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diff --git a/1405-0.txt b/1405-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6c06cf --- /dev/null +++ b/1405-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5782 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1405 *** + +THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES + + +By Honore De Balzac + + +Translated by Ellen Marriage + + + + + +DEDICATION + + To Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, Member of the Aulic Council, Author + of the History of the Ottoman Empire. + + Dear Baron,--You have taken so warm an interest in my long, vast + “History of French Manners in the Nineteenth Century,” you have + given me so much encouragement to persevere with my work, that you + have given me a right to associate your name with some portion of + it. Are you not one of the most important representatives of + conscientious, studious Germany? Will not your approval win for me + the approval of others, and protect this attempt of mine? So proud + am I to have gained your good opinion, that I have striven to + deserve it by continuing my labors with the unflagging courage + characteristic of your methods of study, and of that exhaustive + research among documents without which you could never have given + your monumental work to the world of letters. Your sympathy with + such labor as you yourself have bestowed upon the most brilliant + civilization of the East, has often sustained my ardor through + nights of toil given to the details of our modern civilization. + And will not you, whose naive kindliness can only be compared with + that of our own La Fontaine, be glad to know of this? + + May this token of my respect for you and your work find you at + Dobling, dear Baron, and put you and yours in mind of one of your + most sincere admirers and friends. + + + DE BALZAC. + + + + + +THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES + + +There stands a house at a corner of a street, in the middle of a town, +in one of the least important prefectures in France, but the name of the +street and the name of the town must be suppressed here. Every one will +appreciate the motives of this sage reticence demanded by convention; +for if a writer takes upon himself the office of annalist of his own +time, he is bound to touch on many sore subjects. The house was called +the Hotel d’Esgrignon; but let d’Esgrignon be considered a mere +fancy name, neither more nor less connected with real people than +the conventional Belval, Floricour, or Derville of the stage, or +the Adalberts and Mombreuses of romance. After all, the names of the +principal characters will be quite as much disguised; for though in this +history the chronicler would prefer to conceal the facts under a mass +of contradictions, anachronisms, improbabilities, and absurdities, the +truth will out in spite of him. You uproot a vine-stock, as you imagine, +and the stem will send up lusty shoots after you have ploughed your +vineyard over. + +The “Hotel d’Esgrignon” was nothing more nor less than the house in +which the old Marquis lived; or, in the style of ancient documents, +Charles Marie Victor Ange Carol, Marquis d’Esgrignon. It was only an +ordinary house, but the townspeople and tradesmen had begun by calling +it the Hotel d’Esgrignon in jest, and ended after a score of years by +giving it that name in earnest. + +The name of Carol, or Karawl, as the Thierrys would have spelt it, was +glorious among the names of the most powerful chieftains of the Northmen +who conquered Gaul and established the feudal system there. Never had +Carol bent his head before King or Communes, the Church or Finance. +Intrusted in the days of yore with the keeping of a French March, the +title of marquis in their family meant no shadow of imaginary office; it +had been a post of honor with duties to discharge. Their fief had always +been their domain. Provincial nobles were they in every sense of the +word; they might boast of an unbroken line of great descent; they had +been neglected by the court for two hundred years; they were lords +paramount in the estates of a province where the people looked up to +them with superstitious awe, as to the image of the Holy Virgin that +cures the toothache. The house of d’Esgrignon, buried in its remote +border country, was preserved as the charred piles of one of Caesar’s +bridges are maintained intact in a river bed. For thirteen hundred years +the daughters of the house had been married without a dowry or taken the +veil; the younger sons of every generation had been content with their +share of their mother’s dower and gone forth to be captains or bishops; +some had made a marriage at court; one cadet of the house became an +admiral, a duke, and a peer of France, and died without issue. Never +would the Marquis d’Esgrignon of the elder branch accept the title of +duke. + +“I hold my marquisate as His Majesty holds the realm of France, and on +the same conditions,” he told the Constable de Luynes, a very paltry +fellow in his eyes at that time. + +You may be sure that d’Esgrignons lost their heads on the scaffold +during the troubles. The old blood showed itself proud and high even in +1789. The Marquis of that day would not emigrate; he was answerable for +his March. The reverence in which he was held by the countryside saved +his head; but the hatred of the genuine sans-culottes was strong enough +to compel him to pretend to fly, and for a while he lived in hiding. +Then, in the name of the Sovereign People, the d’Esgrignon lands were +dishonored by the District, and the woods sold by the Nation in spite +of the personal protest made by the Marquis, then turned forty. Mlle. +d’Esgrignon, his half-sister, saved some portions of the fief, thanks to +the young steward of the family, who claimed on her behalf the partage +de presuccession, which is to say, the right of a relative to a portion +of the emigre’s lands. To Mlle. d’Esgrignon, therefore, the Republic +made over the castle itself and a few farms. Chesnel [Choisnel], the +faithful steward, was obliged to buy in his own name the church, the +parsonage house, the castle gardens, and other places to which his +patron was attached--the Marquis advancing the money. + +The slow, swift years of the Terror went by, and the Marquis, whose +character had won the respect of the whole country, decided that he and +his sister ought to return to the castle and improve the property which +Maitre Chesnel--for he was now a notary--had contrived to save for them +out of the wreck. Alas! was not the plundered and dismantled castle all +too vast for a lord of the manor shorn of all his ancient rights; too +large for the landowner whose woods had been sold piecemeal, until he +could scarce draw nine thousand francs of income from the pickings of +his old estates? + +It was in the month of October 1800 that Chesnel brought the Marquis +back to the old feudal castle, and saw with deep emotion, almost beyond +his control, his patron standing in the midst of the empty courtyard, +gazing round upon the moat, now filled up with rubbish, and the castle +towers razed to the level of the roof. The descendant of the Franks +looked for the missing Gothic turrets and the picturesque weather vanes +which used to rise above them; and his eyes turned to the sky, as if +asking of heaven the reason of this social upheaval. No one but Chesnel +could understand the profound anguish of the great d’Esgrignon, now +known as Citizen Carol. For a long while the Marquis stood in silence, +drinking in the influences of the place, the ancient home of his +forefathers, with the air that he breathed; then he flung out a most +melancholy exclamation. + +“Chesnel,” he said, “we will come back again some day when the troubles +are over; I could not bring myself to live here until the edict of +pacification has been published; _they_ will not allow me to set my +scutcheon on the wall.” + +He waved his hand toward the castle, mounted his horse, and rode +back beside his sister, who had driven over in the notary’s shabby +basket-chaise. + +The Hotel d’Esgrignon in the town had been demolished; a couple of +factories now stood on the site of the aristocrat’s house. So Maitre +Chesnel spent the Marquis’ last bag of louis on the purchase of the +old-fashioned building in the square, with its gables, weather-vane, +turret, and dovecote. Once it had been the courthouse of the bailiwick, +and subsequently the presidial; it had belonged to the d’Esgrignons +from generation to generation; and now, in consideration of five hundred +louis d’or, the present owner made it over with the title given by the +Nation to its rightful lord. And so, half in jest, half in earnest, the +old house was christened the Hotel d’Esgrignon. + +In 1800 little or no difficulty was made over erasing names from the +fatal list, and some few emigres began to return. Among the very first +nobles to come back to the old town were the Baron de Nouastre and his +daughter. They were completely ruined. M. d’Esgrignon generously offered +them the shelter of his roof; and in his house, two months later, the +Baron died, worn out with grief. The Nouastres came of the best blood +in the province; Mlle. de Nouastre was a girl of two-and-twenty; the +Marquis d’Esgrignon married her to continue his line. But she died in +childbirth, a victim to the unskilfulness of her physician, leaving, +most fortunately, a son to bear the name of the d’Esgrignons. The old +Marquis--he was but fifty-three, but adversity and sharp distress had +added months to every year--the poor old Marquis saw the death of the +loveliest of human creatures, a noble woman in whom the charm of the +feminine figures of the sixteenth century lived again, a charm now lost +save to men’s imaginations. With her death the joy died out of his old +age. It was one of those terrible shocks which reverberate through every +moment of the years that follow. For a few moments he stood beside the +bed where his wife lay, with her hands folded like a saint, then he +kissed her on the forehead, turned away, drew out his watch, broke the +mainspring, and hung it up beside the hearth. It was eleven o’clock in +the morning. + +“Mlle. d’Esgrignon,” he said, “let us pray God that this hour may not +prove fatal yet again to our house. My uncle the archbishop was murdered +at this hour; at this hour also my father died----” + +He knelt down beside the bed and buried his face in the coverlet; his +sister did the same, in another moment they both rose to their feet. +Mlle. d’Esgrignon burst into tears; but the old Marquis looked with dry +eyes at the child, round the room, and again on his dead wife. To the +stubbornness of the Frank he united the fortitude of a Christian. + +These things came to pass in the second year of the nineteenth century. +Mlle. d’Esgrignon was then twenty-seven years of age. She was a +beautiful woman. An ex-contractor for forage to the armies of the +Republic, a man of the district, with an income of six thousand francs, +persuaded Chesnel to carry a proposal of marriage to the lady. The +Marquis and his sister were alike indignant with such presumption in +their man of business, and Chesnel was almost heartbroken; he could not +forgive himself for yielding to the Sieur du Croisier’s [du Bousquier] +blandishments. The Marquis’ manner with his old servant changed +somewhat; never again was there quite the old affectionate kindliness, +which might almost have been taken for friendship. From that time forth +the Marquis was grateful, and his magnanimous and sincere gratitude +continually wounded the poor notary’s feelings. To some sublime natures +gratitude seems an excessive payment; they would rather have that sweet +equality of feeling which springs from similar ways of thought, and the +blending of two spirits by their own choice and will. And Maitre Chesnel +had known the delights of such high friendship; the Marquis had raised +him to his own level. The old noble looked on the good notary as +something more than a servant, something less than a child; he was the +voluntary liege man of the house, a serf bound to his lord by all the +ties of affection. There was no balancing of obligations; the sincere +affection on either side put them out of the question. + +In the eyes of the Marquis, Chesnel’s official dignity was as nothing; +his old servitor was merely disguised as a notary. As for Chesnel, the +Marquis was now, as always, a being of a divine race; he believed in +nobility; he did not blush to remember that his father had thrown open +the doors of the salon to announce that “My Lord Marquis is served.” + His devotion to the fallen house was due not so much to his creed as to +egoism; he looked on himself as one of the family. So his vexation was +intense. Once he had ventured to allude to his mistake in spite of the +Marquis’ prohibition, and the old noble answered gravely--“Chesnel, +before the troubles you would not have permitted yourself to entertain +such injurious suppositions. What can these new doctrines be if they +have spoiled _you_?” + +Maitre Chesnel had gained the confidence of the whole town; people +looked up to him; his high integrity and considerable fortune +contributed to make him a person of importance. From that time forth he +felt a very decided aversion for the Sieur du Crosier; and though there +was little rancor in his composition, he set others against the sometime +forage-contractor. Du Croisier, on the other hand, was a man to bear a +grudge and nurse a vengeance for a score of years. He hated Chesnel and +the d’Esgrignon family with the smothered, all-absorbing hate only to +be found in a country town. His rebuff had simply ruined him with the +malicious provincials among whom he had come to live, thinking to rule +over them. It was so real a disaster that he was not long in feeling the +consequences of it. He betook himself in desperation to a wealthy old +maid, and met with a second refusal. Thus failed the ambitious schemes +with which he had started. He had lost his hope of a marriage with Mlle. +d’Esgrignon, which would have opened the Faubourg Saint-Germain of the +province to him; and after the second rejection, his credit fell away +to such an extent that it was almost as much as he could do to keep his +position in the second rank. + +In 1805, M. de la Roche-Guyon, the oldest son of an ancient family which +had previously intermarried with the d’Esgrignons, made proposals in +form through Maitre Chesnel for Mlle. Marie Armande Clair d’Esgrignon. +She declined to hear the notary. + +“You must have guessed before now that I am a mother, dear Chesnel,” she +said; she had just put her nephew, a fine little boy of five, to bed. + +The old Marquis rose and went up to his sister, but just returned from +the cradle; he kissed her hand reverently, and as he sat down again, +found words to say: + +“My sister, you are a d’Esgrignon.” + +A quiver ran through the noble girl; the tears stood in her eyes. M. +d’Esgrignon, the father of the present Marquis, had married a second +wife, the daughter of a farmer of taxes ennobled by Louis XIV. It was +a shocking mesalliance in the eyes of his family, but fortunately of no +importance, since a daughter was the one child of the marriage. Armande +knew this. Kind as her brother had always been, he looked on her as a +stranger in blood. And this speech of his had just recognized her as one +of the family. + +And was not her answer the worthy crown of eleven years of her noble +life? Her every action since she came of age had borne the stamp of the +purest devotion; love for her brother was a sort of religion with her. + +“I shall die Mlle. d’Esgrignon,” she said simply, turning to the notary. + +“For you there could be no fairer title,” returned Chesnel, meaning to +convey a compliment. Poor Mlle. d’Esgrignon reddened. + +“You have blundered, Chesnel,” said the Marquis, flattered by the +steward’s words, but vexed that his sister had been hurt. “A d’Esgrignon +may marry a Montmorency; their descent is not so pure as ours. The +d’Esgrignons bear or, two bends, gules,” he continued, “and nothing +during nine hundred years has changed their scutcheon; as it was at +first, so it is to-day. Hence our device, Cil est nostre, taken at +a tournament in the reign of Philip Augustus, with the supporters, a +knight in armor or on the right, and a lion gules on the left.” + + + +“I do not remember that any woman I have ever met has struck my +imagination as Mlle. d’Esgrignon did,” said Emile Blondet, to whom +contemporary literature is indebted for this history among other things. +“Truth to tell, I was a boy, a mere child at the time, and perhaps my +memory-pictures of her owe something of their vivid color to a boy’s +natural turn for the marvelous. + +“If I was playing with other children on the Parade, and she came to +walk there with her nephew Victurnien, the sight of her in the distance +thrilled me with very much the effect of galvanism on a dead body. Child +as I was, I felt as though new life had been given me. + +“Mlle. Armande had hair of tawny gold; there was a delicate fine down on +her cheek, with a silver gleam upon it which I loved to catch, putting +myself so that I could see the outlines of her face lit up by the +daylight, and feel the fascination of those dreamy emerald eyes, which +sent a flash of fire through me whenever they fell upon my face. I used +to pretend to roll on the grass before her in our games, only to try +to reach her little feet, and admire them on a closer view. The soft +whiteness of her skin, her delicate features, the clearly cut lines of +her forehead, the grace of her slender figure, took me with a sense of +surprise, while as yet I did not know that her shape was graceful, +nor her brows beautiful, nor the outline of her face a perfect oval. I +admired as children pray at that age, without too clearly understanding +why they pray. When my piercing gaze attracted her notice, when she +asked me (in that musical voice of hers, with more volume in it, as it +seemed to me, than all other voices), ‘What are you doing little one? +Why do you look at me?’--I used to come nearer and wriggle and bite my +finger-nails, and redden and say, ‘I do not know.’ And if she chanced +to stroke my hair with her white hand, and ask me how old I was, I would +run away and call from a distance, ‘Eleven!’ + +“Every princess and fairy of my visions, as I read the Arabian Nights, +looked and walked like Mlle. d’Esgrignon; and afterwards, when my +drawing-master gave me heads from the antique to copy, I noticed that +their hair was braided like Mlle. d’Esgrignon’s. Still later, when the +foolish fancies had vanished one by one, Mlle. Armande remained vaguely +in my memory as a type; that Mlle. Armande for whom men made way +respectfully, following the tall brown-robed figure with their eyes +along the Parade and out of sight. Her exquisitely graceful form, the +rounded curves sometimes revealed by a chance gust of wind, and always +visible to my eyes in spite of the ample folds of stuff, revisited +my young man’s dreams. Later yet, when I came to think seriously over +certain mysteries of human thought, it seemed to me that the feeling +of reverence was first inspired in me by something expressed in Mlle. +d’Esgrignon’s face and bearing. The wonderful calm of her face, the +suppressed passion in it, the dignity of her movements, the saintly life +of duties fulfilled,--all this touched and awed me. Children are more +susceptible than people imagine to the subtle influences of ideas; +they never make game of real dignity; they feel the charm of real +graciousness, and beauty attracts them, for childhood itself is +beautiful, and there are mysterious ties between things of the same +nature. + +“Mlle. d’Esgrignon was one of my religions. To this day I can never +climb the staircase of some old manor-house but my foolish imagination +must needs picture Mlle. Armande standing there, like the spirit of +feudalism. I can never read old chronicles but she appears before my +eyes in the shape of some famous woman of old times; she is Agnes Sorel, +Marie Touchet, Gabrielle; and I lend her all the love that was lost in +her heart, all the love that she never expressed. The angel shape seen +in glimpses through the haze of childish fancies visits me now sometimes +across the mists of dreams.” + + + +Keep this portrait in mind; it is a faithful picture and sketch of +character. Mlle. d’Esgrignon is one of the most instructive figures in +this story; she affords an example of the mischief that may be done by +the purest goodness for lack of intelligence. + +Two-thirds of the emigres returned to France during 1804 and 1805, and +almost every exile from the Marquis d’Esgrignon’s province came back to +the land of his fathers. There were certainly defections. Men of good +birth entered the service of Napoleon, and went into the army or held +places at the Imperial court, and others made alliances with the upstart +families. All those who cast in their lots with the Empire retrieved +their fortunes and recovered their estates, thanks to the Emperor’s +munificence; and these for the most part went to Paris and stayed there. +But some eight or nine families still remained true to the proscribed +noblesse and loyal to the fallen monarchy. The La Roche-Guyons, +Nouastres, Verneuils, Casterans, Troisvilles, and the rest were some of +them rich, some of them poor; but money, more or less, scarcely counted +for anything among them. They took an antiquarian view of themselves; +for them the age and preservation of the pedigree was the one +all-important matter; precisely as, for an amateur, the weight of +metal in a coin is a small matter in comparison with clean lettering, +a flawless stamp, and high antiquity. Of these families, the Marquis +d’Esgrignon was the acknowledged head. His house became their cenacle. +There His Majesty, Emperor and King, was never anything but “M. de +Bonaparte”; there “the King” meant Louis XVIII., then at Mittau; +there the Department was still the Province, and the prefecture the +intendance. + +The Marquis was honored among them for his admirable behavior, his +loyalty as a noble, his undaunted courage; even as he was respected +throughout the town for his misfortunes, his fortitude, his steadfast +adherence to his political convictions. The man so admirable in +adversity was invested with all the majesty of ruined greatness. His +chivalrous fair-mindedness was so well known, that litigants many a +time had referred their disputes to him for arbitration. All gently bred +Imperialists and the authorities themselves showed as much indulgence +for his prejudices as respect for his personal character; but there was +another and a large section of the new society which was destined to +be known after the Restoration as the Liberal party; and these, with du +Croisier as their unacknowledged head, laughed at an aristocratic oasis +which nobody might enter without proof of irreproachable descent. Their +animosity was all the more bitter because honest country squires and the +higher officials, with a good many worthy folk in the town, were of the +opinion that all the best society thereof was to be found in the Marquis +d’Esgrignon’s salon. The prefect himself, the Emperor’s chamberlain, +made overtures to the d’Esgrignons, humbly sending his wife (a +Grandlieu) as ambassadress. + +Wherefore, those excluded from the miniature provincial Faubourg +Saint-Germain nicknamed the salon “The Collection of Antiquities,” + and called the Marquis himself “M. Carol.” The receiver of taxes, +for instance, addressed his applications to “M. Carol (ci-devant des +Grignons),” maliciously adopting the obsolete way of spelling. + + + +“For my own part,” said Emile Blondet, “if I try to recall my childhood +memories, I remember that the nickname of ‘Collection of Antiquities’ +always made me laugh, in spite of my respect--my love, I ought to +say--for Mlle. d’Esgrignon. The Hotel d’Esgrignon stood at the angle of +two of the busiest thoroughfares in the town, and not five hundred paces +away from the market place. Two of the drawing-room windows looked upon +the street and two upon the square; the room was like a glass cage, +every one who came past could look through it from side to side. I was +only a boy of twelve at the time, but I thought, even then, that the +salon was one of those rare curiosities which seem, when you come to +think of them afterwards, to lie just on the borderland between reality +and dreams, so that you can scarcely tell to which side they most +belong. + +“The room, the ancient Hall of Audience, stood above a row of cellars +with grated air-holes, once the prison cells of the old court-house, +now converted into a kitchen. I do not know that the magnificent lofty +chimney-piece of the Louvre, with its marvelous carving, seemed more +wonderful to me than the vast open hearth of the salon d’Esgrignon when +I saw it for the first time. It was covered like a melon with a network +of tracery. Over it stood an equestrian portrait of Henri III., under +whom the ancient duchy of appanage reverted to the crown; it was a great +picture executed in low relief, and set in a carved and gilded frame. +The ceiling spaces between the chestnut cross-beams in the fine old +roof were decorated with scroll-work patterns; there was a little faded +gilding still left along the angles. The walls were covered with Flemish +tapestry, six scenes from the Judgment of Solomon, framed in golden +garlands, with satyrs and cupids playing among the leaves. The parquet +floor had been laid down by the present Marquis, and Chesnel had picked +up the furniture at sales of the wreckage of old chateaux between +1793 and 1795; so that there were Louis Quatorze consoles, tables, +clock-cases, andirons, candle-sconces and tapestry-covered chairs, which +marvelously completed a stately room, large out of all proportion to the +house. Luckily, however, there was an equally lofty ante-chamber, +the ancient Salle des Pas Perdus of the presidial, which communicated +likewise with the magistrate’s deliberating chamber, used by the +d’Esgrignons as a dining-room. + +“Beneath the old paneling, amid the threadbare braveries of a bygone +day, some eight or ten dowagers were drawn up in state in a quavering +line; some with palsied heads, others dark and shriveled like mummies; +some erect and stiff, others bowed and bent, but all of them tricked out +in more or less fantastic costumes as far as possible removed from +the fashion of the day, with be-ribboned caps above their curled and +powdered ‘heads,’ and old discolored lace. No painter however earnest, +no caricature however wild, ever caught the haunting fascination of +those aged women; they come back to me in dreams; their puckered faces +shape themselves in my memory whenever I meet an old woman who puts +me in mind of them by some faint resemblance of dress or feature. And +whether it is that misfortune has initiated me into the secrets of +irremediable and overwhelming disaster; whether that I have come to +understand the whole range of human feelings, and, best of all, the +thoughts of Old Age and Regret; whatever the reason, nowhere and never +again have I seen among the living or in the faces of the dying the wan +look of certain gray eyes that I remember, nor the dreadful brightness +of others that were black. + +“Neither Hoffmann nor Maturin, the two weirdest imaginations of our +time, ever gave me such a thrill of terror as I used to feel when I +watched the automaton movements of those bodies sheathed in whalebone. +The paint on actors’ faces never caused me a shock; I could see below it +the rouge in grain, the rouge de naissance, to quote a comrade at least +as malicious as I can be. Years had leveled those women’s faces, and +at the same time furrowed them with wrinkles, till they looked like the +heads on wooden nutcrackers carved in Germany. Peeping in through the +window-panes, I gazed at the battered bodies, and ill-jointed limbs +(how they were fastened together, and, indeed, their whole anatomy was +a mystery I never attempted to explain); I saw the lantern jaws, +the protuberant bones, the abnormal development of the hips; and the +movements of these figures as they came and went seemed to me no whit +less extraordinary than their sepulchral immobility as they sat round +the card-tables. + +“The men looked gray and faded like the ancient tapestries on the wall, +in dress they were much more like the men of the day, but even they +were not altogether convincingly alive. Their white hair, their withered +waxen-hued faces, their devastated foreheads and pale eyes, revealed +their kinship to the women, and neutralized any effects of reality +borrowed from their costume. + +“The very certainty of finding all these folk seated at or among the +tables every day at the same hours invested them at length in my eyes +with a sort of spectacular interest as it were; there was something +theatrical, something unearthly about them. + +“Whenever, in after times, I have gone through museums of old furniture +in Paris, London, Munich, or Vienna, with the gray-headed custodian +who shows you the splendors of time past, I have peopled the rooms with +figures from the Collection of Antiquities. Often, as little schoolboys +of eight or ten we used to propose to go and take a look at the +curiosities in their glass cage, for the fun of the thing. But as soon +as I caught sight of Mlle. Armande’s sweet face, I used to tremble; +and there was a trace of jealousy in my admiration for the lovely child +Victurnien, who belonged, as we all instinctively felt, to a different +and higher order of being from our own. It struck me as something +indescribably strange that the young fresh creature should be there in +that cemetery awakened before the time. We could not have explained +our thoughts to ourselves, yet we felt that we were bourgeois and +insignificant in the presence of that proud court.” + + + +The disasters of 1813 and 1814, which brought about the downfall of +Napoleon, gave new life to the Collection of Antiquities, and what was +more than life, the hope of recovering their past importance; but +the events of 1815, the troubles of the foreign occupation, and the +vacillating policy of the Government until the fall of M. Decazes, +all contributed to defer the fulfilment of the expectations of the +personages so vividly described by Blondet. This story, therefore, only +begins to shape itself in 1822. + +In 1822 the Marquis d’Esgrignon’s fortunes had not improved in spite of +the changes worked by the Restoration in the condition of emigres. Of +all the nobles hardly hit by Revolutionary legislation, his case was the +hardest. Like other great families, the d’Esgrignons before 1789 derived +the greater part of their income from their rights as lords of the manor +in the shape of dues paid by those who held of them; and, naturally, the +old seigneurs had reduced the size of the holdings in order to swell the +amounts paid in quit-rents and heriots. Families in this position were +hopelessly ruined. They were not affected by the ordinance by which +Louis XVIII. put the emigres into possession of such of their lands as +had not been sold; and at a later date it was impossible that the law of +indemnity should indemnify them. Their suppressed rights, as everybody +knows, were revived in the shape of a land tax known by the very name of +domaines, but the money went into the coffers of the State. + +The Marquis by his position belonged to that small section of the +Royalist party which would hear of no kind of compromise with those whom +they styled, not Revolutionaries, but revolted subjects, or, in +more parliamentary language, they had no dealings with Liberals or +Constitutionnels. Such Royalists, nicknamed Ultras by the opposition, +took for leaders and heroes those courageous orators of the Right, +who from the very beginning attempted, with M. de Polignac, to protest +against the charter granted by Louis XVIII. This they regarded as +an ill-advised edict extorted from the Crown by the necessity of the +moment, only to be annulled later on. And, therefore, so far from +co-operating with the King to bring about a new condition of things, the +Marquis d’Esgrignon stood aloof, an upholder of the straitest sect of +the Right in politics, until such time as his vast fortune should +be restored to him. Nor did he so much as admit the thought of the +indemnity which filled the minds of the Villele ministry, and formed a +part of a design of strengthening the Crown by putting an end to those +fatal distinctions of ownership which still lingered on in spite of +legislation. + +The miracles of the Restoration of 1814, the still greater miracle +of Napoleon’s return in 1815, the portents of a second flight of the +Bourbons, and a second reinstatement (that almost fabulous phase of +contemporary history), all these things took the Marquis by surprise at +the age of sixty-seven. At that time of life, the most high-spirited +men of their age were not so much vanquished as worn out in the +struggle with the Revolution; their activity, in their remote provincial +retreats, had turned into a passionately held and immovable conviction; +and almost all of them were shut in by the enervating, easy round of +daily life in the country. Could worse luck befall a political party +than this--to be represented by old men at a time when its ideas are +already stigmatized as old-fashioned? + +When the legitimate sovereign appeared to be firmly seated on the throne +again in 1818, the Marquis asked himself what a man of seventy should +do at court; and what duties, what office he could discharge there? +The noble and high-minded d’Esgrignon was fain to be content with the +triumph of the Monarchy and Religion, while he waited for the results +of that unhoped-for, indecisive victory, which proved to be simply +an armistice. He continued as before, lord-paramount of his salon, so +felicitously named the Collection of Antiquities. + +But when the victors of 1793 became the vanquished in their turn, the +nickname given at first in jest began to be used in bitter earnest. +The town was no more free than other country towns from the hatreds +and jealousies bred of party spirit. Du Croisier, contrary to all +expectation, married the old maid who had refused him at first; carrying +her off from his rival, the darling of the aristocratic quarter, a +certain Chevalier whose illustrious name will be sufficiently hidden by +suppressing it altogether, in accordance with the usage formerly adopted +in the place itself, where he was known by his title only. He was “the +Chevalier” in the town, as the Comte d’Artois was “Monsieur” at court. +Now, not only had that marriage produced a war after the provincial +manner, in which all weapons are fair; it had hastened the separation of +the great and little noblesse, of the aristocratic and bourgeois social +elements, which had been united for a little space by the heavy weight +of Napoleonic rule. After the pressure was removed, there followed that +sudden revival of class divisions which did so much harm to the country. + +The most national of all sentiments in France is vanity. The wounded +vanity of the many induced a thirst for Equality; though, as the most +ardent innovator will some day discover, Equality is an impossibility. +The Royalists pricked the Liberals in the most sensitive spots, and +this happened specially in the provinces, where either party accused the +other of unspeakable atrocities. In those days the blackest deeds were +done in politics, to secure public opinion on one side or the other, to +catch the votes of that public of fools which holds up hands for those +that are clever enough to serve out weapons to them. Individuals are +identified with their political opinions, and opponents in public life +forthwith became private enemies. It is very difficult in a country town +to avoid a man-to-man conflict of this kind over interests or questions +which in Paris appear in a more general and theoretical form, with +the result that political combatants also rise to a higher level; M. +Laffitte, for example, or M. Casimir-Perier can respect M. de Villele +or M. de Payronnet as a man. M. Laffitte, who drew the fire on the +Ministry, would have given them an asylum in his house if they had fled +thither on the 29th of July 1830. Benjamin Constant sent a copy of his +work on Religion to the Vicomte de Chateaubriand, with a flattering +letter acknowledging benefits received from the former Minister. At +Paris men are systems, whereas in the provinces systems are identified +with men; men, moreover, with restless passions, who must always +confront one another, always spy upon each other in private life, and +pull their opponents’ speeches to pieces, and live generally like two +duelists on the watch for a chance to thrust six inches of steel between +an antagonist’s ribs. Each must do his best to get under his enemy’s +guard, and a political hatred becomes as all-absorbing as a duel to the +death. Epigram and slander are used against individuals to bring the +party into discredit. + +In such warfare as this, waged ceremoniously and without rancor on the +side of the Antiquities, while du Croisier’s faction went so far as to +use the poisoned weapons of savages--in this warfare the advantages +of wit and delicate irony lay on the side of the nobles. But it should +never be forgotten that the wounds made by the tongue and the eyes, by +gibe or slight, are the last of all to heal. When the Chevalier turned +his back on mixed society and entrenched himself on the Mons Sacer +of the aristocracy, his witticisms thenceforward were directed at du +Croisier’s salon; he stirred up the fires of war, not knowing how far +the spirit of revenge was to urge the rival faction. None but purists +and loyal gentlemen and women sure one of another entered the Hotel +d’Esgrignon; they committed no indiscretions of any kind; they had +their ideas, true or false, good or bad, noble or trivial, but there +was nothing to laugh at in all this. If the Liberals meant to make the +nobles ridiculous, they were obliged to fasten on the political actions +of their opponents; while the intermediate party, composed of officials +and others who paid court to the higher powers, kept the nobles informed +of all that was done and said in the Liberal camp, and much of it was +abundantly laughable. Du Croisier’s adherents smarted under a sense of +inferiority, which increased their thirst for revenge. + +In 1822, du Croisier put himself at the head of the manufacturing +interest of the province, as the Marquis d’Esgrignon headed the +noblesse. Each represented his party. But du Croisier, instead of giving +himself out frankly for a man of the extreme Left, ostensibly adopted +the opinions formulated at a later date by the 221 deputies. + +By taking up this position, he could keep in touch with the magistrates +and local officials and the capitalists of the department. Du Croisier’s +salon, a power at least equal to the salon d’Esgrignon, larger +numerically, as well as younger and more energetic, made itself felt all +over the countryside; the Collection of Antiquities, on the other hand, +remained inert, a passive appendage, as it were, of a central authority +which was often embarrassed by its own partisans; for not merely did +they encourage the Government in a mistaken policy, but some of its most +fatal blunders were made in consequence of the pressure brought to bear +upon it by the Conservative party. + +The Liberals, so far, had never contrived to carry their candidate. The +department declined to obey their command knowing that du Croisier, if +elected, would take his place on the Left Centre benches, and as far +as possible to the Left. Du Croisier was in correspondence with the +Brothers Keller, the bankers, the oldest of whom shone conspicuous among +“the nineteen deputies of the Left,” that phalanx made famous by the +efforts of the entire Liberal press. This same M. Keller, moreover, was +related by marriage to the Comte de Gondreville, a Constitutional +peer who remained in favor with Louis XVIII. For these reasons, the +Constitutional Opposition (as distinct from the Liberal party) was +always prepared to vote at the last moment, not for the candidate whom +they professed to support, but for du Croisier, if that worthy could +succeed in gaining a sufficient number of Royalist votes; but at every +election du Croisier was regularly thrown out by the Royalists. The +leaders of that party, taking their tone from the Marquis d’Esgrignon, +had pretty thoroughly fathomed and gauged their man; and with each +defeat, du Croisier and his party waxed more bitter. Nothing so +effectually stirs up strife as the failure of some snare set with +elaborate pains. + +In 1822 there seemed to be a lull in hostilities which had been kept up +with great spirit during the first four years of the Restoration. The +salon du Croisier and the salon d’Esgrignon, having measured their +strength and weakness, were in all probability waiting for opportunity, +that Providence of party strife. Ordinary persons were content with +the surface quiet which deceived the Government; but those who knew du +Croisier better, were well aware that the passion of revenge in him, as +in all men whose whole life consists in mental activity, is implacable, +especially when political ambitions are involved. About this time +du Croisier, who used to turn white and red at the bare mention +of d’Esgrignon or the Chevalier, and shuddered at the name of the +Collection of Antiquities, chose to wear the impassive countenance of +a savage. He smiled upon his enemies, hating them but the more deeply, +watching them the more narrowly from hour to hour. One of his own party, +who seconded him in these calculations of cold wrath, was the President +of the Tribunal, M. du Ronceret, a little country squire, who had vainly +endeavored to gain admittance among the Antiquities. + +The d’Esgrignons’ little fortune, carefully administered by Maitre +Chesnel, was barely sufficient for the worthy Marquis’ needs; for though +he lived without the slightest ostentation, he also lived like a noble. +The governor found by his Lordship the Bishop for the hope of the house, +the young Comte Victurnien d’Esgrignon, was an elderly Oratorian who +must be paid a certain salary, although he lived with the family. The +wages of a cook, a waiting-woman for Mlle. Armande, an old valet for +M. le Marquis, and a couple of other servants, together with the daily +expenses of the household, and the cost of an education for which +nothing was spared, absorbed the whole family income, in spite of Mlle. +Armande’s economies, in spite of Chesnel’s careful management, and the +servants’ affection. As yet, Chesnel had not been able to set about +repairs at the ruined castle; he was waiting till the leases fell in to +raise the rent of the farms, for rents had been rising lately, partly +on account of improved methods of agriculture, partly by the fall in +the value of money, of which the landlord would get the benefit at the +expiration of leases granted in 1809. + +The Marquis himself knew nothing of the details of the management of +the house or of his property. He would have been thunderstruck if he had +been told of the excessive precautions needed “to make both ends of the +year meet in December,” to use the housewife’s saying, and he was so +near the end of his life, that every one shrank from opening his eyes. +The Marquis and his adherents believed that a House, to which no one at +Court or in the Government gave a thought, a House that was never +heard of beyond the gates of the town, save here and there in the same +department, was about to revive its ancient greatness, to shine forth in +all its glory. The d’Esgrignons’ line should appear with renewed lustre +in the person of Victurnien, just as the despoiled nobles came into +their own again, and the handsome heir to a great estate would be in a +position to go to Court, enter the King’s service, and marry (as other +d’Esgrignons had done before him) a Navarreins, a Cadignan, a d’Uxelles, +a Beausant, a Blamont-Chauvry; a wife, in short, who should unite all +the distinctions of birth and beauty, wit and wealth, and character. + +The intimates who came to play their game of cards of an evening--the +Troisvilles (pronounced Treville), the La Roche-Guyons, the Casterans +(pronounced Cateran), and the Duc de Verneuil--had all so long been +accustomed to look up to the Marquis as a person of immense consequence, +that they encouraged him in such notions as these. They were perfectly +sincere in their belief; and indeed, it would have been well founded if +they could have wiped out the history of the last forty years. But the +most honorable and undoubted sanctions of right, such as Louis +XVIII. had tried to set on record when he dated the Charter from the +one-and-twentieth year of his reign, only exist when ratified by the +general consent. The d’Esgrignons not only lacked the very rudiments +of the language of latter-day politics, to wit, money, the great modern +_relief_, or sufficient rehabilitation of nobility; but, in their case, +too, “historical continuity” was lacking, and that is a kind of renown +which tells quite as much at Court as on the battlefield, in diplomatic +circles as in Parliament, with a book, or in connection with an +adventure; it is, as it were, a sacred ampulla poured upon the heads +of each successive generation. Whereas a noble family, inactive +and forgotten, is very much in the position of a hard-featured, +poverty-stricken, simple-minded, and virtuous maid, these qualifications +being the four cardinal points of misfortune. The marriage of a daughter +of the Troisvilles with General Montcornet, so far from opening the +eyes of the Antiquities, very nearly brought about a rupture between +the Troisvilles and the salon d’Esgrignon, the latter declaring that the +Troisvilles were mixing themselves up with all sorts of people. + +There was one, and one only, among all these folk who did not share +their illusions. And that one, needless to say, was Chesnel the notary. +Although his devotion, sufficiently proved already, was simply unbounded +for the great house now reduced to three persons; although he accepted +all their ideas, and thought them nothing less than right, he had too +much common sense, he was too good a man of business to more than half +the families in the department, to miss the significance of the great +changes that were taking place in people’s minds, or to be blind to the +different conditions brought about by industrial development and modern +manners. He had watched the Revolution pass through the violent phase +of 1793, when men, women, and children wore arms, and heads fell on the +scaffold, and victories were won in pitched battles with Europe; and now +he saw the same forces quietly at work in men’s minds, in the shape of +ideas which sanctioned the issues. The soil had been cleared, the seed +sown, and now came the harvest. To his thinking, the Revolution had +formed the mind of the younger generation; he touched the hard facts, +and knew that although there were countless unhealed wounds, what had +been done was past recall. The death of a king on the scaffold, the +protracted agony of a queen, the division of the nobles’ lands, in his +eyes were so many binding contracts; and where so many vested interests +were involved, it was not likely that those concerned would allow them +to be attacked. Chesnel saw clearly. His fanatical attachment to the +d’Esgrignons was whole-hearted, but it was not blind, and it was all the +fairer for this. The young monk’s faith that sees heaven laid open and +beholds the angels, is something far below the power of the old monk who +points them out to him. The ex-steward was like the old monk; he would +have given his life to defend a worm-eaten shrine. + +He tried to explain the “innovations” to his old master, using a +thousand tactful precautions; sometimes speaking jestingly, sometimes +affecting surprise or sorrow over this or that; but he always met the +same prophetic smile on the Marquis’ lips, the same fixed conviction in +the Marquis’ mind, that these follies would go by like others. Events +contributed in a way which has escaped attention to assist such noble +champions of forlorn hope to cling to their superstitions. What could +Chesnel do when the old Marquis said, with a lordly gesture, “God swept +away Bonaparte with his armies, his new great vassals, his crowned +kings, and his vast conceptions! God will deliver us from the rest.” And +Chesnel hung his head sadly, and did not dare to answer, “It cannot be +God’s will to sweep away France.” Yet both of them were grand figures; +the one, standing out against the torrent of facts like an ancient block +of lichen-covered granite, still upright in the depths of an Alpine +gorge; the other, watching the course of the flood to turn it to +account. Then the good gray-headed notary would groan over the +irreparable havoc which the superstitions were sure to work in the mind, +the habits, and ideas of the Comte Victurnien d’Esgrignon. + +Idolized by his father, idolized by his aunt, the young heir was a +spoilt child in every sense of the word; but still a spoilt child who +justified paternal and maternal illusions. Maternal, be it said, for +Victurnien’s aunt was truly a mother to him; and yet, however careful +and tender she may be that never bore a child, there is something +lacking in her motherhood. A mother’s second sight cannot be acquired. +An aunt, bound to her nursling by ties of such pure affection as united +Mlle. Armande to Victurnien, may love as much as a mother might; may be +as careful, as kind, as tender, as indulgent, but she lacks the mother’s +instinctive knowledge when and how to be severe; she has no sudden +warnings, none of the uneasy presentiments of the mother’s heart; for a +mother, bound to her child from the beginnings of life by all the fibres +of her being, still is conscious of the communication, still vibrates +with the shock of every trouble, and thrills with every joy in the +child’s life as if it were her own. If Nature has made of woman, +physically speaking, a neutral ground, it has not been forbidden to +her, under certain conditions, to identify herself completely with her +offspring. When she has not merely given life, but given of her +whole life, you behold that wonderful, unexplained, and inexplicable +thing--the love of a woman for one of her children above the others. The +outcome of this story is one more proof of a proven truth--a mother’s +place cannot be filled. A mother foresees danger long before a Mlle. +Armande can admit the possibility of it, even if the mischief is done. +The one prevents the evil, the other remedies it. And besides, in the +maiden’s motherhood there is an element of blind adoration, she cannot +bring herself to scold a beautiful boy. + +A practical knowledge of life, and the experience of business, had +taught the old notary a habit of distrustful clear-sighted observation +something akin to the mother’s instinct. But Chesnel counted for so +little in the house (especially since he had fallen into something like +disgrace over that unlucky project of a marriage between a d’Esgrignon +and a du Croisier), that he had made up his mind to adhere blindly in +future to the family doctrines. He was a common soldier, faithful to his +post, and ready to give his life; it was never likely that they would +take his advice, even in the height of the storm; unless chance should +bring him, like the King’s bedesman in The Antiquary, to the edge of the +sea, when the old baronet and his daughter were caught by the high tide. + +Du Croisier caught a glimpse of his revenge in the anomalous education +given to the lad. He hoped, to quote the expressive words of the author +quoted above, “to drown the lamb in its mother’s milk.” _This_ was the +hope which had produced his taciturn resignation and brought that savage +smile on his lips. + +The young Comte Victurnien was taught to believe in his own supremacy as +soon as an idea could enter his head. All the great nobles of the realm +were his peers, his one superior was the King, and the rest of mankind +were his inferiors, people with whom he had nothing in common, towards +whom he had no duties. They were defeated and conquered enemies, whom he +need not take into account for a moment; their opinions could not affect +a noble, and they all owed him respect. Unluckily, with the rigorous +logic of youth, which leads children and young people to proceed to +extremes whether good or bad, Victurnien pushed these conclusions +to their utmost consequences. His own external advantages, moreover, +confirmed him in his beliefs. He had been extraordinarily beautiful as a +child; he became as accomplished a young man as any father could wish. + +He was of average height, but well proportioned, slender, and almost +delicate-looking, but muscular. He had the brilliant blue eyes of the +d’Esgrignons, the finely-moulded aquiline nose, the perfect oval of +the face, the auburn hair, the white skin, and the graceful gait of his +family; he had their delicate extremities, their long taper fingers with +the inward curve, and that peculiar distinction of shapeliness of the +wrist and instep, that supple felicity of line, which is as sure a sign +of race in men as in horses. Adroit and alert in all bodily exercises, +and an excellent shot, he handled arms like a St. George, he was a +paladin on horseback. In short, he gratified the pride which parents +take in their children’s appearance; a pride founded, for that matter, +on a just idea of the enormous influence exercised by physical beauty. +Personal beauty has this in common with noble birth; it cannot be +acquired afterwards; it is everywhere recognized, and often is more +valued than either brains or money; beauty has only to appear and +triumph; nobody asks more of beauty than that it should simply exist. + +Fate had endowed Victurnien, over and above the privileges of good +looks and noble birth, with a high spirit, a wonderful aptitude of +comprehension, and a good memory. His education, therefore, had been +complete. He knew a good deal more than is usually known by young +provincial nobles, who develop into highly-distinguished sportsmen, +owners of land, and consumers of tobacco; and are apt to treat +art, sciences, letters, poetry, or anything offensively above their +intellects, cavalierly enough. Such gifts of nature and education surely +would one day realize the Marquis d’Esgrignon’s ambitions; he already +saw his son a Marshal of France if Victurnien’s tastes were for the +army; an ambassador if diplomacy held any attractions for him; a cabinet +minister if that career seemed good in his eyes; every place in the +state belonged to Victurnien. And, most gratifying thought of all for a +father, the young Count would have made his way in the world by his own +merits even if he had not been a d’Esgrignon. + +All through his happy childhood and golden youth, Victurnien had never +met with opposition to his wishes. He had been the king of the house; no +one curbed the little prince’s will; and naturally he grew up +insolent and audacious, selfish as a prince, self-willed as the most +high-spirited cardinal of the Middle Ages,--defects of character which +any one might guess from his qualities, essentially those of the noble. + +The Chevalier was a man of the good old times when the Gray Musketeers +were the terror of the Paris theatres, when they horsewhipped the watch +and drubbed servers of writs, and played a host of page’s pranks, at +which Majesty was wont to smile so long as they were amusing. This +charming deceiver and hero of the ruelles had no small share in bringing +about the disasters which afterwards befell. The amiable old gentleman, +with nobody to understand him, was not a little pleased to find a +budding Faublas, who looked the part to admiration, and put him in mind +of his own young days. So, making no allowance for the difference of +the times, he sowed the maxims of a roue of the Encyclopaedic period +broadcast in the boy’s mind. He told wicked anecdotes of the reign of +His Majesty Louis XV.; he glorified the manners and customs of the +year 1750; he told of the orgies in petites maisons, the follies of +courtesans, the capital tricks played on creditors, the manners, in +short, which furnished forth Dancourt’s comedies and Beaumarchais’ +epigrams. And unfortunately, the corruption lurking beneath the utmost +polish tricked itself out in Voltairean wit. If the Chevalier went +rather too far at times, he always added as a corrective that a man must +always behave himself like a gentleman. + +Of all this discourse, Victurnien comprehended just so much as flattered +his passions. From the first he saw his old father laughing with +the Chevalier. The two elderly men considered that the pride of a +d’Esgrignon was a sufficient safeguard against anything unbefitting; +as for a dishonorable action, no one in the house imagined that a +d’Esgrignon could be guilty of it. _Honor_, the great principle of +Monarchy, was planted firm like a beacon in the hearts of the family; +it lighted up the least action, it kindled the least thought of a +d’Esgrignon. “A d’Esgrignon ought not to permit himself to do such and +such a thing; he bears a name which pledges him to make a future worthy +of the past”--a noble teaching which should have been sufficient in +itself to keep alive the tradition of noblesse--had been, as it were, +the burden of Victurnien’s cradle song. He heard them from the old +Marquis, from Mlle. Armande, from Chesnel, from the intimates of the +house. And so it came to pass that good and evil met, and in equal +forces, in the boy’s soul. + +At the age of eighteen, Victurnien went into society. He noticed some +slight discrepancies between the outer world of the town and the inner +world of the Hotel d’Esgrignon, but he in no wise tried to seek the +causes of them. And, indeed, the causes were to be found in Paris. He +had yet to learn that the men who spoke their minds out so boldly in +evening talk with his father, were extremely careful of what they +said in the presence of the hostile persons with whom their interests +compelled them to mingle. His own father had won the right of freedom +of speech. Nobody dreamed of contradicting an old man of seventy, and +besides, every one was willing to overlook fidelity to the old order of +things in a man who had been violently despoiled. + +Victurnien was deceived by appearances, and his behavior set up the +backs of the townspeople. In his impetuous way he tried to carry matters +with too high a hand over some difficulties in the way of sport, which +ended in formidable lawsuits, hushed up by Chesnel for money paid down. +Nobody dared to tell the Marquis of these things. You may judge of +his astonishment if he had heard that his son had been prosecuted for +shooting over his lands, his domains, his covers, under the reign of +a son of St. Louis! People were too much afraid of the possible +consequences to tell him about such trifles, Chesnel said. + +The young Count indulged in other escapades in the town. These the +Chevalier regarded as “amourettes,” but they cost Chesnel something +considerable in portions for forsaken damsels seduced under imprudent +promises of marriage: yet other cases there were which came under an +article of the Code as to the abduction of minors; and but for Chesnel’s +timely intervention, the new law would have been allowed to take its +brutal course, and it is hard to say where the Count might have ended. +Victurnien grew the bolder for these victories over bourgeois justice. +He was so accustomed to be pulled out of scrapes, that he never thought +twice before any prank. Courts of law, in his opinion, were bugbears +to frighten people who had no hold on him. Things which he would have +blamed in common people were for him only pardonable amusements. His +disposition to treat the new laws cavalierly while obeying the maxims of +a Code for aristocrats, his behavior and character, were all pondered, +analyzed, and tested by a few adroit persons in du Croisier’s interests. +These folk supported each other in the effort to make the people believe +that Liberal slanders were revelations, and that the Ministerial policy +at bottom meant a return to the old order of things. + +What a bit of luck to find something by way of proof of their +assertions! President du Ronceret, and the public prosecutor likewise, +lent themselves admirably, so far as was compatible with their duty +as magistrates, to the design of letting off the offender as easily as +possible; indeed, they went deliberately out of their way to do +this, well pleased to raise a Liberal clamor against their overlarge +concessions. And so, while seeming to serve the interests of the +d’Esgrignons, they stirred up feeling against them. The treacherous de +Ronceret had it in his mind to pose as incorruptible at the right moment +over some serious charge, with public opinion to back him up. The young +Count’s worst tendencies, moreover, were insidiously encouraged by two +or three young men who followed in his train, paid court to him, won +his favor, and flattered and obeyed him, with a view to confirming his +belief in a noble’s supremacy; and all this at a time when a noble’s +one chance of preserving his power lay in using it with the utmost +discretion for half a century to come. + +Du Croisier hoped to reduce the d’Esgrignons to the last extremity of +poverty; he hoped to see their castle demolished, and their lands sold +piecemeal by auction, through the follies which this harebrained boy was +pretty certain to commit. This was as far as he went; he did not think, +with President du Ronceret, that Victurnien was likely to give justice +another kind of hold upon him. Both men found an ally for their schemes +of revenge in Victurnien’s overweening vanity and love of pleasure. +President du Ronceret’s son, a lad of seventeen, was admirably fitted +for the part of instigator. He was one of the Count’s companions, a new +kind of spy in du Croisier’s pay; du Croisier taught him his lesson, +set him to track down the noble and beautiful boy through his better +qualities, and sardonically prompted him to encourage his victim in his +worst faults. Fabien du Ronceret was a sophisticated youth, to whom +such a mystification was attractive; he had precisely the keen brain +and envious nature which finds in such a pursuit as this the absorbing +amusement which a man of an ingenious turn lacks in the provinces. + +In three years, between the ages of eighteen and one-and-twenty, +Victurnien cost poor Chesnel nearly eighty thousand francs! And this +without the knowledge of Mlle. Armande or the Marquis. More than half of +the money had been spent in buying off lawsuits; the lad’s extravagance +had squandered the rest. Of the Marquis’ income of ten thousand livres, +five thousand were necessary for the housekeeping; two thousand more +represented Mlle. Armande’s allowance (parsimonious though she was) and +the Marquis’ expenses. The handsome young heir-presumptive, therefore, +had not a hundred louis to spend. And what sort of figure can a man make +on two thousand livres? Victurnien’s tailor’s bills alone absorbed his +whole allowance. He had his linen, his clothes, gloves, and perfumery +from Paris. He wanted a good English saddle-horse, a tilbury, and a +second horse. M. du Croisier had a tilbury and a thoroughbred. Was the +bourgeoisie to cut out the noblesse? Then, the young Count must have a +man in the d’Esgrignon livery. He prided himself on setting the fashion +among young men in the town and the department; he entered that world +of luxuries and fancies which suit youth and good looks and wit so well. +Chesnel paid for it all, not without using, like ancient parliaments, +the right of protest, albeit he spoke with angelic kindness. + +“What a pity it is that so good a man should be so tiresome!” Victurnien +would say to himself every time that the notary staunched some wound in +his purse. + +Chesnel had been left a widower, and childless; he had taken his old +master’s son to fill the void in his heart. It was a pleasure to him to +watch the lad driving up the High Street, perched aloft on the box-seat +of the tilbury, whip in hand, and a rose in his button-hole, handsome, +well turned out, envied by every one. + +Pressing need would bring Victurnien with uneasy eyes and coaxing +manner, but steady voice, to the modest house in the Rue du Bercail; +there had been losses at cards at the Troisvilles, or the Duc de +Verneuil’s, or the prefecture, or the receiver-general’s, and the Count +had come to his providence, the notary. He had only to show himself to +carry the day. + +“Well, what is it, M. le Comte? What has happened?” the old man would +ask, with a tremor in his voice. + +On great occasions Victurnien would sit down, assume a melancholy, +pensive expression, and submit with little coquetries of voice and +gesture to be questioned. Then when he had thoroughly roused the old +man’s fears (for Chesnel was beginning to fear how such a course of +extravagance would end), he would own up to a peccadillo which a bill +for a thousand francs would absolve. Chesnel possessed a private income +of some twelve thousand livres, but the fund was not inexhaustible. +The eighty thousand francs thus squandered represented his savings, +accumulated for the day when the Marquis should send his son to Paris, +or open negotiations for a wealthy marriage. + +Chesnel was clear-sighted so long as Victurnien was not there before +him. One by one he lost the illusions which the Marquis and his sister +still fondly cherished. He saw that the young fellow could not be +depended upon in the least, and wished to see him married to some +modest, sensible girl of good birth, wondering within himself how a +young man could mean so well and do so ill, for he made promises one day +only to break them all on the next. + +But there is never any good to be expected of young men who confess +their sins and repent, and straightway fall into them again. A man of +strong character only confesses his faults to himself, and punishes +himself for them; as for the weak, they drop back into the old ruts +when they find that the bank is too steep to climb. The springs of pride +which lie in a great man’s secret soul had been slackened in Victurnien. +With such guardians as he had, such company as he kept, such a life +as he led, he had suddenly became an enervated voluptuary at that +turning-point in his life when a man most stands in need of the harsh +discipline of misfortune and adversity which formed a Prince Eugene, a +Frederick II., a Napoleon. Chesnel saw that Victurnien possessed that +uncontrollable appetite for enjoyments which should be the prerogative +of men endowed with giant powers; the men who feel the need of +counterbalancing their gigantic labors by pleasures which bring +one-sided mortals to the pit. + +At times the good man stood aghast; then, again, some profound sally, +some sign of the lad’s remarkable range of intellect, would reassure +him. He would say, as the Marquis said at the rumor of some escapade, +“Boys will be boys.” Chesnel had spoken to the Chevalier, lamenting +the young lord’s propensity for getting into debt; but the Chevalier +manipulated his pinch of snuff, and listened with a smile of amusement. + +“My dear Chesnel, just explain to me what a national debt is,” he +answered. “If France has debts, egad! why should not Victurnien have +debts? At this time and at all times princes have debts, every gentleman +has debts. Perhaps you would rather that Victurnien should bring you +his savings?--Do you know that our great Richelieu (not the Cardinal, a +pitiful fellow that put nobles to death, but the Marechal), do you know +what he did once when his grandson the Prince de Chinon, the last of +the line, let him see that he had not spent his pocket-money at the +University?” + +“No, M. le Chevalier.” + +“Oh, well; he flung the purse out of the window to a sweeper in the +courtyard, and said to his grandson, ‘Then they do not teach you to be a +prince here?’” + +Chesnel bent his head and made no answer. But that night, as he lay +awake, he thought that such doctrines as these were fatal in times when +there was one law for everybody, and foresaw the first beginnings of the +ruin of the d’Esgrignons. + + + +But for these explanations which depict one side of provincial life +in the time of the Empire and the Restoration, it would not be easy to +understand the opening scene of this history, an incident which took +place in the great salon one evening towards the end of October 1822. +The card-tables were forsaken, the Collection of Antiquities--elderly +nobles, elderly countesses, young marquises, and simple baronesses--had +settled their losses and winnings. The master of the house was pacing +up and down the room, while Mlle. Armande was putting out the candles +on the card-tables. He was not taking exercise alone, the Chevalier was +with him, and the two wrecks of the eighteenth century were talking of +Victurnien. The Chevalier had undertaken to broach the subject with the +Marquis. + +“Yes, Marquis,” he was saying, “your son is wasting his time and his +youth; you ought to send him to court.” + +“I have always thought,” said the Marquis, “that if my great age +prevents me from going to court--where, between ourselves, I do not know +what I should do among all these new people whom his Majesty receives, +and all that is going on there--that if I could not go myself, I could +at least send my son to present our homage to His Majesty. The King +surely would do something for the Count--give him a company, for +instance, or a place in the Household, a chance, in short, for the boy +to win his spurs. My uncle the Archbishop suffered a cruel martyrdom; +I have fought for the cause without deserting the camp with those who +thought it their duty to follow the Princes. I held that while the King +was in France, his nobles should rally round him.--Ah! well, no one +gives us a thought; a Henry IV. would have written before now to the +d’Esgrignons, ‘Come to me, my friends; we have won the day!’--After +all, we are something better than the Troisvilles, yet here are two +Troisvilles made peers of France; and another, I hear, represents +the nobles in the Chamber.” (He took the upper electoral colleges for +assemblies of his own order.) “Really, they think no more of us than if +we did not exist. I was waiting for the Princes to make their journey +through this part of the world; but as the Princes do not come to us, we +must go to the Princes.” + +“I am enchanted to learn that you think of introducing our dear +Victurnien into society,” the Chevalier put in adroitly. “He ought not +to bury his talents in a hole like this town. The best fortune that he +can look for here is to come across some Norman girl” (mimicking +the accent), “country-bred, stupid, and rich. What could he make of +her?--his wife? Oh! good Lord!” + +“I sincerely hope that he will defer his marriage until he has obtained +some great office or appointment under the Crown,” returned the +gray-haired Marquis. “Still, there are serious difficulties in the way.” + +And these were the only difficulties which the Marquis saw at the outset +of his son’s career. + +“My son, the Comte d’Esgrignon, cannot make his appearance at court like +a tatterdemalion,” he continued after a pause, marked by a sigh; “he +must be equipped. Alas! for these two hundred years we have had no +retainers. Ah! Chevalier, this demolition from top to bottom always +brings me back to the first hammer stroke delivered by M. de Mirabeau. +The one thing needful nowadays is money; that is all that the Revolution +has done that I can see. The King does not ask you whether you are a +descendant of the Valois or a conquerer of Gaul; he asks whether you pay +a thousand francs in tailles which nobles never used to pay. So I +cannot well send the Count to court without a matter of twenty thousand +crowns----” + +“Yes,” assented the Chevalier, “with that trifling sum he could cut a +brave figure.” + +“Well,” said Mlle. Armande, “I have asked Chesnel to come to-night. +Would you believe it, Chevalier, ever since the day when Chesnel +proposed that I should marry that miserable du Croisier----” + +“Ah! that was truly unworthy, mademoiselle!” cried the Chevalier. + +“Unpardonable!” said the Marquis. + +“Well, since then my brother has never brought himself to ask anything +whatsoever of Chesnel,” continued Mlle. Armande. + +“Of your old household servant? Why, Marquis, you would do Chesnel +honor--an honor which he would gratefully remember till his latest +breath.” + +“No,” said the Marquis, “the thing is beneath one’s dignity, it seems to +me.” + +“There is not much question of dignity; it is a matter of necessity,” + said the Chevalier, with the trace of a shrug. + +“Never,” said the Marquis, riposting with a gesture which decided the +Chevalier to risk a great stroke to open his old friend’s eyes. + +“Very well,” he said, “since you do not know it, I will tell you +myself that Chesnel has let your son have something already, something +like----” + +“My son is incapable of accepting anything whatever from Chesnel,” the +Marquis broke in, drawing himself up as he spoke. “He might have come to +_you_ to ask you for twenty-five louis----” + +“Something like a hundred thousand livres,” said the Chevalier, +finishing his sentence. + +“The Comte d’Esgrignon owes a hundred thousand livres to a Chesnel!” + cried the Marquis, with every sign of deep pain. “Oh! if he were not +an only son, he should set out to-night for Mexico with a captain’s +commission. A man may be in debt to money-lenders, they charge a heavy +interest, and you are quits; that is right enough; but _Chesnel_! a man +to whom one is attached!----” + +“Yes, our adorable Victurnien has run through a hundred thousand livres, +dear Marquis,” resumed the Chevalier, flicking a trace of snuff from his +waistcoat; “it is not much, I know. I myself at his age---- But, after +all, let us let old memories be, Marquis. The Count is living in the +provinces; all things taken into consideration, it is not so much amiss. +He will not go far; these irregularities are common in men who do great +things afterwards----” + +“And he is sleeping upstairs, without a word of this to his father,” + exclaimed the Marquis. + +“Sleeping innocently as a child who has merely got five or six little +bourgeoises into trouble, and now must have duchesses,” returned the +Chevalier. + +“Why, he deserves a lettre de cachet!” + +“‘They’ have done away with lettres de cachet,” said the Chevalier. +“You know what a hubbub there was when they tried to institute a law +for special cases. We could not keep the provost’s courts, which M. _de_ +Bonaparte used to call commissions militaires.” + +“Well, well; what are we to do if our boys are wild, or turn out +scapegraces? Is there no locking them up in these days?” asked the +Marquis. + +The Chevalier looked at the heartbroken father and lacked courage to +answer, “We shall be obliged to bring them up properly.” + +“And you have never said a word of this to me, Mlle. d’Esgrignon,” + added the Marquis, turning suddenly round upon Mlle. Armande. He never +addressed her as Mlle. d’Esgrignon except when he was vexed; usually she +was called “my sister.” + +“Why, monsieur, when a young man is full of life and spirits, and leads +an idle life in a town like this, what else can you expect?” asked Mlle. +d’Esgrignon. She could not understand her brother’s anger. + +“Debts! eh! why, hang it all!” added the Chevalier. “He plays cards, +he has little adventures, he shoots,--all these things are horribly +expensive nowadays.” + +“Come,” said the Marquis, “it is time to send him to the King. I will +spend to-morrow morning in writing to our kinsmen.” + +“I have some acquaintance with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Lenoncourt, de +Maufrigneuse, and de Chaulieu,” said the Chevalier, though he knew, as +he spoke, that he was pretty thoroughly forgotten. + +“My dear Chevalier, there is no need of such formalities to present +a d’Esgrignon at court,” the Marquis broke in.--“A hundred thousand +livres,” he muttered; “this Chesnel makes very free. This is what comes +of these accursed troubles. M. Chesnel protects my son. And now I must +ask him.... No, sister, you must undertake this business. Chesnel shall +secure himself for the whole amount by a mortgage on our lands. And +just give this harebrained boy a good scolding; he will end by ruining +himself if he goes on like this.” + +The Chevalier and Mlle. d’Esgrignon thought these words perfectly simple +and natural, absurd as they would have sounded to any other listener. So +far from seeing anything ridiculous in the speech, they were both very +much touched by a look of something like anguish in the old noble’s +face. Some dark premonition seemed to weigh upon M. d’Esgrignon at that +moment, some glimmering of an insight into the changed times. He went to +the settee by the fireside and sat down, forgetting that Chesnel would +be there before long; that Chesnel, of whom he could not bring himself +to ask anything. + +Just then the Marquis d’Esgrignon looked exactly as any imagination +with a touch of romance could wish. He was almost bald, but a fringe of +silken, white locks, curled at the tips, covered the back of his head. +All the pride of race might be seen in a noble forehead, such as you may +admire in a Louis XV., a Beaumarchais, a Marechal de Richelieu, it was +not the square, broad brow of the portraits of the Marechal de Saxe; nor +yet the small hard circle of Voltaire, compact to overfulness; it was +graciously rounded and finely moulded, the temples were ivory tinted +and soft; and mettle and spirit, unquenched by age, flashed from the +brilliant eyes. The Marquis had the Conde nose and the lovable Bourbon +mouth, from which, as they used to say of the Comte d’Artois, only witty +and urbane words proceed. His cheeks, sloping rather than foolishly +rounded to the chin, were in keeping with his spare frame, thin legs, +and plump hands. The strangulation cravat at his throat was of the kind +which every marquis wears in all the portraits which adorn eighteenth +century literature; it is common alike to Saint-Preux and to Lovelace, +to the elegant Montesquieu’s heroes and to Diderot’s homespun characters +(see the first editions of those writers’ works). + +The Marquis always wore a white, gold-embroidered, high waistcoat, with +the red ribbon of a commander of the Order of St. Louis blazing upon his +breast; and a blue coat with wide skirts, and fleur-de-lys on the flaps, +which were turned back--an odd costume which the King had adopted. +But the Marquis could not bring himself to give up the Frenchman’s +knee-breeches nor yet the white silk stockings or the buckles at the +knees. After six o’clock in the evening he appeared in full dress. + +He read no newspapers but the Quotidienne and the Gazette de France, two +journals accused by the Constitutional press of obscurantist views and +uncounted “monarchical and religious” enormities; while the Marquis +d’Esgrignon, on the other hand, found heresies and revolutionary +doctrines in every issue. No matter to what extremes the organs of this +or that opinion may go, they will never go quite far enough to please +the purists on their own side; even as the portrayer of this magnificent +personage is pretty certain to be accused of exaggeration, whereas he +has done his best to soften down some of the cruder tones and dim the +more startling tints of the original. + +The Marquis d’Esgrignon rested his elbows on his knees and leant +his head on his hands. During his meditations Mlle. Armande and the +Chevalier looked at one another without uttering the thoughts in their +minds. Was he pained by the discovery that his son’s future must +depend upon his sometime land steward? Was he doubtful of the reception +awaiting the young Count? Did he regret that he had made no preparation +for launching his heir into that brilliant world of court? Poverty had +kept him in the depths of his province; how should he have appeared at +court? He sighed heavily as he raised his head. + +That sigh, in those days, came from the real aristocracy all over +France; from the loyal provincial noblesse, consigned to neglect with +most of those who had drawn sword and braved the storm for the cause. + +“What have the Princes done for the du Guenics, or the Fontaines, or +the Bauvans, who never submitted?” he muttered to himself. “They fling +miserable pensions to the men who fought most bravely, and give them +a royal lieutenancy in a fortress somewhere on the outskirts of the +kingdom.” + +Evidently the Marquis doubted the reigning dynasty. Mlle. d’Esgrignon +was trying to reassure her brother as to the prospects of the journey, +when a step outside on the dry narrow footway gave them notice of +Chesnel’s coming. In another moment Chesnel appeared; Josephin, the +Count’s gray-aired valet, admitted the notary without announcing him. + +“Chesnel, my boy----” (Chesnel was a white-haired man of sixty-nine, +with a square-jawed, venerable countenance; he wore knee-breeches, ample +enough to fill several chapters of dissertation in the manner of Sterne, +ribbed stockings, shoes with silver clasps, an ecclesiastical-looking +coat and a high waistcoat of scholastic cut.) + +“Chesnel, my boy, it was very presumptuous of you to lend money to the +Comte d’Esgrignon! If I repaid you at once and we never saw each other +again, it would be no more than you deserve for giving wings to his +vices.” + +There was a pause, a silence such as there falls at court when the +King publicly reprimands a courtier. The old notary looked humble and +contrite. + +“I am anxious about that boy, Chesnel,” continued the Marquis in a +kindly tone; “I should like to send him to Paris to serve His Majesty. +Make arrangements with my sister for his suitable appearance at +court.--And we will settle accounts----” + +The Marquis looked grave as he left the room with a friendly gesture of +farewell to Chesnel. + +“I thank M. le Marquis for all his goodness,” returned the old man, who +still remained standing. + +Mlle. Armande rose to go to the door with her brother; she had rung the +bell, old Josephin was in readiness to light his master to his room. + +“Take a seat, Chesnel,” said the lady, as she returned, and with womanly +tact she explained away and softened the Marquis’ harshness. And yet +beneath that harshness Chesnel saw a great affection. The Marquis’ +attachment for his old servant was something of the same order as a +man’s affection for his dog; he will fight any one who kicks the animal, +the dog is like a part of his existence, a something which, if +not exactly himself, represents him in that which is nearest and +dearest--his sensibilities. + +“It is quite time that M. le Comte should be sent away from the town, +mademoiselle,” he said sententiously. + +“Yes,” returned she. “Has he been indulging in some new escapade?” + +“No, mademoiselle.” + +“Well, why do you blame him?” + +“I am not blaming him, mademoiselle. No, I am not blaming him. I am +very far from blaming him. I will even say that I shall never blame him, +whatever he may do.” + +There was a pause. The Chevalier, nothing if not quick to take in a +situation, began to yawn like a sleep-ridden mortal. Gracefully he made +his excuses and went, with as little mind to sleep as to go and drown +himself. The imp Curiosity kept the Chevalier wide awake, and with airy +fingers plucked away the cotton wool from his ears. + +“Well, Chesnel, is it something new?” Mlle. Armande began anxiously. + +“Yes, things that cannot be told to M. le Marquis; he would drop down in +an apoplectic fit.” + +“Speak out,” she said. With her beautiful head leant on the back of her +low chair, and her arms extended listlessly by her side, she looked as +if she were waiting passively for her deathblow. + +“Mademoiselle, M. le Comte, with all his cleverness, is a plaything in +the hands of mean creatures, petty natures on the lookout for a crushing +revenge. They want to ruin us and bring us low! There is the President +of the Tribunal, M. de Ronceret; he has, as you know, a very great +notion of his descent----” + +“His grandfather was an attorney,” interposed Mlle. Armande. + +“I know he was. And for that reason you have not received him; nor does +he go to M. de Troisville’s, nor to M. le Duc de Verneuil’s, nor to the +Marquis de Casteran’s; but he is one of the pillars of du Croisier’s +salon. Your nephew may rub shoulders with young M. Fabien du Ronceret +without condescending too far, for he must have companions of his own +age. Well and good. That young fellow is at the bottom of all M. le +Comte’s follies; he and two or three of the rest of them belong to the +other side, the side of M. le Chevalier’s enemy, who does nothing but +breathe threats of vengeance against you and all the nobles together. +They all hope to ruin you through your nephew. The ringleader of the +conspiracy is this sycophant of a du Croisier, the pretended Royalist. +Du Croisier’s wife, poor thing, knows nothing about it; you know her, +I should have heard of it before this if she had ears to hear evil. +For some time these wild young fellows were not in the secret, nor was +anybody else; but the ringleaders let something drop in jest, and then +the fools got to know about it, and after the Count’s recent escapades +they let fall some words while they were drunk. And those words were +carried to me by others who are sorry to see such a fine, handsome, +noble, charming lad ruining himself with pleasure. So far people feel +sorry for him; before many days are over they will--I am afraid to say +what----” + +“They will despise him; say it out, Chesnel!” Mlle. Armande cried +piteously. + +“Ah! How can you keep the best people in the town from finding out +faults in their neighbors? They do not know what to do with themselves +from morning to night. And so M. le Comte’s losses at play are all +reckoned up. Thirty thousand francs have taken flight during these two +months, and everybody wonders where he gets the money. If they mention +it when I am present, I just call them to order. Ah! but--‘Do you +suppose’ (I told them this morning), ‘do you suppose that if the +d’Esgrignon family have lost their manorial rights, that therefore they +have been robbed of their hoard of treasure? The young Count has a right +to do as he pleases; and so long as he does not owe you a half-penny, +you have no right to say a word.’” + +Mlle, Armande held out her hand, and the notary kissed it respectfully. + +“Good Chesnel!... But, my friend, how shall we find the money for this +journey? Victurnien must appear as befits his rank at court.” + +“Oh! I have borrowed money on Le Jard, mademoiselle.” + +“What? You have nothing left! Ah, heaven! what can we do to reward you?” + +“You can take the hundred thousand francs which I hold at your disposal. +You can understand that the loan was negotiated in confidence, so that +it might not reflect on you; for it is known in the town that I am +closely connected with the d’Esgrignon family.” + +Tears came into Mlle. Armande’s eyes. Chesnel saw them, took a fold of +the noble woman’s dress in his hands, and kissed it. + +“Never mind,” he said, “a lad must sow his wild oats. In great salons in +Paris his boyish ideas will take a new turn. And, really, though our old +friends here are the worthiest folk in the world, and no one could have +nobler hearts than they, they are not amusing. If M. le Comte wants +amusement, he is obliged to look below his rank, and he will end by +getting into low company.” + +Next day the old traveling coach saw the light, and was sent to be put +in repair. In a solemn interview after breakfast, the hope of the house +was duly informed of his father’s intentions regarding him--he was to +go to court and ask to serve His Majesty. He would have time during the +journey to make up his mind about his career. The navy or the army, the +privy council, an embassy, or the Royal Household,--all were open to a +d’Esgrignon, a d’Esgrignon had only to choose. The King would certainly +look favorably upon the d’Esgrignons, because they had asked nothing of +him, and had sent the youngest representative of their house to receive +the recognition of Majesty. + +But young d’Esgrignon, with all his wild pranks, had guessed +instinctively what society in Paris meant, and formed his own opinions +of life. So when they talked of his leaving the country and the paternal +roof, he listened with a grave countenance to his revered parent’s +lecture, and refrained from giving him a good deal of information in +reply. As, for instance, that young men no longer went into the army +or the navy as they used to do; that if a man had a mind to be a second +lieutenant in a cavalry regiment without passing through a special +training in the Ecoles, he must first serve in the Pages; that sons of +the greatest houses went exactly like commoners to Saint-Cyr and the +Ecole polytechnique, and took their chances of being beaten by base +blood. If he had enlightened his relatives on these points, funds might +not have been forthcoming for a stay in Paris; so he allowed his father +and Aunt Armande to believe that he would be permitted a seat in the +King’s carriages, that he must support his dignity at court as the +d’Esgrignon of the time, and rub shoulders with great lords of the +realm. + +It grieved the Marquis that he could send but one servant with his son; +but he gave him his own valet Josephin, a man who can be trusted to take +care of his young master, and to watch faithfully over his interests. +The poor father must do without Josephin, and hope to replace him with a +young lad. + +“Remember that you are a Carol, my boy,” he said; “remember that you +come of an unalloyed descent, and that your scutcheon bears the motto +Cil est nostre; with such arms you may hold your head high everywhere, +and aspire to queens. Render grace to your father, as I to mine. We owe +it to the honor of our ancestors, kept stainless until now, that we +can look all men in the face, and need bend the knee to none save a +mistress, the King, and God. This is the greatest of your privileges.” + +Chesnel, good man, was breakfasting with the family. He took no part in +counsels based on heraldry, nor in the inditing of letters addressed +to divers mighty personages of the day; but he had spent the night in +writing to an old friend of his, one of the oldest established notaries +of Paris. Without this letter it is not possible to understand Chesnel’s +real and assumed fatherhood. It almost recalls Daedalus’ address to +Icarus; for where, save in old mythology, can you look for comparisons +worthy of this man of antique mould? + + + + “MY DEAR AND ESTIMABLE SORBIER,--I remember with no little + pleasure that I made my first campaign in our honorable profession + under your father, and that you had a liking for me, poor little + clerk that I was. And now I appeal to old memories of the days + when we worked in the same office, old pleasant memories for our + hearts, to ask you to do me the one service that I have ever asked + of you in the course of our long lives, crossed as they have been + by political catastrophes, to which, perhaps, I owe it that I have + the honor to be your colleague. And now I ask this service of you, + my friend, and my white hairs will be brought with sorrow to the + grave if you should refuse my entreaty. It is no question of + myself or of mine, Sorbier, for I lost poor Mme. Chesnel, and I + have no child of my own. Something more to me than my own family + (if I had one) is involved--it is the Marquis d’Esgrignon’s only + son. I have had the honor to be the Marquis’ land steward ever + since I left the office to which his father sent me at his own + expense, with the idea of providing for me. The house which + nurtured me has passed through all the troubles of the Revolution. + I have managed to save some of their property; but what is it, + after all, in comparison with the wealth that they have lost? I + cannot tell you, Sorbier, how deeply I am attached to the great + house, which has been all but swallowed up under my eyes by the + abyss of time. M. le Marquis was proscribed, and his lands + confiscated, he was getting on in years, he had no child. + Misfortunes upon misfortunes! Then M. le Marquis married, and his + wife died when the young Count was born, and to-day this noble, + dear, and precious child is all the life of the d’Esgrignon + family; the fate of the house hangs upon him. He has got into debt + here with amusing himself. What else should he do in the provinces + with an allowance of a miserable hundred louis? Yes, my friend, a + hundred louis, the great house has come to this. + + “In this extremity his father thinks it necessary to send the + Count to Paris to ask for the King’s favor at court. Paris is a + very dangerous place for a lad; if he is to keep steady there, he + must have the grain of sense which makes notaries of us. Besides, + I should be heartbroken to think of the poor boy living amid such + hardships as we have known.--Do you remember the pleasure with + which we spent a day and a night there waiting to see The Marriage + of Figaro? Oh, blind that we were!--We were happy and poor, but a + noble cannot be happy in poverty. A noble in want--it is a thing + against nature! Ah! Sorbier, when one has known the satisfaction + of propping one of the grandest genealogical trees in the kingdom + in its fall, it is so natural to interest oneself in it and to + grow fond of it, and love it and water it and look to see it + blossom. So you will not be surprised at so many precautions on my + part; you will not wonder when I beg the help of your lights, so + that all may go well with our young man. + + “Keep yourself informed of his movements and doings, of the + company which he keeps, and watch over his connections with women. + M. le Chevalier says that an opera dancer often costs less than a + court lady. Obtain information on that point and let me know. If + you are too busy, perhaps Mme. Sorbier might know what becomes of + the young man, and where he goes. The idea of playing the part of + guardian angel to such a noble and charming boy might have + attractions for her. God will remember her for accepting the + sacred trust. Perhaps when you see M. le Comte Victurnien, her + heart may tremble at the thought of all the dangers awaiting him + in Paris; he is very young, and handsome; clever, and at the same + time disposed to trust others. If he forms a connection with some + designing woman, Mme. Sorbier could counsel him better than you + yourself could do. The old man-servant who is with him can tell + you many things; sound Josephin, I have told him to go to you in + delicate matters. + + “But why should I say more? We once were clerks together, and a + pair of scamps; remember our escapades, and be a little bit young + again, my old friend, in your dealings with him. The sixty + thousand francs will be remitted to you in the shape of a bill on + the Treasury by a gentlemen who is going to Paris,” and so forth. + + + +If the old couple to whom this epistle was addressed had followed out +Chesnel’s instructions, they would have been compelled to take three +private detectives into their pay. And yet there was ample wisdom shown +in Chesnel’s choice of a depositary. A banker pays money to any one +accredited to him so long as the money lasts; whereas, Victurnien was +obliged, every time that he was in want of money, to make a +personal visit to the notary, who was quite sure to use the right of +remonstrance. + +Victurnien heard that he was to be allowed two thousand francs every +month, and thought that he betrayed his joy. He knew nothing of Paris. +He fancied that he could keep up princely state on such a sum. + +Next day he started on his journey. All the benedictions of the +Collection of Antiquities went with him; he was kissed by the dowagers; +good wishes were heaped on his head; his old father, his aunt, and +Chesnel went with him out of the town, tears filling the eyes of all +three. The sudden departure supplied material for conversation for +several evenings; and what was more, it stirred the rancorous minds +of the salon du Croisier to the depths. The forage-contractor, the +president, and others who had vowed to ruin the d’Esgrignons, saw +their prey escaping out of their hands. They had based their schemes of +revenge on a young man’s follies, and now he was beyond their reach. + +The tendency in human nature, which often gives a bigot a rake for a +daughter, and makes a frivolous woman the mother of a narrow pietist; +that rule of contraries, which, in all probability, is the “resultant” + of the law of similarities, drew Victurnien to Paris by a desire to +which he must sooner or later have yielded. Brought up as he had been in +the old-fashioned provincial house, among the quiet, gentle faces +that smiled upon him, among sober servants attached to the family, and +surroundings tinged with a general color of age, the boy had only seen +friends worthy of respect. All of those about him, with the exception of +the Chevalier, had example of venerable age, were elderly men and women, +sedate of manner, decorous and sententious of speech. He had been +petted by those women in gray gowns and embroidered mittens described by +Blondet. The antiquated splendors of his father’s house were as little +calculated as possible to suggest frivolous thoughts; and lastly, he had +been educated by a sincerely religious abbe, possessed of all the charm +of old age, which has dwelt in two centuries, and brings to the Present +its gifts of the dried roses of experience, the faded flowers of the +old customs of its youth. Everything should have combined to fashion +Victurnien to serious habits; his whole surroundings from childhood +bade him continue the glory of a historic name, by taking his life as +something noble and great; and yet Victurnien listened to dangerous +promptings. + +For him, his noble birth was a stepping-stone which raised him above +other men. He felt that the idol of Noblesse, before which they burned +incense at home, was hollow; he had come to be one of the commonest as +well as one of the worst types from a social point of view--a consistent +egoist. The aristocratic cult of the _ego_ simply taught him to follow +his own fancies; he had been idolized by those who had the care of him +in childhood, and adored by the companions who shared in his boyish +escapades, and so he had formed a habit of looking and judging +everything as it affected his own pleasure; he took it as a matter of +course when good souls saved him from the consequences of his follies, +a piece of mistaken kindness which could only lead to his ruin. +Victurnien’s early training, noble and pious though it was, had isolated +him too much. He was out of the current of the life of the time, for the +life of a provincial town is certainly not in the main current of the +age; Victurnien’s true destiny lifted him above it. He had learned +to think of an action, not as it affected others, nor relatively, but +absolutely from his own point of view. Like despots, he made the law +to suit the circumstance, a system which works in the lives of prodigal +sons the same confusion which fancy brings into art. + +Victurnien was quick-sighted, he saw clearly and without illusion, but +he acted on impulse, and unwisely. An indefinable flaw of character, +often seen in young men, but impossible to explain, led him to will one +thing and do another. In spite of an active mind, which showed itself +in unexpected ways, the senses had but to assert themselves, and the +darkened brain seemed to exist no longer. He might have astonished wise +men; he was capable of setting fools agape. His desires, like a sudden +squall of bad weather, overclouded all the clear and lucid spaces of his +brain in a moment; and then, after the dissipations which he could not +resist, he sank, utterly exhausted in body, heart, and mind, into a +collapsed condition bordering upon imbecility. Such a character will +drag a man down into the mire if he is left to himself, or bring him to +the highest heights of political power if he has some stern friend +to keep him in hand. Neither Chesnel, nor the lad’s father, nor Aunt +Armande had fathomed the depths of a nature so nearly akin on many sides +to the poetic temperament, yet smitten with a terrible weakness at its +core. + + + +By the time the old town lay several miles away, Victurnien felt not the +slightest regret; he thought no more about the father, who had loved ten +generations in his son, nor of the aunt, and her almost insane devotion. +He was looking forward to Paris with vehement ill-starred longings; in +thought he had lived in that fairyland, it had been the background of +his brightest dreams. He imagined that he would be first in Paris, as +he had been in the town and the department where his father’s name was +potent; but it was vanity, not pride, that filled his soul, and in his +dreams his pleasures were to be magnified by all the greatness of +Paris. The distance was soon crossed. The traveling coach, like his own +thoughts, left the narrow horizon of the province for the vast world of +the great city, without a break in the journey. He stayed in the Rue de +Richelieu, in a handsome hotel close to the boulevard, and hastened to +take possession of Paris as a famished horse rushes into a meadow. + +He was not long in finding out the difference between country and +town, and was rather surprised than abashed by the change. His mental +quickness soon discovered how small an entity he was in the midst of +this all-comprehending Babylon; how insane it would be to attempt +to stem the torrent of new ideas and new ways. A single incident was +enough. He delivered his father’s letter of introduction to the Duc de +Lenoncourt, a noble who stood high in favor with the King. He saw the +duke in his splendid mansion, among surroundings befitting his rank. +Next day he met him again. This time the Peer of France was lounging +on foot along the boulevard, just like any ordinary mortal, with an +umbrella in his hand; he did not even wear the Blue Ribbon, without +which no knight of the order could have appeared in public in other +times. And, duke and peer and first gentleman of the bedchamber though +he was, M. de Lenoncourt, in spite of his high courtesy, could not +repress a smile as he read his relative’s letter; and that smile told +Victurnien that the Collection of Antiquities and the Tuileries were +separated by more than sixty leagues of road; the distance of several +centuries lay between them. + +The names of the families grouped about the throne are quite different +in each successive reign, and the characters change with the names. It +would seem that, in the sphere of court, the same thing happens over and +over again in each generation; but each time there is a quite different +set of personages. If history did not prove that this is so, it would +seem incredible. The prominent men at the court of Louis XVIII., +for instance, had scarcely any connection with the Rivieres, Blacas, +d’Avarays, Vitrolles, d’Autichamps, Pasquiers, Larochejaqueleins, +Decazes, Dambrays, Laines, de Villeles, La Bourdonnayes, and others who +shone at the court of Louis XV. Compare the courtiers of Henri IV. with +those of Louis XIV.; you will hardly find five great families of the +former time still in existence. The nephew of the great Richelieu was +a very insignificant person at the court of Louis XIV.; while His +Majesty’s favorite, Villeroi, was the grandson of a secretary ennobled +by Charles IX. And so it befell that the d’Esgrignons, all but princes +under the Valois, and all-powerful in the time of Henri IV., had no +fortune whatever at the court of Louis XVIII., which gave them not so +much as a thought. At this day there are names as famous as those +of royal houses--the Foix-Graillys, for instance, or the +d’Herouvilles--left to obscurity tantamount to extinction for want of +money, the one power of the time. + +All which things Victurnien beheld entirely from his own point of view; +he felt the equality that he saw in Paris as a personal wrong. The +monster Equality was swallowing down the last fragments of social +distinction in the Restoration. Having made up his mind on this head, he +immediately proceeded to try to win back his place with such dangerous, +if blunted weapons, as the age left to the noblesse. It is an expensive +matter to gain the attention of Paris. To this end, Victurnien adopted +some of the ways then in vogue. He felt that it was a necessity to have +horses and fine carriages, and all the accessories of modern luxury; +he felt, in short, “that a man must keep abreast of the times,” as de +Marsay said--de Marsay, the first dandy that he came across in the first +drawing-room to which he was introduced. For his misfortune, he fell +in with a set of roues, with de Marsay, de Ronquerolles, Maxime de +Trailles, des Lupeaulx, Rastignac, Ajuda-Pinto, Beaudenord, de la +Roche-Hugon, de Manerville, and the Vandenesses, whom he met wherever he +went, and a great many houses were open to a young man with his ancient +name and reputation for wealth. He went to the Marquise d’Espard’s, +to the Duchesses de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, and de Chaulieu, to the +Marquises d’Aiglemont and de Listomere, to Mme. de Serizy’s, to the +Opera, to the embassies and elsewhere. The Faubourg Saint-Germain has +its provincial genealogies at its fingers’ ends; a great name once +recognized and adopted therein is a passport which opens many a door +that will scarcely turn on its hinges for unknown names or the lions of +a lower rank. + +Victurnien found his relatives both amiable and ready to welcome him so +long as he did not appear as a suppliant; he saw at once that the surest +way of obtaining nothing was to ask for something. At Paris, if the +first impulse moves people to protect, second thoughts (which last +a good deal longer) impel them to despise the protege. Independence, +vanity, and pride, all the young Count’s better and worse feelings +combined, led him, on the contrary, to assume an aggressive attitude. +And therefore the Ducs de Verneuil, de Lenoncourt, de Chaulieu, de +Navarreins, d’Herouville, de Grandlieu, and de Maufrigneuse, the Princes +de Cadignan and de Blamont-Chauvry, were delighted to present the +charming survivor of the wreck of an ancient family at court. + +Victurnien went to the Tuileries in a splendid carriage with his +armorial bearings on the panels; but his presentation to His Majesty +made it abundantly clear to him that the people occupied the royal +mind so much that his nobility was like to be forgotten. The restored +dynasty, moreover, was surrounded by triple ranks of eligible old men +and gray-headed courtiers; the young noblesse was reduced to a cipher, +and this Victurnien guessed at once. He saw that there was no suitable +place for him at court, nor in the government, nor the army, nor, +indeed, anywhere else. So he launched out into the world of pleasure. +Introduced at the Elyess-Bourbon, at the Duchesse d’Angouleme’s, at the +Pavillon Marsan, he met on all sides with the surface civilities due to +the heir of an old family, not so old but it could be called to mind by +the sight of a living member. And, after all, it was not a small thing +to be remembered. In the distinction with which Victurnien was honored +lay the way to the peerage and a splendid marriage; he had taken the +field with a false appearance of wealth, and his vanity would not +allow him to declare his real position. Besides, he had been so much +complimented on the figure that he made, he was so pleased with his +first success, that, like many other young men, he felt ashamed to draw +back. He took a suite of rooms in the Rue du Bac, with stables and a +complete equipment for the fashionable life to which he had committed +himself. These preliminaries cost him fifty thousand francs, which +money, moreover, the young gentleman managed to draw in spite of all +Chesnel’s wise precautions, thanks to a series of unforeseen events. + +Chesnel’s letter certainly reached his friend’s office, but Maitre +Sorbier was dead; and Mme. Sorbier, a matter-of-fact person, seeing it +was a business letter, handed it on to her husband’s successor. Maitre +Cardot, the new notary, informed the young Count that a draft on the +Treasury made payable to the deceased would be useless; and by way of +reply to the letter, which had cost the old provincial notary so much +thought, Cardot despatched four lines intended not to reach Chesnel’s +heart, but to produce the money. Chesnel made the draft payable +to Sorbier’s young successor; and the latter, feeling but little +inclination to adopt his correspondent’s sentimentality, was delighted +to put himself at the Count’s orders, and gave Victurnien as much money +as he wanted. + +Now those who know what life in Paris means, know that fifty thousand +francs will not go very far in furniture, horses, carriages, and +elegance generally; but it must be borne in mind that Victurnien +immediately contracted some twenty thousand francs’ worth of debts +besides, and his tradespeople at first were not at all anxious to be +paid, for our young gentleman’s fortune had been prodigiously increased, +partly by rumor, partly by Josephin, that Chesnel in livery. + +Victurnien had not been in town a month before he was obliged to repair +to his man of business for ten thousand francs; he had only been playing +whist with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Chaulieu, and de Lenoncourt, and +now and again at his club. He had begun by winning some thousands of +francs but pretty soon lost five or six thousand, which brought home to +him the necessity of a purse for play. Victurnien had the spirit that +gains goodwill everywhere, and puts a young man of a great family on a +level with the very highest. He was not merely admitted at once into +the band of patrician youth, but was even envied by the rest. It was +intoxicating to him to feel that he was envied, nor was he in this mood +very likely to think of reform. Indeed, he had completely lost his head. +He would not think of the means; he dipped into his money-bags as if +they could be refilled indefinitely; he deliberately shut his eyes to +the inevitable results of the system. In that dissipated set, in the +continual whirl of gaiety, people take the actors in their brilliant +costumes as they find them, no one inquires whether a man can afford to +make the figure he does, there is nothing in worse taste than inquiries +as to ways and means. A man ought to renew his wealth perpetually, +and as Nature does--below the surface and out of sight. People talk if +somebody comes to grief; they joke about a newcomer’s fortune till +their minds are set at rest, and at this they draw the line. Victurnien +d’Esgrignon, with all the Faubourg Saint-Germain to back him, with all +his protectors exaggerating the amount of his fortune (were it only to +rid themselves of responsibility), and magnifying his possessions in the +most refined and well-bred way, with a hint or a word; with all these +advantages--to repeat--Victurnien was, in fact, an eligible Count. He +was handsome, witty, sound in politics; his father still possessed the +ancestral castle and the lands of the marquisate. Such a young fellow +is sure of an admirable reception in houses where there are marriageable +daughters, fair but portionless partners at dances, and young married +women who find that time hangs heavy on their hands. So the world, +smiling, beckoned him to the foremost benches in its booth; the seats +reserved for marquises are still in the same place in Paris; and if the +names are changed, the things are the same as ever. + +In the most exclusive circle of society in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, +Victurnien found the Chevalier’s double in the person of the Vidame de +Pamiers. The Vidame was a Chevalier de Valois raised to the tenth power, +invested with all the prestige of wealth, enjoying all the advantages of +high position. The dear Vidame was a repositary for everybody’s secrets, +and the gazette of the Faubourg besides; nevertheless, he was discreet, +and, like other gazettes, only said things that might safely be +published. Again Victurnien listened to the Chevalier’s esoteric +doctrines. The Vidame told young d’Esgrignon, without mincing matters, +to make conquests among women of quality, supplementing the advice with +anecdotes from his own experience. The Vicomte de Pamiers, it seemed, +had permitted himself much that it would serve no purpose to relate +here; so remote was it all from our modern manners, in which soul and +passion play so large a part, that nobody would believe it. But the +excellent Vidame did more than this. + +“Dine with me at a tavern to-morrow,” said he, by way of conclusion. “We +will digest our dinner at the Opera, and afterwards I will take you to a +house where several people have the greatest wish to meet you.” + +The Vidame gave a delightful little dinner at the Rocher de Cancale; +three guests only were asked to meet Victurnien--de Marsay, Rastignac, +and Blondet. Emile Blondet, the young Count’s fellow-townsman, was a man +of letters on the outskirts of society to which he had been introduced +by a charming woman from the same province. This was one of the Vicomte +de Troisville’s daughters, now married to the Comte de Montcornet, +one of those of Napoleon’s generals who went over to the Bourbons. The +Vidame held that a dinner-party of more than six persons was beneath +contempt. In that case, according to him, there was an end alike of +cookery and conversation, and a man could not sip his wine in a proper +frame of mind. + +“I have not yet told you, my dear boy, where I mean to take you +to-night,” he said, taking Victurnien’s hands and tapping on them. +“You are going to see Mlle. des Touches; all the pretty women with any +pretensions to wit will be at her house en petit comite. Literature, +art, poetry, any sort of genius, in short, is held in great esteem +there. It is one of our old-world bureaux d’esprit, with a veneer of +monarchical doctrine, the livery of this present age.” + +“It is sometimes as tiresome and tedious there as a pair of new boots, +but there are women with whom you cannot meet anywhere else,” said de +Marsay. + +“If all the poets who went there to rub up their muse were like +our friend here,” said Rastignac, tapping Blondet familiarly on the +shoulder, “we should have some fun. But a plague of odes, and ballads, +and driveling meditations, and novels with wide margins, pervades the +sofas and the atmosphere.” + +“I don’t dislike them,” said de Marsay, “so long as they corrupt girls’ +minds, and don’t spoil women.” + +“Gentlemen,” smiled Blondet, “you are encroaching on my field of +literature.” + +“You need not talk. You have robbed us of the most charming woman in the +world, you lucky rogue; we may be allowed to steal your less brilliant +ideas,” cried Rastignac. + +“Yes, he is a lucky rascal,” said the Vidame, and he twitched +Blondet’s ear. “But perhaps Victurnien here will be luckier still this +evening----” + +“_Already_!” exclaimed de Marsay. “Why, he only came here a month ago; +he has scarcely had time to shake the dust of his old manor house off +his feet, to wipe off the brine in which his aunt kept him preserved; +he has only just set up a decent horse, a tilbury in the latest style, a +groom----” + +“No, no, not a groom,” interrupted Rastignac; “he has some sort of an +agricultural laborer that he brought with him ‘from his place.’ Buisson, +who understands a livery as well as most, declared that the man was +physically incapable of wearing a jacket.” + +“I will tell you what, you ought to have modeled yourself on +Beaudenord,” the Vidame said seriously. “He has this advantage over +all of you, my young friends, he has a genuine specimen of the English +tiger----” + +“Just see, gentlemen, what the noblesse have come to in France!” cried +Victurnien. “For them the one important thing is to have a tiger, a +thoroughbred, and baubles----” + +“Bless me!” said Blondet. “‘This gentleman’s good sense at times appalls +me.’--Well, yes, young moralist, you nobles have come to that. You have +not even left to you that lustre of lavish expenditure for which the +dear Vidame was famous fifty years ago. We revel on a second floor in +the Rue Montorgueil. There are no more wars with the Cardinal, no Field +of the Cloth of Gold. You, Comte d’Esgrignon, in short, are supping +in the company of one Blondet, younger son of a miserable provincial +magistrate, with whom you would not shake hands down yonder; and in ten +years’ time you may sit beside him among peers of the realm. Believe in +yourself after that, if you can.” + +“Ah, well,” said Rastignac, “we have passed from action to thought, from +brute force to force of intellect, we are talking----” + +“Let us not talk of our reverses,” protested the Vidame; “I have made +up my mind to die merrily. If our friend here has not a tiger as yet, he +comes of a race of lions, and can dispense with one.” + +“He cannot do without a tiger,” said Blondet; “he is too newly come to +town.” + +“His elegance may be new as yet,” returned de Marsay, “but we are +adopting it. He is worthy of us, he understands his age, he has brains, +he is nobly born and gently bred; we are going to like him, and serve +him, and push him----” + +“Whither?” inquired Blondet. + +“Inquisitive soul!” said Rastignac. + +“With whom will he take up to-night?” de Marsay asked. + +“With a whole seraglio,” said the Vidame. + +“Plague take it! What can we have done that the dear Vidame is punishing +us by keeping his word to the infanta? I should be pitiable indeed if I +did not know her----” + +“And I was once a coxcomb even as he,” said the Vidame, indicating de +Marsay. + +The conversation continued pitched in the same key, charmingly +scandalous, and agreeably corrupt. The dinner went off very pleasantly. +Rastignac and de Marsay went to the Opera with the Vidame and +Victurnien, with a view to following them afterwards to Mlle. des +Touches’ salon. And thither, accordingly, this pair of rakes betook +themselves, calculating that by that time the tragedy would have been +read; for of all things to be taken between eleven and twelve o’clock at +night, a tragedy in their opinion was the most unwholesome. They went to +keep a watch on Victurnien and to embarrass him, a piece of schoolboys’s +mischief embittered by a jealous dandy’s spite. But Victurnien was +gifted with that page’s effrontery which is a great help to ease +of manner; and Rastignac, watching him as he made his entrance, was +surprised to see how quickly he caught the tone of the moment. + +“That young d’Esgrignon will go far, will he not?” he said, addressing +his companion. + +“That is as may be,” returned de Marsay, “but he is in a fair way.” + + + +The Vidame introduced his young friend to one of the most amiable +and frivolous duchesses of the day, a lady whose adventures caused an +explosion five years later. Just then, however, she was in the full +blaze of her glory; she had been suspected, it is true, of equivocal +conduct; but suspicion, while it is still suspicion and not proof, marks +a woman out with the kind of distinction which slander gives to a man. +Nonentities are never slandered; they chafe because they are left in +peace. This woman was, in fact, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, a daughter +of the d’Uxelles; her father-in-law was still alive; she was not to +be the Princesse de Cadignan for some years to come. A friend of the +Duchesse de Langeais and the Vicomtesse de Beauseant, two glories +departed, she was likewise intimate with the Marquise d’Espard, with +whom she disputed her fragile sovereignty as queen of fashion. Great +relations lent her countenance for a long while, but the Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse was one of those women who, in some way, nobody knows how, +or why, or where, will spend the rents of all the lands of earth, and of +the moon likewise, if they were not out of reach. The general outline of +her character was scarcely known as yet; de Marsay, and de Marsay only, +really had read her. That redoubtable dandy now watched the Vidame de +Pamiers’ introduction of his young friend to that lovely woman, and bent +over to say in Rastignac’s ear: + +“My dear fellow, he will go up _whizz_! like a rocket, and come down +like a stick,” an atrociously vulgar saying which was remarkably +fulfilled. + +The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had lost her heart to Victurnien after +first giving her mind to a serious study of him. Any lover who should +have caught the glance by which she expressed her gratitude to the +Vidame might well have been jealous of such friendship. Women are like +horses let loose on a steppe when they feel, as the Duchess felt with +the Vidame de Pamiers, that the ground is safe; at such moments they +are themselves; perhaps it pleases them to give, as it were, samples +of their tenderness in intimacy in this way. It was a guarded glance, +nothing was lost between eye and eye; there was no possibility of +reflection in any mirror. Nobody intercepted it. + +“See how she has prepared herself,” Rastignac said, turning to de +Marsay. “What a virginal toilette; what swan’s grace in that snow-white +throat of hers! How white her gown is, and she is wearing a sash like a +little girl; she looks round like a madonna inviolate. Who would think +that you had passed that way?” + +“The very reason why she looks as she does,” returned de Marsay, with a +triumphant air. + +The two young men exchanged a smile. Mme. de Maufrigneuse saw the smile +and guessed at their conversation, and gave the pair a broadside of her +eyes, an art acquired by Frenchwomen since the Peace, when Englishwomen +imported it into this country, together with the shape of their silver +plate, their horses and harness, and the piles of insular ice which +impart a refreshing coolness to the atmosphere of any room in which a +certain number of British females are gathered together. The young +men grew serious as a couple of clerks at the end of a homily from +headquarters before the receipt of an expected bonus. + +The Duchess when she lost her heart to Victurnien had made up her +mind to play the part of romantic Innocence, a role much understudied +subsequently by other women, for the misfortune of modern youth. Her +Grace of Maufrigneuse had just come out as an angel at a moment’s +notice, precisely as she meant to turn to literature and science +somewhere about her fortieth year instead of taking to devotion. She +made a point of being like nobody else. Her parts, her dresses, her +caps, opinions, toilettes, and manner of acting were all entirely new +and original. Soon after her marriage, when she was scarcely more than +a girl, she had played the part of a knowing and almost depraved woman; +she ventured on risky repartees with shallow people, and betrayed her +ignorance to those who knew better. As the date of that marriage made +it impossible to abstract one little year from her age without the +knowledge of Time, she had taken it into her head to be immaculate. She +scarcely seemed to belong to earth; she shook out her wide sleeves as +if they had been wings. Her eyes fled to heaven at too warm a glance, or +word, or thought. + +There is a madonna painted by Piola, the great Genoese painter, who bade +fair to bring out a second edition of Raphael till his career was +cut short by jealousy and murder; his madonna, however, you may dimly +discern through a pane of glass in a little street in Genoa. + +A more chaste-eyed madonna than Piola’s does not exist but compared +with Mme. de Maufrigneuse, that heavenly creature was a Messalina. +Women wondered among themselves how such a giddy young thing had been +transformed by a change of dress into the fair veiled seraph who seemed +(to use an expression now in vogue) to have a soul as white as new +fallen snow on the highest Alpine crests. How had she solved in such +short space the Jesuitical problem how to display a bosom whiter than +her soul by hiding it in gauze? How could she look so ethereal while her +eyes drooped so murderously? Those almost wanton glances seemed to give +promise of untold languorous delight, while by an ascetic’s sigh of +aspiration after a better life the mouth appeared to add that none of +those promises would be fulfilled. Ingenuous youths (for there were a +few to be found in the Guards of that day) privately wondered whether, +in the most intimate moments, it were possible to speak familiarly to +this White Lady, this starry vapor slidden down from the Milky Way. +This system, which answered completely for some years at a stretch, was +turned to good account by women of fashion, whose breasts were lined +with a stout philosophy, for they could cloak no inconsiderable +exactions with these little airs from the sacristy. Not one of the +celestial creatures but was quite well aware of the possibilities of +less ethereal love which lay in the longing of every well-conditioned +male to recall such beings to earth. It was a fashion which permitted +them to abide in a semi-religious, semi-Ossianic empyrean; they could, +and did, ignore all the practical details of daily life, a short and +easy method of disposing of many questions. De Marsay, foreseeing the +future developments of the system, added a last word, for he saw that +Rastignac was jealous of Victurnien. + +“My boy,” said he, “stay as you are. Our Nucingen will make your +fortune, whereas the Duchess would ruin you. She is too expensive.” + +Rastignac allowed de Marsay to go without asking further questions. He +knew Paris. He knew that the most refined and noble and disinterested +of women--a woman who cannot be induced to accept anything but a +bouquet--can be as dangerous an acquaintance for a young man as any +opera girl of former days. As a matter of fact, the opera girl is an +almost mythical being. As things are now at the theatres, dancers and +actresses are about as amusing as a declaration of the rights of woman, +they are puppets that go abroad in the morning in the character of +respected and respectable mothers of families, and act men’s parts in +tight-fitting garments at night. + +Worthy M. Chesnel, in his country notary’s office, was right; he had +foreseen one of the reefs on which the Count might shipwreck. Victurnien +was dazzled by the poetic aureole which Mme. de Maufrigneuse chose to +assume; he was chained and padlocked from the first hour in her company, +bound captive by that girlish sash, and caught by the curls twined round +fairy fingers. Far corrupted the boy was already, but he really believed +in that farrago of maidenliness and muslin, in sweet looks as much +studied as an Act of Parliament. And if the one man, who is in duty +bound to believe in feminine fibs, is deceived by them, is not that +enough? + +For a pair of lovers, the rest of their species are about as much alive +as figures on the tapestry. The Duchess, flattery apart, was avowedly +and admittedly one of the ten handsomest women in society. “The +loveliest woman in Paris” is, as you know, as often met with in the +world of love-making as “the finest book that has appeared in this +generation,” in the world of letters. + +The converse which Victurnien held with the Duchess can be kept up at +his age without too great a strain. He was young enough and ignorant +enough of life in Paris to feel no necessity to be upon his guard, no +need to keep a watch over his lightest words and glances. The religious +sentimentalism, which finds a broadly humorous commentary in the +after-thoughts of either speaker, puts the old-world French chat of men +and women, with its pleasant familiarity, its lively ease, quite out of +the question; they make love in a mist nowadays. + +Victurnien was just sufficient of an unsophisticated provincial to +remain suspended in a highly appropriate and unfeigned rapture which +pleased the Duchess; for women are no more to be deceived by the +comedies which men play than by their own. Mme. de Maufrigneuse +calculated, not without dismay, that the young Count’s infatuation was +likely to hold good for six whole months of disinterested love. She +looked so lovely in this dove’s mood, quenching the light in her eyes by +the golden fringe of their lashes, that when the Marquise d’Espard bade +her friend good-night, she whispered, “Good! very good, dear!” And with +those farewell words, the fair Marquise left her rival to make the tour +of the modern Pays du Tendre; which, by the way, is not so absurd a +conception as some appear to think. New maps of the country are engraved +for each generation; and if the names of the routes are different, they +still lead to the same capital city. + +In the course of an hour’s tete-a-tete, on a corner sofa, under the eyes +of the world, the Duchess brought young d’Esgrignon as far as Scipio’s +Generosity, the Devotion of Amadis, and Chivalrous Self-abnegation +(for the Middle Ages were just coming into fashion, with their daggers, +machicolations, hauberks, chain-mail, peaked shoes, and romantic painted +card-board properties). She had an admirable turn, moreover, for leaving +things unsaid, for leaving ideas in a discreet, seeming careless way, to +work their way down, one by one, into Victurnien’s heart, like needles +into a cushion. She possessed a marvelous skill in reticence; she was +charming in hypocrisy, lavish of subtle promises, which revived hope and +then melted away like ice in the sun if you looked at them closely, and +most treacherous in the desire which she felt and inspired. At the +close of this charming encounter she produced the running noose of an +invitation to call, and flung it over him with a dainty demureness which +the printed page can never set forth. + +“You will forget me,” she said. “You will find so many women eager to +pay court to you instead of enlightening you.... But you will come back +to me undeceived. Are you coming to me first?... No. As you will.--For +my own part, I tell you frankly that your visits will be a great +pleasure to me. People of soul are so rare, and I think that you are one +of them.--Come, good-bye; people will begin to talk about us if we talk +together any longer.” + +She made good her words and took flight. Victurnien went soon +afterwards, but not before others had guessed his ecstatic condition; +his face wore the expression peculiar to happy men, something between +an Inquisitor’s calm discretion and the self-contained beatitude of a +devotee, fresh from the confessional and absolution. + +“Mme. de Maufrigneuse went pretty briskly to the point this evening,” + said the Duchesse de Grandlieu, when only half-a-dozen persons were +left in Mlle. des Touches’ little drawing-room--to wit, des Lupeaulx, +a Master of Requests, who at that time stood very well at court, +Vandenesse, the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, Canalis, and Mme. de Serizy. + +“D’Esgrignon and Maufrigneuse are two names that are sure to cling +together,” said Mme. de Serizy, who aspired to epigram. + +“For some days past she has been out at grass on Platonism,” said des +Lupeaulx. + +“She will ruin that poor innocent,” added Charles de Vandenesse. + +“What do you mean?” asked Mlle. des Touches. + +“Oh, morally and financially, beyond all doubt,” said the Vicomtesse, +rising. + +The cruel words were cruelly true for young d’Esgrignon. + +Next morning he wrote to his aunt describing his introduction into the +high world of the Faubourg Saint-Germain in bright colors flung by the +prism of love, explaining the reception which met him everywhere in a +way which gratified his father’s family pride. The Marquis would have +the whole long letter read to him twice; he rubbed his hands when +he heard of the Vidame de Pamiers’ dinner--the Vidame was an old +acquaintance--and of the subsequent introduction to the Duchess; but at +Blondet’s name he lost himself in conjectures. What could the younger +son of a judge, a public prosecutor during the Revolution, have been +doing there? + +There was joy that evening among the Collection of Antiquities. They +talked over the young Count’s success. So discreet were they with regard +to Mme. de Maufrigneuse, that the one man who heard the secret was the +Chevalier. There was no financial postscript at the end of the letter, +no unpleasant reference to the sinews of war, which every young man +makes in such a case. Mlle. Armande showed it to Chesnel. Chesnel was +pleased and raised not a single objection. It was clear, as the Marquis +and the Chevalier agreed, that a young man in favor with the Duchesse +de Maufrigneuse would shortly be a hero at court, where in the old +days women were all-powerful. The Count had not made a bad choice. The +dowagers told over all the gallant adventures of the Maufrigneuses +from Louis XIII. to Louis XVI.--they spared to inquire into preceding +reigns--and when all was done they were enchanted.--Mme. de Maufrigneuse +was much praised for interesting herself in Victurnien. Any writer of +plays in search of a piece of pure comedy would have found it well worth +his while to listen to the Antiquities in conclave. + + + +Victurnien received charming letters from his father and aunt, and also +from the Chevalier. That gentleman recalled himself to the Vidame’s +memory. He had been at Spa with M. de Pamiers in 1778, after a certain +journey made by a celebrated Hungarian princess. And Chesnel also wrote. +The fond flattery to which the unhappy boy was only too well accustomed +shone out of every page; and Mlle. Armande seemed to share half of Mme. +de Maufrigneuse’s happiness. + +Thus happy in the approval of his family, the young Count made a +spirited beginning in the perilous and costly ways of dandyism. He had +five horses--he was moderate--de Marsay had fourteen! He returned the +Vidame’s hospitality, even including Blondet in the invitation, as well +as de Marsay and Rastignac. The dinner cost five hundred francs, and the +noble provincial was feted on the same scale. Victurnien played a good +deal, and, for his misfortune, at the fashionable game of whist. + +He laid out his days in busy idleness. Every day between twelve and +three o’clock he was with the Duchess; afterwards he went to meet her +in the Bois de Boulogne and ride beside her carriage. Sometimes the +charming couple rode together, but this was early in fine summer +mornings. Society, balls, the theatre, and gaiety filled the Count’s +evening hours. Everywhere Victurnien made a brilliant figure, everywhere +he flung the pearls of his wit broadcast. He gave his opinion on men, +affairs, and events in profound sayings; he would have put you in +mind of a fruit-tree putting forth all its strength in blossom. He +was leading an enervating life wasteful of money, and even yet more +wasteful, it may be of a man’s soul; in that life the fairest talents +are buried out of sight, the most incorruptible honesty perishes, the +best-tempered springs of will are slackened. + +The Duchess, so white and fragile and angel-like, felt attracted to +the dissipations of bachelor life; she enjoyed first nights, she liked +anything amusing, anything improvised. Bohemian restaurants lay outside +her experience; so d’Esgrignon got up a charming little party at the +Rocher de Cancale for her benefit, asked all the amiable scamps whom +she cultivated and sermonized, and there was a vast amount of merriment, +wit, and gaiety, and a corresponding bill to pay. That supper led to +others. And through it all Victurnien worshiped her as an angel. Mme. +de Maufrigneuse for him was still an angel, untouched by any taint of +earth; an angel at the Varietes, where she sat out the half-obscene, +vulgar farces, which made her laugh; an angel through the cross-fire of +highly-flavored jests and scandalous anecdotes, which enlivened a stolen +frolic; a languishing angel in the latticed box at the Vaudeville; +an angel while she criticised the postures of opera dancers with the +experience of an elderly habitue of le coin de la reine; an angel at +the Porte Saint-Martin, at the little boulevard theatres, at the masked +balls, which she enjoyed like any schoolboy. She was an angel who +asked him for the love that lives by self-abnegation and heroism and +self-sacrifice; an angel who would have her lover live like an English +lord, with an income of a million francs. D’Esgrignon once exchanged a +horse because the animal’s coat did not satisfy her notions. At play +she was an angel, and certainly no bourgeoise that ever lived could have +bidden d’Esgrignon “Stake for me!” in such an angelic way. She was so +divinely reckless in her folly, that a man might well have sold his +soul to the devil lest this angel should lose her taste for earthly +pleasures. + + + +The first winter went by. The Count had drawn on M. Cardot for the +trifling sum of thirty thousand francs over and above Chesnel’s +remittance. As Cardot very carefully refrained from using his right +of remonstrance, Victurnien now learned for the first time that he had +overdrawn his account. He was the more offended by an extremely polite +refusal to make any further advance, since it so happened that he had +just lost six thousand francs at play at the club, and he could not very +well show himself there until they were paid. + +After growing indignant with Maitre Cardot, who had trusted him with +thirty thousand francs (Cardot had written to Chesnel, but to the fair +Duchess’ favorite he made the most of his so-called confidence in him), +after all this, d’Esgrignon was obliged to ask the lawyer to tell +him how to set about raising the money, since debts of honor were in +question. + +“Draw bills on your father’s banker, and take them to his correspondent; +he, no doubt, will discount them for you. Then write to your family, and +tell them to remit the amount to the banker.” + +An inner voice seemed to suggest du Croisier’s name in this predicament. +He had seen du Croisier on his knees to the aristocracy, and of the +man’s real disposition he was entirely ignorant. So to du Croisier he +wrote a very offhand letter, informing him that he had drawn a bill of +exchange on him for ten thousand francs, adding that the amount would be +repaid on receipt of the letter either by M. Chesnel or by Mlle. Armande +d’Esgrignon. Then he indited two touching epistles--one to Chesnel, +another to his aunt. In the matter of going headlong to ruin, a young +man often shows singular ingenuity and ability, and fortune favors him. +In the morning Victurnien happened on the name of the Paris bankers in +correspondence with du Croisier, and de Marsay furnished him with the +Kellers’ address. De Marsay knew everything in Paris. The Kellers +took the bill and gave him the sum without a word, after deducting the +discount. The balance of the account was in du Croisier’s favor. + +But the gaming debt was as nothing in comparison with the state of +things at home. Invoices showered in upon Victurnien. + +“I say! Do you trouble yourself about that sort of thing?” Rastignac +said, laughing. “Are you putting them in order, my dear boy? I did not +think you were so business-like.” + +“My dear fellow, it is quite time I thought about it; there are twenty +odd thousand francs there.” + +De Marsay, coming in to look up d’Esgrignon for a steeplechase, produced +a dainty little pocket-book, took out twenty thousand francs, and handed +them to him. + +“It is the best way of keeping the money safe,” said he; “I am twice +enchanted to have won it yesterday from my honored father, Milord +Dudley.” + +Such French grace completely fascinated d’Esgrignon; he took it for +friendship; and as to the money, punctually forgot to pay his debts +with it, and spent it on his pleasures. The fact was that de Marsay was +looking on with an unspeakable pleasure while young d’Esgrignon “got out +of his depth,” in dandy’s idiom; it pleased de Marsay in all sorts of +fondling ways to lay an arm on the lad’s shoulder; by and by he should +feel its weight, and disappear the sooner. For de Marsay was jealous; +the Duchess flaunted her love affair; she was not at home to other +visitors when d’Esgrignon was with her. And besides, de Marsay was one +of those savage humorists who delight in mischief, as Turkish women in +the bath. So when he had carried off the prize, and bets were settled at +the tavern where they breakfasted, and a bottle or two of good wine had +appeared, de Marsay turned to d’Esgrignon with a laugh: + +“Those bills that you are worrying over are not yours, I am sure.” + +“Eh! if they weren’t, why should he worry himself?” asked Rastignac. + +“And whose should they be?” d’Esgrignon inquired. + +“Then you do not know the Duchess’ position?” queried de Marsay, as he +sprang into the saddle. + +“No,” said d’Esgrignon, his curiosity aroused. + +“Well, dear fellow, it is like this,” returned de Marsay--“thirty +thousand francs to Victorine, eighteen thousand francs to Houbigaut, +lesser amounts to Herbault, Nattier, Nourtier, and those Latour +people,--altogether a hundred thousand francs.” + +“An angel!” cried d’Esgrignon, with eyes uplifted to heaven. + +“This is the bill for her wings,” Rastignac cried facetiously. + +“She owes all that, my dear boy,” continued de Marsay, “precisely +because she is an angel. But we have all seen angels in this position,” + he added, glancing at Rastignac; “there is this about women that is +sublime: they understand nothing of money; they do not meddle with it, +it is no affair of theirs; they are invited guests at the ‘banquet of +life,’ as some poet or other said that came to an end in the workhouse.” + +“How do you know this when I do not?” d’Esgrignon artlessly returned. + +“You are sure to be the last to know it, just as she is sure to be the +last to hear that you are in debt.” + +“I thought she had a hundred thousand livres a year,” said d’Esgrignon. + +“Her husband,” replied de Marsay, “lives apart from her. He stays with +his regiment and practises economy, for he has one or two little debts +of his own as well, has our dear Duke. Where do you come from? Just +learn to do as we do and keep our friends’ accounts for them. Mlle. +Diane (I fell in love with her for the name’s sake), Mlle. Diane +d’Uxelles brought her husband sixty thousand livres of income; for the +last eight years she has lived as if she had two hundred thousand. It is +perfectly plain that at this moment her lands are mortgaged up to their +full value; some fine morning the crash must come, and the angel will be +put to flight by--must it be said?--by sheriff’s officers that have the +effrontery to lay hands on an angel just as they might take hold of one +of us.” + +“Poor angel!” + +“Lord! it costs a great deal to dwell in a Parisian heaven; you must +whiten your wings and your complexion every morning,” said Rastignac. + +Now as the thought of confessing his debts to his beloved Diane had +passed through d’Esgrignon’s mind, something like a shudder ran through +him when he remembered that he still owed sixty thousand francs, to +say nothing of bills to come for another ten thousand. He went back +melancholy enough. His friends remarked his ill-disguised preoccupation, +and spoke of it among themselves at dinner. + +“Young d’Esgrignon is getting out of his depth. He is not up to Paris. +He will blow his brains out. A little fool!” and so on and so on. + +D’Esgrignon, however, promptly took comfort. His servant brought him two +letters. The first was from Chesnel. A letter from Chesnel smacked +of the stale grumbling faithfulness of honesty and its consecrated +formulas. With all respect he put it aside till the evening. But the +second letter he read with unspeakable pleasure. In Ciceronian phrases, +du Croisier groveled before him, like a Sganarelle before a Geronte, +begging the young Count in future to spare him the affront of first +depositing the amount of the bills which he should condescend to draw. +The concluding phrase seemed meant to convey the idea that here was +an open cashbox full of coin at the service of the noble d’Esgrignon +family. So strong was the impression that Victurnien, like Sganarelle +or Mascarille in the play, like everybody else who feels a twinge of +conscience at his finger-tips, made an involuntary gesture. + +Now that he was sure of unlimited credit with the Kellers, he opened +Chesnel’s letter gaily. He had expected four full pages, full of +expostulation to the brim; he glanced down the sheet for the familiar +words “prudence,” “honor,” “determination to do right,” and the like, +and saw something else instead which made his head swim. + + “MONSIEUR LE COMTE,--Of all my fortune I have now but two hundred + thousand francs left. I beg of you not to exceed that amount, if + you should do one of the most devoted servants of your family the + honor of taking it. I present my respects to you. + + “CHESNEL.” + + +“He is one of Plutarch’s men,” Victurnien said to himself, as he tossed +the letter on the table. He felt chagrined; such magnanimity made him +feel very small. + +“There! one must reform,” he thought; and instead of going to a +restaurant and spending fifty or sixty francs over his dinner, he +retrenched by dining with the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and told her +about the letter. + +“I should like to see that man,” she said, letting her eyes shine like +two fixed stars. + +“What would you do?” + +“Why, he should manage my affairs for me.” + +Diane de Maufrigneuse was divinely dressed; she meant her toilet to do +honor to Victurnien. The levity with which she treated his affairs or, +more properly speaking, his debts fascinated him. + +The charming pair went to the Italiens. Never had that beautiful and +enchanting woman looked more seraphic, more ethereal. Nobody in the +house could have believed that she had debts which reached the sum total +mentioned by de Marsay that very morning. No single one of the cares of +earth had touched that sublime forehead of hers, full of woman’s pride +of the highest kind. In her, a pensive air seemed to be some gleam of +an earthly love, nobly extinguished. The men for the most part were +wagering that Victurnien, with his handsome figure, laid her under +contribution; while the women, sure of their rival’s subterfuge, admired +her as Michael Angelo admired Raphael, in petto. Victurnien loved Diane, +according to one of these ladies, for the sake of her hair--she had +the most beautiful fair hair in France; another maintained that Diane’s +pallor was her principal merit, for she was not really well shaped, her +dress made the most of her figure; yet others thought that Victurnien +loved her for her foot, her one good point, for she had a flat figure. +But (and this brings the present-day manner of Paris before you in +an astonishing manner) whereas all the men said that the Duchess was +subsidizing Victurnien’s splendor, the women, on the other hand, gave +people to understand that it was Victurnien who paid for the angel’s +wings, as Rastignac said. + +As they drove back again, Victurnien had it on the tip of his tongue a +score of times to open this chapter, for the Duchess’ debts weighed more +heavily upon his mind than his own; and a score of times his purpose +died away before the attitude of the divine creature beside him. He +could see her by the light of the carriage lamps; she was bewitching in +the love-languor which always seemed to be extorted by the violence of +passion from her madonna’s purity. The Duchess did not fall into the +mistake of talking of her virtue, of her angel’s estate, as provincial +women, her imitators, do. She was far too clever. She made him, for whom +she made such great sacrifices, think these things for himself. At the +end of six months she could make him feel that a harmless kiss on her +hand was a deadly sin; she contrived that every grace should be extorted +from her, and this with such consummate art, that it was impossible not +to feel that she was more an angel than ever when she yielded. + +None but Parisian women are clever enough always to give a new charm to +the moon, to romanticize the stars, to roll in the same sack of charcoal +and emerge each time whiter than ever. This is the highest refinement +of intellectual and Parisian civilization. Women beyond the Rhine or the +English Channel believe nonsense of this sort when they utter it; while +your Parisienne makes her lover believe that she is an angel, the better +to add to his bliss by flattering his vanity on both sides--temporal and +spiritual. Certain persons, detractors of the Duchess, maintain that she +was the first dupe of her own white magic. A wicked slander. The Duchess +believed in nothing but herself. + +By the end of the year 1823 the Kellers had supplied Victurnien with +two hundred thousand francs, and neither Chesnel nor Mlle. Armande knew +anything about it. He had had, besides, two thousand crowns from Chesnel +at one time and another, the better to hide the sources on which he was +drawing. He wrote lying letters to his poor father and aunt, who lived +on, happy and deceived, like most happy people under the sun. The +insidious current of life in Paris was bringing a dreadful catastrophe +upon the great and noble house; and only one person was in the secret of +it. This was du Croisier. He rubbed his hands gleefully as he went +past in the dark and looked in at the Antiquities. He had good hope of +attaining his ends; and his ends were not, as heretofore, the simple +ruin of the d’Esgrignons, but the dishonor of their house. He felt +instinctively at such times that his revenge was at hand; he scented +it in the wind! He had been sure of it indeed from the day when he +discovered that the young Count’s burden of debt was growing too heavy +for the boy to bear. + +Du Croisier’s first step was to rid himself of his most hated enemy, the +venerable Chesnel. The good old man lived in the Rue du Bercail, in a +house with a steep-pitched roof. There was a little paved courtyard in +front, where the rose-bushes grew and clambered up to the windows of +the upper story. Behind lay a little country garden, with its box-edged +borders, shut in by damp, gloomy-looking walls. The prim, gray-painted +street door, with its wicket opening and bell attached, announced quite +as plainly as the official scutcheon that “a notary lives here.” + +It was half-past five o’clock in the afternoon, at which hour the +old man usually sat digesting his dinner. He had drawn his black +leather-covered armchair before the fire, and put on his armor, a +painted pasteboard contrivance shaped like a top boot, which protected +his stockinged legs from the heat of the fire; for it was one of the +good man’s habits to sit for a while after dinner with his feet on the +dogs and to stir up the glowing coals. He always ate too much; he was +fond of good living. Alas! if it had not been for that little failing, +would he not have been more perfect than it is permitted to mortal man +to be? Chesnel had finished his cup of coffee. His old housekeeper had +just taken away the tray which had been used for the purpose for the +last twenty years. He was waiting for his clerks to go before he himself +went out for his game at cards, and meanwhile he was thinking--no need +to ask of whom or what. A day seldom passed but he asked himself, “Where +is _he_? What is _he_ doing?” He thought that the Count was in Italy +with the fair Duchesse de Maufrigneuse. + +When every franc of a man’s fortune has come to him, not by inheritance, +but through his own earning and saving, it is one of his sweetest +pleasures to look back upon the pains that have gone to the making +of it, and then to plan out a future for his crowns. This it is to +conjugate the verb “to enjoy” in every tense. And the old lawyer, whose +affections were all bound up in a single attachment, was thinking that +all the carefully-chosen, well-tilled land which he had pinched and +scraped to buy would one day go to round the d’Esgrignon estates, and +the thought doubled his pleasure. His pride swelled as he sat at his +ease in the old armchair; and the building of glowing coals, which he +raised with the tongs, sometimes seemed to him to be the old noble +house built up again, thanks to his care. He pictured the young Count’s +prosperity, and told himself that he had done well to live for such an +aim. Chesnel was not lacking in intelligence; sheer goodness was not +the sole source of his great devotion; he had a pride of his own; he was +like the nobles who used to rebuild a pillar in a cathedral to inscribe +their name upon it; he meant his name to be remembered by the great +house which he had restored. Future generations of d’Esgrignons should +speak of old Chesnel. Just at this point his old housekeeper came in +with signs of alarm in her countenance. + +“Is the house on fire, Brigitte?” + +“Something of the sort,” said she. “Here is M. du Croisier wanting to +speak to you----” + +“M. du Croisier,” repeated the old lawyer. A stab of cold misgiving +gave him so sharp a pang at the heart that he dropped the tongs. “M. du +Croisier here!” thought he, “our chief enemy!” + +Du Croisier came in at that moment, like a cat that scents milk in a +dairy. He made a bow, seated himself quietly in the easy-chair which +the lawyer brought forward, and produced a bill for two hundred and +twenty-seven thousand francs, principal and interest, the total amount +of sums advanced to M. Victurnien in bills of exchange drawn upon du +Croisier, and duly honored by him. Of these, he now demanded +immediate payment, with a threat of proceeding to extremities with the +heir-presumptive of the house. Chesnel turned the unlucky letters over +one by one, and asked the enemy to keep the secret. This he engaged to +do if he were paid within forty-eight hours. He was pressed for money +he had obliged various manufacturers; and there followed a series of the +financial fictions by which neither notaries nor borrowers are deceived. +Chesnel’s eyes were dim; he could scarcely keep back the tears. There +was but one way of raising the money; he must mortgage his own lands up +to their full value. But when du Croisier learned the difficulty in +the way of repayment, he forgot that he was hard pressed; he no longer +wanted ready money, and suddenly came out with a proposal to buy the old +lawyer’s property. The sale was completed within two days. Poor Chesnel +could not bear the thought of the son of the house undergoing a five +years’ imprisonment for debt. So in a few days’ time nothing remained +to him but his practice, the sums that were due to him, and the house in +which he lived. Chesnel, stripped of all his lands, paced to and fro in +his private office, paneled with dark oak, his eyes fixed on the beveled +edges of the chestnut cross-beams of the ceiling, or on the trellised +vines in the garden outside. He was not thinking of his farms now, or of +Le Jard, his dear house in the country; not he. + +“What will become of him? He ought to come back; they must marry him to +some rich heiress,” he said to himself; and his eyes were dim, his head +heavy. + +How to approach Mlle. Armande, and in what words to break the news to +her, he did not know. The man who had just paid the debts of the family +quaked at the thought of confessing these things. He went from the Rue +du Bercail to the Hotel d’Esgrignon with pulses throbbing like some +girl’s heart when she leaves her father’s roof by stealth, not to return +again till she is a mother and her heart is broken. + +Mlle. Armande had just received a charming letter, charming in its +hypocrisy. Her nephew was the happiest man under the sun. He had been to +the baths, he had been traveling in Italy with Mme. de Maufrigneuse, and +now sent his journal to his aunt. Every sentence was instinct with +love. There were enchanting descriptions of Venice, and fascinating +appreciations of the great works of Venetian art; there were most +wonderful pages full of the Duomo at Milan, and again of Florence; he +described the Apennines, and how they differed from the Alps, and how in +some village like Chiavari happiness lay all around you, ready made. + +The poor aunt was under the spell. She saw the far-off country of love, +she saw, hovering above the land, the angel whose tenderness gave to +all that beauty a burning glow. She was drinking in the letter at long +draughts; how should it have been otherwise? The girl who had put love +from her was now a woman ripened by repressed and pent-up passion, by +all the longings continually and gladly offered up as a sacrifice on the +altar of the hearth. Mlle. Armande was not like the Duchess. She did not +look like an angel. She was rather like the little, straight, slim and +slender, ivory-tinted statues, which those wonderful sculptors, the +builders of cathedrals, placed here and there about the buildings. Wild +plants sometimes find a hold in the damp niches, and weave a crown of +beautiful bluebell flowers about the carved stone. At this moment the +blue buds were unfolding in the fair saint’s eyes. Mlle. Armande loved +the charming couple as if they stood apart from real life; she saw +nothing wrong in a married woman’s love for Victurnien; any other woman +she would have judged harshly; but in this case, not to have loved her +nephew would have been the unpardonable sin. Aunts, mothers, and sisters +have a code of their own for nephews and sons and brothers. + +Mlle. Armande was in Venice; she saw the lines of fairy palaces that +stand on either side of the Grand Canal; she was sitting in Victurnien’s +gondola; he was telling her what happiness it had been to feel that the +Duchess’ beautiful hand lay in his own, to know that she loved him as +they floated together on the breast of the amorous Queen of Italian +seas. But even in that moment of bliss, such as angels know, some one +appeared in the garden walk. It was Chesnel! Alas! the sound of his +tread on the gravel might have been the sound of the sands running from +Death’s hour-glass to be trodden under his unshod feet. The sound, +the sight of a dreadful hopelessness in Chesnel’s face, gave her that +painful shock which follows a sudden recall of the senses when the soul +has sent them forth into the world of dreams. + +“What is it?” she cried, as if some stab had pierced to her heart. + +“All is lost!” said Chesnel. “M. le Comte will bring dishonor upon +the house if we do not set it in order.” He held out the bills, and +described the agony of the last few days in a few simple but vigorous +and touching words. + +“He is deceiving us! The miserable boy!” cried Mlle. Armande, her heart +swelling as the blood surged back to it in heavy throbs. + +“Let us both say mea culpa, mademoiselle,” the old lawyer said stoutly; +“we have always allowed him to have his own way; he needed stern +guidance; he could not have it from you with your inexperience of life; +nor from me, for he would not listen to me. He has had no mother.” + +“Fate sometimes deals terribly with a noble house in decay,” said Mlle. +Armande, with tears in her eyes. + +The Marquis came up as she spoke. He had been walking up and down +the garden while he read the letter sent by his son after his return. +Victurnien gave his itinerary from an aristocrat’s point of view; +telling how he had been welcomed by the greatest Italian families of +Genoa, Turin, Milan, Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples. This flattering +reception he owed to his name, he said, and partly, perhaps, to the +Duchess as well. In short, he had made his appearance magnificently, and +as befitted a d’Esgrignon. + +“Have you been at your old tricks, Chesnel?” asked the Marquis. + +Mlle. Armande made Chesnel an eager sign, dreadful to see. They +understood each other. The poor father, the flower of feudal honor, +must die with all his illusions. A compact of silence and devotion was +ratified between the two noble hearts by a simple inclination of the +head. + +“Ah! Chesnel, it was not exactly in this way that the d’Esgrignons went +into Italy at the end of the fourteenth century, when Marshal Trivulzio, +in the service of the King of France, served under a d’Esgrignon, who +had a Bayard too under his orders. Other times, other pleasures. And, +for that matter, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse is at least the equal of a +Marchesa di Spinola.” + +And, on the strength of his genealogical tree, the old man swung himself +off with a coxcomb’s air, as if he himself had once made a conquest of +the Marchesa di Spinola, and still possessed the Duchess of to-day. + +The two companions in unhappiness were left together on the garden +bench, with the same thought for a bond of union. They sat for a long +time, saying little save vague, unmeaning words, watching the father +walk away in his happiness, gesticulating as if he were talking to +himself. + +“What will become of him now?” Mlle. Armande asked after a while. + +“Du Croisier has sent instructions to the MM. Keller; he is not to be +allowed to draw any more without authorization.” + +“And there are debts,” continued Mlle. Armande. + +“I am afraid so.” + +“If he is left without resources, what will he do?” + +“I dare not answer that question to myself.” + +“But he must be drawn out of that life, he must come back to us, or he +will have nothing left.” + +“And nothing else left to him,” Chesnel said gloomily. But Mlle. Armande +as yet did not and could not understand the full force of those words. + +“Is there any hope of getting him away from that woman, that Duchess? +Perhaps she leads him on.” + +“He would not stick at a crime to be with her,” said Chesnel, trying to +pave the way to an intolerable thought by others less intolerable. + +“Crime,” repeated Mlle. Armande. “Oh, Chesnel, no one but you would +think of such a thing!” she added, with a withering look; before such +a look from a woman’s eyes no mortal can stand. “There is but one crime +that a noble can commit--the crime of high treason; and when he is +beheaded, the block is covered with a black cloth, as it is for kings.” + +“The times have changed very much,” said Chesnel, shaking his head. +Victurnien had thinned his last thin, white hairs. “Our Martyr-King did +not die like the English King Charles.” + +That thought soothed Mlle. Armande’s splendid indignation; a shudder ran +through her; but still she did not realize what Chesnel meant. + +“To-morrow we will decide what we must do,” she said; “it needs thought. +At the worst, we have our lands.” + +“Yes,” said Chesnel. “You and M. le Marquis own the estate conjointly; +but the larger part of it is yours. You can raise money upon it without +saying a word to him.” + +The players at whist, reversis, boston, and backgammon noticed that +evening that Mlle. Armande’s features, usually so serene and pure, +showed signs of agitation. + +“That poor heroic child!” said the old Marquise de Casteran, “she must +be suffering still. A woman never knows what her sacrifices to her +family may cost her.” + +Next day it was arranged with Chesnel that Mlle. Armande should go to +Paris to snatch her nephew from perdition. If any one could carry off +Victurnien, was it not the woman whose motherly heart yearned over him? +Mlle. Armande made up her mind that she would go to the Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse and tell her all. Still, some sort of pretext was necessary +to explain the journey to the Marquis and the whole town. At some cost +to her maidenly delicacy, Mlle. Armande allowed it to be thought that +she was suffering from a complaint which called for a consultation +of skilled and celebrated physicians. Goodness knows whether the town +talked of this or no! But Mlle. Armande saw that something far more than +her own reputation was at stake. She set out. Chesnel brought her his +last bag of louis; she took it, without paying any attention to it, as +she took her white capuchine and thread mittens. + +“Generous girl! What grace!” he said, as he put her into the carriage +with her maid, a woman who looked like a gray sister. + +Du Croisier had thought out his revenge, as provincials think out +everything. For studying out a question in all its bearings, there are +no folk in this world like savages, peasants, and provincials; and +this is how, when they proceed from thought to action, you find every +contingency provided for from beginning to end. Diplomatists are +children compared with these classes of mammals; they have time before +them, an element which is lacking to those people who are obliged to +think about a great many things, to superintend the progress of all +kinds of schemes, to look forward for all sorts of contingencies in +the wider interests of human affairs. Had de Croisier sounded poor +Victurnien’s nature so well, that he foresaw how easily the young Count +would lend himself to his schemes of revenge? Or was he merely profiting +by an opportunity for which he had been on the watch for years? One +circumstance there was, to be sure, in his manner of preparing his +stroke, which shows a certain skill. Who was it that gave du Croisier +warning of the moment? Was it the Kellers? Or could it have been +President du Ronceret’s son, then finishing his law studies in Paris? + +Du Croisier wrote to Victurnien, telling him that the Kellers had been +instructed to advance no more money; and that letter was timed to arrive +just as the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was in the utmost perplexity, and +the Comte d’Esgrignon consumed by the sense of poverty as dreadful as +it was cunningly hidden. The wretched young man was exerting all his +ingenuity to seem as if he were wealthy! + +Now in the letter which informed the victim that in future the Kellers +would make no further advances without security, there was a tolerably +wide space left between the forms of an exaggerated respect and the +signature. It was quite easy to tear off the best part of the letter +and convert it into a bill of exchange for any amount. The diabolical +missive had been enclosed in an envelope, so that the other side of the +sheet was blank. When it arrived, Victurnien was writhing in the lowest +depths of despair. After two years of the most prosperous, sensual, +thoughtless, and luxurious life, he found himself face to face with the +most inexorable poverty; it was an absolute impossibility to procure +money. There had been some throes of crisis before the journey came to +an end. With the Duchess’ help he had managed to extort various sums +from bankers; but it had been with the greatest difficulty, and, +moreover, those very amounts were about to start up again before him as +overdue bills of exchange in all their rigor, with a stern summons to +pay from the Bank of France and the commercial court. All through the +enjoyments of those last weeks the unhappy boy had felt the point of the +Commander’s sword; at every supper-party he heard, like Don Juan, +the heavy tread of the statue outside upon the stairs. He felt an +unaccountable creeping of the flesh, a warning that the sirocco of debt +is nigh at hand. He reckoned on chance. For five years he had never +turned up a blank in the lottery, his purse had always been replenished. +After Chesnel had come du Croisier (he told himself), after du Croisier +surely another gold mine would pour out its wealth. And besides, he +was winning great sums at play; his luck at play had saved him several +unpleasant steps already; and often a wild hope sent him to the Salon +des Etrangers only to lose his winnings afterwards at whist at the club. +His life for the past two months had been like the immortal finale of +Mozart’s Don Giovanni; and of a truth, if a young man has come to such +a plight as Victurnien’s, that finale is enough to make him shudder. +Can anything better prove the enormous power of music than that sublime +rendering of the disorder and confusion arising out of a life wholly +give up to sensual indulgence? that fearful picture of a deliberate +effort to shut out the thought of debts and duels, deceit and evil +luck? In that music Mozart disputes the palm with Moliere. The terrific +finale, with its glow, its power, its despair and laughter, its grisly +spectres and elfish women, centres about the prodigal’s last effort made +in the after-supper heat of wine, the frantic struggle which ends the +drama. Victurnien was living through this infernal poem, and alone. +He saw visions of himself--a friendless, solitary outcast, reading the +words carved on the stone, the last words on the last page of the book +that had held him spellbound--THE END! + +Yes; for him all would be at an end, and that soon. Already he saw the +cold, ironical eyes which his associates would turn upon him, and their +amusement over his downfall. Some of them he knew were playing high on +that gambling-table kept open all day long at the Bourse, or in private +houses at the clubs, and anywhere and everywhere in Paris; but not one +of these men could spare a banknote to save an intimate. There was no +help for it--Chesnel must be ruined. He had devoured Chesnel’s living. + +He sat with the Duchess in their box at the Italiens, the whole house +envying them their happiness, and while he smiled at her, all the Furies +were tearing at his heart. Indeed, to give some idea of the depths of +doubt, despair, and incredulity in which the boy was groveling; he who +so clung to life--the life which the angel had made so fair--who so +loved it, that he would have stooped to baseness merely to live; he, the +pleasure-loving scapegrace, the degenerate d’Esgrignon, had even taken +out his pistols, had gone so far as to think of suicide. He who would +never have brooked the appearance of an insult was abusing himself in +language which no man is likely to hear except from himself. + +He left du Croisier’s letter lying open on the bed. Josephin had brought +it in at nine o’clock. Victurnien’s furniture had been seized, but +he slept none the less. After he came back from the Opera, he and the +Duchess had gone to a voluptuous retreat, where they often spent a few +hours together after the most brilliant court balls and evening parties +and gaieties. Appearances were very cleverly saved. Their love-nest +was a garret like any other to all appearance; Mme. de Maufrigneuse was +obliged to bow her head with its court feathers or wreath of flowers to +enter in at the door; but within all the peris of the East had made the +chamber fair. And now that the Count was on the brink of ruin, he had +longed to bid farewell to the dainty nest, which he had built to realize +a day-dream worthy of his angel. Presently adversity would break the +enchanted eggs; there would be no brood of white doves, no brilliant +tropical birds, no more of the thousand bright-winged fancies which +hover above our heads even to the last days of our lives. Alas! alas! in +three days he must be gone; his bills had fallen into the hands of the +money-lenders, the law proceedings had reached the last stage. + +An evil thought crossed his brain. He would fly with the Duchess; they +would live in some undiscovered nook in the wilds of North or South +America; but--he would fly with a fortune, and leave his creditors to +confront their bills. To carry out the plan, he had only to cut off the +lower portion of that letter with du Croisier’s signature, and to fill +in the figures to turn it into a bill, and present it to the Kellers. +There was a dreadful struggle with temptation; tears shed, but the honor +of the family triumphed, subject to one condition. Victurnien wanted to +be sure of his beautiful Diane; he would do nothing unless she should +consent to their flight. So he went to the Duchess in the Rue Faubourg +Saint-Honore, and found her in coquettish morning dress, which cost as +much in thought as in money, a fit dress in which to begin to play the +part of Angel at eleven o’clock in the morning. + +Mme. de Maufrigneuse was somewhat pensive. Cares of a similar kind +were gnawing her mind; but she took them gallantly. Of all the various +feminine organizations classified by physiologists, there is one that +has something indescribably terrible about it. Such women combine +strength of soul and clear insight, with a faculty for prompt decision, +and a recklessness, or rather resolution in a crisis which would shake a +man’s nerves. And these powers lie out of sight beneath an appearance of +the most graceful helplessness. Such women only among womankind afford +examples of a phenomenon which Buffon recognized in men alone, to wit, +the union, or rather the disunion, of two different natures in one human +being. Other women are wholly women; wholly tender, wholly devoted, +wholly mothers, completely null and completely tiresome; nerves and +brain and blood are all in harmony; but the Duchess, and others like +her, are capable of rising to the highest heights of feelings, or of +showing the most selfish insensibility. It is one of the glories of +Moliere that he has given us a wonderful portrait of such a woman, +from one point of view only, in that greatest of his full-length +figures--Celimene; Celimene is the typical aristocratic woman, as +Figaro, the second edition of Panurge, represents the people. + +So, the Duchess, being overwhelmed with debt, laid it upon herself to +give no more than a moment’s thought to the avalanche of cares, and to +take her resolution once and for all; Napoleon could take up or lay +down the burden of his thoughts in precisely the same way. The Duchess +possessed the faculty of standing aloof from herself; she could look on +as a spectator at the crash when it came, instead of submitting to be +buried beneath. This was certainly great, but repulsive in a woman. When +she awoke in the morning she collected her thoughts; and by the time she +had begun to dress she had looked at the danger in its fullest extent +and faced the possibilities of terrific downfall. She pondered. Should +she take refuge in a foreign country? Or should she go to the King and +declare her debts to him? Or again, should she fascinate a du Tillet or +a Nucingen, and gamble on the stock exchange to pay her creditors? The +city man would find the money; he would be intelligent enough to bring +her nothing but the profits, without so much as mentioning the losses, a +piece of delicacy which would gloss all over. The catastrophe, and these +various ways of averting it, had all been reviewed quite coolly, calmly, +and without trepidation. + +As a naturalist takes up some king of butterflies and fastens him down +on cotton-wool with a pin, so Mme. de Maufrigneuse had plucked love out +of her heart while she pondered the necessity of the moment, and was +quite ready to replace the beautiful passion on its immaculate setting +so soon as her duchess’ coronet was safe. _She_ knew none of the +hesitation which Cardinal Richelieu hid from all the world but Pere +Joseph; none of the doubts that Napoleon kept at first entirely to +himself. “Either the one or the other,” she told herself. + +She was sitting by the fire, giving orders for her toilette for a drive +in the Bois if the weather should be fine, when Victurnien came in. + +The Comte d’Esgrignon, with all his stifled capacity, his so keen +intellect, was in exactly the state which might have been looked for in +the woman. His heart was beating violently, the perspiration broke out +over him as he stood in his dandy’s trappings; he was afraid as yet to +lay a hand on the corner-stone which upheld the pyramid of his life with +Diane. So much it cost him to know the truth. The cleverest men are fain +to deceive themselves on one or two points if the truth once known is +likely to humiliate them in their own eyes, and damage themselves with +themselves. Victurnien forced his own irresolution into the field by +committing himself. + +“What is the matter with you?” Diane de Maufrigneuse had said at once, +at the sight of her beloved Victurnien’s face. + +“Why, dear Diane, I am in such a perplexity; a man gone to the bottom +and at his last gasp is happy in comparison.” + +“Pshaw! it is nothing,” said she; “you are a child. Let us see now; tell +me about it.” + +“I am hopelessly in debt. I have come to the end of my tether.” + +“Is that all?” said she, smiling at him. “Money matters can always be +arranged somehow or other; nothing is irretrievable except disasters in +love.” + +Victurnien’s mind being set at rest by this swift comprehension of his +position, he unrolled the bright-colored web of his life for the last +two years and a half; but it was the seamy side of it which he displayed +with something of genius, and still more of wit, to his Diane. He told +his tale with the inspiration of the moment, which fails no one in great +crises; he had sufficient artistic skill to set it off by a varnish of +delicate scorn for men and things. It was an aristocrat who spoke. And +the Duchess listened as she could listen. + +One knee was raised, for she sat with her foot on a stool. She rested +her elbow on her knee and leant her face on her hand so that her fingers +closed daintily over her shapely chin. Her eyes never left his; but +thoughts by myriads flitted under the blue surface, like gleams of +stormy light between two clouds. Her forehead was calm, her mouth +gravely intent--grave with love; her lips were knotted fast by +Victurnien’s lips. To have her listening thus was to believe that +a divine love flowed from her heart. Wherefore, when the Count had +proposed flight to this soul, so closely knit to his own, he could not +help crying, “You are an angel!” + +The fair Maufrigneuse made silent answer; but she had not spoken as yet. + +“Good, very good,” she said at last. (She had not given herself up to +the love expressed in her face; her mind had been entirely absorbed by +deep-laid schemes which she kept to herself.) “But _that_ is not the +question, dear.” (The “angel” was only “that” by this time.) “Let us +think of your affairs. Yes, we will go, and the sooner the better. +Arrange it all; I will follow you. It is glorious to leave Paris and the +world behind. I will set about my preparations in such a way that no one +can suspect anything.” + +_I will follow you_! Just so Mlle. Mars might have spoken those words +to send a thrill through two thousand listening men and women. When a +Duchesse de Maufrigneuse offers, in such words, to make such a sacrifice +to love, she has paid her debt. How should Victurnien speak of sordid +details after that? He could so much the better hide his schemes, +because Diane was particularly careful not to inquire into them. She +was now, and always, as de Marsay said, an invited guest at a banquet +wreathed with roses, a banquet which mankind, as in duty bound, made +ready for her. + +Victurnien would not go till the promise had been sealed. He must draw +courage from his happiness before he could bring himself to do a deed on +which, as he inwardly told himself, people would be certain to put a +bad construction. Still (and this was the thought that decided him) he +counted on his aunt and father to hush up the affair; he even counted +on Chesnel. Chesnel would think of one more compromise. Besides, “this +business,” as he called it in his thoughts, was the only way of raising +money on the family estate. With three hundred thousand francs, he and +Diane would lead a happy life hidden in some palace in Venice; and there +they would forget the world. They went through their romance in advance. + +Next day Victurnien made out a bill for three hundred thousand francs, +and took it to the Kellers. The Kellers advanced the money, for du +Croisier happened to have a balance at the time; but they wrote to let +him know that he must not draw again on them without giving them notice. +Du Croisier, much astonished, asked for a statement of accounts. It was +sent. Everything was explained. The day of his vengeance had arrived. + + + +When Victurnien had drawn “his” money, he took it to Mme. de +Maufrigneuse. She locked up the banknotes in her desk, and proposed +to bid the world farewell by going to the Opera to see it for the last +time. Victurnien was thoughtful, absent, and uneasy. He was beginning +to reflect. He thought that his seat in the Duchess’ box might cost him +dear; that perhaps, when he had put the three hundred thousand francs +in safety, it would be better to travel post, to fall at Chesnel’s feet, +and tell him all. But before they left the opera-house, the Duchess, +in spite of herself, gave Victurnien an adorable glance, her eyes were +shining with the desire to go back once more to bid farewell to the nest +which she loved so much. And boy that he was, he lost a night. + +The next day, at three o’clock, he was back again at the Hotel de +Maufrigneuse; he had come to take the Duchess’ orders for that night’s +escape. And, “Why should we go?” asked she; “I have thought it all out. +The Vicomtesse de Beauseant and the Duchesse de Langeais disappeared. +If I go too, it will be something quite commonplace. We will brave +the storm. It will be a far finer thing to do. I am sure of success.” + Victurnien’s eyes dazzled; he felt as if his skin were dissolving and +the blood oozing out all over him. + +“What is the matter with you?” cried the fair Diane, noticing a +hesitation which a woman never forgives. Your truly adroit lover will +hasten to agree with any fancy that Woman may take into her head, and +suggest reasons for doing otherwise, while leaving her free exercise of +her right to change her mind, her intentions, and sentiments generally +as often as she pleases. Victurnien was angry for the first time, angry +with the wrath of a weak man of poetic temperament; it was a storm of +rain and lightning flashes, but no thunder followed. The angel on whose +faith he had risked more than his life, the honor of his house, was very +roughly handled. + +“So,” said she, “we have come to this after eighteen months of +tenderness! You are unkind, very unkind. Go away!--I do not want to see +you again. I thought that you loved me. You do not.” + +“_I do not love you_?” repeated he, thunderstruck by the reproach. + +“No, monsieur.” + +“And yet----” he cried. “Ah! if you but knew what I have just done for +your sake!” + +“And how have you done so much for me, monsieur? As if a man ought not +to do anything for a woman that has done so much for him.” + +“You are not worthy to know it!” Victurnien cried in a passion of anger. + +“Oh!” + +After that sublime, “Oh!” Diane bowed her head on her hand and sat, +still, cold, and implacable as angels naturally may be expected to do, +seeing that they share none of the passions of humanity. At the sight +of the woman he loved in this terrible attitude, Victurnien forgot his +danger. Had he not just that moment wronged the most angelic creature on +earth? He longed for forgiveness, he threw himself before her, he kissed +her feet, he pleaded, he wept. Two whole hours the unhappy young man +spent in all kinds of follies, only to meet the same cold face, while +the great silent tears dropping one by one, were dried as soon as they +fell lest the unworthy lover should try to wipe them away. The Duchess +was acting a great agony, one of those hours which stamp the woman who +passes through them as something august and sacred. + +Two more hours went by. By this time the Count had gained possession of +Diane’s hand; it felt cold and spiritless. The beautiful hand, with +all the treasures in its grasp, might have been supple wood; there was +nothing of Diane in it; he had taken it, it had not been given to him. +As for Victurnien, the spirit had ebbed out of his frame, he had ceased +to think. He would not have seen the sun in heaven. What was to be done? +What course should he take? What resolution should he make? The man who +can keep his head in such circumstances must be made of the same stuff +as the convict who spent the night in robbing the Bibliotheque Royale of +its gold medals, and repaired to his honest brother in the morning with +a request to melt down the plunder. “What is to be done?” cried the +brother. “Make me some coffee,” replied the thief. Victurnien sank into +a bewildered stupor, darkness settled down over his brain. Visions +of past rapture flitted across the misty gloom like the figures that +Raphael painted against a black background; to these he must bid +farewell. Inexorable and disdainful, the Duchess played with the tip of +her scarf. She looked in irritation at Victurnien from time to time; +she coquetted with memories, she spoke to her lover of his rivals as if +anger had finally decided her to prefer one of them to a man who could +so change in one moment after twenty-eight months of love. + +“Ah! that charming young Felix de Vandenesse, so faithful as he was to +Mme. de Mortsauf, would never have permitted himself such a scene! He +can love, can de Vandenesse! De Marsay, that terrible de Marsay, such +a tiger as everyone thought him, was rough with other men; but like all +strong men, he kept his gentleness for women. Montriveau trampled the +Duchesse de Langeais under foot, as Othello killed Desdemona, in a burst +of fury which at any rate proved the extravagance of his love. It was +not like a paltry squabble. There was rapture in being so crushed. +Little, fair-haired, slim, and slender men loved to torment women; they +could only reign over poor, weak creatures; it pleased them to have some +ground for believing that they were men. The tyranny of love was their +one chance of asserting their power. She did not know why she had put +herself at the mercy of fair hair. Such men as de Marsay, Montriveau, +and Vandenesse, dark-haired and well grown, had a ray of sunlight in +their eyes.” + +It was a storm of epigrams. Her speeches, like bullets, came hissing +past his ears. Every word that Diane hurled at him was triple-barbed; +she humiliated, stung, and wounded him with an art that was all her own, +as half a score of savages can torture an enemy bound to a stake. + +“You are mad!” he cried at last, at the end of his patience, and out +he went in God knows what mood. He drove as if he had never handled +the reins before, locked his wheels in the wheels of other vehicles, +collided with the curbstone in the Place Louis-Quinze, went he knew not +whither. The horse, left to its own devices, made a bolt for the stable +along the Quai d’Orsay; but as he turned into the Rue de l’Universite, +Josephin appeared to stop the runaway. + +“You cannot go home, sir,” the old man said, with a scared face; “they +have come with a warrant to arrest you.” + +Victurnien thought that he had been arrested on the criminal charge, +albeit there had not been time for the public prosecutor to receive +his instructions. He had forgotten the matter of the bills of exchange, +which had been stirred up again for some days past in the form of orders +to pay, brought by the officers of the court with accompaniments in +the shape of bailiffs, men in possession, magistrates, commissaries, +policemen, and other representatives of social order. Like most guilty +creatures, Victurnien had forgotten everything but his crime. + +“It is all over with me,” he cried. + +“No, M. le Comte, drive as fast as you can to the Hotel du Bon la +Fontaine, in the Rue de Grenelle. Mlle. Armande is waiting there for +you, the horses have been put in, she will take you with her.” + +Victurnien, in his trouble, caught like a drowning man at the branch +that came to his hand; he rushed off to the inn, reached the place, and +flung his arms about his aunt. Mlle. Armande cried as if her heart would +break; any one might have thought that she had a share in her nephew’s +guilt. They stepped into the carriage. A few minutes later they were on +the road to Brest, and Paris lay behind them. Victurnien uttered not a +sound; he was paralyzed. And when aunt and nephew began to speak, they +talked at cross purposes; Victurnien, still laboring under the unlucky +misapprehension which flung him into Mlle. Armande’s arms, was thinking +of his forgery; his aunt had the debts and the bills on her mind. + +“You know all, aunt,” he had said. + +“Poor boy, yes, but we are here. I am not going to scold you just yet. +Take heart.” + +“I must hide somewhere.” + +“Perhaps.... Yes, it is a very good idea.” + +“Perhaps I might get into Chesnel’s house without being seen if we timed +ourselves to arrive in the middle of the night?” + +“That will be best. We shall be better able to hide this from my +brother.--Poor angel! how unhappy he is!” said she, petting the unworthy +child. + +“Ah! now I begin to know what dishonor means; it has chilled my love.” + +“Unhappy boy; what bliss and what misery!” And Mlle. Armande drew his +fevered face to her breast and kissed his forehead, cold and damp though +it was, as the holy women might have kissed the brow of the dead Christ +when they laid Him in His grave clothes. Following out the excellent +scheme suggested by the prodigal son, he was brought by night to the +quiet house in the Rue du Bercail; but chance ordered it that by so +doing he ran straight into the wolf’s jaws, as the saying goes. That +evening Chesnel had been making arrangements to sell his connection to +M. Lepressoir’s head-clerk. M. Lepressoir was the notary employed by +the Liberals, just as Chesnel’s practice lay among the aristocratic +families. The young fellow’s relatives were rich enough to pay Chesnel +the considerable sum of a hundred thousand francs in cash. + +Chesnel was rubbing his hands. “A hundred thousand francs will go a long +way in buying up debts,” he thought. “The young man is paying a high +rate of interest on his loans. We will lock him up down here. I will go +yonder myself and bring those curs to terms.” + +Chesnel, honest Chesnel, upright, worthy Chesnel, called his darling +Comte Victurnien’s creditors “curs.” + +Meanwhile his successor was making his way along the Rue du Bercail +just as Mlle. Armande’s traveling carriage turned into it. Any young man +might be expected to feel some curiosity if he saw a traveling carriage +stop at a notary’s door in such a town and at such an hour of the night; +the young man in question was sufficiently inquisitive to stand in a +doorway and watch. He saw Mlle. Armande alight. + +“Mlle. Armande d’Esgrignon at this time of night!” said he to himself. +“What can be going forward at the d’Esgrignons’?” + +At the sight of mademoiselle, Chesnel opened the door circumspectly and +set down the light which he was carrying; but when he looked out and saw +Victurnien, Mlle. Armande’s first whispered word made the whole +thing plain to him. He looked up and down the street; it seemed quite +deserted; he beckoned, and the young Count sprang out of the carriage +and entered the courtyard. All was lost. Chesnel’s successor had +discovered Victurnien’s hiding place. + +Victurnien was hurried into the house and installed in a room beyond +Chesnel’s private office. No one could enter it except across the old +man’s dead body. + +“Ah! M. le Comte!” exclaimed Chesnel, notary no longer. + +“Yes, monsieur,” the Count answered, understanding his old friend’s +exclamation. “I did not listen to you; and now I have fallen into the +depths, and I must perish.” + +“No, no,” the good man answered, looking triumphantly from Mlle. Armande +to the Count. “I have sold my connection. I have been working for a very +long time now, and am thinking of retiring. By noon to-morrow I shall +have a hundred thousand francs; many things can be settled with that. +Mademoiselle, you are tired,” he added; “go back to the carriage and go +home and sleep. Business to-morrow.” + +“Is he safe?” returned she, looking at Victurnien. + +“Yes.” + +She kissed her nephew; a few tears fell on his forehead. Then she went. + +“My good Chesnel,” said the Count, when they began to talk of business, +“what are your hundred thousand francs in such a position as mine? You +do not know the full extent of my troubles, I think.” + +Victurnien explained the situation. Chesnel was thunderstruck. But for +the strength of his devotion, he would have succumbed to this blow. +Tears streamed from the eyes that might well have had no tears left to +shed. For a few moments he was a child again, for a few moments he was +bereft of his senses; he stood like a man who should find his own house +on fire, and through a window see the cradle ablaze and hear the hiss +of the flames on his children’s curls. He rose to his full height--il se +dressa en pied, as Amyot would have said; he seemed to grow taller; he +raised his withered hands and wrung them despairingly and wildly. + +“If only your father may die and never know this, young man! To be a +forger is enough; a parricide you must not be. Fly, you say? No. They +would condemn you for contempt of court! Oh, wretched boy! Why did you +not forge _my_ signature? _I_ would have paid; I should not have taken +the bill to the public prosecutor.--Now I can do nothing. You have +brought me to a stand in the lowest pit in hell!--Du Croisier! What will +come of it? What is to be done?--If you had killed a man, there might be +some help for it. But forgery--_forgery_! And time--the time is flying,” + he went on, shaking his fist towards the old clock. “You will want a +sham passport now. One crime leads to another. First,” he added, after a +pause, “first of all we must save the house of d’Esgrignon.” + +“But the money is still in Mme. de Maufrigneuse’s keeping,” exclaimed +Victurnien. + +“Ah!” exclaimed Chesnel. “Well, there is some hope left--a faint hope. +Could we soften du Croisier, I wonder, or buy him over? He shall have +all the lands if he likes. I will go to him; I will wake him and offer +him all we have.--Besides, it was not you who forged that bill; it was +I. I will go to jail; I am too old for the hulks, they can only put me +in prison.” + +“But the body of the bill is in my handwriting,” objected Victurnien, +without a sign of surprise at this reckless devotion. + +“Idiot!... that is, pardon, M. le Comte. Josephin should have been made +to write it,” the old notary cried wrathfully. “He is a good creature; +he would have taken it all on his shoulders. But there is an end of +it; the world is falling to pieces,” the old man continued, sinking +exhausted into a chair. “Du Croisier is a tiger; we must be careful not +to rouse him. What time is it? Where is the draft? If it is at Paris, +it might be bought back from the Kellers; they might accommodate us. +Ah! but there are dangers on all sides; a single false step means ruin. +Money is wanted in any case. But there! nobody knows you are here, you +must live buried away in the cellar if needs must. I will go at once to +Paris as fast as I can; I can hear the mail coach from Brest.” + +In a moment the old man recovered the faculties of his youth--his +agility and vigor. He packed up clothes for the journey, took money, +brought a six-pound loaf to the little room beyond the office, and +turned the key on his child by adoption. + +“Not a sound in here,” he said, “no light at night; and stop here till I +come back, or you will go to the hulks. Do you understand, M. le Comte? +Yes, _to the hulks_! if anybody in a town like this knows that you are +here.” + +With that Chesnel went out, first telling his housekeeper to give +out that he was ill, to allow no one to come into the house, to send +everybody away, and to postpone business of every kind for three days. +He wheedled the manager of the coach-office, made up a tale for his +benefit--he had the makings of an ingenious novelist in him--and +obtained a promise that if there should be a place, he should have +it, passport or no passport, as well as a further promise to keep +the hurried departure a secret. Luckily, the coach was empty when it +arrived. + +In the middle of the following night Chesnel was set down in Paris. At +nine o’clock in the morning he waited on the Kellers, and learned that +the fatal draft had returned to du Croisier three days since; but while +obtaining this information, he in no way committed himself. Before he +went away he inquired whether the draft could be recovered if the amount +were refunded. Francois Keller’s answer was to the effect that the +document was du Croisier’s property, and that it was entirely in his +power to keep or return it. Then, in desperation, the old man went to +the Duchess. + +Mme. de Maufrigneuse was not at home to any visitor at that hour. +Chesnel, feeling that every moment was precious, sat down in the hall, +wrote a few lines, and succeeded in sending them to the lady by dint of +wheedling, fascinating, bribing, and commanding the most insolent and +inaccessible servants in the world. The Duchess was still in bed; +but, to the great astonishment of her household, the old man in black +knee-breeches, ribbed stockings, and shoes with buckles to them, was +shown into her room. + +“What is it, monsieur?” she asked, posing in her disorder. “What does he +want of me, ungrateful that he is?” + +“It is this, Mme. la Duchesse,” the good man exclaimed, “you have a +hundred thousand crowns belonging to us.” + +“Yes,” began she. “What does it signify----?” + +“The money was gained by a forgery, for which we are going to the hulks, +a forgery which we committed for love of you,” Chesnel said quickly. +“How is it that you did not guess it, so clever as you are? Instead +of scolding the boy, you ought to have had the truth out of him, and +stopped him while there was time, and saved him.” + +At the first words the Duchess understood; she felt ashamed of her +behavior to so impassioned a lover, and afraid besides that she might be +suspected of complicity. In her wish to prove that she had not touched +the money left in her keeping, she lost all regard for appearances; and +besides, it did not occur to her that the notary was a man. She flung +off the eider-down quilt, sprang to her desk (flitting past the lawyer +like an angel out of one of the vignettes which illustrate Lamartine’s +books), held out the notes, and went back in confusion to bed. + +“You are an angel, madame.” (She was to be an angel for all the world, +it seemed.) “But this will not be the end of it. I count upon your +influence to save us.” + +“To save you! I will do it or die! Love that will not shrink from a +crime must be love indeed. Is there a woman in the world for whom such a +thing has been done? Poor boy! Come, do not lose time, dear M. Chesnel; +and count upon me as upon yourself.” + +“Mme. la Duchesse! Mme. la Duchesse!” It was all that he could say, so +overcome was he. He cried, he could have danced; but he was afraid of +losing his senses, and refrained. + +“Between us, we will save him,” she said, as he left the room. + +Chesnel went straight to Josephin. Josephin unlocked the young Count’s +desk and writing-table. Very luckily, the notary found letters which +might be useful, letters from du Croisier and the Kellers. Then he took +a place in a diligence which was just about to start; and by dint of +fees to the postilions, the lumbering vehicle went as quickly as the +coach. His two fellow-passengers on the journey happened to be in as +great a hurry as himself, and readily agreed to take their meals in +the carriage. Thus swept over the road, the notary reached the Rue du +Bercail, after three days of absence, an hour before midnight. And +yet he was too late. He saw the gendarmes at the gate, crossed the +threshold, and met the young Count in the courtyard. Victurnien had been +arrested. If Chesnel had had the power, he would beyond a doubt +have killed the officers and men; as it was, he could only fall on +Victurnien’s neck. + +“If I cannot hush this matter up, you must kill yourself before the +indictment is made out,” he whispered. But Victurnien had sunk into such +stupor, that he stared back uncomprehendingly. + +“Kill myself?” he repeated. + +“Yes. If your courage should fail, my boy, count upon me,” said Chesnel, +squeezing Victurnien’s hand. + +In spite of the anguish of mind and tottering limbs, he stood firmly +planted, to watch the son of his heart, the Comte d’Esgrignon, go out of +the courtyard between two gendarmes, with the commissary, the justice +of the peace, and the clerk of the court; and not until the figures had +disappeared, and the sound of footsteps had died away into silence, did +he recover his firmness and presence of mind. + +“You will catch cold, sir,” Brigitte remonstrated. + +“The devil take you!” cried her exasperated master. + +Never in the nine-and-twenty years that Brigitte had been in his service +had she heard such words from him! Her candle fell out of her hands, but +Chesnel neither heeded his housekeeper’s alarm nor heard her exclaim. He +hurried off towards the Val-Noble. + +“He is out of his mind,” said she; “after all, it is no wonder. But +where is he off to? I cannot possibly go after him. What will become of +him? Suppose that he should drown himself?” + +And Brigitte went to waken the head-clerk and send him to look along the +river bank; the river had a gloomy reputation just then, for there had +lately been two cases of suicide--one a young man full of promise, and +the other a girl, a victim of seduction. Chesnel went straight to the +Hotel du Croisier. There lay his only hope. The law requires that a +charge of forgery must be brought by a private individual. It was still +possible to withdraw if du Croisier chose to admit that there had been +a misapprehension; and Chesnel had hopes, even then, of buying the man +over. + +M. and Mme. du Croisier had much more company than usual that evening. +Only a few persons were in the secret. M. du Ronceret, president of the +Tribunal; M. Sauvager, deputy Public Prosecutor; and M. du Coudrai, a +registrar of mortgages, who had lost his post by voting on the wrong +side, were the only persons who were supposed to know about it; but +Mesdames du Ronceret and du Coudrai had told the news, in strict +confidence, to one or two intimate friends, so that it had spread +half over the semi-noble, semi-bourgeois assembly at M. du Croisier’s. +Everybody felt the gravity of the situation, but no one ventured to +speak of it openly; and, moreover, Mme. du Croisier’s attachment to the +upper sphere was so well known, that people scarcely dared to mention +the disaster which had befallen the d’Esgrignons or to ask for +particulars. The persons most interested were waiting till good Mme. du +Croisier retired, for that lady always retreated to her room at the same +hour to perform her religious exercises as far as possible out of her +husband’s sight. + +Du Croisier’s adherents, knowing the secret and the plans of the great +commercial power, looked round when the lady of the house disappeared; +but there were still several persons present whose opinions or interests +marked them out as untrustworthy, so they continued to play. About half +past eleven all had gone save intimates: M. Sauvager, M. Camusot, the +examining magistrate, and his wife, M. and Mme. du Ronceret and their +son Fabien, M. and Mme. du Coudrai, and Joseph Blondet, the eldest of an +old judge; ten persons in all. + +It is told of Talleyrand that one fatal day, three hours after midnight, +he suddenly interrupted a game of cards in the Duchesse de Luynes’ house +by laying down his watch on the table and asking the players whether the +Prince de Conde had any child but the Duc d’Enghien. + +“Why do you ask?” returned Mme. de Luynes, “when you know so well that +he has not.” + +“Because if the Prince has no other son, the House of Conde is now at an +end.” + +There was a moment’s pause, and they finished the game.--President +du Ronceret now did something very similar. Perhaps he had heard the +anecdote; perhaps, in political life, little minds and great minds +are apt to hit upon the same expression. He looked at his watch, and +interrupted the game of boston with: + +“At this moment M. le Comte d’Esgrignon is arrested, and that house +which has held its head so high is dishonored forever.” + +“Then, have you got hold of the boy?” du Coudrai cried gleefully. + +Every one in the room, with the exception of the President, the deputy, +and du Croisier, looked startled. + +“He has just been arrested in Chesnel’s house, where he was hiding,” + said the deputy public prosecutor, with the air of a capable but +unappreciated public servant, who ought by rights to be Minister +of Police. M. Sauvager, the deputy, was a thin, tall young man of +five-and-twenty, with a lengthy olive-hued countenance, black frizzled +hair, and deep-set eyes; the wide, dark rings beneath them were +completed by the wrinkled purple eyelids above. With a nose like the +beak of some bird of prey, a pinched mouth, and cheeks worn lean with +study and hollowed by ambition, he was the very type of a second-rate +personage on the lookout for something to turn up, and ready to do +anything if so he might get on in the world, while keeping within the +limitations of the possible and the forms of law. His pompous expression +was an admirable indication of the time-serving eloquence to be expected +of him. Chesnel’s successor had discovered the young Count’s hiding +place to him, and he took great credit to himself for his penetration. + +The news seemed to come as a shock to the examining magistrate, +M. Camusot, who had granted the warrant of arrest on Sauvager’s +application, with no idea that it was to be executed so promptly. +Camusot was short, fair, and fat already, though he was only thirty +years old or thereabouts; he had the flabby, livid look peculiar to +officials who live shut up in their private study or in a court of +justice; and his little, pale, yellow eyes were full of the suspicion +which is often mistaken for shrewdness. + +Mme. Camusot looked at her spouse, as who should say, “Was I not right?” + +“Then the case will come on,” was Camusot’s comment. + +“Could you doubt it?” asked du Coudrai. “Now they have got the Count, +all is over.” + +“There is the jury,” said Camusot. “In this case M. le Prefet is sure +to take care that after the challenges from the prosecution and the +defence, the jury to a man will be for an acquittal.--My advice would be +to come to a compromise,” he added, turning to du Croisier. + +“Compromise!” echoed the President; “why, he is in the hands of +justice.” + +“Acquitted or convicted, the Comte d’Esgrignon will be dishonored all +the same,” put in Sauvager. + +“I am bringing an action,”[*] said du Croisier. “I shall have Dupin +senior. We shall see how the d’Esgrignon family will escape out of his +clutches.” + + [*] A trial for an offence of this kind in France is an + action brought by a private person (partie civile) to + recover damages, and at the same time a criminal prosecution + conducted on behalf of the Government.--Tr. + +“The d’Esgrignons will defend the case and have counsel from Paris; they +will have Berryer,” said Mme. Camusot. “You will have a Roland for your +Oliver.” + +Du Croisier, M. Sauvager, and the President du Ronceret looked at +Camusot, and one thought troubled their minds. The lady’s tone, the way +in which she flung her proverb in the faces of the eight conspirators +against the house of d’Esgrignon, caused them inward perturbation, +which they dissembled as provincials can dissemble, by dint of lifelong +practice in the shifts of a monastic existence. Little Mme. Camusot saw +their change of countenance and subsequent composure when they scented +opposition on the part of the examining magistrate. When her husband +unveiled the thoughts in the back of his own mind, she had tried to +plumb the depths of hate in du Croisier’s adherents. She wanted to find +out how du Croisier had gained over this deputy public prosecutor, who +had acted so promptly and so directly in opposition to the views of the +central power. + +“In any case,” continued she, “if celebrated counsel come down from +Paris, there is a prospect of a very interesting session in the Court of +Assize; but the matter will be snuffed out between the Tribunal and the +Court of Appeal. It is only to be expected that the Government should do +all that can be done, below the surface, to save a young man who comes +of a great family, and has the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse for a friend. So +I think that we shall have a ‘sensation at Landernau.’” + +“How you go on, madame!” the President said sternly. “Can you suppose +that the Court of First Instance will be influenced by considerations +which have nothing to do with justice?” + +“The event proves the contrary,” she said meaningly, looking full at +Sauvager and the President, who glanced coldly at her. + +“Explain yourself, madame,” said Sauvager, “you speak as if we had not +done our duty.” + +“Mme. Camusot meant nothing,” interposed her husband. + +“But has not M. le President just said something prejudicing a case +which depends on the examination of the prisoner?” said she. “And +the evidence is still to be taken, and the Court had not given its +decision?” + +“We are not at the law-courts,” the deputy public prosecutor replied +tartly; “and besides, we know all that.” + +“But the public prosecutor knows nothing at all about it yet,” returned +she, with an ironical glance. “He will come back from the Chamber of +Deputies in all haste. You have cut out his work for him, and he, no +doubt, will speak for himself.” + +The deputy prosecutor knitted his thick bushy brows. Those interested +read tardy scruples in his countenance. A great silence followed, broken +by no sound but the dealing of the cards. M. and Mme. Camusot, sensible +of a decided chill in the atmosphere, took their departure to leave the +conspirators to talk at their ease. + +“Camusot,” the lady began in the street, “you went too far. Why lead +those people to suspect that you will have no part in their schemes? +They will play you some ugly trick.” + +“What can they do? I am the only examining magistrate.” + +“Cannot they slander you in whispers, and procure your dismissal?” + +At that very moment Chesnel ran up against the couple. The old notary +recognized the examining magistrate; and with the lucidity which comes +of an experience of business, he saw that the fate of the d’Esgrignons +lay in the hands of the young man before him. + +“Ah, sir!” he exclaimed, “we shall soon need you badly. Just a word with +you.--Your pardon, madame,” he added, as he drew Camusot aside. + +Mme. Camusot, as a good conspirator, looked towards du Croisier’s house, +ready to break up the conversation if anybody appeared; but she thought, +and thought rightly, that their enemies were busy discussing this +unexpected turn which she had given to the affair. Chesnel meanwhile +drew the magistrate into a dark corner under the wall, and lowered his +voice for his companion’s ear. + +“If you are for the house of d’Esgrignon,” he said, “Mme. la Duchesse +de Maufrigneuse, the Prince of Cadignan, the Ducs de Navarreins and de +Lenoncourt, the Keeper of the Seals, the Chancellor, the King himself, +will interest themselves in you. I have just come from Paris; I knew +all about this; I went post-haste to explain everything at Court. We +are counting on you, and I will keep your secret. If you are hostile, I +shall go back to Paris to-morrow and lodge a complaint with the +Keeper of the Seals that there is a suspicion of corruption. Several +functionaries were at du Croisier’s house to-night, and no doubt, ate +and drank there, contrary to law; and besides, they are friends of his.” + +Chesnel would have brought the Almighty to intervene if he had had the +power. He did not wait for an answer; he left Camusot and fled like a +deer towards du Croisier’s house. Camusot, meanwhile, bidden to reveal +the notary’s confidences, was at once assailed with, “Was I not +right, dear?”--a wifely formula used on all occasions, but rather more +vehemently when the fair speaker is in the wrong. By the time they +reached home, Camusot had admitted the superiority of his partner +in life, and appreciated his good fortune in belonging to her; which +confession, doubtless, was the prelude of a blissful night. + +Chesnel met his foes in a body as they left du Croisier’s house, and +began to fear that du Croisier had gone to bed. In his position he was +compelled to act quickly, and any delay was a misfortune. + +“In the King’s name!” he cried, as the man-servant was closing the hall +door. He had just brought the King on the scene for the benefit of +an ambitious little official, and the word was still on his lips. +He fretted and chafed while the door was unbarred; then, swift as a +thunderbolt, dashed into the ante-chamber, and spoke to the servant. + +“A hundred crowns to you, young man, if you can wake Mme. du Croisier +and send her to me this instant. Tell her anything you like.” + +Chesnel grew cool and composed as he opened the door of the brightly +lighted drawing-room, where du Croisier was striding up and down. For +a moment the two men scanned each other, with hatred and enmity, twenty +years’ deep, in their eyes. One of the two had his foot on the heart +of the house of d’Esgrignon; the other, with a lion’s strength, came +forward to pluck it away. + +“Your humble servant, sir,” said Chesnel. “Have you made the charge?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“When was it made?” + +“Yesterday.” + +“Have any steps been taken since the warrant of arrest was issued?” + +“I believe so.” + +“I have come to treat with you.” + +“Justice must take its course, nothing can stop it, the arrest has been +made.” + +“Never mind that, I am at your orders, at your feet.” The old man knelt +before du Croisier, and stretched out his hands entreatingly. + +“What do you want? Our lands, our castle? Take all; withdraw the charge; +leave us nothing but life and honor. And over and besides all this, I +will be your servant; command and I will obey.” + +Du Croisier sat down in an easy-chair and left the old man to kneel. + +“You are not vindictive,” pleaded Chesnel; “you are good-hearted, you +do not bear us such a grudge that you will not listen to terms. Before +daylight the young man ought to be at liberty.” + +“The whole town knows that he has been arrested,” returned du Croisier, +enjoying his revenge. + +“It is a great misfortune, but as there will be neither proofs nor +trial, we can easily manage that.” + +Du Croisier reflected. He seemed to be struggling with self-interest; +Chesnel thought that he had gained a hold on his enemy through the +great motive of human action. At that supreme moment Mme. du Croisier +appeared. + +“Come here and help me to soften your dear husband, madame?” said +Chesnel, still on his knees. Mme. du Croisier made him rise with every +sign of profound astonishment. Chesnel explained his errand; and when +she knew it, the generous daughter of the intendants of the Ducs de +Alencon turned to du Croisier with tears in her eyes. + +“Ah! monsieur, can you hesitate? The d’Esgrignons, the honor of the +province!” she said. + +“There is more in it than that,” exclaimed du Croisier, rising to begin +his restless walk again. + +“More? What more?” asked Chesnel in amazement. + +“France is involved, M. Chesnel! It is a question of the country, of the +people, of giving my lords your nobles a lesson, and teaching them that +there is such a thing as justice, and law, and a bourgeoisie--a lesser +nobility as good as they, and a match for them! There shall be no +more trampling down half a score of wheat fields for a single hare; no +bringing shame on families by seducing unprotected girls; they shall not +look down on others as good as they are, and mock at them for ten +whole years, without finding out at last that these things swell into +avalanches, and those avalanches will fall and crush and bury my lords +the nobles. You want to go back to the old order of things. You want +to tear up the social compact, the Charter in which our rights are set +forth---” + +“And so?” + +“Is it not a sacred mission to open the people’s eyes?” cried du +Croisier. “Their eyes will be opened to the morality of your party when +they see nobles going to be tried at the Assize Court like Pierre +and Jacques. They will say, then, that small folk who keep their +self-respect are as good as great folk that bring shame on themselves. +The Assize Court is a light for all the world. Here, I am the champion +of the people, the friend of law. You yourselves twice flung me on the +side of the people--once when you refused an alliance, twice when you +put me under the ban of your society. You are reaping as you have sown.” + +If Chesnel was startled by this outburst, so no less was Mme. du +Croisier. To her this was a terrible revelation of her husband’s +character, a new light not merely on the past but on the future as well. +Any capitulation on the part of the colossus was apparently out of the +question; but Chesnel in no wise retreated before the impossible. + +“What, monsieur?” said Mme. du Croisier. “Would you not forgive? Then +you are not a Christian.” + +“I forgive as God forgives, madame, on certain conditions.” + +“And what are they?” asked Chesnel, thinking that he saw a ray of hope. + +“The elections are coming on; I want the votes at your disposal.” + +“You shall have them.” + +“I wish that we, my wife and I, should be received familiarly every +evening, with an appearance of friendliness at any rate, by M. le +Marquis d’Esgrignon and his circle,” continued du Croisier. + +“I do not know how we are going to compass it, but you shall be +received.” + +“I wish to have the family bound over by a surety of four hundred +thousand francs, and by a written document stating the nature of the +compromise, so as to keep a loaded cannon pointed at its heart.” + +“We agree,” said Chesnel, without admitting that the three hundred +thousand francs was in his possession; “but the amount must be deposited +with a third party and returned to the family after your election and +repayment.” + +“No; after the marriage of my grand-niece, Mlle. Duval. She will very +likely have four million francs some day; the reversion of our property +(mine and my wife’s) shall be settled upon her by her marriage-contract, +and you shall arrange a match between her and the young Count.” + +“Never!” + +“_Never_!” repeated du Croisier, quite intoxicated with triumph. +“Good-night!” + +“Idiot that I am,” thought Chesnel, “why did I shrink from a lie to such +a man?” + +Du Croisier took himself off; he was pleased with himself; he had +enjoyed Chesnel’s humiliation; he had held the destinies of a proud +house, the representatives of the aristocracy of the province, suspended +in his hand; he had set the print of his heel on the very heart of the +d’Esgrignons; and, finally, he had broken off the whole negotiation on +the score of his wounded pride. He went up to his room, leaving his wife +alone with Chesnel. In his intoxication, he saw his victory clear before +him. He firmly believed that the three hundred thousand francs had been +squandered; the d’Esgrignons must sell or mortgage all that they had to +raise the money; the Assize Court was inevitable to his mind. + +An affair of forgery can always be settled out of court in France if +the missing amount is returned. The losers by the crime are usually +well-to-do, and have no wish to blight an imprudent man’s character. But +du Croisier had no mind to slacken his hold until he knew what he was +about. He meditated until he fell asleep on the magnificent manner in +which his hopes would be fulfilled by the way of the Assize Court or by +marriage. The murmur of voices below, the lamentations of Chesnel and +Mme. du Croisier, sounded sweet in his ears. + +Mme. du Croisier shared Chesnel’s views of the d’Esgrignons. She was +a deeply religious woman, a Royalist attached to the noblesse; the +interview had been in every way a cruel shock to her feelings. She, a +staunch Royalist, had heard the roaring of that Liberalism, which, in +her director’s opinion, wished to crush the Church. The Left benches for +her meant the popular upheaval and the scaffolds of 1793. + +“What would your uncle, that sainted man who hears us, say to this?” + exclaimed Chesnel. Mme. du Croisier made no reply, but the great tears +rolled down her checks. + +“You have already been the cause of one poor boy’s death; his mother +will go mourning all her days,” continued Chesnel; he saw how his words +told, but he would have struck harder and even broken this woman’s heart +to save Victurnien. “Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande, for she would +not survive the dishonor of the house for a week? Do you wish to be the +death of poor Chesnel, your old notary? For I shall kill the Count in +prison before they shall bring the charge against him, and take my +own life afterwards, before they shall try me for murder in an Assize +Court.” + +“That is enough! that is enough, my friend! I would do anything to put a +stop to such an affair; but I never knew M. du Croisier’s real character +until a few minutes ago. To you I can make the admission: there is +nothing to be done.” + +“But what if there is?” + +“I would give half the blood in my veins that it were so,” said she, +finishing her sentence by a wistful shake of the head. + +As the First Consul, beaten on the field of Marengo till five o’clock +in the evening, by six o’clock saw the tide of battle turned by Desaix’s +desperate attack and Kellermann’s terrific charge, so Chesnel in the +midst of defeat saw the beginnings of victory. No one but a Chesnel, +an old notary, an ex-steward of the manor, old Maitre Sorbier’s junior +clerk, in the sudden flash of lucidity which comes with despair, could +rise thus, high as a Napoleon, nay, higher. This was not Marengo, it +was Waterloo, and the Prussians had come up; Chesnel saw this, and was +determined to beat them off the field. + +“Madame,” he said, “remember that I have been your man of business for +twenty years; remember that if the d’Esgrignons mean the honor of the +province, you represent the honor of the bourgeoisie; it rests with you, +and you alone, to save the ancient house. Now, answer me; are you +going to allow dishonor to fall on the shade of your dead uncle, on the +d’Esgrignons, on poor Chesnel? Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande weeping +yonder? Or do you wish to expiate wrongs done to others by a deed which +will rejoice your ancestors, the intendants of the dukes of Alencon, and +bring comfort to the soul of our dear Abbe? If he could rise from his +grave, he would command you to do this thing that I beg of you upon my +knees.” + +“What is it?” asked Mme. du Croisier. + +“Well. Here are the hundred thousand crowns,” said Chesnel, drawing the +bundles of notes from his pocket. “Take them, and there will be an end +of it.” + +“If that is all,” she began, “and if no harm can come of it to my +husband----” + +“Nothing but good,” Chesnel replied. “You are saving him from eternal +punishment in hell, at the cost of a slight disappointment here below.” + +“He will not be compromised, will he?” she asked, looking into Chesnel’s +face. + +Then Chesnel read the depths of the poor wife’s mind. Mme. du Croisier +was hesitating between her two creeds; between wifely obedience to her +husband as laid down by the Church, and obedience to the altar and the +throne. Her husband, in her eyes, was acting wrongly, but she dared not +blame him; she would fain save the d’Esgrignons, but she was loyal to +her husband’s interests. + +“Not in the least,” Chesnel answered; “your old notary swears it by the +Holy Gospels----” + +He had nothing left to lose for the d’Esgrignons but his soul; he risked +it now by this horrible perjury, but Mme. du Croisier must be deceived, +there was no other choice but death. Without losing a moment, he +dictated a form of receipt by which Mme. du Croisier acknowledged +payment of a hundred thousand crowns five days before the fatal letter +of exchange appeared; for he recollected that du Croisier was away from +home, superintending improvements on his wife’s property at the time. + +“Now swear to me that you will declare before the examining magistrate +that you received the money on that date,” he said, when Mme. du +Croisier had taken the notes and he held the receipt in his hand. + +“It will be a lie, will it not?” + +“Venial sin,” said Chesnel. + +“I could not do it without consulting my director, M. l’Abbe Couturier.” + +“Very well,” said Chesnel, “will you be guided entirely by his advice in +this affair?” + +“I promise that.” + +“And you must not give the money to M. du Croisier until you have been +before the magistrate.” + +“No. Ah! God give me strength to appear in a Court of Justice and +maintain a lie before men!” + +Chesnel kissed Mme. du Croisier’s hand, then stood upright, and majestic +as one of the prophets that Raphael painted in the Vatican. + +“You uncle’s soul is thrilled with joy,” he said; “you have wiped +out for ever the wrong that you did by marrying an enemy of altar and +throne”--words that made a lively impression on Mme. du Croisier’s +timorous mind. + +Then Chesnel all at once bethought himself that he must make sure of +the lady’s director, the Abbe Couturier. He knew how obstinately devout +souls can work for the triumph of their views when once they come +forward for their side, and wished to secure the concurrence of the +Church as early as possible. So he went to the Hotel d’Esgrignon, roused +up Mlle. Armande, gave her an account of that night’s work, and sped her +to fetch the Bishop himself into the forefront of the battle. + +“Ah, God in heaven! Thou must save the house of d’Esgrignon!” he +exclaimed, as he went slowly home again. “The affair is developing now +into a fight in a Court of Law. We are face to face with men that have +passions and interests of their own; we can get anything out of them. +This du Croisier has taken advantage of the public prosecutor’s absence; +the public prosecutor is devoted to us, but since the opening of the +Chambers he has gone to Paris. Now, what can they have done to get +round his deputy? They have induced him to take up the charge without +consulting his chief. This mystery must be looked into, and the ground +surveyed to-morrow; and then, perhaps, when I have unraveled this web of +theirs, I will go back to Paris to set great powers at work through Mme. +de Maufrigneuse.” + +So he reasoned, poor, aged, clear-sighted wrestler, before he lay down +half dead with bearing the weight of so much emotion and fatigue. And +yet, before he fell asleep he ran a searching eye over the list of +magistrates, taking all their secret ambitions into account, casting +about for ways of influencing them, calculating his chances in the +coming struggle. Chesnel’s prolonged scrutiny of consciences, given in a +condensed form, will perhaps serve as a picture of the judicial world in +a country town. + +Magistrates and officials generally are obliged to begin their career in +the provinces; judicial ambition there ferments. At the outset every man +looks towards Paris; they all aspire to shine in the vast theatre where +great political causes come before the courts, and the higher branches +of the legal profession are closely connected with the palpitating +interests of society. But few are called to that paradise of the man +of law, and nine-tenths of the profession are bound sooner or later to +regard themselves as shelved for good in the provinces. Wherefore, every +Tribunal of First Instance and every Court-Royal is sharply divided +in two. The first section has given up hope, and is either torpid or +content; content with the excessive respect paid to office in a country +town, or torpid with tranquillity. The second section is made up of +the younger sort, in whom the desire of success is untempered as yet +by disappointment, and of the really clever men urged on continually +by ambition as with a goad; and these two are possessed with a sort of +fanatical belief in their order. + +At this time the younger men were full of Royalist zeal against the +enemies of the Bourbons. The most insignificant deputy official was +dreaming of conducting a prosecution, and praying with all his might for +one of those political cases which bring a man’s zeal into prominence, +draw the attention of the higher powers, and mean advancement for King’s +men. Was there a member of an official staff of prosecuting counsel +who could hear of a Bonapartist conspiracy breaking out somewhere +else without a feeling of envy? Where was the man that did not burn to +discover a Caron, or a Berton, or a revolt of some sort? With reasons of +State, and the necessity of diffusing the monarchical spirit throughout +France as their basis, and a fierce ambition stirred up whenever party +spirit ran high, these ardent politicians on their promotion were lucid, +clear-sighted, and perspicacious. They kept up a vigorous detective +system throughout the kingdom; they did the work of spies, and urged +the nation along a path of obedience, from which it had no business to +swerve. + +Justice, thus informed with monarchical enthusiasm, atoned for +the errors of the ancient parliaments, and walked, perhaps, too +ostentatiously hand in hand with religion. There was more zeal than +discretion shown; but justice sinned not so much in the direction of +machiavelism as by giving the candid expression to its views, when those +views appeared to be opposed to the general interests of a country which +must be put safely out of reach of revolutions. But taken as a whole, +there was still too much of the bourgeois element in the administration; +it was too readily moved by petty liberal agitation; and as a result, +it was inevitable that it should incline sooner or later to the +Constitutional party, and join ranks with the bourgeoisie in the day +of battle. In the great body of legal functionaries, as in other +departments of the administration, there was not wanting a certain +hypocrisy, or rather that spirit of imitation which always leads France +to model herself on the Court, and, quite unintentionally, to deceive +the powers that be. + +Officials of both complexions were to be found in the court in which +young d’Esgrignon’s fate depended. M. le President du Ronceret and an +elderly judge, Blondet by name, represented the section of functionaries +shelved for good, and resigned to stay where they were; while the young +and ambitious party comprised the examining magistrate M. Camusot, and +his deputy M. Michu, appointed through the interests of the Cinq-Cygnes, +and certain of promotion to the Court of Appeal of Paris at the first +opportunity. + +President du Ronceret held a permanent post; it was impossible to turn +him out. The aristocratic party declined to give him what he considered +to be his due, socially speaking; so he declared for the bourgeoisie, +glossed over his disappointment with the name of independence, and +failed to realize that his opinions condemned him to remain a president +of a court of the first instance for the rest of his life. Once started +in this track the sequence of events led du Ronceret to place his hopes +of advancement on the triumph of du Croisier and the Left. He was in no +better odor at the Prefecture than at the Court-Royal. He was compelled +to keep on good terms with the authorities; the Liberals distrusted him, +consequently he belonged to neither party. He was obliged to resign +his chances of election to du Croisier, he exercised no influence, and +played a secondary part. The false position reacted on his character; +he was soured and discontented; he was tired of political ambiguity, and +privately had made up his mind to come forward openly as leader of the +Liberal party, and so to strike ahead of du Croisier. His behavior in +the d’Esgrignon affair was the first step in this direction. To begin +with, he was an admirable representative of that section of the middle +classes which allows its petty passions to obscure the wider interests +of the country; a class of crotchety politicians, upholding the +government one day and opposing it the next, compromising every cause +and helping none; helpless after they have done the mischief till +they set about brewing more; unwilling to face their own incompetence, +thwarting authority while professing to serve it. With a compound of +arrogance and humility they demand of the people more submission than +kings expect, and fret their souls because those above them are not +brought down to their level, as if greatness could be little, as if +power existed without force. + +President du Ronceret was a tall, spare man with a receding forehead and +scanty, auburn hair. He was wall-eyed, his complexion was blotched, his +lips thin and hard, his scarcely audible voice came out like the husky +wheezings of asthma. He had for a wife a great, solemn, clumsy +creature, tricked out in the most ridiculous fashion, and outrageously +overdressed. Mme. la Presidente gave herself the airs of a queen; she +wore vivid colors, and always appeared at balls adorned with the turban, +dear to the British female, and lovingly cultivated in out-of-the-way +districts in France. Each of the pair had an income of four or five +thousand francs, which with the President’s salary, reached a total +of some twelve thousand. In spite of a decided tendency to parsimony, +vanity required that they should receive one evening in the week. +Du Croisier might import modern luxury into the town, M. and Mme. de +Ronceret were faithful to the old traditions. They had always lived in +the old-fashioned house belonging to Mme. du Ronceret, and had made no +changes in it since their marriage. The house stood between a garden and +a courtyard. The gray old gable end, with one window in each story, +gave upon the road. High walls enclosed the garden and the yard, but the +space taken up beneath them in the garden by a walk shaded with +chestnut trees was filled in the yard by a row of outbuildings. An old +rust-devoured iron gate in the garden wall balanced the yard gateway, +a huge, double-leaved carriage entrance with a buttress on either side, +and a mighty shell on the top. The same shell was repeated over the +house-door. + +The whole place was gloomy, close, and airless. The row of iron-gated +openings in the opposite wall, as you entered, reminded you of prison +windows. Every passer-by could look in through the railings to see how +the garden grew; the flowers in the little square borders never seemed +to thrive there. + +The drawing-room on the ground floor was lighted by a single window on +the side of the street, and a French window above a flight of steps, +which gave upon the garden. The dining-room on the other side of the +great ante-chamber, with its windows also looking out into the garden, +was exactly the same size as the drawing-room, and all three apartments +were in harmony with the general air of gloom. It wearied your eyes +to look at the ceilings all divided up by huge painted crossbeams and +adorned with a feeble lozenge pattern or a rosette in the middle. The +paint was old, startling in tint, and begrimed with smoke. The sun had +faded the heavy silk curtains in the drawing-room; the old-fashioned +Beauvais tapestry which covered the white-painted furniture had lost +all its color with wear. A Louis Quinze clock on the chimney-piece +stood between two extravagant, branched sconces filled with yellow +wax candles, which the Presidente only lighted on occasions when the +old-fashioned rock-crystal chandelier emerged from its green wrapper. +Three card-tables, covered with threadbare baize, and a backgammon +box, sufficed for the recreations of the company; and Mme. du Ronceret +treated them to such refreshments as cider, chestnuts, pastry puffs, +glasses of eau sucree, and home-made orgeat. For some time past she had +made a practice of giving a party once a fortnight, when tea and some +pitiable attempts at pastry appeared to grace the occasion. + +Once a quarter the du Roncerets gave a grand three-course dinner, which +made a great sensation in the town, a dinner served up in execrable +ware, but prepared with the science for which the provincial cook is +remarkable. It was a Gargantuan repast, which lasted for six whole +hours, and by abundance the President tried to vie with du Croisier’s +elegance. + +And so du Ronceret’s life and its accessories were just what might +have been expected from his character and his false position. He felt +dissatisfied at home without precisely knowing what was the matter; but +he dared not go to any expense to change existing conditions, and was +only too glad to put by seven or eight thousand francs every year, so as +to leave his son Fabien a handsome private fortune. Fabien du Ronceret +had no mind for the magistracy, the bar, or the civil service, and his +pronounced turn for doing nothing drove his parent to despair. + +On this head there was rivalry between the President and the +Vice-President, old M. Blondet. M. Blondet, for a long time past, had +been sedulously cultivating an acquaintance between his son and the +Blandureau family. The Blandureaus were well-to-do linen manufacturers, +with an only daughter, and it was on this daughter that the President +had fixed his choice of a wife for Fabien. Now, Joseph Blondet’s +marriage with Mlle. Blandureau depended on his nomination to the post +which his father, old Blondet, hoped to obtain for him when he himself +should retire. But President du Ronceret, in underhand ways, was +thwarting the old man’s plans, and working indirectly upon the +Blandureaus. Indeed, if it had not been for this affair of young +d’Esgrignon’s, the astute President might have cut them out, father and +son, for their rivals were very much richer. + +M. Blondet, the victim of the machiavelian President’s intrigues, was +one of the curious figures which lie buried away in the provinces +like old coins in a crypt. He was at that time a man of sixty-seven or +thereabouts, but he carried his years well; he was very tall, and in +build reminded you of the canons of the good old times. The smallpox had +riddled his face with numberless dints, and spoilt the shape of his nose +by imparting to it a gimlet-like twist; it was a countenance by no means +lacking in character, very evenly tinted with a diffused red, lighted up +by a pair of bright little eyes, with a sardonic look in them, while +a certain sarcastic twitch of the purpled lips gave expression to that +feature. + +Before the Revolution broke out, Blondet senior had been a barrister; +afterwards he became the public accuser, and one of the mildest of those +formidable functionaries. Goodman Blondet, as they used to call him, +deadened the force of the new doctrines by acquiescing in them all, and +putting none of them in practice. He had been obliged to send one or +two nobles to prison; but his further proceedings were marked with such +deliberation, that he brought them through to the 9th Thermidor with a +dexterity which won respect for him on all sides. As a matter of fact, +Goodman Blondet ought to have been President of the Tribunal, but when +the courts of law were reorganized he had been set aside; Napoleon’s +aversion for Republicans was apt to reappear in the smallest +appointments under his government. The qualification of ex-public +accuser, written in the margin of the list against Blondet’s name, set +the Emperor inquiring of Cambaceres whether there might not be some +scion of an ancient parliamentary stock to appoint instead. The +consequence was that du Ronceret, whose father had been a councillor +of parliament, was nominated to the presidency; but, the Emperor’s +repugnance notwithstanding, Cambaceres allowed Blondet to remain on the +bench, saying that the old barrister was one of the best jurisconsults +in France. + +Blondet’s talents, his knowledge of the old law of the land and +subsequent legislation, should by rights have brought him far in his +profession; but he had this much in common with some few great spirits: +he entertained a prodigious contempt for his own special knowledge, and +reserved all his pretentions, leisure, and capacity for a second pursuit +unconnected with the law. To this pursuit he gave his almost exclusive +attention. The good man was passionately fond of gardening. He was in +correspondence with some of the most celebrated amateurs; it was +his ambition to create new species; he took an interest in botanical +discoveries, and lived, in short, in the world of flowers. Like +all florists, he had a predilection for one particular plant; the +pelargonium was his especial favorite. The court, the cases that came +before it, and his outward life were as nothing to him compared with the +inward life of fancies and abundant emotions which the old man led. He +fell more and more in love with his flower-seraglio; and the pains which +he bestowed on his garden, the sweet round of the labors of the months, +held Goodman Blondet fast in his greenhouse. But for that hobby he would +have been a deputy under the Empire, and shone conspicuous beyond a +doubt in the Corps Legislatif. + +His marriage was the second cause of his obscurity. As a man of forty, +he was rash enough to marry a girl of eighteen, by whom he had a son +named Joseph in the first year of their marriage. Three years afterwards +Mme. Blondet, then the prettiest woman in the town, inspired in the +prefect of the department a passion which ended only with her death. +The prefect was the father of her second son Emile; the whole town knew +this, old Blondet himself knew it. The wife who might have roused +her husband’s ambition, who might have won him away from his flowers, +positively encouraged the judge in his botanical tastes. She no more +cared to leave the place than the prefect cared to leave his prefecture +so long as his mistress lived. + +Blondet felt himself unequal at his age to a contest with a young wife. +He sought consolation in his greenhouse, and engaged a very pretty +servant-maid to assist him to tend his ever-changing bevy of beauties. +So while the judge potted, pricked out, watered, layered, slipped, +blended, and induced his flowers to break, Mme. Blondet spent his +substance on the dress and finery in which she shone at the prefecture. +One interest alone had power to draw her away from the tender care of +a romantic affection which the town came to admire in the end; and +this interest was Emile’s education. The child of love was a bright and +pretty boy, while Joseph was no less heavy and plain-featured. The old +judge, blinded by paternal affection loved Joseph as his wife loved +Emile. + +For a dozen years M. Blondet bore his lot with perfect resignation. +He shut his eyes to his wife’s intrigue with a dignified, well-bred +composure, quite in the style of an eighteenth century grand seigneur; +but, like all men with a taste for a quiet life, he could cherish a +profound dislike, and he hated his younger son. When his wife died, +therefore, in 1818, he turned the intruder out of the house, and packed +him off to Paris to study law on an allowance of twelve hundred francs +for all resource, nor could any cry of distress extract another penny +from his purse. Emile Blondet would have gone under if it had not been +for his real father. + +M. Blondet’s house was one of the prettiest in the town. It stood almost +opposite the prefecture, with a neat little court in front. A row of +old-fashioned iron railings between two brick-work piers enclosed it +from the street; and a low wall, also of brick, with a second row of +railings along the top, connected the piers with the neighboring house. +The little court, a space about ten fathoms in width by twenty in +length, was cut in two by a brick pathway which ran from the gate to the +house door between a border on either side. Those borders were always +renewed; at every season of the year they exhibited a successful show +of blossom, to the admiration of the public. All along the back of the +gardenbeds a quantity of climbing plants grew up and covered the walls +of the neighboring houses with a magnificent mantle; the brick-work +piers were hidden in clusters of honeysuckle; and, to crown all, in +a couple of terra-cotta vases at the summit, a pair of acclimatized +cactuses displayed to the astonished eyes of the ignorant those thick +leaves bristling with spiny defences which seem to be due to some plant +disease. + +It was a plain-looking house, built of brick, with brick-work arches +above the windows, and bright green Venetian shutters to make it gay. +Through the glass door you could look straight across the house to the +opposite glass door, at the end of a long passage, and down the central +alley in the garden beyond; while through the windows of the dining-room +and drawing-room, which extended, like the passage from back to front of +the house, you could often catch further glimpses of the flower-beds +in a garden of about two acres in extent. Seen from the road, the +brick-work harmonized with the fresh flowers and shrubs, for two +centuries had overlaid it with mosses and green and russet tints. No one +could pass through the town without falling in love with a house with +such charming surroundings, so covered with flowers and mosses to the +roof-ridge, where two pigeons of glazed crockery ware were perched by +way of ornament. + +M. Blondet possessed an income of about four thousand livres derived +from land, besides the old house in the town. He meant to avenge his +wrongs legitimately enough. He would leave his house, his lands, his +seat on the bench to his son Joseph, and the whole town knew what he +meant to do. He had made a will in that son’s favor; he had gone as +far as the Code will permit a man to go in the way of disinheriting +one child to benefit another; and what was more, he had been putting by +money for the past fifteen years to enable his lout of a son to buy back +from Emile that portion of his father’s estate which could not legally +be taken away from him. + +Emile Blondet thus turned adrift had contrived to gain distinction in +Paris, but so far it was rather a name than a practical result. Emile’s +indolence, recklessness, and happy-go-lucky ways drove his real father +to despair; and when that father died, a half-ruined man, turned out +of office by one of the political reactions so frequent under the +Restoration, it was with a mind uneasy as to the future of a man endowed +with the most brilliant qualities. + +Emile Blondet found support in a friendship with a Mlle. de Troisville, +whom he had known before her marriage with the Comte de Montcornet. His +mother was living when the Troisvilles came back after the emigration; +she was related to the family, distantly it is true, but the connection +was close enough to allow her to introduce Emile to the house. She, poor +woman, foresaw the future. She knew that when she died her son would +lose both mother and father, a thought which made death doubly bitter, +so she tried to interest others in him. She encouraged the liking +that sprang up between Emile and the eldest daughter of the house of +Troisville; but while the liking was exceedingly strong on the young +lady’s part, a marriage was out of the question. It was a romance on the +pattern of Paul et Virginie. Mme. Blondet did what she could to teach +her son to look to the Troisvilles, to found a lasting attachment on +a children’s game of “make-believe” love, which was bound to end as +boy-and-girl romances usually do. When Mlle. de Troisville’s marriage +with General Montcornet was announced, Mme. Blondet, a dying woman, went +to the bride and solemnly implored her never to abandon Emile, and to +use her influence for him in society in Paris, whither the General’s +fortune summoned her to shine. + +Luckily for Emile, he was able to make his own way. He made his +appearance, at the age of twenty, as one of the masters of modern +literature; and met with no less success in the society into which he +was launched by the father who at first could afford to bear the expense +of the young man’s extravagance. Perhaps Emile’s precocious celebrity +and the good figure that he made strengthened the bonds of his +friendship with the Countess. Perhaps Mme. de Montcornet, with the +Russian blood in her veins (her mother was the daughter of the Princess +Scherbelloff), might have cast off the friend of her childhood if he +had been a poor man struggling with all his might among the difficulties +which beset a man of letters in Paris; but by the time that the +real strain of Emile’s adventurous life began, their attachment was +unalterable on either side. He was looked upon as one of the leading +lights of journalism when young d’Esgrignon met him at his first supper +party in Paris; his acknowledged position in the world of letters was +very high, and he towered above his reputation. Goodman Blondet had not +the faintest conception of the power which the Constitutional Government +had given to the press; nobody ventured to talk in his presence of the +son of whom he refused to hear. And so it came to pass that he knew +nothing of Emile whom he had cursed and Emile’s greatness. + +Old Blondet’s integrity was as deeply rooted in him as his passion for +flowers; he knew nothing but law and botany. He would have interviews +with litigants, listen to them, chat with them, and show them his +flowers; he would accept rare seeds from them; but once on the bench, no +judge on earth was more impartial. Indeed, his manner of proceeding was +so well known, that litigants never went near him except to hand over +some document which might enlighten him in the performance of his duty, +and nobody tried to throw dust in his eyes. With his learning, his +lights, and his way of holding his real talents cheap, he was so +indispensable to President du Ronceret, that, matrimonial schemes apart, +that functionary would have done all that he could, in an underhand way, +to prevent the vice-president from retiring in favor of his son. If the +learned old man left the bench, the President would be utterly unable to +do without him. + +Goodman Blondet did not know that it was in Emile’s power to fulfil all +his wishes in a few hours. The simplicity of his life was worthy of one +of Plutarch’s men. In the evening he looked over his cases; next morning +he worked among his flowers; and all day long he gave decisions on the +bench. The pretty maid-servant, now of ripe age, and wrinkled like an +Easter pippin, looked after the house, and they lived according to +the established customs of the strictest parsimony. Mlle. Cadot always +carried the keys of her cupboards and fruit-loft about with her. She +was indefatigable. She went to market herself, she cooked and dusted +and swept, and never missed mass of a morning. To give some idea of the +domestic life of the household, it will be enough to remark that the +father and son never ate fruit till it was beginning to spoil, because +Mlle. Cadot always brought out anything that would not keep. No one in +the house ever tasted the luxury of new bread, and all the fast days in +the calendar were punctually observed. The gardener was put on rations +like a soldier; the elderly Valideh always kept an eye upon him. And +she, for her part, was so deferentially treated, that she took her meals +with the family, and in consequence was continually trotting to and fro +between the kitchen and the parlor at breakfast and dinner time. + +Mlle. Blandureau’s parents had consented to her marriage with Joseph +Blondet upon one condition--the penniless and briefless barrister must +be an assistant judge. So, with the desire of fitting his son to fill +the position, old M. Blondet racked his brains to hammer the law into +his son’s head by dint of lessons, so as to make a cut-and-dried lawyer +of him. As for Blondet junior, he spent almost every evening at the +Blandureaus’ house, to which also young Fabien du Ronceret had been +admitted since his return, without raising the slightest suspicion in +the minds of father or son. + +Everything in this life of theirs was measured with an accuracy worthy +of Gerard Dow’s Money Changer; not a grain of salt too much, not a +single profit foregone; but the economical principles by which it was +regulated were relaxed in favor of the greenhouse and garden. “The +garden was the master’s craze,” Mlle. Cadot used to say. The master’s +blind fondness for Joseph was not a craze in her eyes; she shared the +father’s predilection; she pampered Joseph; she darned his stockings; +and would have been better pleased if the money spent on the garden had +been put by for Joseph’s benefit. + +That garden was kept in marvelous order by a single man; the paths, +covered with river-sand, continually turned over with the rake, +meandered among the borders full of the rarest flowers. Here were all +kinds of color and scent, here were lizards on the walls, legions of +little flower-pots standing out in the sun, regiments of forks and hoes, +and a host of innocent things, a combination of pleasant results to +justify the gardener’s charming hobby. + +At the end of the greenhouse the judge had set up a grandstand, an +amphitheatre of benches to hold some five or six thousand pelargoniums +in pots--a splendid and famous show. People came to see his geraniums +in flower, not only from the neighborhood, but even from the departments +round about. The Empress Marie Louise, passing through the town, had +honored the curiously kept greenhouse with a visit; so much was she +impressed with the sight, that she spoke of it to Napoleon, and the +old judge received the Cross of the Legion of Honor. But as the learned +gardener never mingled in society at all, and went nowhere except to +the Blandureaus, he had no suspicion of the President’s underhand +manoeuvres; and others who could see the President’s intentions were far +too much afraid of him to interfere or to warn the inoffensive Blondets. + +As for Michu, that young man with his powerful connections gave much +more thought to making himself agreeable to the women in the upper +social circles to which he was introduced by the Cinq-Cygnes, than +to the extremely simple business of a provincial Tribunal. With his +independent means (he had an income of twelve thousand livres), he was +courted by mothers of daughters, and led a frivolous life. He did just +enough at the Tribunal to satisfy his conscience, much as a schoolboy +does his exercises, saying ditto on all occasions, with a “Yes, dear +President.” But underneath the appearance of indifference lurked the +unusual powers of the Paris law student who had distinguished himself as +one of the staff of prosecuting counsel before he came to the provinces. +He was accustomed to taking broad views of things; he could do rapidly +what the President and Blondet could only do after much thinking, and +very often solved knotty points for them. In delicate conjunctures the +President and Vice-President took counsel with their junior, confided +thorny questions to him, and never failed to wonder at the readiness +with which he brought back a task in which old Blondet found nothing +to criticise. Michu was sure of the influence of the most crabbed +aristocrats, and he was young and rich; he lived, therefore, above the +level of departmental intrigues and pettinesses. He was an indispensable +man at picnics, he frisked with young ladies and paid court to their +mothers, he danced at balls, he gambled like a capitalist. In short, he +played his part of young lawyer of fashion to admiration; without, at +the same time, compromising his dignity, which he knew how to assert +at the right moment like a man of spirit. He won golden opinions by +the manner in which he threw himself into provincial ways, without +criticising them; and for these reasons, every one endeavored to make +his time of exile endurable. + +The public prosecutor was a lawyer of the highest ability; he had taken +the plunge into political life, and was one of the most distinguished +speakers on the ministerialist benches. The President stood in awe of +him; if he had not been away in Paris at the time, no steps would +have been taken against Victurnien; his dexterity, his experience +of business, would have prevented the whole affair. At that moment, +however, he was in the Chamber of Deputies, and the President and +du Croisier had taken advantage of his absence to weave their plot, +calculating, with a certain ingenuity, that if once the law stepped in, +and the matter was noised abroad, things would have gone too far to be +remedied. + +As a matter of fact, no staff of prosecuting counsel in any Tribunal, +at that particular time, would have taken up a charge of forgery against +the eldest son of one of the noblest houses in France without going into +the case at great length, and a special reference, in all probability, +to the Attorney-General. In such a case as this, the authorities and the +Government would have tried endless ways of compromising and hushing +up an affair which might send an imprudent young man to the hulks. They +would very likely have done the same for a Liberal family in a prominent +position, so long as the Liberals were not too openly hostile to the +throne and the altar. So du Croisier’s charge and the young Count’s +arrest had not been very easy to manage. The President and du Croisier +had compassed their ends in the following manner. + +M. Sauvager, a young Royalist barrister, had reached the position of +deputy public prosecutor by dint of subservience to the Ministry. In +the absence of his chief he was head of the staff of counsel for +prosecution, and, consequently, it fell to him to take up the charge +made by du Croisier. Sauvager was a self-made man; he had nothing but +his stipend; and for that reason the authorities reckoned upon some one +who had everything to gain by devotion. The President now exploited +the position. No sooner was the document with the alleged forgery in du +Croisier’s hands, than Mme. la Presidente du Ronceret, prompted by her +spouse, had a long conversation with M. Sauvager. In the course of it +she pointed out the uncertainties of a career in the magistrature debout +compared with the magistrature assise, and the advantages of the bench +over the bar; she showed how a freak on the part of some official, or a +single false step, might ruin a man’s career. + +“If you are conscientious and give your conclusions against the powers +that be, you are lost,” continued she. “Now, at this moment, you might +turn your position to account to make a fine match that would put you +above unlucky chances for the rest of your life; you may marry a wife +with fortune sufficient to land you on the bench, in the magistrature +assise. There is a fine chance for you. M. du Croisier will never have +any children; everybody knows why. His money, and his wife’s as well, +will go to his niece, Mlle. Duval. M. Duval is an ironmaster, his purse +is tolerably filled, to begin with, and his father is still alive, and +has a little property besides. The father and son have a million of +francs between them; they will double it with du Croisier’s help, for +du Croisier has business connections among great capitalists and +manufacturers in Paris. M. and Mme. Duval the younger would be certain +to give their daughter to a suitor brought forward by du Croisier, for +he is sure to leave two fortunes to his niece; and, in all probability, +he will settle the reversion of his wife’s property upon Mlle. Duval in +the marriage contract, for Mme. du Croisier has no kin. You know how du +Croisier hates the d’Esgrignons. Do him a service, be his man, take +up this charge of forgery which he is going to make against young +d’Esgrignon, and follow up the proceedings at once without consulting +the public prosecutor at Paris. And, then, pray Heaven that the Ministry +dismisses you for doing your office impartially, in spite of the powers +that be; for if they do, your fortune is made! You will have a charming +wife and thirty thousand francs a year with her, to say nothing of four +millions expectations in ten years’ time.” + +In two evenings Sauvager was talked over. Both he and the President kept +the affair a secret from old Blondet, from Michu, and from the second +member of the staff of prosecuting counsel. Feeling sure of Blondet’s +impartiality on a question of fact, the President made certain of +a majority without counting Camusot. And now Camusot’s unexpected +defection had thrown everything out. What the President wanted was a +committal for trial before the public prosecutor got warning. How if +Camusot or the second counsel for the prosecution should send word to +Paris? + +And here some portion of Camusot’s private history may perhaps explain +how it came to pass that Chesnel took it for granted that the examining +magistrate would be on the d’Esgrignons’ side, and how he had the +boldness to tamper in the open street with that representative of +justice. + +Camusot’s father, a well-known silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, +was ambitious for the only son of his first marriage, and brought him +up to the law. When Camusot junior took a wife, he gained with her the +influence of an usher of the Royal cabinet, backstairs influence, it +is true, but still sufficient, since it had brought him his first +appointment as justice of the peace, and the second as examining +magistrate. At the time of his marriage, his father only settled an +income of six thousand francs upon him (the amount of his mother’s +fortune, which he could legally claim), and as Mlle. Thirion brought +him no more than twenty thousand francs as her portion, the young couple +knew the hardships of hidden poverty. The salary of a provincial justice +of the peace does not exceed fifteen hundred francs, while an examining +magistrate’s stipend is augmented by something like a thousand francs, +because his position entails expenses and extra work. The post, +therefore, is much coveted, though it is not permanent, and the work is +heavy, and that was why Mme. Camusot had just scolded her husband for +allowing the President to read his thoughts. + +Marie Cecile Amelie Thirion, after three years of marriage, perceived +the blessing of Heaven upon it in the regularity of two auspicious +events--the births of a girl and a boy; but she prayed to be less +blessed in the future. A few more of such blessings would turn +straitened means into distress. M. Camusot’s father’s money was not +likely to come to them for a long time; and, rich as he was, he would +scarcely leave more than eight or ten thousand francs a year to each +of his children, four in number, for he had been married twice. And +besides, by the time that all “expectations,” as matchmakers call them, +were realized, would not the magistrate have children of his own to +settle in life? Any one can imagine the situation for a little woman +with plenty of sense and determination, and Mme. Camusot was such a +woman. She did not refrain from meddling in matters judicial. She had +far too strong a sense of the gravity of a false step in her husband’s +career. + +She was the only child of an old servant of Louis XVIII., a valet +who had followed his master in his wanderings in Italy, Courland, and +England, till after the Restoration the King awarded him with the one +place that he could fill at Court, and made him usher by rotation to the +royal cabinet. So in Amelie’s home there had been, as it were, a sort of +reflection of the Court. Thirion used to tell her about the lords, +and ministers, and great men whom he announced and introduced and saw +passing to and fro. The girl, brought up at the gates of the Tuileries, +had caught some tincture of the maxims practised there, and adopted the +dogma of passive obedience to authority. She had sagely judged that her +husband, by ranging himself on the side of the d’Esgrignons, would +find favor with Mme. la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and with two powerful +families on whose influence with the King the Sieur Thirion could depend +at an opportune moment. Camusot might get an appointment at the first +opportunity within the jurisdiction of Paris, and afterwards at Paris +itself. That promotion, dreamed of and longed for at every moment, was +certain to have a salary of six thousand francs attached to it, as well +as the alleviation of living in her own father’s house, or under the +Camusots’ roof, and all the advantages of a father’s fortune on either +side. If the adage, “Out of sight is out of mind,” holds good of +most women, it is particularly true where family feeling or royal or +ministerial patronage is concerned. The personal attendants of kings +prosper at all times; you take an interest in a man, be it only a man in +livery, if you see him every day. + +Mme. Camusot, regarding herself as a bird of passage, had taken a little +house in the Rue du Cygne. Furnished lodgings there were none; the town +was not enough of a thoroughfare, and the Camusots could not afford to +live at an inn like M. Michu. So the fair Parisian had no choice for +it but to take such furniture as she could find; and as she paid a +very moderate rent, the house was remarkably ugly, albeit a certain +quaintness of detail was not wanting. It was built against a neighboring +house in such a fashion that the side with only one window in each +story, gave upon the street, and the front looked out upon a yard where +rose-bushes and buckhorn were growing along the wall on either side. +On the farther side, opposite the house, stood a shed, a roof over two +brick arches. A little wicket-gate gave entrance into the gloomy place +(made gloomier still by the great walnut-tree which grew in the yard), +but a double flight of steps, with an elaborately-wrought but rust-eaten +handrail, led to the house door. Inside the house there were two rooms +on each floor. The dining-room occupied that part of the ground floor +nearest the street, and the kitchen lay on the other side of a narrow +passage almost wholly taken up by the wooden staircase. Of the two +first-floor rooms, one did duty as the magistrate’s study, the other as +a bedroom, while the nursery and the servants’ bedroom stood above in +the attics. There were no ceilings in the house; the cross-beams were +simply white-washed and the spaces plastered over. Both rooms on the +first floor and the dining-room below were wainscoted and adorned with +the labyrinthine designs which taxed the patience of the eighteenth +century joiner; but the carving had been painted a dingy gray most +depressing to behold. + +The magistrate’s study looked as though it belonged to a provincial +lawyer; it contained a big bureau, a mahogany armchair, a law student’s +books, and shabby belongings transported from Paris. Mme. Camusot’s +room was more of a native product; it boasted a blue-and-white scheme of +decoration, a carpet, and that anomalous kind of furniture which appears +to be in the fashion, while it is simply some style that has failed in +Paris. As to the dining-room, it was nothing but an ordinary provincial +dining-room, bare and chilly, with a damp, faded paper on the walls. + +In this shabby room, with nothing to see but the walnut-tree, the dark +leaves growing against the walls, and the almost deserted road +beyond them, a somewhat lively and frivolous woman, accustomed to the +amusements and stir of Paris, used to sit all day long, day after day, +and for the most part of the time alone, though she received tiresome +and inane visits which led her to think her loneliness preferable to +empty tittle-tattle. If she permitted herself the slightest gleam of +intelligence, it gave rise to interminable comment and embittered her +condition. She occupied herself a great deal with her children, not so +much from taste as for the sake of an interest in her almost solitary +life, and exercised her mind on the only subjects which she could +find--to wit, the intrigues which went on around her, the ways of +provincials, and the ambitions shut in by their narrow horizons. So she +very soon fathomed mysteries of which her husband had no idea. As she +sat at her window with a piece of intermittent embroidery work in her +fingers, she did not see her woodshed full of faggots nor the servant +busy at the wash tub; she was looking out upon Paris, Paris where +everything is pleasure, everything is full of life. She dreamed of Paris +gaieties, and shed tears because she must abide in this dull prison of +a country town. She was disconsolate because she lived in a peaceful +district, where no conspiracy, no great affair would ever occur. She saw +herself doomed to sit under the shadow of the walnut-tree for some time +to come. + +Mme. Camusot was a little, plump, fresh, fair-haired woman, with a very +prominent forehead, a mouth which receded, and a turned-up chin, a type +of countenance which is passable in youth, but looks old before the +time. Her bright, quick eyes expressed her innocent desire to get on +in the world, and the envy born of her present inferior position, with +rather too much candor; but still they lighted up her commonplace face +and set it off with a certain energy of feeling, which success was +certain to extinguish in later life. At that time she used to give a +good deal of time and thought to her dresses, inventing trimmings and +embroidering them; she planned out her costumes with the maid whom she +had brought with her from Paris, and so maintained the reputation of +Parisiennes in the provinces. Her caustic tongue was dreaded; she was +not loved. In that keen, investigating spirit peculiar to unoccupied +women who are driven to find some occupation for empty days, she +had pondered the President’s private opinions, until at length she +discovered what he meant to do, and for some time past she had advised +Camusot to declare war. The young Count’s affair was an excellent +opportunity. Was it not obviously Camusot’s part to make a +stepping-stone of this criminal case by favoring the d’Esgrignons, a +family with power of a very different kind from the power of the du +Croisier party? + +“Sauvager will never marry Mlle. Duval. They are dangling her before +him, but he will be the dupe of those Machiavels in the Val-Noble to +whom he is going to sacrifice his position. Camusot, this affair, so +unfortunate as it is for the d’Esgrignons, so insidiously brought on by +the President for du Croisier’s benefit, will turn out well for nobody +but _you_,” she had said, as they went in. + +The shrewd Parisienne had likewise guessed the President’s underhand +manoeuvres with the Blandureaus, and his object in baffling old +Blondet’s efforts, but she saw nothing to be gained by opening the eyes +of father or son to the perils of the situation; she was enjoying the +beginning of the comedy; she knew about the proposals made by Chesnel’s +successor on behalf of Fabien du Ronceret, but she did not suspect +how important that secret might be to her. If she or her husband were +threatened by the President, Mme. Camusot could threaten too, in her +turn, to call the amateur gardener’s attention to a scheme for carrying +off the flower which he meant to transplant into his house. + +Chesnel had not penetrated, like Mme. Camusot, into the means by which +Sauvager had been won over; but by dint of looking into the various +lives and interests of the men grouped about the Lilies of the Tribunal, +he knew that he could count upon the public prosecutor, upon Camusot, +and M. Michu. Two judges for the d’Esgrignons would paralyze the rest. +And, finally, Chesnel knew old Blondet well enough to feel sure that if +he ever swerved from impartiality, it would be for the sake of the work +of his whole lifetime,--to secure his son’s appointment. So Chesnel +slept, full of confidence, on the resolve to go to M. Blondet and offer +to realize his so long cherished hopes, while he opened his eyes to +President du Ronceret’s treachery. Blondet won over, he would take a +peremptory tone with the examining magistrate, to whom he hoped to prove +that if Victurnien was not blameless, he had been merely imprudent; +the whole thing should be shown in the light of a boy’s thoughtless +escapade. + +But Chesnel slept neither soundly nor for long. Before dawn he was +awakened by his housekeeper. The most bewitching person in this history, +the most adorable youth on the face of the globe, Mme. la Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse herself, in man’s attire, had driven alone from Paris in a +caleche, and was waiting to see him. + +“I have come to save him or to die with him,” said she, addressing the +notary, who thought that he was dreaming. “I have brought a hundred +thousand francs, given me by His Majesty out of his private purse, to +buy Victurnien’s innocence, if his adversary can be bribed. If we fail +utterly, I have brought poison to snatch him away before anything takes +place, before even the indictment is drawn up. But we shall not fail. I +have sent word to the public prosecutor; he is on the road behind me; +he could not travel in my caleche, because he wished to take the +instructions of the Keeper of the Seals.” + +Chesnel rose to the occasion and played up to the Duchess; he wrapped +himself in his dressing-gown, fell at her feet, and kissed them, not +without asking her pardon for forgetting himself in his joy. + +“We are saved!” cried he; and gave orders to Brigitte to see that Mme. +la Duchesse had all that she needed after traveling post all night. +He appealed to the fair Diane’s spirit, by making her see that it was +absolutely necessary that she should visit the examining magistrate +before daylight, lest any one should discover the secret, or so much as +imagine that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had come. + +“And have I not a passport in due form?” quoth she, displaying a sheet +of paper, wherein she was described as M. le Vicomte Felix de Vandeness, +Master of Requests, and His Majesty’s private secretary. “And do I not +play my man’s part well?” she added, running her fingers through her wig +a la Titus, and twirling her riding switch. + +“O! Mme. la Duchesse, you are an angel!” cried Chesnel, with tears +in his eyes. (She was destined always to be an angel, even in man’s +attire.) “Button up your greatcoat, muffle yourself up to the eyes in +your traveling cloak, take my arm, and let us go as quickly as possible +to Camusot’s house before anybody can meet us.” + +“Then am I going to see a man called Camusot?” she asked. + +“With a nose to match his name,”[*] assented Chesnel. + + [*] Camus, flat-nosed + +The old notary felt his heart dead within him, but he thought it none +the less necessary to humor the Duchess, to laugh when she laughed, and +shed tears when she wept; groaning in spirit, all the same, over the +feminine frivolity which could find matter for a jest while setting +about a matter so serious. What would he not have done to save the +Count? While Chesnel dressed; Mme. de Maufrigneuse sipped the cup of +coffee and cream which Brigitte brought her, and agreed with herself +that provincial women cooks are superior to Parisian chefs, who despise +the little details which make all the difference to an epicure. Thanks +to Chesnel’s taste for delicate fare, Brigitte was found prepared to set +an excellent meal before the Duchess. + +Chesnel and his charming companion set out for M. and Mme. Camusot’s +house. + +“Ah! so there is a Mme. Camusot?” said the Duchess. “Then the affair may +be managed.” + +“And so much the more readily, because the lady is visibly tired enough +of living among us provincials; she comes from Paris,” said Chesnel. + +“Then we must have no secrets from her?” + +“You will judge how much to tell or to conceal,” Chesnel replied humbly. +“I am sure that she will be greatly flattered to be the Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse’s hostess; you will be obliged to stay in her house until +nightfall, I expect, unless you find it inconvenient to remain.” + +“Is this Mme. Camusot a good-looking woman?” asked the Duchess, with a +coxcomb’s air. + +“She is a bit of a queen in her own house.” + +“Then she is sure to meddle in court-house affairs,” returned the +Duchess. “Nowhere but in France, my dear M. Chesnel, do you see women +so much wedded to their husbands that they are wedded to their husband’s +professions, work, or business as well. In Italy, England, and Germany, +women make it a point of honor to leave men to fight their own battles; +they shut their eyes to their husbands’ work as perseveringly as our +French citizens’ wives do all that in them lies to understand the +position of their joint-stock partnership; is not that what you call +it in your legal language? Frenchwomen are so incredibly jealous in the +conduct of their married life, that they insist on knowing everything; +and that is how, in the least difficulty, you feel the wife’s hand in +the business; the Frenchwoman advises, guides, and warns her husband. +And, truth to tell, the man is none the worse off. In England, if a +married man is put in prison for debt for twenty-four hours, his wife +will be jealous and make a scene when he comes back.” + +“Here we are, without meeting a soul on the way,” said Chesnel. “You are +the more sure of complete ascendency here, Mme. la Duchesse, since Mme. +Camusot’s father is one Thirion, usher of the royal cabinet.” + +“And the King never thought of that!” exclaimed the Duchess. “He +thinks of nothing! Thirion introduced us, the Prince de Cadignan, M. +de Vandeness, and me! We shall have it all our own way in this house. +Settle everything with M. Camusot while I talk to his wife.” + +The maid, who was washing and dressing the children, showed the visitors +into the little fireless dining-room. + +“Take that card to your mistress,” said the Duchess, lowering her voice +for the woman’s ear; “nobody else is to see it. If you are discreet, +child, you shall not lose by it.” + +At the sound of a woman’s voice, and the sight of the handsome young +man’s face, the maid looked thunderstruck. + +“Wake M. Camusot,” said Chesnel, “and tell him, that I am waiting to see +him on important business,” and she departed upstairs forthwith. + +A few minutes later Mme. Camusot, in her dressing-gown, sprang +downstairs and brought the handsome stranger into her room. She had +pushed Camusot out of bed and into his study with all his clothes, +bidding him dress himself at once and wait there. The transformation +scene had been brought about by a bit of pasteboard with the words +MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE MAUFRIGNEUSE engraved upon it. A daughter of the +usher of the royal cabinet took in the whole situation at once. + +“Well!” exclaimed the maid-servant, left with Chesnel in the +dining-room, “Would not any one think that a thunderbolt had dropped in +among us? The master is dressing in his study; you can go upstairs.” + +“Not a word of all this, mind,” said Chesnel. + +Now that he was conscious of the support of a great lady who had the +King’s consent (by word of mouth) to the measures about to be taken for +rescuing the Comte d’Esgrignon, he spoke with an air of authority, which +served his cause much better with Camusot than the humility with which +he would otherwise have approached him. + +“Sir,” said he, “the words let fall last evening may have surprised you, +but they are serious. The house of d’Esgrignon counts upon you for the +proper conduct of investigations from which it must issue without a +spot.” + +“I shall pass over anything in your remarks, sir, which must be +offensive to me personally, and obnoxious to justice; for your position +with regard to the d’Esgrignons excuses you up to a certain point, +but----” + +“Pardon me, sir, if I interrupt you,” said Chesnel. “I have just spoken +aloud the things which your superiors are thinking and dare not avow; +though what those things are any intelligent man can guess, and you are +an intelligent man.--Grant that the young man had acted imprudently, can +you suppose that the sight of a d’Esgrignon dragged into an Assize Court +can be gratifying to the King, the Court, or the Ministry? Is it to the +interest of the kingdom, or of the country, that historic houses should +fall? Is not the existence of a great aristocracy, consecrated by time, +a guarantee of that Equality which is the catchword of the Opposition +at this moment? Well and good; now not only has there not been the +slightest imprudence, but we are innocent victims caught in a trap.” + +“I am curious to know how,” said the examining magistrate. + +“For the last two years, the Sieur du Croisier has regularly allowed +M. le Comte d’Esgrignon to draw upon him for very large sums,” said +Chesnel. “We are going to produce drafts for more than a hundred +thousand crowns, which he continually met; the amounts being remitted by +me--bear that well in mind--either before or after the bills fell due. +M. le Comte d’Esgrignon is in a position to produce a receipt for the +sum paid by him, before this bill, this alleged forgery was drawn. Can +you fail to see in that case that this charge is a piece of spite and +party feeling? And a charge brought against the heir of a great house +by one of the most dangerous enemies of the Throne and Altar, what is +it but an odious slander? There has been no more forgery in this affair +than there has been in my office. Summon Mme. du Croisier, who knows +nothing as yet of the charge of forgery; she will declare to you that +I brought the money and paid it over to her, so that in her husband’s +absence she might remit the amount for which he has not asked her. +Examine du Croisier on the point; he will tell you that he knows nothing +of my payment to Mme. du Croisier. + +“You may make such assertions as these, sir, in M. d’Esgrignon’s salon, +or in any other house where people know nothing of business, and they +may be believed; but no examining magistrate, unless he is a driveling +idiot, can imagine that a woman like Mme. du Croisier, so submissive as +she is to her husband, has a hundred thousand crowns lying in her desk +at this moment, without saying a word to him; nor yet that an old notary +would not have advised M. du Croisier of the deposit on his return to +town.” + +“The old notary, sir, had gone to Paris to put a stop to the young man’s +extravagance.” + +“I have not yet examined the Comte d’Esgrignon,” Camusot began; “his +answers will point out my duty.” + +“Is he in close custody?” + +“Yes.” + +“Sir,” said Chesnel, seeing danger ahead, “the examination can be made +in our interests or against them. But there are two courses open to you: +you can establish the fact on Mme. du Croisier’s deposition that the +amount was deposited with her before the bill was drawn; or you can +examine the unfortunate young man implicated in this affair, and he in +his confusion may remember nothing and commit himself. You will decide +which is the more credible--a slip of memory on the part of a woman in +her ignorance of business, or a forgery committed by a d’Esgrignon.” + +“All this is beside the point,” began Camusot; “the question is, whether +M. le Comte d’Esgrignon has or has not used the lower half of a letter +addressed to him by du Croisier as a bill of exchange.” + +“Eh! and so he might,” a voice cried suddenly, as Mme. Camusot broke +in, followed by the handsome stranger, “so he might when M. Chesnel had +advanced the money to meet the bill----” + +She leant over her husband. + +“You will have the first vacant appointment as assistant judge at Paris, +you are serving the King himself in this affair; I have proof of it; you +will not be forgotten,” she said, lowering her voice in his ear. “This +young man that you see here is the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse; you +must never have seen her, and do all that you can for the young Count +boldly.” + +“Gentlemen,” said Camusot, “even if the preliminary examination is +conducted to prove the young Count’s innocence, can I answer for the +view the court may take? M. Chesnel, and you also, my sweet, know what +M. le President wants.” + +“Tut, tut, tut!” said Mme. Camusot, “go yourself to M. Michu this +morning, and tell him that the Count has been arrested; you will be two +against two in that case, I will be bound. _Michu_ comes from Paris, and +you know he is devoted to the noblesse. Good blood cannot lie.” + +At that very moment Mlle. Cadot’s voice was heard in the doorway. She +had brought a note, and was waiting for an answer. Camusot went out, and +came back again to read the note aloud: + +“M. le Vice-President begs M. Camusot to sit in audience to-day and +for the next few days, so that there may be a quorum during M. le +President’s absence.” + +“Then there is an end of the preliminary examination!” cried Mme. +Camusot. “Did I not tell you, dear, that they would play you some +ugly trick? The President has gone off to slander you to the public +prosecutor and the President of the Court-Royal. You will be changed +before you can make the examination. Is that clear?” + +“You will stay, monsieur,” said the Duchess. “The public prosecutor is +coming, I hope, in time.” + +“When the public prosecutor arrives,” little Mme. Camusot said, with +some heat, “he must find all over.--Yes, my dear, yes,” she added, +looking full at her amazed husband.--“Ah! old hypocrite of a President, +you are setting your wits against us; you shall remember it! You have a +mind to help us to a dish of your own making, you shall have two served +up to you by your humble servant Cecile Amelie Thirion!--Poor old +Blondet! It is lucky for him that the President has taken this journey +to turn us out, for now that great oaf of a Joseph Blondet will +marry Mlle. Blandureau. I will let Father Blondet have some seeds in +return.--As for you, Camusot, go to M. Michu’s, while Mme. la Duchesse +and I will go to find old Blondet. You must expect to hear it said all +over the town to-morrow that I took a walk with a lover this morning.” + +Mme. Camusot took the Duchess’ arm, and they went through the town by +deserted streets to avoid any unpleasant adventure on the way to the old +Vice-President’s house. Chesnel meanwhile conferred with the young +Count in prison; Camusot had arranged a stolen interview. Cook-maids, +servants, and the other early risers of a country town, seeing Mme. +Camusot and the Duchess taking their way through the back streets, took +the young gentleman for an adorer from Paris. That evening, as Cecile +Amelie had said, the news of her behavior was circulated about the town, +and more than one scandalous rumor was occasioned thereby. Mme. Camusot +and her supposed lover found old Blondet in his greenhouse. He greeted +his colleague’s wife and her companion, and gave the charming young man +a keen, uneasy glance. + +“I have the honor to introduce one of my husband’s cousins,” said +Mme. Camusot, bringing forward the Duchess; “he is one of the most +distinguished horticulturists in Paris; and as he cannot spend more than +one day with us, on his way back from Brittany, and has heard of your +flowers and plants, I have taken the liberty of coming early.” + +“Oh, the gentleman is a horticulturist, is he?” said the old Blondet. + +The Duchess bowed. + +“This is my coffee-plant,” said Blondet, “and here is a tea-plant.” + +“What can have taken M. le President away from home?” put in Mme. +Camusot. “I will wager that his absence concerns M. Camusot.” + +“Exactly.--This, monsieur, is the queerest of all cactuses,” he +continued, producing a flower-pot which appeared to contain a piece of +mildewed rattan; “it comes from Australia. You are very young, sir, to +be a horticulturist.” + +“Dear M. Blondet, never mind your flowers,” said Mme. Camusot. “_You_ +are concerned, you and your hopes, and your son’s marriage with Mlle. +Blandureau. You are duped by the President.” + +“Bah!” said old Blondet, with an incredulous air. + +“Yes,” retorted she. “If you cultivated people a little more and your +flowers a little less, you would know that the dowry and the hopes you +have sown, and watered, and tilled, and weeded are on the point of being +gathered now by cunning hands.” + +“Madame!----” + +“Oh, nobody in the town will have the courage to fly in the President’s +face and warn you. I, however, do not belong to the town, and, thanks to +this obliging young man, I shall soon be going back to Paris; so I can +inform you that Chesnel’s successor has made formal proposals for Mlle. +Claire Blandureau’s hand on behalf of young du Ronceret, who is to have +fifty thousand crowns from his parents. As for Fabien, he has made up +his mind to receive a call to the bar, so as to gain an appointment as +judge.” + +Old Blondet dropped the flower-pot which he had brought out for the +Duchess to see. + +“Oh, my cactus! Oh, my son! and Mlle. Blandureau!... Look here! the +cactus flower is broken to pieces.” + +“No,” Mme. Camusot answered, laughing; “everything can be put right. If +you have a mind to see your son a judge in another month, we will tell +you how you must set to work----” + +“Step this way, sir, and you will see my pelargoniums, an enchanting +sight while they are in flower----” Then he added to Mme. Camusot, “Why +did you speak of these matters while your cousin was present.” + +“All depends upon him,” riposted Mme. Camusot. “Your son’s appointment +is lost for ever if you let fall a word about this young man.” + +“Bah!” + +“The young man is a flower----” + +“Ah!” + +“He is the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, sent here by His Majesty to save +young d’Esgrignon, whom they arrested yesterday on a charge of forgery +brought against him by du Croisier. Mme. la Duchesse has authority from +the Keeper of the Seals; he will ratify any promises that she makes to +us----” + +“My cactus is all right!” exclaimed Blondet, peering at his precious +plant.--“Go on, I am listening.” + +“Take counsel with Camusot and Michu to hush up the affair as soon as +possible, and your son will get the appointment. It will come in time +enough to baffle du Ronceret’s underhand dealings with the Blandureaus. +Your son will be something better than assistant judge; he will have +M. Camusot’s post within the year. The public prosecutor will be here +to-day. M. Sauvager will be obliged to resign, I expect, after his +conduct in this affair. At the court my husband will show you documents +which completely exonerate the Count and prove that the forgery was a +trap of du Croisier’s own setting.” + +Old Blondet went into the Olympic circus where his six thousand +pelargoniums stood, and made his bow to the Duchess. + +“Monsieur,” said he, “if your wishes do not exceed the law, this thing +may be done.” + +“Monsieur,” returned the Duchess, “send in your resignation to M. +Chesnel to-morrow, and I will promise you that your son shall be +appointed within the week; but you must not resign until you have had +confirmation of my promise from the public prosecutor. You men of law +will come to a better understanding among yourselves. Only let him know +that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had pledged her word to you. And not a +word as to my journey hither,” she added. + +The old judge kissed her hand and began recklessly to gather his best +flowers for her. + +“Can you think of it? Give them to madame,” said the Duchess. “A young +man should not have flowers about him when he has a pretty woman on his +arm.” + +“Before you go down to the court,” added Mme. Camusot, “ask Chesnel’s +successor about those proposals that he made in the name of M. and Mme. +du Ronceret.” + +Old Blondet, quite overcome by this revelation of the President’s +duplicity, stood planted on his feet by the wicket gate, looking after +the two women as they hurried away through by-streets home again. The +edifice raised so painfully during ten years for his beloved son was +crumbling visibly before his eyes. Was it possible? He suspected some +trick, and hurried away to Chesnel’s successor. + +At half-past nine, before the court was sitting, Vice-President Blondet, +Camusot, and Michu met with remarkable punctuality in the council +chamber. Blondet locked the door with some precautions when Camusot and +Michu came in together. + +“Well, Mr. Vice-President,” began Michu, “M. Sauvager, without +consulting the public prosecutor, has issued a warrant for the +apprehension of one Comte d’Esgrignon, in order to serve a grudge borne +against him by one du Croisier, an enemy of the King’s government. It +is a regular topsy-turvy affair. The President, for his part, goes away, +and thereby puts a stop to the preliminary examination! And we know +nothing of the matter. Do they, by any chance, mean to force our hand?” + +“This is the first word I have heard of it,” said the Vice-President. +He was furious with the President for stealing a march on him with the +Blandureaus. Chesnel’s successor, the du Roncerets’ man, had just +fallen into a snare set by the old judge; the truth was out, he knew the +secret. + +“It is lucky that we spoke to you about the matter, my dear master,” + said Camusot, “or you might have given up all hope of seating your son +on the bench or of marrying him to Mlle. Blandureau.” + +“But it is no question of my son, nor of his marriage,” said the +Vice-President; “we are talking of young Comte d’Esgrignon. Is he or is +he not guilty?” + +“It seems that Chesnel deposited the amount to meet the bill with +Mme. du Croisier,” said Michu, “and a crime has been made of a mere +irregularity. According to the charge, the Count made use of the lower +half of a letter bearing du Croisier’s signature as a draft which he +cashed at the Kellers’.” + +“An imprudent thing to do,” was Camusot’s comment. + +“But why is du Croisier proceeding against him if the amount was paid in +beforehand?” asked Vice-President Blondet. + +“He does not know that the money was deposited with his wife; or he +pretends that he does not know,” said Camusot. + +“It is a piece of provincial spite,” said Michu. + +“Still it looks like a forgery to me,” said old Blondet. No passion +could obscure judicial clear-sightedness in him. + +“Do you think so?” returned Camusot. “But, at the outset, supposing that +the Count had no business to draw upon du Croisier, there would still be +no forgery of the signature; and the Count believed that he had a right +to draw on Croisier when Chesnel advised him that the money had been +placed to his credit.” + +“Well, then, where is the forgery?” asked Blondet. “It is the intent to +defraud which constitutes forgery in a civil action.” + +“Oh, it is clear, if you take du Croisier’s version for truth, that +the signature was diverted from its purpose to obtain a sum of money +in spite of du Croisier’s contrary injunction to his bankers,” Camusot +answered. + +“Gentlemen,” said Blondet, “this seems to me to be a mere trifle, a +quibble.--Suppose you had the money, I ought perhaps to have waited +until I had your authorization; but I, Comte d’Esgrignon, was pressed +for money, so I---- Come, come, your prosecution is a piece of +revengeful spite. Forgery is defined by the law as an attempt to obtain +any advantage which rightfully belongs to another. There is no forgery +here, according to the letter of the Roman law, nor according to the +spirit of modern jurisprudence (always from the point of a civil action, +for we are not here concerned with the falsification of public or +authentic documents). Between private individuals the essence of a +forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this case? In what +times are we living, gentlemen? Here is the President going away to balk +a preliminary examination which ought to be over by this time! Until +to-day I did not know M. le President, but he shall have the benefit of +arrears; from this time forth he shall draft his decisions himself. You +must set about this affair with all possible speed, M. Camusot.” + +“Yes,” said Michu. “In my opinion, instead of letting the young man out +on bail, we ought to pull him out of this mess at once. Everything turns +on the examination of du Croisier and his wife. You might summons +them to appear while the court is sitting, M. Camusot; take down their +depositions before four o’clock, send in your report to-night, and we +will give our decision in the morning before the court sits.” + +“We will settle what course to pursue while the barristers are +pleading,” said Vice-President Blondet, addressing Camusot. + +And with that the three judges put on their robes and went into court. + +At noon Mlle. Armande and the Bishop reached the Hotel d’Esgrignon; +Chesnel and M. Couturier were there to meet them. There was a +sufficiently short conference between the prelate and Mme. du Croisier’s +director, and the latter set out at once to visit his charge. + +At eleven o’clock that morning du Croisier received a summons to +appear in the examining magistrate’s office between one and two in +the afternoon. Thither he betook himself, consumed by well-founded +suspicions. It was impossible that the President should have foreseen +the arrival of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse upon the scene, the return +of the public prosecutor, and the hasty confabulation of his learned +brethren; so he had omitted to trace out a plan for du Croisier’s +guidance in the event of the preliminary examination taking place. +Neither of the pair imagined that the proceedings would be hurried on in +this way. Du Croisier obeyed the summons at once; he wanted to know +how M. Camusot was disposed to act. So he was compelled to answer the +questions put to him. Camusot addressed him in summary fashion with the +six following inquiries:-- + +“Was the signature on the bill alleged to be a forgery in your +handwriting?--Had you previously done business with M. le Comte +d’Esgrignon?--Was not M. le Comte d’Esgrignon in the habit of +drawing upon you, with or without advice?--Did you not write a letter +authorizing M. d’Esgrignon to rely upon you at any time?--Had not +Chesnel squared the account not once, but many times already?--Were you +not away from home when this took place?” + +All these questions the banker answered in the affirmative. In spite of +wordy explanations, the magistrate always brought him back to a “Yes” + or “No.” When the questions and answers alike had been resumed in the +proces-verbal, the examining magistrate brought out a final thunderbolt. + +“Was du Croisier aware that the money destined to meet the bill had been +deposited with him, du Croisier, according to Chesnel’s declaration, and +a letter of advice sent by the said Chesnel to the Comte d’Esgrignon, +five days before the date of the bill?” + +That last question frightened du Croisier. He asked what was meant by +it, and whether he was supposed to be the defendant and M. le Comte +d’Esgrignon the plaintiff? He called the magistrate’s attention to the +fact that if the money had been deposited with him, there was no ground +for the action. + +“Justice is seeking information,” said the magistrate, as he dismissed +the witness, but not before he had taken down du Croisier’s last +observation. + +“But the money, sir----” + +“The money is at your house.” + +Chesnel, likewise summoned, came forward to explain the matter. The +truth of his assertions was borne out by Mme. du Croisier’s deposition. +The Count had already been examined. Prompted by Chesnel, he produced du +Croisier’s first letter, in which he begged the Count to draw upon him +without the insulting formality of depositing the amount beforehand. The +Comte d’Esgrignon next brought out a letter in Chesnel’s handwriting, by +which the notary advised him of the deposit of a hundred thousand crowns +with M. du Croisier. With such primary facts as these to bring +forward as evidence, the young Count’s innocence was bound to emerge +triumphantly from a court of law. + +Du Croisier went home from the court, his face white with rage, and the +foam of repressed fury on his lips. His wife was sitting by the fireside +in the drawing-room at work upon a pair of slippers for him. She +trembled when she looked into his face, but her mind was made up. + +“Madame,” he stammered out, “what deposition is this that you made +before the magistrate? You have dishonored, ruined, and betrayed me!” + +“I have saved you, monsieur,” answered she. “If some day you will have +the honor of connecting yourself with the d’Esgrignons by marrying your +niece to the Count, it will be entirely owing to my conduct to-day.” + +“A miracle!” cried he. “Balaam’s ass has spoken. Nothing will astonish +me after this. And where are the hundred thousand crowns which (so M. +Camusot tells me) are here in my house?” + +“Here they are,” said she, pulling out a bundle of banknotes from +beneath the cushions of her settee. “I have not committed mortal sin by +declaring that M. Chesnel gave them into my keeping.” + +“While I was away?” + +“You were not here.” + +“Will you swear that to me on your salvation?” + +“I swear it,” she said composedly. + +“Then why did you say nothing to me about it?” demanded he. + +“I was wrong there,” said his wife, “but my mistake was all for your +good. Your niece will be Marquise d’Esgrignon some of these days, and +you will perhaps be a deputy, if you behave well in this deplorable +business. You have gone too far; you must find out how to get back +again.” + +Du Croisier, under stress of painful agitation, strode up and down his +drawing-room; while his wife, in no less agitation, awaited the result +of this exercise. Du Croisier at length rang the bell. + +“I am not at home to any one to-night,” he said, when the man appeared; +“shut the gates; and if any one calls, tell them that your mistress and +I have gone into the country. We shall start directly after dinner, and +dinner must be half an hour earlier than usual.” + + + +The great news was discussed that evening in every drawing-room; +little shopkeepers, working folk, beggars, the noblesse, the merchant +class--the whole town, in short, was talking of the Comte d’Esgrignon’s +arrest on a charge of forgery. The Comte d’Esgrignon would be tried in +the Assize Court; he would be condemned and branded. Most of those who +cared for the honor of the family denied the fact. At nightfall Chesnel +went to Mme. Camusot and escorted the stranger to the Hotel d’Esgrignon. +Poor Mlle. Armande was expecting him; she led the fair Duchess to her +own room, which she had given up to her, for his lordship the Bishop +occupied Victurnien’s chamber; and, left alone with her guest, the noble +woman glanced at the Duchess with most piteous eyes. + +“You owed help, indeed, madame, to the poor boy who ruined himself for +your sake,” she said, “the boy to whom we are all of us sacrificing +ourselves.” + +The Duchess had already made a woman’s survey of Mlle. d’Esgrignon’s +room; the cold, bare, comfortless chamber, that might have been a nun’s +cell, was like a picture of the life of the heroic woman before her. The +Duchess saw it all--past, present, and future--with rising emotion, felt +the incongruity of her presence, and could not keep back the falling +tears that made answer for her. + +But in Mlle. Armande the Christian overcame Victurnien’s aunt. “Ah, I +was wrong; forgive me, Mme. la Duchesse; you did not know how poor we +were, and my nephew was incapable of the admission. And besides, now +that I see you, I can understand all--even the crime!” + +And Mlle. Armande, withered and thin and white, but beautiful as those +tall austere slender figures which German art alone can paint, had tears +too in her eyes. + +“Do not fear, dear angel,” the Duchess said at last; “he is safe.” + +“Yes, but honor?--and his career? Chesnel told me; the King knows the +truth.” + +“We will think of a way of repairing the evil,” said the Duchess. + +Mlle. Armande went downstairs to the salon, and found the Collection of +Antiquities complete to a man. Every one of them had come, partly to +do honor to the Bishop, partly to rally round the Marquis; but Chesnel, +posted in the antechamber, warned each new arrival to say no word of +the affair, that the aged Marquis might never know that such a thing +had been. The loyal Frank was quite capable of killing his son or du +Croisier; for either the one or the other must have been guilty of +death in his eyes. It chanced, strangely enough, that he talked more of +Victurnien than usual; he was glad that his son had gone back to Paris. +The King would give Victurnien a place before very long; the King was +interesting himself at last in the d’Esgrignons. And his friends, their +hearts dead within them, praised Victurnien’s conduct to the skies. +Mlle. Armande prepared the way for her nephew’s sudden appearance among +them by remarking to her brother that Victurnien would be sure to come +to see them, and that he must be even then on his way. + +“Bah!” said the Marquis, standing with his back to the hearth, “if he is +doing well where he is, he ought to stay there, and not be thinking +of the joy it would give his old father to see him again. The King’s +service has the first claim.” + +Scarcely one of those present heard the words without a shudder. Justice +might give over a d’Esgrignon to the executioner’s branding iron. There +was a dreadful pause. The old Marquise de Casteran could not keep back +a tear that stole down over her rouge, and turned her head away to hide +it. + +Next day at noon, in the sunny weather, a whole excited population was +dispersed in groups along the high street, which ran through the heart +of the town, and nothing was talked of but the great affair. Was the +Count in prison or was he not?--All at once the Comte d’Esgrignon’s +well-known tilbury was seen driving down the Rue Saint-Blaise; it had +evidently come from the Prefecture, the Count himself was on the box +seat, and by his side sat a charming young man, whom nobody recognized. +The pair were laughing and talking and in great spirits. They wore +Bengal roses in their button-holes. Altogether, it was a theatrical +surprise which words fail to describe. + +At ten o’clock the court had decided to dismiss the charge, stating +their very sufficient reasons for setting the Count at liberty, in a +document which contained a thunderbolt for du Croisier, in the shape of +an _inasmuch_ that gave the Count the right to institute proceedings +for libel. Old Chesnel was walking up the Grand Rue, as if by accident, +telling all who cared to hear him that du Croisier had set the most +shameful of snares for the d’Esgrignons’ honor, and that it was entirely +owing to the forbearance and magnanimity of the family that he was not +prosecuted for slander. + +On the evening of that famous day, after the Marquis d’Esgrignon had +gone to bed, the Count, Mlle. Armande, and the Chevalier were left with +the handsome young page, now about to return to Paris. The charming +cavalier’s sex could not be hidden from the Chevalier, and he alone, +besides the three officials and Mme. Camusot, knew that the Duchess had +been among them. + +“The house is saved,” began Chesnel, “but after this shock it will take +a hundred years to rise again. The debts must be paid now; you must +marry an heiress, M. le Comte, there is nothing left for you to do.” + +“And take her where you may find her,” said the Duchess. + +“A second mesalliance!” exclaimed Mlle. Armande. + +The Duchess began to laugh. + +“It is better to marry than to die,” she said. As she spoke she drew +from her waistcoat pocket a tiny crystal phial that came from the court +apothecary. + +Mlle. Armande shrank away in horror. Old Chesnel took the fair +Maufrigneuse’s hand, and kissed it without permission. + +“Are you all out of your minds here?” continued the Duchess. “Do you +really expect to live in the fifteenth century when the rest of the +world has reached the nineteenth? My dear children, there is no noblesse +nowadays; there is no aristocracy left! Napoleon’s Code Civil made an +end of the parchments, exactly as cannon made an end of feudal castles. +When you have some money, you will be very much more of nobles than you +are now. Marry anybody you please, Victurnien, you will raise your wife +to your rank; that is the most substantial privilege left to the +French noblesse. Did not M. de Talleyrand marry Mme. Grandt without +compromising his position? Remember that Louis XIV. took the Widow +Scarron for his wife.” + +“He did not marry her for her money,” interposed Mlle. Armande. + +“If the Comtesse d’Esgrignon were one du Croisier’s niece, for instance, +would you receive her?” asked Chesnel. + +“Perhaps,” replied the Duchess; “but the King, beyond all doubt, would +be very glad to see her.--So you do not know what is going on in the +world?” continued she, seeing the amazement in their faces. “Victurnien +has been in Paris; he knows how things go there. We had more influence +under Napoleon. Marry Mlle. Duval, Victurnien; she will be just as much +Marquise d’Esgrignon as I am Duchesse de Maufrigneuse.” + +“All is lost--even honor!” said the Chevalier, with a wave of the hand. + +“Good-bye, Victurnien,” said the Duchess, kissing her lover on the +forehead; “we shall not see each other again. Live on your lands; that +is the best thing for you to do; the air of Paris is not at all good for +you.” + +“Diane!” the young Count cried despairingly. + +“Monsieur, you forget yourself strangely,” the Duchess retorted coolly, +as she laid aside her role of man and mistress, and became not merely +an angel again, but a duchess, and not only a duchess, but Moliere’s +Celimene. + +The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse made a stately bow to these four +personages, and drew from the Chevalier his last tear of admiration at +the service of le beau sexe. + +“How like she is to the Princess Goritza!” he exclaimed in a low voice. + +Diane had disappeared. The crack of the postilion’s whip told Victurnien +that the fair romance of his first love was over. While peril lasted, +Diane could still see her lover in the young Count; but out of danger, +she despised him for the weakling that he was. + + + +Six months afterwards, Camusot received the appointment of assistant +judge at Paris, and later he became an examining magistrate. Goodman +Blondet was made a councillor to the Royal-Court; he held the post just +long enough to secure a retiring pension, and then went back to live in +his pretty little house. Joseph Blondet sat in his father’s seat at the +court till the end of his days; there was not the faintest chance of +promotion for him, but he became Mlle. Blandereau’s husband; and she, no +doubt, is leading to-day, in the little flower-covered brick house, +as dull a life as any carp in a marble basin. Michu and Camusot also +received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, while Blondet became an +Officer. As for M. Sauvager, deputy public prosecutor, he was sent to +Corsica, to du Croisier’s great relief; he had decidedly no mind to +bestow his niece upon that functionary. + +Du Croisier himself, urged by President du Ronceret, appealed from the +finding of the Tribunal to the Court-Royal, and lost his cause. The +Liberals throughout the department held that little d’Esgrignon was +guilty; while the Royalists, on the other hand, told frightful stories +of plots woven by “that abominable du Croisier” to compass his revenge. +A duel was fought indeed; the hazard of arms favored du Croisier, the +young Count was dangerously wounded, and his antagonist maintained his +words. This affair embittered the strife between the two parties; the +Liberals brought it forward on all occasions. Meanwhile du Croisier +never could carry his election, and saw no hope of marrying his niece to +the Count, especially after the duel. + +A month after the decision of the Tribunal was confirmed in the +Court-Royal, Chesnel died, exhausted by the dreadful strain, which had +weakened and shaken him mentally and physically. He died in the hour of +victory, like some old faithful hound that has brought the boar to bay, +and gets his death on the tusks. He died as happily as might be, seeing +that he left the great House all but ruined, and the heir in penury, +bored to death by an idle life, and without a hope of establishing +himself. That bitter thought and his own exhaustion, no doubt, hastened +the old man’s end. One great comfort came to him as he lay amid the +wreck of so many hopes, sinking under the burden of so many cares--the +old Marquis, at his sister’s entreaty, gave him back all the old +friendship. The great lord came to the little house in the Rue du +Bercail, and sat by his old servant’s bedside, all unaware how much +that servant had done and sacrificed for him. Chesnel sat upright, and +repeated Simeon’s cry.--The Marquis allowed them to bury Chesnel in the +castle chapel; they laid him crosswise at the foot of the tomb which +was waiting for the Marquis himself, the last, in a sense, of the +d’Esgrignons. + +And so died one of the last representatives of that great and beautiful +thing, Service; giving to that often discredited word its original +meaning, the relation between feudal lord and servitor. That relation, +only to be found in some out-of-the-way province, or among a few old +servants of the King, did honor alike to a noblesse that could call +forth such affection, and to a bourgeoisie that could conceive it. Such +noble and magnificent devotion is no longer possible among us. Noble +houses have no servitors left; even as France has no longer a King, +nor an hereditary peerage, nor lands that are bound irrevocably to +an historic house, that the glorious names of the nation may be +perpetuated. Chesnel was not merely one of the obscure great men +of private life; he was something more--he was a great fact. In his +sustained self-devotion is there not something indefinably solemn and +sublime, something that rises above the one beneficent deed, or the +heroic height which is reached by a moment’s supreme effort? Chesnel’s +virtues belong essentially to the classes which stand between the +poverty of the people on the one hand, and the greatness of the +aristocracy on the other; for these can combine homely burgher virtues +with the heroic ideals of the noble, enlightening both by a solid +education. + +Victurnien was not well looked upon at Court; there was no more chance +of a great match for him, nor a place. His Majesty steadily refused to +raise the d’Esgrignons to the peerage, the one royal favor which could +rescue Victurnien from his wretched position. It was impossible that he +should marry a bourgeoise heiress in his father’s lifetime, so he was +bound to live on shabbily under the paternal roof with memories of his +two years of splendor in Paris, and the lost love of a great lady to +bear him company. He grew moody and depressed, vegetating at home with +a careworn aunt and a half heart-broken father, who attributed his son’s +condition to a wasting malady. Chesnel was no longer there. + +The Marquis died in 1830. The great d’Esgrignon, with a following of +all the less infirm noblesse from the Collection of Antiquities, went +to wait upon Charles X. at Nonancourt; he paid his respects to his +sovereign, and swelled the meagre train of the fallen king. It was an +act of courage which seems simple enough to-day, but, in that time of +enthusiastic revolt, it was heroism. + +“The Gaul has conquered!” These were the Marquis’ last words. + +By that time du Croisier’s victory was complete. The new Marquis +d’Esgrignon accepted Mlle. Duval as his wife a week after his old +father’s death. His bride brought him three millions of francs for du +Croisier and his wife settled the reversion of their fortunes upon her +in the marriage-contract. Du Croisier took occasion to say during the +ceremony that the d’Esgrignon family was the most honorable of all the +ancient houses in France. + +Some day the present Marquis d’Esgrignon will have an income of more +than a hundred thousand crowns. You may see him in Paris, for he comes +to town every winter and leads a jolly bachelor life, while he treats +his wife with something more than the indifference of the grand seigneur +of olden times; he takes no thought whatever for her. + +“As for Mlle. d’Esgrignon,” said Emile Blondet, to whom all the detail +of the story is due, “if she is no longer like the divinely fair woman +whom I saw by glimpses in my childhood, she is decidedly, at the age of +sixty-seven, the most pathetic and interesting figure in the Collection +of Antiquities. She queens it among them still. I saw her when I made my +last journey to my native place in search of the necessary papers for +my marriage. When my father knew who it was that I had married, he was +struck dumb with amazement; he had not a word to say until I told him +that I was a prefect. + +“‘You were born to it,’ he said, with a smile. + +“As I took a walk around the town, I met Mlle. Armande. She looked +taller than ever. I looked at her, and thought of Marius among the ruins +of Carthage. Had she not outlived her creed, and the beliefs that had +been destroyed? She is a sad and silent woman, with nothing of her +old beauty left except the eyes, that shine with an unearthly light. I +watched her on her way to mass, with her book in her hand, and could not +help thinking that she prayed to God to take her out of the world.” + + +LES JARDIES, July 1837. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + +Note: The Old Maid is a companion piece to The Collection of +Antiquities. In other Addendum appearances they are combined under the +title of The Jealousies of a Country Town. + + Blondet (Judge) + Beatrix + + Blondet, Emile + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Modeste Mignon + Another Study of Woman + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + The Firm of Nucingen + The Peasantry + + Blondet, Virginie + The Secrets of a Princess + The Peasantry + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Another Study of Woman + The Member for Arcis + A Daughter of Eve + + Bousquier, Du (or Du Croisier or Du Bourguier) + The Old Maid + The Middle Classes + + Bousquier, Madame du (or du Croisier) + The Old Maid + + Camusot de Marville + Cousin Pons + The Commission in Lunacy + Scenes from a Cuortesan’s Life + + Camusot de Marville, Madame + The Vendetta + Cesar Birotteau + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Cousin Pons + + Cardot (Parisian notary) + The Muse of the Department + A Man of Business + Pierre Grassou + The Middle Classes + Cousin Pons + + Casteran, De + The Chouans + The Seamy Side of History + The Old Maid + Beatrix + The Peasantry + + Chesnel (or Choisnel) + The Seamy Side of History + The Old Maid + + Coudrai, Du + The Old Maid + + Esgrignon, Charles-Marie-Victor-Ange-Carol, Marquis d’ (or Des Grignons) + The Chouans + The Old Maid + + Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d’) + Letters of Two Brides + A Man of Business + The Secrets of a Princess + Cousin Betty + + Esgrignon, Marie-Armande-Claire d’ + The Old Maid + + Herouville, Duc d’ + The Hated Son + Modeste Mignon + Cousin Betty + + Lenoncourt, Duc de + The Lily of the Valley + Cesar Birotteau + The Old Maid + The Gondreville Mystery + Beatrix + + Leroi, Pierre + The Chouans + The Seamy Side of History + + Marsay, Henri de + The Thirteen + The Unconscious Humorists + Another Study of Woman + The Lily of the Valley + Father Goriot + Ursule Mirouet + A Marriage Settlement + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Ball at Sceaux + Modest Mignon + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + A Daughter of Eve + + Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de + The Secrets of a Princess + Modeste Mignon + The Muse of the Department + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Letters of Two Brides + Another Study of Woman + The Gondreville Mystery + The Member for Arcis + + Michu, Francois + The Gondreville Mystery + The Member for Arcis + + Pamiers, Vidame de + The Thirteen + + Ronceret, Du + The Old Maid + Beatrix + + Ronceret, Madame du + The Old Maid + + Ronceret, Fabien-Felicien du (or Duronceret) + Beatrix + Gaudissart II + + Scherbelloff, Princesse (or Scherbellof or Sherbelloff) + The Peasantry + + Thirion + The Vendetta + Cesar Birotteau + + Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de + The Seamy Side of History + The Chouans + The Old Maid + The Peasantry + + Valois, Chevalier de + The Chouans + The Old Maid + + Verneuil, Duc de + The Chouans + The Old Maid + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Collection of Antiquities, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1405 *** |