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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lesser Bourgeoisie, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lesser Bourgeoisie
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: February, 1999  [Etext #1641]
+Posting Date: February 27, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LESSER BOURGEOISIE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Dagny, and Bonnie Sala
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LESSER BOURGEOISIE (The Middle Classes)
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+                         To Constance-Victoire.
+
+  Here, madame, is one of those books which come into the mind,
+  whence no one knows, giving pleasure to the author before he can
+  foresee what reception the public, our great present judge, will
+  accord to it. Feeling almost certain of your sympathy in my
+  pleasure, I dedicate the book to you. Ought it not to belong to
+  you as the tithe formerly belonged to the Church in memory of God,
+  who makes all things bud and fruit in the fields and in the
+  intellect?
+
+  A few lumps of clay, left by Moliere at the feet of his colossal
+  statue of Tartuffe, have here been kneaded by a hand more daring
+  than able; but, at whatever distance I may be from the greatest of
+  comic writers, I shall still be glad to have used these crumbs in
+  showing the modern Hypocrite in action. The chief encouragement
+  that I have had in this difficult undertaking was in finding it
+  apart from all religious questions,--questions which ought to be
+  kept out of it for the sake of one so pious as yourself; and also
+  because of what a great writer has lately called our present
+  "indifference in matters of religion."
+
+  May the double signification of your names be for my book a
+  prophecy! Deign to find here the respectful gratitude of him who
+  ventures to call himself the most devoted of your servants.
+
+
+                                                 De Balzac.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LESSER BOURGEOISIE
+
+(The Middle Classes)
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I. THE LESSER BOURGEOIS OF PARIS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. DEPARTING PARIS
+
+The tourniquet Saint-Jean, the narrow passage entered through a
+turnstile, a description of which was said to be so wearisome in the
+study entitled "A Double Life" (Scenes from Private Life), that naive
+relic of old Paris, has at the present moment no existence except in our
+said typography. The building of the Hotel-de-Ville, such as we now see
+it, swept away a whole section of the city.
+
+In 1830, passers along the street could still see the turnstile painted
+on the sign of a wine-merchant, but even that house, its last asylum,
+has been demolished. Alas! old Paris is disappearing with frightful
+rapidity. Here and there, in the course of this history of Parisian
+life, will be found preserved, sometimes the type of the dwellings of
+the middle ages, like that described in "Fame and Sorrow" (Scenes from
+Private Life), one or two specimens of which exist to the present day;
+sometimes a house like that of Judge Popinot, rue du Fouarre, a specimen
+of the former bourgeoisie; here, the remains of Fulbert's house; there,
+the old dock of the Seine as it was under Charles IX. Why should not the
+historian of French society, a new Old Mortality, endeavor to save these
+curious expressions of the past, as Walter Scott's old man rubbed up the
+tombstones? Certainly, for the last ten years the outcries of literature
+in this direction have not been superfluous; art is beginning to
+disguise beneath its floriated ornaments those ignoble facades of what
+are called in Paris "houses of product," which one of our poets has
+jocosely compared to chests of drawers.
+
+Let us remark here, that the creation of the municipal commission
+"del ornamento" which superintends at Milan the architecture of street
+facades, and to which every house owner is compelled to subject his
+plan, dates from the seventeenth century. Consequently, we see in that
+charming capital the effects of this public spirit on the part of nobles
+and burghers, while we admire their buildings so full of character and
+originality. Hideous, unrestrained speculation which, year after year,
+changes the uniform level of storeys, compresses a whole apartment into
+the space of what used to be a salon, and wages war upon gardens, will
+infallibly react on Parisian manners and morals. We shall soon be forced
+to live more without than within. Our sacred private life, the freedom
+and liberty of home, where will they be?--reserved for those who can
+muster fifty thousand francs a year! In fact, few millionaires now allow
+themselves the luxury of a house to themselves, guarded by a courtyard
+on a street and protected from public curiosity by a shady garden at the
+back.
+
+By levelling fortunes, that section of the Code which regulates
+testamentary bequests, has produced these huge stone phalansteries, in
+which thirty families are often lodged, returning a rental of a hundred
+thousand francs a year. Fifty years hence we shall be able to count on
+our fingers the few remaining houses which resemble that occupied, at
+the moment our narrative begins, by the Thuillier family,--a really
+curious house which deserves the honor of an exact description, if only
+to compare the life of the bourgeoisie of former times with that of
+to-day.
+
+The situation and the aspect of this house, the frame of our present
+Scene of manners and morals, has, moreover, a flavor, a perfume of the
+lesser bourgeoisie, which may attract or repel attention according to
+the taste of each reader.
+
+In the first place, the Thuillier house did not belong to either
+Monsieur or Madame Thuillier, but to Mademoiselle Thuillier, the sister
+of Monsieur Thuillier.
+
+This house, bought during the first six months which followed the
+revolution of July by Mademoiselle Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte Thuillier, a
+spinster of full age, stands about the middle of the rue Saint-Dominique
+d'Enfer, to the right as you enter by the rue d'Enfer, so that the main
+building occupied by Monsieur Thuillier faces south.
+
+The progressive movement which is carrying the Parisian population to
+the heights along the right bank of the Seine had long injured the sale
+of property in what is called the "Latin quarter," when reasons, which
+will be given when we come to treat of the character and habits of
+Monsieur Thuillier, determined his sister to the purchase of real
+estate. She obtained this property for the small sum of forty-six
+thousand francs; certain extras amounted to six thousand more; in all,
+the price paid was fifty-two thousand francs. A description of the
+property given in the style of an advertisement, and the results
+obtained by Monsieur Thuillier's exertions, will explain by what means
+so many fortunes increased enormously after July, 1830, while so many
+others sank.
+
+Toward the street the house presents a facade of rough stone covered
+with plaster, cracked by weather and lined by the mason's instrument
+into a semblance of blocks of cut stone. This frontage is so common in
+Paris and so ugly that the city ought to offer premiums to house-owners
+who would build their facades of cut-stone blocks. Seven windows lighted
+the gray front of this house which was raised three storeys, ending in
+a mansard roof covered with slate. The porte-cochere, heavy and solid,
+showed by its workmanship and style that the front building on the
+street had been erected in the days of the Empire, to utilize a part
+of the courtyard of the vast old mansion, built at an epoch when the
+quarter d'Enfer enjoyed a certain vogue.
+
+On one side was the porter's lodge; on the other the staircase of the
+front building. Two wings, built against the adjoining houses, had
+formerly served as stables, coach-house, kitchen and offices to the rear
+dwelling; but since 1830, they had been converted into warerooms. The
+one on the right was let to a certain M. Metivier, jr., wholesale dealer
+in paper; that on the left to a bookseller named Barbet. The offices
+of each were above the warerooms; the bookseller occupying the first
+storey, and the paper-dealer the second storey of the house on the
+street. Metivier, jr., who was more of a commission merchant in paper
+than a regular dealer, and Barbet, much more of a money lender and
+discounter than a bookseller, kept these vast warerooms for the purpose
+of storing,--one, his stacks of paper, bought of needy manufacturers,
+the other, editions of books given as security for loans.
+
+The shark of bookselling and the pike of paper-dealing lived on the best
+of terms, and their mutual operations, exempt from the turmoil of retail
+business, brought so few carriages into that tranquil courtyard that the
+concierge was obliged to pull up the grass between the paving stones.
+Messrs. Barbet and Metivier paid a few rare visits to their landlords,
+and the punctuality with which they paid their rent classed them as
+good tenants; in fact, they were looked upon as very honest men by the
+Thuillier circle.
+
+As for the third floor on the street, it was made into two apartments;
+one of which was occupied by M. Dutocq, clerk of the justice of peace,
+a retired government employee, and a frequenter of the Thuillier
+salon; the other by the hero of this Scene, about whom we must
+content ourselves at the present moment by fixing the amount of his
+rent,--namely, seven hundred francs a year,--and the location he had
+chosen in the heart of this well-filled building, exactly three years
+before the curtain rises on the present domestic drama.
+
+The clerk, a bachelor of fifty, occupied the larger of the two
+apartments on the third floor. He kept a cook, and the rent of the
+rooms was a thousand francs a year. Within two years of the time of
+her purchase, Mademoiselle Thuillier was receiving seven thousand two
+hundred francs in rentals, for a house which the late proprietor
+had supplied with outside blinds, renovated within, and adorned with
+mirrors, without being able to sell or let it. Moreover, the Thuilliers
+themselves, nobly lodged, as we shall see, enjoyed also a fine
+garden,--one of the finest in that quarter,--the trees of which shaded
+the lonely little street named the rue Neuve-Saint-Catherine.
+
+Standing between the courtyard and the garden, the main building,
+which they inhabited, seems to have been the caprice of some enriched
+bourgeois in the reign of Louis XIV.; the dwelling, perhaps, of a
+president of the parliament, or that of a tranquil savant. Its
+noble free-stone blocks, damaged by time, have a certain air of
+Louis-the-Fourteenth grandeur; the courses of the facade define the
+storeys; panels of red brick recall the appearance of the stables at
+Versailles; the windows have masks carved as ornaments in the centre
+of their arches and below their sills. The door, of small panels in the
+upper half and plain below, through which, when open, the garden can be
+seen, is of that honest, unassuming style which was often employed in
+former days for the porter's lodges of the royal chateaux.
+
+This building, with five windows to each course, rises two storeys above
+the ground-floor, and is particularly noticeable for a roof of four
+sides ending in a weather-vane, and broken here and there by tall,
+handsome chimneys, and oval windows. Perhaps this structure is the
+remains of some great mansion; but after examining all the existing
+old maps of Paris, we find nothing which bears out this conjecture.
+Moreover, the title-deeds of property under Louis XIV. was Petitot,
+the celebrated painter in miniature, who obtained it originally from
+President Lecamus. We may therefore believe that Lecamus lived in this
+building while he was erecting his more famous mansion in the rue de
+Thorigny.
+
+So Art and the legal robe have passed this way in turn. How many
+instigations of needs and pleasures have led to the interior arrangement
+of the dwelling! To right, as we enter a square hall forming a closed
+vestibule, rises a stone staircase with two windows looking on the
+garden. Beneath the staircase opens a door to the cellar. From this
+vestibule we enter the dining-room, lighted from the courtyard, and the
+dining-room communicates at its side with the kitchen, which forms a
+continuation of the wing in which are the warerooms of Metivier and
+Barbet. Behind the staircase extends, on the garden side, a fine study
+or office with two large windows. The first and second floor form two
+complete apartments, and the servants' quarters are shown by the oval
+windows in the four-sided roof.
+
+A large porcelain stove heats the square vestibule, the two glass doors
+of which, placed opposite to each other, light it. This room, paved in
+black and white marble, is especially noticeable for a ceiling of beams
+formerly painted and gilt, but which had since received, probably under
+the Empire, a coat of plain white paint. The three doors of the study,
+salon and dining-room, surmounted by oval panels, are awaiting a
+restoration that is more than needed. The wood-work is heavy, but the
+ornamentation is not without merit. The salon, panelled throughout,
+recalls the great century by its tall mantelpiece of Languedoc marble,
+its ceiling decorated at the corners, and by the style of its windows,
+which still retain their little panes. The dining-room, communicating
+with the salon by a double door, is floored with stone; the wood-work is
+oak, unpainted, and an atrocious modern wall-paper has been substituted
+for the tapestries of the olden time. The ceiling is of chestnut;
+and the study, modernized by Thuillier, adds its quota to these
+discordances.
+
+The white and gold mouldings of the salon are so effaced that nothing
+remains of the gilding but reddish lines, while the white enamelling is
+yellow, cracked, and peeling off. Never did the Latin saying "Otium cum
+dignitate" have a greater commentary to the mind of a poet than in this
+noble building. The iron-work of the staircase baluster is worthy of
+the artist and the magistrate; but to find other traces of their taste
+to-day in this majestic relic, the eyes of an artistic observer are
+needed.
+
+The Thuilliers and their predecessors have frequently degraded this
+jewel of the upper bourgeoisie by the habits and inventions of the
+lesser bourgeoisie. Look at those walnut chairs covered with horse-hair,
+that mahogany table with its oilcloth cover, that sideboard, also of
+mahogany, that carpet, bought at a bargain, beneath the table, those
+metal lamps, that wretched paper with its red border, those execrable
+engravings, and the calico curtains with red fringes, in a dining-room,
+where the friends of Petitot once feasted! Do you notice the effect
+produced in the salon by those portraits of Monsieur and Madame and
+Mademoiselle Thuillier by Pierre Grassou, the artist par excellence
+of the modern bourgeoisie. Have you remarked the card-tables and the
+consoles of the Empire, the tea-table supported by a lyre, and that
+species of sofa, of gnarled mahogany, covered in painted velvet of a
+chocolate tone? On the chimney-piece, with the clock (representing the
+Bellona of the Empire), are candelabra with fluted columns. Curtains of
+woollen damask, with under-curtains of embroidered muslin held back by
+stamped brass holders, drape the windows. On the floor a cheap carpet.
+The handsome vestibule has wooden benches, covered with velvet, and the
+panelled walls with their fine carvings are mostly hidden by wardrobes,
+brought there from time to time from the bedrooms occupied by the
+Thuilliers. Fear, that hideous divinity, has caused the family to add
+sheet-iron doors on the garden side and on the courtyard side, which are
+folded back against the walls in the daytime, and are closed at night.
+
+It is easy to explain the deplorable profanation practised on this
+monument of the private life of the bourgeoisie of the seventeenth
+century, by the private life of the bourgeoisie of the nineteenth. At
+the beginning of the Consulate, let us say, some master-mason having
+bought the ancient building, took the idea of turning to account the
+ground which lay between it and the street. He probably pulled down
+the fine porte-cochere or entrance gate, flanked by little lodges which
+guarded the charming "sejour" (to use a word of the olden time), and
+proceeded, with the industry of a Parisian proprietor, to impress his
+withering mark on the elegance of the old building. What a curious study
+might be made of the successive title-deeds of property in Paris! A
+private lunatic asylum performs its functions in the rue des Batailles
+in the former dwelling of the Chevalier Pierre Bayard du Terrail, once
+without fear and without reproach; a street has now been built by the
+present bourgeois administration through the site of the hotel Necker.
+Old Paris is departing, following its kings who abandoned it. For one
+masterpiece of architecture saved from destruction by a Polish princess
+(the hotel Lambert, Ile Saint-Louis, bought and occupied by the Princess
+Czartoriska) how many little palaces have fallen, like this dwelling of
+Petitot, into the hands of such as Thuillier.
+
+Here follows the causes which made Mademoiselle Thuillier the owner of
+the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE HISTORY OF A TYRANNY
+
+At the fall of the Villele ministry, Monsieur Louis-Jerome Thuillier,
+who had then seen twenty-six years' service as a clerk in the ministry
+of finance, became sub-director of a department thereof; but scarcely
+had he enjoyed the subaltern authority of a position formerly his
+lowest hope, when the events of July, 1830, forced him to resign it.
+He calculated, shrewdly enough, that his pension would be honorably and
+readily given by the new-comers, glad to have another office at their
+disposal. He was right; for a pension of seventeen hundred francs was
+paid to him immediately.
+
+When the prudent sub-director first talked of resigning, his sister, who
+was far more the companion of his life than his wife, trembled for his
+future.
+
+"What will become of Thuillier?" was a question which Madame and
+Mademoiselle Thuillier put to each other with mutual terror in their
+little lodging on a third floor of the rue d'Argenteuil.
+
+"Securing his pension will occupy him for a time," Mademoiselle
+Thuillier said one day; "but I am thinking of investing my savings in
+a way that will cut out work for him. Yes; it will be something like
+administrating the finances to manage a piece of property."
+
+"Oh, sister! you will save his life," cried Madame Thuillier.
+
+"I have always looked for a crisis of this kind in Jerome's life,"
+replied the old maid, with a protecting air.
+
+Mademoiselle Thuillier had too often heard her brother remark: "Such
+a one is dead; he only survived his retirement two years"; she had too
+often heard Colleville, her brother's intimate friend, a government
+employee like himself, say, jesting on this climacteric of bureaucrats,
+"We shall all come to it, ourselves," not to appreciate the danger her
+brother was running. The change from activity to leisure is, in truth,
+the critical period for government employees of all kinds.
+
+Those of them who know not how to substitute, or perhaps cannot
+substitute other occupations for the work to which they have been
+accustomed, change in a singular manner; some die outright; others take
+to fishing, the vacancy of that amusement resembling that of their late
+employment under government; others, who are smarter men, dabble in
+stocks, lose their savings, and are thankful to obtain a place in
+some enterprise that is likely to succeed, after a first disaster and
+liquidation, in the hands of an abler management. The late clerk then
+rubs his hands, now empty, and says to himself, "I always did foresee
+the success of the business." But nearly all these retired bureaucrats
+have to fight against their former habits.
+
+"Some," Colleville used to say, "are victims to a sort of 'spleen'
+peculiar to the government clerk; they die of a checked circulation;
+a red-tapeworm is in their vitals. That little Poiret couldn't see the
+well-known white carton without changing color at the beloved sight; he
+used to turn from green to yellow."
+
+Mademoiselle Thuillier was considered the moving spirit of her brother's
+household; she was not without decision and force of character, as the
+following history will show. This superiority over those who immediately
+surrounded her enabled her to judge her brother, although she adored
+him. After witnessing the failure of the hopes she had set upon her
+idol, she had too much real maternity in her feeling for him to let
+herself be mistaken as to his social value.
+
+Thuillier and his sister were children of the head porter at the
+ministry of finance. Jerome had escaped, thanks to his near-sightedness,
+all drafts and conscriptions. The father's ambition was to make his son
+a government clerk. At the beginning of this century the army presented
+too many posts not to leave various vacancies in the government offices.
+A deficiency of minor officials enabled old Pere Thuillier to hoist his
+son upon the lowest step of the bureaucratic hierarchy. The old man died
+in 1814, leaving Jerome on the point of becoming sub-director, but with
+no other fortune than that prospect. The worthy Thuillier and his wife
+(who died in 1810) had retired from active service in 1806, with a
+pension as their only means of support; having spent what property
+they had in giving Jerome the education required in these days, and in
+supporting both him and his sister.
+
+The influence of the Restoration on the bureaucracy is well known. From
+the forty and one suppressed departments a crowd of honorable employees
+returned to Paris with nothing to do, and clamorous for places inferior
+to those they had lately occupied. To these acquired rights were added
+those of exiled families ruined by the Revolution. Pressed between the
+two floods, Jerome thought himself lucky not to have been dismissed
+under some frivolous pretext. He trembled until the day when, becoming
+by mere chance sub-director, he saw himself secure of a retiring
+pension. This cursory view of matters will serve to explain Monsieur
+Thuillier's very limited scope and knowledge. He had learned the Latin,
+mathematics, history, and geography that are taught in schools, but
+he never got beyond what is called the second class; his father having
+preferred to take advantage of a sudden opportunity to place him at the
+ministry. So, while the young Thuillier was making his first records
+on the Grand-Livre, he ought to have been studying his rhetoric and
+philosophy.
+
+While grinding the ministerial machine, he had no leisure to cultivate
+letters, still less the arts; but he acquired a routine knowledge of his
+business, and when he had an opportunity to rise, under the Empire,
+to the sphere of superior employees, he assumed a superficial air of
+competence which concealed the son of a porter, though none of it rubbed
+into his mind. His ignorance, however, taught him to keep silence, and
+silence served him well. He accustomed himself to practise, under the
+imperial regime, a passive obedience which pleased his superiors; and it
+was to this quality that he owed at a later period his promotion to the
+rank of sub-director. His routine habits then became great experience;
+his manners and his silence concealed his lack of education, and his
+absolute nullity was a recommendation, for a cipher was needed. The
+government was afraid of displeasing both parties in the Chamber by
+selecting a man from either side; it therefore got out of the difficulty
+by resorting to the rule of seniority. That is how Thuillier became
+sub-director. Mademoiselle Thuillier, knowing that her brother abhorred
+reading, and could substitute no business for the bustle of a public
+office, had wisely resolved to plunge him into the cares of property,
+into the culture of a garden, in short, into all the infinitely petty
+concerns and neighborhood intrigues which make up the life of the
+bourgeoisie.
+
+The transplanting of the Thuillier household from the rue d'Argenteuil
+to the rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer, the business of making the purchase,
+of finding a suitable porter, and then of obtaining tenants occupied
+Thuillier from 1831 to 1832. When the phenomenon of the change was
+accomplished, and the sister saw that Jerome had borne it fairly well,
+she found him other cares and occupations (about which we shall hear
+later), all based upon the character of the man himself, as to which it
+will now be useful to give information.
+
+Though the son of a ministerial porter, Thuillier was what is called a
+fine man, slender in figure, above middle height, and possessing a
+face that was rather agreeable if wearing his spectacles, but frightful
+without them; which is frequently the case with near-sighted persons;
+for the habit of looking through glasses has covered the pupils of his
+eyes with a sort of film.
+
+Between the ages of eighteen and thirty, young Thuillier had much
+success among women, in a sphere which began with the lesser bourgeois
+and ended in that of the heads of departments. Under the Empire, war
+left Parisian society rather denuded of men of energy, who were mostly
+on the battlefield; and perhaps, as a great physician has suggested,
+this may account for the flabbiness of the generation which occupies the
+middle of the nineteenth century.
+
+Thuillier, forced to make himself noticeable by other charms than those
+of mind, learned to dance and to waltz in a way to be cited; he was
+called "that handsome Thuillier"; he played billiards to perfection; he
+knew how to cut out likenesses in black paper, and his friend Colleville
+coached him so well that he was able to sing all the ballads of the
+day. These various small accomplishments resulted in that appearance
+of success which deceives youth and befogs it about the future.
+Mademoiselle Thuillier, from 1806 to 1814, believed in her brother as
+Mademoiselle d'Orleans believed in Louis-Philippe. She was proud of
+Jerome; she expected to see him the director-general of his department
+of the ministry, thanks to his successes in certain salons, where,
+undoubtedly, he would never have been admitted but for the circumstances
+which made society under the Empire a medley.
+
+But the successes of "that handsome Thuillier" were usually of short
+duration; women did not care to keep his devotion any more than he
+desired to make his devotion eternal. He was really an unwilling Don
+Juan; the career of a "beau" wearied him to the point of aging him; his
+face, covered with lines like that of an old coquette, looked a dozen
+years older than the registers made him. There remained to him of all
+his successes in gallantry, a habit of looking at himself in mirrors, of
+buttoning his coat to define his waist, and of posing in various dancing
+attitudes; all of which prolonged, beyond the period of enjoying his
+advantages, the sort of lease that he held on his cognomen, "that
+handsome Thuillier."
+
+The truth of 1806 has, however, become a fable, in 1826. He retains a
+few vestiges of the former costume of the beaux of the Empire, which are
+not unbecoming to the dignity of a former sub-director. He still wears
+the white cravat with innumerable folds, wherein his chin is buried, and
+the coquettish bow, formerly tied by the hands of beauty, the two ends
+of which threaten danger to the passers to right and left. He follows
+the fashions of former days, adapting them to his present needs; he tips
+his hat on the back of his head, and wears shoes and thread stockings in
+summer; his long-tailed coats remind one of the well-known "surtouts"
+of the Empire; he has not yet abandoned his frilled shirts and his white
+waistcoats; he still plays with his Empire switch, and holds himself so
+erect that his back bends in. No one, seeing Thuillier promenading
+on the boulevards, would take him for the son of a man who cooked the
+breakfasts of the clerks at a ministry and wore the livery of Louis
+XVI.; he resembles an imperial diplomatist or a sub-prefect. Now, not
+only did Mademoiselle Thuillier very innocently work upon her brother's
+weak spot by encouraging in him an excessive care of his person, which,
+in her, was simply a continuation of her worship, but she also provided
+him with family joys, by transplanting to their midst a household which
+had hitherto been quasi-collateral to them.
+
+It was that of Monsieur Colleville, an intimate friend of Thuillier. But
+before we proceed to describe Pylades let us finish with Orestes, and
+explain why Thuillier--that handsome Thuillier--was left without a
+family of his own--for the family, be it said, is non-existent without
+children. Herein appears one of those deep mysteries which lie buried in
+the arena of private life, a few shreds of which rise to the surface
+at moments when the pain of a concealed situation grows poignant. This
+concerns the life of Madame and Mademoiselle Thuillier; so far, we
+have seen only the life (and we may call it the public life) of Jerome
+Thuillier.
+
+Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte Thuillier, four years older than her brother, had
+been utterly sacrificed to him; it was easier to give a career to one
+than a "dot" to the other. Misfortune to some natures is a pharos,
+which illumines to their eyes the dark low corners of social existence.
+Superior to her brother both in mind and energy, Brigitte had one of
+those natures which, under the hammer of persecution, gather themselves
+together, become compact and powerfully resistant, not to say
+inflexible. Jealous of her independence, she kept aloof from the life
+of the household; choosing to make herself the sole arbiter of her own
+fate. At fourteen years of age, she went to live alone in a garret, not
+far from the ministry of finance, which was then in the rue Vivienne,
+and also not far from the Bank of France, then, and now, in the rue de
+la Vrilliere. There she bravely gave herself up to a form of industry
+little known and the perquisite of a few persons, which she obtained,
+thanks to the patrons of her father. It consisted in making bags to hold
+coin for the Bank, the Treasury, and the great financial houses. At the
+end of three years she employed two workwomen. By investing her savings
+on the Grand-Livre, she found herself, in 1814, the mistress of three
+thousand six hundred francs a year, earned in fifteen years. As she
+spent little, and dined with her father as long as he lived, and, as
+government securities were very low during the last convulsions of the
+Empire, this result, which seems at first sight exaggerated, explains
+itself.
+
+On the death of their father, Brigitte and Jerome, the former being
+twenty-seven, the latter twenty-three, united their existence. Brother
+and sister were bound together by an extreme affection. If Jerome, then
+at the height of his success, was pinched for money, his sister, clothed
+in serge, and her fingers roughened by the coarse thread with which she
+sewed her bags, would give him a few louis. In Brigitte's eyes Jerome
+was the handsomest and most charming man in the whole French Empire. To
+keep house for this cherished brother, to be initiated into the
+secrets of Lindor and Don Juan, to be his handmaiden, his spaniel,
+was Brigitte's dream. She immolated herself lovingly to an idol
+whose selfishness, always great, was enormously increased by her
+self-sacrifice. She sold her business to her fore-woman for fifteen
+thousand francs and came to live with Thuillier in the rue d'Argenteuil,
+where she made herself the mother, protectress, and servant of this
+spoiled child of women. Brigitte, with the natural caution of a girl who
+owed everything to her own discretion and her own labor, concealed the
+amount of her savings from Jerome,--fearing, no doubt, the extravagance
+of a man of gallantry. She merely paid a quota of six hundred francs
+a year to the expenses of the household, and this, with her brother's
+eighteen hundred, enabled her to make both ends meet at the end of the
+year.
+
+From the first days of their coming together, Thuillier listened to his
+sister as to an oracle; he consulted her in his trifling affairs, kept
+none of his secrets from her, and thus made her taste the fruit of
+despotism which was, in truth, the one little sin of her nature. But the
+sister had sacrificed everything to the brother; she had staked her all
+upon his heart; she lived by him only. Brigitte's ascendancy over Jerome
+was singularly proved by the marriage which she procured for him about
+the year 1814.
+
+Seeing the tendency to enforced reduction which the new-comers to power
+under the Restoration were beginning to bring about in the government
+offices, and particularly since the return of the old society which
+sought to ride over the bourgeoisie, Brigitte understood, far better
+than her brother could explain it to her, the social crisis which
+presently extinguished their common hopes. No more successes for that
+handsome Thuillier in the salons of the nobles who now succeeded the
+plebeians of the Empire!
+
+Thuillier was not enough of a person to take up a politic opinion and
+choose a party; he felt, as his sister did for him, the necessity of
+profiting by the remains of his youth to make a settlement. In such a
+situation, a sister as jealous of her power as Brigitte naturally would,
+and ought, to marry her brother, to suit herself as well as to suit him;
+for she alone could make him really happy, Madame Thuillier being only
+an indispensable accessory to the obtaining of two or three children. If
+Brigitte did not have an intellect quite the equal of her will, at least
+she had the instinct of her despotism; without, it is true, education,
+she marched straight before her, with the headstrong determination of
+a nature accustomed to succeed. She had the genius of housekeeping, a
+faculty for economy, a thorough understanding of how to live, and a
+love for work. She saw plainly that she could never succeed in marrying
+Jerome into a sphere above their own, where parents might inquire
+into their domestic life and feel uneasy at finding a mistress already
+reigning in the home. She therefore sought in a lower grade for persons
+to dazzle, and found, almost beside her, a suitable match.
+
+The oldest usher at the Bank, a man named Lemprun, had an only daughter,
+called Celeste. Mademoiselle Celeste Lemprun would inherit the fortune
+of her mother, the only daughter of a rich farmer. This fortune
+consisted of some acres of land in the environs of Paris, which the
+old father still worked; besides this, she would have the property of
+Lemprun himself, a man who had left the firms of Thelusson and of Keller
+to enter the service of the Bank of France. Lemprun, now the head of
+that service, enjoyed the respect and consideration of the governors and
+auditors.
+
+The Bank council, on hearing of the probable marriage of Celeste to
+an honorable employee at the ministry of finance, promised a wedding
+present of six thousand francs. This gift, added to twelve thousand
+given by Pere Lemprun, and twelve thousand more from the maternal
+grandfather, Sieur Galard, market-gardener at Auteuil, brought up the
+dowry to thirty thousand francs. Old Galard and Monsieur and Madame
+Lemprun were delighted with the marriage. Lemprun himself knew
+Mademoiselle Thuillier, and considered her one of the worthiest and most
+conscientious women in Paris. Brigitte then, for the first time, allowed
+her investments on the Grand-Livre to shine forth, assuring Lemprun that
+she should never marry; consequently, neither he nor his wife, persons
+devoted to the main chance, would ever allow themselves to find fault
+with Brigitte. Above all, they were greatly struck by the splendid
+prospects of the handsome Thuillier, and the marriage took place, as the
+conventional saying is, to the general satisfaction.
+
+The governor of the Bank and the secretary were the bride's witnesses;
+Monsieur de la Billardiere, director of Thuillier's department, and
+Monsieur Rabourdin, head of the office, being those of the groom. Six
+days after the marriage old Lemprun was the victim of a daring robbery
+which made a great noise in the newspapers of the day, though it was
+quickly forgotten during the events of 1815. The guilty parties having
+escaped detection, Lemprun wished to make up the loss; but the
+Bank agreed to carry the deficit to its profit and loss account;
+nevertheless, the poor old man actually died of the grief this affair
+had caused him. He regarded it as an attack upon his aged honor.
+
+Madame Lemprun then resigned all her property to her daughter, Madame
+Thuillier, and went to live with her father at Auteuil until he died
+from an accident in 1817. Alarmed at the prospect of having to manage
+or lease the market-garden and the farm of her father, Madame Lemprun
+entreated Brigitte, whose honesty and capacity astonished her, to wind
+up old Galard's affairs, and to settle the property in such a way that
+her daughter should take possession of everything, securing to her
+mother fifteen hundred francs a year and the house at Auteuil. The
+landed property of the old farmer was sold in lots, and brought in
+thirty thousand francs. Lemprun's estate had given as much more, so that
+Madame Thuillier's fortune, including her "dot," amounted in 1818 to
+ninety thousand francs. Joining the revenue of this property to that of
+the brother and sister, the Thuillier household had an income, in 1818,
+amounting to eleven thousand francs, managed by Brigitte alone on her
+sole responsibility. It is necessary to begin by stating this financial
+position, not only to prevent objections but to rid the drama of
+difficulties.
+
+Brigitte began, from the first, by allowing her brother five hundred
+francs a month, and by sailing the household boat at the rate of five
+thousand francs a year. She granted to her sister-in-law fifty francs a
+month, explaining to her carefully that she herself was satisfied with
+forty. To strengthen her despotism by the power of money, Brigitte laid
+by the surplus of her own funds. She made, so it was said in business
+offices, usurious loans by means of her brother, who appeared as
+a money-lender. If, between the years 1813 and 1830, Brigitte had
+capitalized sixty thousand francs, that sum can be explained by the rise
+in the Funds, and there is no need to have recourse to accusations more
+or less well founded, which have nothing to do with our present history.
+
+From the first days of the marriage, Brigitte subdued the unfortunate
+Madame Thuillier with a touch of the spur and a jerk of the bit, both
+of which she made her feel severely. A further display of tyranny
+was useless; the victim resigned herself at once. Celeste, thoroughly
+understood by Brigitte, a girl without mind or education, accustomed
+to a sedentary life and a tranquil atmosphere, was extremely gentle by
+nature; she was pious in the fullest acceptation of the word; she would
+willingly have expiated by the hardest punishments the involuntary
+wrong of giving pain to her neighbor. She was utterly ignorant of life;
+accustomed to be waited on by her mother, who did the whole service
+of the house, for Celeste was unable to make much exertion, owing to
+a lymphatic constitution which the least toil wearied. She was truly a
+daughter of the people of Paris, where children, seldom handsome, and of
+no vigor, the product of poverty and toil, of homes without fresh air,
+without freedom of action, without any of the conveniences of life, meet
+us at every turn.
+
+At the time of the marriage, Celeste was seen to be a little woman, fair
+and faded almost to sickliness, fat, slow, and silly in the countenance.
+Her forehead, much too large and too prominent, suggested water on the
+brain, and beneath that waxen cupola her face, noticeably too small and
+ending in a point like the nose of a mouse, made some people fear she
+would become, sooner or later, imbecile. Her eyes, which were light
+blue, and her lips, always fixed in a smile, did not contradict that
+idea. On the solemn occasion of her marriage she had the manner, air,
+and attitude of a person condemned to death, whose only desire is that
+it might all be over speedily.
+
+"She is rather round," said Colleville to Thuillier.
+
+Brigitte was just the knife to cut into such a nature, to which her own
+formed the strongest contrast. Mademoiselle Thuillier was remarkable for
+her regular and correct beauty, but a beauty injured by toil which, from
+her very childhood, had bent her down to painful, thankless tasks, and
+by the secret privations she imposed upon herself in order to amass her
+little property. Her complexion, early discolored, had something the
+tint of steel. Her brown eyes were framed in brown; on the upper lip
+was a brown floss like a sort of smoke. Her lips were thin, and her
+imperious forehead was surmounted by hair once black, now turning to
+chinchilla. She held herself as straight as the fairest beauty; but all
+things else about her showed the hardiness of her life, the deadening of
+her natural fire, the cost of what she was!
+
+To Brigitte, Celeste was simply a fortune to lay hold of, a future
+mother to rule, one more subject in her empire. She soon reproached her
+for being _weak_, a constant word in her vocabulary, and the jealous
+old maid, who would strongly have resented any signs of activity in
+her sister-in-law, now took a savage pleasure in prodding the
+languid inertness of the feeble creature. Celeste, ashamed to see her
+sister-in-law displaying such energy in household work, endeavored to
+help her, and fell ill in consequence. Instantly, Brigitte was devoted
+to her, nursed her like a beloved sister, and would say, in presence
+of Thuillier: "You haven't any strength, my child; you must never do
+anything again." She showed up Celeste's incapacity by that display of
+sympathy with which strength, seeming to pity weakness, finds means to
+boast of its own powers.
+
+But, as all despotic natures liking to exercise their strength are full
+of tenderness for physical sufferings, Brigitte took such real care of
+her sister-in-law as to satisfy Celeste's mother when she came to see
+her daughter. After Madame Thuillier recovered, however, she called her,
+in Celeste's hearing, "a helpless creature, good for nothing!" which
+sent the poor thing crying to her room. When Thuillier found her there,
+drying her eyes, he excused her sister, saying:--
+
+"She is an excellent woman, but rather hasty; she loves you in her own
+way; she behaves just so with me."
+
+Celeste, remembering the maternal care of her sister-in-law during her
+illness, forgave the wound. Brigitte always treated her brother as the
+king of the family; she exalted him to Celeste, and made him out an
+autocrat, a Ladislas, an infallible pope. Madame Thuillier having lost
+her father and grandfather, and being well-nigh deserted by her mother,
+who came to see her on Thursdays only (she herself spending Sundays at
+Auteuil in summer), had no one left to love except her husband, and
+she did love him,--in the first place, because he was her husband, and
+secondly, because he still remained to her "that handsome Thuillier."
+Besides, he sometimes treated her like a wife, and all these reasons
+together made her adore him. He seemed to her all the more perfect
+because he often took up her defence and scolded his sister, not from
+any real interest in his wife, but for pure selfishness, and in order to
+have peace in the household during the very few moments that he stayed
+there.
+
+In fact, that handsome Thuillier was never at home except at dinner,
+after which meal he went out, returning very late at night. He went to
+balls and other social festivities by himself, precisely as if he were
+still a bachelor. Thus the two women were always alone together. Celeste
+insensibly fell into a passive attitude, and became what Brigitte wanted
+her,--a helot. The Queen Elizabeth of the household then passed
+from despotism to a sort of pity for the poor victim who was always
+sacrificed. She ended by softening her haughty ways, her cutting
+speech, her contemptuous tones, as soon as she was certain that her
+sister-in-law was completely under the yoke. When she saw the wounds it
+made on the neck of her victim, she took care of her as a thing of her
+own, and Celeste entered upon happier days. Comparing the end with the
+beginning, she even felt a sort of love for her torturer. To gain
+some power of self-defence, to become something less a cipher in the
+household, supported, unknown to herself, by her own means, the poor
+helot had but a single chance, and that chance never came to her.
+
+Celeste had no child. This barrenness, which, from month to month,
+brought floods of tears from her eyes, was long the cause of Brigitte's
+scorn; she reproached the poor woman bitterly for being fit for nothing,
+not even to bear children. The old maid, who had longed to love her
+brother's child as if it were her own, was unable, for years, to
+reconcile herself to this irremediable sterility.
+
+At the time when our history begins, namely, in 1840, Celeste, then
+forty-six years old, had ceased to weep; she now had the certainty of
+never being a mother. And here is a strange thing. After twenty-five
+years of this life, in which victory had ended by first dulling and then
+breaking its own knife, Brigitte loved Celeste as much as Celeste loved
+Brigitte. Time, ease, and the perpetual rubbing of domestic life, had
+worn off the angles and smoothed the asperities; Celeste's resignation
+and lamb-like gentleness had brought, at last, a serene and peaceful
+autumn. The two women were still further united by the one sentiment
+that lay within them, namely, their adoration for the lucky and selfish
+Thuillier.
+
+Moreover, these two women, both childless, had each, like all women
+who have vainly desired children, fallen in love with a child. This
+fictitious motherhood, equal in strength to a real motherhood, needs an
+explanation which will carry us to the very heart of our drama, and
+will show the reason of the new occupation which Mademoiselle Thuillier
+provided for her brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. COLLEVILLE
+
+Thuillier had entered the ministry of finance as supernumerary at the
+same time as Colleville, who has been mentioned already as his intimate
+friend. In opposition to the well-regulated, gloomy household of
+Thuillier, social nature had provided that of Colleville; and if it
+is impossible not to remark that this fortuitous contrast was scarcely
+moral, we must add that, before deciding that point, it would be well
+to wait for the end of this drama, unfortunately too true, for which the
+present historian is not responsible.
+
+Colleville was the only son of a talented musician, formerly first
+violin at the Opera under Francoeur and Rebel, who related, at least
+six times a month during his lifetime, anecdotes concerning the
+representations of the "Village Seer"; and mimicked Jean-Jacques
+Rousseau, taking him off to perfection. Colleville and Thuillier were
+inseparable friends; they had no secrets from each other, and their
+friendship, begun at fifteen years of age, had never known a cloud up to
+the year 1839. The former was one of those employees who are called,
+in the government offices, pluralists. These clerks are remarkable
+for their industry. Colleville, a good musician, owed to the name
+and influence of his father a situation as first clarionet at the
+Opera-Comique, and so long as he was a bachelor, Colleville, who was
+rather richer than Thuillier, shared his means with his friend. But,
+unlike Thuillier, Colleville married for love a Mademoiselle Flavie,
+the natural daughter of a celebrated danseuse at the Opera; her reputed
+father being a certain du Bourguier, one of the richest contractors
+of the day. In style and origin, Flavie was apparently destined for
+a melancholy career, when Colleville, often sent to her mother's
+apartments, fell in love with her and married her. Prince Galathionne,
+who at that time was "protecting" the danseuse, then approaching the end
+of her brilliant career, gave Flavie a "dot" of twenty thousand francs,
+to which her mother added a magnificent trousseau. Other friends and
+opera-comrades sent jewels and silver-ware, so that the Colleville
+household was far richer in superfluities than in capital. Flavie,
+brought up in opulence, began her married life in a charming apartment,
+furnished by her mother's upholsterer, where the young wife, who was
+full of taste for art and for artists, and possessed a certain elegance,
+ruled, a queen.
+
+Madame Colleville was pretty and piquant, clever, gay, and graceful;
+to express her in one sentence,--a charming creature. Her mother, the
+danseuse, now forty-three years old, retired from the stage and went
+to live in the country,--thus depriving her daughter of the resources
+derived from her wasteful extravagance. Madame Colleville kept a very
+agreeable but extremely free and easy household. From 1816 to 1826 she
+had five children. Colleville, a musician in the evening, kept the books
+of a merchant from seven to nine in the morning, and by ten o'clock he
+was at his ministry. Thus, by blowing into a bit of wood by night, and
+writing double-entry accounts in the early morning, he managed to eke
+out his earnings to seven or eight thousand francs a year.
+
+Madame Colleville played the part of a "comme il faut" woman; she
+received on Wednesdays, gave a concert once a month and a dinner every
+fortnight. She never saw Colleville except at dinner and at night, when
+he returned about twelve o'clock, at which hour she was frequently not
+at home herself. She went to the theatres, where boxes were sometimes
+given to her; and she would send word to Colleville to come and fetch
+her from such or such a house, where she was supping and dancing. At her
+own house, guests found excellent cheer, and her society, though rather
+mixed, was very amusing; she received and welcomed actresses, artists,
+men of letters, and a few rich men. Madame Colleville's elegance was on
+a par with that of Tullia, the leading prima-donna, with whom she was
+intimate; but though the Collevilles encroached on their capital and
+were often in difficulty by the end of the month, Flavie was never in
+debt.
+
+Colleville was very happy; he still loved his wife, and he made himself
+her best friend. Always received by her with affectionate smiles and
+sympathetic pleasure, he yielded readily to the irresistible grace
+of her manners. The vehement activity with which he pursued his three
+avocations was a part of his natural character and temperament. He was
+a fine stout man, ruddy, jovial, extravagant, and full of ideas. In ten
+years there was never a quarrel in his household. Among business men
+he was looked upon, in common with all artists, as a scatter-brained
+fellow; and superficial persons thought that the constant hurry of this
+hard worker was only the restless coming and going of a busybody.
+
+Colleville had the sense to seem stupid; he boasted of his family
+happiness, and gave himself unheard-of trouble in making anagrams, in
+order at times to seem absorbed in that passion. The government clerks
+of his division at the ministry, the office directors, and even the
+heads of divisions came to his concerts; now and then he quietly
+bestowed upon them opera tickets, when he needed some extra indulgence
+on account of his frequent absence. Rehearsals took half the time that
+he ought to have been at his desk; but the musical knowledge his father
+had bequeathed to him was sufficiently genuine and well-grounded to
+excuse him from all but final rehearsals. Thanks to Madame Colleville's
+intimacies, both the theatre and the ministry lent themselves kindly to
+the needs of this industrious pluralist, who, moreover, was bringing
+up, with great care, a youth, warmly recommended to him by his wife,
+a future great musician, who sometimes took his place in the orchestra
+with a promise of eventually succeeding him. In fact, about the year
+1827 this young man became the first clarionet when Colleville resigned
+his position.
+
+The usual comment on Flavie was, "That little slip of a coquette, Madame
+Colleville." The eldest of the Colleville children, born in 1816, was
+the living image of Colleville himself. In 1818, Madame Colleville held
+the cavalry in high estimation, above even art; and she distinguished
+more particularly a sub-lieutenant in the dragoons of Saint-Chamans,
+the young and rich Charles de Gondreville, who afterwards died in the
+Spanish campaign. By that time Flavie had had a second son, whom she
+henceforth dedicated to a military career. In 1820 she considered
+banking the nursing mother of trade, the supporter of Nations, and she
+made the great Keller, that famous banker and orator, her idol. She
+then had another son, whom she named Francois, resolving to make him a
+merchant,--feeling sure that Keller's influence would never fail him.
+About the close of the year 1820, Thuillier, the intimate friend of
+Monsieur and Madame Colleville, felt the need of pouring his sorrows
+into the bosom of this excellent woman, and to her he related his
+conjugal miseries. For six years he had longed to have children, but God
+did not bless him; although that poor Madame Thuillier had made novenas,
+and had even gone, uselessly, to Notra-Dame de Liesse! He depicted
+Celeste in various lights, which brought the words "Poor Thuillier!"
+from Flavie's lips. She herself was rather sad, having at the moment no
+dominant opinion. She poured her own griefs into Thuillier's bosom. The
+great Keller, that hero of the Left, was, in reality, extremely petty;
+she had learned to know the other side of public fame, the follies of
+banking, the emptiness of eloquence! The orator only spoke for show;
+to her he had behaved extremely ill. Thuillier was indignant. "None
+but stupid fellows know how to love," he said; "take me!" That
+handsome Thuillier was henceforth supposed to be paying court to Madame
+Colleville, and was rated as one of her "attentives,"--a word in vogue
+during the Empire.
+
+"Ha! you are after my wife," said Colleville, laughing. "Take care;
+she'll leave you in the lurch, like all the rest."
+
+A rather clever speech, by which Colleville saved his marital dignity.
+From 1820 to 1821, Thuillier, in virtue of his title as friend of the
+family, helped Colleville, who had formerly helped him; so much so,
+that in eighteen months he had lent nearly ten thousand francs to the
+Colleville establishment, with no intention of ever claiming them. In
+the spring of 1821, Madame Colleville gave birth to a charming
+little girl, to whom Monsieur and Madame Thuillier were godfather and
+godmother. The child was baptized Celeste-Louise-Caroline-Brigitte;
+Mademoiselle Thuillier wishing that her name should be given among
+others to the little angel. The name of Caroline was a graceful
+attention paid to Colleville. Old mother Lemprun assumed the care of
+putting the baby to nurse under her own eyes at Auteuil, where Celeste
+and her sister-in-law Brigitte, paid it regularly a semi-weekly visit.
+
+As soon as Madame Colleville recovered she said to Thuillier, frankly,
+in a very serious tone:--
+
+"My dear friend, if we are all to remain good friends, you must be our
+friend only. Colleville is attached to you; well, that's enough for you
+in this household."
+
+"Explain to me," said the handsome Thuillier to Tullia after this
+remark, "why women are never attached to me. I am not the Apollo
+Belvidere, but for all that I'm not a Vulcan; I am passably
+good-looking, I have sense, I am faithful--"
+
+"Do you want me to tell you the truth?" replied Tullia.
+
+"Yes," said Thuillier.
+
+"Well, though we can, sometimes, love a stupid fellow, we never love a
+silly one."
+
+Those words killed Thuillier; he never got over them; henceforth he was
+a prey to melancholy and accused all women of caprice.
+
+The secretary-general of the ministry, des Lupeaulx, whose influence
+Madame Colleville thought greater than it was, and of whom she said,
+later, "That was one of my mistakes," became for a time the great man
+of the Colleville salon; but as Flavie found he had no power to promote
+Colleville into the upper division, she had the good sense to resent des
+Lupeaulx's attentions to Madame Rabourdin (whom she called a minx),
+to whose house she had never been invited, and who had twice had the
+impertinence not to come to the Colleville concerts.
+
+Madame Colleville was deeply affected by the death of young Gondreville;
+she felt, she said, the finger of God. In 1824 she turned over a new
+leaf, talked of economy, stopped her receptions, busied herself with her
+children, determined to become a good mother of a family; no favorite
+friend was seen at her house. She went to church, reformed her dress,
+wore gray, and talked Catholicism, mysticism, and so forth. All this
+produced, in 1825, another little son, whom she named Theodore. Soon
+after, in 1826, Colleville was appointed sub-director of the
+Clergeot division, and later, in 1828, collector of taxes in a Paris
+arrondissement. He also received the cross of the Legion of honor, to
+enable him to put his daughter at the royal school of Saint-Denis. The
+half-scholarship obtained by Keller for the eldest boy, Charles, was
+transferred to the second in 1830, when Charles entered the school
+of Saint-Louis on a full scholarship. The third son, taken under the
+protection of Madame la Dauphine, was provided with a three-quarter
+scholarship in the Henri IV. school.
+
+In 1830 Colleville, who had the good fortune not to lose a child, was
+obliged, owing to his well-known attachment to the fallen royal family,
+to send in his resignation; but he was clever enough to make a bargain
+for it,--obtaining in exchange a pension of two thousand four hundred
+francs, based on his period of service, and ten thousand francs
+indemnity paid by his successor; he also received the rank of officer of
+the Legion of honor. Nevertheless, he found himself in rather a cramped
+condition when Mademoiselle Thuillier, in 1832, advised him to come and
+live near them; pointing out to him the possibility of obtaining some
+position in the mayor's office, which, in fact, he did obtain a few
+weeks later, at a salary of three thousand francs. Thus Thuillier and
+Colleville were destined to end their days together. In 1833 Madame
+Colleville, then thirty-five years old, settled herself in the rue
+d'Enfer, at the corner of the rue des Deux-Eglises with Celeste
+and little Theodore, the other boys being at their several schools.
+Colleville was equidistant between the mayor's office and the rue
+Saint-Dominique d'Enfer. Thus the household, after a brilliant,
+gay, headlong, reformed, and calmed existence, subsided finally into
+bourgeois obscurity with five thousand four hundred francs a year for
+its sole dependence.
+
+Celeste was by this time twelve years of age, and she promised to be
+pretty. She needed masters, and her education ought to cost not less
+than two thousand francs a year. The mother felt the necessity of
+keeping her under the eye of her godfather and godmother. She therefore
+very willingly adopted the proposal of Mademoiselle Thuillier, who,
+without committing herself to any engagement, allowed Madame Colleville
+to understand that the fortunes of her brother, his wife, and herself
+would go, ultimately, to the little Celeste. The child had been left at
+Auteuil until she was seven years of age, adored by the good old Madame
+Lemprun, who died in 1829, leaving twenty thousand francs, and a house
+which was sold for the enormous sum of twenty-eight thousand. The
+lively little girl had seen very little of her mother, but very much
+of Mademoiselle and Madame Thuillier when she first returned to the
+paternal mansion in 1829; but in 1833 she fell under the dominion of
+Flavie, who was then, as we have said, endeavoring to do her duty,
+which, like other women instigated by remorse, she exaggerated. Without
+being an unkind mother, Flavie was very stern with her daughter. She
+remembered her own bringing-up, and swore within herself to make Celeste
+a virtuous woman. She took her to mass, and had her prepared for her
+first communion by a rector who has since become a bishop. Celeste was
+all the more readily pious, because her godmother, Madame Thuillier,
+was a saint, and the child adored her; she felt that the poor neglected
+woman loved her better than her own mother.
+
+From 1833 to 1840 she received a brilliant education according to
+the ideas of the bourgeoisie. The best music-masters made her a fair
+musician; she could paint a water-color properly; she danced extremely
+well; and she had studied the French language, history, geography,
+English, Italian,--in short, all that constitutes the education of
+a well-brought-up young lady. Of medium height, rather plump,
+unfortunately near-sighted, she was neither plain nor pretty; not
+without delicacy or even brilliancy of complexion, it is true, but
+totally devoid of all distinction of manner. She had a great fund of
+reserved sensibility, and her godfather and godmother, Mademoiselle
+Thuillier and Colleville, were unanimous on one point,--the great
+resource of mothers--namely, that Celeste was capable of attachment. One
+of her beauties was a magnificent head of very fine blond hair; but her
+hands and feet showed her bourgeois origin.
+
+Celeste endeared herself by precious qualities; she was kind, simple,
+without gall of any kind; she loved her father and mother, and would
+willingly sacrifice herself for their sake. Brought up to the deepest
+admiration for her godfather by Brigitte (who taught her to say "Aunt
+Brigitte"), and by Madame Thuillier and her own mother, Celeste imbibed
+the highest idea of the ex-beau of the Empire. The house in the rue
+Saint-Dominique d'Enfer produced upon her very much the effect of the
+Chateau des Tuileries on a courtier of the new dynasty.
+
+Thuillier had not escaped the action of the administrative rolling-pin
+which thins the mind as it spreads it out. Exhausted by irksome toil, as
+much as by his life of gallantry, the ex-sub-director had well-nigh
+lost all his faculties by the time he came to live in the rue
+Saint-Dominique. But his weary face, on which there still reigned an air
+of imperial haughtiness, mingled with a certain contentment, the conceit
+of an upper official, made a deep impression upon Celeste. She alone
+adored that haggard face. The girl, moreover, felt herself to be the
+happiness of the Thuillier household.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CIRCLE OF MONSIEUR AND MADAME THUILLIER
+
+The Collevilles and their children became, naturally, the nucleus of the
+circle which Mademoiselle Thuillier had the ambition to group around
+her brother. A former clerk in the Billardiere division of the ministry,
+named Phellion, had lived for the last thirty years in their present
+quarter. He was promptly greeted by Colleville and Thuillier at the
+first review. Phellion proved to be one of the most respected men in the
+arrondissement. He had one daughter, now married to a school-teacher in
+the rue Saint-Hyacinthe, a Monsieur Barniol. Phellion's eldest son was
+a professor of mathematics in a royal college; he gave lectures and
+private lessons, being devoted, so his father was wont to say, to pure
+mathematics. A second son was in the government School of Engineering.
+Phellion had a pension of nine hundred francs, and he possessed a little
+property of nine thousand and a few odd hundred francs; the fruit of his
+economy and that of his wife during thirty years of toil and privation.
+He was, moreover, the owner of a little house and garden where he lived
+in the "impasse" des Feuillantines,--in thirty years he had never used
+the old-fashioned word "cul-de-sac"!
+
+Dutocq, the clerk of the justice of peace, was also a former employee
+at the ministry of finance. Sacrificed, in former days, to one of those
+necessities which are always met with in representative government, he
+had accepted the position of scapegoat, receiving, privately, a round
+sum of money and the opportunity to buy his present post of clerk in the
+arrondissement. This man, not very honorable, and known to be a spy in
+the government offices, was never welcomed as he thought he ought to be
+by the Thuilliers; but the coldness of his landlords only made him the
+more persistent in going to see them. He was a bachelor and had various
+vices; he therefore concealed his life carefully, knowing well how to
+maintain his position by flattering his superiors. The justice of peace
+was much attached to Dutocq. This man, base as he was, managed, in the
+end, to make himself tolerated by the Thuilliers, chiefly by coarse and
+cringing adulation. He knew the facts of Thuillier's whole life, his
+relations with Colleville, and, above all, with Madame Colleville. One
+and all they feared his tongue, and the Thuilliers, without admitting
+him to any intimacy, endured his visits.
+
+The family which became the flower of the Thuillier salon was that of
+a former ministerial clerk, once an object of pity in the government
+offices, who, driven by poverty, left the public service, in 1827, to
+fling himself into a business enterprise, having, as he thought, an
+idea. Minard (that was his name) foresaw a fortune in one of those
+wicked conceptions which reflect such discredit on French commerce,
+but which, in the year 1827, had not yet been exposed and blasted by
+publicity. Minard bought tea and mixed it with tea-leaves already used;
+also he adulterated the elements of chocolate in a manner which enabled
+him to sell the chocolate itself very cheaply. This trade in colonial
+products, begun in the quartier Saint-Marcel, made a merchant of Minard.
+He started a factory, and through these early connections he was able to
+reach the sources of raw material. He then did honorably, and on a large
+scale, a business begun in the first instance dishonorably. He became a
+distiller, worked upon untold quantities of products, and, by the year
+1835, was considered the richest merchant in the region of the Place
+Maubert. By that time he had bought a handsome house in the rue des
+Macons-Sorbonne; he had been assistant mayor, and in 1839 became mayor
+of his arrondissement and judge in the Court of Commerce. He kept a
+carriage, had a country-place near Lagny; his wife wore diamonds at the
+court balls, and he prided himself on the rosette of an officer of the
+Legion of honor in his buttonhole.
+
+Minard and his wife were exceedingly benevolent. Perhaps he wished to
+return in retail to the poor the sums he had mulcted from the public
+by the wholesale. Phellion, Colleville, and Thuillier met their old
+comrade, Minard, at election, and an intimacy followed; all the closer
+with the Thuilliers and Collevilles because Madame Minard seemed
+enchanted to make an acquaintance for her daughter in Celeste
+Colleville. It was at a grand ball given by the Minards that Celeste
+made her first appearance in society (being at that time sixteen and a
+half years old), dressed as her Christian named demanded, which seemed
+to be prophetic of her coming life. Delighted to be friendly with
+Mademoiselle Minard, her elder by four years, she persuaded her father
+and godfather to cultivate the Minard establishment, with its gilded
+salons and great opulence, where many political celebrities of the
+"juste milieu" were wont to congregate, such as Monsieur Popinot, who
+became, after a time, minister of commerce; Cochin, since made Baron
+Cochin, a former employee at the ministry of finance, who, having a
+large interest in the drug business, was now the oracle of the Lombard
+and Bourdonnais quarters, conjointly with Monsieur Anselme Popinot.
+Minard's eldest son, a lawyer, aiming to succeed those barristers who
+were turned down from the Palais for political reasons in 1830, was
+the genius of the household, and his mother, even more than his father,
+aspired to marry him well. Zelie Minard, formerly a flower-maker, felt
+an ardent passion for the upper social spheres, and desired to enter
+them through the marriages of her son and daughter; whereas Minard,
+wiser than she, and imbued with the vigor of the middle classes, which
+the revolution of July had infiltrated into the fibres of government,
+thought only of wealth and fortune.
+
+He frequented the Thuillier salon to gain information as to Celeste's
+probable inheritance. He knew, like Dutocq and Phellion, the reports
+occasioned by Thuillier's former intimacy with Flavie, and he saw at
+a glance the idolatry of the Thuilliers for their godchild. Dutocq, to
+gain admittance to Minard's house, fawned upon him grossly. When Minard,
+the Rothschild of the arrondissement, appeared at the Thuilliers', he
+compared him cleverly to Napoleon, finding him stout, fat, and blooming,
+having left him at the ministry thin, pale, and puny.
+
+"You looked, in the division Billardiere," he said, "like Napoleon
+before the 18th Brumaire, and I behold you now the Napoleon of the
+Empire."
+
+Notwithstanding which flattery, Minard received Dutocq very coldly and
+did not invite him to his house; consequently, he made a mortal enemy of
+the former clerk.
+
+Monsieur and Madame Phellion, worthy as they were, could not keep
+themselves from making calculations and cherishing hopes; they thought
+that Celeste would be the very wife for their son the professor;
+therefore, to have, as it were, a watcher in the Thuillier salon, they
+introduced their son-in-law, Monsieur Barniol, a man much respected
+in the faubourg Saint-Jacques, and also an old employee at the mayor's
+office, an intimate friend of theirs, named Laudigeois. Thus the
+Phellions formed a phalanx of seven persons; the Collevilles were not
+less numerous; so that on Sundays it often appeared that thirty persons
+were assembled in the Thuillier salon. Thuillier renewed acquaintance
+with the Saillards, Baudoyers, and Falleixs,--all persons of
+respectability in the quarter of the Palais-Royal, whom they often
+invited to dinner.
+
+Madame Colleville was, as a woman, the most distinguished member of
+this society, just as Minard junior and Professor Phellion were superior
+among the men. All the others, without ideas or education, and issuing
+from the lower ranks, presented the types and the absurdities of the
+lesser bourgeoisie. Though all success, especially if won from distant
+sources, seems to presuppose some genuine merit, Minard was really
+an inflated balloon. Expressing himself in empty phrases, mistaking
+sycophancy for politeness, and wordiness for wit, he uttered his
+commonplaces with a brisk assurance that passed for eloquence. Certain
+words which said nothing but answered all things,--progress, steam,
+bitumen, National guard, order, democratic element, spirit of
+association, legality, movement, resistance,--seemed, as each political
+phase developed, to have been actually made for Minard, whose talk was
+a paraphrase on the ideas of his newspaper. Julien Minard, the young
+lawyer, suffered from his father as much as his father suffered from
+his wife. Zelie had grown pretentious with wealth, without, at the same
+time, learning to speak French. She was now very fat, and gave the idea,
+in her rich surroundings, of a cook married to her master.
+
+Phellion, that type and model of the petty bourgeois, exhibited as many
+virtues as he did absurdities. Accustomed to subordination during his
+bureaucratic life, he respected all social superiority. He was therefore
+silent before Minard. During the critical period of retirement from
+office, he had held his own admirably, for the following reason. Never
+until now had that worthy and excellent man been able to indulge his
+own tastes. He loved the city of Paris; he was interested in its
+embellishment, in the laying out of its streets; he was capable of
+standing for hours to watch the demolition of houses. He might now
+have been observed, stolidly planted on his legs, his nose in the air,
+watching for the fall of a stone which some mason was loosening at the
+top of a wall, and never moving till the stone fell; when it had fallen
+he went away as happy as an academician at the fall of a romantic drama.
+Veritable supernumeraries of the social comedy, Phellion, Laudigeois,
+and their kind, fulfilled the functions of the antique chorus. They wept
+when weeping was in order, laughed when they should laugh, and sang in
+parts the public joys and sorrows; they triumphed in their corner with
+the triumphs of Algiers, of Constantine, of Lisbon, of Sainte-Jean
+d'Ulloa; they deplored the death of Napoleon and the fatal catastrophes
+of the Saint-Merri and the rue Transnonnain, grieving over celebrated
+men who were utterly unknown to them. Phellion alone presents a double
+side: he divides himself conscientiously between the reasons of the
+opposition and those of the government. When fighting went on in
+the streets, Phellion had the courage to declare himself before his
+neighbors; he went to the Place Saint-Michel, the place where his
+battalion assembled; he felt for the government and did his duty. Before
+and during the riot, he supported the dynasty, the product of July; but,
+as soon as the political trials began, he stood by the accused. This
+innocent "weather-cockism" prevails in his political opinions; he
+produces, in reply to all arguments, the "colossus of the North."
+England is, to his thinking, as to that of the old "Constitutionnel,"
+a crone with two faces,--Machiavellian Albion, and the model nation:
+Machiavellian, when the interests of France and of Napoleon are
+concerned; the model nation when the faults of the government are in
+question. He admits, with his chosen paper, the democratic element,
+but refuses in conversation all compact with the republican spirit. The
+republican spirit to him means 1793, rioting, the Terror, and
+agrarian law. The democratic element is the development of the lesser
+bourgeoisie, the reign of Phellions.
+
+The worthy old man is always dignified; dignity serves to explain his
+life. He has brought up his children with dignity; he has kept himself
+a father in their eyes; he insists on being honored in his home, just as
+he himself honors power and his superiors. He has never made debts. As
+a juryman his conscience obliges him to sweat blood and water in the
+effort to follow the debates of a trial; he never laughs, not even if
+the judge, and audience, and all the officials laugh. Eminently useful,
+he gives his services, his time, everything--except his money. Felix
+Phellion, his son, the professor, is his idol; he thinks him capable of
+attaining to the Academy of Sciences. Thuillier, between the audacious
+nullity of Minard, and the solid silliness of Phellion, was a neutral
+substance, but connected with both through his dismal experience. He
+managed to conceal the emptiness of his brain by commonplace talk, just
+as he covered the yellow skin of his bald pate with thready locks of his
+gray hair, brought from the back of his head with infinite art by the
+comb of his hairdresser.
+
+"In any other career," he was wont to say, speaking of the government
+employ, "I should have made a very different fortune."
+
+He had seen the _right_, which is possible in theory and impossible in
+practice,--results proving contrary to premises,--and he related the
+intrigues and the injustices of the Rabourdin affair.
+
+"After that, one can believe all, and believe nothing," he would say.
+"Ah! it is a queer thing, government! I'm very glad not to have a son,
+and never to see him in the career of a place-hunter."
+
+Colleville, ever gay, rotund, and good-humored, a sayer of "quodlibets,"
+a maker of anagrams, always busy, represented the capable and bantering
+bourgeois, with faculty without success, obstinate toil without result;
+he was also the embodiment of jovial resignation, mind without object,
+art with usefulness, for, excellent musician that he was, he never
+played now except for his daughter.
+
+The Thuillier salon was in some sort a provincial salon, lighted,
+however, by continual flashes from the Parisian conflagration; its
+mediocrity and its platitudes followed the current of the times. The
+popular saying and thing (for in Paris the thing and its saying are
+like the horse and its rider) ricochetted, so to speak, to this company.
+Monsieur Minard was always impatiently expected, for he was certain to
+know the truth of important circumstances. The women of the Thuillier
+salon held by the Jesuits; the men defended the University; and, as a
+general thing, the women listened. A man of intelligence (could he have
+borne the dulness of these evenings) would have laughed, as he would at
+a comedy of Moliere, on hearing, amid endless discussion, such remarks
+as the following:--
+
+"How could the Revolution of 1789 have been avoided? The loans of Louis
+XIV. prepared the way for it. Louis XV., an egotist, a man of narrow
+mind (didn't he say, 'If I were lieutenant of police I would suppress
+cabriolets'?), that dissolute king--you remember his Parc aux
+Cerfs?--did much to open the abyss of revolution. Monsieur de Necker,
+an evil-minded Genovese, set the thing a-going. Foreigners have always
+tried to injure France. The maximum did great harm to the Revolution.
+Legally Louis XVI. should never have been condemned; a jury would have
+acquitted him. Why did Charles X. fall? Napoleon was a great man, and
+the facts that prove his genius are anecdotal: he took five pinches of
+snuff a minute out of a pocket lined with leather made in his waistcoat.
+He looked into all his tradesmen's accounts; he went to Saint-Denis
+to judge for himself the prices of things. Talma was his friend; Talma
+taught him his gestures; nevertheless, he always refused to give Talma
+the Legion of honor! The emperor mounted guard for a sentinel who went
+to sleep, to save him from being shot. Those were the things that made
+his soldiers adore him. Louis XVIII., who certainly had some sense, was
+very unjust in calling him Monsieur de Buonaparte. The defect of the
+present government is in letting itself be led instead of leading. It
+holds itself too low. It is afraid of men of energy. It ought to have
+torn up all the treaties of 1815 and demanded the Rhine. They keep the
+same men too long in the ministry"; etc., etc.
+
+"Come, you've exerted your minds long enough," said Mademoiselle
+Thuillier, interrupting one of these luminous talks; "the altar is
+dressed; begin your little game."
+
+If these anterior facts and all these generalities were not placed here
+as the frame of the present Scene, to give an idea of the spirit of
+this society, the following drama would certainly have suffered greatly.
+Moreover, this sketch is historically faithful; it shows a social
+stratum of importance in any portrayal of manners and morals, especially
+when we reflect that the political system of the Younger branch rests
+almost wholly upon it.
+
+The winter of the year 1839 was, it may be said, the period when the
+Thuillier salon was in its greatest glory. The Minards came nearly every
+Sunday, and began their evening by spending an hour there, if they had
+other engagements elsewhere. Often Minard would leave his wife at the
+Thuilliers and take his son and daughter to other houses. This assiduity
+on the part of the Minards was brought about by a somewhat tardy meeting
+between Messieurs Metivier, Barbet, and Minard on an evening when the
+two former, being tenants of Mademoiselle Thuillier, remained rather
+longer than usual in discussing business with her. From Barbet, Minard
+learned that the old maid had money transactions with himself and
+Metivier to the amount of sixty thousand francs, besides having a large
+deposit in the Bank.
+
+"Has she an account at the Bank?" asked Minard.
+
+"I believe so," replied Barbet. "I give her at least eighty thousand
+francs there."
+
+Being on intimate terms with a governor of the Bank, Minard ascertained
+that Mademoiselle Thuillier had, in point of fact, an account of over
+two hundred thousand francs, the result of her quarterly deposits for
+many years. Besides this, she owned the house they lived in, which was
+not mortgaged, and was worth at least one hundred thousand francs, if
+not more.
+
+"Why should Mademoiselle Thuillier work in this way?" said Minard to
+Metivier. "She'd be a good match for you," he added.
+
+"I? oh, no," replied Metivier. "I shall do better by marrying a cousin;
+my uncle Metivier has given me the succession to his business; he has a
+hundred thousand francs a year and only two daughters."
+
+However secretive Mademoiselle Thuillier might be,--and she said nothing
+of her investments to any one, not even to her brother, although a large
+amount of Madame Thuillier's fortune went to swell the amount of her
+own savings,--it was difficult to prevent some ray of light from gliding
+under the bushel which covered her treasure.
+
+Dutocq, who frequented Barbet, with whom he had some resemblance in
+character and countenance, had appraised, even more correctly than
+Minard, the Thuillier finances. He knew that their savings amounted, in
+1838, to one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and he followed their
+progress secretly, calculating profits by the help of that all-wise
+money-lender, Barbet.
+
+"Celeste will have from my brother and myself two hundred thousand
+francs in ready money," the old maid had said to Barbet in confidence,
+"and Madame Thuillier wishes to secure to her by the marriage contract
+the ultimate possession of her own fortune. As for me, my will is made.
+My brother will have everything during his lifetime, and Celeste will
+be my heiress with that reservation. Monsieur Cardot, the notary, is my
+executor."
+
+Mademoiselle Thuillier now instigated her brother to renew his former
+relations with the Saillards, Baudoyers, and others, who held a position
+similar to that of the Thuilliers in the quartier Saint-Antoine, of
+which Monsieur Saillard was mayor. Cardot, the notary, had produced
+his aspirant for Celeste's hand in the person of Monsieur Godeschal,
+attorney and successor to Derville; an able man, thirty-six years of
+age, who had paid one hundred thousand francs for his practice, which
+the two hundred thousand of the "dot" would doubly clear off. Minard,
+however, got rid of Godeschal by informing Mademoiselle Thuillier that
+Celeste's sister-in-law would be the famous Mariette of the Opera.
+
+"She came from the stage," said Colleville, alluding to his wife, "and
+there's no need she should return to it."
+
+"Besides, Monsieur Godeschal is too old for Celeste," remarked Brigitte.
+
+"And ought we not," added Madame Thuillier, timidly, "to let her marry
+according to her own taste, so as to be happy?"
+
+The poor woman had detected in Felix Phellion a true love for Celeste;
+the love that a woman crushed by Brigitte and wounded by her husband's
+indifference (for Thuillier cared less for his wife than he did for
+a servant) had dreamed that love might be,--bold in heart, timid
+externally, sure of itself, reserved, hidden from others, but expanding
+toward heaven. At twenty-three years of age, Felix Phellion was a
+gentle, pure-minded young man, like all true scholars who cultivate
+knowledge for knowledge's sake. He had been sacredly brought up by his
+father, who, viewing all things seriously, had given him none but good
+examples accompanied by trivial maxims. He was a young man of medium
+height, with light chestnut hair, gray eyes, and a skin full of
+freckles; gifted with a charming voice, a tranquil manner; making
+few gestures; thoughtful, saying little, and that little sensible;
+contradicting no one, and quite incapable of a sordid thought or a
+selfish calculation.
+
+"That," thought Madame Thuillier, "is what I should have liked my
+husband to be."
+
+One evening, in the month of February, 1840, the Thuillier salon
+contained the various personages whose silhouettes we have just traced
+out, together with some others. It was nearly the end of the month.
+Barbet and Metivier having business with mademoiselle Brigitte, were
+playing whist with Minard and Phellion. At another table were Julien
+the advocate (a nickname given by Colleville to young Minard), Madame
+Colleville, Monsieur Barniol, and Madame Phellion. "Bouillotte," at
+five sous a stake, occupied Madame Minard, who knew no other game,
+Colleville, old Monsieur Saillard, and Bandoze, his son-in-law. The
+substitutes were Laudigeois and Dutocq. Mesdames Falleix, Baudoyer,
+Barniol, and Mademoiselle Minard were playing boston, and Celeste was
+sitting beside Prudence Minard. Young Phellion was listening to Madame
+Thuillier and looking at Celeste.
+
+At a corner of the fireplace sat enthroned on a sofa the Queen Elizabeth
+of the family, as simply dressed as she had been for the last thirty
+years; for no prosperity could have made her change her habits. She
+wore on her chinchilla hair a black gauze cap, adorned with the geranium
+called Charles X.; her gown, of plum-colored stuff, made with a yoke,
+cost fifteen francs, her embroidered collarette was worth six, and
+it ill disguised the deep wrinkle produced by the two muscles which
+fastened the head to the vertebral column. The actor, Monvel, playing
+Augustus Caesar in his old age, did not present a harder and sterner
+profile than that of this female autocrat, knitting socks for her
+brother. Before the fireplace stood Thuillier in an attitude, ready to
+go forward and meet the arriving guests; near him was a young man whose
+entrance had produced a great effect, when the porter (who on Sundays
+wore his best clothes and waited on the company) announced Monsieur
+Olivier Vinet.
+
+A private communication made by Cardot to the celebrated
+"procureur-general," father of this young man, was the cause of
+his visit. Olivier Vinet had just been promoted from the court of
+Arcis-sur-Aube to that of the Seine, where he now held the post of
+substitute "procureur-de-roi." Cardot had already invited Thuillier and
+the elder Vinet, who was likely to become minister of justice, with his
+son, to dine with him. The notary estimated the fortunes which would
+eventually fall to Celeste at seven hundred thousand francs. Vinet
+junior appeared charmed to obtain the right to visit the Thuilliers
+on Sundays. Great dowries make men commit great and unbecoming follies
+without reserve or decency in these days.
+
+Ten minutes later another young man, who had been talking with Thuillier
+before the arrival of Olivier Vinet, raised his voice eagerly, in a
+political discussion, and forced the young magistrate to follow his
+example in the vivacious argument which now ensued. The matter related
+to the vote by which the Chamber of Deputies had just overthrown the
+ministry of the 12th of May, refusing the allowance demanded for the Duc
+de Nemours.
+
+"Assuredly," said the young man, "I am far from belonging to the
+dynastic party; I am very far from approving of the rise of the
+bourgeoisie to power. The bourgeoisie ought not, any more than the
+aristocracy of other days, to assume to be the whole nation. But the
+French bourgeoisie has now taken upon itself to create a new dynasty, a
+royalty of its own, and behold how it treats it! When the people allowed
+Napoleon to rise to power, it created with him a splendid and monumental
+state of things; it was proud of his grandeur; and it nobly gave its
+blood and sweat in building up the edifice of the Empire. Between
+the magnificence of the aristocratic throne and those of the imperial
+purple, between the great of the earth and the People, the bourgeoisie
+is proving itself petty; it degrades power to its own level instead
+of rising up to it. The saving of candle-ends it has so long practised
+behind its counters, it now seeks to impose on its princes. What may
+perhaps have been virtue in its shops is a blunder and a crime higher
+up. I myself have wanted many things for the people, but I never should
+have begun by lopping off ten millions of francs from the new civil
+list. In becoming, as it were, nearly the whole of France, the
+bourgeoisie owed to us the prosperity of the people, splendor without
+ostentation, grandeur without privilege."
+
+The father of Olivier Vinet was just now sulking with the government.
+The robe of Keeper of the Seals, which had been his dream, was slow in
+coming to him. The young substitute did not, therefore, know exactly how
+to answer this speech; he thought it wise to enlarge on one of its side
+issues.
+
+"You are right, monsieur," said Olivier Vinet. "But, before manifesting
+itself magnificently, the bourgeoisie has other duties to fulfil towards
+France. The luxury you speak of should come after duty. That which seems
+to you so blameable is the necessity of the moment. The Chamber is far
+from having its full share in public affairs; the ministers are less for
+France than they are for the crown, and parliament has determined that
+the administration shall have, as in England, a strength and power
+of its own, and not a mere borrowed power. The day on which the
+administration can act for itself, and represent the Chamber as the
+Chamber represents the country, parliament will be found very liberal
+toward the crown. The whole question is there. I state it without
+expressing my own opinion, for the duties of my post demand, in
+politics, a certain fealty to the crown."
+
+"Setting aside the political question," replied the young man, whose
+voice and accent were those of a native of Provence, "it is certainly
+true that the bourgeoisie has ill understood its mission. We can see,
+any day, the great law officers, attorney-generals, peers of France in
+omnibuses, judges who live on their salaries, prefects without fortunes,
+ministers in debt! Whereas the bourgeoisie, who have seized upon those
+offices, ought to dignify them, as in the olden time when aristocracy
+dignified them, and not occupy such posts solely for the purpose of
+making their fortune, as scandalous disclosures have proved."
+
+"Who is this young man?" thought Olivier Vinet. "Is he a relative?
+Cardot ought to have come with me on this first visit."
+
+"Who is that little monsieur?" asked Minard of Barbet. "I have seen him
+here several times."
+
+"He is a tenant," replied Metivier, shuffling the cards.
+
+"A lawyer," added Barbet, in a low voice, "who occupies a small
+apartment on the third floor front. Oh! _He_ doesn't amount to much; he
+has nothing."
+
+"What is the name of that young man?" said Olivier Vinet to Thuillier.
+
+"Theodose de la Peyrade; he is a barrister," replied Thuillier, in a
+whisper.
+
+At that moment the women present, as well as the men, looked at the two
+young fellows, and Madame Minard remarked to Colleville:--
+
+"He is rather good-looking, that stranger."
+
+"I have made his anagram," replied Colleville, "and his name,
+Charles-Marie-Theodose de la Peyrade, prophecies: 'Eh! monsieur payera,
+de la dot, des oies et le char.' Therefore, my dear Mamma Minard, be
+sure you don't give him your daughter."
+
+"They say that young man is better-looking than my son," said Madame
+Phellion to Madame Colleville. "What do you think about it?"
+
+"Oh! in the matter of physical beauty a woman might hesitate before
+choosing," replied Madame Colleville.
+
+At that moment it occurred to young Vinet as he looked round the salon,
+so full of the lesser bourgeoisie, that it might be a shrewd thing
+to magnify that particular class; and he thereupon enlarged upon the
+meaning of the young Provencal barrister, declaring that men so honored
+by the confidence of the government should imitate royalty and encourage
+a magnificence surpassing that of the former court. It was folly, he
+said, to lay by the emoluments of an office. Besides, could it be done,
+in Paris especially, where costs of living had trebled,--the apartment
+of a magistrate, for instance, costing three thousand francs a year?
+
+"My father," he said in conclusion, "allows me three thousand francs a
+year, and that, with my salary, barely allows me to maintain my rank."
+
+When the young substitute rode boldly into this bog-hole, the Provencal,
+who had slyly enticed him there, exchanged, without being observed, a
+wink with Dutocq, who was just then waiting for the place of a player at
+bouillotte.
+
+"There is such a demand for offices," remarked the latter, "that they
+talk of creating two justices of the peace to each arrondissement in
+order to make a dozen new clerkships. As if they could interfere with
+our rights and our salaries, which already require an exhorbitant tax!"
+
+"I have not yet had the pleasure of hearing you at the Palais," said
+Vinet to Monsieur de la Peyrade.
+
+"I am advocate for the poor, and I plead only before the justice of
+peace," replied la Peyrade.
+
+Mademoiselle Thuillier, as she listened to young Vinet's theory of the
+necessity of spending an income, assumed a distant air and manner,
+the significance of which was well understood by Dutocq and the young
+Provencal. Vinet left the house in company with Minard and Julien the
+advocate, so that the battle-field before the fire-place was abandoned
+to la Peyrade and Dutocq.
+
+"The upper bourgeoisie," said Dutocq to Thuillier, "will behave, in
+future, exactly like the old aristocracy. The nobility wanted girls with
+money to manure their lands, and the parvenus of to-day want the same to
+feather their nests."
+
+"That's exactly what Monsieur Thuillier was saying to me this morning,"
+remarked la Peyrade, boldly.
+
+"Vinet's father," said Dutocq, "married a Demoiselle de Chargeboeuf
+and has caught the opinions of the nobility; he wants a fortune at any
+price; his wife spends money regally."
+
+"Oh!" said Thuillier, in whom the jealousy between the two classes of
+the bourgeoisie was fully roused, "take offices away from those fellows
+and they'd fall back where they came."
+
+Mademoiselle was knitting with such precipitous haste that she seemed to
+be propelled by a steam-engine.
+
+"Take my place, Monsieur Dutocq," said Madame Minard, rising. "My feet
+are cold," she added, going to the fire, where the golden ornaments of
+her turban made fireworks in the light of the Saint-Aurora wax-candles
+that were struggling vainly to light the vast salon.
+
+"He is very small fry, that young substitute," said Madame Minard,
+glancing at Mademoiselle Thuillier.
+
+"Small fry!" cried la Peyrade. "Ah, madame! how witty!"
+
+"But madame has so long accustomed us to that sort of thing," said the
+handsome Thuillier.
+
+Madame Colleville was examining la Peyrade and comparing him with young
+Phellion, who was just then talking to Celeste, neither of them paying
+any heed to what was going on around them. This is, certainly, the
+right moment to depict the singular personage who was destined to play
+a signal part in the Thuillier household, and who fully deserves the
+appellation of a great artist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A PRINCIPAL PERSONAGE
+
+There exists in Provence, especially about Avignon, a race of men with
+blond or chestnut hair, fair skin, and eyes that are almost tender,
+their pupils calm, feeble, or languishing, rather than keen, ardent, or
+profound, as they usually are in the eyes of Southerners. Let us remark,
+in passing, that among Corsicans, a race subject to fits of anger and
+dangerous irascibility, we often meet with fair skins and physical
+natures of the same apparent tranquillity. These pale men, rather stout,
+with somewhat dim and hazy eyes either green or blue, are the worst
+species of humanity in Provence; and Charles-Marie-Theodose de la
+Peyrade presents a fine type of that race, the constitution of which
+deserves careful examination on the part of medical science and
+philosophical physiology. There rises, at times, within such men, a
+species of bile,--a bitter gall, which flies to their head and makes
+them capable of ferocious actions, done, apparently, in cold blood.
+Being the result of an inward intoxication, this sort of dumb violence
+seems to be irreconcilable with their quasi-lymphatic outward man, and
+the tranquillity of their benignant glance.
+
+Born in the neighborhood of Avignon, the young Provencal whose name we
+have just mentioned was of middle height, well-proportioned, and rather
+stout; the tone of his skin had no brilliancy; it was neither livid nor
+dead-white, nor colored, but gelatinous,--that word can alone give a
+true idea of the flabby, hueless envelope, beneath which were concealed
+nerves that were less vigorous than capable of enormous resistance at
+certain given moments. His eyes, of a pale cold blue, expressed in their
+ordinary condition a species of deceptive sadness, which must have
+had great charms for women. The forehead, finely cut, was not without
+dignity, and it harmonized well with the soft, light chestnut hair
+curling naturally, but slightly, at its tips. The nose, precisely
+like that of a hunting dog, flat and furrowed at the tip, inquisitive,
+intelligent, searching, always on the scent, instead of expressing
+good-humor, was ironical and mocking; but this particular aspect of his
+nature never showed itself openly; the young man must have ceased to
+watch himself, he must have flown into fury before the power came to
+him to flash out the sarcasm and the wit which embittered, tenfold, his
+infernal humor. The mouth, the curving lines and pomegranate-colored
+lips of which were very pleasing, seemed the admirable instrument of an
+organ that was almost sweet in its middle tones, where its owner usually
+kept it, but which, in its higher key, vibrated on the ear like the
+sound of a gong. This falsetto was the voice of his nerves and his
+anger. His face, kept expressionless by an inward command, was oval in
+form. His manners, in harmony with the sacerdotal calmness of the face,
+were reserved and conventional; but he had supple, pliant ways which,
+though they never descended to wheedling, were not lacking in seduction;
+although as soon as his back was turned their charm seemed inexplicable.
+Charm, when it takes its rise in the heart, leaves deep and lasting
+traces; that which is merely a product of art, or of eloquence, has only
+a passing power; it produces its immediate effect, and that is all. But
+how many philosophers are there in life who are able to distinguish
+the difference? Almost always the trick is played (to use a popular
+expression) before the ordinary run of men have perceived its methods.
+
+Everything about this young man of twenty-seven was in harmony with his
+character; he obeyed his vocation by cultivating philanthropy,--the only
+expression which explains the philanthropist. Theodose loved the People,
+for he limited his love for humanity. Like the horticulturist who
+devotes himself to roses, or dahlias, or heart's-ease, or geraniums,
+and pays no attention to the plants his fancy has not selected, so this
+young La Rochefoucault-Liancourt gave himself to the workingmen,
+the proletariat and the paupers of the faubourgs Saint-Jacques and
+Saint-Marceau. The strong man, the man of genius at bay, the worthy poor
+of the bourgeois class, he cut them off from the bosom of his charity.
+The heart of all persons with a mania is like those boxes with
+compartments, in which sugarplums are kept in sorts: "suum cuique
+tribuere" is their motto; they measure to each duty its dose. There are
+some philanthropists who pity nothing but the man condemned to death.
+Vanity is certainly the basis of philanthropy; but in the case of this
+Provencal it was calculation, a predetermined course, a "liberal" and
+democratic hypocrisy, played with a perfection that no other actor will
+ever attain.
+
+Theodose did not attack the rich; he contented himself with not
+understanding them; he endured them; every one, in his opinion, ought to
+enjoy the fruits of his labor. He had been, he said, a fervent disciple
+of Saint-Simon, but that mistake must be attributed to his youth: modern
+society could have no other basis than heredity. An ardent Catholic,
+like all men from the Comtat, he went to the earliest morning masses,
+and thus concealed his piety. Like other philanthropists, he practised
+a sordid economy, and gave to the poor his time, his legal advice, his
+eloquence, and such money as he extracted for them from the rich. His
+clothes, always of black cloth, were worn until the seams became white.
+Nature had done a great deal for Theodose in not giving him that fine
+manly Southern beauty which creates in others an imaginary expectation,
+to which it is more than difficult for a man to respond. As it was,
+he could be what suited him at the moment,--an agreeable man or a very
+ordinary one. Never, since his admission to the Thuilliers', had
+he ventured, till this evening, to raise his voice and speak as
+dogmatically as he had risked doing to Olivier Vinet; but perhaps
+Theodose de la Peyrade was not sorry to seize the opportunity to come
+out from the shade in which he had hitherto kept himself. Besides, it
+was necessary to get rid of the young substitute, just as the Minards
+had previously ruined the hopes of Monsieur Godeschal. Like all superior
+men (for he certainly had some superiority), Vinet had never lowered
+himself to the point where the threads of these bourgeois spider-webs
+became visible to him, and he had therefore plunged, like a fly,
+headforemost, into the almost invisible trap to which Theodose inveigled
+him.
+
+To complete this portrait of the poor man's lawyer we must here relate
+the circumstances of his first arrival at the Thuilliers'.
+
+Theodose came to lodge in Mademoiselle Thuillier's house toward the
+close of the year 1837. He had taken his degree about five years
+earlier, and had kept the proper number of terms to become a barrister.
+Circumstances, however, about which he said nothing, had interfered
+to prevent his being called to the bar; he was, therefore, still a
+licentiate. But soon after he was installed in the little apartment on
+the third floor, with the furniture rigorously required by all members
+of his noble profession,--for the guild of barristers admits no brother
+unless he has a suitable study, a legal library, and can thus, as it
+were, verify his claims,--Theodose de la Peyrade began to practise as a
+barrister before the Royal Court of Paris.
+
+The whole of the year 1838 was employed in making this change in his
+condition, and he led a most regular life. He studied at home in the
+mornings till dinner-time, going sometimes to the Palais for important
+cases. Having become very intimate with Dutocq (so Dutocq said), he
+did certain services to the poor of the faubourg Saint-Jacques who were
+brought to his notice by that official. He pleaded their cases before
+the court, after bringing them to the notice of the attorneys, who,
+according to the statutes of their order, are obliged to take turns in
+doing business for the poor. As Theodose was careful to plead only safe
+cases, he won them all. Those persons whom he thus obliged expressed
+their gratitude and their admiration, in spite of the young lawyer's
+admonitions, among their own class, and to the porters of private
+houses, through whom many anecdotes rose to the ears of the proprietors.
+Delighted to have in their house a tenant so worthy and so charitable,
+the Thuilliers wished to attract him to their salon, and they questioned
+Dutocq about him. The mayor's clerk replied as the envious reply; while
+doing justice to the young man he dwelt on his remarkable avarice, which
+might, however, be the effect of poverty.
+
+"I have had other information about him. He belongs to the Peyrades, an
+old family of the 'comtat' of Avignon; he came here toward the end
+of 1829, to inquire about an uncle whose fortune was said to be
+considerable; he discovered the address of the old man only three days
+before his death; and the furniture of the deceased merely sufficed to
+bury him and pay his debts. A friend of this useless uncle gave a couple
+of hundred louis to the poor fortune-hunter, advising him to finish his
+legal studies and enter the judiciary career. Those two hundred
+louis supported him for three years in Paris, where he lived like
+an anchorite. But being unable to discover his unknown friend and
+benefactor, the poor student was in abject distress in 1833. He worked
+then, like so many other licentiates, in politics and literature, by
+which he kept himself for a time above want--for he had nothing to
+expect from his family. His father, the youngest brother of the dead
+uncle, has eleven other children, who live on a small estate called Les
+Canquoelles. He finally obtained a place on a ministerial newspaper,
+the manager of which was the famous Cerizet, so celebrated for the
+persecutions he met with, under the Restoration, on account of his
+attachment to the liberals,--a man whom the new Left will never forgive
+for having made his paper ministerial. As the government of these days
+does very little to protect even its most devoted servants (witness the
+Gisquet affair), the republicans have ended by ruining Cerizet. I tell
+you this to explain how it is that Cerizet is now a copying clerk in
+my office. Well, in the days when he flourished as managing editor of a
+paper directed by the Perier ministry against the incendiary journals,
+the 'Tribune' and others, Cerizet, who is a worthy fellow after all,
+though he is too fond of women, pleasure, and good living, was very
+useful to Theodose, who edited the political department of the paper;
+and if it hadn't been for the death of Casimir Perier that young man
+would certainly have received an appointment as substitute judge in
+Paris. As it was, he dropped back in 1834-35, in spite of his talent;
+for his connection with a ministerial journal of course did him harm.
+'If it had not been for my religious principles,' he said to me, 'I
+should have thrown myself into the Seine.' However, it seems that the
+friend of his uncle must have heard of his distress, for again he sent
+him a sum of money; enough to complete his terms for the bar; but,
+strange to say, he has never known the name or the address of this
+mysterious benefactor. After all, perhaps, under such circumstances, his
+economy is excusable, and he must have great strength of mind to refuse
+what the poor devils whose cases he wins by his devotion offer him. He
+is indignant at the way other lawyers speculate on the possibility or
+impossibility of poor creatures, unjustly sued, paying for the costs of
+their defence. Oh! he'll succeed in the end. I shouldn't be surprised
+to see that fellow in some very brilliant position; he has tenacity,
+honesty, and courage. He studies, he delves."
+
+Notwithstanding the favor with which he was greeted, la Peyrade went
+discreetly to the Thuilliers'. When reproached for this reserve he went
+oftener, and ended by appearing every Sunday; he was invited to all
+dinner-parties, and became at last so familiar in the house that
+whenever he came to see Thuillier about four o'clock he was always
+requested to take "pot-luck" without ceremony. Mademoiselle Thuillier
+used to say:--
+
+"Then we know that he will get a good dinner, poor fellow!"
+
+A social phenomenon which has certainly been observed, but never, as
+yet, formulated, or, if you like it better, published, though it fully
+deserves to be recorded, is the return of habits, mind, and manners to
+primitive conditions in certain persons who, between youth and old age,
+have raised themselves above their first estate. Thus Thuillier had
+become, once more, morally speaking, the son of a concierge. He now made
+use of many of his father's jokes, and a little of the slime of early
+days was beginning to appear on the surface of his declining life. About
+five or six times a month, when the soup was rich and good he would
+deposit his spoon in his empty plate and say, as if the proposition were
+entirely novel:--
+
+"That's better than a kick on the shin-bone!"
+
+On hearing that witticism for the first time Theodose, to whom it was
+really new, laughed so heartily that the handsome Thuillier was tickled
+in his vanity as he had never been before. After that, Theodose greeted
+the same speech with a knowing little smile. This slight detail will
+explain how it was that on the morning of the day when Theodose had
+his passage at arms with Vinet he had said to Thuillier, as they were
+walking in the garden to see the effect of a frost:--
+
+"You have much more wit than you give yourself credit for."
+
+To which he received this answer:--
+
+"In any other career, my dear Theodose, I should have made my way nobly;
+but the fall of the Emperor broke my neck."
+
+"There is still time," said the young lawyer. "In the first place, what
+did that mountebank, Colleville, ever do to get the cross?"
+
+There la Peyrade laid his finger on a sore wound which Thuillier hid
+from every eye so carefully that even his sister did not know of it; but
+the young man, interested in studying these bourgeois, had divined the
+secret envy that gnawed at the heart of the ex-official.
+
+"If you, experienced as you are, will do the honor to follow my advice,"
+added the philanthropist, "and, above all, not mention our compact
+to any one, I will undertake to have you decorated with the Legion of
+honor, to the applause of the whole quarter."
+
+"Oh! if we succeed in that," cried Thuillier, "you don't know what I
+would do for you."
+
+This explains why Thuillier carried his head high when Theodose had the
+audacity that evening to put opinions into his mouth.
+
+In art--and perhaps Moliere had placed hypocrisy in the rank of art
+by classing Tartuffe forever among comedians--there exists a point of
+perfection to which genius alone attains; mere talent falls below it.
+There is so little difference between a work of genius and a work
+of talent, that only men of genius can appreciate the distance that
+separates Raffaelle from Correggio, Titian from Rubens. More than that;
+common minds are easily deceived on this point. The sign of genius is a
+certain appearance of facility. In fact, its work must appear, at first
+sight, ordinary, so natural is it, even on the highest subjects. Many
+peasant-women hold their children as the famous Madonna in the Dresden
+gallery holds hers. Well, the height of art in a man of la Peyrade's
+force was to oblige others to say of him later: "Everybody would have
+been taken in by him."
+
+Now, in the salon Thuillier, he noted a dawning opposition; he perceived
+in Colleville the somewhat clear-sighted and criticising nature of
+an artist who has missed his vocation. The barrister felt himself
+displeasing to Colleville, who (as the result of circumstances not
+necessary to here report) considered himself justified in believing
+in the science of anagrams. None of this anagrams had ever failed. The
+clerks in the government office had laughed at him when, demanding an
+anagram on the name of the poor helpless Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard,
+he had produced, "J'amassai une si grande fortune"; and the event
+had justified him after the lapse of ten years! Theodose, on several
+occasions, had made advances to the jovial secretary of the mayor's
+office, and had felt himself rebuffed by a coldness which was not
+natural in so sociable a man. When the game of bouillotte came to an
+end, Colleville seized the moment to draw Thuillier into the recess of a
+window and say to him:--
+
+"You are letting that lawyer get too much foothold in your house; he
+kept the ball in his own hands all the evening."
+
+"Thank you, my friend; forewarned is forearmed," replied Thuillier,
+inwardly scoffing at Colleville.
+
+Theodose, who was talking at the moment to Madame Colleville, had his
+eye on the two men, and, with the same prescience by which women know
+when and how they are spoken of, he perceived that Colleville was trying
+to injure him in the mind of the weak and silly Thuillier. "Madame," he
+said in Flavie's ear, "if any one here is capable of appreciating you
+it is certainly I. You seem to me a pearl dropped into the mire. You
+say you are forty-two, but a woman is no older than she looks, and many
+women of thirty would be thankful to have your figure and that noble
+countenance, where love has passed without ever filling the void in
+your heart. You have given yourself to God, I know, and I have too much
+religion myself to regret it, but I also know that you have done so
+because no human being has proved worthy of you. You have been loved,
+but you have never been adored--I have divined that. There is your
+husband, who has not known how to please you in a position in keeping
+with your deserts. He dislikes me, as if he thought I loved you; and he
+prevents me from telling you of a way that I think I have found to
+place you in the sphere for which you were destined. No, madame," he
+continued, rising, "the Abbe Gondrin will not preach this year through
+Lent at our humble Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas; the preacher will be
+Monsieur d'Estival, a compatriot of mine, and you will hear in him one
+of the most impressive speakers that I have ever known,--a priest whose
+outward appearance is not agreeable, but, oh! what a soul!"
+
+"Then my desire will be gratified," said poor Madame Thuillier. "I have
+never yet been able to understand a famous preacher."
+
+A smile flickered on the lips of Mademoiselle Thuillier and several
+others who heard the remark.
+
+"They devote themselves too much to theological demonstration," said
+Theodose. "I have long thought so myself--but I never talk religion; if
+it had not been for Madame _de_ Colleville, I--"
+
+"Are there demonstrations in theology?" asked the professor of
+mathematics, naively, plunging headlong into the conversation.
+
+"I think, monsieur," replied Theodose, looking straight at Felix
+Phellion, "that you cannot be serious in asking me such a question."
+
+"Felix," said old Phellion, coming heavily to the rescue of his son, and
+catching a distressed look on the pale face of Madame Thuillier,--"Felix
+separates religion into two categories; he considers it from the human
+point of view and the divine point of view,--tradition and reason."
+
+"That is heresy, monsieur," replied Theodose. "Religion is one; it
+requires, above all things, faith."
+
+Old Phellion, nonplussed by that remark, nodded to his wife:--
+
+"It is getting late, my dear," and he pointed to the clock.
+
+"Oh, Monsieur Felix," said Celeste in a whisper to the candid
+mathematician, "Couldn't you be, like Pascal and Bossuet, learned and
+pious both?"
+
+The Phellions, on departing, carried the Collevilles with them. Soon no
+one remained in the salon but Dutocq, Theodose, and the Thuilliers.
+
+The flattery administered by Theodose to Flavie seems at the first sight
+coarsely commonplace, but we must here remark, in the interests of this
+history, that the barrister was keeping himself as close as possible
+to these vulgar minds; he was navigating their waters; he spoke their
+language. His painter was Pierre Grassou, and not Joseph Bridau; his
+book was "Paul and Virginia." The greatest living poet for him was
+Casimire de la Vigne; to his eyes the mission of art was, above all
+things, utility. Parmentier, the discoverer of the potato, was greater
+to him that thirty Raffaelles; the man in the blue cloak seemed to him
+a sister of charity. These were Thuillier's expressions, and Theodose
+remembered them all--on occasion.
+
+"That young Felix Phellion," he now remarked, "is precisely the
+academical man of our day; the product of knowledge which sends God
+to the rear. Heavens, what are we coming to? Religion alone can save
+France; nothing but the fear of hell will preserve us from domestic
+robbery, which is going on at all hours in the bosom of families, and
+eating into the surest fortunes. All of you have a secret warfare in
+your homes."
+
+After this shrewd tirade, which made a great impression upon Brigitte,
+he retired, followed by Dutocq, after wishing good evening to the three
+Thuilliers.
+
+"That young man has great capacity," said Thuillier, sententiously.
+
+"Yes, that he has," replied Brigitte, extinguishing the lamps.
+
+"He has religion," said Madame Thuillier, as she left the room.
+
+"Monsieur," Phellion was saying to Colleville as they came abreast of
+the Ecole de Mines, looking about him to see that no one was near, "it
+is usually my custom to submit my insight to that of others, but it is
+impossible for me not to think that that young lawyer plays the master
+at our friend Thuillier's."
+
+"My own opinion," said Colleville, who was walking with Phellion behind
+his wife, Madame Phellion, and Celeste, "is that he's a Jesuit; and I
+don't like Jesuits; the best of them are no good. To my mind a Jesuit
+means knavery, and knavery for knavery's sake; they deceive for the
+pleasure of deceiving, and, as the saying is, to keep their hand in.
+That's my opinion, and I don't mince it."
+
+"I understand you, monsieur," said Phellion, who was arm-in-arm with
+Colleville.
+
+"No, Monsieur Phellion," remarked Flavie in a shrill voice, "you don't
+understand Colleville; but I know what he means, and I think he had
+better stop saying it. Such subjects are not to be talked of in the
+street, at eleven o'clock at night, and before a young lady."
+
+"You are right, wife," said Colleville.
+
+When they reached the rue des Deux-Eglises, which Phellion was to take,
+they all stopped to say good-night, and Felix Phellion, who was bring up
+the rear, said to Colleville:--
+
+"Monsieur, your son Francois could enter the Ecole Polytechnique if he
+were well-coached; I propose to you to fit him to pass the examinations
+this year."
+
+"That's an offer not to be refused! Thank you, my friend," said
+Colleville. "We'll see about it."
+
+"Good!" said Phellion to his son, as they walked on.
+
+"Not a bad stroke!" said the mother.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked Felix.
+
+"You are very cleverly paying court to Celeste's parents."
+
+"May I never find the solution of my problem if I even thought of it!"
+cried the young professor. "I discovered, when talking with the little
+Collevilles, that Francois has a strong turn for mathematics, and I
+thought I ought to enlighten his father."
+
+"Good, my son!" repeated Phellion. "I wouldn't have you otherwise. My
+prayers are granted! I have a son whose honor, probity, and private and
+civic virtues are all that I could wish."
+
+Madame Colleville, as soon as Celeste had gone to bed, said to her
+husband:--
+
+"Colleville, don't utter those blunt opinions about people without
+knowing something about them. When you talk of Jesuits I know you mean
+priests; and I wish you would do me the kindness to keep your opinions
+on religion to yourself when you are in company with your daughter.
+We may sacrifice our own souls, but not the souls of our children. You
+don't want Celeste to be a creature without religion? And remember,
+my dear, that we are at the mercy of others; we have four children to
+provide for; and how do you know that, some day or other, you may not
+need the services of this one or that one? Therefore don't make enemies.
+You haven't any now, for you are a good-natured fellow; and, thanks to
+that quality, which amounts in you to a charm, we have got along pretty
+well in life, so far."
+
+"That's enough!" said Colleville, flinging his coat on a chair and
+pulling off his cravat. "I'm wrong, and you are right, my beautiful
+Flavie."
+
+"And on the next occasion, my dear old sheep," said the sly creature,
+tapping her husband's cheek, "you must try to be polite to that young
+lawyer; he is a schemer and we had better have him on our side. He is
+playing comedy--well! play comedy with him; be his dupe apparently; if
+he proves to have talent, if he has a future before him, make a friend
+of him. Do you think I want to see you forever in the mayor's office?"
+
+"Come, wife Colleville," said the former clarionet, tapping his knee to
+indicate the place he wished his wife to take. "Let us warm our toes and
+talk.--When I look at you I am more than ever convinced that the youth
+of women is in their figure."
+
+"And in their heart."
+
+"Well, both," assented Colleville; "waist slender, heart solid--"
+
+"No, you old stupid, deep."
+
+"What is good about you is that you have kept your fairness without
+growing fat. But the fact is, you have such tiny bones. Flavie, it is
+a fact that if I had life to live over again I shouldn't wish for any
+other wife than you."
+
+"You know very well I have always preferred you to _others_. How unlucky
+that monseigneur is dead! Do you know what I covet for you?"
+
+"No; what?"
+
+"Some office at the Hotel de Ville,--an office worth twelve thousand
+francs a year; cashier, or something of that kind; either there, or at
+Poissy, in the municipal department; or else as manufacturer of musical
+instruments--"
+
+"Any one of them would suit me."
+
+"Well, then! if that queer barrister has power, and he certainly has
+plenty of intrigue, let us manage him. I'll sound him; leave me to do
+the thing--and, above all, don't thwart his game at the Thuilliers'."
+
+Theodose had laid a finger on a sore sport in Flavie Colleville's heart;
+and this requires an explanation, which may, perhaps, have the value of
+a synthetic glance at women's life.
+
+At forty years of age a woman, above all, if she has tasted the poisoned
+apple of passion, undergoes a solemn shock; she sees two deaths before
+her: that of the body and that of the heart. Dividing women into two
+great categories which respond to the common ideas, and calling them
+either virtuous or guilty, it is allowable to say that after that fatal
+period they both suffer pangs of terrible intensity. If virtuous, and
+disappointed in the deepest hopes of their nature--whether they have had
+the courage to submit, whether they have buried their revolt in their
+hearts or at the foot of the altar--they never admit to themselves that
+all is over for them without horror. That thought has such strange and
+diabolical depths that in it lies the reason of some of those apostasies
+which have, at times, amazed the world and horrified it. If guilty,
+women of that age fall into one of several delirious conditions which
+often turn, alas! to madness, or end in suicide, or terminate in some
+with passion greater than the situation itself.
+
+The following is the "dilemmatic" meaning of this crisis. Either they
+have known happiness, known it in a virtuous life, and are unable to
+breathe in any air but that surcharged with incense, or act in any but a
+balmy atmosphere of flattery and worship,--if so, how is it possible
+to renounce it?--or, by a phenomenon less rare than singular, they
+have found only wearying pleasures while seeking for the happiness
+that escaped them--sustained in that eager chase by the irritating
+satisfactions of vanity, clinging to the game like a gambler to his
+double or quits; for to them these last days of beauty are their last
+stake against despair.
+
+"You have been loved, but never adored."
+
+That speech of Theodose, accompanied by a look which read, not into her
+heart, but into her life, was the key-note to her enigma, and Flavie
+felt herself divined.
+
+The lawyer had merely repeated ideas which literature has rendered
+trivial; but what matter where the whip comes from, or how it is made,
+if it touches the sensitive spot of a horse's hide? The emotion was in
+Flavie, not in the speech, just as the noise is not in the avalanche,
+though it produces it.
+
+A young officer, two fops, a banker, a clumsy youth, and Colleville,
+were poor attempts at happiness. Once in her life Madame Colleville had
+dreamed of it, but never attained it. Death had hastened to put an end
+to the only passion in which she had found a charm. For the last two
+years she had listened to the voice of religion, which told her that
+neither the Church, nor its votaries, should talk of love or happiness,
+but of duty and resignation; that the only happiness lay in the
+satisfaction of fulfilling painful and costly duties, the rewards for
+which were not in this world. All the same, however, she was conscious
+of another clamoring voice; but, inasmuch as her religion was only a
+mask which it suited her to wear, and not a conversion, she did not lay
+it aside, thinking it a resource. Believing also that piety, false or
+true, was a becoming manner in which to meet her future, she continued
+in the Church, as though it were the cross-roads of a forest, where,
+seated on a bench, she read the sign-posts, and waited for some lucky
+chance; feeling all the while that night was coming on.
+
+Thus it happened that her interest was keenly excited when Theodose
+put her secret condition of mind into words, seeming to promise her the
+realization of her castle in the air, already built and overthrown some
+six or eight times.
+
+From the beginning of the winter she had noticed that Theodose was
+examining and studying her, though cautiously and secretly. More than
+once, she had put on her gray moire silk with its black lace, and her
+headdress of Mechlin with a few flowers, in order to appear to her best
+advantage; and men know very well when a toilet has been made to please
+them. The old beau of the Empire, that handsome Thuillier, overwhelmed
+her with compliments, assuring her she was queen of the salon, but la
+Peyrade said infinitely more to the purpose by a look.
+
+Flavie had expected, Sunday after Sunday, a declaration, saying to
+herself at times:--
+
+"He knows I am ruined and haven't a sou. Perhaps he is really pious."
+
+Theodose did nothing rashly; like a wise musician, he had marked the
+place in his symphony where he intended to tap his drum. When he saw
+Colleville attempting to warn Thuillier against him, he fired his
+broadside, cleverly prepared during the three or four months in which he
+had been studying Flavie; he now succeeded with her as he had, earlier
+in the day, succeeded with Thuillier.
+
+While getting into bed, Theodose said to himself:--
+
+"The wife is on my side; the husband can't endure me; they are now
+quarrelling; and I shall get the better of it, for she does what she
+likes with that man."
+
+The lawyer was mistaken in one thing: there was no dispute whatever, and
+Colleville was sleeping peacefully beside his dear little Flavie, while
+she was saying to herself:--
+
+"Certainly Theodose must be a superior man."
+
+Many men, like la Peyrade, derive their superiority from the audacity,
+or the difficulty, of an enterprise; the strength they display increases
+their muscular power, and they spend it freely. Then when success is
+won, or defeat is met, the public is astonished to find how small,
+exhausted, and puny those men really are. After casting into the minds
+of the two persons on whom Celeste's fate chiefly depended, an interest
+and curiosity that were almost feverish, Theodose pretended to be a very
+busy man; for five or six days he was out of the house from morning
+till night, in order not to meet Flavie until the time when her interest
+should increase to the point of overstepping conventionality, and also
+in order to force the handsome Thuillier to come and fetch him.
+
+The following Sunday he felt certain he should find Madame Colleville
+at church; he was not mistaken, for they came out, each of them, at the
+same moment, and met at the corner of the rue des Deux-Eglises. Theodose
+offered his arm, which Flavie accepted, leaving her daughter to walk in
+front with her brother Anatole. This youngest child, then about twelve
+years old, being destined for the seminary, was now at the Barniol
+institute, where he obtained an elementary education; Barniol, the
+son-in-law of the Phellions, was naturally making the tuition fees
+light, with a view to the hoped-for alliance between Felix and Celeste.
+
+"Have you done me the honor and favor of thinking over what I said to
+you so badly the other day?" asked the lawyer, in a caressing tone,
+pressing the lady's arm to his heart with a movement both soft and
+strong; for he seemed to wish to restrain himself and appear respectful,
+in spite of his evident eagerness. "Do not misunderstand my intentions,"
+he continued, after receiving from Madame Colleville one of those looks
+which women trained to the management of passion know how to give,--a
+look that, by mere expression, can convey both severe rebuke and secret
+community of sentiment. "I love you as we love a noble nature struggling
+against misfortune; Christian charity enfolds both the strong and the
+weak; its treasure belongs to both. Refined, graceful, elegant as you
+are, made to be an ornament of the highest society, what man could see
+you without feeling an immense compassion in his heart--buried here
+among these odious bourgeois, who know nothing of you, not even
+the aristocratic value of a single one of your attitudes, or those
+enchanting inflections of your voice! Ah! if I were only rich! if I
+had power! your husband, who is certainly a good fellow, should be made
+receiver-general, and you yourself could get him elected deputy. But,
+alas! poor ambitious man, my first duty is to silence my ambition.
+Knowing myself at the bottom of the bag like the last number in a family
+lottery, I can only offer you my arm and not my heart. I hope all from a
+good marriage, and, believe me, I shall make my wife not only happy, but
+I shall make her one of the first in the land, receiving from her the
+means of success. It is so fine a day, will you not take a turn in the
+Luxembourg?" he added, as they reached the rue d'Enfer at the corner
+of Colleville's house, opposite to which was a passage leading to the
+gardens by the stairway of a little building, the last remains of the
+famous convent of the Chartreux.
+
+The soft yielding of the arm within his own, indicated a tacit consent
+to this proposal, and as Flavie deserved the honor of a sort of
+enthusiasm, he drew her vehemently along, exclaiming:--
+
+"Come! we may never have so good a moment--But see!" he added, "there is
+your husband at the window looking at us; let us walk slowly."
+
+"You have nothing to fear from Monsieur Colleville," said Flavie,
+smiling; "he leaves me mistress of my own actions."
+
+"Ah! here, indeed, is the woman I have dreamed of," cried the Provencal,
+with that ecstasy that inflames the soul only, and in tones that issue
+only from Southern lips. "Pardon me, madame," he said, recovering
+himself, and returning from an upper sphere to the exiled angel whom he
+looked at piously,--"pardon me, I abandon what I was saying; but how
+can a man help feeling for the sorrows he has known himself when he
+sees them the lot of a being to whom life should bring only joy and
+happiness? Your sufferings are mine; I am no more in my right place than
+you are in yours; the same misfortune has made us brother and sister.
+Ah! dear Flavie, the first day it was granted to me to see you--the last
+Sunday in September, 1838--you were very beautiful; I shall often recall
+you to memory in that pretty little gown of mousseline-de-laine of the
+color of some Scottish tartan! That day I said to myself: 'Why is that
+woman so often at the Thuilliers'; above all, why did she ever have
+intimate relations with Thuillier himself?--'"
+
+"Monsieur!" said Flavie, alarmed at the singular course la Peyrade was
+giving to the conversation.
+
+"Eh! I know all," he cried, accompanying the words with a shrug of his
+shoulders. "I explain it all to my own mind, and I do not respect you
+less. You now have to gather the fruits of your sin, and I will help
+you. Celeste will be very rich, and in that lies your own future. You
+can have only one son-in-law; chose him wisely. An ambitious man might
+become a minister, but you would humble your daughter and make her
+miserable; and if such a man lost his place and fortune he could
+never recover it. Yes, I love you," he continued. "I love you with an
+unlimited affection; you are far above the mass of petty considerations
+in which silly women entangle themselves. Let us understand each other."
+
+Flavie was bewildered; she was, however, awake to the extreme frankness
+of such language, and she said to herself, "He is not a secret
+manoeuvrer, certainly." Moreover, she admitted to her own mind that no
+one had ever so deeply stirred and excited her as this young man.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, "I do not know who could have put into your mind
+so great an error as to my life, nor by what right you--"
+
+"Ah! pardon me, madame," interrupted the Provencal with a coolness that
+smacked of contempt. "I must have dreamed it. I said to myself, 'She is
+all that!' But I see I was judging from the outside. I know now why you
+are living and will always live on a fourth floor in the rue d'Enfer."
+
+And he pointed his speech with an energetic gesture toward the
+Colleville windows, which could be seen through the passage from the
+alley of the Luxembourg, where they were walking alone, in that immense
+tract trodden by so many and various young ambitions.
+
+"I have been frank, and I expected reciprocity," resumed Theodose.
+"I myself have had days without food, madame; I have managed to live,
+pursue my studies, obtain my degree, with two thousand francs for my
+sole dependence; and I entered Paris through the Barriere d'Italie,
+with five hundred francs in my pocket, firmly resolved, like one of
+my compatriots, to become, some day, one of the foremost men of our
+country. The man who has often picked his food from baskets of scraps
+where the restaurateurs put their refuse, which are emptied at six
+o'clock every morning--that man is not likely to recoil before any
+means,--avowable, of course. Well, do you think me the friend of the
+people?" he said, smiling. "One has to have a speaking-trumpet to reach
+the ear of Fame; she doesn't listen if you speak with your lips; and
+without fame of what use is talent? The poor man's advocate means to be
+some day the advocate of the rich. Is that plain speaking? Don't I open
+my inmost being to you? Then open your heart to me. Say to me, 'Let us
+be friends,' and the day will come when we shall both be happy."
+
+"Good heavens! why did I ever come here? Why did I ever take your arm?"
+cried Flavie.
+
+"Because it is in your destiny," he replied. "Ah! my dear, beloved
+Flavie," he added, again pressing her arm upon his heart, "did you
+expect to hear the vulgarities of love from me? We are brother and
+sister; that is all."
+
+And he led her towards the passage to return to the rue d'Enfer.
+
+Flavie felt a sort of terror in the depths of the contentment which all
+women find in violent emotions; and she took that terror for the sort of
+fear which a new passion always excites; but for all that, she felt she
+was fascinated, and she walked along in absolute silence.
+
+"What are you thinking of?" asked Theodose, when they reached the middle
+of the passage.
+
+"Of what you have just said to me," she answered.
+
+"At our age," he said, "it is best to suppress preliminaries; we are not
+children; we both belong to a sphere in which we should understand each
+other. Remember this," he added, as they reached the rue d'Enfer.--"I am
+wholly yours."
+
+So saying, he bowed low to her.
+
+"The iron's in the fire now!" he thought to himself as he watched his
+giddy prey on her way home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A KEYNOTE
+
+When Theodose reached home he found, waiting for him on the landing, a
+personage who is, as it were, the submarine current of this history; he
+will be found within it like some buried church on which has risen the
+facade of a palace. The sight of this man, who, after vainly ringing
+at la Peyrade's door, was now trying that of Dutocq, made the Provencal
+barrister tremble--but secretly, within himself, not betraying
+externally his inward emotion. This man was Cerizet, whom Dutocq had
+mentioned to Thuillier as his copying-clerk.
+
+Cerizet was only thirty-eight years old, but he looked a man of fifty,
+so aged had he become from causes which age all men. His hairless head
+had a yellow skull, ill-covered by a rusty, discolored wig; the mask of
+his face, pale, flabby, and unnaturally rough, seemed the more horrible
+because the nose was eaten away, though not sufficiently to admit of
+its being replaced by a false one. From the spring of this nose at the
+forehead, down to the nostrils, it remained as nature had made it; but
+disease, after gnawing away the sides near the extremities, had left
+two holes of fantastic shape, which vitiated pronunciation and hampered
+speech. The eyes, originally handsome, but weakened by misery of all
+kinds and by sleepless nights, were red around the edges, and deeply
+sunken; the glance of those eyes, when the soul sent into them an
+expression of malignancy, would have frightened both judges and
+criminals, or any others whom nothing usually affrights.
+
+The mouth, toothless except for a few black fangs, was threatening; the
+saliva made a foam within it, which did not, however, pass the pale
+thin lips. Cerizet, a short man, less spare than shrunken, endeavored
+to remedy the defects of his person by his clothes, and although his
+garments were not those of opulence, he kept them in a condition
+of neatness which may even have increased his forlorn appearance.
+Everything about him seemed dubious; his age, his nose, his glance
+inspired doubt. It was impossible to know if he were thirty-eight or
+sixty; if his faded blue trousers, which fitted him well, were of a
+coming or a past fashion. His boots, worn at the heels, but scrupulously
+blacked, resoled for the third time, and very choice, originally, may
+have trodden in their day a ministerial carpet. The frock coat, soaked
+by many a down-pour, with its brandebourgs, the frogs of which were
+indiscreet enough to show their skeletons, testified by its cut to
+departed elegance. The satin stock-cravat fortunately concealed the
+shirt, but the tongue of the buckle behind the neck had frayed the
+satin, which was re-satined, that is, re-polished, by a species of oil
+distilled from the wig. In the days of its youth the waistcoat was not,
+of course, without freshness, but it was one of those waistcoats, bought
+for four francs, which come from the hooks of the ready-made clothing
+dealer. All these things were carefully brushed, and so was the shiny
+and misshapen hat. They harmonized with each other, even to the black
+gloves which covered the hands of this subaltern Mephistopheles, whose
+whole anterior life may be summed up in a single phrase:--
+
+He was an artist in evil, with whom, from the first, evil had succeeded;
+a man misled by these early successes to continue the plotting of
+infamous deeds within the lines of strict legality. Becoming the head of
+a printing-office by betraying his master [see "Lost Illusions"], he
+had afterwards been condemned to imprisonment as editor of a liberal
+newspaper. In the provinces, under the Restoration, he became the bete
+noire of the government, and was called "that unfortunate Cerizet"
+by some, as people spoke of "the unfortunate Chauvet" and "the heroic
+Mercier." He owed to this reputation of persecuted patriotism a place as
+sub-prefect in 1830. Six months later he was dismissed; but he insisted
+that he was judged without being heard; and he made so much talk about
+it that, under the ministry of Casimir Perier, he became the editor of
+an anti-republican newspaper in the pay of the government. He left that
+position to go into business, one phase of which was the most nefarious
+stock-company that ever fell into the hands of the correctional police.
+Cerizet proudly accepted the severe sentence he received; declaring it
+to be a revengeful plot on the part of the republicans, who, he said,
+would never forgive him for the hard blows he had dealt them in his
+journal. He spent the time of his imprisonment in a hospital. The
+government by this time were ashamed of a man whose almost infamous
+habits and shameful business transactions, carried on in company with a
+former banker, named Claparon, led him at last into well-deserved public
+contempt.
+
+Cerizet, thus fallen, step by step, to the lowest rung of the social
+ladder, had recourse to pity in order to obtain the place of copying
+clerk in Dutocq's office. In the depths of his wretchedness the man
+still dreamed of revenge, and, as he had nothing to lose, he employed
+all means to that end. Dutocq and himself were bound together in
+depravity. Cerizet was to Dutocq what the hound is the huntsman. Knowing
+himself the necessities of poverty and wretchedness, he set up that
+business of gutter usury called, in popular parlance, "the loan by the
+little week." He began this at first by help of Dutocq, who shared the
+profits; but, at the present moment this man of many legal crimes, now
+the banker of fishwives, the money-lender of costermongers, was the
+gnawing rodent of the whole faubourg.
+
+"Well," said Cerizet as Dutocq opened his door, "Theodose has just come
+in; let us go to his room."
+
+The advocate of the poor was fain to allow the two men to pass before
+him.
+
+All three crossed a little room, the tiled floor of which, covered with
+a coating of red encaustic, shone in the light; thence into a little
+salon with crimson curtains and mahogany furniture, covered with
+red Utrecht velvet; the wall opposite the window being occupied by
+book-shelves containing a legal library. The chimney-piece was covered
+with vulgar ornaments, a clock with four columns in mahogany, and
+candelabra under glass shades. The study, where the three men seated
+themselves before a soft-coal fire, was the study of a lawyer just
+beginning to practise. The furniture consisted of a desk, an armchair,
+little curtains of green silk at the windows, a green carpet, shelves
+for lawyer's boxes, and a couch, above which hung an ivory Christ on
+a velvet background. The bedroom, kitchen, and rest of the apartment
+looked out upon the courtyard.
+
+"Well," said Cerizet, "how are things going? Are we getting on?"
+
+"Yes," replied Theodose.
+
+"You must admit," cried Dutocq, "that my idea was a famous one, in
+laying hold of that imbecile of a Thuillier?"
+
+"Yes, but I'm not behindhand either," exclaimed Cerizet. "I have come
+now to show you a way to put the thumbscrews on the old maid and make
+her spin like a teetotum. We mustn't deceive ourselves; Mademoiselle
+Thuillier is the head and front of everything in this affair; if we get
+her on our side the town is won. Let us say little, but that little to
+the point, as becomes strong men with each other. Claparon, you know, is
+a fool; he'll be all his life what he always was,--a cat's-paw. Just now
+he is lending his name to a notary in Paris, who is concerned with a
+lot of contractors, and they are all--notary and masons--on the point of
+ruin. Claparon is going headlong into it. He never yet was bankrupt; but
+there's a first time for everything. He is hidden now in my hovel in the
+rue des Poules, where no one will ever find him. He is desperate, and
+he hasn't a penny. Now, among the five or six houses built by these
+contractors, which have to be sold, there's a jewel of a house, built of
+freestone, in the neighborhood of the Madeleine,--a frontage laced like
+a melon, with beautiful carvings,--but not being finished, it will have
+to be sold for what it will bring; certainly not more than a hundred
+thousand francs. By spending twenty-five thousand francs upon it it
+could be let, undoubtedly, for ten thousand. Make Mademoiselle Thuillier
+the proprietor of that house and you'll win her love; she'll believe
+that you can put such chances in her way every year. There are two ways
+of getting hold of vain people: flatter their vanity, _or_ threaten
+them; and there are also two ways of managing misers: fill their purse,
+or else attack it. Now, this stroke of business, while it does good to
+Mademoiselle Thuillier, does good to us as well, and it would be a pity
+not to profit by the chance."
+
+"But why does the notary let it slip through his fingers?" asked Dutocq.
+
+"The notary, my dear fellow! Why, he's the very one who saves us.
+Forced to sell his practice, and utterly ruined besides, he reserved for
+himself this crumb of the cake. Believing in the honesty of that idiot
+Claparon, he has asked him to find a dummy purchaser. We'll let him
+suppose that Mademoiselle Thuillier is a worthy soul who allows Claparon
+to use her name; they'll both be fooled, Claparon and the notary too.
+I owe this little trick to my friend Claparon, who left me to bear the
+whole weight of the trouble about his stock-company, in which we were
+tricked by Conture, and I hope you may never be in that man's skin!" he
+added, infernal hatred flashing from his worn and withered eyes. "Now,
+I've said my say, gentlemen," he continued, sending out his voice
+through his nasal holes, and taking a dramatic attitude; for once, at a
+moment of extreme penury, he had gone upon the stage.
+
+As he finished making his proposition some one rang at the outer door,
+and la Peyrade rose to go and open it. As soon as his back was turned,
+Cerizet said, hastily, to Dutocq:--
+
+"Are you sure of him? I see a sort of air about him--And I'm a good
+judge of treachery."
+
+"He is so completely in our power," said Dutocq, "that I don't trouble
+myself to watch; but, between ourselves, I didn't think him as strong as
+he proves to be. The fact is, we thought we were putting a barb between
+the legs of a man who didn't know how to ride, and the rogue is an old
+jockey!"
+
+"Let him take care," growled Cerizet. "I can blow him down like a house
+of cards any day. As for you, papa Dutocq, you are able to see him at
+work all the time; watch him carefully. Besides, I'll feel his pulse by
+getting Claparon to propose to him to get rid of us; that will help us
+to judge him."
+
+"Pretty good, that!" said Dutocq. "You are daring, anyhow."
+
+"I've got my hand in, that's all," replied Cerizet.
+
+These words were exchanged in a low voice during the time that it took
+Theodose to go to the outer door and return. Cerizet was looking at the
+books when the lawyer re-entered the room.
+
+"It is Thuillier," said Theodose. "I thought he'd come; he is in the
+salon. He mustn't see Cerizet's frock-coat; those frogs would frighten
+him."
+
+"Pooh! you receive the poor in your office, don't you? That's in your
+role. Do you want any money?" added Cerizet, pulling a hundred francs
+out of his trousers' pocket. "There it is; it won't look amiss."
+
+And he laid the pile on the chimney-piece.
+
+"And now," said Dutocq, "we had better get out through the bedroom."
+
+"Well, good-bye," said Theodose, opening a hidden door which
+communicated from the study to the bedroom. "Come in, Monsieur
+Thuillier," he called out to the beau of the Empire.
+
+When he saw him safely in the study he went to let out his two
+associates through the bedroom and kitchen into the courtyard.
+
+"In six months," said Cerizet, "you'll have married Celeste and got your
+foot into the stirrup. You are lucky, you are, not to have sat, like
+me, in the prisoners' dock. I've been there twice: once in 1825, for
+'subversive articles' which I never wrote, and the second time for
+receiving the profits of a joint-stock company which had slipped through
+my fingers! Come, let's warm this thing up! Sac-a-papier! Dutocq and I
+are sorely in need of that twenty-five thousand francs. Good courage,
+old fellow!" he added, holding out his hand to Theodose, and making the
+grasp a test of faithfulness.
+
+The Provencal gave Cerizet his right hand, pressing the other's hand
+warmly:--
+
+"My good fellow," he said, "be very sure that in whatever position I may
+find myself I shall never forget that from which you have drawn me by
+putting me in the saddle here. I'm simply your bait; but you are giving
+me the best part of the catch, and I should be more infamous than a
+galley-slave who turns policeman if I didn't play fair."
+
+As soon as the door was closed, Cerizet peeped through the key-hole,
+trying to catch sight of la Peyrade's face. But the Provencal had turned
+back to meet Thuillier, and his distrustful associate could not detect
+the expression of his countenance.
+
+That expression was neither disgust nor annoyance, it was simply joy,
+appearing on a face that now seemed freed. Theodose saw the means of
+success approaching him, and he flattered himself that the day would
+come when he might get rid of his ignoble associates, to whom he owed
+everything. Poverty has unfathomable depths, especially in Paris, slimy
+bottoms, from which, when a drowned man rises to the surface of the
+water, he brings with him filth and impurity clinging to his clothes,
+or to his person. Cerizet, the once opulent friend and protector of
+Theodose, was the muddy mire still clinging to the Provencal, and the
+former manager of the joint-stock company saw very plainly that his tool
+wanted to brush himself on entering a sphere where decent clothing was a
+necessity.
+
+"Well, my dear Theodose," began Thuillier, "we have hoped to see you
+every day this week, and every evening we find our hopes deceived. As
+this is our Sunday for a dinner, my sister and my wife have sent me here
+to beg you to come to us."
+
+"I have been so busy," said Theodose, "that I have not had two minutes
+to give to any one, not even to you, whom I count among my friends, and
+with whom I have wished to talk about--"
+
+"What? have you really been thinking seriously over what you said to
+me?" cried Thuillier, interrupting him.
+
+"If you had not come here now for a full understanding, I shouldn't
+respect you as I do," replied la Peyrade, smiling. "You have been a
+sub-director, and therefore you must have the remains of ambition--which
+is deucedly legitimate in your case! Come, now, between ourselves, when
+one sees a Minard, that gilded pot, displaying himself at the Tuileries,
+and complimenting the king, and a Popinot about to become a minister of
+State, and then look at you! a man trained to administrative work, a
+man with thirty years' experience, who has seen six governments, left
+to plant balsams in a little garden! Heavens and earth!--I am frank,
+my dear Thuillier, and I'll say, honestly, that I want to advance you,
+because you'll draw me after you. Well, here's my plan. We are soon to
+elect a member of the council-general from this arrondissement; and that
+member must be you. And," he added, dwelling on the word, "it _will_ be
+you! After that, you will certainly be deputy from the arrondissement
+when the Chamber is re-elected, which must surely be before long. The
+votes that elect you to the municipal council will stand by you in the
+election for deputy, trust me for that."
+
+"But how will you manage all this?" cried Thuillier, fascinated.
+
+"You shall know in good time; but you must let me conduct this long and
+difficult affair; if you commit the slightest indiscretion as to what is
+said, or planned, or agreed between us, I shall have to drop the whole
+matter, and good-bye to you!"
+
+"Oh! you can rely on the absolute dumbness of a former sub-director;
+I've had secrets to keep."
+
+"That's all very well; but these are secrets to keep from your wife and
+sister, and from Monsieur and Madame Colleville."
+
+"Not a muscle of my face shall reveal them," said Thuillier, assuming a
+stolid air.
+
+"Very good," continued Theodose. "I shall test you. In order to make
+yourself eligible, you must pay taxes on a certain amount of property,
+and you are not paying them."
+
+"I beg your pardon; I'm all right for the municipal council at any rate;
+I pay two francs ninety-six centimes."
+
+"Yes, but the tax on property necessary for election to the chamber
+is five hundred francs, and there is no time to lose in acquiring that
+property, because you must prove possession for one year."
+
+"The devil!" cried Thuillier; "between now and a year hence to be taxed
+five hundred francs on property which--"
+
+"Between now and the end of July, at the latest, you must pay that tax.
+Well, I feel enough interest in you to tell you the secret of an affair
+by which you might make from thirty to forty thousand francs a year, by
+employing a capital of one hundred and fifty thousand at most. I know
+that in your family it is your sister who does your business; I am far
+from thinking that a mistake; she has, they tell me, excellent judgment;
+and you must let me begin by obtaining her good-will and friendship,
+and proposing this investment to her. And this is why: If Mademoiselle
+Thuillier is not induced to put faith in my plan, we shall certainly
+have difficulty with her. Besides, it won't do for YOU to propose to her
+that she should put the investment of her money in your name. The idea
+had better come from me. As to my means of getting you elected to the
+municipal council, they are these: Phellion controls one quarter of the
+arrondissement; he and Laudigeois have lived in it these thirty years,
+and they are listened to like oracles. I have a friend who controls
+another quarter; and the rector of Saint-Jacques, who is not without
+influence, thanks to his virtues, disposes of certain votes. Dutocq, in
+his close relation to the people, and also the justice of peace, will
+help me, above all, as I'm not acting for myself; and Colleville, as
+secretary of the mayor's office, can certainly manage to obtain another
+fourth of the votes."
+
+"You are right!" cried Thuillier. "I'm elected!"
+
+"Do you think so?" said la Peyrade, in a voice of the deepest sarcasm.
+"Very good! then go and ask your friend Colleville to help you, and see
+what he'll say. No triumph in election cases is ever brought about by
+the candidate himself, but by his friends. He should never ask anything
+himself for himself; he must be invited to accept, and appear to be
+without ambition."
+
+"La Peyrade!" cried Thuillier, rising, and taking the hand of the young
+lawyer, "you are a very capable man."
+
+"Not as capable as you, but I have my merits," said the Provencal,
+smiling.
+
+"If we succeed how shall I ever repay you?" asked Thuillier, naively.
+
+"Ah! that, indeed! I am afraid you will think me impertinent, but
+remember, there is a true feeling in my heart which offers some excuse
+for me; in fact, it has given me the spirit to undertake this affair. I
+love--and I take you for my confidant."
+
+"But who is it?" said Thuillier.
+
+"Your dear little Celeste," replied la Peyrade. "My love for her will
+be a pledge to you of my devotion. What would I not do for a
+_father-in-law_! This is pure selfishness; I shall be working for
+myself."
+
+"Hush!" cried Thuillier.
+
+"Eh, my friend!" said la Peyrade, catching Thuillier round the body; "if
+I hadn't Flavie on my side, and if I didn't know _all_ should I venture
+to be talking to you thus? But please say nothing to Flavie about this;
+wait till she speaks to you. Listen to me; I'm of the metal that makes
+ministers; I do not seek to obtain Celeste until I deserve her. You
+shall not be asked to give her to me until the day when your election
+as a deputy of Paris is assured. In order to be deputy of Paris, we must
+get the better of Minard; and in order to crush Minard you must keep in
+your own hands all your means of influence; for that reason use Celeste
+as a hope; we'll play them off, these people, against each other and
+fool them all--Madame Colleville and you and I will be persons of
+importance one of these days. Don't think me mercenary. I want Celeste
+without a 'dot,' with nothing more than her future expectations. To
+live in your family with you, to keep my wife in your midst, that is my
+desire. You see now that I have no hidden thoughts. As for you, my dear
+friend, six months after your election to the municipal council, you
+will have the cross of the Legion of honor, and when you are deputy
+you will be made an officer of it. As for your speeches in the
+Chamber--well! we'll write them together. Perhaps it would be desirable
+for you to write a book,--a serious book on matters half moral and
+philanthropic, half political; such, for instance, as charitable
+institutions considered from the highest stand-point; or reforms in the
+pawning system, the abuses of which are really frightful. Let us fasten
+some slight distinction to your name; it will help you,--especially in
+the arrondissement. Now, I say again, trust me, believe in me; do not
+think of taking me into your family until you have the ribbon in your
+buttonhole on the morrow of the day when you take your seat in the
+Chamber. I'll do more than that, however; I'll put you in the way of
+making forty thousand francs a year."
+
+"For any one of those three things you shall have our Celeste," said
+Thuillier.
+
+"Ah! what a pearl she is!" exclaimed la Peyrade, raising his eyes to
+heaven. "I have the weakness to pray to God for her every day. She is
+charming; she is exactly like you--oh! nonsense; surely you needn't
+caution me! Dutocq told me all. Well, I'll be with you to-night. I must
+go to the Phellions' now, and begin to work our plan. You don't need me
+to caution you not to let it be known that you are thinking of me for
+Celeste; if you do, you'll cut off my arms and legs. Therefore, silence!
+even to Flavie. Wait till she speaks to you herself. Phellion shall
+to-night broach the matter of proposing you as candidate for the
+council."
+
+"To-night?" said Thuillier.
+
+"Yes, to-night," replied la Peyrade, "unless I don't find him at home
+now."
+
+Thuillier departed, saying to himself:--
+
+"That's a very superior man; we shall always understand each other.
+Faith! it might be hard to do better for Celeste. They will live with
+us, as in our own family, and that's a good deal! Yes, he's a fine
+fellow, a sound man."
+
+To minds of Thuillier's calibre, a secondary consideration often assumes
+the importance of a principal reason. Theodose had behaved to him with
+charming bonhomie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE WORTHY PHELLIONS
+
+The house to which Theodose de la Peyrade now bent his steps had been
+the "hoc erat in votis" of Monsieur Phellion for twenty years; it was
+the house of the Phellions, just as much as Cerizet's frogged coat was
+the necessary complement of his personality.
+
+This dwelling was stuck against the side of a large house, but only to
+the depth of one room (about twenty feet or so), and terminated at each
+end in a sort of pavilion with one window. Its chief charm was a garden,
+one hundred and eighty feet square, longer than the facade of the house
+by the width of a courtyard which opened on the street, and a little
+clump of lindens. Beyond the second pavilion, the courtyard had, between
+itself and the street, an iron railing, in the centre of which was a
+little gate opening in the middle.
+
+This building, of rouge stone covered with stucco, and two storeys in
+height, had received a coat of yellow-wash; the blinds were painted
+green, and so were the shutters on the lower storey. The kitchen
+occupied the ground-floor of the pavilion on the courtyard, and the
+cook, a stout, strong girl, protected by two enormous dogs, performed
+the functions of portress. The facade, composed of five windows, and the
+two pavilions, which projected nine feet, were in the style Phellion.
+Above the door the master of the house had inserted a tablet of white
+marble, on which, in letters of gold, were read the words, "Aurea
+mediocritas." Above the sun-dial, affixed to one panel of the facade,
+he had also caused to be inscribed this sapient maxim: "Umbra mea vita,
+sic!"
+
+The former window-sills had recently been superceded by sills of red
+Languedoc marble, found in a marble shop. At the bottom of the garden
+could be seen a colored statue, intended to lead casual observers to
+imagine that a nurse was carrying a child. The ground-floor of the house
+contained only the salon and the dining-room, separated from each other
+by the well of the staircase and the landing, which formed a sort of
+antechamber. At the end of the salon, in the other pavilion, was a
+little study occupied by Phellion.
+
+On the first upper floor were the rooms of the father and mother and
+that of the young professor. Above were the chambers of the children and
+the servants; for Phellion, on consideration of his own age and that of
+his wife, had set up a male domestic, aged fifteen, his son having by
+that time entered upon his duties of tuition. To right, on entering
+the courtyard, were little offices where wood was stored, and where
+the former proprietor had lodged a porter. The Phellions were no doubt
+awaiting the marriage of their son to allow themselves that additional
+luxury.
+
+This property, on which the Phellions had long had their eye, cost
+them eighteen thousand francs in 1831. The house was separated from
+the courtyard by a balustrade with a base of freestone and a coping of
+tiles; this little wall, which was breast-high, was lined with a hedge
+of Bengal roses, in the middle of which opened a wooden gate opposite
+and leading to the large gates on the street. Those who know the
+cul-de-sac of the Feuillantines, will understand that the Phellion
+house, standing at right angles to the street, had a southern exposure,
+and was protected on the north by the immense wall of the adjoining
+house, against which the smaller structure was built. The cupola of the
+Pantheon and that of the Val-de-Grace looked from there like two giants,
+and so diminished the sky space that, walking in the garden, one felt
+cramped and oppressed. No place could be more silent than this blind
+street.
+
+Such was the retreat of the great unknown citizen who was now tasting
+the sweets of repose, after discharging his duty to the nation in the
+ministry of finance, from which he had retired as registration clerk
+after a service of thirty-six years. In 1832 he had led his battalion of
+the National Guard to the attack on Saint-Merri, but his neighbors had
+previously seen tears in his eyes at the thought of being obliged to
+fire on misguided Frenchmen. The affair was already decided by the time
+his legion crossed the pont Notre-Dame at a quick step, after debouching
+by the flower-market. This noble hesitation won him the respect of his
+whole quarter, but he lost the decoration of the Legion of honor; his
+colonel told him in a loud voice that, under arms, there was no such
+thing as deliberation,--a saying of Louis-Philippe to the National Guard
+of Metz. Nevertheless, the bourgeois virtues of Phellion, and the great
+respect in which he was held in his own quarter had kept him major of
+the battalion for eight years. He was now nearly sixty, and seeing the
+moment coming when he must lay off the sword and stock, he hoped that
+the king would deign to reward his services by granting him at last the
+Legion of honor.
+
+Truth compels us to say, in spite of the stain this pettiness will put
+upon so fine a character, that Commander Phellion rose upon the tips of
+his toes at the receptions in the Tuileries, and did all that he could
+to put himself forward, even eyeing the citizen-king perpetually when
+he dined at his table. In short, he intrigued in a dumb sort of way; but
+had never yet obtained a look in return from the king of his choice. The
+worthy man had more than once thought, but was not yet decided, to beg
+Monsieur Minard to assist him in obtaining his secret desire.
+
+Phellion, a man of passive obedience, was stoical in the matter of duty,
+and iron in all that touched his conscience. To complete this picture
+by a sketch of his person, we must add that at fifty-nine years of age
+Phellion had "thickened," to use a term of the bourgeois vocabulary. His
+face, of one monotonous tone and pitted with the small-pox, had grown
+to resemble a full moon; so that his lips, formerly large, now seemed
+of ordinary size. His eyes, much weakened, and protected by glasses, no
+longer showed the innocence of their light-blue orbs, which in former
+days had often excited a smile; his white hair now gave gravity to much
+that twelve years earlier had looked like silliness, and lent itself
+to ridicule. Time, which does such damage to faces with refined and
+delicate features, only improves those which, in their youth, have been
+course and massive. This was the case with Phellion. He occupied the
+leisure of his old age in making an abridgment of the History of France;
+for Phellion was the author of several works adopted by the University.
+
+When la Peyrade presented himself, the family were all together. Madame
+Barniol was just telling her mother about one of her babies, which was
+slightly indisposed. They were dressed in their Sunday clothes, and were
+sitting before the fireplace of the wainscoted salon on chairs bought
+at a bargain; and they all felt an emotion when Genevieve, the cook and
+portress, announced the personage of whom they were just then speaking
+in connection with Celeste, whom, we must here state, Felix Phellion
+loved, to the extent of going to mass to behold her. The learned
+mathematician had made that effort in the morning, and the family were
+joking him about it in a pleasant way, hoping in their hearts that
+Celeste and her parents might understand the treasure that was thus
+offered to them.
+
+"Alas! the Thuilliers seem to me infatuated with a very dangerous man,"
+said Madame Phellion. "He took Madame Colleville by the arm this morning
+after church, and they went together to the Luxembourg."
+
+"There is something about that lawyer," remarked Felix Phellion, "that
+strikes me as sinister. He might be found to have committed some crime
+and I shouldn't be surprised."
+
+"That's going too far," said old Phellion. "He is cousin-germain to
+Tartuffe, that immortal figure cast in bronze by our honest Moliere; for
+Moliere, my children, had honesty and patriotism for the basis of his
+genius."
+
+It was at that instant that Genevieve came in to say, "There's a
+Monsieur de la Peyrade out there, who wants to see monsieur."
+
+"To see me!" exclaimed Phellion. "Ask him to come in," he added, with
+that solemnity in little things which gave him even now a touch of
+absurdity, though it always impressed his family, which accepted him as
+king.
+
+Phellion, his two sons, and his wife and daughter, rose and received the
+circular bow made by the lawyer.
+
+"To what do we owe the honor of your visit, monsieur?" asked Phellion,
+stiffly.
+
+"To your importance in this arrondissement, my dear Monsieur Phellion,
+and to public interests," replied Theodose.
+
+"Then let us go into my study," said Phellion.
+
+"No, no, my friend," said the rigid Madame Phellion, a small woman, flat
+as a flounder, who retained upon her features the grim severity with
+which she taught music in boarding-schools for young ladies; "we will
+leave you."
+
+An upright Erard piano, placed between the two windows and opposite to
+the fireplace, showed the constant occupation of a proficient.
+
+"Am I so unfortunate as to put you to flight?" said Theodose, smiling in
+a kindly way at the mother and daughter. "You have a delightful retreat
+here," he continued. "You only lack a pretty daughter-in-law to pass
+the rest of your days in this 'aurea mediocritas,' the wish of the Latin
+poet, surrounded by family joys. Your antecedents, my dear Monsieur
+Phellion, ought surely to win you such rewards, for I am told that you
+are not only a patriot but a good citizen."
+
+"Monsieur," said Phellion, embarrassed, "monsieur, I have only done
+my duty." At the word "daughter-in-law," uttered by Theodose, Madame
+Barniol, who resembled her mother as much as one drop of water is like
+another, looked at Madame Phellion and at Felix as if she would say,
+"Were we mistaken?"
+
+The desire to talk this incident over carried all four personages into
+the garden, for, in March, 1840, the weather was spring-like, at least
+in Paris.
+
+"Commander," said Theodose, as soon as he was alone with Phellion, who
+was always flattered by that title, "I have come to speak to you about
+the election--"
+
+"Yes, true; we are about to nominate a municipal councillor," said
+Phellion, interrupting him.
+
+"And it is apropos of that candidacy that I have come to disturb your
+Sunday joys; but perhaps in so doing we shall not go beyond the limits
+of the family circle."
+
+It would be impossible for Phellion to be more Phellion than Theodose
+was Phellion at that moment.
+
+"I shall not let you say another word," replied the commander, profiting
+by the pause made by Theodose, who watched for the effect of his speech.
+"My choice is made."
+
+"We have had the same idea!" exclaimed Theodose; "men of the same
+character agree as well as men of the same mind."
+
+"In this case I do not believe in that phenomenon," replied Phellion.
+"This arrondissement had for its representative in the municipal council
+the most virtuous of men, as he was the noblest of magistrates. I allude
+to the late Monsieur Popinot, the deceased judge of the Royal courts.
+When the question of replacing him came up, his nephew, the heir to
+his benevolence, did not reside in this quarter. He has since, however,
+purchased, and now occupies, the house where his uncle lived in the
+rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve; he is the physician of the Ecole
+Polytechnique and that of our hospitals; he does honor to this quarter;
+for these reasons, and to pay homage in the person of the nephew to the
+memory of the uncle, we have decided to nominate Doctor Horace Bianchon,
+member of the Academy of Sciences, as you are aware, and one of the most
+distinguished young men in the illustrious faculty of Paris. A man is
+not great in our eyes solely because he is celebrated; to my mind the
+late Councillor Popinot was almost another Saint Vincent de Paul."
+
+"But a doctor is not an administrator," replied Theodose; "and, besides,
+I have come to ask your vote for a man to whom your dearest interests
+require that you should sacrifice a predilection, which, after all, is
+quite unimportant to the public welfare."
+
+"Monsieur!" cried Phellion, rising and striking an attitude like that of
+Lafon in "Le Glorieux," "Do you despise me sufficiently to suppose that
+my personal interests could ever influence my political conscience? When
+a matter concerns the public welfare, I am a citizen--nothing more, and
+nothing less."
+
+Theodose smiled to himself at the thought of the battle which was now to
+take place between the father and the citizen.
+
+"Do not bind yourself to your present ideas, I entreat you," he said,
+"for this matter concerns the happiness of your dear Felix."
+
+"What do you mean by those words?" asked Phellion, stopping short in the
+middle of the salon and posing, with his hand thrust through the bosom
+of his waistcoat from right to left, in the well-known attitude of
+Odilon Barrot.
+
+"I have come in behalf of our mutual friend, the worthy and excellent
+Monsieur Thuillier, whose influence on the destiny of that beautiful
+Celeste Colleville must be well known to you. If, as I think, your son,
+whose merits are incontestable, and of whom both families may well be
+proud, if, I say, he is courting Celeste with a view to a marriage in
+which all expediencies may be combined, you cannot do more to promote
+that end than to obtain Thuillier's eternal gratitude by proposing
+your worthy friend to the suffrages of your fellow-citizens. As for
+me, though I have lately come into the quarter, I can, thanks to the
+influence I enjoy through certain legal benefits done to the poor,
+materially advance his interests. I might, perhaps, have put myself
+forward for this position; but serving the poor brings in but little
+money; and, besides, the modesty of my life is out of keeping with such
+distinctions. I have devoted myself, monsieur, to the service of the
+weak, like the late Councillor Popinot,--a sublime man, as you justly
+remarked. If I had not already chosen a career which is in some sort
+monastic, and precludes all idea of marriage and public office, my
+taste, my second vocation, would lead me to the service of God, to the
+Church. I do not trumpet what I do, like the philanthropists; I do not
+write about it; I simply act; I am pledged to Christian charity. The
+ambition of our friend Thuillier becoming known to me, I have wished to
+contribute to the happiness of two young people who seem to me made for
+each other, by suggesting to you the means of winning the rather cold
+heart of Monsieur Thuillier."
+
+Phellion was bewildered by this tirade, admirably delivered; he was
+dazzled, attracted; but he remained Phellion; he walked up to the lawyer
+and held out his hand, which la Peyrade took.
+
+"Monsieur," said the commander, with emotion, "I have misjudged you.
+What you have done me the honor to confide to me will die _there_,"
+laying his hand on his heart. "You are one of the men of whom we have
+too few,--men who console us for many evils inherent in our social
+state. Righteousness is seen so seldom that our too feeble natures
+distrust appearances. You have in me a friend, if you will allow me the
+honor of assuming that title. But you must learn to know me, monsieur.
+I should lose my own esteem if I nominated Thuillier. No, my son shall
+never own his happiness to an evil action on his father's part. I shall
+not change my candidate because my son's interests demand it. That is
+civic virtue, monsieur."
+
+La Peyrade pulled out his handkerchief and rubbed it in his eye so
+that it drew a tear, as he said, holding out his hand to Phellion, and
+turning aside his head:--
+
+"Ah! monsieur, how sublime a struggle between public and private duty!
+Had I come here only to see this sight, my visit would not have been
+wasted. You cannot do otherwise! In your place, I should do the same.
+You are that noblest thing that God has made--a righteous man! a
+citizen of the Jean-Jacques type! With many such citizens, oh France!
+my country! what mightest thou become! It is I, monsieur, who solicit,
+humbly, the honor to be your friend."
+
+"What can be happening?" said Madame Phellion, watching the scene
+through the window. "Do see your father and that horrid man embracing
+each other."
+
+Phellion and la Peyrade now came out and joined the family in the
+garden.
+
+"My dear Felix," said the old man, pointing to la Peyrade, who was
+bowing to Madame Phellion, "be very grateful to that admirable young
+man; he will prove most useful to you."
+
+The lawyer walked for about five minutes with Madame Barniol and Madame
+Phellion beneath the leafless lindens, and gave them (in consequence
+of the embarrassing circumstances created by Phellion's political
+obstinacy) a piece of advice, the effects of which were to bear fruit
+that evening, while its first result was to make both ladies admire his
+talents, his frankness, and his inappreciable good qualities. When the
+lawyer departed the whole family conducted him to the street gate,
+and all eyes followed him until he had turned the corner of the rue du
+Faubourg-Saint-Jacques. Madame Phellion then took the arm of her husband
+to return to the salon, saying:--
+
+"Hey! my friend! what does this mean? You, such a good father, how can
+you, from excessive delicacy, stand in the way of such a fine marriage
+for our Felix?"
+
+"My dear," replied Phellion, "the great men of antiquity, Brutus
+and others, were never fathers when called upon to be citizens. The
+bourgeoisie has, even more than the aristocracy whose place it has been
+called upon to take, the obligations of the highest virtues. Monsieur
+de Saint-Hilaire did not think of his lost arm in presence of the dead
+Turenne. We must give proof of our worthiness; let us give it at every
+state of the social hierarchy. Shall I instruct my family in the highest
+civic principles only to ignore them myself at the moment for applying
+them? No, my dear; weep, if you must, to-day, but to-morrow you will
+respect me," he added, seeing tears in the eyes of his starched better
+half.
+
+These noble words were said on the sill of the door, above which was
+written, "Aurea mediocritas."
+
+"I ought to have put, 'et digna,'" added Phellion, pointing to the
+tablet, "but those two words would imply self-praise."
+
+"Father," said Marie-Theodore Phellion, the future engineer of "ponts
+et chaussees," when the family were once more seated in the salon,
+"it seems to me that there is nothing dishonorable in changing one's
+determination about a choice which is of no real consequence to public
+welfare."
+
+"No consequence, my son!" cried Phellion. "Between ourselves I will say,
+and Felix shares my opinion, Monsieur Thuillier is absolutely without
+capacity; he knows nothing. Monsieur Horace Bianchon is an able man; he
+will obtain a thousand things for our arrondissement, and Thuillier will
+obtain none! Remember this, my son; to change a good determination for
+a bad one from motives of self-interest is one of those infamous actions
+which escape the control of men but are punished by God. I am, or I
+think I am, void of all blame before my conscience, and I owe it to you,
+my children, to leave my memory unstained among you. Nothing, therefore,
+can make me change my determination."
+
+"Oh, my good father!" cried the little Barniol woman, flinging herself
+on a cushion at Phellion's knees, "don't ride your high horse! There are
+many fools and idiots in the municipal council, and France gets along
+all the same. That old Thuillier will adopt the opinions of those about
+him. Do reflect that Celeste will probably have five hundred thousand
+francs."
+
+"She might have millions," said Phellion, "and I might see them there
+at my feet before I would propose Thuillier, when I owe to the memory of
+the best of men to nominate, if possible, Horace Bianchon, his nephew.
+From the heaven above us Popinot is contemplating and applauding me!"
+cried Phellion, with exaltation. "It is by such considerations as you
+suggest that France is being lowered, and the bourgeoisie are bringing
+themselves into contempt."
+
+"My father is right," said Felix, coming out of a deep reverie. "He
+deserves our respect and love; as he has throughout the whole course
+of his modest and honored life. I would not owe my happiness either to
+remorse in his noble soul, or to a low political bargain. I love Celeste
+as I love my own family; but, above all that, I place my father's honor,
+and since this question is a matter of conscience with him it must not
+be spoken of again."
+
+Phellion, with his eyes full of tears, went up to his eldest son and
+took him in his arms, saying, "My son! my son!" in a choking voice.
+
+"All that is nonsense," whispered Madame Phellion in Madame Barniol's
+ear. "Come and dress me; I shall make an end of this; I know your
+father; he has put his foot down now. To carry out the plan that pious
+young man, Theodose, suggested, I want your help; hold yourself ready to
+give it, my daughter."
+
+At this moment, Genevieve came in and gave a letter to Monsieur
+Phellion.
+
+"An invitation for dinner to-day, for Madame Phellion and Felix and
+myself, at the Thuilliers'," he said.
+
+The magnificent and surprising idea of Thuillier's municipal
+advancement, put forth by the "advocate of the poor" was not less
+upsetting in the Thuillier household than it was in the Phellion salon.
+Jerome Thuillier, without actually confiding anything to his sister, for
+he made it a point of honor to obey his Mephistopheles, had rushed to
+her in great excitement to say:--
+
+"My dearest girl" (he always touched her heart with those caressing
+words), "we shall have some big-wigs at dinner to-day. I'm going to ask
+the Minards; therefore take pains about your dinner. I have written to
+Monsieur and Madame Phellion; it is rather late; but there's no need of
+ceremony with them. As for the Minards, I must throw a little dust in
+their eyes; I have a particular need of them."
+
+"Four Minards, three Phellions, four Collevilles, and ourselves; that
+makes thirteen--"
+
+"La Peyrade, fourteen; and it is worth while to invite Dutocq; he may be
+useful to us. I'll go up and see him."
+
+"What are you scheming?" cried his sister. "Fifteen to dinner! There's
+forty francs, at the very least, waltzing off."
+
+"You won't regret them, my dearest. I want you to be particularly
+agreeable to our young friend, la Peyrade. There's a friend, indeed!
+you'll soon have proofs of that! If you love me, cosset him well."
+
+So saying, he departed, leaving Brigitte bewildered.
+
+"Proofs, indeed! yes, I'll look out for proofs," she said. "I'm not to
+be caught with fine words, not I! He is an amiable fellow; but before I
+take him into my heart I shall study him a little closer."
+
+After inviting Dutocq, Thuillier, having bedizened himself, went to the
+hotel Minard, rue des Macons-Sorbonne, to capture the stout Zelie, and
+gloss over the shortness of the invitation.
+
+Minard had purchased one of those large and sumptuous habitations which
+the old religious orders built about the Sorbonne, and as Thuillier
+mounted the broad stone steps with an iron balustrade, that proved how
+arts of the second class flourished under Louis XIII., he envied both
+the mansion and its occupant,--the mayor.
+
+This vast building, standing between a courtyard and garden, is
+noticeable as a specimen of the style, both noble and elegant, of the
+reign of Louis XIII., coming singularly, as it did, between the bad
+taste of the expiring renaissance and the heavy grandeur of Louis XIV.,
+at its dawn. This transition period is shown in many public buildings.
+The massive scroll-work of several facades--that of the Sorbonne, for
+instance,--and columns rectified according to the rules of Grecian art,
+were beginning to appear in this architecture.
+
+A grocer, a lucky adulterator, now took the place of the former
+ecclesiastical governor of an institution called in former times
+L'Economat; an establishment connected with the general agency of the
+old French clergy, and founded by the long-sighted genius of Richelieu.
+Thuillier's name opened for him the doors of the salon, where sat
+enthroned in velvet and gold, amid the most magnificent "Chineseries,"
+the poor woman who weighed with all her avoirdupois on the hearts and
+minds of princes and princesses at the "popular balls" of the palace.
+
+"Isn't she a good subject for 'La Caricature'?" said a so-called lady
+of the bedchamber to a duchess, who could hardly help laughing at the
+aspect of Zelie, glittering with diamonds, red as a poppy, squeezed into
+a gold brocade, and rolling along like the casts of her former shop.
+
+"Will you pardon me, fair lady," began Thuillier, twisting his body,
+and pausing in pose number two of his imperial repertory, "for having
+allowed this invitation to remain in my desk, thinking, all the while,
+that it was sent? It is for to-day, but perhaps I am too late?"
+
+Zelie examined her husband's face as he approached them to receive
+Thuillier; then she said:--
+
+"We intended to drive into the country and dine at some chance
+restaurant; but we'll give up that idea and all the more readily
+because, in my opinion, it is getting devilishly vulgar to drive out of
+Paris on Sundays."
+
+"We will have a little dance to the piano for the young people, if
+enough come, as I hope they will. I have sent a line to Phellion, whose
+wife is intimate with Madame Pron, the successor--"
+
+"Successor_ess_," interrupted Madame Minard.
+
+"No," said Thuillier, "it ought to be success'ress; just as we say
+may'ress, dropping the O, you know."
+
+"Is it full dress?" asked Madame Minard.
+
+"Heavens! no," replied Thuillier; "you would get me finely scolded by my
+sister. No, it is only a family party. Under the Empire, madame, we all
+devoted ourselves to dancing. At that great epoch of our national life
+they thought as much of a fine dancer as they did of a good soldier.
+Nowadays the country is so matter-of-fact."
+
+"Well, we won't talk politics," said the mayor, smiling. "The King is
+grand; he is very able. I have a deep admiration for my own time, and
+for the institutions which we have given to ourselves. The King, you
+may be sure, knows very well what he is doing by the development of
+industries. He is struggling hand to hand against England; and we are
+doing him more harm during this fruitful peace than all the wars of the
+Empire would have done."
+
+"What a deputy Minard would make!" cried Zelie, naively. "He practises
+speechifying at home. You'll help us to get him elected, won't you,
+Thuillier?"
+
+"We won't talk politics now," replied Thuillier. "Come at five."
+
+"Will that little Vinet be there?" asked Minard; "he comes, no doubt,
+for Celeste."
+
+"Then he may go into mourning," replied Thuillier. "Brigitte won't hear
+of him."
+
+Zelie and Minard exchanged a smile of satisfaction.
+
+"To think that we must hob-nob with such common people, all for the sake
+of our son!" cried Zelie, when Thuillier was safely down the staircase,
+to which the mayor had accompanied him.
+
+"Ha! he thinks to be deputy!" thought Thuillier, as he walked away.
+"These grocers! nothing satisfies them. Heavens! what would Napoleon
+say if he could see the government in the hands of such people! I'm a
+trained administrator, at any rate. What a competitor, to be sure! I
+wonder what la Peyrade will say?"
+
+The ambitious ex-beau now went to invite the whole Laudigeois family for
+the evening, after which he went to the Collevilles', to make sure that
+Celeste should wear a becoming gown. He found Flavie rather pensive. She
+hesitated about coming, but Thuillier overcame her indecision.
+
+"My old and ever young friend," he said, taking her round the waist, for
+she was alone in her little salon, "I won't have any secret from you. A
+great affair is in the wind for me. I can't tell you more than that, but
+I can ask you to be particularly charming to a certain young man--"
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"La Peyrade."
+
+"Why, Charles?"
+
+"He holds my future in his hands. Besides, he's a man of genius. I know
+what that is. He's got this sort of thing,"--and Thuillier made the
+gesture of a dentist pulling out a back tooth. "We must bind him to us,
+Flavie. But, above all, don't let him see his power. As for me, I shall
+just give and take with him."
+
+"Do you want me to be coquettish?"
+
+"Not too much so, my angel," replied Thuillier, with a foppish air.
+
+And he departed, not observing the stupor which overcame Flavie.
+
+"That young man is a power," she said to herself. "Well, we shall see!"
+
+For these reasons she dressed her hair with marabouts, put on her
+prettiest gown of gray and pink, which allowed her fine shoulders to be
+seen beneath a pelerine of black lace, and took care to keep Celeste
+in a little silk frock made with a yoke and a large plaited collarette,
+telling her to dress her hair plainly, a la Berthe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. AD MAJOREM THEODOSIS GLORIAM
+
+At half-past four o'clock Theodose was at his post. He had put on his
+vacant, half-servile manner and soft voice, and he drew Thuillier at
+once into the garden.
+
+"My friend," he said, "I don't doubt your triumph, but I feel the
+necessity of again warning you to be absolutely silent. If you are
+questioned about anything, especially about Celeste, make evasive
+answers which will keep your questioners in suspense. You must have
+learned how to do that in a government office."
+
+"I understand!" said Thuillier. "But what certainty have you?"
+
+"You'll see what a fine dessert I have prepared for you. But please
+be modest. There come the Minards; let me pipe to them. Bring them out
+here, and then disappear yourself."
+
+After the first salutations, la Peyrade was careful to keep close to the
+mayor, and presently at an opportune moment he drew him aside to say:--
+
+"Monsieur le maire, a man of your political importance doesn't come to
+bore himself in a house of this kind without an object. I don't want to
+fathom your motives--which, indeed, I have no right to do--and my part
+in this world is certainly not to mingle with earthly powers; but please
+pardon my apparent presumption, and deign to listen to a piece of advice
+which I shall venture to give you. If I do you a service to-day you are
+in a position to return it to me to-morrow; therefore, in case I should
+be so fortunate as to do you a good turn, I am really only obeying the
+law of self-interest. Our friend Thuillier is in despair at being
+a nobody; he has taken it into his head that he wants to become a
+personage in this arrondissement--"
+
+"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Minard.
+
+"Oh! nothing very exalted; he wants to be elected to the municipal
+council. Now, I know that Phellion, seeing the influence such a service
+would have on his family interests, intends to propose your poor
+friend as candidate. Well, perhaps you might think it wise, in your own
+interests, to be beforehand with him. Thuillier's nomination could only
+be favorable for you--I mean agreeable; and he'll fill his place in the
+council very well; there are some there who are not as strong as he.
+Besides, owing to his place to your support, he will see with your eyes;
+he already looks to you as one of the lights of the town."
+
+"My dear fellow, I thank you very much," replied Minard. "You are doing
+me a service I cannot sufficiently acknowledge, and which proves to
+me--"
+
+"That I don't like those Phellions," said la Peyrade, taking advantage
+of a slight hesitation on the part of the mayor, who feared to express
+an idea in which the lawyer might see contempt. "I hate people who make
+capital out of their honesty and coin money from fine sentiments."
+
+"You know them well," said Minard; "they are sycophants. That man's
+whole life for the last ten years is explained by this bit of red
+ribbon," added the mayor, pointing to his own buttonhole.
+
+"Take care!" said the lawyer, "his son is in love with Celeste, and he's
+fairly in the heart of the family."
+
+"Yes, but my son has twelve thousand a year in his own right."
+
+"Oh!" said Theodose, with a start, "Mademoiselle Brigitte was saying the
+other day that she wanted at least as much as that in Celeste's suitor.
+Moreover, six months hence you'll probably hear that Thuillier has a
+property worth forty thousand francs a year."
+
+"The devil! well, I thought as much. Yes, certainly, he shall be made a
+member of the municipal council."
+
+"In any case, don't say anything about me to him," said the advocate of
+the poor, who now hastened away to speak to Madame Phellion. "Well, my
+fair lady," he said, when he reached her, "have you succeeded?"
+
+"I waited till four o'clock, and then that worthy and excellent man
+would not let me finish what I had to say. He is much to busy to accept
+such an office, and he sent a letter which Monsieur Phellion has read,
+saying that he, Doctor Bianchon, thanked him for his good intentions,
+and assured him that his own candidate was Monsieur Thuillier. He said
+that he should use all his influence in his favor, and begged my husband
+to do the same."
+
+"And what did your excellent husband say?"
+
+"'I have done my duty,' he said. 'I have not been false to my
+conscience, and now I am all for Thuillier.'"
+
+"Well, then, the thing is settled," said la Peyrade. "Ignore my visit,
+and take all the credit of the idea to yourselves."
+
+Then he went to Madame Colleville, composing himself in the attitude and
+manner of the deepest respect.
+
+"Madame," he said, "have the goodness to send out to me here that kindly
+papa Colleville. A surprise is to be given to Monsieur Thuillier, and I
+want Monsieur Colleville to be in the secret."
+
+While la Peyrade played the part of man of the world with Colleville,
+and allowed himself various witty sarcasms when explaining to him
+Thuillier's candidacy, telling him he ought to support it, if only
+to exhibit his incapacity, Flavie was listening in the salon to the
+following conversation, which bewildered her for the moment and made her
+ears ring.
+
+"I should like to know what Monsieur Colleville and Monsieur de la
+Peyrade can be saying to each other to make them laugh like that," said
+Madame Thuillier, foolishly, looking out of the window.
+
+"A lot of improper things, as men always do when they talk together,"
+replied Mademoiselle Thuillier, who often attacked men with the sort of
+instinct natural to old maids.
+
+"No, they are incapable of that," said Phellion, gravely. "Monsieur de
+la Peyrade is one of the most virtuous young men I have ever met.
+People know what I think of Felix; well, I put the two on the same line;
+indeed, I wish my son had a little more of Monsieur de la Peyrade's
+beautiful piety."
+
+"You are right; he is a man of great merit, who is sure to succeed,"
+said Minard. "As for me, my suffrages--for I really ought not to say
+protection--are his."
+
+"He pays more for oil than for bread," said Dutocq. "I know that."
+
+"His mother, if he has the happiness to still possess her, must be proud
+of him," remarked Madame Thuillier, sententiously.
+
+"He is a real treasure for us," said Thuillier. "If you only knew how
+modest he is! He doesn't do himself justice."
+
+"I can answer for one thing," added Dutocq; "no young man ever
+maintained a nobler attitude in poverty; he triumphed over it; but he
+suffered--it is easy to see that."
+
+"Poor young man!" cried Zelie. "Such things make my heart ache!"
+
+"Any one could safely trust both secrets and fortune to him," said
+Thuillier; "and in these days that is the finest thing that can be said
+of a man."
+
+"It is Colleville who is making him laugh," cried Dutocq.
+
+Just then Colleville and la Peyrade returned from the garden the very
+best friends in the world.
+
+"Messieurs," said Brigitte, "the soup and the King must never be kept
+waiting; give your hand to the ladies."
+
+Five minutes after this little pleasantry (issuing from the lodge of
+her father the porter) Brigitte had the satisfaction of seeing her table
+surrounded by the principal personages of this drama; the rest, with the
+one exception of the odious Cerizet, arrived later.
+
+The portrait of the former maker of canvas money-bags would be
+incomplete if we omitted to give a description of one of her best
+dinners. The physiognomy of the bourgeois cook of 1840 is, moreover,
+one of those details essentially necessary to a history of manners and
+customs, and clever housewives may find some lessons in it. A woman
+doesn't make empty bags for twenty years without looking out for
+the means to fill a few of them. Now Brigitte had one peculiar
+characteristic. She united the economy to which she owed her fortune
+with a full understanding of necessary expenses. Her relative
+prodigality, when it concerned her brother or Celeste, was the antipodes
+of avarice. In fact, she often bemoaned herself that she couldn't be
+miserly. At her last dinner she had related how, after struggling ten
+minute and enduring martyrdom, she had ended by giving ten francs to a
+poor workwoman whom she knew, positively, had been without food for two
+days.
+
+"Nature," she said naively, "is stronger than reason."
+
+The soup was a rather pale bouillon; for, even on an occasion like this,
+the cook had been enjoined to make a great deal of bouillon out of the
+beef supplied. Then, as the said beef was to feed the family on the next
+day and the day after that, the less juice it expended in the bouillon,
+the more substantial were the subsequent dinners. The beef, little
+cooked, was always taken away at the following speech from Brigitte,
+uttered as soon as Thuillier put his knife into it:--
+
+"I think it is rather tough; send it away, Thuillier, nobody will eat
+it; we have other things."
+
+The soup was, in fact, flanked by four viands mounted on old hot-water
+chafing-dishes, with the plating worn off. At this particular dinner
+(afterwards called that of the candidacy) the first course consisted
+of a pair of ducks with olives, opposite to which was a large pie with
+forcemeat balls, while a dish of eels "a la tartare" corresponded in
+like manner with a fricandeau on chicory. The second course had for its
+central dish a most dignified goose stuffed with chestnuts, a salad of
+vegetables garnished with rounds of beetroot opposite to custards in
+cups, while lower down a dish of turnips "au sucre" faced a timbale of
+macaroni. This gala dinner of the concierge type cost, at the utmost,
+twenty francs, and the remains of the feast provided the household for a
+couple of days; nevertheless, Brigitte would say:--
+
+"Pest! when one has to have company how the money goes! It is fearful!"
+
+The table was lighted by two hideous candlesticks of plated silver with
+four branches each, in which shone eight of those thrifty wax-candles
+that go by the name of Aurora. The linen was dazzling in whiteness,
+and the silver, with beaded edges, was the fruit, evidently, of some
+purchase made during the Revolution by Thuillier's father. Thus the fare
+and the service were in keeping with the house, the dining-room, and
+the Thuilliers themselves, who could never, under any circumstances, get
+themselves above this style of living. The Minards, Collevilles, and
+la Peyrade exchanged now and then a smile which betrayed their mutually
+satirical but repressed thoughts. La Peyrade, seated beside Flavie,
+whispered in her ear:--
+
+"You must admit that they ought to be taught how to live. But those
+Minards are no better in their way. What cupidity! they've come here
+solely after Celeste. Your daughter will be lost to you if you let them
+have her. These parvenus have all the vices of the great lords of other
+days without their elegance. Minard's son, who has twelve thousand
+francs a year of his own, could very well find a wife elsewhere, instead
+of pushing his speculating rake in here. What fun it would be to play
+upon those people as one would on a bass-viol or a clarionet!"
+
+While the dishes of the second course were being removed, Minard, afraid
+that Phellion would precede him, said to Thuillier with a grave air:--
+
+"My dear Thuillier, in accepting your dinner, I did so for the purpose
+of making an important communication, which does you so much honor that
+all here present ought to be made participants in it."
+
+Thuillier turned pale.
+
+"Have you obtained the cross for me?" he cried, on receiving a glance
+from Theodose, and wishing to prove that he was not without craft.
+
+"You will doubtless receive it ere long," replied the mayor. "But the
+matter now relates to something better than that. The cross is a favor
+due to the good opinion of a minister, whereas the present question
+concerns an election due to the consent of your fellow citizens. In a
+word, a sufficiently large number of electors in your arrondissement
+have cast their eyes upon you, and wish to honor you with their
+confidence by making you the representative of this arrondissement
+in the municipal council of Paris; which, as everybody knows, is the
+Council-general of the Seine."
+
+"Bravo!" cried Dutocq.
+
+Phellion rose.
+
+"Monsieur le maire has forestalled me," he said in an agitated voice,
+"but it is so flattering for our friend to be the object of eagerness on
+the part of all good citizens, and to obtain the public vote of high
+and low, that I cannot complain of being obliged to come second only;
+therefore, all honor to the initiatory authority!" (Here he bowed
+respectfully to Minard.) "Yes, Monsieur Thuillier, many electors think
+of giving you their votes in that portion of the arrondissement where
+I keep my humble penates; and you have the special advantage of being
+suggested to their minds by a distinguished man." (Sensation.) "By a man
+in whose person we desired to honor one of the most virtuous inhabitants
+of the arrondissement, who for twenty years, I may say, was the father
+of it. I allude to the late Monsieur Popinot, counsellor, during his
+lifetime, to the Royal court, and our delegate in the municipal council
+of Paris. But his nephew, of whom I speak, Doctor Bianchon, one of
+our glories, has, in view of his absorbing duties, declined the
+responsibility with which we sought to invest him. While thanking us for
+our compliment he has--take note of this--indicated for our suffrages
+the candidate of Monsieur le maire as being, in his opinion, capable,
+owing to the position he formerly occupied, of exercising the
+magisterial functions of the aedileship."
+
+And Phellion sat down amid approving murmurs.
+
+"Thuillier, you can count on me, your old friend," said Colleville.
+
+At this moment the guests were sincerely touched by the sight presented
+of old Mademoiselle Brigitte and Madame Thuillier. Brigitte, pale as
+though she were fainting, was letting the slow tears run, unheeded,
+down her cheeks, tears of deepest joy; while Madame Thuillier sat, as if
+struck by lightning, with her eyes fixed. Suddenly the old maid darted
+into the kitchen, crying out to Josephine the cook:--
+
+"Come into the cellar my girl, we must get out the wine behind the
+wood!"
+
+"My friends," said Thuillier, in a shaking voice, "this is the finest
+moment of my life, finer than even the day of my election, should
+I consent to allow myself to be presented to the suffrages of my
+fellow-citizens" ("You must! you must!"); "for I feel myself much worn
+down by thirty years of public service, and, as you may well believe, a
+man of honor has need to consult his strength and his capacities before
+he takes upon himself the functions of the aedileship."
+
+"I expected nothing less of you, Monsieur Thuillier," cried Phellion.
+"Pardon me; this is the first time in my life that I have ever
+interrupted a superior; but there are circumstances--"
+
+"Accept! accept!" cried Zelie. "Bless my soul! what we want are men like
+you to govern us."
+
+"Resign yourself, my chief!" cried Dutocq, and, "Long live the future
+municipal councillor! but we haven't anything to drink--"
+
+"Well, the thing is settled," said Minard; "you are to be our
+candidate."
+
+"You think too much of me," replied Thuillier.
+
+"Come, come!" cried Colleville. "A man who has done thirty years in the
+galleys of the ministry of finance is a treasure to the town."
+
+"You are much too modest," said the younger Minard; "your capacity is
+well known to us; it remains a tradition at the ministry of finance."
+
+"As you all insist--" began Thuillier.
+
+"The King will be pleased with our choice; I can assure you of that,"
+said Minard, pompously.
+
+"Gentlemen," said la Peyrade, "will you permit a recent dweller in the
+faubourg Saint-Jacques to make one little remark, which is not without
+importance?"
+
+The consciousness that everybody had of the sterling merits of the
+advocate of the poor produced the deepest silence.
+
+"The influence of Monsieur le maire of an adjoining arrondissement,
+which is immense in ours where he has left such excellent memories;
+that of Monsieur Phellion, the oracle--yes, let the truth be spoken,"
+he exclaimed, noticing a gesture made by Phellion--"the _oracle_ of his
+battalion; the influence, no less powerful, which Monsieur Colleville
+owes to the frank heartiness of his manner, and to his urbanity; that of
+Monsieur Dutocq, the clerk of the justice court, which will not be less
+efficacious, I am sure; and the poor efforts which I can offer in my
+humble sphere of activity,--are pledges of success, but they are not
+success itself. To obtain a rapid triumph we should pledge ourselves,
+now and here, to keep the deepest secrecy on the manifestation of
+sentiments which has just taken place. Otherwise, we should excite,
+without knowing or willing it, envy and all the other secondary
+passions, which would create for us later various obstacles to overcome.
+The political meaning of the new social organization, its very basis,
+its token, and the guarantee for its continuance, are in a certain
+sharing of the governing power with the middle classes, classes who are
+the true strength of modern societies, the centre of morality, of
+all good sentiments and intelligent work. But we cannot conceal from
+ourselves that the principle of election, extended now to almost every
+function, has brought the interests of ambition, and the passion for
+being _something_, excuse the word, into social depths where they ought
+never to have penetrated. Some see good in this; others see evil; it
+is not my place to judge between them in presence of minds before whose
+eminence I bow. I content myself by simply suggesting this question in
+order to show the dangers which the banner of our friend must meet. See
+for yourselves! the decease of our late honorable representative in
+the municipal council dates back scarcely one week, and already the
+arrondissement is being canvassed by inferior ambitions. Such men put
+themselves forward to be seen at any price. The writ of convocation
+will, probably, not take effect for a month to come. Between now and
+then, imagine the intrigues! I entreat you not to expose our friend
+Thuillier to the blows of his competitors; let us not deliver him over
+to public discussion, that modern harpy which is but the trumpet of envy
+and calumny, the pretext seized by malevolence to belittle all that is
+great, soil all that is immaculate and dishonor whatever is sacred. Let
+us, rather, do as the Third Party is now doing in the Chamber,--keep
+silence and vote!"
+
+"He speaks well," said Phellion to his neighbor Dutocq.
+
+"And how strong the statement is!"
+
+Envy had turned Minard and his son green and yellow.
+
+"That is well said and very true," remarked Minard.
+
+"Unanimously adopted!" cried Colleville. "Messieurs, we are men of
+honor; it suffices to understand each other on this point."
+
+"Whoso desires the end accepts the means," said Phellion, emphatically.
+
+At this moment, Mademoiselle Thuillier reappeared, followed by her two
+servants; the key of the cellar was hanging from her belt, and three
+bottles of champagne, three of hermitage, and one bottle of malaga were
+placed upon the table. She herself was carrying, with almost respectful
+care, a smaller bottle, like a fairy Carabosse, which she placed before
+her. In the midst of the hilarity caused by this abundance of excellent
+things--a fruit of gratitude, which the poor spinster in the delirium
+of her joy poured out with a profusion which put to shame the sparing
+hospitality of her usual fortnightly dinners--numerous dessert dishes
+made their appearance: mounds of almonds, raisins, figs, and nuts
+(popularly known as the "four beggars"), pyramids of oranges,
+confections, crystallized fruits, brought from the hidden depths of her
+cupboards, which would never have figured on the table-cloth had it not
+been for the "candidacy."
+
+"Celeste, they will bring you a bottle of brandy which my father
+obtained in 1802; make an orange-salad!" cried Brigitte to her
+sister-in-law. "Monsieur Phellion, open the champagne; that bottle is
+for you three. Monsieur Dutocq, take this one. Monsieur Colleville, you
+know how to pop corks!"
+
+The two maids distributed champagne glasses, also claret glasses, and
+wine glasses. Josephine also brought three more bottles of Bordeaux.
+
+"The year of the comet!" cried Thuillier, laughing, "Messieurs, you have
+turned my sister's head."
+
+"And this evening you shall have punch and cakes," she said. "I have
+sent to the chemists for some tea. Heavens! if I had only known the
+affair concerned an election," she cried, looking at her sister-in-law,
+"I'd have served the turkey."
+
+A general laugh welcomed this speech.
+
+"We have a goose!" said Minard junior.
+
+"The carts are unloading!" cried Madame Thuillier, as "marrons glaces"
+and "meringues" were placed upon the table.
+
+Mademoiselle Thuillier's face was blazing. She was really superb to
+behold. Never did sisterly love assume such a frenzied expression.
+
+"To those who know her, it is really touching," remarked Madame
+Colleville.
+
+The glasses were filled. The guests all looked at one another, evidently
+expecting a toast, whereupon la Peyrade said:--
+
+"Messieurs, let us drink to something sublime."
+
+Everybody looked curious.
+
+"To Mademoiselle Brigitte!"
+
+They all rose, clinked glasses, and cried with one voice, "Mademoiselle
+Brigitte!" so much enthusiasm did the exhibition of a true feeling
+excite.
+
+"Messieurs," said Phellion, reading from a paper written in pencil, "To
+work and its splendors, in the person of our former comrade, now become
+one of the mayors of Paris,--to Monsieur Minard and his wife!"
+
+After five minutes' general conversation Thuillier rose and said:--
+
+"Messieurs, To the King and the royal family! I add nothing; the toast
+says all."
+
+"To the election of my brother!" said Mademoiselle Thuillier a moment
+later.
+
+"Now I'll make you laugh," whispered la Peyrade in Flavie's ear.
+
+And he rose.
+
+"To Woman!" he said; "that enchanting sex to whom we owe our
+happiness,--not to speak of our mothers, our sisters, and our wives!"
+
+This toast excited general hilarity, and Colleville, already somewhat
+gay, exclaimed:--
+
+"Rascal! you have stolen my speech!"
+
+The mayor then rose; profound silence reigned.
+
+"Messieurs, our institutions! from which come the strength and grandeur
+of dynastic France!"
+
+The bottles disappeared amid a chorus of admiration as to the marvellous
+goodness and delicacy of their contents.
+
+Celeste Colleville here said timidly:--
+
+"Mamma, will you permit me to give a toast?"
+
+The good girl had noticed the dull, bewildered look of her godmother,
+neglected and forgotten,--she, the mistress of that house, wearing
+almost the expression of a dog that is doubtful which master to
+obey, looking from the face of her terrible sister-in-law to that of
+Thuillier, consulting each countenance, and oblivious of herself; but
+joy on the face of that poor helot, accustomed to be nothing, to repress
+her ideas, her feelings, had the effect of a pale wintry sun behind a
+mist; it barely lighted her faded, flabby flesh. The gauze cap trimmed
+with dingy flowers, the hair ill-dressed, the gloomy brown gown, with
+no ornament but a thick gold chain--all, combined with the expression
+of her countenance, stimulated the affection of the young Celeste,
+who--alone in the world--knew the value of that woman condemned to
+silence but aware of all about her, suffering from all yet consoling
+herself in God and in the girl who now was watching her.
+
+"Yes, let the dear child give us her little toast," said la Peyrade to
+Madame Colleville.
+
+"Go on, my daughter," cried Colleville; "here's the hermitage still to
+be drunk--and it's hoary with age," he added.
+
+"To my kind godmother!" said the girl, lowering her glass respectfully
+before Madame Thuillier, and holding it towards her.
+
+The poor woman, startled, looked through a veil of tears first at her
+husband, and then at Brigitte; but her position in the family was so
+well known, and the homage paid by innocence to weakness had something
+so beautiful about it, that the emotion was general; the men all rose
+and bowed to Madame Thuillier.
+
+"Ah! Celeste, I would I had a kingdom to lay at your feet," murmured
+Felix Phellion.
+
+The worthy Phellion wiped away a tear. Dutocq himself was moved.
+
+"Oh! the charming child!" cried Mademoiselle Thuillier, rising, and
+going round to kiss her sister-in-law.
+
+"My turn now!" said Colleville, posing like an athlete. "Now listen: To
+friendship! Empty your glasses; refill your glasses. Good! To the
+fine arts,--the flower of social life! Empty your glasses; refill your
+glasses. To another such festival on the day after election!"
+
+"What is that little bottle you have there?" said Dutocq to Mademoiselle
+Thuillier.
+
+"That," she said, "is one of my three bottles of Madame Amphoux'
+liqueur; the second is for the day of Celeste's marriage; the third for
+the day on which her first child is baptized."
+
+"My sister is losing her head," remarked Thuillier to Colleville.
+
+The dinner ended with a toast, offered by Thuillier, but suggested to
+him by Theodose at the moment when the malaga sparkled in the little
+glasses like so many rubies.
+
+"Colleville, messieurs, has drunk to _friendship_. I now drink, in this
+most generous wine, To my friends!"
+
+An hurrah, full of heartiness, greeted that fine sentiment, but Dutocq
+remarked aside to Theodose:--
+
+"It is a shame to pour such wine down the throats of such people."
+
+"Ah! if we could only make such wine as that!" cried Zelie, making her
+glass ring by the way in which she sucked down the Spanish liquid. "What
+fortunes we could get!"
+
+Zelie had now reached her highest point of incandescence, and was really
+alarming.
+
+"Yes," replied Minard, "but ours is made."
+
+"Don't you think, sister," said Brigitte to Madame Thuillier, "that we
+had better take coffee in the salon?"
+
+Madame Thuillier obediently assumed the air of mistress of the house,
+and rose.
+
+"Ah! you are a great wizard," said Flavie Colleville, accepting la
+Peyrade's arm to return to the salon.
+
+"And yet I care only to bewitch you," he answered. "I think you more
+enchanting than ever this evening."
+
+"Thuillier," she said, to evade the subject, "Thuillier made to think
+himself a political character! oh! oh!"
+
+"But, my dear Flavie, half the absurdities of life are the result of
+such conspiracies; and men are not alone in these deceptions. In how
+many families one sees the husband, children, and friends persuading a
+silly mother that she is a woman of sense, or an old woman of fifty that
+she is young and beautiful. Hence, inconceivable contrarieties for
+those who go about the world with their eyes shut. One man owes his
+ill-savored conceit to the flattery of a mistress; another owes his
+versifying vanity to those who are paid to call him a great poet.
+Every family has its great man; and the result is, as we see it in the
+Chamber, general obscurity of the lights of France. Well, men of real
+mind are laughing to themselves about it, that's all. You are the mind
+and the beauty of this little circle of the petty bourgeoisie; it is
+this superiority which led me in the first instance to worship you. I
+have since longed to drag you out of it; for I love you sincerely--more
+in friendship than in love; though a great deal of love is gliding into
+it," he added, pressing her to his heart under cover of the recess of a
+window to which he had taken her.
+
+"Madame Phellion will play the piano," cried Colleville. "We must all
+dance to-night--bottles and Brigitte's francs and all the little girls!
+I'll go and fetch my clarionet."
+
+He gave his empty coffee-cup to his wife, smiling to see her so friendly
+with la Peyrade.
+
+"What have you said and done to my husband?" asked Flavie, when
+Colleville had left them.
+
+"Must I tell you all our secrets?"
+
+"Ah! you don't love me," she replied, looking at him with the coquettish
+slyness of a woman who is not quite decided in her mind.
+
+"Well, since you tell me yours," he said, letting himself go to the
+lively impulse of Provencal gaiety, always so charming and apparently so
+natural, "I will not conceal from you an anxiety in my heart."
+
+He took her back to the same window and said, smiling:--
+
+"Colleville, poor man, has seen in me the artist repressed by all these
+bourgeois; silent before them because I feel misjudged, misunderstood,
+and repelled by them. He has felt the heat of the sacred fire that
+consumes me. Yes I am," he continued, in a tone of conviction, "an
+artist in words after the manner of Berryer; I could make juries weep,
+by weeping myself, for I'm as nervous as a woman. Your husband, who
+detests the bourgeoisie, began to tease me about them. At first we
+laughed; then, in becoming serious, he found out that I was as strong as
+he. I told him of the plan concocted to make _something_ of Thuillier,
+and I showed him all the good he could get himself out of a political
+puppet. 'If it were only,' I said to him, 'to make yourself Monsieur
+_de_ Colleville, and to put your charming wife where I should like to
+see her, as the wife of a receiver-general, or deputy. To make yourself
+all that you and she ought to be, you have only to go and live a few
+years in the Upper or Lower Alps, in some hole of a town where everybody
+will like you, and your wife will seduce everybody; and this,' I added,
+'you cannot fail to obtain, especially if you give your dear Celeste to
+some man who can influence the Chamber.' Good reasons, stated in jest,
+have the merit of penetrating deeper into some minds than if they were
+given soberly. So Colleville and I became the best friends in the world.
+Didn't you hear him say to me at table, 'Rascal! you have stolen my
+speech'? To-night we shall be theeing and thouing each other. I intend
+to have a choice little supper-party soon, where artists, tied to the
+proprieties at home, always compromise themselves. I'll invite him,
+and that will make us as solidly good friends as he is with Thuillier.
+There, my dear adorned one, is what a profound sentiment gives a man the
+courage to produce. Colleville must adopt me; so that I may visit your
+house by his invitation. But what couldn't you make me do? lick lepers,
+swallow live toads, seduce Brigitte--yes, if you say so, I'll impale my
+own heart on that great picket-rail to please you."
+
+"You frightened me this morning," she said.
+
+"But this evening you are reassured. Yes," he added, "no harm will ever
+happen to you through me."
+
+"You are, I must acknowledge, a most extraordinary man."
+
+"Why, no! the smallest as well as the greatest of my efforts are merely
+the reflections of the flame which you have kindled. I intend to be your
+son-in-law that we may never part. My wife, heavens! what could she be
+to me but a machine for child-bearing? whereas the divinity, the sublime
+being will be--you," he whispered in her ear.
+
+"You are Satan!" she said, in a sort of terror.
+
+"No, I am something of a poet, like all the men of my region. Come,
+be my Josephine! I'll go and see you to-morrow. I have the most ardent
+desire to see where you live and how you live, the furniture you use,
+the color of your stuffs, the arrangement of all things about you. I
+long to see the pearl in its shell."
+
+He slipped away cleverly after these words, without waiting for an
+answer.
+
+Flavie, to whom in all her life love had never taken the language of
+romance, sat still, but happy, her heart palpitating, and saying to
+herself that it was very difficult to escape such influence. For the
+first time Theodose had appeared in a pair of new trousers, with gray
+silk stockings and pumps, a waistcoat of black silk, and a cravat of
+black satin on the knot of which shone a plain gold pin selected with
+taste. He wore also a new coat in the last fashion, and yellow gloves,
+relieved by white shirt-cuffs; he was the only man who had manners, or
+deportment in that salon, which was now filling up for the evening.
+
+Madame Pron, nee Barniol, arrived with two school-girls, aged seventeen,
+confided to her maternal care by families residing in Martinique.
+Monsieur Pron, professor of rhetoric in a college presided over by
+priests, belonged to the Phellion class; but, instead of expanding on
+the surface in phrases and demonstrations, and posing as an example, he
+was dry and sententious. Monsieur and Madame Pron, the flowers of the
+Phellion salon, received every Monday. Though a professor, the little
+man danced. He enjoyed great influence in the quarter enclosed by the
+boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, the Luxembourg, and the rue de Sevres.
+Therefore, as soon as Phellion saw his friend, he took him by the
+arm into a corner to inform him of the Thuillier candidacy. After ten
+minutes' consultation they both went to find Thuillier, and the recess
+of a window, opposite to that where Flavie still sat absorbed in her
+reflections, no doubt, heard a "trio" worthy, in its way, of that of the
+Swiss in "Guillaume Tell."
+
+"Do you see," said Theodose, returning to Flavie, "the pure and honest
+Phellion intriguing over there? Give a personal reason to a virtuous man
+and he'll paddle in the slimiest puddle; he is hooking that little Pron,
+and Pron is taking it all in, solely to get your little Celeste for
+Felix Phellion. Separate them, and in ten minutes they'll get together
+again, and that young Minard will be growling round them like an angry
+bulldog."
+
+Felix, still under the strong emotion imparted to him by Celeste's
+generous action and the cry that came from the girl's heart, though no
+one but Madame Thuillier still thought of it, became inspired by one of
+those ingenuous artfulnesses which are the honest charlatanism of
+true love; but he was not to the manner born of it, and mathematics,
+moreover, made him somewhat absent-minded. He stationed himself near
+Madame Thuillier, imagining that Madame Thuillier would attract Celeste
+to her side. This astute calculation succeeded all the better because
+young Minard, who saw in Celeste nothing more than a "dot," had no such
+sudden inspiration, and was drinking his coffee and talking politics
+with Laudigeois, Monsieur Barniol, and Dutocq by order of his
+father, who was thinking and planning for the general election of the
+legislature in 1842.
+
+"Who wouldn't love Celeste?" said Felix to Madame Thuillier.
+
+"Little darling, no one in the world loves me as she does," replied the
+poor slave, with difficulty restraining her tears.
+
+"Ah! madame, we both love you," said the candid professor, sincerely.
+
+"What are you saying to each other?" asked Celeste, coming up.
+
+"My child," said the pious woman, drawing her god-daughter down to her
+and kissing her on the forehead. "He said that you both loved me."
+
+"Do not be angry with my presumption, mademoiselle. Let me do all I can
+to prove it," murmured Felix. "Ah! I cannot help it, I was made this
+way; injustice revolts me to the soul! Yes, the Saviour of men was right
+to promise the future to the meek heart, to the slain lamb! A man who
+did not love you, Celeste, must have adored you after that sublime
+impulse of yours at table. Ah, yes! innocence alone can console the
+martyr. You are a kind young girl; you will be one of those wives who
+make the glory and the happiness of a family. Happy be he whom you will
+choose!"
+
+"Godmamma, with what eyes do you think Monsieur Felix sees me?"
+
+"He appreciates you, my little angel; I shall pray to God for both of
+you."
+
+"If you knew how happy I am that my father can do a service to Monsieur
+Thuillier, and how I wish I could be useful to your brother--"
+
+"In short," said Celeste, laughing, "you love us all."
+
+"Well, yes," replied Felix.
+
+True love wraps itself in the mysteries of reserve, even in its
+expression; it proves itself by itself; it does not feel the necessity,
+as a false love does, of lighting a conflagration. By an observer (if
+such a being could have glided into the Thuillier salon) a book might
+have been made in comparing the two scenes of love-making, and in
+watching the enormous preparations of Theodose and the simplicity of
+Felix: one was nature, the other was society,--the true and the false
+embodied. Noticing her daughter glowing with happiness, exhaling her
+soul through the pores of her face, and beautiful with the beauty of a
+young girl gathering the first roses of an indirect declaration, Flavie
+had an impulse of jealousy in her heart. She came across to Celeste and
+said in her ear:--
+
+"You are not behaving well, my daughter; everybody is observing you; you
+are compromising yourself by talking so long to Monsieur Felix without
+knowing whether we approve of it."
+
+"But, mamma, my godmother is here."
+
+"Ah! pardon me, dear friend," said Madame Colleville; "I did not notice
+you."
+
+"You do as others do," said the poor nonentity.
+
+That reply stung Madame Colleville, who regarded it as a barbed arrow.
+She cast a haughty glance at Felix and said to Celeste, "Sit there, my
+daughter," seating herself at the same time beside Madame Thuillier and
+pointing to a chair on the other side of her.
+
+"I will work myself to death," said Felix to Madame Thuillier. "I'll be
+a member of the Academy of Sciences; I'll make some great discovery, and
+win her hand by force of fame."
+
+"Ah!" thought the poor woman to herself, "I ought to have had a gentle,
+peaceful, learned man like that. I might have slowly developed in a life
+of quietness. It was not thy will, O God! but, I pray thee, unite and
+bless these children; they are made for one another."
+
+And she sat there, pensive, listening to the racket made by her
+sister-in-law--a ten-horse power at work--who now, lending a hand to
+her two servants, cleared the table, taking everything out of the
+dining-room to accommodate the dancers, vociferating, like the captain
+of a frigate on his quarter-deck when taking his ship into action: "Have
+you plenty of raspberry syrup?" "Run out and buy some more orgeat!"
+"There's not enough glasses. Where's the 'eau rougie'? Take those
+six bottles of 'vin ordinaire' and make more. Mind that Coffinet, the
+porter, doesn't get any." "Caroline, my girl, you are to wait at the
+sideboard; you'll have tongue and ham to slice in case they dance till
+morning. But mind, no waste! Keep an eye on everything. Pass me the
+broom; put more oil in those lamps; don't make blunders. Arrange the
+remains of the dessert so as to make a show on the sideboard; ask my
+sister to come and help us. I'm sure I don't know what she's thinking
+about, that dawdle! Heavens, how slow she is! Here, take away these
+chairs, they'll want all the room they can get."
+
+The salon was full of Barniols, Collevilles, Phellions, Laudigeois, and
+many others whom the announcement of a dance at the Thuilliers', spread
+about in the Luxembourg between two and four in the afternoon, the hour
+at which the bourgeoisie takes its walk, had drawn thither.
+
+"Are you ready, Brigitte?" said Colleville, bolting into the
+dining-room; "it is nine o'clock, and they are packed as close as
+herrings in the salon. Cardot, his wife and son and daughter and future
+son-in-law have just come, accompanied by that young Vinet; the whole
+faubourg Saint Antoine is debouching. Can't we move the piano in here?"
+
+Then he gave the signal, by tuning his clarionet, the joyous sounds of
+which were greeted with huzzas from the salon.
+
+It is useless to describe a ball of this kind. The toilets, faces,
+and conversations were all in keeping with one fact which will surely
+suffice even the dullest imagination; they passed round, on tarnished
+and discolored trays, common tumblers filled with wine, "eau rougie,"
+and "eau sucree." The trays on which were glasses of orgeat and glasses
+of syrup and water appeared only at long intervals. There were five
+card-tables and twenty-five players, and eighteen dancers of both
+sexes. At one o'clock in the morning, all present--Madame Thuillier,
+Mademoiselle Brigitte, Madame Phellion, even Phellion himself--were
+dragged into the vivacities of a country-dance, vulgarly called "La
+Boulangere," in which Dutocq figured with a veil over his head, after
+the manner of the Kabyl. The servants who were waiting to escort
+their masters home, and those of the household, were audience to this
+performance; and after the interminable dance had lasted one whole
+hour it was proposed to carry Brigitte in triumph when she gave the
+announcement that supper was served. This circumstance made her see
+the necessity of hiding a dozen bottles of old burgundy. In short, the
+company had amused themselves so well, the matrons as well as the young
+girls, that Thuillier found occasion to say:--
+
+"Well, well, this morning we little thought we should have such a fete
+to-night."
+
+"There's never more pleasure," said the notary Cardot, "than in just
+such improvised balls. Don't talk to me of parties where everybody
+stands on ceremony."
+
+This opinion, we may remark, is a standing axiom among the bourgeoisie.
+
+"Well, for my part," said Madame Minard, "I prefer the dignified old
+ways."
+
+"We didn't mean that for you, madame; your salon is the chosen haunt of
+pleasure," said Dutocq.
+
+When "La Boulangere" came to an end, Theodose pulled Dutocq from the
+sideboard where he was preparing to eat a slice of tongue, and said to
+him:--
+
+"Let us go; we must be at Cerizet's very early in the morning; we ought
+both of us to think over that affair; it is not so easy to manage as
+Cerizet seems to imagine."
+
+"Why not?" asked Dutocq, bringing his slice of tongue to eat in the
+salon.
+
+"Don't you know the law?"
+
+"I know enough of it to be aware of the dangers of the affair. If that
+notary wants the house and we filch it from him, there are means
+by which he can recover it; he can put himself into the skin of a
+registered creditor. By the present legal system relating to mortgages,
+when a house is sold at the request of creditors, if the price obtained
+for it at auction is not enough to pay all debts, the owners have the
+right to bid it in and hold it for a higher sum; now the notary, seeing
+himself caught, may back out of the sale in that way."
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, "it needs attention."
+
+"Very good," replied Dutocq, "we'll go and see Cerizet."
+
+These words, "go and see Cerizet," were overheard by Minard, who was
+following the two associates; but they offered no meaning to his mind.
+The two men were so outside of his own course and projects that he heard
+them without listening to them.
+
+"This has been one of the finest days in our lives," said Brigitte
+to her brother, when she found herself alone with him in the deserted
+salon, at half-past two in the morning. "What a distinction! to be thus
+selected by your fellow-citizens!"
+
+"Don't be mistaken about it, Brigitte; we owe it all, my child, to one
+man."
+
+"What man?"
+
+"To our friend, la Peyrade."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE BANKER OF THE POOR
+
+It was not on the next day, Monday, but on the following day, Tuesday,
+that Dutocq and Theodose went to see Cerizet, the former having called
+la Peyrade's attention to the fact that Cerizet always absented himself
+on Sundays and Mondays, taking advantage of the total absence of clients
+on those days, which are devoted by the populace to debauch. The house
+toward which they directed their steps is one of the striking features
+in the faubourg Saint-Jacques, and it is quite as important to study it
+here as it was to study those of Phellion and Thuillier. It is not known
+(true, no commission has yet been appointed to examine this phenomenon),
+no one knows why certain quarters become degraded and vulgarized,
+morally as well as materially; why, for instance, the ancient residence
+of the court and the church, the Luxembourg and the Latin quarter, have
+become what they are to-day, in spite of the presence of the finest
+palaces in the world, in spite of the bold cupola of Sainte-Genevieve,
+that of Mansard on the Val-de-Grace, and the charms of the Jardin des
+Plantes. One asks one's self why the elegance of life has left that
+region; why the Vauquer houses, the Phellion and the Thuillier houses
+now swarm with tenants and boarders, on the site of so many noble and
+religious buildings, and why such mud and dirty trades and poverty
+should have fastened on a hilly piece of ground, instead of spreading
+out upon the flat land beyond the confines of the ancient city.
+
+The angel whose beneficence once hovered above this quarter being dead,
+usury, on the lowest scale, rushed in and took his place. To the old
+judge, Popinot, succeeded Cerizet; and strange to say,--a fact which it
+is well to study,--the effect produced, socially speaking, was much the
+same. Popinot loaned money without interest, and was willing to lose;
+Cerizet lost nothing, and compelled the poor to work hard and stay
+virtuous. The poor adored Popinot, but they did not hate Cerizet. Here,
+in this region, revolves the lowest wheel of Parisian financiering. At
+the top, Nucingen & Co., the Kellers, du Tillet, and the Mongenods; a
+little lower down, the Palmas, Gigonnets, and Gobsecks; lower still, the
+Samonons, Chaboisseaus, and Barbets; and lastly (after the pawn-shops)
+comes this king of usury, who spreads his nets at the corners of the
+streets to entangle all miseries and miss none,--Cerizet, "money lender
+by the little week."
+
+The frogged frock-coat will have prepared you for the den in which this
+convicted stock-broker carried on his present business.
+
+The house was humid with saltpetre; the walls, sweating moisture, were
+enamelled all over with large slabs of mould. Standing at the corner
+of the rue des Postes and rue des Poules, it presented first a
+ground-floor, occupied partly by a shop for the sale of the commonest
+kind of wine, painted a coarse bright red, decorated with curtains of
+red calico, furnished with a leaden counter, and guarded by formidable
+iron bars. Above the gate of an odious alley hung a frightful lantern,
+on which were the words "Night lodgings here." The outer walls were
+covered with iron crossbars, showing, apparently, the insecurity of the
+building, which was owned by the wine-merchant, who also inhabited the
+entresol. The widow Poiret (nee Michonneau) kept furnished lodgings
+on the first, second, and third floors, consisting of single rooms for
+workmen and for the poorest class of students.
+
+Cerizet occupied one room on the ground-floor and another in the
+entresol, to which he mounted by an interior staircase; this entresol
+looked out upon a horrible paved court, from which arose mephitic odors.
+Cerizet paid forty francs a month to the widow Poiret for his breakfast
+and dinner; he thus conciliated her by becoming her boarder; he also
+made himself acceptable to the wine-merchant by procuring him an immense
+sale of wine and liquors among his clients--profits realized before
+sunrise; the wine-shop beginning operations about three in the morning
+in summer, and five in winter.
+
+The hour of the great Market, which so many of his clients, male and
+female, attended, was the determining cause of Cerizet's early hours.
+The Sieur Cadenet, the wine-merchant, in view of the custom which he
+owed to the usurer, had let him the two rooms for the low price of
+eighty francs a year, and had given him a lease for twelve years, which
+Cerizet alone had a right to break, without paying indemnity, at three
+months' notice. Cadenet always carried in a bottle of excellent wine for
+the dinner of this useful tenant; and when Cerizet was short of money
+he had only to say to his friend, "Cadenet, lend me a few hundred
+francs,"--loans which he faithfully repaid.
+
+Cadenet, it was said, had proof of the widow Poiret having deposited
+in Cerizet's hands some two thousand francs for investment, which may
+explain the progress of the latter's affairs since the day when he
+first took up his abode in the quarter, supplied with a last note of a
+thousand francs and Dutocq's protection. Cadenet, prompted by a cupidity
+which success increased, had proposed, early in the year, to put twenty
+thousand francs into the hands of his friend Cerizet. But Cerizet had
+positively declined them, on the ground that he ran risks of a nature to
+become a possible cause of dispute with associates.
+
+"I could only," he said to Cadenet, "take them at six per cent interest,
+and you can do better than that in your own business. We will go into
+partnership later, if you like, in some serious enterprise, some good
+opportunity which may require, say, fifty thousand francs. When you have
+got that sum to invest, let me know, and we'll talk about it."
+
+Cerizet had only suggested the affair of the house to Theodose after
+making sure that among the three, Madame Poiret, Cadenet, and himself,
+it was impossible to raise the full sum of one hundred thousand francs.
+
+The "lender by the little week" was thus in perfect safety in his den,
+where he could even, if necessity came, appeal to the law. On certain
+mornings there might be seen as many as sixty or eighty persons, men as
+often as women, either in the wine-shop, or the alley, or sitting on the
+staircase, for the distrustful Cerizet would only admit six persons at
+a time into his office. The first comers were first served, and each had
+to go by his number, which the wine-merchant, or his shop-boy, affixed
+to the hats of the man and the backs of the women. Sometimes the clients
+would sell to each other (as hackney-coachmen do on the cabstands), head
+numbers for tail numbers. On certain days, when the market business was
+pressing, a head number was often sold for a glass of brandy and a
+sou. The numbers, as they issued from Cerizet's office, called up the
+succeeding numbers; and if any disputes arose Cadenet put a stop to the
+fray at once my remarking:--
+
+"If you get the police here you won't gain anything; _he_'ll shut up
+shop."
+
+HE was Cerizet's name. When, in the course of the day, some hapless
+woman, without an atom of food in her room, and seeing her children pale
+with hunger, would come to borrow ten or twenty sous, she would say to
+the wine-merchant anxiously:--
+
+"Is _he_ there?"
+
+Cadenet, a short, stout man, dressed in blue, with outer sleeves of
+black stuff and a wine-merchant's apron, and always wearing a cap,
+seemed an angel to these mothers when he replied to them:--
+
+"_He_ told me that you were an honest woman and I might give you forty
+sous. You know what you must do about it--"
+
+And, strange to say, _he_ was blessed by these poor people, even as they
+had lately blessed Popinot.
+
+But Cerizet was cursed on Sunday mornings when accounts were settled;
+and they cursed him even more on Saturdays, when it was necessary to
+work in order to repay the sum borrowed with interest. But, after all,
+he was Providence, he was God from Tuesday to Friday of every week.
+
+The room which he made his office, formerly the kitchen of the next
+floor, was bare; the beams of the ceiling had been whitewashed, but
+still bore marks of smoke. The walls, along which he had put benches,
+and the stone floor, retained and gave out dampness. The fireplace,
+where the crane remained, was partly filled by an iron stove in which
+Cerizet burned sea-coal when the weather was severe. A platform about
+half a foot high and eight feet square extended from the edge of the
+fireplace; on it was fastened a common table and an armchair with
+a round cushion covered with green leather. Behind him, Cerizet had
+sheathed the walls with planks; also protecting himself with a little
+wooden screen, painted white, from the draught between the window and
+door; but this screen, made of two leaves, was so placed that the warmth
+from the stove reached him. The window had enormous inside shutters of
+cast-iron, held, when closed, by a bar. The door commanded respect by an
+armor of the same character.
+
+At the farther end of this room, in a corner, was a spiral-staircase,
+coming, evidently, from some pulled-down shop, and bought in the rue
+Chapon by Cadenet, who had fitted it through the ceiling into the
+room in the entresol occupied by Cerizet. In order to prevent all
+communication with the upper floors, Cerizet had exacted that the door
+of that room which opened on the common landing should be walled up. The
+place had thus become a fortress. The bedroom above had a cheap carpet
+bought for twenty francs, an iron bedstead, a bureau, three chairs,
+and an iron safe, made by a good workman, which Cerizet had bought at
+a bargain. He shaved before a glass on the chimney-piece; he owned two
+pairs of cotton sheets and six cotton shirts; the rest of his visible
+wardrobe was of the same character. Cadenet had once seen Cerizet
+dressed like a dandy of the period; he must, therefore, have kept
+hidden, in some drawer of his bureau, a complete disguise with which he
+could go to the opera, see the world, and not be recognized, for, had it
+not been that Cadenet heard his voice, he would certainly have asked him
+who he was.
+
+What pleased the clients of this man most was his joviality and his
+repartees; he talked their language. Cadenet, his two shop-men, and
+Cerizet, living in the midst of dreadful misery, behaved with the
+calmness of undertakers in presence of afflicted heirs, of old sergeants
+of the Guard among heaps of dead. They no more shuddered on hearing
+cries of hunger and despair than surgeons shudder at the cries of their
+patients in hospital; they said, as the soldiers and the dressers said,
+the perfunctory words, "Have patience! a little courage! What's the good
+of grieving? Suppose you kill yourself, what then? One gets accustomed
+to everything; be reasonable!"
+
+Though Cerizet took the precaution to hide the money necessary for his
+morning operations in the hollow seat of the chair in which he sat,
+taking out no more than a hundred francs at a time, which he put in
+the pockets of his trousers, never dipping into the funds of the chair
+except between the entrance of two batches of clients (keeping his door
+locked and not opening it till all was safely stowed in his pockets), he
+had really nothing to fear from the various despairs which found their
+way from all sides to this rendezvous of misery. Certainly, there are
+many different ways of being honest and virtuous; and the "Monograph of
+Virtue" has no other basis than this social axiom.[*] A man is false
+to his conscience; he fails, apparently, in delicacy; he forfeits
+that bloom of honor which, though lost, does not, as yet, mean general
+disrepute; at last, however, he fails decidedly in honor; if he falls
+into the hands of the correctional police, he is not, as yet, guilty of
+crime before the court of assizes; but after he is branded with infamy
+by the verdict of a jury he may still be honored at the galleys for the
+species of honor and integrity practised by criminals among themselves,
+which consists in not betraying each other, in sharing booty loyally,
+and in running all dangers. Well, this last form of honor--which is
+perhaps a calculation, a necessity, the practice of which offers certain
+opportunities for grandeur to the guilty man and the possibility of
+a return to good--reigned absolutely between Cerizet and his clients.
+Never did Cerizet make an error, nor his poor people either; neither
+side ever denied what was due, either capital or interests. Many a
+time Cerizet, who was born among the people, corrected from one week
+to another some accidental error, to the benefit of a poor man who had
+never discovered it. He was called a Jew, but an honest one, and his
+word in that city of sorrows was sacred. A woman died, causing a loss to
+him of thirty francs:
+
+     [*] A book on which the author has been at work since 1833,
+     the year in which it was first announced.--Author's note.
+
+"See my profits! there they go!" he said to his assemblage, "and you
+howl upon me! You know I'll never trouble the brats; in fact, Cadenet
+has already taken them bread and heel-taps."
+
+After that it was said of him in both faubourgs:--
+
+"He is not a bad fellow!"
+
+The "loan by the little week," as interpreted by Cerizet, is not,
+considering all things, so cruel a thing as the pawn-shop. Cerizet
+loaned ten francs Tuesday on condition of receiving twelve francs Sunday
+morning. In five weeks he doubled his capital; but he had to make many
+compromises. His kindness consisted in accepting, from time to time,
+eleven francs and fifty centimes; sometimes the whole interest was still
+owing. When he gave fifty francs for sixty to a fruit-stall man, or a
+hundred francs for one hundred and twenty to a seller of peat-fuel, he
+ran great risks.
+
+On reaching the rue des Poules through the rue des Postes, Theodose and
+Dutocq saw a great assemblage of men and women, and by the light which
+the wine-merchant's little oil-lamps cast upon these groups, they were
+horrified at beholding that mass of red, seamed, haggard faces; solemn
+with suffering, withered, distorted, swollen with wine, pallid from
+liquor; some threatening, others resigned, some sarcastic or jeering,
+others besotted; all rising from the midst of those terrible rags, which
+no designer can surpass in his most extravagant caricatures.
+
+"I shall be recognized," said Theodose, pulling Dutocq away; "we have
+done a foolish thing to come here at this hour and take him in the midst
+of his business."
+
+"All the more that Claparon may be sleeping in his lair, the interior
+of which we know nothing about. Yes, there are dangers for you, but none
+for me; I shall be thought to have business with my copying-clerk, and
+I'll go and tell him to come and dine with us; this is court day, so we
+can't have him to breakfast. I'll tell him to meet us at the 'Chaumiere'
+in one of the garden dining-rooms."
+
+"Bad; anybody could listen to us there without being seen," said la
+Peyrade. "I prefer the 'Petit Rocher de Cancale'; we can go into a
+private room and speak low."
+
+"But suppose you are seen with Cerizet?"
+
+"Well, then, let's go to the 'Cheval Rouge,' quai de la Tournelle."
+
+"That's best; seven o'clock; nobody will be there then."
+
+Dutocq advanced alone into the midst of that congress of beggars, and
+he heard his own name repeated from mouth to mouth, for he could hardly
+fail to encounter among them some jail-bird familiar with the judge's
+office, just as Theodose was certain to have met a client.
+
+In these quarters the justice-of-peace is the supreme authority; all
+legal contests stop short at his office, especially since the law was
+passed giving to those judges sovereign power in all cases of litigation
+involving not over one hundred and forty francs. A way was made for the
+judge's clerk, who was not less feared than the judge himself. He
+saw women seated on the staircase; a horrible display of pallor and
+suffering of many kinds. Dutocq was almost asphyxiated when he opened
+the door of the room in which already sixty persons had left their
+odors.
+
+"Your number? your number?" cried several voices.
+
+"Hold your jaw!" cried a gruff voice from the street, "that's the pen of
+the judge."
+
+Profound silence followed. Dutocq found his copying clerk clothed in
+a jacket of yellow leather like that of the gloves of the gendarmerie,
+beneath which he wore an ignoble waistcoat of knitted wool. The reader
+must imagine the man's diseased head issuing from this species of
+scabbard and covered with a miserable Madras handkerchief, which,
+leaving to view the forehead and neck, gave to that head, by the gleam
+of a tallow candle of twelve to the pound, its naturally hideous and
+threatening character.
+
+"It can't be done that way, papa Lantimeche," Cerizet was saying to a
+tall old man, seeming to be about seventy years of age, who was standing
+before him with a red woollen cap in his hand, exhibiting a bald head,
+and a breast covered with white hairs visible through his miserable
+linen jacket. "Tell me exactly what you want to undertake. One hundred
+francs, even on condition of getting back one hundred and twenty, can't
+be let loose that way, like a dog in a church--"
+
+The five other applicants, among whom were two women, both with infants,
+one knitting, the other suckling her child, burst out laughing.
+
+When Cerizet saw Dutocq, he rose respectfully and went rather hastily to
+meet him, adding to his client:--
+
+"Take time to reflect; for, don't you see? it makes me doubtful to have
+such a sum as that, one hundred francs! asked for by an old journeyman
+locksmith!"
+
+"But I tell you it concerns an invention," cried the old workman.
+
+"An invention and one hundred francs!" said Dutocq. "You don't know the
+laws; you must take out a patent, and that costs two thousand francs,
+and you want influence."
+
+"All that is true," said Cerizet, who, however, reckoned a good deal on
+such chances. "Come to-morrow morning, papa Lantimeche, at six o'clock,
+and we'll talk it over; you can't talk inventions in public."
+
+Cerizet then turned to Dutocq whose first words were:--
+
+"If the thing turns out well, half profits!"
+
+"Why did you get up at this time in the morning to come here and say
+that to me?" demanded the distrustful Cerizet, already displeased with
+the mention of "half profits." "You could have seen me as usual at the
+office."
+
+And he looked askance at Dutocq; the latter, while telling him his
+errand and speaking of Claparon and the necessity of pushing forward in
+the Theodose affair, seemed confused.
+
+"All the same you could have seen me this morning at the office,"
+repeated Cerizet, conducting his visitor to the door.
+
+"There's a man," thought he, as he returned to his seat, "who seems to
+me to have breathed on his lantern so that I may not see clear. Well,
+well, I'll give up that place of copying clerk. Ha! your turn, little
+mother!" he cried; "you invent children! That's amusing enough, though
+the trick is well known."
+
+It is all the more useless to relate the conversation which took place
+between the three confederates at the "Cheval Rouge," because the
+arrangements there concluded were the basis of certain confidences
+made, as we shall see, by Theodose to Mademoiselle Thuillier; but it is
+necessary to remark that the cleverness displayed by la Peyrade seemed
+almost alarming to Cerizet and Dutocq. After this conference, the banker
+of the poor, finding himself in company with such powerful players, had
+it in mind to make sure of his own stake at the first chance. To win the
+game at any price over the heads of the ablest gamblers, by cheating if
+necessary, is the inspiration of a special sort of vanity peculiar
+to friends of the green cloth. Hence came the terrible blow which la
+Peyrade was about to receive.
+
+He knew his two associates well; and therefore, in spite of the
+perpetual activity of his intellectual forces, in spite of the perpetual
+watchfulness his personality of ten faces required, nothing fatigued him
+as much as the part he had to play with his two accomplices. Dutocq was
+a great knave, and Cerizet had once been a comic actor; they were both
+experts in humbug. A motionless face like Talleyrand's would have made
+then break at once with the Provencal, who was now in their clutches;
+it was necessary, therefore, that he should make a show of ease and
+confidence and of playing above board--the very height of art in such
+affairs. To delude the pit is an every-day triumph, but to deceive
+Mademoiselle Mars, Frederic Lemaitre, Potier, Talma, Monrose, is the
+acme of art.
+
+This conference at the "Cheval Rouge" had therefore the result of giving
+to la Peyrade, who was fully as sagacious as Cerizet, a secret fear,
+which, during the latter period of this daring game, so fired his blood
+and heated his brain that there came moments when he fell into the
+morbid condition of the gambler, who follows with his eye the roll of
+the ball on which he has staked his last penny. The senses then have
+a lucidity in their action and the mind takes a range, which human
+knowledge has no means of measuring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. HOW BRIGITTE WAS WON
+
+The day after this conference at the "Cheval Rouge," la Peyrade went to
+dine with the Thuilliers, and on the commonplace pretext of a visit
+to pay, Thuillier carried off his wife, leaving Theodose alone with
+Brigitte. Neither Thuillier, nor his sister, nor Theodose, were the
+dupes of this comedy; but the old beau of the Empire considered the
+manoeuvre a piece of diplomacy.
+
+"Young man, do not take advantage of my sister's innocence; respect it,"
+said Thuillier solemnly, as he departed.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Theodose, drawing his chair closer to the sofa
+where Brigitte sat knitting, "have you thought of inducing the business
+men of the arrondissement to support Thuillier's interests?"
+
+"How can I?" she asked.
+
+"Why! you are in close relations with Barbet and Metivier."
+
+"Ah! you are right! Faith! you are no blunderer!" she said after a
+pause.
+
+"When we love our friends, we serve them," he replied, sententiously.
+
+To capture Brigitte would be like carrying the redoubt of the Moskowa,
+the culminating strategic point. But it was necessary to possess that
+old maid as the devil was supposed in the middle ages to possess men,
+and in a way to make any awakening impossible for her. For the last
+three days la Peyrade had been measuring himself for the task; he had
+carefully reconnoitred the ground to see all difficulty. Flattery, that
+almost infallible means in able hands, would certainly miscarry with
+a woman who for years had known she had no beauty. But a man of strong
+will finds nothing impregnable; the Lamarques could never have failed to
+take Capri. Therefore, nothing must be omitted from the memorable
+scene which was now to take place; all things about it had their own
+importance,--inflections of the voice, pauses, glances, lowered eyes.
+
+"But," rejoined Brigitte, "you have already proved to us your
+affection."
+
+"Your brother has told you--?"
+
+"No, he merely told me that you had something to tell me."
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, I have; for you are the man of the family. In
+reflecting on this matter, I find many dangers for myself, such as a man
+only risks for his nearest and dearest. It involves a fortune; thirty to
+forty thousand francs a year, and not the slightest speculation--a piece
+of landed property. The hope of helping Thuillier to win such a fortune
+enticed me from the first. 'It fascinates me,' I said to him--for,
+unless a man is an absolute fool, he can't help asking himself: 'Why
+should he care to do us all this good?' So I told him frankly that in
+working for his interests, I flattered myself I was working for my own,
+as I'll explain to you later. If he wishes to be deputy, two things are
+absolutely necessary: to comply with the law as to property, and to win
+for his name some sort of public celebrity. If I myself push my devotion
+to the point of helping him to write a book on public financiering--or
+anything else, no matter what--which would give him that celebrity,
+I ought also to think of the other matter, his property--it would be
+absurd to expect you to give him this house--"
+
+"For my brother? Why, I'd put it in his name to-morrow," cried Brigitte.
+"You don't know me."
+
+"I don't know you thoroughly," said la Peyrade, "but I do know things
+about you which now make me regret that I did not tell you the whole
+affair from its origin; I mean from the moment when I conceived the plan
+to which Thuillier will owe his nomination. He will be hunted down by
+envy and jealousy, and the task of upholding him will be a hard one;
+we must, however, get the better of his rivals and take the wind out of
+their sails."
+
+"But this affair," said Brigitte, "what are the difficulties?"
+
+"Mademoiselle, the difficulties lie within my own conscience. Assuredly,
+I could not serve you in this matter without first consulting my
+confessor. From a worldly point of view--oh! the affair is perfectly
+legal, and I am--you'll understand me?--a barrister inscribed on the
+panel, that is, member of a bar controlled by the strictest rules. I am
+therefore incapable of proposing an enterprise which might give occasion
+for blame. In the first place, I myself don't make a penny by it."
+
+Brigitte was on thorns; her face was flaming; she broke her wool, mended
+it, broke it again, and did not know which way to look.
+
+"One can't get," she said, "in these days, forty thousand francs a
+year from landed property unless it is worth one million eight hundred
+thousand."
+
+"Well, I will undertake that you shall see a piece of property and
+estimate yourself its probable revenue, which I can make Thuillier the
+owner of for fifty thousand francs down."
+
+"Oh! if you can make us obtain that!" cried Brigitte, worked up to the
+highest excitement by the spur of her natural cupidity. "Go on, my dear
+Monsieur Theodose, and--"
+
+She stopped short.
+
+"Well, mademoiselle?"
+
+"You will, perhaps, have done yourself a service."
+
+"Ah! if Thuillier has told you my secret, I must leave this house."
+
+Brigitte looked up.
+
+"Did he tell you that I love Celeste?"
+
+"No, on my word of honor!" cried Brigitte, "but I myself was just about
+to speak of her."
+
+"And offer her to me? Oh! may God forgive us! I can only win her of
+herself, her parents, by a free choice--No, no, all I ask of you is your
+good-will, your protection. Promise me, as Thuillier has, in return for
+my services your influence, your friendship; tell me that you will treat
+me as a son. If you will do that, I will abide by your decision in this
+matter; I can trust it; I need not speak to my confessor. For the last
+two years, ever since I have seen much of this family, to whom I would
+fain give my powers and devote my utmost energy--for, I shall succeed!
+surely I shall!--I have observed that your integrity, your honor is that
+of the olden time, your judgment righteous and inflexible. Also, you
+have a knowledge of business; and these qualities combined are precious
+helps to a man. With a mother-in-law, as I may say, of your powers, I
+should find my home life relieved of a crowd of cares and details as to
+property, which hinder a man's advance in a political career if he is
+forced to attend to them. I admired you deeply on Sunday evening.
+Ah! you were fine! How you did manage matters! In ten minutes that
+dining-room was cleared! And, without going outside of your own
+apartment, you had everything at hand for the refreshments, for
+the supper! 'There,' I said to myself, as I watched you, 'is a true
+"maitresse-femme"--a masterly woman!'"
+
+Brigitte's nostrils dilated; she breathed in the words of the young
+lawyer. He gave her a side-long glance to enjoy his triumph; he had
+touched the right chord in her breast.
+
+At this moment he was standing, but he now resumed his seat beside her,
+and said:--
+
+"Now here is our affair, dear aunt--for you will be a sort of aunt--"
+
+"Hush! you naughty fellow!" said Brigitte, "and go on."
+
+"I'll tell you the matter roughly--and remark, if you please, that I
+compromise myself in telling it to you; for these secrets are entrusted
+to me as a lawyer. Therefore understand that you and I are both
+committing a crime, so to speak, of leze-confidence! A notary of Paris
+was in partnership with an architect; they bought land and built upon
+it; at the present moment, property has come down with a rush; they
+find themselves embarrassed--but all that doesn't concern us. Among the
+houses built by this illegal partnership--for notaries, you know, are
+sworn to have nothing to do with enterprises--is a very good one which,
+not being finished, must be sold at a great sacrifice; so great that
+they now ask only one hundred thousand francs for it, although the cost
+of the land and the building was at least four hundred thousand. As the
+whole interior is still unfinished, the value of what is still to do
+is easily appraised; it will probably not be more than fifty thousand
+francs. Now, owing to its excellent position, this house, when finished,
+will certainly bring in a rental, over and above the taxes, of forty
+thousand francs a year. It is built of freestone, the corners and
+copings of cut granite; the facade is covered with handsome carvings, on
+which they spent more than twenty thousand francs; the windows are plate
+glass with a new style of fastening called 'cremona.'"
+
+"Well, where is the difficulty?"
+
+"Just here: the notary wants to reserve to himself this bit of the
+cake he is forced to surrender; he is, under the name of a friend, the
+creditor who requests the sale of the property by the assignee of
+the bankruptcy. The case has not been brought into court; for legal
+proceedings cost so much money. The sale is to be made by voluntary
+agreement. Now, this notary has applied to one of my clients to lend
+him his name for this purchase. My client, a poor devil, says to me:
+'There's a fortune to made out of that house by fooling the notary.'"
+
+"And they do that sort of thing in business!" said Brigitte, quickly.
+
+"If that were the only difficulty," continued Theodose, "it would be, as
+a friend of mine said to his pupil, who was complaining of the length of
+time it took to produce masterpieces in painting: 'My dear young
+fellow, if it were not so, our valets would be painting pictures.' But,
+mademoiselle, if we now get the better of this notary, who certainly
+deserves it, for he has compromised a number of private fortunes, yet,
+as he is a very shrewd man (though a notary), it might perhaps be very
+difficult to do it a second time, and here's the rub: When a piece of
+landed property is bought at a forced sale, if those who have lent money
+on that property see that is likely to be sold so low as not to cover
+the sum loaned upon it, they have the right, until the expiration of a
+certain time, to bid it in; that is, to offer more and keep the property
+in their own hands. If this trickster can't be hoodwinked as to the sale
+being a bona fide one until the time when his right to buy it expires,
+some other scheme must be resorted to. Now, is this business strictly
+legal? Am I justified in doing it for the benefit of a family I seek
+to enter? That is the question I have been revolving in my mind for the
+last three days."
+
+Brigitte, we must acknowledge, hesitated, and Theodose then brought
+forward his last card:--
+
+"Take the night to think of it," he said, "to-morrow we will talk it
+over."
+
+"My young friend," said Brigitte, looking at the lawyer with an almost
+loving air, "the first thing to be done is to see the house. Where is
+it?"
+
+"Near the Madeleine. That will be the heart of Paris in ten years. All
+that property has been desirable since 1819; the banker Du Tillet's
+fortune was derived from property about there. The famous failure of
+Maitre Roquin, which carried terror to all Paris, and did such harm to
+the confidence given to the notariat, was also caused by it; they went
+into heavy speculations on that land too soon; they should have waited
+until now."
+
+"I remember about that," said Brigitte.
+
+"The house might be finished by the end of the year," continued
+Theodose, "and the rentals could begin next spring."
+
+"Could we go there to-morrow?"
+
+"Dear aunt, I am at your orders."
+
+"Ah ca!" she cried, "don't call me that before people. As to this
+affair," she continued, "I can't have any opinion until I have seen the
+house."
+
+"It has six storeys; nine windows on the front; a fine courtyard, four
+shops, and it stands on a corner. Ah! that notary knows what he is about
+in wishing to hold on to such pieces of property! But let political
+events interfere, and down go the Funds! If I were you, I should sell
+out all that you and Madame Thuillier have on the Grand Livre and
+buy this fine piece of real estate for Thuillier, and I'd recover the
+fortune of that poor, pious creature by savings from its proceeds. Can
+the Funds go higher than they are to-day? One hundred and twenty-two! it
+is fabulous; I should make haste to sell."
+
+Brigitte licked her lips; she perceived the means of keeping her own
+property intact, and of enriching her brother by this use of Madame
+Thuillier's fortune.
+
+"My brother is right," she said to Theodose; "you certainly are a rare
+man; you'll get on in the world."
+
+"And he'll walk before me," responded Theodose with a naivete that
+touched the old maid.
+
+"You will live in the family," she said.
+
+"There may be obstacles to that," he remarked. "Madame Thuillier is very
+queer at times; she doesn't like me."
+
+"Ha! I'll settle that," cried Brigitte. "Do you attend to that affair
+and carry it through if it is feasible, and leave your interests in my
+hands."
+
+"Thuillier, member of the municipal council, owner of an estate with a
+rental of forty thousand francs a year, with the cross of the Legion
+of honor and the author of a political work, grave, serious, important,
+will be deputy at the forthcoming general election. But, between
+ourselves, little aunt, one couldn't devote one's self so utterly except
+for a father-in-law."
+
+"You are right."
+
+"Though I have no fortune I shall have doubled yours; and if this affair
+goes through discreetly, others will turn up."
+
+"Until I have seen the house," said Mademoiselle Thuillier again, "I can
+decide on nothing."
+
+"Well then, send for a carriage to-morrow and let us go there. I will
+get a ticket early in the morning to view the premises."
+
+"To-morrow, then, about mid-day," responded Brigitte, holding out her
+hand to Theodose that he might shake it, but instead of that he laid
+upon it the most respectful and the most tender kiss that Brigitte had
+ever in her life received.
+
+"Adieu, my child," she said, as he reached the door.
+
+She rang the bell hurriedly and when the servant came:--
+
+"Josephine," she cried, "go at once to Madame Colleville, and ask her to
+come over and speak to me."
+
+Fifteen minutes later Flavie entered the salon, where Brigitte was
+walking up and down, in a state of extreme agitation.
+
+"My dear," she cried on seeing Flavie, "you can do me a great service,
+which concerns our dear Celeste. You know Tullia, don't you?--a danseuse
+at the opera; my brother was always dinning her into my ears at one
+time."
+
+"Yes, I know her; but she is no longer a danseuse; she is Madame la
+Comtesse du Bruel. Her husband is peer of France!"
+
+"Does she still like you?"
+
+"We never see each other now."
+
+"Well, I know that Chaffaroux, the rich contractor, is her uncle," said
+Brigitte. "He is old and wealthy. Go and see your former friend, and get
+her to give you a line of introduction to him, saying he would do her an
+eminent favor if he would give a piece of friendly advice to the bearer
+of the note, and then you and I will take it to him to-morrow about one
+o'clock. But tell Tullia she must request her uncle to keep secret about
+it. Go, my dear. Celeste, our dear child, will be a millionaire! I can't
+say more; but she'll have, from me, a husband who will put her on a
+pinnacle."
+
+"Do you want me to tell you the first letters of his name?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"T. P.,--Theodose de la Peyrade. You are right. That's a man who may, if
+supported by a woman like you, become a minister."
+
+"It is God himself who has placed him in our house!" cried the old maid.
+
+At this moment Monsieur and Madame Thuillier returned home.
+
+Five days later, in the month of April, the ordinance which convoked the
+electors to appoint a member of the municipal council on the 20th of the
+same month was inserted in the "Moniteur," and placarded about Paris.
+For several weeks the ministry, called that of March 1st, had been in
+power. Brigitte was in a charming humor. She had been convinced of the
+truth of all la Peyrade's assertions. The house, visited from garret
+to cellar by old Chaffaroux, was admitted by him to be an admirable
+construction; poor Grindot, the architect, who was interested with the
+notary and Claparon in the affair, thought the old man was employed in
+the interests of the contractor; the old fellow himself thought he was
+acting in the interests of his niece, and he gave it as his opinion that
+thirty thousand francs would finish the house. Thus, in the course of
+one week la Peyrade became Brigitte's god; and she proved to him by the
+most naively nefarious arguments that fortune should be seized when it
+offered itself.
+
+"Well, if there _is_ any sin in the business," she said to him in the
+middle of the garden, "you can confess it."
+
+"The devil!" cried Thuillier, "a man owes himself to his relatives, and
+you are one of us now."
+
+"Then I decide to do it," replied la Peyrade, in a voice of emotion;
+"but on conditions that I must now distinctly state. I will not, in
+marrying Celeste, be accused of greed and mercenary motives. If you lay
+remorse upon me, at least you must consent that I shall remain as I
+am for the present. Do not settle upon Celeste, my old Thuillier, the
+future possession of the property I am about to obtain for you--"
+
+"You are right."
+
+"Don't rob yourself; and let my dear little aunt here act in the same
+way in relation to the marriage contract. Put the remainder of the
+capital in Madame Thuillier's name, on the Grand Livre, and she can do
+what she likes with it. We shall all live together as one family, and
+I'll undertake to make my own fortune, now that I am free from anxiety
+about the future."
+
+"That suits me," said Thuillier; "that's the talk of an honest man."
+
+"Let me kiss you on the forehead, my son," said the old maid; "but,
+inasmuch as Celeste cannot be allowed to go without a 'dot,' we shall
+give her sixty thousand francs."
+
+"For her dress," said la Peyrade.
+
+"We are all three persons of honor," cried Thuillier. "It is now
+settled, isn't it? You are to manage the purchase of the house; we
+are to write together, you and I, my political work; and you'll bestir
+yourself to get me the decoration?"
+
+"You will have that as soon as you are made a municipal councillor on
+the 1st of May. Only, my good friend, I must beg you, and you, too, dear
+aunt, to keep the most profound secrecy about me in this affair; and do
+not listen to the calumnies which all the men I am about to trick will
+spread about me. I shall become, you'll see, a vagabond, a swindler, a
+dangerous man, a Jesuit, an ambitious fortune-hunter. Can you hear those
+accusations against me with composure?"
+
+"Fear nothing," replied Brigitte.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE REIGN OF THEODOSE
+
+From that day forth Thuillier became a dear, good friend. "My dear, good
+friend," was the name given to him by Theodose, with voice inflections
+of varieties of tenderness which astonished Flavie. But "little aunt,"
+a name that flattered Brigitte deeply, was only given in family secrecy,
+and occasionally before Flavie. The activity of Theodose and Dutocq,
+Cerizet, Barbet, Metivier, Minard, Phellion, Colleville, and others of
+the Thuillier circle was extreme. Great and small, they all put their
+hands to the work. Cadenet procured thirty votes in his section. On the
+30th of April Thuillier was proclaimed member of the Council-general of
+the department of the Seine by an imposing majority; in fact, he
+only needed sixty more votes to make his election unanimous. May
+1st Thuillier joined the municipal body and went to the Tuileries to
+congratulate the King on his fete-day, and returned home radiant. He had
+gone where Minard went!
+
+Ten days later a yellow poster announced the sale of the house, after
+due publication; the price named being seventy-five thousand francs;
+the final purchase to take place about the last of July. On this point
+Cerizet and Claparon had an agreement by which Cerizet pledged the sum
+of fifteen thousand francs (in words only, be it understood) to Claparon
+in case the latter could deceive the notary and keep him quiet until the
+time expired during which he might withdraw the property by bidding it
+in. Mademoiselle Thuillier, notified by Theodose, agreed entirely to
+this secret clause, understanding perfectly the necessity of paying
+the culprits guilty of the treachery. The money was to pass through la
+Peyrade's hands. Claparon met his accomplice, the notary, on the Place
+de l'Observatoire by midnight. This young man, the successor of Leopold
+Hannequin, was one of those who run after fortune instead of following
+it leisurely. He now saw another future before him, and he managed his
+present affairs in order to be free to take hold of it. In this midnight
+interview, he offered Claparon ten thousand francs to secure himself
+in this dirty business,--a sum which was only to be paid on receipt,
+through Claparon, of a counter-deed from the nominal purchaser of
+the property. The notary was aware that that sum was all-important to
+Claparon to extricate him from present difficulties, and he felt secure
+of him.
+
+"Who but you, in all Paris, would give me such a fee for such an
+affair?" Claparon said to him, with a false show of naivete. "You can
+sleep in peace; my ostensible purchaser is one of those men of honor who
+are too stupid to have ideas of your kind; he is a retired government
+employee; give him the money to make the purchase and he'll sign the
+counter-deed at once."
+
+When the notary had made Claparon clearly understand that he could not
+get more than the ten thousand francs from him, Cerizet offered the
+latter twelve thousand down, and asked Theodose for fifteen thousand,
+intending to keep the balance for himself. All these scenes between
+the four men were seasoned with the finest speeches about feelings,
+integrity, and the honor that men owed to one another in doing business.
+While these submarine performances were going on, apparently in the
+interests of Thuillier, to whom Theodose related them with the deepest
+manifestations of disgust at being implicated therein, the pair were
+meditating the great political work which "my dear good friend" was
+to publish. Thus the new municipal councillor naturally acquired a
+conviction that he could never do or be anything without the help of
+this man of genius; whose mind so amazed him, and whose ability was now
+so important to him, that every day he became more and more convinced of
+the necessity of marrying him to Celeste, and of taking the young couple
+to live with him. In fact, after May the 1st, Theodose had already dined
+four times a week with "my dear, good friend."
+
+This was the period when Theodose reigned without a dissenting voice in
+the bosom of that household, and all the friends of the family approved
+of him--for the following reason: The Phellions, hearing his praises
+sung by Brigitte and Thuillier, feared to displease the two powers and
+chorussed their words, even when such perpetual laudation seemed to them
+exaggerated. The same may be said of the Minards. Moreover la Peyrade's
+behavior, as "friend of the family" was perfect. He disarmed distrust by
+the manner in which he effaced himself; he was there like a new piece
+of furniture; and he contrived to make both the Phellions and Minards
+believe that Brigitte and Thuillier had weighed him, and found him too
+light in the scales to be anything more in the family than a young man
+whose services were useful to them.
+
+"He may think," said Thuillier one day to Minard, "that my sister will
+put him in her will; he doesn't know her."
+
+This speech, inspired by Theodose himself, calmed the uneasiness of
+Minard "pere."
+
+"He is devoted to us," said Brigitte to Madame Phellion; "but he
+certainly owes us a great deal of gratitude. We have given him his
+lodging rent-free, and he dines with us almost every day."
+
+This speech of the old maid, also instigated by Theodose, went from
+ear to ear among the families who frequented the Thuillier salon, and
+dissipated all fears. The young man called attention to the remarks
+of Thuillier and his sister with the servility of a parasite; when he
+played whist he justified the blunders of his dear, good friend, and he
+kept upon his countenance a smile, fixed and benign, like that of Madame
+Thuillier, ready to bestow upon all the bourgeois sillinesses of the
+brother and sister.
+
+He obtained, what he wanted above all, the contempt of his true
+antagonists; and he used it as a cloak to hide his real power. For four
+consecutive months his face wore a torpid expression, like that of a
+snake as it gulps and digests its prey. But at times he would rush into
+the garden with Colleville or Flavie, to laugh and lay off his mask,
+and rest himself; or get fresh strength by giving way before his future
+mother-in-law to fits of nervous passion which either terrified or
+deeply touched her.
+
+"Don't you pity me?" he cried to her the evening before the preparatory
+sale of the house, when Thuillier was to make the purchase at
+seventy-five thousand francs. "Think of a man like me, forced to creep
+like a cat, to choke down every pointed word, to swallow my own gall,
+and submit to your rebuffs!"
+
+"My friend! my child!" Flavie replied, undecided in mind how to take
+him.
+
+These words are a thermometer which will show the temperature at which
+this clever manipulator maintained his intrigue with Flavie. He kept
+her floating between her heart and her moral sense, between religious
+sentiments and this mysterious passion.
+
+During this time Felix Phellion was giving, with a devotion and
+constancy worthy of all praise, regular lessons to young Colleville.
+He spent much of his time upon these lessons, feeling that he was thus
+working for his future family. To acknowledge this service, he was
+invited, by advice of Theodose to Flavie, to dine at the Collevilles'
+every Thursday, where la Peyrade always met him. Flavie was usually
+making either a purse or slippers or a cigar-case for the happy young
+man, who would say, deprecatingly:--
+
+"I am only too well rewarded, madame, by the happiness I feel in being
+useful to you."
+
+"We are not rich, monsieur," replied Colleville, "but, God bless me! we
+are not ungrateful."
+
+Old Phellion would rub his hands as he listened to his son's account
+of these evenings, beholding his dear and noble Felix already wedded to
+Celeste.
+
+But Celeste, the more she loved Felix, the more grave and serious she
+became with him; partly because her mother sharply lectured her, saying
+to her one evening:--
+
+"Don't give any hope whatever to that young Phellion. Neither your
+father nor I can arrange your marriage. You have expectations to be
+consulted. It is much less important to please a professor without a
+penny than to make sure of the affection and good-will of Mademoiselle
+Brigitte and your godfather. If you don't want to kill your mother--yes,
+my dear, kill her--you must obey me in this affair blindly; and remember
+that what we want to secure, above all, is your good."
+
+As the date of the final sale was set for the last of July, Theodose
+advised Brigitte by the end of June to arrange her affairs in time to
+be ready for the payment. Accordingly, she now sold out her own and her
+sister-in-law's property in the Funds. The catastrophe of the treaty of
+the four powers, an insult to France, is now an established historical
+fact; but it is necessary to remind the reader that from July to the
+last of August the French funds, alarmed by the prospect of war, a fear
+which Monsieur Thiers did much to promote, fell twenty francs, and the
+Three-per-cents went down to sixty. That was not all: this financial
+fiasco had a most unfortunate influence on the value of real estate in
+Paris; and all those who had such property then for sale suffered
+loss. These events made Theodose a prophet in the eyes of Brigitte and
+Thuillier, to whom the house was now about to be definitely sold for
+seventy-five thousand francs. The notary, involved in the political
+disaster, and whose practice was already sold, concealed himself for a
+time in the country; but he took with him the ten thousand francs for
+Claparon. Advised by Theodose, Thuillier made a contract with Grindot,
+who supposed he was really working for the notary in finishing the
+house; and as, during this period of financial depression, suspended
+work left many workmen with their arms folded, the architect was able
+to finish off the building in a splendid manner at a low cost. Theodose
+insisted that the agreement should be in writing.
+
+This purchase increased Thuillier's importance ten-fold. As for the
+notary, he had temporarily lost his head in presence of political events
+which came upon him like a waterspout out of cloudless skies. Theodose,
+certain now of his supremacy, holding Thuillier fast by his past
+services and by the literary work in which they were both engaged,
+admired by Brigitte for his modesty and discretion,--for never had he
+made the slightest allusion to his own poverty or uttered one word about
+money,--Theodose began to assume an air that was rather less servile
+than it had been. Brigitte and Thuillier said to him one day:--
+
+"Nothing can deprive you of our esteem; you are here in this house as if
+in your own home; the opinion of Minard and Phellion, which you seem to
+fear, has no more value for us than a stanza of Victor Hugo. Therefore,
+let them talk! Carry your head high!"
+
+"But we shall still need them for Thuillier's election to the Chamber,"
+said Theodose. "Follow my advice; you have found it good so far, haven't
+you? When the house is actually yours, you will have got it for almost
+nothing; for you can now buy into the Three-per-cents at sixty in Madame
+Thuillier's name, and thus replace nearly the whole of her fortune. Wait
+only for the expiration of the time allowed to the nominal creditor
+to buy it in, and have the fifteen thousand francs ready for our
+scoundrels."
+
+Brigitte did not wait; she took her whole capital with the exception
+of a sum of one hundred and twenty thousand francs, and bought into
+the Three-per-cents in Madame Thuillier's name to the amount of
+twelve thousand francs a year, and in her own for ten thousand a year,
+resolving in her own mind to choose no other kind of investment in
+future. She saw her brother secure of forty thousand francs a year
+besides his pension, twelve thousand a year for Madame Thuillier and
+eighteen thousand a year for herself, besides the house they lived in,
+the rental of which she valued at eight thousand.
+
+"We are worth quite as much as the Minards," she remarked.
+
+"Don't chant victory before you win it," said Theodose. "The right of
+redemption doesn't expire for another week. I have attended to your
+affairs, but mine have gone terribly to pieces."
+
+"My dear child, you have friends," cried Brigitte; "if you should happen
+to want five hundred francs or so, you will always find them here."
+
+Theodose exchanged a smile with Thuillier, who hastened to carry him
+off, saying:--
+
+"Excuse my poor sister; she sees the world through a small hole. But if
+you should want twenty-five thousand francs I'll lend them to you--out
+of my first rents," he added.
+
+"Thuillier," exclaimed Theodose, "the rope is round my neck. Ever
+since I have been a barrister I have had notes of hand running. But say
+nothing about it," added Theodose, frightened himself at having let out
+the secret of his situation. "I'm in the claws of scoundrels, but I hope
+to crush them yet."
+
+In telling this secret Theodose, though alarmed as he did so, had a
+two-fold purpose: first, to test Thuillier; and next, to avert the
+consequences of a fatal blow which might be dealt to him any day in
+a secret and sinister struggle he had long foreseen. Two words will
+explain his horrible position.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. DEVILS AGAINST DEVILS
+
+During the extreme poverty of la Peyrade's first years in Paris, none
+but Cerizet had ever gone to see him in the wretched garret where, in
+severely cold weather, he stayed in bed for want of clothes. Only one
+shirt remained to him. For three days he lived on one loaf of bread,
+cutting it into measured morsels, and asking himself, "What am I to do?"
+At this moment it was that his former partner came to him, having just
+left prison, pardoned. The projects which the two men then formed before
+a fire of laths, one wrapped in his landlady's counterpane, the other
+in his infamy, it is useless to relate. The next day Cerizet, who had
+talked with Dutocq in the course of the morning, returned, bringing
+trousers, waistcoat, coat, hat, and boots, bought in the Temple, and
+he carried off Theodose to dine with himself and Dutocq. The hungry
+Provencal ate at Pinson's, rue de l'Ancienne Comedie, half of a dinner
+costing forty-seven francs. At dessert, after Theodose had drunk freely,
+Cerizet said to him:--
+
+"Will you sign me bills of exchange for fifty thousand francs in your
+capacity as a barrister?"
+
+"You couldn't get five thousand on them."
+
+"That's not your affair, but ours; I mean monsieur's here, who is giving
+us this dinner, and mine, in a matter where you risk nothing, but in
+which you'll get your title as barrister, a fine practice, and the hand
+in marriage of a girl about the age of an old dog, and rich by twenty or
+thirty thousand francs a year. Neither Dutocq nor I can marry her; but
+we'll equip you, give you the look of a decent man, feed and lodge you,
+and set you up generally. Consequently, we want security. I don't say
+that on my own account, for I know you, but for monsieur here, whose
+proxy I am. We'll equip you as a pirate, hey! to do the white-slave
+trade! If we can't capture that 'dot,' we'll try other plans. Between
+ourselves, none of us need be particular what we touch--that's plain
+enough. We'll give you careful instructions; for the matter is certain
+to take time, and there'll probably be some bother about it. Here, see,
+I have brought stamped paper."
+
+"Waiter, pens and ink!" cried Theodose.
+
+"Ha! I like fellows of that kind!" exclaimed Dutocq.
+
+"Sign: 'Theodose de la Peyrade,' and after your name put 'Barrister, rue
+Saint-Dominique d'Enfer,' under the words 'Accepted for ten thousand.'
+We'll date the notes and sue you,--all secretly, of course, but in
+order to have a hold upon you; the owners of a privateer ought to have
+security when the brig and the captain are at sea."
+
+The day after this interview the bailiff of the justice-of-peace did
+Cerizet the service of suing la Peyrade secretly. He went to see the
+barrister that evening, and the whole affair was done without any
+publicity. The Court of commerce has a hundred such cases in the course
+of one term. The strict regulations of the council of barristers of
+the bar of Paris are well known. This body, and also the council of
+attorneys, exercise severe discipline over their members. A barrister
+liable to go to Clichy would be disbarred. Consequently, Cerizet, under
+Dutocq's advice, had taken against their puppet measures which were
+certain to secure to each of them twenty-five thousand francs out of
+Celeste's "dot." In signing the notes, Theodose saw but one thing,--his
+means of living secured; but as time had gone on, and the horizon grew
+clearer, and he mounted, step by step, to a better position on the
+social ladder, he began to dream of getting rid of his associates. And
+now, on obtaining twenty-five thousand francs from Thuillier, he hoped
+to treat on the basis of fifty per cent for the return of his fatal
+notes by Cerizet.
+
+Unfortunately, this sort of infamous speculation is not an exceptional
+fact; it takes place in Paris under various forms too little disguised
+for the historian of manners and morals to pass them over unnoticed in
+a complete and accurate picture of society in the nineteenth century.
+Dutocq, an arrant scoundrel, still owed fifteen thousand francs on his
+practice, and lived in hopes of something turning up to keep his head,
+as the saying is, above water until the close of 1840. Up to the present
+time none of the three confederates had flinched or groaned. Each felt
+his strength and knew his danger. Equals they were in distrust, in
+watchfulness; equals, too, in apparent confidence; and equally stolid in
+silence and look when mutual suspicions rose to the surface of face or
+speech. For the last two months the position of Theodose was acquiring
+the strength of a detached fort. But Cerizet and Dutocq held it
+undermined by a mass of powder, with the match ever lighted; but the
+wind might extinguish the match or the devil might flood the mine.
+
+The moment when wild beasts seize their food is always the most
+critical, and that moment had now arrived for these three hungry tigers.
+Cerizet would sometimes say to Theodose, with that revolutionary glance
+which twice in this century sovereigns have had to meet:--
+
+"I have made you king, and here am I still nothing! for it is nothing
+not to be all."
+
+A reaction of envy was rushing its avalanche through Cerizet. Dutocq was
+at the mercy of his copying clerk. Theodose would gladly have burned his
+copartners could he have burned their papers in the same conflagration.
+All three studied each other too carefully, in order to conceal their
+own thoughts, not to be in turn divined. Theodose lived a life of three
+hells as he thought of what lay below the cards, then of his own game,
+and then of his future. His speech to Thuillier was a cry of despair;
+he threw his lead into the waters of the old bourgeois and found there
+nothing more than twenty-five thousand francs.
+
+"And," he said to himself as he went to his own room, "possibly nothing
+at all a month hence."
+
+He new felt the deepest hatred to the Thuilliers. But Thuillier himself
+he held by a harpoon stuck into the depths of the man's vanity; namely,
+by the projected work, entitled "Taxation and the Sinking Fund," for
+which he intended to rearrange the ideas of the Saint-Simonian "Globe,"
+giving them a systematic form, and coloring them with his fervid
+Southern diction. Thuillier's bureaucratic knowledge of the subject
+would be of use to him here. Theodose therefore clung to this rope,
+resolving to do battle, on so poor a base of operations, with the vanity
+of a fool, which, according to individual character, is either granite
+or sand. On reflection, Theodose was inclined to be content with the
+prospect.
+
+On the evening before the right of redemption expired, Claparon and
+Cerizet proceeded to manipulate the notary in the following manner.
+Cerizet, to whom Claparon had revealed the password and the notary's
+retreat, went out to this hiding-place to say to the latter:--
+
+"One of my friends, Claparon, whom you know, has asked me to come and
+see you; he will expect you to-morrow, in the evening, you know where.
+He has the paper you expect from him, which he will exchange with
+you for the ten thousand agreed upon; but I must be present, for five
+thousand of that sum belong to me; and I warn you, my dear monsieur,
+that the name in the counter-deed is in blank."
+
+"I shall be there," replied the ex-notary.
+
+The poor devil waited the whole night in agonies of mind that can well
+be imagined, for safety or inevitable ruin were in the balance. At
+sunrise he saw approaching him, instead of Claparon, a bailiff of the
+Court of commerce, who produced a judgment against him in regular form,
+and informed him that he must go with him to Clichy.
+
+Cerizet had made an arrangement with one of the creditors of the
+luckless notary, pledging himself to deliver up the debtor on payment
+to himself of half the debt. Out of the ten thousand francs promised to
+Claparon, the victim of this trap was obliged, in order to obtain his
+liberty, to pay six thousand down, the amount of his debt.
+
+On receiving his share of this extortion Cerizet said to himself:
+"There's three thousand to make Cerizet clear out."
+
+Cerizet then returned to the notary and said: "Claparon is a scoundrel,
+monsieur; he has received fifteen thousand francs from the proposed
+purchaser of your house, who will now, of course, become the owner.
+Threaten to reveal his hiding-place to his creditors, and to have him
+sued for fraudulent bankruptcy, and he'll give you half."
+
+In his wrath the notary wrote a fulminating letter to Claparon.
+Claparon, alarmed, feared an arrest, and Cerizet offered to get him a
+passport.
+
+"You have played me many a trick, Claparon," he said, "but listen to
+me now, and you can judge of my kindness. I possess, as my whole means,
+three thousand francs; I'll give them to you; start for America, and
+make your fortune there, as I'm trying to make mine here."
+
+That evening Claparon, carefully disguised by Cerizet, left for Havre by
+the diligence. Cerizet remained master of the fifteen thousand francs
+to be paid to Claparon, and he awaited Theodose with the payment thereof
+tranquilly.
+
+"The limit for bidding-in is passed," thought Theodose, as he went to
+find Dutocq and ask him to bring Cerizet to his office. "Suppose I were
+now to make an effort to get rid of my leech?"
+
+"You can't settle this affair anywhere but at Cerizet's, because
+Claparon must be present, and he is hiding there," said Dutocq.
+
+Accordingly, Theodose went, between seven and eight o'clock, to the den
+of the "banker of the poor," whom Dutocq had notified of his coming.
+Cerizet received him in the horrible kitchen where miseries and sorrows
+were chopped and cooked, as we have seen already. The pair then walked
+up and down, precisely like two animals in a cage, while mutually
+playing the following scene:--
+
+"Have you brought the fifteen thousand francs?"
+
+"No, but I have them at home."
+
+"Why not have them in your pocket?" asked Cerizet, sharply.
+
+"I'll tell you," replied Theodose, who, as he walked from the rue
+Saint-Dominique to the Estrapade, had decided on his course of action.
+
+The Provencal, writhing upon the gridiron on which his partners held
+him, became suddenly possessed with a good idea, which flashed from the
+body of the live coal under him. Peril has gleams of light. He
+resolved to rely on the power of frankness, which affects all men, even
+swindlers. Every one is grateful to an adversary who bares himself to
+the waist in a duel.
+
+"Well!" said Cerizet, "now the humbug begins."
+
+The words seemed to come wholly through the hole in his nose with
+horrible intonations.
+
+"You have put me in a magnificent position, and I shall never forget the
+service you have done me, my friend," began Theodose, with emotion.
+
+"Oh, that's how you take it, is it?" said Cerizet.
+
+"Listen to me; you don't understand my intentions."
+
+"Yes, I do!" replied the lender by "the little week."
+
+"No, you don't."
+
+"You intend not to give up those fifteen thousand francs."
+
+Theodose shrugged his shoulders and looked fixedly at Cerizet, who,
+struck by the two motions, kept silence.
+
+"Would you live in my position, knowing yourself within range of a
+cannon loaded with grape-shot, without feeling a strong desire to
+get out of it? Now listen to me carefully. You are doing a dangerous
+business, and you would be glad enough to have some solid protection in
+the very heart of the magistracy of Paris. If I can continue my
+present course, I shall be substitute attorney-general, possibly
+attorney-general, in three years. I offer you to-day the offices of a
+devoted friendship, which will serve you hereafter most assuredly, if
+only to replace you in a honorable position. Here are my conditions--"
+
+"Conditions!" exclaimed Cerizet.
+
+"In ten minutes I will bring you twenty-five thousand francs if you
+return to me all the notes which you have against me."
+
+"But Dutocq? and Claparon?" said Cerizet.
+
+"Leave them in the lurch!" replied Theodose, with his lips at Cerizet's
+ear.
+
+"That's a pretty thing to say!" cried Cerizet. "And so you have invented
+this little game of hocus-pocus because you hold in your fingers fifteen
+thousand francs that don't belong to you!"
+
+"But I've added ten thousand francs to them. Besides, you and I know
+each other."
+
+"If you are able to get ten thousand francs out of your bourgeois you
+can surely get fifteen," said Cerizet. "For thirty thousand I'm your
+man. Frankness for frankness, you know."
+
+"You ask the impossible," replied Theodose. "At this very moment, if you
+had to do with Claparon instead of with me, your fifteen thousand would
+be lost, for Thuillier is to-day the owner of that house."
+
+"I'll speak to Claparon," said Cerizet, pretending to go and consult
+him, and mounting the stairs to the bedroom, from which Claparon had
+only just departed on his road to Havre.
+
+The two adversaries had been speaking, we should here remark, in a
+manner not to be overheard; and every time that Theodose raised his
+voice Cerizet would make a gesture, intimating that Claparon, from
+above, might be listening. The five minutes during which Theodose heard
+what seemed to be the murmuring of two voices were torture to him, for
+he had staked his very life upon the issue. Cerizet at last came down,
+with a smile upon his lips, his eyes sparkling with infernal mischief,
+his whole frame quivering in his joy, a Lucifer of gaiety!
+
+"I know nothing, so it seems!" he cried, shaking his shoulders, "but
+Claparon knows a great deal; he has worked with the big-wig bankers, and
+when I told what you wanted he began to laugh, and said, 'I thought as
+much!' You will have to bring me the twenty-five thousand you offer me
+to-morrow morning, my lad; and as much more before you can recover your
+notes."
+
+"Why?" asked Theodose, feeling his spinal column liquidizing as if the
+discharge of some inward electric fluid had melted it.
+
+"The house is ours."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Claparon has bit it in under the name of one of his creditors, a little
+toad named Sauvaignou. Desroches, the lawyer, has taken the case, and
+you'll get a notice to-morrow. This affair will oblige Claparon, Dutocq,
+and me to raise funds. What would become of me without Claparon! So I
+forgive him--yes, I forgave him, and though you may not believe it, my
+dear friend, I actually kissed him! Change your terms."
+
+The last three words were horrible to hear, especially when illustrated
+by the face of the speaker, who amused himself by playing a scene from
+the "Legataire," all the while studying attentively the Provencal's
+character.
+
+"Oh, Cerizet!" cried Theodose; "I, who wished to do you so much good!"
+
+"Don't you see, my dear fellow," returned Cerizet, "that between you and
+me there ought to be _this_,--" and he struck his heart,--"of which you
+have none. As soon as you thought you had a lever on us, you have tried
+to knock us over. I saved you from the horrors of starvation and vermin!
+You'll die like the idiot you are. We put you on the high-road to
+fortune; we gave you a fine social skin and a position in which you
+could grasp the future--and look what you do! _Now_ I know you! and from
+this time forth, we shall go armed."
+
+"Then it is war between us!" exclaimed Theodose.
+
+"You fired first," returned Cerizet.
+
+"If you pull me down, farewell to your hopes and plans; if you don't
+pull me down, you have in me an enemy."
+
+"That's just what I said yesterday to Dutocq; but, how can we help it?
+We are forced to choose between two alternatives--we must go according
+to circumstances. I'm a good-natured fellow myself," he added, after a
+pause; "bring me your twenty-five thousand francs to-morrow morning and
+Thuillier shall keep the house. We'll continue to help you at both ends,
+but you'll have to pay up, my boy. After what has just happened that's
+pretty kind, isn't it?"
+
+And Cerizet patted Theodose on the shoulder, with a cynicism that seemed
+to brand him more than the iron of the galleys.
+
+"Well, give me till to-morrow at mid-day," replied the Provencal, "for
+there'll be, as you said, some manipulation to do."
+
+"I'll try to keep Claparon quiet; he's in such a hurry, that man!"
+
+"To-morrow then," said Theodose, in the tone of a man who decides his
+course.
+
+"Good-night, friend," said Cerizet, in his nasal tone, which degraded
+the finest word in the language. "There's one who has got a mouthful
+to suck!" thought Cerizet, as he watched Theodose going down the street
+with the step of a dazed man.
+
+When la Peyrade reached the rue des Postes he went with rapid strides
+to Madame Colleville's house, exciting himself as he walked along, and
+talking aloud. The fire of his roused passions and the sort of inward
+conflagration of which many Parisians are conscious (for such situations
+abound in Paris) brought him finally to a pitch of frenzy and eloquence
+which found expression, as he turned into the rue des Deux-Eglises, in
+the words:--
+
+"I will kill him!"
+
+"There's a fellow who is not content!" said a passing workman, and the
+jesting words calmed the incandescent madness to which Theodose was a
+prey.
+
+As he left Cerizet's the idea came to him to go to Flavie and tell
+her all. Southern natures are born thus--strong until certain passions
+arise, and then collapsed. He entered Flavie's room; she was alone, and
+when she saw Theodose she fancied her last hour had come.
+
+"What is the matter?" she cried.
+
+"I--I--" he said. "Do you love me, Flavie?"
+
+"Oh! how can you doubt it?"
+
+"Do you love me absolutely?--if I were criminal, even?"
+
+"Has he murdered some one?" she thought, replying to his question by a
+nod.
+
+Theodose, thankful to seize even this branch of willow, drew a chair
+beside Flavie's sofa, and there gave way to sobs that might have touched
+the oldest judge, while torrents of tears began to flow from his eyes.
+
+Flavie rose and left the room to say to her maid: "I am not at home to
+any one." Then she closed all doors and returned to Theodose, moved to
+the utmost pitch of maternal solicitude. She found him stretched out,
+his head thrown back, and weeping. He had taken out his handkerchief,
+and when Flavie tried to move it from his face it was heavy with tears.
+
+"But what is the matter?" she asked; "what ails you?"
+
+Nature, more impressive than art, served Theodose well; no longer was he
+playing a part; he was himself; this nervous crisis and these tears were
+the winding up of his preceding scenes of acted comedy.
+
+"You are a child," she said, in a gentle voice, stroking his hair
+softly.
+
+"I have but you, you only, in all the world!" he replied, kissing her
+hands with a sort of passion; "and if you are true to me, if you are
+mine, as the body belongs to the soul and the soul to the body, then--"
+he added, recovering himself with infinite grace, "_Then_ I can have
+courage."
+
+He rose, and walked about the room.
+
+"Yes, I will struggle; I will recover my strength, like Antaeus, from
+a fall; I will strangle with my own hands the serpents that entwine
+me, that kiss with serpent kisses, that slaver my cheeks, that suck my
+blood, my honor! Oh, misery! oh, poverty! Oh, how great are they who can
+stand erect and carry high their heads! I had better have let myself die
+of hunger, there, on my wretched pallet, three and a half years ago! A
+coffin is a softer bed to lie in than the life I lead! It is eighteen
+months that I have _fed on bourgeois_! and now, at the moment of
+attaining an honest, fortunate life, a magnificent future, at the moment
+when I was about to sit down to the social banquet, the executioner
+strikes me on the shoulder! Yes, the monster! he struck me there, on my
+shoulder, and said to me: 'Pay thy dues to the devil, or die!' And shall
+I not crush them? Shall I not force my arm down their throats to their
+very entrails? Yes, yes, I will, I will! See, Flavie, my eyes are dry
+now. Ha, ha! now I laugh; I feel my strength come back to me; power is
+mine! Oh! say that you love me; say it again! At this moment it sounds
+like the word 'Pardon' to the man condemned to death!"
+
+"You are terrible, my friend!" cried Flavie. "Oh! you are killing me."
+
+She understood nothing of all this, but she fell upon the sofa,
+exhausted by the spectacle. Theodose flung himself at her feet.
+
+"Forgive me! forgive me!" he said.
+
+"But what is the matter? what is it?" she asked again.
+
+"They are trying to destroy me. Oh! promise to give me Celeste, and
+you shall see what a glorious life I will make you share. If you
+hesitate--very good; that is saying you will be wholly mine, and I will
+have you!"
+
+He made so rapid a movement that Flavie, terrified, rose and moved away.
+
+"Oh! my saint!" he cried, "at thy feet I fall--a miracle! God is for me,
+surely! A flash of light has come to me--an idea--suddenly! Oh, thanks,
+my good angel, my grand Saint-Theodose! thou hast saved me!"
+
+Flavie could not help admiring that chameleon being; one knee on the
+floor, his hands crossed on his breast, and his eyes raised to heaven
+in religious ecstasy, he recited a prayer; he was a fervent Catholic;
+he reverently crossed himself. It was fine; like the vision of
+Saint-Jerome.
+
+"Adieu!" he said, with a melancholy look and a moving tone of voice.
+
+"Oh!" cried Flavie, "leave me this handkerchief."
+
+Theodose rushed away like one possessed, sprang into the street, and
+darted towards the Thuilliers', but turned, saw Flavie at her window,
+and made her a little sign of triumph.
+
+"What a man!" she thought to herself.
+
+"Dear, good friend," he said to Thuillier, in a calm and gentle, almost
+caressing voice, "we have fallen into the hands of atrocious scoundrels.
+But I mean to read them a lesson."
+
+"What has happened?" asked Brigitte.
+
+"They want twenty-five thousand francs, and, in order to get the better
+of us, the notary, or his accomplices, have determined to bid in the
+property. Thuillier, put five thousand francs in your pocket and come
+with me; I will secure that house to you. I am making myself implacable
+enemies!" he cried; "they are seeking to destroy me morally. But all
+I ask is that you will disregard their infamous calumnies and feel no
+change of heart to me. After all, what is it? If I succeed, you will
+only have paid one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs for the house
+instead of one hundred and twenty."
+
+"Provided the same thing doesn't happen again," said Brigitte, uneasily,
+her eyes dilating under the effect of a violent suspicion.
+
+"Preferred creditors have alone the right to bid in property, and as,
+in this case, there is but one, and he has used that right, we are safe.
+The amount of his claim is really only two thousand francs, but there
+are lawyers, attorneys, and so forth, to pay in such matters, and we
+shall have to drop a note of a thousand francs to make the creditor
+happy."
+
+"Go, Thuillier," said Brigitte, "get your hat and gloves, and take the
+money--from you know where."
+
+"As I paid those fifteen thousand francs without success, I don't wish
+to have any more money pass through my hands. Thuillier must pay it
+himself," said Theodose, when he found himself alone with Brigitte. "You
+have, however, gained twenty thousand on the contract I enabled you to
+make with Grindot, who thought he was serving the notary, and you own a
+piece of property which in five years will be worth nearly a million. It
+is what is called a 'boulevard corner.'"
+
+Brigitte listened uneasily, precisely like a cat which hears a mouse
+within the wall. She looked Theodose straight in the eye, and, in spite
+of the truth of his remarks, doubts possessed her.
+
+"What troubles you, little aunt?"
+
+"Oh! I shall be in mortal terror until that property is securely ours."
+
+"You would be willing to give twenty thousand francs, wouldn't you,"
+said Theodose, "to make sure that Thuillier was what we call, in law,
+'owner not dispossessable' of that property? Well, then, remember that I
+have saved you twice that amount."
+
+"Where are we going?" asked Thuillier, returning.
+
+"To Maitre Godeschal! We must employ him as our attorney."
+
+"But we refused him for Celeste."
+
+"Well, that's one reason for going to him," replied Theodose. "I have
+taken his measure; he's a man of honor, and he'll think it a fine thing
+to do you a service."
+
+Godeschal, now Derville's successor, had formerly been, for more
+than two years, head-clerk with Desroches. Theodose, to whom that
+circumstance was known, seemed to hear the name flung into his ear
+in the midst of his despair by an inward voice, and he foresaw a
+possibility of wrenching from the hands of Claparon the weapon with
+which Cerizet had threatened him. He must, however, in the first
+instance, gain an entrance to Desroches, and get some light on the
+actual situation of his enemies. Godeschal, by reason of the intimacy
+still existing between the former clerk and his old master, could be his
+go-between. When the attorneys of Paris have ties like those which bound
+Godeschal and Desroches together, they live in true fraternity, and the
+result is a facility in arranging any matters which are, as one may say,
+arrangeable. They obtain from one another, on the ground of reciprocity,
+all possible concessions by the application of the proverb, "Pass me the
+rhubarb, and I'll pass you the senna," which is put in practice in
+all professions, between ministers, soldiers, judges, business men;
+wherever, in short, enmity has not raised barriers too strong and high
+between the parties.
+
+"I gain a pretty good fee out of this compromise," is a reason that
+needs no expression in words: it is visible in the gesture, the tone,
+the glance; and as attorneys and solicitors meet constantly on this
+ground, the matter, whatever it is, is arranged. The counterpoise
+of this fraternal system is found in what we may call professional
+conscience. The public must believe the physician who says, giving
+medical testimony, "This body contains arsenic"; nothing is supposed to
+exceed the integrity of the legislator, the independence of the cabinet
+minister. In like manner, the attorney of Paris says to his brother
+lawyer, good-humoredly, "You can't obtain that; my client is furious,"
+and the other answers, "Very good; I must do without it."
+
+Now, la Peyrade, a shrewd man, had worn his legal gown about the Palais
+long enough to know how these judicial morals might be made to serve his
+purpose.
+
+"Sit in the carriage," he said to Thuillier, when they reached the rue
+Vivienne, where Godeschal was now master of the practice he had formerly
+served as clerk. "You needn't show yourself until he undertakes the
+affair."
+
+It was eleven o'clock at night; la Peyrade was not mistaken in supposing
+that he should find a newly fledged master of a practice in his office
+at that hour.
+
+"To what do I owe this visit, monsieur?" said Godeschal, coming forward
+to meet the barrister.
+
+Foreigners, provincials, and persons in high society may not be aware
+that barristers are to attorneys what generals are to marshals. There
+exists a line of demarcation, strictly maintained, between the order of
+barristers and the guild of attorneys and solicitors in Paris. However
+venerable an attorney may be, however capable and strong in his
+profession, he must go to the barrister. The attorney is the
+administrator, who maps out the plan of the campaign, collects the
+munitions of war, and puts the force in motion; the barrister gives
+battle. It is not known why the law gives a man two men to defend him
+any more than it is known why an author is forced to have both printer
+and publisher. The rules of the bar forbid its members to do any act
+belonging to the guild of attorneys. It is very rare that a barrister
+puts his foot in an attorney's office; the two classes meet in the
+law-courts. In society, there is no barrier between them, and some
+barristers, those in la Peyrade's situation particularly, demean
+themselves by calling occasionally on attorneys, though even these cases
+are rare, and are usually excused by some special urgency.
+
+"I have come on important business," replied la Peyrade; "it concerns,
+especially, a question of delicacy which you and I ought to solve
+together. Thuillier is below, in a carriage, and I have come up to see
+you, not as a barrister, but as his friend. You are in a position to do
+him an immense service; and I have told him that you have too noble a
+soul (as a worthy successor of our great Derville must have) not to put
+your utmost capacity at his orders. Here's the affair."
+
+After explaining, wholly to his own advantage, the swindling trick which
+must, he said, be met with caution and ability, the barrister developed
+his plan of campaign.
+
+"You ought, my dear maitre, to go this very evening to Desroches,
+explain the whole plot and persuade him to send to-morrow for his
+client, this Sauvaignou. We'll confess the fellow between us, and if
+he wants a note for a thousand francs over and above the amount of his
+claim, we'll let him have it; not counting the five hundred for you
+and as much more for Desroches, provided Thuillier receives the
+relinquishment of his claim by ten o'clock to-morrow morning. What does
+this Sauvaignou want? Nothing but money. Well, a haggler like that won't
+resist the attraction of an extra thousand francs, especially if he is
+only the instrument of a cupidity behind him. It is no matter to us how
+he fights it out with those who prompt him. Now, then, do you think you
+can get the Thuillier family out of this?"
+
+"I'll go and see Desroches at once," said Godeschal.
+
+"Not before Thuillier gives you a power of attorney and five hundred
+francs. The money should be on the table in a case like this."
+
+After the interview with Thuillier was over, la Peyrade took Godeschal
+in the carriage to the rue du Bethizy, where Desroches lived, explaining
+that it was on their way back to the rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer. When
+they stopped at Desroches's door la Peyrade made an appointment with
+Godeschal to meet him there the next morning at seven o'clock.
+
+La Peyrade's whole future and fortune lay in the outcome of this
+conference. It is therefore not astonishing that he disregarded the
+customs of the bar and went to Desroches's office, to study Sauvaignou
+and take part in the struggle, in spite of the danger he ran in thus
+placing himself visibly before the eyes of one of the most dreaded
+attorneys in Paris.
+
+As he entered the office and made his salutations, he took note
+of Sauvaignou. The man was, as the name had already told him, from
+Marseilles,--the foreman of a master-carpenter, entrusted with the
+giving out of sub-contracts. The profits of this work consisted of what
+he could make between the price he paid for the work and that paid to
+him by the master-carpenter; this agreement being exclusive of material,
+his contract being only for labor. The master-carpenter had failed.
+Sauvaignou had thereupon appealed to the court of commerce for
+recognition as creditor with a lien on the property. He was a stocky
+little man, dressed in a gray linen blouse, with a cap on his head, and
+was seated in an armchair. Three banknotes, of a thousand francs each,
+lying visibly before him on Desroches's desk, informed la Peyrade that
+the negotiation had already taken place, and that the lawyers were
+worsted. Godeschal's eyes told the rest, and the glance which Desroches
+cast at the "poor man's advocate" was like the blow of a pick-axe into
+the earth of a grave. Stimulated by his danger, the Provencal became
+magnificent. He coolly took up the bank-notes and folded them, as if to
+put them in his pocket, saying to Desroches:--
+
+"Thuillier has changed his mind."
+
+"Very good; then we are all agreed," said the terrible attorney.
+
+"Yes; your client must now hand over to us the fifty thousand francs
+we have spent on finishing the house, according to the contract between
+Thuillier and Grindot. I did not tell you that yesterday," he added,
+turning to Godeschal.
+
+"Do you hear that?" said Desroches to Sauvaignou. "That's a case I shall
+not touch without proper guarantees."
+
+"But, messieurs," said Sauvaignou, "I can't negotiate this matter until
+I have seen the worthy man who paid me five hundred francs on account
+for having signed him that bit of a proxy."
+
+"Are you from Marseilles?" said la Peyrade, in patois.
+
+"Oh! if he tackles him with patois the fellow is beaten," said Godeschal
+to Desroches in a low tone.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," replied the Marseillais.
+
+"Well, you poor devil," continued Theodose, "don't you see that they
+want to ruin you? Shall I tell you what you ought to do? Pocket these
+three thousand francs, and when your worthy man comes after you, take
+your rule and hit him a rap over the knuckles; tell him he's a rascal
+who wants you to do his dirty work, and instead of that you revoke your
+proxy and will pay him his five hundred francs in the week with three
+Thursdays. Then be off with you to Marseilles with these three thousand
+francs and your savings in your pocket. If anything happens to you
+there, let me know through these gentlemen, and I'll get you out of the
+scrape; for, don't you see? I'm not only a Provencal, but I'm also one
+of the leading lawyers in Paris, and the friend of the poor."
+
+When the workman found a compatriot sanctioning in a tone of authority
+the reasons by which he could betray Cerizet, he capitulated, asking,
+however, for three thousand five hundred francs. That demand having been
+granted he remarked:--
+
+"It is none too much for a rap over the knuckles; he might put me in
+prison for assault."
+
+"Well, you needn't strike unless he insults you," replied la Peyrade,
+"and that's self-defence."
+
+When Desroches had assured him that la Peyrade was really a barrister in
+good standing, Sauvaignou signed the relinquishment, which contained a
+receipt for the amount, principal and interest, of his claim, made
+in duplicate between himself and Thuillier, and witnessed by the two
+attorneys; so that the paper was a final settlement of the whole matter.
+
+"We'll leave the remaining fifteen hundred between you," whispered la
+Peyrade to Desroches and Godeschal, "on condition that you give me the
+relinquishment, which I will have Thuillier accept and sign before his
+notary, Cardot. Poor man! he never closed his eyes all night!"
+
+"Very well," replied Desroches. "You may congratulate yourself," he
+added, making Sauvaignou sign the paper, "that you've earned that money
+pretty easily."
+
+"It is really mine, isn't it, monsieur?" said the Marseillais, already
+uneasy.
+
+"Yes, and legally, too," replied Desroches, "only you must let your
+man know this morning that you have revoked your proxy under date of
+yesterday. Go out through my clerk's office, here, this way."
+
+Desroches told his head-clerk what the man was to do, and he sent a
+pupil-clerk with him to see that a sheriff's officer carried the notice
+to Cerizet before ten o'clock.
+
+"I thank you, Desroches," said la Peyrade, pressing the attorney's hand;
+"you think of everything; I shall never forget this service."
+
+"Don't deposit the deed with Cardot till after twelve o'clock," returned
+Desroches.
+
+"Hay! comrade," cried the barrister, in Provencal, following Sauvaignou
+into the next room, "take your Margot to walk about Belleville, and be
+sure you don't go home."
+
+"I hear," said Sauvaignou. "I'm off to-morrow; adieu!"
+
+"Adieu," returned la Peyrade, with a Provencal cry.
+
+"There is something behind all this," said Desroches in an undertone to
+Godeschal, as la Peyrade followed Sauvaignou into the clerk's office.
+
+"The Thuilliers get a splendid piece of property for next to nothing,"
+replied Godeschal; "that's all."
+
+"La Peyrade and Cerizet look to me like two divers who are fighting
+under water," replied Desroches. "What am I to say to Cerizet, who put
+the matter into my hands?" he added, as the barrister returned to them.
+
+"Tell him that Sauvaignou forced your hand," replied la Peyrade.
+
+"And you fear nothing?" said Desroches, in a sudden manner.
+
+"I? oh no! I want to give Cerizet a lesson."
+
+"To-morrow, I shall know the truth," said Desroches, in a low tone, to
+Godeschal; "no one chatters like a beaten man."
+
+La Peyrade departed, carrying with him the deed of relinquishment.
+At eleven o'clock he was in the courtroom of the justice-of-peace,
+perfectly calm, and firm. When he saw Cerizet come in, pale with rage,
+his eyes full of venom, he said in his ear:--
+
+"My dear friend, I'm a pretty good fellow myself, and I hold that
+twenty-five thousand francs in good bank-bills at your disposal,
+whenever you will return to me those notes of mine which you hold."
+
+Cerizet looked at the advocate of the poor, without being able to say
+one word in reply; he was green; the bile had struck in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE PERVERSITY OF DOVES
+
+"I am a non-dispossessable property-owner!" cried Thuillier, coming home
+after visiting his notary. "No human power can get that house away from
+me. Cardot says so."
+
+The bourgeoisie think much more of what their notary tells them than of
+what their attorney says. The notary is nearer to them than any other
+ministerial officer. The Parisian bourgeois never pays a visit to his
+attorney without a sense of fear; whereas he mounts the stairs with
+ever-renewed pleasure to see his notary; he admires that official's
+virtue and his sound good sense.
+
+"Cardot, who is looking for an apartment for one of his clients, wants
+to know about our second floor," continued Thuillier. "If I choose he'll
+introduce to me on Sunday a tenant who is ready to sign a lease for
+eighteen years at forty thousand francs and taxes! What do you say to
+that, Brigitte?"
+
+"Better wait," she replied. "Ah! that dear Theodose, what a fright he
+gave me!"
+
+"Hey! my dearest girl, I must tell you that when Cardot asked who put me
+in the way of this affair he said I owed him a present of at least ten
+thousand francs. The fact is, I owe it all to him."
+
+"But he is the son of the house," responded Brigitte.
+
+"Poor lad! I'll do him the justice to say that he asks for nothing."
+
+"Well, dear, good friend," said la Peyrade, coming in about three
+o'clock, "here you are, richissime!"
+
+"And through you, Theodose."
+
+"And you, little aunt, have you come to life again? Ah! you were not
+half as frightened as I was. I put your interests before my own; I
+haven't breathed freely till this morning at eleven o'clock; and yet I
+am sure now of having two mortal enemies at my heels in the two men I
+have tricked for your sake. As I walked home, just now, I asked myself
+what could be your influence over me to make me commit such a crime, and
+whether the happiness of belonging to your family and becoming your son
+could ever efface the stain I have put upon my conscience."
+
+"Bah! you can confess it," said Thuillier, the free-thinker.
+
+"And now," said Theodose to Brigitte, "you can pay, in all security,
+the cost of the house,--eighty thousand francs, and thirty thousand
+to Grindot; in all, with what you have paid in costs, one hundred and
+twenty thousand; and this last twenty thousand added make one hundred
+and forty thousand. If you let the house outright to a single tenant ask
+him for the last year's rent in advance, and reserve for my wife and me
+the whole of the first floor above the entresol. Make those conditions
+and you'll still get your forty thousand francs a year. If you should
+want to leave this quarter so as to be nearer the Chamber, you can
+always take up your abode with us on that vast first floor, which has
+stables and coach-house belonging to it; in fact, everything that is
+needful for a splendid life. And now, Thuillier, I am going to get the
+cross of the Legion of honor for you."
+
+Hearing this last promise, Brigitte cried out in her enthusiasm:--
+
+"Faith! my dear boy, you've done our business so well that I'll leave
+you to manage that of letting the house."
+
+"Don't abdicate, dear aunt," replied Theodose. "God keep me from ever
+taking a step without you! You are the good genius of this family; I
+think only of the day when Thuillier will take his seat in the Chamber.
+If you let the house you will come into possession of your forty
+thousand francs for the last year of the lease in two months from now;
+and that will not prevent Thuillier from drawing his quarterly ten
+thousand of the rental."
+
+After casting this hope into the mind of the old maid, who was jubilant,
+Theodose drew Thuillier into the garden and said to him, without beating
+round the bush:--
+
+"Dear, good friend, find means to get ten thousand francs from your
+sister, and be sure not to let her suspect that you pay them to me; tell
+her that sum is required in the government office to facilitate your
+appointment as chevalier of the Legion of honor; tell her, too, that you
+know the persons among whom that sum should be distributed."
+
+"That's a good idea," said Thuillier; "besides, I'll pay it back to her
+when I get my rents."
+
+"Have the money ready this evening, dear friend. Now I am going out on
+business about your cross; to-morrow we shall know something definitely
+about it."
+
+"What a man you are!" cried Thuillier.
+
+"The ministry of the 1st of March is going to fall, and we must get it
+out of them beforehand," said Theodose, shrewdly.
+
+He now hurried to Madame Colleville, crying out as he entered her
+room:--
+
+"I've conquered! We shall have a piece of landed property for Celeste
+worth a million, a life-interest in which will be given to her by her
+marriage-contract; but keep the secret, or your daughter will be hunted
+down by peers of France. Besides, this settlement will only be made in
+my favor. Now dress yourself, and let us go and call on Madame du Bruel;
+she can get the cross for Thuillier. While you are getting under arms
+I'll do a little courting to Celeste; you and I can talk as we drive
+along."
+
+La Peyrade had seen, as he passed the door of the salon, Celeste and
+Felix Phellion in close conversation. Flavie had such confidence in
+her daughter that she did not fear to leave them together. Now that the
+great success of the morning was secured, Theodose felt the necessity
+of beginning his courtship of Celeste. It was high time, he thought,
+to bring about a quarrel between the lovers. He did not, therefore,
+hesitate to apply his ear to the door of the salon before entering it,
+in order to discover what letters of the alphabet of love they were
+spelling; he was even invited to commit this domestic treachery by
+sounds from within, which seemed to say that they were disputing. Love,
+according to one of our poets, is a privilege which two persons mutually
+take advantage of to cause each other, reciprocally, a great deal of
+sorrow about nothing at all.
+
+When Celeste knew that Felix was elected by her heart to be the
+companion of her life, she felt a desire, not so much to study him as to
+unite herself closely with him by that communion of souls which is the
+basis of all affections, and leads, in youthful minds, to involuntary
+examination. The dispute to which Theodose was now to listen took its
+rise in a disagreement which had sprung up within the last few days
+between the mathematician and Celeste. The young girl's piety was
+real; she belonged to the flock of the truly faithful, and to her,
+Catholicism, tempered by that mysticism which attracts young souls, was
+an inward poem, a life within her life. From this point young girls are
+apt to develop into either extremely high-minded women or saints. But,
+during this beautiful period of their youth they have in their heart,
+in their ideas, a sort of absolutism: before their eyes is the image
+of perfection, and all must be celestial, angelic, or divine to satisfy
+them. Outside of their ideal, nothing of good can exist; all is stained
+and soiled. This idea causes the rejection of many a diamond with a flaw
+by girls who, as women, fall in love with paste.
+
+Now, Celeste had seen in Felix, not irreligion, but indifference to
+matters of religion. Like most geometricians, chemists, mathematicians,
+and great naturalists, he had subjected religion to reason; he
+recognized a problem in it as insoluble as the squaring of the circle.
+Deist "in petto," he lived in the religion of most Frenchmen, not
+attaching more importance to it than he did to the new laws promulgated
+in July. It was necessary to have a God in heaven, just as they set up a
+bust of the king at the mayor's office. Felix Phellion, a worthy son of
+his father, had never drawn the slightest veil over his opinions or his
+conscience; he allowed Celeste to read into them with the candor and
+the inattention of a student of problems. The young girl, on her side,
+professed a horror for atheism, and her conscience assured her that a
+deist was cousin-germain to an atheist.
+
+"Have you thought, Felix, of doing what you promised me?" asked Celeste,
+as soon as Madame Colleville had left them alone.
+
+"No, my dear Celeste," replied Felix.
+
+"Oh! to have broken his word!" she cried, softly.
+
+"But to have kept it would have been a profanation," said Felix. "I love
+you so deeply, with a tenderness so little proof against your wishes,
+that I promised a thing contrary to my conscience. Conscience, Celeste,
+is our treasure, our strength, our mainstay. How can you ask me to go
+into a church and kneel at the feet of a priest, in whom I can see only
+a man? You would despise me if I obeyed you."
+
+"And so, my dear Felix, you refuse to go to church," said Celeste,
+casting a tearful glance at the man she loved. "If I were your wife you
+would let me go alone? You do not love me as I love you! for, alas! I
+have a feeling in my heart for an atheist contrary to that which God
+commands."
+
+"An atheist!" cried Felix. "Oh, no! Listen to me, Celeste. There is
+certainly a God; I believe in that; but I have higher ideas of Him than
+those of your priests; I do not wish to bring Him down to my level;
+I want to rise to Him. I listen to the voice He has put within me,--a
+voice which honest men call conscience, and I strive not to darken that
+divine ray as it comes to me. For instance, I will never harm others;
+I will do nothing against the commandments of universal morality, which
+was that of Confucius, Moses, Pythagoras, Socrates, as well as of Jesus
+Christ. I will stand in the presence of God; my actions shall be my
+prayers; I will never be false in word or deed; never will I do a
+base or shameful thing. Those are the precepts I have learned from my
+virtuous father, and which I desire to bequeath to my children. All the
+good that I can do I shall try to accomplish, even if I have to suffer
+for it. What can you ask more of a man than that?"
+
+This profession of the Phellion faith caused Celeste to sadly shake her
+head.
+
+"Read attentively," she replied, "'The Imitation of Jesus Christ.'
+Strive to convert yourself to the holy Catholic, apostolic, and Roman
+Church, and you will see how empty your words are. Hear me, Felix;
+marriage is not, the Church says, the affair of a day, the mere
+satisfaction of our own desires; it is made for eternity. What! shall we
+be united day and night, shall we form one flesh, one word, and yet
+have two languages, two faiths in our heart, and a cause of perpetual
+dissension? Would you condemn me to weep tears over the state of your
+soul,--tears that I must ever conceal from you? Could I address myself
+in peace to God when I see his arm stretched out in wrath against you?
+Must my children inherit the blood of a deist and his convictions? Oh!
+God, what misery for a wife! No, no, these ideas are intolerable. Felix!
+be of my faith, for I cannot share yours. Do not put a gulf between us.
+If you loved me, you would already have read 'The Imitation of Jesus
+Christ.'"
+
+The Phellion class, sons of the "Constitutionnel," dislike the priestly
+mind. Felix had the imprudence to reply to this sort of prayer from the
+depths of an ardent heart:--
+
+"You are repeating, Celeste, the lessons your confessor teaches you;
+nothing, believe me, is more fatal to happiness than the interference of
+priests in a home."
+
+"Oh!" cried Celeste, wounded to the quick, for love alone inspired her,
+"you do not love! The voice of my heart is not in unison with yours!
+You have not understood me, because you have not listened to me; but I
+forgive you, for you know not what you say."
+
+She wrapped herself in solemn silence, and Felix went to the window and
+drummed upon the panes,--music familiar to those who have indulged
+in poignant reflections. Felix was, in fact, presenting the following
+delicate and curious questions to the Phellion conscience.
+
+"Celeste is a rich heiress, and, in yielding against the voice of
+natural religion, to her ideas, I should have in view the making of what
+is certainly an advantageous marriage,--an infamous act. I ought not, as
+father of a family, to allow the priesthood to have an influence in my
+home. If I yield to-day, I do a weak act, which will be followed by many
+others equally pernicious to the authority of a husband and father. All
+this is unworthy of a philosopher."
+
+Then he returned to his beloved.
+
+"Celeste, I entreat you on my knees," he said, "not to mingle that which
+the law, in its wisdom, has separated. We live in two worlds,--society
+and heaven. Each has its own way of salvation; but as to society, is it
+not obeying God to obey the laws? Christ said: 'Render unto Caesar that
+which is Caesar's.' Caesar is the body politic. Dear, let us forget our
+little quarrel."
+
+"Little quarrel!" cried the young enthusiast; "I want you to have my
+whole heart as I want to have the whole of yours; and you make it
+into two parts! Is not that an evil? You forget that marriage is a
+sacrament."
+
+"Your priesthood have turned your head," exclaimed the mathematician,
+impatiently.
+
+"Monsieur Phellion," said Celeste, interrupting him hastily, "enough of
+this!"
+
+It was at this point of the quarrel that Theodose considered it
+judicious to enter the room. He found Celeste pale, and the young
+professor as anxious as a lover should be who has just irritated his
+mistress.
+
+"I heard the word 'enough'; then something is too much?" he said,
+inquiringly, looking in turn from Celeste to Felix.
+
+"We were talking religion," replied Felix, "and I was saying to
+mademoiselle how dangerous ecclesiastical influence is in the bosom of
+families."
+
+"That was not the point, monsieur," said Celeste, sharply; "it was
+to know if husband and wife could be of one heart when the one is an
+atheist and the other Catholic."
+
+"Can there be such a thing as atheists?" cried Theodose, with all the
+signs of extreme wonderment. "Could a true Catholic marry a Protestant?
+There is no safety possible for a married pair unless they have perfect
+conformity in the matter of religious opinions. I, who come from the
+Comtat, of a family which counts a pope among its ancestors--for our
+arms are: gules, a key argent, with supporters, a monk holding a church,
+and a pilgrim with a staff, or, and the motto, 'I open, I shut'--I am,
+of course, intensely dogmatic on such points. But in these days, thanks
+to our modern system of education, it does not seem to me strange that
+religion should be called into question. I myself would never marry a
+Protestant, had she millions, even if I loved her distractedly. Faith is
+a thing that cannot be tampered with. 'Una fides, unus Dominus,' that is
+my device in life."
+
+"You hear that!" cried Celeste, triumphantly, looking at Felix Phellion.
+
+"I am not openly devout," continued la Peyrade. "I go to mass at six
+every morning, that I may not be observed; I fast on Fridays; I am,
+in short, a son of the Church, and I would not undertake any serious
+enterprise without prayer, after the ancient fashion of our ancestors;
+but no one is able to notice my religion. A singular thing happened to
+our family during the Revolution of 1789, which attached us more closely
+than ever to our holy mother the Church. A poor young lady of the elder
+branch of the Peyrades, who owned the little estate of la Peyrade,--for
+we ourselves are Peyrades of Canquoelle, but the two branches inherit
+from one another,--well, this young lady married, six years before
+the Revolution, a barrister who, after the fashion of the times, was
+Voltairean, that is to say, an unbeliever, or, if you choose, a deist.
+He took up all the revolutionary ideas, and practised the charming rites
+that you know of in the worship of the goddess Reason. He came into
+our part of the country imbued with the ideas of the Convention, and
+fanatical about them. His wife was very handsome; he compelled her to
+play the part of Liberty; and the poor unfortunate creature went mad.
+She died insane! Well, as things are going now it looks as if we might
+have another 1793."
+
+This history, invented on the spot, made such an impression on Celeste's
+fresh and youthful imagination that she rose, bowed to the young men and
+hastened to her chamber.
+
+"Ah! monsieur, why did you tell her that?" cried Felix, struck to the
+heart by the cold look the young girl, affecting profound indifference,
+cast upon him. She fancied herself transformed into a goddess of Reason.
+
+"Why not? What were you talking about?" asked Theodose.
+
+"About my indifference to religion."
+
+"The great sore of this century," replied Theodose, gravely.
+
+"I am ready," said Madame Colleville, appearing in a toilet of much
+taste. "But what is the matter with my poor daughter? She is crying!"
+
+"Crying? madame," exclaimed Felix; "please tell her that I will study
+'The Imitation of Christ' at once."
+
+Felix left the house with Theodose and Flavie, whose arm the barrister
+pressed to let her know he would explain in the carriage the apparent
+dementia of the young professor.
+
+An hour later, Madame Colleville and Celeste, Colleville and Theodose
+were entering the Thuilliers' apartment to dine there. Theodose and
+Flavie took Thuillier into the garden, where the former said to him:--
+
+"Dear, good friend! you will have the cross within a week. Our charming
+friend here will tell you about our visit to the Comtesse du Bruel."
+
+And Theodose left Thuillier, having caught sight of Desroches in the
+act of being brought by Mademoiselle Thuillier into the garden; he went,
+driven by a terrible and glacial presentiment, to meet him.
+
+"My good friend," said Desroches in his ear, "I have come to see if you
+can procure at once twenty-five thousand francs plus two thousand six
+hundred and eighty for costs."
+
+"Are you acting for Cerizet?" asked the barrister.
+
+"Cerizet has put all the papers into the hands of Louchard, and you know
+what you have to expect if arrested. Is Cerizet wrong in thinking you
+have twenty-five thousand francs in your desk? He says you offered them
+to him and he thinks it only natural not to leave them in your hands."
+
+"Thank you for taking the step, my good friend," replied Theodose. "I
+have been expecting this attack."
+
+"Between ourselves," replied Desroches, "you have made an utter fool
+of him, and he is furious. The scamp will stop at nothing to get his
+revenge upon you--for he'll lose everything if he forces you to fling
+your barrister's gown, as they say, to the nettles and go to prison."
+
+"I?" said Theodose. "I'm going to pay him. But even so, there will still
+be five notes of mine in his hands, for five thousand francs each; what
+does he mean to do with them?"
+
+"Oh! after the affair of this morning, I can't tell you; my client is a
+crafty, mangy cur, and he is sure to have his little plans."
+
+"Look here, Desroches," said Theodose, taking the hard, unyielding
+attorney round the waist, "those papers are in your hands, are not
+they?"
+
+"Will you pay them?"
+
+"Yes, in three hours."
+
+"Very good, then. Be at my office at nine o'clock; I'll receive the
+money and give you your notes; _but_, at half-past nine o'clock, they
+will be in the sheriff's hands."
+
+"To-night, then, at nine o'clock," said Theodose.
+
+"Nine o'clock," repeated Desroches, whose glance had taken in the whole
+family, then assembled in the garden.
+
+Celeste, with red eyes, was talking to her godmother; Colleville and
+Brigitte, Flavie and Thuillier were on the steps of the broad portico
+leading to the entrance-hall. Desroches remarked to Theodose, who
+followed him to the door:--
+
+"You can pay off those notes."
+
+At a single glance the shrewd attorney had comprehended the whole scheme
+of the barrister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. ONE OF CERIZET'S FEMALE CLIENTS
+
+The next morning, at daybreak, Theodose went to the office of the banker
+of the poor, to see the effect produced upon his enemy by the punctual
+payment of the night before, and to make another effort to get rid of
+his hornet.
+
+He found Cerizet standing up, in conference with a woman, and he
+received an imperative sign to keep at a distance and not to interrupt
+the interview. The barrister was therefore reduced to conjectures as to
+the importance of this woman, an importance revealed by the eager
+look on the face of the lender "by the little week." Theodose had
+a presentiment, though a very vague one, that the upshot of this
+conference would have some influence on Cerizet's own arrangements, for
+he suddenly beheld on that crafty countenance the change produced by a
+dawning hope.
+
+"But, my dear mamma Cardinal--"
+
+"Yes, my good monsieur--"
+
+"What is it you want--?"
+
+"It must be decided--"
+
+These beginnings, or these ends of sentences were the only gleams of
+light that the animated conversation, carried on in the lowest tones
+with lip to ear and ear to lip, conveyed to the motionless witness,
+whose attention was fixed on Madame Cardinal.
+
+Madame Cardinal was one of Cerizet's earliest clients; she peddled fish.
+If Parisians know these creations peculiar to their soil, foreigners
+have no suspicion of their existence; and Mere Cardinal--technologically
+speaking, of course, deserved all the interest she excited in Theodose.
+So many women of her species may be met with in the streets that the
+passers-by give them no more attention than they give to the three
+thousand pictures of the Salon. But as she stood in Cerizet's office
+the Cardinal had all the value of an isolated masterpiece; she was a
+complete and perfect type of her species.
+
+The woman was mounted on muddy sabots; but her feet, carefully wrapped
+in gaiters, were still further protected by stout and thick-ribbed
+stockings. Her cotton gown, adorned with a glounce of mud, bore the
+imprint of the strap which supported the fish-basket. Her principal
+garment was a shawl of what was called "rabbit's-hair cashmere," the two
+ends of which were knotted behind, above her bustle--for we must
+needs employ a fashionable word to express the effect produced by the
+transversal pressure of the basket upon her petticoats, which projected
+below it, in shape like a cabbage. A printed cotton neckerchief, of the
+coarsest description, gave to view a red neck, ribbed and lined like the
+surface of a pond where people have skated. Her head was covered in a
+yellow silk foulard, twined in a manner that was rather picturesque.
+Short and stout, and ruddy of skin, Mere Cardinal probably drank her
+little drop of brandy in the morning. She had once been handsome. The
+Halle had formerly reproached her, in the boldness of its figurative
+speech, for doing "a double day's-work in the twenty-four." Her voice,
+in order to reduce itself to the diapason of ordinary conversation, was
+obliged to stifle its sound as other voices do in a sick-room; but at
+such times it came thick and muffled, from a throat accustomed to send
+to the farthest recesses of the highest garret the names of the fish in
+their season. Her nose, a la Roxelane, her well-cut lips, her blue eyes,
+and all that formerly made up her beauty, was now buried in folds of
+vigorous flesh which told of the habits and occupations of an outdoor
+life. The stomach and bosom were distinguished for an amplitude worthy
+of Rubens.
+
+"Do you want to make me lie in the straw?" she said to Cerizet. "What
+do I care for the Toupilliers? Ain't I a Toupillier myself? What do you
+want to do with them, those Toupilliers?"
+
+This savage outburst was hastily repressed by Cerizet, who uttered a
+prolonged "Hush-sh!" such as all conspirators obey.
+
+"Well, go and find out all you can about it, and come back to me," said
+Cerizet, pushing the woman toward the door, and whispering, as he did
+so, a few words in her ear.
+
+"Well, my dear friend," said Theodose to Cerizet, "you have got your
+money?"
+
+"Yes," returned Cerizet "we have measured our claws, they are the same
+length, the same strength, and the same sharpness. What next?"
+
+"Am I to tell Dutocq that you received, last night, twenty-five thousand
+francs?"
+
+"Oh! my dear friend, not a word, if you love me!" cried Cerizet.
+
+"Listen," said Theodose. "I must know, once for all, what you want. I
+am positively determined not to remain twenty-four hours longer on the
+gridiron where you have got me. Cheat Dutocq if you will; I am utterly
+indifferent to that; but I intend that you and I shall come to an
+understanding. It is a fortune that I have paid you, twenty-five
+thousand francs, and you must have earned ten thousand more in your
+business; it is enough to make you an honest man. Cerizet, if you will
+leave me in peace, if you won't prevent my marriage with Mademoiselle
+Colleville, I shall certainly be king's attorney-general, or something
+of that kind in Paris. You can't do better than make sure of an
+influence in that sphere."
+
+"Here are my conditions; and they won't allow of discussion; you can
+take them or leave them. You will obtain for me the lease of Thuillier's
+new house for eighteen years, and I'll hand you back one of your five
+notes cancelled, and you shall not find me any longer in your way. But
+you will have to settle with Dutocq for the remaining four notes. You
+got the better of _me_, and I know Dutocq hasn't the force to stand
+against you."
+
+"I'll agree to that, provided you'll pay a rent of forty-eight thousand
+francs for the house, the last year in advance, and begin the lease in
+October."
+
+"Yes; but I shall not give for the last year's rent more than
+forty-three thousand francs; your note will pay the remainder. I have
+seen the house, and examined it. It suits me very well."
+
+"One last condition," said Theodose; "you'll help me against Dutocq?"
+
+"No," said Cerizet, "you'll cook him brown yourself; he doesn't need any
+basting from me; he'll give out his gravy fast enough. But you ought to
+be reasonable. The poor fellow can't pay off the last fifteen thousand
+francs due on his practice, and you should reflect that fifteen thousand
+francs would certainly buy back your notes."
+
+"Well; give me two weeks to get your lease--"
+
+"No, not a day later than Monday next! Tuesday your notes will be in
+Louchard's hands; unless you pay them Monday, or Thuillier signs the
+lease."
+
+"Well, Monday, so be it!" said Theodose; "are we friends?"
+
+"We shall be Monday," responded Cerizet.
+
+"Well, then, Monday you'll pay for my dinner," said Theodose, laughing.
+
+"Yes, at the Rocher de Cancale, if I have the lease. Dutocq shall be
+there--we'll all be there--ah! it is long since I've had a good laugh."
+
+Theodose and Cerizet shook hands, saying, reciprocally:--
+
+"We'll meet soon."
+
+Cerizet had not calmed down so suddenly without reasons. In the first
+place, as Desroches once said, "Bile does not facilitate business," and
+the usurer had too well seen the justice of that remark not to coolly
+resolve to get something out of his position, and to squeeze the jugular
+vein of the crafty Provencal until he strangled him.
+
+"It is a fair revenge," Desroches said to him; "mind you extract its
+quintessence. You hold that fellow."
+
+For ten years past Cerizet had seen men growing rich by practising the
+trade of principal tenant. The principal tenant is, in Paris, to the
+owners of houses what farmers are to country landlords. All Paris has
+seen one of its great tailors, building at his own cost, on the famous
+site of Frascati, one of the most sumptuous of houses, and paying, as
+principal tenant, fifty thousand francs a year for the ground rent of
+the house, which, at the end of nineteen years' lease, was to become
+the property of the owner of the land. In spite of the costs of
+construction, which were something like seven hundred thousand francs,
+the profits of those nineteen years proved, in the end, very large.
+
+Cerizet, always on the watch for business, had examined the chances
+for gain offered by the situation of the house which Thuillier had
+_stolen_,--as he said to Desroches,--and he had seen the possibility of
+letting it for sixty thousand at the end of six years. There were four
+shops, two on each side, for it stood on a boulevard corner. Cerizet
+expected, therefore, to get clear ten thousand a year for a dozen years,
+allowing for eventualities and sundries attendant on renewal of leases.
+He therefore proposed to himself to sell his money-lending business
+to the widow Poiret and Cadenet for ten thousand francs; he already
+possessed thirty thousand; and the two together would enable him to pay
+the last year's rent in advance, which house-owners in Paris usually
+demand as a guarantee from a principal tenant on a long lease. Cerizet
+had spent a happy night; he fell asleep in a glorious dream; he
+saw himself in a fair way to do an honest business, and to become a
+bourgeois like Thuillier, like Minard, and so many others.
+
+But he had a waking of which he did not dream. He found Fortune standing
+before him, and emptying her gilded horns of plenty at his feet in the
+person of Madame Cardinal. He had always had a liking for the woman, and
+had promised her for a year past the necessary sum to buy a donkey and
+a little cart, so that she could carry on her business on a large scale,
+and go from Paris to the suburbs. Madame Cardinal, widow of a porter in
+the corn-market, had an only daughter, whose beauty Cerizet had heard
+of from some of the mother's cronies. Olympe Cardinal was about thirteen
+years of age at the time, 1837, when Cerizet began his system of loans
+in the quarter; and with a view to an infamous libertinism, he had paid
+great attention to the mother, whom he rescued from utter misery, hoping
+to make Olympe his mistress. But suddenly, in 1838, the girl left her
+mother, and "made her life," to use an expression by which the lower
+classes in Paris describe the abuse of the most precious gifts of nature
+and youth.
+
+To look for a girl in Paris is to look for a smelt in the Seine; nothing
+but chance can throw her into the net. The chance came. Mere Cardinal,
+who to entertain a neighbor had taken her to the Bobino theatre,
+recognized in the leading lady her own daughter, whom the first comedian
+had held under his control for three years. The mother, gratified at
+first at beholding her daughter in a fine gown of gold brocade, her hair
+dressed like that of a duchess, and wearing open-worked stockings, satin
+shoes, and receiving the plaudits of the audience, ended by screaming
+out from her seat in the gallery:--
+
+"You shall soon hear of me, murderer of your own mother! I'll know
+whether miserable strolling-players have the right to come and debauch
+young girls of sixteen!"
+
+She waited at the stage-door to capture her daughter, but the first
+comedian and the leading lady had no doubt jumped across the footlights
+and left the theatre with the audience, instead of issuing by the
+stage-door, where Madame Cardinal and her crony, Mere Mahoudeau, made an
+infernal rumpus, which two municipal guards were called upon to pacify.
+Those august personages, before whom the two women lowered the diapason
+of their voices, called the mother's attention to the fact that the girl
+was of legitimate theatrical age, and that instead of screaming at
+the door after the director, she could summon him before the
+justice-of-peace, or the police-court, whichever she pleased.
+
+The next day Madame Cardinal intended to consult Cerizet, in view of
+the fact that he was a clerk in the office of the justice-of-peace;
+but, before reaching his lair in the rue des Poules, she was met by the
+porter of a house in which an uncle of hers, a certain Toupillier, was
+living, who told her that the old man hadn't probably two days to live,
+being then in the last extremity.
+
+"Well, how do you expect me to help it?" replied the widow Cardinal.
+
+"We count on you, my dear Madame Cardinal; we know you won't forget the
+good advice we'll give you. Here's the thing. Lately, your poor uncle,
+not being able to stir round, has trusted me to go and collect the
+rents of his house, rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, and the arrears of his
+dividends at the Treasury, which come to eighteen hundred francs."
+
+By this time the widow Cardinal's eyes were becoming fixed instead of
+wandering.
+
+"Yes, my dear," continued Perrache, a hump-backed little concierge;
+"and, seeing that you are the only person who ever thinks about him, and
+that you come and see him sometimes, and bring him fish, perhaps he may
+make a bequest in your favor. My wife, who has been nursing him for
+the last few days since he has been so ill, spoke to him of you, but he
+wouldn't have you told about his illness. But now, don't you see, it is
+high time you should show yourself there. It is pretty nigh two months
+since he has been able to attend to business."
+
+"You may well think, you old thief," replied Madame Cardinal, hurrying
+at top speed toward the rue Honore-Chevalier, where her uncle lived in
+a wretched garret, "that the hair would grow on my hand before I could
+ever imagine that. What! my uncle Toupillier rich! the old pauper of the
+church of Saint-Sulpice!"
+
+"Ah!" returned the porter, "but he fed well. He went to bed every night
+with his best friend, a big bottle of Roussillon. My wife has tasted it,
+though he told us it was common stuff. The wine-merchant in the rue des
+Canettes supplies it to him."
+
+"Don't say a word about all this," said the widow, when she parted from
+the man who had given her the information. "I'll take care and remember
+you--if anything comes of it."
+
+Toupillier, former drum-major in the French Guards, had been for the
+two years preceding 1789 in the service of the Church as beadle of
+Saint-Sulpice. The Revolution deprived him of that post, and he then
+dropped down into a state of abject misery. He was even obliged to
+take to the profession of model, for he _enjoyed_, as they say, a fine
+physique. When public worship was restored, he took up his beadle's
+staff once more; but in 1816 he was dismissed, as much on account of his
+immorality as for his political opinions. Nevertheless, he was allowed
+to stay about the door of the church and distribute the holy water.
+Later, an unfortunate affair, which we shall presently mention, made
+him lose even that position; but, still finding means to keep to the
+sanctuary, he obtained permission to be allowed as a pauper in the
+porch. At this period of life, being then seventy-two years of age, he
+made himself ninety-six, and began the profession of centenarian.
+
+In all Paris it was impossible to find another such beard and head of
+hair as Toupillier's. As he walked he appeared bent double; he held a
+stick in his shaking hand,--a hand that was covered with lichen, like
+a granite rock, and with the other he held out the classic hat with
+a broad brim, filthy and battered, into which, however, there fell
+abundant alms. His legs were swathed in rags and bandages, and his feet
+shuffled along in miserable overshoes of woven mat-weed, inside of which
+he had fastened excellent cork soles. He washed his face with certain
+compounds, which gave it an appearance of forms of illness, and he
+played the senility of a centenarian to the life. He reckoned himself a
+hundred years old in 1830, at which time his actual age was eighty; he
+was the head of the paupers of Saint-Sulpice, the master of the place,
+and all those who came to beg under the arcades of the church, safe from
+the persecutions of the police and beneath the protection of the beadle
+and the giver of holy water, were forced to pay him a sort of tithe.
+
+When a new heir, a bridegroom, or some godfather left the church,
+saying, "Here, this is for all of you; don't torment any of my party,"
+Toupillier, appointed by the beadle to receive these alms, pocketed
+three-fourths, and distributed only the remaining quarter among his
+henchmen, whose tribute amounted to a sou a day. Money and wine were his
+last two passions; but he regulated the latter and gave himself up to
+the former, with neglecting his personal comfort. He drank at night
+only, after his dinner, and for twenty years he slept in the arms of
+drunkenness, his last mistress.
+
+In the early morning he was at his post with all his faculties. From
+then until his dinner, which he took at Pere Lathuile's (made famous by
+Charlet), he gnawed crusts of bread by way of nourishment; and he gnawed
+them artistically, with an air of resignation which earned him abundant
+alms. The beadle and the giver of holy water, with whom he may have had
+some private understanding, would say of him:--
+
+"He is one of the worthy poor of the church; he used to know the rector
+Languet, who built Saint-Sulpice; he was for twenty years beadle of the
+church before the Revolution, and he is now over a hundred years old."
+
+This little biography, well known to all the pious attendants of the
+church, was, of course, the best of his advertisements, and no hat was
+so well lined as his. He bought his house in 1826, and began to invest
+his money in the Funds in 1830. From the value of the two investments he
+must have made something like six thousand francs a year, and probably
+turned them over by usury, after Cerizet's own fashion; for the sum he
+paid for the house was forty thousand francs, while his investment in
+1830 was forty-eight thousand more. His niece, deceived by the old man
+as much as he deceived the functionaries and the pious souls of the
+church, believed him the most miserable of paupers, and when she had any
+fish that were spoiling she sometimes took them to the aged beggar.
+
+Consequently, she now felt it her right to get what she could in return
+for her pity and her liberality to an uncle who was likely to have
+a crowd of collateral heirs; she herself being the third and last
+Toupillier daughter. She had four brothers, and her father, a porter
+with a hand-cart, had told her, in her childhood, of three aunts and
+four uncles, who all led an existence of the baser sort.
+
+After inspecting the sick man, she went, at full speed, to consult
+Cerizet, telling him, in the first place, how she had found her
+daughter, and then the reasons and indications which made her think that
+her uncle Toupillier was hoarding a pile of gold in his mattress. Mere
+Cardinal did not feel herself strong enough to seize upon the property,
+legally or illegally, and she therefore came to confide in Cerizet and
+get his advice.
+
+So, then, the banker of the poor, like other scavengers, had, at last,
+found diamonds in the slime in which he had paddled for the last four
+years, being always on the watch for some such chance,--a chance,
+they say, occasionally met with in the purlieus, which give birth to
+heiresses in sabots. This was the secret of his unexpected gentleness to
+la Peyrade, the man whose ruin he had vowed. It is easy to imagine the
+anxiety with which he awaited the return of Madame Cardinal, to whom
+this wily schemer of nefarious plots had given means to verify her
+suspicions as to the existence of the hoarded treasure, promising her
+complete success if she would trust him to obtain for her so rich a
+harvest. He was not the man to shrink from a crime, above all, when he
+saw that others could commit it, while he obtained the benefits.
+
+"Well, monsieur," cried the fishwife, entering Cerizet's den with a face
+as much inflamed by cupidity as by the haste of her movements, "my uncle
+sleeps on more than a hundred thousand francs in gold, and I am certain
+that those Perraches, by dint of nursing him, have smelt the rat."
+
+"Shared among forty heirs that won't be much to each," said Cerizet.
+"Listen to me, Mere Cardinal: I'll marry your daughter; give her your
+uncle's gold, and I'll guarantee to you a life-interest in the house and
+the dividends from the money in the Funds."
+
+"We sha'n't run any risk?"
+
+"None, whatever."
+
+"Agreed, then," said the widow Cardinal, holding out her hand to her
+future son-in-law. "Six thousand francs a year; hey! what a fine life
+I'll have."
+
+"With a son-in-law like me!" added Cerizet.
+
+"I shall be a bourgeoisie of Paris!"
+
+"Now," resumed Cerizet, after a pause, "I must study the ground. Don't
+leave your uncle alone a minute; tell the Perraches that you expect a
+doctor. I'll be the doctor, and when I get there you must seem not to
+know me."
+
+"Aren't you sly, you old rogue," said Madame Cardinal, with a punch on
+Cerizet's stomach by way of farewell.
+
+An hour later, Cerizet, dressed in black, disguised by a rusty wig and
+an artificially painted physiognomy, arrived at the house in the rue
+Honore-Chevalier in the regulation cabriolet. He asked the porter to
+tell him how to find the lodging of an old beggar named Toupillier.
+
+"Is monsieur the doctor whom Madame Cardinal expects?" asked Perrache.
+
+Cerizet had no doubt reflected on the gravity of the affair he was
+undertaking, for he avoided giving an answer to that question.
+
+"Is this the way?" he said, turning at random to one side of the
+courtyard.
+
+"No, monsieur," replied Perrache, who then took him to the back stairs
+of the house, which led up to the wretched attic occupied by the pauper.
+
+Nothing remained for the inquisitive porter to do but to question the
+driver of the cabriolet; to which employment we will leave him, while we
+pursue our own inquiries elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+       THE DIFFICULTIES THAT CROP UP IN THE EASIEST OF THEFTS
+
+The house in which Toupillier lived is one of those which have lost half
+their depth, owing to the straightening of the line of the street, the
+rue Honore-Chevalier being one of the narrowest in the Saint-Sulpice
+quarter. The owner, forbidden by the law to repair it, or to add new
+storeys, was compelled to let the wretched building in the condition
+in which he bought it. It consisted of a first storey above the
+ground-floor, surmounted by garrets, with two small wings running back
+on either side. The courtyard thus formed ended in a garden planted with
+trees, which was always rented to the occupant of the first floor. This
+garden, separated by an iron railing from the courtyard, would have
+allowed a rich owner to sell the front buildings to the city, and to
+build a new house upon the courtyard; but the whole of the first floor
+was let on an eighteen years' lease to a mysterious personage, about
+whom neither the official policing of the concierge nor the curiosity of
+the other tenants could find anything to censure.
+
+This tenant, now seventy years of age, had built, in 1829, an outer
+stairway, leading from the right wing of the first floor to the garden,
+so that he could get there without going through the courtyard. Half the
+ground-floor was occupied by a book-stitcher, who for the last ten
+years had used the stable and coach-house for workshops. A book-binder
+occupied the other half. The binder and the stitcher lived, each of
+them, in half the garret rooms over the front building on the street.
+The garrets above the rear wings were occupied, the one on the right
+by the mysterious tenant, the one on the left by Toupillier, who paid
+a hundred francs a year for it, and reached it by a dark staircase,
+lighted by small round windows. The porte-cochere was made in the
+circular form indispensable in a street so narrow that two carriages
+cannot pass in it.
+
+Cerizet laid hold of the rope which served as a baluster, to climb the
+species of ladder leading to the room where the so-called beggar was
+dying,--a room in which the odious spectacle of pretended pauperism
+was being played. In Paris, everything that is done for a purpose
+is thoroughly done. Would-be paupers are as clever at mounting their
+disguise as shopkeepers in preparing their show-windows, or sham rich
+men in obtaining credit.
+
+The floor had never been swept; the bricks had disappeared beneath
+layers of dirt, dust, dried mud, and any and every thing thrown down by
+Toupillier. A miserable stove of cast-iron, the pipe of which entered
+a crumbling chimney, was the most apparent piece of furniture in this
+hovel. In an alcove stood a bed, with tester and valence of green serge,
+which the moths had transformed into lace. The window, almost useless,
+had a heavy coating of grease upon its panes, which dispensed with
+the necessity of curtains. The whitewashed walls presented to the eye
+fuliginous tones, due to the wood and peat burned by the pauper in his
+stove. On the fireplace were a broken water-pitcher, two bottles, and
+a cracked plate. A worm-eaten chest of drawers contained his linen and
+decent clothes. The rest of the furniture consisted of a night-table of
+the commonest description, another table, worth about forty sous, and
+two kitchen chairs with the straw seats almost gone. The extremely
+picturesque costume of the centenarian pauper was hanging from a nail,
+and below it, on the floor, were the shapeless mat-weed coverings that
+served him for shoes, the whole forming, with his amorphous old hat and
+knotty stick, a sort of panoply of misery.
+
+As he entered, Cerizet gave a rapid glance at the old man, whose head
+lay on a pillow brown with grease and without a pillow-case; his angular
+profile, like those which engravers of the last century were fond
+of making out of rocks in the landscapes they engraved, was strongly
+defined in black against the green serge hangings of the tester.
+Toupillier, a man nearly six feet tall, was looking fixedly at some
+object at the foot of his bed; he did not move on hearing the groaning
+of the heavy door, which, being armed with iron bolts and a strong lock,
+closed his domicile securely.
+
+"Is he conscious?" said Cerizet, before whom Madame Cardinal started
+back, not having recognized him till he spoke.
+
+"Pretty nearly," she replied.
+
+"Come out on the staircase, so that he doesn't hear us," whispered
+Cerizet. "This is how we'll manage it," he continued, in the ear of his
+future mother-in-law. "He is weak, but he isn't so very low; we have
+fully a week before us. I'll send you a doctor who'll suit us,--you
+understand? and later in the evening I'll bring you six poppy-heads.
+In the state he's in, you see, a decoction of poppy-heads will send him
+into a sound sleep. I'll send you a cot-bed on pretence of your sleeping
+in the room with him. We'll move him from one bed to the other, and when
+we've found the money there won't be any difficulty in carrying it off.
+But we ought to know who the people are who live in this old barrack.
+If Perrache suspects, as you think, about the money, he might give an
+alarm, and so many tenants, so many spies, you know--"
+
+"Oh! as for that," said Madame Cardinal, "I've found out already that
+Monsieur du Portail, the old man who occupies the first floor, has
+charge of an insane woman; I heard their Dutch servant-woman, Katte,
+calling her Lydie this morning. The only other servant is an old valet
+named Bruneau; he does everything, except cook."
+
+"But the binder and the stitcher down below," returned Cerizet, "they
+begin work very early in the morning--Well, anyhow, we must study the
+matter," he added, in the tone of a man whose plans are not yet decided.
+"I'll go to the mayor's office of your arrondissement, and get Olympe's
+register of birth, and put up the banns. The marriage must take place a
+week from Saturday."
+
+"How he goes it, the rascal!" cried the admiring Madame Cardinal,
+pushing her formidable son-in-law by the shoulder.
+
+As he went downstairs Cerizet was surprised to see, through one of the
+small round windows, an old man, evidently du Portail, walking in the
+garden with a very important member of the government, Comte Martial de
+la Roche-Hugon. He stopped in the courtyard when he reached it, as if
+to examine the old house, built in the reign of Louis XIV., the yellow
+walls of which, though of freestone, were bent like the elderly beggar
+they contained. Then he looked at the workshops, and counted the
+workmen. The house was otherwise as silent as a cloister. Being observed
+himself, Cerizet departed, thinking over in his mind the various
+difficulties that might arise in extracting the sum hidden beneath the
+dying man.
+
+"Carry off all that gold at night?" he said to himself; "why, those
+porters will be on the watch, and twenty persons might see us! It is
+hard work to carry even twenty-five thousand francs of gold on one's
+person."
+
+Societies have two goals of perfection; the first is a state of
+civilization in which morality equally infused and pervasive does not
+admit even the idea of crime; the Jesuits reached that point, formerly
+presented by the primitive Church. The second is the state of another
+civilization in which the supervision of citizens over one another makes
+crime impossible. The end which modern society has placed before itself
+is the latter; namely, that in which a crime presents such difficulties
+that a man must abandon all reasoning in order to commit it. In fact,
+iniquities which the law cannot reach are not left actually unpunished,
+for social judgment is even more severe than that of courts. If a
+man like Minoret, the post-master at Nemours [see "Ursule Mirouet"]
+suppresses a will and no one witnesses the act, the crime is traced home
+to him by the watchfulness of virtue as surely as a robbery is followed
+up by the detective police. No wrong-doing passes actually unperceived;
+and wherever a lesion in rectitude takes place the scar remains. Things
+can be no more made to disappear than men; so carefully, in Paris
+especially, are articles and objects ticketed and numbered, houses
+watched, streets observed, places spied upon. To live at ease, crime
+must have a sanction like that of the Bourse; like that conceded by
+Cerizet's clients; who never complained of his usury, and, indeed, would
+have been troubled in mind if their flayer were not in his den of a
+Tuesday.
+
+"Well, my dear monsieur," said Madame Perrache, the porter's wife, as
+he passed her lodge, "how do you find him, that friend of God, that poor
+man?"
+
+"I am not the doctor," replied Cerizet, who now decidedly declined that
+role. "I am Madame Cardinal's business man. I have just advised her to
+have a cot-bed put up, so as to nurse her uncle night and day; though,
+perhaps, she will have to get a regular nurse."
+
+"I can help her," said Madame Perrache. "I nurse women in childbed."
+
+"Well, we'll see about it," said Cerizet; "I'll arrange all that. Who is
+the tenant on your first floor?"
+
+"Monsieur du Portail. He has lodged here these thirty years. He is a man
+with a good income, monsieur; highly respectable, and elderly. You know
+people who invest in the Funds live on their incomes. He used to be in
+business. But it is more than eleven years now since he has been trying
+to restore the reason of a daughter of one of his friends, Mademoiselle
+Lydie de la Peyrade. She has the best advice, I can tell you; the very
+first doctors in Paris; only this morning they had a consultation. But
+so far nothing has cured her; and they have to watch her pretty close;
+for sometimes she gets up and walks at night--"
+
+"Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade!" exclaimed Cerizet; "are you sure of
+the name?"
+
+"I've heard Madame Katte, her nurse, who also does the cooking, call
+her so a thousand times, monsieur; though, generally, neither Monsieur
+Bruneau, the valet, nor Madame Katte say much. It's like talking to the
+wall to try and get any information out of them. We have been porters
+here these twenty years and we've never found out anything about
+Monsieur du Portail yet. More than that, monsieur, he owns the little
+house alongside; you see the double door from here. Well, he can go out
+that way and receive his company too, and we know nothing about it. Our
+owner doesn't know anything more than we do; when people ring at that
+door, Monsieur Bruneau goes and opens it."
+
+"Then you didn't see the gentleman who is talking with him in the garden
+go by this way?"
+
+"Bless me! no, that I didn't!"
+
+"Ah!" thought Cerizet as he got into the cabriolet, "she must be the
+daughter of that uncle of Theodose. I wonder if du Portail can be the
+secret benefactor who sent money from time to time to that rascal?
+Suppose I send an anonymous letter to the old fellow, warning him of
+the danger the barrister runs from those notes for twenty-five thousand
+francs?"
+
+An hour later the cot-bed had arrived for Madame Cardinal, to whom the
+inquisitive portress offered her services to bring her something to eat.
+
+"Do you want to see the rector?" Madame Cardinal inquired of her uncle.
+
+She had noticed that the arrival of the bed seemed to draw him from his
+somnolence.
+
+"I want wine!" replied the pauper.
+
+"How do you feel now, Pere Toupillier?" asked Madame Perrache, in a
+coaxing voice.
+
+"I tell you I want wine," repeated the old man, with an energetic
+insistence scarcely to be expected of his feebleness.
+
+"We must first find out if it is good for you, uncle," said Madame
+Cardinal, soothingly. "Wait till the doctor comes."
+
+"Doctor! I won't have a doctor!" cried Toupillier; "and you, what are
+you doing here? I don't want anybody."
+
+"My good uncle, I came to know if you'd like something tasty. I've got
+some nice fresh soles--hey! a bit of fried sole, with a squeeze of lemon
+on it?"
+
+"Your fish, indeed!" cried Toupillier; "all rotten! That last you
+brought me, more than six weeks ago, it is there in the cupboard; you
+can take it away with you."
+
+"Heavens! how ungrateful sick men are!" whispered the widow Cardinal to
+Perrache.
+
+Nevertheless, to exhibit solicitude, she arranged the pillow under the
+patient's head, saying:--
+
+"There! uncle, don't you feel better like that?"
+
+"Let me alone!" shouted Toupillier, angrily; "I want no one here; I want
+wine; leave me in peace."
+
+"Don't get angry, little uncle; we'll fetch you some wine."
+
+"Number six wine, rue des Canettes," cried the pauper.
+
+"Yes, I know," replied Madame Cardinal; "but let me count out my
+coppers. I want to get something better for you than that kind of wine;
+for, don't you see, an uncle, he's a kind of father, and one shouldn't
+mind what one does for him."
+
+So saying, she sat down, with her legs apart, on one of the dilapidated
+chairs, and poured into her apron the contents of her pockets, namely:
+a knife, her snuff-box, two pawn-tickets, some crusts of bread, and a
+handful of copper, from which she extracted a few silver bits.
+
+This exhibition, intended to prove her generous and eager devotion, had
+no result. Toupillier seemed not to notice it. Exhausted by the feverish
+energy with which he had demanded his favorite remedy, he made an effort
+to change his position, and, with his back turned to his two nurses, he
+again muttered: "Wine! wine!" after which nothing more was heard of him
+but a stentorous breathing, that plainly showed the state of his lungs,
+which were beginning to congest.
+
+"I suppose I must go and fetch his wine!" said the Cardinal, restoring
+to her pockets, with some ill-humor, the cargo she had just pulled out
+of them.
+
+"If you don't want to go--" began Madame Perrache, always ready to offer
+her services.
+
+The fishwife hesitated for a moment; then, reflecting that something
+might be got out of a conversation with the wine-merchant, and sure,
+moreover, that as long as Toupillier lay on his gold she could safely
+leave him alone with the portress, she said:--
+
+"Thank you, Madame Perrache, but I'd better make acquaintance with his
+trades-folk."
+
+Then, having spied behind the night-table a dirty bottle which might
+hold about two quarts,--
+
+"Did he say the rue des Canelles?" she inquired of the portress.
+
+"Corner of the rue Guisarde," replied Madame Perrache. "Monsieur
+Legrelu, a tall, fine man with big whiskers and no hair." Then, lowering
+her voice, she added: "His number-six wine, you know, is Roussillon,
+and the best, too. However, the wine-merchant knows; it is enough if you
+tell him you have come from his customer, the pauper of Saint-Sulpice."
+
+"No need to tell me anything twice," said the Cardinal, opening the door
+and making, as they say, a false exit. "Ah ca!" she said, coming back;
+"what does he burn in his stove, supposing I want to heat some remedy
+for him?"
+
+"Goodness!" said the portress, "he doesn't make much provision for
+winter, and here we are in the middle of summer!"
+
+"And not a saucepan! not a pot, even! Gracious! what a way to live. I'll
+have to fetch him some provisions; I hope nobody will see the things I
+bring back; I'd be ashamed they should--"
+
+"I'll lend you a hand-bag," said the portress, always ready and
+officious.
+
+"No, I'll buy a basket," replied the fishwife, more anxious about what
+she expected to carry away than what she was about to bring home to
+the pauper. "There must be some Auvergnat in the neighborhood who sells
+wood," she added.
+
+"Corner of the rue Ferou; you'll find one there. A fine establishment,
+with logs of wood painted in a kind of an arcade all round the shop--so
+like, you'd think they were going to speak to you."
+
+Before going finally off, Madame Cardinal went through a piece of
+very deep hypocrisy. We have seen how she hesitated about leaving the
+portress alone with the sick man:--
+
+"Madame Perrache," she said to her, "you won't leave him, the poor
+darling, will you, till I get back?"
+
+It may have been noticed that Cerizet had not decided on any definite
+course of action in the new affair he was now undertaking. The part of
+doctor, which for a moment he thought of assuming, frightened him, and
+he gave himself out, as we have seen, to Madame Perrache as the business
+agent of his accomplice. Once alone, he began to see that his original
+idea complicated with a doctor, a nurse, and a notary, presented the
+most serious difficulties. A regular will drawn in favor of Madame
+Cardinal was not a thing to be improvised in a moment. It would take
+some time to acclimatize the idea in the surly and suspicious mind of
+the old pauper, and death, which was close at hand, might play them a
+trick at any moment, and balk the most careful preparations.
+
+It was true that unless a will were made the income of eight thousand
+francs on the Grand Livre and the house in the rue Notre-Dame de
+Nazareth would go to the heirs-at-law, and Madame Cardinal would get
+only her share of the property; but the abandonment of this visible
+portion of the inheritance was the surest means of laying hands on the
+invisible part of it. Besides, if the latter were secured, what hindered
+their returning to the idea of a will?
+
+Resolving, therefore, to confine the _operation_ to the simplest terms
+at first, Cerizet summed them up in the manoeuvre of the poppy-heads,
+already mentioned, and he was making his way back to Toupillier's abode,
+armed with that single weapon of war, intending to give Madame Cardinal
+further instructions, when he met her, bearing on her arm the basket she
+had just bought; and in that basket was the sick man's panacea.
+
+"Upon my word!" cried the usurer, "is this the way you keep your watch?"
+
+"I had to go out and buy him wine," replied the Cardinal; "he is howling
+like a soul in hell that he wants to be at peace, and to be let alone,
+and get his wine! It is his one idea that Roussillon is good for his
+disease. Well, when he has drunk it, I dare say he will be quieter."
+
+"You are right," said Cerizet, sententiously; "never contradict a sick
+man. But this wine, you know, ought to be improved; by infusing these"
+(and lifting one of the covers of the basket he slipped in the poppies)
+"you'll procure the poor man a good, long sleep,--five or six hours at
+least. This evening I'll come and see you, and nothing, I think, need
+prevent us from examining a little closer those matters of inheritance."
+
+"I see," said Madame Cardinal, winking.
+
+"To-night, then," said Cerizet, not wishing to prolong the conversation.
+
+He had a strong sense of the difficulty and danger of the affair,
+and was very reluctant to be seen in the street conversing with his
+accomplice.
+
+Returning to her uncle's garret, Madame Cardinal found him still in
+a state of semi-torpor; she relieved Madame Perrache, and bade her
+good-bye, going to the door to receive a supply of wood, all sawed,
+which she had ordered from the Auvergnat in the rue Ferou.
+
+Into an earthen pot, which she had bought of the right size to fit upon
+the hole in the stoves of the poor where they put their soup-kettles,
+she now threw the poppies, pouring over them two-thirds of the wine
+she had brought back with her. Then she lighted a fire beneath the pot,
+intending to obtain the decoction agreed upon as quickly as possible.
+The crackling of the wood and the heat, which soon spread about the
+room, brought Toupillier out of his stupor. Seeing the stove lighted he
+called out:--
+
+"Who is making a fire here? Do you want to burn the house down?"
+
+"Why, uncle," said the Cardinal, "it is wood I bought with my own money,
+to warm your wine. The doctor doesn't want you to drink it cold."
+
+"Where is it, that wine?" demanded Toupillier, calming down a little at
+the thought that the fire was not burning at his expense.
+
+"It must come to a boil," said his nurse; "the doctor insisted upon
+that. Still, if you'll be good I'll give you half a glass of it cold,
+just to wet your whistle. I'll take that upon myself, but don't you tell
+the doctor."
+
+"Doctor! I won't have a doctor; they are all scoundrels, invented to
+kill people," cried Toupillier, whom the idea of drink had revived.
+"Come, give me the wine!" he said, in the tone of a man whose patience
+had come to an end.
+
+Convinced that though this compliance would do no harm it could do no
+good, Madame Cardinal poured out half a glass, and while she gave
+it with one hand to the sick man, with the other she raised him to a
+sitting posture that he might drink it.
+
+With his fleshless, eager fingers Toupillier clutched the glass, emptied
+it at a gulp, and exclaimed:--
+
+"Ah! that's a fine drop, that is! though you've watered it."
+
+"You mustn't say that, uncle; I went and bought it myself of Pere
+Legrelu, and I've given it you quite pure. But you let me simmer the
+rest; the doctor said I might then give you all you wanted."
+
+Toupillier resigned himself with a shrug of the shoulders. At the end
+of fifteen minutes, the infusion being in condition to serve, Madame
+Cardinal brought him, without further appeal, a full cup of it.
+
+The avidity with which the old pauper drank it down prevented him from
+noticing at first that the wine was drugged; but as he swallowed the
+last drops he tasted the sickly and nauseating flavor, and flinging the
+cup on the bed he cried out that some one was trying to poison him.
+
+"Poison! nonsense!" said the fishwife, pouring into her own mouth a few
+drops of that which remained in the bottle, declaring to the old man
+that if the wine did not seem to him the same as usual, it was because
+his mouth had a "bad taste to it."
+
+Before the end of the dispute, which lasted some time, the narcotic
+began to take effect, and at the end of an hour the sick man was sound
+asleep.
+
+While idly waiting for Cerizet, an idea took possession of the
+Cardinal's mind. She thought that in view of their comings and goings
+with the treasure, it would be well if the vigilance of the Perrache
+husband and wife could be dulled in some manner. Consequently, after
+carefully flinging the refuse poppy-heads into the privy, she called to
+the portress:--
+
+"Madame Perrache, come up and taste his wine. Wouldn't you have thought
+to hear him talk he was ready to drink a cask of it? Well, a cupful
+satisfied him."
+
+"Your health!" said the portress, touching glasses with the Cardinal,
+who was careful to have hers filled with the unboiled wine. Less
+accomplished as a gourmet than the old beggar, Madame Perrache perceived
+nothing in the insidious liquid (cold by the time she drank it) to make
+her suspect its narcotic character; on the contrary, she declared it was
+"velvet," and wished that her husband were there to have a share in the
+treat. After a rather long gossip, the two women separated. Then, with
+the cooked meat she had provided for herself, and the remains of the
+Roussillon, Madame Cardinal made a repast which she finished off with a
+siesta. Without mentioning the emotions of the day, the influence of one
+of the most heady wines of the country would have sufficed to explain
+the soundness of her sleep; when she woke darkness was coming on.
+
+Her first care was to give a glance at her patient; his sleep was
+restless, and he was dreaming aloud.
+
+"Diamonds," he said; "those diamonds? At my death, but not before."
+
+"Gracious!" thought Madame Cardinal, "that was the one thing
+lacking,--diamonds! that he should have diamonds!"
+
+Then, as Toupillier seemed to be in the grasp of a violent nightmare,
+she leaned over him so as not to lose a word of his speech, hoping to
+gather from it some important revelation. At this moment a slight rap
+given to the door, from which the careful nurse had removed the key,
+announced the arrival of Cerizet.
+
+"Well?" he said, on entering.
+
+"He has taken the drug. He's been sound asleep these two hours; just
+now, in dreaming, he was talking of diamonds."
+
+"Well," said Cerizet, "it wouldn't be surprising if we found some. These
+paupers when they set out to be rich, like to pile up everything."
+
+"Ah ca!" cried the Cardinal, suddenly, "what made you go and tell
+Mere Perrache that you were my man of business, and that you weren't
+a doctor? I thought we agreed this morning that you were coming as a
+doctor?"
+
+Cerizet did not choose to admit that the usurpation of that title had
+seemed to him dangerous; he feared to discourage his accomplice.
+
+"I saw that the woman was going to propose a consultation," he replied,
+"and I got out of it that way."
+
+"Goodness!" exclaimed Madame Cardinal, "they say fine minds come
+together; that was my dodge, too. Calling you my man of business seemed
+to give that old pilferer a few ideas. Did they see you come in, those
+porters?"
+
+"I thought, as I went by," replied Cerizet, "that the woman was asleep
+in her chair."
+
+"And well she might be," said the Cardinal, significantly.
+
+"What, really?" said Cerizet.
+
+"Parbleu!" replied the fishwife; "what's enough for one is enough for
+two; the rest of the stuff went that way."
+
+"As for the husband, he was there," said Cerizet; "for he gave me a
+gracious sign of recognition, which I could have done without."
+
+"Wait till it is quite dark, and we'll play him a comedy that shall fool
+him finely."
+
+Accordingly, ten minutes later, the fishwife, with a vim that delighted
+the usurer, organized for the innocent porter the comedy of a _monsieur_
+who would not, out of politeness, let her accompany him to the door; she
+herself with equal politeness insisting. Appearing to conduct the sham
+physician into the street gate she pretended that the wind had blown
+out of her lamp, and under pretext of relighting it she put out that of
+Perrache. All this racket, accompanied by exclamations and a bewildering
+loquacity, was so briskly carried out that the porter, if summoned
+before the police-court, would not have hesitated to swear that the
+doctor, whose arrival he had witnessed, left the house between nine and
+ten o'clock.
+
+When the two accomplices were thus in tranquil possession of the field
+of operations Madame Cardinal hung up her rabbit's-hair shawl before the
+window to exclude all possible indiscretion on the part of a neighbor.
+In the Luxembourg quarter life quiets down early. By ten o'clock all
+the sounds in the house as well as those out of doors were stilled, and
+Cerizet declared that the moment had come to go to work; by beginning at
+once they were certain that the sleeper would remain under the influence
+of the drug; besides, if the booty were found at once, Madame Cardinal
+could, under pretence of a sudden attack on her patient, which required
+her to fetch a remedy from the apothecary, get the porter to open the
+street gate for her without suspicion. As all porters pull the gate-cord
+from their beds, Cerizet would be able to get away at the same time
+without notice.
+
+Powerful in advice, Cerizet was a very incapable hand in action; and,
+without the robust assistance of Mere Cardinal he could never have
+lifted what might almost be called the corpse of the former drum-major.
+Completely insensible, Toupillier was now an inert mass, a dead-weight,
+which could, fortunately, be handled without much precaution, and
+the athletic Madame Cardinal, gathering strength from her cupidity,
+contrived, notwithstanding Cerizet's insufficient assistance, to effect
+the transfer of her uncle from one bed to the other.
+
+On rummaging the bed from which the body was moved, nothing was
+found, and Madame Cardinal, pressed by Cerizet to explain why she had
+confidently asserted that her uncle "was lying on one hundred thousand
+francs in gold," was forced to admit that a talk with Madame Perrache,
+and her own fervid imagination were the sole grounds of her certainty.
+Cerizet was furious; having for one whole day dallied with the idea
+and hope of fortune, having, moreover, entered upon a dangerous and
+compromising course of action, only to find himself, at the supreme
+moment, face to face with--nothing! The disappointment was so bitter
+that if he had not been afraid of the muscular strength of his
+future mother-in-law, he would have rushed upon her with some frantic
+intention.
+
+His anger, however, spent itself in words. Harshly abused, Madame
+Cardinal contented herself by remarking that all hope was not lost, and
+then, with a faith that ought to have moved mountains, she set to work
+to empty the straw from the mattress she had already vainly explored
+in all directions. But Cerizet would not allow that extreme measure; he
+remarked that after the autopsy of a straw mattress such detritus would
+remain upon the floor as must infallibly give rise to suspicion. But
+the Cardinal, who thought this caution ridiculous, was determined to,
+at least, take apart the flock bedstead. The passion of the search gave
+extraordinary vigilance to her senses, and as she raised the wooden
+side-frame she heard the fall of some tiny object on the floor. Seizing
+the light she began to search in the mound of filth of all kinds that
+was under the bed, and finally laid her hand on a bit of polished steel
+about half an inch long, the use of which was to her inexplicable.
+
+"That's a key!" cried Cerizet, who was standing beside her with some
+indifference, but whose imagination now set off at a gallop.
+
+"Ha! ha! you see I was right," cried the Cardinal. "But what can it
+open?" she added, on reflection; "nothing bigger than a doll's house."
+
+"No," said Cerizet, "it is a modern invention, and very strong locks can
+be opened with that little instrument."
+
+With a rapid glance he took in all the pieces of furniture in the room;
+went to the bureau and pulled out the drawers; looked in the stove, in
+the table; but nowhere did he find a lock to which the little key could
+be adapted.
+
+Suddenly the Cardinal had a flash of illumination.
+
+"See here!" she said. "I remarked that the old thief, as he lay on his
+bed, never took his eyes off the wall just opposite to him."
+
+"A cupboard hidden in the wall!" cried Cerizet, seizing the light
+eagerly; "it is not impossible!"
+
+Examining attentively the door of the alcove, which was opposite the
+bed's head, he could see nothing there but a vast accumulation of dust
+and spiders' webs. He next employed the sense of touch, and began to rap
+and sound the wall in all directions. At the spot to which Toupillier's
+constant gaze was directed he thought he perceived in a very narrow
+space a slight sonority, and he presently perceived that he was rapping
+on wood. He then rubbed the spot vigorously with his handkerchief, and
+beneath the thick layer of dust and dirt which he thus removed he found
+a piece of oak plank carefully inserted in the wall. On one side of
+this plank was a small round hole; it was that of the lock which the key
+fitted!
+
+While Cerizet was turning the key, which worked with great difficulty,
+Madame Cardinal, holding the light, was pale and breathless; but, oh!
+cruel deception! the cupboard, at last unlocked and open, showed only an
+empty space, into which the light in her hand fell uselessly.
+
+Allowing this bacchante to give vent to her despair by saluting her
+much-beloved uncle with the harshest epithets, Cerizet quietly inserted
+his arm into the cupboard, and after feeling it over at the back, he
+cried out, "An iron safe!" adding, impatiently, "Give me more light,
+Madame Cardinal."
+
+Then, as the light did not penetrate to the depths of the cupboard, he
+snatched the candle from the bottle, where, in default of a candlestick,
+the Cardinal had stuck it, and, taking it in his hand, moved it
+carefully over all parts of the iron safe, the existence of which was
+now a certainty.
+
+"There is no visible lock," he said. "There must be a secret opening."
+
+"Isn't he sly, that old villain!" exclaimed Madame Cardinal, while
+Cerizet's bony fingers felt the side of the safe over minutely.
+
+"Ha!" he exclaimed, after groping for ten minutes, "I have it!"
+
+During this time Madame Cardinal's life seemed actually suspended.
+
+Under the pressure which Cerizet now applied, the iron side rose quickly
+into the thickness of the wall above, and in the midst of a mass of gold
+thrown pell-mell into a large excavation that was now exposed to view,
+lay a case of red morocco, which, from its size and appearance, gave
+promise of magnificent booty.
+
+"I take the diamonds for myself," said Cerizet, when he had opened the
+case and seen the splendid jewels it contained; "you won't know how
+to get rid of them. I'll leave you the gold for your share. As for the
+house and the money in the Funds, they are not worth the trouble it
+would be to get the old fellow to make a will."
+
+"Not so fast, my little man!" replied the Cardinal, who thought this
+decision rather summary; "we will first count the money--"
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed Cerizet, apparently listening to a sound.
+
+"What is it?" asked the Cardinal.
+
+"Don't you hear some one moving below?"
+
+"No, I hear nothing."
+
+Cerizet, making her a sign to be silent, listened attentively.
+
+"I hear a step on the stairs," he said, a moment later.
+
+Then he hastily replaced the morocco case, and made desperate but
+unavailing efforts to lower the panel.
+
+"Yes!" cried Madame Cardinal, terrified; "some one is really coming."
+Then, fastening to a hope of safety, she added, "I dare say it is that
+insane girl; they say she walks at night."
+
+At any rate, the insane girl (if it were she) had a key to the room, for
+a moment later, this key was inserted in the lock. With a rapid glance
+Madame Cardinal measured the distance to the door; should she have time
+to push the bolt? No; certain that it was then too late, so she blew out
+the candle to give herself at least some chances in the darkness.
+
+Useless effort! the intruder who now appeared had brought a candle with
+him.
+
+When Madame Cerizet saw that she had to do with a small, old man of
+puny appearance, she flung herself before him with flaming eyes, like a
+lioness from whom the hunter is seeking to take her cubs.
+
+"Be calm, my good woman," said the little man, in a jeering tone; "the
+police are sent for; they will be here in a moment."
+
+At the word "police" the Cardinal's legs gave way.
+
+"But, monsieur," she said, "why the police? we are not robbers."
+
+"No matter for that; if I were in your place I shouldn't wait for them,"
+said the little old man; "they make unfortunate mistakes sometimes."
+
+"Can I clear out?" asked the woman, incredulously.
+
+"Yes, if you empty your pockets of anything which has, _by accident_,
+got into them."
+
+"Oh! my good monsieur, I haven't a thing in my hands or my pockets; I
+wasn't here to harm any one,--only to nurse my poor dear uncle; you can
+search me."
+
+"Come, be off with you! that will do," said the old man.
+
+Madame Cardinal did not oblige him to repeat the order, and she rapidly
+disappeared down the staircase.
+
+Cerizet made as though he would take the same road.
+
+"You, monsieur, are quite another thing," said the little old man. "You
+and I must talk together; but if you are tractable, the affair between
+us can be settled amicably."
+
+Whether it was that the narcotic had ceased to operate, or that the
+noise going on about Toupillier put an end to his sleep, he now opened
+his eyes and cast around him the glance of a man who endeavors to
+remember where he is; then, seeing his precious cupboard open, he found
+in the emotion that sight produced the strength to cry out two or three
+times, "Help! help! robbers!" in a voice that was loud enough to rouse
+the house.
+
+"No, Toupillier," said the little old man; "you have not been robbed; I
+came here in time to prevent it; nothing has been taken."
+
+"Why don't you arrest that villain?" shouted the old pauper, pointing to
+Cerizet.
+
+"Monsieur is not a thief," replied the old man. "On the contrary, he
+came up with me to lend assistance." Then, turning to Cerizet, he added,
+in a low voice: "I think, my good friend, that we had better postpone
+the interview I desire to have with you until to-morrow. Come at ten
+o'clock to the adjoining house, and ask for Monsieur du Portail. After
+what has passed this evening, there will, I ought to warn you, be
+some danger to you in not accepting this conference. I shall find you
+elsewhere, infallibly; for I have the honor to know who you are; you
+are the man whom the Opposition journals were accustomed to call 'the
+courageous Cerizet.'"
+
+In spite of the profound sarcasm of this remark, Cerizet, perceiving
+that he was not to be treated more rigorously than Madame Cardinal, felt
+so pleased with this conclusion that he promised, very readily, to keep
+the appointment, and then slipped away with all the haste he could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. DU PORTAIL
+
+The next day Cerizet did not fail to appear at the rendezvous given
+to him. Examined, at first, through the wicket of the door, he was
+admitted, after giving his name, into the house, and was ushered
+immediately to the study of Monsieur du Portail, whom he found at his
+desk.
+
+Without rising, and merely making a sign to his guest to take a chair,
+the little old man continued the letter he was then writing. After
+sealing it with wax, with a care and precision that denoted a nature
+extremely fastidious and particular, or else a man accustomed to
+discharge diplomatic functions, du Portail rang for Bruneau, his valet,
+and said, as he gave him the letter:--
+
+"For the justice-of-peace of the arrondissement."
+
+Then he carefully wiped the steel pen he had just used, restored to
+their places, symmetrically, all the displaced articles on his desk, and
+it was only when these little arrangements were completed that he turned
+to Cerizet, and said:--
+
+"You know, of course, that we lost that poor Monsieur Toupillier last
+night?"
+
+"No, really?" said Cerizet, putting on the most sympathetic air he could
+manage. "This is my first knowledge of it."
+
+"But you probably expected it. When one gives a dying man an immense
+bowl of hot wine, which has also been narcotized,--for the Perrache
+woman slept all night in a sort of lethargy after drinking a small glass
+of it,--it is evident that the catastrophe has been hastened."
+
+"I am ignorant, monsieur," said Cerizet, with dignity, "of what Madame
+Cardinal may have given to her uncle. I have no doubt committed a
+great piece of thoughtlessness in assisting this woman to obtain an
+inheritance to which she assured me she had legal rights; but as to
+attempting the life of that old pauper, I am quite incapable of such a
+thing; nothing of the kind ever entered my mind."
+
+"You wrote me this letter, I think," said du Portail, abruptly, taking
+from beneath a bohemian glass bowl a paper which he offered to Cerizet.
+
+"A letter?" replied Cerizet, with the hesitation of a man who doesn't
+know whether to lie or speak the truth.
+
+"I am quite sure of what I say," continued du Portail. "I have a mania
+for autographs, and I possess one of yours, obtained at the period
+when the Opposition exalted you to the glorious rank of martyr. I have
+compared the two writings, and I find that you certainly wrote me,
+yesterday, the letter which you hold in your hand, informing me of the
+money embarrassments of young la Peyrade at the present moment."
+
+"Well," said Cerizet, "knowing that you had given a home to Mademoiselle
+de la Peyrade, who is probably cousin of Theodose, I thought I
+recognized in you the mysterious protector from whom, on more than one
+occasion, my friend has received the most generous assistance. Now, as
+I have a sincere affection for that poor fellow, it was in his interests
+that I permitted myself--"
+
+"You did quite right," interrupted du Portail. "I am delighted to have
+fallen in with a friend of la Peyrade. I ought not to conceal from you
+that it was this particular fact which protected you last night. But
+tell me, what is this about notes for twenty-five thousand francs?
+Is our friend so badly off in his affairs? Is he leading a dissipated
+life?"
+
+"On the contrary," replied Cerizet, "he's a puritan. Given to the
+deepest piety, he did not choose to take, as a barrister, any other
+cases but those of the poor. He is now on the point of making a rich
+marriage."
+
+"Ah! is he going to be married? and to whom?"
+
+"To a Demoiselle Colleville, daughter of the secretary of the mayor
+of the 12th arrondissement. In herself, the girl has no fortune, but a
+certain Monsieur Thuillier, her godfather, member of the Council-general
+of the Seine, has promised her a suitable 'dot.'"
+
+"Who has handled this affair?"
+
+"La Peyrade has been devoted to the Thuillier family, into which he was
+introduced by Monsieur Dutocq, clerk of the justice-of-peace of their
+arrondissement."
+
+"But you wrote me that these notes were signed in favor of Monsieur
+Dutocq. The affair is a bit of matrimonial brokerage, in short?"
+
+"Well, something of that kind," replied Cerizet. "You know, monsieur,
+that in Paris such transactions are very common. Even the clergy won't
+disdain to have a finger in them."
+
+"Is the marriage a settled thing?"
+
+"Yes, and within the last few days especially."
+
+"Well, my good sir, I rely on you to put an end to it. I have other
+views for Theodose,--another marriage to propose to him."
+
+"Excuse me!" said Cerizet, "to break up this marriage would make it
+impossible for him to pay his notes; and I have the honor to call
+your attention to the fact that these particular bills of exchange
+are serious matters. Monsieur Dutocq is in the office of the
+justice-of-peace; in other words, he couldn't be easily defeated in such
+a matter."
+
+"The debt to Monsieur Dutocq you shall buy off yourself," replied du
+Portail. "Make arrangements with him to that effect. Should Theodose
+prove reluctant to carry out my plans, those notes may become a useful
+weapon in our hands. You will take upon yourself to sue him for them,
+and you shall have no money responsibility in the matter. I will pay you
+the amount of the notes for Dutocq, and your costs in suing Theodose."
+
+"You are square in business, monsieur," said Cerizet. "There's some
+pleasure in being your agent. Now, if you think the right moment has
+come, I should be glad if you would give me some better light on the
+mission you are doing me the honor to place in my hands."
+
+"You spoke just now," replied du Portail, "of the cousin of Theodose,
+Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade. This young woman, who is not in her
+first youth, for she is nearly thirty, is the natural daughter of the
+celebrated Mademoiselle Beaumesnil of the Theatre Francais and Peyrade,
+the commissary-general of police under the Empire, and the uncle of our
+friend. Until his death, which occurred suddenly, leaving his daughter,
+whom he loved tenderly, without means of support, I was bound to that
+excellent man with the warmest friendship."
+
+Glad to show that he had some knowledge of du Portail's interior life,
+Cerizet hastened to remark:--
+
+"And you have secretly fulfilled the duties of that friendship,
+monsieur; for, in taking into your home that interesting orphan you
+assumed a difficult guardianship. Mademoiselle de la Peyrade's state
+of health requires, I am told, a care not only affectionate, but
+persevering."
+
+"Yes," replied du Portail, "the poor girl, after the death of her
+father, was so cruelly tried that her mind has been somewhat affected;
+but a fortunate change has lately occurred in her condition, and
+only yesterday I called in consultation Doctor Bianchon and the two
+physicians-in-charge of Bicetre and the Salpetriere. These gentlemen
+unanimously declare that marriage and the birth of a first child would
+undoubtedly restore her to perfect health. You can readily understand
+that the remedy is too easy and agreeable not to be attempted."
+
+"Then," said Cerizet, "it is to Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade, his
+cousin, that you wish to marry Theodose."
+
+"You have said it," returned du Portail, "and you must not think that
+our young friend, if he accepts the marriage, will be called upon to
+show a gratuitous devotion. Lydie is very agreeable in person; she
+has talents, a charming disposition, and she can bring to bear, in
+her husband's interest, a strong influence in public life. She has,
+moreover, a pretty fortune, consisting of what her mother left her, and
+of my entire property, which, having no heirs myself, I intend to secure
+to her in the marriage contract. Besides all this, she has this very
+night acquired a not inconsiderable legacy."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Cerizet, "do you mean that old Toupillier--"
+
+"By a will in his own handwriting, which I have here, that old pauper
+constitutes her his sole legatee. You see, therefore, that I showed
+some kindness in not proceeding against you and Madame Cardinal for
+your little attempt last night; it was simply our property that you were
+trying to pillage."
+
+"Heavens!" cried Cerizet, "I won't pretend to excuse Madame Cardinal's
+misconduct; and yet, as one of the legal heirs, dispossessed by a
+stranger, she had, it seems to me, some right to the indulgence which
+you certainly showed to her."
+
+"In that you are mistaken," said du Portail; "the apparent liberality
+of the old beggar to Mademoiselle de la Peyrade happens to be only a
+restitution."
+
+"A restitution!" exclaimed Cerizet, in a tone of curiosity.
+
+"A restitution," repeated du Portail, "and nothing is easier than to
+prove it. Do you remember the robbery of some diamonds from one of our
+dramatic celebrities about ten years ago?"
+
+"Yes," replied Cerizet. "I was manager of one of my newspapers at the
+time, and I used to write the 'Paris items.' But stay, I remember, the
+actress who lost them was Mademoiselle Beaumesnil."
+
+"Precisely; the mother of Mademoiselle de la Peyrade."
+
+"Consequently, this miserable old Toupillier--no, I remember that the
+thief was convicted; his name was Charles Crochard. It was said, under
+the rose, that he was the natural son of a great personage, the Comte
+de Granville, attorney-general under the Restoration." [See "A Double
+Life."]
+
+"Well," said du Portail, "this is how it happened. The robbery was
+committed in a house in the rue de Tournon, occupied by Mademoiselle
+Beaumesnil. Charles Crochard, who was a handsome fellow, was said to
+have the run of it--"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Cerizet, "I remember Mademoiselle Beaumesnil's
+embarrassment when she gave her testimony--and also the total extinction
+of voice that attacked her when the judge asked her age."
+
+"The robbery," continued du Portail, "was audaciously committed in the
+daytime; and no sooner did Charles Crochard get possession of the casket
+than he went to the church of Saint-Sulpice, where he had an appointment
+with an accomplice, who, being supplied with a passport, was to start
+immediately with the diamonds for foreign parts. It so chanced that on
+entering the church, instead of meeting the man he expected, who was a
+trifle late, Charles Crochard came face to face with a celebrated agent
+of the detective force, who was well known to him, inasmuch as the young
+rascal was not at his first scrimmage with the police. The absence of
+his accomplice, this encounter with the detective, and, lastly, a rapid
+movement made by the latter, by the merest chance, toward the door,
+induced the robber to fancy he was being watched. Losing his head
+under this idea, he wanted, at any cost, to put the casket out of his
+possession, knowing that if arrested, as he expected, at the door of the
+church, it would be a damning proof against him. Catching sight at that
+moment of Toupillier, who was then the giver of holy water, 'My man,'
+said he, making sure that no one overheard their colloquy, 'will you
+take care of this little package for me? It is a box of lace. I am going
+near by to a countess who is slow to pay her bill; and if I have the
+lace with me she'll want to see it, for it is a new style, and she'll
+ask me to leave it with her on credit, instead of paying the bill;
+therefore I don't want to take it. But,' he added, 'be sure not to touch
+the paper that wraps the box, for there's nothing harder than to do up a
+package in the same folds--'"
+
+"The booby!" cried Cerizet, naively; "why, that very caution would make
+the man want to open it."
+
+"You are an able casuist," said du Portail. "Well, an hour later,
+Charles Crochard, finding that nothing happened to him, returned to the
+church to obtain his deposit, but Toupillier was no longer there. You
+can imagine the anxiety with which Charles Crochard attended early mass
+the next day, and approached the giver of holy water, who was there,
+sure enough, attending to his functions. But night, they say, brings
+counsel; the worthy beggar audaciously declared that he had received no
+package, and did not know what his interlocutor meant."
+
+"And there was no possibility of arguing with him, for that would be
+exposure," remarked Cerizet, who was not far from sympathizing in a
+trick so boldly played.
+
+"No doubt," resumed du Portail; "the robbery was already noised about,
+and Toupillier, who was a very able fellow, had calculated that Charles
+Crochard would not dare to publicly accuse him, for that would reveal
+the theft. In fact, on his trial Charles Crochard never said a word of
+his mishap, and during the six years he spent at the galleys (he was
+condemned to ten, but four were remitted) he did not open his lips to a
+single soul about the treachery of which he had been a victim."
+
+"That was pretty plucky," said Cerizet; the tale excited him, and he
+showed openly that he saw the matter as an artist and a connoisseur.
+
+"In that interval," continued du Portail, "Madame Beaumesnil died,
+leaving her daughter a few fragments of a once great fortune, and the
+diamonds which the will expressly stated Lydie was to receive 'in case
+they were recovered.'"
+
+"Ha! ha!" exclaimed Cerizet, "bad for Toupillier, because, having to do
+with a man of your calibre--"
+
+"Charles Crochard's first object on being liberated was vengeance on
+Toupillier, and his first step was to denounce him to the police as
+receiver of the stolen property. Taken in hand by the law, Toupillier
+defended himself with such singular good-humor, being able to show that
+no proof whatever existed against him, that the examining judge let him
+off. He lost his place, however, as giver of holy water, obtaining, with
+great difficulty, permission to beg at the door of the church. For my
+part, I was certain of his guilt; and I managed to have the closest
+watch kept upon him; though I relied far more upon myself. Being a man
+of means and leisure, I stuck, as you may say, to the skin of my thief,
+and did, in order to unmask him, one of the cleverest things of my
+career. He was living at that time in the rue du Coeur-Volant. I
+succeeded in becoming the tenant of the room adjoining his; and one
+night, through a gimlet hole I had drilled in the partition, I saw
+my man take the case of diamonds from a very cleverly contrived
+hiding-place. He sat for an hour gazing at them and fondling them; he
+made them sparkle in the light, he pressed them passionately to his
+lips. The man actually loved those diamonds for themselves, and had
+never thought of turning them to money."
+
+"I understand," said Cerizet,--"a mania like that of Cardillac, the
+jeweller, which has now been dramatized."
+
+"That is just it," returned du Portail; "the poor wretch was in love
+with that casket; so that when, shortly after, I entered his room and
+told him I knew all, he proposed to me to leave him the life use of
+what he called the consolation of his old age, pledging himself to make
+Mademoiselle de la Peyrade his sole heir, revealing to me at the same
+time the existence of a hoard of gold (to which he was adding every
+day), and also the possession of a house and an investment in the
+Funds."
+
+"If he made that proposal in good faith," said Cerizet, "it was a
+desirable one. The interest of the capital sunk in the diamonds was more
+than returned by that from the other property."
+
+"You now see, my dear sir," said du Portail, "that I was not mistaken
+in trusting him. All my precautions were well taken; I exacted that he
+should occupy a room in the house I lived in, where I could keep a close
+eye upon him. I assisted him in making that hiding-place, the secret of
+which you discovered so cleverly; but what you did not find out was that
+in touching the spring that opened the iron safe you rang a bell in my
+apartment, which warned me of any attempt that was made to remove our
+treasure."
+
+"Poor Madame Cardinal!" cried Cerizet, good-humoredly, "how far she was
+from suspecting it!"
+
+"Now here's the situation," resumed du Portail. "On account of the
+interest I feel in the nephew of my old friend, and also, on account
+of the relationship, this marriage seems to me extremely desirable; in
+short, I unite Theodose to his cousin and her 'dot.' As it is possible
+that, considering the mental state of his future wife, Theodose may
+object to sharing my views, I have not thought it wise to make this
+proposal directly to himself. You have suddenly turned up upon my path;
+I know already that you are clever and wily, and that knowledge induces
+me to put this little matrimonial negotiation into your hands. Now,
+I think, you understand the matter thoroughly; speak to him of a fine
+girl, with one little drawback, but, on the other hand, a comfortable
+fortune. Do not name her to him; and come here and let me know how the
+proposal has been taken."
+
+"Your confidence delights me as much as it honors me," replied Cerizet,
+"and I will justify it the best I can."
+
+"We must not expect too much," said du Portail. "Refusal will be the
+first impulse of a man who has an affair on hand elsewhere; but we need
+not consider ourselves beaten. I shall not easily give up a plan which
+I know to be just, even if I push my zeal so far as to put la Peyrade
+under lock and key in Clichy. I am resolved not to take no for his
+answer to a proposal of which, in the end, he cannot fail to see the
+propriety. Therefore, in any case, buy up those notes from Monsieur
+Dutocq."
+
+"At par?" asked Cerizet.
+
+"Yes, at par, if you cannot do better; we are not going to haggle over
+a few thousand francs; only, when this transaction is arranged, Monsieur
+Dutocq must pledge us either his assistance, or, at the very least,
+his neutrality. After what you have said of the other marriage, it is
+unnecessary for me to warn you that there is not a moment to lose in
+putting our irons into the fire."
+
+"Two days hence I have an appointment with la Peyrade," said Cerizet.
+"We have a little matter of business of our own to settle. Don't you
+think it would be best to wait till then, when I can introduce the
+proposal incidentally? In case of resistance, I think that arrangement
+would best conduce to OUR dignity."
+
+"So be it," said du Portail; "it isn't much of a delay. Remember,
+monsieur, that if you succeed you have, in place of a man able to
+bring you to a stern account for your _imprudent assistance_ to Madame
+Cardinal, a greatly obliged person, who will be ready at all times to
+serve you, and whose influence is greater than is generally supposed."
+
+After these friendly words, the pair separated with a thoroughly good
+understanding, and well satisfied with each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH THE LAMB DEVOURS THE WOLF
+
+The evening before the day already agreed upon, Theodose received from
+Cerizet the following note:--
+
+"To-morrow, lease or no lease, Rocher de Cancale, half-past six
+o'clock."
+
+As for Dutocq, Cerizet saw him every day, for he was still his copying
+clerk; he therefore gave him his invitation by word of mouth; but
+the attentive reader must remark a difference in the hour named:
+"Quarter-past-six, Rocher de Cancale," said Cerizet. It was evident,
+therefore, that he wanted that fifteen minutes with Dutocq before the
+arrival of la Peyrade.
+
+These minutes the usurer proposed to employ in jockeying Dutocq in the
+purchase of the notes; he fancied that if the proposition to buy them
+were suddenly put before him without the slightest preparation it might
+be more readily received. By not leaving the seller time to bethink
+himself, perhaps he might lead him to loosen his grasp, and the notes
+once bought below par, he could consider at his leisure whether to
+pocket the difference or curry favor with du Portail for the discount
+he had obtained. Let us say, moreover, that apart from self-interest,
+Cerizet would still have endeavored to scrape a little profit out of his
+friend; 'twas an instinct and a need of his nature. He had as great a
+horror for straight courses as the lovers of English gardens show in the
+lines of their paths.
+
+Dutocq, having still a portion of the cost of his practice to pay off,
+was forced to live very sparingly, so that a dinner at the Rocher de
+Cancale was something of an event in the economy of his straitened
+existence. He arrived, therefore, with that punctuality which testifies
+to an interest in the occasion, and precisely at a quarter past six he
+entered the private room of the restaurant where Cerizet awaited him.
+
+"It is queer," he said; "here we are returned to precisely the situation
+in which we began our business relationship with la Peyrade,--except,
+to be sure, that this present place of meeting of the three emperors
+is more comfortable; I prefer the Tilsit of the rue Montgorgeuil to the
+Tilsit of the Cheval Rouge."
+
+"Faith!" said Cerizet, "I don't know that the results justify the
+change, for, to be frank, where are the profits to _us_ in the scheme of
+our triumvirate?"
+
+"But," said Dutocq, "it was a bargain with a long time limit. It can't
+be said that la Peyrade has lost much time in getting installed--forgive
+the pun--at the Thuilleries. The scamp has made his way pretty fast, you
+must own that."
+
+"Not so fast but what his marriage," said Cerizet, "is at the present
+moment a very doubtful thing."
+
+"Doubtful!" cried Dutocq; "why doubtful?"
+
+"Well, I am commissioned to propose to him another wife, and I'm not
+sure that any choice is left to him."
+
+"What the devil are you about, my dear fellow, lending your hand in this
+way to another marriage when you know we have a mortgage on the first?"
+
+"One isn't always master of circumstances, my friend; I saw at once when
+the new affair was laid before me that the one we had settled on must
+infallibly go by the board. Consequently, I've tried to work it round in
+our interests, yours and mine."
+
+"Ah ca! do you mean they are pulling caps for this Theodose? Who is the
+new match? Has she money?"
+
+"The 'dot' is pretty good; quite as much as Mademoiselle Colleville's."
+
+"Then I wouldn't give a fig for it. La Peyrade has signed those notes
+and he will pay them."
+
+"Will he pay them? that's the question. You are not a business man,
+neither is Theodose; it may come into his head to dispute the validity
+of those notes. What security have we that if the facts about their
+origin should come out, and the Thuillier marriage shouldn't come
+off, the court of commerce mightn't annul them as 'obligations without
+cause.' For my part, I should laugh at such a decision; I can stand
+it; and, moreover, my precautions are taken; but you, as clerk to a
+justice-of-peace, don't you see that such an affair would give the
+chancellor a bone to pick with you?"
+
+"But, my good fellow," said Dutocq, with the ill-humor of a man who sees
+himself face to face with an argument he can't refute, "you seem to have
+a mania for stirring up matters and meddling with--"
+
+"I tell you again," said Cerizet, "this came to me; I didn't seek it;
+but I saw at once that there was no use struggling against the influence
+that is opposing us; so I chose the course of saving ourselves by a
+sacrifice."
+
+"A sacrifice! what sort of sacrifice?"
+
+"Parbleu! I've sold my share of those notes, leaving those who bought
+them to fight it out with Master barrister."
+
+"Who is the purchaser?"
+
+"Who do you suppose would step into my shoes unless it were the persons
+who have an interest in this other marriage, and who want to hold a
+power over Theodose, and control him by force if necessary."
+
+"Then my share of the notes is equally important to them?"
+
+"No doubt; but I couldn't speak for you until I had consulted you."
+
+"What do they offer?"
+
+"Hang it! my dear fellow, the same that I accepted. Knowing better
+than you the danger of their competition I sold out to them on very bad
+terms."
+
+"Well, but what are they, those terms?"
+
+"I gave up my shares for fifteen thousand francs."
+
+"Come, come!" said Dutocq, shrugging his shoulders, "what you are after
+is to recover a loss (if you made it) by a commission on my share--and
+perhaps, after all, the whole thing is only a plot between you and la
+Peyrade--"
+
+"At any rate, my good friend, you don't mince your words; an infamous
+thought comes into your head and you state it with charming frankness.
+Luckily you shall presently hear me make the proposal to Theodose,
+and you are clever enough to know by his manner if there has been any
+connivance between us."
+
+"So be it!" said Dutocq. "I withdraw the insinuation; but I must say
+your employers are pirates; I call their proposal throttling people. I
+have not, like you, something to fall back upon."
+
+"Well, you poor fellow, this is how I reasoned: I said to myself, That
+good Dutocq is terribly pressed for the last payment on his practice;
+this will give him enough to pay it off at one stroke; events
+have proved that there are great uncertainties about our
+Theodose-and-Thuillier scheme; here's money down, live money, and
+therefore it won't be so bad a bargain after all."
+
+"It is a loss of two-fifths!"
+
+"Come," said Cerizet, "you were talking just now of commissions. I see
+a means of getting one for you if you'll engage to batter down this
+Colleville marriage. If you will cry it down as you have lately cried it
+up I shouldn't despair of getting you a round twenty thousand out of the
+affair."
+
+"Then you think that this new proposal will not be agreeable to la
+Peyrade,--that he'll reject it? Is it some heiress on whom he has
+already taken a mortgage?"
+
+"All that I can tell you is that these people expect some difficulty in
+bringing the matter to a conclusion."
+
+"Well, I don't desire better than to follow your lead and do what is
+disagreeable to la Peyrade; but five thousand francs--think of it!--it
+is too much to lose."
+
+At this moment the door opened, and a waiter ushered in the expected
+guest.
+
+"You can serve dinner," said Cerizet to the waiter; "we are all here."
+
+It was plain that Theodose was beginning to take wing toward higher
+social spheres; elegance was becoming a constant thought in his mind. He
+appeared in a dress suit and varnished shoes, whereas his two associates
+received him in frock-coats and muddy boots.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "I think I am a little late, but that devil of a
+Thuillier is the most intolerable of human beings about a pamphlet I am
+concocting for him. I was unlucky enough to agree to correct the proofs
+with him, and over every paragraph there's a fight. 'What I can't
+understand,' he says, 'the public can't, either. I'm not a man of
+letters, but I'm a practical man'; and that's the way we battle it, page
+after page. I thought the sitting this afternoon would never end."
+
+"How unreasonable you are, my dear fellow," said Dutocq; "when a man
+wants to succeed he must have the courage to make sacrifices. Once
+married, you can lift your head."
+
+"Ah, yes!" said la Peyrade with a sigh, "I'll lift it; for since the day
+you made me eat this bread of anguish I've become terribly sick of it."
+
+"Cerizet," said Dutocq, "has a plan that will feed you more
+succulently."
+
+Nothing more was said at the moment, for justice had to be done to
+the excellent fare ordered by Cerizet in honor of his coming lease. As
+usually happens at dinners where affairs are likely to be discussed,
+each man, with his mind full of them, took pains not to approach those
+topics, fearing to compromise his advantages by seeming eager; the
+conversation, therefore, continued for a long time on general subjects,
+and it was not until the dessert was served that Cerizet brought himself
+to ask la Peyrade what had been settled about the terms of his lease.
+
+"Nothing, my friend," replied Theodose.
+
+"What! nothing? I certainly allowed you time enough to decide the
+matter."
+
+"Well, as to that, something is decided. There will not be any principal
+tenant at all; Mademoiselle Brigitte is going to let the house herself."
+
+"That's a singular thing," said Cerizet, stiffly. "After your agreement
+with me, I certainly did not expect such a result as this."
+
+"How can I help it, my dear fellow? I agreed with you, barring
+amendments on the other side; I wasn't able to give another turn to the
+affair. In her natural character as a managing woman and a sample of
+perpetual motion, Brigitte has reflected that she might as well manage
+that house herself and put into her own pocket the profits you proposed
+to make. I said all I could about the cares and annoyances which she
+would certainly saddle upon herself. 'Oh! nonsense!' she said; 'they'll
+stir my blood and do my health good!'"
+
+"It is pitiable!" said Cerizet. "That poor old maid will never know
+which end to take hold of; she doesn't imagine what it is to have
+an empty house, and which must be filled with tenants from garret to
+cellar."
+
+"I plied her with all those arguments," replied la Peyrade; "but I
+couldn't move her resolution. Don't you see, my dear democrats, you
+stirred up the revolution of '89; you thought to make a fine speculation
+in dethroning the noble by the bourgeois, and the end of it is you are
+shoved out yourselves. This looks like paradox; but you've found out now
+that the peasant and clodhopper isn't malleable; he can't be forced
+down and kept under like the noble. The aristocracy, on behalf of
+its dignity, would not condescend to common cares, and was therefore
+dependent on a crowd of plebeian servitors to whom it had to trust for
+three-fourths of the actions of its own life. That was the reign of
+stewards and bailiffs, wily fellows, into whose hands the interests of
+the great families passed, and who fed and grew fat on the parings of
+the great fortunes they managed. But now-a-days, utilitarian theories,
+as they call them, have come to the fore,--'We are never so well served
+as by ourselves,' 'There's no shame in attending to one's own business,'
+and many other bourgeois maxims which have suppressed the role of
+intermediaries. Why shouldn't Mademoiselle Brigitte Thuillier manage her
+own house when dukes and peers go in person to the Bourse, where such
+men sign their own leases and read the deeds before they sign them, and
+go themselves to the notary, whom, in former days, they considered a
+servant."
+
+During this time Cerizet had time to recover from the blow he had just
+received squarely in the face, and to think of the transition he had
+to make from one set of interests to the other, of which he was now the
+agent.
+
+"What you are declaiming there is all very clever," he said, carelessly,
+"but the thing that proves to me our defeat is the fact that you are not
+on the terms with Mademoiselle Thuillier you would have us believe
+you are. She is slipping through your fingers; and I don't think that
+marriage is anything like as certain as Dutocq and I have been fancying
+it was."
+
+"Well, no doubt," said la Peyrade, "there are still some touches to be
+given to our sketch, but I believe it is well under way."
+
+"And I think, on the contrary, that you have lost ground; and the reason
+is simple: you have done those people an immense service; and that's a
+thing never forgiven."
+
+"Well, we shall see," said la Peyrade. "I have more than one hold upon
+them."
+
+"No, you are mistaken. You thought you did a brilliant thing in putting
+them on a pinnacle, but the fact is you emancipated them; they'll keep
+you now at heel. The human heart, particularly the bourgeois heart, is
+made that way. If I were in your place I shouldn't feel so sure of being
+on solid ground, and if something else turned up that offered me a good
+chance--"
+
+"What! just because I couldn't get you the lease of that house do you
+want to knock everything to pieces?"
+
+"No," said Cerizet, "I am not looking at the matter in the light of my
+own interests; I don't doubt that as a trustworthy friend you have done
+every imaginable thing to promote them; but I think the manner in which
+you have been shoved aside a very disturbing symptom. It even decides
+me to tell you something I did not intend to speak of; because, in my
+opinion, when persons start a course they ought to keep on steadily,
+looking neither forward nor back, and not allowing themselves to be
+diverted to other aspirations."
+
+"Ah ca!" cried la Peyrade, "what does all this verbiage mean? Have you
+anything to propose to me? What's the price of it?"
+
+"My dear Theodose," said Cerizet, paying no attention to the
+impertinence, "you yourself can judge of the value of discovering a
+young girl, well brought-up, adorned with beauty and talents and a 'dot'
+equal to that of Celeste, which she has in her own right, _plus_ fifty
+thousand francs' worth of diamonds (as Mademoiselle Georges says on her
+posters in the provinces), and, moreover,--a fact which ought to strike
+the mind of an ambitious man,--a strong political influence, which she
+can use for a husband."
+
+"And this treasure you hold in your hand?" said la Peyrade, in a tone of
+incredulity.
+
+"Better still, I am authorized to offer it to you; in fact, I might say
+that I am charged to do so."
+
+"My friend, you are poking fun at me; unless, indeed, this phoenix has
+some hideous or prohibitory defect."
+
+"Well, I'll admit," said Cerizet, "that there is a slight objection,
+not on the score of family, for, to tell the truth, the young woman has
+none--"
+
+"Ah!" said la Peyrade, "a natural child--Well, what next?"
+
+"Next, she is not so very young,--something like twenty-nine or so; but
+there's nothing easier than to turn an elderly girl into a young widow
+if you have imagination."
+
+"Is that all the venom in it?"
+
+"Yes, all that is irreparable."
+
+"What do you mean by that? Is it a case of rhinoplasty?"
+
+Addressed to Cerizet the word had an aggressive air, which, in fact,
+was noticeable since the beginning of the dinner in the whole manner and
+conversation of the barrister. But it did not suit the purpose of the
+negotiator to resent it.
+
+"No," he replied, "our nose is as well made as our foot and our waist;
+but we may, perhaps, have a slight touch of hysteria."
+
+"Oh! very good," said la Peyrade; "and as from hysteria to insanity
+there is but a step--"
+
+"Well, yes," interrupted Cerizet, hastily, "sorrows have affected our
+brain slightly; but the doctors are unanimous in their diagnosis; they
+all say that after the birth of the first child not a trace will remain
+of this little trouble."
+
+"I am willing to admit that doctors are infallible," replied la Peyrade;
+"but, in spite of your discouragement, you must allow me, my friend, to
+persist in my suit to Mademoiselle Colleville. Perhaps it is ridiculous
+to confess it, but the truth is I am gradually falling in love with
+that little girl. It isn't that her beauty is resplendent, or that the
+glitter of her 'dot' has dazzled me, but I find in that child a great
+fund of sound sense joined to simplicity; and, what to mind is of
+greater consequence, her sincere and solid piety attracts me; I think a
+husband ought to be very happy with her."
+
+"Yes," said Cerizet, who, having been on the stage, may very well have
+known his Moliere, "this marriage will crown your wishes with all good;
+it will be filled with sweetness and with pleasures."
+
+The allusion to Tartuffe was keenly felt by la Peyrade, who took it up
+and said, hotly:--
+
+"The contact with innocence will disinfect me of the vile atmosphere in
+which I have lived too long."
+
+"And you will pay your notes of hand," added Cerizet, "which I advise
+you to do with the least possible delay; for Dutocq here was saying to
+me just now that he would like to see the color of your money."
+
+"I? not at all," interposed Dutocq. "I think, on the contrary, that our
+friend has a right to the delay."
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, "I agree with Cerizet. I hold that the less a
+debt is due, and therefore the more insecure and open to contention it
+is, the sooner one ought to free one's self by paying it."
+
+"But, my dear la Peyrade," said Dutocq, "why take this bitter tone?"
+
+Pulling from his pocket a portfolio, la Peyrade said:--
+
+"Have you those notes with you, Dutocq?"
+
+"Faith! no, my dear fellow," replied Dutocq, "I don't carry them about
+with me; besides, they are in Cerizet's hands."
+
+"Well," said the barrister, rising, "whenever you come to my house I'll
+pay you on the nail, as Cerizet can tell you."
+
+"What! are you going to leave us without your coffee?" said Cerizet,
+amazed to the last degree.
+
+"Yes; I have an arbitration case at eight o'clock. Besides, we have said
+all we had to say. You haven't your lease, but you've got your twenty
+five thousand francs in full, and those of Dutocq are ready for him
+whenever he chooses to come to my office. I see nothing now to prevent
+me from going where my private business calls me, and I therefore very
+cordially bid you good-bye."
+
+"Ah ca! Dutocq," cried Cerizet, as la Peyrade disappeared, "this means a
+rupture."
+
+"Prepared with the utmost care," added Dutocq. "Did you notice the air
+with which he pulled out that pocket-book?"
+
+"But where the devil," said the usurer, "could he have got the money?"
+
+"Probably," replied Dutocq, sarcastically, "where he got that with which
+he paid you in full for those notes you sold at a sacrifice."
+
+"My dear Dutocq," said Cerizet, "I'll explain to you the circumstances
+under which that insolent fellow freed himself, and you'll see if he
+didn't rob me of fifteen thousand francs."
+
+"Possibly, but you, my worthy clerk, were trying to get ten thousand
+away from me."
+
+"No, no; I was positively ordered to buy up your claim; and you ought to
+remember that my offer had risen to twenty thousand when Theodose came
+in."
+
+"Well," said Dutocq, "when we leave here we'll go to your house, where
+you will give me those notes; for, you'll understand that to-morrow
+morning, at the earliest decent hour, I shall go to la Peyrade's office;
+I don't mean to let his paying humor cool."
+
+"And right you are; for I can tell you now that before long there'll be
+a fine upset in his life."
+
+"Then the thing is really serious--this tale of a crazy woman you want
+him to marry? I must say that in his place, with these money-matters
+evidently on the rise, I should have backed out of your proposals just
+as he did. Ninas and Ophelias are all very well on the stage, but in a
+home--"
+
+"In a home, when they bring a 'dot,' we can be their guardian," replied
+Cerizet, sententiously. "In point of fact, we get a fortune and not a
+wife."
+
+"Well," said Dutocq, "that's one way to look at it."
+
+"If you are willing," said Cerizet, "let us go and take our coffee
+somewhere else. This dinner has turned out so foolishly that I want to
+get out of this room, where there's no air." He rang for the waiter.
+"Garcon!" he said, "the bill."
+
+"Monsieur, it is paid."
+
+"Paid! by whom?"
+
+"By the gentleman who just went out."
+
+"But this is outrageous," cried Cerizet. "I ordered the dinner, and you
+allow some one else to pay for it!"
+
+"It wasn't I, monsieur," said the waiter; "the gentleman went and paid
+the 'dame du comptoir'; she must have thought it was arranged between
+you. Besides, it is not so uncommon for gentlemen to have friendly
+disputes about paying."
+
+"That's enough," said Cerizet, dismissing the waiter.
+
+"Won't these gentlemen take their coffee?--it is paid for," said the man
+before he left the room.
+
+"A good reason for not taking it," replied Cerizet, angrily. "It is
+really inconceivable that in a house of this kind such an egregious
+blunder should be committed. What do you think of such insolence?" he
+added, when the waiter had left the room.
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Dutocq, taking his hat, "it is a schoolboy proceeding;
+he wanted to show he had money; it is easy to see he never had any
+before."
+
+"No, no! that's not it," said Cerizet; "he meant to mark the rupture. 'I
+will not owe you even a dinner,' is what he says to me."
+
+"But, after all," said Dutocq, "this banquet was given to celebrate your
+enthronement as principal tenant of the grand house. Well, he has failed
+to get you the lease, and I can understand that his conscience was
+uneasy at letting you pay for a dinner which, like those notes of mine,
+were an 'obligation without cause.'"
+
+Cerizet made no reply to this malicious observation. They had reached
+the counter where reigned the dame who had permitted the improper
+payment, and, for the sake of his dignity, the usurer thought it proper
+to make a fuss. After which the two men departed, and the copying-clerk
+took his employer to a low coffee-house in the Passage du Saumon.
+There Cerizet recovered his good-humor; he was like a fish out of water
+suddenly returned to his native element; for he had reached that state
+of degradation when he felt ill at ease in places frequented by good
+society; and it was with a sort of sensuous pleasure that he felt
+himself back in the vulgar place where they were noisily playing pool
+for the benefit of a "former conqueror of the Bastille."
+
+In this establishment Cerizet enjoyed the fame of being a skilful
+billiard-player, and he was now entreated to take part in a game already
+begun. In technical language, he "bought his ball"; that is, one of
+the players sold him his turn and his chances. Dutocq profited by this
+arrangement to slip away, on pretence of inquiring for a sick friend.
+
+Presently, in his shirt-sleeves, with a pipe between his lips, Cerizet
+made one of those masterly strokes which bring down the house with
+frantic applause. As he waited a moment, looking about him triumphantly,
+his eye lighted on a terrible kill-joy. Standing among the spectators
+with his chin on his cane, du Portail was steadily watching him.
+
+A tinge of red showed itself in Cerizet's cheeks. He hesitated to bow or
+to recognize the old gentleman, a most unlikely person to meet in such
+a place. Not knowing how to take the unpleasant encounter, he went on
+playing; but his hand betrayed his uneasiness, and presently an unlucky
+stroke threw him out of the game. While he was putting on his coat in a
+tolerably ill-humor, du Portail passed, almost brushing him, on his way
+to the door.
+
+"Rue Montmartre, at the farther end of the Passage," said the old man,
+in a low tone.
+
+When they met, Cerizet had the bad taste to try to explain the
+disreputable position in which he had just been detected.
+
+"But," said du Portail, "in order to see you there, I had to be there
+myself."
+
+"True," returned Cerizet. "I was rather surprised to see a quiet
+inhabitant of the Saint-Sulpice quarter in such a place."
+
+"It merely proves to you," said the little old man, in a tone which cut
+short all explanation, and all curiosity, "that I am in the habit of
+going pretty nearly everywhere, and that my star leads me into the path
+of those persons whom I wish to meet. I was thinking of you at the very
+moment you came in. Well, what have you done?"
+
+"Nothing good," replied Cerizet. "After playing me a devilish trick
+which deprived me of a magnificent bit of business, our man rejected
+your overture with scorn. There is no hope whatever in that claim of
+Dutocq's; for la Peyrade is chock-full of money; he wanted to pay the
+notes just now, and to-morrow morning he will certainly do so."
+
+"Does he regard his marriage to this Demoiselle Colleville as a settled
+thing?"
+
+"He not only considers it settled, but he is trying now to make people
+believe it is a love-match. He rattled off a perfect tirade to convince
+me that he is really in love."
+
+"Very well," said du Portail, wishing, perhaps, to show that he could,
+on occasion, use the slang of a low billiard-room, "'stop the charge'"
+(meaning: Do nothing more); "I will undertake to bring monsieur to
+reason. But come and see me to-morrow, and tell me all about the family
+he intends to enter. You have failed in this affair; but don't mind
+that; I shall have others for you."
+
+So saying, he signed to the driver of an empty citadine, which was
+passing, got into it, and, with a nod to Cerizet, told the man to drive
+to the rue Honore-Chevalier.
+
+As Cerizet walked down the rue Montmartre to regain the Estrapade
+quarter, he puzzled his brains to divine who that little old man with
+the curt speech, the imperious manner, and a tone that seemed to cast
+upon all those with whom he spoke a boarding-grapnel, could be; a man,
+too, who came from such a distance to spend his evening in a place
+where, judging by his clothes alone, he had no business to be.
+
+Cerizet had reached the Market without finding any solution to that
+problem, when he was roughly shaken out of it by a heavy blow in the
+back. Turning hastily, he found himself in presence of Madame Cardinal,
+an encounter with whom, at a spot where she came every morning to get
+fish to peddle, was certainly not surprising.
+
+Since that evening in Toupillier's garret, the worthy woman, in spite of
+the clemency so promptly shown to her, had judged it imprudent to make
+other than very short apparitions in her own domicile, and for the
+last two days she had been drowning among the liquor-dealers (called
+"retailers of comfort") the pangs of her defeat. With flaming face and
+thickened voice she now addressed her late accomplice:--
+
+"Well, papa," she said, "what happened after I left you with that little
+old fellow?"
+
+"I made him understand in a very few words," replied the banker of
+the poor, "that it was all a mistake as to me. In this affair, my dear
+Madame Cardinal, you behaved with a really unpardonable heedlessness.
+How came you to ask my assistance in obtaining your inheritance from
+your uncle, when with proper inquiry you might have known there was a
+natural daughter, in whose favor he had long declared he should make a
+will? That little old man, who interrupted you in your foolish attempt
+to anticipate your legacy, was no other than the guardian of the
+daughter to whom everything is left."
+
+"Ha! guardian, indeed! a fine thing, guardian!" cried the Cardinal.
+"To talk of a woman of my age, just because I wanted to see if my uncle
+owned anything at all, to talk to _me_ of the police! It's hateful! it's
+_disgusting_!"
+
+"Come, come!" said Cerizet, "you needn't complain; you got off cheaply."
+
+"Well, and you, who broke the locks and said you were going to take the
+diamonds, under color of marrying my daughter! Just as if she would have
+you,--a legitimate daughter like her! 'Never, mother,' said she; 'never
+will I give my heart to a man with such a nose.'"
+
+"So you've found her, have you?" said Cerizet.
+
+"Not until last night. She has left her blackguard of a player, and
+she is now, I flatter myself, in a fine position, eating money; has her
+citadine by the month, and is much respected by a barrister who would
+marry her at once, but he has got to wait till his parents die, for the
+father happens to be mayor, and the government wouldn't like it."
+
+"What mayor?"
+
+"11th arrondissement,--Minard, powerfully rich, used to do a business in
+cocoa."
+
+"Ah! very good! very good! I know all about him. You say Olympe is
+living with his son?"
+
+"Well, not to say living together, for that would make talk, though he
+only sees her with good motives. He lives at home with his father, but
+he has bought their furniture, and has put it, and my daughter, too,
+into a lodging in the Chausee d'Antin; stylish quarter, isn't it?"
+
+"It seems to me pretty well arranged," said Cerizet; "and as Heaven, it
+appears, didn't destine us for each other--"
+
+"No, yes, well, that's how it was; and I think that girl is going to
+give me great satisfaction; and there's something I want to consult you
+about."
+
+"What?" demanded Cerizet.
+
+"Well, my daughter being in luck, I don't think I ought to continue to
+cry fish in the streets; and now that my uncle has disinherited me, I
+have, it seems to me, a right to an 'elementary allowance.'"
+
+"You are dreaming, my poor woman; your daughter is a minor; it is you
+who ought to be feeding her; the law doesn't require her to give you
+aliment."
+
+"Then do you mean," said Madame Cardinal, "that those who have nothing
+are to give to those who have much? A fine thing such a law as that!
+It's as bad as guardians who, for nothing at all, talk about calling
+the police. Yes! I'd like to see 'em calling the police to me! Let 'em
+guillotine me! It won't prevent my saying that the rich are swindlers;
+yes, swindlers! and the people ought to make another revolution to get
+their rights; and _then_, my lad, you, and my daughter, and barrister
+Minard, and that little old guardian, you'll all come down under it--"
+
+Perceiving that his ex-mother-in-law was reaching stage of exaltation
+that was not unalarming, Cerizet hastened to get away, her epithets
+pursuing him for more than a hundred feet; but he comforted himself by
+thinking that he would make her pay for them the next time she came to
+his back to ask for a "convenience."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. SET A SAINT TO CATCH A SAINT
+
+As he approached his own abode, Cerizet, who was nothing so little as
+courageous, felt an emotion of fear. He perceived a form ambushed near
+the door, which, as he came nearer, detached itself as if to meet him.
+Happily, it was only Dutocq. He came for his notes. Cerizet returned
+them in some ill-humor, complaining of the distrust implied in a visit
+at such an hour. Dutocq paid no attention to this sensitiveness, and the
+next morning, very early, he presented himself at la Peyrade's.
+
+La Peyrade paid, as he had promised, on the nail, and to a few sentinel
+remarks uttered by Dutocq as soon as the money was in his pocket,
+he answered with marked coldness. His whole external appearance and
+behavior was that of a slave who has burst his chain and has promised
+himself not to make a gospel use of his liberty.
+
+As he conducted his visitor to the door, the latter came face to face
+with a woman in servant's dress, who was just about to ring the bell.
+This woman was, apparently, known to Dutocq, for he said to her:--
+
+"Ha ha! little woman; so we feel the necessity of consulting a
+barrister? You are right; at the family council very serious matters
+were brought up against you."
+
+"Thank God, I fear no one. I can walk with my head up," said the person
+thus addressed.
+
+"So much the better for you," replied the clerk of the justice-of-peace;
+"but you will probably be summoned before the judge who examines the
+affair. At any rate, you are in good hands here; and my friend la
+Peyrade will advise you for the best."
+
+"Monsieur is mistaken," said the woman; "it is not for what he thinks
+that I have come to consult a lawyer."
+
+"Well, be careful what you say and do, my dear woman, for I warn you
+you are going to be finely picked to pieces. The relations are furious
+against you, and you can't get the idea out of their heads that you have
+got a great deal of money."
+
+While speaking thus, Dutocq kept his eye on Theodose, who bore the look
+uneasily, and requested his client to enter.
+
+Here follows a scene which had taken place the previous afternoon
+between this woman and la Peyrade.
+
+La Peyrade, we may remember, was in the habit of going to early mass at
+his parish church. For some little time he had felt himself the object
+of a singular attention which he could not explain on the part of the
+woman whom we have just seen entering his office, who daily attended
+the church at, as Dorine says, his "special hour." Could it be for
+love? That explanation was scarcely compatible with the maturity and the
+saintly, beatific air of this person, who, beneath a plain cap, called
+"a la Janseniste," by which fervent female souls of that sect were
+recognized, affected, like a nun, to hide her hair. On the other hand,
+the rest of her clothing was of a neatness that was almost dainty,
+and the gold cross at her throat, suspended by a black velvet ribbon,
+excluded the idea of humble and hesitating mendicity.
+
+The morning of the day on which the dinner at the Rocher de Cancale was
+to take place, la Peyrade, weary of a performance which had ended by
+preoccupying his mind, went up to the woman and asked her pointblank if
+she had any request to make of him.
+
+"Monsieur," she answered, in a tone of solemnity, "is, I think, the
+celebrated Monsieur de la Peyrade, the advocate of the poor?"
+
+"I am la Peyrade; and I have had, it is true, an opportunity to render
+services to the indigent persons of this quarter."
+
+"Would it, then, be asking too much of monsieur's goodness that he
+should suffer me to consult him?"
+
+"This place," replied la Peyrade, "is not well chosen for such
+consultation. What you have to say to me seems important, to judge by
+the length of time you have been hesitating to speak to me. I live near
+here, rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer, and if you will take the trouble to
+come to my office--"
+
+"It will not annoy monsieur?"
+
+"Not in the least; my business is to hear clients."
+
+"At what hour--lest I disturb monsieur--?"
+
+"When you choose; I shall be at home all the morning."
+
+"Then I will hear another mass, at which I can take the communion. I did
+not dare to do so at this mass, for the thought of speaking to monsieur
+so distracted my mind. I will be at monsieur's house by eight o'clock,
+when I have ended my meditation, if that hour does not inconvenience
+him."
+
+"No; but there is no necessity for all this ceremony," replied la
+Peyrade, with some impatience.
+
+Perhaps a little professional jealousy inspired his ill-humor, for it
+was evident that he had to do with an antagonist who was capable of
+giving him points.
+
+At the hour appointed, not a minute before nor a minute after, the
+pious woman rang the bell, and the barrister having, not without some
+difficulty, induced her to sit down, he requested her to state her case.
+She was then seized with that delaying little cough with which we obtain
+a respite when brought face to face with a difficult subject. At last,
+however, she compelled herself to approach the object of her visit.
+
+"It is to ask monsieur," she said, "if he would be so very good as to
+inform me whether it is true that a charitable gentleman, now deceased,
+has bequeathed a fund to reward domestic servants who are faithful to
+their masters."
+
+"Yes," replied la Peyrade; "that is to say, Monsieur de Montyon founded
+'prizes for virtue,' which are frequently given to zealous and exemplary
+domestic servants. But ordinary good conduct is not sufficient;
+there must be some act or acts of great devotion, and truly Christian
+self-abnegation."
+
+"Religion enjoins humility upon us," replied the pious woman, "and
+therefore I dare not praise myself; but inasmuch as for the last
+twenty years I have lived in the service of an old man of the dullest
+description, a savant, who has wasted his substance on inventions, so
+that I myself have had to feed and clothe him, persons have thought that
+I am not altogether undeserving of that prize."
+
+"It is certainly under such conditions that the Academy selects its
+candidates," said la Peyrade. "What is your master's name?"
+
+"Pere Picot; he is never called otherwise in our quarter; sometimes he
+goes out into the streets as if dressed for the carnival, and all the
+little children crowd about him, calling out: 'How d'ye do, Pere Picot!
+Good-morning, Pere Picot!' But that's how it is; he takes no care of his
+dignity; he goes about full of his own ideas; and though I kill myself
+trying to give him appetizing food, if you ask him what he has had for
+his dinner he can't tell you. Yet he's a man full of ability, and he has
+taught good pupils. Perhaps monsieur knows young Phellion, a professor
+in the College of Saint-Louis; he was one of his scholars, and he comes
+to see him very often."
+
+"Then," said la Peyrade, "your master is a mathematician?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur; mathematics have been his bane; they have flung him into
+a set of ideas which don't seem to have any common-sense in them ever
+since he has been employed at the Observatory, near here."
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, "you must bring testimony proving your long
+devotion to this old man, and I will then draw up a memorial to the
+Academy and take the necessary steps to present it."
+
+"How good monsieur is!" said the pious woman, clasping her hands; "and
+if he would also let me tell him of a little difficulty--"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"They tell me, monsieur, that to get this prize persons must be really
+very poor."
+
+"Not exactly; still, the Academy does endeavor to choose whose who are
+in straitened circumstances, and who have made sacrifices too heavy for
+their means."
+
+"Sacrifices! I think I may indeed say I have made sacrifices, for
+the little property I inherited from my parents has all been spent in
+keeping the old man, and for fifteen years I have had no wages, which,
+at three hundred francs a year and compound interest, amount now to a
+pretty little sum; as monsieur, I am sure, will agree."
+
+At the words "compound interest," which evidenced a certain amount of
+financial culture, la Peyrade looked at this Antigone with increased
+attention.
+
+"In short," he said, "your difficulty is--"
+
+"Monsieur will not think it strange," replied the saintly person, "that
+a very rich uncle dying in England, who had never done anything for
+his family in his lifetime, should have left me twenty-five thousand
+francs."
+
+"Certainly," said the barrister, "there's nothing in that but what is
+perfectly natural and proper."
+
+"But, monsieur, I have been told that the possession of this money will
+prevent the judges from considering my claims to the prize."
+
+"Possibly; because seeing you in possession of a little competence,
+the sacrifices which you apparently intend to continue in favor of your
+master will be less meritorious."
+
+"I shall never abandon him, poor, dear man, in spite of his faults,
+though I know that this poor little legacy which Heaven has given me is
+in the greatest danger from him."
+
+"How so?" asked la Peyrade, with some curiosity.
+
+"Eh! monsieur, let him only get wind of that money, and he'd snap it up
+at a mouthful; it would all go into his inventions of perpetual motion
+and other machines of various kinds which have already ruined him, and
+me, too."
+
+"Then," said la Peyrade, "your desire is that this legacy should remain
+completely unknown, not only to your master but to the judges of the
+Academy?"
+
+"How clever monsieur is, and how well he understands things!" she
+replied, smiling.
+
+"And also," continued the barrister, "you don't want to keep that money
+openly in your possession?"
+
+"For fear my master should find it out and get it away from me? Exactly.
+Besides, as monsieur will understand, I shouldn't be sorry, in order to
+supply the poor dear man with extra comforts, that the sum should bear
+interest."
+
+"And the highest possible interest," said the barrister.
+
+"Oh! as for that, monsieur, five or six per cent."
+
+"Very good; then it is not only about the memorial to the Academy for
+the prize of virtue, but also about an investment of your legacy that
+you have so long been desirous of consulting me?"
+
+"Monsieur is so kind, so charitable, so encouraging!"
+
+"The memorial, after I have made a few inquiries, will be easy enough;
+but an investment, offering good security, the secret of which you
+desire to keep, is much less readily obtained."
+
+"Ah! if I dared to--" said the pious woman, humbly.
+
+"What?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"Monsieur understands me?"
+
+"I? not the least in the world."
+
+"And yet I prayed earnestly just now that monsieur might be willing to
+keep this money for me. I should feel such confidence if it were in his
+hands; I know he would return it to me, and never speak of it."
+
+La Peyrade gathered, at this instant, the fruit of his comedy of legal
+devotion to the necessitous classes. The choir of porters chanting his
+praises to the skies could alone have inspired this servant-woman with
+the boundless confidence of which he found himself the object. His
+thoughts reverted instantly to Dutocq and his notes, and he was not far
+from thinking that this woman had been sent to him by Providence.
+But the more he was inclined to profit by this chance to win his
+independence, the more he felt the necessity of seeming to yield only to
+her importunity; consequently his objections were many.
+
+Moreover, he had no great belief in the character of his client, and did
+not care, as the common saying is, to uncover Saint Peter to cover Saint
+Paul; in other words, to substitute for a creditor who, after all, was
+his accomplice, a woman who might at any time become exacting and insist
+in repayment in some public manner that would injure his reputation. He
+decided, therefore, to play the game with a high hand.
+
+"My good woman," he said, "I am not in want of money, and I am not rich
+enough to pay interest on twenty-five thousand francs for which I have
+no use. All that I can do for you is to place that sum, in my name, with
+the notary Dupuis. He is a religious man; you can see him every Sunday
+in the warden's pew in our church. Notaries, you know, never give
+receipts, therefore I could not give you one myself; I can only promise
+to leave among my papers, in case of death, a memorandum which will
+secure the restitution of the money into your hands. The affair, you
+see, is one of blind confidence, and I am very unwilling to make it. If
+I do so, it is only to oblige a person whose piety and the charitable
+use she intends to make of the proceeds of her little fortune entitle
+her to my good-will."
+
+"If monsieur thinks that the matter cannot be otherwise arranged--"
+
+"This appears to me the only possible way," said la Peyrade. "I shall
+hope to get you six per cent interest, and you may rely that it will
+be paid with the utmost regularity. But remember, six months, or even a
+year, may elapse before the notary will be in a position to repay this
+money, because notaries invest such trust funds chiefly in mortgages
+which require a certain time to mature. Now, when you have obtained the
+prize for virtue, which, according to all appearance, I can readily
+do for you, there will be no reason to hide your little property any
+longer,--a reason which I fully understand; but you will not be able
+to withdraw it from the notary's hands immediately; and in case of any
+difficulty arising, I should be forced to explain the situation, the
+manner in which you have concealed your prosperity from your master, to
+whom you have been supposed to be wholly devoted. This, as you will see,
+would put you in the position of falsely professing virtue, and would do
+great harm to your reputation for piety."
+
+"Oh! monsieur," said the saintly woman, "can it be that any one would
+think me a person who did not speak the truth?"
+
+"Bless you! my good creature, in business it is necessary to foresee
+everything. Money embroils the best friends, and leads to actions they
+never foresaw. Therefore reflect; you can come and see me again in a few
+days. It is possible that between now and then you will find some better
+investment; and I myself, who am doing at this moment a thing I don't
+altogether like, may have found other difficulties which I do not now
+expect."
+
+This threat, adroitly thrown out as an afterthought, was intended to
+immediately clinch the matter.
+
+"I have reflected carefully," said the pious woman, "and I feel sure
+that in the hands of so religious a man as monsieur I run no risks."
+
+Taking from her bosom a little pocket-book, she pulled out twenty-five
+bank notes. The rapid manner in which she counted them was a revelation
+to la Peyrade. The woman was evidently accustomed to handle money, and a
+singular idea darted through his mind.
+
+"Can it be that she is making me a receiver of stolen property? No," he
+said aloud, "in order to draw up the memorial for the Academy, I must,
+as I told you, make a few inquiries; and that will give me occasion to
+call upon you. At what hour can I see you alone?"
+
+"At four o'clock, when monsieur goes to take his walk in the
+Luxembourg."
+
+"And where do you live?"
+
+"Rue du Val-de-Grace, No. 9."
+
+"Very good; at four o'clock; and if, as I doubt not, the result of my
+inquiry is favorable, I will take your money then. Otherwise, if there
+are not good grounds for your application for the prize of virtue there
+will be no reason why you should make a mystery of your legacy. You
+could then invest it in some more normal manner than that I have
+suggested to you."
+
+"Oh! how cautious monsieur is!" she said, with evident disappointment,
+having thought the affair settled. "This money, God be thanked! I have
+not stolen, and monsieur can make what inquiries he likes about me in
+the quarter."
+
+"It is quite indispensable that I should do so," said la Peyrade, dryly,
+for he did not at all like, under this mask of simplicity, the quick
+intelligence that penetrated his thoughts. "Without being a thief, a
+woman may very well not be a Sister of Charity; there's a wide margin
+between the two extremes."
+
+"As monsieur chooses," she replied; "he is doing me so great a service
+that I ought to let him take all precautions."
+
+Then, with a piously humble bow, she went away, taking her money with
+her.
+
+"The devil!" thought la Peyrade; "that woman is stronger than I; she
+swallows insults with gratitude and without the sign of a grimace! I
+have never yet been able to master myself like that."
+
+He began now to fear that he had been too timid, and to think that his
+would-be creditor might change her mind before he could pay her the
+visit he had promised. But the harm was done, and, although consumed
+with anxiety lest he had lost a rare chance, he would have cut off a leg
+sooner than yield to his impulse to go to her one minute before the hour
+he had fixed. The information he obtained about her in the quarter
+was rather contradictory. Some said his client was a saint; otherwise
+declared her to be a sly creature; but, on the whole, nothing was said
+against her morality that deterred la Peyrade from taking the piece of
+luck she had offered him.
+
+When he met her at four o'clock he found her in the same mind.
+
+With the money in his pocket he went to dine with Cerizet and Dutocq at
+the Rocher de Cancale; and it is to the various emotions he had
+passed through during the day that we must attribute the sharp and
+ill-considered manner in which he conducted his rupture with his two
+associates. This behavior was neither that of his natural disposition
+nor of his acquired temperament; but the money that was burning in his
+pockets had slightly intoxicated him; its very touch had conveyed to
+him an excitement and an impatience for emancipation of which he was not
+wholly master. He flung Cerizet over in the matter of the lease without
+so much as consulting Brigitte; and yet, he had not had the full courage
+of his duplicity; for he had laid to the charge of the old woman a
+refusal which was merely the act of his own will, prompted by bitter
+recollections of his fruitless struggles with the man who had so long
+oppressed him.
+
+In short, during the whole day, la Peyrade had not shown himself the
+able and infallible man that we have hitherto seen him. Once before,
+when he carried the fifteen thousand francs entrusted to him by
+Thuillier, he had been led by Cerizet into an insurrectionary proceeding
+which necessitated the affair of Sauvaignou. Perhaps, on the whole, it
+is more difficult to be strong under good than under evil fortune. The
+Farnese Hercules, calm and in still repose, expresses more energetically
+the plenitude of muscular power than a violent and agitated Hercules
+represented in the over-excited energy of his labors.
+
+
+
+
+
+PART II. THE PARVENUS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. PHELLION, UNDER A NEW ASPECT
+
+Between the first and second parts of this history an immense event had
+taken place in the life of Phellion.
+
+There is no one who has not heard of the misfortunes of the Odeon,
+that fatal theatre which, for years, ruined all its directors. Right
+or wrong, the quarter in which this dramatic impossibility stands is
+convinced that its prosperity depends upon it; so that more than once
+the mayor and other authorities of the arrondissement have, with a
+courage that honors them, taken part in the most desperate efforts to
+galvanize the corpse.
+
+Now to meddle with theatrical matters is one of the eternally perennial
+ambitions of the lesser bourgeoisie. Always, therefore, the successive
+saviours of the Odeon feel themselves magnificently rewarded if they are
+given ever so small a share in the administration of that enterprise. It
+was at some crisis in its affairs that Minard, in his capacity as mayor
+of the 11th arrondissement, had been called to the chairmanship of the
+committee for reading plays, with the power to join unto himself as
+assistants a certain number of the notables of the Latin quarter,--the
+selection being left to him.
+
+We shall soon know exactly how near was the realization of la Peyrade's
+projects for the possession of Celeste's "dot"; let us merely say now
+that these projects in approaching maturity had inevitably become noised
+abroad; and as this condition of things pointed, of course, to the
+exclusion of Minard junior and also of Felix the professor, the
+prejudice hitherto manifested by Minard pere against old Phellion was
+transformed into an unequivocal disposition towards friendly cordiality;
+there is nothing that binds and soothes like the feeling of a checkmate
+shared in common. Judged without the evil eye of paternal rivalry,
+Phellion became to Minard a Roman of incorruptible integrity and a man
+whose little treatises had been adopted by the University,--in other
+words, a man of sound and tested intellect.
+
+So that when it became the duty of the mayor to select the members of
+the dramatic custom-house, of which he was now the head, he immediately
+thought of Phellion. As for the great citizen, he felt, on the day when
+a post was offered to him in that august tribunal, that a crown of gold
+had been placed upon his brow.
+
+It will be well understood that it was not lightly, nor without having
+deeply meditated, that a man of Phellion's solemnity had accepted the
+high and sacred mission which was offered to him. He said within himself
+that he was called upon to exercise the functions of a magistracy, a
+priestly office.
+
+"To judge of men," he replied to Minard, who was much surprised at
+his hesitation, "is an alarming task, but to judge of minds!--who can
+believe himself equal to such a mission?"
+
+Once more the family--that rock on which the firmest resolutions
+split--had threatened to infringe on the domain of his conscience. The
+thought of boxes and tickets of which the future member of the committee
+could dispose in favor of his own kin had excited in the household so
+eager a ferment that his freedom of decision seemed for a moment in
+danger. But, happily, Brutus was able to decide himself in the same
+direction along which a positive uprising of the whole Phellionian tribe
+intended to push him. From the observations of Barniol, his son-in-law,
+and also by his own personal inspiration, he became persuaded that by
+his vote, always given to works of irreproachable morality, and by his
+firm determination to bar the way to all plays that mothers of families
+could not take their daughters to witness, he was called upon to render
+the most signal services to morals and public order. Phellion, to use
+his own expression, had therefore become a member of the areopagus
+presided over by Minard, and--still speaking as he spoke--he was
+issuing from the exercise of his functions, which were both delicate and
+interesting, when the conversation we are about to report took place. A
+knowledge of this conversation is necessary to an understanding of the
+ulterior events of this history, and it will also serve to put into
+relief the envious insight which is one of the most marked traits of the
+bourgeois character.
+
+The session of the committee had been extremely stormy. On the subject
+of a tragedy entitled, "The Death of Hercules," the classic party
+and the romantic party, whom the mayor had carefully balanced in the
+composition of his committee, had nearly approached the point of tearing
+each other's hair out. Twice Phellion had risen to speak, and his
+hearers were astonished at the quantity of metaphors the speech of a
+major of the National Guard could contain when his literary convictions
+were imperilled. As the result of a vote, victory remained with
+the opinions of which Phellion was the eloquent organ. It was while
+descending the stairway of the theatre with Minard that he remarked:--
+
+"We have done a good work this day. 'The Death of Hercules' reminded me
+of 'The Death of Hector,' by the late Luce de Lancival; the work we have
+just accepted sparkles with sublime verses."
+
+"Yes," said Minard, "the versification has taste; there are some
+really fine lines in it, and I admit to you that I think this sort of
+literature rather above the anagrams of Master Colleville."
+
+"Oh!" replied Minard, "Colleville's anagrams are mere witticisms, which
+have nothing in common with the sterner accents of Melpomene."
+
+"And yet," said Minard, "I can assure you he attaches the greatest
+importance to that rubbish, and apropos to his anagrams, as, indeed,
+about many other things, he is not a little puffed up. Since their
+emigration to the Madeleine quarter it seems to me that not only the
+Sieur Colleville, but his wife and daughter, and the Thuilliers and
+the whole coterie have assumed an air of importance which is rather
+difficult to justify."
+
+"No wonder!" said Phellion; "one must have a pretty strong head to
+stand the fumes of opulence. Our friends have become so very rich by the
+purchase of that property where they have gone to live that we ought to
+forgive them for a little intoxication; and I must say the dinner they
+gave us yesterday for a house-warming was really as well arranged as it
+was succulent."
+
+"I myself," said Minard, "have given a few remarkable dinners to which
+men in high government positions have not disdained to come, yet I am
+not puffed up with pride on that account; such as my friends have always
+known me, that I have remained."
+
+"You, Monsieur le maire, have long been habituated to the splendid
+existence you have made for yourself by your high commercial talents;
+our friends, on the contrary, so lately embarked on the smiling ship of
+Fortune, have not yet found, as the vulgar saying is, their sea-legs."
+
+And then to cut short a conversation in which Phellion began to think
+the mayor rather "caustic," he made as if he intended to take leave of
+him. In order to reach their respective homes they did not always take
+the same way.
+
+"Are you going through the Luxembourg?" asked Minard, not allowing
+Phellion to give him the slip.
+
+"I shall cross it, but I have an appointment to meet Madame Phellion and
+the little Barniols at the end of the grand alley."
+
+"Then," said Minard, "I'll go with you and have the pleasure of making
+my bow to Madame Phellion; and I shall get the fresh air at the same
+time, for, in spite of hearing fine things, one's head gets tired at the
+business we have just been about."
+
+Minard had felt that Phellion gave rather reluctant assent to his sharp
+remarks about the new establishment of the Thuilliers, and he did not
+attempt to renew the subject; but when he had Madame Phellion for a
+listener, he was very sure that his spite would find an echo.
+
+"Well, fair lady," he began, "what did you think of yesterday's dinner?"
+
+"It was very fine," replied Madame Phellion; "as I tasted that soup 'a
+la bisque' I knew that some caterer, like Chevet, had supplanted the
+cook. But the whole affair was dull; it hadn't the gaiety of our old
+meetings in the Latin quarter. And then, didn't it strike you, as it did
+me, that Madame and Mademoiselle Thuillier no longer seemed mistresses
+of their own house? I really felt as if I were the guest of Madame--what
+_is_ her name? I never can remember it."
+
+"Torna, Comtesse de Godollo," said Phellion, intervening. "The name is
+euphonious enough to remember."
+
+"Euphonious if you like, my dear; but to me it never seems a name at
+all."
+
+"It is a Magyar, or to speak more commonly, a Hungarian name. Our own
+name, if we wanted to discuss it, might be said to be a loan from the
+Greek language."
+
+"Very likely; at any rate we have the advantage of being known, not
+only in our own quarter, but throughout the tuition world, where we have
+earned an honorable position; while this Hungarian countess, who makes,
+as they say, the good and the bad weather in the Thuilliers' home, where
+does she come from, I'd like to know? How did such a fine lady,--for
+she has good manners and a very distinguished air, no one denies
+her that,--how came she to fall in love with Brigitte; who, between
+ourselves, keeps a sickening odor of the porter's lodge about her. For
+my part, I think this devoted friend is an intriguing creature, who
+scents money, and is scheming for some future gain."
+
+"Ah ca!" said Minard, "then you don't know the original cause of the
+intimacy between Madame la Comtesse de Godollo and the Thuilliers?"
+
+"She is a tenant in their house; she occupies the entresol beneath their
+apartment."
+
+"True, but there's something more than that in it. Zelie, my wife, heard
+it from Josephine, who wanted, lately, to enter our service; the matter
+came to nothing, for Francoise, our woman, who thought of marrying,
+changed her mind. You must know, fair lady, that it was solely Madame
+de Godollo who brought about the emigration of the Thuilliers, whose
+upholsterer, as one might say, she is."
+
+"What! their upholsterer?" cried Phellion,--"that distinguished woman,
+of whom one may truly say, 'Incessu patuit dea'; which in French we very
+inadequately render by the expression, 'bearing of a queen'?"
+
+"Excuse me," said Minard. "I did not mean that Madame de Godollo is
+actually in the furniture business; but, at the time when Mademoiselle
+Thuillier decided, by la Peyrade's advice, to manage the new house
+herself, that little fellow, who hasn't all the ascendancy over her
+mind he thinks he has, couldn't persuade her to move the family into
+the splendid apartment where they received us yesterday. Mademoiselle
+Brigitte objected that she should have to change her habits, and
+that her friends and relations wouldn't follow her to such a distant
+quarter--"
+
+"It is quite certain," interrupted Madame Phellion, "that to make up
+one's mind to hire a carriage every Sunday, one wants a prospect of
+greater pleasure than can be found in that salon. When one thinks that,
+except on the day of the famous dance of the candidacy, they never once
+opened the piano in the rue Saint-Dominique!"
+
+"It would have been, I am sure, most agreeable to the company to have a
+talent like yours put in requisition," remarked Minard; "but those are
+not ideas that could ever come into the mind of that good Brigitte.
+She'd have seen two more candles to light. Five-franc pieces are her
+music. So, when la Peyrade and Thuillier insisted that she should move
+into the apartment in the Place de la Madeleine, she thought of nothing
+but the extra costs entailed by the removal. She judged, rightly enough,
+that beneath those gilded ceilings her old 'penates' might have a
+singular effect."
+
+"See how all things link together," remarked Phellion, "and how, from
+the summits of society, luxury infiltrates itself, sooner or later,
+through the lower classes, leading to the ruin of empires."
+
+"You are broaching there, my dear commander," said Minard, "one of the
+most knotty questions of political economy. Many good minds think, on
+the contrary, that luxury is absolutely demanded in the interests of
+commerce, which is certainly the life of States. In any case, this view,
+which isn't yours, appears to have been that of Madame de Godollo, for,
+they tell me, her apartment is very coquettishly furnished; and to coax
+Mademoiselle Brigitte into the same path of elegance she made a proposal
+to her as follows: 'A friend of mine,' she said, 'a Russian princess for
+whom one of the first upholsterers has just made splendid furniture, is
+suddenly recalled to Russia by the czar, a gentleman with whom no one
+dares to trifle. The poor woman is therefore obliged to turn everything
+she owns here into money as fast as possible; and I feel sure she would
+sell this furniture for ready money at a quarter of the price it cost
+her. All of it is nearly new, and some things have never been used at
+all.'"
+
+"So," cried Madame Phellion, "all that magnificence displayed before our
+eyes last night was a magnificent economical bargain?"
+
+"Just so," replied Minard; "and the thing that decided Mademoiselle
+Brigitte to take that splendid chance was not so much the desire to
+renew her shabby furniture as the idea of doing an excellent stroke
+of business. In that old maid there's always something of Madame la
+Ressource in Moliere's 'Miser.'"
+
+"I think, Monsieur le maire, that you are mistaken," said Phellion.
+"Madame la Ressource is a character in 'Turcaret,' a very immoral play
+by the late Le Sage."
+
+"Do you think so?" said Minard. "Well, very likely. But what is certain
+is that, though the barrister ingratiated himself with Brigitte in
+helping her to buy the house, it was by this clever jockeying about the
+furniture that the foreign countess got upon the footing with Brigitte
+that you now see. You may have remarked, perhaps, that a struggle is
+going on between those two influences; which we may designate as the
+house, and its furniture."
+
+"Yes, certainly," said Madame Phellion, with a beaming expression that
+bore witness to the interest she took in the conversation, "it did seem
+to me that the great lady allowed herself to contradict the barrister,
+and did it, too, with a certain sharpness."
+
+"Very marked sharpness," resumed Minard, "and that intriguing fellow
+perceives it. It strikes me that the lady's hostility makes him uneasy.
+The Thuilliers he got cheaply; for, between ourselves you know, there's
+not much in Thuillier himself; but he feels now that he has met a tough
+adversary, and he is looking anxiously for a weak spot on which to
+attack her."
+
+"Well, that's justice," said Madame Phellion. "For some time past that
+man, who used to make himself so small and humble, has been taking airs
+of authority in the house which are quite intolerable; he behaves openly
+as the son-in-law; and you know very well, in that affair of Thuillier's
+election he jockeyed us all, and made us the stepping-stone for his
+matrimonial ambition."
+
+"Yes; but I can assure you," said Minard, "that at the present time his
+influence is waning. In the first place, he won't find every day for his
+dear, good friend, as he calls him, a fine property worth a million to
+be bought for a bit of bread."
+
+"Then they did get that house very cheap?" said Madame Phellion,
+interrogatively.
+
+"They got it for nothing, as the result of a dirty intrigue which the
+lawyer Desroches related to me the other day. If it ever became known
+to the council of the bar, that little barrister would be badly
+compromised. The next thing is the coming election to the Chamber.
+Eating gives appetite, as they say, and our good Thuillier is hungry;
+but he begins to perceive that Monsieur de la Peyrade, when it becomes a
+question of getting him that mouthful, hasn't his former opportunity
+to make dupes of us. That is why the family is turning more and more to
+Madame de Godollo, who seems to have some very high acquaintances in
+the political world. Besides all this, in fact, without dwelling on
+the election business, which is still a distant matter, this Hungarian
+countess is becoming, every day, more and more a necessity to Brigitte;
+for it must be owned that without the help of the great lady, the poor
+soul would look in the midst of her gilded salon like a ragged gown in a
+bride's trousseau."
+
+"Oh, Monsieur le maire, you are cruel," said Madame Phellion, affecting
+compunction.
+
+"No, but say," returned Minard, "with your hand on your conscience,
+whether Brigitte, whether Madame Thuillier could preside in such a
+salon? No, it is the Hungarian countess who does it all. She furnished
+the rooms; she selected the male domestic, whose excellent training and
+intelligence you must have observed; it was she who arranged the menu
+of that dinner; in short, she is the providence of the parvenu colony,
+which, without her intervention, would have made the whole quarter laugh
+at it. And--now this is a very noticeable thing--instead of being a
+parasite like la Peyrade, this Hungarian lady, who seems to have a
+fortune of her own, proves to be not only disinterested, but generous.
+The two gowns that you saw Brigitte and Madame Thuillier wear last
+night were a present from her, and it was because she came herself to
+superintend the toilet of our two 'amphitryonesses' that you were
+so surprised last night not to find them rigged in their usual dowdy
+fashion."
+
+"But what can be the motive," asked Madame Phellion, "of this maternal
+and devoted guardianship?"
+
+"My dear wife," said Phellion, solemnly, "the motives of human actions
+are not always, thank God! selfishness and the consideration of vile
+interests. There are hearts in this world that find pleasure in doing
+good for its own sake. This lady may have seen in our good friends a set
+of people about to enter blindly into a sphere they knew nothing
+about, and having encouraged their first steps by the purchase of this
+furniture, she may, like a nurse attached to her nursling, find pleasure
+in giving them the milk of her social knowledge and her counsels."
+
+"He seems to keep aloof from our strictures, the dear husband!" cried
+Minard; "but just see how he goes beyond them!"
+
+"I!" said Phellion; "it is neither my intention nor my habit to do so."
+
+"All the same it would be difficult to say more neatly that the
+Thuilliers are geese, and that Madame de Godollo is bringing them up by
+hand."
+
+"I do not accept for these friends of ours," said Phellion, "a
+characterization so derogatory to their repute. I meant to say that they
+were lacking, perhaps, in that form of experience, and that this noble
+lady has placed at their service her knowledge of the world and its
+usages. I protest against any interpretation of my language which goes
+beyond my thought thus limited."
+
+"Well, anyhow, you will agree, my dear commander, that in the idea of
+giving Celeste to this la Peyrade, there is something more than want of
+experience; there is, it must be said, blundering folly and immorality;
+for really the goings on of that barrister with Madame Colleville--"
+
+"Monsieur le maire," interrupted Phellion, with redoubled solemnity,
+"Solon, the law-giver, decreed no punishment for parricide, declaring
+it to be an impossible crime. I think the same thing may be said of the
+offence to which you seem to make allusion. Madame Colleville granting
+favors to Monsieur de la Peyrade, and all the while intending to give
+him her daughter? No, monsieur, no! that passes imagination. Questioned
+on this subject, like Marie Antoinette, by a human tribunal, Madame
+Colleville would answer with the queen, 'I appeal to all mothers.'"
+
+"Nevertheless, my friend," said Madame Phellion, "allow me to remind you
+that Madame Colleville is excessively light-minded, and has given, as we
+al know, pretty good proofs of it."
+
+"Enough, my dear," said Phellion. "The dinner hour summons us; I think
+that, little by little, we have allowed this conversation to drift
+toward the miry slough of backbiting."
+
+"You are full of illusions, my dear commander," said Minard, taking
+Phellion by the hand and shaking it; "but they are honorable illusions,
+and I envy them. Madame, I have the honor--" added the mayor, with a
+respectful bow to Madame Phellion.
+
+And each party took its way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE PROVENCAL'S PRESENT POSITION
+
+The information acquired by the mayor of the 11th arrondissement was by
+no means incorrect. In the Thuillier salon, since the emigration to the
+Madeleine quarter, might be seen daily, between the tart Brigitte and
+the plaintive Madame Thuillier, the graceful and attractive figure of
+a woman who conveyed to this salon an appearance of the most unexpected
+elegance. It was quite true that through the good offices of this
+lady, who had become her tenant in the new house, Brigitte had made
+a speculation in furniture not less advantageous in its way, but more
+avowable, than the very shady purchase of the house itself. For six
+thousand francs in ready money she had obtained furniture lately from
+workshops representing a value of at least thirty thousand.
+
+It was still further true that in consequence of a service which went
+deep into her heart, Brigitte was showing to the beautiful foreign
+countess the respectful deference which the bourgeoisie, in spite of its
+sulky jealousy, is much less indisposed to give to titles of nobility
+and high positions in the social hierarchy than people think. As this
+Hungarian countess was a woman of great tact and accomplished training,
+in taking the direction which she had thought it wise to assume over
+the affairs of her proteges, she had been careful to guard her influence
+from all appearance of meddlesome and imperious dictation. On the
+contrary, she flattered Brigitte's claim to be a model housekeeper; in
+her own household expenses she affected to ask the spinster's advice; so
+that by reserving to herself the department of luxurious expenses, she
+had more the air of giving information than of exercising supervision.
+
+La Peyrade could not disguise from himself that a change was taking
+place. His influence was evidently waning before that of this stranger;
+but the antagonism of the countess was not confined to a simple struggle
+for influence. She made no secret of being opposed to his suit for
+Celeste; she gave her unequivocal approval to the love of Felix
+Phellion, the professor. Minard, by whom this fact was not unobserved,
+took very good care, in the midst of his other information, not to
+mention it to those whom it most concerned.
+
+La Peyrade was all the more anxious at being thus undermined by a
+hostility the cause of which was inexplicable to him, because he knew
+he had himself to blame for bringing this disquieting adversary into
+the very heart of his citadel. His first mistake was in yielding to the
+barren pleasure of disappointing Cerizet in the lease of the house. If
+Brigitte by his advice and urging had not taken the administration of
+the property into her own hands there was every probability that she
+would never have made the acquaintance of Madame de Godollo. Another
+imprudence had been to urge the Thuilliers to leave their old home in
+the Latin quarter.
+
+At this period, when his power and credit had reached their apogee,
+Theodose considered his marriage a settled thing; and he now felt an
+almost childish haste to spring into the sphere of elegance which seemed
+henceforth to be his future. He had therefore furthered the inducements
+of the countess, feeling that he thus sent the Thuilliers before him to
+make his bed in the splendid apartment he intended to share with
+them. By thus removing them from their old home he saw another
+advantage,--that of withdrawing Celeste from daily intercourse with
+a rival who seemed to him dangerous. Deprived of the advantage of
+propinquity, Felix would be forced to make his visits farther apart; and
+therefore there would be greater facilities to ruin him in the
+girl's heart, where he was installed on condition of giving religious
+satisfaction,--a requirement to which he showed himself refractory.
+
+But in all these plans and schemes various drawbacks confronted him.
+To enlarge the horizon of the Thuilliers was for la Peyrade to run the
+chance of creating competition for the confidence and admiration
+of which he had been till then the exclusive object. In the sort of
+provincial life they had hitherto lived, Brigitte and his dear, good
+friend placed him, for want of comparison, at a height from which the
+juxtaposition of other superiorities and elegances must bring him down.
+So, then, apart from the blows covertly dealt him by Madame de Godollo,
+the idea of the transpontine emigration had proved to be, on the whole,
+a bad one.
+
+The Collevilles had followed their friends the Thuilliers, to the
+new house near the Madeleine, where an entresol at the back had been
+conceded to them at a price conformable to their budget. But Colleville
+declared it lacked light and air, and being obliged to go daily from
+the boulevard of the Madeleine to the faubourg Saint-Jacques, where his
+office was, he fumed against the arrangement of which he was the victim,
+and felt at times that la Peyrade was a tyrant. Madame Colleville, on
+the other hand, had flung herself into an alarming orgy of bonnets,
+mantles, and new gowns, requiring the presentation of a mass of bills,
+which led not infrequently to scenes in the household which were more or
+less stormy. As for Celeste, she had undoubtedly fewer opportunities
+to see young Phellion, but she had also fewer chances to rush into
+religious controversy; and absence, which is dangerous to none
+but inferior attachments, made her think more tenderly and less
+theologically of the man of her dreams.
+
+But all these false calculations of Theodose were as nothing in the
+balance with another cause for his diminishing influence which was now
+to weigh heavily on his situation.
+
+He had assured Thuillier that, after a short delay and the payment
+of ten thousand francs, to which his dear, good friend submitted with
+tolerable grace, the cross of the Legion of honor would arrive to
+realize the secret desire of all his life. Two months had now passed
+without a sign of that glorious rattle; and the former sub-director, who
+would have felt such joy in parading his red ribbon on the boulevard
+of the Madeleine, of which he was now one of the most assiduous
+promenaders, had nothing to adorn his buttonhole but the flowers of the
+earth, the privilege of everybody,--of which he was far less proud than
+Beranger.
+
+La Peyrade had, to be sure, mentioned an unforeseen and inexplicable
+difficulty by which all the efforts of the Comtesse du Bruel had been
+paralyzed; but Thuillier did not take comfort in the explanation; and
+on certain days, when the disappointment became acute, he was very near
+saying with Chicaneau in Les Plaideurs, "Return my money."
+
+However, no outbreak happened, for la Peyrade held him in leash by the
+famous pamphlet on "Taxation and the Sliding-Scale"; the conclusion of
+which had been suspended during the excitement of the moving; for during
+that agitating period Thuillier had been unable to give proper care to
+the correction of proofs, about which, we may remember, he had reserved
+the right of punctilious examination. La Peyrade had now reached a point
+when he was forced to see that, in order to restore his influence,
+which was daily evaporating, he must strike some grand blow; and it was
+precisely this nagging and vexatious fancy about the proofs that the
+barrister decided to take as the starting-point of a scheme, both deep
+and adventurous, which came into his mind.
+
+One day, when the pair were engaged on the sheets of the pamphlet, a
+discussion arose upon the word "nepotism," which Thuillier wished to
+eliminate from one of la Peyrade's sentences, declaring that never had
+he met with it anywhere; it was pure neologism--which, to the literary
+notions of the bourgeoisie, is equivalent to the idea of 1793 and the
+Terror.
+
+Generally la Peyrade took the ridiculous remarks of his dear,
+good friend pretty patiently; but on this occasion he made himself
+exceedingly excited, and signified to Thuillier that he might terminate
+himself a work to which he applied such luminous and intelligent
+criticism; after which remark he departed and was not seen again for
+several days.
+
+At first Thuillier supposed this outbreak to be a mere passing effect
+of ill-humor; but when la Peyrade's absence grew prolonged he felt the
+necessity of taking some conciliatory step, and accordingly he went to
+see the barrister, intending to make honorable amends and so put an end
+to his sulkiness. Wishing, however, to give this advance an air which
+allowed an honest issue to his own self-love, he entered la Peyrade's
+room with an easy manner, and said, cheerfully:--
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, it turns out that we were both right: 'nepotism'
+means the authority that the nephews of popes take in public affairs.
+I have searched the dictionary and it gives no other explanation; but,
+from what Phellion tells me, I find that in the political vocabulary
+the meaning of the word has been extended to cover the influence which
+corrupt ministers permit certain persons to exercise illegally. I think,
+therefore, that we may retain the expression, though it is certainly not
+taken in that sense by Napoleon Landais."
+
+La Peyrade, who, in receiving his visitor, had affected to be extremely
+busy in sorting his papers, contented himself by shrugging his shoulders
+and saying nothing.
+
+"Well," said Thuillier, "have you got the last proofs? We ought to be
+getting on."
+
+"If you have sent nothing to the printing-office," replied la
+Peyrade, "of course there are no proofs. I myself haven't touched the
+manuscript."
+
+"But, my dear Theodose," said Thuillier, "it isn't possible that for
+such a trifle you are affronted. I don't pretend to be a writer, only as
+my name is on the book I have, I think, the right to my opinion about a
+word."
+
+"But 'Mossie' Phellion," replied Theodose, "is a writer; and inasmuch as
+you have consulted him, I don't see why you can't engage him to finish
+the work in which, for my part, I have resolved not to co-operate any
+longer."
+
+"Heavens! what temper!" cried Thuillier; "here you are furious just
+because I seemed to question a word and then consulted some one. You
+know very well that I have read passages to Phellion, Colleville,
+Minard, and Barniol as if the work were mine, in order to see the effect
+it would produce upon the public; but that's no reason why I should be
+willing to give my name to the things they are capable of writing. Do
+you wish me to give you a proof of the confidence I have in you? Madame
+la Comtesse de Godollo, to whom I read a few pages last night, told
+me that the pamphlet was likely to get me into trouble with the
+authorities; but I wouldn't allow what she said to have any influence
+upon me."
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, "I think that the oracle of the family sees the
+matter clearly; and I've no desire to bring your head to the scaffold."
+
+"All that is nonsense," said Thuillier. "Have you, or have you not, an
+intention to leave me in the lurch?"
+
+"Literary questions make more quarrels among friends than political
+questions," replied Theodose. "I wish to put an end to these discussions
+between us."
+
+"But, my dear Theodose, never have I assumed to be a literary man. I
+think I have sound common-sense, and I say out my ideas; you can't be
+angry at that; and if you play me this trick, and refuse to collaborate
+any longer, it is because you have some other grudge against me that I
+know nothing about."
+
+"I don't see why you call it a trick. There's nothing easier for you
+than not to write a pamphlet; you'll simply be Jerome Thuillier, as
+before."
+
+"And yet it was you yourself who declared that this publication would
+help my election; besides, I repeat, I have read passages to all our
+friends, I have announced the matter in the municipal council, and if
+the work were not to appear I should be dishonored; people would be sure
+to say the government had bought me up."
+
+"You have only to say that you are the friend of Phellion, the
+incorruptible; that will clear you. You might even give Celeste to
+his booby of a son; that alliance would certainly protect you from all
+suspicion."
+
+"Theodose," said Thuillier, "there is something in your mind that you
+don't tell me. It is not natural that for a simple quarrel about a word
+you should wish to lose a friend like me."
+
+"Well, yes, there is," replied la Peyrade, with the air of a man who
+makes up his mind to speak out. "I don't like ingratitude."
+
+"Nor I either; I don't like it," said Thuillier, hotly; "and if you
+accuse me of so base an action, I summon you to explain yourself. We
+must get out of these hints and innuendoes. What do you complain of?
+What have you against a man whom only a few days ago you called your
+friend?"
+
+"Nothing and everything," replied la Peyrade. "You and your sister
+are much too clever to break openly with a man who, at the risk of his
+reputation, has put a million in your hands. But I am not so simple that
+I don't know how to detect changes. There are people about you who have
+set themselves, in an underhand way, to destroy me; and Brigitte has
+only one thought, and that is, how to find a decent way of not keeping
+her promises. Men like me don't wait till their claims are openly
+protested, and I certainly do not intend to impose myself on any family;
+still, I was far, I acknowledge, from expecting such treatment."
+
+"Come, come," said Thuillier, kindly, seeing in the barrister's eye the
+glint of a tear of which he was completely the dupe, "I don't know what
+Brigitte may have been doing to you, but one thing is very certain: I
+have never ceased to be your most devoted friend."
+
+"No," said la Peyrade, "since that mishap about the cross I am only
+good, as the saying is, to throw to the dogs. How could I have struggled
+against secret influences? Possibly it is that pamphlet, about which you
+have talked a great deal too much, that has hindered your appointment.
+The ministers are so stupid! They would rather wait and have their hand
+forced by the fame of the publication than do the thing with a good
+grace as the reward of your services. But these are political mysteries
+which would never enter your sister's mind."
+
+"The devil!" cried Thuillier. "I think I've got a pretty observing eye,
+and yet I can't see the slightest change in Brigitte toward you."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said la Peyrade, "your eyesight is so good that you have
+never seen perpetually beside her that Madame de Godollo, whom she now
+thinks she can't live without."
+
+"Ha, ha!" said Thuillier, slyly, "so it is a little jealousy, is it, in
+our mind?"
+
+"Jealousy!" retorted la Peyrade. "I don't know if that's the right word,
+but certainly your sister--whose mind is nothing above the ordinary,
+and to whom I am surprised that a man of your intellectual superiority
+allows a supremacy in your household which she uses and abuses--"
+
+"How can I help it, my dear fellow," interrupted Thuillier, sucking in
+the compliment; "she is so absolutely devoted to me."
+
+"I admit the weakness, but, I repeat, your sister doesn't fit into your
+groove. Well, I say that when a man of the value which you are good
+enough to recognize in me, does her the honor to consult her and devote
+himself to her as I have done, it can hardly be agreeable to him to find
+himself supplanted by a woman who comes from nobody knows where--and all
+because of a few trumpery chairs and tables she has helped her to buy!"
+
+"With women, as you know very well," replied Thuillier, "household
+affairs have the first place."
+
+"And Brigitte, who wants a finger in everything, also assumes to
+carry matters with a high hand in affairs of the heart. As you are so
+extraordinarily clear-sighted you ought to have seen that in Brigitte's
+mind nothing is less certain than my marriage with Mademoiselle
+Colleville; and yet my love has been solemnly authorized by you."
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Thuillier, "I'd like to see any one attempt to
+meddle with my arrangements!"
+
+"Well, without speaking of Brigitte, I can tell you of another person,"
+said Theodose, "who is doing that very thing; and that person is
+Mademoiselle Celeste herself. In spite of their quarrels about religion,
+her mind is none the less full of that little Phellion."
+
+"But why don't you tell Flavie to put a stop to it?"
+
+"No one knows Flavie, my dear Thuillier, better than you. She is a woman
+rather than a mother. I have found it necessary to do a little bit of
+courting to her myself, and, you understand, while she is willing for
+this marriage she doesn't desire it very much."
+
+"Well," said Thuillier, "I'll undertake to speak to Celeste myself. It
+shall never be said that a slip of a girl lays down the law to me."
+
+"That's exactly what I don't want you to do," cried la Peyrade. "Don't
+meddle in all this. Outside of your relations to your sister you have an
+iron will, and I will never have it said that you exerted your authority
+to put Celeste in my arms; on the contrary, I desire that the child may
+have complete control over her own heart. The only thing I request is
+that she shall decide positively between Felix Phellion and myself;
+because I do not choose to remain any longer in this doubtful position.
+It is true we agreed that the marriage should only take place after
+you became a deputy; but I feel now that it is impossible to allow
+the greatest event of my life to remain at the mercy of doubtful
+circumstances. And, besides, such an arrangement, though at first agreed
+upon, seems to me now to have a flavor of a bargain which is unbecoming
+to both of us. I think I had better make you a confidence, to which I
+am led by the unpleasant state of things now between us. Dutocq may have
+told you, before you left the apartment in the rue Saint-Dominique, that
+an heiress had been offered to me whose immediate fortune is larger than
+that which Mademoiselle Colleville will eventually inherit. I refused,
+because I have had the folly to let my heart be won, and because
+an alliance with a family as honorable as yours seemed to me more
+desirable; but, after all, it is as well to let Brigitte know that if
+Celeste refuses me, I am not absolutely turned out into the cold."
+
+"I can easily believe that," said Thuillier; "but as for putting the
+whole decision into the hands of that little girl, especially if she
+has, as you tell me, a fancy for Felix--"
+
+"I can't help it," said the barrister. "I must, at any price, get out of
+this position; it is no longer tenable. You talk about your pamphlet;
+I am not in a fit condition to finish it. You, who have been a man
+of gallantry, you must know the dominion that women, fatal creatures!
+exercise over our whole being."
+
+"Bah!" said Thuillier, conceitedly, "they cared for me, but I did not
+often care for them; I took them, and left them, you know."
+
+"Yes, but I, with my Southern nature, love passionately; and Celeste has
+other attractions besides fortune. Brought up in your household, under
+your own eye, you have made her adorable. Only, I must say, you have
+shown great weakness in letting that young fellow, who does not suit her
+in any respect, get such hold upon her fancy."
+
+"You are quite right; but the thing began in a childish friendship; she
+and Felix played together. You came much later; and it is a proof of
+the great esteem in which we hold you, that when you made your offer we
+renounced our earlier projects."
+
+"_You_ did, yes," said la Peyrade, "and with some literary
+manias--which, after all, are frequently full of sense and wit--you have
+a heart of gold; with you friendship is a sure thing, and you know what
+you mean. But Brigitte is another matter; you'll see, when you propose
+to her to hasten the marriage, what a resistance she will make."
+
+"I don't agree with you. I think that Brigitte has always wanted you and
+still wants you for son-in-law--if I may so express myself. But whether
+she does or not, I beg you to believe that in all important matters I
+know how to have my will obeyed. Only, let us come now to a distinct
+understanding of what you wish; then we can start with the right foot
+foremost, and you'll see that all will go well."
+
+"I wish," replied la Peyrade, "to put the last touches to your pamphlet;
+for, above all things, I think of you."
+
+"Certainly," said Thuillier, "we ought not to sink in port."
+
+"Well, in consequence of the feeling that I am oppressed, stultified by
+the prospect of a marriage still so doubtful, I am certain that not
+a page of manuscript could be got out of me in any form, until the
+question is settled."
+
+"Very good," said Thuillier; "then how do you present that question?"
+
+"Naturally, if Celeste's decision be against me, I should wish an
+immediate solution. If I am condemned to make a marriage of convenience
+I ought to lose no time in taking the opportunity I mentioned to you."
+
+"So be it; but what time do you intend to allow us?"
+
+"I should think that in fifteen days a girl might be able to make up her
+mind."
+
+"Undoubtedly," replied Thuillier; "but it is very repugnant to me to let
+Celeste decide without appeal."
+
+"For my part, I will take that risk; in any case, I shall be rid of
+uncertainty; and that is really my first object. Between ourselves, I
+am not risking as much as you think. It will take more than fifteen days
+for a son of Phellion, in other words, obstinacy incarnate in silliness,
+to have done with philosophical hesitations; and it is very certain
+that Celeste will not accept him for a husband unless he gives her some
+proofs of conversion."
+
+"That's probable. But suppose Celeste tries to dawdle; suppose she
+refuses to accept the alternative?"
+
+"That's your affair," said the Provencal. "I don't know how you regard
+the family in Paris; I only know that in my part of the country it is
+an unheard-of thing that a girl should have such liberty. If you, your
+sister (supposing she plays fair in the matter), and the father and
+mother can't succeed in making a girl whom you dower agree to so simple
+a thing as to make a perfectly free choice between two suitors, then
+good-bye to you! You'll have to write upon your gate-post that Celeste
+is queen and sovereign of the house."
+
+"Well, we haven't got to that point yet," said Thuillier, with a capable
+air.
+
+"As for you, my old fellow," resumed la Peyrade, "I must postpone our
+business until after Celeste's decision. Be that in my favor or not, I
+will then go to work, and in three days the pamphlet can be finished."
+
+"Now," said Thuillier, "I know what you have had on your mind. I'll talk
+about it with Brigitte."
+
+"That's a sad conclusion," said la Peyrade; "but, unhappily, so it is."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I would rather, as you can easily imagine, hear you say of yourself
+that the thing shall be done; but old habits can't be broken up."
+
+"Ah ca! do you think I'm a man without any will, any initiative of my
+own?"
+
+"No! but I'd like to be hidden in a corner and hear how you will open
+the subject with your sister."
+
+"Parbleu! I shall open it frankly. I WILL, very firmly said, shall meet
+every one of her objections."
+
+"Ah, my poor fellow!" said la Peyrade, clapping him on the shoulder,
+"from Chrysale down how often have we seen brave warriors lowering their
+penants before the wills of women accustomed to master them!"
+
+"We'll see about _that_," replied Thuillier, making a theatrical exit.
+
+The eager desire to publish his pamphlet, and the clever doubt thrown
+upon the strength of his will had made him furious,--an actual tiger;
+and he went away resolved, in case of opposition, to reduce his
+household, as the saying is, by fire and sword.
+
+When he reached home Thuillier instantly laid the question before
+Brigitte. She, with her crude good sense and egotism, pointed out to him
+that by thus hastening the period formerly agreed upon for the marriage,
+they committed the blunder of disarming themselves; they could not be
+sure that when the election took place la Peyrade would put the same
+zeal into preparing for it. "It might be," said the old maid, "just as
+it has been about the cross."
+
+"There's this difference," said Thuillier; "the cross doesn't depend
+directly upon la Peyrade, whereas the influence he exerts in the 12th
+arrondissement he can employ as he will."
+
+"And suppose he willed, after we have feathered his nest," said
+Brigitte, "to work his influence for his own election? He is very
+ambitious, you know."
+
+This danger did not fail to strike the mind of the future legislator,
+who thought, however, that he might feel some security in the honor and
+morality of la Peyrade.
+
+"A man's honor can't be very delicate," returned Brigitte, "when he
+tries to get out of a bargain; and this fashion of dangling a bit of
+sugar before us about getting your pamphlet finished, doesn't please me
+at all. Can't you get Phellion to help you, and do without Theodose? Or,
+I dare say, Madame de Godollo, who knows everybody in politics, could
+find you a journalist--they say there are plenty of them out at elbows;
+a couple of hundred francs would do the thing."
+
+"But the secret would get into the papers," said Thuillier. "No, I must
+absolutely have Theodose; he knows that, and he makes these conditions.
+After all, we did promise him Celeste, and it is only fulfilling the
+promise a year earlier--what am I saying?--a few months, a few weeks,
+possibly; for the king may dissolve the Chamber before any one expects
+it."
+
+"But suppose Celeste won't have him?" objected Brigitte.
+
+"Celeste! Celeste, indeed!" ejaculated Thuillier; "she _must_ have
+whomsoever we choose. We ought to have thought of that when we made the
+engagement with la Peyrade; our word is passed now, you know. Besides,
+if the child is allowed to choose between la Peyrade and Phellion--"
+
+"So you really think," said the sceptical old maid, "that if Celeste
+decides for Phellion you can still count on la Peyrade's devotion?"
+
+"What else can I do? Those are his conditions. Besides, the fellow has
+calculated the whole thing; he knows very well that Felix will never
+bring himself in two weeks to please Celeste by going to confession, and
+unless he does, that little monkey will never accept him for a husband.
+La Peyrade's game is very clever."
+
+"Too clever," said Brigitte. "Well, settle the matter as you choose; I
+shall not meddle; all this manoeuvring is not to my taste."
+
+Thuillier went to see Madame Colleville, and intimated to her that she
+must inform Celeste of the designs upon her.
+
+Celeste had never been officially authorized to indulge her sentiment
+for Felix Phellion. Flavie, on the contrary, had once expressly
+forbidden her to encourage the hopes of the young professor; but as, on
+the part of Madame Thuillier, her godmother and her confidant, she knew
+she was sustained in her inclination, she had let herself gently follow
+it without thinking very seriously of the obstacles her choice might
+encounter. When, therefore, she was ordered to choose at once between
+Felix and la Peyrade, the simple-hearted girl was at first only struck
+by the advantages of one half of the alternative, and she fancied she
+did herself a great service by agreeing to an arrangement which made her
+the mistress of her own choice and allowed her to bestow it as her heart
+desired.
+
+But la Peyrade was not mistaken in his calculation when he reckoned
+that the religious intolerance of the young girl on one side, and the
+philosophical inflexibility of Phellion's son on the other, would create
+an invincible obstacle to their coming together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. GOOD BLOOD CANNOT LIE
+
+The evening of the day on which Flavie had communicated to Celeste the
+sovereign orders of Thuillier, the Phellions called to spend the evening
+with Brigitte, and a very sharp engagement took place between the two
+young people. Mademoiselle Colleville did not need to be told by her
+mother that it would be extremely unbecoming if she allowed Felix to
+know of the conditional approval that was granted to their sentiments.
+Celeste had too much delicacy, and too much real religious feeling to
+wish to obtain the conversion of the man she loved on any other ground
+than that of his conviction. Their evening was therefore passed in
+theological debate; but love is so strange a Proteus, and takes so many
+and such various forms, that though it appeared on this occasion in
+a black gown and a mob cap, it was not at all as ungraceful and
+displeasing as might have been imagined. But Phellion junior was in this
+encounter, the solemnity of which he little knew, unlucky and blundering
+to the last degree. Not only did he concede nothing, but he took a tone
+of airy and ironical discussion, and ended by putting poor Celeste so
+beside herself that she finally declared an open rupture and forbade him
+to appear in her presence again.
+
+It was just the case for a lover more experienced than the young savant
+to reappear the very next day, for young hearts are never so near to
+understanding each other as when they have just declared the necessity
+of eternal separation. But this law is not one of logarithms, and Felix
+Phellion, being incapable of guessing it, thought himself positively and
+finally banished; so much so, that during the fifteen days granted
+to the poor girl to deliberate (as says the Code in the matter of
+beneficiary bequests), although he was expected day by day, and from
+minute to minute by Celeste, who gave no more thought to la Peyrade than
+if he had nothing to do with the question, the deplorably stupid youth
+did not have the most distant idea of breaking his ban.
+
+Luckily for this hopeless lover, a beneficent fairy was watching over
+him, and the evening before the day on which the young girl was to make
+her decision the following affair took place.
+
+It was Sunday, the day on which the Thuilliers still kept up their
+weekly receptions.
+
+Madame Phellion, convinced that the housekeeping leakage, vulgarly
+called "the basket dance," was the ruin of the best-regulated
+households, was in the habit of going in person to her tradespeople.
+From time immemorial in the Phellion establishment, Sunday was the
+day of the "pot-au-feu," and the wife of the great citizen, in that
+intentionally dowdy costume in which good housekeepers bundle themselves
+when they go to market, was prosaically returning from a visit to the
+butcher, followed by her cook and the basket, in which lay a magnificent
+cut of the loin of beef. Twice had she rung her own doorbell, and
+terrible was the storm gathering on the head of the foot-boy, who by
+his slowness in opening the door was putting his mistress in a situation
+less tolerable than that of Louis XIV., who had only _almost_ waited. In
+her feverish impatience Madame Phellion had just given the bell a third
+and ferocious reverberation, when, judge of her confusion, a little
+coupe drew up with much clatter at the door of her house, and a lady
+descended, whom she recognized, at this untimely hour, as the elegant
+Comtesse Torna de Godollo!
+
+Turning a purplish scarlet, the unfortunate bourgeoise lost her head,
+and, floundering in excuses, she was about to complicate the position
+by some signal piece of awkwardness, when, happily for her, Phellion,
+attracted by the noise of the bell, and attired in a dressing-gown and
+Greek cap, came out of his study to inquire what was the matter. After
+a speech, the pompous charm of which did much to compensate for his
+dishabille, the great citizen, with the serenity that never abandoned
+him, offered his hand very gallantly to the lady, and having installed
+her in the salon, said:--
+
+"May I, without indiscretion, ask Madame la comtesse what has procured
+for us the unhoped-for advantage of this visit?"
+
+"I have come," said the lady, "to talk with Madame Phellion on a matter
+which must deeply interest her. I have no other way of meeting her
+without witnesses; and therefore, though I am hardly known to Madame
+Phellion, I have taken the liberty to call upon her here."
+
+"Madame, your visit is a great honor to this poor dwelling. But where is
+Madame Phellion?" added the worthy man, impatiently, going towards the
+door.
+
+"No, I beg of you, don't disturb her," said the countess; "I have
+heedlessly come at a moment when she is busy with household cares.
+Brigitte has been my educator in such matters, and I know the respect we
+ought to pay to good housekeepers. Besides, I have the pleasure of your
+presence, which I scarcely expected."
+
+Before Phellion could reply to these obliging words, Madame Phellion
+appeared. A cap with ribbons had taken the place of the market bonnet,
+and a large shawl covered the other insufficiencies of the morning
+toilet. When his wife arrived, the great citizen made as though he would
+discreetly retire.
+
+"Monsieur Phellion," said the countess, "you are not one too many in
+the conference I desire with madame; on the contrary, your excellent
+judgment will be most useful in throwing light upon a matter as
+interesting to you as to your wife. I allude to the marriage of your
+son."
+
+"The marriage of my son!" cried Madame Phellion, with a look of
+astonishment; "but I am not aware that anything of the kind is at
+present in prospect."
+
+"The marriage of Monsieur Felix with Mademoiselle Celeste is, I think,
+one of your strongest desires--"
+
+"But we have never," said Phellion, "taken any overt steps for that
+object."
+
+"I know that only too well," replied the countess; "on the contrary,
+every one in your family seems to study how to defeat my efforts in that
+direction. However, one thing is clear in spite of the reserve, and,
+you must allow me to say so, the clumsiness in which the affair has been
+managed, and that is that the young people love each other, and
+they will both be unhappy if they do not marry. Now, to prevent this
+catastrophe is the object with which I have come here this morning."
+
+"We cannot, madame, be otherwise than deeply sensible of the interest
+you are so good as to show in the happiness of our son," said Phellion;
+"but, in truth, this interest--"
+
+"Is something so inexplicable," interrupted the countess, "that you feel
+a distrust of it?"
+
+"Oh! madame!" said Phellion, bowing with an air of respectful dissent.
+
+"But," continued the lady, "the explanation of my proceeding is very
+simple. I have studied Celeste, and in that dear and artless child I
+find a moral weight and value which would make me grieve to see her
+sacrificed."
+
+"You are right, madame," said Madame Phellion. "Celeste is, indeed, an
+angel of sweetness."
+
+"As for monsieur Felix, I venture to interest myself because, in the
+first place, he is the son of so virtuous a father--"
+
+"Oh, madame! I entreat--" said Phellion, bowing again.
+
+"--and he also attracts me by the awkwardness of true love, which
+appears in all his actions and all his words. We mature women find an
+inexpressible charm in seeing the tender passion under a form which
+threatens us with no deceptions and no misunderstandings."
+
+"My son is certainly not brilliant," said Madame Phellion, with a faint
+tone of sharpness; "he is not a fashionable young man."
+
+"But he has the qualities that are most essential," replied the
+countess, "and a merit which ignores itself,--a thing of the utmost
+consequence in all intellectual superiority--"
+
+"Really, madame," said Phellion, "you force us to hear things that--"
+
+"That are not beyond the truth," interrupted the countess. "Another
+reason which leads me to take a deep interest in the happiness of these
+young people is that I am not so desirous for that of Monsieur Theodose
+de la Peyrade, who is false and grasping. On the ruin of their hopes
+that man is counting to carry out his swindling purposes."
+
+"It is quite certain," said Phellion, "that there are dark depths in
+Monsieur de la Peyrade where light does not penetrate."
+
+"And as I myself had the misfortune to marry a man of his description,
+the thought of the wretchedness to which Celeste would be condemned
+by so fatal a connection, impels me, in the hope of saving her, to the
+charitable effort which now, I trust, has ceased to surprise you."
+
+"Madame," said Phellion, "we do not need the conclusive explanations by
+which you illumine your conduct; but as to the faults on our part, which
+have thwarted your generous efforts, I must declare that in order to
+avoid committing them in future, it seems to me not a little desirable
+that you should plainly indicate them."
+
+"How long is it," asked the countess, "since any of your family have
+paid a visit to the Thuilliers'?"
+
+"If my memory serves me," said Phellion, "I think we were all there the
+Sunday after the dinner for the house-warming."
+
+"Fifteen whole days of absence!" exclaimed the countess; "and you think
+that nothing of importance could happen in fifteen days?"
+
+"No, indeed! did not three glorious days in July, 1830, cast down a
+perjured dynasty and found the noble order of things under which we now
+live?"
+
+"You see it yourself!" said the countess. "Now, tell me, during that
+evening, fifteen days ago, did nothing serious take place between your
+son and Celeste?"
+
+"Something did occur," replied Phellion,--"a very disagreeable
+conversation on the subject of my son's religious opinions; it must be
+owned that our good Celeste, who in all other respects has a charming
+nature, is a trifle fanatic in the matter of piety."
+
+"I agree to that," said the countess; "but she was brought up by the
+mother whom you know; she was never shown the face of true piety; she
+saw only the mimicry of it. Repentant Magdalens of the Madame Colleville
+species always assume an air of wishing to retire to a desert with their
+death's-head and crossed bones. They think they can't get salvation at
+a cheaper rate. But after all, what did Celeste ask of Monsieur Felix?
+Merely that he would read 'The Imitation of Christ.'"
+
+"He has read it, madame," said Phellion, "and he thinks it a
+book extremely well written; but his convictions--and that is a
+misfortune--have not been affected by the perusal."
+
+"And do you think he shows much cleverness in not assuring his mistress
+of some little change in his inflexible convictions?"
+
+"My son, madame, has never received from me the slightest lesson in
+cleverness; loyalty, uprightness, those are the principles I have
+endeavored to inculcate in him."
+
+"It seems to me, monsieur, that there is no want of loyalty when, in
+dealing with a troubled mind, we endeavor to avoid wounding it. But let
+us agree that Monsieur Felix owed it to himself to be that iron door
+against which poor Celeste's applications beat in vain; was that a
+reason for keeping away from her and sulking in his tent for fifteen
+whole days? Above all, ought he to have capped these sulks by a
+proceeding which I can't forgive, and which--only just made known to
+us--has struck the girl's heart with despair, and also with a feeling of
+extreme irritation?"
+
+"My son capable of any such act! it is quite impossible, madame!" cried
+Phellion. "I know nothing of this proceeding; but I do not hesitate to
+affirm that you have been ill-informed."
+
+"And yet, nothing is more certain. Young Colleville, who came home
+to-day for his half-holiday, has just told us that Monsieur Felix, who
+had previously gone with the utmost punctuality to hear him recite has
+ceased entirely to have anything to do with him. Unless your son is ill,
+I do not hesitate to say that this neglect is the greatest of blunders,
+in the situation in which he now stands with the sister he ought not to
+have chosen this moment to put an end to these lessons."
+
+The Phellions looked at each other as if consulting how to reply.
+
+"My son," said Madame Phellion, "is not exactly ill; but since you
+mention a fact which is, I acknowledge, very strange and quite out of
+keeping with his nature and habits, I think it right to tell you that
+from the day when Celeste seemed to signify that all was at an end
+between them, a very extraordinary change has come over Felix, which is
+causing Monsieur Phellion and myself the deepest anxiety."
+
+"Yes, madame," said Phellion, "the young man is certainly not in his
+normal condition."
+
+"But what is the matter with him?" asked the countess, anxiously.
+
+"The night of that scene with Celeste," replied Phellion, "after his
+return home, he wept a flood of hot tears on his mother's bosom, and
+gave us to understand that the happiness of his whole life was at an
+end."
+
+"And yet," said Madame de Godollo, "nothing very serious happened; but
+lovers always make the worst of things."
+
+"No doubt," said Madame Phellion; "but since that night Felix has not
+made the slightest allusion to his misfortune, and the next day he went
+back to his work with a sort of frenzy. Does that seem natural to you?"
+
+"It is capable of explanation; work is said to be a great consoler."
+
+"That is most true," said Phellion; "but in Felix's whole personality
+there is something excited, and yet repressed, which is difficult to
+describe. You speak to him, and he hardly seems to hear you; he
+sits down to table and forgets to eat, or takes his food with an
+absent-mindedness which the medical faculty consider most injurious to
+the process of digestion; his duties, his regular occupations, we have
+to remind him of--him, so extremely regular, so punctual! The other day,
+when he was at the Observatory, where he now spends all his evenings,
+only coming home in the small hours, I took it upon myself to enter his
+room and examine his papers. I was terrified, madame, at finding a paper
+covered with algebraic calculations which, by their vast extent appeared
+to me to go beyond the limits of the human intellect."
+
+"Perhaps," said the countess, "he is on the road to some great
+discovery."
+
+"Or to madness," said Madame Phellion, in a low voice, and with a heavy
+sigh.
+
+"That is not probable," said Madame de Godollo; "with an organization
+so calm and a mind so well balanced, he runs but little danger of
+that misfortune. I know myself of another danger that threatens him
+to-morrow, and unless we can take some steps this evening to avert it,
+Celeste is positively lost to him."
+
+"How so?" said the husband and wife together.
+
+"Perhaps you are not aware," replied the countess, "that Thuillier and
+his sister have made certain promises to Monsieur de la Peyrade about
+Celeste?"
+
+"We suspected as much," replied Madame Phellion.
+
+"The fulfilment of these pledges was postponed to a rather distant
+period, and subordinated to certain conditions. Monsieur de la Peyrade,
+after enabling them to buy the house near the Madeleine, pledged himself
+not only to obtain the cross for Monsieur Thuillier, but to write in his
+name a political pamphlet, and assist him in his election to the Chamber
+of Deputies. It sounds like the romances of chivalry, in which the hero,
+before obtaining the hand of the princess, is compelled to exterminate a
+dragon."
+
+"Madame is very witty," said Madame Phellion, looking at her husband,
+who made her a sign not to interrupt.
+
+"I have no time now," said the countess; "in fact it would be useless to
+tell you the manoeuvres by which Monsieur de la Peyrade has contrived
+to hasten the period of this marriage; but it concerns you to know that,
+thanks to his duplicity, Celeste is being forced to choose between him
+and Monsieur Felix; fifteen days were given her in which to make her
+choice; the time expires to-morrow, and, thanks to the unfortunate state
+of feeling into which your son's attitude has thrown her, there is
+very serious danger of seeing her sacrifice to her wounded feelings the
+better sentiments of her love and her instincts."
+
+"But what can be done to prevent it?" asked Phellion.
+
+"Fight, monsieur; come this evening in force to the Thuilliers'; induce
+Monsieur Felix to accompany you; lecture him until he promises to be a
+little more flexible in his philosophical opinions. Paris, said Henri
+IV., is surely worth a mass. But let him avoid all such questions; he
+can certainly find in his heart the words and tones to move a woman
+who loves him; it requires so little to satisfy her! I shall be there
+myself, and I will help him to my utmost ability; perhaps, under the
+inspiration of the moment, I may think of some way to do effectually.
+One thing is very certain: we have to fight a great battle to-night, and
+if we do not ALL do our duty valorously, la Peyrade may win it."
+
+"My son is not here, madame," said Phellion, "and I regret it, for
+perhaps your generous devotion and urgent words would succeed in shaking
+off his torpor; but, at any rate, I will lay before him the gravity of
+the situation, and, beyond all doubt, he will accompany us to-night to
+the Thuilliers'."
+
+"It is needless to say," added the countess, rising, "that we must
+carefully avoid the very slightest appearance of collusion; we must not
+converse together; in fact, unless it can be done in some casual way, it
+would be better not to speak."
+
+"I beg you to rely, madame, upon my prudence," replied Phellion, "and
+kindly accept the assurance--"
+
+"Of your most distinguished sentiments," interrupted the countess,
+laughing.
+
+"No, madame," replied Phellion, gravely, "I reserve that formula for
+the conclusion of my letters; I beg you to accept the assurance of my
+warmest and most unalterable gratitude."
+
+"We will talk of that when we are out of danger," said Madame de
+Godollo, moving towards the door; "and if Madame Phellion, the tenderest
+and most virtuous of mothers, will grant me a little place in her
+esteem, I shall count myself more than repaid for my trouble."
+
+Madame Phellion plunged headlong into a responsive compliment; and the
+countess, in her carriage, was at some distance from the house before
+Phellion had ceased to offer her his most respectful salutations.
+
+As the Latin-quarter element in Brigitte's salon became more rare and
+less assiduous, a livelier Paris began to infiltrate it. Among his
+colleagues in the municipal council and among the upper employees of
+the prefecture of the Seine, the new councillor had made several
+very important recruits. The mayor, and the deputy mayors of the
+arrondissement, on whom, after his removal to the Madeleine quarter,
+Thuillier had called, hastened to return the civility; and the same
+thing happened with the superior officers of the first legion. The
+house itself had produced a contingent; and several of the new tenants
+contributed, by their presence, to change the aspect of the
+dominical meetings. Among the number we must mention Rabourdin [see
+"Bureaucracy"], the former head of Thuillier's office at the ministry of
+finance. Having had the misfortune to lose his wife, whose salon, at an
+earlier period, checkmated that of Madame Colleville, Rabourdin occupied
+as a bachelor the third floor, above the apartment let to Cardot, the
+notary. As the result of an odious slight to his just claims, Rabourdin
+had voluntarily resigned his public functions. At this time, when he
+again met Thuillier, he was director of one of those numerous projected
+railways, the construction of which is always delayed by either
+parliamentary rivalry or parliamentary indecision. Let us say, in
+passing, that the meeting with this able administrator, now become
+an important personage in the financial world, was an occasion to the
+worthy and honest Phellion to display once more his noble character. At
+the time of the resignation to which Rabourdin had felt himself driven,
+Phellion alone, of all the clerks in the office, had stood by him in his
+misfortunes. Being now in a position to bestow a great number of places,
+Rabourdin, on meeting once more his faithful subordinate, hastened to
+offer him a position both easy and lucrative.
+
+"Mossieu," said Phellion, "your benevolence touches me and honors me,
+but my frankness owes you an avowal, which I beg you not to take in ill
+part: I do not believe in 'railways,' as the English call them."
+
+"That's an opinion to which you have every right," said Rabourdin,
+smiling; "but, meanwhile, until the contrary is proved, we pay the
+employees in our office well, and I should be glad to have you with me
+in that capacity. I know by experience that you are a man on whom I can
+count."
+
+"Mossieu," returned the great citizen, "I did my duty at that time, and
+nothing more. As for the offer you have been so good as to make to me, I
+cannot accept it; satisfied with my humble fortunes, I feel neither the
+need nor the desire to re-enter an administrative career; and, in common
+with the Latin poet, I may say, 'Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata
+biberunt.'"
+
+Thus elevated in the character of its habitues, the salon Thuillier
+still needed a new element of life. Thanks to the help of Madame de
+Godollo, a born organizer, who successfully put to profit the former
+connection of Colleville with the musical world, a few artists came to
+make diversion from bouillotte and boston. Old-fashioned and venerable,
+those two games were forced to beat a retreat before whist, the only
+manner, said the Hungarian countess, in which respectable people can
+kill time.
+
+Like Louis XVI., who began by putting his own hand to reforms which
+subsequently engulfed his throne, Brigitte had encouraged, at first,
+this domestic revolution; the need of sustaining her position suitably
+in the new quarter to which she had emigrated had made her docile to all
+suggestions of comfort and elegance. But the day on which occurred the
+scene we are about to witness, an apparently trivial detail had revealed
+to her the danger of the declivity on which she stood. The greater
+number of the new guests, recently imported by Thuillier, knew nothing
+of his sister's supremacy in his home. On arrival, therefore, they all
+asked Thuillier to present them to _Madame_, and, naturally, Thuillier
+could not say to them that his wife was a figure-head who groaned under
+the iron hand of a Richelieu, to whom the whole household bent the knee.
+It was therefore not until the first homage rendered to the sovereign
+"de jure" was paid, that the new-comers were led up to Brigitte, and by
+reason of the stiffness which displeasure at this misplacement of
+power gave to her greeting they were scarcely encouraged to pay her any
+further attentions. Quick to perceive this species of overthrow, Queen
+Elizabeth said to herself, with that profound instinct of domination
+which was her ruling passion:--
+
+"If I don't take care I shall soon be nobody in this house."
+
+Burrowing into that idea, she came to think that if the project of
+making a common household with la Peyrade, then Celeste's husband, were
+carried out, the situation which was beginning to alarm her would become
+even worse. From that moment, and by sudden intuition, Felix Phellion,
+that good young man, with his head too full of mathematics ever to
+become a formidable rival to her sovereignty, seemed to her a far better
+match than the enterprising lawyer, and she was the first, on seeing the
+Phellion father and mother arrive without the son, to express regret at
+his absence. Brigitte, however, was not the only one to feel the injury
+that the luckless professor was doing to his prospects in thus keeping
+away from her reception. Madame Thuillier, with simple candor, and
+Celeste with feigned reserve, both made manifest their displeasure. As
+for Madame de Godollo, who, in spite of a very remarkable voice, usually
+required much pressing before she would sing (the piano having been
+opened since her reign began), she now went up to Madame Phellion and
+asked her to accompany her, and between two verses of a song she said in
+her ear:--
+
+"Why isn't your son here?"
+
+"He is coming," said Madame Phellion. "His father talked to him very
+decidedly; but to-night there happens to be a conjunction of I don't
+know what planets; it is a great night at the Observatory, and he did
+not feel willing to dispense with--"
+
+"It is inconceivable that a man should be so foolish!" exclaimed Madame
+de Godollo; "wasn't theology bad enough, that he must needs bring in
+astronomy too?"
+
+And her vexation gave to her voice so vibrating a tone that her song
+ended in the midst of what the English call a thunder of applause. La
+Peyrade, who feared her extremely, was not one of the last, when she
+returned to her place, to approach her, and express his admiration; but
+she received his compliments with a coldness so near to incivility that
+their mutual hostility was greatly increased. La Peyrade turned away
+to console himself with Madame Colleville, who had still too many
+pretensions to beauty not to be the enemy of a woman made to intercept
+all homage.
+
+"So you also, you think that woman sings well?" she said,
+contemptuously, to Theodose.
+
+"At any rate, I have been to tell her so," replied la Peyrade, "because
+without her, in regard to Brigitte, there's no security. But do just
+look at your Celeste; her eyes never leave that door, and every time a
+tray is brought in, though it is an hour at least since the last guest
+came, her face expresses disappointment."
+
+We must remark, in passing, that since the reign of Madame de Godollo
+trays were passed round on the Sunday reception days, and that without
+scrimping; on the contrary, they were laden with ices, cakes, and
+syrups, from Taurade's, then the best confectioner.
+
+"Don't harass me!" cried Flavie. "I know very well what that foolish
+girl has in her mind; and your marriage will take place only too soon."
+
+"But you know it is not for myself I make it," said la Peyrade; "it is
+a necessity for the future of all of us. Come, come, there are tears in
+your eyes! I shall leave you; you are not reasonable. The devil! as that
+Prudhomme of a Phellion says, 'Whoso wants the end wants the means.'"
+
+And he went toward the group composed of Celeste, Madame Thuillier,
+Madame de Godollo, Colleville, and Phellion. Madame Colleville followed
+him; and, under the influence of the feeling of jealousy she had just
+shown, she became a savage mother.
+
+"Celeste," she said, "why don't you sing? These gentlemen wish to hear
+you."
+
+"Oh, mamma!" cried the girl, "how can I sing after Madame de Godollo,
+with my poor thread of a voice? Besides, you know I have a cold."
+
+"That is to say that, as usual, you make yourself pretentious and
+disagreeable; people sing as they can sing; all voices have their own
+merits."
+
+"My dear," said Colleville, who, having just lost twenty francs at the
+card-tables, found courage in his ill-humor to oppose his wife, "that
+saying, 'People sing as they can sing' is a bourgeois maxim. People sing
+with a voice, if they have one; but they don't sing after hearing such
+a magnificent opera voice as that of Madame la comtesse. For my part,
+I readily excuse Celeste for not warbling to us one of her sentimental
+little ditties."
+
+"Then it is well worth while," said Flavie, leaving the group, "to spend
+so much money on expensive masters who are good for nothing."
+
+"So," said Colleville, resuming the conversation which the invasion of
+Flavie had interrupted, "Felix no longer inhabits this earth; he lives
+among the stars?"
+
+"My dear and former colleague," said Phellion, "I am, as you are,
+annoyed with my son for neglecting, as he does, the oldest friends of
+his family; and though the contemplation of those great luminous bodies
+suspended in space by the hand of the Creator presents, in my opinion,
+higher interest than it appears to have to your more eager brain, I
+think that Felix, by not coming here to-night, as he promised me he
+would, shows a want of propriety, about which, I can assure you I shall
+speak my mind."
+
+"Science," said la Peyrade, "is a fine thing, but it has, unfortunately,
+the attribute of making bears and monomaniacs."
+
+"Not to mention," said Celeste, "that it destroys all religious
+sentiments."
+
+"You are mistaken there, my dear child," said Madame de Godollo.
+"Pascal, who was himself a great example of the falseness of your point
+of view, says, if I am not mistaken, that a little science draws us from
+religion, but a great deal draws us back to it."
+
+"And yet, madame," said Celeste, "every one admits that Monsieur Felix
+is really very learned; when he helped my brother with his studies
+nothing could be, so Francois told me, clearer or more comprehensible
+than his explanations; and you see, yourself, he is not the more
+religious for that."
+
+"I tell you, my dear child, that Monsieur Felix is not irreligious, and
+with a little gentleness and patience nothing would be easier than to
+bring him back."
+
+"Bring back a savant to the duties of religion!" exclaimed la Peyrade.
+"Really, madame, that seems to me very difficult. These gentlemen put
+the object of their studies before everything else. Tell a geometrician
+or a geologist, for example, that the Church demands, imperatively, the
+sanctification of the Sabbath by the suspension of all species of work,
+and they will shrug their shoulders, though God Himself did not disdain
+to rest from His labors."
+
+"So that in not coming here this evening," said Celeste, naively,
+"Monsieur Felix commits not only a fault against good manners, but a
+sin."
+
+"But, my dearest," said Madame de Godollo, "do you think that our
+meeting here this evening to sing ballads and eat ices and say evil of
+our neighbor--which is the customary habit of salons--is more pleasing
+to God than to see a man of science in his observatory busied in
+studying the magnificent secrets of His creation?"
+
+"There's a time for all things," said Celeste; "and, as Monsieur de la
+Peyrade says, God Himself did not disdain to rest."
+
+"But, my love," said Madame de Godollo, "God has time to do so; He is
+eternal."
+
+"That," said la Peyrade, "is one of the wittiest impieties ever uttered;
+those are the reasons that the world's people put forth. They interpret
+and explain away the commands of God, even those that are most explicit
+and imperative; they take them, leave them, or choose among them;
+the free-thinker subjects them to his lordly revision, and from
+free-thinking the distance is short to free actions."
+
+During this harangue of the barrister Madame de Godollo had looked at
+the clock; it then said half-past eleven. The salon began to empty. Only
+one card-table was still going on, Minard, Thuillier, and two of the
+new acquaintances being the players. Phellion had just quitted the group
+with which he had so far been sitting, to join his wife, who was talking
+with Brigitte in a corner; by the vehemence of his pantomimic action
+it was easy to see that he was filled with some virtuous indignation.
+Everything seemed to show that all hope of seeing the arrival of the
+tardy lover was decidedly over.
+
+"Monsieur," said the countess to la Peyrade, "do you consider the
+gentlemen attached to Saint-Jacques du Haut Pas in the rue des Postes
+good Catholics?"
+
+"Undoubtedly," replied the barrister, "religion has no more loyal
+supporters."
+
+"This morning," continued the countess, "I had the happiness to be
+received by Pere Anselme. He is thought the model of all Christian
+virtues, and yet the good father is a very learned mathematician."
+
+"I have not said, madame, that the two qualities were absolutely
+incompatible."
+
+"But you did say that a true Christian could not attend to any species
+of work on Sunday. If so, Pere Anselme must be an unbeliever; for when I
+was admitted to his room I found him standing before a blackboard with
+a bit of chalk in his hand, busy with a problem which was, no doubt,
+knotty, for the board was three-parts covered with algebraic signs; and
+I must add that he did not seem to care for the scandal this ought to
+cause, for he had with him an individual whom I am not allowed to name,
+a younger man of science, of great promise, who was sharing his profane
+occupation."
+
+Celeste and Madame Thuillier looked at each other, and both saw a gleam
+of hope in the other's eyes.
+
+"Why can't you tell us the name of that young man of science?" Madame
+Thuillier ventured to say, for she never put any diplomacy into the
+expression of her thoughts.
+
+"Because he has not, like Pere Anselme, the saintliness which would
+absolve him in the eyes of monsieur here for this flagrant violation of
+the Sabbath. Besides," added Madame de Godollo, in a significant manner,
+"he asked me not to mention that I had met him there."
+
+"Then you know a good many scientific young men?" said Celeste,
+interrogatively; "this one and Monsieur Felix--that makes two."
+
+"My dear love," said the countess, "you are an inquisitive little girl,
+and you will not make me say what I do not choose to say, especially
+after a confidence that Pere Anselme made to me; for if I did, your
+imagination would at once set off at a gallop."
+
+The gallop had already started, and every word the countess said only
+added to the anxious eagerness of the young girl.
+
+"As for me," said la Peyrade, sarcastically, "I shouldn't be at all
+surprised if Pere Anselme's young collaborator was that very Felix
+Phellion. Voltaire always kept very close relations with the Jesuits who
+brought him up; but he never talked religion with them."
+
+"Well, my young savant does talk of it to his venerable brother in
+science; he submits his doubts to him; in fact, that was the beginning
+of their scientific intimacy."
+
+"And does Pere Anselme," asked Celeste, "hope to convert him?"
+
+"He is sure of it," replied the countess. "His young collaborator,
+apart from a religious education which he certainly never had, has
+been brought up to the highest principles; he knows, moreover, that his
+conversion to religion would make the happiness of a charming girl whom
+he loves, and who loves him. Now, my dear, you will not get another word
+out of me, and you may think what you like."
+
+"Oh! godmother!" whispered Celeste, yielding to the freshness of her
+feelings, "suppose it were he!"
+
+And the tears filled her eyes as she pressed Madame Thuillier's hand.
+
+At this moment the servant threw open the door of the salon, and,
+singular complication! announced Monsieur Felix Phellion.
+
+The young professor entered the room, bathed in perspiration, his cravat
+in disorder, and himself out of breath.
+
+"A pretty hour," said Phellion, sternly, "to present yourself."
+
+"Father," said Felix, moving to the side of the room where Madame
+Thuillier and Celeste were seated, "I could not leave before the end of
+the phenomenon; and then I couldn't find a carriage, and I have run the
+whole way."
+
+"Your ears ought to have burned as you came," said la Peyrade, "for you
+have been for the last half-hour in the minds of these ladies, and a
+great problem has been started about you."
+
+Felix did not answer. He saw Brigitte entering the salon from the
+dining-room where she had gone to tell the man-servant not to bring in
+more trays, and he hurried to greet her.
+
+After listening to a few reproaches for the rarity of his visits and
+receiving forgiveness in a very cordial "Better late than never,"
+he turned towards his pole, and was much astonished to hear himself
+addressed by Madame de Godollo as follows:--
+
+"Monsieur," she said, "I hope you will pardon the indiscretion I have,
+in the heat of conversation, committed about you. I have told these
+ladies where I met you this morning."
+
+"Met me?" said Felix; "if I had the honor to meet you, madame, I did not
+see you."
+
+An almost imperceptible smile flickered on la Peyrade's lips.
+
+"You saw me well enough to ask me to keep silence as to where I had met
+you; but, at any rate, I did not go beyond a simple statement; I said
+you saw Pere Anselme sometimes, and had certain scientific relations
+with him; also that you defended your religious doubts to him as you do
+to Celeste."
+
+"Pere Anselme!" said Felix, stupidly.
+
+"Yes, Pere Anselme," said la Peyrade, "a great mathematician who does
+not despair of converting you. Mademoiselle Celeste wept for joy."
+
+Felix looked around him with a bewildered air. Madame de Godollo fixed
+upon him a pair of eyes the language of which a poodle could have
+understood.
+
+"I wish," he said finally, "I could have given that joy to Mademoiselle
+Celeste, but I think, madame, you are mistaken."
+
+"Ah! monsieur, then I must be more precise," said the countess, "and if
+your modesty still induces you to hide a step that can only honor you,
+you can contradict me; I will bear the mortification of having divulged
+a secret which, I acknowledge, you trusted implicitly to my discretion."
+
+Madame Thuillier and Celeste were truly a whole drama to behold; never
+were doubt and eager expectation more plainly depicted on the human
+face. Measuring her words deliberately, Madame de Godollo thus
+continued:--
+
+"I said to these ladies, because I know how deep an interest they take
+in your salvation, and because you are accused of boldly defying the
+commandments of God by working on Sundays, that I had met you this
+morning at the house of Pere Anselme, a mathematician like yourself,
+with whom you were busy in solving a problem; I said that your
+scientific intercourse with that saintly and enlightened man had led
+to other explanations between you; that you had submitted to him your
+religious doubts, and he did not despair of removing them. In the
+confirmation you can give of my words there is nothing, I am sure, to
+wound your self-esteem. The matter was simply a surprise you intended
+for Celeste, and I have had the stupidity to divulge it. But when she
+hears you admit the truth of my words you will have given her such
+happiness that I shall hope to be forgiven."
+
+"Come, monsieur," said la Peyrade, "there's nothing absurd or mortifying
+in having sought for light; you, so honorable and so truly an enemy to
+falsehood, you cannot deny what madame affirms with such decision."
+
+"Well," said Felix, after a moment's hesitation, "will you, Mademoiselle
+Celeste, allow me to say a few words to you in private, without
+witnesses?"
+
+Celeste rose, after receiving an approving sign from Madame Thuillier.
+Felix took her hand and led her to the recess of the nearest window.
+
+"Celeste," he said, "I entreat you: wait! See," he added, pointing to
+the constellation of Ursa Minor, "beyond those visible stars a future
+lies before us; I will place you there. As for Pere Anselme, I cannot
+admit what has been said, for it is not true. It is an invented tale.
+But be patient with me; you shall soon know all."
+
+"He is mad!" said the young girl, in tones of despair, as she resumed
+her place beside Madame Thuillier.
+
+Felix confirmed this judgment by rushing frantically from the salon,
+without perceiving the emotion in which his father and his mother
+started after him. After this sudden departure, which stupefied
+everybody, la Peyrade approached Madame de Godollo very respectfully,
+and said to her:--
+
+"You must admit, madame, that it is difficult to drag a man from the
+water when he persists in being drowned."
+
+"I had no idea until this moment of such utter simplicity," replied
+the countess; "it is too silly. I pass over to the enemy; and with that
+enemy I am ready and desirous to have, whenever he pleases, a frank and
+honest explanation."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. HUNGARY VERSUS PROVENCE
+
+The next day Theodose felt himself possessed by two curiosities:
+How would Celeste behave as to the option she had accepted? and this
+Comtesse Torna de Godollo, what did she mean by what she had said; and
+what did she want with him?
+
+The first of these questions seemed, undoubtedly, to have the right of
+way, and yet, by some secret instinct, la Peyrade felt more keenly drawn
+toward the conclusion of the second problem. He decided, therefore, to
+take his first step in that direction, fully understanding that he could
+not too carefully arm himself for the interview to which the countess
+had invited him.
+
+The morning had been rainy, and this great calculator was, of course,
+not ignorant how much a spot of mud, tarnishing the brilliancy of
+varnished boots, could lower a man in the opinion of some. He therefore
+sent his porter for a cabriolet, and about three o'clock in the
+afternoon he drove from the rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer toward the
+elegant latitudes of the Madeleine. It may well be believed that certain
+cares had been bestowed upon his toilet, which ought to present a
+happy medium between the negligent ease of a morning costume and the
+ceremonious character of an evening suit. Condemned by his profession to
+a white cravat, which he rarely laid aside, and not venturing to present
+himself in anything but a dress-coat, he felt himself being drawn,
+of necessity, to one of the extremes he desired to avoid. However by
+buttoning up his coat and wearing tan instead of straw-colored gloves,
+he managed to _unsolemnize_ himself, and to avoid that provincial air
+which a man in full dress walking the streets of Paris while the sun is
+above the horizon never fails to convey.
+
+The wary diplomatist was careful not to drive to the house where he was
+going. He was unwilling to be seen from the countess' entresol issuing
+from a hired cab, and from the first floor he feared to be discovered
+stopping short on his way up at the lower floor,--a proceeding which
+could not fail to give rise to countless conjectures.
+
+He therefore ordered the driver to pull up at the corner of the rue
+Royale, whence, along a pavement that was now nearly dry, he picked his
+way on tiptoe to the house. It so chanced that he was not seen by either
+the porter or his wife; the former being beadle of the church of the
+Madeleine, was absent at a service, and the wife had just gone up to
+show a vacant apartment to a lodger. Theodose was therefore able to
+glide unobserved to the door of the sanctuary he desired to penetrate.
+A soft touch of his hand to the silken bell-rope caused a sound which
+echoed from the interior of the apartment. A few seconds elapsed, and
+then another and more imperious bell of less volume seemed to him
+a notification to the maid that her delay in opening the door was
+displeasing to her mistress. A moment later, a waiting-woman, of middle
+age, and too well trained to dress like a "soubrette" of comedy, opened
+the door to him.
+
+The lawyer gave his name, and the woman ushered him into a dining-room,
+severely luxurious, where she asked him to wait. A moment later,
+however, she returned, and admitted him into the most coquettish and
+splendid salon it was possible to insert beneath the low ceilings of an
+entresol. The divinity of the place was seated before a writing-table
+covered with a Venetian cloth, in which gold glittered in little spots
+among the dazzling colors of the tapestry.
+
+"Will you allow me, monsieur, to finish a letter of some importance?"
+she said.
+
+The barrister bowed in sign of assent. The handsome Hungarian then
+concluded a note on blue English paper, which she placed in an envelope;
+after sealing it carefully, she rang the bell. The maid appeared
+immediately and lighted a little spirit lamp; above the lamp was
+suspended a sort of tiny crucible, in which was a drop of sealing-wax;
+as soon as this had melted, the maid poured it on the envelope,
+presenting to her mistress a seal with armorial bearings. This the
+countess imprinted on the wax with her own beautiful hands, and then
+said:--
+
+"Take the letter at once to that address."
+
+The woman made a movement to take the letter, but, either from haste or
+inadvertence, the paper fell from her hand close to la Peyrade's feet.
+He stooped hastily to pick it up, and read the direction involuntarily.
+It bore the words, "His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs";
+the significant words, "For him only," written higher up, seemed to give
+this missive a character of intimacy.
+
+"Pardon, monsieur," said the countess, receiving the paper, which he had
+the good taste to return to her own hands in order to show his eagerness
+to serve her. "Be so good, mademoiselle, as to carry that in a way not
+to lose it," she added in a dry tone to the unlucky maid. The countess
+then left her writing-table and took her seat on a sofa covered with
+pearl-gray satin.
+
+During these proceedings la Peyrade had the satisfaction of making an
+inventory of all the choice things by which he was surrounded. Paintings
+by good masters detached themselves from walls of even tone; on a
+pier-table stood a very tall Japanese vase; before the windows the
+jardinieres were filled with lilium rubrum, showing its handsome
+reversely curling petals surmounted by white and red camellias and a
+dwarf magnolia from China, with flowers of sulphur white with scarlet
+edges. In a corner was a stand of arms, of curious shapes and
+rich construction, explained, perhaps, by the lady's Hungarian
+nationality--always that of the hussar. A few bronzes and statuettes
+of exquisite selection, chairs rolling softly on Persian carpets, and a
+perfect anarchy of stuffs of all kinds completed the arrangement of
+this salon, which the lawyer had once before visited with Brigitte and
+Thuillier before the countess moved into it. It was so transformed that
+it seemed to him unrecognizable. With a little more knowledge of the
+world la Peyrade would have been less surprised at the marvellous care
+given by the countess to the decoration of the room. A woman's salon is
+her kingdom, and her absolute domain; there, in the fullest sense of
+the word, she reigns, she governs; there she offers battle, and nearly
+always comes off victorious.
+
+Coquettishly lying back in a corner of the sofa, her head carelessly
+supported by an arm the form and whiteness of which could be seen
+nearly to the elbow through the wide, open sleeve of a black velvet
+dressing-gown, her Cinderella foot in its dainty slipper of Russia
+leather resting on a cushion of orange satin, the handsome Hungarian had
+the look of a portrait by Laurence or Winterhalter, plus the naivete of
+the pose.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, with the slightly foreign accent which lent an
+added charm to her words, "I cannot help thinking it rather droll that
+a man of your mind and rare penetration should have thought you had an
+enemy in me."
+
+"But, Madame la comtesse," replied la Peyrade, allowing her to read in
+his eyes an astonishment mingled with distrust, "all the appearances,
+you must admit, were of that nature. A suitor interposes to break off a
+marriage which has been offered to me with every inducement; this
+rival does me the service of showing himself so miraculously stupid and
+awkward that I could easily have set him aside, when suddenly a most
+unlooked-for and able auxiliary devotes herself to protecting him on the
+very ground where he shows himself most vulnerable."
+
+"You must admit," said the countess, laughing, "that the protege
+showed himself a most intelligent man, and that he seconded my efforts
+valiantly."
+
+"His clumsiness could not have been, I think, very unexpected to you,"
+replied la Peyrade; "therefore the protection you have deigned to give
+him is the more cruel to me."
+
+"What a misfortune it would be," said the countess, with charmingly
+affected satire, "if your marriage with Mademoiselle Celeste were
+prevented! Do you really care so much, monsieur, for that little
+school-girl?"
+
+In that last word, especially the intonation with which it was uttered,
+there was more than contempt, there was hatred. This expression did
+not escape an observer of la Peyrade's strength, but not being a man to
+advance very far on a single remark he merely replied:--
+
+"Madame, the vulgar expression, to 'settle down,' explains this
+situation, in which a man, after many struggles and being at an end of
+his efforts and his illusions, makes a compromise with the future.
+When this compromise takes the form of a young girl with, I admit, more
+virtue than beauty, but one who brings to a husband the fortune which
+is indispensable to the comfort of married life, what is there so
+astonishing in the fact that his heart yields to gratitude and that he
+welcomes the prospect of a placid happiness?"
+
+"I have always thought," replied the countess, "that the power of a
+man's intellect ought to be the measure of his ambition; and I imagined
+that one so wise as to make himself, at first, the poor man's lawyer,
+would have in his heart less humble and less pastoral aspirations."
+
+"Ah! madame," returned la Peyrade, "the iron hand of necessity compels
+us to strange resignations. The question of daily bread is one of those
+before which all things bend the knee. Apollo was forced to 'get a
+living,' as the shepherd of Admetus."
+
+"The sheepfold of Admetus," said Madame de Godollo, "was at least a
+royal fold; I don't think Apollo would have resigned himself to be the
+shepherd of a--bourgeois."
+
+The hesitation that preceded that last word seemed to convey in place of
+it a proper name; and la Peyrade understood that Madame de Godollo,
+out of pure clemency, had suppressed that of Thuillier, had turned her
+remark upon the species and not the individual.
+
+"I agree, madame, that your distinction is a just one," he replied, "but
+in this case Apollo has no choice."
+
+"I don't like persons who charge too much," said the countess, "but
+still less do I like those who sell their merchandise below the market
+price; I always suspect such persons of trying to dupe me by some clever
+and complicated trick. You know very well, monsieur, your own value, and
+your hypocritical humility displeases me immensely. It proves to me that
+my kindly overtures have not produced even a beginning of confidence
+between us."
+
+"I assure you, madame, that up to the present time life has never
+justified the belief in any dazzling superiority in me."
+
+"Well, really," said the Hungarian, "perhaps I ought to believe in the
+humility of a man who is willing to accept the pitiable finale of his
+life which I threw myself into the breach to prevent."
+
+"Just as I, perhaps," said la Peyrade, with a touch of sarcasm, "ought
+to believe in the reality of a kindness which, in order to save me, has
+handled me so roughly."
+
+The countess cast a reproachful look upon her visitor; her fingers
+crumpled the ribbons of her gown; she lowered her eyes, and gave a sigh,
+so nearly imperceptible, so slight, that it might have passed for an
+accident in the most regular breathing.
+
+"You are rancorous," she said, "and you judge people by one aspect only.
+After all," she added, as if on reflection, "you are perhaps right in
+reminding me that I have taken the longest way round by meddling,
+rather ridiculously, in interests that do not concern me. Go on, my dear
+monsieur, in the path of this glorious marriage which offers you so many
+combined inducements; only, let me hope that you may not repent a course
+with which I shall no longer interfere."
+
+The Provencal had not been spoilt by an experience of "bonnes fortunes."
+The poverty against which he had struggled so long never leads to
+affairs of gallantry, and since he had thrown off its harsh restraint,
+his mind being wholly given up to the anxious work of creating his
+future, the things of the heart had entered but slightly into his
+life; unless we must except the comedy he had played on Flavie. We
+can therefore imagine the perplexity of this novice in the matter of
+adventures when he saw himself placed between the danger of losing what
+seemed to be a delightful opportunity, and the fear of finding a serpent
+amid the beautiful flowers that were offered to his grasp. Too marked
+a reserve, too lukewarm an eagerness, might wound the self-love of that
+beautiful foreigner, and quench the spring from which he seemed invited
+to draw. On the other hand, suppose that appearance of interest were
+only a snare? Suppose this kindness (ill-explained, as it seemed to
+him), of which he was so suddenly the object, had no other purpose than
+to entice him into a step which might be used to compromise him with
+the Thuilliers? What a blow to his reputation for shrewdness, and what a
+role to play!--that of the dog letting go the meat for the shadow!
+
+We know that la Peyrade was trained in the school of Tartuffe, and the
+frankness with which that great master declares to Elmire that without
+receiving a few of the favors to which he aspired he could not trust in
+her tender advances, seemed to the barrister a suitable method to apply
+to the present case, adding, however, a trifle more softness to the
+form.
+
+"Madame la comtesse," he said, "you have turned me into a man who is
+much to be pitied. I was cheerfully advancing to this marriage, and you
+take all faith in it away from me. Suppose I break it off, what use can
+I--with that great capacity you see in me--make of the liberty I thus
+recover?"
+
+"La Bruyere, if I am not mistaken, said that nothing freshens the blood
+so much as to avoid committing a folly."
+
+"That may be; but it is, you must admit, a negative benefit; and I am
+of an age and in a position to desire more serious results. The interest
+that you deign to show to me cannot, I think, stop short at the idea
+of merely putting an end to my present prospects. I love Mademoiselle
+Colleville with a love, it is true, which has nothing imperative about
+it; but I certainly love her, her hand is promised to me, and before
+renouncing it--"
+
+"So," said the countess, hastily, "in a given case you would not be
+averse to a rupture? And," she added, in a more decided tone, "there
+would be some chance of making you see that in taking your first
+opportunity you cut yourself off from a better future, in which a more
+suitable marriage may present itself?"
+
+"But, at least, madame, I must be enabled to foresee it definitely."
+
+This persistence in demanding pledges seemed to irritate the countess.
+
+"Faith," she said, "is only a virtue when it believes without seeing.
+You doubt yourself, and that is another form of stupidity. I am not
+happy, it seems, in my selection of those I desire to benefit."
+
+"But, madame, it cannot be indiscreet to ask to know in some remote way
+at least, what future your kind good-will has imagined for me."
+
+"It is very indiscreet," replied the countess, coldly, "and it shows
+plainly that you offer me only a conditional confidence. Let us say no
+more. You are certainly far advanced with Mademoiselle Colleville; she
+suits you, you say, in many ways; therefore marry her. I say again, you
+will no longer find me in your way."
+
+"But does Mademoiselle Colleville really suit me?" resumed la Peyrade;
+"that is the very point on which you have lately raised my doubts.
+Do you not think there is something cruel in casting me first in one
+direction and then in the other without affording me any ground to go
+upon?"
+
+"Ah!" said the countess, in a tone of impatience, "you want my opinion
+on the premises! Well, monsieur, there is one very conclusive fact to
+which I can bring proof: Celeste does not love you."
+
+"So I have thought," said la Peyrade, humbly. "I felt that I was making
+a marriage of mere convenience."
+
+"And she cannot love you, because," continued Madame de Godollo, with
+animation, "she cannot comprehend you. Her proper husband is that blond
+little man, insipid as herself; from the union of those two natures
+without life or heat will result in that lukewarm existence which, in
+the opinion of the world where she was born and where she has lived,
+is the ne plus ultra of conjugal felicity. Try to make that little
+simpleton understand that when she had a chance to unite herself with
+true talent she ought to have felt highly honored! But, above all, try
+to make her miserable, odious family and surroundings understand it!
+Enriched bourgeois, parvenus! there's the roof beneath which you think
+to rest from your cruel labor and your many trials! And do you believe
+that you will not be made to feel, twenty times a day, that your share
+in the partnership is distressingly light in the scale against their
+money? On one side, the Iliad, the Cid, Der Freyschutz, and the frescos
+of the Vatican; on the other, three hundred thousand francs in good,
+ringing coin! Tell me which side they will trust and admire! The artist,
+the man of imagination who falls into the bourgeois atmosphere--shall I
+tell you to what I compare him? To Daniel cast into the lion's den, less
+the miracle of Holy Writ."
+
+This invective against the bourgeoisie was uttered in a tone of heated
+conviction which could scarcely fail to be communicated.
+
+"Ah! madame," cried la Peyrade, "how eloquently you say things which
+again and again have entered my troubled and anxious mind! But I have
+felt myself lashed to that most cruel fate, the necessity of gaining a
+position--"
+
+"Necessity! position!" interrupted the countess, again raising the
+temperature of her speech,--"words void of meaning! which have not even
+sound to able men, though they drive back fools as though they were
+formidable barriers. Necessity! does that exist for noble natures, for
+those who know how to will? A Gascon minister uttered a saying which
+ought to be engraved on the doors of all careers: 'All things come to
+him who knows how to wait.' Are you ignorant that marriage, to men of a
+high stamp, is either a chain which binds them to the lowest vulgarities
+of existence, or a wing on which to rise to the highest summits of the
+social world? The wife you need, monsieur,--and she would not be long
+wanting to your career if you had not, with such incredible haste,
+accepted the first 'dot' that was offered you,--the wife you should
+have chosen is a woman capable of understanding you, able to divine
+your intellect; one who could be to you a fellow-worker, an intellectual
+confidant, and not a mere embodiment of the 'pot-au-feu'; a woman
+capable of being now your secretary, but soon the wife of a deputy, a
+minister, an ambassador; one, in short, who could offer you her heart as
+a mainspring, her salon for a stage, her connections for a ladder, and
+who, in return for all she would give you of ardor and strength, asks
+only to shine beside your throne in the rays of the glory she predicts
+for you!"
+
+Intoxicated, as it were, with the flow of her own words, the countess
+was really magnificent; her eyes sparkled, her nostrils dilated; the
+prospect her vivid eloquence thus unrolled she seemed to see, and touch
+with her quivering fingers. For a moment, la Peyrade was dazzled by this
+sunrise which suddenly burst upon his life.
+
+However, as he was a man most eminently prudent, who had made it his
+rule of life never to lend except on sound and solvent security, he was
+still impelled to weigh the situation.
+
+"Madame la comtesse," he said, "you reproached me just now for speaking
+like a bourgeois, and I, in return, am afraid that you are talking like
+a goddess. I admire you, I listen to you, but I am not convinced. Such
+devotions, such sublime abnegations may be met with in heaven, but in
+this low world who can hope to be the object of them?"
+
+"You are mistaken, monsieur," replied the countess, with solemnity;
+"such devotions are rare, but they are neither impossible nor
+incredible; only, it is necessary to have the heart to find them, and,
+above all, the hand to take them when they are offered to you."
+
+So saying, the countess rose majestically.
+
+La Peyrade saw that he had ended by displeasing her, and he felt that
+she dismissed him. He rose himself, bowed respectfully, and asked to be
+received again.
+
+"Monsieur," said Madame de Godollo, "we Hungarians, primitive people
+and almost savages that we are, have a saying that when our door is open
+both sides of it are opened wide; when we close it it is double-locked
+and bolted."
+
+That dignified and ambiguous speech was accompanied by a slight
+inclination of the head. Bewildered, confounded by this behavior, to him
+so new, which bore but little resemblance to that of Flavie, Brigitte,
+and Madame Minard, la Peyrade left the house, asking himself again and
+again whether he had played his game properly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. SHOWING HOW NEAR THE TARPEIAN ROCK IS TO THE CAPITOL
+
+On leaving Madame de Godollo, la Peyrade felt the necessity of gathering
+himself together. Beneath the conversation he had just maintained
+with this strange woman, what could he see,--a trap, or a rich and
+distinguished marriage offered to him. Under such a doubt as this, to
+press Celeste for an immediate answer was neither clever nor prudent;
+it was simply to bind himself, and close the door to the changes,
+still very ill-defined, which seemed offered to him. The result of the
+consultation which Theodose held with himself as he walked along the
+boulevard was that he ought, for the moment, to think only of gaining
+time. Consequently, instead of going to the Thuilliers' to learn
+Celeste's decision, he went home, and wrote the following little note to
+Thuillier:--
+
+  My dear Thuillier,--You will certainly not think it extraordinary
+  that I should not present myself at your house to-day,--partly
+  because I fear the sentence which will be pronounced upon me, and
+  partly because I do not wish to seem an impatient and unmannerly
+  creditor. A few days, more or less, will matter little under such
+  circumstances, and yet Mademoiselle Colleville may find them
+  desirable for the absolute freedom of her choice. I shall,
+  therefore, not go to see you until you write for me.
+
+  I am now more calm, and I have added a few more pages to our
+  manuscript; it will take but little time to hand in the whole to
+  the printer.
+
+
+Ever yours,
+
+Theodose de la Peyrade.
+
+
+Two hours later a servant, dressed in what was evidently the first step
+towards a livery, which the Thuilliers did not as yet venture to risk,
+the "male domestic," whom Minard had mentioned to the Phellions, arrived
+at la Peyrade's lodgings with the following note:--
+
+  Come to-night, without fail. We will talk over the whole affair
+  with Brigitte.
+
+Your most affectionately devoted Jerome Thuillier.
+
+
+"Good!" said la Peyrade; "evidently there is some hindrance on the other
+side; I shall have time to turn myself round."
+
+That evening, when the servant announced him in the Thuillier salon, the
+Comtesse de Godollo, who was sitting with Brigitte, hastened to rise and
+leave the room. As she passed la Peyrade she made him a very ceremonious
+bow. There was nothing conclusive to be deduced from this abrupt
+departure, which might signify anything, either much or nothing.
+
+After talking of the weather and so forth for a time, as persons do who
+have met to discuss a delicate subject about which they are not sure of
+coming to an understanding, the matter was opened by Brigitte, who had
+sent her brother to take a walk on the boulevard, telling him to leave
+her to manage the affair.
+
+"My dear boy," she said to Theodose, "it was very nice of you not to
+come here to-day like a _grasp-all_, to put your pistol at our throats,
+for we were not, as it happened, quite ready to answer you. I think,"
+she added, "that our little Celeste needs a trifle more time."
+
+"Then," said la Peyrade, quickly, "she has not decided in favor of
+Monsieur Felix Phellion?"
+
+"Joker!" replied the old maid, "you know very well you settled that
+business last night; but you also know, of course, that her own
+inclinations incline her that way."
+
+"Short of being blind, I must have seen that," replied la Peyrade.
+
+"It is not an obstacle to my projects," continued Mademoiselle
+Thuillier; "but it serves to explain why I ask for Celeste a little more
+time; and also why I have wished all along to postpone the marriage to
+a later date. I wanted to give you time to insinuate yourself into the
+heart of my dear little girl--but you and Thuillier upset my plans."
+
+"Nothing, I think, has been done without your sanction," said la
+Peyrade, "and if, during these fifteen days, I have not talked with
+you on the subject, it was out of pure delicacy. Thuillier told me that
+everything was agreed upon with you."
+
+"On the contrary, Thuillier knows very well that I refused to mix myself
+up on your new arrangements. If you had not made yourself so scarce
+lately, I might have been the first to tell you that I did not approve
+of them. However, I can truly say I did nothing to hinder their
+success."
+
+"But that was too little," said la Peyrade; "your active help was
+absolutely necessary."
+
+"Possibly; but I, who know women better than you, being one of them,--I
+felt very sure that if Celeste was told to choose between two suitors
+she would consider that a permission to think at her ease of the one
+she liked best. I myself had always left her in the vague as to Felix,
+knowing as I did the proper moment to settle her mind about him."
+
+"So," said la Peyrade, "you mean that she refuses me."
+
+"It is much worse than that," returned Brigitte; "she accepts you, and
+is willing to pledge her word; but it is so easy to see she regards
+herself as a victim, that if I were in your place I should feel neither
+flattered nor secure in such a position."
+
+In any other condition of mind la Peyrade would probably have answered
+that he accepted the sacrifice, and would make it his business to win
+the heart which at first was reluctantly given; but delay now suited
+him, and he replied to Brigitte with a question:--
+
+"Then what do you advise? What course had I better take?"
+
+"Finish Thuillier's pamphlet, in the first place, or he'll go crazy; and
+leave me to work the other affair in your interests," replied Brigitte.
+
+"But am I in friendly hands? For, to tell you the truth, little aunt, I
+have not been able to conceal from myself that you have, for some time
+past, changed very much to me."
+
+"Changed to you! What change do you see in me, addled-pate that you
+are?"
+
+"Oh! nothing very tangible," said la Peyrade; "but ever since that
+Countess Torna has had a footing in your house--"
+
+"My poor boy, the countess has done me many services, and I am very
+grateful to her; but is that any reason why I should be false to you,
+who have done us still greater services?"
+
+"But you must admit," said la Peyrade, craftily, "that she has told you
+a great deal of harm of me."
+
+"Naturally she has; these fine ladies are all that way; they expect the
+whole world to adore them, and she sees that you are thinking only of
+Celeste; but all she has said to me against you runs off my mind like
+water from varnished cloth."
+
+"So, then, little aunt, I may continue to count on you?" persisted la
+Peyrade.
+
+"Yes; provided you are not tormenting, and will let me manage this
+affair."
+
+"Tell me how you are going to do it?" asked la Peyrade, with an air of
+great good-humor.
+
+"In the first place, I shall signify to Felix that he is not to set foot
+in this house again."
+
+"Is that possible?" said the barrister; "I mean can it be done civilly?"
+
+"Very possible; I shall make Phellion himself tell him. He's a man who
+is always astride of principles, and he'll be the first to see that if
+his son will not do what is necessary to obtain Celeste's hand he ought
+to deprive us of his presence."
+
+"What next?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"Next, I shall signify to Celeste that she was left at liberty to choose
+one husband or the other, and as she did not choose Felix she must make
+up her mind to take you, a pious fellow, such as she wants. You needn't
+be uneasy; I'll sing your praises, especially your generosity in not
+profiting by the arrangement she agreed to make to-day. But all that
+will take a week at least, and if Thuillier's pamphlet isn't out before
+then, I don't know but what we shall have to put him in a lunatic
+asylum."
+
+"The pamphlet can be out in two days. But is it very certain, little
+aunt, that we are playing above-board? Mountains, as they say, never
+meet, but men do; and certainly, when the time comes to promote the
+election, I can do Thuillier either good or bad service. Do you know,
+the other day I was terribly frightened. I had a letter from him in
+my pocket, in which he spoke of the pamphlet as being written by me. I
+fancied for a moment that I had dropped it in the Luxembourg. If I had,
+what a scandal it would have caused in the quarter."
+
+"Who would dare to play tricks with such a wily one as you?" said
+Brigitte, fully comprehending the comminatory nature of la Peyrade's
+last words, interpolated into the conversation without rhyme or reason.
+"But really," she added, "why should you complain of us? It is you
+who are behindhand in your promises. That cross which was to have been
+granted within a week, and that pamphlet, which ought to have appeared a
+long time ago--"
+
+"The pamphlet and the cross will both appear in good time; the one will
+bring the other," said la Peyrade, rising. "Tell Thuillier to come
+and see me to-morrow evening, and I think we can then correct the last
+sheet. But, above all, don't listen to the spitefulness of Madame
+de Godollo; I have an idea that in order to make herself completely
+mistress of this house she wants to alienate all your old friends, and
+also that she is casting her net for Thuillier."
+
+"Well, in point of fact," said the old maid, whom the parting shot of
+the infernal barrister had touched on the ever-sensitive point of her
+authority, "I must look into that matter you speak of there; she is
+rather coquettish, that little woman."
+
+La Peyrade gained a second benefit out of that speech so adroitly
+flung out; he saw by Brigitte's answer to it that the countess had
+not mentioned to her the visit he had paid her during the day. This
+reticence might have a serious meaning.
+
+Four days later, the printer, the stitcher, the paper glazier having
+fulfilled their offices, Thuillier had the inexpressible happiness of
+beginning on the boulevards a promenade, which he continued through
+the Passages, and even to the Palais-Royal, pausing before all the
+book-shops where he saw, shining in black letters on a yellow poster,
+the famous title:--
+
+
+TAXATION AND THE SLIDING-SCALE                      by J. Thuillier,
+Member of the Council-General of the Seine.
+
+Having reached the point of persuading himself that the care he had
+bestowed upon the correction of proofs made the merit of the work his
+own, his paternal heart, like that of Maitre Corbeau, could not contain
+itself for joy. We ought to add that he held in very low esteem those
+booksellers who did not announce the sale of the new work, destined to
+become, as he believed, a European event. Without actually deciding the
+manner in which he would punish their indifference, he nevertheless made
+a list of these rebellious persons, and wished them as much evil as if
+they had offered him a personal affront.
+
+The next day he spent a delightful morning in writing a certain number
+of letters, sending the publication to friends, and putting into paper
+covers some fifty copies, to which the sacramental phrase, "From the
+author," imparted to his eyes an inestimable value.
+
+But the third day of the sale brought a slight diminution of his
+happiness. He had chosen for his editor a young man, doing business at
+a breakneck pace, who had lately established himself in the Passage
+des Panoramas, where he was paying a ruinous rent. He was the nephew
+of Barbet the publisher, whom Brigitte had had as a tenant in the rue
+Saint-Dominique d'Enfer. This Barbet junior was a youth who flinched at
+nothing; and when he was presented to Thuillier by his uncle, he pledged
+himself, provided he was not shackled in his advertising, to sell off
+the first edition and print a second within a week.
+
+Now, Thuillier had spent about fifteen hundred francs himself on costs
+of publication, such, for instance, as copies sent in great profusion
+to the newspapers; but at the close of the third day _seven_ copies only
+had been sold, and three of those on credit. It might be believed that
+in revealing to the horror-stricken Thuillier this paltry result the
+young publisher would have lost at least something of his assurance. On
+the contrary, this Guzman of the book-trade hastened to say:--
+
+"I am delighted at what has happened. If we had sold a hundred copies
+it would trouble me far more than the fifteen hundred now on our hands;
+that's what I call hanging fire; whereas this insignificant sale only
+proves that the edition will go off like a rocket."
+
+"But when?" asked Thuillier, who thought this view paradoxical.
+
+"Parbleu!" said Barbet, "when we get notices in the newspapers.
+Newspaper notices are only useful to arouse attention. 'Dear me!' says
+the public, 'there's a publication that must be interesting.' The title
+is good,--'Taxation and the Sliding-Scale,'--but I find that the more
+piquant a title is, the more buyers distrust it, they have been taken in
+so often; they wait for the notices. On the other hand, for books
+that are destined to have only a limited sale, a hundred ready-made
+purchasers will come in at once, but after that, good-bye to them; we
+don't place another copy."
+
+"Then you don't think," said Thuillier, "that the sale is hopeless?"
+
+"On the contrary, I think it is on the best track. When the 'Debats,'
+the 'Constitutionnel,' the 'Siecle,' and the 'Presse' have reviewed it,
+especially if the 'Debats' mauls it (they are ministerial, you know), it
+won't be a week before the whole edition is snapped up."
+
+"You say that easily enough," replied Thuillier; "but how are we to get
+hold of those gentlemen of the press?"
+
+"Ah! I'll take care of that," said Barbet. "I am on the best of terms
+with the managing editors; they say the devil is in me, and that I
+remind them of Ladvocat in his best days."
+
+"But then, my dear fellow, you ought to have seen to this earlier."
+
+"Ah! excuse me, papa Thuillier; there's only one way of seeing to the
+journalists; but as you grumbled about the fifteen hundred francs for
+the advertisements, I did not venture to propose to you another extra
+expense."
+
+"What expense?" asked Thuillier, anxiously.
+
+"When you were nominated to the municipal council, where was the plan
+mooted?" asked the publisher.
+
+"Parbleu! in my own house," replied Thuillier.
+
+"Yes, of course, in your own house, but at a dinner, followed by a ball,
+and the ball itself crowned by a supper. Well, my dear master, there are
+no two ways to do this business; Boileau says:--
+
+  "'All is done through the palate, and not through the mind;
+  And it is by our dinners we govern mankind.'"
+
+"Then you think I ought to give a dinner to those journalists?"
+
+"Yes; but not at your own house; for these journalists, you see, if
+women are present, get stupid; they have to behave themselves. And,
+besides, it isn't dinner they want, but a breakfast--that suits
+them best. In the evening these gentlemen have to go to first
+representations, and make up their papers, not to speak of their own
+little private doings; whereas in the mornings they have nothing to
+think about. As for me, it is always breakfasts that I give."
+
+"But that costs money, breakfasts like that," said Thuillier;
+"journalists are gourmands."
+
+"Bah! twenty francs a head, without wine. Say you have ten of them;
+three hundred francs will see you handsomely through the whole thing.
+In fact, as a matter of economy, breakfasts are preferable; for a dinner
+you wouldn't get off under five hundred francs."
+
+"How you talk, young man!" said Thuillier.
+
+"Oh, hang it! everybody knows it costs dear to get elected to the
+Chamber; and all this favors your nomination."
+
+"But how can I invite those gentlemen? Must I go and see them myself?"
+
+"Certainly not; send them your pamphlet and appoint them to meet you at
+Philippe's or Vefour's--they'll understand perfectly."
+
+"Ten guests," said Thuillier, beginning to enter into the idea. "I did
+not know there were so many leading journals."
+
+"There are not," said the publisher; "but we must have the little dogs
+as well, for they bark loudest. This breakfast is certain to make a
+noise, and if you don't ask them they'll think you pick and choose, and
+everyone excluded will be your enemy."
+
+"Then you think it is enough merely to send the invitations?"
+
+"Yes; I'll make the list, and you can write the notes and send them
+to me. I'll see that they are delivered; some of them I shall take in
+person."
+
+"If I were sure," said Thuillier, undecidedly, "that this expense would
+have the desired effect--"
+
+"_If I were sure_,--that's a queer thing to say," said Barbet. "My dear
+master, this is money placed on mortgage; for it, I will guarantee the
+sale of fifteen hundred copies,--say at forty sous apiece; allowing the
+discounts, that makes three thousand francs. You see that your costs and
+extra costs are covered, and more than covered."
+
+"Well," said Thuillier, turning to go, "I'll talk to la Peyrade about
+it."
+
+"As you please, my dear master; but decide soon, for nothing gets mouldy
+so fast as a book; write hot, serve hot, and buy hot,--that's the rule
+for authors, publishers, and public; all is bosh outside of it, and no
+good to touch."
+
+When la Peyrade was consulted, he did not think in his heart that the
+remedy was heroic, but he had now come to feel the bitterest animosity
+against Thuillier, so that he was well pleased to see this new tax
+levied on his self-important inexperience and pompous silliness.
+
+As for Thuillier, the mania for posing as a publicist and getting
+himself talked about so possessed him that although he moaned over this
+fresh bleeding of his purse, he had decided on the sacrifice before he
+even spoke to la Peyrade. The reserved and conditional approval of the
+latter was, therefore, more than enough to settle his determination, and
+the same evening he returned to Barbet junior and asked for the list of
+guests whom he ought to invite.
+
+Barbet gaily produced his little catalogue. Instead of the ten guests
+originally mentioned, there proved to be fifteen, not counting himself
+or la Peyrade, whom Thuillier wanted to second him in this encounter
+with a set of men among whom he himself felt he should be a little out
+of place. Casting his eyes over the list, he exclaimed, vehemently:--
+
+"Heavens! my dear fellow, here are names of papers nobody ever heard of.
+Where's the 'Moralisateur,' the 'Lanterne de Diogene,' the 'Pelican,'
+the 'Echo de la Bievre'?"
+
+"You'd better be careful how you scorn the 'Echo de la Bievre,'" said
+Barbet; "why, that's the paper of the 12th arrondissement, from which
+you expect to be elected; its patrons are those big tanners of the
+Mouffetard quarter!"
+
+"Well, let that go--but the 'Pelican'?"
+
+"The 'Pelican'? that's a paper you'll find in every dentist's
+waiting-room; dentists are the first _puffists_ in the world! How many
+teeth do you suppose are daily pulled in Paris?"
+
+"Come, come, nonsense," said Thuillier, who proceeded to mark out
+certain names, reducing the whole number present to fourteen.
+
+"If one falls off we shall be thirteen," remarked Barbet.
+
+"Pooh!" said Thuillier, the free-thinker, "do you suppose I give in to
+that superstition?"
+
+The list being finally closed and settled at fourteen, Thuillier seated
+himself at the publisher's desk and wrote the invitations, naming,
+in view of the urgency of the purpose, the next day but one for the
+meeting, Barbet having assured him that no journalist would object to
+the shortness of the invitation. The meeting was appointed at Vefour's,
+the restaurant par excellence of the bourgeoisie and all provincials.
+
+Barbet arrived on the day named before Thuillier, who appeared in a
+cravat which alone was enough to create a stir in the satirical circle
+in which he was about to produce himself. The publisher, on his own
+authority, had changed various articles on the bill of fare as selected
+by his patron, more especially directing that the champagne, ordered in
+true bourgeois fashion to be served with the dessert, should be placed
+on the table at the beginning of breakfast, with several dishes of
+shrimps, a necessity which had not occurred to the amphitryon.
+
+Thuillier, who gave a lip-approval to these amendments, was followed
+by la Peyrade; and then came a long delay in the arrival of the guests.
+Breakfast was ordered at eleven o'clock; at a quarter to twelve not
+a journalist had appeared. Barbet, who was never at a loss, made the
+consoling remark that breakfasts at restaurants were like funerals,
+where, as every one knew, eleven o'clock meant mid-day.
+
+Sure enough, shortly before that hour, two gentlemen, with pointed
+beards, exhaling a strong odor of tobacco, made their appearance.
+Thuillier thanked them effusively for the "honor" they had done him;
+after which came another long period of waiting, of which we shall not
+relate the tortures. At one o'clock the assembled contingent comprised
+five of the invited guests, Barbet and la Peyrade not included. It is
+scarcely necessary to say that none of the self-respecting journalists
+of the better papers had taken any notice of the absurd invitation.
+
+Breakfast now had to be served to this reduced number. A few polite
+phrases that reached Thuillier's ears about the "immense" interest
+of his publication, failed to blind him to the bitterness of his
+discomfiture; and without the gaiety of the publisher, who had taken in
+hand the reins his patron, gloomy as Hippolytus on the road to Mycenae,
+let fall, nothing could have surpassed the glum and glacial coldness of
+the meeting.
+
+After the oysters were removed, the champagne and chablis which had
+washed them down had begun, nevertheless, to raise the thermometer,
+when, rushing into the room where the banquet was taking place, a young
+man in a cap conveyed to Thuillier a most unexpected and crushing blow.
+
+"Master," said the new-comer to Barbet (he was a clerk in the
+bookseller's shop), "we are done for! The police have made a raid upon
+us; a commissary and two men have come to seize monsieur's pamphlet.
+Here's a paper they have given me for you."
+
+"Look at that," said Barbet, handing the document to la Peyrade, his
+customary assurance beginning to forsake him.
+
+"A summons to appear at once before the court of assizes," said la
+Peyrade, after reading a few lines of the sheriff's scrawl.
+
+Thuillier had turned as pale as death.
+
+"Didn't you fulfil all the necessary formalities?" he said to Barbet, in
+a choking voice.
+
+"This is not a matter of formalities," said la Peyrade, "it is a seizure
+for what is called press misdemeanor, exciting contempt and hatred of
+the government; you probably have the same sort of compliment awaiting
+you at home, my poor Thuillier."
+
+"Then it is treachery!" cried Thuillier, losing his head completely.
+
+"Hang it, my dear fellow! you know very well what you put in your
+pamphlet; for my part, I don't see anything worth whipping a cat for."
+
+"There's some misunderstanding," said Barbet, recovering courage;
+"it will all be explained, and the result will be a fine cause of
+complaint--won't it, messieurs?"
+
+"Waiter, pens and ink!" cried one of the journalists thus appealed to.
+
+"Nonsense! you'll have time to write your article later," said another
+of the brotherhood; "what has a bombshell to do with this 'filet
+saute'?"
+
+That, of course, was a parody on the famous speech of Charles XII., King
+of Sweden, when a shot interrupted him while dictating to a secretary.
+
+"Messieurs," said Thuillier, rising, "I am sure you will excuse me
+for leaving you. If, as Monsieur Barbet thinks, there is some
+misunderstanding, it ought to be explained at once; I must therefore,
+with your permission, go to the police court. La Peyrade," he added in a
+significant tone, "you will not refuse, I presume, to accompany me. And
+you, my dear publisher, you would do well to come too."
+
+"No, faith!" said Barbet, "when I breakfast, I breakfast; if the police
+have committed a blunder, so much the worse for them."
+
+"But suppose the matter is serious?" cried Thuillier, in great
+agitation.
+
+"Well, I should say, what is perfectly true, that I had never read a
+line of your pamphlet. One thing is very annoying; those damned juries
+hate beards, and I must cut off mine if I'm compelled to appear in
+court."
+
+"Come, my dear amphitryon, sit down again," said the editor of the "Echo
+de la Bievre," "we'll stand by you; I've already written an article in
+my head which will stir up all the tanners in Paris; and, let me tell
+you, that honorable corporation is a power."
+
+"No, monsieur," replied Thuillier, "no; a man like me cannot rest an
+hour under such an accusation as this. Continue your breakfast without
+us; I hope soon to see you again. La Peyrade, are you coming?"
+
+"He's charming, isn't he?" said Barbet, when Thuillier and his counsel
+had left the room. "To ask me to leave a breakfast after the oysters,
+and go and talk with the police! Come, messieurs, close up the ranks,"
+he added, gaily.
+
+"Tiens!" said one of the hungry journalists, who had cast his eyes
+into the garden of the Palais-Royal, on which the dining-room of the
+restaurant opened, "there's Barbanchu going by; suppose I call him in?"
+
+"Yes, certainly," said Barbet junior, "have him up."
+
+"Barbanchu! Barbanchu!" called out the journalist.
+
+Barbanchu, his hat being over his eyes, was some time in discovering the
+cloud above him whence the voice proceeded.
+
+"Here, up here!" called the voice, which seemed to Barbanchu celestial
+when he saw himself hailed by a man with a glass of champagne in his
+hand. Then, as he seemed to hesitate, the party above called out in
+chorus:--
+
+"Come up! come up! _There's fat to be had_!"
+
+When Thuillier left the office of the public prosecutor he could no
+longer have any illusions. The case against him was serious, and the
+stern manner in which he had been received made him see that when the
+trial came up he would be treated without mercy. Then, as always happens
+among accomplices after the non-success of an affair they have done in
+common, he turned upon la Peyrade in the sharpest manner: La Peyrade
+had paid no attention to what he wrote; he had given full swing to his
+stupid Saint-Simonian ideas; _he_ didn't care for the consequences; it
+was not _he_ who would have to pay the fine and go to prison! Then, when
+la Peyrade answered that the matter did not look to him serious, and
+he expected to get a verdict of acquittal without difficulty, Thuillier
+burst forth upon him, vehemently:--
+
+"Parbleu! the thing is plain enough; monsieur sees nothing in it? Well,
+I shall not put my honor and my fortune into the hands of a little
+upstart like yourself; I shall take some great lawyer if the case comes
+to trial. I've had enough of your collaboration by this time."
+
+Under the injustice of these remarks la Peyrade felt his anger rising.
+However, he saw himself disarmed, and not wishing to come to an open
+rupture, he parted from Thuillier, saying that he forgave a man excited
+by fear, and would go to see him later in the afternoon, when he would
+probably be calmer; they could then decide on what steps they had better
+take.
+
+Accordingly, about four o'clock, the Provencal arrived at the house
+in the Place de la Madeleine. Thuillier's irritation was quieted, but
+frightful consternation had taken its place. If the executioner were
+coming in half an hour to lead him to the scaffold he could not have
+been more utterly unstrung and woe-begone. When la Peyrade entered
+Madame Thuillier was trying to make him take an infusion of
+linden-leaves. The poor woman had come out of her usual apathy, and
+proved herself, beside the present Sabinus, another Eponina.
+
+As for Brigitte, who presently appeared, bearing a foot-bath, she had
+no mercy or restraint towards Theodose; her sharp and bitter reproaches,
+which were out of all proportion to the fault, even supposing him
+to have committed one would have driven a man of the most placid
+temperament beside himself. La Peyrade felt that all was lost to him
+in the Thuillier household, where they now seemed to seize with joy the
+occasion to break their word to him and to give free rein to revolting
+ingratitude. On an ironical allusion by Brigitte to the manner in which
+he decorated his friends, la Peyrade rose and took leave, without any
+effort being made to retain him.
+
+After walking about the streets for awhile, la Peyrade, in the midst of
+his indignation, turned to thoughts of Madame de Godollo, whose
+image, to tell the truth, had been much in his mind since their former
+interview.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. 'TWAS THUS THEY BADE ADIEU
+
+Not only once when the countess met the barrister at the Thuilliers had
+she left the room; but the same performance took place at each of
+their encounters; and la Peyrade had convinced himself, without knowing
+exactly why, that in each case, this affectation of avoiding him,
+signified something that was not indifference. To have paid her another
+visit immediately would certainly have been very unskilful; but now a
+sufficient time had elapsed to prove him to be a man who was master of
+himself. Accordingly, he returned upon his steps to the Boulevard de la
+Madeleine, and without asking the porter if the countess was at home, he
+passed the lodge as if returning to the Thuilliers', and rang the bell
+of the entresol.
+
+The maid who opened the door asked him, as before, to wait until she
+notified her mistress; but, on this occasion, instead of showing him
+into the dining-room, she ushered him into a little room arranged as a
+library.
+
+He waited long, and knew not what to think of the delay. Still, he
+reassured himself with the thought that if she meant to dismiss him he
+would not have been asked to wait at all. Finally the maid reappeared,
+but even then it was not to introduce him.
+
+"Madame la comtesse," said the woman, "was engaged on a matter of
+business, but she begged monsieur be so kind as to wait, and to amuse
+himself with the books in the library, because she might be detained
+longer than she expected."
+
+The excuse, both in form and substance, was certainly not discouraging,
+and la Peyrade looked about him to fulfil the behest to amuse himself.
+Without opening any of the carved rosewood bookcases, which enclosed a
+collection of the most elegantly bound volumes he had ever laid his
+eyes upon, he saw on an oblong table with claw feet a pell-mell of books
+sufficient for the amusement of a man whose attention was keenly alive
+elsewhere.
+
+But, as he opened one after another of the various volumes, he began to
+fancy that a feast of Tantalus had been provided for him: one book
+was English, another German, a third Russian; there was even one in
+cabalistic letters that seemed Turkish. Was this a polyglottic joke the
+countess had arranged for him?
+
+One volume, however, claimed particular attention. The binding, unlike
+those of the other books, was less rich than dainty. Lying by itself at
+a corner of the table, it was open, with the back turned up, the edges
+of the leaves resting on the green table-cloth in the shape of a tent.
+La Peyrade took it up, being careful not to lose the page which it
+seemed to have been some one's intention to mark. It proved to be
+a volume of the illustrated edition of Monsieur Scribe's works. The
+engraving which presented itself on the open page to la Peyrade's eyes,
+was entitled "The Hatred of a Woman"; the principal personage of which
+is a young widow, desperately pursuing a poor young man who cannot help
+himself. There is hatred all round. Through her devilries she almost
+makes him lose his reputation, and does make him miss a rich marriage;
+but the end is that she gives him more than she took away from him, and
+makes a husband of the man who was thought her victim.
+
+If chance had put this volume apart from the rest, and had left it open
+at the precise page where la Peyrade found it marked, it must be owned
+that, after what had passed between himself and the countess, chance can
+sometimes seem clever and adroit. As he stood there, thinking over the
+significance which this more or less accidental combination might have,
+la Peyrade read through a number of scenes to see whether in the details
+as well as the general whole they applied to the present situation.
+While thus employed, the sound of an opening door was heard, and he
+recognized the silvery and slightly drawling voice of the countess, who
+was evidently accompanying some visitor to the door.
+
+"Then I may promise the ambassadress," said a man's voice, "that you
+will honor her ball with your presence?"
+
+"Yes, commander, if my headache, which is just beginning to get a little
+better, is kind enough to go away."
+
+"Au revoir, then, fairest lady," said the gentleman. After which the
+doors were closed, and silence reigned once more.
+
+The title of commander reassured la Peyrade somewhat, for it was not
+the rank of a young dandy. He was nevertheless curious to know who this
+personage was with whom the countess had been shut up so long. Hearing
+no one approach the room he was in, he went to the window and opened the
+curtain cautiously, prepared to let it drop back at the slightest noise,
+and to make a quick right-about-face to avoid being caught, "flagrante
+delicto," in curiosity. An elegant coupe, standing at a little distance,
+was now driven up to the house, a footman in showy livery hastened to
+open the door, and a little old man, with a light and jaunty movement,
+though it was evident he was one of those relics of the past who have
+not yet abandoned powder, stepped quickly into the carriage, which was
+then driven rapidly away. La Peyrade had time to observe on his breast
+a perfect string of decorations. This, combined with the powdered hair,
+was certain evidence of a diplomatic individual.
+
+La Peyrade had picked up his book once more, when a bell from the
+inner room sounded, quickly followed by the appearance of the maid, who
+invited him to follow her. The Provencal took care _not_ to replace the
+volume where he found it, and an instant later he entered the presence
+of the countess.
+
+A pained expression was visible on the handsome face of the foreign
+countess, who, however, lost nothing of her charm in the languor that
+seemed to overcome her. On the sofa beside her was a manuscript written
+on gilt-edged paper, in that large and opulent handwriting which
+indicates an official communication from some ministerial office or
+chancery. She held in her hand a crystal bottle with a gold stopper,
+from which she frequently inhaled the contents, and a strong odor of
+English vinegar pervaded the salon.
+
+"I fear you are ill, madame," said la Peyrade, with interest.
+
+"Oh! it is nothing," replied the countess; "only a headache, to which
+I am very subject. But you, monsieur, what has become of you? I was
+beginning to lose all hope of ever seeing you again. Have you come
+to announce to me some great news? The period of your marriage with
+Mademoiselle Colleville is probably so near that I think you can speak
+of it."
+
+This opening disconcerted la Peyrade.
+
+"But, madame," he answered, in a tone that was almost tart, "you, it
+seems to me, must know too well everything that goes on in the
+Thuillier household not to be aware that the event you speak of is not
+approaching, and, I may add, not probable."
+
+"No, I assure you, I know nothing; I have strictly forbidden myself from
+taking any further interest in an affair which I felt I had meddled with
+very foolishly. Mademoiselle Brigitte and I talk of everything except
+Celeste's marriage."
+
+"And it is no doubt the desire to allow me perfect freedom in the matter
+that induces you to take flight whenever I have the honor to meet you in
+the Thuillier salon?"
+
+"Yes," said the countess, "that ought to be the reason that makes me
+leave the room; else, why should I be so distant?"
+
+"Ah! madame, there are other reasons that might make a woman avoid a
+man's presence. For instance, if he has displeased her; if the advice,
+given to him with rare wisdom and kindness, was not received with proper
+eagerness and gratitude."
+
+"Oh, my dear monsieur," she replied, "I have no such ardor in
+proselytizing that I am angry with those who are not docile to my
+advice. I am, like others, very apt to make mistakes."
+
+"On the contrary, madame, in the matter of my marriage your judgment was
+perfectly correct."
+
+"How so?" said the countess, eagerly. "Has the seizure of the pamphlet,
+coming directly after the failure to obtain the cross, led to a
+rupture?"
+
+"No," said la Peyrade, "my influence in the Thuillier household rests
+on a solid basis; the services I have rendered Mademoiselle Brigitte
+and her brother outweigh these checks, which, after all, are not
+irreparable."
+
+"Do you really think so?" said the countess.
+
+"Certainly," replied la Peyrade; "when the Comtesse du Bruel takes it
+into her head to seriously obtain that bit of red ribbon, she can do so,
+in spite of all obstacles that are put in her way."
+
+The countess received this assertion with a smile, and shook her head.
+
+"But, madame, only a day or two ago Madame du Bruel told Madame
+Colleville that the unexpected opposition she had met with piqued her,
+and that she meant to go in person to the minister."
+
+"But you forget that since then this seizure has been made by the
+police; it is not usual to decorate a man who is summoned before the
+court of assizes. You seem not to notice that the seizure argues a
+strong ill-will against Monsieur Thuillier, and, I may add, against
+yourself, monsieur, for you are known to be the culprit. You have not, I
+think, taken all this into account. The authorities appear to have acted
+not wholly from legal causes."
+
+La Peyrade looked at the countess.
+
+"I must own," he said, after that rapid glance, "that I have tried in
+vain to find any passage in that pamphlet which could be made a legal
+pretext for the seizure."
+
+"In my opinion," said the countess, "the king's servants must have
+a vivid imagination to persuade themselves they were dealing with
+a seditious publication. But that only proves the strength of the
+underground power which is thwarting all your good intentions in favor
+of Monsieur Thuillier."
+
+"Madame," said la Peyrade, "do you know our secret enemies?"
+
+"Perhaps I do," replied the countess, with another smile.
+
+"May I dare to utter a suspicion, madame?" said la Peyrade, with some
+agitation.
+
+"Yes, say what you think," replied Madame de Godollo. "I shall not blame
+you if you guess right."
+
+"Well, madame, our enemies, Thuillier's and mine, are--a woman."
+
+"Supposing that is so," said the countess; "do you know how many lines
+Richelieu required from a man's hand in order to hang him?"
+
+"Four," replied la Peyrade.
+
+"You can imagine, then, that a pamphlet of two hundred pages might
+afford a--slightly intriguing woman sufficient ground for persecution."
+
+"I see it all, madame, I understand it!" cried la Peyrade, with
+animation. "I believe that woman to be one of the elite of her sex, with
+as much mind and malice as Richelieu! Adorable magician! it is she who
+has set in motion the police and the gendarmes; but, more than that, it
+is she who withholds that cross the ministers were about to give."
+
+"If that be so," said the countess, "why struggle against her?"
+
+"Ah! I struggle no longer," said la Peyrade. Then, with an assumed air
+of contrition, he added, "You must, indeed, _hate_ me, madame."
+
+"Not quite as much as you may think," replied the countess; "but, after
+all, suppose that I do hate you?"
+
+"Ah! madame," cried la Peyrade, ardently, "I should then be the happiest
+of unhappy men; for that hatred would seem to me sweeter and more
+precious than your indifference. But you do not hate me; why should
+you feel to me that most blessed feminine sentiment which Scribe has
+depicted with such delicacy and wit?"
+
+Madame de Godollo did not answer immediately. She lowered her eyelids,
+and the deeper breathing of her bosom gave to her voice when she did
+speak a tremulous tone:--
+
+"The hatred of a woman!" she said. "Is a man of your stoicism able to
+perceive it?"
+
+"Ah! yes, madame," replied la Peyrade, "I do indeed perceive it, but not
+to revolt against it; on the contrary, I bless the harshness that deigns
+to hurt me. Now that I know my beautiful and avowed enemy, I shall not
+despair of touching her heart; for never again will I follow any road
+but the one that she points out to me, never will I march under any
+banner but hers. I shall wait--for her inspiration, to think; for her
+will, to will; for her commands, to act. In all things I will be her
+auxiliary,--more than that, her slave; and if she still repulses me with
+that dainty foot, that snowy hand, I will bear it resignedly, asking, in
+return for such obedience one only favor,--that of kissing the foot that
+spurns me, of bathing with tears the hand that threatens me."
+
+During this long cry of the excited heart, which the joy of triumph
+wrung from a nature so nervous and impressionable as that of the
+Provencal, he had slidden from his chair, and now knelt with one knee
+on the ground beside the countess, in the conventional attitude of the
+stage, which is, however, much more common in real life than people
+suppose.
+
+"Rise, monsieur," said the countess, "and be so good as to answer me."
+Then, giving him a questioning look from beneath her beautiful frowning
+brows, she continued: "Have you well-weighed the outcome of the words
+you have just uttered? Have you measured the full extent of your pledge,
+and its depth? With your hand on your heart and on your conscience, are
+you a man to fulfil those words? Or are you one of the falsely humble
+and perfidious men who throw themselves at our feet only to make us lose
+the balance of our will and our reason?"
+
+"I!" exclaimed la Peyrade; "never can I react against the fascination
+you have wielded over me from the moment of our first interview! Ah!
+madame, the more I have resisted, the more I have struggled, the more
+you ought to trust in my sincerity and its tardy expression. What I have
+said, I think; that which I think aloud to-day I have thought in my soul
+since the hour when I first had the honor of admittance to you; and the
+many days I have passed in struggling against this allurement have ended
+in giving me a firm and deliberate will, which understands itself, and
+is not cast down by your severity."
+
+"Severity?" said the countess; "possibly. But you ought to think of
+the kindness too. Question yourself carefully. We foreign women do not
+understand the careless ease with which a Frenchwoman enters upon a
+solemn engagement. To us, our _yes_ is sacred; our word is a bond. We do
+and we will nothing by halves. The arms of my family bear a motto which
+seems significant under the present circumstances,--'All or Nothing';
+that is saying much, and yet, perhaps, not enough."
+
+"That is how I understand my pledge," replied la Peyrade; "and on
+leaving this room my first step will be to break with that ignoble
+past which for an instant I seemed to hold in the balance against the
+intoxicating future you do not forbid me to expect."
+
+"No," said the countess, "do it calmly and advisedly; I do not like rash
+conduct; you will not please me by taking open steps. These Thuilliers
+are not really bad at heart; they humiliated you without knowing that
+they did so; their world is not yours. Is that their fault? Loosen the
+tie between you, but do not violently break it. And, above all, reflect.
+Your conversion to my beliefs is of recent date. What man is certain of
+what his heart will say to him to-morrow?"
+
+"Madame," said la Peyrade, "I am that man. We men of Southern blood do
+not love as you say a Frenchwoman loves."
+
+"But," said the countess, with a charming smile, "I thought it was
+hatred we were talking of."
+
+"Ah, madame," cried the barrister, "explained and understood as it has
+been, that word is still a thing that hurts me. Tell me rather, not that
+you love me, but that the words you deigned to say to me at our first
+interview were indeed the expression of your thoughts."
+
+"My friend," said the countess, dwelling on the word; "one of your
+moralists has said: 'There are persons who say, _that is_ or _that is
+not_.' Do me the favor to count me among such persons."
+
+So saying, she held out her hand to her suitor with a charming gesture
+of modesty and grace. La Peyrade, quite beside himself, darted upon that
+beautiful hand and devoured it with kisses.
+
+"Enough, child!" said the countess, gently freeing her imprisoned
+fingers; "adieu now, soon to meet again! Adieu! My headache, I think,
+has disappeared."
+
+La Peyrade picked up his hat, and seemed about to rush from the
+apartment; but at the door he turned and cast upon the handsome creature
+a look of tenderness. The countess made him, with her head, a graceful
+gesture of adieu; then, seeing that la Peyrade was inclined to return to
+her, she raised her forefinger as a warning to control himself and go.
+
+La Peyrade turned and left the apartment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. HOW TO SHUT THE DOOR IN PEOPLE'S FACES
+
+On the staircase la Peyrade stopped to exhale, if we may so express it,
+the happiness of which his heart was full. The words of the countess,
+the ingenious preparation she had made to put him on the track of her
+sentiments, seemed to him the guarantee of her sincerity, and he left
+her full of faith.
+
+Possessed by that intoxication of happy persons which shows itself in
+their gestures, their looks, their very gait, and sometimes in actions
+not authorized by their common-sense, after pausing a moment, as we have
+said, on the staircase, he ran up a few steps till he could see the door
+of the Thuilliers' apartment.
+
+"At last!" he cried, "fame, fortune, happiness have come to me; but,
+above all, I can now give myself the joy of vengeance. After Dutocq and
+Cerizet, I will crush _you_, vile bourgeois brood!"
+
+So saying, he shook his fist at the innocent door. Then he turned and
+ran out; the popular saying that the earth could not hold him, was true
+at that moment of his being.
+
+The next day, for he could not restrain any longer the tempest that was
+swelling within him, la Peyrade went to see Thuillier in the bitterest
+and most hostile of moods. What was therefore his amazement when, before
+he had time to put himself on guard and stop the demonstration of union
+and oblivion, Thuillier flung himself into his arms.
+
+"My friend," cried the municipal councillor, as he loosened his clasp,
+"my political fortune is made; this morning all the newspapers, without
+exception, have spoken of the seizure of my pamphlet; and you ought to
+see how the opposition sheets have mauled the government."
+
+"Simple enough," said la Peyrade, not moved by this enthusiasm; "you are
+a topic for them, that's all. But this does not alter the situation; the
+prosecution will be only the more determined to have you condemned."
+
+"Well, then," said Thuillier, proudly raising his head, "I will go to
+prison, like Beranger, like Lamennais, like Armand Carrel."
+
+"My good fellow, persecution is charming at a distance; but when you
+hear the big bolts run upon you, you may be sure you won't like it as
+well."
+
+"But," objected Thuillier, "prisoners condemned for political offences
+are always allowed to do their time in hospital if they like. Besides,
+I'm not yet convicted. You said yourself you expected to get me
+acquitted."
+
+"Yes, but since then I have heard things which make that result very
+doubtful; the same hand that withheld your cross has seized your
+pamphlet; you are being murdered with premeditation."
+
+"If you know who that dangerous enemy is," said Thuillier, "you can't
+refuse to point him out to me."
+
+"I don't know him," replied la Peyrade; "I only suspect him. This is
+what you get by playing too shrewd a game."
+
+"Playing a shrewd game!" said Thuillier, with the curiosity of a man who
+is perfectly aware that he has nothing of that kind on his conscience.
+
+"Yes," said la Peyrade, "you made a sort of decoy of Celeste to attract
+young bloods to your salon. All the world has not the forbearance of
+Monsieur Godeschal, who forgave his rejection and generously managed
+that affair about the house."
+
+"Explain yourself better," said Thuillier, "for I don't see what you
+mean."
+
+"Nothing is easier to understand. Without counting me, how many suitors
+have you had for Mademoiselle Colleville? Godeschal, Minard junior,
+Phellion junior, Olivier Vinet, the substitute judge,--all men who have
+been sent about their business, as I am."
+
+"Olivier Vinet, the substitute judge!" cried Thuillier, struck with
+a flash of light. "Of course; the blow must have come from him. His
+father, they say, has a long arm. But it can't be truly said that we
+sent him about his business,--to use your expression, which strikes me
+as indecorous,--for he never came to the house but once, and made no
+offer; neither did Minard junior or Phellion junior, for that matter.
+Godeschal is the only one who risked a direct proposal, and he was
+refused at once, before he dipped his beak in the water."
+
+"It is always so!" said la Peyrade, still looking for a ground of
+quarrel. "Straightforward and outspoken persons are always those that
+sly men boast of fooling."
+
+"Ah ca! what's all this?" said Thuillier; "what are you insinuating?
+Didn't you settle everything with Brigitte the other day? You take a
+pretty time to come and talk to me about your love-affairs, when the
+sword of justice is hanging over my head."
+
+"Oh!" said la Peyrade, ironically; "so now you are going to make the
+most of your interesting position of accused person! I knew very well
+how it would be; I was certain that as soon as your pamphlet appeared
+the old cry of not getting what you expected out of me would come up."
+
+"Parbleu! your pamphlet!" cried Thuillier. "I think you are a fine
+fellow to boast of that when, on the contrary, it has caused the most
+deplorable complications."
+
+"Deplorable? how so? you have just said your political fortune was
+made."
+
+"Well, truly, my dear Theodose," said Thuillier, with feeling, "I should
+never have thought that you would choose the hour of adversity to come
+and put your pistol at our throats and make me the object of your sneers
+and innuendoes."
+
+"Well done!" said la Peyrade; "now it is the hour of adversity! A minute
+ago you were flinging yourself into my arms as a man to whom some signal
+piece of luck had happened. You ought really to choose decidedly between
+being a man who needs pity and a glorious victor."
+
+"It is all very well to be witty," returned Thuillier; "but you can't
+controvert what I say. I am logical, if I am not brilliant. It is very
+natural that I should console myself by seeing that public opinion
+decides in my favor, and by reading in its organs the most honorable
+assurances of sympathy; but do you suppose I wouldn't rather that things
+had taken their natural course? Besides, when I see myself the object of
+unworthy vengeance on the part of persons as influential as the Vinets,
+how can I help measuring the extent of the dangers to which I am
+exposed?"
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, with pitiless persistency, "I see that you
+prefer to play the part of Jeremiah."
+
+"Yes," said Thuillier, in a solemn tone. "Jeremiah laments over a
+friendship I did think true and devoted, but which I find has only
+sarcasms to give me when I looked for services."
+
+"What services?" asked la Peyrade. "Did you not tell me positively, no
+later than yesterday, that you would not accept my help under any form
+whatever? I offered to plead your case, and you answered that you would
+take a better lawyer."
+
+"Yes; in the first shock of surprise at such an unexpected blow, I did
+say that foolish thing; but, on reflection, who can explain as well
+as you can the intention of the words you wrote with your own pen?
+Yesterday I was almost out of my mind; but you, with your wounded
+self-love, which can't forgive a momentary impatience, you are very
+caustic and cruel."
+
+"So," said la Peyrade, "you formally request me to defend you before the
+jury?"
+
+"Yes, my dear fellow; and I don't know any other hands in which I could
+better place my case. I should have to pay a monstrous sum to some great
+legal luminary, and he wouldn't defend me as ably as you."
+
+"Well, I refuse. Roles have changed, as you see, diametrically.
+Yesterday, I thought, as you do, that I was the man to defend you.
+To-day, I see that you had better take the legal luminary, because, with
+Vinet's antagonism against you the affair is taking such proportions
+that whoever defends it assumes a fearful responsibility."
+
+"I understand," said Thuillier, sarcastically. "Monsieur has his eye on
+the magistracy, and he doesn't want to quarrel with a man who is already
+talked of for Keeper of the Seals. It is prudent, but I don't know that
+it is going to help on your marriage."
+
+"You mean," said la Peyrade, seizing the ball in its bound, "that to
+get you out of the claws of that jury is a thirteenth labor of Hercules,
+imposed upon me to earn the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville? I expected
+that demands would multiply in proportion to the proofs of my devotion.
+But that is the very thing that has worn me out, and I have come here
+to-day to put an end to this slave labor by giving back to you your
+pledges. You may dispose of Celeste's hand; for my part, I am no longer
+a suitor for it."
+
+The unexpectedness and squareness of this declaration left Thuillier
+without words or voice, all the more because at this moment entered
+Brigitte. The temper of the old maid had also greatly moderated since
+the previous evening, and her greeting was full of the most amicable
+familiarity.
+
+"Ah! so here you are, you good old barrister," she said.
+
+"Mademoiselle, your servant," he replied, gravely.
+
+"Well," she continued, paying no attention to the stiffness of his
+manner, "the government has got itself into a pretty mess by seizing
+your pamphlet. You ought to see how the morning papers lash it! Here,"
+she added, giving Thuillier a small sheet printed on sugar-paper, in
+coarse type, and almost illegible,--"here's another, you didn't read;
+the porter has just brought it up. It is a paper from our old quarter,
+'L'Echo de la Bievre.' I don't know, gentlemen, if you'll be of my
+opinion, but I think nothing could be better written. It is droll,
+though, how inattentive these journalists are! most of them write your
+name without the H; I think you ought to complain of it."
+
+Thuillier took the paper, and read the article inspired to the reviewer
+of the tanner's organ by stomach gratitude. Never in her life had
+Brigitte paid the slightest attention to a newspaper, except to know if
+it was the right size for the packages she wrapped up in it; but now,
+suddenly, converted to a worship of the press by the ardor of her
+sisterly love, she stood behind Thuillier and re-read, over his
+shoulder, the more striking passages of the page she thought so
+eloquent, pointing her finger to them.
+
+"Yes," said Thuillier, folding up the paper, "that's warm, and very
+flattering to me. But here's another matter! Monsieur has come to tell
+me that he refuses to plead for me, and renounces all claim to Celeste's
+hand."
+
+"That is to say," said Brigitte, "he renounces her if, after having
+pleaded, the marriage does not take place 'subito.' Well, poor fellow,
+I think that's a reasonable demand. When he has done that for us there
+ought to be no further delay; and whether Mademoiselle Celeste likes it
+or not, she must accept him, because, you know, there's an end to all
+things."
+
+"Do you hear that, my good fellow?" said la Peyrade, seizing upon
+Brigitte's speech. "When I have pleaded, the marriage is to take
+place. Your sister is frankness itself; she, at least, doesn't practise
+diplomacy."
+
+"Diplomacy!" echoed Brigitte. "I'd like to see myself creeping
+underground in matters. I say things as I think them. The workman has
+worked, and he ought to have his pay."
+
+"Do be silent," cried Thuillier, stamping his foot; "you don't say a
+word that doesn't turn the knife in the wound."
+
+"The knife in the wound?" said Brigitte, inquiringly. "Ah ca! are you
+two quarrelling?"
+
+"I told you," said Thuillier, "that la Peyrade had returned our
+promises; and the reason he gives is that we are asking him another
+service for Celeste's hand. He thinks he has done us enough without it."
+
+"He has done us some services, no doubt," said Brigitte; "but it seems
+to me that we have not been ungrateful to him. Besides, it was he who
+made the blunder, and I think it rather odd he should now wish to leave
+us in the lurch."
+
+"Your reasoning, mademoiselle," said la Peyrade, "might have some
+appearance of justice if I were the only barrister in Paris; but as the
+streets are black with them, and as, only yesterday, Thuillier himself
+spoke of engaging some more important lawyer than myself, I have not the
+slightest scruple in refusing to defend him. Now, as to the marriage, in
+order that it may not be made the object of another brutal and forcible
+demand upon me, I here renounce it in the most formal manner, and
+nothing now prevents Mademoiselle Colleville from accepting Monsieur
+Felix Phellion and all his advantages."
+
+"As you please, my dear monsieur," said Brigitte, "if that's your last
+word. We shall not be at a loss to find a husband for Celeste,--Felix
+Phellion or another. But you must permit me to tell you that the reason
+you give is not the true one. We can't go faster than the fiddles. If
+the marriage were settled to-day, there are the banns to publish; you
+have sense enough to know that Monsieur le maire can't marry you before
+the formalities are complied with, and before then Thuillier's case will
+have been tried."
+
+"Yes," said la Peyrade, "and if I lose the case it will be I who have
+sent him to prison,--just as yesterday it was I who brought about the
+seizure."
+
+"As for that, it seems to me that if you had written nothing the police
+would have found nothing to bite."
+
+"My dear Brigitte," said Thuillier, seeing la Peyrade shrug his
+shoulders, "your argument is vicious in the sense that the writing was
+not incriminating on any side. It is not la Peyrade's fault if persons
+of high station have organized a persecution against me. You remember
+that little substitute, Monsieur Olivier Vinet, whom Cardot brought to
+one of our receptions. It seems that he and his father are furious that
+we didn't want him for Celeste, and they've sworn my destruction."
+
+"Well, why did we refuse him," said Brigitte, "if it wasn't for the fine
+eyes of monsieur here? For, after all, a substitute in Paris is a very
+suitable match."
+
+"No doubt," said la Peyrade, nonchalantly. "Only, he did not happen to
+bring you a million."
+
+"Ah!" cried Brigitte, firing up. "If you are going to talk any more
+about that house you helped us to buy, I shall tell you plainly that
+if you had had the money to trick the notary you never would have come
+after us. You needn't think I have been altogether your dupe. You spoke
+just now of a bargain, but you proposed that bargain yourself. 'Give me
+Celeste and I'll get you that house,'--that's what you said to us in so
+many words. Besides which, we had to pay large sums on which we never
+counted."
+
+"Come, come, Brigitte," said Thuillier, "you are making a great deal out
+of nothing."
+
+"Nothing! nothing!" exclaimed Brigitte. "Did we, or did we not, have to
+pay much more than we expected?"
+
+"My dear Thuillier," said la Peyrade, "I think, with you, that the
+matter is now settled, and it can only be embittered by discussing it
+further. My course was decided on before I came here; all that I have
+now heard can only confirm it. I shall not be the husband of Celeste,
+but you and I can remain good friends."
+
+He rose to leave the room.
+
+"One moment, monsieur," said Brigitte, barring his way; "there is one
+matter which I do not consider settled; and now that we are no longer to
+have interests in common, I should not be sorry if you would be so good
+as to tell me what has become of a sum of ten thousand francs which
+Thuillier gave you to bribe those rascally government offices in order
+to get the cross we have never got."
+
+"Brigitte!" cried Thuillier, in anguish, "you have a devil of a tongue!
+You ought to be silent about that; I told it to you in a moment of
+ill-temper, and you promised me faithfully never to open your lips about
+it to any one, no matter who."
+
+"So I did; but," replied the implacable Brigitte, "we are parting. When
+people part they settle up; they pay their debts. Ten thousand francs!
+For my part, I thought the cross itself dear at that; but for a cross
+that has melted away, monsieur himself will allow the price is too
+high."
+
+"Come, la Peyrade, my friend, don't listen to her," said Thuillier,
+going up to the barrister, who was pale with anger. "The affection she
+has for me blinds her; I know very well what government offices are, and
+I shouldn't be surprised if you had had to pay out money of your own."
+
+"Monsieur," said la Peyrade, "I am, unfortunately, not in a position
+to return to you, instantly, that money, an accounting for which is so
+insolently demanded. Grant me a short delay; and have the goodness
+to accept my note, which I am ready to sign, if that will give you
+patience."
+
+"To the devil with your note!" cried Thuillier; "you owe me nothing; on
+the contrary, it is we who owe you; for Cardot told me I ought to give
+you at least ten thousand francs for enabling us to buy this magnificent
+property."
+
+"Cardot! Cardot!" said Brigitte; "he is very generous with other
+people's money. We were giving monsieur Celeste, and that's a good deal
+more than ten thousand francs."
+
+La Peyrade was too great a comedian not to turn the humiliation he
+had just endured into a scene finale. With tears in his voice, which
+presently fell from his eyes, he turned to Brigitte.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, "when I had the honor to be received by you I
+was poor; you long saw me suffering and ill at ease, knowing, alas! too
+well, the indignities that poverty must bear. From the day that I was
+able to give you a fortune which I never thought of for myself I have
+felt, it is true, more assurance; and your own kindness encouraged me
+to rise out of my timidity and depression. To-day, when I, by frank
+and loyal conduct, release you from anxiety,--for, if you chose to be
+honest, you would acknowledge that you have been thinking of another
+husband for Celeste,--we might still remain friends, even though I
+renounce a marriage which my delicacy forbids me to pursue. But you have
+not chosen to restrain yourself with the limits of social politeness,
+of which you have a model beside you in Madame de Godollo, who, I am
+persuaded, although she is not at all friendly to me, would never have
+approved of your odious behavior. Thank Heaven! I have in my heart
+some religious sentiment at least; the Gospel is not to me a mere
+dead-letter, and--understand me well, mademoiselle--_I forgive you_.
+It is not to Thuillier, who would refuse them, but to you that I shall,
+before long, pay the ten thousand francs which you insinuate I have
+applied to my own purposes. If, by the time they are returned to you,
+you feel regret for your unjust suspicions, and are unwilling to
+accept the money, I request that you will turn it over to the bureau of
+Benevolence to the poor--"
+
+"To the bureau of Benevolence!" cried Brigitte, interrupting him. "No, I
+thank you! the idea of all that money being distributed among a crowd
+of do-nothings and devotes, who'll spend it in junketing! I've been poor
+too, my lad; I made bags for the money of others long before I had any
+money of my own; I have some now, and I take care of it. So, whenever
+you will, I am ready to receive that ten thousand francs and keep it. If
+you didn't know how to do what you undertook to do, and spent that money
+in trying to put salt on a sparrow's tail, so much the worse for you."
+
+Seeing that he had missed his effect, and had made not the slightest
+impression on Brigitte's granite, la Peyrade cast a disdainful look upon
+her and left the room majestically. As he did so he noticed a movement
+made by Thuillier to follow him, and also the imperious gesture of
+Brigitte, always queen and mistress, which nailed her brother to his
+chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+At the moment when la Peyrade was preparing to lay at the feet of the
+countess the liberty he had recovered in so brutal a manner, he received
+a perfumed note, which made his heart beat, for on the seal was that
+momentous "All or Nothing" which she had given him as the rule of the
+relation now to be inaugurated between them. The contents of the note
+were as follows:--
+
+  Dear Monsieur,--I have heard of the step you have taken; thank
+  you! But I must now prepare to take my own. I cannot, as you may
+  well think, continue to live in this house, and among these people
+  who are so little of our own class and with whom we have nothing
+  in common. To arrange this transaction, and to avoid explanations
+  of the fact that the entresol welcomes the voluntary exile from
+  the first-floor, I need to-day and to-morrow to myself. Do not
+  therefore come to see me until the day after. By that time I shall
+  have executed Brigitte, as they say at the Bourse, and have much
+  to tell you.
+
+
+Tua tota,
+
+Torna de Godollo.
+
+
+That "Wholly thine" in Latin seemed charming to la Peyrade, who was
+not, however, astonished, for Latin is a second national language to the
+Hungarians. The two days' waiting to which he was thus condemned only
+fanned the flame of the ardent passion which possessed him, and on the
+third day when reached the house by the Madeleine his love had risen
+to a degree of incandescence of which only a few days earlier he would
+scarcely have supposed himself capable.
+
+This time the porter's wife perceived him; but he was now quite
+indifferent as to whether or not the object of his visit should be
+known. The ice was broken, his happiness was soon to be official, and he
+was more disposed to cry it aloud in the streets than to make a mystery
+of it.
+
+Running lightly up the stairs, he prepared to ring the bell, when, on
+putting out his hand to reach the silken bell-cord he perceived that the
+bell-cord had disappeared. La Peyrade's first thought was that one of
+those serious illnesses which make all noises intolerable to a patient
+would explain its absence; but with the thought came other observations
+that weakened it, and which, moreover, were not in themselves
+comforting.
+
+From the vestibule to the countess's door a stair carpet, held at each
+step by a brass rod, made a soft ascent to the feet of visitors; this,
+too, had been removed. A screen-door covered with green velvet and
+studded with brass nails had hitherto protected the entrance to the
+apartment; of that no sign, except the injury to the wall done by the
+workmen in taking it away. For a moment the barrister thought, in his
+agitation, that he must have mistaken the floor, but, casting his eye
+over the baluster he saw that he had not passed the entresol. Madame de
+Godollo must, therefore, be in the act of moving away.
+
+He then resigned himself to make known his presence at the great lady's
+door as he would have done at that of a grisette. He rapped with
+his knuckles, but a hollow sonority revealing the void, "intonuere
+cavernae," echoed beyond the door which he vainly appealed to with his
+fist. He also perceived from beneath that door a ray of vivid light,
+the sure sign of an uninhabited apartment where curtains and carpets and
+furniture no longer dim the light or deaden sound. Compelled to believe
+in a total removal, la Peyrade now supposed that in the rupture with
+Brigitte, mentioned as probable by Madame de Godollo, some brutal
+insolence of the old maid had necessitated this abrupt departure. But
+why had he not been told of it? And what an idea, to expose him to
+this ridiculous meeting with what the common people call, in their
+picturesque language, "the wooden face"!
+
+Before leaving the door finally, and as if some doubt still remained in
+his mind, la Peyrade made a last and most thundering assault upon it.
+
+"Who's knocking like that, as if they'd bring the house down?" said the
+porter, attracted by the noise to the foot of the staircase.
+
+"Doesn't Madame de Godollo still live here?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"Of course she doesn't live here now; she has moved away. If monsieur
+had told me he was going to her apartment I would have spared him the
+trouble of battering down the door."
+
+"I knew that she was going to leave the apartment," said la Peyrade, not
+wishing to seem ignorant of the project of departure, "but I had no idea
+she was going so soon."
+
+"I suppose it was something sudden," said the porter, "for she went off
+early this morning with post-horses."
+
+"Post-horses!" echoed la Peyrade, stupefied. "Then she has left Paris?"
+
+"That's to be supposed," said the porter; "people don't usually take
+post-horses and a postilion to change from one quarter of Paris to
+another."
+
+"And she did not tell you where she was going?"
+
+"Ah! monsieur, what an idea! Do people account to us porters for what
+they do?"
+
+"No, but her letters--those that come after her departure?"
+
+"Her letters? I am ordered to deliver them to Monsieur le commandeur,
+the little old gentlemen who came to see her so often; monsieur must
+have met him."
+
+"Yes, yes, certainly," said la Peyrade, keeping his presence of mind in
+the midst of the successive shocks which came upon him,--"the powered
+little man who was here every day."
+
+"I couldn't say every day; but he came often. Well, I am told to give
+the countess's letters to him."
+
+"And for other persons of her acquaintance," said la Peyrade,
+carelessly, "did she leave no message?"
+
+"None, monsieur."
+
+"Very well," said la Peyrade, "good-morning." And he turned to go out.
+
+"But I think," said the porter, "that Mademoiselle Thuillier knows more
+about it than I do. Won't monsieur go up? She is at home; and so is
+Monsieur Thuillier."
+
+"No, never mind," said la Peyrade, "I only came to tell Madame de
+Godollo about a commission she asked me to execute; I haven't time to
+stop now."
+
+"Well, as I told you, she left with post-horses this morning. Two hours
+earlier monsieur might still have found her; but now, with post-horses,
+she must by this time have gone a good distance."
+
+La Peyrade departed, with a sense of despair in his heart. Added to the
+anxiety caused by this hasty departure, jealousy entered his soul,
+and in this agonizing moment of disappointment the most distressing
+explanations crowded on his mind.
+
+Then, after further reflection, he said to himself:--
+
+"These clever diplomatic women are often sent on secret missions which
+require the most absolute silence, and extreme rapidity of movement."
+
+But here a sudden revulsion of thought overcame him:--
+
+"Suppose she were one of those intriguing adventurers whom foreign
+governments employ as agents? Suppose the tale, more or less probable,
+of that Russian princess forced to sell her furniture to Brigitte were
+also that of this Hungarian countess? And yet," he continued, as his
+brain made a third evolution in this frightful anarchy of ideas and
+feelings, "her education, her manners, her language, all bespoke a woman
+of the best position. Besides, if she were only a bird of passage, why
+have given herself so much trouble to win me over?"
+
+La Peyrade might have continued to plead thus for and against for a long
+time had he not been suddenly grasped round the shoulders by a strong
+arm and addressed in a well-known voice.
+
+"Take care! my dear barrister; a frightful danger threatens you; you are
+running right into it."
+
+La Peyrade, thus arrested, looked round and found himself in the arms of
+Phellion.
+
+The scene took place in front of a house which was being pulled down at
+the corner of the rues Duphot and Saint-Honore. Posted on the pavement
+of the other side of the street, Phellion, whose taste for watching the
+process of building our readers may remember, had been witnessing for
+the last fifteen minutes the drama of a wall about to fall beneath
+the united efforts of a squadron of workmen. Watch in hand, the great
+citizen was estimating the length of the resistance which that mass of
+freestone would present to the destructive labor of which it was the
+object. Precisely at the crucial moment of the impending catastrophe la
+Peyrade, lost in the tumult of his thoughts, was entering, heedless of
+the shouts addressed to him on all sides, the radius within which the
+stones would fall. Seen by Phellion (who, it must be said, would have
+done the same for a total stranger) la Peyrade undoubtedly owed his
+life to him; for, at the moment when he was violently flung back by the
+vigorous grasp of the worthy citizen, the wall fell with the noise of a
+cannon-shot, and the stones rolled in clouds of dust almost to his very
+feet.
+
+"Are you blind and deaf?" said the workman whose business it was to warn
+the passers, in a tone of amenity it is easy to imagine.
+
+"Thank you, my dear friend," said la Peyrade, recalled to earth. "I
+should certainly have been crushed like an idiot if it hadn't been for
+you."
+
+And he pressed Phellion's hand.
+
+"My reward," replied the latter, "lies in the satisfaction of knowing
+that you are saved from an imminent peril. And I may say that that
+satisfaction is mingled, for me, with a certain pride; for I was not
+mistaken by a single second in the calculation which enabled me to
+foresee the exact moment when that formidable mass would be displaced
+from its centre of gravity. But what were you thinking of, my dear
+monsieur? Probably of the plea you are about to make in the Thuillier
+affair. The public prints have informed me of the danger of prosecution
+by the authorities which hangs above the head of our estimable friend.
+You have a noble cause to defend, monsieur. Habituated as I am, through
+my labors as a member of the reading committee of the Odeon, to judge of
+works of intellect, and with my hand upon my conscience, I declare that
+after reading the incriminated passages, I can find nothing in the tone
+of that pamphlet which justifies the severe measures of which it is the
+object. Between ourselves," added the great citizen, lowering his voice,
+"I think the government has shown itself petty."
+
+"So I think," said la Peyrade, "but I am not employed for the defence. I
+have advised Thuillier to engage some noted lawyer."
+
+"It may be good advice," said Phellion; "at any rate, it speaks well for
+your modesty. Poor man! I went to him at once when the blow fell, but I
+did not see him; I saw only Brigitte, who was having a discussion with
+Madame de Godollo. There is a woman with strong political views; it
+seems she predicted that the seizure would be made."
+
+"Did you know that the countess had left Paris?" said la Peyrade,
+rushing at the chance of speaking on the subject of his present
+monomania.
+
+"Ah! left Paris, has she?" said Phellion. "Well, monsieur, I must tell
+you that, although there was not much sympathy between us, I regard her
+departure as a misfortune. She will leave a serious void in the salon
+of our friends. I say this, because it is my belief, and I am not in the
+habit of disguising my convictions."
+
+"Yes," said la Peyrade, "she is certainly a very distinguished woman,
+with whom in spite of her prejudice against me, I think I should have
+come to an understanding. But this morning, without leaving any word as
+to where she was going, she started suddenly with post-horses."
+
+"Post-horses!" said Phellion. "I don't know whether you will agree with
+me, monsieur, but I think that travelling by post is a most agreeable
+method of conveyance. Certainly Louis XI., to whom we owe the
+institution, had a fortunate inspiration in the matter; although, on the
+other hand, his sanguinary and despotic government was not, to my humble
+thinking, entirely devoid of reproach. Once only in my life have I used
+that method of locomotion, and I can truly say I found it far superior,
+in spite of its inferior relative rapidity, to the headlong course of
+what in England are called _railways_; where speed is attained only at
+the price of safety."
+
+La Peyrade paid but little attention to Phellion's phraseology.
+"Where can she have gone?"--round that idea he dug and delved in every
+direction, an occupation that would have made him indifferent to a far
+more interesting topic. However, once started, like the locomotive he
+objected to, the great citizen went on:--
+
+"I made that journey at the period of Madame Phellion's last
+confinement. She was in Perche, with her mother, when I learned that
+serious complications were feared from the milk-fever. Overcome with
+terror at the danger which threatened my wife, I went instantly to the
+post-office to obtain a seat in the mail-coach, but all were taken; I
+found they had been engaged for more than a week. Upon that, I came to a
+decision; I went to the rue Pigalle, and, for a very large sum in gold
+a post-chaise and three horses were placed at my disposal, when
+unfortunately the formality of a passport, with which I had neglected
+to supply myself, and without which, in virtue of the decrees of the
+consulate of 17 Nivose, year VII., the post agents were not permitted to
+deliver horses to travellers--"
+
+The last few words were like a flash of light to la Peyrade, and without
+waiting for the end of the postal odyssey of the great citizen, he
+darted away in the direction of the rue Pigalle, before Phellion, in the
+middle of his sentence, perceived his departure.
+
+Reaching the Royal postal establishment, la Peyrade was puzzled as to
+whom to address himself in order to obtain the information he wanted. He
+began by explaining to the porter that he had a letter to send to a
+lady of his acquaintance that morning by post, neglecting, very
+thoughtlessly, to send him her address, and that he thought he might
+discover it by means of the passport which she must have presented in
+order to obtain horses.
+
+"Was it a lady accompanied by a maid whom I took up on the boulevard de
+la Madeleine?" asked a postilion sitting in the corner of the room where
+la Peyrade was making his preliminary inquiry.
+
+"Exactly," said la Peyrade, going eagerly up to the providential being,
+and slipping a five-franc piece into his hand.
+
+"Ah! well, she's a queer traveller!" said the man, "she told me to take
+her to the Bois de Boulogne, and there she made me drive round and round
+for an hour. After that, we came back to the Barriere de l'Etoile, where
+she gave me a good 'pourboire' and got into a hackney coach, telling me
+to take the travelling carriage back to the man who lets such carriages
+in the Cour des Coches, Faubourg Saint-Honore."
+
+"Give me the name of that man?" said la Peyrade, eagerly.
+
+"Simonin," replied the postilion.
+
+Furnished with that information la Peyrade resumed his course, and
+fifteen minutes later he was questioning the livery-stable keeper; but
+that individual knew only that a lady residing on the Boulevard de la
+Madeleine had hired, without horses, a travelling-carriage for half a
+day; that he had sent out the said carriage at nine that morning, and it
+was brought back at twelve by a postilion of the Royal Post house.
+
+"Never mind," thought la Peyrade, "I am certain now she has not left
+Paris, and is not avoiding me. Most probably, she wants to break utterly
+with the Thuilliers, and so has invented this journey. Fool that I am!
+no doubt there's a letter waiting for me at home, explaining the whole
+thing."
+
+Worn out with emotion and fatigue, and in order to verify as quickly as
+possible this new supposition, la Peyrade flung himself into a street
+cab, and in less than a quarter of an hour, having promised the driver a
+good pourboire, he was deposited at the house in the rue Saint-Dominique
+d'Enfer. There he was compelled to endure still longer the tortures of
+waiting. Since Brigitte's departure, the duty of the porter, Coffinet,
+had been very negligently performed, and when la Peyrade rushed to the
+lodge to inquire for his letter, which he thought he saw in the case
+that belonged to him, the porter and his wife were both absent and their
+door was locked. The wife was doing some household work in the building,
+and Coffinet himself, taking advantage of that circumstance, had allowed
+a friend to entice him into a neighboring wine-shop, where, between
+two glasses, he was supporting, against a republican who was talking
+disrespectfully against it, the cause of the owners of property.
+
+It was twenty minutes before the worthy porter, remembering the
+"property" entrusted to his charge, decided to return to his post. It is
+easy to imagine the reproaches with which la Peyrade overwhelmed him.
+He excused himself by saying that he had gone to do a commission for
+Mademoiselle, and that he couldn't be at the door and where his masters
+chose to send him at the same time. At last, however, he gave the lawyer
+a letter bearing the Paris postmark.
+
+With his heart rather than his eyes la Peyrade recognized the
+handwriting, and, turning over the missive, the arms and motto confirmed
+the hope that he had reached the end of the cruellest emotion he had
+ever in his life experienced. To read that letter before that odious
+porter seemed to him a profanation. With a refinement of feeling which
+all lovers will understand, he gave himself the pleasure of pausing
+before his happiness; he would not even unseal that blissful note until
+the moment when, with closed doors and no interruptions to distract him,
+he could enjoy at his ease the delicious sensation of which his heart
+had a foretaste.
+
+Rushing up the staircase two steps at a time, the now joyous lover
+committed the childish absurdity of locking himself in; then, having
+settled himself at his ease before his desk, and having broken the seal
+with religious care, he was forced to press his hand on his heart, which
+seemed to burst from his bosom, before he could summon calmness to read
+the following letter:--
+
+  Dear Monsieur,--I disappear forever, because my play is played
+  out. I thank you for having made it both attractive and easy. By
+  setting against you the Thuilliers and Collevilles (who are fully
+  informed of your sentiments towards them), and by relating in a
+  manner most mortifying to their bourgeois self-love the true
+  reason of your sudden and pitiless rupture with them, I am proud
+  and happy to believe that I have done you a signal service. The
+  girl does not love you, and you love nothing but the eyes of her
+  "dot"; I have therefore saved you both from a species of hell.
+  But, in exchange for the bride you have so curtly rejected,
+  another charming girl is proposed to you; she is richer and more
+  beautiful than Mademoiselle Colleville, and--to speak of myself
+  --more at liberty than
+
+  Your unworthy servant,
+
+  Torna "Comtesse de Godollo."
+
+  P.S. For further information apply, without delay, to Monsieur du
+  Portail, householder, rue Honore-Chevalier, near the rue de la
+  Cassette, quartier Saint-Sulpice, by whom you are expected.
+
+
+When he had read this letter the advocate of the poor took his head
+in his hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, thought nothing; he was
+annihilated.
+
+Several days were necessary to la Peyrade before he could even begin to
+recover from the crushing blow which had struck him down. The shock
+was terrible. Coming out of that golden dream which had shown him a
+perspective of the future in so smiling an aspect, he found himself
+fooled under conditions most cruel to his self-love, and to his
+pretensions to depth and cleverness; irrevocably parted from the
+Thuilliers; saddled with a hopeless debt of twenty-five thousand francs
+to Madame Lambert, together with another of ten thousand to Brigitte,
+which his dignity required him to pay with the least delay possible;
+and, worst of all,--to complete his humiliation and his sense of
+failure,--he felt that he was not cured of the passionate emotion he
+had felt for this woman, the author of his great disaster, and the
+instrument of his ruin.
+
+Either this Delilah was a very great lady, sufficiently high in station
+to allow herself such compromising caprices,--but even so, she would
+scarcely have cared to play the role of a coquette in a vaudeville
+where he himself played the part of ninny,--_or_ she was some noted
+adventuress who was in the pay of this du Portail and the agent of his
+singular matrimonial designs. Evil life or evil heart, these were the
+only two verdicts to be pronounced on this dangerous siren, and in
+either case, it would seem, she was not very deserving of the regrets of
+her victim; nevertheless, he was conscious of feeling them. We must put
+ourselves in the place of this son of Provence, this region of hot blood
+and ardent heads, who, for the first time in his life finding himself
+face to face with jewelled love in laces, believed he was to drink that
+passion from a wrought-gold cup. Just as our minds on waking keep the
+impression of a vivid dream and continue in love with what we know was
+but a shadow, la Peyrade had need of all his mental energy to drive away
+the memory of that treacherous countess. We might go further and say
+that he never ceased to long for her, though he was careful to drape
+with an honest pretext the intense desire that he had to find her.
+That desire he called curiosity, ardor for revenge; and here follow the
+ingenious deductions which he drew for himself:--
+
+"Cerizet talked to me about a rich heiress; the countess, in her letter,
+intimates that the whole intrigue she wound about me was to lead to a
+rich marriage; rich marriages flung at a man's head are not so plentiful
+that two such chances should come to me within a few weeks; therefore
+the match offered by Cerizet and that proposed by the countess must be
+the crazy girl they are so frantic to make me marry; therefore Cerizet,
+being in the plot, must know the countess; therefore, through him I
+shall get upon her traces. In any case, I am sure of information about
+this extraordinary choice that has fallen upon me; evidently, these
+people, whoever they are, who can pull the wires of such puppets to
+reach their ends must be persons of considerable position; therefore,
+I'll go and see Cerizet."
+
+And he went to see Cerizet.
+
+Since the dinner at the Rocher de Cancale, the pair had not met. Once or
+twice la Peyrade had asked Dutocq at the Thuilliers' (where the latter
+seldom went now, on account of the distance to their new abode) what had
+become of his copying clerk.
+
+"He never speaks of you," Dutocq had answered.
+
+Hence it might be inferred that resentment, the "manet alta mente
+repostum" was still living in the breast of the vindictive usurer. La
+Peyrade, however, was not stopped by that consideration. After all, he
+was not going to ask for anything; he went under the pretext of renewing
+an affair in which Cerizet had taken part, and Cerizet never took part
+in anything unless he had a personal interest in it. The chances were,
+therefore, that he would be received with affectionate eagerness rather
+than unpleasant acerbity. Moreover, he decided to go and see the copying
+clerk at Dutocq's office; it would look, he thought, less like a visit
+than if he went to his den in the rue des Poules. It was nearly two
+o'clock when la Peyrade made his entrance into the precincts of the
+justice-of-peace of the 12th arrondissement. He crossed the first room,
+in which were a crowd of persons whom civil suits of one kind or another
+summoned before the magistrate. Without pausing in that waiting-room, la
+Peyrade pushed on to the office adjoining that of Dutocq. There he found
+Cerizet at a shabby desk of blackened wood, at which another clerk, then
+absent, occupied the opposite seat.
+
+Seeing his visitor, Cerizet cast a savage look at him and said, without
+rising, or suspending the copy of the judgment he was then engrossing:--
+
+"You here, Sieur la Peyrade? You have been doing fine things for your
+friend Thuillier!"
+
+"How are you?" asked la Peyrade, in a tone both resolute and friendly.
+
+"I?" replied Cerizet. "As you see, still rowing my galley; and, to
+follow out the nautical metaphor, allow me to ask what wind has blown
+you hither; is it, perchance, the wind of adversity?"
+
+La Peyrade, without replying, took a chair beside his questioner, after
+which he said in a grave tone:--
+
+"My dear fellow, we have something to say to each other."
+
+"I suppose," said Cerizet, spitefully, "the Thuilliers have grown cold
+since the seizure of the pamphlet."
+
+"The Thuilliers are ungrateful people; I have broken with them," replied
+la Peyrade.
+
+"Rupture or dismissal," said Cerizet, "their door is shut against you;
+and from what Dutocq tells me, I judge that Brigitte is handling you
+without gloves. You see, my friend, what it is to try and manage affairs
+alone; complications come, and there's no one to smooth the angles.
+If you had got me that lease, I should have had a footing at the
+Thuilliers', Dutocq would not have abandoned you, and together we could
+have brought you gently into port."
+
+"But suppose I don't want to re-enter that port?" said la Peyrade, with
+some sharpness. "I tell you I've had enough of those Thuilliers, and
+I broke with them myself; I warned them to get out of my sun; and if
+Dutocq told you anything else you may tell him from me that he lies. Is
+that clear enough? It seems to me I've made it plain."
+
+"Well, exactly, my good fellow, if you are so savage against your
+Thuilliers you ought to have put me among them, and then you'd have seen
+me avenge you."
+
+"There you are right," said la Peyrade; "I wish I could have set you at
+their legs--but as for that matter of the lease I tell you again, I was
+not master of it."
+
+"Of course," said Cerizet, "it was your conscience which obliged you to
+tell Brigitte that the twelve thousand francs a year I expected to make
+out of it were better in her pocket than in mine."
+
+"It seems that Dutocq continues the honorable profession of spy which he
+formerly practised at the ministry of finance," said la Peyrade, "and,
+like others who do that dirty business, he makes his reports more witty
+than truthful--"
+
+"Take care!" said Cerizet; "you are talking of my patron in his own
+lair."
+
+"Look here!" said la Peyrade. "I have come to talk to you on serious
+matters. Will you do me the favor to drop the Thuilliers and all their
+belongings, and give me your attention?"
+
+"Say on, my friend," said Cerizet, laying down his pen, which had never
+ceased to run, up to this moment, "I am listening."
+
+"You talked to me some time ago," said la Peyrade, "about marrying a
+girl who was rich, fully of age, and slightly hysterical, as you were
+pleased to put it euphemistically."
+
+"Well done!" cried Cerizet. "I expected this; but you've been some time
+coming to it."
+
+"In offering me this heiress, what did you have in your mind?" asked la
+Peyrade.
+
+"Parbleu! to help you to a splendid stroke of business. You had only to
+stoop and take it. I was formally charged to propose it to you; and,
+as there wasn't any brokerage, I should have relied wholly on your
+generosity."
+
+"But you are not the only person who was commissioned to make me that
+offer. A woman had the same order."
+
+"A woman!" cried Cerizet in a perfectly natural tone of surprise. "Not
+that I know of."
+
+"Yes, a foreigner, young and pretty, whom you must have met in the
+family of the bride, to whom she seems to be ardently devoted."
+
+"Never," said Cerizet, "never has there been the slightest question of
+a woman in this negotiation. I have every reason to believe that I am
+exclusively charged with it."
+
+"What!" said la Peyrade, fixing upon Cerizet a scrutinizing eye, "did
+you never hear of the Comtesse Torna de Godollo?"
+
+"Never, in all my life; this is the first time I ever heard that name."
+
+"Then," said la Peyrade, "it must really have been another match; for
+that woman, after many singular preliminaries, too long to explain to
+you, made me a formal offer of the hand of a young woman much richer
+than Mademoiselle Colleville--"
+
+"And hysterical?" asked Cerizet.
+
+"No, she did not embellish the proposal with that accessory; but there's
+another detail which may put you on the track of her. Madame de Godollo
+exhorted me, if I wished to push the matter, to go and see a certain
+Monsieur du Portail--"
+
+"Rue Honore-Chevalier?" exclaimed Cerizet, quickly.
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Then it is the same marriage which is offered to you through
+two different mediums. It is strange I was not informed of this
+collaboration!"
+
+"In short," said la Peyrade, "you not only didn't have wind of the
+countess's intervention, but you don't know her, and you can't give me
+any information about her--is that so?"
+
+"At present I can't," replied Cerizet, "but I'll find out about her; for
+the whole proceeding is rather cavalier towards me; but this employment
+of two agents only shows you how desirable you are to the family."
+
+At this moment the door of the room was opened cautiously, a woman's
+head appeared, and a voice, which was instantly recognized by la
+Peyrade, said, addressing the copying-clerk:--
+
+"Ah! excuse me! I see monsieur is busy. Could I say a word to monsieur
+when he is alone?"
+
+Cerizet, who had an eye as nimble as a hand, instantly noticed a
+certain fact. La Peyrade, who was so placed as to be plainly seen by the
+new-comer, no sooner heard that drawling, honeyed voice, than he turned
+his head in a manner to conceal his features. Instead therefore of being
+roughly sent away, as usually happened to petitioners who addressed the
+most surly of official clerks, the modest visitor heard herself greeted
+in a very surprising manner.
+
+"Come in, come in, Madame Lambert," said Cerizet; "you won't be kept
+waiting long; come in."
+
+The visitor advanced, and then came face to face with la Peyrade.
+
+"Ah! monsieur!" cried his creditor, whom the reader has no doubt
+recognized, "how fortunate I am to meet monsieur! I have been several
+times to his office to ask if he had had time to attend to my little
+affair."
+
+"I have had many engagements which have kept me away from my office
+lately; but I attended to that matter; everything has been done right,
+and is now in the hands of the secretary."
+
+"Oh! how good monsieur is! I pray God to bless him," said the pious
+woman, clasping her hands.
+
+"Bless me! do you have business with Madame Lambert?" said Cerizet; "you
+never told me that. Are you Pere Picot's counsel?"
+
+"No, unfortunately," said Madame Lambert, "my master won't take any
+counsel; he is so self-willed, so obstinate! But, my good monsieur, what
+I came to ask is whether the family council is to meet."
+
+"Of course," said Cerizet, "and not later than to-morrow."
+
+"But monsieur, I hear those gentlemen of the Royal court said the family
+had no rights--"
+
+"Yes, that's so," said the clerk; "the lower court and the Royal court
+have both, on the petition of the relatives, rejected their demand for a
+commission."
+
+"I should hope so!" said the woman; "to think of making him out a
+lunatic! him so full of wisdom and learning!"
+
+"But the relations don't mean to give up; they are going to try the
+matter again under a new form, and ask for the appointment of a judicial
+counsel. That's what the family council meets for to-morrow; and I
+think, this time, my dear Madame Lambert, your old Picot will find
+himself restrained. There are serious allegations, I can tell you. It
+was all very well to take the eggs, but to pluck the hen was another
+thing."
+
+"Is it possible that monsieur can suppose--" began the devote, clasping
+her hands under her chin.
+
+"I suppose nothing," said Cerizet; "I am not the judge of this affair.
+But the relations declare that you have pocketed considerable sums, and
+made investments about which they demand inquiry."
+
+"Oh! heavens!" said the woman, casting up her eyes; "they can inquire;
+I am poor; I have not a deed, nor a note, nor a share; not the slightest
+security of any kind in my possession."
+
+"I dare say not," said Cerizet, glancing at la Peyrade out of the corner
+of his eye; "but there are always friends to take care of such things.
+However, that is none of my business; every one must settle his
+own affairs in his own way. Now, then, say what you have to say,
+distinctly."
+
+"I came, monsieur," she replied, "to implore you, monsieur, to implore
+Monsieur the judge's clerk, to speak in our favor to Monsieur the
+justice-of-peace. Monsieur the vicar of Saint-Jacques is also to speak
+to him. That poor Monsieur Picot!" she went on, weeping, "they'll kill
+him if they continue to worry him in this way."
+
+"I sha'n't conceal from you," said Cerizet, "that the justice-of-peace
+is very ill-disposed to your cause. You must have seen that the other
+day, when he refused to receive you. As for Monsieur Dutocq and myself,
+our assistance won't help you much; and besides, my good woman, you are
+too close-mouthed."
+
+"Monsieur asked me if I had laid by a few little savings; and I couldn't
+tell him that I had, be--because they have gone to keep the h--house
+of that poor Monsieur Pi--i--cot; and now they accuse me of r--robbing
+him!"
+
+Madame Lambert sobbed.
+
+"My opinion is," said Cerizet, "that you are making yourself out much
+poorer than you are; and if friend Peyrade here, who seems to be more
+in your confidence, hadn't his tongue tied by the rules of his
+profession--"
+
+"I!" said la Peyrade, hastily, "I don't know anything of madame's
+affairs. She asked me to draw up a petition on a matter in which there
+was nothing judicial or financial."
+
+"Ah! that's it, is it?" said Cerizet. "Madame had doubtless gone to
+see you about this petition the day Dutocq met her at your office, the
+morning after our dinner at the Rocher de Cancale--when you were such a
+Roman, you know."
+
+Then, without seeming to attach any importance to the reminiscence, he
+added:--
+
+"Well, my good Madame Lambert, I'll ask my patron to speak to the
+justice-of-peace, and, if I get a chance, I'll speak to him myself; but,
+I repeat it, he is very much prejudiced against you."
+
+Madame Lambert retired with many curtseys and protestations of
+gratitude. When she was fairly gone la Peyrade remarked:--
+
+"You don't seem to believe that that woman came to me about a petition;
+and yet nothing was ever truer. She is thought a saint in the street she
+lives in, and that old man they accuse her of robbing is actually kept
+alive by her devotion, so I'm told. Consequently, the neighbors have put
+it into the good woman's head to apply for the Montyon prize; and it was
+for the purpose of putting her claims in legal shape that she applied to
+me."
+
+"Dear! dear! the Montyon prize!" cried Cerizet; "well, that's an idea!
+My good fellow, we ought to have cultivated it before,--I, especially,
+as banker of the poor, and you, their advocate. As for this client of
+yours, it is lucky for her Monsieur Picot's relatives are not members
+of the French academy; it is in the correctional police-court, sixth
+chamber, where they mean to give her the reward of virtue. However, to
+come back to what we were talking about. I tell you that after all your
+tergiversations you had better settle down peaceably; and I advise you,
+as your countess did, to go and see du Portail."
+
+"Who and what is he?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"He is a little old man," replied Cerizet, "as shrewd as a weasel. He
+gives me the idea of having dealings with the devil. Go and see him!
+Sight, as they say, costs nothing."
+
+"Yes," said la Peyrade, "perhaps I will; but, first of all, I want you
+to find out for me about this Comtesse de Godollo."
+
+"What do you care about her? She is nothing but a supernumerary, that
+countess."
+
+"I have my reasons," said la Peyrade; "you can certainly get some
+information about her in three days; I'll come and see you then."
+
+"My good fellow," said Cerizet, "you seem to me to be amusing yourself
+with things that don't pay; you haven't fallen in love with that
+go-between, have you?"
+
+"Plague take him!" thought la Peyrade; "he spies everything; there's no
+hiding anything from him! No," he said, aloud, "I am not in love; on
+the contrary, I am very cautious. I must admit that this marriage with a
+crazy girl doesn't attract me, and before I go a step into it I want to
+know where I put my feet. These crooked proceedings are not reassuring,
+and as so many influences are being brought to bear, I choose to
+control one by another. Therefore don't play sly, but give me all the
+information you get into your pouch about Madame la Comtesse Torna de
+Godollo. I warn you I know enough to test the veracity of your report;
+and if I see you are trying to overreach me I'll break off short with
+your du Portail."
+
+"Trying to overreach you, monseigneur!" replied Cerizet, in the tone and
+manner of Frederic Lemaitre. "Who would dare attempt it?"
+
+As he pronounced those words in a slightly mocking tone, Dutocq
+appeared, accompanied by his little clerk.
+
+"Bless me!" he exclaimed, seeing la Peyrade and Cerizet together;
+"here's the trinity reconstituted! but the object of the alliance,
+the 'casus foederis,' has floated off. What have you done to that good
+Brigitte, la Peyrade? She is after your blood."
+
+"What about Thuillier?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+Moliere was reversed; here was Tartuffe inquiring for Orgon.
+
+"Thuillier began by not being very hostile to you; but it now seems that
+the seizure business has taken a good turn, and having less need of
+you he is getting drawn into his sister's waters; and if the tendency
+continues, I haven't a doubt that he'll soon come to think you deserving
+of hanging."
+
+"Well, I'm out of it all," said la Peyrade, "and if anybody ever catches
+me in such a mess again!--Well, adieu, my friends," he added. "And
+you, Cerizet, as to what we were speaking about, activity, safety, and
+discretion!"
+
+When la Peyrade reached the courtyard of the municipal building, he was
+accosted by Madame Lambert, who was lying in wait for him.
+
+"Monsieur wouldn't believe, I am sure," she said, in a deprecating tone,
+"the villainous things that Monsieur Cerizet said about me; monsieur
+knows it was the little property I received from my uncle in England
+that I placed in his hands."
+
+"Yes, yes," said la Peyrade, "but you must understand that with all
+these rumors set about by your master's relatives the prize of virtue is
+desperately endangered."
+
+"If it is God's will that I am not to have it--"
+
+"You ought also to understand how important it is for your interests
+to keep secret the other service which I did for you. At the first
+appearance of any indiscretion on your part that money, as I told you,
+will be peremptorily returned to you."
+
+"Oh! monsieur may be easy about that."
+
+"Very well; then good-bye to you, my dear," said la Peyrade, in a
+friendly tone.
+
+As he turned to leave her, a nasal voice was heard from a window on the
+staircase.
+
+"Madame Lambert!" cried Cerizet, who, suspecting the colloquy, had gone
+to the staircase window to make sure of it. "Madame Lambert! Monsieur
+Dutocq has returned; you may come up and see him, if you like."
+
+Impossible for la Peyrade to prevent the conference, although he knew
+the secret of that twenty-five thousand francs ran the greatest danger.
+
+"Certainly," he said to himself as he walked away, "I'm in a run of
+ill-luck; and I don't know where it will end."
+
+In Brigitte's nature there was such an all-devouring instinct of
+domination, that it was without regret, and, we may even say, with a
+sort of secret joy that she saw the disappearance of Madame de Godollo.
+That woman, she felt, had a crushing superiority over her; and this,
+while it had given a higher order to the Thuillier establishment, made
+her ill at ease. When therefore the separation took place, which was
+done, let us here say, on good terms, and under fair and honorable
+pretexts, Mademoiselle Thuillier breathed more freely. She felt like
+those kings long swayed by imperious and necessary ministers, who
+celebrate within their hearts the day when death delivers them from a
+master whose services and rival influence they impatiently endured.
+
+Thuillier was not far from having the same sentiment about la Peyrade.
+But Madame de Godollo was only the elegance, whereas la Peyrade was the
+utility of the house they had now simultaneously abandoned; and after
+the lapse of a few days, a terrible need of Theodose made itself felt
+in the literary and political existence of his dear, good friend.
+The municipal councillor found himself suddenly appointed to draft an
+important report. He was unable to decline the task, saddled as he
+was with the reputation, derived from his pamphlet, of being a man of
+letters and an able writer; therefore, in presence of the perilous honor
+conferred upon him by his colleagues of the general Council, he sat down
+terrified by his solitude and his insufficiency.
+
+In vain did he lock himself into his study, gorge himself with black
+coffee, mend innumerable pens, and write a score of times at the head of
+his paper (which he was careful to cut of the exact dimensions as that
+used by la Peyrade) the solemn words: "Report to the Members of the
+Municipal Council of the City of Paris," followed, on a line by itself,
+by a magnificent _Messieurs_--nothing came of it! He was fain to issue
+furious from his study, complaining of the horrible household racket
+which "cut the thread of his ideas"; though really no greater noise
+than the closing of a door or the opening of a closet or the moving of
+a chair had made itself heard. All this, however, did not help the
+advancement of the work, which remained, as before--simply begun.
+
+Most fortunately, it happened that Rabourdin, wanting to make some
+change in his apartment, came, as was proper, to submit his plan to the
+owner of the house. Thuillier granted cordially the request that was
+made to him, and then discoursed to his tenant about the report with
+which he was charged,--being desirous, he said, to obtain his ideas on
+the subject.
+
+Rabourdin, to whom no administrative question was foreign, very readily
+threw upon the subject a number of very clear and lucid ideas. He was
+one of those men to whom the quality of the intellect to which they
+address themselves is more or less indifferent; a fool, or a man of
+talent who will listen to them, serves equally well to think aloud to,
+and they are, as a stimulant, about the same thing. After Rabourdin had
+said his say, he observed that Thuillier had not understood him; but he
+had listened to himself with pleasure, and he was, moreover, grateful
+for the attention, obtuse as it was, of his hearer, and also for the
+kindliness of the landlord in receiving his request.
+
+"I must have among my papers," he said as he went away, "something on
+this subject; I will look it up and send it to you."
+
+Accordingly, that same evening Thuillier received a voluminous
+manuscript; and he spent the entire night in delving into that precious
+repository of ideas, from which he extracted enough to make a really
+remarkable report, clumsily as the pillage was managed. When read before
+the council it obtained a very great success, and Thuillier returned
+home radiant and much elated by the congratulations he had received.
+From that moment--a moment that was marked in his life, for even to
+advanced old age he still talked of the "report he had had the honor
+of making to the Council-general of the Seine"--la Peyrade went down
+considerably in his estimation; he felt then that he could do very well
+without the barrister, and this thought of emancipation was strengthened
+by another happiness which came to him at almost the same time.
+
+A parliamentary crisis was imminent,--a fact that caused the ministry
+to think about depriving its adversaries of a theme of opposition which
+always has great influence on public opinion. It resolved therefore
+to relax its rigor, which of late had been much increased against the
+press. Being included in this species of hypocritical amnesty, Thuillier
+received one morning a letter from the barrister whom he had chosen in
+place of la Peyrade. This letter announced that the Council of State had
+dismissed the complaint, and ordered the release of the pamphlet.
+
+Then Dutocq's prediction was realized. That weight the less within his
+bosom, Thuillier took a swing toward insolence; he chorused Brigitte,
+and came at last to speak of la Peyrade as a sort of adventurer whom he
+had fed and clothed, a tricky fellow who had _extracted_ much money from
+him, and had finally behaved with such ingratitude that he was thankful
+not to count him any longer among his friends. Orgon, in short, was in
+full revolt, and like Dorine, he was ready to cry out: "A beggar! who,
+when he came, had neither shoes nor coat worth a brass farthing."
+
+Cerizet, to whom these indignities were reported by Dutocq, would gladly
+have served them up hot to la Peyrade; but the interview in which the
+copying clerk was to furnish information about Madame de Godollo did
+not take place at the time fixed. La Peyrade made his own discoveries in
+this wise:
+
+Pursued by the thought of the beautiful Hungarian, and awaiting, or
+rather not awaiting the result of Cerizet's inquiry, he scoured Paris in
+every direction, and might have been seen, like the idlest of loungers,
+in the most frequented places, his heart telling him that sooner or
+later he must meet the object of his ardent search.
+
+One evening--it was towards the middle of October--the autumn, as
+frequently happens in Paris, was magnificent, and along the boulevards,
+where the Provencal was airing his love and his melancholy, the out-door
+life and gaiety were as animated as in summer. On the boulevard des
+Italiens, formerly known as the boulevard de Gand, as he lounged past
+the long line of chairs before the Cafe de Paris, where, mingled with
+a few women of the Chaussee d'Antin accompanied by their husbands and
+children, may be seen toward evening a cordon of nocturnal beauties
+waiting only a gloved hand to gather them, la Peyrade's heart received a
+cruel shock. From afar, he thought he saw his adored countess.
+
+She was alone, in a dazzling toilet scarcely authorized by the place and
+her isolation; before her, mounted on a chair, trembled a tiny lap-dog,
+which she stroked from time to time with her beautiful hands. After
+convincing himself that he was not mistaken, la Peyrade was about to
+dart upon that celestial vision, when he was forestalled by a dandy of
+the most triumphant type. Without throwing aside his cigar, without even
+touching his hat, this handsome young man began to converse with the
+barrister's ideal; but when she saw la Peyrade making towards her the
+siren must have felt afraid, for she rose quickly, and taking the arm of
+the man who was talking to her, she said aloud:--
+
+"Is your carriage here, Emile? Mabille closes to-night, and I should
+like to go there."
+
+The name of that disreputable place thus thrown in the face of the
+unhappy barrister, was a charity, for it saved him from a foolish
+action, that of addressing, on the arm of the man who had suddenly made
+himself her cavalier, the unworthy creature of whom he was thinking a
+few seconds earlier with so much tenderness.
+
+"She is not worth insulting," he said to himself.
+
+But, as lovers are beings who will not allow their foothold to be taken
+from them easily, the Provencal was neither convinced nor resigned as
+yet. Not far from the place which his countess had left, sat another
+woman, also alone; but this one was ripe with years, with feathers on
+her head, and beneath the folds of a cashmere shawl she concealed the
+plaintive remains of tarnished elegance and long past luxury. There was
+nothing imposing about this sight, nor did it command respect, but the
+contrary. La Peyrade went up to the woman without ceremony and addressed
+her.
+
+"Madame," he said, "do you know that woman who has just gone away on the
+arm of a gentleman?"
+
+"Certainly, monsieur; I know nearly all the women who come here."
+
+"And her name is?--"
+
+"Madame Komorn."
+
+"Is she as impregnable as the fortress of that name?"
+
+Our readers will doubtless remember that at the time of the insurrection
+in Hungary our ears were battered by the press and by novelists about
+the famous citadel of Komorn; and la Peyrade knew that by assuming a
+tone of indifference or flippancy he was more likely to succeed with his
+inquiries.
+
+"Has monsieur any idea of making her acquaintance?"
+
+"I don't know," replied la Peyrade, "but she is a woman who makes people
+think of her."
+
+"And a very dangerous woman, monsieur," added his companion; "a fearful
+spendthrift, but with no inclination to return generously what is done
+for her. I can speak knowingly of that; when she first arrived here from
+Berlin, six months ago, she was very warmly recommended to me."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed la Peyrade.
+
+"Yes, at that time I had in the environs of Ville d'Avray a very
+beautiful place, with park and coverts and a stream for fishing; but as
+I was alone I found it dull, and several of these ladies and gentlemen
+said to me, 'Madame Louchard, why don't you organize parties in the
+style of picnics?'"
+
+"Madame Louchard!" repeated la Peyrade, "are you any relation to
+Monsieur Louchard of the commercial police?"
+
+"His wife, monsieur, but legally separated from him. A horrid man who
+wants me to go back to him; but I, though I'm ready to forgive most
+things, I can't forgive a want of respect; just imagine that he dared to
+raise his hand against me!"
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, trying to bring her back to the matter in
+hand; "you organized those picnics, and Madame de Godo--I mean Madame
+Komorn--"
+
+"Was one of my first lodgers. It was there she made acquaintance with an
+Italian, a handsome man, and rich, a political refugee, but one of the
+lofty kind. You understand it didn't suit my purposes to have intrigues
+going on in my house; still the man was so lovable, and so unhappy
+because he couldn't make Madame Komorn like him, that at last I took an
+interest in this particular love affair; which produced a pot of money
+for madame, for she managed to get immense sums out of that Italian.
+Well, would you believe that when--being just then in great need--I
+asked her to assist me with a trifling little sum, she refused me
+point-blank, and left my house, taking her lover with her, who, poor
+man, can't be thankful for the acquaintance now."
+
+"Why not? What happened to him?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"It happened to him that this serpent knows every language in Europe;
+she is witty and clever to the tips of her fingers, but more manoeuvring
+than either; so, being, as it appears, in close relations to the
+police, she gave the government a lot of papers the Italian left about
+carelessly, on which they expelled him from France."
+
+"Well, after his departure, Madame Komorn--"
+
+"Since then, she has had a good many adventures and upset several
+fortunes, and I thought she had left Paris. For the last two months
+she was nowhere to be seen, but three days ago she reappeared, more
+brilliant than ever. My advice to monsieur is not to trust himself
+in that direction; and yet, monsieur looks to me a Southerner, and
+Southerners have passions; perhaps what I have told him will only serve
+to spur them up. However, being warned, there's not so much danger, and
+she is a most fascinating creature--oh! very fascinating. She used to
+love me very much, though we parted such ill-friends; and just now,
+seeing me here, she came over and asked my address, and said she should
+come and see me."
+
+"Well, madame, I'll think about it," said la Peyrade, rising and bowing
+to her.
+
+The bow was returned with extreme coldness; his abrupt departure did not
+show him to be a man of _serious_ intentions.
+
+It might be supposed from the lively manner in which la Peyrade made
+these inquiries that his cure though sudden was complete; but this
+surface of indifference and cool self-possession was only the stillness
+of the atmosphere that precedes a storm. On leaving Madame Louchard, la
+Peyrade flung himself into a street-cab and there gave way to a passion
+of tears like that Madame Colleville had witnessed on the day he
+believed that Cerizet had got the better of him in the sale of the
+house.
+
+What was his position now? The investment of the Thuilliers, prepared
+with so much care, all useless; Flavie well avenged for the odious
+comedy he had played with her; his affairs in a worse state than they
+were when Cerizet and Dutocq had sent him, like a devouring wolf, into
+the sheepfold from which he had allowed the stupid sheep to drive him;
+his heart full of revengeful projects against the woman who had so
+easily got the better of what he thought his cleverness; and the memory,
+still vivid, of the seductions to which he had succumbed,--such were
+the thoughts and emotions of his sleepless night, sleepless except for
+moments shaken by agitated dreams.
+
+The next day la Peyrade could think no more; he was a prey to fever,
+the violence of which became sufficiently alarming for the physician who
+attended him to take all precautions against the symptoms now appearing
+of brain fever: bleeding, cupping, leeches, and ice to his head; these
+were the agreeable finale to his dream of love. We must hasten to add,
+however, that this violent crisis in the physical led to a perfect cure
+of the mental being. The barrister came out of his illness with no other
+sentiment than cold contempt for the treacherous Hungarian, a sentiment
+which did not even rise to a desire for vengeance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. GIVE AND TAKE
+
+Once more afoot, and reckoning with his future, on which he had lost so
+much ground, la Peyrade asked himself if he had not better try to renew
+his relations with the Thuilliers, or whether he should be compelled
+to fall back on the rich crazy woman who had bullion where others have
+brains. But everything that reminded him of his disastrous campaign was
+repulsive to him; besides, what safety was there in dealing with this du
+Portail, a man who could use such instruments for his means of action?
+
+Great commotions of the soul are like those storms which purify the
+atmosphere; they induce reflection, they counsel good and strong
+resolutions. La Peyrade, as the result of the cruel disappointment he
+had just endured, examined his own soul. He asked himself what sort of
+existence was this, of base and ignoble intrigue, which he had led for
+the past year? Was there for him no better, no nobler use to make of the
+faculties he felt within him? The bar was open to him as to others; that
+was a broad, straight path which could lead him to all the satisfaction
+of legitimate ambition. Like Figaro, who displayed more science and
+calculation in merely getting a living than statesmen had shown in
+governing Spain for a hundred years, he, la Peyrade, in order to install
+and maintain himself in the Thuillier household and marry the daughter
+of a clarionet and a smirched coquette, had spent more mind, more art,
+and--it should also be said, because in a corrupt society it is an
+element that must be reckoned--more dishonesty than was needed to
+advance him in some fine career.
+
+"Enough of such connections as Dutocq and Cerizet," he said to himself;
+"enough of the nauseating atmosphere of the Minards and Phellions and
+Collevilles and Barniols and all the rest of them. I'll shake off this
+province 'intra muros,' a thousand times more absurd and petty than the
+true provinces; they at least, side by side with their pettiness, have
+habits and customs that are characteristic, a 'sui generis' dignity;
+they are frankly what they are, the antipodes of Parisian life; this
+other is but a parody of it. I will fling myself upon Paris."
+
+In consequence of these reflections, la Peyrade went to see two or three
+barristers who had offered to introduce him at the Palais in secondary
+cases. He accepted those that presented themselves at once, and three
+weeks after his rupture with the Thuilliers he was no longer the
+"advocate of the poor," but a barrister pleading before the Royal court.
+
+He had already pleaded several cases successfully when he received,
+one morning, a letter which greatly disturbed him. The president of the
+order of barristers requested him to come to his office at the Palais in
+the course of the day, as he had something of importance to say to him.
+La Peyrade instantly thought of the transaction relating to the purchase
+of the house on the boulevard de la Madeleine; it must have come,
+he thought, to the ears of the Council of Discipline; if so he was
+accountable to that tribunal and he knew its severity.
+
+Now this du Portail, whom he had never yet been to see, in spite of his
+conditional promise to Cerizet, was likely to have heard the whole
+story of that transaction from Cerizet himself. Evidently all means
+were thought good by that man, judging by the use he had made of the
+Hungarian woman. In his savage determination to bring about the marriage
+with the crazy girl, had this virulent old man denounced him? On seeing
+him courageously and with some appearance of success entering a career
+in which he might find fame and independence, had his persecutor taken
+a step to make that career impossible? Certainly there was enough
+likelihood in this suggestion to make the barrister wait in cruel
+anxiety for the hour when he might learn the true nature of the alarming
+summons.
+
+While breakfasting rather meagrely, his mind full of these painful
+conjectures, Madame Coffinet, who had the honor to take charge of his
+housekeeping, came up to ask if he would see Monsieur Etienne Lousteau.
+[See "The Great Man of the Provinces in Paris."]
+
+Etienne Lousteau! la Peyrade had an idea that he had heard the name
+before.
+
+"Show him into my office," he said to the portress.
+
+A moment later he met his visitor, whose face did not seem utterly
+unknown to him.
+
+"Monsieur," said this new-comer, "I had the honor of breakfasting with
+you not long ago at Vefour's; I was invited to that meeting, afterwards
+rather disturbed, by Monsieur Thuillier."
+
+"Ah, very good!" said the barrister, offering a chair; "you are attached
+to the staff of a newspaper?"
+
+"Editor-in-chief of the 'Echo de la Bievre,' and it is on the subject
+of that paper that I have now called to see you. You know what has
+happened?"
+
+"No," said la Peyrade.
+
+"Is it possible you are not aware that the ministry met with terrible
+defeat last night? But instead of resigning, as every one expected, they
+have dissolved the Chamber and appeal to the people."
+
+"I knew nothing of all that," said la Peyrade. "I have not read the
+morning papers."
+
+"So," continued Lousteau, "all parliamentary ambitions will take the
+field, and, if I am well informed, Monsieur Thuillier, already member
+of the Council-general, intends to present himself as candidate for
+election in the 12th arrondissement."
+
+"Yes," said la Peyrade, "that is likely to be his intention."
+
+"Well, monsieur, I desire to place at his disposition an instrument the
+value of which I am confident you will not underestimate. The 'Echo de
+la Bievre,' a specialist paper, can have a decisive influence on the
+election in that quarter."
+
+"And you would be disposed," asked la Peyrade, "to make that paper
+support Monsieur Thuillier's candidacy?"
+
+"Better than that," replied Lousteau. "I have come to propose to
+Monsieur Thuillier that he purchase the paper itself. Once the
+proprietor of it he can use it as he pleases."
+
+"But in the first place," said la Peyrade, "what is the present
+condition of the enterprise? In its character as a specialist
+journal--as you called it just now--it is a sheet I have seldom met
+with; in fact, it would be entirely unknown to me were it not for the
+remarkable article you were so good as to devote to Thuillier's defence
+at the time his pamphlet was seized."
+
+Etienne Lousteau bowed his thanks, and then said:
+
+"The position of the paper is excellent; we can give it to you on easy
+terms, for we were intending shortly to stop the publication."
+
+"That is strange for a prosperous journal."
+
+"On the contrary, it happens to be quite natural. The founders, who were
+all representatives of the great leather interest, started this paper
+for a special object. That object has been attained. The 'Echo de la
+Bievre' has therefore become an effect without a cause. In such a case,
+stockholders who don't like the tail end of matters, and are not eager
+after small profits, very naturally prefer to sell out."
+
+"But," asked la Peyrade, "does the paper pay its costs?"
+
+"That," replied Lousteau, "is a point we did not consider; we were not
+very anxious to have subscribers; the mainspring of the whole affair
+was direct and immediate action on the ministry of commerce to obtain a
+higher duty on the introduction of foreign leathers. You understand that
+outside of the tannery circle, this interest was not very exciting to
+the general reader."
+
+"I should have thought, however," persisted la Peyrade, "that a
+newspaper, however circumscribed its action, would be a lever which
+depended for its force on the number of its subscribers."
+
+"Not for journals which aim for a single definite thing," replied
+Lousteau, dogmatically. "In that case, subscribers are, on the contrary,
+an embarrassment, for you have to please and amuse them, and in so
+doing, the real object has to be neglected. A newspaper which has a
+definite and circumscribed object ought to be like the stroke of that
+pendulum which, striking steadily on one spot, fires at a given hour the
+cannon of the Palais-Royal."
+
+"At any rate," said la Peyrade, "what price do you put upon a
+publication which has no subscribers, does not pay its expenses, and
+has until now been devoted to a purpose totally different from that you
+propose for it?"
+
+"Before answering," returned Lousteau, "I shall ask you another
+question. Have you any intention of buying it?"
+
+"That's according to circumstances," replied la Peyrade. "Of course
+I must see Thuillier; but I may here remark to you that he knows
+absolutely nothing about newspaper business. With his rather bourgeois
+ideas, the ownership of a newspaper will seem to him a ruinous
+speculation. Therefore, if, in addition to an idea that will scare him,
+you suggest an alarming price, it is useless for me to speak to him. I
+am certain he would never go into the affair."
+
+"No," replied Lousteau. "I have told you we should be reasonable; these
+gentlemen have left the whole matter in my hands. Only, I beg to remark
+that we have had propositions from other parties, and in giving Monsieur
+Thuillier this option, we intended to pay him a particular courtesy.
+When can I have your answer?"
+
+"To-morrow, I think; shall I have the honor of seeing you at your own
+house, or at the office of the journal?"
+
+"No," said Lousteau, "to-morrow I will come here, at the same hour, if
+that is convenient to you."
+
+"Perfectly," replied la Peyrade, bowing out his visitor, whom he was
+inclined to think more consequential than able.
+
+By the manner in which the barrister had received the proposition to
+become an intermediary to Thuillier, the reader must have seen that
+a rapid revolution had taken place in his ideas. Even if he had not
+received that extremely disquieting letter from the president of the
+order of barristers, the new situation in which Thuillier would be
+placed if elected to the Chamber gave him enough to think about.
+Evidently his dear good friend would have to come back to him, and
+Thuillier's eagerness for election would deliver him over, bound hand
+and foot. Was it not the right moment to attempt to renew his marriage
+with Celeste? Far from being an obstacle to the good resolutions
+inspired by his amorous disappointment and his incipient brain fever,
+such a finale would ensure their continuance and success. Moreover, if
+he received, as he feared, one of those censures which would ruin
+his dawning prospects at the bar, it was with the Thuilliers, the
+accomplices and beneficiaries of the cause of his fall, that his
+instinct led him to claim an asylum.
+
+With these thoughts stirring in his mind la Peyrade obeyed the summons
+and went to see the president of the order of barristers.
+
+He was not mistaken; a very circumstantial statement of his whole
+proceeding in the matter of the house had been laid before his brethren
+of the bar; and the highest dignitary of the order, after stating
+that an anonymous denunciation ought always to be received with
+great distrust, told him that he was ready to receive and welcome an
+explanation. La Peyrade dared not entrench himself in absolute denial;
+the hand from which he believed the blow had come seemed to him too
+resolute and too able not to hold the proofs as well. But, while
+admitting the facts in general, he endeavored to give them an acceptable
+coloring. In this, he saw that he had failed, when the president said to
+him:--
+
+"After the vacation which is now beginning I shall report to the Council
+of the order the charges made against you, and the statements by which
+you have defended yourself. The Council alone has the right to decide on
+a matter of such importance."
+
+Thus dismissed, la Peyrade felt that his whole future at the bar was
+imperilled; but at least he had a respite, and in case of condemnation a
+new project on which to rest his head. Accordingly, he put on his gown,
+which he had never worn till now, and went to the fifth court-room,
+where he was employed upon a case.
+
+As he left the court-room, carrying one of those bundles of legal papers
+held together by a strip of cotton which, being too voluminous to hold
+under the arm, are carried by the hand and the forearm pressed against
+the chest, la Peyrade began to pace about the Salle des Pas perdus with
+that harassed look of business which denotes a lawyer overwhelmed with
+work. Whether he had really excited himself in pleading, or whether he
+was pretending to be exhausted to prove that his gown was not a dignity
+for show, as it was with many of his legal brethren, but an armor
+buckled on for the fight, it is certain that, handkerchief in hand, he
+was mopping his forehead as he walked, when, in the distance, he spied
+Thuillier, who had evidently just caught sight of him, and was beginning
+on his side to manoeuvre.
+
+La Peyrade was not surprised by the encounter. On leaving home he had
+told Madame Coffinet he was going to the Palais, and should be there
+till three o'clock, and she might send to him any persons who called on
+business. Not wishing to let Thuillier accost him too easily, he turned
+abruptly, as if some thought had changed his purpose, and went and
+seated himself on one of the benches which surround the walls of that
+great antechamber of Justice. There he undid his bundle, took out a
+paper, and buried himself in it with the air of a man who had not had
+time to examine in his study a case he was about to plead. It is not
+necessary to say that while doing this the Provencal was watching
+the manoeuvres of Thuillier out of the corner of his eye. Thuillier,
+believing that la Peyrade was really occupied in some serious business,
+hesitated to approach him.
+
+However, after sundry backings and fillings the municipal councillor
+made up his mind, and sailing straight before the wind he headed for the
+spot he had been reconnoitring for the last ten minutes.
+
+"Bless me, Theodose!" he cried as soon as he had got within hailing
+distance. "Do you come to the Palais now?"
+
+"It seems to me," replied Theodose, "that barristers at the Palais are
+like Turks at Constantinople, where a friend of mine affirmed you could
+see a good many. It is YOU whom it is rather surprising to see here."
+
+"Not at all," said Thuillier, carelessly. "I've come about that cursed
+pamphlet. Is there ever any end to your legal bothers? I was summoned
+here this morning, but I don't regret it, as it gives me the happy
+chance of meeting you."
+
+"I, too," said la Peyrade, tying up his bundle. "I am very glad to see
+you, but I must leave you now; I have an appointment, and I suppose you
+want to do your business at once."
+
+"I have done it," said Thuillier.
+
+"Did you speak to Olivier Vinet, that mortal enemy of yours? he sits in
+that court," asked la Peyrade.
+
+"No," said Thuillier, naming another official.
+
+"Well, that's queer!" said the barrister; "that fellow must have the
+gift of ubiquity; he has been all the morning in the fifth court-room,
+and has just this minute given a judgment on a case I pleaded."
+
+Thuillier colored, and got out of his hobble as best he could. "Oh, hang
+it!" he said; "those men in gowns are all alike, I don't know one from
+another."
+
+La Peyrade shrugged his shoulders and said aloud, but as if to himself:
+"Always the same; crafty, crooked, never straightforward."
+
+"Whom are you talking about?" asked Thuillier, rather nonplussed.
+
+"Why, of you, my dear fellow, who take me for an imbecile, as if I and
+the whole world didn't know that your pamphlet business came to an end
+two weeks ago. Why, then, summon you to court?"
+
+"Well, I was sent for," said Thuillier, with embarrassment; "something
+about registry fees,--it is all Greek to me, I can't comprehend their
+scrawls."
+
+"And they chose," said la Peyrade, "precisely the very day when the
+Moniteur, announcing the dissolution of the Chamber, made you think
+about being a candidate for the 12th arrondissement."
+
+"Why not?" asked Thuillier, "what has my candidacy to do with the fees I
+owe to the court?"
+
+"I'll tell you," said la Peyrade, dryly. "The court is a thing
+essentially amiable and complaisant. 'Tiens!' it said to itself, 'here's
+this good Monsieur Thuillier going to be a candidate for the Chamber;
+how hampered he'll be by his attitude to his ex-friend Monsieur de la
+Peyrade, with whom he wishes now he hadn't quarrelled. I'll summon him
+for fees he doesn't owe; that will bring him to the Palais where la
+Peyrade comes daily; and in that way he can meet him by chance, and so
+avoid taking a step which would hurt his self-love."
+
+"Well, there you are mistaken!" cried Thuillier, breaking the ice. "I
+used so little craft, as you call it, that I've just come from your
+house, there! and your portress told me where to find you."
+
+"Well done!" said la Peyrade, "I like this frankness; I can get on with
+men who play above-board. Well, what do you want of me? Have you come to
+talk about your election? I have already begun to work for it."
+
+"No, really?" said Thuillier, "how?"
+
+"Here," replied la Peyrade, feeling under his gown for his pocket
+and bringing out a paper, "here's what I scribbled just now in the
+court-room while the lawyer on the other side rambled on like an
+expert."
+
+"What is it about?" asked Thuillier.
+
+"Read and you'll see."
+
+The paper read as follows:--
+
+  Estimate for a newspaper, small size, at thirty francs a year.
+
+  Calculating the editions at 5,000 the costs are:--
+
+    Paper, 5 reams at 12 francs  . . . . . . . . . . 1,860 francs.
+    Composition  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,400    "
+    Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   450    "
+    One administrator  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   250    "
+    One clerk  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   100    "
+    One editor (also cashier)  . . . . . . . . . . .   200    "
+    One despatcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   100    "
+    Folders  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   120    "
+    One office boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    80    "
+    Office expenses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   150    "
+    Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   100    "
+    License and postage  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,500    "
+    Reporting and stenographic news  . . . . . . . . 1,800    "
+                                                  ---------
+
+                                        Total monthly, 15,110 "
+                                        " yearly,     181,320 "
+
+
+"Do you want to set up a paper?" asked Thuillier, in dread.
+
+"I?" asked la Peyrade, "I want nothing at all; you are the one to be
+asked if you want to be a deputy."
+
+"Undoubtedly I do; because, when you urged me to become a municipal
+councillor, you put the idea into my head. But reflect, my dear
+Theodose, one hundred and eighty one thousand three hundred and twenty
+francs to put out! Have I a fortune large enough to meet such a demand?"
+
+"Yes," said la Peyrade, "you could very well support that expense, for
+considering the end you want to obtain there is nothing exorbitant
+in it. In England they make much greater sacrifices to get a seat in
+Parliament; but in any case, I beg you to observe that the costs are
+very high on that estimate, and some could be cut off altogether. For
+instance, you would not want an administrator. You, yourself, an old
+accountant, and I, an old journalist, can very well manage the affair
+between us. Also rent, we needn't count that; you have your old
+apartment in the rue Saint-Dominique which is not yet leased; that will
+make a fine newspaper office."
+
+"All that costs off two thousand four hundred francs a year," said
+Thuillier.
+
+"Well, that's something; but your error consists in calculating on the
+yearly cost. When do the elections take place?"
+
+"In two months," said Thuillier.
+
+"Very good; two months will cost you thirty thousand francs, even
+supposing the paper had no subscribers."
+
+"True," said Thuillier, "the expense is certainly less than I thought at
+first. But does a newspaper really seem to you essential?"
+
+"So essential that without that power in our hands, I won't have
+anything to do with the election. You don't seem to see, my poor fellow,
+that in going to live in the other quarter you have lost, electorally
+speaking, an immense amount of ground. You are no longer the man of the
+place, and your election could be balked by the cry of what the English
+call 'absenteeism.' This makes your game very hard to play."
+
+"I admit that," said Thuillier; "but there are so many things wanted
+besides money,--a name for one thing, a manager, editorial staff, and so
+forth."
+
+"A name, we have one made to hand; editors, they are you and I and a
+few young fellows who grow on every bush in Paris. As for the manager, I
+have a man in view."
+
+"What name is it?" asked Thuillier.
+
+"L'Echo de la Bievre."
+
+"But there is already a paper of that name."
+
+"Precisely, and that's why I give my approval to the affair. Do you
+think I should be fool enough to advise you to start an entirely new
+paper? 'Echo de la Bievre!' that title is a treasure to a man who wants
+support for his candidacy in the 12th arrondissement. Say the word only,
+and I put that treasure into your hands."
+
+"How?" asked Thuillier, with curiosity.
+
+"Parbleu! by buying it; it can be had for a song."
+
+"There now, you see," said Thuillier in a discouraged tone; "you never
+counted in the cost of purchase."
+
+"How you dwell on nothings!" said la Peyrade, hunching his shoulders;
+"we have other and more important difficulties to solve."
+
+"Other difficulties?" echoed Thuillier.
+
+"Parbleu!" exclaimed la Peyrade; "do you suppose that after all that has
+taken place between us I should boldly harness myself to your election
+without knowing exactly what benefit I am to get for it?"
+
+"But," said Thuillier, rather astonished, "I thought that friendship was
+a good exchange for such services."
+
+"Yes; but when the exchange consists in one side giving all and the
+other side nothing, friendship gets tired of that sort of sharing, and
+asks for something a little better balanced."
+
+"But, my dear Theodose, what have I to offer you that you have not
+already rejected?"
+
+"I rejected it, because it was offered without heartiness, and seasoned
+with Mademoiselle Brigitte's vinegar; every self-respecting man would
+have acted as I did. Give and keep don't pass, as the old legal saying
+is; but that is precisely what you persist in doing."
+
+"I!--I think you took offence very unreasonably; but the engagement
+might be renewed."
+
+"So be it," replied la Peyrade; "but I will not put myself at the
+mercy of either the success of the election or Mademoiselle Celeste's
+caprices. I claim the right to something positive and certain. Give and
+take; short accounts make good friends."
+
+"I perfectly agree with you," said Thuillier, "and I have always treated
+you with too much good faith to fear any of these precautions you now
+want to take. But what guarantees do you want?"
+
+"I want that the husband of Celeste should manage your election, and not
+Theodose de la Peyrade."
+
+"By hurrying things as much as possible, so Brigitte said, it would
+still take fifteen days; and just think, with the elections only eight
+weeks off, to lose two of them doing nothing!"
+
+"Day after to-morrow," replied la Peyrade, "the banns can be published
+for the first time at the mayor's office, in the intervals of
+publication some things could be done, for though the publishing of the
+banns is not a step from which there is no retreat, it is at least a
+public pledge and a long step taken; after that we can get your notary
+to draw the contract at once. Moreover, if you decide on buying this
+newspaper, I shouldn't be afraid that you would go back on me, for you
+don't want a useless horse in your stable, and without me I am certain
+you can't manage him."
+
+"But, my dear fellow," said Thuillier, going back to his objections,
+"suppose that affair proves too onerous?"
+
+"There's no need to say that you are the sole judge of the conditions of
+the purchase. I don't wish any more than you do to buy a pig in a poke.
+If to-morrow you authorize me, I won't say to buy, but to let these
+people know that you may possibly make the purchase, I'll confer with
+one of them on your behalf, and you may be certain that I'll stand up
+for your interests as if they were my own."
+
+"Very good, my dear fellow," said Thuillier, "go ahead!"
+
+"And as soon as the paper is purchased we are to fix the day for signing
+the contract?"
+
+"Yes," replied Thuillier; "but will you bind yourself to use your utmost
+influence on the election?"
+
+"As if it were my own," replied la Peyrade, "which, by the bye, is not
+altogether an hypothesis. I have already received suggestions about my
+own candidacy, and if I were vindictive--"
+
+"Certainly," said Thuillier, with humility, "you would make a better
+deputy than I; but you are not of the required age, I think."
+
+"There's a better reason than that," said la Peyrade; "you are my
+friend; I find you again what you once were, and I shall keep the
+pledges I have given you. As for the election, I prefer that people say
+of me, 'He makes deputies, but will be none himself.' Now I must leave
+you and keep my appointment. To-morrow in my own rooms, come and see me;
+I shall have something to announce."
+
+Whoso has ever been a newspaper man will ever be one; that horoscope
+is as sure and certain as that of drunkards. Whoever has tasted that
+feverishly busy and relatively lazy and independent life; whoever has
+exercised that sovereignty which criticises intellect, art, talent,
+fame, virtue, absurdity, and even truth; whoever has occupied that
+tribune erected by his own hands, fulfilled the functions of that
+magistracy to which he is self-appointed,--in short, whosoever has
+been, for however brief a span, that proxy of public opinion, looks
+upon himself when remanded to private life as an exile, and the moment
+a chance is offered to him puts out an eager hand to snatch back his
+crown.
+
+For this reason when Etienne Lousteau went to la Peyrade, a former
+journalist, with an offer of the weapon entitled the "Echo de la
+Bievre," all the latter's instincts as a newspaper man were aroused, in
+spite of the very inferior quality of the blade. The paper had failed;
+la Peyrade believed he could revive it. The subscribers, on the vendor's
+own showing, were few and far between, but he would exercise upon them a
+"compelle intrare" both powerful and irresistible. In the circumstances
+under which the affair was presented to him it might surely be
+considered provincial. Threatened with the loss of his position at the
+bar, he was thus acquiring, as we said before, a new position and that
+of a "detached fort"; compelled, as he might be, to defend himself, he
+could from that vantage-ground take the offensive and oblige his enemies
+to reckon with him.
+
+On the Thuillier side, the newspaper would undoubtedly make him a
+personage of considerable importance; he would have more power on the
+election; and by involving their capital in an enterprise which,
+without him, they would feel a gulf and a snare, he bound them to him
+by self-interests so firmly that there was nothing to fear from their
+caprice or ingratitude.
+
+This horizon, rapidly taken in during Etienne Lousteau's visit, had
+fairly dazzled the Provencal, and we have seen the peremptory manner
+in which Thuillier was forced into accepting with some enthusiasm the
+discovery of this philosopher's-stone.
+
+The cost of the purchase was ridiculously insignificant. A bank-note for
+five hundred francs, for which Etienne Lousteau never clearly accounted
+to the share-holders, put Thuillier in possession of the name, property,
+furniture, and good-will of the newspaper, which he and la Peyrade at
+once busied themselves in reorganizing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. IN WHICH CERIZET PRACTISES THE HEALING ART AND
+
+THE ART OF POISONING ON THE SAME DAY
+
+While this regeneration was going on, Cerizet went one morning to see du
+Portail, with whom la Peyrade was now more than ever determined to hold
+no communication.
+
+"Well," said the little old man to the poor man's banker, "what effect
+did the news we gave to the president of the bar produce on our man? Did
+the affair get wind at the Palais?"
+
+"Phew!" said Cerizet, whose intercourse, no doubt pretty frequent, with
+du Portail had put him on a footing of some familiarity with the old
+man, "there's no question of that now. The eel has wriggled out of our
+hands; neither softness nor violence has any effect upon that devil of
+a man. He has quarrelled with the bar, and is in better odor than
+ever with Thuillier. 'Necessity,' says Figaro, 'obliterates distance.'
+Thuillier needs him to push his candidacy in the quartier Saint-Jacques,
+so they kissed and made up."
+
+"And no doubt," said du Portail, without much appearance of feeling,
+"the marriage is fixed for an early day?"
+
+"Yes," replied Cerizet, "but there's another piece of work on hand. That
+crazy fellow has persuaded Thuillier to buy a newspaper, and he'll make
+him sink forty thousand francs in it. Thuillier, once involved, will
+want to get his money back, and in my opinion they are bound together
+for the rest of their days."
+
+"What paper is it?"
+
+"Oh, a cabbage-leaf that calls itself the 'Echo de la Bievre'!" replied
+Cerizet with great scorn; "a paper which an old hack of a journalist on
+his last legs managed to set up in the Mouffetard quarter by the help of
+a lot of tanners--that, you know, is the industry of the quarter. From
+a political and literary point of view the affair is nothing at all, but
+Thuillier has been made to think it a masterly stroke."
+
+"Well, for local service to the election the instrument isn't so bad,"
+remarked du Portail. "La Peyrade has talent, activity, and much resource
+of mind; he may make something out of that 'Echo.' Under what political
+banner will Thuillier present himself?"
+
+"Thuillier," replied the beggars' banker, "is an oyster; he hasn't any
+opinions. Until the publication of his pamphlet he was, like all those
+bourgeois, a rabid conservative; but since the seizure he has gone over
+to the Opposition. His first stage will probably be the Left-centre; but
+if the election wind should blow from another quarter, he'll go straight
+before it to the extreme left. Self-interest, for those bourgeois,
+that's the measure of their convictions."
+
+"Dear, dear!" said du Portail, "this new combination of la Peyrade's may
+assume the importance of a political danger from the point of view of
+my opinions, which are extremely conservative and governmental." Then,
+after a moment's reflection, he added, "I think you did newspaper work
+once upon a time; I remember 'the courageous Cerizet.'"
+
+"Yes," replied the usurer, "I even managed one with la Peyrade,--an
+evening paper; and a pretty piece of work we did, for which we were
+finely recompensed."
+
+"Well," said du Portail, "why don't you do it again,--journalism, I
+mean,--with la Peyrade."
+
+Cerizet looked at du Portail in amazement.
+
+"Ah ca!" he cried, "are you the devil, monsieur? Can nothing ever be
+hidden from you?"
+
+"Yes," said du Portail, "I know a good many things. But what has been
+settled between you and la Peyrade?"
+
+"Well, remembering my experience in the business, and not knowing whom
+else to get, he offered to make me manager of the paper."
+
+"I did not know that," said du Portail, "but it was quite probable. Did
+you accept?"
+
+"Conditionally; I asked time for reflection. I wanted to know what you
+thought of the offer."
+
+"Parbleu! I think that out of an evil that can't be remedied we should
+get, as the proverb says, wing or foot. I had rather see you inside than
+outside of that enterprise."
+
+"Very good; but in order to get into it there's a difficulty. La Peyrade
+knows I have debts, and he won't help me with the thirty-three-thousand
+francs' security which must be paid down in my name. I haven't got them,
+and if I had, I wouldn't show them and expose myself to the insults of
+creditors."
+
+"You must have a good deal left of that twenty-five thousand francs la
+Peyrade paid you not more than two months ago," remarked du Portail.
+
+"Only two thousand two hundred francs and fifty centimes," replied
+Cerizet. "I was adding it up last night; the rest has all gone to pay
+off pressing debts."
+
+"But if you have paid your debts you haven't any creditors."
+
+"Yes, those I've paid, but those I haven't paid I still owe."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that your liabilities were more than twenty-five
+thousand francs?" said du Portail, in a tone of incredulity.
+
+"Does a man go into bankruptcy for less?" replied Cerizet, as though he
+were enunciating a maxim.
+
+"Well, I see I am expected to pay that sum myself," said du Portail,
+crossly; "but the question is whether the utility of your presence
+in this enterprise is worth to me the interest on one hundred
+and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three francs,
+thirty-three centimes."
+
+"Hang it!" said Cerizet, "if I were once installed near Thuillier, I
+shouldn't despair of soon putting him and la Peyrade at loggerheads.
+In the management of a newspaper there are lots of inevitable
+disagreements, and by always taking the side of the fool against the
+clever man, I can increase the conceit of one and wound the conceit of
+the other until life together becomes impossible. Besides, you spoke
+just now of political danger; now the manager of a newspaper, as you
+ought to know, when he has the intellect to be something better than a
+man of straw, can quietly give his sheet a push in the direction wanted.
+
+"There's a good deal of truth in that," said du Portail, "but defeat to
+la Peyrade, that's what I am thinking about."
+
+"Well," said Cerizet, "I think I have another nice little insidious
+means of demolishing him with Thuillier."
+
+"Say what it is, then!" exclaimed du Portail, impatiently; "you go
+round and round the pot as if I were a man it would do you some good to
+finesse with."
+
+"You remember," said Cerizet, coming out with it, "that some time ago
+Dutocq and I were much puzzled to know how la Peyrade was, all of a
+sudden, able to make that payment of twenty-five thousand francs?"
+
+"Ha!" said the old man quickly, "have you discovered the origin of that
+very improbable sum in our friend's hands; and is that origin shady?"
+
+"You shall judge," said Cerizet.
+
+And he related in all its details the affair of Madame Lambert,--adding,
+however, that on questioning the woman closely at the office of the
+justice-of-peace, after the meeting with la Peyrade, he had been unable
+to extract from her any confession, although by her whole bearing she
+had amply confirmed the suspicions of Dutocq and himself.
+
+"Madame Lambert, rue du Val-de-Grace, No. 9; at the house of Monsieur
+Picot, professor of mathematics," said du Portail, as he made a note of
+the information. "Very good," he added; "come back and see me to-morrow,
+my dear Monsieur Cerizet."
+
+"But please remark," said the usurer, "that I must give an answer to
+la Peyrade in the course of to-day. He is in a great hurry to start the
+business."
+
+"Very well; you must accept, asking a delay of twenty-four hours to
+obtain your security. If, after making certain inquiries I see it is
+more to my interests not to meddle in the affair, you can get out of it
+by merely breaking your word; you can't be sent to the court of assizes
+for that."
+
+Independently of a sort of inexplicable fascination which du Portail
+exercised over his agent, he never lost an opportunity to remind him of
+the very questionable point of departure of their intercourse.
+
+The next day Cerizet returned.
+
+"You guessed right," said du Portail. "That woman Lambert, being obliged
+to conceal the existence of her booty, and wanting to draw interest
+on her stolen property, must have taken it into her head to consult
+la Peyrade; his devout exterior may have recommended him to her. She
+probably gave him that money without taking a receipt. In what kind of
+money was Dutocq paid?"
+
+"In nineteen thousand-franc notes, and twelve of five-hundred francs."
+
+"That's precisely it," said du Portail. "There can't be the slightest
+doubt left. Now, what use do you expect to make of this information
+bearing upon Thuillier."
+
+"I expect to put it into his head that la Peyrade, to whom he is going
+to give his goddaughter and heiress, is over head and ears in debt;
+that he makes enormous secret loans; and that in order to get out of
+his difficulties he means to gnaw the newspaper to the bone; and I shall
+insinuate that the position of a man so much in debt must be known to
+the public before long, and become a fatal blow to the candidate whose
+right hand he is."
+
+"That's not bad," said du Portail; "but there's another and even more
+conclusive use to be made of the discovery."
+
+"Tell me, master; I'm listening," said Cerizet.
+
+"Thuillier has not yet been able, has he, to explain to himself the
+reason of the seizure of the pamphlet?"
+
+"Yes, he has," replied Cerizet. "La Peyrade was telling me only
+yesterday, by way of explaining Thuillier's idiotic simplicity, that he
+had believed a most ridiculous bit of humbug. The 'honest bourgeois'
+is persuaded that the seizure was instigated by Monsieur Olivier Vinet,
+substitute to the procureur-general. The young man aspired for a moment
+to the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville, and the worthy Thuillier has
+been made to imagine that the seizure of his pamphlet was a revenge for
+the refusal."
+
+"Good!" said du Portail; "to-morrow, as a preparation for the other
+version of which you are to be the organ, Thuillier shall receive from
+Monsieur Vinet a very sharp and decided denial of the abuse of power he
+foolishly gave ear to."
+
+"Will he?" said Cerizet, with curiosity.
+
+"But another explanation must take its place," continued du Portail;
+"you must assure Thuillier that he is the victim of police machinations.
+That is all the police is good for, you know,--machinations."
+
+"I know that very well; I've made that affirmation scores of times when
+I was working for the republican newspapers and--"
+
+"When you were 'the courageous Cerizet,'" interrupted du Portail. "Well,
+the present machination, here it is. The government was much displeased
+at seeing Thuillier elected without its influence to the Council-general
+of the Seine; it was angry with an independent and patriotic citizen
+who showed by his candidacy that he could do without it; and it learned,
+moreover, that this excellent citizen was preparing a pamphlet on
+the subject, always a delicate one, of the finances, as to which this
+dangerous adversary had great experience. So, what did this essentially
+corrupt government do? It suborned a man in whom, as it learned,
+Thuillier placed confidence, and for a sum of twenty-five thousand
+francs (a mere trifle to the police), this treacherous friend agreed
+to insert into the pamphlet three or four phrases which exposed it
+to seizure and caused its author to be summoned before the court
+of assizes. Now the way to make the explanation clinch the doubt in
+Thuillier's mind is to let him know that the next day la Peyrade, who,
+as Thuillier knew, hadn't a sou, paid Dutocq precisely that very sum of
+twenty-five thousand francs."
+
+"The devil!" cried Cerizet, "it isn't a bad trick. Fellows of the
+Thuillier species will believe anything against the police."
+
+"We shall see, then," continued du Portail, "whether Thuillier will want
+to keep such a collaborator beside him, and above all, whether he will
+be so eager to give him his goddaughter."
+
+"You are a strong man, monsieur," said Cerizet, again expressing his
+approbation; "but I must own that I feel some scruples at the part
+assigned me. La Peyrade came and offered me the management of the paper,
+and, you see, I should be working to evict him."
+
+"And that lease he knocked you out of in spite of his promises, have you
+forgotten that?" asked the little old man. "Besides, are we not aiming
+for his happiness, though the obstinate fellow persists in thwarting our
+benevolent intentions?"
+
+"It is true," said Cerizet, "that the result will absolve me. Yes, I'll
+go resolutely along the ingenious path you've traced out for me. But
+there's one thing more: I can't fling my revelation at Thuillier's head
+at the very first; I must have time to prepare the way for it, but that
+security will have to be paid in immediately."
+
+"Listen to me, Monsieur Cerizet," said du Portail, in a tone of
+authority; "if the marriage of la Peyrade to my ward takes place it is
+my intention to reward your services, and the sum of thirty thousand
+francs will be your perquisite. Now, thirty thousand from one side and
+twenty-five thousand from the other makes precisely fifty-five thousand
+francs that the matrimonial vicissitudes of your friend la Peyrade will
+have put into your pocket. But, as country people do at the shows of
+a fair, I shall not pay till I come out. If you take that money out of
+your own hoard I shall feel no anxiety; you will know how to keep it
+from the clutches of your creditors. If, on the contrary, my money is
+at stake, you will have neither the same eagerness nor the same
+intelligence in keeping it out of danger. Therefore arrange your affairs
+so that you can pay down your own thirty-three thousand; in case of
+success, that sum will bring you in pretty nearly a hundred per cent.
+That's my last word, and I shall not listen to any objections."
+
+Cerizet had no time to make any, for at that moment the door of du
+Portail's study opened abruptly, and a fair, slender woman, whose face
+expressed angelic sweetness, entered the room eagerly. On her arm,
+wrapped in handsome long clothes, lay what seemed to be the form of an
+infant.
+
+"There!" she said, "that naughty Katte insisted that the doctor was not
+here. I knew perfectly well that I had seen him enter. Well, doctor,"
+she continued, addressing Cerizet, "I am not satisfied with the
+condition of my little one, not satisfied at all; she is very pallid,
+and has grown so thin. I think she must be teething."
+
+Du Portail made Cerizet a sign to accept the role so abruptly thrust
+upon him.
+
+"Yes, evidently," he said, "it is the teeth; children always turn pale
+at that crisis; but there's nothing in that, my dear lady, that need
+make you anxious."
+
+"Do you really think so, doctor," said the poor crazed girl, whom our
+readers have recognized as du Portail's ward, Lydie de la Peyrade; "but
+see her dear little arms, how thin they are getting."
+
+Then taking out the pins that fastened the swathings, she exhibited to
+Cerizet a bundle of linen which to her poor distracted mind represented
+a baby.
+
+"Why, no, no," said Cerizet, "she is a trifle thin, it is true, but the
+flesh is firm and her color excellent."
+
+"Poor darling!" said Lydie, kissing her dream lovingly. "I do think
+she is better since morning. What had I better give her, doctor? Broth
+disgusts her, and she won't take soup."
+
+"Well," said Cerizet, "try panada. Does she like sweet things?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried the poor girl, her face brightening, "she adores them.
+Would chocolate be good for her?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Cerizet, "but without vanilla; vanilla is very
+heating."
+
+"Then I'll get what they call health-chocolate," said Lydie, with all
+the intonations of a mother, listening to the doctor as to a god who
+reassured her. "Uncle," she added, "please ring for Bruneau, and tell
+him to go to Marquis at once and get some pounds of that chocolate."
+
+"Bruneau has just gone out," said her guardian; "but there's no hurry,
+he shall go in the course of the day."
+
+"There, she is going to sleep," said Cerizet, anxious to put an end
+to the scene, which, in spite of his hardened nature, he felt to be
+painful.
+
+"True," said the girl, replacing the bandages and rising; "I'll put her
+to bed. Adieu, doctor; it is very kind of you to come sometimes without
+being sent for. If you knew how anxious we poor mothers are, and how,
+with a word or two, you can do us such good. Ah, there she is crying!"
+
+"She is so sleepy," said Cerizet; "she'll be much better in her cradle."
+
+"Yes, and I'll play her that sonata of Beethoven that dear papa was so
+fond of; it is wonderful how calming it is. Adieu, doctor," she said
+again, pausing on the threshold of the door. "Adieu, kind doctor!" And
+she sent him a kiss.
+
+Cerizet was quite overcome.
+
+"You see," said du Portail, "that she is an angel,--never the least
+ill-humor, never a sharp word; sad sometimes, but always caused by a
+feeling of motherly solicitude. That is what first gave the doctors the
+idea that if reality could take the place of her constant hallucination
+she might recover her reason. Well, this is the girl that fool of a
+Peyrade refuses, with the accompaniment of a magnificent 'dot.' But
+he must come to it, or I'll forswear my name. Listen," he added as the
+sound of a piano came to them; "hear! what talent! Thousands of sane
+women can't compare with her; they are not as reasonable as she is,
+except on the surface."
+
+When Beethoven's sonata, played from the soul with a perfection of
+shades and tones that filled her hardened hearer with admiration, had
+ceased to sound, Cerizet said:--
+
+"I agree with you, monsieur; la Peyrade refuses an angel, a treasure, a
+pearl, and if I were in his place--But we shall bring him round to your
+purpose. Now I shall serve you not only with zeal, but with enthusiasm,
+I may say fanaticism."
+
+As Cerizet was concluding this oath of fidelity at the door of the
+study, he heard a woman's voice which was not that of Lydie.
+
+"Is he in his study, the dear commander?" said that voice, with a
+slightly foreign accent.
+
+"Yes, madame, but please come into the salon. Monsieur is not alone; I
+will tell him you are here."
+
+This was the voice of Katte, the old Dutch maid.
+
+"Stop, go this way," said du Portail quickly to Cerizet.
+
+And he opened a hidden door which led through a dark corridor directly
+to the staircase, whence Cerizet betook himself to the office of the
+"Echo de la Bievre," where a heated discussion was going on.
+
+The article by which the new editors of every newspaper lay before the
+public their "profession of faith," as the technical saying is, always
+produces a laborious and difficult parturition. In this particular case
+it was necessary, if not openly to declare Thuillier's candidacy, to at
+least make it felt and foreseen. The terms of the manifesto, after la
+Peyrade had made a rough draft of it, were discussed at great length.
+This discussion took place in Cerizet's presence, who, acting on du
+Portail's advice, accepted the management, but postponed the payment
+of the security till the next day, through the latitude allowed in all
+administrations for the accomplishment of that formality.
+
+Cleverly egged on by this master-knave, who, from the start, made
+himself Thuillier's flatterer, the discussion became stormy, and
+presently bitter; but as, by the deed of partnership the deciding word
+was left to la Peyrade in all matters concerning the editorship, he
+finally closed it by sending the manifesto, precisely as he had written
+it, to the printing office.
+
+Thuillier was incensed at what he called an abuse of power, and finding
+himself alone with Cerizet later in the day, he hastened to pour his
+griefs and resentments into the bosom of his faithful manager, thus
+affording the latter a ready-made and natural opportunity to insinuate
+the calumnious revelation agreed upon with du Portail. Leaving the knife
+in the wound, Cerizet went out to make certain arrangements to obtain
+the money necessary for his bond.
+
+Tortured by the terrible revelation, Thuillier could not keep it to
+himself; he felt the need of confiding it, and of talking over the
+course he would be compelled to take by this infernal discovery. Sending
+for a carriage he drove home, and half an hour later he had told the
+whole story to his Egeria.
+
+Brigitte had from the first very vehemently declared against all the
+determinations made by Thuillier during the last few days. For no
+purpose whatever, not even for the sake of her brother's election,
+would she agree to a renewal of the relation to la Peyrade. In the
+first place, she had treated him badly, and that was a strong reason
+for disliking him; then, in case that adventurer, as she now called him,
+married Celeste, the fear of her authority being lessened gave her a
+species of second-sight; she had ended by having an intuitive sense of
+the dark profundities of the man's nature, and now declared that under
+no circumstances and for no possible price would she make one household
+with him.
+
+"Ruin yourself if you choose," she said, "you are the master of that,
+and you can do as you like; a fool and his money are soon parted."
+
+When, therefore, she listened to her brother's confidences it was
+not with reproaches, but, on the contrary, with a crow of triumph,
+celebrating the probable return of her power, that she welcomed them.
+
+"So much the better!" she cried; "it is well to know at last that the
+man is a spy. I always thought so, the canting bigot! Turn him out of
+doors without an explanation. WE don't want him to work that newspaper.
+This Monsieur Cerizet seems, from what you tell me, the right sort of
+man, and we can get another manager. Besides, when Madame de Godollo
+went away she promised to write to me; and she can easily put us in the
+way of finding some one. Poor, dear Celeste! what a fate we were going
+to give her!"
+
+"How you run on!" said Thuillier. "La Peyrade, my dear, is so far only
+accused. He must be heard in his defence. And besides, there's a deed
+that binds us."
+
+"Ah, very good!" said Brigitte; "I see how it will be; you'll let that
+man twist you round his finger again. A deed with a spy! As if there
+could be deeds with such fellows."
+
+"Come, come, be calm, my good Brigitte," returned Thuillier. "We
+mustn't do anything hastily. Certainly, if la Peyrade cannot furnish
+a justification, clear, categorical, and convincing, I shall decide to
+break with him, and I'll prove to you that I am no milksop. But Cerizet
+himself is not certain; these are mere inductions, and I only came
+to consult you as to whether I ought, or ought not, to demand an
+explanation outright."
+
+"Not a doubt about it," replied Brigitte. "You ought to demand an
+explanation and go to the bottom of this thing; if you don't, I cast you
+off as my brother."
+
+"That suffices," said Thuillier, leaving the room with solemnity; "you
+shall see that we will come to an understanding."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. EXPLANATIONS AND WHAT CAME OF THEM
+
+On his return to the office after his conference with Brigitte,
+Thuillier found la Peyrade at his post as editor-in-chief, and in a
+position of much embarrassment, caused by the high hand he had reserved
+for himself as the sole selector of articles and contributors. At this
+moment, Phellion, instigated by his family, and deeply conscious of his
+position on the reading-committee of the Odeon, had come to offer his
+services as dramatic critic.
+
+"My dear monsieur," he said, continuing his remarks to la Peyrade, after
+inquiring of Thuillier about his health, "I was a great student of the
+theatre in my youth; the stage and its scenic effects continue to have
+for me peculiar attractions; and the white hairs which crown my
+brow to-day seem to me no obstacle to my allowing your interesting
+publication to profit by the fruit of my studies and my experience. As
+member of the reading-committee of the Odeon theatre, I am conversant
+with the modern drama, and--if I may be quite sure of your discretion--I
+will even confide to you that among my papers it would not be impossible
+for me to find a certain tragedy entitled 'Sapor,' which in my young
+days won me some fame when read in salons."
+
+"Ah!" said la Peyrade, endeavoring to gild the refusal he should be
+forced to give, "why not try to have it put upon the stage? We might be
+able to help you in that direction."
+
+"Certainly," said Thuillier, "the director of any theatre to whom we
+should recommend--"
+
+"No," replied Phellion. "In the first place, as member of the
+reading-committee of the Odeon, having to sit in judgment upon others,
+it would not become me to descend into the arena myself. I am an old
+athlete, whose business it is to judge of blows he can no longer give.
+In this sense, criticism is altogether within my sphere, and all the
+more because I have certain views on the proper method of composing
+dramatic feuilletons which I think novel. The 'castigat ridendo mores'
+ought to be, according to my humble lights, the great law, I may say the
+only law of the stage. I should therefore show myself pitiless for those
+works, bred of imagination, in which morality has no part, and to which
+mothers of families--"
+
+"Excuse me," said la Peyrade, "for interrupting you; but before allowing
+you to take the trouble to develop your poetical ideas, I ought to tell
+you that we have already made arrangements for our dramatic criticism."
+
+"Ah! that's another thing," said Phellion; "an honest man must keep his
+word."
+
+"Yes," said Thuillier, "we have our dramatic critic, little thinking
+that you would offer us your valuable assistance."
+
+"Well," said Phellion, suddenly becoming crafty,--for there is something
+in the newspaper atmosphere, impossible to say what, which flies to
+the head, the bourgeois head especially,--"since you are good enough to
+consider my pen capable of doing you some service, perhaps a series of
+detached thoughts on different subjects, to which I should venture to
+give the name of 'Diversities,' might be of a nature to interest your
+readers."
+
+"Yes," said la Peyrade, with a maliciousness that was quite lost upon
+Phellion, "thoughts, especially in the style of la Rochefoucauld or la
+Bruyere, might do. What do you think yourself, Thuillier?"
+
+He reserved to himself the right to leave the responsibility of
+refusals, as far as he could, to the proprietor of the paper.
+
+"But I imagine that thoughts, especially if detached, cannot be very
+consecutive," said Thuillier.
+
+"Evidently not," replied Phellion; "detached thoughts imply the idea of
+a very great number of subjects on which the author lets his pen stray
+without the pretension of presenting a whole."
+
+"You will of course sign them?" said la Peyrade.
+
+"Oh, no!" replied Phellion, alarmed. "I could not put myself on
+exhibition in that way."
+
+"Your modesty, which by the bye I understand and approve, settles the
+matter," said la Peyrade. "Thoughts are a subject altogether individual,
+which imperatively require to be personified by a name. You must be
+conscious of this yourself. 'Divers Thoughts by Monsieur Three-Stars'
+says nothing to the public."
+
+Seeing that Phellion was about to make objections, Thuillier, who was in
+a hurry to begin his fight with la Peyrade, cut the matter short rather
+sharply.
+
+"My dear Phellion," he said, "I beg your pardon for not being able to
+enjoy the pleasure of your conversation any longer, but we have to talk,
+la Peyrade and I, over a matter of much importance, and in newspaper
+offices this devilish time runs away so fast. If you are willing, we
+will postpone the question to another day. Madame Phellion is well, I
+trust?"
+
+"Perfectly well," said the great citizen, rising, and not appearing to
+resent his dismissal. "When does your first number appear?" he added;
+"it is eagerly awaited in the arrondissement."
+
+"To-morrow I think our confession of faith will make its appearance,"
+replied Thuillier, accompanying him to the door. "You will receive a
+copy, my dear friend. We shall meet again soon, I hope. Come and see us,
+and bring that manuscript; la Peyrade's point of view may be a little
+arbitrary."
+
+With this balm shed upon his wound, Phellion departed, and Thuillier
+rang the bell for the porter.
+
+"Could you recognize the gentlemen who has just gone out the next time
+you see him?" asked Thuillier.
+
+"Oh, yes, m'sieu, his round ball of a head is too funny to forget;
+besides, it is Monsieur Phellion; haven't I opened the door to him
+hundreds of times?"
+
+"Well, whenever he comes again neither I nor Monsieur de la Peyrade will
+be here. Remember that's a positive rule. Now leave us."
+
+"The devil!" cried la Peyrade, when the two partners were alone, "how
+you manage bores. But take care; among the number there may be electors.
+You did right to tell Phellion you would send him a copy of the paper;
+he has a certain importance in the quarter."
+
+"Well," said Thuillier, "we can't allow our time to be taken up by all
+the dull-heads who come and offer their services. But now you and I have
+to talk, and talk very seriously. Be seated and listen."
+
+"Do you know, my dear fellow," said la Peyrade, laughing, "that
+journalism is making you into something very solemn? 'Be seated,
+Cinna,'--Caesar Augustus couldn't have said it otherwise."
+
+"Cinnas, unfortunately, are more plentiful than people think," replied
+Thuillier.
+
+He was still under the goad of the promise he had made to Brigitte,
+and he meant to fulfil it with cutting sarcasm. The top continued the
+whirling motion imparted to it by the old maid's lash.
+
+La Peyrade took a seat at the round table. As he was puzzled to know
+what was coming, he endeavored to seem unconcerned, and picking up the
+large scissors used for the loans which all papers make from the columns
+of their brethren of the press, he began to snip up a sheet of paper, on
+which, in Thuillier's handwriting, was an attempt at a leading article,
+never completed.
+
+Though la Peyrade was seated and expectant, Thuillier did not begin
+immediately; he rose and went toward the door which stood ajar, with
+the intention of closing it. But suddenly it was flung wide open, and
+Coffinet appeared.
+
+"Will monsieur," said Coffinet to la Peyrade, "receive two ladies? They
+are very well-dressed, and the young one ain't to be despised."
+
+"Shall I let them in?" said la Peyrade to Thuillier.
+
+"Yes, since they are here," growled Thuillier; "but get rid of them as
+soon as possible."
+
+Coffinet's judgment on the toilet of the two visitors needs revision.
+A woman is well-dressed, not when she wears rich clothes, but when her
+clothes present a certain harmony of shapes and colors which form an
+appropriate and graceful envelope to her person. Now a bonnet with a
+flaring brim, surmounted by nodding plumes, an immense French cashmere
+shawl, worn with the awkward inexperience of a young bride, a plaid silk
+gown with enormous checks and a triple tier of flounces with far too
+many chains and trinkets (though to be just, the boots and gloves were
+irreproachable), constituted the apparel of the younger of these ladies.
+As for the other, who seemed to be in the tow of her dressy companion,
+she was short, squat, and high-colored, and wore a bonnet, shawl, and
+gown which a practised eye would at once have recognized as second hand.
+Mothers of actresses are always clothed by this very economical process.
+Their garments, condemned to the service of two generations, reverse the
+order of things, and go from descendants to ancestors.
+
+Advancing two chairs, la Peyrade inquired, "To whom have I the honor of
+speaking?"
+
+"Monsieur," said the younger visitor, "I am a dramatic artist, and as I
+am about to make my first appearance in this quarter, I allow myself to
+hope that a journal of this locality will favor me."
+
+"At what theatre?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"The Folies, where I am engaged for the Dejazets."
+
+"The Folies?" echoed la Peyrade, in a tone that demanded an explanation.
+
+"Folies-Dramatiques," interposed the agreeable Madame Cardinal, whom the
+reader has doubtless recognized.
+
+"When do you appear?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"Next week, monsieur,--a fairy piece in which I play five parts."
+
+"You'll encourage her, monsieur, won't you?" said Madame Cardinal, in
+a coaxing voice; "she's so young, and I can certify she works day and
+night."
+
+"Mother!" said Olympe, with authority, "the public will judge me; all I
+want is that monsieur will kindly promise to notice my debut."
+
+"Very good, mademoiselle," said la Peyrade in a tone of dismissal,
+beginning to edge the pair to the door.
+
+Olympe Cardinal went first, leaving her mother to hurry after her as
+best she could.
+
+"At home to no one!" cried Thuillier to the office-boy as he closed the
+door and slipped the bolt. "Now," he said, addressing la Peyrade, "we
+will talk. My dear fellow," he went on, starting with irony, for
+he remembered to have heard that nothing was more confusing to an
+adversary, "I have heard something that will give you pleasure. I know
+now why MY pamphlet was seized."
+
+So saying, he looked fixedly at la Peyrade.
+
+"Parbleu!" said the latter in a natural tone of voice, "it was seized
+because they chose to seize it. They wanted to find, and they found,
+because they always find the things they want, what the king's adherents
+call 'subversive doctrine.'"
+
+"No, you are wrong," said Thuillier; "the seizure was planned,
+concocted, and agreed upon before publication."
+
+"Between whom?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"Between those who wanted to kill the pamphlet, and the wretches who
+were paid to betray it."
+
+"Well, in any case, those who paid," said la Peyrade, "got mighty little
+for their money; for, persecuted though it was, I don't see that your
+pamphlet made much of a stir."
+
+"Those who sold may have done better?" said Thuillier with redoubled
+irony.
+
+"Those who sold," returned la Peyrade, "were the cleverer of the two."
+
+"Ah, I know," said Thuillier, "that you think a great deal of
+cleverness; but allow me to tell you that the police, whose hand I see
+in all this, doesn't usually throw its money away."
+
+And again he looked fixedly at la Peyrade.
+
+"So," said the barrister, without winking, "you have discovered that the
+police had plotted in advance the smothering of your pamphlet?"
+
+"Yes, my dear fellow; and what is more, I know the actual sum paid to
+the person who agreed to carry out this honorable plot."
+
+"The person," said la Peyrade, thinking a moment,--"perhaps I know the
+person; but as for the money, I don't know a word about that."
+
+"Well, I can tell you the amount. It was twenty-five--thousand--francs,"
+said Thuillier, dwelling on each word; "that was the sum paid to Judas."
+
+"Oh! excuse me, my dear fellow, but twenty-five thousand francs is a
+good deal of money. I don't deny that you have become an important man;
+but you are not such a bugbear to the government as to lead it to make
+such sacrifices. Twenty-five thousand francs is as much as would ever be
+given for the suppression of one of those annoying pamphlets about the
+Civil list. But our financial lucubrations didn't annoy in that way; and
+such a sum borrowed from the secret-service money for the mere pleasure
+of plaguing you, seems to me rather fabulous."
+
+"Apparently," said Thuillier, acrimoniously, "this honest go-between
+had some interest in exaggerating my value. One thing is very sure; this
+monsieur had a debt of twenty-five thousand francs which harassed him
+much; and a short time before the seizure this same monsieur, who had no
+means of his own, paid off that debt; and unless you can tell me where
+else he got the money, the inference I think is not difficult to draw."
+
+It was la Peyrade's turn to look fixedly at Thuillier.
+
+"Monsieur Thuillier," he said, raising his voice, "let us get out of
+enigmas and generalities; will you do me the favor to name that person?"
+
+"Well, no," replied Thuillier, striking his hand upon the table, "I
+shall not name him, because of the sentiments of esteem and affection
+which formerly united us; but you have understood me, Monsieur la
+Peyrade."
+
+"I ought to have known," said the Provencal, in a voice changed by
+emotion, "that in bringing a serpent to this place I should soon be
+soiled by his venom. Poor fool! do you not see that you have made
+yourself the echo of Cerizet's calumny?"
+
+"Cerizet has nothing to do with it; on the contrary, he has told me
+the highest good of you. How was it, not having a penny the night
+before,--and I had reason to know it,--that you were able to pay Dutocq
+the round sum of twenty-five thousand francs the next day?"
+
+La Peyrade reflected for a moment.
+
+"No," he said, "it was not Dutocq who told you that. He is not a man to
+wrestle with an enemy of my strength without a strong interest in it. It
+was Cerizet; he's the infamous calumniator, from whose hands I wrenched
+the lease of your house near the Madeleine,--Cerizet, whom in kindness,
+I went to seek on his dunghill that I might give him the chance of
+honorable employment; that is the wretch, to whom a benefit is only an
+encouragement to treachery. Tiens! if I were to tell you what that man
+is I should turn you sick with disgust; in the sphere of infamy he has
+discovered worlds."
+
+This time Thuillier made an able reply.
+
+"I don't know anything about Cerizet except through you," he said;
+"you introduced him to me as a manager, offering every guarantee; but,
+allowing him to be blacker than the devil, and supposing that this
+communication comes from him, I don't see, my friend, that all that
+makes YOU any the whiter."
+
+"No doubt I was to blame," said la Peyrade, "for putting such a man into
+relations with you; but we wanted some one who understood journalism,
+and that value he really had for us. But who can ever sound the depths
+of souls like his? I thought him reformed. A manager, I said to myself,
+is only a machine; he can do no harm. I expected to find him a man of
+straw; well, I was mistaken, he will never be anything but a man of
+mud."
+
+"All that is very fine," said Thuillier, "but those twenty-five thousand
+francs found so conveniently in your possession, where did you get them?
+That is the point you are forgetting to explain."
+
+"But to reason about it," said la Peyrade; "a man of my character in the
+pay of the police and yet so poor that I could not pay the ten thousand
+francs your harpy of a sister demanded with an insolence which you
+yourself witnessed--"
+
+"But," said Thuillier, "if the origin of this money is honest, as I
+sincerely desire it may be, what hinders you from telling me how you got
+it?"
+
+"I cannot," said la Peyrade; "the history of that money is a secret
+entrusted to me professionally."
+
+"Come, come, you told me yourself that the statutes of your order forbid
+all barristers from doing business of any kind."
+
+"Let us suppose," said la Peyrade, "that I have done something not
+absolutely regular; it would be strange indeed after what I risked, as
+you know, for you, if you should have the face to reproach me with it."
+
+"My poor friend, you are trying to shake off the hounds; but you can't
+make me lose the scent. You wish to keep your secret; then keep it. I am
+master of my own confidence and my own esteem; by paying you the forfeit
+stipulated in our deed I take the newspaper into my own hands."
+
+"Do you mean that you dismiss me?" cried la Peyrade. "The money that you
+have put into the affair, all your chances of election, sacrificed to
+the calumnies of such a being as Cerizet!"
+
+"In the first place," said Thuillier, "another editor-in-chief can be
+found; it is a true saying that no man is indispensable. As for election
+to the Chamber I would rather never receive it than owe it to the help
+of one who--"
+
+"Go on," said la Peyrade, seeing that Thuillier hesitated, "or rather,
+no, be silent, for you will presently blush for your suspicions and ask
+my pardon humbly."
+
+By this time la Peyrade saw that without a confession to which he must
+compel himself, the influence and the future he had just recovered would
+be cut from under his feet. Resuming his speech he said, solemnly:--
+
+"You will remember, my friend, that you were pitiless, and, by
+subjecting me to a species of moral torture, you have forced me to
+reveal to you a secret that is not mine."
+
+"Go on," said Thuillier, "I take the whole responsibility upon myself.
+Make me see the truth clearly in this darkness, and if I have done wrong
+I will be the first to say so."
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, "those twenty-five thousand francs are the
+savings of a servant-woman who came to me and asked me to take them and
+to pay her interest."
+
+"A servant with twenty-five thousand francs of savings! Nonsense; she
+must serve in monstrously rich households."
+
+"On the contrary, she is the one servant of an infirm old savant; and
+it was on account of the discrepancy which strikes your mind that she
+wanted to put her money in my hands as a sort of trustee."
+
+"Bless me! my friend," said Thuillier, flippantly, "you said we were in
+want of a romance-feuilletonist; but really, after this, I sha'n't be
+uneasy. Here's imagination for you!"
+
+"What?" said la Peyrade, angrily, "you don't believe me?"
+
+"No, I do not believe you. Twenty-five thousand francs savings in the
+service of an old savant! that is about as believable as the officer of
+La Dame Blanche buying a chateau with his pay."
+
+"But if I prove to you the truth of my words; if I let you put your
+finger upon it?"
+
+"In that case, like Saint Thomas, I shall lower my flag before the
+evidence. Meanwhile you must permit me, my noble friend, to wait until
+you offer me that proof."
+
+Thuillier felt really superb.
+
+"I'd give a hundred francs," he said to himself, "if Brigitte could have
+been here and heard me impeach him."
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, "suppose that without leaving this office, and
+by means of a note which you shall read, I bring into your presence the
+person from whom I received the money; if she confirms what I say will
+you believe me?"
+
+This proposal and the assurance with which it was made rather staggered
+Thuillier.
+
+"I shall know what to do when the time comes," he replied, changing his
+tone. "But this must be done at once, now, here."
+
+"I said, without leaving this office. I should think that was clear
+enough."
+
+"And who will carry the note you write?" asked Thuillier, believing
+that by thus examining every detail he was giving proofs of amazing
+perspicacity.
+
+"Carry the note! why, your own porter of course," replied la Peyrade;
+"you can send him yourself."
+
+"Then write it," said Thuillier, determined to push him to the wall.
+
+La Peyrade took a sheet of paper with the new heading and wrote as
+follows, reading the note aloud:--
+
+  Madame Lambert is requested to call at once, on urgent business,
+  at the office of the "Echo de la Bievre," rue Saint-Dominique
+  d'Enfer. The bearer of this note will conduct her. She is awaited
+  impatiently by her devoted servant,
+
+
+Theodose de la Peyrade.
+
+
+"There, will that suit you?" said the barrister, passing the paper to
+Thuillier.
+
+"Perfectly," replied Thuillier, taking the precaution to fold the letter
+himself and seal it. "Put the address," he added.
+
+Then he rang the bell for the porter.
+
+"You will carry this letter to its address," he said to the man, "and
+bring back with you the person named. But will she be there?" he asked,
+on reflection.
+
+"It is more than probable," replied la Peyrade; "in any case, neither
+you nor I will leave this room until she comes. This matter must be
+cleared up."
+
+"Then go!" said Thuillier to the porter, in a theatrical tone.
+
+When they were alone, la Peyrade took up a newspaper and appeared to be
+absorbed in its perusal.
+
+Thuillier, beginning to get uneasy as to the upshot of the affair,
+regretted that he had not done something the idea of which had come to
+him just too late.
+
+"Yes, I ought," he said to himself, "to have torn up that letter, and
+not driven him to prove his words."
+
+Wishing to do something that might look like retaining la Peyrade in
+the position of which he had threatened to deprive him, he remarked
+presently:--
+
+"By the bye, I have just come from the printing-office; the new type has
+arrived, and I think we might make our first appearance to-morrow."
+
+La Peyrade did not answer; but he got up and took his paper nearer to
+the window.
+
+"He is sulky," thought Thuillier, "and if he is innocent, he may well
+be. But, after all, why did he ever bring a man like that Cerizet here?"
+
+Then to hide his embarrassment and the preoccupation of his mind, he sat
+down before the editor's table, took a sheet of the head-lined paper and
+made himself write a letter.
+
+Presently la Peyrade returned to the table and sitting down, took
+another sheet and with the feverish rapidity of a man stirred by some
+emotion he drove his pen over the paper.
+
+From the corner of his eye, Thuillier tried hard to see what la Peyrade
+was writing, and noticing that his sentences were separated by numbers
+placed between brackets, he said:--
+
+"Tiens! are you drawing up a parliamentary law?"
+
+"Yes," replied la Peyrade, "the law of the vanquished."
+
+Soon after this, the porter opened the door and introduced Madame
+Lambert, whom he had found at home, and who arrived looking rather
+frightened.
+
+"You are Madame Lambert?" asked Thuillier, magisterially.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," said the woman, in an anxious voice.
+
+After requesting her to be seated and noticing that the porter was still
+there as if awaiting further orders he said to the man:--
+
+"That will do; you may go; and don't let any one disturb us."
+
+The gravity and the lordly tone assumed by Thuillier only increased
+Madame Lambert's uneasiness. She came expecting to see only la Peyrade,
+and she found herself received by an unknown man with a haughty manner,
+while the barrister, who had merely bowed to her, said not a word;
+moreover, the scene took place in a newspaper office, and it is a
+well-known fact that to pious persons especially all that relates to the
+press is infernal and diabolical.
+
+"Well," said Thuillier to the barrister, "it seems to me that nothing
+hinders you from explaining to madame why you have sent for her."
+
+In order to leave no loophole for suspicion in Thuillier's mind la
+Peyrade knew that he must put his question bluntly and without the
+slightest preparation; he therefore said to her "ex abrupto":--
+
+"We wish to ask you, madame, if it is not true that about two and a
+half months ago you placed in my hands, subject to interest, the sum, in
+round numbers, of twenty-five thousand francs."
+
+Though she felt the eyes of Thuillier and those of la Peyrade upon
+her, Madame Lambert, under the shock of this question fired at her
+point-blank, could not restrain a start.
+
+"Heavens!" she exclaimed, "twenty-five thousand francs! and where should
+I get such a sum as that?"
+
+La Peyrade gave no sign on his face of the vexation he might be
+supposed to feel. As for Thuillier, who now looked at him with sorrowful
+commiseration, he merely said:--
+
+"You see, my friend!"
+
+"So," resumed la Peyrade, "you are very certain that you did not place
+in my hands the sum of twenty-five thousand francs; you declare this,
+you affirm it?"
+
+"Why, monsieur! did you ever hear of such a sum as that in the pocket
+of a poor woman like me? The little that I had, as everybody knows,
+has gone to eke out the housekeeping of that poor dear gentleman whose
+servant I have been for more than twenty years."
+
+"This," said Thuillier, pompously, "seems to me categorical."
+
+La Peyrade still did not show the slightest sign of annoyance; on the
+contrary, he seemed to be playing into Thuillier's hand.
+
+"You hear, my dear Thuillier," he said, "and if necessary I shall call
+for your testimony, that madame here declares that she did not possess
+twenty-five thousand francs and could not therefore have placed them
+in my hands. Now, as the notary Dupuis, in whose hands I fancied I had
+placed them, left Paris this morning for Brussels carrying with him
+the money of all his clients, I have no account with madame, by her own
+showing, and the absconding of the notary--"
+
+"Has the notary Dupuis absconded?" screamed Madame Lambert, driven by
+this dreadful news entirely out of her usual tones of dulcet sweetness
+and Christian resignation. "Ah, the villain! it was only this morning
+that he was taking the sacrament at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas."
+
+"To pray for a safe journey, probably," said la Peyrade.
+
+"Monsieur talks lightly enough," continued Madame Lambert, "though that
+brigand has carried off my savings. But I gave them to monsieur, and
+monsieur is answerable to me for them; he is the only one I know in this
+transaction."
+
+"Hey?" said la Peyrade to Thuillier, pointing to Madame Lambert, whose
+whole demeanor had something of the mother-wolf suddenly bereft of her
+cubs; "is that nature? tell me! Do you think now that madame and I are
+playing a comedy for your benefit?"
+
+"I am thunderstruck at Cerizet's audacity," said Thuillier. "I am
+overwhelmed with my own stupidity; there is nothing for me to do but to
+submit myself entirely to your discretion."
+
+"Madame," said la Peyrade, gaily, "excuse me for thus frightening you;
+the notary Dupuis is still a very saintly man, and quite incapable of
+doing an injury to his clients. As for monsieur here, it was necessary
+that I should prove to him that you had really placed that money in my
+hands; he is, however, another myself, and your secret, though known to
+him, is as safe as it is with me."
+
+"Oh, very good, monsieur!" said Madame Lambert. "I suppose these
+gentlemen have no further need of me?"
+
+"No, my dear madame, and I beg you to pardon me for the little terror I
+was compelled to occasion you."
+
+Madame Lambert turned to leave the room with all the appearance of
+respectful humility, but when she reached the door, she retraced her
+steps, and coming close to la Peyrade said, in her smoothest tones:--
+
+"When does monsieur expect to be able to refund me that money?"
+
+"But I told you," said la Peyrade, stiffly, "that notaries never return
+on demand the money placed in their hands."
+
+"Does monsieur think that if I went to see Monsieur Dupuis himself and
+asked him--"
+
+"I think," said la Peyrade, interrupting her, "that you would do a most
+ridiculous thing. He received the money from me in my own name, as you
+requested, and he knows only me in the matter."
+
+"Then monsieur will be so kind, will he not, as to get back that
+money for me as soon as possible? I am sure I would not wish to press
+monsieur, but in two or three months from now I may want it; I have
+heard of a little property it would suit me to buy."
+
+"Very good, Madame Lambert," said la Peyrade, with well-concealed
+irritation, "it shall be done as you wish; and in less time, perhaps,
+than you have stated I shall hope to return your money to you."
+
+"That won't inconvenience monsieur, I trust," said the woman; "he told
+me that at the first indiscretion I committed--"
+
+"Yes, yes, that is all understood," said la Peyrade, interrupting her.
+
+"Then I have the honor to be the very humble servant of these
+gentlemen," said Madame Lambert, now departing definitively.
+
+"You see, my friend, the trouble you have got me into," said la Peyrade
+to Thuillier as soon as they were alone, "and to what I am exposed by my
+kindness in satisfying your diseased mind. That debt was dormant; it
+was in a chronic state; and you have waked it up and made it acute. The
+woman brought me the money and insisted on my keeping it, at a good rate
+of interest. I refused at first; then I agreed to place it in Dupuis's
+hands, explaining to her that it couldn't be withdrawn at once; but
+subsequently, when Dutocq pressed me, I decided, after all, to keep it
+myself."
+
+"I am dreadfully sorry, dear friend, for my silly credulity. But don't
+be uneasy about the exactions of that woman; we will manage to arrange
+all that, even if I have to make you an advance upon Celeste's 'dot.'"
+
+"My excellent friend," said la Peyrade, "it is absolutely necessary that
+we should talk over our private arrangements; to tell you the truth, I
+have no fancy for being hauled up every morning and questioned as to
+my conduct. Just now, while waiting for that woman, I drew up a little
+agreement, which you and I will discuss and sign, if you please, before
+the first number of the paper is issued."
+
+"But," said Thuillier, "our deed of partnership seems to me to settle--"
+
+"--that by a paltry forfeit of five thousand francs, as stated in
+Article 14," interrupted Theodose, "you can put me, when you choose,
+out of doors. No, I thank you! After my experience to-day, I want some
+better security than that."
+
+At this moment Cerizet with a lively and all-conquering air, entered the
+room.
+
+"My masters!" he exclaimed, "I've brought the money; and we can now sign
+the bond."
+
+Then, remarking that his news was received with extreme coldness, he
+added:--
+
+"Well? what is it?"
+
+"It is this," replied Thuillier: "I refuse to be associated with
+double-face men and calumniators. We have no need of you or your money;
+and I request you not to honor these precincts any longer with your
+presence."
+
+"Dear! dear! dear!" said Cerizet; "so papa Thuillier has let the wool be
+pulled over his eyes again!"
+
+"Leave the room!" said Thuillier; "you have nothing more to do here."
+
+"Hey, my boy!" said Cerizet, turning to la Peyrade, "so you've twisted
+the old bourgeois round your finger again? Well, well, no matter! I
+think you are making a mistake not to go and see du Portail, and I shall
+tell him--"
+
+"Leave this house!" cried Thuillier, in a threatening tone.
+
+"Please remember, my dear monsieur, that I never asked you to employ me;
+I was well enough off before you sent for me, and I shall be after.
+But I'll give you a piece of advice: don't pay the twenty-five thousand
+francs out of your own pocket, for that's hanging to your nose."
+
+So saying, Cerizet put his thirty-three thousand francs in banknotes
+back into his wallet, took his hat from the table, carefully smoothed
+the nap with his forearm and departed.
+
+Thuillier had been led by Cerizet into what proved to be a most
+disastrous campaign. Now become the humble servant of la Peyrade, he
+was forced to accept his conditions, which were as follows: five hundred
+francs a month for la Peyrade's services in general; his editorship of
+the paper to be paid at the rate of fifty francs a column,--which was
+simply enormous, considering the small size of the sheet; a binding
+pledge to continue the publication of the paper for six months,
+under pain of the forfeiture of fifteen thousand francs; an absolute
+omnipotence in the duties of editor-in-chief,--that is to say, the
+sovereign right of inserting, controlling, and rejecting all articles
+without being called to explain the reasons of his actions,--such were
+the stipulations of a treaty in duplicate made openly, "in good faith,"
+between the contracting parties. _But_, in virtue of another and secret
+agreement, Thuillier gave security for the payment of the twenty-five
+thousand francs for which la Peyrade was accountable to Madame Lambert,
+binding the said Sieur de la Peyrade, in case the payment were required
+before his marriage with Celeste Colleville could take place, to
+acknowledge the receipt of said sum advanced upon the dowry.
+
+Matters being thus arranged and accepted by the candidate, who saw no
+chance of election if he lost la Peyrade, Thuillier was seized with a
+happy thought. He went to the Cirque-Olympique, where he remembered to
+have seen in the ticket-office a former employee in his office at the
+ministry of Finance,--a man named Fleury; to whom he proposed the post
+of manager. Fleury, being an old soldier, a good shot, and a skilful
+fencer, would certainly make himself an object of respect in a newspaper
+office. The working-staff of the paper being thus reconstituted, with
+the exception of a few co-editors or reporters to be added later, but
+whom la Peyrade, thanks to the facility of his pen, was able for the
+present to do without, the first number of the new paper was launched
+upon the world.
+
+Thuillier now recommenced the explorations about Paris which we saw him
+make on the publication of his pamphlet. Entering all reading-rooms and
+cafes, he asked for the "Echo de la Bievre," and when informed,
+alas, very frequently, that the paper was unknown in this or that
+establishment, "It is incredible!" he would exclaim, "that a house which
+respects itself does not take such a widely known paper."
+
+On that, he departed disdainfully, not observing that in many places,
+where this ancient trick of commercial travellers was well understood,
+they were laughing behind his back.
+
+The evening of the day when the inauguration number containing the
+"profession of faith" appeared, Brigitte's salon, although the day was
+not Sunday, was filled with visitors. Reconciled to la Peyrade, whom her
+brother had brought home to dinner, the old maid went so far as to tell
+him that, without flattery, she thought his leading article was a famous
+HIT. For that matter, all the guests as they arrived, reported that the
+public seemed enchanted with the first number of the new journal.
+
+The public! everybody knows what that is. To every man who launches
+a bit of writing into the world, the public consists of five or six
+intimates who cannot, without offending the author, avoid knowing
+something more or less of his lucubrations.
+
+"As for me!" cried Colleville, "I can truthfully declare that it is the
+first political article I ever read that didn't send me to sleep."
+
+"It is certain," said Phellion, "that the leading article seems to me to
+be stamped with vigor joined to an atticism which we may seek in vain in
+the columns of the other public prints."
+
+"Yes," said Dutocq, "the matter is very well presented; and besides,
+there's a turn of phrase, a clever diction, that doesn't belong to
+everybody. However, we must wait and see how it keeps on. I fancy that
+to-morrow the 'Echo de la Bievre' will be strongly attacked by the other
+papers."
+
+"Parbleu!" cried Thuillier, "that's what we are hoping for; and if the
+government would only do us the favor to seize us--"
+
+"No, thank you," said Fleury, whom Thuillier had also brought home to
+dinner, "I don't want to enter upon those functions at first."
+
+"Seized!" said Dutocq, "oh, you won't be seized; but I think the
+ministerial journals will fire a broadside at you."
+
+The next day Thuillier was at the office as early as eight o'clock, in
+order to be the first to receive that formidable salvo. After looking
+through every morning paper he was forced to admit that there was no
+more mention of the "Echo de la Bievre" than if it didn't exist. When la
+Peyrade arrived he found his unhappy friend in a state of consternation.
+
+"Does that surprise you?" said the Provencal, tranquilly. "I let you
+enjoy yesterday your hopes of a hot engagement with the press; but I
+knew myself that in all probability there wouldn't be the slightest
+mention of us in to-day's papers. Against every paper which makes its
+debut with some distinction, there's always a two weeks', sometimes a
+two months' conspiracy of silence."
+
+"Conspiracy of silence!" echoed Thuillier, with admiration.
+
+He did not know what it meant, but the words had a grandeur and a
+_something_ that appealed to his imagination. After la Peyrade had
+explained to him that by "conspiracy of silence" was meant the agreement
+of existing journals to make no mention of new-comers lest such notice
+should serve to advertise them, Thuillier's mind was hardly better
+satisfied than it had been by the pompous flow of the words. The
+bourgeois is born so; words are coins which he takes and passes without
+question. For a word, he will excite himself or calm down, insult
+or applaud. With a word, he can be brought to make a revolution and
+overturn a government of his own choice.
+
+The paper, however, was only a means; the object was Thuillier's
+election. This was insinuated rather than stated in the first numbers.
+But one morning, in the columns of the "Echo," appeared a letter from
+several electors thanking their delegate to the municipal council for
+the firm and frankly liberal attitude in which he had taken on all
+questions of local interests. "This firmness," said the letter, "had
+brought down upon him the persecution of the government, which, towed
+at the heels of foreigners, had sacrificed Poland and sold itself to
+England. The arrondissement needed a man of such tried convictions to
+represent it in the Chamber,--a man holding high and firm the banner of
+dynastic opposition, a man who would be, by the mere signification of
+his name, a stern lesson given to the authorities."
+
+Enforced by an able commentary from la Peyrade, this letter was signed
+by Barbet and Metivier and all Brigitte's tradesmen (whom, in view of
+the election she had continued to employ since her emigration); also
+by the family doctor and apothecary, and by Thuillier's builder, and
+Barniol, Phellion's son-in-law, who professed to hold rather "advanced"
+political opinions. As for Phellion himself, he thought the wording
+of the letter not altogether circumspect, and--always without fear as
+without reproach--however much he might expect that this refusal would
+injure his son in his dearest interests, he bravely refrained from
+signing it.
+
+This trial kite had the happiest effect. The ten or a dozen names thus
+put forward were considered to express the will of the electors and were
+called "the voice of the quarter." Thus Thuillier's candidacy made
+from the start such rapid progress that Minard hesitated to put his own
+claims in opposition.
+
+Delighted now with the course of events, Brigitte was the first to say
+that the time had come to attend to the marriage, and Thuillier was all
+the more ready to agree because, from day to day, he feared he might be
+called upon to pay the twenty-five thousand francs to Madame Lambert
+for which he had pledged himself. A thorough explanation now took place
+between la Peyrade and the old maid. She told him honestly of the
+fear she felt as to the maintenance of her sovereign authority when a
+_son-in-law_ of his mind and character was established in the household.
+
+"If we," she ended by saying, "are to oppose each other for the rest
+of our days, it would be much better, from the beginning, to make two
+households; we shouldn't be the less friends for that."
+
+La Peyrade replied that nothing under the sun would induce him to
+consent to such a plan; on the contrary, he regarded as amongst his
+happiest prospects for the future the security he should feel about the
+wise management of the material affairs of the home in such hands
+as hers. He should have enough to do in the management of outside
+interests, and he could not comprehend, for his part, how she could
+suppose he had ever had the thought of interfering in matters that were
+absolutely out of his province. In short, he reassured her so completely
+that she urged him to take immediate steps for the publication of the
+banns and the signature of the marriage contract,--declaring that she
+reserved to herself all the preparations relating to Celeste, whose
+acceptance of this sudden conclusion she pledged herself to secure.
+
+"My dear child," she said to Celeste the next morning, "I think you have
+given up all idea of being Felix Phellion's wife. In the first place,
+he is more of an atheist than ever, and, besides, you must have noticed
+yourself that his mind is quite shaky. You have seen at Madame Minard's
+that Madame Marmus, who married a savant, officer of the Legion of
+honor, and member of the Institute. There's not a more unhappy woman;
+her husband has taken her to live behind the Luxembourg, in the rue
+Duguay-Trouin, a street that is neither paved nor lighted. When he goes
+out, he doesn't know where he is going; he gets to the Champ de Mars
+when he wants to go to the Faubourg Poissoniere; he isn't even capable
+of giving his address to the driver of a street cab; and he is so
+absent-minded he couldn't tell if it were before dinner or after. You
+can imagine what sort of time a woman must have with a man whose nose is
+always at a telescope snuffing stars."
+
+"But Felix," said Celeste, "is not as absent-minded as that."
+
+"Of course not, because he is younger; but with years his
+absent-mindedness and his atheism will both increase. We have therefore
+decided that he is not the husband you want, and we all, your mother,
+father, Thuillier and myself, have determined that you shall take la
+Peyrade, a man of the world, who will make his way, and one who has
+done us great services in the past, and who will, moreover, make your
+godfather deputy. We are disposed to give you, in consideration of him,
+a much larger 'dot' than we should give to any other husband. So, my
+dear, it is settled; the banns are to be published immediately, and
+this day week we sign the contract. There's to be a great dinner for the
+family and intimates, and after that a reception, at which the contract
+will be signed and your trousseau and corbeille exhibited. As I take all
+that into my own hands I'll answer for it that everything shall be of
+the best kind; especially if you are not babyish, and give in pleasantly
+to our ideas."
+
+"But, aunt Brigitte," began Celeste, timidly.
+
+"There's no 'but,' in the matter," said the old maid, imperiously; "it
+is all arranged, and will be carried out, unless, mademoiselle, you
+pretend to have more wisdom than your elders."
+
+"I will do as you choose, aunt," replied Celeste, feeling as if a
+thunder-cloud had burst upon her head, and knowing but too well that she
+had no power to struggle against the iron will which had just pronounced
+her doom.
+
+She went at once to pour her sorrows into Madame Thuillier's soul; but
+when she heard her godmother advising patience and resignation the poor
+child felt that from that feeble quarter she could get no help for even
+the slightest effort of resistance, and that her sacrifice was virtually
+accomplished.
+
+Precipitating herself with a sort of frenzy into the new element of
+activity thus introduced into her life, Brigitte took the field in the
+making of the trousseau and the purchase of the corbeille. Like many
+misers, who on great occasions come out of their habits and their
+nature, the old maid now thought nothing too good for her purpose; and
+she flung her money about so lavishly that until the day appointed
+for the signing of the contract, the jeweller, dressmaker, milliner,
+lingere, etc. (all chosen from the best establishments in Paris), seemed
+to occupy the house.
+
+"It is like a procession," said Josephine, the cook, admiringly, to
+Francoise, the Minards' maid; "the bell never stops ringing from morning
+till night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. A STAR
+
+The dinner on the great occasion was ordered from Chabot and Potel, and
+not from Chevet, by which act Brigitte intended to prove her initiative
+and her emancipation from the late Madame de Godollo. The invited guests
+were as follows: three Collevilles, including the bride, la Peyrade the
+groom, Dutocq and Fleury, whom he had asked to be his witnesses, the
+extremely limited number of his relatives leaving him no choice, Minard
+and Rabourdin, chosen as witnesses for Celeste, Madame and Mademoiselle
+Minard and Minard junior, two of Thuillier's colleagues in the
+Council-general; the notary Dupuis, charged with the duty of drawing up
+the contract, and lastly, the Abbe Gondrin, director of the consciences
+of Madame Thuillier and Celeste, who was to give the nuptial blessing.
+
+The latter was the former vicar of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, whose
+great refinement of manner and gift of preaching had induced the
+archbishop to remove him from the humble parish where his career
+had begun to the aristocratic church of the Madeleine. Since Madame
+Thuillier and Celeste had again become his parishioners, the young
+abbe visited them occasionally, and Thuillier, who had gone to him to
+explain, after his own fashion, the suitableness of the choice made for
+Celeste in the person of la Peyrade (taking pains as he did so to cast
+reflections on the religious opinions of Felix Phellion), had easily
+led him to contribute by his persuasive words to the resignation of the
+victim.
+
+When the time came to sit down to table three guests were missing,--two
+Minards, father and son, and the notary Dupuis. The latter had written a
+note to Thuillier in the morning, excusing himself from the dinner, but
+saying that at nine o'clock precisely he would bring the contract and
+place himself at the orders of Mademoiselle Thuillier. As for Julien
+Minard, his mother excused him as being confined to his room with a
+sore-throat. The absence of Minard senior remained unexplained, but
+Madame Minard insisted that they should sit down to table without him;
+which was done, Brigitte ordering that the soup be kept hot for him,
+because in the bourgeois code of manners and customs a dinner without
+soup is no dinner at all.
+
+The repast was far from gay, and though the fare was better, the
+vivacity and the warmth of the conversation was far, indeed, from that
+of the famous improvised banquet at the time of the election to the
+Council-general. The gaps occasioned by the absence of three guests may
+have been one reason; then Flavie was glum; she had had an interview
+with la Peyrade in the afternoon which ended in tears; Celeste, even if
+she had been content with the choice imposed on her, would scarcely, as
+a matter of propriety, have seemed joyful; in fact, she made no effort
+to brighten a sad face, and dared not look at her godmother, whose own
+countenance gave the impression, if we may so express it, of the long
+bleating of a sheep. The poor girl seeing this feared to exchange a look
+with her lest she might drive her to tears. Thuillier now felt himself,
+on all sides, of such importance that he was pompous and consequential;
+while Brigitte, uneasy out of her own world, where she could lord it
+over every one without competition, seemed constrained and embarrassed.
+
+Colleville tried by a few jovialities to raise the temperature of the
+assemblage; but the coarse salt of his witticisms had an effect, in the
+atmosphere in which he produced them, of a loud laugh in a sick-chamber;
+and a mute intimation from his wife, Thuillier, and la Peyrade
+to _behave himself_ put a stopper on his liveliness and turbulent
+expansion. It was somewhat remarkable that the gravest member of the
+party, aided by Rabourdin, was the person who finally warmed up the
+atmosphere. The Abbe Gondrin, a man of a most refined and cultivated
+mind, had, like every pure and well-ordered soul, a fund of gentle
+gaiety which he was well able to communicate, and liveliness was
+beginning to dawn upon the party when Minard entered the room.
+
+After making his excuses on the ground of important duties, the mayor of
+the eleventh arrondissement, who was in the habit of taking the lead in
+the conversation wherever he went, said, having swallowed a few hasty
+mouthfuls:--
+
+"Messieurs and mesdames, have you heard the great news?"
+
+"No, what is it?" cried several voices at once.
+
+"The Academy of Sciences received, to-day, at its afternoon session, the
+announcement of a vast discovery: the heavens possess a new star!"
+
+"Tiens!" said Colleville; "that will help to replace the one that
+Beranger thought was lost when he grieved (to that air of 'Octavie')
+over Chateaubriand's departure: 'Chateaubriand, why fly thy land?'"
+
+This quotation, which he sang, exasperated Flavie, and if the custom had
+been for wives to sit next to their husbands, the former clarionet
+of the Opera-Comique would not have escaped with a mere "Colleville!"
+imperiously calling him to order.
+
+"The point which gives this great astronomical event a special interest
+on this occasion," continued Minard, "is that the author of the
+discovery is a denizen of the twelfth arrondissement, which many of you
+still inhabit, or have inhabited. But other points are striking in this
+great scientific fact. The Academy, on the reading of the communication
+which announced it, was so convinced of the existence of this star that
+a deputation was appointed to visit the domicile of the modern Galileo
+and compliment him in the name of the whole body. And yet this star is
+not visible to either the eye or the telescope! It is only by the
+power of calculation and induction that its existence and the place it
+occupies in the heavens have been proved in the most irrefutable manner:
+'There _must_ be _there_ a hitherto unknown star; I cannot see it, but
+I am sure of it,'--that is what this man of science said to the
+Academy, whom he instantly convinced by his deductions. And do you know,
+messieurs, who is this Christopher Columbus of a new celestial world? An
+old man, two-thirds blind, who has scarcely eyes enough to walk in the
+street."
+
+"Wonderful! Marvellous! Admirable!" came from all sides.
+
+"What is the name of this learned man?" asked several voices.
+
+"Monsieur Picot, or, if you prefer it, pere Picot, for that is how they
+call him in the rue du Val-de-Grace, where he lives. He is simply an
+old professor of mathematics, who has turned out several very fine
+pupils,--by the bye, Felix Phellion, whom we all know, studied under
+him, and it was he who read, on behalf of his blind old master, the
+communication to the Academy this afternoon."
+
+Hearing that name, and remembering the promise Felix had made her to
+lift her to the skies, which, as he said it, she had fancied a sign
+of madness, Celeste looked at Madame Thuillier, whose face had taken a
+sudden glow of animation, and seemed to say to her, "Courage, my child!
+all is not lost."
+
+"My dear Theodose," said Thuillier, "Felix is coming here to-night;
+you must take him aside and get him to give you a copy of that
+communication; it would be a fine stroke of fortune for the 'Echo' to be
+the first to publish it."
+
+"Yes," said Minard, assuming the answer, "that would do good service
+to the public, for the affair is going to make a great noise. The
+committee, not finding Monsieur Picot at home, went straight to the
+Minister of Public Instruction; and the minister flew to the Tuileries
+and saw the King; and the 'Messager' came out this evening--strange to
+say, so early that I could read it in my carriage as I drove along--with
+an announcement that Monsieur Picot is named Chevalier of the Legion of
+honor, with a pension of eighteen hundred francs from the fund devoted
+to the encouragement of science and letters."
+
+"Well," said Thuillier, "there's one cross at least well bestowed."
+
+"But eighteen hundred francs for the pension seems to me rather paltry,"
+said Dutocq.
+
+"So it does," said Thuillier, "and all the more because that money comes
+from the tax-payers; and, when one sees the taxes, as we do, frittered
+away on court favorites--"
+
+"Eighteen hundred francs a year," interrupted Minard, "is certainly
+something, especially for savants, a class of people who are accustomed
+to live on very little."
+
+"I think I have heard," said la Peyrade, "that this very Monsieur Picot
+leads a strange life, and that his family, who at first wanted to shut
+him up as a lunatic, are now trying to have guardians appointed over
+him. They say he allows a servant-woman who keeps his house to rob him
+of all he has. Parbleu! Thuillier, you know her; it is that woman who
+came to the office the other day about some money in Dupuis's hands."
+
+"Yes, yes, true," said Thuillier, significantly; "you are right, I do
+know her."
+
+"It is queer," said Brigitte, seeing a chance to enforce the argument
+she had used to Celeste, "that all these learned men are good for
+nothing outside of their science; in their homes they have to be treated
+like children."
+
+"That proves," said the Abbe Gondrin, "the great absorption which their
+studies give to their minds, and, at the same time, a simplicity of
+nature which is very touching."
+
+"When they are not as obstinate as mules," said Brigitte, hastily.
+"For myself, monsieur l'abbe, I must say that if I had had any idea
+of marriage, a savant wouldn't have suited me at all. What do they do,
+these savants, anyhow? Useless things most of the time. You are all
+admiring one who has discovered a star; but as long as we are in this
+world what good is that to us? For all the use we make of stars it seems
+to me we have got enough of them as it is."
+
+"Bravo, Brigitte!" said Colleville, getting loose again; "you are right,
+my girl, and I think, as you do, that the man who discovers a new dish
+deserves better of humanity."
+
+"Colleville," said Flavie, "I must say that your style of behavior is in
+the worst taste."
+
+"My dear lady," said the Abbe Gondrin, addressing Brigitte, "you might
+be right if we were formed of matter only; and if, bound to our
+body, there were not a soul with instincts and appetites that must be
+satisfied. Well, I think that this sense of the infinite which is within
+us, and which we all try to satisfy each in our own way, is marvellously
+well helped by the labors of astronomy, that reveal to us from time to
+time new worlds which the hand of the Creator has put into space. The
+infinite in you has taken another course; this passion for the comfort
+of those about you, this warm, devoted, ardent affection which you feel
+for your brother, are equally the manifestation of aspirations which
+have nothing material about them, and which, in seeking their end and
+object, never think of asking, 'What good does that do? what is the use
+of this?' Besides, I must assure you that the stars are not as useless
+as you seem to think. Without them how would navigators cross the
+sea? They would be puzzled to get you the vanilla with which you have
+flavored the delicious cream I am now eating. So, as Monsieur Colleville
+has perceived, there is more affinity than you think between a dish and
+a star; no one should be despised,--neither an astronomer nor a good
+housekeeper--"
+
+The abbe was here interrupted by the noise of a lively altercation in
+the antechamber.
+
+"I tell you that I will go in," said a loud voice.
+
+"No, monsieur, you shall not go in," said another voice, that of the
+man-servant. "The company are at table, I tell you, and nobody has the
+right to force himself in."
+
+Thuillier turned pale; ever since the seizure of his pamphlet, he
+fancied all sudden arrivals meant the coming of the police.
+
+Among the various social rules imparted to Brigitte by Madame de
+Godollo, the one that most needed repeating was the injunction never, as
+mistress of the house, to rise from the table until she gave the
+signal for retiring. But present circumstances appeared to warrant the
+infraction of the rule.
+
+"I'll go and see what it is," she said to Thuillier, whose anxiety she
+noticed at once. "What _is_ the matter?" she said to the servant as soon
+as she reached the scene of action.
+
+"Here's a gentleman who wants to come in, and says that no one is ever
+dining at eight o'clock at night."
+
+"But who are you, monsieur?" said Brigitte, addressing an old man very
+oddly dressed, whose eyes were protected by a green shade.
+
+"Madame, I am neither a beggar nor a vagabond," replied the old man, in
+stentorian tones; "my name is Picot, professor of mathematics."
+
+"Rue du Val-de-Grace?" asked Brigitte.
+
+"Yes, madame,--No. 9, next to the print-shop."
+
+"Come in, monsieur, come in; we shall be only too happy to receive you,"
+cried Thuillier, who, on hearing the name, had hurried out to meet the
+savant.
+
+"Hein! you scamp," said the learned man, turning upon the man-servant,
+who had retired, seeing that the matter was being settled amicably, "I
+told you I should get in."
+
+Pere Picot was a tall old man, with an angular, stern face, who, despite
+the corrective of a blond wig with heavy curls, and that of the pacific
+green shade we have already mentioned, expressed on his large features,
+upon which the fury of study had produced a surface of leaden pallor, a
+snappish and quarrelsome disposition. Of this he had already given proof
+before entering the dining-room, where every one now rose to receive
+him.
+
+His costume consisted of a huge frock-coat, something between a paletot
+and a dressing-gown, between which an immense waistcoat of iron-gray
+cloth, fastened from the throat to the pit of the stomach with two rows
+of buttons, hussar fashion, formed a sort of buckler. The trousers,
+though October was nearing its close, were made of black lasting,
+and gave testimony to long service by the projection of a darn on the
+otherwise polished surface covering the knees, the polish being produced
+by the rubbing of the hands upon those parts. But, in broad daylight,
+the feature of the old savant's appearance which struck the eye most
+vividly was a pair of Patagonian feet, imprisoned in slippers of beaver
+cloth, the which, moulded upon the mountainous elevations of gigantic
+bunions, made the spectator think, involuntarily, of the back of a
+dromedary or an advanced case of elephantiasis.
+
+Once installed in a chair which was hastily brought for him, and the
+company having returned to their places at table, the old man suddenly
+burst out in thundering tones, amid the silence created by curiosity:--
+
+"Where is he,--that rogue, that scamp? Let him show himself; let him
+dare to speak to me!"
+
+"Who is it that offends you, my dear monsieur?" said Thuillier, in
+conciliating accents, in which there was a slight tone of patronage.
+
+"A scamp whom I couldn't find in his own home, and they told me he
+was here, in this house. I'm in the apartment, I think, of Monsieur
+Thuillier of the Council-general, place de la Madeleine, first story
+above the entresol?"
+
+"Precisely," said Thuillier; "and allow me to add, monsieur, that you
+are surrounded with the respect and sympathy of all."
+
+"And you will doubtless permit me to add," said Minard, "that the mayor
+of the arrondissement adjoining that which you inhabit congratulates
+himself on being here in presence of Monsieur Picot,--_the_ Monsieur
+Picot, no doubt, who has just immortalized his name by the discovery of
+a star!"
+
+"Yes, monsieur," replied the professor, elevating to a still higher
+pitch the stentorian diapason of his voice, "I am Picot (Nepomucene),
+but I have not discovered a star; I don't concern myself with any such
+fiddle-faddle; besides, my eyes are very weak; and that insolent young
+fellow I have come here to find is making me ridiculous with such talk.
+I don't see him here; he is hiding himself, I know; he dares not look me
+in the face."
+
+"Who is this person who annoys you?" asked several voices at once.
+
+"An unnatural pupil of mine," replied the old mathematician; "a scamp,
+but full of ideas; his name is Felix Phellion."
+
+The name was received, as may well be imagined, with amazement. Finding
+the situation amusing, Colleville and la Peyrade went off into fits of
+laughter.
+
+"You laugh, fools!" cried the irate old man, rising. "Yes, come and
+laugh within reach of my arm."
+
+So saying, he brandished a thick stick with a white china handle, which
+he used to guide himself, thereby nearly knocking over a candelabrum on
+the dinner-table upon Madame Minard's head.
+
+"You are mistaken, monsieur," cried Brigitte, springing forward and
+seizing his arm. "Monsieur Felix is not here. He will probably come
+later to a reception we are about to give; but at present he has not
+arrived."
+
+"They don't begin early, your receptions," said the old man; "it is past
+eight o'clock. Well, as Monsieur Felix is coming later, you must allow
+me to wait for him. I believe you were eating your dinners; don't let me
+disturb you."
+
+And he went back peaceably to his chair.
+
+"As you permit it, monsieur," said Brigitte, "we will continue, or, I
+should say, finish dinner, for we are now at the dessert. May I offer
+you anything,--a glass of champagne and a biscuit?"
+
+"I am very willing, madame," replied the intruder. "No one ever refuses
+champagne, and I am always ready to eat between my meals; but you dine
+very late."
+
+A place was made for him at table between Colleville and Mademoiselle
+Minard, and the former made it his business to fill the glass of his new
+neighbor, before whom was placed a dish of small cakes.
+
+"Monsieur," said la Peyrade in a cajoling tone, "you saw how surprised
+we were to hear you complain of Monsieur Felix Phellion,--so amiable, so
+inoffensive a young man. What has he done to you, that you should feel
+so angry with him?"
+
+With his mouth full of cakes, which he was engulfing in quantities
+that made Brigitte uneasy, the professor made a sign that he would soon
+answer; then, having mistaken his glass and swallowed the contents of
+Colleville's, he replied:--
+
+"You ask what that insolent young man had done to me? A rascally thing;
+and not the first, either. He knows that I cannot abide stars, having
+very good reason to hate them, as you shall hear: In 1807, being
+attached to the Bureau of Longitudes, I was part of the scientific
+expedition sent to Spain, under the direction of my friend and
+colleague, Jean-Baptiste Biot, to determine the arc of the terrestrial
+meridian from Barcelona to the Balearic isles. I was just in the act
+of observing a star (perhaps the very one my rascally pupil has
+discovered), when suddenly, war having broken out between France
+and Spain, the peasants, seeing me perched with a telescope on Monte
+Galazzo, took it into their heads that I was making signals to the
+enemy. A mob of savages broke my instruments, and talked of stringing me
+up. They were just going to do it, when the captain of a vessel took me
+prisoner and thrust me into the citadel of Belver, where I spent three
+years in the harshest captivity. Since them, as you may well believe, I
+loathe the whole celestial system; though I was, without knowing it, the
+first to observe the famous comet of 1811; but I should have taken care
+not to say a word about it if it had not been for Monsieur Flauguergues,
+who announced it. Like all my pupils, Phellion knows my aversion to
+stars, and he knew very well the worst trick he could play me would
+be to saddle one on my back; and that deputation that came to play the
+farce of congratulating me was mighty lucky not to find me at home, for
+if they had, I can assure those gentlemen of the Academy, they would
+have had a hot reception."
+
+Everybody present thought the old mathematician's monomania quite
+delightful, except la Peyrade, who now, in perceiving Felix Phellion's
+part in the affair, regretted deeply having caused the explanation.
+
+"And yet, Monsieur Picot," said Minard, "if Felix Phellion is only
+guilty of attributing his discovery to you, it seems to me that his
+indiscreet behavior has resulted in a certain compensation to you: the
+cross of the Legion of honor, a pension, and the glory attached to your
+name are not to be despised."
+
+"The cross and the pension I take," said the old man, emptying his
+glass, which, to Brigitte's terror, he set down upon the table with a
+force that threatened to smash it. "The government has owed them to me
+these twenty years; not for the discovery of stars,--things that I
+have always despised,--but for my famous 'Treatise on Differential
+Logarithms' (Kepler thought proper to call them monologarithms), which
+is a sequel to the tables of Napier; also for my 'Postulatum' of Euclid,
+of which I was the first to discover the solution; but above all, for
+my 'Theory of Perpetual Motion,'--four volumes in quarto with plates;
+Paris, 1825. You see, therefore, monsieur, that to give me glory is
+bringing water to the Seine. I had so little need of Monsieur Felix
+Phellion to make me a position in the scientific world that I turned him
+out of my house long ago."
+
+"Then it isn't the first star," said Colleville, flippantly, "that he
+dared to put upon you?"
+
+"He did worse than that," roared the old man; "he ruined my reputation,
+he tarnished my name. My 'Theory of Perpetual Motion,' the printing of
+which cost me every penny I owned, though it ought to have been printed
+gratis at the Royal Printing-office, was calculated to make my fortune
+and render me immortal. Well, that miserable Felix prevented it. From
+time to time, pretending to bring messages from my editor, he would say,
+the young sycophant, 'Papa Picot, your book is selling finely;
+here's five hundred francs--two hundred francs--and once it was two
+thousand--which your publisher charged me to give you.' This thing went
+on for years, and my publisher, who had the baseness to enter into the
+plot, would say to me, when I went to the shop: 'Yes, yes, it doesn't
+do badly, it _bubbles_, that book; we shall soon be at the end of this
+edition.' I, who didn't suggest anything, I pocketed my money, and
+thought to myself: 'My book is liked, little by little its ideas are
+making their way; I may now expect, from day to day, that some great
+capitalist will come to me and propose to apply my system--'"
+
+"--of 'Absorption of Liquids'?" asked Colleville, who had been steadily
+filling the old fellow's glass.
+
+"No, monsieur, my 'Theory of Perpetual Motion,' 4 vols. in quarto with
+plates. But no! days, weeks went by and nobody came; so, thinking that
+my publisher did not put all the energy he should into the matter, I
+tried to sell the second edition to another man. It was that, monsieur,
+that enabled me to discover the whole plot, on which, as I said before,
+I turned that serpent out of my house. In six years only nine copies
+had been sold! Kept quiet in false security I had done nothing for the
+propagation of my book, which had been left to take care of itself; and
+thus it was that I, victim of black and wicked jealousy, was shamefully
+despoiled of the value of my labors."
+
+"But," said Minard, making himself the mouthpiece of the thoughts of
+the company, "may we not see in that act a manner as ingenious as it was
+delicate to--"
+
+"To give me alms! is that what you mean?" interrupted the old man, with
+a roar that made Mademoiselle Minard jump in her chair; "to humiliate
+me, dishonor me--me, his old professor! Am I in need of charity? Has
+Picot (Nepomucene), to whom his wife brought a dowry of one hundred
+thousand francs, ever stretched out his palm to any one? But in these
+days nothing is respected. Old fellows, as they call us, our religion
+and our good faith is taken advantage of so that these youths may say
+to the public: 'Old drivellers, don't you see now they are good for
+nothing? It needs _us_, the young generation, _us_, the moderns, _us_,
+Young France, to bring them up on a bottle.' Young greenhorn! let me see
+_you_ try to feed _me_! Old drivellers know more in their little finger
+than you in your whole brain, and you'll never be worth us, paltry
+little intriguer that you are! However, I know my day of vengeance will
+come; that young Phellion can't help ending badly; what he did to-day,
+reading a statement to the Academy, under my name, was forgery, forgery!
+and the law will send him to the galleys for that."
+
+"True," said Colleville, "forgery of a public star."
+
+Brigitte, who quaked for her glasses, and whose nerves were exacerbated
+by the monstrous consumption of cakes and wine, now gave the signal to
+return to the salon. Besides, she had heard the door-bell ring several
+times, announcing the arrival of guests for the evening. The question
+then was how to transplant the professor, and Colleville politely
+offered him his arm.
+
+"No, monsieur," he said, "you must allow me to stay where I am. I am
+not dressed for a party, and besides, a strong light hurts my eyes.
+Moreover, I don't choose to give myself as a spectacle; it will be
+best that my interview with Felix Phellion should take place between
+'four-eyes,' as they say."
+
+"Well, let him alone, then," said Brigitte to Colleville.
+
+No one insisted,--the old man having, unconsciously, pretty nigh
+discrowned himself in the opinion of the company. But before leaving,
+the careful housewife removed everything that was at all fragile from
+his reach; then, by way of a slight attention, she said:--
+
+"Shall I send you some coffee?"
+
+"I'll take it, madame," responded pere Picot, "and some cognac with it."
+
+"Oh! parbleu! he takes everything," said Brigitte to the male domestic,
+and she told the latter to keep an eye on the old madman.
+
+When Brigitte returned to the salon she found that the Abbe Gondrin had
+become the centre of a great circle formed by nearly the whole company,
+and as she approached, she heard him say:--
+
+"I thank Heaven for bestowing upon me such a pleasure. I have never felt
+an emotion like that aroused by the scene we have just witnessed; even
+the rather burlesque form of this confidence, which was certainly very
+artless, for it was quite involuntary, only adds to the honor of the
+surprising generosity it revealed. Placed as I am by my ministry in
+the way of knowing of many charities, and often either the witness or
+intermediary of good actions, I think I never in my life have met with
+a more touching or a more ingenious devotion. To keep the left hand
+ignorant of what the right hand does is a great step in Christianity;
+but to go so far as to rob one's self of one's own fame to benefit
+another under such conditions is the gospel applied in its highest
+precepts; it is being more than a Sister of Charity; it is doing the
+work of an apostle of beneficence. How I should like to know that noble
+young man, and shake him by the hand."
+
+With her arm slipped through that of her godmother, Celeste was standing
+very near the priest, her ears intent upon his words, her arm pressing
+tighter and tighter that of Madame Thuillier, as the abbe analyzed the
+generous action of Felix Phellion, until at last she whispered under her
+breath:--
+
+"You hear, godmother, you hear!"
+
+To destroy the inevitable effect which this hearty praise would surely
+have on Celeste, Thuillier hastened to say:--
+
+"Unfortunately, Monsieur l'abbe, the young man of whom you speak so
+warmly is not altogether unknown to you. I have had occasion to tell you
+about him, and to regret that it was not possible to follow out
+certain plans which we once entertained for him; I allude to the very
+compromising independence he affects in his religious opinions."
+
+"Ah! is that the young man?" said the abbe; "you surprise me much; I
+must say such an idea would never have crossed my mind."
+
+"You will see him presently, Monsieur l'abbe," said la Peyrade, joining
+in the conversation, "and if you question him on certain grounds you
+will have no difficulty in discovering the ravages that a love of
+science can commit in the most gifted souls."
+
+"I am afraid I shall not see him," said the abbe, "as my black gown
+would be out of place in the midst of the more earthly gaiety that will
+soon fill this salon. But I know, Monsieur de la Peyrade, that you are a
+man of sincerely pious convictions, and as, without any doubt, you feel
+as much interest in the young man's welfare as I do myself, I shall say
+to you in parting: Do not be uneasy about him; sooner or later, such
+choice souls come back to us, and if the return of these prodigals
+should be long delayed I should not fear, on seeing them go to God, that
+His infinite mercy would fail them."
+
+So saying, the abbe looked about to find his hat, and proceeded to slip
+quietly away.
+
+Suddenly a fearful uproar was heard. Rushing into the dining-room,
+whence came a sound of furniture overturned and glasses breaking,
+Brigitte found Colleville occupied in adjusting his cravat and looking
+himself over to be sure that his coat, cruelly pulled awry, bore no
+signs of being actually torn.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried Brigitte.
+
+"It is that old idiot," replied Colleville, "who is in a fury. I came
+to take my coffee with him, just to keep him company, and he took a
+joke amiss, and collared me, and knocked over two chairs and a tray of
+glasses because Josephine didn't get out of his way in time."
+
+"It is all because you've been teasing him," said Brigitte, crossly;
+"why couldn't you stay in the salon instead of coming here to play your
+jokes, as you call them? You think you are still in the orchestra of the
+Opera-Comique."
+
+This sharp rebuke delivered, Brigitte, like the resolute woman that she
+was, saw that she absolutely must get rid of the ferocious old man
+who threatened her household with flames and blood. Accordingly, she
+approached pere Picot, who was tranquilly engaged in burning brandy in
+his saucer.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, at the top of her lungs, as if she were speaking
+to a deaf person (evidently thinking that a blind one ought to be
+treated in the same manner), "I have come to tell you something that
+may annoy you. Monsieur and Madame Phellion have just arrived, and they
+inform me that their son, Monsieur Felix, is not coming. He has a cold
+and a sore-throat."
+
+"Then he got it this afternoon reading that lecture," cried the
+professor, joyfully. "That's justice!--Madame, where do you get your
+brandy?"
+
+"Why, at my grocer's," replied Brigitte, taken aback by the question.
+
+"Well, madame, I ought to tell you that in a house where one can drink
+such excellent champagne, which reminds me of that we used to quaff at
+the table of Monsieur de Fontanes, grand-master of the University, it is
+shameful to keep such brandy. I tell you, with the frankness I put into
+everything, that it is good only to wash your horses' feet, and if I had
+not the resource of burning it--"
+
+"He is the devil in person," thought Brigitte; "not a word of excuse
+about all that glass, but he must needs fall foul of my brandy
+too!--Monsieur," she resumed, in the same raised diapason, "as Monsieur
+Felix is not coming, don't you think your family will be uneasy at your
+absence?"
+
+"Family? I haven't any, madame, owing to the fact that they want to make
+me out a lunatic. But I have a housekeeper, Madame Lambert, and I dare
+say she will be surprised not to see me home by this time. I think I had
+better go now; if I stay later, the scene might be more violent. But
+I must own that in this strange quarter I am not sure if I can find my
+way."
+
+"Then take a carriage."
+
+"Carriage here, carriage there, indeed! my spiteful relations wouldn't
+lose the chance of calling me a spendthrift."
+
+"I have an important message to send into your quarter," said Brigitte,
+seeing she must resolve to make the sacrifice, "and I have just told
+my porter to take a cab and attend to it. If you would like to take
+advantage of that convenience--"
+
+"I accept it, madame," said the old professor, rising; "and, if it
+comes to the worst, I hope you will testify before the judge that I was
+niggardly about a cab."
+
+"Henri," said Brigitte to the man-servant, "take monsieur down to the
+porter and tell him to do the errand I told him about just now, and to
+take monsieur to his own door, and be very careful of him."
+
+"Careful of him!" echoed the old man. "Do you take me for a trunk,
+madame, or a bit of cracked china?"
+
+Seeing that she had got her man fairly to the door, Brigitte allowed
+herself to turn upon him.
+
+"What I say, monsieur, is for your good. You must allow me to observe
+that you have not an agreeable nature."
+
+"Careful of him! careful of him!" repeated the old man. "Don't you
+know, madame, that by the use of such words you may get people put
+into lunatic asylums? However, I will not reply rudely to the polite
+hospitality I have received,--all the more because, I think, I have put
+Monsieur Felix, who missed me intentionally, in his right place."
+
+"Go, go, go, you old brute!" cried Brigitte, slamming the door behind
+him.
+
+Before returning to the salon she was obliged to drink a whole glassful
+of water, the restraint she had been forced to put upon herself in order
+to get rid of this troublesome guest having, to use her own expression,
+"put her all about."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN WHO THINKS THE STAR TOO BRIGHT
+
+The next morning Minard paid a visit to Phellion in his study. The great
+citizen and his son Felix were at that moment engaged in a conversation
+which seemed to have some unusual interest for them.
+
+"My dear Felix," cried the mayor of the eleventh arrondissement,
+offering his hand warmly to the young professor, "it is you who bring me
+here this morning; I have come to offer you my congratulations."
+
+"What has occurred?" asked Phellion. "Have the Thuilliers--"
+
+"It has nothing to do with the Thuilliers," interrupted the mayor.
+"But," he added, looking hard at Felix, "can that sly fellow have
+concealed the thing even from you?"
+
+"I do not think," said Phellion, "that ever, in his life, has my son
+concealed a thing from me."
+
+"Then you know about the sublime astronomical discovery which he
+communicated to the Academy of Sciences yesterday?"
+
+"Your kindness for me, Monsieur le maire," said Felix, hastily, "has led
+you astray; I was only the reader of the communication."
+
+"Oh! let me alone!" said Minard; "reader, indeed! I know all about it."
+
+"But see," said Felix, offering Minard the "Constitutionnel," "here's
+the paper; not only does it announce that Monsieur Picot is the maker
+of the discovery, but it mentions the rewards which, without losing a
+moment, the government has bestowed upon him."
+
+"Felix is right," said Phellion; "that journal is to be trusted. On this
+occasion I think the government has acted very properly."
+
+"But, my dear commander, I repeat to you that the truth of the affair
+has got wind, and your son is shown to be a most admirable fellow. To
+put his own discovery to the credit of his old professor so as to obtain
+for him the recognition and favor of the authorities--upon my word, in
+all antiquity I don't know a finer trait!"
+
+"Felix!" said Phellion, beginning to show some emotion, "these immense
+labors to which you have devoted so much time of late, these continual
+visits to the Observatory--"
+
+"But, father," interrupted Felix, "Monsieur Minard has been
+misinformed."
+
+"Misinformed!" cried Minard, "when I know the whole affair from Monsieur
+Picot himself!"
+
+At this argument, stated in a way to leave no possible doubt, the truth
+began to dawn upon Phellion.
+
+"Felix, my son!" he said, rising to embrace him.
+
+But he was obliged to sit down again; his legs refused to bear his
+weight; he turned pale; and that nature, ordinarily so impassible,
+seemed about to give way under the shock of this happiness.
+
+"My God!" said Felix, terrified, "he is ill; ring the bell, I entreat
+you, Monsieur Minard."
+
+And he ran to the old man, loosened his cravat and unfastened the collar
+of his shirt, striking him in the palms of his hands. But the sudden
+faintness was but momentary; almost immediately himself again, Phellion
+gathered his son to his heart, and holding him long in his embrace, he
+said, in a voice broken by the tears that came to put an end to this
+shock of joy:--
+
+"Felix, my noble son! so great in heart, so great in mind!"
+
+The bell had been rung by Minard with magisterial force, and with such
+an accent that the whole household was alarmed, and came running in.
+
+"It is nothing, it is nothing," said Phellion to the servants, sending
+them away. But almost at the same moment, seeing his wife, who now
+entered the room, he resumed his habitual solemnity.
+
+"Madame Phellion," he said, pointing to Felix, "how many years is it
+since you brought that young man into the world?"
+
+Madame Phellion, bewildered by the question, hesitated a moment, and
+then said:--
+
+"Twenty-five years next January."
+
+"Have you not thought, until now, that God had amply granted your
+maternal desires by making this child of your womb an honest man, a
+pious son, and by gifting him for mathematics, that Science of sciences,
+with an aptitude sufficiently remarkable?"
+
+"I have," said Madame Phellion, understanding less and less what her
+husband was coming to.
+
+"Well," continued Phellion, "you owe to God an additional thanksgiving,
+for He has granted that you be the mother of a man of genius; his toil,
+which lately we rebuked, and which made us fear for the reason of our
+child, was the way--the rough and jagged way--by which men come to
+fame."
+
+"Ah ca!" cried Madame Phellion, "can't you stop coming yourself to an
+explanation of what you mean, and get there?"
+
+"Your son," said Minard, cautious this time in measuring the joy he was
+about to bestow, fearing another fainting-fit of happiness, "has just
+made a very important scientific discovery."
+
+"Is it true?" said Madame Phellion, going up to Felix, and taking him by
+both hands as she looked at him lovingly.
+
+"When I say important," continued Minard, "I am only sparing your
+maternal emotions; it is, in truth, a sublime, a dazzling discovery.
+He is only twenty-five years old, but his name, from henceforth, is
+immortal."
+
+"And this is the man," said Madame Phellion, half beside herself, and
+kissing Felix with effusion, "to whom that la Peyrade is preferred!"
+
+"No, not preferred, madame," said Minard, "for the Thuilliers are not
+the dupes of that adventurer. But he has made himself necessary to them.
+Thuillier fancies that without la Peyrade he could not be elected; the
+election is still doubtful, and they are sacrificing everything to it."
+
+"But isn't it odious," cried Madame Phellion, "to consider such
+interests before the happiness of their child!"
+
+"Ah!" said Minard, "but Celeste is not their child, only their adopted
+daughter."
+
+"Brigitte's, if you like," said Madame Phellion; "but as for
+Thuillier--"
+
+"My good wife," said Phellion, "no censoriousness. The good God has just
+sent us a great consolation; and, indeed, though certainly far advanced,
+this marriage, about which I regret to say Felix does not behave with
+all the philosophy I could desire, may still not take place."
+
+Seeing that Felix shook his head with a look of incredulity, Minard
+hastened to say:--
+
+"Yes, yes, the commander is quite right. Last night there was a hitch
+about signing the contract, and it was not signed. You were not there,
+by the bye, and your absence was much remarked upon."
+
+"We were invited," said Phellion, "and up to the last moment we
+hesitated whether to go or not. But, as you will readily see, our
+position was a false one; besides, Felix--and I see now it must have
+been in consequence of his lecture at the Academy--was completely worn
+out with fatigue and emotion. To present ourselves without him would
+have seemed very singular; therefore we decided that it would be wisest
+and best to absent ourselves."
+
+The presence of the man whom he had just declared immortal did not deter
+Minard, when the occasion was thus made for him, from plunging eagerly
+into one of the most precious joys of bourgeois existence, namely, the
+retailing of gossip.
+
+"Just imagine!" he began; "last night at the Thuilliers' the most
+extraordinary things took place, one after another."
+
+First he related the curious episode of pere Picot. Then he told of the
+hearty approbation given to Felix's conduct by the Abbe Gondrin, and the
+desire the young preacher had expressed to meet him.
+
+"I'll go and see him," said Felix; "do you know where he lives?"
+
+"Rue de la Madeleine, No. 8," replied Minard. "But the great event of
+the evening was the spectacle of that fine company assembled to listen
+to the marriage-contract, and waiting in expectation a whole hour for
+the notary, who--never came!"
+
+"Then the contract is not signed?" said Felix, eagerly.
+
+"Not even read, my friend. Suddenly some one came in and told Brigitte
+that the notary had started for Brussels."
+
+"Ah! no doubt," said Phellion, naively; "some very important business."
+
+"Most important," replied Minard; "a little bankruptcy of five hundred
+thousand francs which the gentleman leaves behind him."
+
+"But who is this public officer," demanded Phellion, "so recreant, in
+this scandalous manner, to the sacred duties of his calling?"
+
+"Parbleu! your neighbor in the rue Saint-Jacques, the notary Dupuis."
+
+"What!" said Madame Phellion, "that pious man? Why, he is churchwarden
+of the parish!"
+
+"Eh! madame, those are the very ones," said Minard, "to run off--there
+are many precedents for that."
+
+"But," said Phellion, "such news cast suddenly among the company must
+have fallen like a thunderbolt."
+
+"Especially," said Minard, "as it was brought in the most unexpected and
+singular manner."
+
+"Tell us all about it," said Madame Phellion, with animation.
+
+"Well, it seems," continued Minard, "that this canting swindler had
+charge of the savings of a number of servants, and that Monsieur de
+la Peyrade--because, you see, they are all of a clique, these pious
+people--was in the habit of recruiting clients for him in that walk of
+life--"
+
+"I always said so!" interrupted Madame Phellion. "I knew that Provencal
+was no good at all."
+
+"It seems," continued the mayor, "that he had placed in Dupuis's hands
+all the savings of an old housekeeper, pious herself, amounting to a
+pretty little sum. Faith! I think myself it was worth some trouble. How
+much do you suppose it was? Twenty-five thousand francs, if you please!
+This housekeeper, whose name is Madame Lambert--"
+
+"Madame Lambert!" cried Felix; "why, that's Monsieur Picot's
+housekeeper; close cap, pale, thin face, speaks always with her eyes
+lowered, shows no hair?"
+
+"That's she," said Minard,--"a regular hypocrite!"
+
+"Twenty-five thousand francs of savings!" said Felix. "I don't wonder
+that poor pere Picot is always out of money."
+
+"And that someone had to meddle with the sale of his book," said Minard,
+slyly. "However that may be, you can imagine that the woman was in a
+fine state of mind on hearing of the flight of the notary. Off she
+went to la Peyrade's lodgings; there she was told he was dining at
+the Thuilliers'; to the Thuilliers' she came, after running about the
+streets--for they didn't give her quite the right address--till ten
+o'clock; but she got there while the company were still sitting round
+waiting for the notary, and gaping at each other, no one knowing what
+to say and do, for neither Brigitte nor Thuillier have faculty enough
+to get out of such a scrape with credit; and we all missed the voice of
+Madame de Godollo and the talent of Madame Phellion."
+
+"Oh! you are too polite, Monsieur le maire," said Madame Phellion,
+bridling.
+
+"Well, as I said," continued Minard, "at ten o'clock Madame Lambert
+reached the antechamber of Monsieur the general-councillor, and there
+she asked, in great excitement, to see la Peyrade."
+
+"That was natural," said Phellion; "he being the intermediary of the
+investment, this woman had a right to question him."
+
+"You should just have seen that Tartuffe!" continued Minard. "He had no
+sooner gone out than he returned, bringing the news. As everybody was
+longing to get away, there followed a general helter-skelter. And then
+what does our man do? He goes back to Madame Lambert, who was crying
+that she was ruined! she was lost!--which might very well be true, but
+it might also be only a scene arranged between them in presence of the
+company, whom the woman's outcries detained in the antechamber. 'Don't
+be anxious, my good woman,' said la Peyrade; 'the investment was made at
+your request, consequently, I owe you nothing; BUT it is enough that
+the money passed through my hands to make my conscience tell me I am
+responsible. If the notary's assets are not enough to pay you I will do
+so.'"
+
+"Yes," said Phellion, "that was my idea as you told it; the intermediary
+is or ought to be responsible. I should not have hesitated to do as
+Monsieur de la Peyrade did, and I do not think that after such conduct
+as that he ought to be taxed with Jesuitism."
+
+"Yes, you would have done so," said Minard, "and so should I, but we
+shouldn't have done it with a brass band; we should have paid our money
+quietly, like gentlemen. But this electoral manager, how is he going to
+pay it? Out of the 'dot'?"
+
+At this moment the little page entered the room and gave a letter
+to Felix Phellion. It came from pere Picot, and was written at his
+dictation by Madame Lambert, for which reason we will not reproduce the
+orthography. The writing of Madame Lambert was of those that can never
+be forgotten when once seen. Recognizing it instantly, Felix hastened to
+say:--
+
+"A letter from the professor"; then, before breaking the seal, he added,
+"Will you permit me, Monsieur le maire."
+
+"He'll rate you finely," said Minard, laughing. "I never saw anything so
+comical as his wrath last night."
+
+Felix, as he read the letter, smiled to himself. When he had finished
+it, he passed it to his father, saying:--
+
+"Read it aloud if you like."
+
+Whereupon, with his solemn voice and manner, Phellion read as follows:--
+
+  My dear Felix,--I have just received your note; it came in the
+  nick of time, for I was, as they say, in a fury with you. You tell
+  me that you were guilty of that abuse of confidence (about which I
+  intended to write you a piece of my mind) in order to give a
+  knock-down blow to my relations by proving that a man capable of
+  making such complicated calculations as your discovery required
+  was not a man to put in a lunatic asylum or drag before a
+  judiciary council. That argument pleases me, and it makes such a
+  good answer to the infamous proceedings of my relations that I
+  praise you for having had the idea. But you sold it to me, that
+  argument, pretty dear when you put me in company with a star, for
+  you know very well _that_ propinquity wouldn't please me at all. It
+  is not at my age, and after solving the great problem of perpetual
+  motion, that a man could take up with such rubbish as that,--good
+  only for boys and greenhorns like you; and that is what I have
+  taken the liberty this morning to go and tell the minister of
+  public instruction, by whom I must say I was received with the
+  most perfect urbanity. I asked him to see whether, as he had made
+  a mistake and sent them to the wrong address, he could not take
+  back his cross and his pension,--though to be sure, as I told him,
+  I deserved them for other things.
+
+  "The government," he replied, "is not in the habit of making
+  mistakes; what it does is always properly done, and it never
+  annuls an ordinance signed by the hand of his Majesty. Your great
+  labors have deserved the two favors the King has granted you; it
+  is a long-standing debt, which I am happy to pay off in his name."
+
+  "But Felix?" I said; "because after all for a young man it is not
+  such a bad discovery."
+
+  "Monsieur Felix Phellion," replied the minister, "will receive in
+  the course of the day his appointment to the rank of Chevalier of
+  the Legion of honor; I will have it signed this morning by the
+  king. Moreover, there is a vacant place at the Academy of
+  Sciences, and if you are not a candidate for it--"
+
+  "I, in the Academy!" I interrupted, with the frankness of speech
+  you know I always use; "I execrate academies; they are stiflers,
+  extinguishers, assemblages of sloths, idlers, shops with big signs
+  and nothing to sell inside--"
+
+  "Well, then," said the minister, smiling, "I think that at the
+  next election Monsieur Felix Phellion will have every chance, and
+  among those chances I count the influence of the government which
+  is secured to him."
+
+  There, my poor boy, is all that I have been able to do to reward
+  your good intentions and to prove to you that I am no longer
+  angry. I think the relations are going to pull a long face. Come
+  and talk about it to-day at four o'clock,--for I don't dine after
+  bedtime, as I saw some people doing last night in a house where I
+  had occasion to mention your talents in a manner that was very
+  advantageous to you. Madame Lambert, who does better with a
+  saucepan than with pen and ink, shall distinguish herself, though
+  it is Friday, and she never lets me off a fast day. But she has
+  promised us a fish dinner worthy of an archbishop, with a fine
+  half-bottle of champagne (doubled if need be) to wash it down.
+
+
+Your old professor and friend,
+
+Picot (Nepomucene),
+
+Chevalier of the Legion of honor.
+
+  P.S.--Do you think you could obtain from your respectable mother a
+  little flask of that old and excellent cognac you once gave me?
+  Not a drop remains, and yesterday I was forced to drink some stuff
+  only fit to bathe horses' feet, as I did not hesitate to say to
+  the beautiful Hebe who served it to me.
+
+
+"Of course he shall have some," said Madame Phellion; "not a flask, but
+a gallon."
+
+"And I," said Minard, "who pique myself on mine, which didn't come from
+Brigitte's grocer either, I'll send him several bottles; but don't tell
+him who sent them, Monsieur le chevalier, for you never can tell how
+that singular being will take things."
+
+"Wife," said Phellion, suddenly, "get me my black coat and a white
+cravat."
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Madame Phellion. "To the minister, to thank
+him?"
+
+"Bring me, I say, those articles of habiliment. I have an important
+visit to make; and Monsieur le maire will, I know, excuse me."
+
+"I myself must be off," said Minard. "I, too, have important business,
+though it isn't about a star."
+
+Questioned in vain by Felix and his wife, Phellion completed his attire
+with a pair of white gloves, sent for a carriage, and, at the end of
+half an hour, entered the presence of Brigitte, whom he found presiding
+over the careful putting away of the china, glass, and silver which
+had performed their several functions the night before. Leaving these
+housekeeping details, she received her visitor.
+
+"Well, papa Phellion," she said, when they were both seated in the
+salon, "you broke your word yesterday; you were luckier than the rest.
+Do you know what a trick that notary played us?"
+
+"I know all," said Phellion; "and it is the check thus unexpectedly
+given to the execution of your plans that I shall take for the text of
+an important conversation which I desire to have with you. Sometimes
+Providence would seem to take pleasure in counteracting our best-laid
+schemes; sometimes, also, by means of the obstacles it raises in our
+path, it seems to intend to indicate that we are bearing too far to the
+right or to the left, and should pause to reflect upon our way."
+
+"Providence!" said Brigitte the strong-minded,--"Providence has
+something else to do than to look after us."
+
+"That is one opinion," said Phellion; "but I myself am accustomed to
+see its decrees in the little as well as the great things of life; and
+certainly, if it had allowed the fulfilment of your engagements with
+Monsieur de la Peyrade to be even partially begun yesterday, you would
+not have seen me here to-day."
+
+"Then," said Brigitte, "do you think that by default of a notary the
+marriage will not take place? They do say that for want of a monk the
+abbey won't come to a standstill."
+
+"Dear lady," said the great citizen, "you will do me the justice to
+feel that neither I, nor my wife, have ever attempted to influence your
+decision; we have allowed our young people to love each other without
+much consideration as to where that attachment would lead--"
+
+"It led to upsetting their minds," said Brigitte; "that's what love is,
+and that's why I deprived myself of it."
+
+"What you say is, indeed, true of my unfortunate son," resumed Phellion;
+"for, notwithstanding the noble distractions he has endeavored to
+give to his sorrow, he is to-day so miserably overcome by it that this
+morning, in spite of the glorious success he has just obtained, he was
+speaking to me of undertaking a voyage of circumnavigation around the
+globe,--a rash enterprise which would detain him from his native land at
+least three years, if, indeed, he escaped the dangers of so prolonged a
+journey."
+
+"Well," said Brigitte, "it isn't a bad idea; he'll return consoled,
+having discovered three or four more new stars."
+
+"His present discovery suffices," said Phellion, with double his
+ordinary gravity, "and it is under the auspices of that triumph, which
+has placed his name at so great a height in the scientific world, that I
+have the assurance to say to you, point-blank: Mademoiselle, I have come
+to ask you, on behalf of my son, who loves as he is beloved, for the
+hand in marriage of Mademoiselle Celeste Colleville."
+
+"But, my dear man," replied Brigitte, "it is too late; remember that we
+are _diametrically_ engaged to la Peyrade."
+
+"It is never, they say, too late to do well, and yesterday it would have
+been in my judgment too early. My son, having to offer an equivalent for
+a fortune, could not say to you until to-day: 'Though Celeste, by your
+generosity has a "dot" which mine is far from equalling, yet I have
+the honor to be a member of the Royal order of the Legion of honor,
+and shortly, according to appearance, I shall be a member of the Royal
+Academy of Sciences, one of the five branches of the Institute.'"
+
+"Certainly," said Brigitte; "Felix is getting to be a very pretty match,
+but we have passed our word to la Peyrade; the banns are published
+at the mayor's office, and unless something extraordinary happens the
+contract will be signed. La Peyrade is very busy about Thuillier's
+election, which he has now got into good shape; we have capital engaged
+with him in the affair of this newspaper; and it would be impossible to
+go back on our promise, even if we wished to do so."
+
+"So," said Phellion, "in one of the rare occasions of life when reason
+and inclination blend together, you think you must be guided solely
+by the question of material interests. Celeste, as we know, has no
+inclination for Monsieur de la Peyrade. Brought up with Felix--"
+
+"Brought up with Felix!" interrupted Brigitte. "She was given a period
+of time to choose between Monsieur de la Peyrade and your son,--that's
+how we coerce her, if you please,--and she would not take Monsieur
+Felix, whose atheism is too well known."
+
+"You are mistaken, mademoiselle, my son is not an atheist; for Voltaire
+himself doubted if there could be atheists; and no later than yesterday,
+in this house, an ecclesiastic, as admirable for his talents as for
+his virtues, after making a magnificent eulogy of my son, expressed the
+desire to know him."
+
+"Parbleu! yes, to convert him," said Brigitte. "But as for this
+marriage, I am sorry to tell you that the mustard is made too late for
+the dinner; Thuillier will never renounce his la Peyrade."
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Phellion, rising, "I feel no humiliation for the
+useless step I have this day taken; I do not even ask you to keep it
+secret, for I shall myself mention it to our friends and acquaintances."
+
+"Tell it to whom you like, my good man," replied Brigitte,
+acrimoniously. "Because your son has discovered a star,--if, indeed, he
+did discover it, and not that old fool the government decorated--do you
+expect him to marry a daughter of the King of the French?"
+
+"Enough," said Phellion, "we will say no more. I might answer that,
+without depreciating the Thuilliers, the Orleans family seems to me
+more distinguished; but I do not like to introduce acerbity into the
+conversation, and therefore, begging you to receive the assurance of my
+humble respects, I retire."
+
+So saying, he made his exit majestically, and left Brigitte with the
+arrow of his comparison, discharged after the manner of the Parthian
+"in extremis," sticking in her mind, and she herself in a temper all the
+more savage because already, the evening before, Madame Thuillier, after
+the guests were gone, had the incredible audacity to say something in
+favor of Felix. Needless to relate that the poor helot was roughly put
+down and told to mind her own business. But this attempt at a will of
+her own in her sister-in-law had already put the old maid in a vile
+humor, and Phellion, coming to reopen the subject, exasperated her.
+Josephine, the cook, and the "male domestic," received the after-clap of
+the scene which had just taken place. Brigitte found that in her absence
+everything had been done wrong, and putting her own hand to the work,
+she hoisted herself on a chair, at the risk of her neck, to reach the
+upper shelves of the closet, where her choicest china, for gala days,
+was carefully kept under lock and key.
+
+This day, which for Brigitte began so ill, was, beyond all gainsaying,
+one of the stormiest and most portentous of this narrative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A STORMY DAY
+
+As an exact historian, we must go back and begin the day at six in the
+morning, when we can see Madame Thuillier going to the Madeleine to hear
+the mass that the Abbe Gondrin was in the habit of saying at that hour,
+and afterwards approaching the holy table,--a viaticum which pious souls
+never fail to give themselves when it is in their minds to accomplish
+some great resolution.
+
+About mid-day the abbe received a visit in his own home from Madame
+Thuillier and Celeste. The poor child wanted a little development of
+the words by which the priest had given security, the evening before, in
+Brigitte's salon, for the eternal welfare of Felix Phellion. It seemed
+strange to the mind of this girl-theologian that, without practising
+religion, a soul could be received into grace by the divine justice; for
+surely the anathema is clear: Out of the Church there is no salvation.
+
+"My dear child," said the Abbe Gondrin, "learn to understand that saying
+which seems to you so inexplicable. It is more a saying of thanksgiving
+for those who have the happiness to live within the pale of our holy
+mother the Church than a malediction upon those who have the misfortune
+to live apart from her. God sees to the depths of all hearts; He knows
+His elect; and so great is the treasure of His goodness that to none is
+it given to limit its riches and its munificence. Who shall dare to
+say to God: Thou wilt be generous and munificent so far and no farther.
+Jesus Christ forgave the woman in adultery, and on the cross He promised
+heaven to a thief, in order to prove to us that He deals with men, not
+according to human sentiments, but according to _his_ wisdom and _his_
+mercy. He who thinks himself a Christian may be in the eyes of God an
+idolator; and another who is thought a pagan may, by his feelings
+and his actions be, without his own knowledge, a Christian. Our holy
+religion has this that is divine about it; all grandeur, all heroism are
+but the practice of its precepts. I was saying yesterday to Monsieur de
+la Peyrade that pure souls must be, in course of time, its inevitable
+conquest. It is all-important to give them their just credit; that is a
+confidence which returns great dividends; and, besides, charity commands
+it."
+
+"Ah! my God!" cried Celeste, "to learn that too late! I, who could have
+chosen between Felix and Monsieur de la Peyrade, and did not dare to
+follow the ideas of my heart! Oh! Monsieur l'abbe, couldn't you speak to
+my mother? Your advice is always listened to."
+
+"Impossible, my dear child," replied the vicar. "If I had the direction
+of Madame Colleville's conscience I might perhaps say a word, but we are
+so often accused of meddling imprudently in family matters! Be sure that
+my intervention here, without authority or right, would do you more harm
+than good. It is for you and for those who love you," he added, giving a
+look to Madame Thuillier, "to see if these arrangements, already so far
+advanced, could be changed in the direction of your wishes."
+
+It was written that the poor child was to drink to the dregs the cup she
+had herself prepared by her intolerance. As the abbe finished speaking,
+his housekeeper came in to ask if he would receive Monsieur Felix
+Phellion. Thus, like the Charter of 1830, Madame de Godollo's officious
+falsehood was turned into truth.
+
+"Go this way," he said hastily, showing his two penitents out by a
+private corridor.
+
+Life has such strange encounters that it does sometimes happen that the
+same form of proceeding must be used by courtesans and by the men of
+God.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," said Felix to the young vicar as soon as they met, "I
+have heard of the kind manner in which you were so very good as to
+speak of me in Monsieur Thuillier's salon last night, and I should have
+hastened to express my gratitude if another interest had not drawn me to
+you."
+
+The Abbe Gondrin passed hastily over the compliments, eager to know in
+what way he could be useful to his fellow-man.
+
+"With an intention that I wish to think kindly," replied Felix, "you
+were spoken to yesterday about the state of my soul. Those who read it
+so fluently know more than I do about my inner being, for, during the
+last few days I have felt strange, inexplicable feelings within me.
+Never have I doubted God, but, in contact with that infinitude where he
+has permitted my thought to follow the traces of his work I seem to have
+gathered a sense of him less vague, more immediate; and this has led
+me to ask myself whether an honest and upright life is the only homage
+which his omnipotence expects of me. Nevertheless, there are numberless
+objections rising in my mind against the worship of which you are the
+minister; while sensible of the beauty of its external form in many of
+its precepts and practices, I find myself deterred by my reason. I shall
+have paid dearly, perhaps by the happiness of my whole life, for the
+slowness and want of vigor which I have shown in seeking the solution of
+my doubts. I have now decided to search to the bottom of them. No one
+so well as you, Monsieur l'abbe, can help me to solve them. I have come
+with confidence to lay them before you, to ask you to listen to me, to
+answer me, and to tell me by what studies I can pursue the search for
+light. It is a cruelly afflicted soul that appeals to you. Is not that a
+good ground for the seed of your word?"
+
+The Abbe Gondrin eagerly protested the joy with which, notwithstanding
+his own insufficiency, he would undertake to reply to the scruples of
+conscience in the young savant. After asking him for a place in his
+friendship, and telling him to come at certain hours for conversation,
+he asked him to read, as a first step, the "Thoughts" of Pascal.
+A natural affinity, on the side of science, would, he believed,
+be established between the spirit of Pascal and that of the young
+mathematician.
+
+While this scene was passing, a scene to which the greatness of the
+interests in question and the moral and intellectual elevation of the
+personages concerned in it gave a character of grandeur which, like
+all reposeful, tranquil aspects, is easier far to comprehend than to
+reproduce, another scene, of sharp and bitter discord, that chronic
+malady of bourgeois households, where the pettiness of minds and
+passions gives open way to it, was taking place in the Thuillier home.
+
+Mounted upon her chair, her hair in disorder and her face and fingers
+dirty, Brigitte, duster in hand, was cleaning the shelves of the closet,
+where she was replacing her library of plates, dishes, and sauce-boats,
+when Flavie came in and accosted her.
+
+"Brigitte," she said, "when you have finished what you are about you had
+better come down to our apartment, or else I'll send Celeste to you; she
+seems to me to be inclined to make trouble."
+
+"In what way?" asked Brigitte, continuing to dust.
+
+"I think she and Madame Thuillier went to see the Abbe Gondrin this
+morning, and she has been attacking me about Felix Phellion, and talks
+of him as if he were a god; from that to refusing to marry la Peyrade is
+but a step."
+
+"Those cursed skull-caps!" said Brigitte; "they meddle in everything! I
+didn't want to invite him, but you would insist."
+
+"Yes," said Flavie, "it was proper."
+
+"Proper! I despise proprieties!" cried the old maid. "He's a maker of
+speeches; he said nothing last night that wasn't objectionable. Send
+Celeste to me; I'll settle her."
+
+At this instant a servant announced to Brigitte the arrival of a clerk
+from the office of the new notary chosen, in default of Dupuis, to draw
+up the contract. Without considering her disorderly appearance, Brigitte
+ordered him to be shown in, but she made him the condescension of
+descending from her perch instead of talking from the height of it.
+
+"Monsieur Thuillier," said the clerk, "came to our office this morning
+to explain to the master the clauses of the contract he has been so good
+as to entrust to us. But before writing down the stipulations, we are in
+the habit of obtaining from the lips of each donor a direct expression
+of his or her intentions. In accordance with this rule, Monsieur
+Thuillier told us that he gives to the bride the reversion, at his
+death, of the house he inhabits, which I presume to be this one?"
+
+"Yes," said Brigitte, "that is the understanding. As for me, I give
+three hundred thousand francs a year in the Three-per-cents, capital and
+interest; but the bride is married under the dotal system."
+
+"That is so," said the clerk, consulting his notes. "Mademoiselle
+Brigitte, three thousand francs a year. Now, there is Madame Celeste
+Thuillier, wife of Louis-Jerome Thuillier, who gives six thousand in
+the Three-per-cents, capital and interest, and six thousand more at her
+death."
+
+"All that is just as if the notary had written it down," said Brigitte;
+"but if it is your custom you can see my sister-in-law; they will show
+you the way."
+
+So saying, the old maid ordered the "male domestic" to take the clerk to
+Madame Thuillier.
+
+A moment later the clerk returned, saying there was certainly some
+misunderstanding, and that Madame Thuillier declared she had no
+intention of making any agreement in favor of the marriage.
+
+"That's a pretty thing!" cried Brigitte. "Come with me, monsieur."
+
+Then, like a hurricane, she rushed into Madame Thuillier's chamber; the
+latter was pale and trembling.
+
+"What's this you have told monsieur?--that you give nothing to Celeste's
+'dot'?"
+
+"Yes," said the slave, declaring insurrection, although in a shaking
+voice; "my intention is to do nothing."
+
+"Your intention," said Brigitte, scarlet with anger, "is something new."
+
+"That is my intention," was all the rebel replied.
+
+"At least you will give your reasons?"
+
+"The marriage does not please me."
+
+"Ha! and since when?"
+
+"It is not necessary that monsieur should listen to our discussion,"
+said Madame Thuillier; "it will not appear in the contract."
+
+"No wonder you are ashamed of it," said Brigitte; "the appearance you
+are making is not very flattering to you--Monsieur," she continued,
+addressing the clerk, "it is easier, is it not, to mark out passages in
+a contract than to add them?"
+
+The clerk made an affirmative sign.
+
+"Then put in what you were told to write; later, if madame persists, the
+clause can be stricken out."
+
+The clerk bowed and left the room.
+
+When the two sisters-in-law were alone together, Brigitte began.
+
+"Ah ca!" she cried, "have you lost your head? What is this crotchet
+you've taken into it?"
+
+"It is not a crotchet; it is a fixed idea."
+
+"Which you got from the Abbe Gondrin; you dare not deny that you went to
+see him with Celeste."
+
+"It is true that Celeste and I saw our director this morning, but I did
+not open my lips to him about what I intended to do."
+
+"So, then, it is in your own empty head that this notion sprouted?"
+
+"Yes. As I told you yesterday, I think Celeste can be more suitably
+married, and my intention is not to rob myself for a marriage of which I
+disapprove."
+
+"_You_ disapprove! Upon my word! are we all to take madame's advice?"
+
+"I know well," replied Madame Thuillier, "that I count for nothing in
+this house. So far as I am concerned, I have long accepted my position;
+but, when the matter concerns the happiness of a child I regard as my
+own--"
+
+"Parbleu!" cried Brigitte, "you never knew how to have one; for,
+certainly, Thuillier--"
+
+"Sister," said Madame Thuillier, with dignity, "I took the sacrament
+this morning, and there are some things I cannot listen to."
+
+"There's a canting hypocrite for you!" cried Brigitte; "playing the
+saint, and bringing trouble into families! And you think to succeed, do
+you? Wait till Thuillier comes home, and he'll shake this out of you."
+
+By calling in the marital authority in support of her own, Brigitte
+showed weakness before the unexpected resistance thus made to her
+inveterate tyranny. Madame Thuillier's calm words, which became every
+moment more resolute, baffled her completely, and she found no resource
+but insolence.
+
+"A drone!" she cried; "a helpless good-for-nothing! who can't even pick
+up her own handkerchief! that thing wants to be mistress of this house!"
+
+"I wish so little to be its mistress," said Madame Thuillier, "that last
+night I allowed you to silence me after the first words I said in behalf
+of Celeste. But I am mistress of my own property, and as I believe that
+Celeste will be wretched in this marriage, I keep it to use as may seem
+best to me."
+
+"Your property, indeed!" said Brigitte, with a sneer.
+
+"Yes, that which I received from my father and my mother, and which I
+brought as my 'dot' to Monsieur Thuillier."
+
+"And pray who invested it, this property, and made it give you twelve
+thousand francs a year?"
+
+"I have never asked you for any account of it," said Madame Thuillier,
+gently. "If it had been lost in the uses you made of it, you would never
+have heard a single word from me; but it has prospered, and it is just
+that I should have the benefit. It is not for myself that I reserve it."
+
+"Perhaps not; if this is the course you take, it is not at all sure that
+you and I will go out of the same door long."
+
+"Do you mean that Monsieur Thuillier will send me away? He must have
+reasons for doing that, and, thank God! I have been a wife above
+reproach."
+
+"Viper! hypocrite! heartless creature!" cried Brigitte, coming to an end
+of her arguments.
+
+"Sister," said Madame Thuillier, "you are in my apartment--"
+
+"Am I, you imbecile?" cried the old maid, in a paroxysm of anger. "If I
+didn't restrain myself--"
+
+And she made a gesture both insulting and threatening.
+
+Madame Thuillier rose to leave the room.
+
+"No! you shall not go out," cried Brigitte, pushing her down into her
+chair; "and till Thuillier comes home and decides what he will do with
+you you'll stay locked up here."
+
+Just as Brigitte, her face on fire, returned to the room where she had
+left Madame Colleville, her brother came in. He was radiant.
+
+"My dear," he said to the Megaera, not observing her fury, "everything
+is going on finely; the conspiracy of silence is broken; two papers,
+the 'National' and a Carlist journal, have copied articles from us, and
+there's a little attack in a ministerial paper."
+
+"Well, all is not going on finely here," said Brigitte, "and if it
+continues, I shall leave the barrack."
+
+"Whom are you angry with now?" asked Thuillier.
+
+"With your insolent wife, who has made me a scene; I am trembling all
+over."
+
+"Celeste make you a scene!" said Thuillier; "then it is the very first
+time in her life."
+
+"There's a beginning to everything, and if you don't bring her to
+order--"
+
+"But what was it about--this scene?"
+
+"About madame's not choosing that la Peyrade should marry her
+goddaughter; and out of spite, to prevent the marriage, she refused to
+give anything in the contract."
+
+"Come, be calm," said Thuillier, not disturbed himself, the admission of
+the "Echo" into the polemic making another Pangloss of him. "I'll settle
+all that."
+
+"You, Flavie," said Brigitte, when Thuillier had departed to his wife,
+"you will do me the pleasure to go down to your own apartment, and tell
+Mademoiselle Celeste that I don't choose to see her now, because if she
+made me any irritating answer I might box her ears. You'll tell her
+that I don't like conspiracies; that she was left at liberty to choose
+Monsieur Phellion junior if she wanted him, and she did not want him;
+that the matter is now all arranged, and that if she does not wish to
+see her 'dot' reduced to what you are able to give her, which isn't as
+much as a bank-messenger could carry in his waistcoat pocket--"
+
+"But, my dear Brigitte," interrupted Flavie, turning upon her at this
+impertinence, "you may dispense with reminding us in this harsh way of
+our poverty; for, after all, we have never asked you for anything,
+and we pay our rent punctually; and as for the 'dot,' Monsieur
+Felix Phellion is quite ready to take Celeste with no more than a
+bank-messenger could carry in his _bag_."
+
+And she emphasized the last word by her way of pronouncing it.
+
+"Ha! so you too are going to meddle in this, are you?" cried Brigitte.
+"Very good; go and fetch him, your Felix. I know, my little woman, that
+this marriage has never suited you; it IS disagreeable to be nothing
+more than a mother to your son-in-law."
+
+Flavie had recovered the coolness she had lost for an instant, and
+without replying to this speech she merely shrugged her shoulders.
+
+At this moment Thuillier returned; his air of beatitude had deserted
+him.
+
+"My dear Brigitte," he said to his sister, "you have a most excellent
+heart, but at times you are so violent--"
+
+"Ho!" said the old maid, "am I to be arraigned on this side too?"
+
+"I certainly do not blame you for the cause of the trouble, and I have
+just rebuked Celeste for her assumption; but there are proper forms that
+must be kept."
+
+"Forms! what are you talking about? What forms have I neglected?"
+
+"But, my dear friend, to raise your hand against your sister!"
+
+"I, raise my hand against that imbecile? What nonsense you talk!"
+
+"And besides," continued Thuillier, "a woman of Celeste's age can't be
+kept in prison."
+
+"Your wife!--have I put her in prison?"
+
+"You can't deny it, for I found the door of her room double-locked."
+
+"Parbleu! all this because in my anger at the infamous things she was
+spitting at me I may have turned the key of the door without intending
+it."
+
+"Come, come," said Thuillier, "these are not proper actions for people
+of our class."
+
+"Oh! so it is I who am to blame, is it? Well, my lad, some day you'll
+remember this, and we shall see how your household will get along when I
+have stopped taking care of it."
+
+"You'll always take care of it," said Thuillier. "Housekeeping is your
+very life; you will be the first to get over this affair."
+
+"We'll see about that," said Brigitte; "after twenty years of devotion,
+to be treated like the lowest of the low!"
+
+And rushing to the door, which she slammed after her with violence, she
+went away.
+
+Thuillier was not disturbed by this exit.
+
+"Were you there, Flavie," he asked, "when the scene took place?"
+
+"No, it happened in Celeste's room. What did she do to her?"
+
+"What I said,--raised her hand to her and locked her in like a child.
+Celeste may certainly be rather dull-minded, but there are limits that
+must not be passed."
+
+"She is not always pleasant, that good Brigitte," said Flavie; "she and
+I have just had a little set-to."
+
+"Oh, well," said Thuillier, "it will all pass off. I want to tell
+you, my dear Flavie, what fine success we have had this morning. The
+'National' quotes two whole paragraphs of an article in which there were
+several sentences of mine."
+
+Thuillier was again interrupted in the tale of his great political and
+literary success,--this time by the entrance of Josephine the cook.
+
+"Can monsieur tell me where to find the key of the great trunk?" she
+said.
+
+"What do you want with it?" asked Thuillier.
+
+"Mademoiselle told me to take it to her room."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Mademoiselle must be going to make a journey. She is getting her linen
+out of the drawers, and her gowns are on the bed."
+
+"Another piece of nonsense!" said Thuillier. "Flavie, go and see what
+she has in her head."
+
+"Not I," said Madame Colleville; "go yourself. In her present state of
+exasperation she might beat me."
+
+"And my stupid wife, who must needs raise a fuss about the contract!"
+cried Thuillier. "She really must have said something pretty sharp to
+turn Brigitte off her hinges like this."
+
+"Monsieur has not told me where to find the key," persisted Josephine.
+
+"I don't know anything about it," said Thuillier, crossly; "go and look
+for it, or else tell her it is lost."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Josephine, "it is likely I'd dare to go and tell her
+that."
+
+Just then the outer door-bell rang.
+
+"No doubt that's la Peyrade," said Thuillier, in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+The Provencal appeared a moment later.
+
+"Faith, my dear friend," cried Thuillier, "it is high time you came; the
+house is in revolution, all about you, and it needs your silvery tongue
+to bring it back to peace and quietness."
+
+Then he related to his assistant editor the circumstances of the civil
+war which had broken out.
+
+La Peyrade turned to Madame Colleville.
+
+"I think," he said, "that under the circumstances in which we now stand
+there is no impropriety in my asking for an interview of a few moments
+with Mademoiselle Colleville."
+
+In this the Provencal showed his usual shrewd ability; he saw that in
+the mission of pacification thus given to him Celeste Colleville was the
+key of the situation.
+
+"I will send for her, and we will leave you alone together," said
+Flavie.
+
+"My dear Thuillier," said la Peyrade, "you must, without any violence,
+let Mademoiselle Celeste know that her consent must be given without
+further delay; make her think that this was the purpose for which you
+have sent for her; then leave us; I will do the rest."
+
+The man-servant was sent down to the entresol with orders to tell
+Celeste that her godfather wished to speak to her. As soon as she
+appeared, Thuillier said, to carry out the programme which had been
+dictated to him:--
+
+"My dear, your mother has told us things that astonish us. Can it be
+true that with your contract almost signed, you have not yet decided to
+accept the marriage we have arranged for you?"
+
+"Godfather," said Celeste, rather surprised at this abrupt summons, "I
+think I did not say that to mamma."
+
+"Did you not just now," said Flavie, "praise Monsieur Felix Phellion to
+me in the most extravagant manner?"
+
+"I spoke of Monsieur Phellion as all the world is speaking of him."
+
+"Come, come," said Thuillier, with authority, "let us have no
+equivocation; do you refuse, yes or no, to marry Monsieur de la
+Peyrade?"
+
+"Dear, good friend," said la Peyrade, intervening, "your way of putting
+the question is rather too abrupt, and, in my presence, especially, it
+seems to me out of place. In my position as the most interested person,
+will you allow me to have an interview with mademoiselle, which, indeed,
+has now become necessary? This favor I am sure will not be refused by
+Madame Colleville. Under present circumstances, there can surely be
+nothing in my request to alarm her maternal prudence."
+
+"I would certainly yield to it," said Flavie, "if I did not fear that
+these discussions might seem to open a question which is irrevocably
+decided."
+
+"But, my dear madame, I have the strongest desire that Mademoiselle
+Celeste shall remain, until the very last moment, the mistress of her
+own choice. I beg you, therefore, to grant my request."
+
+"So be it!" said Madame Colleville; "you think yourself very clever, but
+if you let that girl twist you round her finger, so much the worse for
+you. Come, Thuillier, since we are 'de trop' here."
+
+As soon as the pair were alone together, la Peyrade drew up a chair for
+Celeste, and took one himself, saying:--
+
+"You will, I venture to believe, do me the justice to say that until
+to-day I have never annoyed you with the expression of my sentiments. I
+was aware of the inclinations of your heart, and also of the warnings of
+your conscience. I hoped, after a time, to make myself acceptable as a
+refuge from those two currents of feeling; but, at the point which we
+have now reached, I think it is not either indiscreet or impatient to
+ask you to let me know plainly what course you have decided upon."
+
+"Monsieur," replied Celeste, "as you speak to me so kindly and frankly,
+I will tell you, what indeed you know already, that, brought up as I was
+with Monsieur Felix Phellion, knowing him far longer than I have known
+you, the idea of marrying alarmed me less in regard to him than it would
+in regard to others."
+
+"At one time, I believe," remarked la Peyrade, "you were permitted to
+choose him if you wished."
+
+"Yes, but at that time difficulties grew up between us on religious
+ideas."
+
+"And to-day those difficulties have disappeared?"
+
+"Nearly," replied Celeste. "I am accustomed to submit to the judgment of
+those who are wiser than myself, monsieur, and you heard yesterday the
+manner in which the Abbe Gondrin spoke of Monsieur Phellion."
+
+"God forbid," said la Peyrade, "that I should seek to invalidate
+the judgment of so excellent a man; but I venture to say to you,
+mademoiselle, that there are great differences among the clergy; some
+are thought too stern, some far too indulgent; moreover, the Abbe
+Gondrin is more of a preacher than a casuist."
+
+"But, Monsieur Felix," said Celeste, eagerly, "seems to wish to fulfil
+Monsieur l'abbe's hopes of him, for I know that he went to see him this
+morning."
+
+"Ah!" said la Peyrade, with a touch of irony, "so he really decided to
+go to Pere Anselme! But, admitting that on the religious side Monsieur
+Phellion may now become all that you expect of him, have you reflected,
+mademoiselle, on the great event which has just taken place in his
+life?"
+
+"Undoubtedly; and that is not a reason to think less of him."
+
+"No, but it is a reason why he should think more of himself. For the
+modesty which was once the chief charm of his nature, he is likely to
+substitute great assumption, and you must remember, mademoiselle, that
+he who has discovered one world will want to discover two; you will have
+the whole firmament for rival; in short, could you ever be happy with a
+man so entirely devoted to science?"
+
+"You plead your cause with such adroitness," said Celeste, smiling,
+"that I think you might be as a lawyer more disquieting than an
+astronomer."
+
+"Mademoiselle," said la Peyrade, "let us speak seriously; there is
+another and far more serious aspect to the situation. Do you know that,
+at this moment, in this house, and without, I am sure, desiring it, you
+are the cause of most distressing and regrettable scenes?"
+
+"I, monsieur!" said Celeste, in a tone of surprise that was mingled with
+fear.
+
+"Yes, concerning your godmother. Through the extreme affection that she
+has for you she seems to have become another woman; for the first time
+in her life she has shown a mind of her own. With an energy of will
+which comes at times to those who have never expended any, she declares
+that she will not make her proposed liberal gift to you in the contract;
+and I need not tell you who is the person aimed at in this unexpected
+refusal."
+
+"But, monsieur, I entreat you to believe that I knew nothing of this
+idea of my godmother."
+
+"I know that," said la Peyrade, "and the matter itself would be of small
+importance if Mademoiselle Brigitte had not taken this attitude of your
+godmother, whom she has always found supple to her will, as a personal
+insult to herself. Very painful explanations, approaching at last to
+violence, have taken place. Thuillier, placed between the hammer and
+the anvil, has been unable to stop the affair; on the contrary, he has,
+without intending it, made matters worse, till they have now arrived at
+such a point that Mademoiselle Brigitte is packing her trunks to leave
+the house."
+
+"Monsieur! what are you telling me?" cried Celeste, horrified.
+
+"The truth; and the servants will confirm it to you--for I feel that my
+revelations are scarcely believable."
+
+"But it is impossible! impossible!" said the poor child, whose agitation
+increased with every word of the adroit Provencal. "I cannot be the
+cause of such dreadful harm."
+
+"That is, you did not intend to be, for the harm is done; and I pray
+Heaven it may not be irremediable."
+
+"But what am I to do, good God!" cried Celeste, wringing her hands.
+
+"I should answer, without hesitation, sacrifice yourself, mademoiselle,
+if it were not that I should then be forced to play the painful part of
+victimizer."
+
+"Monsieur," said Celeste, "you interpret ill the resistance that I have
+made, though, in fact, I have scarcely expressed it. I have certainly
+had a preference, but I have never considered myself in the light of
+a victim; and whatever it is necessary to do to restore peace in this
+house to which I have brought trouble, I shall do it without repugnance,
+and even willingly."
+
+"That would be for me," said la Peyrade, humbly, "more than I could dare
+ask for myself; but, for the result which we both seek, I must tell you
+frankly that something more is needed. Madame Thuillier has not changed
+her nature to instantly change back again on the mere assurance by
+others of your compliance. It is necessary that she should hear from
+your own lips that you accede to my suit, and that you do so with
+eagerness,--assumed, indeed, but sufficiently well assumed to induce her
+to believe in it."
+
+"So be it," said Celeste. "I shall know how to seem smiling and happy.
+My godmother, monsieur, has been a mother to me; and for such a mother,
+what is there that I would not endure?"
+
+The position was such, and Celeste betrayed so artlessly the depth and,
+at the same time, the absolute determination of her sacrifice, that with
+any heart at all la Peyrade would have loathed the part he was playing;
+but Celeste, to him, was a means of ascent, and provided the ladder can
+hold you and hoist you, who would ever ask if it cared to or not? It was
+therefore decided that Celeste should go to her godmother and convince
+her of the mistake she had made in supposing an objection to la Peyrade
+which Celeste had never intended to make. Madame Thuillier's opposition
+overcome, all was once more easy. La Peyrade took upon himself the duty
+of making peace between the two sisters-in-law, and we can well imagine
+that he was not at a loss for fine phrases with which to assure the
+artless girl of the devotion and love which would take from her all
+regret for the moral compulsion she had now undergone.
+
+When Celeste went to her godmother she found her by no means as
+difficult to convince as she had expected. To go to the point of
+rebellion which Madame Thuillier had actually reached, the poor woman,
+who was acting against her instincts and against her nature, had needed
+a tension of will that, in her, was almost superhuman. No sooner had she
+received the false confidences of her goddaughter than the reaction set
+in; the strength failed her to continue in the path she had taken. She
+was therefore easily the dupe of the comedy which Celeste's tender heart
+was made to play for la Peyrade's benefit.
+
+The tempest calmed on this side, the barrister found no difficulty in
+making Brigitte understand that in quelling the rebellion against her
+authority she had gone a little farther than was proper. This authority
+being no longer in danger, Brigitte ceased to be incensed with the
+sister-in-law she had been on the point of beating, and the quarrel was
+settled with a few kind words and a kiss, poor Celeste paying the costs
+of war.
+
+After dinner, which was only a family meal, the notary, to whose office
+they were to go on the following day to sign the contract (it being
+impossible to give a second edition of the abortive party), made his
+appearance. He came, he said, to submit the contract to the parties
+interested before engrossing it. This attention was not surprising in
+a man who was just entering into business relations with so important a
+person as the municipal councillor, whom it was his interest to firmly
+secure for a client.
+
+La Peyrade was far too shrewd to make any objections to the terms of the
+contract, which was now read. A few changes requested by Brigitte, which
+gave the new notary a high idea of the old maid's business capacity,
+showed la Peyrade plainly that more precautions were being taken against
+him than were altogether becoming; but he was anxious not to raise
+difficulties, and he knew that the meshes of a contract are never so
+close that a determined and clever man cannot get through them. The
+appointment was then made for the signing of the contract the next day,
+at two o'clock, in the notary's office, the family only being present.
+
+During the rest of the evening, taking advantage of Celeste's pledge
+to seem smiling and happy, la Peyrade played, as it were, upon the poor
+child, forced her, by a specious exhibition of gratitude and love, to
+respond to him on a key that was far, indeed, from the true state of a
+heart now wholly filled by Felix. Flavie, seeing the manner in which
+la Peyrade put forth his seductions, was reminded of the pains he had
+formerly taken to fascinate herself. "The monster!" she said, beneath
+her breath. But she was forced to bear the torture with a good grace; la
+Peyrade was evidently approved by all, and in the course of the evening
+a circumstance came to light, showing a past service done by him to the
+house of Thuillier, which brought his influence and his credit to the
+highest point.
+
+Minard was announced.
+
+"My dear friends," he said, "I have come to make a little revelation
+which will greatly surprise you, and will, I think, prove a lesson
+to all of us when a question arises as to receiving foreigners in our
+homes."
+
+"What is it?" cried Brigitte, with curiosity.
+
+"That Hungarian woman you were so delighted with, that Madame Torna,
+Comtesse de Godollo--"
+
+"Well?" exclaimed the old maid.
+
+"Well," continued Minard, "she was no better than she should be; you
+were petting in your house for two months the most impudent of kept
+women."
+
+"Who told you that tale?" asked Brigitte, not willing to admit that she
+had fallen into such a snare.
+
+"Oh, it isn't a tale," said the mayor, eagerly. "I know the thing
+myself, 'de visu.'"
+
+"Dear me! do you frequent such women?" said Brigitte, resuming the
+offensive. "That's a pretty thing! what would Zelie say if she knew it?"
+
+"In the discharge of my duties," said Minard, stiffly, provoked at this
+reception of his news, "I have seen _your friend_, Madame de Godollo, in
+company with others of her class."
+
+"How do you know it was she if you only saw her?" demanded Brigitte.
+
+The wily Provencal was not the man to lose an occasion that fell to him
+ready-made.
+
+"Monsieur le maire is not mistaken," he said, with decision.
+
+"Tiens! so you know her, too," said Brigitte; "and you let us consort
+with such vermin?"
+
+"No," said la Peyrade, "on the contrary. Without scandal, without saying
+a word to any one, I removed her from your house. You remember how
+suddenly the woman left it? It was I who compelled her to do so; having
+discovered what she was, I gave her two days to leave the premises;
+threatening her, in case she hesitated, to tell you all."
+
+"My dear Theodose," said Thuillier, pressing his hand, "you acted with
+as much prudence as decision. This is one more obligation that we owe to
+you."
+
+"You see, mademoiselle," said la Peyrade, addressing Celeste, "the
+strange protectress whom a friend of yours selected."
+
+"Thank God," said Madame Thuillier. "Felix Phellion is above such vile
+things."
+
+"Ah ca! papa Minard, we'll keep quiet about all this; silence is the
+word. Will you take a cup of tea?"
+
+"Willingly," replied Minard.
+
+"Celeste," said the old maid, "ring for Henri, and tell him to put the
+large kettle on the fire."
+
+Though the visit to the notary was not to be made till two in the
+afternoon, Brigitte began early in the morning of the next day what
+Thuillier called her _rampage_, a popular term which expresses that
+turbulent, nagging, irritating activity which La Fontaine has described
+so well in his fable of "The Old Woman and her Servants." Brigitte
+declared that if you didn't take time by the forelock no one would be
+ready. She prevented Thuillier from going to his office, insisting
+that if he once got off she never should see him again; she plagued
+Josephine, the cook, about hurrying the breakfast, and in spite of what
+had happened the day before she scarcely restrained herself from nagging
+at Madame Thuillier, who did not enter, as she thought she should have
+done, into her favorite maxim, "Better be early than late."
+
+Presently down she went to the Collevilles' to make the same
+disturbance; and there she put her veto on the costume, far too elegant,
+which Flavie meditated wearing, and told Celeste the hat and gown she
+wished her to appear in. As for Colleville, who could not, he declared,
+stay away all the morning from his official duties, she compelled him
+to put on his dress-suit before he went out, made him set his watch by
+hers, and warned him that if he was late no one would wait for him.
+
+The amusing part of it was that Brigitte herself, after driving every
+one at the point of the bayonet, came very near being late herself.
+Under pretext of aiding others, independently of minding her own
+business, which, for worlds, she would never have spared herself, she
+had put her fingers and eyes into so many things that they ended by
+overwhelming her. However, she ascribed the delay in which she was
+almost caught to the hairdresser, whom she had sent for to make, on this
+extraordinary occasion, what she called her "part." That artist having,
+unadvisedly, dressed her hair in the fashion, he was compelled, after
+she had looked at herself in the glass, to do his work over again, and
+conform to the usual style of his client, which consisted chiefly in
+never being "done" at all, a method that gave her head a general air of
+what is vulgarly called "a cross cat."
+
+About half-past one o'clock la Peyrade, Thuillier, Colleville, Madame
+Thuillier, and Celeste were assembled in the salon. Flavie joined them
+soon after, fastening her bracelets as she came along to avoid a
+rebuff, and having the satisfaction of knowing that she was ready before
+Brigitte. As for the latter, already furious at finding herself late,
+she had another cause for exasperation. The event of the day seemed
+to require a corset, a refinement which she usually discarded. The
+unfortunate maid, whose duty it was to lace her and to discover the
+exact point to which she was willing to be drawn in, alone knew the
+terrors and storms of a corset day.
+
+"I'd rather," said the girl, "lace the obelisk; I know it would lend
+itself to being laced better than she does; and, anyhow, it couldn't be
+bad-tongued."
+
+While the party in the salon were amusing themselves, under their
+breaths, at the "flagrante delicto" of unpunctuality in which Queen
+Elizabeth was caught, the porter entered, and gave to Thuillier a sealed
+package, addressed to "Monsieur Thuillier, director of the 'Echo de la
+Bievre.' _In haste_."
+
+Thuillier opened the envelope, and found within a copy of a ministerial
+journal which had hitherto shown itself discourteous to the new paper
+by refusing the _exchange_ which all periodicals usually make very
+willingly with one another.
+
+Puzzled by the fact of this missive being sent to his own house and not
+to the office of the "Echo," Thuillier hastily opened the sheet, and
+read, with what emotion the reader may conceive, the following article,
+commended to his notice by a circle in red ink:--
+
+  An obscure organ was about to expire in its native shade when an
+  ambitious person of recent date bethought himself of galvanizing
+  it. His object was to make it a foothold by which to climb from
+  municipal functions to the coveted position of deputy. Happily
+  this object, having come to the surface, will end in failure.
+  Electors will certainly not be inveigled by so wily a manner of
+  advancing self-interests; and when the proper time arrives, if
+  ridicule has not already done justice on this absurd candidacy, we
+  shall ourselves prove to the pretender that to aspire to the
+  distinguished honor of representing the nation something more is
+  required than the money to buy a paper and pay an underling to put
+  into good French the horrible diction of his articles and
+  pamphlets. We confine ourselves to-day to this limited notice, but
+  our readers may be sure that we shall keep them informed about
+  this electoral comedy, if indeed the parties concerned have the
+  melancholy courage to go on with it.
+
+Thuillier read twice over this sudden declaration of war, which was far
+from leaving him calm and impassible; then, taking la Peyrade aside, he
+said to him:--
+
+"Read that; it is serious."
+
+"Well?" said la Peyrade, after reading the article.
+
+"Well? how well?" exclaimed Thuillier.
+
+"I mean, what do you find so serious in that?"
+
+"What do I find so serious?" repeated Thuillier. "I don't think anything
+could be more insulting to me."
+
+"You can't doubt," said la Peyrade, "that the virtuous Cerizet is at the
+bottom of it; he has thrown this firecracker between your legs by way of
+revenge."
+
+"Cerizet, or anybody else who wrote that diatribe is an insolent
+fellow," cried Thuillier, getting angry, "and the matter shall not rest
+there."
+
+"For my part," said la Peyrade, "I advise you to make no reply. You are
+not named; though, of course, the attack is aimed at you. But you ought
+to let our adversary commit himself farther; when the right moment
+comes, we'll rap him over the knuckles."
+
+"No!" said Thuillier, "I won't stay quiet one minute under such an
+insult."
+
+"The devil!" said the barrister; "what a sensitive epidermis! Do
+reflect, my dear fellow, that you have made yourself a candidate and a
+journalist, and therefore you really must harden yourself better than
+that."
+
+"My good friend, it is a principle of mine not to let anybody step on
+my toes. Besides, they say themselves they are going on with this thing.
+Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to cut short such impertinence."
+
+"But do consider," said la Peyrade. "Certainly in journalism, as in
+candidacy, a hot temper has its uses; a man makes himself respected, and
+stops attacks--"
+
+"Just so," said Thuillier, "'principiis obsta.' Not to-day, because we
+haven't the time, but to-morrow I shall carry that paper into court."
+
+"Into court!" echoed la Peyrade; "you surely wouldn't go to law in such
+a matter as this? In the first place, there is nothing to proceed upon;
+you are not named nor the paper either, and, besides, it is a pitiable
+business, going to law; you'll look like a boy who has been fighting,
+and got the worst of it, and runs to complain to his mamma. Now if you
+had said that you meant to make Fleury intervene in the matter, I could
+understand that--though the affair is rather personal to you, and it
+might be difficult to make it seem--"
+
+"Ah ca!" said Thuillier, "do you suppose I am going to commit myself
+with a Cerizet or any other newspaper bully? I pique myself, my
+dear fellow, on possessing civic courage, which does not give in to
+prejudices, and which, instead of taking justice into its own hands, has
+recourse to the means of defence that are provided by law. Besides, with
+the legal authority the Court of Cassation now has over duelling, I have
+no desire to put myself in the way of being expatriated, or spending two
+or three years in prison."
+
+"Well," said la Peyrade, "we'll talk it over later; here's your sister,
+and she would think everything lost if this little matter reached her
+ears."
+
+When Brigitte appeared Colleville shouted "Full!" and proceeded to sing
+the chorus of "La Parisienne."
+
+"Heavens! Colleville, how vulgar you are!" cried the tardy one,
+hastening to cast a stone in the other's garden to avoid the throwing
+of one into hers. "Well, are you all ready?" she added, arranging her
+mantle before a mirror. "What o'clock is it? it won't do to get there
+before the time, like provincials."
+
+"Ten minutes to two," said Colleville; "I go by the Tuileries."
+
+"Well, then we are just right," said Brigitte; "it will take about that
+time to get to the rue Caumartin. Josephine," she cried, going to the
+door of the salon, "we'll dine at six, therefore be sure you put the
+turkey to roast at the right time, and mind you don't burn it, as you
+did the other day. Bless me! who's that?" and with a hasty motion she
+shut the door, which she had been holding open. "What a nuisance! I hope
+Henri will have the sense to tell him we are out."
+
+Not at all; Henri came in to say that an old gentleman, with a very
+genteel air, had asked to be received on urgent business.
+
+"Why didn't you say we were all out?"
+
+"That's what I should have done if mademoiselle had not opened the
+door of the salon so that the gentleman could see the whole family
+assembled."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Brigitte, "you are never in the wrong, are you?"
+
+"What am I to say to him?" asked the man.
+
+"Say," replied Thuillier, "that I am very sorry not to be able to
+receive him, but I am expected at a notary's office about a marriage
+contract; but that if he could return two hours hence--"
+
+"I have told him all that," said Henri, "and he answered that that
+contract was precisely what he had come about, and that his business
+concerned you more than himself."
+
+"You had better go and see him, Thuillier, and get rid of him in
+double-quick," said Brigitte; "that's shorter than talking to Henri, who
+is always an orator."
+
+If la Peyrade had been consulted he might not have joined in that
+advice, for he had had more than one specimen of the spokes some occult
+influence was putting into the wheels of his marriage, and the present
+visit seemed to him ominous.
+
+"Show him into my study," said Thuillier, following his sister's advice;
+and, opening the door which led from the salon to the study, he went to
+receive his importunate visitor.
+
+Brigitte immediately applied her eye to the keyhole.
+
+"Goodness!" she exclaimed, "there's my imbecile of a Thuillier offering
+him a chair! and away in a corner, too, where I can't hear a word they
+say!"
+
+La Peyrade was walking about the room with an inward agitation covered
+by an appearance of great indifference. He even went up to the three
+women, and made a few lover-like speeches to Celeste, who received them
+with a smiling, happy air in keeping with the role she was playing. As
+for Colleville, he was killing the time by composing an anagram on the
+six words of "le journal 'l'Echo de la Bievre,'" for which he had found
+the following version, little reassuring (as far as it went) for the
+prospects of that newspaper: "O d'Echo, jarni! la bevue reell"--but as
+the final "e" was lacking to complete the last word, the work was not
+altogether as satisfactory as it should have been.
+
+"He's taking snuff!" said Brigitte, her eye still glued to the keyhole;
+"his gold snuff-box beats Minard's--though, perhaps, it is only
+silver-gilt," she added, reflectively. "He's doing the talking, and
+Thuillier is sitting there listening to him like a buzzard. I shall go
+in and tell them they can't keep ladies waiting that way."
+
+But just as she put her hand on the lock she heard Thuillier's visitor
+raise his voice, and that made her look through the keyhole again.
+
+"He is standing up; he's going," she said with satisfaction.
+
+But a moment later she saw she had made a mistake; the little old man
+had only left his chair to walk up and down the room and continue the
+conversation with greater freedom.
+
+"My gracious! I shall certainly go in," she said, "and tell Thuillier we
+are going without him, and he can follow us."
+
+So saying, the old maid gave two little sharp and very imperious raps on
+the door, after which she resolutely entered the study.
+
+La Peyrade, goaded by anxiety, had the bad taste to look through
+the keyhole himself at what was happening. Instantly he thought
+he recognized the small old man he had seen under the name of "the
+commander" on that memorable morning when he had waited for Madame de
+Godollo. Then he saw Thuillier addressing his sister with impatience
+and with gestures of authority altogether out of his usual habits of
+deference and submission.
+
+"It seems," said Brigitte, re-entering the salon, "that Thuillier finds
+some great interest in that creature's talk, for he ordered me bluntly
+to leave them, though the little old fellow did say, rather civilly,
+that they would soon be through. But Jerome added: '_Mind_, you are to
+wait for me.' Really, since he has taken to making newspapers I don't
+know him; he has set up an air as if he were leading the world with his
+wand."
+
+"I am very much afraid he is being entangled by some adventurer," said
+la Peyrade. "I am pretty sure I saw that old man at Madame de Godollo's
+the day I went to warn her off the premises; he must be of the same
+stripe."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?" cried Brigitte. "I'd have asked him for news
+of the countess, and let him see we knew what we knew of his Hungarian."
+
+Just then the sound of moving chairs was heard, and Brigitte darted back
+to the keyhole.
+
+"Yes," she said, "he is really going, and Thuillier is bowing him out
+respectfully!"
+
+As Thuillier did not immediately return, Colleville had time to go to
+the window and exclaim at seeing the little old gentleman driving away
+in an elegant coupe, of which the reader has already heard.
+
+"The deuce!" cried Colleville; "what an ornate livery! If he is an
+adventurer he is a number one."
+
+At last Thuillier re-entered the room, his face full of care, his manner
+extremely grave.
+
+"My dear la Peyrade," he said, "you did not tell us that another
+proposal of marriage had been seriously considered by you."
+
+"Yes, I did; I told you that a very rich heiress had been offered to
+me, but that my inclinations were here, and that I had not given any
+encouragement to the affair; consequently, of course, there was no
+serious engagement."
+
+"Well, I think you do wrong to treat that proposal so lightly."
+
+"What! do you mean to say, in presence of these ladies, that you blame
+me for remaining faithful to my first desires and our old engagement?"
+
+"My friend, the conversation that I have just had has been a most
+instructive one to me; and when you know what I know, with other details
+personal to yourself, which will be confided to you, I think that you
+will enter into my ideas. One thing is certain; we shall not go to the
+notary to-day; and as for you, the best thing that you can do is to go,
+without delay, to Monsieur du Portail."
+
+"That name again! it pursues me like a remorse," exclaimed la Peyrade.
+
+"Yes; go at once; he is awaiting you. It is an indispensable preliminary
+before we can go any farther. When you have seen that excellent man and
+heard what he has to say to you--well, _then_ if you persist in claiming
+Celeste's hand, we might perhaps carry out our plans. Until then we
+shall take no steps in the matter."
+
+"But, my poor Thuillier," said Brigitte, "you have let yourself be
+gammoned by a rascal; that man belongs to the Godollo set."
+
+"Madame de Godollo," replied Thuillier, "is not at all what you suppose
+her to be, and the best thing this house can do is never to say one word
+about her, either good or evil. As for la Peyrade, as this is not the
+first time he has been requested to go and see Monsieur du Portail, I am
+surprised that he hesitates to do so."
+
+"Ah ca!" said Brigitte, "that little old man has completely befooled
+you."
+
+"I tell you that that little old man is all that he appears to be. He
+wears seven crosses, he drives in a splendid equipage, and he has told
+me things that have overwhelmed me with astonishment."
+
+"Well, perhaps he's a fortune-teller like Madame Fontaine, who managed
+once upon a time to upset me when Madame Minard and I, just to amuse
+ourselves, went to consult her."
+
+"Well, if he is not a sorcerer he certainly has a very long arm," said
+Thuillier, "and I think a man would suffer for it if he didn't respect
+his advice. As for you, Brigitte, he saw you only for a minute, but he
+told me your whole character; he said you were a masterful woman, born
+to command."
+
+"The fact is," said Brigitte, licking her chops at this compliment,
+like a cat drinking cream, "he has a very well-bred air, that little old
+fellow. You take my advice, my dear," she said, turning to la Peyrade;
+"if such a very big-wig as that wants you to do so, go and see this
+du Portail, whoever he is. That, it seems to me, won't bind you to
+anything."
+
+"You are right, Brigitte," said Colleville; "as for me, I'd follow up
+all the Portails, or Port_ers_, or Port_ents_ for the matter of that, if
+they asked me to."
+
+The scene was beginning to resemble that in the "Barber of Seville,"
+where everybody tells Basil to go to bed, for he certainly has a fever.
+La Peyrade, thus prodded, picked up his hat in some ill-humor, and went
+where his destiny called him,--"quo sua fata vocabant."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. AT DU PORTAIL'S
+
+On reaching the rue Honore-Chevalier la Peyrade felt a doubt; the
+dilapidated appearance of the house to which he was summoned made him
+think he had mistaken the number. It seemed to him that a person of
+Monsieur du Portail's evident importance could not inhabit such a place.
+It was therefore with some hesitation that he accosted Sieur Perrache,
+the porter. But no sooner had he entered the antechamber of the
+apartment pointed out to him than the excellent deportment of Bruneau,
+the old valet, and the extremely comfortable appearance of the furniture
+and other appointments made him see that he was probably in the right
+place. Introduced at once, as soon as he had given his name, into the
+study of the master of the house, his surprise was great when he found
+himself in presence of the commander, so called, the friend of Madame
+de Godollo, and the little old man he had seen half an hour earlier with
+Thuillier.
+
+"At last!" said du Portail, rising, and offering la Peyrade a chair, "at
+last we meet, my refractory friend; it has taken a good deal to bring
+you here."
+
+"May I know, monsieur," said la Peyrade, haughtily, not taking the chair
+which was offered to him, "what interest you have in meddling with my
+affairs? I do not know you, and I may add that the place where I once
+saw you did not create an unconquerable desire in me to make your
+acquaintance."
+
+"Where have you seen me?" asked du Portail.
+
+"In the apartment of a strumpet who called herself Madame de Godollo."
+
+"Where monsieur, consequently, went himself," said the little old man,
+"and for a purpose much less disinterested than mine."
+
+"I have not come here," said la Peyrade, "to bandy words with any one.
+I have the right, monsieur, to a full explanation as to the meaning of
+your proceedings towards me. I therefore request you not to delay them
+by a facetiousness to which, I assure you, I am not in the humor to
+listen."
+
+"Then, my dear fellow," said du Portail, "sit down, for I am not in the
+humor to twist my neck by talking up at you."
+
+The words were reasonable, and they were said in a tone that showed the
+old gentleman was not likely to be frightened by grand airs. La Peyrade
+therefore deferred to the wishes of his host, but he took care to do so
+with the worst grace possible.
+
+"Monsieur Cerizet," said du Portail, "a man of excellent standing in the
+world, and who has the honor to be one of your friends--"
+
+"I have nothing to do with that man now," said la Peyrade, sharply,
+understanding the malicious meaning of the old man's speech.
+
+"Well, the time has been," said du Portail, "when you saw him, at least,
+occasionally: for instance, when you paid for his dinner at the Rocher
+de Cancale. As I was saying, I charged the virtuous Monsieur Cerizet to
+sound you as to a marriage--"
+
+"Which I refused," interrupted la Peyrade, "and which I now refuse
+again, more vehemently than ever."
+
+"That's the question," said the old man. "I think, on the contrary, that
+you will accept it; and it is to talk over this affair with you that I
+have so long desired a meeting."
+
+"But this crazy girl that you are flinging at my head," said la Peyrade,
+"what is she to you? She can't be your daughter, or you would put more
+decency into your hunt for a husband."
+
+"This young girl," replied du Portail, "is the daughter of one of my
+friends who died about ten years ago; at his death I took her to live
+with me, and have given her all the care her sad condition needed. Her
+fortune, which I have greatly increased, added to my own, which I intend
+to leave to her, will make her a very rich heiress. I know that you
+are no enemy to handsome 'dots,' for you have sought them in various
+places,--Thuillier's house, for instance, or, to use your own
+expression, that of a strumpet whom you scarcely knew. I have therefore
+supposed you would accept at my hands a very rich young woman,
+especially as her infirmity is declared by the best physicians to be
+curable; whereas you can never cure Monsieur and Mademoiselle Thuillier,
+the one of being a fool, the other of being a fury, any more than you
+could cure Madame Komorn of being a woman of very medium virtue and
+extremely giddy."
+
+"It may suit me," replied la Peyrade, "to marry the daughter of a fool
+and a fury if I choose her, or I might become the husband of a clever
+coquette, if passion seized me, but the Queen of Sheba herself, if
+imposed upon me, neither you, monsieur, nor the ablest and most powerful
+man living could force me to accept."
+
+"Precisely; therefore it is to your own good sense and intelligence that
+I now address myself; but we have to come face to face with people
+in order to speak to them, you know. Now, then, let us look into your
+present situation, and don't get angry if, like a surgeon who wants to
+cure his patient, I lay my hand mercilessly on wounds which have long
+tormented and harassed you. The first point to state is that the Celeste
+Colleville affair is at an end for you."
+
+"Why so?" demanded la Peyrade.
+
+"Because I have just seen Thuillier and terrified him with the history
+of the misfortunes he has incurred, and those he will incur if he
+persists in the idea of giving you his goddaughter in marriage. He knows
+now that it was I who paralyzed Madame du Bruel's kind offices in the
+matter of the cross; that I had his pamphlet seized; that I sent that
+Hungarian woman into his house to handle you all, as she did; and that
+my hand is opening fire in the ministerial journals, which will only
+increase from bad to worse,--not to speak of other machinations which
+will be directed against his candidacy. Therefore you see, my good
+friend, that not only have you no longer the credit in Thuillier's eyes
+of being his great helper to that election, but that you actually block
+the way to his ambition. That is enough to prove to you that the side by
+which you have imposed yourself on that family--who have never sincerely
+liked or desired you--is now completely battered down and dismantled."
+
+"But to have done all that which you claim with such pretension, who are
+you?" demanded la Peyrade.
+
+"I shall not say that you are very inquisitive, for I intend to answer
+your question later; but for the present let us continue, if you please,
+the autopsy of your existence, dead to-day, but which I propose to
+resuscitate gloriously. You are twenty-eight years old, and you have
+begun a career in which I shall not allow you to make another step. A
+few days hence the Council of the order of barristers will assemble and
+will censure, more or less severely, your conduct in the matter of
+the property you placed with such candor in Thuillier's hands. Do not
+deceive yourself; censure from that quarter (and I mention only your
+least danger) is as fatal to a barrister as being actually disbarred."
+
+"And it is to your kind offices, no doubt," said la Peyrade, "that I
+shall owe that precious result?"
+
+"Yes, I may boast of it," replied du Portail, "for, in order to tow you
+into port it has been necessary to strip you of your rigging; unless
+that were done, you would always have tried to navigate under your own
+sails the bourgeois shoals that you are now among."
+
+Seeing that he, undoubtedly, had to do with a strong hand, la Peyrade
+thought best to modify his tone; and so, with a more circumspect air, he
+said:--
+
+"You will allow me, monsieur, to reserve my acknowledgments until I
+receive some fuller explanation."
+
+"Here you are, then," continued du Portail, "at twenty-eight years of
+age, without a penny, virtually without a profession; with antecedents
+that are very--middling; with associates like Monsieur Dutocq and the
+courageous Cerizet; owing to Mademoiselle Thuillier ten thousand francs,
+and to Madame Lambert twenty-five thousand, which you are no doubt
+extremely desirous to return to her; and finally, this marriage, your
+last hope, your sheet-anchor, has just become an utter impossibility.
+Between ourselves, if I have something reasonable to propose to you, do
+you not think that you had much better place yourself at my disposal?"
+
+"I have time enough to prove that your opinion is mistaken," returned
+la Peyrade; "and I shall not form any resolutions so long as the designs
+you choose to have upon me are not more fully explained."
+
+"You were spoken to, at my instigation, about a marriage," resumed du
+Portail. "This marriage, as I think, is closely connected with a past
+existence from which a certain hereditary or family duty has devolved
+upon you. Do you know what that uncle of yours, to whom you applied
+in 1829, was doing in Paris? In your family he was thought to be a
+millionaire; and, dying suddenly, you remember, before you got to him,
+he did not leave enough for his burial; a pauper's grave was all that
+remained to him."
+
+"Did you know him?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"He was my oldest and dearest friend," replied du Portail.
+
+"If that is so," said la Peyrade, hastily, "a sum of two thousand
+francs, which I received on my arrival in Paris from some unknown
+source--"
+
+"Came from me," replied du Portail. "Unfortunately, engaged at the time
+in a rush of important affairs, which you shall hear of later, I could
+not immediately follow up the benevolent interest I felt in you for your
+uncle's sake; this explains why I left you in the straw of a garret,
+where you came, like a medlar, to that maturity of ruin which brought
+you under the hand of a Dutocq and a Cerizet."
+
+"I am none the less grateful to you, monsieur," said la Peyrade; "and if
+I had known you were that generous protector, whom I was never able to
+discover, I should have been the first to seek occasion to meet you and
+to thank you."
+
+"A truce to compliments," said du Portail; "and, to come at once to the
+serious side of our present conference, what should you say if I told
+you that this uncle, whose protection and assistance you came to Paris
+to obtain, was an agent of that occult power which has always been the
+theme of feeble ridicule and the object of silly prejudice?"
+
+"I do not seize your meaning," said la Peyrade, with uneasy curiosity;
+"may I ask you to be more precise?"
+
+"For example, I will suppose," continued du Portail, "that your uncle,
+if still living, were to say to you to-day: 'You are seeking fortune and
+influence, my good nephew; you want to rise above the crowd and to play
+your part in all the great events of your time; you want employment
+for a keen, active mind, full of resources, and slightly inclined to
+intrigue; in short, you long to exert in some upper and elegant sphere
+that force of will and subtlety which at present you are wasting in
+the silly and useless manipulation of the most barren and tough-skinned
+animal on earth, to wit: a bourgeois. Well, then, lower your head, my
+fine nephew; enter with me through the little door which I will open to
+you; it gives admittance to a great house, often maligned, but better
+far than its reputation. That threshold once crossed, you can rise to
+the height of your natural genius, whatever its spark may be. Statesmen,
+kings even, will admit you to their most secret thoughts; you will be
+their occult collaborator, and none of the joys which money and the
+highest powers can bestow upon a man will be lacking to you."
+
+"But, monsieur," objected la Peyrade, "without venturing to understand
+you, I must remark that my uncle died so poor, you tell me, that public
+charity buried him."
+
+"Your uncle," replied du Portail, "was a man of rare talent, but he had
+a certain weak side in his nature which compromised his career. He was
+eager for pleasure, a spendthrift, thoughtless for the future; he wanted
+also to taste those joys that are meant for the common run of men,
+but which for great, exceptional vocations are the worst of snares and
+impediments: I mean the joys of family. He had a daughter whom he madly
+loved, and it was through her that his terrible enemies opened a breach
+in his life, and prepared the horrible catastrophe that ended it."
+
+"Is that an encouragement to enter this shady path, where, you say, he
+might have asked me to follow him?"
+
+"But if I myself," said du Portail, "should offer to guide you in it,
+what then?"
+
+"You, monsieur!" said la Peyrade, in stupefaction.
+
+"Yes, I--I who was your uncle's pupil at first, and later his protector
+and providence; I, whose influence the last half-century has daily
+increased; I, who am wealthy; I, to whom all governments, as they fall
+one on top of the others like houses of cards, come to ask for safety
+and for the power to rebuild their future; I, who am the manager of a
+great theatre of puppets (where I have Columbines in the style of Madame
+de Godollo); I, who to-morrow, if it were necessary to the success of
+one of my vaudevilles or one of my dramas, might present myself to your
+eyes as the wearer of the grand cordon of the Legion of honor, of the
+Order of the Black Eagle, or that of the Golden Fleece. Do you wish to
+know why neither you nor I will die a violent death like your uncle, and
+also why, more fortunate than contemporaneous kings, I can transmit my
+sceptre to the successor whom I myself may choose? Because, like you,
+my young friend, in spite of your Southern appearance, I was cold,
+profoundly calculating, never tempted to lose my time on trifles at the
+outskirts; because heat, when I was led by force of circumstances to
+employ it, never went below the surface. It is more than probable that
+you have heard of me; well, for you I will open a window in my cloud;
+look at me, observe me well; have I a cloven hoof, or a tail at the end
+of my spine? On the contrary, am I not a model of the most inoffensive
+of householders in the Saint-Sulpice quarter? In that quarter, where I
+have enjoyed, I may say it, universal esteem for the last twenty-five
+years, I am called du Portail; but to you, if you will allow me, I shall
+now name myself _Corentin_."
+
+"Corentin!" cried la Peyrade, with terrified astonishment.
+
+"Yes, monsieur; and you see that in telling you that secret I lay my
+hand upon you, and enlist you. Corentin! 'the greatest man of the police
+in modern times,' as the author of an article in the 'Biographies of
+Living Men' has said of me--as to whom I ought in justice to remark that
+he doesn't know a thing about my life."
+
+"Monsieur," said la Peyrade, "I can assure you that I shall keep that
+secret; but the place which you offer me near you--in your employ--"
+
+"That frightens you, or, at least, it makes you uneasy," said Corentin,
+quickly. "Before you have even considered the thing the word scares you,
+does it? The police! _Police_! you are afraid to encounter the terrible
+prejudice that brands it on the brow."
+
+"Certainly," said la Peyrade, "it is a necessary institution; but I do
+not think that it is always calumniated. If the business of those who
+manage it is honorable why do they conceal themselves so carefully?"
+
+"Because all that threatens society, which it is the mission of the
+police to repress," replied Corentin, "is plotted and prepared in
+hiding. Do thieves and conspirators put upon their hats, 'I am Guillot,
+the shepherd of this flock'? And when we are after them must we ring a
+bell to let them know we are coming?"
+
+"Monsieur," said la Peyrade, "when a sentiment is universal it ceases
+to be a prejudice, it becomes an opinion; and this opinion ought to be a
+law to every man who desires to keep his own esteem and that of others."
+
+"And when you robbed that notary to enrich the Thuilliers for your own
+advantage," said Corentin, "did you keep your own esteem and that of the
+Council of barristers? And who knows, monsieur, if in your life there
+are not still blacker actions than that? I am a more honorable man than
+you, because, outside of my functions, I have not one doubtful act upon
+my conscience; and when the opportunity for _good_ has been presented
+to me I have done it--always and everywhere. Do you think that the
+guardianship of that poor insane girl in my home has been all roses? But
+she was the daughter of my old friend, your uncle, and when, feeling
+the years creep on me, I propose to you, between sacks of money, to fit
+yourself to take my place--"
+
+"What!" cried la Peyrade, "is that girl my uncle's daughter?"
+
+"Yes; the girl I wish you to marry is the daughter of your uncle
+Peyrade,--for he democratized his name,--or, if you like it better,
+she was the daughter of Pere Canquoelle, a name he took from the little
+estate on which your father lived and starved with eleven children. You
+see, in spite of the secrecy your uncle always kept about his family,
+that I know all about it. Do you suppose that before selecting you as
+your cousin's husband I had not obtained every possible information
+about you? And what I have learned need not make you quite so
+supercilious to the police. Besides, as the vulgar saying is, the best
+of your nose is made of it. Your uncle belonged to the police, and,
+thanks to that, he became the confidant, I might almost say the friend,
+of Louis XVIII., who took the greatest pleasure in his companionship.
+And you, by nature and by mind, also by the foolish position into which
+you have got yourself, in short, by your whole being, have gravitated
+steadily to the conclusion I propose to you, namely, that of succeeding
+me,--of succeeding Corentin. That is the question between us, Monsieur.
+Do you really believe now that I have not a grasp or a 'seizin,' as you
+call it, upon you, and that you can manage to escape me for any foolish
+considerations of bourgeois vanity?"
+
+La Peyrade could not have been at heart so violently opposed to this
+proposal as he seemed, for the vigorous language of the great master of
+the police and the species of appropriation which he made of his person
+brought a smile to the young man's lips.
+
+Corentin had risen, and was walking up and down the room, speaking,
+apparently, to himself.
+
+"The police!" he cried; "one may say of it, as Basile said of calumny to
+Batholo, 'The police, monsieur! you don't know what you despise!' And,
+after all," he continued, after a pause, "who are they who despise it?
+Imbeciles, who don't know any better than to insult their protectors.
+Suppress the police, and you destroy civilization. Do the police ask
+for the respect of such people? No, they want to inspire them with one
+sentiment only: fear, that great lever with which to govern mankind,--an
+impure race whose odious instincts God, hell, the executioner, and the
+gendarmes can scarcely restrain!"
+
+Stopping short before la Peyrade, and looking at him with a disdainful
+smile, he continued:--
+
+"So you are one of those ninnies who see in the police nothing more than
+a horde of spies and informers? Have you never suspected the statesmen,
+the diplomats, the Richelieus it produces? Mercury, monsieur,--Mercury,
+the cleverest of the gods of paganism,--what was he but the police
+incarnate? It is true that he was also the god of thieves. We are better
+than he, for we don't allow that junction of forces."
+
+"And yet," said la Peyrade, "Vautrin, or, I should say, Jacques Collin,
+the famous chief of the detective police--"
+
+"Yes, yes! but that's in the lower ranks," replied Corentin, resuming
+his walk; "there's always a muddy place somewhere. Still, don't be
+mistaken even in that. Vautrin is a man of genius, but his passions,
+like those of your uncle, dragged him down. But go up higher (for there
+lies the whole question, namely, the rung of the ladder on which a man
+has wits enough to perch). Take the prefect, for instance, that honored
+minister, flattered and respected, is he a spy? Well, I, monsieur,
+am the prefect of the secret police of diplomacy--of the highest
+statesmanship. And you hesitate to mount that throne!--to seem small and
+do great things; to live in a cave comfortably arranged like this, and
+command the light; to have at your orders an invisible army, always
+ready, always devoted, always submissive; to know the _other side_ of
+everything; to be duped by no intrigue because you hold the threads of
+all within your fingers; to see through all partitions; to penetrate all
+secrets, search all hearts, all consciences,--these are the things you
+fear! And yet you were not afraid to go and wallow in a Thuillier
+bog; you, a thoroughbred, allowed yourself to be harnessed to a
+hackney-coach, to the ignoble business of electing that parvenu
+bourgeois."
+
+"A man does what he can," said la Peyrade.
+
+"Here's a very remarkable thing," pursued Corentin, replying to his own
+thought; "the French language, more just than public opinion, has given
+us our right place, for it has made the word police the synonym of
+civilization and the antipodes of savage life, when it said and wrote:
+'l'Etat police,' from the Greek words state and city. So, I can assure
+you, we care little for the prejudice that tries to brand us; none know
+men as we do; and to know them brings contempt for their contempt as
+well as for their esteem."
+
+"There is certainly much truth in what you say with such warmth," said
+la Peyrade, finally.
+
+"Much truth!" exclaimed Corentin, going back to his chair, "say, rather,
+that it is all true, and nothing but the truth; yet it is not the whole
+truth. But enough for to-day, monsieur. To succeed me in my functions,
+and to marry your cousin with a 'dot' that will not be less than five
+hundred thousand francs, that is my offer. I do not ask you for an
+answer now. I should have no confidence in a determination not seriously
+reflected upon. To-morrow, I shall be at home all the morning. I trust
+that my conviction may then have formed yours."
+
+Dismissing his visitor with a curt little bow, he added: "I do not bid
+you adieu, but au revoir, Monsieur de la Peyrade."
+
+Whereupon Corentin went to a side-table, where he found all that he
+needed to prepare a glass of "eau sucree," which he had certainly
+earned, and, without looking at la Peyrade, who left the room rather
+stunned, he seemed to have no other interest on his mind than that
+prosaic preparation.
+
+Was it, indeed, necessary that the morning after this meeting with
+Corentin a visit from Madame Lambert, now become an exacting and
+importunate creditor, should come to bear its weight on la Peyrade's
+determination? As the great chief had pointed out to him the night
+before, was there not in his nature, in his mind, in his aspirations,
+in the mistakes and imprudences of his past life, a sort of irresistible
+incline which drew him down toward the strange solution of existence
+thus suddenly offered to him?
+
+Fatality, if we may so call it, was lavish of the inducements to which
+he was destined to succumb. This day was the 31st of October; the
+vacation of the Palais was just over. The 2nd of November was the day
+on which the courts reopened, and as Madame Lambert left his room he
+received a summons to appear on that day before the Council of his
+order.
+
+To Madame Lambert, who pressed him sharply to repay her, under pretence
+that she was about to leave Monsieur Picot and return to her native
+place, he replied: "Come here the day after to-morrow, at the same hour,
+and your money will be ready for you."
+
+To the summons to give account of his actions to his peers he replied
+that he did not recognize the right of the Council to question him
+on the facts of his private life. That was an answer of one sort,
+certainly. Inevitably it would result in his being stricken from the
+roll of the barristers of the Royal courts; but, at least, it had an air
+of dignity and protestation which saved, in a measure, his self-love.
+
+Finally, he wrote a letter to Thuillier, in which he said that his
+visit to du Portail had resulted in his being obliged to accept another
+marriage. He therefore returned to Thuillier his promise, and took back
+his own. All this was curtly said, without the slightest expression
+of regret for the marriage he renounced. In a postscript he added: "We
+shall be obliged to discuss my position on the newspaper,"--indicating
+that it might enter into his plans not to retain it.
+
+He was careful to make a copy of this letter, and an hour later, when,
+in Corentin's study, he was questioned as to the result of his night's
+reflections, he gave that great general, for all answer, the matrimonial
+resignation he had just despatched.
+
+"That will do," said Corentin. "But as for your position on the
+newspaper, you may perhaps have to keep it for a time. The candidacy
+of that fool interferes with the plans of the government, and we must
+manage in some way to trip up the heels of the municipal councillor. In
+your position as editor-in-chief you may find a chance to do it, and I
+think your conscience won't kick at the mission."
+
+"No, indeed!" said la Peyrade, "the thought of the humiliations to which
+I have been so long subjected will make it a precious joy to lash that
+bourgeois brood."
+
+"Take care!" said Corentin; "you are young, and you must watch against
+those revengeful emotions. In our austere profession we love nothing and
+we hate nothing. Men are to us mere pawns of wood or ivory, according to
+their quality--with which we play our game. We are like the blade
+that cuts what is given it to cut, but, careful only to be delicately
+sharpened, wishes neither harm nor good to any one. Now let us speak
+of your cousin, to whom, I suppose, you have some curiosity to be
+presented."
+
+La Peyrade was not obliged to pretend to eagerness, that which he felt
+was genuine.
+
+"Lydie de la Peyrade," said Corentin, "is nearly thirty, but her
+innocence, joined to a gentle form of insanity, has kept her apart from
+all those passions, ideas, and impressions which use up life, and has,
+if I may say so, embalmed her in a sort of eternal youth. You would not
+think her more than twenty. She is fair and slender; her face, which
+is very delicate, is especially remarkable for an expression of angelic
+sweetness. Deprived of her full reason by a terrible catastrophe, her
+monomania has something touching about it. She always carries in her
+arms or keeps beside her a bundle of linen which she nurses and cares
+for as though it were a sick child; and, excepting Bruneau and myself,
+whom she recognizes, she thinks all other men are doctors, whom she
+consults about the child, and to whom she listens as oracles. A crisis
+which lately happened in her malady has convinced Horace Bianchon, that
+prince of science, that if the reality could be substituted for this
+long delusion of motherhood, her reason would assert itself. It is
+surely a worthy task to bring back light to a soul in which it is
+scarcely veiled; and the existing bond of relationship has seemed to
+me to point you out as specially designated to effect this cure,
+the success of which Bianchon and two other eminent doctors who have
+consulted with him declare to be beyond a doubt. Now, I will take you
+to Lydie's presence; remember to play the part of doctor; for the only
+thing that makes her lose her customary serenity is not to enter into
+her notion of medical consultation."
+
+After crossing several rooms Corentin was on the point of taking la
+Peyrade into that usually occupied by Lydie when employed in cradling
+or dandling her imaginary child, when suddenly they were stopped by the
+sound of two or three chords struck by the hand of a master on a piano
+of the finest sonority.
+
+"What is that?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"That is Lydie," replied Corentin, with what might be called an
+expression of paternal pride; "she is an admirable musician, and though
+she no longer writes down, as in the days when her mind was clear, her
+delightful melodies, she often improvises them in a way that moves me
+to the soul--the soul of Corentin!" added the old man, smiling. "Is not
+that the finest praise I can bestow upon her? But suppose we sit down
+here and listen to her. If we go in, the concert will cease and the
+medical consultation begin."
+
+La Peyrade was amazed as he listened to an improvisation in which the
+rare union of inspiration and science opened to his impressionable
+nature a source of emotions as deep as they were unexpected. Corentin
+watched the surprise which from moment to moment the Provencal expressed
+by admiring exclamations.
+
+"Hein! how she plays!" said the old man. "Liszt himself hasn't a firmer
+touch."
+
+To a very quick "scherzo" the performer now added the first notes of an
+"adagio."
+
+"She is going to sing," said Corentin, recognizing the air.
+
+"Does she sing too?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"Like Pasta, like Malibran; but hush, listen to her!"
+
+After a few opening bars in "arpeggio" a vibrant voice resounded, the
+tones of which appeared to stir the Provencal to the depths of his
+being.
+
+"How the music moves you!" said Corentin; "you were undoubtedly made for
+each other."
+
+"My God! the same air! the same voice!"
+
+"Have you already met Lydie somewhere?" asked the great master of the
+police.
+
+"I don't know--I think not," answered la Peyrade, in a stammering voice;
+"in any case, it was long ago--But that air--that voice--I think--"
+
+"Let us go in," said Corentin.
+
+Opening the door abruptly, he entered, pulling the young man after him.
+
+Sitting with her back to the door, and prevented by the sound of the
+piano from hearing what happened behind her, Lydie did not notice their
+entrance.
+
+"Now have you any remembrance of her?" said Corentin.
+
+La Peyrade advanced a step, and no sooner had he caught a glimpse of the
+girl's profile than he threw up his hands above his head, striking them
+together.
+
+"It is she!" he cried.
+
+Hearing his cry, Lydie turned round, and fixing her attention on
+Corentin, she said:--
+
+"How naughty and troublesome you are to come and disturb me; you know
+very well I don't like to be listened to. Ah! but--" she added, catching
+sight of la Peyrade's black coat, "you have brought the doctor; that is
+very kind of you; I was just going to ask you to send for him. The baby
+has done nothing but cry since morning; I was singing to put her to
+sleep, but nothing can do that."
+
+And she ran to fetch what she called her child from a corner of the
+room, where with two chairs laid on their backs and the cushions of the
+sofa, she had constructed a sort of cradle.
+
+As she went towards la Peyrade, carrying her precious bundle with one
+hand, with the other she was arranging the imaginary cap of her "little
+darling," having no eyes except for the sad creation of her disordered
+brain. Step by step, as she advanced, la Peyrade, pale, trembling, and
+with staring eyes, retreated backwards, until he struck against a seat,
+into which, losing his equilibrium, he fell.
+
+A man of Corentin's power and experience, and who, moreover, knew to its
+slightest detail the horrible drama in which Lydie had lost her reason,
+had already, of course, taken in the situation, but it suited his
+purpose and his ideas to allow the clear light of evidence to pierce
+this darkness.
+
+"Look, doctor," said Lydie, unfastening the bundle, and putting the pins
+in her mouth as she did so, "don't you see that she is growing thinner
+every day?"
+
+La Peyrade could not answer; he kept his handkerchief over his face,
+and his breath came so fast from his chest that he was totally unable to
+utter a word.
+
+Then, with one of those gestures of feverish impatience, to which her
+mental state predisposed her, she exclaimed, hastily:--
+
+"But look at her doctor, look!" taking his arm violently and forcing him
+to show his features. "My God!" she cried, when she had looked him in
+the face.
+
+Letting fall the linen bundle in her arms, she threw herself hastily
+backwards, and her eyes grew haggard. Passing her white hands rapidly
+over her forehead and through her hair, tossing it into disorder, she
+seemed to be making an effort to obtain from her memory some dormant
+recollection. Then, like a frightened mare, which comes to smell an
+object that has given it a momentary terror, she approached la Peyrade
+slowly, stooping to look into his face, which he kept lowered, while,
+in the midst of a silence inexpressible, she examined him steadily for
+several seconds. Suddenly a terrible cry escaped her breast; she ran for
+refuge into the arms of Corentin, and pressing herself against him with
+all her force, she exclaimed:--
+
+"Save me! save me! It is he! the wretch! It is he who did it!"
+
+And, with her finger pointed at la Peyrade, she seemed to nail the
+miserable object of her terror to his place.
+
+After this explosion, she muttered a few disconnected words, and her
+eyes closed; Corentin felt the relaxing of all the muscles by which she
+had held him as in a vice the moment before, and he took her in his arms
+and laid her on the sofa, insensible.
+
+"Do not stay here, monsieur," said Corentin. "Go into my study; I will
+come to you presently."
+
+A few minutes later, after giving Lydie into the care of Katte and
+Bruneau, and despatching Perrache for Doctor Bianchon, Corentin rejoined
+la Peyrade.
+
+"You see now, monsieur," he said with solemnity, "that in pursuing
+with a sort of passion the idea of this marriage, I was following, in a
+sense, the ways of God."
+
+"Monsieur," said la Peyrade, with compunction, "I will confess to you--"
+
+"Useless," said Corentin; "you can tell me nothing that I do not know;
+I, on the contrary, have much to tell you. Old Peyrade, your uncle, in
+the hope of earning a POT for this daughter whom he idolized, entered
+into a dangerous private enterprise, the nature of which I need not
+explain. In it he made enemies; enemies who stopped at nothing,--murder,
+poison, rape. To paralyze your uncle's action by attacking him in his
+dearest spot, Lydie was, not abducted, but enticed from her home and
+taken to a house apparently respectable, where for ten days she was kept
+concealed. She was not much alarmed by this detention, being told
+that it was done at her father's wish, and she spent her time with her
+music--you remember, monsieur, how she sang?"
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed la Peyrade, covering his face with his hands.
+
+"I told you yesterday that you might perhaps have more upon your
+conscience than the Thuillier house. But you were young; you had just
+come from your province, with that brutality, that frenzy of Southern
+blood in your veins which flings itself upon such an occasion. Besides,
+your relationship became known to those who were preparing the ruin of
+this new Clarissa Harlowe, and I am willing to believe than an abler and
+better man than you might not have escaped the entanglement into
+which you fell. Happily, Providence has granted that there is nothing
+absolutely irreparable in this horrible history. The same poison,
+according to the use that is made of it, may give either death or
+health."
+
+"But, monsieur," said la Peyrade, "shall I not always be to her an
+object of horror?"
+
+"The doctor, monsieur," said Katte, opening the door.
+
+"How is Mademoiselle Lydie?" asked la Peyrade, eagerly.
+
+"Very calm," replied Katte. "Just now, when we put her to bed,--though
+she did not want to go, saying she felt well,--I took her the bundle of
+linen, but she told me to take it away, and asked what I meant her to do
+with it."
+
+"You see," said Corentin, grasping the Provencal's hand, "you are the
+lance of Achilles."
+
+And he left the room with Katte to receive Doctor Bianchon.
+
+Left alone, Theodose was a prey to thoughts which may perhaps be
+imagined. After a while the door opened, and Bruneau, the old valet,
+ushered in Cerizet. Seeing la Peyrade, the latter exclaimed:--
+
+"Ha! ha! I knew it! I knew you would end by seeing du Portail. And the
+marriage,--how does that come on?"
+
+"What are you doing here?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"Something that concerns you; or rather, something that we must do
+together. Du Portail, who is too busy to attend to business just now,
+has sent me in here to see you, and consult as to the best means of
+putting a spoke in Thuillier's election; it seems that the government is
+determined to prevent his winning it. Have you any ideas about it?"
+
+"No," replied la Peyrade; "and I don't feel in the mood just now to be
+imaginative."
+
+"Well, here's the situation," said Cerizet. "The government has another
+candidate, which it doesn't yet produce, because the ministerial
+negotiations with him have been rather difficult. During this time
+Thuillier's chances have been making headway. Minard, on whom they
+counted to create a diversion, sits, the stupid fool, in his corner; the
+seizure of that pamphlet has given your blockhead of a protege a certain
+perfume of popularity. In short, the ministry are afraid he'll be
+elected, and nothing could be more disagreeable to them. Pompous
+imbeciles, like Thuillier, are horribly embarrassing in the Opposition;
+they are pitchers without handles; you can't take hold of them
+anywhere."
+
+"Monsieur Cerizet," said la Peyrade, beginning to assume a protecting
+tone, and wishing to discover his late associate's place in Corentin's
+confidence, "you seem to know a good deal about the secret intentions of
+the government; have you found your way to a certain desk in the rue de
+Grenelle?"
+
+"No. All that I tell you," said Cerizet, "I get from du Portail."
+
+"Ah ca!" said la Peyrade, lowering his voice, "who _is_ du Portail? You
+seem to have known him for some time. A man of your force ought to have
+discovered the real character of a man who seems to me to be rather
+mysterious."
+
+"My friend," replied Cerizet, "du Portail is a pretty strong man. He's
+an old slyboots, who has had some post, I fancy, in the administration
+of the national domain, or something of that kind, under government; in
+which, I think, he must have been employed in the departments suppressed
+under the Empire."
+
+"Yes?" said la Peyrade.
+
+"That's where I think he made his money," continued Cerizet; "and being
+a shrewd old fellow, and having a natural daughter to marry, he has
+concocted this philanthropic tale of her being the daughter of an old
+friend named Peyrade; and your name being the same may have given him
+the idea of fastening upon you--for, after all, he has to marry her to
+somebody."
+
+"Yes, that's all very well; but his close relations with the government,
+and the interest he takes in elections, how do you explain all that?"
+
+"Naturally enough," replied Cerizet. "Du Portail is a man who loves
+money, and likes to handle it; he has done Rastignac, that great
+manipulator of elections, who is, I think, his compatriot, several
+signal services as an amateur; Rastignac, in return, gives him
+information, obtained through Nucingen, which enables him to gamble at
+the Bourse."
+
+"Did he himself tell you all this?" asked la Peyrade.
+
+"What do you take me for?" returned Cerizet. "With that worthy old
+fellow, from whom I have already wormed a promise of thirty thousand
+francs, I play the ninny; I flatten myself to nothing. But I've made
+Bruneau talk, that old valet of his. You can safely ally yourself to
+his family, my dear fellow; du Portail is powerfully rich; he'll get you
+made sub-prefect somewhere; and thence to a prefecture and a fortune is
+but one step."
+
+"Thanks for the information," said la Peyrade; "at least, I shall know
+on which foot to hop. But you yourself, how came you to know him?"
+
+"Oh! that's quite a history; by my help he was able to get back a lot of
+diamonds which had been stolen from him."
+
+At this moment Corentin entered the room.
+
+"All is well," he said to la Peyrade. "There are signs of returning
+reason. Bianchon, to whom I have told all, wishes to confer with
+you; therefore, my dear Monsieur Cerizet, we will postpone until
+this evening, if you are willing, our little study over the Thuillier
+election."
+
+"Well, so here you have him, at last!" said Cerizet, slapping la
+Peyrade's shoulder.
+
+"Yes," said Corentin, "and you know what I promised; you may rely on
+that."
+
+Cerizet departed joyful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. CHECKMATE TO THUILLIER
+
+The day after that evening, when Corentin, la Peyrade, and Cerizet were
+to have had their consultation in reference to the attack on Thuillier's
+candidacy, the latter was discussing with his sister Brigitte the letter
+in which Theodose declined the hand of Celeste, and his mind seemed
+particularly to dwell on the postscript where it was intimated that la
+Peyrade might not continue the editor of the "Echo de la Bievre." At
+this moment Henri, the "male domestic," entered the room to ask if his
+master would receive Monsieur Cerizet.
+
+Thuillier's first impulse was to deny himself to that unwelcome visitor.
+Then, thinking better of it, he reflected that if la Peyrade suddenly
+left him in the lurch, Cerizet might possibly prove a precious resource.
+Consequently, he ordered Henri to show him in. His manner, however, was
+extremely cold, and in some sort expectant. As for Cerizet, he presented
+himself without the slightest embarrassment and with the air of a man
+who had calculated all the consequences of the step he was taking.
+
+"Well, my dear monsieur," he began, "I suppose by this time you have
+been posted as to the Sieur la Peyrade."
+
+"What may you mean by that?" said Thuillier, stiffly.
+
+"Well, the man," replied Cerizet, "who, after intriguing to marry your
+goddaughter, breaks off the marriage abruptly--as he will, before
+long, break that lion's-share contract he made you sign about his
+editorship--can't be, I should suppose, the object of the same blind
+confidence you formerly reposed in him."
+
+"Ah!" said Thuillier, hastily, "then do you know anything about la
+Peyrade's intention of leaving the newspaper?"
+
+"No," said the other; "on the terms I now am with him, you can readily
+believe we don't see each other; still less should I receive his
+confidences. But I draw the induction from the well-known character of
+the person, and you may be sure that when he finds it for his interest
+to leave you, he'll throw you away like an old coat--I've passed that
+way, and I speak from experience."
+
+"Then you must have had some difficulties with him before you joined my
+paper?" said Thuillier, interrogatively.
+
+"Parbleu!" replied Cerizet; "the affair of this house which he helped
+you to buy was mine; I started that hare. He was to put me in relation
+with you, and make me the principal tenant of the house. But the
+unfortunate affair of that bidding-in gave him a chance to knock me out
+of everything and get all the profits for himself."
+
+"Profits!" exclaimed Thuillier. "I don't see that he got anything out of
+that transaction, except the marriage which he now refuses--"
+
+"But," interrupted Cerizet, "there's the ten thousand francs he got
+out of you on pretence of the cross which you never received, and the
+twenty-five thousand he owes to Madame Lambert, for which you went
+security, and which you will soon have to pay like a good fellow."
+
+"What's this I hear?" cried Brigitte, up in arms; "twenty-five thousand
+francs for which you have given security?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle," interposed Cerizet; "behind that sum which this
+woman had lent him there was a mystery, and if I had not laid my hand
+on the true explanation, there would certainly have been a very dirty
+ending to it. La Peyrade was clever enough not only to whitewash himself
+in Monsieur Thuillier's eyes, but to get him to secure the debt."
+
+"But," said Thuillier, "how do you know that I did give security for
+that debt, if you have not seen him since then?"
+
+"I know it from the woman herself, who tells the whole story now she is
+certain of being paid."
+
+"Well," said Brigitte to her brother, "a pretty business you are engaged
+in!"
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Cerizet, "I only meant to warn Monsieur Thuillier a
+little. I think myself that you are sure to be paid. Without knowing the
+exact particulars of this new marriage, I am certain the family would
+never allow him to owe you to such mortifying debts; if necessary, I
+should be very glad to intervene."
+
+"Monsieur," said Thuillier, stiffly, "thanking you for your officious
+intervention, permit me to say that it surprises me a little, for the
+manner in which we parted would not have allowed me to hope it."
+
+"Ah ca!" said Cerizet; "you don't think I was angry with you for that,
+do you? I pitied you, that was all. I saw you under the spell, and I
+said to myself: 'Leave him to learn la Peyrade by experience.' I knew
+very well that the day of justice would dawn for me, and before long,
+too. La Peyrade is a man who doesn't make you wait for his questionable
+proceedings."
+
+"Allow me to say," remarked Thuillier, "that I do not consider the
+rupture of the marriage we had proposed a questionable proceeding. The
+matter was arranged, I may say, by mutual consent."
+
+"And the trick he is going to play you by leaving the paper in the
+lurch, and the debt he has saddled you with, what are they?"
+
+"Monsieur Cerizet," continued Thuillier, still holding himself on
+the reserve, "as I have said more than once to la Peyrade, no man is
+indispensable; and if the editorship of my paper becomes vacant, I feel
+confident that I shall at once meet with persons very eager to offer me
+their services."
+
+"Is it for me you say that?" asked Cerizet. "Well, you haven't hit the
+nail; if you did me the honor to want my services it would be impossible
+for me to grant them. I have long been disgusted with journalism. I let
+la Peyrade, I hardly know why, persuade me to make this campaign with
+you; it didn't turn out happily, and I have vowed to myself to have no
+more to do with newspapers. It was about another matter altogether than
+I came to speak to you."
+
+"Ah!" said Thuillier.
+
+"Yes," continued Cerizet, "remembering the business-like manner in which
+you managed the affair of this house in which you do me the honor to
+receive me, I thought I could not do better than to call your attention
+to a matter of the same kind which I have just now in hand. But I
+shall not do as la Peyrade did,--make a bargain for the hand of
+your goddaughter, and profess great friendship and devotion to you
+personally. This is purely business, and I expect to make my profit out
+of it. Now, as I still desire to become the principal tenant of this
+house,--the letting of which must be a care and a disappointment to
+mademoiselle, for I saw as I came along that the shops were still
+unrented,--I think that this lease to me, if you will make it, might
+be reckoned in to my share of the profits. You see, monsieur, that the
+object of my visit has nothing to do with the newspaper."
+
+"What is this new affair?" said Brigitte; "that's the first thing to
+know."
+
+"It relates to a farm in Beauce, which has just been sold for a song,
+and it is placed in my hands to resell, at an advance, but a small one;
+you could really buy it, as the saying is, for a bit of bread."
+
+And Cerizet went on to explain the whole mechanism of the affair, which
+we need not relate here, as no one but Brigitte would take any interest
+in it. The statement was clear and precise, and it took close hold on
+the old maid's mind. Even Thuillier himself, in spite of his inward
+distrust, was obliged to own that the affair had all the appearance of a
+good speculation.
+
+"Only," said Brigitte, "we must first see the farm ourselves."
+
+This, the reader will remember, was her answer to la Peyrade when he
+first proposed the purchase of the house at the Madeleine.
+
+"Nothing is easier than that," said Cerizet. "I myself want to see it,
+and I have been intending to make a little excursion there. If you like,
+I'll be at your door this afternoon with a post-chaise, and to-morrow
+morning, very early, we can examine the farm, breakfast at some inn near
+by, and be back in time for dinner."
+
+"A post-chaise!" said Brigitte, "that's very lordly; why not take the
+diligence?"
+
+"Diligences are so uncertain," replied Cerizet; "you never know at what
+time they will get to a place. But you need not think about the expense,
+for I should otherwise go alone, and I am only too happy to offer you
+two seats in my carriage."
+
+To misers, small gains are often determining causes in great matters;
+after a little resistance "pro forma," Brigitte ended by accepting the
+proposal, and three hours later the trio were on the road to Chartres,
+Cerizet having advised Thuillier not to let la Peyrade know of his
+absence, lest he might take some unfair advantage of it.
+
+The next day, by five o'clock, the party had returned, and the brother
+and sister, who kept their opinions to themselves in presence of
+Cerizet, were both agreed that the purchase was a good one. They had
+found the soil of the best quality, the buildings in perfect repair,
+the cattle looked sound and healthy; in short, this idea of becoming the
+mistress of rural property seemed to Brigitte the final consecration of
+opulence.
+
+"Minard," she remarked, "has only a town-house and invested capital,
+whereas we shall have all that and a country-place besides; one can't be
+really rich without it."
+
+Thuillier was not sufficiently under the charm of that dream--the
+realization of which was, in any case, quite distant--to forget, even
+for a moment, the "Echo de la Bievre" and his candidacy. No sooner had
+he reached home than he asked for the morning's paper.
+
+"It has not come," said the "male domestic."
+
+"That's a fine distribution, when even the owner of the paper is not
+served!" cried Thuillier, discontentedly.
+
+Although it was nearly dinner-time, and after his journey he would much
+rather have taken a bath than rush to the rue Saint-Dominique, Thuillier
+ordered a cab and drove at once to the office of the "Echo."
+
+There a fresh disappointment met him. The paper "was made," as they say,
+and all the employees had departed, even la Peyrade. As for Coffinet,
+who was not to be found at his post of office-boy, nor yet at his other
+post of porter, he had gone "of an errand," his wife said, taking the
+key of the closet in which the remaining copies of the paper were locked
+up. Impossible, therefore, to procure the number which the unfortunate
+proprietor had come so far to fetch.
+
+To describe Thuillier's indignation would be impossible. He marched up
+and down the room, talking aloud to himself, as people do in moments of
+excitement.
+
+"I'll turn them all out!" he cried. And we are forced to omit the rest
+of the furious objurgation.
+
+As he ended his anathema a rap was heard on the door.
+
+"Come in!" said Thuillier, in a tone that depicted his wrath and his
+frantic impatience.
+
+The door opened, and Minard rushed precipitately into his arms.
+
+"My good, my excellent friend!" cried the mayor of the eleventh
+arrondissement, concluding his embrace with a hearty shake of the hand.
+
+"Why! what is it?" said Thuillier, unable to comprehend the warmth of
+this demonstration.
+
+"Ah! my dear friend," continued Minard, "such an admirable proceeding!
+really chivalrous! most disinterested! The effect, I assure you, is
+quite stupendous in the arrondissement."
+
+"But what, I say?" cried Thuillier, impatiently.
+
+"The article, the whole action," continued Minard, "so noble, so
+elevated!"
+
+"But what article? what action?" said the proprietor of the "Echo,"
+getting quite beside himself.
+
+"The article of this morning," said Minard.
+
+"The article of this morning?"
+
+"Ah ca! did you write it when you were asleep; or, like Monsieur
+Jourdain doing prose, do you do heroism without knowing it?"
+
+"I! I haven't written any article!" cried Thuillier. "I have been away
+from Paris for a day, and I don't even know what is in this morning's
+paper; and the office-boy is not here to give me a copy."
+
+"I have one," said Minard, pulling the much desired paper from his
+pocket. "If the article is not years you have certainly inspired it; in
+any case, the deed is done."
+
+Thuillier hurriedly unfolded the sheet Minard had given him, and
+devoured rather than read the following article:--
+
+  Long enough has the proprietor of this regenerated journal
+  submitted without complaint and without reply to the cowardly
+  insinuations with which a venal press insults all citizens who,
+  strong in their convictions, refuse to pass beneath the Caudine
+  Forks of power. Long enough has a man, who has already given
+  proofs of devotion and abnegation in the important functions of
+  the aedility of Paris, allowed these sheets to call him ambitious
+  and self-seeking. Monsieur Jerome Thuillier, strong in his
+  dignity, has suffered such coarse attacks to pass him with
+  contempt. Encouraged by this disdainful silence, the stipendiaries
+  of the press have dared to write that this journal, a work of
+  conviction and of the most disinterested patriotism, was but the
+  stepping-stone of a man, the speculation of a seeker for election.
+  Monsieur Jerome Thuillier has held himself impassible before these
+  shameful imputations because justice and truth are patient, and he
+  bided his time to scotch the reptile. That time has come.
+
+"That deuce of a Peyrade!" said Thuillier, stopping short; "how he does
+touch it off!"
+
+"It is magnificent!" cried Minard.
+
+Reading aloud, Thuillier continued:--
+
+  Every one, friends and enemies alike, can bear witness that
+  Monsieur Jerome Thuillier has done nothing to seek a candidacy
+  which was offered to him spontaneously.
+
+"That's evident," said Thuillier, interrupting himself. Then he
+resumed:--
+
+  But, since his sentiments are so odiously misrepresented, and his
+  intentions so falsely travestied, Monsieur Jerome Thuillier owes
+  it to himself, and above all to the great national party of which
+  he is the humblest soldier, to give an example which shall
+  confound the vile sycophants of power.
+
+"It is fine, the way la Peyrade poses me!" said Thuillier, pausing once
+more in his reading. "I see now why he didn't send me the paper; he
+wanted to enjoy my surprise--'confound the vile sycophants of power!'
+how fine that is!"
+
+After which reflection, he continued:--
+
+  Monsieur Thuillier was so far from founding this journal of
+  dynastic opposition to support and promote his election that, at
+  the very moment when the prospects of that election seem most
+  favorable to himself and most disastrous to his rivals, he here
+  declares publicly, and in the most formal, absolute, and
+  irrevocable manner that he _renounces his candidacy_.
+
+"What?" cried Thuillier, thinking he had read wrong, or had
+misunderstood what he read.
+
+"Go on! go on!" said the mayor of the eleventh.
+
+Then, as Thuillier, with a bewildered air, seemed not disposed to
+continue his reading, Minard took the paper from his hands and read the
+rest of the article himself, beginning where the other had left off:--
+
+  Renounces his candidacy; and he strongly urges the electors to
+  transfer to Monsieur Minard, mayor of the eleventh arrondissement
+  and his friend and colleague in his municipal functions, all the
+  votes with which they seemed about to honor him.
+
+"But this is infamous!" cried Thuillier, recovering his speech; "you
+have bought that Jesuit la Peyrade."
+
+"So," said Minard, stupefied by Thuillier's attitude, "the article was
+not agreed upon between you?"
+
+"The wretch has profited by my absence to slip it into the paper; I
+understand now why he prevented a copy from reaching me to-day."
+
+"My dear friend," said Minard, "what you tell me will seem incredible to
+the public."
+
+"I tell you it is treachery; it is an abominable trap. Renounce my
+candidacy!--why should I?"
+
+"You understand, my dear friend," said Minard, "that I am truly sorry
+if your confidence has been abused, but I have just issued my circular
+manifesto; the die is cast, and luck to the lucky now."
+
+"Leave me," said Thuillier; "it is a comedy for which you have paid."
+
+"Monsieur Thuillier," said Minard, in a threatening voice, "I advise you
+not to repeat those words, unless you are ready to give me satisfaction
+for them."
+
+Happily for Thuillier, who, we may remember, had made his profession
+of faith as to civic courage some time before, he was relieved from
+answering by Coffinet, who now opened the door of the editorial sanctum,
+and announced:--
+
+"Messieurs the electors of the twelfth arrondissement."
+
+The arrondissement was represented on this occasion by five persons. An
+apothecary, chairman of the deputation, proceeded to address Thuillier
+in the following terms:--
+
+"We have come, monsieur, after taking cognizance of an article inserted
+this morning in the 'Echo de la Bievre,' to inquire of you what may be
+precisely the origin and bearing of that article; thinking it incredible
+that, having solicited our suffrages, you should, on the eve of this
+election, and from a most mistaken puritanism, have cast disorder and
+disunion into our ranks, and probably have caused the triumph of the
+ministerial candidate. A candidate does not belong to himself; he
+belongs to the electors who have promised to honor him with their votes.
+But," continued the orator, casting his eye at Minard, "the presence in
+these precincts of the candidate whom you have gone out of your way to
+recommend to us, indicates that between you and him there is connivance;
+and I have no need to ask who is being here deceived."
+
+"No, messieurs, no," said Thuillier; "I have not renounced my candidacy.
+That article was written and printed without my knowledge or consent.
+To-morrow you will see the denial of it in the same paper, and you will
+also learn that the infamous person who has betrayed my confidence is no
+longer the editor of this journal."
+
+"Then," said the orator of the deputation, "in spite of your declaration
+to the contrary, you do continue to be the candidate of the Opposition?"
+
+"Yes, messieurs, until death; and I beg you to use your utmost influence
+in the quarter to neutralize the effect of this deliberate falsehood
+until I am able to officially present the most formal disavowal."
+
+"Hear! hear!" said the electors.
+
+"And, as for the presence of Monsieur Minard, my competitor, in these
+precincts, I have not invited it; and at the moment when you entered
+this room, I was engaged in a very sharp and decided explanation with
+him."
+
+"Hear! hear!" said the electors again.
+
+Then, after cordially shaking the hand of the apothecary, Thuillier
+conducted the deputation to the outer door of the apartment; after
+which, returning to the editorial sanctum, he said:--
+
+"My dear Minard, I withdraw the words which wounded you; but you can see
+now what justification I had for my indignation."
+
+Here Coffinet again opened the door and announced:--
+
+"Messieurs the electors of the eleventh arrondissement."
+
+The arrondissement was represented this time by seven persons. A
+linen-draper, chairman of the delegation, addressed Thuillier in the
+following speech:--
+
+"Monsieur, it is with sincere admiration that we have learned this
+morning from the columns of your paper, the great civic act by which
+you have touched all hearts. You have shown, in thus retiring, a most
+unusual disinterestedness, and the esteem of your fellow-citizens--"
+
+"Excuse me," said Thuillier, interrupting him, "I cannot allow you to
+continue; the article about which you are so good as to congratulate me,
+was inserted by mistake."
+
+"What!" said the linen-draper; "then do you not retire? Can you suppose
+that in opposition to the candidacy of Monsieur Minard (whose presence
+in these precincts seems to me rather singular) you have the slightest
+chance of success?"
+
+"Monsieur," said Thuillier, "have the goodness to request the electors
+of your arrondissement to await the issue of to-morrow's paper, in which
+I shall furnish categorical explanations of the most distinct character.
+The article to-day is the result of a misunderstanding."
+
+"It will be a sad pity, monsieur," said the linen-draper, "if you lose
+this occasion to place yourself in the eyes of your fellow-citizens
+beside the Washingtons and other great men of antiquity."
+
+"I say again, _to-morrow_, messieurs," said Thuillier. "I am none the
+less sensible to the honor you do me, and I trust that when you know the
+whole truth, I shall not suffer in your esteem."
+
+"A pretty queer mess this seems to be," said the voice of an elector.
+
+"Yes," said another; "it looks as if they meant to bamboozle us."
+
+"Messieurs, messieurs!" cried the chairman, putting a stop to the
+outbreak; "to-morrow--we will wait until to-morrow for the promised
+explanations."
+
+Whereupon, the deputation retired.
+
+It is not likely that Thuillier would have accompanied them beyond the
+door of the sanctum, but in any case he was prevented by the sudden
+entrance of la Peyrade.
+
+"I have just come from your house, my dear fellow," said the Provencal;
+"they told me I should find you here."
+
+"You have come, doubtless, for the purpose of explaining to me the
+strange article you allowed yourself to insert in my name."
+
+"Precisely," said la Peyrade. "The remarkable man whom you know,
+and whose powerful influence you have already felt, confided to me
+yesterday, in your interests, the plans of the government, and I saw at
+once that your defeat was inevitable. I wished therefore to secure to
+you an honorable and dignified retreat. There was no time to lose; you
+were absent from Paris, and therefore--"
+
+"Very good, monsieur," said Thuillier; "but you will take notice that
+from the present moment you are no longer the editor of this paper."
+
+"That is what I came to tell you."
+
+"Perhaps you also came to settle the little account we have together."
+
+"Messieurs," said Minard, "I see that this is a business interview; I
+shall therefore take leave of you."
+
+As soon as Minard had left the room, la Peyrade pulled out his
+pocket-book.
+
+"Here are ten thousand francs," he said, "which I will beg you to remit
+to Mademoiselle Brigitte; and here, also, is the bond by which you
+secured the payment of twenty-five thousand francs to Madame Lambert;
+that sum I have now paid in full, and here is the receipt."
+
+"Very good, monsieur," said Thuillier.
+
+La Peyrade bowed and went away.
+
+"Serpent!" said Thuillier as he watched him go.
+
+"Cerizet said the right thing," thought la Peyrade,--"a pompous
+imbecile!"
+
+The blow struck at Thuillier's candidacy was mortal, but Minard did not
+profit by it. While the pair were contending for votes, a government
+man, an aide-de-camp to the king, arrived with his hands full of tobacco
+licenses and other electoral small change, and, like the third thief,
+he slipped between the two who were thumping each other, and carried off
+the booty.
+
+It is needless to say that Brigitte did not get her farm in Beauce. That
+was only a mirage, by help of which Thuillier was enticed out of Paris
+long enough for la Peyrade to deal his blow,--a service rendered to the
+government on the one hand, but also a precious vengeance for the many
+humiliations he had undergone.
+
+Thuillier had certainly some suspicions as to the complicity of Cerizet,
+but that worthy managed to justify himself; and by manoeuvring the
+sale of the "Echo de la Bievre," now become a nightmare to the luckless
+owner, he ended by appearing as white as snow.
+
+The paper was secretly bought up by Corentin, and the late opposition
+sheet became a "canard" sold on Sundays in the wine-shops and concocted
+in the dens of the police.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS FUNCTIONS
+
+About two months after the scene in which la Peyrade had been convinced
+that through a crime of his past life his future was irrevocably
+settled, he (being now married to his victim, who was beginning to have
+lucid intervals, though the full return of her reason would not take
+place until the occasion indicated by the doctors) was sitting one
+morning with the head of the police in the latter's office. Taking
+part in the work of the department, the young man was serving an
+apprenticeship under that great master in the difficult and delicate
+functions to which he was henceforth riveted. But Corentin found that
+his pupil did not bring to this initiation all the ardor and amiability
+that he desired. It was plain that in la Peyrade's soul there was a
+sense of forfeiture and degradation; time would get the better of that
+impression, but the callus was not yet formed.
+
+Opening a number of sealed envelopes enclosing the reports of his
+various agents, Corentin glanced over these documents, seldom as useful
+as the public suppose, casting them one after another contemptuously
+into a basket, whence they issued in a mass for a burning. But to one of
+them the great man evidently gave some particular attention; as he read
+it a smile flickered on his lips, and when he had finished, instead of
+adding it to the pile in the basket, he gave it to la Peyrade.
+
+"Here," he said, "here's something that concerns you; it shows that in
+our profession, which just now seems to you unpleasantly serious, we do
+occasionally meet with comedies. Read it aloud; it will cheer me up."
+
+Before la Peyrade began to read, Corentin added:--
+
+"I ought to tell you that the report is from a man called Henri, whom
+Madame Komorn introduced as man-servant at the Thuilliers'; you probably
+remember him."
+
+"So!" said la Peyrade, "servants placed in families! is that one of your
+methods?"
+
+"Sometimes," replied Corentin; "in order to know all, we must use all
+means. But a great many lies are told about us on that subject. It
+is not true that the police, making a system of it, has, at certain
+periods, by a general enrolment of lacqueys and lady's-maids,
+established a vast network in private families. Nothing is fixed and
+absolute in our manner of proceeding; we act in accordance with the time
+and circumstances. I wanted an ear and an influence in the Thuillier
+household; accordingly, I let loose the Godollo upon it, and she, in
+turn, partly to assist herself, installed there one of our men, an
+intelligent fellow, as you will see for yourself. But for all that, if,
+at another time, a servant came and offered to sell me the secrets of
+his master, I should have him arrested, and let a warning reach the ears
+of the family to distrust the other servants. Now go on, and read that
+report."
+
+  Monsieur the Director of the Secret Police,
+
+read la Peyrade aloud,--
+
+  I did not stay long with the little baron; he is a man wholly
+  occupied in frivolous pleasures; and there was nothing to be
+  gathered there that was worthy of a report to you. I have found
+  another place, where I have already witnessed several thing which
+  fit into the mission that Madame de Godollo gave me, and
+  therefore, thinking them likely to interest you, I hasten to bring
+  them to your knowledge. The household in which I am now employed
+  is that of an old savant, named Monsieur Picot, who lives on a
+  first floor, Place de la Madeleine, in the house and apartment
+  formerly occupied by my late masters, the Thuilliers--
+
+"What!" cried la Peyrade, interrupting his reading, "Pere Picot, that
+ruined old lunatic, occupying such an apartment as that?"
+
+"Go on, go on!" said Corentin; "life is full of many strange things.
+You'll find the explanation farther along; for our correspondent--it is
+the defect of those fellows to waste themselves on details--is only too
+fond of dotting his i's."
+
+La Peyrade read on:--
+
+  The Thuilliers left this apartment some weeks ago to return to
+  their Latin quarter. Mademoiselle Brigitte never really liked our
+  sphere; her total want of education made her ill at ease. Just
+  because I speak correctly, she was always calling me 'the orator,'
+  and she could not endure Monsieur Pascal, her porter, because,
+  being beadle in the church of the Madeleine, he had manners; she
+  even found something to say against the dealers in the great
+  market behind the church, where, of course, she bought her
+  provisions; she complained that they gave themselves _capable_
+  airs, merely because they are not so coarse-tongued as those of
+  the Halle, and only laughed at her when she tried to beat them
+  down. She has leased the whole house to a certain Monsieur Cerizet
+  (a very ugly man, with a nose all eaten away) for an annual rent of
+  fifty-five thousand francs. This tenant seems to know what he is
+  about. He has lately married an actress at one of the minor
+  theatres, Mademoiselle Olympe Cardinal, and he was just about to
+  occupy himself the first-floor apartment, where he proposed to
+  establish his present business, namely, insurance for the "dots"
+  of children, when Monsieur Picot, arriving from England with his
+  wife, a very rich Englishwoman, saw the apartment and offered such
+  a good price that Monsieur Cerizet felt constrained to take it.
+  That was the time when, by the help of M. Pascal, the porter, with
+  whom I have been careful to maintain good relations, I entered the
+  household of Monsieur Picot.
+
+"Monsieur Picot married to a rich Englishwoman!" exclaimed la Peyrade,
+interrupting himself again; "but it is incomprehensible."
+
+"Go on, I tell you," said Corentin; "you'll comprehend it presently."
+
+  The fortune of my new master,
+
+continued la Peyrade,
+
+  is quite a history; and I speak of it to Monsieur le directeur
+  because another person in whom Madame de Godollo was interested
+  has his marriage closely mixed up in it. That other person is
+  Monsieur Felix Phellion, the inventor of a star, who, in despair
+  at not being able to marry that demoiselle whom they wanted to
+  give to the Sieur la Peyrade whom Madame de Godollo made such a
+  fool of--
+
+"Scoundrel!" said the Provencal, in a parenthesis. "Is that how he
+speaks of me? He doesn't know who I am."
+
+Corentin laughed heartily and exhorted his pupil to read on.
+
+  --who, in despair at not being able to marry that demoiselle . . .
+  went to England in order to embark for a journey round the world
+  --a lover's notion! Learning of this departure, Monsieur Picot,
+  his former professor, who took great interest in his pupil, went
+  after him to prevent that nonsense, which turned out not to be
+  difficult. The English are naturally very jealous of discoveries,
+  and when they saw Monsieur Phellion coming to embark at the heels
+  of their own savants they asked him for his permit from the
+  Admiralty; which, not having been provided, he could not produce;
+  so then they laughed in his face and would not let him embark at
+  all, fearing that he should prove more learned than they.
+
+"He is a fine hand at the 'entente cordiale,' your Monsieur Henri," said
+la Peyrade, gaily.
+
+"Yes," replied Corentin; "you will be struck, in the reports of
+nearly all our agents, with this general and perpetual inclination to
+calumniate. But what's to be done? For the trade of spies we can't have
+angels."
+
+  Left upon the shore, Telemachus and his mentor--
+
+"You see our men are lettered," commented Corentin.
+
+  --Telemachus and his mentor thought best to return to France, and
+  were about to do so when Monsieur Picot received a letter such as
+  none but an Englishwoman could write. It told him that the writer
+  had read his "Theory of Perpetual Motion," and had also heard of
+  his magnificent discovery of a star; that she regarded him as a
+  genius only second to Newton, and that if the hand of her who
+  addressed him, joined to eighty thousand pounds sterling--that is,
+  two millions--of "dot," was agreeable to him it was at his
+  disposal. The first thought of the good man was to make his pupil
+  marry her, but finding that impossible, he told her, before
+  accepting on his own account, that he was old and three-quarters
+  blind, and had never discovered a star, and did not own a penny.
+  The Englishwoman replied that Milton was not young either, and was
+  altogether blind; that Monsieur Picot seemed to her to have
+  nothing worse than a cataract, for she knew all about it, being
+  the daughter of a great oculist, and she would have him operated
+  upon; that as for the star, she did not care so very much about
+  that; it was the author of the "Theory of Perpetual Motion" who
+  was the man of her dreams, and to whom she again offered her hand
+  with eighty thousand pounds sterling (two millions) of "dot."
+  Monsieur Picot replied that if his sight were restored and she
+  would consent to live in Paris, for he hated England, he would let
+  himself be married. The operation was performed and was
+  successful, and, at the end of three weeks the newly married pair
+  arrived in the capital. These details I obtained from the lady's
+  maid, with whom I am on the warmest terms.
+
+"Oh! the puppy!" said Corentin, laughing.
+
+  The above is therefore hearsay, but what remains to be told to
+  Monsieur le directeur are facts of which I can speak "de visu,"
+  and to which I am, consequently, in a position to certify. As
+  soon as Monsieur and Madame Picot had installed themselves, which
+  was done in the most sumptuous and comfortable manner, my master
+  gave me a number of invitations to dinner to carry to the
+  Thuillier family, the Colleville family, the Minard family, the
+  Abbe Gondrin, vicar of the Madeleine, and nearly all the guests
+  who were present at another dinner a few months earlier, when he
+  had an encounter with Mademoiselle Thuillier, and behaved, I must
+  say, in a rather singular manner. All the persons who received
+  these invitations were so astonished to learn that the old man
+  Picot had married a rich wife and was living in the Thuilliers'
+  old apartment that most of them came to inquire of Monsieur
+  Pascal, the porter, to see if they were hoaxed. The information
+  they obtained being honest and honorable, the whole society
+  arrived punctually on time; but Monsieur Picot did not appear.
+  The guests were received by Madame Picot, who does not speak
+  French and could only say, "My husband is coming soon"; after
+  which, not being able to make further conversation, the company
+  were dull and ill at ease. At last Monsieur Picot arrived, and all
+  present were stupefied on seeing, instead of an old blind man,
+  shabbily dressed, a handsome young elderly man, bearing his years
+  jauntily, like Monsieur Ferville of the Gymnase, who said with a
+  lively air:
+
+  "I beg your pardon, mesdames, for not being here at the moment of
+  your arrival; but I was at the Academy of Sciences, awaiting the
+  result of an election,--that of Monsieur Felix Phellion, who has
+  been elected unanimously less three votes."
+
+  This news seemed to have a great effect upon the company. So then
+  Monsieur Picot resumed:--
+
+  "I must also, mesdames, ask your pardon for the rather improper
+  manner in which I behaved a short time ago in the house where we
+  are now assembled. My excuse must be my late infirmity, the
+  annoyances of a family lawsuit, and of an old housekeeper who
+  robbed me and tormented me in a thousand ways, from whom I am
+  happily delivered. To-day you see me another man, rejuvenated and
+  rich with the blessings bestowed upon me by the amiable woman who
+  has given me her hand; and I should be in the happiest frame of
+  mind to receive you if the recollection of my young friend, whose
+  eminence as a man of science has just been consecrated by the
+  Academy, did not cast upon my mind a veil of sadness. All here
+  present," continued Monsieur Picot, raising his voice, which is
+  rather loud, "are guilty towards him: I, for ingratitude when he
+  gave me the glory of his discovery and the reward of his immortal
+  labors; that young lady, whom I see over there with tears in her
+  eyes, for having foolishly accused him of atheism; that other
+  lady, with the stern face, for having harshly replied to the
+  proposals of his noble father, whose white hairs she ought rather
+  to have honored; Monsieur Thuillier, for having sacrificed him to
+  ambition; Monsieur Colleville, for not performing his part of
+  father and choosing for his daughter the worthiest and most
+  honorable man; Monsieur Minard, for having tried to foist his son
+  into his place. There are but two persons in the room at this
+  moment who have done him full justice,--Madame Thuillier and
+  Monsieur l'Abbe Gondrin. Well, I shall now ask that man of God
+  whether we can help doubting the divine justice when this generous
+  young man, the victim of all of us, is, at the present hour, at
+  the mercy of waves and tempests, to which for three long years he
+  is consigned."
+
+  "Providence is very powerful, monsieur," replied the Abbe Gondrin.
+  "God will protect Monsieur Felix Phellion wherever he may be, and
+  I have the firmest hope that three years hence he will be among
+  his friends once more."
+
+  "But three years!" said Monsieur Picot. "Will it still be time?
+  Will Mademoiselle Colleville have waited for him?"
+
+  "Yes, I swear it!" cried the young girl, carried away by an
+  impulse she could not control.
+
+  Then she sat down again, quite ashamed, and burst into tears.
+
+  "And you, Mademoiselle Thuillier, and you, Madame Colleville, will
+  you permit this young lady to reserve herself for one who is
+  worthy of her?"
+
+  "Yes! Yes!" cried everybody; for Monsieur Picot's voice, which is
+  very full and sonorous, seemed to have tears in it and affected
+  everybody.
+
+  "Then it is time," he said, "to forgive Providence."
+
+  And rushing suddenly to the door, where my ear was glued to the
+  keyhole, he very nearly caught me.
+
+  "Announce," he said to me, in a very loud tone of voice, "Monsieur
+  Felix Phellion and his family."
+
+  And thereupon the door of a side room opened, and five or six
+  persons came out, who were led by Monsieur Picot into the salon.
+
+  At the sight of her _lover_, Mademoiselle Colleville was taken ill,
+  but the faint lasted only a minute; seeing Monsieur Felix at her
+  feet she threw herself into Madame Thuillier's arms, crying out:--
+
+  "Godmother! you always told me to hope."
+
+  Mademoiselle Thuillier, who, in spite of her harsh nature and want
+  of education, I have always myself thought a remarkable woman, now
+  had a fine impulse. As the company were about to go into the
+  dining-room,--
+
+  "One moment!" she said.
+
+  Then going up to Monsieur Phellion, senior, she said to him:
+
+  "Monsieur and old friend! I ask you for the hand of Monsieur Felix
+  Phellion for our adopted daughter, Mademoiselle Colleville."
+
+  "Bravo! bravo!" they call cried in chorus.
+
+  "My God!" said Monsieur Phellion, with tears in his eyes; "what
+  have I done to deserve such happiness?"
+
+  "You have been an honest man and a Christian without knowing it,"
+  replied the Abbe Gondrin.
+
+Here la Peyrade flung down the manuscript.
+
+"You did not finish it," said Corentin, taking back the paper. "However,
+there's not much more. Monsieur Henri confesses to me that the scene
+had _moved him_; he also says that, knowing the interest I had
+formerly taken in the marriage, he thought he ought to inform me of
+its conclusion; ending with a slightly veiled suggestion of a fee. No,
+stay," resumed Corentin, "here is a detail of some importance:--"
+
+  The English woman seems to have made it known during dinner that,
+  having no heirs, her fortune, after the lives of herself and her
+  husband, will go to Felix. That will make him powerfully rich one
+  of these days.
+
+La Peyrade had risen and was striding about the room with rapid steps.
+
+"Well," said Corentin, "what is the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That is not true," said the great detective. "I think you envy the
+happiness of that young man. My dear fellow, permit me to tell you that
+if such a conclusion were to your taste, you should have acted as he has
+done. When I sent you two thousand francs on which to study law, I
+did not intend you to succeed me; I expected you to row your galley
+laboriously, to have the needful courage for obscure and painful toil;
+your day would infallibly have come. But you chose to violate fortune--"
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"I mean hasten it, reap it before it ripened. You flung yourself
+into journalism; then into business, questionable business; you made
+acquaintance with Messieurs Dutocq and Cerizet. Frankly, I think you
+fortunate to have entered the port which harbors you to-day. In any
+case, you are not sufficiently simple of heart to have really valued the
+joys reserved for Felix Phellion. These bourgeois--"
+
+"These bourgeois," said la Peyrade, quickly,--"I know them now. They
+have great absurdities, great vices even, but they have virtues, or,
+at the least, estimable qualities; in them lies the vital force of our
+corrupt society."
+
+"_Your_ society!" said Corentin, smiling; "you speak as if you were
+still in the ranks. You have another sphere, my dear fellow; and you
+must learn to be more content with your lot. Governments pass, societies
+perish or dwindle; but we--_we_ dominate all things; the police is
+eternal."
+
+
+
+  TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
+
+  Note.--This volume ("Les Petits Bourgeois") was not published
+  until 1854, more than three years after Balzac's death; although
+  he says of it in March, 1844: "I must tell you that my work
+  entitled 'Les Petits Bourgeois,' owing to difficulties of
+  execution, requires still a month's labor, although the book is
+  entirely written." And again, in October, 1846, he says: "It is to
+  such scruples" (care in perfecting his work) "that delays which
+  have injured several of my works are due; for instance, 'Les
+  Paysans,' which has long been nearly finished, and 'Les Petits
+  Bourgeois,' which has been in type at the printing office for the
+  last eighteen months."
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Barbet
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Man of Business
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Baudoyer, Isidore
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Beaumesnil, Mademoiselle
+       The Middle Classes
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       A Second Home
+
+     Bianchon, Horace
+       Father Goriot
+       The Atheist's Mass
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Government Clerks
+       Pierrette
+       A Study of Woman
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Honorine
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Second Home
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Country Parson
+     In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+       Another Study of Woman
+       La Grande Breteche
+
+     Bousquier, Du (or Du Croisier or Du Bourguier)
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Brisetout, Heloise
+       Cousin Betty
+       Cousin Pons
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Bruel, Jean Francois du
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Start in Life
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       The Middle Classes
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Bruel, Claudine Chaffaroux, Madame du
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Distinguished  Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Bruno
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Cardot (Parisian notary)
+       The Muse of the Department
+       A Man of Business
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       Pierre Grassou
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Cerizet
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Man of Business
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Chaffaroux
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Claparon, Charles
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Melmoth Reconciled
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       A Man of Business
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Colleville
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame
+       The Government Clerks
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Corentin
+       The Chouans
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Couture
+       Beatrix
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Crochard, Charles
+       A Second Home
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Desroches (son)
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Colonel Chabert
+       A Start in Life
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       A Man of Business
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Dutocq
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Fleury
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Galathionne, Prince and Princess (both not in each story)
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Middle Classes
+       Father Goriot
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Beatrix
+
+     Godard, Joseph
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Godeschal, Francois-Claude-Marie
+       Colonel Chabert
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       A Start in Life
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Grassou, Pierre
+       Pierre Grassou
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Grindot
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Start in Life
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Beatrix
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Katt
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Keller, Adolphe
+       The Middle Classes
+       Pierrette
+       Cesar Birotteau
+
+     La Peyrade, Charles-Marie-Theodose de
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     La Peyrade, Madame de
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     La Roche-Hugon, Martial de
+       Domestic Peace
+       The Peasantry
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Member for Arcis
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Laudigeois
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Lousteau, Etienne
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Beatrix
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Cousin Betty
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Man of Business
+       The Middle Classes
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Metivier
+       Lost Illusions
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Metivier (nephew)
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Minard, Madame
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Phellion
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Poiret, the elder
+       The Government Clerks
+       Father Goriot
+       A Start in Life
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Poiret, Madame (nee Christine-Michelle Michonneau)
+       Father Goriot
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Popinot, Jean-Jules
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Honorine
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Rabourdin, Xavier
+       The Government Clerks
+       At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Saillard
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier, Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Thuillier, Louis-Jerome
+       The Government Clerks
+       The Middle Classes
+
+     Tillet, Ferdinand du
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Pierrette
+       Melmoth Reconciled
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Member for Arcis
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Vinet
+       Pierrette
+       The Member for Arcis
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Vinet, Olivier
+       The Member for Arcis
+       Cousin Pons
+       The Middle Classes
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Lesser Bourgeoisie, by Honore de Balzac
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