaudron and the curate of Saint-Paul's sitting by it. The
+curate turned at once to Monsieur Baudoyer, to whom Elisabeth made a
+sign which he failed to understand.
+
+"Monsieur," said the curate, "I have lost no time in coming in person to
+thank you for the magnificent gift with which you have adorned my poor
+church. I dared not run in debt to buy that beautiful monstrance,
+worthy of a cathedral. You, who are one of our most pious and faithful
+parishioners, must have keenly felt the bareness of the high altar. I am
+on my way to see Monseigneur the coadjutor, and he will, I am sure, send
+you his own thanks later."
+
+"I have done nothing as yet--" began Baudoyer.
+
+"Monsieur le cure," interposed his wife, cutting him short. "I see I am
+forced to betray the whole secret. Monsieur Baudoyer hopes to complete
+the gift by sending you a dais for the coming Fete-Dieu. But the
+purchase must depend on the state of our finances, and our finances
+depend on my husband's promotion."
+
+"God will reward those who honor him," said Monsieur Gaudron, preparing,
+with the curate, to take leave.
+
+"But will you not," said Saillard to the two ecclesiastics, "do us the
+honor to take pot luck with us?"
+
+"You can stay, my dear vicar," said the curate to Gaudron; "you know I
+am engaged to dine with the curate of Saint-Roch, who, by the bye, is to
+bury Monsieur de la Billardiere to-morrow."
+
+"Monsieur le cure de Saint-Roch might say a word for us," began
+Baudoyer. His wife pulled the skirt of his coat violently.
+
+"Do hold your tongue, Baudoyer," she said, leading him aside and
+whispering in his ear. "You have given a monstrance to the church, that
+cost five thousand francs. I'll explain it all later."
+
+The miserly Baudoyer make a sulky grimace, and continued gloomy and
+cross for the rest of the day.
+
+"What did you busy yourself about Falleix's passport for? Why do you
+meddle in other people's affairs?" he presently asked her.
+
+"I must say, I think Falleix's affairs are as much ours as his,"
+returned Elisabeth, dryly, glancing at her husband to make him notice
+Monsieur Gaudron, before whom he ought to be silent.
+
+"Certainly, certainly," said old Saillard, thinking of his
+co-partnership.
+
+"I hope you reached the newspaper office in time?" remarked Elisabeth to
+Monsieur Gaudron, as she helped him to soup.
+
+"Yes, my dear lady," answered the vicar; "when the editor read the
+little article I gave him, written by the secretary of the Grand
+Almoner, he made no difficulty. He took pains to insert it in a
+conspicuous place. I should never have thought of that; but this young
+journalist has a wide-awake mind. The defenders of religion can enter
+the lists against impiety without disadvantage at the present moment,
+for there is a great deal of talent in the royalist press. I have every
+reason to believe that success will crown your hopes. But you must
+remember, my dear Baudoyer, to promote Monsieur Colleville; he is an
+object of great interest to his Eminence; in fact, I am desired to
+mention him to you."
+
+"If I am head of the division, I will make him head of one of my
+bureaus, if you want me to," said Baudoyer.
+
+The matter thus referred to was explained after dinner, when the
+ministerial organ (bought and sent up by the porter) proved to contain
+among its Paris news the following articles, called items:--
+
+  "Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere died this morning, after a
+  long and painful illness. The king loses a devoted servant, the
+  Church a most pious son. Monsieur de la Billardiere's end has
+  fitly crowned a noble life, consecrated in dark and troublesome
+  times to perilous missions, and of late years to arduous civic
+  duties. Monsieur de la Billardiere was provost of a department,
+  where his force of character triumphed over all the obstacles that
+  rebellion arrayed against him. He subsequently accepted the
+  difficult post of director of a division (in which his great
+  acquirements were not less useful than the truly French affability
+  of his manners) for the express purpose of conciliating the
+  serious interests that arise under its administration. No rewards
+  have ever been more truly deserved than those by which the King,
+  Louis XVIII., and his present Majesty took pleasure in crowning a
+  loyalty which never faltered under the usurper. This old family
+  still survives in the person of a single heir to the excellent man
+  whose death now afflicts so many warm friends. His Majesty has
+  already graciously made known that Monsieur Benjamin de la
+  Billardiere will be included among the gentlemen-in-ordinary of
+  the Bedchamber.
+
+  "The numerous friends who have not already received their
+  notification of this sad event are hereby informed that the
+  funeral will take place to-morrow at four o'clock, in the church
+  of Saint-Roch. The memorial address will be delivered by Monsieur
+  l'Abbe Fontanon."----
+
+  "Monsieur Isidore-Charles-Thomas Baudoyer, representing one of the
+  oldest bourgeois families of Paris, and head of a bureau in the
+  late Monsieur de la Billardiere's division, has lately recalled
+  the old traditions of piety and devotion which formerly
+  distinguished these great families, so jealous for the honor and
+  glory of religion, and so faithful in preserving its monuments.
+  The church of Saint-Paul has long needed a monstrance in keeping
+  with the magnificence of that basilica, itself due to the Company
+  of Jesus. Neither the vestry nor the curate were rich enough to
+  decorate the altar. Monsieur Baudoyer has bestowed upon the parish
+  a monstrance that many persons have seen and admired at Monsieur
+  Gohier's, the king's jeweller. Thanks to the piety of this
+  gentleman, who did not shrink from the immensity of the price, the
+  church of Saint-Paul possesses to-day a masterpiece of the
+  jeweller's art designed by Monsieur de Sommervieux. It gives us
+  pleasure to make known this fact, which proves how powerless the
+  declamations of liberals have been on the mind of the Parisian
+  bourgeoisie. The upper ranks of that body have at all times been
+  royalist and they prove it when occasion offers."
+
+"The price was five thousand francs," said the Abbe Gaudron; "but as the
+payment was in cash, the court jeweller reduced the amount."
+
+"Representing one of the oldest bourgeois families in Paris!" Saillard
+was saying to himself; "there it is printed,--in the official paper,
+too!"
+
+"Dear Monsieur Gaudron," said Madame Baudoyer, "please help my father to
+compose a little speech that he could slip into the countess's ear when
+he takes her the monthly stipend,--a single sentence that would cover
+all! I must leave you. I am obliged to go out with my uncle Mitral.
+Would you believe it? I was unable to find my uncle Bidault at home this
+afternoon. Oh, what a dog-kennel he lives in! But Monsieur Mitral, who
+knows his ways, says he does all his business between eight o'clock in
+the morning and midday, and that after that hour he can be found only at
+a certain cafe called the Cafe Themis,--a singular name."
+
+"Is justice done there?" said the abbe, laughing.
+
+"Do you ask why he goes to a cafe at the corner of the rue Dauphine and
+the quai des Augustins? They say he plays dominoes there every night
+with his friend Monsieur Gobseck. I don't wish to go to such a place
+alone; my uncle Mitral will take me there and bring me back."
+
+At this instant Mitral showed his yellow face, surmounted by a wig which
+looked as though it might be made of hay, and made a sign to his niece
+to come at once, and not keep a carriage waiting at two francs an hour.
+Madame Baudoyer rose and went away without giving any explanation to her
+husband or father.
+
+"Heaven has given you in that woman," said Monsieur Gaudron to Baudoyer
+when Elisabeth had disappeared, "a perfect treasure of prudence
+and virtue, a model of wisdom, a Christian who gives sure signs of
+possessing the Divine spirit. Religion alone is able to form such
+perfect characters. To-morrow I shall say a mass for the success of your
+good cause. It is all-important, for the sake of the monarchy and of
+religion itself that you should receive this appointment. Monsieur
+Rabourdin is a liberal; he subscribes to the 'Journal des Debats,' a
+dangerous newspaper, which made war on Monsieur le Comte de Villele to
+please the wounded vanity of Monsieur de Chateaubriand. His Eminence
+will read the newspaper to-night, if only to see what is said of his
+poor friend Monsieur de la Billardiere; and Monseigneur the coadjutor
+will speak of you to the King. When I think of what you have now done
+for his dear church, I feel sure he will not forget you in his prayers;
+more than that, he is dining at this moment with the coadjutor at the
+house of the curate of Saint-Roch."
+
+These words made Saillard and Baudoyer begin to perceive that Elisabeth
+had not been idle ever since Godard had informed her of Monsieur de la
+Billardiere's decease.
+
+"Isn't she clever, that Elisabeth of mine?" cried Saillard,
+comprehending more clearly than Monsieur l'abbe the rapid undermining,
+like the path of a mole, which his daughter had undertaken.
+
+"She sent Godard to Rabourdin's door to find out what newspaper he
+takes," said Gaudron; "and I mentioned the name to the secretary of his
+Eminence,--for we live at a crisis when the Church and Throne must keep
+themselves informed as to who are their friends and who their enemies."
+
+"For the last five days I have been trying to find the right thing to
+say to his Excellency's wife," said Saillard.
+
+"All Paris will read that," cried Baudoyer, whose eyes were still
+riveted on the paper.
+
+"Your eulogy costs us four thousand eight hundred francs, son-in-law!"
+exclaimed Madame Saillard.
+
+"You have adorned the house of God," said the Abbe Gaudron.
+
+"We might have got salvation without doing that," she returned. "But
+if Baudoyer gets the place, which is worth eight thousand more, the
+sacrifice is not so great. If he doesn't get it! hey, papa," she added,
+looking at her husband, "how we shall have bled!--"
+
+"Well, never mind," said Saillard, enthusiastically, "we can always make
+it up through Falleix, who is going to extend his business and use his
+brother, whom he has made a stockbroker on purpose. Elisabeth might have
+told us, I think, why Falleix went off in such a hurry. But let's invent
+my little speech. This is what I thought of: 'Madame, if you would say a
+word to his Excellency--'"
+
+"'If you would deign,'" said Gaudron; "add the word 'deign,' it is
+more respectful. But you ought to know, first of all, whether Madame la
+Dauphine will grant you her protection, and then you could suggest to
+Madame la comtesse the idea of co-operating with the wishes of her Royal
+Highness."
+
+"You ought to designate the vacant post," said Baudoyer.
+
+"'Madame la comtesse,'" began Saillard, rising, and bowing to his wife,
+with an agreeable smile.
+
+"Goodness! Saillard; how ridiculous you look. Take care, my man, you'll
+make the woman laugh."
+
+"'Madame la comtesse,'" resumed Saillard. "Is that better, wife?"
+
+"Yes, my duck."
+
+"'The place of the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer--'"
+
+"'Man of talent and extreme piety,'" prompted Gaudron.
+
+"Write it down, Baudoyer," cried old Saillard, "write that sentence
+down."
+
+Baudoyer proceeded to take a pen and wrote, without a blush, his own
+praises, precisely as Nathan or Canalis might have reviewed one of their
+own books.
+
+"'Madame la comtesse'--Don't you see, mother?" said Saillard to his
+wife; "I am supposing you to be the minister's wife."
+
+"Do you take me for a fool?" she answered sharply. "I know that."
+
+"'The place of the late worthy de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer, a man of consummate talent and extreme
+piety--'" After looking at Monsieur Gaudron, who was reflecting, he
+added, "'will be very glad if he gets it.' That's not bad; it's brief
+and it says the whole thing."
+
+"But do wait, Saillard; don't you see that Monsieur l'abbe is turning it
+over in his mind?" said Madame Saillard; "don't disturb him."
+
+"'Will be very thankful if you would deign to interest yourself in his
+behalf,'" resumed Gaudron. "'And in saying a word to his Excellency you
+will particularly please Madame la Dauphine, by whom he has the honor
+and the happiness to be protected.'"
+
+"Ah! Monsieur Gaudron, that sentence is worth more than the monstrance;
+I don't regret the four thousand eight hundred--Besides, Baudoyer, my
+lad, you'll pay them, won't you? Have you written it all down?"
+
+"I shall make you repeat it, father, morning and evening," said Madame
+Saillard. "Yes, that's a good speech. How lucky you are, Monsieur
+Gaudron, to know so much. That's what it is to be brought up in a
+seminary; they learn there how to speak to God and his saints."
+
+"He is as good as he is learned," said Baudoyer, pressing the priest's
+hand. "Did you write that article?" he added, pointing to the newspaper.
+
+"No, it was written by the secretary of his Eminence, a young abbe
+who is under obligations to me, and who takes an interest in Monsieur
+Colleville; he was educated at my expense."
+
+"A good deed is always rewarded," said Baudoyer.
+
+While these four personages were sitting down to their game of boston,
+Elisabeth and her uncle Mitral reached the cafe Themis, with much
+discourse as they drove along about a matter which Elisabeth's keen
+perceptions told her was the most powerful lever that could be used to
+force the minister's hand in the affair of her husband's appointment.
+Uncle Mitral, a former sheriff's officer, crafty, clever at sharp
+practice, and full of expedients and judicial precautions, believed the
+honor of his family to be involved in the appointment of his nephew.
+His avarice had long led him to estimate the contents of old Gigonnet's
+strong-box, for he knew very well they would go in the end to benefit
+his nephew Baudoyer; and it was therefore important that the latter
+should obtain a position which would be in keeping with the combined
+fortunes of the Saillards and the old Gigonnet, which would finally
+devolve on the Baudoyer's little daughter; and what an heiress she would
+be with an income of a hundred thousand francs! to what social position
+might she not aspire with that fortune? He adopted all the ideas of his
+niece Elisabeth and thoroughly understood them. He had helped in sending
+off Falleix expeditiously, explaining to him the advantage of taking
+post horses. After which, while eating his dinner, he reflected that
+it be as well to give a twist of his own to the clever plan invented by
+Elisabeth.
+
+When they reached the Cafe Themis he told his niece that he alone could
+manage Gigonnet in the matter they both had in view, and he made her
+wait in the hackney-coach and bide her time to come forward at the right
+moment. Elisabeth saw through the window-panes the two faces of Gobseck
+and Gigonnet (her uncle Bidault), which stood out in relief against
+the yellow wood-work of the old cafe, like two cameo heads, cold and
+impassible, in the rigid attitude that their gravity gave them. The two
+Parisian misers were surrounded by a number of other old faces, on which
+"thirty per cent discount" was written in circular wrinkles that started
+from the nose and turned round the glacial cheek-bones. These remarkable
+physiognomies brightened up on seeing Mitral, and their eyes gleamed
+with tigerish curiosity.
+
+"Hey, hey! it is papa Mitral!" cried one of them, named Chaboisseau, a
+little old man who discounted for a publisher.
+
+"Bless me, so it is!" said another, a broker named Metivier, "ha, that's
+an old monkey well up in his tricks."
+
+"And you," retorted Mitral, "you are an old crow who knows all about
+carcasses."
+
+"True," said the stern Gobseck.
+
+"What are you here for? Have you come to seize friend Metivier?" asked
+Gigonnet, pointing to the broker, who had the bluff face of a porter.
+
+"Your great-niece Elisabeth is out there, papa Gigonnet," whispered
+Mitral.
+
+"What! some misfortune?" said Bidault. The old man drew his eyebrows
+together and assumed a tender look like that of an executioner when
+about to go to work officially. In spite of his Roman virtue he must
+have been touched, for his red nose lost somewhat of its color.
+
+"Well, suppose it is misfortune, won't you help Saillard's daughter?--a
+girl who has knitted your stockings for the last thirty years!" cried
+Mitral.
+
+"If there's good security I don't say I won't," replied Gigonnet.
+"Falleix is in with them. Falleix has just set up his brother as a
+broker, and he is doing as much business as the Brezacs; and what with?
+his mind, perhaps! Saillard is no simpleton."
+
+"He knows the value of money," put in Chaboisseau.
+
+That remark, uttered among those old men, would have made an artist and
+thinker shudder as they all nodded their heads.
+
+"But it is none of my business," resumed Bidault-Gigonnet. "I'm not
+bound to care for my neighbors' misfortunes. My principle is never to be
+off my guard with friends or relatives; you can't perish except through
+weakness. Apply to Gobseck; he is softer."
+
+The usurers all applauded these doctrines with a shake of their metallic
+heads. An onlooker would have fancied he heard the creaking of ill-oiled
+machinery.
+
+"Come, Gigonnet, show a little feeling," said Chaboisseau, "they've knit
+your stockings for thirty years."
+
+"That counts for something," remarked Gobseck.
+
+"Are you all alone? Is it safe to speak?" said Mitral, looking carefully
+about him. "I come about a good piece of business."
+
+"If it is good, why do you come to us?" said Gigonnet, sharply,
+interrupting Mitral.
+
+"A fellow who was a gentleman of the Bedchamber," went on Mitral, "a
+former 'chouan,'--what's his name?--La Billardiere is dead."
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"And our nephew is giving monstrances to the church," snarled Gigonnet.
+
+"He is not such a fool as to give them, he sells them, old man," said
+Mitral, proudly. "He wants La Billardiere's place, and in order to get
+it, we must seize--"
+
+"Seize! You'll never be anything but a sheriff's officer," put in
+Metivier, striking Mitral amicably on the shoulder; "I like that, I do!"
+
+"Seize Monsieur Clement des Lupeaulx in our clutches," continued Mitral;
+"Elisabeth has discovered how to do it, and he is--"
+
+"Elisabeth"; cried Gigonnet, interrupting again; "dear little creature!
+she takes after her grandfather, my poor brother! he never had his
+equal! Ah, you should have seen him buying up old furniture; what tact!
+what shrewdness! What does Elisabeth want?"
+
+"Hey! hey!" cried Mitral, "you've got back your bowels of compassion,
+papa Gigonnet! That phenomenon has a cause."
+
+"Always a child," said Gobseck to Gigonnet, "you are too quick on the
+trigger."
+
+"Come, Gobseck and Gigonnet, listen to me; you want to keep well with
+des Lupeaulx, don't you? You've not forgotten how you plucked him in
+that affair about the king's debts, and you are afraid he'll ask you to
+return some of his feathers," said Mitral.
+
+"Shall we tell him the whole thing?" asked Gobseck, whispering to
+Gigonnet.
+
+"Mitral is one of us; he wouldn't play a shabby trick on his former
+customers," replied Gigonnet. "You see, Mitral," he went on, speaking to
+the ex-sheriff in a low voice, "we three have just bought up all those
+debts, the payment of which depends on the decision of the liquidation
+committee."
+
+"How much will you lose?" asked Mitral.
+
+"Nothing," said Gobseck.
+
+"Nobody knows we are in it," added Gigonnet; "Samanon screens us."
+
+"Come, listen to me, Gigonnet; it is cold, and your niece is waiting
+outside. You'll understand what I want in two words. You must at
+once, between you, send two hundred and fifty thousand francs (without
+interest) into the country after Falleix, who has gone post-haste, with
+a courier in advance of him."
+
+"Is it possible!" said Gobseck.
+
+"What for?" cried Gigonnet, "and where to?"
+
+"To des Lupeaulx's magnificent country-seat," replied Mitral. "Falleix
+knows the country, for he was born there; and he is going to buy up
+land all round the secretary's miserable hovel, with the two hundred
+and fifty thousand francs I speak of,--good land, well worth the price.
+There are only nine days before us for drawing up and recording the
+notarial deeds (bear that in mind). With the addition of this land, des
+Lupeaulx's present miserable property would pay taxes to the amount of
+one thousand francs, the sum necessary to make a man eligible to the
+Chamber. Ergo, with it des Lupeaulx goes into the electoral college,
+becomes eligible, count, and whatever he pleases. You know the deputy
+who has slipped out and left a vacancy, don't you?"
+
+The two misers nodded.
+
+"Des Lupeaulx would cut off a leg to get elected in his place,"
+continued Mitral; "but he must have the title-deeds of the property in
+his own name, and then mortgage them back to us for the amount of the
+purchase-money. Ah! now you begin to see what I am after! First of all,
+we must make sure of Baudoyer's appointment, and des Lupeaulx will get
+it for us on these terms; after that is settled we will hand him back
+to you. Falleix is now canvassing the electoral vote. Don't you
+perceive that you have Lupeaulx completely in your power until after the
+election?--for Falleix's friends are a large majority. Now do you see
+what I mean, papa Gigonnet?"
+
+"It's a clever game," said Metivier.
+
+"We'll do it," said Gigonnet; "you agree, don't you, Gobseck? Falleix
+can give us security and put mortgages on the property in my name; we'll
+go and see des Lupeaulx when all is ready."
+
+"We're robbed," said Gobseck.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Mitral, "I'd like to know the robber!"
+
+"Nobody can rob us but ourselves," answered Gigonnet. "I told you we
+were doing a good thing in buying up all des Lupeaulx's paper from his
+creditors at sixty per cent discount."
+
+"Take this mortgage on his estate and you'll hold him tighter still
+through the interest," answered Mitral.
+
+"Possibly," said Gobseck.
+
+After exchanging a shrewd look with Gobseck, Gigonnet went to the door
+of the cafe.
+
+"Elisabeth! follow it up, my dear," he said to his niece. "We hold your
+man securely; but don't neglect accessories. You have begun well, clever
+woman! go on as you began and you'll have your uncle's esteem," and he
+grasped her hand, gayly.
+
+"But," said Mitral, "Metivier and Chaboisseau heard it all, and they
+may play us a trick and tell the matter to some opposition journal
+which would catch the ball on its way and counteract the effect of the
+ministerial article. You must go alone, my dear; I dare not let those
+two cormorants out of my sight." So saying he re-entered the cafe.
+
+The next day the numerous subscribers to a certain liberal journal read,
+among the Paris items, the following article, inserted authoritatively
+by Chaboisseau and Metivier, share-holders in the said journal, brokers
+for publishers, printers, and paper-makers, whose behests no editor
+dared refuse:--
+
+  "Yesterday a ministerial journal plainly indicated as the probable
+  successor of Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere, Monsieur
+  Baudoyer, one of the worthiest citizens of a populous quarter,
+  where his benevolence is scarcely less known than the piety on
+  which the ministerial organ laid so much stress. Why was that
+  sheet silent as to his talents? Did it reflect that in boasting of
+  the bourgeoise nobility of Monsieur Baudoyer--which, certainly, is
+  a nobility as good as any other--it was pointing out a reason for
+  the exclusion of the candidate? A gratuitous piece of perfidy! an
+  attempt to kill with a caress! To appoint Monsieur Baudoyer is to
+  do honor to the virtues, the talents of the middle classes, of
+  whom we shall ever be the supporters, though their cause seems at
+  times a lost one. This appointment, we repeat, will be an act of
+  justice and good policy; consequently we may be sure it will not
+  be made."
+
+On the morrow, Friday, the usual day for the dinner given by Madame
+Rabourdin, whom des Lupeaulx had left at midnight, radiant in beauty, on
+the staircase of the Bouffons, arm in arm with Madame de Camps (Madame
+Firmiani had lately married), the old roue awoke with his thoughts
+of vengeance calmed, or rather refreshed, and his mind full of a last
+glance exchanged with Celestine.
+
+"I'll make sure of Rabourdin's support by forgiving him now,--I'll get
+even with him later. If he hasn't this place for the time being I should
+have to give up a woman who is capable of becoming a most precious
+instrument in the pursuit of high political fortune. She understands
+everything; shrinks from nothing, from no idea whatever!--and besides,
+I can't know before his Excellency what new scheme of administration
+Rabourdin has invented. No, my dear des Lupeaulx, the thing in hand is
+to win all now for your Celestine. You may make as many faces as you
+please, Madame la comtesse, but you will invite Madame Rabourdin to your
+next select party."
+
+Des Lupeaulx was one of those men who to satisfy a passion are quite
+able to put away revenge in some dark corner of their minds. His course
+was taken; he was resolved to get Rabourdin appointed.
+
+"I will prove to you, my dear fellow, that I deserve a good place in
+your galley," thought he as he seated himself in his study and began to
+unfold a newspaper.
+
+He knew so well what the ministerial organ would contain that he rarely
+took the trouble to read it, but on this occasion he did open it to
+look at the article on La Billardiere, recollecting with amusement the
+dilemma in which du Bruel had put him by bringing him the night before
+Bixiou's amendments to the obituary. He was laughing to himself as he
+reread the biography of the late Comte da Fontaine, dead a few months
+earlier, which he had hastily substituted for that of La Billardiere,
+when his eyes were dazzled by the name of Baudoyer. He read with fury
+the article which pledged the minister, and then he rang violently for
+Dutocq, to send him at once to the editor. But what was his astonishment
+on reading the reply of the opposition paper! The situation was
+evidently serious. He knew the game, and he saw that the man who was
+shuffling his cards for him was a Greek of the first order. To dictate
+in this way through two opposing newspapers in one evening, and to begin
+the fight by forestalling the intentions of the minister was a daring
+game! He recognized the pen of a liberal editor, and resolved to
+question him that night at the opera. Dutocq appeared.
+
+"Read that," said des Lupeaulx, handing him over the two journals, and
+continuing to run his eye over others to see if Baudoyer had pulled
+any further wires. "Go to the office and ask who has dared to thus
+compromise the minister."
+
+"It was not Monsieur Baudoyer himself," answered Dutocq, "for he never
+left the ministry yesterday. I need not go and inquire; for when I took
+your article to the newspaper office I met a young abbe who brought in a
+letter from the Grand Almoner, before which you yourself would have had
+to bow."
+
+"Dutocq, you have a grudge against Monsieur Rabourdin, and it isn't
+right; for he has twice saved you from being turned out. However, we
+are not masters of our own feelings; we sometimes hate our benefactors.
+Only, remember this; if you show the slightest treachery to Rabourdin,
+without my permission, it will be your ruin. As to that newspaper,
+let the Grand Almoner subscribe as largely as we do, if he wants
+its services. Here we are at the end of the year; the matter of
+subscriptions will come up for discussion, and I shall have something to
+say on that head. As to La Billardiere's place, there is only one way to
+settle the matter; and that is to appoint Rabourdin this very day."
+
+"Gentlemen," said Dutocq, returning to the clerks' office and addressing
+his colleagues. "I don't know if Bixiou has the art of looking into
+futurity, but if you have not read the ministerial journal I advise you
+to study the article about Baudoyer; then, as Monsieur Fleury takes the
+opposition sheet, you can see the reply. Monsieur Rabourdin certainly
+has talent, but a man who in these days gives a six-thousand-franc
+monstrance to the Church has a devilish deal more talent than he."
+
+Bixiou [entering]. "What say you, gentlemen, to the First Epistle to the
+Corinthians in our pious ministerial journal, and the reply Epistle to
+the Ministers in the opposition sheet? How does Monsieur Rabourdin feel
+now, du Bruel?"
+
+Du Bruel [rushing in]. "I don't know." [He drags Bixiou back into his
+cabinet, and says in a low voice] "My good fellow, your way of helping
+people is like that of the hangman who jumps upon a victim's shoulders
+to break his neck. You got me into a scrape with des Lupeaulx, which my
+folly in ever trusting you richly deserved. A fine thing indeed, that
+article on La Billardiere. I sha'n't forget the trick! Why, the very
+first sentence was as good as telling the King he was superannuated and
+it was time for him to die. And as to that Quiberon bit, it said plainly
+that the King was a--What a fool I was!"
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "Bless my heart! are you getting angry? Can't a
+fellow joke any more?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Joke! joke indeed. When you want to be made head-clerk
+somebody shall joke with you, my dear fellow."
+
+Bixiou [in a bullying tone]. "Angry, are we?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Yes!"
+
+Bixiou [dryly]. "So much the worse for you."
+
+Du Bruel [uneasy]. "You wouldn't pardon such a thing yourself, I know."
+
+Bixiou [in a wheedling tone]. "To a friend? indeed I would." [They hear
+Fleury's voice.] "There's Fleury cursing Baudoyer. Hey, how well
+the thing has been managed! Baudoyer will get the appointment."
+[Confidentially] "After all, so much the better. Du Bruel, just keep
+your eye on the consequences. Rabourdin would be a mean-spirited
+creature to stay under Baudoyer; he will send in his registration, and
+that will give us two places. You can be head of the bureau and take me
+for under-head-clerk. We will make vaudevilles together, and I'll fag at
+your work in the office."
+
+Du Bruel [smiling]. "Dear me, I never thought of that. Poor Rabourdin! I
+shall be sorry for him, though."
+
+Bixiou. "That shows how much you love him!" [Changing his tone] "Ah,
+well, I don't pity him any longer. He's rich; his wife gives parties and
+doesn't ask me,--me, who go everywhere! Well, good-bye, my dear fellow,
+good-bye, and don't owe me a grudge!" [He goes out through the clerks'
+office.] "Adieu, gentlemen; didn't I tell you yesterday that a man who
+has nothing but virtues and talents will always be poor, even though he
+has a pretty wife?"
+
+Henry. "You are so rich, you!"
+
+Bixiou. "Not bad, my Cincinnatus! But you'll give me that dinner at the
+Rocher de Cancale."
+
+Poiret. "It is absolutely impossible for me to understand Monsieur
+Bixiou."
+
+Phellion [with an elegaic air]. "Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom reads the
+newspapers that it might perhaps be serviceable to deprive ourselves
+momentarily by taking them in to him." [Fleury hands over his paper,
+Vimeux the office sheet, and Phellion departs with them.]
+
+At that moment des Lupeaulx, coming leisurely downstairs to breakfast
+with the minister, was asking himself whether, before playing a trump
+card for the husband, it might not be prudent to probe the wife's heart
+and make sure of a reward for his devotion. He was feeling about for
+the small amount of heart that he possessed, when, at a turn of the
+staircase, he encountered his lawyer, who said to him, smiling, "Just a
+word, Monseigneur," in the tone of familiarity assumed by men who know
+they are indispensable.
+
+"What is it, my dear Desroches?" exclaimed the politician. "Has anything
+happened?"
+
+"I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been brought
+up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain Samanon."
+
+"Men whom I helped to make their millions!"
+
+"Listen," whispered the lawyer. "Gigonnet (really named Bidault) is
+the uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is father-in-law to a
+certain Baudoyer, who thinks he has a right to the vacant place in your
+ministry. Don't you think I have done right to come and tell you?"
+
+"Thank you," said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a shrewd
+look.
+
+"One stroke of your pen will buy them off," said Desroches, leaving him.
+
+"What an immense sacrifice!" muttered des Lupeaulx. "It would be
+impossible to explain it to a woman," thought he. "Is Celestine worth
+more than the clearing off of my debts?--that is the question. I'll go
+and see her this morning."
+
+So the beautiful Madame Rabourdin was to be, within an hour, the arbiter
+of her husband's fate, and no power on earth could warn her of the
+importance of her replies, or give her the least hint to guard her
+conduct and compose her voice. Moreover, in addition to her mischances,
+she believed herself certain of success, never dreaming that Rabourdin
+was undermined in all directions by the secret sapping of the mollusks.
+
+"Well, Monseigneur," said des Lupeaulx, entering the little salon where
+they breakfasted, "have you seen the articles on Baudoyer?"
+
+"For God's sake, my dear friend," replied the minister, "don't talk of
+those appointments just now; let me have an hour's peace! They cracked
+my ears last night with that monstrance. The only way to save Rabourdin
+is to bring his appointment before the Council, unless I submit to
+having my hand forced. It is enough to disgust a man with the public
+service. I must purchase the right to keep that excellent Rabourdin by
+promoting a certain Colleville!"
+
+"Why not make over the management of this pretty little comedy to me,
+and rid yourself of the worry of it? I'll amuse you every morning with
+an account of the game of chess I should play with the Grand Almoner,"
+said des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Very good," said the minister, "settle it with the head examiner. But
+you know perfectly well that nothing is more likely to strike the king's
+mind than just those reasons the opposition journal has chosen to put
+forth. Good heavens! fancy managing a ministry with such men as Baudoyer
+under me!"
+
+"An imbecile bigot," said des Lupeaulx, "and as utterly incapable as--"
+
+"--as La Billardiere," added the minister.
+
+"But La Billardiere had the manners of a gentleman-in-ordinary," replied
+des Lupeaulx. "Madame," he continued, addressing the countess, "it
+is now an absolute necessity to invite Madame Rabourdin to your next
+private party. I must assure you she is the intimate friend of Madame
+de Camps; they were at the Opera together last night. I first met her at
+the hotel Firmiani. Besides, you will see that she is not of a kind to
+compromise a salon."
+
+"Invite Madame Rabourdin, my dear," said the minister, "and pray let us
+talk of something else."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. SCENES FROM DOMESTIC LIFE
+
+
+Parisian households are literally eaten up with the desire to be in
+keeping with the luxury that surrounds them on all sides, and few there
+are who have the wisdom to let their external situation conform to
+their internal revenue. But this vice may perhaps denote a truly French
+patriotism, which seeks to maintain the supremacy of the nation in the
+matter of dress. France reigns through clothes over the whole of Europe;
+and every one must feel the importance of retaining a commercial sceptre
+that makes fashion in France what the navy is to England. This patriotic
+ardor which leads a nation to sacrifice everything to appearances--to
+the "paroistre," as d'Aubigne said in the days of Henri IV.--is the
+cause of those vast secret labors which employ the whole of a Parisian
+woman's morning, when she wishes, as Madame Rabourdin wished, to keep
+up on twelve thousand francs a year the style that many a family with
+thirty thousand does not indulge in. Consequently, every Friday,--the
+day of her dinner parties,--Madame Rabourdin helped the chambermaid to
+do the rooms; for the cook went early to market, and the man-servant was
+cleaning the silver, folding the napkins, and polishing the glasses.
+The ill-advised individual who might happen, through an oversight of the
+porter, to enter Madame Rabourdin's establishment about eleven o'clock
+in the morning would have found her in the midst of a disorder
+the reverse of picturesque, wrapped in a dressing-gown, her hair
+ill-dressed, and her feet in old slippers, attending to the lamps,
+arranging the flowers, or cooking in haste an extremely unpoetic
+breakfast. The visitor to whom the mysteries of Parisian life were
+unknown would certainly have learned for the rest of his life not to
+set foot in these greenrooms at the wrong moment; a woman caught in her
+matin mysteries would ever after point him out as a man capable of the
+blackest crimes; or she would talk of his stupidity and indiscretion
+in a manner to ruin him. The true Parisian woman, indulgent to all
+curiosity that she can put to profit, is implacable to that which makes
+her lose her prestige. Such a domiciliary invasion may be called,
+not only (as they say in police reports) an attack on privacy, but a
+burglary, a robbery of all that is most precious, namely, CREDIT. A
+woman is quite willing to let herself be surprised half-dressed, with
+her hair about her shoulders. If her hair is all her own she scores one;
+but she will never allow herself to be seen "doing" her own rooms, or
+she loses her pariostre,--that precious /seeming-to-be/!
+
+Madame Rabourdin was in full tide of preparation for her Friday dinner,
+standing in the midst of provisions the cook had just fished from the
+vast ocean of the markets, when Monsieur des Lupeaulx made his way
+stealthily in. The general-secretary was certainly the last man Madame
+Rabourdin expected to see, and so, when she heard his boots creaking
+in the ante-chamber, she exclaimed, impatiently, "The hair-dresser
+already!"--an exclamation as little agreeable to des Lupeaulx as the
+sight of des Lupeaulx was agreeable to her. She immediately escaped into
+her bedroom, where chaos reigned; a jumble of furniture to be put out
+of sight, with other heterogeneous articles of more or rather less
+elegance,--a domestic carnival, in short. The bold des Lupeaulx followed
+the handsome figure, so piquant did she seem to him in her dishabille.
+There is something indescribably alluring to the eye in a portion of
+flesh seen through an hiatus in the undergarment, more attractive far
+than when it rises gracefully above the circular curve of the velvet
+bodice, to the vanishing line of the prettiest swan's-neck that ever
+lover kissed before a ball. When the eye dwells on a woman in full dress
+making exhibition of her magnificent white shoulders, do we not fancy
+that we see the elegant dessert of a grand dinner? But the glance that
+glides through the disarray of muslins rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it
+were, a feast of stolen fruit glowing between the leaves on a garden
+wall.
+
+"Stop! wait!" cried the pretty Parisian, bolting the door of the
+disordered room.
+
+She rang for Therese, called for her daughter, the cook, and the
+man-servant, wishing she possessed the whistle of the machinist at
+the Opera. Her call, however, answered the same purpose. In a moment,
+another phenomenon! the salon assumed a piquant morning look, quite in
+keeping with the becoming toilet hastily got together by the fugitive;
+we say it to her glory, for she was evidently a clever woman, in this at
+least.
+
+"You!" she said, coming forward, "at this hour? What has happened?"
+
+"Very serious things," answered des Lupeaulx. "You and I must understand
+each other now."
+
+Celestine looked at the man behind his glasses, and understood the
+matter.
+
+"My principle vice," she said, "is oddity. For instance, I do not mix
+up affections with politics; let us talk politics,--business, if you
+will,--the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor
+a whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together
+things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; it is my
+natural instinct as an artist. We women have politics of our own."
+
+Already the tones of her voice and the charm of her manners were
+producing their effect on the secretary and metamorphosing his roughness
+into sentimental courtesy; she had recalled him to his obligations as a
+lover. A clever pretty woman makes an atmosphere about her in which the
+nerves relax and the feelings soften.
+
+"You are ignorant of what is happening," said des Lupeaulx, harshly, for
+he still thought it best to make a show of harshness. "Read that."
+
+He gave the two newspapers to the graceful woman, having drawn a line in
+red ink round each of the famous articles.
+
+"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "but this is dreadful! Who is this
+Baudoyer?"
+
+"A donkey," answered des Lupeaulx; "but, as you see, he uses means,--he
+gives monstrances; he succeeds, thanks to some clever hand that pulls
+the wires."
+
+The thought of her debts crossed Madame Rabourdin's mind and blurred
+her sight, as if two lightning flashes had blinded her eyes at the same
+moment; her ears hummed under the pressure of the blood that began to
+beat in her arteries; she remained for a moment quite bewildered, gazing
+at a window which she did not see.
+
+"But are you faithful to us?" she said at last, with a winning glance at
+des Lupeaulx, as if to attach him to her.
+
+"That is as it may be," he replied, answering her glance with an
+interrogative look which made the poor woman blush.
+
+"If you demand caution-money you may lose all," she said, laughing; "I
+thought you more magnanimous than you are. And you, you thought me less
+a person than I am,--a sort of school-girl."
+
+"You have misunderstood me," he said, with a covert smile; "I meant that
+I could not assist a man who plays against me just as l'Etourdi played
+against Mascarille."
+
+"What can you mean?"
+
+"This will prove to you whether I am magnanimous or not."
+
+He gave Madame Rabourdin the memorandum stolen by Dutocq, pointing out
+to her the passage in which her husband had so ably analyzed him.
+
+"Read that."
+
+Celestine recognized the handwriting, read the paper, and turned pale
+under the blow.
+
+"All the ministries, the whole service is treated in the same way," said
+des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Happily," she said, "you alone possess this document. I cannot explain
+it, even to myself."
+
+"The man who stole it is not such a fool as to let me have it without
+keeping a copy for himself; he is too great a liar to admit it, and too
+clever in his business to give it up. I did not even ask him for it."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"Your chief clerk."
+
+"Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses! But," she
+added, "he is only a dog who wants a bone."
+
+"Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a
+general-secretary?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,--you will despise me
+because it isn't more, but here, I grant you, I am significant. Well,
+Baudoyer's uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to
+give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed."
+
+"But all that is monstrous."
+
+"Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand Almoner is
+concerned in it. Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in return for
+ecclesiastical assistance."
+
+"What shall you do?"
+
+"What will you bid me do?" he said, with charming grace, holding out his
+hand.
+
+Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and chilling as
+a hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and offensive, but she
+did not give him her hand. At night, in her salon, she would have let
+him take it a hundred times, but here, alone and in the morning, the
+action seemed too like a promise that might lead her far.
+
+"And they say that statesmen have no hearts!" she cried
+enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under
+the grace of her words. "The thought used to terrify me," she added,
+assuming an innocent, ingenuous air.
+
+"What a calumny!" cried des Lupeaulx. "Only this week one of the
+stiffest of diplomatists, a man who has been in the service ever since
+he came to manhood, has married the daughter of an actress, and has
+introduced her at the most iron-bound court in Europe as to quarterings
+of nobility."
+
+"You will continue to support us?"
+
+"I am to draw up your husband's appointment--But no cheating, remember."
+
+She gave him her hand to kiss, and tapped him on the cheek as she did
+so. "You are mine!" she said.
+
+Des Lupeaulx admired the expression.
+
+[That night, at the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as
+follows: "A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,--an
+acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,--changed
+the words into 'You are mine.' Don't you think the evasion charming?"]
+
+"But you must be my ally," he answered. "Now listen, your husband has
+spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the administration;
+the paper I have shown you is a part of that plan. I want to know what
+it is. Find out, and tell me to-night."
+
+"I will," she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature of the
+errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.
+
+"Madame, the hair-dresser."
+
+"At last!" thought Celestine. "I don't see how I should have got out of
+it if he had delayed much longer."
+
+"You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go," said des Lupeaulx,
+rising. "You shall be invited to the first select party given by his
+Excellency's wife."
+
+"Ah, you are an angel!" she cried. "And I see now how much you love me;
+you love me intelligently."
+
+"To-night, dear child," he said, "I shall find out at the Opera what
+journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure swords
+together."
+
+"Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not? I have taken pains to get
+the things you like best--"
+
+"All that is so like love," said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went
+downstairs, "that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a
+long time. Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I'll set the
+cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and I'll
+read her heart. Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after all, women
+are just what we men are. Twenty-eight years old, virtuous, and living
+here in the rue Duphot!--a rare piece of luck and worth cultivating,"
+thought the elderly butterfly as he fluttered down the staircase.
+
+"Good heavens! that man, without his glasses, must look funny enough in
+a dressing-gown!" thought Celestine, "but the harpoon is in his back and
+he'll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of that invitation. He
+has played his part in my comedy."
+
+When, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to dress for
+dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid before him
+the fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the Arabian Nights, the
+luckless man was fated to meet at every turn.
+
+"Who gave you that?" he asked, thunderstruck.
+
+"Monsieur des Lupeaulx."
+
+"So he has been here!" cried Rabourdin, with a look which would
+certainly have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which Celestine
+received with unruffled brow and a laughing eye.
+
+"And he is coming back to dinner," she said. "Why that startled air?"
+
+"My dear," replied Rabourdin, "I have mortally offended des Lupeaulx;
+such men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me! Do you think I don't
+see why?"
+
+"The man seems to me," she said, "to have good taste; you can't expect
+me to blame him. I really don't know anything more flattering to a woman
+than to please a worn-out palate. After--"
+
+"A truce to nonsense, Celestine. Spare a much-tried man. I cannot get an
+audience of the minister, and my honor is at stake."
+
+"Good heavens, no! Dutocq can have the promise of a good place as soon
+as you are named head of the division."
+
+"Ah! I see what you are about, dear child," said Rabourdin; "but the
+game you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing that is
+going on around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman--"
+
+"Let me use the weapons employed against us."
+
+"Celestine, the more that man des Lupeaulx feels he is foolishly caught
+in a trap, the more bitter he will be against me."
+
+"What if I get him dismissed altogether?"
+
+Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.
+
+"I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my poor
+husband," continued Celestine. "But you are mistaking the dog for the
+game," she added, after a pause. "In a few days des Lupeaulx will have
+accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to speak to
+the minister, and before you can even see him on business, I shall have
+seen him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to bring that
+plan of your brain to birth,--a plan which you have been hiding from me;
+but you will find that in three months your wife has accomplished more
+than you have done in six years. Come, tell me this fine scheme of
+yours."
+
+Rabourdin, continuing to shave, cautioned his wife not to say a word
+about his work, and after assuring her that to confide a single idea
+to des Lupeaulx would be to put the cat near the milk-jug, he began an
+explanation of his labors.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me this before, Rabourdin?" said Celestine, cutting
+her husband short at his fifth sentence. "You might have saved yourself
+a world of trouble. I can understand that a man should be blinded by an
+idea for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or seven years, that's a
+thing I cannot comprehend! You want to reduce the budget,--a vulgar
+and commonplace idea! The budget ought, on the contrary, to reach two
+hundred millions. Then, indeed, France would be great. If you want a new
+system let it be one of loans, as Monsieur de Nucingen keeps saying. The
+poorest of all treasuries is the one with a surplus that it never
+uses; the mission of a minister of finance is to fling gold out of the
+windows. It will come back to him through the cellars; and you, you
+want to hoard it! The thing to do is to increase the offices and all
+government employments, instead of reducing them! So far from lessening
+the public debt, you ought to increase the creditors. If the Bourbons
+want to reign in peace, let them seek creditors in the towns and
+villages, and place their loans there; above all, they ought not to
+let foreigners draw interest away from France; some day an alien nation
+might ask us for the capital. Whereas if capital and interest are held
+only in France, neither France nor credit can perish. That's what saved
+England. Your plan is the tradesman's plan. An ambitious public man
+should produce some bold scheme,--he should make himself another Law,
+without Law's fatal ill-luck; he ought to exhibit the power of credit,
+and show that we should reduce, not principal, but interest, as they do
+in England."
+
+"Come, come, Celestine," said Rabourdin; "mix up ideas as much as
+you please, and make fun of them,--I'm accustomed to that; but don't
+criticise a work of which you know nothing as yet."
+
+"Do I need," she asked, "to know a scheme the essence of which is to
+govern France with a civil service of six thousand men instead of twenty
+thousand? My dear friend, even allowing it were the plan of a man of
+genius, a king of France who attempted to carry it out would get himself
+dethroned. You can keep down a feudal aristocracy by levelling a few
+heads, but you can't subdue a hydra with thousands. And is it with the
+present ministers--between ourselves, a wretched crew--that you expect
+to carry out your reform? No, no; change the monetary system if you
+will, but do not meddle with men, with little men; they cry out too
+much, whereas gold is dumb."
+
+"But, Celestine, if you will talk, and put wit before argument, we shall
+never understand each other."
+
+"Understand! I understand what that paper, in which you have analyzed
+the capacities of the men in office, will lead to," she replied, paying
+no attention to what her husband said. "Good heavens! you have sharpened
+the axe to cut off your own head. Holy Virgin! why didn't you consult
+me? I could have at least prevented you from committing anything to
+writing, or, at any rate, if you insisted on putting it to paper, I
+would have written it down myself, and it should never have left this
+house. Good God! to think that he never told me! That's what men are!
+capable of sleeping with the wife of their bosom for seven years, and
+keeping a secret from her! Hiding their thoughts from a poor woman for
+seven years!--doubting her devotion!"
+
+"But," cried Rabourdin, provoked, "for eleven years and more I have been
+unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on cutting me
+short and substituting your ideas for mine. You know nothing at all
+about my scheme."
+
+"Nothing! I know all."
+
+"Then tell it to me!" cried Rabourdin, angry for the first time since
+his marriage.
+
+"There! it is half-past six o'clock; finish shaving and dress at once,"
+she cried hastily, after the fashion of women when pressed on a point
+they are not ready to talk of. "I must go; we'll adjourn the discussion,
+for I don't want to be nervous on a reception-day. Good heavens! the
+poor soul!" she thought, as she left the room, "it /is/ hard to be in
+labor for seven years and bring forth a dead child! And not trust his
+wife!"
+
+She went back into the room.
+
+"If you had listened to me you would never had interceded to keep your
+chief clerk; he stole that abominable paper, and has, no doubt, kept a
+fac-simile of it. Adieu, man of genius!"
+
+Then she noticed the almost tragic expression of her husband's grief;
+she felt she had gone too far, and ran to him, seized him just as he
+was, all lathered with soap-suds, and kissed him tenderly.
+
+"Dear Xavier, don't be vexed," she said. "To-night, after the people
+are gone, we will study your plan; you shall speak at your ease,--I will
+listen just as long as you wish me to. Isn't that nice of me? What do I
+want better than to be the wife of Mohammed?"
+
+She began to laugh; and Rabourdin laughed too, for the soapsuds were
+clinging to Celestine's lips, and her voice had the tones of the purest
+and most steadfast affection.
+
+"Go and dress, dear child; and above all, don't say a word of this to
+des Lupeaulx. Swear you will not. That is the only punishment that I
+impose--"
+
+"/Impose/!" she cried. "Then I won't swear anything."
+
+"Come, come, Celestine, I said in jest a really serious thing."
+
+"To-night," she said, "I mean your general-secretary to know whom I am
+really intending to attack; he has given me the means."
+
+"Attack whom?"
+
+"The minister," she answered, drawing himself up. "We are to be invited
+to his wife's private parties."
+
+In spite of his Celestine's loving caresses, Rabourdin, as he finished
+dressing, could not prevent certain painful thoughts from clouding his
+brow.
+
+"Will she ever appreciate me?" he said to himself. "She does not
+even understand that she is the sole incentive of my whole work. How
+wrong-headed, and yet how excellent a mind!--If I had not married I
+might now have been high in office and rich. I could have saved half my
+salary; my savings well-invested would have given me to-day ten thousand
+francs a year outside of my office, and I might then have become,
+through a good marriage--Yes, that is all true," he exclaimed,
+interrupting himself, "but I have Celestine and my two children." The
+man flung himself back on his happiness. To the best of married lives
+there come moments of regret. He entered the salon and looked around
+him. "There are not two women in Paris who understand making life
+pleasant as she does. To keep such a home as this on twelve thousand
+francs a year!" he thought, looking at the flower-stands bright with
+bloom, and thinking of the social enjoyments that were about to gratify
+his vanity. "She was made to be the wife of a minister. When I think of
+his Excellency's wife, and how little she helps him! the good woman is a
+comfortable middle-class dowdy, and when she goes to the palace or into
+society--" He pinched his lips together. Very busy men are apt to have
+very ignorant notions about household matters, and you can make them
+believe that a hundred thousand francs afford little or that twelve
+thousand afford all.
+
+Though impatiently expected, and in spite of the flattering dishes
+prepared for the palate of the gourmet-emeritus, des Lupeaulx did not
+come to dinner; in fact he came in very late, about midnight, an
+hour when company dwindles and conversations become intimate and
+confidential. Andoche Finot, the journalist, was one of the few
+remaining guests.
+
+"I now know all," said des Lupeaulx, when he was comfortably seated on a
+sofa at the corner of the fireplace, a cup of tea in his hand and Madame
+Rabourdin standing before him with a plate of sandwiches and some slices
+of cake very appropriately called "leaden cake." "Finot, my dear and
+witty friend, you can render a great service to our gracious queen
+by letting loose a few dogs upon the men we were talking of. You have
+against you," he said to Rabourdin, lowering his voice so as to be
+heard only by the three persons whom he addressed, "a set of usurers and
+priests--money and the church. The article in the liberal journal
+was instituted by an old money-lender to whom the paper was under
+obligations; but the young fellow who wrote it cares nothing about it.
+The paper is about to change hands, and in three days more will be on
+our side. The royalist opposition,--for we have, thanks to Monsieur de
+Chateaubriand, a royalist opposition, that is to say, royalists who
+have gone over to the liberals,--however, there's no need to discuss
+political matters now,--these assassins of Charles X. have promised me
+to support your appointment at the price of our acquiescence in one of
+their amendments. All my batteries are manned. If they threaten us with
+Baudoyer we shall say to the clerical phalanx, 'Such and such a paper
+and such and such men will attack your measures and the whole press will
+be against you' (for even the ministerial journals which I influence
+will be deaf and dumb, won't they, Finot?). 'Appoint Rabourdin, a
+faithful servant, and public opinion is with you--'"
+
+"Hi, hi!" laughed Finot.
+
+"So, there's no need to be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx. "I have arranged
+it all to-night; the Grand Almoner must yield."
+
+"I would rather have had less hope, and you to dinner," whispered
+Celestine, looking at him with a vexed air which might very well pass
+for an expression of wounded love.
+
+"This must win my pardon," he returned, giving her an invitation to the
+ministry for the following Tuesday.
+
+Celestine opened the letter, and a flush of pleasure came into her face.
+No enjoyment can be compared to that of gratified vanity.
+
+"You know what the countess's Tuesdays are," said des Lupeaulx, with a
+confidential air. "To the usual ministerial parties they are what the
+'Petit-Chateau' is to a court ball. You will be at the heart of
+power! You will see there the Comtesse Feraud, who is still in favor
+notwithstanding Louis XVIII.'s death, Delphine de Nucingen, Madame de
+Listomere, the Marquise d'Espard, and your dear Firmiani; I have had
+her invited to give you her support in case the other women attempt to
+black-ball you. I long to see you in the midst of them."
+
+Celestine threw up her head like a thoroughbred before the race, and
+re-read the invitation just as Baudoyer and Saillard had re-read the
+articles about themselves in the newspapers, without being able to quaff
+enough of it.
+
+"/There/ first, and /next/ at the Tuileries," she said to des Lupeaulx,
+who was startled by the words and by the attitude of the speaker, so
+expressive were they of ambition and security.
+
+"Can it be that I am only a stepping-stone?" he asked himself. He
+rose, and went into Madame Rabourdin's bedroom, where she followed him,
+understanding from a motion of his head that he wished to speak to her
+privately.
+
+"Well, your husband's plan," he said; "what of it?"
+
+"Bah! the useless nonsense of an honest man!" she replied. "He wants
+to suppress fifteen thousand offices and do the work with five or six
+thousand. You never heard of such nonsense; I will let you read the
+whole document when copied; it is written in perfect good faith.
+His analysis of the officials was prompted only by his honesty and
+rectitude,--poor dear man!"
+
+Des Lupeaulx was all the more reassured by the genuine laugh which
+accompanied these jesting and contemptuous words, because he was a judge
+of lying and knew that Celestine spoke in good faith.
+
+"But still, what is at the bottom of it all?" he asked.
+
+"Well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and substitute taxes on
+consumption."
+
+"Why it is over a year since Francois Keller and Nucingen proposed some
+such plan, and the minister himself is thinking of a reduction of the
+land-tax."
+
+"There!" exclaimed Celestine, "I told him there was nothing new in his
+scheme."
+
+"No; but he is on the same ground with the best financier of the
+epoch,--the Napoleon of finance. Something may come of it. Your husband
+must surely have some special ideas in his method of putting the scheme
+into practice."
+
+"No, it is all commonplace," she said, with a disdainful curl of her
+lip. "Just think of governing France with five or six thousand offices,
+when what is really needed is that everybody in France should be
+personally enlisted in the support of the government."
+
+Des Lupeaulx seemed satisfied that Rabourdin, to whom in his own mind he
+had granted remarkable talents, was really a man of mediocrity.
+
+"Are you quite sure of the appointment? You don't want a bit of feminine
+advice?" she said.
+
+"You women are greater adepts than we in refined treachery," he said,
+nodding.
+
+"Well, then, say /Baudoyer/ to the court and clergy, to divert suspicion
+and put them to sleep, and then, at the last moment, write /Rabourdin/."
+
+"There are some women who say /yes/ as long as they need a man, and /no/
+when he has played his part," returned des Lupeaulx, significantly.
+
+"I know they do," she answered, laughing; "but they are very foolish,
+for in politics everything recommences. Such proceedings may do with
+fools, but you are a man of sense. In my opinion the greatest folly any
+one can commit is to quarrel with a clever man."
+
+"You are mistaken," said des Lupeaulx, "for such a man pardons. The real
+danger is with the petty spiteful natures who have nothing to do but
+study revenge,--I spend my life among them."
+
+When all the guests were gone, Rabourdin came into his wife's room, and
+after asking for her strict attention, he explained his plan and
+made her see that it did not cut down the revenue but on the contrary
+increased it; he showed her in what ways the public funds were employed,
+and how the State could increase tenfold the circulation of money by
+putting its own, in the proportion of a third, or a quarter, into the
+expenditures which would be sustained by private or local interests. He
+finally proved to her plainly that his plan was not mere theory, but
+a system teeming with methods of execution. Celestine, brightly
+enthusiastic, sprang into her husband's arms and sat upon his knee in
+the chimney-corner.
+
+"At last I find the husband of my dreams!" she cried. "My ignorance of
+your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx's claws. I calumniated
+you to him gloriously and in good faith."
+
+The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last. Having
+labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great man
+in the eyes of his sole public.
+
+"To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger,
+how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But," she added, "a man of
+genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly
+beloved child," she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation
+from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and
+showed it to him.
+
+"Here is what I wanted," she said; "Des Lupeaulx has put me face to face
+with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency shall be
+made for a time to bend the knee to me."
+
+The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the
+inner circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her own! Never
+courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman bestowed
+upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers. Madame
+Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where she hired
+carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor bourgeois, nor
+showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great houses, had the dress
+and appearance of a master. About ten on the evening of the eventful
+Tuesday, she left home in a charming full mourning attire. Her hair was
+dressed with jet grapes of exquisite workmanship,--an ornament costing
+three thousand francs, made by Fossin for an Englishwoman who had left
+Paris before it was finished. The leaves were of stamped iron-work, as
+light as the vine-leaves themselves, and the artist had not forgotten
+the graceful tendrils, which twined in the wearer's curls just as,
+in nature, they catch upon the branches. The bracelets, necklace, and
+earrings were all what is called Berlin iron-work; but these delicate
+arabesques were made in Vienna, and seemed to have been fashioned by the
+fairies who, the stories tell us, are condemned by a jealous Carabosse
+to collect the eyes of ants, or weave a fabric so diaphanous that a
+nutshell can contain it. Madame Rabourdin's graceful figure, made
+more slender still by the black draperies, was shown to advantage by a
+carefully cut dress, the two sides of which met at the shoulders in
+a single strap without sleeves. At every motion she seemed, like a
+butterfly, to be about to leave her covering; but the gown held firmly
+on by some contrivance of the wonderful dressmaker. The robe was of
+mousseline de laine--a material which the manufacturers had not yet sent
+to the Paris markets; a delightful stuff which some months later was to
+have a wild success, a success which went further and lasted longer than
+most French fashions. The actual economy of mousseline de laine, which
+needs no washing, has since injured the sale of cotton fabrics enough to
+revolutionize the Rouen manufactories. Celestine's little feet, covered
+with fine silk stockings and turk-satin shoes (for silk-satin is
+inadmissible in deep mourning) were of elegant proportions. Thus
+dressed, she was very handsome. Her complexion, beautified by a
+bran-bath, was softly radiant. Her eyes, suffused with the light of
+hope, and sparkling with intelligence, justified her claims to the
+superiority which des Lupeaulx, proud and happy on this occasion,
+asserted for her.
+
+She entered the room well (women will understand the meaning of that
+expression), bowed gracefully to the minister's wife, with a happy
+mixture of deference and of self-respect, and gave no offence by a
+certain reliance on her own dignity; for every beautiful woman has the
+right to seem a queen. With the minister himself she took the pretty air
+of sauciness which women may properly allow themselves with men, even
+when they are grand dukes. She reconnoitred the field, as it were,
+while taking her seat, and saw that she was in the midst of one of those
+select parties of few persons, where the women eye and appraise each
+other, and every word said echoes in all ears; where every glance is
+a stab, and conversation a duel with witnesses; where all that is
+commonplace seems commoner still, and where every form of merit or
+distinction is silently accepted as though it were the natural level of
+all present. Rabourdin betook himself to the adjoining salon in which
+a few persons were playing cards; and there he planted himself on
+exhibition, as it were, which proved that he was not without social
+intelligence.
+
+"My dear," said the Marquise d'Espard to the Comtesse Feraud, Louis
+XVIII.'s last mistress, "Paris is certainly unique. It produces--whence
+and how, who knows?--women like this person, who seems ready to will and
+to do anything."
+
+"She really does will, and does do everything," put in des Lupeaulx,
+puffed up with satisfaction.
+
+At this moment the wily Madame Rabourdin was courting the minister's
+wife. Carefully coached the evening before by des Lupeaulx, who knew all
+the countess's weak spots, she was flattering her without seeming to do
+so. Every now and then she kept silence; for des Lupeaulx, in love as he
+was, knew her defects, and said to her the night before, "Be careful
+not to talk too much,"--words which were really an immense proof of
+attachment. Bertrand Barrere left behind him this sublime axiom: "Never
+interrupt a woman when dancing to give her advice," to which we may add
+(to make this chapter of the female code complete), "Never blame a woman
+for scattering her pearls."
+
+The conversation became general. From time to time Madame Rabourdin
+joined in, just as a well-trained cat puts a velvet paw on her
+mistress's laces with the claws carefully drawn in. The minister, in
+matters of the heart, had few emotions. There was not another statesman
+under the Restoration who had so completely done with gallantry as he;
+even the opposition papers, the "Miroir," "Pandora," and "Figaro," could
+not find a single throbbing artery with which to reproach him. Madame
+Rabourdin knew this, but she knew also that ghosts return to old
+castles, and she had taken it into her head to make the minister jealous
+of the happiness which des Lupeaulx was appearing to enjoy. The latter's
+throat literally gurgled with the name of his divinity. To launch his
+supposed mistress successfully, he was endeavoring to persuade the
+Marquise d'Espard, Madame de Nucingen, and the countess, in an eight-ear
+conversation, that they had better admit Madame Rabourdin to their
+coalition; and Madame de Camps was supporting him. At the end of the
+hour the minister's vanity was greatly tickled; Madame Rabourdin's
+cleverness pleased him, and she had won his wife, who, delighted with
+the siren, invited her to come to all her receptions whenever she
+pleased.
+
+"For your husband, my dear," she said, "will soon be director; the
+minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under one
+director; you will then be one of us, you know."
+
+His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show her a
+certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the opposition
+journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and together they
+laughed over the absurdities of journalism.
+
+"Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the pleasure of
+seeing you here often."
+
+And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.
+
+"But, Monseigneur," she replied, with one of those glances which women
+hold in reserve, "it seems to me that that depends on you."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You alone can give me the right to come here."
+
+"Pray explain."
+
+"No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not have the
+bad taste to seem a petitioner."
+
+"No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out of place,"
+said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too silly to amuse a
+solemn man.
+
+"Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a
+bureau is out of place here; a director's wife is not."
+
+"That point need not be considered," said the minister, "your husband is
+indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed."
+
+"Is that a veritable fact?"
+
+"Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are already drawn
+up."
+
+"Then," she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the
+minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, "let me tell you
+that I can make you a return."
+
+She was on the point of revealing her husband's plan, when des Lupeaulx,
+who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry sound, which
+meant that he did not wish to appear to have overheard what, in fact, he
+had been listening to. The minister gave an ill-tempered look at the
+old beau, who, impatient to win his reward, had hurried, beyond all
+precedent, the preliminary work of the appointment. He had carried the
+papers to his Excellency that evening, and desired to take himself,
+on the morrow, the news of the appointment to her whom he was now
+endeavoring to exhibit as his mistress. Just then the minister's valet
+approached des Lupeaulx in a mysterious manner, and told him that his
+own servant wished him to deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost
+importance.
+
+The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:--
+
+
+   Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see
+   you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms
+   with
+
+Your obedient servant, Gobseck.
+
+
+The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we
+cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like to
+guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of signature.
+If ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it was assuredly this
+written name, in which the first and the final letter approached each
+other like the voracious jaws of a shark,--insatiable, always open,
+seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak. As for the wording of
+the note, the spirit of usury alone could have inspired a sentence so
+imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said all and revealed
+nothing. Those who had never heard of Gobseck would have felt, on
+reading words which compelled him to whom they were addressed to obey,
+yet gave no order, the presence of the implacable money-lender of the
+rue des Gres. Like a dog called to heel by the huntsman, des Lupeaulx
+left his present quest and went immediately to his own rooms, thinking
+of his hazardous position. Imagine a general to whom an aide-de-camp
+rides up and says: "The enemy with thirty thousand fresh troops is
+attacking on our right flank."
+
+A very few words will serve to explain this sudden arrival of Gigonnet
+and Gobseck on the field of battle,--for des Lupeaulx found them both
+waiting. At eight o'clock that evening, Martin Falleix, returning on the
+wings of the wind,--thanks to three francs to the postboys and a courier
+in advance,--had brought back with him the deeds of the property signed
+the night before. Taken at once to the Cafe Themis by Mitral, these
+securities passed into the hands of the two usurers, who hastened
+(though on foot) to the ministry. It was past eleven o'clock. Des
+Lupeaulx trembled when he saw those sinister faces, emitting a
+simultaneous look as direct as a pistol shot and as brilliant as the
+flash itself.
+
+"What is it, my masters?" he said.
+
+The two extortioners continued cold and motionless. Gigonnet silently
+pointed to the documents in his hand, and then at the servant.
+
+"Come into my study," said des Lupeaulx, dismissing his valet by a sign.
+
+"You understand French very well," remarked Gigonnet, approvingly.
+
+"Have you come here to torment a man who enabled each of you to make a
+couple of hundred thousand francs?"
+
+"And who will help us to make more, I hope," said Gigonnet.
+
+"Some new affair?" asked des Lupeaulx. "If you want me to help you,
+consider that I recollect the past."
+
+"So do we," answered Gigonnet.
+
+"My debts must be paid," said des Lupeaulx, disdainfully, so as not to
+seem worsted at the outset.
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"Let us come to the point, my son," said Gigonnet. "Don't stiffen your
+chin in your cravat; with us all that is useless. Take these deeds and
+read them."
+
+The two usurers took a mental inventory of des Lupeaulx's study while
+he read with amazement and stupefaction a deed of purchase which seemed
+wafted to him from the clouds by angels.
+
+"Don't you think you have a pair of intelligent business agents in
+Gobseck and me?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+"But tell me, to what do I owe such able co-operation?" said des
+Lupeaulx, suspicious and uneasy.
+
+"We knew eight days ago a fact that without us you would not have known
+till to-morrow morning. The president of the chamber of commerce, a
+deputy, as you know, feels himself obliged to resign."
+
+Des Lupeaulx's eyes dilated, and were as big as daisies.
+
+"Your minister has been tricking you about this event," said the concise
+Gobseck.
+
+"You master me," said the general-secretary, bowing with an air of
+profound respect, bordering however, on sarcasm.
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"Can you mean to strangle me?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Well, then, begin your work, executioners," said the secretary,
+smiling.
+
+"You will see," resumed Gigonnet, "that the sum total of your debts is
+added to the sum loaned by us for the purchase of the property; we have
+bought them up."
+
+"Here are the deeds," said Gobseck, taking from the pocket of his
+greenish overcoat a number of legal papers.
+
+"You have three years in which to pay off the whole sum," said Gigonnet.
+
+"But," said des Lupeaulx, frightened at such kindness, and also by so
+apparently fantastic an arrangement. "What do you want of me?"
+
+"La Billardiere's place for Baudoyer," said Gigonnet, quickly.
+
+"That's a small matter, though it will be next to impossible for me to
+do it," said des Lupeaulx. "I have just tied my hands."
+
+"Bite the cords with your teeth," said Gigonnet.
+
+"They are sharp," added Gobseck.
+
+"Is that all?" asked des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We keep the title-deeds of the property till the debts are paid," said
+Gigonnet, putting one of the papers before des Lupeaulx; "and if the
+matter of the appointment is not satisfactorily arranged within six days
+our names will be substituted in place of yours."
+
+"You are deep," cried the secretary.
+
+"Exactly," said Gobseck.
+
+"And this is all?" exclaimed des Lupeaulx.
+
+"All," said Gobseck.
+
+"You agree?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+Des Lupeaulx nodded his head.
+
+"Well, then, sign this power of attorney. Within two days Baudoyer is to
+be nominated; within six your debts will be cleared off, and--"
+
+"And what?" asked des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We guarantee--"
+
+"Guarantee!--what?" said the secretary, more and more astonished.
+
+"Your election to the Chamber," said Gigonnet, rising on his heels.
+"We have secured a majority of fifty-two farmers' and mechanics'
+votes, which will be thrown precisely as those who lend you this money
+dictate."
+
+Des Lupeaulx wrung Gigonnet's hand.
+
+"It is only such as we who never misunderstand each other," he said;
+"this is what I call doing business. I'll make you a return gift."
+
+"Right," said Gobseck.
+
+"What is it?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+"The cross of the Legion of honor for your imbecile of a nephew."
+
+"Good," said Gigonnet, "I see you know him well."
+
+The pair took leave of des Lupeaulx, who conducted them to the
+staircase.
+
+"They must be secret envoys from foreign powers," whispered the footmen
+to each other.
+
+Once in the street, the two usurers looked at each other under a street
+lamp and laughed.
+
+"He will owe us nine thousand francs interest a year," said Gigonnet;
+"that property doesn't bring him in five."
+
+"He is under our thumb for a long time," said Gobseck.
+
+"He'll build; he'll commit extravagancies," continued Gigonnet; "Falleix
+will get his land."
+
+"His interest is only to be made deputy; the old fox laughs at the
+rest," said Gobseck.
+
+"Hey! hey!"
+
+"Hi! hi!"
+
+These dry little exclamations served as a laugh to the two old men, who
+took their way back (always on foot) to the Cafe Themis.
+
+Des Lupeaulx returned to the salon and found Madame Rabourdin sailing
+with the wind of success, and very charming; while his Excellency,
+usually so gloomy, showed a smooth and gracious countenance.
+
+"She performs miracles," thought des Lupeaulx. "What a wonderfully
+clever woman! I must get to the bottom of her heart."
+
+"Your little lady is decidedly handsome," said the Marquise to the
+secretary; "now if she only had your name."
+
+"Yes, her defect is that she is the daughter of an auctioneer. She will
+fail for want of birth," replied des Lupeaulx, with a cold manner
+that contrasted strangely with the ardor of his remarks about Madame
+Rabourdin not half an hour earlier.
+
+The marquise looked at him fixedly.
+
+"The glance you gave them did not escape me," she said, motioning
+towards the minister and Madame Rabourdin; "it pierced the mask of your
+spectacles. How amusing you both are, to quarrel over that bone!"
+
+As the marquise turned to leave the room the minister joined her and
+escorted her to the door.
+
+"Well," said des Lupeaulx to Madame Rabourdin, "what do you think of his
+Excellency?"
+
+"He is charming. We must know these poor ministers to appreciate
+them," she added, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard by his
+Excellency's wife. "The newspapers and the opposition calumnies are so
+misleading about men in politics that we are all more or less influenced
+by them; but such prejudices turn to the advantage of statesmen when we
+come to know them personally."
+
+"He is very good-looking," said des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Yes, and I assure you he is quite lovable," she said, heartily.
+
+"Dear child," said des Lupeaulx, with a genial, caressing manner; "you
+have actually done the impossible."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Resuscitated the dead. I did not think that man had a heart; ask his
+wife. But he may have just enough for a passing fancy. Therefore profit
+by it. Come this way, and don't be surprised." He led Madame Rabourdin
+into the boudoir, placed her on a sofa, and sat down beside her. "You
+are very sly," he said, "and I like you the better for it. Between
+ourselves, you are a clever woman. Des Lupeaulx served to bring you
+into this house, and that is all you wanted of him, isn't it? Now when a
+woman decides to love a man for what she can get out of him it is better
+to take a sexagenarian Excellency than a quadragenarian secretary;
+there's more profit and less annoyance. I'm a man with spectacles,
+grizzled hair, worn out with dissipation,--a fine lover, truly! I tell
+myself all this again and again. It must be admitted, of course, that I
+can sometimes be useful, but never agreeable. Isn't that so? A man must
+be a fool if he cannot reason about himself. You can safely admit the
+truth and let me see to the depths of your heart; we are partners, not
+lovers. If I show some tenderness at times, you are too superior a woman
+to pay any attention to such follies; you will forgive me,--you are not
+a school-girl, or a bourgeoise of the rue Saint-Denis. Bah! you and I
+are too well brought up for that. There's the Marquise d'Espard who has
+just left the room; this is precisely what she thinks and does. She and
+I came to an understanding two years ago [the coxcomb!], and now she has
+only to write me a line and say, 'My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige
+me by doing such and such a thing,' and it is done at once. We are
+engaged at this very moment in getting a commission of lunacy on her
+husband. Ah! you women, you can get what you want by the bestowal of a
+few favors. Well, then, my dear child, bewitch the minister. I'll help
+you; it is my interest to do so. Yes, I wish he had a woman who could
+influence him; he wouldn't escape me,--for he does escape me quite
+often, and the reason is that I hold him only through his intellect.
+Now if I were one with a pretty woman who was also intimate with him,
+I should hold him by his weaknesses, and that is much the firmest grip.
+Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the advantages of the
+conquest you are making."
+
+Madame Rabourdin listened in amazement to this singular profession of
+rascality. The apparent artlessness of this political swindler prevented
+her from suspecting a trick.
+
+"Do you believe he really thinks of me?" she asked, falling into the
+trap.
+
+"I know it; I am certain of it."
+
+"Is it true that Rabourdin's appointment is signed?"
+
+"I gave him the papers this morning. But it is not enough that your
+husband should be made director; he must be Master of petitions."
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Well, then, go back to the salon and coquette a little more with his
+Excellency."
+
+"It is true," she said, "that I never fully understood you till
+to-night. There is nothing commonplace about /you/."
+
+"We will be two old friends," said des Lupeaulx, "and suppress all
+tender nonsense and tormenting love; we will take things as they did
+under the Regency. Ah! they had plenty of wit and wisdom in those days!"
+
+"You are really strong; you deserve my admiration," she said, smiling,
+and holding out her hand to him, "one does more for one's friend, you
+know, than for one's--"
+
+She left him without finishing her sentence.
+
+"Dear creature!" thought des Lupeaulx, as he saw her approach the
+minister, "des Lupeaulx has no longer the slightest remorse in turning
+against you. To-morrow evening when you offer me a cup of tea, you will
+be offering me a thing I no longer care for. All is over. Ah! when a man
+is forty years of age women may take pains to catch him, but they won't
+love him."
+
+He looked himself over in a mirror, admitting honestly that though he
+did very well as a politician he was a wreck on the shores of Cythera.
+At the same moment Madame Rabourdin was gathering herself together for
+a becoming exit. She wished to make a last graceful impression on
+the minds of all, and she succeeded. Contrary to the usual custom in
+society, every one cried out as soon as she was gone, "What a charming
+woman!" and the minister himself took her to the outer door.
+
+"I am quite sure you will think of me to-morrow," he said, alluding to
+the appointment.
+
+"There are so few high functionaries who have agreeable wives," remarked
+his Excellency on re-entering the room, "that I am very well satisfied
+with our new acquisition."
+
+"Don't you think her a little overpowering?" said des Lupeaulx with a
+piqued air.
+
+The women present all exchanged expressive glances; the rivalry between
+the minister and his secretary amused them and instigated one of those
+pretty little comedies which Parisian women play so well. They excited
+and led on his Excellency and des Lupeaulx by a series of comments on
+Madame Rabourdin: one thought her too studied in manner, too eager to
+appear clever; another compared the graces of the middle classes with
+the manners of high life, while des Lupeaulx defended his pretended
+mistress as we all defend an enemy in society.
+
+"Do her justice, ladies," he said; "is it not extraordinary that the
+daughter of an auctioneer should appear as well as she does? See where
+she came from, and what she is. She will end in the Tuileries; that is
+what she intends,--she told me so."
+
+"Suppose she is the daughter of an auctioneer," said the Comtesse
+Feraud, smiling, "that will not hinder her husband's rise to power."
+
+"Not in these days, you mean," said the minister's wife, tightening her
+lips.
+
+"Madame," said his Excellency to the countess, sternly, "such sentiments
+and such speeches lead to revolutions; unhappily, the court and the
+great world do not restrain them. You would hardly believe, however, how
+the injudicious conduct of the aristocracy in this respect displeases
+certain clear-sighted personages at the palace. If I were a great lord,
+instead of being, as I am, a mere country gentleman who seems to be
+placed where he is to transact your business for you, the monarchy would
+not be as insecure as I now think it is. What becomes of a throne which
+does not bestow dignity on those who administer its government? We are
+far indeed from the days when a king could make men great at will,--such
+men as Louvois, Colbert, Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,--Sully,
+in his origin, was no greater than I. I speak to you thus because we
+are here in private among ourselves. I should be very paltry indeed if
+I were personally offended by such speeches. After all, it is for us and
+not for others to make us great."
+
+"You are appointed, dear," cried Celestine, pressing her husband's hand
+as they drove away. "If it had not been for des Lupeaulx I should have
+explained your scheme to his Excellency. But I will do it next Tuesday,
+and it will help the further matter of making you Master of petitions."
+
+In the life of every woman there comes a day when she shines in all
+her glory; a day which gives her an unfading recollection to which she
+recurs with happiness all her life. As Madame Rabourdin took off one by
+one the ornaments of her apparel, she thought over the events of this
+evening, and marked the day among the triumphs and glories of her
+life,--all her beauties had been seen and envied, she had been praised
+and flattered by the minister's wife, delighted thus to make the other
+women jealous of her; but, above all, her grace and vanities had shone
+to the profit of conjugal love. Her husband was appointed.
+
+"Did you think I looked well to-night?" she said to him, joyously.
+
+At the same instant Mitral, waiting at the Cafe Themis, saw the two
+usurers returning, but was unable to perceive the slightest indications
+of the result on their impassible faces.
+
+"What of it?" he said, when they were all seated at table.
+
+"Same as ever," replied Gigonnet, rubbing his hands, "victory with
+gold."
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+Mitral took a cabriolet and went straight to the Saillards and
+Baudoyers, who were still playing boston at a late hour. No one was
+present but the Abbe Gaudron. Falleix, half-dead with the fatigue of his
+journey, had gone to bed.
+
+"You will be appointed, nephew," said Mitral; "and there's a surprise in
+store for you."
+
+"What is it?" asked Saillard.
+
+"The cross of the Legion of honor?" cried Mitral.
+
+"God protects those who guard his altars," said Gaudron.
+
+Thus the Te Deum was sung with equal joy and confidence in both camps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FORWARD, MOLLUSKS!
+
+
+The next day, Wednesday, Monsieur Rabourdin was to transact business
+with the minister, for he had filled the late La Billardiere's place
+since the beginning of the latter's illness. On such days the clerks
+came punctually, the servants were specially attentive, there was always
+a certain excitement in the offices on these signing-days,--and why,
+nobody ever knew. On this occasion the three servants were at their
+post, flattering themselves they should get a few fees; for a rumor of
+Rabourdin's nomination had spread through the ministry the night before,
+thanks to Dutocq. Uncle Antoine and Laurent had donned their full
+uniform, when, at a quarter to eight, des Lupeaulx's servant came in
+with a letter, which he begged Antoine to give secretly to Dutocq,
+saying that the general-secretary had ordered him to deliver it without
+fail at Monsieur Dutocq's house by seven o'clock.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know how it happened," he said, "but I overslept
+myself. I've only just waked up, and he'd play the devil's tattoo on me
+if he knew the letter hadn't gone. I know a famous secret, Antoine; but
+don't say anything about it to the clerks if I tell you; promise? He
+would send me off if he knew I had said a single word; he told me so."
+
+"What's inside the letter?" asked Antoine, eying it.
+
+"Nothing; I looked this way--see."
+
+He made the letter gape open, and showed Antoine that there was nothing
+but blank paper to be seen.
+
+"This is going to be a great day for you, Laurent," went on the
+secretary's man. "You are to have a new director. Economy must be the
+order of the day, for they are going to unite the two divisions under
+one director--you fellows will have to look out!"
+
+"Yes, nine clerks are put on the retired list," said Dutocq, who came in
+at the moment; "how did you hear that?"
+
+Antoine gave him the letter, and he had no sooner opened it than he
+rushed headlong downstairs in the direction of the secretary's office.
+
+The bureaus Rabourdin and Baudoyer, after idling and gossiping since
+the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere, were now recovering their usual
+official look and the dolce far niente habits of a government office.
+Nevertheless, the approaching end of the year did cause rather more
+application among the clerks, just as porters and servants become at
+that season more unctuously civil. They all came punctually, for one
+thing; more remained after four o'clock than was usual at other times.
+It was not forgotten that fees and gratuities depend on the last
+impressions made upon the minds of masters. The news of the union of the
+two divisions, that of La Billardiere and that of Clergeot, under one
+director, had spread through the various offices. The number of the
+clerks to be retired was known, but all were in ignorance of the names.
+It was taken for granted that Poiret would not be replaced, and that
+would be a retrenchment. Little La Billardiere had already departed.
+Two new supernumeraries had made their appearance, and, alarming
+circumstance! they were both sons of deputies. The news told about
+in the offices the night before, just as the clerks were dispersing,
+agitated all minds, and for the first half-hour after arrival in the
+morning they stood around the stoves and talked it over. But earlier
+than that, Dutocq, as we have seen, had rushed to des Lupeaulx on
+receiving his note, and found him dressing. Without laying down his
+razor, the general-secretary cast upon his subordinate the glance of a
+general issuing an order.
+
+"Are we alone?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Very good. March on Rabourdin; forward! steady! Of course you kept a
+copy of that paper?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You understand me? Inde iroe! There must be a general hue and cry
+raised against him. Find some way to start a clamor--"
+
+"I could get a man to make a caricature, but I haven't five hundred
+francs to pay for it."
+
+"Who would make it?"
+
+"Bixou."
+
+"He shall have a thousand and be under-head-clerk to Colleville, who
+will arrange with them; tell him so."
+
+"But he wouldn't believe it on nothing more than my word."
+
+"Are you trying to make me compromise myself? Either do the thing or let
+it alone; do you hear me?"
+
+"If Monsieur Baudoyer were director--"
+
+"Well, he will be. Go now, and make haste; you have no time to lose.
+Go down the back-stairs; I don't want people to know you have just seen
+me."
+
+While Dutocq was returning to the clerks' office and asking himself how
+he could best incite a clamor against his chief without compromising
+himself, Bixiou rushed to the Rabourdin office for a word of greeting.
+Believing that he had lost his bet the incorrigible joker thought it
+amusing to pretend that he had won it.
+
+Bixiou [mimicking Phellion's voice]. "Gentlemen, I salute you with a
+collective how d'ye do, and I appoint Sunday next for the dinner at
+the Rocher de Cancale. But a serious question presents itself. Is that
+dinner to include the clerks who are dismissed?"
+
+Poiret. "And those who retire?"
+
+Bixiou. "Not that I care, for it isn't I who pay." [General
+stupefaction.] "Baudoyer is appointed. I think I already hear him
+calling Laurent" [mimicking Baudoyer], "Laurent! lock up my hair-shirt,
+and my scourge." [They all roar with laughter.] "Yes, yes, he laughs
+well who laughs last. Gentlemen, there's a great deal in that anagram of
+Colleville's. 'Xavier Rabourdin, chef de bureau--D'abord reva bureaux,
+e-u fin riche.' If I were named 'Charles X., par la grace de Dieu roi
+de France et de Navarre,' I should tremble in my shoes at the fate those
+letters anagrammatize."
+
+Thuillier. "Look here! are you making fun?"
+
+Bixiou. "No, I am not. Rabourdin resigns in a rage at finding Baudoyer
+appointed director."
+
+Vimeux [entering.] "Nonsense, no such thing! Antoine (to whom I have
+just been paying forty francs that I owed him) tells me that Monsieur
+and Madame Rabourdin were at the minister's private party last night and
+stayed till midnight. His Excellency escorted Madame Rabourdin to the
+staircase. It seems she was divinely dressed. In short, it is quite
+certain that Rabourdin is to be director. Riffe, the secretary's copying
+clerk, told me he sat up all the night before to draw the papers; it is
+no longer a secret. Monsieur Clergeot is retired. After thirty years'
+service that's no misfortune. Monsieur Cochlin, who is rich--"
+
+Bixiou. "By cochineal."
+
+Vimeux. "Yes, cochineal; he's a partner in the house of Matifat, rue des
+Lombards. Well, he is retired; so is Poiret. Neither is to be replaced.
+So much is certain; the rest is all conjecture. The appointment of
+Monsieur Rabourdin is to be announced this morning; they are afraid of
+intrigues."
+
+Bixiou. "What intrigues?"
+
+Fleury. "Baudoyer's, confound him! The priests uphold him; here's
+another article in the liberal journal,--only half a dozen lines, but
+they are queer" [reads]:
+
+  "Certain persons spoke last night in the lobby of the Opera-house
+  of the return of Monsieur de Chateaubriand to the ministry, basing
+  their opinion on the choice made of Monsieur Rabourdin (the
+  protege of friends of the noble viscount) to fill the office for
+  which Monsieur Baudoyer was first selected. The clerical party is
+  not likely to withdraw unless in deference to the great writer.
+
+"Blackguards!"
+
+Dutocq [entering, having heard the whole discussion]. "Blackguards! Who?
+Rabourdin? Then you know the news?"
+
+Fleury [rolling his eyes savagely]. "Rabourdin a blackguard! Are you
+mad, Dutocq? do you want a ball in your brains to give them weight?"
+
+Dutocq. "I said nothing against Monsieur Rabourdin; only it has just
+been told to me in confidence that he has written a paper denouncing all
+the clerks and officials, and full of facts about their lives; in short,
+the reason why his friends support him is because he has written this
+paper against the administration, in which we are all exposed--"
+
+Phellion [in a loud voice]. "Monsieur Rabourdin is incapable of--"
+
+Bixiou. "Very proper in you to say so. Tell me, Dutocq" [they whisper
+together and then go into the corridor].
+
+Bixiou. "What has happened?"
+
+Dutocq. "Do you remember what I said to you about that caricature?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, what then?"
+
+Dutocq. "Make it, and you shall be under-head-clerk with a famous fee.
+The fact is, my dear fellow, there's dissension among the powers that
+be. The minister is pledged to Rabourdin, but if he doesn't appoint
+Baudoyer he offends the priests and their party. You see, the King, the
+Dauphin and the Dauphine, the clergy, and lastly the court, all want
+Baudoyer; the minister wants Rabourdin."
+
+Bixiou. "Good!"
+
+Dutocq. "To ease the matter off, the minister, who sees he must give
+way, wants to strangle the difficulty. We must find some good reason for
+getting rid of Rabourdin. Now somebody has lately unearthed a paper of
+his, exposing the present system of administration and wanting to
+reform it; and that paper is going the rounds,--at least, this is how I
+understand the matter. Make the drawing we talked of; in so doing you'll
+play the game of all the big people, and help the minister, the court,
+the clergy,--in short, everybody; and you'll get your appointment. Now
+do you understand me?"
+
+Bixiou. "I don't understand how you came to know all that; perhaps you
+are inventing it."
+
+Dutocq. "Do you want me to let you see what Rabourdin wrote about you?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes."
+
+Dutocq. "Then come home with me; for I must put the document into safe
+keeping."
+
+Bixiou. "You go first alone." [Re-enters the bureau Rabourdin.] "What
+Dutocq told you is really all true, word of honor! It seems that
+Monsieur Rabourdin has written and sent in very unflattering
+descriptions of the clerks whom he wants to 'reform.' That's the real
+reason why his secret friends wish him appointed. Well, well; we live in
+days when nothing astonishes me" [flings his cloak about him like Talma,
+and declaims]:--
+
+  "Thou who has seen the fall of grand, illustrious heads,
+  Why thus amazed, insensate that thou art,
+
+to find a man like Rabourdin employing such means? Baudoyer is too much
+of a fool to know how to use them. Accept my congratulations, gentlemen;
+either way you are under a most illustrious chief" [goes off].
+
+Poiret. "I shall leave this ministry without ever comprehending a single
+word that gentleman utters. What does he mean with his 'heads that
+fall'?"
+
+Fleury. "'Heads that fell?' why, think of the four sergeants of
+Rochelle, Ney, Berton, Caron, the brothers Faucher, and the massacres."
+
+Phellion. "He asserts very flippantly things that he only guesses at."
+
+Fleury. "Say at once that he lies; in his mouth truth itself turns to
+corrosion."
+
+Phellion. "Your language is unparliamentary and lacks the courtesy and
+consideration which are due to a colleague."
+
+Vimeux. "It seems to me that if what he says is false, the proper
+name for it is calumny, defamation of character; and such a slanderer
+deserves the thrashing."
+
+Fleury [getting hot]. "If the government offices are public places, the
+matter ought to be taken into the police-courts."
+
+Phellion [wishing to avert a quarrel, tries to turn the conversation].
+"Gentleman, might I ask you to keep quiet? I am writing a little
+treatise on moral philosophy, and I am just at the heart of it."
+
+Fleury [interrupting]. "What are you saying about it, Monsieur
+Phellion?"
+
+Phellion [reading]. "Question.--What is the soul of man?
+
+"Answer.--A spiritual substance which thinks and reasons."
+
+Thuillier. "Spiritual substance! you might as well talk about immaterial
+stone."
+
+Poiret. "Don't interrupt; let him go on."
+
+Phellion [continuing]. "Quest.--Whence comes the soul?
+
+"Ans.--From God, who created it of a nature one and indivisible; the
+destructibility thereof is, consequently, not conceivable, and he hath
+said--"
+
+Poiret [amazed]. "God said?"
+
+Phellion. "Yes, monsieur; tradition authorizes the statement."
+
+Fleury [to Poiret]. "Come, don't interrupt, yourself."
+
+Phellion [resuming]. "--and he hath said that he created it immortal; in
+other words, the soul can never die.
+
+"Quest.--What are the uses of the soul?
+
+"Ans.--To comprehend, to will, to remember; these constitute
+understanding, volition, memory.
+
+"Quest.--What are the uses of the understanding?
+
+"Ans.--To know. It is the eye of the soul."
+
+Fleury. "And the soul is the eye of what?"
+
+Phellion [continuing]. "Quest.--What ought the understanding to know?
+
+"Ans.--Truth.
+
+"Quest.--Why does man possess volition?
+
+"Ans.--To love good and hate evil.
+
+"Quest.--What is good?
+
+"Ans.--That which makes us happy."
+
+Vimeux. "Heavens! do you teach that to young ladies?"
+
+Phellion. "Yes" [continuing]. "Quest.--How many kinds of good are
+there?"
+
+Fleury. "Amazingly indecorous, to say the least."
+
+Phellion [aggrieved]. "Oh, monsieur!" [Controlling himself.] "But here's
+the answer,--that's as far as I have got" [reads]:--
+
+"Ans.--There are two kinds of good,--eternal good and temporal good."
+
+Poiret [with a look of contempt]. "And does that sell for anything?"
+
+Phellion. "I hope it will. It requires great application of mind to
+carry on a system of questions and answers; that is why I ask you to be
+quiet and let me think, for the answers--"
+
+Thuillier [interrupting]. "The answers might be sold separately."
+
+Poiret. "Is that a pun?"
+
+Thuillier. "No; a riddle."
+
+Phellion. "I am sorry I interrupted you" [he dives into his office
+desk]. "But" [to himself] "at any rate, I have stopped their talking
+about Monsieur Rabourdin."
+
+At this moment a scene was taking place between the minister and des
+Lupeaulx which decided Rabourdin's fate. The general-secretary had gone
+to see the minister in his private study before the breakfast-hour, to
+make sure that La Briere was not within hearing.
+
+"Your Excellency is not treating me frankly--"
+
+"He means a quarrel," thought the minister; "and all because his
+mistress coquetted with me last night. I did not think you so juvenile,
+my dear friend," he said aloud.
+
+"Friend?" said the general-secretary, "that is what I want to find out."
+
+The minister looked haughtily at des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We are alone," continued the secretary, "and we can come to an
+understanding. The deputy of the arrondissement in which my estate is
+situated--"
+
+"So it is really an estate!" said the minister, laughing, to hide his
+surprise.
+
+"Increased by a recent purchase of two hundred thousand francs' worth of
+adjacent property," replied des Lupeaulx, carelessly. "You knew of the
+deputy's approaching resignation at least ten days ago, and you did not
+tell me of it. You were perhaps not bound to do so, but you knew very
+well that I am most anxious to take my seat in the centre. Has
+it occurred to you that I might fling myself back on the
+'Doctrine'?--which, let me tell you, will destroy the administration and
+the monarchy both if you continue to allow the party of representative
+government to be recruited from men of talent whom you ignore. Don't you
+know that in every nation there are fifty to sixty, not more, dangerous
+heads, whose schemes are in proportion to their ambition? The secret of
+knowing how to govern is to know those heads well, and either to chop
+them off or buy them. I don't know how much talent I have, but I know
+that I have ambition; and you are committing a serious blunder when you
+set aside a man who wishes you well. The anointed head dazzles for the
+time being, but what next?--Why, a war of words; discussions will spring
+up once more and grow embittered, envenomed. Then, for your own sake, I
+advise you not to find me at the Left Centre. In spite of your
+prefect's manoeuvres (instructions for which no doubt went from here
+confidentially) I am secure of a majority. The time has come for you and
+me to understand each other. After a breeze like this people sometimes
+become closer friends than ever. I must be made count and receive the
+grand cordon of the Legion of honor as a reward for my public services.
+However, I care less for those things just now than I do for something
+else in which you are more personally concerned. You have not yet
+appointed Rabourdin, and I have news this morning which tends to show
+that most persons will be better satisfied if you appoint Baudoyer."
+
+"Appoint Baudoyer!" echoed the minister. "Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes," said des Lupeaulx; "but suppose he proves incapable, as he will,
+you can then get rid of him by asking those who protect him to employ
+him elsewhere. You will thus get back an important office to give
+to friends; it may come in at the right moment to facilitate some
+compromise."
+
+"But I have pledged it to Rabourdin."
+
+"That may be; and I don't ask you to make the change this very day.
+I know the danger of saying yes and no within twenty-four hours. But
+postpone the appointment, and don't sign the papers till the day
+after to-morrow; by that time you may find it impossible to retain
+Rabourdin,--in fact, in all probability, he will send you his
+resignation--"
+
+"His resignation?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He is the tool of a secret power in whose interests he has carried on
+a system of espionage in all the ministries, and the thing has been
+discovered by mere accident. He has written a paper of some kind, giving
+short histories of all the officials. Everybody is talking of it; the
+clerks are furious. For heaven's sake, don't transact business with him
+to-day; let me find some means for you to avoid it. Ask an audience
+of the King; I am sure you will find great satisfaction there if you
+concede the point about Baudoyer; and you can obtain something as an
+equivalent. Your position will be better than ever if you are forced
+later to dismiss a fool whom the court party impose upon you."
+
+"What has made you turn against Rabourdin?"
+
+"Would you forgive Monsieur de Chateaubriand for writing an article
+against the ministry? Well, read that, and see how Rabourdin has treated
+me in his secret document," said des Lupeaulx, giving the paper to the
+minister. "He pretends to reorganize the government from beginning to
+end,--no doubt in the interests of some secret society of which, as
+yet, we know nothing. I shall continue to be his friend for the sake
+of watching him; by that means I may render the government such signal
+service that they will have to make me count; for the peerage is the
+only thing I really care for. I want you fully to understand that I am
+not seeking office or anything else that would cause me to stand in your
+way; I am simply aiming for the peerage, which will enable me to marry a
+banker's daughter with an income of a couple of hundred thousand francs.
+And so, allow me to render you a few signal services which will make the
+King feel that I have saved the throne. I have long said that Liberalism
+would never offer us a pitched battle. It has given up conspiracies,
+Carbonaroism, and revolts with weapons; it is now sapping and mining,
+and the day is coming when it will be able to say, 'Out of that and let
+me in!' Do you think I have been courting Rabourdin's wife for my own
+pleasure? No, but I got much information from her. So now, let us agree
+on two things; first, the postponement of the appointment; second,
+your /sincere/ support of my election. You shall find at the end of the
+session that I have amply repaid you."
+
+For all answer, the minister took the appointment papers and placed them
+in des Lupeaulx's hand.
+
+"I will go and tell Rabourdin," added des Lupeaulx, "that you cannot
+transact business with him till Saturday."
+
+The minister replied with an assenting gesture. The secretary despatched
+his man with a message to Rabourdin that the minister could not work
+with him until Saturday, on which day the Chamber was occupied with
+private bills, and his Excellency had more time at his disposal.
+
+Just at this moment Saillard, having brought the monthly stipend, was
+slipping his little speech into the ear of the minister's wife, who
+drew herself up and answered with dignity that she did not meddle in
+political matters, and besides, she had heard that Monsieur Rabourdin
+was already appointed. Saillard, terrified, rushed up to Baudoyer's
+office, where he found Dutocq, Godard, and Bixiou in a state of
+exasperation difficult to describe; for they were reading the terrible
+paper on the administration in which they were all discussed.
+
+Bixiou [with his finger on a paragraph]. "Here /you/ are, pere Saillard.
+Listen" [reads]:--
+
+"Saillard.--The office of cashier to be suppressed in all the
+ministries; their accounts to be kept in future at the Treasury.
+Saillard is rich and does not need a pension.
+
+"Do you want to hear about your son-in-law?" [Turns over the leaves.]
+"Here he is" [reads]:--
+
+"Baudoyer.--Utterly incapable. To be thanked and dismissed. Rich; does
+not need a pension.
+
+"And here's for Godard" [reads]:--
+
+"Godard.--Should be dismissed; pension one-third of his present salary.
+
+"In short, here we all are. Listen to what I am" [reads]: "An artist
+who might be employed by the civil list, at the Opera, or the
+Menus-Plaisirs, or the Museum. Great deal of capacity, little
+self-respect, no application,--a restless spirit. Ha! I'll give you a
+touch of the artist, Monsieur Rabourdin!"
+
+Saillard. "Suppress cashiers! Why, the man's a monster?"
+
+Bixiou. "Let us see what he says of our mysterious Desroys." [Turns over
+the pages; reads.]
+
+"Desroys.--Dangerous; because he cannot be shaken in principles that are
+subversive of monarchial power. He is the son of the Conventionel, and
+he admires the Convention. He may become a very mischievous journalist."
+
+Baudoyer. "The police are not worse spies!"
+
+Godard. "I shall go the general-secretary and lay a complaint in form;
+we must all resign in a body if such a man as that is put over us."
+
+Dutocq. "Gentlemen, listen to me; let us be prudent. If you rise at
+once in a body, we may all be accused of rancor and revenge. No, let
+the thing work, let the rumor spread quietly. When the whole ministry is
+aroused your remonstrances will meet with general approval."
+
+Bixiou. "Dutocq believes in the principles of the grand air composed by
+the sublime Rossini for Basilio,--which goes to show, by the bye, that
+the great composer was also a great politician. I shall leave my card
+on Monsieur Rabourdin to-morrow morning, inscribed thus: 'Bixiou; no
+self-respect, no application, restless mind.'"
+
+Godard. "A good idea, gentlemen. Let us all leave our cards to-morrow on
+Rabourdin inscribed in the same way."
+
+Dutocq [leading Bixiou apart]. "Come, you'll agree to make that
+caricature now, won't you?"
+
+Bixiou. "I see plainly, my dear fellow, that you knew all about
+this affair ten days ago" [looks him in the eye]. "Am I to be
+under-head-clerk?"
+
+Dutocq. "On my word of honor, yes, and a thousand-franc fee beside,
+just as I told you. You don't know what a service you'll be rendering to
+powerful personages."
+
+Bixiou. "You know them?"
+
+Dutocq. "Yes."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, then I want to speak with them."
+
+Dutocq [dryly]. "You can make the caricature or not, and you can be
+under-head-clerk or not,--as you please."
+
+Bixiou. "At any rate, let me see that thousand francs."
+
+Dutocq. "You shall have them when you bring the drawing."
+
+Bixiou. "Forward, march! that lampoon shall go from end to end of the
+bureaus to-morrow morning. Let us go and torment the Rabourdins." [Then
+speaking to Saillard, Godard, and Baudoyer, who were talking together in
+a low voice.] "We are going to stir up the neighbors." [Goes with Dutocq
+into the Rabourdin bureau. Fleury, Thuillier, and Vimeux are there,
+talking excitedly.] "What's the matter, gentlemen? All that I told you
+turns out to be true; you can go and see for yourselves the work of
+this infamous informer; for it is in the hands of the virtuous, honest,
+estimable, upright, and pious Baudoyer, who is indeed utterly incapable
+of doing any such thing. Your chief has got every one of you under the
+guillotine. Go and see; follow the crowd; money returned if you are not
+satisfied; execution /gratis/! The appointments are postponed. All the
+bureaus are in arms; Rabourdin has been informed that the minister will
+not work with him. Come, be off; go and see for yourselves."
+
+They all depart except Phellion and Poiret, who are left alone. The
+former loved Rabourdin too well to look for proof that might injure a
+man he was determined not to judge; the other had only five days more to
+remain in the office, and cared nothing either way. Just then Sebastien
+came down to collect the papers for signature. He was a good deal
+surprised, though he did not show it, to find the office deserted.
+
+Phellion. "My young friend" [he rose, a rare thing], "do you know what
+is going on? what scandals are rife about Monsieur Rabourdin whom you
+love, and" [bending to whisper in Sebastien's ear] "whom I love as much
+as I respect him. They say he has committed the imprudence to leave a
+paper containing comments on the officials lying about in the office--"
+[Phellion stopped short, caught the young man in his strong arms, seeing
+that he turned pale and was near fainting, and placed him on a chair.]
+"A key, Monsieur Poiret, to put down his back; have you a key?"
+
+Poiret. "I have the key of my domicile."
+
+[Old Poiret junior promptly inserted the said key between Sebastien's
+shoulders, while Phellion gave him some water to drink. The poor lad
+no sooner opened his eyes than he began to weep. He laid his head on
+Phellion's desk, and all his limbs were limp as if struck by lightning;
+while his sobs were so heartrending, so genuine, that for the first
+time in his life Poiret's feelings were stirred by the sufferings of
+another.]
+
+Phellion [speaking firmly]. "Come, come, my young friend; courage! In
+times of trial we must show courage. You are a man. What is the matter?
+What has happened to distress you so terribly?"
+
+Sebastien [sobbing]. "It is I who have ruined Monsieur Rabourdin. I left
+that paper lying about when I copied it. I have killed my benefactor; I
+shall die myself. Such a noble man!--a man who ought to be minister!"
+
+Poiret [blowing his nose]. "Then it is true he wrote the report."
+
+Sebastien [still sobbing]. "But it was to--there, I was going to tell
+his secrets! Ah! that wretch of a Dutocq; it was he who stole the
+paper."
+
+His tears and sobs recommenced and made so much noise that Rabourdin
+came up to see what was the matter. He found the young fellow almost
+fainting in the arms of Poiret and Phellion.
+
+Rabourdin. "What is the matter, gentlemen?"
+
+Sebastien [struggling to his feet, and then falling on his knees before
+Rabourdin]. "I have ruined you, monsieur. That memorandum,--Dutocq, the
+monster, he must have taken it."
+
+Rabourdin [calmly]. "I knew that already" [he lifts Sebastien]. "You are
+a child, my young friend." [Speaks to Phellion.] "Where are the other
+gentlemen?"
+
+Phellion. "They have gone into Monsieur Baudoyer's office to see a paper
+which it is said--"
+
+Rabourdin [interrupting him]. "Enough." [Goes out, taking Sebastien with
+him. Poiret and Phellion look at each other in amazement, and do not
+know what to say.]
+
+Poiret [to Phellion]. "Monsieur Rabourdin--"
+
+Phellion [to Poiret]. "Monsieur Rabourdin--"
+
+Poiret. "Well, I never! Monsieur Rabourdin!"
+
+Phellion. "But did you notice how calm and dignified he was?"
+
+Poiret [with a sly look that was more like a grimace]. "I shouldn't be
+surprised if there were something under it all."
+
+Phellion. "A man of honor; pure and spotless."
+
+Poiret. "Who is?"
+
+Phellion. "Monsieur Poiret, you think as I think about Dutocq; surely
+you understand me?"
+
+Poiret [nodding his head three times and answering with a shrewd look].
+"Yes." [The other clerks return.]
+
+Fleury. "A great shock; I still don't believe the thing. Monsieur
+Rabourdin, a king among men! If such men are spies, it is enough to
+disgust one with virtue. I have always put Rabourdin among Plutarch's
+heroes."
+
+Vimeux. "It is all true."
+
+Poiret [reflecting that he had only five days more to stay in the
+office]. "But, gentlemen, what do you say about the man who stole that
+paper, who spied upon Rabourdin?" [Dutocq left the room.]
+
+Fleury. "I say he is a Judas Iscariot. Who is he?"
+
+Phellion [significantly]. "He is not here at /this moment/."
+
+Vimeux [enlightened]. "It is Dutocq!"
+
+Phellion. "I have no proof of it, gentlemen. While you were gone, that
+young man, Monsieur de la Roche, nearly fainted here. See his tears on
+my desk!"
+
+Poiret. "We held him fainting in our arms.--My key, the key of my
+domicile!--dear, dear! it is down his back." [Poiret goes hastily out.]
+
+Vimeux. "The minister refused to transact business with Rabourdin
+to-day; and Monsieur Saillard, to whom the secretary said a few words,
+came to tell Monsieur Baudoyer to apply for the cross of the Legion of
+honor,--there is one to be granted, you know, on New-Year's day, to all
+the heads of divisions. It is quite clear what it all means. Monsieur
+Rabourdin is sacrificed by the very persons who employed him. Bixiou
+says so. We were all to be turned out, except Sebastien and Phellion."
+
+Du Bruel [entering]. "Well, gentlemen, is it true?"
+
+Thuillier. "To the last word."
+
+Du Bruel [putting his hat on again]. "Good-bye." [Hurries out.]
+
+Thuillier. "He may rush as much as he pleases to his Duc de Rhetore
+and Duc de Maufrigneuse, but Colleville is to be our under-head-clerk,
+that's certain."
+
+Phellion. "Du Bruel always seemed to be attached to Monsieur Rabourdin."
+
+Poiret [returning]. "I have had a world of trouble to get back my key.
+That boy is crying still, and Monsieur Rabourdin has disappeared."
+[Dutocq and Bixiou enter.]
+
+Bixiou. "Ha, gentlemen! strange things are going on in your bureau. Du
+Bruel! I want you." [Looks into the adjoining room.] "Gone?"
+
+Thuillier. "Full speed."
+
+Bixiou. "What about Rabourdin?"
+
+Fleury. "Distilled, evaporated, melted! Such a man, the king of men,
+that he--"
+
+Poiret [to Dutocq]. "That little Sebastien, in his trouble, said that
+you, Monsieur Dutocq, had taken the paper from him ten days ago."
+
+Bixiou [looking at Dutocq]. "You must clear yourself of /that/, my good
+friend." [All the clerks look fixedly at Dutocq.]
+
+Dutocq. "Where's the little viper who copied it?"
+
+Bixiou. "Copied it? How did you know he copied it? Ha! ha! it is only
+the diamond that cuts the diamond." [Dutocq leaves the room.]
+
+Poiret. "Would you listen to me, Monsieur Bixiou? I have only five days
+and a half to stay in this office, and I do wish that once, only once, I
+might have the pleasure of understanding what you mean. Do me the honor
+to explain what diamonds have to do with these present circumstances."
+
+Bixiou. "I meant papa,--for I'm willing for once to bring my intellect
+down to the level of yours,--that just as the diamond alone can cut
+the diamond, so it is only one inquisitive man who can defeat another
+inquisitive man."
+
+Fleury. "'Inquisitive man' stands for 'spy.'"
+
+Poiret. "I don't understand."
+
+Bixiou. "Very well; try again some other time."
+
+Monsieur Rabourdin, after taking Sebastien to his room, had gone
+straight to the minister; but the minister was at the Chamber of
+Deputies. Rabourdin went at once to the Chamber, where he wrote a note
+to his Excellency, who was at that moment in the tribune engaged in a
+hot discussion. Rabourdin waited, not in the conference hall, but in
+the courtyard, where, in spite of the cold, he resolved to remain and
+intercept his Excellency as he got into his carriage. The usher of the
+Chamber had told him that the minister was in the thick of a controversy
+raised by the nineteen members of the extreme Left, and that the session
+was likely to be stormy. Rabourdin walked to and for in the courtyard
+of the palace for five mortal hours, a prey to feverish agitation. At
+half-past six o'clock the session broke up, and the members filed out.
+The minister's chasseur came up to find the coachman.
+
+"Hi, Jean!" he called out to him; "Monseigneur has gone with the
+minister of war; they are going to see the King, and after that they
+dine together, and we are to fetch him at ten o'clock. There's a Council
+this evening."
+
+Rabourdin walked slowly home, in a state of despondency not difficult to
+imagine. It was seven o'clock, and he had barely time to dress.
+
+"Well, you are appointed?" cried his wife, joyously, as he entered the
+salon.
+
+Rabourdin raised his head with a grievous motion of distress and
+answered, "I fear I shall never again set foot in the ministry."
+
+"What?" said his wife, quivering with sudden anxiety.
+
+"My memorandum on the officials is known in all the offices; and I have
+not been able to see the minister."
+
+Celestine's eyes were opened to a sudden vision in which the devil,
+in one of his infernal flashes, showed her the meaning of her last
+conversation with des Lupeaulx.
+
+"If I had behaved like a low woman," she thought, "we should have had
+the place."
+
+She looked at Rabourdin with grief in her heart. A sad silence fell
+between them, and dinner was eaten in the midst of gloomy meditations.
+
+"And it is my Wednesday," she said at last.
+
+"All is not lost, dear Celestine," said Rabourdin, laying a kiss on his
+wife's forehead; "perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to see the minister
+and explain everything. Sebastien sat up all last night to finish the
+writing; the papers are copied and collated; I shall place them on the
+minister's desk and beg him to read them through. La Briere will help
+me. A man is never condemned without a hearing."
+
+"I am curious to see if Monsieur des Lupeaulx will come here to-night."
+
+"He? Of course he will come," said Rabourdin; "there's something of the
+tiger in him; he likes to lick the blood of the wounds he has given."
+
+"My poor husband," said his wife, taking his hand, "I don't see how it
+is that a man who could conceive so noble a reform did not also see that
+it ought not to be communicated to a single person. It is one of those
+ideas that a man should keep in his own mind, for he alone can apply
+them. A statesman must do in our political sphere as Napoleon did in
+his; he stooped, twisted, crawled. Yes, Bonaparte crawled! To be made
+commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy he married Barrere's mistress.
+You should have waited, got yourself elected deputy, followed the
+politics of a party, sometimes down in the depths, at other times on the
+crest of the wave, and you should have taken, like Monsieur de Villele,
+the Italian motto 'Col tempo,' in other words, 'All things are given to
+him who knows how to wait.' That great orator worked for seven years to
+get into power; he began in 1814 by protesting against the Charter
+when he was the same age that you are now. Here's your fault; you have
+allowed yourself to be kept subordinate, when you were born to rule."
+
+The entrance of the painter Schinner imposed silence on the wife and
+husband, but these words made the latter thoughtful.
+
+"Dear friend," said the painter, grasping Rabourdin's hand, "the
+support of artists is a useless thing enough, but let me say under these
+circumstances that we are all faithful to you. I have just read the
+evening papers. Baudoyer is appointed director and receives the cross of
+the Legion of honor--"
+
+"I have been longer in the department, I have served twenty-four hours,"
+said Rabourdin with a smile.
+
+"I know Monsieur le Comte de Serizy, the minister of State, pretty well,
+and if he can help you, I will go and see him," said Schinner.
+
+The salon soon filled with persons who knew nothing of the government
+proceedings. Du Bruel did not appear. Madame Rabourdin was gayer and
+more graceful than ever, like the charger wounded in battle, that still
+finds strength to carry his master from the field.
+
+"She is very courageous," said a few women who knew the truth, and who
+were charmingly attentive to her, understanding her misfortunes.
+
+"But she certainly did a great deal to attract des Lupeaulx," said the
+Baronne du Chatelet to the Vicomtesse de Fontaine.
+
+"Do you think--" began the vicomtesse.
+
+"If so," interrupted Madame de Camps, in defence of her friend,
+"Monsieur Rabourdin would at least have had the cross."
+
+About eleven o'clock des Lupeaulx appeared; and we can only describe him
+by saying that his spectacles were sad and his eyes joyous; the glasses,
+however, obscured the glances so successfully that only a physiognomist
+would have seen the diabolical expression which they wore. He went up to
+Rabourdin and pressed the hand which the latter could not avoid giving
+him.
+
+Then he approached Madame Rabourdin.
+
+"We have much to say to each other," he remarked as he seated himself
+beside the beautiful woman, who received him admirably.
+
+"Ah!" he continued, giving her a side glance, "you are grand indeed; I
+find you just what I expected, glorious under defeat. Do you know that
+it is a very rare thing to find a superior woman who answers to the
+expectations formed of her. So defeat doesn't dishearten you? You are
+right; we shall triumph in the end," he whispered in her ear. "Your fate
+is always in your own hands,--so long, I mean, as your ally is a man who
+adores you. We will hold counsel together."
+
+"But is Baudoyer appointed?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," said the secretary.
+
+"Does he get the cross?"
+
+"Not yet; but he will have it later."
+
+"Amazing!"
+
+"Ah! you don't understand political exigencies."
+
+During this evening, which seemed interminable to Madame Rabourdin,
+another scene was occurring in the place Royale,--one of those comedies
+which are played in seven Parisian salons whenever there is a change of
+ministry. The Saillards' salon was crowded. Monsieur and Madame Transon
+arrived at eight o'clock; Madame Transon kissed Madame Baudoyer, nee
+Saillard. Monsieur Bataille, captain of the National Guard, came with
+his wife and the curate of Saint Paul's.
+
+"Monsieur Baudoyer," said Madame Transon. "I wish to be the first to
+congratulate you; they have done justice to your talents. You have
+indeed earned your promotion."
+
+"Here you are, director," said Monsieur Transon, rubbing his hands, "and
+the appointment is very flattering to this neighborhood."
+
+"And we can truly say it came to pass without any intriguing," said the
+worthy Saillard. "We are none of us political intriguers; /we/ don't go
+to select parties at the ministry."
+
+Uncle Mitral rubbed his nose and grinned as he glanced at his niece
+Elisabeth, the woman whose hand had pulled the wires, who was talking
+with Gigonnet. Falleix, honest fellow, did not know what to make of the
+stupid blindness of Saillard and Baudoyer. Messieurs Dutocq, Bixiou, du
+Bruel, Godard, and Colleville (the latter appointed head of the bureau)
+entered.
+
+"What a crew!" whispered Bixiou to du Bruel. "I could make a fine
+caricature of them in the shapes of fishes,--dorys, flounders, sharks,
+and snappers, all dancing a saraband!"
+
+"Monsieur," said Colleville, "I come to offer you my congratulations;
+or rather we congratulate ourselves in having such a man placed over us;
+and we desire to assure you of the zeal with which we shall co-operate
+in your labors. Allow me to say that this event affords a signal proof
+to the truth of my axiom that a man's destiny lies in the letters of his
+name. I may say that I knew of this appointment and of your other honors
+before I heard of them, for I spend the night in anagrammatizing
+your name as follows:" [proudly] "Isidore C. T. Baudoyer,--Director,
+decorated by us (his Majesty the King, of course)."
+
+Baudoyer bowed and remarked piously that names were given in baptism.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer, senior, father and mother of the
+new director, were there to enjoy the glory of their son and
+daughter-in-law. Uncle Gigonnet-Bidault, who had dined at the house, had
+a restless, fidgety look in his eye which frightened Bixiou.
+
+"There's a queer one," said the latter to du Bruel, calling his
+attention to Gigonnet, "who would do in a vaudeville. I wonder if he
+could be bought. Such an old scarecrow is just the thing for a sign
+over the Two Baboons. And what a coat! I did think there was nobody
+but Poiret who could show the like after that after ten years' public
+exposure to the inclemencies of Parisian weather."
+
+"Baudoyer is magnificent," said du Bruel.
+
+"Dazzling," answered Bixiou.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Baudoyer, "let me present you to my own uncle,
+Monsieur Mitral, and to my great-uncle through my wife, Monsieur
+Bidault."
+
+Gigonnet and Mitral gave a glance at the three clerks so penetrating,
+so glittering with gleams of gold, that the two scoffers were sobered at
+once.
+
+"Hein?" said Bixiou, when they were safely under the arcades in the
+place Royale; "did you examine those uncles?--two copies of Shylock.
+I'll bet their money is lent in the market at a hundred per cent per
+week. They lend on pawn; and sell most that they lay hold of, coats,
+gold lace, cheese, men, women, and children; they are a conglomeration
+of Arabs, Jews, Genoese, Genevese, Greeks, Lombards, and Parisians,
+suckled by a wolf and born of a Turkish woman."
+
+"I believe you," said Godard. "Uncle Mitral used to be a sheriff's
+officer."
+
+"That settles it," said du Bruel.
+
+"I'm off to see the proof of my caricature," said Bixiou; "but I should
+like to study the state of things in Rabourdin's salon to-night. You are
+lucky to be able to go there, du Bruel."
+
+"I!" said the vaudevillist, "what should I do there? My face doesn't
+lend itself to condolences. And it is very vulgar in these days to go
+and see people who are down."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE RESIGNATION
+
+
+By midnight Madame Rabourdin's salon was deserted; only two or three
+guests remained with des Lupeaulx and the master and mistress of the
+house. When Schinner and Monsieur and Madame de Camps had likewise
+departed, des Lupeaulx rose with a mysterious air, stood with his back
+to the fireplace and looked alternately at the husband and wife.
+
+"My friends," he said, "nothing is really lost, for the minister and I
+are faithful to you. Dutocq simply chose between two powers the one he
+thought strongest. He has served the court and the Grand Almoner; he
+has betrayed me. But that is in the order of things; a politician never
+complains of treachery. Nevertheless, Baudoyer will be dismissed as
+incapable in a few months; no doubt his protectors will find him a
+place,--in the prefecture of police, perhaps,--for the clergy will not
+desert him."
+
+From this point des Lupeaulx went on with a long tirade about the Grand
+Almoner and the dangers the government ran in relying upon the
+church and upon the Jesuits. We need not, we think, point out to the
+intelligent reader that the court and the Grand Almoner, to whom
+the liberal journals attributed an enormous influence under the
+administration, had little really to do with Monsieur Baudoyer's
+appointment. Such petty intrigues die in the upper sphere of great
+self-interests. If a few words in favor of Baudoyer were obtained by
+the importunity of the curate of Saint-Paul's and the Abbe Gaudron, they
+would have been withdrawn immediately at a suggestion from the minister.
+The occult power of the Congregation of Jesus (admissible certainly as
+confronting the bold society of the "Doctrine," entitled "Help yourself
+and heaven will help you,") was formidable only through the imaginary
+force conferred on it by subordinate powers who perpetually threatened
+each other with its evils. The liberal scandal-mongers delighted in
+representing the Grand Almoner and the whole Jesuitical Chapter as
+political, administrative, civil, and military giants. Fear creates
+bugbears. At this crisis Baudoyer firmly believed in the said Chapter,
+little aware that the only Jesuits who had put him where he now was sat
+by his own fireside, and in the Cafe Themis playing dominoes.
+
+At certain epochs in history certain powers appear, to whom all evils
+are attributed, though at the same time their genius is denied; they
+form an efficient argument in the mouth of fools. Just as Monsieur de
+Talleyrand was supposed to hail all events of whatever kind with a bon
+mot, so in these days of the Restoration the clerical party had the
+credit of doing and undoing everything. Unfortunately, it did and undid
+nothing. Its influence was not wielded by a Cardinal Richelieu or
+a Cardinal Mazarin; it was in the hands of a species of Cardinal
+de Fleury, who, timid for over five years, turned bold for one day,
+injudiciously bold. Later on, the "Doctrine" did more, with impunity,
+at Saint-Merri, than Charles X. pretended to do in July, 1830. If the
+section on the censorship so foolishly introduced into the new charter
+had been omitted, journalism also would have had its Saint-Merri. The
+younger Branch could have legally carried out Charles X.'s plan.
+
+"Remain where you are, head of a bureau under Baudoyer," went on des
+Lupeaulx. "Have the nerve to do this; make yourself a true politician;
+put ideas and generous impulses aside; attend only to your functions;
+don't say a word to your new director; don't help him with a suggestion;
+and do nothing yourself without his order. In three months Baudoyer
+will be out of the ministry, either dismissed, or stranded on some other
+administrative shore. They may attach him to the king's household.
+Twice in my life I have been set aside as you are, and overwhelmed by an
+avalanche of folly; I have quietly waited and let it pass."
+
+"Yes," said Rabourdin, "but you were not calumniated; your honor was not
+assailed, compromised--"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" cried des Lupeaulx, interrupting him with a burst of
+Homeric laughter. "Why, that's the daily bread of every remarkable man
+in this glorious kingdom of France! And there are but two ways to meet
+such calumny,--either yield to it, pack up, and go plant cabbages in the
+country; or else rise above it, march on, fearless, and don't turn your
+head."
+
+"For me, there is but one way of untying the noose which treachery and
+the work of spies have fastened round my throat," replied Rabourdin.
+"I must explain the matter at once to his Excellency, and if you are
+as sincerely attached to me as you say you are, you will put me face to
+face with him to-morrow."
+
+"You mean that you wish to explain to him your plan for the reform of
+the service?"
+
+Rabourdin bowed.
+
+"Well, then, trust the papers with me,--your memoranda, all the
+documents. I promise you that he shall sit up all night and examine
+them."
+
+"Let us go to him, then!" cried Rabourdin, eagerly; "six years'
+toil certainly deserves two or three hours attention from the king's
+minister, who will be forced to recognize, if he does not applaud, such
+perseverance."
+
+Compelled by Rabourdin's tenacity to take a straightforward path,
+without ambush or angle where his treachery could hide itself, des
+Lupeaulx hesitated for a single instant, and looked at Madame Rabourdin,
+while he inwardly asked himself, "Which shall I permit to triumph, my
+hatred for him, or my fancy for her?"
+
+"You have no confidence in my honor," he said, after a pause. "I see
+that you will always be to me the author of your /secret analysis/.
+Adieu, madame."
+
+Madame Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier returned at once to
+their own rooms without a word; both were overcome by their misfortune.
+The wife thought of the dreadful situation in which she stood toward her
+husband. The husband, resolving slowly not to remain at the ministry but
+to send in his resignation at once, was lost in a sea of reflections;
+the crisis for him meant a total change of life and the necessity of
+starting on a new career. All night he sat before his fire, taking
+no notice of Celestine, who came in several times on tiptoe, in her
+night-dress.
+
+"I must go once more to the ministry, to bring away my papers, and show
+Baudoyer the routine of the business," he said to himself at last. "I
+had better write my resignation now."
+
+He turned to his table and began to write, thinking over each clause of
+the letter, which was as follows:--
+
+  Monseigneur,--I have the honor to inclose to your Excellency my
+  resignation. I venture to hope that you still remember hearing me
+  say that I left my honor in your hands, and that everything, for
+  me, depended on my being able to give you an immediate
+  explanation.
+
+  This explanation I have vainly sought to give. To-day it would,
+  perhaps, be useless; for a fragment of my work relating to the
+  administration, stolen and misused, has gone the rounds of the
+  offices and is misinterpreted by hatred; in consequence, I find
+  myself compelled to resign, under the tacit condemnation of my
+  superiors.
+
+  Your Excellency may have thought, on the morning when I first
+  sought to speak with you, that my purpose was to ask for my
+  promotion, when, in fact, I was thinking only of the glory and
+  usefulness of your ministry and of the public good. It is
+  all-important, I think, to correct that impression.
+
+Then followed the usual epistolary formulas.
+
+It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated the
+sacrifice of his ideas; he burned everything, the toil of years.
+Fatigued by the pressure of thought, overcome by mental suffering, he
+fell asleep with his head on the back of his armchair. He was wakened by
+a curious sensation, and found his hands covered with his wife's tears
+and saw her kneeling before him. Celestine had read the resignation. She
+could measure the depth of his fall. They were now to be reduced to
+live on four thousand francs a year; and that day she had counted up her
+debts,--they amounted to something like thirty-two thousand francs! The
+most ignoble of all wretchedness had come upon them. And that noble man
+who had trusted her was ignorant that she had abused the fortune he
+had confided to her care. She was sobbing at his feet, beautiful as the
+Magdalen.
+
+"My cup is full," cried Xavier, in terror. "I am dishonored at the
+ministry, and dishonored--"
+
+The light of her pure honor flashed from Celestine's eyes; she sprang up
+like a startled horse and cast a fulminating glance at Rabourdin.
+
+"I! I!" she said, on two sublime tones. "Am I a base wife? If I were,
+you would have been appointed. But," she added mournfully, "it is easier
+to believe that than to believe what is the truth."
+
+"Then what is it?" said Rabourdin.
+
+"All in three words," she said; "I owe thirty thousand francs."
+
+Rabourdin caught his wife to his heart with a gesture of almost frantic
+joy, and seated her on his knee.
+
+"Take comfort, dear," he said, in a tone of voice so adorably kind
+that the bitterness of her grief was changed to something inexpressibly
+tender. "I too have made mistakes; I have worked uselessly for my
+country when I thought I was being useful to her. But now I mean to take
+another path. If I had sold groceries we should now be millionaires.
+Well, let us be grocers. You are only twenty-eight, dear angel; in ten
+years you shall recover the luxury that you love, which we must needs
+renounce for a short time. I, too, dear heart, am not a base or common
+husband. We will sell our farm; its value has increased of late. That
+and the sale of our furniture will pay my debts."
+
+/My/ debts! Celestine embraced her husband a thousand times in the
+single kiss with which she thanked him for that generous word.
+
+"We shall still have a hundred thousand francs to put into business.
+Before the month is out I shall find some favorable opening. If luck
+gave a Martin Falleix to a Saillard, why should we despair? Wait
+breakfast for me. I am going now to the ministry, but I shall come back
+with my neck free of the yoke."
+
+Celestine clasped her husband in her arms with a force men do not
+possess, even in their passionate moments; for women are stronger
+through emotion than men through power. She wept and laughed and sobbed
+in turns.
+
+When Rabourdin left the house at eight o'clock, the porter gave him
+the satirical cards suggested by Bixiou. Nevertheless, he went to the
+ministry, where he found Sebastien waiting near the door to entreat him
+not to enter any of the bureaus, because an infamous caricature of him
+was making the round of the offices.
+
+"If you wish to soften the pain of my downfall," he said to the lad,
+"bring me that drawing; I am now taking my resignation to Ernest de la
+Briere myself, that it may not be altered or distorted while passing
+through the routine channels. I have my own reasons for wishing to see
+that caricature."
+
+When Rabourdin came back to the courtyard, after making sure that his
+letter would go straight into the minister's hands, he found Sebastien
+in tears, with a copy of the lithograph, which the lad reluctantly
+handed over to him.
+
+"It is very clever," said Rabourdin, showing a serene brow to his
+companion, though the crown of thorns was on it all the same.
+
+He entered the bureaus with a calm air, and went at once into Baudoyer's
+section to ask him to come to the office of the head of the division and
+receive instructions as to the business which that incapable being was
+henceforth to direct.
+
+"Tell Monsieur Baudoyer that there must be no delay," he added, in the
+hearing of all the clerks; "my resignation is already in the minister's
+hands, and I do not wish to stay here longer than is necessary."
+
+Seeing Bixiou, Rabourdin went straight up to him, showed him the
+lithograph, and said, to the great astonishment of all present,--
+
+"Was I not right in saying you were an artist? Still, it is a pity you
+directed the point of your pencil against a man who cannot be judged in
+this way, nor indeed by the bureaus at all;--but everything is laughed
+at in France, even God."
+
+Then he took Baudoyer into the office of the late La Billardiere. At the
+door he found Phellion and Sebastien, the only two who, under his great
+disaster, dared to remain openly faithful to the fallen man. Rabourdin
+noticed that Phellion's eyes were moist, and he could not refrain from
+wringing his hand.
+
+"Monsieur," said the good man, "if we can serve you in any way, make use
+of us."
+
+Monsieur Rabourdin shut himself up in the late chief's office with
+Monsieur Baudoyer, and Phellion helped him to show the new incumbent all
+the administrative difficulties of his new position. At each separate
+affair which Rabourdin carefully explained, Baudoyer's little eyes grew
+big as saucers.
+
+"Farewell, monsieur," said Rabourdin at last, with a manner that was
+half-solemn, half-satirical.
+
+Sebastien meanwhile had made up a package of papers and letters
+belonging to his chief and had carried them away in a hackney coach.
+Rabourdin passed through the grand courtyard, while all the clerks
+were watching from the windows, and waited there a moment to see if the
+minister would send him any message. His Excellency was dumb. Phellion
+courageously escorted the fallen man to his home, expressing his
+feelings of respectful admiration; then he returned to the office, and
+took up his work, satisfied with his own conduct in rendering these
+funeral honors to the neglected and misjudged administrative talent.
+
+Bixiou [seeing Phellion re-enter]. "Victrix cause diis placuit, sed
+victa Catoni."
+
+Phellion. "Yes, monsieur."
+
+Poiret. "What does that mean?"
+
+Fleury. "That priests rejoice, and Monsieur Rabourdin has the respect of
+men of honor."
+
+Dutocq [annoyed]. "You didn't say that yesterday."
+
+Fleury. "If you address me you'll have my hand in your face. It is known
+for certain that you filched those papers from Monsieur Rabourdin."
+[Dutocq leaves the office.] "Oh, yes, go and complain to your Monsieur
+des Lupeaulx, spy!"
+
+Bixiou [laughing and grimacing like a monkey]. "I am curious to know how
+the division will get along. Monsieur Rabourdin is so remarkable a man
+that he must have had some special views in that work of his. Well, the
+minister loses a fine mind." [Rubs his hands.]
+
+Laurent [entering]. "Monsieur Fleury is requested to go to the
+secretary's office."
+
+All the clerks. "Done for!"
+
+Fleury [leaving the room]. "I don't care; I am offered a place as
+responsible editor. I shall have all my time to myself to lounge the
+streets or do amusing work in a newspaper office."
+
+Bixiou. "Dutocq has already made them cut off the head of that poor
+Desroys."
+
+Colleville [entering joyously]. "Gentlemen, I am appointed head of this
+bureau."
+
+Thuillier. "Ah, my friend, if it were I myself, I couldn't be better
+pleased."
+
+Bixiou. "His wife has managed it." [Laughter.]
+
+Poiret. "Will any one tell me the meaning of all that is happening here
+to-day?"
+
+Bixiou. "Do you really want to know? Then listen. The antechamber of the
+administration is henceforth a chamber, the court is a boudoir, the best
+way to get in is through the cellar, and the bed is more than ever a
+cross-cut."
+
+Poiret. "Monsieur Bixiou, may I entreat you, explain?"
+
+Bixiou. "I'll paraphrase my opinion. To be anything at all you must
+begin by being everything. It is quite certain that a reform of this
+service is needed; for on my word of honor, the State robs the poor
+officials as much as the officials rob the State in the matter of hours.
+But why is it that we idle as we do? because they pay us too little; and
+the reason of that is we are too many for the work, and your late
+chief, the virtuous Rabourdin, saw all this plainly. That great
+administrator,--for he was that, gentlemen,--saw what the thing
+is coming to, the thing that these idiots call the 'working of
+our admirable institutions.' The chamber will want before long to
+administrate, and the administrators will want to legislate. The
+government will try to administrate and the administrators will want to
+govern, and so it will go on. Laws will come to be mere regulations, and
+ordinances will be thought laws. God made this epoch of the world for
+those who like to laugh. I live in a state of jovial admiration of
+the spectacle which the greatest joker of modern times, Louis XVIII.,
+bequeathed to us" [general stupefaction]. "Gentlemen, if France, the
+country with the best civil service in Europe, is managed thus, what
+do you suppose the other nations are like? Poor unhappy nations! I ask
+myself how they can possibly get along without two Chambers, without the
+liberty of the press, without reports, without circulars even, without
+an army of clerks? Dear, dear, how do you suppose they have armies and
+navies? how can they exist at all without political discussions?
+Can they even be called nations, or governments? It is said (mere
+traveller's tales) that these strange peoples claim to have a policy,
+to wield a certain influence; but that's absurd! how can they when
+they haven't 'progress' or 'new lights'? They can't stir up ideas,
+they haven't an independent forum; they are still in the twilight of
+barbarism. There are no people in the world but the French people who
+have ideas. Can you understand, Monsieur Poiret," [Poiret jumped as
+if he had been shot] "how a nation can do without heads of divisions,
+general-secretaries and directors, and all this splendid array of
+officials, the glory of France and of the Emperor Napoleon,--who had his
+own good reasons for creating a myriad of offices? I don't see how those
+nations have the audacity to live at all. There's Austria, which has
+less than a hundred clerks in her war ministry, while the salaries and
+pensions of ours amount to a third of our whole budget, a thing that was
+unheard of before the Revolution. I sum up all I've been saying in
+one single remark, namely, that the Academy of Inscriptions and
+Belles-lettres, which seems to have very little to do, had better offer
+a prize for the ablest answer to the following question: Which is the
+best organized State; the one that does many things with few officials,
+or the one that does next to nothing with an army of them?"
+
+Poiret. "Is that your last word?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, sir! whether English, French, German or Italian,--I let
+you off the other languages."
+
+Poiret [lifting his hands to heaven]. "Gracious goodness! and they call
+you a witty man!"
+
+Bixiou. "Haven't you understood me yet?"
+
+Phellion. "Your last observation was full of excellent sense."
+
+Bixiou. "Just as full as the budget itself, and like the budget again,
+as complicated as it looks simple; and I set it as a warning, a beacon,
+at the edge of this hole, this gulf, this volcano, called, in the
+language of the 'Constitutionel,' 'the political horizon.'"
+
+Poiret. "I should much prefer a comprehensible explanation."
+
+Bixiou. "Hurrah for Rabourdin! there's my explanation; that's my
+opinion. Are you satisfied?"
+
+Colleville [gravely]. "Monsieur Rabourdin had but one defect."
+
+Poiret. "What was it?"
+
+Colleville. "That of being a statesman instead of a subordinate
+official."
+
+Phellion [standing before Bixiou]. "Monsieur! why did you, who
+understand Monsieur Rabourdin so well, why did you make that inf--that
+odi--that hideous caricature?"
+
+Bixiou. "Do you forget our bet? don't you know I was backing the devil's
+game, and that your bureau owes me a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale?"
+
+Poiret [much put-out]. "Then it is a settled thing that I am to leave
+this government office without ever understanding a sentence, or a
+single word uttered by Monsieur Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou. "It is your own fault; ask these gentlemen. Gentlemen, have you
+understood the meaning of my observations? and were those observations
+just, and brilliant?"
+
+All. "Alas, yes!"
+
+Minard. "And the proof is that I shall send in my resignation. I shall
+plunge into industrial avocations."
+
+Bixiou. "What! have you managed to invent a mechanical corset, or a
+baby's bottle, or a fire engine, or chimneys that consume no fuel, or
+ovens which cook cutlets with three sheets of paper?"
+
+Minard [departing.] "Adieu, I shall keep my secret."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, young Poiret junior, you see,--all these gentlemen
+understand me."
+
+Poiret [crest-fallen]. "Monsieur Bixiou, would you do me the honor
+to come down for once to my level and speak in a language I can
+understand?"
+
+Bixiou [winking at the rest]. "Willingly." [Takes Poiret by the button
+of his frock-coat.] "Before you leave this office forever perhaps you
+would be glad to know what you are--"
+
+Poiret [quickly]. "An honest man, monsieur."
+
+Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "--to be able to define, explain, and
+analyze precisely what a government clerk is? Do you know what he is?"
+
+Poiret. "I think I do."
+
+Bixiou [twisting the button]. "I doubt it."
+
+Poiret. "He is a man paid by government to do work."
+
+Bixiou. "Oh! then a soldier is a government clerk?"
+
+Poiret [puzzled]. "Why, no."
+
+Bixiou. "But he is paid by the government to do work, to mount guard and
+show off at reviews. You may perhaps tell me that he longs to get out of
+his place,--that he works too hard and fingers too little metal, except
+that of his musket."
+
+Poiret [his eyes wide open]. "Monsieur, a government clerk is, logically
+speaking, a man who needs the salary to maintain himself, and is not
+free to get out of his place; for he doesn't know how to do anything but
+copy papers."
+
+Bixiou. "Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion. So the bureau is the
+clerk's shell, husk, pod. No clerk without a bureau, no bureau without
+a clerk. But what do you make, then, of a customs officer?" [Poiret
+shuffles his feet and tries to edge away; Bixiou twists off one button
+and catches him by another.] "He is, from the bureaucratic point of
+view, a neutral being. The excise-man is only half a clerk; he is on the
+confines between civil and military service; neither altogether soldier
+nor altogether clerk--Here, here, where are you going?" [Twists the
+button.] "Where does the government clerk proper end? That's a serious
+question. Is a prefect a clerk?"
+
+Poiret [hesitating]. "He is a functionary."
+
+Bixiou. "But you don't mean that a functionary is not a clerk? that's an
+absurdity."
+
+Poiret [weary and looking round for escape]. "I think Monsieur Godard
+wants to say something."
+
+Godard. "The clerk is the order, the functionary the species."
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "I shouldn't have thought you capable of that
+distinction, my brave subordinate."
+
+Poiret [trying to get away]. "Incomprehensible!"
+
+Bixiou. "La, la, papa, don't step on your tether. If you stand still and
+listen, we shall come to an understanding before long. Now, here's an
+axiom which I bequeath to this bureau and to all bureaus: Where the
+clerk ends, the functionary begins; where the functionary ends, the
+statesman rises. There are very few statesmen among the prefects. The
+prefect is therefore a neutral being among the higher species. He comes
+between the statesman and the clerk, just as the custom-house officer
+stands between the civil and the military. Let us continue to clear up
+these important points." [Poiret turns crimson with distress.] "Suppose
+we formulate the whole matter in a maxim worthy of Larochefoucault:
+Officials with salaries of twenty thousand francs are not clerks. From
+which we may deduce mathematically this corollary: The statesman first
+looms up in the sphere of higher salaries; and also this second and
+not less logical and important corollary: Directors-general may be
+statesmen. Perhaps it is in that sense that more than one deputy says
+in his heart, 'It is a fine thing to be a director-general.' But in the
+interests of our noble French language and of the Academy--"
+
+Poiret [magnetized by the fixity of Bixiou's eye]. "The French language!
+the Academy!"
+
+Bixiou [twisting off the second button and seizing another]. "Yes, in
+the interests of our noble tongue, it is proper to observe that although
+the head of a bureau, strictly speaking, may be called a clerk, the head
+of a division must be called a bureaucrat. These gentlemen" [turning
+to the clerks and privately showing them the third button off Poiret's
+coat] "will appreciate this delicate shade of meaning. And so, papa
+Poiret, don't you see it is clear that the government clerk comes to
+a final end at the head of a division? Now that question once settled,
+there is no longer any uncertainty; the government clerk who has
+hitherto seemed undefinable is defined."
+
+Poiret. "Yes, that appears to me beyond a doubt."
+
+Bixiou. "Nevertheless, do me the kindness to answer the following
+question: A judge being irremovable, and consequently debarred from
+being, according to your subtle distinction, a functionary, and
+receiving a salary which is not the equivalent of the work he does, is
+he to be included in the class of clerks?"
+
+Poiret [gazing at the cornice]. "Monsieur, I don't follow you."
+
+Bixiou [getting off the fourth button]. "I wanted to prove to you,
+monsieur, that nothing is simple; but above all--and what I am going to
+say is intended for philosophers--I wish (if you'll allow me to misquote
+a saying of Louis XVIII.),--I wish to make you see that definitions lead
+to muddles."
+
+Poiret [wiping his forehead]. "Excuse me, I am sick at my stomach"
+[tries to button his coat]. "Ah! you have cut off all my buttons!"
+
+Bixiou. "But the point is, /do you understand me/?"
+
+Poiret [angrily]. "Yes, monsieur, I do; I understand that you have been
+playing me a shameful trick and twisting off my buttons while I have
+been standing here unconscious of it."
+
+Bixiou [solemnly]. "Old man, you are mistaken! I wished to stamp upon
+your brain the clearest possible image of constitutional government"
+[all the clerks look at Bixiou; Poiret, stupefied, gazes at him
+uneasily], "and also to keep my word to you. In so doing I employed
+the parabolical method of savages. Listen and comprehend: While the
+ministers start discussions in the Chambers that are just about
+as useful and as conclusive as the one we are engaged in, the
+administration cuts the buttons off the tax-payers."
+
+All. "Bravo, Bixiou!"
+
+Poiret [who comprehends]. "I don't regret my buttons."
+
+Bixiou. "I shall follow Minard's example; I won't pocket such a
+paltry salary as mine any longer; I shall deprive the government of my
+co-operation." [Departs amid general laughter.]
+
+Another scene was taking place in the minister's reception-room, more
+instructive than the one we have just related, because it shows how
+great ideas are allowed to perish in the higher regions of State
+affairs, and in what way statesmen console themselves.
+
+Des Lupeaulx was presenting the new director, Monsieur Baudoyer, to the
+minister. A number of persons were assembled in the salon,--two or three
+ministerial deputies, a few men of influence, and Monsieur Clergeot
+(whose division was now merged with La Billardiere's under Baudoyer's
+direction), to whom the minister was promising an honorable pension.
+After a few general remarks, the great event of the day was brought up.
+
+A deputy. "So you lose Rabourdin?"
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "He has resigned."
+
+Clergeot. "They say he wanted to reform the administration."
+
+The Minister [looking at the deputies]. "Salaries are not really in
+proportion to the exigencies of the civil service."
+
+De la Briere. "According to Monsieur Rabourdin, one hundred clerks with
+a salary of twelve thousand francs would do better and quicker work than
+a thousand clerks at twelve hundred."
+
+Clergeot. "Perhaps he is right."
+
+The Minister. "But what is to be done? The machine is built in that way.
+Must we take it to pieces and remake it? No one would have the courage
+to attempt that in face of the Chamber, and the foolish outcries of the
+Opposition, and the fierce denunciations of the press. It follows
+that there will happen, one of these days, some damaging 'solution of
+continuity' between the government and the administration."
+
+A deputy. "In what way?"
+
+The Minister. "In many ways. A minister will want to serve the public
+good, and will not be allowed to do so. You will create interminable
+delays between things and their results. You may perhaps render the
+theft of a penny actually impossible, but you cannot prevent the buying
+and selling of influence, the collusions of self-interest. The day will
+come when nothing will be conceded without secret stipulations, which
+may never see the light. Moreover, the clerks, one and all, from the
+least to the greatest, are acquiring opinions of their own; they will
+soon be no longer the hands of a brain, the scribes of governmental
+thought; the Opposition even now tends towards giving them a right to
+judge the government and to talk and vote against it."
+
+Baudoyer [in a low voice, but meaning to be heard]. "Monseigneur is
+really fine."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "Of course bureaucracy has its defects. I myself think it
+slow and insolent; it hampers ministerial action, stifles projects, and
+arrests progress. But, after all, French administration is amazingly
+useful."
+
+Baudoyer. "Certainly!"
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "If only to maintain the paper and stamp industries!
+Suppose it is rather fussy and provoking, like all good
+housekeepers,--it can at any moment render an account of its
+disbursements. Where is the merchant who would not gladly give five
+per cent of his entire capital if he could insure himself against
+/leakage/?"
+
+The Deputy [a manufacturer]. "The manufacturing interests of all nations
+would joyfully unite against that evil genius of theirs called leakage."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "After all, though statistics are the childish foible of
+modern statesmen, who think that figures are estimates, we must cipher
+to estimate. Figures are, moreover, the convincing argument of societies
+based on self-interest and money, and that is the sort of society the
+Charter has given us,--in my opinion, at any rate. Nothing convinces the
+'intelligent masses' as much as a row of figures. All things in the long
+run, say the statesmen of the Left, resolve themselves into figures.
+Well then, let us figure" [the minister here goes off into a corner with
+a deputy, to whom he talks in a low voice]. "There are forty thousand
+government clerks in France. The average of their salaries is fifteen
+hundred francs. Multiply forty thousand by fifteen hundred and you have
+sixty millions. Now, in the first place, a publicist would call the
+attention of Russia and China (where all government officials steal),
+also that of Austria, the American republics, and indeed that of the
+whole world, to the fact that for this price France possesses the
+most inquisitorial, fussy, ferreting, scribbling, paper-blotting,
+fault-finding old housekeeper of a civil service on God's earth. Not a
+copper farthing of the nation's money is spent or hoarded that is not
+ordered by a note, proved by vouchers, produced and re-produced on
+balance-sheets, and receipted for when paid; orders and receipts are
+registered on the rolls, and checked and verified by an army of men
+in spectacles. If there is the slightest mistake in the form of these
+precious documents, the clerk is terrified, for he lives on such
+minutiae. Some nations would be satisfied to get as far as this;
+but Napoleon went further. That great organizer appointed supreme
+magistrates of a court which is absolutely unique in the world. These
+officials pass their days in verifying money-orders, documents, roles,
+registers, lists, permits, custom-house receipts, payments, taxes
+received, taxes spent, etc.; all of which the clerks write or
+copy. These stern judges push the gift of exactitude, the genius of
+inquisition, the sharp-sightedness of lynxes, the perspicacity of
+account-books to the point of going over all the additions in search of
+subtractions. These sublime martyrs to figures have been known to return
+to an army commissary, after a delay of two years, some account in which
+there was an error of two farthings. This is how and why it is that the
+French system of administration, the purest and best on the globe
+has rendered robbery, as his Excellency has just told you, next to
+impossible, and as for peculation, it is a myth. France at this present
+time possesses a revenue of twelve hundred millions, and she spends it.
+That sum enters her treasury, and that sum goes out of it. She handles,
+therefore, two thousand four hundred millions, and all she pays for the
+labor of those who do the work is sixty millions,--two and a half per
+cent; and for that she obtains the certainty that there is no leakage.
+Our political and administrative kitchen costs us sixty millions, but
+the gendarmerie, the courts of law, the galleys and the police cost just
+as much, and give no return. Moreover, we employ a body of men who could
+do no other work. Waste and disorder, if such there be, can only be
+legislative; the Chambers lead to them and render them legal. Leakage
+follows in the form of public works which are neither urgent nor
+necessary; troops re-uniformed and gold-laced over and over again;
+vessels sent on useless cruises; preparations for war without ever
+making it; paying the debts of a State, and not requiring reimbursement
+or insisting on security."
+
+Baudoyer. "But such leakage has nothing to do with the subordinate
+officials; this bad management of national affairs concerns the
+statesmen who guide the ship."
+
+The Minister [who has finished his conversation]. "There is a great deal
+of truth in what des Lupeaulx has just said; but let me tell you" [to
+Baudoyer], "Monsieur le directeur, that few men see from the standpoint
+of a statesman. To order expenditure of all kinds, even useless ones,
+does not constitute bad management. Such acts contribute to the movement
+of money, the stagnation of which becomes, especially in France,
+dangerous to the public welfare, by reason of the miserly and profoundly
+illogical habits of the provinces which hoard their gold."
+
+The Deputy [who listened to des Lupeaulx]. "But it seems to me that
+if your Excellency was right just now, and if our clever friend here"
+[takes Lupeaulx by the arm] "was not wrong, it will be difficult to come
+to any conclusion on the subject."
+
+Des Lupeaulx [after looking at the minister]. "No doubt something ought
+to be done."
+
+De la Briere [timidly]. "Monsieur Rabourdin seems to have judged
+rightly."
+
+The Minister. "I will see Rabourdin."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "The poor man made the blunder of constituting himself
+supreme judge of the administration and of all the officials who compose
+it; he wants to do away with the present state of things, and he demands
+that there be only three ministries."
+
+The Minister. "He must be crazy."
+
+The Deputy. "How do you represent in three ministries the heads of all
+the parties in the Chamber?"
+
+Baudoyer [with an air that he imagined to be shrewd]. "Perhaps Monsieur
+Rabourdin desired to change the Constitution, which we owe to our
+legislative sovereign."
+
+The Minister [thoughtful, takes La Briere's arm and leads him into the
+study]. "I want to see that work of Rabourdin's, and as you know about
+it--"
+
+De la Briere. "He has burned it. You allowed him to be dishonored and he
+has resigned from the ministry. Do not think for a moment, Monseigneur,
+that Rabourdin ever had the absurd thought (as des Lupeaulx tries to
+make it believed) to change the admirable centralization of power."
+
+The Minister [to himself]. "I have made a mistake" [is silent a moment].
+"No matter; we shall never be lacking in plans for reform."
+
+De la Briere. "It is not ideas, but men capable of executing them that
+we lack."
+
+Des Lupeaulx, that adroit advocate of abuses came into the minister's
+study at this moment.
+
+"Monseigneur, I start at once for my election."
+
+"Wait a moment," said his Excellency, leaving the private secretary and
+taking des Lupeaulx by the arm into the recess of a window. "My dear
+friend, let me have that arrondissement,--if you will, you shall be
+made count and I will pay your debts. Later, if I remain in the ministry
+after the new Chamber is elected, I will find a way to send in your name
+in a batch for the peerage."
+
+"You are a man of honor, and I accept."
+
+This is how it came to pass that Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, whose
+father was ennobled under Louis XV., and who beareth quarterly, first,
+argent, a wolf ravisant carrying a lamb gules; second, purpure, three
+mascles argent, two and one; third, paly of twelve, gules and argent;
+fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises gules;
+supported by four griffon's-claws jessant from the sides of the
+escutcheon, with the motto "En Lupus in Historia," was able to surmount
+these rather satirical arms with a count's coronet.
+
+Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did some business
+on hand which required him to visit the old ministry, where the
+bureaus had all been in great commotion, owing to a general removal
+of officials, from the highest to the lowest. This revolution bore
+heaviest, in point of fact, upon the lackeys, who are not fond of seeing
+new faces. Rabourdin had come early, knowing all the ways of the place,
+and he thus chanced to overhear a dialogue between the two nephews of
+old Antoine, who had recently retired on a pension.
+
+"Well, Laurent, how is your chief of division going on?"
+
+"Oh, don't talk to me about him; I can't do anything with him. He
+rings me up to ask if I have seen his handkerchief or his snuff-box. He
+receives people without making them wait; in short, he hasn't a bit of
+dignity. I'm often obliged to say to him: But, monsieur, monsieur le
+comte your predecessor, for the credit of the thing, used to punch
+holes with his penknife in the arms of his chair to make believe he
+was working. And he makes such a mess of his room. I find everything
+topsy-turvy. He has a very small mind. How about your man?"
+
+"Mine? Oh, I have succeeded in training him. He knows exactly where his
+letter-paper and envelopes, his wood, and his boxes and all the rest of
+his things are. The other man used to swear at me, but this one is as
+meek as a lamb,--still, he hasn't the grand style! Moreover, he isn't
+decorated, and I don't like to serve a chief who isn't; he might be
+taken for one of us, and that's humiliating. He carries the office
+letter-paper home, and asked me if I couldn't go there and wait at table
+when there was company."
+
+"Hey! what a government, my dear fellow!"
+
+"Yes, indeed; everybody plays low in these days."
+
+"I hope they won't cut down our poor wages."
+
+"I'm afraid they will. The Chambers are prying into everything. Why,
+they even count the sticks of wood."
+
+"Well, it can't last long if they go on that way."
+
+"Hush, we're caught! somebody is listening."
+
+"Hey! it is the late Monsieur Rabourdin. Ah, monsieur, I knew your step.
+If you have business to transact here I am afraid you will not find any
+one who is aware of the respect that ought to be paid to you; Laurent
+and I are the only persons remaining about the place who were here in
+your day. Messieurs Colleville and Baudoyer didn't wear out the morocco
+of the chairs after you left. Heavens, no! six months later they were
+made Collectors of Paris."
+
+* * * * *
+
+Note.--Anagrams cannot, of course, be translated; that is why three
+English ones have been substituted for some in French. [Tr.]
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Baudoyer, Isidore
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Bianchon, Horace
+       Father Goriot
+       The Atheist's Mass
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       Pierrette
+       A Study of Woman
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Honorine
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Second Home
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Country Parson
+     In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+       Another Study of Woman
+       La Grande Breteche
+
+     Bidault (known as Gigonnet)
+       Gobseck
+       The Vendetta
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Modeste Mignon
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Member for Arcis
+       Beatrix
+       A Man of Business
+       Gaudissart II.
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Brezacs (The)
+       The Country Parson
+
+     Bruel, Jean Francois du
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       A Start in Life
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       The Middle Classes
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Camps, Madame Octave de
+       Madame Firmiani
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Chaboisseau
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Man of Business
+
+     Chatelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, Baronne du
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+
+     Chessel, Madame de
+       The Lily of the Valley
+
+     Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Colleville
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Desplein
+       The Atheist's Mass
+       Cousin Pons
+       Lost Illusions
+       The Thirteen
+       Pierrette
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       Modest Mignon
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Honorine
+
+     Desroches (son)
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Colonel Chabert
+       A Start in Life
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       A Man of Business
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Dutocq
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Falleix, Martin
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Falleix, Jacques
+       The Thirteen
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+     Ferraud, Comtesse
+       Colonel Chabert
+
+     Finot, Andoche
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       A Start in Life
+       Gaudissart the Great
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Fleury
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Fontaine, Comte de
+       The Chouans
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Fontanon, Abbe
+       A Second Home
+       Honorine
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Gaudron, Abbe
+       Honorine
+       A Start in Life
+
+     Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
+       Gobseck
+       Father Goriot
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Godard, Joseph
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Granson, Athanase
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+
+     Gruget, Madame Etienne
+       The Thirteen
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+
+     Keller, Francois
+       Domestic Peace
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     La Bastie la Briere, Ernest de
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     La Billardiere, Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel, Baron Flamet de
+       The Chouans
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Laudigeois
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier
+       The Chouans
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Colonel Chabert
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Metivier
+       Lost Illusions
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minard, Madame
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minorets, The
+       The Peasantry
+
+     Mitral
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Phellion
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Poiret, the elder
+       Father Goriot
+       A Start in Life
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Rabourdin, Xavier
+       At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Rabourdin, Madame
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+
+     Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+     Saillard
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Samanon
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Schinner, Hippolyte
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Pierre Grassou
+       A Start in Life
+       Albert Savarus
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Sommervieux, Theodore de
+       At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     Thuillier
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier, Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier, Louis-Jerome
+       The Middle Classes
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Bureaucracy
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Release Date: June 23, 2004 [EBook #1343]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUREAUCRACY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+                            BUREAUCRACY
+
+                                 BY
+
+                          HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+                           Translated By
+                    Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+    To the Comtesse Seraphina San Severino, with the respectful
+               homage of sincere and deep admiration
+                                                  De Balzac
+
+
+
+
+                            BUREAUCRACY
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER I
+
+                      THE RABOURDIN HOUSEHOLD
+
+In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain likeness to
+one another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met
+with several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are
+about to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our
+most important ministries. At this period he was forty years old, with
+gray hair of so pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch fall in
+love with it for it softened a somewhat melancholy countenance, blue
+eyes full of fire, a skin that was still fair, though rather ruddy and
+touched here and there with strong red marks; a forehead and nose a la
+Louis XV., a serious mouth, a tall figure, thin, or perhaps wasted,
+like that of a man just recovering from illness, and finally, a
+bearing that was midway between the indolence of a mere idler and the
+thoughtfulness of a busy man. If this portrait serves to depict his
+character, a sketch of this man's dress will bring it still further
+into relief. Rabourdin wore habitually a blue surcoat, a white cravat,
+a waistcoat crossed a la Robespierre, black trousers without straps,
+gray silk stockings and low shoes. Well-shaved, and with his stomach
+warmed by a cup of coffee, he left home at eight in the morning with
+the regularity of clock-work, always passing along the same streets on
+his way to the ministry: so neat was he, so formal, so starched that
+he might have been taken for an Englishman on the road to his embassy.
+
+From these general signs you will readily discern a family man,
+harassed by vexations in his own household, worried by annoyances at
+the ministry, yet philosopher enough to take life as he found it; an
+honest man, loving his country and serving it, not concealing from
+himself the obstacles in the way of those who seek to do right;
+prudent, because he knew men; exquisitely courteous with women, of
+whom he asked nothing,--a man full of acquirements, affable with his
+inferiors, holding his equals at great distance, and dignified towards
+his superiors. At the epoch of which we write, you would have noticed
+in him the coldly resigned air of one who has buried the illusions of
+his youth and renounced every secret ambition; you would have
+recognized a discouraged, but not disgusted man, one who still clings
+to his first projects,--more perhaps to employ his faculties than in
+the hope of a doubtful success. He was not decorated with any order,
+and always accused himself of weakness for having worn that of the
+Fleur-de-lis in the early days of the Restoration.
+
+The life of this man was marked by certain mysterious peculiarities.
+He had never known his father; his mother, a woman to whom luxury was
+everything, always elegantly dressed, always on pleasure bent, whose
+beauty seemed to him miraculous and whom he very seldom saw, left him
+little at her death; but she had given him that too common and
+incomplete education which produces so much ambition and so little
+ability. A few days before his mother's death, when he was just
+sixteen, he left the Lycee Napoleon to enter as supernumerary a
+government office, where an unknown protector had provided him with a
+place. At twenty-two years of age Rabourdin became under-head-clerk;
+at twenty-five, head-clerk, or, as it was termed, head of the bureau.
+From that day the hand that assisted the young man to start in life
+was never felt again in his career, except as to a single
+circumstance; it led him, poor and friendless, to the house of a
+Monsieur Leprince, formerly an auctioneer, a widower said to be
+extremely rich, and father of an only daughter. Xavier Rabourdin fell
+desperately in love with Mademoiselle Celestine Leprince, then
+seventeen years of age, who had all the matrimonial claims of a dowry
+of two hundred thousand francs. Carefully educated by an artistic
+mother, who transmitted her own talents to her daughter, this young
+lady was fitted to attract distinguished men. Tall, handsome, and
+finely-formed, she was a good musician, drew and painted, spoke
+several languages, and even knew something of science,--a dangerous
+advantage, which requires a woman to avoid carefully all appearance of
+pedantry. Blinded by mistaken tenderness, the mother gave the daughter
+false ideas as to her probable future; to the maternal eyes a duke or
+an ambassador, a marshal of France or a minister of State, could alone
+give her Celestine her due place in society. The young lady had,
+moreover, the manners, language, and habits of the great world. Her
+dress was richer and more elegant than was suitable for an unmarried
+girl; a husband could give her nothing more than she now had, except
+happiness. Besides all such indulgences, the foolish spoiling of the
+mother, who died a year after the girl's marriage, made a husband's
+task all the more difficult. What coolness and composure of mind were
+needed to rule such a woman! Commonplace suitors held back in fear.
+Xavier Rabourdin, without parents and without fortune other than his
+situation under government, was proposed to Celestine by her father.
+She resisted for a long time; not that she had any personal objection
+to her suitor, who was young, handsome, and much in love, but she
+shrank from the plain name of Madame Rabourdin. Monsieur Leprince
+assured his daughter that Xavier was of the stock that statesmen came
+of. Celestine answered that a man named Rabourdin would never be
+anything under the government of the Bourbons, etc. Forced back to his
+intrenchments, the father made the serious mistake of telling his
+daughter that her future husband was certain of becoming Rabourdin "de
+something or other" before he reached the age of admission to the
+Chamber. Xavier was soon to be appointed Master of petitions, and
+general-secretary at his ministry. From these lower steps of the
+ladder the young man would certainly rise to the higher ranks of the
+administration, possessed of a fortune and a name bequeathed to him in
+a certain will of which he, Monsieur Leprince, was cognizant. On this
+the marriage took place.
+
+Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious protector to whom
+the auctioneer alluded. Led away by such hopes and by the natural
+extravagance of happy love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin spent nearly
+one hundred thousand francs of their capital in the first five years
+of married life. By the end of this time Celestine, alarmed at the
+non-advancement of her husband, insisted on investing the remaining
+hundred thousand francs of her dowry in landed property, which
+returned only a slender income; but her future inheritance from her
+father would amply repay all present privations with perfect comfort
+and ease of life. When the worthy auctioneer saw his son-in-law
+disappointed of the hopes they had placed on the nameless protector,
+he tried, for the sake of his daughter, to repair the secret loss by
+risking part of his fortune in a speculation which had favourable
+chances of success. But the poor man became involved in one of the
+liquidations of the house of Nucingen, and died of grief, leaving
+nothing behind him but a dozen fine pictures which adorned his
+daughter's salon, and a few old-fashioned pieces of furniture, which
+she put in the garret.
+
+Eight years of fruitless expectation made Madame Rabourdin at last
+understand that the paternal protector of her husband must have died,
+and that his will, if it ever existed, was lost or destroyed. Two
+years before her father's death the place of chief of division, which
+became vacant, was given, over her husband's head, to a certain
+Monsieur de la Billardiere, related to a deputy of the Right who was
+made minister in 1823. It was enough to drive Rabourdin out of the
+service; but how could he give up his salary of eight thousand francs
+and perquisites, when they constituted three fourths of his income and
+his household was accustomed to spend them? Besides, if he had
+patience for a few more years he would then be entitled to a pension.
+What a fall was this for a woman whose high expectations at the
+opening of her life were more or less warranted, and one who was
+admitted on all sides to be a superior woman.
+
+Madame Rabourdin had justified the expectations formed of Mademoiselle
+Leprince; she possessed the elements of that apparent superiority
+which pleases the world; her liberal education enabled her to speak to
+every one in his or her own language; her talents were real; she
+showed an independent and elevated mind; her conversation charmed as
+much by its variety and ease as by the oddness and originality of her
+ideas. Such qualities, useful and appropriate in a sovereign or an
+ambassadress, were of little service to a household compelled to jog
+in the common round. Those who have the gift of speaking well desire
+an audience; they like to talk, even if they sometimes weary others.
+To satisfy the requirements of her mind Madame Rabourdin took a weekly
+reception-day and went a great deal into society to obtain the
+consideration her self-love was accustomed to enjoy. Those who know
+Parisian life will readily understand how a woman of her temperament
+suffered, and was martyrized at heart by the scantiness of her
+pecuniary means. No matter what foolish declarations people make about
+money, they one and all, if they live in Paris, must grovel before
+accounts, do homage to figures, and kiss the forked hoof of the golden
+calf. What a problem was hers! twelve thousand francs a year to defray
+the costs of a household consisting of father, mother, two children, a
+chambermaid and cook, living on the second floor of a house in the rue
+Duphot, in an apartment costing two thousand francs a year. Deduct the
+dress and the carriage of Madame before you estimate the gross
+expenses of the family, for dress precedes everything; then see what
+remains for the education of the children (a girl of eight and a boy
+of nine, whose maintenance must cost at least two thousand francs
+besides) and you will find that Madame Rabourdin could barely afford
+to give her husband thirty francs a month. That is the position of
+half the husbands in Paris, under penalty of being thought monsters.
+
+Thus it was that this woman who believed herself destined to shine in
+the world was condemned to use her mind and her faculties in a sordid
+struggle, fighting hand to hand with an account-book. Already,
+terrible sacrifice of pride! she had dismissed her man-servant, not
+long after the death of her father. Most women grow weary of this
+daily struggle; they complain but they usually end by giving up to
+fate and taking what comes to them; Celestine's ambition, far from
+lessening, only increased through difficulties, and led her, when she
+found she could not conquer them, to sweep them aside. To her mind
+this complicated tangle of the affairs of life was a Gordian knot
+impossible to untie and which genius ought to cut. Far from accepting
+the pettiness of middle-class existence, she was angry at the delay
+which kept the great things of life from her grasp,--blaming fate as
+deceptive. Celestine sincerely believed herself a superior woman.
+Perhaps she was right; perhaps she would have been great under great
+circumstances; perhaps she was not in her right place. Let us remember
+there are as many varieties of woman as there are of man, all of which
+society fashions to meet its needs. Now in the social order, as in
+Nature's order, there are more young shoots than there are trees, more
+spawn than full-grown fish, and many great capacities (Athanase
+Granson, for instance) which die withered for want of moisture, like
+seeds on stony ground. There are, unquestionably, household women,
+accomplished women, ornamental women, women who are exclusively wives,
+or mothers, or sweethearts, women purely spiritual or purely material;
+just as there are soldiers, artists, artisans, mathematicians, poets,
+merchants, men who understand money, or agriculture, or government,
+and nothing else. Besides all this, the eccentricity of events leads
+to endless cross-purposes; many are called and few are chosen is the
+law of earth as of heaven. Madame Rabourdin conceived herself fully
+capable of directing a statesman, inspiring an artist, helping an
+inventor and pushing his interests, or of devoting her powers to the
+financial politics of a Nucingen, and playing a brilliant part in the
+great world. Perhaps she was only endeavouring to excuse to her own
+mind a hatred for the laundry lists and the duty of overlooking the
+housekeeping bills, together with the petty economies and cares of a
+small establishment. She was superior only in those things where it
+gave her pleasure to be so. Feeling as keenly as she did the thorns of
+a position which can only be likened to that of Saint-Laurence on his
+grid-iron, is it any wonder that she sometimes cried out? So, in her
+paroxysms of thwarted ambition, in the moments when her wounded vanity
+gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine turned upon Xavier
+Rabourdin. Was it not her husband's duty to give her a suitable
+position in the world? If she were a man she would have had the energy
+to make a rapid fortune for the sake of rendering an adored wife
+happy! She reproached him for being too honest a man. In the mouth of
+some women this accusation is a charge of imbecility. She sketched out
+for him certain brilliant plans in which she took no account of the
+hindrances imposed by men and things; then, like all women under the
+influence of vehement feeling, she became in thought as Machiavellian
+as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than Maxime de Trailles. At such
+times Celestine's mind took a wide range, and she imagined herself at
+the summit of her ideas.
+
+When these fine visions first began Rabourdin, who saw the practical
+side, was cool. Celestine, much grieved, thought her husband
+narrow-minded, timid, unsympathetic; and she acquired, insensibly, a
+wholly false opinion of the companion of her life. In the first place,
+she often extinguished him by the brilliancy of her arguments. Her ideas
+came to her in flashes, and she sometimes stopped him short when he
+began an explanation, because she did not choose to lose the slightest
+sparkle of her own mind. From the earliest days of their marriage
+Celestine, feeling herself beloved and admired by her husband, treated
+him without ceremony; she put herself above conjugal laws and the
+rules of private courtesy by expecting love to pardon all her little
+wrong-doings; and, as she never in any way corrected herself, she was
+always in the ascendant. In such a situation the man holds to the wife
+very much the position of a child to a teacher when the latter cannot
+or will not recognize that the mind he has ruled in childhood is
+becoming mature. Like Madame de Stael, who exclaimed in a room full of
+people, addressing, as we may say, a greater man than herself, "Do you
+know you have really said something very profound!" Madame Rabourdin
+said of her husband: "He certainly has a good deal of sense at times."
+Her disparaging opinion of him gradually appeared in her behavior
+through almost imperceptible motions. Her attitude and manners
+expressed a want of respect. Without being aware of it she injured her
+husband in the eyes of others; for in all countries society, before
+making up its mind about a man, listens for what his wife thinks of
+him, and obtains from her what the Genevese term "pre-advice."
+
+When Rabourdin became aware of the mistakes which love had led him to
+commit it was too late,--the groove had been cut; he suffered and was
+silent. Like other men in whom sentiments and ideas are of equal
+strength, whose souls are noble and their brains well balanced, he was
+the defender of his wife before the tribunal of his own judgment; he
+told himself that nature doomed her to a disappointed life through his
+fault; HIS; she was like a thoroughbred English horse, a racer
+harnessed to a cart full of stones; she it was who suffered; and he
+blamed himself. His wife, by dint of constant repetition, had
+inoculated him with her own belief in herself. Ideas are contagious in
+a household; the ninth thermidor, like so many other portentous
+events, was the result of female influence. Thus, goaded by
+Celestine's ambition, Rabourdin had long considered the means of
+satisfying it, though he hid his hopes, so as to spare her the
+tortures of uncertainty. The man was firmly resolved to make his way
+in the administration by bringing a strong light to bear upon it. He
+intended to bring about one of those revolutions which send a man to
+the head of either one party or another in society; but being
+incapable of so doing in his own interests, he merely pondered useful
+thoughts and dreamed of triumphs won for his country by noble means.
+His ideas were both generous and ambitious; few officials have not
+conceived the like; but among officials as among artists there are
+more miscarriages than births; which is tantamount to Buffon's saying
+that "Genius is patience."
+
+Placed in a position where he could study French administration and
+observe its mechanism, Rabourdin worked in the circle where his
+thought revolved, which, we may remark parenthetically, is the secret
+of much human accomplishment; and his labor culminated finally in the
+invention of a new system for the Civil Service of government. Knowing
+the people with whom he had to do, he maintained the machine as it
+then worked, so it still works and will continue to work; for
+everybody fears to remodel it, though no one, according to Rabourdin,
+ought to be unwilling to simplify it. In his opinion, the problem to
+be resolved lay in a better use of the same forces. His plan, in its
+simplest form, was to revise taxation and lower it in a way that
+should not diminish the revenues of the State, and to obtain, from a
+budget equal to the budgets which now excite such rabid discussion,
+results that should be two-fold greater than the present results. Long
+practical experience had taught Rabourdin that perfection is brought
+about in all things by changes in the direction of simplicity. To
+economize is to simplify. To simplify means to suppress unnecessary
+machinery; removals naturally follow. His system, therefore, depended
+on the weeding out of officials and the establishment of a new order
+of administrative offices. No doubt the hatred which all reformers
+incur takes its rise here. Removals required by this perfecting
+process, always ill-understood, threaten the well-being of those on
+whom a change in their condition is thus forced. What rendered
+Rabourdin really great was that he was able to restrain the enthusiasm
+that possesses all reformers, and to patiently seek out a slow
+evolving medium for all changes so as to avoid shocks, leaving time
+and experience to prove the excellence of each reform. The grandeur of
+the result anticipated might make us doubt its possibility if we lose
+sight of this essential point in our rapid analysis of his system. It
+is, therefore, not unimportant to show through his self-communings,
+however incomplete they might be, the point of view from which he
+looked at the administrative horizon. This tale, which is evolved from
+the very heart of the Civil Service, may also serve to show some of
+the evils of our present social customs.
+
+Xavier Rabourdin, deeply impressed by the trials and poverty which he
+witnessed in the lives of the government clerks, endeavored to
+ascertain the cause of their growing deterioration. He found it in
+those petty partial revolutions, the eddies, as it were, of the storm
+of 1789, which the historians of great social movements neglect to
+inquire into, although as a matter of fact it is they which have made
+our manners and customs what they are now.
+
+Formerly, under the monarchy, the bureaucratic armies did not exist.
+The clerks, few in number, were under the orders of a prime minister
+who communicated with the sovereign; thus they directly served the
+king. The superiors of these zealous servants were simply called
+head-clerks. In those branches of administration which the king did not
+himself direct, such for instance as the "fermes" (the public domains
+throughout the country on which a revenue was levied), the clerks were
+to their superior what the clerks of a business-house are to their
+employer; they learned a science which would one day advance them to
+prosperity. Thus, all points of the circumference were fastened to the
+centre and derived their life from it. The result was devotion and
+confidence. Since 1789 the State, call it the Nation if you like, has
+replaced the sovereign. Instead of looking directly to the chief
+magistrate of this nation, the clerks have become, in spite of our
+fine patriotic ideas, the subsidiaries of the government; their
+superiors are blown about by the winds of a power called "the
+administration," and do not know from day to day where they may be on
+the morrow. As the routine of public business must go on, a certain
+number of indispensable clerks are kept in their places, though they
+hold these places on sufferance, anxious as they are to retain them.
+Bureaucracy, a gigantic power set in motion by dwarfs, was generated
+in this way. Though Napoleon, by subordinating all things and all men
+to his will, retarded for a time the influence of bureaucracy (that
+ponderous curtain hung between the service to be done and the man who
+orders it), it was permanently organized under the constitutional
+government, which was, inevitably, the friend of all mediocrities, the
+lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as meddlesome as an old
+tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers constantly
+struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the Elected of the
+Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and dishonest leaders,
+the Civil Service officials hastened to make themselves essential to
+the warfare by adding their quota of assistance under the form of
+written action; they created a power of inertia and named it "Report."
+Let us explain the Report.
+
+When the kings of France took to themselves ministers, which first
+happened under Louis XV., they made them render reports on all
+important questions, instead of holding, as formerly, grand councils
+of state with the nobles. Under the constitutional government, the
+ministers of the various departments were insensibly led by their
+bureaus to imitate this practice of kings. Their time being taken up
+in defending themselves before the two Chambers and the court, they
+let themselves be guided by the leading-strings of the Report. Nothing
+important was ever brought before the government that a minister did
+not say, even when the case was urgent, "I have called for a report."
+The Report thus became, both as to the matter concerned and for the
+minister himself, the same as a report to the Chamber of Deputies on a
+question of laws,--namely, a disquisition in which the reasons for and
+against are stated with more or less partiality. No real result is
+attained; the minister, like the Chamber, is fully as well prepared
+before as after the report is rendered. A determination, in whatever
+matter, is reached in an instant. Do what we will, the moment comes
+when the decision must be made. The greater the array of reasons for
+and against, the less sound will be the judgment. The finest things of
+which France can boast have been accomplished without reports and
+where decisions were prompt and spontaneous. The dominant law of a
+statesman is to apply precise formula to all cases, after the manner
+of judges and physicians.
+
+Rabourdin, who said to himself: "A minister should have decision,
+should know public affairs, and direct their course," saw "Report"
+rampant throughout France, from the colonel to the marshal, from the
+commissary of police to the king, from the prefects to the ministers
+of state, from the Chamber to the courts. After 1818 everything was
+discussed, compared, and weighed, either in speech or writing; public
+business took a literary form. France went to ruin in spite of this
+array of documents; dissertations stood in place of action; a million
+of reports were written every year; bureaucracy was enthroned!
+Records, statistics, documents, failing which France would have been
+ruined, circumlocution, without which there could be no advance,
+increased, multiplied, and grew majestic. From that day forth
+bureaucracy used to its own profit the mistrust that stands between
+receipts and expenditures; it degraded the administration for the
+benefit of the administrators; in short, it spun those lilliputian
+threads which have chained France to Parisian centralization,--as if
+from 1500 to 1800 France had undertaken nothing for want of thirty
+thousand government clerks! In fastening upon public offices, like a
+mistletoe on a pear-tree, these officials indemnified themselves
+amply, and in the following manner.
+
+The ministers, compelled to obey the princes or the Chambers who
+impose upon them the distribution of the public moneys, and forced to
+retain the workers in office, proceeded to diminish salaries and
+increase the number of those workers, thinking that if more persons
+were employed by government the stronger the government would be. And
+yet the contrary law is an axiom written on the universe; there is no
+vigor except where there are few active principles. Events proved in
+July, 1830, the error of the materialism of the Restoration. To plant
+a government in the hearts of a nation it is necessary to bind
+INTERESTS to it, not MEN. The government-clerks being led to detest
+the administrations which lessened both their salaries and their
+importance, treated them as a courtesan treats an aged lover, and gave
+them mere work for money; a state of things which would have seemed as
+intolerable to the administration as to the clerks, had the two
+parties dared to feel each other's pulse, or had the higher salaries
+not succeeded in stifling the voices of the lower. Thus wholly and
+solely occupied in retaining his place, drawing his pay, and securing
+his pension, the government official thought everything permissible
+that conduced to these results. This state of things led to servility
+on the part of the clerks and to endless intrigues within the various
+departments, where the humbler clerks struggled vainly against
+degenerate members of the aristocracy, who sought positions in the
+government bureaus for their ruined sons.
+
+Superior men could scarcely bring themselves to tread these tortuous
+ways, to stoop, to cringe, and creep through the mire of these
+cloacas, where the presence of a fine mind only alarmed the other
+denizens. The ambitious man of genius grows old in obtaining his
+triple crown; he does not follow in the steps of Sixtus the Fifth
+merely to become head of a bureau. No one comes or stays in the
+government offices but idlers, incapables, or fools. Thus the
+mediocrity of French administration has slowly come about.
+Bureaucracy, made up entirely of petty minds, stands as an obstacle to
+the prosperity of the nation; delays for seven years, by its
+machinery, the project of a canal which would have stimulated the
+production of a province; is afraid of everything, prolongs
+procrastination, and perpetuates the abuses which in turn perpetuate
+and consolidate itself. Bureaucracy holds all things and the
+administration itself in leading strings; it stifles men of talent who
+are bold enough to be independent of it or to enlighten it on its own
+follies. About the time of which we write the pension list had just
+been issued, and on it Rabourdin saw the name of an underling in
+office rated for a larger sum than the old colonels, maimed and
+wounded for their country. In that fact lies the whole history of
+bureaucracy.
+
+Another evil, brought about by modern customs, which Rabourdin counted
+among the causes of this secret demoralization, was the fact that
+there is no real subordination in the administration in Paris;
+complete equality reigns between the head of an important division and
+the humblest copying-clerk; one is as powerful as the other in an
+arena outside of which each lords it in his own way. Education,
+equally distributed through the masses, brings the son of a porter
+into a government office to decide the fate of some man of merit or
+some landed proprietor whose door-bell his father may have answered.
+The last comer is therefore on equal terms with the oldest veteran in
+the service. A wealthy supernumerary splashes his superior as he
+drives his tilbury to Longchamps and points with his whip to the poor
+father of a family, remarking to the pretty woman at his side, "That's
+my chief." The Liberals call this state of things Progress; Rabourdin
+thought it Anarchy at the heart of power. He saw how it resulted in
+restless intrigues, like those of a harem between eunuchs and women
+and imbecile sultans, or the petty troubles of nuns full of underhand
+vexations, or college tyrannies, or diplomatic manoeuvrings fit to
+terrify an ambassador, all put in motion to obtain a fee or an
+increase in salary; it was like the hopping of fleas harnessed to
+pasteboard cars, the spitefulness of slaves, often visited on the
+minister himself. With all this were the really useful men, the
+workers, victims of such parasites; men sincerely devoted to their
+country, who stood vigorously out from the background of the other
+incapables, yet who were often forced to succumb through unworthy
+trickery.
+
+All the higher offices were gained through parliamentary influence,
+royalty had nothing to do now with them, and the subordinate clerks
+became, after a time, merely the running-gear of the machine; the most
+important considerations with them being to keep the wheels well
+greased. This fatal conviction entering some of the best minds
+smothered many statements conscientiously written on the secret evils
+of the national government; lowered the courage of many hearts, and
+corrupted sterling honesty, weary of injustice and won to indifference
+by deteriorating annoyances. A clerk in the employ of the Rothchilds
+corresponds with all England; another, in a government office, may
+communicate with all the prefects; but where the one learns the way to
+make his fortune, the other loses time and health and life to no
+avail. An undermining evil lies here. Certainly a nation does not seem
+threatened with immediate dissolution because an able clerk is sent
+away and a middling sort of man replaces him. Unfortunately for the
+welfare of nations individual men never seem essential to their
+existence. But in the long run when the belittling process is fully
+carried out nations will disappear. Every one who seeks instruction on
+this point can look at Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Rome; all
+places which were formerly resplendent with mighty powers and are now
+destroyed by the infiltrating littleness which gradually attained the
+highest eminence. When the day of struggle came, all was found rotten,
+the State succumbed to a weak attack. To worship the fool who
+succeeds, and not to grieve over the fall of an able man is the result
+of our melancholy education, of our manners and customs which drive
+men of intellect into disgust, and genius to despair.
+
+What a difficult undertaking is the rehabilitation of the Civil
+Service while the liberal cries aloud in his newspapers that the
+salaries of clerks are a standing theft, calls the items of the budget
+a cluster of leeches, and every year demands why the nation should be
+saddled with a thousand millions of taxes. In Monsieur Rabourdin's
+eyes the clerk in relation to the budget was very much what the
+gambler is to the game; that which he wins he puts back again. All
+remuneration implies something furnished. To pay a man a thousand
+francs a year and demand his whole time was surely to organize theft
+and poverty. A galley-slave costs nearly as much, and does less. But
+to expect a man whom the State remunerated with twelve thousand francs
+a year to devote himself to his country was a profitable contract for
+both sides, fit to allure all capacities.
+
+These reflections had led Rabourdin to desire the recasting of the
+clerical official staff. To employ fewer man, to double or treble
+salaries, and do away with pensions, to choose only young clerks (as
+did Napoleon, Louis XIV., Richelieu, and Ximenes), but to keep them
+long and train them for the higher offices and greatest honors, these
+were the chief features of a reform which if carried out would be as
+beneficial to the State as to the clerks themselves. It is difficult
+to recount in detail, chapter by chapter, a plan which embraced the
+whole budget and continued down through the minutest details of
+administration in order to keep the whole synthetical; but perhaps a
+slight sketch of the principal reforms will suffice for those who
+understand such matters, as well as for those who are wholly ignorant
+of the administrative system. Though the historian's position is
+rather hazardous in reproducing a plan which may be thought the
+politics of a chimney-corner, it is, nevertheless, necessary to sketch
+it so as to explain the author of it by his own work. Were the recital
+of his efforts to be omitted, the reader would not believe the
+narrator's word if he merely declared the talent and the courage of
+this official.
+
+Rabourdin's plan divided the government into three ministries, or
+departments. He thought that if the France of former days possessed
+brains strong enough to comprehend in one system both foreign and
+domestic affairs, the France of to-day was not likely to be without
+its Mazarin, its Suger, its Sully, its de Choiseul, or its Colbert to
+direct even vast administrative departments. Besides, constitutionally
+speaking, three ministries will agree better than seven; and, in the
+restricted number there is less chance for mistaken choice; moreover,
+it might be that the kingdom would some day escape from those
+perpetual ministerial oscillations which interfered with all plans of
+foreign policy and prevented all ameliorations of home rule. In
+Austria, where many diverse united nations present so many conflicting
+interests to be conciliated and carried forward under one crown, two
+statesmen alone bear the burden of public affairs and are not
+overwhelmed by it. Was France less prolific of political capacities
+than Germany? The rather silly game of what are called "constitutional
+institutions" carried beyond bounds has ended, as everybody knows, in
+requiring a great many offices to satisfy the multifarious ambition of
+the middle classes. It seemed to Rabourdin, in the first place,
+natural to unite the ministry of war with the ministry of the navy. To
+his thinking the navy was one of the current expenses of the war
+department, like the artillery, cavalry, infantry, and commissariat.
+Surely it was an absurdity to give separate administrations to
+admirals and marshals when both were employed to one end, namely, the
+defense of the nation, the overthrow of an enemy, and the security of
+the national possessions. The ministry of the interior ought in like
+manner to combine the departments of commerce, police, and finances,
+or it belied its own name. To the ministry of foreign affairs belonged
+the administration of justice, the household of the king, and all that
+concerned arts, sciences, and belles lettres. All patronage ought to
+flow directly from the sovereign. Such ministries necessitated the
+supremacy of a council. Each required the work of two hundred
+officials, and no more, in its central administration offices, where
+Rabourdin proposed that they should live, as in former days under the
+monarchy. Taking the sum of twelve thousand francs a year for each
+official as an average, he estimated seven millions as the cost of the
+whole body of such officials, which actually stood at twenty in the
+budget.
+
+By thus reducing the ministers to three heads he suppressed
+departments which had come to be useless, together with the enormous
+costs of their maintenance in Paris. He proved that an arrondissement
+could be managed by ten men; a prefecture by a dozen at the most;
+which reduced the entire civil service force throughout France to five
+thousand men, exclusive of the departments of war and justice. Under
+this plan the clerks of the court were charged with the system of
+loans, and the ministry of the interior with that of registration and
+the management of domains. Thus Rabourdin united in one centre all
+divisions that were allied in nature. The mortgage system,
+inheritance, and registration did not pass outside of their own sphere
+of action and only required three additional clerks in the justice
+courts and three in the royal courts. The steady application of this
+principle brought Rabourdin to reforms in the finance system. He
+merged the collection of revenue into one channel, taxing consumption
+in bulk instead of taxing property. According to his ideas,
+consumption was the sole thing properly taxable in times of peace.
+Land-taxes should always be held in reserve in case of war; for then
+only could the State justly demand sacrifices from the soil, which was
+in danger; but in times of peace it was a serious political fault to
+burden it beyond a certain limit; otherwise it could never be depended
+on in great emergencies. Thus a loan should be put on the market when
+the country was tranquil, for at such times it could be placed at par,
+instead of at fifty per cent loss as in bad times; in war times resort
+should be had to a land-tax.
+
+"The invasion of 1814 and 1815," Rabourdin would say to his friends,
+"founded in France and practically explained an institution which
+neither Law nor Napoleon had been able to establish,--I mean Credit."
+
+Unfortunately, Xavier considered the true principles of this admirable
+machine of civil service very little understood at the period when he
+began his labor of reform in 1820. His scheme levied a toll on the
+consumption by means of direct taxation and suppressed the whole
+machinery of indirect taxation. The levying of the taxes was
+simplified by a single classification of a great number of articles.
+This did away with the more harassing customs at the gates of the
+cities, and obtained the largest revenues from the remainder, by
+lessening the enormous expense of collecting them. To lighten the
+burden of taxation is not, in matters of finance, to diminish the
+taxes, but to assess them better; if lightened, you increase the
+volume of business by giving it freer play; the individual pays less
+and the State receives more. This reform, which may seem immense,
+rests on very simple machinery. Rabourdin regarded the tax on personal
+property as the most trustworthy representative of general
+consumption. Individual fortunes are usually revealed in France by
+rentals, by the number of servants, horses, carriages, and luxuries,
+the costs of which are all to the interest of the public treasury.
+Houses and what they contain vary comparatively but little, and are
+not liable to disappear. After pointing out the means of making a
+tax-list on personal property which should be more impartial than the
+existing list, Rabourdin assessed the sums to be brought into the
+treasury by indirect taxation as so much per cent on each individual
+share. A tax is a levy of money on things or persons under disguises
+that are more or less specious. These disguises, excellent when the
+object is to extort money, become ridiculous in the present day, when
+the class on which the taxes weigh the heaviest knows why the State
+imposes them and by what machinery they are given back. In fact the
+budget is not a strong-box to hold what is put into it, but a
+watering-pot; the more it takes in and the more it pours out the
+better for the prosperity of the country. Therefore, supposing there
+are six millions of tax-payers in easy circumstances (Rabourdin proved
+their existence, including the rich) is it not better to make them pay
+a duty on the consumption of wine, which would not be more offensive
+than that on doors and windows and would return a hundred millions,
+rather than harass them by taxing the thing itself. By this system of
+taxation, each individual tax-payer pays less in reality, while the
+State receives more, and consumers profit by a vast reduction in the
+price of things which the State releases from its perpetual and
+harassing interference. Rabourdin's scheme retained a tax on the
+cultivation of vineyards, so as to protect that industry from the too
+great abundance of its own products. Then, to reach the consumption of
+the poorer tax-payers, the licences of retail dealers were taxed
+according to the population of the neighborhoods in which they lived.
+
+In this way, the State would receive without cost or vexatious
+hindrances an enormous revenue under three forms; namely, a duty on
+wine, on the cultivation of vineyards, and on licenses, where now an
+irritating array of taxes existed as a burden on itself and its
+officials. Taxation was thus imposed upon the rich without
+overburdening the poor. To give another example. Suppose a share
+assessed to each person of one or two francs for the consumption of
+salt and you obtain ten or a dozen millions; the modern "gabelle"
+disappears, the poor breathe freer, agriculture is relieved, the State
+receives as much, and no tax-payer complains. All persons, whether
+they belong to the industrial classes or to the capitalists, will see
+at once the benefits of a tax so assessed when they discover how
+commerce increases, and life is ameliorated in the country districts.
+In short, the State will see from year to year the number of her
+well-to-do tax-payers increasing. By doing away with the machinery of
+indirect taxation, which is very costly (a State, as it were, within a
+State), both the public finances and the individual tax-payer are
+greatly benefited, not to speak of the saving in costs of collecting.
+
+The whole subject is indeed less a question of finance than a question
+of government. The State should possess nothing of its own, neither
+forests, nor mines, nor public works. That it should be the owner of
+domains was, in Rabourdin's opinion, an administrative contradiction.
+The State cannot turn its possessions to profit and it deprives itself
+of taxes; it thus loses two forms of production. As to the
+manufactories of the government, they are just as unreasonable in the
+sphere of industry. The State obtains products at a higher cost than
+those of commerce, produces them more slowly, and loses its tax upon
+the industry, the maintenance of which it, in turn, reduces. Can it be
+thought a proper method of governing a country to manufacture instead
+of promoting manufactures? to possess property instead of creating
+more possessions and more diverse ones? In Rabourdin's system the
+State exacted no money security; he allowed only mortgage securities;
+and for this reason: Either the State holds the security in specie,
+and that embarrasses business and the movement of money; or it invests
+it at a higher rate than the State itself pays, and that is a
+contemptible robbery; or else it loses on the transaction, and that is
+folly; moreover, if it is obliged at any time to dispose of a mass of
+these securities it gives rises in certain cases to terrible
+bankruptcy.
+
+The territorial tax did not entirely disappear in Rabourdin's plan,
+--he kept a minute portion of it as a point of departure in case of war;
+but the productions of the soil were freed, and industry, finding raw
+material at a low price, could compete with foreign nations without
+the deceptive help of customs. The rich carried on the administration
+of the provinces without compensation except that of receiving a
+peerage under certain conditions. Magistrates, learned bodies,
+officers of the lower grades found their services honorably rewarded;
+no man employed by the government failed to obtain great consideration
+through the value and extent of his labors and the excellence of his
+salary; every one was able to provide for his own future and France
+was delivered from the cancer of pensions. As a result Rabourdin's
+scheme exhibited only seven hundred millions of expenditures and
+twelve hundred millions of receipts. A saving of five hundred millions
+annually had far more virtue than the accumulation of a sinking fund
+whose dangers were plainly to be seen. In that fund the State,
+according to Rabourdin, became a stockholder, just as it persisted in
+being a land-holder and a manufacturer. To bring about these reforms
+without too roughly jarring the existing state of things or incurring
+a Saint-Bartholomew of clerks, Rabourdin considered that an evolution
+of twenty years would be required.
+
+Such were the thoughts maturing in Rabourdin's mind ever since his
+promised place had been given to Monsieur de la Billardiere, a man of
+sheer incapacity. This plan, so vast apparently yet so simple in point
+of fact, which did away with so many large staffs and so many little
+offices all equally useless, required for its presentation to the
+public mind close calculations, precise statistics, and self-evident
+proof. Rabourdin had long studied the budget under its double-aspect
+of ways and means and of expenditure. Many a night he had lain awake
+unknown to his wife. But so far he had only dared to conceive the plan
+and fit it prospectively to the administrative skeleton; all of which
+counted for nothing,--he must gain the ear of a minister capable of
+appreciating his ideas. Rabourdin's success depended on the tranquil
+condition of political affairs, which up to this time were still
+unsettled. He had not considered the government as permanently secure
+until three hundred deputies at least had the courage to form a
+compact majority systematically ministerial. An administration founded
+on that basis had come into power since Rabourdin had finished his
+elaborate plan. At this time the luxury of peace under the Bourbons
+had eclipsed the warlike luxury of the days when France shone like a
+vast encampment, prodigal and magnificent because it was victorious.
+After the Spanish campaign, the administration seemed to enter upon an
+era of tranquillity in which some good might be accomplished; and
+three months before the opening of our story a new reign had begun
+without any apparent opposition; for the liberalism of the Left had
+welcomed Charles X. with as much enthusiasm as the Right. Even
+clear-sighted and suspicious persons were misled. The moment seemed
+propitious for Rabourdin. What could better conduce to the stability
+of the government than to propose and carry through a reform whose
+beneficial results were to be so vast?
+
+Never had Rabourdin seemed so anxious and preoccupied as he now did
+in the mornings as he walked from his house to the ministry, or at
+half-past four in the afternoon, when he returned. Madame Rabourdin, on
+her part, disconsolate over her wasted life, weary of secretly working
+to obtain a few luxuries of dress, never appeared so bitterly
+discontented as now; but, like any wife who is really attached to her
+husband, she considered it unworthy of a superior woman to condescend
+to the shameful devices by which the wives of some officials eke out
+the insufficiency of their husband's salary. This feeling made her
+refuse all intercourse with Madame Colleville, then very intimate with
+Francois Keller, whose parties eclipsed those of the rue Duphot.
+Nevertheless, she mistook the quietude of the political thinker and
+the preoccupation of the intrepid worker for the apathetic torpor of
+an official broken down by the dulness of routine, vanquished by that
+most hateful of all miseries, the mediocrity that simply earns a
+living; and she groaned at being married to a man without energy.
+
+Thus it was that about this period in their lives she resolved to take
+the making of her husband's fortune on herself; to thrust him at any
+cost into a higher sphere, and to hide from him the secret springs of
+her machinations. She carried into all her plans the independence of
+ideas which characterized her, and was proud to think that she could
+rise above other women by sharing none of their petty prejudices and
+by keeping herself untrammelled by the restraints which society
+imposes. In her anger she resolved to fight fools with their own
+weapons, and to make herself a fool if need be. She saw things coming
+to a crisis. The time was favorable. Monsieur de la Billardiere,
+attacked by a dangerous illness, was likely to die in a few days. If
+Rabourdin succeeded him, his talents (for Celestine did vouchsafe him
+an administrative gift) would be so thoroughly appreciated that the
+office of Master of petitions, formerly promised, would now be given
+to him; she fancied she saw him the king's commissioner, presenting
+bills to the Chambers and defending them; then indeed she could help
+him; she would even be, if needful, his secretary; she would sit up
+all night to do the work! All this to drive in the Bois in a pretty
+carriage, to equal Madame Delphine de Nucingen, to raise her salon to
+the level of Madame Colleville's, to be invited to the great
+ministerial solemnities, to win listeners and make them talk of her as
+"Madame Rabourdin DE something or other" (she had not yet determined
+on the estate), just as they did of Madame Firmiani, Madame d'Espard,
+Madame d'Aiglemont, Madame de Carigliano, and thus efface forever the
+odious name of Rabourdin.
+
+These secret schemes brought some changes into the household. Madame
+Rabourdin began to walk with a firm step in the path of /debt/. She set
+up a man-servant, and put him in livery of brown cloth with red pipins,
+she renewed parts of her furniture, hung new papers on the walls,
+adorned her salon with plants and flowers, always fresh, and crowded
+it with knick-knacks that were then in vogue; then she, who had always
+shown scruples as to her personal expenses, did not hesitate to put
+her dress in keeping with the rank to which she aspired, the profits
+of which were discounted in several of the shops where she equipped
+herself for war. To make her "Wednesdays" fashionable she gave a
+dinner on Fridays, the guests being expected to pay their return visit
+and take a cup of tea on the following Wednesday. She chose her guests
+cleverly among influential deputies or other persons of note who,
+sooner or later, might advance her interests. In short, she gathered
+an agreeable and befitting circle about her. People amused themselves
+at her house; they said so at least, which is quite enough to attract
+society in Paris. Rabourdin was so absorbed in completing his great
+and serious work that he took no notice of the sudden reappearance of
+luxury in the bosom of his family.
+
+Thus the wife and the husband were besieging the same fortress,
+working on parallel lines, but without each other's knowledge.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II
+
+                       MONSIEUR DES LUPEAULX
+
+At the ministry to which Rabourdin belonged there flourished, as
+general-secretary, a certain Monsieur Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx,
+one of those men whom the tide of political events sends to the
+surface for a few years, then engulfs on a stormy night, but whom we
+find again on a distant shore, tossed up like the carcass of a wrecked
+ship which still seems to have life in her. We ask ourselves if that
+derelict could ever have held goodly merchandise or served a high
+emprize, co-operated in some defence, held up the trappings of a
+throne, or borne away the corpse of a monarchy. At this particular
+time Clement des Lupeaulx (the "Lupeaulx" absorbed the "Chardin") had
+reached his culminating period. In the most illustrious lives as in
+the most obscure, in animals as in secretary-generals, there is a
+zenith and there is a nadir, a period when the fur is magnificent, the
+fortune dazzling. In the nomenclature which we derive from fabulists,
+des Lupeaulx belonged to the species Bertrand, and was always in
+search of Ratons. As he is one of the principal actors in this drama
+he deserves a description, all the more precise because the revolution
+of July has suppressed his office, eminently useful as it was, to a
+constitutional ministry.
+
+Moralists usually employ their weapons against obstructive
+administrations. In their eyes, crime belongs to the assizes or the
+police-courts; but the socially refined evils escape their ken; the
+adroitness that triumphs under shield of the Code is above them or
+beneath them; they have neither eye-glass nor telescope; they want
+good stout horrors easily visible. With their eyes fixed on the
+carnivora, they pay no attention to the reptiles; happily, they
+abandon to the writers of comedy the shading and colorings of a
+Chardin des Lupeaulx. Vain and egotistical, supple and proud,
+libertine and gourmand, grasping from the pressure of debt, discreet
+as a tomb out of which nought issues to contradict the epitaph
+intended for the passer's eye, bold and fearless when soliciting,
+good-natured and witty in all acceptations of the word, a timely
+jester, full of tact, knowing how to compromise others by a glance or
+a nudge, shrinking from no mudhole, but gracefully leaping it,
+intrepid Voltairean, yet punctual at mass if a fashionable company
+could be met in Saint Thomas Aquinas,--such a man as this
+secretary-general resembled, in one way or another, all the
+mediocrities who form the kernel of the political world. Knowing in
+the science of human nature, he assumed the character of a listener,
+and none was ever more attentive. Not to awaken suspicion he was
+flattering ad nauseum, insinuating as a perfume, and cajoling as a
+woman.
+
+Des Lupeaulx was just forty years old. His youth had long been a
+vexation to him, for he felt that the making of his career depended on
+his becoming a deputy. How had he reached his present position? may be
+asked. By very simple means. He began by taking charge of certain
+delicate missions which can be given neither to a man who respects
+himself nor to a man who does not respect himself, but are confided to
+grave and enigmatic individuals who can be acknowledged or disavowed
+at will. His business was that of being always compromised; but his
+fortunes were pushed as much by defeat as by success. He well
+understood that under the Restoration, a period of continual
+compromises between men, between things, between accomplished facts
+and other facts looking on the horizon, it was all-important for the
+ruling powers to have a household drudge. Observe in a family some old
+charwoman who can make beds, sweep the floors, carry away the dirty
+linen, who knows where the silver is kept, how the creditors should be
+pacified, what persons should be let in and who must be kept out of
+the house, and such a creature, even if she has all the vices, and is
+dirty, decrepit, and toothless, or puts into the lottery and steals
+thirty sous a day for her stake, and you will find the masters like
+her from habit, talk and consult in her hearing upon even critical
+matters; she comes and goes, suggests resources, gets on the scent of
+secrets, brings the rouge or the shawl at the right moment, lets
+herself be scolded and pushed downstairs, and the next morning
+reappears smiling with an excellent bouillon. No matter how high a
+statesman may stand, he is certain to have some household drudge,
+before whom he is weak, undecided, disputations with fate,
+self-questioning, self-answering, and buckling for the fight. Such a
+familiar is like the soft wood of savages, which, when rubbed against
+the hard wood, strikes fire. Sometimes great geniuses illumine
+themselves in this way. Napoleon lived with Berthier, Richelieu with
+Pere Joseph; des Lupeaulx was the familiar of everybody. He continued
+friends with fallen ministers and made himself their intermediary with
+their successors, diffusing thus the perfume of the last flattery and
+the first compliment. He well understood how to arrange all the little
+matters which a statesman has no leisure to attend to. He saw
+necessities as they arose; he obeyed well; he could gloss a base act
+with a jest and get the whole value of it; and he chose for the
+services he thus rendered those that the recipients were not likely to
+forget.
+
+Thus, when it was necessary to cross the ditch between the Empire and
+the Restoration, at a time when every one was looking about for
+planks, and the curs of the Empire were howling their devotion right
+and left, des Lupeaulx borrowed large sums from the usurers and
+crossed the frontier. Risking all to win all, he bought up Louis
+XVIII.'s most pressing debts, and was the first to settle nearly three
+million of them at twenty per cent--for he was lucky enough to be
+backed by Gobseck in 1814 and 1815. It is true that Messrs. Gobseck,
+Werdet, and Gigonnet swallowed the profits, but des Lupeaulx had
+agreed that they should have them; he was not playing for a stake; he
+challenged the bank, as it were, knowing very well that the king was
+not a man to forget this debt of honor. Des Lupeaulx was not mistaken;
+he was appointed Master of petitions, Knight of the order of Saint
+Louis, and officer of the Legion of honor. Once on the ladder of
+political success, his clever mind looked about for the means to
+maintain his foothold; for in the fortified city into which he had
+wormed himself, generals do not long keep useless mouths. So to his
+general trade of household drudge and go-between he added that of
+gratuitous consultation on the secret maladies of power.
+
+After discovering in the so-called superior men of the Restoration
+their utter inferiority in comparison with the events which had
+brought them to the front, he overcame their political mediocrity by
+putting into their mouths, at a crisis, the word of command for which
+men of real talent were listening. It must not be thought that this
+word was the outcome of his own mind. Were it so, des Lupeaulx would
+have been a man of genius, whereas he was only a man of talent. He
+went everywhere, collected opinions, sounded consciences, and caught
+all the tones they gave out. He gathered knowledge like a true and
+indefatigable political bee. This walking Bayle dictionary did not
+act, however, like that famous lexicon; he did not report all opinions
+without drawing his own conclusions; he had the talent of a fly which
+drops plumb upon the best bit of meat in the middle of a kitchen. In
+this way he came to be regarded as an indispensable helper to
+statesmen. A belief in his capacity had taken such deep root in all
+minds that the more ambitious public men felt it was necessary to
+compromise des Lupeaulx in some way to prevent his rising higher; they
+made up to him for his subordinate public position by their secret
+confidence.
+
+Nevertheless, feeling that such men were dependent on him, this
+gleaner of ideas exacted certain dues. He received a salary on the
+staff of the National Guard, where he held a sinecure which was paid
+for by the city of Paris; he was government commissioner to a secret
+society; and filled a position of superintendence in the royal
+household. His two official posts which appeared on the budget were
+those of secretary-general to his ministry and Master of petitions.
+What he now wanted was to be made commander of the Legion of honor,
+gentleman of the bed-chamber, count, and deputy. To be elected deputy
+it was necessary to pay taxes to the amount of a thousand francs; and
+the miserable homestead of the des Lupeaulx was rated at only five
+hundred. Where could he get money to build a mansion and surround it
+with sufficient domain to throw dust in the eyes of a constituency?
+Though he dined out every day, and was lodged for the last nine years
+at the cost of the State, and driven about in the minister's equipage,
+des Lupeaulx possessed absolutely nothing, at the time when our tale
+opens, but thirty thousand francs of debt--undisputed property. A
+marriage might float him and pump the waters of debt out of his bark;
+but a good marriage depended on his advancement, and his advancement
+required that he should be a deputy. Searching about him for the means
+of breaking through this vicious circle, he could think of nothing
+better than some immense service to render or some delicate intrigue
+to carry through for persons in power. Alas! conspiracies were out of
+date; the Bourbons were apparently on good terms with all parties;
+and, unfortunately, for the last few years the government had been so
+thoroughly held up to the light of day by the silly discussions of the
+Left, whose aim seemed to be to make government of any kind impossible
+in France, that no good strokes of business could be made. The last
+were tried in Spain, and what an outcry that excited!
+
+In addition to all this, des Lupeaulx complicated matters by believing
+in the friendship of his minister, to whom he had the imprudence to
+express the wish to sit on the ministerial benches. The minister
+guessed at the real meaning of the desire, which simply was that des
+Lupeaulx wanted to strengthen a precarious position, so that he might
+throw off all dependence on his chief. The harrier turned against the
+huntsman; the minister gave him cuts with the whip and caresses,
+alternately, and set up rivals to him. But des Lupeaulx behaved like
+an adroit courtier with all competitors; he laid traps into which they
+fell, and then he did prompt justice upon them. The more he felt
+himself in danger the more anxious he became for an irremovable
+position; yet he was compelled to play low; one moment's indiscretion,
+and he might lose everything. A pen-stroke might demolish his civilian
+epaulets, his place at court, his sinecure, his two offices and their
+advantages; in all, six salaries retained under fire of the law
+against pluralists. Sometimes he threatened his minister as a mistress
+threatens her lover; telling him he was about to marry a rich widow.
+At such times the minister petted and cajoled des Lupeaulx. After one
+of these reconciliations he received the formal promise of a place in
+the Academy of Belles-lettres on the first vacancy. "It would pay," he
+said, "the keep of a horse." His position, so far as it went, was a
+good one, and Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx flourished in it like a
+tree planted in good soil. He could satisfy his vices, his caprices,
+his virtues and his defects.
+
+The following were the toils of his life. He was obliged to choose,
+among five or six daily invitations, the house where he could be sure
+of the best dinner. Every morning he went to his minister's morning
+reception to amuse that official and his wife, and to pet their
+children. Then he worked an hour or two; that is to say, he lay back
+in a comfortable chair and read the newspapers, dictated the meaning
+of a letter, received visitors when the minister was not present,
+explained the work in a general way, caught or shed a few drops of the
+holy-water of the court, looked over the petitions with an eyeglass,
+or wrote his name on the margin,--a signature which meant "I think it
+absurd; do what you like about it." Every body knew that when des
+Lupeaulx was interested in any person or in any thing he attended to
+the matter personally. He allowed the head-clerks to converse
+privately about affairs of delicacy, but he listened to their gossip.
+From time to time he went to the Tuileries to get his cue. And he
+always waited for the minister's return from the Chamber, if in
+session, to hear from him what intrigue or manoeuvre he was to set
+about. This official sybarite dressed, dined, and visited a dozen or
+fifteen salons between eight at night and three in the morning. At the
+opera he talked with journalists, for he stood high in their favor; a
+perpetual exchange of little services went on between them; he poured
+into their ears his misleading news and swallowed theirs; he prevented
+them from attacking this or that minister on such or such a matter, on
+the plea that it would cause real pain to their wives or their
+mistresses.
+
+"Say that his bill is worth nothing, and prove it if you can, but do
+not say that Mariette danced badly. The devil! haven't we all played
+our little plays; and which of us knows what will become of him in
+times like these? You may be minister yourself to-morrow, you who are
+spicing the cakes of the 'Constitutionel' to-day."
+
+Sometimes, in return, he helped editors, or got rid of obstacles to
+the performances of some play; gave gratuities and good dinners at the
+right moment, or promised his services to bring some affair to a happy
+conclusion. Moreover, he really liked literature and the arts; he
+collected autographs, obtained splendid albums gratis, and possessed
+sketches, engravings, and pictures. He did a great deal of good to
+artists by simply not injuring them and by furthering their wishes on
+certain occasions when their self-love wanted some rather costly
+gratification. Consequently, he was much liked in the world of actors
+and actresses, journalists and artists. For one thing, they had the
+same vices and the same indolence as himself. Men who could all say
+such witty things in their cups or in company with a danseuse, how
+could they help being friends? If des Lupeaulx had not been a
+general-secretary he would certainly have been a journalist. Thus, in
+that fifteen years' struggle in which the harlequin sabre of epigram
+opened a breach by which insurrection entered the citadel, des Lupeaulx
+never received so much as a scratch.
+
+As the young fry of clerks looked at this man playing bowls in the
+gardens of the ministry with the minister's children, they cracked
+their brains to guess the secret of his influence and the nature of
+his services; while, on the other hand, the aristocrats in all the
+various ministries looked upon him as a dangerous Mephistopheles,
+courted him, and gave him back with usury the flatteries he bestowed
+in the higher sphere. As difficult to decipher as a hieroglyphic
+inscription to the clerks, the vocation of the secretary and his
+usefulness were as plain as the rule of three to the self-interested.
+This lesser Prince de Wagram of the administration, to whom the duty
+of gathering opinions and ideas and making verbal reports thereon was
+entrusted, knew all the secrets of parliamentary politics; dragged in
+the lukewarm, fetched, carried, and buried propositions, said the Yes
+and the No that the ministers dared not say for themselves. Compelled
+to receive the first fire and the first blows of despair and wrath, he
+laughed or bemoaned himself with the minister, as the case might be.
+Mysterious link by which many interests were in some way connected
+with the Tuileries, and safe as a confessor, he sometimes knew
+everything and sometimes nothing; and, in addition to all these
+functions came that of saying for the minister those things that a
+minister cannot say for himself. In short, with his political
+Hephaestion the minister might dare to be himself; to take off his wig
+and his false teeth, lay aside his scruples, put on his slippers,
+unbutton his conscience, and give way to his trickery. However, it was
+not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he flattered and advised his
+master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to advise while
+flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All
+politicians who follow this trade have bilious faces; and their
+constant habit of giving affirmative nods acquiescing in what is said
+to them, or seeming to do so, gives a certain peculiar turn to their
+heads. They agree indifferently with whatever is said before them.
+Their talk is full of "buts," "notwithstandings," "for myself I
+should," "were I in your place" (they often say "in your place"),
+--phrases, however, which pave the way to opposition.
+
+In person, Clement des Lupeaulx had the remains of a handsome man;
+five feet six inches tall, tolerably stout, complexion flushed with
+good living, powdered head, delicate spectacles, and a worn-out air;
+the natural skin blond, as shown by the hand, puffy like that of an
+old woman, rather too square, and with short nails--the hand of a
+satrap. His foot was elegant. After five o'clock in the afternoon des
+Lupeaulx was always to be seen in open-worked silk stockings, low
+shoes, black trousers, cashmere waistcoat, cambric handkerchief
+(without perfume), gold chain, blue coat of the shade called "king's
+blue," with brass buttons and a string of orders. In the morning he
+wore creaking boots and gray trousers, and the short close surtout
+coat of the politician. His general appearance early in the day was
+that of a sharp lawyer rather than that of a ministerial officer. Eyes
+glazed by the constant use of spectacles made him plainer than he
+really was, if by chance he took those appendages off. To real judges
+of character, as well as to upright men who are at ease only with
+honest natures, des Lupeaulx was intolerable. To them, his gracious
+manners only draped his lies; his amiable protestations and hackneyed
+courtesies, new to the foolish and ignorant, too plainly showed their
+texture to an observing mind. Such minds considered him a rotten
+plank, on which no foot should trust itself.
+
+No sooner had the beautiful Madame Rabourdin decided to interfere in
+her husband's administrative advancement than she fathomed Clement des
+Lupeaulx's true character, and studied him thoughtfully to discover
+whether in this thin strip of deal there were ligneous fibres strong
+enough to let her lightly trip across it from the bureau to the
+department, from a salary of eight thousand a year to twelve thousand.
+The clever woman believed she could play her own game with this
+political roue; and Monsieur des Lupeaulx was partly the cause of the
+unusual expenditures which now began and were continued in the
+Rabourdin household.
+
+The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for several
+houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are skilfully
+laid out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well arranged,--a
+domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of private
+lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from the
+courtyard, led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked on the
+street. To the right of the salon were Rabourdin's study and bedroom,
+and behind them the dining-room, which was entered from the
+antechamber; to the left was Madame's bedroom and dressing-room, and
+behind them her daughter's little bedroom. On reception days the door
+of Rabourdin's study and that of his wife's bedroom were thrown open.
+The rooms were thus spacious enough to contain a select company,
+without the absurdity which attends many middle-class entertainments,
+where unusual preparations are made at the expense of the daily
+comfort, and consequently give the effect of exceptional effort. The
+salon had lately been rehung in gold-colored silk with carmelite
+touches. Madame's bedroom was draped in a fabric of true blue and
+furnished in a rococo manner. Rabourdin's study had inherited the late
+hangings of the salon, carefully cleaned, and was adorned by the fine
+pictures once belonging to Monsieur Leprince. The daughter of the late
+auctioneer had utilized in her dining-room certain exquisite Turkish
+rugs which her father had bought at a bargain; panelling them on the
+walls in ebony, the cost of which has since become exorbitant. Elegant
+buffets made by Boulle, also purchased by the auctioneer, furnished
+the sides of the room, at the end of which sparkled the brass
+arabesques inlaid in tortoise-shell of the first tall clock that
+reappeared in the nineteenth century to claim honor for the
+masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers perfumed these rooms so full
+of good taste and of exquisite things, where each detail was a work of
+art well placed and well surrounded, and where Madame Rabourdin,
+dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone attain, gave
+the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies, though she
+never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind to complete
+the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful surroundings.
+Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society talk of her
+as soon as the rococo became fashionable.
+
+Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real magnificence
+in all their stages, he was, nevertheless, surprised at Madame
+Rabourdin's home. The charm it exercised over this Parisian Asmodeus
+can be explained by a comparison. A traveller wearied with the rich
+aspects of Italy, Brazil, or India, returns to his own land and finds
+on his way a delightful little lake, like the Lac d'Orta at the foot
+of Monte Rosa, with an island resting on the calm waters, bewitchingly
+simple; a scene of nature and yet adorned; solitary, but well
+surrounded with choice plantations and foliage and statues of fine
+effect. Beyond lies a vista of shores both wild and cultivated;
+tumultuous grandeur towers above, but in itself all proportions are
+human. The world that the traveller has lately viewed is here in
+miniature, modest and pure; his soul, refreshed, bids him remain where
+a charm of melody and poesy surrounds him with harmony and awakens
+ideas within his mind. Such a scene represents both life and a
+monastery.
+
+A few days earlier the beautiful Madame Firmiani, one of the charming
+women of the faubourg Saint-Germain who visited and liked Madame
+Rabourdin, had said to des Lupeaulx (invited expressly to hear this
+remark), "Why do you not call on Madame ----?" with a motion towards
+Celestine; "she gives delightful parties, and her dinners, above all,
+are--better than mine."
+
+Des Lupeaulx allowed himself to be drawn into an engagement by the
+handsome Madame Rabourdin, who, for the first time, turned her eyes on
+him as she spoke. He had, accordingly, gone to the rue Duphot, and
+that tells the tale. Woman has but one trick, cries Figaro, but that's
+infallible. After dining once at the house of this unimportant
+official, des Lupeaulx made up his mind to dine there often. Thanks to
+the perfectly proper and becoming advances of the beautiful woman,
+whom her rival, Madame Colleville, called the Celimene of the rue
+Duphot, he had dined there every Friday for the last month, and
+returned of his own accord for a cup of tea on Wednesdays.
+
+Within a few days Madame Rabourdin, having watched him narrowly and
+knowingly, believed she had found on the secretarial plank a spot
+where she might safely set her foot. She was no longer doubtful of
+success. Her inward joy can be realized only in the families of
+government officials where for three or four years prosperity has been
+counted on through some appointment, long expected and long sought.
+How many troubles are to be allayed! how many entreaties and pledges
+given to the ministerial divinities! how many visits of self-interest
+paid! At last, thanks to her boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard the hour
+strike when she was to have twenty thousand francs a year instead of
+eight thousand.
+
+"And I shall have managed well," she said to herself. "I have had to
+make a little outlay; but these are times when hidden merit is
+overlooked, whereas if a man keeps himself well in sight before the
+world, cultivates social relations and extends them, he succeeds.
+After all, ministers and their friends interest themselves only in the
+people they see; but Rabourdin knows nothing of the world! If I had
+not cajoled those three deputies they might have wanted La
+Billardiere's place themselves; whereas, now that I have invited them
+here, they will be ashamed to do so and will become our supporters
+instead of rivals. I have rather played the coquette, but--it is
+delightful that the first nonsense with which one fools a man
+sufficed."
+
+The day on which a serious and unlooked-for struggle about this
+appointment began, after a ministerial dinner which preceded one of
+those receptions which ministers regard as public, des Lupeaulx was
+standing beside the fireplace near the minister's wife. While taking
+his coffee he once more included Madame Rabourdin among the seven or
+eight really superior women in Paris. Several times already he had
+staked Madame Rabourdin very much as Corporal Trim staked his cap.
+
+"Don't say that too often, my dear friend, or you will injure her,"
+said the minister's wife, half-laughing.
+
+Women never like to hear the praise of other women; they keep silence
+themselves to lessen its effect.
+
+"Poor La Billardiere is dying," remarked his Excellency the minister;
+"that place falls to Rabourdin, one of our most able men, and to whom
+our predecessors did not behave well, though one of them actually owed
+his position in the prefecture of police under the Empire to a certain
+great personage who was interested in Rabourdin. But, my dear friend,
+you are still young enough to be loved by a pretty woman for
+yourself--"
+
+"If La Billardiere's place is given to Rabourdin I may be believed
+when I praise the superiority of his wife," replied des Lupeaulx,
+piqued by the minister's sarcasm; "but if Madame la Comtesse would be
+willing to judge for herself--"
+
+"You want me to invite her to my next ball, don't you? Your clever
+woman will meet a knot of other women who only come here to laugh at
+us, and when they hear 'Madame Rabourdin' announced--"
+
+"But Madame Firmiani is announced at the Foreign Office parties?"
+
+"Ah, but she was born a Cadignan!" said the newly created count, with
+a savage look at his general-secretary, for neither he nor his wife
+were noble.
+
+The persons present thought important matters were being talked over,
+and the solicitors for favors and appointments kept at a little
+distance. When des Lupeaulx left the room the countess said to her
+husband, "I think des Lupeaulx is in love."
+
+"For the first time in his life, then," he replied, shrugging his
+shoulders, as much as to inform his wife that des Lupeaulx did not
+concern himself with such nonsense.
+
+Just then the minister saw a deputy of the Right Centre enter the
+room, and he left his wife abruptly to cajole an undecided vote. But
+the deputy, under the blow of a sudden and unexpected disaster, wanted
+to make sure of a protector and he had come to announce privately that
+in a few days he should be compelled to resign. Thus forewarned, the
+minister would be able to open his batteries for the new election
+before those of the opposition.
+
+The minister, or to speak correctly, des Lupeaulx had invited to
+dinner on this occasion one of those irremovable officials who, as we
+have said, are to be found in every ministry; an individual much
+embarrassed by his own person, who, in his desire to maintain a
+dignified appearance, was standing erect and rigid on his two legs,
+held well together like the Greek hermae. This functionary waited near
+the fireplace to thank the secretary, whose abrupt and unexpected
+departure from the room disconcerted him at the moment when he was
+about to turn a compliment. This official was the cashier of the
+ministry, the only clerk who did not tremble when the government
+changed hands.
+
+At the time of which we write, the Chamber did not meddle shabbily
+with the budget, as it does in the deplorable days in which we now
+live; it did not contemptibly reduce ministerial emoluments, nor save,
+as they say in the kitchen, the candle-ends; on the contrary, it
+granted to each minister taking charge of a public department an
+indemnity, called an "outfit." It costs, alas, as much to enter on the
+duties of a minister as to retire from them; indeed, the entrance
+involves expenses of all kinds which it is quite impossible to
+inventory. This indemnity amounted to the pretty little sum of
+twenty-five thousand francs. When the appointment of a new minister
+was gazetted in the "Moniteur," and the greater or lesser officials,
+clustering round the stoves or before the fireplaces and shaking in
+their shoes, asked themselves: "What will he do? will he increase the
+number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make room for three?" the
+cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean bank-bills and pinned
+them together with a satisfied expression on his beadle face. The next
+day he mounted the private staircase and had himself ushered into the
+minister's presence by the lackeys, who considered the money and the
+keeper of money, the contents and the container, the idea and the
+form, as one and the same power. The cashier caught the ministerial
+pair at the dawn of official delight, when the newly appointed
+statesman is benign and affable. To the minister's inquiry as to what
+brings him there, he replies with the bank-notes,--informing his
+Excellency that he hastens to pay him the customary indemnity.
+Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister's wife, who never
+fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes all, for the
+"outfit" is looked upon as a household affair. The cashier then
+proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a few politic phrases:
+"If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if, satisfied with his
+purely mechanical services, he would," etc. As a man who brings
+twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the cashier
+is sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from which
+he has seen a succession of ministers come and go during a period of,
+perhaps, twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at the
+orders of Madame; he brings the monthly thirteen thousand francs
+whenever wanted; he advances or delays the payment as requested, and
+thus manages to obtain, as they said in the monasteries, a voice in
+the chapter.
+
+Formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, when that establishment kept its
+books by double entry, the Sieur Saillard was compensated for the loss
+of that position by his appointment as cashier of a ministry. He was a
+bulky, fat man, very strong in the matter of book-keeping, and very
+weak in everything else; round as a round O, simple as how-do-you-do,
+--a man who came to his office with measured steps, like those of an
+elephant, and returned with the same measured tread to the place
+Royale, where he lived on the ground-floor of an old mansion belonging
+to him. He usually had a companion on the way in the person of
+Monsieur Isidore Baudoyer, head of a bureau in Monsieur de la
+Billardiere's division, consequently one of Rabourdin's colleagues.
+Baudoyer was married to Elisabeth Saillard, the cashier's only
+daughter, and had hired, very naturally, the apartments above those of
+his father-in-law. No one at the ministry had the slightest doubt that
+Saillard was a blockhead, but neither had any one ever found out how
+far his stupidity could go; it was too compact to be examined; it did
+not ring hollow; it absorbed everything and gave nothing out. Bixiou
+(a clerk of whom more anon) caricatured the cashier by drawing a head
+in a wig at the top of an egg, and two little legs at the other end,
+with this inscription: "Born to pay out and take in without
+blundering. A little less luck, and he might have been lackey to the
+bank of France; a little more ambition, and he could have been
+honorably discharged."
+
+At the moment of which we are now writing, the minister was looking at
+his cashier very much as we gaze at a window or a cornice, without
+supposing that either can hear us, or fathom our secret thoughts.
+
+"I am all the more anxious that we should settle everything with the
+prefect in the quietest way, because des Lupeaulx has designs upon the
+place for himself," said the minister, continuing his talk with the
+deputy; "his paltry little estate is in your arrondissement; we won't
+want him as deputy."
+
+"He has neither years nor rentals enough to be eligible," said the
+deputy.
+
+"That may be; but you know how it was decided for Casimir Perier as to
+age; and as to worldly possessions, des Lupeaulx does possess
+something,--not much, it is true, but the law does not take into
+account increase, which he may very well obtain; commissions have wide
+margins for the deputies of the Centre, you know, and we cannot openly
+oppose the good-will that is shown to this dear friend."
+
+"But where would he get the money?"
+
+"How did Manuel manage to become the owner of a house in Paris?" cried
+the minister.
+
+The cashier listened and heard, but reluctantly and against his will.
+These rapid remarks, murmured as they were, struck his ear by one of
+those acoustic rebounds which are very little studied. As he heard
+these political confidences, however, a keen alarm took possession of
+his soul. He was one of those simple-minded beings, who are shocked at
+listening to anything they are not intended to hear, or entering where
+they are not invited, and seeming bold when they are really timid,
+inquisitive where they are truly discreet. The cashier accordingly
+began to glide along the carpet and edge himself away, so that the
+minister saw him at a distance when he first took notice of him.
+Saillard was a ministerial henchman absolutely incapable of
+indiscretion; even if the minister had known that he had overheard a
+secret he had only to whisper "motus" in his ear to be sure it was
+perfectly safe. The cashier, however, took advantage of an influx of
+office-seekers, to slip out and get into his hackney-coach (hired by
+the hour for these costly entertainments), and to return to his home
+in the place Royale.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER III
+
+          THE TEREDOS NAVALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED SHIP-WORM
+
+While old Saillard was driving across Paris his son-in-law, Isidore
+Baudoyer, and his daughter, Elisabeth, Baudoyer's wife, were playing a
+virtuous game of boston with their confessor, the Abbe Gaudron, in
+company with a few neighbors and a certain Martin Falleix, a
+brass-founder in the fauborg Saint-Antoine, to whom Saillard had
+loaned the necessary money to establish a business. This Falleix, a
+respectable Auvergnat who had come to seek his fortune in Paris with his
+smelting-pot on his back, had found immediate employment with the firm of
+Brezac, collectors of metals and other relics from all chateaux in the
+provinces. About twenty-seven years of age, and spoiled, like others,
+by success, Martin Falleix had had the luck to become the active agent
+of Monsieur Saillard, the sleeping-partner in the working out of a
+discovery made by Falleix in smelting (patent of invention and gold
+medal granted at the exposition of 1825). Madame Baudoyer, whose only
+daughter was treading--to use an expression of old Saillard's--on the
+tail of her twelve years, laid claim to Falleix, a thickset, swarthy,
+active young fellow, of shrewd principles, whose education she was
+superintending. The said education, according to her ideas, consisted
+in teaching him to play boston, to hold his cards properly, and not to
+let others see his game; to shave himself regularly before he came to
+the house, and to wash his hands with good cleansing soap; not to
+swear, to speak her kind of French, to wear boots instead of shoes,
+cotton shirts instead of sacking, and to brush up his hair instead of
+plastering it flat. During the preceding week Elisabeth had finally
+succeeded in persuading Falleix to give up wearing a pair of enormous
+flat earrings resembling hoops.
+
+"You go too far, Madame Baudoyer," he said, seeing her satisfaction at
+the final sacrifice; "you order me about too much. You make me clean
+my teeth, which loosens them; presently you will want me to brush my
+nails and curl my hair, which won't do at all in our business; we
+don't like dandies."
+
+Elisabeth Baudoyer, nee Saillard, is one of those persons who escape
+portraiture through their utter commonness; yet who ought to be
+sketched, because they are specimens of that second-rate Parisian
+bourgeoisie which occupies a place above the well-to-do artisan and
+below the upper middle classes,--a tribe whose virtues are well-nigh
+vices, whose defects are never kindly, but whose habits and manners,
+dull and insipid though they be, are not without a certain
+originality. Something pinched and puny about Elisabeth Saillard was
+painful to the eye. Her figure, scarcely over four feet in height, was
+so thin that the waist measured less than twenty inches. Her small
+features, which clustered close about the nose, gave her face a vague
+resemblance to a weasel's snout. Though she was past thirty years old
+she looked scarcely more than sixteen. Her eyes, of porcelain blue,
+overweighted by heavy eyelids which fell nearly straight from the arch
+of the eyebrows, had little light in them. Everything about her
+appearance was commonplace: witness her flaxen hair, tending to
+whiteness; her flat forehead, from which the light did not reflect;
+and her dull complexion, with gray, almost leaden, tones. The lower
+part of the face, more triangular than oval, ended irregularly the
+otherwise irregular outline of her face. Her voice had a rather pretty
+range of intonation, from sharp to sweet. Elisabeth was a perfect
+specimen of the second-rate little bourgeoisie who lectures her
+husband behind the curtains; obtains no credit for her virtues; is
+ambitious without intelligent object, and solely through the
+development of her domestic selfishness. Had she lived in the country
+she would have bought up adjacent land; being, as she was, connected
+with the administration, she was determined to push her way. If we
+relate the life of her father and mother, we shall show the sort of
+woman she was by a picture of her childhood and youth.
+
+Monsieur Saillard married the daughter of an upholsterer keeping shop
+under the arcades of the Market. Limited means compelled Monsieur and
+Madame Saillard at their start in life to bear constant privation.
+After thirty-three years of married life, and twenty-nine years of
+toil in a government office, the property of "the Saillards"--their
+circle of acquaintance called them so--consisted of sixty thousand
+francs entrusted to Falleix, the house in the place Royale, bought for
+forty thousand in 1804, and thirty-six thousand francs given in dowry
+to their daughter Elisabeth. Out of this capital about fifty thousand
+came to them by the will of the widow Bidault, Madame Saillard's
+mother. Saillard's salary from the government had always been four
+thousand five hundred francs a year, and no more; his situation was a
+blind alley that led nowhere, and had tempted no one to supersede him.
+Those ninety thousand francs, put together sou by sou, were the fruit
+therefore of a sordid economy unintelligently employed. In fact, the
+Saillards did not know how better to manage their savings than to
+carry them, five thousand francs at a time, to their notary, Monsieur
+Sorbier, Cardot's predecessor, and let him invest them at five per
+cent in first mortgages, with the wife's rights reserved in case the
+borrower was married! In 1804 Madame Saillard obtained a government
+office for the sale of stamped papers, a circumstance which brought a
+servant into the household for the first time. At the time of which we
+write, the house, which was worth a hundred thousand francs, brought
+in a rental of eight thousand. Falleix paid seven per cent for the
+sixty thousand invested in the foundry, besides an equal division of
+profits. The Saillards were therefore enjoying an income of not less
+than seventeen thousand francs a year. The whole ambition of the good
+man now centred on obtaining the cross of the Legion and his retiring
+pension.
+
+Elisabeth, the only child, had toiled steadily from infancy in a home
+where the customs of life were rigid and the ideas simple. A new hat
+for Saillard was a matter of deliberation; the time a coat could last
+was estimated and discussed; umbrellas were carefully hung up by means
+of a brass buckle. Since 1804 no repairs of any kind had been done to
+the house. The Saillards kept the ground-floor in precisely the state
+in which their predecessor left it. The gilding of the pier-glasses
+was rubbed off; the paint on the cornices was hardly visible through
+the layers of dust that time had collected. The fine large rooms still
+retained certain sculptured marble mantel-pieces and ceilings, worthy
+of Versailles, together with the old furniture of the widow Bidault.
+The latter consisted of a curious mixture of walnut armchairs,
+disjointed, and covered with tapestry; rosewood bureaus; round tables
+on single pedestals, with brass railings and cracked marble tops; one
+superb Boulle secretary, the value of which style had not yet been
+recognized; in short, a chaos of bargains picked up by the worthy
+widow,--pictures bought for the sake of the frames, china services of
+a composite order; to wit, a magnificent Japanese dessert set, and all
+the rest porcelains of various makes, unmatched silver plate, old
+glass, fine damask, and a four-post bedstead, hung with curtains and
+garnished with plumes.
+
+Amid these curious relics, Madame Saillard always sat on a sofa of
+modern mahogany, near a fireplace full of ashes and without fire, on
+the mantel-shelf of which stood a clock, some antique bronzes,
+candelabra with paper flowers but no candles, for the careful
+housewife lighted the room with a tall tallow candle always guttering
+down into the flat brass candlestick which held it. Madame Saillard's
+face, despite its wrinkles, was expressive of obstinacy and severity,
+narrowness of ideas, an uprightness that might be called quadrangular,
+a religion without piety, straightforward, candid avarice, and the
+peace of a quiet conscience. You may see in certain Flemish pictures
+the wives of burgomasters cut out by nature on the same pattern and
+wonderfully reproduced on canvas; but these dames wear fine robes of
+velvet and precious stuffs, whereas Madame Saillard possessed no
+robes, only that venerable garment called in Touraine and Picardy
+"cottes," elsewhere petticoats, or skirts pleated behind and on each
+side, with other skirts hanging over them. Her bust was inclosed in
+what was called a "casaquin," another obsolete name for a short gown
+or jacket. She continued to wear a cap with starched wings, and shoes
+with high heels. Though she was now fifty-seven years old, and her
+lifetime of vigorous household work ought now to be rewarded with
+well-earned repose, she was incessantly employed in knitting her
+husband's stockings and her own, and those of an uncle, just as her
+countrywomen knit them, moving about the room, talking, pacing up and
+down the garden, or looking round the kitchen to watch what was going
+on.
+
+The Saillard's avarice, which was really imposed on them in the first
+instance by dire necessity, was now a second nature. When the cashier
+got back from the office, he laid aside his coat, and went to work in
+the large garden, shut off from the courtyard by an iron railing, and
+which the family reserved to itself. For years Elisabeth, the
+daughter, went to market every morning with her mother, and the two
+did all the work of the house. The mother cooked well, especially a
+duck with turnips; but, according to Saillard, no one could equal
+Elisabeth in hashing the remains of a leg of mutton with onions. "You
+might eat your boots with those onions and not know it," he remarked.
+As soon as Elisabeth knew how to hold a needle, her mother had her
+mend the household linen and her father's coats. Always at work, like
+a servant, she never went out alone. Though living close by the
+boulevard du Temple, where Franconi, La Gaite, and l'Ambigu-Comique
+were within a stone's throw, and, further on, the Porte-Saint-Martin,
+Elisabeth had never seen a comedy. When she asked to "see what it was
+like" (with the Abbe Gaudron's permission, be it understood), Monsieur
+Baudoyer took her--for the glory of the thing, and to show her the
+finest that was to be seen--to the Opera, where they were playing "The
+Chinese Laborer." Elisabeth thought "the comedy" as wearisome as the
+plague of flies, and never wished to see another. On Sundays, after
+walking four times to and fro between the place Royale and
+Saint-Paul's church (for her mother made her practise the precepts and
+the duties of religion), her parents took her to the pavement in front
+of the Cafe Ture, where they sat on chairs placed between a railing and
+the wall. The Saillards always made haste to reach the place early so
+as to choose the best seats, and found much entertainment in watching
+the passers-by. In those days the Cafe Ture was the rendezvous of the
+fashionable society of the Marais, the faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the
+circumjacent regions.
+
+Elisabeth never wore anything but cotton gowns in summer and merino in
+the winter, which she made herself. Her mother gave her twenty francs
+a month for her expenses, but her father, who was very fond of her,
+mitigated this rigorous treatment with a few presents. She never read
+what the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's and the family director,
+called profane books. This discipline had borne fruit. Forced to
+employ her feelings on some passion or other, Elisabeth became eager
+after gain. Though she was not lacking in sense or perspicacity,
+religious theories, and her complete ignorance of higher emotions had
+encircled all her faculties with an iron hand; they were exercised
+solely on the commonest things of life; spent in a few directions they
+were able to concentrate themselves on a matter in hand. Repressed by
+religious devotion, her natural intelligence exercised itself within
+the limits marked out by cases of conscience, which form a mine of
+subtleties among which self-interest selects its subterfuges. Like
+those saintly personages in whom religion does not stifle ambition,
+Elisabeth was capable of requiring others to do a blamable action that
+she might reap the fruits; and she would have been, like them again,
+implacable as to her dues and dissembling in her actions. Once
+offended, she watched her adversaries with the perfidious patience of
+a cat, and was capable of bringing about some cold and complete
+vengeance, and then laying it to the account of God. Until her
+marriage the Saillards lived without other society than that of the
+Abbe Gaudron, a priest from Auvergne appointed vicar of Saint-Paul's
+after the restoration of Catholic worship. Besides this ecclesiastic,
+who was a friend of the late Madame Bidault, a paternal uncle of
+Madame Saillard, an old paper-dealer retired from business ever since
+the year II. of the Republic, and now sixty-nine years old, came to
+see them on Sundays only, because on that day no government business
+went on.
+
+This little old man, with a livid face blazoned by the red nose of
+a tippler and lighted by two gleaming vulture eyes, allowed his
+gray hair to hang loose under a three-cornered hat, wore breeches
+with straps that extended beyond the buckles, cotton stockings of
+mottled thread knitted by his niece, whom he always called "the
+little Saillard," stout shoes with silver buckles, and a surtout
+coat of mixed colors. He looked very much like those
+verger-beadle-bell-ringing-grave-digging-parish-clerks who are taken
+to be caricatures until we see them performing their various functions.
+On the present occasion he had come on foot to dine with the Saillards,
+intending to return in the same way to the rue Greneta, where he lived
+on the third floor of an old house. His business was that of
+discounting commercial paper in the quartier Saint-Martin, where he was
+known by the nickname of "Gigonnet," from the nervous convulsive
+movement with which he lifted his legs in walking, like a cat. Monsieur
+Bidault began this business in the year II. in partnership with a
+dutchman named Werbrust, a friend of Gobseck.
+
+Some time later Saillard made the acquaintance of Monsieur and Madame
+Transon, wholesale dealers in pottery, with an establishment in the
+rue de Lesdiguieres, who took an interest in Elisabeth and introduced
+young Isadore Baudoyer to the family with the intention of marrying
+her. Gigonnet approved of the match, for he had long employed a
+certain Mitral, uncle of the young man, as clerk. Monsieur and
+Madame Baudoyer, father and mother of Isidore, highly respected
+leather-dressers in the rue Censier, had slowly made a moderate fortune
+out of a small trade. After marrying their only son, on whom they settled
+fifty thousand francs, they determined to live in the country, and had
+lately removed to the neighborhood of Ile-d'Adam, where after a time
+they were joined by Mitral. They frequently came to Paris, however,
+where they kept a corner in the house in the rue Censier which they
+gave to Isidore on his marriage. The elder Baudoyers had an income of
+about three thousand francs left to live upon after establishing their
+son.
+
+Mitral was a being with a sinister wig, a face the color of Seine
+water, lighted by a pair of Spanish-tobacco-colored eyes, cold as a
+well-rope, always smelling a rat, and close-mouthed about his
+property. He probably made his fortune in his own hole and corner,
+just as Werbrust and Gigonnet made theirs in the quartier
+Saint-Martin.
+
+Though the Saillards' circle of acquaintance increased, neither their
+ideas nor their manners and customs changed. The saint's-days of
+father, mother, daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild were carefully
+observed, also the anniversaries of birth and marriage, Easter,
+Christmas, New Year's day, and Epiphany. These festivals were preceded
+by great domestic sweepings and a universal clearing up of the house,
+which added an element of usefulness to the ceremonies. When the
+festival day came, the presents were offered with much pomp and an
+accompaniment of flowers,--silk stockings or a fur cap for old
+Saillard; gold earrings and articles of plate for Elisabeth or her
+husband, for whom, little by little, the parents were accumulating a
+whole silver service; silk petticoats for Madame Saillard, who laid
+the stuff by and never made it up. The recipient of these gifts was
+placed in an armchair and asked by those present for a certain length
+of time, "Guess what we have for you!" Then came a splendid dinner,
+lasting at least five hours, to which were invited the Abbe Gaudron,
+Falleix, Rabourdin, Monsieur Godard, under-head-clerk to Monsieur
+Baudoyer, Monsieur Bataille, captain of the company of the National
+Guard to which Saillard and his son-in-law belonged. Monsieur Cardot,
+who was invariably asked, did as Rabourdin did, namely, accepted one
+invitation out of six. The company sang at dessert, shook hands and
+embraced with enthusiasm, wishing each other all manner of happiness;
+the presents were exhibited and the opinion of the guests asked about
+them. The day Saillard received his fur cap he wore it during the
+dessert, to the satisfaction of all present. At night, mere ordinary
+acquaintances were bidden, and dancing went on till very late,
+formerly to the music of one violin, but for the last six years
+Monsieur Godard, who was a great flute player, contributed the
+piercing tones of a flageolet to the festivity. The cook, Madame
+Baudoyer's nurse, and old Catherine, Madame Saillard's woman-servant,
+together with the porter or his wife, stood looking on at the door of
+the salon. The servants always received three francs on these
+occasions to buy themselves wine or coffee.
+
+This little circle looked upon Saillard and Baudoyer as transcendent
+beings; they were government officers; they had risen by their own
+merits; they worked, it was said, with the minister himself; they owed
+their fortune to their talents; they were politicians. Baudoyer was
+considered the more able of the two; his position as head of a bureau
+presupposed labor that was more intricate and arduous than that of a
+cashier. Moreover, Isidore, though the son of a leather-dresser, had
+had the genius to study and to cast aside his father's business and
+find a career in politics, which had led him to a post of eminence. In
+short, silent and uncommunicative as he was, he was looked upon as a
+deep thinker, and perhaps, said the admiring circle, he would some day
+become deputy of the eighth arrondissement. As Gigonnet listened to
+such remarks as these, he pressed his already pinched lips closer
+together, and threw a glance at his great-niece, Elisabeth.
+
+In person, Isidore was a tall, stout man of thirty-seven, who
+perspired freely, and whose head looked as if he had water on the
+brain. This enormous head, covered with chestnut hair cropped close,
+was joined to the neck by rolls of flesh which overhung the collar of
+his coat. He had the arms of Hercules, hands worthy of Domitian, a
+stomach which sobriety held within the limits of the majestic, to use
+a saying of Brillaet-Savarin. His face was a good deal like that of
+the Emperor Alexander. The Tartar type was in the little eyes and the
+flattened nose turned slightly up, in the frigid lips and the short
+chin. The forehead was low and narrow. Though his temperament was
+lymphatic, the devout Isidore was under the influence of a conjugal
+passion which time did not lessen.
+
+In spite, however, of his resemblance to the handsome Russian Emperor
+and the terrible Domitian, Isidore Baudoyer was nothing more than a
+political office-holder, of little ability as head of his department,
+a cut-and-dried routine man, who concealed the fact that he was a
+flabby cipher by so ponderous a personality that no scalpel could cut
+deep enough to let the operator see into him. His severe studies, in
+which he had shown the patience and sagacity of an ox, and his square
+head, deceived his parents, who firmly believed him an extraordinary
+man. Pedantic and hypercritical, meddlesome and fault-finding, he was
+a terror to the clerks under him, whom he worried in their work,
+enforcing the rules rigorously, and arriving himself with such
+terrible punctuality that not one of them dared to be a moment late.
+Baudoyer wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, a chamois waistcoat, gray
+trousers and cravats of various colors. His feet were large and
+ill-shod. From the chain of his watch depended an enormous bunch of
+old trinkets, among which in 1824 he still wore "American beads,"
+which were very much the fashion in the year VII.
+
+In the bosom of this family, bound together by the force of religious
+ties, by the inflexibility of its customs, by one solitary emotion,
+that of avarice, a passion which was now as it were its compass,
+Elisabeth was forced to commune with herself, instead of imparting her
+ideas to those around her, for she felt herself without equals in mind
+who could comprehend her. Though facts compelled her to judge her
+husband, her religious duty led her to keep up as best she could a
+favorable opinion of him; she showed him marked respect; honored him
+as the father of her child, her husband, the temporal power, as the
+vicar of Saint-Paul's told her. She would have thought it a mortal sin
+to make a single gesture, or give a single glance, or say a single
+word which would reveal to others her real opinion of the imbecile
+Baudoyer. She even professed to obey passively all his wishes. But her
+ears were receptive of many things; she thought them over, weighed and
+compared them in the solitude of her mind, and judged so soberly of
+men and events that at the time when our history begins she was the
+hidden oracle of the two functionaries, her husband and father, who
+had, unconsciously, come to do nothing whatever without consulting
+her. Old Saillard would say, innocently, "Isn't she clever, that
+Elisabeth of mine?" But Baudoyer, too great a fool not to be puffed up
+by the false reputation the quartier Saint-Antoine bestowed upon him,
+denied his wife's cleverness all the while that he was making use of
+it.
+
+Elisabeth had long felt sure that her uncle Bidault, otherwise called
+Gigonnet, was rich and handled vast sums of money. Enlightened by
+self-interest, she had come to understand Monsieur des Lupeaulx far
+better than the minister understood him. Finding herself married to a
+fool, she never allowed herself to think that life might have gone
+better with her, she only imagined the possibility of better things
+without expecting or wishing to attain them. All her best affections
+found their vocation in her love for her daughter, to whom she spared
+the pains and privations she had borne in her own childhood; she
+believed that in this affection she had her full share in the world of
+feeling. Solely for her daughter's sake she had persuaded her father
+to take the important step of going into partnership with Falleix.
+Falleix had been brought to the Saillard's house by old Bidault, who
+lent him money on his merchandise. Falleix thought his old countryman
+extortionate, and complained to the Saillards that Gigonnet demanded
+eighteen per cent from an Auvergnat. Madame Saillard ventured to
+remonstrate with her uncle.
+
+"It is just because he is an Auvergnat that I take only eighteen per
+cent," said Gigonnet, when she spoke of him.
+
+Falleix, who had made a discovery at the age of twenty-eight, and
+communicated it to Saillard, seemed to carry his heart in his hand (an
+expression of old Saillard's), and also seemed likely to make a great
+fortune. Elisabeth determined to husband him for her daughter and
+train him herself, having, as she calculated, seven years to do it in.
+Martin Falleix felt and showed the deepest respect for Madame
+Baudoyer, whose superior qualities he was able to recognize. If he
+were fated to make millions he would always belong to her family,
+where he had found a home. The little Baudoyer girl was already
+trained to bring him his tea and to take his hat.
+
+On the evening of which we write, Monsieur Saillard, returning from
+the ministry, found a game of boston in full blast; Elisabeth was
+advising Falleix how to play; Madame Saillard was knitting in the
+chimney-corner and overlooking the cards of the vicar; Monsieur
+Baudoyer, motionless as a mile-stone, was employing his mental
+capacity in calculating how the cards were placed, and sat opposite to
+Mitral, who had come up from Ile-d'Adam for the Christmas holidays. No
+one moved as the cashier entered, and for some minutes he walked up
+and down the room, his fat face contracted with unaccustomed thought.
+
+"He is always so when he dines at the ministry," remarked Madame
+Saillard; "happily, it is only twice a year, or he'd die of it.
+Saillard was never made to be in the government-- Well, now, I do
+hope, Saillard," she continued in a loud tone, "that you are not going
+to keep on those silk breeches and that handsome coat. Go and take
+them off; don't wear them at home, my man."
+
+"Your father has something on his mind," said Baudoyer to his wife,
+when the cashier was in his bedroom, undressing without any fire.
+
+"Perhaps Monsieur de la Billardiere is dead," said Elisabeth, simply;
+"and as he is anxious you should have the place, it worries him."
+
+"Can I be useful in any way?" said the vicar of Saint-Paul's; "if so,
+pray use my services. I have the honor to be known to Madame la
+Dauphine. These are days when public offices should be given only to
+faithful men, whose religious principles are not to be shaken."
+
+"Dear me!" said Falleix, "do men of merit need protectors and
+influence to get places in the government service? I am glad I am an
+iron-master; my customers know where to find a good article--"
+
+"Monsieur," interrupted Baudoyer, "the government is the government;
+never attack it in this house."
+
+"You speak like the 'Constitutionel,'" said the vicar.
+
+"The 'Constitutionel' never says anything different from that,"
+replied Baudoyer, who never read it.
+
+The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in talent to
+Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his own
+expression; but the good man coveted this appointment in a
+straightforward, honest way. Influenced by the feeling which leads all
+officials to seek promotion,--a violent, unreflecting, almost brutal
+passion,--he desired success, just as he desired the cross of the
+Legion of honor, without doing anything against his conscience to
+obtain it, and solely, as he believed, on the strength of his
+son-in-law's merits. To his thinking, a man who had patiently spent
+twenty-five years in a government office behind an iron railing had
+sacrificed himself to his country and deserved the cross. But all that
+he dreamed of doing to promote his son-in-law's appointment in La
+Billardiere's place was to say a word to his Excellency's wife when he
+took her the month's salary.
+
+"Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends! Do
+speak; do, pray, tell us something," cried his wife when he came back
+into the room.
+
+Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his
+heel to keep himself from talking politics before strangers. When
+Monsieur Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the
+card-table and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always
+assumed when about to tell some office-gossip,--a series of movements
+which answered the purpose of the three knocks given at the
+Theatre-Francais. After binding his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to
+the deepest secrecy,--for, however petty the gossip, their places, as
+he thought, depended on their discretion,--he related the
+incomprehensible enigma of the resignation of a deputy, the very
+legitimate desire of the general-secretary to get elected to the
+place, and the secret opposition of the minister to this wish of a man
+who was one of his firmest supporters and most zealous workers. This,
+of course, brought down an avalanche of suppositions, flooded with the
+sapient arguments of the two officials, who sent back and forth to
+each other a wearisome flood of nonsense. Elisabeth quietly asked
+three questions:--
+
+"If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is on our side, will Monsieur Baudoyer be
+appointed in Monsieur de la Billardiere's place?"
+
+"Heavens! I should think so," cried the cashier.
+
+"My uncle Bidault and Monsieur Gobseck helped in him 1814," thought
+she. "Is he in debt?" she asked, aloud.
+
+"Yes," cried the cashier with a hissing and prolonged sound on the
+last letter; "his salary was attached, but some of the higher powers
+released it by a bill at sight."
+
+"Where is the des Lupeaulx estate?"
+
+"Why, don't you know? in the part of the country where your
+grandfather and your great-uncle Bidault belong, in the arrondissement
+of the deputy who wants to resign."
+
+When her colossus of a husband had gone to bed, Elisabeth leaned over
+him, and though he always treated her remarks as women's nonsense, she
+said, "Perhaps you will really get Monsieur de la Billardiere's
+place."
+
+"There you go with your imaginations!" said Baudoyer; "leave Monsieur
+Gaudron to speak to the Dauphine and don't meddle with politics."
+
+At eleven o'clock, when all were asleep in the place Royale, Monsieur
+des Lupeaulx was leaving the Opera for the rue Duphot. This particular
+Wednesday was one of Madame Rabourdin's most brilliant evenings. Many
+of her customary guests came in from the theatres and swelled the
+company already assembled, among whom were several celebrities, such
+as: Canalis the poet, Schinner the painter, Dr. Bianchon, Lucien de
+Rubempre, Octave de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de
+Fontaine, du Bruel the vaudevillist, Andoche Finot the journalist,
+Derville, one of the best heads in the law courts, the Comte du
+Chatelet, deputy, du Tillet, banker, and several elegant young men,
+such as Paul de Manerville and the Vicomte de Portenduere. Celestine
+was pouring out tea when the general-secretary entered. Her dress that
+evening was very becoming; she wore a black velvet robe without
+ornament of any kind, a black gauze scarf, her hair smoothly bound
+about her head and raised in a heavy braided mass, with long curls a
+l'Anglaise falling on either side of her face. The charms which
+particularly distinguished this woman were the Italian ease of her
+artistic nature, her ready comprehension, and the grace with which she
+welcomed and promoted the least appearance of a wish on the part of
+others. Nature had given her an elegant, slender figure, which could
+sway lightly at a word, black eyes of oriental shape, able, like those
+of the Chinese women, to see out of their corners. She well knew how
+to manage a soft, insinuating voice, which threw a tender charm into
+every word, even such as she merely chanced to utter; her feet were
+like those we see in portraits where the painter boldly lies and
+flatters his sitter in the only way which does not compromise anatomy.
+Her complexion, a little yellow by day, like that of most brunettes,
+was dazzling at night under the wax candles, which brought out the
+brilliancy of her black hair and eyes. Her slender and well-defined
+outlines reminded an artist of the Venus of the Middle Ages rendered
+by Jean Goujon, the illustrious sculptor of Diane de Poitiers.
+
+Des Lupeaulx stopped in the doorway, and leaned against the woodwork.
+This ferret of ideas did not deny himself the pleasure of spying upon
+sentiment, and this woman interested him more than any of the others
+to whom he had attached himself. Des Lupeaulx had reached an age when
+men assert pretensions in regard to women. The first white hairs lead
+to the latest passions, all the more violent because they are astride
+of vanishing powers and dawning weakness. The age of forty is the age
+of folly,--an age when man wants to be loved for himself; whereas at
+twenty-five life is so full that he has no wants. At twenty-five he
+overflows with vigor and wastes it with impunity, but at forty he
+learns that to use it in that way is to abuse it. The thoughts that
+came into des Lupeaulx's mind at this moment were melancholy ones. The
+nerves of the old beau relaxed; the agreeable smile, which served as a
+mask and made the character of his countenance, faded; the real man
+appeared, and he was horrible. Rabourdin caught sight of him and
+thought, "What has happened to him? can he be disgraced in any way?"
+The general-secretary was, however, only thinking how the pretty
+Madame Colleville, whose intentions were exactly those of Madame
+Rabourdin, had summarily abandoned him when it suited her to do so.
+Rabourdin caught the sham statesman's eyes fixed on his wife, and he
+recorded the look in his memory. He was too keen an observer not to
+understand des Lupeaulx to the bottom, and he deeply despised him;
+but, as with most busy men, his feelings and sentiments seldom came to
+the surface. Absorption in a beloved work is practically equivalent to
+the cleverest dissimulation, and thus it was that the opinions and
+ideas of Rabourdin were a sealed book to des Lupeaulx. The former was
+sorry to see the man in his house, but he was never willing to oppose
+his wife's wishes. At this particular moment, while he talked
+confidentially with a supernumerary of his office who was destined,
+later, to play an unconscious part in a political intrigue
+resulting from the death of La Billardiere, he watched, though
+half-abstractedly, his wife and des Lupeaulx.
+
+Here we must explain, as much for foreigners as for our own
+grandchildren, what a supernumerary in a government office in Paris
+means.
+
+The supernumerary is to the administration what a choir-boy is to a
+church, what the company's child is to the regiment, what the
+figurante is to a theatre; something artless, naive, innocent, a being
+blinded by illusions. Without illusions what would become of any of
+us? They give strength to bear the res angusta domi of arts and the
+beginnings of all science by inspiring us with faith. Illusion is
+illimitable faith. Now the supernumerary has faith in the
+administration; he never thinks it cold, cruel, and hard, as it really
+is. There are two kinds of supernumeraries, or hangers-on,--one poor,
+the other rich. The poor one is rich in hope and wants a place, the
+rich one is poor in spirit and wants nothing. A wealthy family is not
+so foolish as to put its able men into the administration. It confides
+an unfledged scion to some head-clerk, or gives him in charge of a
+directory who initiates him into what Bilboquet, that profound
+philosopher, called the high comedy of government; he is spared all
+the horrors of drudgery and is finally appointed to some important
+office. The rich supernumerary never alarms the other clerks; they
+know he does not endanger their interests, for he seeks only the
+highest posts in the administration. About the period of which we
+write many families were saying to themselves: "What can we do with
+our sons?" The army no longer offered a chance for fortune. Special
+careers, such as civil and military engineering, the navy, mining, and
+the professorial chair were all fenced about by strict regulations or
+to be obtained only by competition; whereas in the civil service the
+revolving wheel which turned clerks into prefects, sub-prefects,
+assessors, and collectors, like the figures in a magic lantern, was
+subjected to no such rules and entailed no drudgery. Through this easy
+gap emerged into life the rich supernumeraries who drove their
+tilburys, dressed well, and wore moustachios, all of them as impudent
+as parvenus. Journalists were apt to persecute the tribe, who were
+cousins, nephews, brothers, or other relatives of some minister, some
+deputy, or an influential peer. The humbler clerks regarded them as a
+means of influence.
+
+The poor supernumerary, on the other hand, who is the only real
+worker, is almost always the son of some former clerk's widow, who
+lives on a meagre pension and sacrifices herself to support her son
+until he can get a place as copying-clerk, and then dies leaving
+him no nearer the head of his department than writer of deeds,
+order-clerks, or, possibly, under-head-clerk. Living always in some locality
+where rents are low, this humble supernumerary starts early from home.
+For him the Eastern question relates only to the morning skies. To go
+on foot and not get muddied, to save his clothes, and allow for the
+time he may lose in standing under shelter during a shower, are the
+preoccupations of his mind. The street pavements, the flaggings of the
+quays and the boulevards, when first laid down, were a boon to him.
+If, for some extraordinary reason, you happen to be in the streets of
+Paris at half-past seven or eight o'clock of a winter's morning, and
+see through piercing cold or fog or rain a timid, pale young man loom
+up, cigarless, take notice of his pockets. You will be sure to see the
+outline of a roll which his mother has given him to stay his stomach
+between breakfast and dinner. The guilelessness of the supernumerary
+does not last long. A youth enlightened by gleams by Parisian life
+soon measures the frightful distance that separates him from the
+head-clerkship, a distance which no mathematician, neither Archimedes, nor
+Leibnitz, nor Laplace has ever reckoned, the distance that exists
+between 0 and the figure 1. He begins to perceive the impossibilities
+of his career; he hears talk of favoritism; he discovers the intrigues
+of officials: he sees the questionable means by which his superiors
+have pushed their way,--one has married a young woman who made a false
+step; another, the natural daughter of a minister; this one shouldered
+the responsibility of another's fault; that one, full of talent, risks
+his health in doing, with the perseverance of a mole, prodigies of
+work which the man of influence feels incapable of doing for himself,
+though he takes the credit. Everything is known in a government
+office. The incapable man has a wife with a clear head, who has pushed
+him along and got him nominated for deputy; if he has not talent
+enough for an office, he cabals in the Chamber. The wife of another
+has a statesman at her feet. A third is the hidden informant of a
+powerful journalist. Often the disgusted and hopeless supernumerary
+sends in his resignation. About three fourths of his class leave the
+government employ without ever obtaining an appointment, and their
+number is winnowed down to either those young men who are foolish or
+obstinate enough to say to themselves, "I have been here three years,
+and I must end sooner or later by getting a place," or to those who
+are conscious of a vocation for the work. Undoubtedly the position of
+supernumerary in a government office is precisely what the novitiate
+is in a religious order,--a trial. It is a rough trial. The State
+discovers how many of them can bear hunger, thirst, and penury without
+breaking down, how many can toil without revolting against it; it
+learns which temperaments can bear up under the horrible experience
+--or if you like, the disease--of government official life. From this
+point of view the apprenticeship of the supernumerary, instead of
+being an infamous device of the government to obtain labor gratis,
+becomes a useful institution.
+
+The young man with whom Rabourdin was talking was a poor supernumerary
+named Sebastien de la Roche, who had picked his way on the points of
+his toes, without incurring the least splash upon his boots, from the
+rue du Roi-Dore in the Marais. He talked of his mamma, and dared not
+raise his eyes to Madame Rabourdin, whose house appeared to him as
+gorgeous as the Louvre. He was careful to show his gloves, well
+cleaned with india-rubber, as little as he could. His poor mother had
+put five francs in his pocket in case it became absolutely necessary
+that he should play cards; but she enjoined him to take nothing, to
+remain standing, and to be very careful not to knock over a lamp or
+the bric-a-brac from an etagere. His dress was all of the strictest
+black. His fair face, his eyes, of a fine shade of green with golden
+reflections, were in keeping with a handsome head of auburn hair. The
+poor lad looked furtively at Madame Rabourdin, whispering to himself,
+"How beautiful!" and was likely to dream of that fairy when he went to
+bed.
+
+Rabourdin had noted a vocation for his work in the lad, and as he
+himself took the whole service seriously, he felt a lively interest in
+him. He guessed the poverty of his mother's home, kept together on a
+widow's pension of seven hundred francs a year--for the education of
+the son, who was just out of college, had absorbed all her savings. He
+therefore treated the youth almost paternally; often endeavoured to
+get him some fee from the Council, or paid it from his own pocket. He
+overwhelmed Sebastien with work, trained him, and allowed him to do
+the work of du Bruel's place, for which that vaudevillist, otherwise
+known as Cursy, paid him three hundred francs out of his salary. In
+the minds of Madame de la Roche and her son, Rabourdin was at once a
+great man, a tyrant, and an angel. On him all the poor fellow's hopes
+of getting an appointment depended, and the lad's devotion to his
+chief was boundless. He dined once a fortnight in the rue Duphot; but
+always at a family dinner, invited by Rabourdin himself; Madame asked
+him to evening parties only when she wanted partners.
+
+At that moment Rabourdin was scolding poor Sebastien, the only human
+being who was in the secret of his immense labors. The youth copied
+and recopied the famous "statement," written on a hundred and fifty
+folio sheets, besides the corroborative documents, and the summing up
+(contained in one page), with the estimates bracketed, the captions in
+a running hand, and the sub-titles in a round one. Full of enthusiasm,
+in spite of his merely mechanical participation in the great idea, the
+lad of twenty would rewrite whole pages for a single blot, and made it
+his glory to touch up the writing, regarding it as the element of a
+noble undertaking. Sebastien had that afternoon committed the great
+imprudence of carrying into the general office, for the purpose of
+copying, a paper which contained the most dangerous facts to make
+known prematurely, namely, a memorandum relating to the officials in
+the central offices of all ministries, with facts concerning their
+fortunes, actual and prospective, together with the individual
+enterprises of each outside of his government employment.
+
+All government clerks in Paris who are not endowed, like Rabourdin,
+with patriotic ambition or other marked capacity, usually add the
+profits of some industry to the salary of their office, in order to
+eke out a living. A number do as Monsieur Saillard did,--put their
+money into a business carried on by others, and spend their evenings
+in keeping the books of their associates. Many clerks are married to
+milliners, licensed tobacco dealers, women who have charge of the
+public lotteries or reading-rooms. Some, like the husband of Madame
+Colleville, Celestine's rival, play in the orchestra of a theatre;
+others like du Bruel, write vaudeville, comic operas, melodramas, or
+act as prompters behind the scenes. We may mention among them Messrs.
+Planard, Sewrin, etc. Pigault-Lebrun, Piis, Duvicquet, in their day,
+were in government employ. Monsieur Scribe's head-librarian was a
+clerk in the Treasury.
+
+Besides such information as this, Rabourdin's memorandum contained an
+inquiry into the moral and physical capacities and faculties necessary
+in those who were to examine the intelligence, aptitude for labor, and
+sound health of the applicants for government service,--three
+indispensable qualities in men who are to bear the burden of public
+affairs and should do their business well and quickly. But this
+careful study, the result of ten years' observation and experience,
+and of a long acquaintance with men and things obtained by intercourse
+with the various functionaries in the different ministries, would
+assuredly have, to those who did not see its purport and connection,
+an air of treachery and police espial. If a single page of these
+papers were to fall under the eye of those concerned, Monsieur
+Rabourdin was lost. Sebastien, who admired his chief without
+reservation, and who was, as yet, wholly ignorant of the evils of
+bureaucracy, had the follies of guilelessness as well as its grace.
+Blamed on a former occasion for carrying away these papers, he now
+bravely acknowledged his fault to its fullest extent; he related how
+he had put away both the memorandum and the copy carefully in a box in
+the office where no one would ever find them. Tears rolled from his
+eyes as he realized the greatness of his offence.
+
+"Come, come!" said Rabourdin, kindly. "Don't be so imprudent again,
+but never mind now. Go to the office very early tomorrow morning; here
+is the key of a small safe which is in my roller secretary; it shuts
+with a combination lock. You can open it with the word 'sky'; put the
+memorandum and your copy into it and shut it carefully."
+
+This proof of confidence dried the poor fellow's tears. Rabourdin
+advised him to take a cup of tea and some cakes.
+
+"Mamma forbids me to drink tea, on account of my chest," said
+Sebastien.
+
+"Well, then, my dear child," said the imposing Madame Rabourdin, who
+wished to appear gracious, "here are some sandwiches and cream; come
+and sit by me."
+
+She made Sebastien sit down beside her, and the lad's heart rose in
+his throat as he felt the robe of this divinity brush the sleeve of
+his coat. Just then the beautiful woman caught sight of Monsieur des
+Lupeaulx standing in the doorway. She smiled, and not waiting till he
+came to her, she went to him.
+
+"Why do you stay there as if you were sulking?" she asked.
+
+"I am not sulking," he returned; "I came to announce some good news,
+but the thought has overtaken me that it will only add to your
+severity towards me. I fancy myself six months hence almost a stranger
+to you. Yes, you are too clever, and I too experienced,--too blase, if
+you like,--for either of us to deceive the other. Your end is attained
+without its costing you more than a few smiles and gracious words."
+
+"Deceive each other! what can you mean?" she cried, in a hurt tone.
+
+"Yes; Monsieur de la Billardiere is dying, and from what the minister
+told me this evening I judge that your husband will be appointed in
+his place."
+
+He thereupon related what he called his scene at the ministry and the
+jealousy of the countess, repeating her remarks about the invitation
+he had asked her to send to Madame Rabourdin.
+
+"Monsieur des Lupeaulx," said Madame Rabourdin, with dignity, "permit
+me to tell you that my husband is the oldest head-clerk as well as the
+most capable man in the division; also that the appointment of La
+Billardiere over his head made much talk in the service, and that my
+husband has stayed on for the last year expecting this promotion, for
+which he has really no competitor and no rival."
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Well, then," she resumed, smiling and showing her handsome teeth,
+"how can you suppose that the friendship I feel for you is marred by a
+thought of self-interest? Why should you think me capable of that?"
+
+Des Lupeaulx made a gesture of admiring denial.
+
+"Ah!" she continued, "the heart of woman will always remain a
+secret for even the cleverest of men. Yes, I welcomed you to my
+house with the greatest pleasure; and there was, I admit, a motive
+of self-interest behind my pleasure--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"You have a career before you," she whispered in his ear, "a future
+without limit; you will be deputy, minister!" (What happiness for an
+ambitious man when such things as these are warbled in his ear by the
+sweet voice of a pretty woman!) "Oh, yes! I know you better than you
+know yourself. Rabourdin is a man who could be of immense service to
+you in such a career; he could do the steady work while you were in
+the Chamber. Just as you dream of the ministry, so I dream of seeing
+Rabourdin in the Council of State, and general director. It is
+therefore my object to draw together two men who can never injure,
+but, on the contrary, must greatly help each other. Isn't that a
+woman's mission? If you are friends, you will both rise the faster,
+and it is surely high time that each of you made hay. I have burned my
+ships," she added, smiling. "But you are not as frank with me as I
+have been with you."
+
+"You would not listen to me if I were," he replied, with a melancholy
+air, in spite of the deep inward satisfaction her remarks gave him.
+"What would such future promotions avail me, if you dismiss me now?"
+
+"Before I listen to you," she replied, with naive Parisian liveliness,
+"we must be able to understand each other."
+
+And she left the old fop to go and speak with Madame de Chessel, a
+countess from the provinces, who seemed about to take leave.
+
+"That is a very extraordinary woman," said des Lupeaulx to himself. "I
+don't know my own self when I am with her."
+
+Accordingly, this man of no principle, who six years earlier had kept
+a ballet-girl, and who now, thanks to his position, made himself a
+seraglio with the pretty wives of the under-clerks, and lived in the
+world of journalists and actresses, became devotedly attentive all the
+evening to Celestine, and was the last to leave the house.
+
+"At last!" thought Madame Rabourdin, as she undressed that night, "we
+have the place! Twelve thousand francs a year and perquisites, beside
+the rents of our farms at Grajeux,--nearly twenty thousand francs a
+year. It is not affluence, but at least it isn't poverty."
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV
+
+   THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
+
+If it were possible for literature to use the microscope of the
+Leuwenhoeks, the Malpighis, and the Raspails (an attempt once made by
+Hoffman, of Berlin), and if we could magnify and then picture the
+teredos navalis, in other words, those ship-worms which brought
+Holland within an inch of collapsing by honey-combing her dykes, we
+might have been able to give a more distinct idea of Messieurs
+Gigonnet, Baudoyer, Saillard, Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard and
+company, borers and burrowers, who proved their undermining power in
+the thirtieth year of this century.
+
+But now it is time to show another set of teredos, who burrowed and
+swarmed in the government offices where the principal scenes of our
+present study took place.
+
+In Paris nearly all these government bureaus resemble each other. Into
+whatever ministry you penetrate to ask some slight favor, or to get
+redress for a trifling wrong, you will find the same dark corridors,
+ill-lighted stairways, doors with oval panes of glass like eyes, as at
+the theatre. In the first room as you enter you will find the office
+servant; in the second, the under-clerks; the private office of the
+second head-clerk is to the right or left, and further on is that of
+the head of the bureau. As to the important personage called, under
+the Empire, head of division, then, under the Restoration, director,
+and now by the former name, head or chief of division, he lives either
+above or below the offices of his three or four different bureaus.
+
+Speaking in the administrative sense, a bureau consists of a
+man-servant, several supernumeraries (who do the work gratis for a
+certain number of years), various copying clerks, writers of bills and
+deeds, order clerks, principal clerks, second or under head-clerk, and
+head-clerk, otherwise called head or chief of the bureau. These
+denominational titles vary under some administrations; for instance,
+the order-clerks are sometimes called auditors, or again,
+book-keepers.
+
+Paved like the corridor, and hung with a shabby paper, the first room,
+where the servant is stationed, is furnished with a stove, a large
+black table with inkstand, pens, and paper, and benches, but no mats
+on which to wipe the public feet. The clerk's office beyond is a large
+room, tolerably well lighted, but seldom floored with wood. Wooden
+floors and fireplaces are commonly kept sacred to heads of bureaus and
+divisions; and so are closets, wardrobes, mahogany tables, sofas and
+armchairs covered with red or green morocco, silk curtains, and other
+articles of administrative luxury. The clerk's office contents itself
+with a stove, the pipe of which goes into the chimney, if there be a
+chimney. The wall paper is plain and all of one color, usually green
+or brown. The tables are of black wood. The private characteristics of
+the several clerks often crop out in their method of settling
+themselves at their desks,--the chilly one has a wooden footstool
+under his feet; the man with a bilious temperament has a metal mat;
+the lymphatic being who dreads draughts constructs a fortification of
+boxes on a screen. The door of the under-head-clerk's office always
+stands open so that he may keep an eye to some extent on his
+subordinates.
+
+Perhaps an exact description of Monsieur de la Billardiere's division
+will suffice to give foreigners and provincials an idea of the
+internal manners and customs of a government office; the chief
+features of which are probably much the same in the civil service of
+all European governments.
+
+In the first place, picture to yourself the man who is thus described
+in the Yearly Register:--
+
+  "Chief of Division.--Monsieur la baron Flamet de la Billardiere
+  (Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel) formerly provost-marshal of
+  the department of the Correze, gentleman in ordinary of the
+  bed-chamber, president of the college of the department of the
+  Dordogne, officer of the Legion of honor, knight of Saint Louis
+  and of the foreign orders of Christ, Isabella, Saint Wladimir,
+  etc., member of the Academy of Gers, and other learned bodies,
+  vice-president of the Society of Belles-lettres, member of the
+  Association of Saint-Joseph and of the Society of Prisons, one of
+  the mayors of Paris, etc."
+
+The person who requires so much typographic space was at this time
+occupying an area five feet six in length by thirty-six inches in
+width in a bed, his head adorned with a cotton night-cap tied on by
+flame-colored ribbons; attended by Despleins, the King's surgeon, and
+young doctor Bianchon, flanked by two old female relatives, surrounded
+by phials of all kinds, bandages, appliances, and various mortuary
+instruments, and watched over by the curate of Saint-Roch, who was
+advising him to think of his salvation.
+
+La Billardiere's division occupied the upper floor of a magnificent
+mansion, in which the vast official ocean of a ministry was contained.
+A wide landing separated its two bureaus, the doors of which were duly
+labelled. The private offices and antechambers of the heads of the two
+bureaus, Monsieur Rabourdin and Monsieur Baudoyer, were below on the
+second floor, and beyond that of Monsieur Rabourdin were the
+antechamber, salon, and two offices of Monsieur de la Billardiere.
+
+On the first floor, divided in two by an entresol, were the living
+rooms and office of Monsieur Ernest de la Briere, an occult and
+powerful personage who must be described in a few words, for he well
+deserves the parenthesis. This young man held, during the whole time
+that this particular administration lasted, the position of private
+secretary to the minister. His apartment was connected by a secret
+door with the private office of his Excellency. A private secretary is
+to the minister himself what des Lupeaulx was to the ministry at
+large. The same difference existed between young La Briere and des
+Lupeaulx that there is between an aide-de-camp and a chief of staff.
+This ministerial apprentice decamps when his protector leaves office,
+returning sometimes when he returns. If the minister enjoys the royal
+favor when he falls, or still has parliamentary hopes, he takes his
+secretary with him into retirement only to bring him back on his
+return; otherwise he puts him to grass in some of the various
+administrative pastures,--for instance, in the Court of Exchequer,
+that wayside refuge where private secretaries wait for the storm to
+blow over. The young man is not precisely a government official; he is
+a political character, however; and sometimes his politics are limited
+to those of one man. When we think of the number of letters it is the
+private secretary's fate to open and read, besides all his other
+avocations, it is very evident that under a monarchical government his
+services would be well paid for. A drudge of this kind costs ten
+or twenty thousand francs a year; and he enjoys, moreover, the
+opera-boxes, the social invitations, and the carriages of the minister.
+The Emperor of Russia would be thankful to be able to pay fifty thousand
+a year to one of these amiable constitutional poodles, so gentle, so
+nicely curled, so caressing, so docile, always spick and span,
+--careful watch-dogs besides, and faithful to a degree! But the private
+secretary is a product of the representative government hot-house; he
+is propagated and developed there, and there only. Under a monarchy
+you will find none but courtiers and vassals, whereas under a
+constitutional government you may be flattered, served, and adulated
+by free men. In France ministers are better off than kings or women;
+they have some one who thoroughly understands them. Perhaps, indeed,
+the private secretary is to be pitied as much as women and white
+paper. They are nonentities who are made to bear all things. They are
+allowed no talents except hidden ones, which must be employed in the
+service of their ministers. A public show of talent would ruin them.
+The private secretary is therefore an intimate friend in the gift of
+government-- However, let us return to the bureaus.
+
+Three men-servants lived in peace in the Billardiere division, to wit:
+a footman for the two bureaus, another for the service of the two
+chiefs, and a third for the director of the division himself. All
+three were lodged, warmed, and clothed by the State, and wore the
+well-known livery of the State, blue coat with red pipings for
+undress, and broad red, white, and blue braid for great occasions. La
+Billardiere's man had the air of a gentleman-usher, an innovation
+which gave an aspect of dignity to the division.
+
+Pillars of the ministry, experts in all manners and customs
+bureaucratic, well-warmed and clothed at the State's expense, growing
+rich by reason of their few wants, these lackeys saw completely
+through the government officials, collectively and individually. They
+had no better way of amusing their idle hours than by observing these
+personages and studying their peculiarities. They knew how far to
+trust the clerks with loans of money, doing their various commissions
+with absolute discretion; they pawned and took out of pawn, bought up
+bills when due, and lent money without interest, albeit no clerk ever
+borrowed of them without returning a "gratification." These servants
+without a master received a salary of nine hundred francs a year; new
+years' gifts and "gratifications" brought their emoluments to twelve
+hundred francs, and they made almost as much money by serving
+breakfasts to the clerks at the office.
+
+The elder of these men, who was also the richest, waited upon the main
+body of the clerks. He was sixty years of age, with white hair cropped
+short like a brush; stout, thickset, and apoplectic about the neck,
+with a vulgar pimpled face, gray eyes, and a mouth like a furnace
+door; such was the profile portrait of Antoine, the oldest attendant
+in the ministry. He had brought his two nephews, Laurent and Gabriel,
+from Echelles in Savoie,--one to serve the heads of the bureaus, the
+other the director himself. All three came to open the offices and
+clean them, between seven and eight o'clock in the morning; at which
+time they read the newspapers and talked civil service politics from
+their point of view with the servants of other divisions, exchanging
+the bureaucratic gossip. In common with servants of modern houses who
+know their masters' private affairs thoroughly, they lived at the
+ministry like spiders at the centre of a web, where they felt the
+slightest jar of the fabric.
+
+On a Thursday evening, the day after the ministerial reception and
+Madame Rabourdin's evening party, just as Antoine was trimming his
+beard and his nephews were assisting him in the antechamber of the
+division on the upper floor, they were surprised by the unexpected
+arrival of one of the clerks.
+
+"That's Monsieur Dutocq," said Antoine. "I know him by that pickpocket
+step of his. He is always moving round on the sly, that man. He is on
+your back before you know it. Yesterday, contrary to his usual ways,
+he outstayed the last man in the office; such a thing hasn't happened
+three times since he has been at the ministry."
+
+Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in the
+Rabourdin bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and bilious
+skin, grizzled hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy eyebrows
+meeting together, a crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the right
+shoulder slightly higher than the left; brown coat, black waistcoat,
+silk cravat, yellowish trousers, black woollen stockings, and shoes
+with flapping bows; thus you behold him. Idle and incapable, he hated
+Rabourdin,--naturally enough, for Rabourdin had no vice to flatter,
+and no bad or weak side on which Dutocq could make himself useful. Far
+too noble to injure a clerk, the chief was also too clear-sighted to
+be deceived by any make-believe. Dutocq kept his place therefore
+solely through Rabourdin's generosity, and was very certain that he
+could never be promoted if the latter succeeded La Billardiere. Though
+he knew himself incapable of important work, Dutocq was well aware
+that in a government office incapacity was no hindrance to
+advancement; La Billardiere's own appointment over the head of so
+capable a man as Rabourdin had been a striking and fatal example of
+this. Wickedness combined with self-interest works with a power
+equivalent to that of intellect; evilly disposed and wholly
+self-interested, Dutocq had endeavoured to strengthen his position by
+becoming a spy in all the offices. After 1816 he assumed a marked
+religious tone, foreseeing the favor which the fools of those days
+would bestow on those they indiscriminately called Jesuits. Belonging
+to that fraternity in spirit, though not admitted to its rites, Dutocq
+went from bureau to bureau, sounded consciences by recounting immoral
+jests, and then reported and paraphrased results to des Lupeaulx; the
+latter thus learned all the trivial events of the ministry, and often
+surprised the minister by his consummate knowledge of what was going
+on. He tolerated Dutocq under the idea that circumstances might some
+day make him useful, were it only to get him or some distinguished
+friend of his out of a scrape by a disgraceful marriage. The two
+understood each other well. Dutocq had succeeded Monsieur Poiret the
+elder, who had retired in 1814, and now lived in the pension Vanquer
+in the Latin quarter. Dutocq himself lived in a pension in the rue de
+Beaune, and spent his evenings in the Palais-Royal, sometimes going to
+the theatre, thanks to du Bruel, who gave him an author's ticket about
+once a week. And now, a word on du Bruel.
+
+Though Sebastien did his work at the office for the small compensation
+we have mentioned, du Bruel was in the habit of coming there to
+advertise the fact that he was the under-head-clerk and to draw his
+salary. His real work was that of dramatic critic to a leading
+ministerial journal, in which he also wrote articles inspired by the
+ministers,--a very well understood, clearly defined, and quite
+unassailable position. Du Bruel was not lacking in those diplomatic
+little tricks which go so far to conciliate general good-will. He sent
+Madame Rabourdin an opera-box for a first representation, took her
+there in a carriage and brought her back,--an attention which
+evidently pleased her. Rabourdin, who was never exacting with his
+subordinates allowed du Bruel to go off to rehearsals, come to the
+office at his own hours, and work at his vaudevilles when there.
+Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, the minister, knew that du Bruel was
+writing a novel which was to be dedicated to himself. Dressed with the
+careless ease of a theatre man, du Bruel wore, in the morning,
+trousers strapped under his feet, shoes with gaiters, a waistcoat
+evidently vamped over, an olive surtout, and a black cravat. At night
+he played the gentleman in elegant clothes. He lived, for good
+reasons, in the same house as Florine, an actress for whom he wrote
+plays. Du Bruel, or to give him his pen name, Cursy, was working just
+now at a piece in five acts for the Francais. Sebastien was devoted to
+the author,--who occasionally gave him tickets to the pit,--and
+applauded his pieces at the parts which du Bruel told him were of
+doubtful interest, with all the faith and enthusiasm of his years. In
+fact, the youth looked upon the playwright as a great author, and it
+was to Sebastien that du Bruel said, the day after a first
+representation of a vaudeville produced, like all vaudevilles, by
+three collaborators, "The audience preferred the scenes written by
+two."
+
+"Why don't you write alone?" asked Sebastien naively.
+
+There were good reasons why du Bruel did not write alone. He was the
+third of an author. A dramatic writer, as few people know, is made up
+of three individuals; first, the man with brains who invents the
+subject and maps out the structure, or scenario, of the vaudeville;
+second, the plodder, who works the piece into shape; and third, the
+toucher-up, who sets the songs to music, arranges the chorus and
+concerted pieces and fits them into their right place, and finally
+writes the puffs and advertisements. Du Bruel was a plodder; at the
+office he read the newest books, extracted their wit, and laid it by
+for use in his dialogues. He was liked by his collaborators on account
+of his carefulness; the man with brains, sure of being understood,
+could cross his arms and feel that his ideas would be well rendered.
+The clerks in the office liked their companion well enough to attend a
+first performance of his plays in a body and applaud them, for he
+really deserved the title of a good fellow. His hand went readily to
+his pocket; ices and punch were bestowed without prodding, and he
+loaned fifty francs without asking them back. He owned a country-house
+at Aulnay, laid by his money, and had, besides the four thousand five
+hundred francs of his salary under government, twelve hundred francs
+pension from the civil list, and eight hundred from the three hundred
+thousand francs fund voted by the Chambers for encouragement of the
+Arts. Add to these diverse emoluments nine thousand francs earned by
+his quarters, thirds, and halves of plays in three different theatres,
+and you will readily understand that such a man must be physically
+round, fat, and comfortable, with the face of a worthy capitalist. As
+to morals, he was the lover and the beloved of Tullia and felt himself
+preferred in heart to the brilliant Duc de Rhetore, the lover in
+chief.
+
+Dutocq had seen with great uneasiness what he called the liaison of
+des Lupeaulx with Madame Rabourdin, and his silent wrath on the
+subject was accumulating. He had too prying an eye not to have guessed
+that Rabourdin was engaged in some great work outside of his official
+labors, and he was provoked to feel that he knew nothing about it,
+whereas that little Sebastien was, wholly or in part, in the secret.
+Dutocq was intimate with Godard, under-head-clerk to Baudoyer, and the
+high esteem in which Dutocq held Baudoyer was the original cause of
+his acquaintance with Godard; not that Dutocq was sincere even in
+this; but by praising Baudoyer and saying nothing of Rabourdin he
+satisfied his hatred after the fashion of little minds.
+
+Joseph Godard, a cousin of Mitral on the mother's side, made
+pretension to the hand of Mademoiselle Baudoyer, not perceiving that
+her mother was laying siege to Falliex as a son-in-law. He brought
+little gifts to the young lady, artificial flowers, bonbons on
+New-Year's day and pretty boxes for her birthday. Twenty-six years of
+age, a worker working without purpose, steady as a girl, monotonous and
+apathetic, holding cafes, cigars, and horsemanship in detestation,
+going to bed regularly at ten o'clock and rising at seven, gifted with
+some social talents, such as playing quadrille music on the flute,
+which first brought him into favor with the Saillards and the
+Baudoyers. He was moreover a fifer in the National Guard,--to escape
+his turn of sitting up all night in a barrack-room. Godard was devoted
+more especially to natural history. He made collections of shells and
+minerals, knew how to stuff birds, kept a mass of curiosities bought
+for nothing in his bedroom; took possession of phials and empty
+perfume bottles for his specimens; pinned butterflies and beetles
+under glass, hung Chinese parasols on the walls, together with dried
+fishskins. He lived with his sister, an artificial-flower maker, in
+the due de Richelieu. Though much admired by mammas this model young
+man was looked down upon by his sister's shop-girls, who had tried to
+inveigle him. Slim and lean, of medium height, with dark circles round
+his eyes, Joseph Godard took little care of his person; his clothes
+were ill-cut, his trousers bagged, he wore white stockings at all
+seasons of the year, a hat with a narrow brim and laced shoes. He was
+always complaining of his digestion. His principal vice was a mania
+for proposing rural parties during the summer season, excursions to
+Montmorency, picnics on the grass, and visits to creameries on the
+boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. For the last six months Dutocq had taken
+to visiting Mademoiselle Godard from time to time, with certain views
+of his own, hoping to discover in her establishment some female
+treasure.
+
+Thus Baudoyer had a pair of henchmen in Dutocq and Godard. Monsieur
+Saillard, too innocent to judge rightly of Dutocq, was in the habit of
+paying him frequent little visits at the office. Young La Billardiere,
+the director's son, placed as supernumerary with Baudoyer, made
+another member of the clique. The clever heads in the offices laughed
+much at this alliance of incapables. Bixiou named Baudoyer, Godard,
+and Dutocq a "Trinity without the Spirit," and little La Billardiere
+the "Pascal Lamb."
+
+"You are early this morning," said Antoine to Dutocq, laughing.
+
+"So are you, Antoine," answered Dutocq; "you see, the newspapers do
+come earlier than you let us have them at the office."
+
+"They did to-day, by chance," replied Antoine, not disconcerted; "they
+never come two days together at the same hour."
+
+The two nephews looked at each other as if to say, in admiration of
+their uncle, "What cheek he has!"
+
+"Though I make two sous by all his breakfasts," muttered Antoine, as
+he heard Monsieur Dutocq close the office door, "I'd give them up to
+get that man out of our division."
+
+"Ah, Monsieur Sebastien, you are not the first here to-day," said
+Antoine, a quarter of an hour later, to the supernumerary.
+
+"Who is here?" asked the poor lad, turning pale.
+
+"Monsieur Dutocq," answered Laurent.
+
+Virgin natures have, beyond all others, the inexplicable gift of
+second-sight, the reason of which lies perhaps in the purity of their
+nervous systems, which are, as it were, brand-new. Sebastien had long
+guessed Dutocq's hatred to his revered Rabourdin. So that when Laurent
+uttered his name a dreadful presentiment took possession of the lad's
+mind, and crying out, "I feared it!" he flew like an arrow into the
+corridor.
+
+"There is going to be a row in the division," said Antoine, shaking
+his white head as he put on his livery. "It is very certain that
+Monsieur le baron is off to his account. Yes, Madame Gruget, the
+nurse, told me he couldn't live through the day. What a stir there'll
+be! oh! won't there! Go along, you fellows, and see if the stoves are
+drawing properly. Heavens and earth! our world is coming down about
+our ears."
+
+"That poor young one," said Laurent, "had a sort of sunstroke when he
+heard that Jesuit of a Dutocq had got here before him."
+
+"I have told him a dozen times,--for after all one ought to tell the
+truth to an honest clerk, and what I call an honest clerk is one like
+that little fellow who gives us 'recta' his ten francs on New-Year's
+day,--I have said to him again and again: The more you work the more
+they'll make you work, and they won't promote you. He doesn't listen
+to me; he tires himself out staying here till five o'clock, an hour
+after all the others have gone. Folly! he'll never get on that way!
+The proof is that not a word has been said about giving him an
+appointment, though he has been here two years. It's a shame! it makes
+my blood boil."
+
+"Monsieur Rabourdin is very fond of Monsieur Sebastien," said Laurent.
+
+"But Monsieur Rabourdin isn't a minister," retorted Antoine; "it will
+be a hot day when that happens, and the hens will have teeth; he is
+too--but mum! When I think that I carry salaries to those humbugs who
+stay away and do as they please, while that poor little La Roche works
+himself to death, I ask myself if God ever thinks of the civil
+service. And what do they give you, these pets of Monsieur le marechal
+and Monsieur le duc? 'Thank you, my dear Antoine, thank you,' with a
+gracious nod! Pack of sluggards! go to work, or you'll bring another
+revolution about your ears. Didn't see such goings-on under Monsieur
+Robert Lindet. I know, for I served my apprenticeship under Robert
+Lindet. The clerks had to work in his day! You ought to have seen how
+they scratched paper here till midnight; why, the stoves went out and
+nobody noticed it. It was all because the guillotine was there!
+now-a-days they only mark 'em when they come in late!"
+
+"Uncle Antoine," said Gabriel, "as you are so talkative this morning,
+just tell us what you think a clerk really ought to be."
+
+"A government clerk," replied Antoine, gravely, "is a man who sits in
+a government office and writes. But there, there, what am I talking
+about? Without the clerks, where should we be, I'd like to know? Go
+along and look after your stoves and mind you never say harm of a
+government clerk, you fellows. Gabriel, the stove in the large office
+draws like the devil; you must turn the damper."
+
+Antoine stationed himself at a corner of the landing whence he could
+see all the officials as they entered the porte-cochere; he knew every
+one at the ministry, and watched their behavior, observing narrowly
+the contrasts in their dress and appearance.
+
+The first to arrive after Sebastien was a clerk of deeds in
+Rabourdin's office named Phellion, a respectable family-man. To the
+influence of his chief he owed a half-scholarship for each of his two
+sons in the College Henri IV.; while his daughter was being educated
+gratis at a boarding school where his wife gave music lessons and he
+himself a course of history and one of geography in the evenings. He
+was about forty-five years of age, sergeant-major of his company in
+the National Guard, very compassionate in feeling and words, but
+wholly unable to give away a penny. Proud of his post, however, and
+satisfied with his lot, he applied himself faithfully to serve the
+government, believed he was useful to his country, and boasted of his
+indifference to politics, knowing none but those of the men in power.
+Monsieur Rabourdin pleased him highly whenever he asked him to stay
+half an hour longer to finish a piece of work. On such occasions he
+would say, when he reached home, "Public affairs detained me; when a
+man belongs to the government he is no longer master of himself." He
+compiled books of questions and answers on various studies for the use
+of young ladies in boarding-schools. These little "solid treatises,"
+as he called them, were sold at the University library under the name
+of "Historical and Geographic Catechisms." Feeling himself in duty
+bound to offer a copy of each volume, bound in red morocco, to
+Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in full dress to present them,
+--breeches and silk stockings, and shoes with gold buckles. Monsieur
+Phellion received his friends on Thursday evenings, on which occasions
+the company played bouillote, at five sous a game, and were regaled
+with cakes and beer. He had never yet dared to invite Monsieur
+Rabourdin to honor him with his presence, though he would have
+regarded such an event as the most distinguished of his life. He said
+if he could leave one of his sons following in the steps of Monsieur
+Rabourdin he should die the happiest father in the world.
+
+One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of Paris,
+which he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre,
+Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great
+writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the
+country around Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into a
+government office and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique. He
+often said to the elder, "When you have the honor to be a government
+clerk"; though he suspected him of a preference for the exact sciences
+and did his best to repress it, mentally resolved to abandon the lad
+to his own devices if he persisted. When Rabourdin sent for him to
+come down and receive instructions about some particular piece of
+work, Phellion gave all his mind to it,--listening to every word the
+chief said, as a dilettante listens to an air at the Opera. Silent in
+the office, with his feet in the air resting on a wooden desk, and
+never moving them, he studied his task conscientiously. His official
+letters were written with the utmost gravity, and transmitted the
+commands of the minister in solemn phrases. Monsieur Phellion's face
+was that of a pensive ram, with little color and pitted by the
+small-pox; the lips were thick and the lower one pendent; the eyes
+light-blue, and his figure above the common height. Neat and clean as a
+master of history and geography in a young ladies' school ought to be,
+he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black cashmere waistcoat,
+left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered by his daughter, a
+diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat, and blue trousers. In
+winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with three capes, and carried a
+loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the profound solitude of the
+quarter in which he lived. He had given up taking snuff, and referred
+to this reform as a striking example of the empire a man could
+exercise over himself. Monsieur Phellion came slowly up the stairs,
+for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an "adipose chest."
+He saluted Antoine with dignity.
+
+The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange
+contrast to the virtuous Phellion. Vimeux was a young man of
+twenty-five, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and
+graceful, with a romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as
+black as jet, fine teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so
+carefully trimmed that he seemed to have made it the business and
+occupation of his life. Vimeux had such aptitude for work that he
+despatched it much quicker than any of the other clerks. "He has a gift,
+that young man!" Phellion said of him when he saw him cross his legs and
+have nothing to do for the rest of the day, having got through his
+appointed task; "and see what a little dandy he is!" Vimeux breakfasted
+on a roll and a glass of water, dined for twenty sous at Katcomb's, and
+lodged in a furnished room, for which he paid twelve francs a month. His
+happiness, his sole pleasure in life, was dress. He ruined himself in
+miraculous waistcoats, in trousers that were tight, half-tight,
+pleated, or embroidered; in superfine boots, well-made coats which
+outlined his elegant figure; in bewitching collars, spotless gloves,
+and immaculate hats. A ring with a coat of arms adorned his hand,
+outside his glove, from which dangled a handsome cane; with these
+accessories he endeavoured to assume the air and manner of a wealthy
+young man. After the office closed he appeared in the great walk of
+the Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as though he were a
+millionaire who had just dined. Always on the lookout for a woman,--an
+Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or a widow,--who might fall in
+love with him, he practised the art of twirling his cane and of
+flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told him was American. He
+smiled to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks under his boots, but
+he had his hair curled every day. Vimeux was prepared, in accordance
+with fixed principles, to marry a hunch-back with six thousand a year,
+or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or an Englishwoman for
+half that sum. Phellion, who delighted in his neat hand-writing, and
+was full of compassion for the fellow, read him lectures on the duty
+of giving lessons in penmanship,--an honorable career, he said, which
+would ameliorate existence and even render it agreeable; he promised
+him a situation in a young ladies' boarding-school. But Vimeux's head
+was so full of his own idea that no human being could prevent him from
+having faith in his star. He continued to lay himself out, like a
+salmon at a fishmonger's, in spite of his empty stomach and the fact
+that he had fruitlessly exhibited his enormous moustache and his fine
+clothes for over three years. As he owed Antoine more than thirty
+francs for his breakfasts, he lowered his eyes every time he passed
+him; and yet he never failed at midday to ask the man to buy him a
+roll.
+
+After trying to get a few reasonable ideas into this foolish head,
+Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe (his
+family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and lived
+entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-whip.
+Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in the
+spirit of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was really
+a kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one but
+himself. A standing joke in the two bureaus was the question whether
+he wore corsets, and bets depended on it. Vimeux was originally
+appointed to Baudoyer's bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself
+transferred to Rabourdin's, on account of Baudoyer's extreme severity
+in relation to what were called "the English,"--a name given by the
+government clerks to their creditors. "English day" means the day on
+which the government offices are thrown open to the public. Certain
+then of finding their delinquent debtors, the creditors swarm in and
+torment them, asking when they intend to pay, and threatening to
+attach their salaries. The implacable Baudoyer compelled the clerks to
+remain at their desks and endure this torture. "It was their place not
+to make debts," he said; and he considered his severity as a duty
+which he owed to the public weal. Rabourdin, on the contrary,
+protected the clerks against their creditors, and turned the latter
+away, saying that the government bureaus were open for public
+business, not private. Much ridicule pursued Vimeux in both bureaus
+when the clank of his spurs resounded in the corridors and on the
+staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou, sent round a paper,
+headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard horse, asking for
+subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur Baudoyer was down
+for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance, and each of the
+clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself, good-natured fellow
+that he was, subscribed under the name of "Miss Fairfax."
+
+Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to
+live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to
+masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though
+it often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners,
+or old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with
+their handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance
+illustrated with stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem to
+answer their purpose.
+
+Bixiou (pronounce it Bisiou) was a draughtsman, who ridiculed Dutocq
+as readily as he did Rabourdin, whom he nicknamed "the virtuous
+woman." Without doubt the cleverest man in the division or even in the
+ministry (but clever after the fashion of a monkey, without aim or
+sequence), Bixiou was so essentially useful to Baudoyer and Godard
+that they upheld and protected him in spite of his misconduct; for he
+did their work when they were incapable of doing it for themselves.
+Bixiou wanted either Godard's or du Bruel's place as under-head-clerk,
+but his conduct interfered with his promotion. Sometimes he sneered at
+the public service; this was usually after he had made some happy hit,
+such as the publication of portraits in the famous Fualdes case (for
+which he drew faces hap-hazard), or his sketch of the debate on the
+Castaing affair. At other times, when possessed with a desire to get
+on, he really applied himself to work, though he would soon leave off
+to write a vaudeville, which was never finished. A thorough egoist, a
+spendthrift and a miser in one,--that is to say, spending his money
+solely on himself,--sharp, aggressive, and indiscreet, he did mischief
+for mischief's sake; above all, he attacked the weak, respected
+nothing and believed in nothing, neither in France, nor in God, nor
+in art, nor in the Greeks, nor in the Turks, nor in the monarchy,
+--insulting and disparaging everything that he could not comprehend.
+He was the first to paint a black cap on Charles X.'s head on the
+five-franc coins. He mimicked Dr. Gall when lecturing, till he made
+the most starched of diplomatists burst their buttons. Famous for his
+practical jokes, he varied them with such elaborate care that he
+always obtained a victim. His great secret in this was the power of
+guessing the inmost wishes of others; he knew the way to many a castle
+in the air, to the dreams about which a man may be fooled because he
+wants to be; and he made such men sit to him for hours.
+
+Thus it happened that this close observer, who could display
+unrivalled tact in developing a joke or driving home a sarcasm, was
+unable to use the same power to make men further his fortunes and
+promote him. The person he most liked to annoy was young La
+Billardiere, his nightmare, his detestation, whom he was nevertheless
+constantly wheedling so as the better to torment him on his weakest
+side. He wrote him love letters signed "Comtesse de M----" or "Marquise
+de B--"; took him to the Opera on gala days and presented him to some
+grisette under the clock, after calling everybody's attention to the
+young fool. He allied himself with Dutocq (whom he regarded as a
+solemn juggler) in his hatred to Rabourdin and his praise of Baudoyer,
+and did his best to support him. Jean-Jaques Bixiou was the grandson
+of a Parisian grocer. His father, who died a colonel, left him to the
+care of his grandmother, who married her head-clerk, named Descoings,
+after the death of her first husband, and died in 1822. Finding
+himself without prospects on leaving college, he attempted painting,
+but in spite of his intimacy with Joseph Bridau, his life-long friend,
+he abandoned art to take up caricature, vignette designing, and
+drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the name of
+"illustration." The influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and de
+Rhetore, whom he knew in the society of actresses, procured him his
+employment under government in 1819. On good terms with des Lupeaulx,
+with whom in society he stood on an equality, and intimate with du
+Bruel, he was a living proof of Rabourdin's theory as to the steady
+deterioration of the administrative hierarchy in Paris through the
+personal importance which a government official may acquire outside of
+a government office. Short in stature but well-formed, with a delicate
+face remarkable for its vague likeness to Napoleon's, thin lips,
+a straight chin, chestnut whiskers, twenty-seven years old,
+fair-skinned, with a piercing voice and sparkling eye,--such was Bixiou;
+a man, all sense and all wit, who abandoned himself to a mad pursuit of
+pleasure of every description, which threw him into a constant round
+of dissipation. Hunter of grisettes, smoker, jester, diner-out and
+frequenter of supper-parties, always tuned to the highest pitch,
+shining equally in the greenroom and at the balls given among the
+grisettes of the Allee des Veuves, he was just as surprisingly
+entertaining at table as at a picnic, as gay and lively at midnight on
+the streets as in the morning when he jumped out of bed, and yet at
+heart gloomy and melancholy, like most of the great comic players.
+
+Launched into the world of actors and actresses, writers, artists, and
+certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre
+without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature
+and really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in
+life like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord
+would break. The liveliness of his wit and the prodigal flow of his
+ideas made him acceptable to all persons who took pleasure in the
+lights of intellect; but none of his friends liked him. Incapable of
+checking a witty saying, he would scarify his two neighbors before a
+dinner was half over. In spite of his skin-deep gayety, a secret
+dissatisfaction with his social position could be detected in his
+speech; he aspired to something better, but the fatal demon hiding in
+his wit hindered him from acquiring the gravity which imposes on
+fools. He lived on the second floor of a house in the rue de Ponthieu,
+where he had three rooms delivered over to the untidiness of a
+bachelor's establishment, in fact, a regular bivouac. He often talked
+of leaving France and seeking his fortune in America. No wizard could
+foretell the future of this young man in whom all talents were
+incomplete; who was incapable of perseverance, intoxicated with
+pleasure, and who acted on the belief that the world ended on the
+morrow.
+
+In the matter of dress Bixiou had the merit of never being ridiculous;
+he was perhaps the only official of the ministry whose dress did not
+lead outsiders to say, "That man is a government clerk!" He wore
+elegant boots with black trousers strapped under them, a fancy
+waistcoat, a becoming blue coat, collars that were the never-ending
+gift of grisettes, one of Bandoni's hats, and a pair of dark-colored
+kid gloves. His walk and bearing, cavalier and simple both, were not
+without grace. He knew all this, and when des Lupeaulx summoned him
+for a piece of impertinence said and done about Monsieur de la
+Billardiere and threatened him with dismissal, Bixiou replied, "You
+will take me back because my clothes do credit to the ministry"; and
+des Lupeaulx, unable to keep from laughing, let the matter pass. The
+most harmless of Bixiou's jokes perpetrated among the clerks was the
+one he played off upon Godard, presenting him with a butterfly just
+brought from China, which the worthy man keeps in his collection and
+exhibits to this day, blissfully unconscious that it is only painted
+paper. Bixiou had the patience to work up the little masterpiece for
+the sole purpose of hoaxing his superior.
+
+The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer's bureau held
+the martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a
+salary of fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois
+Minard. Minard had married for love the daughter of a porter, an
+artificial-flower maker employed by Mademoiselle Godard. Zelie Lorrain,
+a pupil, in the first place, of the Conservatoire, then by turns a
+danseuse, a singer, and an actress, had thought of doing as so many of
+the working-women do; but the fear of consequences kept her from vice.
+She was floating undecidedly along, when Minard appeared upon the scene
+with a definite proposal of marriage. Zelie earned five hundred francs
+a year, Minard had fifteen hundred. Believing that they could live on
+two thousand, they married without settlements, and started with the
+utmost economy. They went to live, like dove-turtles, near the
+barriere de Courcelles, in a little apartment at three hundred francs
+a year, with white cotton curtains to the windows, a Scotch paper
+costing fifteen sous a roll on the walls, brick floors well polished,
+walnut furniture in the parlor, and a tiny kitchen that was very
+clean. Zelie nursed her children herself when they came, cooked, made
+her flowers, and kept the house. There was something very touching in
+this happy and laborious mediocrity. Feeling that Minard truly loved
+her, Zelie loved him. Love begets love,--it is the abyssus abyssum of
+the Bible. The poor man left his bed in the morning before his wife
+was up, that he might fetch provisions. He carried the flowers she had
+finished, on his way to the bureau, and bought her materials on his
+way back; then, while waiting for dinner, he stamped out her leaves,
+trimmed the twigs, or rubbed her colors. Small, slim, and wiry, with
+crisp red hair, eyes of a light yellow, a skin of dazzling fairness,
+though blotched with red, the man had a sturdy courage that made no
+show. He knew the science of writing quite as well as Vimeux. At the
+office he kept in the background, doing his allotted task with the
+collected air of a man who thinks and suffers. His white eyelashes and
+lack of eyebrows induced the relentless Bixiou to name him "the white
+rabbit." Minard--the Rabourdin of a lower sphere--was filled with the
+desire of placing his Zelie in better circumstances, and his mind
+searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in hopes of finding an idea,
+of making some discovery or some improvement which would bring him a
+rapid fortune. His apparent dulness was really caused by the continual
+tension of his mind; he went over the history of Cephalic Oils and the
+Paste of Sultans, lucifer matches and portable gas, jointed sockets
+for hydrostatic lamps,--in short, all the infinitely little inventions
+of material civilization which pay so well. He bore Bixiou's jests as
+a busy man bears the buzzing of an insect; he was not even annoyed by
+them. In spite of his cleverness, Bixiou never perceived the profound
+contempt which Minard felt for him. Minard never dreamed of
+quarrelling, however,--regarding it as a loss of time. After a while
+his composure tired out his tormentor. He always breakfasted with his
+wife, and ate nothing at the office. Once a month he took Zelie to the
+theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or Bixiou; for Bixiou was
+capable of anything, even of doing a kindness. Monsieur and Madame
+Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year's day. Those who saw
+them often asked how it was that a woman could keep her husband in
+good clothes, wear a Leghorn bonnet with flowers, embroidered muslin
+dresses, silk mantles, prunella boots, handsome fichus, a Chinese
+parasol, and drive home in a hackney-coach, and yet be virtuous; while
+Madame Colleville and other "ladies" of her kind could scarcely make
+ends meet, though they had double Madame Minard's means.
+
+In the two bureaus were two clerks so devoted to each other that their
+friendship became the butt of all the rest. He of the bureau Baudoyer,
+named Colleville, was chief-clerk, and would have been head of the
+bureau long before if the Restoration had never happened. His wife was
+as clever in her way as Madame Rabourdin in hers. Colleville, who was
+son of a first violin at the opera, fell in love with the daughter of
+a celebrated danseuse. Flavie Minoret, one of those capable and
+charming Parisian women who know how to make their husbands happy and
+yet preserve their own liberty, made the Colleville home a rendezvous
+for all our best artists and orators. Colleville's humble position
+under government was forgotten there. Flavie's conduct gave such food
+for gossip, however, that Madame Rabourdin had declined all her
+invitations. The friend in Rabourdin's bureau to whom Colleville was
+so attached was named Thuillier. All who knew one knew the other.
+Thuillier, called "the handsome Thuillier," an ex-Lothario, led as
+idle a life as Colleville led a busy one. Colleville, government
+official in the mornings and first clarionet at the Opera-Comique at
+night, worked hard to maintain his family, though he was not without
+influential friends. He was looked upon as a very shrewd man,--all the
+more, perhaps, because he hid his ambitions under a show of
+indifference. Apparently content with his lot and liking work, he
+found every one, even the chiefs, ready to protect his brave career.
+During the last few weeks Madame Colleville had made an evident change
+in the household, and seemed to be taking to piety. This gave rise to
+a vague report in the bureaus that she thought of securing some more
+powerful influence than that of Francois Keller, the famous orator,
+who had been one of her chief adorers, but who, so far, had failed to
+obtain a better place for her husband. Flavie had, about this time
+--and it was one of her mistakes--turned for help to des Lupeaulx.
+
+Colleville had a passion for reading the horoscopes of famous men in
+the anagram of their names. He passed whole months in decomposing and
+recomposing words and fitting them to new meanings. "Un Corse la
+finira," found within the words, "Revolution Francaise"; "Eh, c'est
+large nez," in "Charles Genest," an abbe at the court of Louis XIV.,
+whose huge nose is recorded by Saint-Simon as the delight of the Duc
+de Bourgogne (the exigencies of this last anagram required the
+substitution of a z for an s),--were a never-ending marvel to
+Colleville. Raising the anagram to the height of a science, he
+declared that the destiny of every man was written in the words or
+phrase given by the transposition of the letters of his names and
+titles; and his patriotism struggled hard to suppress the fact--signal
+evidence for his theory--that in Horatio Nelson, "honor est a Nilo."
+Ever since the accession of Charles X., he had bestowed much thought
+on the king's anagram. Thuillier, who was fond of making puns,
+declared that an anagram was nothing more than a pun on letters. The
+sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound almost indissolubly
+to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a difficult problem to
+the mind of an observer. The clerks in the offices explained it by
+saying, "Thuillier is rich, and the Colleville household costly." This
+friendship, however, consolidated by time, was based on feelings and
+on facts which naturally explained it; an account of which may be
+found elsewhere (see "Les Petits Bourgeois"). We may remark in passing
+that though Madame Colleville was well known in the bureaus, the
+existence of Madame Thuillier was almost unknown there. Colleville, an
+active man, burdened with a family of children, was fat, round, and
+jolly, whereas Thuillier, "the beau of the Empire" without apparent
+anxieties and always at leisure, was slender and thin, with a livid
+face and a melancholy air. "We never know," said Rabourdin, speaking
+of the two men, "whether our friendships are born of likeness or of
+contrast."
+
+Unlike these Siamese twins, two other clerks, Chazelle and Paulmier,
+were forever squabbling. One smoked, the other took snuff, and the
+merits of their respective use of tobacco were the origin of ceaseless
+disputes. Chazelle's home, which was tyrannized over by a wife,
+furnished a subject of endless ridicule to Paulmier; whereas Paulmier,
+a bachelor, often half-starved like Vimeux, with ragged clothes and
+half-concealed penury was a fruitful source of ridicule to Chazelle.
+Both were beginning to show a protuberant stomach; Chazelle's, which
+was round and projecting, had the impertinence, so Bixiou said, to
+enter the room first; Paulmier's corporation spread to right and left.
+A favorite amusement with Bixiou was to measure them quarterly. The
+two clerks, by dint of quarrelling over the details of their lives,
+and washing much of their dirty linen at the office, had obtained the
+disrepute which they merited. "Do you take me for a Chazelle?" was a
+frequent saying that served to end many an annoying discussion.
+
+Monsieur Poiret junior, called "junior" to distinguish him from his
+brother Monsieur Poiret senior (now living in the Maison Vanquer,
+where Poiret junior sometimes dined, intending to end his days in the
+same retreat), had spent thirty years in the Civil Service. Nature
+herself is not so fixed and unvarying in her evolutions as was Poiret
+junior in all the acts of his daily life; he always laid his things in
+precisely the same place, put his pen in the same rack, sat down in
+his seat at the same hour, warmed himself at the stove at the same
+moment of the day. His sole vanity consisted in wearing an infallible
+watch, timed daily at the Hotel de Ville as he passed it on his way to
+the office. From six to eight o'clock in the morning he kept the books
+of a large shop in the rue Saint-Antoine, and from six to eight
+o'clock in the evening those of the Maison Camusot, in the rue des
+Bourdonnais. He thus earned three thousand francs a year, counting his
+salary from the government. In a few months his term of service would
+be up, when he would retire on a pension; he therefore showed the
+utmost indifference to the political intrigues of the bureaus. Like
+his elder brother, to whom retirement from active service had proved a
+fatal blow, he would probably grow an old man when he could no longer
+come from his home to the ministry, sit in the same chair and copy a
+certain number of pages. Poiret's eyes were dim, his glance weak and
+lifeless, his skin discolored and wrinkled, gray in tone and speckled
+with bluish dots; his nose flat, his lips drawn inward to the mouth,
+where a few defective teeth still lingered. His gray hair, flattened
+to the head by the pressure of his hat, gave him the look of an
+ecclesiastic,--a resemblance he would scarcely have liked, for he
+hated priests and clergy, though he could give no reasons for his
+anti-religious views. This antipathy, however, did not prevent him
+from being extremely attached to whatever administration happened to
+be in power. He never buttoned his old green coat, even on the coldest
+days, and he always wore shoes with ties, and black trousers.
+
+No human life was ever lived so thoroughly by rule. Poiret kept
+all his receipted bills, even the most trifling, and all his
+account-books, wrapped in old shirts and put away according to their
+respective years from the time of his entrance at the ministry. Rough
+copies of his letters were dated and put away in a box, ticketed "My
+Correspondence." He dined at the same restaurant (the Sucking Calf in
+the place du Chatelet), and sat in the same place, which the waiters
+kept for him. He never gave five minutes more time to the shop in the
+rue Saint Antoine than justly belonged to it, and at half-past eight
+precisely he reached the Cafe David, where he breakfasted and remained
+till eleven. There he listened to political discussions, his arms
+crossed on his cane, his chin in his right hand, never saying a word.
+The dame du comptoir, the only woman to whom he ever spoke with
+pleasure, was the sole confidant of the little events of his life, for
+his seat was close to her counter. He played dominoes, the only game
+he was capable of understanding. When his partners did not happen to
+be present, he usually went to sleep with his back against the
+wainscot, holding a newspaper in his hand, the wooden file resting on
+the marble of his table. He was interested in the buildings going up
+in Paris, and spent his Sundays in walking about to examine them. He
+was often heard to say, "I saw the Louvre emerge from its rubbish; I
+saw the birth of the place du Chatelet, the quai aux Fleurs and the
+Markets." He and his brother, both born at Troyes, were sent in youth
+to serve their apprenticeship in a government office. Their mother
+made herself notorious by misconduct, and the two brothers had the
+grief of hearing of her death in the hospital at Troyes, although they
+had frequently sent money for her support. This event led them both
+not only to abjure marriage, but to feel a horror of children; ill at
+ease with them, they feared them as others fear madmen, and watched
+them with haggard eyes.
+
+Since the day when he first came to Paris Poiret junior had never gone
+outside the city. He began at that time to keep a journal of his life,
+in which he noted down all the striking events of his day. Du Bruel
+told him that Lord Byron did the same thing. This likeness filled
+Poiret junior with delight, and led him to buy the works of Lord
+Byron, translated by Chastopalli, of which he did not understand a
+word. At the office he was often seen in a melancholy attitude, as
+though absorbed in thought, when in fact he was thinking of nothing at
+all. He did not know a single person in the house where he lived, and
+always carried the keys of his apartment about with him. On New-Year's
+day he went round and left his own cards on all the clerks of the
+division. Bixiou took it into his head on one of the hottest of
+dog-days to put a layer of lard under the lining of a certain old hat
+which Poiret junior (he was, by the bye, fifty-two years old) had worn
+for the last nine years. Bixiou, who had never seen any other hat on
+Poiret's head, dreamed of it and declared he tasted it in his food; he
+therefore resolved, in the interests of his digestion, to relieve the
+bureau of the sight of that amorphous old hat. Poiret junior left the
+office regularly at four o'clock. As he walked along, the sun's rays
+reflected from the pavements and walls produced a tropical heat; he
+felt that his head was inundated,--he, who never perspired! Feeling
+that he was ill, or on the point of being so, instead of going as
+usual to the Sucking Calf he went home, drew out from his desk the
+journal of his life, and recorded the fact in the following manner:--
+
+  "To-day, July 3, 1823, overtaken by extraordinary perspiration, a
+  sign, perhaps, of the sweating-sickness, a malady which prevails
+  in Champagne. I am about to consult Doctor Haudry. The disease
+  first appeared as I reached the highest part of the quai des
+  Ecoles."
+
+Suddenly, having taken off his hat, he became aware that the
+mysterious sweat had some cause independent of his own person. He
+wiped his face, examined the hat, and could find nothing, for he did
+not venture to take out the lining. All this he noted in his
+journal:--
+
+  "Carried my hat to the Sieur Tournan, hat-maker in the rue
+  Saint-Martin, for the reason that I suspect some unknown cause for
+  this perspiration, which, in that case, might not be perspiration,
+  but, possibly, the effect of something lately added, or formerly
+  done, to my hat."
+
+Monsieur Tournan at once informed his customer of the presence of a
+greasy substance, obtained by the trying-out of the fat of a pig or
+sow. The next day Poiret appeared at the office with another hat, lent
+by Monsieur Tournan while a new one was making; but he did not sleep
+that night until he had added the following sentence to the preceding
+entries in his journal: "It is asserted that my hat contained lard,
+the fat of a pig."
+
+This inexplicable fact occupied the intellect of Poiret junior for the
+space of two weeks; and he never knew how the phenomenon was produced.
+The clerks told him tales of showers of frogs, and other dog-day
+wonders, also the startling fact that an imprint of the head of
+Napoleon had been found in the root of a young elm, with other
+eccentricities of natural history. Vimeux informed him that one day
+his hat--his, Vimeux's--had stained his forehead black, and that
+hat-makers were in the habit of using drugs. After that Poiret paid many
+visits to Monsieur Tournan to inquire into his methods of manufacture.
+
+In the Rabourdin bureau was a clerk who played the man of courage and
+audacity, professed the opinions of the Left centre, and rebelled
+against the tyrannies of Baudoyer as exercised upon what he called the
+unhappy slaves of that office. His name was Fleury. He boldly
+subscribed to an opposition newspaper, wore a gray hat with a broad
+brim, red bands on his blue trousers, a blue waistcoat with gilt
+buttons, and a surtout coat crossed over the breast like that of a
+quartermaster of gendarmerie. Though unyielding in his opinions, he
+continued to be employed in the service, all the while predicting a
+fatal end to a government which persisted in upholding religion. He
+openly avowed his sympathy for Napoleon, now that the death of that
+great man put an end to the laws enacted against "the partisans of the
+usurper." Fleury, ex-captain of a regiment of the line under the
+Emperor, a tall, dark, handsome fellow, was now, in addition to his
+civil-service post, box-keeper at the Cirque-Olympique. Bixiou never
+ventured on tormenting Fleury, for the rough trooper, who was a good
+shot and clever at fencing, seemed quite capable of extreme brutality
+if provoked. An ardent subscriber to "Victoires et Conquetes," Fleury
+nevertheless refused to pay his subscription, though he kept and read
+the copies, alleging that they exceeded the number proposed in the
+prospectus. He adored Monsieur Rabourdin, who had saved him from
+dismissal, and was even heard to say that if any misfortune happened
+to the chief through anybody's fault he would kill that person. Dutocq
+meanly courted Fleury because he feared him. Fleury, crippled with
+debt, played many a trick on his creditors. Expert in legal matters,
+he never signed a promissory note; and had prudently attached his own
+salary under the names of fictitious creditors, so that he was able to
+draw nearly the whole of it himself. He played ecarte, was the life of
+evening parties, tossed off glasses of champagne without wetting his
+lips, and knew all the songs of Beranger by heart. He was proud of his
+full, sonorous voice. His three great admirations were Napoleon,
+Bolivar, and Beranger. Foy, Lafitte, and Casimir Delavigne he only
+esteemed. Fleury, as you will have guessed already, was a Southerner,
+destined, no doubt, to become the responsible editor of a liberal
+journal.
+
+Desroys, the mysterious clerk of the division, consorted with no one,
+talked little, and hid his private life so carefully that no one knew
+where he lived, nor who were his protectors, nor what were his means
+of subsistence. Looking about them for the causes of this reserve,
+some of his colleagues thought him a "carbonaro," others an Orleanist;
+there were others again who doubted whether to call him a spy or a man
+of solid merit. Desroys was, however, simple and solely the son of a
+"Conventionel," who did not vote the king's death. Cold and prudent by
+temperament, he had judged the world and ended by relying on no one
+but himself. Republican in secret, an admirer of Paul-Louis Courier
+and a friend of Michael Chrestien, he looked to time and public
+intelligence to bring about the triumph of his opinions from end to
+end of Europe. He dreamed of a new Germany and a new Italy. His heart
+swelled with that dull, collective love which we must call
+humanitarianism, the eldest son of deceased philanthropy, and which is
+to the divine catholic charity what system is to art, or reasoning to
+deed. This conscientious puritan of freedom, this apostle of an
+impossible equality, regretted keenly that his poverty forced him to
+serve the government, and he made various efforts to find a place
+elsewhere. Tall, lean, lanky, and solemn in appearance, like a man who
+expects to be called some day to lay down his life for a cause, he
+lived on a page of Volney, studied Saint-Just, and employed himself on
+a vindication of Robespierre, whom he regarded as the successor of
+Jesus Christ.
+
+The last of the individuals belonging to these bureaus who merits a
+sketch here is the little La Billardiere. Having, to his great
+misfortune, lost his mother, and being under the protection of the
+minister, safe therefore from the tyrannies of Baudoyer, and received
+in all the ministerial salons, he was nevertheless detested by every
+one because of his impertinence and conceit. The two chiefs were
+polite to him, but the clerks held him at arm's length and prevented
+all companionship by means of the extreme and grotesque politeness
+which they bestowed upon him. A pretty youth of twenty-two, tall and
+slender, with the manners of an Englishman, a dandy in dress, curled
+and perfumed, gloved and booted in the latest fashion, and twirling an
+eyeglass, Benjamin de la Billardiere thought himself a charming fellow
+and possessed all the vices of the world with none of its graces. He
+was now looking forward impatiently to the death of his father, that
+he might succeed to the title of baron. His cards were printed "le
+Chevalier de la Billardiere" and on the wall of his office hung, in a
+frame, his coat of arms (sable, two swords in saltire, on a chief
+azure three mullets argent; with the motto; "Toujours fidele").
+Possessed with a mania for talking heraldry, he once asked the young
+Vicomte de Portenduere why his arms were charged in a certain way, and
+drew down upon himself the happy answer, "I did not make them." He
+talked of his devotion to the monarchy and the attentions the Dauphine
+paid him. He stood very well with des Lupeaulx, whom he thought his
+friend, and they often breakfasted together. Bixiou posed as his
+mentor, and hoped to rid the division and France of the young fool by
+tempting him to excesses, and openly avowed that intention.
+
+Such were the principal figures of La Billardiere's division of the
+ministry, where also were other clerks of less account, who resembled
+more or less those that are represented here. It is difficult even for
+an observer to decide from the aspect of these strange personalities
+whether the goose-quill tribe were becoming idiots from the effects of
+their employment or whether they entered the service because they were
+natural born fools. Possibly the making of them lies at the door of
+Nature and of the government both. Nature, to a civil-service clerk
+is, in fact, the sphere of the office; his horizon is bounded on all
+sides by green boxes; to him, atmospheric changes are the air of the
+corridors, the masculine exhalations contained in rooms without
+ventilators, the odor of paper, pens, and ink; the soil he treads is a
+tiled pavement or a wooden floor, strewn with a curious litter and
+moistened by the attendant's watering-pot; his sky is the ceiling
+toward which he yawns; his element is dust. Several distinguished
+doctors have remonstrated against the influence of this second nature,
+both savage and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in those
+dreadful pens called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates, where
+thoughts are tied down to occupations like that of horses who turn a
+crank and who, poor beasts, yawn distressingly and die quickly.
+Rabourdin was, therefore, fully justified in seeking to reform their
+present condition, by lessening their numbers and giving to each a
+larger salary and far heavier work. Men are neither wearied nor bored
+when doing great things. Under the present system government loses
+fully four hours out of the nine which the clerks owe to the service,
+--hours wasted, as we shall see, in conversations, in gossip, in
+disputes, and, above all, in underhand intriguing. The reader must
+have haunted the bureaus of the ministerial departments before he can
+realize how much their petty and belittling life resembles that of
+seminaries. Wherever men live collectively this likeness is obvious;
+in regiments, in law-courts, you will find the elements of the school
+on a smaller or larger scale. The government clerks, forced to be
+together for nine hours of the day, looked upon their office as a sort
+of class-room where they had tasks to perform, where the head of the
+bureau was no other than a schoolmaster, and where the gratuities
+bestowed took the place of prizes given out to proteges,--a place,
+moreover, where they teased and hated each other, and yet felt a
+certain comradeship, colder than that of a regiment, which itself is
+less hearty than that of seminaries. As a man advances in life he
+grows more selfish; egoism develops, and relaxes all the secondary
+bonds of affection. A government office is, in short, a microcosm of
+society, with its oddities and hatreds, its envy and its cupidity, its
+determination to push on, no matter who goes under, its frivolous
+gossip which gives so many wounds, and its perpetual spying.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER V
+
+                       THE MACHINE IN MOTION
+
+At this moment the division of Monsieur de la Billardiere was in a
+state of unusual excitement, resulting very naturally from the event
+which was about to happen; for heads of divisions do not die every
+day, and there is no insurance office where the chances of life and
+death are calculated with more sagacity than in a government bureau.
+Self-interest stifles all compassion, as it does in children, but the
+government service adds hypocrisy to boot.
+
+The clerks of the bureau Baudoyer arrived at eight o'clock in the
+morning, whereas those of the bureau Rabourdin seldom appeared till
+nine,--a circumstance which did not prevent the work in the latter
+office from being more rapidly dispatched than that of the former.
+Dutocq had important reasons for coming early on this particular
+morning. The previous evening he had furtively entered the study where
+Sebastien was at work, and had seen him copying some papers for
+Rabourdin; he concealed himself until he saw Sebastien leave the
+premises without taking any papers away with him. Certain, therefore,
+of finding the rather voluminous memorandum which he had seen,
+together with its copy, in some corner of the study, he searched
+through the boxes one after another until he finally came upon the
+fatal list. He carried it in hot haste to an autograph-printing house,
+where he obtained two pressed copies of the memorandum, showing, of
+course, Rabourdin's own writing. Anxious not to arouse suspicion, he
+had gone very early to the office and replaced both the memorandum and
+Sebastien's copy in the box from which he had taken them. Sebastien,
+who was kept up till after midnight at Madame Rabourdin's party, was,
+in spite of his desire to get to the office early, preceded by the
+spirit of hatred. Hatred lived in the rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore,
+whereas love and devotion lived far-off in the rue du Roi-Dore in the
+Marais. This slight delay was destined to affect Rabourdin's whole
+career.
+
+Sebastien opened his box eagerly, found the memorandum and his own
+unfinished copy all in order, and locked them at once into the desk as
+Rabourdin had directed. The mornings are dark in these offices towards
+the end of December, sometimes indeed the lamps are lit till after ten
+o'clock; consequently Sebastien did not happen to notice the pressure
+of the copying-machine upon the paper. But when, about half-past nine
+o'clock, Rabourdin looked at his memorandum he saw at once the effects
+of the copying process, and all the more readily because he was then
+considering whether these autographic presses could not be made to do
+the work of copying clerks.
+
+"Did any one get to the office before you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Sebastien,--"Monsieur Dutocq."
+
+"Ah! well, he was punctual. Send Antoine to me."
+
+Too noble to distress Sebastien uselessly by blaming him for a
+misfortune now beyond remedy, Rabourdin said no more. Antoine came.
+Rabourdin asked if any clerk had remained at the office after four
+o'clock the previous evening. The man replied that Monsieur Dutocq had
+worked there later than Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually the last
+to leave. Rabourdin dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the thread
+of his reflections.
+
+"Twice I have prevented his dismissal," he said to himself, "and this
+is my reward."
+
+This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which great
+commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances. Knowing the
+spirit of official life better than any one, he well knew that it
+would never pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the army
+pardon, what looked like espionage or tale-bearing. A man capable of
+informing against his comrades is disgraced, dishonored, despised; the
+ministers in such a case would disavow their own agents. Nothing was
+left to an official so placed but to send in his resignation and leave
+Paris; his honor is permanently stained; explanations are of no avail;
+no one will either ask for them or listen to them. A minister may well
+do the same thing and be thought a great man, able to choose the right
+instruments; but a mere subordinate will be judged as a spy, no matter
+what may be his motives. While justly measuring the folly of such
+judgment, Rabourdin knew that it was all-powerful; and he knew, too,
+that he was crushed. More surprised than overwhelmed, he now sought
+for the best course to follow under the circumstances; and with such
+thoughts in his mind he was necessarily aloof from the excitement
+caused in the division by the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere; in
+fact he did not hear of it until young La Briere, who was able to
+appreciate his sterling value, came to tell him. About ten o'clock, in
+the bureau Baudoyer, Bixiou was relating the last moments of the life
+of the director to Minard, Desroys, Monsieur Godard, whom he had
+called from his private office, and Dutocq, who had rushed in with
+private motives of his own. Colleville and Chazelle were absent.
+
+Bixiou [standing with his back to the stove and holding up the sole
+of each boot alternately to dry at the open door]. "This morning, at
+half-past seven, I went to inquire after our most worthy and respectable
+director, knight of the order of Christ, et caetera, et caetera. Yes,
+gentlemen, last night he was a being with twenty et caeteras, to-day
+he is nothing, not even a government clerk. I asked all particulars of
+his nurse. She told me that this morning at five o'clock he became
+uneasy about the royal family. He asked for the names of all the
+clerks who had called to inquire after him; and then he said: 'Fill my
+snuff-box, give me the newspaper, bring my spectacles, and change my
+ribbon of the Legion of honor,--it is very dirty.' I suppose you know
+he always wore his orders in bed. He was fully conscious, retained his
+senses and all his usual ideas. But, presto! ten minutes later the
+water rose, rose, rose and flooded his chest; he knew he was dying for
+he felt the cysts break. At that fatal moment he gave evident proof of
+his powerful mind and vast intellect. Ah, we never rightly appreciated
+him! We used to laugh at him and call him a booby--didn't you,
+Monsieur Godard?"
+
+Godard. "I? I always rated Monsieur de la Billardiere's talents higher
+than the rest of you."
+
+Bixiou. "You and he could understand each other!"
+
+Godard. "He wasn't a bad man; he never harmed any one."
+
+Bixiou. "To do harm you must do something, and he never did anything.
+If it wasn't you who said he was a dolt, it must have been Minard."
+
+Minard [shrugging his shoulders]. "I!"
+
+Bixiou. "Well, then it was you, Dutocq!" [Dutocq made a vehement
+gesture of denial.] "Oh! very good, then it was nobody. Every one in
+this office knew his intellect was herculean. Well, you were right. He
+ended, as I have said, like the great man that he was."
+
+Desroys [impatiently]. "Pray what did he do that was so great? he had
+the weakness to confess himself."
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, monsieur, he received the holy sacraments. But do you
+know what he did in order to receive them? He put on his uniform as
+gentleman-in-ordinary of the Bedchamber, with all his orders, and had
+himself powdered; they tied his queue (that poor queue!) with a fresh
+ribbon. Now I say that none but a man of remarkable character would
+have his queue tied with a fresh ribbon just as he was dying. There
+are eight of us here, and I don't believe one among us is capable of
+such an act. But that's not all; he said,--for you know all celebrated
+men make a dying speech; he said,--stop now, what did he say? Ah! he
+said, 'I must attire myself to meet the King of Heaven,--I, who have
+so often dressed in my best for audience with the kings of earth.'
+That's how Monsieur de la Billardiere departed this life. He took upon
+himself to justify the saying of Pythagoras, 'No man is known until he
+dies.'"
+
+Colleville [rushing in]. "Gentlemen, great news!"
+
+All. "We know it."
+
+Colleville. "I defy you to know it! I have been hunting for it ever
+since the accession of His Majesty to the thrones of France and of
+Navarre. Last night I succeeded! but with what labor! Madame
+Colleville asked me what was the matter."
+
+Dutocq. "Do you think we have time to bother ourselves with your
+intolerable anagrams when the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere has
+just expired?"
+
+Colleville. "That's Bixiou's nonsense! I have just come from Monsieur
+de la Billardiere's; he is still living, though they expect him to die
+soon." [Godard, indignant at the hoax, goes off grumbling.]
+"Gentlemen! you would never guess what extraordinary events are
+revealed by the anagram of this sacramental sentence" [he pulls out a
+piece of paper and reads], "Charles dix, par la grace de Dieu, roi de
+France et de Navarre."
+
+Godard [re-entering]. "Tell what it is at once, and don't keep people
+waiting."
+
+Colleville [triumphantly unfolding the rest of the paper]. "Listen!
+
+  "A H. V. il cedera;
+  De S. C. l. d. partira;
+  Eh nauf errera,
+  Decide a Gorix.
+
+"Every letter is there!" [He repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera (his
+crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an old
+French word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like)
+errera--"
+
+Dutocq. "What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown
+to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson,
+when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the
+Dauphin's death?"
+
+Bixiou. "What's Gorix, pray?--the name of a cat?"
+
+Colleville [provoked]. "It is the archaeological and lapidarial
+abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it out in
+Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or Hungary,
+or it may be Austria--"
+
+Bixiou. "Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why don't you
+set it all to music and play it on the clarionet?"
+
+Godard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. "What utter nonsense!"
+
+Colleville. "Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don't take
+the trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor Napoleon."
+
+Godard [irritated at Colleville's tone]. "Monsieur Colleville, let me
+tell you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by historians,
+but it is extremely out of place to refer to him as such in a
+government office."
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "Get an anagram out of that, my dear fellow."
+
+Colleville [angrily]. "Let me tell you that if Napoleon Bonaparte had
+studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he might
+perhaps be Emperor still."
+
+Bixiou. "How do you make that out?"
+
+Colleville [solemnly]. "Napoleon Bonaparte.--No, appear not at Elba!"
+
+Dutocq. "You'll lose your place for talking such nonsense."
+
+Colleville. "If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make
+it hot for your minister." [Dead silence.] "I'd have you to know,
+Master Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pass.
+Look here,--you, yourself,--don't you marry, for there's 'coqu' in
+your name."
+
+Bixiou [interrupting]. "And d, t, for de-testable."
+
+Dutocq [without seeming angry]. "I don't care, as long as it is only
+in my name. Why don't you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it,
+'Xavier Rabourdin, chef du bureau'?"
+
+Colleville. "Bless you, so I have!"
+
+Bixiou [mending his pen]. "And what did you make of it?"
+
+Colleville. "It comes out as follows: D'abord reva bureaux, E-u,--(you
+catch the meaning? et eut--and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies
+that after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and
+got rich elsewhere." [Repeats.] "D'abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche."
+
+Dutocq. "That IS queer!"
+
+Bixiou. "Try Isidore Baudoyer."
+
+Colleville [mysteriously]. "I sha'n't tell the other anagrams to any
+one but Thuillier."
+
+Bixiou. "I'll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself."
+
+Colleville. "And I'll pay if you find it out."
+
+Bixiou. "Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won't be
+angry, will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict.
+'Isidore Baudoyer' anagrams into 'Ris d'aboyeur d'oie.'"
+
+Colleville [petrified with amazement]. "You stole it from me!"
+
+Bixiou [with dignity]. "Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to
+believe that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor's
+nonsense."
+
+Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand]. "Gentlemen, I
+request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such
+high repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur
+Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he
+heard the noise you are making" [passes into Monsieur Godard's room].
+
+Bixiou [in a low voice]. "The watch-dog is very tame this morning;
+there'll be a change of weather before night."
+
+Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. "I have something I want to say to
+you."
+
+Bixiou [fingering Dutocq's waistcoat]. "You've a pretty waistcoat,
+that cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?"
+
+Dutocq. "Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in my
+life. That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de
+la Paix,--a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning."
+
+Bixiou. "You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow,
+but you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no man
+can be a universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in deep
+mourning. Don't you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur Rabourdin,
+Monsieur Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is the
+faubourg Saint-Germain. There's no one here but Minard who doesn't
+wear woollen; he's afraid of being taken for a sheep. That's the
+reason why he didn't put on mourning for Louis XVIII."
+
+[During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in Godard's
+room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]
+
+Baudoyer. "Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are both
+with him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If you want
+to do me a signal service you will take a cab and go and let Madame
+Baudoyer know what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can't leave his
+desk, nor I my office. Put yourself at my wife's orders; do whatever
+she wishes. She has, I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants to
+take certain steps simultaneously." [The two functionaries go out
+together.]
+
+Godard. "Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for the
+rest of the day. You will take my place."
+
+Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. "Consult me, if there is any
+necessity."
+
+Bixiou. "This time, La Billardiere is really dead."
+
+Dutocq [in Bixiou's ear]. "Come outside a minute." [The two go into
+the corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]
+
+Dutocq [whispering]. "Listen. Now is the time for us to understand
+each other and push our way. What would you say to your being made
+head of the bureau, and I under you?"
+
+Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "Come, come, don't talk nonsense!"
+
+Dutocq. "If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere's place Rabourdin won't stay
+on where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that if du
+Bruel and you don't help him he will certainly be dismissed in a
+couple of months. If I know arithmetic that will give three empty
+places for us to fill--"
+
+Bixiou. "Three places right under our noses, which will certainly be
+given to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious fraud,--to
+Colleville perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women end
+--in piety."
+
+Dutocq. "No, to /you/, my dear fellow, if you will only, for once in
+your life, use your wits logically." [He stopped as if to study the
+effect of his adverb in Bixiou's face.] "Come, let us play fair."
+
+Bixiou [stolidly]. "Let me see your game."
+
+Dutocq. "I don't wish to be anything more than under-head-clerk. I
+know myself perfectly well, and I know I haven't the ability, like
+you, to be head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you the
+head of this bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he has
+made his pile; and as for me, I shall swim with the tide comfortably,
+under your protection, till I can retire on a pension."
+
+Bixiou. "Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan which
+means forcing the minister's hand and ejecting a man of talent?
+Between ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge
+of the division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that
+they talk of putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness,
+that cube of idiocy, Baudoyer?"
+
+Dutocq [consequentially]. "My dear fellow, I am in a position to rouse
+the whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted Fleury is
+to him? Well, I can make Fleury despise him."
+
+Bixiou. "Despised by Fleury!"
+
+Dutocq. "Not a soul will stand by Rabourdin; the clerks will go in a
+body and complain of him to the minister,--not only in our division,
+but in all the divisions--"
+
+Bixiou. "Forward, march! infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marines of
+the guard! You rave, my good fellow! And I, what part am I to take in
+the business?"
+
+Dutocq. "You are to make a cutting caricature,--sharp enough to kill a
+man."
+
+Bixiou. "How much will you pay for it?"
+
+Dutocq. "A hundred francs."
+
+Bixiou [to himself]. "Then there is something in it."
+
+Dutocq [continuing]. "You must represent Rabourdin dressed as a
+butcher (make it a good likeness), find analogies between a kitchen
+and a bureau, put a skewer in his hand, draw portraits of the
+principal clerks and stick their heads on fowls, put them in a
+monstrous coop labelled 'Civil Service executions'; make him cutting
+the throat of one, and supposed to take the others in turn. You can
+have geese and ducks with heads like ours,--you understand! Baudoyer,
+for instance, he'll make an excellent turkey-buzzard."
+
+Bixiou. "Ris d'aboyeur d'oie!" [He has watched Dutocq carefully for
+some time.] "Did you think of that yourself?"
+
+Dutocq. "Yes, I myself."
+
+Bixiou [to himself]. "Do evil feelings bring men to the same result as
+talents?" [Aloud] "Well, I'll do it" [Dutocq makes a motion of
+delight] "--when" [full stop] "--I know where I am and what I can rely
+on. If you don't succeed I shall lose my place, and I must make a
+living. You are a curious kind of innocent still, my dear colleague."
+
+Dutocq. "Well, you needn't make the lithograph till success is
+proved."
+
+Bixiou. "Why don't you come out and tell me the whole truth?"
+
+Dutocq. "I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we will
+talk about it later" [goes off].
+
+Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. "That fish, for he's more a fish than
+a bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head--I'm sure I don't know
+where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it would
+be fun, more than fun--profit!" [Returns to the office.] "Gentlemen, I
+announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really dead,
+--no nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for our
+excellent chief Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the deceased."
+[Minard, Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads in amazement; they
+all lay down their pens, and Colleville blows his nose.] "Every one of
+us is to be promoted! Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the very
+least. Minard may have my place as chief clerk--why not? he is quite
+as dull as I am. Hey, Minard, if you should get twenty-five hundred
+francs a-year your little wife would be uncommonly pleased, and you
+could buy yourself a pair of boots now and then."
+
+Colleville. "But you don't get twenty-five hundred francs."
+
+Bixiou. "Monsieur Dutocq gets that in Rabourdin's office; why
+shouldn't I get it this year? Monsieur Baudoyer gets it."
+
+Colleville. "Only through the influence of Monsieur Saillard. No other
+chief clerk gets that in any of the divisions."
+
+Paulmier. "Bah! Hasn't Monsieur Cochin three thousand? He succeeded
+Monsieur Vavasseur, who served ten years under the Empire at four
+thousand. His salary was dropped to three when the King first
+returned; then to two thousand five hundred before Vavasseur died. But
+Monsieur Cochin, who succeeded him, had influence enough to get the
+salary put back to three thousand."
+
+Colleville. "Monsieur Cochin signs E. A. L. Cochin (he is named
+Emile-Adolphe-Lucian), which, when anagrammed, gives Cochineal. Now
+observe, he's a partner in a druggist's business in the rue des
+Lombards, the Maison Matifat, which made its fortune by that identical
+colonial product."
+
+Baudoyer [entering]. "Monsieur Chazelle, I see, is not here; you will
+be good enough to say I asked for him, gentlemen."
+
+Bixiou [who had hastily stuck a hat on Chazelle's chair when he heard
+Baudoyer's step]. "Excuse me, Monsieur, but Chazelle has gone to the
+Rabourdins' to make an inquiry."
+
+Chazelle [entering with his hat on his head, and not seeing Baudoyer].
+"La Billardiere is done for, gentlemen! Rabourdin is head of the
+division and Master of petitions; he hasn't stolen /his/ promotion,
+that's very certain."
+
+Baudoyer [to Chazelle]. "You found that appointment in your second
+hat, I presume" [points to the hat on the chair]. "This is the third
+time within a month that you have come after nine o'clock. If you
+continue the practice you will get on--elsewhere." [To Bixiou, who is
+reading the newspaper.] "My dear Monsieur Bixiou, do pray leave the
+newspapers to these gentlemen who are going to breakfast, and come
+into my office for your orders for the day. I don't know what Monsieur
+Rabourdin wants with Gabriel; he keeps him to do his private errands,
+I believe. I've rung three times and can't get him." [Baudoyer and
+Bixiou retire into the private office.]
+
+Chazelle. "Damned unlucky!"
+
+Paulmier [delighted to annoy Chazelle]. "Why didn't you look about
+when you came into the room? You might have seen the elephant, and the
+hat too; they are big enough to be visible."
+
+Chazelle [dismally]. "Disgusting business! I don't see why we should
+be treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and
+sixty-five centimes a day."
+
+Fleury [entering]. "Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for Rabourdin!--that's
+the cry in the division."
+
+Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. "Baudoyer can turn off me if
+he likes, I sha'n't care. In Paris there are a thousand ways of
+earning five francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais de
+Justice, copying briefs for the lawyers."
+
+Paulmier [still prodding him]. "It is very easy to say that; but a
+government place is a government place, and that plucky Colleville,
+who works like a galley-slave outside of this office, and who could
+earn, if he lost his appointment, more than his salary, prefers to
+keep his place. Who the devil is fool enough to give up his
+expectations?"
+
+Chazelle [continuing his philippic]. "You may not be, but I am! We
+have no chances at all. Time was when nothing was more encouraging
+than a civil-service career. So many men were in the army that there
+were not enough for the government work; the maimed and the halt and
+the sick ones, like Paulmier, and the near-sighted ones, all had their
+chance of a rapid promotion. But now, ever since the Chamber invented
+what they called special training, and the rules and regulations for
+civil-service examiners, we are worse off than common soldiers. The
+poorest places are at the mercy of a thousand mischances because we
+are now ruled by a thousand sovereigns."
+
+Bixiou [returning]. "Are you crazy, Chazelle? Where do you find a
+thousand sovereigns?--not in your pocket, are they?"
+
+Chazelle. "Count them up. There are four hundred over there at the end
+of the pont de la Concorde (so called because it leads to the scene of
+perpetual discord between the Right and Left of the Chamber); three
+hundred more at the end of the rue de Tournon. The court, which ought
+to count for the other three hundred, has seven hundred parts less
+power to get a man appointed to a place under government than the
+Emperor Napoleon had."
+
+Fleury. "All of which signifies that in a country where there are
+three powers you may bet a thousand to one that a government clerk who
+has no influence but his own merits to advance him will remain in
+obscurity."
+
+Bixiou [looking alternately at Chazelle and Fleury]. "My sons, you
+have yet to learn that in these days the worst state of life is the
+state of belonging to the State."
+
+Fleury. "Because it has a constitutional government."
+
+Colleville. "Gentlemen, gentlemen! no politics!"
+
+Bixiou. "Fleury is right. Serving the State in these days is no longer
+serving a prince who knew how to punish and reward. The State now is
+/everybody/. Everybody of course cares for nobody. Serve everybody, and
+you serve nobody. Nobody is interested in nobody; the government clerk
+lives between two negations. The world has neither pity nor respect,
+neither heart nor head; everybody forgets to-morrow the service of
+yesterday. Now each one of you may be, like Monsieur Baudoyer, an
+administrative genius, a Chateaubriand of reports, a Bossouet of
+circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the gifted son of diplomatic
+despatches; but I tell you there is a fatal law which interferes with
+all administrative genius,--I mean the law of promotion by average.
+This average is based on the statistics of promotion and the
+statistics of mortality combined. It is very certain that on entering
+whichever section of the Civil Service you please at the age of
+eighteen, you can't get eighteen hundred francs a year till you reach
+the age of thirty. Now there's no free and independent career in
+which, in the course of twelve years, a young man who has gone through
+the grammar-school, been vaccinated, is exempt from military service,
+and possesses all his faculties (I don't mean transcendent ones) can't
+amass a capital of forty-five thousand francs in centimes, which
+represents a permanent income equal to our salaries, which are, after
+all, precarious. In twelve years a grocer can earn enough to give him
+ten thousand francs a year; a painter can daub a mile of canvas and be
+decorated with the Legion of honor, or pose as a neglected genius. A
+literary man becomes professor of something or other, or a journalist
+at a hundred francs for a thousand lines; he writes 'feuilletons,' or
+he gets into Saint-Pelagie for a brilliant article that offends the
+Jesuits,--which of course is an immense benefit to him and makes him a
+politician at once. Even a lazy man, who does nothing but make debts,
+has time to marry a widow who pays them; a priest finds time to become
+a bishop 'in partibus.' A sober, intelligent young fellow, who begins
+with a small capital as a money-changer, soon buys a share in a
+broker's business; and, to go even lower, a petty clerk becomes a
+notary, a rag-picker lays by two or three thousand francs a year, and
+the poorest workmen often become manufacturers; whereas, in the
+rotatory movement of this present civilization, which mistakes
+perpetual division and redivision for progress, an unhappy civil
+service clerk, like Chazelle for instance, is forced to dine for
+twenty-two sous a meal, struggles with his tailor and bootmaker, gets
+into debt, and is an absolute nothing; worse than that, he becomes an
+idiot! Come, gentlemen, now's the time to make a stand! Let us all
+give in our resignations! Fleury, Chazelle, fling yourselves into
+other employments and become the great men you really are."
+
+Chazelle [calmed down by Bixiou's allocution]. "No, I thank you"
+[general laughter].
+
+Bixiou. "You are wrong; in your situation I should try to get ahead of
+the general-secretary."
+
+Chazelle [uneasily]. "What has he to do with me?"
+
+Bixiou. "You'll find out; do you suppose Baudoyer will overlook what
+happened just now?"
+
+Fleury. "Another piece of Bixiou's spite! You've a queer fellow to
+deal with in there. Now, Monsieur Rabourdin,--there's a man for you!
+He put work on my table to-day that you couldn't get through within
+this office in three days; well, he expects me to have it done by four
+o'clock to-day. But he is not always at my heels to hinder me from
+talking to my friends."
+
+Baudoyer [appearing at the door]. "Gentlemen, you will admit that if
+you have the legal right to find fault with the chamber and the
+administration you must at least do so elsewhere than in this office."
+[To Fleury.] "What are you doing here, monsieur?"
+
+Fleury [insolently]. "I came to tell these gentlemen that there was to
+be a general turn-out. Du Bruel is sent for to the ministry, and
+Dutocq also. Everybody is asking who will be appointed."
+
+Baudoyer [retiring]. "It is not your affair, sir; go back to your own
+office, and do not disturb mine."
+
+Fleury [in the doorway]. "It would be a shameful injustice if
+Rabourdin lost the place; I swear I'd leave the service. Did you find
+that anagram, papa Colleville?"
+
+Colleville. "Yes, here it is."
+
+Fleury [leaning over Colleville's desk]. "Capital! famous! This is
+just what will happen if the administration continues to play the
+hypocrite." [He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is
+listening.] "If the government would frankly state its intentions
+without concealments of any kind, the liberals would know what they
+had to deal with. An administration which sets its best friends
+against itself, such men as those of the 'Debats,' Chateaubriand, and
+Royer-Collard, is only to be pitied!"
+
+Colleville [after consulting his colleagues]. "Come, Fleury, you're a
+good fellow, but don't talk politics here; you don't know what harm
+you may do us."
+
+Fleury [dryly]. "Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do by four
+o'clock."
+
+While this idle talk had been going on, des Lupeaulx was closeted in
+his office with du Bruel, where, a little later, Dutocq joined them.
+Des Lupeaulx had heard from his valet of La Billardiere's death, and
+wishing to please the two ministers, he wanted an obituary article to
+appear in the evening papers.
+
+"Good morning, my dear du Bruel," said the semi-minister to the
+head-clerk as he entered, and not inviting him to sit down. "You have
+heard the news? La Billardiere is dead. The ministers were both present
+when he received the last sacraments. The worthy man strongly recommended
+Rabourdin, saying he should die with less regret if he could know that
+his successor were the man who had so constantly done his work. Death
+is a torture which makes a man confess everything. The minister agreed
+the more readily because his intention and that of the Council was to
+reward Monsieur Rabourdin's numerous services. In fact, the Council of
+State needs his experience. They say that young La Billardiere is to
+leave the division of his father and go to the Commission of Seals;
+that's just the same as if the King had made him a present of a
+hundred thousand francs,--the place can always be sold. But I know the
+news will delight your division, which will thus get rid of him. Du
+Bruel, we must get ten or a dozen lines about the worthy late director
+into the papers; his Excellency will glance them over,--he reads the
+papers. Do you know the particulars of old La Billardiere's life?"
+
+Du Bruel made a sign in the negative.
+
+"No?" continued des Lupeaulx. "Well then; he was mixed up in the
+affairs of La Vendee, and he was one of the confidants of the late
+King. Like Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine he always refused to hold
+communication with the First Consul. He was a bit of a 'chouan'; born
+in Brittany of a parliamentary family, and ennobled by Louis XVIII.
+How old was he? never mind about that; just say his loyalty was
+untarnished, his religion enlightened,--the poor old fellow hated
+churches and never set foot in one, but you had better make him out a
+'pious vassal.' Bring in, gracefully, that he sang the song of Simeon
+at the accession of Charles X. The Comte d'Artois thought very highly
+of La Billardiere, for he co-operated in the unfortunate affair of
+Quiberon and took the whole responsibility on himself. You know about
+that, don't you? La Billardiere defended the King in a printed
+pamphlet in reply to an impudent history of the Revolution written by
+a journalist; you can allude to his loyalty and devotion. But be very
+careful what you say; weigh your words, so that the other newspapers
+can't laugh at us; and bring me the article when you've written it.
+Were you at Rabourdin's yesterday?"
+
+"Yes, monseigneur," said du Bruel, "Ah! beg pardon."
+
+"No harm done," answered des Lupeaulx, laughing.
+
+"Madame Rabourdin looked delightfully handsome," added du Bruel.
+"There are not two women like her in Paris. Some are as clever as she,
+but there's not one so gracefully witty. Many women may even be
+handsomer, but it would be hard to find one with such variety of
+beauty. Madame Rabourdin is far superior to Madame Colleville," said
+the vaudevillist, remembering des Lupeaulx's former affair. "Flavie
+owes what she is to the men about her, whereas Madame Rabourdin is all
+things in herself. It is wonderful too what she knows; you can't tell
+secrets in Latin before /her/. If I had such a wife, I know I should
+succeed in everything."
+
+"You have more mind than an author ought to have," returned des
+Lupeaulx, with a conceited air. Then he turned round and perceived
+Dutocq. "Ah, good-morning, Dutocq," he said. "I sent for you to lend
+me your Charlet--if you have the whole complete. Madame la comtesse
+knows nothing of Charlet."
+
+Du Bruel retired.
+
+"Why do you come in without being summoned?" said des Lupeaulx,
+harshly, when he and Dutocq were left alone. "Is the State in danger
+that you must come here at ten o'clock in the morning, just as I am
+going to breakfast with his Excellency?"
+
+"Perhaps it is, monsieur," said Dutocq, dryly. "If I had had the honor
+to see you earlier, you would probably have not been so willing to
+support Monsieur Rabourdin, after reading his opinion of you."
+
+Dutocq opened his coat, took a paper from the left-hand breast-pocket
+and laid it on des Lupeaulx's desk, pointing to a marked passage. Then
+he went to the door and slipped the bolt, fearing interruption. While
+he was thus employed, the secretary-general read the opening sentence
+of the article, which was as follows:
+
+  "Monsieur des Lupeaulx. A government degrades itself by openly
+  employing such a man, whose real vocation is for police diplomacy.
+  He is fitted to deal with the political filibusters of other
+  cabinets, and it would be a pity therefore to employ him on our
+  internal detective police. He is above a common spy, for he is
+  able to understand a plan; he could skilfully carry through a dark
+  piece of work and cover his retreat safely."
+
+Des Lupeaulx was succinctly analyzed in five or six such paragraphs,
+--the essence, in fact, of the biographical portrait which we gave at
+the beginning of this history. As he read the words the secretary felt
+that a man stronger than himself sat in judgment on him; and he at
+once resolved to examine the memorandum, which evidently reached far
+and high, without allowing Dutocq to know his secret thoughts. He
+therefore showed a calm, grave face when the spy returned to him. Des
+Lupeaulx, like lawyers, magistrates, diplomatists, and all whose work
+obliges them to pry into the human heart, was past being surprised at
+anything. Hardened in treachery and in all the tricks and wiles of
+hatred, he could take a stab in the back and not let his face tell of
+it.
+
+"How did you get hold of this paper?"
+
+Dutocq related his good luck; des Lupeaulx's face as he listened
+expressed no approbation; and the spy ended in terror an account which
+began triumphantly.
+
+"Dutocq, you have put your finger between the bark and the tree," said
+the secretary, coldly. "If you don't want to make powerful enemies I
+advise you to keep this paper a profound secret; it is a work of the
+utmost importance and already well known to me."
+
+So saying, des Lupeaulx dismissed Dutocq by one of those glances that
+are more expressive than words.
+
+"Ha! that scoundrel of a Rabourdin has put his finger in this!"
+thought Dutocq, alarmed on finding himself anticipated; "he has
+reached the ear of the administration, while I am left out in the
+cold. I shouldn't have thought it!"
+
+To all his other motives of aversion to Rabourdin he now added the
+jealousy of one man to another man of the same calling,--a most
+powerful ingredient in hatred.
+
+When des Lupeaulx was left alone, he dropped into a strange
+meditation. What power was it of which Rabourdin was the instrument?
+Should he, des Lupeaulx, use this singular document to destroy him, or
+should he keep it as a weapon to succeed with the wife? The mystery
+that lay behind this paper was all darkness to des Lupeaulx, who read
+with something akin to terror page after page, in which the men of his
+acquaintance were judged with unerring wisdom. He admired Rabourdin,
+though stabbed to his vitals by what he said of him. The
+breakfast-hour suddenly cut short his meditation.
+
+"His Excellency is waiting for you to come down," announced the
+minister's footman.
+
+The minister always breakfasted with his wife and children and des
+Lupeaulx, without the presence of servants. The morning meal affords
+the only moment of privacy which public men can snatch from the
+current of overwhelming business. Yet in spite of the precautions they
+take to keep this hour for private intimacies and affections, a good
+many great and little people manage to infringe upon it. Business
+itself will, as at this moment, thrust itself in the way of their
+scanty comfort.
+
+"I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty manoeuvres,"
+began the minister; "and yet here, not ten minutes after La
+Billardiere's death, he sends me this note by La Briere,--it is like a
+stage missive. Look," said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a paper
+which he was twirling in his fingers.
+
+Too noble in mind to think for a moment of the shameful meaning La
+Billardiere's death might lend to his letter, Rabourdin had not
+withdrawn it from La Briere's hands after the news reached him. Des
+Lupeaulx read as follows:--
+
+  "Monseigneur,--If twenty-three years of irreproachable services
+  may claim a favor, I entreat your Excellency to grant me an
+  audience this very day. My honor is involved in the matter of
+  which I desire to speak."
+
+"Poor man!" said des Lupeaulx, in a tone of compassion which confirmed
+the minister in his error. "We are alone; I advise you to see him now.
+You have a meeting of the Council when the Chamber rises; moreover,
+your Excellency has to reply to-day to the opposition; this is really
+the only hour when you can receive him."
+
+Des Lupeaulx rose, called the servant, said a few words, and returned
+to his seat. "I have told them to bring him in at dessert," he said.
+
+Like all other ministers under the Restoration, this particular
+minister was a man without youth. The charter granted by Louis XVIII.
+had the defect of tying the hands of the kings by compelling them
+to deliver the destinies of the nation into the control of the
+middle-aged men of the Chamber and the septuagenarians of the peerage;
+it robbed them of the right to lay hands on a man of statesmanlike
+talent wherever they could find him, no matter how young he was or how
+poverty-stricken his condition might be. Napoleon alone was able to
+employ young men as he chose, without being restrained by any
+consideration. After the overthrow of that mighty will, vigor deserted
+power. Now the period when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents a
+contrast that is far more dangerous in France than in other countries.
+As a general thing, ministers who were old before they entered office
+have proved second or third rate, while those who were taken young
+have been an honor to European monarchies and to the republics whose
+affairs they have directed. The world still rings with the struggle
+between Pitt and Napoleon, two men who conducted the politics of their
+respective countries at an age when Henri de Navarre, Richelieu,
+Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, the Prince of Orange, the Guises,
+Machiavelli, in short, all the best known of our great men, coming
+from the ranks or born to a throne, began to rule the State. The
+Convention--that model of energy--was made up in a great measure of
+young heads; no sovereign can ever forget that it was able to put
+fourteen armies into the field against Europe. Its policy, fatal in
+the eyes of those who cling to what is called absolute power, was
+nevertheless dictated by strictly monarchical principles, and it
+behaved itself like any of the great kings.
+
+After ten or a dozen years of parliamentary struggle, having studied
+the science of politics until he was worn down by it, this particular
+minister had come to be enthroned by his party, who considered him in
+the light of their business man. Happily for him he was now nearer
+sixty than fifty years of age; had he retained even a vestige of
+juvenile vigor he would quickly have quenched it. But, accustomed to
+back and fill, retreat and return to the charge, he was able to endure
+being struck at, turn and turn about, by his own party, by the
+opposition, by the court, by the clergy, because to all such attacks
+he opposed the inert force of a substance which was equally soft and
+consistent; thus he reaped the benefits of what was really his
+misfortune. Harassed by a thousand questions of government, his mind,
+like that of an old lawyer who has tried every species of case, no
+longer possessed the spring which solitary minds are able to retain,
+nor that power of prompt decision which distinguishes men who are
+early accustomed to action, and young soldiers. How could it be
+otherwise? He had practised sophistries and quibbled instead of
+judging; he had criticised effects and done nothing for causes; his
+head was full of plans such as a political party lays upon the
+shoulders of a leader,--matters of private interest brought to an
+orator supposed to have a future, a jumble of schemes and impractical
+requests. Far from coming fresh to his work, he was wearied out with
+marching and counter-marching, and when he finally reached the much
+desired height of his present position, he found himself in a thicket
+of thorny bushes with a thousand conflicting wills to conciliate. If
+the statesmen of the Restoration had been allowed to follow out their
+own ideas, their capacity would doubtless have been criticised; but
+though their wills were often forced, their age saved them from
+attempting the resistance which youth opposes to intrigues, both high
+and low,--intrigues which vanquished Richelieu, and to which, in a
+lower sphere, Rabourdin was to succumb.
+
+After the rough and tumble of their first struggles in political life
+these men, less old than aged, have to endure the additional wear and
+tear of a ministry. Thus it is that their eyes begin to weaken just as
+they need to have the clear-sightedness of eagles; their mind is weary
+when its youth and fire need to be redoubled. The minister in whom
+Rabourdin sought to confide was in the habit of listening to men of
+undoubted superiority as they explained ingenious theories of
+government, applicable or inapplicable to the affairs of France. Such
+men, by whom the difficulties of national policy were never
+apprehended, were in the habit of attacking this minister personally
+whenever a parliamentary battle or a contest with the secret follies
+of the court took place,--on the eve of a struggle with the popular
+mind, or on the morrow of a diplomatic discussion which divided the
+Council into three separate parties. Caught in such a predicament, a
+statesman naturally keeps a yawn ready for the first sentence designed
+to show him how the public service could be better managed. At such
+periods not a dinner took place among bold schemers or financial and
+political lobbyists where the opinions of the Bourse and the Bank, the
+secrets of diplomacy, and the policy necessitated by the state of
+affairs in Europe were not canvassed and discussed. The minister has
+his own private councillors in des Lupeaulx and his secretary, who
+collected and pondered all opinions and discussions for the purpose of
+analyzing and controlling the various interests proclaimed and
+supported by so many clever men. In fact, his misfortune was that of
+most other ministers who have passed the prime of life; he trimmed and
+shuffled under all his difficulties,--with journalism, which at this
+period it was thought advisable to repress in an underhand way rather
+than fight openly; with financial as well as labor questions; with the
+clergy as well as with that other question of the public lands; with
+liberalism as with the Chamber. After manoeuvering his way to power in
+the course of seven years, the minister believed that he could manage
+all questions of administration in the same way. It is so natural to
+think we can maintain a position by the same methods which served us
+to reach it that no one ventured to blame a system invented by
+mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The Restoration, like
+the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes the true value
+of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is wanting. The
+last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the Restoration
+was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries employed
+the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies, and let
+loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the
+unintelligent masses, able only to understand revolt.
+
+Rabourdin told himself all these things. But he had made up his mind
+to win or lose, like a man weary of gambling who allows himself a last
+stake; ill-luck had given him as adversary in the game a sharper like
+des Lupeaulx. With all his sagacity, Rabourdin was better versed in
+matters of administration than in parliamentary optics, and he was far
+indeed from imagining how his confidence would be received; he little
+thought that the great work that filled his mind would seem to the
+minister nothing more than a theory, and that a man who held the
+position of a statesman would confound his reform with the schemes of
+political and self-interested talkers.
+
+As the minister rose from table, thinking of Francois Keller, his wife
+detained him with the offer of a bunch of grapes, and at that moment
+Rabourdin was announced. Des Lupeaulx had counted on the minister's
+preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the moment
+occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to meet
+Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low tone
+of voice:--
+
+"His Excellency and I know what the subject is that occupies your
+mind; you have nothing to fear"; then, raising his voice, he added,
+"neither from Dutocq nor from any one else."
+
+"Don't feel uneasy, Rabourdin," said his Excellency, kindly, but
+making a movement to get away.
+
+Rabourdin came forward respectfully, and the minister could not evade
+him.
+
+"Will your Excellency permit me to see you for a moment in private?"
+he said, with a mysterious glance.
+
+The minister looked at the clock and went towards the window, whither
+the poor man followed him.
+
+"When may I have the honor of submitting the matter of which I spoke
+to your Excellency? I desire to fully explain the plan of
+administration to which the paper that was taken belongs--"
+
+"Plan of administration!" exclaimed the minister, frowning, and
+hurriedly interrupting him. "If you have anything of that kind to
+communicate you must wait for the regular day when we do business
+together. I ought to be at the Council now; and I have an answer to
+make to the Chamber on that point which the opposition raised before
+the session ended yesterday. Your day is Wednesday next; I could not
+work yesterday, for I had other things to attend to; political matters
+are apt to interfere with purely administrative ones."
+
+"I place my honor with all confidence in your Excellency's hands,"
+said Rabourdin gravely, "and I entreat you to remember that you have
+not allowed me time to give you an immediate explanation of the stolen
+paper--"
+
+"Don't be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx, interposing between the minister
+and Rabourdin, whom he thus interrupted; "in another week you will
+probably be appointed--"
+
+The minister smiled as he thought of des Lupeaulx's enthusiasm for
+Madame Rabourdin, and he glanced knowingly at his wife. Rabourdin saw
+the look, and tried to imagine its meaning; his attention was diverted
+for a moment, and his Excellency took advantage of the fact to make
+his escape.
+
+"We will talk of all this, you and I," said des Lupeaulx, with whom
+Rabourdin, much to his surprise, now found himself alone. "Don't be
+angry with Dutocq; I'll answer for his discretion."
+
+"Madame Rabourdin is charming," said the minister's wife, wishing to
+say the civil thing to the head of a bureau.
+
+The children all gazed at Rabourdin with curiosity. The poor man had
+come there expecting some serious, even solemn, result, and he was
+like a great fish caught in the threads of a flimsy net; he struggled
+with himself.
+
+"Madame la comtesse is very good," he said.
+
+"Shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Madame here some Wednesday?"
+said the countess. "Pray bring her; it will give me pleasure."
+
+"Madame Rabourdin herself receives on Wednesdays," interrupted des
+Lupeaulx, who knew the empty civility of an invitation to the official
+Wednesdays; "but since you are so kind as to wish for her, you will
+soon give one of your private parties, and--"
+
+The countess rose with some irritation.
+
+"You are the master of my ceremonies," she said to des Lupeaulx,
+--ambiguous words, by which she expressed the annoyance she felt with
+the secretary for presuming to interfere with her private parties, to
+which she admitted only a select few. She left the room without bowing
+to Rabourdin, who remained alone with des Lupeaulx; the latter was
+twisting in his fingers the confidential letter to the minister which
+Rabourdin had intrusted to La Briere. Rabourdin recognized it.
+
+"You have never really known me," said des Lupeaulx. "Friday evening
+we will come to a full understanding. Just now I must go and receive
+callers; his Excellency saddles me with that burden when he has other
+matters to attend to. But I repeat, Rabourdin, don't worry yourself;
+you have nothing to fear."
+
+Rabourdin walked slowly through the corridors, amazed and confounded
+by this singular turn of events. He had expected Dutocq to denounce
+him, and found he had not been mistaken; des Lupeaulx had certainly
+seen the document which judged him so severely, and yet des Lupeaulx
+was fawning on his judge! It was all incomprehensible. Men of upright
+minds are often at a loss to understand complicated intrigues, and
+Rabourdin was lost in a maze of conjecture without being able to
+discover the object of the game which the secretary was playing.
+
+"Either he has not read the part about himself, or he loves my wife."
+
+Such were the two thoughts to which his mind arrived as he crossed the
+courtyard; for the glance he had intercepted the night before between
+des Lupeaulx and Celestine came back to his memory like a flash of
+lightning.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI
+
+                         THE WORMS AT WORK
+
+Rabourdin's bureau was during his absence a prey to the keenest
+excitement; for the relation between the head officials and the clerks
+in a government office is so regulated that, when a minister's
+messenger summons the head of a bureau to his Excellency's presence
+(above all at the latter's breakfast hour), there is no end to the
+comments that are made. The fact that the present unusual summons
+followed so closely on the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere seemed
+to give special importance to the circumstance, which was made known
+to Monsieur Saillard, who came at once to confer with Baudoyer.
+Bixiou, who happened at the moment to be at work with the latter, left
+him to converse with his father-in-law and betook himself to the
+bureau Rabourdin, where the usual routine was of course interrupted.
+
+Bixiou [entering]. "I thought I should find you at a white heat! Don't
+you know what's going on down below? The virtuous woman is done for!
+yes, done for, crushed! Terrible scene at the ministry!"
+
+Dutocq [looking fixedly at him]. "Are you telling the truth?"
+
+Bixiou. "Pray, who would regret it? Not you, certainly, for you will
+be made under-head-clerk and du Bruel head of the bureau. Monsieur
+Baudoyer gets the division."
+
+Fleury. "I'll bet a hundred francs that Baudoyer will never be head of
+the division."
+
+Vimeux. "I'll join in the bet; will you, Monsieur Poiret?"
+
+Poiret. "I retire in January."
+
+Bixiou. "Is it possible? are we to lose the sight of those shoe-ties?
+What will the ministry be without you? Will nobody take up the bet on
+my side?"
+
+Dutocq. "I can't, for I know the facts. Monsieur Rabourdin is
+appointed. Monsieur de la Billardiere requested it of the two
+ministers on his death-bed, blaming himself for having taken the
+emoluments of an office of which Rabourdin did all the work; he felt
+remorse of conscience, and the ministers, to quiet him, promised to
+appoint Rabourdin unless higher powers intervened."
+
+Bixiou. "Gentlemen, are you all against me? seven to one,--for I know
+which side you'll take, Monsieur Phellion. Well, I'll bet a dinner
+costing five hundred francs at the Rocher de Cancale that Rabourdin
+does not get La Billardiere's place. That will cost you only a hundred
+francs each, and I'm risking five hundred,--five to one against me! Do
+you take it up?" [Shouting into the next room.] "Du Bruel, what say
+you?"
+
+Phellion [laying down his pen]. "Monsieur, may I ask on what you base
+that contingent proposal?--for contingent it is. But stay, I am wrong
+to call it a proposal; I should say contract. A wager constitutes a
+contract."
+
+Fleury. "No, no; you can only apply the word 'contract' to agreements
+that are recognized in the Code. Now the Code allows of no action for
+the recovery of a bet."
+
+Dutocq. "Proscribe a thing and you recognize it."
+
+Bixiou. "Good! my little man."
+
+Poiret. "Dear me!"
+
+Fleury. "True! when one refuses to pay one's debts, that's recognizing
+them."
+
+Thuillier. "You would make famous lawyers."
+
+Poiret. "I am as curious as Monsieur Phellion to know what grounds
+Monsieur Bixiou has for--"
+
+Bixiou [shouting across the office]. "Du Bruel! Will you bet?"
+
+Du Bruel [appearing at the door]. "Heavens and earth, gentlemen, I'm
+very busy; I have something very difficult to do; I've got to write an
+obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere. I do beg you to be
+quiet; you can laugh and bet afterwards."
+
+Bixiou. "That's true, du Bruel; the praise of an honest man is a very
+difficult thing to write. I'd rather any day draw a caricature of
+him."
+
+Du Bruel. "Do come and help me, Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou [following him]. "I'm willing; though I can do such things much
+better when eating."
+
+Du Bruel. "Well, we will go and dine together afterwards. But listen,
+this is what I have written" [reads] "'The Church and the Monarchy are
+daily losing many of those who fought for them in Revolutionary
+times.'"
+
+Bixiou. "Bad, very bad; why don't you say, 'Death carries on its
+ravages amongst the few surviving defenders of the monarchy and the
+old and faithful servants of the King, whose heart bleeds under these
+reiterated blows?'" [Du Bruel writes rapidly.] "'Monsieur le Baron
+Flamet de la Billardiere died this morning of dropsy, caused by heart
+disease.' You see, it is just as well to show there are hearts in
+government offices; and you ought to slip in a little flummery about
+the emotions of the Royalists during the Terror,--might be useful,
+hey! But stay,--no! the petty papers would be sure to say the emotions
+came more from the stomach than the heart. Better leave that out. What
+are you writing now?"
+
+Du Bruel [reading]. "'Issuing from an old parliamentary stock in which
+devotion to the throne was hereditary, as was also attachment to the
+faith of our fathers, Monsieur de la Billardiere--'"
+
+Bixiou. "Better say Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere."
+
+Du Bruel. "But he wasn't baron in 1793."
+
+Bixiou. "No matter. Don't you remember that under the Empire Fouche
+was telling an anecdote about the Convention, in which he had to quote
+Robespierre, and he said, 'Robespierre called out to me, "Duc
+d'Otrante, go to the Hotel de Ville."' There's a precedent for you!"
+
+Du Bruel. "Let me just write that down; I can use it in a vaudeville.
+--But to go back to what we were saying. I don't want to put 'Monsieur
+le baron,' because I am reserving his honors till the last, when they
+rained upon him."
+
+Bixiou. "Oh! very good; that's theatrical,--the finale of the
+article."
+
+Du Bruel [continuing]. "'In appointing Monsieur de la Billardiere
+gentleman-in-ordinary--'"
+
+Bixiou. "Very ordinary!"
+
+Du Bruel. "'--of the Bedchamber, the King rewarded not only the
+services rendered by the Provost, who knew how to harmonize the
+severity of his functions with the customary urbanity of the Bourbons,
+but the bravery of the Vendean hero, who never bent the knee to the
+imperial idol. He leaves a son, who inherits his loyalty and his
+talents.'"
+
+Bixiou. "Don't you think all that is a little too florid? I should
+tone down the poetry. 'Imperial idol!' 'bent the knee!' damn it, my
+dear fellow, writing vaudevilles has ruined your style; you can't come
+down to pedestrial prose. I should say, 'He belonged to the small
+number of those who.' Simplify, simplify! the man himself was a
+simpleton."
+
+Du Bruel. "That's vaudeville, if you like! You would make your fortune
+at the theatre, Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou. "What have you said about Quiberon?" [Reads over du Bruel's
+shoulder.] "Oh, that won't do! Here, this is what you must say: 'He
+took upon himself, in a book recently published, the responsibility
+for all the blunders of the expedition to Quiberon,--thus proving the
+nature of his loyalty, which did not shrink from any sacrifice.'
+That's clever and witty, and exalts La Billardiere."
+
+Du Bruel. "At whose expense?"
+
+Bixiou [solemn as a priest in a pulpit]. "Why, Hoche and Tallien, of
+course; don't you read history?"
+
+Du Bruel. "No. I subscribed to the Baudouin series, but I've never had
+time to open a volume; one can't find matter for vaudevilles there."
+
+Phellion [at the door]. "We all want to know, Monsieur Bixiou, what
+made you think that the worthy and honorable Monsieur Rabourdin, who
+has so long done the work of this division for Monsieur de la
+Billardiere,--he, who is the senior head of all the bureaus, and whom,
+moreover, the minister summoned as soon as he heard of the departure
+of the late Monsieur de la Billardiere,--will not be appointed head of
+the division."
+
+Bixiou. "Papa Phellion, you know geography?"
+
+Phellion [bridling up]. "I should say so!"
+
+Bixiou. "And history?"
+
+Phellion [affecting modesty]. "Possibly."
+
+Bixiou [looking fixedly at him]. "Your diamond pin is loose, it is
+coming out. Well, you may know all that, but you don't know the human
+heart; you have gone no further in the geography and history of that
+organ than you have in the environs of the city of Paris."
+
+Poiret [to Vimeux]. "Environs of Paris? I thought they were talking of
+Monsieur Rabourdin."
+
+Bixiou. "About that bet? Does the entire bureau Rabourdin bet against
+me?"
+
+All. "Yes."
+
+Bixiou. "Du Bruel, do you count in?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Of course I do. We want Rabourdin to go up a step and make
+room for others."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, I accept the bet,--for this reason; you can hardly
+understand it, but I'll tell it to you all the same. It would be right
+and just to appoint Monsieur Rabourdin" [looking full at Dutocq],
+"because, in that case, long and faithful service, honor, and talent
+would be recognized, appreciated, and properly rewarded. Such an
+appointment is in the best interests of the administration."
+[Phellion, Poiret, and Thuillier listen stupidly, with the look of
+those who try to peer before them in the darkness.] "Well, it is just
+because the promotion would be so fitting, and because the man has
+such merit, and because the measure is so eminently wise and equitable
+that I bet Rabourdin will not be appointed. Yes, you'll see, that
+appointment will slip up, just like the invasion from Boulogne, and
+the march to Russia, for the success of which a great genius has
+gathered together all the chances. It will fail as all good and just
+things do fail in this low world. I am only backing the devil's game."
+
+Du Bruel. "Who do you think will be appointed?"
+
+Bixiou. "The more I think about Baudoyer, the more sure I feel that he
+unites all the opposite qualities; therefore I think he will be the
+next head of this division."
+
+Dutocq. "But Monsieur des Lupeaulx, who sent for me to borrow my
+Charlet, told me positively that Monsieur Rabourdin was appointed, and
+that the little La Billardiere would be made Clerk of the Seals."
+
+Bixiou. "Appointed, indeed! The appointment can't be made and signed
+under ten days. It will certainly not be known before New-Year's day.
+There he goes now across the courtyard; look at him, and say if the
+virtuous Rabourdin looks like a man in the sunshine of favor. I should
+say he knows he's dismissed." [Fleury rushes to the window.]
+"Gentlemen, adieu; I'll go and tell Monsieur Baudoyer that I hear from
+you that Rabourdin is appointed; it will make him furious, the pious
+creature! Then I'll tell him of our wager, to cool him down,--a
+process we call at the theatre turning the Wheel of Fortune, don't we,
+du Bruel? Why do I care who gets the place? simply because if Baudoyer
+does he will make me under-head-clerk" [goes out].
+
+Poiret. "Everybody says that man is clever, but as for me, I can never
+understand a word he says" [goes on copying]. "I listen and listen; I
+hear words, but I never get at any meaning; he talks about the
+environs of Paris when he discusses the human heart and" [lays down
+his pen and goes to the stove] "declares he backs the devil's game
+when it is a question of Russia and Boulogne; now what is there so
+clever in that, I'd like to know? We must first admit that the devil
+plays any game at all, and then find out what game; possibly dominoes"
+[blows his nose].
+
+Fleury [interrupting]. "Pere Poiret is blowing his nose; it must be
+eleven o'clock."
+
+Du Bruel. "So it is! Goodness! I'm off to the secretary; he wants to
+read the obituary."
+
+Poiret. "What was I saying?"
+
+Thuillier. "Dominoes,--perhaps the devil plays dominoes." [Sebastien
+enters to gather up the different papers and circulars for signature.]
+
+Vimeux. "Ah! there you are, my fine young man. Your days of hardship
+are nearly over; you'll get a post. Monsieur Rabourdin will be
+appointed. Weren't you at Madame Rabourdin's last night? Lucky fellow!
+they say that really superb women go there."
+
+Sebastien. "Do they? I didn't know."
+
+Fleury. "Are you blind?"
+
+Sebastien. "I don't like to look at what I ought not to see."
+
+Phellion [delighted]. "Well said, young man!"
+
+Vimeux. "The devil! well, you looked at Madame Rabourdin enough, any
+how; a charming woman."
+
+Fleury. "Pooh! thin as a rail. I saw her in the Tuileries, and I much
+prefer Percilliee, the ballet-mistress, Castaing's victim."
+
+Phellion. "What has an actress to do with the wife of a government
+official?"
+
+Dutocq. "They both play comedy."
+
+Fleury [looking askance at Dutocq]. "The physical has nothing to do
+with the moral, and if you mean--"
+
+Dutocq. "I mean nothing."
+
+Fleury. "Do you all want to know which of us will really be made head
+of this bureau?"
+
+All. "Yes, tell us."
+
+Fleury. "Colleville."
+
+Thuillier. "Why?"
+
+Fleury. "Because Madame Colleville has taken the shortest way to it
+--through the sacristy."
+
+Thuillier. "I am too much Colleville's friend not to beg you, Monsieur
+Fleury, to speak respectfully of his wife."
+
+Phellion. "A defenceless woman should never be made the subject of
+conversation here--"
+
+Vimeux. "All the more because the charming Madame Colleville won't
+invite Fleury to her house. He backbites her in revenge."
+
+Fleury. "She may not receive me on the same footing that she does
+Thuillier, but I go there--"
+
+Thuillier. "When? how?--under her windows?"
+
+Though Fleury was dreaded as a bully in all the offices, he received
+Thuillier's speech in silence. This meekness, which surprised the
+other clerks, was owing to a certain note for two hundred francs, of
+doubtful value, which Thuillier agreed to pass over to his sister.
+After this skirmish dead silence prevailed. They all wrote steadily
+from one to three o'clock. Du Bruel did not return.
+
+About half-past three the usual preparations for departure, the
+brushing of hats, the changing of coats, went on in all the
+ministerial offices. That precious thirty minutes thus employed
+served to shorten by just so much the day's labor. At this hour the
+over-heated rooms cool off; the peculiar odor that hangs about the
+bureaus evaporates; silence is restored. By four o'clock none but a few
+clerks who do their duty conscientiously remain. A minister may know who
+are the real workers under him if he will take the trouble to walk
+through the divisions after four o'clock,--a species of prying, however,
+that no one of his dignity would condescend to.
+
+The various heads of divisions and bureaus usually encountered each
+other in the courtyards at this hour and exchanged opinions on the
+events of the day. On this occasion they departed by twos and threes,
+most of them agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old stagers,
+like Monsieur Clergeot, shook their heads and said, "Habent sua sidera
+lites." Saillard and Baudoyer were politely avoided, for nobody knew
+what to say to them about La Billardiere's death, it being fully
+understood that Baudoyer wanted the place, though it was certainly not
+due to him.
+
+When Saillard and his son-in-law had gone a certain distance from the
+ministry the former broke silence and said: "Things look badly for
+you, my poor Baudoyer."
+
+"I can't understand," replied the other, "what Elisabeth was dreaming
+of when she sent Godard in such a hurry to get a passport for Falleix;
+Godard tells me she hired a post-chaise by the advice of my uncle
+Mitral, and that Falleix has already started for his own part of the
+country."
+
+"Some matter connected with our business," suggested Saillard.
+
+"Our most pressing business just now is to look after Monsieur La
+Billardiere's place," returned Baudoyer, crossly.
+
+They were just then near the entrance of the Palais-Royal on the rue
+Saint-Honore. Dutocq came up, bowing, and joined them.
+
+"Monsieur," he said to Baudoyer, "if I can be useful to you in any way
+under the circumstances in which you find yourself, pray command me,
+for I am not less devoted to your interests than Monsieur Godard."
+
+"Such an assurance is at least consoling," replied Baudoyer; "it makes
+me aware that I have the confidence of honest men."
+
+"If you would kindly employ your influence to get me placed in
+your division, taking Bixiou as head of the bureau and me as
+under-head-clerk, you will secure the future of two men who are
+ready to do anything for your advancement."
+
+"Are you making fun of us, monsieur?" asked Saillard, staring at him
+stupidly.
+
+"Far be it from me to do that," said Dutocq. "I have just come from
+the printing-office of the ministerial journal (where I carried from
+the general-secretary an obituary notice of Monsieur de la
+Billardiere), and I there read an article which will appear to-night
+about you, which has given me the highest opinion of your character
+and talents. If it is necessary to crush Rabourdin, I'm in a position
+to give him the final blow; please to remember that."
+
+Dutocq disappeared.
+
+"May I be shot if I understand a single word of it," said Saillard,
+looking at Baudoyer, whose little eyes were expressive of stupid
+bewilderment. "I must buy the newspaper to-night."
+
+When the two reached home and entered the salon on the ground-floor,
+they found a large fire lighted, and Madame Saillard, Elisabeth,
+Monsieur Gaudron and the curate of Saint-Paul's sitting by it. The
+curate turned at once to Monsieur Baudoyer, to whom Elisabeth made a
+sign which he failed to understand.
+
+"Monsieur," said the curate, "I have lost no time in coming in person
+to thank you for the magnificent gift with which you have adorned my
+poor church. I dared not run in debt to buy that beautiful monstrance,
+worthy of a cathedral. You, who are one of our most pious and faithful
+parishioners, must have keenly felt the bareness of the high altar. I
+am on my way to see Monseigneur the coadjutor, and he will, I am sure,
+send you his own thanks later."
+
+"I have done nothing as yet--" began Baudoyer.
+
+"Monsieur le cure," interposed his wife, cutting him short. "I see I
+am forced to betray the whole secret. Monsieur Baudoyer hopes to
+complete the gift by sending you a dais for the coming Fete-Dieu. But
+the purchase must depend on the state of our finances, and our
+finances depend on my husband's promotion."
+
+"God will reward those who honor him," said Monsieur Gaudron,
+preparing, with the curate, to take leave.
+
+"But will you not," said Saillard to the two ecclesiastics, "do us the
+honor to take pot luck with us?"
+
+"You can stay, my dear vicar," said the curate to Gaudron; "you know I
+am engaged to dine with the curate of Saint-Roch, who, by the bye, is
+to bury Monsieur de la Billardiere to-morrow."
+
+"Monsieur le cure de Saint-Roch might say a word for us," began
+Baudoyer. His wife pulled the skirt of his coat violently.
+
+"Do hold your tongue, Baudoyer," she said, leading him aside and
+whispering in his ear. "You have given a monstrance to the church,
+that cost five thousand francs. I'll explain it all later."
+
+The miserly Baudoyer make a sulky grimace, and continued gloomy and
+cross for the rest of the day.
+
+"What did you busy yourself about Falleix's passport for? Why do you
+meddle in other people's affairs?" he presently asked her.
+
+"I must say, I think Falleix's affairs are as much ours as his,"
+returned Elisabeth, dryly, glancing at her husband to make him notice
+Monsieur Gaudron, before whom he ought to be silent.
+
+"Certainly, certainly," said old Saillard, thinking of his
+co-partnership.
+
+"I hope you reached the newspaper office in time?" remarked Elisabeth
+to Monsieur Gaudron, as she helped him to soup.
+
+"Yes, my dear lady," answered the vicar; "when the editor read the
+little article I gave him, written by the secretary of the Grand
+Almoner, he made no difficulty. He took pains to insert it in a
+conspicuous place. I should never have thought of that; but this young
+journalist has a wide-awake mind. The defenders of religion can enter
+the lists against impiety without disadvantage at the present moment,
+for there is a great deal of talent in the royalist press. I have
+every reason to believe that success will crown your hopes. But you
+must remember, my dear Baudoyer, to promote Monsieur Colleville; he is
+an object of great interest to his Eminence; in fact, I am desired to
+mention him to you."
+
+"If I am head of the division, I will make him head of one of my
+bureaus, if you want me to," said Baudoyer.
+
+The matter thus referred to was explained after dinner, when the
+ministerial organ (bought and sent up by the porter) proved to contain
+among its Paris news the following articles, called items:--
+
+  "Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere died this morning, after a
+  long and painful illness. The king loses a devoted servant, the
+  Church a most pious son. Monsieur de la Billardiere's end has
+  fitly crowned a noble life, consecrated in dark and troublesome
+  times to perilous missions, and of late years to arduous civic
+  duties. Monsieur de la Billardiere was provost of a department,
+  where his force of character triumphed over all the obstacles that
+  rebellion arrayed against him. He subsequently accepted the
+  difficult post of director of a division (in which his great
+  acquirements were not less useful than the truly French affability
+  of his manners) for the express purpose of conciliating the
+  serious interests that arise under its administration. No rewards
+  have ever been more truly deserved than those by which the King,
+  Louis XVIII., and his present Majesty took pleasure in crowning a
+  loyalty which never faltered under the usurper. This old family
+  still survives in the person of a single heir to the excellent man
+  whose death now afflicts so many warm friends. His Majesty has
+  already graciously made known that Monsieur Benjamin de la
+  Billardiere will be included among the gentlemen-in-ordinary of
+  the Bedchamber.
+
+  "The numerous friends who have not already received their
+  notification of this sad event are hereby informed that the
+  funeral will take place to-morrow at four o'clock, in the church
+  of Saint-Roch. The memorial address will be delivered by Monsieur
+  l'Abbe Fontanon."
+
+----
+
+  "Monsieur Isidore-Charles-Thomas Baudoyer, representing one of the
+  oldest bourgeois families of Paris, and head of a bureau in the
+  late Monsieur de la Billardiere's division, has lately recalled
+  the old traditions of piety and devotion which formerly
+  distinguished these great families, so jealous for the honor and
+  glory of religion, and so faithful in preserving its monuments.
+  The church of Saint-Paul has long needed a monstrance in keeping
+  with the magnificence of that basilica, itself due to the Company
+  of Jesus. Neither the vestry nor the curate were rich enough to
+  decorate the altar. Monsieur Baudoyer has bestowed upon the parish
+  a monstrance that many persons have seen and admired at Monsieur
+  Gohier's, the king's jeweller. Thanks to the piety of this
+  gentleman, who did not shrink from the immensity of the price, the
+  church of Saint-Paul possesses to-day a masterpiece of the
+  jeweller's art designed by Monsieur de Sommervieux. It gives us
+  pleasure to make known this fact, which proves how powerless the
+  declamations of liberals have been on the mind of the Parisian
+  bourgeoisie. The upper ranks of that body have at all times been
+  royalist and they prove it when occasion offers."
+
+"The price was five thousand francs," said the Abbe Gaudron; "but as
+the payment was in cash, the court jeweller reduced the amount."
+
+"Representing one of the oldest bourgeois families in Paris!" Saillard
+was saying to himself; "there it is printed,--in the official paper,
+too!"
+
+"Dear Monsieur Gaudron," said Madame Baudoyer, "please help my father
+to compose a little speech that he could slip into the countess's ear
+when he takes her the monthly stipend,--a single sentence that would
+cover all! I must leave you. I am obliged to go out with my uncle
+Mitral. Would you believe it? I was unable to find my uncle Bidault at
+home this afternoon. Oh, what a dog-kennel he lives in! But Monsieur
+Mitral, who knows his ways, says he does all his business between
+eight o'clock in the morning and midday, and that after that hour he
+can be found only at a certain cafe called the Cafe Themis,--a
+singular name."
+
+"Is justice done there?" said the abbe, laughing.
+
+"Do you ask why he goes to a cafe at the corner of the rue Dauphine
+and the quai des Augustins? They say he plays dominoes there every
+night with his friend Monsieur Gobseck. I don't wish to go to such a
+place alone; my uncle Mitral will take me there and bring me back."
+
+At this instant Mitral showed his yellow face, surmounted by a wig
+which looked as though it might be made of hay, and made a sign to his
+niece to come at once, and not keep a carriage waiting at two francs
+an hour. Madame Baudoyer rose and went away without giving any
+explanation to her husband or father.
+
+"Heaven has given you in that woman," said Monsieur Gaudron to
+Baudoyer when Elisabeth had disappeared, "a perfect treasure of
+prudence and virtue, a model of wisdom, a Christian who gives sure
+signs of possessing the Divine spirit. Religion alone is able to form
+such perfect characters. To-morrow I shall say a mass for the success
+of your good cause. It is all-important, for the sake of the monarchy
+and of religion itself that you should receive this appointment.
+Monsieur Rabourdin is a liberal; he subscribes to the 'Journal des
+Debats,' a dangerous newspaper, which made war on Monsieur le Comte de
+Villele to please the wounded vanity of Monsieur de Chateaubriand. His
+Eminence will read the newspaper to-night, if only to see what is said
+of his poor friend Monsieur de la Billardiere; and Monseigneur the
+coadjutor will speak of you to the King. When I think of what you have
+now done for his dear church, I feel sure he will not forget you in
+his prayers; more than that, he is dining at this moment with the
+coadjutor at the house of the curate of Saint-Roch."
+
+These words made Saillard and Baudoyer begin to perceive that
+Elisabeth had not been idle ever since Godard had informed her of
+Monsieur de la Billardiere's decease.
+
+"Isn't she clever, that Elisabeth of mine?" cried Saillard,
+comprehending more clearly than Monsieur l'abbe the rapid undermining,
+like the path of a mole, which his daughter had undertaken.
+
+"She sent Godard to Rabourdin's door to find out what newspaper he
+takes," said Gaudron; "and I mentioned the name to the secretary of
+his Eminence,--for we live at a crisis when the Church and Throne must
+keep themselves informed as to who are their friends and who their
+enemies."
+
+"For the last five days I have been trying to find the right thing to
+say to his Excellency's wife," said Saillard.
+
+"All Paris will read that," cried Baudoyer, whose eyes were still
+riveted on the paper.
+
+"Your eulogy costs us four thousand eight hundred francs, son-in-law!"
+exclaimed Madame Saillard.
+
+"You have adorned the house of God," said the Abbe Gaudron.
+
+"We might have got salvation without doing that," she returned. "But
+if Baudoyer gets the place, which is worth eight thousand more, the
+sacrifice is not so great. If he doesn't get it! hey, papa," she
+added, looking at her husband, "how we shall have bled!--"
+
+"Well, never mind," said Saillard, enthusiastically, "we can always
+make it up through Falleix, who is going to extend his business and
+use his brother, whom he has made a stockbroker on purpose. Elisabeth
+might have told us, I think, why Falleix went off in such a hurry. But
+let's invent my little speech. This is what I thought of: 'Madame, if
+you would say a word to his Excellency--'"
+
+"'If you would deign,'" said Gaudron; "add the word 'deign,' it is
+more respectful. But you ought to know, first of all, whether Madame
+la Dauphine will grant you her protection, and then you could suggest
+to Madame la comtesse the idea of co-operating with the wishes of her
+Royal Highness."
+
+"You ought to designate the vacant post," said Baudoyer.
+
+"'Madame la comtesse,'" began Saillard, rising, and bowing to his
+wife, with an agreeable smile.
+
+"Goodness! Saillard; how ridiculous you look. Take care, my man,
+you'll make the woman laugh."
+
+"'Madame la comtesse,'" resumed Saillard. "Is that better, wife?"
+
+"Yes, my duck."
+
+"'The place of the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer--'"
+
+"'Man of talent and extreme piety,'" prompted Gaudron.
+
+"Write it down, Baudoyer," cried old Saillard, "write that sentence
+down."
+
+Baudoyer proceeded to take a pen and wrote, without a blush, his own
+praises, precisely as Nathan or Canalis might have reviewed one of
+their own books.
+
+"'Madame la comtesse'-- Don't you see, mother?" said Saillard to his
+wife; "I am supposing you to be the minister's wife."
+
+"Do you take me for a fool?" she answered sharply. "I know that."
+
+"'The place of the late worthy de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer, a man of consummate talent and extreme
+piety--'" After looking at Monsieur Gaudron, who was reflecting, he
+added, "'will be very glad if he gets it.' That's not bad; it's brief
+and it says the whole thing."
+
+"But do wait, Saillard; don't you see that Monsieur l'abbe is turning
+it over in his mind?" said Madame Saillard; "don't disturb him."
+
+"'Will be very thankful if you would deign to interest yourself in his
+behalf,'" resumed Gaudron. "'And in saying a word to his Excellency
+you will particularly please Madame la Dauphine, by whom he has the
+honor and the happiness to be protected.'"
+
+"Ah! Monsieur Gaudron, that sentence is worth more than the
+monstrance; I don't regret the four thousand eight hundred-- Besides,
+Baudoyer, my lad, you'll pay them, won't you? Have you written it all
+down?"
+
+"I shall make you repeat it, father, morning and evening," said Madame
+Saillard. "Yes, that's a good speech. How lucky you are, Monsieur
+Gaudron, to know so much. That's what it is to be brought up in a
+seminary; they learn there how to speak to God and his saints."
+
+"He is as good as he is learned," said Baudoyer, pressing the priest's
+hand. "Did you write that article?" he added, pointing to the
+newspaper.
+
+"No, it was written by the secretary of his Eminence, a young abbe who
+is under obligations to me, and who takes an interest in Monsieur
+Colleville; he was educated at my expense."
+
+"A good deed is always rewarded," said Baudoyer.
+
+While these four personages were sitting down to their game of boston,
+Elisabeth and her uncle Mitral reached the cafe Themis, with much
+discourse as they drove along about a matter which Elisabeth's keen
+perceptions told her was the most powerful lever that could be used to
+force the minister's hand in the affair of her husband's appointment.
+Uncle Mitral, a former sheriff's officer, crafty, clever at sharp
+practice, and full of expedients and judicial precautions, believed
+the honor of his family to be involved in the appointment of his
+nephew. His avarice had long led him to estimate the contents of old
+Gigonnet's strong-box, for he knew very well they would go in the end
+to benefit his nephew Baudoyer; and it was therefore important that
+the latter should obtain a position which would be in keeping with the
+combined fortunes of the Saillards and the old Gigonnet, which would
+finally devolve on the Baudoyer's little daughter; and what an heiress
+she would be with an income of a hundred thousand francs! to what
+social position might she not aspire with that fortune? He adopted all
+the ideas of his niece Elisabeth and thoroughly understood them. He
+had helped in sending off Falleix expeditiously, explaining to him the
+advantage of taking post horses. After which, while eating his dinner,
+he reflected that it be as well to give a twist of his own to the
+clever plan invented by Elisabeth.
+
+When they reached the Cafe Themis he told his niece that he alone
+could manage Gigonnet in the matter they both had in view, and he made
+her wait in the hackney-coach and bide her time to come forward at the
+right moment. Elisabeth saw through the window-panes the two faces of
+Gobseck and Gigonnet (her uncle Bidault), which stood out in relief
+against the yellow wood-work of the old cafe, like two cameo heads,
+cold and impassible, in the rigid attitude that their gravity gave
+them. The two Parisian misers were surrounded by a number of other old
+faces, on which "thirty per cent discount" was written in circular
+wrinkles that started from the nose and turned round the glacial
+cheek-bones. These remarkable physiognomies brightened up on seeing
+Mitral, and their eyes gleamed with tigerish curiosity.
+
+"Hey, hey! it is papa Mitral!" cried one of them, named Chaboisseau, a
+little old man who discounted for a publisher.
+
+"Bless me, so it is!" said another, a broker named Metivier, "ha,
+that's an old monkey well up in his tricks."
+
+"And you," retorted Mitral, "you are an old crow who knows all about
+carcasses."
+
+"True," said the stern Gobseck.
+
+"What are you here for? Have you come to seize friend Metivier?" asked
+Gigonnet, pointing to the broker, who had the bluff face of a porter.
+
+"Your great-niece Elisabeth is out there, papa Gigonnet," whispered
+Mitral.
+
+"What! some misfortune?" said Bidault. The old man drew his eyebrows
+together and assumed a tender look like that of an executioner when
+about to go to work officially. In spite of his Roman virtue he must
+have been touched, for his red nose lost somewhat of its color.
+
+"Well, suppose it is misfortune, won't you help Saillard's daughter?
+--a girl who has knitted your stockings for the last thirty years!"
+cried Mitral.
+
+"If there's good security I don't say I won't," replied Gigonnet.
+"Falleix is in with them. Falleix has just set up his brother as a
+broker, and he is doing as much business as the Brezacs; and what
+with? his mind, perhaps! Saillard is no simpleton."
+
+"He knows the value of money," put in Chaboisseau.
+
+That remark, uttered among those old men, would have made an artist
+and thinker shudder as they all nodded their heads.
+
+"But it is none of my business," resumed Bidault-Gigonnet. "I'm not
+bound to care for my neighbors' misfortunes. My principle is never to
+be off my guard with friends or relatives; you can't perish except
+through weakness. Apply to Gobseck; he is softer."
+
+The usurers all applauded these doctrines with a shake of their
+metallic heads. An onlooker would have fancied he heard the creaking
+of ill-oiled machinery.
+
+"Come, Gigonnet, show a little feeling," said Chaboisseau, "they've
+knit your stockings for thirty years."
+
+"That counts for something," remarked Gobseck.
+
+"Are you all alone? Is it safe to speak?" said Mitral, looking
+carefully about him. "I come about a good piece of business."
+
+"If it is good, why do you come to us?" said Gigonnet, sharply,
+interrupting Mitral.
+
+"A fellow who was a gentleman of the Bedchamber," went on Mitral, "a
+former 'chouan,'--what's his name?--La Billardiere is dead."
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"And our nephew is giving monstrances to the church," snarled
+Gigonnet.
+
+"He is not such a fool as to give them, he sells them, old man," said
+Mitral, proudly. "He wants La Billardiere's place, and in order to get
+it, we must seize--"
+
+"Seize! You'll never be anything but a sheriff's officer," put in
+Metivier, striking Mitral amicably on the shoulder; "I like that, I
+do!"
+
+"Seize Monsieur Clement des Lupeaulx in our clutches," continued
+Mitral; "Elisabeth has discovered how to do it, and he is--"
+
+"Elisabeth"; cried Gigonnet, interrupting again; "dear little
+creature! she takes after her grandfather, my poor brother! he never
+had his equal! Ah, you should have seen him buying up old furniture;
+what tact! what shrewdness! What does Elisabeth want?"
+
+"Hey! hey!" cried Mitral, "you've got back your bowels of compassion,
+papa Gigonnet! That phenomenon has a cause."
+
+"Always a child," said Gobseck to Gigonnet, "you are too quick on the
+trigger."
+
+"Come, Gobseck and Gigonnet, listen to me; you want to keep well with
+des Lupeaulx, don't you? You've not forgotten how you plucked him in
+that affair about the king's debts, and you are afraid he'll ask you
+to return some of his feathers," said Mitral.
+
+"Shall we tell him the whole thing?" asked Gobseck, whispering to
+Gigonnet.
+
+"Mitral is one of us; he wouldn't play a shabby trick on his former
+customers," replied Gigonnet. "You see, Mitral," he went on, speaking
+to the ex-sheriff in a low voice, "we three have just bought up all
+those debts, the payment of which depends on the decision of the
+liquidation committee."
+
+"How much will you lose?" asked Mitral.
+
+"Nothing," said Gobseck.
+
+"Nobody knows we are in it," added Gigonnet; "Samanon screens us."
+
+"Come, listen to me, Gigonnet; it is cold, and your niece is waiting
+outside. You'll understand what I want in two words. You must at once,
+between you, send two hundred and fifty thousand francs (without
+interest) into the country after Falleix, who has gone post-haste,
+with a courier in advance of him."
+
+"Is it possible!" said Gobseck.
+
+"What for?" cried Gigonnet, "and where to?"
+
+"To des Lupeaulx's magnificent country-seat," replied Mitral. "Falleix
+knows the country, for he was born there; and he is going to buy up
+land all round the secretary's miserable hovel, with the two hundred
+and fifty thousand francs I speak of,--good land, well worth the
+price. There are only nine days before us for drawing up and recording
+the notarial deeds (bear that in mind). With the addition of this
+land, des Lupeaulx's present miserable property would pay taxes to the
+amount of one thousand francs, the sum necessary to make a man
+eligible to the Chamber. Ergo, with it des Lupeaulx goes into the
+electoral college, becomes eligible, count, and whatever he pleases.
+You know the deputy who has slipped out and left a vacancy, don't
+you?"
+
+The two misers nodded.
+
+"Des Lupeaulx would cut off a leg to get elected in his place,"
+continued Mitral; "but he must have the title-deeds of the property in
+his own name, and then mortgage them back to us for the amount of the
+purchase-money. Ah! now you begin to see what I am after! First of
+all, we must make sure of Baudoyer's appointment, and des Lupeaulx
+will get it for us on these terms; after that is settled we will hand
+him back to you. Falleix is now canvassing the electoral vote. Don't
+you perceive that you have Lupeaulx completely in your power until
+after the election?--for Falleix's friends are a large majority. Now
+do you see what I mean, papa Gigonnet?"
+
+"It's a clever game," said Metivier.
+
+"We'll do it," said Gigonnet; "you agree, don't you, Gobseck? Falleix
+can give us security and put mortgages on the property in my name;
+we'll go and see des Lupeaulx when all is ready."
+
+"We're robbed," said Gobseck.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Mitral, "I'd like to know the robber!"
+
+"Nobody can rob us but ourselves," answered Gigonnet. "I told you we
+were doing a good thing in buying up all des Lupeaulx's paper from his
+creditors at sixty per cent discount."
+
+"Take this mortgage on his estate and you'll hold him tighter still
+through the interest," answered Mitral.
+
+"Possibly," said Gobseck.
+
+After exchanging a shrewd look with Gobseck, Gigonnet went to the door
+of the cafe.
+
+"Elisabeth! follow it up, my dear," he said to his niece. "We hold
+your man securely; but don't neglect accessories. You have begun well,
+clever woman! go on as you began and you'll have your uncle's esteem,"
+and he grasped her hand, gayly.
+
+"But," said Mitral, "Metivier and Chaboisseau heard it all, and they
+may play us a trick and tell the matter to some opposition journal
+which would catch the ball on its way and counteract the effect of the
+ministerial article. You must go alone, my dear; I dare not let those
+two cormorants out of my sight." So saying he re-entered the cafe.
+
+The next day the numerous subscribers to a certain liberal journal
+read, among the Paris items, the following article, inserted
+authoritatively by Chaboisseau and Metivier, share-holders in the said
+journal, brokers for publishers, printers, and paper-makers, whose
+behests no editor dared refuse:--
+
+  "Yesterday a ministerial journal plainly indicated as the probable
+  successor of Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere, Monsieur
+  Baudoyer, one of the worthiest citizens of a populous quarter,
+  where his benevolence is scarcely less known than the piety on
+  which the ministerial organ laid so much stress. Why was that
+  sheet silent as to his talents? Did it reflect that in boasting of
+  the bourgeoise nobility of Monsieur Baudoyer--which, certainly, is
+  a nobility as good as any other--it was pointing out a reason for
+  the exclusion of the candidate? A gratuitous piece of perfidy! an
+  attempt to kill with a caress! To appoint Monsieur Baudoyer is to
+  do honor to the virtues, the talents of the middle classes, of
+  whom we shall ever be the supporters, though their cause seems at
+  times a lost one. This appointment, we repeat, will be an act of
+  justice and good policy; consequently we may be sure it will not
+  be made."
+
+On the morrow, Friday, the usual day for the dinner given by Madame
+Rabourdin, whom des Lupeaulx had left at midnight, radiant in beauty,
+on the staircase of the Bouffons, arm in arm with Madame de Camps
+(Madame Firmiani had lately married), the old roue awoke with his
+thoughts of vengeance calmed, or rather refreshed, and his mind full
+of a last glance exchanged with Celestine.
+
+"I'll make sure of Rabourdin's support by forgiving him now,--I'll get
+even with him later. If he hasn't this place for the time being I
+should have to give up a woman who is capable of becoming a most
+precious instrument in the pursuit of high political fortune. She
+understands everything; shrinks from nothing, from no idea whatever!
+--and besides, I can't know before his Excellency what new scheme of
+administration Rabourdin has invented. No, my dear des Lupeaulx, the
+thing in hand is to win all now for your Celestine. You may make as
+many faces as you please, Madame la comtesse, but you will invite
+Madame Rabourdin to your next select party."
+
+Des Lupeaulx was one of those men who to satisfy a passion are quite
+able to put away revenge in some dark corner of their minds. His
+course was taken; he was resolved to get Rabourdin appointed.
+
+"I will prove to you, my dear fellow, that I deserve a good place in
+your galley," thought he as he seated himself in his study and began
+to unfold a newspaper.
+
+He knew so well what the ministerial organ would contain that he
+rarely took the trouble to read it, but on this occasion he did open
+it to look at the article on La Billardiere, recollecting with
+amusement the dilemma in which du Bruel had put him by bringing him
+the night before Bixiou's amendments to the obituary. He was laughing
+to himself as he reread the biography of the late Comte da Fontaine,
+dead a few months earlier, which he had hastily substituted for that
+of La Billardiere, when his eyes were dazzled by the name of Baudoyer.
+He read with fury the article which pledged the minister, and then he
+rang violently for Dutocq, to send him at once to the editor. But what
+was his astonishment on reading the reply of the opposition paper! The
+situation was evidently serious. He knew the game, and he saw that the
+man who was shuffling his cards for him was a Greek of the first
+order. To dictate in this way through two opposing newspapers in one
+evening, and to begin the fight by forestalling the intentions of the
+minister was a daring game! He recognized the pen of a liberal editor,
+and resolved to question him that night at the opera. Dutocq appeared.
+
+"Read that," said des Lupeaulx, handing him over the two journals, and
+continuing to run his eye over others to see if Baudoyer had pulled
+any further wires. "Go to the office and ask who has dared to thus
+compromise the minister."
+
+"It was not Monsieur Baudoyer himself," answered Dutocq, "for he never
+left the ministry yesterday. I need not go and inquire; for when I
+took your article to the newspaper office I met a young abbe who
+brought in a letter from the Grand Almoner, before which you yourself
+would have had to bow."
+
+"Dutocq, you have a grudge against Monsieur Rabourdin, and it isn't
+right; for he has twice saved you from being turned out. However, we
+are not masters of our own feelings; we sometimes hate our
+benefactors. Only, remember this; if you show the slightest treachery
+to Rabourdin, without my permission, it will be your ruin. As to that
+newspaper, let the Grand Almoner subscribe as largely as we do, if he
+wants its services. Here we are at the end of the year; the matter of
+subscriptions will come up for discussion, and I shall have something
+to say on that head. As to La Billardiere's place, there is only one
+way to settle the matter; and that is to appoint Rabourdin this very
+day."
+
+"Gentlemen," said Dutocq, returning to the clerks' office and
+addressing his colleagues. "I don't know if Bixiou has the art of
+looking into futurity, but if you have not read the ministerial
+journal I advise you to study the article about Baudoyer; then, as
+Monsieur Fleury takes the opposition sheet, you can see the reply.
+Monsieur Rabourdin certainly has talent, but a man who in these days
+gives a six-thousand-franc monstrance to the Church has a devilish
+deal more talent than he."
+
+Bixiou [entering]. "What say you, gentlemen, to the First Epistle to
+the Corinthians in our pious ministerial journal, and the reply
+Epistle to the Ministers in the opposition sheet? How does Monsieur
+Rabourdin feel now, du Bruel?"
+
+Du Bruel [rushing in]. "I don't know." [He drags Bixiou back into his
+cabinet, and says in a low voice] "My good fellow, your way of helping
+people is like that of the hangman who jumps upon a victim's shoulders
+to break his neck. You got me into a scrape with des Lupeaulx, which
+my folly in ever trusting you richly deserved. A fine thing indeed,
+that article on La Billardiere. I sha'n't forget the trick! Why, the
+very first sentence was as good as telling the King he was
+superannuated and it was time for him to die. And as to that Quiberon
+bit, it said plainly that the King was a-- What a fool I was!"
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "Bless my heart! are you getting angry? Can't a
+fellow joke any more?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Joke! joke indeed. When you want to be made head-clerk
+somebody shall joke with you, my dear fellow."
+
+Bixiou [in a bullying tone]. "Angry, are we?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Yes!"
+
+Bixiou [dryly]. "So much the worse for you."
+
+Du Bruel [uneasy]. "You wouldn't pardon such a thing yourself, I
+know."
+
+Bixiou [in a wheedling tone]. "To a friend? indeed I would." [They
+hear Fleury's voice.] "There's Fleury cursing Baudoyer. Hey, how well
+the thing has been managed! Baudoyer will get the appointment."
+[Confidentially] "After all, so much the better. Du Bruel, just keep
+your eye on the consequences. Rabourdin would be a mean-spirited
+creature to stay under Baudoyer; he will send in his registration, and
+that will give us two places. You can be head of the bureau and take
+me for under-head-clerk. We will make vaudevilles together, and I'll
+fag at your work in the office."
+
+Du Bruel [smiling]. "Dear me, I never thought of that. Poor Rabourdin!
+I shall be sorry for him, though."
+
+Bixiou. "That shows how much you love him!" [Changing his tone] "Ah,
+well, I don't pity him any longer. He's rich; his wife gives parties
+and doesn't ask me,--me, who go everywhere! Well, good-bye, my dear
+fellow, good-bye, and don't owe me a grudge!" [He goes out through the
+clerks' office.] "Adieu, gentlemen; didn't I tell you yesterday that a
+man who has nothing but virtues and talents will always be poor, even
+though he has a pretty wife?"
+
+Henry. "You are so rich, you!"
+
+Bixiou. "Not bad, my Cincinnatus! But you'll give me that dinner at
+the Rocher de Cancale."
+
+Poiret. "It is absolutely impossible for me to understand Monsieur
+Bixiou."
+
+Phellion [with an elegaic air]. "Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom reads
+the newspapers that it might perhaps be serviceable to deprive
+ourselves momentarily by taking them in to him." [Fleury hands over
+his paper, Vimeux the office sheet, and Phellion departs with them.]
+
+At that moment des Lupeaulx, coming leisurely downstairs to breakfast
+with the minister, was asking himself whether, before playing a trump
+card for the husband, it might not be prudent to probe the wife's
+heart and make sure of a reward for his devotion. He was feeling about
+for the small amount of heart that he possessed, when, at a turn of
+the staircase, he encountered his lawyer, who said to him, smiling,
+"Just a word, Monseigneur," in the tone of familiarity assumed by men
+who know they are indispensable.
+
+"What is it, my dear Desroches?" exclaimed the politician. "Has
+anything happened?"
+
+"I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been
+brought up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain
+Samanon."
+
+"Men whom I helped to make their millions!"
+
+"Listen," whispered the lawyer. "Gigonnet (really named Bidault) is
+the uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is father-in-law to
+a certain Baudoyer, who thinks he has a right to the vacant place in
+your ministry. Don't you think I have done right to come and tell
+you?"
+
+"Thank you," said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a shrewd
+look.
+
+"One stroke of your pen will buy them off," said Desroches, leaving
+him.
+
+"What an immense sacrifice!" muttered des Lupeaulx. "It would be
+impossible to explain it to a woman," thought he. "Is Celestine worth
+more than the clearing off of my debts?--that is the question. I'll go
+and see her this morning."
+
+So the beautiful Madame Rabourdin was to be, within an hour, the
+arbiter of her husband's fate, and no power on earth could warn her of
+the importance of her replies, or give her the least hint to guard her
+conduct and compose her voice. Moreover, in addition to her
+mischances, she believed herself certain of success, never dreaming
+that Rabourdin was undermined in all directions by the secret sapping
+of the mollusks.
+
+"Well, Monseigneur," said des Lupeaulx, entering the little salon
+where they breakfasted, "have you seen the articles on Baudoyer?"
+
+"For God's sake, my dear friend," replied the minister, "don't talk of
+those appointments just now; let me have an hour's peace! They cracked
+my ears last night with that monstrance. The only way to save
+Rabourdin is to bring his appointment before the Council, unless I
+submit to having my hand forced. It is enough to disgust a man with
+the public service. I must purchase the right to keep that excellent
+Rabourdin by promoting a certain Colleville!"
+
+"Why not make over the management of this pretty little comedy to me,
+and rid yourself of the worry of it? I'll amuse you every morning with
+an account of the game of chess I should play with the Grand Almoner,"
+said des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Very good," said the minister, "settle it with the head examiner. But
+you know perfectly well that nothing is more likely to strike the
+king's mind than just those reasons the opposition journal has chosen
+to put forth. Good heavens! fancy managing a ministry with such men as
+Baudoyer under me!"
+
+"An imbecile bigot," said des Lupeaulx, "and as utterly incapable
+as--"
+
+"--as La Billardiere," added the minister.
+
+"But La Billardiere had the manners of a gentleman-in-ordinary,"
+replied des Lupeaulx. "Madame," he continued, addressing the countess,
+"it is now an absolute necessity to invite Madame Rabourdin to your
+next private party. I must assure you she is the intimate friend of
+Madame de Camps; they were at the Opera together last night. I first
+met her at the hotel Firmiani. Besides, you will see that she is not
+of a kind to compromise a salon."
+
+"Invite Madame Rabourdin, my dear," said the minister, "and pray let
+us talk of something else."
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VII
+
+                     SCENES FROM DOMESTIC LIFE
+
+Parisian households are literally eaten up with the desire to be in
+keeping with the luxury that surrounds them on all sides, and few
+there are who have the wisdom to let their external situation conform
+to their internal revenue. But this vice may perhaps denote a truly
+French patriotism, which seeks to maintain the supremacy of the nation
+in the matter of dress. France reigns through clothes over the whole
+of Europe; and every one must feel the importance of retaining a
+commercial sceptre that makes fashion in France what the navy is to
+England. This patriotic ardor which leads a nation to sacrifice
+everything to appearances--to the "paroistre," as d'Aubigne said in
+the days of Henri IV.--is the cause of those vast secret labors which
+employ the whole of a Parisian woman's morning, when she wishes, as
+Madame Rabourdin wished, to keep up on twelve thousand francs a year
+the style that many a family with thirty thousand does not indulge in.
+Consequently, every Friday,--the day of her dinner parties,--Madame
+Rabourdin helped the chambermaid to do the rooms; for the cook went
+early to market, and the man-servant was cleaning the silver, folding
+the napkins, and polishing the glasses. The ill-advised individual who
+might happen, through an oversight of the porter, to enter Madame
+Rabourdin's establishment about eleven o'clock in the morning would
+have found her in the midst of a disorder the reverse of picturesque,
+wrapped in a dressing-gown, her hair ill-dressed, and her feet in old
+slippers, attending to the lamps, arranging the flowers, or cooking in
+haste an extremely unpoetic breakfast. The visitor to whom the
+mysteries of Parisian life were unknown would certainly have learned
+for the rest of his life not to set foot in these greenrooms at the
+wrong moment; a woman caught in her matin mysteries would ever after
+point him out as a man capable of the blackest crimes; or she would
+talk of his stupidity and indiscretion in a manner to ruin him. The
+true Parisian woman, indulgent to all curiosity that she can put to
+profit, is implacable to that which makes her lose her prestige. Such
+a domiciliary invasion may be called, not only (as they say in police
+reports) an attack on privacy, but a burglary, a robbery of all that
+is most precious, namely, CREDIT. A woman is quite willing to let
+herself be surprised half-dressed, with her hair about her shoulders.
+If her hair is all her own she scores one; but she will never allow
+herself to be seen "doing" her own rooms, or she loses her pariostre,
+--that precious /seeming-to-be/!
+
+Madame Rabourdin was in full tide of preparation for her Friday
+dinner, standing in the midst of provisions the cook had just fished
+from the vast ocean of the markets, when Monsieur des Lupeaulx made
+his way stealthily in. The general-secretary was certainly the last
+man Madame Rabourdin expected to see, and so, when she heard his
+boots creaking in the ante-chamber, she exclaimed, impatiently, "The
+hair-dresser already!"--an exclamation as little agreeable to des
+Lupeaulx as the sight of des Lupeaulx was agreeable to her. She
+immediately escaped into her bedroom, where chaos reigned; a jumble of
+furniture to be put out of sight, with other heterogeneous articles of
+more or rather less elegance,--a domestic carnival, in short. The bold
+des Lupeaulx followed the handsome figure, so piquant did she seem to
+him in her dishabille. There is something indescribably alluring to the
+eye in a portion of flesh seen through an hiatus in the undergarment,
+more attractive far than when it rises gracefully above the circular
+curve of the velvet bodice, to the vanishing line of the prettiest
+swan's-neck that ever lover kissed before a ball. When the eye dwells
+on a woman in full dress making exhibition of her magnificent white
+shoulders, do we not fancy that we see the elegant dessert of a grand
+dinner? But the glance that glides through the disarray of muslins
+rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it were, a feast of stolen fruit glowing
+between the leaves on a garden wall.
+
+"Stop! wait!" cried the pretty Parisian, bolting the door of the
+disordered room.
+
+She rang for Therese, called for her daughter, the cook, and the
+man-servant, wishing she possessed the whistle of the machinist at
+the Opera. Her call, however, answered the same purpose. In a moment,
+another phenomenon! the salon assumed a piquant morning look, quite in
+keeping with the becoming toilet hastily got together by the fugitive;
+we say it to her glory, for she was evidently a clever woman, in this
+at least.
+
+"You!" she said, coming forward, "at this hour? What has happened?"
+
+"Very serious things," answered des Lupeaulx. "You and I must
+understand each other now."
+
+Celestine looked at the man behind his glasses, and understood the
+matter.
+
+"My principle vice," she said, "is oddity. For instance, I do not mix
+up affections with politics; let us talk politics,--business, if you
+will,--the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor a
+whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together
+things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; it is
+my natural instinct as an artist. We women have politics of our own."
+
+Already the tones of her voice and the charm of her manners were
+producing their effect on the secretary and metamorphosing his
+roughness into sentimental courtesy; she had recalled him to his
+obligations as a lover. A clever pretty woman makes an atmosphere
+about her in which the nerves relax and the feelings soften.
+
+"You are ignorant of what is happening," said des Lupeaulx, harshly,
+for he still thought it best to make a show of harshness. "Read that."
+
+He gave the two newspapers to the graceful woman, having drawn a line
+in red ink round each of the famous articles.
+
+"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "but this is dreadful! Who is this
+Baudoyer?"
+
+"A donkey," answered des Lupeaulx; "but, as you see, he uses means,
+--he gives monstrances; he succeeds, thanks to some clever hand that
+pulls the wires."
+
+The thought of her debts crossed Madame Rabourdin's mind and blurred
+her sight, as if two lightning flashes had blinded her eyes at the
+same moment; her ears hummed under the pressure of the blood that
+began to beat in her arteries; she remained for a moment quite
+bewildered, gazing at a window which she did not see.
+
+"But are you faithful to us?" she said at last, with a winning glance
+at des Lupeaulx, as if to attach him to her.
+
+"That is as it may be," he replied, answering her glance with an
+interrogative look which made the poor woman blush.
+
+"If you demand caution-money you may lose all," she said, laughing; "I
+thought you more magnanimous than you are. And you, you thought me
+less a person than I am,--a sort of school-girl."
+
+"You have misunderstood me," he said, with a covert smile; "I meant
+that I could not assist a man who plays against me just as l'Etourdi
+played against Mascarille."
+
+"What can you mean?"
+
+"This will prove to you whether I am magnanimous or not."
+
+He gave Madame Rabourdin the memorandum stolen by Dutocq, pointing out
+to her the passage in which her husband had so ably analyzed him.
+
+"Read that."
+
+Celestine recognized the handwriting, read the paper, and turned pale
+under the blow.
+
+"All the ministries, the whole service is treated in the same way,"
+said des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Happily," she said, "you alone possess this document. I cannot
+explain it, even to myself."
+
+"The man who stole it is not such a fool as to let me have it without
+keeping a copy for himself; he is too great a liar to admit it, and
+too clever in his business to give it up. I did not even ask him for
+it."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"Your chief clerk."
+
+"Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses! But,"
+she added, "he is only a dog who wants a bone."
+
+"Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a
+general-secretary?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,--you will despise me
+because it isn't more, but here, I grant you, I am significant. Well,
+Baudoyer's uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to
+give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed."
+
+"But all that is monstrous."
+
+"Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand Almoner is
+concerned in it. Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in return
+for ecclesiastical assistance."
+
+"What shall you do?"
+
+"What will you bid me do?" he said, with charming grace, holding out
+his hand.
+
+Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and chilling
+as a hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and offensive,
+but she did not give him her hand. At night, in her salon, she would
+have let him take it a hundred times, but here, alone and in the
+morning, the action seemed too like a promise that might lead her far.
+
+"And they say that statesmen have no hearts!" she cried
+enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under
+the grace of her words. "The thought used to terrify me," she added,
+assuming an innocent, ingenuous air.
+
+"What a calumny!" cried des Lupeaulx. "Only this week one of the
+stiffest of diplomatists, a man who has been in the service ever since
+he came to manhood, has married the daughter of an actress, and has
+introduced her at the most iron-bound court in Europe as to
+quarterings of nobility."
+
+"You will continue to support us?"
+
+"I am to draw up your husband's appointment-- But no cheating,
+remember."
+
+She gave him her hand to kiss, and tapped him on the cheek as she did
+so. "You are mine!" she said.
+
+Des Lupeaulx admired the expression.
+
+[That night, at the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as
+follows: "A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,
+--an acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,
+--changed the words into 'You are mine.' Don't you think the evasion
+charming?"]
+
+"But you must be my ally," he answered. "Now listen, your husband has
+spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the administration;
+the paper I have shown you is a part of that plan. I want to know what
+it is. Find out, and tell me to-night."
+
+"I will," she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature of the
+errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.
+
+"Madame, the hair-dresser."
+
+"At last!" thought Celestine. "I don't see how I should have got out
+of it if he had delayed much longer."
+
+"You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go," said des
+Lupeaulx, rising. "You shall be invited to the first select party
+given by his Excellency's wife."
+
+"Ah, you are an angel!" she cried. "And I see now how much you love
+me; you love me intelligently."
+
+"To-night, dear child," he said, "I shall find out at the Opera what
+journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure swords
+together."
+
+"Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not? I have taken pains to
+get the things you like best--"
+
+"All that is so like love," said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went
+downstairs, "that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a long
+time. Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I'll set the
+cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and
+I'll read her heart. Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after all,
+women are just what we men are. Twenty-eight years old, virtuous, and
+living here in the rue Duphot!--a rare piece of luck and worth
+cultivating," thought the elderly butterfly as he fluttered down the
+staircase.
+
+"Good heavens! that man, without his glasses, must look funny enough
+in a dressing-gown!" thought Celestine, "but the harpoon is in his
+back and he'll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of that
+invitation. He has played his part in my comedy."
+
+When, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to dress
+for dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid before
+him the fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the Arabian
+Nights, the luckless man was fated to meet at every turn.
+
+"Who gave you that?" he asked, thunderstruck.
+
+"Monsieur des Lupeaulx."
+
+"So he has been here!" cried Rabourdin, with a look which would
+certainly have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which Celestine
+received with unruffled brow and a laughing eye.
+
+"And he is coming back to dinner," she said. "Why that startled air?"
+
+"My dear," replied Rabourdin, "I have mortally offended des Lupeaulx;
+such men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me! Do you think I don't
+see why?"
+
+"The man seems to me," she said, "to have good taste; you can't expect
+me to blame him. I really don't know anything more flattering to a
+woman than to please a worn-out palate. After--"
+
+"A truce to nonsense, Celestine. Spare a much-tried man. I cannot get
+an audience of the minister, and my honor is at stake."
+
+"Good heavens, no! Dutocq can have the promise of a good place as soon
+as you are named head of the division."
+
+"Ah! I see what you are about, dear child," said Rabourdin; "but the
+game you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing that is
+going on around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman--"
+
+"Let me use the weapons employed against us."
+
+"Celestine, the more that man des Lupeaulx feels he is foolishly
+caught in a trap, the more bitter he will be against me."
+
+"What if I get him dismissed altogether?"
+
+Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.
+
+"I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my poor
+husband," continued Celestine. "But you are mistaking the dog for the
+game," she added, after a pause. "In a few days des Lupeaulx will have
+accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to speak to
+the minister, and before you can even see him on business, I shall
+have seen him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to bring
+that plan of your brain to birth,--a plan which you have been hiding
+from me; but you will find that in three months your wife has
+accomplished more than you have done in six years. Come, tell me this
+fine scheme of yours."
+
+Rabourdin, continuing to shave, cautioned his wife not to say a word
+about his work, and after assuring her that to confide a single idea
+to des Lupeaulx would be to put the cat near the milk-jug, he began an
+explanation of his labors.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me this before, Rabourdin?" said Celestine,
+cutting her husband short at his fifth sentence. "You might have saved
+yourself a world of trouble. I can understand that a man should be
+blinded by an idea for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or seven
+years, that's a thing I cannot comprehend! You want to reduce the
+budget,--a vulgar and commonplace idea! The budget ought, on the
+contrary, to reach two hundred millions. Then, indeed, France would be
+great. If you want a new system let it be one of loans, as Monsieur de
+Nucingen keeps saying. The poorest of all treasuries is the one with a
+surplus that it never uses; the mission of a minister of finance is to
+fling gold out of the windows. It will come back to him through the
+cellars; and you, you want to hoard it! The thing to do is to increase
+the offices and all government employments, instead of reducing them!
+So far from lessening the public debt, you ought to increase the
+creditors. If the Bourbons want to reign in peace, let them seek
+creditors in the towns and villages, and place their loans there;
+above all, they ought not to let foreigners draw interest away from
+France; some day an alien nation might ask us for the capital. Whereas
+if capital and interest are held only in France, neither France nor
+credit can perish. That's what saved England. Your plan is the
+tradesman's plan. An ambitious public man should produce some bold
+scheme,--he should make himself another Law, without Law's fatal
+ill-luck; he ought to exhibit the power of credit, and show that we
+should reduce, not principal, but interest, as they do in England."
+
+"Come, come, Celestine," said Rabourdin; "mix up ideas as much as you
+please, and make fun of them,--I'm accustomed to that; but don't
+criticise a work of which you know nothing as yet."
+
+"Do I need," she asked, "to know a scheme the essence of which is to
+govern France with a civil service of six thousand men instead of
+twenty thousand? My dear friend, even allowing it were the plan of a
+man of genius, a king of France who attempted to carry it out would
+get himself dethroned. You can keep down a feudal aristocracy by
+levelling a few heads, but you can't subdue a hydra with thousands.
+And is it with the present ministers--between ourselves, a wretched
+crew--that you expect to carry out your reform? No, no; change the
+monetary system if you will, but do not meddle with men, with little
+men; they cry out too much, whereas gold is dumb."
+
+"But, Celestine, if you will talk, and put wit before argument, we
+shall never understand each other."
+
+"Understand! I understand what that paper, in which you have analyzed
+the capacities of the men in office, will lead to," she replied,
+paying no attention to what her husband said. "Good heavens! you have
+sharpened the axe to cut off your own head. Holy Virgin! why didn't
+you consult me? I could have at least prevented you from committing
+anything to writing, or, at any rate, if you insisted on putting it to
+paper, I would have written it down myself, and it should never have
+left this house. Good God! to think that he never told me! That's what
+men are! capable of sleeping with the wife of their bosom for seven
+years, and keeping a secret from her! Hiding their thoughts from a
+poor woman for seven years!--doubting her devotion!"
+
+"But," cried Rabourdin, provoked, "for eleven years and more I have
+been unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on cutting
+me short and substituting your ideas for mine. You know nothing at all
+about my scheme."
+
+"Nothing! I know all."
+
+"Then tell it to me!" cried Rabourdin, angry for the first time since
+his marriage.
+
+"There! it is half-past six o'clock; finish shaving and dress at
+once," she cried hastily, after the fashion of women when pressed on a
+point they are not ready to talk of. "I must go; we'll adjourn the
+discussion, for I don't want to be nervous on a reception-day. Good
+heavens! the poor soul!" she thought, as she left the room, "it /is/
+hard to be in labor for seven years and bring forth a dead child! And
+not trust his wife!"
+
+She went back into the room.
+
+"If you had listened to me you would never had interceded to keep your
+chief clerk; he stole that abominable paper, and has, no doubt, kept a
+fac-simile of it. Adieu, man of genius!"
+
+Then she noticed the almost tragic expression of her husband's grief;
+she felt she had gone too far, and ran to him, seized him just as he
+was, all lathered with soap-suds, and kissed him tenderly.
+
+"Dear Xavier, don't be vexed," she said. "To-night, after the people
+are gone, we will study your plan; you shall speak at your ease,--I
+will listen just as long as you wish me to. Isn't that nice of me?
+What do I want better than to be the wife of Mohammed?"
+
+She began to laugh; and Rabourdin laughed too, for the soapsuds were
+clinging to Celestine's lips, and her voice had the tones of the
+purest and most steadfast affection.
+
+"Go and dress, dear child; and above all, don't say a word of this to
+des Lupeaulx. Swear you will not. That is the only punishment that I
+impose--"
+
+"/Impose/!" she cried. "Then I won't swear anything."
+
+"Come, come, Celestine, I said in jest a really serious thing."
+
+"To-night," she said, "I mean your general-secretary to know whom I am
+really intending to attack; he has given me the means."
+
+"Attack whom?"
+
+"The minister," she answered, drawing himself up. "We are to be
+invited to his wife's private parties."
+
+In spite of his Celestine's loving caresses, Rabourdin, as he finished
+dressing, could not prevent certain painful thoughts from clouding his
+brow.
+
+"Will she ever appreciate me?" he said to himself. "She does not
+even understand that she is the sole incentive of my whole work. How
+wrong-headed, and yet how excellent a mind!--If I had not married I
+might now have been high in office and rich. I could have saved half
+my salary; my savings well-invested would have given me to-day ten
+thousand francs a year outside of my office, and I might then have
+become, through a good marriage-- Yes, that is all true," he
+exclaimed, interrupting himself, "but I have Celestine and my two
+children." The man flung himself back on his happiness. To the best of
+married lives there come moments of regret. He entered the salon and
+looked around him. "There are not two women in Paris who understand
+making life pleasant as she does. To keep such a home as this on
+twelve thousand francs a year!" he thought, looking at the
+flower-stands bright with bloom, and thinking of the social enjoyments
+that were about to gratify his vanity. "She was made to be the wife of
+a minister. When I think of his Excellency's wife, and how little she
+helps him! the good woman is a comfortable middle-class dowdy, and
+when she goes to the palace or into society--" He pinched his lips
+together. Very busy men are apt to have very ignorant notions about
+household matters, and you can make them believe that a hundred
+thousand francs afford little or that twelve thousand afford all.
+
+Though impatiently expected, and in spite of the flattering dishes
+prepared for the palate of the gourmet-emeritus, des Lupeaulx did not
+come to dinner; in fact he came in very late, about midnight, an hour
+when company dwindles and conversations become intimate and
+confidential. Andoche Finot, the journalist, was one of the few
+remaining guests.
+
+"I now know all," said des Lupeaulx, when he was comfortably seated on
+a sofa at the corner of the fireplace, a cup of tea in his hand and
+Madame Rabourdin standing before him with a plate of sandwiches and
+some slices of cake very appropriately called "leaden cake." "Finot,
+my dear and witty friend, you can render a great service to our
+gracious queen by letting loose a few dogs upon the men we were
+talking of. You have against you," he said to Rabourdin, lowering his
+voice so as to be heard only by the three persons whom he addressed,
+"a set of usurers and priests--money and the church. The article in
+the liberal journal was instituted by an old money-lender to whom the
+paper was under obligations; but the young fellow who wrote it cares
+nothing about it. The paper is about to change hands, and in three
+days more will be on our side. The royalist opposition,--for we have,
+thanks to Monsieur de Chateaubriand, a royalist opposition, that is to
+say, royalists who have gone over to the liberals,--however, there's
+no need to discuss political matters now,--these assassins of Charles
+X. have promised me to support your appointment at the price of our
+acquiescence in one of their amendments. All my batteries are manned.
+If they threaten us with Baudoyer we shall say to the clerical
+phalanx, 'Such and such a paper and such and such men will attack your
+measures and the whole press will be against you' (for even the
+ministerial journals which I influence will be deaf and dumb, won't
+they, Finot?). 'Appoint Rabourdin, a faithful servant, and public
+opinion is with you--'"
+
+"Hi, hi!" laughed Finot.
+
+"So, there's no need to be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx. "I have
+arranged it all to-night; the Grand Almoner must yield."
+
+"I would rather have had less hope, and you to dinner," whispered
+Celestine, looking at him with a vexed air which might very well pass
+for an expression of wounded love.
+
+"This must win my pardon," he returned, giving her an invitation to
+the ministry for the following Tuesday.
+
+Celestine opened the letter, and a flush of pleasure came into her
+face. No enjoyment can be compared to that of gratified vanity.
+
+"You know what the countess's Tuesdays are," said des Lupeaulx, with a
+confidential air. "To the usual ministerial parties they are what the
+'Petit-Chateau' is to a court ball. You will be at the heart of power!
+You will see there the Comtesse Feraud, who is still in favor
+notwithstanding Louis XVIII.'s death, Delphine de Nucingen, Madame de
+Listomere, the Marquise d'Espard, and your dear Firmiani; I have had
+her invited to give you her support in case the other women attempt to
+black-ball you. I long to see you in the midst of them."
+
+Celestine threw up her head like a thoroughbred before the race, and
+re-read the invitation just as Baudoyer and Saillard had re-read the
+articles about themselves in the newspapers, without being able to
+quaff enough of it.
+
+"/There/ first, and /next/ at the Tuileries," she said to des Lupeaulx,
+who was startled by the words and by the attitude of the speaker, so
+expressive were they of ambition and security.
+
+"Can it be that I am only a stepping-stone?" he asked himself. He
+rose, and went into Madame Rabourdin's bedroom, where she followed
+him, understanding from a motion of his head that he wished to speak
+to her privately.
+
+"Well, your husband's plan," he said; "what of it?"
+
+"Bah! the useless nonsense of an honest man!" she replied. "He wants
+to suppress fifteen thousand offices and do the work with five or six
+thousand. You never heard of such nonsense; I will let you read the
+whole document when copied; it is written in perfect good faith. His
+analysis of the officials was prompted only by his honesty and
+rectitude,--poor dear man!"
+
+Des Lupeaulx was all the more reassured by the genuine laugh which
+accompanied these jesting and contemptuous words, because he was a
+judge of lying and knew that Celestine spoke in good faith.
+
+"But still, what is at the bottom of it all?" he asked.
+
+"Well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and substitute taxes on
+consumption."
+
+"Why it is over a year since Francois Keller and Nucingen proposed
+some such plan, and the minister himself is thinking of a reduction of
+the land-tax."
+
+"There!" exclaimed Celestine, "I told him there was nothing new in his
+scheme."
+
+"No; but he is on the same ground with the best financier of the
+epoch,--the Napoleon of finance. Something may come of it. Your
+husband must surely have some special ideas in his method of putting
+the scheme into practice."
+
+"No, it is all commonplace," she said, with a disdainful curl of her
+lip. "Just think of governing France with five or six thousand
+offices, when what is really needed is that everybody in France should
+be personally enlisted in the support of the government."
+
+Des Lupeaulx seemed satisfied that Rabourdin, to whom in his own mind
+he had granted remarkable talents, was really a man of mediocrity.
+
+"Are you quite sure of the appointment? You don't want a bit of
+feminine advice?" she said.
+
+"You women are greater adepts than we in refined treachery," he said,
+nodding.
+
+"Well, then, say /Baudoyer/ to the court and clergy, to divert suspicion
+and put them to sleep, and then, at the last moment, write /Rabourdin/."
+
+"There are some women who say /yes/ as long as they need a man, and /no/
+when he has played his part," returned des Lupeaulx, significantly.
+
+"I know they do," she answered, laughing; "but they are very foolish,
+for in politics everything recommences. Such proceedings may do with
+fools, but you are a man of sense. In my opinion the greatest folly
+any one can commit is to quarrel with a clever man."
+
+"You are mistaken," said des Lupeaulx, "for such a man pardons. The
+real danger is with the petty spiteful natures who have nothing to do
+but study revenge,--I spend my life among them."
+
+When all the guests were gone, Rabourdin came into his wife's room,
+and after asking for her strict attention, he explained his plan and
+made her see that it did not cut down the revenue but on the contrary
+increased it; he showed her in what ways the public funds were
+employed, and how the State could increase tenfold the circulation of
+money by putting its own, in the proportion of a third, or a quarter,
+into the expenditures which would be sustained by private or local
+interests. He finally proved to her plainly that his plan was not mere
+theory, but a system teeming with methods of execution. Celestine,
+brightly enthusiastic, sprang into her husband's arms and sat upon his
+knee in the chimney-corner.
+
+"At last I find the husband of my dreams!" she cried. "My ignorance of
+your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx's claws. I calumniated
+you to him gloriously and in good faith."
+
+The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last. Having
+labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great
+man in the eyes of his sole public.
+
+"To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger,
+how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But," she added, "a man of
+genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly
+beloved child," she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation
+from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and
+showed it to him.
+
+"Here is what I wanted," she said; "Des Lupeaulx has put me face to
+face with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency
+shall be made for a time to bend the knee to me."
+
+The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the
+inner circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her own!
+Never courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman
+bestowed upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers.
+Madame Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where
+she hired carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor
+bourgeois, nor showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great houses,
+had the dress and appearance of a master. About ten on the evening of
+the eventful Tuesday, she left home in a charming full mourning
+attire. Her hair was dressed with jet grapes of exquisite workmanship,
+--an ornament costing three thousand francs, made by Fossin for an
+Englishwoman who had left Paris before it was finished. The leaves
+were of stamped iron-work, as light as the vine-leaves themselves, and
+the artist had not forgotten the graceful tendrils, which twined in
+the wearer's curls just as, in nature, they catch upon the branches.
+The bracelets, necklace, and earrings were all what is called Berlin
+iron-work; but these delicate arabesques were made in Vienna, and
+seemed to have been fashioned by the fairies who, the stories tell us,
+are condemned by a jealous Carabosse to collect the eyes of ants, or
+weave a fabric so diaphanous that a nutshell can contain it. Madame
+Rabourdin's graceful figure, made more slender still by the black
+draperies, was shown to advantage by a carefully cut dress, the two
+sides of which met at the shoulders in a single strap without sleeves.
+At every motion she seemed, like a butterfly, to be about to leave her
+covering; but the gown held firmly on by some contrivance of the
+wonderful dressmaker. The robe was of mousseline de laine--a material
+which the manufacturers had not yet sent to the Paris markets; a
+delightful stuff which some months later was to have a wild success, a
+success which went further and lasted longer than most French
+fashions. The actual economy of mousseline de laine, which needs no
+washing, has since injured the sale of cotton fabrics enough to
+revolutionize the Rouen manufactories. Celestine's little feet,
+covered with fine silk stockings and turk-satin shoes (for silk-satin
+is inadmissible in deep mourning) were of elegant proportions. Thus
+dressed, she was very handsome. Her complexion, beautified by a
+bran-bath, was softly radiant. Her eyes, suffused with the light of
+hope, and sparkling with intelligence, justified her claims to the
+superiority which des Lupeaulx, proud and happy on this occasion,
+asserted for her.
+
+She entered the room well (women will understand the meaning of that
+expression), bowed gracefully to the minister's wife, with a happy
+mixture of deference and of self-respect, and gave no offence by a
+certain reliance on her own dignity; for every beautiful woman has the
+right to seem a queen. With the minister himself she took the pretty
+air of sauciness which women may properly allow themselves with men,
+even when they are grand dukes. She reconnoitred the field, as it
+were, while taking her seat, and saw that she was in the midst of one
+of those select parties of few persons, where the women eye and
+appraise each other, and every word said echoes in all ears; where
+every glance is a stab, and conversation a duel with witnesses; where
+all that is commonplace seems commoner still, and where every form of
+merit or distinction is silently accepted as though it were the
+natural level of all present. Rabourdin betook himself to the
+adjoining salon in which a few persons were playing cards; and there
+he planted himself on exhibition, as it were, which proved that he was
+not without social intelligence.
+
+"My dear," said the Marquise d'Espard to the Comtesse Feraud,
+Louis XVIII.'s last mistress, "Paris is certainly unique. It
+produces--whence and how, who knows?--women like this person, who
+seems ready to will and to do anything."
+
+"She really does will, and does do everything," put in des Lupeaulx,
+puffed up with satisfaction.
+
+At this moment the wily Madame Rabourdin was courting the minister's
+wife. Carefully coached the evening before by des Lupeaulx, who knew
+all the countess's weak spots, she was flattering her without seeming
+to do so. Every now and then she kept silence; for des Lupeaulx, in
+love as he was, knew her defects, and said to her the night before,
+"Be careful not to talk too much,"--words which were really an immense
+proof of attachment. Bertrand Barrere left behind him this sublime
+axiom: "Never interrupt a woman when dancing to give her advice," to
+which we may add (to make this chapter of the female code complete),
+"Never blame a woman for scattering her pearls."
+
+The conversation became general. From time to time Madame Rabourdin
+joined in, just as a well-trained cat puts a velvet paw on her
+mistress's laces with the claws carefully drawn in. The minister, in
+matters of the heart, had few emotions. There was not another
+statesman under the Restoration who had so completely done with
+gallantry as he; even the opposition papers, the "Miroir," "Pandora,"
+and "Figaro," could not find a single throbbing artery with which to
+reproach him. Madame Rabourdin knew this, but she knew also that
+ghosts return to old castles, and she had taken it into her head to
+make the minister jealous of the happiness which des Lupeaulx was
+appearing to enjoy. The latter's throat literally gurgled with the
+name of his divinity. To launch his supposed mistress successfully, he
+was endeavoring to persuade the Marquise d'Espard, Madame de Nucingen,
+and the countess, in an eight-ear conversation, that they had better
+admit Madame Rabourdin to their coalition; and Madame de Camps was
+supporting him. At the end of the hour the minister's vanity was
+greatly tickled; Madame Rabourdin's cleverness pleased him, and she
+had won his wife, who, delighted with the siren, invited her to come
+to all her receptions whenever she pleased.
+
+"For your husband, my dear," she said, "will soon be director; the
+minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under one
+director; you will then be one of us, you know."
+
+His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show her a
+certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the opposition
+journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and together they
+laughed over the absurdities of journalism.
+
+"Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the pleasure of
+seeing you here often."
+
+And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.
+
+"But, Monseigneur," she replied, with one of those glances which women
+hold in reserve, "it seems to me that that depends on you."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You alone can give me the right to come here."
+
+"Pray explain."
+
+"No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not have
+the bad taste to seem a petitioner."
+
+"No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out of
+place," said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too silly to
+amuse a solemn man.
+
+"Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a
+bureau is out of place here; a director's wife is not."
+
+"That point need not be considered," said the minister, "your husband
+is indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed."
+
+"Is that a veritable fact?"
+
+"Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are already drawn
+up."
+
+"Then," she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the
+minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, "let me tell
+you that I can make you a return."
+
+She was on the point of revealing her husband's plan, when des
+Lupeaulx, who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry
+sound, which meant that he did not wish to appear to have overheard
+what, in fact, he had been listening to. The minister gave an
+ill-tempered look at the old beau, who, impatient to win his reward,
+had hurried, beyond all precedent, the preliminary work of the
+appointment. He had carried the papers to his Excellency that evening,
+and desired to take himself, on the morrow, the news of the
+appointment to her whom he was now endeavoring to exhibit as his
+mistress. Just then the minister's valet approached des Lupeaulx in a
+mysterious manner, and told him that his own servant wished him to
+deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost importance.
+
+The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:--
+
+
+   Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see
+   you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms
+   with
+
+Your obedient servant,
+Gobseck.
+
+
+The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we
+cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like
+to guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of
+signature. If ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it was
+assuredly this written name, in which the first and the final letter
+approached each other like the voracious jaws of a shark,--insatiable,
+always open, seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak. As for the
+wording of the note, the spirit of usury alone could have inspired a
+sentence so imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said all
+and revealed nothing. Those who had never heard of Gobseck would have
+felt, on reading words which compelled him to whom they were
+addressed to obey, yet gave no order, the presence of the implacable
+money-lender of the rue des Gres. Like a dog called to heel by the
+huntsman, des Lupeaulx left his present quest and went immediately to
+his own rooms, thinking of his hazardous position. Imagine a general
+to whom an aide-de-camp rides up and says: "The enemy with thirty
+thousand fresh troops is attacking on our right flank."
+
+A very few words will serve to explain this sudden arrival of Gigonnet
+and Gobseck on the field of battle,--for des Lupeaulx found them both
+waiting. At eight o'clock that evening, Martin Falleix, returning on
+the wings of the wind,--thanks to three francs to the postboys and a
+courier in advance,--had brought back with him the deeds of the
+property signed the night before. Taken at once to the Cafe Themis by
+Mitral, these securities passed into the hands of the two usurers, who
+hastened (though on foot) to the ministry. It was past eleven o'clock.
+Des Lupeaulx trembled when he saw those sinister faces, emitting a
+simultaneous look as direct as a pistol shot and as brilliant as the
+flash itself.
+
+"What is it, my masters?" he said.
+
+The two extortioners continued cold and motionless. Gigonnet silently
+pointed to the documents in his hand, and then at the servant.
+
+"Come into my study," said des Lupeaulx, dismissing his valet by a
+sign.
+
+"You understand French very well," remarked Gigonnet, approvingly.
+
+"Have you come here to torment a man who enabled each of you to make a
+couple of hundred thousand francs?"
+
+"And who will help us to make more, I hope," said Gigonnet.
+
+"Some new affair?" asked des Lupeaulx. "If you want me to help you,
+consider that I recollect the past."
+
+"So do we," answered Gigonnet.
+
+"My debts must be paid," said des Lupeaulx, disdainfully, so as not to
+seem worsted at the outset.
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"Let us come to the point, my son," said Gigonnet. "Don't stiffen your
+chin in your cravat; with us all that is useless. Take these deeds and
+read them."
+
+The two usurers took a mental inventory of des Lupeaulx's study while
+he read with amazement and stupefaction a deed of purchase which
+seemed wafted to him from the clouds by angels.
+
+"Don't you think you have a pair of intelligent business agents in
+Gobseck and me?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+"But tell me, to what do I owe such able co-operation?" said des
+Lupeaulx, suspicious and uneasy.
+
+"We knew eight days ago a fact that without us you would not have
+known till to-morrow morning. The president of the chamber of
+commerce, a deputy, as you know, feels himself obliged to resign."
+
+Des Lupeaulx's eyes dilated, and were as big as daisies.
+
+"Your minister has been tricking you about this event," said the
+concise Gobseck.
+
+"You master me," said the general-secretary, bowing with an air of
+profound respect, bordering however, on sarcasm.
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"Can you mean to strangle me?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Well, then, begin your work, executioners," said the secretary,
+smiling.
+
+"You will see," resumed Gigonnet, "that the sum total of your debts is
+added to the sum loaned by us for the purchase of the property; we
+have bought them up."
+
+"Here are the deeds," said Gobseck, taking from the pocket of his
+greenish overcoat a number of legal papers.
+
+"You have three years in which to pay off the whole sum," said
+Gigonnet.
+
+"But," said des Lupeaulx, frightened at such kindness, and also by so
+apparently fantastic an arrangement. "What do you want of me?"
+
+"La Billardiere's place for Baudoyer," said Gigonnet, quickly.
+
+"That's a small matter, though it will be next to impossible for me to
+do it," said des Lupeaulx. "I have just tied my hands."
+
+"Bite the cords with your teeth," said Gigonnet.
+
+"They are sharp," added Gobseck.
+
+"Is that all?" asked des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We keep the title-deeds of the property till the debts are paid,"
+said Gigonnet, putting one of the papers before des Lupeaulx; "and if
+the matter of the appointment is not satisfactorily arranged within
+six days our names will be substituted in place of yours."
+
+"You are deep," cried the secretary.
+
+"Exactly," said Gobseck.
+
+"And this is all?" exclaimed des Lupeaulx.
+
+"All," said Gobseck.
+
+"You agree?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+Des Lupeaulx nodded his head.
+
+"Well, then, sign this power of attorney. Within two days Baudoyer is
+to be nominated; within six your debts will be cleared off, and--"
+
+"And what?" asked des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We guarantee--"
+
+"Guarantee!--what?" said the secretary, more and more astonished.
+
+"Your election to the Chamber," said Gigonnet, rising on his heels.
+"We have secured a majority of fifty-two farmers' and mechanics'
+votes, which will be thrown precisely as those who lend you this money
+dictate."
+
+Des Lupeaulx wrung Gigonnet's hand.
+
+"It is only such as we who never misunderstand each other," he said;
+"this is what I call doing business. I'll make you a return gift."
+
+"Right," said Gobseck.
+
+"What is it?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+"The cross of the Legion of honor for your imbecile of a nephew."
+
+"Good," said Gigonnet, "I see you know him well."
+
+The pair took leave of des Lupeaulx, who conducted them to the
+staircase.
+
+"They must be secret envoys from foreign powers," whispered the
+footmen to each other.
+
+Once in the street, the two usurers looked at each other under a
+street lamp and laughed.
+
+"He will owe us nine thousand francs interest a year," said Gigonnet;
+"that property doesn't bring him in five."
+
+"He is under our thumb for a long time," said Gobseck.
+
+"He'll build; he'll commit extravagancies," continued Gigonnet;
+"Falleix will get his land."
+
+"His interest is only to be made deputy; the old fox laughs at the
+rest," said Gobseck.
+
+"Hey! hey!"
+
+"Hi! hi!"
+
+These dry little exclamations served as a laugh to the two old men,
+who took their way back (always on foot) to the Cafe Themis.
+
+Des Lupeaulx returned to the salon and found Madame Rabourdin sailing
+with the wind of success, and very charming; while his Excellency,
+usually so gloomy, showed a smooth and gracious countenance.
+
+"She performs miracles," thought des Lupeaulx. "What a wonderfully
+clever woman! I must get to the bottom of her heart."
+
+"Your little lady is decidedly handsome," said the Marquise to the
+secretary; "now if she only had your name."
+
+"Yes, her defect is that she is the daughter of an auctioneer. She
+will fail for want of birth," replied des Lupeaulx, with a cold manner
+that contrasted strangely with the ardor of his remarks about Madame
+Rabourdin not half an hour earlier.
+
+The marquise looked at him fixedly.
+
+"The glance you gave them did not escape me," she said, motioning
+towards the minister and Madame Rabourdin; "it pierced the mask of
+your spectacles. How amusing you both are, to quarrel over that bone!"
+
+As the marquise turned to leave the room the minister joined her and
+escorted her to the door.
+
+"Well," said des Lupeaulx to Madame Rabourdin, "what do you think of
+his Excellency?"
+
+"He is charming. We must know these poor ministers to appreciate
+them," she added, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard by his
+Excellency's wife. "The newspapers and the opposition calumnies are so
+misleading about men in politics that we are all more or less
+influenced by them; but such prejudices turn to the advantage of
+statesmen when we come to know them personally."
+
+"He is very good-looking," said des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Yes, and I assure you he is quite lovable," she said, heartily.
+
+"Dear child," said des Lupeaulx, with a genial, caressing manner; "you
+have actually done the impossible."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Resuscitated the dead. I did not think that man had a heart; ask his
+wife. But he may have just enough for a passing fancy. Therefore
+profit by it. Come this way, and don't be surprised." He led Madame
+Rabourdin into the boudoir, placed her on a sofa, and sat down beside
+her. "You are very sly," he said, "and I like you the better for it.
+Between ourselves, you are a clever woman. Des Lupeaulx served to
+bring you into this house, and that is all you wanted of him, isn't
+it? Now when a woman decides to love a man for what she can get out of
+him it is better to take a sexagenarian Excellency than a
+quadragenarian secretary; there's more profit and less annoyance. I'm
+a man with spectacles, grizzled hair, worn out with dissipation,--a
+fine lover, truly! I tell myself all this again and again. It must be
+admitted, of course, that I can sometimes be useful, but never
+agreeable. Isn't that so? A man must be a fool if he cannot reason
+about himself. You can safely admit the truth and let me see to the
+depths of your heart; we are partners, not lovers. If I show some
+tenderness at times, you are too superior a woman to pay any attention
+to such follies; you will forgive me,--you are not a school-girl, or a
+bourgeoise of the rue Saint-Denis. Bah! you and I are too well brought
+up for that. There's the Marquise d'Espard who has just left the room;
+this is precisely what she thinks and does. She and I came to an
+understanding two years ago [the coxcomb!], and now she has only to
+write me a line and say, 'My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige me by
+doing such and such a thing,' and it is done at once. We are engaged
+at this very moment in getting a commission of lunacy on her husband.
+Ah! you women, you can get what you want by the bestowal of a few
+favors. Well, then, my dear child, bewitch the minister. I'll help
+you; it is my interest to do so. Yes, I wish he had a woman who could
+influence him; he wouldn't escape me,--for he does escape me quite
+often, and the reason is that I hold him only through his intellect.
+Now if I were one with a pretty woman who was also intimate with him,
+I should hold him by his weaknesses, and that is much the firmest
+grip. Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the
+advantages of the conquest you are making."
+
+Madame Rabourdin listened in amazement to this singular profession of
+rascality. The apparent artlessness of this political swindler
+prevented her from suspecting a trick.
+
+"Do you believe he really thinks of me?" she asked, falling into the
+trap.
+
+"I know it; I am certain of it."
+
+"Is it true that Rabourdin's appointment is signed?"
+
+"I gave him the papers this morning. But it is not enough that your
+husband should be made director; he must be Master of petitions."
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Well, then, go back to the salon and coquette a little more with his
+Excellency."
+
+"It is true," she said, "that I never fully understood you till
+to-night. There is nothing commonplace about /you/."
+
+"We will be two old friends," said des Lupeaulx, "and suppress all
+tender nonsense and tormenting love; we will take things as they did
+under the Regency. Ah! they had plenty of wit and wisdom in those
+days!"
+
+"You are really strong; you deserve my admiration," she said, smiling,
+and holding out her hand to him, "one does more for one's friend, you
+know, than for one's--"
+
+She left him without finishing her sentence.
+
+"Dear creature!" thought des Lupeaulx, as he saw her approach the
+minister, "des Lupeaulx has no longer the slightest remorse in turning
+against you. To-morrow evening when you offer me a cup of tea, you
+will be offering me a thing I no longer care for. All is over. Ah!
+when a man is forty years of age women may take pains to catch him,
+but they won't love him."
+
+He looked himself over in a mirror, admitting honestly that though he
+did very well as a politician he was a wreck on the shores of Cythera.
+At the same moment Madame Rabourdin was gathering herself together for
+a becoming exit. She wished to make a last graceful impression on the
+minds of all, and she succeeded. Contrary to the usual custom in
+society, every one cried out as soon as she was gone, "What a charming
+woman!" and the minister himself took her to the outer door.
+
+"I am quite sure you will think of me to-morrow," he said, alluding to
+the appointment.
+
+"There are so few high functionaries who have agreeable wives,"
+remarked his Excellency on re-entering the room, "that I am very well
+satisfied with our new acquisition."
+
+"Don't you think her a little overpowering?" said des Lupeaulx with a
+piqued air.
+
+The women present all exchanged expressive glances; the rivalry
+between the minister and his secretary amused them and instigated one
+of those pretty little comedies which Parisian women play so well.
+They excited and led on his Excellency and des Lupeaulx by a series of
+comments on Madame Rabourdin: one thought her too studied in manner,
+too eager to appear clever; another compared the graces of the middle
+classes with the manners of high life, while des Lupeaulx defended his
+pretended mistress as we all defend an enemy in society.
+
+"Do her justice, ladies," he said; "is it not extraordinary that the
+daughter of an auctioneer should appear as well as she does? See where
+she came from, and what she is. She will end in the Tuileries; that is
+what she intends,--she told me so."
+
+"Suppose she is the daughter of an auctioneer," said the Comtesse
+Feraud, smiling, "that will not hinder her husband's rise to power."
+
+"Not in these days, you mean," said the minister's wife, tightening
+her lips.
+
+"Madame," said his Excellency to the countess, sternly, "such
+sentiments and such speeches lead to revolutions; unhappily, the court
+and the great world do not restrain them. You would hardly believe,
+however, how the injudicious conduct of the aristocracy in this
+respect displeases certain clear-sighted personages at the palace. If
+I were a great lord, instead of being, as I am, a mere country
+gentleman who seems to be placed where he is to transact your business
+for you, the monarchy would not be as insecure as I now think it is.
+What becomes of a throne which does not bestow dignity on those who
+administer its government? We are far indeed from the days when a king
+could make men great at will,--such men as Louvois, Colbert,
+Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,--Sully, in his origin, was no
+greater than I. I speak to you thus because we are here in private
+among ourselves. I should be very paltry indeed if I were personally
+offended by such speeches. After all, it is for us and not for others
+to make us great."
+
+"You are appointed, dear," cried Celestine, pressing her husband's
+hand as they drove away. "If it had not been for des Lupeaulx I should
+have explained your scheme to his Excellency. But I will do it next
+Tuesday, and it will help the further matter of making you Master of
+petitions."
+
+In the life of every woman there comes a day when she shines in all
+her glory; a day which gives her an unfading recollection to which she
+recurs with happiness all her life. As Madame Rabourdin took off one
+by one the ornaments of her apparel, she thought over the events of
+this evening, and marked the day among the triumphs and glories of her
+life,--all her beauties had been seen and envied, she had been praised
+and flattered by the minister's wife, delighted thus to make the other
+women jealous of her; but, above all, her grace and vanities had shone
+to the profit of conjugal love. Her husband was appointed.
+
+"Did you think I looked well to-night?" she said to him, joyously.
+
+At the same instant Mitral, waiting at the Cafe Themis, saw the two
+usurers returning, but was unable to perceive the slightest
+indications of the result on their impassible faces.
+
+"What of it?" he said, when they were all seated at table.
+
+"Same as ever," replied Gigonnet, rubbing his hands, "victory with
+gold."
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+Mitral took a cabriolet and went straight to the Saillards and
+Baudoyers, who were still playing boston at a late hour. No one was
+present but the Abbe Gaudron. Falleix, half-dead with the fatigue of
+his journey, had gone to bed.
+
+"You will be appointed, nephew," said Mitral; "and there's a surprise
+in store for you."
+
+"What is it?" asked Saillard.
+
+"The cross of the Legion of honor?" cried Mitral.
+
+"God protects those who guard his altars," said Gaudron.
+
+Thus the Te Deum was sung with equal joy and confidence in both camps.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VIII
+
+                         FORWARD, MOLLUSKS!
+
+The next day, Wednesday, Monsieur Rabourdin was to transact business
+with the minister, for he had filled the late La Billardiere's place
+since the beginning of the latter's illness. On such days the clerks
+came punctually, the servants were specially attentive, there was
+always a certain excitement in the offices on these signing-days,--and
+why, nobody ever knew. On this occasion the three servants were at
+their post, flattering themselves they should get a few fees; for a
+rumor of Rabourdin's nomination had spread through the ministry the
+night before, thanks to Dutocq. Uncle Antoine and Laurent had donned
+their full uniform, when, at a quarter to eight, des Lupeaulx's
+servant came in with a letter, which he begged Antoine to give
+secretly to Dutocq, saying that the general-secretary had ordered him
+to deliver it without fail at Monsieur Dutocq's house by seven
+o'clock.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know how it happened," he said, "but I overslept
+myself. I've only just waked up, and he'd play the devil's tattoo on
+me if he knew the letter hadn't gone. I know a famous secret, Antoine;
+but don't say anything about it to the clerks if I tell you; promise?
+He would send me off if he knew I had said a single word; he told me
+so."
+
+"What's inside the letter?" asked Antoine, eying it.
+
+"Nothing; I looked this way--see."
+
+He made the letter gape open, and showed Antoine that there was
+nothing but blank paper to be seen.
+
+"This is going to be a great day for you, Laurent," went on the
+secretary's man. "You are to have a new director. Economy must be the
+order of the day, for they are going to unite the two divisions under
+one director--you fellows will have to look out!"
+
+"Yes, nine clerks are put on the retired list," said Dutocq, who came
+in at the moment; "how did you hear that?"
+
+Antoine gave him the letter, and he had no sooner opened it than he
+rushed headlong downstairs in the direction of the secretary's office.
+
+The bureaus Rabourdin and Baudoyer, after idling and gossiping since
+the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere, were now recovering their
+usual official look and the dolce far niente habits of a government
+office. Nevertheless, the approaching end of the year did cause rather
+more application among the clerks, just as porters and servants become
+at that season more unctuously civil. They all came punctually, for
+one thing; more remained after four o'clock than was usual at other
+times. It was not forgotten that fees and gratuities depend on the
+last impressions made upon the minds of masters. The news of the union
+of the two divisions, that of La Billardiere and that of Clergeot,
+under one director, had spread through the various offices. The number
+of the clerks to be retired was known, but all were in ignorance of
+the names. It was taken for granted that Poiret would not be replaced,
+and that would be a retrenchment. Little La Billardiere had already
+departed. Two new supernumeraries had made their appearance, and,
+alarming circumstance! they were both sons of deputies. The news told
+about in the offices the night before, just as the clerks were
+dispersing, agitated all minds, and for the first half-hour after
+arrival in the morning they stood around the stoves and talked it
+over. But earlier than that, Dutocq, as we have seen, had rushed to
+des Lupeaulx on receiving his note, and found him dressing. Without
+laying down his razor, the general-secretary cast upon his subordinate
+the glance of a general issuing an order.
+
+"Are we alone?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Very good. March on Rabourdin; forward! steady! Of course you kept a
+copy of that paper?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You understand me? Inde iroe! There must be a general hue and cry
+raised against him. Find some way to start a clamor--"
+
+"I could get a man to make a caricature, but I haven't five hundred
+francs to pay for it."
+
+"Who would make it?"
+
+"Bixou."
+
+"He shall have a thousand and be under-head-clerk to Colleville, who
+will arrange with them; tell him so."
+
+"But he wouldn't believe it on nothing more than my word."
+
+"Are you trying to make me compromise myself? Either do the thing or
+let it alone; do you hear me?"
+
+"If Monsieur Baudoyer were director--"
+
+"Well, he will be. Go now, and make haste; you have no time to lose.
+Go down the back-stairs; I don't want people to know you have just
+seen me."
+
+While Dutocq was returning to the clerks' office and asking himself
+how he could best incite a clamor against his chief without
+compromising himself, Bixiou rushed to the Rabourdin office for a word
+of greeting. Believing that he had lost his bet the incorrigible joker
+thought it amusing to pretend that he had won it.
+
+Bixiou [mimicking Phellion's voice]. "Gentlemen, I salute you with a
+collective how d'ye do, and I appoint Sunday next for the dinner at
+the Rocher de Cancale. But a serious question presents itself. Is that
+dinner to include the clerks who are dismissed?"
+
+Poiret. "And those who retire?"
+
+Bixiou. "Not that I care, for it isn't I who pay." [General
+stupefaction.] "Baudoyer is appointed. I think I already hear him
+calling Laurent" [mimicking Baudoyer], "Laurent! lock up my
+hair-shirt, and my scourge." [They all roar with laughter.] "Yes, yes,
+he laughs well who laughs last. Gentlemen, there's a great deal in that
+anagram of Colleville's. 'Xavier Rabourdin, chef de bureau--D'abord
+reva bureaux, e-u fin riche.' If I were named 'Charles X., par la
+grace de Dieu roi de France et de Navarre,' I should tremble in my
+shoes at the fate those letters anagrammatize."
+
+Thuillier. "Look here! are you making fun?"
+
+Bixiou. "No, I am not. Rabourdin resigns in a rage at finding Baudoyer
+appointed director."
+
+Vimeux [entering.] "Nonsense, no such thing! Antoine (to whom I have
+just been paying forty francs that I owed him) tells me that Monsieur
+and Madame Rabourdin were at the minister's private party last night
+and stayed till midnight. His Excellency escorted Madame Rabourdin to
+the staircase. It seems she was divinely dressed. In short, it is
+quite certain that Rabourdin is to be director. Riffe, the secretary's
+copying clerk, told me he sat up all the night before to draw the
+papers; it is no longer a secret. Monsieur Clergeot is retired. After
+thirty years' service that's no misfortune. Monsieur Cochlin, who is
+rich--"
+
+Bixiou. "By cochineal."
+
+Vimeux. "Yes, cochineal; he's a partner in the house of Matifat, rue
+des Lombards. Well, he is retired; so is Poiret. Neither is to be
+replaced. So much is certain; the rest is all conjecture. The
+appointment of Monsieur Rabourdin is to be announced this morning;
+they are afraid of intrigues."
+
+Bixiou. "What intrigues?"
+
+Fleury. "Baudoyer's, confound him! The priests uphold him; here's
+another article in the liberal journal,--only half a dozen lines, but
+they are queer" [reads]:
+
+  "Certain persons spoke last night in the lobby of the Opera-house
+  of the return of Monsieur de Chateaubriand to the ministry, basing
+  their opinion on the choice made of Monsieur Rabourdin (the
+  protege of friends of the noble viscount) to fill the office for
+  which Monsieur Baudoyer was first selected. The clerical party is
+  not likely to withdraw unless in deference to the great writer.
+
+"Blackguards!"
+
+Dutocq [entering, having heard the whole discussion]. "Blackguards!
+Who? Rabourdin? Then you know the news?"
+
+Fleury [rolling his eyes savagely]. "Rabourdin a blackguard! Are you
+mad, Dutocq? do you want a ball in your brains to give them weight?"
+
+Dutocq. "I said nothing against Monsieur Rabourdin; only it has just
+been told to me in confidence that he has written a paper denouncing
+all the clerks and officials, and full of facts about their lives; in
+short, the reason why his friends support him is because he has
+written this paper against the administration, in which we are all
+exposed--"
+
+Phellion [in a loud voice]. "Monsieur Rabourdin is incapable of--"
+
+Bixiou. "Very proper in you to say so. Tell me, Dutocq" [they whisper
+together and then go into the corridor].
+
+Bixiou. "What has happened?"
+
+Dutocq. "Do you remember what I said to you about that caricature?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, what then?"
+
+Dutocq. "Make it, and you shall be under-head-clerk with a famous fee.
+The fact is, my dear fellow, there's dissension among the powers that
+be. The minister is pledged to Rabourdin, but if he doesn't appoint
+Baudoyer he offends the priests and their party. You see, the King,
+the Dauphin and the Dauphine, the clergy, and lastly the court, all
+want Baudoyer; the minister wants Rabourdin."
+
+Bixiou. "Good!"
+
+Dutocq. "To ease the matter off, the minister, who sees he must give
+way, wants to strangle the difficulty. We must find some good reason
+for getting rid of Rabourdin. Now somebody has lately unearthed a
+paper of his, exposing the present system of administration and
+wanting to reform it; and that paper is going the rounds,--at least,
+this is how I understand the matter. Make the drawing we talked of; in
+so doing you'll play the game of all the big people, and help the
+minister, the court, the clergy,--in short, everybody; and you'll get
+your appointment. Now do you understand me?"
+
+Bixiou. "I don't understand how you came to know all that; perhaps you
+are inventing it."
+
+Dutocq. "Do you want me to let you see what Rabourdin wrote about
+you?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes."
+
+Dutocq. "Then come home with me; for I must put the document into safe
+keeping."
+
+Bixiou. "You go first alone." [Re-enters the bureau Rabourdin.] "What
+Dutocq told you is really all true, word of honor! It seems that
+Monsieur Rabourdin has written and sent in very unflattering
+descriptions of the clerks whom he wants to 'reform.' That's the real
+reason why his secret friends wish him appointed. Well, well; we live
+in days when nothing astonishes me" [flings his cloak about him like
+Talma, and declaims]:--
+
+  "Thou who has seen the fall of grand, illustrious heads,
+  Why thus amazed, insensate that thou art,
+
+"to find a man like Rabourdin employing such means? Baudoyer is too
+much of a fool to know how to use them. Accept my congratulations,
+gentlemen; either way you are under a most illustrious chief" [goes
+off].
+
+Poiret. "I shall leave this ministry without ever comprehending a
+single word that gentleman utters. What does he mean with his 'heads
+that fall'?"
+
+Fleury. "'Heads that fell?' why, think of the four sergeants of
+Rochelle, Ney, Berton, Caron, the brothers Faucher, and the
+massacres."
+
+Phellion. "He asserts very flippantly things that he only guesses at."
+
+Fleury. "Say at once that he lies; in his mouth truth itself turns to
+corrosion."
+
+Phellion. "Your language is unparliamentary and lacks the courtesy and
+consideration which are due to a colleague."
+
+Vimeux. "It seems to me that if what he says is false, the proper name
+for it is calumny, defamation of character; and such a slanderer
+deserves the thrashing."
+
+Fleury [getting hot]. "If the government offices are public places,
+the matter ought to be taken into the police-courts."
+
+Phellion [wishing to avert a quarrel, tries to turn the conversation].
+"Gentleman, might I ask you to keep quiet? I am writing a little
+treatise on moral philosophy, and I am just at the heart of it."
+
+Fleury [interrupting]. "What are you saying about it, Monsieur
+Phellion?"
+
+Phellion [reading]. "Question.--What is the soul of man?
+
+"Answer.--A spiritual substance which thinks and reasons."
+
+Thuillier. "Spiritual substance! you might as well talk about
+immaterial stone."
+
+Poiret. "Don't interrupt; let him go on."
+
+Phellion [continuing]. "Quest.--Whence comes the soul?
+
+"Ans.--From God, who created it of a nature one and indivisible; the
+destructibility thereof is, consequently, not conceivable, and he hath
+said--"
+
+Poiret [amazed]. "God said?"
+
+Phellion. "Yes, monsieur; tradition authorizes the statement."
+
+Fleury [to Poiret]. "Come, don't interrupt, yourself."
+
+Phellion [resuming]. "--and he hath said that he created it immortal;
+in other words, the soul can never die.
+
+"Quest.--What are the uses of the soul?
+
+"Ans.--To comprehend, to will, to remember; these constitute
+understanding, volition, memory.
+
+"Quest.--What are the uses of the understanding?
+
+"Ans.--To know. It is the eye of the soul."
+
+Fleury. "And the soul is the eye of what?"
+
+Phellion [continuing]. "Quest.--What ought the understanding to know?
+
+"Ans.--Truth.
+
+"Quest.--Why does man possess volition?
+
+"Ans.--To love good and hate evil.
+
+"Quest.--What is good?
+
+"Ans.--That which makes us happy."
+
+Vimeux. "Heavens! do you teach that to young ladies?"
+
+Phellion. "Yes" [continuing]. "Quest.--How many kinds of good are
+there?"
+
+Fleury. "Amazingly indecorous, to say the least."
+
+Phellion [aggrieved]. "Oh, monsieur!" [Controlling himself.] "But
+here's the answer,--that's as far as I have got" [reads]:--
+
+"Ans.--There are two kinds of good,--eternal good and temporal good."
+
+Poiret [with a look of contempt]. "And does that sell for anything?"
+
+Phellion. "I hope it will. It requires great application of mind to
+carry on a system of questions and answers; that is why I ask you to
+be quiet and let me think, for the answers--"
+
+Thuillier [interrupting]. "The answers might be sold separately."
+
+Poiret. "Is that a pun?"
+
+Thuillier. "No; a riddle."
+
+Phellion. "I am sorry I interrupted you" [he dives into his office
+desk]. "But" [to himself] "at any rate, I have stopped their talking
+about Monsieur Rabourdin."
+
+At this moment a scene was taking place between the minister and des
+Lupeaulx which decided Rabourdin's fate. The general-secretary had
+gone to see the minister in his private study before the
+breakfast-hour, to make sure that La Briere was not within hearing.
+
+"Your Excellency is not treating me frankly--"
+
+"He means a quarrel," thought the minister; "and all because his
+mistress coquetted with me last night. I did not think you so
+juvenile, my dear friend," he said aloud.
+
+"Friend?" said the general-secretary, "that is what I want to find
+out."
+
+The minister looked haughtily at des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We are alone," continued the secretary, "and we can come to an
+understanding. The deputy of the arrondissement in which my estate is
+situated--"
+
+"So it is really an estate!" said the minister, laughing, to hide his
+surprise.
+
+"Increased by a recent purchase of two hundred thousand francs' worth
+of adjacent property," replied des Lupeaulx, carelessly. "You knew of
+the deputy's approaching resignation at least ten days ago, and you
+did not tell me of it. You were perhaps not bound to do so, but you
+knew very well that I am most anxious to take my seat in the centre.
+Has it occurred to you that I might fling myself back on the
+'Doctrine'?--which, let me tell you, will destroy the administration
+and the monarchy both if you continue to allow the party of
+representative government to be recruited from men of talent whom you
+ignore. Don't you know that in every nation there are fifty to sixty,
+not more, dangerous heads, whose schemes are in proportion to their
+ambition? The secret of knowing how to govern is to know those heads
+well, and either to chop them off or buy them. I don't know how much
+talent I have, but I know that I have ambition; and you are committing
+a serious blunder when you set aside a man who wishes you well. The
+anointed head dazzles for the time being, but what next?--Why, a war
+of words; discussions will spring up once more and grow embittered,
+envenomed. Then, for your own sake, I advise you not to find me at the
+Left Centre. In spite of your prefect's manoeuvres (instructions for
+which no doubt went from here confidentially) I am secure of a
+majority. The time has come for you and me to understand each other.
+After a breeze like this people sometimes become closer friends than
+ever. I must be made count and receive the grand cordon of the Legion
+of honor as a reward for my public services. However, I care less for
+those things just now than I do for something else in which you are
+more personally concerned. You have not yet appointed Rabourdin, and I
+have news this morning which tends to show that most persons will be
+better satisfied if you appoint Baudoyer."
+
+"Appoint Baudoyer!" echoed the minister. "Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes," said des Lupeaulx; "but suppose he proves incapable, as he
+will, you can then get rid of him by asking those who protect him to
+employ him elsewhere. You will thus get back an important office to
+give to friends; it may come in at the right moment to facilitate some
+compromise."
+
+"But I have pledged it to Rabourdin."
+
+"That may be; and I don't ask you to make the change this very day. I
+know the danger of saying yes and no within twenty-four hours. But
+postpone the appointment, and don't sign the papers till the day after
+to-morrow; by that time you may find it impossible to retain
+Rabourdin,--in fact, in all probability, he will send you his
+resignation--"
+
+"His resignation?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He is the tool of a secret power in whose interests he has carried on
+a system of espionage in all the ministries, and the thing has been
+discovered by mere accident. He has written a paper of some kind,
+giving short histories of all the officials. Everybody is talking of
+it; the clerks are furious. For heaven's sake, don't transact business
+with him to-day; let me find some means for you to avoid it. Ask an
+audience of the King; I am sure you will find great satisfaction there
+if you concede the point about Baudoyer; and you can obtain something
+as an equivalent. Your position will be better than ever if you are
+forced later to dismiss a fool whom the court party impose upon you."
+
+"What has made you turn against Rabourdin?"
+
+"Would you forgive Monsieur de Chateaubriand for writing an article
+against the ministry? Well, read that, and see how Rabourdin has
+treated me in his secret document," said des Lupeaulx, giving the
+paper to the minister. "He pretends to reorganize the government from
+beginning to end,--no doubt in the interests of some secret society of
+which, as yet, we know nothing. I shall continue to be his friend for
+the sake of watching him; by that means I may render the government
+such signal service that they will have to make me count; for the
+peerage is the only thing I really care for. I want you fully to
+understand that I am not seeking office or anything else that would
+cause me to stand in your way; I am simply aiming for the peerage,
+which will enable me to marry a banker's daughter with an income of a
+couple of hundred thousand francs. And so, allow me to render you a
+few signal services which will make the King feel that I have saved
+the throne. I have long said that Liberalism would never offer us a
+pitched battle. It has given up conspiracies, Carbonaroism, and
+revolts with weapons; it is now sapping and mining, and the day is
+coming when it will be able to say, 'Out of that and let me in!' Do
+you think I have been courting Rabourdin's wife for my own pleasure?
+No, but I got much information from her. So now, let us agree on two
+things; first, the postponement of the appointment; second, your
+/sincere/ support of my election. You shall find at the end of the
+session that I have amply repaid you."
+
+For all answer, the minister took the appointment papers and placed
+them in des Lupeaulx's hand.
+
+"I will go and tell Rabourdin," added des Lupeaulx, "that you cannot
+transact business with him till Saturday."
+
+The minister replied with an assenting gesture. The secretary
+despatched his man with a message to Rabourdin that the minister could
+not work with him until Saturday, on which day the Chamber was
+occupied with private bills, and his Excellency had more time at his
+disposal.
+
+Just at this moment Saillard, having brought the monthly stipend, was
+slipping his little speech into the ear of the minister's wife, who
+drew herself up and answered with dignity that she did not meddle in
+political matters, and besides, she had heard that Monsieur Rabourdin
+was already appointed. Saillard, terrified, rushed up to Baudoyer's
+office, where he found Dutocq, Godard, and Bixiou in a state of
+exasperation difficult to describe; for they were reading the terrible
+paper on the administration in which they were all discussed.
+
+Bixiou [with his finger on a paragraph]. "Here /you/ are, pere Saillard.
+Listen" [reads]:--
+
+"Saillard.--The office of cashier to be suppressed in all the
+ministries; their accounts to be kept in future at the Treasury.
+Saillard is rich and does not need a pension.
+
+"Do you want to hear about your son-in-law?" [Turns over the leaves.]
+"Here he is" [reads]:--
+
+"Baudoyer.--Utterly incapable. To be thanked and dismissed. Rich; does
+not need a pension.
+
+"And here's for Godard" [reads]:--
+
+"Godard.--Should be dismissed; pension one-third of his present
+salary.
+
+"In short, here we all are. Listen to what I am" [reads]: "An artist
+who might be employed by the civil list, at the Opera, or the
+Menus-Plaisirs, or the Museum. Great deal of capacity, little
+self-respect, no application,--a restless spirit. Ha! I'll give you
+a touch of the artist, Monsieur Rabourdin!"
+
+Saillard. "Suppress cashiers! Why, the man's a monster?"
+
+Bixiou. "Let us see what he says of our mysterious Desroys." [Turns
+over the pages; reads.]
+
+"Desroys.--Dangerous; because he cannot be shaken in principles that
+are subversive of monarchial power. He is the son of the Conventionel,
+and he admires the Convention. He may become a very mischievous
+journalist."
+
+Baudoyer. "The police are not worse spies!"
+
+Godard. "I shall go the general-secretary and lay a complaint in form;
+we must all resign in a body if such a man as that is put over us."
+
+Dutocq. "Gentlemen, listen to me; let us be prudent. If you rise at
+once in a body, we may all be accused of rancor and revenge. No, let
+the thing work, let the rumor spread quietly. When the whole ministry
+is aroused your remonstrances will meet with general approval."
+
+Bixiou. "Dutocq believes in the principles of the grand air composed
+by the sublime Rossini for Basilio,--which goes to show, by the bye,
+that the great composer was also a great politician. I shall leave my
+card on Monsieur Rabourdin to-morrow morning, inscribed thus: 'Bixiou;
+no self-respect, no application, restless mind.'"
+
+Godard. "A good idea, gentlemen. Let us all leave our cards to-morrow
+on Rabourdin inscribed in the same way."
+
+Dutocq [leading Bixiou apart]. "Come, you'll agree to make that
+caricature now, won't you?"
+
+Bixiou. "I see plainly, my dear fellow, that you knew all about
+this affair ten days ago" [looks him in the eye]. "Am I to be
+under-head-clerk?"
+
+Dutocq. "On my word of honor, yes, and a thousand-franc fee beside,
+just as I told you. You don't know what a service you'll be rendering
+to powerful personages."
+
+Bixiou. "You know them?"
+
+Dutocq. "Yes."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, then I want to speak with them."
+
+Dutocq [dryly]. "You can make the caricature or not, and you can be
+under-head-clerk or not,--as you please."
+
+Bixiou. "At any rate, let me see that thousand francs."
+
+Dutocq. "You shall have them when you bring the drawing."
+
+Bixiou. "Forward, march! that lampoon shall go from end to end of the
+bureaus to-morrow morning. Let us go and torment the Rabourdins."
+[Then speaking to Saillard, Godard, and Baudoyer, who were talking
+together in a low voice.] "We are going to stir up the neighbors."
+[Goes with Dutocq into the Rabourdin bureau. Fleury, Thuillier, and
+Vimeux are there, talking excitedly.] "What's the matter, gentlemen?
+All that I told you turns out to be true; you can go and see for
+yourselves the work of this infamous informer; for it is in the hands
+of the virtuous, honest, estimable, upright, and pious Baudoyer, who
+is indeed utterly incapable of doing any such thing. Your chief has
+got every one of you under the guillotine. Go and see; follow the
+crowd; money returned if you are not satisfied; execution /gratis/! The
+appointments are postponed. All the bureaus are in arms; Rabourdin has
+been informed that the minister will not work with him. Come, be off;
+go and see for yourselves."
+
+They all depart except Phellion and Poiret, who are left alone. The
+former loved Rabourdin too well to look for proof that might injure a
+man he was determined not to judge; the other had only five days more
+to remain in the office, and cared nothing either way. Just then
+Sebastien came down to collect the papers for signature. He was a good
+deal surprised, though he did not show it, to find the office
+deserted.
+
+Phellion. "My young friend" [he rose, a rare thing], "do you know what
+is going on? what scandals are rife about Monsieur Rabourdin whom you
+love, and" [bending to whisper in Sebastien's ear] "whom I love as
+much as I respect him. They say he has committed the imprudence to
+leave a paper containing comments on the officials lying about in the
+office--" [Phellion stopped short, caught the young man in his strong
+arms, seeing that he turned pale and was near fainting, and placed him
+on a chair.] "A key, Monsieur Poiret, to put down his back; have you a
+key?"
+
+Poiret. "I have the key of my domicile."
+
+[Old Poiret junior promptly inserted the said key between Sebastien's
+shoulders, while Phellion gave him some water to drink. The poor lad
+no sooner opened his eyes than he began to weep. He laid his head on
+Phellion's desk, and all his limbs were limp as if struck by
+lightning; while his sobs were so heartrending, so genuine, that for
+the first time in his life Poiret's feelings were stirred by the
+sufferings of another.]
+
+Phellion [speaking firmly]. "Come, come, my young friend; courage! In
+times of trial we must show courage. You are a man. What is the
+matter? What has happened to distress you so terribly?"
+
+Sebastien [sobbing]. "It is I who have ruined Monsieur Rabourdin. I
+left that paper lying about when I copied it. I have killed my
+benefactor; I shall die myself. Such a noble man!--a man who ought to
+be minister!"
+
+Poiret [blowing his nose]. "Then it is true he wrote the report."
+
+Sebastien [still sobbing]. "But it was to--there, I was going to tell
+his secrets! Ah! that wretch of a Dutocq; it was he who stole the
+paper."
+
+His tears and sobs recommenced and made so much noise that Rabourdin
+came up to see what was the matter. He found the young fellow almost
+fainting in the arms of Poiret and Phellion.
+
+Rabourdin. "What is the matter, gentlemen?"
+
+Sebastien [struggling to his feet, and then falling on his knees
+before Rabourdin]. "I have ruined you, monsieur. That memorandum,
+--Dutocq, the monster, he must have taken it."
+
+Rabourdin [calmly]. "I knew that already" [he lifts Sebastien]. "You
+are a child, my young friend." [Speaks to Phellion.] "Where are the
+other gentlemen?"
+
+Phellion. "They have gone into Monsieur Baudoyer's office to see a
+paper which it is said--"
+
+Rabourdin [interrupting him]. "Enough." [Goes out, taking Sebastien
+with him. Poiret and Phellion look at each other in amazement, and do
+not know what to say.]
+
+Poiret [to Phellion]. "Monsieur Rabourdin--"
+
+Phellion [to Poiret]. "Monsieur Rabourdin--"
+
+Poiret. "Well, I never! Monsieur Rabourdin!"
+
+Phellion. "But did you notice how calm and dignified he was?"
+
+Poiret [with a sly look that was more like a grimace]. "I shouldn't be
+surprised if there were something under it all."
+
+Phellion. "A man of honor; pure and spotless."
+
+Poiret. "Who is?"
+
+Phellion. "Monsieur Poiret, you think as I think about Dutocq; surely
+you understand me?"
+
+Poiret [nodding his head three times and answering with a shrewd
+look]. "Yes." [The other clerks return.]
+
+Fleury. "A great shock; I still don't believe the thing. Monsieur
+Rabourdin, a king among men! If such men are spies, it is enough to
+disgust one with virtue. I have always put Rabourdin among Plutarch's
+heroes."
+
+Vimeux. "It is all true."
+
+Poiret [reflecting that he had only five days more to stay in the
+office]. "But, gentlemen, what do you say about the man who stole that
+paper, who spied upon Rabourdin?" [Dutocq left the room.]
+
+Fleury. "I say he is a Judas Iscariot. Who is he?"
+
+Phellion [significantly]. "He is not here at /this moment/."
+
+Vimeux [enlightened]. "It is Dutocq!"
+
+Phellion. "I have no proof of it, gentlemen. While you were gone, that
+young man, Monsieur de la Roche, nearly fainted here. See his tears on
+my desk!"
+
+Poiret. "We held him fainting in our arms.--My key, the key of my
+domicile!--dear, dear! it is down his back." [Poiret goes hastily
+out.]
+
+Vimeux. "The minister refused to transact business with Rabourdin
+to-day; and Monsieur Saillard, to whom the secretary said a few words,
+came to tell Monsieur Baudoyer to apply for the cross of the Legion of
+honor,--there is one to be granted, you know, on New-Year's day, to
+all the heads of divisions. It is quite clear what it all means.
+Monsieur Rabourdin is sacrificed by the very persons who employed him.
+Bixiou says so. We were all to be turned out, except Sebastien and
+Phellion."
+
+Du Bruel [entering]. "Well, gentlemen, is it true?"
+
+Thuillier. "To the last word."
+
+Du Bruel [putting his hat on again]. "Good-bye." [Hurries out.]
+
+Thuillier. "He may rush as much as he pleases to his Duc de Rhetore
+and Duc de Maufrigneuse, but Colleville is to be our under-head-clerk,
+that's certain."
+
+Phellion. "Du Bruel always seemed to be attached to Monsieur
+Rabourdin."
+
+Poiret [returning]. "I have had a world of trouble to get back my key.
+That boy is crying still, and Monsieur Rabourdin has disappeared."
+[Dutocq and Bixiou enter.]
+
+Bixiou. "Ha, gentlemen! strange things are going on in your bureau. Du
+Bruel! I want you." [Looks into the adjoining room.] "Gone?"
+
+Thuillier. "Full speed."
+
+Bixiou. "What about Rabourdin?"
+
+Fleury. "Distilled, evaporated, melted! Such a man, the king of men,
+that he--"
+
+Poiret [to Dutocq]. "That little Sebastien, in his trouble, said that
+you, Monsieur Dutocq, had taken the paper from him ten days ago."
+
+Bixiou [looking at Dutocq]. "You must clear yourself of /that/, my good
+friend." [All the clerks look fixedly at Dutocq.]
+
+Dutocq. "Where's the little viper who copied it?"
+
+Bixiou. "Copied it? How did you know he copied it? Ha! ha! it is only
+the diamond that cuts the diamond." [Dutocq leaves the room.]
+
+Poiret. "Would you listen to me, Monsieur Bixiou? I have only five
+days and a half to stay in this office, and I do wish that once, only
+once, I might have the pleasure of understanding what you mean. Do me
+the honor to explain what diamonds have to do with these present
+circumstances."
+
+Bixiou. "I meant papa,--for I'm willing for once to bring my intellect
+down to the level of yours,--that just as the diamond alone can cut
+the diamond, so it is only one inquisitive man who can defeat another
+inquisitive man."
+
+Fleury. "'Inquisitive man' stands for 'spy.'"
+
+Poiret. "I don't understand."
+
+Bixiou. "Very well; try again some other time."
+
+Monsieur Rabourdin, after taking Sebastien to his room, had gone
+straight to the minister; but the minister was at the Chamber of
+Deputies. Rabourdin went at once to the Chamber, where he wrote a note
+to his Excellency, who was at that moment in the tribune engaged in a
+hot discussion. Rabourdin waited, not in the conference hall, but in
+the courtyard, where, in spite of the cold, he resolved to remain and
+intercept his Excellency as he got into his carriage. The usher of the
+Chamber had told him that the minister was in the thick of a
+controversy raised by the nineteen members of the extreme Left, and
+that the session was likely to be stormy. Rabourdin walked to and for
+in the courtyard of the palace for five mortal hours, a prey to
+feverish agitation. At half-past six o'clock the session broke up, and
+the members filed out. The minister's chasseur came up to find the
+coachman.
+
+"Hi, Jean!" he called out to him; "Monseigneur has gone with the
+minister of war; they are going to see the King, and after that they
+dine together, and we are to fetch him at ten o'clock. There's a
+Council this evening."
+
+Rabourdin walked slowly home, in a state of despondency not difficult
+to imagine. It was seven o'clock, and he had barely time to dress.
+
+"Well, you are appointed?" cried his wife, joyously, as he entered the
+salon.
+
+Rabourdin raised his head with a grievous motion of distress and
+answered, "I fear I shall never again set foot in the ministry."
+
+"What?" said his wife, quivering with sudden anxiety.
+
+"My memorandum on the officials is known in all the offices; and I
+have not been able to see the minister."
+
+Celestine's eyes were opened to a sudden vision in which the devil, in
+one of his infernal flashes, showed her the meaning of her last
+conversation with des Lupeaulx.
+
+"If I had behaved like a low woman," she thought, "we should have had
+the place."
+
+She looked at Rabourdin with grief in her heart. A sad silence fell
+between them, and dinner was eaten in the midst of gloomy meditations.
+
+"And it is my Wednesday," she said at last.
+
+"All is not lost, dear Celestine," said Rabourdin, laying a kiss on
+his wife's forehead; "perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to see the
+minister and explain everything. Sebastien sat up all last night to
+finish the writing; the papers are copied and collated; I shall place
+them on the minister's desk and beg him to read them through. La
+Briere will help me. A man is never condemned without a hearing."
+
+"I am curious to see if Monsieur des Lupeaulx will come here
+to-night."
+
+"He? Of course he will come," said Rabourdin; "there's something of
+the tiger in him; he likes to lick the blood of the wounds he has
+given."
+
+"My poor husband," said his wife, taking his hand, "I don't see how it
+is that a man who could conceive so noble a reform did not also see
+that it ought not to be communicated to a single person. It is one of
+those ideas that a man should keep in his own mind, for he alone can
+apply them. A statesman must do in our political sphere as Napoleon
+did in his; he stooped, twisted, crawled. Yes, Bonaparte crawled! To
+be made commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy he married Barrere's
+mistress. You should have waited, got yourself elected deputy,
+followed the politics of a party, sometimes down in the depths, at
+other times on the crest of the wave, and you should have taken, like
+Monsieur de Villele, the Italian motto 'Col tempo,' in other words,
+'All things are given to him who knows how to wait.' That great orator
+worked for seven years to get into power; he began in 1814 by
+protesting against the Charter when he was the same age that you are
+now. Here's your fault; you have allowed yourself to be kept
+subordinate, when you were born to rule."
+
+The entrance of the painter Schinner imposed silence on the wife and
+husband, but these words made the latter thoughtful.
+
+"Dear friend," said the painter, grasping Rabourdin's hand, "the
+support of artists is a useless thing enough, but let me say under
+these circumstances that we are all faithful to you. I have just read
+the evening papers. Baudoyer is appointed director and receives the
+cross of the Legion of honor--"
+
+"I have been longer in the department, I have served twenty-four
+hours," said Rabourdin with a smile.
+
+"I know Monsieur le Comte de Serizy, the minister of State, pretty
+well, and if he can help you, I will go and see him," said Schinner.
+
+The salon soon filled with persons who knew nothing of the government
+proceedings. Du Bruel did not appear. Madame Rabourdin was gayer and
+more graceful than ever, like the charger wounded in battle, that
+still finds strength to carry his master from the field.
+
+"She is very courageous," said a few women who knew the truth, and who
+were charmingly attentive to her, understanding her misfortunes.
+
+"But she certainly did a great deal to attract des Lupeaulx," said the
+Baronne du Chatelet to the Vicomtesse de Fontaine.
+
+"Do you think--" began the vicomtesse.
+
+"If so," interrupted Madame de Camps, in defence of her friend,
+"Monsieur Rabourdin would at least have had the cross."
+
+About eleven o'clock des Lupeaulx appeared; and we can only describe
+him by saying that his spectacles were sad and his eyes joyous; the
+glasses, however, obscured the glances so successfully that only a
+physiognomist would have seen the diabolical expression which they
+wore. He went up to Rabourdin and pressed the hand which the latter
+could not avoid giving him.
+
+Then he approached Madame Rabourdin.
+
+"We have much to say to each other," he remarked as he seated himself
+beside the beautiful woman, who received him admirably.
+
+"Ah!" he continued, giving her a side glance, "you are grand indeed; I
+find you just what I expected, glorious under defeat. Do you know that
+it is a very rare thing to find a superior woman who answers to the
+expectations formed of her. So defeat doesn't dishearten you? You are
+right; we shall triumph in the end," he whispered in her ear. "Your
+fate is always in your own hands,--so long, I mean, as your ally is a
+man who adores you. We will hold counsel together."
+
+"But is Baudoyer appointed?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," said the secretary.
+
+"Does he get the cross?"
+
+"Not yet; but he will have it later."
+
+"Amazing!"
+
+"Ah! you don't understand political exigencies."
+
+During this evening, which seemed interminable to Madame Rabourdin,
+another scene was occurring in the place Royale,--one of those
+comedies which are played in seven Parisian salons whenever there is a
+change of ministry. The Saillards' salon was crowded. Monsieur and
+Madame Transon arrived at eight o'clock; Madame Transon kissed Madame
+Baudoyer, nee Saillard. Monsieur Bataille, captain of the National
+Guard, came with his wife and the curate of Saint Paul's.
+
+"Monsieur Baudoyer," said Madame Transon. "I wish to be the first to
+congratulate you; they have done justice to your talents. You have
+indeed earned your promotion."
+
+"Here you are, director," said Monsieur Transon, rubbing his hands,
+"and the appointment is very flattering to this neighborhood."
+
+"And we can truly say it came to pass without any intriguing," said
+the worthy Saillard. "We are none of us political intriguers; /we/
+don't go to select parties at the ministry."
+
+Uncle Mitral rubbed his nose and grinned as he glanced at his niece
+Elisabeth, the woman whose hand had pulled the wires, who was talking
+with Gigonnet. Falleix, honest fellow, did not know what to make of
+the stupid blindness of Saillard and Baudoyer. Messieurs Dutocq,
+Bixiou, du Bruel, Godard, and Colleville (the latter appointed head of
+the bureau) entered.
+
+"What a crew!" whispered Bixiou to du Bruel. "I could make a fine
+caricature of them in the shapes of fishes,--dorys, flounders, sharks,
+and snappers, all dancing a saraband!"
+
+"Monsieur," said Colleville, "I come to offer you my congratulations;
+or rather we congratulate ourselves in having such a man placed over
+us; and we desire to assure you of the zeal with which we shall
+co-operate in your labors. Allow me to say that this event affords a
+signal proof to the truth of my axiom that a man's destiny lies in the
+letters of his name. I may say that I knew of this appointment and of
+your other honors before I heard of them, for I spend the night in
+anagrammatizing your name as follows:" [proudly] "Isidore C. T.
+Baudoyer,--Director, decorated by us (his Majesty the King, of
+course)."
+
+Baudoyer bowed and remarked piously that names were given in baptism.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer, senior, father and mother of the new
+director, were there to enjoy the glory of their son and
+daughter-in-law. Uncle Gigonnet-Bidault, who had dined at the house,
+had a restless, fidgety look in his eye which frightened Bixiou.
+
+"There's a queer one," said the latter to du Bruel, calling his
+attention to Gigonnet, "who would do in a vaudeville. I wonder if he
+could be bought. Such an old scarecrow is just the thing for a sign
+over the Two Baboons. And what a coat! I did think there was nobody
+but Poiret who could show the like after that after ten years' public
+exposure to the inclemencies of Parisian weather."
+
+"Baudoyer is magnificent," said du Bruel.
+
+"Dazzling," answered Bixiou.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Baudoyer, "let me present you to my own uncle,
+Monsieur Mitral, and to my great-uncle through my wife, Monsieur
+Bidault."
+
+Gigonnet and Mitral gave a glance at the three clerks so penetrating,
+so glittering with gleams of gold, that the two scoffers were sobered
+at once.
+
+"Hein?" said Bixiou, when they were safely under the arcades in the
+place Royale; "did you examine those uncles?--two copies of Shylock.
+I'll bet their money is lent in the market at a hundred per cent per
+week. They lend on pawn; and sell most that they lay hold of, coats,
+gold lace, cheese, men, women, and children; they are a conglomeration
+of Arabs, Jews, Genoese, Genevese, Greeks, Lombards, and Parisians,
+suckled by a wolf and born of a Turkish woman."
+
+"I believe you," said Godard. "Uncle Mitral used to be a sheriff's
+officer."
+
+"That settles it," said du Bruel.
+
+"I'm off to see the proof of my caricature," said Bixiou; "but I
+should like to study the state of things in Rabourdin's salon
+to-night. You are lucky to be able to go there, du Bruel."
+
+"I!" said the vaudevillist, "what should I do there? My face doesn't
+lend itself to condolences. And it is very vulgar in these days to go
+and see people who are down."
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IX
+
+                          THE RESIGNATION
+
+By midnight Madame Rabourdin's salon was deserted; only two or three
+guests remained with des Lupeaulx and the master and mistress of the
+house. When Schinner and Monsieur and Madame de Camps had likewise
+departed, des Lupeaulx rose with a mysterious air, stood with his back
+to the fireplace and looked alternately at the husband and wife.
+
+"My friends," he said, "nothing is really lost, for the minister and I
+are faithful to you. Dutocq simply chose between two powers the one he
+thought strongest. He has served the court and the Grand Almoner; he
+has betrayed me. But that is in the order of things; a politician
+never complains of treachery. Nevertheless, Baudoyer will be dismissed
+as incapable in a few months; no doubt his protectors will find him a
+place,--in the prefecture of police, perhaps,--for the clergy will not
+desert him."
+
+From this point des Lupeaulx went on with a long tirade about the
+Grand Almoner and the dangers the government ran in relying upon the
+church and upon the Jesuits. We need not, we think, point out to the
+intelligent reader that the court and the Grand Almoner, to whom the
+liberal journals attributed an enormous influence under the
+administration, had little really to do with Monsieur Baudoyer's
+appointment. Such petty intrigues die in the upper sphere of great
+self-interests. If a few words in favor of Baudoyer were obtained by
+the importunity of the curate of Saint-Paul's and the Abbe Gaudron,
+they would have been withdrawn immediately at a suggestion from the
+minister. The occult power of the Congregation of Jesus (admissible
+certainly as confronting the bold society of the "Doctrine," entitled
+"Help yourself and heaven will help you,") was formidable only through
+the imaginary force conferred on it by subordinate powers who
+perpetually threatened each other with its evils. The liberal
+scandal-mongers delighted in representing the Grand Almoner and the
+whole Jesuitical Chapter as political, administrative, civil, and
+military giants. Fear creates bugbears. At this crisis Baudoyer firmly
+believed in the said Chapter, little aware that the only Jesuits who
+had put him where he now was sat by his own fireside, and in the Cafe
+Themis playing dominoes.
+
+At certain epochs in history certain powers appear, to whom all evils
+are attributed, though at the same time their genius is denied; they
+form an efficient argument in the mouth of fools. Just as Monsieur de
+Talleyrand was supposed to hail all events of whatever kind with a bon
+mot, so in these days of the Restoration the clerical party had the
+credit of doing and undoing everything. Unfortunately, it did and
+undid nothing. Its influence was not wielded by a Cardinal Richelieu
+or a Cardinal Mazarin; it was in the hands of a species of Cardinal de
+Fleury, who, timid for over five years, turned bold for one day,
+injudiciously bold. Later on, the "Doctrine" did more, with impunity,
+at Saint-Merri, than Charles X. pretended to do in July, 1830. If the
+section on the censorship so foolishly introduced into the new charter
+had been omitted, journalism also would have had its Saint-Merri. The
+younger Branch could have legally carried out Charles X.'s plan.
+
+"Remain where you are, head of a bureau under Baudoyer," went on des
+Lupeaulx. "Have the nerve to do this; make yourself a true politician;
+put ideas and generous impulses aside; attend only to your functions;
+don't say a word to your new director; don't help him with a
+suggestion; and do nothing yourself without his order. In three months
+Baudoyer will be out of the ministry, either dismissed, or stranded on
+some other administrative shore. They may attach him to the king's
+household. Twice in my life I have been set aside as you are, and
+overwhelmed by an avalanche of folly; I have quietly waited and let it
+pass."
+
+"Yes," said Rabourdin, "but you were not calumniated; your honor was
+not assailed, compromised--"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" cried des Lupeaulx, interrupting him with a burst of
+Homeric laughter. "Why, that's the daily bread of every remarkable man
+in this glorious kingdom of France! And there are but two ways to meet
+such calumny,--either yield to it, pack up, and go plant cabbages in
+the country; or else rise above it, march on, fearless, and don't turn
+your head."
+
+"For me, there is but one way of untying the noose which treachery and
+the work of spies have fastened round my throat," replied Rabourdin.
+"I must explain the matter at once to his Excellency, and if you are
+as sincerely attached to me as you say you are, you will put me face
+to face with him to-morrow."
+
+"You mean that you wish to explain to him your plan for the reform of
+the service?"
+
+Rabourdin bowed.
+
+"Well, then, trust the papers with me,--your memoranda, all the
+documents. I promise you that he shall sit up all night and examine
+them."
+
+"Let us go to him, then!" cried Rabourdin, eagerly; "six years' toil
+certainly deserves two or three hours attention from the king's
+minister, who will be forced to recognize, if he does not applaud,
+such perseverance."
+
+Compelled by Rabourdin's tenacity to take a straightforward path,
+without ambush or angle where his treachery could hide itself, des
+Lupeaulx hesitated for a single instant, and looked at Madame
+Rabourdin, while he inwardly asked himself, "Which shall I permit to
+triumph, my hatred for him, or my fancy for her?"
+
+"You have no confidence in my honor," he said, after a pause. "I see
+that you will always be to me the author of your /secret analysis/.
+Adieu, madame."
+
+Madame Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier returned at once
+to their own rooms without a word; both were overcome by their
+misfortune. The wife thought of the dreadful situation in which she
+stood toward her husband. The husband, resolving slowly not to remain
+at the ministry but to send in his resignation at once, was lost in a
+sea of reflections; the crisis for him meant a total change of life
+and the necessity of starting on a new career. All night he sat before
+his fire, taking no notice of Celestine, who came in several times on
+tiptoe, in her night-dress.
+
+"I must go once more to the ministry, to bring away my papers, and
+show Baudoyer the routine of the business," he said to himself at
+last. "I had better write my resignation now."
+
+He turned to his table and began to write, thinking over each clause
+of the letter, which was as follows:--
+
+  Monseigneur,--I have the honor to inclose to your Excellency my
+  resignation. I venture to hope that you still remember hearing me
+  say that I left my honor in your hands, and that everything, for
+  me, depended on my being able to give you an immediate
+  explanation.
+
+  This explanation I have vainly sought to give. To-day it would,
+  perhaps, be useless; for a fragment of my work relating to the
+  administration, stolen and misused, has gone the rounds of the
+  offices and is misinterpreted by hatred; in consequence, I find
+  myself compelled to resign, under the tacit condemnation of my
+  superiors.
+
+  Your Excellency may have thought, on the morning when I first
+  sought to speak with you, that my purpose was to ask for my
+  promotion, when, in fact, I was thinking only of the glory and
+  usefulness of your ministry and of the public good. It is
+  all-important, I think, to correct that impression.
+
+Then followed the usual epistolary formulas.
+
+It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated the
+sacrifice of his ideas; he burned everything, the toil of years.
+Fatigued by the pressure of thought, overcome by mental suffering, he
+fell asleep with his head on the back of his armchair. He was wakened
+by a curious sensation, and found his hands covered with his wife's
+tears and saw her kneeling before him. Celestine had read the
+resignation. She could measure the depth of his fall. They were now to
+be reduced to live on four thousand francs a year; and that day she
+had counted up her debts,--they amounted to something like thirty-two
+thousand francs! The most ignoble of all wretchedness had come upon
+them. And that noble man who had trusted her was ignorant that she had
+abused the fortune he had confided to her care. She was sobbing at his
+feet, beautiful as the Magdalen.
+
+"My cup is full," cried Xavier, in terror. "I am dishonored at the
+ministry, and dishonored--"
+
+The light of her pure honor flashed from Celestine's eyes; she sprang
+up like a startled horse and cast a fulminating glance at Rabourdin.
+
+"I! I!" she said, on two sublime tones. "Am I a base wife? If I were,
+you would have been appointed. But," she added mournfully, "it is
+easier to believe that than to believe what is the truth."
+
+"Then what is it?" said Rabourdin.
+
+"All in three words," she said; "I owe thirty thousand francs."
+
+Rabourdin caught his wife to his heart with a gesture of almost
+frantic joy, and seated her on his knee.
+
+"Take comfort, dear," he said, in a tone of voice so adorably kind
+that the bitterness of her grief was changed to something
+inexpressibly tender. "I too have made mistakes; I have worked
+uselessly for my country when I thought I was being useful to her. But
+now I mean to take another path. If I had sold groceries we should now
+be millionaires. Well, let us be grocers. You are only twenty-eight,
+dear angel; in ten years you shall recover the luxury that you love,
+which we must needs renounce for a short time. I, too, dear heart, am
+not a base or common husband. We will sell our farm; its value has
+increased of late. That and the sale of our furniture will pay my
+debts."
+
+/My/ debts! Celestine embraced her husband a thousand times in the
+single kiss with which she thanked him for that generous word.
+
+"We shall still have a hundred thousand francs to put into business.
+Before the month is out I shall find some favorable opening. If luck
+gave a Martin Falleix to a Saillard, why should we despair? Wait
+breakfast for me. I am going now to the ministry, but I shall come
+back with my neck free of the yoke."
+
+Celestine clasped her husband in her arms with a force men do not
+possess, even in their passionate moments; for women are stronger
+through emotion than men through power. She wept and laughed and
+sobbed in turns.
+
+When Rabourdin left the house at eight o'clock, the porter gave him
+the satirical cards suggested by Bixiou. Nevertheless, he went to the
+ministry, where he found Sebastien waiting near the door to entreat
+him not to enter any of the bureaus, because an infamous caricature of
+him was making the round of the offices.
+
+"If you wish to soften the pain of my downfall," he said to the lad,
+"bring me that drawing; I am now taking my resignation to Ernest de la
+Briere myself, that it may not be altered or distorted while passing
+through the routine channels. I have my own reasons for wishing to see
+that caricature."
+
+When Rabourdin came back to the courtyard, after making sure that his
+letter would go straight into the minister's hands, he found Sebastien
+in tears, with a copy of the lithograph, which the lad reluctantly
+handed over to him.
+
+"It is very clever," said Rabourdin, showing a serene brow to his
+companion, though the crown of thorns was on it all the same.
+
+He entered the bureaus with a calm air, and went at once into
+Baudoyer's section to ask him to come to the office of the head of the
+division and receive instructions as to the business which that
+incapable being was henceforth to direct.
+
+"Tell Monsieur Baudoyer that there must be no delay," he added, in the
+hearing of all the clerks; "my resignation is already in the
+minister's hands, and I do not wish to stay here longer than is
+necessary."
+
+Seeing Bixiou, Rabourdin went straight up to him, showed him the
+lithograph, and said, to the great astonishment of all present,--
+
+"Was I not right in saying you were an artist? Still, it is a pity you
+directed the point of your pencil against a man who cannot be judged
+in this way, nor indeed by the bureaus at all;--but everything is
+laughed at in France, even God."
+
+Then he took Baudoyer into the office of the late La Billardiere. At
+the door he found Phellion and Sebastien, the only two who, under his
+great disaster, dared to remain openly faithful to the fallen man.
+Rabourdin noticed that Phellion's eyes were moist, and he could not
+refrain from wringing his hand.
+
+"Monsieur," said the good man, "if we can serve you in any way, make
+use of us."
+
+Monsieur Rabourdin shut himself up in the late chief's office with
+Monsieur Baudoyer, and Phellion helped him to show the new incumbent
+all the administrative difficulties of his new position. At each
+separate affair which Rabourdin carefully explained, Baudoyer's little
+eyes grew big as saucers.
+
+"Farewell, monsieur," said Rabourdin at last, with a manner that was
+half-solemn, half-satirical.
+
+Sebastien meanwhile had made up a package of papers and letters
+belonging to his chief and had carried them away in a hackney coach.
+Rabourdin passed through the grand courtyard, while all the clerks
+were watching from the windows, and waited there a moment to see if
+the minister would send him any message. His Excellency was dumb.
+Phellion courageously escorted the fallen man to his home, expressing
+his feelings of respectful admiration; then he returned to the office,
+and took up his work, satisfied with his own conduct in rendering
+these funeral honors to the neglected and misjudged administrative
+talent.
+
+Bixiou [seeing Phellion re-enter]. "Victrix cause diis placuit, sed
+victa Catoni."
+
+Phellion. "Yes, monsieur."
+
+Poiret. "What does that mean?"
+
+Fleury. "That priests rejoice, and Monsieur Rabourdin has the respect
+of men of honor."
+
+Dutocq [annoyed]. "You didn't say that yesterday."
+
+Fleury. "If you address me you'll have my hand in your face. It is
+known for certain that you filched those papers from Monsieur
+Rabourdin." [Dutocq leaves the office.] "Oh, yes, go and complain to
+your Monsieur des Lupeaulx, spy!"
+
+Bixiou [laughing and grimacing like a monkey]. "I am curious to know
+how the division will get along. Monsieur Rabourdin is so remarkable a
+man that he must have had some special views in that work of his.
+Well, the minister loses a fine mind." [Rubs his hands.]
+
+Laurent [entering]. "Monsieur Fleury is requested to go to the
+secretary's office."
+
+All the clerks. "Done for!"
+
+Fleury [leaving the room]. "I don't care; I am offered a place as
+responsible editor. I shall have all my time to myself to lounge the
+streets or do amusing work in a newspaper office."
+
+Bixiou. "Dutocq has already made them cut off the head of that poor
+Desroys."
+
+Colleville [entering joyously]. "Gentlemen, I am appointed head of
+this bureau."
+
+Thuillier. "Ah, my friend, if it were I myself, I couldn't be better
+pleased."
+
+Bixiou. "His wife has managed it." [Laughter.]
+
+Poiret. "Will any one tell me the meaning of all that is happening
+here to-day?"
+
+Bixiou. "Do you really want to know? Then listen. The antechamber of
+the administration is henceforth a chamber, the court is a boudoir,
+the best way to get in is through the cellar, and the bed is more than
+ever a cross-cut."
+
+Poiret. "Monsieur Bixiou, may I entreat you, explain?"
+
+Bixiou. "I'll paraphrase my opinion. To be anything at all you must
+begin by being everything. It is quite certain that a reform of this
+service is needed; for on my word of honor, the State robs the poor
+officials as much as the officials rob the State in the matter of
+hours. But why is it that we idle as we do? because they pay us too
+little; and the reason of that is we are too many for the work, and
+your late chief, the virtuous Rabourdin, saw all this plainly. That
+great administrator,--for he was that, gentlemen,--saw what the thing
+is coming to, the thing that these idiots call the 'working of our
+admirable institutions.' The chamber will want before long to
+administrate, and the administrators will want to legislate. The
+government will try to administrate and the administrators will want
+to govern, and so it will go on. Laws will come to be mere
+regulations, and ordinances will be thought laws. God made this epoch
+of the world for those who like to laugh. I live in a state of jovial
+admiration of the spectacle which the greatest joker of modern times,
+Louis XVIII., bequeathed to us" [general stupefaction]. "Gentlemen, if
+France, the country with the best civil service in Europe, is managed
+thus, what do you suppose the other nations are like? Poor unhappy
+nations! I ask myself how they can possibly get along without two
+Chambers, without the liberty of the press, without reports, without
+circulars even, without an army of clerks? Dear, dear, how do you
+suppose they have armies and navies? how can they exist at all without
+political discussions? Can they even be called nations, or
+governments? It is said (mere traveller's tales) that these strange
+peoples claim to have a policy, to wield a certain influence; but
+that's absurd! how can they when they haven't 'progress' or 'new
+lights'? They can't stir up ideas, they haven't an independent forum;
+they are still in the twilight of barbarism. There are no people in
+the world but the French people who have ideas. Can you understand,
+Monsieur Poiret," [Poiret jumped as if he had been shot] "how a nation
+can do without heads of divisions, general-secretaries and directors,
+and all this splendid array of officials, the glory of France and of
+the Emperor Napoleon,--who had his own good reasons for creating a
+myriad of offices? I don't see how those nations have the audacity to
+live at all. There's Austria, which has less than a hundred clerks in
+her war ministry, while the salaries and pensions of ours amount to a
+third of our whole budget, a thing that was unheard of before the
+Revolution. I sum up all I've been saying in one single remark,
+namely, that the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, which
+seems to have very little to do, had better offer a prize for the
+ablest answer to the following question: Which is the best organized
+State; the one that does many things with few officials, or the one
+that does next to nothing with an army of them?"
+
+Poiret. "Is that your last word?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, sir! whether English, French, German or Italian,--I let
+you off the other languages."
+
+Poiret [lifting his hands to heaven]. "Gracious goodness! and they
+call you a witty man!"
+
+Bixiou. "Haven't you understood me yet?"
+
+Phellion. "Your last observation was full of excellent sense."
+
+Bixiou. "Just as full as the budget itself, and like the budget again,
+as complicated as it looks simple; and I set it as a warning, a
+beacon, at the edge of this hole, this gulf, this volcano, called, in
+the language of the 'Constitutionel,' 'the political horizon.'"
+
+Poiret. "I should much prefer a comprehensible explanation."
+
+Bixiou. "Hurrah for Rabourdin! there's my explanation; that's my
+opinion. Are you satisfied?"
+
+Colleville [gravely]. "Monsieur Rabourdin had but one defect."
+
+Poiret. "What was it?"
+
+Colleville. "That of being a statesman instead of a subordinate
+official."
+
+Phellion [standing before Bixiou]. "Monsieur! why did you, who
+understand Monsieur Rabourdin so well, why did you make that inf--that
+odi--that hideous caricature?"
+
+Bixiou. "Do you forget our bet? don't you know I was backing the
+devil's game, and that your bureau owes me a dinner at the Rocher de
+Cancale?"
+
+Poiret [much put-out]. "Then it is a settled thing that I am to leave
+this government office without ever understanding a sentence, or a
+single word uttered by Monsieur Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou. "It is your own fault; ask these gentlemen. Gentlemen, have
+you understood the meaning of my observations? and were those
+observations just, and brilliant?"
+
+All. "Alas, yes!"
+
+Minard. "And the proof is that I shall send in my resignation. I shall
+plunge into industrial avocations."
+
+Bixiou. "What! have you managed to invent a mechanical corset, or a
+baby's bottle, or a fire engine, or chimneys that consume no fuel, or
+ovens which cook cutlets with three sheets of paper?"
+
+Minard [departing.] "Adieu, I shall keep my secret."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, young Poiret junior, you see,--all these gentlemen
+understand me."
+
+Poiret [crest-fallen]. "Monsieur Bixiou, would you do me the honor to
+come down for once to my level and speak in a language I can
+understand?"
+
+Bixiou [winking at the rest]. "Willingly." [Takes Poiret by the button
+of his frock-coat.] "Before you leave this office forever perhaps you
+would be glad to know what you are--"
+
+Poiret [quickly]. "An honest man, monsieur."
+
+Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "--to be able to define, explain,
+and analyze precisely what a government clerk is? Do you know what he
+is?"
+
+Poiret. "I think I do."
+
+Bixiou [twisting the button]. "I doubt it."
+
+Poiret. "He is a man paid by government to do work."
+
+Bixiou. "Oh! then a soldier is a government clerk?"
+
+Poiret [puzzled]. "Why, no."
+
+Bixiou. "But he is paid by the government to do work, to mount guard
+and show off at reviews. You may perhaps tell me that he longs to get
+out of his place,--that he works too hard and fingers too little
+metal, except that of his musket."
+
+Poiret [his eyes wide open]. "Monsieur, a government clerk is,
+logically speaking, a man who needs the salary to maintain himself,
+and is not free to get out of his place; for he doesn't know how to do
+anything but copy papers."
+
+Bixiou. "Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion. So the bureau is the
+clerk's shell, husk, pod. No clerk without a bureau, no bureau without
+a clerk. But what do you make, then, of a customs officer?" [Poiret
+shuffles his feet and tries to edge away; Bixiou twists off one button
+and catches him by another.] "He is, from the bureaucratic point of
+view, a neutral being. The excise-man is only half a clerk; he is on
+the confines between civil and military service; neither altogether
+soldier nor altogether clerk-- Here, here, where are you going?"
+[Twists the button.] "Where does the government clerk proper end?
+That's a serious question. Is a prefect a clerk?"
+
+Poiret [hesitating]. "He is a functionary."
+
+Bixiou. "But you don't mean that a functionary is not a clerk? that's
+an absurdity."
+
+Poiret [weary and looking round for escape]. "I think Monsieur Godard
+wants to say something."
+
+Godard. "The clerk is the order, the functionary the species."
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "I shouldn't have thought you capable of that
+distinction, my brave subordinate."
+
+Poiret [trying to get away]. "Incomprehensible!"
+
+Bixiou. "La, la, papa, don't step on your tether. If you stand still
+and listen, we shall come to an understanding before long. Now, here's
+an axiom which I bequeath to this bureau and to all bureaus: Where the
+clerk ends, the functionary begins; where the functionary ends, the
+statesman rises. There are very few statesmen among the prefects. The
+prefect is therefore a neutral being among the higher species. He
+comes between the statesman and the clerk, just as the custom-house
+officer stands between the civil and the military. Let us continue to
+clear up these important points." [Poiret turns crimson with
+distress.] "Suppose we formulate the whole matter in a maxim worthy of
+Larochefoucault: Officials with salaries of twenty thousand francs are
+not clerks. From which we may deduce mathematically this corollary:
+The statesman first looms up in the sphere of higher salaries; and
+also this second and not less logical and important corollary:
+Directors-general may be statesmen. Perhaps it is in that sense that
+more than one deputy says in his heart, 'It is a fine thing to be a
+director-general.' But in the interests of our noble French language
+and of the Academy--"
+
+Poiret [magnetized by the fixity of Bixiou's eye]. "The French
+language! the Academy!"
+
+Bixiou [twisting off the second button and seizing another]. "Yes, in
+the interests of our noble tongue, it is proper to observe that
+although the head of a bureau, strictly speaking, may be called a
+clerk, the head of a division must be called a bureaucrat. These
+gentlemen" [turning to the clerks and privately showing them the third
+button off Poiret's coat] "will appreciate this delicate shade of
+meaning. And so, papa Poiret, don't you see it is clear that the
+government clerk comes to a final end at the head of a division? Now
+that question once settled, there is no longer any uncertainty; the
+government clerk who has hitherto seemed undefinable is defined."
+
+Poiret. "Yes, that appears to me beyond a doubt."
+
+Bixiou. "Nevertheless, do me the kindness to answer the following
+question: A judge being irremovable, and consequently debarred from
+being, according to your subtle distinction, a functionary, and
+receiving a salary which is not the equivalent of the work he does, is
+he to be included in the class of clerks?"
+
+Poiret [gazing at the cornice]. "Monsieur, I don't follow you."
+
+Bixiou [getting off the fourth button]. "I wanted to prove to you,
+monsieur, that nothing is simple; but above all--and what I am going
+to say is intended for philosophers--I wish (if you'll allow me to
+misquote a saying of Louis XVIII.),--I wish to make you see that
+definitions lead to muddles."
+
+Poiret [wiping his forehead]. "Excuse me, I am sick at my stomach"
+[tries to button his coat]. "Ah! you have cut off all my buttons!"
+
+Bixiou. "But the point is, /do you understand me/?"
+
+Poiret [angrily]. "Yes, monsieur, I do; I understand that you have
+been playing me a shameful trick and twisting off my buttons while I
+have been standing here unconscious of it."
+
+Bixiou [solemnly]. "Old man, you are mistaken! I wished to stamp upon
+your brain the clearest possible image of constitutional government"
+[all the clerks look at Bixiou; Poiret, stupefied, gazes at him
+uneasily], "and also to keep my word to you. In so doing I employed
+the parabolical method of savages. Listen and comprehend: While the
+ministers start discussions in the Chambers that are just about as
+useful and as conclusive as the one we are engaged in, the
+administration cuts the buttons off the tax-payers."
+
+All. "Bravo, Bixiou!"
+
+Poiret [who comprehends]. "I don't regret my buttons."
+
+Bixiou. "I shall follow Minard's example; I won't pocket such a
+paltry salary as mine any longer; I shall deprive the government of my
+co-operation." [Departs amid general laughter.]
+
+Another scene was taking place in the minister's reception-room, more
+instructive than the one we have just related, because it shows how
+great ideas are allowed to perish in the higher regions of State
+affairs, and in what way statesmen console themselves.
+
+Des Lupeaulx was presenting the new director, Monsieur Baudoyer, to
+the minister. A number of persons were assembled in the salon,--two or
+three ministerial deputies, a few men of influence, and Monsieur
+Clergeot (whose division was now merged with La Billardiere's under
+Baudoyer's direction), to whom the minister was promising an honorable
+pension. After a few general remarks, the great event of the day was
+brought up.
+
+A deputy. "So you lose Rabourdin?"
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "He has resigned."
+
+Clergeot. "They say he wanted to reform the administration."
+
+The Minister [looking at the deputies]. "Salaries are not really in
+proportion to the exigencies of the civil service."
+
+De la Briere. "According to Monsieur Rabourdin, one hundred clerks
+with a salary of twelve thousand francs would do better and quicker
+work than a thousand clerks at twelve hundred."
+
+Clergeot. "Perhaps he is right."
+
+The Minister. "But what is to be done? The machine is built in that
+way. Must we take it to pieces and remake it? No one would have the
+courage to attempt that in face of the Chamber, and the foolish
+outcries of the Opposition, and the fierce denunciations of the press.
+It follows that there will happen, one of these days, some damaging
+'solution of continuity' between the government and the
+administration."
+
+A deputy. "In what way?"
+
+The Minister. "In many ways. A minister will want to serve the public
+good, and will not be allowed to do so. You will create interminable
+delays between things and their results. You may perhaps render the
+theft of a penny actually impossible, but you cannot prevent the
+buying and selling of influence, the collusions of self-interest. The
+day will come when nothing will be conceded without secret
+stipulations, which may never see the light. Moreover, the clerks, one
+and all, from the least to the greatest, are acquiring opinions of
+their own; they will soon be no longer the hands of a brain, the
+scribes of governmental thought; the Opposition even now tends towards
+giving them a right to judge the government and to talk and vote
+against it."
+
+Baudoyer [in a low voice, but meaning to be heard]. "Monseigneur is
+really fine."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "Of course bureaucracy has its defects. I myself think
+it slow and insolent; it hampers ministerial action, stifles projects,
+and arrests progress. But, after all, French administration is
+amazingly useful."
+
+Baudoyer. "Certainly!"
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "If only to maintain the paper and stamp industries!
+Suppose it is rather fussy and provoking, like all good housekeepers,
+--it can at any moment render an account of its disbursements. Where
+is the merchant who would not gladly give five per cent of his entire
+capital if he could insure himself against /leakage/?"
+
+The Deputy [a manufacturer]. "The manufacturing interests of all
+nations would joyfully unite against that evil genius of theirs called
+leakage."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "After all, though statistics are the childish foible of
+modern statesmen, who think that figures are estimates, we must cipher
+to estimate. Figures are, moreover, the convincing argument of
+societies based on self-interest and money, and that is the sort of
+society the Charter has given us,--in my opinion, at any rate. Nothing
+convinces the 'intelligent masses' as much as a row of figures. All
+things in the long run, say the statesmen of the Left, resolve
+themselves into figures. Well then, let us figure" [the minister here
+goes off into a corner with a deputy, to whom he talks in a low
+voice]. "There are forty thousand government clerks in France. The
+average of their salaries is fifteen hundred francs. Multiply forty
+thousand by fifteen hundred and you have sixty millions. Now, in the
+first place, a publicist would call the attention of Russia and China
+(where all government officials steal), also that of Austria, the
+American republics, and indeed that of the whole world, to the fact
+that for this price France possesses the most inquisitorial, fussy,
+ferreting, scribbling, paper-blotting, fault-finding old housekeeper
+of a civil service on God's earth. Not a copper farthing of the
+nation's money is spent or hoarded that is not ordered by a note,
+proved by vouchers, produced and re-produced on balance-sheets, and
+receipted for when paid; orders and receipts are registered on the
+rolls, and checked and verified by an army of men in spectacles. If
+there is the slightest mistake in the form of these precious
+documents, the clerk is terrified, for he lives on such minutiae. Some
+nations would be satisfied to get as far as this; but Napoleon went
+further. That great organizer appointed supreme magistrates of a court
+which is absolutely unique in the world. These officials pass their
+days in verifying money-orders, documents, roles, registers, lists,
+permits, custom-house receipts, payments, taxes received, taxes spent,
+etc.; all of which the clerks write or copy. These stern judges
+push the gift of exactitude, the genius of inquisition, the
+sharp-sightedness of lynxes, the perspicacity of account-books to the
+point of going over all the additions in search of subtractions. These
+sublime martyrs to figures have been known to return to an army
+commissary, after a delay of two years, some account in which there
+was an error of two farthings. This is how and why it is that the
+French system of administration, the purest and best on the globe has
+rendered robbery, as his Excellency has just told you, next to
+impossible, and as for peculation, it is a myth. France at this
+present time possesses a revenue of twelve hundred millions, and she
+spends it. That sum enters her treasury, and that sum goes out of it.
+She handles, therefore, two thousand four hundred millions, and all
+she pays for the labor of those who do the work is sixty millions,
+--two and a half per cent; and for that she obtains the certainty that
+there is no leakage. Our political and administrative kitchen costs us
+sixty millions, but the gendarmerie, the courts of law, the galleys
+and the police cost just as much, and give no return. Moreover, we
+employ a body of men who could do no other work. Waste and disorder,
+if such there be, can only be legislative; the Chambers lead to them
+and render them legal. Leakage follows in the form of public works
+which are neither urgent nor necessary; troops re-uniformed and
+gold-laced over and over again; vessels sent on useless cruises;
+preparations for war without ever making it; paying the debts of a
+State, and not requiring reimbursement or insisting on security."
+
+Baudoyer. "But such leakage has nothing to do with the subordinate
+officials; this bad management of national affairs concerns the
+statesmen who guide the ship."
+
+The Minister [who has finished his conversation]. "There is a great
+deal of truth in what des Lupeaulx has just said; but let me tell you"
+[to Baudoyer], "Monsieur le directeur, that few men see from the
+standpoint of a statesman. To order expenditure of all kinds, even
+useless ones, does not constitute bad management. Such acts contribute
+to the movement of money, the stagnation of which becomes, especially
+in France, dangerous to the public welfare, by reason of the miserly
+and profoundly illogical habits of the provinces which hoard their
+gold."
+
+The Deputy [who listened to des Lupeaulx]. "But it seems to me that if
+your Excellency was right just now, and if our clever friend here"
+[takes Lupeaulx by the arm] "was not wrong, it will be difficult to
+come to any conclusion on the subject."
+
+Des Lupeaulx [after looking at the minister]. "No doubt something
+ought to be done."
+
+De la Briere [timidly]. "Monsieur Rabourdin seems to have judged
+rightly."
+
+The Minister. "I will see Rabourdin."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "The poor man made the blunder of constituting himself
+supreme judge of the administration and of all the officials who
+compose it; he wants to do away with the present state of things, and
+he demands that there be only three ministries."
+
+The Minister. "He must be crazy."
+
+The Deputy. "How do you represent in three ministries the heads of all
+the parties in the Chamber?"
+
+Baudoyer [with an air that he imagined to be shrewd]. "Perhaps
+Monsieur Rabourdin desired to change the Constitution, which we owe to
+our legislative sovereign."
+
+The Minister [thoughtful, takes La Briere's arm and leads him into the
+study]. "I want to see that work of Rabourdin's, and as you know about
+it--"
+
+De la Briere. "He has burned it. You allowed him to be dishonored and
+he has resigned from the ministry. Do not think for a moment,
+Monseigneur, that Rabourdin ever had the absurd thought (as des
+Lupeaulx tries to make it believed) to change the admirable
+centralization of power."
+
+The Minister [to himself]. "I have made a mistake" [is silent a
+moment]. "No matter; we shall never be lacking in plans for reform."
+
+De la Briere. "It is not ideas, but men capable of executing them that
+we lack."
+
+Des Lupeaulx, that adroit advocate of abuses came into the minister's
+study at this moment.
+
+"Monseigneur, I start at once for my election."
+
+"Wait a moment," said his Excellency, leaving the private secretary
+and taking des Lupeaulx by the arm into the recess of a window. "My
+dear friend, let me have that arrondissement,--if you will, you shall
+be made count and I will pay your debts. Later, if I remain in the
+ministry after the new Chamber is elected, I will find a way to send
+in your name in a batch for the peerage."
+
+"You are a man of honor, and I accept."
+
+This is how it came to pass that Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, whose
+father was ennobled under Louis XV., and who beareth quarterly, first,
+argent, a wolf ravisant carrying a lamb gules; second, purpure, three
+mascles argent, two and one; third, paly of twelve, gules and argent;
+fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises gules;
+supported by four griffon's-claws jessant from the sides of the
+escutcheon, with the motto "En Lupus in Historia," was able to
+surmount these rather satirical arms with a count's coronet.
+
+Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did some
+business on hand which required him to visit the old ministry, where
+the bureaus had all been in great commotion, owing to a general
+removal of officials, from the highest to the lowest. This revolution
+bore heaviest, in point of fact, upon the lackeys, who are not fond of
+seeing new faces. Rabourdin had come early, knowing all the ways of
+the place, and he thus chanced to overhear a dialogue between the two
+nephews of old Antoine, who had recently retired on a pension.
+
+"Well, Laurent, how is your chief of division going on?"
+
+"Oh, don't talk to me about him; I can't do anything with him. He
+rings me up to ask if I have seen his handkerchief or his snuff-box.
+He receives people without making them wait; in short, he hasn't a bit
+of dignity. I'm often obliged to say to him: But, monsieur, monsieur
+le comte your predecessor, for the credit of the thing, used to punch
+holes with his penknife in the arms of his chair to make believe he
+was working. And he makes such a mess of his room. I find everything
+topsy-turvy. He has a very small mind. How about your man?"
+
+"Mine? Oh, I have succeeded in training him. He knows exactly where
+his letter-paper and envelopes, his wood, and his boxes and all the
+rest of his things are. The other man used to swear at me, but this
+one is as meek as a lamb,--still, he hasn't the grand style! Moreover,
+he isn't decorated, and I don't like to serve a chief who isn't; he
+might be taken for one of us, and that's humiliating. He carries the
+office letter-paper home, and asked me if I couldn't go there and wait
+at table when there was company."
+
+"Hey! what a government, my dear fellow!"
+
+"Yes, indeed; everybody plays low in these days."
+
+"I hope they won't cut down our poor wages."
+
+"I'm afraid they will. The Chambers are prying into everything. Why,
+they even count the sticks of wood."
+
+"Well, it can't last long if they go on that way."
+
+"Hush, we're caught! somebody is listening."
+
+"Hey! it is the late Monsieur Rabourdin. Ah, monsieur, I knew your
+step. If you have business to transact here I am afraid you will not
+find any one who is aware of the respect that ought to be paid to you;
+Laurent and I are the only persons remaining about the place who were
+here in your day. Messieurs Colleville and Baudoyer didn't wear out
+the morocco of the chairs after you left. Heavens, no! six months
+later they were made Collectors of Paris."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Note.--Anagrams cannot, of course, be translated; that is why three
+English ones have been substituted for some in French. [Tr.]
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Baudoyer, Isidore
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Pons
+
+Bianchon, Horace
+  Father Goriot
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  Pierrette
+  A Study of Woman
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Second Home
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Country Parson
+In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+  Another Study of Woman
+  La Grande Breteche
+
+Bidault (known as Gigonnet)
+  Gobseck
+  The Vendetta
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
+  The Purse
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Modeste Mignon
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Member for Arcis
+  Beatrix
+  A Man of Business
+  Gaudissart II.
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  Cousin Pons
+
+Brezacs (The)
+  The Country Parson
+
+Bruel, Jean Francois du
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Start in Life
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  The Middle Classes
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Camps, Madame Octave de
+  Madame Firmiani
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Chaboisseau
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Man of Business
+
+Chatelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, Baronne du
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+
+Chessel, Madame de
+  The Lily of the Valley
+
+Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Colleville
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Desplein
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cousin Pons
+  Lost Illusions
+  The Thirteen
+  Pierrette
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  Modest Mignon
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+
+Desroches (son)
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Colonel Chabert
+  A Start in Life
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  A Man of Business
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Dutocq
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Falleix, Martin
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+
+Falleix, Jacques
+  The Thirteen
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Ferraud, Comtesse
+  Colonel Chabert
+
+Finot, Andoche
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  A Start in Life
+  Gaudissart the Great
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+
+Fleury
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Fontaine, Comte de
+  The Chouans
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Cesar Birotteau
+
+Fontanon, Abbe
+  A Second Home
+  Honorine
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Gaudron, Abbe
+  Honorine
+  A Start in Life
+
+Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
+  Gobseck
+  Father Goriot
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Godard, Joseph
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Granson, Athanase
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+
+Gruget, Madame Etienne
+  The Thirteen
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+
+Keller, Francois
+  Domestic Peace
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+La Bastie la Briere, Ernest de
+  Modeste Mignon
+
+La Billardiere, Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel, Baron Flamet de
+  The Chouans
+  Cesar Birotteau
+
+Laudigeois
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier
+  The Chouans
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  Colonel Chabert
+
+Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Ursule Mirouet
+
+Metivier
+  Lost Illusions
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Minard, Madame
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Minorets, The
+  The Peasantry
+
+Mitral
+  Cesar Birotteau
+
+Nathan, Madame Raoul
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Phellion
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Poiret, the elder
+  Father Goriot
+  A Start in Life
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Rabourdin, Xavier
+  At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Rabourdin, Madame
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+
+Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Saillard
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Samanon
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Schinner, Hippolyte
+  The Purse
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Pierre Grassou
+  A Start in Life
+  Albert Savarus
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Sommervieux, Theodore de
+  At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+  Modeste Mignon
+
+Thuillier
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Thuillier, Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Thuillier, Louis-Jerome
+  The Middle Classes
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
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@@ -0,0 +1,8976 @@
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
+#14 in our series by de Balzac
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+Bureaucracy
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+by Honore de Balzac
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+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
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+June, 1998  [Etext #1343]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
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+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+Bonnie Sala
+and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+
+
+
+
+
+BUREAUCRACY
+
+BY
+
+HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+Translated By
+Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To the Comtesse Seraphina San Severino, with the respectful
+homage of sincere and deep admiration.
+De Balzac.
+
+
+
+
+BUREAUCRACY
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE RABOURDIN HOUSEHOLD
+
+In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain likeness to
+one another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met
+with several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are
+about to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our
+most important ministries. At this period he was forty years old, with
+gray hair of so pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch fall in
+love with it for it softened a somewhat melancholy countenance, blue
+eyes full of fire, a skin that was still fair, though rather ruddy and
+touched here and there with strong red marks; a forehead and nose a la
+Louis XV., a serious mouth, a tall figure, thin, or perhaps wasted,
+like that of a man just recovering from illness, and finally, a
+bearing that was midway between the indolence of a mere idler and the
+thoughtfulness of a busy man. If this portrait serves to depict his
+character, a sketch of this man's dress will bring it still further
+into relief. Rabourdin wore habitually a blue surcoat, a white cravat,
+a waistcoat crossed a la Robespierre, black trousers without straps,
+gray silk stockings and low shoes. Well-shaved, and with his stomach
+warmed by a cup of coffee, he left home at eight in the morning with
+the regularity of clock-work, always passing along the same streets on
+his way to the ministry: so neat was he, so formal, so starched that
+he might have been taken for an Englishman on the road to his embassy.
+
+From these general signs you will readily discern a family man,
+harassed by vexations in his own household, worried by annoyances at
+the ministry, yet philosopher enough to take life as he found it; an
+honest man, loving his country and serving it, not concealing from
+himself the obstacles in the way of those who seek to do right;
+prudent, because he knew men; exquisitely courteous with women, of
+whom he asked nothing,--a man full of acquirements, affable with his
+inferiors, holding his equals at great distance, and dignified towards
+his superiors. At the epoch of which we write, you would have noticed
+in him the coldly resigned air of one who has buried the illusions of
+his youth and renounced every secret ambition; you would have
+recognized a discouraged, but not disgusted man, one who still clings
+to his first projects,--more perhaps to employ his faculties than in
+the hope of a doubtful success. He was not decorated with any order,
+and always accused himself of weakness for having worn that of the
+Fleur-de-lis in the early days of the Restoration.
+
+The life of this man was marked by certain mysterious peculiarities.
+He had never known his father; his mother, a woman to whom luxury was
+everything, always elegantly dressed, always on pleasure bent, whose
+beauty seemed to him miraculous and whom he very seldom saw, left him
+little at her death; but she had given him that too common and
+incomplete education which produces so much ambition and so little
+ability. A few days before his mother's death, when he was just
+sixteen, he left the Lycee Napoleon to enter as supernumerary a
+government office, where an unknown protector had provided him with a
+place. At twenty-two years of age Rabourdin became under-head-clerk;
+at twenty-five, head-clerk, or, as it was termed, head of the bureau.
+From that day the hand that assisted the young man to start in life
+was never felt again in his career, except as to a single
+circumstance; it led him, poor and friendless, to the house of a
+Monsieur Leprince, formerly an auctioneer, a widower said to be
+extremely rich, and father of an only daughter. Xavier Rabourdin fell
+desperately in love with Mademoiselle Celestine Leprince, then
+seventeen years of age, who had all the matrimonial claims of a dowry
+of two hundred thousand francs. Carefully educated by an artistic
+mother, who transmitted her own talents to her daughter, this young
+lady was fitted to attract distinguished men. Tall, handsome, and
+finely-formed, she was a good musician, drew and painted, spoke
+several languages, and even knew something of science,--a dangerous
+advantage, which requires a woman to avoid carefully all appearance of
+pedantry. Blinded by mistaken tenderness, the mother gave the daughter
+false ideas as to her probable future; to the maternal eyes a duke or
+an ambassador, a marshal of France or a minister of State, could alone
+give her Celestine her due place in society. The young lady had,
+moreover, the manners, language, and habits of the great world. Her
+dress was richer and more elegant than was suitable for an unmarried
+girl; a husband could give her nothing more than she now had, except
+happiness. Besides all such indulgences, the foolish spoiling of the
+mother, who died a year after the girl's marriage, made a husband's
+task all the more difficult. What coolness and composure of mind were
+needed to rule such a woman! Commonplace suitors held back in fear.
+Xavier Rabourdin, without parents and without fortune other than his
+situation under government, was proposed to Celestine by her father.
+She resisted for a long time; not that she had any personal objection
+to her suitor, who was young, handsome, and much in love, but she
+shrank from the plain name of Madame Rabourdin. Monsieur Leprince
+assured his daughter that Xavier was of the stock that statesmen came
+of. Celestine answered that a man named Rabourdin would never be
+anything under the government of the Bourbons, etc. Forced back to his
+intrenchments, the father made the serious mistake of telling his
+daughter that her future husband was certain of becoming Rabourdin "de
+something or other" before he reached the age of admission to the
+Chamber. Xavier was soon to be appointed Master of petitions, and
+general-secretary at his ministry. From these lower steps of the
+ladder the young man would certainly rise to the higher ranks of the
+administration, possessed of a fortune and a name bequeathed to him in
+a certain will of which he, Monsieur Leprince, was cognizant. On this
+the marriage took place.
+
+Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious protector to whom
+the auctioneer alluded. Led away by such hopes and by the natural
+extravagance of happy love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin spent nearly
+one hundred thousand francs of their capital in the first five years
+of married life. By the end of this time Celestine, alarmed at the
+non-advancement of her husband, insisted on investing the remaining
+hundred thousand francs of her dowry in landed property, which
+returned only a slender income; but her future inheritance from her
+father would amply repay all present privations with perfect comfort
+and ease of life. When the worthy auctioneer saw his son-in-law
+disappointed of the hopes they had placed on the nameless protector,
+he tried, for the sake of his daughter, to repair the secret loss by
+risking part of his fortune in a speculation which had favourable
+chances of success. But the poor man became involved in one of the
+liquidations of the house of Nucingen, and died of grief, leaving
+nothing behind him but a dozen fine pictures which adorned his
+daughter's salon, and a few old-fashioned pieces of furniture, which
+she put in the garret.
+
+Eight years of fruitless expectation made Madame Rabourdin at last
+understand that the paternal protector of her husband must have died,
+and that his will, if it ever existed, was lost or destroyed. Two
+years before her father's death the place of chief of division, which
+became vacant, was given, over her husband's head, to a certain
+Monsieur de la Billardiere, related to a deputy of the Right who was
+made minister in 1823. It was enough to drive Rabourdin out of the
+service; but how could he give up his salary of eight thousand francs
+and perquisites, when they constituted three fourths of his income and
+his household was accustomed to spend them? Besides, if he had
+patience for a few more years he would then be entitled to a pension.
+What a fall was this for a woman whose high expectations at the
+opening of her life were more or less warranted, and one who was
+admitted on all sides to be a superior woman.
+
+Madame Rabourdin had justified the expectations formed of Mademoiselle
+Leprince; she possessed the elements of that apparent superiority
+which pleases the world; her liberal education enabled her to speak to
+every one in his or her own language; her talents were real; she
+showed an independent and elevated mind; her conversation charmed as
+much by its variety and ease as by the oddness and originality of her
+ideas. Such qualities, useful and appropriate in a sovereign or an
+ambassadress, were of little service to a household compelled to jog
+in the common round. Those who have the gift of speaking well desire
+an audience; they like to talk, even if they sometimes weary others.
+To satisfy the requirements of her mind Madame Rabourdin took a weekly
+reception-day and went a great deal into society to obtain the
+consideration her self-love was accustomed to enjoy. Those who know
+Parisian life will readily understand how a woman of her temperament
+suffered, and was martyrized at heart by the scantiness of her
+pecuniary means. No matter what foolish declarations people make about
+money, they one and all, if they live in Paris, must grovel before
+accounts, do homage to figures, and kiss the forked hoof of the golden
+calf. What a problem was hers! twelve thousand francs a year to defray
+the costs of a household consisting of father, mother, two children, a
+chambermaid and cook, living on the second floor of a house in the rue
+Duphot, in an apartment costing two thousand francs a year. Deduct the
+dress and the carriage of Madame before you estimate the gross
+expenses of the family, for dress precedes everything; then see what
+remains for the education of the children (a girl of eight and a boy
+of nine, whose maintenance must cost at least two thousand francs
+besides) and you will find that Madame Rabourdin could barely afford
+to give her husband thirty francs a month. That is the position of
+half the husbands in Paris, under penalty of being thought monsters.
+
+Thus it was that this woman who believed herself destined to shine in
+the world was condemned to use her mind and her faculties in a sordid
+struggle, fighting hand to hand with an account-book. Already,
+terrible sacrifice of pride! she had dismissed her man-servant, not
+long after the death of her father. Most women grow weary of this
+daily struggle; they complain but they usually end by giving up to
+fate and taking what comes to them; Celestine's ambition, far from
+lessening, only increased through difficulties, and led her, when she
+found she could not conquer them, to sweep them aside. To her mind
+this complicated tangle of the affairs of life was a Gordian knot
+impossible to untie and which genius ought to cut. Far from accepting
+the pettiness of middle-class existence, she was angry at the delay
+which kept the great things of life from her grasp,--blaming fate as
+deceptive. Celestine sincerely believed herself a superior woman.
+Perhaps she was right; perhaps she would have been great under great
+circumstances; perhaps she was not in her right place. Let us remember
+there are as many varieties of woman as there are of man, all of which
+society fashions to meet its needs. Now in the social order, as in
+Nature's order, there are more young shoots than there are trees, more
+spawn than full-grown fish, and many great capacities (Athanase
+Granson, for instance) which die withered for want of moisture, like
+seeds on stony ground. There are, unquestionably, household women,
+accomplished women, ornamental women, women who are exclusively wives,
+or mothers, or sweethearts, women purely spiritual or purely material;
+just as there are soldiers, artists, artisans, mathematicians, poets,
+merchants, men who understand money, or agriculture, or government,
+and nothing else. Besides all this, the eccentricity of events leads
+to endless cross-purposes; many are called and few are chosen is the
+law of earth as of heaven. Madame Rabourdin conceived herself fully
+capable of directing a statesman, inspiring an artist, helping an
+inventor and pushing his interests, or of devoting her powers to the
+financial politics of a Nucingen, and playing a brilliant part in the
+great world. Perhaps she was only endeavouring to excuse to her own
+mind a hatred for the laundry lists and the duty of overlooking the
+housekeeping bills, together with the petty economies and cares of a
+small establishment. She was superior only in those things where it
+gave her pleasure to be so. Feeling as keenly as she did the thorns of
+a position which can only be likened to that of Saint-Laurence on his
+grid-iron, is it any wonder that she sometimes cried out? So, in her
+paroxysms of thwarted ambition, in the moments when her wounded vanity
+gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine turned upon Xavier
+Rabourdin. Was it not her husband's duty to give her a suitable
+position in the world? If she were a man she would have had the energy
+to make a rapid fortune for the sake of rendering an adored wife
+happy! She reproached him for being too honest a man. In the mouth of
+some women this accusation is a charge of imbecility. She sketched out
+for him certain brilliant plans in which she took no account of the
+hindrances imposed by men and things; then, like all women under the
+influence of vehement feeling, she became in thought as Machiavellian
+as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than Maxime de Trailles. At such
+times Celestine's mind took a wide range, and she imagined herself at
+the summit of her ideas.
+
+When these fine visions first began Rabourdin, who saw the practical
+side, was cool. Celestine, much grieved, thought her husband narrow-
+minded, timid, unsympathetic; and she acquired, insensibly, a wholly
+false opinion of the companion of her life. In the first place, she
+often extinguished him by the brilliancy of her arguments. Her ideas
+came to her in flashes, and she sometimes stopped him short when he
+began an explanation, because she did not choose to lose the slightest
+sparkle of her own mind. From the earliest days of their marriage
+Celestine, feeling herself beloved and admired by her husband, treated
+him without ceremony; she put herself above conjugal laws and the
+rules of private courtesy by expecting love to pardon all her little
+wrong-doings; and, as she never in any way corrected herself, she was
+always in the ascendant. In such a situation the man holds to the wife
+very much the position of a child to a teacher when the latter cannot
+or will not recognize that the mind he has ruled in childhood is
+becoming mature. Like Madame de Stael, who exclaimed in a room full of
+people, addressing, as we may say, a greater man than herself, "Do you
+know you have really said something very profound!" Madame Rabourdin
+said of her husband: "He certainly has a good deal of sense at times."
+Her disparaging opinion of him gradually appeared in her behavior
+through almost imperceptible motions. Her attitude and manners
+expressed a want of respect. Without being aware of it she injured her
+husband in the eyes of others; for in all countries society, before
+making up its mind about a man, listens for what his wife thinks of
+him, and obtains from her what the Genevese term "pre-advice."
+
+When Rabourdin became aware of the mistakes which love had led him to
+commit it was too late,--the groove had been cut; he suffered and was
+silent. Like other men in whom sentiments and ideas are of equal
+strength, whose souls are noble and their brains well balanced, he was
+the defender of his wife before the tribunal of his own judgment; he
+told himself that nature doomed her to a disappointed life through his
+fault; HIS; she was like a thoroughbred English horse, a racer
+harnessed to a cart full of stones; she it was who suffered; and he
+blamed himself. His wife, by dint of constant repetition, had
+inoculated him with her own belief in herself. Ideas are contagious in
+a household; the ninth thermidor, like so many other portentous
+events, was the result of female influence. Thus, goaded by
+Celestine's ambition, Rabourdin had long considered the means of
+satisfying it, though he hid his hopes, so as to spare her the
+tortures of uncertainty. The man was firmly resolved to make his way
+in the administration by bringing a strong light to bear upon it. He
+intended to bring about one of those revolutions which send a man to
+the head of either one party or another in society; but being
+incapable of so doing in his own interests, he merely pondered useful
+thoughts and dreamed of triumphs won for his country by noble means.
+His ideas were both generous and ambitious; few officials have not
+conceived the like; but among officials as among artists there are
+more miscarriages than births; which is tantamount to Buffon's saying
+that "Genius is patience."
+
+Placed in a position where he could study French administration and
+observe its mechanism, Rabourdin worked in the circle where his
+thought revolved, which, we may remark parenthetically, is the secret
+of much human accomplishment; and his labor culminated finally in the
+invention of a new system for the Civil Service of government. Knowing
+the people with whom he had to do, he maintained the machine as it
+then worked, so it still works and will continue to work; for
+everybody fears to remodel it, though no one, according to Rabourdin,
+ought to be unwilling to simplify it. In his opinion, the problem to
+be resolved lay in a better use of the same forces. His plan, in its
+simplest form, was to revise taxation and lower it in a way that
+should not diminish the revenues of the State, and to obtain, from a
+budget equal to the budgets which now excite such rabid discussion,
+results that should be two-fold greater than the present results. Long
+practical experience had taught Rabourdin that perfection is brought
+about in all things by changes in the direction of simplicity. To
+economize is to simplify. To simplify means to suppress unnecessary
+machinery; removals naturally follow. His system, therefore, depended
+on the weeding out of officials and the establishment of a new order
+of administrative offices. No doubt the hatred which all reformers
+incur takes its rise here. Removals required by this perfecting
+process, always ill-understood, threaten the well-being of those on
+whom a change in their condition is thus forced. What rendered
+Rabourdin really great was that he was able to restrain the enthusiasm
+that possesses all reformers, and to patiently seek out a slow
+evolving medium for all changes so as to avoid shocks, leaving time
+and experience to prove the excellence of each reform. The grandeur of
+the result anticipated might make us doubt its possibility if we lose
+sight of this essential point in our rapid analysis of his system. It
+is, therefore, not unimportant to show through his self-communings,
+however incomplete they might be, the point of view from which he
+looked at the administrative horizon. This tale, which is evolved from
+the very heart of the Civil Service, may also serve to show some of
+the evils of our present social customs.
+
+Xavier Rabourdin, deeply impressed by the trials and poverty which he
+witnessed in the lives of the government clerks, endeavored to
+ascertain the cause of their growing deterioration. He found it in
+those petty partial revolutions, the eddies, as it were, of the storm
+of 1789, which the historians of great social movements neglect to
+inquire into, although as a matter of fact it is they which have made
+our manners and customs what they are now.
+
+Formerly, under the monarchy, the bureaucratic armies did not exist.
+The clerks, few in number, were under the orders of a prime minister
+who communicated with the sovereign; thus they directly served the
+king. The superiors of these zealous servants were simply called head-
+clerks. In those branches of administration which the king did not
+himself direct, such for instance as the "fermes" (the public domains
+throughout the country on which a revenue was levied), the clerks were
+to their superior what the clerks of a business-house are to their
+employer; they learned a science which would one day advance them to
+prosperity. Thus, all points of the circumference were fastened to the
+centre and derived their life from it. The result was devotion and
+confidence. Since 1789 the State, call it the Nation if you like, has
+replaced the sovereign. Instead of looking directly to the chief
+magistrate of this nation, the clerks have become, in spite of our
+fine patriotic ideas, the subsidiaries of the government; their
+superiors are blown about by the winds of a power called "the
+administration," and do not know from day to day where they may be on
+the morrow. As the routine of public business must go on, a certain
+number of indispensable clerks are kept in their places, though they
+hold these places on sufferance, anxious as they are to retain them.
+Bureaucracy, a gigantic power set in motion by dwarfs, was generated
+in this way. Though Napoleon, by subordinating all things and all men
+to his will, retarded for a time the influence of bureaucracy (that
+ponderous curtain hung between the service to be done and the man who
+orders it), it was permanently organized under the constitutional
+government, which was, inevitably, the friend of all mediocrities, the
+lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as meddlesome as an old
+tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers constantly
+struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the Elected of the
+Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and dishonest leaders,
+the Civil Service officials hastened to make themselves essential to
+the warfare by adding their quota of assistance under the form of
+written action; they created a power of inertia and named it "Report."
+Let us explain the Report.
+
+When the kings of France took to themselves ministers, which first
+happened under Louis XV., they made them render reports on all
+important questions, instead of holding, as formerly, grand councils
+of state with the nobles. Under the constitutional government, the
+ministers of the various departments were insensibly led by their
+bureaus to imitate this practice of kings. Their time being taken up
+in defending themselves before the two Chambers and the court, they
+let themselves be guided by the leading-strings of the Report. Nothing
+important was ever brought before the government that a minister did
+not say, even when the case was urgent, "I have called for a report."
+The Report thus became, both as to the matter concerned and for the
+minister himself, the same as a report to the Chamber of Deputies on a
+question of laws,--namely, a disquisition in which the reasons for and
+against are stated with more or less partiality. No real result is
+attained; the minister, like the Chamber, is fully as well prepared
+before as after the report is rendered. A determination, in whatever
+matter, is reached in an instant. Do what we will, the moment comes
+when the decision must be made. The greater the array of reasons for
+and against, the less sound will be the judgment. The finest things of
+which France can boast have been accomplished without reports and
+where decisions were prompt and spontaneous. The dominant law of a
+statesman is to apply precise formula to all cases, after the manner
+of judges and physicians.
+
+Rabourdin, who said to himself: "A minister should have decision,
+should know public affairs, and direct their course," saw "Report"
+rampant throughout France, from the colonel to the marshal, from the
+commissary of police to the king, from the prefects to the ministers
+of state, from the Chamber to the courts. After 1818 everything was
+discussed, compared, and weighed, either in speech or writing; public
+business took a literary form. France went to ruin in spite of this
+array of documents; dissertations stood in place of action; a million
+of reports were written every year; bureaucracy was enthroned!
+Records, statistics, documents, failing which France would have been
+ruined, circumlocution, without which there could be no advance,
+increased, multiplied, and grew majestic. From that day forth
+bureaucracy used to its own profit the mistrust that stands between
+receipts and expenditures; it degraded the administration for the
+benefit of the administrators; in short, it spun those lilliputian
+threads which have chained France to Parisian centralization,--as if
+from 1500 to 1800 France had undertaken nothing for want of thirty
+thousand government clerks! In fastening upon public offices, like a
+mistletoe on a pear-tree, these officials indemnified themselves
+amply, and in the following manner.
+
+The ministers, compelled to obey the princes or the Chambers who
+impose upon them the distribution of the public moneys, and forced to
+retain the workers in office, proceeded to diminish salaries and
+increase the number of those workers, thinking that if more persons
+were employed by government the stronger the government would be. And
+yet the contrary law is an axiom written on the universe; there is no
+vigor except where there are few active principles. Events proved in
+July, 1830, the error of the materialism of the Restoration. To plant
+a government in the hearts of a nation it is necessary to bind
+INTERESTS to it, not MEN. The government-clerks being led to detest
+the administrations which lessened both their salaries and their
+importance, treated them as a courtesan treats an aged lover, and gave
+them mere work for money; a state of things which would have seemed as
+intolerable to the administration as to the clerks, had the two
+parties dared to feel each other's pulse, or had the higher salaries
+not succeeded in stifling the voices of the lower. Thus wholly and
+solely occupied in retaining his place, drawing his pay, and securing
+his pension, the government official thought everything permissible
+that conduced to these results. This state of things led to servility
+on the part of the clerks and to endless intrigues within the various
+departments, where the humbler clerks struggled vainly against
+degenerate members of the aristocracy, who sought positions in the
+government bureaus for their ruined sons.
+
+Superior men could scarcely bring themselves to tread these tortuous
+ways, to stoop, to cringe, and creep through the mire of these
+cloacas, where the presence of a fine mind only alarmed the other
+denizens. The ambitious man of genius grows old in obtaining his
+triple crown; he does not follow in the steps of Sixtus the Fifth
+merely to become head of a bureau. No one comes or stays in the
+government offices but idlers, incapables, or fools. Thus the
+mediocrity of French administration has slowly come about.
+Bureaucracy, made up entirely of petty minds, stands as an obstacle to
+the prosperity of the nation; delays for seven years, by its
+machinery, the project of a canal which would have stimulated the
+production of a province; is afraid of everything, prolongs
+procrastination, and perpetuates the abuses which in turn perpetuate
+and consolidate itself. Bureaucracy holds all things and the
+administration itself in leading strings; it stifles men of talent who
+are bold enough to be independent of it or to enlighten it on its own
+follies. About the time of which we write the pension list had just
+been issued, and on it Rabourdin saw the name of an underling in
+office rated for a larger sum than the old colonels, maimed and
+wounded for their country. In that fact lies the whole history of
+bureaucracy.
+
+Another evil, brought about by modern customs, which Rabourdin counted
+among the causes of this secret demoralization, was the fact that
+there is no real subordination in the administration in Paris;
+complete equality reigns between the head of an important division and
+the humblest copying-clerk; one is as powerful as the other in an
+arena outside of which each lords it in his own way. Education,
+equally distributed through the masses, brings the son of a porter
+into a government office to decide the fate of some man of merit or
+some landed proprietor whose door-bell his father may have answered.
+The last comer is therefore on equal terms with the oldest veteran in
+the service. A wealthy supernumerary splashes his superior as he
+drives his tilbury to Longchamps and points with his whip to the poor
+father of a family, remarking to the pretty woman at his side, "That's
+my chief." The Liberals call this state of things Progress; Rabourdin
+thought it Anarchy at the heart of power. He saw how it resulted in
+restless intrigues, like those of a harem between eunuchs and women
+and imbecile sultans, or the petty troubles of nuns full of underhand
+vexations, or college tyrannies, or diplomatic manoeuvrings fit to
+terrify an ambassador, all put in motion to obtain a fee or an
+increase in salary; it was like the hopping of fleas harnessed to
+pasteboard cars, the spitefulness of slaves, often visited on the
+minister himself. With all this were the really useful men, the
+workers, victims of such parasites; men sincerely devoted to their
+country, who stood vigorously out from the background of the other
+incapables, yet who were often forced to succumb through unworthy
+trickery.
+
+All the higher offices were gained through parliamentary influence,
+royalty had nothing to do now with them, and the subordinate clerks
+became, after a time, merely the running-gear of the machine; the most
+important considerations with them being to keep the wheels well
+greased. This fatal conviction entering some of the best minds
+smothered many statements conscientiously written on the secret evils
+of the national government; lowered the courage of many hearts, and
+corrupted sterling honesty, weary of injustice and won to indifference
+by deteriorating annoyances. A clerk in the employ of the Rothchilds
+corresponds with all England; another, in a government office, may
+communicate with all the prefects; but where the one learns the way to
+make his fortune, the other loses time and health and life to no
+avail. An undermining evil lies here. Certainly a nation does not seem
+threatened with immediate dissolution because an able clerk is sent
+away and a middling sort of man replaces him. Unfortunately for the
+welfare of nations individual men never seem essential to their
+existence. But in the long run when the belittling process is fully
+carried out nations will disappear. Every one who seeks instruction on
+this point can look at Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Rome; all
+places which were formerly resplendent with mighty powers and are now
+destroyed by the infiltrating littleness which gradually attained the
+highest eminence. When the day of struggle came, all was found rotten,
+the State succumbed to a weak attack. To worship the fool who
+succeeds, and not to grieve over the fall of an able man is the result
+of our melancholy education, of our manners and customs which drive
+men of intellect into disgust, and genius to despair.
+
+What a difficult undertaking is the rehabilitation of the Civil
+Service while the liberal cries aloud in his newspapers that the
+salaries of clerks are a standing theft, calls the items of the budget
+a cluster of leeches, and every year demands why the nation should be
+saddled with a thousand millions of taxes. In Monsieur Rabourdin's
+eyes the clerk in relation to the budget was very much what the
+gambler is to the game; that which he wins he puts back again. All
+remuneration implies something furnished. To pay a man a thousand
+francs a year and demand his whole time was surely to organize theft
+and poverty. A galley-slave costs nearly as much, and does less. But
+to expect a man whom the State remunerated with twelve thousand francs
+a year to devote himself to his country was a profitable contract for
+both sides, fit to allure all capacities.
+
+These reflections had led Rabourdin to desire the recasting of the
+clerical official staff. To employ fewer man, to double or treble
+salaries, and do away with pensions, to choose only young clerks (as
+did Napoleon, Louis XIV., Richelieu, and Ximenes), but to keep them
+long and train them for the higher offices and greatest honors, these
+were the chief features of a reform which if carried out would be as
+beneficial to the State as to the clerks themselves. It is difficult
+to recount in detail, chapter by chapter, a plan which embraced the
+whole budget and continued down through the minutest details of
+administration in order to keep the whole synthetical; but perhaps a
+slight sketch of the principal reforms will suffice for those who
+understand such matters, as well as for those who are wholly ignorant
+of the administrative system. Though the historian's position is
+rather hazardous in reproducing a plan which may be thought the
+politics of a chimney-corner, it is, nevertheless, necessary to sketch
+it so as to explain the author of it by his own work. Were the recital
+of his efforts to be omitted, the reader would not believe the
+narrator's word if he merely declared the talent and the courage of
+this official.
+
+Rabourdin's plan divided the government into three ministries, or
+departments. He thought that if the France of former days possessed
+brains strong enough to comprehend in one system both foreign and
+domestic affairs, the France of to-day was not likely to be without
+its Mazarin, its Suger, its Sully, its de Choiseul, or its Colbert to
+direct even vast administrative departments. Besides, constitutionally
+speaking, three ministries will agree better than seven; and, in the
+restricted number there is less chance for mistaken choice; moreover,
+it might be that the kingdom would some day escape from those
+perpetual ministerial oscillations which interfered with all plans of
+foreign policy and prevented all ameliorations of home rule. In
+Austria, where many diverse united nations present so many conflicting
+interests to be conciliated and carried forward under one crown, two
+statesmen alone bear the burden of public affairs and are not
+overwhelmed by it. Was France less prolific of political capacities
+than Germany? The rather silly game of what are called "constitutional
+institutions" carried beyond bounds has ended, as everybody knows, in
+requiring a great many offices to satisfy the multifarious ambition of
+the middle classes. It seemed to Rabourdin, in the first place,
+natural to unite the ministry of war with the ministry of the navy. To
+his thinking the navy was one of the current expenses of the war
+department, like the artillery, cavalry, infantry, and commissariat.
+Surely it was an absurdity to give separate administrations to
+admirals and marshals when both were employed to one end, namely, the
+defense of the nation, the overthrow of an enemy, and the security of
+the national possessions. The ministry of the interior ought in like
+manner to combine the departments of commerce, police, and finances,
+or it belied its own name. To the ministry of foreign affairs belonged
+the administration of justice, the household of the king, and all that
+concerned arts, sciences, and belles lettres. All patronage ought to
+flow directly from the sovereign. Such ministries necessitated the
+supremacy of a council. Each required the work of two hundred
+officials, and no more, in its central administration offices, where
+Rabourdin proposed that they should live, as in former days under the
+monarchy. Taking the sum of twelve thousand francs a year for each
+official as an average, he estimated seven millions as the cost of the
+whole body of such officials, which actually stood at twenty in the
+budget.
+
+By thus reducing the ministers to three heads he suppressed
+departments which had come to be useless, together with the enormous
+costs of their maintenance in Paris. He proved that an arrondissement
+could be managed by ten men; a prefecture by a dozen at the most;
+which reduced the entire civil service force throughout France to five
+thousand men, exclusive of the departments of war and justice. Under
+this plan the clerks of the court were charged with the system of
+loans, and the ministry of the interior with that of registration and
+the management of domains. Thus Rabourdin united in one centre all
+divisions that were allied in nature. The mortgage system,
+inheritance, and registration did not pass outside of their own sphere
+of action and only required three additional clerks in the justice
+courts and three in the royal courts. The steady application of this
+principle brought Rabourdin to reforms in the finance system. He
+merged the collection of revenue into one channel, taxing consumption
+in bulk instead of taxing property. According to his ideas,
+consumption was the sole thing properly taxable in times of peace.
+Land-taxes should always be held in reserve in case of war; for then
+only could the State justly demand sacrifices from the soil, which was
+in danger; but in times of peace it was a serious political fault to
+burden it beyond a certain limit; otherwise it could never be depended
+on in great emergencies. Thus a loan should be put on the market when
+the country was tranquil, for at such times it could be placed at par,
+instead of at fifty per cent loss as in bad times; in war times resort
+should be had to a land-tax.
+
+"The invasion of 1814 and 1815," Rabourdin would say to his friends,
+"founded in France and practically explained an institution which
+neither Law nor Napoleon had been able to establish,--I mean Credit."
+
+Unfortunately, Xavier considered the true principles of this admirable
+machine of civil service very little understood at the period when he
+began his labor of reform in 1820. His scheme levied a toll on the
+consumption by means of direct taxation and suppressed the whole
+machinery of indirect taxation. The levying of the taxes was
+simplified by a single classification of a great number of articles.
+This did away with the more harassing customs at the gates of the
+cities, and obtained the largest revenues from the remainder, by
+lessening the enormous expense of collecting them. To lighten the
+burden of taxation is not, in matters of finance, to diminish the
+taxes, but to assess them better; if lightened, you increase the
+volume of business by giving it freer play; the individual pays less
+and the State receives more. This reform, which may seem immense,
+rests on very simple machinery. Rabourdin regarded the tax on personal
+property as the most trustworthy representative of general
+consumption. Individual fortunes are usually revealed in France by
+rentals, by the number of servants, horses, carriages, and luxuries,
+the costs of which are all to the interest of the public treasury.
+Houses and what they contain vary comparatively but little, and are
+not liable to disappear. After pointing out the means of making a tax-
+list on personal property which should be more impartial than the
+existing list, Rabourdin assessed the sums to be brought into the
+treasury by indirect taxation as so much per cent on each individual
+share. A tax is a levy of money on things or persons under disguises
+that are more or less specious. These disguises, excellent when the
+object is to extort money, become ridiculous in the present day, when
+the class on which the taxes weigh the heaviest knows why the State
+imposes them and by what machinery they are given back. In fact the
+budget is not a strong-box to hold what is put into it, but a
+watering-pot; the more it takes in and the more it pours out the
+better for the prosperity of the country. Therefore, supposing there
+are six millions of tax-payers in easy circumstances (Rabourdin proved
+their existence, including the rich) is it not better to make them pay
+a duty on the consumption of wine, which would not be more offensive
+than that on doors and windows and would return a hundred millions,
+rather than harass them by taxing the thing itself. By this system of
+taxation, each individual tax-payer pays less in reality, while the
+State receives more, and consumers profit by a vast reduction in the
+price of things which the State releases from its perpetual and
+harassing interference. Rabourdin's scheme retained a tax on the
+cultivation of vineyards, so as to protect that industry from the too
+great abundance of its own products. Then, to reach the consumption of
+the poorer tax-payers, the licences of retail dealers were taxed
+according to the population of the neighborhoods in which they lived.
+
+In this way, the State would receive without cost or vexatious
+hindrances an enormous revenue under three forms; namely, a duty on
+wine, on the cultivation of vineyards, and on licenses, where now an
+irritating array of taxes existed as a burden on itself and its
+officials. Taxation was thus imposed upon the rich without
+overburdening the poor. To give another example. Suppose a share
+assessed to each person of one or two francs for the consumption of
+salt and you obtain ten or a dozen millions; the modern "gabelle"
+disappears, the poor breathe freer, agriculture is relieved, the State
+receives as much, and no tax-payer complains. All persons, whether
+they belong to the industrial classes or to the capitalists, will see
+at once the benefits of a tax so assessed when they discover how
+commerce increases, and life is ameliorated in the country districts.
+In short, the State will see from year to year the number of her well-
+to-do tax-payers increasing. By doing away with the machinery of
+indirect taxation, which is very costly (a State, as it were, within a
+State), both the public finances and the individual tax-payer are
+greatly benefited, not to speak of the saving in costs of collecting.
+
+The whole subject is indeed less a question of finance than a question
+of government. The State should possess nothing of its own, neither
+forests, nor mines, nor public works. That it should be the owner of
+domains was, in Rabourdin's opinion, an administrative contradiction.
+The State cannot turn its possessions to profit and it deprives itself
+of taxes; it thus loses two forms of production. As to the
+manufactories of the government, they are just as unreasonable in the
+sphere of industry. The State obtains products at a higher cost than
+those of commerce, produces them more slowly, and loses its tax upon
+the industry, the maintenance of which it, in turn, reduces. Can it be
+thought a proper method of governing a country to manufacture instead
+of promoting manufactures? to possess property instead of creating
+more possessions and more diverse ones? In Rabourdin's system the
+State exacted no money security; he allowed only mortgage securities;
+and for this reason: Either the State holds the security in specie,
+and that embarrasses business and the movement of money; or it invests
+it at a higher rate than the State itself pays, and that is a
+contemptible robbery; or else it loses on the transaction, and that is
+folly; moreover, if it is obliged at any time to dispose of a mass of
+these securities it gives rises in certain cases to terrible
+bankruptcy.
+
+The territorial tax did not entirely disappear in Rabourdin's plan,--
+he kept a minute portion of it as a point of departure in case of war;
+but the productions of the soil were freed, and industry, finding raw
+material at a low price, could compete with foreign nations without
+the deceptive help of customs. The rich carried on the administration
+of the provinces without compensation except that of receiving a
+peerage under certain conditions. Magistrates, learned bodies,
+officers of the lower grades found their services honorably rewarded;
+no man employed by the government failed to obtain great consideration
+through the value and extent of his labors and the excellence of his
+salary; every one was able to provide for his own future and France
+was delivered from the cancer of pensions. As a result Rabourdin's
+scheme exhibited only seven hundred millions of expenditures and
+twelve hundred millions of receipts. A saving of five hundred millions
+annually had far more virtue than the accumulation of a sinking fund
+whose dangers were plainly to be seen. In that fund the State,
+according to Rabourdin, became a stockholder, just as it persisted in
+being a land-holder and a manufacturer. To bring about these reforms
+without too roughly jarring the existing state of things or incurring
+a Saint-Bartholomew of clerks, Rabourdin considered that an evolution
+of twenty years would be required.
+
+Such were the thoughts maturing in Rabourdin's mind ever since his
+promised place had been given to Monsieur de la Billardiere, a man of
+sheer incapacity. This plan, so vast apparently yet so simple in point
+of fact, which did away with so many large staffs and so many little
+offices all equally useless, required for its presentation to the
+public mind close calculations, precise statistics, and self-evident
+proof. Rabourdin had long studied the budget under its double-aspect
+of ways and means and of expenditure. Many a night he had lain awake
+unknown to his wife. But so far he had only dared to conceive the plan
+and fit it prospectively to the administrative skeleton; all of which
+counted for nothing,--he must gain the ear of a minister capable of
+appreciating his ideas. Rabourdin's success depended on the tranquil
+condition of political affairs, which up to this time were still
+unsettled. He had not considered the government as permanently secure
+until three hundred deputies at least had the courage to form a
+compact majority systematically ministerial. An administration founded
+on that basis had come into power since Rabourdin had finished his
+elaborate plan. At this time the luxury of peace under the Bourbons
+had eclipsed the warlike luxury of the days when France shone like a
+vast encampment, prodigal and magnificent because it was victorious.
+After the Spanish campaign, the administration seemed to enter upon an
+era of tranquillity in which some good might be accomplished; and
+three months before the opening of our story a new reign had begun
+without any apparent opposition; for the liberalism of the Left had
+welcomed Charles X. with as much enthusiasm as the Right. Even clear-
+sighted and suspicious persons were misled. The moment seemed
+propitious for Rabourdin. What could better conduce to the stability
+of the government than to propose and carry through a reform whose
+beneficial results were to be so vast?
+
+Never had Rabourdin seemed so anxious and preoccupied as he now did in
+the mornings as he walked from his house to the ministry, or at half-
+past four in the afternoon, when he returned. Madame Rabourdin, on her
+part, disconsolate over her wasted life, weary of secretly working to
+obtain a few luxuries of dress, never appeared so bitterly
+discontented as now; but, like any wife who is really attached to her
+husband, she considered it unworthy of a superior woman to condescend
+to the shameful devices by which the wives of some officials eke out
+the insufficiency of their husband's salary. This feeling made her
+refuse all intercourse with Madame Colleville, then very intimate with
+Francois Keller, whose parties eclipsed those of the rue Duphot.
+Nevertheless, she mistook the quietude of the political thinker and
+the preoccupation of the intrepid worker for the apathetic torpor of
+an official broken down by the dulness of routine, vanquished by that
+most hateful of all miseries, the mediocrity that simply earns a
+living; and she groaned at being married to a man without energy.
+
+Thus it was that about this period in their lives she resolved to take
+the making of her husband's fortune on herself; to thrust him at any
+cost into a higher sphere, and to hide from him the secret springs of
+her machinations. She carried into all her plans the independence of
+ideas which characterized her, and was proud to think that she could
+rise above other women by sharing none of their petty prejudices and
+by keeping herself untrammelled by the restraints which society
+imposes. In her anger she resolved to fight fools with their own
+weapons, and to make herself a fool if need be. She saw things coming
+to a crisis. The time was favorable. Monsieur de la Billardiere,
+attacked by a dangerous illness, was likely to die in a few days. If
+Rabourdin succeeded him, his talents (for Celestine did vouchsafe him
+an administrative gift) would be so thoroughly appreciated that the
+office of Master of petitions, formerly promised, would now be given
+to him; she fancied she saw him the king's commissioner, presenting
+bills to the Chambers and defending them; then indeed she could help
+him; she would even be, if needful, his secretary; she would sit up
+all night to do the work! All this to drive in the Bois in a pretty
+carriage, to equal Madame Delphine de Nucingen, to raise her salon to
+the level of Madame Colleville's, to be invited to the great
+ministerial solemnities, to win listeners and make them talk of her as
+"Madame Rabourdin DE something or other" (she had not yet determined
+on the estate), just as they did of Madame Firmiani, Madame d'Espard,
+Madame d'Aiglemont, Madame de Carigliano, and thus efface forever the
+odious name of Rabourdin.
+
+These secret schemes brought some changes into the household. Madame
+Rabourdin began to walk with a firm step in the path of DEBT. She set
+up a manservant, and put him in livery of brown cloth with red pipins,
+she renewed parts of her furniture, hung new papers on the walls,
+adorned her salon with plants and flowers, always fresh, and crowded
+it with knick-knacks that were then in vogue; then she, who had always
+shown scruples as to her personal expenses, did not hesitate to put
+her dress in keeping with the rank to which she aspired, the profits
+of which were discounted in several of the shops where she equipped
+herself for war. To make her "Wednesdays" fashionable she gave a
+dinner on Fridays, the guests being expected to pay their return visit
+and take a cup of tea on the following Wednesday. She chose her guests
+cleverly among influential deputies or other persons of note who,
+sooner or later, might advance her interests. In short, she gathered
+an agreeable and befitting circle about her. People amused themselves
+at her house; they said so at least, which is quite enough to attract
+society in Paris. Rabourdin was so absorbed in completing his great
+and serious work that he took no notice of the sudden reappearance of
+luxury in the bosom of his family.
+
+Thus the wife and the husband were besieging the same fortress,
+working on parallel lines, but without each other's knowledge.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MONSIEUR DES LUPEAULX
+
+At the ministry to which Rabourdin belonged there flourished, as
+general-secretary, a certain Monsieur Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx,
+one of those men whom the tide of political events sends to the
+surface for a few years, then engulfs on a stormy night, but whom we
+find again on a distant shore, tossed up like the carcass of a wrecked
+ship which still seems to have life in her. We ask ourselves if that
+derelict could ever have held goodly merchandise or served a high
+emprize, co-operated in some defence, held up the trappings of a
+throne, or borne away the corpse of a monarchy. At this particular
+time Clement des Lupeaulx (the "Lupeaulx" absorbed the "Chardin") had
+reached his culminating period. In the most illustrious lives as in
+the most obscure, in animals as in secretary-generals, there is a
+zenith and there is a nadir, a period when the fur is magnificent, the
+fortune dazzling. In the nomenclature which we derive from fabulists,
+des Lupeaulx belonged to the species Bertrand, and was always in
+search of Ratons. As he is one of the principal actors in this drama
+he deserves a description, all the more precise because the revolution
+of July has suppressed his office, eminently useful as it was, to a
+constitutional ministry.
+
+Moralists usually employ their weapons against obstructive
+administrations. In their eyes, crime belongs to the assizes or the
+police-courts; but the socially refined evils escape their ken; the
+adroitness that triumphs under shield of the Code is above them or
+beneath them; they have neither eye-glass nor telescope; they want
+good stout horrors easily visible. With their eyes fixed on the
+carnivora, they pay no attention to the reptiles; happily, they
+abandon to the writers of comedy the shading and colorings of a
+Chardin des Lupeaulx. Vain and egotistical, supple and proud,
+libertine and gourmand, grasping from the pressure of debt, discreet
+as a tomb out of which nought issues to contradict the epitaph
+intended for the passer's eye, bold and fearless when soliciting,
+good-natured and witty in all acceptations of the word, a timely
+jester, full of tact, knowing how to compromise others by a glance or
+a nudge, shrinking from no mudhole, but gracefully leaping it,
+intrepid Voltairean, yet punctual at mass if a fashionable company
+could be met in Saint Thomas Aquinas,--such a man as this secretary-
+general resembled, in one way or another, all the mediocrities who
+form the kernel of the political world. Knowing in the science of
+human nature, he assumed the character of a listener, and none was
+ever more attentive. Not to awaken suspicion he was flattering ad
+nauseum, insinuating as a perfume, and cajoling as a woman.
+
+Des Lupeaulx was just forty years old. His youth had long been a
+vexation to him, for he felt that the making of his career depended on
+his becoming a deputy. How had he reached his present position? may be
+asked. By very simple means. He began by taking charge of certain
+delicate missions which can be given neither to a man who respects
+himself nor to a man who does not respect himself, but are confided to
+grave and enigmatic individuals who can be acknowledged or disavowed
+at will. His business was that of being always compromised; but his
+fortunes were pushed as much by defeat as by success. He well
+understood that under the Restoration, a period of continual
+compromises between men, between things, between accomplished facts
+and other facts looking on the horizon, it was all-important for the
+ruling powers to have a household drudge. Observe in a family some old
+charwoman who can make beds, sweep the floors, carry away the dirty
+linen, who knows where the silver is kept, how the creditors should be
+pacified, what persons should be let in and who must be kept out of
+the house, and such a creature, even if she has all the vices, and is
+dirty, decrepit, and toothless, or puts into the lottery and steals
+thirty sous a day for her stake, and you will find the masters like
+her from habit, talk and consult in her hearing upon even critical
+matters; she comes and goes, suggests resources, gets on the scent of
+secrets, brings the rouge or the shawl at the right moment, lets
+herself be scolded and pushed downstairs, and the next morning
+reappears smiling with an excellent bouillon. No matter how high a
+statesman may stand, he is certain to have some household drudge,
+before whom he is weak, undecided, disputations with fate, self-
+questioning, self-answering, and buckling for the fight. Such a
+familiar is like the soft wood of savages, which, when rubbed against
+the hard wood, strikes fire. Sometimes great geniuses illumine
+themselves in this way. Napoleon lived with Berthier, Richelieu with
+Pere Joseph; des Lupeaulx was the familiar of everybody. He continued
+friends with fallen ministers and made himself their intermediary with
+their successors, diffusing thus the perfume of the last flattery and
+the first compliment. He well understood how to arrange all the little
+matters which a statesman has no leisure to attend to. He saw
+necessities as they arose; he obeyed well; he could gloss a base act
+with a jest and get the whole value of it; and he chose for the
+services he thus rendered those that the recipients were not likely to
+forget.
+
+Thus, when it was necessary to cross the ditch between the Empire and
+the Restoration, at a time when every one was looking about for
+planks, and the curs of the Empire were howling their devotion right
+and left, des Lupeaulx borrowed large sums from the usurers and
+crossed the frontier. Risking all to win all, he bought up Louis
+XVIII.'s most pressing debts, and was the first to settle nearly three
+million of them at twenty per cent--for he was lucky enough to be
+backed by Gobseck in 1814 and 1815. It is true that Messrs. Gobseck,
+Werdet, and Gigonnet swallowed the profits, but des Lupeaulx had
+agreed that they should have them; he was not playing for a stake; he
+challenged the bank, as it were, knowing very well that the king was
+not a man to forget this debt of honor. Des Lupeaulx was not mistaken;
+he was appointed Master of petitions, Knight of the order of Saint
+Louis, and officer of the Legion of honor. Once on the ladder of
+political success, his clever mind looked about for the means to
+maintain his foothold; for in the fortified city into which he had
+wormed himself, generals do not long keep useless mouths. So to his
+general trade of household drudge and go-between he added that of
+gratuitous consultation on the secret maladies of power.
+
+After discovering in the so-called superior men of the Restoration
+their utter inferiority in comparison with the events which had
+brought them to the front, he overcame their political mediocrity by
+putting into their mouths, at a crisis, the word of command for which
+men of real talent were listening. It must not be thought that this
+word was the outcome of his own mind. Were it so, des Lupeaulx would
+have been a man of genius, whereas he was only a man of talent. He
+went everywhere, collected opinions, sounded consciences, and caught
+all the tones they gave out. He gathered knowledge like a true and
+indefatigable political bee. This walking Bayle dictionary did not
+act, however, like that famous lexicon; he did not report all opinions
+without drawing his own conclusions; he had the talent of a fly which
+drops plumb upon the best bit of meat in the middle of a kitchen. In
+this way he came to be regarded as an indispensable helper to
+statesmen. A belief in his capacity had taken such deep root in all
+minds that the more ambitious public men felt it was necessary to
+compromise des Lupeaulx in some way to prevent his rising higher; they
+made up to him for his subordinate public position by their secret
+confidence.
+
+Nevertheless, feeling that such men were dependent on him, this
+gleaner of ideas exacted certain dues. He received a salary on the
+staff of the National Guard, where he held a sinecure which was paid
+for by the city of Paris; he was government commissioner to a secret
+society; and filled a position of superintendence in the royal
+household. His two official posts which appeared on the budget were
+those of secretary-general to his ministry and Master of petitions.
+What he now wanted was to be made commander of the Legion of honor,
+gentleman of the bed-chamber, count, and deputy. To be elected deputy
+it was necessary to pay taxes to the amount of a thousand francs; and
+the miserable homestead of the des Lupeaulx was rated at only five
+hundred. Where could he get money to build a mansion and surround it
+with sufficient domain to throw dust in the eyes of a constituency?
+Though he dined out every day, and was lodged for the last nine years
+at the cost of the State, and driven about in the minister's equipage,
+des Lupeaulx possessed absolutely nothing, at the time when our tale
+opens, but thirty thousand francs of debt--undisputed property. A
+marriage might float him and pump the waters of debt out of his bark;
+but a good marriage depended on his advancement, and his advancement
+required that he should be a deputy. Searching about him for the means
+of breaking through this vicious circle, he could think of nothing
+better than some immense service to render or some delicate intrigue
+to carry through for persons in power. Alas! conspiracies were out of
+date; the Bourbons were apparently on good terms with all parties;
+and, unfortunately, for the last few years the government had been so
+thoroughly held up to the light of day by the silly discussions of the
+Left, whose aim seemed to be to make government of any kind impossible
+in France, that no good strokes of business could be made. The last
+were tried in Spain, and what an outcry that excited!
+
+In addition to all this, des Lupeaulx complicated matters by believing
+in the friendship of his minister, to whom he had the imprudence to
+express the wish to sit on the ministerial benches. The minister
+guessed at the real meaning of the desire, which simply was that des
+Lupeaulx wanted to strengthen a precarious position, so that he might
+throw off all dependence on his chief. The harrier turned against the
+huntsman; the minister gave him cuts with the whip and caresses,
+alternately, and set up rivals to him. But des Lupeaulx behaved like
+an adroit courtier with all competitors; he laid traps into which they
+fell, and then he did prompt justice upon them. The more he felt
+himself in danger the more anxious he became for an irremovable
+position; yet he was compelled to play low; one moment's indiscretion,
+and he might lose everything. A pen-stroke might demolish his civilian
+epaulets, his place at court, his sinecure, his two offices and their
+advantages; in all, six salaries retained under fire of the law
+against pluralists. Sometimes he threatened his minister as a mistress
+threatens her lover; telling him he was about to marry a rich widow.
+At such times the minister petted and cajoled des Lupeaulx. After one
+of these reconciliations he received the formal promise of a place in
+the Academy of Belles-lettres on the first vacancy. "It would pay," he
+said, "the keep of a horse." His position, so far as it went, was a
+good one, and Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx flourished in it like a
+tree planted in good soil. He could satisfy his vices, his caprices,
+his virtues and his defects.
+
+The following were the toils of his life. He was obliged to choose,
+among five or six daily invitations, the house where he could be sure
+of the best dinner. Every morning he went to his minister's morning
+reception to amuse that official and his wife, and to pet their
+children. Then he worked an hour or two; that is to say, he lay back
+in a comfortable chair and read the newspapers, dictated the meaning
+of a letter, received visitors when the minister was not present,
+explained the work in a general way, caught or shed a few drops of the
+holy-water of the court, looked over the petitions with an eyeglass,
+or wrote his name on the margin,--a signature which meant "I think it
+absurd; do what you like about it." Every body knew that when des
+Lupeaulx was interested in any person or in any thing he attended to
+the matter personally. He allowed the head-clerks to converse
+privately about affairs of delicacy, but he listened to their gossip.
+From time to time he went to the Tuileries to get his cue. And he
+always waited for the minister's return from the Chamber, if in
+session, to hear from him what intrigue or manoeuvre he was to set
+about. This official sybarite dressed, dined, and visited a dozen or
+fifteen salons between eight at night and three in the morning. At the
+opera he talked with journalists, for he stood high in their favor; a
+perpetual exchange of little services went on between them; he poured
+into their ears his misleading news and swallowed theirs; he prevented
+them from attacking this or that minister on such or such a matter, on
+the plea that it would cause real pain to their wives or their
+mistresses.
+
+"Say that his bill is worth nothing, and prove it if you can, but do
+not say that Mariette danced badly. The devil! haven't we all played
+our little plays; and which of us knows what will become of him in
+times like these? You may be minister yourself to-morrow, you who are
+spicing the cakes of the 'Constitutionel' to-day."
+
+Sometimes, in return, he helped editors, or got rid of obstacles to
+the performances of some play; gave gratuities and good dinners at the
+right moment, or promised his services to bring some affair to a happy
+conclusion. Moreover, he really liked literature and the arts; he
+collected autographs, obtained splendid albums gratis, and possessed
+sketches, engravings, and pictures. He did a great deal of good to
+artists by simply not injuring them and by furthering their wishes on
+certain occasions when their self-love wanted some rather costly
+gratification. Consequently, he was much liked in the world of actors
+and actresses, journalists and artists. For one thing, they had the
+same vices and the same indolence as himself. Men who could all say
+such witty things in their cups or in company with a danseuse, how
+could they help being friends? If des Lupeaulx had not been a general-
+secretary he would certainly have been a journalist. Thus, in that
+fifteen years' struggle in which the harlequin sabre of epigram opened
+a breach by which insurrection entered the citadel, des Lupeaulx never
+received so much as a scratch.
+
+As the young fry of clerks looked at this man playing bowls in the
+gardens of the ministry with the minister's children, they cracked
+their brains to guess the secret of his influence and the nature of
+his services; while, on the other hand, the aristocrats in all the
+various ministries looked upon him as a dangerous Mephistopheles,
+courted him, and gave him back with usury the flatteries he bestowed
+in the higher sphere. As difficult to decipher as a hieroglyphic
+inscription to the clerks, the vocation of the secretary and his
+usefulness were as plain as the rule of three to the self-interested.
+This lesser Prince de Wagram of the administration, to whom the duty
+of gathering opinions and ideas and making verbal reports thereon was
+entrusted, knew all the secrets of parliamentary politics; dragged in
+the lukewarm, fetched, carried, and buried propositions, said the Yes
+and the No that the ministers dared not say for themselves. Compelled
+to receive the first fire and the first blows of despair and wrath, he
+laughed or bemoaned himself with the minister, as the case might be.
+Mysterious link by which many interests were in some way connected
+with the Tuileries, and safe as a confessor, he sometimes knew
+everything and sometimes nothing; and, in addition to all these
+functions came that of saying for the minister those things that a
+minister cannot say for himself. In short, with his political
+Hephaestion the minister might dare to be himself; to take off his wig
+and his false teeth, lay aside his scruples, put on his slippers,
+unbutton his conscience, and give way to his trickery. However, it was
+not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he flattered and advised his
+master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to advise while
+flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All
+politicians who follow this trade have bilious faces; and their
+constant habit of giving affirmative nods acquiescing in what is said
+to them, or seeming to do so, gives a certain peculiar turn to their
+heads. They agree indifferently with whatever is said before them.
+Their talk is full of "buts," "notwithstandings," "for myself I
+should," "were I in your place" (they often say "in your place"),--
+phrases, however, which pave the way to opposition.
+
+In person, Clement des Lupeaulx had the remains of a handsome man;
+five feet six inches tall, tolerably stout, complexion flushed with
+good living, powdered head, delicate spectacles, and a worn-out air;
+the natural skin blond, as shown by the hand, puffy like that of an
+old woman, rather too square, and with short nails--the hand of a
+satrap. His foot was elegant. After five o'clock in the afternoon des
+Lupeaulx was always to be seen in open-worked silk stockings, low
+shoes, black trousers, cashmere waistcoat, cambric handkerchief
+(without perfume), gold chain, blue coat of the shade called "king's
+blue," with brass buttons and a string of orders. In the morning he
+wore creaking boots and gray trousers, and the short close surtout
+coat of the politician. His general appearance early in the day was
+that of a sharp lawyer rather than that of a ministerial officer. Eyes
+glazed by the constant use of spectacles made him plainer than he
+really was, if by chance he took those appendages off. To real judges
+of character, as well as to upright men who are at ease only with
+honest natures, des Lupeaulx was intolerable. To them, his gracious
+manners only draped his lies; his amiable protestations and hackneyed
+courtesies, new to the foolish and ignorant, too plainly showed their
+texture to an observing mind. Such minds considered him a rotten
+plank, on which no foot should trust itself.
+
+No sooner had the beautiful Madame Rabourdin decided to interfere in
+her husband's administrative advancement than she fathomed Clement des
+Lupeaulx's true character, and studied him thoughtfully to discover
+whether in this thin strip of deal there were ligneous fibres strong
+enough to let her lightly trip across it from the bureau to the
+department, from a salary of eight thousand a year to twelve thousand.
+The clever woman believed she could play her own game with this
+political roue; and Monsieur des Lupeaulx was partly the cause of the
+unusual expenditures which now began and were continued in the
+Rabourdin household.
+
+The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for several
+houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are skilfully
+laid out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well arranged,--a
+domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of private
+lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from the
+courtyard, led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked on the
+street. To the right of the salon were Rabourdin's study and bedroom,
+and behind them the dining-room, which was entered from the
+antechamber; to the left was Madame's bedroom and dressing-room, and
+behind them her daughter's little bedroom. On reception days the door
+of Rabourdin's study and that of his wife's bedroom were thrown open.
+The rooms were thus spacious enough to contain a select company,
+without the absurdity which attends many middle-class entertainments,
+where unusual preparations are made at the expense of the daily
+comfort, and consequently give the effect of exceptional effort. The
+salon had lately been rehung in gold-colored silk with carmelite
+touches. Madame's bedroom was draped in a fabric of true blue and
+furnished in a rococo manner. Rabourdin's study had inherited the late
+hangings of the salon, carefully cleaned, and was adorned by the fine
+pictures once belonging to Monsieur Leprince. The daughter of the late
+auctioneer had utilized in her dining-room certain exquisite Turkish
+rugs which her father had bought at a bargain; panelling them on the
+walls in ebony, the cost of which has since become exorbitant. Elegant
+buffets made by Boulle, also purchased by the auctioneer, furnished
+the sides of the room, at the end of which sparkled the brass
+arabesques inlaid in tortoise-shell of the first tall clock that
+reappeared in the nineteenth century to claim honor for the
+masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers perfumed these rooms so full
+of good taste and of exquisite things, where each detail was a work of
+art well placed and well surrounded, and where Madame Rabourdin,
+dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone attain, gave
+the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies, though she
+never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind to complete
+the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful surroundings.
+Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society talk of her
+as soon as the rococo became fashionable.
+
+Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real magnificence
+in all their stages, he was, nevertheless, surprised at Madame
+Rabourdin's home. The charm it exercised over this Parisian Asmodeus
+can be explained by a comparison. A traveller wearied with the rich
+aspects of Italy, Brazil, or India, returns to his own land and finds
+on his way a delightful little lake, like the Lac d'Orta at the foot
+of Monte Rosa, with an island resting on the calm waters, bewitchingly
+simple; a scene of nature and yet adorned; solitary, but well
+surrounded with choice plantations and foliage and statues of fine
+effect. Beyond lies a vista of shores both wild and cultivated;
+tumultuous grandeur towers above, but in itself all proportions are
+human. The world that the traveller has lately viewed is here in
+miniature, modest and pure; his soul, refreshed, bids him remain where
+a charm of melody and poesy surrounds him with harmony and awakens
+ideas within his mind. Such a scene represents both life and a
+monastery.
+
+A few days earlier the beautiful Madame Firmiani, one of the charming
+women of the faubourg Saint-Germain who visited and liked Madame
+Rabourdin, had said to des Lupeaulx (invited expressly to hear this
+remark), "Why do you not call on Madame --?" with a motion towards
+Celestine; "she gives delightful parties, and her dinners, above all,
+are--better than mine."
+
+Des Lupeaulx allowed himself to be drawn into an engagement by the
+handsome Madame Rabourdin, who, for the first time, turned her eyes on
+him as she spoke. He had, accordingly, gone to the rue Duphot, and
+that tells the tale. Woman has but one trick, cries Figaro, but that's
+infallible. After dining once at the house of this unimportant
+official, des Lupeaulx made up his mind to dine there often. Thanks to
+the perfectly proper and becoming advances of the beautiful woman,
+whom her rival, Madame Colleville, called the Celimene of the rue
+Duphot, he had dined there every Friday for the last month, and
+returned of his own accord for a cup of tea on Wednesdays.
+
+Within a few days Madame Rabourdin, having watched him narrowly and
+knowingly, believed she had found on the secretarial plank a spot
+where she might safely set her foot. She was no longer doubtful of
+success. Her inward joy can be realized only in the families of
+government officials where for three or four years prosperity has been
+counted on through some appointment, long expected and long sought.
+How many troubles are to be allayed! how many entreaties and pledges
+given to the ministerial divinities! how many visits of self-interest
+paid! At last, thanks to her boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard the hour
+strike when she was to have twenty thousand francs a year instead of
+eight thousand.
+
+"And I shall have managed well," she said to herself. "I have had to
+make a little outlay; but these are times when hidden merit is
+overlooked, whereas if a man keeps himself well in sight before the
+world, cultivates social relations and extends them, he succeeds.
+After all, ministers and their friends interest themselves only in the
+people they see; but Rabourdin knows nothing of the world! If I had
+not cajoled those three deputies they might have wanted La
+Billardiere's place themselves; whereas, now that I have invited them
+here, they will be ashamed to do so and will become our supporters
+instead of rivals. I have rather played the coquette, but--it is
+delightful that the first nonsense with which one fools a man
+sufficed."
+
+The day on which a serious and unlooked-for struggle about this
+appointment began, after a ministerial dinner which preceded one of
+those receptions which ministers regard as public, des Lupeaulx was
+standing beside the fireplace near the minister's wife. While taking
+his coffee he once more included Madame Rabourdin among the seven or
+eight really superior women in Paris. Several times already he had
+staked Madame Rabourdin very much as Corporal Trim staked his cap.
+
+"Don't say that too often, my dear friend, or you will injure her,"
+said the minister's wife, half-laughing.
+
+Women never like to hear the praise of other women; they keep silence
+themselves to lessen its effect.
+
+"Poor La Billardiere is dying," remarked his Excellency the minister;
+"that place falls to Rabourdin, one of our most able men, and to whom
+our predecessors did not behave well, though one of them actually owed
+his position in the prefecture of police under the Empire to a certain
+great personage who was interested in Rabourdin. But, my dear friend,
+you are still young enough to be loved by a pretty woman for
+yourself--"
+
+"If La Billardiere's place is given to Rabourdin I may be believed
+when I praise the superiority of his wife," replied des Lupeaulx,
+piqued by the minister's sarcasm; "but if Madame la Comtesse would be
+willing to judge for herself--"
+
+"You want me to invite her to my next ball, don't you? Your clever
+woman will meet a knot of other women who only come here to laugh at
+us, and when they hear 'Madame Rabourdin' announced--"
+
+"But Madame Firmiani is announced at the Foreign Office parties?"
+
+"Ah, but she was born a Cadignan!" said the newly created count, with
+a savage look at his general-secretary, for neither he nor his wife
+were noble.
+
+The persons present thought important matters were being talked over,
+and the solicitors for favors and appointments kept at a little
+distance. When des Lupeaulx left the room the countess said to her
+husband, "I think des Lupeaulx is in love."
+
+"For the first time in his life, then," he replied, shrugging his
+shoulders, as much as to inform his wife that des Lupeaulx did not
+concern himself with such nonsense.
+
+Just then the minister saw a deputy of the Right Centre enter the
+room, and he left his wife abruptly to cajole an undecided vote. But
+the deputy, under the blow of a sudden and unexpected disaster, wanted
+to make sure of a protector and he had come to announce privately that
+in a few days he should be compelled to resign. Thus forewarned, the
+minister would be able to open his batteries for the new election
+before those of the opposition.
+
+The minister, or to speak correctly, des Lupeaulx had invited to
+dinner on this occasion one of those irremovable officials who, as we
+have said, are to be found in every ministry; an individual much
+embarrassed by his own person, who, in his desire to maintain a
+dignified appearance, was standing erect and rigid on his two legs,
+held well together like the Greek hermae. This functionary waited near
+the fireplace to thank the secretary, whose abrupt and unexpected
+departure from the room disconcerted him at the moment when he was
+about to turn a compliment. This official was the cashier of the
+ministry, the only clerk who did not tremble when the government
+changed hands.
+
+At the time of which we write, the Chamber did not meddle shabbily
+with the budget, as it does in the deplorable days in which we now
+live; it did not contemptibly reduce ministerial emoluments, nor save,
+as they say in the kitchen, the candle-ends; on the contrary, it
+granted to each minister taking charge of a public department an
+indemnity, called an "outfit." It costs, alas, as much to enter on the
+duties of a minister as to retire from them; indeed, the entrance
+involves expenses of all kinds which it is quite impossible to
+inventory. This indemnity amounted to the pretty little sum of twenty-
+five thousand francs. When the appointment of a new minister was
+gazetted in the "Moniteur," and the greater or lesser officials,
+clustering round the stoves or before the fireplaces and shaking in
+their shoes, asked themselves: "What will he do? will he increase the
+number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make room for three?" the
+cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean bank-bills and pinned
+them together with a satisfied expression on his beadle face. The next
+day he mounted the private staircase and had himself ushered into the
+minister's presence by the lackeys, who considered the money and the
+keeper of money, the contents and the container, the idea and the
+form, as one and the same power. The cashier caught the ministerial
+pair at the dawn of official delight, when the newly appointed
+statesman is benign and affable. To the minister's inquiry as to what
+brings him there, he replies with the bank-notes,--informing his
+Excellency that he hastens to pay him the customary indemnity.
+Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister's wife, who never
+fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes all, for the
+"outfit" is looked upon as a household affair. The cashier then
+proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a few politic phrases:
+"If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if, satisfied with his
+purely mechanical services, he would," etc. As a man who brings
+twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the cashier
+is sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from which
+he has seen a succession of ministers come and go during a period of,
+perhaps, twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at the
+orders of Madame; he brings the monthly thirteen thousand francs
+whenever wanted; he advances or delays the payment as requested, and
+thus manages to obtain, as they said in the monasteries, a voice in
+the chapter.
+
+Formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, when that establishment kept its
+books by double entry, the Sieur Saillard was compensated for the loss
+of that position by his appointment as cashier of a ministry. He was a
+bulky, fat man, very strong in the matter of book-keeping, and very
+weak in everything else; round as a round O, simple as how-do-you-do,
+--a man who came to his office with measured steps, like those of an
+elephant, and returned with the same measured tread to the place
+Royale, where he lived on the ground-floor of an old mansion belonging
+to him. He usually had a companion on the way in the person of
+Monsieur Isidore Baudoyer, head of a bureau in Monsieur de la
+Billardiere's division, consequently one of Rabourdin's colleagues.
+Baudoyer was married to Elisabeth Saillard, the cashier's only
+daughter, and had hired, very naturally, the apartments above those of
+his father-in-law. No one at the ministry had the slightest doubt that
+Saillard was a blockhead, but neither had any one ever found out how
+far his stupidity could go; it was too compact to be examined; it did
+not ring hollow; it absorbed everything and gave nothing out. Bixiou
+(a clerk of whom more anon) caricatured the cashier by drawing a head
+in a wig at the top of an egg, and two little legs at the other end,
+with this inscription: "Born to pay out and take in without
+blundering. A little less luck, and he might have been lackey to the
+bank of France; a little more ambition, and he could have been
+honorably discharged."
+
+At the moment of which we are now writing, the minister was looking at
+his cashier very much as we gaze at a window or a cornice, without
+supposing that either can hear us, or fathom our secret thoughts.
+
+"I am all the more anxious that we should settle everything with the
+prefect in the quietest way, because des Lupeaulx has designs upon the
+place for himself," said the minister, continuing his talk with the
+deputy; "his paltry little estate is in your arrondissement; we won't
+want him as deputy."
+
+"He has neither years nor rentals enough to be eligible," said the
+deputy.
+
+"That may be; but you know how it was decided for Casimir Perier as to
+age; and as to worldly possessions, des Lupeaulx does possess
+something,--not much, it is true, but the law does not take into
+account increase, which he may very well obtain; commissions have wide
+margins for the deputies of the Centre, you know, and we cannot openly
+oppose the good-will that is shown to this dear friend."
+
+"But where would he get the money?"
+
+"How did Manuel manage to become the owner of a house in Paris?" cried
+the minister.
+
+The cashier listened and heard, but reluctantly and against his will.
+These rapid remarks, murmured as they were, struck his ear by one of
+those acoustic rebounds which are very little studied. As he heard
+these political confidences, however, a keen alarm took possession of
+his soul. He was one of those simple-minded beings, who are shocked at
+listening to anything they are not intended to hear, or entering where
+they are not invited, and seeming bold when they are really timid,
+inquisitive where they are truly discreet. The cashier accordingly
+began to glide along the carpet and edge himself away, so that the
+minister saw him at a distance when he first took notice of him.
+Saillard was a ministerial henchman absolutely incapable of
+indiscretion; even if the minister had known that he had overheard a
+secret he had only to whisper "motus" in his ear to be sure it was
+perfectly safe. The cashier, however, took advantage of an influx of
+office-seekers, to slip out and get into his hackney-coach (hired by
+the hour for these costly entertainments), and to return to his home
+in the place Royale.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE TEREDOS NAVALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED SHIP-WORM
+
+While old Saillard was driving across Paris his son-in-law, Isidore
+Baudoyer, and his daughter, Elisabeth, Baudoyer's wife, were playing a
+virtuous game of boston with their confessor, the Abbe Gaudron, in
+company with a few neighbors and a certain Martin Falleix, a brass-
+founder in the fauborg Saint-Antoine, to whom Saillard had loaned the
+necessary money to establish a business. This Falleix, a respectable
+Auvergnat who had come to seek his fortune in Paris with his smelting-
+pot on his back, had found immediate employment with the firm of
+Brezac, collectors of metals and other relics from all chateaux in the
+provinces. About twenty-seven years of age, and spoiled, like others,
+by success, Martin Falleix had had the luck to become the active agent
+of Monsieur Saillard, the sleeping-partner in the working out of a
+discovery made by Falleix in smelting (patent of invention and gold
+medal granted at the exposition of 1825). Madame Baudoyer, whose only
+daughter was treading--to use an expression of old Saillard's--on the
+tail of her twelve years, laid claim to Falleix, a thickset, swarthy,
+active young fellow, of shrewd principles, whose education she was
+superintending. The said education, according to her ideas, consisted
+in teaching him to play boston, to hold his cards properly, and not to
+let others see his game; to shave himself regularly before he came to
+the house, and to wash his hands with good cleansing soap; not to
+swear, to speak her kind of French, to wear boots instead of shoes,
+cotton shirts instead of sacking, and to brush up his hair instead of
+plastering it flat. During the preceding week Elisabeth had finally
+succeeded in persuading Falleix to give up wearing a pair of enormous
+flat earrings resembling hoops.
+
+"You go too far, Madame Baudoyer," he said, seeing her satisfaction at
+the final sacrifice; "you order me about too much. You make me clean
+my teeth, which loosens them; presently you will want me to brush my
+nails and curl my hair, which won't do at all in our business; we
+don't like dandies."
+
+Elisabeth Baudoyer, nee Saillard, is one of those persons who escape
+portraiture through their utter commonness; yet who ought to be
+sketched, because they are specimens of that second-rate Parisian
+bourgeoisie which occupies a place above the well-to-do artisan and
+below the upper middle classes,--a tribe whose virtues are well-nigh
+vices, whose defects are never kindly, but whose habits and manners,
+dull and insipid though they be, are not without a certain
+originality. Something pinched and puny about Elisabeth Saillard was
+painful to the eye. Her figure, scarcely over four feet in height, was
+so thin that the waist measured less than twenty inches. Her small
+features, which clustered close about the nose, gave her face a vague
+resemblance to a weasel's snout. Though she was past thirty years old
+she looked scarcely more than sixteen. Her eyes, of porcelain blue,
+overweighted by heavy eyelids which fell nearly straight from the arch
+of the eyebrows, had little light in them. Everything about her
+appearance was commonplace: witness her flaxen hair, tending to
+whiteness; her flat forehead, from which the light did not reflect;
+and her dull complexion, with gray, almost leaden, tones. The lower
+part of the face, more triangular than oval, ended irregularly the
+otherwise irregular outline of her face. Her voice had a rather pretty
+range of intonation, from sharp to sweet. Elisabeth was a perfect
+specimen of the second-rate little bourgeoisie who lectures her
+husband behind the curtains; obtains no credit for her virtues; is
+ambitious without intelligent object, and solely through the
+development of her domestic selfishness. Had she lived in the country
+she would have bought up adjacent land; being, as she was, connected
+with the administration, she was determined to push her way. If we
+relate the life of her father and mother, we shall show the sort of
+woman she was by a picture of her childhood and youth.
+
+Monsieur Saillard married the daughter of an upholsterer keeping shop
+under the arcades of the Market. Limited means compelled Monsieur and
+Madame Saillard at their start in life to bear constant privation.
+After thirty-three years of married life, and twenty-nine years of
+toil in a government office, the property of "the Saillards"--their
+circle of acquaintance called them so--consisted of sixty thousand
+francs entrusted to Falleix, the house in the place Royale, bought for
+forty thousand in 1804, and thirty-six thousand francs given in dowry
+to their daughter Elisabeth. Out of this capital about fifty thousand
+came to them by the will of the widow Bidault, Madame Saillard's
+mother. Saillard's salary from the government had always been four
+thousand five hundred francs a year, and no more; his situation was a
+blind alley that led nowhere, and had tempted no one to supersede him.
+Those ninety thousand francs, put together sou by sou, were the fruit
+therefore of a sordid economy unintelligently employed. In fact, the
+Saillards did not know how better to manage their savings than to
+carry them, five thousand francs at a time, to their notary, Monsieur
+Sorbier, Cardot's predecessor, and let him invest them at five per
+cent in first mortgages, with the wife's rights reserved in case the
+borrower was married! In 1804 Madame Saillard obtained a government
+office for the sale of stamped papers, a circumstance which brought a
+servant into the household for the first time. At the time of which we
+write, the house, which was worth a hundred thousand francs, brought
+in a rental of eight thousand. Falleix paid seven per cent for the
+sixty thousand invested in the foundry, besides an equal division of
+profits. The Saillards were therefore enjoying an income of not less
+than seventeen thousand francs a year. The whole ambition of the good
+man now centred on obtaining the cross of the Legion and his retiring
+pension.
+
+Elisabeth, the only child, had toiled steadily from infancy in a home
+where the customs of life were rigid and the ideas simple. A new hat
+for Saillard was a matter of deliberation; the time a coat could last
+was estimated and discussed; umbrellas were carefully hung up by means
+of a brass buckle. Since 1804 no repairs of any kind had been done to
+the house. The Saillards kept the ground-floor in precisely the state
+in which their predecessor left it. The gilding of the pier-glasses
+was rubbed off; the paint on the cornices was hardly visible through
+the layers of dust that time had collected. The fine large rooms still
+retained certain sculptured marble mantel-pieces and ceilings, worthy
+of Versailles, together with the old furniture of the widow Bidault.
+The latter consisted of a curious mixture of walnut armchairs,
+disjointed, and covered with tapestry; rosewood bureaus; round tables
+on single pedestals, with brass railings and cracked marble tops; one
+superb Boulle secretary, the value of which style had not yet been
+recognized; in short, a chaos of bargains picked up by the worthy
+widow,--pictures bought for the sake of the frames, china services of
+a composite order; to wit, a magnificent Japanese dessert set, and all
+the rest porcelains of various makes, unmatched silver plate, old
+glass, fine damask, and a four-post bedstead, hung with curtains and
+garnished with plumes.
+
+Amid these curious relics, Madame Saillard always sat on a sofa of
+modern mahogany, near a fireplace full of ashes and without fire, on
+the mantel-shelf of which stood a clock, some antique bronzes,
+candelabra with paper flowers but no candles, for the careful
+housewife lighted the room with a tall tallow candle always guttering
+down into the flat brass candlestick which held it. Madame Saillard's
+face, despite its wrinkles, was expressive of obstinacy and severity,
+narrowness of ideas, an uprightness that might be called quadrangular,
+a religion without piety, straightforward, candid avarice, and the
+peace of a quiet conscience. You may see in certain Flemish pictures
+the wives of burgomasters cut out by nature on the same pattern and
+wonderfully reproduced on canvas; but these dames wear fine robes of
+velvet and precious stuffs, whereas Madame Saillard possessed no
+robes, only that venerable garment called in Touraine and Picardy
+"cottes," elsewhere petticoats, or skirts pleated behind and on each
+side, with other skirts hanging over them. Her bust was inclosed in
+what was called a "casaquin," another obsolete name for a short gown
+or jacket. She continued to wear a cap with starched wings, and shoes
+with high heels. Though she was now fifty-seven years old, and her
+lifetime of vigorous household work ought now to be rewarded with
+well-earned repose, she was incessantly employed in knitting her
+husband's stockings and her own, and those of an uncle, just as her
+countrywomen knit them, moving about the room, talking, pacing up and
+down the garden, or looking round the kitchen to watch what was going
+on.
+
+The Saillard's avarice, which was really imposed on them in the first
+instance by dire necessity, was now a second nature. When the cashier
+got back from the office, he laid aside his coat, and went to work in
+the large garden, shut off from the courtyard by an iron railing, and
+which the family reserved to itself. For years Elisabeth, the
+daughter, went to market every morning with her mother, and the two
+did all the work of the house. The mother cooked well, especially a
+duck with turnips; but, according to Saillard, no one could equal
+Elisabeth in hashing the remains of a leg of mutton with onions. "You
+might eat your boots with those onions and not know it," he remarked.
+As soon as Elisabeth knew how to hold a needle, her mother had her
+mend the household linen and her father's coats. Always at work, like
+a servant, she never went out alone. Though living close by the
+boulevard du Temple, where Franconi, La Gaite, and l'Ambigu-Comique
+were within a stone's throw, and, further on, the Porte-Saint-Martin,
+Elisabeth had never seen a comedy. When she asked to "see what it was
+like" (with the Abbe Gaudron's permission, be it understood), Monsieur
+Baudoyer took her--for the glory of the thing, and to show her the
+finest that was to be seen--to the Opera, where they were playing "The
+Chinese Laborer." Elisabeth thought "the comedy" as wearisome as the
+plague of flies, and never wished to see another. On Sundays, after
+walking four times to and fro between the place Royale and Saint-
+Paul's church (for her mother made her practise the precepts and the
+duties of religion), her parents took her to the pavement in front of
+the Cafe Ture, where they sat on chairs placed between a railing and
+the wall. The Saillards always made haste to reach the place early so
+as to choose the best seats, and found much entertainment in watching
+the passers-by. In those days the Cafe Ture was the rendezvous of the
+fashionable society of the Marais, the faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the
+circumjacent regions.
+
+Elisabeth never wore anything but cotton gowns in summer and merino in
+the winter, which she made herself. Her mother gave her twenty francs
+a month for her expenses, but her father, who was very fond of her,
+mitigated this rigorous treatment with a few presents. She never read
+what the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's and the family director,
+called profane books. This discipline had borne fruit. Forced to
+employ her feelings on some passion or other, Elisabeth became eager
+after gain. Though she was not lacking in sense or perspicacity,
+religious theories, and her complete ignorance of higher emotions had
+encircled all her faculties with an iron hand; they were exercised
+solely on the commonest things of life; spent in a few directions they
+were able to concentrate themselves on a matter in hand. Repressed by
+religious devotion, her natural intelligence exercised itself within
+the limits marked out by cases of conscience, which form a mine of
+subtleties among which self-interest selects its subterfuges. Like
+those saintly personages in whom religion does not stifle ambition,
+Elisabeth was capable of requiring others to do a blamable action that
+she might reap the fruits; and she would have been, like them again,
+implacable as to her dues and dissembling in her actions. Once
+offended, she watched her adversaries with the perfidious patience of
+a cat, and was capable of bringing about some cold and complete
+vengeance, and then laying it to the account of God. Until her
+marriage the Saillards lived without other society than that of the
+Abbe Gaudron, a priest from Auvergne appointed vicar of Saint-Paul's
+after the restoration of Catholic worship. Besides this ecclesiastic,
+who was a friend of the late Madame Bidault, a paternal uncle of
+Madame Saillard, an old paper-dealer retired from business ever since
+the year II. of the Republic, and now sixty-nine years old, came to
+see them on Sundays only, because on that day no government business
+went on.
+
+This little old man, with a livid face blazoned by the red nose of a
+tippler and lighted by two gleaming vulture eyes, allowed his gray
+hair to hang loose under a three-cornered hat, wore breeches with
+straps that extended beyond the buckles, cotton stockings of mottled
+thread knitted by his niece, whom he always called "the little
+Saillard," stout shoes with silver buckles, and a surtout coat of
+mixed colors. He looked very much like those verger-beadle-bell-
+ringing-grave-digging-parish-clerks who are taken to be caricatures
+until we see them performing their various functions. On the present
+occasion he had come on foot to dine with the Saillards, intending to
+return in the same way to the rue Greneta, where he lived on the third
+floor of an old house. His business was that of discounting commercial
+paper in the quartier Saint-Martin, where he was known by the nickname
+of "Gigonnet," from the nervous convulsive movement with which he
+lifted his legs in walking, like a cat. Monsieur Bidault began this
+business in the year II. in partnership with a dutchman named
+Werbrust, a friend of Gobseck.
+
+Some time later Saillard made the acquaintance of Monsieur and Madame
+Transon, wholesale dealers in pottery, with an establishment in the
+rue de Lesdiguieres, who took an interest in Elisabeth and introduced
+young Isadore Baudoyer to the family with the intention of marrying
+her. Gigonnet approved of the match, for he had long employed a
+certain Mitral, uncle of the young man, as clerk. Monsieur and Madame
+Baudoyer, father and mother of Isidore, highly respected leather-
+dressers in the rue Censier, had slowly made a moderate fortune out of
+a small trade. After marrying their only son, on whom they settled
+fifty thousand francs, they determined to live in the country, and had
+lately removed to the neighborhood of Ile-d'Adam, where after a time
+they were joined by Mitral. They frequently came to Paris, however,
+where they kept a corner in the house in the rue Censier which they
+gave to Isidore on his marriage. The elder Baudoyers had an income of
+about three thousand francs left to live upon after establishing their
+son.
+
+Mitral was a being with a sinister wig, a face the color of Seine
+water, lighted by a pair of Spanish-tobacco-colored eyes, cold as a
+well-rope, always smelling a rat, and close-mouthed about his
+property. He probably made his fortune in his own hole and corner,
+just as Werbrust and Gigonnet made theirs in the quartier Saint-
+Martin.
+
+Though the Saillards' circle of acquaintance increased, neither their
+ideas nor their manners and customs changed. The saint's-days of
+father, mother, daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild were carefully
+observed, also the anniversaries of birth and marriage, Easter,
+Christmas, New Year's day, and Epiphany. These festivals were preceded
+by great domestic sweepings and a universal clearing up of the house,
+which added an element of usefulness to the ceremonies. When the
+festival day came, the presents were offered with much pomp and an
+accompaniment of flowers,--silk stockings or a fur cap for old
+Saillard; gold earrings and articles of plate for Elisabeth or her
+husband, for whom, little by little, the parents were accumulating a
+whole silver service; silk petticoats for Madame Saillard, who laid
+the stuff by and never made it up. The recipient of these gifts was
+placed in an armchair and asked by those present for a certain length
+of time, "Guess what we have for you!" Then came a splendid dinner,
+lasting at least five hours, to which were invited the Abbe Gaudron,
+Falleix, Rabourdin, Monsieur Godard, under-head-clerk to Monsieur
+Baudoyer, Monsieur Bataille, captain of the company of the National
+Guard to which Saillard and his son-in-law belonged. Monsieur Cardot,
+who was invariably asked, did as Rabourdin did, namely, accepted one
+invitation out of six. The company sang at dessert, shook hands and
+embraced with enthusiasm, wishing each other all manner of happiness;
+the presents were exhibited and the opinion of the guests asked about
+them. The day Saillard received his fur cap he wore it during the
+dessert, to the satisfaction of all present. At night, mere ordinary
+acquaintances were bidden, and dancing went on till very late,
+formerly to the music of one violin, but for the last six years
+Monsieur Godard, who was a great flute player, contributed the
+piercing tones of a flageolet to the festivity. The cook, Madame
+Baudoyer's nurse, and old Catherine, Madame Saillard's woman-servant,
+together with the porter or his wife, stood looking on at the door of
+the salon. The servants always received three francs on these
+occasions to buy themselves wine or coffee.
+
+This little circle looked upon Saillard and Baudoyer as transcendent
+beings; they were government officers; they had risen by their own
+merits; they worked, it was said, with the minister himself; they owed
+their fortune to their talents; they were politicians. Baudoyer was
+considered the more able of the two; his position as head of a bureau
+presupposed labor that was more intricate and arduous than that of a
+cashier. Moreover, Isidore, though the son of a leather-dresser, had
+had the genius to study and to cast aside his father's business and
+find a career in politics, which had led him to a post of eminence. In
+short, silent and uncommunicative as he was, he was looked upon as a
+deep thinker, and perhaps, said the admiring circle, he would some day
+become deputy of the eighth arrondissement. As Gigonnet listened to
+such remarks as these, he pressed his already pinched lips closer
+together, and threw a glance at his great-niece, Elisabeth.
+
+In person, Isidore was a tall, stout man of thirty-seven, who
+perspired freely, and whose head looked as if he had water on the
+brain. This enormous head, covered with chestnut hair cropped close,
+was joined to the neck by rolls of flesh which overhung the collar of
+his coat. He had the arms of Hercules, hands worthy of Domitian, a
+stomach which sobriety held within the limits of the majestic, to use
+a saying of Brillaet-Savarin. His face was a good deal like that of
+the Emperor Alexander. The Tartar type was in the little eyes and the
+flattened nose turned slightly up, in the frigid lips and the short
+chin. The forehead was low and narrow. Though his temperament was
+lymphatic, the devout Isidore was under the influence of a conjugal
+passion which time did not lessen.
+
+In spite, however, of his resemblance to the handsome Russian Emperor
+and the terrible Domitian, Isidore Baudoyer was nothing more than a
+political office-holder, of little ability as head of his department,
+a cut-and-dried routine man, who concealed the fact that he was a
+flabby cipher by so ponderous a personality that no scalpel could cut
+deep enough to let the operator see into him. His severe studies, in
+which he had shown the patience and sagacity of an ox, and his square
+head, deceived his parents, who firmly believed him an extraordinary
+man. Pedantic and hypercritical, meddlesome and fault-finding, he was
+a terror to the clerks under him, whom he worried in their work,
+enforcing the rules rigorously, and arriving himself with such
+terrible punctuality that not one of them dared to be a moment late.
+Baudoyer wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, a chamois waistcoat, gray
+trousers and cravats of various colors. His feet were large and
+ill-shod. From the chain of his watch depended an enormous bunch of
+old trinkets, among which in 1824 he still wore "American beads,"
+which were very much the fashion in the year VII.
+
+In the bosom of this family, bound together by the force of religious
+ties, by the inflexibility of its customs, by one solitary emotion,
+that of avarice, a passion which was now as it were its compass,
+Elisabeth was forced to commune with herself, instead of imparting her
+ideas to those around her, for she felt herself without equals in mind
+who could comprehend her. Though facts compelled her to judge her
+husband, her religious duty led her to keep up as best she could a
+favorable opinion of him; she showed him marked respect; honored him
+as the father of her child, her husband, the temporal power, as the
+vicar of Saint-Paul's told her. She would have thought it a mortal sin
+to make a single gesture, or give a single glance, or say a single
+word which would reveal to others her real opinion of the imbecile
+Baudoyer. She even professed to obey passively all his wishes. But her
+ears were receptive of many things; she thought them over, weighed and
+compared them in the solitude of her mind, and judged so soberly of
+men and events that at the time when our history begins she was the
+hidden oracle of the two functionaries, her husband and father, who
+had, unconsciously, come to do nothing whatever without consulting
+her. Old Saillard would say, innocently, "Isn't she clever, that
+Elisabeth of mine?" But Baudoyer, too great a fool not to be puffed up
+by the false reputation the quartier Saint-Antoine bestowed upon him,
+denied his wife's cleverness all the while that he was making use of
+it.
+
+Elisabeth had long felt sure that her uncle Bidault, otherwise called
+Gigonnet, was rich and handled vast sums of money. Enlightened by
+self-interest, she had come to understand Monsieur des Lupeaulx far
+better than the minister understood him. Finding herself married to a
+fool, she never allowed herself to think that life might have gone
+better with her, she only imagined the possibility of better things
+without expecting or wishing to attain them. All her best affections
+found their vocation in her love for her daughter, to whom she spared
+the pains and privations she had borne in her own childhood; she
+believed that in this affection she had her full share in the world of
+feeling. Solely for her daughter's sake she had persuaded her father
+to take the important step of going into partnership with Falleix.
+Falleix had been brought to the Saillard's house by old Bidault, who
+lent him money on his merchandise. Falleix thought his old countryman
+extortionate, and complained to the Saillards that Gigonnet demanded
+eighteen per cent from an Auvergnat. Madame Saillard ventured to
+remonstrate with her uncle.
+
+"It is just because he is an Auvergnat that I take only eighteen per
+cent," said Gigonnet, when she spoke of him.
+
+Falleix, who had made a discovery at the age of twenty-eight, and
+communicated it to Saillard, seemed to carry his heart in his hand (an
+expression of old Saillard's), and also seemed likely to make a great
+fortune. Elisabeth determined to husband him for her daughter and
+train him herself, having, as she calculated, seven years to do it in.
+Martin Falleix felt and showed the deepest respect for Madame
+Baudoyer, whose superior qualities he was able to recognize. If he
+were fated to make millions he would always belong to her family,
+where he had found a home. The little Baudoyer girl was already
+trained to bring him his tea and to take his hat.
+
+On the evening of which we write, Monsieur Saillard, returning from
+the ministry, found a game of boston in full blast; Elisabeth was
+advising Falleix how to play; Madame Saillard was knitting in the
+chimney-corner and overlooking the cards of the vicar; Monsieur
+Baudoyer, motionless as a mile-stone, was employing his mental
+capacity in calculating how the cards were placed, and sat opposite to
+Mitral, who had come up from Ile-d'Adam for the Christmas holidays. No
+one moved as the cashier entered, and for some minutes he walked up
+and down the room, his fat face contracted with unaccustomed thought.
+
+"He is always so when he dines at the ministry," remarked Madame
+Saillard; "happily, it is only twice a year, or he'd die of it.
+Saillard was never made to be in the government-- Well, now, I do
+hope, Saillard," she continued in a loud tone, "that you are not going
+to keep on those silk breeches and that handsome coat. Go and take
+them off; don't wear them at home, my man."
+
+"Your father has something on his mind," said Baudoyer to his wife,
+when the cashier was in his bedroom, undressing without any fire.
+
+"Perhaps Monsieur de la Billardiere is dead," said Elisabeth, simply;
+"and as he is anxious you should have the place, it worries him."
+
+"Can I be useful in any way?" said the vicar of Saint-Paul's; "if so,
+pray use my services. I have the honor to be known to Madame la
+Dauphine. These are days when public offices should be given only to
+faithful men, whose religious principles are not to be shaken."
+
+"Dear me!" said Falleix, "do men of merit need protectors and
+influence to get places in the government service? I am glad I am an
+iron-master; my customers know where to find a good article--"
+
+"Monsieur," interrupted Baudoyer, "the government is the government;
+never attack it in this house."
+
+"You speak like the 'Constitutionel,'" said the vicar.
+
+"The 'Constitutionel' never says anything different from that,"
+replied Baudoyer, who never read it.
+
+The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in talent to
+Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his own
+expression; but the good man coveted this appointment in a
+straightforward, honest way. Influenced by the feeling which leads all
+officials to seek promotion,--a violent, unreflecting, almost brutal
+passion,--he desired success, just as he desired the cross of the
+Legion of honor, without doing anything against his conscience to
+obtain it, and solely, as he believed, on the strength of his son-in-
+law's merits. To his thinking, a man who had patiently spent twenty-
+five years in a government office behind an iron railing had
+sacrificed himself to his country and deserved the cross. But all that
+he dreamed of doing to promote his son-in-law's appointment in La
+Billardiere's place was to say a word to his Excellency's wife when he
+took her the month's salary.
+
+"Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends! Do
+speak; do, pray, tell us something," cried his wife when he came back
+into the room.
+
+Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his
+heel to keep himself from talking politics before strangers. When
+Monsieur Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the
+card-table and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always
+assumed when about to tell some office-gossip,--a series of movements
+which answered the purpose of the three knocks given at the Theatre-
+Francais. After binding his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to the
+deepest secrecy,--for, however petty the gossip, their places, as he
+thought, depended on their discretion,--he related the
+incomprehensible enigma of the resignation of a deputy, the very
+legitimate desire of the general-secretary to get elected to the
+place, and the secret opposition of the minister to this wish of a man
+who was one of his firmest supporters and most zealous workers. This,
+of course, brought down an avalanche of suppositions, flooded with the
+sapient arguments of the two officials, who sent back and forth to
+each other a wearisome flood of nonsense. Elisabeth quietly asked
+three questions:--
+
+"If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is on our side, will Monsieur Baudoyer be
+appointed in Monsieur de la Billardiere's place?"
+
+"Heavens! I should think so," cried the cashier.
+
+"My uncle Bidault and Monsieur Gobseck helped in him 1814," thought
+she. "Is he in debt?" she asked, aloud.
+
+"Yes," cried the cashier with a hissing and prolonged sound on the
+last letter; "his salary was attached, but some of the higher powers
+released it by a bill at sight."
+
+"Where is the des Lupeaulx estate?"
+
+"Why, don't you know? in the part of the country where your
+grandfather and your great-uncle Bidault belong, in the arrondissement
+of the deputy who wants to resign."
+
+When her colossus of a husband had gone to bed, Elisabeth leaned over
+him, and though he always treated her remarks as women's nonsense, she
+said, "Perhaps you will really get Monsieur de la Billardiere's
+place."
+
+"There you go with your imaginations!" said Baudoyer; "leave Monsieur
+Gaudron to speak to the Dauphine and don't meddle with politics."
+
+At eleven o'clock, when all were asleep in the place Royale, Monsieur
+des Lupeaulx was leaving the Opera for the rue Duphot. This particular
+Wednesday was one of Madame Rabourdin's most brilliant evenings. Many
+of her customary guests came in from the theatres and swelled the
+company already assembled, among whom were several celebrities, such
+as: Canalis the poet, Schinner the painter, Dr. Bianchon, Lucien de
+Rubempre, Octave de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de
+Fontaine, du Bruel the vaudevillist, Andoche Finot the journalist,
+Derville, one of the best heads in the law courts, the Comte du
+Chatelet, deputy, du Tillet, banker, and several elegant young men,
+such as Paul de Manerville and the Vicomte de Portenduere. Celestine
+was pouring out tea when the general-secretary entered. Her dress that
+evening was very becoming; she wore a black velvet robe without
+ornament of any kind, a black gauze scarf, her hair smoothly bound
+about her head and raised in a heavy braided mass, with long curls a
+l'Anglaise falling on either side of her face. The charms which
+particularly distinguished this woman were the Italian ease of her
+artistic nature, her ready comprehension, and the grace with which she
+welcomed and promoted the least appearance of a wish on the part of
+others. Nature had given her an elegant, slender figure, which could
+sway lightly at a word, black eyes of oriental shape, able, like those
+of the Chinese women, to see out of their corners. She well knew how
+to manage a soft, insinuating voice, which threw a tender charm into
+every word, even such as she merely chanced to utter; her feet were
+like those we see in portraits where the painter boldly lies and
+flatters his sitter in the only way which does not compromise anatomy.
+Her complexion, a little yellow by day, like that of most brunettes,
+was dazzling at night under the wax candles, which brought out the
+brilliancy of her black hair and eyes. Her slender and well-defined
+outlines reminded an artist of the Venus of the Middle Ages rendered
+by Jean Goujon, the illustrious sculptor of Diane de Poitiers.
+
+Des Lupeaulx stopped in the doorway, and leaned against the woodwork.
+This ferret of ideas did not deny himself the pleasure of spying upon
+sentiment, and this woman interested him more than any of the others
+to whom he had attached himself. Des Lupeaulx had reached an age when
+men assert pretensions in regard to women. The first white hairs lead
+to the latest passions, all the more violent because they are astride
+of vanishing powers and dawning weakness. The age of forty is the age
+of folly,--an age when man wants to be loved for himself; whereas at
+twenty-five life is so full that he has no wants. At twenty-five he
+overflows with vigor and wastes it with impunity, but at forty he
+learns that to use it in that way is to abuse it. The thoughts that
+came into des Lupeaulx's mind at this moment were melancholy ones. The
+nerves of the old beau relaxed; the agreeable smile, which served as a
+mask and made the character of his countenance, faded; the real man
+appeared, and he was horrible. Rabourdin caught sight of him and
+thought, "What has happened to him? can he be disgraced in any way?"
+The general-secretary was, however, only thinking how the pretty
+Madame Colleville, whose intentions were exactly those of Madame
+Rabourdin, had summarily abandoned him when it suited her to do so.
+Rabourdin caught the sham statesman's eyes fixed on his wife, and he
+recorded the look in his memory. He was too keen an observer not to
+understand des Lupeaulx to the bottom, and he deeply despised him;
+but, as with most busy men, his feelings and sentiments seldom came to
+the surface. Absorption in a beloved work is practically equivalent to
+the cleverest dissimulation, and thus it was that the opinions and
+ideas of Rabourdin were a sealed book to des Lupeaulx. The former was
+sorry to see the man in his house, but he was never willing to oppose
+his wife's wishes. At this particular moment, while he talked
+confidentially with a supernumerary of his office who was destined,
+later, to play an unconscious part in a political intrigue resulting
+from the death of La Billardiere, he watched, though half-
+abstractedly, his wife and des Lupeaulx.
+
+Here we must explain, as much for foreigners as for our own
+grandchildren, what a supernumerary in a government office in Paris
+means.
+
+The supernumerary is to the administration what a choir-boy is to a
+church, what the company's child is to the regiment, what the
+figurante is to a theatre; something artless, naive, innocent, a being
+blinded by illusions. Without illusions what would become of any of
+us? They give strength to bear the res angusta domi of arts and the
+beginnings of all science by inspiring us with faith. Illusion is
+illimitable faith. Now the supernumerary has faith in the
+administration; he never thinks it cold, cruel, and hard, as it really
+is. There are two kinds of supernumeraries, or hangers-on,--one poor,
+the other rich. The poor one is rich in hope and wants a place, the
+rich one is poor in spirit and wants nothing. A wealthy family is not
+so foolish as to put its able men into the administration. It confides
+an unfledged scion to some head-clerk, or gives him in charge of a
+directory who initiates him into what Bilboquet, that profound
+philosopher, called the high comedy of government; he is spared all
+the horrors of drudgery and is finally appointed to some important
+office. The rich supernumerary never alarms the other clerks; they
+know he does not endanger their interests, for he seeks only the
+highest posts in the administration. About the period of which we
+write many families were saying to themselves: "What can we do with
+our sons?" The army no longer offered a chance for fortune. Special
+careers, such as civil and military engineering, the navy, mining, and
+the professorial chair were all fenced about by strict regulations or
+to be obtained only by competition; whereas in the civil service the
+revolving wheel which turned clerks into prefects, sub-prefects,
+assessors, and collectors, like the figures in a magic lantern, was
+subjected to no such rules and entailed no drudgery. Through this easy
+gap emerged into life the rich supernumeraries who drove their
+tilburys, dressed well, and wore moustachios, all of them as impudent
+as parvenus. Journalists were apt to persecute the tribe, who were
+cousins, nephews, brothers, or other relatives of some minister, some
+deputy, or an influential peer. The humbler clerks regarded them as a
+means of influence.
+
+The poor supernumerary, on the other hand, who is the only real
+worker, is almost always the son of some former clerk's widow, who
+lives on a meagre pension and sacrifices herself to support her son
+until he can get a place as copying-clerk, and then dies leaving him
+no nearer the head of his department than writer of deeds, order-
+clerks, or, possibly, under-head-clerk. Living always in some locality
+where rents are low, this humble supernumerary starts early from home.
+For him the Eastern question relates only to the morning skies. To go
+on foot and not get muddied, to save his clothes, and allow for the
+time he may lose in standing under shelter during a shower, are the
+preoccupations of his mind. The street pavements, the flaggings of the
+quays and the boulevards, when first laid down, were a boon to him.
+If, for some extraordinary reason, you happen to be in the streets of
+Paris at half-past seven or eight o'clock of a winter's morning, and
+see through piercing cold or fog or rain a timid, pale young man loom
+up, cigarless, take notice of his pockets. You will be sure to see the
+outline of a roll which his mother has given him to stay his stomach
+between breakfast and dinner. The guilelessness of the supernumerary
+does not last long. A youth enlightened by gleams by Parisian life
+soon measures the frightful distance that separates him from the head-
+clerkship, a distance which no mathematician, neither Archimedes, nor
+Leibnitz, nor Laplace has ever reckoned, the distance that exists
+between 0 and the figure 1. He begins to perceive the impossibilities
+of his career; he hears talk of favoritism; he discovers the intrigues
+of officials: he sees the questionable means by which his superiors
+have pushed their way,--one has married a young woman who made a false
+step; another, the natural daughter of a minister; this one shouldered
+the responsibility of another's fault; that one, full of talent, risks
+his health in doing, with the perseverance of a mole, prodigies of
+work which the man of influence feels incapable of doing for himself,
+though he takes the credit. Everything is known in a government
+office. The incapable man has a wife with a clear head, who has pushed
+him along and got him nominated for deputy; if he has not talent
+enough for an office, he cabals in the Chamber. The wife of another
+has a statesman at her feet. A third is the hidden informant of a
+powerful journalist. Often the disgusted and hopeless supernumerary
+sends in his resignation. About three fourths of his class leave the
+government employ without ever obtaining an appointment, and their
+number is winnowed down to either those young men who are foolish or
+obstinate enough to say to themselves, "I have been here three years,
+and I must end sooner or later by getting a place," or to those who
+are conscious of a vocation for the work. Undoubtedly the position of
+supernumerary in a government office is precisely what the novitiate
+is in a religious order,--a trial. It is a rough trial. The State
+discovers how many of them can bear hunger, thirst, and penury without
+breaking down, how many can toil without revolting against it; it
+learns which temperaments can bear up under the horrible experience--
+or if you like, the disease--of government official life. From this
+point of view the apprenticeship of the supernumerary, instead of
+being an infamous device of the government to obtain labor gratis,
+becomes a useful institution.
+
+The young man with whom Rabourdin was talking was a poor supernumerary
+named Sebastien de la Roche, who had picked his way on the points of
+his toes, without incurring the least splash upon his boots, from the
+rue du Roi-Dore in the Marais. He talked of his mamma, and dared not
+raise his eyes to Madame Rabourdin, whose house appeared to him as
+gorgeous as the Louvre. He was careful to show his gloves, well
+cleaned with india-rubber, as little as he could. His poor mother had
+put five francs in his pocket in case it became absolutely necessary
+that he should play cards; but she enjoined him to take nothing, to
+remain standing, and to be very careful not to knock over a lamp or
+the bric-a-brac from an etagere. His dress was all of the strictest
+black. His fair face, his eyes, of a fine shade of green with golden
+reflections, were in keeping with a handsome head of auburn hair. The
+poor lad looked furtively at Madame Rabourdin, whispering to himself,
+"How beautiful!" and was likely to dream of that fairy when he went to
+bed.
+
+Rabourdin had noted a vocation for his work in the lad, and as he
+himself took the whole service seriously, he felt a lively interest in
+him. He guessed the poverty of his mother's home, kept together on a
+widow's pension of seven hundred francs a year--for the education of
+the son, who was just out of college, had absorbed all her savings. He
+therefore treated the youth almost paternally; often endeavoured to
+get him some fee from the Council, or paid it from his own pocket. He
+overwhelmed Sebastien with work, trained him, and allowed him to do
+the work of du Bruel's place, for which that vaudevillist, otherwise
+known as Cursy, paid him three hundred francs out of his salary. In
+the minds of Madame de la Roche and her son, Rabourdin was at once a
+great man, a tyrant, and an angel. On him all the poor fellow's hopes
+of getting an appointment depended, and the lad's devotion to his
+chief was boundless. He dined once a fortnight in the rue Duphot; but
+always at a family dinner, invited by Rabourdin himself; Madame asked
+him to evening parties only when she wanted partners.
+
+At that moment Rabourdin was scolding poor Sebastien, the only human
+being who was in the secret of his immense labors. The youth copied
+and recopied the famous "statement," written on a hundred and fifty
+folio sheets, besides the corroborative documents, and the summing up
+(contained in one page), with the estimates bracketed, the captions in
+a running hand, and the sub-titles in a round one. Full of enthusiasm,
+in spite of his merely mechanical participation in the great idea, the
+lad of twenty would rewrite whole pages for a single blot, and made it
+his glory to touch up the writing, regarding it as the element of a
+noble undertaking. Sebastien had that afternoon committed the great
+imprudence of carrying into the general office, for the purpose of
+copying, a paper which contained the most dangerous facts to make
+known prematurely, namely, a memorandum relating to the officials in
+the central offices of all ministries, with facts concerning their
+fortunes, actual and prospective, together with the individual
+enterprises of each outside of his government employment.
+
+All government clerks in Paris who are not endowed, like Rabourdin,
+with patriotic ambition or other marked capacity, usually add the
+profits of some industry to the salary of their office, in order to
+eke out a living. A number do as Monsieur Saillard did,--put their
+money into a business carried on by others, and spend their evenings
+in keeping the books of their associates. Many clerks are married to
+milliners, licensed tobacco dealers, women who have charge of the
+public lotteries or reading-rooms. Some, like the husband of Madame
+Colleville, Celestine's rival, play in the orchestra of a theatre;
+others like du Bruel, write vaudeville, comic operas, melodramas, or
+act as prompters behind the scenes. We may mention among them Messrs.
+Planard, Sewrin, etc. Pigault-Lebrun, Piis, Duvicquet, in their day,
+were in government employ. Monsieur Scribe's head-librarian was a
+clerk in the Treasury.
+
+Besides such information as this, Rabourdin's memorandum contained an
+inquiry into the moral and physical capacities and faculties necessary
+in those who were to examine the intelligence, aptitude for labor, and
+sound health of the applicants for government service,--three
+indispensable qualities in men who are to bear the burden of public
+affairs and should do their business well and quickly. But this
+careful study, the result of ten years' observation and experience,
+and of a long acquaintance with men and things obtained by intercourse
+with the various functionaries in the different ministries, would
+assuredly have, to those who did not see its purport and connection,
+an air of treachery and police espial. If a single page of these
+papers were to fall under the eye of those concerned, Monsieur
+Rabourdin was lost. Sebastien, who admired his chief without
+reservation, and who was, as yet, wholly ignorant of the evils of
+bureaucracy, had the follies of guilelessness as well as its grace.
+Blamed on a former occasion for carrying away these papers, he now
+bravely acknowledged his fault to its fullest extent; he related how
+he had put away both the memorandum and the copy carefully in a box in
+the office where no one would ever find them. Tears rolled from his
+eyes as he realized the greatness of his offence.
+
+"Come, come!" said Rabourdin, kindly. "Don't be so imprudent again,
+but never mind now. Go to the office very early tomorrow morning; here
+is the key of a small safe which is in my roller secretary; it shuts
+with a combination lock. You can open it with the word 'sky'; put the
+memorandum and your copy into it and shut it carefully."
+
+This proof of confidence dried the poor fellow's tears. Rabourdin
+advised him to take a cup of tea and some cakes.
+
+"Mamma forbids me to drink tea, on account of my chest," said
+Sebastien.
+
+"Well, then, my dear child," said the imposing Madame Rabourdin, who
+wished to appear gracious, "here are some sandwiches and cream; come
+and sit by me."
+
+She made Sebastien sit down beside her, and the lad's heart rose in
+his throat as he felt the robe of this divinity brush the sleeve of
+his coat. Just then the beautiful woman caught sight of Monsieur des
+Lupeaulx standing in the doorway. She smiled, and not waiting till he
+came to her, she went to him.
+
+"Why do you stay there as if you were sulking?" she asked.
+
+"I am not sulking," he returned; "I came to announce some good news,
+but the thought has overtaken me that it will only add to your
+severity towards me. I fancy myself six months hence almost a stranger
+to you. Yes, you are too clever, and I too experienced,--too blase, if
+you like,--for either of us to deceive the other. Your end is attained
+without its costing you more than a few smiles and gracious words."
+
+"Deceive each other! what can you mean?" she cried, in a hurt tone.
+
+"Yes; Monsieur de la Billardiere is dying, and from what the minister
+told me this evening I judge that your husband will be appointed in
+his place."
+
+He thereupon related what he called his scene at the ministry and the
+jealousy of the countess, repeating her remarks about the invitation
+he had asked her to send to Madame Rabourdin.
+
+"Monsieur des Lupeaulx," said Madame Rabourdin, with dignity, "permit
+me to tell you that my husband is the oldest head-clerk as well as the
+most capable man in the division; also that the appointment of La
+Billardiere over his head made much talk in the service, and that my
+husband has stayed on for the last year expecting this promotion, for
+which he has really no competitor and no rival."
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Well, then," she resumed, smiling and showing her handsome teeth,
+"how can you suppose that the friendship I feel for you is marred by a
+thought of self-interest? Why should you think me capable of that?"
+
+Des Lupeaulx made a gesture of admiring denial.
+
+"Ah!" she continued, "the heart of woman will always remain a secret
+for even the cleverest of men. Yes, I welcomed you to my house with
+the greatest pleasure; and there was, I admit, a motive of self-
+interest behind my pleasure--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"You have a career before you," she whispered in his ear, "a future
+without limit; you will be deputy, minister!" (What happiness for an
+ambitious man when such things as these are warbled in his ear by the
+sweet voice of a pretty woman!) "Oh, yes! I know you better than you
+know yourself. Rabourdin is a man who could be of immense service to
+you in such a career; he could do the steady work while you were in
+the Chamber. Just as you dream of the ministry, so I dream of seeing
+Rabourdin in the Council of State, and general director. It is
+therefore my object to draw together two men who can never injure,
+but, on the contrary, must greatly help each other. Isn't that a
+woman's mission? If you are friends, you will both rise the faster,
+and it is surely high time that each of you made hay. I have burned my
+ships," she added, smiling. "But you are not as frank with me as I
+have been with you."
+
+"You would not listen to me if I were," he replied, with a melancholy
+air, in spite of the deep inward satisfaction her remarks gave him.
+"What would such future promotions avail me, if you dismiss me now?"
+
+"Before I listen to you," she replied, with naive Parisian liveliness,
+"we must be able to understand each other."
+
+And she left the old fop to go and speak with Madame de Chessel, a
+countess from the provinces, who seemed about to take leave.
+
+"That is a very extraordinary woman," said des Lupeaulx to himself. "I
+don't know my own self when I am with her."
+
+Accordingly, this man of no principle, who six years earlier had kept
+a ballet-girl, and who now, thanks to his position, made himself a
+seraglio with the pretty wives of the under-clerks, and lived in the
+world of journalists and actresses, became devotedly attentive all the
+evening to Celestine, and was the last to leave the house.
+
+"At last!" thought Madame Rabourdin, as she undressed that night, "we
+have the place! Twelve thousand francs a year and perquisites, beside
+the rents of our farms at Grajeux,--nearly twenty thousand francs a
+year. It is not affluence, but at least it isn't poverty."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
+
+If it were possible for literature to use the microscope of the
+Leuwenhoeks, the Malpighis, and the Raspails (an attempt once made by
+Hoffman, of Berlin), and if we could magnify and then picture the
+teredos navalis, in other words, those ship-worms which brought
+Holland within an inch of collapsing by honey-combing her dykes, we
+might have been able to give a more distinct idea of Messieurs
+Gigonnet, Baudoyer, Saillard, Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard and
+company, borers and burrowers, who proved their undermining power in
+the thirtieth year of this century.
+
+But now it is time to show another set of teredos, who burrowed and
+swarmed in the government offices where the principal scenes of our
+present study took place.
+
+In Paris nearly all these government bureaus resemble each other. Into
+whatever ministry you penetrate to ask some slight favor, or to get
+redress for a trifling wrong, you will find the same dark corridors,
+ill-lighted stairways, doors with oval panes of glass like eyes, as at
+the theatre. In the first room as you enter you will find the office
+servant; in the second, the under-clerks; the private office of the
+second head-clerk is to the right or left, and further on is that of
+the head of the bureau. As to the important personage called, under
+the Empire, head of division, then, under the Restoration, director,
+and now by the former name, head or chief of division, he lives either
+above or below the offices of his three or four different bureaus.
+
+Speaking in the administrative sense, a bureau consists of a man-
+servant, several supernumeraries (who do the work gratis for a certain
+number of years), various copying clerks, writers of bills and deeds,
+order clerks, principal clerks, second or under head-clerk, and head-
+clerk, otherwise called head or chief of the bureau. These
+denominational titles vary under some administrations; for instance,
+the order-clerks are sometimes called auditors, or again, book-
+keepers.
+
+Paved like the corridor, and hung with a shabby paper, the first room,
+where the servant is stationed, is furnished with a stove, a large
+black table with inkstand, pens, and paper, and benches, but no mats
+on which to wipe the public feet. The clerk's office beyond is a large
+room, tolerably well lighted, but seldom floored with wood. Wooden
+floors and fireplaces are commonly kept sacred to heads of bureaus and
+divisions; and so are closets, wardrobes, mahogany tables, sofas and
+armchairs covered with red or green morocco, silk curtains, and other
+articles of administrative luxury. The clerk's office contents itself
+with a stove, the pipe of which goes into the chimney, if there be a
+chimney. The wall paper is plain and all of one color, usually green
+or brown. The tables are of black wood. The private characteristics of
+the several clerks often crop out in their method of settling
+themselves at their desks,--the chilly one has a wooden footstool
+under his feet; the man with a bilious temperament has a metal mat;
+the lymphatic being who dreads draughts constructs a fortification of
+boxes on a screen. The door of the under-head-clerk's office always
+stands open so that he may keep an eye to some extent on his
+subordinates.
+
+Perhaps an exact description of Monsieur de la Billardiere's division
+will suffice to give foreigners and provincials an idea of the
+internal manners and customs of a government office; the chief
+features of which are probably much the same in the civil service of
+all European governments.
+
+In the first place, picture to yourself the man who is thus described
+in the Yearly Register:--
+
+  "Chief of Division.--Monsieur la baron Flamet de la Billardiere
+  (Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel) formerly provost-marshal of the
+  department of the Correze, gentleman in ordinary of the bed-
+  chamber, president of the college of the department of the
+  Dordogne, officer of the Legion of honor, knight of Saint Louis
+  and of the foreign orders of Christ, Isabella, Saint Wladimir,
+  etc., member of the Academy of Gers, and other learned bodies,
+  vice-president of the Society of Belles-lettres, member of the
+  Association of Saint-Joseph and of the Society of Prisons, one of
+  the mayors of Paris, etc."
+
+The person who requires so much typographic space was at this time
+occupying an area five feet six in length by thirty-six inches in
+width in a bed, his head adorned with a cotton night-cap tied on by
+flame-colored ribbons; attended by Despleins, the King's surgeon, and
+young doctor Bianchon, flanked by two old female relatives, surrounded
+by phials of all kinds, bandages, appliances, and various mortuary
+instruments, and watched over by the curate of Saint-Roch, who was
+advising him to think of his salvation.
+
+La Billardiere's division occupied the upper floor of a magnificent
+mansion, in which the vast official ocean of a ministry was contained.
+A wide landing separated its two bureaus, the doors of which were duly
+labelled. The private offices and antechambers of the heads of the two
+bureaus, Monsieur Rabourdin and Monsieur Baudoyer, were below on the
+second floor, and beyond that of Monsieur Rabourdin were the
+antechamber, salon, and two offices of Monsieur de la Billardiere.
+
+On the first floor, divided in two by an entresol, were the living
+rooms and office of Monsieur Ernest de la Briere, an occult and
+powerful personage who must be described in a few words, for he well
+deserves the parenthesis. This young man held, during the whole time
+that this particular administration lasted, the position of private
+secretary to the minister. His apartment was connected by a secret
+door with the private office of his Excellency. A private secretary is
+to the minister himself what des Lupeaulx was to the ministry at
+large. The same difference existed between young La Briere and des
+Lupeaulx that there is between an aide-de-camp and a chief of staff.
+This ministerial apprentice decamps when his protector leaves office,
+returning sometimes when he returns. If the minister enjoys the royal
+favor when he falls, or still has parliamentary hopes, he takes his
+secretary with him into retirement only to bring him back on his
+return; otherwise he puts him to grass in some of the various
+administrative pastures,--for instance, in the Court of Exchequer,
+that wayside refuge where private secretaries wait for the storm to
+blow over. The young man is not precisely a government official; he is
+a political character, however; and sometimes his politics are limited
+to those of one man. When we think of the number of letters it is the
+private secretary's fate to open and read, besides all his other
+avocations, it is very evident that under a monarchical government his
+services would be well paid for. A drudge of this kind costs ten or
+twenty thousand francs a year; and he enjoys, moreover, the opera-
+boxes, the social invitations, and the carriages of the minister. The
+Emperor of Russia would be thankful to be able to pay fifty thousand a
+year to one of these amiable constitutional poodles, so gentle, so
+nicely curled, so caressing, so docile, always spick and span,--
+careful watch-dogs besides, and faithful to a degree! But the private
+secretary is a product of the representative government hot-house; he
+is propagated and developed there, and there only. Under a monarchy
+you will find none but courtiers and vassals, whereas under a
+constitutional government you may be flattered, served, and adulated
+by free men. In France ministers are better off than kings or women;
+they have some one who thoroughly understands them. Perhaps, indeed,
+the private secretary is to be pitied as much as women and white
+paper. They are nonentities who are made to bear all things. They are
+allowed no talents except hidden ones, which must be employed in the
+service of their ministers. A public show of talent would ruin them.
+The private secretary is therefore an intimate friend in the gift of
+government-- However, let us return to the bureaus.
+
+Three men-servants lived in peace in the Billardiere division, to wit:
+a footman for the two bureaus, another for the service of the two
+chiefs, and a third for the director of the division himself. All
+three were lodged, warmed, and clothed by the State, and wore the
+well-known livery of the State, blue coat with red pipings for
+undress, and broad red, white, and blue braid for great occasions. La
+Billardiere's man had the air of a gentleman-usher, an innovation
+which gave an aspect of dignity to the division.
+
+Pillars of the ministry, experts in all manners and customs
+bureaucratic, well-warmed and clothed at the State's expense, growing
+rich by reason of their few wants, these lackeys saw completely
+through the government officials, collectively and individually. They
+had no better way of amusing their idle hours than by observing these
+personages and studying their peculiarities. They knew how far to
+trust the clerks with loans of money, doing their various commissions
+with absolute discretion; they pawned and took out of pawn, bought up
+bills when due, and lent money without interest, albeit no clerk ever
+borrowed of them without returning a "gratification." These servants
+without a master received a salary of nine hundred francs a year; new
+years' gifts and "gratifications" brought their emoluments to twelve
+hundred francs, and they made almost as much money by serving
+breakfasts to the clerks at the office.
+
+The elder of these men, who was also the richest, waited upon the main
+body of the clerks. He was sixty years of age, with white hair cropped
+short like a brush; stout, thickset, and apoplectic about the neck,
+with a vulgar pimpled face, gray eyes, and a mouth like a furnace
+door; such was the profile portrait of Antoine, the oldest attendant
+in the ministry. He had brought his two nephews, Laurent and Gabriel,
+from Echelles in Savoie,--one to serve the heads of the bureaus, the
+other the director himself. All three came to open the offices and
+clean them, between seven and eight o'clock in the morning; at which
+time they read the newspapers and talked civil service politics from
+their point of view with the servants of other divisions, exchanging
+the bureaucratic gossip. In common with servants of modern houses who
+know their masters' private affairs thoroughly, they lived at the
+ministry like spiders at the centre of a web, where they felt the
+slightest jar of the fabric.
+
+On a Thursday evening, the day after the ministerial reception and
+Madame Rabourdin's evening party, just as Antoine was trimming his
+beard and his nephews were assisting him in the antechamber of the
+division on the upper floor, they were surprised by the unexpected
+arrival of one of the clerks.
+
+"That's Monsieur Dutocq," said Antoine. "I know him by that pickpocket
+step of his. He is always moving round on the sly, that man. He is on
+your back before you know it. Yesterday, contrary to his usual ways,
+he outstayed the last man in the office; such a thing hasn't happened
+three times since he has been at the ministry."
+
+Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in the
+Rabourdin bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and bilious
+skin, grizzled hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy eyebrows
+meeting together, a crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the right
+shoulder slightly higher than the left; brown coat, black waistcoat,
+silk cravat, yellowish trousers, black woollen stockings, and shoes
+with flapping bows; thus you behold him. Idle and incapable, he hated
+Rabourdin,--naturally enough, for Rabourdin had no vice to flatter,
+and no bad or weak side on which Dutocq could make himself useful. Far
+too noble to injure a clerk, the chief was also too clear-sighted to
+be deceived by any make-believe. Dutocq kept his place therefore
+solely through Rabourdin's generosity, and was very certain that he
+could never be promoted if the latter succeeded La Billardiere. Though
+he knew himself incapable of important work, Dutocq was well aware
+that in a government office incapacity was no hindrance to
+advancement; La Billardiere's own appointment over the head of so
+capable a man as Rabourdin had been a striking and fatal example of
+this. Wickedness combined with self-interest works with a power
+equivalent to that of intellect; evilly disposed and wholly self-
+interested, Dutocq had endeavoured to strengthen his position by
+becoming a spy in all the offices. After 1816 he assumed a marked
+religious tone, foreseeing the favor which the fools of those days
+would bestow on those they indiscriminately called Jesuits. Belonging
+to that fraternity in spirit, though not admitted to its rites, Dutocq
+went from bureau to bureau, sounded consciences by recounting immoral
+jests, and then reported and paraphrased results to des Lupeaulx; the
+latter thus learned all the trivial events of the ministry, and often
+surprised the minister by his consummate knowledge of what was going
+on. He tolerated Dutocq under the idea that circumstances might some
+day make him useful, were it only to get him or some distinguished
+friend of his out of a scrape by a disgraceful marriage. The two
+understood each other well. Dutocq had succeeded Monsieur Poiret the
+elder, who had retired in 1814, and now lived in the pension Vanquer
+in the Latin quarter. Dutocq himself lived in a pension in the rue de
+Beaune, and spent his evenings in the Palais-Royal, sometimes going to
+the theatre, thanks to du Bruel, who gave him an author's ticket about
+once a week. And now, a word on du Bruel.
+
+Though Sebastien did his work at the office for the small compensation
+we have mentioned, du Bruel was in the habit of coming there to
+advertise the fact that he was the under-head-clerk and to draw his
+salary. His real work was that of dramatic critic to a leading
+ministerial journal, in which he also wrote articles inspired by the
+ministers,--a very well understood, clearly defined, and quite
+unassailable position. Du Bruel was not lacking in those diplomatic
+little tricks which go so far to conciliate general good-will. He sent
+Madame Rabourdin an opera-box for a first representation, took her
+there in a carriage and brought her back,--an attention which
+evidently pleased her. Rabourdin, who was never exacting with his
+subordinates allowed du Bruel to go off to rehearsals, come to the
+office at his own hours, and work at his vaudevilles when there.
+Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, the minister, knew that du Bruel was
+writing a novel which was to be dedicated to himself. Dressed with the
+careless ease of a theatre man, du Bruel wore, in the morning,
+trousers strapped under his feet, shoes with gaiters, a waistcoat
+evidently vamped over, an olive surtout, and a black cravat. At night
+he played the gentleman in elegant clothes. He lived, for good
+reasons, in the same house as Florine, an actress for whom he wrote
+plays. Du Bruel, or to give him his pen name, Cursy, was working just
+now at a piece in five acts for the Francais. Sebastien was devoted to
+the author,--who occasionally gave him tickets to the pit,--and
+applauded his pieces at the parts which du Bruel told him were of
+doubtful interest, with all the faith and enthusiasm of his years. In
+fact, the youth looked upon the playwright as a great author, and it
+was to Sebastien that du Bruel said, the day after a first
+representation of a vaudeville produced, like all vaudevilles, by
+three collaborators, "The audience preferred the scenes written by
+two."
+
+"Why don't you write alone?" asked Sebastien naively.
+
+There were good reasons why du Bruel did not write alone. He was the
+third of an author. A dramatic writer, as few people know, is made up
+of three individuals; first, the man with brains who invents the
+subject and maps out the structure, or scenario, of the vaudeville;
+second, the plodder, who works the piece into shape; and third, the
+toucher-up, who sets the songs to music, arranges the chorus and
+concerted pieces and fits them into their right place, and finally
+writes the puffs and advertisements. Du Bruel was a plodder; at the
+office he read the newest books, extracted their wit, and laid it by
+for use in his dialogues. He was liked by his collaborators on account
+of his carefulness; the man with brains, sure of being understood,
+could cross his arms and feel that his ideas would be well rendered.
+The clerks in the office liked their companion well enough to attend a
+first performance of his plays in a body and applaud them, for he
+really deserved the title of a good fellow. His hand went readily to
+his pocket; ices and punch were bestowed without prodding, and he
+loaned fifty francs without asking them back. He owned a country-house
+at Aulnay, laid by his money, and had, besides the four thousand five
+hundred francs of his salary under government, twelve hundred francs
+pension from the civil list, and eight hundred from the three hundred
+thousand francs fund voted by the Chambers for encouragement of the
+Arts. Add to these diverse emoluments nine thousand francs earned by
+his quarters, thirds, and halves of plays in three different theatres,
+and you will readily understand that such a man must be physically
+round, fat, and comfortable, with the face of a worthy capitalist. As
+to morals, he was the lover and the beloved of Tullia and felt himself
+preferred in heart to the brilliant Duc de Rhetore, the lover in
+chief.
+
+Dutocq had seen with great uneasiness what he called the liaison of
+des Lupeaulx with Madame Rabourdin, and his silent wrath on the
+subject was accumulating. He had too prying an eye not to have guessed
+that Rabourdin was engaged in some great work outside of his official
+labors, and he was provoked to feel that he knew nothing about it,
+whereas that little Sebastien was, wholly or in part, in the secret.
+Dutocq was intimate with Godard, under-head-clerk to Baudoyer, and the
+high esteem in which Dutocq held Baudoyer was the original cause of
+his acquaintance with Godard; not that Dutocq was sincere even in
+this; but by praising Baudoyer and saying nothing of Rabourdin he
+satisfied his hatred after the fashion of little minds.
+
+Joseph Godard, a cousin of Mitral on the mother's side, made
+pretension to the hand of Mademoiselle Baudoyer, not perceiving that
+her mother was laying siege to Falliex as a son-in-law. He brought
+little gifts to the young lady, artificial flowers, bonbons on New-
+Year's day and pretty boxes for her birthday. Twenty-six years of age,
+a worker working without purpose, steady as a girl, monotonous and
+apathetic, holding cafes, cigars, and horsemanship in detestation,
+going to bed regularly at ten o'clock and rising at seven, gifted with
+some social talents, such as playing quadrille music on the flute,
+which first brought him into favor with the Saillards and the
+Baudoyers. He was moreover a fifer in the National Guard,--to escape
+his turn of sitting up all night in a barrack-room. Godard was devoted
+more especially to natural history. He made collections of shells and
+minerals, knew how to stuff birds, kept a mass of curiosities bought
+for nothing in his bedroom; took possession of phials and empty
+perfume bottles for his specimens; pinned butterflies and beetles
+under glass, hung Chinese parasols on the walls, together with dried
+fishskins. He lived with his sister, an artificial-flower maker, in
+the due de Richelieu. Though much admired by mammas this model young
+man was looked down upon by his sister's shop-girls, who had tried to
+inveigle him. Slim and lean, of medium height, with dark circles round
+his eyes, Joseph Godard took little care of his person; his clothes
+were ill-cut, his trousers bagged, he wore white stockings at all
+seasons of the year, a hat with a narrow brim and laced shoes. He was
+always complaining of his digestion. His principal vice was a mania
+for proposing rural parties during the summer season, excursions to
+Montmorency, picnics on the grass, and visits to creameries on the
+boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. For the last six months Dutocq had taken
+to visiting Mademoiselle Godard from time to time, with certain views
+of his own, hoping to discover in her establishment some female
+treasure.
+
+Thus Baudoyer had a pair of henchmen in Dutocq and Godard. Monsieur
+Saillard, too innocent to judge rightly of Dutocq, was in the habit of
+paying him frequent little visits at the office. Young La Billardiere,
+the director's son, placed as supernumerary with Baudoyer, made
+another member of the clique. The clever heads in the offices laughed
+much at this alliance of incapables. Bixiou named Baudoyer, Godard,
+and Dutocq a "Trinity without the Spirit," and little La Billardiere
+the "Pascal Lamb."
+
+"You are early this morning," said Antoine to Dutocq, laughing.
+
+"So are you, Antoine," answered Dutocq; "you see, the newspapers do
+come earlier than you let us have them at the office."
+
+"They did to-day, by chance," replied Antoine, not disconcerted; "they
+never come two days together at the same hour."
+
+The two nephews looked at each other as if to say, in admiration of
+their uncle, "What cheek he has!"
+
+"Though I make two sous by all his breakfasts," muttered Antoine, as
+he heard Monsieur Dutocq close the office door, "I'd give them up to
+get that man out of our division."
+
+"Ah, Monsieur Sebastien, you are not the first here to-day," said
+Antoine, a quarter of an hour later, to the supernumerary.
+
+"Who is here?" asked the poor lad, turning pale.
+
+"Monsieur Dutocq," answered Laurent.
+
+Virgin natures have, beyond all others, the inexplicable gift of
+second-sight, the reason of which lies perhaps in the purity of their
+nervous systems, which are, as it were, brand-new. Sebastien had long
+guessed Dutocq's hatred to his revered Rabourdin. So that when Laurent
+uttered his name a dreadful presentiment took possession of the lad's
+mind, and crying out, "I feared it!" he flew like an arrow into the
+corridor.
+
+"There is going to be a row in the division," said Antoine, shaking
+his white head as he put on his livery. "It is very certain that
+Monsieur le baron is off to his account. Yes, Madame Gruget, the
+nurse, told me he couldn't live through the day. What a stir there'll
+be! oh! won't there! Go along, you fellows, and see if the stoves are
+drawing properly. Heavens and earth! our world is coming down about
+our ears."
+
+"That poor young one," said Laurent, "had a sort of sunstroke when he
+heard that Jesuit of a Dutocq had got here before him."
+
+"I have told him a dozen times,--for after all one ought to tell the
+truth to an honest clerk, and what I call an honest clerk is one like
+that little fellow who gives us "recta" his ten francs on New-Year's
+day,--I have said to him again and again: The more you work the more
+they'll make you work, and they won't promote you. He doesn't listen
+to me; he tires himself out staying here till five o'clock, an hour
+after all the others have gone. Folly! he'll never get on that way!
+The proof is that not a word has been said about giving him an
+appointment, though he has been here two years. It's a shame! it makes
+my blood boil."
+
+"Monsieur Rabourdin is very fond of Monsieur Sebastien," said Laurent.
+
+"But Monsieur Rabourdin isn't a minister," retorted Antoine; "it will
+be a hot day when that happens, and the hens will have teeth; he is
+too--but mum! When I think that I carry salaries to those humbugs who
+stay away and do as they please, while that poor little La Roche works
+himself to death, I ask myself if God ever thinks of the civil
+service. And what do they give you, these pets of Monsieur le marechal
+and Monsieur le duc? 'Thank you, my dear Antoine, thank you,' with a
+gracious nod! Pack of sluggards! go to work, or you'll bring another
+revolution about your ears. Didn't see such goings-on under Monsieur
+Robert Lindet. I know, for I served my apprenticeship under Robert
+Lindet. The clerks had to work in his day! You ought to have seen how
+they scratched paper here till midnight; why, the stoves went out and
+nobody noticed it. It was all because the guillotine was there! now-a-
+days they only mark 'em when they come in late!"
+
+"Uncle Antoine," said Gabriel, "as you are so talkative this morning,
+just tell us what you think a clerk really ought to be."
+
+"A government clerk," replied Antoine, gravely, "is a man who sits in
+a government office and writes. But there, there, what am I talking
+about? Without the clerks, where should we be, I'd like to know? Go
+along and look after your stoves and mind you never say harm of a
+government clerk, you fellows. Gabriel, the stove in the large office
+draws like the devil; you must turn the damper."
+
+Antoine stationed himself at a corner of the landing whence he could
+see all the officials as they entered the porte-cochere; he knew every
+one at the ministry, and watched their behavior, observing narrowly
+the contrasts in their dress and appearance.
+
+The first to arrive after Sebastien was a clerk of deeds in
+Rabourdin's office named Phellion, a respectable family-man. To the
+influence of his chief he owed a half-scholarship for each of his two
+sons in the College Henri IV.; while his daughter was being educated
+gratis at a boarding school where his wife gave music lessons and he
+himself a course of history and one of geography in the evenings. He
+was about forty-five years of age, sergeant-major of his company in
+the National Guard, very compassionate in feeling and words, but
+wholly unable to give away a penny. Proud of his post, however, and
+satisfied with his lot, he applied himself faithfully to serve the
+government, believed he was useful to his country, and boasted of his
+indifference to politics, knowing none but those of the men in power.
+Monsieur Rabourdin pleased him highly whenever he asked him to stay
+half an hour longer to finish a piece of work. On such occasions he
+would say, when he reached home, "Public affairs detained me; when a
+man belongs to the government he is no longer master of himself." He
+compiled books of questions and answers on various studies for the use
+of young ladies in boarding-schools. These little "solid treatises,"
+as he called them, were sold at the University library under the name
+of "Historical and Geographic Catechisms." Feeling himself in duty
+bound to offer a copy of each volume, bound in red morocco, to
+Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in full dress to present them,--
+breeches and silk stockings, and shoes with gold buckles. Monsieur
+Phellion received his friends on Thursday evenings, on which occasions
+the company played bouillote, at five sous a game, and were regaled
+with cakes and beer. He had never yet dared to invite Monsieur
+Rabourdin to honor him with his presence, though he would have
+regarded such an event as the most distinguished of his life. He said
+if he could leave one of his sons following in the steps of Monsieur
+Rabourdin he should die the happiest father in the world.
+
+One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of Paris,
+which he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre,
+Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great
+writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the
+country around Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into a
+government office and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique. He
+often said to the elder, "When you have the honor to be a government
+clerk"; though he suspected him of a preference for the exact sciences
+and did his best to repress it, mentally resolved to abandon the lad
+to his own devices if he persisted. When Rabourdin sent for him to
+come down and receive instructions about some particular piece of
+work, Phellion gave all his mind to it,--listening to every word the
+chief said, as a dilettante listens to an air at the Opera. Silent in
+the office, with his feet in the air resting on a wooden desk, and
+never moving them, he studied his task conscientiously. His official
+letters were written with the utmost gravity, and transmitted the
+commands of the minister in solemn phrases. Monsieur Phellion's face
+was that of a pensive ram, with little color and pitted by the small-
+pox; the lips were thick and the lower one pendent; the eyes light-
+blue, and his figure above the common height. Neat and clean as a
+master of history and geography in a young ladies' school ought to be,
+he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black cashmere waistcoat,
+left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered by his daughter, a
+diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat, and blue trousers. In
+winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with three capes, and carried a
+loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the profound solitude of the
+quarter in which he lived. He had given up taking snuff, and referred
+to this reform as a striking example of the empire a man could
+exercise over himself. Monsieur Phellion came slowly up the stairs,
+for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an "adipose chest."
+He saluted Antoine with dignity.
+
+The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange
+contrast to the virtuous Phellion. Vimeux was a young man of twenty-
+five, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and graceful,
+with a romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as black as
+jet, fine teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so carefully
+trimmed that he seemed to have made it the business and occupation of
+his life. Vimeux had such aptitude for work that he despatched it much
+quicker than any of the other clerks. "He has a gift, that young man!"
+Phellion said of him when he saw him cross his legs and have nothing
+to do for the rest of the day, having got through his appointed task;
+"and see what a little dandy he is!" Vimeux breakfasted on a roll and
+a glass of water, dined for twenty sous at Katcomb's, and lodged in a
+furnished room, for which he paid twelve francs a month. His
+happiness, his sole pleasure in life, was dress. He ruined himself in
+miraculous waistcoats, in trousers that were tight, half-tight,
+pleated, or embroidered; in superfine boots, well-made coats which
+outlined his elegant figure; in bewitching collars, spotless gloves,
+and immaculate hats. A ring with a coat of arms adorned his hand,
+outside his glove, from which dangled a handsome cane; with these
+accessories he endeavoured to assume the air and manner of a wealthy
+young man. After the office closed he appeared in the great walk of
+the Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as though he were a
+millionaire who had just dined. Always on the lookout for a woman,--an
+Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or a widow,--who might fall in
+love with him, he practised the art of twirling his cane and of
+flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told him was American. He
+smiled to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks under his boots, but
+he had his hair curled every day. Vimeux was prepared, in accordance
+with fixed principles, to marry a hunch-back with six thousand a year,
+or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or an Englishwoman for
+half that sum. Phellion, who delighted in his neat hand-writing, and
+was full of compassion for the fellow, read him lectures on the duty
+of giving lessons in penmanship,--an honorable career, he said, which
+would ameliorate existence and even render it agreeable; he promised
+him a situation in a young ladies' boarding-school. But Vimeux's head
+was so full of his own idea that no human being could prevent him from
+having faith in his star. He continued to lay himself out, like a
+salmon at a fishmonger's, in spite of his empty stomach and the fact
+that he had fruitlessly exhibited his enormous moustache and his fine
+clothes for over three years. As he owed Antoine more than thirty
+francs for his breakfasts, he lowered his eyes every time he passed
+him; and yet he never failed at midday to ask the man to buy him a
+roll.
+
+After trying to get a few reasonable ideas into this foolish head,
+Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe (his
+family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and lived
+entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-whip.
+Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in the
+spirit of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was really
+a kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one but
+himself. A standing joke in the two bureaus was the question whether
+he wore corsets, and bets depended on it. Vimeux was originally
+appointed to Baudoyer's bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself
+transferred to Rabourdin's, on account of Baudoyer's extreme severity
+in relation to what were called "the English,"--a name given by the
+government clerks to their creditors. "English day" means the day on
+which the government offices are thrown open to the public. Certain
+then of finding their delinquent debtors, the creditors swarm in and
+torment them, asking when they intend to pay, and threatening to
+attach their salaries. The implacable Baudoyer compelled the clerks to
+remain at their desks and endure this torture. "It was their place not
+to make debts," he said; and he considered his severity as a duty
+which he owed to the public weal. Rabourdin, on the contrary,
+protected the clerks against their creditors, and turned the latter
+away, saying that the government bureaus were open for public
+business, not private. Much ridicule pursued Vimeux in both bureaus
+when the clank of his spurs resounded in the corridors and on the
+staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou, sent round a paper,
+headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard horse, asking for
+subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur Baudoyer was down
+for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance, and each of the
+clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself, good-natured fellow
+that he was, subscribed under the name of "Miss Fairfax."
+
+Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to
+live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to
+masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though
+it often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners,
+or old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with
+their handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance
+illustrated with stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem to
+answer their purpose.
+
+Bixiou (pronounce it Bisiou) was a draughtsman, who ridiculed Dutocq
+as readily as he did Rabourdin, whom he nicknamed "the virtuous
+woman." Without doubt the cleverest man in the division or even in the
+ministry (but clever after the fashion of a monkey, without aim or
+sequence), Bixiou was so essentially useful to Baudoyer and Godard
+that they upheld and protected him in spite of his misconduct; for he
+did their work when they were incapable of doing it for themselves.
+Bixiou wanted either Godard's or du Bruel's place as under-head-clerk,
+but his conduct interfered with his promotion. Sometimes he sneered at
+the public service; this was usually after he had made some happy hit,
+such as the publication of portraits in the famous Fualdes case (for
+which he drew faces hap-hazard), or his sketch of the debate on the
+Castaing affair. At other times, when possessed with a desire to get
+on, he really applied himself to work, though he would soon leave off
+to write a vaudeville, which was never finished. A thorough egoist, a
+spendthrift and a miser in one,--that is to say, spending his money
+solely on himself,--sharp, aggressive, and indiscreet, he did mischief
+for mischief's sake; above all, he attacked the weak, respected
+nothing and believed in nothing, neither in France, nor in God, nor in
+art, nor in the Greeks, nor in the Turks, nor in the monarchy,--
+insulting and disparaging everything that he could not comprehend. He
+was the first to paint a black cap on Charles X.'s head on the five-
+franc coins. He mimicked Dr. Gall when lecturing, till he made the
+most starched of diplomatists burst their buttons. Famous for his
+practical jokes, he varied them with such elaborate care that he
+always obtained a victim. His great secret in this was the power of
+guessing the inmost wishes of others; he knew the way to many a castle
+in the air, to the dreams about which a man may be fooled because he
+wants to be; and he made such men sit to him for hours.
+
+Thus it happened that this close observer, who could display
+unrivalled tact in developing a joke or driving home a sarcasm, was
+unable to use the same power to make men further his fortunes and
+promote him. The person he most liked to annoy was young La
+Billardiere, his nightmare, his detestation, whom he was nevertheless
+constantly wheedling so as the better to torment him on his weakest
+side. He wrote him love letters signed "Comtesse de M--" or "Marquise
+de B--"; took him to the Opera on gala days and presented him to some
+grisette under the clock, after calling everybody's attention to the
+young fool. He allied himself with Dutocq (whom he regarded as a
+solemn juggler) in his hatred to Rabourdin and his praise of Baudoyer,
+and did his best to support him. Jean-Jaques Bixiou was the grandson
+of a Parisian grocer. His father, who died a colonel, left him to the
+care of his grandmother, who married her head-clerk, named Descoings,
+after the death of her first husband, and died in 1822. Finding
+himself without prospects on leaving college, he attempted painting,
+but in spite of his intimacy with Joseph Bridau, his life-long friend,
+he abandoned art to take up caricature, vignette designing, and
+drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the name of
+"illustration." The influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and de
+Rhetore, whom he knew in the society of actresses, procured him his
+employment under government in 1819. On good terms with des Lupeaulx,
+with whom in society he stood on an equality, and intimate with du
+Bruel, he was a living proof of Rabourdin's theory as to the steady
+deterioration of the administrative hierarchy in Paris through the
+personal importance which a government official may acquire outside of
+a government office. Short in stature but well-formed, with a delicate
+face remarkable for its vague likeness to Napoleon's, thin lips, a
+straight chin, chestnut whiskers, twenty-seven years old, fair-
+skinned, with a piercing voice and sparkling eye,--such was Bixiou; a
+man, all sense and all wit, who abandoned himself to a mad pursuit of
+pleasure of every description, which threw him into a constant round
+of dissipation. Hunter of grisettes, smoker, jester, diner-out and
+frequenter of supper-parties, always tuned to the highest pitch,
+shining equally in the greenroom and at the balls given among the
+grisettes of the Allee des Veuves, he was just as surprisingly
+entertaining at table as at a picnic, as gay and lively at midnight on
+the streets as in the morning when he jumped out of bed, and yet at
+heart gloomy and melancholy, like most of the great comic players.
+
+Launched into the world of actors and actresses, writers, artists, and
+certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre
+without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature
+and really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in
+life like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord
+would break. The liveliness of his wit and the prodigal flow of his
+ideas made him acceptable to all persons who took pleasure in the
+lights of intellect; but none of his friends liked him. Incapable of
+checking a witty saying, he would scarify his two neighbors before a
+dinner was half over. In spite of his skin-deep gayety, a secret
+dissatisfaction with his social position could be detected in his
+speech; he aspired to something better, but the fatal demon hiding in
+his wit hindered him from acquiring the gravity which imposes on
+fools. He lived on the second floor of a house in the rue de Ponthieu,
+where he had three rooms delivered over to the untidiness of a
+bachelor's establishment, in fact, a regular bivouac. He often talked
+of leaving France and seeking his fortune in America. No wizard could
+foretell the future of this young man in whom all talents were
+incomplete; who was incapable of perseverance, intoxicated with
+pleasure, and who acted on the belief that the world ended on the
+morrow.
+
+In the matter of dress Bixiou had the merit of never being ridiculous;
+he was perhaps the only official of the ministry whose dress did not
+lead outsiders to say, "That man is a government clerk!" He wore
+elegant boots with black trousers strapped under them, a fancy
+waistcoat, a becoming blue coat, collars that were the never-ending
+gift of grisettes, one of Bandoni's hats, and a pair of dark-colored
+kid gloves. His walk and bearing, cavalier and simple both, were not
+without grace. He knew all this, and when des Lupeaulx summoned him
+for a piece of impertinence said and done about Monsieur de la
+Billardiere and threatened him with dismissal, Bixiou replied, "You
+will take me back because my clothes do credit to the ministry"; and
+des Lupeaulx, unable to keep from laughing, let the matter pass. The
+most harmless of Bixiou's jokes perpetrated among the clerks was the
+one he played off upon Godard, presenting him with a butterfly just
+brought from China, which the worthy man keeps in his collection and
+exhibits to this day, blissfully unconscious that it is only painted
+paper. Bixiou had the patience to work up the little masterpiece for
+the sole purpose of hoaxing his superior.
+
+The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer's bureau held
+the martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a
+salary of fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard.
+Minard had married for love the daughter of a porter, an artificial-
+flower maker employed by Mademoiselle Godard. Zelie Lorrain, a pupil,
+in the first place, of the Conservatoire, then by turns a danseuse, a
+singer, and an actress, had thought of doing as so many of the
+working-women do; but the fear of consequences kept her from vice. She
+was floating undecidedly along, when Minard appeared upon the scene
+with a definite proposal of marriage. Zelie earned five hundred francs
+a year, Minard had fifteen hundred. Believing that they could live on
+two thousand, they married without settlements, and started with the
+utmost economy. They went to live, like dove-turtles, near the
+barriere de Courcelles, in a little apartment at three hundred francs
+a year, with white cotton curtains to the windows, a Scotch paper
+costing fifteen sous a roll on the walls, brick floors well polished,
+walnut furniture in the parlor, and a tiny kitchen that was very
+clean. Zelie nursed her children herself when they came, cooked, made
+her flowers, and kept the house. There was something very touching in
+this happy and laborious mediocrity. Feeling that Minard truly loved
+her, Zelie loved him. Love begets love,--it is the abyssus abyssum of
+the Bible. The poor man left his bed in the morning before his wife
+was up, that he might fetch provisions. He carried the flowers she had
+finished, on his way to the bureau, and bought her materials on his
+way back; then, while waiting for dinner, he stamped out her leaves,
+trimmed the twigs, or rubbed her colors. Small, slim, and wiry, with
+crisp red hair, eyes of a light yellow, a skin of dazzling fairness,
+though blotched with red, the man had a sturdy courage that made no
+show. He knew the science of writing quite as well as Vimeux. At the
+office he kept in the background, doing his allotted task with the
+collected air of a man who thinks and suffers. His white eyelashes and
+lack of eyebrows induced the relentless Bixiou to name him "the white
+rabbit." Minard--the Rabourdin of a lower sphere--was filled with the
+desire of placing his Zelie in better circumstances, and his mind
+searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in hopes of finding an idea,
+of making some discovery or some improvement which would bring him a
+rapid fortune. His apparent dulness was really caused by the continual
+tension of his mind; he went over the history of Cephalic Oils and the
+Paste of Sultans, lucifer matches and portable gas, jointed sockets
+for hydrostatic lamps,--in short, all the infinitely little inventions
+of material civilization which pay so well. He bore Bixiou's jests as
+a busy man bears the buzzing of an insect; he was not even annoyed by
+them. In spite of his cleverness, Bixiou never perceived the profound
+contempt which Minard felt for him. Minard never dreamed of
+quarrelling, however,--regarding it as a loss of time. After a while
+his composure tired out his tormentor. He always breakfasted with his
+wife, and ate nothing at the office. Once a month he took Zelie to the
+theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or Bixiou; for Bixiou was
+capable of anything, even of doing a kindness. Monsieur and Madame
+Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year's day. Those who saw
+them often asked how it was that a woman could keep her husband in
+good clothes, wear a Leghorn bonnet with flowers, embroidered muslin
+dresses, silk mantles, prunella boots, handsome fichus, a Chinese
+parasol, and drive home in a hackney-coach, and yet be virtuous; while
+Madame Colleville and other "ladies" of her kind could scarcely make
+ends meet, though they had double Madame Minard's means.
+
+In the two bureaus were two clerks so devoted to each other that their
+friendship became the butt of all the rest. He of the bureau Baudoyer,
+named Colleville, was chief-clerk, and would have been head of the
+bureau long before if the Restoration had never happened. His wife was
+as clever in her way as Madame Rabourdin in hers. Colleville, who was
+son of a first violin at the opera, fell in love with the daughter of
+a celebrated danseuse. Flavie Minoret, one of those capable and
+charming Parisian women who know how to make their husbands happy and
+yet preserve their own liberty, made the Colleville home a rendezvous
+for all our best artists and orators. Colleville's humble position
+under government was forgotten there. Flavie's conduct gave such food
+for gossip, however, that Madame Rabourdin had declined all her
+invitations. The friend in Rabourdin's bureau to whom Colleville was
+so attached was named Thuillier. All who knew one knew the other.
+Thuillier, called "the handsome Thuillier," an ex-Lothario, led as
+idle a life as Colleville led a busy one. Colleville, government
+official in the mornings and first clarionet at the Opera-Comique at
+night, worked hard to maintain his family, though he was not without
+influential friends. He was looked upon as a very shrewd man,--all the
+more, perhaps, because he hid his ambitions under a show of
+indifference. Apparently content with his lot and liking work, he
+found every one, even the chiefs, ready to protect his brave career.
+During the last few weeks Madame Colleville had made an evident change
+in the household, and seemed to be taking to piety. This gave rise to
+a vague report in the bureaus that she thought of securing some more
+powerful influence than that of Francois Keller, the famous orator,
+who had been one of her chief adorers, but who, so far, had failed to
+obtain a better place for her husband. Flavie had, about this time--
+and it was one of her mistakes--turned for help to des Lupeaulx.
+
+Colleville had a passion for reading the horoscopes of famous men in
+the anagram of their names. He passed whole months in decomposing and
+recomposing words and fitting them to new meanings. "Un Corse la
+finira," found within the words, "Revolution Francaise"; "Eh, c'est
+large nez," in "Charles Genest," an abbe at the court of Louis XIV.,
+whose huge nose is recorded by Saint-Simon as the delight of the Duc
+de Bourgogne (the exigencies of this last anagram required the
+substitution of a z for an s),--were a never-ending marvel to
+Colleville. Raising the anagram to the height of a science, he
+declared that the destiny of every man was written in the words or
+phrase given by the transposition of the letters of his names and
+titles; and his patriotism struggled hard to suppress the fact--signal
+evidence for his theory--that in Horatio Nelson, "honor est a Nilo."
+Ever since the accession of Charles X., he had bestowed much thought
+on the king's anagram. Thuillier, who was fond of making puns,
+declared that an anagram was nothing more than a pun on letters. The
+sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound almost indissolubly
+to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a difficult problem to
+the mind of an observer. The clerks in the offices explained it by
+saying, "Thuillier is rich, and the Colleville household costly." This
+friendship, however, consolidated by time, was based on feelings and
+on facts which naturally explained it; an account of which may be
+found elsewhere (see "Les Petits Bourgeois"). We may remark in passing
+that though Madame Colleville was well known in the bureaus, the
+existence of Madame Thuillier was almost unknown there. Colleville, an
+active man, burdened with a family of children, was fat, round, and
+jolly, whereas Thuillier, "the beau of the Empire" without apparent
+anxieties and always at leisure, was slender and thin, with a livid
+face and a melancholy air. "We never know," said Rabourdin, speaking
+of the two men, "whether our friendships are born of likeness or of
+contrast."
+
+Unlike these Siamese twins, two other clerks, Chazelle and Paulmier,
+were forever squabbling. One smoked, the other took snuff, and the
+merits of their respective use of tobacco were the origin of ceaseless
+disputes. Chazelle's home, which was tyrannized over by a wife,
+furnished a subject of endless ridicule to Paulmier; whereas Paulmier,
+a bachelor, often half-starved like Vimeux, with ragged clothes and
+half-concealed penury was a fruitful source of ridicule to Chazelle.
+Both were beginning to show a protuberant stomach; Chazelle's, which
+was round and projecting, had the impertinence, so Bixiou said, to
+enter the room first; Paulmier's corporation spread to right and left.
+A favorite amusement with Bixiou was to measure them quarterly. The
+two clerks, by dint of quarrelling over the details of their lives,
+and washing much of their dirty linen at the office, had obtained the
+disrepute which they merited. "Do you take me for a Chazelle?" was a
+frequent saying that served to end many an annoying discussion.
+
+Monsieur Poiret junior, called "junior" to distinguish him from his
+brother Monsieur Poiret senior (now living in the Maison Vanquer,
+where Poiret junior sometimes dined, intending to end his days in the
+same retreat), had spent thirty years in the Civil Service. Nature
+herself is not so fixed and unvarying in her evolutions as was Poiret
+junior in all the acts of his daily life; he always laid his things in
+precisely the same place, put his pen in the same rack, sat down in
+his seat at the same hour, warmed himself at the stove at the same
+moment of the day. His sole vanity consisted in wearing an infallible
+watch, timed daily at the Hotel de Ville as he passed it on his way to
+the office. From six to eight o'clock in the morning he kept the books
+of a large shop in the rue Saint-Antoine, and from six to eight
+o'clock in the evening those of the Maison Camusot, in the rue des
+Bourdonnais. He thus earned three thousand francs a year, counting his
+salary from the government. In a few months his term of service would
+be up, when he would retire on a pension; he therefore showed the
+utmost indifference to the political intrigues of the bureaus. Like
+his elder brother, to whom retirement from active service had proved a
+fatal blow, he would probably grow an old man when he could no longer
+come from his home to the ministry, sit in the same chair and copy a
+certain number of pages. Poiret's eyes were dim, his glance weak and
+lifeless, his skin discolored and wrinkled, gray in tone and speckled
+with bluish dots; his nose flat, his lips drawn inward to the mouth,
+where a few defective teeth still lingered. His gray hair, flattened
+to the head by the pressure of his hat, gave him the look of an
+ecclesiastic,--a resemblance he would scarcely have liked, for he
+hated priests and clergy, though he could give no reasons for his
+anti-religious views. This antipathy, however, did not prevent him
+from being extremely attached to whatever administration happened to
+be in power. He never buttoned his old green coat, even on the coldest
+days, and he always wore shoes with ties, and black trousers.
+
+No human life was ever lived so thoroughly by rule. Poiret kept all
+his receipted bills, even the most trifling, and all his account-
+books, wrapped in old shirts and put away according to their
+respective years from the time of his entrance at the ministry. Rough
+copies of his letters were dated and put away in a box, ticketed "My
+Correspondence." He dined at the same restaurant (the Sucking Calf in
+the place du Chatelet), and sat in the same place, which the waiters
+kept for him. He never gave five minutes more time to the shop in the
+rue Saint Antoine than justly belonged to it, and at half-past eight
+precisely he reached the Cafe David, where he breakfasted and remained
+till eleven. There he listened to political discussions, his arms
+crossed on his cane, his chin in his right hand, never saying a word.
+The dame du comptoir, the only woman to whom he ever spoke with
+pleasure, was the sole confidant of the little events of his life, for
+his seat was close to her counter. He played dominoes, the only game
+he was capable of understanding. When his partners did not happen to
+be present, he usually went to sleep with his back against the
+wainscot, holding a newspaper in his hand, the wooden file resting on
+the marble of his table. He was interested in the buildings going up
+in Paris, and spent his Sundays in walking about to examine them. He
+was often heard to say, "I saw the Louvre emerge from its rubbish; I
+saw the birth of the place du Chatelet, the quai aux Fleurs and the
+Markets." He and his brother, both born at Troyes, were sent in youth
+to serve their apprenticeship in a government office. Their mother
+made herself notorious by misconduct, and the two brothers had the
+grief of hearing of her death in the hospital at Troyes, although they
+had frequently sent money for her support. This event led them both
+not only to abjure marriage, but to feel a horror of children; ill at
+ease with them, they feared them as others fear madmen, and watched
+them with haggard eyes.
+
+Since the day when he first came to Paris Poiret junior had never gone
+outside the city. He began at that time to keep a journal of his life,
+in which he noted down all the striking events of his day. Du Bruel
+told him that Lord Byron did the same thing. This likeness filled
+Poiret junior with delight, and led him to buy the works of Lord
+Byron, translated by Chastopalli, of which he did not understand a
+word. At the office he was often seen in a melancholy attitude, as
+though absorbed in thought, when in fact he was thinking of nothing at
+all. He did not know a single person in the house where he lived, and
+always carried the keys of his apartment about with him. On New-Year's
+day he went round and left his own cards on all the clerks of the
+division. Bixiou took it into his head on one of the hottest of dog-
+days to put a layer of lard under the lining of a certain old hat
+which Poiret junior (he was, by the bye, fifty-two years old) had worn
+for the last nine years. Bixiou, who had never seen any other hat on
+Poiret's head, dreamed of it and declared he tasted it in his food; he
+therefore resolved, in the interests of his digestion, to relieve the
+bureau of the sight of that amorphous old hat. Poiret junior left the
+office regularly at four o'clock. As he walked along, the sun's rays
+reflected from the pavements and walls produced a tropical heat; he
+felt that his head was inundated,--he, who never perspired! Feeling
+that he was ill, or on the point of being so, instead of going as
+usual to the Sucking Calf he went home, drew out from his desk the
+journal of his life, and recorded the fact in the following manner:--
+
+  "To-day, July 3, 1823, overtaken by extraordinary perspiration, a
+  sign, perhaps, of the sweating-sickness, a malady which prevails
+  in Champagne. I am about to consult Doctor Haudry. The disease
+  first appeared as I reached the highest part of the quai des
+  Ecoles."
+
+Suddenly, having taken off his hat, he became aware that the
+mysterious sweat had some cause independent of his own person. He
+wiped his face, examined the hat, and could find nothing, for he did
+not venture to take out the lining. All this he noted in his
+journal:--
+
+  "Carried my hat to the Sieur Tournan, hat-maker in the rue Saint-
+  Martin, for the reason that I suspect some unknown cause for this
+  perspiration, which, in that case, might not be perspiration, but,
+  possibly, the effect of something lately added, or formerly done,
+  to my hat."
+
+Monsieur Tournan at once informed his customer of the presence of a
+greasy substance, obtained by the trying-out of the fat of a pig or
+sow. The next day Poiret appeared at the office with another hat, lent
+by Monsieur Tournan while a new one was making; but he did not sleep
+that night until he had added the following sentence to the preceding
+entries in his journal: "It is asserted that my hat contained lard,
+the fat of a pig."
+
+This inexplicable fact occupied the intellect of Poiret junior for the
+space of two weeks; and he never knew how the phenomenon was produced.
+The clerks told him tales of showers of frogs, and other dog-day
+wonders, also the startling fact that an imprint of the head of
+Napoleon had been found in the root of a young elm, with other
+eccentricities of natural history. Vimeux informed him that one day
+his hat--his, Vimeux's--had stained his forehead black, and that hat-
+makers were in the habit of using drugs. After that Poiret paid many
+visits to Monsieur Tournan to inquire into his methods of manufacture.
+
+In the Rabourdin bureau was a clerk who played the man of courage and
+audacity, professed the opinions of the Left centre, and rebelled
+against the tyrannies of Baudoyer as exercised upon what he called the
+unhappy slaves of that office. His name was Fleury. He boldly
+subscribed to an opposition newspaper, wore a gray hat with a broad
+brim, red bands on his blue trousers, a blue waistcoat with gilt
+buttons, and a surtout coat crossed over the breast like that of a
+quartermaster of gendarmerie. Though unyielding in his opinions, he
+continued to be employed in the service, all the while predicting a
+fatal end to a government which persisted in upholding religion. He
+openly avowed his sympathy for Napoleon, now that the death of that
+great man put an end to the laws enacted against "the partisans of the
+usurper." Fleury, ex-captain of a regiment of the line under the
+Emperor, a tall, dark, handsome fellow, was now, in addition to his
+civil-service post, box-keeper at the Cirque-Olympique. Bixiou never
+ventured on tormenting Fleury, for the rough trooper, who was a good
+shot and clever at fencing, seemed quite capable of extreme brutality
+if provoked. An ardent subscriber to "Victoires et Conquetes," Fleury
+nevertheless refused to pay his subscription, though he kept and read
+the copies, alleging that they exceeded the number proposed in the
+prospectus. He adored Monsieur Rabourdin, who had saved him from
+dismissal, and was even heard to say that if any misfortune happened
+to the chief through anybody's fault he would kill that person. Dutocq
+meanly courted Fleury because he feared him. Fleury, crippled with
+debt, played many a trick on his creditors. Expert in legal matters,
+he never signed a promissory note; and had prudently attached his own
+salary under the names of fictitious creditors, so that he was able to
+draw nearly the whole of it himself. He played ecarte, was the life of
+evening parties, tossed off glasses of champagne without wetting his
+lips, and knew all the songs of Beranger by heart. He was proud of his
+full, sonorous voice. His three great admirations were Napoleon,
+Bolivar, and Beranger. Foy, Lafitte, and Casimir Delavigne he only
+esteemed. Fleury, as you will have guessed already, was a Southerner,
+destined, no doubt, to become the responsible editor of a liberal
+journal.
+
+Desroys, the mysterious clerk of the division, consorted with no one,
+talked little, and hid his private life so carefully that no one knew
+where he lived, nor who were his protectors, nor what were his means
+of subsistence. Looking about them for the causes of this reserve,
+some of his colleagues thought him a "carbonaro," others an Orleanist;
+there were others again who doubted whether to call him a spy or a man
+of solid merit. Desroys was, however, simple and solely the son of a
+"Conventionel," who did not vote the king's death. Cold and prudent by
+temperament, he had judged the world and ended by relying on no one
+but himself. Republican in secret, an admirer of Paul-Louis Courier
+and a friend of Michael Chrestien, he looked to time and public
+intelligence to bring about the triumph of his opinions from end to
+end of Europe. He dreamed of a new Germany and a new Italy. His heart
+swelled with that dull, collective love which we must call
+humanitarianism, the eldest son of deceased philanthropy, and which is
+to the divine catholic charity what system is to art, or reasoning to
+deed. This conscientious puritan of freedom, this apostle of an
+impossible equality, regretted keenly that his poverty forced him to
+serve the government, and he made various efforts to find a place
+elsewhere. Tall, lean, lanky, and solemn in appearance, like a man who
+expects to be called some day to lay down his life for a cause, he
+lived on a page of Volney, studied Saint-Just, and employed himself on
+a vindication of Robespierre, whom he regarded as the successor of
+Jesus Christ.
+
+The last of the individuals belonging to these bureaus who merits a
+sketch here is the little La Billardiere. Having, to his great
+misfortune, lost his mother, and being under the protection of the
+minister, safe therefore from the tyrannies of Baudoyer, and received
+in all the ministerial salons, he was nevertheless detested by every
+one because of his impertinence and conceit. The two chiefs were
+polite to him, but the clerks held him at arm's length and prevented
+all companionship by means of the extreme and grotesque politeness
+which they bestowed upon him. A pretty youth of twenty-two, tall and
+slender, with the manners of an Englishman, a dandy in dress, curled
+and perfumed, gloved and booted in the latest fashion, and twirling an
+eyeglass, Benjamin de la Billardiere thought himself a charming fellow
+and possessed all the vices of the world with none of its graces. He
+was now looking forward impatiently to the death of his father, that
+he might succeed to the title of baron. His cards were printed "le
+Chevalier de la Billardiere" and on the wall of his office hung, in a
+frame, his coat of arms (sable, two swords in saltire, on a chief
+azure three mullets argent; with the motto; "Toujours fidele").
+Possessed with a mania for talking heraldry, he once asked the young
+Vicomte de Portenduere why his arms were charged in a certain way, and
+drew down upon himself the happy answer, "I did not make them." He
+talked of his devotion to the monarchy and the attentions the Dauphine
+paid him. He stood very well with des Lupeaulx, whom he thought his
+friend, and they often breakfasted together. Bixiou posed as his
+mentor, and hoped to rid the division and France of the young fool by
+tempting him to excesses, and openly avowed that intention.
+
+Such were the principal figures of La Billardiere's division of the
+ministry, where also were other clerks of less account, who resembled
+more or less those that are represented here. It is difficult even for
+an observer to decide from the aspect of these strange personalities
+whether the goose-quill tribe were becoming idiots from the effects of
+their employment or whether they entered the service because they were
+natural born fools. Possibly the making of them lies at the door of
+Nature and of the government both. Nature, to a civil-service clerk
+is, in fact, the sphere of the office; his horizon is bounded on all
+sides by green boxes; to him, atmospheric changes are the air of the
+corridors, the masculine exhalations contained in rooms without
+ventilators, the odor of paper, pens, and ink; the soil he treads is a
+tiled pavement or a wooden floor, strewn with a curious litter and
+moistened by the attendant's watering-pot; his sky is the ceiling
+toward which he yawns; his element is dust. Several distinguished
+doctors have remonstrated against the influence of this second nature,
+both savage and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in those
+dreadful pens called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates, where
+thoughts are tied down to occupations like that of horses who turn a
+crank and who, poor beasts, yawn distressingly and die quickly.
+Rabourdin was, therefore, fully justified in seeking to reform their
+present condition, by lessening their numbers and giving to each a
+larger salary and far heavier work. Men are neither wearied nor bored
+when doing great things. Under the present system government loses
+fully four hours out of the nine which the clerks owe to the service,
+--hours wasted, as we shall see, in conversations, in gossip, in
+disputes, and, above all, in underhand intriguing. The reader must
+have haunted the bureaus of the ministerial departments before he can
+realize how much their petty and belittling life resembles that of
+seminaries. Wherever men live collectively this likeness is obvious;
+in regiments, in law-courts, you will find the elements of the school
+on a smaller or larger scale. The government clerks, forced to be
+together for nine hours of the day, looked upon their office as a sort
+of class-room where they had tasks to perform, where the head of the
+bureau was no other than a schoolmaster, and where the gratuities
+bestowed took the place of prizes given out to proteges,--a place,
+moreover, where they teased and hated each other, and yet felt a
+certain comradeship, colder than that of a regiment, which itself is
+less hearty than that of seminaries. As a man advances in life he
+grows more selfish; egoism develops, and relaxes all the secondary
+bonds of affection. A government office is, in short, a microcosm of
+society, with its oddities and hatreds, its envy and its cupidity, its
+determination to push on, no matter who goes under, its frivolous
+gossip which gives so many wounds, and its perpetual spying.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MACHINE IN MOTION
+
+At this moment the division of Monsieur de la Billardiere was in a
+state of unusual excitement, resulting very naturally from the event
+which was about to happen; for heads of divisions do not die every
+day, and there is no insurance office where the chances of life and
+death are calculated with more sagacity than in a government bureau.
+Self-interest stifles all compassion, as it does in children, but the
+government service adds hypocrisy to boot.
+
+The clerks of the bureau Baudoyer arrived at eight o'clock in the
+morning, whereas those of the bureau Rabourdin seldom appeared till
+nine,--a circumstance which did not prevent the work in the latter
+office from being more rapidly dispatched than that of the former.
+Dutocq had important reasons for coming early on this particular
+morning. The previous evening he had furtively entered the study where
+Sebastien was at work, and had seen him copying some papers for
+Rabourdin; he concealed himself until he saw Sebastien leave the
+premises without taking any papers away with him. Certain, therefore,
+of finding the rather voluminous memorandum which he had seen,
+together with its copy, in some corner of the study, he searched
+through the boxes one after another until he finally came upon the
+fatal list. He carried it in hot haste to an autograph-printing house,
+where he obtained two pressed copies of the memorandum, showing, of
+course, Rabourdin's own writing. Anxious not to arouse suspicion, he
+had gone very early to the office and replaced both the memorandum and
+Sebastien's copy in the box from which he had taken them. Sebastien,
+who was kept up till after midnight at Madame Rabourdin's party, was,
+in spite of his desire to get to the office early, preceded by the
+spirit of hatred. Hatred lived in the rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore,
+whereas love and devotion lived far-off in the rue du Roi-Dore in the
+Marais. This slight delay was destined to affect Rabourdin's whole
+career.
+
+Sebastien opened his box eagerly, found the memorandum and his own
+unfinished copy all in order, and locked them at once into the desk as
+Rabourdin had directed. The mornings are dark in these offices towards
+the end of December, sometimes indeed the lamps are lit till after ten
+o'clock; consequently Sebastien did not happen to notice the pressure
+of the copying-machine upon the paper. But when, about half-past nine
+o'clock, Rabourdin looked at his memorandum he saw at once the effects
+of the copying process, and all the more readily because he was then
+considering whether these autographic presses could not be made to do
+the work of copying clerks.
+
+"Did any one get to the office before you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Sebastien,--"Monsieur Dutocq."
+
+"Ah! well, he was punctual. Send Antoine to me."
+
+Too noble to distress Sebastien uselessly by blaming him for a
+misfortune now beyond remedy, Rabourdin said no more. Antoine came.
+Rabourdin asked if any clerk had remained at the office after four
+o'clock the previous evening. The man replied that Monsieur Dutocq had
+worked there later than Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually the last
+to leave. Rabourdin dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the thread
+of his reflections.
+
+"Twice I have prevented his dismissal," he said to himself, "and this
+is my reward."
+
+This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which great
+commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances. Knowing the
+spirit of official life better than any one, he well knew that it
+would never pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the army
+pardon, what looked like espionage or tale-bearing. A man capable of
+informing against his comrades is disgraced, dishonored, despised; the
+ministers in such a case would disavow their own agents. Nothing was
+left to an official so placed but to send in his resignation and leave
+Paris; his honor is permanently stained; explanations are of no avail;
+no one will either ask for them or listen to them. A minister may well
+do the same thing and be thought a great man, able to choose the right
+instruments; but a mere subordinate will be judged as a spy, no matter
+what may be his motives. While justly measuring the folly of such
+judgment, Rabourdin knew that it was all-powerful; and he knew, too,
+that he was crushed. More surprised than overwhelmed, he now sought
+for the best course to follow under the circumstances; and with such
+thoughts in his mind he was necessarily aloof from the excitement
+caused in the division by the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere; in
+fact he did not hear of it until young La Briere, who was able to
+appreciate his sterling value, came to tell him. About ten o'clock, in
+the bureau Baudoyer, Bixiou was relating the last moments of the life
+of the director to Minard, Desroys, Monsieur Godard, whom he had
+called from his private office, and Dutocq, who had rushed in with
+private motives of his own. Colleville and Chazelle were absent.
+
+Bixiou [standing with his back to the stove and holding up the sole of
+each boot alternately to dry at the open door]. "This morning, at half-
+past seven, I went to inquire after our most worthy and respectable
+director, knight of the order of Christ, et caetera, et caetera. Yes,
+gentlemen, last night he was a being with twenty et caeteras, to-day
+he is nothing, not even a government clerk. I asked all particulars of
+his nurse. She told me that this morning at five o'clock he became
+uneasy about the royal family. He asked for the names of all the
+clerks who had called to inquire after him; and then he said: 'Fill my
+snuff-box, give me the newspaper, bring my spectacles, and change my
+ribbon of the Legion of honor,--it is very dirty.' I suppose you know
+he always wore his orders in bed. He was fully conscious, retained his
+senses and all his usual ideas. But, presto! ten minutes later the
+water rose, rose, rose and flooded his chest; he knew he was dying for
+he felt the cysts break. At that fatal moment he gave evident proof of
+his powerful mind and vast intellect. Ah, we never rightly appreciated
+him! We used to laugh at him and call him a booby--didn't you,
+Monsieur Godard?"
+
+Godard. "I? I always rated Monsieur de la Billardiere's talents higher
+than the rest of you."
+
+Bixiou. "You and he could understand each other!"
+
+Godard. "He wasn't a bad man; he never harmed any one."
+
+Bixiou. "To do harm you must do something, and he never did anything.
+If it wasn't you who said he was a dolt, it must have been Minard."
+
+Minard [shrugging his shoulders]. "I!"
+
+Bixiou. "Well, then it was you, Dutocq!" [Dutocq made a vehement
+gesture of denial.] "Oh! very good, then it was nobody. Every one in
+this office knew his intellect was herculean. Well, you were right. He
+ended, as I have said, like the great man that he was."
+
+Desroys [impatiently]. "Pray what did he do that was so great? he had
+the weakness to confess himself."
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, monsieur, he received the holy sacraments. But do you
+know what he did in order to receive them? He put on his uniform as
+gentleman-in-ordinary of the Bedchamber, with all his orders, and had
+himself powdered; they tied his queue (that poor queue!) with a fresh
+ribbon. Now I say that none but a man of remarkable character would
+have his queue tied with a fresh ribbon just as he was dying. There
+are eight of us here, and I don't believe one among us is capable of
+such an act. But that's not all; he said,--for you know all celebrated
+men make a dying speech; he said,--stop now, what did he say? Ah! he
+said, 'I must attire myself to meet the King of Heaven,--I, who have
+so often dressed in my best for audience with the kings of earth.'
+That's how Monsieur de la Billardiere departed this life. He took upon
+himself to justify the saying of Pythagoras, 'No man is known until he
+dies.'"
+
+Colleville [rushing in]. "Gentlemen, great news!"
+
+All. "We know it."
+
+Colleville. "I defy you to know it! I have been hunting for it ever
+since the accession of His Majesty to the thrones of France and of
+Navarre. Last night I succeeded! but with what labor! Madame
+Colleville asked me what was the matter."
+
+Dutocq. "Do you think we have time to bother ourselves with your
+intolerable anagrams when the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere has
+just expired?"
+
+Colleville. "That's Bixiou's nonsense! I have just come from Monsieur
+de la Billardiere's; he is still living, though they expect him to die
+soon." [Godard, indignant at the hoax, goes off grumbling.]
+"Gentlemen! you would never guess what extraordinary events are
+revealed by the anagram of this sacramental sentence" [he pulls out a
+piece of paper and reads], "Charles dix, par la grace de Dieu, roi de
+France et de Navarre."
+
+Godard [re-entering]. "Tell what it is at once, and don't keep people
+waiting."
+
+Colleville [triumphantly unfolding the rest of the paper]. "Listen!
+
+  "A H. V. il cedera;
+  De S. C. l. d. partira;
+  Eh nauf errera,
+  Decide a Gorix.
+
+"Every letter is there!" [He repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera (his
+crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an old
+French word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like)
+errera--"
+
+Dutocq. "What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown
+to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson,
+when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the
+Dauphin's death?"
+
+Bixiou. "What's Gorix, pray?--the name of a cat?"
+
+Colleville [provoked]. "It is the archaeological and lapidarial
+abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it out in
+Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or Hungary,
+or it may be Austria--"
+
+Bixiou. "Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why don't you
+set it all to music and play it on the clarionet?"
+
+Godard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. "What utter nonsense!"
+
+Colleville. "Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don't take
+the trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor Napoleon."
+
+Godard [irritated at Colleville's tone]. "Monsieur Colleville, let me
+tell you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by historians,
+but it is extremely out of place to refer to him as such in a
+government office."
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "Get an anagram out of that, my dear fellow."
+
+Colleville [angrily]. "Let me tell you that if Napoleon Bonaparte had
+studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he might
+perhaps be Emperor still."
+
+Bixiou. "How do you make that out?"
+
+Colleville [solemnly]. "Napoleon Bonaparte.--No, appear not at Elba!"
+
+Dutocq. "You'll lose your place for talking such nonsense."
+
+Colleville. "If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make
+it hot for your minister." [Dead silence.] "I'd have you to know,
+Master Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pass.
+Look here,--you, yourself,--don't you marry, for there's 'coqu' in
+your name."
+
+Bixiou [interrupting]. "And d, t, for de-testable."
+
+Dutocq [without seeming angry]. "I don't care, as long as it is only
+in my name. Why don't you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it,
+'Xavier Rabourdin, chef du bureau'?"
+
+Colleville. "Bless you, so I have!"
+
+Bixiou [mending his pen]. "And what did you make of it?"
+
+Colleville. "It comes out as follows: D'abord reva bureaux, E-u,--(you
+catch the meaning? et eut--and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies
+that after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and
+got rich elsewhere." [Repeats.] "D'abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche."
+
+Dutocq. "That IS queer!"
+
+Bixiou. "Try Isidore Baudoyer."
+
+Colleville [mysteriously]. "I sha'n't tell the other anagrams to any
+one but Thuillier."
+
+Bixiou. "I'll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself."
+
+Colleville. "And I'll pay if you find it out."
+
+Bixiou. "Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won't be
+angry, will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict.
+'Isidore Baudoyer' anagrams into 'Ris d'aboyeur d'oie.'"
+
+Colleville [petrified with amazement]. "You stole it from me!"
+
+Bixiou [with dignity]. "Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to
+believe that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor's
+nonsense."
+
+Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand]. "Gentlemen, I
+request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such
+high repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur
+Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he
+heard the noise you are making" [passes into Monsieur Godard's room].
+
+Bixiou [in a low voice]. "The watch-dog is very tame this morning;
+there'll be a change of weather before night."
+
+Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. "I have something I want to say to
+you."
+
+Bixiou [fingering Dutocq's waistcoat]. "You've a pretty waistcoat,
+that cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?"
+
+Dutocq. "Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in my
+life. That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de
+la Paix,--a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning."
+
+Bixiou. "You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow,
+but you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no man
+can be a universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in deep
+mourning. Don't you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur Rabourdin,
+Monsieur Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is the
+faubourg Saint-Germain. There's no one here but Minard who doesn't
+wear woollen; he's afraid of being taken for a sheep. That's the
+reason why he didn't put on mourning for Louis XVIII."
+
+[During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in Godard's
+room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]
+
+Baudoyer. "Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are both
+with him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If you want
+to do me a signal service you will take a cab and go and let Madame
+Baudoyer know what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can't leave his
+desk, nor I my office. Put yourself at my wife's orders; do whatever
+she wishes. She has, I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants to
+take certain steps simultaneously." [The two functionaries go out
+together.]
+
+Godard. "Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for the
+rest of the day. You will take my place."
+
+Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. "Consult me, if there is any
+necessity."
+
+Bixiou. "This time, La Billardiere is really dead."
+
+Dutocq [in Bixiou's ear]. "Come outside a minute." [The two go into
+the corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]
+
+Dutocq [whispering]. "Listen. Now is the time for us to understand
+each other and push our way. What would you say to your being made
+head of the bureau, and I under you?"
+
+Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "Come, come, don't talk nonsense!"
+
+Dutocq. "If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere's place Rabourdin won't stay
+on where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that if du
+Bruel and you don't help him he will certainly be dismissed in a
+couple of months. If I know arithmetic that will give three empty
+places for us to fill--"
+
+Bixiou. "Three places right under our noses, which will certainly be
+given to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious fraud,--to
+Colleville perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women end--
+in piety."
+
+Dutocq. "No, to YOU, my dear fellow, if you will only, for once in
+your life, use your wits logically." [He stopped as if to study the
+effect of his adverb in Bixiou's face.] "Come, let us play fair."
+
+Bixiou [stolidly]. "Let me see your game."
+
+Dutocq. "I don't wish to be anything more than under-head-clerk. I
+know myself perfectly well, and I know I haven't the ability, like
+you, to be head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you the
+head of this bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he has
+made his pile; and as for me, I shall swim with the tide comfortably,
+under your protection, till I can retire on a pension."
+
+Bixiou. "Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan which
+means forcing the minister's hand and ejecting a man of talent?
+Between ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge
+of the division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that
+they talk of putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness,
+that cube of idiocy, Baudoyer?"
+
+Dutocq [consequentially]. "My dear fellow, I am in a position to rouse
+the whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted Fleury is
+to him? Well, I can make Fleury despise him."
+
+Bixiou. "Despised by Fleury!"
+
+Dutocq. "Not a soul will stand by Rabourdin; the clerks will go in a
+body and complain of him to the minister,--not only in our division,
+but in all the divisions--"
+
+Bixiou. "Forward, march! infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marines of
+the guard! You rave, my good fellow! And I, what part am I to take in
+the business?"
+
+Dutocq. "You are to make a cutting caricature,--sharp enough to kill a
+man."
+
+Bixiou. "How much will you pay for it?"
+
+Dutocq. "A hundred francs."
+
+Bixiou [to himself]. "Then there is something in it."
+
+Dutocq [continuing]. "You must represent Rabourdin dressed as a
+butcher (make it a good likeness), find analogies between a kitchen
+and a bureau, put a skewer in his hand, draw portraits of the
+principal clerks and stick their heads on fowls, put them in a
+monstrous coop labelled 'Civil Service executions'; make him cutting
+the throat of one, and supposed to take the others in turn. You can
+have geese and ducks with heads like ours,--you understand! Baudoyer,
+for instance, he'll make an excellent turkey-buzzard."
+
+Bixiou. "Ris d'aboyeur d'oie!" [He has watched Dutocq carefully for
+some time.] "Did you think of that yourself?"
+
+Dutocq. "Yes, I myself."
+
+Bixiou [to himself]. "Do evil feelings bring men to the same result as
+talents?" [Aloud] "Well, I'll do it" [Dutocq makes a motion of
+delight] "--when" [full stop] "--I know where I am and what I can rely
+on. If you don't succeed I shall lose my place, and I must make a
+living. You are a curious kind of innocent still, my dear colleague."
+
+Dutocq. "Well, you needn't make the lithograph till success is
+proved."
+
+Bixiou. "Why don't you come out and tell me the whole truth?"
+
+Dutocq. "I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we will
+talk about it later" [goes off].
+
+Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. "That fish, for he's more a fish than
+a bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head--I'm sure I don't know
+where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it would
+be fun, more than fun--profit!" [Returns to the office.] "Gentlemen, I
+announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really dead,--
+no nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for our
+excellent chief Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the deceased."
+[Minard, Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads in amazement; they
+all lay down their pens, and Colleville blows his nose.] "Every one of
+us is to be promoted! Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the very
+least. Minard may have my place as chief clerk--why not? he is quite
+as dull as I am. Hey, Minard, if you should get twenty-five hundred
+francs a-year your little wife would be uncommonly pleased, and you
+could buy yourself a pair of boots now and then."
+
+Colleville. "But you don't get twenty-five hundred francs."
+
+Bixiou. "Monsieur Dutocq gets that in Rabourdin's office; why
+shouldn't I get it this year? Monsieur Baudoyer gets it."
+
+Colleville. "Only through the influence of Monsieur Saillard. No other
+chief clerk gets that in any of the divisions."
+
+Paulmier. "Bah! Hasn't Monsieur Cochin three thousand? He succeeded
+Monsieur Vavasseur, who served ten years under the Empire at four
+thousand. His salary was dropped to three when the King first
+returned; then to two thousand five hundred before Vavasseur died. But
+Monsieur Cochin, who succeeded him, had influence enough to get the
+salary put back to three thousand."
+
+Colleville. "Monsieur Cochin signs E. A. L. Cochin (he is named Emile-
+Adolphe-Lucian), which, when anagrammed, gives Cochineal. Now observe,
+he's a partner in a druggist's business in the rue des Lombards, the
+Maison Matifat, which made its fortune by that identical colonial
+product."
+
+Baudoyer [entering]. "Monsieur Chazelle, I see, is not here; you will
+be good enough to say I asked for him, gentlemen."
+
+Bixiou [who had hastily stuck a hat on Chazelle's chair when he heard
+Baudoyer's step]. "Excuse me, Monsieur, but Chazelle has gone to the
+Rabourdins' to make an inquiry."
+
+Chazelle [entering with his hat on his head, and not seeing Baudoyer].
+"La Billardiere is done for, gentlemen! Rabourdin is head of the
+division and Master of petitions; he hasn't stolen HIS promotion,
+that's very certain."
+
+Baudoyer [to Chazelle]. "You found that appointment in your second
+hat, I presume" [points to the hat on the chair]. "This is the third
+time within a month that you have come after nine o'clock. If you
+continue the practice you will get on--elsewhere." [To Bixiou, who is
+reading the newspaper.] "My dear Monsieur Bixiou, do pray leave the
+newspapers to these gentlemen who are going to breakfast, and come
+into my office for your orders for the day. I don't know what Monsieur
+Rabourdin wants with Gabriel; he keeps him to do his private errands,
+I believe. I've rung three times and can't get him." [Baudoyer and
+Bixiou retire into the private office.]
+
+Chazelle. "Damned unlucky!"
+
+Paulmier [delighted to annoy Chazelle]. "Why didn't you look about
+when you came into the room? You might have seen the elephant, and the
+hat too; they are big enough to be visible."
+
+Chazelle [dismally]. "Disgusting business! I don't see why we should
+be treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and
+sixty-five centimes a day."
+
+Fleury [entering]. "Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for Rabourdin!--that's
+the cry in the division."
+
+Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. "Baudoyer can turn off me if
+he likes, I sha'n't care. In Paris there are a thousand ways of
+earning five francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais de
+Justice, copying briefs for the lawyers."
+
+Paulmier [still prodding him]. "It is very easy to say that; but a
+government place is a government place, and that plucky Colleville,
+who works like a galley-slave outside of this office, and who could
+earn, if he lost his appointment, more than his salary, prefers to
+keep his place. Who the devil is fool enough to give up his
+expectations?"
+
+Chazelle [continuing his philippic]. "You may not be, but I am! We
+have no chances at all. Time was when nothing was more encouraging
+than a civil-service career. So many men were in the army that there
+were not enough for the government work; the maimed and the halt and
+the sick ones, like Paulmier, and the near-sighted ones, all had their
+chance of a rapid promotion. But now, ever since the Chamber invented
+what they called special training, and the rules and regulations for
+civil-service examiners, we are worse off than common soldiers. The
+poorest places are at the mercy of a thousand mischances because we
+are now ruled by a thousand sovereigns."
+
+Bixiou [returning]. "Are you crazy, Chazelle? Where do you find a
+thousand sovereigns?--not in your pocket, are they?"
+
+Chazelle. "Count them up. There are four hundred over there at the end
+of the pont de la Concorde (so called because it leads to the scene of
+perpetual discord between the Right and Left of the Chamber); three
+hundred more at the end of the rue de Tournon. The court, which ought
+to count for the other three hundred, has seven hundred parts less
+power to get a man appointed to a place under government than the
+Emperor Napoleon had."
+
+Fleury. "All of which signifies that in a country where there are
+three powers you may bet a thousand to one that a government clerk who
+has no influence but his own merits to advance him will remain in
+obscurity."
+
+Bixiou [looking alternately at Chazelle and Fleury]. "My sons, you
+have yet to learn that in these days the worst state of life is the
+state of belonging to the State."
+
+Fleury. "Because it has a constitutional government."
+
+Colleville. "Gentlemen, gentlemen! no politics!"
+
+Bixiou. "Fleury is right. Serving the State in these days is no longer
+serving a prince who knew how to punish and reward. The State now is
+EVERYBODY. Everybody of course cares for nobody. Serve everybody, and
+you serve nobody. Nobody is interested in nobody; the government clerk
+lives between two negations. The world has neither pity nor respect,
+neither heart nor head; everybody forgets to-morrow the service of
+yesterday. Now each one of you may be, like Monsieur Baudoyer, an
+administrative genius, a Chateaubriand of reports, a Bossouet of
+circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the gifted son of diplomatic
+despatches; but I tell you there is a fatal law which interferes with
+all administrative genius,--I mean the law of promotion by average.
+This average is based on the statistics of promotion and the
+statistics of mortality combined. It is very certain that on entering
+whichever section of the Civil Service you please at the age of
+eighteen, you can't get eighteen hundred francs a year till you reach
+the age of thirty. Now there's no free and independent career in
+which, in the course of twelve years, a young man who has gone through
+the grammar-school, been vaccinated, is exempt from military service,
+and possesses all his faculties (I don't mean transcendent ones) can't
+amass a capital of forty-five thousand francs in centimes, which
+represents a permanent income equal to our salaries, which are, after
+all, precarious. In twelve years a grocer can earn enough to give him
+ten thousand francs a year; a painter can daub a mile of canvas and be
+decorated with the Legion of honor, or pose as a neglected genius. A
+literary man becomes professor of something or other, or a journalist
+at a hundred francs for a thousand lines; he writes "feuilletons," or
+he gets into Saint-Pelagie for a brilliant article that offends the
+Jesuits,--which of course is an immense benefit to him and makes him a
+politician at once. Even a lazy man, who does nothing but make debts,
+has time to marry a widow who pays them; a priest finds time to become
+a bishop "in partibus." A sober, intelligent young fellow, who begins
+with a small capital as a money-changer, soon buys a share in a
+broker's business; and, to go even lower, a petty clerk becomes a
+notary, a rag-picker lays by two or three thousand francs a year, and
+the poorest workmen often become manufacturers; whereas, in the
+rotatory movement of this present civilization, which mistakes
+perpetual division and redivision for progress, an unhappy civil
+service clerk, like Chazelle for instance, is forced to dine for
+twenty-two sous a meal, struggles with his tailor and bootmaker, gets
+into debt, and is an absolute nothing; worse than that, he becomes an
+idiot! Come, gentlemen, now's the time to make a stand! Let us all
+give in our resignations! Fleury, Chazelle, fling yourselves into
+other employments and become the great men you really are."
+
+Chazelle [calmed down by Bixiou's allocution]. "No, I thank you"
+[general laughter].
+
+Bixiou. "You are wrong; in your situation I should try to get ahead of
+the general-secretary."
+
+Chazelle [uneasily]. "What has he to do with me?"
+
+Bixiou. "You'll find out; do you suppose Baudoyer will overlook what
+happened just now?"
+
+Fleury. "Another piece of Bixiou's spite! You've a queer fellow to
+deal with in there. Now, Monsieur Rabourdin,--there's a man for you!
+He put work on my table to-day that you couldn't get through within
+this office in three days; well, he expects me to have it done by four
+o'clock to-day. But he is not always at my heels to hinder me from
+talking to my friends."
+
+Baudoyer [appearing at the door]. "Gentlemen, you will admit that if
+you have the legal right to find fault with the chamber and the
+administration you must at least do so elsewhere than in this office."
+[To Fleury.] "What are you doing here, monsieur?"
+
+Fleury [insolently]. "I came to tell these gentlemen that there was to
+be a general turn-out. Du Bruel is sent for to the ministry, and
+Dutocq also. Everybody is asking who will be appointed."
+
+Baudoyer [retiring]. "It is not your affair, sir; go back to your own
+office, and do not disturb mine."
+
+Fleury [in the doorway]. "It would be a shameful injustice if
+Rabourdin lost the place; I swear I'd leave the service. Did you find
+that anagram, papa Colleville?"
+
+Colleville. "Yes, here it is."
+
+Fleury [leaning over Colleville's desk]. "Capital! famous! This is
+just what will happen if the administration continues to play the
+hypocrite." [He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is
+listening.] "If the government would frankly state its intentions
+without concealments of any kind, the liberals would know what they
+had to deal with. An administration which sets its best friends
+against itself, such men as those of the 'Debats,' Chateaubriand, and
+Royer-Collard, is only to be pitied!"
+
+Colleville [after consulting his colleagues]. "Come, Fleury, you're a
+good fellow, but don't talk politics here; you don't know what harm
+you may do us."
+
+Fleury [dryly]. "Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do by four
+o'clock."
+
+While this idle talk had been going on, des Lupeaulx was closeted in
+his office with du Bruel, where, a little later, Dutocq joined them.
+Des Lupeaulx had heard from his valet of La Billardiere's death, and
+wishing to please the two ministers, he wanted an obituary article to
+appear in the evening papers.
+
+"Good morning, my dear du Bruel," said the semi-minister to the head-
+clerk as he entered, and not inviting him to sit down. "You have heard
+the news? La Billardiere is dead. The ministers were both present when
+he received the last sacraments. The worthy man strongly recommended
+Rabourdin, saying he should die with less regret if he could know that
+his successor were the man who had so constantly done his work. Death
+is a torture which makes a man confess everything. The minister agreed
+the more readily because his intention and that of the Council was to
+reward Monsieur Rabourdin's numerous services. In fact, the Council of
+State needs his experience. They say that young La Billardiere is to
+leave the division of his father and go to the Commission of Seals;
+that's just the same as if the King had made him a present of a
+hundred thousand francs,--the place can always be sold. But I know the
+news will delight your division, which will thus get rid of him. Du
+Bruel, we must get ten or a dozen lines about the worthy late director
+into the papers; his Excellency will glance them over,--he reads the
+papers. Do you know the particulars of old La Billardiere's life?"
+
+Du Bruel made a sign in the negative.
+
+"No?" continued des Lupeaulx. "Well then; he was mixed up in the
+affairs of La Vendee, and he was one of the confidants of the late
+King. Like Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine he always refused to hold
+communication with the First Consul. He was a bit of a 'chouan'; born
+in Brittany of a parliamentary family, and ennobled by Louis XVIII.
+How old was he? never mind about that; just say his loyalty was
+untarnished, his religion enlightened,--the poor old fellow hated
+churches and never set foot in one, but you had better make him out a
+'pious vassal.' Bring in, gracefully, that he sang the song of Simeon
+at the accession of Charles X. The Comte d'Artois thought very highly
+of La Billardiere, for he co-operated in the unfortunate affair of
+Quiberon and took the whole responsibility on himself. You know about
+that, don't you? La Billardiere defended the King in a printed
+pamphlet in reply to an impudent history of the Revolution written by
+a journalist; you can allude to his loyalty and devotion. But be very
+careful what you say; weigh your words, so that the other newspapers
+can't laugh at us; and bring me the article when you've written it.
+Were you at Rabourdin's yesterday?"
+
+"Yes, monseigneur," said du Bruel, "Ah! beg pardon."
+
+"No harm done," answered des Lupeaulx, laughing.
+
+"Madame Rabourdin looked delightfully handsome," added du Bruel.
+"There are not two women like her in Paris. Some are as clever as she,
+but there's not one so gracefully witty. Many women may even be
+handsomer, but it would be hard to find one with such variety of
+beauty. Madame Rabourdin is far superior to Madame Colleville," said
+the vaudevillist, remembering des Lupeaulx's former affair. "Flavie
+owes what she is to the men about her, whereas Madame Rabourdin is all
+things in herself. It is wonderful too what she knows; you can't tell
+secrets in Latin before HER. If I had such a wife, I know I should
+succeed in everything."
+
+"You have more mind than an author ought to have," returned des
+Lupeaulx, with a conceited air. Then he turned round and perceived
+Dutocq. "Ah, good-morning, Dutocq," he said. "I sent for you to lend
+me your Charlet--if you have the whole complete. Madame la comtesse
+knows nothing of Charlet."
+
+Du Bruel retired.
+
+"Why do you come in without being summoned?" said des Lupeaulx,
+harshly, when he and Dutocq were left alone. "Is the State in danger
+that you must come here at ten o'clock in the morning, just as I am
+going to breakfast with his Excellency?"
+
+"Perhaps it is, monsieur," said Dutocq, dryly. "If I had had the honor
+to see you earlier, you would probably have not been so willing to
+support Monsieur Rabourdin, after reading his opinion of you."
+
+Dutocq opened his coat, took a paper from the left-hand breast-pocket
+and laid it on des Lupeaulx's desk, pointing to a marked passage. Then
+he went to the door and slipped the bolt, fearing interruption. While
+he was thus employed, the secretary-general read the opening sentence
+of the article, which was as follows:
+
+  "Monsieur des Lupeaulx. A government degrades itself by openly
+  employing such a man, whose real vocation is for police diplomacy.
+  He is fitted to deal with the political filibusters of other
+  cabinets, and it would be a pity therefore to employ him on our
+  internal detective police. He is above a common spy, for he is
+  able to understand a plan; he could skilfully carry through a dark
+  piece of work and cover his retreat safely."
+
+Des Lupeaulx was succinctly analyzed in five or six such paragraphs,--
+the essence, in fact, of the biographical portrait which we gave at
+the beginning of this history. As he read the words the secretary felt
+that a man stronger than himself sat in judgment on him; and he at
+once resolved to examine the memorandum, which evidently reached far
+and high, without allowing Dutocq to know his secret thoughts. He
+therefore showed a calm, grave face when the spy returned to him. Des
+Lupeaulx, like lawyers, magistrates, diplomatists, and all whose work
+obliges them to pry into the human heart, was past being surprised at
+anything. Hardened in treachery and in all the tricks and wiles of
+hatred, he could take a stab in the back and not let his face tell of
+it.
+
+"How did you get hold of this paper?"
+
+Dutocq related his good luck; des Lupeaulx's face as he listened
+expressed no approbation; and the spy ended in terror an account which
+began triumphantly.
+
+"Dutocq, you have put your finger between the bark and the tree," said
+the secretary, coldly. "If you don't want to make powerful enemies I
+advise you to keep this paper a profound secret; it is a work of the
+utmost importance and already well known to me."
+
+So saying, des Lupeaulx dismissed Dutocq by one of those glances that
+are more expressive than words.
+
+"Ha! that scoundrel of a Rabourdin has put his finger in this!"
+thought Dutocq, alarmed on finding himself anticipated; "he has
+reached the ear of the administration, while I am left out in the
+cold. I shouldn't have thought it!"
+
+To all his other motives of aversion to Rabourdin he now added the
+jealousy of one man to another man of the same calling,--a most
+powerful ingredient in hatred.
+
+When des Lupeaulx was left alone, he dropped into a strange
+meditation. What power was it of which Rabourdin was the instrument?
+Should he, des Lupeaulx, use this singular document to destroy him, or
+should he keep it as a weapon to succeed with the wife? The mystery
+that lay behind this paper was all darkness to des Lupeaulx, who read
+with something akin to terror page after page, in which the men of his
+acquaintance were judged with unerring wisdom. He admired Rabourdin,
+though stabbed to his vitals by what he said of him. The breakfast-
+hour suddenly cut short his meditation.
+
+"His Excellency is waiting for you to come down," announced the
+minister's footman.
+
+The minister always breakfasted with his wife and children and des
+Lupeaulx, without the presence of servants. The morning meal affords
+the only moment of privacy which public men can snatch from the
+current of overwhelming business. Yet in spite of the precautions they
+take to keep this hour for private intimacies and affections, a good
+many great and little people manage to infringe upon it. Business
+itself will, as at this moment, thrust itself in the way of their
+scanty comfort.
+
+"I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty manoeuvres,"
+began the minister; "and yet here, not ten minutes after La
+Billardiere's death, he sends me this note by La Briere,--it is like a
+stage missive. Look," said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a paper
+which he was twirling in his fingers.
+
+Too noble in mind to think for a moment of the shameful meaning La
+Billardiere's death might lend to his letter, Rabourdin had not
+withdrawn it from La Briere's hands after the news reached him. Des
+Lupeaulx read as follows:--
+
+  "Monseigneur,--If twenty-three years of irreproachable services
+  may claim a favor, I entreat your Excellency to grant me an
+  audience this very day. My honor is involved in the matter of
+  which I desire to speak."
+
+"Poor man!" said des Lupeaulx, in a tone of compassion which confirmed
+the minister in his error. "We are alone; I advise you to see him now.
+You have a meeting of the Council when the Chamber rises; moreover,
+your Excellency has to reply to-day to the opposition; this is really
+the only hour when you can receive him."
+
+Des Lupeaulx rose, called the servant, said a few words, and returned
+to his seat. "I have told them to bring him in at dessert," he said.
+
+Like all other ministers under the Restoration, this particular
+minister was a man without youth. The charter granted by Louis XVIII.
+had the defect of tying the hands of the kings by compelling them to
+deliver the destinies of the nation into the control of the middle-
+aged men of the Chamber and the septuagenarians of the peerage; it
+robbed them of the right to lay hands on a man of statesmanlike talent
+wherever they could find him, no matter how young he was or how
+poverty-stricken his condition might be. Napoleon alone was able to
+employ young men as he chose, without being restrained by any
+consideration. After the overthrow of that mighty will, vigor deserted
+power. Now the period when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents a
+contrast that is far more dangerous in France than in other countries.
+As a general thing, ministers who were old before they entered office
+have proved second or third rate, while those who were taken young
+have been an honor to European monarchies and to the republics whose
+affairs they have directed. The world still rings with the struggle
+between Pitt and Napoleon, two men who conducted the politics of their
+respective countries at an age when Henri de Navarre, Richelieu,
+Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, the Prince of Orange, the Guises,
+Machiavelli, in short, all the best known of our great men, coming
+from the ranks or born to a throne, began to rule the State. The
+Convention--that model of energy--was made up in a great measure of
+young heads; no sovereign can ever forget that it was able to put
+fourteen armies into the field against Europe. Its policy, fatal in
+the eyes of those who cling to what is called absolute power, was
+nevertheless dictated by strictly monarchical principles, and it
+behaved itself like any of the great kings.
+
+After ten or a dozen years of parliamentary struggle, having studied
+the science of politics until he was worn down by it, this particular
+minister had come to be enthroned by his party, who considered him in
+the light of their business man. Happily for him he was now nearer
+sixty than fifty years of age; had he retained even a vestige of
+juvenile vigor he would quickly have quenched it. But, accustomed to
+back and fill, retreat and return to the charge, he was able to endure
+being struck at, turn and turn about, by his own party, by the
+opposition, by the court, by the clergy, because to all such attacks
+he opposed the inert force of a substance which was equally soft and
+consistent; thus he reaped the benefits of what was really his
+misfortune. Harassed by a thousand questions of government, his mind,
+like that of an old lawyer who has tried every species of case, no
+longer possessed the spring which solitary minds are able to retain,
+nor that power of prompt decision which distinguishes men who are
+early accustomed to action, and young soldiers. How could it be
+otherwise? He had practised sophistries and quibbled instead of
+judging; he had criticised effects and done nothing for causes; his
+head was full of plans such as a political party lays upon the
+shoulders of a leader,--matters of private interest brought to an
+orator supposed to have a future, a jumble of schemes and impractical
+requests. Far from coming fresh to his work, he was wearied out with
+marching and counter-marching, and when he finally reached the much
+desired height of his present position, he found himself in a thicket
+of thorny bushes with a thousand conflicting wills to conciliate. If
+the statesmen of the Restoration had been allowed to follow out their
+own ideas, their capacity would doubtless have been criticised; but
+though their wills were often forced, their age saved them from
+attempting the resistance which youth opposes to intrigues, both high
+and low,--intrigues which vanquished Richelieu, and to which, in a
+lower sphere, Rabourdin was to succumb.
+
+After the rough and tumble of their first struggles in political life
+these men, less old than aged, have to endure the additional wear and
+tear of a ministry. Thus it is that their eyes begin to weaken just as
+they need to have the clear-sightedness of eagles; their mind is weary
+when its youth and fire need to be redoubled. The minister in whom
+Rabourdin sought to confide was in the habit of listening to men of
+undoubted superiority as they explained ingenious theories of
+government, applicable or inapplicable to the affairs of France. Such
+men, by whom the difficulties of national policy were never
+apprehended, were in the habit of attacking this minister personally
+whenever a parliamentary battle or a contest with the secret follies
+of the court took place,--on the eve of a struggle with the popular
+mind, or on the morrow of a diplomatic discussion which divided the
+Council into three separate parties. Caught in such a predicament, a
+statesman naturally keeps a yawn ready for the first sentence designed
+to show him how the public service could be better managed. At such
+periods not a dinner took place among bold schemers or financial and
+political lobbyists where the opinions of the Bourse and the Bank, the
+secrets of diplomacy, and the policy necessitated by the state of
+affairs in Europe were not canvassed and discussed. The minister has
+his own private councillors in des Lupeaulx and his secretary, who
+collected and pondered all opinions and discussions for the purpose of
+analyzing and controlling the various interests proclaimed and
+supported by so many clever men. In fact, his misfortune was that of
+most other ministers who have passed the prime of life; he trimmed and
+shuffled under all his difficulties,--with journalism, which at this
+period it was thought advisable to repress in an underhand way rather
+than fight openly; with financial as well as labor questions; with the
+clergy as well as with that other question of the public lands; with
+liberalism as with the Chamber. After manoeuvering his way to power in
+the course of seven years, the minister believed that he could manage
+all questions of administration in the same way. It is so natural to
+think we can maintain a position by the same methods which served us
+to reach it that no one ventured to blame a system invented by
+mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The Restoration, like
+the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes the true value
+of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is wanting. The
+last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the Restoration
+was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries employed
+the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies, and let
+loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the
+unintelligent masses, able only to understand revolt.
+
+Rabourdin told himself all these things. But he had made up his mind
+to win or lose, like a man weary of gambling who allows himself a last
+stake; ill-luck had given him as adversary in the game a sharper like
+des Lupeaulx. With all his sagacity, Rabourdin was better versed in
+matters of administration than in parliamentary optics, and he was far
+indeed from imagining how his confidence would be received; he little
+thought that the great work that filled his mind would seem to the
+minister nothing more than a theory, and that a man who held the
+position of a statesman would confound his reform with the schemes of
+political and self-interested talkers.
+
+As the minister rose from table, thinking of Francois Keller, his wife
+detained him with the offer of a bunch of grapes, and at that moment
+Rabourdin was announced. Des Lupeaulx had counted on the minister's
+preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the moment
+occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to meet
+Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low tone
+of voice:--
+
+"His Excellency and I know what the subject is that occupies your
+mind; you have nothing to fear"; then, raising his voice, he added,
+"neither from Dutocq nor from any one else."
+
+"Don't feel uneasy, Rabourdin," said his Excellency, kindly, but
+making a movement to get away.
+
+Rabourdin came forward respectfully, and the minister could not evade
+him.
+
+"Will your Excellency permit me to see you for a moment in private?"
+he said, with a mysterious glance.
+
+The minister looked at the clock and went towards the window, whither
+the poor man followed him.
+
+"When may I have the honor of submitting the matter of which I spoke
+to your Excellency? I desire to fully explain the plan of
+administration to which the paper that was taken belongs--"
+
+"Plan of administration!" exclaimed the minister, frowning, and
+hurriedly interrupting him. "If you have anything of that kind to
+communicate you must wait for the regular day when we do business
+together. I ought to be at the Council now; and I have an answer to
+make to the Chamber on that point which the opposition raised before
+the session ended yesterday. Your day is Wednesday next; I could not
+work yesterday, for I had other things to attend to; political matters
+are apt to interfere with purely administrative ones."
+
+"I place my honor with all confidence in your Excellency's hands,"
+said Rabourdin gravely, "and I entreat you to remember that you have
+not allowed me time to give you an immediate explanation of the stolen
+paper--"
+
+"Don't be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx, interposing between the minister
+and Rabourdin, whom he thus interrupted; "in another week you will
+probably be appointed--"
+
+The minister smiled as he thought of des Lupeaulx's enthusiasm for
+Madame Rabourdin, and he glanced knowingly at his wife. Rabourdin saw
+the look, and tried to imagine its meaning; his attention was diverted
+for a moment, and his Excellency took advantage of the fact to make
+his escape.
+
+"We will talk of all this, you and I," said des Lupeaulx, with whom
+Rabourdin, much to his surprise, now found himself alone. "Don't be
+angry with Dutocq; I'll answer for his discretion."
+
+"Madame Rabourdin is charming," said the minister's wife, wishing to
+say the civil thing to the head of a bureau.
+
+The children all gazed at Rabourdin with curiosity. The poor man had
+come there expecting some serious, even solemn, result, and he was
+like a great fish caught in the threads of a flimsy net; he struggled
+with himself.
+
+"Madame la comtesse is very good," he said.
+
+"Shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Madame here some Wednesday?"
+said the countess. "Pray bring her; it will give me pleasure."
+
+"Madame Rabourdin herself receives on Wednesdays," interrupted des
+Lupeaulx, who knew the empty civility of an invitation to the official
+Wednesdays; "but since you are so kind as to wish for her, you will
+soon give one of your private parties, and--"
+
+The countess rose with some irritation.
+
+"You are the master of my ceremonies," she said to des Lupeaulx,--
+ambiguous words, by which she expressed the annoyance she felt with
+the secretary for presuming to interfere with her private parties, to
+which she admitted only a select few. She left the room without bowing
+to Rabourdin, who remained alone with des Lupeaulx; the latter was
+twisting in his fingers the confidential letter to the minister which
+Rabourdin had intrusted to La Briere. Rabourdin recognized it.
+
+"You have never really known me," said des Lupeaulx. "Friday evening
+we will come to a full understanding. Just now I must go and receive
+callers; his Excellency saddles me with that burden when he has other
+matters to attend to. But I repeat, Rabourdin, don't worry yourself;
+you have nothing to fear."
+
+Rabourdin walked slowly through the corridors, amazed and confounded
+by this singular turn of events. He had expected Dutocq to denounce
+him, and found he had not been mistaken; des Lupeaulx had certainly
+seen the document which judged him so severely, and yet des Lupeaulx
+was fawning on his judge! It was all incomprehensible. Men of upright
+minds are often at a loss to understand complicated intrigues, and
+Rabourdin was lost in a maze of conjecture without being able to
+discover the object of the game which the secretary was playing.
+
+"Either he has not read the part about himself, or he loves my wife."
+
+Such were the two thoughts to which his mind arrived as he crossed the
+courtyard; for the glance he had intercepted the night before between
+des Lupeaulx and Celestine came back to his memory like a flash of
+lightning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE WORMS AT WORK
+
+Rabourdin's bureau was during his absence a prey to the keenest
+excitement; for the relation between the head officials and the clerks
+in a government office is so regulated that, when a minister's
+messenger summons the head of a bureau to his Excellency's presence
+(above all at the latter's breakfast hour), there is no end to the
+comments that are made. The fact that the present unusual summons
+followed so closely on the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere seemed
+to give special importance to the circumstance, which was made known
+to Monsieur Saillard, who came at once to confer with Baudoyer.
+Bixiou, who happened at the moment to be at work with the latter, left
+him to converse with his father-in-law and betook himself to the
+bureau Rabourdin, where the usual routine was of course interrupted.
+
+Bixiou [entering]. "I thought I should find you at a white heat! Don't
+you know what's going on down below? The virtuous woman is done for!
+yes, done for, crushed! Terrible scene at the ministry!"
+
+Dutocq [looking fixedly at him]. "Are you telling the truth?"
+
+Bixiou. "Pray, who would regret it? Not you, certainly, for you will
+be made under-head-clerk and du Bruel head of the bureau. Monsieur
+Baudoyer gets the division."
+
+Fleury. "I'll bet a hundred francs that Baudoyer will never be head of
+the division."
+
+Vimeux. "I'll join in the bet; will you, Monsieur Poiret?"
+
+Poiret. "I retire in January."
+
+Bixiou. "Is it possible? are we to lose the sight of those shoe-ties?
+What will the ministry be without you? Will nobody take up the bet on
+my side?"
+
+Dutocq. "I can't, for I know the facts. Monsieur Rabourdin is
+appointed. Monsieur de la Billardiere requested it of the two
+ministers on his death-bed, blaming himself for having taken the
+emoluments of an office of which Rabourdin did all the work; he felt
+remorse of conscience, and the ministers, to quiet him, promised to
+appoint Rabourdin unless higher powers intervened."
+
+Bixiou. "Gentlemen, are you all against me? seven to one,--for I know
+which side you'll take, Monsieur Phellion. Well, I'll bet a dinner
+costing five hundred francs at the Rocher de Cancale that Rabourdin
+does not get La Billardiere's place. That will cost you only a hundred
+francs each, and I'm risking five hundred,--five to one against me! Do
+you take it up?" [Shouting into the next room.] "Du Bruel, what say
+you?"
+
+Phellion [laying down his pen]. "Monsieur, may I ask on what you base
+that contingent proposal?--for contingent it is. But stay, I am wrong
+to call it a proposal; I should say contract. A wager constitutes a
+contract."
+
+Fleury. "No, no; you can only apply the word 'contract' to agreements
+that are recognized in the Code. Now the Code allows of no action for
+the recovery of a bet."
+
+Dutocq. "Proscribe a thing and you recognize it."
+
+Bixiou. "Good! my little man."
+
+Poiret. "Dear me!"
+
+Fleury. "True! when one refuses to pay one's debts, that's recognizing
+them."
+
+Thuillier. "You would make famous lawyers."
+
+Poiret. "I am as curious as Monsieur Phellion to know what grounds
+Monsieur Bixiou has for--"
+
+Bixiou [shouting across the office]. "Du Bruel! Will you bet?"
+
+Du Bruel [appearing at the door]. "Heavens and earth, gentlemen, I'm
+very busy; I have something very difficult to do; I've got to write an
+obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere. I do beg you to be
+quiet; you can laugh and bet afterwards."
+
+Bixiou. "That's true, du Bruel; the praise of an honest man is a very
+difficult thing to write. I'd rather any day draw a caricature of
+him."
+
+Du Bruel. "Do come and help me, Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou [following him]. "I'm willing; though I can do such things much
+better when eating."
+
+Du Bruel. "Well, we will go and dine together afterwards. But listen,
+this is what I have written" [reads] "'The Church and the Monarchy are
+daily losing many of those who fought for them in Revolutionary
+times.'"
+
+Bixiou. "Bad, very bad; why don't you say, 'Death carries on its
+ravages amongst the few surviving defenders of the monarchy and the
+old and faithful servants of the King, whose heart bleeds under these
+reiterated blows?'" [Du Bruel writes rapidly.] "'Monsieur le Baron
+Flamet de la Billardiere died this morning of dropsy, caused by heart
+disease.' You see, it is just as well to show there are hearts in
+government offices; and you ought to slip in a little flummery about
+the emotions of the Royalists during the Terror,--might be useful,
+hey! But stay,--no! the petty papers would be sure to say the emotions
+came more from the stomach than the heart. Better leave that out. What
+are you writing now?"
+
+Du Bruel [reading]. "'Issuing from an old parliamentary stock in which
+devotion to the throne was hereditary, as was also attachment to the
+faith of our fathers, Monsieur de la Billardiere--'"
+
+Bixiou. "Better say Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere."
+
+Du Bruel. "But he wasn't baron in 1793."
+
+Bixiou. "No matter. Don't you remember that under the Empire Fouche
+was telling an anecdote about the Convention, in which he had to quote
+Robespierre, and he said, 'Robespierre called out to me, "Duc
+d'Otrante, go to the Hotel de Ville."' There's a precedent for you!"
+
+Du Bruel. "Let me just write that down; I can use it in a vaudeville.
+--But to go back to what we were saying. I don't want to put 'Monsieur
+le baron,' because I am reserving his honors till the last, when they
+rained upon him."
+
+Bixiou. "Oh! very good; that's theatrical,--the finale of the
+article."
+
+Du Bruel [continuing]. "'In appointing Monsieur de la Billardiere
+gentleman-in-ordinary--'"
+
+Bixiou. "Very ordinary!"
+
+Du Bruel. "'--of the Bedchamber, the King rewarded not only the
+services rendered by the Provost, who knew how to harmonize the
+severity of his functions with the customary urbanity of the Bourbons,
+but the bravery of the Vendean hero, who never bent the knee to the
+imperial idol. He leaves a son, who inherits his loyalty and his
+talents.'"
+
+Bixiou. "Don't you think all that is a little too florid? I should
+tone down the poetry. 'Imperial idol!' 'bent the knee!' damn it, my
+dear fellow, writing vaudevilles has ruined your style; you can't come
+down to pedestrial prose. I should say, 'He belonged to the small
+number of those who.' Simplify, simplify! the man himself was a
+simpleton."
+
+Du Bruel. "That's vaudeville, if you like! You would make your fortune
+at the theatre, Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou. "What have you said about Quiberon?" [Reads over du Bruel's
+shoulder.] "Oh, that won't do! Here, this is what you must say: 'He
+took upon himself, in a book recently published, the responsibility
+for all the blunders of the expedition to Quiberon,--thus proving the
+nature of his loyalty, which did not shrink from any sacrifice.'
+That's clever and witty, and exalts La Billardiere."
+
+Du Bruel. "At whose expense?"
+
+Bixiou [solemn as a priest in a pulpit]. "Why, Hoche and Tallien, of
+course; don't you read history?"
+
+Du Bruel. "No. I subscribed to the Baudouin series, but I've never had
+time to open a volume; one can't find matter for vaudevilles there."
+
+Phellion [at the door]. "We all want to know, Monsieur Bixiou, what
+made you think that the worthy and honorable Monsieur Rabourdin, who
+has so long done the work of this division for Monsieur de la
+Billardiere,--he, who is the senior head of all the bureaus, and whom,
+moreover, the minister summoned as soon as he heard of the departure
+of the late Monsieur de la Billardiere,--will not be appointed head of
+the division."
+
+Bixiou. "Papa Phellion, you know geography?"
+
+Phellion [bridling up]. "I should say so!"
+
+Bixiou. "And history?"
+
+Phellion [affecting modesty]. "Possibly."
+
+Bixiou [looking fixedly at him]. "Your diamond pin is loose, it is
+coming out. Well, you may know all that, but you don't know the human
+heart; you have gone no further in the geography and history of that
+organ than you have in the environs of the city of Paris."
+
+Poiret [to Vimeux]. "Environs of Paris? I thought they were talking of
+Monsieur Rabourdin."
+
+Bixiou. "About that bet? Does the entire bureau Rabourdin bet against
+me?"
+
+All. "Yes."
+
+Bixiou. "Du Bruel, do you count in?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Of course I do. We want Rabourdin to go up a step and make
+room for others."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, I accept the bet,--for this reason; you can hardly
+understand it, but I'll tell it to you all the same. It would be right
+and just to appoint Monsieur Rabourdin" [looking full at Dutocq],
+"because, in that case, long and faithful service, honor, and talent
+would be recognized, appreciated, and properly rewarded. Such an
+appointment is in the best interests of the administration."
+[Phellion, Poiret, and Thuillier listen stupidly, with the look of
+those who try to peer before them in the darkness.] "Well, it is just
+because the promotion would be so fitting, and because the man has
+such merit, and because the measure is so eminently wise and equitable
+that I bet Rabourdin will not be appointed. Yes, you'll see, that
+appointment will slip up, just like the invasion from Boulogne, and
+the march to Russia, for the success of which a great genius has
+gathered together all the chances. It will fail as all good and just
+things do fail in this low world. I am only backing the devil's game."
+
+Du Bruel. "Who do you think will be appointed?"
+
+Bixiou. "The more I think about Baudoyer, the more sure I feel that he
+unites all the opposite qualities; therefore I think he will be the
+next head of this division."
+
+Dutocq. "But Monsieur des Lupeaulx, who sent for me to borrow my
+Charlet, told me positively that Monsieur Rabourdin was appointed, and
+that the little La Billardiere would be made Clerk of the Seals."
+
+Bixiou. "Appointed, indeed! The appointment can't be made and signed
+under ten days. It will certainly not be known before New-Year's day.
+There he goes now across the courtyard; look at him, and say if the
+virtuous Rabourdin looks like a man in the sunshine of favor. I should
+say he knows he's dismissed." [Fleury rushes to the window.]
+"Gentlemen, adieu; I'll go and tell Monsieur Baudoyer that I hear from
+you that Rabourdin is appointed; it will make him furious, the pious
+creature! Then I'll tell him of our wager, to cool him down,--a
+process we call at the theatre turning the Wheel of Fortune, don't we,
+du Bruel? Why do I care who gets the place? simply because if Baudoyer
+does he will make me under-head-clerk" [goes out].
+
+Poiret. "Everybody says that man is clever, but as for me, I can never
+understand a word he says" [goes on copying]. "I listen and listen; I
+hear words, but I never get at any meaning; he talks about the
+environs of Paris when he discusses the human heart and" [lays down
+his pen and goes to the stove] "declares he backs the devil's game
+when it is a question of Russia and Boulogne; now what is there so
+clever in that, I'd like to know? We must first admit that the devil
+plays any game at all, and then find out what game; possibly dominoes"
+[blows his nose].
+
+Fleury [interrupting]. "Pere Poiret is blowing his nose; it must be
+eleven o'clock."
+
+Du Bruel. "So it is! Goodness! I'm off to the secretary; he wants to
+read the obituary."
+
+Poiret. "What was I saying?"
+
+Thuillier. "Dominoes,--perhaps the devil plays dominoes." [Sebastien
+enters to gather up the different papers and circulars for signature.]
+
+Vimeux. "Ah! there you are, my fine young man. Your days of hardship
+are nearly over; you'll get a post. Monsieur Rabourdin will be
+appointed. Weren't you at Madame Rabourdin's last night? Lucky fellow!
+they say that really superb women go there."
+
+Sebastien. "Do they? I didn't know."
+
+Fleury. "Are you blind?"
+
+Sebastien. "I don't like to look at what I ought not to see."
+
+Phellion [delighted]. "Well said, young man!"
+
+Vimeux. "The devil! well, you looked at Madame Rabourdin enough, any
+how; a charming woman."
+
+Fleury. "Pooh! thin as a rail. I saw her in the Tuileries, and I much
+prefer Percilliee, the ballet-mistress, Castaing's victim."
+
+Phellion. "What has an actress to do with the wife of a government
+official?"
+
+Dutocq. "They both play comedy."
+
+Fleury [looking askance at Dutocq]. "The physical has nothing to do
+with the moral, and if you mean--"
+
+Dutocq. "I mean nothing."
+
+Fleury. "Do you all want to know which of us will really be made head
+of this bureau?"
+
+All. "Yes, tell us."
+
+Fleury. "Colleville."
+
+Thuillier. "Why?"
+
+Fleury. "Because Madame Colleville has taken the shortest way to it--
+through the sacristy."
+
+Thuillier. "I am too much Colleville's friend not to beg you, Monsieur
+Fleury, to speak respectfully of his wife."
+
+Phellion. "A defenceless woman should never be made the subject of
+conversation here--"
+
+Vimeux. "All the more because the charming Madame Colleville won't
+invite Fleury to her house. He backbites her in revenge."
+
+Fleury. "She may not receive me on the same footing that she does
+Thuillier, but I go there--"
+
+Thuillier. "When? how?--under her windows?"
+
+Though Fleury was dreaded as a bully in all the offices, he received
+Thuillier's speech in silence. This meekness, which surprised the
+other clerks, was owing to a certain note for two hundred francs, of
+doubtful value, which Thuillier agreed to pass over to his sister.
+After this skirmish dead silence prevailed. They all wrote steadily
+from one to three o'clock. Du Bruel did not return.
+
+About half-past three the usual preparations for departure, the
+brushing of hats, the changing of coats, went on in all the
+ministerial offices. That precious thirty minutes thus employed served
+to shorten by just so much the day's labor. At this hour the over-
+heated rooms cool off; the peculiar odor that hangs about the bureaus
+evaporates; silence is restored. By four o'clock none but a few clerks
+who do their duty conscientiously remain. A minister may know who are
+the real workers under him if he will take the trouble to walk through
+the divisions after four o'clock,--a species of prying, however, that
+no one of his dignity would condescend to.
+
+The various heads of divisions and bureaus usually encountered each
+other in the courtyards at this hour and exchanged opinions on the
+events of the day. On this occasion they departed by twos and threes,
+most of them agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old stagers,
+like Monsieur Clergeot, shook their heads and said, "Habent sua sidera
+lites." Saillard and Baudoyer were politely avoided, for nobody knew
+what to say to them about La Billardiere's death, it being fully
+understood that Baudoyer wanted the place, though it was certainly not
+due to him.
+
+When Saillard and his son-in-law had gone a certain distance from the
+ministry the former broke silence and said: "Things look badly for
+you, my poor Baudoyer."
+
+"I can't understand," replied the other, "what Elisabeth was dreaming
+of when she sent Godard in such a hurry to get a passport for Falleix;
+Godard tells me she hired a post-chaise by the advice of my uncle
+Mitral, and that Falleix has already started for his own part of the
+country."
+
+"Some matter connected with our business," suggested Saillard.
+
+"Our most pressing business just now is to look after Monsieur La
+Billardiere's place," returned Baudoyer, crossly.
+
+They were just then near the entrance of the Palais-Royal on the rue
+Saint-Honore. Dutocq came up, bowing, and joined them.
+
+"Monsieur," he said to Baudoyer, "if I can be useful to you in any way
+under the circumstances in which you find yourself, pray command me,
+for I am not less devoted to your interests than Monsieur Godard."
+
+"Such an assurance is at least consoling," replied Baudoyer; "it makes
+me aware that I have the confidence of honest men."
+
+"If you would kindly employ your influence to get me placed in your
+division, taking Bixiou as head of the bureau and me as under-head-
+clerk, you will secure the future of two men who are ready to do
+anything for your advancement."
+
+"Are you making fun of us, monsieur?" asked Saillard, staring at him
+stupidly.
+
+"Far be it from me to do that," said Dutocq. "I have just come from
+the printing-office of the ministerial journal (where I carried from
+the general-secretary an obituary notice of Monsieur de la
+Billardiere), and I there read an article which will appear to-night
+about you, which has given me the highest opinion of your character
+and talents. If it is necessary to crush Rabourdin, I'm in a position
+to give him the final blow; please to remember that."
+
+Dutocq disappeared.
+
+"May I be shot if I understand a single word of it," said Saillard,
+looking at Baudoyer, whose little eyes were expressive of stupid
+bewilderment. "I must buy the newspaper to-night."
+
+When the two reached home and entered the salon on the ground-floor,
+they found a large fire lighted, and Madame Saillard, Elisabeth,
+Monsieur Gaudron and the curate of Saint-Paul's sitting by it. The
+curate turned at once to Monsieur Baudoyer, to whom Elisabeth made a
+sign which he failed to understand.
+
+"Monsieur," said the curate, "I have lost no time in coming in person
+to thank you for the magnificent gift with which you have adorned my
+poor church. I dared not run in debt to buy that beautiful monstrance,
+worthy of a cathedral. You, who are one of our most pious and faithful
+parishioners, must have keenly felt the bareness of the high altar. I
+am on my way to see Monseigneur the coadjutor, and he will, I am sure,
+send you his own thanks later."
+
+"I have done nothing as yet--" began Baudoyer.
+
+"Monsieur le cure," interposed his wife, cutting him short. "I see I
+am forced to betray the whole secret. Monsieur Baudoyer hopes to
+complete the gift by sending you a dais for the coming Fete-Dieu. But
+the purchase must depend on the state of our finances, and our
+finances depend on my husband's promotion."
+
+"God will reward those who honor him," said Monsieur Gaudron,
+preparing, with the curate, to take leave.
+
+"But will you not," said Saillard to the two ecclesiastics, "do us the
+honor to take pot luck with us?"
+
+"You can stay, my dear vicar," said the curate to Gaudron; "you know I
+am engaged to dine with the curate of Saint-Roch, who, by the bye, is
+to bury Monsieur de la Billardiere to-morrow."
+
+"Monsieur le cure de Saint-Roch might say a word for us," began
+Baudoyer. His wife pulled the skirt of his coat violently.
+
+"Do hold your tongue, Baudoyer," she said, leading him aside and
+whispering in his ear. "You have given a monstrance to the church,
+that cost five thousand francs. I'll explain it all later."
+
+The miserly Baudoyer make a sulky grimace, and continued gloomy and
+cross for the rest of the day.
+
+"What did you busy yourself about Falleix's passport for? Why do you
+meddle in other people's affairs?" he presently asked her.
+
+"I must say, I think Falleix's affairs are as much ours as his,"
+returned Elisabeth, dryly, glancing at her husband to make him notice
+Monsieur Gaudron, before whom he ought to be silent.
+
+"Certainly, certainly," said old Saillard, thinking of his co-
+partnership.
+
+"I hope you reached the newspaper office in time?" remarked Elisabeth
+to Monsieur Gaudron, as she helped him to soup.
+
+"Yes, my dear lady," answered the vicar; "when the editor read the
+little article I gave him, written by the secretary of the Grand
+Almoner, he made no difficulty. He took pains to insert it in a
+conspicuous place. I should never have thought of that; but this young
+journalist has a wide-awake mind. The defenders of religion can enter
+the lists against impiety without disadvantage at the present moment,
+for there is a great deal of talent in the royalist press. I have
+every reason to believe that success will crown your hopes. But you
+must remember, my dear Baudoyer, to promote Monsieur Colleville; he is
+an object of great interest to his Eminence; in fact, I am desired to
+mention him to you."
+
+"If I am head of the division, I will make him head of one of my
+bureaus, if you want me to," said Baudoyer.
+
+The matter thus referred to was explained after dinner, when the
+ministerial organ (bought and sent up by the porter) proved to contain
+among its Paris news the following articles, called items:--
+
+  "Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere died this morning, after a
+  long and painful illness. The king loses a devoted servant, the
+  Church a most pious son. Monsieur de la Billardiere's end has
+  fitly crowned a noble life, consecrated in dark and troublesome
+  times to perilous missions, and of late years to arduous civic
+  duties. Monsieur de la Billardiere was provost of a department,
+  where his force of character triumphed over all the obstacles that
+  rebellion arrayed against him. He subsequently accepted the
+  difficult post of director of a division (in which his great
+  acquirements were not less useful than the truly French affability
+  of his manners) for the express purpose of conciliating the
+  serious interests that arise under its administration. No rewards
+  have ever been more truly deserved than those by which the King,
+  Louis XVIII., and his present Majesty took pleasure in crowning a
+  loyalty which never faltered under the usurper. This old family
+  still survives in the person of a single heir to the excellent man
+  whose death now afflicts so many warm friends. His Majesty has
+  already graciously made known that Monsieur Benjamin de la
+  Billardiere will be included among the gentlemen-in-ordinary of
+  the Bedchamber.
+
+  "The numerous friends who have not already received their
+  notification of this sad event are hereby informed that the
+  funeral will take place to-morrow at four o'clock, in the church
+  of Saint-Roch. The memorial address will be delivered by Monsieur
+  l'Abbe Fontanon."
+
+----
+
+  "Monsieur Isidore-Charles-Thomas Baudoyer, representing one of the
+  oldest bourgeois families of Paris, and head of a bureau in the 
+  late Monsieur de la Billardiere's division, has lately recalled
+  the old traditions of piety and devotion which formerly
+  distinguished these great families, so jealous for the honor and
+  glory of religion, and so faithful in preserving its monuments.
+  The church of Saint-Paul has long needed a monstrance in keeping
+  with the magnificence of that basilica, itself due to the Company
+  of Jesus. Neither the vestry nor the curate were rich enough to
+  decorate the altar. Monsieur Baudoyer has bestowed upon the parish
+  a monstrance that many persons have seen and admired at Monsieur
+  Gohier's, the king's jeweller. Thanks to the piety of this
+  gentleman, who did not shrink from the immensity of the price, the
+  church of Saint-Paul possesses to-day a masterpiece of the
+  jeweller's art designed by Monsieur de Sommervieux. It gives us
+  pleasure to make known this fact, which proves how powerless the
+  declamations of liberals have been on the mind of the Parisian
+  bourgeoisie. The upper ranks of that body have at all times been
+  royalist and they prove it when occasion offers."
+
+"The price was five thousand francs," said the Abbe Gaudron; "but as
+the payment was in cash, the court jeweller reduced the amount."
+
+"Representing one of the oldest bourgeois families in Paris!" Saillard
+was saying to himself; "there it is printed,--in the official paper,
+too!"
+
+"Dear Monsieur Gaudron," said Madame Baudoyer, "please help my father
+to compose a little speech that he could slip into the countess's ear
+when he takes her the monthly stipend,--a single sentence that would
+cover all! I must leave you. I am obliged to go out with my uncle
+Mitral. Would you believe it? I was unable to find my uncle Bidault at
+home this afternoon. Oh, what a dog-kennel he lives in! But Monsieur
+Mitral, who knows his ways, says he does all his business between
+eight o'clock in the morning and midday, and that after that hour he
+can be found only at a certain cafe called the Cafe Themis,--a
+singular name."
+
+"Is justice done there?" said the abbe, laughing.
+
+"Do you ask why he goes to a cafe at the corner of the rue Dauphine
+and the quai des Augustins? They say he plays dominoes there every
+night with his friend Monsieur Gobseck. I don't wish to go to such a
+place alone; my uncle Mitral will take me there and bring me back."
+
+At this instant Mitral showed his yellow face, surmounted by a wig
+which looked as though it might be made of hay, and made a sign to his
+niece to come at once, and not keep a carriage waiting at two francs
+an hour. Madame Baudoyer rose and went away without giving any
+explanation to her husband or father.
+
+"Heaven has given you in that woman," said Monsieur Gaudron to
+Baudoyer when Elisabeth had disappeared, "a perfect treasure of
+prudence and virtue, a model of wisdom, a Christian who gives sure
+signs of possessing the Divine spirit. Religion alone is able to form
+such perfect characters. To-morrow I shall say a mass for the success
+of your good cause. It is all-important, for the sake of the monarchy
+and of religion itself that you should receive this appointment.
+Monsieur Rabourdin is a liberal; he subscribes to the 'Journal des
+Debats,' a dangerous newspaper, which made war on Monsieur le Comte de
+Villele to please the wounded vanity of Monsieur de Chateaubriand. His
+Eminence will read the newspaper to-night, if only to see what is said
+of his poor friend Monsieur de la Billardiere; and Monseigneur the
+coadjutor will speak of you to the King. When I think of what you have
+now done for his dear church, I feel sure he will not forget you in
+his prayers; more than that, he is dining at this moment with the
+coadjutor at the house of the curate of Saint-Roch."
+
+These words made Saillard and Baudoyer begin to perceive that
+Elisabeth had not been idle ever since Godard had informed her of
+Monsieur de la Billardiere's decease.
+
+"Isn't she clever, that Elisabeth of mine?" cried Saillard,
+comprehending more clearly than Monsieur l'abbe the rapid undermining,
+like the path of a mole, which his daughter had undertaken.
+
+"She sent Godard to Rabourdin's door to find out what newspaper he
+takes," said Gaudron; "and I mentioned the name to the secretary of
+his Eminence,--for we live at a crisis when the Church and Throne must
+keep themselves informed as to who are their friends and who their
+enemies."
+
+"For the last five days I have been trying to find the right thing to
+say to his Excellency's wife," said Saillard.
+
+"All Paris will read that," cried Baudoyer, whose eyes were still
+riveted on the paper.
+
+"Your eulogy costs us four thousand eight hundred francs, son-in-law!"
+exclaimed Madame Saillard.
+
+"You have adorned the house of God," said the Abbe Gaudron.
+
+"We might have got salvation without doing that," she returned. "But
+if Baudoyer gets the place, which is worth eight thousand more, the
+sacrifice is not so great. If he doesn't get it! hey, papa," she
+added, looking at her husband, "how we shall have bled!--"
+
+"Well, never mind," said Saillard, enthusiastically, "we can always
+make it up through Falleix, who is going to extend his business and
+use his brother, whom he has made a stockbroker on purpose. Elisabeth
+might have told us, I think, why Falleix went off in such a hurry. But
+let's invent my little speech. This is what I thought of: 'Madame, if
+you would say a word to his Excellency--'"
+
+"'If you would deign,'" said Gaudron; "add the word 'deign,' it is
+more respectful. But you ought to know, first of all, whether Madame
+la Dauphine will grant you her protection, and then you could suggest
+to Madame la comtesse the idea of co-operating with the wishes of her
+Royal Highness."
+
+"You ought to designate the vacant post," said Baudoyer.
+
+"'Madame la comtesse,'" began Saillard, rising, and bowing to his
+wife, with an agreeable smile.
+
+"Goodness! Saillard; how ridiculous you look. Take care, my man,
+you'll make the woman laugh."
+
+"'Madame la comtesse,'" resumed Saillard. "Is that better, wife?"
+
+"Yes, my duck."
+
+"'The place of the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer--'"
+
+"'Man of talent and extreme piety,'" prompted Gaudron.
+
+"Write it down, Baudoyer," cried old Saillard, "write that sentence
+down."
+
+Baudoyer proceeded to take a pen and wrote, without a blush, his own
+praises, precisely as Nathan or Canalis might have reviewed one of
+their own books.
+
+"'Madame la comtesse'-- Don't you see, mother?" said Saillard to his
+wife; "I am supposing you to be the minister's wife."
+
+"Do you take me for a fool?" she answered sharply. "I know that."
+
+"'The place of the late worthy de la Billardiere is vacant; my son-in-
+law, Monsieur Baudoyer, a man of consummate talent and extreme
+piety--'" After looking at Monsieur Gaudron, who was reflecting, he
+added, "'will be very glad if he gets it.' That's not bad; it's brief
+and it says the whole thing."
+
+"But do wait, Saillard; don't you see that Monsieur l'abbe is turning
+it over in his mind?" said Madame Saillard; "don't disturb him."
+
+"'Will be very thankful if you would deign to interest yourself in his
+behalf,'" resumed Gaudron. "'And in saying a word to his Excellency
+you will particularly please Madame la Dauphine, by whom he has the
+honor and the happiness to be protected.'"
+
+"Ah! Monsieur Gaudron, that sentence is worth more than the
+monstrance; I don't regret the four thousand eight hundred-- Besides,
+Baudoyer, my lad, you'll pay them, won't you? Have you written it all
+down?"
+
+"I shall make you repeat it, father, morning and evening," said Madame
+Saillard. "Yes, that's a good speech. How lucky you are, Monsieur
+Gaudron, to know so much. That's what it is to be brought up in a
+seminary; they learn there how to speak to God and his saints."
+
+"He is as good as he is learned," said Baudoyer, pressing the priest's
+hand. "Did you write that article?" he added, pointing to the
+newspaper.
+
+"No, it was written by the secretary of his Eminence, a young abbe who
+is under obligations to me, and who takes an interest in Monsieur
+Colleville; he was educated at my expense."
+
+"A good deed is always rewarded," said Baudoyer.
+
+While these four personages were sitting down to their game of boston,
+Elisabeth and her uncle Mitral reached the cafe Themis, with much
+discourse as they drove along about a matter which Elisabeth's keen
+perceptions told her was the most powerful lever that could be used to
+force the minister's hand in the affair of her husband's appointment.
+Uncle Mitral, a former sheriff's officer, crafty, clever at sharp
+practice, and full of expedients and judicial precautions, believed
+the honor of his family to be involved in the appointment of his
+nephew. His avarice had long led him to estimate the contents of old
+Gigonnet's strong-box, for he knew very well they would go in the end
+to benefit his nephew Baudoyer; and it was therefore important that
+the latter should obtain a position which would be in keeping with the
+combined fortunes of the Saillards and the old Gigonnet, which would
+finally devolve on the Baudoyer's little daughter; and what an heiress
+she would be with an income of a hundred thousand francs! to what
+social position might she not aspire with that fortune? He adopted all
+the ideas of his niece Elisabeth and thoroughly understood them. He
+had helped in sending off Falleix expeditiously, explaining to him the
+advantage of taking post horses. After which, while eating his dinner,
+he reflected that it be as well to give a twist of his own to the
+clever plan invented by Elisabeth.
+
+When they reached the Cafe Themis he told his niece that he alone
+could manage Gigonnet in the matter they both had in view, and he made
+her wait in the hackney-coach and bide her time to come forward at the
+right moment. Elisabeth saw through the window-panes the two faces of
+Gobseck and Gigonnet (her uncle Bidault), which stood out in relief
+against the yellow wood-work of the old cafe, like two cameo heads,
+cold and impassible, in the rigid attitude that their gravity gave
+them. The two Parisian misers were surrounded by a number of other old
+faces, on which "thirty per cent discount" was written in circular
+wrinkles that started from the nose and turned round the glacial
+cheek-bones. These remarkable physiognomies brightened up on seeing
+Mitral, and their eyes gleamed with tigerish curiosity.
+
+"Hey, hey! it is papa Mitral!" cried one of them, named Chaboisseau, a
+little old man who discounted for a publisher.
+
+"Bless me, so it is!" said another, a broker named Metivier, "ha,
+that's an old monkey well up in his tricks."
+
+"And you," retorted Mitral, "you are an old crow who knows all about
+carcasses."
+
+"True," said the stern Gobseck.
+
+"What are you here for? Have you come to seize friend Metivier?" asked
+Gigonnet, pointing to the broker, who had the bluff face of a porter.
+
+"Your great-niece Elisabeth is out there, papa Gigonnet," whispered
+Mitral.
+
+"What! some misfortune?" said Bidault. The old man drew his eyebrows
+together and assumed a tender look like that of an executioner when
+about to go to work officially. In spite of his Roman virtue he must
+have been touched, for his red nose lost somewhat of its color.
+
+"Well, suppose it is misfortune, won't you help Saillard's daughter?--
+a girl who has knitted your stockings for the last thirty years!"
+cried Mitral.
+
+"If there's good security I don't say I won't," replied Gigonnet.
+"Falleix is in with them. Falleix has just set up his brother as a
+broker, and he is doing as much business as the Brezacs; and what
+with? his mind, perhaps! Saillard is no simpleton."
+
+"He knows the value of money," put in Chaboisseau.
+
+That remark, uttered among those old men, would have made an artist
+and thinker shudder as they all nodded their heads.
+
+"But it is none of my business," resumed Bidault-Gigonnet. "I'm not
+bound to care for my neighbors' misfortunes. My principle is never to
+be off my guard with friends or relatives; you can't perish except
+through weakness. Apply to Gobseck; he is softer."
+
+The usurers all applauded these doctrines with a shake of their
+metallic heads. An onlooker would have fancied he heard the creaking
+of ill-oiled machinery.
+
+"Come, Gigonnet, show a little feeling," said Chaboisseau, "they've
+knit your stockings for thirty years."
+
+"That counts for something," remarked Gobseck.
+
+"Are you all alone? Is it safe to speak?" said Mitral, looking
+carefully about him. "I come about a good piece of business."
+
+"If it is good, why do you come to us?" said Gigonnet, sharply,
+interrupting Mitral.
+
+"A fellow who was a gentleman of the Bedchamber," went on Mitral, "a
+former 'chouan,'--what's his name?--La Billardiere is dead."
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"And our nephew is giving monstrances to the church," snarled
+Gigonnet.
+
+"He is not such a fool as to give them, he sells them, old man," said
+Mitral, proudly. "He wants La Billardiere's place, and in order to get
+it, we must seize--"
+
+"Seize! You'll never be anything but a sheriff's officer," put in
+Metivier, striking Mitral amicably on the shoulder; "I like that, I
+do!"
+
+"Seize Monsieur Clement des Lupeaulx in our clutches," continued
+Mitral; "Elisabeth has discovered how to do it, and he is--"
+
+"Elisabeth"; cried Gigonnet, interrupting again; "dear little
+creature! she takes after her grandfather, my poor brother! he never
+had his equal! Ah, you should have seen him buying up old furniture;
+what tact! what shrewdness! What does Elisabeth want?"
+
+"Hey! hey!" cried Mitral, "you've got back your bowels of compassion,
+papa Gigonnet! That phenomenon has a cause."
+
+"Always a child," said Gobseck to Gigonnet, "you are too quick on the
+trigger."
+
+"Come, Gobseck and Gigonnet, listen to me; you want to keep well with
+des Lupeaulx, don't you? You've not forgotten how you plucked him in
+that affair about the king's debts, and you are afraid he'll ask you
+to return some of his feathers," said Mitral.
+
+"Shall we tell him the whole thing?" asked Gobseck, whispering to
+Gigonnet.
+
+"Mitral is one of us; he wouldn't play a shabby trick on his former
+customers," replied Gigonnet. "You see, Mitral," he went on, speaking
+to the ex-sheriff in a low voice, "we three have just bought up all
+those debts, the payment of which depends on the decision of the
+liquidation committee."
+
+"How much will you lose?" asked Mitral.
+
+"Nothing," said Gobseck.
+
+"Nobody knows we are in it," added Gigonnet; "Samanon screens us."
+
+"Come, listen to me, Gigonnet; it is cold, and your niece is waiting
+outside. You'll understand what I want in two words. You must at once,
+between you, send two hundred and fifty thousand francs (without
+interest) into the country after Falleix, who has gone post-haste,
+with a courier in advance of him."
+
+"Is it possible!" said Gobseck.
+
+"What for?" cried Gigonnet, "and where to?"
+
+"To des Lupeaulx's magnificent country-seat," replied Mitral. "Falleix
+knows the country, for he was born there; and he is going to buy up
+land all round the secretary's miserable hovel, with the two hundred
+and fifty thousand francs I speak of,--good land, well worth the
+price. There are only nine days before us for drawing up and recording
+the notarial deeds (bear that in mind). With the addition of this
+land, des Lupeaulx's present miserable property would pay taxes to the
+amount of one thousand francs, the sum necessary to make a man
+eligible to the Chamber. Ergo, with it des Lupeaulx goes into the
+electoral college, becomes eligible, count, and whatever he pleases.
+You know the deputy who has slipped out and left a vacancy, don't
+you?"
+
+The two misers nodded.
+
+"Des Lupeaulx would cut off a leg to get elected in his place,"
+continued Mitral; "but he must have the title-deeds of the property in
+his own name, and then mortgage them back to us for the amount of the
+purchase-money. Ah! now you begin to see what I am after! First of
+all, we must make sure of Baudoyer's appointment, and des Lupeaulx
+will get it for us on these terms; after that is settled we will hand
+him back to you. Falleix is now canvassing the electoral vote. Don't
+you perceive that you have Lupeaulx completely in your power until
+after the election?--for Falleix's friends are a large majority. Now
+do you see what I mean, papa Gigonnet?"
+
+"It's a clever game," said Metivier.
+
+"We'll do it," said Gigonnet; "you agree, don't you, Gobseck? Falleix
+can give us security and put mortgages on the property in my name;
+we'll go and see des Lupeaulx when all is ready."
+
+"We're robbed," said Gobseck.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Mitral, "I'd like to know the robber!"
+
+"Nobody can rob us but ourselves," answered Gigonnet. "I told you we
+were doing a good thing in buying up all des Lupeaulx's paper from his
+creditors at sixty per cent discount."
+
+"Take this mortgage on his estate and you'll hold him tighter still
+through the interest," answered Mitral.
+
+"Possibly," said Gobseck.
+
+After exchanging a shrewd look with Gobseck, Gigonnet went to the door
+of the cafe.
+
+"Elisabeth! follow it up, my dear," he said to his niece. "We hold
+your man securely; but don't neglect accessories. You have begun well,
+clever woman! go on as you began and you'll have your uncle's esteem,"
+and he grasped her hand, gayly.
+
+"But," said Mitral, "Metivier and Chaboisseau heard it all, and they
+may play us a trick and tell the matter to some opposition journal
+which would catch the ball on its way and counteract the effect of the
+ministerial article. You must go alone, my dear; I dare not let those
+two cormorants out of my sight." So saying he re-entered the cafe.
+
+The next day the numerous subscribers to a certain liberal journal
+read, among the Paris items, the following article, inserted
+authoritatively by Chaboisseau and Metivier, share-holders in the said
+journal, brokers for publishers, printers, and paper-makers, whose
+behests no editor dared refuse:--
+
+  "Yesterday a ministerial journal plainly indicated as the probable
+  successor of Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere, Monsieur
+  Baudoyer, one of the worthiest citizens of a populous quarter,
+  where his benevolence is scarcely less known than the piety on
+  which the ministerial organ laid so much stress. Why was that
+  sheet silent as to his talents? Did it reflect that in boasting of
+  the bourgeoise nobility of Monsieur Baudoyer--which, certainly, is
+  a nobility as good as any other--it was pointing out a reason for
+  the exclusion of the candidate? A gratuitous piece of perfidy! an
+  attempt to kill with a caress! To appoint Monsieur Baudoyer is to
+  do honor to the virtues, the talents of the middle classes, of
+  whom we shall ever be the supporters, though their cause seems at
+  times a lost one. This appointment, we repeat, will be an act of
+  justice and good policy; consequently we may be sure it will not
+  be made."
+
+On the morrow, Friday, the usual day for the dinner given by Madame
+Rabourdin, whom des Lupeaulx had left at midnight, radiant in beauty,
+on the staircase of the Bouffons, arm in arm with Madame de Camps
+(Madame Firmiani had lately married), the old roue awoke with his
+thoughts of vengeance calmed, or rather refreshed, and his mind full
+of a last glance exchanged with Celestine.
+
+"I'll make sure of Rabourdin's support by forgiving him now,--I'll get
+even with him later. If he hasn't this place for the time being I
+should have to give up a woman who is capable of becoming a most
+precious instrument in the pursuit of high political fortune. She
+understands everything; shrinks from nothing, from no idea whatever!--
+and besides, I can't know before his Excellency what new scheme of
+administration Rabourdin has invented. No, my dear des Lupeaulx, the
+thing in hand is to win all now for your Celestine. You may make as
+many faces as you please, Madame la comtesse, but you will invite
+Madame Rabourdin to your next select party."
+
+Des Lupeaulx was one of those men who to satisfy a passion are quite
+able to put away revenge in some dark corner of their minds. His
+course was taken; he was resolved to get Rabourdin appointed.
+
+"I will prove to you, my dear fellow, that I deserve a good place in
+your galley," thought he as he seated himself in his study and began
+to unfold a newspaper.
+
+He knew so well what the ministerial organ would contain that he
+rarely took the trouble to read it, but on this occasion he did open
+it to look at the article on La Billardiere, recollecting with
+amusement the dilemma in which du Bruel had put him by bringing him
+the night before Bixiou's amendments to the obituary. He was laughing
+to himself as he reread the biography of the late Comte da Fontaine,
+dead a few months earlier, which he had hastily substituted for that
+of La Billardiere, when his eyes were dazzled by the name of Baudoyer.
+He read with fury the article which pledged the minister, and then he
+rang violently for Dutocq, to send him at once to the editor. But what
+was his astonishment on reading the reply of the opposition paper! The
+situation was evidently serious. He knew the game, and he saw that the
+man who was shuffling his cards for him was a Greek of the first
+order. To dictate in this way through two opposing newspapers in one
+evening, and to begin the fight by forestalling the intentions of the
+minister was a daring game! He recognized the pen of a liberal editor,
+and resolved to question him that night at the opera. Dutocq appeared.
+
+"Read that," said des Lupeaulx, handing him over the two journals, and
+continuing to run his eye over others to see if Baudoyer had pulled
+any further wires. "Go to the office and ask who has dared to thus
+compromise the minister."
+
+"It was not Monsieur Baudoyer himself," answered Dutocq, "for he never
+left the ministry yesterday. I need not go and inquire; for when I
+took your article to the newspaper office I met a young abbe who
+brought in a letter from the Grand Almoner, before which you yourself
+would have had to bow."
+
+"Dutocq, you have a grudge against Monsieur Rabourdin, and it isn't
+right; for he has twice saved you from being turned out. However, we
+are not masters of our own feelings; we sometimes hate our
+benefactors. Only, remember this; if you show the slightest treachery
+to Rabourdin, without my permission, it will be your ruin. As to that
+newspaper, let the Grand Almoner subscribe as largely as we do, if he
+wants its services. Here we are at the end of the year; the matter of
+subscriptions will come up for discussion, and I shall have something
+to say on that head. As to La Billardiere's place, there is only one
+way to settle the matter; and that is to appoint Rabourdin this very
+day."
+
+"Gentlemen," said Dutocq, returning to the clerks' office and
+addressing his colleagues. "I don't know if Bixiou has the art of
+looking into futurity, but if you have not read the ministerial
+journal I advise you to study the article about Baudoyer; then, as
+Monsieur Fleury takes the opposition sheet, you can see the reply.
+Monsieur Rabourdin certainly has talent, but a man who in these days
+gives a six-thousand-franc monstrance to the Church has a devilish
+deal more talent than he."
+
+Bixiou [entering]. "What say you, gentlemen, to the First Epistle to
+the Corinthians in our pious ministerial journal, and the reply
+Epistle to the Ministers in the opposition sheet? How does Monsieur
+Rabourdin feel now, du Bruel?"
+
+Du Bruel [rushing in]. "I don't know." [He drags Bixiou back into his
+cabinet, and says in a low voice] "My good fellow, your way of helping
+people is like that of the hangman who jumps upon a victim's shoulders
+to break his neck. You got me into a scrape with des Lupeaulx, which
+my folly in ever trusting you richly deserved. A fine thing indeed,
+that article on La Billardiere. I sha'n't forget the trick! Why, the
+very first sentence was as good as telling the King he was
+superannuated and it was time for him to die. And as to that Quiberon
+bit, it said plainly that the King was a-- What a fool I was!"
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "Bless my heart! are you getting angry? Can't a
+fellow joke any more?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Joke! joke indeed. When you want to be made head-clerk
+somebody shall joke with you, my dear fellow."
+
+Bixiou [in a bullying tone]. "Angry, are we?"
+
+Du Bruel. "Yes!"
+
+Bixiou [dryly]. "So much the worse for you."
+
+Du Bruel [uneasy]. "You wouldn't pardon such a thing yourself, I
+know."
+
+Bixiou [in a wheedling tone]. "To a friend? indeed I would." [They
+hear Fleury's voice.] "There's Fleury cursing Baudoyer. Hey, how well
+the thing has been managed! Baudoyer will get the appointment."
+[Confidentially] "After all, so much the better. Du Bruel, just keep
+your eye on the consequences. Rabourdin would be a mean-spirited
+creature to stay under Baudoyer; he will send in his registration, and
+that will give us two places. You can be head of the bureau and take
+me for under-head-clerk. We will make vaudevilles together, and I'll
+fag at your work in the office."
+
+Du Bruel [smiling]. "Dear me, I never thought of that. Poor Rabourdin!
+I shall be sorry for him, though."
+
+Bixiou. "That shows how much you love him!" [Changing his tone] "Ah,
+well, I don't pity him any longer. He's rich; his wife gives parties
+and doesn't ask me,--me, who go everywhere! Well, good-bye, my dear
+fellow, good-bye, and don't owe me a grudge!" [He goes out through the
+clerks' office.] "Adieu, gentlemen; didn't I tell you yesterday that a
+man who has nothing but virtues and talents will always be poor, even
+though he has a pretty wife?"
+
+Henry. "You are so rich, you!"
+
+Bixiou. "Not bad, my Cincinnatus! But you'll give me that dinner at
+the Rocher de Cancale."
+
+Poiret. "It is absolutely impossible for me to understand Monsieur
+Bixiou."
+
+Phellion [with an elegaic air]. "Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom reads
+the newspapers that it might perhaps be serviceable to deprive
+ourselves momentarily by taking them in to him." [Fleury hands over
+his paper, Vimeux the office sheet, and Phellion departs with them.]
+
+At that moment des Lupeaulx, coming leisurely downstairs to breakfast
+with the minister, was asking himself whether, before playing a trump
+card for the husband, it might not be prudent to probe the wife's
+heart and make sure of a reward for his devotion. He was feeling about
+for the small amount of heart that he possessed, when, at a turn of
+the staircase, he encountered his lawyer, who said to him, smiling,
+"Just a word, Monseigneur," in the tone of familiarity assumed by men
+who know they are indispensable.
+
+"What is it, my dear Desroches?" exclaimed the politician. "Has
+anything happened?"
+
+"I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been
+brought up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain
+Samanon."
+
+"Men whom I helped to make their millions!"
+
+"Listen," whispered the lawyer. "Gigonnet (really named Bidault) is
+the uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is father-in-law to
+a certain Baudoyer, who thinks he has a right to the vacant place in
+your ministry. Don't you think I have done right to come and tell
+you?"
+
+"Thank you," said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a shrewd
+look.
+
+"One stroke of your pen will buy them off," said Desroches, leaving
+him.
+
+"What an immense sacrifice!" muttered des Lupeaulx. "It would be
+impossible to explain it to a woman," thought he. "Is Celestine worth
+more than the clearing off of my debts?--that is the question. I'll go
+and see her this morning."
+
+So the beautiful Madame Rabourdin was to be, within an hour, the
+arbiter of her husband's fate, and no power on earth could warn her of
+the importance of her replies, or give her the least hint to guard her
+conduct and compose her voice. Moreover, in addition to her
+mischances, she believed herself certain of success, never dreaming
+that Rabourdin was undermined in all directions by the secret sapping
+of the mollusks.
+
+"Well, Monseigneur," said des Lupeaulx, entering the little salon
+where they breakfasted, "have you seen the articles on Baudoyer?"
+
+"For God's sake, my dear friend," replied the minister, "don't talk of
+those appointments just now; let me have an hour's peace! They cracked
+my ears last night with that monstrance. The only way to save
+Rabourdin is to bring his appointment before the Council, unless I
+submit to having my hand forced. It is enough to disgust a man with
+the public service. I must purchase the right to keep that excellent
+Rabourdin by promoting a certain Colleville!"
+
+"Why not make over the management of this pretty little comedy to me,
+and rid yourself of the worry of it? I'll amuse you every morning with
+an account of the game of chess I should play with the Grand Almoner,"
+said des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Very good," said the minister, "settle it with the head examiner. But
+you know perfectly well that nothing is more likely to strike the
+king's mind than just those reasons the opposition journal has chosen
+to put forth. Good heavens! fancy managing a ministry with such men as
+Baudoyer under me!"
+
+"An imbecile bigot," said des Lupeaulx, "and as utterly incapable
+as--"
+
+"--as La Billardiere," added the minister.
+
+"But La Billardiere had the manners of a gentleman-in-ordinary,"
+replied des Lupeaulx. "Madame," he continued, addressing the countess,
+"it is now an absolute necessity to invite Madame Rabourdin to your
+next private party. I must assure you she is the intimate friend of
+Madame de Camps; they were at the Opera together last night. I first
+met her at the hotel Firmiani. Besides, you will see that she is not
+of a kind to compromise a salon."
+
+"Invite Madame Rabourdin, my dear," said the minister, "and pray let
+us talk of something else."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SCENES FROM DOMESTIC LIFE
+
+Parisian households are literally eaten up with the desire to be in
+keeping with the luxury that surrounds them on all sides, and few
+there are who have the wisdom to let their external situation conform
+to their internal revenue. But this vice may perhaps denote a truly
+French patriotism, which seeks to maintain the supremacy of the nation
+in the matter of dress. France reigns through clothes over the whole
+of Europe; and every one must feel the importance of retaining a
+commercial sceptre that makes fashion in France what the navy is to
+England. This patriotic ardor which leads a nation to sacrifice
+everything to appearances--to the "paroistre," as d'Aubigne said in
+the days of Henri IV.--is the cause of those vast secret labors which
+employ the whole of a Parisian woman's morning, when she wishes, as
+Madame Rabourdin wished, to keep up on twelve thousand francs a year
+the style that many a family with thirty thousand does not indulge in.
+Consequently, every Friday,--the day of her dinner parties,--Madame
+Rabourdin helped the chambermaid to do the rooms; for the cook went
+early to market, and the man-servant was cleaning the silver, folding
+the napkins, and polishing the glasses. The ill-advised individual who
+might happen, through an oversight of the porter, to enter Madame
+Rabourdin's establishment about eleven o'clock in the morning would
+have found her in the midst of a disorder the reverse of picturesque,
+wrapped in a dressing-gown, her hair ill-dressed, and her feet in old
+slippers, attending to the lamps, arranging the flowers, or cooking in
+haste an extremely unpoetic breakfast. The visitor to whom the
+mysteries of Parisian life were unknown would certainly have learned
+for the rest of his life not to set foot in these greenrooms at the
+wrong moment; a woman caught in her matin mysteries would ever after
+point him out as a man capable of the blackest crimes; or she would
+talk of his stupidity and indiscretion in a manner to ruin him. The
+true Parisian woman, indulgent to all curiosity that she can put to
+profit, is implacable to that which makes her lose her prestige. Such
+a domiciliary invasion may be called, not only (as they say in police
+reports) an attack on privacy, but a burglary, a robbery of all that
+is most precious, namely, CREDIT. A woman is quite willing to let
+herself be surprised half-dressed, with her hair about her shoulders.
+If her hair is all her own she scores one; but she will never allow
+herself to be seen "doing" her own rooms, or she loses her pariostre,
+--that precious SEEMING-TO-BE!
+
+Madame Rabourdin was in full tide of preparation for her Friday
+dinner, standing in the midst of provisions the cook had just fished
+from the vast ocean of the markets, when Monsieur des Lupeaulx made
+his way stealthily in. The general-secretary was certainly the last
+man Madame Rabourdin expected to see, and so, when she heard his boots
+creaking in the ante-chamber, she exclaimed, impatiently, "The hair-
+dresser already!"--an exclamation as little agreeable to des Lupeaulx
+as the sight of des Lupeaulx was agreeable to her. She immediately
+escaped into her bedroom, where chaos reigned; a jumble of furniture
+to be put out of sight, with other heterogeneous articles of more or
+rather less elegance,--a domestic carnival, in short. The bold des
+Lupeaulx followed the handsome figure, so piquant did she seem to him
+in her dishabille. There is something indescribably alluring to the
+eye in a portion of flesh seen through an hiatus in the undergarment,
+more attractive far than when it rises gracefully above the circular
+curve of the velvet bodice, to the vanishing line of the prettiest
+swan's-neck that ever lover kissed before a ball. When the eye dwells
+on a woman in full dress making exhibition of her magnificent white
+shoulders, do we not fancy that we see the elegant dessert of a grand
+dinner? But the glance that glides through the disarray of muslins
+rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it were, a feast of stolen fruit glowing
+between the leaves on a garden wall.
+
+"Stop! wait!" cried the pretty Parisian, bolting the door of the
+disordered room.
+
+She rang for Therese, called for her daughter, the cook, and the man-
+servant, wishing she possessed the whistle of the machinist at the
+Opera. Her call, however, answered the same purpose. In a moment,
+another phenomenon! the salon assumed a piquant morning look, quite in
+keeping with the becoming toilet hastily got together by the fugitive;
+we say it to her glory, for she was evidently a clever woman, in this
+at least.
+
+"You!" she said, coming forward, "at this hour? What has happened?"
+
+"Very serious things," answered des Lupeaulx. "You and I must
+understand each other now."
+
+Celestine looked at the man behind his glasses, and understood the
+matter.
+
+"My principle vice," she said, "is oddity. For instance, I do not mix
+up affections with politics; let us talk politics,--business, if you
+will,--the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor a
+whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together
+things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; it is
+my natural instinct as an artist. We women have politics of our own."
+
+Already the tones of her voice and the charm of her manners were
+producing their effect on the secretary and metamorphosing his
+roughness into sentimental courtesy; she had recalled him to his
+obligations as a lover. A clever pretty woman makes an atmosphere
+about her in which the nerves relax and the feelings soften.
+
+"You are ignorant of what is happening," said des Lupeaulx, harshly,
+for he still thought it best to make a show of harshness. "Read that."
+
+He gave the two newspapers to the graceful woman, having drawn a line
+in red ink round each of the famous articles.
+
+"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "but this is dreadful! Who is this
+Baudoyer?"
+
+"A donkey," answered des Lupeaulx; "but, as you see, he uses means,--
+he gives monstrances; he succeeds, thanks to some clever hand that
+pulls the wires."
+
+The thought of her debts crossed Madame Rabourdin's mind and blurred
+her sight, as if two lightning flashes had blinded her eyes at the
+same moment; her ears hummed under the pressure of the blood that
+began to beat in her arteries; she remained for a moment quite
+bewildered, gazing at a window which she did not see.
+
+"But are you faithful to us?" she said at last, with a winning glance
+at des Lupeaulx, as if to attach him to her.
+
+"That is as it may be," he replied, answering her glance with an
+interrogative look which made the poor woman blush.
+
+"If you demand caution-money you may lose all," she said, laughing; "I
+thought you more magnanimous than you are. And you, you thought me
+less a person than I am,--a sort of school-girl."
+
+"You have misunderstood me," he said, with a covert smile; "I meant
+that I could not assist a man who plays against me just as l'Etourdi
+played against Mascarille."
+
+"What can you mean?"
+
+"This will prove to you whether I am magnanimous or not."
+
+He gave Madame Rabourdin the memorandum stolen by Dutocq, pointing out
+to her the passage in which her husband had so ably analyzed him.
+
+"Read that."
+
+Celestine recognized the handwriting, read the paper, and turned pale
+under the blow.
+
+"All the ministries, the whole service is treated in the same way,"
+said des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Happily," she said, "you alone possess this document. I cannot
+explain it, even to myself."
+
+"The man who stole it is not such a fool as to let me have it without
+keeping a copy for himself; he is too great a liar to admit it, and
+too clever in his business to give it up. I did not even ask him for
+it."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"Your chief clerk."
+
+"Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses! But,"
+she added, "he is only a dog who wants a bone."
+
+"Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a general-
+secretary?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,--you will despise me
+because it isn't more, but here, I grant you, I am significant. Well,
+Baudoyer's uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to
+give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed."
+
+"But all that is monstrous."
+
+"Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand Almoner is
+concerned in it. Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in return
+for ecclesiastical assistance."
+
+"What shall you do?"
+
+"What will you bid me do?" he said, with charming grace, holding out
+his hand.
+
+Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and chilling
+as a hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and offensive,
+but she did not give him her hand. At night, in her salon, she would
+have let him take it a hundred times, but here, alone and in the
+morning, the action seemed too like a promise that might lead her far.
+
+"And they say that statesmen have no hearts!" she cried
+enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under
+the grace of her words. "The thought used to terrify me," she added,
+assuming an innocent, ingenuous air.
+
+"What a calumny!" cried des Lupeaulx. "Only this week one of the
+stiffest of diplomatists, a man who has been in the service ever since
+he came to manhood, has married the daughter of an actress, and has
+introduced her at the most iron-bound court in Europe as to
+quarterings of nobility."
+
+"You will continue to support us?"
+
+"I am to draw up your husband's appointment-- But no cheating,
+remember."
+
+She gave him her hand to kiss, and tapped him on the cheek as she did
+so. "You are mine!" she said.
+
+Des Lupeaulx admired the expression.
+
+[That night, at the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as
+follows: "A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,--an
+acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,--
+changed the words into 'You are mine.' Don't you think the evasion
+charming?"]
+
+"But you must be my ally," he answered. "Now listen, your husband has
+spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the administration;
+the paper I have shown you is a part of that plan. I want to know what
+it is. Find out, and tell me to-night."
+
+"I will," she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature of the
+errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.
+
+"Madame, the hair-dresser."
+
+"At last!" thought Celestine. "I don't see how I should have got out
+of it if he had delayed much longer."
+
+"You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go," said des
+Lupeaulx, rising. "You shall be invited to the first select party
+given by his Excellency's wife."
+
+"Ah, you are an angel!" she cried. "And I see now how much you love
+me; you love me intelligently."
+
+"To-night, dear child," he said, "I shall find out at the Opera what
+journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure swords
+together."
+
+"Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not? I have taken pains to
+get the things you like best--"
+
+"All that is so like love," said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went
+downstairs, "that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a long
+time. Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I'll set the
+cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and
+I'll read her heart. Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after all,
+women are just what we men are. Twenty-eight years old, virtuous, and
+living here in the rue Duphot!--a rare piece of luck and worth
+cultivating," thought the elderly butterfly as he fluttered down the
+staircase.
+
+"Good heavens! that man, without his glasses, must look funny enough
+in a dressing-gown!" thought Celestine, "but the harpoon is in his
+back and he'll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of that
+invitation. He has played his part in my comedy."
+
+When, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to dress
+for dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid before
+him the fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the Arabian
+Nights, the luckless man was fated to meet at every turn.
+
+"Who gave you that?" he asked, thunderstruck.
+
+"Monsieur des Lupeaulx."
+
+"So he has been here!" cried Rabourdin, with a look which would
+certainly have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which Celestine
+received with unruffled brow and a laughing eye.
+
+"And he is coming back to dinner," she said. "Why that startled air?"
+
+"My dear," replied Rabourdin, "I have mortally offended des Lupeaulx;
+such men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me! Do you think I don't
+see why?"
+
+"The man seems to me," she said, "to have good taste; you can't expect
+me to blame him. I really don't know anything more flattering to a
+woman than to please a worn-out palate. After--"
+
+"A truce to nonsense, Celestine. Spare a much-tried man. I cannot get
+an audience of the minister, and my honor is at stake."
+
+"Good heavens, no! Dutocq can have the promise of a good place as soon
+as you are named head of the division."
+
+"Ah! I see what you are about, dear child," said Rabourdin; "but the
+game you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing that is
+going on around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman--"
+
+"Let me use the weapons employed against us."
+
+"Celestine, the more that man des Lupeaulx feels he is foolishly
+caught in a trap, the more bitter he will be against me."
+
+"What if I get him dismissed altogether?"
+
+Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.
+
+"I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my poor
+husband," continued Celestine. "But you are mistaking the dog for the
+game," she added, after a pause. "In a few days des Lupeaulx will have
+accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to speak to
+the minister, and before you can even see him on business, I shall
+have seen him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to bring
+that plan of your brain to birth,--a plan which you have been hiding
+from me; but you will find that in three months your wife has
+accomplished more than you have done in six years. Come, tell me this
+fine scheme of yours."
+
+Rabourdin, continuing to shave, cautioned his wife not to say a word
+about his work, and after assuring her that to confide a single idea
+to des Lupeaulx would be to put the cat near the milk-jug, he began an
+explanation of his labors.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me this before, Rabourdin?" said Celestine,
+cutting her husband short at his fifth sentence. "You might have saved
+yourself a world of trouble. I can understand that a man should be
+blinded by an idea for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or seven
+years, that's a thing I cannot comprehend! You want to reduce the
+budget,--a vulgar and commonplace idea! The budget ought, on the
+contrary, to reach two hundred millions. Then, indeed, France would be
+great. If you want a new system let it be one of loans, as Monsieur de
+Nucingen keeps saying. The poorest of all treasuries is the one with a
+surplus that it never uses; the mission of a minister of finance is to
+fling gold out of the windows. It will come back to him through the
+cellars; and you, you want to hoard it! The thing to do is to increase
+the offices and all government employments, instead of reducing them!
+So far from lessening the public debt, you ought to increase the
+creditors. If the Bourbons want to reign in peace, let them seek
+creditors in the towns and villages, and place their loans there;
+above all, they ought not to let foreigners draw interest away from
+France; some day an alien nation might ask us for the capital. Whereas
+if capital and interest are held only in France, neither France nor
+credit can perish. That's what saved England. Your plan is the
+tradesman's plan. An ambitious public man should produce some bold
+scheme,--he should make himself another Law, without Law's fatal ill-
+luck; he ought to exhibit the power of credit, and show that we should
+reduce, not principal, but interest, as they do in England."
+
+"Come, come, Celestine," said Rabourdin; "mix up ideas as much as you
+please, and make fun of them,--I'm accustomed to that; but don't
+criticise a work of which you know nothing as yet."
+
+"Do I need," she asked, "to know a scheme the essence of which is to
+govern France with a civil service of six thousand men instead of
+twenty thousand? My dear friend, even allowing it were the plan of a
+man of genius, a king of France who attempted to carry it out would
+get himself dethroned. You can keep down a feudal aristocracy by
+levelling a few heads, but you can't subdue a hydra with thousands.
+And is it with the present ministers--between ourselves, a wretched
+crew--that you expect to carry out your reform? No, no; change the
+monetary system if you will, but do not meddle with men, with little
+men; they cry out too much, whereas gold is dumb."
+
+"But, Celestine, if you will talk, and put wit before argument, we
+shall never understand each other."
+
+"Understand! I understand what that paper, in which you have analyzed
+the capacities of the men in office, will lead to," she replied,
+paying no attention to what her husband said. "Good heavens! you have
+sharpened the axe to cut off your own head. Holy Virgin! why didn't
+you consult me? I could have at least prevented you from committing
+anything to writing, or, at any rate, if you insisted on putting it to
+paper, I would have written it down myself, and it should never have
+left this house. Good God! to think that he never told me! That's what
+men are! capable of sleeping with the wife of their bosom for seven
+years, and keeping a secret from her! Hiding their thoughts from a
+poor woman for seven years!--doubting her devotion!"
+
+"But," cried Rabourdin, provoked, "for eleven years and more I have
+been unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on cutting
+me short and substituting your ideas for mine. You know nothing at all
+about my scheme."
+
+"Nothing! I know all."
+
+"Then tell it to me!" cried Rabourdin, angry for the first time since
+his marriage.
+
+"There! it is half-past six o'clock; finish shaving and dress at
+once," she cried hastily, after the fashion of women when pressed on a
+point they are not ready to talk of. "I must go; we'll adjourn the
+discussion, for I don't want to be nervous on a reception-day. Good
+heavens! the poor soul!" she thought, as she left the room, "it IS
+hard to be in labor for seven years and bring forth a dead child! And
+not trust his wife!"
+
+She went back into the room.
+
+"If you had listened to me you would never had interceded to keep your
+chief clerk; he stole that abominable paper, and has, no doubt, kept a
+fac-simile of it. Adieu, man of genius!"
+
+Then she noticed the almost tragic expression of her husband's grief;
+she felt she had gone too far, and ran to him, seized him just as he
+was, all lathered with soap-suds, and kissed him tenderly.
+
+"Dear Xavier, don't be vexed," she said. "To-night, after the people
+are gone, we will study your plan; you shall speak at your ease,--I
+will listen just as long as you wish me to. Isn't that nice of me?
+What do I want better than to be the wife of Mohammed?"
+
+She began to laugh; and Rabourdin laughed too, for the soapsuds were
+clinging to Celestine's lips, and her voice had the tones of the
+purest and most steadfast affection.
+
+"Go and dress, dear child; and above all, don't say a word of this to
+des Lupeaulx. Swear you will not. That is the only punishment that I
+impose--"
+
+"IMPOSE!" she cried. "Then I won't swear anything."
+
+"Come, come, Celestine, I said in jest a really serious thing."
+
+"To-night," she said, "I mean your general-secretary to know whom I am
+really intending to attack; he has given me the means."
+
+"Attack whom?"
+
+"The minister," she answered, drawing himself up. "We are to be
+invited to his wife's private parties."
+
+In spite of his Celestine's loving caresses, Rabourdin, as he finished
+dressing, could not prevent certain painful thoughts from clouding his
+brow.
+
+"Will she ever appreciate me?" he said to himself. "She does not even
+understand that she is the sole incentive of my whole work. How wrong-
+headed, and yet how excellent a mind!--If I had not married I might
+now have been high in office and rich. I could have saved half my
+salary; my savings well-invested would have given me to-day ten
+thousand francs a year outside of my office, and I might then have
+become, through a good marriage-- Yes, that is all true," he
+exclaimed, interrupting himself, "but I have Celestine and my two
+children." The man flung himself back on his happiness. To the best of
+married lives there come moments of regret. He entered the salon and
+looked around him. "There are not two women in Paris who understand
+making life pleasant as she does. To keep such a home as this on
+twelve thousand francs a year!" he thought, looking at the flower-
+stands bright with bloom, and thinking of the social enjoyments that
+were about to gratify his vanity. "She was made to be the wife of a
+minister. When I think of his Excellency's wife, and how little she
+helps him! the good woman is a comfortable middle-class dowdy, and
+when she goes to the palace or into society--" He pinched his lips
+together. Very busy men are apt to have very ignorant notions about
+household matters, and you can make them believe that a hundred
+thousand francs afford little or that twelve thousand afford all.
+
+Though impatiently expected, and in spite of the flattering dishes
+prepared for the palate of the gourmet-emeritus, des Lupeaulx did not
+come to dinner; in fact he came in very late, about midnight, an hour
+when company dwindles and conversations become intimate and
+confidential. Andoche Finot, the journalist, was one of the few
+remaining guests.
+
+"I now know all," said des Lupeaulx, when he was comfortably seated on
+a sofa at the corner of the fireplace, a cup of tea in his hand and
+Madame Rabourdin standing before him with a plate of sandwiches and
+some slices of cake very appropriately called "leaden cake." "Finot,
+my dear and witty friend, you can render a great service to our
+gracious queen by letting loose a few dogs upon the men we were
+talking of. You have against you," he said to Rabourdin, lowering his
+voice so as to be heard only by the three persons whom he addressed,
+"a set of usurers and priests--money and the church. The article in
+the liberal journal was instituted by an old money-lender to whom the
+paper was under obligations; but the young fellow who wrote it cares
+nothing about it. The paper is about to change hands, and in three
+days more will be on our side. The royalist opposition,--for we have,
+thanks to Monsieur de Chateaubriand, a royalist opposition, that is to
+say, royalists who have gone over to the liberals,--however, there's
+no need to discuss political matters now,--these assassins of Charles
+X. have promised me to support your appointment at the price of our
+acquiescence in one of their amendments. All my batteries are manned.
+If they threaten us with Baudoyer we shall say to the clerical
+phalanx, 'Such and such a paper and such and such men will attack your
+measures and the whole press will be against you' (for even the
+ministerial journals which I influence will be deaf and dumb, won't
+they, Finot?). 'Appoint Rabourdin, a faithful servant, and public
+opinion is with you--'"
+
+"Hi, hi!" laughed Finot.
+
+"So, there's no need to be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx. "I have
+arranged it all to-night; the Grand Almoner must yield."
+
+"I would rather have had less hope, and you to dinner," whispered
+Celestine, looking at him with a vexed air which might very well pass
+for an expression of wounded love.
+
+"This must win my pardon," he returned, giving her an invitation to
+the ministry for the following Tuesday.
+
+Celestine opened the letter, and a flush of pleasure came into her
+face. No enjoyment can be compared to that of gratified vanity.
+
+"You know what the countess's Tuesdays are," said des Lupeaulx, with a
+confidential air. "To the usual ministerial parties they are what the
+'Petit-Chateau' is to a court ball. You will be at the heart of power!
+You will see there the Comtesse Feraud, who is still in favor
+notwithstanding Louis XVIII.'s death, Delphine de Nucingen, Madame de
+Listomere, the Marquise d'Espard, and your dear Firmiani; I have had
+her invited to give you her support in case the other women attempt to
+black-ball you. I long to see you in the midst of them."
+
+Celestine threw up her head like a thoroughbred before the race, and
+re-read the invitation just as Baudoyer and Saillard had re-read the
+articles about themselves in the newspapers, without being able to
+quaff enough of it.
+
+"THERE first, and NEXT at the Tuileries," she said to des Lupeaulx,
+who was startled by the words and by the attitude of the speaker, so
+expressive were they of ambition and security.
+
+"Can it be that I am only a stepping-stone?" he asked himself. He
+rose, and went into Madame Rabourdin's bedroom, where she followed
+him, understanding from a motion of his head that he wished to speak
+to her privately.
+
+"Well, your husband's plan," he said; "what of it?"
+
+"Bah! the useless nonsense of an honest man!" she replied. "He wants
+to suppress fifteen thousand offices and do the work with five or six
+thousand. You never heard of such nonsense; I will let you read the
+whole document when copied; it is written in perfect good faith. His
+analysis of the officials was prompted only by his honesty and
+rectitude,--poor dear man!"
+
+Des Lupeaulx was all the more reassured by the genuine laugh which
+accompanied these jesting and contemptuous words, because he was a
+judge of lying and knew that Celestine spoke in good faith.
+
+"But still, what is at the bottom of it all?" he asked.
+
+"Well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and substitute taxes on
+consumption."
+
+"Why it is over a year since Francois Keller and Nucingen proposed
+some such plan, and the minister himself is thinking of a reduction of
+the land-tax."
+
+"There!" exclaimed Celestine, "I told him there was nothing new in his
+scheme."
+
+"No; but he is on the same ground with the best financier of the
+epoch,--the Napoleon of finance. Something may come of it. Your
+husband must surely have some special ideas in his method of putting
+the scheme into practice."
+
+"No, it is all commonplace," she said, with a disdainful curl of her
+lip. "Just think of governing France with five or six thousand
+offices, when what is really needed is that everybody in France should
+be personally enlisted in the support of the government."
+
+Des Lupeaulx seemed satisfied that Rabourdin, to whom in his own mind
+he had granted remarkable talents, was really a man of mediocrity.
+
+"Are you quite sure of the appointment? You don't want a bit of
+feminine advice?" she said.
+
+"You women are greater adepts than we in refined treachery," he said,
+nodding.
+
+"Well, then, say BAUDOYER to the court and clergy, to divert suspicion
+and put them to sleep, and then, at the last moment, write RABOURDIN."
+
+"There are some women who say YES as long as they need a man, and NO
+when he has played his part," returned des Lupeaulx, significantly.
+
+"I know they do," she answered, laughing; "but they are very foolish,
+for in politics everything recommences. Such proceedings may do with
+fools, but you are a man of sense. In my opinion the greatest folly
+any one can commit is to quarrel with a clever man."
+
+"You are mistaken," said des Lupeaulx, "for such a man pardons. The
+real danger is with the petty spiteful natures who have nothing to do
+but study revenge,--I spend my life among them."
+
+When all the guests were gone, Rabourdin came into his wife's room,
+and after asking for her strict attention, he explained his plan and
+made her see that it did not cut down the revenue but on the contrary
+increased it; he showed her in what ways the public funds were
+employed, and how the State could increase tenfold the circulation of
+money by putting its own, in the proportion of a third, or a quarter,
+into the expenditures which would be sustained by private or local
+interests. He finally proved to her plainly that his plan was not mere
+theory, but a system teeming with methods of execution. Celestine,
+brightly enthusiastic, sprang into her husband's arms and sat upon his
+knee in the chimney-corner.
+
+"At last I find the husband of my dreams!" she cried. "My ignorance of
+your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx's claws. I calumniated
+you to him gloriously and in good faith."
+
+The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last. Having
+labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great
+man in the eyes of his sole public.
+
+"To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger,
+how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But," she added, "a man of
+genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly
+beloved child," she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation
+from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and
+showed it to him.
+
+"Here is what I wanted," she said; "Des Lupeaulx has put me face to
+face with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency
+shall be made for a time to bend the knee to me."
+
+The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the
+inner circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her own!
+Never courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman
+bestowed upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers.
+Madame Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where
+she hired carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor
+bourgeois, nor showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great houses,
+had the dress and appearance of a master. About ten on the evening of
+the eventful Tuesday, she left home in a charming full mourning
+attire. Her hair was dressed with jet grapes of exquisite workmanship,
+--an ornament costing three thousand francs, made by Fossin for an
+Englishwoman who had left Paris before it was finished. The leaves
+were of stamped iron-work, as light as the vine-leaves themselves, and
+the artist had not forgotten the graceful tendrils, which twined in
+the wearer's curls just as, in nature, they catch upon the branches.
+The bracelets, necklace, and earrings were all what is called Berlin
+iron-work; but these delicate arabesques were made in Vienna, and
+seemed to have been fashioned by the fairies who, the stories tell us,
+are condemned by a jealous Carabosse to collect the eyes of ants, or
+weave a fabric so diaphanous that a nutshell can contain it. Madame
+Rabourdin's graceful figure, made more slender still by the black
+draperies, was shown to advantage by a carefully cut dress, the two
+sides of which met at the shoulders in a single strap without sleeves.
+At every motion she seemed, like a butterfly, to be about to leave her
+covering; but the gown held firmly on by some contrivance of the
+wonderful dressmaker. The robe was of mousseline de laine--a material
+which the manufacturers had not yet sent to the Paris markets; a
+delightful stuff which some months later was to have a wild success, a
+success which went further and lasted longer than most French
+fashions. The actual economy of mousseline de laine, which needs no
+washing, has since injured the sale of cotton fabrics enough to
+revolutionize the Rouen manufactories. Celestine's little feet,
+covered with fine silk stockings and turk-satin shoes (for silk-satin
+is inadmissible in deep mourning) were of elegant proportions. Thus
+dressed, she was very handsome. Her complexion, beautified by a bran-
+bath, was softly radiant. Her eyes, suffused with the light of hope,
+and sparkling with intelligence, justified her claims to the
+superiority which des Lupeaulx, proud and happy on this occasion,
+asserted for her.
+
+She entered the room well (women will understand the meaning of that
+expression), bowed gracefully to the minister's wife, with a happy
+mixture of deference and of self-respect, and gave no offence by a
+certain reliance on her own dignity; for every beautiful woman has the
+right to seem a queen. With the minister himself she took the pretty
+air of sauciness which women may properly allow themselves with men,
+even when they are grand dukes. She reconnoitred the field, as it
+were, while taking her seat, and saw that she was in the midst of one
+of those select parties of few persons, where the women eye and
+appraise each other, and every word said echoes in all ears; where
+every glance is a stab, and conversation a duel with witnesses; where
+all that is commonplace seems commoner still, and where every form of
+merit or distinction is silently accepted as though it were the
+natural level of all present. Rabourdin betook himself to the
+adjoining salon in which a few persons were playing cards; and there
+he planted himself on exhibition, as it were, which proved that he was
+not without social intelligence.
+
+"My dear," said the Marquise d'Espard to the Comtesse Feraud, Louis
+XVIII.'s last mistress, "Paris is certainly unique. It produces--
+whence and how, who knows?--women like this person, who seems ready to
+will and to do anything."
+
+"She really does will, and does do everything," put in des Lupeaulx,
+puffed up with satisfaction.
+
+At this moment the wily Madame Rabourdin was courting the minister's
+wife. Carefully coached the evening before by des Lupeaulx, who knew
+all the countess's weak spots, she was flattering her without seeming
+to do so. Every now and then she kept silence; for des Lupeaulx, in
+love as he was, knew her defects, and said to her the night before,
+"Be careful not to talk too much,"--words which were really an immense
+proof of attachment. Bertrand Barrere left behind him this sublime
+axiom: "Never interrupt a woman when dancing to give her advice," to
+which we may add (to make this chapter of the female code complete),
+"Never blame a woman for scattering her pearls."
+
+The conversation became general. From time to time Madame Rabourdin
+joined in, just as a well-trained cat puts a velvet paw on her
+mistress's laces with the claws carefully drawn in. The minister, in
+matters of the heart, had few emotions. There was not another
+statesman under the Restoration who had so completely done with
+gallantry as he; even the opposition papers, the "Miroir," "Pandora,"
+and "Figaro," could not find a single throbbing artery with which to
+reproach him. Madame Rabourdin knew this, but she knew also that
+ghosts return to old castles, and she had taken it into her head to
+make the minister jealous of the happiness which des Lupeaulx was
+appearing to enjoy. The latter's throat literally gurgled with the
+name of his divinity. To launch his supposed mistress successfully, he
+was endeavoring to persuade the Marquise d'Espard, Madame de Nucingen,
+and the countess, in an eight-ear conversation, that they had better
+admit Madame Rabourdin to their coalition; and Madame de Camps was
+supporting him. At the end of the hour the minister's vanity was
+greatly tickled; Madame Rabourdin's cleverness pleased him, and she
+had won his wife, who, delighted with the siren, invited her to come
+to all her receptions whenever she pleased.
+
+"For your husband, my dear," she said, "will soon be director; the
+minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under one
+director; you will then be one of us, you know."
+
+His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show her a
+certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the opposition
+journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and together they
+laughed over the absurdities of journalism.
+
+"Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the pleasure of
+seeing you here often."
+
+And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.
+
+"But, Monseigneur," she replied, with one of those glances which women
+hold in reserve, "it seems to me that that depends on you."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You alone can give me the right to come here."
+
+"Pray explain."
+
+"No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not have
+the bad taste to seem a petitioner."
+
+"No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out of
+place," said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too silly to
+amuse a solemn man.
+
+"Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a
+bureau is out of place here; a director's wife is not."
+
+"That point need not be considered," said the minister. "your husband
+is indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed."
+
+"Is that a veritable fact?"
+
+"Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are already drawn
+up."
+
+"Then," she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the
+minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, "let me tell
+you that I can make you a return."
+
+She was on the point of revealing her husband's plan, when des
+Lupeaulx, who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry
+sound, which meant that he did not wish to appear to have overheard
+what, in fact, he had been listening to. The minister gave an ill-
+tempered look at the old beau, who, impatient to win his reward, had
+hurried, beyond all precedent, the preliminary work of the
+appointment. He had carried the papers to his Excellency that evening,
+and desired to take himself, on the morrow, the news of the
+appointment to her whom he was now endeavoring to exhibit as his
+mistress. Just then the minister's valet approached des Lupeaulx in a
+mysterious manner, and told him that his own servant wished him to
+deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost importance.
+
+The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:--
+
+   Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see
+   you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms
+   with
+
+Your obedient servant,
+Gobseck.
+
+
+The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we
+cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like
+to guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of
+signature. If ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it was
+assuredly this written name, in which the first and the final letter
+approached each other like the voracious jaws of a shark,--insatiable,
+always open, seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak. As for the
+wording of the note, the spirit of usury alone could have inspired a
+sentence so imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said all
+and revealed nothing. Those who had never heard of Gobseck would have
+felt, on reading words which compelled him to whom they were addressed
+to obey, yet gave no order, the presence of the implacable money-
+lender of the rue des Gres. Like a dog called to heel by the huntsman,
+des Lupeaulx left his present quest and went immediately to his own
+rooms, thinking of his hazardous position. Imagine a general to whom
+an aide-de-camp rides up and says: "The enemy with thirty thousand
+fresh troops is attacking on our right flank."
+
+A very few words will serve to explain this sudden arrival of Gigonnet
+and Gobseck on the field of battle,--for des Lupeaulx found them both
+waiting. At eight o'clock that evening, Martin Falleix, returning on
+the wings of the wind,--thanks to three francs to the postboys and a
+courier in advance,--had brought back with him the deeds of the
+property signed the night before. Taken at once to the Cafe Themis by
+Mitral, these securities passed into the hands of the two usurers, who
+hastened (though on foot) to the ministry. It was past eleven o'clock.
+Des Lupeaulx trembled when he saw those sinister faces, emitting a
+simultaneous look as direct as a pistol shot and as brilliant as the
+flash itself.
+
+"What is it, my masters?" he said.
+
+The two extortioners continued cold and motionless. Gigonnet silently
+pointed to the documents in his hand, and then at the servant.
+
+"Come into my study," said des Lupeaulx, dismissing his valet by a
+sign.
+
+"You understand French very well," remarked Gigonnet, approvingly.
+
+"Have you come here to torment a man who enabled each of you to make a
+couple of hundred thousand francs?"
+
+"And who will help us to make more, I hope," said Gigonnet.
+
+"Some new affair?" asked des Lupeaulx. "If you want me to help you,
+consider that I recollect the past."
+
+"So do we," answered Gigonnet.
+
+"My debts must be paid," said des Lupeaulx, disdainfully, so as not to
+seem worsted at the outset.
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"Let us come to the point, my son," said Gigonnet. "Don't stiffen your
+chin in your cravat; with us all that is useless. Take these deeds and
+read them."
+
+The two usurers took a mental inventory of des Lupeaulx's study while
+he read with amazement and stupefaction a deed of purchase which
+seemed wafted to him from the clouds by angels.
+
+"Don't you think you have a pair of intelligent business agents in
+Gobseck and me?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+"But tell me, to what do I owe such able co-operation?" said des
+Lupeaulx, suspicious and uneasy.
+
+"We knew eight days ago a fact that without us you would not have
+known till to-morrow morning. The president of the chamber of
+commerce, a deputy, as you know, feels himself obliged to resign."
+
+Des Lupeaulx's eyes dilated, and were as big as daisies.
+
+"Your minister has been tricking you about this event," said the
+concise Gobseck.
+
+"You master me," said the general-secretary, bowing with an air of
+profound respect, bordering however, on sarcasm.
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+"Can you mean to strangle me?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Well, then, begin your work, executioners," said the secretary,
+smiling.
+
+"You will see," resumed Gigonnet, "that the sum total of your debts is
+added to the sum loaned by us for the purchase of the property; we
+have bought them up."
+
+"Here are the deeds," said Gobseck, taking from the pocket of his
+greenish overcoat a number of legal papers.
+
+"You have three years in which to pay off the whole sum," said
+Gigonnet.
+
+"But," said des Lupeaulx, frightened at such kindness, and also by so
+apparently fantastic an arrangement. "What do you want of me?"
+
+"La Billardiere's place for Baudoyer," said Gigonnet, quickly.
+
+"That's a small matter, though it will be next to impossible for me to
+do it," said des Lupeaulx. "I have just tied my hands."
+
+"Bite the cords with your teeth," said Gigonnet.
+
+"They are sharp," added Gobseck.
+
+"Is that all?" asked des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We keep the title-deeds of the property till the debts are paid,"
+said Gigonnet, putting one of the papers before des Lupeaulx; "and if
+the matter of the appointment is not satisfactorily arranged within
+six days our names will be substituted in place of yours."
+
+"You are deep," cried the secretary.
+
+"Exactly," said Gobseck.
+
+"And this is all?" exclaimed des Lupeaulx.
+
+"All," said Gobseck.
+
+"You agree?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+Des Lupeaulx nodded his head.
+
+"Well, then, sign this power of attorney. Within two days Baudoyer is
+to be nominated; within six your debts will be cleared off, and--"
+
+"And what?" asked des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We guarantee--"
+
+"Guarantee!--what?" said the secretary, more and more astonished.
+
+"Your election to the Chamber," said Gigonnet, rising on his heels.
+"We have secured a majority of fifty-two farmers' and mechanics'
+votes, which will be thrown precisely as those who lend you this money
+dictate."
+
+Des Lupeaulx wrung Gigonnet's hand.
+
+"It is only such as we who never misunderstand each other," he said;
+"this is what I call doing business. I'll make you a return gift."
+
+"Right," said Gobseck.
+
+"What is it?" asked Gigonnet.
+
+"The cross of the Legion of honor for your imbecile of a nephew."
+
+"Good," said Gigonnet, "I see you know him well."
+
+The pair took leave of des Lupeaulx, who conducted them to the
+staircase.
+
+"They must be secret envoys from foreign powers," whispered the
+footmen to each other.
+
+Once in the street, the two usurers looked at each other under a
+street lamp and laughed.
+
+"He will owe us nine thousand francs interest a year," said Gigonnet;
+"that property doesn't bring him in five."
+
+"He is under our thumb for a long time," said Gobseck.
+
+"He'll build; he'll commit extravagancies," continued Gigonnet;
+"Falleix will get his land."
+
+"His interest is only to be made deputy; the old fox laughs at the
+rest," said Gobseck.
+
+"Hey! hey!"
+
+"Hi! hi!"
+
+These dry little exclamations served as a laugh to the two old men,
+who took their way back (always on foot) to the Cafe Themis.
+
+Des Lupeaulx returned to the salon and found Madame Rabourdin sailing
+with the wind of success, and very charming; while his Excellency,
+usually so gloomy, showed a smooth and gracious countenance.
+
+"She performs miracles," thought des Lupeaulx. "What a wonderfully
+clever woman! I must get to the bottom of her heart."
+
+"Your little lady is decidedly handsome," said the Marquise to the
+secretary; "now if she only had your name."
+
+"Yes, her defect is that she is the daughter of an auctioneer. She
+will fail for want of birth," replied des Lupeaulx, with a cold manner
+that contrasted strangely with the ardor of his remarks about Madame
+Rabourdin not half an hour earlier.
+
+The marquise looked at him fixedly.
+
+"The glance you gave them did not escape me," she said, motioning
+towards the minister and Madame Rabourdin; "it pierced the mask of
+your spectacles. How amusing you both are, to quarrel over that bone!"
+
+As the marquise turned to leave the room the minister joined her and
+escorted her to the door.
+
+"Well," said des Lupeaulx to Madame Rabourdin, "what do you think of
+his Excellency?"
+
+"He is charming. We must know these poor ministers to appreciate
+them," she added, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard by his
+Excellency's wife. "The newspapers and the opposition calumnies are so
+misleading about men in politics that we are all more or less
+influenced by them; but such prejudices turn to the advantage of
+statesmen when we come to know them personally."
+
+"He is very good-looking," said des Lupeaulx.
+
+"Yes, and I assure you he is quite lovable," she said, heartily.
+
+"Dear child," said des Lupeaulx, with a genial, caressing manner; "you
+have actually done the impossible."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Resuscitated the dead. I did not think that man had a heart; ask his
+wife. But he may have just enough for a passing fancy. Therefore
+profit by it. Come this way, and don't be surprised." He led Madame
+Rabourdin into the boudoir, placed her on a sofa, and sat down beside
+her. "You are very sly," he said, "and I like you the better for it.
+Between ourselves, you are a clever woman. Des Lupeaulx served to
+bring you into this house, and that is all you wanted of him, isn't
+it? Now when a woman decides to love a man for what she can get out of
+him it is better to take a sexagenarian Excellency than a
+quadragenarian secretary; there's more profit and less annoyance. I'm
+a man with spectacles, grizzled hair, worn out with dissipation,--a
+fine lover, truly! I tell myself all this again and again. It must be
+admitted, of course, that I can sometimes be useful, but never
+agreeable. Isn't that so? A man must be a fool if he cannot reason
+about himself. You can safely admit the truth and let me see to the
+depths of your heart; we are partners, not lovers. If I show some
+tenderness at times, you are too superior a woman to pay any attention
+to such follies; you will forgive me,--you are not a school-girl, or a
+bourgeoise of the rue Saint-Denis. Bah! you and I are too well brought
+up for that. There's the Marquise d'Espard who has just left the room;
+this is precisely what she thinks and does. She and I came to an
+understanding two years ago [the coxcomb!], and now she has only to
+write me a line and say, 'My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige me by
+doing such and such a thing,' and it is done at once. We are engaged
+at this very moment in getting a commission of lunacy on her husband.
+Ah! you women, you can get what you want by the bestowal of a few
+favors. Well, then, my dear child, bewitch the minister. I'll help
+you; it is my interest to do so. Yes, I wish he had a woman who could
+influence him; he wouldn't escape me,--for he does escape me quite
+often, and the reason is that I hold him only through his intellect.
+Now if I were one with a pretty woman who was also intimate with him,
+I should hold him by his weaknesses, and that is much the firmest
+grip. Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the
+advantages of the conquest you are making."
+
+Madame Rabourdin listened in amazement to this singular profession of
+rascality. The apparent artlessness of this political swindler
+prevented her from suspecting a trick.
+
+"Do you believe he really thinks of me?" she asked, falling into the
+trap.
+
+"I know it; I am certain of it."
+
+"Is it true that Rabourdin's appointment is signed?"
+
+"I gave him the papers this morning. But it is not enough that your
+husband should be made director; he must be Master of petitions."
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Well, then, go back to the salon and coquette a little more with his
+Excellency."
+
+"It is true," she said, "that I never fully understood you till
+to-night. There is nothing commonplace about YOU."
+
+"We will be two old friends," said des Lupeaulx, "and suppress all
+tender nonsense and tormenting love; we will take things as they did
+under the Regency. Ah! they had plenty of wit and wisdom in those
+days!"
+
+"You are really strong; you deserve my admiration," she said, smiling,
+and holding out her hand to him, "one does more for one's friend, you
+know, than for one's--"
+
+She left him without finishing her sentence.
+
+"Dear creature!" thought des Lupeaulx, as he saw her approach the
+minister, "des Lupeaulx has no longer the slightest remorse in turning
+against you. To-morrow evening when you offer me a cup of tea, you
+will be offering me a thing I no longer care for. All is over. Ah!
+when a man is forty years of age women may take pains to catch him,
+but they won't love him."
+
+He looked himself over in a mirror, admitting honestly that though he
+did very well as a politician he was a wreck on the shores of Cythera.
+At the same moment Madame Rabourdin was gathering herself together for
+a becoming exit. She wished to make a last graceful impression on the
+minds of all, and she succeeded. Contrary to the usual custom in
+society, every one cried out as soon as she was gone, "What a charming
+woman!" and the minister himself took her to the outer door.
+
+"I am quite sure you will think of me to-morrow," he said, alluding to
+the appointment.
+
+"There are so few high functionaries who have agreeable wives,"
+remarked his Excellency on re-entering the room, "that I am very well
+satisfied with our new acquisition."
+
+"Don't you think her a little overpowering?" said des Lupeaulx with a
+piqued air.
+
+The women present all exchanged expressive glances; the rivalry
+between the minister and his secretary amused them and instigated one
+of those pretty little comedies which Parisian women play so well.
+They excited and led on his Excellency and des Lupeaulx by a series of
+comments on Madame Rabourdin: one thought her too studied in manner,
+too eager to appear clever; another compared the graces of the middle
+classes with the manners of high life, while des Lupeaulx defended his
+pretended mistress as we all defend an enemy in society.
+
+"Do her justice, ladies," he said; "is it not extraordinary that the
+daughter of an auctioneer should appear as well as she does? See where
+she came from, and what she is. She will end in the Tuileries; that is
+what she intends,--she told me so."
+
+"Suppose she is the daughter of an auctioneer," said the Comtesse
+Feraud, smiling, "that will not hinder her husband's rise to power."
+
+"Not in these days, you mean," said the minister's wife, tightening
+her lips.
+
+"Madame," said his Excellency to the countess, sternly, "such
+sentiments and such speeches lead to revolutions; unhappily, the court
+and the great world do not restrain them. You would hardly believe,
+however, how the injudicious conduct of the aristocracy in this
+respect displeases certain clear-sighted personages at the palace. If
+I were a great lord, instead of being, as I am, a mere country
+gentleman who seems to be placed where he is to transact your business
+for you, the monarchy would not be as insecure as I now think it is.
+What becomes of a throne which does not bestow dignity on those who
+administer its government? We are far indeed from the days when a king
+could make men great at will,--such men as Louvois, Colbert,
+Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,--Sully, in his origin, was no
+greater than I. I speak to you thus because we are here in private
+among ourselves. I should be very paltry indeed if I were personally
+offended by such speeches. After all, it is for us and not for others
+to make us great."
+
+"You are appointed, dear," cried Celestine, pressing her husband's
+hand as they drove away. "If it had not been for des Lupeaulx I should
+have explained your scheme to his Excellency. But I will do it next
+Tuesday, and it will help the further matter of making you Master of
+petitions."
+
+In the life of every woman there comes a day when she shines in all
+her glory; a day which gives her an unfading recollection to which she
+recurs with happiness all her life. As Madame Rabourdin took off one
+by one the ornaments of her apparel, she thought over the events of
+this evening, and marked the day among the triumphs and glories of her
+life,--all her beauties had been seen and envied, she had been praised
+and flattered by the minister's wife, delighted thus to make the other
+women jealous of her; but, above all, her grace and vanities had shone
+to the profit of conjugal love. Her husband was appointed.
+
+"Did you think I looked well to-night?" she said to him, joyously.
+
+At the same instant Mitral, waiting at the Cafe Themis, saw the two
+usurers returning, but was unable to perceive the slightest
+indications of the result on their impassible faces.
+
+"What of it?" he said, when they were all seated at table.
+
+"Same as ever," replied Gigonnet, rubbing his hands, "victory with
+gold."
+
+"True," said Gobseck.
+
+Mitral took a cabriolet and went straight to the Saillards and
+Baudoyers, who were still playing boston at a late hour. No one was
+present but the Abbe Gaudron. Falleix, half-dead with the fatigue of
+his journey, had gone to bed.
+
+"You will be appointed, nephew," said Mitral; "and there's a surprise
+in store for you."
+
+"What is it?" asked Saillard.
+
+"The cross of the Legion of honor?" cried Mitral.
+
+"God protects those who guard his altars," said Gaudron.
+
+Thus the Te Deum was sung with equal joy and confidence in both camps.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FORWARD, MOLLUSKS!
+
+The next day, Wednesday, Monsieur Rabourdin was to transact business
+with the minister, for he had filled the late La Billardiere's place
+since the beginning of the latter's illness. On such days the clerks
+came punctually, the servants were specially attentive, there was
+always a certain excitement in the offices on these signing-days,--and
+why, nobody ever knew. On this occasion the three servants were at
+their post, flattering themselves they should get a few fees; for a
+rumor of Rabourdin's nomination had spread through the ministry the
+night before, thanks to Dutocq. Uncle Antoine and Laurent had donned
+their full uniform, when, at a quarter to eight, des Lupeaulx's
+servant came in with a letter, which he begged Antoine to give
+secretly to Dutocq, saying that the general-secretary had ordered him
+to deliver it without fail at Monsieur Dutocq's house by seven
+o'clock.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know how it happened," he said, "but I overslept
+myself. I've only just waked up, and he'd play the devil's tattoo on
+me if he knew the letter hadn't gone. I know a famous secret, Antoine;
+but don't say anything about it to the clerks if I tell you; promise?
+He would send me off if he knew I had said a single word; he told me
+so."
+
+"What's inside the letter?" asked Antoine, eying it.
+
+"Nothing; I looked this way--see."
+
+He made the letter gape open, and showed Antoine that there was
+nothing but blank paper to be seen.
+
+"This is going to be a great day for you, Laurent," went on the
+secretary's man. "You are to have a new director. Economy must be the
+order of the day, for they are going to unite the two divisions under
+one director--you fellows will have to look out!"
+
+"Yes, nine clerks are put on the retired list," said Dutocq, who came
+in at the moment; "how did you hear that?"
+
+Antoine gave him the letter, and he had no sooner opened it than he
+rushed headlong downstairs in the direction of the secretary's office.
+
+The bureaus Rabourdin and Baudoyer, after idling and gossiping since
+the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere, were now recovering their
+usual official look and the dolce far niente habits of a government
+office. Nevertheless, the approaching end of the year did cause rather
+more application among the clerks, just as porters and servants become
+at that season more unctuously civil. They all came punctually, for
+one thing; more remained after four o'clock than was usual at other
+times. It was not forgotten that fees and gratuities depend on the
+last impressions made upon the minds of masters. The news of the union
+of the two divisions, that of La Billardiere and that of Clergeot,
+under one director, had spread through the various offices. The number
+of the clerks to be retired was known, but all were in ignorance of
+the names. It was taken for granted that Poiret would not be replaced,
+and that would be a retrenchment. Little La Billardiere had already
+departed. Two new supernumeraries had made their appearance, and,
+alarming circumstance! they were both sons of deputies. The news told
+about in the offices the night before, just as the clerks were
+dispersing, agitated all minds, and for the first half-hour after
+arrival in the morning they stood around the stoves and talked it
+over. But earlier than that, Dutocq, as we have seen, had rushed to
+des Lupeaulx on receiving his note, and found him dressing. Without
+laying down his razor, the general-secretary cast upon his subordinate
+the glance of a general issuing an order.
+
+"Are we alone?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Very good. March on Rabourdin; forward! steady! Of course you kept a
+copy of that paper?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You understand me? Inde iroe! There must be a general hue and cry
+raised against him. Find some way to start a clamor--"
+
+"I could get a man to make a caricature, but I haven't five hundred
+francs to pay for it."
+
+"Who would make it?"
+
+"Bixou."
+
+"He shall have a thousand and be under-head-clerk to Colleville, who
+will arrange with them; tell him so."
+
+"But he wouldn't believe it on nothing more than my word."
+
+"Are you trying to make me compromise myself? Either do the thing or
+let it alone; do you hear me?"
+
+"If Monsieur Baudoyer were director--"
+
+"Well, he will be. Go now, and make haste; you have no time to lose.
+Go down the back-stairs; I don't want people to know you have just
+seen me."
+
+While Dutocq was returning to the clerks' office and asking himself
+how he could best incite a clamor against his chief without
+compromising himself, Bixiou rushed to the Rabourdin office for a word
+of greeting. Believing that he had lost his bet the incorrigible joker
+thought it amusing to pretend that he had won it.
+
+Bixiou [mimicking Phellion's voice]. "Gentlemen, I salute you with a
+collective how d'ye do, and I appoint Sunday next for the dinner at
+the Rocher de Cancale. But a serious question presents itself. Is that
+dinner to include the clerks who are dismissed?"
+
+Poiret. "And those who retire?"
+
+Bixiou. "Not that I care, for it isn't I who pay." [General
+stupefaction.] "Baudoyer is appointed. I think I already hear him
+calling Laurent" [mimicking Baudoyer], "Laurent! lock up my hair-
+shirt, and my scourge." [They all roar with laughter.] "Yes, yes, he
+laughs well who laughs last. Gentlemen, there's a great deal in that
+anagram of Colleville's. 'Xavier Rabourdin, chef de bureau--D'abord
+reva bureaux, e-u fin riche.' If I were named 'Charles X., par la
+grace de Dieu roi de France et de Navarre,' I should tremble in my
+shoes at the fate those letters anagrammatize."
+
+Thuillier. "Look here! are you making fun?"
+
+Bixiou. "No, I am not. Rabourdin resigns in a rage at finding Baudoyer
+appointed director."
+
+Vimeux [entering.] "Nonsense, no such thing! Antoine (to whom I have
+just been paying forty francs that I owed him) tells me that Monsieur
+and Madame Rabourdin were at the minister's private party last night
+and stayed till midnight. His Excellency escorted Madame Rabourdin to
+the staircase. It seems she was divinely dressed. In short, it is
+quite certain that Rabourdin is to be director. Riffe, the secretary's
+copying clerk, told me he sat up all the night before to draw the
+papers; it is no longer a secret. Monsieur Clergeot is retired. After
+thirty years' service that's no misfortune. Monsieur Cochlin, who is
+rich--"
+
+Bixiou. "By cochineal."
+
+Vimeux. "Yes, cochineal; he's a partner in the house of Matifat, rue
+des Lombards. Well, he is retired; so is Poiret. Neither is to be
+replaced. So much is certain; the rest is all conjecture. The
+appointment of Monsieur Rabourdin is to be announced this morning;
+they are afraid of intrigues."
+
+Bixiou. "What intrigues?"
+
+Fleury. "Baudoyer's, confound him! The priests uphold him; here's
+another article in the liberal journal,--only half a dozen lines, but
+they are queer" [reads]:
+
+  "Certain persons spoke last night in the lobby of the Opera-house
+  of the return of Monsieur de Chateaubriand to the ministry, basing
+  their opinion on the choice made of Monsieur Rabourdin (the
+  protege of friends of the noble viscount) to fill the office for
+  which Monsieur Baudoyer was first selected. The clerical party is
+  not likely to withdraw unless in deference to the great writer.
+
+"Blackguards!"
+
+Dutocq [entering, having heard the whole discussion]. "Blackguards!
+Who? Rabourdin? Then you know the news?"
+
+Fleury [rolling his eyes savagely]. "Rabourdin a blackguard! Are you
+mad, Dutocq? do you want a ball in your brains to give them weight?"
+
+Dutocq. "I said nothing against Monsieur Rabourdin; only it has just
+been told to me in confidence that he has written a paper denouncing
+all the clerks and officials, and full of facts about their lives; in
+short, the reason why his friends support him is because he has
+written this paper against the administration, in which we are all
+exposed--"
+
+Phellion [in a loud voice]. "Monsieur Rabourdin is incapable of--"
+
+Bixiou. "Very proper in you to say so. Tell me, Dutocq" [they whisper
+together and then go into the corridor].
+
+Bixiou. "What has happened?"
+
+Dutocq. "Do you remember what I said to you about that caricature?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, what then?"
+
+Dutocq. "Make it, and you shall be under-head-clerk with a famous fee.
+The fact is, my dear fellow, there's dissension among the powers that
+be. The minister is pledged to Rabourdin, but if he doesn't appoint
+Baudoyer he offends the priests and their party. You see, the King,
+the Dauphin and the Dauphine, the clergy, and lastly the court, all
+want Baudoyer; the minister wants Rabourdin."
+
+Bixiou. "Good!"
+
+Dutocq. "To ease the matter off, the minister, who sees he must give
+way, wants to strangle the difficulty. We must find some good reason
+for getting rid of Rabourdin. Now somebody has lately unearthed a
+paper of his, exposing the present system of administration and
+wanting to reform it; and that paper is going the rounds,--at least,
+this is how I understand the matter. Make the drawing we talked of; in
+so doing you'll play the game of all the big people, and help the
+minister, the court, the clergy,--in short, everybody; and you'll get
+your appointment. Now do you understand me?"
+
+Bixiou. "I don't understand how you came to know all that; perhaps you
+are inventing it."
+
+Dutocq. "Do you want me to let you see what Rabourdin wrote about
+you?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes."
+
+Dutocq. "Then come home with me; for I must put the document into safe
+keeping."
+
+Bixiou. "You go first alone." [Re-enters the bureau Rabourdin.] "What
+Dutocq told you is really all true, word of honor! It seems that
+Monsieur Rabourdin has written and sent in very unflattering
+descriptions of the clerks whom he wants to 'reform.' That's the real
+reason why his secret friends wish him appointed. Well, well; we live
+in days when nothing astonishes me" [flings his cloak about him like
+Talma, and declaims]:--
+
+  "Thou who has seen the fall of grand, illustrious heads,
+  Why thus amazed, insensate that thou art,
+
+"to find a man like Rabourdin employing such means? Baudoyer is too
+much of a fool to know how to use them. Accept my congratulations,
+gentlemen; either way you are under a most illustrious chief" [goes
+off].
+
+Poiret. "I shall leave this ministry without ever comprehending a
+single word that gentleman utters. What does he mean with his 'heads
+that fall'?"
+
+Fleury. "'Heads that fell?' why, think of the four sergeants of
+Rochelle, Ney, Berton, Caron, the brothers Faucher, and the
+massacres."
+
+Phellion. "He asserts very flippantly things that he only guesses at."
+
+Fleury. "Say at once that he lies; in his mouth truth itself turns to
+corrosion."
+
+Phellion. "Your language is unparliamentary and lacks the courtesy and
+consideration which are due to a colleague."
+
+Vimeux. "It seems to me that if what he says is false, the proper name
+for it is calumny, defamation of character; and such a slanderer
+deserves the thrashing."
+
+Fleury [getting hot]. "If the government offices are public places,
+the matter ought to be taken into the police-courts."
+
+Phellion [wishing to avert a quarrel, tries to turn the conversation].
+"Gentleman, might I ask you to keep quiet? I am writing a little
+treatise on moral philosophy, and I am just at the heart of it."
+
+Fleury [interrupting]. "What are you saying about it, Monsieur
+Phellion?"
+
+Phellion [reading]. "Question.--What is the soul of man?
+
+"Answer.--A spiritual substance which thinks and reasons."
+
+Thuillier. "Spiritual substance! you might as well talk about
+immaterial stone."
+
+Poiret. "Don't interrupt; let him go on."
+
+Phellion [continuing]. "Quest.--Whence comes the soul?
+
+"Ans.--From God, who created it of a nature one and indivisible; the
+destructibility thereof is, consequently, not conceivable, and he hath
+said--"
+
+Poiret [amazed]. "God said?"
+
+Phellion. "Yes, monsieur; tradition authorizes the statement."
+
+Fleury [to Poiret]. "Come, don't interrupt, yourself."
+
+Phellion [resuming]. "--and he hath said that he created it immortal;
+in other words, the soul can never die.
+
+"Quest.--What are the uses of the soul?
+
+"Ans.--To comprehend, to will, to remember; these constitute
+understanding, volition, memory.
+
+"Quest.--What are the uses of the understanding?
+
+"Ans.--To know. It is the eye of the soul."
+
+Fleury. "And the soul is the eye of what?"
+
+Phellion [continuing]. "Quest.--What ought the understanding to know?
+
+"Ans.--Truth.
+
+"Quest.--Why does man possess volition?
+
+"Ans.--To love good and hate evil.
+
+"Quest.--What is good?
+
+"Ans.--That which makes us happy."
+
+Vimeux. "Heavens! do you teach that to young ladies?"
+
+Phellion. "Yes" [continuing]. "Quest.--How many kinds of good are
+there?"
+
+Fleury. "Amazingly indecorous, to say the least."
+
+Phellion [aggrieved]. "Oh, monsieur!" [Controlling himself.] "But
+here's the answer,--that's as far as I have got" [reads]:--
+
+"Ans.--There are two kinds of good,--eternal good and temporal good."
+
+Poiret [with a look of contempt]. "And does that sell for anything?"
+
+Phellion. "I hope it will. It requires great application of mind to
+carry on a system of questions and answers; that is why I ask you to
+be quiet and let me think, for the answers--"
+
+Thuillier [interrupting]. "The answers might be sold separately."
+
+Poiret. "Is that a pun?"
+
+Thuillier. "No; a riddle."
+
+Phellion. "I am sorry I interrupted you" [he dives into his office
+desk]. "But" [to himself] "at any rate, I have stopped their talking
+about Monsieur Rabourdin."
+
+At this moment a scene was taking place between the minister and des
+Lupeaulx which decided Rabourdin's fate. The general-secretary had
+gone to see the minister in his private study before the breakfast-
+hour, to make sure that La Briere was not within hearing.
+
+"Your Excellency is not treating me frankly--"
+
+"He means a quarrel," thought the minister; "and all because his
+mistress coquetted with me last night. I did not think you so
+juvenile, my dear friend," he said aloud.
+
+"Friend?" said the general-secretary, "that is what I want to find
+out."
+
+The minister looked haughtily at des Lupeaulx.
+
+"We are alone," continued the secretary, "and we can come to an
+understanding. The deputy of the arrondissement in which my estate is
+situated--"
+
+"So it is really an estate!" said the minister, laughing, to hide his
+surprise.
+
+"Increased by a recent purchase of two hundred thousand francs' worth
+of adjacent property," replied des Lupeaulx, carelessly. "You knew of
+the deputy's approaching resignation at least ten days ago, and you
+did not tell me of it. You were perhaps not bound to do so, but you
+knew very well that I am most anxious to take my seat in the centre.
+Has it occurred to you that I might fling myself back on the
+'Doctrine'?--which, let me tell you, will destroy the administration
+and the monarchy both if you continue to allow the party of
+representative government to be recruited from men of talent whom you
+ignore. Don't you know that in every nation there are fifty to sixty,
+not more, dangerous heads, whose schemes are in proportion to their
+ambition? The secret of knowing how to govern is to know those heads
+well, and either to chop them off or buy them. I don't know how much
+talent I have, but I know that I have ambition; and you are committing
+a serious blunder when you set aside a man who wishes you well. The
+anointed head dazzles for the time being, but what next?--Why, a war
+of words; discussions will spring up once more and grow embittered,
+envenomed. Then, for your own sake, I advise you not to find me at the
+Left Centre. In spite of your prefect's manoeuvres (instructions for
+which no doubt went from here confidentially) I am secure of a
+majority. The time has come for you and me to understand each other.
+After a breeze like this people sometimes become closer friends than
+ever. I must be made count and receive the grand cordon of the Legion
+of honor as a reward for my public services. However, I care less for
+those things just now than I do for something else in which you are
+more personally concerned. You have not yet appointed Rabourdin, and I
+have news this morning which tends to show that most persons will be
+better satisfied if you appoint Baudoyer."
+
+"Appoint Baudoyer!" echoed the minister. "Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes," said des Lupeaulx; "but suppose he proves incapable, as he
+will, you can then get rid of him by asking those who protect him to
+employ him elsewhere. You will thus get back an important office to
+give to friends; it may come in at the right moment to facilitate some
+compromise."
+
+"But I have pledged it to Rabourdin."
+
+"That may be; and I don't ask you to make the change this very day. I
+know the danger of saying yes and no within twenty-four hours. But
+postpone the appointment, and don't sign the papers till the day after
+to-morrow; by that time you may find it impossible to retain
+Rabourdin,--in fact, in all probability, he will send you his
+resignation--"
+
+"His resignation?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He is the tool of a secret power in whose interests he has carried on
+a system of espionage in all the ministries, and the thing has been
+discovered by mere accident. He has written a paper of some kind,
+giving short histories of all the officials. Everybody is talking of
+it; the clerks are furious. For heaven's sake, don't transact business
+with him to-day; let me find some means for you to avoid it. Ask an
+audience of the King; I am sure you will find great satisfaction there
+if you concede the point about Baudoyer; and you can obtain something
+as an equivalent. Your position will be better than ever if you are
+forced later to dismiss a fool whom the court party impose upon you."
+
+"What has made you turn against Rabourdin?"
+
+"Would you forgive Monsieur de Chateaubriand for writing an article
+against the ministry? Well, read that, and see how Rabourdin has
+treated me in his secret document," said des Lupeaulx, giving the
+paper to the minister. "He pretends to reorganize the government from
+beginning to end,--no doubt in the interests of some secret society of
+which, as yet, we know nothing. I shall continue to be his friend for
+the sake of watching him; by that means I may render the government
+such signal service that they will have to make me count; for the
+peerage is the only thing I really care for. I want you fully to
+understand that I am not seeking office or anything else that would
+cause me to stand in your way; I am simply aiming for the peerage,
+which will enable me to marry a banker's daughter with an income of a
+couple of hundred thousand francs. And so, allow me to render you a
+few signal services which will make the King feel that I have saved
+the throne. I have long said that Liberalism would never offer us a
+pitched battle. It has given up conspiracies, Carbonaroism, and
+revolts with weapons; it is now sapping and mining, and the day is
+coming when it will be able to say, 'Out of that and let me in!' Do
+you think I have been courting Rabourdin's wife for my own pleasure?
+No, but I got much information from her. So now, let us agree on two
+things; first, the postponement of the appointment; second, your
+SINCERE support of my election. You shall find at the end of the
+session that I have amply repaid you."
+
+For all answer, the minister took the appointment papers and placed
+them in des Lupeaulx's hand.
+
+"I will go and tell Rabourdin," added des Lupeaulx, "that you cannot
+transact business with him till Saturday."
+
+The minister replied with an assenting gesture. The secretary
+despatched his man with a message to Rabourdin that the minister could
+not work with him until Saturday, on which day the Chamber was
+occupied with private bills, and his Excellency had more time at his
+disposal.
+
+Just at this moment Saillard, having brought the monthly stipend, was
+slipping his little speech into the ear of the minister's wife, who
+drew herself up and answered with dignity that she did not meddle in
+political matters, and besides, she had heard that Monsieur Rabourdin
+was already appointed. Saillard, terrified, rushed up to Baudoyer's
+office, where he found Dutocq, Godard, and Bixiou in a state of
+exasperation difficult to describe; for they were reading the terrible
+paper on the administration in which they were all discussed.
+
+Bixiou [with his finger on a paragraph]. "Here YOU are, pere Saillard.
+Listen" [reads]:--
+
+"Saillard.--The office of cashier to be suppressed in all the
+ministries; their accounts to be kept in future at the Treasury.
+Saillard is rich and does not need a pension.
+
+"Do you want to hear about your son-in-law?" [Turns over the leaves.]
+"Here he is" [reads]:--
+
+"Baudoyer.--Utterly incapable. To be thanked and dismissed. Rich; does
+not need a pension.
+
+"And here's for Godard" [reads]:--
+
+"Godard.--Should be dismissed; pension one-third of his present
+salary.
+
+"In short, here we all are. Listen to what I am" [reads]: "An artist
+who might be employed by the civil list, at the Opera, or the Menus-
+Plaisirs, or the Museum. Great deal of capacity, little self-respect,
+no application,--a restless spirit. Ha! I'll give you a touch of the
+artist, Monsieur Rabourdin!"
+
+Saillard. "Suppress cashiers! Why, the man's a monster?"
+
+Bixiou. "Let us see what he says of our mysterious Desroys." [Turns
+over the pages; reads.]
+
+"Desroys.--Dangerous; because he cannot be shaken in principles that
+are subversive of monarchial power. He is the son of the Conventionel,
+and he admires the Convention. He may become a very mischievous
+journalist."
+
+Baudoyer. "The police are not worse spies!"
+
+Godard. "I shall go the general-secretary and lay a complaint in form;
+we must all resign in a body if such a man as that is put over us."
+
+Dutocq. "Gentlemen, listen to me; let us be prudent. If you rise at
+once in a body, we may all be accused of rancor and revenge. No, let
+the thing work, let the rumor spread quietly. When the whole ministry
+is aroused your remonstrances will meet with general approval."
+
+Bixiou. "Dutocq believes in the principles of the grand air composed
+by the sublime Rossini for Basilio,--which goes to show, by the bye,
+that the great composer was also a great politician. I shall leave my
+card on Monsieur Rabourdin to-morrow morning, inscribed thus: 'Bixiou;
+no self-respect, no application, restless mind.'"
+
+Godard. "A good idea, gentlemen. Let us all leave our cards to-morrow
+on Rabourdin inscribed in the same way."
+
+Dutocq [leading Bixiou apart]. "Come, you'll agree to make that
+caricature now, won't you?"
+
+Bixiou. "I see plainly, my dear fellow, that you knew all about this
+affair ten days ago" [looks him in the eye]. "Am I to be under-head-
+clerk?"
+
+Dutocq. "On my word of honor, yes, and a thousand-franc fee beside,
+just as I told you. You don't know what a service you'll be rendering
+to powerful personages."
+
+Bixiou. "You know them?"
+
+Dutocq. "Yes."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, then I want to speak with them."
+
+Dutocq [dryly]. "You can make the caricature or not, and you can be
+under-head-clerk or not,--as you please."
+
+Bixiou. "At any rate, let me see that thousand francs."
+
+Dutocq. "You shall have them when you bring the drawing."
+
+Bixiou. "Forward, march! that lampoon shall go from end to end of the
+bureaus to-morrow morning. Let us go and torment the Rabourdins."
+[Then speaking to Saillard, Godard, and Baudoyer, who were talking
+together in a low voice.] "We are going to stir up the neighbors."
+[Goes with Dutocq into the Rabourdin bureau. Fleury, Thuillier, and
+Vimeux are there, talking excitedly.] "What's the matter, gentlemen?
+All that I told you turns out to be true; you can go and see for
+yourselves the work of this infamous informer; for it is in the hands
+of the virtuous, honest, estimable, upright, and pious Baudoyer, who
+is indeed utterly incapable of doing any such thing. Your chief has
+got every one of you under the guillotine. Go and see; follow the
+crowd; money returned if you are not satisfied; execution GRATIS! The
+appointments are postponed. All the bureaus are in arms; Rabourdin has
+been informed that the minister will not work with him. Come, be off;
+go and see for yourselves."
+
+They all depart except Phellion and Poiret, who are left alone. The
+former loved Rabourdin too well to look for proof that might injure a
+man he was determined not to judge; the other had only five days more
+to remain in the office, and cared nothing either way. Just then
+Sebastien came down to collect the papers for signature. He was a good
+deal surprised, though he did not show it, to find the office
+deserted.
+
+Phellion. "My young friend" [he rose, a rare thing], "do you know what
+is going on? what scandals are rife about Monsieur Rabourdin whom you
+love, and" [bending to whisper in Sebastien's ear] "whom I love as
+much as I respect him. They say he has committed the imprudence to
+leave a paper containing comments on the officials lying about in the
+office--" [Phellion stopped short, caught the young man in his strong
+arms, seeing that he turned pale and was near fainting, and placed him
+on a chair.] "A key, Monsieur Poiret, to put down his back; have you a
+key?"
+
+Poiret. "I have the key of my domicile."
+
+[Old Poiret junior promptly inserted the said key between Sebastien's
+shoulders, while Phellion gave him some water to drink. The poor lad
+no sooner opened his eyes than he began to weep. He laid his head on
+Phellion's desk, and all his limbs were limp as if struck by
+lightning; while his sobs were so heartrending, so genuine, that for
+the first time in his life Poiret's feelings were stirred by the
+sufferings of another.]
+
+Phellion [speaking firmly]. "Come, come, my young friend; courage! In
+times of trial we must show courage. You are a man. What is the
+matter? What has happened to distress you so terribly?"
+
+Sebastien [sobbing]. "It is I who have ruined Monsieur Rabourdin. I
+left that paper lying about when I copied it. I have killed my
+benefactor; I shall die myself. Such a noble man!--a man who ought to
+be minister!"
+
+Poiret [blowing his nose]. "Then it is true he wrote the report."
+
+Sebastien [still sobbing]. "But it was to--there, I was going to tell
+his secrets! Ah! that wretch of a Dutocq; it was he who stole the
+paper."
+
+His tears and sobs recommenced and made so much noise that Rabourdin
+came up to see what was the matter. He found the young fellow almost
+fainting in the arms of Poiret and Phellion.
+
+Rabourdin. "What is the matter, gentlemen?"
+
+Sebastien [struggling to his feet, and then falling on his knees
+before Rabourdin]. "I have ruined you, monsieur. That memorandum,--
+Dutocq, the monster, he must have taken it."
+
+Rabourdin [calmly]. "I knew that already" [he lifts Sebastien]. "You
+are a child, my young friend." [Speaks to Phellion.] "Where are the
+other gentlemen?"
+
+Phellion. "They have gone into Monsieur Baudoyer's office to see a
+paper which it is said--"
+
+Rabourdin [interrupting him]. "Enough." [Goes out, taking Sebastien
+with him. Poiret and Phellion look at each other in amazement, and do
+not know what to say.]
+
+Poiret [to Phellion]. "Monsieur Rabourdin--"
+
+Phellion [to Poiret]. "Monsieur Rabourdin--"
+
+Poiret. "Well, I never! Monsieur Rabourdin!"
+
+Phellion. "But did you notice how calm and dignified he was?"
+
+Poiret [with a sly look that was more like a grimace]. "I shouldn't be
+surprised if there were something under it all."
+
+Phellion. "A man of honor; pure and spotless."
+
+Poiret. "Who is?"
+
+Phellion. "Monsieur Poiret, you think as I think about Dutocq; surely
+you understand me?"
+
+Poiret [nodding his head three times and answering with a shrewd
+look]. "Yes." [The other clerks return.]
+
+Fleury. "A great shock; I still don't believe the thing. Monsieur
+Rabourdin, a king among men! If such men are spies, it is enough to
+disgust one with virtue. I have always put Rabourdin among Plutarch's
+heroes."
+
+Vimeux. "It is all true."
+
+Poiret [reflecting that he had only five days more to stay in the
+office]. "But, gentlemen, what do you say about the man who stole that
+paper, who spied upon Rabourdin?" [Dutocq left the room.]
+
+Fleury. "I say he is a Judas Iscariot. Who is he?"
+
+Phellion [significantly]. "He is not here at THIS MOMENT."
+
+Vimeux [enlightened]. "It is Dutocq!"
+
+Phellion. "I have no proof of it, gentlemen. While you were gone, that
+young man, Monsieur de la Roche, nearly fainted here. See his tears on
+my desk!"
+
+Poiret. "We held him fainting in our arms.--My key, the key of my
+domicile!--dear, dear! it is down his back." [Poiret goes hastily
+out.]
+
+Vimeux. "The minister refused to transact business with Rabourdin to-
+day; and Monsieur Saillard, to whom the secretary said a few words,
+came to tell Monsieur Baudoyer to apply for the cross of the Legion of
+honor,--there is one to be granted, you know, on New-Year's day, to
+all the heads of divisions. It is quite clear what it all means.
+Monsieur Rabourdin is sacrificed by the very persons who employed him.
+Bixiou says so. We were all to be turned out, except Sebastien and
+Phellion."
+
+Du Bruel [entering]. "Well, gentlemen, is it true?"
+
+Thuillier. "To the last word."
+
+Du Bruel [putting his hat on again]. "Good-bye." [Hurries out.]
+
+Thuillier. "He may rush as much as he pleases to his Duc de Rhetore
+and Duc de Maufrigneuse, but Colleville is to be our under-head-clerk,
+that's certain."
+
+Phellion. "Du Bruel always seemed to be attached to Monsieur
+Rabourdin."
+
+Poiret [returning]. "I have had a world of trouble to get back my key.
+That boy is crying still, and Monsieur Rabourdin has disappeared."
+[Dutocq and Bixiou enter.]
+
+Bixiou. "Ha, gentlemen! strange things are going on in your bureau. Du
+Bruel! I want you." [Looks into the adjoining room.] "Gone?"
+
+Thuillier. "Full speed."
+
+Bixiou. "What about Rabourdin?"
+
+Fleury. "Distilled, evaporated, melted! Such a man, the king of men,
+that he--"
+
+Poiret [to Dutocq]. "That little Sebastien, in his trouble, said that
+you, Monsieur Dutocq, had taken the paper from him ten days ago."
+
+Bixiou [looking at Dutocq]. "You must clear yourself of THAT, my good
+friend." [All the clerks look fixedly at Dutocq.]
+
+Dutocq. "Where's the little viper who copied it?"
+
+Bixiou. "Copied it? How did you know he copied it? Ha! ha! it is only
+the diamond that cuts the diamond." [Dutocq leaves the room.]
+
+Poiret. "Would you listen to me, Monsieur Bixiou? I have only five
+days and a half to stay in this office, and I do wish that once, only
+once, I might have the pleasure of understanding what you mean. Do me
+the honor to explain what diamonds have to do with these present
+circumstances."
+
+Bixiou. "I meant papa,--for I'm willing for once to bring my intellect
+down to the level of yours,--that just as the diamond alone can cut
+the diamond, so it is only one inquisitive man who can defeat another
+inquisitive man."
+
+Fleury. "'Inquisitive man' stands for 'spy.'"
+
+Poiret. "I don't understand."
+
+Bixiou. "Very well; try again some other time."
+
+Monsieur Rabourdin, after taking Sebastien to his room, had gone
+straight to the minister; but the minister was at the Chamber of
+Deputies. Rabourdin went at once to the Chamber, where he wrote a note
+to his Excellency, who was at that moment in the tribune engaged in a
+hot discussion. Rabourdin waited, not in the conference hall, but in
+the courtyard, where, in spite of the cold, he resolved to remain and
+intercept his Excellency as he got into his carriage. The usher of the
+Chamber had told him that the minister was in the thick of a
+controversy raised by the nineteen members of the extreme Left, and
+that the session was likely to be stormy. Rabourdin walked to and for
+in the courtyard of the palace for five mortal hours, a prey to
+feverish agitation. At half-past six o'clock the session broke up, and
+the members filed out. The minister's chasseur came up to find the
+coachman.
+
+"Hi, Jean!" he called out to him; "Monseigneur has gone with the
+minister of war; they are going to see the King, and after that they
+dine together, and we are to fetch him at ten o'clock. There's a
+Council this evening."
+
+Rabourdin walked slowly home, in a state of despondency not difficult
+to imagine. It was seven o'clock, and he had barely time to dress.
+
+"Well, you are appointed?" cried his wife, joyously, as he entered the
+salon.
+
+Rabourdin raised his head with a grievous motion of distress and
+answered, "I fear I shall never again set foot in the ministry."
+
+"What?" said his wife, quivering with sudden anxiety.
+
+"My memorandum on the officials is known in all the offices; and I
+have not been able to see the minister."
+
+Celestine's eyes were opened to a sudden vision in which the devil, in
+one of his infernal flashes, showed her the meaning of her last
+conversation with des Lupeaulx.
+
+"If I had behaved like a low woman," she thought, "we should have had
+the place."
+
+She looked at Rabourdin with grief in her heart. A sad silence fell
+between them, and dinner was eaten in the midst of gloomy meditations.
+
+"And it is my Wednesday," she said at last.
+
+"All is not lost, dear Celestine," said Rabourdin, laying a kiss on
+his wife's forehead; "perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to see the
+minister and explain everything. Sebastien sat up all last night to
+finish the writing; the papers are copied and collated; I shall place
+them on the minister's desk and beg him to read them through. La
+Briere will help me. A man is never condemned without a hearing."
+
+"I am curious to see if Monsieur des Lupeaulx will come here to-
+night."
+
+"He? Of course he will come," said Rabourdin; "there's something of
+the tiger in him; he likes to lick the blood of the wounds he has
+given."
+
+"My poor husband," said his wife, taking his hand, "I don't see how it
+is that a man who could conceive so noble a reform did not also see
+that it ought not to be communicated to a single person. It is one of
+those ideas that a man should keep in his own mind, for he alone can
+apply them. A statesman must do in our political sphere as Napoleon
+did in his; he stooped, twisted, crawled. Yes, Bonaparte crawled! To
+be made commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy he married Barrere's
+mistress. You should have waited, got yourself elected deputy,
+followed the politics of a party, sometimes down in the depths, at
+other times on the crest of the wave, and you should have taken, like
+Monsieur de Villele, the Italian motto 'Col tempo,' in other words,
+'All things are given to him who knows how to wait.' That great orator
+worked for seven years to get into power; he began in 1814 by
+protesting against the Charter when he was the same age that you are
+now. Here's your fault; you have allowed yourself to be kept
+subordinate, when you were born to rule."
+
+The entrance of the painter Schinner imposed silence on the wife and
+husband, but these words made the latter thoughtful.
+
+"Dear friend," said the painter, grasping Rabourdin's hand, "the
+support of artists is a useless thing enough, but let me say under
+these circumstances that we are all faithful to you. I have just read
+the evening papers. Baudoyer is appointed director and receives the
+cross of the Legion of honor--"
+
+"I have been longer in the department, I have served twenty-four
+hours," said Rabourdin with a smile.
+
+"I know Monsieur le Comte de Serizy, the minister of State, pretty
+well, and if he can help you, I will go and see him," said Schinner.
+
+The salon soon filled with persons who knew nothing of the government
+proceedings. Du Bruel did not appear. Madame Rabourdin was gayer and
+more graceful than ever, like the charger wounded in battle, that
+still finds strength to carry his master from the field.
+
+"She is very courageous," said a few women who knew the truth, and who
+were charmingly attentive to her, understanding her misfortunes.
+
+"But she certainly did a great deal to attract des Lupeaulx," said the
+Baronne du Chatelet to the Vicomtesse de Fontaine.
+
+"Do you think--" began the vicomtesse.
+
+"If so," interrupted Madame de Camps, in defence of her friend,
+"Monsieur Rabourdin would at least have had the cross."
+
+About eleven o'clock des Lupeaulx appeared; and we can only describe
+him by saying that his spectacles were sad and his eyes joyous; the
+glasses, however, obscured the glances so successfully that only a
+physiognomist would have seen the diabolical expression which they
+wore. He went up to Rabourdin and pressed the hand which the latter
+could not avoid giving him.
+
+Then he approached Madame Rabourdin.
+
+"We have much to say to each other," he remarked as he seated himself
+beside the beautiful woman, who received him admirably.
+
+"Ah!" he continued, giving her a side glance, "you are grand indeed; I
+find you just what I expected, glorious under defeat. Do you know that
+it is a very rare thing to find a superior woman who answers to the
+expectations formed of her. So defeat doesn't dishearten you? You are
+right; we shall triumph in the end," he whispered in her ear. "Your
+fate is always in your own hands,--so long, I mean, as your ally is a
+man who adores you. We will hold counsel together."
+
+"But is Baudoyer appointed?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," said the secretary.
+
+"Does he get the cross?"
+
+"Not yet; but he will have it later."
+
+"Amazing!"
+
+"Ah! you don't understand political exigencies."
+
+During this evening, which seemed interminable to Madame Rabourdin,
+another scene was occurring in the place Royale,--one of those
+comedies which are played in seven Parisian salons whenever there is a
+change of ministry. The Saillards' salon was crowded. Monsieur and
+Madame Transon arrived at eight o'clock; Madame Transon kissed Madame
+Baudoyer, nee Saillard. Monsieur Bataille, captain of the National
+Guard, came with his wife and the curate of Saint Paul's.
+
+"Monsieur Baudoyer," said Madame Transon. "I wish to be the first to
+congratulate you; they have done justice to your talents. You have
+indeed earned your promotion."
+
+"Here you are, director," said Monsieur Transon, rubbing his hands,
+"and the appointment is very flattering to this neighborhood."
+
+"And we can truly say it came to pass without any intriguing," said
+the worthy Saillard. "We are none of us political intriguers; WE don't
+go to select parties at the ministry."
+
+Uncle Mitral rubbed his nose and grinned as he glanced at his niece
+Elisabeth, the woman whose hand had pulled the wires, who was talking
+with Gigonnet. Falleix, honest fellow, did not know what to make of
+the stupid blindness of Saillard and Baudoyer. Messieurs Dutocq,
+Bixiou, du Bruel, Godard, and Colleville (the latter appointed head of
+the bureau) entered.
+
+"What a crew!" whispered Bixiou to du Bruel. "I could make a fine
+caricature of them in the shapes of fishes,--dorys, flounders, sharks,
+and snappers, all dancing a saraband!"
+
+"Monsieur," said Colleville, "I come to offer you my congratulations;
+or rather we congratulate ourselves in having such a man placed over
+us; and we desire to assure you of the zeal with which we shall co-
+operate in your labors. Allow me to say that this event affords a
+signal proof to the truth of my axiom that a man's destiny lies in the
+letters of his name. I may say that I knew of this appointment and of
+your other honors before I heard of them, for I spend the night in
+anagrammatizing your name as follows:" [proudly] "Isidore C. T.
+Baudoyer,--Director, decorated by us (his Majesty the King, of
+course)."
+
+Baudoyer bowed and remarked piously that names were given in baptism.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer, senior, father and mother of the new
+director, were there to enjoy the glory of their son and daughter-in-
+law. Uncle Gigonnet-Bidault, who had dined at the house, had a
+restless, fidgety look in his eye which frightened Bixiou.
+
+"There's a queer one," said the latter to du Bruel, calling his
+attention to Gigonnet, "who would do in a vaudeville. I wonder if he
+could be bought. Such an old scarecrow is just the thing for a sign
+over the Two Baboons. And what a coat! I did think there was nobody
+but Poiret who could show the like after that after ten years' public
+exposure to the inclemencies of Parisian weather."
+
+"Baudoyer is magnificent," said du Bruel.
+
+"Dazzling," answered Bixiou.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Baudoyer, "let me present you to my own uncle,
+Monsieur Mitral, and to my great-uncle through my wife, Monsieur
+Bidault."
+
+Gigonnet and Mitral gave a glance at the three clerks so penetrating,
+so glittering with gleams of gold, that the two scoffers were sobered
+at once.
+
+"Hein?" said Bixiou, when they were safely under the arcades in the
+place Royale; "did you examine those uncles?--two copies of Shylock.
+I'll bet their money is lent in the market at a hundred per cent per
+week. They lend on pawn; and sell most that they lay hold of, coats,
+gold lace, cheese, men, women, and children; they are a conglomeration
+of Arabs, Jews, Genoese, Genevese, Greeks, Lombards, and Parisians,
+suckled by a wolf and born of a Turkish woman."
+
+"I believe you," said Godard. "Uncle Mitral used to be a sheriff's
+officer."
+
+"That settles it," said du Bruel.
+
+"I'm off to see the proof of my caricature," said Bixiou; "but I
+should like to study the state of things in Rabourdin's salon to-
+night. You are lucky to be able to go there, du Bruel."
+
+"I!" said the vaudevillist, "what should I do there? My face doesn't
+lend itself to condolences. And it is very vulgar in these days to go
+and see people who are down."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE RESIGNATION
+
+By midnight Madame Rabourdin's salon was deserted; only two or three
+guests remained with des Lupeaulx and the master and mistress of the
+house. When Schinner and Monsieur and Madame de Camps had likewise
+departed, des Lupeaulx rose with a mysterious air, stood with his back
+to the fireplace and looked alternately at the husband and wife.
+
+"My friends," he said, "nothing is really lost, for the minister and I
+are faithful to you. Dutocq simply chose between two powers the one he
+thought strongest. He has served the court and the Grand Almoner; he
+has betrayed me. But that is in the order of things; a politician
+never complains of treachery. Nevertheless, Baudoyer will be dismissed
+as incapable in a few months; no doubt his protectors will find him a
+place,--in the prefecture of police, perhaps,--for the clergy will not
+desert him."
+
+From this point des Lupeaulx went on with a long tirade about the
+Grand Almoner and the dangers the government ran in relying upon the
+church and upon the Jesuits. We need not, we think, point out to the
+intelligent reader that the court and the Grand Almoner, to whom the
+liberal journals attributed an enormous influence under the
+administration, had little really to do with Monsieur Baudoyer's
+appointment. Such petty intrigues die in the upper sphere of great
+self-interests. If a few words in favor of Baudoyer were obtained by
+the importunity of the curate of Saint-Paul's and the Abbe Gaudron,
+they would have been withdrawn immediately at a suggestion from the
+minister. The occult power of the Congregation of Jesus (admissible
+certainly as confronting the bold society of the "Doctrine," entitled
+"Help yourself and heaven will help you,") was formidable only through
+the imaginary force conferred on it by subordinate powers who
+perpetually threatened each other with its evils. The liberal scandal-
+mongers delighted in representing the Grand Almoner and the whole
+Jesuitical Chapter as political, administrative, civil, and military
+giants. Fear creates bugbears. At this crisis Baudoyer firmly believed
+in the said Chapter, little aware that the only Jesuits who had put
+him where he now was sat by his own fireside, and in the Cafe Themis
+playing dominoes.
+
+At certain epochs in history certain powers appear, to whom all evils
+are attributed, though at the same time their genius is denied; they
+form an efficient argument in the mouth of fools. Just as Monsieur de
+Talleyrand was supposed to hail all events of whatever kind with a bon
+mot, so in these days of the Restoration the clerical party had the
+credit of doing and undoing everything. Unfortunately, it did and
+undid nothing. Its influence was not wielded by a Cardinal Richelieu
+or a Cardinal Mazarin; it was in the hands of a species of Cardinal de
+Fleury, who, timid for over five years, turned bold for one day,
+injudiciously bold. Later on, the "Doctrine" did more, with impunity,
+at Saint-Merri, than Charles X. pretended to do in July, 1830. If the
+section on the censorship so foolishly introduced into the new charter
+had been omitted, journalism also would have had its Saint-Merri. The
+younger Branch could have legally carried out Charles X.'s plan.
+
+"Remain where you are, head of a bureau under Baudoyer," went on des
+Lupeaulx. "Have the nerve to do this; make yourself a true politician;
+put ideas and generous impulses aside; attend only to your functions;
+don't say a word to your new director; don't help him with a
+suggestion; and do nothing yourself without his order. In three months
+Baudoyer will be out of the ministry, either dismissed, or stranded on
+some other administrative shore. They may attach him to the king's
+household. Twice in my life I have been set aside as you are, and
+overwhelmed by an avalanche of folly; I have quietly waited and let it
+pass."
+
+"Yes," said Rabourdin, "but you were not calumniated; your honor was
+not assailed, compromised--"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" cried des Lupeaulx, interrupting him with a burst of
+Homeric laughter. "Why, that's the daily bread of every remarkable man
+in this glorious kingdom of France! And there are but two ways to meet
+such calumny,--either yield to it, pack up, and go plant cabbages in
+the country; or else rise above it, march on, fearless, and don't turn
+your head."
+
+"For me, there is but one way of untying the noose which treachery and
+the work of spies have fastened round my throat," replied Rabourdin.
+"I must explain the matter at once to his Excellency, and if you are
+as sincerely attached to me as you say you are, you will put me face
+to face with him to-morrow."
+
+"You mean that you wish to explain to him your plan for the reform of
+the service?"
+
+Rabourdin bowed.
+
+"Well, then, trust the papers with me,--your memoranda, all the
+documents. I promise you that he shall sit up all night and examine
+them."
+
+"Let us go to him, then!" cried Rabourdin, eagerly; "six years' toil
+certainly deserves two or three hours attention from the king's
+minister, who will be forced to recognize, if he does not applaud,
+such perseverance."
+
+Compelled by Rabourdin's tenacity to take a straightforward path,
+without ambush or angle where his treachery could hide itself, des
+Lupeaulx hesitated for a single instant, and looked at Madame
+Rabourdin, while he inwardly asked himself, "Which shall I permit to
+triumph, my hatred for him, or my fancy for her?"
+
+"You have no confidence in my honor," he said, after a pause. "I see
+that you will always be to me the author of your SECRET ANALYSIS.
+Adieu, madame."
+
+Madame Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier returned at once
+to their own rooms without a word; both were overcome by their
+misfortune. The wife thought of the dreadful situation in which she
+stood toward her husband. The husband, resolving slowly not to remain
+at the ministry but to send in his resignation at once, was lost in a
+sea of reflections; the crisis for him meant a total change of life
+and the necessity of starting on a new career. All night he sat before
+his fire, taking no notice of Celestine, who came in several times on
+tiptoe, in her night-dress.
+
+"I must go once more to the ministry, to bring away my papers, and
+show Baudoyer the routine of the business," he said to himself at
+last. "I had better write my resignation now."
+
+He turned to his table and began to write, thinking over each clause
+of the letter, which was as follows:--
+
+  Monseigneur,--I have the honor to inclose to your Excellency my
+  resignation. I venture to hope that you still remember hearing me
+  say that I left my honor in your hands, and that everything, for
+  me, depended on my being able to give you an immediate
+  explanation.
+
+  This explanation I have vainly sought to give. To-day it would,
+  perhaps, be useless; for a fragment of my work relating to the
+  administration, stolen and misused, has gone the rounds of the
+  offices and is misinterpreted by hatred; in consequence, I find
+  myself compelled to resign, under the tacit condemnation of my
+  superiors.
+
+  Your Excellency may have thought, on the morning when I first
+  sought to speak with you, that my purpose was to ask for my
+  promotion, when, in fact, I was thinking only of the glory and
+  usefulness of your ministry and of the public good. It is all-
+  important, I think, to correct that impression.
+
+Then followed the usual epistolary formulas.
+
+It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated the
+sacrifice of his ideas; he burned everything, the toil of years.
+Fatigued by the pressure of thought, overcome by mental suffering, he
+fell asleep with his head on the back of his armchair. He was wakened
+by a curious sensation, and found his hands covered with his wife's
+tears and saw her kneeling before him. Celestine had read the
+resignation. She could measure the depth of his fall. They were now to
+be reduced to live on four thousand francs a year; and that day she
+had counted up her debts,--they amounted to something like thirty-two
+thousand francs! The most ignoble of all wretchedness had come upon
+them. And that noble man who had trusted her was ignorant that she had
+abused the fortune he had confided to her care. She was sobbing at his
+feet, beautiful as the Magdalen.
+
+"My cup is full," cried Xavier, in terror. "I am dishonored at the
+ministry, and dishonored--"
+
+The light of her pure honor flashed from Celestine's eyes; she sprang
+up like a startled horse and cast a fulminating glance at Rabourdin.
+
+"I! I!" she said, on two sublime tones. "Am I a base wife? If I were,
+you would have been appointed. But," she added mournfully, "it is
+easier to believe that than to believe what is the truth."
+
+"Then what is it?" said Rabourdin.
+
+"All in three words," she said; "I owe thirty thousand francs."
+
+Rabourdin caught his wife to his heart with a gesture of almost
+frantic joy, and seated her on his knee.
+
+"Take comfort, dear," he said, in a tone of voice so adorably kind
+that the bitterness of her grief was changed to something
+inexpressibly tender. "I too have made mistakes; I have worked
+uselessly for my country when I thought I was being useful to her. But
+now I mean to take another path. If I had sold groceries we should now
+be millionaires. Well, let us be grocers. You are only twenty-eight,
+dear angel; in ten years you shall recover the luxury that you love,
+which we must needs renounce for a short time. I, too, dear heart, am
+not a base or common husband. We will sell our farm; its value has
+increased of late. That and the sale of our furniture will pay my
+debts.
+
+MY debts! Celestine embraced her husband a thousand times in the
+single kiss with which she thanked him for that generous word.
+
+"We shall still have a hundred thousand francs to put into business.
+Before the month is out I shall find some favorable opening. If luck
+gave a Martin Falleix to a Saillard, why should we despair? Wait
+breakfast for me. I am going now to the ministry, but I shall come
+back with my neck free of the yoke."
+
+Celestine clasped her husband in her arms with a force men do not
+possess, even in their passionate moments; for women are stronger
+through emotion than men through power. She wept and laughed and
+sobbed in turns.
+
+When Rabourdin left the house at eight o'clock, the porter gave him
+the satirical cards suggested by Bixiou. Nevertheless, he went to the
+ministry, where he found Sebastien waiting near the door to entreat
+him not to enter any of the bureaus, because an infamous caricature of
+him was making the round of the offices.
+
+"If you wish to soften the pain of my downfall," he said to the lad,
+"bring me that drawing; I am now taking my resignation to Ernest de la
+Briere myself, that it may not be altered or distorted while passing
+through the routine channels. I have my own reasons for wishing to see
+that caricature."
+
+When Rabourdin came back to the courtyard, after making sure that his
+letter would go straight into the minister's hands, he found Sebastien
+in tears, with a copy of the lithograph, which the lad reluctantly
+handed over to him.
+
+"It is very clever," said Rabourdin, showing a serene brow to his
+companion, though the crown of thorns was on it all the same.
+
+He entered the bureaus with a calm air, and went at once into
+Baudoyer's section to ask him to come to the office of the head of the
+division and receive instructions as to the business which that
+incapable being was henceforth to direct.
+
+"Tell Monsieur Baudoyer that there must be no delay," he added, in the
+hearing of all the clerks; "my resignation is already in the
+minister's hands, and I do not wish to stay here longer than is
+necessary."
+
+Seeing Bixiou, Rabourdin went straight up to him, showed him the
+lithograph, and said, to the great astonishment of all present,--
+
+"Was I not right in saying you were an artist? Still, it is a pity you
+directed the point of your pencil against a man who cannot be judged
+in this way, nor indeed by the bureaus at all;--but everything is
+laughed at in France, even God."
+
+Then he took Baudoyer into the office of the late La Billardiere. At
+the door he found Phellion and Sebastien, the only two who, under his
+great disaster, dared to remain openly faithful to the fallen man.
+Rabourdin noticed that Phellion's eyes were moist, and he could not
+refrain from wringing his hand.
+
+"Monsieur," said the good man, "if we can serve you in any way, make
+use of us."
+
+Monsieur Rabourdin shut himself up in the late chief's office with
+Monsieur Baudoyer, and Phellion helped him to show the new incumbent
+all the administrative difficulties of his new position. At each
+separate affair which Rabourdin carefully explained, Baudoyer's little
+eyes grew big as saucers.
+
+"Farewell, monsieur," said Rabourdin at last, with a manner that was
+half-solemn, half-satirical.
+
+Sebastien meanwhile had made up a package of papers and letters
+belonging to his chief and had carried them away in a hackney coach.
+Rabourdin passed through the grand courtyard, while all the clerks
+were watching from the windows, and waited there a moment to see if
+the minister would send him any message. His Excellency was dumb.
+Phellion courageously escorted the fallen man to his home, expressing
+his feelings of respectful admiration; then he returned to the office,
+and took up his work, satisfied with his own conduct in rendering
+these funeral honors to the neglected and misjudged administrative
+talent.
+
+Bixiou [seeing Phellion re-enter]. "Victrix cause diis placuit, sed
+victa Catoni."
+
+Phellion. "Yes, monsieur."
+
+Poiret. "What does that mean?"
+
+Fleury. "That priests rejoice, and Monsieur Rabourdin has the respect
+of men of honor."
+
+Dutocq [annoyed]. "You didn't say that yesterday."
+
+Fleury. "If you address me you'll have my hand in your face. It is
+known for certain that you filched those papers from Monsieur
+Rabourdin." [Dutocq leaves the office.] "Oh, yes, go and complain to
+your Monsieur des Lupeaulx, spy!"
+
+Bixiou [laughing and grimacing like a monkey]. "I am curious to know
+how the division will get along. Monsieur Rabourdin is so remarkable a
+man that he must have had some special views in that work of his.
+Well, the minister loses a fine mind." [Rubs his hands.]
+
+Laurent [entering]. "Monsieur Fleury is requested to go to the
+secretary's office."
+
+All the clerks. "Done for!"
+
+Fleury [leaving the room]. "I don't care; I am offered a place as
+responsible editor. I shall have all my time to myself to lounge the
+streets or do amusing work in a newspaper office."
+
+Bixiou. "Dutocq has already made them cut off the head of that poor
+Desroys."
+
+Colleville [entering joyously]. "Gentlemen, I am appointed head of
+this bureau."
+
+Thuillier. "Ah, my friend, if it were I myself, I couldn't be better
+pleased."
+
+Bixiou. "His wife has managed it." [Laughter.]
+
+Poiret. "Will any one tell me the meaning of all that is happening
+here to-day?"
+
+Bixiou. "Do you really want to know? Then listen. The antechamber of
+the administration is henceforth a chamber, the court is a boudoir,
+the best way to get in is through the cellar, and the bed is more than
+ever a cross-cut."
+
+Poiret. "Monsieur Bixiou, may I entreat you, explain?"
+
+Bixiou. "I'll paraphrase my opinion. To be anything at all you must
+begin by being everything. It is quite certain that a reform of this
+service is needed; for on my word of honor, the State robs the poor
+officials as much as the officials rob the State in the matter of
+hours. But why is it that we idle as we do? because they pay us too
+little; and the reason of that is we are too many for the work, and
+your late chief, the virtuous Rabourdin, saw all this plainly. That
+great administrator,--for he was that, gentlemen,--saw what the thing
+is coming to, the thing that these idiots call the 'working of our
+admirable institutions.' The chamber will want before long to
+administrate, and the administrators will want to legislate. The
+government will try to administrate and the administrators will want
+to govern, and so it will go on. Laws will come to be mere
+regulations, and ordinances will be thought laws. God made this epoch
+of the world for those who like to laugh. I live in a state of jovial
+admiration of the spectacle which the greatest joker of modern times,
+Louis XVIII., bequeathed to us" [general stupefaction]. "Gentlemen, if
+France, the country with the best civil service in Europe, is managed
+thus, what do you suppose the other nations are like? Poor unhappy
+nations! I ask myself how they can possibly get along without two
+Chambers, without the liberty of the press, without reports, without
+circulars even, without an army of clerks? Dear, dear, how do you
+suppose they have armies and navies? how can they exist at all without
+political discussions? Can they even be called nations, or
+governments? It is said (mere traveller's tales) that these strange
+peoples claim to have a policy, to wield a certain influence; but
+that's absurd! how can they when they haven't 'progress' or 'new
+lights'? They can't stir up ideas, they haven't an independent forum;
+they are still in the twilight of barbarism. There are no people in
+the world but the French people who have ideas. Can you understand,
+Monsieur Poiret," [Poiret jumped as if he had been shot] "how a nation
+can do without heads of divisions, general-secretaries and directors,
+and all this splendid array of officials, the glory of France and of
+the Emperor Napoleon,--who had his own good reasons for creating a
+myriad of offices? I don't see how those nations have the audacity to
+live at all. There's Austria, which has less than a hundred clerks in
+her war ministry, while the salaries and pensions of ours amount to a
+third of our whole budget, a thing that was unheard of before the
+Revolution. I sum up all I've been saying in one single remark,
+namely, that the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, which
+seems to have very little to do, had better offer a prize for the
+ablest answer to the following question: Which is the best organized
+State; the one that does many things with few officials, or the one
+that does next to nothing with an army of them?"
+
+Poiret. "Is that your last word?"
+
+Bixiou. "Yes, sir! whether English, French, German or Italian,--I let
+you off the other languages."
+
+Poiret [lifting his hands to heaven]. "Gracious goodness! and they
+call you a witty man!"
+
+Bixiou. "Haven't you understood me yet?"
+
+Phellion. "Your last observation was full of excellent sense."
+
+Bixiou. "Just as full as the budget itself, and like the budget again,
+as complicated as it looks simple; and I set it as a warning, a
+beacon, at the edge of this hole, this gulf, this volcano, called, in
+the language of the 'Constitutionel,' 'the political horizon.'"
+
+Poiret. "I should much prefer a comprehensible explanation."
+
+Bixiou. "Hurrah for Rabourdin! there's my explanation; that's my
+opinion. Are you satisfied?"
+
+Colleville [gravely]. "Monsieur Rabourdin had but one defect."
+
+Poiret. "What was it?"
+
+Colleville. "That of being a statesman instead of a subordinate
+official."
+
+Phellion [standing before Bixiou]. "Monsieur! why did you, who
+understand Monsieur Rabourdin so well, why did you make that inf--that
+odi--that hideous caricature?"
+
+Bixiou. "Do you forget our bet? don't you know I was backing the
+devil's game, and that your bureau owes me a dinner at the Rocher de
+Cancale?"
+
+Poiret [much put-out]. "Then it is a settled thing that I am to leave
+this government office without ever understanding a sentence, or a
+single word uttered by Monsieur Bixiou."
+
+Bixiou. "It is your own fault; ask these gentlemen. Gentlemen, have
+you understood the meaning of my observations? and were those
+observations just, and brilliant?"
+
+All. "Alas, yes!"
+
+Minard. "And the proof is that I shall send in my resignation. I shall
+plunge into industrial avocations."
+
+Bixiou. "What! have you managed to invent a mechanical corset, or a
+baby's bottle, or a fire engine, or chimneys that consume no fuel, or
+ovens which cook cutlets with three sheets of paper?"
+
+Minard [departing.] "Adieu, I shall keep my secret."
+
+Bixiou. "Well, young Poiret junior, you see,--all these gentlemen
+understand me."
+
+Poiret [crest-fallen]. "Monsieur Bixiou, would you do me the honor to
+come down for once to my level and speak in a language I can
+understand?"
+
+Bixiou [winking at the rest]. "Willingly." [Takes Poiret by the button
+of his frock-coat.] "Before you leave this office forever perhaps you
+would be glad to know what you are--"
+
+Poiret [quickly]. "An honest man, monsieur."
+
+Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "--to be able to define, explain,
+and analyze precisely what a government clerk is? Do you know what he
+is?"
+
+Poiret. "I think I do."
+
+Bixiou [twisting the button]. "I doubt it."
+
+Poiret. "He is a man paid by government to do work."
+
+Bixiou. "Oh! then a soldier is a government clerk?"
+
+Poiret [puzzled]. "Why, no."
+
+Bixiou. "But he is paid by the government to do work, to mount guard
+and show off at reviews. You may perhaps tell me that he longs to get
+out of his place,--that he works too hard and fingers too little
+metal, except that of his musket."
+
+Poiret [his eyes wide open]. "Monsieur, a government clerk is,
+logically speaking, a man who needs the salary to maintain himself,
+and is not free to get out of his place; for he doesn't know how to do
+anything but copy papers."
+
+Bixiou. "Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion. So the bureau is the
+clerk's shell, husk, pod. No clerk without a bureau, no bureau without
+a clerk. But what do you make, then, of a customs officer?" [Poiret
+shuffles his feet and tries to edge away; Bixiou twists off one button
+and catches him by another.] "He is, from the bureaucratic point of
+view, a neutral being. The excise-man is only half a clerk; he is on
+the confines between civil and military service; neither altogether
+soldier nor altogether clerk-- Here, here, where are you going?"
+[Twists the button.] "Where does the government clerk proper end?
+That's a serious question. Is a prefect a clerk?"
+
+Poiret [hesitating]. "He is a functionary."
+
+Bixiou. "But you don't mean that a functionary is not a clerk? that's
+an absurdity."
+
+Poiret [weary and looking round for escape]. "I think Monsieur Godard
+wants to say something."
+
+Godard. "The clerk is the order, the functionary the species."
+
+Bixiou [laughing]. "I shouldn't have thought you capable of that
+distinction, my brave subordinate."
+
+Poiret [trying to get away]. "Incomprehensible!"
+
+Bixiou. "La, la, papa, don't step on your tether. If you stand still
+and listen, we shall come to an understanding before long. Now, here's
+an axiom which I bequeath to this bureau and to all bureaus: Where the
+clerk ends, the functionary begins; where the functionary ends, the
+statesman rises. There are very few statesmen among the prefects. The
+prefect is therefore a neutral being among the higher species. He
+comes between the statesman and the clerk, just as the custom-house
+officer stands between the civil and the military. Let us continue to
+clear up these important points." [Poiret turns crimson with
+distress.] "Suppose we formulate the whole matter in a maxim worthy of
+Larochefoucault: Officials with salaries of twenty thousand francs are
+not clerks. From which we may deduce mathematically this corollary:
+The statesman first looms up in the sphere of higher salaries; and
+also this second and not less logical and important corollary:
+Directors-general may be statesmen. Perhaps it is in that sense that
+more than one deputy says in his heart, 'It is a fine thing to be a
+director-general.' But in the interests of our noble French language
+and of the Academy--"
+
+Poiret [magnetized by the fixity of Bixiou's eye]. "The French
+language! the Academy!"
+
+Bixiou [twisting off the second button and seizing another]. "Yes, in
+the interests of our noble tongue, it is proper to observe that
+although the head of a bureau, strictly speaking, may be called a
+clerk, the head of a division must be called a bureaucrat. These
+gentlemen" [turning to the clerks and privately showing them the third
+button off Poiret's coat] "will appreciate this delicate shade of
+meaning. And so, papa Poiret, don't you see it is clear that the
+government clerk comes to a final end at the head of a division? Now
+that question once settled, there is no longer any uncertainty; the
+government clerk who has hitherto seemed undefinable is defined."
+
+Poiret. "Yes, that appears to me beyond a doubt."
+
+Bixiou. "Nevertheless, do me the kindness to answer the following
+question: A judge being irremovable, and consequently debarred from
+being, according to your subtle distinction, a functionary, and
+receiving a salary which is not the equivalent of the work he does, is
+he to be included in the class of clerks?"
+
+Poiret [gazing at the cornice]. "Monsieur, I don't follow you."
+
+Bixiou [getting off the fourth button]. "I wanted to prove to you,
+monsieur, that nothing is simple; but above all--and what I am going
+to say is intended for philosophers--I wish (if you'll allow me to
+misquote a saying of Louis XVIII.),--I wish to make you see that
+definitions lead to muddles."
+
+Poiret [wiping his forehead]. "Excuse me, I am sick at my stomach"
+[tries to button his coat]. "Ah! you have cut off all my buttons!"
+
+Bixiou. "But the point is, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"
+
+Poiret [angrily]. "Yes, monsieur, I do; I understand that you have
+been playing me a shameful trick and twisting off my buttons while I
+have been standing here unconscious of it."
+
+Bixiou [solemnly]. "Old man, you are mistaken! I wished to stamp upon
+your brain the clearest possible image of constitutional government"
+[all the clerks look at Bixiou; Poiret, stupefied, gazes at him
+uneasily], "and also to keep my word to you. In so doing I employed
+the parabolical method of savages. Listen and comprehend: While the
+ministers start discussions in the Chambers that are just about as
+useful and as conclusive as the one we are engaged in, the
+administration cuts the buttons off the tax-payers."
+
+All. "Bravo, Bixiou!"
+
+Poiret [who comprehends]. "I don't regret my buttons."
+
+Bixiou. "I shall follow Minard's example; I won't pocket such a
+paltry salary as mine any longer; I shall deprive the government of my
+co-operation." [Departs amid general laughter.]
+
+Another scene was taking place in the minister's reception-room, more
+instructive than the one we have just related, because it shows how
+great ideas are allowed to perish in the higher regions of State
+affairs, and in what way statesmen console themselves.
+
+Des Lupeaulx was presenting the new director, Monsieur Baudoyer, to
+the minister. A number of persons were assembled in the salon,--two or
+three ministerial deputies, a few men of influence, and Monsieur
+Clergeot (whose division was now merged with La Billardiere's under
+Baudoyer's direction), to whom the minister was promising an honorable
+pension. After a few general remarks, the great event of the day was
+brought up.
+
+A deputy. "So you lose Rabourdin?"
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "He has resigned."
+
+Clergeot. "They say he wanted to reform the administration."
+
+The Minister [looking at the deputies]. "Salaries are not really in
+proportion to the exigencies of the civil service."
+
+De la Briere. "According to Monsieur Rabourdin, one hundred clerks
+with a salary of twelve thousand francs would do better and quicker
+work than a thousand clerks at twelve hundred."
+
+Clergeot. "Perhaps he is right."
+
+The Minister. "But what is to be done? The machine is built in that
+way. Must we take it to pieces and remake it? No one would have the
+courage to attempt that in face of the Chamber, and the foolish
+outcries of the Opposition, and the fierce denunciations of the press.
+It follows that there will happen, one of these days, some damaging
+'solution of continuity' between the government and the
+administration."
+
+A deputy. "In what way?"
+
+The Minister. "In many ways. A minister will want to serve the public
+good, and will not be allowed to do so. You will create interminable
+delays between things and their results. You may perhaps render the
+theft of a penny actually impossible, but you cannot prevent the
+buying and selling of influence, the collusions of self-interest. The
+day will come when nothing will be conceded without secret
+stipulations, which may never see the light. Moreover, the clerks, one
+and all, from the least to the greatest, are acquiring opinions of
+their own; they will soon be no longer the hands of a brain, the
+scribes of governmental thought; the Opposition even now tends towards
+giving them a right to judge the government and to talk and vote
+against it."
+
+Baudoyer [in a low voice, but meaning to be heard]. "Monseigneur is
+really fine."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "Of course bureaucracy has its defects. I myself think
+it slow and insolent; it hampers ministerial action, stifles projects,
+and arrests progress. But, after all, French administration is
+amazingly useful."
+
+Baudoyer. "Certainly!"
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "If only to maintain the paper and stamp industries!
+Suppose it is rather fussy and provoking, like all good housekeepers,
+--it can at any moment render an account of its disbursements. Where
+is the merchant who would not gladly give five per cent of his entire
+capital if he could insure himself against LEAKAGE?"
+
+The Deputy [a manufacturer]. "The manufacturing interests of all
+nations would joyfully unite against that evil genius of theirs called
+leakage."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "After all, though statistics are the childish foible of
+modern statesmen, who think that figures are estimates, we must cipher
+to estimate. Figures are, moreover, the convincing argument of
+societies based on self-interest and money, and that is the sort of
+society the Charter has given us,--in my opinion, at any rate. Nothing
+convinces the 'intelligent masses' as much as a row of figures. All
+things in the long run, say the statesmen of the Left, resolve
+themselves into figures. Well then, let us figure" [the minister here
+goes off into a corner with a deputy, to whom he talks in a low
+voice]. "There are forty thousand government clerks in France. The
+average of their salaries is fifteen hundred francs. Multiply forty
+thousand by fifteen hundred and you have sixty millions. Now, in the
+first place, a publicist would call the attention of Russia and China
+(where all government officials steal), also that of Austria, the
+American republics, and indeed that of the whole world, to the fact
+that for this price France possesses the most inquisitorial, fussy,
+ferreting, scribbling, paper-blotting, fault-finding old housekeeper
+of a civil service on God's earth. Not a copper farthing of the
+nation's money is spent or hoarded that is not ordered by a note,
+proved by vouchers, produced and re-produced on balance-sheets, and
+receipted for when paid; orders and receipts are registered on the
+rolls, and checked and verified by an army of men in spectacles. If
+there is the slightest mistake in the form of these precious
+documents, the clerk is terrified, for he lives on such minutiae. Some
+nations would be satisfied to get as far as this; but Napoleon went
+further. That great organizer appointed supreme magistrates of a court
+which is absolutely unique in the world. These officials pass their
+days in verifying money-orders, documents, roles, registers, lists,
+permits, custom-house receipts, payments, taxes received, taxes spent,
+etc.; all of which the clerks write or copy. These stern judges push
+the gift of exactitude, the genius of inquisition, the sharp-
+sightedness of lynxes, the perspicacity of account-books to the point
+of going over all the additions in search of subtractions. These
+sublime martyrs to figures have been known to return to an army
+commissary, after a delay of two years, some account in which there
+was an error of two farthings. This is how and why it is that the
+French system of administration, the purest and best on the globe has
+rendered robbery, as his Excellency has just told you, next to
+impossible, and as for peculation, it is a myth. France at this
+present time possesses a revenue of twelve hundred millions, and she
+spends it. That sum enters her treasury, and that sum goes out of it.
+She handles, therefore, two thousand four hundred millions, and all
+she pays for the labor of those who do the work is sixty millions,--
+two and a half per cent; and for that she obtains the certainty that
+there is no leakage. Our political and administrative kitchen costs us
+sixty millions, but the gendarmerie, the courts of law, the galleys
+and the police cost just as much, and give no return. Moreover, we
+employ a body of men who could do no other work. Waste and disorder,
+if such there be, can only be legislative; the Chambers lead to them
+and render them legal. Leakage follows in the form of public works
+which are neither urgent nor necessary; troops re-uniformed and
+gold-laced over and over again; vessels sent on useless cruises;
+preparations for war without ever making it; paying the debts of a
+State, and not requiring reimbursement or insisting on security."
+
+Baudoyer. "But such leakage has nothing to do with the subordinate
+officials; this bad management of national affairs concerns the
+statesmen who guide the ship."
+
+The Minister [who has finished his conversation]. "There is a great
+deal of truth in what des Lupeaulx has just said; but let me tell you"
+[to Baudoyer], "Monsieur le directeur, that few men see from the
+standpoint of a statesman. To order expenditure of all kinds, even
+useless ones, does not constitute bad management. Such acts contribute
+to the movement of money, the stagnation of which becomes, especially
+in France, dangerous to the public welfare, by reason of the miserly
+and profoundly illogical habits of the provinces which hoard their
+gold."
+
+The Deputy [who listened to des Lupeaulx]. "But it seems to me that if
+your Excellency was right just now, and if our clever friend here"
+[takes Lupeaulx by the arm] "was not wrong, it will be difficult to
+come to any conclusion on the subject."
+
+Des Lupeaulx [after looking at the minister]. "No doubt something
+ought to be done."
+
+De la Briere [timidly]. "Monsieur Rabourdin seems to have judged
+rightly."
+
+The Minister. "I will see Rabourdin."
+
+Des Lupeaulx. "The poor man made the blunder of constituting himself
+supreme judge of the administration and of all the officials who
+compose it; he wants to do away with the present state of things, and
+he demands that there be only three ministries."
+
+The Minister. "He must be crazy."
+
+The Deputy. "How do you represent in three ministries the heads of all
+the parties in the Chamber?"
+
+Baudoyer [with an air that he imagined to be shrewd]. "Perhaps
+Monsieur Rabourdin desired to change the Constitution, which we owe to
+our legislative sovereign."
+
+The Minister [thoughtful, takes La Briere's arm and leads him into the
+study]. "I want to see that work of Rabourdin's, and as you know about
+it--"
+
+De la Briere. "He has burned it. You allowed him to be dishonored and
+he has resigned from the ministry. Do not think for a moment,
+Monseigneur, that Rabourdin ever had the absurd thought (as des
+Lupeaulx tries to make it believed) to change the admirable
+centralization of power."
+
+The Minister [to himself]. "I have made a mistake" [is silent a
+moment]. "No matter; we shall never be lacking in plans for reform."
+
+De la Briere. "It is not ideas, but men capable of executing them that
+we lack."
+
+Des Lupeaulx, that adroit advocate of abuses came into the minister's
+study at this moment.
+
+"Monseigneur, I start at once for my election."
+
+"Wait a moment," said his Excellency, leaving the private secretary
+and taking des Lupeaulx by the arm into the recess of a window. "My
+dear friend, let me have that arrondissement,--if you will, you shall
+be made count and I will pay your debts. Later, if I remain in the
+ministry after the new Chamber is elected, I will find a way to send
+in your name in a batch for the peerage."
+
+"You are a man of honor, and I accept."
+
+This is how it came to pass that Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, whose
+father was ennobled under Louis XV., and who beareth quarterly, first,
+argent, a wolf ravisant carrying a lamb gules; second, purpure, three
+mascles argent, two and one; third, paly of twelve, gules and argent;
+fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises gules;
+supported by four griffon's-claws jessant from the sides of the
+escutcheon, with the motto "En Lupus in Historia," was able to
+surmount these rather satirical arms with a count's coronet.
+
+Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did some
+business on hand which required him to visit the old ministry, where
+the bureaus had all been in great commotion, owing to a general
+removal of officials, from the highest to the lowest. This revolution
+bore heaviest, in point of fact, upon the lackeys, who are not fond of
+seeing new faces. Rabourdin had come early, knowing all the ways of
+the place, and he thus chanced to overhear a dialogue between the two
+nephews of old Antoine, who had recently retired on a pension.
+
+"Well, Laurent, how is your chief of division going on?"
+
+"Oh, don't talk to me about him; I can't do anything with him. He
+rings me up to ask if I have seen his handkerchief or his snuff-box.
+He receives people without making them wait; in short, he hasn't a bit
+of dignity. I'm often obliged to say to him: But, monsieur, monsieur
+le comte your predecessor, for the credit of the thing, used to punch
+holes with his penknife in the arms of his chair to make believe he
+was working. And he makes such a mess of his room. I find everything
+topsy-turvy. He has a very small mind. How about your man?"
+
+"Mine? Oh, I have succeeded in training him. He knows exactly where
+his letter-paper and envelopes, his wood, and his boxes and all the
+rest of his things are. The other man used to swear at me, but this
+one is as meek as a lamb,--still, he hasn't the grand style! Moreover,
+he isn't decorated, and I don't like to serve a chief who isn't; he
+might be taken for one of us, and that's humiliating. He carries the
+office letter-paper home, and asked me if I couldn't go there and wait
+at table when there was company."
+
+"Hey! what a government, my dear fellow!"
+
+"Yes, indeed; everybody plays low in these days."
+
+"I hope they won't cut down our poor wages."
+
+"I'm afraid they will. The Chambers are prying into everything. Why,
+they even count the sticks of wood."
+
+"Well, it can't last long if they go on that way."
+
+"Hush, we're caught! somebody is listening."
+
+"Hey! it is the late Monsieur Rabourdin. Ah, monsieur, I knew your
+step. If you have business to transact here I am afraid you will not
+find any one who is aware of the respect that ought to be paid to you;
+Laurent and I are the only persons remaining about the place who were
+here in your day. Messieurs Colleville and Baudoyer didn't wear out
+the morocco of the chairs after you left. Heavens, no! six months
+later they were made Collectors of Paris."
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+Note.--Anagrams cannot, of course, be translated; that is why three
+English ones have been substituted for some in French. [Tr.]
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Baudoyer, Isidore
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Pons
+
+Bianchon, Horace
+  Father Goriot
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  Pierrette
+  A Study of Woman
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Second Home
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Country Parson
+In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+  Another Study of Woman
+  La Grande Breteche
+
+Bidault (known as Gigonnet)
+  Gobseck
+  The Vendetta
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
+  The Purse    
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Modeste Mignon
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Member for Arcis
+  Beatrix
+  A Man of Business
+  Gaudissart II.
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  Cousin Pons
+
+Brezacs (The)
+  The Country Parson
+
+Bruel, Jean Francois du
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Start in Life
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  The Middle Classes
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Camps, Madame Octave de
+  Madame Firmiani
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Chaboisseau
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Man of Business
+
+Chatelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, Baronne du
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+
+Chessel, Madame de
+  The Lily of the Valley
+
+Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Colleville
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Desplein
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cousin Pons
+  Lost Illusions
+  The Thirteen
+  Pierrette
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  Modest Mignon
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+
+Desroches (son)
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Colonel Chabert
+  A Start in Life
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  A Man of Business
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Dutocq
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Falleix, Martin
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+
+Falleix, Jacques
+  The Thirteen
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Ferraud, Comtesse
+  Colonel Chabert
+
+Finot, Andoche
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  A Start in Life
+  Gaudissart the Great
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+
+Fleury
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Fontaine, Comte de
+  The Chouans
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Cesar Birotteau
+
+Fontanon, Abbe
+  A Second Home
+  Honorine
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Gaudron, Abbe
+  Honorine
+  A Start in Life
+
+Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
+  Gobseck
+  Father Goriot
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Unconscious Humoriists
+
+Godard, Joseph
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Granson, Athanase
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+
+Gruget, Madame Etienne
+  The Thirteen
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+
+Keller, Francois
+  Domestic Peace
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+La Bastie la Briere, Ernest de
+  Modeste Mignon
+
+La Billardiere, Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel, Baron Flamet de
+  The Chouans
+  Cesar Birotteau
+
+Laudigeois
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier
+  The Chouans
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  Colonel Chabert
+
+Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Ursule Mirouet
+
+Metivier
+  Lost Illusions
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Minard, Madame
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Minorets, The
+  The Peasantry
+
+Mitral
+  Cesar Birotteau
+
+Nathan, Madame Raoul
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Phellion
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Poiret, the elder
+  Father Goriot
+  A Start in Life
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Rabourdin, Xavier
+  At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Rabourdin, Madame
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+ 
+Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Saillard
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Samanon
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Schinner, Hippolyte
+  The Purse 
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Pierre Grassou
+  A Start in Life
+  Albert Savarus
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Sommervieux, Theodore de
+  At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+  Modeste Mignon
+
+Thuillier
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Thuillier, Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte
+  The Middle Classes
+
+Thuillier, Louis-Jerome
+  The Middle Classes
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
+
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+Title: Bureaucracy
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+Author: Honore de Balzac
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUREAUCRACY ***
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+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>BUREAUCRACY</h1>
+
+<br>
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<br>
+<h2>HONORE DE BALZAC</h2>
+
+<br>
+<p>Translated By<br>
+ Katharine Prescott Wormeley</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h4>DEDICATION</h4>
+
+<p>To the Comtesse Seraphina San Severino, with the
+respectful<br>
+ homage of sincere and deep admiration.<br>
+ De Balzac.</p>
+
+<h2><br>
+ BUREAUCRACY</h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<h4>THE RABOURDIN HOUSEHOLD</h4>
+
+<p>In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain
+likeness to<br>
+ one another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have
+met<br>
+ with several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance
+we are<br>
+ about to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of
+our<br>
+ most important ministries. At this period he was forty years
+old, with<br>
+ gray hair of so pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch
+fall in<br>
+ love with it for it softened a somewhat melancholy countenance,
+blue<br>
+ eyes full of fire, a skin that was still fair, though rather
+ruddy and<br>
+ touched here and there with strong red marks; a forehead and
+nose a la<br>
+ Louis XV., a serious mouth, a tall figure, thin, or perhaps
+wasted,<br>
+ like that of a man just recovering from illness, and finally,
+a<br>
+ bearing that was midway between the indolence of a mere idler
+and the<br>
+ thoughtfulness of a busy man. If this portrait serves to depict
+his<br>
+ character, a sketch of this man's dress will bring it still
+further<br>
+ into relief. Rabourdin wore habitually a blue surcoat, a white
+cravat,<br>
+ a waistcoat crossed a la Robespierre, black trousers without
+straps,<br>
+ gray silk stockings and low shoes. Well-shaved, and with his
+stomach<br>
+ warmed by a cup of coffee, he left home at eight in the morning
+with<br>
+ the regularity of clock-work, always passing along the same
+streets on<br>
+ his way to the ministry: so neat was he, so formal, so starched
+that<br>
+ he might have been taken for an Englishman on the road to his
+embassy.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ From these general signs you will readily discern a family
+man,<br>
+ harassed by vexations in his own household, worried by
+annoyances at<br>
+ the ministry, yet philosopher enough to take life as he found
+it; an<br>
+ honest man, loving his country and serving it, not concealing
+from<br>
+ himself the obstacles in the way of those who seek to do
+right;<br>
+ prudent, because he knew men; exquisitely courteous with women,
+of<br>
+ whom he asked nothing,--a man full of acquirements, affable with
+his<br>
+ inferiors, holding his equals at great distance, and dignified
+towards<br>
+ his superiors. At the epoch of which we write, you would have
+noticed<br>
+ in him the coldly resigned air of one who has buried the
+illusions of<br>
+ his youth and renounced every secret ambition; you would
+have<br>
+ recognized a discouraged, but not disgusted man, one who still
+clings<br>
+ to his first projects,--more perhaps to employ his faculties
+than in<br>
+ the hope of a doubtful success. He was not decorated with any
+order,<br>
+ and always accused himself of weakness for having worn that of
+the<br>
+ Fleur-de-lis in the early days of the Restoration.</p>
+
+<p>The life of this man was marked by certain mysterious
+peculiarities.<br>
+ He had never known his father; his mother, a woman to whom
+luxury was<br>
+ everything, always elegantly dressed, always on pleasure bent,
+whose<br>
+ beauty seemed to him miraculous and whom he very seldom saw,
+left him<br>
+ little at her death; but she had given him that too common
+and<br>
+ incomplete education which produces so much ambition and so
+little<br>
+ ability. A few days before his mother's death, when he was
+just<br>
+ sixteen, he left the Lycee Napoleon to enter as supernumerary
+a<br>
+ government office, where an unknown protector had provided him
+with a<br>
+ place. At twenty-two years of age Rabourdin became
+under-head-clerk;<br>
+ at twenty-five, head-clerk, or, as it was termed, head of the
+bureau.<br>
+ From that day the hand that assisted the young man to start in
+life<br>
+ was never felt again in his career, except as to a single<br>
+ circumstance; it led him, poor and friendless, to the house of
+a<br>
+ Monsieur Leprince, formerly an auctioneer, a widower said to
+be<br>
+ extremely rich, and father of an only daughter. Xavier Rabourdin
+fell<br>
+ desperately in love with Mademoiselle Celestine Leprince,
+then<br>
+ seventeen years of age, who had all the matrimonial claims of a
+dowry<br>
+ of two hundred thousand francs. Carefully educated by an
+artistic<br>
+ mother, who transmitted her own talents to her daughter, this
+young<br>
+ lady was fitted to attract distinguished men. Tall, handsome,
+and<br>
+ finely-formed, she was a good musician, drew and painted,
+spoke<br>
+ several languages, and even knew something of science,--a
+dangerous<br>
+ advantage, which requires a woman to avoid carefully all
+appearance of<br>
+ pedantry. Blinded by mistaken tenderness, the mother gave the
+daughter<br>
+ false ideas as to her probable future; to the maternal eyes a
+duke or<br>
+ an ambassador, a marshal of France or a minister of State, could
+alone<br>
+ give her Celestine her due place in society. The young lady
+had,<br>
+ moreover, the manners, language, and habits of the great world.
+Her<br>
+ dress was richer and more elegant than was suitable for an
+unmarried<br>
+ girl; a husband could give her nothing more than she now had,
+except<br>
+ happiness. Besides all such indulgences, the foolish spoiling of
+the<br>
+ mother, who died a year after the girl's marriage, made a
+husband's<br>
+ task all the more difficult. What coolness and composure of mind
+were<br>
+ needed to rule such a woman! Commonplace suitors held back in
+fear.<br>
+ Xavier Rabourdin, without parents and without fortune other than
+his<br>
+ situation under government, was proposed to Celestine by her
+father.<br>
+ She resisted for a long time; not that she had any personal
+objection<br>
+ to her suitor, who was young, handsome, and much in love, but
+she<br>
+ shrank from the plain name of Madame Rabourdin. Monsieur
+Leprince<br>
+ assured his daughter that Xavier was of the stock that statesmen
+came<br>
+ of. Celestine answered that a man named Rabourdin would never
+be<br>
+ anything under the government of the Bourbons, etc. Forced back
+to his<br>
+ intrenchments, the father made the serious mistake of telling
+his<br>
+ daughter that her future husband was certain of becoming
+Rabourdin "de<br>
+ something or other" before he reached the age of admission to
+the<br>
+ Chamber. Xavier was soon to be appointed Master of petitions,
+and<br>
+ general-secretary at his ministry. From these lower steps of
+the<br>
+ ladder the young man would certainly rise to the higher ranks of
+the<br>
+ administration, possessed of a fortune and a name bequeathed to
+him in<br>
+ a certain will of which he, Monsieur Leprince, was cognizant. On
+this<br>
+ the marriage took place.</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious protector to
+whom<br>
+ the auctioneer alluded. Led away by such hopes and by the
+natural<br>
+ extravagance of happy love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin spent
+nearly<br>
+ one hundred thousand francs of their capital in the first five
+years<br>
+ of married life. By the end of this time Celestine, alarmed at
+the<br>
+ non-advancement of her husband, insisted on investing the
+remaining<br>
+ hundred thousand francs of her dowry in landed property,
+which<br>
+ returned only a slender income; but her future inheritance from
+her<br>
+ father would amply repay all present privations with perfect
+comfort<br>
+ and ease of life. When the worthy auctioneer saw his
+son-in-law<br>
+ disappointed of the hopes they had placed on the nameless
+protector,<br>
+ he tried, for the sake of his daughter, to repair the secret
+loss by<br>
+ risking part of his fortune in a speculation which had
+favourable<br>
+ chances of success. But the poor man became involved in one of
+the<br>
+ liquidations of the house of Nucingen, and died of grief,
+leaving<br>
+ nothing behind him but a dozen fine pictures which adorned
+his<br>
+ daughter's salon, and a few old-fashioned pieces of furniture,
+which<br>
+ she put in the garret.</p>
+
+<p>Eight years of fruitless expectation made Madame Rabourdin at
+last<br>
+ understand that the paternal protector of her husband must have
+died,<br>
+ and that his will, if it ever existed, was lost or destroyed.
+Two<br>
+ years before her father's death the place of chief of division,
+which<br>
+ became vacant, was given, over her husband's head, to a
+certain<br>
+ Monsieur de la Billardiere, related to a deputy of the Right who
+was<br>
+ made minister in 1823. It was enough to drive Rabourdin out of
+the<br>
+ service; but how could he give up his salary of eight thousand
+francs<br>
+ and perquisites, when they constituted three fourths of his
+income and<br>
+ his household was accustomed to spend them? Besides, if he
+had<br>
+ patience for a few more years he would then be entitled to a
+pension.<br>
+ What a fall was this for a woman whose high expectations at
+the<br>
+ opening of her life were more or less warranted, and one who
+was<br>
+ admitted on all sides to be a superior woman.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Rabourdin had justified the expectations formed of
+Mademoiselle<br>
+ Leprince; she possessed the elements of that apparent
+superiority<br>
+ which pleases the world; her liberal education enabled her to
+speak to<br>
+ every one in his or her own language; her talents were real;
+she<br>
+ showed an independent and elevated mind; her conversation
+charmed as<br>
+ much by its variety and ease as by the oddness and originality
+of her<br>
+ ideas. Such qualities, useful and appropriate in a sovereign or
+an<br>
+ ambassadress, were of little service to a household compelled to
+jog<br>
+ in the common round. Those who have the gift of speaking well
+desire<br>
+ an audience; they like to talk, even if they sometimes weary
+others.<br>
+ To satisfy the requirements of her mind Madame Rabourdin took a
+weekly<br>
+ reception-day and went a great deal into society to obtain
+the<br>
+ consideration her self-love was accustomed to enjoy. Those who
+know<br>
+ Parisian life will readily understand how a woman of her
+temperament<br>
+ suffered, and was martyrized at heart by the scantiness of
+her<br>
+ pecuniary means. No matter what foolish declarations people make
+about<br>
+ money, they one and all, if they live in Paris, must grovel
+before<br>
+ accounts, do homage to figures, and kiss the forked hoof of the
+golden<br>
+ calf. What a problem was hers! twelve thousand francs a year to
+defray<br>
+ the costs of a household consisting of father, mother, two
+children, a<br>
+ chambermaid and cook, living on the second floor of a house in
+the rue<br>
+ Duphot, in an apartment costing two thousand francs a year.
+Deduct the<br>
+ dress and the carriage of Madame before you estimate the
+gross<br>
+ expenses of the family, for dress precedes everything; then see
+what<br>
+ remains for the education of the children (a girl of eight and a
+boy<br>
+ of nine, whose maintenance must cost at least two thousand
+francs<br>
+ besides) and you will find that Madame Rabourdin could barely
+afford<br>
+ to give her husband thirty francs a month. That is the position
+of<br>
+ half the husbands in Paris, under penalty of being thought
+monsters.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that this woman who believed herself destined to
+shine in<br>
+ the world was condemned to use her mind and her faculties in a
+sordid<br>
+ struggle, fighting hand to hand with an account-book.
+Already,<br>
+ terrible sacrifice of pride! she had dismissed her man-servant,
+not<br>
+ long after the death of her father. Most women grow weary of
+this<br>
+ daily struggle; they complain but they usually end by giving up
+to<br>
+ fate and taking what comes to them; Celestine's ambition, far
+from<br>
+ lessening, only increased through difficulties, and led her,
+when she<br>
+ found she could not conquer them, to sweep them aside. To her
+mind<br>
+ this complicated tangle of the affairs of life was a Gordian
+knot<br>
+ impossible to untie and which genius ought to cut. Far from
+accepting<br>
+ the pettiness of middle-class existence, she was angry at the
+delay<br>
+ which kept the great things of life from her grasp,--blaming
+fate as<br>
+ deceptive. Celestine sincerely believed herself a superior
+woman.<br>
+ Perhaps she was right; perhaps she would have been great under
+great<br>
+ circumstances; perhaps she was not in her right place. Let us
+remember<br>
+ there are as many varieties of woman as there are of man, all of
+which<br>
+ society fashions to meet its needs. Now in the social order, as
+in<br>
+ Nature's order, there are more young shoots than there are
+trees, more<br>
+ spawn than full-grown fish, and many great capacities
+(Athanase<br>
+ Granson, for instance) which die withered for want of moisture,
+like<br>
+ seeds on stony ground. There are, unquestionably, household
+women,<br>
+ accomplished women, ornamental women, women who are exclusively
+wives,<br>
+ or mothers, or sweethearts, women purely spiritual or purely
+material;<br>
+ just as there are soldiers, artists, artisans, mathematicians,
+poets,<br>
+ merchants, men who understand money, or agriculture, or
+government,<br>
+ and nothing else. Besides all this, the eccentricity of events
+leads<br>
+ to endless cross-purposes; many are called and few are chosen is
+the<br>
+ law of earth as of heaven. Madame Rabourdin conceived herself
+fully<br>
+ capable of directing a statesman, inspiring an artist, helping
+an<br>
+ inventor and pushing his interests, or of devoting her powers to
+the<br>
+ financial politics of a Nucingen, and playing a brilliant part
+in the<br>
+ great world. Perhaps she was only endeavouring to excuse to her
+own<br>
+ mind a hatred for the laundry lists and the duty of overlooking
+the<br>
+ housekeeping bills, together with the petty economies and cares
+of a<br>
+ small establishment. She was superior only in those things where
+it<br>
+ gave her pleasure to be so. Feeling as keenly as she did the
+thorns of<br>
+ a position which can only be likened to that of Saint-Laurence
+on his<br>
+ grid-iron, is it any wonder that she sometimes cried out? So, in
+her<br>
+ paroxysms of thwarted ambition, in the moments when her wounded
+vanity<br>
+ gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine turned upon
+Xavier<br>
+ Rabourdin. Was it not her husband's duty to give her a
+suitable<br>
+ position in the world? If she were a man she would have had the
+energy<br>
+ to make a rapid fortune for the sake of rendering an adored
+wife<br>
+ happy! She reproached him for being too honest a man. In the
+mouth of<br>
+ some women this accusation is a charge of imbecility. She
+sketched out<br>
+ for him certain brilliant plans in which she took no account of
+the<br>
+ hindrances imposed by men and things; then, like all women under
+the<br>
+ influence of vehement feeling, she became in thought as
+Machiavellian<br>
+ as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than Maxime de Trailles.
+At such<br>
+ times Celestine's mind took a wide range, and she imagined
+herself at<br>
+ the summit of her ideas.</p>
+
+<p>When these fine visions first began Rabourdin, who saw the
+practical<br>
+ side, was cool. Celestine, much grieved, thought her husband
+narrow-<br>
+ minded, timid, unsympathetic; and she acquired, insensibly, a
+wholly<br>
+ false opinion of the companion of her life. In the first place,
+she<br>
+ often extinguished him by the brilliancy of her arguments. Her
+ideas<br>
+ came to her in flashes, and she sometimes stopped him short when
+he<br>
+ began an explanation, because she did not choose to lose the
+slightest<br>
+ sparkle of her own mind. From the earliest days of their
+marriage<br>
+ Celestine, feeling herself beloved and admired by her husband,
+treated<br>
+ him without ceremony; she put herself above conjugal laws and
+the<br>
+ rules of private courtesy by expecting love to pardon all her
+little<br>
+ wrong-doings; and, as she never in any way corrected herself,
+she was<br>
+ always in the ascendant. In such a situation the man holds to
+the wife<br>
+ very much the position of a child to a teacher when the latter
+cannot<br>
+ or will not recognize that the mind he has ruled in childhood
+is<br>
+ becoming mature. Like Madame de Stael, who exclaimed in a room
+full of<br>
+ people, addressing, as we may say, a greater man than herself,
+"Do you<br>
+ know you have really said something very profound!" Madame
+Rabourdin<br>
+ said of her husband: "He certainly has a good deal of sense at
+times."<br>
+ Her disparaging opinion of him gradually appeared in her
+behavior<br>
+ through almost imperceptible motions. Her attitude and
+manners<br>
+ expressed a want of respect. Without being aware of it she
+injured her<br>
+ husband in the eyes of others; for in all countries society,
+before<br>
+ making up its mind about a man, listens for what his wife thinks
+of<br>
+ him, and obtains from her what the Genevese term
+"pre-advice."</p>
+
+<p>When Rabourdin became aware of the mistakes which love had led
+him to<br>
+ commit it was too late,--the groove had been cut; he suffered
+and was<br>
+ silent. Like other men in whom sentiments and ideas are of
+equal<br>
+ strength, whose souls are noble and their brains well balanced,
+he was<br>
+ the defender of his wife before the tribunal of his own
+judgment; he<br>
+ told himself that nature doomed her to a disappointed life
+through his<br>
+ fault; HIS; she was like a thoroughbred English horse, a
+racer<br>
+ harnessed to a cart full of stones; she it was who suffered; and
+he<br>
+ blamed himself. His wife, by dint of constant repetition,
+had<br>
+ inoculated him with her own belief in herself. Ideas are
+contagious in<br>
+ a household; the ninth thermidor, like so many other
+portentous<br>
+ events, was the result of female influence. Thus, goaded by<br>
+ Celestine's ambition, Rabourdin had long considered the means
+of<br>
+ satisfying it, though he hid his hopes, so as to spare her
+the<br>
+ tortures of uncertainty. The man was firmly resolved to make his
+way<br>
+ in the administration by bringing a strong light to bear upon
+it. He<br>
+ intended to bring about one of those revolutions which send a
+man to<br>
+ the head of either one party or another in society; but
+being<br>
+ incapable of so doing in his own interests, he merely pondered
+useful<br>
+ thoughts and dreamed of triumphs won for his country by noble
+means.<br>
+ His ideas were both generous and ambitious; few officials have
+not<br>
+ conceived the like; but among officials as among artists there
+are<br>
+ more miscarriages than births; which is tantamount to Buffon's
+saying<br>
+ that "Genius is patience."</p>
+
+<p>Placed in a position where he could study French
+administration and<br>
+ observe its mechanism, Rabourdin worked in the circle where
+his<br>
+ thought revolved, which, we may remark parenthetically, is the
+secret<br>
+ of much human accomplishment; and his labor culminated finally
+in the<br>
+ invention of a new system for the Civil Service of government.
+Knowing<br>
+ the people with whom he had to do, he maintained the machine as
+it<br>
+ then worked, so it still works and will continue to work;
+for<br>
+ everybody fears to remodel it, though no one, according to
+Rabourdin,<br>
+ ought to be unwilling to simplify it. In his opinion, the
+problem to<br>
+ be resolved lay in a better use of the same forces. His plan, in
+its<br>
+ simplest form, was to revise taxation and lower it in a way
+that<br>
+ should not diminish the revenues of the State, and to obtain,
+from a<br>
+ budget equal to the budgets which now excite such rabid
+discussion,<br>
+ results that should be two-fold greater than the present
+results. Long<br>
+ practical experience had taught Rabourdin that perfection is
+brought<br>
+ about in all things by changes in the direction of simplicity.
+To<br>
+ economize is to simplify. To simplify means to suppress
+unnecessary<br>
+ machinery; removals naturally follow. His system, therefore,
+depended<br>
+ on the weeding out of officials and the establishment of a new
+order<br>
+ of administrative offices. No doubt the hatred which all
+reformers<br>
+ incur takes its rise here. Removals required by this
+perfecting<br>
+ process, always ill-understood, threaten the well-being of those
+on<br>
+ whom a change in their condition is thus forced. What
+rendered<br>
+ Rabourdin really great was that he was able to restrain the
+enthusiasm<br>
+ that possesses all reformers, and to patiently seek out a
+slow<br>
+ evolving medium for all changes so as to avoid shocks, leaving
+time<br>
+ and experience to prove the excellence of each reform. The
+grandeur of<br>
+ the result anticipated might make us doubt its possibility if we
+lose<br>
+ sight of this essential point in our rapid analysis of his
+system. It<br>
+ is, therefore, not unimportant to show through his
+self-communings,<br>
+ however incomplete they might be, the point of view from which
+he<br>
+ looked at the administrative horizon. This tale, which is
+evolved from<br>
+ the very heart of the Civil Service, may also serve to show some
+of<br>
+ the evils of our present social customs.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Xavier Rabourdin, deeply impressed by the trials and poverty
+which he<br>
+ witnessed in the lives of the government clerks, endeavored
+to<br>
+ ascertain the cause of their growing deterioration. He found it
+in<br>
+ those petty partial revolutions, the eddies, as it were, of the
+storm<br>
+ of 1789, which the historians of great social movements neglect
+to<br>
+ inquire into, although as a matter of fact it is they which have
+made<br>
+ our manners and customs what they are now.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly, under the monarchy, the bureaucratic armies did not
+exist.<br>
+ The clerks, few in number, were under the orders of a prime
+minister<br>
+ who communicated with the sovereign; thus they directly served
+the<br>
+ king. The superiors of these zealous servants were simply called
+head-<br>
+ clerks. In those branches of administration which the king did
+not<br>
+ himself direct, such for instance as the "fermes" (the public
+domains<br>
+ throughout the country on which a revenue was levied), the
+clerks were<br>
+ to their superior what the clerks of a business-house are to
+their<br>
+ employer; they learned a science which would one day advance
+them to<br>
+ prosperity. Thus, all points of the circumference were fastened
+to the<br>
+ centre and derived their life from it. The result was devotion
+and<br>
+ confidence. Since 1789 the State, call it the Nation if you
+like, has<br>
+ replaced the sovereign. Instead of looking directly to the
+chief<br>
+ magistrate of this nation, the clerks have become, in spite of
+our<br>
+ fine patriotic ideas, the subsidiaries of the government;
+their<br>
+ superiors are blown about by the winds of a power called
+"the<br>
+ administration," and do not know from day to day where they may
+be on<br>
+ the morrow. As the routine of public business must go on, a
+certain<br>
+ number of indispensable clerks are kept in their places, though
+they<br>
+ hold these places on sufferance, anxious as they are to retain
+them.<br>
+ Bureaucracy, a gigantic power set in motion by dwarfs, was
+generated<br>
+ in this way. Though Napoleon, by subordinating all things and
+all men<br>
+ to his will, retarded for a time the influence of bureaucracy
+(that<br>
+ ponderous curtain hung between the service to be done and the
+man who<br>
+ orders it), it was permanently organized under the
+constitutional<br>
+ government, which was, inevitably, the friend of all
+mediocrities, the<br>
+ lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as meddlesome as
+an old<br>
+ tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers
+constantly<br>
+ struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the Elected
+of the<br>
+ Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and dishonest
+leaders,<br>
+ the Civil Service officials hastened to make themselves
+essential to<br>
+ the warfare by adding their quota of assistance under the form
+of<br>
+ written action; they created a power of inertia and named it
+"Report."<br>
+ Let us explain the Report.</p>
+
+<p>When the kings of France took to themselves ministers, which
+first<br>
+ happened under Louis XV., they made them render reports on
+all<br>
+ important questions, instead of holding, as formerly, grand
+councils<br>
+ of state with the nobles. Under the constitutional government,
+the<br>
+ ministers of the various departments were insensibly led by
+their<br>
+ bureaus to imitate this practice of kings. Their time being
+taken up<br>
+ in defending themselves before the two Chambers and the court,
+they<br>
+ let themselves be guided by the leading-strings of the Report.
+Nothing<br>
+ important was ever brought before the government that a minister
+did<br>
+ not say, even when the case was urgent, "I have called for a
+report."<br>
+ The Report thus became, both as to the matter concerned and for
+the<br>
+ minister himself, the same as a report to the Chamber of
+Deputies on a<br>
+ question of laws,--namely, a disquisition in which the reasons
+for and<br>
+ against are stated with more or less partiality. No real result
+is<br>
+ attained; the minister, like the Chamber, is fully as well
+prepared<br>
+ before as after the report is rendered. A determination, in
+whatever<br>
+ matter, is reached in an instant. Do what we will, the moment
+comes<br>
+ when the decision must be made. The greater the array of reasons
+for<br>
+ and against, the less sound will be the judgment. The finest
+things of<br>
+ which France can boast have been accomplished without reports
+and<br>
+ where decisions were prompt and spontaneous. The dominant law of
+a<br>
+ statesman is to apply precise formula to all cases, after the
+manner<br>
+ of judges and physicians.</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin, who said to himself: "A minister should have
+decision,<br>
+ should know public affairs, and direct their course," saw
+"Report"<br>
+ rampant throughout France, from the colonel to the marshal, from
+the<br>
+ commissary of police to the king, from the prefects to the
+ministers<br>
+ of state, from the Chamber to the courts. After 1818 everything
+was<br>
+ discussed, compared, and weighed, either in speech or writing;
+public<br>
+ business took a literary form. France went to ruin in spite of
+this<br>
+ array of documents; dissertations stood in place of action; a
+million<br>
+ of reports were written every year; bureaucracy was
+enthroned!<br>
+ Records, statistics, documents, failing which France would have
+been<br>
+ ruined, circumlocution, without which there could be no
+advance,<br>
+ increased, multiplied, and grew majestic. From that day
+forth<br>
+ bureaucracy used to its own profit the mistrust that stands
+between<br>
+ receipts and expenditures; it degraded the administration for
+the<br>
+ benefit of the administrators; in short, it spun those
+lilliputian<br>
+ threads which have chained France to Parisian
+centralization,--as if<br>
+ from 1500 to 1800 France had undertaken nothing for want of
+thirty<br>
+ thousand government clerks! In fastening upon public offices,
+like a<br>
+ mistletoe on a pear-tree, these officials indemnified
+themselves<br>
+ amply, and in the following manner.</p>
+
+<p>The ministers, compelled to obey the princes or the Chambers
+who<br>
+ impose upon them the distribution of the public moneys, and
+forced to<br>
+ retain the workers in office, proceeded to diminish salaries
+and<br>
+ increase the number of those workers, thinking that if more
+persons<br>
+ were employed by government the stronger the government would
+be. And<br>
+ yet the contrary law is an axiom written on the universe; there
+is no<br>
+ vigor except where there are few active principles. Events
+proved in<br>
+ July, 1830, the error of the materialism of the Restoration. To
+plant<br>
+ a government in the hearts of a nation it is necessary to
+bind<br>
+ INTERESTS to it, not MEN. The government-clerks being led to
+detest<br>
+ the administrations which lessened both their salaries and
+their<br>
+ importance, treated them as a courtesan treats an aged lover,
+and gave<br>
+ them mere work for money; a state of things which would have
+seemed as<br>
+ intolerable to the administration as to the clerks, had the
+two<br>
+ parties dared to feel each other's pulse, or had the higher
+salaries<br>
+ not succeeded in stifling the voices of the lower. Thus wholly
+and<br>
+ solely occupied in retaining his place, drawing his pay, and
+securing<br>
+ his pension, the government official thought everything
+permissible<br>
+ that conduced to these results. This state of things led to
+servility<br>
+ on the part of the clerks and to endless intrigues within the
+various<br>
+ departments, where the humbler clerks struggled vainly
+against<br>
+ degenerate members of the aristocracy, who sought positions in
+the<br>
+ government bureaus for their ruined sons.</p>
+
+<p>Superior men could scarcely bring themselves to tread these
+tortuous<br>
+ ways, to stoop, to cringe, and creep through the mire of
+these<br>
+ cloacas, where the presence of a fine mind only alarmed the
+other<br>
+ denizens. The ambitious man of genius grows old in obtaining
+his<br>
+ triple crown; he does not follow in the steps of Sixtus the
+Fifth<br>
+ merely to become head of a bureau. No one comes or stays in
+the<br>
+ government offices but idlers, incapables, or fools. Thus
+the<br>
+ mediocrity of French administration has slowly come about.<br>
+ Bureaucracy, made up entirely of petty minds, stands as an
+obstacle to<br>
+ the prosperity of the nation; delays for seven years, by its<br>
+ machinery, the project of a canal which would have stimulated
+the<br>
+ production of a province; is afraid of everything, prolongs<br>
+ procrastination, and perpetuates the abuses which in turn
+perpetuate<br>
+ and consolidate itself. Bureaucracy holds all things and the<br>
+ administration itself in leading strings; it stifles men of
+talent who<br>
+ are bold enough to be independent of it or to enlighten it on
+its own<br>
+ follies. About the time of which we write the pension list had
+just<br>
+ been issued, and on it Rabourdin saw the name of an underling
+in<br>
+ office rated for a larger sum than the old colonels, maimed
+and<br>
+ wounded for their country. In that fact lies the whole history
+of<br>
+ bureaucracy.</p>
+
+<p>Another evil, brought about by modern customs, which Rabourdin
+counted<br>
+ among the causes of this secret demoralization, was the fact
+that<br>
+ there is no real subordination in the administration in
+Paris;<br>
+ complete equality reigns between the head of an important
+division and<br>
+ the humblest copying-clerk; one is as powerful as the other in
+an<br>
+ arena outside of which each lords it in his own way.
+Education,<br>
+ equally distributed through the masses, brings the son of a
+porter<br>
+ into a government office to decide the fate of some man of merit
+or<br>
+ some landed proprietor whose door-bell his father may have
+answered.<br>
+ The last comer is therefore on equal terms with the oldest
+veteran in<br>
+ the service. A wealthy supernumerary splashes his superior as
+he<br>
+ drives his tilbury to Longchamps and points with his whip to the
+poor<br>
+ father of a family, remarking to the pretty woman at his side,
+"That's<br>
+ my chief." The Liberals call this state of things Progress;
+Rabourdin<br>
+ thought it Anarchy at the heart of power. He saw how it resulted
+in<br>
+ restless intrigues, like those of a harem between eunuchs and
+women<br>
+ and imbecile sultans, or the petty troubles of nuns full of
+underhand<br>
+ vexations, or college tyrannies, or diplomatic manoeuvrings fit
+to<br>
+ terrify an ambassador, all put in motion to obtain a fee or
+an<br>
+ increase in salary; it was like the hopping of fleas harnessed
+to<br>
+ pasteboard cars, the spitefulness of slaves, often visited on
+the<br>
+ minister himself. With all this were the really useful men,
+the<br>
+ workers, victims of such parasites; men sincerely devoted to
+their<br>
+ country, who stood vigorously out from the background of the
+other<br>
+ incapables, yet who were often forced to succumb through
+unworthy<br>
+ trickery.</p>
+
+<p>All the higher offices were gained through parliamentary
+influence,<br>
+ royalty had nothing to do now with them, and the subordinate
+clerks<br>
+ became, after a time, merely the running-gear of the machine;
+the most<br>
+ important considerations with them being to keep the wheels
+well<br>
+ greased. This fatal conviction entering some of the best
+minds<br>
+ smothered many statements conscientiously written on the secret
+evils<br>
+ of the national government; lowered the courage of many hearts,
+and<br>
+ corrupted sterling honesty, weary of injustice and won to
+indifference<br>
+ by deteriorating annoyances. A clerk in the employ of the
+Rothchilds<br>
+ corresponds with all England; another, in a government office,
+may<br>
+ communicate with all the prefects; but where the one learns the
+way to<br>
+ make his fortune, the other loses time and health and life to
+no<br>
+ avail. An undermining evil lies here. Certainly a nation does
+not seem<br>
+ threatened with immediate dissolution because an able clerk is
+sent<br>
+ away and a middling sort of man replaces him. Unfortunately for
+the<br>
+ welfare of nations individual men never seem essential to
+their<br>
+ existence. But in the long run when the belittling process is
+fully<br>
+ carried out nations will disappear. Every one who seeks
+instruction on<br>
+ this point can look at Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm,
+Rome; all<br>
+ places which were formerly resplendent with mighty powers and
+are now<br>
+ destroyed by the infiltrating littleness which gradually
+attained the<br>
+ highest eminence. When the day of struggle came, all was found
+rotten,<br>
+ the State succumbed to a weak attack. To worship the fool
+who<br>
+ succeeds, and not to grieve over the fall of an able man is the
+result<br>
+ of our melancholy education, of our manners and customs which
+drive<br>
+ men of intellect into disgust, and genius to despair.</p>
+
+<p>What a difficult undertaking is the rehabilitation of the
+Civil<br>
+ Service while the liberal cries aloud in his newspapers that
+the<br>
+ salaries of clerks are a standing theft, calls the items of the
+budget<br>
+ a cluster of leeches, and every year demands why the nation
+should be<br>
+ saddled with a thousand millions of taxes. In Monsieur
+Rabourdin's<br>
+ eyes the clerk in relation to the budget was very much what
+the<br>
+ gambler is to the game; that which he wins he puts back again.
+All<br>
+ remuneration implies something furnished. To pay a man a
+thousand<br>
+ francs a year and demand his whole time was surely to organize
+theft<br>
+ and poverty. A galley-slave costs nearly as much, and does less.
+But<br>
+ to expect a man whom the State remunerated with twelve thousand
+francs<br>
+ a year to devote himself to his country was a profitable
+contract for<br>
+ both sides, fit to allure all capacities.</p>
+
+<p>These reflections had led Rabourdin to desire the recasting of
+the<br>
+ clerical official staff. To employ fewer man, to double or
+treble<br>
+ salaries, and do away with pensions, to choose only young clerks
+(as<br>
+ did Napoleon, Louis XIV., Richelieu, and Ximenes), but to keep
+them<br>
+ long and train them for the higher offices and greatest honors,
+these<br>
+ were the chief features of a reform which if carried out would
+be as<br>
+ beneficial to the State as to the clerks themselves. It is
+difficult<br>
+ to recount in detail, chapter by chapter, a plan which embraced
+the<br>
+ whole budget and continued down through the minutest details
+of<br>
+ administration in order to keep the whole synthetical; but
+perhaps a<br>
+ slight sketch of the principal reforms will suffice for those
+who<br>
+ understand such matters, as well as for those who are wholly
+ignorant<br>
+ of the administrative system. Though the historian's position
+is<br>
+ rather hazardous in reproducing a plan which may be thought
+the<br>
+ politics of a chimney-corner, it is, nevertheless, necessary to
+sketch<br>
+ it so as to explain the author of it by his own work. Were the
+recital<br>
+ of his efforts to be omitted, the reader would not believe
+the<br>
+ narrator's word if he merely declared the talent and the courage
+of<br>
+ this official.</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin's plan divided the government into three ministries,
+or<br>
+ departments. He thought that if the France of former days
+possessed<br>
+ brains strong enough to comprehend in one system both foreign
+and<br>
+ domestic affairs, the France of to-day was not likely to be
+without<br>
+ its Mazarin, its Suger, its Sully, its de Choiseul, or its
+Colbert to<br>
+ direct even vast administrative departments. Besides,
+constitutionally<br>
+ speaking, three ministries will agree better than seven; and, in
+the<br>
+ restricted number there is less chance for mistaken choice;
+moreover,<br>
+ it might be that the kingdom would some day escape from
+those<br>
+ perpetual ministerial oscillations which interfered with all
+plans of<br>
+ foreign policy and prevented all ameliorations of home rule.
+In<br>
+ Austria, where many diverse united nations present so many
+conflicting<br>
+ interests to be conciliated and carried forward under one crown,
+two<br>
+ statesmen alone bear the burden of public affairs and are
+not<br>
+ overwhelmed by it. Was France less prolific of political
+capacities<br>
+ than Germany? The rather silly game of what are called
+"constitutional<br>
+ institutions" carried beyond bounds has ended, as everybody
+knows, in<br>
+ requiring a great many offices to satisfy the multifarious
+ambition of<br>
+ the middle classes. It seemed to Rabourdin, in the first
+place,<br>
+ natural to unite the ministry of war with the ministry of the
+navy. To<br>
+ his thinking the navy was one of the current expenses of the
+war<br>
+ department, like the artillery, cavalry, infantry, and
+commissariat.<br>
+ Surely it was an absurdity to give separate administrations
+to<br>
+ admirals and marshals when both were employed to one end,
+namely, the<br>
+ defense of the nation, the overthrow of an enemy, and the
+security of<br>
+ the national possessions. The ministry of the interior ought in
+like<br>
+ manner to combine the departments of commerce, police, and
+finances,<br>
+ or it belied its own name. To the ministry of foreign affairs
+belonged<br>
+ the administration of justice, the household of the king, and
+all that<br>
+ concerned arts, sciences, and belles lettres. All patronage
+ought to<br>
+ flow directly from the sovereign. Such ministries necessitated
+the<br>
+ supremacy of a council. Each required the work of two
+hundred<br>
+ officials, and no more, in its central administration offices,
+where<br>
+ Rabourdin proposed that they should live, as in former days
+under the<br>
+ monarchy. Taking the sum of twelve thousand francs a year for
+each<br>
+ official as an average, he estimated seven millions as the cost
+of the<br>
+ whole body of such officials, which actually stood at twenty in
+the<br>
+ budget.</p>
+
+<p>By thus reducing the ministers to three heads he
+suppressed<br>
+ departments which had come to be useless, together with the
+enormous<br>
+ costs of their maintenance in Paris. He proved that an
+arrondissement<br>
+ could be managed by ten men; a prefecture by a dozen at the
+most;<br>
+ which reduced the entire civil service force throughout France
+to five<br>
+ thousand men, exclusive of the departments of war and justice.
+Under<br>
+ this plan the clerks of the court were charged with the system
+of<br>
+ loans, and the ministry of the interior with that of
+registration and<br>
+ the management of domains. Thus Rabourdin united in one centre
+all<br>
+ divisions that were allied in nature. The mortgage system,<br>
+ inheritance, and registration did not pass outside of their own
+sphere<br>
+ of action and only required three additional clerks in the
+justice<br>
+ courts and three in the royal courts. The steady application of
+this<br>
+ principle brought Rabourdin to reforms in the finance system.
+He<br>
+ merged the collection of revenue into one channel, taxing
+consumption<br>
+ in bulk instead of taxing property. According to his ideas,<br>
+ consumption was the sole thing properly taxable in times of
+peace.<br>
+ Land-taxes should always be held in reserve in case of war; for
+then<br>
+ only could the State justly demand sacrifices from the soil,
+which was<br>
+ in danger; but in times of peace it was a serious political
+fault to<br>
+ burden it beyond a certain limit; otherwise it could never be
+depended<br>
+ on in great emergencies. Thus a loan should be put on the market
+when<br>
+ the country was tranquil, for at such times it could be placed
+at par,<br>
+ instead of at fifty per cent loss as in bad times; in war times
+resort<br>
+ should be had to a land-tax.</p>
+
+<p>"The invasion of 1814 and 1815," Rabourdin would say to his
+friends,<br>
+ "founded in France and practically explained an institution
+which<br>
+ neither Law nor Napoleon had been able to establish,--I mean
+Credit."</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, Xavier considered the true principles of this
+admirable<br>
+ machine of civil service very little understood at the period
+when he<br>
+ began his labor of reform in 1820. His scheme levied a toll on
+the<br>
+ consumption by means of direct taxation and suppressed the
+whole<br>
+ machinery of indirect taxation. The levying of the taxes was<br>
+ simplified by a single classification of a great number of
+articles.<br>
+ This did away with the more harassing customs at the gates of
+the<br>
+ cities, and obtained the largest revenues from the remainder,
+by<br>
+ lessening the enormous expense of collecting them. To lighten
+the<br>
+ burden of taxation is not, in matters of finance, to diminish
+the<br>
+ taxes, but to assess them better; if lightened, you increase
+the<br>
+ volume of business by giving it freer play; the individual pays
+less<br>
+ and the State receives more. This reform, which may seem
+immense,<br>
+ rests on very simple machinery. Rabourdin regarded the tax on
+personal<br>
+ property as the most trustworthy representative of general<br>
+ consumption. Individual fortunes are usually revealed in France
+by<br>
+ rentals, by the number of servants, horses, carriages, and
+luxuries,<br>
+ the costs of which are all to the interest of the public
+treasury.<br>
+ Houses and what they contain vary comparatively but little, and
+are<br>
+ not liable to disappear. After pointing out the means of making
+a tax-<br>
+ list on personal property which should be more impartial than
+the<br>
+ existing list, Rabourdin assessed the sums to be brought into
+the<br>
+ treasury by indirect taxation as so much per cent on each
+individual<br>
+ share. A tax is a levy of money on things or persons under
+disguises<br>
+ that are more or less specious. These disguises, excellent when
+the<br>
+ object is to extort money, become ridiculous in the present day,
+when<br>
+ the class on which the taxes weigh the heaviest knows why the
+State<br>
+ imposes them and by what machinery they are given back. In fact
+the<br>
+ budget is not a strong-box to hold what is put into it, but
+a<br>
+ watering-pot; the more it takes in and the more it pours out
+the<br>
+ better for the prosperity of the country. Therefore, supposing
+there<br>
+ are six millions of tax-payers in easy circumstances (Rabourdin
+proved<br>
+ their existence, including the rich) is it not better to make
+them pay<br>
+ a duty on the consumption of wine, which would not be more
+offensive<br>
+ than that on doors and windows and would return a hundred
+millions,<br>
+ rather than harass them by taxing the thing itself. By this
+system of<br>
+ taxation, each individual tax-payer pays less in reality, while
+the<br>
+ State receives more, and consumers profit by a vast reduction in
+the<br>
+ price of things which the State releases from its perpetual
+and<br>
+ harassing interference. Rabourdin's scheme retained a tax on
+the<br>
+ cultivation of vineyards, so as to protect that industry from
+the too<br>
+ great abundance of its own products. Then, to reach the
+consumption of<br>
+ the poorer tax-payers, the licences of retail dealers were
+taxed<br>
+ according to the population of the neighborhoods in which they
+lived.</p>
+
+<p>In this way, the State would receive without cost or
+vexatious<br>
+ hindrances an enormous revenue under three forms; namely, a duty
+on<br>
+ wine, on the cultivation of vineyards, and on licenses, where
+now an<br>
+ irritating array of taxes existed as a burden on itself and
+its<br>
+ officials. Taxation was thus imposed upon the rich without<br>
+ overburdening the poor. To give another example. Suppose a
+share<br>
+ assessed to each person of one or two francs for the consumption
+of<br>
+ salt and you obtain ten or a dozen millions; the modern
+"gabelle"<br>
+ disappears, the poor breathe freer, agriculture is relieved, the
+State<br>
+ receives as much, and no tax-payer complains. All persons,
+whether<br>
+ they belong to the industrial classes or to the capitalists,
+will see<br>
+ at once the benefits of a tax so assessed when they discover
+how<br>
+ commerce increases, and life is ameliorated in the country
+districts.<br>
+ In short, the State will see from year to year the number of her
+well-<br>
+ to-do tax-payers increasing. By doing away with the machinery
+of<br>
+ indirect taxation, which is very costly (a State, as it were,
+within a<br>
+ State), both the public finances and the individual tax-payer
+are<br>
+ greatly benefited, not to speak of the saving in costs of
+collecting.</p>
+
+<p>The whole subject is indeed less a question of finance than a
+question<br>
+ of government. The State should possess nothing of its own,
+neither<br>
+ forests, nor mines, nor public works. That it should be the
+owner of<br>
+ domains was, in Rabourdin's opinion, an administrative
+contradiction.<br>
+ The State cannot turn its possessions to profit and it deprives
+itself<br>
+ of taxes; it thus loses two forms of production. As to the<br>
+ manufactories of the government, they are just as unreasonable
+in the<br>
+ sphere of industry. The State obtains products at a higher cost
+than<br>
+ those of commerce, produces them more slowly, and loses its tax
+upon<br>
+ the industry, the maintenance of which it, in turn, reduces. Can
+it be<br>
+ thought a proper method of governing a country to manufacture
+instead<br>
+ of promoting manufactures? to possess property instead of
+creating<br>
+ more possessions and more diverse ones? In Rabourdin's system
+the<br>
+ State exacted no money security; he allowed only mortgage
+securities;<br>
+ and for this reason: Either the State holds the security in
+specie,<br>
+ and that embarrasses business and the movement of money; or it
+invests<br>
+ it at a higher rate than the State itself pays, and that is
+a<br>
+ contemptible robbery; or else it loses on the transaction, and
+that is<br>
+ folly; moreover, if it is obliged at any time to dispose of a
+mass of<br>
+ these securities it gives rises in certain cases to terrible<br>
+ bankruptcy.</p>
+
+<p>The territorial tax did not entirely disappear in Rabourdin's
+plan,--<br>
+ he kept a minute portion of it as a point of departure in case
+of war;<br>
+ but the productions of the soil were freed, and industry,
+finding raw<br>
+ material at a low price, could compete with foreign nations
+without<br>
+ the deceptive help of customs. The rich carried on the
+administration<br>
+ of the provinces without compensation except that of receiving
+a<br>
+ peerage under certain conditions. Magistrates, learned
+bodies,<br>
+ officers of the lower grades found their services honorably
+rewarded;<br>
+ no man employed by the government failed to obtain great
+consideration<br>
+ through the value and extent of his labors and the excellence of
+his<br>
+ salary; every one was able to provide for his own future and
+France<br>
+ was delivered from the cancer of pensions. As a result
+Rabourdin's<br>
+ scheme exhibited only seven hundred millions of expenditures
+and<br>
+ twelve hundred millions of receipts. A saving of five hundred
+millions<br>
+ annually had far more virtue than the accumulation of a sinking
+fund<br>
+ whose dangers were plainly to be seen. In that fund the
+State,<br>
+ according to Rabourdin, became a stockholder, just as it
+persisted in<br>
+ being a land-holder and a manufacturer. To bring about these
+reforms<br>
+ without too roughly jarring the existing state of things or
+incurring<br>
+ a Saint-Bartholomew of clerks, Rabourdin considered that an
+evolution<br>
+ of twenty years would be required.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the thoughts maturing in Rabourdin's mind ever since
+his<br>
+ promised place had been given to Monsieur de la Billardiere, a
+man of<br>
+ sheer incapacity. This plan, so vast apparently yet so simple in
+point<br>
+ of fact, which did away with so many large staffs and so many
+little<br>
+ offices all equally useless, required for its presentation to
+the<br>
+ public mind close calculations, precise statistics, and
+self-evident<br>
+ proof. Rabourdin had long studied the budget under its
+double-aspect<br>
+ of ways and means and of expenditure. Many a night he had lain
+awake<br>
+ unknown to his wife. But so far he had only dared to conceive
+the plan<br>
+ and fit it prospectively to the administrative skeleton; all of
+which<br>
+ counted for nothing,--he must gain the ear of a minister capable
+of<br>
+ appreciating his ideas. Rabourdin's success depended on the
+tranquil<br>
+ condition of political affairs, which up to this time were
+still<br>
+ unsettled. He had not considered the government as permanently
+secure<br>
+ until three hundred deputies at least had the courage to form
+a<br>
+ compact majority systematically ministerial. An administration
+founded<br>
+ on that basis had come into power since Rabourdin had finished
+his<br>
+ elaborate plan. At this time the luxury of peace under the
+Bourbons<br>
+ had eclipsed the warlike luxury of the days when France shone
+like a<br>
+ vast encampment, prodigal and magnificent because it was
+victorious.<br>
+ After the Spanish campaign, the administration seemed to enter
+upon an<br>
+ era of tranquillity in which some good might be accomplished;
+and<br>
+ three months before the opening of our story a new reign had
+begun<br>
+ without any apparent opposition; for the liberalism of the Left
+had<br>
+ welcomed Charles X. with as much enthusiasm as the Right. Even
+clear-<br>
+ sighted and suspicious persons were misled. The moment
+seemed<br>
+ propitious for Rabourdin. What could better conduce to the
+stability<br>
+ of the government than to propose and carry through a reform
+whose<br>
+ beneficial results were to be so vast?</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Never had Rabourdin seemed so anxious and preoccupied as he now
+did in<br>
+ the mornings as he walked from his house to the ministry, or at
+half-<br>
+ past four in the afternoon, when he returned. Madame Rabourdin,
+on her<br>
+ part, disconsolate over her wasted life, weary of secretly
+working to<br>
+ obtain a few luxuries of dress, never appeared so bitterly<br>
+ discontented as now; but, like any wife who is really attached
+to her<br>
+ husband, she considered it unworthy of a superior woman to
+condescend<br>
+ to the shameful devices by which the wives of some officials eke
+out<br>
+ the insufficiency of their husband's salary. This feeling made
+her<br>
+ refuse all intercourse with Madame Colleville, then very
+intimate with<br>
+ Francois Keller, whose parties eclipsed those of the rue
+Duphot.<br>
+ Nevertheless, she mistook the quietude of the political thinker
+and<br>
+ the preoccupation of the intrepid worker for the apathetic
+torpor of<br>
+ an official broken down by the dulness of routine, vanquished by
+that<br>
+ most hateful of all miseries, the mediocrity that simply earns
+a<br>
+ living; and she groaned at being married to a man without
+energy.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that about this period in their lives she resolved
+to take<br>
+ the making of her husband's fortune on herself; to thrust him at
+any<br>
+ cost into a higher sphere, and to hide from him the secret
+springs of<br>
+ her machinations. She carried into all her plans the
+independence of<br>
+ ideas which characterized her, and was proud to think that she
+could<br>
+ rise above other women by sharing none of their petty prejudices
+and<br>
+ by keeping herself untrammelled by the restraints which
+society<br>
+ imposes. In her anger she resolved to fight fools with their
+own<br>
+ weapons, and to make herself a fool if need be. She saw things
+coming<br>
+ to a crisis. The time was favorable. Monsieur de la
+Billardiere,<br>
+ attacked by a dangerous illness, was likely to die in a few
+days. If<br>
+ Rabourdin succeeded him, his talents (for Celestine did
+vouchsafe him<br>
+ an administrative gift) would be so thoroughly appreciated that
+the<br>
+ office of Master of petitions, formerly promised, would now be
+given<br>
+ to him; she fancied she saw him the king's commissioner,
+presenting<br>
+ bills to the Chambers and defending them; then indeed she could
+help<br>
+ him; she would even be, if needful, his secretary; she would sit
+up<br>
+ all night to do the work! All this to drive in the Bois in a
+pretty<br>
+ carriage, to equal Madame Delphine de Nucingen, to raise her
+salon to<br>
+ the level of Madame Colleville's, to be invited to the great<br>
+ ministerial solemnities, to win listeners and make them talk of
+her as<br>
+ "Madame Rabourdin DE something or other" (she had not yet
+determined<br>
+ on the estate), just as they did of Madame Firmiani, Madame
+d'Espard,<br>
+ Madame d'Aiglemont, Madame de Carigliano, and thus efface
+forever the<br>
+ odious name of Rabourdin.</p>
+
+<p>These secret schemes brought some changes into the household.
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin began to walk with a firm step in the path of DEBT.
+She set<br>
+ up a manservant, and put him in livery of brown cloth with red
+pipins,<br>
+ she renewed parts of her furniture, hung new papers on the
+walls,<br>
+ adorned her salon with plants and flowers, always fresh, and
+crowded<br>
+ it with knick-knacks that were then in vogue; then she, who had
+always<br>
+ shown scruples as to her personal expenses, did not hesitate to
+put<br>
+ her dress in keeping with the rank to which she aspired, the
+profits<br>
+ of which were discounted in several of the shops where she
+equipped<br>
+ herself for war. To make her "Wednesdays" fashionable she gave
+a<br>
+ dinner on Fridays, the guests being expected to pay their return
+visit<br>
+ and take a cup of tea on the following Wednesday. She chose her
+guests<br>
+ cleverly among influential deputies or other persons of note
+who,<br>
+ sooner or later, might advance her interests. In short, she
+gathered<br>
+ an agreeable and befitting circle about her. People amused
+themselves<br>
+ at her house; they said so at least, which is quite enough to
+attract<br>
+ society in Paris. Rabourdin was so absorbed in completing his
+great<br>
+ and serious work that he took no notice of the sudden
+reappearance of<br>
+ luxury in the bosom of his family.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the wife and the husband were besieging the same
+fortress,<br>
+ working on parallel lines, but without each other's
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h4>MONSIEUR DES LUPEAULX</h4>
+
+<p>At the ministry to which Rabourdin belonged there flourished,
+as<br>
+ general-secretary, a certain Monsieur Clement Chardin des
+Lupeaulx,<br>
+ one of those men whom the tide of political events sends to
+the<br>
+ surface for a few years, then engulfs on a stormy night, but
+whom we<br>
+ find again on a distant shore, tossed up like the carcass of a
+wrecked<br>
+ ship which still seems to have life in her. We ask ourselves if
+that<br>
+ derelict could ever have held goodly merchandise or served a
+high<br>
+ emprize, co-operated in some defence, held up the trappings of
+a<br>
+ throne, or borne away the corpse of a monarchy. At this
+particular<br>
+ time Clement des Lupeaulx (the "Lupeaulx" absorbed the
+"Chardin") had<br>
+ reached his culminating period. In the most illustrious lives as
+in<br>
+ the most obscure, in animals as in secretary-generals, there is
+a<br>
+ zenith and there is a nadir, a period when the fur is
+magnificent, the<br>
+ fortune dazzling. In the nomenclature which we derive from
+fabulists,<br>
+ des Lupeaulx belonged to the species Bertrand, and was always
+in<br>
+ search of Ratons. As he is one of the principal actors in this
+drama<br>
+ he deserves a description, all the more precise because the
+revolution<br>
+ of July has suppressed his office, eminently useful as it was,
+to a<br>
+ constitutional ministry.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Moralists usually employ their weapons against obstructive<br>
+ administrations. In their eyes, crime belongs to the assizes or
+the<br>
+ police-courts; but the socially refined evils escape their ken;
+the<br>
+ adroitness that triumphs under shield of the Code is above them
+or<br>
+ beneath them; they have neither eye-glass nor telescope; they
+want<br>
+ good stout horrors easily visible. With their eyes fixed on
+the<br>
+ carnivora, they pay no attention to the reptiles; happily,
+they<br>
+ abandon to the writers of comedy the shading and colorings of
+a<br>
+ Chardin des Lupeaulx. Vain and egotistical, supple and
+proud,<br>
+ libertine and gourmand, grasping from the pressure of debt,
+discreet<br>
+ as a tomb out of which nought issues to contradict the
+epitaph<br>
+ intended for the passer's eye, bold and fearless when
+soliciting,<br>
+ good-natured and witty in all acceptations of the word, a
+timely<br>
+ jester, full of tact, knowing how to compromise others by a
+glance or<br>
+ a nudge, shrinking from no mudhole, but gracefully leaping
+it,<br>
+ intrepid Voltairean, yet punctual at mass if a fashionable
+company<br>
+ could be met in Saint Thomas Aquinas,--such a man as this
+secretary-<br>
+ general resembled, in one way or another, all the mediocrities
+who<br>
+ form the kernel of the political world. Knowing in the science
+of<br>
+ human nature, he assumed the character of a listener, and none
+was<br>
+ ever more attentive. Not to awaken suspicion he was flattering
+ad<br>
+ nauseum, insinuating as a perfume, and cajoling as a woman.</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx was just forty years old. His youth had long been
+a<br>
+ vexation to him, for he felt that the making of his career
+depended on<br>
+ his becoming a deputy. How had he reached his present position?
+may be<br>
+ asked. By very simple means. He began by taking charge of
+certain<br>
+ delicate missions which can be given neither to a man who
+respects<br>
+ himself nor to a man who does not respect himself, but are
+confided to<br>
+ grave and enigmatic individuals who can be acknowledged or
+disavowed<br>
+ at will. His business was that of being always compromised; but
+his<br>
+ fortunes were pushed as much by defeat as by success. He
+well<br>
+ understood that under the Restoration, a period of continual<br>
+ compromises between men, between things, between accomplished
+facts<br>
+ and other facts looking on the horizon, it was all-important for
+the<br>
+ ruling powers to have a household drudge. Observe in a family
+some old<br>
+ charwoman who can make beds, sweep the floors, carry away the
+dirty<br>
+ linen, who knows where the silver is kept, how the creditors
+should be<br>
+ pacified, what persons should be let in and who must be kept out
+of<br>
+ the house, and such a creature, even if she has all the vices,
+and is<br>
+ dirty, decrepit, and toothless, or puts into the lottery and
+steals<br>
+ thirty sous a day for her stake, and you will find the masters
+like<br>
+ her from habit, talk and consult in her hearing upon even
+critical<br>
+ matters; she comes and goes, suggests resources, gets on the
+scent of<br>
+ secrets, brings the rouge or the shawl at the right moment,
+lets<br>
+ herself be scolded and pushed downstairs, and the next
+morning<br>
+ reappears smiling with an excellent bouillon. No matter how high
+a<br>
+ statesman may stand, he is certain to have some household
+drudge,<br>
+ before whom he is weak, undecided, disputations with fate,
+self-<br>
+ questioning, self-answering, and buckling for the fight. Such
+a<br>
+ familiar is like the soft wood of savages, which, when rubbed
+against<br>
+ the hard wood, strikes fire. Sometimes great geniuses
+illumine<br>
+ themselves in this way. Napoleon lived with Berthier, Richelieu
+with<br>
+ Pere Joseph; des Lupeaulx was the familiar of everybody. He
+continued<br>
+ friends with fallen ministers and made himself their
+intermediary with<br>
+ their successors, diffusing thus the perfume of the last
+flattery and<br>
+ the first compliment. He well understood how to arrange all the
+little<br>
+ matters which a statesman has no leisure to attend to. He
+saw<br>
+ necessities as they arose; he obeyed well; he could gloss a base
+act<br>
+ with a jest and get the whole value of it; and he chose for
+the<br>
+ services he thus rendered those that the recipients were not
+likely to<br>
+ forget.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, when it was necessary to cross the ditch between the
+Empire and<br>
+ the Restoration, at a time when every one was looking about
+for<br>
+ planks, and the curs of the Empire were howling their devotion
+right<br>
+ and left, des Lupeaulx borrowed large sums from the usurers
+and<br>
+ crossed the frontier. Risking all to win all, he bought up
+Louis<br>
+ XVIII.'s most pressing debts, and was the first to settle nearly
+three<br>
+ million of them at twenty per cent--for he was lucky enough to
+be<br>
+ backed by Gobseck in 1814 and 1815. It is true that Messrs.
+Gobseck,<br>
+ Werdet, and Gigonnet swallowed the profits, but des Lupeaulx
+had<br>
+ agreed that they should have them; he was not playing for a
+stake; he<br>
+ challenged the bank, as it were, knowing very well that the king
+was<br>
+ not a man to forget this debt of honor. Des Lupeaulx was not
+mistaken;<br>
+ he was appointed Master of petitions, Knight of the order of
+Saint<br>
+ Louis, and officer of the Legion of honor. Once on the ladder
+of<br>
+ political success, his clever mind looked about for the means
+to<br>
+ maintain his foothold; for in the fortified city into which he
+had<br>
+ wormed himself, generals do not long keep useless mouths. So to
+his<br>
+ general trade of household drudge and go-between he added that
+of<br>
+ gratuitous consultation on the secret maladies of power.</p>
+
+<p>After discovering in the so-called superior men of the
+Restoration<br>
+ their utter inferiority in comparison with the events which
+had<br>
+ brought them to the front, he overcame their political
+mediocrity by<br>
+ putting into their mouths, at a crisis, the word of command for
+which<br>
+ men of real talent were listening. It must not be thought that
+this<br>
+ word was the outcome of his own mind. Were it so, des Lupeaulx
+would<br>
+ have been a man of genius, whereas he was only a man of talent.
+He<br>
+ went everywhere, collected opinions, sounded consciences, and
+caught<br>
+ all the tones they gave out. He gathered knowledge like a true
+and<br>
+ indefatigable political bee. This walking Bayle dictionary did
+not<br>
+ act, however, like that famous lexicon; he did not report all
+opinions<br>
+ without drawing his own conclusions; he had the talent of a fly
+which<br>
+ drops plumb upon the best bit of meat in the middle of a
+kitchen. In<br>
+ this way he came to be regarded as an indispensable helper
+to<br>
+ statesmen. A belief in his capacity had taken such deep root in
+all<br>
+ minds that the more ambitious public men felt it was necessary
+to<br>
+ compromise des Lupeaulx in some way to prevent his rising
+higher; they<br>
+ made up to him for his subordinate public position by their
+secret<br>
+ confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, feeling that such men were dependent on him,
+this<br>
+ gleaner of ideas exacted certain dues. He received a salary on
+the<br>
+ staff of the National Guard, where he held a sinecure which was
+paid<br>
+ for by the city of Paris; he was government commissioner to a
+secret<br>
+ society; and filled a position of superintendence in the
+royal<br>
+ household. His two official posts which appeared on the budget
+were<br>
+ those of secretary-general to his ministry and Master of
+petitions.<br>
+ What he now wanted was to be made commander of the Legion of
+honor,<br>
+ gentleman of the bed-chamber, count, and deputy. To be elected
+deputy<br>
+ it was necessary to pay taxes to the amount of a thousand
+francs; and<br>
+ the miserable homestead of the des Lupeaulx was rated at only
+five<br>
+ hundred. Where could he get money to build a mansion and
+surround it<br>
+ with sufficient domain to throw dust in the eyes of a
+constituency?<br>
+ Though he dined out every day, and was lodged for the last nine
+years<br>
+ at the cost of the State, and driven about in the minister's
+equipage,<br>
+ des Lupeaulx possessed absolutely nothing, at the time when our
+tale<br>
+ opens, but thirty thousand francs of debt--undisputed property.
+A<br>
+ marriage might float him and pump the waters of debt out of his
+bark;<br>
+ but a good marriage depended on his advancement, and his
+advancement<br>
+ required that he should be a deputy. Searching about him for the
+means<br>
+ of breaking through this vicious circle, he could think of
+nothing<br>
+ better than some immense service to render or some delicate
+intrigue<br>
+ to carry through for persons in power. Alas! conspiracies were
+out of<br>
+ date; the Bourbons were apparently on good terms with all
+parties;<br>
+ and, unfortunately, for the last few years the government had
+been so<br>
+ thoroughly held up to the light of day by the silly discussions
+of the<br>
+ Left, whose aim seemed to be to make government of any kind
+impossible<br>
+ in France, that no good strokes of business could be made. The
+last<br>
+ were tried in Spain, and what an outcry that excited!</p>
+
+<p>In addition to all this, des Lupeaulx complicated matters by
+believing<br>
+ in the friendship of his minister, to whom he had the imprudence
+to<br>
+ express the wish to sit on the ministerial benches. The
+minister<br>
+ guessed at the real meaning of the desire, which simply was that
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx wanted to strengthen a precarious position, so that he
+might<br>
+ throw off all dependence on his chief. The harrier turned
+against the<br>
+ huntsman; the minister gave him cuts with the whip and
+caresses,<br>
+ alternately, and set up rivals to him. But des Lupeaulx behaved
+like<br>
+ an adroit courtier with all competitors; he laid traps into
+which they<br>
+ fell, and then he did prompt justice upon them. The more he
+felt<br>
+ himself in danger the more anxious he became for an
+irremovable<br>
+ position; yet he was compelled to play low; one moment's
+indiscretion,<br>
+ and he might lose everything. A pen-stroke might demolish his
+civilian<br>
+ epaulets, his place at court, his sinecure, his two offices and
+their<br>
+ advantages; in all, six salaries retained under fire of the
+law<br>
+ against pluralists. Sometimes he threatened his minister as a
+mistress<br>
+ threatens her lover; telling him he was about to marry a rich
+widow.<br>
+ At such times the minister petted and cajoled des Lupeaulx.
+After one<br>
+ of these reconciliations he received the formal promise of a
+place in<br>
+ the Academy of Belles-lettres on the first vacancy. "It would
+pay," he<br>
+ said, "the keep of a horse." His position, so far as it went,
+was a<br>
+ good one, and Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx flourished in it like
+a<br>
+ tree planted in good soil. He could satisfy his vices, his
+caprices,<br>
+ his virtues and his defects.</p>
+
+<p>The following were the toils of his life. He was obliged to
+choose,<br>
+ among five or six daily invitations, the house where he could be
+sure<br>
+ of the best dinner. Every morning he went to his minister's
+morning<br>
+ reception to amuse that official and his wife, and to pet
+their<br>
+ children. Then he worked an hour or two; that is to say, he lay
+back<br>
+ in a comfortable chair and read the newspapers, dictated the
+meaning<br>
+ of a letter, received visitors when the minister was not
+present,<br>
+ explained the work in a general way, caught or shed a few drops
+of the<br>
+ holy-water of the court, looked over the petitions with an
+eyeglass,<br>
+ or wrote his name on the margin,--a signature which meant "I
+think it<br>
+ absurd; do what you like about it." Every body knew that when
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx was interested in any person or in any thing he
+attended to<br>
+ the matter personally. He allowed the head-clerks to
+converse<br>
+ privately about affairs of delicacy, but he listened to their
+gossip.<br>
+ From time to time he went to the Tuileries to get his cue. And
+he<br>
+ always waited for the minister's return from the Chamber, if
+in<br>
+ session, to hear from him what intrigue or manoeuvre he was to
+set<br>
+ about. This official sybarite dressed, dined, and visited a
+dozen or<br>
+ fifteen salons between eight at night and three in the morning.
+At the<br>
+ opera he talked with journalists, for he stood high in their
+favor; a<br>
+ perpetual exchange of little services went on between them; he
+poured<br>
+ into their ears his misleading news and swallowed theirs; he
+prevented<br>
+ them from attacking this or that minister on such or such a
+matter, on<br>
+ the plea that it would cause real pain to their wives or
+their<br>
+ mistresses.</p>
+
+<p>"Say that his bill is worth nothing, and prove it if you can,
+but do<br>
+ not say that Mariette danced badly. The devil! haven't we all
+played<br>
+ our little plays; and which of us knows what will become of him
+in<br>
+ times like these? You may be minister yourself to-morrow, you
+who are<br>
+ spicing the cakes of the 'Constitutionel' to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, in return, he helped editors, or got rid of
+obstacles to<br>
+ the performances of some play; gave gratuities and good dinners
+at the<br>
+ right moment, or promised his services to bring some affair to a
+happy<br>
+ conclusion. Moreover, he really liked literature and the arts;
+he<br>
+ collected autographs, obtained splendid albums gratis, and
+possessed<br>
+ sketches, engravings, and pictures. He did a great deal of good
+to<br>
+ artists by simply not injuring them and by furthering their
+wishes on<br>
+ certain occasions when their self-love wanted some rather
+costly<br>
+ gratification. Consequently, he was much liked in the world of
+actors<br>
+ and actresses, journalists and artists. For one thing, they had
+the<br>
+ same vices and the same indolence as himself. Men who could all
+say<br>
+ such witty things in their cups or in company with a danseuse,
+how<br>
+ could they help being friends? If des Lupeaulx had not been a
+general-<br>
+ secretary he would certainly have been a journalist. Thus, in
+that<br>
+ fifteen years' struggle in which the harlequin sabre of epigram
+opened<br>
+ a breach by which insurrection entered the citadel, des Lupeaulx
+never<br>
+ received so much as a scratch.</p>
+
+<p>As the young fry of clerks looked at this man playing bowls in
+the<br>
+ gardens of the ministry with the minister's children, they
+cracked<br>
+ their brains to guess the secret of his influence and the nature
+of<br>
+ his services; while, on the other hand, the aristocrats in all
+the<br>
+ various ministries looked upon him as a dangerous
+Mephistopheles,<br>
+ courted him, and gave him back with usury the flatteries he
+bestowed<br>
+ in the higher sphere. As difficult to decipher as a
+hieroglyphic<br>
+ inscription to the clerks, the vocation of the secretary and
+his<br>
+ usefulness were as plain as the rule of three to the
+self-interested.<br>
+ This lesser Prince de Wagram of the administration, to whom the
+duty<br>
+ of gathering opinions and ideas and making verbal reports
+thereon was<br>
+ entrusted, knew all the secrets of parliamentary politics;
+dragged in<br>
+ the lukewarm, fetched, carried, and buried propositions, said
+the Yes<br>
+ and the No that the ministers dared not say for themselves.
+Compelled<br>
+ to receive the first fire and the first blows of despair and
+wrath, he<br>
+ laughed or bemoaned himself with the minister, as the case might
+be.<br>
+ Mysterious link by which many interests were in some way
+connected<br>
+ with the Tuileries, and safe as a confessor, he sometimes
+knew<br>
+ everything and sometimes nothing; and, in addition to all
+these<br>
+ functions came that of saying for the minister those things that
+a<br>
+ minister cannot say for himself. In short, with his
+political<br>
+ Hephaestion the minister might dare to be himself; to take off
+his wig<br>
+ and his false teeth, lay aside his scruples, put on his
+slippers,<br>
+ unbutton his conscience, and give way to his trickery. However,
+it was<br>
+ not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he flattered and
+advised his<br>
+ master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to advise
+while<br>
+ flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All<br>
+ politicians who follow this trade have bilious faces; and
+their<br>
+ constant habit of giving affirmative nods acquiescing in what is
+said<br>
+ to them, or seeming to do so, gives a certain peculiar turn to
+their<br>
+ heads. They agree indifferently with whatever is said before
+them.<br>
+ Their talk is full of "buts," "notwithstandings," "for myself
+I<br>
+ should," "were I in your place" (they often say "in your
+place"),--<br>
+ phrases, however, which pave the way to opposition.</p>
+
+<p>In person, Clement des Lupeaulx had the remains of a handsome
+man;<br>
+ five feet six inches tall, tolerably stout, complexion flushed
+with<br>
+ good living, powdered head, delicate spectacles, and a worn-out
+air;<br>
+ the natural skin blond, as shown by the hand, puffy like that of
+an<br>
+ old woman, rather too square, and with short nails--the hand of
+a<br>
+ satrap. His foot was elegant. After five o'clock in the
+afternoon des<br>
+ Lupeaulx was always to be seen in open-worked silk stockings,
+low<br>
+ shoes, black trousers, cashmere waistcoat, cambric
+handkerchief<br>
+ (without perfume), gold chain, blue coat of the shade called
+"king's<br>
+ blue," with brass buttons and a string of orders. In the morning
+he<br>
+ wore creaking boots and gray trousers, and the short close
+surtout<br>
+ coat of the politician. His general appearance early in the day
+was<br>
+ that of a sharp lawyer rather than that of a ministerial
+officer. Eyes<br>
+ glazed by the constant use of spectacles made him plainer than
+he<br>
+ really was, if by chance he took those appendages off. To real
+judges<br>
+ of character, as well as to upright men who are at ease only
+with<br>
+ honest natures, des Lupeaulx was intolerable. To them, his
+gracious<br>
+ manners only draped his lies; his amiable protestations and
+hackneyed<br>
+ courtesies, new to the foolish and ignorant, too plainly showed
+their<br>
+ texture to an observing mind. Such minds considered him a
+rotten<br>
+ plank, on which no foot should trust itself.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the beautiful Madame Rabourdin decided to
+interfere in<br>
+ her husband's administrative advancement than she fathomed
+Clement des<br>
+ Lupeaulx's true character, and studied him thoughtfully to
+discover<br>
+ whether in this thin strip of deal there were ligneous fibres
+strong<br>
+ enough to let her lightly trip across it from the bureau to
+the<br>
+ department, from a salary of eight thousand a year to twelve
+thousand.<br>
+ The clever woman believed she could play her own game with
+this<br>
+ political roue; and Monsieur des Lupeaulx was partly the cause
+of the<br>
+ unusual expenditures which now began and were continued in
+the<br>
+ Rabourdin household.</p>
+
+<p>The rue Duphot, built up under the Empire, is remarkable for
+several<br>
+ houses with handsome exteriors, the apartments of which are
+skilfully<br>
+ laid out. That of the Rabourdins was particularly well
+arranged,--a<br>
+ domestic advantage which has much to do with the nobleness of
+private<br>
+ lives. A pretty and rather wide antechamber, lighted from
+the<br>
+ courtyard, led to the grand salon, the windows of which looked
+on the<br>
+ street. To the right of the salon were Rabourdin's study and
+bedroom,<br>
+ and behind them the dining-room, which was entered from the<br>
+ antechamber; to the left was Madame's bedroom and dressing-room,
+and<br>
+ behind them her daughter's little bedroom. On reception days the
+door<br>
+ of Rabourdin's study and that of his wife's bedroom were thrown
+open.<br>
+ The rooms were thus spacious enough to contain a select
+company,<br>
+ without the absurdity which attends many middle-class
+entertainments,<br>
+ where unusual preparations are made at the expense of the
+daily<br>
+ comfort, and consequently give the effect of exceptional effort.
+The<br>
+ salon had lately been rehung in gold-colored silk with
+carmelite<br>
+ touches. Madame's bedroom was draped in a fabric of true blue
+and<br>
+ furnished in a rococo manner. Rabourdin's study had inherited
+the late<br>
+ hangings of the salon, carefully cleaned, and was adorned by the
+fine<br>
+ pictures once belonging to Monsieur Leprince. The daughter of
+the late<br>
+ auctioneer had utilized in her dining-room certain exquisite
+Turkish<br>
+ rugs which her father had bought at a bargain; panelling them on
+the<br>
+ walls in ebony, the cost of which has since become exorbitant.
+Elegant<br>
+ buffets made by Boulle, also purchased by the auctioneer,
+furnished<br>
+ the sides of the room, at the end of which sparkled the
+brass<br>
+ arabesques inlaid in tortoise-shell of the first tall clock
+that<br>
+ reappeared in the nineteenth century to claim honor for the<br>
+ masterpieces of the seventeenth. Flowers perfumed these rooms so
+full<br>
+ of good taste and of exquisite things, where each detail was a
+work of<br>
+ art well placed and well surrounded, and where Madame
+Rabourdin,<br>
+ dressed with that natural simplicity which artists alone attain,
+gave<br>
+ the impression of a woman accustomed to such elegancies, though
+she<br>
+ never spoke of them, but allowed the charms of her mind to
+complete<br>
+ the effect produced upon her guests by these delightful
+surroundings.<br>
+ Thanks to her father, Celestine was able to make society talk of
+her<br>
+ as soon as the rococo became fashionable.</p>
+
+<p>Accustomed as des Lupeaulx was to false as well as real
+magnificence<br>
+ in all their stages, he was, nevertheless, surprised at
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin's home. The charm it exercised over this Parisian
+Asmodeus<br>
+ can be explained by a comparison. A traveller wearied with the
+rich<br>
+ aspects of Italy, Brazil, or India, returns to his own land and
+finds<br>
+ on his way a delightful little lake, like the Lac d'Orta at the
+foot<br>
+ of Monte Rosa, with an island resting on the calm waters,
+bewitchingly<br>
+ simple; a scene of nature and yet adorned; solitary, but
+well<br>
+ surrounded with choice plantations and foliage and statues of
+fine<br>
+ effect. Beyond lies a vista of shores both wild and
+cultivated;<br>
+ tumultuous grandeur towers above, but in itself all proportions
+are<br>
+ human. The world that the traveller has lately viewed is here
+in<br>
+ miniature, modest and pure; his soul, refreshed, bids him remain
+where<br>
+ a charm of melody and poesy surrounds him with harmony and
+awakens<br>
+ ideas within his mind. Such a scene represents both life and
+a<br>
+ monastery.</p>
+
+<p>A few days earlier the beautiful Madame Firmiani, one of the
+charming<br>
+ women of the faubourg Saint-Germain who visited and liked
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin, had said to des Lupeaulx (invited expressly to hear
+this<br>
+ remark), "Why do you not call on Madame --?" with a motion
+towards<br>
+ Celestine; "she gives delightful parties, and her dinners, above
+all,<br>
+ are--better than mine."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx allowed himself to be drawn into an engagement by
+the<br>
+ handsome Madame Rabourdin, who, for the first time, turned her
+eyes on<br>
+ him as she spoke. He had, accordingly, gone to the rue Duphot,
+and<br>
+ that tells the tale. Woman has but one trick, cries Figaro, but
+that's<br>
+ infallible. After dining once at the house of this
+unimportant<br>
+ official, des Lupeaulx made up his mind to dine there often.
+Thanks to<br>
+ the perfectly proper and becoming advances of the beautiful
+woman,<br>
+ whom her rival, Madame Colleville, called the Celimene of the
+rue<br>
+ Duphot, he had dined there every Friday for the last month,
+and<br>
+ returned of his own accord for a cup of tea on Wednesdays.</p>
+
+<p>Within a few days Madame Rabourdin, having watched him
+narrowly and<br>
+ knowingly, believed she had found on the secretarial plank a
+spot<br>
+ where she might safely set her foot. She was no longer doubtful
+of<br>
+ success. Her inward joy can be realized only in the families
+of<br>
+ government officials where for three or four years prosperity
+has been<br>
+ counted on through some appointment, long expected and long
+sought.<br>
+ How many troubles are to be allayed! how many entreaties and
+pledges<br>
+ given to the ministerial divinities! how many visits of
+self-interest<br>
+ paid! At last, thanks to her boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard
+the hour<br>
+ strike when she was to have twenty thousand francs a year
+instead of<br>
+ eight thousand.</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall have managed well," she said to herself. "I have
+had to<br>
+ make a little outlay; but these are times when hidden merit
+is<br>
+ overlooked, whereas if a man keeps himself well in sight before
+the<br>
+ world, cultivates social relations and extends them, he
+succeeds.<br>
+ After all, ministers and their friends interest themselves only
+in the<br>
+ people they see; but Rabourdin knows nothing of the world! If I
+had<br>
+ not cajoled those three deputies they might have wanted La<br>
+ Billardiere's place themselves; whereas, now that I have invited
+them<br>
+ here, they will be ashamed to do so and will become our
+supporters<br>
+ instead of rivals. I have rather played the coquette, but--it
+is<br>
+ delightful that the first nonsense with which one fools a
+man<br>
+ sufficed."</p>
+
+<p>The day on which a serious and unlooked-for struggle about
+this<br>
+ appointment began, after a ministerial dinner which preceded one
+of<br>
+ those receptions which ministers regard as public, des Lupeaulx
+was<br>
+ standing beside the fireplace near the minister's wife. While
+taking<br>
+ his coffee he once more included Madame Rabourdin among the
+seven or<br>
+ eight really superior women in Paris. Several times already he
+had<br>
+ staked Madame Rabourdin very much as Corporal Trim staked his
+cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that too often, my dear friend, or you will injure
+her,"<br>
+ said the minister's wife, half-laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Women never like to hear the praise of other women; they keep
+silence<br>
+ themselves to lessen its effect.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor La Billardiere is dying," remarked his Excellency the
+minister;<br>
+ "that place falls to Rabourdin, one of our most able men, and to
+whom<br>
+ our predecessors did not behave well, though one of them
+actually owed<br>
+ his position in the prefecture of police under the Empire to a
+certain<br>
+ great personage who was interested in Rabourdin. But, my dear
+friend,<br>
+ you are still young enough to be loved by a pretty woman for<br>
+ yourself--"</p>
+
+<p>"If La Billardiere's place is given to Rabourdin I may be
+believed<br>
+ when I praise the superiority of his wife," replied des
+Lupeaulx,<br>
+ piqued by the minister's sarcasm; "but if Madame la Comtesse
+would be<br>
+ willing to judge for herself--"</p>
+
+<p>"You want me to invite her to my next ball, don't you? Your
+clever<br>
+ woman will meet a knot of other women who only come here to
+laugh at<br>
+ us, and when they hear 'Madame Rabourdin' announced--"</p>
+
+<p>"But Madame Firmiani is announced at the Foreign Office
+parties?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but she was born a Cadignan!" said the newly created
+count, with<br>
+ a savage look at his general-secretary, for neither he nor his
+wife<br>
+ were noble.</p>
+
+<p>The persons present thought important matters were being
+talked over,<br>
+ and the solicitors for favors and appointments kept at a
+little<br>
+ distance. When des Lupeaulx left the room the countess said to
+her<br>
+ husband, "I think des Lupeaulx is in love."</p>
+
+<p>"For the first time in his life, then," he replied, shrugging
+his<br>
+ shoulders, as much as to inform his wife that des Lupeaulx did
+not<br>
+ concern himself with such nonsense.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the minister saw a deputy of the Right Centre enter
+the<br>
+ room, and he left his wife abruptly to cajole an undecided vote.
+But<br>
+ the deputy, under the blow of a sudden and unexpected disaster,
+wanted<br>
+ to make sure of a protector and he had come to announce
+privately that<br>
+ in a few days he should be compelled to resign. Thus forewarned,
+the<br>
+ minister would be able to open his batteries for the new
+election<br>
+ before those of the opposition.</p>
+
+<p>The minister, or to speak correctly, des Lupeaulx had invited
+to<br>
+ dinner on this occasion one of those irremovable officials who,
+as we<br>
+ have said, are to be found in every ministry; an individual
+much<br>
+ embarrassed by his own person, who, in his desire to maintain
+a<br>
+ dignified appearance, was standing erect and rigid on his two
+legs,<br>
+ held well together like the Greek hermae. This functionary
+waited near<br>
+ the fireplace to thank the secretary, whose abrupt and
+unexpected<br>
+ departure from the room disconcerted him at the moment when he
+was<br>
+ about to turn a compliment. This official was the cashier of
+the<br>
+ ministry, the only clerk who did not tremble when the
+government<br>
+ changed hands.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of which we write, the Chamber did not meddle
+shabbily<br>
+ with the budget, as it does in the deplorable days in which we
+now<br>
+ live; it did not contemptibly reduce ministerial emoluments, nor
+save,<br>
+ as they say in the kitchen, the candle-ends; on the contrary,
+it<br>
+ granted to each minister taking charge of a public department
+an<br>
+ indemnity, called an "outfit." It costs, alas, as much to enter
+on the<br>
+ duties of a minister as to retire from them; indeed, the
+entrance<br>
+ involves expenses of all kinds which it is quite impossible
+to<br>
+ inventory. This indemnity amounted to the pretty little sum of
+twenty-<br>
+ five thousand francs. When the appointment of a new minister
+was<br>
+ gazetted in the "Moniteur," and the greater or lesser
+officials,<br>
+ clustering round the stoves or before the fireplaces and shaking
+in<br>
+ their shoes, asked themselves: "What will he do? will he
+increase the<br>
+ number of clerks? will he dismiss two to make room for three?"
+the<br>
+ cashier tranquilly took out twenty-five clean bank-bills and
+pinned<br>
+ them together with a satisfied expression on his beadle face.
+The next<br>
+ day he mounted the private staircase and had himself ushered
+into the<br>
+ minister's presence by the lackeys, who considered the money and
+the<br>
+ keeper of money, the contents and the container, the idea and
+the<br>
+ form, as one and the same power. The cashier caught the
+ministerial<br>
+ pair at the dawn of official delight, when the newly
+appointed<br>
+ statesman is benign and affable. To the minister's inquiry as to
+what<br>
+ brings him there, he replies with the bank-notes,--informing
+his<br>
+ Excellency that he hastens to pay him the customary
+indemnity.<br>
+ Moreover, he explains the matter to the minister's wife, who
+never<br>
+ fails to draw freely upon the fund, and sometimes takes all, for
+the<br>
+ "outfit" is looked upon as a household affair. The cashier
+then<br>
+ proceeds to turn a compliment, and to slip in a few politic
+phrases:<br>
+ "If his Excellency would deign to retain him; if, satisfied with
+his<br>
+ purely mechanical services, he would," etc. As a man who
+brings<br>
+ twenty-five thousand francs is always a worthy official, the
+cashier<br>
+ is sure not to leave without his confirmation to the post from
+which<br>
+ he has seen a succession of ministers come and go during a
+period of,<br>
+ perhaps, twenty-five years. His next step is to place himself at
+the<br>
+ orders of Madame; he brings the monthly thirteen thousand
+francs<br>
+ whenever wanted; he advances or delays the payment as requested,
+and<br>
+ thus manages to obtain, as they said in the monasteries, a voice
+in<br>
+ the chapter.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, when that establishment
+kept its<br>
+ books by double entry, the Sieur Saillard was compensated for
+the loss<br>
+ of that position by his appointment as cashier of a ministry. He
+was a<br>
+ bulky, fat man, very strong in the matter of book-keeping, and
+very<br>
+ weak in everything else; round as a round O, simple as
+how-do-you-do,<br>
+ --a man who came to his office with measured steps, like those
+of an<br>
+ elephant, and returned with the same measured tread to the
+place<br>
+ Royale, where he lived on the ground-floor of an old mansion
+belonging<br>
+ to him. He usually had a companion on the way in the person
+of<br>
+ Monsieur Isidore Baudoyer, head of a bureau in Monsieur de
+la<br>
+ Billardiere's division, consequently one of Rabourdin's
+colleagues.<br>
+ Baudoyer was married to Elisabeth Saillard, the cashier's
+only<br>
+ daughter, and had hired, very naturally, the apartments above
+those of<br>
+ his father-in-law. No one at the ministry had the slightest
+doubt that<br>
+ Saillard was a blockhead, but neither had any one ever found out
+how<br>
+ far his stupidity could go; it was too compact to be examined;
+it did<br>
+ not ring hollow; it absorbed everything and gave nothing out.
+Bixiou<br>
+ (a clerk of whom more anon) caricatured the cashier by drawing a
+head<br>
+ in a wig at the top of an egg, and two little legs at the other
+end,<br>
+ with this inscription: "Born to pay out and take in without<br>
+ blundering. A little less luck, and he might have been lackey to
+the<br>
+ bank of France; a little more ambition, and he could have
+been<br>
+ honorably discharged."</p>
+
+<p>At the moment of which we are now writing, the minister was
+looking at<br>
+ his cashier very much as we gaze at a window or a cornice,
+without<br>
+ supposing that either can hear us, or fathom our secret
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"I am all the more anxious that we should settle everything
+with the<br>
+ prefect in the quietest way, because des Lupeaulx has designs
+upon the<br>
+ place for himself," said the minister, continuing his talk with
+the<br>
+ deputy; "his paltry little estate is in your arrondissement; we
+won't<br>
+ want him as deputy."</p>
+
+<p>"He has neither years nor rentals enough to be eligible," said
+the<br>
+ deputy.</p>
+
+<p>"That may be; but you know how it was decided for Casimir
+Perier as to<br>
+ age; and as to worldly possessions, des Lupeaulx does
+possess<br>
+ something,--not much, it is true, but the law does not take
+into<br>
+ account increase, which he may very well obtain; commissions
+have wide<br>
+ margins for the deputies of the Centre, you know, and we cannot
+openly<br>
+ oppose the good-will that is shown to this dear friend."</p>
+
+<p>"But where would he get the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"How did Manuel manage to become the owner of a house in
+Paris?" cried<br>
+ the minister.</p>
+
+<p>The cashier listened and heard, but reluctantly and against
+his will.<br>
+ These rapid remarks, murmured as they were, struck his ear by
+one of<br>
+ those acoustic rebounds which are very little studied. As he
+heard<br>
+ these political confidences, however, a keen alarm took
+possession of<br>
+ his soul. He was one of those simple-minded beings, who are
+shocked at<br>
+ listening to anything they are not intended to hear, or entering
+where<br>
+ they are not invited, and seeming bold when they are really
+timid,<br>
+ inquisitive where they are truly discreet. The cashier
+accordingly<br>
+ began to glide along the carpet and edge himself away, so that
+the<br>
+ minister saw him at a distance when he first took notice of
+him.<br>
+ Saillard was a ministerial henchman absolutely incapable of<br>
+ indiscretion; even if the minister had known that he had
+overheard a<br>
+ secret he had only to whisper "motus" in his ear to be sure it
+was<br>
+ perfectly safe. The cashier, however, took advantage of an
+influx of<br>
+ office-seekers, to slip out and get into his hackney-coach
+(hired by<br>
+ the hour for these costly entertainments), and to return to his
+home<br>
+ in the place Royale.</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h4>THE TEREDOS NAVALIS, OTHERWISE CALLED SHIP-WORM</h4>
+
+<p>While old Saillard was driving across Paris his son-in-law,
+Isidore<br>
+ Baudoyer, and his daughter, Elisabeth, Baudoyer's wife, were
+playing a<br>
+ virtuous game of boston with their confessor, the Abbe Gaudron,
+in<br>
+ company with a few neighbors and a certain Martin Falleix, a
+brass-<br>
+ founder in the fauborg Saint-Antoine, to whom Saillard had
+loaned the<br>
+ necessary money to establish a business. This Falleix, a
+respectable<br>
+ Auvergnat who had come to seek his fortune in Paris with his
+smelting-<br>
+ pot on his back, had found immediate employment with the firm
+of<br>
+ Brezac, collectors of metals and other relics from all chateaux
+in the<br>
+ provinces. About twenty-seven years of age, and spoiled, like
+others,<br>
+ by success, Martin Falleix had had the luck to become the active
+agent<br>
+ of Monsieur Saillard, the sleeping-partner in the working out of
+a<br>
+ discovery made by Falleix in smelting (patent of invention and
+gold<br>
+ medal granted at the exposition of 1825). Madame Baudoyer, whose
+only<br>
+ daughter was treading--to use an expression of old
+Saillard's--on the<br>
+ tail of her twelve years, laid claim to Falleix, a thickset,
+swarthy,<br>
+ active young fellow, of shrewd principles, whose education she
+was<br>
+ superintending. The said education, according to her ideas,
+consisted<br>
+ in teaching him to play boston, to hold his cards properly, and
+not to<br>
+ let others see his game; to shave himself regularly before he
+came to<br>
+ the house, and to wash his hands with good cleansing soap; not
+to<br>
+ swear, to speak her kind of French, to wear boots instead of
+shoes,<br>
+ cotton shirts instead of sacking, and to brush up his hair
+instead of<br>
+ plastering it flat. During the preceding week Elisabeth had
+finally<br>
+ succeeded in persuading Falleix to give up wearing a pair of
+enormous<br>
+ flat earrings resembling hoops.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "You go too far, Madame Baudoyer," he said, seeing her
+satisfaction at<br>
+ the final sacrifice; "you order me about too much. You make me
+clean<br>
+ my teeth, which loosens them; presently you will want me to
+brush my<br>
+ nails and curl my hair, which won't do at all in our business;
+we<br>
+ don't like dandies."</p>
+
+<p>Elisabeth Baudoyer, nee Saillard, is one of those persons who
+escape<br>
+ portraiture through their utter commonness; yet who ought to
+be<br>
+ sketched, because they are specimens of that second-rate
+Parisian<br>
+ bourgeoisie which occupies a place above the well-to-do artisan
+and<br>
+ below the upper middle classes,--a tribe whose virtues are
+well-nigh<br>
+ vices, whose defects are never kindly, but whose habits and
+manners,<br>
+ dull and insipid though they be, are not without a certain<br>
+ originality. Something pinched and puny about Elisabeth Saillard
+was<br>
+ painful to the eye. Her figure, scarcely over four feet in
+height, was<br>
+ so thin that the waist measured less than twenty inches. Her
+small<br>
+ features, which clustered close about the nose, gave her face a
+vague<br>
+ resemblance to a weasel's snout. Though she was past thirty
+years old<br>
+ she looked scarcely more than sixteen. Her eyes, of porcelain
+blue,<br>
+ overweighted by heavy eyelids which fell nearly straight from
+the arch<br>
+ of the eyebrows, had little light in them. Everything about
+her<br>
+ appearance was commonplace: witness her flaxen hair, tending
+to<br>
+ whiteness; her flat forehead, from which the light did not
+reflect;<br>
+ and her dull complexion, with gray, almost leaden, tones. The
+lower<br>
+ part of the face, more triangular than oval, ended irregularly
+the<br>
+ otherwise irregular outline of her face. Her voice had a rather
+pretty<br>
+ range of intonation, from sharp to sweet. Elisabeth was a
+perfect<br>
+ specimen of the second-rate little bourgeoisie who lectures
+her<br>
+ husband behind the curtains; obtains no credit for her virtues;
+is<br>
+ ambitious without intelligent object, and solely through the<br>
+ development of her domestic selfishness. Had she lived in the
+country<br>
+ she would have bought up adjacent land; being, as she was,
+connected<br>
+ with the administration, she was determined to push her way. If
+we<br>
+ relate the life of her father and mother, we shall show the sort
+of<br>
+ woman she was by a picture of her childhood and youth.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Saillard married the daughter of an upholsterer
+keeping shop<br>
+ under the arcades of the Market. Limited means compelled
+Monsieur and<br>
+ Madame Saillard at their start in life to bear constant
+privation.<br>
+ After thirty-three years of married life, and twenty-nine years
+of<br>
+ toil in a government office, the property of "the
+Saillards"--their<br>
+ circle of acquaintance called them so--consisted of sixty
+thousand<br>
+ francs entrusted to Falleix, the house in the place Royale,
+bought for<br>
+ forty thousand in 1804, and thirty-six thousand francs given in
+dowry<br>
+ to their daughter Elisabeth. Out of this capital about fifty
+thousand<br>
+ came to them by the will of the widow Bidault, Madame
+Saillard's<br>
+ mother. Saillard's salary from the government had always been
+four<br>
+ thousand five hundred francs a year, and no more; his situation
+was a<br>
+ blind alley that led nowhere, and had tempted no one to
+supersede him.<br>
+ Those ninety thousand francs, put together sou by sou, were the
+fruit<br>
+ therefore of a sordid economy unintelligently employed. In fact,
+the<br>
+ Saillards did not know how better to manage their savings than
+to<br>
+ carry them, five thousand francs at a time, to their notary,
+Monsieur<br>
+ Sorbier, Cardot's predecessor, and let him invest them at five
+per<br>
+ cent in first mortgages, with the wife's rights reserved in case
+the<br>
+ borrower was married! In 1804 Madame Saillard obtained a
+government<br>
+ office for the sale of stamped papers, a circumstance which
+brought a<br>
+ servant into the household for the first time. At the time of
+which we<br>
+ write, the house, which was worth a hundred thousand francs,
+brought<br>
+ in a rental of eight thousand. Falleix paid seven per cent for
+the<br>
+ sixty thousand invested in the foundry, besides an equal
+division of<br>
+ profits. The Saillards were therefore enjoying an income of not
+less<br>
+ than seventeen thousand francs a year. The whole ambition of the
+good<br>
+ man now centred on obtaining the cross of the Legion and his
+retiring<br>
+ pension.</p>
+
+<p>Elisabeth, the only child, had toiled steadily from infancy in
+a home<br>
+ where the customs of life were rigid and the ideas simple. A new
+hat<br>
+ for Saillard was a matter of deliberation; the time a coat could
+last<br>
+ was estimated and discussed; umbrellas were carefully hung up by
+means<br>
+ of a brass buckle. Since 1804 no repairs of any kind had been
+done to<br>
+ the house. The Saillards kept the ground-floor in precisely the
+state<br>
+ in which their predecessor left it. The gilding of the
+pier-glasses<br>
+ was rubbed off; the paint on the cornices was hardly visible
+through<br>
+ the layers of dust that time had collected. The fine large rooms
+still<br>
+ retained certain sculptured marble mantel-pieces and ceilings,
+worthy<br>
+ of Versailles, together with the old furniture of the widow
+Bidault.<br>
+ The latter consisted of a curious mixture of walnut
+armchairs,<br>
+ disjointed, and covered with tapestry; rosewood bureaus; round
+tables<br>
+ on single pedestals, with brass railings and cracked marble
+tops; one<br>
+ superb Boulle secretary, the value of which style had not yet
+been<br>
+ recognized; in short, a chaos of bargains picked up by the
+worthy<br>
+ widow,--pictures bought for the sake of the frames, china
+services of<br>
+ a composite order; to wit, a magnificent Japanese dessert set,
+and all<br>
+ the rest porcelains of various makes, unmatched silver plate,
+old<br>
+ glass, fine damask, and a four-post bedstead, hung with curtains
+and<br>
+ garnished with plumes.</p>
+
+<p>Amid these curious relics, Madame Saillard always sat on a
+sofa of<br>
+ modern mahogany, near a fireplace full of ashes and without
+fire, on<br>
+ the mantel-shelf of which stood a clock, some antique
+bronzes,<br>
+ candelabra with paper flowers but no candles, for the
+careful<br>
+ housewife lighted the room with a tall tallow candle always
+guttering<br>
+ down into the flat brass candlestick which held it. Madame
+Saillard's<br>
+ face, despite its wrinkles, was expressive of obstinacy and
+severity,<br>
+ narrowness of ideas, an uprightness that might be called
+quadrangular,<br>
+ a religion without piety, straightforward, candid avarice, and
+the<br>
+ peace of a quiet conscience. You may see in certain Flemish
+pictures<br>
+ the wives of burgomasters cut out by nature on the same pattern
+and<br>
+ wonderfully reproduced on canvas; but these dames wear fine
+robes of<br>
+ velvet and precious stuffs, whereas Madame Saillard possessed
+no<br>
+ robes, only that venerable garment called in Touraine and
+Picardy<br>
+ "cottes," elsewhere petticoats, or skirts pleated behind and on
+each<br>
+ side, with other skirts hanging over them. Her bust was inclosed
+in<br>
+ what was called a "casaquin," another obsolete name for a short
+gown<br>
+ or jacket. She continued to wear a cap with starched wings, and
+shoes<br>
+ with high heels. Though she was now fifty-seven years old, and
+her<br>
+ lifetime of vigorous household work ought now to be rewarded
+with<br>
+ well-earned repose, she was incessantly employed in knitting
+her<br>
+ husband's stockings and her own, and those of an uncle, just as
+her<br>
+ countrywomen knit them, moving about the room, talking, pacing
+up and<br>
+ down the garden, or looking round the kitchen to watch what was
+going<br>
+ on.</p>
+
+<p>The Saillard's avarice, which was really imposed on them in
+the first<br>
+ instance by dire necessity, was now a second nature. When the
+cashier<br>
+ got back from the office, he laid aside his coat, and went to
+work in<br>
+ the large garden, shut off from the courtyard by an iron
+railing, and<br>
+ which the family reserved to itself. For years Elisabeth,
+the<br>
+ daughter, went to market every morning with her mother, and the
+two<br>
+ did all the work of the house. The mother cooked well,
+especially a<br>
+ duck with turnips; but, according to Saillard, no one could
+equal<br>
+ Elisabeth in hashing the remains of a leg of mutton with onions.
+"You<br>
+ might eat your boots with those onions and not know it," he
+remarked.<br>
+ As soon as Elisabeth knew how to hold a needle, her mother had
+her<br>
+ mend the household linen and her father's coats. Always at work,
+like<br>
+ a servant, she never went out alone. Though living close by
+the<br>
+ boulevard du Temple, where Franconi, La Gaite, and
+l'Ambigu-Comique<br>
+ were within a stone's throw, and, further on, the
+Porte-Saint-Martin,<br>
+ Elisabeth had never seen a comedy. When she asked to "see what
+it was<br>
+ like" (with the Abbe Gaudron's permission, be it understood),
+Monsieur<br>
+ Baudoyer took her--for the glory of the thing, and to show her
+the<br>
+ finest that was to be seen--to the Opera, where they were
+playing "The<br>
+ Chinese Laborer." Elisabeth thought "the comedy" as wearisome as
+the<br>
+ plague of flies, and never wished to see another. On Sundays,
+after<br>
+ walking four times to and fro between the place Royale and
+Saint-<br>
+ Paul's church (for her mother made her practise the precepts and
+the<br>
+ duties of religion), her parents took her to the pavement in
+front of<br>
+ the Cafe Ture, where they sat on chairs placed between a railing
+and<br>
+ the wall. The Saillards always made haste to reach the place
+early so<br>
+ as to choose the best seats, and found much entertainment in
+watching<br>
+ the passers-by. In those days the Cafe Ture was the rendezvous
+of the<br>
+ fashionable society of the Marais, the faubourg Saint-Antoine,
+and the<br>
+ circumjacent regions.</p>
+
+<p>Elisabeth never wore anything but cotton gowns in summer and
+merino in<br>
+ the winter, which she made herself. Her mother gave her twenty
+francs<br>
+ a month for her expenses, but her father, who was very fond of
+her,<br>
+ mitigated this rigorous treatment with a few presents. She never
+read<br>
+ what the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's and the family
+director,<br>
+ called profane books. This discipline had borne fruit. Forced
+to<br>
+ employ her feelings on some passion or other, Elisabeth became
+eager<br>
+ after gain. Though she was not lacking in sense or
+perspicacity,<br>
+ religious theories, and her complete ignorance of higher
+emotions had<br>
+ encircled all her faculties with an iron hand; they were
+exercised<br>
+ solely on the commonest things of life; spent in a few
+directions they<br>
+ were able to concentrate themselves on a matter in hand.
+Repressed by<br>
+ religious devotion, her natural intelligence exercised itself
+within<br>
+ the limits marked out by cases of conscience, which form a mine
+of<br>
+ subtleties among which self-interest selects its subterfuges.
+Like<br>
+ those saintly personages in whom religion does not stifle
+ambition,<br>
+ Elisabeth was capable of requiring others to do a blamable
+action that<br>
+ she might reap the fruits; and she would have been, like them
+again,<br>
+ implacable as to her dues and dissembling in her actions.
+Once<br>
+ offended, she watched her adversaries with the perfidious
+patience of<br>
+ a cat, and was capable of bringing about some cold and
+complete<br>
+ vengeance, and then laying it to the account of God. Until
+her<br>
+ marriage the Saillards lived without other society than that of
+the<br>
+ Abbe Gaudron, a priest from Auvergne appointed vicar of
+Saint-Paul's<br>
+ after the restoration of Catholic worship. Besides this
+ecclesiastic,<br>
+ who was a friend of the late Madame Bidault, a paternal uncle
+of<br>
+ Madame Saillard, an old paper-dealer retired from business ever
+since<br>
+ the year II. of the Republic, and now sixty-nine years old, came
+to<br>
+ see them on Sundays only, because on that day no government
+business<br>
+ went on.</p>
+
+<p>This little old man, with a livid face blazoned by the red
+nose of a<br>
+ tippler and lighted by two gleaming vulture eyes, allowed his
+gray<br>
+ hair to hang loose under a three-cornered hat, wore breeches
+with<br>
+ straps that extended beyond the buckles, cotton stockings of
+mottled<br>
+ thread knitted by his niece, whom he always called "the
+little<br>
+ Saillard," stout shoes with silver buckles, and a surtout coat
+of<br>
+ mixed colors. He looked very much like those
+verger-beadle-bell-<br>
+ ringing-grave-digging-parish-clerks who are taken to be
+caricatures<br>
+ until we see them performing their various functions. On the
+present<br>
+ occasion he had come on foot to dine with the Saillards,
+intending to<br>
+ return in the same way to the rue Greneta, where he lived on the
+third<br>
+ floor of an old house. His business was that of discounting
+commercial<br>
+ paper in the quartier Saint-Martin, where he was known by the
+nickname<br>
+ of "Gigonnet," from the nervous convulsive movement with which
+he<br>
+ lifted his legs in walking, like a cat. Monsieur Bidault began
+this<br>
+ business in the year II. in partnership with a dutchman
+named<br>
+ Werbrust, a friend of Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>Some time later Saillard made the acquaintance of Monsieur and
+Madame<br>
+ Transon, wholesale dealers in pottery, with an establishment in
+the<br>
+ rue de Lesdiguieres, who took an interest in Elisabeth and
+introduced<br>
+ young Isadore Baudoyer to the family with the intention of
+marrying<br>
+ her. Gigonnet approved of the match, for he had long employed
+a<br>
+ certain Mitral, uncle of the young man, as clerk. Monsieur and
+Madame<br>
+ Baudoyer, father and mother of Isidore, highly respected
+leather-<br>
+ dressers in the rue Censier, had slowly made a moderate fortune
+out of<br>
+ a small trade. After marrying their only son, on whom they
+settled<br>
+ fifty thousand francs, they determined to live in the country,
+and had<br>
+ lately removed to the neighborhood of Ile-d'Adam, where after a
+time<br>
+ they were joined by Mitral. They frequently came to Paris,
+however,<br>
+ where they kept a corner in the house in the rue Censier which
+they<br>
+ gave to Isidore on his marriage. The elder Baudoyers had an
+income of<br>
+ about three thousand francs left to live upon after establishing
+their<br>
+ son.</p>
+
+<p>Mitral was a being with a sinister wig, a face the color of
+Seine<br>
+ water, lighted by a pair of Spanish-tobacco-colored eyes, cold
+as a<br>
+ well-rope, always smelling a rat, and close-mouthed about
+his<br>
+ property. He probably made his fortune in his own hole and
+corner,<br>
+ just as Werbrust and Gigonnet made theirs in the quartier
+Saint-<br>
+ Martin.</p>
+
+<p>Though the Saillards' circle of acquaintance increased,
+neither their<br>
+ ideas nor their manners and customs changed. The saint's-days
+of<br>
+ father, mother, daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild were
+carefully<br>
+ observed, also the anniversaries of birth and marriage,
+Easter,<br>
+ Christmas, New Year's day, and Epiphany. These festivals were
+preceded<br>
+ by great domestic sweepings and a universal clearing up of the
+house,<br>
+ which added an element of usefulness to the ceremonies. When
+the<br>
+ festival day came, the presents were offered with much pomp and
+an<br>
+ accompaniment of flowers,--silk stockings or a fur cap for
+old<br>
+ Saillard; gold earrings and articles of plate for Elisabeth or
+her<br>
+ husband, for whom, little by little, the parents were
+accumulating a<br>
+ whole silver service; silk petticoats for Madame Saillard, who
+laid<br>
+ the stuff by and never made it up. The recipient of these gifts
+was<br>
+ placed in an armchair and asked by those present for a certain
+length<br>
+ of time, "Guess what we have for you!" Then came a splendid
+dinner,<br>
+ lasting at least five hours, to which were invited the Abbe
+Gaudron,<br>
+ Falleix, Rabourdin, Monsieur Godard, under-head-clerk to
+Monsieur<br>
+ Baudoyer, Monsieur Bataille, captain of the company of the
+National<br>
+ Guard to which Saillard and his son-in-law belonged. Monsieur
+Cardot,<br>
+ who was invariably asked, did as Rabourdin did, namely, accepted
+one<br>
+ invitation out of six. The company sang at dessert, shook hands
+and<br>
+ embraced with enthusiasm, wishing each other all manner of
+happiness;<br>
+ the presents were exhibited and the opinion of the guests asked
+about<br>
+ them. The day Saillard received his fur cap he wore it during
+the<br>
+ dessert, to the satisfaction of all present. At night, mere
+ordinary<br>
+ acquaintances were bidden, and dancing went on till very
+late,<br>
+ formerly to the music of one violin, but for the last six
+years<br>
+ Monsieur Godard, who was a great flute player, contributed
+the<br>
+ piercing tones of a flageolet to the festivity. The cook,
+Madame<br>
+ Baudoyer's nurse, and old Catherine, Madame Saillard's
+woman-servant,<br>
+ together with the porter or his wife, stood looking on at the
+door of<br>
+ the salon. The servants always received three francs on
+these<br>
+ occasions to buy themselves wine or coffee.</p>
+
+<p>This little circle looked upon Saillard and Baudoyer as
+transcendent<br>
+ beings; they were government officers; they had risen by their
+own<br>
+ merits; they worked, it was said, with the minister himself;
+they owed<br>
+ their fortune to their talents; they were politicians. Baudoyer
+was<br>
+ considered the more able of the two; his position as head of a
+bureau<br>
+ presupposed labor that was more intricate and arduous than that
+of a<br>
+ cashier. Moreover, Isidore, though the son of a leather-dresser,
+had<br>
+ had the genius to study and to cast aside his father's business
+and<br>
+ find a career in politics, which had led him to a post of
+eminence. In<br>
+ short, silent and uncommunicative as he was, he was looked upon
+as a<br>
+ deep thinker, and perhaps, said the admiring circle, he would
+some day<br>
+ become deputy of the eighth arrondissement. As Gigonnet listened
+to<br>
+ such remarks as these, he pressed his already pinched lips
+closer<br>
+ together, and threw a glance at his great-niece, Elisabeth.</p>
+
+<p>In person, Isidore was a tall, stout man of thirty-seven,
+who<br>
+ perspired freely, and whose head looked as if he had water on
+the<br>
+ brain. This enormous head, covered with chestnut hair cropped
+close,<br>
+ was joined to the neck by rolls of flesh which overhung the
+collar of<br>
+ his coat. He had the arms of Hercules, hands worthy of Domitian,
+a<br>
+ stomach which sobriety held within the limits of the majestic,
+to use<br>
+ a saying of Brillaet-Savarin. His face was a good deal like that
+of<br>
+ the Emperor Alexander. The Tartar type was in the little eyes
+and the<br>
+ flattened nose turned slightly up, in the frigid lips and the
+short<br>
+ chin. The forehead was low and narrow. Though his temperament
+was<br>
+ lymphatic, the devout Isidore was under the influence of a
+conjugal<br>
+ passion which time did not lessen.</p>
+
+<p>In spite, however, of his resemblance to the handsome Russian
+Emperor<br>
+ and the terrible Domitian, Isidore Baudoyer was nothing more
+than a<br>
+ political office-holder, of little ability as head of his
+department,<br>
+ a cut-and-dried routine man, who concealed the fact that he was
+a<br>
+ flabby cipher by so ponderous a personality that no scalpel
+could cut<br>
+ deep enough to let the operator see into him. His severe
+studies, in<br>
+ which he had shown the patience and sagacity of an ox, and his
+square<br>
+ head, deceived his parents, who firmly believed him an
+extraordinary<br>
+ man. Pedantic and hypercritical, meddlesome and fault-finding,
+he was<br>
+ a terror to the clerks under him, whom he worried in their
+work,<br>
+ enforcing the rules rigorously, and arriving himself with
+such<br>
+ terrible punctuality that not one of them dared to be a moment
+late.<br>
+ Baudoyer wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, a chamois
+waistcoat, gray<br>
+ trousers and cravats of various colors. His feet were large
+and<br>
+ ill-shod. From the chain of his watch depended an enormous bunch
+of<br>
+ old trinkets, among which in 1824 he still wore "American
+beads,"<br>
+ which were very much the fashion in the year VII.</p>
+
+<p>In the bosom of this family, bound together by the force of
+religious<br>
+ ties, by the inflexibility of its customs, by one solitary
+emotion,<br>
+ that of avarice, a passion which was now as it were its
+compass,<br>
+ Elisabeth was forced to commune with herself, instead of
+imparting her<br>
+ ideas to those around her, for she felt herself without equals
+in mind<br>
+ who could comprehend her. Though facts compelled her to judge
+her<br>
+ husband, her religious duty led her to keep up as best she could
+a<br>
+ favorable opinion of him; she showed him marked respect; honored
+him<br>
+ as the father of her child, her husband, the temporal power, as
+the<br>
+ vicar of Saint-Paul's told her. She would have thought it a
+mortal sin<br>
+ to make a single gesture, or give a single glance, or say a
+single<br>
+ word which would reveal to others her real opinion of the
+imbecile<br>
+ Baudoyer. She even professed to obey passively all his wishes.
+But her<br>
+ ears were receptive of many things; she thought them over,
+weighed and<br>
+ compared them in the solitude of her mind, and judged so soberly
+of<br>
+ men and events that at the time when our history begins she was
+the<br>
+ hidden oracle of the two functionaries, her husband and father,
+who<br>
+ had, unconsciously, come to do nothing whatever without
+consulting<br>
+ her. Old Saillard would say, innocently, "Isn't she clever,
+that<br>
+ Elisabeth of mine?" But Baudoyer, too great a fool not to be
+puffed up<br>
+ by the false reputation the quartier Saint-Antoine bestowed upon
+him,<br>
+ denied his wife's cleverness all the while that he was making
+use of<br>
+ it.</p>
+
+<p>Elisabeth had long felt sure that her uncle Bidault, otherwise
+called<br>
+ Gigonnet, was rich and handled vast sums of money. Enlightened
+by<br>
+ self-interest, she had come to understand Monsieur des Lupeaulx
+far<br>
+ better than the minister understood him. Finding herself married
+to a<br>
+ fool, she never allowed herself to think that life might have
+gone<br>
+ better with her, she only imagined the possibility of better
+things<br>
+ without expecting or wishing to attain them. All her best
+affections<br>
+ found their vocation in her love for her daughter, to whom she
+spared<br>
+ the pains and privations she had borne in her own childhood;
+she<br>
+ believed that in this affection she had her full share in the
+world of<br>
+ feeling. Solely for her daughter's sake she had persuaded her
+father<br>
+ to take the important step of going into partnership with
+Falleix.<br>
+ Falleix had been brought to the Saillard's house by old Bidault,
+who<br>
+ lent him money on his merchandise. Falleix thought his old
+countryman<br>
+ extortionate, and complained to the Saillards that Gigonnet
+demanded<br>
+ eighteen per cent from an Auvergnat. Madame Saillard ventured
+to<br>
+ remonstrate with her uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"It is just because he is an Auvergnat that I take only
+eighteen per<br>
+ cent," said Gigonnet, when she spoke of him.</p>
+
+<p>Falleix, who had made a discovery at the age of twenty-eight,
+and<br>
+ communicated it to Saillard, seemed to carry his heart in his
+hand (an<br>
+ expression of old Saillard's), and also seemed likely to make a
+great<br>
+ fortune. Elisabeth determined to husband him for her daughter
+and<br>
+ train him herself, having, as she calculated, seven years to do
+it in.<br>
+ Martin Falleix felt and showed the deepest respect for
+Madame<br>
+ Baudoyer, whose superior qualities he was able to recognize. If
+he<br>
+ were fated to make millions he would always belong to her
+family,<br>
+ where he had found a home. The little Baudoyer girl was
+already<br>
+ trained to bring him his tea and to take his hat.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of which we write, Monsieur Saillard, returning
+from<br>
+ the ministry, found a game of boston in full blast; Elisabeth
+was<br>
+ advising Falleix how to play; Madame Saillard was knitting in
+the<br>
+ chimney-corner and overlooking the cards of the vicar;
+Monsieur<br>
+ Baudoyer, motionless as a mile-stone, was employing his
+mental<br>
+ capacity in calculating how the cards were placed, and sat
+opposite to<br>
+ Mitral, who had come up from Ile-d'Adam for the Christmas
+holidays. No<br>
+ one moved as the cashier entered, and for some minutes he walked
+up<br>
+ and down the room, his fat face contracted with unaccustomed
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>"He is always so when he dines at the ministry," remarked
+Madame<br>
+ Saillard; "happily, it is only twice a year, or he'd die of
+it.<br>
+ Saillard was never made to be in the government-- Well, now, I
+do<br>
+ hope, Saillard," she continued in a loud tone, "that you are not
+going<br>
+ to keep on those silk breeches and that handsome coat. Go and
+take<br>
+ them off; don't wear them at home, my man."</p>
+
+<p>"Your father has something on his mind," said Baudoyer to his
+wife,<br>
+ when the cashier was in his bedroom, undressing without any
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps Monsieur de la Billardiere is dead," said Elisabeth,
+simply;<br>
+ "and as he is anxious you should have the place, it worries
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Can I be useful in any way?" said the vicar of Saint-Paul's;
+"if so,<br>
+ pray use my services. I have the honor to be known to Madame
+la<br>
+ Dauphine. These are days when public offices should be given
+only to<br>
+ faithful men, whose religious principles are not to be
+shaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said Falleix, "do men of merit need protectors
+and<br>
+ influence to get places in the government service? I am glad I
+am an<br>
+ iron-master; my customers know where to find a good
+article--"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," interrupted Baudoyer, "the government is the
+government;<br>
+ never attack it in this house."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak like the 'Constitutionel,'" said the vicar.</p>
+
+<p>"The 'Constitutionel' never says anything different from
+that,"<br>
+ replied Baudoyer, who never read it.</p>
+
+<p>The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in
+talent to<br>
+ Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his
+own<br>
+ expression; but the good man coveted this appointment in a<br>
+ straightforward, honest way. Influenced by the feeling which
+leads all<br>
+ officials to seek promotion,--a violent, unreflecting, almost
+brutal<br>
+ passion,--he desired success, just as he desired the cross of
+the<br>
+ Legion of honor, without doing anything against his conscience
+to<br>
+ obtain it, and solely, as he believed, on the strength of his
+son-in-<br>
+ law's merits. To his thinking, a man who had patiently spent
+twenty-<br>
+ five years in a government office behind an iron railing had<br>
+ sacrificed himself to his country and deserved the cross. But
+all that<br>
+ he dreamed of doing to promote his son-in-law's appointment in
+La<br>
+ Billardiere's place was to say a word to his Excellency's wife
+when he<br>
+ took her the month's salary.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends!
+Do<br>
+ speak; do, pray, tell us something," cried his wife when he came
+back<br>
+ into the room.</p>
+
+<p>Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned
+on his<br>
+ heel to keep himself from talking politics before strangers.
+When<br>
+ Monsieur Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back
+the<br>
+ card-table and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he
+always<br>
+ assumed when about to tell some office-gossip,--a series of
+movements<br>
+ which answered the purpose of the three knocks given at the
+Theatre-<br>
+ Francais. After binding his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to
+the<br>
+ deepest secrecy,--for, however petty the gossip, their places,
+as he<br>
+ thought, depended on their discretion,--he related the<br>
+ incomprehensible enigma of the resignation of a deputy, the
+very<br>
+ legitimate desire of the general-secretary to get elected to
+the<br>
+ place, and the secret opposition of the minister to this wish of
+a man<br>
+ who was one of his firmest supporters and most zealous workers.
+This,<br>
+ of course, brought down an avalanche of suppositions, flooded
+with the<br>
+ sapient arguments of the two officials, who sent back and forth
+to<br>
+ each other a wearisome flood of nonsense. Elisabeth quietly
+asked<br>
+ three questions:--</p>
+
+<p>"If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is on our side, will Monsieur
+Baudoyer be<br>
+ appointed in Monsieur de la Billardiere's place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens! I should think so," cried the cashier.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle Bidault and Monsieur Gobseck helped in him 1814,"
+thought<br>
+ she. "Is he in debt?" she asked, aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," cried the cashier with a hissing and prolonged sound on
+the<br>
+ last letter; "his salary was attached, but some of the higher
+powers<br>
+ released it by a bill at sight."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the des Lupeaulx estate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, don't you know? in the part of the country where
+your<br>
+ grandfather and your great-uncle Bidault belong, in the
+arrondissement<br>
+ of the deputy who wants to resign."</p>
+
+<p>When her colossus of a husband had gone to bed, Elisabeth
+leaned over<br>
+ him, and though he always treated her remarks as women's
+nonsense, she<br>
+ said, "Perhaps you will really get Monsieur de la
+Billardiere's<br>
+ place."</p>
+
+<p>"There you go with your imaginations!" said Baudoyer; "leave
+Monsieur<br>
+ Gaudron to speak to the Dauphine and don't meddle with
+politics."</p>
+
+<p>At eleven o'clock, when all were asleep in the place Royale,
+Monsieur<br>
+ des Lupeaulx was leaving the Opera for the rue Duphot. This
+particular<br>
+ Wednesday was one of Madame Rabourdin's most brilliant evenings.
+Many<br>
+ of her customary guests came in from the theatres and swelled
+the<br>
+ company already assembled, among whom were several celebrities,
+such<br>
+ as: Canalis the poet, Schinner the painter, Dr. Bianchon, Lucien
+de<br>
+ Rubempre, Octave de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte
+de<br>
+ Fontaine, du Bruel the vaudevillist, Andoche Finot the
+journalist,<br>
+ Derville, one of the best heads in the law courts, the Comte
+du<br>
+ Chatelet, deputy, du Tillet, banker, and several elegant young
+men,<br>
+ such as Paul de Manerville and the Vicomte de Portenduere.
+Celestine<br>
+ was pouring out tea when the general-secretary entered. Her
+dress that<br>
+ evening was very becoming; she wore a black velvet robe
+without<br>
+ ornament of any kind, a black gauze scarf, her hair smoothly
+bound<br>
+ about her head and raised in a heavy braided mass, with long
+curls a<br>
+ l'Anglaise falling on either side of her face. The charms
+which<br>
+ particularly distinguished this woman were the Italian ease of
+her<br>
+ artistic nature, her ready comprehension, and the grace with
+which she<br>
+ welcomed and promoted the least appearance of a wish on the part
+of<br>
+ others. Nature had given her an elegant, slender figure, which
+could<br>
+ sway lightly at a word, black eyes of oriental shape, able, like
+those<br>
+ of the Chinese women, to see out of their corners. She well knew
+how<br>
+ to manage a soft, insinuating voice, which threw a tender charm
+into<br>
+ every word, even such as she merely chanced to utter; her feet
+were<br>
+ like those we see in portraits where the painter boldly lies
+and<br>
+ flatters his sitter in the only way which does not compromise
+anatomy.<br>
+ Her complexion, a little yellow by day, like that of most
+brunettes,<br>
+ was dazzling at night under the wax candles, which brought out
+the<br>
+ brilliancy of her black hair and eyes. Her slender and
+well-defined<br>
+ outlines reminded an artist of the Venus of the Middle Ages
+rendered<br>
+ by Jean Goujon, the illustrious sculptor of Diane de
+Poitiers.</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx stopped in the doorway, and leaned against the
+woodwork.<br>
+ This ferret of ideas did not deny himself the pleasure of spying
+upon<br>
+ sentiment, and this woman interested him more than any of the
+others<br>
+ to whom he had attached himself. Des Lupeaulx had reached an age
+when<br>
+ men assert pretensions in regard to women. The first white hairs
+lead<br>
+ to the latest passions, all the more violent because they are
+astride<br>
+ of vanishing powers and dawning weakness. The age of forty is
+the age<br>
+ of folly,--an age when man wants to be loved for himself;
+whereas at<br>
+ twenty-five life is so full that he has no wants. At twenty-five
+he<br>
+ overflows with vigor and wastes it with impunity, but at forty
+he<br>
+ learns that to use it in that way is to abuse it. The thoughts
+that<br>
+ came into des Lupeaulx's mind at this moment were melancholy
+ones. The<br>
+ nerves of the old beau relaxed; the agreeable smile, which
+served as a<br>
+ mask and made the character of his countenance, faded; the real
+man<br>
+ appeared, and he was horrible. Rabourdin caught sight of him
+and<br>
+ thought, "What has happened to him? can he be disgraced in any
+way?"<br>
+ The general-secretary was, however, only thinking how the
+pretty<br>
+ Madame Colleville, whose intentions were exactly those of
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin, had summarily abandoned him when it suited her to do
+so.<br>
+ Rabourdin caught the sham statesman's eyes fixed on his wife,
+and he<br>
+ recorded the look in his memory. He was too keen an observer not
+to<br>
+ understand des Lupeaulx to the bottom, and he deeply despised
+him;<br>
+ but, as with most busy men, his feelings and sentiments seldom
+came to<br>
+ the surface. Absorption in a beloved work is practically
+equivalent to<br>
+ the cleverest dissimulation, and thus it was that the opinions
+and<br>
+ ideas of Rabourdin were a sealed book to des Lupeaulx. The
+former was<br>
+ sorry to see the man in his house, but he was never willing to
+oppose<br>
+ his wife's wishes. At this particular moment, while he
+talked<br>
+ confidentially with a supernumerary of his office who was
+destined,<br>
+ later, to play an unconscious part in a political intrigue
+resulting<br>
+ from the death of La Billardiere, he watched, though half-<br>
+ abstractedly, his wife and des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>Here we must explain, as much for foreigners as for our
+own<br>
+ grandchildren, what a supernumerary in a government office in
+Paris<br>
+ means.</p>
+
+<p>The supernumerary is to the administration what a choir-boy is
+to a<br>
+ church, what the company's child is to the regiment, what
+the<br>
+ figurante is to a theatre; something artless, naive, innocent, a
+being<br>
+ blinded by illusions. Without illusions what would become of any
+of<br>
+ us? They give strength to bear the res angusta domi of arts and
+the<br>
+ beginnings of all science by inspiring us with faith. Illusion
+is<br>
+ illimitable faith. Now the supernumerary has faith in the<br>
+ administration; he never thinks it cold, cruel, and hard, as it
+really<br>
+ is. There are two kinds of supernumeraries, or hangers-on,--one
+poor,<br>
+ the other rich. The poor one is rich in hope and wants a place,
+the<br>
+ rich one is poor in spirit and wants nothing. A wealthy family
+is not<br>
+ so foolish as to put its able men into the administration. It
+confides<br>
+ an unfledged scion to some head-clerk, or gives him in charge of
+a<br>
+ directory who initiates him into what Bilboquet, that
+profound<br>
+ philosopher, called the high comedy of government; he is spared
+all<br>
+ the horrors of drudgery and is finally appointed to some
+important<br>
+ office. The rich supernumerary never alarms the other clerks;
+they<br>
+ know he does not endanger their interests, for he seeks only
+the<br>
+ highest posts in the administration. About the period of which
+we<br>
+ write many families were saying to themselves: "What can we do
+with<br>
+ our sons?" The army no longer offered a chance for fortune.
+Special<br>
+ careers, such as civil and military engineering, the navy,
+mining, and<br>
+ the professorial chair were all fenced about by strict
+regulations or<br>
+ to be obtained only by competition; whereas in the civil service
+the<br>
+ revolving wheel which turned clerks into prefects,
+sub-prefects,<br>
+ assessors, and collectors, like the figures in a magic lantern,
+was<br>
+ subjected to no such rules and entailed no drudgery. Through
+this easy<br>
+ gap emerged into life the rich supernumeraries who drove
+their<br>
+ tilburys, dressed well, and wore moustachios, all of them as
+impudent<br>
+ as parvenus. Journalists were apt to persecute the tribe, who
+were<br>
+ cousins, nephews, brothers, or other relatives of some minister,
+some<br>
+ deputy, or an influential peer. The humbler clerks regarded them
+as a<br>
+ means of influence.</p>
+
+<p>The poor supernumerary, on the other hand, who is the only
+real<br>
+ worker, is almost always the son of some former clerk's widow,
+who<br>
+ lives on a meagre pension and sacrifices herself to support her
+son<br>
+ until he can get a place as copying-clerk, and then dies leaving
+him<br>
+ no nearer the head of his department than writer of deeds,
+order-<br>
+ clerks, or, possibly, under-head-clerk. Living always in some
+locality<br>
+ where rents are low, this humble supernumerary starts early from
+home.<br>
+ For him the Eastern question relates only to the morning skies.
+To go<br>
+ on foot and not get muddied, to save his clothes, and allow for
+the<br>
+ time he may lose in standing under shelter during a shower, are
+the<br>
+ preoccupations of his mind. The street pavements, the flaggings
+of the<br>
+ quays and the boulevards, when first laid down, were a boon to
+him.<br>
+ If, for some extraordinary reason, you happen to be in the
+streets of<br>
+ Paris at half-past seven or eight o'clock of a winter's morning,
+and<br>
+ see through piercing cold or fog or rain a timid, pale young man
+loom<br>
+ up, cigarless, take notice of his pockets. You will be sure to
+see the<br>
+ outline of a roll which his mother has given him to stay his
+stomach<br>
+ between breakfast and dinner. The guilelessness of the
+supernumerary<br>
+ does not last long. A youth enlightened by gleams by Parisian
+life<br>
+ soon measures the frightful distance that separates him from the
+head-<br>
+ clerkship, a distance which no mathematician, neither
+Archimedes, nor<br>
+ Leibnitz, nor Laplace has ever reckoned, the distance that
+exists<br>
+ between 0 and the figure 1. He begins to perceive the
+impossibilities<br>
+ of his career; he hears talk of favoritism; he discovers the
+intrigues<br>
+ of officials: he sees the questionable means by which his
+superiors<br>
+ have pushed their way,--one has married a young woman who made a
+false<br>
+ step; another, the natural daughter of a minister; this one
+shouldered<br>
+ the responsibility of another's fault; that one, full of talent,
+risks<br>
+ his health in doing, with the perseverance of a mole, prodigies
+of<br>
+ work which the man of influence feels incapable of doing for
+himself,<br>
+ though he takes the credit. Everything is known in a
+government<br>
+ office. The incapable man has a wife with a clear head, who has
+pushed<br>
+ him along and got him nominated for deputy; if he has not
+talent<br>
+ enough for an office, he cabals in the Chamber. The wife of
+another<br>
+ has a statesman at her feet. A third is the hidden informant of
+a<br>
+ powerful journalist. Often the disgusted and hopeless
+supernumerary<br>
+ sends in his resignation. About three fourths of his class leave
+the<br>
+ government employ without ever obtaining an appointment, and
+their<br>
+ number is winnowed down to either those young men who are
+foolish or<br>
+ obstinate enough to say to themselves, "I have been here three
+years,<br>
+ and I must end sooner or later by getting a place," or to those
+who<br>
+ are conscious of a vocation for the work. Undoubtedly the
+position of<br>
+ supernumerary in a government office is precisely what the
+novitiate<br>
+ is in a religious order,--a trial. It is a rough trial. The
+State<br>
+ discovers how many of them can bear hunger, thirst, and penury
+without<br>
+ breaking down, how many can toil without revolting against it;
+it<br>
+ learns which temperaments can bear up under the horrible
+experience--<br>
+ or if you like, the disease--of government official life. From
+this<br>
+ point of view the apprenticeship of the supernumerary, instead
+of<br>
+ being an infamous device of the government to obtain labor
+gratis,<br>
+ becomes a useful institution.</p>
+
+<p>The young man with whom Rabourdin was talking was a poor
+supernumerary<br>
+ named Sebastien de la Roche, who had picked his way on the
+points of<br>
+ his toes, without incurring the least splash upon his boots,
+from the<br>
+ rue du Roi-Dore in the Marais. He talked of his mamma, and dared
+not<br>
+ raise his eyes to Madame Rabourdin, whose house appeared to him
+as<br>
+ gorgeous as the Louvre. He was careful to show his gloves,
+well<br>
+ cleaned with india-rubber, as little as he could. His poor
+mother had<br>
+ put five francs in his pocket in case it became absolutely
+necessary<br>
+ that he should play cards; but she enjoined him to take nothing,
+to<br>
+ remain standing, and to be very careful not to knock over a lamp
+or<br>
+ the bric-a-brac from an etagere. His dress was all of the
+strictest<br>
+ black. His fair face, his eyes, of a fine shade of green with
+golden<br>
+ reflections, were in keeping with a handsome head of auburn
+hair. The<br>
+ poor lad looked furtively at Madame Rabourdin, whispering to
+himself,<br>
+ "How beautiful!" and was likely to dream of that fairy when he
+went to<br>
+ bed.</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin had noted a vocation for his work in the lad, and as
+he<br>
+ himself took the whole service seriously, he felt a lively
+interest in<br>
+ him. He guessed the poverty of his mother's home, kept together
+on a<br>
+ widow's pension of seven hundred francs a year--for the
+education of<br>
+ the son, who was just out of college, had absorbed all her
+savings. He<br>
+ therefore treated the youth almost paternally; often endeavoured
+to<br>
+ get him some fee from the Council, or paid it from his own
+pocket. He<br>
+ overwhelmed Sebastien with work, trained him, and allowed him to
+do<br>
+ the work of du Bruel's place, for which that vaudevillist,
+otherwise<br>
+ known as Cursy, paid him three hundred francs out of his salary.
+In<br>
+ the minds of Madame de la Roche and her son, Rabourdin was at
+once a<br>
+ great man, a tyrant, and an angel. On him all the poor fellow's
+hopes<br>
+ of getting an appointment depended, and the lad's devotion to
+his<br>
+ chief was boundless. He dined once a fortnight in the rue
+Duphot; but<br>
+ always at a family dinner, invited by Rabourdin himself; Madame
+asked<br>
+ him to evening parties only when she wanted partners.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Rabourdin was scolding poor Sebastien, the only
+human<br>
+ being who was in the secret of his immense labors. The youth
+copied<br>
+ and recopied the famous "statement," written on a hundred and
+fifty<br>
+ folio sheets, besides the corroborative documents, and the
+summing up<br>
+ (contained in one page), with the estimates bracketed, the
+captions in<br>
+ a running hand, and the sub-titles in a round one. Full of
+enthusiasm,<br>
+ in spite of his merely mechanical participation in the great
+idea, the<br>
+ lad of twenty would rewrite whole pages for a single blot, and
+made it<br>
+ his glory to touch up the writing, regarding it as the element
+of a<br>
+ noble undertaking. Sebastien had that afternoon committed the
+great<br>
+ imprudence of carrying into the general office, for the purpose
+of<br>
+ copying, a paper which contained the most dangerous facts to
+make<br>
+ known prematurely, namely, a memorandum relating to the
+officials in<br>
+ the central offices of all ministries, with facts concerning
+their<br>
+ fortunes, actual and prospective, together with the
+individual<br>
+ enterprises of each outside of his government employment.</p>
+
+<p>All government clerks in Paris who are not endowed, like
+Rabourdin,<br>
+ with patriotic ambition or other marked capacity, usually add
+the<br>
+ profits of some industry to the salary of their office, in order
+to<br>
+ eke out a living. A number do as Monsieur Saillard did,--put
+their<br>
+ money into a business carried on by others, and spend their
+evenings<br>
+ in keeping the books of their associates. Many clerks are
+married to<br>
+ milliners, licensed tobacco dealers, women who have charge of
+the<br>
+ public lotteries or reading-rooms. Some, like the husband of
+Madame<br>
+ Colleville, Celestine's rival, play in the orchestra of a
+theatre;<br>
+ others like du Bruel, write vaudeville, comic operas,
+melodramas, or<br>
+ act as prompters behind the scenes. We may mention among them
+Messrs.<br>
+ Planard, Sewrin, etc. Pigault-Lebrun, Piis, Duvicquet, in their
+day,<br>
+ were in government employ. Monsieur Scribe's head-librarian was
+a<br>
+ clerk in the Treasury.</p>
+
+<p>Besides such information as this, Rabourdin's memorandum
+contained an<br>
+ inquiry into the moral and physical capacities and faculties
+necessary<br>
+ in those who were to examine the intelligence, aptitude for
+labor, and<br>
+ sound health of the applicants for government
+service,--three<br>
+ indispensable qualities in men who are to bear the burden of
+public<br>
+ affairs and should do their business well and quickly. But
+this<br>
+ careful study, the result of ten years' observation and
+experience,<br>
+ and of a long acquaintance with men and things obtained by
+intercourse<br>
+ with the various functionaries in the different ministries,
+would<br>
+ assuredly have, to those who did not see its purport and
+connection,<br>
+ an air of treachery and police espial. If a single page of
+these<br>
+ papers were to fall under the eye of those concerned,
+Monsieur<br>
+ Rabourdin was lost. Sebastien, who admired his chief without<br>
+ reservation, and who was, as yet, wholly ignorant of the evils
+of<br>
+ bureaucracy, had the follies of guilelessness as well as its
+grace.<br>
+ Blamed on a former occasion for carrying away these papers, he
+now<br>
+ bravely acknowledged his fault to its fullest extent; he related
+how<br>
+ he had put away both the memorandum and the copy carefully in a
+box in<br>
+ the office where no one would ever find them. Tears rolled from
+his<br>
+ eyes as he realized the greatness of his offence.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come!" said Rabourdin, kindly. "Don't be so imprudent
+again,<br>
+ but never mind now. Go to the office very early tomorrow
+morning; here<br>
+ is the key of a small safe which is in my roller secretary; it
+shuts<br>
+ with a combination lock. You can open it with the word 'sky';
+put the<br>
+ memorandum and your copy into it and shut it carefully."</p>
+
+<p>This proof of confidence dried the poor fellow's tears.
+Rabourdin<br>
+ advised him to take a cup of tea and some cakes.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma forbids me to drink tea, on account of my chest,"
+said<br>
+ Sebastien.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, my dear child," said the imposing Madame
+Rabourdin, who<br>
+ wished to appear gracious, "here are some sandwiches and cream;
+come<br>
+ and sit by me."</p>
+
+<p>She made Sebastien sit down beside her, and the lad's heart
+rose in<br>
+ his throat as he felt the robe of this divinity brush the sleeve
+of<br>
+ his coat. Just then the beautiful woman caught sight of Monsieur
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx standing in the doorway. She smiled, and not waiting
+till he<br>
+ came to her, she went to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you stay there as if you were sulking?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sulking," he returned; "I came to announce some good
+news,<br>
+ but the thought has overtaken me that it will only add to
+your<br>
+ severity towards me. I fancy myself six months hence almost a
+stranger<br>
+ to you. Yes, you are too clever, and I too experienced,--too
+blase, if<br>
+ you like,--for either of us to deceive the other. Your end is
+attained<br>
+ without its costing you more than a few smiles and gracious
+words."</p>
+
+<p>"Deceive each other! what can you mean?" she cried, in a hurt
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Monsieur de la Billardiere is dying, and from what the
+minister<br>
+ told me this evening I judge that your husband will be appointed
+in<br>
+ his place."</p>
+
+<p>He thereupon related what he called his scene at the ministry
+and the<br>
+ jealousy of the countess, repeating her remarks about the
+invitation<br>
+ he had asked her to send to Madame Rabourdin.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur des Lupeaulx," said Madame Rabourdin, with dignity,
+"permit<br>
+ me to tell you that my husband is the oldest head-clerk as well
+as the<br>
+ most capable man in the division; also that the appointment of
+La<br>
+ Billardiere over his head made much talk in the service, and
+that my<br>
+ husband has stayed on for the last year expecting this
+promotion, for<br>
+ which he has really no competitor and no rival."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," she resumed, smiling and showing her handsome
+teeth,<br>
+ "how can you suppose that the friendship I feel for you is
+marred by a<br>
+ thought of self-interest? Why should you think me capable of
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx made a gesture of admiring denial.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" she continued, "the heart of woman will always remain a
+secret<br>
+ for even the cleverest of men. Yes, I welcomed you to my house
+with<br>
+ the greatest pleasure; and there was, I admit, a motive of
+self-<br>
+ interest behind my pleasure--"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have a career before you," she whispered in his ear, "a
+future<br>
+ without limit; you will be deputy, minister!" (What happiness
+for an<br>
+ ambitious man when such things as these are warbled in his ear
+by the<br>
+ sweet voice of a pretty woman!) "Oh, yes! I know you better than
+you<br>
+ know yourself. Rabourdin is a man who could be of immense
+service to<br>
+ you in such a career; he could do the steady work while you were
+in<br>
+ the Chamber. Just as you dream of the ministry, so I dream of
+seeing<br>
+ Rabourdin in the Council of State, and general director. It
+is<br>
+ therefore my object to draw together two men who can never
+injure,<br>
+ but, on the contrary, must greatly help each other. Isn't that
+a<br>
+ woman's mission? If you are friends, you will both rise the
+faster,<br>
+ and it is surely high time that each of you made hay. I have
+burned my<br>
+ ships," she added, smiling. "But you are not as frank with me as
+I<br>
+ have been with you."</p>
+
+<p>"You would not listen to me if I were," he replied, with a
+melancholy<br>
+ air, in spite of the deep inward satisfaction her remarks gave
+him.<br>
+ "What would such future promotions avail me, if you dismiss me
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Before I listen to you," she replied, with naive Parisian
+liveliness,<br>
+ "we must be able to understand each other."</p>
+
+<p>And she left the old fop to go and speak with Madame de
+Chessel, a<br>
+ countess from the provinces, who seemed about to take leave.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a very extraordinary woman," said des Lupeaulx to
+himself. "I<br>
+ don't know my own self when I am with her."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, this man of no principle, who six years earlier
+had kept<br>
+ a ballet-girl, and who now, thanks to his position, made himself
+a<br>
+ seraglio with the pretty wives of the under-clerks, and lived in
+the<br>
+ world of journalists and actresses, became devotedly attentive
+all the<br>
+ evening to Celestine, and was the last to leave the house.</p>
+
+<p>"At last!" thought Madame Rabourdin, as she undressed that
+night, "we<br>
+ have the place! Twelve thousand francs a year and perquisites,
+beside<br>
+ the rents of our farms at Grajeux,--nearly twenty thousand
+francs a<br>
+ year. It is not affluence, but at least it isn't poverty."</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h4>THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT
+OFFICIALS</h4>
+
+<p>If it were possible for literature to use the microscope of
+the<br>
+ Leuwenhoeks, the Malpighis, and the Raspails (an attempt once
+made by<br>
+ Hoffman, of Berlin), and if we could magnify and then picture
+the<br>
+ teredos navalis, in other words, those ship-worms which
+brought<br>
+ Holland within an inch of collapsing by honey-combing her dykes,
+we<br>
+ might have been able to give a more distinct idea of
+Messieurs<br>
+ Gigonnet, Baudoyer, Saillard, Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard
+and<br>
+ company, borers and burrowers, who proved their undermining
+power in<br>
+ the thirtieth year of this century.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ But now it is time to show another set of teredos, who burrowed
+and<br>
+ swarmed in the government offices where the principal scenes of
+our<br>
+ present study took place.</p>
+
+<p>In Paris nearly all these government bureaus resemble each
+other. Into<br>
+ whatever ministry you penetrate to ask some slight favor, or to
+get<br>
+ redress for a trifling wrong, you will find the same dark
+corridors,<br>
+ ill-lighted stairways, doors with oval panes of glass like eyes,
+as at<br>
+ the theatre. In the first room as you enter you will find the
+office<br>
+ servant; in the second, the under-clerks; the private office of
+the<br>
+ second head-clerk is to the right or left, and further on is
+that of<br>
+ the head of the bureau. As to the important personage called,
+under<br>
+ the Empire, head of division, then, under the Restoration,
+director,<br>
+ and now by the former name, head or chief of division, he lives
+either<br>
+ above or below the offices of his three or four different
+bureaus.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking in the administrative sense, a bureau consists of a
+man-<br>
+ servant, several supernumeraries (who do the work gratis for a
+certain<br>
+ number of years), various copying clerks, writers of bills and
+deeds,<br>
+ order clerks, principal clerks, second or under head-clerk, and
+head-<br>
+ clerk, otherwise called head or chief of the bureau. These<br>
+ denominational titles vary under some administrations; for
+instance,<br>
+ the order-clerks are sometimes called auditors, or again,
+book-<br>
+ keepers.</p>
+
+<p>Paved like the corridor, and hung with a shabby paper, the
+first room,<br>
+ where the servant is stationed, is furnished with a stove, a
+large<br>
+ black table with inkstand, pens, and paper, and benches, but no
+mats<br>
+ on which to wipe the public feet. The clerk's office beyond is a
+large<br>
+ room, tolerably well lighted, but seldom floored with wood.
+Wooden<br>
+ floors and fireplaces are commonly kept sacred to heads of
+bureaus and<br>
+ divisions; and so are closets, wardrobes, mahogany tables, sofas
+and<br>
+ armchairs covered with red or green morocco, silk curtains, and
+other<br>
+ articles of administrative luxury. The clerk's office contents
+itself<br>
+ with a stove, the pipe of which goes into the chimney, if there
+be a<br>
+ chimney. The wall paper is plain and all of one color, usually
+green<br>
+ or brown. The tables are of black wood. The private
+characteristics of<br>
+ the several clerks often crop out in their method of
+settling<br>
+ themselves at their desks,--the chilly one has a wooden
+footstool<br>
+ under his feet; the man with a bilious temperament has a metal
+mat;<br>
+ the lymphatic being who dreads draughts constructs a
+fortification of<br>
+ boxes on a screen. The door of the under-head-clerk's office
+always<br>
+ stands open so that he may keep an eye to some extent on his<br>
+ subordinates.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps an exact description of Monsieur de la Billardiere's
+division<br>
+ will suffice to give foreigners and provincials an idea of
+the<br>
+ internal manners and customs of a government office; the
+chief<br>
+ features of which are probably much the same in the civil
+service of<br>
+ all European governments.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, picture to yourself the man who is thus
+described<br>
+ in the Yearly Register:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Chief of Division.--Monsieur la baron Flamet de la
+Billardiere<br>
+ (Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel) formerly provost-marshal of
+the<br>
+ department of the Correze, gentleman in ordinary of the bed-<br>
+ chamber, president of the college of the department of the<br>
+ Dordogne, officer of the Legion of honor, knight of Saint
+Louis<br>
+ and of the foreign orders of Christ, Isabella, Saint
+Wladimir,<br>
+ etc., member of the Academy of Gers, and other learned
+bodies,<br>
+ vice-president of the Society of Belles-lettres, member of
+the<br>
+ Association of Saint-Joseph and of the Society of Prisons, one
+of<br>
+ the mayors of Paris, etc."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The person who requires so much typographic space was at this
+time<br>
+ occupying an area five feet six in length by thirty-six inches
+in<br>
+ width in a bed, his head adorned with a cotton night-cap tied on
+by<br>
+ flame-colored ribbons; attended by Despleins, the King's
+surgeon, and<br>
+ young doctor Bianchon, flanked by two old female relatives,
+surrounded<br>
+ by phials of all kinds, bandages, appliances, and various
+mortuary<br>
+ instruments, and watched over by the curate of Saint-Roch, who
+was<br>
+ advising him to think of his salvation.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ La Billardiere's division occupied the upper floor of a
+magnificent<br>
+ mansion, in which the vast official ocean of a ministry was
+contained.<br>
+ A wide landing separated its two bureaus, the doors of which
+were duly<br>
+ labelled. The private offices and antechambers of the heads of
+the two<br>
+ bureaus, Monsieur Rabourdin and Monsieur Baudoyer, were below on
+the<br>
+ second floor, and beyond that of Monsieur Rabourdin were the<br>
+ antechamber, salon, and two offices of Monsieur de la
+Billardiere.</p>
+
+<p>On the first floor, divided in two by an entresol, were the
+living<br>
+ rooms and office of Monsieur Ernest de la Briere, an occult
+and<br>
+ powerful personage who must be described in a few words, for he
+well<br>
+ deserves the parenthesis. This young man held, during the whole
+time<br>
+ that this particular administration lasted, the position of
+private<br>
+ secretary to the minister. His apartment was connected by a
+secret<br>
+ door with the private office of his Excellency. A private
+secretary is<br>
+ to the minister himself what des Lupeaulx was to the ministry
+at<br>
+ large. The same difference existed between young La Briere and
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx that there is between an aide-de-camp and a chief of
+staff.<br>
+ This ministerial apprentice decamps when his protector leaves
+office,<br>
+ returning sometimes when he returns. If the minister enjoys the
+royal<br>
+ favor when he falls, or still has parliamentary hopes, he takes
+his<br>
+ secretary with him into retirement only to bring him back on
+his<br>
+ return; otherwise he puts him to grass in some of the
+various<br>
+ administrative pastures,--for instance, in the Court of
+Exchequer,<br>
+ that wayside refuge where private secretaries wait for the storm
+to<br>
+ blow over. The young man is not precisely a government official;
+he is<br>
+ a political character, however; and sometimes his politics are
+limited<br>
+ to those of one man. When we think of the number of letters it
+is the<br>
+ private secretary's fate to open and read, besides all his
+other<br>
+ avocations, it is very evident that under a monarchical
+government his<br>
+ services would be well paid for. A drudge of this kind costs ten
+or<br>
+ twenty thousand francs a year; and he enjoys, moreover, the
+opera-<br>
+ boxes, the social invitations, and the carriages of the
+minister. The<br>
+ Emperor of Russia would be thankful to be able to pay fifty
+thousand a<br>
+ year to one of these amiable constitutional poodles, so gentle,
+so<br>
+ nicely curled, so caressing, so docile, always spick and
+span,--<br>
+ careful watch-dogs besides, and faithful to a degree! But the
+private<br>
+ secretary is a product of the representative government
+hot-house; he<br>
+ is propagated and developed there, and there only. Under a
+monarchy<br>
+ you will find none but courtiers and vassals, whereas under
+a<br>
+ constitutional government you may be flattered, served, and
+adulated<br>
+ by free men. In France ministers are better off than kings or
+women;<br>
+ they have some one who thoroughly understands them. Perhaps,
+indeed,<br>
+ the private secretary is to be pitied as much as women and
+white<br>
+ paper. They are nonentities who are made to bear all things.
+They are<br>
+ allowed no talents except hidden ones, which must be employed in
+the<br>
+ service of their ministers. A public show of talent would ruin
+them.<br>
+ The private secretary is therefore an intimate friend in the
+gift of<br>
+ government-- However, let us return to the bureaus.</p>
+
+<p>Three men-servants lived in peace in the Billardiere division,
+to wit:<br>
+ a footman for the two bureaus, another for the service of the
+two<br>
+ chiefs, and a third for the director of the division himself.
+All<br>
+ three were lodged, warmed, and clothed by the State, and wore
+the<br>
+ well-known livery of the State, blue coat with red pipings
+for<br>
+ undress, and broad red, white, and blue braid for great
+occasions. La<br>
+ Billardiere's man had the air of a gentleman-usher, an
+innovation<br>
+ which gave an aspect of dignity to the division.</p>
+
+<p>Pillars of the ministry, experts in all manners and
+customs<br>
+ bureaucratic, well-warmed and clothed at the State's expense,
+growing<br>
+ rich by reason of their few wants, these lackeys saw
+completely<br>
+ through the government officials, collectively and individually.
+They<br>
+ had no better way of amusing their idle hours than by observing
+these<br>
+ personages and studying their peculiarities. They knew how far
+to<br>
+ trust the clerks with loans of money, doing their various
+commissions<br>
+ with absolute discretion; they pawned and took out of pawn,
+bought up<br>
+ bills when due, and lent money without interest, albeit no clerk
+ever<br>
+ borrowed of them without returning a "gratification." These
+servants<br>
+ without a master received a salary of nine hundred francs a
+year; new<br>
+ years' gifts and "gratifications" brought their emoluments to
+twelve<br>
+ hundred francs, and they made almost as much money by
+serving<br>
+ breakfasts to the clerks at the office.</p>
+
+<p>The elder of these men, who was also the richest, waited upon
+the main<br>
+ body of the clerks. He was sixty years of age, with white hair
+cropped<br>
+ short like a brush; stout, thickset, and apoplectic about the
+neck,<br>
+ with a vulgar pimpled face, gray eyes, and a mouth like a
+furnace<br>
+ door; such was the profile portrait of Antoine, the oldest
+attendant<br>
+ in the ministry. He had brought his two nephews, Laurent and
+Gabriel,<br>
+ from Echelles in Savoie,--one to serve the heads of the bureaus,
+the<br>
+ other the director himself. All three came to open the offices
+and<br>
+ clean them, between seven and eight o'clock in the morning; at
+which<br>
+ time they read the newspapers and talked civil service politics
+from<br>
+ their point of view with the servants of other divisions,
+exchanging<br>
+ the bureaucratic gossip. In common with servants of modern
+houses who<br>
+ know their masters' private affairs thoroughly, they lived at
+the<br>
+ ministry like spiders at the centre of a web, where they felt
+the<br>
+ slightest jar of the fabric.</p>
+
+<p>On a Thursday evening, the day after the ministerial reception
+and<br>
+ Madame Rabourdin's evening party, just as Antoine was trimming
+his<br>
+ beard and his nephews were assisting him in the antechamber of
+the<br>
+ division on the upper floor, they were surprised by the
+unexpected<br>
+ arrival of one of the clerks.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Monsieur Dutocq," said Antoine. "I know him by that
+pickpocket<br>
+ step of his. He is always moving round on the sly, that man. He
+is on<br>
+ your back before you know it. Yesterday, contrary to his usual
+ways,<br>
+ he outstayed the last man in the office; such a thing hasn't
+happened<br>
+ three times since he has been at the ministry."</p>
+
+<p>Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in
+the<br>
+ Rabourdin bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and
+bilious<br>
+ skin, grizzled hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy
+eyebrows<br>
+ meeting together, a crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the
+right<br>
+ shoulder slightly higher than the left; brown coat, black
+waistcoat,<br>
+ silk cravat, yellowish trousers, black woollen stockings, and
+shoes<br>
+ with flapping bows; thus you behold him. Idle and incapable, he
+hated<br>
+ Rabourdin,--naturally enough, for Rabourdin had no vice to
+flatter,<br>
+ and no bad or weak side on which Dutocq could make himself
+useful. Far<br>
+ too noble to injure a clerk, the chief was also too
+clear-sighted to<br>
+ be deceived by any make-believe. Dutocq kept his place
+therefore<br>
+ solely through Rabourdin's generosity, and was very certain that
+he<br>
+ could never be promoted if the latter succeeded La Billardiere.
+Though<br>
+ he knew himself incapable of important work, Dutocq was well
+aware<br>
+ that in a government office incapacity was no hindrance to<br>
+ advancement; La Billardiere's own appointment over the head of
+so<br>
+ capable a man as Rabourdin had been a striking and fatal example
+of<br>
+ this. Wickedness combined with self-interest works with a
+power<br>
+ equivalent to that of intellect; evilly disposed and wholly
+self-<br>
+ interested, Dutocq had endeavoured to strengthen his position
+by<br>
+ becoming a spy in all the offices. After 1816 he assumed a
+marked<br>
+ religious tone, foreseeing the favor which the fools of those
+days<br>
+ would bestow on those they indiscriminately called Jesuits.
+Belonging<br>
+ to that fraternity in spirit, though not admitted to its rites,
+Dutocq<br>
+ went from bureau to bureau, sounded consciences by recounting
+immoral<br>
+ jests, and then reported and paraphrased results to des
+Lupeaulx; the<br>
+ latter thus learned all the trivial events of the ministry, and
+often<br>
+ surprised the minister by his consummate knowledge of what was
+going<br>
+ on. He tolerated Dutocq under the idea that circumstances might
+some<br>
+ day make him useful, were it only to get him or some
+distinguished<br>
+ friend of his out of a scrape by a disgraceful marriage. The
+two<br>
+ understood each other well. Dutocq had succeeded Monsieur Poiret
+the<br>
+ elder, who had retired in 1814, and now lived in the pension
+Vanquer<br>
+ in the Latin quarter. Dutocq himself lived in a pension in the
+rue de<br>
+ Beaune, and spent his evenings in the Palais-Royal, sometimes
+going to<br>
+ the theatre, thanks to du Bruel, who gave him an author's ticket
+about<br>
+ once a week. And now, a word on du Bruel.</p>
+
+<p>Though Sebastien did his work at the office for the small
+compensation<br>
+ we have mentioned, du Bruel was in the habit of coming there
+to<br>
+ advertise the fact that he was the under-head-clerk and to draw
+his<br>
+ salary. His real work was that of dramatic critic to a
+leading<br>
+ ministerial journal, in which he also wrote articles inspired by
+the<br>
+ ministers,--a very well understood, clearly defined, and
+quite<br>
+ unassailable position. Du Bruel was not lacking in those
+diplomatic<br>
+ little tricks which go so far to conciliate general good-will.
+He sent<br>
+ Madame Rabourdin an opera-box for a first representation, took
+her<br>
+ there in a carriage and brought her back,--an attention
+which<br>
+ evidently pleased her. Rabourdin, who was never exacting with
+his<br>
+ subordinates allowed du Bruel to go off to rehearsals, come to
+the<br>
+ office at his own hours, and work at his vaudevilles when
+there.<br>
+ Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, the minister, knew that du Bruel
+was<br>
+ writing a novel which was to be dedicated to himself. Dressed
+with the<br>
+ careless ease of a theatre man, du Bruel wore, in the
+morning,<br>
+ trousers strapped under his feet, shoes with gaiters, a
+waistcoat<br>
+ evidently vamped over, an olive surtout, and a black cravat. At
+night<br>
+ he played the gentleman in elegant clothes. He lived, for
+good<br>
+ reasons, in the same house as Florine, an actress for whom he
+wrote<br>
+ plays. Du Bruel, or to give him his pen name, Cursy, was working
+just<br>
+ now at a piece in five acts for the Francais. Sebastien was
+devoted to<br>
+ the author,--who occasionally gave him tickets to the
+pit,--and<br>
+ applauded his pieces at the parts which du Bruel told him were
+of<br>
+ doubtful interest, with all the faith and enthusiasm of his
+years. In<br>
+ fact, the youth looked upon the playwright as a great author,
+and it<br>
+ was to Sebastien that du Bruel said, the day after a first<br>
+ representation of a vaudeville produced, like all vaudevilles,
+by<br>
+ three collaborators, "The audience preferred the scenes written
+by<br>
+ two."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you write alone?" asked Sebastien naively.</p>
+
+<p>There were good reasons why du Bruel did not write alone. He
+was the<br>
+ third of an author. A dramatic writer, as few people know, is
+made up<br>
+ of three individuals; first, the man with brains who invents
+the<br>
+ subject and maps out the structure, or scenario, of the
+vaudeville;<br>
+ second, the plodder, who works the piece into shape; and third,
+the<br>
+ toucher-up, who sets the songs to music, arranges the chorus
+and<br>
+ concerted pieces and fits them into their right place, and
+finally<br>
+ writes the puffs and advertisements. Du Bruel was a plodder; at
+the<br>
+ office he read the newest books, extracted their wit, and laid
+it by<br>
+ for use in his dialogues. He was liked by his collaborators on
+account<br>
+ of his carefulness; the man with brains, sure of being
+understood,<br>
+ could cross his arms and feel that his ideas would be well
+rendered.<br>
+ The clerks in the office liked their companion well enough to
+attend a<br>
+ first performance of his plays in a body and applaud them, for
+he<br>
+ really deserved the title of a good fellow. His hand went
+readily to<br>
+ his pocket; ices and punch were bestowed without prodding, and
+he<br>
+ loaned fifty francs without asking them back. He owned a
+country-house<br>
+ at Aulnay, laid by his money, and had, besides the four thousand
+five<br>
+ hundred francs of his salary under government, twelve hundred
+francs<br>
+ pension from the civil list, and eight hundred from the three
+hundred<br>
+ thousand francs fund voted by the Chambers for encouragement of
+the<br>
+ Arts. Add to these diverse emoluments nine thousand francs
+earned by<br>
+ his quarters, thirds, and halves of plays in three different
+theatres,<br>
+ and you will readily understand that such a man must be
+physically<br>
+ round, fat, and comfortable, with the face of a worthy
+capitalist. As<br>
+ to morals, he was the lover and the beloved of Tullia and felt
+himself<br>
+ preferred in heart to the brilliant Duc de Rhetore, the lover
+in<br>
+ chief.</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq had seen with great uneasiness what he called the
+liaison of<br>
+ des Lupeaulx with Madame Rabourdin, and his silent wrath on
+the<br>
+ subject was accumulating. He had too prying an eye not to have
+guessed<br>
+ that Rabourdin was engaged in some great work outside of his
+official<br>
+ labors, and he was provoked to feel that he knew nothing about
+it,<br>
+ whereas that little Sebastien was, wholly or in part, in the
+secret.<br>
+ Dutocq was intimate with Godard, under-head-clerk to Baudoyer,
+and the<br>
+ high esteem in which Dutocq held Baudoyer was the original cause
+of<br>
+ his acquaintance with Godard; not that Dutocq was sincere even
+in<br>
+ this; but by praising Baudoyer and saying nothing of Rabourdin
+he<br>
+ satisfied his hatred after the fashion of little minds.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph Godard, a cousin of Mitral on the mother's side,
+made<br>
+ pretension to the hand of Mademoiselle Baudoyer, not perceiving
+that<br>
+ her mother was laying siege to Falliex as a son-in-law. He
+brought<br>
+ little gifts to the young lady, artificial flowers, bonbons on
+New-<br>
+ Year's day and pretty boxes for her birthday. Twenty-six years
+of age,<br>
+ a worker working without purpose, steady as a girl, monotonous
+and<br>
+ apathetic, holding cafes, cigars, and horsemanship in
+detestation,<br>
+ going to bed regularly at ten o'clock and rising at seven,
+gifted with<br>
+ some social talents, such as playing quadrille music on the
+flute,<br>
+ which first brought him into favor with the Saillards and
+the<br>
+ Baudoyers. He was moreover a fifer in the National Guard,--to
+escape<br>
+ his turn of sitting up all night in a barrack-room. Godard was
+devoted<br>
+ more especially to natural history. He made collections of
+shells and<br>
+ minerals, knew how to stuff birds, kept a mass of curiosities
+bought<br>
+ for nothing in his bedroom; took possession of phials and
+empty<br>
+ perfume bottles for his specimens; pinned butterflies and
+beetles<br>
+ under glass, hung Chinese parasols on the walls, together with
+dried<br>
+ fishskins. He lived with his sister, an artificial-flower maker,
+in<br>
+ the due de Richelieu. Though much admired by mammas this model
+young<br>
+ man was looked down upon by his sister's shop-girls, who had
+tried to<br>
+ inveigle him. Slim and lean, of medium height, with dark circles
+round<br>
+ his eyes, Joseph Godard took little care of his person; his
+clothes<br>
+ were ill-cut, his trousers bagged, he wore white stockings at
+all<br>
+ seasons of the year, a hat with a narrow brim and laced shoes.
+He was<br>
+ always complaining of his digestion. His principal vice was a
+mania<br>
+ for proposing rural parties during the summer season, excursions
+to<br>
+ Montmorency, picnics on the grass, and visits to creameries on
+the<br>
+ boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. For the last six months Dutocq had
+taken<br>
+ to visiting Mademoiselle Godard from time to time, with certain
+views<br>
+ of his own, hoping to discover in her establishment some
+female<br>
+ treasure.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Baudoyer had a pair of henchmen in Dutocq and Godard.
+Monsieur<br>
+ Saillard, too innocent to judge rightly of Dutocq, was in the
+habit of<br>
+ paying him frequent little visits at the office. Young La
+Billardiere,<br>
+ the director's son, placed as supernumerary with Baudoyer,
+made<br>
+ another member of the clique. The clever heads in the offices
+laughed<br>
+ much at this alliance of incapables. Bixiou named Baudoyer,
+Godard,<br>
+ and Dutocq a "Trinity without the Spirit," and little La
+Billardiere<br>
+ the "Pascal Lamb."</p>
+
+<p>"You are early this morning," said Antoine to Dutocq,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"So are you, Antoine," answered Dutocq; "you see, the
+newspapers do<br>
+ come earlier than you let us have them at the office."</p>
+
+<p>"They did to-day, by chance," replied Antoine, not
+disconcerted; "they<br>
+ never come two days together at the same hour."</p>
+
+<p>The two nephews looked at each other as if to say, in
+admiration of<br>
+ their uncle, "What cheek he has!"</p>
+
+<p>"Though I make two sous by all his breakfasts," muttered
+Antoine, as<br>
+ he heard Monsieur Dutocq close the office door, "I'd give them
+up to<br>
+ get that man out of our division."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Monsieur Sebastien, you are not the first here to-day,"
+said<br>
+ Antoine, a quarter of an hour later, to the supernumerary.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is here?" asked the poor lad, turning pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Dutocq," answered Laurent.</p>
+
+<p>Virgin natures have, beyond all others, the inexplicable gift
+of<br>
+ second-sight, the reason of which lies perhaps in the purity of
+their<br>
+ nervous systems, which are, as it were, brand-new. Sebastien had
+long<br>
+ guessed Dutocq's hatred to his revered Rabourdin. So that when
+Laurent<br>
+ uttered his name a dreadful presentiment took possession of the
+lad's<br>
+ mind, and crying out, "I feared it!" he flew like an arrow into
+the<br>
+ corridor.</p>
+
+<p>"There is going to be a row in the division," said Antoine,
+shaking<br>
+ his white head as he put on his livery. "It is very certain
+that<br>
+ Monsieur le baron is off to his account. Yes, Madame Gruget,
+the<br>
+ nurse, told me he couldn't live through the day. What a stir
+there'll<br>
+ be! oh! won't there! Go along, you fellows, and see if the
+stoves are<br>
+ drawing properly. Heavens and earth! our world is coming down
+about<br>
+ our ears."</p>
+
+<p>"That poor young one," said Laurent, "had a sort of sunstroke
+when he<br>
+ heard that Jesuit of a Dutocq had got here before him."</p>
+
+<p>"I have told him a dozen times,--for after all one ought to
+tell the<br>
+ truth to an honest clerk, and what I call an honest clerk is one
+like<br>
+ that little fellow who gives us "recta" his ten francs on
+New-Year's<br>
+ day,--I have said to him again and again: The more you work the
+more<br>
+ they'll make you work, and they won't promote you. He doesn't
+listen<br>
+ to me; he tires himself out staying here till five o'clock, an
+hour<br>
+ after all the others have gone. Folly! he'll never get on that
+way!<br>
+ The proof is that not a word has been said about giving him
+an<br>
+ appointment, though he has been here two years. It's a shame! it
+makes<br>
+ my blood boil."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Rabourdin is very fond of Monsieur Sebastien," said
+Laurent.</p>
+
+<p>"But Monsieur Rabourdin isn't a minister," retorted Antoine;
+"it will<br>
+ be a hot day when that happens, and the hens will have teeth; he
+is<br>
+ too--but mum! When I think that I carry salaries to those
+humbugs who<br>
+ stay away and do as they please, while that poor little La Roche
+works<br>
+ himself to death, I ask myself if God ever thinks of the
+civil<br>
+ service. And what do they give you, these pets of Monsieur le
+marechal<br>
+ and Monsieur le duc? 'Thank you, my dear Antoine, thank you,'
+with a<br>
+ gracious nod! Pack of sluggards! go to work, or you'll bring
+another<br>
+ revolution about your ears. Didn't see such goings-on under
+Monsieur<br>
+ Robert Lindet. I know, for I served my apprenticeship under
+Robert<br>
+ Lindet. The clerks had to work in his day! You ought to have
+seen how<br>
+ they scratched paper here till midnight; why, the stoves went
+out and<br>
+ nobody noticed it. It was all because the guillotine was there!
+now-a-<br>
+ days they only mark 'em when they come in late!"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Antoine," said Gabriel, "as you are so talkative this
+morning,<br>
+ just tell us what you think a clerk really ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"A government clerk," replied Antoine, gravely, "is a man who
+sits in<br>
+ a government office and writes. But there, there, what am I
+talking<br>
+ about? Without the clerks, where should we be, I'd like to know?
+Go<br>
+ along and look after your stoves and mind you never say harm of
+a<br>
+ government clerk, you fellows. Gabriel, the stove in the large
+office<br>
+ draws like the devil; you must turn the damper."</p>
+
+<p>Antoine stationed himself at a corner of the landing whence he
+could<br>
+ see all the officials as they entered the porte-cochere; he knew
+every<br>
+ one at the ministry, and watched their behavior, observing
+narrowly<br>
+ the contrasts in their dress and appearance.</p>
+
+<p>The first to arrive after Sebastien was a clerk of deeds
+in<br>
+ Rabourdin's office named Phellion, a respectable family-man. To
+the<br>
+ influence of his chief he owed a half-scholarship for each of
+his two<br>
+ sons in the College Henri IV.; while his daughter was being
+educated<br>
+ gratis at a boarding school where his wife gave music lessons
+and he<br>
+ himself a course of history and one of geography in the
+evenings. He<br>
+ was about forty-five years of age, sergeant-major of his company
+in<br>
+ the National Guard, very compassionate in feeling and words,
+but<br>
+ wholly unable to give away a penny. Proud of his post, however,
+and<br>
+ satisfied with his lot, he applied himself faithfully to serve
+the<br>
+ government, believed he was useful to his country, and boasted
+of his<br>
+ indifference to politics, knowing none but those of the men in
+power.<br>
+ Monsieur Rabourdin pleased him highly whenever he asked him to
+stay<br>
+ half an hour longer to finish a piece of work. On such occasions
+he<br>
+ would say, when he reached home, "Public affairs detained me;
+when a<br>
+ man belongs to the government he is no longer master of
+himself." He<br>
+ compiled books of questions and answers on various studies for
+the use<br>
+ of young ladies in boarding-schools. These little "solid
+treatises,"<br>
+ as he called them, were sold at the University library under the
+name<br>
+ of "Historical and Geographic Catechisms." Feeling himself in
+duty<br>
+ bound to offer a copy of each volume, bound in red morocco,
+to<br>
+ Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in full dress to present
+them,--<br>
+ breeches and silk stockings, and shoes with gold buckles.
+Monsieur<br>
+ Phellion received his friends on Thursday evenings, on which
+occasions<br>
+ the company played bouillote, at five sous a game, and were
+regaled<br>
+ with cakes and beer. He had never yet dared to invite
+Monsieur<br>
+ Rabourdin to honor him with his presence, though he would
+have<br>
+ regarded such an event as the most distinguished of his life. He
+said<br>
+ if he could leave one of his sons following in the steps of
+Monsieur<br>
+ Rabourdin he should die the happiest father in the world.</p>
+
+<p>One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of
+Paris,<br>
+ which he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil,
+Bievre,<br>
+ Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of
+great<br>
+ writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of
+the<br>
+ country around Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into
+a<br>
+ government office and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique.
+He<br>
+ often said to the elder, "When you have the honor to be a
+government<br>
+ clerk"; though he suspected him of a preference for the exact
+sciences<br>
+ and did his best to repress it, mentally resolved to abandon the
+lad<br>
+ to his own devices if he persisted. When Rabourdin sent for him
+to<br>
+ come down and receive instructions about some particular piece
+of<br>
+ work, Phellion gave all his mind to it,--listening to every word
+the<br>
+ chief said, as a dilettante listens to an air at the Opera.
+Silent in<br>
+ the office, with his feet in the air resting on a wooden desk,
+and<br>
+ never moving them, he studied his task conscientiously. His
+official<br>
+ letters were written with the utmost gravity, and transmitted
+the<br>
+ commands of the minister in solemn phrases. Monsieur Phellion's
+face<br>
+ was that of a pensive ram, with little color and pitted by the
+small-<br>
+ pox; the lips were thick and the lower one pendent; the eyes
+light-<br>
+ blue, and his figure above the common height. Neat and clean as
+a<br>
+ master of history and geography in a young ladies' school ought
+to be,<br>
+ he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black cashmere
+waistcoat,<br>
+ left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered by his
+daughter, a<br>
+ diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat, and blue
+trousers. In<br>
+ winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with three capes, and
+carried a<br>
+ loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the profound solitude of
+the<br>
+ quarter in which he lived. He had given up taking snuff, and
+referred<br>
+ to this reform as a striking example of the empire a man
+could<br>
+ exercise over himself. Monsieur Phellion came slowly up the
+stairs,<br>
+ for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an "adipose
+chest."<br>
+ He saluted Antoine with dignity.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a
+strange<br>
+ contrast to the virtuous Phellion. Vimeux was a young man of
+twenty-<br>
+ five, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and
+graceful,<br>
+ with a romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as
+black as<br>
+ jet, fine teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so
+carefully<br>
+ trimmed that he seemed to have made it the business and
+occupation of<br>
+ his life. Vimeux had such aptitude for work that he despatched
+it much<br>
+ quicker than any of the other clerks. "He has a gift, that young
+man!"<br>
+ Phellion said of him when he saw him cross his legs and have
+nothing<br>
+ to do for the rest of the day, having got through his appointed
+task;<br>
+ "and see what a little dandy he is!" Vimeux breakfasted on a
+roll and<br>
+ a glass of water, dined for twenty sous at Katcomb's, and lodged
+in a<br>
+ furnished room, for which he paid twelve francs a month. His<br>
+ happiness, his sole pleasure in life, was dress. He ruined
+himself in<br>
+ miraculous waistcoats, in trousers that were tight,
+half-tight,<br>
+ pleated, or embroidered; in superfine boots, well-made coats
+which<br>
+ outlined his elegant figure; in bewitching collars, spotless
+gloves,<br>
+ and immaculate hats. A ring with a coat of arms adorned his
+hand,<br>
+ outside his glove, from which dangled a handsome cane; with
+these<br>
+ accessories he endeavoured to assume the air and manner of a
+wealthy<br>
+ young man. After the office closed he appeared in the great walk
+of<br>
+ the Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as though he were
+a<br>
+ millionaire who had just dined. Always on the lookout for a
+woman,--an<br>
+ Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or a widow,--who might
+fall in<br>
+ love with him, he practised the art of twirling his cane and
+of<br>
+ flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told him was American.
+He<br>
+ smiled to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks under his boots,
+but<br>
+ he had his hair curled every day. Vimeux was prepared, in
+accordance<br>
+ with fixed principles, to marry a hunch-back with six thousand a
+year,<br>
+ or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or an Englishwoman
+for<br>
+ half that sum. Phellion, who delighted in his neat hand-writing,
+and<br>
+ was full of compassion for the fellow, read him lectures on the
+duty<br>
+ of giving lessons in penmanship,--an honorable career, he said,
+which<br>
+ would ameliorate existence and even render it agreeable; he
+promised<br>
+ him a situation in a young ladies' boarding-school. But Vimeux's
+head<br>
+ was so full of his own idea that no human being could prevent
+him from<br>
+ having faith in his star. He continued to lay himself out, like
+a<br>
+ salmon at a fishmonger's, in spite of his empty stomach and the
+fact<br>
+ that he had fruitlessly exhibited his enormous moustache and his
+fine<br>
+ clothes for over three years. As he owed Antoine more than
+thirty<br>
+ francs for his breakfasts, he lowered his eyes every time he
+passed<br>
+ him; and yet he never failed at midday to ask the man to buy him
+a<br>
+ roll.</p>
+
+<p>After trying to get a few reasonable ideas into this foolish
+head,<br>
+ Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe
+(his<br>
+ family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and
+lived<br>
+ entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a
+riding-whip.<br>
+ Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in
+the<br>
+ spirit of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was
+really<br>
+ a kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one
+but<br>
+ himself. A standing joke in the two bureaus was the question
+whether<br>
+ he wore corsets, and bets depended on it. Vimeux was
+originally<br>
+ appointed to Baudoyer's bureau, but he manoeuvred to get
+himself<br>
+ transferred to Rabourdin's, on account of Baudoyer's extreme
+severity<br>
+ in relation to what were called "the English,"--a name given by
+the<br>
+ government clerks to their creditors. "English day" means the
+day on<br>
+ which the government offices are thrown open to the public.
+Certain<br>
+ then of finding their delinquent debtors, the creditors swarm in
+and<br>
+ torment them, asking when they intend to pay, and threatening
+to<br>
+ attach their salaries. The implacable Baudoyer compelled the
+clerks to<br>
+ remain at their desks and endure this torture. "It was their
+place not<br>
+ to make debts," he said; and he considered his severity as a
+duty<br>
+ which he owed to the public weal. Rabourdin, on the
+contrary,<br>
+ protected the clerks against their creditors, and turned the
+latter<br>
+ away, saying that the government bureaus were open for
+public<br>
+ business, not private. Much ridicule pursued Vimeux in both
+bureaus<br>
+ when the clank of his spurs resounded in the corridors and on
+the<br>
+ staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou, sent round a
+paper,<br>
+ headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard horse,
+asking for<br>
+ subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur Baudoyer was
+down<br>
+ for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance, and each
+of the<br>
+ clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself, good-natured
+fellow<br>
+ that he was, subscribed under the name of "Miss Fairfax."</p>
+
+<p>Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on
+which to<br>
+ live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune.
+Devoted to<br>
+ masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there,
+though<br>
+ it often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying
+milliners,<br>
+ or old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed
+with<br>
+ their handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance<br>
+ illustrated with stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem
+to<br>
+ answer their purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou (pronounce it Bisiou) was a draughtsman, who ridiculed
+Dutocq<br>
+ as readily as he did Rabourdin, whom he nicknamed "the
+virtuous<br>
+ woman." Without doubt the cleverest man in the division or even
+in the<br>
+ ministry (but clever after the fashion of a monkey, without aim
+or<br>
+ sequence), Bixiou was so essentially useful to Baudoyer and
+Godard<br>
+ that they upheld and protected him in spite of his misconduct;
+for he<br>
+ did their work when they were incapable of doing it for
+themselves.<br>
+ Bixiou wanted either Godard's or du Bruel's place as
+under-head-clerk,<br>
+ but his conduct interfered with his promotion. Sometimes he
+sneered at<br>
+ the public service; this was usually after he had made some
+happy hit,<br>
+ such as the publication of portraits in the famous Fualdes case
+(for<br>
+ which he drew faces hap-hazard), or his sketch of the debate on
+the<br>
+ Castaing affair. At other times, when possessed with a desire to
+get<br>
+ on, he really applied himself to work, though he would soon
+leave off<br>
+ to write a vaudeville, which was never finished. A thorough
+egoist, a<br>
+ spendthrift and a miser in one,--that is to say, spending his
+money<br>
+ solely on himself,--sharp, aggressive, and indiscreet, he did
+mischief<br>
+ for mischief's sake; above all, he attacked the weak,
+respected<br>
+ nothing and believed in nothing, neither in France, nor in God,
+nor in<br>
+ art, nor in the Greeks, nor in the Turks, nor in the
+monarchy,--<br>
+ insulting and disparaging everything that he could not
+comprehend. He<br>
+ was the first to paint a black cap on Charles X.'s head on the
+five-<br>
+ franc coins. He mimicked Dr. Gall when lecturing, till he made
+the<br>
+ most starched of diplomatists burst their buttons. Famous for
+his<br>
+ practical jokes, he varied them with such elaborate care that
+he<br>
+ always obtained a victim. His great secret in this was the power
+of<br>
+ guessing the inmost wishes of others; he knew the way to many a
+castle<br>
+ in the air, to the dreams about which a man may be fooled
+because he<br>
+ wants to be; and he made such men sit to him for hours.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it happened that this close observer, who could
+display<br>
+ unrivalled tact in developing a joke or driving home a sarcasm,
+was<br>
+ unable to use the same power to make men further his fortunes
+and<br>
+ promote him. The person he most liked to annoy was young La<br>
+ Billardiere, his nightmare, his detestation, whom he was
+nevertheless<br>
+ constantly wheedling so as the better to torment him on his
+weakest<br>
+ side. He wrote him love letters signed "Comtesse de M--" or
+"Marquise<br>
+ de B--"; took him to the Opera on gala days and presented him to
+some<br>
+ grisette under the clock, after calling everybody's attention to
+the<br>
+ young fool. He allied himself with Dutocq (whom he regarded as
+a<br>
+ solemn juggler) in his hatred to Rabourdin and his praise of
+Baudoyer,<br>
+ and did his best to support him. Jean-Jaques Bixiou was the
+grandson<br>
+ of a Parisian grocer. His father, who died a colonel, left him
+to the<br>
+ care of his grandmother, who married her head-clerk, named
+Descoings,<br>
+ after the death of her first husband, and died in 1822.
+Finding<br>
+ himself without prospects on leaving college, he attempted
+painting,<br>
+ but in spite of his intimacy with Joseph Bridau, his life-long
+friend,<br>
+ he abandoned art to take up caricature, vignette designing,
+and<br>
+ drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the name
+of<br>
+ "illustration." The influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and
+de<br>
+ Rhetore, whom he knew in the society of actresses, procured him
+his<br>
+ employment under government in 1819. On good terms with des
+Lupeaulx,<br>
+ with whom in society he stood on an equality, and intimate with
+du<br>
+ Bruel, he was a living proof of Rabourdin's theory as to the
+steady<br>
+ deterioration of the administrative hierarchy in Paris through
+the<br>
+ personal importance which a government official may acquire
+outside of<br>
+ a government office. Short in stature but well-formed, with a
+delicate<br>
+ face remarkable for its vague likeness to Napoleon's, thin lips,
+a<br>
+ straight chin, chestnut whiskers, twenty-seven years old,
+fair-<br>
+ skinned, with a piercing voice and sparkling eye,--such was
+Bixiou; a<br>
+ man, all sense and all wit, who abandoned himself to a mad
+pursuit of<br>
+ pleasure of every description, which threw him into a constant
+round<br>
+ of dissipation. Hunter of grisettes, smoker, jester, diner-out
+and<br>
+ frequenter of supper-parties, always tuned to the highest
+pitch,<br>
+ shining equally in the greenroom and at the balls given among
+the<br>
+ grisettes of the Allee des Veuves, he was just as
+surprisingly<br>
+ entertaining at table as at a picnic, as gay and lively at
+midnight on<br>
+ the streets as in the morning when he jumped out of bed, and yet
+at<br>
+ heart gloomy and melancholy, like most of the great comic
+players.</p>
+
+<p>Launched into the world of actors and actresses, writers,
+artists, and<br>
+ certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the
+theatre<br>
+ without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by
+nature<br>
+ and really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and
+fro in<br>
+ life like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the
+cord<br>
+ would break. The liveliness of his wit and the prodigal flow of
+his<br>
+ ideas made him acceptable to all persons who took pleasure in
+the<br>
+ lights of intellect; but none of his friends liked him.
+Incapable of<br>
+ checking a witty saying, he would scarify his two neighbors
+before a<br>
+ dinner was half over. In spite of his skin-deep gayety, a
+secret<br>
+ dissatisfaction with his social position could be detected in
+his<br>
+ speech; he aspired to something better, but the fatal demon
+hiding in<br>
+ his wit hindered him from acquiring the gravity which imposes
+on<br>
+ fools. He lived on the second floor of a house in the rue de
+Ponthieu,<br>
+ where he had three rooms delivered over to the untidiness of
+a<br>
+ bachelor's establishment, in fact, a regular bivouac. He often
+talked<br>
+ of leaving France and seeking his fortune in America. No wizard
+could<br>
+ foretell the future of this young man in whom all talents
+were<br>
+ incomplete; who was incapable of perseverance, intoxicated
+with<br>
+ pleasure, and who acted on the belief that the world ended on
+the<br>
+ morrow.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of dress Bixiou had the merit of never being
+ridiculous;<br>
+ he was perhaps the only official of the ministry whose dress did
+not<br>
+ lead outsiders to say, "That man is a government clerk!" He
+wore<br>
+ elegant boots with black trousers strapped under them, a
+fancy<br>
+ waistcoat, a becoming blue coat, collars that were the
+never-ending<br>
+ gift of grisettes, one of Bandoni's hats, and a pair of
+dark-colored<br>
+ kid gloves. His walk and bearing, cavalier and simple both, were
+not<br>
+ without grace. He knew all this, and when des Lupeaulx summoned
+him<br>
+ for a piece of impertinence said and done about Monsieur de
+la<br>
+ Billardiere and threatened him with dismissal, Bixiou replied,
+"You<br>
+ will take me back because my clothes do credit to the ministry";
+and<br>
+ des Lupeaulx, unable to keep from laughing, let the matter pass.
+The<br>
+ most harmless of Bixiou's jokes perpetrated among the clerks was
+the<br>
+ one he played off upon Godard, presenting him with a butterfly
+just<br>
+ brought from China, which the worthy man keeps in his collection
+and<br>
+ exhibits to this day, blissfully unconscious that it is only
+painted<br>
+ paper. Bixiou had the patience to work up the little masterpiece
+for<br>
+ the sole purpose of hoaxing his superior.</p>
+
+<p>The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer's
+bureau held<br>
+ the martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with
+a<br>
+ salary of fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois
+Minard.<br>
+ Minard had married for love the daughter of a porter, an
+artificial-<br>
+ flower maker employed by Mademoiselle Godard. Zelie Lorrain, a
+pupil,<br>
+ in the first place, of the Conservatoire, then by turns a
+danseuse, a<br>
+ singer, and an actress, had thought of doing as so many of
+the<br>
+ working-women do; but the fear of consequences kept her from
+vice. She<br>
+ was floating undecidedly along, when Minard appeared upon the
+scene<br>
+ with a definite proposal of marriage. Zelie earned five hundred
+francs<br>
+ a year, Minard had fifteen hundred. Believing that they could
+live on<br>
+ two thousand, they married without settlements, and started with
+the<br>
+ utmost economy. They went to live, like dove-turtles, near
+the<br>
+ barriere de Courcelles, in a little apartment at three hundred
+francs<br>
+ a year, with white cotton curtains to the windows, a Scotch
+paper<br>
+ costing fifteen sous a roll on the walls, brick floors well
+polished,<br>
+ walnut furniture in the parlor, and a tiny kitchen that was
+very<br>
+ clean. Zelie nursed her children herself when they came, cooked,
+made<br>
+ her flowers, and kept the house. There was something very
+touching in<br>
+ this happy and laborious mediocrity. Feeling that Minard truly
+loved<br>
+ her, Zelie loved him. Love begets love,--it is the abyssus
+abyssum of<br>
+ the Bible. The poor man left his bed in the morning before his
+wife<br>
+ was up, that he might fetch provisions. He carried the flowers
+she had<br>
+ finished, on his way to the bureau, and bought her materials on
+his<br>
+ way back; then, while waiting for dinner, he stamped out her
+leaves,<br>
+ trimmed the twigs, or rubbed her colors. Small, slim, and wiry,
+with<br>
+ crisp red hair, eyes of a light yellow, a skin of dazzling
+fairness,<br>
+ though blotched with red, the man had a sturdy courage that made
+no<br>
+ show. He knew the science of writing quite as well as Vimeux. At
+the<br>
+ office he kept in the background, doing his allotted task with
+the<br>
+ collected air of a man who thinks and suffers. His white
+eyelashes and<br>
+ lack of eyebrows induced the relentless Bixiou to name him "the
+white<br>
+ rabbit." Minard--the Rabourdin of a lower sphere--was filled
+with the<br>
+ desire of placing his Zelie in better circumstances, and his
+mind<br>
+ searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in hopes of finding an
+idea,<br>
+ of making some discovery or some improvement which would bring
+him a<br>
+ rapid fortune. His apparent dulness was really caused by the
+continual<br>
+ tension of his mind; he went over the history of Cephalic Oils
+and the<br>
+ Paste of Sultans, lucifer matches and portable gas, jointed
+sockets<br>
+ for hydrostatic lamps,--in short, all the infinitely little
+inventions<br>
+ of material civilization which pay so well. He bore Bixiou's
+jests as<br>
+ a busy man bears the buzzing of an insect; he was not even
+annoyed by<br>
+ them. In spite of his cleverness, Bixiou never perceived the
+profound<br>
+ contempt which Minard felt for him. Minard never dreamed of<br>
+ quarrelling, however,--regarding it as a loss of time. After a
+while<br>
+ his composure tired out his tormentor. He always breakfasted
+with his<br>
+ wife, and ate nothing at the office. Once a month he took Zelie
+to the<br>
+ theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or Bixiou; for Bixiou
+was<br>
+ capable of anything, even of doing a kindness. Monsieur and
+Madame<br>
+ Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year's day. Those who
+saw<br>
+ them often asked how it was that a woman could keep her husband
+in<br>
+ good clothes, wear a Leghorn bonnet with flowers, embroidered
+muslin<br>
+ dresses, silk mantles, prunella boots, handsome fichus, a
+Chinese<br>
+ parasol, and drive home in a hackney-coach, and yet be virtuous;
+while<br>
+ Madame Colleville and other "ladies" of her kind could scarcely
+make<br>
+ ends meet, though they had double Madame Minard's means.</p>
+
+<p>In the two bureaus were two clerks so devoted to each other
+that their<br>
+ friendship became the butt of all the rest. He of the bureau
+Baudoyer,<br>
+ named Colleville, was chief-clerk, and would have been head of
+the<br>
+ bureau long before if the Restoration had never happened. His
+wife was<br>
+ as clever in her way as Madame Rabourdin in hers. Colleville,
+who was<br>
+ son of a first violin at the opera, fell in love with the
+daughter of<br>
+ a celebrated danseuse. Flavie Minoret, one of those capable
+and<br>
+ charming Parisian women who know how to make their husbands
+happy and<br>
+ yet preserve their own liberty, made the Colleville home a
+rendezvous<br>
+ for all our best artists and orators. Colleville's humble
+position<br>
+ under government was forgotten there. Flavie's conduct gave such
+food<br>
+ for gossip, however, that Madame Rabourdin had declined all
+her<br>
+ invitations. The friend in Rabourdin's bureau to whom Colleville
+was<br>
+ so attached was named Thuillier. All who knew one knew the
+other.<br>
+ Thuillier, called "the handsome Thuillier," an ex-Lothario, led
+as<br>
+ idle a life as Colleville led a busy one. Colleville,
+government<br>
+ official in the mornings and first clarionet at the
+Opera-Comique at<br>
+ night, worked hard to maintain his family, though he was not
+without<br>
+ influential friends. He was looked upon as a very shrewd
+man,--all the<br>
+ more, perhaps, because he hid his ambitions under a show of<br>
+ indifference. Apparently content with his lot and liking work,
+he<br>
+ found every one, even the chiefs, ready to protect his brave
+career.<br>
+ During the last few weeks Madame Colleville had made an evident
+change<br>
+ in the household, and seemed to be taking to piety. This gave
+rise to<br>
+ a vague report in the bureaus that she thought of securing some
+more<br>
+ powerful influence than that of Francois Keller, the famous
+orator,<br>
+ who had been one of her chief adorers, but who, so far, had
+failed to<br>
+ obtain a better place for her husband. Flavie had, about this
+time--<br>
+ and it was one of her mistakes--turned for help to des
+Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>Colleville had a passion for reading the horoscopes of famous
+men in<br>
+ the anagram of their names. He passed whole months in
+decomposing and<br>
+ recomposing words and fitting them to new meanings. "Un Corse
+la<br>
+ finira," found within the words, "Revolution Francaise"; "Eh,
+c'est<br>
+ large nez," in "Charles Genest," an abbe at the court of Louis
+XIV.,<br>
+ whose huge nose is recorded by Saint-Simon as the delight of the
+Duc<br>
+ de Bourgogne (the exigencies of this last anagram required
+the<br>
+ substitution of a z for an s),--were a never-ending marvel
+to<br>
+ Colleville. Raising the anagram to the height of a science,
+he<br>
+ declared that the destiny of every man was written in the words
+or<br>
+ phrase given by the transposition of the letters of his names
+and<br>
+ titles; and his patriotism struggled hard to suppress the
+fact--signal<br>
+ evidence for his theory--that in Horatio Nelson, "honor est a
+Nilo."<br>
+ Ever since the accession of Charles X., he had bestowed much
+thought<br>
+ on the king's anagram. Thuillier, who was fond of making
+puns,<br>
+ declared that an anagram was nothing more than a pun on letters.
+The<br>
+ sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound almost
+indissolubly<br>
+ to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a difficult
+problem to<br>
+ the mind of an observer. The clerks in the offices explained it
+by<br>
+ saying, "Thuillier is rich, and the Colleville household
+costly." This<br>
+ friendship, however, consolidated by time, was based on feelings
+and<br>
+ on facts which naturally explained it; an account of which may
+be<br>
+ found elsewhere (see "Les Petits Bourgeois"). We may remark in
+passing<br>
+ that though Madame Colleville was well known in the bureaus,
+the<br>
+ existence of Madame Thuillier was almost unknown there.
+Colleville, an<br>
+ active man, burdened with a family of children, was fat, round,
+and<br>
+ jolly, whereas Thuillier, "the beau of the Empire" without
+apparent<br>
+ anxieties and always at leisure, was slender and thin, with a
+livid<br>
+ face and a melancholy air. "We never know," said Rabourdin,
+speaking<br>
+ of the two men, "whether our friendships are born of likeness or
+of<br>
+ contrast."</p>
+
+<p>Unlike these Siamese twins, two other clerks, Chazelle and
+Paulmier,<br>
+ were forever squabbling. One smoked, the other took snuff, and
+the<br>
+ merits of their respective use of tobacco were the origin of
+ceaseless<br>
+ disputes. Chazelle's home, which was tyrannized over by a
+wife,<br>
+ furnished a subject of endless ridicule to Paulmier; whereas
+Paulmier,<br>
+ a bachelor, often half-starved like Vimeux, with ragged clothes
+and<br>
+ half-concealed penury was a fruitful source of ridicule to
+Chazelle.<br>
+ Both were beginning to show a protuberant stomach; Chazelle's,
+which<br>
+ was round and projecting, had the impertinence, so Bixiou said,
+to<br>
+ enter the room first; Paulmier's corporation spread to right and
+left.<br>
+ A favorite amusement with Bixiou was to measure them quarterly.
+The<br>
+ two clerks, by dint of quarrelling over the details of their
+lives,<br>
+ and washing much of their dirty linen at the office, had
+obtained the<br>
+ disrepute which they merited. "Do you take me for a Chazelle?"
+was a<br>
+ frequent saying that served to end many an annoying
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Poiret junior, called "junior" to distinguish him
+from his<br>
+ brother Monsieur Poiret senior (now living in the Maison
+Vanquer,<br>
+ where Poiret junior sometimes dined, intending to end his days
+in the<br>
+ same retreat), had spent thirty years in the Civil Service.
+Nature<br>
+ herself is not so fixed and unvarying in her evolutions as was
+Poiret<br>
+ junior in all the acts of his daily life; he always laid his
+things in<br>
+ precisely the same place, put his pen in the same rack, sat down
+in<br>
+ his seat at the same hour, warmed himself at the stove at the
+same<br>
+ moment of the day. His sole vanity consisted in wearing an
+infallible<br>
+ watch, timed daily at the Hotel de Ville as he passed it on his
+way to<br>
+ the office. From six to eight o'clock in the morning he kept the
+books<br>
+ of a large shop in the rue Saint-Antoine, and from six to
+eight<br>
+ o'clock in the evening those of the Maison Camusot, in the rue
+des<br>
+ Bourdonnais. He thus earned three thousand francs a year,
+counting his<br>
+ salary from the government. In a few months his term of service
+would<br>
+ be up, when he would retire on a pension; he therefore showed
+the<br>
+ utmost indifference to the political intrigues of the bureaus.
+Like<br>
+ his elder brother, to whom retirement from active service had
+proved a<br>
+ fatal blow, he would probably grow an old man when he could no
+longer<br>
+ come from his home to the ministry, sit in the same chair and
+copy a<br>
+ certain number of pages. Poiret's eyes were dim, his glance weak
+and<br>
+ lifeless, his skin discolored and wrinkled, gray in tone and
+speckled<br>
+ with bluish dots; his nose flat, his lips drawn inward to the
+mouth,<br>
+ where a few defective teeth still lingered. His gray hair,
+flattened<br>
+ to the head by the pressure of his hat, gave him the look of
+an<br>
+ ecclesiastic,--a resemblance he would scarcely have liked, for
+he<br>
+ hated priests and clergy, though he could give no reasons for
+his<br>
+ anti-religious views. This antipathy, however, did not prevent
+him<br>
+ from being extremely attached to whatever administration
+happened to<br>
+ be in power. He never buttoned his old green coat, even on the
+coldest<br>
+ days, and he always wore shoes with ties, and black
+trousers.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ No human life was ever lived so thoroughly by rule. Poiret kept
+all<br>
+ his receipted bills, even the most trifling, and all his
+account-<br>
+ books, wrapped in old shirts and put away according to their<br>
+ respective years from the time of his entrance at the ministry.
+Rough<br>
+ copies of his letters were dated and put away in a box, ticketed
+"My<br>
+ Correspondence." He dined at the same restaurant (the Sucking
+Calf in<br>
+ the place du Chatelet), and sat in the same place, which the
+waiters<br>
+ kept for him. He never gave five minutes more time to the shop
+in the<br>
+ rue Saint Antoine than justly belonged to it, and at half-past
+eight<br>
+ precisely he reached the Cafe David, where he breakfasted and
+remained<br>
+ till eleven. There he listened to political discussions, his
+arms<br>
+ crossed on his cane, his chin in his right hand, never saying a
+word.<br>
+ The dame du comptoir, the only woman to whom he ever spoke
+with<br>
+ pleasure, was the sole confidant of the little events of his
+life, for<br>
+ his seat was close to her counter. He played dominoes, the only
+game<br>
+ he was capable of understanding. When his partners did not
+happen to<br>
+ be present, he usually went to sleep with his back against
+the<br>
+ wainscot, holding a newspaper in his hand, the wooden file
+resting on<br>
+ the marble of his table. He was interested in the buildings
+going up<br>
+ in Paris, and spent his Sundays in walking about to examine
+them. He<br>
+ was often heard to say, "I saw the Louvre emerge from its
+rubbish; I<br>
+ saw the birth of the place du Chatelet, the quai aux Fleurs and
+the<br>
+ Markets." He and his brother, both born at Troyes, were sent in
+youth<br>
+ to serve their apprenticeship in a government office. Their
+mother<br>
+ made herself notorious by misconduct, and the two brothers had
+the<br>
+ grief of hearing of her death in the hospital at Troyes,
+although they<br>
+ had frequently sent money for her support. This event led them
+both<br>
+ not only to abjure marriage, but to feel a horror of children;
+ill at<br>
+ ease with them, they feared them as others fear madmen, and
+watched<br>
+ them with haggard eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Since the day when he first came to Paris Poiret junior had
+never gone<br>
+ outside the city. He began at that time to keep a journal of his
+life,<br>
+ in which he noted down all the striking events of his day. Du
+Bruel<br>
+ told him that Lord Byron did the same thing. This likeness
+filled<br>
+ Poiret junior with delight, and led him to buy the works of
+Lord<br>
+ Byron, translated by Chastopalli, of which he did not understand
+a<br>
+ word. At the office he was often seen in a melancholy attitude,
+as<br>
+ though absorbed in thought, when in fact he was thinking of
+nothing at<br>
+ all. He did not know a single person in the house where he
+lived, and<br>
+ always carried the keys of his apartment about with him. On
+New-Year's<br>
+ day he went round and left his own cards on all the clerks of
+the<br>
+ division. Bixiou took it into his head on one of the hottest of
+dog-<br>
+ days to put a layer of lard under the lining of a certain old
+hat<br>
+ which Poiret junior (he was, by the bye, fifty-two years old)
+had worn<br>
+ for the last nine years. Bixiou, who had never seen any other
+hat on<br>
+ Poiret's head, dreamed of it and declared he tasted it in his
+food; he<br>
+ therefore resolved, in the interests of his digestion, to
+relieve the<br>
+ bureau of the sight of that amorphous old hat. Poiret junior
+left the<br>
+ office regularly at four o'clock. As he walked along, the sun's
+rays<br>
+ reflected from the pavements and walls produced a tropical heat;
+he<br>
+ felt that his head was inundated,--he, who never perspired!
+Feeling<br>
+ that he was ill, or on the point of being so, instead of going
+as<br>
+ usual to the Sucking Calf he went home, drew out from his desk
+the<br>
+ journal of his life, and recorded the fact in the following
+manner:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"To-day, July 3, 1823, overtaken by extraordinary
+perspiration, a<br>
+ sign, perhaps, of the sweating-sickness, a malady which
+prevails<br>
+ in Champagne. I am about to consult Doctor Haudry. The
+disease<br>
+ first appeared as I reached the highest part of the quai des<br>
+ Ecoles."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Suddenly, having taken off his hat, he became aware that
+the<br>
+ mysterious sweat had some cause independent of his own person.
+He<br>
+ wiped his face, examined the hat, and could find nothing, for he
+did<br>
+ not venture to take out the lining. All this he noted in his<br>
+ journal:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Carried my hat to the Sieur Tournan, hat-maker in the rue
+Saint-<br>
+ Martin, for the reason that I suspect some unknown cause for
+this<br>
+ perspiration, which, in that case, might not be perspiration,
+but,<br>
+ possibly, the effect of something lately added, or formerly
+done,<br>
+ to my hat."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Monsieur Tournan at once informed his customer of the presence
+of a<br>
+ greasy substance, obtained by the trying-out of the fat of a pig
+or<br>
+ sow. The next day Poiret appeared at the office with another
+hat, lent<br>
+ by Monsieur Tournan while a new one was making; but he did not
+sleep<br>
+ that night until he had added the following sentence to the
+preceding<br>
+ entries in his journal: "It is asserted that my hat contained
+lard,<br>
+ the fat of a pig."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ This inexplicable fact occupied the intellect of Poiret junior
+for the<br>
+ space of two weeks; and he never knew how the phenomenon was
+produced.<br>
+ The clerks told him tales of showers of frogs, and other
+dog-day<br>
+ wonders, also the startling fact that an imprint of the head
+of<br>
+ Napoleon had been found in the root of a young elm, with
+other<br>
+ eccentricities of natural history. Vimeux informed him that one
+day<br>
+ his hat--his, Vimeux's--had stained his forehead black, and that
+hat-<br>
+ makers were in the habit of using drugs. After that Poiret paid
+many<br>
+ visits to Monsieur Tournan to inquire into his methods of
+manufacture.</p>
+
+<p>In the Rabourdin bureau was a clerk who played the man of
+courage and<br>
+ audacity, professed the opinions of the Left centre, and
+rebelled<br>
+ against the tyrannies of Baudoyer as exercised upon what he
+called the<br>
+ unhappy slaves of that office. His name was Fleury. He
+boldly<br>
+ subscribed to an opposition newspaper, wore a gray hat with a
+broad<br>
+ brim, red bands on his blue trousers, a blue waistcoat with
+gilt<br>
+ buttons, and a surtout coat crossed over the breast like that of
+a<br>
+ quartermaster of gendarmerie. Though unyielding in his opinions,
+he<br>
+ continued to be employed in the service, all the while
+predicting a<br>
+ fatal end to a government which persisted in upholding religion.
+He<br>
+ openly avowed his sympathy for Napoleon, now that the death of
+that<br>
+ great man put an end to the laws enacted against "the partisans
+of the<br>
+ usurper." Fleury, ex-captain of a regiment of the line under
+the<br>
+ Emperor, a tall, dark, handsome fellow, was now, in addition to
+his<br>
+ civil-service post, box-keeper at the Cirque-Olympique. Bixiou
+never<br>
+ ventured on tormenting Fleury, for the rough trooper, who was a
+good<br>
+ shot and clever at fencing, seemed quite capable of extreme
+brutality<br>
+ if provoked. An ardent subscriber to "Victoires et Conquetes,"
+Fleury<br>
+ nevertheless refused to pay his subscription, though he kept and
+read<br>
+ the copies, alleging that they exceeded the number proposed in
+the<br>
+ prospectus. He adored Monsieur Rabourdin, who had saved him
+from<br>
+ dismissal, and was even heard to say that if any misfortune
+happened<br>
+ to the chief through anybody's fault he would kill that person.
+Dutocq<br>
+ meanly courted Fleury because he feared him. Fleury, crippled
+with<br>
+ debt, played many a trick on his creditors. Expert in legal
+matters,<br>
+ he never signed a promissory note; and had prudently attached
+his own<br>
+ salary under the names of fictitious creditors, so that he was
+able to<br>
+ draw nearly the whole of it himself. He played ecarte, was the
+life of<br>
+ evening parties, tossed off glasses of champagne without wetting
+his<br>
+ lips, and knew all the songs of Beranger by heart. He was proud
+of his<br>
+ full, sonorous voice. His three great admirations were
+Napoleon,<br>
+ Bolivar, and Beranger. Foy, Lafitte, and Casimir Delavigne he
+only<br>
+ esteemed. Fleury, as you will have guessed already, was a
+Southerner,<br>
+ destined, no doubt, to become the responsible editor of a
+liberal<br>
+ journal.</p>
+
+<p>Desroys, the mysterious clerk of the division, consorted with
+no one,<br>
+ talked little, and hid his private life so carefully that no one
+knew<br>
+ where he lived, nor who were his protectors, nor what were his
+means<br>
+ of subsistence. Looking about them for the causes of this
+reserve,<br>
+ some of his colleagues thought him a "carbonaro," others an
+Orleanist;<br>
+ there were others again who doubted whether to call him a spy or
+a man<br>
+ of solid merit. Desroys was, however, simple and solely the son
+of a<br>
+ "Conventionel," who did not vote the king's death. Cold and
+prudent by<br>
+ temperament, he had judged the world and ended by relying on no
+one<br>
+ but himself. Republican in secret, an admirer of Paul-Louis
+Courier<br>
+ and a friend of Michael Chrestien, he looked to time and
+public<br>
+ intelligence to bring about the triumph of his opinions from end
+to<br>
+ end of Europe. He dreamed of a new Germany and a new Italy. His
+heart<br>
+ swelled with that dull, collective love which we must call<br>
+ humanitarianism, the eldest son of deceased philanthropy, and
+which is<br>
+ to the divine catholic charity what system is to art, or
+reasoning to<br>
+ deed. This conscientious puritan of freedom, this apostle of
+an<br>
+ impossible equality, regretted keenly that his poverty forced
+him to<br>
+ serve the government, and he made various efforts to find a
+place<br>
+ elsewhere. Tall, lean, lanky, and solemn in appearance, like a
+man who<br>
+ expects to be called some day to lay down his life for a cause,
+he<br>
+ lived on a page of Volney, studied Saint-Just, and employed
+himself on<br>
+ a vindication of Robespierre, whom he regarded as the successor
+of<br>
+ Jesus Christ.</p>
+
+<p>The last of the individuals belonging to these bureaus who
+merits a<br>
+ sketch here is the little La Billardiere. Having, to his
+great<br>
+ misfortune, lost his mother, and being under the protection of
+the<br>
+ minister, safe therefore from the tyrannies of Baudoyer, and
+received<br>
+ in all the ministerial salons, he was nevertheless detested by
+every<br>
+ one because of his impertinence and conceit. The two chiefs
+were<br>
+ polite to him, but the clerks held him at arm's length and
+prevented<br>
+ all companionship by means of the extreme and grotesque
+politeness<br>
+ which they bestowed upon him. A pretty youth of twenty-two, tall
+and<br>
+ slender, with the manners of an Englishman, a dandy in dress,
+curled<br>
+ and perfumed, gloved and booted in the latest fashion, and
+twirling an<br>
+ eyeglass, Benjamin de la Billardiere thought himself a charming
+fellow<br>
+ and possessed all the vices of the world with none of its
+graces. He<br>
+ was now looking forward impatiently to the death of his father,
+that<br>
+ he might succeed to the title of baron. His cards were printed
+"le<br>
+ Chevalier de la Billardiere" and on the wall of his office hung,
+in a<br>
+ frame, his coat of arms (sable, two swords in saltire, on a
+chief<br>
+ azure three mullets argent; with the motto; "Toujours
+fidele").<br>
+ Possessed with a mania for talking heraldry, he once asked the
+young<br>
+ Vicomte de Portenduere why his arms were charged in a certain
+way, and<br>
+ drew down upon himself the happy answer, "I did not make them."
+He<br>
+ talked of his devotion to the monarchy and the attentions the
+Dauphine<br>
+ paid him. He stood very well with des Lupeaulx, whom he thought
+his<br>
+ friend, and they often breakfasted together. Bixiou posed as
+his<br>
+ mentor, and hoped to rid the division and France of the young
+fool by<br>
+ tempting him to excesses, and openly avowed that intention.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the principal figures of La Billardiere's division
+of the<br>
+ ministry, where also were other clerks of less account, who
+resembled<br>
+ more or less those that are represented here. It is difficult
+even for<br>
+ an observer to decide from the aspect of these strange
+personalities<br>
+ whether the goose-quill tribe were becoming idiots from the
+effects of<br>
+ their employment or whether they entered the service because
+they were<br>
+ natural born fools. Possibly the making of them lies at the door
+of<br>
+ Nature and of the government both. Nature, to a civil-service
+clerk<br>
+ is, in fact, the sphere of the office; his horizon is bounded on
+all<br>
+ sides by green boxes; to him, atmospheric changes are the air of
+the<br>
+ corridors, the masculine exhalations contained in rooms
+without<br>
+ ventilators, the odor of paper, pens, and ink; the soil he
+treads is a<br>
+ tiled pavement or a wooden floor, strewn with a curious litter
+and<br>
+ moistened by the attendant's watering-pot; his sky is the
+ceiling<br>
+ toward which he yawns; his element is dust. Several
+distinguished<br>
+ doctors have remonstrated against the influence of this second
+nature,<br>
+ both savage and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in
+those<br>
+ dreadful pens called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates,
+where<br>
+ thoughts are tied down to occupations like that of horses who
+turn a<br>
+ crank and who, poor beasts, yawn distressingly and die
+quickly.<br>
+ Rabourdin was, therefore, fully justified in seeking to reform
+their<br>
+ present condition, by lessening their numbers and giving to each
+a<br>
+ larger salary and far heavier work. Men are neither wearied nor
+bored<br>
+ when doing great things. Under the present system government
+loses<br>
+ fully four hours out of the nine which the clerks owe to the
+service,<br>
+ --hours wasted, as we shall see, in conversations, in gossip,
+in<br>
+ disputes, and, above all, in underhand intriguing. The reader
+must<br>
+ have haunted the bureaus of the ministerial departments before
+he can<br>
+ realize how much their petty and belittling life resembles that
+of<br>
+ seminaries. Wherever men live collectively this likeness is
+obvious;<br>
+ in regiments, in law-courts, you will find the elements of the
+school<br>
+ on a smaller or larger scale. The government clerks, forced to
+be<br>
+ together for nine hours of the day, looked upon their office as
+a sort<br>
+ of class-room where they had tasks to perform, where the head of
+the<br>
+ bureau was no other than a schoolmaster, and where the
+gratuities<br>
+ bestowed took the place of prizes given out to proteges,--a
+place,<br>
+ moreover, where they teased and hated each other, and yet felt
+a<br>
+ certain comradeship, colder than that of a regiment, which
+itself is<br>
+ less hearty than that of seminaries. As a man advances in life
+he<br>
+ grows more selfish; egoism develops, and relaxes all the
+secondary<br>
+ bonds of affection. A government office is, in short, a
+microcosm of<br>
+ society, with its oddities and hatreds, its envy and its
+cupidity, its<br>
+ determination to push on, no matter who goes under, its
+frivolous<br>
+ gossip which gives so many wounds, and its perpetual spying.</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h4>THE MACHINE IN MOTION</h4>
+
+<p>At this moment the division of Monsieur de la Billardiere was
+in a<br>
+ state of unusual excitement, resulting very naturally from the
+event<br>
+ which was about to happen; for heads of divisions do not die
+every<br>
+ day, and there is no insurance office where the chances of life
+and<br>
+ death are calculated with more sagacity than in a government
+bureau.<br>
+ Self-interest stifles all compassion, as it does in children,
+but the<br>
+ government service adds hypocrisy to boot.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ The clerks of the bureau Baudoyer arrived at eight o'clock in
+the<br>
+ morning, whereas those of the bureau Rabourdin seldom appeared
+till<br>
+ nine,--a circumstance which did not prevent the work in the
+latter<br>
+ office from being more rapidly dispatched than that of the
+former.<br>
+ Dutocq had important reasons for coming early on this
+particular<br>
+ morning. The previous evening he had furtively entered the study
+where<br>
+ Sebastien was at work, and had seen him copying some papers
+for<br>
+ Rabourdin; he concealed himself until he saw Sebastien leave
+the<br>
+ premises without taking any papers away with him. Certain,
+therefore,<br>
+ of finding the rather voluminous memorandum which he had
+seen,<br>
+ together with its copy, in some corner of the study, he
+searched<br>
+ through the boxes one after another until he finally came upon
+the<br>
+ fatal list. He carried it in hot haste to an autograph-printing
+house,<br>
+ where he obtained two pressed copies of the memorandum, showing,
+of<br>
+ course, Rabourdin's own writing. Anxious not to arouse
+suspicion, he<br>
+ had gone very early to the office and replaced both the
+memorandum and<br>
+ Sebastien's copy in the box from which he had taken them.
+Sebastien,<br>
+ who was kept up till after midnight at Madame Rabourdin's party,
+was,<br>
+ in spite of his desire to get to the office early, preceded by
+the<br>
+ spirit of hatred. Hatred lived in the rue
+Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore,<br>
+ whereas love and devotion lived far-off in the rue du Roi-Dore
+in the<br>
+ Marais. This slight delay was destined to affect Rabourdin's
+whole<br>
+ career.</p>
+
+<p>Sebastien opened his box eagerly, found the memorandum and his
+own<br>
+ unfinished copy all in order, and locked them at once into the
+desk as<br>
+ Rabourdin had directed. The mornings are dark in these offices
+towards<br>
+ the end of December, sometimes indeed the lamps are lit till
+after ten<br>
+ o'clock; consequently Sebastien did not happen to notice the
+pressure<br>
+ of the copying-machine upon the paper. But when, about half-past
+nine<br>
+ o'clock, Rabourdin looked at his memorandum he saw at once the
+effects<br>
+ of the copying process, and all the more readily because he was
+then<br>
+ considering whether these autographic presses could not be made
+to do<br>
+ the work of copying clerks.</p>
+
+<p>"Did any one get to the office before you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Sebastien,--"Monsieur Dutocq."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! well, he was punctual. Send Antoine to me."</p>
+
+<p>Too noble to distress Sebastien uselessly by blaming him for
+a<br>
+ misfortune now beyond remedy, Rabourdin said no more. Antoine
+came.<br>
+ Rabourdin asked if any clerk had remained at the office after
+four<br>
+ o'clock the previous evening. The man replied that Monsieur
+Dutocq had<br>
+ worked there later than Monsieur de la Roche, who was usually
+the last<br>
+ to leave. Rabourdin dismissed him with a nod, and resumed the
+thread<br>
+ of his reflections.</p>
+
+<p>"Twice I have prevented his dismissal," he said to himself,
+"and this<br>
+ is my reward."</p>
+
+<p>This morning was to Rabourdin like the solemn hour in which
+great<br>
+ commanders decide upon a battle and weigh all chances. Knowing
+the<br>
+ spirit of official life better than any one, he well knew that
+it<br>
+ would never pardon, any more than a school or the galleys or the
+army<br>
+ pardon, what looked like espionage or tale-bearing. A man
+capable of<br>
+ informing against his comrades is disgraced, dishonored,
+despised; the<br>
+ ministers in such a case would disavow their own agents. Nothing
+was<br>
+ left to an official so placed but to send in his resignation and
+leave<br>
+ Paris; his honor is permanently stained; explanations are of no
+avail;<br>
+ no one will either ask for them or listen to them. A minister
+may well<br>
+ do the same thing and be thought a great man, able to choose the
+right<br>
+ instruments; but a mere subordinate will be judged as a spy, no
+matter<br>
+ what may be his motives. While justly measuring the folly of
+such<br>
+ judgment, Rabourdin knew that it was all-powerful; and he knew,
+too,<br>
+ that he was crushed. More surprised than overwhelmed, he now
+sought<br>
+ for the best course to follow under the circumstances; and with
+such<br>
+ thoughts in his mind he was necessarily aloof from the
+excitement<br>
+ caused in the division by the death of Monsieur de la
+Billardiere; in<br>
+ fact he did not hear of it until young La Briere, who was able
+to<br>
+ appreciate his sterling value, came to tell him. About ten
+o'clock, in<br>
+ the bureau Baudoyer, Bixiou was relating the last moments of the
+life<br>
+ of the director to Minard, Desroys, Monsieur Godard, whom he
+had<br>
+ called from his private office, and Dutocq, who had rushed in
+with<br>
+ private motives of his own. Colleville and Chazelle were
+absent.</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [standing with his back to the stove and holding up the
+sole of<br>
+ each boot alternately to dry at the open door]. "This morning,
+at half-<br>
+ past seven, I went to inquire after our most worthy and
+respectable<br>
+ director, knight of the order of Christ, et caetera, et caetera.
+Yes,<br>
+ gentlemen, last night he was a being with twenty et caeteras,
+to-day<br>
+ he is nothing, not even a government clerk. I asked all
+particulars of<br>
+ his nurse. She told me that this morning at five o'clock he
+became<br>
+ uneasy about the royal family. He asked for the names of all
+the<br>
+ clerks who had called to inquire after him; and then he said:
+'Fill my<br>
+ snuff-box, give me the newspaper, bring my spectacles, and
+change my<br>
+ ribbon of the Legion of honor,--it is very dirty.' I suppose you
+know<br>
+ he always wore his orders in bed. He was fully conscious,
+retained his<br>
+ senses and all his usual ideas. But, presto! ten minutes later
+the<br>
+ water rose, rose, rose and flooded his chest; he knew he was
+dying for<br>
+ he felt the cysts break. At that fatal moment he gave evident
+proof of<br>
+ his powerful mind and vast intellect. Ah, we never rightly
+appreciated<br>
+ him! We used to laugh at him and call him a booby--didn't
+you,<br>
+ Monsieur Godard?"</p>
+
+<p>Godard. "I? I always rated Monsieur de la Billardiere's
+talents higher<br>
+ than the rest of you."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "You and he could understand each other!"</p>
+
+<p>Godard. "He wasn't a bad man; he never harmed any one."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "To do harm you must do something, and he never did
+anything.<br>
+ If it wasn't you who said he was a dolt, it must have been
+Minard."</p>
+
+<p>Minard [shrugging his shoulders]. "I!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Well, then it was you, Dutocq!" [Dutocq made a
+vehement<br>
+ gesture of denial.] "Oh! very good, then it was nobody. Every
+one in<br>
+ this office knew his intellect was herculean. Well, you were
+right. He<br>
+ ended, as I have said, like the great man that he was."</p>
+
+<p>Desroys [impatiently]. "Pray what did he do that was so great?
+he had<br>
+ the weakness to confess himself."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Yes, monsieur, he received the holy sacraments. But
+do you<br>
+ know what he did in order to receive them? He put on his uniform
+as<br>
+ gentleman-in-ordinary of the Bedchamber, with all his orders,
+and had<br>
+ himself powdered; they tied his queue (that poor queue!) with a
+fresh<br>
+ ribbon. Now I say that none but a man of remarkable character
+would<br>
+ have his queue tied with a fresh ribbon just as he was dying.
+There<br>
+ are eight of us here, and I don't believe one among us is
+capable of<br>
+ such an act. But that's not all; he said,--for you know all
+celebrated<br>
+ men make a dying speech; he said,--stop now, what did he say?
+Ah! he<br>
+ said, 'I must attire myself to meet the King of Heaven,--I, who
+have<br>
+ so often dressed in my best for audience with the kings of
+earth.'<br>
+ That's how Monsieur de la Billardiere departed this life. He
+took upon<br>
+ himself to justify the saying of Pythagoras, 'No man is known
+until he<br>
+ dies.'"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [rushing in]. "Gentlemen, great news!"</p>
+
+<p>All. "We know it."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "I defy you to know it! I have been hunting for it
+ever<br>
+ since the accession of His Majesty to the thrones of France and
+of<br>
+ Navarre. Last night I succeeded! but with what labor! Madame<br>
+ Colleville asked me what was the matter."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Do you think we have time to bother ourselves with
+your<br>
+ intolerable anagrams when the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere
+has<br>
+ just expired?"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "That's Bixiou's nonsense! I have just come from
+Monsieur<br>
+ de la Billardiere's; he is still living, though they expect him
+to die<br>
+ soon." [Godard, indignant at the hoax, goes off grumbling.]<br>
+ "Gentlemen! you would never guess what extraordinary events
+are<br>
+ revealed by the anagram of this sacramental sentence" [he pulls
+out a<br>
+ piece of paper and reads], "Charles dix, par la grace de Dieu,
+roi de<br>
+ France et de Navarre."</p>
+
+<p>Godard [re-entering]. "Tell what it is at once, and don't keep
+people<br>
+ waiting."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [triumphantly unfolding the rest of the paper].
+"Listen!</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"A H. V. il cedera;<br>
+ De S. C. l. d. partira;<br>
+ Eh nauf errera,<br>
+ Decide a Gorix.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Every letter is there!" [He repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera
+(his<br>
+ crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an
+old<br>
+ French word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you
+like)<br>
+ errera--"</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Dutocq. "What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his
+crown<br>
+ to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his
+grandson,<br>
+ when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying
+the<br>
+ Dauphin's death?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "What's Gorix, pray?--the name of a cat?"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [provoked]. "It is the archaeological and
+lapidarial<br>
+ abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it
+out in<br>
+ Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or
+Hungary,<br>
+ or it may be Austria--"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why
+don't you<br>
+ set it all to music and play it on the clarionet?"</p>
+
+<p>Godard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. "What utter
+nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don't
+take<br>
+ the trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor
+Napoleon."</p>
+
+<p>Godard [irritated at Colleville's tone]. "Monsieur Colleville,
+let me<br>
+ tell you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by
+historians,<br>
+ but it is extremely out of place to refer to him as such in
+a<br>
+ government office."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [laughing]. "Get an anagram out of that, my dear
+fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [angrily]. "Let me tell you that if Napoleon
+Bonaparte had<br>
+ studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he
+might<br>
+ perhaps be Emperor still."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "How do you make that out?"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [solemnly]. "Napoleon Bonaparte.--No, appear not at
+Elba!"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "You'll lose your place for talking such
+nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller
+will make<br>
+ it hot for your minister." [Dead silence.] "I'd have you to
+know,<br>
+ Master Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to
+pass.<br>
+ Look here,--you, yourself,--don't you marry, for there's 'coqu'
+in<br>
+ your name."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [interrupting]. "And d, t, for de-testable."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [without seeming angry]. "I don't care, as long as it
+is only<br>
+ in my name. Why don't you anagrammatize, or whatever you call
+it,<br>
+ 'Xavier Rabourdin, chef du bureau'?"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "Bless you, so I have!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [mending his pen]. "And what did you make of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "It comes out as follows: D'abord reva bureaux,
+E-u,--(you<br>
+ catch the meaning? et eut--and had) E-u fin riche; which
+signifies<br>
+ that after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up
+and<br>
+ got rich elsewhere." [Repeats.] "D'abord reva bureaux, E-u fin
+riche."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "That IS queer!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Try Isidore Baudoyer."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [mysteriously]. "I sha'n't tell the other anagrams
+to any<br>
+ one but Thuillier."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "I'll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "And I'll pay if you find it out."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won't
+be<br>
+ angry, will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never
+conflict.<br>
+ 'Isidore Baudoyer' anagrams into 'Ris d'aboyeur d'oie.'"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [petrified with amazement]. "You stole it from
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [with dignity]. "Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor
+to<br>
+ believe that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my
+neighbor's<br>
+ nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand].
+"Gentlemen, I<br>
+ request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into
+such<br>
+ high repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor,
+Monsieur<br>
+ Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question,
+and he<br>
+ heard the noise you are making" [passes into Monsieur Godard's
+room].</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [in a low voice]. "The watch-dog is very tame this
+morning;<br>
+ there'll be a change of weather before night."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. "I have something I want to say
+to<br>
+ you."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [fingering Dutocq's waistcoat]. "You've a pretty
+waistcoat,<br>
+ that cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in
+my<br>
+ life. That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the
+rue de<br>
+ la Paix,--a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep
+mourning."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "You know about engravings and such things, my dear
+fellow,<br>
+ but you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no
+man<br>
+ can be a universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in
+deep<br>
+ mourning. Don't you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur
+Rabourdin,<br>
+ Monsieur Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is
+the<br>
+ faubourg Saint-Germain. There's no one here but Minard who
+doesn't<br>
+ wear woollen; he's afraid of being taken for a sheep. That's
+the<br>
+ reason why he didn't put on mourning for Louis XVIII."</p>
+
+<p>[During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in
+Godard's<br>
+ room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer. "Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are
+both<br>
+ with him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If
+you want<br>
+ to do me a signal service you will take a cab and go and let
+Madame<br>
+ Baudoyer know what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can't
+leave his<br>
+ desk, nor I my office. Put yourself at my wife's orders; do
+whatever<br>
+ she wishes. She has, I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants
+to<br>
+ take certain steps simultaneously." [The two functionaries go
+out<br>
+ together.]</p>
+
+<p>Godard. "Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for
+the<br>
+ rest of the day. You will take my place."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. "Consult me, if there is
+any<br>
+ necessity."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "This time, La Billardiere is really dead."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [in Bixiou's ear]. "Come outside a minute." [The two go
+into<br>
+ the corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [whispering]. "Listen. Now is the time for us to
+understand<br>
+ each other and push our way. What would you say to your being
+made<br>
+ head of the bureau, and I under you?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "Come, come, don't talk
+nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere's place Rabourdin
+won't stay<br>
+ on where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that
+if du<br>
+ Bruel and you don't help him he will certainly be dismissed in
+a<br>
+ couple of months. If I know arithmetic that will give three
+empty<br>
+ places for us to fill--"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Three places right under our noses, which will
+certainly be<br>
+ given to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious
+fraud,--to<br>
+ Colleville perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women
+end--<br>
+ in piety."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "No, to YOU, my dear fellow, if you will only, for
+once in<br>
+ your life, use your wits logically." [He stopped as if to study
+the<br>
+ effect of his adverb in Bixiou's face.] "Come, let us play
+fair."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [stolidly]. "Let me see your game."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "I don't wish to be anything more than
+under-head-clerk. I<br>
+ know myself perfectly well, and I know I haven't the ability,
+like<br>
+ you, to be head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you
+the<br>
+ head of this bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he
+has<br>
+ made his pile; and as for me, I shall swim with the tide
+comfortably,<br>
+ under your protection, till I can retire on a pension."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan
+which<br>
+ means forcing the minister's hand and ejecting a man of
+talent?<br>
+ Between ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking
+charge<br>
+ of the division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know
+that<br>
+ they talk of putting in over his head that solid lump of
+foolishness,<br>
+ that cube of idiocy, Baudoyer?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [consequentially]. "My dear fellow, I am in a position
+to rouse<br>
+ the whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted
+Fleury is<br>
+ to him? Well, I can make Fleury despise him."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Despised by Fleury!"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Not a soul will stand by Rabourdin; the clerks will
+go in a<br>
+ body and complain of him to the minister,--not only in our
+division,<br>
+ but in all the divisions--"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Forward, march! infantry, cavalry, artillery, and
+marines of<br>
+ the guard! You rave, my good fellow! And I, what part am I to
+take in<br>
+ the business?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "You are to make a cutting caricature,--sharp enough
+to kill a<br>
+ man."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "How much will you pay for it?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "A hundred francs."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [to himself]. "Then there is something in it."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [continuing]. "You must represent Rabourdin dressed as
+a<br>
+ butcher (make it a good likeness), find analogies between a
+kitchen<br>
+ and a bureau, put a skewer in his hand, draw portraits of
+the<br>
+ principal clerks and stick their heads on fowls, put them in
+a<br>
+ monstrous coop labelled 'Civil Service executions'; make him
+cutting<br>
+ the throat of one, and supposed to take the others in turn. You
+can<br>
+ have geese and ducks with heads like ours,--you understand!
+Baudoyer,<br>
+ for instance, he'll make an excellent turkey-buzzard."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Ris d'aboyeur d'oie!" [He has watched Dutocq
+carefully for<br>
+ some time.] "Did you think of that yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Yes, I myself."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [to himself]. "Do evil feelings bring men to the same
+result as<br>
+ talents?" [Aloud] "Well, I'll do it" [Dutocq makes a motion
+of<br>
+ delight] "--when" [full stop] "--I know where I am and what I
+can rely<br>
+ on. If you don't succeed I shall lose my place, and I must make
+a<br>
+ living. You are a curious kind of innocent still, my dear
+colleague."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Well, you needn't make the lithograph till success
+is<br>
+ proved."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Why don't you come out and tell me the whole
+truth?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we
+will<br>
+ talk about it later" [goes off].</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. "That fish, for he's more a
+fish than<br>
+ a bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head--I'm sure I
+don't know<br>
+ where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it
+would<br>
+ be fun, more than fun--profit!" [Returns to the office.]
+"Gentlemen, I<br>
+ announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really
+dead,--<br>
+ no nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for
+our<br>
+ excellent chief Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the
+deceased."<br>
+ [Minard, Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads in amazement;
+they<br>
+ all lay down their pens, and Colleville blows his nose.] "Every
+one of<br>
+ us is to be promoted! Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the
+very<br>
+ least. Minard may have my place as chief clerk--why not? he is
+quite<br>
+ as dull as I am. Hey, Minard, if you should get twenty-five
+hundred<br>
+ francs a-year your little wife would be uncommonly pleased, and
+you<br>
+ could buy yourself a pair of boots now and then."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "But you don't get twenty-five hundred
+francs."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Monsieur Dutocq gets that in Rabourdin's office;
+why<br>
+ shouldn't I get it this year? Monsieur Baudoyer gets it."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "Only through the influence of Monsieur Saillard.
+No other<br>
+ chief clerk gets that in any of the divisions."</p>
+
+<p>Paulmier. "Bah! Hasn't Monsieur Cochin three thousand? He
+succeeded<br>
+ Monsieur Vavasseur, who served ten years under the Empire at
+four<br>
+ thousand. His salary was dropped to three when the King
+first<br>
+ returned; then to two thousand five hundred before Vavasseur
+died. But<br>
+ Monsieur Cochin, who succeeded him, had influence enough to get
+the<br>
+ salary put back to three thousand."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "Monsieur Cochin signs E. A. L. Cochin (he is
+named Emile-<br>
+ Adolphe-Lucian), which, when anagrammed, gives Cochineal. Now
+observe,<br>
+ he's a partner in a druggist's business in the rue des Lombards,
+the<br>
+ Maison Matifat, which made its fortune by that identical
+colonial<br>
+ product."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer [entering]. "Monsieur Chazelle, I see, is not here;
+you will<br>
+ be good enough to say I asked for him, gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [who had hastily stuck a hat on Chazelle's chair when
+he heard<br>
+ Baudoyer's step]. "Excuse me, Monsieur, but Chazelle has gone to
+the<br>
+ Rabourdins' to make an inquiry."</p>
+
+<p>Chazelle [entering with his hat on his head, and not seeing
+Baudoyer].<br>
+ "La Billardiere is done for, gentlemen! Rabourdin is head of
+the<br>
+ division and Master of petitions; he hasn't stolen HIS
+promotion,<br>
+ that's very certain."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer [to Chazelle]. "You found that appointment in your
+second<br>
+ hat, I presume" [points to the hat on the chair]. "This is the
+third<br>
+ time within a month that you have come after nine o'clock. If
+you<br>
+ continue the practice you will get on--elsewhere." [To Bixiou,
+who is<br>
+ reading the newspaper.] "My dear Monsieur Bixiou, do pray leave
+the<br>
+ newspapers to these gentlemen who are going to breakfast, and
+come<br>
+ into my office for your orders for the day. I don't know what
+Monsieur<br>
+ Rabourdin wants with Gabriel; he keeps him to do his private
+errands,<br>
+ I believe. I've rung three times and can't get him." [Baudoyer
+and<br>
+ Bixiou retire into the private office.]</p>
+
+<p>Chazelle. "Damned unlucky!"</p>
+
+<p>Paulmier [delighted to annoy Chazelle]. "Why didn't you look
+about<br>
+ when you came into the room? You might have seen the elephant,
+and the<br>
+ hat too; they are big enough to be visible."</p>
+
+<p>Chazelle [dismally]. "Disgusting business! I don't see why we
+should<br>
+ be treated like slaves because the government gives us four
+francs and<br>
+ sixty-five centimes a day."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [entering]. "Down with Baudoyer! hurrah for
+Rabourdin!--that's<br>
+ the cry in the division."</p>
+
+<p>Chazelle [getting more and more angry]. "Baudoyer can turn off
+me if<br>
+ he likes, I sha'n't care. In Paris there are a thousand ways
+of<br>
+ earning five francs a day; why, I could earn that at the Palais
+de<br>
+ Justice, copying briefs for the lawyers."</p>
+
+<p>Paulmier [still prodding him]. "It is very easy to say that;
+but a<br>
+ government place is a government place, and that plucky
+Colleville,<br>
+ who works like a galley-slave outside of this office, and who
+could<br>
+ earn, if he lost his appointment, more than his salary, prefers
+to<br>
+ keep his place. Who the devil is fool enough to give up his<br>
+ expectations?"</p>
+
+<p>Chazelle [continuing his philippic]. "You may not be, but I
+am! We<br>
+ have no chances at all. Time was when nothing was more
+encouraging<br>
+ than a civil-service career. So many men were in the army that
+there<br>
+ were not enough for the government work; the maimed and the halt
+and<br>
+ the sick ones, like Paulmier, and the near-sighted ones, all had
+their<br>
+ chance of a rapid promotion. But now, ever since the Chamber
+invented<br>
+ what they called special training, and the rules and regulations
+for<br>
+ civil-service examiners, we are worse off than common soldiers.
+The<br>
+ poorest places are at the mercy of a thousand mischances because
+we<br>
+ are now ruled by a thousand sovereigns."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Bixiou [returning]. "Are you crazy, Chazelle? Where do you find
+a<br>
+ thousand sovereigns?--not in your pocket, are they?"</p>
+
+<p>Chazelle. "Count them up. There are four hundred over there at
+the end<br>
+ of the pont de la Concorde (so called because it leads to the
+scene of<br>
+ perpetual discord between the Right and Left of the Chamber);
+three<br>
+ hundred more at the end of the rue de Tournon. The court, which
+ought<br>
+ to count for the other three hundred, has seven hundred parts
+less<br>
+ power to get a man appointed to a place under government than
+the<br>
+ Emperor Napoleon had."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "All of which signifies that in a country where there
+are<br>
+ three powers you may bet a thousand to one that a government
+clerk who<br>
+ has no influence but his own merits to advance him will remain
+in<br>
+ obscurity."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [looking alternately at Chazelle and Fleury]. "My sons,
+you<br>
+ have yet to learn that in these days the worst state of life is
+the<br>
+ state of belonging to the State."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Because it has a constitutional government."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "Gentlemen, gentlemen! no politics!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Fleury is right. Serving the State in these days is
+no longer<br>
+ serving a prince who knew how to punish and reward. The State
+now is<br>
+ EVERYBODY. Everybody of course cares for nobody. Serve
+everybody, and<br>
+ you serve nobody. Nobody is interested in nobody; the government
+clerk<br>
+ lives between two negations. The world has neither pity nor
+respect,<br>
+ neither heart nor head; everybody forgets to-morrow the service
+of<br>
+ yesterday. Now each one of you may be, like Monsieur Baudoyer,
+an<br>
+ administrative genius, a Chateaubriand of reports, a Bossouet
+of<br>
+ circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the gifted son of
+diplomatic<br>
+ despatches; but I tell you there is a fatal law which interferes
+with<br>
+ all administrative genius,--I mean the law of promotion by
+average.<br>
+ This average is based on the statistics of promotion and the<br>
+ statistics of mortality combined. It is very certain that on
+entering<br>
+ whichever section of the Civil Service you please at the age
+of<br>
+ eighteen, you can't get eighteen hundred francs a year till you
+reach<br>
+ the age of thirty. Now there's no free and independent career
+in<br>
+ which, in the course of twelve years, a young man who has gone
+through<br>
+ the grammar-school, been vaccinated, is exempt from military
+service,<br>
+ and possesses all his faculties (I don't mean transcendent ones)
+can't<br>
+ amass a capital of forty-five thousand francs in centimes,
+which<br>
+ represents a permanent income equal to our salaries, which are,
+after<br>
+ all, precarious. In twelve years a grocer can earn enough to
+give him<br>
+ ten thousand francs a year; a painter can daub a mile of canvas
+and be<br>
+ decorated with the Legion of honor, or pose as a neglected
+genius. A<br>
+ literary man becomes professor of something or other, or a
+journalist<br>
+ at a hundred francs for a thousand lines; he writes
+"feuilletons," or<br>
+ he gets into Saint-Pelagie for a brilliant article that offends
+the<br>
+ Jesuits,--which of course is an immense benefit to him and makes
+him a<br>
+ politician at once. Even a lazy man, who does nothing but make
+debts,<br>
+ has time to marry a widow who pays them; a priest finds time to
+become<br>
+ a bishop "in partibus." A sober, intelligent young fellow, who
+begins<br>
+ with a small capital as a money-changer, soon buys a share in
+a<br>
+ broker's business; and, to go even lower, a petty clerk becomes
+a<br>
+ notary, a rag-picker lays by two or three thousand francs a
+year, and<br>
+ the poorest workmen often become manufacturers; whereas, in
+the<br>
+ rotatory movement of this present civilization, which
+mistakes<br>
+ perpetual division and redivision for progress, an unhappy
+civil<br>
+ service clerk, like Chazelle for instance, is forced to dine
+for<br>
+ twenty-two sous a meal, struggles with his tailor and bootmaker,
+gets<br>
+ into debt, and is an absolute nothing; worse than that, he
+becomes an<br>
+ idiot! Come, gentlemen, now's the time to make a stand! Let us
+all<br>
+ give in our resignations! Fleury, Chazelle, fling yourselves
+into<br>
+ other employments and become the great men you really are."</p>
+
+<p>Chazelle [calmed down by Bixiou's allocution]. "No, I thank
+you"<br>
+ [general laughter].</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "You are wrong; in your situation I should try to get
+ahead of<br>
+ the general-secretary."</p>
+
+<p>Chazelle [uneasily]. "What has he to do with me?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "You'll find out; do you suppose Baudoyer will
+overlook what<br>
+ happened just now?"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Another piece of Bixiou's spite! You've a queer
+fellow to<br>
+ deal with in there. Now, Monsieur Rabourdin,--there's a man for
+you!<br>
+ He put work on my table to-day that you couldn't get through
+within<br>
+ this office in three days; well, he expects me to have it done
+by four<br>
+ o'clock to-day. But he is not always at my heels to hinder me
+from<br>
+ talking to my friends."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer [appearing at the door]. "Gentlemen, you will admit
+that if<br>
+ you have the legal right to find fault with the chamber and
+the<br>
+ administration you must at least do so elsewhere than in this
+office."<br>
+ [To Fleury.] "What are you doing here, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [insolently]. "I came to tell these gentlemen that
+there was to<br>
+ be a general turn-out. Du Bruel is sent for to the ministry,
+and<br>
+ Dutocq also. Everybody is asking who will be appointed."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer [retiring]. "It is not your affair, sir; go back to
+your own<br>
+ office, and do not disturb mine."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [in the doorway]. "It would be a shameful injustice
+if<br>
+ Rabourdin lost the place; I swear I'd leave the service. Did you
+find<br>
+ that anagram, papa Colleville?"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "Yes, here it is."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [leaning over Colleville's desk]. "Capital! famous!
+This is<br>
+ just what will happen if the administration continues to play
+the<br>
+ hypocrite." [He makes a sign to the clerks that Baudoyer is<br>
+ listening.] "If the government would frankly state its
+intentions<br>
+ without concealments of any kind, the liberals would know what
+they<br>
+ had to deal with. An administration which sets its best
+friends<br>
+ against itself, such men as those of the 'Debats,'
+Chateaubriand, and<br>
+ Royer-Collard, is only to be pitied!"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [after consulting his colleagues]. "Come, Fleury,
+you're a<br>
+ good fellow, but don't talk politics here; you don't know what
+harm<br>
+ you may do us."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [dryly]. "Well, adieu, gentlemen; I have my work to do
+by four<br>
+ o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>While this idle talk had been going on, des Lupeaulx was
+closeted in<br>
+ his office with du Bruel, where, a little later, Dutocq joined
+them.<br>
+ Des Lupeaulx had heard from his valet of La Billardiere's death,
+and<br>
+ wishing to please the two ministers, he wanted an obituary
+article to<br>
+ appear in the evening papers.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, my dear du Bruel," said the semi-minister to
+the head-<br>
+ clerk as he entered, and not inviting him to sit down. "You have
+heard<br>
+ the news? La Billardiere is dead. The ministers were both
+present when<br>
+ he received the last sacraments. The worthy man strongly
+recommended<br>
+ Rabourdin, saying he should die with less regret if he could
+know that<br>
+ his successor were the man who had so constantly done his work.
+Death<br>
+ is a torture which makes a man confess everything. The minister
+agreed<br>
+ the more readily because his intention and that of the Council
+was to<br>
+ reward Monsieur Rabourdin's numerous services. In fact, the
+Council of<br>
+ State needs his experience. They say that young La Billardiere
+is to<br>
+ leave the division of his father and go to the Commission of
+Seals;<br>
+ that's just the same as if the King had made him a present of
+a<br>
+ hundred thousand francs,--the place can always be sold. But I
+know the<br>
+ news will delight your division, which will thus get rid of him.
+Du<br>
+ Bruel, we must get ten or a dozen lines about the worthy late
+director<br>
+ into the papers; his Excellency will glance them over,--he reads
+the<br>
+ papers. Do you know the particulars of old La Billardiere's
+life?"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel made a sign in the negative.</p>
+
+<p>"No?" continued des Lupeaulx. "Well then; he was mixed up in
+the<br>
+ affairs of La Vendee, and he was one of the confidants of the
+late<br>
+ King. Like Monsieur le Comte de Fontaine he always refused to
+hold<br>
+ communication with the First Consul. He was a bit of a 'chouan';
+born<br>
+ in Brittany of a parliamentary family, and ennobled by Louis
+XVIII.<br>
+ How old was he? never mind about that; just say his loyalty
+was<br>
+ untarnished, his religion enlightened,--the poor old fellow
+hated<br>
+ churches and never set foot in one, but you had better make him
+out a<br>
+ 'pious vassal.' Bring in, gracefully, that he sang the song of
+Simeon<br>
+ at the accession of Charles X. The Comte d'Artois thought very
+highly<br>
+ of La Billardiere, for he co-operated in the unfortunate affair
+of<br>
+ Quiberon and took the whole responsibility on himself. You know
+about<br>
+ that, don't you? La Billardiere defended the King in a
+printed<br>
+ pamphlet in reply to an impudent history of the Revolution
+written by<br>
+ a journalist; you can allude to his loyalty and devotion. But be
+very<br>
+ careful what you say; weigh your words, so that the other
+newspapers<br>
+ can't laugh at us; and bring me the article when you've written
+it.<br>
+ Were you at Rabourdin's yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monseigneur," said du Bruel, "Ah! beg pardon."</p>
+
+<p>"No harm done," answered des Lupeaulx, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Rabourdin looked delightfully handsome," added du
+Bruel.<br>
+ "There are not two women like her in Paris. Some are as clever
+as she,<br>
+ but there's not one so gracefully witty. Many women may even
+be<br>
+ handsomer, but it would be hard to find one with such variety
+of<br>
+ beauty. Madame Rabourdin is far superior to Madame Colleville,"
+said<br>
+ the vaudevillist, remembering des Lupeaulx's former affair.
+"Flavie<br>
+ owes what she is to the men about her, whereas Madame Rabourdin
+is all<br>
+ things in herself. It is wonderful too what she knows; you can't
+tell<br>
+ secrets in Latin before HER. If I had such a wife, I know I
+should<br>
+ succeed in everything."</p>
+
+<p>"You have more mind than an author ought to have," returned
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx, with a conceited air. Then he turned round and
+perceived<br>
+ Dutocq. "Ah, good-morning, Dutocq," he said. "I sent for you to
+lend<br>
+ me your Charlet--if you have the whole complete. Madame la
+comtesse<br>
+ knows nothing of Charlet."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel retired.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you come in without being summoned?" said des
+Lupeaulx,<br>
+ harshly, when he and Dutocq were left alone. "Is the State in
+danger<br>
+ that you must come here at ten o'clock in the morning, just as I
+am<br>
+ going to breakfast with his Excellency?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is, monsieur," said Dutocq, dryly. "If I had had
+the honor<br>
+ to see you earlier, you would probably have not been so willing
+to<br>
+ support Monsieur Rabourdin, after reading his opinion of
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq opened his coat, took a paper from the left-hand
+breast-pocket<br>
+ and laid it on des Lupeaulx's desk, pointing to a marked
+passage. Then<br>
+ he went to the door and slipped the bolt, fearing interruption.
+While<br>
+ he was thus employed, the secretary-general read the opening
+sentence<br>
+ of the article, which was as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Monsieur des Lupeaulx. A government degrades itself by
+openly<br>
+ employing such a man, whose real vocation is for police
+diplomacy.<br>
+ He is fitted to deal with the political filibusters of other<br>
+ cabinets, and it would be a pity therefore to employ him on
+our<br>
+ internal detective police. He is above a common spy, for he
+is<br>
+ able to understand a plan; he could skilfully carry through a
+dark<br>
+ piece of work and cover his retreat safely."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx was succinctly analyzed in five or six such
+paragraphs,--<br>
+ the essence, in fact, of the biographical portrait which we gave
+at<br>
+ the beginning of this history. As he read the words the
+secretary felt<br>
+ that a man stronger than himself sat in judgment on him; and he
+at<br>
+ once resolved to examine the memorandum, which evidently reached
+far<br>
+ and high, without allowing Dutocq to know his secret thoughts.
+He<br>
+ therefore showed a calm, grave face when the spy returned to
+him. Des<br>
+ Lupeaulx, like lawyers, magistrates, diplomatists, and all whose
+work<br>
+ obliges them to pry into the human heart, was past being
+surprised at<br>
+ anything. Hardened in treachery and in all the tricks and wiles
+of<br>
+ hatred, he could take a stab in the back and not let his face
+tell of<br>
+ it.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "How did you get hold of this paper?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq related his good luck; des Lupeaulx's face as he
+listened<br>
+ expressed no approbation; and the spy ended in terror an account
+which<br>
+ began triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dutocq, you have put your finger between the bark and the
+tree," said<br>
+ the secretary, coldly. "If you don't want to make powerful
+enemies I<br>
+ advise you to keep this paper a profound secret; it is a work of
+the<br>
+ utmost importance and already well known to me."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, des Lupeaulx dismissed Dutocq by one of those
+glances that<br>
+ are more expressive than words.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! that scoundrel of a Rabourdin has put his finger in
+this!"<br>
+ thought Dutocq, alarmed on finding himself anticipated; "he
+has<br>
+ reached the ear of the administration, while I am left out in
+the<br>
+ cold. I shouldn't have thought it!"</p>
+
+<p>To all his other motives of aversion to Rabourdin he now added
+the<br>
+ jealousy of one man to another man of the same calling,--a
+most<br>
+ powerful ingredient in hatred.</p>
+
+<p>When des Lupeaulx was left alone, he dropped into a
+strange<br>
+ meditation. What power was it of which Rabourdin was the
+instrument?<br>
+ Should he, des Lupeaulx, use this singular document to destroy
+him, or<br>
+ should he keep it as a weapon to succeed with the wife? The
+mystery<br>
+ that lay behind this paper was all darkness to des Lupeaulx, who
+read<br>
+ with something akin to terror page after page, in which the men
+of his<br>
+ acquaintance were judged with unerring wisdom. He admired
+Rabourdin,<br>
+ though stabbed to his vitals by what he said of him. The
+breakfast-<br>
+ hour suddenly cut short his meditation.</p>
+
+<p>"His Excellency is waiting for you to come down," announced
+the<br>
+ minister's footman.</p>
+
+<p>The minister always breakfasted with his wife and children and
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx, without the presence of servants. The morning meal
+affords<br>
+ the only moment of privacy which public men can snatch from
+the<br>
+ current of overwhelming business. Yet in spite of the
+precautions they<br>
+ take to keep this hour for private intimacies and affections, a
+good<br>
+ many great and little people manage to infringe upon it.
+Business<br>
+ itself will, as at this moment, thrust itself in the way of
+their<br>
+ scanty comfort.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty
+manoeuvres,"<br>
+ began the minister; "and yet here, not ten minutes after La<br>
+ Billardiere's death, he sends me this note by La Briere,--it is
+like a<br>
+ stage missive. Look," said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a
+paper<br>
+ which he was twirling in his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Too noble in mind to think for a moment of the shameful
+meaning La<br>
+ Billardiere's death might lend to his letter, Rabourdin had
+not<br>
+ withdrawn it from La Briere's hands after the news reached him.
+Des<br>
+ Lupeaulx read as follows:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Monseigneur,--If twenty-three years of irreproachable
+services<br>
+ may claim a favor, I entreat your Excellency to grant me an<br>
+ audience this very day. My honor is involved in the matter
+of<br>
+ which I desire to speak."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Poor man!" said des Lupeaulx, in a tone of compassion which
+confirmed<br>
+ the minister in his error. "We are alone; I advise you to see
+him now.<br>
+ You have a meeting of the Council when the Chamber rises;
+moreover,<br>
+ your Excellency has to reply to-day to the opposition; this is
+really<br>
+ the only hour when you can receive him."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Des Lupeaulx rose, called the servant, said a few words, and
+returned<br>
+ to his seat. "I have told them to bring him in at dessert," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Like all other ministers under the Restoration, this
+particular<br>
+ minister was a man without youth. The charter granted by Louis
+XVIII.<br>
+ had the defect of tying the hands of the kings by compelling
+them to<br>
+ deliver the destinies of the nation into the control of the
+middle-<br>
+ aged men of the Chamber and the septuagenarians of the peerage;
+it<br>
+ robbed them of the right to lay hands on a man of statesmanlike
+talent<br>
+ wherever they could find him, no matter how young he was or
+how<br>
+ poverty-stricken his condition might be. Napoleon alone was able
+to<br>
+ employ young men as he chose, without being restrained by
+any<br>
+ consideration. After the overthrow of that mighty will, vigor
+deserted<br>
+ power. Now the period when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents
+a<br>
+ contrast that is far more dangerous in France than in other
+countries.<br>
+ As a general thing, ministers who were old before they entered
+office<br>
+ have proved second or third rate, while those who were taken
+young<br>
+ have been an honor to European monarchies and to the republics
+whose<br>
+ affairs they have directed. The world still rings with the
+struggle<br>
+ between Pitt and Napoleon, two men who conducted the politics of
+their<br>
+ respective countries at an age when Henri de Navarre,
+Richelieu,<br>
+ Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, the Prince of Orange, the Guises,<br>
+ Machiavelli, in short, all the best known of our great men,
+coming<br>
+ from the ranks or born to a throne, began to rule the State.
+The<br>
+ Convention--that model of energy--was made up in a great measure
+of<br>
+ young heads; no sovereign can ever forget that it was able to
+put<br>
+ fourteen armies into the field against Europe. Its policy, fatal
+in<br>
+ the eyes of those who cling to what is called absolute power,
+was<br>
+ nevertheless dictated by strictly monarchical principles, and
+it<br>
+ behaved itself like any of the great kings.</p>
+
+<p>After ten or a dozen years of parliamentary struggle, having
+studied<br>
+ the science of politics until he was worn down by it, this
+particular<br>
+ minister had come to be enthroned by his party, who considered
+him in<br>
+ the light of their business man. Happily for him he was now
+nearer<br>
+ sixty than fifty years of age; had he retained even a vestige
+of<br>
+ juvenile vigor he would quickly have quenched it. But,
+accustomed to<br>
+ back and fill, retreat and return to the charge, he was able to
+endure<br>
+ being struck at, turn and turn about, by his own party, by
+the<br>
+ opposition, by the court, by the clergy, because to all such
+attacks<br>
+ he opposed the inert force of a substance which was equally soft
+and<br>
+ consistent; thus he reaped the benefits of what was really
+his<br>
+ misfortune. Harassed by a thousand questions of government, his
+mind,<br>
+ like that of an old lawyer who has tried every species of case,
+no<br>
+ longer possessed the spring which solitary minds are able to
+retain,<br>
+ nor that power of prompt decision which distinguishes men who
+are<br>
+ early accustomed to action, and young soldiers. How could it
+be<br>
+ otherwise? He had practised sophistries and quibbled instead
+of<br>
+ judging; he had criticised effects and done nothing for causes;
+his<br>
+ head was full of plans such as a political party lays upon
+the<br>
+ shoulders of a leader,--matters of private interest brought to
+an<br>
+ orator supposed to have a future, a jumble of schemes and
+impractical<br>
+ requests. Far from coming fresh to his work, he was wearied out
+with<br>
+ marching and counter-marching, and when he finally reached the
+much<br>
+ desired height of his present position, he found himself in a
+thicket<br>
+ of thorny bushes with a thousand conflicting wills to
+conciliate. If<br>
+ the statesmen of the Restoration had been allowed to follow out
+their<br>
+ own ideas, their capacity would doubtless have been criticised;
+but<br>
+ though their wills were often forced, their age saved them
+from<br>
+ attempting the resistance which youth opposes to intrigues, both
+high<br>
+ and low,--intrigues which vanquished Richelieu, and to which, in
+a<br>
+ lower sphere, Rabourdin was to succumb.</p>
+
+<p>After the rough and tumble of their first struggles in
+political life<br>
+ these men, less old than aged, have to endure the additional
+wear and<br>
+ tear of a ministry. Thus it is that their eyes begin to weaken
+just as<br>
+ they need to have the clear-sightedness of eagles; their mind is
+weary<br>
+ when its youth and fire need to be redoubled. The minister in
+whom<br>
+ Rabourdin sought to confide was in the habit of listening to men
+of<br>
+ undoubted superiority as they explained ingenious theories
+of<br>
+ government, applicable or inapplicable to the affairs of France.
+Such<br>
+ men, by whom the difficulties of national policy were never<br>
+ apprehended, were in the habit of attacking this minister
+personally<br>
+ whenever a parliamentary battle or a contest with the secret
+follies<br>
+ of the court took place,--on the eve of a struggle with the
+popular<br>
+ mind, or on the morrow of a diplomatic discussion which divided
+the<br>
+ Council into three separate parties. Caught in such a
+predicament, a<br>
+ statesman naturally keeps a yawn ready for the first sentence
+designed<br>
+ to show him how the public service could be better managed. At
+such<br>
+ periods not a dinner took place among bold schemers or financial
+and<br>
+ political lobbyists where the opinions of the Bourse and the
+Bank, the<br>
+ secrets of diplomacy, and the policy necessitated by the state
+of<br>
+ affairs in Europe were not canvassed and discussed. The minister
+has<br>
+ his own private councillors in des Lupeaulx and his secretary,
+who<br>
+ collected and pondered all opinions and discussions for the
+purpose of<br>
+ analyzing and controlling the various interests proclaimed
+and<br>
+ supported by so many clever men. In fact, his misfortune was
+that of<br>
+ most other ministers who have passed the prime of life; he
+trimmed and<br>
+ shuffled under all his difficulties,--with journalism, which at
+this<br>
+ period it was thought advisable to repress in an underhand way
+rather<br>
+ than fight openly; with financial as well as labor questions;
+with the<br>
+ clergy as well as with that other question of the public lands;
+with<br>
+ liberalism as with the Chamber. After manoeuvering his way to
+power in<br>
+ the course of seven years, the minister believed that he could
+manage<br>
+ all questions of administration in the same way. It is so
+natural to<br>
+ think we can maintain a position by the same methods which
+served us<br>
+ to reach it that no one ventured to blame a system invented
+by<br>
+ mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The Restoration,
+like<br>
+ the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes the true
+value<br>
+ of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is wanting.
+The<br>
+ last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the
+Restoration<br>
+ was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries
+employed<br>
+ the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies, and
+let<br>
+ loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the<br>
+ unintelligent masses, able only to understand revolt.</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin told himself all these things. But he had made up
+his mind<br>
+ to win or lose, like a man weary of gambling who allows himself
+a last<br>
+ stake; ill-luck had given him as adversary in the game a sharper
+like<br>
+ des Lupeaulx. With all his sagacity, Rabourdin was better versed
+in<br>
+ matters of administration than in parliamentary optics, and he
+was far<br>
+ indeed from imagining how his confidence would be received; he
+little<br>
+ thought that the great work that filled his mind would seem to
+the<br>
+ minister nothing more than a theory, and that a man who held
+the<br>
+ position of a statesman would confound his reform with the
+schemes of<br>
+ political and self-interested talkers.</p>
+
+<p>As the minister rose from table, thinking of Francois Keller,
+his wife<br>
+ detained him with the offer of a bunch of grapes, and at that
+moment<br>
+ Rabourdin was announced. Des Lupeaulx had counted on the
+minister's<br>
+ preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the
+moment<br>
+ occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to
+meet<br>
+ Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low
+tone<br>
+ of voice:--</p>
+
+<p>"His Excellency and I know what the subject is that occupies
+your<br>
+ mind; you have nothing to fear"; then, raising his voice, he
+added,<br>
+ "neither from Dutocq nor from any one else."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't feel uneasy, Rabourdin," said his Excellency, kindly,
+but<br>
+ making a movement to get away.</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin came forward respectfully, and the minister could
+not evade<br>
+ him.</p>
+
+<p>"Will your Excellency permit me to see you for a moment in
+private?"<br>
+ he said, with a mysterious glance.</p>
+
+<p>The minister looked at the clock and went towards the window,
+whither<br>
+ the poor man followed him.</p>
+
+<p>"When may I have the honor of submitting the matter of which I
+spoke<br>
+ to your Excellency? I desire to fully explain the plan of<br>
+ administration to which the paper that was taken belongs--"</p>
+
+<p>"Plan of administration!" exclaimed the minister, frowning,
+and<br>
+ hurriedly interrupting him. "If you have anything of that kind
+to<br>
+ communicate you must wait for the regular day when we do
+business<br>
+ together. I ought to be at the Council now; and I have an answer
+to<br>
+ make to the Chamber on that point which the opposition raised
+before<br>
+ the session ended yesterday. Your day is Wednesday next; I could
+not<br>
+ work yesterday, for I had other things to attend to; political
+matters<br>
+ are apt to interfere with purely administrative ones."</p>
+
+<p>"I place my honor with all confidence in your Excellency's
+hands,"<br>
+ said Rabourdin gravely, "and I entreat you to remember that you
+have<br>
+ not allowed me time to give you an immediate explanation of the
+stolen<br>
+ paper--"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx, interposing between the
+minister<br>
+ and Rabourdin, whom he thus interrupted; "in another week you
+will<br>
+ probably be appointed--"</p>
+
+<p>The minister smiled as he thought of des Lupeaulx's enthusiasm
+for<br>
+ Madame Rabourdin, and he glanced knowingly at his wife.
+Rabourdin saw<br>
+ the look, and tried to imagine its meaning; his attention was
+diverted<br>
+ for a moment, and his Excellency took advantage of the fact to
+make<br>
+ his escape.</p>
+
+<p>"We will talk of all this, you and I," said des Lupeaulx, with
+whom<br>
+ Rabourdin, much to his surprise, now found himself alone. "Don't
+be<br>
+ angry with Dutocq; I'll answer for his discretion."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Rabourdin is charming," said the minister's wife,
+wishing to<br>
+ say the civil thing to the head of a bureau.</p>
+
+<p>The children all gazed at Rabourdin with curiosity. The poor
+man had<br>
+ come there expecting some serious, even solemn, result, and he
+was<br>
+ like a great fish caught in the threads of a flimsy net; he
+struggled<br>
+ with himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame la comtesse is very good," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I not have the pleasure of seeing Madame here some
+Wednesday?"<br>
+ said the countess. "Pray bring her; it will give me
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Rabourdin herself receives on Wednesdays," interrupted
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx, who knew the empty civility of an invitation to the
+official<br>
+ Wednesdays; "but since you are so kind as to wish for her, you
+will<br>
+ soon give one of your private parties, and--"</p>
+
+<p>The countess rose with some irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"You are the master of my ceremonies," she said to des
+Lupeaulx,--<br>
+ ambiguous words, by which she expressed the annoyance she felt
+with<br>
+ the secretary for presuming to interfere with her private
+parties, to<br>
+ which she admitted only a select few. She left the room without
+bowing<br>
+ to Rabourdin, who remained alone with des Lupeaulx; the latter
+was<br>
+ twisting in his fingers the confidential letter to the minister
+which<br>
+ Rabourdin had intrusted to La Briere. Rabourdin recognized
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"You have never really known me," said des Lupeaulx. "Friday
+evening<br>
+ we will come to a full understanding. Just now I must go and
+receive<br>
+ callers; his Excellency saddles me with that burden when he has
+other<br>
+ matters to attend to. But I repeat, Rabourdin, don't worry
+yourself;<br>
+ you have nothing to fear."</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin walked slowly through the corridors, amazed and
+confounded<br>
+ by this singular turn of events. He had expected Dutocq to
+denounce<br>
+ him, and found he had not been mistaken; des Lupeaulx had
+certainly<br>
+ seen the document which judged him so severely, and yet des
+Lupeaulx<br>
+ was fawning on his judge! It was all incomprehensible. Men of
+upright<br>
+ minds are often at a loss to understand complicated intrigues,
+and<br>
+ Rabourdin was lost in a maze of conjecture without being able
+to<br>
+ discover the object of the game which the secretary was
+playing.</p>
+
+<p>"Either he has not read the part about himself, or he loves my
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>Such were the two thoughts to which his mind arrived as he
+crossed the<br>
+ courtyard; for the glance he had intercepted the night before
+between<br>
+ des Lupeaulx and Celestine came back to his memory like a flash
+of<br>
+ lightning.</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<h4>THE WORMS AT WORK</h4>
+
+<p>Rabourdin's bureau was during his absence a prey to the
+keenest<br>
+ excitement; for the relation between the head officials and the
+clerks<br>
+ in a government office is so regulated that, when a
+minister's<br>
+ messenger summons the head of a bureau to his Excellency's
+presence<br>
+ (above all at the latter's breakfast hour), there is no end to
+the<br>
+ comments that are made. The fact that the present unusual
+summons<br>
+ followed so closely on the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere
+seemed<br>
+ to give special importance to the circumstance, which was made
+known<br>
+ to Monsieur Saillard, who came at once to confer with
+Baudoyer.<br>
+ Bixiou, who happened at the moment to be at work with the
+latter, left<br>
+ him to converse with his father-in-law and betook himself to
+the<br>
+ bureau Rabourdin, where the usual routine was of course
+interrupted.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Bixiou [entering]. "I thought I should find you at a white heat!
+Don't<br>
+ you know what's going on down below? The virtuous woman is done
+for!<br>
+ yes, done for, crushed! Terrible scene at the ministry!"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [looking fixedly at him]. "Are you telling the
+truth?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Pray, who would regret it? Not you, certainly, for
+you will<br>
+ be made under-head-clerk and du Bruel head of the bureau.
+Monsieur<br>
+ Baudoyer gets the division."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "I'll bet a hundred francs that Baudoyer will never be
+head of<br>
+ the division."</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "I'll join in the bet; will you, Monsieur Poiret?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "I retire in January."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Is it possible? are we to lose the sight of those
+shoe-ties?<br>
+ What will the ministry be without you? Will nobody take up the
+bet on<br>
+ my side?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "I can't, for I know the facts. Monsieur Rabourdin
+is<br>
+ appointed. Monsieur de la Billardiere requested it of the
+two<br>
+ ministers on his death-bed, blaming himself for having taken
+the<br>
+ emoluments of an office of which Rabourdin did all the work; he
+felt<br>
+ remorse of conscience, and the ministers, to quiet him, promised
+to<br>
+ appoint Rabourdin unless higher powers intervened."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Gentlemen, are you all against me? seven to one,--for
+I know<br>
+ which side you'll take, Monsieur Phellion. Well, I'll bet a
+dinner<br>
+ costing five hundred francs at the Rocher de Cancale that
+Rabourdin<br>
+ does not get La Billardiere's place. That will cost you only a
+hundred<br>
+ francs each, and I'm risking five hundred,--five to one against
+me! Do<br>
+ you take it up?" [Shouting into the next room.] "Du Bruel, what
+say<br>
+ you?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [laying down his pen]. "Monsieur, may I ask on what
+you base<br>
+ that contingent proposal?--for contingent it is. But stay, I am
+wrong<br>
+ to call it a proposal; I should say contract. A wager
+constitutes a<br>
+ contract."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "No, no; you can only apply the word 'contract' to
+agreements<br>
+ that are recognized in the Code. Now the Code allows of no
+action for<br>
+ the recovery of a bet."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Proscribe a thing and you recognize it."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Good! my little man."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Dear me!"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "True! when one refuses to pay one's debts, that's
+recognizing<br>
+ them."</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "You would make famous lawyers."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "I am as curious as Monsieur Phellion to know what
+grounds<br>
+ Monsieur Bixiou has for--"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [shouting across the office]. "Du Bruel! Will you
+bet?"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel [appearing at the door]. "Heavens and earth,
+gentlemen, I'm<br>
+ very busy; I have something very difficult to do; I've got to
+write an<br>
+ obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billardiere. I do beg you to
+be<br>
+ quiet; you can laugh and bet afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "That's true, du Bruel; the praise of an honest man is
+a very<br>
+ difficult thing to write. I'd rather any day draw a caricature
+of<br>
+ him."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "Do come and help me, Bixiou."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [following him]. "I'm willing; though I can do such
+things much<br>
+ better when eating."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "Well, we will go and dine together afterwards. But
+listen,<br>
+ this is what I have written" [reads] "'The Church and the
+Monarchy are<br>
+ daily losing many of those who fought for them in
+Revolutionary<br>
+ times.'"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Bad, very bad; why don't you say, 'Death carries on
+its<br>
+ ravages amongst the few surviving defenders of the monarchy and
+the<br>
+ old and faithful servants of the King, whose heart bleeds under
+these<br>
+ reiterated blows?'" [Du Bruel writes rapidly.] "'Monsieur le
+Baron<br>
+ Flamet de la Billardiere died this morning of dropsy, caused by
+heart<br>
+ disease.' You see, it is just as well to show there are hearts
+in<br>
+ government offices; and you ought to slip in a little flummery
+about<br>
+ the emotions of the Royalists during the Terror,--might be
+useful,<br>
+ hey! But stay,--no! the petty papers would be sure to say the
+emotions<br>
+ came more from the stomach than the heart. Better leave that
+out. What<br>
+ are you writing now?"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel [reading]. "'Issuing from an old parliamentary stock
+in which<br>
+ devotion to the throne was hereditary, as was also attachment to
+the<br>
+ faith of our fathers, Monsieur de la Billardiere--'"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Better say Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "But he wasn't baron in 1793."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "No matter. Don't you remember that under the Empire
+Fouche<br>
+ was telling an anecdote about the Convention, in which he had to
+quote<br>
+ Robespierre, and he said, 'Robespierre called out to me,
+"Duc<br>
+ d'Otrante, go to the Hotel de Ville."' There's a precedent for
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "Let me just write that down; I can use it in a
+vaudeville.<br>
+ --But to go back to what we were saying. I don't want to put
+'Monsieur<br>
+ le baron,' because I am reserving his honors till the last, when
+they<br>
+ rained upon him."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Oh! very good; that's theatrical,--the finale of
+the<br>
+ article."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel [continuing]. "'In appointing Monsieur de la
+Billardiere<br>
+ gentleman-in-ordinary--'"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Very ordinary!"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "'--of the Bedchamber, the King rewarded not only
+the<br>
+ services rendered by the Provost, who knew how to harmonize
+the<br>
+ severity of his functions with the customary urbanity of the
+Bourbons,<br>
+ but the bravery of the Vendean hero, who never bent the knee to
+the<br>
+ imperial idol. He leaves a son, who inherits his loyalty and
+his<br>
+ talents.'"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Don't you think all that is a little too florid? I
+should<br>
+ tone down the poetry. 'Imperial idol!' 'bent the knee!' damn it,
+my<br>
+ dear fellow, writing vaudevilles has ruined your style; you
+can't come<br>
+ down to pedestrial prose. I should say, 'He belonged to the
+small<br>
+ number of those who.' Simplify, simplify! the man himself was
+a<br>
+ simpleton."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "That's vaudeville, if you like! You would make your
+fortune<br>
+ at the theatre, Bixiou."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "What have you said about Quiberon?" [Reads over du
+Bruel's<br>
+ shoulder.] "Oh, that won't do! Here, this is what you must say:
+'He<br>
+ took upon himself, in a book recently published, the
+responsibility<br>
+ for all the blunders of the expedition to Quiberon,--thus
+proving the<br>
+ nature of his loyalty, which did not shrink from any
+sacrifice.'<br>
+ That's clever and witty, and exalts La Billardiere."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "At whose expense?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [solemn as a priest in a pulpit]. "Why, Hoche and
+Tallien, of<br>
+ course; don't you read history?"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "No. I subscribed to the Baudouin series, but I've
+never had<br>
+ time to open a volume; one can't find matter for vaudevilles
+there."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [at the door]. "We all want to know, Monsieur Bixiou,
+what<br>
+ made you think that the worthy and honorable Monsieur Rabourdin,
+who<br>
+ has so long done the work of this division for Monsieur de
+la<br>
+ Billardiere,--he, who is the senior head of all the bureaus, and
+whom,<br>
+ moreover, the minister summoned as soon as he heard of the
+departure<br>
+ of the late Monsieur de la Billardiere,--will not be appointed
+head of<br>
+ the division."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Papa Phellion, you know geography?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [bridling up]. "I should say so!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "And history?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [affecting modesty]. "Possibly."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [looking fixedly at him]. "Your diamond pin is loose,
+it is<br>
+ coming out. Well, you may know all that, but you don't know the
+human<br>
+ heart; you have gone no further in the geography and history of
+that<br>
+ organ than you have in the environs of the city of Paris."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [to Vimeux]. "Environs of Paris? I thought they were
+talking of<br>
+ Monsieur Rabourdin."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "About that bet? Does the entire bureau Rabourdin bet
+against<br>
+ me?"</p>
+
+<p>All. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Du Bruel, do you count in?"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "Of course I do. We want Rabourdin to go up a step
+and make<br>
+ room for others."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Well, I accept the bet,--for this reason; you can
+hardly<br>
+ understand it, but I'll tell it to you all the same. It would be
+right<br>
+ and just to appoint Monsieur Rabourdin" [looking full at
+Dutocq],<br>
+ "because, in that case, long and faithful service, honor, and
+talent<br>
+ would be recognized, appreciated, and properly rewarded. Such
+an<br>
+ appointment is in the best interests of the administration."<br>
+ [Phellion, Poiret, and Thuillier listen stupidly, with the look
+of<br>
+ those who try to peer before them in the darkness.] "Well, it is
+just<br>
+ because the promotion would be so fitting, and because the man
+has<br>
+ such merit, and because the measure is so eminently wise and
+equitable<br>
+ that I bet Rabourdin will not be appointed. Yes, you'll see,
+that<br>
+ appointment will slip up, just like the invasion from Boulogne,
+and<br>
+ the march to Russia, for the success of which a great genius
+has<br>
+ gathered together all the chances. It will fail as all good and
+just<br>
+ things do fail in this low world. I am only backing the devil's
+game."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "Who do you think will be appointed?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "The more I think about Baudoyer, the more sure I feel
+that he<br>
+ unites all the opposite qualities; therefore I think he will be
+the<br>
+ next head of this division."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "But Monsieur des Lupeaulx, who sent for me to borrow
+my<br>
+ Charlet, told me positively that Monsieur Rabourdin was
+appointed, and<br>
+ that the little La Billardiere would be made Clerk of the
+Seals."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Appointed, indeed! The appointment can't be made and
+signed<br>
+ under ten days. It will certainly not be known before New-Year's
+day.<br>
+ There he goes now across the courtyard; look at him, and say if
+the<br>
+ virtuous Rabourdin looks like a man in the sunshine of favor. I
+should<br>
+ say he knows he's dismissed." [Fleury rushes to the window.]<br>
+ "Gentlemen, adieu; I'll go and tell Monsieur Baudoyer that I
+hear from<br>
+ you that Rabourdin is appointed; it will make him furious, the
+pious<br>
+ creature! Then I'll tell him of our wager, to cool him
+down,--a<br>
+ process we call at the theatre turning the Wheel of Fortune,
+don't we,<br>
+ du Bruel? Why do I care who gets the place? simply because if
+Baudoyer<br>
+ does he will make me under-head-clerk" [goes out].</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Everybody says that man is clever, but as for me, I
+can never<br>
+ understand a word he says" [goes on copying]. "I listen and
+listen; I<br>
+ hear words, but I never get at any meaning; he talks about
+the<br>
+ environs of Paris when he discusses the human heart and" [lays
+down<br>
+ his pen and goes to the stove] "declares he backs the devil's
+game<br>
+ when it is a question of Russia and Boulogne; now what is there
+so<br>
+ clever in that, I'd like to know? We must first admit that the
+devil<br>
+ plays any game at all, and then find out what game; possibly
+dominoes"<br>
+ [blows his nose].</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [interrupting]. "Pere Poiret is blowing his nose; it
+must be<br>
+ eleven o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "So it is! Goodness! I'm off to the secretary; he
+wants to<br>
+ read the obituary."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "What was I saying?"</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "Dominoes,--perhaps the devil plays dominoes."
+[Sebastien<br>
+ enters to gather up the different papers and circulars for
+signature.]</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "Ah! there you are, my fine young man. Your days of
+hardship<br>
+ are nearly over; you'll get a post. Monsieur Rabourdin will
+be<br>
+ appointed. Weren't you at Madame Rabourdin's last night? Lucky
+fellow!<br>
+ they say that really superb women go there."</p>
+
+<p>Sebastien. "Do they? I didn't know."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Are you blind?"</p>
+
+<p>Sebastien. "I don't like to look at what I ought not to
+see."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [delighted]. "Well said, young man!"</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "The devil! well, you looked at Madame Rabourdin
+enough, any<br>
+ how; a charming woman."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Pooh! thin as a rail. I saw her in the Tuileries, and
+I much<br>
+ prefer Percilliee, the ballet-mistress, Castaing's victim."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "What has an actress to do with the wife of a
+government<br>
+ official?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "They both play comedy."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [looking askance at Dutocq]. "The physical has nothing
+to do<br>
+ with the moral, and if you mean--"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "I mean nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Do you all want to know which of us will really be
+made head<br>
+ of this bureau?"</p>
+
+<p>All. "Yes, tell us."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Colleville."</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "Why?"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Because Madame Colleville has taken the shortest way
+to it--<br>
+ through the sacristy."</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "I am too much Colleville's friend not to beg you,
+Monsieur<br>
+ Fleury, to speak respectfully of his wife."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "A defenceless woman should never be made the
+subject of<br>
+ conversation here--"</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "All the more because the charming Madame Colleville
+won't<br>
+ invite Fleury to her house. He backbites her in revenge."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "She may not receive me on the same footing that she
+does<br>
+ Thuillier, but I go there--"</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "When? how?--under her windows?"</p>
+
+<p>Though Fleury was dreaded as a bully in all the offices, he
+received<br>
+ Thuillier's speech in silence. This meekness, which surprised
+the<br>
+ other clerks, was owing to a certain note for two hundred
+francs, of<br>
+ doubtful value, which Thuillier agreed to pass over to his
+sister.<br>
+ After this skirmish dead silence prevailed. They all wrote
+steadily<br>
+ from one to three o'clock. Du Bruel did not return.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past three the usual preparations for departure,
+the<br>
+ brushing of hats, the changing of coats, went on in all the<br>
+ ministerial offices. That precious thirty minutes thus employed
+served<br>
+ to shorten by just so much the day's labor. At this hour the
+over-<br>
+ heated rooms cool off; the peculiar odor that hangs about the
+bureaus<br>
+ evaporates; silence is restored. By four o'clock none but a few
+clerks<br>
+ who do their duty conscientiously remain. A minister may know
+who are<br>
+ the real workers under him if he will take the trouble to walk
+through<br>
+ the divisions after four o'clock,--a species of prying, however,
+that<br>
+ no one of his dignity would condescend to.</p>
+
+<p>The various heads of divisions and bureaus usually encountered
+each<br>
+ other in the courtyards at this hour and exchanged opinions on
+the<br>
+ events of the day. On this occasion they departed by twos and
+threes,<br>
+ most of them agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old
+stagers,<br>
+ like Monsieur Clergeot, shook their heads and said, "Habent sua
+sidera<br>
+ lites." Saillard and Baudoyer were politely avoided, for nobody
+knew<br>
+ what to say to them about La Billardiere's death, it being
+fully<br>
+ understood that Baudoyer wanted the place, though it was
+certainly not<br>
+ due to him.</p>
+
+<p>When Saillard and his son-in-law had gone a certain distance
+from the<br>
+ ministry the former broke silence and said: "Things look badly
+for<br>
+ you, my poor Baudoyer."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand," replied the other, "what Elisabeth was
+dreaming<br>
+ of when she sent Godard in such a hurry to get a passport for
+Falleix;<br>
+ Godard tells me she hired a post-chaise by the advice of my
+uncle<br>
+ Mitral, and that Falleix has already started for his own part of
+the<br>
+ country."</p>
+
+<p>"Some matter connected with our business," suggested
+Saillard.</p>
+
+<p>"Our most pressing business just now is to look after Monsieur
+La<br>
+ Billardiere's place," returned Baudoyer, crossly.</p>
+
+<p>They were just then near the entrance of the Palais-Royal on
+the rue<br>
+ Saint-Honore. Dutocq came up, bowing, and joined them.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," he said to Baudoyer, "if I can be useful to you in
+any way<br>
+ under the circumstances in which you find yourself, pray command
+me,<br>
+ for I am not less devoted to your interests than Monsieur
+Godard."</p>
+
+<p>"Such an assurance is at least consoling," replied Baudoyer;
+"it makes<br>
+ me aware that I have the confidence of honest men."</p>
+
+<p>"If you would kindly employ your influence to get me placed in
+your<br>
+ division, taking Bixiou as head of the bureau and me as
+under-head-<br>
+ clerk, you will secure the future of two men who are ready to
+do<br>
+ anything for your advancement."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you making fun of us, monsieur?" asked Saillard, staring
+at him<br>
+ stupidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Far be it from me to do that," said Dutocq. "I have just come
+from<br>
+ the printing-office of the ministerial journal (where I carried
+from<br>
+ the general-secretary an obituary notice of Monsieur de la<br>
+ Billardiere), and I there read an article which will appear
+to-night<br>
+ about you, which has given me the highest opinion of your
+character<br>
+ and talents. If it is necessary to crush Rabourdin, I'm in a
+position<br>
+ to give him the final blow; please to remember that."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"May I be shot if I understand a single word of it," said
+Saillard,<br>
+ looking at Baudoyer, whose little eyes were expressive of
+stupid<br>
+ bewilderment. "I must buy the newspaper to-night."</p>
+
+<p>When the two reached home and entered the salon on the
+ground-floor,<br>
+ they found a large fire lighted, and Madame Saillard,
+Elisabeth,<br>
+ Monsieur Gaudron and the curate of Saint-Paul's sitting by it.
+The<br>
+ curate turned at once to Monsieur Baudoyer, to whom Elisabeth
+made a<br>
+ sign which he failed to understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said the curate, "I have lost no time in coming in
+person<br>
+ to thank you for the magnificent gift with which you have
+adorned my<br>
+ poor church. I dared not run in debt to buy that beautiful
+monstrance,<br>
+ worthy of a cathedral. You, who are one of our most pious and
+faithful<br>
+ parishioners, must have keenly felt the bareness of the high
+altar. I<br>
+ am on my way to see Monseigneur the coadjutor, and he will, I am
+sure,<br>
+ send you his own thanks later."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "I have done nothing as yet--" began Baudoyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur le cure," interposed his wife, cutting him short. "I
+see I<br>
+ am forced to betray the whole secret. Monsieur Baudoyer hopes
+to<br>
+ complete the gift by sending you a dais for the coming
+Fete-Dieu. But<br>
+ the purchase must depend on the state of our finances, and
+our<br>
+ finances depend on my husband's promotion."</p>
+
+<p>"God will reward those who honor him," said Monsieur
+Gaudron,<br>
+ preparing, with the curate, to take leave.</p>
+
+<p>"But will you not," said Saillard to the two ecclesiastics,
+"do us the<br>
+ honor to take pot luck with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can stay, my dear vicar," said the curate to Gaudron;
+"you know I<br>
+ am engaged to dine with the curate of Saint-Roch, who, by the
+bye, is<br>
+ to bury Monsieur de la Billardiere to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur le cure de Saint-Roch might say a word for us,"
+began<br>
+ Baudoyer. His wife pulled the skirt of his coat violently.</p>
+
+<p>"Do hold your tongue, Baudoyer," she said, leading him aside
+and<br>
+ whispering in his ear. "You have given a monstrance to the
+church,<br>
+ that cost five thousand francs. I'll explain it all later."</p>
+
+<p>The miserly Baudoyer make a sulky grimace, and continued
+gloomy and<br>
+ cross for the rest of the day.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you busy yourself about Falleix's passport for? Why
+do you<br>
+ meddle in other people's affairs?" he presently asked her.</p>
+
+<p>"I must say, I think Falleix's affairs are as much ours as
+his,"<br>
+ returned Elisabeth, dryly, glancing at her husband to make him
+notice<br>
+ Monsieur Gaudron, before whom he ought to be silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, certainly," said old Saillard, thinking of his
+co-<br>
+ partnership.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you reached the newspaper office in time?" remarked
+Elisabeth<br>
+ to Monsieur Gaudron, as she helped him to soup.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear lady," answered the vicar; "when the editor read
+the<br>
+ little article I gave him, written by the secretary of the
+Grand<br>
+ Almoner, he made no difficulty. He took pains to insert it in
+a<br>
+ conspicuous place. I should never have thought of that; but this
+young<br>
+ journalist has a wide-awake mind. The defenders of religion can
+enter<br>
+ the lists against impiety without disadvantage at the present
+moment,<br>
+ for there is a great deal of talent in the royalist press. I
+have<br>
+ every reason to believe that success will crown your hopes. But
+you<br>
+ must remember, my dear Baudoyer, to promote Monsieur Colleville;
+he is<br>
+ an object of great interest to his Eminence; in fact, I am
+desired to<br>
+ mention him to you."</p>
+
+<p>"If I am head of the division, I will make him head of one of
+my<br>
+ bureaus, if you want me to," said Baudoyer.</p>
+
+<p>The matter thus referred to was explained after dinner, when
+the<br>
+ ministerial organ (bought and sent up by the porter) proved to
+contain<br>
+ among its Paris news the following articles, called items:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere died this morning, after
+a<br>
+ long and painful illness. The king loses a devoted servant,
+the<br>
+ Church a most pious son. Monsieur de la Billardiere's end
+has<br>
+ fitly crowned a noble life, consecrated in dark and
+troublesome<br>
+ times to perilous missions, and of late years to arduous
+civic<br>
+ duties. Monsieur de la Billardiere was provost of a
+department,<br>
+ where his force of character triumphed over all the obstacles
+that<br>
+ rebellion arrayed against him. He subsequently accepted the<br>
+ difficult post of director of a division (in which his great<br>
+ acquirements were not less useful than the truly French
+affability<br>
+ of his manners) for the express purpose of conciliating the<br>
+ serious interests that arise under its administration. No
+rewards<br>
+ have ever been more truly deserved than those by which the
+King,<br>
+ Louis XVIII., and his present Majesty took pleasure in crowning
+a<br>
+ loyalty which never faltered under the usurper. This old
+family<br>
+ still survives in the person of a single heir to the excellent
+man<br>
+ whose death now afflicts so many warm friends. His Majesty
+has<br>
+ already graciously made known that Monsieur Benjamin de la<br>
+ Billardiere will be included among the gentlemen-in-ordinary
+of<br>
+ the Bedchamber.</p>
+
+<p>"The numerous friends who have not already received their<br>
+ notification of this sad event are hereby informed that the<br>
+ funeral will take place to-morrow at four o'clock, in the
+church<br>
+ of Saint-Roch. The memorial address will be delivered by
+Monsieur<br>
+ l'Abbe Fontanon."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ ----</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Isidore-Charles-Thomas Baudoyer, representing one of
+the<br>
+ oldest bourgeois families of Paris, and head of a bureau in
+the<br>
+ late Monsieur de la Billardiere's division, has lately
+recalled<br>
+ the old traditions of piety and devotion which formerly<br>
+ distinguished these great families, so jealous for the honor
+and<br>
+ glory of religion, and so faithful in preserving its
+monuments.<br>
+ The church of Saint-Paul has long needed a monstrance in
+keeping<br>
+ with the magnificence of that basilica, itself due to the
+Company<br>
+ of Jesus. Neither the vestry nor the curate were rich enough
+to<br>
+ decorate the altar. Monsieur Baudoyer has bestowed upon the
+parish<br>
+ a monstrance that many persons have seen and admired at
+Monsieur<br>
+ Gohier's, the king's jeweller. Thanks to the piety of this<br>
+ gentleman, who did not shrink from the immensity of the price,
+the<br>
+ church of Saint-Paul possesses to-day a masterpiece of the<br>
+ jeweller's art designed by Monsieur de Sommervieux. It gives
+us<br>
+ pleasure to make known this fact, which proves how powerless
+the<br>
+ declamations of liberals have been on the mind of the
+Parisian<br>
+ bourgeoisie. The upper ranks of that body have at all times
+been<br>
+ royalist and they prove it when occasion offers."</p>
+
+<p>"The price was five thousand francs," said the Abbe Gaudron;
+"but as<br>
+ the payment was in cash, the court jeweller reduced the
+amount."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"Representing one of the oldest bourgeois families in Paris!"
+Saillard<br>
+ was saying to himself; "there it is printed,--in the official
+paper,<br>
+ too!"</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "Dear Monsieur Gaudron," said Madame Baudoyer, "please help my
+father<br>
+ to compose a little speech that he could slip into the
+countess's ear<br>
+ when he takes her the monthly stipend,--a single sentence that
+would<br>
+ cover all! I must leave you. I am obliged to go out with my
+uncle<br>
+ Mitral. Would you believe it? I was unable to find my uncle
+Bidault at<br>
+ home this afternoon. Oh, what a dog-kennel he lives in! But
+Monsieur<br>
+ Mitral, who knows his ways, says he does all his business
+between<br>
+ eight o'clock in the morning and midday, and that after that
+hour he<br>
+ can be found only at a certain cafe called the Cafe
+Themis,--a<br>
+ singular name."</p>
+
+<p>"Is justice done there?" said the abbe, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ask why he goes to a cafe at the corner of the rue
+Dauphine<br>
+ and the quai des Augustins? They say he plays dominoes there
+every<br>
+ night with his friend Monsieur Gobseck. I don't wish to go to
+such a<br>
+ place alone; my uncle Mitral will take me there and bring me
+back."</p>
+
+<p>At this instant Mitral showed his yellow face, surmounted by a
+wig<br>
+ which looked as though it might be made of hay, and made a sign
+to his<br>
+ niece to come at once, and not keep a carriage waiting at two
+francs<br>
+ an hour. Madame Baudoyer rose and went away without giving
+any<br>
+ explanation to her husband or father.</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven has given you in that woman," said Monsieur Gaudron
+to<br>
+ Baudoyer when Elisabeth had disappeared, "a perfect treasure
+of<br>
+ prudence and virtue, a model of wisdom, a Christian who gives
+sure<br>
+ signs of possessing the Divine spirit. Religion alone is able to
+form<br>
+ such perfect characters. To-morrow I shall say a mass for the
+success<br>
+ of your good cause. It is all-important, for the sake of the
+monarchy<br>
+ and of religion itself that you should receive this
+appointment.<br>
+ Monsieur Rabourdin is a liberal; he subscribes to the 'Journal
+des<br>
+ Debats,' a dangerous newspaper, which made war on Monsieur le
+Comte de<br>
+ Villele to please the wounded vanity of Monsieur de
+Chateaubriand. His<br>
+ Eminence will read the newspaper to-night, if only to see what
+is said<br>
+ of his poor friend Monsieur de la Billardiere; and Monseigneur
+the<br>
+ coadjutor will speak of you to the King. When I think of what
+you have<br>
+ now done for his dear church, I feel sure he will not forget you
+in<br>
+ his prayers; more than that, he is dining at this moment with
+the<br>
+ coadjutor at the house of the curate of Saint-Roch."</p>
+
+<p>These words made Saillard and Baudoyer begin to perceive
+that<br>
+ Elisabeth had not been idle ever since Godard had informed her
+of<br>
+ Monsieur de la Billardiere's decease.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she clever, that Elisabeth of mine?" cried
+Saillard,<br>
+ comprehending more clearly than Monsieur l'abbe the rapid
+undermining,<br>
+ like the path of a mole, which his daughter had undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>"She sent Godard to Rabourdin's door to find out what
+newspaper he<br>
+ takes," said Gaudron; "and I mentioned the name to the secretary
+of<br>
+ his Eminence,--for we live at a crisis when the Church and
+Throne must<br>
+ keep themselves informed as to who are their friends and who
+their<br>
+ enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"For the last five days I have been trying to find the right
+thing to<br>
+ say to his Excellency's wife," said Saillard.</p>
+
+<p>"All Paris will read that," cried Baudoyer, whose eyes were
+still<br>
+ riveted on the paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Your eulogy costs us four thousand eight hundred francs,
+son-in-law!"<br>
+ exclaimed Madame Saillard.</p>
+
+<p>"You have adorned the house of God," said the Abbe
+Gaudron.</p>
+
+<p>"We might have got salvation without doing that," she
+returned. "But<br>
+ if Baudoyer gets the place, which is worth eight thousand more,
+the<br>
+ sacrifice is not so great. If he doesn't get it! hey, papa,"
+she<br>
+ added, looking at her husband, "how we shall have bled!--"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, never mind," said Saillard, enthusiastically, "we can
+always<br>
+ make it up through Falleix, who is going to extend his business
+and<br>
+ use his brother, whom he has made a stockbroker on purpose.
+Elisabeth<br>
+ might have told us, I think, why Falleix went off in such a
+hurry. But<br>
+ let's invent my little speech. This is what I thought of:
+'Madame, if<br>
+ you would say a word to his Excellency--'"</p>
+
+<p>"'If you would deign,'" said Gaudron; "add the word 'deign,'
+it is<br>
+ more respectful. But you ought to know, first of all, whether
+Madame<br>
+ la Dauphine will grant you her protection, and then you could
+suggest<br>
+ to Madame la comtesse the idea of co-operating with the wishes
+of her<br>
+ Royal Highness."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to designate the vacant post," said Baudoyer.</p>
+
+<p>"'Madame la comtesse,'" began Saillard, rising, and bowing to
+his<br>
+ wife, with an agreeable smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness! Saillard; how ridiculous you look. Take care, my
+man,<br>
+ you'll make the woman laugh."</p>
+
+<p>"'Madame la comtesse,'" resumed Saillard. "Is that better,
+wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my duck."</p>
+
+<p>"'The place of the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere is
+vacant; my<br>
+ son-in-law, Monsieur Baudoyer--'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Man of talent and extreme piety,'" prompted Gaudron.</p>
+
+<p>"Write it down, Baudoyer," cried old Saillard, "write that
+sentence<br>
+ down."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer proceeded to take a pen and wrote, without a blush,
+his own<br>
+ praises, precisely as Nathan or Canalis might have reviewed one
+of<br>
+ their own books.</p>
+
+<p>"'Madame la comtesse'-- Don't you see, mother?" said Saillard
+to his<br>
+ wife; "I am supposing you to be the minister's wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you take me for a fool?" she answered sharply. "I know
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"'The place of the late worthy de la Billardiere is vacant; my
+son-in-<br>
+ law, Monsieur Baudoyer, a man of consummate talent and
+extreme<br>
+ piety--'" After looking at Monsieur Gaudron, who was reflecting,
+he<br>
+ added, "'will be very glad if he gets it.' That's not bad; it's
+brief<br>
+ and it says the whole thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But do wait, Saillard; don't you see that Monsieur l'abbe is
+turning<br>
+ it over in his mind?" said Madame Saillard; "don't disturb
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"'Will be very thankful if you would deign to interest
+yourself in his<br>
+ behalf,'" resumed Gaudron. "'And in saying a word to his
+Excellency<br>
+ you will particularly please Madame la Dauphine, by whom he has
+the<br>
+ honor and the happiness to be protected.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Monsieur Gaudron, that sentence is worth more than
+the<br>
+ monstrance; I don't regret the four thousand eight hundred--
+Besides,<br>
+ Baudoyer, my lad, you'll pay them, won't you? Have you written
+it all<br>
+ down?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall make you repeat it, father, morning and evening,"
+said Madame<br>
+ Saillard. "Yes, that's a good speech. How lucky you are,
+Monsieur<br>
+ Gaudron, to know so much. That's what it is to be brought up in
+a<br>
+ seminary; they learn there how to speak to God and his
+saints."</p>
+
+<p>"He is as good as he is learned," said Baudoyer, pressing the
+priest's<br>
+ hand. "Did you write that article?" he added, pointing to
+the<br>
+ newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it was written by the secretary of his Eminence, a young
+abbe who<br>
+ is under obligations to me, and who takes an interest in
+Monsieur<br>
+ Colleville; he was educated at my expense."</p>
+
+<p>"A good deed is always rewarded," said Baudoyer.</p>
+
+<p>While these four personages were sitting down to their game of
+boston,<br>
+ Elisabeth and her uncle Mitral reached the cafe Themis, with
+much<br>
+ discourse as they drove along about a matter which Elisabeth's
+keen<br>
+ perceptions told her was the most powerful lever that could be
+used to<br>
+ force the minister's hand in the affair of her husband's
+appointment.<br>
+ Uncle Mitral, a former sheriff's officer, crafty, clever at
+sharp<br>
+ practice, and full of expedients and judicial precautions,
+believed<br>
+ the honor of his family to be involved in the appointment of
+his<br>
+ nephew. His avarice had long led him to estimate the contents of
+old<br>
+ Gigonnet's strong-box, for he knew very well they would go in
+the end<br>
+ to benefit his nephew Baudoyer; and it was therefore important
+that<br>
+ the latter should obtain a position which would be in keeping
+with the<br>
+ combined fortunes of the Saillards and the old Gigonnet, which
+would<br>
+ finally devolve on the Baudoyer's little daughter; and what an
+heiress<br>
+ she would be with an income of a hundred thousand francs! to
+what<br>
+ social position might she not aspire with that fortune? He
+adopted all<br>
+ the ideas of his niece Elisabeth and thoroughly understood them.
+He<br>
+ had helped in sending off Falleix expeditiously, explaining to
+him the<br>
+ advantage of taking post horses. After which, while eating his
+dinner,<br>
+ he reflected that it be as well to give a twist of his own to
+the<br>
+ clever plan invented by Elisabeth.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the Cafe Themis he told his niece that he
+alone<br>
+ could manage Gigonnet in the matter they both had in view, and
+he made<br>
+ her wait in the hackney-coach and bide her time to come forward
+at the<br>
+ right moment. Elisabeth saw through the window-panes the two
+faces of<br>
+ Gobseck and Gigonnet (her uncle Bidault), which stood out in
+relief<br>
+ against the yellow wood-work of the old cafe, like two cameo
+heads,<br>
+ cold and impassible, in the rigid attitude that their gravity
+gave<br>
+ them. The two Parisian misers were surrounded by a number of
+other old<br>
+ faces, on which "thirty per cent discount" was written in
+circular<br>
+ wrinkles that started from the nose and turned round the
+glacial<br>
+ cheek-bones. These remarkable physiognomies brightened up on
+seeing<br>
+ Mitral, and their eyes gleamed with tigerish curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, hey! it is papa Mitral!" cried one of them, named
+Chaboisseau, a<br>
+ little old man who discounted for a publisher.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me, so it is!" said another, a broker named Metivier,
+"ha,<br>
+ that's an old monkey well up in his tricks."</p>
+
+<p>"And you," retorted Mitral, "you are an old crow who knows all
+about<br>
+ carcasses."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said the stern Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you here for? Have you come to seize friend
+Metivier?" asked<br>
+ Gigonnet, pointing to the broker, who had the bluff face of a
+porter.</p>
+
+<p>"Your great-niece Elisabeth is out there, papa Gigonnet,"
+whispered<br>
+ Mitral.</p>
+
+<p>"What! some misfortune?" said Bidault. The old man drew his
+eyebrows<br>
+ together and assumed a tender look like that of an executioner
+when<br>
+ about to go to work officially. In spite of his Roman virtue he
+must<br>
+ have been touched, for his red nose lost somewhat of its
+color.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, suppose it is misfortune, won't you help Saillard's
+daughter?--<br>
+ a girl who has knitted your stockings for the last thirty
+years!"<br>
+ cried Mitral.</p>
+
+<p>"If there's good security I don't say I won't," replied
+Gigonnet.<br>
+ "Falleix is in with them. Falleix has just set up his brother as
+a<br>
+ broker, and he is doing as much business as the Brezacs; and
+what<br>
+ with? his mind, perhaps! Saillard is no simpleton."</p>
+
+<p>"He knows the value of money," put in Chaboisseau.</p>
+
+<p>That remark, uttered among those old men, would have made an
+artist<br>
+ and thinker shudder as they all nodded their heads.</p>
+
+<p>"But it is none of my business," resumed Bidault-Gigonnet.
+"I'm not<br>
+ bound to care for my neighbors' misfortunes. My principle is
+never to<br>
+ be off my guard with friends or relatives; you can't perish
+except<br>
+ through weakness. Apply to Gobseck; he is softer."</p>
+
+<p>The usurers all applauded these doctrines with a shake of
+their<br>
+ metallic heads. An onlooker would have fancied he heard the
+creaking<br>
+ of ill-oiled machinery.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Gigonnet, show a little feeling," said Chaboisseau,
+"they've<br>
+ knit your stockings for thirty years."</p>
+
+<p>"That counts for something," remarked Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you all alone? Is it safe to speak?" said Mitral,
+looking<br>
+ carefully about him. "I come about a good piece of
+business."</p>
+
+<p>"If it is good, why do you come to us?" said Gigonnet,
+sharply,<br>
+ interrupting Mitral.</p>
+
+<p>"A fellow who was a gentleman of the Bedchamber," went on
+Mitral, "a<br>
+ former 'chouan,'--what's his name?--La Billardiere is dead."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"And our nephew is giving monstrances to the church,"
+snarled<br>
+ Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"He is not such a fool as to give them, he sells them, old
+man," said<br>
+ Mitral, proudly. "He wants La Billardiere's place, and in order
+to get<br>
+ it, we must seize--"</p>
+
+<p>"Seize! You'll never be anything but a sheriff's officer," put
+in<br>
+ Metivier, striking Mitral amicably on the shoulder; "I like
+that, I<br>
+ do!"</p>
+
+<p>"Seize Monsieur Clement des Lupeaulx in our clutches,"
+continued<br>
+ Mitral; "Elisabeth has discovered how to do it, and he is--"</p>
+
+<p>"Elisabeth"; cried Gigonnet, interrupting again; "dear
+little<br>
+ creature! she takes after her grandfather, my poor brother! he
+never<br>
+ had his equal! Ah, you should have seen him buying up old
+furniture;<br>
+ what tact! what shrewdness! What does Elisabeth want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! hey!" cried Mitral, "you've got back your bowels of
+compassion,<br>
+ papa Gigonnet! That phenomenon has a cause."</p>
+
+<p>"Always a child," said Gobseck to Gigonnet, "you are too quick
+on the<br>
+ trigger."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Gobseck and Gigonnet, listen to me; you want to keep
+well with<br>
+ des Lupeaulx, don't you? You've not forgotten how you plucked
+him in<br>
+ that affair about the king's debts, and you are afraid he'll ask
+you<br>
+ to return some of his feathers," said Mitral.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we tell him the whole thing?" asked Gobseck, whispering
+to<br>
+ Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"Mitral is one of us; he wouldn't play a shabby trick on his
+former<br>
+ customers," replied Gigonnet. "You see, Mitral," he went on,
+speaking<br>
+ to the ex-sheriff in a low voice, "we three have just bought up
+all<br>
+ those debts, the payment of which depends on the decision of
+the<br>
+ liquidation committee."</p>
+
+<p>"How much will you lose?" asked Mitral.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows we are in it," added Gigonnet; "Samanon screens
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, listen to me, Gigonnet; it is cold, and your niece is
+waiting<br>
+ outside. You'll understand what I want in two words. You must at
+once,<br>
+ between you, send two hundred and fifty thousand francs
+(without<br>
+ interest) into the country after Falleix, who has gone
+post-haste,<br>
+ with a courier in advance of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible!" said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" cried Gigonnet, "and where to?"</p>
+
+<p>"To des Lupeaulx's magnificent country-seat," replied Mitral.
+"Falleix<br>
+ knows the country, for he was born there; and he is going to buy
+up<br>
+ land all round the secretary's miserable hovel, with the two
+hundred<br>
+ and fifty thousand francs I speak of,--good land, well worth
+the<br>
+ price. There are only nine days before us for drawing up and
+recording<br>
+ the notarial deeds (bear that in mind). With the addition of
+this<br>
+ land, des Lupeaulx's present miserable property would pay taxes
+to the<br>
+ amount of one thousand francs, the sum necessary to make a
+man<br>
+ eligible to the Chamber. Ergo, with it des Lupeaulx goes into
+the<br>
+ electoral college, becomes eligible, count, and whatever he
+pleases.<br>
+ You know the deputy who has slipped out and left a vacancy,
+don't<br>
+ you?"</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ The two misers nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Des Lupeaulx would cut off a leg to get elected in his
+place,"<br>
+ continued Mitral; "but he must have the title-deeds of the
+property in<br>
+ his own name, and then mortgage them back to us for the amount
+of the<br>
+ purchase-money. Ah! now you begin to see what I am after! First
+of<br>
+ all, we must make sure of Baudoyer's appointment, and des
+Lupeaulx<br>
+ will get it for us on these terms; after that is settled we will
+hand<br>
+ him back to you. Falleix is now canvassing the electoral vote.
+Don't<br>
+ you perceive that you have Lupeaulx completely in your power
+until<br>
+ after the election?--for Falleix's friends are a large majority.
+Now<br>
+ do you see what I mean, papa Gigonnet?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a clever game," said Metivier.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll do it," said Gigonnet; "you agree, don't you, Gobseck?
+Falleix<br>
+ can give us security and put mortgages on the property in my
+name;<br>
+ we'll go and see des Lupeaulx when all is ready."</p>
+
+<p>"We're robbed," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha!" laughed Mitral, "I'd like to know the robber!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody can rob us but ourselves," answered Gigonnet. "I told
+you we<br>
+ were doing a good thing in buying up all des Lupeaulx's paper
+from his<br>
+ creditors at sixty per cent discount."</p>
+
+<p>"Take this mortgage on his estate and you'll hold him tighter
+still<br>
+ through the interest," answered Mitral.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>After exchanging a shrewd look with Gobseck, Gigonnet went to
+the door<br>
+ of the cafe.</p>
+
+<p>"Elisabeth! follow it up, my dear," he said to his niece. "We
+hold<br>
+ your man securely; but don't neglect accessories. You have begun
+well,<br>
+ clever woman! go on as you began and you'll have your uncle's
+esteem,"<br>
+ and he grasped her hand, gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Mitral, "Metivier and Chaboisseau heard it all,
+and they<br>
+ may play us a trick and tell the matter to some opposition
+journal<br>
+ which would catch the ball on its way and counteract the effect
+of the<br>
+ ministerial article. You must go alone, my dear; I dare not let
+those<br>
+ two cormorants out of my sight." So saying he re-entered the
+cafe.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the numerous subscribers to a certain liberal
+journal<br>
+ read, among the Paris items, the following article, inserted<br>
+ authoritatively by Chaboisseau and Metivier, share-holders in
+the said<br>
+ journal, brokers for publishers, printers, and paper-makers,
+whose<br>
+ behests no editor dared refuse:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Yesterday a ministerial journal plainly indicated as the
+probable<br>
+ successor of Monsieur le Baron de la Billardiere, Monsieur<br>
+ Baudoyer, one of the worthiest citizens of a populous
+quarter,<br>
+ where his benevolence is scarcely less known than the piety
+on<br>
+ which the ministerial organ laid so much stress. Why was
+that<br>
+ sheet silent as to his talents? Did it reflect that in boasting
+of<br>
+ the bourgeoise nobility of Monsieur Baudoyer--which, certainly,
+is<br>
+ a nobility as good as any other--it was pointing out a reason
+for<br>
+ the exclusion of the candidate? A gratuitous piece of perfidy!
+an<br>
+ attempt to kill with a caress! To appoint Monsieur Baudoyer is
+to<br>
+ do honor to the virtues, the talents of the middle classes,
+of<br>
+ whom we shall ever be the supporters, though their cause seems
+at<br>
+ times a lost one. This appointment, we repeat, will be an act
+of<br>
+ justice and good policy; consequently we may be sure it will
+not<br>
+ be made."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>On the morrow, Friday, the usual day for the dinner given by
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin, whom des Lupeaulx had left at midnight, radiant in
+beauty,<br>
+ on the staircase of the Bouffons, arm in arm with Madame de
+Camps<br>
+ (Madame Firmiani had lately married), the old roue awoke with
+his<br>
+ thoughts of vengeance calmed, or rather refreshed, and his mind
+full<br>
+ of a last glance exchanged with Celestine.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "I'll make sure of Rabourdin's support by forgiving him
+now,--I'll get<br>
+ even with him later. If he hasn't this place for the time being
+I<br>
+ should have to give up a woman who is capable of becoming a
+most<br>
+ precious instrument in the pursuit of high political fortune.
+She<br>
+ understands everything; shrinks from nothing, from no idea
+whatever!--<br>
+ and besides, I can't know before his Excellency what new scheme
+of<br>
+ administration Rabourdin has invented. No, my dear des Lupeaulx,
+the<br>
+ thing in hand is to win all now for your Celestine. You may make
+as<br>
+ many faces as you please, Madame la comtesse, but you will
+invite<br>
+ Madame Rabourdin to your next select party."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx was one of those men who to satisfy a passion are
+quite<br>
+ able to put away revenge in some dark corner of their minds.
+His<br>
+ course was taken; he was resolved to get Rabourdin
+appointed.</p>
+
+<p>"I will prove to you, my dear fellow, that I deserve a good
+place in<br>
+ your galley," thought he as he seated himself in his study and
+began<br>
+ to unfold a newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>He knew so well what the ministerial organ would contain that
+he<br>
+ rarely took the trouble to read it, but on this occasion he did
+open<br>
+ it to look at the article on La Billardiere, recollecting
+with<br>
+ amusement the dilemma in which du Bruel had put him by bringing
+him<br>
+ the night before Bixiou's amendments to the obituary. He was
+laughing<br>
+ to himself as he reread the biography of the late Comte da
+Fontaine,<br>
+ dead a few months earlier, which he had hastily substituted for
+that<br>
+ of La Billardiere, when his eyes were dazzled by the name of
+Baudoyer.<br>
+ He read with fury the article which pledged the minister, and
+then he<br>
+ rang violently for Dutocq, to send him at once to the editor.
+But what<br>
+ was his astonishment on reading the reply of the opposition
+paper! The<br>
+ situation was evidently serious. He knew the game, and he saw
+that the<br>
+ man who was shuffling his cards for him was a Greek of the
+first<br>
+ order. To dictate in this way through two opposing newspapers in
+one<br>
+ evening, and to begin the fight by forestalling the intentions
+of the<br>
+ minister was a daring game! He recognized the pen of a liberal
+editor,<br>
+ and resolved to question him that night at the opera. Dutocq
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Read that," said des Lupeaulx, handing him over the two
+journals, and<br>
+ continuing to run his eye over others to see if Baudoyer had
+pulled<br>
+ any further wires. "Go to the office and ask who has dared to
+thus<br>
+ compromise the minister."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not Monsieur Baudoyer himself," answered Dutocq, "for
+he never<br>
+ left the ministry yesterday. I need not go and inquire; for when
+I<br>
+ took your article to the newspaper office I met a young abbe
+who<br>
+ brought in a letter from the Grand Almoner, before which you
+yourself<br>
+ would have had to bow."</p>
+
+<p>"Dutocq, you have a grudge against Monsieur Rabourdin, and it
+isn't<br>
+ right; for he has twice saved you from being turned out.
+However, we<br>
+ are not masters of our own feelings; we sometimes hate our<br>
+ benefactors. Only, remember this; if you show the slightest
+treachery<br>
+ to Rabourdin, without my permission, it will be your ruin. As to
+that<br>
+ newspaper, let the Grand Almoner subscribe as largely as we do,
+if he<br>
+ wants its services. Here we are at the end of the year; the
+matter of<br>
+ subscriptions will come up for discussion, and I shall have
+something<br>
+ to say on that head. As to La Billardiere's place, there is only
+one<br>
+ way to settle the matter; and that is to appoint Rabourdin this
+very<br>
+ day."</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said Dutocq, returning to the clerks' office
+and<br>
+ addressing his colleagues. "I don't know if Bixiou has the art
+of<br>
+ looking into futurity, but if you have not read the
+ministerial<br>
+ journal I advise you to study the article about Baudoyer; then,
+as<br>
+ Monsieur Fleury takes the opposition sheet, you can see the
+reply.<br>
+ Monsieur Rabourdin certainly has talent, but a man who in these
+days<br>
+ gives a six-thousand-franc monstrance to the Church has a
+devilish<br>
+ deal more talent than he."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [entering]. "What say you, gentlemen, to the First
+Epistle to<br>
+ the Corinthians in our pious ministerial journal, and the
+reply<br>
+ Epistle to the Ministers in the opposition sheet? How does
+Monsieur<br>
+ Rabourdin feel now, du Bruel?"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel [rushing in]. "I don't know." [He drags Bixiou back
+into his<br>
+ cabinet, and says in a low voice] "My good fellow, your way of
+helping<br>
+ people is like that of the hangman who jumps upon a victim's
+shoulders<br>
+ to break his neck. You got me into a scrape with des Lupeaulx,
+which<br>
+ my folly in ever trusting you richly deserved. A fine thing
+indeed,<br>
+ that article on La Billardiere. I sha'n't forget the trick! Why,
+the<br>
+ very first sentence was as good as telling the King he was<br>
+ superannuated and it was time for him to die. And as to that
+Quiberon<br>
+ bit, it said plainly that the King was a-- What a fool I
+was!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [laughing]. "Bless my heart! are you getting angry?
+Can't a<br>
+ fellow joke any more?"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "Joke! joke indeed. When you want to be made
+head-clerk<br>
+ somebody shall joke with you, my dear fellow."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [in a bullying tone]. "Angry, are we?"</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel. "Yes!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [dryly]. "So much the worse for you."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel [uneasy]. "You wouldn't pardon such a thing yourself,
+I<br>
+ know."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [in a wheedling tone]. "To a friend? indeed I would."
+[They<br>
+ hear Fleury's voice.] "There's Fleury cursing Baudoyer. Hey, how
+well<br>
+ the thing has been managed! Baudoyer will get the
+appointment."<br>
+ [Confidentially] "After all, so much the better. Du Bruel, just
+keep<br>
+ your eye on the consequences. Rabourdin would be a
+mean-spirited<br>
+ creature to stay under Baudoyer; he will send in his
+registration, and<br>
+ that will give us two places. You can be head of the bureau and
+take<br>
+ me for under-head-clerk. We will make vaudevilles together, and
+I'll<br>
+ fag at your work in the office."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel [smiling]. "Dear me, I never thought of that. Poor
+Rabourdin!<br>
+ I shall be sorry for him, though."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "That shows how much you love him!" [Changing his
+tone] "Ah,<br>
+ well, I don't pity him any longer. He's rich; his wife gives
+parties<br>
+ and doesn't ask me,--me, who go everywhere! Well, good-bye, my
+dear<br>
+ fellow, good-bye, and don't owe me a grudge!" [He goes out
+through the<br>
+ clerks' office.] "Adieu, gentlemen; didn't I tell you yesterday
+that a<br>
+ man who has nothing but virtues and talents will always be poor,
+even<br>
+ though he has a pretty wife?"</p>
+
+<p>Henry. "You are so rich, you!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Not bad, my Cincinnatus! But you'll give me that
+dinner at<br>
+ the Rocher de Cancale."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "It is absolutely impossible for me to understand
+Monsieur<br>
+ Bixiou."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [with an elegaic air]. "Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom
+reads<br>
+ the newspapers that it might perhaps be serviceable to
+deprive<br>
+ ourselves momentarily by taking them in to him." [Fleury hands
+over<br>
+ his paper, Vimeux the office sheet, and Phellion departs with
+them.]</p>
+
+<p>At that moment des Lupeaulx, coming leisurely downstairs to
+breakfast<br>
+ with the minister, was asking himself whether, before playing a
+trump<br>
+ card for the husband, it might not be prudent to probe the
+wife's<br>
+ heart and make sure of a reward for his devotion. He was feeling
+about<br>
+ for the small amount of heart that he possessed, when, at a turn
+of<br>
+ the staircase, he encountered his lawyer, who said to him,
+smiling,<br>
+ "Just a word, Monseigneur," in the tone of familiarity assumed
+by men<br>
+ who know they are indispensable.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, my dear Desroches?" exclaimed the politician.
+"Has<br>
+ anything happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have
+been<br>
+ brought up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a
+certain<br>
+ Samanon."</p>
+
+<p>"Men whom I helped to make their millions!"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," whispered the lawyer. "Gigonnet (really named
+Bidault) is<br>
+ the uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is
+father-in-law to<br>
+ a certain Baudoyer, who thinks he has a right to the vacant
+place in<br>
+ your ministry. Don't you think I have done right to come and
+tell<br>
+ you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a
+shrewd<br>
+ look.</p>
+
+<p>"One stroke of your pen will buy them off," said Desroches,
+leaving<br>
+ him.</p>
+
+<p>"What an immense sacrifice!" muttered des Lupeaulx. "It would
+be<br>
+ impossible to explain it to a woman," thought he. "Is Celestine
+worth<br>
+ more than the clearing off of my debts?--that is the question.
+I'll go<br>
+ and see her this morning."</p>
+
+<p>So the beautiful Madame Rabourdin was to be, within an hour,
+the<br>
+ arbiter of her husband's fate, and no power on earth could warn
+her of<br>
+ the importance of her replies, or give her the least hint to
+guard her<br>
+ conduct and compose her voice. Moreover, in addition to her<br>
+ mischances, she believed herself certain of success, never
+dreaming<br>
+ that Rabourdin was undermined in all directions by the secret
+sapping<br>
+ of the mollusks.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Monseigneur," said des Lupeaulx, entering the little
+salon<br>
+ where they breakfasted, "have you seen the articles on
+Baudoyer?"</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, my dear friend," replied the minister, "don't
+talk of<br>
+ those appointments just now; let me have an hour's peace! They
+cracked<br>
+ my ears last night with that monstrance. The only way to
+save<br>
+ Rabourdin is to bring his appointment before the Council, unless
+I<br>
+ submit to having my hand forced. It is enough to disgust a man
+with<br>
+ the public service. I must purchase the right to keep that
+excellent<br>
+ Rabourdin by promoting a certain Colleville!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not make over the management of this pretty little comedy
+to me,<br>
+ and rid yourself of the worry of it? I'll amuse you every
+morning with<br>
+ an account of the game of chess I should play with the Grand
+Almoner,"<br>
+ said des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," said the minister, "settle it with the head
+examiner. But<br>
+ you know perfectly well that nothing is more likely to strike
+the<br>
+ king's mind than just those reasons the opposition journal has
+chosen<br>
+ to put forth. Good heavens! fancy managing a ministry with such
+men as<br>
+ Baudoyer under me!"</p>
+
+<p>"An imbecile bigot," said des Lupeaulx, "and as utterly
+incapable<br>
+ as--"</p>
+
+<p>"--as La Billardiere," added the minister.</p>
+
+<p>"But La Billardiere had the manners of a
+gentleman-in-ordinary,"<br>
+ replied des Lupeaulx. "Madame," he continued, addressing the
+countess,<br>
+ "it is now an absolute necessity to invite Madame Rabourdin to
+your<br>
+ next private party. I must assure you she is the intimate friend
+of<br>
+ Madame de Camps; they were at the Opera together last night. I
+first<br>
+ met her at the hotel Firmiani. Besides, you will see that she is
+not<br>
+ of a kind to compromise a salon."</p>
+
+<p>"Invite Madame Rabourdin, my dear," said the minister, "and
+pray let<br>
+ us talk of something else."</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<h4>SCENES FROM DOMESTIC LIFE</h4>
+
+<p>Parisian households are literally eaten up with the desire to
+be in<br>
+ keeping with the luxury that surrounds them on all sides, and
+few<br>
+ there are who have the wisdom to let their external situation
+conform<br>
+ to their internal revenue. But this vice may perhaps denote a
+truly<br>
+ French patriotism, which seeks to maintain the supremacy of the
+nation<br>
+ in the matter of dress. France reigns through clothes over the
+whole<br>
+ of Europe; and every one must feel the importance of retaining
+a<br>
+ commercial sceptre that makes fashion in France what the navy is
+to<br>
+ England. This patriotic ardor which leads a nation to
+sacrifice<br>
+ everything to appearances--to the "paroistre," as d'Aubigne said
+in<br>
+ the days of Henri IV.--is the cause of those vast secret labors
+which<br>
+ employ the whole of a Parisian woman's morning, when she wishes,
+as<br>
+ Madame Rabourdin wished, to keep up on twelve thousand francs a
+year<br>
+ the style that many a family with thirty thousand does not
+indulge in.<br>
+ Consequently, every Friday,--the day of her dinner
+parties,--Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin helped the chambermaid to do the rooms; for the cook
+went<br>
+ early to market, and the man-servant was cleaning the silver,
+folding<br>
+ the napkins, and polishing the glasses. The ill-advised
+individual who<br>
+ might happen, through an oversight of the porter, to enter
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin's establishment about eleven o'clock in the morning
+would<br>
+ have found her in the midst of a disorder the reverse of
+picturesque,<br>
+ wrapped in a dressing-gown, her hair ill-dressed, and her feet
+in old<br>
+ slippers, attending to the lamps, arranging the flowers, or
+cooking in<br>
+ haste an extremely unpoetic breakfast. The visitor to whom
+the<br>
+ mysteries of Parisian life were unknown would certainly have
+learned<br>
+ for the rest of his life not to set foot in these greenrooms at
+the<br>
+ wrong moment; a woman caught in her matin mysteries would ever
+after<br>
+ point him out as a man capable of the blackest crimes; or she
+would<br>
+ talk of his stupidity and indiscretion in a manner to ruin him.
+The<br>
+ true Parisian woman, indulgent to all curiosity that she can put
+to<br>
+ profit, is implacable to that which makes her lose her prestige.
+Such<br>
+ a domiciliary invasion may be called, not only (as they say in
+police<br>
+ reports) an attack on privacy, but a burglary, a robbery of all
+that<br>
+ is most precious, namely, CREDIT. A woman is quite willing to
+let<br>
+ herself be surprised half-dressed, with her hair about her
+shoulders.<br>
+ If her hair is all her own she scores one; but she will never
+allow<br>
+ herself to be seen "doing" her own rooms, or she loses her
+pariostre,<br>
+ --that precious SEEMING-TO-BE!</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Madame Rabourdin was in full tide of preparation for her
+Friday<br>
+ dinner, standing in the midst of provisions the cook had just
+fished<br>
+ from the vast ocean of the markets, when Monsieur des Lupeaulx
+made<br>
+ his way stealthily in. The general-secretary was certainly the
+last<br>
+ man Madame Rabourdin expected to see, and so, when she heard his
+boots<br>
+ creaking in the ante-chamber, she exclaimed, impatiently, "The
+hair-<br>
+ dresser already!"--an exclamation as little agreeable to des
+Lupeaulx<br>
+ as the sight of des Lupeaulx was agreeable to her. She
+immediately<br>
+ escaped into her bedroom, where chaos reigned; a jumble of
+furniture<br>
+ to be put out of sight, with other heterogeneous articles of
+more or<br>
+ rather less elegance,--a domestic carnival, in short. The bold
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx followed the handsome figure, so piquant did she seem
+to him<br>
+ in her dishabille. There is something indescribably alluring to
+the<br>
+ eye in a portion of flesh seen through an hiatus in the
+undergarment,<br>
+ more attractive far than when it rises gracefully above the
+circular<br>
+ curve of the velvet bodice, to the vanishing line of the
+prettiest<br>
+ swan's-neck that ever lover kissed before a ball. When the eye
+dwells<br>
+ on a woman in full dress making exhibition of her magnificent
+white<br>
+ shoulders, do we not fancy that we see the elegant dessert of a
+grand<br>
+ dinner? But the glance that glides through the disarray of
+muslins<br>
+ rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it were, a feast of stolen fruit
+glowing<br>
+ between the leaves on a garden wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop! wait!" cried the pretty Parisian, bolting the door of
+the<br>
+ disordered room.</p>
+
+<p>She rang for Therese, called for her daughter, the cook, and
+the man-<br>
+ servant, wishing she possessed the whistle of the machinist at
+the<br>
+ Opera. Her call, however, answered the same purpose. In a
+moment,<br>
+ another phenomenon! the salon assumed a piquant morning look,
+quite in<br>
+ keeping with the becoming toilet hastily got together by the
+fugitive;<br>
+ we say it to her glory, for she was evidently a clever woman, in
+this<br>
+ at least.</p>
+
+<p>"You!" she said, coming forward, "at this hour? What has
+happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very serious things," answered des Lupeaulx. "You and I
+must<br>
+ understand each other now."</p>
+
+<p>Celestine looked at the man behind his glasses, and understood
+the<br>
+ matter.</p>
+
+<p>"My principle vice," she said, "is oddity. For instance, I do
+not mix<br>
+ up affections with politics; let us talk politics,--business, if
+you<br>
+ will,--the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity
+nor a<br>
+ whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put
+together<br>
+ things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords;
+it is<br>
+ my natural instinct as an artist. We women have politics of our
+own."</p>
+
+<p>Already the tones of her voice and the charm of her manners
+were<br>
+ producing their effect on the secretary and metamorphosing
+his<br>
+ roughness into sentimental courtesy; she had recalled him to
+his<br>
+ obligations as a lover. A clever pretty woman makes an
+atmosphere<br>
+ about her in which the nerves relax and the feelings soften.</p>
+
+<p>"You are ignorant of what is happening," said des Lupeaulx,
+harshly,<br>
+ for he still thought it best to make a show of harshness. "Read
+that."</p>
+
+<p>He gave the two newspapers to the graceful woman, having drawn
+a line<br>
+ in red ink round each of the famous articles.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "but this is dreadful! Who is
+this<br>
+ Baudoyer?"</p>
+
+<p>"A donkey," answered des Lupeaulx; "but, as you see, he uses
+means,--<br>
+ he gives monstrances; he succeeds, thanks to some clever hand
+that<br>
+ pulls the wires."</p>
+
+<p>The thought of her debts crossed Madame Rabourdin's mind and
+blurred<br>
+ her sight, as if two lightning flashes had blinded her eyes at
+the<br>
+ same moment; her ears hummed under the pressure of the blood
+that<br>
+ began to beat in her arteries; she remained for a moment
+quite<br>
+ bewildered, gazing at a window which she did not see.</p>
+
+<p>"But are you faithful to us?" she said at last, with a winning
+glance<br>
+ at des Lupeaulx, as if to attach him to her.</p>
+
+<p>"That is as it may be," he replied, answering her glance with
+an<br>
+ interrogative look which made the poor woman blush.</p>
+
+<p>"If you demand caution-money you may lose all," she said,
+laughing; "I<br>
+ thought you more magnanimous than you are. And you, you thought
+me<br>
+ less a person than I am,--a sort of school-girl."</p>
+
+<p>"You have misunderstood me," he said, with a covert smile; "I
+meant<br>
+ that I could not assist a man who plays against me just as
+l'Etourdi<br>
+ played against Mascarille."</p>
+
+<p>"What can you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"This will prove to you whether I am magnanimous or not."</p>
+
+<p>He gave Madame Rabourdin the memorandum stolen by Dutocq,
+pointing out<br>
+ to her the passage in which her husband had so ably analyzed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Read that."</p>
+
+<p>Celestine recognized the handwriting, read the paper, and
+turned pale<br>
+ under the blow.</p>
+
+<p>"All the ministries, the whole service is treated in the same
+way,"<br>
+ said des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>"Happily," she said, "you alone possess this document. I
+cannot<br>
+ explain it, even to myself."</p>
+
+<p>"The man who stole it is not such a fool as to let me have it
+without<br>
+ keeping a copy for himself; he is too great a liar to admit it,
+and<br>
+ too clever in his business to give it up. I did not even ask him
+for<br>
+ it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your chief clerk."</p>
+
+<p>"Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses!
+But,"<br>
+ she added, "he is only a dog who wants a bone."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a
+general-<br>
+ secretary?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,--you will
+despise me<br>
+ because it isn't more, but here, I grant you, I am significant.
+Well,<br>
+ Baudoyer's uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless,
+ready to<br>
+ give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed."</p>
+
+<p>"But all that is monstrous."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand
+Almoner is<br>
+ concerned in it. Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in
+return<br>
+ for ecclesiastical assistance."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"What will you bid me do?" he said, with charming grace,
+holding out<br>
+ his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and
+chilling<br>
+ as a hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and
+offensive,<br>
+ but she did not give him her hand. At night, in her salon, she
+would<br>
+ have let him take it a hundred times, but here, alone and in
+the<br>
+ morning, the action seemed too like a promise that might lead
+her far.</p>
+
+<p>"And they say that statesmen have no hearts!" she cried<br>
+ enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal
+under<br>
+ the grace of her words. "The thought used to terrify me," she
+added,<br>
+ assuming an innocent, ingenuous air.</p>
+
+<p>"What a calumny!" cried des Lupeaulx. "Only this week one of
+the<br>
+ stiffest of diplomatists, a man who has been in the service ever
+since<br>
+ he came to manhood, has married the daughter of an actress, and
+has<br>
+ introduced her at the most iron-bound court in Europe as to<br>
+ quarterings of nobility."</p>
+
+<p>"You will continue to support us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am to draw up your husband's appointment-- But no
+cheating,<br>
+ remember."</p>
+
+<p>She gave him her hand to kiss, and tapped him on the cheek as
+she did<br>
+ so. "You are mine!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx admired the expression.</p>
+
+<p>[That night, at the Opera, the old coxcomb related the
+incident as<br>
+ follows: "A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be
+his,--an<br>
+ acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to
+make,--<br>
+ changed the words into 'You are mine.' Don't you think the
+evasion<br>
+ charming?"]</p>
+
+<p>"But you must be my ally," he answered. "Now listen, your
+husband has<br>
+ spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the
+administration;<br>
+ the paper I have shown you is a part of that plan. I want to
+know what<br>
+ it is. Find out, and tell me to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I will," she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature
+of the<br>
+ errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, the hair-dresser."</p>
+
+<p>"At last!" thought Celestine. "I don't see how I should have
+got out<br>
+ of it if he had delayed much longer."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go," said
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx, rising. "You shall be invited to the first select
+party<br>
+ given by his Excellency's wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you are an angel!" she cried. "And I see now how much you
+love<br>
+ me; you love me intelligently."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night, dear child," he said, "I shall find out at the
+Opera what<br>
+ journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure
+swords<br>
+ together."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not? I have taken
+pains to<br>
+ get the things you like best--"</p>
+
+<p>"All that is so like love," said des Lupeaulx to himself as he
+went<br>
+ downstairs, "that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a
+long<br>
+ time. Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I'll set
+the<br>
+ cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed,
+and<br>
+ I'll read her heart. Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after
+all,<br>
+ women are just what we men are. Twenty-eight years old,
+virtuous, and<br>
+ living here in the rue Duphot!--a rare piece of luck and
+worth<br>
+ cultivating," thought the elderly butterfly as he fluttered down
+the<br>
+ staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens! that man, without his glasses, must look funny
+enough<br>
+ in a dressing-gown!" thought Celestine, "but the harpoon is in
+his<br>
+ back and he'll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of
+that<br>
+ invitation. He has played his part in my comedy."</p>
+
+<p>When, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to
+dress<br>
+ for dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid
+before<br>
+ him the fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the
+Arabian<br>
+ Nights, the luckless man was fated to meet at every turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Who gave you that?" he asked, thunderstruck.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur des Lupeaulx."</p>
+
+<p>"So he has been here!" cried Rabourdin, with a look which
+would<br>
+ certainly have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which
+Celestine<br>
+ received with unruffled brow and a laughing eye.</p>
+
+<p>"And he is coming back to dinner," she said. "Why that
+startled air?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," replied Rabourdin, "I have mortally offended des
+Lupeaulx;<br>
+ such men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me! Do you think I
+don't<br>
+ see why?"</p>
+
+<p>"The man seems to me," she said, "to have good taste; you
+can't expect<br>
+ me to blame him. I really don't know anything more flattering to
+a<br>
+ woman than to please a worn-out palate. After--"</p>
+
+<p>"A truce to nonsense, Celestine. Spare a much-tried man. I
+cannot get<br>
+ an audience of the minister, and my honor is at stake."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, no! Dutocq can have the promise of a good place
+as soon<br>
+ as you are named head of the division."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I see what you are about, dear child," said Rabourdin;
+"but the<br>
+ game you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing
+that is<br>
+ going on around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman--"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me use the weapons employed against us."</p>
+
+<p>"Celestine, the more that man des Lupeaulx feels he is
+foolishly<br>
+ caught in a trap, the more bitter he will be against me."</p>
+
+<p>"What if I get him dismissed altogether?"</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my
+poor<br>
+ husband," continued Celestine. "But you are mistaking the dog
+for the<br>
+ game," she added, after a pause. "In a few days des Lupeaulx
+will have<br>
+ accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to
+speak to<br>
+ the minister, and before you can even see him on business, I
+shall<br>
+ have seen him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to
+bring<br>
+ that plan of your brain to birth,--a plan which you have been
+hiding<br>
+ from me; but you will find that in three months your wife
+has<br>
+ accomplished more than you have done in six years. Come, tell me
+this<br>
+ fine scheme of yours."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Rabourdin, continuing to shave, cautioned his wife not to say a
+word<br>
+ about his work, and after assuring her that to confide a single
+idea<br>
+ to des Lupeaulx would be to put the cat near the milk-jug, he
+began an<br>
+ explanation of his labors.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me this before, Rabourdin?" said
+Celestine,<br>
+ cutting her husband short at his fifth sentence. "You might have
+saved<br>
+ yourself a world of trouble. I can understand that a man should
+be<br>
+ blinded by an idea for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or
+seven<br>
+ years, that's a thing I cannot comprehend! You want to reduce
+the<br>
+ budget,--a vulgar and commonplace idea! The budget ought, on
+the<br>
+ contrary, to reach two hundred millions. Then, indeed, France
+would be<br>
+ great. If you want a new system let it be one of loans, as
+Monsieur de<br>
+ Nucingen keeps saying. The poorest of all treasuries is the one
+with a<br>
+ surplus that it never uses; the mission of a minister of finance
+is to<br>
+ fling gold out of the windows. It will come back to him through
+the<br>
+ cellars; and you, you want to hoard it! The thing to do is to
+increase<br>
+ the offices and all government employments, instead of reducing
+them!<br>
+ So far from lessening the public debt, you ought to increase
+the<br>
+ creditors. If the Bourbons want to reign in peace, let them
+seek<br>
+ creditors in the towns and villages, and place their loans
+there;<br>
+ above all, they ought not to let foreigners draw interest away
+from<br>
+ France; some day an alien nation might ask us for the capital.
+Whereas<br>
+ if capital and interest are held only in France, neither France
+nor<br>
+ credit can perish. That's what saved England. Your plan is
+the<br>
+ tradesman's plan. An ambitious public man should produce some
+bold<br>
+ scheme,--he should make himself another Law, without Law's fatal
+ill-<br>
+ luck; he ought to exhibit the power of credit, and show that we
+should<br>
+ reduce, not principal, but interest, as they do in England."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, Celestine," said Rabourdin; "mix up ideas as much
+as you<br>
+ please, and make fun of them,--I'm accustomed to that; but
+don't<br>
+ criticise a work of which you know nothing as yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I need," she asked, "to know a scheme the essence of which
+is to<br>
+ govern France with a civil service of six thousand men instead
+of<br>
+ twenty thousand? My dear friend, even allowing it were the plan
+of a<br>
+ man of genius, a king of France who attempted to carry it out
+would<br>
+ get himself dethroned. You can keep down a feudal aristocracy
+by<br>
+ levelling a few heads, but you can't subdue a hydra with
+thousands.<br>
+ And is it with the present ministers--between ourselves, a
+wretched<br>
+ crew--that you expect to carry out your reform? No, no; change
+the<br>
+ monetary system if you will, but do not meddle with men, with
+little<br>
+ men; they cry out too much, whereas gold is dumb."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Celestine, if you will talk, and put wit before
+argument, we<br>
+ shall never understand each other."</p>
+
+<p>"Understand! I understand what that paper, in which you have
+analyzed<br>
+ the capacities of the men in office, will lead to," she
+replied,<br>
+ paying no attention to what her husband said. "Good heavens! you
+have<br>
+ sharpened the axe to cut off your own head. Holy Virgin! why
+didn't<br>
+ you consult me? I could have at least prevented you from
+committing<br>
+ anything to writing, or, at any rate, if you insisted on putting
+it to<br>
+ paper, I would have written it down myself, and it should never
+have<br>
+ left this house. Good God! to think that he never told me!
+That's what<br>
+ men are! capable of sleeping with the wife of their bosom for
+seven<br>
+ years, and keeping a secret from her! Hiding their thoughts from
+a<br>
+ poor woman for seven years!--doubting her devotion!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Rabourdin, provoked, "for eleven years and more I
+have<br>
+ been unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on
+cutting<br>
+ me short and substituting your ideas for mine. You know nothing
+at all<br>
+ about my scheme."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing! I know all."</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell it to me!" cried Rabourdin, angry for the first
+time since<br>
+ his marriage.</p>
+
+<p>"There! it is half-past six o'clock; finish shaving and dress
+at<br>
+ once," she cried hastily, after the fashion of women when
+pressed on a<br>
+ point they are not ready to talk of. "I must go; we'll adjourn
+the<br>
+ discussion, for I don't want to be nervous on a reception-day.
+Good<br>
+ heavens! the poor soul!" she thought, as she left the room, "it
+IS<br>
+ hard to be in labor for seven years and bring forth a dead
+child! And<br>
+ not trust his wife!"</p>
+
+<p>She went back into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"If you had listened to me you would never had interceded to
+keep your<br>
+ chief clerk; he stole that abominable paper, and has, no doubt,
+kept a<br>
+ fac-simile of it. Adieu, man of genius!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she noticed the almost tragic expression of her husband's
+grief;<br>
+ she felt she had gone too far, and ran to him, seized him just
+as he<br>
+ was, all lathered with soap-suds, and kissed him tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Xavier, don't be vexed," she said. "To-night, after the
+people<br>
+ are gone, we will study your plan; you shall speak at your
+ease,--I<br>
+ will listen just as long as you wish me to. Isn't that nice of
+me?<br>
+ What do I want better than to be the wife of Mohammed?"</p>
+
+<p>She began to laugh; and Rabourdin laughed too, for the
+soapsuds were<br>
+ clinging to Celestine's lips, and her voice had the tones of
+the<br>
+ purest and most steadfast affection.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and dress, dear child; and above all, don't say a word of
+this to<br>
+ des Lupeaulx. Swear you will not. That is the only punishment
+that I<br>
+ impose--"</p>
+
+<p>"IMPOSE!" she cried. "Then I won't swear anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, Celestine, I said in jest a really serious
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night," she said, "I mean your general-secretary to know
+whom I am<br>
+ really intending to attack; he has given me the means."</p>
+
+<p>"Attack whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"The minister," she answered, drawing himself up. "We are to
+be<br>
+ invited to his wife's private parties."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his Celestine's loving caresses, Rabourdin, as he
+finished<br>
+ dressing, could not prevent certain painful thoughts from
+clouding his<br>
+ brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Will she ever appreciate me?" he said to himself. "She does
+not even<br>
+ understand that she is the sole incentive of my whole work. How
+wrong-<br>
+ headed, and yet how excellent a mind!--If I had not married I
+might<br>
+ now have been high in office and rich. I could have saved half
+my<br>
+ salary; my savings well-invested would have given me to-day
+ten<br>
+ thousand francs a year outside of my office, and I might then
+have<br>
+ become, through a good marriage-- Yes, that is all true," he<br>
+ exclaimed, interrupting himself, "but I have Celestine and my
+two<br>
+ children." The man flung himself back on his happiness. To the
+best of<br>
+ married lives there come moments of regret. He entered the salon
+and<br>
+ looked around him. "There are not two women in Paris who
+understand<br>
+ making life pleasant as she does. To keep such a home as this
+on<br>
+ twelve thousand francs a year!" he thought, looking at the
+flower-<br>
+ stands bright with bloom, and thinking of the social enjoyments
+that<br>
+ were about to gratify his vanity. "She was made to be the wife
+of a<br>
+ minister. When I think of his Excellency's wife, and how little
+she<br>
+ helps him! the good woman is a comfortable middle-class dowdy,
+and<br>
+ when she goes to the palace or into society--" He pinched his
+lips<br>
+ together. Very busy men are apt to have very ignorant notions
+about<br>
+ household matters, and you can make them believe that a
+hundred<br>
+ thousand francs afford little or that twelve thousand afford
+all.</p>
+
+<p>Though impatiently expected, and in spite of the flattering
+dishes<br>
+ prepared for the palate of the gourmet-emeritus, des Lupeaulx
+did not<br>
+ come to dinner; in fact he came in very late, about midnight, an
+hour<br>
+ when company dwindles and conversations become intimate and<br>
+ confidential. Andoche Finot, the journalist, was one of the
+few<br>
+ remaining guests.</p>
+
+<p>"I now know all," said des Lupeaulx, when he was comfortably
+seated on<br>
+ a sofa at the corner of the fireplace, a cup of tea in his hand
+and<br>
+ Madame Rabourdin standing before him with a plate of sandwiches
+and<br>
+ some slices of cake very appropriately called "leaden cake."
+"Finot,<br>
+ my dear and witty friend, you can render a great service to
+our<br>
+ gracious queen by letting loose a few dogs upon the men we
+were<br>
+ talking of. You have against you," he said to Rabourdin,
+lowering his<br>
+ voice so as to be heard only by the three persons whom he
+addressed,<br>
+ "a set of usurers and priests--money and the church. The article
+in<br>
+ the liberal journal was instituted by an old money-lender to
+whom the<br>
+ paper was under obligations; but the young fellow who wrote it
+cares<br>
+ nothing about it. The paper is about to change hands, and in
+three<br>
+ days more will be on our side. The royalist opposition,--for we
+have,<br>
+ thanks to Monsieur de Chateaubriand, a royalist opposition, that
+is to<br>
+ say, royalists who have gone over to the liberals,--however,
+there's<br>
+ no need to discuss political matters now,--these assassins of
+Charles<br>
+ X. have promised me to support your appointment at the price of
+our<br>
+ acquiescence in one of their amendments. All my batteries are
+manned.<br>
+ If they threaten us with Baudoyer we shall say to the
+clerical<br>
+ phalanx, 'Such and such a paper and such and such men will
+attack your<br>
+ measures and the whole press will be against you' (for even
+the<br>
+ ministerial journals which I influence will be deaf and dumb,
+won't<br>
+ they, Finot?). 'Appoint Rabourdin, a faithful servant, and
+public<br>
+ opinion is with you--'"</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, hi!" laughed Finot.</p>
+
+<p>"So, there's no need to be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx. "I
+have<br>
+ arranged it all to-night; the Grand Almoner must yield."</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather have had less hope, and you to dinner,"
+whispered<br>
+ Celestine, looking at him with a vexed air which might very well
+pass<br>
+ for an expression of wounded love.</p>
+
+<p>"This must win my pardon," he returned, giving her an
+invitation to<br>
+ the ministry for the following Tuesday.</p>
+
+<p>Celestine opened the letter, and a flush of pleasure came into
+her<br>
+ face. No enjoyment can be compared to that of gratified
+vanity.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what the countess's Tuesdays are," said des
+Lupeaulx, with a<br>
+ confidential air. "To the usual ministerial parties they are
+what the<br>
+ 'Petit-Chateau' is to a court ball. You will be at the heart of
+power!<br>
+ You will see there the Comtesse Feraud, who is still in
+favor<br>
+ notwithstanding Louis XVIII.'s death, Delphine de Nucingen,
+Madame de<br>
+ Listomere, the Marquise d'Espard, and your dear Firmiani; I have
+had<br>
+ her invited to give you her support in case the other women
+attempt to<br>
+ black-ball you. I long to see you in the midst of them."</p>
+
+<p>Celestine threw up her head like a thoroughbred before the
+race, and<br>
+ re-read the invitation just as Baudoyer and Saillard had re-read
+the<br>
+ articles about themselves in the newspapers, without being able
+to<br>
+ quaff enough of it.</p>
+
+<p>"THERE first, and NEXT at the Tuileries," she said to des
+Lupeaulx,<br>
+ who was startled by the words and by the attitude of the
+speaker, so<br>
+ expressive were they of ambition and security.</p>
+
+<p>"Can it be that I am only a stepping-stone?" he asked himself.
+He<br>
+ rose, and went into Madame Rabourdin's bedroom, where she
+followed<br>
+ him, understanding from a motion of his head that he wished to
+speak<br>
+ to her privately.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your husband's plan," he said; "what of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! the useless nonsense of an honest man!" she replied. "He
+wants<br>
+ to suppress fifteen thousand offices and do the work with five
+or six<br>
+ thousand. You never heard of such nonsense; I will let you read
+the<br>
+ whole document when copied; it is written in perfect good faith.
+His<br>
+ analysis of the officials was prompted only by his honesty
+and<br>
+ rectitude,--poor dear man!"</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx was all the more reassured by the genuine laugh
+which<br>
+ accompanied these jesting and contemptuous words, because he was
+a<br>
+ judge of lying and knew that Celestine spoke in good faith.</p>
+
+<p>"But still, what is at the bottom of it all?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and substitute
+taxes on<br>
+ consumption."</p>
+
+<p>"Why it is over a year since Francois Keller and Nucingen
+proposed<br>
+ some such plan, and the minister himself is thinking of a
+reduction of<br>
+ the land-tax."</p>
+
+<p>"There!" exclaimed Celestine, "I told him there was nothing
+new in his<br>
+ scheme."</p>
+
+<p>"No; but he is on the same ground with the best financier of
+the<br>
+ epoch,--the Napoleon of finance. Something may come of it.
+Your<br>
+ husband must surely have some special ideas in his method of
+putting<br>
+ the scheme into practice."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is all commonplace," she said, with a disdainful curl
+of her<br>
+ lip. "Just think of governing France with five or six
+thousand<br>
+ offices, when what is really needed is that everybody in France
+should<br>
+ be personally enlisted in the support of the government."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx seemed satisfied that Rabourdin, to whom in his
+own mind<br>
+ he had granted remarkable talents, was really a man of
+mediocrity.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite sure of the appointment? You don't want a bit
+of<br>
+ feminine advice?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"You women are greater adepts than we in refined treachery,"
+he said,<br>
+ nodding.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, say BAUDOYER to the court and clergy, to divert
+suspicion<br>
+ and put them to sleep, and then, at the last moment, write
+RABOURDIN."</p>
+
+<p>"There are some women who say YES as long as they need a man,
+and NO<br>
+ when he has played his part," returned des Lupeaulx,
+significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I know they do," she answered, laughing; "but they are very
+foolish,<br>
+ for in politics everything recommences. Such proceedings may do
+with<br>
+ fools, but you are a man of sense. In my opinion the greatest
+folly<br>
+ any one can commit is to quarrel with a clever man."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken," said des Lupeaulx, "for such a man
+pardons. The<br>
+ real danger is with the petty spiteful natures who have nothing
+to do<br>
+ but study revenge,--I spend my life among them."</p>
+
+<p>When all the guests were gone, Rabourdin came into his wife's
+room,<br>
+ and after asking for her strict attention, he explained his plan
+and<br>
+ made her see that it did not cut down the revenue but on the
+contrary<br>
+ increased it; he showed her in what ways the public funds
+were<br>
+ employed, and how the State could increase tenfold the
+circulation of<br>
+ money by putting its own, in the proportion of a third, or a
+quarter,<br>
+ into the expenditures which would be sustained by private or
+local<br>
+ interests. He finally proved to her plainly that his plan was
+not mere<br>
+ theory, but a system teeming with methods of execution.
+Celestine,<br>
+ brightly enthusiastic, sprang into her husband's arms and sat
+upon his<br>
+ knee in the chimney-corner.</p>
+
+<p>"At last I find the husband of my dreams!" she cried. "My
+ignorance of<br>
+ your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx's claws. I
+calumniated<br>
+ you to him gloriously and in good faith."</p>
+
+<p>The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last.
+Having<br>
+ labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a
+great<br>
+ man in the eyes of his sole public.</p>
+
+<p>"To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in
+anger,<br>
+ how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But," she added, "a
+man of<br>
+ genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a
+dearly<br>
+ beloved child," she said, caressing him. Then she drew that
+invitation<br>
+ from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly
+hide, and<br>
+ showed it to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is what I wanted," she said; "Des Lupeaulx has put me
+face to<br>
+ face with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his
+Excellency<br>
+ shall be made for a time to bend the knee to me."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into
+the<br>
+ inner circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her
+own!<br>
+ Never courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest
+woman<br>
+ bestowed upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as
+hers.<br>
+ Madame Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable
+where<br>
+ she hired carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old,
+nor<br>
+ bourgeois, nor showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great
+houses,<br>
+ had the dress and appearance of a master. About ten on the
+evening of<br>
+ the eventful Tuesday, she left home in a charming full
+mourning<br>
+ attire. Her hair was dressed with jet grapes of exquisite
+workmanship,<br>
+ --an ornament costing three thousand francs, made by Fossin for
+an<br>
+ Englishwoman who had left Paris before it was finished. The
+leaves<br>
+ were of stamped iron-work, as light as the vine-leaves
+themselves, and<br>
+ the artist had not forgotten the graceful tendrils, which twined
+in<br>
+ the wearer's curls just as, in nature, they catch upon the
+branches.<br>
+ The bracelets, necklace, and earrings were all what is called
+Berlin<br>
+ iron-work; but these delicate arabesques were made in Vienna,
+and<br>
+ seemed to have been fashioned by the fairies who, the stories
+tell us,<br>
+ are condemned by a jealous Carabosse to collect the eyes of
+ants, or<br>
+ weave a fabric so diaphanous that a nutshell can contain it.
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin's graceful figure, made more slender still by the
+black<br>
+ draperies, was shown to advantage by a carefully cut dress, the
+two<br>
+ sides of which met at the shoulders in a single strap without
+sleeves.<br>
+ At every motion she seemed, like a butterfly, to be about to
+leave her<br>
+ covering; but the gown held firmly on by some contrivance of
+the<br>
+ wonderful dressmaker. The robe was of mousseline de laine--a
+material<br>
+ which the manufacturers had not yet sent to the Paris markets;
+a<br>
+ delightful stuff which some months later was to have a wild
+success, a<br>
+ success which went further and lasted longer than most
+French<br>
+ fashions. The actual economy of mousseline de laine, which needs
+no<br>
+ washing, has since injured the sale of cotton fabrics enough
+to<br>
+ revolutionize the Rouen manufactories. Celestine's little
+feet,<br>
+ covered with fine silk stockings and turk-satin shoes (for
+silk-satin<br>
+ is inadmissible in deep mourning) were of elegant proportions.
+Thus<br>
+ dressed, she was very handsome. Her complexion, beautified by a
+bran-<br>
+ bath, was softly radiant. Her eyes, suffused with the light of
+hope,<br>
+ and sparkling with intelligence, justified her claims to the<br>
+ superiority which des Lupeaulx, proud and happy on this
+occasion,<br>
+ asserted for her.</p>
+
+<p>She entered the room well (women will understand the meaning
+of that<br>
+ expression), bowed gracefully to the minister's wife, with a
+happy<br>
+ mixture of deference and of self-respect, and gave no offence by
+a<br>
+ certain reliance on her own dignity; for every beautiful woman
+has the<br>
+ right to seem a queen. With the minister himself she took the
+pretty<br>
+ air of sauciness which women may properly allow themselves with
+men,<br>
+ even when they are grand dukes. She reconnoitred the field, as
+it<br>
+ were, while taking her seat, and saw that she was in the midst
+of one<br>
+ of those select parties of few persons, where the women eye
+and<br>
+ appraise each other, and every word said echoes in all ears;
+where<br>
+ every glance is a stab, and conversation a duel with witnesses;
+where<br>
+ all that is commonplace seems commoner still, and where every
+form of<br>
+ merit or distinction is silently accepted as though it were
+the<br>
+ natural level of all present. Rabourdin betook himself to
+the<br>
+ adjoining salon in which a few persons were playing cards; and
+there<br>
+ he planted himself on exhibition, as it were, which proved that
+he was<br>
+ not without social intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," said the Marquise d'Espard to the Comtesse Feraud,
+Louis<br>
+ XVIII.'s last mistress, "Paris is certainly unique. It
+produces--<br>
+ whence and how, who knows?--women like this person, who seems
+ready to<br>
+ will and to do anything."</p>
+
+<p>"She really does will, and does do everything," put in des
+Lupeaulx,<br>
+ puffed up with satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the wily Madame Rabourdin was courting the
+minister's<br>
+ wife. Carefully coached the evening before by des Lupeaulx, who
+knew<br>
+ all the countess's weak spots, she was flattering her without
+seeming<br>
+ to do so. Every now and then she kept silence; for des Lupeaulx,
+in<br>
+ love as he was, knew her defects, and said to her the night
+before,<br>
+ "Be careful not to talk too much,"--words which were really an
+immense<br>
+ proof of attachment. Bertrand Barrere left behind him this
+sublime<br>
+ axiom: "Never interrupt a woman when dancing to give her
+advice," to<br>
+ which we may add (to make this chapter of the female code
+complete),<br>
+ "Never blame a woman for scattering her pearls."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation became general. From time to time Madame
+Rabourdin<br>
+ joined in, just as a well-trained cat puts a velvet paw on
+her<br>
+ mistress's laces with the claws carefully drawn in. The
+minister, in<br>
+ matters of the heart, had few emotions. There was not
+another<br>
+ statesman under the Restoration who had so completely done
+with<br>
+ gallantry as he; even the opposition papers, the "Miroir,"
+"Pandora,"<br>
+ and "Figaro," could not find a single throbbing artery with
+which to<br>
+ reproach him. Madame Rabourdin knew this, but she knew also
+that<br>
+ ghosts return to old castles, and she had taken it into her head
+to<br>
+ make the minister jealous of the happiness which des Lupeaulx
+was<br>
+ appearing to enjoy. The latter's throat literally gurgled with
+the<br>
+ name of his divinity. To launch his supposed mistress
+successfully, he<br>
+ was endeavoring to persuade the Marquise d'Espard, Madame de
+Nucingen,<br>
+ and the countess, in an eight-ear conversation, that they had
+better<br>
+ admit Madame Rabourdin to their coalition; and Madame de Camps
+was<br>
+ supporting him. At the end of the hour the minister's vanity
+was<br>
+ greatly tickled; Madame Rabourdin's cleverness pleased him, and
+she<br>
+ had won his wife, who, delighted with the siren, invited her to
+come<br>
+ to all her receptions whenever she pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"For your husband, my dear," she said, "will soon be director;
+the<br>
+ minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under
+one<br>
+ director; you will then be one of us, you know."</p>
+
+<p>His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show
+her a<br>
+ certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the
+opposition<br>
+ journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and
+together they<br>
+ laughed over the absurdities of journalism.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the
+pleasure of<br>
+ seeing you here often."</p>
+
+<p>And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Monseigneur," she replied, with one of those glances
+which women<br>
+ hold in reserve, "it seems to me that that depends on you."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?"</p>
+
+<p>"You alone can give me the right to come here."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray explain."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not
+have<br>
+ the bad taste to seem a petitioner."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out
+of<br>
+ place," said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too
+silly to<br>
+ amuse a solemn man.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head
+of a<br>
+ bureau is out of place here; a director's wife is not."</p>
+
+<p>"That point need not be considered," said the minister. "your
+husband<br>
+ is indispensable to the administration; he is already
+appointed."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a veritable fact?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are
+already drawn<br>
+ up."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with
+the<br>
+ minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, "let me
+tell<br>
+ you that I can make you a return."</p>
+
+<p>She was on the point of revealing her husband's plan, when
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx, who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an
+angry<br>
+ sound, which meant that he did not wish to appear to have
+overheard<br>
+ what, in fact, he had been listening to. The minister gave an
+ill-<br>
+ tempered look at the old beau, who, impatient to win his reward,
+had<br>
+ hurried, beyond all precedent, the preliminary work of the<br>
+ appointment. He had carried the papers to his Excellency that
+evening,<br>
+ and desired to take himself, on the morrow, the news of the<br>
+ appointment to her whom he was now endeavoring to exhibit as
+his<br>
+ mistress. Just then the minister's valet approached des Lupeaulx
+in a<br>
+ mysterious manner, and told him that his own servant wished him
+to<br>
+ deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost importance.</p>
+
+<p>The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus
+worded:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to
+see<br>
+ you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to
+terms<br>
+ with</p>
+
+<p>Your obedient servant,<br>
+ Gobseck.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><br>
+ The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we
+regret we<br>
+ cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who
+like<br>
+ to guess character from what may be called the physiognomy
+of<br>
+ signature. If ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it
+was<br>
+ assuredly this written name, in which the first and the final
+letter<br>
+ approached each other like the voracious jaws of a
+shark,--insatiable,<br>
+ always open, seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak. As
+for the<br>
+ wording of the note, the spirit of usury alone could have
+inspired a<br>
+ sentence so imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said
+all<br>
+ and revealed nothing. Those who had never heard of Gobseck would
+have<br>
+ felt, on reading words which compelled him to whom they were
+addressed<br>
+ to obey, yet gave no order, the presence of the implacable
+money-<br>
+ lender of the rue des Gres. Like a dog called to heel by the
+huntsman,<br>
+ des Lupeaulx left his present quest and went immediately to his
+own<br>
+ rooms, thinking of his hazardous position. Imagine a general to
+whom<br>
+ an aide-de-camp rides up and says: "The enemy with thirty
+thousand<br>
+ fresh troops is attacking on our right flank."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ A very few words will serve to explain this sudden arrival of
+Gigonnet<br>
+ and Gobseck on the field of battle,--for des Lupeaulx found them
+both<br>
+ waiting. At eight o'clock that evening, Martin Falleix,
+returning on<br>
+ the wings of the wind,--thanks to three francs to the postboys
+and a<br>
+ courier in advance,--had brought back with him the deeds of
+the<br>
+ property signed the night before. Taken at once to the Cafe
+Themis by<br>
+ Mitral, these securities passed into the hands of the two
+usurers, who<br>
+ hastened (though on foot) to the ministry. It was past eleven
+o'clock.<br>
+ Des Lupeaulx trembled when he saw those sinister faces, emitting
+a<br>
+ simultaneous look as direct as a pistol shot and as brilliant as
+the<br>
+ flash itself.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, my masters?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>The two extortioners continued cold and motionless. Gigonnet
+silently<br>
+ pointed to the documents in his hand, and then at the
+servant.</p>
+
+<p>"Come into my study," said des Lupeaulx, dismissing his valet
+by a<br>
+ sign.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand French very well," remarked Gigonnet,
+approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you come here to torment a man who enabled each of you
+to make a<br>
+ couple of hundred thousand francs?"</p>
+
+<p>"And who will help us to make more, I hope," said
+Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"Some new affair?" asked des Lupeaulx. "If you want me to help
+you,<br>
+ consider that I recollect the past."</p>
+
+<p>"So do we," answered Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"My debts must be paid," said des Lupeaulx, disdainfully, so
+as not to<br>
+ seem worsted at the outset.</p>
+
+<p>"True," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us come to the point, my son," said Gigonnet. "Don't
+stiffen your<br>
+ chin in your cravat; with us all that is useless. Take these
+deeds and<br>
+ read them."</p>
+
+<p>The two usurers took a mental inventory of des Lupeaulx's
+study while<br>
+ he read with amazement and stupefaction a deed of purchase
+which<br>
+ seemed wafted to him from the clouds by angels.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you have a pair of intelligent business
+agents in<br>
+ Gobseck and me?" asked Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"But tell me, to what do I owe such able co-operation?" said
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx, suspicious and uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>"We knew eight days ago a fact that without us you would not
+have<br>
+ known till to-morrow morning. The president of the chamber
+of<br>
+ commerce, a deputy, as you know, feels himself obliged to
+resign."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx's eyes dilated, and were as big as daisies.</p>
+
+<p>"Your minister has been tricking you about this event," said
+the<br>
+ concise Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"You master me," said the general-secretary, bowing with an
+air of<br>
+ profound respect, bordering however, on sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>"True," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you mean to strangle me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, begin your work, executioners," said the
+secretary,<br>
+ smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"You will see," resumed Gigonnet, "that the sum total of your
+debts is<br>
+ added to the sum loaned by us for the purchase of the property;
+we<br>
+ have bought them up."</p>
+
+<p>"Here are the deeds," said Gobseck, taking from the pocket of
+his<br>
+ greenish overcoat a number of legal papers.</p>
+
+<p>"You have three years in which to pay off the whole sum,"
+said<br>
+ Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said des Lupeaulx, frightened at such kindness, and
+also by so<br>
+ apparently fantastic an arrangement. "What do you want of
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"La Billardiere's place for Baudoyer," said Gigonnet,
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a small matter, though it will be next to impossible
+for me to<br>
+ do it," said des Lupeaulx. "I have just tied my hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Bite the cords with your teeth," said Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"They are sharp," added Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" asked des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>"We keep the title-deeds of the property till the debts are
+paid,"<br>
+ said Gigonnet, putting one of the papers before des Lupeaulx;
+"and if<br>
+ the matter of the appointment is not satisfactorily arranged
+within<br>
+ six days our names will be substituted in place of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"You are deep," cried the secretary.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is all?" exclaimed des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>"All," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"You agree?" asked Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx nodded his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, sign this power of attorney. Within two days
+Baudoyer is<br>
+ to be nominated; within six your debts will be cleared off,
+and--"</p>
+
+<p>"And what?" asked des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>"We guarantee--"</p>
+
+<p>"Guarantee!--what?" said the secretary, more and more
+astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"Your election to the Chamber," said Gigonnet, rising on his
+heels.<br>
+ "We have secured a majority of fifty-two farmers' and
+mechanics'<br>
+ votes, which will be thrown precisely as those who lend you this
+money<br>
+ dictate."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx wrung Gigonnet's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It is only such as we who never misunderstand each other," he
+said;<br>
+ "this is what I call doing business. I'll make you a return
+gift."</p>
+
+<p>"Right," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Gigonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"The cross of the Legion of honor for your imbecile of a
+nephew."</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said Gigonnet, "I see you know him well."</p>
+
+<p>The pair took leave of des Lupeaulx, who conducted them to
+the<br>
+ staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"They must be secret envoys from foreign powers," whispered
+the<br>
+ footmen to each other.</p>
+
+<p>Once in the street, the two usurers looked at each other under
+a<br>
+ street lamp and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"He will owe us nine thousand francs interest a year," said
+Gigonnet;<br>
+ "that property doesn't bring him in five."</p>
+
+<p>"He is under our thumb for a long time," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll build; he'll commit extravagancies," continued
+Gigonnet;<br>
+ "Falleix will get his land."</p>
+
+<p>"His interest is only to be made deputy; the old fox laughs at
+the<br>
+ rest," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! hey!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hi! hi!"</p>
+
+<p>These dry little exclamations served as a laugh to the two old
+men,<br>
+ who took their way back (always on foot) to the Cafe Themis.</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx returned to the salon and found Madame Rabourdin
+sailing<br>
+ with the wind of success, and very charming; while his
+Excellency,<br>
+ usually so gloomy, showed a smooth and gracious countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"She performs miracles," thought des Lupeaulx. "What a
+wonderfully<br>
+ clever woman! I must get to the bottom of her heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Your little lady is decidedly handsome," said the Marquise to
+the<br>
+ secretary; "now if she only had your name."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, her defect is that she is the daughter of an auctioneer.
+She<br>
+ will fail for want of birth," replied des Lupeaulx, with a cold
+manner<br>
+ that contrasted strangely with the ardor of his remarks about
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin not half an hour earlier.</p>
+
+<p>The marquise looked at him fixedly.</p>
+
+<p>"The glance you gave them did not escape me," she said,
+motioning<br>
+ towards the minister and Madame Rabourdin; "it pierced the mask
+of<br>
+ your spectacles. How amusing you both are, to quarrel over that
+bone!"</p>
+
+<p>As the marquise turned to leave the room the minister joined
+her and<br>
+ escorted her to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said des Lupeaulx to Madame Rabourdin, "what do you
+think of<br>
+ his Excellency?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is charming. We must know these poor ministers to
+appreciate<br>
+ them," she added, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard
+by his<br>
+ Excellency's wife. "The newspapers and the opposition calumnies
+are so<br>
+ misleading about men in politics that we are all more or
+less<br>
+ influenced by them; but such prejudices turn to the advantage
+of<br>
+ statesmen when we come to know them personally."</p>
+
+<p>"He is very good-looking," said des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I assure you he is quite lovable," she said,
+heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear child," said des Lupeaulx, with a genial, caressing
+manner; "you<br>
+ have actually done the impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Resuscitated the dead. I did not think that man had a heart;
+ask his<br>
+ wife. But he may have just enough for a passing fancy.
+Therefore<br>
+ profit by it. Come this way, and don't be surprised." He led
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin into the boudoir, placed her on a sofa, and sat down
+beside<br>
+ her. "You are very sly," he said, "and I like you the better for
+it.<br>
+ Between ourselves, you are a clever woman. Des Lupeaulx served
+to<br>
+ bring you into this house, and that is all you wanted of him,
+isn't<br>
+ it? Now when a woman decides to love a man for what she can get
+out of<br>
+ him it is better to take a sexagenarian Excellency than a<br>
+ quadragenarian secretary; there's more profit and less
+annoyance. I'm<br>
+ a man with spectacles, grizzled hair, worn out with
+dissipation,--a<br>
+ fine lover, truly! I tell myself all this again and again. It
+must be<br>
+ admitted, of course, that I can sometimes be useful, but
+never<br>
+ agreeable. Isn't that so? A man must be a fool if he cannot
+reason<br>
+ about himself. You can safely admit the truth and let me see to
+the<br>
+ depths of your heart; we are partners, not lovers. If I show
+some<br>
+ tenderness at times, you are too superior a woman to pay any
+attention<br>
+ to such follies; you will forgive me,--you are not a
+school-girl, or a<br>
+ bourgeoise of the rue Saint-Denis. Bah! you and I are too well
+brought<br>
+ up for that. There's the Marquise d'Espard who has just left the
+room;<br>
+ this is precisely what she thinks and does. She and I came to
+an<br>
+ understanding two years ago [the coxcomb!], and now she has only
+to<br>
+ write me a line and say, 'My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige
+me by<br>
+ doing such and such a thing,' and it is done at once. We are
+engaged<br>
+ at this very moment in getting a commission of lunacy on her
+husband.<br>
+ Ah! you women, you can get what you want by the bestowal of a
+few<br>
+ favors. Well, then, my dear child, bewitch the minister. I'll
+help<br>
+ you; it is my interest to do so. Yes, I wish he had a woman who
+could<br>
+ influence him; he wouldn't escape me,--for he does escape me
+quite<br>
+ often, and the reason is that I hold him only through his
+intellect.<br>
+ Now if I were one with a pretty woman who was also intimate with
+him,<br>
+ I should hold him by his weaknesses, and that is much the
+firmest<br>
+ grip. Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the<br>
+ advantages of the conquest you are making."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Madame Rabourdin listened in amazement to this singular
+profession of<br>
+ rascality. The apparent artlessness of this political
+swindler<br>
+ prevented her from suspecting a trick.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe he really thinks of me?" she asked, falling
+into the<br>
+ trap.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it; I am certain of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true that Rabourdin's appointment is signed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I gave him the papers this morning. But it is not enough that
+your<br>
+ husband should be made director; he must be Master of
+petitions."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, go back to the salon and coquette a little more
+with his<br>
+ Excellency."</p>
+
+<p>"It is true," she said, "that I never fully understood you
+till<br>
+ to-night. There is nothing commonplace about YOU."</p>
+
+<p>"We will be two old friends," said des Lupeaulx, "and suppress
+all<br>
+ tender nonsense and tormenting love; we will take things as they
+did<br>
+ under the Regency. Ah! they had plenty of wit and wisdom in
+those<br>
+ days!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are really strong; you deserve my admiration," she said,
+smiling,<br>
+ and holding out her hand to him, "one does more for one's
+friend, you<br>
+ know, than for one's--"</p>
+
+<p>She left him without finishing her sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear creature!" thought des Lupeaulx, as he saw her approach
+the<br>
+ minister, "des Lupeaulx has no longer the slightest remorse in
+turning<br>
+ against you. To-morrow evening when you offer me a cup of tea,
+you<br>
+ will be offering me a thing I no longer care for. All is over.
+Ah!<br>
+ when a man is forty years of age women may take pains to catch
+him,<br>
+ but they won't love him."</p>
+
+<p>He looked himself over in a mirror, admitting honestly that
+though he<br>
+ did very well as a politician he was a wreck on the shores of
+Cythera.<br>
+ At the same moment Madame Rabourdin was gathering herself
+together for<br>
+ a becoming exit. She wished to make a last graceful impression
+on the<br>
+ minds of all, and she succeeded. Contrary to the usual custom
+in<br>
+ society, every one cried out as soon as she was gone, "What a
+charming<br>
+ woman!" and the minister himself took her to the outer door.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite sure you will think of me to-morrow," he said,
+alluding to<br>
+ the appointment.</p>
+
+<p>"There are so few high functionaries who have agreeable
+wives,"<br>
+ remarked his Excellency on re-entering the room, "that I am very
+well<br>
+ satisfied with our new acquisition."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think her a little overpowering?" said des Lupeaulx
+with a<br>
+ piqued air.</p>
+
+<p>The women present all exchanged expressive glances; the
+rivalry<br>
+ between the minister and his secretary amused them and
+instigated one<br>
+ of those pretty little comedies which Parisian women play so
+well.<br>
+ They excited and led on his Excellency and des Lupeaulx by a
+series of<br>
+ comments on Madame Rabourdin: one thought her too studied in
+manner,<br>
+ too eager to appear clever; another compared the graces of the
+middle<br>
+ classes with the manners of high life, while des Lupeaulx
+defended his<br>
+ pretended mistress as we all defend an enemy in society.</p>
+
+<p>"Do her justice, ladies," he said; "is it not extraordinary
+that the<br>
+ daughter of an auctioneer should appear as well as she does? See
+where<br>
+ she came from, and what she is. She will end in the Tuileries;
+that is<br>
+ what she intends,--she told me so."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose she is the daughter of an auctioneer," said the
+Comtesse<br>
+ Feraud, smiling, "that will not hinder her husband's rise to
+power."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in these days, you mean," said the minister's wife,
+tightening<br>
+ her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," said his Excellency to the countess, sternly,
+"such<br>
+ sentiments and such speeches lead to revolutions; unhappily, the
+court<br>
+ and the great world do not restrain them. You would hardly
+believe,<br>
+ however, how the injudicious conduct of the aristocracy in
+this<br>
+ respect displeases certain clear-sighted personages at the
+palace. If<br>
+ I were a great lord, instead of being, as I am, a mere
+country<br>
+ gentleman who seems to be placed where he is to transact your
+business<br>
+ for you, the monarchy would not be as insecure as I now think it
+is.<br>
+ What becomes of a throne which does not bestow dignity on those
+who<br>
+ administer its government? We are far indeed from the days when
+a king<br>
+ could make men great at will,--such men as Louvois, Colbert,<br>
+ Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,--Sully, in his origin, was
+no<br>
+ greater than I. I speak to you thus because we are here in
+private<br>
+ among ourselves. I should be very paltry indeed if I were
+personally<br>
+ offended by such speeches. After all, it is for us and not for
+others<br>
+ to make us great."</p>
+
+<p>"You are appointed, dear," cried Celestine, pressing her
+husband's<br>
+ hand as they drove away. "If it had not been for des Lupeaulx I
+should<br>
+ have explained your scheme to his Excellency. But I will do it
+next<br>
+ Tuesday, and it will help the further matter of making you
+Master of<br>
+ petitions."</p>
+
+<p>In the life of every woman there comes a day when she shines
+in all<br>
+ her glory; a day which gives her an unfading recollection to
+which she<br>
+ recurs with happiness all her life. As Madame Rabourdin took off
+one<br>
+ by one the ornaments of her apparel, she thought over the events
+of<br>
+ this evening, and marked the day among the triumphs and glories
+of her<br>
+ life,--all her beauties had been seen and envied, she had been
+praised<br>
+ and flattered by the minister's wife, delighted thus to make the
+other<br>
+ women jealous of her; but, above all, her grace and vanities had
+shone<br>
+ to the profit of conjugal love. Her husband was appointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you think I looked well to-night?" she said to him,
+joyously.</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant Mitral, waiting at the Cafe Themis, saw
+the two<br>
+ usurers returning, but was unable to perceive the slightest<br>
+ indications of the result on their impassible faces.</p>
+
+<p>"What of it?" he said, when they were all seated at table.</p>
+
+<p>"Same as ever," replied Gigonnet, rubbing his hands, "victory
+with<br>
+ gold."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said Gobseck.</p>
+
+<p>Mitral took a cabriolet and went straight to the Saillards
+and<br>
+ Baudoyers, who were still playing boston at a late hour. No one
+was<br>
+ present but the Abbe Gaudron. Falleix, half-dead with the
+fatigue of<br>
+ his journey, had gone to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be appointed, nephew," said Mitral; "and there's a
+surprise<br>
+ in store for you."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Saillard.</p>
+
+<p>"The cross of the Legion of honor?" cried Mitral.</p>
+
+<p>"God protects those who guard his altars," said Gaudron.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Te Deum was sung with equal joy and confidence in
+both camps.</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<h4>FORWARD, MOLLUSKS!</h4>
+
+<p>The next day, Wednesday, Monsieur Rabourdin was to transact
+business<br>
+ with the minister, for he had filled the late La Billardiere's
+place<br>
+ since the beginning of the latter's illness. On such days the
+clerks<br>
+ came punctually, the servants were specially attentive, there
+was<br>
+ always a certain excitement in the offices on these
+signing-days,--and<br>
+ why, nobody ever knew. On this occasion the three servants were
+at<br>
+ their post, flattering themselves they should get a few fees;
+for a<br>
+ rumor of Rabourdin's nomination had spread through the ministry
+the<br>
+ night before, thanks to Dutocq. Uncle Antoine and Laurent had
+donned<br>
+ their full uniform, when, at a quarter to eight, des
+Lupeaulx's<br>
+ servant came in with a letter, which he begged Antoine to
+give<br>
+ secretly to Dutocq, saying that the general-secretary had
+ordered him<br>
+ to deliver it without fail at Monsieur Dutocq's house by
+seven<br>
+ o'clock.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "I'm sure I don't know how it happened," he said, "but I
+overslept<br>
+ myself. I've only just waked up, and he'd play the devil's
+tattoo on<br>
+ me if he knew the letter hadn't gone. I know a famous secret,
+Antoine;<br>
+ but don't say anything about it to the clerks if I tell you;
+promise?<br>
+ He would send me off if he knew I had said a single word; he
+told me<br>
+ so."</p>
+
+<p>"What's inside the letter?" asked Antoine, eying it.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing; I looked this way--see."</p>
+
+<p>He made the letter gape open, and showed Antoine that there
+was<br>
+ nothing but blank paper to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>"This is going to be a great day for you, Laurent," went on
+the<br>
+ secretary's man. "You are to have a new director. Economy must
+be the<br>
+ order of the day, for they are going to unite the two divisions
+under<br>
+ one director--you fellows will have to look out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, nine clerks are put on the retired list," said Dutocq,
+who came<br>
+ in at the moment; "how did you hear that?"</p>
+
+<p>Antoine gave him the letter, and he had no sooner opened it
+than he<br>
+ rushed headlong downstairs in the direction of the secretary's
+office.</p>
+
+<p>The bureaus Rabourdin and Baudoyer, after idling and gossiping
+since<br>
+ the death of Monsieur de la Billardiere, were now recovering
+their<br>
+ usual official look and the dolce far niente habits of a
+government<br>
+ office. Nevertheless, the approaching end of the year did cause
+rather<br>
+ more application among the clerks, just as porters and servants
+become<br>
+ at that season more unctuously civil. They all came punctually,
+for<br>
+ one thing; more remained after four o'clock than was usual at
+other<br>
+ times. It was not forgotten that fees and gratuities depend on
+the<br>
+ last impressions made upon the minds of masters. The news of the
+union<br>
+ of the two divisions, that of La Billardiere and that of
+Clergeot,<br>
+ under one director, had spread through the various offices. The
+number<br>
+ of the clerks to be retired was known, but all were in ignorance
+of<br>
+ the names. It was taken for granted that Poiret would not be
+replaced,<br>
+ and that would be a retrenchment. Little La Billardiere had
+already<br>
+ departed. Two new supernumeraries had made their appearance,
+and,<br>
+ alarming circumstance! they were both sons of deputies. The news
+told<br>
+ about in the offices the night before, just as the clerks
+were<br>
+ dispersing, agitated all minds, and for the first half-hour
+after<br>
+ arrival in the morning they stood around the stoves and talked
+it<br>
+ over. But earlier than that, Dutocq, as we have seen, had rushed
+to<br>
+ des Lupeaulx on receiving his note, and found him dressing.
+Without<br>
+ laying down his razor, the general-secretary cast upon his
+subordinate<br>
+ the glance of a general issuing an order.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we alone?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. March on Rabourdin; forward! steady! Of course you
+kept a<br>
+ copy of that paper?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You understand me? Inde iroe! There must be a general hue and
+cry<br>
+ raised against him. Find some way to start a clamor--"</p>
+
+<p>"I could get a man to make a caricature, but I haven't five
+hundred<br>
+ francs to pay for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who would make it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bixou."</p>
+
+<p>"He shall have a thousand and be under-head-clerk to
+Colleville, who<br>
+ will arrange with them; tell him so."</p>
+
+<p>"But he wouldn't believe it on nothing more than my word."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you trying to make me compromise myself? Either do the
+thing or<br>
+ let it alone; do you hear me?"</p>
+
+<p>"If Monsieur Baudoyer were director--"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he will be. Go now, and make haste; you have no time to
+lose.<br>
+ Go down the back-stairs; I don't want people to know you have
+just<br>
+ seen me."</p>
+
+<p>While Dutocq was returning to the clerks' office and asking
+himself<br>
+ how he could best incite a clamor against his chief without<br>
+ compromising himself, Bixiou rushed to the Rabourdin office for
+a word<br>
+ of greeting. Believing that he had lost his bet the incorrigible
+joker<br>
+ thought it amusing to pretend that he had won it.</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [mimicking Phellion's voice]. "Gentlemen, I salute you
+with a<br>
+ collective how d'ye do, and I appoint Sunday next for the dinner
+at<br>
+ the Rocher de Cancale. But a serious question presents itself.
+Is that<br>
+ dinner to include the clerks who are dismissed?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "And those who retire?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Not that I care, for it isn't I who pay."
+[General<br>
+ stupefaction.] "Baudoyer is appointed. I think I already hear
+him<br>
+ calling Laurent" [mimicking Baudoyer], "Laurent! lock up my
+hair-<br>
+ shirt, and my scourge." [They all roar with laughter.] "Yes,
+yes, he<br>
+ laughs well who laughs last. Gentlemen, there's a great deal in
+that<br>
+ anagram of Colleville's. 'Xavier Rabourdin, chef de
+bureau--D'abord<br>
+ reva bureaux, e-u fin riche.' If I were named 'Charles X., par
+la<br>
+ grace de Dieu roi de France et de Navarre,' I should tremble in
+my<br>
+ shoes at the fate those letters anagrammatize."</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "Look here! are you making fun?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "No, I am not. Rabourdin resigns in a rage at finding
+Baudoyer<br>
+ appointed director."</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux [entering.] "Nonsense, no such thing! Antoine (to whom
+I have<br>
+ just been paying forty francs that I owed him) tells me that
+Monsieur<br>
+ and Madame Rabourdin were at the minister's private party last
+night<br>
+ and stayed till midnight. His Excellency escorted Madame
+Rabourdin to<br>
+ the staircase. It seems she was divinely dressed. In short, it
+is<br>
+ quite certain that Rabourdin is to be director. Riffe, the
+secretary's<br>
+ copying clerk, told me he sat up all the night before to draw
+the<br>
+ papers; it is no longer a secret. Monsieur Clergeot is retired.
+After<br>
+ thirty years' service that's no misfortune. Monsieur Cochlin,
+who is<br>
+ rich--"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "By cochineal."</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "Yes, cochineal; he's a partner in the house of
+Matifat, rue<br>
+ des Lombards. Well, he is retired; so is Poiret. Neither is to
+be<br>
+ replaced. So much is certain; the rest is all conjecture.
+The<br>
+ appointment of Monsieur Rabourdin is to be announced this
+morning;<br>
+ they are afraid of intrigues."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "What intrigues?"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Baudoyer's, confound him! The priests uphold him;
+here's<br>
+ another article in the liberal journal,--only half a dozen
+lines, but<br>
+ they are queer" [reads]:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Certain persons spoke last night in the lobby of the
+Opera-house<br>
+ of the return of Monsieur de Chateaubriand to the ministry,
+basing<br>
+ their opinion on the choice made of Monsieur Rabourdin (the<br>
+ protege of friends of the noble viscount) to fill the office
+for<br>
+ which Monsieur Baudoyer was first selected. The clerical party
+is<br>
+ not likely to withdraw unless in deference to the great
+writer.</p>
+
+<p>"Blackguards!"</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Dutocq [entering, having heard the whole discussion].
+"Blackguards!<br>
+ Who? Rabourdin? Then you know the news?"</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Fleury [rolling his eyes savagely]. "Rabourdin a blackguard! Are
+you<br>
+ mad, Dutocq? do you want a ball in your brains to give them
+weight?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "I said nothing against Monsieur Rabourdin; only it
+has just<br>
+ been told to me in confidence that he has written a paper
+denouncing<br>
+ all the clerks and officials, and full of facts about their
+lives; in<br>
+ short, the reason why his friends support him is because he
+has<br>
+ written this paper against the administration, in which we are
+all<br>
+ exposed--"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [in a loud voice]. "Monsieur Rabourdin is incapable
+of--"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Very proper in you to say so. Tell me, Dutocq" [they
+whisper<br>
+ together and then go into the corridor].</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "What has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Do you remember what I said to you about that
+caricature?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Yes, what then?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Make it, and you shall be under-head-clerk with a
+famous fee.<br>
+ The fact is, my dear fellow, there's dissension among the powers
+that<br>
+ be. The minister is pledged to Rabourdin, but if he doesn't
+appoint<br>
+ Baudoyer he offends the priests and their party. You see, the
+King,<br>
+ the Dauphin and the Dauphine, the clergy, and lastly the court,
+all<br>
+ want Baudoyer; the minister wants Rabourdin."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Good!"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "To ease the matter off, the minister, who sees he
+must give<br>
+ way, wants to strangle the difficulty. We must find some good
+reason<br>
+ for getting rid of Rabourdin. Now somebody has lately unearthed
+a<br>
+ paper of his, exposing the present system of administration
+and<br>
+ wanting to reform it; and that paper is going the rounds,--at
+least,<br>
+ this is how I understand the matter. Make the drawing we talked
+of; in<br>
+ so doing you'll play the game of all the big people, and help
+the<br>
+ minister, the court, the clergy,--in short, everybody; and
+you'll get<br>
+ your appointment. Now do you understand me?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "I don't understand how you came to know all that;
+perhaps you<br>
+ are inventing it."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Do you want me to let you see what Rabourdin wrote
+about<br>
+ you?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Then come home with me; for I must put the document
+into safe<br>
+ keeping."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "You go first alone." [Re-enters the bureau
+Rabourdin.] "What<br>
+ Dutocq told you is really all true, word of honor! It seems
+that<br>
+ Monsieur Rabourdin has written and sent in very unflattering<br>
+ descriptions of the clerks whom he wants to 'reform.' That's the
+real<br>
+ reason why his secret friends wish him appointed. Well, well; we
+live<br>
+ in days when nothing astonishes me" [flings his cloak about him
+like<br>
+ Talma, and declaims]:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Thou who has seen the fall of grand, illustrious heads,<br>
+ Why thus amazed, insensate that thou art,</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"to find a man like Rabourdin employing such means? Baudoyer
+is too<br>
+ much of a fool to know how to use them. Accept my
+congratulations,<br>
+ gentlemen; either way you are under a most illustrious chief"
+[goes<br>
+ off].</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Poiret. "I shall leave this ministry without ever comprehending
+a<br>
+ single word that gentleman utters. What does he mean with his
+'heads<br>
+ that fall'?"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "'Heads that fell?' why, think of the four sergeants
+of<br>
+ Rochelle, Ney, Berton, Caron, the brothers Faucher, and the<br>
+ massacres."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "He asserts very flippantly things that he only
+guesses at."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Say at once that he lies; in his mouth truth itself
+turns to<br>
+ corrosion."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "Your language is unparliamentary and lacks the
+courtesy and<br>
+ consideration which are due to a colleague."</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "It seems to me that if what he says is false, the
+proper name<br>
+ for it is calumny, defamation of character; and such a
+slanderer<br>
+ deserves the thrashing."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [getting hot]. "If the government offices are public
+places,<br>
+ the matter ought to be taken into the police-courts."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [wishing to avert a quarrel, tries to turn the
+conversation].<br>
+ "Gentleman, might I ask you to keep quiet? I am writing a
+little<br>
+ treatise on moral philosophy, and I am just at the heart of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [interrupting]. "What are you saying about it,
+Monsieur<br>
+ Phellion?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [reading]. "Question.--What is the soul of man?</p>
+
+<p>"Answer.--A spiritual substance which thinks and reasons."</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "Spiritual substance! you might as well talk
+about<br>
+ immaterial stone."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Don't interrupt; let him go on."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [continuing]. "Quest.--Whence comes the soul?</p>
+
+<p>"Ans.--From God, who created it of a nature one and
+indivisible; the<br>
+ destructibility thereof is, consequently, not conceivable, and
+he hath<br>
+ said--"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [amazed]. "God said?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "Yes, monsieur; tradition authorizes the
+statement."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [to Poiret]. "Come, don't interrupt, yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [resuming]. "--and he hath said that he created it
+immortal;<br>
+ in other words, the soul can never die.</p>
+
+<p>"Quest.--What are the uses of the soul?</p>
+
+<p>"Ans.--To comprehend, to will, to remember; these
+constitute<br>
+ understanding, volition, memory.</p>
+
+<p>"Quest.--What are the uses of the understanding?</p>
+
+<p>"Ans.--To know. It is the eye of the soul."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "And the soul is the eye of what?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [continuing]. "Quest.--What ought the understanding
+to know?</p>
+
+<p>"Ans.--Truth.</p>
+
+<p>"Quest.--Why does man possess volition?</p>
+
+<p>"Ans.--To love good and hate evil.</p>
+
+<p>"Quest.--What is good?</p>
+
+<p>"Ans.--That which makes us happy."</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "Heavens! do you teach that to young ladies?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "Yes" [continuing]. "Quest.--How many kinds of good
+are<br>
+ there?"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Amazingly indecorous, to say the least."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [aggrieved]. "Oh, monsieur!" [Controlling himself.]
+"But<br>
+ here's the answer,--that's as far as I have got" [reads]:--</p>
+
+<p>"Ans.--There are two kinds of good,--eternal good and temporal
+good."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [with a look of contempt]. "And does that sell for
+anything?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "I hope it will. It requires great application of
+mind to<br>
+ carry on a system of questions and answers; that is why I ask
+you to<br>
+ be quiet and let me think, for the answers--"</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier [interrupting]. "The answers might be sold
+separately."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Is that a pun?"</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "No; a riddle."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "I am sorry I interrupted you" [he dives into his
+office<br>
+ desk]. "But" [to himself] "at any rate, I have stopped their
+talking<br>
+ about Monsieur Rabourdin."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment a scene was taking place between the minister
+and des<br>
+ Lupeaulx which decided Rabourdin's fate. The general-secretary
+had<br>
+ gone to see the minister in his private study before the
+breakfast-<br>
+ hour, to make sure that La Briere was not within hearing.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Excellency is not treating me frankly--"</p>
+
+<p>"He means a quarrel," thought the minister; "and all because
+his<br>
+ mistress coquetted with me last night. I did not think you
+so<br>
+ juvenile, my dear friend," he said aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Friend?" said the general-secretary, "that is what I want to
+find<br>
+ out."</p>
+
+<p>The minister looked haughtily at des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>"We are alone," continued the secretary, "and we can come to
+an<br>
+ understanding. The deputy of the arrondissement in which my
+estate is<br>
+ situated--"</p>
+
+<p>"So it is really an estate!" said the minister, laughing, to
+hide his<br>
+ surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Increased by a recent purchase of two hundred thousand
+francs' worth<br>
+ of adjacent property," replied des Lupeaulx, carelessly. "You
+knew of<br>
+ the deputy's approaching resignation at least ten days ago, and
+you<br>
+ did not tell me of it. You were perhaps not bound to do so, but
+you<br>
+ knew very well that I am most anxious to take my seat in the
+centre.<br>
+ Has it occurred to you that I might fling myself back on the<br>
+ 'Doctrine'?--which, let me tell you, will destroy the
+administration<br>
+ and the monarchy both if you continue to allow the party of<br>
+ representative government to be recruited from men of talent
+whom you<br>
+ ignore. Don't you know that in every nation there are fifty to
+sixty,<br>
+ not more, dangerous heads, whose schemes are in proportion to
+their<br>
+ ambition? The secret of knowing how to govern is to know those
+heads<br>
+ well, and either to chop them off or buy them. I don't know how
+much<br>
+ talent I have, but I know that I have ambition; and you are
+committing<br>
+ a serious blunder when you set aside a man who wishes you well.
+The<br>
+ anointed head dazzles for the time being, but what next?--Why, a
+war<br>
+ of words; discussions will spring up once more and grow
+embittered,<br>
+ envenomed. Then, for your own sake, I advise you not to find me
+at the<br>
+ Left Centre. In spite of your prefect's manoeuvres (instructions
+for<br>
+ which no doubt went from here confidentially) I am secure of
+a<br>
+ majority. The time has come for you and me to understand each
+other.<br>
+ After a breeze like this people sometimes become closer friends
+than<br>
+ ever. I must be made count and receive the grand cordon of the
+Legion<br>
+ of honor as a reward for my public services. However, I care
+less for<br>
+ those things just now than I do for something else in which you
+are<br>
+ more personally concerned. You have not yet appointed Rabourdin,
+and I<br>
+ have news this morning which tends to show that most persons
+will be<br>
+ better satisfied if you appoint Baudoyer."</p>
+
+<p>"Appoint Baudoyer!" echoed the minister. "Do you know
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said des Lupeaulx; "but suppose he proves incapable, as
+he<br>
+ will, you can then get rid of him by asking those who protect
+him to<br>
+ employ him elsewhere. You will thus get back an important office
+to<br>
+ give to friends; it may come in at the right moment to
+facilitate some<br>
+ compromise."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have pledged it to Rabourdin."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be; and I don't ask you to make the change this very
+day. I<br>
+ know the danger of saying yes and no within twenty-four hours.
+But<br>
+ postpone the appointment, and don't sign the papers till the day
+after<br>
+ to-morrow; by that time you may find it impossible to retain<br>
+ Rabourdin,--in fact, in all probability, he will send you
+his<br>
+ resignation--"</p>
+
+<p>"His resignation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is the tool of a secret power in whose interests he has
+carried on<br>
+ a system of espionage in all the ministries, and the thing has
+been<br>
+ discovered by mere accident. He has written a paper of some
+kind,<br>
+ giving short histories of all the officials. Everybody is
+talking of<br>
+ it; the clerks are furious. For heaven's sake, don't transact
+business<br>
+ with him to-day; let me find some means for you to avoid it. Ask
+an<br>
+ audience of the King; I am sure you will find great satisfaction
+there<br>
+ if you concede the point about Baudoyer; and you can obtain
+something<br>
+ as an equivalent. Your position will be better than ever if you
+are<br>
+ forced later to dismiss a fool whom the court party impose upon
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"What has made you turn against Rabourdin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you forgive Monsieur de Chateaubriand for writing an
+article<br>
+ against the ministry? Well, read that, and see how Rabourdin
+has<br>
+ treated me in his secret document," said des Lupeaulx, giving
+the<br>
+ paper to the minister. "He pretends to reorganize the government
+from<br>
+ beginning to end,--no doubt in the interests of some secret
+society of<br>
+ which, as yet, we know nothing. I shall continue to be his
+friend for<br>
+ the sake of watching him; by that means I may render the
+government<br>
+ such signal service that they will have to make me count; for
+the<br>
+ peerage is the only thing I really care for. I want you fully
+to<br>
+ understand that I am not seeking office or anything else that
+would<br>
+ cause me to stand in your way; I am simply aiming for the
+peerage,<br>
+ which will enable me to marry a banker's daughter with an income
+of a<br>
+ couple of hundred thousand francs. And so, allow me to render
+you a<br>
+ few signal services which will make the King feel that I have
+saved<br>
+ the throne. I have long said that Liberalism would never offer
+us a<br>
+ pitched battle. It has given up conspiracies, Carbonaroism,
+and<br>
+ revolts with weapons; it is now sapping and mining, and the day
+is<br>
+ coming when it will be able to say, 'Out of that and let me in!'
+Do<br>
+ you think I have been courting Rabourdin's wife for my own
+pleasure?<br>
+ No, but I got much information from her. So now, let us agree on
+two<br>
+ things; first, the postponement of the appointment; second,
+your<br>
+ SINCERE support of my election. You shall find at the end of
+the<br>
+ session that I have amply repaid you."</p>
+
+<p>For all answer, the minister took the appointment papers and
+placed<br>
+ them in des Lupeaulx's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go and tell Rabourdin," added des Lupeaulx, "that you
+cannot<br>
+ transact business with him till Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>The minister replied with an assenting gesture. The
+secretary<br>
+ despatched his man with a message to Rabourdin that the minister
+could<br>
+ not work with him until Saturday, on which day the Chamber
+was<br>
+ occupied with private bills, and his Excellency had more time at
+his<br>
+ disposal.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment Saillard, having brought the monthly
+stipend, was<br>
+ slipping his little speech into the ear of the minister's wife,
+who<br>
+ drew herself up and answered with dignity that she did not
+meddle in<br>
+ political matters, and besides, she had heard that Monsieur
+Rabourdin<br>
+ was already appointed. Saillard, terrified, rushed up to
+Baudoyer's<br>
+ office, where he found Dutocq, Godard, and Bixiou in a state
+of<br>
+ exasperation difficult to describe; for they were reading the
+terrible<br>
+ paper on the administration in which they were all
+discussed.</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [with his finger on a paragraph]. "Here YOU are, pere
+Saillard.<br>
+ Listen" [reads]:--</p>
+
+<p>"Saillard.--The office of cashier to be suppressed in all
+the<br>
+ ministries; their accounts to be kept in future at the
+Treasury.<br>
+ Saillard is rich and does not need a pension.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to hear about your son-in-law?" [Turns over the
+leaves.]<br>
+ "Here he is" [reads]:--</p>
+
+<p>"Baudoyer.--Utterly incapable. To be thanked and dismissed.
+Rich; does<br>
+ not need a pension.</p>
+
+<p>"And here's for Godard" [reads]:--</p>
+
+<p>"Godard.--Should be dismissed; pension one-third of his
+present<br>
+ salary.</p>
+
+<p>"In short, here we all are. Listen to what I am" [reads]: "An
+artist<br>
+ who might be employed by the civil list, at the Opera, or the
+Menus-<br>
+ Plaisirs, or the Museum. Great deal of capacity, little
+self-respect,<br>
+ no application,--a restless spirit. Ha! I'll give you a touch of
+the<br>
+ artist, Monsieur Rabourdin!"</p>
+
+<p>Saillard. "Suppress cashiers! Why, the man's a monster?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Let us see what he says of our mysterious Desroys."
+[Turns<br>
+ over the pages; reads.]</p>
+
+<p>"Desroys.--Dangerous; because he cannot be shaken in
+principles that<br>
+ are subversive of monarchial power. He is the son of the
+Conventionel,<br>
+ and he admires the Convention. He may become a very
+mischievous<br>
+ journalist."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer. "The police are not worse spies!"</p>
+
+<p>Godard. "I shall go the general-secretary and lay a complaint
+in form;<br>
+ we must all resign in a body if such a man as that is put over
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Gentlemen, listen to me; let us be prudent. If you
+rise at<br>
+ once in a body, we may all be accused of rancor and revenge. No,
+let<br>
+ the thing work, let the rumor spread quietly. When the whole
+ministry<br>
+ is aroused your remonstrances will meet with general
+approval."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Dutocq believes in the principles of the grand air
+composed<br>
+ by the sublime Rossini for Basilio,--which goes to show, by the
+bye,<br>
+ that the great composer was also a great politician. I shall
+leave my<br>
+ card on Monsieur Rabourdin to-morrow morning, inscribed thus:
+'Bixiou;<br>
+ no self-respect, no application, restless mind.'"</p>
+
+<p>Godard. "A good idea, gentlemen. Let us all leave our cards
+to-morrow<br>
+ on Rabourdin inscribed in the same way."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [leading Bixiou apart]. "Come, you'll agree to make
+that<br>
+ caricature now, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "I see plainly, my dear fellow, that you knew all
+about this<br>
+ affair ten days ago" [looks him in the eye]. "Am I to be
+under-head-<br>
+ clerk?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "On my word of honor, yes, and a thousand-franc fee
+beside,<br>
+ just as I told you. You don't know what a service you'll be
+rendering<br>
+ to powerful personages."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "You know them?"</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Well, then I want to speak with them."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [dryly]. "You can make the caricature or not, and you
+can be<br>
+ under-head-clerk or not,--as you please."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "At any rate, let me see that thousand francs."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "You shall have them when you bring the drawing."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Forward, march! that lampoon shall go from end to end
+of the<br>
+ bureaus to-morrow morning. Let us go and torment the
+Rabourdins."<br>
+ [Then speaking to Saillard, Godard, and Baudoyer, who were
+talking<br>
+ together in a low voice.] "We are going to stir up the
+neighbors."<br>
+ [Goes with Dutocq into the Rabourdin bureau. Fleury, Thuillier,
+and<br>
+ Vimeux are there, talking excitedly.] "What's the matter,
+gentlemen?<br>
+ All that I told you turns out to be true; you can go and see
+for<br>
+ yourselves the work of this infamous informer; for it is in the
+hands<br>
+ of the virtuous, honest, estimable, upright, and pious Baudoyer,
+who<br>
+ is indeed utterly incapable of doing any such thing. Your chief
+has<br>
+ got every one of you under the guillotine. Go and see; follow
+the<br>
+ crowd; money returned if you are not satisfied; execution
+GRATIS! The<br>
+ appointments are postponed. All the bureaus are in arms;
+Rabourdin has<br>
+ been informed that the minister will not work with him. Come, be
+off;<br>
+ go and see for yourselves."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ They all depart except Phellion and Poiret, who are left alone.
+The<br>
+ former loved Rabourdin too well to look for proof that might
+injure a<br>
+ man he was determined not to judge; the other had only five days
+more<br>
+ to remain in the office, and cared nothing either way. Just
+then<br>
+ Sebastien came down to collect the papers for signature. He was
+a good<br>
+ deal surprised, though he did not show it, to find the
+office<br>
+ deserted.</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "My young friend" [he rose, a rare thing], "do you
+know what<br>
+ is going on? what scandals are rife about Monsieur Rabourdin
+whom you<br>
+ love, and" [bending to whisper in Sebastien's ear] "whom I love
+as<br>
+ much as I respect him. They say he has committed the imprudence
+to<br>
+ leave a paper containing comments on the officials lying about
+in the<br>
+ office--" [Phellion stopped short, caught the young man in his
+strong<br>
+ arms, seeing that he turned pale and was near fainting, and
+placed him<br>
+ on a chair.] "A key, Monsieur Poiret, to put down his back; have
+you a<br>
+ key?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "I have the key of my domicile."</p>
+
+<p>[Old Poiret junior promptly inserted the said key between
+Sebastien's<br>
+ shoulders, while Phellion gave him some water to drink. The poor
+lad<br>
+ no sooner opened his eyes than he began to weep. He laid his
+head on<br>
+ Phellion's desk, and all his limbs were limp as if struck by<br>
+ lightning; while his sobs were so heartrending, so genuine, that
+for<br>
+ the first time in his life Poiret's feelings were stirred by
+the<br>
+ sufferings of another.]</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [speaking firmly]. "Come, come, my young friend;
+courage! In<br>
+ times of trial we must show courage. You are a man. What is
+the<br>
+ matter? What has happened to distress you so terribly?"</p>
+
+<p>Sebastien [sobbing]. "It is I who have ruined Monsieur
+Rabourdin. I<br>
+ left that paper lying about when I copied it. I have killed
+my<br>
+ benefactor; I shall die myself. Such a noble man!--a man who
+ought to<br>
+ be minister!"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [blowing his nose]. "Then it is true he wrote the
+report."</p>
+
+<p>Sebastien [still sobbing]. "But it was to--there, I was going
+to tell<br>
+ his secrets! Ah! that wretch of a Dutocq; it was he who stole
+the<br>
+ paper."</p>
+
+<p>His tears and sobs recommenced and made so much noise that
+Rabourdin<br>
+ came up to see what was the matter. He found the young fellow
+almost<br>
+ fainting in the arms of Poiret and Phellion.</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin. "What is the matter, gentlemen?"</p>
+
+<p>Sebastien [struggling to his feet, and then falling on his
+knees<br>
+ before Rabourdin]. "I have ruined you, monsieur. That
+memorandum,--<br>
+ Dutocq, the monster, he must have taken it."</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin [calmly]. "I knew that already" [he lifts
+Sebastien]. "You<br>
+ are a child, my young friend." [Speaks to Phellion.] "Where are
+the<br>
+ other gentlemen?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "They have gone into Monsieur Baudoyer's office to
+see a<br>
+ paper which it is said--"</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin [interrupting him]. "Enough." [Goes out, taking
+Sebastien<br>
+ with him. Poiret and Phellion look at each other in amazement,
+and do<br>
+ not know what to say.]</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [to Phellion]. "Monsieur Rabourdin--"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [to Poiret]. "Monsieur Rabourdin--"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Well, I never! Monsieur Rabourdin!"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "But did you notice how calm and dignified he
+was?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [with a sly look that was more like a grimace]. "I
+shouldn't be<br>
+ surprised if there were something under it all."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "A man of honor; pure and spotless."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Who is?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "Monsieur Poiret, you think as I think about Dutocq;
+surely<br>
+ you understand me?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [nodding his head three times and answering with a
+shrewd<br>
+ look]. "Yes." [The other clerks return.]</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "A great shock; I still don't believe the thing.
+Monsieur<br>
+ Rabourdin, a king among men! If such men are spies, it is enough
+to<br>
+ disgust one with virtue. I have always put Rabourdin among
+Plutarch's<br>
+ heroes."</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "It is all true."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [reflecting that he had only five days more to stay in
+the<br>
+ office]. "But, gentlemen, what do you say about the man who
+stole that<br>
+ paper, who spied upon Rabourdin?" [Dutocq left the room.]</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "I say he is a Judas Iscariot. Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [significantly]. "He is not here at THIS MOMENT."</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux [enlightened]. "It is Dutocq!"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "I have no proof of it, gentlemen. While you were
+gone, that<br>
+ young man, Monsieur de la Roche, nearly fainted here. See his
+tears on<br>
+ my desk!"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "We held him fainting in our arms.--My key, the key of
+my<br>
+ domicile!--dear, dear! it is down his back." [Poiret goes
+hastily<br>
+ out.]</p>
+
+<p>Vimeux. "The minister refused to transact business with
+Rabourdin to-<br>
+ day; and Monsieur Saillard, to whom the secretary said a few
+words,<br>
+ came to tell Monsieur Baudoyer to apply for the cross of the
+Legion of<br>
+ honor,--there is one to be granted, you know, on New-Year's day,
+to<br>
+ all the heads of divisions. It is quite clear what it all
+means.<br>
+ Monsieur Rabourdin is sacrificed by the very persons who
+employed him.<br>
+ Bixiou says so. We were all to be turned out, except Sebastien
+and<br>
+ Phellion."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel [entering]. "Well, gentlemen, is it true?"</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "To the last word."</p>
+
+<p>Du Bruel [putting his hat on again]. "Good-bye." [Hurries
+out.]</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "He may rush as much as he pleases to his Duc de
+Rhetore<br>
+ and Duc de Maufrigneuse, but Colleville is to be our
+under-head-clerk,<br>
+ that's certain."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "Du Bruel always seemed to be attached to
+Monsieur<br>
+ Rabourdin."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [returning]. "I have had a world of trouble to get back
+my key.<br>
+ That boy is crying still, and Monsieur Rabourdin has
+disappeared."<br>
+ [Dutocq and Bixiou enter.]</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Ha, gentlemen! strange things are going on in your
+bureau. Du<br>
+ Bruel! I want you." [Looks into the adjoining room.] "Gone?"</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "Full speed."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "What about Rabourdin?"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "Distilled, evaporated, melted! Such a man, the king
+of men,<br>
+ that he--"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [to Dutocq]. "That little Sebastien, in his trouble,
+said that<br>
+ you, Monsieur Dutocq, had taken the paper from him ten days
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [looking at Dutocq]. "You must clear yourself of THAT,
+my good<br>
+ friend." [All the clerks look fixedly at Dutocq.]</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq. "Where's the little viper who copied it?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Copied it? How did you know he copied it? Ha! ha! it
+is only<br>
+ the diamond that cuts the diamond." [Dutocq leaves the
+room.]</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Would you listen to me, Monsieur Bixiou? I have only
+five<br>
+ days and a half to stay in this office, and I do wish that once,
+only<br>
+ once, I might have the pleasure of understanding what you mean.
+Do me<br>
+ the honor to explain what diamonds have to do with these
+present<br>
+ circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "I meant papa,--for I'm willing for once to bring my
+intellect<br>
+ down to the level of yours,--that just as the diamond alone can
+cut<br>
+ the diamond, so it is only one inquisitive man who can defeat
+another<br>
+ inquisitive man."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "'Inquisitive man' stands for 'spy.'"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "I don't understand."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Very well; try again some other time."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Rabourdin, after taking Sebastien to his room, had
+gone<br>
+ straight to the minister; but the minister was at the Chamber
+of<br>
+ Deputies. Rabourdin went at once to the Chamber, where he wrote
+a note<br>
+ to his Excellency, who was at that moment in the tribune engaged
+in a<br>
+ hot discussion. Rabourdin waited, not in the conference hall,
+but in<br>
+ the courtyard, where, in spite of the cold, he resolved to
+remain and<br>
+ intercept his Excellency as he got into his carriage. The usher
+of the<br>
+ Chamber had told him that the minister was in the thick of a<br>
+ controversy raised by the nineteen members of the extreme Left,
+and<br>
+ that the session was likely to be stormy. Rabourdin walked to
+and for<br>
+ in the courtyard of the palace for five mortal hours, a prey
+to<br>
+ feverish agitation. At half-past six o'clock the session broke
+up, and<br>
+ the members filed out. The minister's chasseur came up to find
+the<br>
+ coachman.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, Jean!" he called out to him; "Monseigneur has gone with
+the<br>
+ minister of war; they are going to see the King, and after that
+they<br>
+ dine together, and we are to fetch him at ten o'clock. There's
+a<br>
+ Council this evening."</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin walked slowly home, in a state of despondency not
+difficult<br>
+ to imagine. It was seven o'clock, and he had barely time to
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are appointed?" cried his wife, joyously, as he
+entered the<br>
+ salon.</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin raised his head with a grievous motion of distress
+and<br>
+ answered, "I fear I shall never again set foot in the
+ministry."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said his wife, quivering with sudden anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"My memorandum on the officials is known in all the offices;
+and I<br>
+ have not been able to see the minister."</p>
+
+<p>Celestine's eyes were opened to a sudden vision in which the
+devil, in<br>
+ one of his infernal flashes, showed her the meaning of her
+last<br>
+ conversation with des Lupeaulx.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had behaved like a low woman," she thought, "we should
+have had<br>
+ the place."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at Rabourdin with grief in her heart. A sad silence
+fell<br>
+ between them, and dinner was eaten in the midst of gloomy
+meditations.</p>
+
+<p>"And it is my Wednesday," she said at last.</p>
+
+<p>"All is not lost, dear Celestine," said Rabourdin, laying a
+kiss on<br>
+ his wife's forehead; "perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to see
+the<br>
+ minister and explain everything. Sebastien sat up all last night
+to<br>
+ finish the writing; the papers are copied and collated; I shall
+place<br>
+ them on the minister's desk and beg him to read them through.
+La<br>
+ Briere will help me. A man is never condemned without a
+hearing."</p>
+
+<p>"I am curious to see if Monsieur des Lupeaulx will come here
+to-<br>
+ night."</p>
+
+<p>"He? Of course he will come," said Rabourdin; "there's
+something of<br>
+ the tiger in him; he likes to lick the blood of the wounds he
+has<br>
+ given."</p>
+
+<p>"My poor husband," said his wife, taking his hand, "I don't
+see how it<br>
+ is that a man who could conceive so noble a reform did not also
+see<br>
+ that it ought not to be communicated to a single person. It is
+one of<br>
+ those ideas that a man should keep in his own mind, for he alone
+can<br>
+ apply them. A statesman must do in our political sphere as
+Napoleon<br>
+ did in his; he stooped, twisted, crawled. Yes, Bonaparte
+crawled! To<br>
+ be made commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy he married
+Barrere's<br>
+ mistress. You should have waited, got yourself elected
+deputy,<br>
+ followed the politics of a party, sometimes down in the depths,
+at<br>
+ other times on the crest of the wave, and you should have taken,
+like<br>
+ Monsieur de Villele, the Italian motto 'Col tempo,' in other
+words,<br>
+ 'All things are given to him who knows how to wait.' That great
+orator<br>
+ worked for seven years to get into power; he began in 1814
+by<br>
+ protesting against the Charter when he was the same age that you
+are<br>
+ now. Here's your fault; you have allowed yourself to be kept<br>
+ subordinate, when you were born to rule."</p>
+
+<p>The entrance of the painter Schinner imposed silence on the
+wife and<br>
+ husband, but these words made the latter thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear friend," said the painter, grasping Rabourdin's hand,
+"the<br>
+ support of artists is a useless thing enough, but let me say
+under<br>
+ these circumstances that we are all faithful to you. I have just
+read<br>
+ the evening papers. Baudoyer is appointed director and receives
+the<br>
+ cross of the Legion of honor--"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been longer in the department, I have served
+twenty-four<br>
+ hours," said Rabourdin with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I know Monsieur le Comte de Serizy, the minister of State,
+pretty<br>
+ well, and if he can help you, I will go and see him," said
+Schinner.</p>
+
+<p>The salon soon filled with persons who knew nothing of the
+government<br>
+ proceedings. Du Bruel did not appear. Madame Rabourdin was gayer
+and<br>
+ more graceful than ever, like the charger wounded in battle,
+that<br>
+ still finds strength to carry his master from the field.</p>
+
+<p>"She is very courageous," said a few women who knew the truth,
+and who<br>
+ were charmingly attentive to her, understanding her
+misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>"But she certainly did a great deal to attract des Lupeaulx,"
+said the<br>
+ Baronne du Chatelet to the Vicomtesse de Fontaine.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think--" began the vicomtesse.</p>
+
+<p>"If so," interrupted Madame de Camps, in defence of her
+friend,<br>
+ "Monsieur Rabourdin would at least have had the cross."</p>
+
+<p>About eleven o'clock des Lupeaulx appeared; and we can only
+describe<br>
+ him by saying that his spectacles were sad and his eyes joyous;
+the<br>
+ glasses, however, obscured the glances so successfully that only
+a<br>
+ physiognomist would have seen the diabolical expression which
+they<br>
+ wore. He went up to Rabourdin and pressed the hand which the
+latter<br>
+ could not avoid giving him.</p>
+
+<p>Then he approached Madame Rabourdin.</p>
+
+<p>"We have much to say to each other," he remarked as he seated
+himself<br>
+ beside the beautiful woman, who received him admirably.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he continued, giving her a side glance, "you are grand
+indeed; I<br>
+ find you just what I expected, glorious under defeat. Do you
+know that<br>
+ it is a very rare thing to find a superior woman who answers to
+the<br>
+ expectations formed of her. So defeat doesn't dishearten you?
+You are<br>
+ right; we shall triumph in the end," he whispered in her ear.
+"Your<br>
+ fate is always in your own hands,--so long, I mean, as your ally
+is a<br>
+ man who adores you. We will hold counsel together."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "But is Baudoyer appointed?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the secretary.</p>
+
+<p>"Does he get the cross?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet; but he will have it later."</p>
+
+<p>"Amazing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you don't understand political exigencies."</p>
+
+<p>During this evening, which seemed interminable to Madame
+Rabourdin,<br>
+ another scene was occurring in the place Royale,--one of
+those<br>
+ comedies which are played in seven Parisian salons whenever
+there is a<br>
+ change of ministry. The Saillards' salon was crowded. Monsieur
+and<br>
+ Madame Transon arrived at eight o'clock; Madame Transon kissed
+Madame<br>
+ Baudoyer, nee Saillard. Monsieur Bataille, captain of the
+National<br>
+ Guard, came with his wife and the curate of Saint Paul's.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Baudoyer," said Madame Transon. "I wish to be the
+first to<br>
+ congratulate you; they have done justice to your talents. You
+have<br>
+ indeed earned your promotion."</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are, director," said Monsieur Transon, rubbing his
+hands,<br>
+ "and the appointment is very flattering to this
+neighborhood."</p>
+
+<p>"And we can truly say it came to pass without any intriguing,"
+said<br>
+ the worthy Saillard. "We are none of us political intriguers; WE
+don't<br>
+ go to select parties at the ministry."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Mitral rubbed his nose and grinned as he glanced at his
+niece<br>
+ Elisabeth, the woman whose hand had pulled the wires, who was
+talking<br>
+ with Gigonnet. Falleix, honest fellow, did not know what to make
+of<br>
+ the stupid blindness of Saillard and Baudoyer. Messieurs
+Dutocq,<br>
+ Bixiou, du Bruel, Godard, and Colleville (the latter appointed
+head of<br>
+ the bureau) entered.</p>
+
+<p>"What a crew!" whispered Bixiou to du Bruel. "I could make a
+fine<br>
+ caricature of them in the shapes of fishes,--dorys, flounders,
+sharks,<br>
+ and snappers, all dancing a saraband!"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said Colleville, "I come to offer you my
+congratulations;<br>
+ or rather we congratulate ourselves in having such a man placed
+over<br>
+ us; and we desire to assure you of the zeal with which we shall
+co-<br>
+ operate in your labors. Allow me to say that this event affords
+a<br>
+ signal proof to the truth of my axiom that a man's destiny lies
+in the<br>
+ letters of his name. I may say that I knew of this appointment
+and of<br>
+ your other honors before I heard of them, for I spend the night
+in<br>
+ anagrammatizing your name as follows:" [proudly] "Isidore C.
+T.<br>
+ Baudoyer,--Director, decorated by us (his Majesty the King,
+of<br>
+ course)."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer bowed and remarked piously that names were given in
+baptism.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur and Madame Baudoyer, senior, father and mother of the
+new<br>
+ director, were there to enjoy the glory of their son and
+daughter-in-<br>
+ law. Uncle Gigonnet-Bidault, who had dined at the house, had
+a<br>
+ restless, fidgety look in his eye which frightened Bixiou.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a queer one," said the latter to du Bruel, calling
+his<br>
+ attention to Gigonnet, "who would do in a vaudeville. I wonder
+if he<br>
+ could be bought. Such an old scarecrow is just the thing for a
+sign<br>
+ over the Two Baboons. And what a coat! I did think there was
+nobody<br>
+ but Poiret who could show the like after that after ten years'
+public<br>
+ exposure to the inclemencies of Parisian weather."</p>
+
+<p>"Baudoyer is magnificent," said du Bruel.</p>
+
+<p>"Dazzling," answered Bixiou.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said Baudoyer, "let me present you to my own
+uncle,<br>
+ Monsieur Mitral, and to my great-uncle through my wife,
+Monsieur<br>
+ Bidault."</p>
+
+<p>Gigonnet and Mitral gave a glance at the three clerks so
+penetrating,<br>
+ so glittering with gleams of gold, that the two scoffers were
+sobered<br>
+ at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Hein?" said Bixiou, when they were safely under the arcades
+in the<br>
+ place Royale; "did you examine those uncles?--two copies of
+Shylock.<br>
+ I'll bet their money is lent in the market at a hundred per cent
+per<br>
+ week. They lend on pawn; and sell most that they lay hold of,
+coats,<br>
+ gold lace, cheese, men, women, and children; they are a
+conglomeration<br>
+ of Arabs, Jews, Genoese, Genevese, Greeks, Lombards, and
+Parisians,<br>
+ suckled by a wolf and born of a Turkish woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you," said Godard. "Uncle Mitral used to be a
+sheriff's<br>
+ officer."</p>
+
+<p>"That settles it," said du Bruel.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm off to see the proof of my caricature," said Bixiou; "but
+I<br>
+ should like to study the state of things in Rabourdin's salon
+to-<br>
+ night. You are lucky to be able to go there, du Bruel."</p>
+
+<p>"I!" said the vaudevillist, "what should I do there? My face
+doesn't<br>
+ lend itself to condolences. And it is very vulgar in these days
+to go<br>
+ and see people who are down."</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<h4>THE RESIGNATION</h4>
+
+<p>By midnight Madame Rabourdin's salon was deserted; only two or
+three<br>
+ guests remained with des Lupeaulx and the master and mistress of
+the<br>
+ house. When Schinner and Monsieur and Madame de Camps had
+likewise<br>
+ departed, des Lupeaulx rose with a mysterious air, stood with
+his back<br>
+ to the fireplace and looked alternately at the husband and
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said, "nothing is really lost, for the
+minister and I<br>
+ are faithful to you. Dutocq simply chose between two powers the
+one he<br>
+ thought strongest. He has served the court and the Grand
+Almoner; he<br>
+ has betrayed me. But that is in the order of things; a
+politician<br>
+ never complains of treachery. Nevertheless, Baudoyer will be
+dismissed<br>
+ as incapable in a few months; no doubt his protectors will find
+him a<br>
+ place,--in the prefecture of police, perhaps,--for the clergy
+will not<br>
+ desert him."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ From this point des Lupeaulx went on with a long tirade about
+the<br>
+ Grand Almoner and the dangers the government ran in relying upon
+the<br>
+ church and upon the Jesuits. We need not, we think, point out to
+the<br>
+ intelligent reader that the court and the Grand Almoner, to whom
+the<br>
+ liberal journals attributed an enormous influence under the<br>
+ administration, had little really to do with Monsieur
+Baudoyer's<br>
+ appointment. Such petty intrigues die in the upper sphere of
+great<br>
+ self-interests. If a few words in favor of Baudoyer were
+obtained by<br>
+ the importunity of the curate of Saint-Paul's and the Abbe
+Gaudron,<br>
+ they would have been withdrawn immediately at a suggestion from
+the<br>
+ minister. The occult power of the Congregation of Jesus
+(admissible<br>
+ certainly as confronting the bold society of the "Doctrine,"
+entitled<br>
+ "Help yourself and heaven will help you,") was formidable only
+through<br>
+ the imaginary force conferred on it by subordinate powers
+who<br>
+ perpetually threatened each other with its evils. The liberal
+scandal-<br>
+ mongers delighted in representing the Grand Almoner and the
+whole<br>
+ Jesuitical Chapter as political, administrative, civil, and
+military<br>
+ giants. Fear creates bugbears. At this crisis Baudoyer firmly
+believed<br>
+ in the said Chapter, little aware that the only Jesuits who had
+put<br>
+ him where he now was sat by his own fireside, and in the Cafe
+Themis<br>
+ playing dominoes.</p>
+
+<p>At certain epochs in history certain powers appear, to whom
+all evils<br>
+ are attributed, though at the same time their genius is denied;
+they<br>
+ form an efficient argument in the mouth of fools. Just as
+Monsieur de<br>
+ Talleyrand was supposed to hail all events of whatever kind with
+a bon<br>
+ mot, so in these days of the Restoration the clerical party had
+the<br>
+ credit of doing and undoing everything. Unfortunately, it did
+and<br>
+ undid nothing. Its influence was not wielded by a Cardinal
+Richelieu<br>
+ or a Cardinal Mazarin; it was in the hands of a species of
+Cardinal de<br>
+ Fleury, who, timid for over five years, turned bold for one
+day,<br>
+ injudiciously bold. Later on, the "Doctrine" did more, with
+impunity,<br>
+ at Saint-Merri, than Charles X. pretended to do in July, 1830.
+If the<br>
+ section on the censorship so foolishly introduced into the new
+charter<br>
+ had been omitted, journalism also would have had its
+Saint-Merri. The<br>
+ younger Branch could have legally carried out Charles X.'s
+plan.</p>
+
+<p>"Remain where you are, head of a bureau under Baudoyer," went
+on des<br>
+ Lupeaulx. "Have the nerve to do this; make yourself a true
+politician;<br>
+ put ideas and generous impulses aside; attend only to your
+functions;<br>
+ don't say a word to your new director; don't help him with a<br>
+ suggestion; and do nothing yourself without his order. In three
+months<br>
+ Baudoyer will be out of the ministry, either dismissed, or
+stranded on<br>
+ some other administrative shore. They may attach him to the
+king's<br>
+ household. Twice in my life I have been set aside as you are,
+and<br>
+ overwhelmed by an avalanche of folly; I have quietly waited and
+let it<br>
+ pass."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Rabourdin, "but you were not calumniated; your
+honor was<br>
+ not assailed, compromised--"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha, ha!" cried des Lupeaulx, interrupting him with a
+burst of<br>
+ Homeric laughter. "Why, that's the daily bread of every
+remarkable man<br>
+ in this glorious kingdom of France! And there are but two ways
+to meet<br>
+ such calumny,--either yield to it, pack up, and go plant
+cabbages in<br>
+ the country; or else rise above it, march on, fearless, and
+don't turn<br>
+ your head."</p>
+
+<p>"For me, there is but one way of untying the noose which
+treachery and<br>
+ the work of spies have fastened round my throat," replied
+Rabourdin.<br>
+ "I must explain the matter at once to his Excellency, and if you
+are<br>
+ as sincerely attached to me as you say you are, you will put me
+face<br>
+ to face with him to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you wish to explain to him your plan for the
+reform of<br>
+ the service?"</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, trust the papers with me,--your memoranda, all
+the<br>
+ documents. I promise you that he shall sit up all night and
+examine<br>
+ them."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go to him, then!" cried Rabourdin, eagerly; "six
+years' toil<br>
+ certainly deserves two or three hours attention from the
+king's<br>
+ minister, who will be forced to recognize, if he does not
+applaud,<br>
+ such perseverance."</p>
+
+<p>Compelled by Rabourdin's tenacity to take a straightforward
+path,<br>
+ without ambush or angle where his treachery could hide itself,
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx hesitated for a single instant, and looked at
+Madame<br>
+ Rabourdin, while he inwardly asked himself, "Which shall I
+permit to<br>
+ triumph, my hatred for him, or my fancy for her?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have no confidence in my honor," he said, after a pause.
+"I see<br>
+ that you will always be to me the author of your SECRET
+ANALYSIS.<br>
+ Adieu, madame."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier returned
+at once<br>
+ to their own rooms without a word; both were overcome by
+their<br>
+ misfortune. The wife thought of the dreadful situation in which
+she<br>
+ stood toward her husband. The husband, resolving slowly not to
+remain<br>
+ at the ministry but to send in his resignation at once, was lost
+in a<br>
+ sea of reflections; the crisis for him meant a total change of
+life<br>
+ and the necessity of starting on a new career. All night he sat
+before<br>
+ his fire, taking no notice of Celestine, who came in several
+times on<br>
+ tiptoe, in her night-dress.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go once more to the ministry, to bring away my papers,
+and<br>
+ show Baudoyer the routine of the business," he said to himself
+at<br>
+ last. "I had better write my resignation now."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to his table and began to write, thinking over each
+clause<br>
+ of the letter, which was as follows:--</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Monseigneur,--I have the honor to inclose to your Excellency
+my<br>
+ resignation. I venture to hope that you still remember hearing
+me<br>
+ say that I left my honor in your hands, and that everything,
+for<br>
+ me, depended on my being able to give you an immediate<br>
+ explanation.</p>
+
+<p>This explanation I have vainly sought to give. To-day it
+would,<br>
+ perhaps, be useless; for a fragment of my work relating to
+the<br>
+ administration, stolen and misused, has gone the rounds of
+the<br>
+ offices and is misinterpreted by hatred; in consequence, I
+find<br>
+ myself compelled to resign, under the tacit condemnation of
+my<br>
+ superiors.</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Your Excellency may have thought, on the morning when I
+first<br>
+ sought to speak with you, that my purpose was to ask for my<br>
+ promotion, when, in fact, I was thinking only of the glory
+and<br>
+ usefulness of your ministry and of the public good. It is
+all-<br>
+ important, I think, to correct that impression.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Then followed the usual epistolary formulas.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated
+the<br>
+ sacrifice of his ideas; he burned everything, the toil of
+years.<br>
+ Fatigued by the pressure of thought, overcome by mental
+suffering, he<br>
+ fell asleep with his head on the back of his armchair. He was
+wakened<br>
+ by a curious sensation, and found his hands covered with his
+wife's<br>
+ tears and saw her kneeling before him. Celestine had read
+the<br>
+ resignation. She could measure the depth of his fall. They were
+now to<br>
+ be reduced to live on four thousand francs a year; and that day
+she<br>
+ had counted up her debts,--they amounted to something like
+thirty-two<br>
+ thousand francs! The most ignoble of all wretchedness had come
+upon<br>
+ them. And that noble man who had trusted her was ignorant that
+she had<br>
+ abused the fortune he had confided to her care. She was sobbing
+at his<br>
+ feet, beautiful as the Magdalen.</p>
+
+<p>"My cup is full," cried Xavier, in terror. "I am dishonored at
+the<br>
+ ministry, and dishonored--"</p>
+
+<p>The light of her pure honor flashed from Celestine's eyes; she
+sprang<br>
+ up like a startled horse and cast a fulminating glance at
+Rabourdin.</p>
+
+<p>"I! I!" she said, on two sublime tones. "Am I a base wife? If
+I were,<br>
+ you would have been appointed. But," she added mournfully, "it
+is<br>
+ easier to believe that than to believe what is the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is it?" said Rabourdin.</p>
+
+<p>"All in three words," she said; "I owe thirty thousand
+francs."</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin caught his wife to his heart with a gesture of
+almost<br>
+ frantic joy, and seated her on his knee.</p>
+
+<p>"Take comfort, dear," he said, in a tone of voice so adorably
+kind<br>
+ that the bitterness of her grief was changed to something<br>
+ inexpressibly tender. "I too have made mistakes; I have
+worked<br>
+ uselessly for my country when I thought I was being useful to
+her. But<br>
+ now I mean to take another path. If I had sold groceries we
+should now<br>
+ be millionaires. Well, let us be grocers. You are only
+twenty-eight,<br>
+ dear angel; in ten years you shall recover the luxury that you
+love,<br>
+ which we must needs renounce for a short time. I, too, dear
+heart, am<br>
+ not a base or common husband. We will sell our farm; its value
+has<br>
+ increased of late. That and the sale of our furniture will pay
+my<br>
+ debts.</p>
+
+<p>MY debts! Celestine embraced her husband a thousand times in
+the<br>
+ single kiss with which she thanked him for that generous
+word.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall still have a hundred thousand francs to put into
+business.<br>
+ Before the month is out I shall find some favorable opening. If
+luck<br>
+ gave a Martin Falleix to a Saillard, why should we despair?
+Wait<br>
+ breakfast for me. I am going now to the ministry, but I shall
+come<br>
+ back with my neck free of the yoke."</p>
+
+<p>Celestine clasped her husband in her arms with a force men do
+not<br>
+ possess, even in their passionate moments; for women are
+stronger<br>
+ through emotion than men through power. She wept and laughed
+and<br>
+ sobbed in turns.</p>
+
+<p>When Rabourdin left the house at eight o'clock, the porter
+gave him<br>
+ the satirical cards suggested by Bixiou. Nevertheless, he went
+to the<br>
+ ministry, where he found Sebastien waiting near the door to
+entreat<br>
+ him not to enter any of the bureaus, because an infamous
+caricature of<br>
+ him was making the round of the offices.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish to soften the pain of my downfall," he said to
+the lad,<br>
+ "bring me that drawing; I am now taking my resignation to Ernest
+de la<br>
+ Briere myself, that it may not be altered or distorted while
+passing<br>
+ through the routine channels. I have my own reasons for wishing
+to see<br>
+ that caricature."</p>
+
+<p>When Rabourdin came back to the courtyard, after making sure
+that his<br>
+ letter would go straight into the minister's hands, he found
+Sebastien<br>
+ in tears, with a copy of the lithograph, which the lad
+reluctantly<br>
+ handed over to him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very clever," said Rabourdin, showing a serene brow to
+his<br>
+ companion, though the crown of thorns was on it all the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>He entered the bureaus with a calm air, and went at once
+into<br>
+ Baudoyer's section to ask him to come to the office of the head
+of the<br>
+ division and receive instructions as to the business which
+that<br>
+ incapable being was henceforth to direct.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Monsieur Baudoyer that there must be no delay," he
+added, in the<br>
+ hearing of all the clerks; "my resignation is already in the<br>
+ minister's hands, and I do not wish to stay here longer than
+is<br>
+ necessary."</p>
+
+<p>Seeing Bixiou, Rabourdin went straight up to him, showed him
+the<br>
+ lithograph, and said, to the great astonishment of all
+present,--</p>
+
+<p>"Was I not right in saying you were an artist? Still, it is a
+pity you<br>
+ directed the point of your pencil against a man who cannot be
+judged<br>
+ in this way, nor indeed by the bureaus at all;--but everything
+is<br>
+ laughed at in France, even God."</p>
+
+<p>Then he took Baudoyer into the office of the late La
+Billardiere. At<br>
+ the door he found Phellion and Sebastien, the only two who,
+under his<br>
+ great disaster, dared to remain openly faithful to the fallen
+man.<br>
+ Rabourdin noticed that Phellion's eyes were moist, and he could
+not<br>
+ refrain from wringing his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said the good man, "if we can serve you in any
+way, make<br>
+ use of us."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Rabourdin shut himself up in the late chief's office
+with<br>
+ Monsieur Baudoyer, and Phellion helped him to show the new
+incumbent<br>
+ all the administrative difficulties of his new position. At
+each<br>
+ separate affair which Rabourdin carefully explained, Baudoyer's
+little<br>
+ eyes grew big as saucers.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, monsieur," said Rabourdin at last, with a manner
+that was<br>
+ half-solemn, half-satirical.</p>
+
+<p>Sebastien meanwhile had made up a package of papers and
+letters<br>
+ belonging to his chief and had carried them away in a hackney
+coach.<br>
+ Rabourdin passed through the grand courtyard, while all the
+clerks<br>
+ were watching from the windows, and waited there a moment to see
+if<br>
+ the minister would send him any message. His Excellency was
+dumb.<br>
+ Phellion courageously escorted the fallen man to his home,
+expressing<br>
+ his feelings of respectful admiration; then he returned to the
+office,<br>
+ and took up his work, satisfied with his own conduct in
+rendering<br>
+ these funeral honors to the neglected and misjudged
+administrative<br>
+ talent.</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [seeing Phellion re-enter]. "Victrix cause diis
+placuit, sed<br>
+ victa Catoni."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "Yes, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "What does that mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "That priests rejoice, and Monsieur Rabourdin has the
+respect<br>
+ of men of honor."</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq [annoyed]. "You didn't say that yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>Fleury. "If you address me you'll have my hand in your face.
+It is<br>
+ known for certain that you filched those papers from
+Monsieur<br>
+ Rabourdin." [Dutocq leaves the office.] "Oh, yes, go and
+complain to<br>
+ your Monsieur des Lupeaulx, spy!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [laughing and grimacing like a monkey]. "I am curious
+to know<br>
+ how the division will get along. Monsieur Rabourdin is so
+remarkable a<br>
+ man that he must have had some special views in that work of
+his.<br>
+ Well, the minister loses a fine mind." [Rubs his hands.]</p>
+
+<p>Laurent [entering]. "Monsieur Fleury is requested to go to
+the<br>
+ secretary's office."</p>
+
+<p>All the clerks. "Done for!"</p>
+
+<p>Fleury [leaving the room]. "I don't care; I am offered a place
+as<br>
+ responsible editor. I shall have all my time to myself to lounge
+the<br>
+ streets or do amusing work in a newspaper office."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Dutocq has already made them cut off the head of that
+poor<br>
+ Desroys."</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [entering joyously]. "Gentlemen, I am appointed
+head of<br>
+ this bureau."</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier. "Ah, my friend, if it were I myself, I couldn't be
+better<br>
+ pleased."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "His wife has managed it." [Laughter.]</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Will any one tell me the meaning of all that is
+happening<br>
+ here to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Do you really want to know? Then listen. The
+antechamber of<br>
+ the administration is henceforth a chamber, the court is a
+boudoir,<br>
+ the best way to get in is through the cellar, and the bed is
+more than<br>
+ ever a cross-cut."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Monsieur Bixiou, may I entreat you, explain?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "I'll paraphrase my opinion. To be anything at all you
+must<br>
+ begin by being everything. It is quite certain that a reform of
+this<br>
+ service is needed; for on my word of honor, the State robs the
+poor<br>
+ officials as much as the officials rob the State in the matter
+of<br>
+ hours. But why is it that we idle as we do? because they pay us
+too<br>
+ little; and the reason of that is we are too many for the work,
+and<br>
+ your late chief, the virtuous Rabourdin, saw all this plainly.
+That<br>
+ great administrator,--for he was that, gentlemen,--saw what the
+thing<br>
+ is coming to, the thing that these idiots call the 'working of
+our<br>
+ admirable institutions.' The chamber will want before long
+to<br>
+ administrate, and the administrators will want to legislate.
+The<br>
+ government will try to administrate and the administrators will
+want<br>
+ to govern, and so it will go on. Laws will come to be mere<br>
+ regulations, and ordinances will be thought laws. God made this
+epoch<br>
+ of the world for those who like to laugh. I live in a state of
+jovial<br>
+ admiration of the spectacle which the greatest joker of modern
+times,<br>
+ Louis XVIII., bequeathed to us" [general stupefaction].
+"Gentlemen, if<br>
+ France, the country with the best civil service in Europe, is
+managed<br>
+ thus, what do you suppose the other nations are like? Poor
+unhappy<br>
+ nations! I ask myself how they can possibly get along without
+two<br>
+ Chambers, without the liberty of the press, without reports,
+without<br>
+ circulars even, without an army of clerks? Dear, dear, how do
+you<br>
+ suppose they have armies and navies? how can they exist at all
+without<br>
+ political discussions? Can they even be called nations, or<br>
+ governments? It is said (mere traveller's tales) that these
+strange<br>
+ peoples claim to have a policy, to wield a certain influence;
+but<br>
+ that's absurd! how can they when they haven't 'progress' or
+'new<br>
+ lights'? They can't stir up ideas, they haven't an independent
+forum;<br>
+ they are still in the twilight of barbarism. There are no people
+in<br>
+ the world but the French people who have ideas. Can you
+understand,<br>
+ Monsieur Poiret," [Poiret jumped as if he had been shot] "how a
+nation<br>
+ can do without heads of divisions, general-secretaries and
+directors,<br>
+ and all this splendid array of officials, the glory of France
+and of<br>
+ the Emperor Napoleon,--who had his own good reasons for creating
+a<br>
+ myriad of offices? I don't see how those nations have the
+audacity to<br>
+ live at all. There's Austria, which has less than a hundred
+clerks in<br>
+ her war ministry, while the salaries and pensions of ours amount
+to a<br>
+ third of our whole budget, a thing that was unheard of before
+the<br>
+ Revolution. I sum up all I've been saying in one single
+remark,<br>
+ namely, that the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres,
+which<br>
+ seems to have very little to do, had better offer a prize for
+the<br>
+ ablest answer to the following question: Which is the best
+organized<br>
+ State; the one that does many things with few officials, or the
+one<br>
+ that does next to nothing with an army of them?"</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Poiret. "Is that your last word?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Yes, sir! whether English, French, German or
+Italian,--I let<br>
+ you off the other languages."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [lifting his hands to heaven]. "Gracious goodness! and
+they<br>
+ call you a witty man!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Haven't you understood me yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Phellion. "Your last observation was full of excellent
+sense."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Just as full as the budget itself, and like the
+budget again,<br>
+ as complicated as it looks simple; and I set it as a warning,
+a<br>
+ beacon, at the edge of this hole, this gulf, this volcano,
+called, in<br>
+ the language of the 'Constitutionel,' 'the political
+horizon.'"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "I should much prefer a comprehensible
+explanation."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Hurrah for Rabourdin! there's my explanation; that's
+my<br>
+ opinion. Are you satisfied?"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville [gravely]. "Monsieur Rabourdin had but one
+defect."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "What was it?"</p>
+
+<p>Colleville. "That of being a statesman instead of a
+subordinate<br>
+ official."</p>
+
+<p>Phellion [standing before Bixiou]. "Monsieur! why did you,
+who<br>
+ understand Monsieur Rabourdin so well, why did you make that
+inf--that<br>
+ odi--that hideous caricature?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Do you forget our bet? don't you know I was backing
+the<br>
+ devil's game, and that your bureau owes me a dinner at the
+Rocher de<br>
+ Cancale?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [much put-out]. "Then it is a settled thing that I am
+to leave<br>
+ this government office without ever understanding a sentence, or
+a<br>
+ single word uttered by Monsieur Bixiou."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "It is your own fault; ask these gentlemen. Gentlemen,
+have<br>
+ you understood the meaning of my observations? and were
+those<br>
+ observations just, and brilliant?"</p>
+
+<p>All. "Alas, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>Minard. "And the proof is that I shall send in my resignation.
+I shall<br>
+ plunge into industrial avocations."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "What! have you managed to invent a mechanical corset,
+or a<br>
+ baby's bottle, or a fire engine, or chimneys that consume no
+fuel, or<br>
+ ovens which cook cutlets with three sheets of paper?"</p>
+
+<p>Minard [departing.] "Adieu, I shall keep my secret."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Well, young Poiret junior, you see,--all these
+gentlemen<br>
+ understand me."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [crest-fallen]. "Monsieur Bixiou, would you do me the
+honor to<br>
+ come down for once to my level and speak in a language I can<br>
+ understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [winking at the rest]. "Willingly." [Takes Poiret by
+the button<br>
+ of his frock-coat.] "Before you leave this office forever
+perhaps you<br>
+ would be glad to know what you are--"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [quickly]. "An honest man, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "--to be able to define,
+explain,<br>
+ and analyze precisely what a government clerk is? Do you know
+what he<br>
+ is?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "I think I do."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [twisting the button]. "I doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "He is a man paid by government to do work."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Oh! then a soldier is a government clerk?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [puzzled]. "Why, no."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "But he is paid by the government to do work, to mount
+guard<br>
+ and show off at reviews. You may perhaps tell me that he longs
+to get<br>
+ out of his place,--that he works too hard and fingers too
+little<br>
+ metal, except that of his musket."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [his eyes wide open]. "Monsieur, a government clerk
+is,<br>
+ logically speaking, a man who needs the salary to maintain
+himself,<br>
+ and is not free to get out of his place; for he doesn't know how
+to do<br>
+ anything but copy papers."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion. So the bureau
+is the<br>
+ clerk's shell, husk, pod. No clerk without a bureau, no bureau
+without<br>
+ a clerk. But what do you make, then, of a customs officer?"
+[Poiret<br>
+ shuffles his feet and tries to edge away; Bixiou twists off one
+button<br>
+ and catches him by another.] "He is, from the bureaucratic point
+of<br>
+ view, a neutral being. The excise-man is only half a clerk; he
+is on<br>
+ the confines between civil and military service; neither
+altogether<br>
+ soldier nor altogether clerk-- Here, here, where are you
+going?"<br>
+ [Twists the button.] "Where does the government clerk proper
+end?<br>
+ That's a serious question. Is a prefect a clerk?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [hesitating]. "He is a functionary."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "But you don't mean that a functionary is not a clerk?
+that's<br>
+ an absurdity."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [weary and looking round for escape]. "I think Monsieur
+Godard<br>
+ wants to say something."</p>
+
+<p>Godard. "The clerk is the order, the functionary the
+species."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [laughing]. "I shouldn't have thought you capable of
+that<br>
+ distinction, my brave subordinate."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [trying to get away]. "Incomprehensible!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "La, la, papa, don't step on your tether. If you stand
+still<br>
+ and listen, we shall come to an understanding before long. Now,
+here's<br>
+ an axiom which I bequeath to this bureau and to all bureaus:
+Where the<br>
+ clerk ends, the functionary begins; where the functionary ends,
+the<br>
+ statesman rises. There are very few statesmen among the
+prefects. The<br>
+ prefect is therefore a neutral being among the higher species.
+He<br>
+ comes between the statesman and the clerk, just as the
+custom-house<br>
+ officer stands between the civil and the military. Let us
+continue to<br>
+ clear up these important points." [Poiret turns crimson with<br>
+ distress.] "Suppose we formulate the whole matter in a maxim
+worthy of<br>
+ Larochefoucault: Officials with salaries of twenty thousand
+francs are<br>
+ not clerks. From which we may deduce mathematically this
+corollary:<br>
+ The statesman first looms up in the sphere of higher salaries;
+and<br>
+ also this second and not less logical and important
+corollary:<br>
+ Directors-general may be statesmen. Perhaps it is in that sense
+that<br>
+ more than one deputy says in his heart, 'It is a fine thing to
+be a<br>
+ director-general.' But in the interests of our noble French
+language<br>
+ and of the Academy--"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [magnetized by the fixity of Bixiou's eye]. "The
+French<br>
+ language! the Academy!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [twisting off the second button and seizing another].
+"Yes, in<br>
+ the interests of our noble tongue, it is proper to observe
+that<br>
+ although the head of a bureau, strictly speaking, may be called
+a<br>
+ clerk, the head of a division must be called a bureaucrat.
+These<br>
+ gentlemen" [turning to the clerks and privately showing them the
+third<br>
+ button off Poiret's coat] "will appreciate this delicate shade
+of<br>
+ meaning. And so, papa Poiret, don't you see it is clear that
+the<br>
+ government clerk comes to a final end at the head of a division?
+Now<br>
+ that question once settled, there is no longer any uncertainty;
+the<br>
+ government clerk who has hitherto seemed undefinable is
+defined."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret. "Yes, that appears to me beyond a doubt."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "Nevertheless, do me the kindness to answer the
+following<br>
+ question: A judge being irremovable, and consequently debarred
+from<br>
+ being, according to your subtle distinction, a functionary,
+and<br>
+ receiving a salary which is not the equivalent of the work he
+does, is<br>
+ he to be included in the class of clerks?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [gazing at the cornice]. "Monsieur, I don't follow
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [getting off the fourth button]. "I wanted to prove to
+you,<br>
+ monsieur, that nothing is simple; but above all--and what I am
+going<br>
+ to say is intended for philosophers--I wish (if you'll allow me
+to<br>
+ misquote a saying of Louis XVIII.),--I wish to make you see
+that<br>
+ definitions lead to muddles."</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [wiping his forehead]. "Excuse me, I am sick at my
+stomach"<br>
+ [tries to button his coat]. "Ah! you have cut off all my
+buttons!"</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "But the point is, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [angrily]. "Yes, monsieur, I do; I understand that you
+have<br>
+ been playing me a shameful trick and twisting off my buttons
+while I<br>
+ have been standing here unconscious of it."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou [solemnly]. "Old man, you are mistaken! I wished to
+stamp upon<br>
+ your brain the clearest possible image of constitutional
+government"<br>
+ [all the clerks look at Bixiou; Poiret, stupefied, gazes at
+him<br>
+ uneasily], "and also to keep my word to you. In so doing I
+employed<br>
+ the parabolical method of savages. Listen and comprehend: While
+the<br>
+ ministers start discussions in the Chambers that are just about
+as<br>
+ useful and as conclusive as the one we are engaged in, the<br>
+ administration cuts the buttons off the tax-payers."</p>
+
+<p>All. "Bravo, Bixiou!"</p>
+
+<p>Poiret [who comprehends]. "I don't regret my buttons."</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou. "I shall follow Minard's example; I won't pocket such
+a<br>
+ paltry salary as mine any longer; I shall deprive the government
+of my<br>
+ co-operation." [Departs amid general laughter.]</p>
+
+<p>Another scene was taking place in the minister's
+reception-room, more<br>
+ instructive than the one we have just related, because it shows
+how<br>
+ great ideas are allowed to perish in the higher regions of
+State<br>
+ affairs, and in what way statesmen console themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx was presenting the new director, Monsieur
+Baudoyer, to<br>
+ the minister. A number of persons were assembled in the
+salon,--two or<br>
+ three ministerial deputies, a few men of influence, and
+Monsieur<br>
+ Clergeot (whose division was now merged with La Billardiere's
+under<br>
+ Baudoyer's direction), to whom the minister was promising an
+honorable<br>
+ pension. After a few general remarks, the great event of the day
+was<br>
+ brought up.</p>
+
+<p>A deputy. "So you lose Rabourdin?"</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx. "He has resigned."</p>
+
+<p>Clergeot. "They say he wanted to reform the
+administration."</p>
+
+<p>The Minister [looking at the deputies]. "Salaries are not
+really in<br>
+ proportion to the exigencies of the civil service."</p>
+
+<p>De la Briere. "According to Monsieur Rabourdin, one hundred
+clerks<br>
+ with a salary of twelve thousand francs would do better and
+quicker<br>
+ work than a thousand clerks at twelve hundred."</p>
+
+<p>Clergeot. "Perhaps he is right."</p>
+
+<p>The Minister. "But what is to be done? The machine is built in
+that<br>
+ way. Must we take it to pieces and remake it? No one would have
+the<br>
+ courage to attempt that in face of the Chamber, and the
+foolish<br>
+ outcries of the Opposition, and the fierce denunciations of the
+press.<br>
+ It follows that there will happen, one of these days, some
+damaging<br>
+ 'solution of continuity' between the government and the<br>
+ administration."</p>
+
+<p>A deputy. "In what way?"</p>
+
+<p>The Minister. "In many ways. A minister will want to serve the
+public<br>
+ good, and will not be allowed to do so. You will create
+interminable<br>
+ delays between things and their results. You may perhaps render
+the<br>
+ theft of a penny actually impossible, but you cannot prevent
+the<br>
+ buying and selling of influence, the collusions of
+self-interest. The<br>
+ day will come when nothing will be conceded without secret<br>
+ stipulations, which may never see the light. Moreover, the
+clerks, one<br>
+ and all, from the least to the greatest, are acquiring opinions
+of<br>
+ their own; they will soon be no longer the hands of a brain,
+the<br>
+ scribes of governmental thought; the Opposition even now tends
+towards<br>
+ giving them a right to judge the government and to talk and
+vote<br>
+ against it."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Baudoyer [in a low voice, but meaning to be heard]. "Monseigneur
+is<br>
+ really fine."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx. "Of course bureaucracy has its defects. I myself
+think<br>
+ it slow and insolent; it hampers ministerial action, stifles
+projects,<br>
+ and arrests progress. But, after all, French administration
+is<br>
+ amazingly useful."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer. "Certainly!"</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx. "If only to maintain the paper and stamp
+industries!<br>
+ Suppose it is rather fussy and provoking, like all good
+housekeepers,<br>
+ --it can at any moment render an account of its disbursements.
+Where<br>
+ is the merchant who would not gladly give five per cent of his
+entire<br>
+ capital if he could insure himself against LEAKAGE?"</p>
+
+<p>The Deputy [a manufacturer]. "The manufacturing interests of
+all<br>
+ nations would joyfully unite against that evil genius of theirs
+called<br>
+ leakage."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx. "After all, though statistics are the childish
+foible of<br>
+ modern statesmen, who think that figures are estimates, we must
+cipher<br>
+ to estimate. Figures are, moreover, the convincing argument
+of<br>
+ societies based on self-interest and money, and that is the sort
+of<br>
+ society the Charter has given us,--in my opinion, at any rate.
+Nothing<br>
+ convinces the 'intelligent masses' as much as a row of figures.
+All<br>
+ things in the long run, say the statesmen of the Left,
+resolve<br>
+ themselves into figures. Well then, let us figure" [the minister
+here<br>
+ goes off into a corner with a deputy, to whom he talks in a
+low<br>
+ voice]. "There are forty thousand government clerks in France.
+The<br>
+ average of their salaries is fifteen hundred francs. Multiply
+forty<br>
+ thousand by fifteen hundred and you have sixty millions. Now, in
+the<br>
+ first place, a publicist would call the attention of Russia and
+China<br>
+ (where all government officials steal), also that of Austria,
+the<br>
+ American republics, and indeed that of the whole world, to the
+fact<br>
+ that for this price France possesses the most inquisitorial,
+fussy,<br>
+ ferreting, scribbling, paper-blotting, fault-finding old
+housekeeper<br>
+ of a civil service on God's earth. Not a copper farthing of
+the<br>
+ nation's money is spent or hoarded that is not ordered by a
+note,<br>
+ proved by vouchers, produced and re-produced on balance-sheets,
+and<br>
+ receipted for when paid; orders and receipts are registered on
+the<br>
+ rolls, and checked and verified by an army of men in spectacles.
+If<br>
+ there is the slightest mistake in the form of these precious<br>
+ documents, the clerk is terrified, for he lives on such
+minutiae. Some<br>
+ nations would be satisfied to get as far as this; but Napoleon
+went<br>
+ further. That great organizer appointed supreme magistrates of a
+court<br>
+ which is absolutely unique in the world. These officials pass
+their<br>
+ days in verifying money-orders, documents, roles, registers,
+lists,<br>
+ permits, custom-house receipts, payments, taxes received, taxes
+spent,<br>
+ etc.; all of which the clerks write or copy. These stern judges
+push<br>
+ the gift of exactitude, the genius of inquisition, the
+sharp-<br>
+ sightedness of lynxes, the perspicacity of account-books to the
+point<br>
+ of going over all the additions in search of subtractions.
+These<br>
+ sublime martyrs to figures have been known to return to an
+army<br>
+ commissary, after a delay of two years, some account in which
+there<br>
+ was an error of two farthings. This is how and why it is that
+the<br>
+ French system of administration, the purest and best on the
+globe has<br>
+ rendered robbery, as his Excellency has just told you, next
+to<br>
+ impossible, and as for peculation, it is a myth. France at
+this<br>
+ present time possesses a revenue of twelve hundred millions, and
+she<br>
+ spends it. That sum enters her treasury, and that sum goes out
+of it.<br>
+ She handles, therefore, two thousand four hundred millions, and
+all<br>
+ she pays for the labor of those who do the work is sixty
+millions,--<br>
+ two and a half per cent; and for that she obtains the certainty
+that<br>
+ there is no leakage. Our political and administrative kitchen
+costs us<br>
+ sixty millions, but the gendarmerie, the courts of law, the
+galleys<br>
+ and the police cost just as much, and give no return. Moreover,
+we<br>
+ employ a body of men who could do no other work. Waste and
+disorder,<br>
+ if such there be, can only be legislative; the Chambers lead to
+them<br>
+ and render them legal. Leakage follows in the form of public
+works<br>
+ which are neither urgent nor necessary; troops re-uniformed
+and<br>
+ gold-laced over and over again; vessels sent on useless
+cruises;<br>
+ preparations for war without ever making it; paying the debts of
+a<br>
+ State, and not requiring reimbursement or insisting on
+security."</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer. "But such leakage has nothing to do with the
+subordinate<br>
+ officials; this bad management of national affairs concerns
+the<br>
+ statesmen who guide the ship."</p>
+
+<p>The Minister [who has finished his conversation]. "There is a
+great<br>
+ deal of truth in what des Lupeaulx has just said; but let me
+tell you"<br>
+ [to Baudoyer], "Monsieur le directeur, that few men see from
+the<br>
+ standpoint of a statesman. To order expenditure of all kinds,
+even<br>
+ useless ones, does not constitute bad management. Such acts
+contribute<br>
+ to the movement of money, the stagnation of which becomes,
+especially<br>
+ in France, dangerous to the public welfare, by reason of the
+miserly<br>
+ and profoundly illogical habits of the provinces which hoard
+their<br>
+ gold."</p>
+
+<p>The Deputy [who listened to des Lupeaulx]. "But it seems to me
+that if<br>
+ your Excellency was right just now, and if our clever friend
+here"<br>
+ [takes Lupeaulx by the arm] "was not wrong, it will be difficult
+to<br>
+ come to any conclusion on the subject."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx [after looking at the minister]. "No doubt
+something<br>
+ ought to be done."</p>
+
+<p>De la Briere [timidly]. "Monsieur Rabourdin seems to have
+judged<br>
+ rightly."</p>
+
+<p>The Minister. "I will see Rabourdin."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx. "The poor man made the blunder of constituting
+himself<br>
+ supreme judge of the administration and of all the officials
+who<br>
+ compose it; he wants to do away with the present state of
+things, and<br>
+ he demands that there be only three ministries."</p>
+
+<p>The Minister. "He must be crazy."</p>
+
+<p>The Deputy. "How do you represent in three ministries the
+heads of all<br>
+ the parties in the Chamber?"</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer [with an air that he imagined to be shrewd].
+"Perhaps<br>
+ Monsieur Rabourdin desired to change the Constitution, which we
+owe to<br>
+ our legislative sovereign."</p>
+
+<p>The Minister [thoughtful, takes La Briere's arm and leads him
+into the<br>
+ study]. "I want to see that work of Rabourdin's, and as you know
+about<br>
+ it--"</p>
+
+<p>De la Briere. "He has burned it. You allowed him to be
+dishonored and<br>
+ he has resigned from the ministry. Do not think for a
+moment,<br>
+ Monseigneur, that Rabourdin ever had the absurd thought (as
+des<br>
+ Lupeaulx tries to make it believed) to change the admirable<br>
+ centralization of power."</p>
+
+<p>The Minister [to himself]. "I have made a mistake" [is silent
+a<br>
+ moment]. "No matter; we shall never be lacking in plans for
+reform."</p>
+
+<p>De la Briere. "It is not ideas, but men capable of executing
+them that<br>
+ we lack."</p>
+
+<p>Des Lupeaulx, that adroit advocate of abuses came into the
+minister's<br>
+ study at this moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Monseigneur, I start at once for my election."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment," said his Excellency, leaving the private
+secretary<br>
+ and taking des Lupeaulx by the arm into the recess of a window.
+"My<br>
+ dear friend, let me have that arrondissement,--if you will, you
+shall<br>
+ be made count and I will pay your debts. Later, if I remain in
+the<br>
+ ministry after the new Chamber is elected, I will find a way to
+send<br>
+ in your name in a batch for the peerage."</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ "You are a man of honor, and I accept."</p>
+
+<p>This is how it came to pass that Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx,
+whose<br>
+ father was ennobled under Louis XV., and who beareth quarterly,
+first,<br>
+ argent, a wolf ravisant carrying a lamb gules; second, purpure,
+three<br>
+ mascles argent, two and one; third, paly of twelve, gules and
+argent;<br>
+ fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises
+gules;<br>
+ supported by four griffon's-claws jessant from the sides of
+the<br>
+ escutcheon, with the motto "En Lupus in Historia," was able
+to<br>
+ surmount these rather satirical arms with a count's coronet.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did
+some<br>
+ business on hand which required him to visit the old ministry,
+where<br>
+ the bureaus had all been in great commotion, owing to a
+general<br>
+ removal of officials, from the highest to the lowest. This
+revolution<br>
+ bore heaviest, in point of fact, upon the lackeys, who are not
+fond of<br>
+ seeing new faces. Rabourdin had come early, knowing all the ways
+of<br>
+ the place, and he thus chanced to overhear a dialogue between
+the two<br>
+ nephews of old Antoine, who had recently retired on a
+pension.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Laurent, how is your chief of division going on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't talk to me about him; I can't do anything with him.
+He<br>
+ rings me up to ask if I have seen his handkerchief or his
+snuff-box.<br>
+ He receives people without making them wait; in short, he hasn't
+a bit<br>
+ of dignity. I'm often obliged to say to him: But, monsieur,
+monsieur<br>
+ le comte your predecessor, for the credit of the thing, used to
+punch<br>
+ holes with his penknife in the arms of his chair to make believe
+he<br>
+ was working. And he makes such a mess of his room. I find
+everything<br>
+ topsy-turvy. He has a very small mind. How about your man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mine? Oh, I have succeeded in training him. He knows exactly
+where<br>
+ his letter-paper and envelopes, his wood, and his boxes and all
+the<br>
+ rest of his things are. The other man used to swear at me, but
+this<br>
+ one is as meek as a lamb,--still, he hasn't the grand style!
+Moreover,<br>
+ he isn't decorated, and I don't like to serve a chief who isn't;
+he<br>
+ might be taken for one of us, and that's humiliating. He carries
+the<br>
+ office letter-paper home, and asked me if I couldn't go there
+and wait<br>
+ at table when there was company."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! what a government, my dear fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed; everybody plays low in these days."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope they won't cut down our poor wages."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid they will. The Chambers are prying into
+everything. Why,<br>
+ they even count the sticks of wood."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it can't last long if they go on that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, we're caught! somebody is listening."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! it is the late Monsieur Rabourdin. Ah, monsieur, I knew
+your<br>
+ step. If you have business to transact here I am afraid you will
+not<br>
+ find any one who is aware of the respect that ought to be paid
+to you;<br>
+ Laurent and I are the only persons remaining about the place who
+were<br>
+ here in your day. Messieurs Colleville and Baudoyer didn't wear
+out<br>
+ the morocco of the chairs after you left. Heavens, no! six
+months<br>
+ later they were made Collectors of Paris."</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<blockquote>
+<blockquote>
+<blockquote>
+<blockquote>
+<blockquote>
+<p>* * * * *</p>
+</blockquote>
+</blockquote>
+</blockquote>
+</blockquote>
+</blockquote>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Note.--Anagrams cannot, of course, be translated; that is why
+three<br>
+ English ones have been substituted for some in French. [Tr.]</p>
+
+<h3><br>
+ ADDENDUM</h3>
+
+<p>The following personages appear in other stories of the Human
+Comedy.</p>
+
+<p>Baudoyer, Isidore<br>
+ The Middle Classes<br>
+ Cousin Pons</p>
+
+<p>Bianchon, Horace<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ The Atheist's Mass<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ The Commission in Lunacy<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ Pierrette<br>
+ A Study of Woman<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Honorine<br>
+ The Seamy Side of History<br>
+ The Magic Skin<br>
+ A Second Home<br>
+ A Prince of Bohemia<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ The Imaginary Mistress<br>
+ The Middle Classes<br>
+ Cousin Betty<br>
+ The Country Parson<br>
+ In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:<br>
+ Another Study of Woman<br>
+ La Grande Breteche</p>
+
+<p>Bidault (known as Gigonnet)<br>
+ Gobseck<br>
+ The Vendetta<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve</p>
+
+<p>Bixiou, Jean-Jacques<br>
+ The Purse<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ Cousin Betty<br>
+ The Member for Arcis<br>
+ Beatrix<br>
+ A Man of Business<br>
+ Gaudissart II.<br>
+ The Unconscious Humorists<br>
+ Cousin Pons</p>
+
+<p>Brezacs (The)<br>
+ The Country Parson</p>
+
+<p>Bruel, Jean Francois du<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ A Prince of Bohemia<br>
+ The Middle Classes<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve</p>
+
+<p>Camps, Madame Octave de<br>
+ Madame Firmiani<br>
+ A Woman of Thirty<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Chaboisseau<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ A Man of Business</p>
+
+<p>Chatelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, Baronne du<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris</p>
+
+<p>Chessel, Madame de<br>
+ The Lily of the Valley</p>
+
+<p>Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Colleville<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame<br>
+ Cousin Betty<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Desplein<br>
+ The Atheist's Mass<br>
+ Cousin Pons<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ Pierrette<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ The Seamy Side of History<br>
+ Modest Mignon<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Honorine</p>
+
+<p>Desroches (son)<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ Colonel Chabert<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ A Woman of Thirty<br>
+ The Commission in Lunacy<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ A Man of Business<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Dutocq<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Falleix, Martin<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen</p>
+
+<p>Falleix, Jacques<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life</p>
+
+<p>Ferraud, Comtesse<br>
+ Colonel Chabert</p>
+
+<p>Finot, Andoche<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ Gaudissart the Great<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen</p>
+
+<p>Fleury<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Fontaine, Comte de<br>
+ The Chouans<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ The Ball at Sceaux<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau</p>
+
+<p>Fontanon, Abbe<br>
+ A Second Home<br>
+ Honorine<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Gaudron, Abbe<br>
+ Honorine<br>
+ A Start in Life</p>
+
+<p>Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van<br>
+ Gobseck<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ The Unconscious Humoriists</p>
+
+<p>Godard, Joseph<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Granson, Athanase<br>
+ Jealousies of a Country Town</p>
+
+<p>Gruget, Madame Etienne<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment</p>
+
+<p>Keller, Francois<br>
+ Domestic Peace<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ Eugenie Grandet<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>La Bastie la Briere, Ernest de<br>
+ Modeste Mignon</p>
+
+<p>La Billardiere, Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel, Baron Flamet
+de<br>
+ The Chouans<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau</p>
+
+<p>Laudigeois<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier<br>
+ The Chouans<br>
+ The Seamy Side of History<br>
+ The Gondreville Mystery<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ The Ball at Sceaux<br>
+ The Lily of the Valley<br>
+ Colonel Chabert</p>
+
+<p>Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ Eugenie Grandet<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet</p>
+
+<p>Metivier<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Minard, Madame<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Minorets, The<br>
+ The Peasantry</p>
+
+<p>Mitral<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau</p>
+
+<p>Nathan, Madame Raoul<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet<br>
+ Eugenie Grandet<br>
+ The Imaginary Mistress<br>
+ A Prince of Bohemia<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ The Unconscious Humorists</p>
+
+<p>Phellion<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Poiret, the elder<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin, Xavier<br>
+ At the Sign of the Cat and Racket<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Rabourdin, Madame<br>
+ The Commission in Lunacy<br>
+<br>
+ Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life</p>
+
+<p>Saillard<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Samanon<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ A Man of Business<br>
+ Cousin Betty</p>
+
+<p>Schinner, Hippolyte<br>
+ The Purse<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ Pierre Grassou<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ Albert Savarus<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ The Imaginary Mistress<br>
+ The Unconscious Humorists</p>
+
+<p>Sommervieux, Theodore de<br>
+ At the Sign of the Cat and Racket<br>
+ Modeste Mignon</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier, Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+<p>Thuillier, Louis-Jerome<br>
+ The Middle Classes</p>
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bureaucracy, by Honore de Balzac
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