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diff --git a/1660.txt b/1660.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e013575 --- /dev/null +++ b/1660.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23034 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Scenes from a Courtesan's Life, 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: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: James Waring + +Release Date: March, 1999 [Etext #1660] +Posting Date: February 28, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCENES FROM A COURTESAN'S LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny, Bonnie Sala, and John Bickers + + + + + +SCENES FROM A COURTESAN'S LIFE + + +By Honore De Balzac + + +Translated by James Waring + + + +PREPARER'S NOTE: The story of Lucien de Rubempre begins in the +Lost Illusions trilogy which consists of Two Poets, A Distinguished +Provincial at Paris, and Eve and David. The action in Scenes From A +Courtesan's Life commences directly after the end of Eve and David. + + + + + DEDICATION + + To His Highness + Prince Alfonso Serafino di Porcia. + + Allow me to place your name at the beginning of an essentially + Parisian work, thought out in your house during these latter days. + Is it not natural that I should offer you the flowers of rhetoric + that blossomed in your garden, watered with the regrets I suffered + from home-sickness, which you soothed, as I wandered under the + boschetti whose elms reminded me of the Champs-Elysees? Thus, + perchance, may I expiate the crime of having dreamed of Paris + under the shadow of the Duomo, of having longed for our muddy + streets on the clean and elegant flagstones of Porta-Renza. When I + have some book to publish which may be dedicated to a Milanese + lady, I shall have the happiness of finding names already dear to + your old Italian romancers among those of women whom we love, and + to whose memory I would beg you to recall your sincerely + affectionate + + + DE BALZAC. + July 1838. + + + + + +SCENES FROM A COURTESAN'S LIFE + + + + +ESTHER HAPPY; OR, HOW A COURTESAN CAN LOVE + +In 1824, at the last opera ball of the season, several masks were +struck by the beauty of a youth who was wandering about the passages +and greenroom with the air of a man in search of a woman kept at home by +unexpected circumstances. The secret of this behavior, now dilatory and +again hurried, is known only to old women and to certain experienced +loungers. In this immense assembly the crowd does not trouble itself +much to watch the crowd; each one's interest is impassioned, and even +idlers are preoccupied. + +The young dandy was so much absorbed in his anxious quest that he +did not observe his own success; he did not hear, he did not see the +ironical exclamations of admiration, the genuine appreciation, the +biting gibes, the soft invitations of some of the masks. Though he was +so handsome as to rank among those exceptional persons who come to an +opera ball in search of an adventure, and who expect it as confidently +as men looked for a lucky coup at roulette in Frascati's day, he seemed +quite philosophically sure of his evening; he must be the hero of one +of those mysteries with three actors which constitute an opera ball, and +are known only to those who play a part in them; for, to young wives +who come merely to say, "I have seen it," to country people, to +inexperienced youths, and to foreigners, the opera house must on those +nights be the palace of fatigue and dulness. To these, that black swarm, +slow and serried--coming, going, winding, turning, returning, mounting, +descending, comparable only to ants on a pile of wood--is no more +intelligible than the Bourse to a Breton peasant who has never heard of +the Grand livre. + +With a few rare exceptions, men wear no masks in Paris; a man in a +domino is thought ridiculous. In this the spirit of the nation betrays +itself. Men who want to hide their good fortune can enjoy the opera ball +without going there; and masks who are absolutely compelled to go in +come out again at once. One of the most amusing scenes is the crush at +the doors produced as soon as the dancing begins, by the rush of persons +getting away and struggling with those who are pushing in. So the men +who wear masks are either jealous husbands who come to watch their +wives, or husbands on the loose who do not wish to be watched by +them--two situations equally ridiculous. + +Now, our young man was followed, though he knew it not, by a man in a +mask, dogging his steps, short and stout, with a rolling gait, like a +barrel. To every one familiar with the opera this disguise betrayed +a stock-broker, a banker, a lawyer, some citizen soul suspicious of +infidelity. For in fact, in really high society, no one courts such +humiliating proofs. Several masks had laughed as they pointed this +preposterous figure out to each other; some had spoken to him, a few +young men had made game of him, but his stolid manner showed entire +contempt for these aimless shafts; he went on whither the young man +led him, as a hunted wild boar goes on and pays no heed to the bullets +whistling about his ears, or the dogs barking at his heels. + +Though at first sight pleasure and anxiety wear the same livery--the +noble black robe of Venice--and though all is confusion at an opera +ball, the various circles composing Parisian society meet there, +recognize, and watch each other. There are certain ideas so clear to the +initiated that this scrawled medley of interests is as legible to them +as any amusing novel. So, to these old hands, this man could not be here +by appointment; he would infallibly have worn some token, red, white, or +green, such as notifies a happy meeting previously agreed on. Was it a +case of revenge? + +Seeing the domino following so closely in the wake of a man apparently +happy in an assignation, some of the gazers looked again at the handsome +face, on which anticipation had set its divine halo. The youth was +interesting; the longer he wandered, the more curiosity he excited. +Everything about him proclaimed the habits of refined life. In obedience +to a fatal law of the time we live in, there is not much difference, +physical or moral, between the most elegant and best bred son of a duke +and peer and this attractive youth, whom poverty had not long since held +in its iron grip in the heart of Paris. Beauty and youth might cover him +in deep gulfs, as in many a young man who longs to play a part in Paris +without having the capital to support his pretensions, and who, day +after day, risks all to win all, by sacrificing to the god who has most +votaries in this royal city, namely, Chance. At the same time, his dress +and manners were above reproach; he trod the classic floor of the opera +house as one accustomed there. Who can have failed to observe that +there, as in every zone in Paris, there is a manner of being which shows +who you are, what you are doing, whence you come, and what you want? + +"What a handsome young fellow; and here we may turn round to look +at him," said a mask, in whom accustomed eyes recognized a lady of +position. + +"Do you not remember him?" replied the man on whose arm she was leaning. +"Madame du Chatelet introduced him to you----" + +"What, is that the apothecary's son she fancied herself in love with, +who became a journalist, Mademoiselle Coralie's lover?" + +"I fancied he had fallen too low ever to pull himself up again, and I +cannot understand how he can show himself again in the world of Paris," +said the Comte Sixte du Chatelet. + +"He has the air of a prince," the mask went on, "and it is not +the actress he lived with who could give it to him. My cousin, who +understood him, could not lick him into shape. I should like to know the +mistress of this Sargine; tell me something about him that will enable +me to mystify him." + +This couple, whispering as they watched the young man, became the object +of study to the square-shouldered domino. + +"Dear Monsieur Chardon," said the Prefet of the Charente, taking the +dandy's hand, "allow me to introduce you to some one who wishes to renew +acquaintance with you----" + +"Dear Comte Chatelet," replied the young man, "that lady taught me how +ridiculous was the name by which you address me. A patent from the king +has restored to me that of my mother's family--the Rubempres. Although +the fact has been announced in the papers, it relates to so unimportant +a person that I need not blush to recall it to my friends, my enemies, +and those who are neither----You may class yourself where you will, but +I am sure you will not disapprove of a step to which I was advised by +your wife when she was still only Madame de Bargeton." + +This neat retort, which made the Marquise smile, gave the Prefet of la +Charente a nervous chill. "You may tell her," Lucien went on, "that I +now bear gules, a bull raging argent on a meadow vert." + +"Raging argent," echoed Chatelet. + +"Madame la Marquise will explain to you, if you do not know, why that +old coat is a little better than the chamberlain's key and Imperial gold +bees which you bear on yours, to the great despair of Madame Chatelet, +nee Negrepelisse d'Espard," said Lucien quickly. + +"Since you recognize me, I cannot puzzle you; and I could never tell +you how much you puzzle me," said the Marquise d'Espard, amazed at +the coolness and impertinence to which the man had risen whom she had +formerly despised. + +"Then allow me, madame, to preserve my only chance of occupying your +thoughts by remaining in that mysterious twilight," said he, with the +smile of a man who does not wish to risk assured happiness. + +"I congratulate you on your changed fortunes," said the Comte du +Chatelet to Lucien. + +"I take it as you offer it," replied Lucien, bowing with much grace to +the Marquise. + +"What a coxcomb!" said the Count in an undertone to Madame d'Espard. "He +has succeeded in winning an ancestry." + +"With these young men such coxcombry, when it is addressed to us, almost +always implies some success in high places," said the lady; "for with +you older men it means ill-fortune. And I should very much like to +know which of my grand lady friends has taken this fine bird under her +patronage; then I might find the means of amusing myself this evening. +My ticket, anonymously sent, is no doubt a bit of mischief planned by a +rival and having something to do with this young man. His impertinence +is to order; keep an eye on him. I will take the Duc de Navarrein's arm. +You will be able to find me again." + +Just as Madame d'Espard was about to address her cousin, the mysterious +mask came between her and the Duke to whisper in her ear: + +"Lucien loves you; he wrote the note. Your Prefet is his greatest foe; +how can he speak in his presence?" + +The stranger moved off, leaving Madame d'Espard a prey to a double +surprise. The Marquise knew no one in the world who was capable of +playing the part assumed by this mask; she suspected a snare, and went +to sit down out of sight. The Comte Sixte du Chatelet--whom Lucien +had abridged of his ambitious _du_ with an emphasis that betrayed long +meditated revenge--followed the handsome dandy, and presently met a +young man to whom he thought he could speak without reserve. + +"Well, Rastignac, have you seen Lucien? He has come out in a new skin." + +"If I were half as good looking as he is, I should be twice as rich," +replied the fine gentleman, in a light but meaning tone, expressive of +keen raillery. + +"No!" said the fat mask in his ear, repaying a thousand ironies in one +by the accent he lent the monosyllable. + +Rastignac, who was not the man to swallow an affront, stood as if struck +by lightning, and allowed himself to be led into a recess by a grasp of +iron which he could not shake off. + +"You young cockerel, hatched in Mother Vauquer's coop--you, whose heart +failed you to clutch old Taillefer's millions when the hardest part of +the business was done--let me tell you, for your personal safety, that +if you do not treat Lucien like the brother you love, you are in our +power, while we are not in yours. Silence and submission! or I shall +join your game and upset the skittles. Lucien de Rubempre is under the +protection of the strongest power of the day--the Church. Choose between +life and death--Answer." + +Rastignac felt giddy, like a man who has slept in a forest and wakes to +see by his side a famishing lioness. He was frightened, and there was no +one to see him; the boldest men yield to fear under such circumstances. + +"No one but HE can know--or would dare----" he murmured to himself. + +The mask clutched his hand tighter to prevent his finishing his +sentence. + +"Act as if I were _he_," he said. + +Rastignac then acted like a millionaire on the highroad with a brigand's +pistol at his head; he surrendered. + +"My dear Count," said he to du Chatelet, to whom he presently returned, +"if you care for your position in life, treat Lucien de Rubempre as +a man whom you will one day see holding a place far above where you +stand." + +The mask made a imperceptible gesture of approbation, and went off in +search of Lucien. + +"My dear fellow, you have changed your opinion of him very suddenly," +replied the Prefet with justifiable surprise. + +"As suddenly as men change who belong to the centre and vote with the +right," replied Rastignac to the Prefet-Depute, whose vote had for a few +days failed to support the Ministry. + +"Are there such things as opinions nowadays? There are only interests," +observed des Lupeaulx, who had heard them. "What is the case in point?" + +"The case of the Sieur de Rubempre, whom Rastignac is setting up as a +person of consequence," said du Chatelet to the Secretary-General. + +"My dear Count," replied des Lupeaulx very seriously, "Monsieur de +Rubempre is a young man of the highest merit, and has such good interest +at his back that I should be delighted to renew my acquaintance with +him." + +"There he is, rushing into the wasps' nest of the rakes of the day," +said Rastignac. + + +The three speakers looked towards a corner where a group of recognized +wits had gathered, men of more or less celebrity, and several men +of fashion. These gentlemen made common stock of their jests, their +remarks, and their scandal, trying to amuse themselves till something +should amuse them. Among this strangely mingled party were some men with +whom Lucien had had transactions, combining ostensibly kind offices with +covert false dealing. + +"Hallo! Lucien, my boy, why here we are patched up again--new stuffing +and a new cover. Where have we come from? Have we mounted the high +horse once more with little offerings from Florine's boudoir? Bravo, old +chap!" and Blondet released Finot to put his arm affectionately around +Lucien and press him to his heart. + +Andoche Finot was the proprietor of a review on which Lucien had +worked for almost nothing, and to which Blondet gave the benefit of his +collaboration, of the wisdom of his suggestions and the depth of +his views. Finot and Blondet embodied Bertrand and Raton, with this +difference--that la Fontaine's cat at last showed that he knew himself +to be duped, while Blondet, though he knew that he was being fleeced, +still did all he could for Finot. This brilliant condottiere of the pen +was, in fact, long to remain a slave. Finot hid a brutal strength of +will under a heavy exterior, under polish of wit, as a laborer rubs +his bread with garlic. He knew how to garner what he gleaned, ideas +and crown-pieces alike, in the fields of the dissolute life led by men +engaged in letters or in politics. + +Blondet, for his sins, had placed his powers at the service of Finot's +vices and idleness. Always at war with necessity, he was one of the +race of poverty-stricken and superior men who can do everything for the +fortune of others and nothing for their own, Aladdins who let other men +borrow their lamp. These excellent advisers have a clear and penetrating +judgment so long as it is not distracted by personal interest. In them +it is the head and not the arm that acts. Hence the looseness of their +morality, and hence the reproach heaped upon them by inferior minds. +Blondet would share his purse with a comrade he had affronted the day +before; he would dine, drink, and sleep with one whom he would demolish +on the morrow. His amusing paradoxes excused everything. Accepting the +whole world as a jest, he did not want to be taken seriously; young, +beloved, almost famous and contented, he did not devote himself, like +Finot, to acquiring the fortune an old man needs. + +The most difficult form of courage, perhaps, is that which Lucien needed +at this moment to get rid of Blondet as he had just got rid of Madame +d'Espard and Chatelet. In him, unfortunately, the joys of vanity +hindered the exercise of pride--the basis, beyond doubt, of many great +things. His vanity had triumphed in the previous encounter; he had +shown himself as a rich man, happy and scornful, to two persons who had +scorned him when he was poor and wretched. But how could a poet, like +an old diplomate, run the gauntlet with two self-styled friends, who had +welcomed him in misery, under whose roof he had slept in the worst of +his troubles? Finot, Blondet, and he had groveled together; they had +wallowed in such orgies as consume something more than money. Like +soldiers who find no market for their courage, Lucien had just done what +many men do in Paris: he had still further compromised his character by +shaking Finot's hand, and not rejecting Blondet's affection. + +Every man who has dabbled, or still dabbles, in journalism is under +the painful necessity of bowing to men he despises, of smiling at his +dearest foe, of compounding the foulest meanness, of soiling his fingers +to pay his aggressors in their own coin. He becomes used to seeing +evil done, and passing it over; he begins by condoning it, and ends by +committing it. In the long run the soul, constantly strained by shameful +and perpetual compromise, sinks lower, the spring of noble thoughts +grows rusty, the hinges of familiarity wear easy, and turn of their own +accord. Alceste becomes Philinte, natures lose their firmness, talents +are perverted, faith in great deeds evaporates. The man who yearned +to be proud of his work wastes himself in rubbishy articles which +his conscience regards, sooner or later, as so many evil actions. He +started, like Lousteau or Vernou, to be a great writer; he finds himself +a feeble scrivener. Hence it is impossible to honor too highly men whose +character stands as high as their talent--men like d'Arthez, who know +how to walk surefooted across the reefs of literary life. + +Lucien could make no reply to Blondet's flattery; his wit had an +irresistible charm for him, and he maintained the hold of the corrupter +over his pupil; besides, he held a position in the world through his +connection with the Comtesse de Montcornet. + +"Has an uncle left you a fortune?" said Finot, laughing at him. + +"Like you, I have marked some fools for cutting down," replied Lucien in +the same tone. + +"Then Monsieur has a review--a newspaper of his own?" Andoche Finot +retorted, with the impertinent presumption of a chief to a subordinate. + +"I have something better," replied Lucien, whose vanity, nettled by the +assumed superiority of his editor, restored him to the sense of his new +position. + +"What is that, my dear boy?" + +"I have a party." + +"There is a Lucien party?" said Vernou, smiling + +"Finot, the boy has left you in the lurch; I told you he would. Lucien +is a clever fellow, and you never were respectful to him. You used him +as a hack. Repent, blockhead!" said Blondet. + +Blondet, as sharp as a needle, could detect more than one secret in +Lucien's air and manner; while stroking him down, he contrived to +tighten the curb. He meant to know the reasons of Lucien's return to +Paris, his projects, and his means of living. + +"On your knees to a superiority you can never attain to, albeit you are +Finot!" he went on. "Admit this gentleman forthwith to be one of the +great men to whom the future belongs; he is one of us! So witty and +so handsome, can he fail to succeed by your quibuscumque viis? Here he +stands, in his good Milan armor, his strong sword half unsheathed, and +his pennon flying!--Bless me, Lucien, where did you steal that smart +waistcoat? Love alone can find such stuff as that. Have you an address? +At this moment I am anxious to know where my friends are domiciled; +I don't know where to sleep. Finot has turned me out of doors for the +night, under the vulgar pretext of 'a lady in the case.'" + +"My boy," said Lucien, "I put into practice a motto by which you may +secure a quiet life: Fuge, late, tace. I am off." + +"But I am not off till you pay me a sacred debt--that little supper, you +know, heh?" said Blondet, who was rather too much given to good cheer, +and got himself treated when he was out of funds. + +"What supper?" asked Lucien with a little stamp of impatience. + +"You don't remember? In that I recognize my prosperous friend; he has +lost his memory." + +"He knows what he owes us; I will go bail for his good heart," said +Finot, taking up Blondet's joke. + +"Rastignac," said Blondet, taking the young dandy by the arm as he came +up the room to the column where the so-called friends were standing. +"There is a supper in the wind; you will join us--unless," he added +gravely, turning to Lucien, "Monsieur persists in ignoring a debt of +honor. He can." + +"Monsieur de Rubempre is incapable of such a thing; I will answer for +him," said Rastignac, who never dreamed of a practical joke. + +"And there is Bixiou, he will come too," cried Blondet; "there is no +fun without him. Without him champagne cloys my tongue, and I find +everything insipid, even the pepper of satire." + +"My friends," said Bixiou, "I see you have gathered round the wonder of +the day. Our dear Lucien has revived the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Just as +the gods used to turn into strange vegetables and other things to seduce +the ladies, he has turned the Chardon (the Thistle) into a gentleman to +bewitch--whom? Charles X.!--My dear boy," he went on, holding Lucien +by his coat button, "a journalist who apes the fine gentleman deserves +rough music. In their place," said the merciless jester, as he pointed +to Finot and Vernou, "I should take you up in my society paper; you +would bring in a hundred francs for ten columns of fun." + +"Bixiou," said Blondet, "an Amphitryon is sacred for twenty-four hours +before a feast and twelve hours after. Our illustrious friend is giving +us a supper." + +"What then!" cried Bixiou; "what is more imperative than the duty of +saving a great name from oblivion, of endowing the indigent aristocracy +with a man of talent? Lucien, you enjoy the esteem of the press of +which you were a distinguished ornament, and we will give you our +support.--Finot, a paragraph in the 'latest items'!--Blondet, a +little butter on the fourth page of your paper!--We must advertise the +appearance of one of the finest books of the age, _l'Archer de Charles +IX._! We will appeal to Dauriat to bring out as soon as possible _les +Marguerites_, those divine sonnets by the French Petrarch! We must carry +our friend through on the shield of stamped paper by which reputations +are made and unmade." + +"If you want a supper," said Lucien to Blondet, hoping to rid himself +of this mob, which threatened to increase, "it seems to me that you need +not work up hyperbole and parable to attack an old friend as if he were +a booby. To-morrow night at Lointier's----" he cried, seeing a woman +come by, whom he rushed to meet. + +"Oh! oh! oh!" said Bixiou on three notes, with a mocking glance, and +seeming to recognize the mask to whom Lucien addressed himself. "This +needs confirmation." + +He followed the handsome pair, got past them, examined them keenly, and +came back, to the great satisfaction of all the envious crowd, who were +eager to learn the source of Lucien's change of fortune. + +"Friends," said Bixiou, "you have long known the goddess of the Sire de +Rubempre's fortune: She is des Lupeaulx's former 'rat.'" + +A form of dissipation, now forgotten, but still customary at the +beginning of this century, was the keeping of "rats." The "rat"--a slang +word that has become old-fashioned--was a girl of ten or twelve in the +chorus of some theatre, more particularly at the opera, who was trained +by young roues to vice and infamy. A "rat" was a sort of demon page, a +tomboy who was forgiven a trick if it were but funny. The "rat" might +take what she pleased; she was to be watched like a dangerous animal, +and she brought an element of liveliness into life, like Scapin, +Sganarelle, and Frontin in old-fashioned comedy. But a "rat" was too +expensive; it made no return in honor, profit, or pleasure; the fashion +of rats so completely went out, that in these days few people knew +anything of this detail of fashionable life before the Restoration till +certain writers took up the "rat" as a new subject. + +"What! after having seen Coralie killed under him, Lucien means to rob +us of La Torpille?" (the torpedo fish) said Blondet. + +As he heard the name the brawny mask gave a significant start, which, +though repressed, was understood by Rastignac. + +"It is out of the question," replied Finot; "La Torpille has not a +sou to give away; Nathan tells me she borrowed a thousand francs of +Florine." + +"Come, gentlemen, gentlemen!" said Rastignac, anxious to defend Lucien +against so odious an imputation. + +"Well," cried Vernou, "is Coralie's kept man likely to be so very +particular?" + +"Oh!" replied Bixiou, "those thousand francs prove to me that our friend +Lucien lives with La Torpille----" + +"What an irreparable loss to literature, science, art, and politics!" +exclaimed Blondet. "La Torpille is the only common prostitute in whom I +ever found the stuff for a superior courtesan; she has not been spoiled +by education--she can neither read nor write, she would have understood +us. We might have given to our era one of those magnificent Aspasias +without which there can be no golden age. See how admirably Madame du +Barry was suited to the eighteenth century, Ninon de l'Enclos to the +seventeenth, Marion Delorme to the sixteenth, Imperia to the fifteenth, +Flora to Republican Rome, which she made her heir, and which paid off +the public debt with her fortune! What would Horace be without Lydia, +Tibullus without Delia, Catullus without Lesbia, Propertius without +Cynthia, Demetrius without Lamia, who is his glory at this day?" + +"Blondet talking of Demetrius in the opera house seems to me rather too +strong of the _Debats_," said Bixiou in his neighbor's ears. + +"And where would the empire of the Caesars have been but for these +queens?" Blondet went on; "Lais and Rhodope are Greece and Egypt. They +all indeed are the poetry of the ages in which they lived. This poetry, +which Napoleon lacked--for the Widow of his Great Army is a barrack +jest, was not wanting to the Revolution; it had Madame Tallien! In these +days there is certainly a throne to let in France which is for her who +can fill it. We among us could make a queen. I should have given La +Torpille an aunt, for her mother is too decidedly dead on the field of +dishonor; du Tillet would have given her a mansion, Lousteau a carriage, +Rastignac her footmen, des Lupeaulx a cook, Finot her hats"--Finot +could not suppress a shrug at standing the point-blank fire of this +epigram--"Vernou would have composed her advertisements, and Bixiou her +repartees! The aristocracy would have come to enjoy themselves with our +Ninon, where we would have got artists together, under pain of death +by newspaper articles. Ninon the second would have been magnificently +impertinent, overwhelming in luxury. She would have set up opinions. +Some prohibited dramatic masterpiece should have been read in her +drawing-room; it should have been written on purpose if necessary. She +would not have been liberal; a courtesan is essentially monarchical. Oh, +what a loss! She ought to have embraced her whole century, and she makes +love with a little young man! Lucien will make a sort of hunting-dog of +her." + +"None of the female powers of whom you speak ever trudged the streets," +said Finot, "and that pretty little 'rat' has rolled in the mire." + +"Like a lily-seed in the soil," replied Vernou, "and she has improved +in it and flowered. Hence her superiority. Must we not have known +everything to be able to create the laughter and joy which are part of +everything?" + +"He is right," said Lousteau, who had hitherto listened without +speaking; "La Torpille can laugh and make others laugh. That gift of all +great writers and great actors is proper to those who have investigated +every social deep. At eighteen that girl had already known the greatest +wealth, the most squalid misery--men of every degree. She bears about +her a sort of magic wand by which she lets loose the brutal appetites so +vehemently suppressed in men who still have a heart while occupied with +politics or science, literature or art. There is not in Paris another +woman who can say to the beast as she does: 'Come out!' And the beast +leaves his lair and wallows in excesses. She feeds you up to the chin, +she helps you to drink and smoke. In short, this woman is the salt of +which Rabelais writes, which, thrown on matter, animates it and +elevates it to the marvelous realms of art; her robe displays unimagined +splendor, her fingers drop gems as her lips shed smiles; she gives the +spirit of the occasion to every little thing; her chatter twinkles with +bright sayings, she has the secret of the quaintest onomatopoeia, full +of color, and giving color; she----" + +"You are wasting five francs' worth of copy," said Bixiou, interrupting +Lousteau. "La Torpille is something far better than all that; you have +all been in love with her more or less, not one of you can say that +she ever was his mistress. She can always command you; you will +never command her. You may force your way in and ask her to do you a +service----" + +"Oh, she is more generous than a brigand chief who knows his business, +and more devoted than the best of school-fellows," said Blondet. "You +may trust her with your purse or your secrets. But what made me choose +her as queen is her Bourbon-like indifference for a fallen favorite." + +"She, like her mother, is much too dear," said des Lupeaulx. "The +handsome Dutch woman would have swallowed up the income of the +Archbishop of Toledo; she ate two notaries out of house and home----" + +"And kept Maxime de Trailles when he was a court page," said Bixiou. + +"La Torpille is too dear, as Raphael was, or Careme, or Taglioni, or +Lawrence, or Boule, or any artist of genius is too dear," said Blondet. + +"Esther never looked so thoroughly a lady," said Rastignac, pointing to +the masked figure to whom Lucien had given his arm. "I will bet on its +being Madame de Serizy." + +"Not a doubt of it," cried du Chatelet, "and Monsieur du Rubempre's +fortune is accounted for." + +"Ah, the Church knows how to choose its Levites; what a sweet +ambassador's secretary he will make!" remarked des Lupeaulx. + +"All the more so," Rastignac went on, "because Lucien is a really clever +fellow. These gentlemen have had proof of it more than once," and he +turned to Blondet, Finot, and Lousteau. + +"Yes, the boy is cut out of the right stuff to get on," said Lousteau, +who was dying of jealousy. "And particularly because he has what we call +independent ideas..." + +"It is you who trained him," said Vernou. + +"Well," replied Bixiou, looking at des Lupeaulx, "I trust to the memory +of Monsieur the Secretary-General and Master of Appeals--that mask is La +Torpille, and I will stand a supper on it." + +"I will hold the stakes," said du Chatelet, curious to know the truth. + +"Come, des Lupeaulx," said Finot, "try to identify your rat's ears." + +"There is no need for committing the crime of treason against a mask," +replied Bixiou. "La Torpille and Lucien must pass us as they go up the +room again, and I pledge myself to prove that it is she." + +"So our friend Lucien has come above water once more," said Nathan, +joining the group. "I thought he had gone back to Angoumois for the rest +of his days. Has he discovered some secret to ruin the English?" + +"He has done what you will not do in a hurry," retorted Rastignac; "he +has paid up." + +The burly mask nodded in confirmation. + +"A man who has sown his wild oats at his age puts himself out of court. +He has no pluck; he puts money in the funds," replied Nathan. + +"Oh, that youngster will always be a fine gentleman, and will always +have such lofty notions as will place him far above many men who think +themselves his betters," replied Rastignac. + +At this moment journalists, dandies, and idlers were all examining the +charming subject of their bet as horse-dealers examine a horse for sale. +These connoisseurs, grown old in familiarity with every form of Parisian +depravity, all men of superior talent each his own way, equally corrupt, +equally corrupting, all given over to unbridled ambition, accustomed +to assume and to guess everything, had their eyes centered on a masked +woman, a woman whom no one else could identify. They, and certain +habitual frequenters of the opera balls, could alone recognize under the +long shroud of the black domino, the hood and falling ruff which make +the wearer unrecognizable, the rounded form, the individuality of figure +and gait, the sway of the waist, the carriage of the head--the most +intangible trifles to ordinary eyes, but to them the easiest to discern. + +In spite of this shapeless wrapper they could watch the most appealing +of dramas, that of a woman inspired by a genuine passion. Were she La +Torpille, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, or Madame de Serizy, on the +lowest or highest rung of the social ladder, this woman was an exquisite +creature, a flash from happy dreams. These old young men, like these +young old men, felt so keen an emotion, that they envied Lucien the +splendid privilege of working such a metamorphosis of a woman into a +goddess. The mask was there as though she had been alone with Lucien; +for that woman the thousand other persons did not exist, nor the evil +and dust-laden atmosphere; no, she moved under the celestial vault of +love, as Raphael's Madonnas under their slender oval glory. She did not +feel herself elbowed; the fire of her glance shot from the holes in +her mask and sank into Lucien's eyes; the thrill of her frame seemed to +answer to every movement of her companion. Whence comes this flame that +radiates from a woman in love and distinguishes her above all others? +Whence that sylph-like lightness which seems to negative the laws +of gravitation? Is the soul become ambient? Has happiness a physical +effluence? + +The ingenuousness of a girl, the graces of a child were discernible +under the domino. Though they walked apart, these two beings suggested +the figures of Flora and Zephyr as we see them grouped by the cleverest +sculptors; but they were beyond sculpture, the greatest of the arts; +Lucien and his pretty domino were more like the angels busied with +flowers or birds, which Gian Bellini has placed beneath the effigies of +the Virgin Mother. Lucien and this girl belonged to the realm of fancy, +which is as far above art as cause is above effect. + +When the domino, forgetful of everything, was within a yard of the +group, Bixiou exclaimed: + +"Esther!" + +The unhappy girl turned her head quickly at hearing herself called, +recognized the mischievous speaker, and bowed her head like a dying +creature that has drawn its last breath. + +A sharp laugh followed, and the group of men melted among the crowd +like a knot of frightened field-rats whisking into their holes by the +roadside. Rastignac alone went no further than was necessary, just to +avoid making any show of shunning Lucien's flashing eye. He could thus +note two phases of distress equally deep though unconfessed; first, +the hapless Torpille, stricken as by a lightning stroke, and then the +inscrutable mask, the only one of the group who had remained. Esther +murmured a word in Lucien's ear just as her knees gave way, and Lucien, +supporting her, led her away. + +Rastignac watched the pretty pair, lost in meditation. + +"How did she get her name of La Torpille?" asked a gloomy voice that +struck to his vitals, for it was no longer disguised. + +"_He_ again--he has made his escape!" muttered Rastignac to himself. + +"Be silent or I murder you," replied the mask, changing his voice. "I am +satisfied with you, you have kept your word, and there is more than +one arm ready to serve you. Henceforth be as silent as the grave; but, +before that, answer my question." + +"Well, the girl is such a witch that she could have magnetized +the Emperor Napoleon; she could magnetize a man more difficult to +influence--you yourself," replied Rastignac, and he turned to go. + +"One moment," said the mask; "I will prove to you that you have never +seen me anywhere." + +The speaker took his mask off; for a moment Rastignac hesitated, +recognizing nothing of the hideous being he had known formerly at Madame +Vauquer's. + +"The devil has enabled you to change in every particular, excepting your +eyes, which it is impossible to forget," said he. + +The iron hand gripped his arm to enjoin eternal secrecy. + +At three in the morning des Lupeaulx and Finot found the elegant +Rastignac on the same spot, leaning against the column where the +terrible mask had left him. Rastignac had confessed to himself; he had +been at once priest and pentient, culprit and judge. He allowed himself +to be led away to breakfast, and reached home perfectly tipsy, but +taciturn. + + +The Rue de Langlade and the adjacent streets are a blot on the Palais +Royal and the Rue de Rivoli. This portion of one of the handsomest +quarters of Paris will long retain the stain of foulness left by the +hillocks formed of the middens of old Paris, on which mills formerly +stood. These narrow streets, dark and muddy, where such industries are +carried on as care little for appearances wear at night an aspect of +mystery full of contrasts. On coming from the well-lighted regions of +the Rue Saint-Honore, the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, and the Rue de +Richelieu, where the crowd is constantly pushing, where glitter the +masterpieces of industry, fashion, and art, every man to whom Paris by +night is unknown would feel a sense of dread and melancholy, on finding +himself in the labyrinth of little streets which lie round that blaze of +light reflected even from the sky. Dense blackness is here, instead of +floods of gaslight; a dim oil-lamp here and there sheds its doubtful +and smoky gleam, and many blind alleys are not lighted at all. Foot +passengers are few, and walk fast. The shops are shut, the few that are +open are of a squalid kind; a dirty, unlighted wineshop, or a seller +of underclothing and eau-de-Cologne. An unwholesome chill lays a clammy +cloak over your shoulders. Few carriages drive past. There are sinister +places here, especially the Rue de Langlade, the entrance to the Passage +Saint-Guillaume, and the turnings of some streets. + +The municipal council has not yet been to purge this vast lazar-place, +for prostitution long since made it its headquarters. It is, perhaps, +a good thing for Paris that these alleys should be allowed to preserve +their filthy aspect. Passing through them by day, it is impossible +to imagine what they become by night; they are pervaded by strange +creatures of no known world; white, half-naked forms cling to the +walls--the darkness is alive. Between the passenger and the wall a dress +steals by--a dress that moves and speaks. Half-open doors suddenly +shout with laughter. Words fall on the ear such as Rabelais speaks of +as frozen and melting. Snatches of songs come up from the pavement. The +noise is not vague; it means something. When it is hoarse it is a voice; +but if it suggests a song, there is nothing human about it, it is +more like a croak. Often you hear a sharp whistle, and then the tap of +boot-heels has a peculiarly aggressive and mocking ring. This medley of +things makes you giddy. Atmospheric conditions are reversed there--it is +warm in winter and cool in summer. + +Still, whatever the weather, this strange world always wears the same +aspect; it is the fantastic world of Hoffmann of Berlin. The most +mathematical of clerks never thinks of it as real, after returning +through the straits that lead into decent streets, where there are +passengers, shops, and taverns. Modern administration, or modern policy, +more scornful or more shamefaced than the queens and kings of past ages, +no longer dare look boldly in the face of this plague of our capitals. +Measures, of course, must change with the times, and such as bear on +individuals and on their liberty are a ticklish matter; still, we +ought, perhaps, to show some breadth and boldness as to merely material +measures--air, light, and construction. The moralist, the artist, and +the sage administrator alike must regret the old wooden galleries of the +Palais Royal, where the lambs were to be seen who will always be found +where there are loungers; and is it not best that the loungers should go +where they are to be found? What is the consequence? The gayest parts of +the Boulevards, that delightfulest of promenades, are impossible in the +evening for a family party. The police has failed to take advantage of +the outlet afforded by some small streets to purge the main street. + +The girl whom we have seen crushed by a word at the opera ball had +been for the last month or two living in the Rue de Langlade, in a +very poor-looking house. This structure, stuck on to the wall of an +enormously large one, badly stuccoed, of no depth, and immensely high, +has all its windows on the street, and bears some resemblance to a +parrot's perch. On each floor are two rooms, let as separate flats. +There is a narrow staircase clinging to the wall, queerly lighted by +windows which mark its ascent on the outer wall, each landing being +indicated by a stink, one of the most odious peculiarities of Paris. The +shop and entresol at that time were tenanted by a tinman; the landlord +occupied the first floor; the four upper stories were rented by +very decent working girls, who were treated by the portress and the +proprietor with some consideration and an obligingness called forth by +the difficulty of letting a house so oddly constructed and situated. +The occupants of the quarter are accounted for by the existence there of +many houses of the same character, for which trade has no use, and which +can only be rented by the poorer kinds of industry, of a precarious or +ignominious nature. + +At three in the afternoon the portress, who had seen Mademoiselle Esther +brought home half dead by a young man at two in the morning, had just +held council with the young woman of the floor above, who, before +setting out in a cab to join some party of pleasure, had expressed her +uneasiness about Esther; she had not heard her move. Esther was, no +doubt, still asleep, but this slumber seemed suspicious. The portress, +alone in her cell, was regretting that she could not go to see what was +happening on the fourth floor, where Mademoiselle Esther lodged. + +Just as she had made up her mind to leave the tinman's son in charge of +her room, a sort of den in a recess on the entresol floor, a cab stopped +at the door. A man stepped out, wrapped from head to foot in a cloak +evidently intended to conceal his dress or his rank in life, and +asked for Mademoiselle Esther. The portress at one felt relieved; this +accounted for Esther's silence and quietude. As the stranger mounted +the stairs above the portress' room, she noticed silver buckles in his +shoes, and fancied she caught sight of the black fringe of a priest's +sash; she went downstairs and catechised the driver, who answered +without speech, and again the woman understood. + +The priest knocked, received no answer, heard a slight gasp, and forced +the door open with a thrust of his shoulder; charity, no doubt lent him +strength, but in any one else it would have been ascribed to practice. +He rushed to the inner room, and there found poor Esther in front of an +image of the Virgin in painted plaster, kneeling, or rather doubled up, +on the floor, her hands folded. The girl was dying. A brazier of burnt +charcoal told the tale of that dreadful morning. The domino cloak and +hood were lying on the ground. The bed was undisturbed. The unhappy +creature, stricken to the heart by a mortal thrust, had, no doubt, +made all her arrangements on her return from the opera. A candle-wick, +collapsed in the pool of grease that filled the candle-sconce, showed +how completely her last meditations had absorbed her. A handkerchief +soaked with tears proved the sincerity of the Magdalen's despair, while +her classic attitude was that of the irreligious courtesan. This abject +repentance made the priest smile. + +Esther, unskilled in dying, had left the door open, not thinking that +the air of two rooms would need a larger amount of charcoal to make it +suffocating; she was only stunned by the fumes; the fresh air from the +staircase gradually restored her to a consciousness of her woes. + +The priest remained standing, lost in gloomy meditation, without being +touched by the girl's divine beauty, watching her first movements as if +she had been some animal. His eyes went from the crouching figure to +the surrounding objects with evident indifference. He looked at the +furniture in the room; the paved floor, red, polished, and cold, +was poorly covered with a shabby carpet worn to the string. A little +bedstead, of painted wood and old-fashioned shape, was hung with yellow +cotton printed with red stars, one armchair and two small chairs, also +of painted wood, and covered with the same cotton print of which the +window-curtains were also made; a gray wall-paper sprigged with flowers +blackened and greasy with age; a fireplace full of kitchen utensils of +the vilest kind, two bundles of fire-logs; a stone shelf, on which lay +some jewelry false and real, a pair of scissors, a dirty pincushion, and +some white scented gloves; an exquisite hat perched on the water-jug, +a Ternaux shawl stopping a hole in the window, a handsome gown hanging +from a nail; a little hard sofa, with no cushions; broken clogs and +dainty slippers, boots that a queen might have coveted; cheap china +plates, cracked or chipped, with fragments of a past meal, and nickel +forks--the plate of the Paris poor; a basket full of potatoes and dirty +linen, with a smart gauze cap on the top; a rickety wardrobe, with +a glass door, open and empty, and on the shelves sundry +pawn-tickets,--this was the medley of things, dismal or pleasing, abject +and handsome, that fell on his eye. + +These relics of splendor among the potsherds, these household +belongings--so appropriate to the bohemian existence of the girl who +knelt stricken in her unbuttoned garments, like a horse dying in harness +under the broken shafts entangled in the reins--did the whole strange +scene suggest any thoughts to the priest? Did he say to himself that +this erring creature must at least be disinterested to live in such +poverty when her lover was young and rich? Did he ascribe the disorder +of the room to the disorder of her life? Did he feel pity or terror? Was +his charity moved? + +To see him, his arms folded, his brow dark, his lips set, his eye harsh, +any one must have supposed him absorbed in morose feelings of hatred, +considerations that jostled each other, sinister schemes. He was +certainly insensible to the soft roundness of a bosom almost crushed +under the weight of the bowed shoulders, and to the beautiful modeling +of the crouching Venus that was visible under the black petticoat, so +closely was the dying girl curled up. The drooping head which, seen from +behind, showed the white, slender, flexible neck and the fine shoulders +of a well-developed figure, did not appeal to him. He did not raise +Esther, he did not seem to hear the agonizing gasps which showed that +she was returning to life; a fearful sob and a terrifying glance from +the girl were needed before he condescended to lift her, and he carried +her to the bed with an ease that revealed enormous strength. + +"Lucien!" she murmured. + +"Love is there, the woman is not far behind," said the priest with some +bitterness. + +The victim of Parisian depravity then observed the dress worn by +her deliverer, and said, with a smile like a child's when it takes +possession of something longed for: + +"Then I shall not die without being reconciled to Heaven?" + +"You may yet expiate your sins," said the priest, moistening her +forehead with water, and making her smell at a cruet of vinegar he found +in a corner. + +"I feel that life, instead of departing, is rushing in on me," said she, +after accepting the Father's care and expressing her gratitude by simple +gestures. This engaging pantomime, such as the Graces might have used to +charm, perfectly justified the nickname given to this strange girl. + +"Do you feel better?" said the priest, giving her a glass of sugar and +water to drink. + +This man seemed accustomed to such queer establishments; he knew all +about it. He was quite at home there. This privilege of being everywhere +at home is the prerogative of kings, courtesans, and thieves. + +"When you feel quite well," this strange priest went on after a pause, +"you must tell me the reasons which prompted you to commit this last +crime, this attempted suicide." + +"My story is very simple, Father," replied she. "Three months ago I was +living the evil life to which I was born. I was the lowest and vilest +of creatures; now I am only the most unhappy. Excuse me from telling you +the history of my poor mother, who was murdered----" + +"By a Captain, in a house of ill-fame," said the priest, interrupting +the penitent. "I know your origin, and I know that if a being of your +sex can ever be excused for leading a life of shame, it is you, who have +always lacked good examples." + +"Alas! I was never baptized, and have no religious teaching." + +"All may yet be remedied then," replied the priest, "provided that your +faith, your repentance, are sincere and without ulterior motive." + +"Lucien and God fill my heart," said she with ingenuous pathos. + +"You might have said God and Lucien," answered the priest, smiling. "You +remind me of the purpose of my visit. Omit nothing that concerns that +young man." + +"You have come from him?" she asked, with a tender look that would have +touched any other priest! "Oh, he thought I should do it!" + +"No," replied the priest; "it is not your death, but your life that we +are interested in. Come, explain your position toward each other." + +"In one word," said she. + +The poor child quaked at the priest's stern tone, but as a woman quakes +who has long ceased to be surprised at brutality. + +"Lucien is Lucien," said she, "the handsomest young man, the kindest +soul alive; if you know him, my love must seem to you quite natural. I +met him by chance, three months ago, at the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, +where I went one day when I had leave, for we had a day a week at Madame +Meynardie's, where I then was. Next day, you understand, I went out +without leave. Love had come into my heart, and had so completely +changed me, that on my return from the theatre I did not know myself: +I had a horror of myself. Lucien would never have known. Instead of +telling him what I was, I gave him my address at these rooms, where a +friend of mine was then living, who was so kind as to give them up to +me. I swear on my sacred word----" + +"You must not swear." + +"Is it swearing to give your sacred word?--Well, from that day I have +worked in this room like a lost creature at shirt-making at twenty-eight +sous apiece, so as to live by honest labor. For a month I have had +nothing to eat but potatoes, that I might keep myself a good girl and +worthy of Lucien, who loves me and respects me as a pattern of virtue. +I have made my declaration before the police to recover my rights, and +submitted to two years' surveillance. They are ready enough to enter +your name on the lists of disgrace, but make every difficulty about +scratching it out again. All I asked of Heaven was to enable me to keep +my resolution. + +"I shall be nineteen in the month of April; at my age there is still a +chance. It seems to me that I was never born till three months ago.--I +prayed to God every morning that Lucien might never know what my former +life had been. I bought that Virgin you see there, and I prayed to her +in my own way, for I do not know any prayers; I cannot read nor write, +and I have never been into a church; I have never seen anything of God +excepting in processions, out of curiosity." + +"And what do you say to the Virgin?" + +"I talk to her as I talk to Lucien, with all my soul, till I make him +cry." + +"Oh, so he cries?" + +"With joy," said she eagerly, "poor dear boy! We understand each other +so well that we have but one soul! He is so nice, so fond, so sweet +in heart and mind and manners! He says he is a poet; I say he is +god.--Forgive me! You priests, you see, don't know what love is. But, +in fact, only girls like me know enough of men to appreciate such as +Lucien. A Lucien, you see, is as rare as a woman without sin. When you +come across him you can love no one else; so there! But such a being +must have his fellow; so I want to be worthy to be loved by my Lucien. +That is where my trouble began. Last evening, at the opera, I was +recognized by some young men who have no more feeling than a tiger +has pity--for that matter, I could come round the tiger! The veil of +innocence I had tried to wear was worn off; their laughter pierced +my brain and my heart. Do not think you have saved me; I shall die of +grief." + +"Your veil of innocence?" said the priest. "Then you have treated Lucien +with the sternest severity?" + +"Oh, Father, how can you, who know him, ask me such a question!" she +replied with a smile. "Who can resist a god?" + +"Do not be blasphemous," said the priest mildly. "No one can be like +God. Exaggeration is out of place with true love; you had not a pure +and genuine love for your idol. If you had undergone the conversion you +boast of having felt, you would have acquired the virtues which are +a part of womanhood; you would have known the charm of chastity, +the refinements of modesty, the two virtues that are the glory of a +maiden.--You do not love." + +Esther's gesture of horror was seen by the priest, but it had no effect +on the impassibility of her confessor. + +"Yes; for you love him for yourself and not for himself, for the +temporal enjoyments that delight you, and not for love itself. If he has +thus taken possession of you, you cannot have felt that sacred thrill +that is inspired by a being on whom God has set the seal of the most +adorable perfections. Has it never occurred to you that you would +degrade him by your past impurity, that you would corrupt a child by +the overpowering seductions which earned you your nickname glorious in +infamy? You have been illogical with yourself, and your passion of a +day----" + +"Of a day?" she repeated, raising her eyes. + +"By what other name can you call a love that is not eternal, that does +not unite us in the future life of the Christian, to the being we love?" + +"Ah, I will be a Catholic!" she cried in a hollow, vehement tone, that +would have earned her the mercy of the Lord. + +"Can a girl who has received neither the baptism of the Church nor that +of knowledge; who can neither read, nor write, nor pray; who cannot +take a step without the stones in the street rising up to accuse her; +noteworthy only for the fugitive gift of beauty which sickness may +destroy to-morrow; can such a vile, degraded creature, fully aware too +of her degradation--for if you had been ignorant of it and less devoted, +you would have been more excusable--can the intended victim to suicide +and hell hope to be the wife of Lucien de Rubempre?" + +Every word was a poniard thrust piercing the depths of her heart. At +every word the louder sobs and abundant tears of the desperate girl +showed the power with which light had flashed upon an intelligence as +pure as that of a savage, upon a soul at length aroused, upon a nature +over which depravity had laid a sheet of foul ice now thawed in the +sunshine of faith. + +"Why did I not die!" was the only thought that found utterance in the +midst of a torrent of ideas that racked and ravaged her brain. + +"My daughter," said the terrible judge, "there is a love which is +unconfessed before men, but of which the secret is received by the +angels with smiles of gladness." + +"What is that?" + +"Love without hope, when it inspires our life, when it fills us with +the spirit of sacrifice, when it ennobles every act by the thought of +reaching some ideal perfection. Yes, the angels approve of such love; +it leads to the knowledge of God. To aim at perfection in order to +be worthy of the one you love, to make for him a thousand secret +sacrifices, adoring him from afar, giving your blood drop by drop, +abnegating your self-love, never feeling any pride or anger as regards +him, even concealing from him all knowledge of the dreadful jealousy he +fires in your heart, giving him all he wishes were it to your own loss, +loving what he loves, always turning your face to him to follow him +without his knowing it--such love as that religion would have forgiven; +it is no offence to laws human or divine, and would have led you into +another road than that of your foul voluptuousness." + +As she heard this horrible verdict, uttered in a word--and such a word! +and spoken in such a tone!--Esther's spirit rose up in fairly legitimate +distrust. This word was like a thunder-clap giving warning of a storm +about to break. She looked at the priest, and felt the grip on her +vitals which wrings the bravest when face to face with sudden and +imminent danger. No eye could have read what was passing in this man's +mind; but the boldest would have found more to quail at than to hope for +in the expression of his eyes, once bright and yellow like those of a +tiger, but now shrouded, from austerities and privations, with a haze +like that which overhangs the horizon in the dog-days, when, though the +earth is hot and luminous, the mist makes it indistinct and dim--almost +invisible. + +The gravity of a Spaniard, the deep furrows which the myriad scars of +virulent smallpox made hideously like broken ruts, were ploughed into +his face, which was sallow and tanned by the sun. The hardness of this +countenance was all the more conspicuous, being framed in the meagre +dry wig of a priest who takes no care of his person, a black wig looking +rusty in the light. His athletic frame, his hands like an old soldier's, +his broad, strong shoulders were those of the Caryatides which the +architects of the Middle Ages introduced into some Italian palaces, +remotely imitated in those of the front of the Porte-Saint-Martin +theatre. The least clear-sighted observer might have seen that fiery +passions or some unwonted accident must have thrown this man into the +bosom of the Church; certainly none but the most tremendous shocks +of lightning could have changed him, if indeed such a nature were +susceptible of change. + +Women who have lived the life that Esther had so violently repudiated +come to feel absolute indifference as to the critics of our day, who +may be compared with them in some respects, and who feel at last perfect +disregard of the formulas of art; they have read so many books, they see +so many pass away, they are so much accustomed to written pages, they +have gone through so many plots, they have seen so many dramas, they +have written so many articles without saying what they meant, and have +so often been treasonable to the cause of Art in favor of their personal +likings and aversions, that they acquire a feeling of disgust of +everything, and yet continue to pass judgment. It needs a miracle to +make such a writer produce sound work, just as it needs another miracle +to give birth to pure and noble love in the heart of a courtesan. + +The tone and manner of this priest, who seemed to have escaped from +a picture by Zurbaran, struck this poor girl as so hostile, little as +externals affected her, that she perceived herself to be less the object +of his solitude than the instrument he needed for some scheme. Being +unable to distinguish between the insinuating tongue of personal +interest and the unction of true charity, for we must be acutely +awake to recognize false coin when it is offered by a friend, she felt +herself, as it were, in the talons of some fierce and monstrous bird of +prey who, after hovering over her for long, had pounced down on her; and +in her terror she cried in a voice of alarm: + +"I thought it was a priest's duty to console us, and you are killing +me!" + +At this innocent outcry the priest started and paused; he meditated a +moment before replying. During that instant the two persons so strangely +brought together studied each other cautiously. The priest understood +the girl, though the girl could not understand the priest. + +He, no doubt, put aside some plan which had threatened the unhappy +Esther, and came back to his first ideas. + +"We are physicians of the soul," said he, in a mild voice, "and we know +what remedies suit their maladies." + +"Much must be forgiven to the wretched," said Esther. + +She fancied she had been wrong; she slipped off the bed, threw herself +at the man's feet, kissed his gown with deep humility, and looked up at +him with eyes full of tears. + +"I thought I had done so much!" she said. + +"Listen, my child. Your terrible reputation has cast Lucien's family +into grief. They are afraid, and not without reason, that you may lead +him into dissipation, into endless folly----" + +"That is true; it was I who got him to the ball to mystify him." + +"You are handsome enough to make him wish to triumph in you in the +eyes of the world, to show you with pride, and make you an object for +display. And if he wasted money only!--but he will waste his time, his +powers; he will lose his inclination for the fine future his friends can +secure to him. Instead of being some day an ambassador, rich, admired +and triumphant, he, like so many debauchees who choke their talents in +the mud of Paris, will have been the lover of a degraded woman. + +"As for you, after rising for a time to the level of a sphere of +elegance, you will presently sink back to your former life, for you have +not in you the strength bestowed by a good education to enable you to +resist vice and think of the future. You would no more be able to break +with the women of your own class than you have broken with the men who +shamed you at the opera this morning. Lucien's true friends, alarmed +by his passion for you, have dogged his steps and know all. Filled with +horror, they have sent me to you to sound your views and decide your +fate; but though they are powerful enough to clear a stumbling-stone +out of the young man's way, they are merciful. Understand this, child: +a girl whom Lucien loves has claims on their regard, as a true Christian +worships the slough on which, by chance, the divine light falls. I came +to be the instrument of a beneficent purpose;--still, if I had found you +utterly reprobate, armed with effrontery and astuteness, corrupt to the +marrow, deaf to the voice of repentance, I should have abandoned you to +their wrath. + +"The release, civil and political, which it is so hard to win, which the +police is so right to withhold for a time in the interests of society, +and which I heard you long for with all the ardor of true repentance--is +here," said the priest, taking an official-looking paper out of his +belt. "You were seen yesterday, this letter of release is dated to-day. +You see how powerful the people are who take an interest in Lucien." + +At the sight of this document Esther was so ingenuously overcome by the +convulsive agitation produced by unlooked-for joy, that a fixed smile +parted her lips, like that of a crazy creature. The priest paused, +looking at the girl to see whether, when once she had lost the horrible +strength which corrupt natures find in corruption itself, and was thrown +back on her frail and delicate primitive nature, she could endure so +much excitement. If she had been a deceitful courtesan, Esther would +have acted a part; but now that she was innocent and herself once more, +she might perhaps die, as a blind man cured may lose his sight again if +he is exposed to too bright a light. At this moment this man looked into +the very depths of human nature, but his calmness was terrible in its +rigidity; a cold alp, snow-bound and near to heaven, impenetrable and +frowning, with flanks of granite, and yet beneficent. + +Such women are essentially impressionable beings, passing without reason +from the most idiotic distrust to absolute confidence. In this respect +they are lower than animals. Extreme in everything--in their joy and +despair, in their religion and irreligion--they would almost all go mad +if they were not decimated by the mortality peculiar to their class, and +if happy chances did not lift one now and then from the slough in which +they dwell. To understand the very depths of the wretchedness of this +horrible existence, one must know how far in madness a creature can go +without remaining there, by studying La Torpille's violent ecstasy at +the priest's feet. The poor girl gazed at the paper of release with +an expression which Dante has overlooked, and which surpassed the +inventiveness of his Inferno. But a reaction came with tears. Esther +rose, threw her arms round the priest's neck, laid her head on his +breast, which she wetted with her weeping, kissing the coarse stuff that +covered that heart of steel as if she fain would touch it. She seized +hold of him; she covered his hands with kisses; she poured out in a +sacred effusion of gratitude her most coaxing caresses, lavished fond +names on him, saying again and again in the midst of her honeyed words, +"Let me have it!" in a thousand different tones of voice; she wrapped +him in tenderness, covered him with her looks with a swiftness that +found him defenceless; at last she charmed away his wrath. + +The priest perceived how well the girl had deserved her nickname; he +understood how difficult it was to resist this bewitching creature; he +suddenly comprehended Lucien's love, and just what must have fascinated +the poet. Such a passion hides among a thousand temptations a dart-like +hook which is most apt to catch the lofty soul of an artist. These +passions, inexplicable to the vulgar, are perfectly accounted for by the +thirst for ideal beauty, which is characteristic of a creative mind. +For are we not, in some degree, akin to the angels, whose task it is to +bring the guilty to a better mind? are we not creative when we purify +such a creature? How delightful it is to harmonize moral with physical +beauty! What joy and pride if we succeed! How noble a task is that which +has no instrument but love! + +Such alliances, made famous by the example of Aristotle, Socrates, +Plato, Alcibiades, Cethegus, and Pompey, and yet so monstrous in the +eyes of the vulgar, are based on the same feeling that prompted Louis +XIV. to build Versailles, or that makes men rush into any ruinous +enterprise--into converting the miasma of a marsh into a mass of +fragrance surrounded by living waters; placing a lake at the top of a +hill, as the Prince de Conti did at Nointel; or producing Swiss scenery +at Cassan, like Bergeret, the farmer-general. In short, it is the +application of art in the realm of morals. + +The priest, ashamed of having yielded to this weakness, hastily pushed +Esther away, and she sat down quite abashed, for he said: + +"You are still the courtesan." And he calmly replaced the paper in his +sash. + +Esther, like a child who has a single wish in its head, kept her eyes +fixed on the spot where the document lay hidden. + +"My child," the priest went on after a pause, "your mother was a Jewess, +and you have not been baptized; but, on the other hand, you have never +been taken to the synagogue. You are in the limbo where little children +are----" + +"Little children!" she echoed, in a tenderly pathetic tone. + +"As you are on the books of the police, a cipher outside the pale of +social beings," the priest went on, unmoved. "If love, seen as it swept +past, led you to believe three months since that you were then born, you +must feel that since that day you have been really an infant. You +must, therefore, be led as if you were a child; you must be completely +changed, and I will undertake to make you unrecognizable. To begin with, +you must forget Lucien." + +The words crushed the poor girl's heart; she raised her eyes to the +priest and shook her head; she could not speak, finding the executioner +in the deliverer again. + +"At any rate, you must give up seeing him," he went on. "I will take +you to a religious house where young girls of the best families are +educated; there you will become a Catholic, you will be trained in the +practice of Christian exercises, you will be taught religion. You may +come out an accomplished young lady, chaste, pure, well brought up, +if----" The man lifted up a finger and paused. + +"If," he went on, "you feel brave enough to leave the 'Torpille' behind +you here." + +"Ah!" cried the poor thing, to whom each word had been like a note of +some melody to which the gates of Paradise were slowly opening. "Ah! if +it were possible to shed all my blood here and have it renewed!" + +"Listen to me." + +She was silent. + +"Your future fate depends on your power of forgetting. Think of the +extent to which you pledge yourself. A word, a gesture, which betrays +La Torpille will kill Lucien's wife. A word murmured in a dream, an +involuntary thought, an immodest glance, a gesture of impatience, a +reminiscence of dissipation, an omission, a shake of the head that might +reveal what you know, or what is known about you for your woes----" + +"Yes, yes, Father," said the girl, with the exaltation of a saint. "To +walk in shoes of red-hot iron and smile, to live in a pair of stays set +with nails and maintain the grace of a dancer, to eat bread salted with +ashes, to drink wormwood,--all will be sweet and easy!" + +She fell again on her knees, she kissed the priest's shoes, she melted +into tears that wetted them, she clasped his knees, and clung to them, +murmuring foolish words as she wept for joy. Her long and beautiful +light hair waved to the ground, a sort of carpet under the feet of the +celestial messenger, whom she saw as gloomy and hard as ever when she +lifted herself up and looked at him. + +"What have I done to offend you?" cried she, quite frightened. "I +have heard of a woman, such as I am, who washed the feet of Jesus with +perfumes. Alas! virtue has made me so poor that I have nothing but tears +to offer you." + +"Have you not understood?" he answered, in a cruel voice. "I tell you, +you must be able to come out of the house to which I shall take you so +completely changed, physically and morally, that no man or woman you +have ever known will be able to call you 'Esther' and make you look +round. Yesterday your love could not give you strength enough so +completely to bury the prostitute that she could never reappear; and +again to-day she revives in adoration which is due to none but God." + +"Was it not He who sent you to me?" said she. + +"If during the course of your education you should even see Lucien, all +would be lost," he went on; "remember that." + +"Who will comfort him?" said she. + +"What was it that you comforted him for?" asked the priest, in a tone in +which, for the first time during this scene, there was a nervous quaver. + +"I do not know; he was often sad when he came." + +"Sad!" said the priest. "Did he tell you why?" + +"Never," answered she. + +"He was sad at loving such a girl as you!" exclaimed he. + +"Alas! and well he might be," said she, with deep humility. "I am the +most despicable creature of my sex, and I could find favor in his eyes +only by the greatness of my love." + +"That love must give you the courage to obey me blindly. If I were to +take you straight from hence to the house where you are to be educated, +everybody here would tell Lucien that you had gone away to-day, Sunday, +with a priest; he might follow in your tracks. In the course of a week, +the portress, not seeing me again, might suppose me to be what I am not. +So, one evening--this day week--at seven o'clock, go out quietly and +get into a cab that will be waiting for you at the bottom of the Rue des +Frondeurs. During this week avoid Lucien, find excuses, have him sent +from the door, and if he should come in, go up to some friend's room. +I shall know if you have seen him, and in that event all will be at an +end. I shall not even come back. These eight days you will need to make +up some suitable clothing and to hide your look of a prostitute," said +he, laying a purse on the chimney-shelf. "There is something in your +manner, in your clothes--something indefinable which is well known to +Parisians, and proclaims you what you are. Have you never met in the +streets or on the Boulevards a modest and virtuous girl walking with her +mother?" + +"Oh yes, to my sorrow! The sight of a mother and daughter is one of +our most cruel punishments; it arouses the remorse that lurks in the +innermost folds of our hearts, and that is consuming us.--I know too +well all I lack." + +"Well, then, you know how you should look next Sunday," said the priest, +rising. + +"Oh!" said she, "teach me one real prayer before you go, that I may pray +to God." + +It was a touching thing to see the priest making this girl repeat Ave +_Maria_ and _Paternoster_ in French. + +"That is very fine!" said Esther, when she had repeated these two grand +and universal utterances of the Catholic faith without making a mistake. + +"What is your name?" she asked the priest when he took leave of her. + +"Carlos Herrera; I am a Spaniard banished from my country." + +Esther took his hand and kissed it. She was no longer the courtesan; she +was an angel rising after a fall. + + + +In a religious institution, famous for the aristocratic and pious +teaching imparted there, one Monday morning in the beginning of March +1824 the pupils found their pretty flock increased by a newcomer, whose +beauty triumphed without dispute not only over that of her companions, +but over the special details of beauty which were found severally in +perfection in each one of them. In France it is extremely rare, not to +say impossible, to meet with the thirty points of perfection, described +in Persian verse, and engraved, it is said, in the Seraglio, which are +needed to make a woman absolutely beautiful. Though in France the whole +is seldom seen, we find exquisite parts. As to that imposing union which +sculpture tries to produce, and has produced in a few rare examples like +the Diana and the Callipyge, it is the privileged possession of Greece +and Asia Minor. + +Esther came from that cradle of the human race; her mother was a Jewess. +The Jews, though so often deteriorated by their contact with other +nations, have, among their many races, families in which this sublime +type of Asiatic beauty has been preserved. When they are not repulsively +hideous, they present the splendid characteristics of Armenian beauty. +Esther would have carried off the prize at the Seraglio; she had the +thirty points harmoniously combined. Far from having damaged the finish +of her modeling and the freshness of her flesh, her strange life had +given her the mysterious charm of womanhood; it is no longer the close, +waxy texture of green fruit and not yet the warm glow of maturity; there +is still the scent of the flower. A few days longer spent in dissolute +living, and she would have been too fat. This abundant health, this +perfection of the animal in a being in whom voluptuousness took +the place of thought, must be a remarkable fact in the eyes of +physiologists. A circumstance so rare, that it may be called impossible +in very young girls, was that her hands, incomparably fine in shape, +were as soft, transparent, and white as those of a woman after the birth +of her second child. She had exactly the hair and the foot for which the +Duchesse de Berri was so famous, hair so thick that no hairdresser +could gather it into his hand, and so long that it fell to the ground in +rings; for Esther was of that medium height which makes a woman a sort +of toy, to be taken up and set down, taken up again and carried without +fatigue. Her skin, as fine as rice-paper, of a warm amber hue showing +the purple veins, was satiny without dryness, soft without being clammy. + +Esther, excessively strong though apparently fragile, arrested attention +by one feature that is conspicuous in the faces in which Raphael has +shown his most artistic feeling, for Raphael is the painter who has +most studied and best rendered Jewish beauty. This remarkable effect was +produced by the depth of the eye-socket, under which the eye moved free +from its setting; the arch of the brow was so accurate as to resemble +the groining of a vault. When youth lends this beautiful hollow its pure +and diaphanous coloring, and edges it with closely-set eyebrows, when +the light stealing into the circular cavity beneath lingers there with a +rosy hue, there are tender treasures in it to delight a lover, beauties +to drive a painter to despair. Those luminous curves, where the shadows +have a golden tone, that tissue as firm as a sinew and as mobile as the +most delicate membrane, is a crowning achievement of nature. The eye at +rest within is like a miraculous egg in a nest of silken wings. But as +time goes on this marvel acquires a dreadful melancholy, when passions +have laid dark smears on those fine forms, when grief had furrowed that +network of delicate veins. Esther's nationality proclaimed itself in +this Oriental modeling of her eyes with their Turkish lids; their color +was a slate-gray which by night took on the blue sheen of a raven's +wing. It was only the extreme tenderness of her expression that could +moderate their fire. + +Only those races that are native to deserts have in the eye the power +of fascinating everybody, for any woman can fascinate some one person. +Their eyes preserve, no doubt, something of the infinitude they have +gazed on. Has nature, in her foresight, armed their retina with some +reflecting background to enable them to endure the mirage of the sand, +the torrents of sunshine, and the burning cobalt of the sky? or, +do human beings, like other creatures, derive something from the +surroundings among which they grow up, and preserve for ages the +qualities they have imbibed from them? The great solution of this +problem of race lies perhaps in the question itself. Instincts are +living facts, and their cause dwells in past necessity. Variety in +animals is the result of the exercise of these instincts. + +To convince ourselves of this long-sought-for truth, it is enough to +extend to the herd of mankind the observation recently made on flocks +of Spanish and English sheep which, in low meadows where pasture is +abundant, feed side by side in close array, but on mountains, where +grass is scarce, scatter apart. Take these two kinds of sheep, transfer +them to Switzerland or France; the mountain breeds will feed apart even +in a lowland meadow of thick grass, the lowland sheep will keep together +even on an alp. Hardly will a succession of generations eliminate +acquired and transmitted instincts. After a century the highland spirit +reappears in a refractory lamb, just as, after eighteen centuries of +exile, the spirit of the East shone in Esther's eyes and features. + +Her look had no terrible fascination; it shed a mild warmth, it was +pathetic without being startling, and the sternest wills were melted in +its flame. Esther had conquered hatred, she had astonished the depraved +souls of Paris; in short, that look and the softness of her skin had +earned her the terrible nickname which had just led her to the verge +of the grave. Everything about her was in harmony with these +characteristics of the Peri of the burning sands. Her forehead was +firmly and proudly molded. Her nose, like that of the Arab race, was +delicate and narrow, with oval nostrils well set and open at the base. +Her mouth, fresh and red, was a rose unblemished by a flaw, dissipation +had left no trace there. Her chin, rounded as though some amorous +sculptor had polished its fulness, was as white as milk. One thing only +that she had not been able to remedy betrayed the courtesan fallen very +low: her broken nails, which needed time to recover their shape, so much +had they been spoiled by the vulgarest household tasks. + +The young boarders began by being jealous of these marvels of beauty, +but they ended by admiring them. Before the first week was at an end +they were all attached to the artless Jewess, for they were interested +in the unknown misfortunes of a girl of eighteen who could neither read +nor write, to whom all knowledge and instruction were new, and who was +to earn for the Archbishop the triumph of having converted a Jewess +to Catholicism and giving the convent a festival in her baptism. They +forgave her beauty, finding themselves her superiors in education. + +Esther very soon caught the manners, the accent, the carriage and +attitudes of these highly-bred girls; in short, her first nature +reasserted itself. The change was so complete that on his first visit +Herrera was astonished as it would seem--and the Mother Superior +congratulated him on his ward. Never in their existence as teachers had +these sisters met with a more charming nature, more Christian meekness, +true modesty, nor a greater eagerness to learn. When a girl has suffered +such misery as had overwhelmed this poor child, and looks forward to +such a reward as the Spaniard held out to Esther, it is hard if she does +not realize the miracles of the early Church which the Jesuits revived +in Paraguay. + +"She is edifying," said the Superior, kissing her on the brow. + +And this essentially Catholic word tells all. + +In recreation hours Esther would question her companions, but +discreetly, as to the simplest matters in fashionable life, which to +her were like the first strange ideas of life to a child. When she heard +that she was to be dressed in white on the day of her baptism and first +Communion, that she should wear a white satin fillet, white bows, white +shoes, white gloves, and white rosettes in her hair, she melted into +tears, to the amazement of her companions. It was the reverse of the +scene of Jephtha on the mountain. The courtesan was afraid of being +understood; she ascribed this dreadful dejection to the joy with which +she looked forward to the function. As there is certainly as wide a gulf +between the habits she had given up and the habits she was acquiring as +there is between the savage state and civilization, she had the grace +and simplicity and depth which distinguished the wonderful heroine of +the American Puritans. She had too, without knowing it, a love that was +eating out her heart--a strange love, a desire more violent in her who +knew everything than it can be in a maiden who knows nothing, though the +two forms of desire have the same cause, and the same end in view. + +During the first few months the novelty of a secluded life, the +surprises of learning, the handiworks she was taught, the practices +of religion, the fervency of a holy resolve, the gentle affections +she called forth, and the exercise of the faculties of her awakened +intelligence, all helped to repress her memory, even the effort she made +to acquire a new one, for she had as much to unlearn as to learn. There +is more than one form of memory: the body and mind have each their own; +home-sickness, for instance, is a malady of the physical memory. Thus, +during the third month, the vehemence of this virgin soul, soaring to +Paradise on outspread wings, was not indeed quelled, but fettered by a +dull rebellion, of which Esther herself did not know the cause. Like the +Scottish sheep, she wanted to pasture in solitude, she could not conquer +the instincts begotten of debauchery. + +Was it that the foul ways of the Paris she had abjured were calling her +back to them? Did the chains of the hideous habits she had renounced +cling to her by forgotten rivets, and was she feeling them, as old +soldiers suffer still, the surgeons tell us, in the limbs they have +lost? Had vice and excess so soaked into her marrow that holy waters had +not yet exorcised the devil lurking there? Was the sight of him for +whom her angelic efforts were made, necessary to the poor soul, whom God +would surely forgive for mingling human and sacred love? One had led +to the other. Was there some transposition of the vital force in her +involving her in inevitable suffering? Everything is doubtful and +obscure in a case which science scorns to study, regarding the subject +as too immoral and too compromising, as if the physician and the writer, +the priest and the political student, were not above all suspicion. +However, a doctor who was stopped by death had the courage to begin an +investigation which he left unfinished. + +Perhaps the dark depression to which Esther fell a victim, and which +cast a gloom over her happy life, was due to all these causes; and +perhaps, unable as she was to suspect them herself, she suffered as sick +creatures suffer who know nothing of medicine or surgery. + +The fact is strange. Wholesome and abundant food in the place of bad +and inflammatory nourishment did not sustain Esther. A pure and regular +life, divided between recreation and studies intentionally abridged, +taking the place of a disorderly existence of which the pleasures and +the pains were equally horrible, exhausted the convent-boarder. The +coolest rest, the calmest nights, taking the place of crushing fatigue +and the most torturing agitation, gave her low fever, in which the +common symptoms were imperceptible to the nursing Sister's eye or +finger. In fact, virtue and happiness following on evil and misfortune, +security in the stead of anxiety, were as fatal to Esther as her +past wretchedness would have been to her young companions. Planted in +corruption, she had grown up in it. That infernal home still had a hold +on her, in spite of the commands of a despotic will. What she loathed +was life to her, what she loved was killing her. + +Her faith was so ardent that her piety was a delight to those about +her. She loved to pray. She had opened her spirit to the lights of true +religion, and received it without an effort or a doubt. The priest who +was her director was delighted with her. Still, at every turn her body +resisted the spirit. + +To please a whim of Madame de Maintenon's, who fed them with scraps from +the royal table, some carp were taken out of a muddy pool and placed in +a marble basin of bright, clean water. The carp perished. The animals +might be sacrificed, but man could never infect them with the leprosy +of flattery. A courtier remarked at Versailles on this mute resistance. +"They are like me," said the uncrowned queen; "they pine for their +obscure mud." + +This speech epitomizes Esther's story. + +At times the poor girl was driven to run about the splendid convent +gardens; she hurried from tree to tree, she rushed into the darkest +nooks--seeking? What? She did not know, but she fell a prey to the +demon; she carried on a flirtation with the trees, she appealed to them +in unspoken words. Sometimes, in the evening, she stole along under the +walls, like a snake, without any shawl over her bare shoulders. Often +in chapel, during the service, she remained with her eyes fixed on the +Crucifix, melted to tears; the others admired her; but she was crying +with rage. Instead of the sacred images she hoped to see, those glaring +nights when she had led some orgy as Habeneck leads a Beethoven symphony +at the Conservatoire--nights of laughter and lasciviousness, with +vehement gestures, inextinguishable laughter, rose before her, frenzied, +furious, and brutal. She was as mild to look upon as a virgin that +clings to earth only by her woman's shape; within raged an imperial +Messalina. + +She alone knew the secret of this struggle between the devil and the +angel. When the Superior reproved her for having done her hair more +fashionably than the rule of the House allowed, she altered it with +prompt and beautiful submission; she would have cut her hair off if +the Mother had required it of her. This moral home-sickness was truly +pathetic in a girl who would rather have perished than have returned to +the depths of impurity. She grew pale and altered and thin. The Superior +gave her shorter lessons, and called the interesting creature to her +room to question her. But Esther was happy; she enjoyed the society +of her companions; she felt no pain in any vital part; still, it was +vitality itself that was attacked. She regretted nothing; she wanted +nothing. The Superior, puzzled by her boarder's answers, did not know +what to think when she saw her pining under consuming debility. + +The doctor was called in when the girl's condition seemed serious; but +this doctor knew nothing of Esther's previous life, and could not guess +it; he found every organ sound, the pain could not be localized. The +invalid's replies were such as to upset every hypothesis. There remained +one way of clearing up the learned man's doubts, which now lighted on +a frightful suggestion; but Esther obstinately refused to submit to a +medical examination. + +In this difficulty the Superior appealed to the Abbe Herrera. The +Spaniard came, saw that Esther's condition was desperate, and took the +physician aside for a moment. After this confidential interview, the man +of science told the man of faith that the only cure lay in a journey to +Italy. The Abbe would not hear of such a journey before Esther's baptism +and first Communion. + +"How long will it be till then?" asked the doctor. + +"A month," replied the Superior. + +"She will be dead," said the doctor. + +"Yes, but in a state of grace and salvation," said the Abbe. + +In Spain the religious question is supreme, above all political, civil, +or vital considerations; so the physician did not answer the Spaniard. +He turned to the Mother Superior, but the terrible Abbe took him by the +arm and stopped him. + +"Not a word, monsieur!" said he. + +The doctor, though a religious man and a Monarchist, looked at Esther +with an expression of tender pity. The girl was as lovely as a lily +drooping on its stem. + +"God help her, then!" he exclaimed as he went away. + +On the very day of this consultation, Esther was taken by her protector +to the _Rocher de Cancale_, a famous restaurant, for his wish to save +her had suggested strange expedients to the priest. He tried the effect +of two excesses--an excellent dinner, which might remind the poor child +of past orgies; and the opera, which would give her mind some images of +worldliness. His despotic authority was needed to tempt the young saint +to such profanation. Herrera disguised himself so effectually as a +military man, that Esther hardly recognized him; he took care to make +his companion wear a veil, and put her in a box where she was hidden +from all eyes. + +This palliative, which had no risks for innocence so sincerely regained, +soon lost its effect. The convent-boarder viewed her protector's dinners +with disgust, had a religious aversion for the theatre, and relapsed +into melancholy. + +"She is dying of love for Lucien," said Herrera to himself; he had +wanted to sound the depths of this soul, and know how much could be +exacted from it. + +So the moment came when the poor child was no longer upheld by moral +force, and the body was about to break down. The priest calculated the +time with the hideous practical sagacity formerly shown by executioners +in the art of torture. He found his protegee in the garden, sitting on a +bench under a trellis on which the April sun fell gently; she seemed to +be cold and trying to warm herself; her companions looked with interest +at her pallor as of a folded plant, her eyes like those of a dying +gazelle, her drooping attitude. Esther rose and went to meet the +Spaniard with a lassitude that showed how little life there was in her, +and, it may be added, how little care to live. This hapless outcast, +this wild and wounded swallow, moved Carlos Herrera to compassion for +the second time. The gloomy minister, whom God should have employed only +to carry out His revenges, received the sick girl with a smile, which +expressed, indeed, as much bitterness as sweetness, as much vengeance +as charity. Esther, practised in meditation, and used to revulsions of +feeling since she had led this almost monastic life, felt on her part, +for the second time, distrust of her protector; but, as on the former +occasion, his speech reassured her. + +"Well, my dear child," said he, "and why have you never spoken to me of +Lucien?" + +"I promised you," she said, shuddering convulsively from head to foot; +"I swore to you that I would never breathe his name." + +"And yet you have not ceased to think of him." + +"That, monsieur, is the only fault I have committed. I think of him +always; and just as you came, I was saying his name to myself." + +"Absence is killing you?" + +Esther's only answer was to hang her head as the sick do who already +scent the breath of the grave. + +"If you could see him----?" said he. + +"It would be life!" she cried. + +"And do you think of him only spiritually?" + +"Ah, monsieur, love cannot be dissected!" + +"Child of an accursed race! I have done everything to save you; I send +you back to your fate.--You shall see him again." + +"Why insult my happiness? Can I not love Lucien and be virtuous? Am I +not ready to die here for virtue, as I should be ready to die for him? +Am I not dying for these two fanaticisms--for virtue, which was to make +me worthy of him, and for him who flung me into the embrace of virtue? +Yes, and ready to die without seeing him or to live by seeing him. God +is my Judge." + +The color had mounted to her face, her whiteness had recovered its amber +warmth. Esther looked beautiful again. + +"The day after that on which you are washed in the waters of baptism you +shall see Lucien once more; and if you think you can live in virtue by +living for him, you shall part no more." + +The priest was obliged to lift up Esther, whose knees failed her; the +poor child dropped as if the ground had slipped from under her feet. +The Abbe seated her on a bench; and when she could speak again she asked +him: + +"Why not to-day?" + +"Do you want to rob Monseigneur of the triumph of your baptism and +conversion? You are too close to Lucien not to be far from God." + +"Yes, I was not thinking----" + +"You will never be of any religion," said the priest, with a touch of +the deepest irony. + +"God is good," said she; "He can read my heart." + +Conquered by the exquisite artlessness and gestures, Herrera kissed her +on the forehead for the first time. + +"Your libertine friends named you well; you would bewitch God the +Father.--A few days more must pass, and then you will both be free." + +"Both!" she echoed in an ecstasy of joy. + +This scene, observed from a distance, struck pupils and superiors alike; +they fancied they had looked on at a miracle as they compared Esther +with herself. She was completely changed; she was alive. She reappeared +her natural self, all love, sweet, coquettish, playful, and gay; in +short, it was a resurrection. + + + +Herrera lived in the Rue Cassette, near Saint-Sulpice, the church to +which he was attached. This building, hard and stern in style, suited +this Spaniard, whose discipline was that of the Dominicans. A lost son +of Ferdinand VII.'s astute policy, he devoted himself to the cause of +the constitution, knowing that this devotion could never be rewarded +till the restoration of the _Rey netto_. Carlos Herrera had thrown +himself body and soul into the _Camarilla_ at the moment when the Cortes +seemed likely to stand and hold their own. To the world this conduct +seemed to proclaim a superior soul. The Duc d'Angouleme's expedition had +been carried out, King Ferdinand was on the throne, and Carlos Herrera +did not go to claim the reward of his services at Madrid. Fortified +against curiosity by his diplomatic taciturnity, he assigned as his +reason for remaining in Paris his strong affection for Lucien de +Rubempre, to which the young man already owed the King's patent relating +to his change of name. + +Herrera lived very obscurely, as priests employed on secret missions +traditionally live. He fulfilled his religious duties at Saint-Sulpice, +never went out but on business, and then after dark, and in a hackney +cab. His day was filled up with a siesta in the Spanish fashion, which +arranges for sleep between the two chief meals, and so occupies the +hours when Paris is in a busy turmoil. The Spanish cigar also played +its part, and consumed time as well as tobacco. Laziness is a mask as +gravity is, and that again is laziness. + +Herrera lived on the second floor in one wing of the house, and Lucien +occupied the other wing. The two apartments were separated and joined by +a large reception room of antique magnificence, suitable equally to the +grave priest and to the young poet. The courtyard was gloomy; large, +thick trees shaded the garden. Silence and reserve are always found in +the dwellings chosen by priests. Herrera's lodging may be described in +one word--a cell. Lucien's, splendid with luxury, and furnished with +every refinement of comfort, combined everything that the elegant life +of a dandy demands--a poet, a writer, ambitious and dissipated, at once +vain and vainglorious, utterly heedless, and yet wishing for order, +one of those incomplete geniuses who have some power to wish, to +conceive--which is perhaps the same thing--but no power at all to +execute. + +These two, Lucien and Herrera, formed a body politic. This, no doubt, +was the secret of their union. Old men in whom the activities of life +have been uprooted and transplanted to the sphere of interest, often +feel the need of a pleasing instrument, a young and impassioned actor, +to carry out their schemes. Richelieu, too late, found a handsome pale +face with a young moustache to cast in the way of women whom he wanted +to amuse. Misunderstood by giddy-pated younger men, he was compelled to +banish his master's mother and terrify the Queen, after having tried to +make each fall in love with him, though he was not cut out to be loved +by queens. + +Do what we will, always, in the course of an ambitious life, we find +a woman in the way just when we least expect such an obstacle. However +great a political man may be, he always needs a woman to set against +a woman, just as the Dutch use a diamond to cut a diamond. Rome at +the height of its power yielded to this necessity. And observe how +immeasurably more imposing was the life of Mazarin, the Italian +cardinal, than that of Richelieu, the French cardinal. Richelieu met +with opposition from the great nobles, and he applied the axe; he died +in the flower of his success, worn out by this duel, for which he had +only a Capuchin monk as his second. Mazarin was repulsed by the citizen +class and the nobility, armed allies who sometimes victoriously put +royalty to flight; but Anne of Austria's devoted servant took off no +heads, he succeeded in vanquishing the whole of France, and trained +Louis XIV., who completed Richelieu's work by strangling the nobility +with gilded cords in the grand Seraglio of Versailles. Madame de +Pompadour dead, Choiseul fell! + +Had Herrera soaked his mind in these high doctrines? Had he judged +himself at an earlier age than Richelieu? Had he chosen Lucien to be his +Cinq-Mars, but a faithful Cinq-Mars? No one could answer these questions +or measure this Spaniard's ambition, as no one could foresee what his +end might be. These questions, asked by those who were able to see +anything of this coalition, which was long kept a secret, might have +unveiled a horrible mystery which Lucien himself had known but a few +days. Carlos was ambitious for two; that was what his conduct made plain +to those persons who knew him, and who all imagined that Lucien was the +priest's illegitimate son. + +Fifteen months after Lucien's reappearance at the opera ball, which led +him too soon into a world where the priest had not wished to see him +till he should have fully armed him against it, he had three fine horses +in his stable, a coupe for evening use, a cab and a tilbury to drive +by day. He dined out every day. Herrera's foresight was justified; his +pupil was carried away by dissipation; he thought it necessary to effect +some diversion in the frenzied passion for Esther that the young man +still cherished in his heart. After spending something like forty +thousand francs, every folly had brought Lucien back with increased +eagerness to La Torpille; he searched for her persistently; and as he +could not find her, she became to him what game is to the sportsman. + +Could Herrera understand the nature of a poet's love? + +When once this feeling has mounted to the brain of one of these great +little men, after firing his heart and absorbing his senses, the poet +becomes as far superior to humanity through love as he already is +through the power of his imagination. A freak of intellectual heredity +has given him the faculty of expressing nature by imagery, to which he +gives the stamp both of sentiment and of thought, and he lends his love +the wings of his spirit; he feels, and he paints, he acts and meditates, +he multiplies his sensations by thought, present felicity becomes +threefold through aspiration for the future and memory of the past; and +with it he mingles the exquisite delights of the soul, which makes him +the prince of artists. Then the poet's passion becomes a fine poem in +which human proportion is often set at nought. Does not the poet then +place his mistress far higher than women crave to sit? Like the sublime +Knight of la Mancha, he transfigures a peasant girl to be a princess. +He uses for his own behoof the wand with which he touches everything, +turning it into a wonder, and thus enhances the pleasure of loving by +the glorious glamour of the ideal. + +Such a love is the very essence of passion. It is extreme in all things, +in its hopes, in its despair, in its rage, in its melancholy, in its +joy; it flies, it leaps, it crawls; it is not like any of the emotions +known to ordinary men; it is to everyday love what the perennial Alpine +torrent is to the lowland brook. + +These splendid geniuses are so rarely understood that they spend +themselves in hopes deceived; they are exhausted by the search for their +ideal mistress, and almost always die like gorgeous insects splendidly +adorned for their love-festival by the most poetical of nature's +inventions, and crushed under the foot of a passer-by. But there is +another danger! When they meet with the form that answers to their soul, +and which not unfrequently is that of a baker's wife, they do as Raphael +did, as the beautiful insect does, they die in the Fornarina's arms. + +Lucien was at this pass. His poetical temperament, excessive in all +things, in good as in evil, had discerned the angel in this girl, who +was tainted by corruption rather than corrupt; he always saw her +white, winged, pure, and mysterious, as she had made herself for him, +understanding that he would have her so. + +Towards the end of the month of May 1825 Lucien had lost all his good +spirits; he never went out, dined with Herrera, sat pensive, worked, +read volumes of diplomatic treatises, squatted Turkish-fashion on a +divan, and smoked three or four hookahs a day. His groom had more to do +in cleaning and perfuming the tubes of this noble pipe than in currying +and brushing down the horses' coats, and dressing them with cockades +for driving in the Bois. As soon as the Spaniard saw Lucien pale, and +detected a malady in the frenzy of suppressed passion, he determined to +read to the bottom of this man's heart on which he founded his life. + +One fine evening, when Lucien, lounging in an armchair, was mechanically +contemplating the hues of the setting sun through the trees in the +garden, blowing up the mist of scented smoke in slow, regular clouds, +as pensive smokers are wont, he was roused from his reverie by hearing a +deep sigh. He turned and saw the Abbe standing by him with folded arms. + +"You were there!" said the poet. + +"For some time," said the priest, "my thoughts have been following the +wide sweep of yours." Lucien understood his meaning. + +"I have never affected to have an iron nature such as yours is. To me +life is by turns paradise and hell; when by chance it is neither, it +bores me; and I am bored----" + +"How can you be bored when you have such splendid prospects before you?" + +"If I have no faith in those prospects, or if they are too much +shrouded?" + +"Do not talk nonsense," said the priest. "It would be far more worthy of +you and of me that you should open your heart to me. There is now that +between us which ought never to have come between us--a secret. This +secret has subsisted for sixteen months. You are in love." + +"And what then?" + +"A foul hussy called La Torpille----" + +"Well?" + +"My boy, I told you you might have a mistress, but a woman of rank, +pretty, young, influential, a Countess at least. I had chosen Madame +d'Espard for you, to make her the instrument of your fortune without +scruple; for she would never have perverted your heart, she would have +left you free.--To love a prostitute of the lowest class when you +have not, like kings, the power to give her high rank, is a monstrous +blunder." + +"And am I the first man who had renounced ambition to follow the lead of +a boundless passion?" + +"Good!" said the priest, stooping to pick up the mouthpiece of the +hookah which Lucien had dropped on the floor. "I understand the retort. +Cannot love and ambition be reconciled? Child, you have a mother in old +Herrera--a mother who is wholly devoted to you----" + +"I know it, old friend," said Lucien, taking his hand and shaking it. + +"You wished for the toys of wealth; you have them. You want to shine; +I am guiding you into the paths of power, I kiss very dirty hands to +secure your advancement, and you will get on. A little while yet and you +will lack nothing of what can charm man or woman. Though effeminate in +your caprices, your intellect is manly. I have dreamed all things of +you; I forgive you all. You have only to speak to have your ephemeral +passions gratified. I have aggrandized your life by introducing into it +that which makes it delightful to most people--the stamp of political +influence and dominion. You will be as great as you now are small; but +you must not break the machine by which we coin money. I grant you all +you will excepting such blunders as will destroy your future prospects. +When I can open the drawing-rooms of the Faubourg Saint-Germain to you, +I forbid your wallowing in the gutter. Lucien, I mean to be an iron +stanchion in your interest; I will endure everything from you, for you. +Thus I have transformed your lack of tact in the game of life into the +shrewd stroke of a skilful player----" + +Lucien looked up with a start of furious impetuosity. + +"I carried off La Torpille!" + +"You?" cried Lucien. + +In a fit of animal rage the poet jumped up, flung the jeweled mouthpiece +in the priest's face, and pushed him with such violence as to throw down +that strong man. + +"I," said the Spaniard, getting up and preserving his terrible gravity. + +His black wig had fallen off. A bald skull, as shining as a death's +head, showed the man's real countenance. It was appalling. Lucien sat on +his divan, his hands hanging limp, overpowered, and gazing at the Abbe +with stupefaction. + +"I carried her off," the priest repeated. + +"What did you do with her? You took her away the day after the opera +ball." + +"Yes, the day after I had seen a woman who belonged to you insulted by +wretches whom I would not have condescended to kick downstairs." + +"Wretches!" interrupted Lucien, "say rather monsters, compared with +whom those who are guillotined are angels. Do you know what the unhappy +Torpille had done for three of them? One of them was her lover for two +months. She was poor, and picked up a living in the gutter; he had not +a sou; like me, when you rescued me, he was very near the river; this +fellow would get up at night and go to the cupboard where the girl kept +the remains of her dinner and eat it. At last she discovered the trick; +she understood the shameful thing, and took care to leave a great deal; +then she was happy. She never told any one but me, that night, coming +home from the opera. + +"The second had stolen some money; but before the theft was found out, +she lent him the sum, which he was enabled to replace, and which he +always forgot to repay to the poor child. + +"As to the third, she made his fortune by playing out a farce worthy of +Figaro's genius. She passed as his wife and became the mistress of a man +in power, who believed her to be the most innocent of good citizens. To +one she gave life, to another honor, to the third fortune--what does it +all count for to-day? And this is how they reward her!" + +"Would you like to see them dead?" said Herrera, in whose eyes there +were tears. + +"Come, that is just like you! I know you by that----" + +"Nay, hear all, raving poet," said the priest. "La Torpille is no more." + +Lucien flew at Herrera to seize him by the throat, with such violence +that any other man must have fallen backwards; but the Spaniard's arm +held off his assailant. + +"Come, listen," said he coldly. "I have made another woman of her, +chaste, pure, well bred, religious, a perfect lady. She is being +educated. She can, if she may, under the influence of your love, become +a Ninon, a Marion Delorme, a du Barry, as the journalist at the opera +ball remarked. You may proclaim her your mistress, or you may retire +behind a curtain of your own creating, which will be wiser. By either +method you will gain profit and pride, pleasure and advancement; but if +you are as great a politician as you are a poet, Esther will be no more +to you than any other woman of the town; for, later, perhaps she may +help us out of difficulties; she is worth her weight in gold. Drink, but +do not get tipsy. + +"If I had not held the reins of your passion, where would you be now? +Rolling with La Torpille in the slough of misery from which I dragged +you. Here, read this," said Herrera, as simply as Talma in _Manlius_, +which he had never seen. + +A sheet of paper was laid on the poet's knees, and startled him from +the ecstasy and surprise with which he had listened to this astounding +speech; he took it, and read the first letter written by Mademoiselle +Esther:-- + + To Monsieur l'Abbe Carlos Herrera. + + "MY DEAR PROTECTOR,--Will you not suppose that gratitude is + stronger in me than love, when you see that the first use I make + of the power of expressing my thoughts is to thank you, instead of + devoting it to pouring forth a passion that Lucien has perhaps + forgotten. But to you, divine man, I can say what I should not + dare to tell him, who, to my joy, still clings to earth. + + "Yesterday's ceremony has filled me with treasures of grace, and I + place my fate in your hands. Even if I must die far away from my + beloved, I shall die purified like the Magdalen, and my soul will + become to him the rival of his guardian angel. Can I ever forget + yesterday's festival? How could I wish to abdicate the glorious + throne to which I was raised? Yesterday I washed away every stain + in the waters of baptism, and received the Sacred Body of my + Redeemer; I am become one of His tabernacles. At that moment I + heard the songs of angels, I was more than a woman, born to a life + of light amid the acclamations of the whole earth, admired by the + world in a cloud of incense and prayers that were intoxicating, + adorned like a virgin for the Heavenly Spouse. + + "Thus finding myself worthy of Lucien, which I had never hoped to + be, I abjured impure love and vowed to walk only in the paths of + virtue. If my flesh is weaker than my spirit, let it perish. Be + the arbiter of my destiny; and if I die, tell Lucien that I died + to him when I was born to God." + +Lucien looked up at the Abbe with eyes full of tears. + +"You know the rooms fat Caroline Bellefeuille had, in the Rue Taitbout," +the Spaniard said. "The poor creature, cast off by her magistrate, was +in the greatest poverty; she was about to be sold up. I bought the place +all standing, and she turned out with her clothes. Esther, the angel who +aspired to heaven, has alighted there, and is waiting for you." + +At this moment Lucien heard his horses pawing the ground in the +courtyard; he was incapable of expressing his admiration for a devotion +which he alone could appreciate; he threw himself into the arms of the +man he had insulted, made amends for all by a look and the speechless +effusion of his feelings. Then he flew downstairs, confided Esther's +address to his tiger's ear, and the horses went off as if their master's +passion had lived in their legs. + + + +The next day a man, who by his dress might have been mistaken by the +passers-by for a gendarme in disguise, was passing the Rue Taitbout, +opposite a house, as if he were waiting for some one to come out; he +walked with an agitated air. You will often see in Paris such vehement +promenaders, real gendarmes watching a recalcitrant National Guardsman, +bailiffs taking steps to effect an arrest, creditors planning a trick +on the debtor who has shut himself in, lovers, or jealous and suspicious +husbands, or friends doing sentry for a friend; but rarely do you meet a +face portending such coarse and fierce thoughts as animated that of the +gloomy and powerful man who paced to and fro under Mademoiselle Esther's +windows with the brooding haste of a bear in its cage. + +At noon a window was opened, and a maid-servant's hand was put out +to push back the padded shutters. A few minutes later, Esther, in her +dressing-gown, came to breathe the air, leaning on Lucien; any one who +saw them might have taken them for the originals of some pretty English +vignette. Esther was the first to recognize the basilisk eyes of the +Spanish priest; and the poor creature, stricken as if she had been shot, +gave a cry of horror. + +"There is that terrible priest," said she, pointing him out to Lucien. + +"He!" said Lucien, smiling, "he is no more a priest than you are." + +"What then?" she said in alarm. + +"Why, an old villain who believes in nothing but the devil," said +Lucien. + +This light thrown on the sham priest's secrets, if revealed to any one +less devoted than Esther, might have ruined Lucien for ever. + +As they went along the corridor from their bedroom to the dining-room, +where their breakfast was served, the lovers met Carlos Herrera. + +"What have you come here for?" said Lucien roughly. + +"To bless you," replied the audacious scoundrel, stopping the pair and +detaining them in the little drawing-room of the apartment. "Listen +to me, my pretty dears. Amuse yourselves, be happy--well and good! +Happiness at any price is my motto.--But you," he went on to Esther, +"you whom I dragged from the mud, and have soaped down body and soul, +you surely do not dream that you can stand in Lucien's way?--As for you, +my boy," he went on after a pause, looking at Lucien, "you are no longer +poet enough to allow yourself another Coralie. This is sober prose. What +can be done with Esther's lover? Nothing. Can Esther become Madame de +Rubempre? No. + +"Well, my child," said he, laying his hand on Esther's, and making her +shiver as if some serpent had wound itself round her, "the world must +never know of your existence. Above all, the world must never know that +a certain Mademoiselle Esther loves Lucien, and that Lucien is in love +with her.--These rooms are your prison, my pigeon. If you wish to go +out--and your health will require it--you must take exercise at night, +at hours when you cannot be seen; for your youth and beauty, and the +style you have acquired at the Convent, would at once be observed in +Paris. The day when any one in the world, whoever it be," he added in +an awful voice, seconded by an awful look, "learns that Lucien is your +lover, or that you are his mistress, that day will be your last but one +on earth. I have procured that boy a patent permitting him to bear the +name and arms of his maternal ancestors. Still, this is not all; we have +not yet recovered the title of Marquis; and to get it, he must marry +a girl of good family, in whose favor the King will grant this +distinction. Such an alliance will get Lucien on in the world and at +Court. This boy, of whom I have made a man, will be first Secretary to +an Embassy; later, he shall be Minister at some German Court, and God, +or I--better still--helping him, he will take his seat some day on the +bench reserved for peers----" + +"Or on the bench reserved for----" Lucien began, interrupting the man. + +"Hold your tongue!" cried Carlos, laying his broad hand on Lucien's +mouth. "Would you tell such a secret to a woman?" he muttered in his +ear. + +"Esther! A woman!" cried the poet of _Les Marguerites_. + +"Still inditing sonnets!" said the Spaniard. "Nonsense! Sooner or later +all these angels relapse into being women, and every woman at moments +is a mixture of a monkey and a child, two creatures who can kill us for +fun.--Esther, my jewel," said he to the terrified girl, "I have secured +as your waiting-maid a creature who is as much mine as if she were my +daughter. For your cook, you shall have a mulatto woman, which +gives style to a house. With Europe and Asie you can live here for a +thousand-franc note a month like a queen--a stage queen. Europe has +been a dressmaker, a milliner, and a stage super; Asie has cooked for an +epicure Milord. These two women will serve you like two fairies." + +Seeing Lucien go completely to the wall before this man, who was guilty +at least of sacrilege and forgery, this woman, sanctified by her love, +felt an awful fear in the depths of her heart. She made no reply, but +dragged Lucien into her room, and asked him: + +"Is he the devil?" + +"He is far worse to me!" he vehemently replied. "But if you love me, +try to imitate that man's devotion to me, and obey him on pain of +death!----" + +"Of death!" she exclaimed, more frightened than ever. + +"Of death," repeated Lucien. "Alas! my darling, no death could be +compared with that which would befall me if----" + +Esther turned pale at his words, and felt herself fainting. + +"Well, well," cried the sacrilegious forger, "have you not yet spelt out +your daisy-petals?" + +Esther and Lucien came out, and the poor girl, not daring to look at the +mysterious man, said: + +"You shall be obeyed as God is obeyed, monsieur." + +"Good," said he. "You may be very happy for a time, and you will need +only nightgowns and wrappers--that will be very economical." + +The two lovers went on towards the dining-room, but Lucien's patron +signed to the pretty pair to stop. And they stopped. + +"I have just been talking of your servants, my child," said he to +Esther. "I must introduce them to you." + +The Spaniard rang twice. The women he had called Europe and Asie came +in, and it was at once easy to see the reason of these names. + +Asie, who looked as if she might have been born in the Island of Java, +showed a face to scare the eye, as flat as a board, with the copper +complexion peculiar to Malays, with a nose that looked as if it had been +driven inwards by some violent pressure. The strange conformation of the +maxillary bones gave the lower part of this face a resemblance to +that of the larger species of apes. The brow, though sloping, was not +deficient in intelligence produced by habits of cunning. Two fierce +little eyes had the calm fixity of a tiger's, but they never looked you +straight in the face. Asie seemed afraid lest she might terrify people. +Her lips, a dull blue, were parted over prominent teeth of dazzling +whiteness, but grown across. The leading expression of this animal +countenance was one of meanness. Her black hair, straight and +greasy-looking like her skin, lay in two shining bands, forming an edge +to a very handsome silk handkerchief. Her ears were remarkably pretty, +and graced with two large dark pearls. Small, short, and squat, Asie +bore a likeness to the grotesque figures the Chinese love to paint on +screens, or, more exactly, to the Hindoo idols which seem to be imitated +from some non-existent type, found, nevertheless, now and again by +travelers. Esther shuddered as she looked at this monstrosity, dressed +out in a white apron over a stuff gown. + +"Asie," said the Spaniard, to whom the woman looked up with a gesture +that can only be compared to that of a dog to its master, "this is your +mistress." + +And he pointed to Esther in her wrapper. + +Asie looked at the young fairy with an almost distressful expression; +but at the same moment a flash, half hidden between her thick, +short eyelashes, shot like an incendiary spark at Lucien, who, in a +magnificent dressing-gown thrown open over a fine Holland linen shirt +and red trousers, with a fez on his head, beneath which his fair hair +fell in thick curls, presented a godlike appearance. + +Italian genius could invent the tale of Othello; English genius could +put it on the stage; but Nature alone reserves the power of throwing +into a single glance an expression of jealousy grander and more complete +than England and Italy together could imagine. This look, seen by +Esther, made her clutch the Spaniard by the arm, setting her nails in it +as a cat sets its claws to save itself from falling into a gulf of which +it cannot see the bottom. + +The Spaniard spoke a few words, in some unfamiliar tongue, to the +Asiatic monster, who crept on her knees to Esther's feet and kissed +them. + +"She is not merely a good cook," said Herrera to Esther; "she is a +past-master, and might make Careme mad with jealousy. Asie can do +everything by way of cooking. She will turn you out a simple dish of +beans that will make you wonder whether the angels have not come down to +add some herb from heaven. She will go to market herself every morning, +and fight like the devil she is to get things at the lowest prices; she +will tire out curiosity by silence. + +"You are to be supposed to have been in India, and Asie will help you to +give effect to this fiction, for she is one of those Parisians who are +born to be of any nationality they please. But I do not advise that you +should give yourself out to be a foreigner.--Europe, what do you say?" + +Europe was a perfect contrast to Asie, for she was the smartest +waiting-maid that Monrose could have hoped to see as her rival on the +stage. Slight, with a scatter-brain manner, a face like a weasel, and a +sharp nose, Europe's features offered to the observer a countenance worn +by the corruption of Paris life, the unhealthy complexion of a girl fed +on raw apples, lymphatic but sinewy, soft but tenacious. One little foot +was set forward, her hands were in her apron-pockets, and she fidgeted +incessantly without moving, from sheer excess of liveliness. Grisette +and stage super, in spite of her youth she must have tried many trades. +As full of evil as a dozen Madelonnettes put together, she might have +robbed her parents, and sat on the bench of a police-court. + +Asie was terrifying, but you knew her thoroughly from the first; she +descended in a straight line from Locusta; while Europe filled you with +uneasiness, which could not fail to increase the more you had to do with +her; her corruption seemed boundless. You felt that she could set the +devils by the ears. + +"Madame might say she had come from Valenciennes," said Europe in a +precise little voice. "I was born there--Perhaps monsieur," she added +to Lucien in a pedantic tone, "will be good enough to say what name he +proposes to give to madame?" + +"Madame van Bogseck," the Spaniard put in, reversing Esther's name. +"Madame is a Jewess, a native of Holland, the widow of a merchant, +and suffering from a liver-complaint contracted in Java. No great +fortune--not to excite curiosity." + +"Enough to live on--six thousand francs a year; and we shall complain of +her stinginess?" said Europe. + +"That is the thing," said the Spaniard, with a bow. "You limbs of +Satan!" he went on, catching Asie and Europe exchanging a glance that +displeased him, "remember what I have told you. You are serving a queen; +you owe her as much respect as to a queen; you are to cherish her as you +would cherish a revenge, and be as devoted to her as to me. Neither +the door-porter, nor the neighbors, nor the other inhabitants of the +house--in short, not a soul on earth is to know what goes on here. It is +your business to balk curiosity if any should be roused.--And madame," +he went on laying his broad hairy hand on Esther's arm, "madame must not +commit the smallest imprudence; you must prevent it in case of need, but +always with perfect respect. + +"You, Europe, are to go out for madame in anything that concerns her +dress, and you must do her sewing from motives of economy. Finally, +nobody, not even the most insignificant creature, is ever to set foot in +this apartment. You two, between you, must do all there is to be done. + +"And you, my beauty," he went on, speaking to Esther, "when you want +to go out in your carriage by night, you can tell Europe; she will know +where to find your men, for you will have a servant in livery, of my +choosing, like those two slaves." + +Esther and Lucien had not a word ready. They listened to the Spaniard, +and looked at the two precious specimens to whom he gave his orders. +What was the secret hold to which he owed the submission and servitude +that were written on these two faces--one mischievously recalcitrant, +the other so malignantly cruel? + +He read the thoughts of Lucien and Esther, who seemed paralyzed, as Paul +and Virginia might have been at the sight of two dreadful snakes, and he +said in a good-natured undertone: + +"You can trust them as you can me; keep no secrets from them; that +will flatter them.--Go to your work, my little Asie," he added to the +cook.--"And you, my girl, lay another place," he said to Europe; "the +children cannot do less than ask papa to breakfast." + +When the two women had shut the door, and the Spaniard could hear Europe +moving to and fro, he turned to Lucien and Esther, and opening a wide +palm, he said: + +"I hold them in the hollow of my hand." + +The words and gesture made his hearers shudder. + +"Where did you pick them up?" cried Lucien. + +"What the devil! I did not look for them at the foot of the throne!" +replied the man. "Europe has risen from the mire, and is afraid of +sinking into it again. Threaten them with Monsieur Abbe when they do +not please you, and you will see them quake like mice when the cat is +mentioned. I am used to taming wild beasts," he added with a smile. + +"You strike me as being a demon," said Esther, clinging closer to +Lucien. + +"My child, I tried to win you to heaven; but a repentant Magdalen is +always a practical joke on the Church. If ever there were one, she would +relapse into the courtesan in Paradise. You have gained this much: you +are forgotten, and have acquired the manners of a lady, for you learned +in the convent what you never could have learned in the ranks of infamy +in which you were living.--You owe me nothing," said he, observing a +beautiful look of gratitude on Esther's face. "I did it all for him," +and he pointed to Lucien. "You are, you will always be, you will die a +prostitute; for in spite of the delightful theories of cattle-breeders, +you can never, here below, become anything but what you are. The man who +feels bumps is right. You have the bump of love." + +The Spaniard, it will be seen, was a fatalist, like Napoleon, Mahomet, +and many other great politicians. It is a strange thing that most men of +action have a tendency to fatalism, just as most great thinkers have a +tendency to believe in Providence. + +"What I am, I do not know," said Esther with angelic sweetness; "but I +love Lucien, and shall die worshiping him." + +"Come to breakfast," said the Spaniard sharply. "And pray to God that +Lucien may not marry too soon, for then you would never see him again." + +"His marriage would be my death," said she. + +She allowed the sham priest to lead the way, that she might stand on +tiptoe and whisper to Lucien without being seen. + +"Is it your wish," said she, "that I should remain in the power of this +man who sets two hyenas to guard me?" + +Lucien bowed his head. + +The poor child swallowed down her grief and affected gladness, but +she felt cruelly oppressed. It needed more than a year of constant and +devoted care before she was accustomed to these two dreadful creatures +whom Carlos Herrera called the two watch-dogs. + + + +Lucien's conduct since his return to Paris had borne the stamp of such +profound policy that it excited--and could not fail to excite--the +jealousy of all his former friends, on whom he took no vengeance but by +making them furious at his success, at his exquisite "get up," and his +way of keeping every one at a distance. The poet, once so communicative, +so genial, had turned cold and reserved. De Marsay, the model adopted by +all the youth of Paris, did not make a greater display of reticence in +speech and deed than did Lucien. As to brains, the journalist had ere +now proved his mettle. De Marsay, against whom many people chose to +pit Lucien, giving a preference to the poet, was small-minded enough to +resent this. + +Lucien, now in high favor with men who secretly pulled the wires of +power, was so completely indifferent to literary fame, that he did not +care about the success of his romance, republished under its real title, +_L'Archer de Charles IX._, or the excitement caused by his volume of +sonnets called _Les Marguerites_, of which Dauriat sold out the edition +in a week. + +"It is posthumous fame," said he, with a laugh, to Mademoiselle des +Touches, who congratulated him. + +The terrible Spaniard held his creature with an iron hand, keeping him +in the road towards the goal where the trumpets and gifts of victory +await patient politicians. Lucien had taken Beaudenord's bachelor +quarters on the Quai Malaquais, to be near the Rue Taitbout, and his +adviser was lodging under the same roof on the fourth floor. Lucien kept +only one horse to ride and drive, a man-servant, and a groom. When he +was not dining out, he dined with Esther. + +Carlos Herrera kept such a keen eye on the service in the house on the +Quai Malaquais, that Lucien did not spend ten thousand francs a year, +all told. Ten thousand more were enough for Esther, thanks to the +unfailing and inexplicable devotion of Asie and Europe. Lucien took the +utmost precautions in going in and out at the Rue Taitbout. He never +came but in a cab, with the blinds down, and always drove into the +courtyard. Thus his passion for Esther and the very existence of the +establishment in the Rue Taitbout, being unknown to the world, did him +no harm in his connections or undertakings. No rash word ever escaped +him on this delicate subject. His mistakes of this sort with regard +to Coralie, at the time of his first stay in Paris, had given him +experience. + +In the first place, his life was marked by the correct regularity under +which many mysteries can be hidden; he remained in society every night +till one in the morning; he was always at home from ten till one in the +afternoon; then he drove in the Bois de Boulogne and paid calls +till five. He was rarely seen to be on foot, and thus avoided old +acquaintances. When some journalist or one of his former associates +waved him a greeting, he responded with a bow, polite enough to avert +annoyance, but significant of such deep contempt as killed all French +geniality. He thus had very soon got rid of persons whom he would rather +never have known. + +An old-established aversion kept him from going to see Madame d'Espard, +who often wished to get him to her house; but when he met her at those +of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, of Mademoiselle des Touches, of the +Comtesse de Montcornet or elsewhere, he was always exquisitely polite +to her. This hatred, fully reciprocated by Madame d'Espard, compelled +Lucien to act with prudence; but it will be seen how he had added fuel +to it by allowing himself a stroke of revenge, which gained him indeed a +severe lecture from Carlos. + +"You are not yet strong enough to be revenged on any one, whoever it may +be," said the Spaniard. "When we are walking under a burning sun we do +not stop to gather even the finest flowers." + +Lucien was so genuinely superior, and had so fine a future before him, +that the young men who chose to be offended or puzzled by his return to +Paris and his unaccountable good fortune were enchanted whenever they +could do him an ill turn. He knew that he had many enemies, and was well +aware of those hostile feelings among his friends. The Abbe, indeed, +took admirable care of his adopted son, putting him on his guard against +the treachery of the world and the fatal imprudence of youth. Lucien +was expected to tell, and did in fact tell the Abbe each evening, every +trivial incident of the day. Thanks to his Mentor's advice, he put the +keenest curiosity--the curiosity of the world--off the scent. Entrenched +in the gravity of an Englishman, and fortified by the redoubts cast up +by diplomatic circumspection, he never gave any one the right or the +opportunity of seeing a corner even of his concerns. His handsome young +face had, by practice, become as expressionless in society as that of a +princess at a ceremonial. + +Towards the middle of 1829 his marriage began to be talked of to the +eldest daughter of the Duchesse de Grandlieu, who at that time had no +less than four daughters to provide for. No one doubted that in honor of +such an alliance the King would revive for Lucien the title of Marquis. +This distinction would establish Lucien's fortune as a diplomate, and he +would probably be accredited as Minister to some German Court. For the +last three years Lucien's life had been regular and above reproach; +indeed, de Marsay had made this remarkable speech about him: + +"That young fellow must have a very strong hand behind him." + +Thus Lucien was almost a person of importance. His passion for Esther +had, in fact, helped him greatly to play his part of a serious man. A +habit of this kind guards an ambitious man from many follies; having +no connection with any woman of fashion, he cannot be caught by the +reactions of mere physical nature on his moral sense. + +As to happiness, Lucien's was the realization of a poet's dreams--a +penniless poet's, hungering in a garret. Esther, the ideal courtesan in +love, while she reminded Lucien of Coralie, the actress with whom he +had lived for a year, completely eclipsed her. Every loving and devoted +woman invents seclusion, incognito, the life of a pearl in the depths of +the sea; but to most of them this is no more than one of the delightful +whims which supply a subject for conversation; a proof of love which +they dream of giving, but do not give; whereas Esther, to whom her first +enchantment was ever new, who lived perpetually in the glow of Lucien's +first incendiary glance, never, in four yours, had an impulse of +curiosity. She gave her whole mind to the task of adhering to the terms +of the programme prescribed by the sinister Spaniard. Nay, more! In the +midst of intoxicating happiness she never took unfair advantage of the +unlimited power that the constantly revived desire of a lover gives to +the woman he loves to ask Lucien a single question regarding Herrera, of +whom indeed she lived in constant awe; she dared not even think of him. +The elaborate benefactions of that extraordinary man, to whom Esther +undoubtedly owed her feminine accomplishment and her well-bred manner, +struck the poor girl as advances on account of hell. + +"I shall have to pay for all this some day," she would tell herself with +dismay. + +Every fine night she went out in a hired carriage. She was driven with +a rapidity no doubt insisted on by the Abbe, in one or another of +the beautiful woods round Paris, Boulogne, Vincennes, Romainville, or +Ville-d'Avray, often with Lucien, sometimes alone with Europe. There she +could walk about without fear; for when Lucien was not with her, she was +attended by a servant dressed like the smartest of outriders, armed +with a real knife, whose face and brawny build alike proclaimed him a +ruthless athlete. This protector was also provided, in the fashion of +English footmen, with a stick, but such as single-stick players use, +with which they can keep off more than one assailant. In obedience to an +order of the Abbe's, Esther had never spoken a word to this escort. +When madame wished to go home, Europe gave a call; the man in waiting +whistled to the driver, who was always within hearing. + +When Lucien was walking with Esther, Europe and this man remained about +a hundred paces behind, like two of the infernal minions that figure in +the _Thousand and One Nights_, which enchanters place at the service of +their devotees. + +The men, and yet more the women of Paris, know nothing of the charm of a +walk in the woods on a fine night. The stillness, the moonlight effects, +the solitude, have the soothing effect of a bath. Esther usually went +out at ten, walked about from midnight till one o'clock, and came in at +half-past two. It was never daylight in her rooms till eleven. She then +bathed and went through an elaborate toilet which is unknown to most +women, for it takes up too much time, and is rarely carried out by +any but courtesans, women of the town, or fine ladies who have the day +before them. She was only just ready when Lucien came, and appeared +before him as a newly opened flower. Her only care was that her poet +should be happy; she was his toy, his chattel; she gave him entire +liberty. She never cast a glance beyond the circle where she shone. On +this the Abbe had insisted, for it was part of his profound policy that +Lucien should have gallant adventures. + +Happiness has no history, and the story-tellers of all lands have +understood this so well that the words, "They are happy," are the end of +every love tale. Hence only the ways and means can be recorded of this +really romantic happiness in the heart of Paris. It was happiness in its +loveliest form, a poem, a symphony, of four years' duration. Every woman +will exclaim, "That was much!" Neither Esther nor Lucien had ever +said, "This is too much!" And the formula, "They were happy," was +more emphatically true, than even in a fairy tale, for "they had _no_ +children." + +So Lucien could coquet with the world, give way to his poet's caprices, +and, it may be plainly admitted, to the necessities of his position. All +this time he was slowly making his way, and was able to render secret +service to certain political personages by helping them in their work. +In such matters he was eminently discreet. He cultivated Madame de +Serizy's circle, being, it was rumored, on the very best terms with +that lady. Madame de Serizy had carried him off from the Duchesse +de Maufrigneuse, who, it was said, had "thrown him over," one of the +phrases by which women avenge themselves on happiness they envy. Lucien +was in the lap, so to speak, of the High Almoner's set, and intimate +with women who were the Archbishop's personal friends. He was modest and +reserved; he waited patiently. So de Marsay's speech--de Marsay was +now married, and made his wife live as retired a life as Esther--was +significant in more ways that one. + +But the submarine perils of such a course as Lucien's will be +sufficiently obvious in the course of this chronicle. + + + +Matters were in this position when, one fine night in August, the Baron +de Nucingen was driving back to Paris from the country residence of a +foreign banker, settled in France, with whom he had been dining. The +estate lay at eight leagues from Paris in the district of la Brie. Now, +the Baron's coachman having undertaken to drive his master there and +back with his own horses, at nightfall ventured to moderate the pace. + +As they entered the forest of Vincennes the position of beast, man, and +master was as follows:--The coachman, liberally soaked in the kitchen +of the aristocrat of the Bourse, was perfectly tipsy, and slept soundly, +while still holding the reins to deceive other wayfarers. The footman, +seated behind, was snoring like a wooden top from Germany--the land +of little carved figures, of large wine-vats, and of humming-tops. The +Baron had tried to think; but after passing the bridge at Gournay, the +soft somnolence of digestion had sealed his eyes. The horses understood +the coachman's plight from the slackness of the reins; they heard the +footman's basso continuo from his perch behind; they saw that they +were masters of the situation, and took advantage of their few minutes' +freedom to make their own pace. Like intelligent slaves, they gave +highway robbers the chance of plundering one of the richest capitalists +in France, the most deeply cunning of the race which, in France, +have been energetically styled lynxes--loups-cerviers. Finally, being +independent of control, and tempted by the curiosity which every one +must have remarked in domestic animals, they stopped where four roads +met, face to face with some other horses, whom they, no doubt, asked +in horses' language: "Who may you be? What are you doing? Are you +comfortable?" + +When the chaise stopped, the Baron awoke from his nap. At first he +fancied that he was still in his friend's park; then he was startled +by a celestial vision, which found him unarmed with his usual +weapon--self-interest. The moonlight was brilliant; he could have read +by it--even an evening paper. In the silence of the forest, under this +pure light, the Baron saw a woman, alone, who, as she got into a hired +chaise, looked at the strange spectacle of this sleep-stricken carriage. +At the sight of this angel the Baron felt as though a light had flashed +into glory within him. The young lady, seeing herself admired, pulled +down her veil with terrified haste. The man-servant gave a signal which +the driver perfectly understood, for the vehicle went off like an arrow. + +The old banker was fearfully agitated; the blood left his feet cold and +carried fire to his brain, his head sent the flame back to his heart; he +was chocking. The unhappy man foresaw a fit of indigestion, but in spite +of that supreme terror he stood up. + +"Follow qvick, fery qvick.--Tam you, you are ashleep!" he cried. "A +hundert franc if you catch up dat chaise." + +At the words "A hundred francs," the coachman woke up. The servant +behind heard them, no doubt, in his dreams. The baron reiterated his +orders, the coachman urged the horses to a gallop, and at the Barriere +du Trone had succeeded in overtaking a carriage resembling that in which +Nucingen had seen the divine fair one, but which contained a swaggering +head-clerk from some first-class shop and a lady of the Rue Vivienne. + +This blunder filled the Baron with consternation. + +"If only I had prought Chorge inshtead of you, shtupid fool, he should +have fount dat voman," said he to the servant, while the excise officers +were searching the carriage. + +"Indeed, Monsieur le Baron, the devil was behind the chaise, I believe, +disguised as an armed escort, and he sent this chaise instead of hers." + +"Dere is no such ting as de Teufel," said the Baron. + +The Baron de Nucingen owned to sixty; he no longer cared for women, and +for his wife least of all. He boasted that he had never known such love +as makes a fool of a man. He declared that he was happy to have done +with women; the most angelic of them, he frankly said, was not worth +what she cost, even if you got her for nothing. He was supposed to be so +entirely blase, that he no longer paid two thousand francs a month for +the pleasure of being deceived. His eyes looked coldly down from +his opera box on the corps de ballet; never a glance was shot at the +capitalist by any one of that formidable swarm of old young girls, and +young old women, the cream of Paris pleasure. + +Natural love, artificial and love-of-show love, love based on +self-esteem and vanity, love as a display of taste, decent, conjugal +love, eccentric love--the Baron had paid for them all, had known them +all excepting real spontaneous love. This passion had now pounced down +on him like an eagle on its prey, as it did on Gentz, the confidential +friend of His Highness the Prince of Metternich. All the world knows +what follies the old diplomate committed for Fanny Elssler, whose +rehearsals took up a great deal more of his time than the concerns of +Europe. + +The woman who had just overthrown that iron-bound money-box, called +Nucingen, had appeared to him as one of those who are unique in their +generation. It is not certain that Titian's mistress, or Leonardo da +Vinci's Monna Lisa, or Raphael's Fornarina were as beautiful as this +exquisite Esther, in whom not the most practised eye of the most +experienced Parisian could have detected the faintest trace of the +ordinary courtesan. The Baron was especially startled by the noble and +stately air, the air of a well-born woman, which Esther, beloved, and +lapped in luxury, elegance, and devotedness, had in the highest degree. +Happy love is the divine unction of women; it makes them all as lofty as +empresses. + +For eight nights in succession the Baron went to the forest of +Vincennes, then to the Bois de Boulogne, to the woods of Ville-d'Avray, +to Meudon, in short, everywhere in the neighborhood of Paris, but failed +to meet Esther. That beautiful Jewish face, which he called "a face out +of te Biple," was always before his eyes. By the end of a fortnight he +had lost his appetite. + +Delphine de Nucingen, and her daughter Augusta, whom the Baroness was +now taking out, did not at first perceive the change that had come over +the Baron. The mother and daughter only saw him at breakfast in the +morning and at dinner in the evening, when they all dined at home, and +this was only on the evenings when Delphine received company. But by +the end of two months, tortured by a fever of impatience, and in a state +like that produced by acute home-sickness, the Baron, amazed to find +his millions impotent, grew so thin, and seemed so seriously ill, that +Delphine had secret hopes of finding herself a widow. She pitied her +husband, somewhat hypocritically, and kept her daughter in seclusion. +She bored her husband with questions; he answered as Englishmen answer +when suffering from spleen, hardly a word. + +Delphine de Nucingen gave a grand dinner every Sunday. She had chosen +that day for her receptions, after observing that no people of fashion +went to the play, and that the day was pretty generally an open one. The +emancipation of the shopkeeping and middle classes makes Sunday almost +as tiresome in Paris as it is deadly in London. So the Baroness invited +the famous Desplein to dinner, to consult him in spite of the sick man, +for Nucingen persisted in asserting that he was perfectly well. + +Keller, Rastignac, de Marsay, du Tillet, all their friends had made the +Baroness understand that a man like Nucingen could not be allowed to die +without any notice being taken of it; his enormous business transactions +demanded some care; it was absolutely necessary to know where he stood. +These gentlemen also were asked to dinner, and the Comte de Gondreville, +Francois Keller's father-in-law, the Chevalier d'Espard, des Lupeaulx, +Doctor Bianchon--Desplein's best beloved pupil--Beaudenord and his wife, +the Comte and Comtesse de Montcornet, Blondet, Mademoiselle des Touches +and Conti, and finally, Lucien de Rubempre, for whom Rastignac had for +the last five years manifested the warmest regard--by order, as the +advertisements have it. + +"We shall not find it easy to get rid of that young fellow," said +Blondet to Rastignac, when he saw Lucien come in handsomer than ever, +and uncommonly well dressed. + +"It is wiser to make friends with him, for he is formidable," said +Rastignac. + +"He?" said de Marsay. "No one is formidable to my knowledge but men +whose position is assured, and his is unattacked rather than attackable! +Look here, what does he live on? Where does his money come from? He has, +I am certain, sixty thousand francs in debts." + +"He has found a friend in a very rich Spanish priest who has taken a +fancy to him," replied Rastignac. + +"He is going to be married to the eldest Mademoiselle de Grandlieu," +said Mademoiselle des Touches. + +"Yes," said the Chevalier d'Espard, "but they require him to buy an +estate worth thirty thousand francs a year as security for the fortune +he is to settle on the young lady, and for that he needs a million +francs, which are not to be found in any Spaniard's shoes." + +"That is dear, for Clotilde is very ugly," said the Baroness. + +Madame de Nucingen affected to call Mademoiselle de Grandlieu by her +Christian name, as though she, nee Goriot, frequented that society. + +"No," replied du Tillet, "the daughter of a duchess is never ugly to the +like of us, especially when she brings with her the title of Marquis +and a diplomatic appointment. But the great obstacle to the marriage is +Madame de Serizy's insane passion for Lucien. She must give him a great +deal of money." + +"Then I am not surprised at seeing Lucien so serious; for Madame de +Serizy will certainly not give him a million francs to help him to marry +Mademoiselle de Grandlieu. He probably sees no way out of the scrape," +said de Marsay. + +"But Mademoiselle de Grandlieu worships him," said the Comtesse de +Montcornet; "and with the young person's assistance, he may perhaps make +better terms." + +"And what will he do with his sister and brother-in-law at Angouleme?" +asked the Chevalier d'Espard. + +"Well, his sister is rich," replied Rastignac, "and he now speaks of her +as Madame Sechard de Marsac." + +"Whatever difficulties there may be, he is a very good-looking fellow," +said Bianchon, rising to greet Lucien. + +"How 'do, my dear fellow?" said Rastignac, shaking hands warmly with +Lucien. + +De Marsay bowed coldly after Lucien had first bowed to him. + +Before dinner Desplein and Bianchon, who studied the Baron while amusing +him, convinced themselves that this malady was entirely nervous; but +neither could guess the cause, so impossible did it seem that the great +politician of the money market could be in love. When Bianchon, seeing +nothing but love to account for the banker's condition, hinted as much +to Delphine de Nucingen, she smiled as a woman who has long known all +her husband's weaknesses. After dinner, however, when they all adjourned +to the garden, the more intimate of the party gathered round the banker, +eager to clear up this extraordinary case when they heard Bianchon +pronounce that Nucingen must be in love. + +"Do you know, Baron," said de Marsay, "that you have grown very thin? +You are suspected of violating the laws of financial Nature." + +"Ach, nefer!" said the Baron. + +"Yes, yes," replied de Marsay. "They dare to say that you are in love." + +"Dat is true," replied Nucingen piteously; "I am in lof for somebody I +do not know." + +"You, in love, you? You are a coxcomb!" said the Chevalier d'Espard. + +"In lof, at my aje! I know dat is too ridiculous. But vat can I help it! +Dat is so." + +"A woman of the world?" asked Lucien. + +"Nay," said de Marsay. "The Baron would not grow so thin but for a +hopeless love, and he has money enough to buy all the women who will or +can sell themselves!" + +"I do not know who she it," said the Baron. "And as Motame de Nucingen +is inside de trawing-room, I may say so, dat till now I have nefer known +what it is to lof. Lof! I tink it is to grow tin." + +"And where did you meet this innocent daisy?" asked Rastignac. + +"In a carriage, at mitnight, in de forest of Fincennes." + +"Describe her," said de Marsay. + +"A vhite gaze hat, a rose gown, a vhite scharf, a vhite feil--a face +just out of de Biple. Eyes like Feuer, an Eastern color----" + +"You were dreaming," said Lucien, with a smile. + +"Dat is true; I vas shleeping like a pig--a pig mit his shkin full," he +added, "for I vas on my vay home from tinner at mine friend's----" + +"Was she alone?" said du Tillet, interrupting him. + +"Ja," said the Baron dolefully; "but she had ein heiduque behind dat +carriage and a maid-shervant----" + +"Lucien looks as if he knew her," exclaimed Rastignac, seeing Esther's +lover smile. + +"Who doesn't know the woman who would go out at midnight to meet +Nucingen?" said Lucien, turning on his heel. + +"Well, she is not a woman who is seen in society, or the Baron would +have recognized the man," said the Chevalier d'Espard. + +"I have nefer seen him," replied the Baron. "And for forty days now I +have had her seeked for by de Police, and dey do not find her." + +"It is better that she should cost you a few hundred francs than cost +you your life," said Desplein; "and, at your age, a passion without hope +is dangerous, you might die of it." + +"Ja, ja," replied the Baron, addressing Desplein. "And vat I eat does +me no goot, de air I breade feels to choke me. I go to de forest of +Fincennes to see de place vat I see her--and dat is all my life. I could +not tink of de last loan--I trust to my partners vat haf pity on me. I +could pay one million franc to see dat voman--and I should gain by dat, +for I do nothing on de Bourse.--Ask du Tillet." + +"Very true," replied du Tillet; "he hates business; he is quite unlike +himself; it is a sign of death." + +"A sign of lof," replied Nucingen; "and for me, dat is all de same +ting." + +The simple candor of the old man, no longer the stock-jobber, who, for +the first time in his life, saw that something was more sacred and +more precious than gold, really moved these world-hardened men; some +exchanged smiles; other looked at Nucingen with an expression that +plainly said, "Such a man to have come to this!"--And then they all +returned to the drawing-room, talking over the event. + +For it was indeed an event calculated to produce the greatest sensation. +Madame de Nucingen went into fits of laughter when Lucien betrayed her +husband's secret; but the Baron, when he heard his wife's sarcasms, took +her by the arm and led her into the recess of a window. + +"Motame," said he in an undertone, "have I ever laughed at all at your +passions, that you should laugh at mine? A goot frau should help her +husband out of his difficulty vidout making game of him like vat you +do." + +From the description given by the old banker, Lucien had recognized his +Esther. Much annoyed that his smile should have been observed, he took +advantage of a moment when coffee was served, and the conversation +became general, to vanish from the scene. + +"What has become of Monsieur de Rubempre?" said the Baroness. + +"He is faithful to his motto: Quid me continebit?" said Rastignac. + +"Which means, 'Who can detain me?' or 'I am unconquerable,' as you +choose," added de Marsay. + +"Just as Monsieur le Baron was speaking of his unknown lady, Lucien +smiled in a way that makes me fancy he may know her," said Horace +Bianchon, not thinking how dangerous such a natural remark might be. + +"Goot!" said the banker to himself. + +Like all incurables, the Baron clutched at everything that seemed at all +hopeful; he promised himself that he would have Lucien watched by some +one besides Louchard and his men--Louchard, the sharpest commercial +detective in Paris--to whom he had applied about a fortnight since. + +Before going home to Esther, Lucien was due at the Hotel Grandlieu, +to spend the two hours which made Mademoiselle Clotilde Frederique +de Grandlieu the happiest girl in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. But the +prudence characteristic of this ambitious youth warned him to inform +Carlos Herrera forthwith of the effect resulting from the smile wrung +from him by the Baron's description of Esther. The banker's passion for +Esther, and the idea that had occurred to him of setting the police to +seek the unknown beauty, were indeed events of sufficient importance +to be at once communicated to the man who had sought, under a priest's +robe, the shelter which criminals of old could find in a church. And +Lucien's road from the Rue Saint-Lazare, where Nucingen at that time +lived, to the Rue Saint-Dominique, where was the Hotel Grandlieu, led +him past his lodgings on the Quai Malaquais. + +Lucien found his formidable friend smoking his breviary--that is to say, +coloring a short pipe before retiring to bed. The man, strange rather +than foreign, had given up Spanish cigarettes, finding them too mild. + +"Matters look serious," said the Spaniard, when Lucien had told him all. +"The Baron, who employs Louchard to hunt up the girl, will certainly be +sharp enough to set a spy at your heels, and everything will come out. +To-night and to-morrow morning will not give me more than enough time +to pack the cards for the game I must play against the Baron; first and +foremost, I must prove to him that the police cannot help him. When our +lynx has given up all hope of finding his ewe-lamb, I will undertake to +sell her for all she is worth to him----" + +"Sell Esther!" cried Lucien, whose first impulse was always the right +one. + +"Do you forget where we stand?" cried Carlos Herrera. + +"No money left," the Spaniard went on, "and sixty thousand francs of +debts to be paid! If you want to marry Clotilde de Grandlieu, you must +invest a million of francs in land as security for that ugly creature's +settlement. Well, then, Esther is the quarry I mean to set before that +lynx to help us to ease him of that million. That is my concern." + +"Esther will never----" + +"That is my concern." + +"She will die of it." + +"That is the undertaker's concern. Besides, what then?" cried the +savage, checking Lucien's lamentations merely by his attitude. "How many +generals died in the prime of life for the Emperor Napoleon?" he asked, +after a short silence. "There are always plenty of women. In 1821 +Coralie was unique in your eyes; and yet you found Esther. After her +will come--do you know who?--the unknown fair. And she of all women +is the fairest, and you will find her in the capital where the Duc de +Grandlieu's son-in-law will be Minister and representative of the King +of France.--And do you tell me now, great Baby, that Esther will die of +it? Again, can Mademoiselle de Grandlieu's husband keep Esther? + +"You have only to leave everything to me; you need not take the trouble +to think at all; that is my concern. Only you must do without Esther for +a week or two; but go to the Rue Taitbout, all the same.--Come, be off +to bill and coo on your plank of salvation, and play your part well; +slip the flaming note you wrote this morning into Clotilde's hand, and +bring me back a warm response. She will recompense herself for many woes +in writing. I take to that girl. + +"You will find Esther a little depressed, but tell her to obey. We must +display our livery of virtue, our doublet of honesty, the screen behind +which all great men hide their infamy.--I must show off my handsomer +self--you must never be suspected. Chance has served us better than +my brain, which has been beating about in a void for these two months +past." + +All the while he was jerking out these dreadful sentences, one by one, +like pistol shots, Carlos Herrera was dressing himself to go out. + +"You are evidently delighted," cried Lucien. "You never liked poor +Esther, and you look forward with joy to the moment when you will be rid +of her." + +"You have never tired of loving her, have you? Well, I have never +tired of detesting her. But have I not always behaved as though I were +sincerely attached to the hussy--I, who, through Asie, hold her life +in my hands? A few bad mushrooms in a stew--and there an end. But +Mademoiselle Esther still lives!--and is happy!--And do you know why? +Because you love her. Do not be a fool. For four years we have been +waiting for a chance to turn up, for us or against us; well, it will +take something more than mere cleverness to wash the cabbage luck has +flung at us now. There are good and bad together in this turn of the +wheel--as there are in everything. Do you know what I was thinking of +when you came in?" + +"No." + +"Of making myself heir here, as I did at Barcelona, to an old bigot, by +Asie's help." + +"A crime?" + +"I saw no other way of securing your fortune. The creditors are making +a stir. If once the bailiffs were at your heels, and you were turned out +of the Hotel Grandlieu, where would you be? There would be the devil to +pay then." + +And Carlos Herrera, by a pantomimic gesture, showed the suicide of a man +throwing himself into the water; then he fixed on Lucien one of those +steady, piercing looks by which the will of a strong man is injected, +so to speak, into a weak one. This fascinating glare, which relaxed +all Lucien's fibres of resistance, revealed the existence not merely +of secrets of life and death between him and his adviser, but also of +feelings as far above ordinary feeling as the man himself was above his +vile position. + +Carlos Herrera, a man at once ignoble and magnanimous, obscure and +famous, compelled to live out of the world from which the law had banned +him, exhausted by vice and by frenzied and terrible struggles, though +endowed with powers of mind that ate into his soul, consumed especially +by a fever of vitality, now lived again in the elegant person of Lucien +de Rubempre, whose soul had become his own. He was represented in social +life by the poet, to whom he lent his tenacity and iron will. To him +Lucien was more than a son, more than a woman beloved, more than a +family, more than his life; he was his revenge; and as souls cling more +closely to a feeling than to existence, he had bound the young man to +him by insoluble ties. + +After rescuing Lucien's life at the moment when the poet in desperation +was on the verge of suicide, he had proposed to him one of those +infernal bargains which are heard of only in romances, but of which +the hideous possibility has often been proved in courts of justice by +celebrated criminal dramas. While lavishing on Lucien all the delights +of Paris life, and proving to him that he yet had a great future before +him, he had made him his chattel. + +But, indeed, no sacrifice was too great for this strange man when it +was to gratify his second self. With all his strength, he was so weak to +this creature of his making that he had even told him all his secrets. +Perhaps this abstract complicity was a bond the more between them. + +Since the day when La Torpille had been snatched away, Lucien had known +on what a vile foundation his good fortune rested. That priest's robe +covered Jacques Collin, a man famous on the hulks, who ten years since +had lived under the homely name of Vautrin in the Maison Vauquer, where +Rastignac and Bianchon were at that time boarders. + +Jacques Collin, known as _Trompe-la-Mort_, had escaped from Rochefort +almost as soon as he was recaptured, profiting by the example of the +famous Comte de Sainte-Helene, while modifying all that was ill planned +in Coignard's daring scheme. To take the place of an honest man and +carry on the convict's career is a proposition of which the two terms +are too contradictory for a disastrous outcome not to be inevitable, +especially in Paris; for, by establishing himself in a family, a convict +multiplies tenfold the perils of such a substitution. And to be safe +from all investigation, must not a man assume a position far above the +ordinary interests of life. A man of the world is subject to risks such +as rarely trouble those who have no contact with the world; hence the +priest's gown is the safest disguise when it can be authenticated by an +exemplary life in solitude and inactivity. + +"So a priest I will be," said the legally dead man, who was quite +determined to resuscitate as a figure in the world, and to satisfy +passions as strange as himself. + +The civil war caused by the Constitution of 1812 in Spain, whither this +energetic man had betaken himself, enabled him to murder secretly the +real Carlos Herrera from an ambush. This ecclesiastic, the bastard son +of a grandee, long since deserted by his father, and not knowing to what +woman he owed his birth, was intrusted by King Ferdinand VII., to whom +a bishop had recommended him, with a political mission to France. The +bishop, the only man who took any interest in Carlos Herrera, died +while this foundling son of the Church was on his journey from Cadiz +to Madrid, and from Madrid to France. Delighted to have met with this +longed-for opportunity, and under the most desirable conditions, Jacques +Collin scored his back to efface the fatal letters, and altered his +complexion by the use of chemicals. Thus metamorphosing himself face +to face with the corpse, he contrived to achieve some likeness to his +Sosia. And to complete a change almost as marvelous as that related in +the Arabian tale, where a dervish has acquired the power, old as he is, +of entering into a young body, by a magic spell, the convict, who spoke +Spanish, learned as much Latin as an Andalusian priest need know. + +As banker to three hulks, Collin was rich in the cash intrusted to his +known, and indeed enforced, honesty. Among such company a mistake is +paid for by a dagger thrust. To this capital he now added the money +given by the bishop to Don Carlos Herrera. Then, before leaving Spain, +he was able to possess himself of the treasure of an old bigot at +Barcelona, to whom he gave absolution, promising that he would make +restitution of the money constituting her fortune, which his penitent +had stolen by means of murder. + +Jacques Collin, now a priest, and charged with a secret mission which +would secure him the most brilliant introductions in Paris, determined +to do nothing that might compromise the character he had assumed, and +had given himself up to the chances of his new life, when he met Lucien +on the road between Angouleme and Paris. In this youth the sham priest +saw a wonderful instrument for power; he saved him from suicide saying: + +"Give yourself over to me as to a man of God, as men give themselves +over to the devil, and you will have every chance of a new career. You +will live as in a dream, and the worst awakening that can come to you +will be death, which you now wish to meet." + +The alliance between these two beings, who were to become one, as +it were, was based on this substantial reasoning, and Carlos Herrera +cemented it by an ingeniously plotted complicity. He had the very genius +of corruption, and undermined Lucien's honesty by plunging him into +cruel necessity, and extricating him by obtaining his tacit consent to +bad or disgraceful actions, which nevertheless left him pure, loyal, and +noble in the eyes of the world. Lucien was the social magnificence under +whose shadow the forger meant to live. + +"I am the author, you are the play; if you fail, it is I who shall be +hissed," said he on the day when he confessed his sacrilegious disguise. + +Carlos prudently confessed only a little at a time, measuring the +horrors of his revelations by Lucien's progress and needs. Thus +_Trompe-la-Mort_ did not let out his last secret till the habit of +Parisian pleasures and success, and gratified vanity, had enslaved the +weak-minded poet body and soul. Where Rastignac, when tempted by this +demon, had stood firm, Lucien, better managed, and more ingeniously +compromised, succumbed, conquered especially by his satisfaction in +having attained an eminent position. Incarnate evil, whose poetical +embodiment is called the Devil, displayed every delightful seduction +before this youth, who was half a woman, and at first gave much and +asked for little. The great argument used by Carlos was the eternal +secret promised by Tartufe to Elmire. + +The repeated proofs of absolute devotion, such as that of Said to +Mahomet, put the finishing touch to the horrible achievement of Lucien's +subjugation by a Jacques Collin. + +At this moment not only had Esther and Lucien devoured all the funds +intrusted to the honesty of the banker of the hulks, who, for their +sakes, had rendered himself liable to a dreadful calling to account, but +the dandy, the forger, and the courtesan were also in debt. Thus, as the +very moment of Lucien's expected success, the smallest pebble under +the foot of either of these three persons might involve the ruin of the +fantastic structure of fortune so audaciously built up. + +At the opera ball Rastignac had recognized the man he had known as +Vautrin at Madame Vauquer's; but he knew that if he did not hold his +tongue, he was a dead man. So Madame de Nucingen's lover and Lucien +had exchanged glances in which fear lurked, on both sides, under an +expression of amity. In the moment of danger, Rastignac, it is clear, +would have been delighted to provide the vehicle that should convey +Jacques Collin to the scaffold. From all this it may be understood that +Carlos heard of the Baron's passion with a glow of sombre satisfaction, +while he perceived in a single flash all the advantage a man of his +temper might derive by means of a hapless Esther. + +"Go on," said he to Lucien. "The Devil is mindful of his chaplain." + +"You are smoking on a powder barrel." + +"Incedo per ignes," replied Carlos with a smile. "That is my trade." + + + +The House of Grandlieu divided into two branches about the middle of the +last century: first, the ducal line destined to lapse, since the present +duke has only daughters; and then the Vicomtes de Grandlieu, who will +now inherit the title and armorial bearings of the elder branch. The +ducal house bears gules, three broad axes or in fess, with the famous +motto: Caveo non timeo, which epitomizes the history of the family. + +The coat of the Vicomtes de Grandlieu is the same quartered with that +of Navarreins: gules, a fess crenelated or, surmounted by a knight's +helmet, with the motto: Grands faits, grand lieu. The present +Viscountess, widowed in 1813, has a son and a daughter. Though she +returned from the Emigration almost ruined, she recovered a considerable +fortune by the zealous aid of Derville the lawyer. + +The Duc and Duchesse de Grandlieu, on coming home in 1804, were the +object of the Emperor's advances; indeed, Napoleon, seeing them come to +his court, restored to them all of the Grandlieu estates that had been +confiscated to the nation, to the amount of about forty thousand francs +a year. Of all the great nobles of the Faubourg Saint-Germain +who allowed themselves to be won over by Napoleon, this Duke and +Duchess--she was an Ajuda of the senior branch, and connected with the +Braganzas--were the only family who afterwards never disowned him and +his liberality. When the Faubourg Saint-Germain remembered this as a +crime against the Grandlieus, Louis XVIII. respected them for it; but +perhaps his only object was to annoy _Monsieur_. + +A marriage was considered likely between the young Vicomte de Grandlieu +and Marie-Athenais, the Duke's youngest daughter, now nine years old. +Sabine, the youngest but one, married the Baron du Guenic after +the revolution of July 1830; Josephine, the third, became Madame +d'Ajuda-Pinto after the death of the Marquis' first wife, Mademoiselle +de Rochefide, or Rochegude. The eldest had taken the veil in 1822. The +second, Mademoiselle Clotilde Frederique, at this time seven-and-twenty +years of age, was deeply in love with Lucien de Rubempre. It need not be +asked whether the Duc de Grandlieu's mansion, one of the finest in +the Rue Saint-Dominique, did not exert a thousand spells over Lucien's +imagination. Every time the heavy gate turned on its hinges to admit his +cab, he experienced the gratified vanity to which Mirabeau confessed. + +"Though my father was a mere druggist at l'Houmeau, I may enter here!" +This was his thought. + +And, indeed, he would have committed far worse crimes than allying +himself with a forger to preserve his right to mount the steps of that +entrance, to hear himself announced, "Monsieur de Rubempre" at the door +of the fine Louis XIV. drawing-room, decorated in the time of the grand +monarque on the pattern of those at Versailles, where that choicest +circle met, that cream of Paris society, called then le petit chateau. + +The noble Portuguese lady, one of those who never care to go out of +their own home, was usually the centre of her neighbors' attentions--the +Chaulieus, the Navarreins, the Lenoncourts. The pretty Baronne de +Macumer--nee de Chaulieu--the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, Madame d'Espard, +Madame de Camps, and Mademoiselle des Touches--a connection of the +Grandlieus, who are a Breton family--were frequent visitors on their way +to a ball or on their return from the opera. The Vicomte de Grandlieu, +the Duc de Rhetore, the Marquis de Chaulieu--afterwards Duc de +Lenoncourt-Chaulieu--his wife, Madeleine de Mortsauf, the Duc de +Lenoncourt's grand-daughter, the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto, the Prince de +Blamont-Chauvry, the Marquis de Beauseant, the Vidame de Pamiers, +the Vandenesses, the old Prince de Cadignan, and his son the Duc de +Maufrigneuse, were constantly to be seen in this stately drawing-room, +where they breathed the atmosphere of a Court, where manners, tone, and +wit were in harmony with the dignity of the Master and Mistress whose +aristocratic mien and magnificence had obliterated the memory of their +servility to Napoleon. + +The old Duchesse d'Uxelles, mother of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, was +the oracle of this circle, to which Madame de Serizy had never gained +admittance, though nee de Ronquerolles. + +Lucien was brought thither by Madame de Maufrigneuse, who had won over +her mother to speak in his favor, for she had doted on him for two +years; and the engaging young poet had kept his footing there, thanks +to the influence of the high Almoner of France, and the support of +the Archbishop of Paris. Still, he had not been admitted till he had +obtained the patent restoring to him the name and arms of the Rubempre +family. The Duc de Rhetore, the Chevalier d'Espard, and some others, +jealous of Lucien, periodically stirred up the Duc de Grandlieu's +prejudices against him by retailing anecdotes of the young man's +previous career; but the Duchess, a devout Catholic surrounded by the +great prelates of the Church, and her daughter Clotilde would not give +him up. + +Lucien accounted for these hostilities by his connection with Madame de +Bargeton, Madame d'Espard's cousin, and now Comtesse du Chatelet. Then, +feeling the importance of allying himself to so powerful a family, and +urged by his privy adviser to win Clotilde, Lucien found the courage of +the parvenu; he came to the house five days in the week, he swallowed +all the affronts of the envious, he endured impertinent looks, and +answered irony with wit. His persistency, the charm of his manners, and +his amiability, at last neutralized opposition and reduced obstacles. He +was still in the highest favor with Madame de Maufrigneuse, whose ardent +letters, written under the influence of her passion, were preserved by +Carlos Herrera; he was idolized by Madame de Serizy, and stood well +in Mademoiselle des Touches' good graces; and well content with being +received in these houses, Lucien was instructed by the Abbe to be as +reserved as possible in all other quarters. + +"You cannot devote yourself to several houses at once," said his Mentor. +"The man who goes everywhere finds no one to take a lively interest in +him. Great folks only patronize those who emulate their furniture, whom +they see every day, and who have the art of becoming as necessary to +them as the seat they sit on." + +Thus Lucien, accustomed to regard the Grandlieus' drawing-room as his +arena, reserved his wit, his jests, his news, and his courtier's graces +for the hours he spent there every evening. Insinuating, tactful, and +warned by Clotilde of the shoals he should avoid, he flattered Monsieur +de Grandlieu's little weaknesses. Clotilde, having begun by envying +Madame de Maufrigneuse her happiness, ended by falling desperately in +love with Lucien. + +Perceiving all the advantages of such a connection, Lucien played his +lover's part as well as it could have been acted by Armand, the latest +_jeune premier_ at the _Comedie Francaise_. + +He wrote to Clotilde, letters which were certainly masterpieces of +literary workmanship; and Clotilde replied, vying with him in genius in +the expression of perfervid love on paper, for she had no other outlet. +Lucien went to church at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin every Sunday, giving +himself out as a devout Catholic, and he poured forth monarchical +and pious harangues which were a marvel to all. He also wrote some +exceedingly remarkable articles in papers devoted to the "Congregation," +refusing to be paid for them, and signing them only with an "L." He +produced political pamphlets when required by King Charles X. or the +High Almoner, and for these he would take no payment. + +"The King," he would say, "has done so much for me, that I owe him my +blood." + +For some days past there had been an idea of attaching Lucien to the +prime minister's cabinet as his private secretary; but Madame d'Espard +brought so many persons into the field in opposition to Lucien, that +Charles X.'s _Maitre Jacques_ hesitated to clinch the matter. Nor was +Lucien's position by any means clear; not only did the question, "What +does he live on?" on everybody's lips as the young man rose in life, +require an answer, but even benevolent curiosity--as much as malevolent +curiosity--went on from one inquiry to another, and found more than one +joint in the ambitious youth's harness. + +Clotilde de Grandlieu unconsciously served as a spy for her father and +mother. A few days since she had led Lucien into a recess and told him +of the difficulties raised by her family. + +"Invest a million francs in land, and my hand is yours: that is my +mother's ultimatum," Clotilde had explained. + +"And presently they will ask you where you got the money," said Carlos, +when Lucien reported this last word in the bargain. + +"My brother-in-law will have made his fortune," remarked Lucien; "we can +make him the responsible backer." + +"Then only the million is needed," said Carlos. "I will think it over." + +To be exact as to Lucien's position in the Hotel Grandlieu, he had never +dined there. Neither Clotilde, nor the Duchesse d'Uxelles, nor Madame de +Maufrigneuse, who was always extremely kind to Lucien, could ever +obtain this favor from the Duke, so persistently suspicious was the old +nobleman of the man that he designated as "le Sire de Rubempre." This +shade of distinction, understood by every one who visited at the house, +constantly wounded Lucien's self-respect, for he felt that he was no +more than tolerated. But the world is justified in being suspicious; it +is so often taken in! + +To cut a figure in Paris with no known source of wealth and no +recognized employment is a position which can by no artifice be long +maintained. So Lucien, as he crept up in the world, gave more and more +weight to the question, "What does he live on?" He had been obliged +indeed to confess to Madame de Serizy, to whom he owed the patronage of +Monsieur Granville, the Public Prosecutor, and of the Comte Octave de +Bauvan, a Minister of State, and President of one of the Supreme Courts: +"I am dreadfully in debt." + +As he entered the courtyard of the mansion where he found an excuse +for all his vanities, he was saying to himself as he reflected on +_Trompe-la-Mort's_ scheming: + +"I can hear the ground cracking under my feet!" + +He loved Esther, and he wanted to marry Mademoiselle de Grandlieu! A +strange dilemma! One must be sold to buy the other. + +Only one person could effect this bargain without damage to Lucien's +honor, and that was the supposed Spaniard. Were they not bound to be +equally secret, each for the other? Such a compact, in which each is in +turn master and slave, is not to be found twice in any one life. + +Lucien drove away the clouds that darkened his brow, and walked into the +Grandlieu drawing-room gay and beaming. At this moment the windows were +open, the fragrance from the garden scented the room, the flower-basket +in the centre displayed its pyramid of flowers. The Duchess, seated on +a sofa in the corner, was talking to the Duchesse de Chaulieu. Several +women together formed a group remarkable for their various attitudes, +stamped with the different expression which each strove to give to an +affected sorrow. In the fashionable world nobody takes any interest in +grief or suffering; everything is talk. The men were walking up and +down the room or in the garden. Clotilde and Josephine were busy at +the tea-table. The Vidame de Pamiers, the Duc de Grandlieu, the Marquis +d'Ajuda-Pinto, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse were playing Wisk, as they +called it, in a corner of the room. + +When Lucien was announced he walked across the room to make his bow to +the Duchess, asking the cause of the grief he could read in her face. + +"Madame de Chaulieu has just had dreadful news; her son-in-law, the +Baron de Macumer, ex-duke of Soria, is just dead. The young Duc de Soria +and his wife, who had gone to Chantepleurs to nurse their brother, have +written this sad intelligence. Louise is heart-broken." + +"A women is not loved twice in her life as Louise was loved by her +husband," said Madeleine de Mortsauf. + +"She will be a rich widow," observed the old Duchesse d'Uxelles, looking +at Lucien, whose face showed no change of expression. + +"Poor Louise!" said Madame d'Espard. "I understand her and pity her." + +The Marquise d'Espard put on the pensive look of a woman full of soul +and feeling. Sabine de Grandlieu, who was but ten years old, raised +knowing eyes to her mother's face, but the satirical glance was +repressed by a glance from the Duchess. This is bringing children up +properly. + +"If my daughter lives through the shock," said Madame de Chaulieu, +with a very maternal manner, "I shall be anxious about her future life. +Louise is so very romantic." + +"It is so difficult nowadays," said a venerable Cardinal, "to reconcile +feeling with the proprieties." + +Lucien, who had not a word to say, went to the tea-table to do what was +polite to the demoiselles de Grandlieu. When the poet had gone a few +yards away, the Marquise d'Espard leaned over to whisper in the Duchess' +ear: + +"And do you really think that that young fellow is so much in love with +your Clotilde?" + +The perfidy of this question cannot be fully understood but with the +help of a sketch of Clotilde. That young lady was, at this moment, +standing up. Her attitude allowed the Marquise d'Espard's mocking eye to +take in Clotilde's lean, narrow figure, exactly like an asparagus stalk; +the poor girl's bust was so flat that it did not allow of the artifice +known to dressmakers as _fichus menteurs_, or padded habitshirts. And +Clotilde, who knew that her name was a sufficient advantage in life, far +from trying to conceal this defect, heroically made a display of it. By +wearing plain, tight dresses she achieved the effect of that stiff prim +shape which medieval sculptors succeeded in giving to the statuettes +whose profiles are conspicuous against the background of the niches in +which they stand in cathedrals. + +Clotilde was more than five feet four in height; if we may be allowed +to use a familiar phrase, which has the merit at any rate of being +perfectly intelligible--she was all legs. These defective proportions +gave her figure an almost deformed appearance. With a dark complexion, +harsh black hair, very thick eyebrows, fiery eyes, set in sockets that +were already deeply discolored, a side face shaped like the moon in +its first quarter, and a prominent brow, she was the caricature of her +mother, one of the handsomest women in Portugal. Nature amuses herself +with such tricks. Often we see in one family a sister of wonderful +beauty, whose features in her brother are absolutely hideous, though the +two are amazingly alike. Clotilde's lips, excessively thin and sunken, +wore a permanent expression of disdain. And yet her mouth, better than +any other feature of her face, revealed every secret impulse of her +heart, for affection lent it a sweet expression, which was all the more +remarkable because her cheeks were too sallow for blushes, and her +hard, black eyes never told anything. Notwithstanding these defects, +notwithstanding her board-like carriage, she had by birth and education +a grand air, a proud demeanor, in short, everything that has been well +named le je ne sais quoi, due partly, perhaps, to her uncompromising +simplicity of dress, which stamped her as a woman of noble blood. She +dressed her hair to advantage, and it might be accounted to her for a +beauty, for it grew vigorously, thick and long. + +She had cultivated her voice, and it could cast a spell; she sang +exquisitely. Clotilde was just the woman of whom one says, "She has fine +eyes," or, "She has a delightful temper." If any one addressed her in +the English fashion as "Your Grace," she would say, "You mean 'Your +leanness.'" + +"Why should not my poor Clotilde have a lover?" replied the Duchess to +the Marquise. "Do you know what she said to me yesterday? 'If I am +loved for ambition's sake, I undertake to make him love me for my own +sake.'--She is clever and ambitious, and there are men who like those +two qualities. As for him--my dear, he is as handsome as a vision; and +if he can but repurchase the Rubempre estates, out of regard for us the +King will reinstate him in the title of Marquis.--After all, his mother +was the last of the Rubempres." + +"Poor fellow! where is he to find a million francs?" said the Marquise. + +"That is no concern of ours," replied the Duchess. "He is certainly +incapable of stealing the money.--Besides, we would never give Clotilde +to an intriguing or dishonest man even if he were handsome, young, and a +poet, like Monsieur de Rubempre." + +"You are late this evening," said Clotilde, smiling at Lucien with +infinite graciousness. + +"Yes, I have been dining out." + +"You have been quite gay these last few days," said she, concealing her +jealousy and anxiety behind a smile. + +"Quite gay?" replied Lucien. "No--only by the merest chance I have been +dining every day this week with bankers; to-day with the Nucingens, +yesterday with du Tillet, the day before with the Kellers----" + +Whence, it may be seen, that Lucien had succeeded in assuming the tone +of light impertinence of great people. + +"You have many enemies," said Clotilde, offering him--how graciously!--a +cup of tea. "Some one told my father that you have debts to the amount +of sixty thousand francs, and that before long Sainte-Pelagie will be +your summer quarters.--If you could know what all these calumnies are to +me!--It all recoils on me.--I say nothing of my own suffering--my +father has a way of looking that crucifies me--but of what you must be +suffering if any least part of it should be the truth." + +"Do not let such nonsense worry you; love me as I love you, and give +me time--a few months----" said Lucien, replacing his empty cup on the +silver tray. + +"Do not let my father see you; he would say something disagreeable; and +as you could not submit to that, we should be done for.--That odious +Marquise d'Espard told him that your mother had been a monthly nurse and +that your sister did ironing----" + +"We were in the most abject poverty," replied Lucien, the tears rising +to his eyes. "That is not calumny, but it is most ill-natured gossip. My +sister now is a more than millionaire, and my mother has been dead +two years.--This information has been kept in stock to use just when I +should be on the verge of success here----" + +"But what have you done to Madame d'Espard?" + +"I was so rash, at Madame de Serizy's, as to tell the story, with some +added pleasantries, in the presence of MM. de Bauvan and de Granville, +of her attempt to get a commission of lunacy appointed to sit on her +husband, the Marquis d'Espard. Bianchon had told it to me. Monsieur de +Granville's opinion, supported by those of Bauvan and Serizy, influenced +the decision of the Keeper of the Seals. They all were afraid of the +_Gazette des Tribunaux_, and dreaded the scandal, and the Marquise got +her knuckles rapped in the summing up for the judgment finally recorded +in that miserable business. + +"Though M. de Serizy by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe, +I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte +Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I +stood in consequence of their allowing the source of their information +to be guessed at. The Marquis d'Espard was so clumsy as to call upon me, +regarding me as the first cause of his winning the day in that atrocious +suit." + +"I will rescue you from Madame d'Espard," said Clotilde. + +"How?" cried Lucien. + +"My mother will ask the young d'Espards here; they are charming boys, +and growing up now. The father and sons will sing your praises, and then +we are sure never to see their mother again." + +"Oh, Clotilde, you are an angel! If I did not love you for yourself, I +should love you for being so clever." + +"It is not cleverness," said she, all her love beaming on her lips. +"Goodnight. Do not come again for some few days. When you see me in +church, at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, with a pink scarf, my father will be in +a better temper.--You will find an answer stuck to the back of the chair +you are sitting in; it will comfort you perhaps for not seeing me. Put +the note you have brought under my handkerchief----" + +This young person was evidently more than seven-and-twenty. + + + +Lucien took a cab in the Rue de la Planche, got out of it on the +Boulevards, took another by the Madeleine, and desired the driver to +have the gates opened and drive in at the house in the Rue Taitbout. + +On going in at eleven o'clock, he found Esther in tears, but dressed as +she was wont to dress to do him honor. She awaited her Lucien reclining +on a sofa covered with white satin brocaded with yellow flowers, dressed +in a bewitching wrapper of India muslin with cherry-colored bows; +without her stays, her hair simply twisted into a knot, her feet in +little velvet slippers lined with cherry-colored satin; all the candles +were burning, the hookah was prepared. But she had not smoked her own, +which stood beside her unlighted, emblematical of her loneliness. On +hearing the doors open she sprang up like a gazelle, and threw her arms +round Lucien, wrapping him like a web caught by the wind and flung about +a tree. + +"Parted.--Is it true?" + +"Oh, just for a few days," replied Lucien. + +Esther released him, and fell back on her divan like a dead thing. + +In these circumstances, most women babble like parrots. Oh! how they +love! At the end of five years they feel as if their first happiness +were a thing of yesterday, they cannot give you up, they are magnificent +in their indignation, despair, love, grief, dread, dejection, +presentiments. In short, they are as sublime as a scene from +Shakespeare. But make no mistake! These women do not love. When they are +really all that they profess, when they love truly, they do as Esther +did, as children do, as true love does; Esther did not say a word, she +lay with her face buried in the pillows, shedding bitter tears. + +Lucien, on his part, tried to lift her up, and spoke to her. + +"But, my child, we are not to part. What, after four years of happiness, +is this the way you take a short absence.--What on earth do I do to all +these girls?" he added to himself, remembering that Coralie had loved +him thus. + +"Ah, monsieur, you are so handsome," said Europe. + +The senses have their own ideal. When added to this fascinating beauty +we find the sweetness of nature, the poetry, that characterized Lucien, +it is easy to conceive of the mad passion roused in such women, keenly +alive as they are to external gifts, and artless in their admiration. +Esther was sobbing quietly, and lay in an attitude expressive of the +deepest distress. + +"But, little goose," said Lucien, "did you not understand that my life +is at stake?" + +At these words, which he chose on purpose, Esther started up like a wild +animal, her hair fell, tumbling about her excited face like wreaths of +foliage. She looked steadily at Lucien. + +"Your life?" she cried, throwing up her arms, and letting them drop with +a gesture known only to a courtesan in peril. "To be sure; that friend's +note speaks of serious risk." + +She took a shabby scrap of paper out of her sash; then seeing Europe, +she said, "Leave us, my girl." + +When Europe had shut the door she went on--"Here, this is what he +writes," and she handed to Lucien a note she had just received from +Carlos, which Lucien read aloud:-- + + "You must leave to-morrow at five in the morning; you will be + taken to a keeper's lodge in the heart of the Forest of + Saint-Germain, where you will have a room on the first floor. Do + not quit that room till I give you leave; you will want for nothing. + The keeper and his wife are to be trusted. Do not write to Lucien. + Do not go to the window during daylight; but you may walk by night + with the keeper if you wish for exercise. Keep the carriage blinds + down on the way. Lucien's life is at stake. + + "Lucien will go to-night to bid you good-bye; burn this in his + presence." + +Lucien burned the note at once in the flame of a candle. + +"Listen, my own Lucien," said Esther, after hearing him read this letter +as a criminal hears the sentence of death; "I will not tell you that +I love you; it would be idiotic. For nearly five years it has been as +natural to me to love you as to breathe and live. From the first day +when my happiness began under the protection of that inscrutable being, +who placed me here as you place some little curious beast in a cage, I +have known that you must marry. Marriage is a necessary factor in your +career, and God preserve me from hindering the development of your +fortunes. + +"That marriage will be my death. But I will not worry you; I will not +do as the common girls do who kill themselves by means of a brazier +of charcoal; I had enough of that once; twice raises your gorge, as +Mariette says. No, I will go a long way off, out of France. Asie +knows the secrets of her country; she will help me to die quietly. A +prick--whiff, it is all over! + +"I ask but one thing, my dearest, and that is that you will not deceive +me. I have had my share of living. Since the day I first saw you, in +1824, till this day, I have known more happiness than can be put into +the lives of ten fortunate wives. So take me for what I am--a woman as +strong as I am weak. Say 'I am going to be married.' I will ask no more +of you than a fond farewell, and you shall never hear of me again." + +There was a moment's silence after this explanation as sincere as her +action and tone were guileless. + +"Is it that you are going to be married?" she repeated, looking into +Lucien's blue eyes with one of her fascinating glances, as brilliant as +a steel blade. + +"We have been toiling at my marriage for eighteen months past, and it is +not yet settled," replied Lucien. "I do not know when it can be settled; +but it is not in question now, child!--It is the Abbe, I, you.--We are +in real peril. Nucingen saw you----" + +"Yes, in the wood at Vincennes," said she. "Did he recognize me?" + +"No," said Lucien. "But he has fallen so desperately in love with +you, that he would sacrifice his coffers. After dinner, when he +was describing how he had met you, I was so foolish as to smile +involuntarily, and most imprudently, for I live in a world like a savage +surrounded by the traps of a hostile tribe. Carlos, who spares me +the pains of thinking, regards the position as dangerous, and he has +undertaken to pay Nucingen out if the Baron takes it into his head +to spy on us; and he is quite capable of it; he spoke to me of the +incapacity of the police. You have lighted a flame in an old chimney +choked with soot." + +"And what does your Spaniard propose to do?" asked Esther very softly. + +"I do not know in the least," said Lucien; "he told me I might sleep +soundly and leave it to him;"--but he dared not look at Esther. + +"If that is the case, I will obey him with the dog-like submission I +profess," said Esther, putting her hand through Lucien's arm and leading +him into her bedroom, saying, "At any rate, I hope you dined well, my +Lulu, at that detestable Baron's?" + +"Asie's cooking prevents my ever thinking a dinner good, however famous +the chef may be, where I happen to dine. However, Careme did the dinner +to-night, as he does every Sunday." + +Lucien involuntarily compared Esther with Clotilde. The mistress was so +beautiful, so unfailingly charming, that she had as yet kept at arm's +length the monster who devours the most perennial loves--Satiety. + +"What a pity," thought he, "to find one's wife in two volumes. In +one--poetry, delight, love, devotion, beauty, sweetness----" + +Esther was fussing about, as women do, before going to bed; she came and +went and fluttered round, singing all the time; you might have thought +her a humming-bird. + +"In the other--a noble name, family, honors, rank, knowledge of the +world!--And no earthly means of combining them!" cried Lucien to +himself. + +Next morning, at seven, when the poet awoke in the pretty pink-and-white +room, he found himself alone. He rang, and Europe hurried in. + +"What are monsieur's orders?" + +"Esther?" + +"Madame went off this morning at a quarter to five. By Monsieur l'Abbe's +order, I admitted a new face--carriage paid." + +"A woman?" + +"No, sir, an English woman--one of those people who do their day's work +by night, and we are ordered to treat her as if she were madame. What +can you have to say to such hack!--Poor Madame, how she cried when she +got into the carriage. 'Well, it has to be done!' cried she. 'I left +that poor dear boy asleep,' said she, wiping away her tears; 'Europe, if +he had looked at me or spoken my name, I should have stayed--I could but +have died with him.'--I tell you, sir, I am so fond of madame, that I +did not show her the person who has taken her place; some waiting maids +would have broken her heart by doing so." + +"And is the stranger there?" + +"Well, sir, she came in the chaise that took away madame, and I hid her +in my room in obedience to my instructions----" + +"Is she nice-looking?" + +"So far as such a second-hand article can be. But she will find her part +easy enough if you play yours, sir," said Europe, going to fetch the +false Esther. + + + +The night before, ere going to bed, the all-powerful banker had given +his orders to his valet, who, at seven in the morning, brought in to him +the notorious Louchard, the most famous of the commercial police, whom +he left in a little sitting-room; there the Baron joined him, in a +dressing gown and slippers. + +"You haf mate a fool of me!" he said, in reply to this official's +greeting. + +"I could not help myself, Monsieur le Baron. I do not want to lose my +place, and I had the honor of explaining to you that I could not meddle +in a matter that had nothing to do with my functions. What did I promise +you? To put you into communication with one of our agents, who, as it +seemed to me, would be best able to serve you. But you know, Monsieur le +Baron, the sharp lines that divide men of different trades: if you build +a house, you do not set a carpenter to do smith's work. Well, there +are two branches of the police--the political police and the judicial +police. The political police never interfere with the other branch, and +vice versa. If you apply to the chief of the political police, he must +get permission from the Minister to take up our business, and you would +not dare to explain it to the head of the police throughout the kingdom. +A police-agent who should act on his own account would lose his place. + +"Well, the ordinary police are quite as cautious as the political +police. So no one, whether in the Home Office or at the Prefecture of +Police, ever moves excepting in the interests of the State or for the +ends of Justice. + +"If there is a plot or a crime to be followed up, then, indeed, the +heads of the corps are at your service; but you must understand, +Monsieur le Baron, that they have other fish to fry than looking after +the fifty thousand love affairs in Paris. As to me and my men, our only +business is to arrest debtors; and as soon as anything else is to be +done, we run enormous risks if we interfere with the peace and quiet of +any man or woman. I sent you one of my men, but I told you I could not +answer for him; you instructed him to find a particular woman in Paris; +Contenson bled you of a thousand-franc note, and did not even move. You +might as well look for a needle in the river as for a woman in Paris, +who is supposed to haunt Vincennes, and of whom the description answers +to every pretty woman in the capital." + +"And could not Contenson haf tolt me de truf, instead of making me pleed +out one tousand franc?" + +"Listen to me, Monsieur le Baron," said Louchard. "Will you give me a +thousand crowns? I will give you--sell you--a piece of advice?" + +"Is it vort one tousand crowns--your atvice?" asked Nucingen. + +"I am not to be caught, Monsieur le Baron," answered Louchard. "You +are in love, you want to discover the object of your passion; you are +getting as yellow as a lettuce without water. Two physicians came to see +you yesterday, your man tells me, who think your life is in danger; now, +I alone can put you in the hands of a clever fellow.--But the deuce is +in it! If your life is not worth a thousand crowns----" + +"Tell me de name of dat clefer fellow, and depent on my generosity----" + +Louchard took up his hat, bowed, and left the room. + +"Wat ein teufel!" cried Nucingen. "Come back--look here----" + +"Take notice," said Louchard, before taking the money, "I am only +selling a piece of information, pure and simple. I can give you the name +and address of the only man who is able to be of use to you--but he is a +master----" + +"Get out mit you," cried Nucingen. "Dere is not no name dat is vort one +tousant crown but dat von Varschild--and dat only ven it is sign at the +bottom of a bank-bill.--I shall gif you one tousant franc." + +Louchard, a little weasel, who had never been able to purchase an +office as lawyer, notary, clerk, or attorney, leered at the Baron in a +significant fashion. + +"To you--a thousand crowns, or let it alone. You will get them back in a +few seconds on the Bourse," said he. + +"I will gif you one tousant franc," repeated the Baron. + +"You would cheapen a gold mine!" said Louchard, bowing and leaving. + +"I shall get dat address for five hundert franc!" cried the Baron, who +desired his servant to send his secretary to him. + +Turcaret is no more. In these days the smallest banker, like the +greatest, exercises his acumen in the smallest transactions; he bargains +over art, beneficence, and love; he would bargain with the Pope for a +dispensation. Thus, as he listened to Louchard, Nucingen had hastily +concluded that Contenson, Louchard's right-hand man, must certainly +know the address of that master spy. Contenson would tell him for five +hundred francs what Louchard wanted to see a thousand crowns for. +The rapid calculation plainly proves that if the man's heart was in +possession of love, his head was still that of the lynx stock-jobber. + +"Go your own self, mensieur," said the Baron to his secretary, +"to Contenson, dat spy of Louchart's de bailiff man--but go in one +capriolette, very qvick, and pring him here qvick to me. I shall +vait.--Go out trough de garten.--Here is dat key, for no man shall see +dat man in here. You shall take him into dat little garten-house. Try to +do dat little business very clefer." + +Visitors called to see Nucingen on business; but he waited for +Contenson, he was dreaming of Esther, telling himself that before long +he would see again the woman who had aroused in him such unhoped-for +emotions, and he sent everybody away with vague replies and double-edged +promises. Contenson was to him the most important person in Paris, and +he looked out into the garden every minute. Finally, after giving orders +that no one else was to be admitted, he had his breakfast served in the +summer-house at one corner of the garden. In the banker's office the +conduct and hesitancy of the most knowing, the most clearsighted, the +shrewdest of Paris financiers seemed inexplicable. + +"What ails the chief?" said a stockbroker to one of the head-clerks. + +"No one knows; they are anxious about his health, it would seem. +Yesterday, Madame la Baronne got Desplein and Bianchon to meet." + +One day, when Sir Isaac Newton was engaged in physicking one of his +dogs, named "Beauty" (who, as is well known, destroyed a vast amount of +work, and whom he reproved only in these words, "Ah! Beauty, you little +know the mischief you have done!"), some strangers called to see him; +but they at once retired, respecting the great man's occupation. In +every more or less lofty life, there is a little dog "Beauty." When the +Marechal de Richelieu came to pay his respects to Louis XV. after taking +Mahon, one of the greatest feats of arms of the eighteenth century, +the King said to him, "Have you heard the great news? Poor Lansmatt is +dead."--Lansmatt was a gatekeeper in the secret of the King's intrigues. + +The bankers of Paris never knew how much they owed to Contenson. That +spy was the cause of Nucingen's allowing an immense loan to be issued in +which his share was allotted to him, and which he gave over to them. +The stock-jobber could aim at a fortune any day with the artillery of +speculation, but the man was a slave to the hope of happiness. + +The great banker drank some tea, and was nibbling at a slice of bread +and butter, as a man does whose teeth have for long been sharpened by +appetite, when he heard a carriage stop at the little garden gate. In a +few minutes his secretary brought in Contenson, whom he had run to earth +in a cafe not far from Sainte-Pelagie, where the man was breakfasting on +the strength of a bribe given to him by an imprisoned debtor for certain +allowances that must be paid for. + +Contenson, you must know, was a whole poem--a Paris poem. Merely to +see him would have been enough to tell you that Beaumarchais' +_Figaro_, Moliere's _Mascarille_, Marivaux's _Frontin_, and Dancourt's +_Lafleur_--those great representatives of audacious swindling, of +cunning driven to bay, of stratagem rising again from the ends of its +broken wires--were all quite second-rate by comparison with this giant +of cleverness and meanness. When in Paris you find a real type, he is no +longer a man, he is a spectacle; no longer a factor in life, but a whole +life, many lives. + +Bake a plaster cast four times in a furnace, and you get a sort of +bastard imitation of Florentine bronze. Well, the thunderbolts of +numberless disasters, the pressure of terrible necessities, had bronzed +Contenson's head, as though sweating in an oven had three times over +stained his skin. Closely-set wrinkles that could no longer be relaxed +made eternal furrows, whiter in their cracks. The yellow face was all +wrinkles. The bald skull, resembling Voltaire's, was as parched as a +death's-head, and but for a few hairs at the back it would have seemed +doubtful whether it was that of a living man. Under a rigid brow, a +pair of Chinese eyes, like those of an image under a glass shade in a +tea-shop--artificial eyes, which sham life but never vary--moved but +expressed nothing. The nose, as flat as that of a skull, sniffed at +fate; and the mouth, as thin-lipped as a miser's, was always open, but +as expressionless as the grin of a letterbox. + +Contenson, as apathetic as a savage, with sunburned hands, affected +that Diogenes-like indifference which can never bend to any formality of +respect. + +And what a commentary on his life was written on his dress for any one +who can decipher a dress! Above all, what trousers! made, by long wear, +as black and shiny as the camlet of which lawyers' gowns are made! A +waistcoat, bought in an old clothes shop in the Temple, with a deep +embroidered collar! A rusty black coat!--and everything well brushed, +clean after a fashion, and graced by a watch and an imitation gold +chain. Contenson allowed a triangle of shirt to show, with pleats in +which glittered a sham diamond pin; his black velvet stock set stiff +like a gorget, over which lay rolls of flesh as red as that of a +Caribbee. His silk hat was as glossy as satin, but the lining would have +yielded grease enough for two street lamps if some grocer had bought it +to boil down. + +But to enumerate these accessories is nothing; if only I could give an +idea of the air of immense importance that Contenson contrived to impart +to them! There was something indescribably knowing in the collar of his +coat, and the fresh blacking on a pair of boots with gaping soles, to +which no language can do justice. However, to give some notion of this +medley of effect, it may be added that any man of intelligence would +have felt, only on seeing Contenson, that if instead of being a spy he +had been a thief, all these odds and ends, instead of raising a smile, +would have made one shudder with horror. Judging only from his dress, +the observer would have said to himself, "That is a scoundrel; he +gambles, he drinks, he is full of vices; but he does not get drunk, he +does not cheat, he is neither a thief nor a murderer." And Contenson +remained inscrutable till the word spy suggested itself. + +This man had followed as many unrecognized trades as there are +recognized ones. The sly smile on his lips, the twinkle of his green +eyes, the queer twitch of his snub nose, showed that he was not +deficient in humor. He had a face of sheet-tin, and his soul must +probably be like his face. Every movement of his countenance was a +grimace wrung from him by politeness rather than by any expression of +an inmost impulse. He would have been alarming if he had not seemed so +droll. + +Contenson, one of the most curious products of the scum that rises to +the top of the seething Paris caldron, where everything ferments, prided +himself on being, above all things, a philosopher. He would say, without +any bitter feeling: + +"I have great talents, but of what use are they? I might as well have +been an idiot." + +And he blamed himself instead of accusing mankind. Find, if you can, +many spies who have not had more venom about them than Contenson had. + +"Circumstances are against me," he would say to his chiefs. "We might be +fine crystal; we are but grains of sand, that is all." + +His indifference to dress had some sense. He cared no more about his +everyday clothes than an actor does; he excelled in disguising himself, +in "make-up"; he could have given Frederic Lemaitre a lesson, for he +could be a dandy when necessary. Formerly, in his younger days, he must +have mingled in the out-at-elbows society of people living on a humble +scale. He expressed excessive disgust for the criminal police corps; +for, under the Empire, he had belonged to Fouche's police, and looked +upon him as a great man. Since the suppression of this Government +department, he had devoted his energies to the tracking of commercial +defaulters; but his well-known talents and acumen made him a valuable +auxiliary, and the unrecognized chiefs of the political police had kept +his name on their lists. Contenson, like his fellows, was only a super +in the dramas of which the leading parts were played by his chief when a +political investigation was in the wind. + +"Go 'vay," said Nucingen, dismissing his secretary with a wave of the +hand. + +"Why should this man live in a mansion and I in a lodging?" wondered +Contenson to himself. "He has dodged his creditors three times; he has +robbed them; I never stole a farthing; I am a cleverer fellow than he +is----" + +"Contenson, mein freund," said the Baron, "you haf vat you call pleed me +of one tousand-franc note." + +"My girl owed God and the devil----" + +"Vat, you haf a girl, a mistress!" cried Nucingen, looking at Contenson +with admiration not unmixed with envy. + +"I am but sixty-six," replied Contenson, as a man whom vice has kept +young as a bad example. + +"And vat do she do?" + +"She helps me," said Contenson. "When a man is a thief, and an honest +woman loves him, either she becomes a thief or he becomes an honest man. +I have always been a spy." + +"And you vant money--alvays?" asked Nucingen. + +"Always," said Contenson, with a smile. "It is part of my business +to want money, as it is yours to make it; we shall easily come to an +understanding. You find me a little, and I will undertake to spend it. +You shall be the well, and I the bucket." + +"Vould you like to haf one note for fife hundert franc?" + +"What a question! But what a fool I am!--You do not offer it out of a +disinterested desire to repair the slights of Fortune?" + +"Not at all. I gif it besides the one tousand-franc note vat you pleed +me off. Dat makes fifteen hundert franc vat I gif you." + +"Very good, you give me the thousand francs I have had and you will add +five hundred francs." + +"Yust so," said Nucingen, nodding. + +"But that still leaves only five hundred francs," said Contenson +imperturbably. + +"Dat I gif," added the Baron. + +"That I take. Very good; and what, Monsieur le Baron, do you want for +it?" + +"I haf been told dat dere vas in Paris one man vat could find the voman +vat I lof, and dat you know his address.... A real master to spy." + +"Very true." + +"Vell den, gif me dat address, and I gif you fife hundert franc." + +"Where are they?" said Contenson. + +"Here dey are," said the Baron, drawing a note out of his pocket. + +"All right, hand them over," said Contenson, holding out his hand. + +"Noting for noting! Le us see de man, and you get de money; you might +sell to me many address at dat price." + +Contenson began to laugh. + +"To be sure, you have a right to think that of me," said he, with an air +of blaming himself. "The more rascally our business is, the more honesty +is necessary. But look here, Monsieur le Baron, make it six hundred, and +I will give you a bit of advice." + +"Gif it, and trust to my generosity." + +"I will risk it," Contenson said, "but it is playing high. In such +matters, you see, we have to work underground. You say, 'Quick +march!'--You are rich; you think that money can do everything. Well, +money is something, no doubt. Still, money can only buy men, as the two +or three best heads in our force so often say. And there are many things +you would never think of which money cannot buy.--You cannot buy good +luck. So good police work is not done in this style. Will you show +yourself in a carriage with me? We should be seen. Chance is just as +often for us as against us." + +"Really-truly?" said the Baron. + +"Why, of course, sir. A horseshoe picked up in the street led the chief +of the police to the discovery of the infernal machine. Well, if we were +to go to-night in a hackney coach to Monsieur de Saint-Germain, he would +not like to see you walk in any more than you would like to be seen +going there." + +"Dat is true," said the Baron. + +"Ah, he is the greatest of the great! such another as the famous +Corentin, Fouche's right arm, who was, some say, his natural son, born +while he was still a priest; but that is nonsense. Fouche knew how to +be a priest as he knew how to be a Minister. Well, you will not get this +man to do anything for you, you see, for less than ten thousand-franc +notes--think of that.--But he will do the job, and do it well. Neither +seen nor heard, as they say. I ought to give Monsieur de Saint-Germanin +notice, and he will fix a time for your meeting in some place where no +one can see or hear, for it is a dangerous game to play policeman for +private interests. Still, what is to be said? He is a good fellow, the +king of good fellows, and a man who has undergone much persecution, and +for having saving his country too!--like me, like all who helped to save +it." + +"Vell den, write and name de happy day," said the Baron, smiling at his +humble jest. + +"And Monsieur le Baron will allow me to drink his health?" said +Contenson, with a manner at once cringing and threatening. + +"Shean," cried the Baron to the gardener, "go and tell Chorge to sent me +one twenty francs, and pring dem to me----" + +"Still, Monsieur le Baron, if you have no more information than you have +just given me, I doubt whether the great man can be of any use to you." + +"I know off oders!" replied the Baron with a cunning look. + +"I have the honor to bid you good-morning, Monsieur le Baron," said +Contenson, taking the twenty-franc piece. "I shall have the honor of +calling again to tell Georges where you are to go this evening, for we +never write anything in such cases when they are well managed." + +"It is funny how sharp dese rascals are!" said the Baron to himself; "it +is de same mit de police as it is in buss'niss." + + + +When he left the Baron, Contenson went quietly from the Rue Saint-Lazare +to the Rue Saint-Honore, as far as the Cafe David. He looked in through +the windows, and saw an old man who was known there by the name of le +Pere Canquoelle. + +The Cafe David, at the corner of the Rue de la Monnaie and the Rue +Saint-Honore, enjoyed a certain celebrity during the first thirty years +of the century, though its fame was limited to the quarter known as +that of the Bourdonnais. Here certain old retired merchants, and large +shopkeepers still in trade, were wont to meet--the Camusots, the Lebas, +the Pilleraults, the Popinots, and a few house-owners like little old +Molineux. Now and again old Guillaume might be seen there, coming +from the Rue du Colombier. Politics were discussed in a quiet way, but +cautiously, for the opinions of the Cafe David were liberal. The gossip +of the neighborhood was repeated, men so urgently feel the need of +laughing at each other! + +This cafe, like all cafes for that matter, had its eccentric character +in the person of the said Pere Canquoelle, who had been regular in +his attendance there since 1811, and who seemed to be so completely in +harmony with the good folks who assembled there, that they all talked +politics in his presence without reserve. Sometimes this old fellow, +whose guilelessness was the subject of much laughter to the customers, +would disappear for a month or two; but his absence never surprised +anybody, and was always attributed to his infirmities or his great age, +for he looked more than sixty in 1811. + +"What has become of old Canquoelle?" one or another would ask of the +manageress at the desk. + +"I quite expect that one fine day we shall read in the +advertisement-sheet that he is dead," she would reply. + +Old Canquoelle bore a perpetual certificate of his native province +in his accent. He spoke of _une estatue_ (a statue), _le peuble_ (the +people), and said _ture_ for _turc_. His name was that of a tiny estate +called les Canquoelles, a word meaning cockchafer in some districts, +situated in the department of Vaucluse, whence he had come. At last +every one had fallen into the habit of calling him Canquoelle, instead +of des Canquoelles, and the old man took no offence, for in his +opinion the nobility had perished in 1793; and besides, the land of les +Canquoelles did not belong to him; he was a younger son's younger son. + +Nowadays old Canquoelle's costume would look strange, but between 1811 +and 1820 it astonished no one. The old man wore shoes with cut-steel +buckles, silk stockings with stripes round the leg, alternately blue and +white, corded silk knee-breeches with oval buckles cut to match those +on his shoes. A white embroidered waistcoat, an old coat of olive-brown +with metal buttons, and a shirt with a flat-pleated frill completed his +costume. In the middle of the shirt-frill twinkled a small gold locket, +in which might be seen, under glass, a little temple worked in hair, one +of those pathetic trifles which give men confidence, just as a scarecrow +frightens sparrows. Most men, like other animals, are frightened or +reassured by trifles. Old Canquoelle's breeches were kept in place by a +buckle which, in the fashion of the last century, tightened them across +the stomach; from the belt hung on each side a short steel chain, +composed of several finer chains, and ending in a bunch of seals. His +white neckcloth was fastened behind by a small gold buckle. Finally, +on his snowy and powdered hair, he still, in 1816, wore the municipal +cocked hat which Monsieur Try, the President of the Law Courts, also +used to wear. But Pere Canquoelle had recently substituted for this hat, +so dear to old men, the undignified top-hat, which no one dares to rebel +against. The good man thought he owed so much as this to the spirit of +the age. A small pigtail tied with a ribbon had traced a semicircle on +the back of his coat, the greasy mark being hidden by powder. + +If you looked no further than the most conspicuous feature of his face, +a nose covered with excrescences red and swollen enough to figure in +a dish of truffles, you might have inferred that the worthy man had an +easy temper, foolish and easy-going, that of a perfect gaby; and you +would have been deceived, like all at the Cafe David, where no one had +ever remarked the studious brow, the sardonic mouth, and the cold eyes +of this old man, petted by his vices, and as calm as Vitellius, whose +imperial and portly stomach reappeared in him palingenetically, so to +speak. + +In 1816 a young commercial traveler named Gaudissart, who frequented +the Cafe David, sat drinking from eleven o'clock till midnight with a +half-pay officer. He was so rash as to discuss a conspiracy against the +Bourbons, a rather serious plot then on the point of execution. There +was no one to be seen in the cafe but Pere Canquoelle, who seemed to +be asleep, two waiters who were dozing, and the accountant at the desk. +Within four-and-twenty hours Gaudissart was arrested, the plot was +discovered. Two men perished on the scaffold. Neither Gaudissart nor any +one else ever suspected that worthy old Canquoelle of having peached. +The waiters were dismissed; for a year they were all on their guard and +afraid of the police--as Pere Canquoelle was too; indeed, he talked of +retiring from the Cafe David, such horror had he of the police. + +Contenson went into the cafe, asked for a glass of brandy, and did not +look at Canquoelle, who sat reading the papers; but when he had gulped +down the brandy, he took out the Baron's gold piece, and called the +waiter by rapping three short raps on the table. The lady at the +desk and the waiter examined the coin with a minute care that was not +flattering to Contenson; but their suspicions were justified by the +astonishment produced on all the regular customers by Contenson's +appearance. + +"Was that gold got by theft or by murder?" + +This was the idea that rose to some clear and shrewd minds as they +looked at Contenson over their spectacles, while affecting to read the +news. Contenson, who saw everything and never was surprised at anything, +scornfully wiped his lips with a bandana, in which there were but three +darns, took his change, slipped all the coppers into his side pocket, +of which the lining, once white, was now as black as the cloth of the +trousers, and did not leave one for the waiter. + +"What a gallows-bird!" said Pere Canquoelle to his neighbor Monsieur +Pillerault. + +"Pshaw!" said Monsieur Camusot to all the company, for he alone had +expressed no astonishment, "it is Contenson, Louchard's right-hand man, +the police agent we employ in business. The rascals want to nab some one +who is hanging about perhaps." + +It would seem necessary to explain here the terrible and profoundly +cunning man who was hidden under the guise of Pere Canquoelle, as +Vautrin was hidden under that of the Abbe Carlos. + +Born at Canquoelles, the only possession of his family, which was highly +respectable, this Southerner's name was Peyrade. He belonged, in fact, +to the younger branch of the Peyrade family, an old but impoverished +house of Franche Comte, still owning the little estate of la Peyrade. +The seventh child of his father, he had come on foot to Paris in 1772 +at the age of seventeen, with two crowns of six francs in his pocket, +prompted by the vices of an ardent spirit and the coarse desire to "get +on," which brings so many men to Paris from the south as soon as they +understand that their father's property can never supply them with means +to gratify their passions. It is enough to say of Peyrade's youth that +in 1782 he was in the confidence of chiefs of the police and the hero +of the department, highly esteemed by MM. Lenoir and d'Albert, the last +Lieutenant-Generals of Police. + +The Revolution had no police; it needed none. Espionage, though common +enough, was called public spirit. + +The Directorate, a rather more regular government than that of the +Committee of Public Safety, was obliged to reorganize the Police, and +the first Consul completed the work by instituting a Prefect of Police +and a department of police supervision. + +Peyrade, a man knowing the traditions, collected the force with the +assistance of a man named Corentin, a far cleverer man than Peyrade, +though younger; but he was a genius only in the subterranean ways of +police inquiries. In 1808 the great services Peyrade was able to +achieve were rewarded by an appointment to the eminent position of +Chief Commissioner of Police at Antwerp. In Napoleon's mind this sort of +Police Governorship was equivalent to a Minister's post, with the duty +of superintending Holland. At the end of the campaign of 1809, Peyrade +was removed from Antwerp by an order in Council from the Emperor, +carried in a chaise to Paris between two gendarmes, and imprisoned in la +Force. Two months later he was let out on bail furnished by his friend +Corentin, after having been subjected to three examinations, each +lasting six hours, in the office of the head of the Police. + +Did Peyrade owe his overthrow to the miraculous energy he displayed in +aiding Fouche in the defence of the French coast when threatened by +what was known at the time as the Walcheren expedition, when the Duke of +Otranto manifested such abilities as alarmed the Emperor? Fouche thought +it probable even then; and now, when everybody knows what went on in the +Cabinet Council called together by Cambaceres, it is absolutely certain. +The Ministers, thunderstruck by the news of England's attempt, a +retaliation on Napoleon for the Boulogne expedition, and taken by +surprise when the Master was entrenched in the island of Lobau, where +all Europe believed him to be lost, had not an idea which way to turn. +The general opinion was in favor of sending post haste to the Emperor; +Fouche alone was bold enough to sketch a plan of campaign, which, in +fact, he carried into execution. + +"Do as you please," said Cambaceres; "but I, who prefer to keep my head +on my shoulders, shall send a report to the Emperor." + +It is well known that the Emperor on his return found an absurd pretext, +at a full meeting of the Council of State, for discarding his Minister +and punishing him for having saved France without the Sovereign's help. +From that time forth, Napoleon had doubled the hostility of Prince +de Talleyrand and the Duke of Otranto, the only two great politicians +formed by the Revolution, who might perhaps have been able to save +Napoleon in 1813. + +To get rid of Peyrade, he was simply accused of connivance in favoring +smuggling and sharing certain profits with the great merchants. Such an +indignity was hard on a man who had earned the Marshal's baton of the +Police Department by the great services he had done. This man, who had +grown old in active business, knew all the secrets of every Government +since 1775, when he had entered the service. The Emperor, who believed +himself powerful enough to create men for his own uses, paid no heed to +the representations subsequently laid before him in favor of a man who +was reckoned as one of the most trustworthy, most capable, and most +acute of the unknown genii whose task it is to watch over the safety +of a State. He thought he could put Contenson in Peyrade's place; but +Contenson was at that time employed by Corentin for his own benefit. + +Peyrade felt the blow all the more keenly because, being greedy and a +libertine, he had found himself, with regard to women, in the position +of a pastry-cook who loves sweetmeats. His habits of vice had become to +him a second nature; he could not live without a good dinner, without +gambling, in short, without the life of an unpretentious fine gentleman, +in which men of powerful faculties so generally indulge when they have +allowed excessive dissipation to become a necessity. Hitherto, he had +lived in style without ever being expected to entertain; and living +well, for no one ever looked for a return from him, or from his friend +Corentin. He was cynically witty, and he liked his profession; he was +a philosopher. And besides, a spy, whatever grade he may hold in the +machinery of the police, can no more return to a profession regarded as +honorable or liberal, than a prisoner from the hulks can. Once branded, +once matriculated, spies and convicts, like deacons, have assumed an +indelible character. There are beings on whom social conditions impose +an inevitable fate. + +Peyrade, for his further woe, was very fond of a pretty little girl whom +he knew to be his own child by a celebrated actress to whom he had done +a signal service, and who, for three months, had been grateful to him. +Peyrade, who had sent for his child from Antwerp, now found himself +without employment in Paris and with no means beyond a pension of twelve +hundred francs a year allowed him by the Police Department as Lenoir's +old disciple. He took lodgings in the Rue des Moineaux on the fourth +floor, five little rooms, at a rent of two hundred and fifty francs. + +If any man should be aware of the uses and sweets of friendship, is +it not the moral leper known to the world as a spy, to the mob as a +_mouchard_, to the department as an "agent"? Peyrade and Corentin were +such friends as Orestes and Pylades. Peyrade had trained Corentin as +Vien trained David; but the pupil soon surpassed his master. They had +carried out more than one undertaking together. Peyrade, happy at having +discerned Corentin's superior abilities, had started him in his career +by preparing a success for him. He obliged his disciple to make use of +a mistress who had scorned him as a bait to catch a man (see _The +Chouans_). And Corentin at that time was hardly five-and-twenty. + +Corentin, who had been retained as one of the generals of whom the +Minister of Police is the High Constable, still held under the Duc de +Rovigo the high position he had filled under the Duke of Otranto. Now +at that time the general police and the criminal police were managed on +similar principles. When any important business was on hand, an account +was opened, as it were, for the three, four, five, really capable +agents. The Minister, on being warned of some plot, by whatever means, +would say to one of his colonels of the police force: + +"How much will you want to achieve this or that result?" + +Corentin or Contenson would go into the matter and reply: + +"Twenty, thirty, or forty thousand francs." + +Then, as soon as the order was given to go ahead, all the means and the +men were left to the judgment of Corentin or the agent selected. And the +criminal police used to act in the same way to discover crimes with the +famous Vidocq. + +Both branches of the police chose their men chiefly from among the ranks +of well-known agents, who have matriculated in the business, and are, +as it were, as soldiers of the secret army, so indispensable to a +government, in spite of the public orations of philanthropists or +narrow-minded moralists. But the absolute confidence placed in two men +of the temper of Peyrade and Corentin conveyed to them the right +of employing perfect strangers, under the risk, moreover, of being +responsible to the Minister in all serious cases. Peyrade's experience +and acumen were too valuable to Corentin, who, after the storm of 1820 +had blown over, employed his old friend, constantly consulted him, and +contributed largely to his maintenance. Corentin managed to put about a +thousand francs a month into Peyrade's hands. + +Peyrade, on his part, did Corentin good service. In 1816 Corentin, on +the strength of the discovery of the conspiracy in which the Bonapartist +Gaudissart was implicated, tried to get Peyrade reinstated in his place +in the police office; but some unknown influence was working against +Peyrade. This was the reason why. + +In their anxiety to make themselves necessary, Peyrade, Corentin, and +Contenson, at the Duke of Otranto's instigation, had organized for +the benefit of Louis XVIII. a sort of opposition police in which very +capable agents were employed. Louis XVIII. died possessed of secrets +which will remain secrets from the best informed historians. The +struggle between the general police of the kingdom, and the King's +opposition police, led to many horrible disasters, of which a certain +number of executions sealed the secrets. This is neither the place +nor the occasion for entering into details on this subject, for these +"Scenes of Paris Life" are not "Scenes of Political Life." Enough has +been said to show what were the means of living of the man who at the +Cafe David was known as good old Canquoelle, and by what threads he was +tied to the terrible and mysterious powers of the police. + +Between 1817 and 1822, Corentin, Contenson, Peyrade, and their +myrmidons, were often required to keep watch over the Minister of Police +himself. This perhaps explains why the Minister declined to employ +Peyrade and Contenson, on whom Corentin contrived to cast the Minister's +suspicions, in order to be able to make use of his friend when his +reinstatement was evidently out of the question. The Ministry put their +faith in Corentin; they enjoined him to keep an eye on Peyrade, which +amused Louis XVIII. Corentin and Peyrade were then masters of the +position. Contenson, long attached to Peyrade, was still at his +service. He had joined the force of the commercial police (the Gardes du +Commerce) by his friend's orders. And, in fact, as a result of the sort +of zeal that is inspired by a profession we love, these two chiefs liked +to place their best men in those posts where information was most likely +to flow in. + +And, indeed, Contenson's vices and dissipated habits, which had dragged +him lower than his two friends, consumed so much money, that he needed a +great deal of business. + +Contenson, without committing any indiscretion, had told Louchard that +he knew the only man who was capable of doing what the Baron de Nucingen +required. Peyrade was, in fact, the only police-agent who could act +on behalf of a private individual with impunity. At the death of Louis +XVIII., Peyrade had not only ceased to be of consequence, but had lost +the profits of his position as spy-in-ordinary to His Majesty. Believing +himself to be indispensable, he had lived fast. Women, high feeding, +and the club, the _Cercle des Etrangers_, had prevented this man from +saving, and, like all men cut out for debauchery, he enjoyed an iron +constitution. But between 1826 and 1829, when he was nearly seventy-four +years of age, he had stuck half-way, to use his own expression. Year by +year he saw his comforts dwindling. He followed the police department +to its grave, and saw with regret that Charles X.'s government was +departing from its good old traditions. Every session saw the estimates +pared down which were necessary to keep up the police, out of hatred +for that method of government and a firm determination to reform that +institution. + +"It is as if they thought they could cook in white gloves," said Peyrade +to Corentin. + +In 1822 this couple foresaw 1830. They knew how bitterly Louis XVIII. +hated his successor, which accounts for his recklessness with regard to +the younger branch, and without which his reign would be an unanswerable +riddle. + + + +As Peyrade grew older, his love for his natural daughter had increased. +For her sake he had adopted his citizen guise, for he intended that his +Lydie should marry respectably. So for the last three years he had been +especially anxious to find a corner, either at the Prefecture of Police, +or in the general Police Office--some ostensible and recognized post. +He had ended by inventing a place, of which the necessity, as he told +Corentin, would sooner or later be felt. He was anxious to create an +inquiry office at the Prefecture of Police, to be intermediate between +the Paris police in the strictest sense, the criminal police, and the +superior general police, so as to enable the supreme board to profit by +the various scattered forces. No one but Peyrade, at his age, and after +fifty-five years of confidential work, could be the connecting link +between the three branches of the police, or the keeper of the records +to whom political and judicial authority alike could apply for the +elucidation of certain cases. By this means Peyrade hoped, with +Corentin's assistance, to find a husband and scrape together a portion +for his little Lydie. Corentin had already mentioned the matter to +the Director-General of the police forces of the realm, without naming +Peyrade; and the Director-General, a man from the south, thought it +necessary that the suggestion should come from the chief of the city +police. + +At the moment when Contenson struck three raps on the table with the +gold piece, a signal conveying, "I want to speak to you," the senior was +reflecting on this problem: "By whom, and under what pressure can the +Prefet of Police be made to move?"--And he looked like a noodle studying +his _Courrier Francais_. + +"Poor Fouche!" thought he to himself, as he made his way along the Rue +Saint-Honore, "that great man is dead! our go-betweens with Louis XVIII. +are out of favor. And besides, as Corentin said only yesterday, nobody +believes in the activity or the intelligence of a man of seventy. Oh, +why did I get into a habit of dining at Very's, of drinking choice +wines, of singing _La Mere Godichon_, of gambling when I am in funds? +To get a place and keep it, as Corentin says, it is not enough to be +clever, you must have the gift of management. Poor dear M. Lenoir was +right when he wrote to me in the matter of the Queen's necklace, 'You +will never do any good,' when he heard that I did not stay under that +slut Oliva's bed." + +If the venerable Pere Canquoelle--he was called so in the house--lived +on in the Rue des Moineaux, on a fourth floor, you may depend on it +he had found some peculiarity in the arrangement of the premises which +favored the practice of his terrible profession. + +The house, standing at the corner of the Rue Saint-Roch, had no +neighbors on one side; and as the staircase up the middle divided it +into two, there were on each floor two perfectly isolated rooms. Those +two rooms looked out on the Rue Saint-Roch. There were garret rooms +above the fourth floor, one of them a kitchen, and the other a bedroom +for Pere Canquoelle's only servant, a Fleming named Katt, formerly +Lydie's wet-nurse. Old Canquoelle had taken one of the outside rooms +for his bedroom, and the other for his study. The study ended at the +party-wall, a very thick one. The window opening on the Rue des Moineaux +looked on a blank wall at the opposite corner. As this study was divided +from the stairs by the whole width of Peyrade's bedroom, the friends +feared no eye, no ear, as they talked business in this study made on +purpose for his detestable trade. + +Peyrade, as a further precaution, had furnished Katt's room with a thick +straw bed, a felt carpet, and a very heavy rug, under the pretext +of making his child's nurse comfortable. He had also stopped up the +chimney, warming his room by a stove, with a pipe through the wall +to the Rue Saint-Roch. Finally, he laid several rugs on his floor to +prevent the slightest sound being heard by the neighbors beneath. An +expert himself in the tricks of spies, he sounded the outer wall, the +ceiling, and the floor once a week, examining them as if he were in +search of noxious insects. It was the security of this room from +all witnesses or listeners that had made Corentin select it as his +council-chamber when he did not hold a meeting in his own room. + +Where Corentin lived was known to no one but the Chief of the Superior +Police and to Peyrade; he received there such personages as the Ministry +or the King selected to conduct very serious cases; but no agent or +subordinate ever went there, and he plotted everything connected with +their business at Peyrade's. In this unpretentious room schemes were +matured, and resolutions passed, which would have furnished strange +records and curious dramas if only walls could talk. Between 1816 and +1826 the highest interests were discussed there. There first germinated +the events which grew to weigh on France. There Peyrade and Corentin, +with all the foresight, and more than all the information of Bellart, +the Attorney-General, had said even in 1819: "If Louis XVIII. does not +consent to strike such or such a blow, to make away with such or such +a prince, is it because he hates his brother? He must wish to leave him +heir to a revolution." + +Peyrade's door was graced with a slate, on which very strange marks +might sometimes be seen, figures scrawled in chalk. This sort of devil's +algebra bore the clearest meaning to the initiated. + +Lydie's rooms, opposite to Peyrade's shabby lodging, consisted of an +ante-room, a little drawing-room, a bedroom, and a small dressing-room. +The door, like that of Peyrade's room, was constructed of a plate of +sheet-iron three lines thick, sandwiched between two strong oak planks, +fitted with locks and elaborate hinges, making it as impossible to force +it as if it were a prison door. Thus, though the house had a public +passage through it, with a shop below and no doorkeeper, Lydie lived +there without a fear. The dining-room, the little drawing-room, and her +bedroom--every window-balcony a hanging garden--were luxurious in their +Dutch cleanliness. + +The Flemish nurse had never left Lydie, whom she called her daughter. +The two went to church with a regularity that gave the royalist grocer, +who lived below, in the corner shop, an excellent opinion of the worthy +Canquoelle. The grocer's family, kitchen, and counter-jumpers occupied +the first floor and the entresol; the landlord inhabited the second +floor; and the third had been let for twenty years past to a lapidary. +Each resident had a key of the street door. The grocer's wife was all +the more willing to receive letters and parcels addressed to these three +quiet households, because the grocer's shop had a letter-box. + +Without these details, strangers, or even those who know Paris well, +could not have understood the privacy and quietude, the isolation and +safety which made this house exceptional in Paris. After midnight, +Pere Canquoelle could hatch plots, receive spies or ministers, wives or +hussies, without any one on earth knowing anything about it. + +Peyrade, of whom the Flemish woman would say to the grocer's cook, "He +would not hurt a fly!" was regarded as the best of men. He grudged his +daughter nothing. Lydie, who had been taught music by Schmucke, was +herself a musician capable of composing; she could wash in a sepia +drawing, and paint in gouache and water-color. Every Sunday Peyrade +dined at home with her. On that day this worthy was wholly paternal. + +Lydie, religious but not a bigot, took the Sacrament at Easter, and +confessed every month. Still, she allowed herself from time to time to +be treated to the play. She walked in the Tuileries when it was fine. +These were all her pleasures, for she led a sedentary life. Lydie, who +worshiped her father, knew absolutely nothing of his sinister gifts and +dark employments. Not a wish had ever disturbed this pure child's pure +life. Slight and handsome like her mother, gifted with an exquisite +voice, and a delicate face framed in fine fair hair, she looked like +one of those angels, mystical rather than real, which some of the early +painters grouped in the background of the Holy Family. The glance of her +blue eyes seemed to bring a beam from the sky on those she favored with +a look. Her dress, quite simple, with no exaggeration of fashion, had a +delightful middle-class modesty. Picture to yourself an old Satan as the +father of an angel, and purified in her divine presence, and you will +have an idea of Peyrade and his daughter. If anybody had soiled this +jewel, her father would have invented, to swallow him alive, one of +those dreadful plots in which, under the Restoration, the unhappy +wretches were trapped who were designate to die on the scaffold. A +thousand crowns were ample maintenance for Lydie and Katt, whom she +called nurse. + +As Peyrade turned into the Rue des Moineaux, he saw Contenson; he +outstripped him, went upstairs before him, heard the man's steps on the +stairs, and admitted him before the woman had put her nose out of the +kitchen door. A bell rung by the opening of a glass door, on the third +story where the lapidary lived warned the residents on that and the +fourth floors when a visitor was coming to them. It need hardly be said +that, after midnight, Peyrade muffled this bell. + +"What is up in such a hurry, Philosopher?" + +Philosopher was the nickname bestowed on Contenson by Peyrade, and well +merited by the Epictetus among police agents. The name of Contenson, +alas! hid one of the most ancient names of feudal Normandy. + +"Well, there is something like ten thousand francs to be netted." + +"What is it? Political?" + +"No, a piece of idiocy. Baron de Nucingen, you know, the old certified +swindler, is neighing after a woman he saw in the Bois de Vincennes, +and she has got to be found, or he will die of love.--They had a +consultation of doctors yesterday, by what his man tells me.--I have +already eased him of a thousand francs under pretence of seeking the +fair one." + +And Contenson related Nucingen's meeting with Esther, adding that the +Baron had now some further information. + +"All right," said Peyrade, "we will find his Dulcinea; tell the Baron +to come to-night in a carriage to the Champs-Elysees--the corner of the +Avenue de Gabriel and the Allee de Marigny." + +Peyrade saw Contenson out, and knocked at his daughter's rooms, as +he always knocked to be let in. He was full of glee; chance had just +offered the means, at last, of getting the place he longed for. + +He flung himself into a deep armchair, after kissing Lydie on the +forehead, and said: + +"Play me something." + +Lydie played him a composition for the piano by Beethoven. + +"That is very well played, my pet," said he, taking Lydie on his knees. +"Do you know that we are one-and-twenty years old? We must get married +soon, for our old daddy is more than seventy----" + +"I am quite happy here," said she. + +"You love no one but your ugly old father?" asked Peyrade. + +"Why, whom should I love?" + +"I am dining at home, my darling; go and tell Katt. I am thinking of +settling, of getting an appointment, and finding a husband worthy of +you; some good young man, very clever, whom you may some day be proud +of----" + +"I have never seen but one yet that I should have liked for a +husband----" + +"You have seen one then?" + +"Yes, in the Tuileries," replied Lydie. "He walked past me; he was +giving his arm to the Comtesse de Serizy." + +"And his name is?" + +"Lucien de Rubempre.--I was sitting with Katt under a lime-tree, +thinking of nothing. There were two ladies sitting by me, and one said +to the other, 'There are Madame de Serizy and that handsome Lucien de +Rubempre.'--I looked at the couple that the two ladies were watching. +'Oh, my dear!' said the other, 'some women are very lucky! That woman +is allowed to do everything she pleases just because she was a de +Ronquerolles, and her husband is in power.'--'But, my dear,' said the +other lady, 'Lucien costs her very dear.'--What did she mean, papa?" + +"Just nonsense, such as people of fashion will talk," replied Peyrade, +with an air of perfect candor. "Perhaps they were alluding to political +matters." + +"Well, in short, you asked me a question, so I answer you. If you want +me to marry, find me a husband just like that young man." + +"Silly child!" replied her father. "The fact that a man is handsome +is not always a sign of goodness. Young men gifted with an attractive +appearance meet with no obstacles at the beginning of life, so they make +no use of any talent; they are corrupted by the advances made to them +by society, and they have to pay interest later for their +attractiveness!--What I should like for you is what the middle classes, +the rich, and the fools leave unholpen and unprotected----" + +"What, father?" + +"An unrecognized man of talent. But, there, child; I have it in my power +to hunt through every garret in Paris, and carry out your programme by +offering for your affection a man as handsome as the young scamp you +speak of; but a man of promise, with a future before him destined to +glory and fortune.--By the way, I was forgetting. I must have a whole +flock of nephews, and among them there must be one worthy of you!--I +will write, or get some one to write to Provence." + +A strange coincidence! At this moment a young man, half-dead of hunger +and fatigue, who had come on foot from the department of Vaucluse--a +nephew of Pere Canquoelle's in search of his uncle, was entering Paris +through the Barriere de l'Italie. In the day-dreams of the family, +ignorant of this uncle's fate, Peyrade had supplied the text for many +hopes; he was supposed to have returned from India with millions! +Stimulated by these fireside romances, this grand-nephew, named +Theodore, had started on a voyage round the world in quest of this +eccentric uncle. + + + +After enjoying for some hours the joys of paternity, Peyrade, his hair +washed and dyed--for his powder was a disguise--dressed in a stout, +coarse, blue frock-coat buttoned up to the chin, and a black cloak, shod +in strong, thick-soled boots, furnished himself with a private card and +walked slowly along the Avenue Gabriel, where Contenson, dressed as +an old costermonger woman, met him in front of the gardens of the +Elysee-Bourbon. + +"Monsieur de Saint-Germain," said Contenson, giving his old chief the +name he was officially known by, "you have put me in the way of making +five hundred pieces (francs); but what I came here for was to tell you +that that damned Baron, before he gave me the shiners, had been to ask +questions at the house (the Prefecture of Police)." + +"I shall want you, no doubt," replied Peyrade. "Look up numbers 7, 10, +and 21; we can employ those men without any one finding it out, either +at the Police Ministry or at the Prefecture." + +Contenson went back to a post near the carriage in which Monsieur de +Nucingen was waiting for Peyrade. + +"I am Monsieur de Saint-Germain," said Peyrade to the Baron, raising +himself to look over the carriage door. + +"Ver' goot; get in mit me," replied the Baron, ordering the coachman to +go on slowly to the Arc de l'Etoile. + +"You have been to the Prefecture of Police, Monsieur le Baron? That was +not fair. Might I ask what you said to M. le Prefet, and what he said in +reply?" asked Peyrade. + +"Before I should gif fife hundert francs to a filain like Contenson, I +vant to know if he had earned dem. I simply said to the Prefet of Police +dat I vant to employ ein agent named Peyrate to go abroat in a delicate +matter, an' should I trust him--unlimited!--The Prefet telt me you vas a +very clefer man an' ver' honest man. An' dat vas everything." + +"And now that you have learned my true name, Monsieur le Baron, will you +tell me what it is you want?" + +When the Baron had given a long and copious explanation, in his hideous +Polish-Jew dialect, of his meeting with Esther and the cry of the man +behind the carriage, and his vain efforts, he ended by relating what had +occurred at his house the night before, Lucien's involuntary smile, +and the opinion expressed by Bianchon and some other young dandies that +there must be some acquaintance between him and the unknown fair. + +"Listen to me, Monsieur le Baron; you must, in the first instance, place +ten thousand francs in my hands, on account for expenses; for, to +you, this is a matter of life or death; and as your life is a +business-manufactory, nothing must be left undone to find this woman for +you. Oh, you are caught!----" + +"Ja, I am caught!" + +"If more money is wanted, Baron, I will let you know; put your trust in +me," said Peyrade. "I am not a spy, as you perhaps imagine. In 1807 I +was Commissioner-General of Police at Antwerp; and now that Louis XVIII. +is dead, I may tell you in confidence that for seven years I was the +chief of his counter-police. So there is no beating me down. You +must understand, Monsieur le Baron, that it is impossible to make any +estimate of the cost of each man's conscience before going into the +details of such an affair. Be quite easy; I shall succeed. Do not fancy +that you can satisfy me with a sum of money; I want something for my +reward----" + +"So long as dat is not a kingtom!" said the Baron. + +"It is less than nothing to you." + +"Den I am your man." + +"You know the Kellers?" + +"Oh! ver' well." + +"Francois Keller is the Comte de Gondreville's son-in-law, and the Comte +de Gondreville and his son-in-law dined with you yesterday." + +"Who der teufel tolt you dat?" cried the Baron. "Dat vill be Georche; +he is always a gossip." Peyrade smiled, and the banker at once formed +strange suspicions of his man-servant. + +"The Comte de Gondreville is quite in a position to obtain me a place I +covet at the Prefecture of Police; within forty-eight hours the prefet +will have notice that such a place is to be created," said Peyrade +in continuation. "Ask for it for me; get the Comte de Gondreville to +interest himself in the matter with some degree of warmth--and you will +thus repay me for the service I am about to do you. I ask your word +only; for, if you fail me, sooner or later you will curse the day you +were born--you have Peyrade's word for that." + +"I gif you mein vort of honor to do vat is possible." + +"If I do no more for you than is possible, it will not be enough." + +"Vell, vell, I vill act qvite frankly." + +"Frankly--that is all I ask," said Peyrade, "and frankness is the only +thing at all new that you and I can offer to each other." + +"Frankly," echoed the Baron. "Vere shall I put you down." + +"At the corner of the Pont Louis XVI." + +"To the Pont de la Chambre," said the Baron to the footman at the +carriage door. + +"Then I am to get dat unknown person," said the Baron to himself as he +drove home. + +"What a queer business!" thought Peyrade, going back on foot to the +Palais-Royal, where he intended trying to multiply his ten thousand +francs by three, to make a little fortune for Lydie. "Here I am required +to look into the private concerns of a very young man who has bewitched +my little girl by a glance. He is, I suppose, one of those men who +have an eye for a woman," said he to himself, using an expression of +a language of his own, in which his observations, or Corentin's, were +summed up in words that were anything rather than classical, but, for +that very reason, energetic and picturesque. + +The Baron de Nucingen, when he went in, was an altered man; he +astonished his household and his wife by showing them a face full of +life and color, so cheerful did he feel. + +"Our shareholders had better look out for themselves," said du Tillet to +Rastignac. + +They were all at tea, in Delphine de Nucingen's boudoir, having come in +from the opera. + +"Ja," said the Baron, smiling; "I feel ver' much dat I shall do some +business." + +"Then you have seen the fair being?" asked Madame de Nucingen. + +"No," said he; "I have only hoped to see her." + +"Do men ever love their wives so?" cried Madame de Nucingen, feeling, or +affecting to feel, a little jealous. + +"When you have got her, you must ask us to sup with her," said du Tillet +to the Baron, "for I am very curious to study the creature who has made +you so young as you are." + +"She is a _cheff-d'oeufre_ of creation!" replied the old banker. + +"He will be swindled like a boy," said Rastignac in Delphine's ear. + +"Pooh! he makes quite enough money to----" + +"To give a little back, I suppose," said du Tillet, interrupting the +Baroness. + +Nucingen was walking up and down the room as if his legs had the +fidgets. + +"Now is your time to make him pay your fresh debts," said Rastignac in +the Baroness' ear. + +At this very moment Carlos was leaving the Rue Taitbout full of hope; he +had been there to give some last advice to Europe, who was to play the +principal part in the farce devised to take in the Baron de Nucingen. +He was accompanied as far as the Boulevard by Lucien, who was not at all +easy at finding this demon so perfectly disguised that even he had only +recognized him by his voice. + +"Where the devil did you find a handsomer woman than Esther?" he asked +his evil genius. + +"My boy, there is no such thing to be found in Paris. Such a complexion +is not made in France." + +"I assure you, I am still quite amazed. Venus Callipyge has not such +a figure. A man would lose his soul for her. But where did she spring +from?" + +"She was the handsomest girl in London. Drunk with gin, she killed her +lover in a fit of jealousy. The lover was a wretch of whom the London +police are well quit, and this woman was packed off to Paris for a time +to let the matter blow over. The hussy was well brought up--the daughter +of a clergyman. She speaks French as if it were her mother tongue. She +does not know, and never will know, why she is here. She was told that +if you took a fancy to her she might fleece you of millions, but that +you were as jealous as a tiger, and she was told how Esther lived." + +"But supposing Nucingen should prefer her to Esther?" + +"Ah, it is out at last!" cried Carlos. "You dread now lest what dismayed +you yesterday should not take place after all! Be quite easy. That +fair and fair-haired girl has blue eyes; she is the antipodes of the +beautiful Jewess, and only such eyes as Esther's could ever stir a man +so rotten as Nucingen. What the devil! you could not hide an ugly +woman. When this puppet has played her part, I will send her off in safe +custody to Rome or to Madrid, where she will be the rage." + +"If we have her only for a short time," said Lucien, "I will go back to +her----" + +"Go, my boy, amuse yourself. You will be a day older to-morrow. For my +part, I must wait for some one whom I have instructed to learn what is +going on at the Baron de Nucingen's." + +"Who?" + +"His valet's mistress; for, after all, we must keep ourselves informed +at every moment of what is going on in the enemy's camp." + +At midnight, Paccard, Esther's tall chasseur, met Carlos on the Pont des +Arts, the most favorable spot in all Paris for saying a few words which +no one must overhear. All the time they talked the servant kept an eye +on one side, while his master looked out on the other. + +"The Baron went to the Prefecture of Police this morning between four +and five," said the man, "and he boasted this evening that he should +find the woman he saw in the Bois de Vincennes--he had been promised +it----" + +"We are watched!" said Carlos. "By whom?" + +"They have already employed Louchard the bailiff." + +"That would be child's play," replied Carlos. "We need fear nothing but +the guardians of public safety, the criminal police; and so long as that +is not set in motion, we can go on!" + +"That is not all." + +"What else?" + +"Our chums of the hulks.--I saw Lapouraille yesterday----He has choked +off a married couple, and has bagged ten thousand five-franc pieces--in +gold." + +"He will be nabbed," said Jacques Collin. "That is the Rue Boucher +crime." + +"What is the order of the day?" said Paccard, with the respectful +demeanor a marshal must have assumed when taking his orders from Louis +XVIII. + +"You must get out every evening at ten o'clock," replied Herrera. "Make +your way pretty briskly to the Bois de Vincennes, the Bois de Meudon, +and de Ville-d'Avray. If any one should follow you, let them do it; be +free of speech, chatty, open to a bribe. Talk about Rubempre's jealousy +and his mad passion for madame, saying that he would not on any account +have it known that he had a mistress of that kind." + +"Enough.--Must I have any weapons?" + +"Never!" exclaimed Carlos vehemently. "A weapon? Of what use would that +be? To get us into a scrape. Do not under any circumstances use your +hunting-knife. When you know that you can break the strongest man's +legs by the trick I showed you--when you can hold your own against three +armed warders, feeling quite sure that you can account for two of them +before they have got out flint and steel, what is there to be afraid of? +Have not you your cane?" + +"To be sure," said the man. + +Paccard, nicknamed The Old Guard, Old Wide-Awake, or The Right Man--a +man with legs of iron, arms of steel, Italian whiskers, hair like an +artist's, a beard like a sapper's, and a face as colorless and immovable +as Contenson's, kept his spirit to himself, and rejoiced in a sort of +drum-major appearance which disarmed suspicion. A fugitive from Poissy +or Melun has no such serious self-consciousness and belief in his own +merit. As Giafar to the Haroun el Rasheed of the hulks, he served him +with the friendly admiration which Peyrade felt for Corentin. + +This huge fellow, with a small body in proportion to his legs, +flat-chested, and lean of limb, stalked solemnly about on his two long +pins. Whenever his right leg moved, his right eye took in everything +around him with the placid swiftness peculiar to thieves and spies. +The left eye followed the right eye's example. Wiry, nimble, ready for +anything at any time, but for a weakness of Dutch courage Paccard would +have been perfect, Jacques Collin used to say, so completely was he +endowed with the talents indispensable to a man at war with society; but +the master had succeeded in persuading his slave to drink only in the +evening. On going home at night, Paccard tippled the liquid gold poured +into small glasses out of a pot-bellied stone jar from Danzig. + +"We will make them open their eyes," said Paccard, putting on his grand +hat and feathers after bowing to Carlos, whom he called his Confessor. + +These were the events which had led three men, so clever, each in his +way, as Jacques Collin, Peyrade, and Corentin, to a hand-to-hand fight +on the same ground, each exerting his talents in a struggle for his +own passions or interests. It was one of those obscure but terrible +conflicts on which are expended in marches and countermarches, in +strategy, skill, hatred, and vexation, the powers that might make a fine +fortune. Men and means were kept absolutely secret by Peyarde, seconded +in this business by his friend Corentin--a business they thought but +a trifle. And so, as to them, history is silent, as it is on the true +causes of many revolutions. + +But this was the result. + +Five days after Monsieur de Nucingen's interview with Peyrade in the +Champs Elysees, a man of about fifty called in the morning, stepping +out of a handsome cab, and flinging the reins to his servant. He had the +dead-white complexion which a life in the "world" gives to diplomates, +was dressed in blue cloth, and had a general air of fashion--almost that +of a Minister of State. + +He inquired of the servant who sat on a bench on the steps whether the +Baron de Nucingen were at home; and the man respectfully threw open the +splendid plate-glass doors. + +"Your name, sir?" said the footman. + +"Tell the Baron that I have come from the Avenue Gabriel," said +Corentin. "If anybody is with him, be sure not to say so too loud, or +you will find yourself out of place!" + +A minute later the man came back and led Corentin by the back passages +to the Baron's private room. + +Corentin and the banker exchanged impenetrable glances, and both bowed +politely. + +"Monsieur le Baron," said Corentin, "I come in the name of Peyrade----" + +"Ver' gott!" said the Baron, fastening the bolts of both doors. + +"Monsieur de Rubempre's mistress lives in the Rue Taitbout, in the +apartment formerly occupied by Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, M. de +Granville's ex-mistress--the Attorney-General----" + +"Vat, so near to me?" exclaimed the Baron. "Dat is ver' strange." + +"I can quite understand your being crazy about that splendid creature; +it was a pleasure to me to look at her," replied Corentin. "Lucien is so +jealous of the girl that he never allows her to be seen; and she loves +him devotedly; for in four years, since she succeeded la Bellefeuille +in those rooms, inheriting her furniture and her profession, neither the +neighbors, nor the porter, nor the other tenants in the house have ever +set eyes on her. My lady never stirs out but at night. When she sets +out, the blinds of the carriage are pulled down, and she is closely +veiled. + +"Lucien has other reasons besides jealousy for concealing this woman. +He is to be married to Clotilde de Grandlieu, and he is at this moment +Madame de Serizy's favorite fancy. He naturally wishes to keep a hold on +his fashionable mistress and on his promised bride. So, you are master +of the position, for Lucien will sacrifice his pleasure to his interests +and his vanity. You are rich; this is probably your last chance of +happiness; be liberal. You can gain your end through her waiting-maid. +Give the slut ten thousand francs; she will hide you in her mistress' +bedroom. It must be quite worth that to you." + +No figure of speech could describe the short, precise tone of finality +in which Corentin spoke; the Baron could not fail to observe it, and his +face expressed his astonishment--an expression he had long expunged from +his impenetrable features. + +"I have also to ask you for five thousand francs for my friend Peyrade, +who has dropped five of your thousand-franc notes--a tiresome accident," +Corentin went on, in a lordly tone of command. "Peyrade knows his Paris +too well to spend money in advertising, and he trusts entirely to you. +But this is not the most important point," added Corentin, checking +himself in such a way as to make the request for money seem quite a +trifle. "If you do not want to end your days miserably, get the place +for Peyrade that he asked you to procure for him--and it is a thing you +can easily do. The Chief of the General Police must have had notice of +the matter yesterday. All that is needed is to get Gondreville to +speak to the Prefet of Police.--Very well, just say to Malin, Comte de +Gondreville, that it is to oblige one of the men who relieved him of MM. +de Simeuse, and he will work it----" + +"Here den, mensieur," said the Baron, taking out five thousand-franc +notes and handing them to Corentin. + +"The waiting-maid is great friends with a tall chasseur named Paccard, +living in the Rue de Provence, over a carriage-builder's; he goes out +as heyduque to persons who give themselves princely airs. You can get at +Madame van Bogseck's woman through Paccard, a brawny Piemontese, who has +a liking for vermouth." + +This information, gracefully thrown in as a postscript, was evidently +the return for the five thousand francs. The Baron was trying to guess +Corentin's place in life, for he quite understood that the man was +rather a master of spies than a spy himself; but Corentin remained +to him as mysterious as an inscription is to an archaeologist when +three-quarters of the letters are missing. + +"Vat is dat maid called?" he asked. + +"Eugenie," replied Corentin, who bowed and withdrew. + +The Baron, in a transport of joy, left his business for the day, shut +up his office, and went up to his rooms in the happy frame of mind of a +young man of twenty looking forward to his first meeting with his first +mistress. + +The Baron took all the thousand-franc notes out of his private +cash-box--a sum sufficient to make the whole village happy, fifty-five +thousand francs--and stuffed them into the pocket of his coat. But a +millionaire's lavishness can only be compared with his eagerness for +gain. As soon as a whim or a passion is to be gratified, money is dross +to a Croesus; in fact, he finds it harder to have whims than gold. A +keen pleasure is the rarest thing in these satiated lives, full of the +excitement that comes of great strokes of speculation, in which these +dried-up hearts have burned themselves out. + +For instance, one of the richest capitalists in Paris one day met an +extremely pretty little working-girl. Her mother was with her, but the +girl had taken the arm of a young fellow in very doubtful finery, with a +very smart swagger. The millionaire fell in love with the girl at first +sight; he followed her home, he went in; he heard all her story, a +record of alternations of dancing at Mabille and days of starvation, +of play-going and hard work; he took an interest in it, and left five +thousand-franc notes under a five-franc piece--an act of generosity +abused. Next day a famous upholsterer, Braschon, came to take the +damsel's orders, furnished rooms that she had chosen, and laid out +twenty thousand francs. She gave herself up to the wildest hopes, +dressed her mother to match, and flattered herself she would find a +place for her ex-lover in an insurance office. She waited--a day, two +days--then a week, two weeks. She thought herself bound to be faithful; +she got into debt. The capitalist, called away to Holland, had forgotten +the girl; he never went once to the Paradise where he had placed her, +and from which she fell as low as it is possible to fall even in Paris. + +Nucingen did not gamble, Nucingen did not patronize the Arts, Nucingen +had no hobby; thus he flung himself into his passion for Esther with a +headlong blindness, on which Carlos Herrera had confidently counted. + +After his breakfast, the Baron sent for Georges, his body-servant, and +desired him to go to the Rue Taitbout and ask Mademoiselle Eugenie, +Madame van Bogseck's maid, to come to his office on a matter of +importance. + +"You shall look out for her," he added, "an' make her valk up to my +room, and tell her I shall make her fortune." + +Georges had the greatest difficulty in persuading Europe-Eugenie to +come. + +"Madame never lets me go out," said she; "I might lose my place," and +so forth; and Georges sang her praises loudly to the Baron, who gave him +ten louis. + +"If madame goes out without her this evening," said Georges to his +master, whose eyes glowed like carbuncles, "she will be here by ten +o'clock." + +"Goot. You shall come to dress me at nine o'clock--and do my hair. +I shall look so goot as possible. I belief I shall really see dat +mistress--or money is not money any more." + +The Baron spent an hour, from noon till one, in dyeing his hair and +whiskers. At nine in the evening, having taken a bath before dinner, +he made a toilet worthy of a bridegroom and scented himself--a perfect +Adonis. Madame de Nucingen, informed of this metamorphosis, gave herself +the treat of inspecting her husband. + +"Good heavens!" cried she, "what a ridiculous figure! Do, at least, put +on a black satin stock instead of that white neckcloth which makes your +whiskers look so black; besides, it is so 'Empire,' quite the old fogy. +You look like some super-annuated parliamentary counsel. And take +off these diamond buttons; they are worth a hundred thousand francs +apiece--that slut will ask you for them, and you will not be able to +refuse her; and if a baggage is to have them, I may as well wear them as +earrings." + +The unhappy banker, struck by the wisdom of his wife's reflections, +obeyed reluctantly. + +"Ridikilous, ridikilous! I hafe never telt you dat you shall be +ridikilous when you dressed yourself so smart to see your little +Mensieur de Rastignac!" + +"I should hope that you never saw me make myself ridiculous. Am I the +woman to make such blunders in the first syllable of my dress? Come, +turn about. Button your coat up to the neck, all but the two top +buttons, as the Duc de Maufrigneuse does. In short, try to look young." + +"Monsieur," said Georges, "here is Mademoiselle Eugenie." + +"Adie, motame," said the banker, and he escorted his wife as far as her +own rooms, to make sure that she should not overhear their conference. + +On his return, he took Europe by the hand and led her into his room with +a sort of ironical respect. + +"Vell, my chilt, you are a happy creature, for you are de maid of dat +most beautiful voman in de vorlt. And your fortune shall be made if you +vill talk to her for me and in mine interests." + +"I would not do such a thing for ten thousand francs!" exclaimed Europe. +"I would have you to know, Monsieur le Baron, that I am an honest girl." + +"Oh yes. I expect to pay dear for your honesty. In business dat is vat +ve call curiosity." + +"And that is not everything," Europe went on. "If you should not take +madame's fancy--and that is on the cards--she would be angry, and I am +done for!--and my place is worth a thousand francs a year." + +"De capital to make ein tousant franc is twenty tousand franc; and if I +shall gif you dat, you shall not lose noting." + +"Well, to be sure, if that is the tone you take about it, my worthy +old fellow," said Europe, "that is quite another story.--Where is the +money?" + +"Here," replied the Baron, holding up the banknotes, one at a time. + +He noted the flash struck by each in turn from Europe's eyes, betraying +the greed he had counted on. + +"That pays for my place, but how about my principles, my conscience?" +said Europe, cocking her crafty little nose and giving the Baron a +serio-comic leer. + +"Your conscience shall not be pait for so much as your place; but I +shall say fife tousand franc more," said he adding five thousand-franc +notes. + +"No, no. Twenty thousand for my conscience, and five thousand for my +place if I lose it----" + +"Yust vat you please," said he, adding the five notes. "But to earn dem +you shall hite me in your lady's room by night ven she shall be 'lone." + +"If you swear never to tell who let you in, I agree. But I warn you of +one thing.--Madame is as strong as a Turk, she is madly in love with +Monsieur de Rubempre, and if you paid a million francs in banknotes she +would never be unfaithful to him. It is very silly, but that is her way +when she is in love; she is worse than an honest woman, I tell you! When +she goes out for a drive in the woods at night, monsieur very seldom +stays at home. She is gone out this evening, so I can hide you in my +room. If madame comes in alone, I will fetch you; you can wait in the +drawing-room. I will not lock the door into her room, and then--well, +the rest is your concern--so be ready." + +"I shall pay you the twenty-fife tousand francs in dat +drawing-room.--You gife--I gife!" + +"Indeed!" said Europe, "you are so confiding as all that? On my word!" + +"Oh, you will hafe your chance to fleece me yet. We shall be friends." + +"Well, then, be in the Rue Taitbout at midnight; but bring thirty +thousand francs about you. A waiting-woman's honesty, like a hackney +cab, is much dearer after midnight." + +"It shall be more prudent if I gif you a cheque on my bank----" + +"No, no" said Europe. "Notes, or the bargain is off." + +So at one in the morning the Baron de Nucingen, hidden in the garret +where Europe slept, was suffering all the anxieties of a man who hopes +to triumph. His blood seemed to him to be tingling in his toe-nails, and +his head ready to burst like an overheated steam engine. + +"I had more dan one hundert tousand crowns' vort of enjoyment--in my +mind," he said to du Tillet when telling him the story. + +He listened to every little noise in the street, and at two in the +morning he heard his mistress' carriage far away on the boulevard. His +heart beat vehemently under his silk waistcoat as the gate turned on +its hinges. He was about to behold the heavenly, the glowing face of +his Esther!--the clatter of the carriage-step and the slam of the door +struck upon his heart. He was more agitated in expectation of this +supreme moment than he would have been if his fortune had been at stake. + +"Ah, ha!" cried he, "dis is vat I call to lif--it is too much to lif; I +shall be incapable of everything." + +"Madame is alone; come down," said Europe, looking in. "Above all, make +no noise, great elephant." + +"Great Elephant!" he repeated, laughing, and walking as if he trod on +red-hot iron. + +Europe led the way, carrying a candle. + +"Here--count dem!" said the Baron when he reached the drawing-room, +holding out the notes to Europe. + +Europe took the thirty notes very gravely and left the room, locking the +banker in. + +Nucingen went straight to the bedroom, where he found the handsome +Englishwoman. + +"Is that you, Lucien?" said she. + +"Nein, my peauty," said Nucingen, but he said no more. + +He stood speechless on seeing a woman the very antipodes to Esther; +fair hair where he had seen black, slenderness where he had admired +a powerful frame! A soft English evening where he had looked for the +bright sun of Arabia. + +"Heyday! were have you come from?--who are you?--what do you want?" +cried the Englishwoman, pulling the bell, which made no sound. + +"The bells dey are in cotton-vool, but hafe not any fear--I shall go +'vay," said he. "Dat is dirty tousant franc I hafe tron in de vater. Are +you dat mistress of Mensieur Lucien de Rubempre?" + +"Rather, my son," said the lady, who spoke French well, "But vat vas +you?" she went on, mimicking Nucingen's accent. + +"Ein man vat is ver' much took in," replied he lamentably. + +"Is a man took in ven he finds a pretty voman?" asked she, with a laugh. + +"Permit me to sent you to-morrow some chewels as a soufenir of de Baron +von Nucingen." + +"Don't know him!" said she, laughing like a crazy creature. "But the +chewels will be welcome, my fat burglar friend." + +"You shall know him. Goot night, motame. You are a tidbit for ein king; +but I am only a poor banker more dan sixty year olt, and you hafe made +me feel vat power the voman I lofe hafe ofer me since your difine beauty +hafe not make me forget her." + +"Vell, dat is ver' pretty vat you say," replied the Englishwoman. + +"It is not so pretty vat she is dat I say it to." + +"You spoke of thirty thousand francs--to whom did you give them?" + +"To dat hussy, your maid----" + +The Englishwoman called Europe, who was not far off. + +"Oh!" shrieked Europe, "a man in madame's room, and he is not +monsieur--how shocking!" + +"Did he give you thirty thousand francs to let him in?" + +"No, madame, for we are not worth it, the pair of us." + +And Europe set to screaming "Thief" so determinedly, that the banker +made for the door in a fright, and Europe, tripping him up, rolled him +down the stairs. + +"Old wretch!" cried she, "you would tell tales to my mistress! Thief! +thief! stop thief!" + +The enamored Baron, in despair, succeeded in getting unhurt to his +carriage, which he had left on the boulevard; but he was now at his +wits' end as to whom to apply to. + +"And pray, madame, did you think to get my earnings out of me?" said +Europe, coming back like a fury to the lady's room. + +"I know nothing of French customs," said the Englishwoman. + +"But one word from me to-morrow to monsieur, and you, madame, would find +yourself in the streets," retorted Europe insolently. + +"Dat dam' maid!" said the Baron to Georges, who naturally asked his +master if all had gone well, "hafe do me out of dirty tousant franc--but +it vas my own fault, my own great fault----" + +"And so monsieur's dress was all wasted. The deuce is in it, I should +advise you, Monsieur le Baron, not to have taken your tonic for +nothing----" + +"Georches, I shall be dying of despair. I hafe cold--I hafe ice on mein +heart--no more of Esther, my good friend." + +Georges was always the Baron's friend when matters were serious. + + + +Two days after this scene, which Europe related far more amusingly than +it can be written, because she told it with much mimicry, Carlos and +Lucien were breakfasting tete-a-tete. + +"My dear boy, neither the police nor anybody else must be allowed to +poke a nose into our concerns," said Herrera in a low voice, as he +lighted his cigar from Lucien's. "It would not agree with us. I have hit +on a plan, daring but effectual, to keep our Baron and his agents quiet. +You must go to see Madame de Serizy, and make yourself very agreeable to +her. Tell her, in the course of conversation, that to oblige Rastignac, +who has long been sick of Madame de Nucingen, you have consented to play +fence for him to conceal a mistress. Monsieur de Nucingen, desperately +in love with this woman Rastignac keeps hidden--that will make her +laugh--has taken it into his head to set the police to keep an eye on +you--on you, who are innocent of all his tricks, and whose interest +with the Grandlieus may be seriously compromised. Then you must beg the +Countess to secure her husband's support, for he is a Minister of State, +to carry you to the Prefecture of Police. + +"When you have got there, face to face with the Prefet, make your +complaint, but as a man of political consequence, who will sooner or +later be one of the motor powers of the huge machine of government. You +will speak of the police as a statesman should, admiring everything, the +Prefet included. The very best machines make oil-stains or splutter. Do +not be angry till the right moment. You have no sort of grudge against +Monsieur le Prefet, but persuade him to keep a sharp lookout on his +people, and pity him for having to blow them up. The quieter and more +gentlemanly you are, the more terrible will the Prefet be to his men. +Then we shall be left in peace, and we may send for Esther back, for she +must be belling like the does in the forest." + +The Prefet at that time was a retired magistrate. Retired magistrates +make far too young Prefets. Partisans of the right, riding the high +horse on points of law, they are not light-handed in arbitary action +such as critical circumstances often require; cases in which the Prefet +should be as prompt as a fireman called to a conflagration. So, face +to face with the Vice-President of the Council of State, the Prefet +confessed to more faults than the police really has, deplored its +abuses, and presently was able to recollect the visit paid to him by +the Baron de Nucingen and his inquiries as to Peyrade. The Prefet, +while promising to check the rash zeal of his agents, thanked Lucien +for having come straight to him, promised secrecy, and affected to +understand the intrigue. + +A few fine speeches about personal liberty and the sacredness of home +life were bandied between the Prefet and the Minister; Monsieur de +Serizy observing in conclusion that though the high interests of the +kingdom sometimes necessitated illegal action in secret, crime began +when these State measures were applied to private cases. + +Next day, just as Peyrade was going to his beloved Cafe David, where he +enjoyed watching the bourgeois eat, as an artist watches flowers open, a +gendarme in private clothes spoke to him in the street. + +"I was going to fetch you," said he in his ear. "I have orders to take +you to the Prefecture." + +Peyrade called a hackney cab, and got in without saying a single word, +followed by the gendarme. + +The Prefet treated Peyrade as though he were the lowest warder on +the hulks, walking to and fro in a side path of the garden of the +Prefecture, which at that time was on the Quai des Orfevres. + +"It is not without good reason, monsieur, that since 1830 you have been +kept out of office. Do not you know to what risk you expose us, not to +mention yourself?" + +The lecture ended in a thunderstroke. The Prefet sternly informed poor +Peyrade that not only would his yearly allowance be cut off, but that +he himself would be narrowly watched. The old man took the shock with an +air of perfect calm. Nothing can be more rigidly expressionless than a +man struck by lightning. Peyrade had lost all his stake in the game. He +had counted on getting an appointment, and he found himself bereft of +everything but the alms bestowed by his friend Corentin. + +"I have been the Prefet of Police myself; I think you perfectly right," +said the old man quietly to the functionary who stood before him in his +judicial majesty, and who answered with a significant shrug. + +"But allow me, without any attempt to justify myself, to point out that +you do not know me at all," Peyrade went on, with a keen glance at the +Prefet. "Your language is either too severe to a man who has been the +head of the police in Holland, or not severe enough for a mere spy. But, +Monsieur le Prefet," Peyrade added after a pause, while the other kept +silence, "bear in mind what I now have the honor to telling you: I +have no intention of interfering with your police nor of attempting to +justify myself, but you will presently discover that there is some one +in this business who is being deceived; at this moment it is your humble +servant; by and by you will say, 'It was I.'" + +And he bowed to the chief, who sat passive to conceal his amazement. + +Peyrade returned home, his legs and arms feeling broken, and full +of cold fury with the Baron. Nobody but that burly banker could have +betrayed a secret contained in the minds of Contenson, Peyrade, and +Corentin. The old man accused the banker of wishing to avoid paying now +that he had gained his end. A single interview had been enough to enable +him to read the astuteness of this most astute of bankers. + +"He tries to compound with every one, even with us; but I will be +revenged," thought the old fellow. "I have never asked a favor of +Corentin; I will ask him now to help me to be revenged on that imbecile +money-box. Curse the Baron!--Well, you will know the stuff I am made +of one fine morning when you find your daughter disgraced!--But does he +love his daughter, I wonder?" + +By the evening of the day when this catastrophe had upset the old man's +hopes he had aged by ten years. As he talked to his friend Corentin, he +mingled his lamentations with tears wrung from him by the thought of +the melancholy prospects he must bequeath to his daughter, his idol, his +treasure, his peace-offering to God. + +"We will follow the matter up," said Corentin. "First of all, we must +be sure that it was the Baron who peached. Were we wise in enlisting +Gondreville's support? That old rascal owes us too much not to be +anxious to swamp us; indeed, I am keeping an eye on his son-in-law +Keller, a simpleton in politics, and quite capable of meddling in +some conspiracy to overthrow the elder Branch to the advantage of the +younger.--I shall know to-morrow what is going on at Nucingen's, whether +he has seen his beloved, and to whom we owe this sharp pull up.--Do +not be out of heart. In the first place, the Prefet will not hold +his appointment much longer; the times are big with revolution, and +revolutions make good fishing for us." + +A peculiar whistle was just then heard in the street. + +"That is Contenson," said Peyrade, who put a light in the window, "and +he has something to say that concerns me." + +A minute later the faithful Contenson appeared in the presence of the +two gnomes of the police, whom he revered as though they were two genii. + +"What is up?" asked Corentin. + +"A new thing! I was coming out of 113, where I lost everything, when +whom do I spy under the gallery? Georges! The man has been dismissed by +the Baron, who suspects him of treachery." + +"That is the effect of a smile I gave him," said Peyrade. + +"Bah! when I think of all the mischief I have known caused by smiles!" +said Corentin. + +"To say nothing of that caused by a whip-lash," said Peyrade, referring +to the Simeuse case. (In _Une Tenebreuse affaire_.) "But come, +Contenson, what is going on?" + +"This is what is going on," said Contenson. "I made Georges blab by +getting him to treat me to an endless series of liqueurs of every +color--I left him tipsy; I must be as full as a still myself!--Our Baron +has been to the Rue Taitbout, crammed with Pastilles du Serail. There he +found the fair one you know of; but--a good joke! The English beauty is +not his fair unknown!--And he has spent thirty thousand francs to bribe +the lady's-maid, a piece of folly! + +"That creature thinks itself a great man because it does mean things +with great capital. Reverse the proposition, and you have the problem +of which a man of genius is the solution.--The Baron came home in a +pitiable condition. Next day Georges, to get his finger in the pie, said +to his master: + +"'Why, Monsieur le Baron, do you employ such blackguards? If you would +only trust to me, I would find the unknown lady, for your description +of her is enough. I shall turn Paris upside down.'--'Go ahead,' says the +Baron; 'I shall reward you handsomely!'--Georges told me the whole story +with the most absurd details. But--man is born to be rained upon! + +"Next day the Baron received an anonymous letter something to this +effect: 'Monsieur de Nucingen is dying of love for an unknown lady; he +has already spent a great deal utterly in vain; if he will repair at +midnight to the end of the Neuilly Bridge, and get into the carriage +behind which the chasseur he saw at Vincennes will be standing, allowing +himself to be blindfolded, he will see the woman he loves. As his wealth +may lead him to suspect the intentions of persons who proceed in such +a fashion, he may bring, as an escort, his faithful Georges. And there +will be nobody in the carriage.'--Off the Baron goes, taking Georges +with him, but telling him nothing. They both submit to have their eyes +bound up and their heads wrapped in veils; the Baron recognizes the +man-servant. + +"Two hours later, the carriage, going at the pace of Louis XVIII.--God +rest his soul! He knew what was meant by the police, he did!--pulled up +in the middle of a wood. The Baron had the handkerchief off, and saw, in +a carriage standing still, his adored fair--when, whiff! she vanished. +And the carriage, at the same lively pace, brought him back to the +Neuilly Bridge, where he found his own. + +"Some one had slipped into Georges' hand a note to this effect: 'How +many banknotes will the Baron part with to be put into communication +with his unknown fair? Georges handed this to his master; and the +Baron, never doubting that Georges was in collusion with me or with you, +Monsieur Peyrade, to drive a hard bargain, turned him out of the house. +What a fool that banker is! He ought not to have sent away Georges +before he had known the unknown!" + +"Then Georges saw the woman?" said Corentin. + +"Yes," replied Contenson. + +"Well," cried Peyrade, "and what is she like?" + +"Oh," said Contenson, "he said but one word--'A sun of loveliness.'" + +"We are being tricked by some rascals who beat us at the game," said +Peyrade. "Those villains mean to sell their woman very dear to the +Baron." + +"Ja, mein Herr," said Contenson. "And so, when I heard you got slapped +in the face at the Prefecture, I made Georges blab." + +"I should like very much to know who it is that has stolen a march on +me," said Peyrade. "We would measure our spurs!" + +"We must play eavesdropper," said Contenson. + +"He is right," said Peyrade. "We must get into chinks to listen, and +wait----" + +"We will study that side of the subject," cried Corentin. "For the +present, I am out of work. You, Peyrade, be a very good boy. We must +always obey Monsieur le Prefet!" + +"Monsieur de Nucingen wants bleeding," said Contenson; "he has too many +banknotes in his veins." + +"But it was Lydie's marriage-portion I looked for there!" said Peyrade, +in a whisper to Corentin. + +"Now, come along, Contenson, let us be off, and leave our daddy to +by-bye, by-bye!" + +"Monsieur," said Contenson to Corentin on the doorstep, "what a queer +piece of brokerage our good friend was planning! Heh!--What, marry a +daughter with the price of----Ah, ha! It would make a pretty little +play, and very moral too, entitled 'A Girl's Dower.'" + +"You are highly organized animals, indeed," replied Corentin. "What +ears you have! Certainly Social Nature arms all her species with the +qualities needed for the duties she expects of them! Society is second +nature." + +"That is a highly philosophical view to take," cried Contenson. "A +professor would work it up into a system." + +"Let us find out all we can," replied Corentin with a smile, as he made +his way down the street with the spy, "as to what goes on at Monsieur +de Nucingen's with regard to this girl--the main facts; never mind the +details----" + +"Just watch to see if his chimneys are smoking!" said Contenson. + +"Such a man as the Baron de Nucingen cannot be happy incognito," replied +Corentin. "And besides, we for whom men are but cards, ought never to be +tricked by them." + +"By gad! it would be the condemned jail-bird amusing himself by cutting +the executioner's throat." + +"You always have something droll to say," replied Corentin, with a dim +smile, that faintly wrinkled his set white face. + +This business was exceedingly important in itself, apart from its +consequences. If it were not the Baron who had betrayed Peyrade, +who could have had any interest in seeing the Prefet of Police? From +Corentin's point of view it seemed suspicious. Were there any traitors +among his men? And as he went to bed, he wondered what Peyrade, too, was +considering. + +"Who can have gone to complain to the Prefet? Whom does the woman belong +to?" + +And thus, without knowing each other, Jacques Collin, Peyrade, and +Corentin were converging to a common point; while the unhappy Esther, +Nucingen, and Lucien were inevitably entangled in the struggle which +had already begun, and of which the point of pride, peculiar to police +agents, was making a war to the death. + +Thanks to Europe's cleverness, the more pressing half of the sixty +thousand francs of debt owed by Esther and Lucien was paid off. The +creditors did not even lose confidence. Lucien and his evil genius could +breathe for a moment. Like some pool, they could start again along the +edge of the precipice where the strong man was guiding the weak man to +the gibbet or to fortune. + +"We are staking now," said Carlos to his puppet, "to win or lose all. +But, happily, the cards are beveled, and the punters young." + + + +For some time Lucien, by his terrible Mentor's orders, had been very +attentive to Madame de Serizy. It was, in fact, indispensable that +Lucien should not be suspected of having kept a woman for his mistress. +And in the pleasure of being loved, and the excitement of fashionable +life, he found a spurious power of forgetting. He obeyed Mademoiselle +Clotilde de Grandlieu by never seeing her excepting in the Bois or the +Champs-Elysees. + +On the day after Esther was shut up in the park-keeper's house, the +being who was to her so enigmatic and terrible, who weighed upon her +soul, came to desire her to sign three pieces of stamped paper, made +terrible by these fateful words: on the first, accepted payable for +sixty thousand francs; on the second, accepted payable for a hundred and +twenty thousand francs; on the third, accepted payable for a hundred and +twenty thousand francs--three hundred thousand francs in all. By writing +_Bon pour_, you simply promise to pay. The word _accepted_ constitutes +a bill of exchange, and makes you liable to imprisonment. The word +entails, on the person who is so imprudent as to sign, the risk of five +years' imprisonment--a punishment which the police magistrate hardly +ever inflicts, and which is reserved at the assizes for confirmed +rogues. The law of imprisonment for debt is a relic of the days of +barbarism, which combines with its stupidity the rare merit of being +useless, inasmuch as it never catches swindlers. + +"The point," said the Spaniard to Esther, "is to get Lucien out of his +difficulties. We have debts to the tune of sixty thousand francs, and +with these three hundred thousand francs we may perhaps pull through." + +Having antedated the bills by six months, Carlos had had them drawn on +Esther by a man whom the county court had "misunderstood," and whose +adventures, in spite of the excitement they had caused, were soon +forgotten, hidden, lost, in the uproar of the great symphony of July +1830. + +This young fellow, a most audacious adventurer, the son of a lawyer's +clerk of Boulogne, near Paris, was named Georges Marie Destourny. His +father, obliged by adverse circumstances to sell his connection, died +in 1824, leaving his son without the means of living, after giving him +a brilliant education, the folly of the lower middle class. At +twenty-three the clever young law-student had denied his paternity by +printing on his cards + + Georges d'Estourny. + +This card gave him an odor of aristocracy; and now, as a man of fashion, +he was so impudent as to set up a tilbury and a groom and haunt the +clubs. One line will account for this: he gambled on the Bourse with the +money intrusted to him by the kept women of his acquaintance. Finally he +fell into the hands of the police, and was charged with playing at cards +with too much luck. + +He had accomplices, youths whom he had corrupted, his compulsory +satellites, accessory to his fashion and his credit. Compelled to fly, +he forgot to pay his differences on the Bourse. All Paris--the Paris of +the Stock Exchange and Clubs--was still shaken by this double stroke of +swindling. + +In the days of his splendor Georges d'Estourny, a handsome youth, and +above all, a jolly fellow, as generous as a brigand chief, had for a few +months "protected" La Torpille. The false Abbe based his calculations +on Esther's former intimacy with this famous scoundrel, an incident +peculiar to women of her class. + +Georges d'Estourny, whose ambition grew bolder with success, had taken +under his patronage a man who had come from the depths of the country to +carry on a business in Paris, and whom the Liberal party were anxious +to indemnify for certain sentences endured with much courage in the +struggle of the press with Charles X.'s government, the persecution +being relaxed, however, during the Martignac administration. The Sieur +Cerizet had then been pardoned, and he was henceforth known as the Brave +Cerizet. + +Cerizet then, being patronized for form's sake by the bigwigs of the +Left, founded a house which combined the business of a general agency +with that of a bank and a commission agency. It was one of those +concerns which, in business, remind one of the servants who advertise in +the papers as being able and willing to do everything. Cerizet was very +glad to ally himself with Georges d'Estourny, who gave him hints. + +Esther, in virtue of the anecdote about Nonon, might be regarded as +the faithful guardian of part of Georges d'Estourny's fortune. An +endorsement in the name of Georges d'Estourny made Carlos Herrera master +of the money he had created. This forgery was perfectly safe so long as +Mademoiselle Esther, or some one for her, could, or was bound to pay. + +After making inquiries as to the house of Cerizet, Carlos perceived +that he had to do with one of those humble men who are bent on making +a fortune, but--lawfully. Cerizet, with whom d'Estourny had really +deposited his moneys, had in hand a considerable sum with which he was +speculating for a rise on the Bourse, a state of affairs which allowed +him to style himself a banker. Such things are done in Paris; a man may +be despised,--but money, never. + +Carlos went off to Cerizet intending to work him after his manner; +for, as it happened, he was master of all this worthy's secrets--a meet +partner for d'Estourny. + +Cerizet the Brave lived in an entresol in the Rue du Gros-Chenet, and +Carlos, who had himself mysteriously announced as coming from Georges +d'Estourny, found the self-styled banker quite pale at the name. The +Abbe saw in this humble private room a little man with thin, light hair; +and recognized him at once, from Lucien's description, as the Judas who +had ruined David Sechard. + +"Can we talk here without risk of being overheard?" said the Spaniard, +now metamorphosed into a red-haired Englishman with blue spectacles, as +clean and prim as a Puritan going to meeting. + +"Why, monsieur?" said Cerizet. "Who are you?" + +"Mr. William Barker, a creditor of M. d'Estourny's; and I can prove to +you the necessity for keeping your doors closed if you wish it. We +know, monsieur, all about your connections with the Petit-Clauds, the +Cointets, and the Sechards of Angouleme----" + +On hearing these words, Cerizet rushed to the door and shut it, flew +to another leading into a bedroom and bolted it; then he said to the +stranger: + +"Speak lower, monsieur," and he studied the sham Englishman as he asked +him, "What do you want with me?" + +"Dear me," said William Barker, "every one for himself in this world. +You had the money of that rascal d'Estourny.--Be quite easy, I have not +come to ask for it; but that scoundrel, who deserves hanging, between +you and me, gave me these bills, saying that there might be some chance +of recovering the money; and as I do not choose to prosecute in my own +name, he told me you would not refuse to back them." + +Cerizet looked at the bills. + +"But he is no longer at Frankfort," said he. + +"I know it," replied Barker, "but he may still have been there at the +date of those bills----" + +"I will not take the responsibility," said Cerizet. + +"I do not ask such a sacrifice of you," replied Barker; "you may be +instructed to receive them. Endorse them, and I will undertake to +recover the money." + +"I am surprised that d'Estourny should show so little confidence in me," +said Cerizet. + +"In his position," replied Barker, "you can hardly blame him for having +put his eggs in different baskets." + +"Can you believe----" the little broker began, as he handed back to the +Englishman the bills of exchange formally accepted. + +"I believe that you will take good care of his money," said Barker. "I +am sure of it! It is already on the green table of the Bourse." + +"My fortune depends----" + +"On your appearing to lose it," said Barker. + +"Sir!" cried Cerizet. + +"Look here, my dear Monsieur Cerizet," said Barker, coolly interrupting +him, "you will do me a service by facilitating this payment. Be so good +as to write me a letter in which you tell me that you are sending me +these bills receipted on d'Estourny's account, and that the collecting +officer is to regard the holder of the letter as the possessor of the +three bills." + +"Will you give me your name?" + +"No names," replied the English capitalist. "Put 'The bearer of this +letter and these bills.'--You will be handsomely repaid for obliging +me." + +"How?" said Cerizet. + +"In one word--You mean to stay in France, do not you?" + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"Well, Georges d'Estourny will never re-enter the country." + +"Pray why?" + +"There are five persons at least to my knowledge who would murder him, +and he knows it." + +"Then no wonder he is asking me for money enough to start him trading +to the Indies?" cried Cerizet. "And unfortunately he has compelled me to +risk everything in State speculation. We already owe heavy differences +to the house of du Tillet. I live from hand to mouth." + +"Withdraw your stakes." + +"Oh! if only I had known this sooner!" exclaimed Cerizet. "I have missed +my chance!" + +"One last word," said Barker. "Keep your own counsel, you are capable +of that; but you must be faithful too, which is perhaps less certain. We +shall meet again, and I will help you to make a fortune." + +Having tossed this sordid soul a crumb of hope that would secure silence +for some time to come, Carlos, still disguised as Barker, betook himself +to a bailiff whom he could depend on, and instructed him to get the +bills brought home to Esther. + +"They will be paid all right," said he to the officer. "It is an affair +of honor; only we want to do the thing regularly." + +Barker got a solicitor to represent Esther in court, so that judgment +might be given in presence of both parties. The collecting officer, +who was begged to act with civility, took with him all the warrants +for procedure, and came in person to seize the furniture in the Rue +Taitbout, where he was received by Europe. Her personal liability once +proved, Esther was ostensibly liable, beyond dispute, for three hundred +and more thousand francs of debts. + +In all this Carlos displayed no great powers of invention. The farce of +false debts is often played in Paris. There are many sub-Gobsecks +and sub-Gigonnets who, for a percentage, will lend themselves to +this subterfuge, and regard the infamous trick as a jest. In France +everything--even a crime--is done with a laugh. By this means refractory +parents are made to pay, or rich mistresses who might drive a hard +bargain, but who, face to face with flagrant necessity, or some +impending dishonor, pay up, if with a bad grace. Maxime de Trailles +had often used such means, borrowed from the comedies of the old stage. +Carlos Herrera, who wanted to save the honor of his gown, as well as +Lucien's, had worked the spell by a forgery not dangerous for him, but +now so frequently practised that Justice is beginning to object. There +is, it is said, a Bourse for falsified bills near the Palais Royal, +where you may get a forged signature for three francs. + + + +Before entering on the question of the hundred thousand crowns that were +to keep the door of the bedroom, Carlos determined first to extract a +hundred thousand more from M. de Nucingen. + +And this was the way: By his orders Asie got herself up for the Baron's +benefit as an old woman fully informed as to the unknown beauty's +affairs. + +Hitherto, novelists of manners have placed on the stage a great many +usurers; but the female money-lender has been overlooked, the Madame la +Ressource of the present day--a very singular figure, euphemistically +spoken of as a "ward-robe purchaser"; a part that the ferocious Asie +could play, for she had two old-clothes shops managed by women she could +trust--one in the Temple, and the other in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Marc. + +"You must get into the skin of Madame de Saint-Esteve," said he. + +Herrera wished to see Asie dressed. + +The go-between arrived in a dress of flowered damask, made of the +curtains of some dismantled boudoir, and one of those shawls of Indian +design--out of date, worn, and valueless, which end their career on the +backs of these women. She had a collar of magnificent lace, though torn, +and a terrible bonnet; but her shoes were of fine kid, in which the +flesh of her fat feet made a roll of black-lace stocking. + +"And my waist buckle!" she exclaimed, displaying a piece of +suspicious-looking finery, prominent on her cook's stomach, "There's +style for you! and my front!--Oh, Ma'me Nourrisson has turned me out +quite spiff!" + +"Be as sweet as honey at first," said Carlos; "be almost timid, as +suspicious as a cat; and, above all, make the Baron ashamed of having +employed the police, without betraying that you quake before the +constable. Finally, make your customer understand in more or less plain +terms that you defy all the police in the world to discover his jewel. +Take care to destroy your traces. + +"When the Baron gives you a right to tap him on the stomach, and call +him a pot-bellied old rip, you may be as insolent as you please, and +make him trot like a footman." + +Nucingen--threatened by Asie with never seeing her again if he attempted +the smallest espionage--met the woman on his way to the Bourse, in +secret, in a wretched entresol in the Rue Nueve-Saint-Marc. How often, +and with what rapture, have amorous millionaires trodden these squalid +paths! the pavements of Paris know. Madame de Saint-Esteve, by tossing +the Baron from hope to despair by turns, brought him to the point when +he insisted on being informed of all that related to the unknown beauty +at ANY COST. Meanwhile, the law was put in force, and with such +effect that the bailiffs, finding no resistance from Esther, put in an +execution on her effects without losing a day. + +Lucien, guided by his adviser, paid the recluse at Saint-Germain five or +six visits. The merciless author of all these machinations thought this +necessary to save Esther from pining to death, for her beauty was now +their capital. When the time came for them to quit the park-keeper's +lodge, he took Lucien and the poor girl to a place on the road whence +they could see Paris, where no one could overhear them. They all three +sat down in the rising sun, on the trunk of a felled poplar, looking +over one of the finest prospects in the world, embracing the course of +the Seine, with Montmartre, Paris, and Saint-Denis. + +"My children," said Carlos, "your dream is over.--You, little one, will +never see Lucien again; or if you should, you must have known him only +for a few days, five years ago." + +"Death has come upon me then," said she, without shedding a tear. + +"Well, you have been ill these five years," said Herrera. "Imagine +yourself to be consumptive, and die without boring us with your +lamentations. But you will see, you can still live, and very comfortably +too.--Leave us, Lucien--go and gather sonnets!" said he, pointing to a +field a little way off. + +Lucien cast a look of humble entreaty at Esther, one of the looks +peculiar to such men--weak and greedy, with tender hearts and cowardly +spirits. Esther answered with a bow of her head, which said: "I will +hear the executioner, that I may know how to lay my head under the axe, +and I shall have courage enough to die decently." + +The gesture was so gracious, but so full of dreadful meaning, that the +poet wept; Esther flew to him, clasped him in her arms, drank away the +tears, and said, "Be quite easy!" one of those speeches that are spoken +with the manner, the look, the tones of delirium. + +Carlos then explained to her quite clearly, without attenuation, often +with horrible plainness of speech, the critical position in which Lucien +found himself, his connection with the Hotel Grandlieu, his splendid +prospects if he should succeed; and finally, how necessary it was that +Esther should sacrifice herself to secure him this triumphant future. + +"What must I do?" cried she, with the eagerness of a fanatic. + +"Obey me blindly," said Carlos. "And what have you to complain of? It +rests with you to achieve a happy lot. You may be what Tullia is, what +your old friends Florine, Mariette, and la Val-Noble are--the mistress +of a rich man whom you need not love. When once our business is settled, +your lover is rich enough to make you happy." + +"Happy!" said she, raising her eyes to heaven. + +"You have lived in Paradise for four years," said he. "Can you not live +on such memories?" + +"I will obey you," said she, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. +"For the rest, do not worry yourself. You have said it; my love is a +mortal disease." + +"That is not enough," said Carlos; "you must preserve your looks. At a +little past two-and-twenty you are in the prime of your beauty, thanks +to your past happiness. And, above all, be the 'Torpille' again. Be +roguish, extravagant, cunning, merciless to the millionaire I put in +your power. Listen to me! That man is a robber on a grand scale; he has +been ruthless to many persons; he has grown fat on the fortunes of the +widow and the orphan; you will avenge them! + +"Asie is coming to fetch you in a hackney coach, and you will be in +Paris this evening. If you allow any one to suspect your connection with +Lucien, you may as well blow his brains out at once. You will be +asked where you have been for so long. You must say that you have been +traveling with a desperately jealous Englishman.--You used to have wit +enough to humbug people. Find such wit again now." + +Have you ever seen a gorgeous kite, the giant butterfly of childhood, +twinkling with gilding, and soaring to the sky? The children forget the +string that holds it, some passer-by cuts it, the gaudy toy turns head +over heels, as the boys say, and falls with terrific rapidity. Such was +Esther as she listened to Carlos. + + + + WHAT LOVE COSTS AN OLD MAN + +For a whole week Nucingen went almost every day to the shop in the Rue +Nueve-Saint-Marc to bargain for the woman he was in love with. Here, +sometimes under the name of Saint-Esteve, sometimes under that of her +tool, Madame Nourrisson, Asie sat enthroned among beautiful clothes in +that hideous condition when they have ceased to be dresses and are not +yet rags. + +The setting was in harmony with the appearance assumed by the woman, +for these shops are among the most hideous characteristics of Paris. You +find there the garments tossed aside by the skinny hand of Death; you +hear, as it were, the gasping of consumption under a shawl, or you +detect the agonies of beggery under a gown spangled with gold. The +horrible struggle between luxury and starvation is written on filmy +laces; you may picture the countenance of a queen under a plumed turban +placed in an attitude that recalls and almost reproduces the absent +features. It is all hideous amid prettiness! Juvenal's lash, in the +hands of the appraiser, scatters the shabby muffs, the ragged furs of +courtesans at bay. + +There is a dunghill of flowers, among which here and there we find a +bright rose plucked but yesterday and worn for a day; and on this an old +hag is always to be seen crouching--first cousin to Usury, the skinflint +bargainer, bald and toothless, and ever ready to sell the contents, so +well is she used to sell the covering--the gown without the woman, or +the woman without the gown! + +Here Asie was in her element, like the warder among convicts, like a +vulture red-beaked amid corpses; more terrible than the savage horrors +that made the passer-by shudder in astonishment sometimes, at seeing +one of their youngest and sweetest reminiscences hung up in a dirty shop +window, behind which a Saint-Esteve sits and grins. + +From vexation to vexation, a thousand francs at a time, the banker had +gone so far as to offer sixty thousand francs to Madame de Saint-Esteve, +who still refused to help him, with a grimace that would have outdone +any monkey. After a disturbed night, after confessing to himself that +Esther completely upset his ideas, after realizing some unexpected turns +of fortune on the Bourse, he came to her one day, intending to give the +hundred thousand francs on which Asie insisted, but he was determined to +have plenty of information for the money. + +"Well, have you made up your mind, old higgler?" said Asie, clapping him +on the shoulder. + +The most dishonoring familiarity is the first tax these women levy on +the frantic passions or griefs that are confided to them; they never +rise to the level of their clients; they make them seem squat beside +them on their mudheap. Asie, it will be seen, obeyed her master +admirably. + +"Need must!" said Nucingen. + +"And you have the best of the bargain," said Asie. "Women have been sold +much dearer than this one to you--relatively speaking. There are women +and women! De Marsay paid sixty thousand francs for Coralie, who is dead +now. The woman you want cost a hundred thousand francs when new; but to +you, you old goat, it is a matter of agreement." + +"But vere is she?" + +"Ah! you shall see. I am like you--a gift for a gift! Oh, my good man, +your adored one has been extravagant. These girls know no moderation. +Your princess is at this moment what we call a fly by night----" + +"A fly----?" + +"Come, come, don't play the simpleton.--Louchard is at her heels, and +I--I--have lent her fifty thousand francs----" + +"Twenty-fife say!" cried the banker. + +"Well, of course, twenty-five for fifty, that is only natural," replied +Asie. "To do the woman justice, she is honesty itself. She had nothing +left but herself, and says she to me: 'My good Madame Saint-Esteve, +the bailiffs are after me; no one can help me but you. Give me twenty +thousand francs. I will pledge my heart to you.' Oh, she has a sweet +heart; no one but me knows where it lies. Any folly on my part, and I +should lose my twenty thousand francs. + +"Formerly she lived in the Rue Taitbout. Before leaving--(her furniture +was seized for costs--those rascally bailiffs--You know them, you who +are one of the great men on the Bourse)--well, before leaving, she is +no fool, she let her rooms for two months to an Englishwoman, a splendid +creature who had a little thingummy--Rubempre--for a lover, and he was +so jealous that he only let her go out at night. But as the furniture is +to be seized, the Englishwoman has cut her stick, all the more because +she cost too much for a little whipper-snapper like Lucien." + +"You cry up de goots," said Nucingen. + +"Naturally," said Asie. "I lend to the beauties; and it pays, for you +get two commissions for one job." + +Asie was amusing herself by caricaturing the manners of a class of women +who are even greedier but more wheedling and mealy-mouthed than the +Malay woman, and who put a gloss of the best motives on the trade they +ply. Asie affected to have lost all her illusions, five lovers, and some +children, and to have submitted to be robbed by everybody in spite of +her experience. From time to time she exhibited some pawn-tickets, +to prove how much bad luck there was in her line of business. She +represented herself as pinched and in debt, and to crown all, she was so +undisguisedly hideous that the Baron at last believed her to be all she +said she was. + +"Vell den, I shall pay the hundert tousant, and vere shall I see +her?" said he, with the air of a man who has made up his mind to any +sacrifice. + +"My fat friend, you shall come this evening--in your carriage, of +course--opposite the Gymnase. It is on the way," said Asie. "Stop at the +corner of the Rue Saint-Barbe. I will be on the lookout, and we will go +and find my mortgaged beauty, with the black hair.--Oh, she has splendid +hair, has my mortgage. If she pulls out her comb, Esther is covered as +if it were a pall. But though you are knowing in arithmetic, you strike +me as a muff in other matters; and I advise you to hide the girl safely, +for if she is found she will be clapped into Sainte-Pelagie the very +next day.--And they are looking for her." + +"Shall it not be possible to get holt of de bills?" said the +incorrigible bill-broker. + +"The bailiffs have got them--but it is impossible. The girl has had a +passion, and has spent some money left in her hands, which she is now +called upon to pay. By the poker!--a queer thing is a heart of two +and-twenty." + +"Ver' goot, ver' goot, I shall arrange all dat," said Nucingen, assuming +a cunning look. "It is qvite settled dat I shall protect her." + +"Well, old noodle, it is your business to make her fall in love with +you, and you certainly have ample means to buy sham love as good as the +real article. I will place your princess in your keeping; she is bound +to stick to you, and after that I don't care.--But she is accustomed to +luxury and the greatest consideration. I tell you, my boy, she is quite +the lady.--If not, should I have given her twenty thousand francs?" + +"Ver' goot, it is a pargain. Till dis efening." + +The Baron repeated the bridal toilet he had already once achieved; but +this time, being certain of success, he took a double dose of pillules. + +At nine o'clock he found the dreadful woman at the appointed spot, and +took her into his carriage. + +"Vere to?" said the Baron. + +"Where?" echoed Asie. "Rue de la Perle in the Marais--an address for the +nonce; for your pearl is in the mud, but you will wash her clean." + +Having reached the spot, the false Madame de Saint-Esteve said to +Nucingen with a hideous smile: + +"We must go a short way on foot; I am not such a fool as to have given +you the right address." + +"You tink of eferytink!" said the baron. + +"It is my business," said she. + +Asie led Nucingen to the Rue Barbette, where, in furnished lodgings kept +by an upholsterer, he was led up to the fourth floor. + +On finding Esther in a squalid room, dressed as a work-woman, and +employed on some embroidery, the millionaire turned pale. At the end of +a quarter of an hour, while Asie affected to talk in whispers to Esther, +the young old man could hardly speak. + +"Montemisselle," said he at length to the unhappy girl, "vill you be so +goot as to let me be your protector?" + +"Why, I cannot help myself, monsieur," replied Esther, letting fall two +large tears. + +"Do not veep. I shall make you de happiest of vomen. Only permit that I +shall lof you--you shall see." + +"Well, well, child, the gentleman is reasonable," said Asie. "He knows +that he is more than sixty, and he will be very kind to you. You see, +my beauty, I have found you quite a father--I had to say so," Asie +whispered to the banker, who was not best pleased. "You cannot catch +swallows by firing a pistol at them.--Come here," she went on, leading +Nucingen into the adjoining room. "You remember our bargain, my angel?" + +Nucingen took out his pocketbook and counted out the hundred thousand +francs, which Carlos, hidden in a cupboard, was impatiently waiting for, +and which the cook handed over to him. + +"Here are the hundred thousand francs our man stakes on Asie. Now we +must make him lay on Europe," said Carlos to his confidante when they +were on the landing. + +And he vanished after giving his instruction to the Malay who went back +into the room. She found Esther weeping bitterly. The poor girl, like a +criminal condemned to death, had woven a romance of hope, and the fatal +hour had tolled. + +"My dear children," said Asie, "where do you mean to go?--For the Baron +de Nucingen----" + +Esther looked at the great banker with a start of surprise that was +admirably acted. + +"Ja, mein kind, I am dat Baron von Nucingen." + +"The Baron de Nucingen must not, cannot remain in such a room as this," +Asie went on. "Listen to me; your former maid Eugenie." + +"Eugenie, from the Rue Taitbout?" cried the Baron. + +"Just so; the woman placed in possession of the furniture," replied +Asie, "and who let the apartment to that handsome Englishwoman----" + +"Hah! I onderstant!" said the Baron. + +"Madame's former waiting-maid," Asie went on, respectfully alluding +to Esther, "will receive you very comfortably this evening; and the +commercial police will never think of looking for her in her old rooms +which she left three months ago----" + +"Feerst rate, feerst rate!" cried the Baron. "An' besides, I know dese +commercial police, an' I know vat sorts shall make dem disappear." + +"You will find Eugenie a sharp customer," said Asie. "I found her for +madame." + +"Hah! I know her!" cried the millionaire, laughing. "She haf fleeced me +out of dirty tousant franc." + +Esther shuddered with horror in a way that would have led a man of any +feeling to trust her with his fortune. + +"Oh, dat vas mein own fault," the Baron said. "I vas seeking for you." + +And he related the incident that had arisen out of the letting of +Esther's rooms to the Englishwoman. + +"There, now, you see, madame, Eugenie never told you all that, the sly +thing!" said Asie.--"Still, madame is used to the hussy," she added to +the Baron. "Keep her on, all the same." + +She drew Nucingen aside and said: + +"If you give Eugenie five hundred francs a month, which will fill up her +stocking finely, you can know everything that madame does: make her the +lady's-maid. Eugenie will be all the more devoted to you since she has +already done you.--Nothing attaches a woman to a man more than the fact +that she has once fleeced him. But keep a tight rein on Eugenie; she +will do any earthly thing for money; she is a dreadful creature!" + +"An' vat of you?" + +"I," said Asie, "I make both ends meet." + +Nucingen, the astute financier, had a bandage over his eyes; he allowed +himself to be led like a child. The sight of that spotless and adorable +Esther wiping her eyes and pricking in the stitches of her embroidery +as demurely as an innocent girl, revived in the amorous old man the +sensations he had experienced in the Forest of Vincennes; he would +have given her the key of his safe. He felt so young, his heart was so +overflowing with adoration; he only waited till Asie should be gone to +throw himself at the feet of this Raphael's Madonna. + +This sudden blossoming of youth in the heart of a stockbroker, of an old +man, is one of the social phenomena which must be left to physiology to +account for. Crushed under the burden of business, stifled under endless +calculations and the incessant anxieties of million-hunting, young +emotions revive with their sublime illusions, sprout and flower like +a forgotten cause or a forgotten seed, whose effects, whose gorgeous +bloom, are the sport of chance, brought out by a late and sudden gleam +of sunshine. + +The Baron, a clerk by the time he was twelve years old in the ancient +house of Aldrigger at Strasbourg, had never set foot in the world of +sentiment. So there he stood in front of his idol, hearing in his brain +a thousand modes of speech, while none came to his lips, till at length +he acted on the brutal promptings of desire that betrayed a man of +sixty-six. + +"Vill you come to Rue Taitbout?" said he. + +"Wherever you please, monsieur," said Esther, rising. + +"Verever I please!" he echoed in rapture. "You are ein anchel from de +sky, and I lofe you more as if I was a little man, vile I hafe gray +hairs----" + +"You had better say white, for they are too fine a black to be only +gray," said Asie. + +"Get out, foul dealer in human flesh! You hafe got your moneys; do not +slobber no more on dis flower of lofe!" cried the banker, indemnifying +himself by this violent abuse for all the insolence he had submitted to. + +"You old rip! I will pay you out for that speech!" said Asie, +threatening the banker with a gesture worthy of the Halle, at which the +Baron merely shrugged his shoulders. "Between the lip of the pot and +that of the guzzler there is often a viper, and you will find me there!" +she went on, furious at Nucingen's contempt. + +Millionaires, whose money is guarded by the Bank of France, whose +mansions are guarded by a squad of footmen, whose person in the streets +is safe behind the rampart of a coach with swift English horses, fear no +ill; so the Baron looked calmly at Asie, as a man who had just given her +a hundred thousand francs. + +This dignity had its effect. Asie beat a retreat, growling down the +stairs in highly revolutionary language; she spoke of the guillotine! + +"What have you said to her?" asked the Madonna a la broderie, "for she +is a good soul." + +"She hafe solt you, she hafe robbed you----" + +"When we are beggared," said she, in a tone to rend the heart of a +diplomate, "who has ever any money or consideration for us?" + +"Poor leetle ting!" said Nucingen. "Do not stop here ein moment longer." + +The Baron offered her his arm; he led her away just as she was, and put +her into his carriage with more respect perhaps than he would have shown +to the handsome Duchesse de Maufrigneuse. + +"You shall hafe a fine carriage, de prettiest carriage in Paris," said +Nucingen, as they drove along. "Everyting dat luxury shall sopply shall +be for you. Not any qveen shall be more rich dan vat you shall be. +You shall be respected like ein Cherman Braut. I shall hafe you to +be free.--Do not veep! Listen to me--I lofe you really, truly, mit de +purest lofe. Efery tear of yours breaks my heart." + +"Can one truly love a woman one has bought?" said the poor girl in the +sweetest tones. + +"Choseph vas solt by his broders for dat he was so comely. Dat is so in +de Biple. An' in de Eastern lants men buy deir wifes." + +On arriving at the Rue Taitbout, Esther could not return to the scene +of her happiness without some pain. She remained sitting on a couch, +motionless, drying away her tears one by one, and never hearing a word +of the crazy speeches poured out by the banker. He fell at her feet, and +she let him kneel without saying a word to him, allowing him to take her +hands as he would, and never thinking of the sex of the creature who was +rubbing her feet to warm them; for Nucingen found that they were cold. + +This scene of scalding tears shed on the Baron's head, and of ice-cold +feet that he tried to warm, lasted from midnight till two in the +morning. + +"Eugenie," cried the Baron at last to Europe, "persvade your mis'ess +that she shall go to bet." + +"No!" cried Esther, starting to her feet like a scared horse. "Never in +this house!" + +"Look her, monsieur, I know madame; she is as gentle and kind as a +lamb," said Europe to the Baron. "Only you must not rub her the wrong +way, you must get at her sideways--she had been so miserable here.--You +see how worn the furniture is.--Let her go her own way. + +"Furnish some pretty little house for her, very nicely. Perhaps when she +sees everything new about her she will feel a stranger there, and think +you better looking than you are, and be angelically sweet.--Oh! madame +has not her match, and you may boast of having done a very good stroke +of business: a good heart, genteel manners, a fine instep--and a skin, a +complexion! Ah!---- + +"And witty enough to make a condemned wretch laugh. And madame can feel +an attachment.--And then how she can dress!--Well, if it is costly, +still, as they say, you get your money's worth.--Here all the gowns were +seized, everything she has is three months old.--But madame is so +kind, you see, that I love her, and she is my mistress!--But in all +justice--such a woman as she is, in the midst of furniture that has been +seized!--And for whom? For a young scamp who has ruined her. Poor little +thing, she is not at all herself." + +"Esther, Esther; go to bet, my anchel! If it is me vat frighten you, I +shall stay here on dis sofa----" cried the Baron, fired by the purest +devotion, as he saw that Esther was still weeping. + +"Well, then," said Esther, taking the "lynx's" hand, and kissing it with +an impulse of gratitude which brought something very like a tear to his +eye, "I shall be grateful to you----" + +And she fled into her room and locked the door. + +"Dere is someting fery strange in all dat," thought Nucingen, excited by +his pillules. "Vat shall dey say at home?" + +He got up and looked out of the window. "My carriage still is dere. It +shall soon be daylight." He walked up and down the room. + +"Vat Montame de Nucingen should laugh at me ven she should know how I +hafe spent dis night!" + +He applied his ear to the bedroom door, thinking himself rather too much +of a simpleton. + +"Esther!" + +No reply. + +"Mein Gott! and she is still veeping!" said he to himself, as he +stretched himself on the sofa. + +About ten minutes after sunrise, the Baron de Nucingen, who was sleeping +the uneasy slumbers that are snatched by compulsion in an awkward +position on a couch, was aroused with a start by Europe from one of +those dreams that visit us in such moments, and of which the swift +complications are a phenomenon inexplicable by medical physiology. + +"Oh, God help us, madame!" she shrieked. "Madame!--the +soldiers--gendarmes--bailiffs! They have come to take us." + +At the moment when Esther opened her door and appeared, hurriedly, +wrapped in her dressing-gown, her bare feet in slippers, her hair in +disorder, lovely enough to bring the angel Raphael to perdition, the +drawing-room door vomited into the room a gutter of human mire that came +on, on ten feet, towards the beautiful girl, who stood like an angel +in some Flemish church picture. One man came foremost. Contenson, the +horrible Contenson, laid his hand on Esther's dewy shoulder. + +"You are Mademoiselle van----" he began. Europe, by a back-handed slap +on Contenson's cheek, sent him sprawling to measure his length on the +carpet, and with all the more effect because at the same time she caught +his leg with the sharp kick known to those who practise the art as a +coup de savate. + +"Hands off!" cried she. "No one shall touch my mistress." + +"She has broken my leg!" yelled Contenson, picking himself up; "I will +have damages!" + +From the group of bumbailiffs, looking like what they were, all +standing with their horrible hats on their yet more horrible heads, +with mahogany-colored faces and bleared eyes, damaged noses, and hideous +mouths, Louchard now stepped forth, more decently dressed than his men, +but keeping his hat on, his expression at once smooth-faced and smiling. + +"Mademoiselle, I arrest you!" said he to Esther. "As for you, my girl," +he added to Europe, "any resistance will be punished, and perfectly +useless." + +The noise of muskets, let down with a thud of their stocks on the floor +of the dining-room, showing that the invaders had soldiers to bake them, +gave emphasis to this speech. + +"And what am I arrested for?" said Esther. + +"What about our little debts?" said Louchard. + +"To be sure," cried Esther; "give me leave to dress." + +"But, unfortunately, mademoiselle, I am obliged to make sure that you +have no way of getting out of your room," said Louchard. + +All this passed so quickly that the Baron had not yet had time to +intervene. + +"Well, and am I still a foul dealer in human flesh, Baron de Nucingen?" +cried the hideous Asie, forcing her way past the sheriff's officers to +the couch, where she pretended to have just discovered the banker. + +"Contemptible wretch!" exclaimed Nucingen, drawing himself up in +financial majesty. + +He placed himself between Esther and Louchard, who took off his hat as +Contenson cried out, "Monsieur le Baron de Nucingen." + +At a signal from Louchard the bailiffs vanished from the room, +respectfully taking their hats off. Contenson alone was left. + +"Do you propose to pay, Monsieur le Baron?" asked he, hat in hand. + +"I shall pay," said the banker; "but I must know vat dis is all about." + +"Three hundred and twelve thousand francs and some centimes, costs paid; +but the charges for the arrest not included." + +"Three hundred thousand francs," cried the Baron; "dat is a fery +'xpensive vaking for a man vat has passed the night on a sofa," he added +in Europe's ear. + +"Is that man really the Baron de Nucingen?" asked Europe to Louchard, +giving weight to the doubt by a gesture which Mademoiselle Dupont, the +low comedy servant of the Francais, might have envied. + +"Yes, mademoiselle," said Louchard. + +"Yes," replied Contenson. + +"I shall be answerable," said the Baron, piqued in his honor by Europe's +doubt. "You shall 'llow me to say ein vort to her." + +Esther and her elderly lover retired to the bedroom, Louchard finding it +necessary to apply his ear to the keyhole. + +"I lofe you more as my life, Esther; but vy gife to your creditors +moneys vich shall be so much better in your pocket? Go into prison. I +shall undertake to buy up dose hundert tousant crowns for ein hundert +tousant francs, an' so you shall hafe two hundert tousant francs for +you----" + +"That scheme is perfectly useless," cried Louchard through the door. +"The creditor is not in love with mademoiselle--not he! You understand? +And he means to have more than all, now he knows that you are in love +with her." + +"You dam' sneak!" cried Nucingen, opening the door, and dragging +Louchard into the bedroom; "you know not dat vat you talk about. I shall +gife you, you'self, tventy per cent if you make the job." + +"Impossible, M. le Baron." + +"What, monsieur, you could have the heart to let my mistress go to +prison?" said Europe, intervening. "But take my wages, my savings; take +them, madame; I have forty thousand francs----" + +"Ah, my good girl, I did not really know you!" cried Esther, clasping +Europe in her arms. + +Europe proceeded to melt into tears. + +"I shall pay," said the Baron piteously, as he drew out a pocket-book, +from which he took one of the little printed forms which the Bank of +France issues to bankers, on which they have only to write a sum in +figures and in words to make them available as cheques to bearer. + +"It is not worth the trouble, Monsieur le Baron," said Louchard; "I +have instructions not to accept payment in anything but coin of the +realm--gold or silver. As it is you, I will take banknotes." + +"Der Teufel!" cried the Baron. "Well, show me your papers." + +Contenson handed him three packets covered with blue paper, which the +Baron took, looking at the man, and adding in an undertone: + +"It should hafe been a better day's vork for you ven you had gife me +notice." + +"Why, how should I know you were here, Monsieur le Baron?" replied +the spy, heedless whether Louchard heard him. "You lost my services +by withdrawing your confidence. You are done," added this philosopher, +shrugging his shoulders. + +"Qvite true," said the baron. "Ah, my chilt," he exclaimed, seeing +the bills of exchange, and turning to Esther, "you are de fictim of a +torough scoundrel, ein highway tief!" + +"Alas, yes," said poor Esther; "but he loved me truly." + +"Ven I should hafe known--I should hafe made you to protest----" + +"You are off your head, Monsieur le Baron," said Louchard; "there is a +third endorsement." + +"Yes, dere is a tird endorsement--Cerizet! A man of de opposition." + +"Will you write an order on your cashier, Monsieur le Baron?" said +Louchard. "I will send Contenson to him and dismiss my men. It is +getting late, and everybody will know that----" + +"Go den, Contenson," said Nucingen. "My cashier lives at de corner of +Rue des Mathurins and Rue de l'Arcate. Here is ein vort for dat he shall +go to du Tillet or to de Kellers, in case ve shall not hafe a hundert +tousant franc--for our cash shall be at de Bank.--Get dress', my +anchel," he said to Esther. "You are at liberty.--An' old vomans," he +went on, looking at Asie, "are more dangerous as young vomans." + +"I will go and give the creditor a good laugh," said Asie, "and he will +give me something for a treat to-day.--We bear no malice, Monsieur le +Baron," added Saint-Esteve with a horrible courtesy. + +Louchard took the bills out of the Baron's hands, and remained alone +with him in the drawing-room, whither, half an hour later, the cashier +came, followed by Contenson. Esther then reappeared in a bewitching, +though improvised, costume. When the money had been counted by Louchard, +the Baron wished to examine the bills; but Esther snatched them with a +cat-like grab, and carried them away to her desk. + +"What will you give the rabble?" said Contenson to Nucingen. + +"You hafe not shown much consideration," said the Baron. + +"And what about my leg?" cried Contenson. + +"Louchard, you shall gife ein hundert francs to Contenson out of the +change of the tousand-franc note." + +"De lady is a beauty," said the cashier to the Baron, as they left the +Rue Taitbout, "but she is costing you ver' dear, Monsieur le Baron." + +"Keep my segret," said the Baron, who had said the same to Contenson and +Louchard. + +Louchard went away with Contenson; but on the boulevard Asie, who was +looking out for him, stopped Louchard. + +"The bailiff and the creditor are there in a cab," said she. "They are +thirsty, and there is money going." + +While Louchard counted out the cash, Contenson studied the customers. He +recognized Carlos by his eyes, and traced the form of his forehead under +the wig. The wig he shrewdly regarded as suspicious; he took the number +of the cab while seeming quite indifferent to what was going on; Asie +and Europe puzzled him beyond measure. He thought that the Baron was the +victim of excessively clever sharpers, all the more so because Louchard, +when securing his services, had been singularly close. And besides, the +twist of Europe's foot had not struck his shin only. + +"A trick like that is learned at Saint-Lazare," he had reflected as he +got up. + +Carlos dismissed the bailiff, paying him liberally, and as he did so, +said to the driver of the cab, "To the Perron, Palais Royal." + +"The rascal!" thought Contenson as he heard the order. "There is +something up!" Carlos drove to the Palais Royal at a pace which +precluded all fear of pursuit. He made his way in his own fashion +through the arcades, took another cab on the Place du Chateau d'Eau, and +bid the man go "to the Passage de l'Opera, the end of the Rue Pinon." + +A quarter of a hour later he was in the Rue Taitbout. On seeing him, +Esther said: + +"Here are the fatal papers." + +Carlos took the bills, examined them, and then burned them in the +kitchen fire. + +"We have done the trick," he said, showing her three hundred and ten +thousand francs in a roll, which he took out of the pocket of his coat. +"This, and the hundred thousand francs squeezed out by Asie, set us free +to act." + +"Oh God, oh God!" cried poor Esther. + +"But, you idiot," said the ferocious swindler, "you have only to be +ostensibly Nucingen's mistress, and you can always see Lucien; he is +Nucingen's friend; I do not forbid your being madly in love with him." + +Esther saw a glimmer of light in her darkened life; she breathed once +more. + +"Europe, my girl," said Carlos, leading the creature into a corner of +the boudoir where no one could overhear a word, "Europe, I am pleased +with you." + +Europe held up her head, and looked at this man with an expression which +so completely changed her faded features, that Asie, witnessing the +interview, as she watched her from the door, wondered whether the +interest by which Carlos held Europe might not perhaps be even stronger +than that by which she herself was bound to him. + +"That is not all, my child. Four hundred thousand francs are a mere +nothing to me. Paccard will give you an account for some plate, +amounting to thirty thousand francs, on which money has been paid +on account; but our goldsmith, Biddin, has paid money for us. Our +furniture, seized by him, will no doubt be advertised to-morrow. Go +and see Biddin; he lives in the Rue de l'Arbre Sec; he will give you +Mont-de-Piete tickets for ten thousand francs. You understand, Esther +ordered the plate; she had not paid for it, and she put it up the spout. +She will be in danger of a little summons for swindling. So we must pay +the goldsmith the thirty thousand francs, and pay up ten thousand francs +to the Mont-de-Piete to get the plate back. Forty-three thousand francs +in all, including the costs. The silver is very much alloyed; the Baron +will give her a new service, and we shall bone a few thousand francs out +of that. You owe--what? two years' account with the dressmaker?" + +"Put it at six thousand francs," replied Europe. + +"Well, if Madame Auguste wants to be paid and keep our custom, tell her +to make out a bill for thirty thousand francs over four years. Make a +similar arrangement with the milliner. The jeweler, Samuel Frisch the +Jew, in the Rue Saint-Avoie, will lend you some pawn-tickets; we must +owe him twenty-five thousand francs, and we must want six thousand for +jewels pledged at the Mont-de-Piete. We will return the trinkets to +the jeweler, half the stones will be imitation, but the Baron will not +examine them. In short, you will make him fork out another hundred and +fifty thousand francs to add to our nest-eggs within a week." + +"Madame might give me a little help," said Europe. "Tell her so, for she +sits there mumchance, and obliges me to find more inventions than three +authors for one piece." + +"If Esther turns prudish, just let me know," said Carlos. "Nucingen +must give her a carriage and horses; she will have to choose and buy +everything herself. Go to the horse-dealer and the coachmaker who +are employed by the job-master where Paccard finds work. We shall get +handsome horses, very dear, which will go lame within a month, and we +shall have to change them." + +"We might get six thousand francs out of a perfumer's bill," said +Europe. + +"Oh!" said he, shaking his head, "we must go gently. Nucingen has only +got his arm into the press; we must have his head. Besides all this, I +must get five hundred thousand francs." + +"You can get them," replied Europe. "Madame will soften towards the fat +fool for about six hundred thousand, and insist on four hundred thousand +more to love him truly!" + +"Listen to me, my child," said Carlos. "The day when I get the last +hundred thousand francs, there shall be twenty thousand for you." + +"What good will they do me?" said Europe, letting her arms drop like a +woman to whom life seems impossible. + +"You could go back to Valenciennes, buy a good business, and set up as +an honest woman if you chose; there are many tastes in human nature. +Paccard thinks of settling sometimes; he has no encumbrances on his +hands, and not much on his conscience; you might suit each other," +replied Carlos. + +"Go back to Valenciennes! What are you thinking of, monsieur?" cried +Europe in alarm. + +Europe, who was born at Valenciennes, the child of very poor parents, +had been sent at seven years of age to a spinning factory, where the +demands of modern industry had impaired her physical strength, just as +vice had untimely depraved her. Corrupted at the age of twelve, and +a mother at thirteen, she found herself bound to the most degraded of +human creatures. On the occasion of a murder case, she had been as a +witness before the Court. Haunted at sixteen by a remnant of rectitude, +and the terror inspired by the law, her evidence led to the prisoner +being sentenced to twenty years of hard labor. + +The convict, one of those men who have been in the hands of justice more +than once, and whose temper is apt at terrible revenge, had said to the +girl in open court: + +"In ten years, as sure as you live, Prudence" (Europe's name was +Prudence Servien), "I will return to be the death of you, if I am +scragged for it." + +The President of the Court tried to reassure the girl by promising +her the protection and the care of the law; but the poor child was so +terror-stricken that she fell ill, and was in hospital nearly a year. +Justice is an abstract being, represented by a collection of individuals +who are incessantly changing, whose good intentions and memories are, +like themselves, liable to many vicissitudes. Courts and tribunals can +do nothing to hinder crimes; their business is to deal with them when +done. From this point of view, a preventive police would be a boon to +a country; but the mere word Police is in these days a bugbear +to legislators, who no longer can distinguish between the three +words--Government, Administration, and Law-making. The legislator tends +to centralize everything in the State, as if the State could act. + +The convict would be sure always to remember his victim, and to avenge +himself when Justice had ceased to think of either of them. + +Prudence, who instinctively appreciated the danger--in a general sense, +so to speak--left Valenciennes and came to Paris at the age of seventeen +to hide there. She tried four trades, of which the most successful was +that of a "super" at a minor theatre. She was picked up by Paccard, +and to him she told her woes. Paccard, Jacques Collin's disciple and +right-hand man, spoke of this girl to his master, and when the master +needed a slave he said to Prudence: + +"If you will serve me as the devil must be served, I will rid you of +Durut." + +Durut was the convict; the Damocles' sword hung over Prudence Servien's +head. + +But for these details, many critics would have thought Europe's +attachment somewhat grotesque. And no one could have understood the +startling announcement that Carlos had ready. + +"Yes, my girl, you can go back to Valenciennes. Here, read this." + +And he held out to her yesterday's paper, pointing to this paragraph: + + "TOULON--Yesterday, Jean Francois Durut was executed here. Early + in the morning the garrison," etc. + +Prudence dropped the paper; her legs gave way under the weight of her +body; she lived again; for, to use her own words, she never liked the +taste of her food since the day when Durut had threatened her. + +"You see, I have kept my word. It has taken four years to bring Durut to +the scaffold by leading him into a snare.--Well, finish my job here, and +you will find yourself at the head of a little country business in your +native town, with twenty thousand francs of your own as Paccard's wife, +and I will allow him to be virtuous as a form of pension." + +Europe picked up the paper and read with greedy eyes all the details, of +which for twenty years the papers have never been tired, as to the death +of convicted criminals: the impressive scene, the chaplain--who has +always converted the victim--the hardened criminal preaching to his +fellow convicts, the battery of guns, the convicts on their knees; and +then the twaddle and reflections which never lead to any change in the +management of the prisons where eighteen hundred crimes are herded. + +"We must place Asie on the staff once more," said Carlos. + +Asie came forward, not understanding Europe's pantomime. + +"In bringing her back here as cook, you must begin by giving the Baron +such a dinner as he never ate in his life," he went on. "Tell him that +Asie has lost all her money at play, and has taken service once more. We +shall not need an outdoor servant. Paccard shall be coachman. Coachmen +do not leave their box, where they are safe out of the way; and he will +run less risk from spies. Madame must turn him out in a powdered wig and +a braided felt cocked hat; that will alter his appearance. Besides, I +will make him us." + +"Are we going to have men-servants in the house?" asked Asie with a +leer. + +"All honest folks," said Carlos. + +"All soft-heads," retorted the mulatto. + +"If the Baron takes a house, Paccard has a friend who will suit as the +lodge porter," said Carlos. "Then we shall only need a footman and a +kitchen-maid, and you can surely keep an eye on two strangers----" + +As Carlos was leaving, Paccard made his appearance. + +"Wait a little while, there are people in the street," said the man. + +This simple statement was alarming. Carlos went up to Europe's room, and +stayed there till Paccard came to fetch him, having called a hackney +cab that came into the courtyard. Carlos pulled down the blinds, and was +driven off at a pace that defied pursuit. + +Having reached the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, he got out at a short +distance from a hackney coach stand, to which he went on foot, and +thence returned to the Quai Malaquais, escaping all inquiry. + +"Here, child," said he to Lucien, showing him four hundred banknotes for +a thousand francs, "here is something on account for the purchase of +the estates of Rubempre. We will risk a hundred thousand. Omnibuses +have just been started; the Parisians will take to the novelty; in three +months we shall have trebled our capital. I know the concern; they will +pay splendid dividends taken out of the capital, to put a head on the +shares--an old idea of Nucingen's revived. If we acquire the Rubempre +land, we shall not have to pay on the nail. + +"You must go and see des Lupeaulx, and beg him to give you a personal +recommendation to a lawyer named Desroches, a cunning dog, whom you must +call on at his office. Get him to go to Rubempre and see how the land +lies; promise him a premium of twenty thousand francs if he manages +to secure you thirty thousand francs a year by investing eight hundred +thousand francs in land round the ruins of the old house." + +"How you go on--on! on!" + +"I am always going on. This is no time for joking.--You must then invest +a hundred thousand crowns in Treasury bonds, so as to lose no interest; +you may safely leave it to Desroches, he is as honest as he is +knowing.--That being done, get off to Angouleme, and persuade your +sister and your brother-in-law to pledge themselves to a little fib in +the way of business. Your relations are to have given you six hundred +thousand francs to promote your marriage with Clotilde de Grandlieu; +there is no disgrace in that." + +"We are saved!" cried Lucien, dazzled. + +"You are, yes!" replied Carlos. "But even you are not safe till you walk +out of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin with Clotilde as your wife." + +"And what have you to fear?" said Lucien, apparently much concerned for +his counselor. + +"Some inquisitive souls are on my track--I must assume the manners of a +genuine priest; it is most annoying. The Devil will cease to protect me +if he sees me with a breviary under my arm." + + + +At this moment the Baron de Nucingen, who was leaning on his cashier's +arm, reached the door of his mansion. + +"I am ver' much afrait," said he, as he went in, "dat I hafe done a bat +day's vork. Vell, we must make it up some oder vays." + +"De misfortune is dat you shall hafe been caught, mein Herr Baron," said +the worthy German, whose whole care was for appearances. + +"Ja, my miss'ess en titre should be in a position vody of me," said this +Louis XIV. of the counting-house. + +Feeling sure that sooner or later Esther would be his, the Baron was now +himself again, a masterly financier. He resumed the management of his +affairs, and with such effect that his cashier, finding him in his +office room at six o'clock next morning, verifying his securities, +rubbed his hands with satisfaction. + +"Ah, ha! mein Herr Baron, you shall hafe saved money last night!" said +he, with a half-cunning, half-loutish German grin. + +Though men who are as rich as the Baron de Nucingen have more +opportunities than others for losing money, they also have more chances +of making it, even when they indulge their follies. Though the financial +policy of the house of Nucingen has been explained elsewhere, it may be +as well to point out that such immense fortunes are not made, are not +built up, are not increased, and are not retained in the midst of the +commercial, political, and industrial revolutions of the present day but +at the cost of immense losses, or, if you choose to view it so, of heavy +taxes on private fortunes. Very little newly-created wealth is thrown +into the common treasury of the world. Every fresh accumulation +represents some new inequality in the general distribution of wealth. +What the State exacts it makes some return for; but what a house like +that of Nucingen takes, it keeps. + +Such covert robbery escapes the law for the reason which would have made +a Jacques Collin of Frederick the Great, if, instead of dealing with +provinces by means of battles, he had dealt in smuggled goods or +transferable securities. The high politics of money-making consist in +forcing the States of Europe to issue loans at twenty or at ten per +cent, in making that twenty or ten per cent by the use of public funds, +in squeezing industry on a vast scale by buying up raw material, in +throwing a rope to the first founder of a business just to keep him +above water till his drowned-out enterprise is safely landed--in short, +in all the great battles for money-getting. + +The banker, no doubt, like the conqueror, runs risks; but there are +so few men in a position to wage this warfare, that the sheep have no +business to meddle. Such grand struggles are between the shepherds. +Thus, as the defaulters are guilty of having wanted to win too much, +very little sympathy is felt as a rule for the misfortunes brought about +by the coalition of the Nucingens. If a speculator blows his brains +out, if a stockbroker bolts, if a lawyer makes off with the fortune of a +hundred families--which is far worse than killing a man--if a banker is +insolvent, all these catastrophes are forgotten in Paris in few months, +and buried under the oceanic surges of the great city. + +The colossal fortunes of Jacques Coeur, of the Medici, of the Angos +of Dieppe, of the Auffredis of la Rochelle, of the Fuggers, of the +Tiepolos, of the Corners, were honestly made long ago by the advantages +they had over the ignorance of the people as to the sources of precious +products; but nowadays geographical information has reached the masses, +and competition has so effectually limited the profits, that every +rapidly made fortune is the result of chance, or of a discovery, or of +some legalized robbery. The lower grades of mercantile enterprise have +retorted on the perfidious dealings of higher commerce, especially +during the last ten years, by base adulteration of the raw material. +Wherever chemistry is practised, wine is no longer procurable; the vine +industry is consequently waning. Manufactured salt is sold to avoid +the excise. The tribunals are appalled by this universal dishonesty. In +short, French trade is regarded with suspicion by the whole world, and +England too is fast being demoralized. + +With us the mischief has its origin in the political situation. The +Charter proclaimed the reign of Money, and success has become the +supreme consideration of an atheistic age. And, indeed, the corruption +of the higher ranks is infinitely more hideous, in spite of the dazzling +display and specious arguments of wealth, than that ignoble and more +personal corruption of the inferior classes, of which certain details +lend a comic element--terrible, if you will--to this drama. The +Government, always alarmed by a new idea, has banished these materials +of modern comedy from the stage. The citizen class, less liberal than +Louis XIV., dreads the advent of its _Mariage de Figaro_, forbids the +appearance of a political _Tartuffe_, and certainly would not allow +_Turcaret_ to be represented, for Turcaret is king. Consequently, comedy +has to be narrated, and a book is now the weapon--less swift, but no +more sure--that writers wield. + +In the course of this morning, amid the coming and going of callers, +orders to be given, and brief interviews, making Nucingen's private +office a sort of financial lobby, one of his stockbrokers announced to +him the disappearance of a member of the Company, one of the richest +and cleverest too--Jacques Falleix, brother of Martin Falleix, and +the successor of Jules Desmarets. Jacques Falleix was stockbroker in +ordinary to the house of Nucingen. In concert with du Tillet and the +Kellers, the Baron had plotted the ruin of this man in cold blood, as if +it had been the killing of a Passover lamb. + +"He could not hafe helt on," replied the Baron quietly. + +Jacques Falleix had done them immense service in stock-jobbing. During +a crisis a few months since he had saved the situation by acting boldly. +But to look for gratitude from a money-dealer is as vain as to try to +touch the heart of the wolves of the Ukraine in winter. + +"Poor fellow!" said the stockbroker. "He so little anticipated such a +catastrophe, that he had furnished a little house for his mistress +in the Rue Saint-Georges; he has spent one hundred and fifty thousand +francs in decorations and furniture. He was so devoted to Madame du +Val-Noble! The poor woman must give it all up. And nothing is paid for." + +"Goot, goot!" thought Nucingen, "dis is de very chance to make up for +vat I hafe lost dis night!--He hafe paid for noting?" he asked his +informant. + +"Why," said the stockbroker, "where would you find a tradesman so ill +informed as to refuse credit to Jacques Falleix? There is a splendid +cellar of wine, it would seem. By the way, the house is for sale; he +meant to buy it. The lease is in his name.--What a piece of folly! +Plate, furniture, wine, carriage-horses, everything will be valued in a +lump, and what will the creditors get out of it?" + +"Come again to-morrow," said Nucingen. "I shall hafe seen all dat; +and if it is not a declared bankruptcy, if tings can be arranged and +compromised, I shall tell you to offer some reasonaple price for dat +furniture, if I shall buy de lease----" + +"That can be managed," said his friend. "If you go there this morning, +you will find one of Falleix's partners there with the tradespeople, +who want to establish a first claim; but la Val-Noble has their accounts +made out to Falleix." + +The Baron sent off one of his clerks forthwith to his lawyer. Jacques +Falleix had spoken to him about this house, which was worth sixty +thousand francs at most, and he wished to be put in possession of it at +once, so as to avail himself of the privileges of the householder. + +The cashier, honest man, came to inquire whether his master had lost +anything by Falleix's bankruptcy. + +"On de contrar' mein goot Volfgang, I stant to vin ein hundert tousant +francs." + +"How vas dat?" + +"Vell, I shall hafe de little house vat dat poor Teufel Falleix should +furnish for his mis'ess this year. I shall hafe all dat for fifty +tousant franc to de creditors; and my notary, Maitre Cardot, shall hafe +my orders to buy de house, for de lan'lord vant de money--I knew dat, +but I hat lost mein head. Ver' soon my difine Esther shall life in a +little palace.... I hafe been dere mit Falleix--it is close to here.--It +shall fit me like a glofe." + +Falleix's failure required the Baron's presence at the Bourse; but he +could not bear to leave his house in the Rue Saint-Lazare without going +to the Rue Taitbout; he was already miserable at having been away from +Esther for so many hours. He would have liked to keep her at his elbow. +The profits he hoped to make out of his stockbrokers' plunder made the +former loss of four hundred thousand francs quite easy to endure. + +Delighted to announce to his "anchel" that she was to move from the Rue +Taitbout to the Rue Saint-Georges, where she was to have "ein little +palace" where her memories would no longer rise up in antagonism to +their happiness, the pavement felt elastic under his feet; he walked +like a young man in a young man's dream. As he turned the corner of the +Rue des Trois Freres, in the middle of his dream, and of the road, the +Baron beheld Europe coming towards him, looking very much upset. + +"Vere shall you go?" he asked. + +"Well, monsieur, I was on my way to you. You were quite right yesterday. +I see now that poor madame had better have gone to prison for a few +days. But how should women understand money matters? When madame's +creditors heard that she had come home, they all came down upon us like +birds of prey.--Last evening, at seven o'clock, monsieur, men came +and stuck terrible posters up to announce a sale of furniture on +Saturday--but that is nothing.--Madame, who is all heart, once upon a +time to oblige that wretch of a man you know----" + +"Vat wretch?" + +"Well, the man she was in love with, d'Estourny--well, he was charming! +He was only a gambler----" + +"He gambled with beveled cards!" + +"Well--and what do you do at the Bourse?" said Europe. "But let me go +on. One day, to hinder Georges, as he said, from blowing out his brains, +she pawned all her plate and her jewels, which had never been paid for. +Now on hearing that she had given something to one of her creditors, +they came in a body and made a scene. They threaten her with the +police-court--your angel at that bar! Is it not enough to make a wig +stand on end? She is bathed in tears; she talks of throwing herself into +the river--and she will do it." + +"If I shall go to see her, dat is goot-bye to de Bourse; an' it is +impossible but I shall go, for I shall make some money for her--you +shall compose her. I shall pay her debts; I shall go to see her at four +o'clock. But tell me, Eugenie, dat she shall lofe me a little----" + +"A little?--A great deal!--I tell you what, monsieur, nothing but +generosity can win a woman's heart. You would, no doubt, have saved a +hundred thousand francs or so by letting her go to prison. Well, you +would never have won her heart. As she said to me--'Eugenie, he has been +noble, grand--he has a great soul.'" + +"She hafe said dat, Eugenie?" cried the Baron. + +"Yes, monsieur, to me, myself." + +"Here--take dis ten louis." + +"Thank you.--But she is crying at this moment; she has been crying ever +since yesterday as much as a weeping Magdalen could have cried in six +months. The woman you love is in despair, and for debts that are +not even hers! Oh! men--they devour women as women devour old +fogies--there!" + +"Dey all is de same!--She hafe pledge' herself.--Vy, no one shall ever +pledge herself.--Tell her dat she shall sign noting more.--I shall pay; +but if she shall sign something more--I----" + +"What will you do?" said Europe with an air. + +"Mein Gott! I hafe no power over her.--I shall take de management of her +little affairs----Dere, dere, go to comfort her, and you shall say that +in ein mont she shall live in a little palace." + +"You have invested heavily, Monsieur le Baron, and for large interest, +in a woman's heart. I tell you--you look to me younger. I am but +a waiting-maid, but I have often seen such a change. It is +happiness--happiness gives a certain glow.... If you have spent a little +money, do not let that worry you; you will see what a good return it +will bring. And I said to madame, I told her she would be the lowest of +the low, a perfect hussy, if she did not love you, for you have picked +her out of hell.--When once she has nothing on her mind, you will +see. Between you and me, I may tell you, that night when she cried so +much--What is to be said, we value the esteem of the man who maintains +us--and she did not dare tell you everything. She wanted to fly." + +"To fly!" cried the Baron, in dismay at the notion. "But the Bourse, the +Bourse!--Go 'vay, I shall not come in.--But tell her that I shall see +her at her window--dat shall gife me courage!" + +Esther smiled at Monsieur de Nucingen as he passed the house, and he +went ponderously on his way, saying: + +"She is ein anchel!" + +This was how Europe had succeeded in achieving the impossible. At about +half-past two Esther had finished dressing, as she was wont to dress +when she expected Lucien; she was looking charming. Seeing this, +Prudence, looking out of the window, said, "There is monsieur!" + +The poor creature flew to the window, thinking she would see Lucien; she +saw Nucingen. + +"Oh! how cruelly you hurt me!" she said. + +"There is no other way of getting you to seem to be gracious to a poor +old man, who, after all, is going to pay your debts," said Europe. "For +they are all to be paid." + +"What debts?" said the girl, who only cared to preserve her love, which +dreadful hands were scattering to the winds. + +"Those which Monsieur Carlos made in your name." + +"Why, here are nearly four hundred and fifty thousand francs," cried +Esther. + +"And you owe a hundred and fifty thousand more. But the Baron took it +all very well.--He is going to remove you from hence, and place you in a +little palace.--On my honor, you are not so badly off. In your place, +as you have got on the right side of this man, as soon as Carlos is +satisfied, I should make him give me a house and a settled income. You +are certainly the handsomest woman I ever saw, madame, and the most +attractive, but we so soon grow ugly! I was fresh and good-looking, and +look at me! I am twenty-three, about the same age as madame, and I look +ten years older. An illness is enough.--Well, but when you have a house +in Paris and investments, you need never be afraid of ending in the +streets." + +Esther had ceased to listen to Europe-Eugenie-Prudence Servien. The will +of a man gifted with the genius of corruption had thrown Esther back +into the mud with as much force as he had used to drag her out of it. + +Those who know love in its infinitude know that those who do not accept +its virtues do not experience its pleasures. Since the scene in the +den in the Rue de Langlade, Esther had utterly forgotten her former +existence. She had since lived very virtuously, cloistered by her +passion. Hence, to avoid any obstacle, the skilful fiend had been clever +enough to lay such a train that the poor girl, prompted by her devotion, +had merely to utter her consent to swindling actions already done, or on +the point of accomplishment. This subtlety, revealing the mastery of +the tempter, also characterized the methods by which he had subjugated +Lucien. He created a terrible situation, dug a mine, filled it with +powder, and at the critical moment said to his accomplice, "You have +only to nod, and the whole will explode!" + +Esther of old, knowing only the morality peculiar to courtesans, thought +all these attentions so natural, that she measured her rivals only +by what they could get men to spend on them. Ruined fortunes are the +conduct-stripes of these creatures. Carlos, in counting on Esther's +memory, had not calculated wrongly. + +These tricks of warfare, these stratagems employed a thousand times, not +only by these women, but by spendthrifts too, did not disturb Esther's +mind. She felt nothing but her personal degradation; she loved Lucien, +she was to be the Baron de Nucingen's mistress "by appointment"; +this was all she thought of. The supposed Spaniard might absorb the +earnest-money, Lucien might build up his fortune with the stones of +her tomb, a single night of pleasure might cost the old banker so many +thousand-franc notes more or less, Europe might extract a few hundred +thousand francs by more or less ingenious trickery,--none of these +things troubled the enamored girl; this alone was the canker that ate +into her heart. For five years she had looked upon herself as being as +white as an angel. She loved, she was happy, she had never committed the +smallest infidelity. This beautiful pure love was now to be defiled. + +There was, in her mind, no conscious contrasting of her happy isolated +past and her foul future life. It was neither interest nor sentiment +that moved her, only an indefinable and all powerful feeling that she +had been white and was now black, pure and was now impure, noble and +was now ignoble. Desiring to be the ermine, moral taint seemed to her +unendurable. And when the Baron's passion had threatened her, she had +really thought of throwing herself out of the window. In short, she +loved Lucien wholly, and as women very rarely love a man. Women who say +they love, who often think they love best, dance, waltz, and flirt with +other men, dress for the world, and look for a harvest of concupiscent +glances; but Esther, without any sacrifice, had achieved miracles of +true love. She had loved Lucien for six years as actresses love and +courtesans--women who, having rolled in mire and impurity, thirst for +something noble, for the self-devotion of true love, and who practice +exclusiveness--the only word for an idea so little known in real life. + +Vanished nations, Greece, Rome, and the East, have at all times kept +women shut up; the woman who loves should shut herself up. So it may +easily be imagined that on quitting the palace of her fancy, where this +poem had been enacted, to go to this old man's "little palace," Esther +felt heartsick. Urged by an iron hand, she had found herself waist-deep +in disgrace before she had time to reflect; but for the past two days +she had been reflecting, and felt a mortal chill about her heart. + +At the words, "End in the street," she started to her feet and said: + +"In the street!--No, in the Seine rather." + +"In the Seine? And what about Monsieur Lucien?" said Europe. + +This single word brought Esther to her seat again; she remained in her +armchair, her eyes fixed on a rosette in the carpet, the fire in her +brain drying up her tears. + +At four o'clock Nucingen found his angel lost in that sea of meditations +and resolutions whereon a woman's spirit floats, and whence she emerges +with utterances that are incomprehensible to those who have not sailed +it in her convoy. + +"Clear your brow, meine Schone," said the Baron, sitting down by her. +"You shall hafe no more debts--I shall arrange mit Eugenie, an' in ein +mont you shall go 'vay from dese rooms and go to dat little palace.--Vas +a pretty hant.--Gife it me dat I shall kiss it." Esther gave him her +hand as a dog gives a paw. "Ach, ja! You shall gife de hant, but not de +heart, and it is dat heart I lofe!" + +The words were spoken with such sincerity of accent, that poor Esther +looked at the old man with a compassion in her eyes that almost maddened +him. Lovers, like martyrs, feel a brotherhood in their sufferings! +Nothing in the world gives such a sense of kindred as community of +sorrow. + +"Poor man!" said she, "he really loves." + +As he heard the words, misunderstanding their meaning, the Baron turned +pale, the blood tingled in his veins, he breathed the airs of heaven. At +his age a millionaire, for such a sensation, will pay as much gold as a +woman can ask. + +"I lofe you like vat I lofe my daughter," said he. "An' I feel +dere"--and he laid her hand over his heart--"dat I shall not bear to see +you anyting but happy." + +"If you would only be a father to me, I would love you very much; I +would never leave you; and you would see that I am not a bad woman, not +grasping or greedy, as I must seem to you now----" + +"You hafe done some little follies," said the Baron, "like all dose +pretty vomen--dat is all. Say no more about dat. It is our pusiness to +make money for you. Be happy! I shall be your fater for some days yet, +for I know I must make you accustom' to my old carcase." + +"Really!" she exclaimed, springing on to Nucingen's knees, and clinging +to him with her arm round his neck. + +"Really!" repeated he, trying to force a smile. + +She kissed his forehead; she believed in an impossible combination--she +might remain untouched and see Lucien. + +She was so coaxing to the banker that she was La Torpille once more. +She fairly bewitched the old man, who promised to be a father to her +for forty days. Those forty days were to be employed in acquiring and +arranging the house in the Rue Saint-Georges. + +When he was in the street again, as he went home, the Baron said to +himself, "I am an old flat." + +But though in Esther's presence he was a mere child, away from her he +resumed his lynx's skin; just as the gambler (in _le Joueur_) becomes +affectionate to Angelique when he has not a liard. + +"A half a million francs I hafe paid, and I hafe not yet seen vat her +leg is like.--Dat is too silly! but, happily, nobody shall hafe known +it!" said he to himself three weeks after. + +And he made great resolutions to come to the point with the woman who +had cost him so dear; then, in Esther's presence once more, he spent all +the time he could spare her in making up for the roughness of his first +words. + +"After all," said he, at the end of a month, "I cannot be de fater +eternal!" + +Towards the end of the month of December 1829, just before installing +Esther in the house in the Rue Saint-Georges, the Baron begged du +Tillet to take Florine there, that she might see whether everything +was suitable to Nucingen's fortune, and if the description of "a little +palace" were duly realized by the artists commissioned to make the cage +worthy of the bird. + +Every device known to luxury before the Revolution of 1830 made this +residence a masterpiece of taste. Grindot the architect considered it +his greatest achievement as a decorator. The staircase, which had been +reconstructed of marble, the judicious use of stucco ornament, textiles, +and gilding, the smallest details as much as the general effect, outdid +everything of the kind left in Paris from the time of Louis XV. + +"This is my dream!--This and virtue!" said Florine with a smile. "And +for whom are you spending all this money?" + +"For a voman vat is going up there," replied the Baron. + +"A way of playing Jupiter?" replied the actress. "And when is she on +show?" + +"On the day of the house-warming," cried du Tillet. + +"Not before dat," said the Baron. + +"My word, how we must lace and brush and fig ourselves out," Florine +went on. "What a dance the women will lead their dressmakers and +hairdressers for that evening's fun!--And when is it to be?" + +"Dat is not for me to say." + +"What a woman she must be!" cried Florine. "How much I should like to +see her!" + +"An' so should I," answered the Baron artlessly. + +"What! is everything new together--the house, the furniture, and the +woman?" + +"Even the banker," said du Tillet, "for my old friend seems to me quite +young again." + +"Well, he must go back to his twentieth year," said Florine; "at any +rate, for once." + +In the early days of 1830 everybody in Paris was talking of Nucingen's +passion and the outrageous splendor of his house. The poor Baron, +pointed at, laughed at, and fuming with rage, as may easily be imagined, +took it into his head that on the occasion of giving the house-warming +he would at the same time get rid of his paternal disguise, and get the +price of so much generosity. Always circumvented by "La Torpille," he +determined to treat of their union by correspondence, so as to win from +her an autograph promise. Bankers have no faith in anything less than a +promissory note. + +So one morning early in the year he rose early, locked himself into his +room, and composed the following letter in very good French; for though +he spoke the language very badly, he could write it very well:-- + + "DEAR ESTHER, the flower of my thoughts and the only joy of my + life, when I told you that I loved you as I love my daughter, I + deceived you, I deceived myself. I only wished to express the + holiness of my sentiments, which are unlike those felt by other + men, in the first place, because I am an old man, and also because + I have never loved till now. I love you so much, that if you cost + me my fortune I should not love you the less. + + "Be just! Most men would not, like me, have seen the angel in you; + I have never even glanced at your past. I love you both as I love + my daughter, Augusta, and as I might love my wife, if my wife + could have loved me. Since the only excuse for an old man's love + is that he should be happy, ask yourself if I am not playing a too + ridiculous part. I have taken you to be the consolation and joy of + my declining days. You know that till I die you will be as happy + as a woman can be; and you know, too, that after my death you will + be rich enough to be the envy of many women. In every stroke of + business I have effected since I have had the happiness of your + acquaintance, your share is set apart, and you have a standing + account with Nucingen's bank. In a few days you will move into a + house, which sooner or later, will be your own if you like it. + Now, plainly, will you still receive me then as a father, or will + you make me happy? + + "Forgive me for writing so frankly, but when I am with you I lose + all courage; I feel too keenly that you are indeed my mistress. I + have no wish to hurt you; I only want to tell you how much I + suffer, and how hard it is to wait at my age, when every day takes + with it some hopes and some pleasures. Besides, the delicacy of my + conduct is a guarantee of the sincerity of my intentions. Have I + ever behaved as your creditor? You are like a citadel, and I am + not a young man. In answer to my appeals, you say your life is at + stake, and when I hear you, you make me believe it; but here I + sink into dark melancholy and doubts dishonorable to us both. You + seemed to me as sweet and innocent as you are lovely; but you + insist on destroying my convictions. Ask yourself!--You tell me + you bear a passion in your heart, an indomitable passion, but you + refuse to tell me the name of the man you love.--Is this natural? + + "You have turned a fairly strong man into an incredibly weak one. + You see what I have come to; I am induced to ask you at the end of + five months what future hope there is for my passion. Again, I + must know what part I am to play at the opening of your house. + Money is nothing to me when it is spent for you; I will not be so + absurd as to make a merit to you of this contempt; but though my + love knows no limits, my fortune is limited, and I care for it + only for your sake. Well, if by giving you everything I possess I + might, as a poor man, win your affection, I would rather be poor + and loved than rich and scorned by you. + + "You have altered me so completely, my dear Esther, that no one + knows me; I paid ten thousand francs for a picture by Joseph + Bridau because you told me that he was clever and unappreciated. I + give every beggar I meet five francs in your name. Well, and what + does the poor man ask, who regards himself as your debtor when you + do him the honor of accepting anything he can give you? He asks + only for a hope--and what a hope, good God! Is it not rather the + certainty of never having anything from you but what my passion + may seize? The fire in my heart will abet your cruel deceptions. + You find me ready to submit to every condition you can impose on + my happiness, on my few pleasures; but promise me at least that on + the day when you take possession of your house you will accept the + heart and service of him who, for the rest of his days, must sign + himself your slave, + + "FREDERIC DE NUCINGEN." + + +"Faugh! how he bores me--this money bag!" cried Esther, a courtesan +once more. She took a small sheet of notepaper and wrote all over it, +as close as it could go, Scribe's famous phrase, which has become a +proverb, "Prenez mon ours." + +A quarter of an hour later, Esther, overcome by remorse, wrote the +following letter:-- + + "MONSIEUR LE BARON,-- + + "Pay no heed to the note you have just received from me; I had + relapsed into the folly of my youth. Forgive, monsieur, a poor + girl who ought to be your slave. I never more keenly felt the + degradation of my position than on the day when I was handed over + to you. You have paid; I owe myself to you. There is nothing more + sacred than a debt of dishonor. I have no right to compound it by + throwing myself into the Seine. + + "A debt can always be discharged in that dreadful coin which is + good only to the debtor; you will find me yours to command. I will + pay off in one night all the sums for which that fatal hour has + been mortgaged; and I am sure that such an hour with me is worth + millions--all the more because it will be the only one, the last. + I shall then have paid the debt, and may get away from life. A + good woman has a chance of restoration after a fall; but we, the + like of us, fall too low. + + "My determination is so fixed that I beg you will keep this letter + in evidence of the cause of death of her who remains, for one day, + your servant, + + "ESTHER." + + +Having sent this letter, Esther felt a pang of regret. Ten minutes after +she wrote a third note, as follows:-- + + "Forgive me, dear Baron--it is I once more. I did not mean either + to make game of you or to wound you; I only want you to reflect on + this simple argument: If we were to continue in the position + towards each other of father and daughter, your pleasure would be + small, but it would be enduring. If you insist on the terms of the + bargain, you will live to mourn for me. + + "I will trouble you no more: the day when you shall choose + pleasure rather than happiness will have no morrow for me.--Your + daughter, + + "ESTHER." + + +On receiving the first letter, the Baron fell into a cold fury such as +a millionaire may die of; he looked at himself in the glass and rang the +bell. + +"An hot bat for mein feet," said he to his new valet. + +While he was sitting with his feet in the bath, the second letter came; +he read it, and fainted away. He was carried to bed. + +When the banker recovered consciousness, Madame de Nucingen was sitting +at the foot of the bed. + +"The hussy is right!" said she. "Why do you try to buy love? Is it to be +bought in the market!--Let me see your letter to her." + +The Baron gave her sundry rough drafts he had made; Madame de Nucingen +read them, and smiled. Then came Esther's third letter. + +"She is a wonderful girl!" cried the Baroness, when she had read it. + +"Vat shall I do, montame?" asked the Baron of his wife. + +"Wait." + +"Wait? But nature is pitiless!" he cried. + +"Look here, my dear, you have been admirably kind to me," said Delphine; +"I will give you some good advice." + +"You are a ver' goot voman," said he. "Ven you hafe any debts I shall +pay." + +"Your state on receiving these letters touches a woman far more than the +spending of millions, or than all the letters you could write, however +fine they may be. Try to let her know it, indirectly; perhaps she will +be yours! And--have no scruples, she will not die of that," added she, +looking keenly at her husband. + +But Madame de Nucingen knew nothing whatever of the nature of such +women. + +"Vat a clefer voman is Montame de Nucingen!" said the Baron to himself +when his wife had left him. + +Still, the more the Baron admired the subtlety of his wife's counsel, +the less he could see how he might act upon it; and he not only felt +that he was stupid, but he told himself so. + +The stupidity of wealthy men, though it is almost proverbial, is only +comparative. The faculties of the mind, like the dexterity of the limbs, +need exercise. The dancer's strength is in his feet; the blacksmith's in +his arms; the market porter is trained to carry loads; the singer works +his larynx; and the pianist hardens his wrist. A banker is practised +in business matters; he studies and plans them, and pulls the wires +of various interests, just as a playwright trains his intelligence in +combining situations, studying his actors, giving life to his dramatic +figures. + +We should no more look for powers of conversation in the Baron de +Nucingen than for the imagery of a poet in the brain of a mathematician. +How many poets occur in an age, who are either good prose writers, or +as witty in the intercourse of daily life as Madame Cornuel? Buffon +was dull company; Newton was never in love; Lord Byron loved nobody but +himself; Rousseau was gloomy and half crazy; La Fontaine absent-minded. +Human energy, equally distributed, produces dolts, mediocrity in all; +unequally bestowed it gives rise to those incongruities to whom the name +of Genius is given, and which, if we only could see them, would look +like deformities. The same law governs the body; perfect beauty is +generally allied with coldness or silliness. Though Pascal was both a +great mathematician and a great writer, though Beaumarchais was a good +man of business, and Zamet a profound courtier, these rare exceptions +prove the general principle of the specialization of brain faculties. + +Within the sphere of speculative calculations the banker put forth as +much intelligence and skill, finesse and mental power, as a practised +diplomatist expends on national affairs. If he were equally remarkable +outside his office, the banker would be a great man. Nucingen made +one with the Prince de Ligne, with Mazarin or with Diderot, is a human +formula that is almost inconceivable, but which has nevertheless been +known as Pericles, Aristotle, Voltaire, and Napoleon. The splendor of +the Imperial crown must not blind us to the merits of the individual; +the Emperor was charming, well informed, and witty. + +Monsieur de Nucingen, a banker and nothing more, having no inventiveness +outside his business, like most bankers, had no faith in anything but +sound security. In matters of art he had the good sense to go, cash +in hand, to experts in every branch, and had recourse to the best +architect, the best surgeon, the greatest connoisseur in pictures or +statues, the cleverest lawyer, when he wished to build a house, to +attend to his health, to purchase a work of art or an estate. But as +there are no recognized experts in intrigue, no connoisseurs in love +affairs, a banker finds himself in difficulties when he is in love, and +much puzzled as to the management of a woman. So Nucingen could think +of no better method than that he had hitherto pursued--to give a sum of +money to some Frontin, male or female, to act and think for him. + +Madame de Saint-Esteve alone could carry out the plan imagined by the +Baroness. Nucingen bitterly regretted having quarreled with the odious +old clothes-seller. However, feeling confident of the attractions of his +cash-box and the soothing documents signed Garat, he rang for his man +and told him in inquire for the repulsive widow in the Rue Saint-Marc, +and desire her to come to see him. + +In Paris extremes are made to meet by passion. Vice is constantly +binding the rich to the poor, the great to the mean. The Empress +consults Mademoiselle Lenormand; the fine gentleman in every age can +always find a Ramponneau. + +The man returned within two hours. + +"Monsieur le Baron," said he, "Madame de Saint-Esteve is ruined." + +"Ah! so much de better!" cried the Baron in glee. "I shall hafe her safe +den." + +"The good woman is given to gambling, it would seem," the valet went +on. "And, moreover, she is under the thumb of a third-rate actor in a +suburban theatre, whom, for decency's sake, she calls her godson. She is +a first-rate cook, it would seem, and wants a place." + +"Dose teufel of geniuses of de common people hafe alvays ten vays of +making money, and ein dozen vays of spending it," said the Baron to +himself, quite unconscious that Panurge had thought the same thing. + +He sent his servant off in quest of Madame de Saint-Esteve, who did not +come till the next day. Being questioned by Asie, the servant revealed +to this female spy the terrible effects of the notes written to Monsieur +le Baron by his mistress. + +"Monsieur must be desperately in love with the woman," said he in +conclusion, "for he was very near dying. For my part, I advised him +never to go back to her, for he will be wheedled over at once. A woman +who has already cost Monsieur le Baron five hundred thousand francs, +they say, without counting what he has spent on the house in the Rue +Saint-Georges! But the woman cares for money, and for money only.--As +madame came out of monsieur's room, she said with a laugh: 'If this goes +on, that slut will make a widow of me!'" + +"The devil!" cried Asie; "it will never do to kill the goose that lays +the golden eggs." + +"Monsieur le Baron has no hope now but in you," said the valet. + +"Ay! The fact is, I do know how to make a woman go." + +"Well, walk in," said the man, bowing to such occult powers. + +"Well," said the false Saint-Esteve, going into the sufferer's room with +an abject air, "Monsieur le Baron has met with some difficulties? What +can you expect! Everybody is open to attack on his weak side. Dear me, +I have had my troubles too. Within two months the wheel of Fortune has +turned upside down for me. Here I am looking out for a place!--We have +neither of us been very wise. If Monsieur le Baron would take me as cook +to Madame Esther, I would be the most devoted of slaves. I should be +useful to you, monsieur, to keep an eye on Eugenie and madame." + +"Dere is no hope of dat," said the Baron. "I cannot succeet in being de +master, I am let such a tance as----" + +"As a top," Asie put in. "Well, you have made others dance, daddy, and +the little slut has got you, and is making a fool of you.--Heaven is +just!" + +"Just?" said the Baron. "I hafe not sent for you to preach to me----" + +"Pooh, my boy! A little moralizing breaks no bones. It is the salt of +life to the like of us, as vice is to your bigots.--Come, have you been +generous? You have paid her debts?" + +"Ja," said the Baron lamentably. + +"That is well; and you have taken her things out of pawn, and that is +better. But you must see that it is not enough. All this gives her no +occupation, and these creatures love to cut a dash----" + +"I shall hafe a surprise for her, Rue Saint-Georches--she knows dat," +said the Baron. "But I shall not be made a fool of." + +"Very well then, let her go." + +"I am only afrait dat she shall let me go!" cried the Baron. + +"And we want our money's worth, my boy," replied Asie. "Listen to me. We +have fleeced the public of some millions, my little friend? Twenty-five +millions I am told you possess." + +The Baron could not suppress a smile. + +"Well, you must let one go." + +"I shall let one go, but as soon as I shall let one go, I shall hafe to +give still another." + +"Yes, I understand," replied Asie. "You will not say B for fear of having +to go on to Z. Still, Esther is a good girl----" + +"A ver' honest girl," cried the banker. "An' she is ready to submit; but +only as in payment of a debt." + +"In short, she does not want to be your mistress; she feels an +aversion.--Well, and I understand it; the child has always done just +what she pleased. When a girl has never known any but charming young +men, she cannot take to an old one. You are not handsome; you are as +big as Louis XVIII., and rather dull company, as all men are who try to +cajole fortune instead of devoting themselves to women.--Well, if you +don't think six hundred thousand francs too much," said Asie, "I pledge +myself to make her whatever you can wish." + +"Six huntert tousant franc!" cried the Baron, with a start. "Esther is +to cost me a million to begin with!" + +"Happiness is surely worth sixteen hundred thousand francs, you old +sinner. You must know, men in these days have certainly spent more than +one or two millions on a mistress. I even know women who have cost men +their lives, for whom heads have rolled into the basket.--You know the +doctor who poisoned his friend? He wanted the money to gratify a woman." + +"Ja, I know all dat. But if I am in lofe, I am not ein idiot, at +least vile I am here; but if I shall see her, I shall gife her my +pocket-book----" + +"Well, listen Monsieur le Baron," said Asie, assuming the attitude of a +Semiramis. "You have been squeezed dry enough already. Now, as sure as +my name is Saint-Esteve--in the way of business, of course--I will stand +by you." + +"Goot, I shall repay you." + +"I believe you, my boy, for I have shown you that I know how to be +revenged. Besides, I tell you this, daddy, I know how to snuff out your +Madame Esther as you would snuff a candle. And I know my lady! When the +little huzzy has once made you happy, she will be even more necessary +to you than she is at this moment. You paid me well; you have allowed +yourself to be fooled, but, after all, you have forked out.--I have +fulfilled my part of the agreement, haven't I? Well, look here, I will +make a bargain with you." + +"Let me hear." + +"You shall get me the place as cook to Madame, engage me for ten +years, and pay the last five in advance--what is that? Just a little +earnest-money. When once I am about madame, I can bring her to these +terms. Of course, you must first order her a lovely dress from Madame +Auguste, who knows her style and taste; and order the new carriage to +be at the door at four o'clock. After the Bourse closes, go to her rooms +and take her for a little drive in the Bois de Boulogne. Well, by +that act the woman proclaims herself your mistress; she has advertised +herself to the eyes and knowledge of all Paris: A hundred thousand +francs.--You must dine with her--I know how to cook such a dinner!--You +must take her to the play, to the Varietes, to a stage-box, and then all +Paris will say, 'There is that old rascal Nucingen with his mistress.' +It is very flattering to know that such things are said.--Well, all +this, for I am not grasping, is included for the first hundred thousand +francs.--In a week, by such conduct, you will have made some way----" + +"But I shall hafe paid ein hundert tousant franc." + +"In the course of the second week," Asie went on, as though she had +not heard this lamentable ejaculation, "madame, tempted by these +preliminaries, will have made up her mind to leave her little apartment +and move to the house you are giving her. Your Esther will have seen the +world again, have found her old friends; she will wish to shine and do +the honors of her palace--it is in the nature of things: Another +hundred thousand francs!--By Heaven! you are at home there, Esther +compromised--she must be yours. The rest is a mere trifle, in which you +must play the principal part, old elephant. (How wide the monster opens +his eyes!) Well, I will undertake that too: Four hundred thousand--and +that, my fine fellow, you need not pay till the day after. What do you +think of that for honesty? I have more confidence in you than you +have in me. If I persuade madame to show herself as your mistress, to +compromise herself, to take every gift you offer her,--perhaps this very +day, you will believe that I am capable of inducing her to throw open +the pass of the Great Saint Bernard. And it is a hard job, I can tell +you; it will take as much pulling to get your artillery through as it +took the first Consul to get over the Alps." + +"But vy?" + +"Her heart is full of love, old shaver, rasibus, as you say who know +Latin," replied Asie. "She thinks herself the Queen of Sheba, because +she has washed herself in sacrifices made for her lover--an idea that +that sort of woman gets into her head! Well, well, old fellow, we must +be just.--It is fine! That baggage would die of grief at being your +mistress--I really should not wonder. But what I trust to, and I tell +you to give you courage, is that there is good in the girl at bottom." + +"You hafe a genius for corruption," said the Baron, who had listened to +Asie in admiring silence, "just as I hafe de knack of de banking." + +"Then it is settled, my pigeon?" said Asie. + +"Done for fifty tousant franc insteat of ein hundert tousant!--An' I +shall give you fife hundert tousant de day after my triumph." + +"Very good, I will set to work," said Asie. "And you may come, +monsieur," she added respectfully. "You will find madame as soft already +as a cat's back, and perhaps inclined to make herself pleasant." + +"Go, go, my goot voman," said the banker, rubbing his hands. + +And after seeing the horrible mulatto out of the house, he said to +himself: + +"How vise it is to hafe much money." + +He sprang out of bed, went down to his office, and resumed the conduct +of his immense business with a light heart. + + + +Nothing could be more fatal to Esther than the steps taken by Nucingen. +The hapless girl, in defending her fidelity, was defending her life. +This very natural instinct was what Carlos called prudery. Now Asie, +not without taking such precautions as usual in such cases, went off to +report to Carlos the conference she had held with the Baron, and all the +profit she had made by it. The man's rage, like himself, was terrible; +he came forthwith to Esther, in a carriage with the blinds drawn, +driving into the courtyard. Still almost white with fury, the +double-dyed forger went straight into the poor girl's room; she looked +at him--she was standing up--and she dropped on to a chair as though her +legs had snapped. + +"What is the matter, monsieur?" said she, quaking in every limb. + +"Leave us, Europe," said he to the maid. + +Esther looked at the woman as a child might look at its mother, from +whom some assassin had snatched it to murder it. + +"Do you know where you will send Lucien?" Carlos went on when he was +alone with Esther. + +"Where?" asked she in a low voice, venturing to glance at her +executioner. + +"Where I come from, my beauty." Esther, as she looked at the man, saw +red. "To the hulks," he added in an undertone. + +Esther shut her eyes and stretched herself out, her arms dropped, and +she turned white. The man rang, and Prudence appeared. + +"Bring her round," he said coldly; "I have not done." + +He walked up and down the drawing-room while waiting. Prudence-Europe +was obliged to come and beg monsieur to lift Esther on to the bed; he +carried her with the ease that betrayed athletic strength. + +They had to procure all the chemist's strongest stimulants to restore +Esther to a sense of her woes. An hour later the poor girl was able to +listen to this living nightmare, seated at the foot of her bed, his eyes +fixed and glowing like two spots of molten lead. + +"My little sweetheart," said he, "Lucien now stands between a splendid +life, honored, happy, and respected, and the hole full of water, mud, +and gravel into which he was going to plunge when I met him. The house +of Grandlieu requires of the dear boy an estate worth a million francs +before securing for him the title of Marquis, and handing over to him +that may-pole named Clotilde, by whose help he will rise to power. +Thanks to you, and me, Lucien has just purchased his maternal manor, +the old Chateau de Rubempre, which, indeed, did not cost much--thirty +thousand francs; but his lawyer, by clever negotiations, has succeeded +in adding to it estates worth a million, on which three hundred thousand +francs are paid. The chateau, the expenses, and percentages to the men +who were put forward as a blind to conceal the transaction from the +country people, have swallowed up the remainder. + +"We have, to be sure, a hundred thousand francs invested in a business +here, which a few months hence will be worth two to three hundred +thousand francs; but there will still be four hundred thousand francs to +be paid. + +"In three days Lucien will be home from Angouleme, where he has been, +because he must not be suspected of having found a fortune in remaking +your bed----" + +"Oh no!" cried she, looking up with a noble impulse. + +"I ask you, then, is this a moment to scare off the Baron?" he went on +calmly. "And you very nearly killed him the day before yesterday; he +fainted like a woman on reading your second letter. You have a fine +style--I congratulate you! If the Baron had died, where should we be +now?--When Lucien walks out of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin son-in-law to the +Duc de Grandlieu, if you want to try a dip in the Seine----Well, my +beauty, I offer you my hand for a dive together. It is one way of ending +matters. + +"But consider a moment. Would it not be better to live and say to +yourself again and again 'This fine fortune, this happy family'--for +he will have children--children!--Have you ever thought of the joy of +running your fingers through the hair of his children?" + +Esther closed her eyes with a little shiver. + +"Well, as you gaze on that structure of happiness, you may say to +yourself, 'This is my doing!'" + +There was a pause, and the two looked at each other. + +"This is what I have tried to make out of such despair as saw no issue +but the river," said Carlos. "Am I selfish? That is the way to love! Men +show such devotion to none but kings! But I have anointed Lucien king. +If I were riveted for the rest of my days to my old chain, I fancy I +could stay there resigned so long as I could say, 'He is gay, he is at +Court.' My soul and mind would triumph, while my carcase was given over +to the jailers! You are a mere female; you love like a female! But in +a courtesan, as in all degraded creatures, love should be a means to +motherhood, in spite of Nature, which has stricken you with barrenness! + +"If ever, under the skin of the Abbe Carlos Herrera, any one were to +detect the convict I have been, do you know what I would do to avoid +compromising Lucien?" + +Esther awaited the reply with some anxiety. + +"Well," he said after a brief pause, "I would die as the Negroes +do--without a word. And you, with all your airs will put folks on my +traces. What did I require of you?--To be La Torpille again for six +months--for six weeks; and to do it to clutch a million. + +"Lucien will never forget you. Men do not forget the being of whom they +are reminded day after day by the joy of awaking rich every morning. +Lucien is a better fellow than you are. He began by loving Coralie. She +died--good; but he had not enough money to bury her; he did not do as +you did just now, he did not faint, though he is a poet; he wrote six +rollicking songs, and earned three hundred francs, with which he paid +for Coralie's funeral. I have those songs; I know them by heart. +Well, then do you too compose your songs: be cheerful, be wild, be +irresistible and--insatiable! You hear me?--Do not let me have to speak +again. + +"Kiss papa. Good-bye." + +When, half an hour after, Europe went into her mistress' room, she found +her kneeling in front of a crucifix, in the attitude which the most +religious of painters has given to Moses before the burning bush on +Horeb, to depict his deep and complete adoration of Jehovah. After +saying her prayers, Esther had renounced her better life, the honor she +had created for herself, her glory, her virtue, and her love. + +She rose. + +"Oh, madame, you will never look like that again!" cried Prudence +Servien, struck by her mistress' sublime beauty. + +She hastily turned the long mirror so that the poor girl should see +herself. Her eyes still had a light as of the soul flying heavenward. +The Jewess' complexion was brilliant. Sparkling with tears unshed in the +fervor of prayer, her eyelashes were like leaves after a summer shower, +for the last time they shone with the sunshine of pure love. Her lips +seemed to preserve an expression as of her last appeal to the angels, +whose palm of martyrdom she had no doubt borrowed while placing in their +hands her past unspotted life. And she had the majesty which Mary Stuart +must have shown at the moment when she bid adieu to her crown, to earth, +and to love. + +"I wish Lucien could have seen me thus!" she said with a smothered sigh. +"Now," she added, in a strident tone, "now for a fling!" + +Europe stood dumb at hearing the words, as though she had heard an angel +blaspheme. + +"Well, why need you stare at me to see if I have cloves in my mouth +instead of teeth? I am nothing henceforth but a vile, foul creature, a +thief--and I expect milord. So get me a hot bath, and put my dress out. +It is twelve o'clock; the Baron will look in, no doubt, when the Bourse +closes; I shall tell him I was waiting for him, and Asie is to prepare +us dinner, first-chop, mind you; I mean to turn the man's brain.--Come, +hurry, hurry, my girl; we are going to have some fun--that is to say, we +must go to work." + +She sat down at the table and wrote the following note:-- + + "MY FRIEND,--If the cook you have sent me had not already been in + my service, I might have thought that your purpose was to let me + know how often you had fainted yesterday on receiving my three + notes. (What can I say? I was very nervous that day; I was + thinking over the memories of my miserable existence.) But I know + how sincere Asie is. Still, I cannot repent of having caused you + so much pain, since it has availed to prove to me how much you + love me. This is how we are made, we luckless and despised + creatures; true affection touches us far more deeply than finding + ourselves the objects of lavish liberality. For my part, I have + always rather dreaded being a peg on which you would hang your + vanities. It annoyed me to be nothing else to you. Yes, in spite + of all your protestations, I fancied you regarded me merely as a + woman paid for. + + "Well, you will now find me a good girl, but on condition of your + always obeying me a little. + + "If this letter can in any way take the place of the doctor's + prescription, prove it by coming to see me after the Bourse + closes. You will find me in full fig, dressed in your gifts, for I + am for life your pleasure-machine, + + "ESTHER." + + +At the Bourse the Baron de Nucingen was so gay, so cheerful, seemed so +easy-going, and allowed himself so many jests, that du Tillet and the +Kellers, who were on 'change, could not help asking him the reason of +his high spirits. + +"I am belofed. Ve shall soon gife dat house-varming," he told du Tillet. + +"And how much does it cost you?" asked Francois Keller rudely--it was +said that he had spent twenty-five thousand francs a year on Madame +Colleville. + +"Dat voman is an anchel! She never has ask' me for one sou." + +"They never do," replied du Tillet. "And it is to avoid asking that they +have always aunts or mothers." + +Between the Bourse and the Rue Taitbout seven times did the Baron say to +his servant: + +"You go so slow--vip de horse!" + +He ran lightly upstairs, and for the first time he saw his mistress in +all the beauty of such women, who have no other occupation than the care +of their person and their dress. Just out of her bath the flower was +quite fresh, and perfumed so as to inspire desire in Robert d'Arbrissel. + +Esther was in a charming toilette. A dress of black corded silk trimmed +with rose-colored gimp opened over a petticoat of gray satin, the +costume subsequently worn by Amigo, the handsome singer, in _I +Puritani_. A Honiton lace kerchief fell or floated over her shoulders. +The sleeves of her gown were strapped round with cording to divide the +puffs, which for some little time fashion has substituted for the large +sleeves which had grown too monstrous. Esther had fastened a Mechlin +lace cap on her magnificent hair with a pin, _a la folle_, as it is +called, ready to fall, but not really falling, giving her an appearance +of being tumbled and in disorder, though the white parting showed +plainly on her little head between the waves of her hair. + +"Is it not a shame to see madame so lovely in a shabby drawing-room like +this?" said Europe to the Baron, as she admitted him. + +"Vel, den, come to the Rue Saint-Georches," said the Baron, coming to a +full stop like a dog marking a partridge. "The veather is splendit, ve +shall drife to the Champs Elysees, and Montame Saint-Estefe and Eugenie +shall carry dere all your clo'es an' your linen, an' ve shall dine in de +Rue Saint-Georches." + +"I will do whatever you please," said Esther, "if only you will be so +kind as to call my cook Asie, and Eugenie Europe. I have given those +names to all the women who have served me ever since the first two. I do +not love change----" + +"Asie, Europe!" echoed the Baron, laughing. "How ver' droll you are.--You +hafe infentions.--I should hafe eaten many dinners before I should hafe +call' a cook Asie." + +"It is our business to be droll," said Esther. "Come, now, may not a +poor girl be fed by Asia and dressed by Europe when you live on the +whole world? It is a myth, I say; some women would devour the earth, I +only ask for half.--You see?" + +"Vat a voman is Montame Saint-Estefe!" said the Baron to himself as he +admired Esther's changed demeanor. + +"Europe, my girl, I want my bonnet," said Esther. "I must have a black +silk bonnet lined with pink and trimmed with lace." + +"Madame Thomas has not sent it home.--Come, Monsieur le Baron; quick, +off you go! Begin your functions as a man-of-all-work--that is to say, +of all pleasure! Happiness is burdensome. You have your carriage here, +go to Madame Thomas," said Europe to the Baron. "Make your servant ask +for the bonnet for Madame van Bogseck.--And, above all," she added in +his ear, "bring her the most beautiful bouquet to be had in Paris. It is +winter, so try to get tropical flowers." + +The Baron went downstairs and told his servants to go to "Montame +Thomas." + +The coachman drove to a famous pastrycook's. + +"She is a milliner, you damn' idiot, and not a cake-shop!" cried the +Baron, who rushed off to Madame Prevot's in the Palais-Royal, where he +had a bouquet made up for the price of ten louis, while his man went to +the great modiste. + +A superficial observer, walking about Paris, wonders who the fools +can be that buy the fabulous flowers that grace the illustrious +bouquetiere's shop window, and the choice products displayed by Chevet +of European fame--the only purveyor who can vie with the _Rocher de +Cancale_ in a real and delicious _Revue des deux Mondes_. + +Well, every day in Paris a hundred or more passions a la Nucingen come +into being, and find expression in offering such rarities as queens dare +not purchase, presented, kneeling, to baggages who, to use Asie's word, +like to cut a dash. But for these little details, a decent citizen would +be puzzled to conceive how a fortune melts in the hands of these women, +whose social function, in Fourier's scheme, is perhaps to rectify the +disasters caused by avarice and cupidity. Such squandering is, no doubt, +to the social body what a prick of the lancet is to a plethoric subject. +In two months Nucingen had shed broadcast on trade more than two hundred +thousand francs. + +By the time the old lover returned, darkness was falling; the bouquet +was no longer of any use. The hour for driving in the Champs-Elysees +in winter is between two and four. However, the carriage was of use to +convey Esther from the Rue Taitbout to the Rue Saint-Georges, where she +took possession of the "little palace." Never before had Esther been the +object of such worship or such lavishness, and it amazed her; but, like +all royal ingrates, she took care to express no surprise. + +When you go into St. Peter's at Rome, to enable you to appreciate the +extent and height of this queen of cathedrals, you are shown the little +finger of a statue which looks of a natural size, and which measures +I know not how much. Descriptions have been so severely criticised, +necessary as they are to a history of manners, that I must here follow +the example of the Roman Cicerone. As they entered the dining-room, +the Baron could not resist asking Esther to feel the stuff of which the +window curtains were made, draped with magnificent fulness, lined with +white watered silk, and bordered with a gimp fit to trim a Portuguese +princess' bodice. The material was silk brought from Canton, on which +Chinese patience had painted Oriental birds with a perfection only to +be seen in mediaeval illuminations, or in the Missal of Charles V., the +pride of the Imperial library at Vienna. + +"It hafe cost two tousand franc' an ell for a milord who brought it from +Intia----" + +"It is very nice, charming," said Esther. "How I shall enjoy drinking +champagne here; the froth will not get dirty here on a bare floor." + +"Oh! madame!" cried Europe, "only look at the carpet!" + +"Dis carpet hafe been made for de Duc de Torlonia, a frient of mine, +who fount it too dear, so I took it for you who are my qveen," said +Nucingen. + +By chance this carpet, by one of our cleverest designers, matched +with the whimsicalities of the Chinese curtains. The walls, painted +by Schinner and Leon de Lora, represented voluptuous scenes, in carved +ebony frames, purchased for their weight in gold from Dusommerard, and +forming panels with a narrow line of gold that coyly caught the light. + +From this you may judge of the rest. + +"You did well to bring me here," said Esther. "It will take me a week to +get used to my home and not to look like a parvenu in it----" + +"_My_ home! Den you shall accept it?" cried the Baron in glee. + +"Why, of course, and a thousand times of course, stupid animal," said +she, smiling. + +"Animal vas enough----" + +"Stupid is a term of endearment," said she, looking at him. + +The poor man took Esther's hand and pressed it to his heart. He was +animal enough to feel, but too stupid to find words. + +"Feel how it beats--for ein little tender vort----" + +And he conducted his goddess to her room. + +"Oh, madame, I cannot stay here!" cried Eugenie. "It makes me long to go +to bed." + +"Well," said Esther, "I mean to please the magician who has worked all +these wonders.--Listen, my fat elephant, after dinner we will go to the +play together. I am starving to see a play." + +It was just five years since Esther had been to a theatre. All Paris +was rushing at that time to the Porte-Saint-Martin, to see one of those +pieces to which the power of the actors lends a terrible expression of +reality, _Richard Darlington_. Like all ingenuous natures, Esther loved +to feel the thrills of fear as much as to yield to tears of pathos. + +"Let us go to see Frederick Lemaitre," said she; "he is an actor I +adore." + +"It is a horrible piece," said Nucingen foreseeing the moment when he +must show himself in public. + +He sent his servant to secure one of the two stage-boxes on the grand +tier.--And this is another strange feature of Paris. Whenever success, +on feet of clay, fills a house, there is always a stage-box to be +had ten minutes before the curtain rises. The managers keep it for +themselves, unless it happens to be taken for a passion a la Nucingen. +This box, like Chevet's dainties, is a tax levied on the whims of the +Parisian Olympus. + +It would be superfluous to describe the plate and china. Nucingen had +provided three services of plate--common, medium, and best; and the +best--plates, dishes, and all, was of chased silver gilt. The banker, +to avoid overloading the table with gold and silver, had completed the +array of each service with porcelain of exquisite fragility in the +style of Dresden china, which had cost more than the plate. As to the +linen--Saxony, England, Flanders, and France vied in the perfection of +flowered damask. + +At dinner it was the Baron's turn to be amazed on tasting Asie's +cookery. + +"I understant," said he, "vy you call her Asie; dis is Asiatic cooking." + +"I begin to think he loves me," said Esther to Europe; "he has said +something almost like a _bon mot_." + +"I said many vorts," said he. + +"Well! he is more like Turcaret than I had heard he was!" cried the +girl, laughing at this reply, worthy of the many artless speeches for +which the banker was famous. + +The dishes were so highly spiced as to give the Baron an indigestion, on +purpose that he might go home early; so this was all he got in the way +of pleasure out of his first evening with Esther. At the theatre he was +obliged to drink an immense number of glasses of eau sucree, leaving +Esther alone between the acts. + +By a coincidence so probable that it can scarcely be called chance, +Tullia, Mariette, and Madame du Val-Noble were at the play that +evening. _Richard Darlington_ enjoyed a wild success--and a deserved +success--such as is seen only in Paris. The men who saw this play all +came to the conclusion that a lawful wife might be thrown out of window, +and the wives loved to see themselves unjustly persecuted. + +The women said to each other: "This is too much! we are driven to +it--but it often happens!" + +Now a woman as beautiful as Esther, and dressed as Esther was, could not +show off with impunity in a stage-box at the Porte-Saint-Martin. And so, +during the second act, there was quite a commotion in the box where +the two dancers were sitting, caused by the undoubted identity of the +unknown fair one with La Torpille. + +"Heyday! where has she dropped from?" said Mariette to Madame du +Val-Noble. "I thought she was drowned." + +"But is it she? She looks to me thirty-seven times younger and handsomer +than she was six years ago." + +"Perhaps she has preserved herself in ice like Madame d'Espard and +Madame Zayonchek," said the Comte de Brambourg, who had brought the +three women to the play, to a pit-tier box. "Isn't she the 'rat' you +meant to send me to hocus my uncle?" said he, addressing Tullia. + +"The very same," said the singer. "Du Bruel, go down to the stalls and +see if it is she." + +"What brass she has got!" exclaimed Madame du Val-Noble, using an +expressive but vulgar phrase. + +"Oh!" said the Comte de Brambourg, "she very well may. She is with my +friend the Baron de Nucingen--I will go----" + +"Is that the immaculate Joan of Arc who has taken Nucingen by storm, and +who has been talked of till we are all sick of her, these three months +past?" asked Mariette. + +"Good-evening, my dear Baron," said Philippe Bridau, as he went +into Nucingen's box. "So here you are, married to Mademoiselle +Esther.--Mademoiselle, I am an old officer whom you once on a time were +to have got out of a scrape--at Issoudun--Philippe Bridau----" + +"I know nothing of it," said Esther, looking round the house through her +opera-glasses. + +"Dis lady," said the Baron, "is no longer known as 'Esther' so short! +She is called Montame de Champy--ein little estate vat I have bought for +her----" + +"Though you do things in such style," said the Comte, "these ladies are +saying that Madame de Champy gives herself too great airs.--If you do +not choose to remember me, will you condescend to recognize Mariette, +Tullia, Madame du Val-Noble?" the parvenu went on--a man for whom the +Duc de Maufrigneuse had won the Dauphin's favor. + +"If these ladies are kind to me, I am willing to make myself pleasant to +them," replied Madame de Champy drily. + +"Kind! Why, they are excellent; they have named you Joan of Arc," +replied Philippe. + +"Vell den, if dese ladies vill keep you company," said Nucingen, "I +shall go 'vay, for I hafe eaten too much. Your carriage shall come for +you and your people.--Dat teufel Asie!" + +"The first time, and you leave me alone!" said Esther. "Come, come, you +must have courage enough to die on deck. I must have my man with me as I +go out. If I were insulted, am I to cry out for nothing?" + +The old millionaire's selfishness had to give way to his duties as a +lover. The Baron suffered but stayed. + +Esther had her own reasons for detaining "her man." If she admitted her +acquaintance, she would be less closely questioned in his presence than +if she were alone. Philippe Bridau hurried back to the box where the +dancers were sitting, and informed them of the state of affairs. + +"Oh! so it is she who has fallen heir to my house in the Rue +Saint-Georges," observed Madame du Val-Noble with some bitterness; for +she, as she phrased it, was on the loose. + +"Most likely," said the Colonel. "Du Tillet told me that the Baron had +spent three times as much there as your poor Falleix." + +"Let us go round to her box," said Tullia. + +"Not if I know it," said Mariette; "she is much too handsome, I will +call on her at home." + +"I think myself good-looking enough to risk it," remarked Tullia. + +So the much-daring leading dancer went round between the acts and +renewed acquaintance with Esther, who would talk only on general +subjects. + +"And where have you come back from, my dear child?" asked Tullia, who +could not restrain her curiosity. + +"Oh, I was for five years in a castle in the Alps with an Englishman, as +jealous as a tiger, a nabob; I called him a nabot, a dwarf, for he was +not so big as le bailli de Ferrette. + +"And then I came across a banker--from a savage to salvation, as Florine +might say. And now here I am in Paris again; I long so for amusement +that I mean to have a rare time. I shall keep open house. I have five +years of solitary confinement to make good, and I am beginning to do +it. Five years of an Englishman is rather too much; six weeks are the +allowance according to the advertisements." + +"Was it the Baron who gave you that lace?" + +"No, it is a relic of the nabob.--What ill-luck I have, my dear! He was +as yellow as a friend's smile at a success; I thought he would be dead +in ten months. Pooh! he was a strong as a mountain. Always distrust men +who say they have a liver complaint. I will never listen to a man who +talks of his liver.--I have had too much of livers--who cannot die. My +nabob robbed me; he died without making a will, and the family turned me +out of doors like a leper.--So, then, I said to my fat friend here, 'Pay +for two!'--You may as well call me Joan of Arc; I have ruined England, +and perhaps I shall die at the stake----" + +"Of love?" said Tullia. + +"And burnt alive," answered Esther, and the question made her +thoughtful. + +The Baron laughed at all this vulgar nonsense, but he did not always +follow it readily, so that his laughter sounded like the forgotten +crackers that go off after fireworks. + + + +We all live in a sphere of some kind, and the inhabitants of every +sphere are endowed with an equal share of curiosity. + +Next evening at the opera, Esther's reappearance was the great news +behind the scenes. Between two and four in the afternoon all Paris in +the Champs-Elysees had recognized La Torpille, and knew at last who was +the object of the Baron de Nucingen's passion. + +"Do you know," Blondet remarked to de Marsay in the greenroom at the +opera-house, "that La Torpille vanished the very day after the evening +when we saw her here and recognized her in little Rubempre's mistress." + +In Paris, as in the provinces, everything is known. The police of the +Rue de Jerusalem are not so efficient as the world itself, for every +one is a spy on every one else, though unconsciously. Carlos had fully +understood the danger of Lucien's position during and after the episode +of the Rue Taitbout. + +No position can be more dreadful than that in which Madame du Val-Noble +now found herself; and the phrase to be on the loose, or, as the +French say, left on foot, expresses it perfectly. The recklessness and +extravagance of these women precludes all care for the future. In that +strange world, far more witty and amusing than might be supposed, only +such women as are not gifted with that perfect beauty which time can +hardly impair, and which is quite unmistakable--only such women, in +short, as can be loved merely as a fancy, ever think of old age and save +a fortune. The handsomer they are, the more improvident they are. + +"Are you afraid of growing ugly that you are saving money?" was a speech +of Florine's to Mariette, which may give a clue to one cause of this +thriftlessness. + +Thus, if a speculator kills himself, or a spendthrift comes to the +end of his resources, these women fall with hideous promptitude from +audacious wealth to the utmost misery. They throw themselves into the +clutches of the old-clothes buyer, and sell exquisite jewels for a mere +song; they run into debt, expressly to keep up a spurious luxury, in the +hope of recovering what they have lost--a cash-box to draw upon. +These ups and downs of their career account for the costliness of such +connections, generally brought about as Asie had hooked (another word of +her vocabulary) Nucingen for Esther. + +And so those who know their Paris are quite aware of the state +of affairs when, in the Champs-Elysees--that bustling and mongrel +bazaar--they meet some woman in a hired fly whom six months or a year +before they had seen in a magnificent and dazzling carriage, turned out +in the most luxurious style. + +"If you fall on Sainte-Pelagie, you must contrive to rebound on the +Bois de Boulogne," said Florine, laughing with Blondet over the little +Vicomte de Portenduere. + +Some clever women never run the risk of this contrast. They bury +themselves in horrible furnished lodgings, where they expiate their +extravagance by such privations as are endured by travelers lost in a +Sahara; but they never take the smallest fancy for economy. They venture +forth to masked balls; they take journeys into the provinces; they turn +out well dressed on the boulevards when the weather is fine. And then +they find in each other the devoted kindness which is known only among +proscribed races. It costs a woman in luck no effort to bestow some +help, for she says to herself, "I may be in the same plight by Sunday!" + +However, the most efficient protector still is the purchaser of dress. +When this greedy money-lender finds herself the creditor, she stirs +and works on the hearts of all the old men she knows in favor of the +mortgaged creature in thin boots and a fine bonnet. + +In this way Madame du Val-Noble, unable to foresee the downfall of one +of the richest and cleverest of stockbrokers, was left quite unprepared. +She had spent Falleix's money on her whims, and trusted to him for all +necessaries and to provide for the future. + +"How could I have expected such a thing in a man who seemed such a good +fellow?" + +In almost every class of society the good fellow is an open-handed man, +who will lend a few crowns now and again without expecting them back, +who always behaves in accordance with a certain code of delicate feeling +above mere vulgar, obligatory, and commonplace morality. Certain men, +regarded as virtuous and honest, have, like Nucingen, ruined their +benefactors; and certain others, who have been through a criminal court, +have an ingenious kind of honesty towards women. Perfect virtue, the +dream of Moliere, an Alceste, is exceedingly rare; still, it is to be +found everywhere, even in Paris. The "good fellow" is the product of a +certain facility of nature which proves nothing. A man is a good fellow, +as a cat is silky, as a slipper is made to slip on to the foot. And so, +in the meaning given to the word by a kept woman, Falleix ought to have +warned his mistress of his approaching bankruptcy and have given her +enough to live upon. + +D'Estourny, the dashing swindler, was a good fellow; he cheated at +cards, but he had set aside thirty thousand francs for his mistress. And +at carnival suppers women would retort on his accusers: "No matter. +You may say what you like, Georges was a good fellow; he had charming +manners, he deserved a better fate." + +These girls laugh laws to scorn, and adore a certain kind of generosity; +they sell themselves, as Esther had done, for a secret ideal, which is +their religion. + +After saving a few jewels from the wreck with great difficulty, Madame +du Val-Noble was crushed under the burden of the horrible report: "She +ruined Falleix." She was almost thirty; and though she was in the prime +of her beauty, still she might be called an old woman, and all the +more so because in such a crisis all a woman's rivals are against her. +Mariette, Florine, Tullia would ask their friend to dinner, and gave her +some help; but as they did not know the extent of her debts, they did +not dare to sound the depths of that gulf. An interval of six years +formed rather too long a gap in the ebb and flow of the Paris tide, +between La Torpille and Madame du Val-Noble, for the woman "on foot" to +speak to the woman in her carriage; but La Val-Noble knew that Esther +was too generous not to remember sometimes that she had, as she said, +fallen heir to her possessions, and not to seek her out by some meeting +which might seem accidental though arranged. To bring about such an +accident, Madame du Val-Noble, dressed in the most lady-like way, walked +out every day in the Champs-Elysees on the arm of Theodore Gaillard, who +afterwards married her, and who, in these straits, behaved very well to +his former mistress, giving her boxes at the play, and inviting her to +every spree. She flattered herself that Esther, driving out one fine +day, would meet her face to face. + +Esther's coachman was Paccard--for her household had been made up in +five days by Asie, Europe, and Paccard under Carlos' instructions, and +in such a way that the house in the Rue Saint-Georges was an impregnable +fortress. + +Peyrade, on his part, prompted by deep hatred, by the thirst for +vengeance, and, above all, by his wish to see his darling Lydie married, +made the Champs-Elysees the end of his walks as soon as he heard from +Contenson that Monsieur de Nucingen's mistress might be seen there. +Peyrade could dress so exactly like an Englishman, and spoke French so +perfectly with the mincing accent that the English give the language; he +knew England itself so well, and was so familiar with all the customs of +the country, having been sent to England by the police authorities three +times between 1779 and 1786, that he could play his part in London and +at ambassadors' residences without awaking suspicion. Peyrade, who had +some resemblance to Musson the famous juggler, could disguise himself so +effectually that once Contenson did not recognize him. + +Followed by Contenson dressed as a mulatto, Peyrade examined Esther and +her servants with an eye which, seeming heedless, took everything in. +Hence it quite naturally happened that in the side alley where the +carriage-company walk in fine dry weather, he was on the spot one day +when Esther met Madame du Val-Noble. Peyrade, his mulatto in livery +at his heels, was airing himself quite naturally, like a nabob who is +thinking of no one but himself, in a line with the two women, so as to +catch a few words of their conversation. + +"Well, my dear child," said Esther to Madame du Val-Noble, "come and see +me. Nucingen owes it to himself not to leave his stockbroker's mistress +without a sou----" + +"All the more so because it is said that he ruined Falleix," remarked +Theodore Gaillard, "and that we have every right to squeeze him." + +"He dines with me to-morrow," said Esther; "come and meet him." Then she +added in an undertone: + +"I can do what I like with him, and as yet he has not that!" and she put +the nail of a gloved finger under the prettiest of her teeth with the +click that is familiarly known to express with peculiar energy: "Just +nothing." + +"You have him safe----" + +"My dear, as yet he has only paid my debts." + +"How mean!" cried Suzanne du Val-Noble. + +"Oh!" said Esther, "I had debts enough to frighten a minister of +finance. Now, I mean to have thirty thousand a year before the first +stroke of midnight. Oh! he is excellent, I have nothing to complain +of. He does it well.--In a week we give a house-warming; you must +come.--That morning he is to make me a present of the lease of the house +in the Rue Saint-Georges. In decency, it is impossible to live in such +a house on less than thirty thousand francs a year--of my own, so as to +have them safe in case of accident. I have known poverty, and I want +no more of it. There are certain acquaintances one has had enough of at +once." + +"And you, who used to say, 'My face is my fortune!'--How you have +changed!" exclaimed Suzanne. + +"It is the air of Switzerland; you grow thrifty there.--Look here; go +there yourself, my dear! Catch a Swiss, and you may perhaps catch a +husband, for they have not yet learned what such women as we are can be. +And, at any rate, you may come back with a passion for investments in +the funds--a most respectable and elegant passion!--Good-bye." + +Esther got into her carriage again, a handsome carriage drawn by the +finest pair of dappled gray horses at that time to be seen in Paris. + +"The woman who is getting into the carriage is handsome," said Peyrade +to Contenson, "but I like the one who is walking best; follow her, and +find out who she is." + +"That is what that Englishman has just remarked in English," said +Theodore Gaillard, repeating Peyrade's remark to Madame du Val-Noble. + +Before making this speech in English, Peyrade had uttered a word or +two in that language, which had made Theodore look up in a way that +convinced him that the journalist understood English. + +Madame du Val-Noble very slowly made her way home to very decent +furnished rooms in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, glancing round now and then +to see if the mulatto were following her. + +This establishment was kept by a certain Madame Gerard, whom Suzanne +had obliged in the days of her splendor, and who showed her gratitude +by giving her a suitable home. This good soul, an honest and virtuous +citizen, even pious, looked on the courtesan as a woman of a superior +order; she had always seen her in the midst of luxury, and thought of +her as a fallen queen; she trusted her daughters with her; and--which +is a fact more natural than might be supposed--the courtesan was as +scrupulously careful in taking them to the play as their mother +could have been, and the two Gerard girls loved her. The worthy, kind +lodging-house keeper was like those sublime priests who see in these +outlawed women only a creature to be saved and loved. + +Madame du Val-Noble respected this worth; and often, as she chatted with +the good woman, she envied her while bewailing her own ill-fortune. + +"Your are still handsome; you may make a good end yet," Madame Gerard +would say. + +But, indeed, Madame du Val-Noble was only relatively impoverished. This +woman's wardrobe, so extravagant and elegant, was still sufficiently +well furnished to allow of her appearing on occasion--as on that evening +at the Porte-Saint-Martin to see _Richard Darlington_--in much splendor. +And Madame Gerard would most good-naturedly pay for the cabs needed by +the lady "on foot" to go out to dine, or to the play, and to come home +again. + +"Well, dear Madame Gerard," said she to this worthy mother, "my luck is +about to change, I believe." + +"Well, well, madame, so much the better. But be prudent; do not run into +debt any more. I have such difficulty in getting rid of the people who +are hunting for you." + +"Oh, never worry yourself about those hounds! They have all made no end +of money out of me.--Here are some tickets for the Varietes for your +girls--a good box on the second tier. If any one should ask for me this +evening before I come in, show them up all the same. Adele, my old maid, +will be here; I will send her round." + +Madame du Val-Noble, having neither mother nor aunt, was obliged to +have recourse to her maid--equally on foot--to play the part of a +Saint-Esteve with the unknown follower whose conquest was to enable her +to rise again in the world. She went to dine with Theodore Gaillard, +who, as it happened, had a spree on that day, that is to say, a dinner +given by Nathan in payment of a bet he had lost, one of those orgies +when a man says to his guests, "You can bring a woman." + +It was not without strong reasons that Peyrade had made up his mind to +rush in person on to the field of this intrigue. At the same time, his +curiosity, like Corentin's, was so keenly excited, that, even in the +absence of reasons, he would have tried to play a part in the drama. + +At this moment Charles X.'s policy had completed its last evolution. +After confiding the helm of State to Ministers of his own choosing, the +King was preparing to conquer Algiers, and to utilize the glory that +should accrue as a passport to what has been called his _Coup d'Etat_. +There were no more conspiracies at home; Charles X. believed he had no +domestic enemies. But in politics, as at sea, a calm may be deceptive. + +Thus Corentin had lapsed into total idleness. In such a case a true +sportsman, to keep his hand in, for lack of larks kills sparrows. +Domitian, we know, for lack of Christians, killed flies. Contenson, +having witnessed Esther's arrest, had, with the keen instinct of a spy, +fully understood the upshot of the business. The rascal, as we have +seen, did not attempt to conceal his opinion of the Baron de Nucingen. + +"Who is benefiting by making the banker pay so dear for his passion?" +was the first question the allies asked each other. Recognizing Asie as +a leader in the piece, Contenson hoped to find out the author through +her; but she slipped through his fingers again and again, hiding like +an eel in the mud of Paris; and when he found her again as the cook +in Esther's establishment, it seemed to him inexplicable that the +half-caste woman should have had a finger in the pie. Thus, for the +first time, these two artistic spies had come on a text that they could +not decipher, while suspecting a dark plot to the story. + +After three bold attempts on the house in the Rue Taitbout, Contenson +still met with absolute dumbness. So long as Esther dwelt there the +lodge porter seemed to live in mortal terror. Asie had, perhaps, +promised poisoned meat-balls to all the family in the event of any +indiscretion. + +On the day after Esther's removal, Contenson found this man rather +more amenable; he regretted the lady, he said, who had fed him with the +broken dishes from her table. Contenson, disguised as a broker, tried to +bargain for the rooms, and listened to the porter's lamentations while +he fooled him, casting a doubt on all the man said by a questioning +"Really?" + +"Yes, monsieur, the lady lived here for five years without ever going +out, and more by token, her lover, desperately jealous though she was +beyond reproach, took the greatest precautions when he came in or went +out. And a very handsome young man he was too!" + +Lucien was at this time still staying with his sister, Madame Sechard; +but as soon as he returned, Contenson sent the porter to the Quai +Malaquais to ask Monsieur de Rubempre whether he were willing to part +with the furniture left in the rooms lately occupied by Madame van +Bogseck. The porter then recognized Lucien as the young widow's +mysterious lover, and this was all that Contenson wanted. The deep but +suppressed astonishment may be imagined with which Lucien and Carlos +received the porter, whom they affected to regard as a madman; they +tried to upset his convictions. + +Within twenty-four hours Carlos had organized a force which detected +Contenson red-handed in the act of espionage. Contenson, disguised as a +market-porter, had twice already brought home the provisions purchased +in the morning by Asie, and had twice got into the little mansion in the +Rue Saint-Georges. Corentin, on his part, was making a stir; but he was +stopped short by recognizing the certain identity of Carlos Herrera; for +he learned at once that this Abbe, the secret envoy of Ferdinand VII., +had come to Paris towards the end of 1823. Still, Corentin thought it +worth while to study the reasons which had led the Spaniard to take an +interest in Lucien de Rubempre. It was soon clear to him, beyond +doubt, that Esther had for five years been Lucien's mistress; so the +substitution of the Englishwoman had been effected for the advantage of +that young dandy. + +Now Lucien had no means; he was rejected as a suitor for Mademoiselle de +Grandlieu; and he had just bought up the lands of Rubempre at the cost +of a million francs. + +Corentin very skilfully made the head of the General Police take the +first steps; and the Prefet de Police a propos to Peyrade, informed his +chief that the appellants in that affair had been in fact the Comte de +Serizy and Lucien de Rubempre. + +"We have it!" cried Peyrade and Corentin. + +The two friends had laid plans in a moment. + +"This hussy," said Corentin, "has had intimacies; she must have some +women friends. Among them we shall certainly find one or another who is +down on her luck; one of us must play the part of a rich foreigner and +take her up. We will throw them together. They always want something of +each other in the game of lovers, and we shall then be in the citadel." + +Peyrade naturally proposed to assume his disguise as an Englishman. +The wild life he should lead during the time that he would take to +disentangle the plot of which he had been the victim, smiled on his +fancy; while Corentin, grown old in his functions, and weakly too, +did not care for it. Disguised as a mulatto, Contenson at once evaded +Carlos' force. Just three days before Peyrade's meeting with Madame du +Val-Noble in the Champs-Elysees, this last of the agents employed by +MM. de Sartine and Lenoir had arrived, provided with a passport, at the +Hotel Mirabeau, Rue de la Paix, having come from the Colonies via le +Havre, in a traveling chaise, as mud-splashed as though it had really +come from le Havre, instead of no further than by the road from +Saint-Denis to Paris. + +Carlos Herrera, on his part, had his passport _vise_ at the Spanish +Embassy, and arranged everything at the Quai Malaquais to start for +Madrid. And this is why. Within a few days Esther was to become the +owner of the house in the Rue Saint-Georges and of shares yielding +thirty thousand francs a year; Europe and Asie were quite cunning enough +to persuade her to sell these shares and privately transmit the money +to Lucien. Thus Lucien, proclaiming himself rich through his sister's +liberality, would pay the remainder of the price of the Rubempre +estates. Of this transaction no one could complain. Esther alone could +betray herself; but she would die rather than blink an eyelash. + +Clotilde had appeared with a little pink kerchief round her crane's +neck, so she had won her game at the Hotel de Grandlieu. The shares +in the Omnibus Company were already worth thrice their initial value. +Carlos, by disappearing for a few days, would put malice off the scent. +Human prudence had foreseen everything; no error was possible. The false +Spaniard was to start on the morrow of the day when Peyrade met Madame +du Val-Noble. But that very night, at two in the morning, Asie came in +a cab to the Quai Malaquais, and found the stoker of the machine smoking +in his room, and reconsidering all the points of the situation here +stated in a few words, like an author going over a page in his book to +discover any faults to be corrected. Such a man would not allow himself +a second time such an oversight as that of the porter in the Rue +Taitbout. + +"Paccard," whispered Asie in her master's ear, "recognized Contenson +yesterday, at half-past two, in the Champs-Elysees, disguised as a +mulatto servant to an Englishman, who for the last three days has been +seen walking in the Champs-Elysees, watching Esther. Paccard knew the +hound by his eyes, as I did when he dressed up as a market-porter. +Paccard drove the girl home, taking a round so as not to lose sight of +the wretch. Contenson is at the Hotel Mirabeau; but he exchanged so many +signs of intelligence with the Englishman, that Paccard says the other +cannot possibly be an Englishman." + +"We have a gadfly behind us," said Carlos. "I will not leave till the +day after to-morrow. That Contenson is certainly the man who sent the +porter after us from the Rue Taitbout; we must ascertain whether this +sham Englishman is our foe." + +At noon Mr. Samuel Johnson's black servant was solemnly waiting on his +master, who always breakfasted too heartily, with a purpose. Peyrade +wished to pass for a tippling Englishman; he never went out till he was +half-seas over. He wore black cloth gaiters up to his knees, and padded +to make his legs look stouter; his trousers were lined with the thickest +fustian; his waistcoat was buttoned up to his cheeks; a red scratch +wig hid half his forehead, and he had added nearly three inches to his +height; in short, the oldest frequenter of the Cafe David could not have +recognized him. From his squarecut coat of black cloth with full skirts +he might have been taken for an English millionaire. + +Contenson made a show of the cold insolence of a nabob's confidential +servant; he was taciturn, abrupt, scornful, and uncommunicative, and +indulged in fierce exclamations and uncouth gestures. + +Peyrade was finishing his second bottle when one of the hotel waiters +unceremoniously showed in a man in whom Peyrade and Contenson both at +once discerned a gendarme in mufti. + +"Monsieur Peyrade," said the gendarme to the nabob, speaking in his ear, +"my instructions are to take you to the Prefecture." + +Peyrade, without saying a word, rose and took down his hat. + +"You will find a hackney coach at the door," said the man as they went +downstairs. "The Prefet thought of arresting you, but he decided on +sending for you to ask some explanation of your conduct through the +peace-officer whom you will find in the coach." + +"Shall I ride with you?" asked the gendarme of the peace-officer when +Peyrade had got in. + +"No," replied the other; "tell the coachman quietly to drive to the +Prefecture." + +Peyrade and Carlos were now face to face in the coach. Carlos had a +stiletto under his hand. The coach-driver was a man he could trust, +quite capable of allowing Carlos to get out without seeing him, or being +surprised, on arriving at his journey's end, to find a dead body in +his cab. No inquiries are ever made about a spy. The law almost always +leaves such murders unpunished, it is so difficult to know the rights of +the case. + +Peyrade looked with his keenest eye at the magistrate sent to examine +him by the Prefet of Police. Carlos struck him as satisfactory: a bald +head, deeply wrinkled at the back, and powdered hair; a pair of very +light gold spectacles, with double-green glasses over weak eyes, with +red rims, evidently needing care. These eyes seemed the trace of some +squalid malady. A cotton shirt with a flat-pleated frill, a shabby +black satin waistcoat, the trousers of a man of law, black spun silk +stockings, and shoes tied with ribbon; a long black overcoat, cheap +gloves, black, and worn for ten days, and a gold watch-chain--in every +point the lower grade of magistrate known by a perversion of terms as a +peace-officer. + +"My dear Monsieur Peyrade, I regret to find such a man as you the object +of surveillance, and that you should act so as to justify it. Your +disguise is not to the Prefet's taste. If you fancy that you can thus +escape our vigilance, you are mistaken. You traveled from England by way +of Beaumont-sur-Oise, no doubt." + +"Beaumont-sur-Oise?" repeated Peyrade. + +"Or by Saint-Denis?" said the sham lawyer. + +Peyrade lost his presence of mind. The question must be answered. Now +any reply might be dangerous. In the affirmative it was farcical; in the +negative, if this man knew the truth, it would be Peyrade's ruin. + +"He is a sharp fellow," thought he. + +He tried to look at the man and smile, and he gave him a smile for an +answer; the smile passed muster without protest. + +"For what purpose have you disguised yourself, taken rooms at the +Mirabeau, and dressed Contenson as a black servant?" asked the +peace-officer. + +"Monsieur le Prefet may do what he chooses with me, but I owe no account +of my actions to any one but my chief," said Peyrade with dignity. + +"If you mean me to infer that you are acting by the orders of the +General Police," said the other coldly, "we will change our route, and +drive to the Rue de Grenelle instead of the Rue de Jerusalem. I have +clear instructions with regard to you. But be careful! You are not in +any deep disgrace, and you may spoil your own game in a moment. As for +me--I owe you no grudge.--Come; tell me the truth." + +"Well, then, this is the truth," said Peyrade, with a glance at his +Cerberus' red eyes. + +The sham lawyer's face remained expressionless, impassible; he was doing +his business, all truths were the same to him, he looked as though +he suspected the Prefet of some caprice. Prefets have their little +tantrums. + +"I have fallen desperately in love with a woman--the mistress of that +stockbroker who is gone abroad for his own pleasure and the displeasure +of his creditors--Falleix." + +"Madame du Val-Noble?" + +"Yes," replied Peyrade. "To keep her for a month, which will not cost me +more than a thousand crowns, I have got myself up as a nabob and taken +Contenson as my servant. This is so absolutely true, monsieur, that +if you like to leave me in the coach, where I will wait for you, on my +honor as an old Commissioner-General of Police, you can go to the hotel +and question Contenson. Not only will Contenson confirm what I have the +honor of stating, but you may see Madame du Val-Noble's waiting-maid, +who is to come this morning to signify her mistress' acceptance of my +offers, or the conditions she makes. + +"An old monkey knows what grimaces mean: I have offered her a thousand +francs a month and a carriage--that comes to fifteen hundred; five +hundred francs' worth of presents, and as much again in some outings, +dinners and play-going; you see, I am not deceiving you by a centime +when I say a thousand crowns.--A man of my age may well spend a thousand +crowns on his last fancy." + +"Bless me, Papa Peyrade! and you still care enough for women to----? +But you are deceiving me. I am sixty myself, and I can do without +'em.--However, if the case is as you state it, I quite understand that +you should have found it necessary to get yourself up as a foreigner to +indulge your fancy." + +"You can understand that Peyrade, or old Canquoelle of the Rue des +Moineaux----" + +"Ay, neither of them would have suited Madame du Val-Noble," Carlos +put in, delighted to have picked up Canquoelle's address. "Before +the Revolution," he went on, "I had for my mistress a woman who had +previously been kept by the gentleman-in-waiting, as they then called +the executioner. One evening at the play she pricked herself with a pin, +and cried out--a customary ejaculation in those days--'Ah! Bourreau!' on +which her neighbor asked her if this were a reminiscence?--Well, my dear +Peyrade, she cast off her man for that speech. + +"I suppose you have no wish to expose yourself to such a slap in the +face.--Madame du Val-Noble is a woman for gentlemen. I saw her once at +the opera, and thought her very handsome. + +"Tell the driver to go back to the Rue de la Paix, my dear Peyrade. I +will go upstairs with you to your rooms and see for myself. A verbal +report will no doubt be enough for Monsieur le Prefet." + +Carlos took a snuff-box from his side-pocket--a black snuff-box +lined with silver-gilt--and offered it to Peyrade with an impulse of +delightful good-fellowship. Peyrade said to himself: + +"And these are their agents! Good Heavens! what would Monsieur Lenoir +say if he could come back to life, or Monsieur de Sartines?" + +"That is part of the truth, no doubt, but it is not all," said the sham +lawyer, sniffing up his pinch of snuff. "You have had a finger in the +Baron de Nucingen's love affairs, and you wish, no doubt, to entangle +him in some slip-knot. You missed fire with the pistol, and you are +aiming at him with a field-piece. Madame du Val-Noble is a friend of +Madame de Champy's----" + +"Devil take it. I must take care not to founder," said Peyrade to +himself. "He is a better man than I thought him. He is playing me; he +talks of letting me go, and he goes on making me blab." + +"Well?" asked Carlos with a magisterial air. + +"Monsieur, it is true that I have been so foolish as to seek a woman in +Monsieur de Nucingen's behoof, because he was half mad with love. That +is the cause of my being out of favor, for it would seem that quite +unconsciously I touched some important interests." + +The officer of the law remained immovable. + +"But after fifty-two years' experience," Peyrade went on, "I know the +police well enough to have held my hand after the blowing up I had from +Monsieur le Prefet, who, no doubt, was right----" + +"Then you would give up this fancy if Monsieur le Prefet required it +of you? That, I think, would be the best proof you could give of the +sincerity of what you say." + +"He is going it! he is going it!" thought Peyrade. "Ah! by all that's +holy, the police to-day is a match for that of Monsieur Lenoir." + +"Give it up?" said he aloud. "I will wait till I have Monsieur le +Prefet's orders.--But here we are at the hotel, if you wish to come up." + +"Where do you find the money?" said Carlos point-blank, with a sagacious +glance. + +"Monsieur, I have a friend----" + +"Get along," said Carlos; "go and tell that story to an examining +magistrate!" + +This audacious stroke on Carlos' part was the outcome of one of those +calculations, so simple that none but a man of his temper would have +thought it out. + +At a very early hour he had sent Lucien to Madame de Serizy's. Lucien +had begged the Count's private secretary--as from the Count--to go and +obtain from the Prefet of Police full particulars concerning the agent +employed by the Baron de Nucingen. The secretary came back provided with +a note concerning Peyrade, a copy of the summary noted on the back of +his record:-- + + "In the police force since 1778, having come to Paris from Avignon + two years previously. + + "Without money or character; possessed of certain State secrets. + + "Lives in the Rue des Moineaux under the name of Canquoelle, the + name of a little estate where his family resides in the department + of Vaucluse; very respectable people. + + "Was lately inquired for by a grand-nephew named Theodore de la + Peyrade. (See the report of an agent, No. 37 of the Documents.)" + +"He must be the man to whom Contenson is playing the mulatto servant!" +cried Carlos, when Lucien returned with other information besides this +note. + +Within three hours this man, with the energy of a Commander-in-Chief, +had found, by Paccard's help, an innocent accomplice capable of +playing the part of a gendarme in disguise, and had got himself up as +a peace-officer. Three times in the coach he had thought of killing +Peyrade, but he had made it a rule never to commit a murder with his own +hand; he promised himself that he would get rid of Peyrade all in good +time by pointing him out as a millionaire to some released convicts +about the town. + +Peyrade and his Mentor, as they went in, heard Contenson's voice arguing +with Madame du Val-Noble's maid. Peyrade signed to Carlos to remain +in the outer room, with a look meant to convey: "Thus you can assure +yourself of my sincerity." + +"Madame agrees to everything," said Adele. "Madame is at this moment +calling on a friend, Madame de Champy, who has some rooms in the Rue +Taitbout on her hands for a year, full of furniture, which she will let +her have, no doubt. Madame can receive Mr. Johnson more suitably there, +for the furniture is still very decent, and monsieur might buy it for +madame by coming to an agreement with Madame de Champy." + +"Very good, my girl. If this is not a job of fleecing, it is a bit of +the wool," said the mulatto to the astonished woman. "However, we will +go shares----" + +"That is your darkey all over!" cried Mademoiselle Adele. "If your nabob +is a nabob, he can very well afford to give madame the furniture. The +lease ends in April 1830; your nabob may renew it if he likes." + +"I am quite willing," said Peyrade, speaking French with a strong +English accent, as he came in and tapped the woman on the shoulder. + +He cast a knowing look back at Carlos, who replied by an assenting nod, +understanding that the nabob was to keep up his part. + +But the scene suddenly changed its aspect at the entrance of a person +over whom neither Carlos nor Peyrade had the least power. Corentin +suddenly came in. He had found the door open, and looked in as he went +by to see how his old friend played his part as nabob. + +"The Prefet is still bullying me!" said Peyrade in a whisper to +Corentin. "He has found me out as a nabob." + +"We will spill the Prefet," Corentin muttered in reply. + +Then after a cool bow he stood darkly scrutinizing the magistrate. + +"Stay here till I return," said Carlos; "I will go to the Prefecture. If +you do not see me again, you may go your own way." + +Having said this in an undertone to Peyrade, so as not to humiliate him +in the presence of the waiting-maid, Carlos went away, not caring to +remain under the eye of the newcomer, in whom he detected one of those +fair-haired, blue-eyed men, coldly terrifying. + +"That is the peace-officer sent after me by the Prefet," said Peyrade. + +"That?" said Corentin. "You have walked into a trap. That man has three +packs of cards in his shoes; you can see that by the place of his foot +in the shoe; besides, a peace-officer need wear no disguise." + +Corentin hurried downstairs to verify his suspicions: Carlos was getting +into the fly. + +"Hallo! Monsieur l'Abbe!" cried Corentin. + +Carlos looked around, saw Corentin, and got in quickly. Still, Corentin +had time to say: + +"That was all I wanted to know.--Quai Malaquais," he shouted to the +driver with diabolical mockery in his tone and expression. + +"I am done!" said Jacques Collin to himself. "They have got me. I must +get ahead of them by sheer pace, and, above all, find out what they want +of us." + +Corentin had seen the Abbe Carlos Herrera five or six times, and the +man's eyes were unforgettable. Corentin had suspected him at once from +the cut of his shoulders, then by his puffy face, and the trick of three +inches of added height gained by a heel inside the shoe. + +"Ah! old fellow, they have drawn you," said Corentin, finding no one in +the room but Peyrade and Contenson. + +"Who?" cried Peyrade, with metallic hardness; "I will spend my last days +in putting him on a gridiron and turning him on it." + +"It is the Abbe Carlos Herrera, the Corentin of Spain, as I suppose. +This explains everything. The Spaniard is a demon of the first water, +who has tried to make a fortune for that little young man by coining +money out of a pretty baggage's bolster.--It is your lookout if you +think you can measure your skill with a man who seems to me the very +devil to deal with." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Contenson, "he fingered the three hundred thousand +francs the day when Esther was arrested; he was in the cab. I remember +those eyes, that brow, and those marks of the smallpox." + +"Oh! what a fortune my Lydie might have had!" cried Peyrade. + +"You may still play the nabob," said Corentin. "To keep an eye on Esther +you must keep up her intimacy with Val-Noble. She was really Lucien's +mistress." + +"They have got more than five hundred thousand francs out of Nucingen +already," said Contenson. + +"And they want as much again," Corentin went on. "The Rubempre estate is +to cost a million.--Daddy," added he, slapping Peyrade on the shoulder, +"you may get more than a hundred thousand francs to settle on Lydie." + +"Don't tell me that, Corentin. If your scheme should fail, I cannot tell +what I might not do----" + +"You will have it by to-morrow perhaps! The Abbe, my dear fellow, is +most astute; we shall have to kiss his spurs; he is a very superior +devil. But I have him sure enough. He is not a fool, and he will knock +under. Try to be a gaby as well as a nabob, and fear nothing." + + + +In the evening of this day, when the opposing forces had met face to +face on level ground, Lucien spent the evening at the Hotel Grandlieu. +The party was a large one. In the face of all the assembly, the Duchess +kept Lucien at her side for some time, and was most kind to him. + +"You are going away for a little while?" said she. + +"Yes, Madame la Duchesse. My sister, in her anxiety to promote my +marriage, has made great sacrifices, and I have been enabled to +repurchase the lands of the Rubempres, to reconstitute the whole estate. +But I have found in my Paris lawyer a very clever man, who has managed +to save me from the extortionate terms that the holders would have asked +if they had known the name of the purchaser." + +"Is there a chateau?" asked Clotilde, with too broad a smile. + +"There is something which might be called a chateau; but the wiser plan +would be to use the building materials in the construction of a modern +residence." + +Clotilde's eyes blazed with happiness above her smile of satisfaction. + +"You must play a rubber with my father this evening," said she. "In a +fortnight I hope you will be asked to dinner." + +"Well, my dear sir," said the Duc de Grandlieu, "I am told that you have +bought the estate of Rubempre. I congratulate you. It is an answer to +those who say you are in debt. We bigwigs, like France or England, are +allowed to have a public debt; but men of no fortune, beginners, you +see, may not assume that privilege----" + +"Indeed, Monsieur le Duc, I still owe five hundred thousand francs on my +land." + +"Well, well, you must marry a wife who can bring you the money; but you +will have some difficulty in finding a match with such a fortune in our +Faubourg, where daughters do not get large dowries." + +"Their name is enough," said Lucien. + +"We are only three wisk players--Maufrigneuse, d'Espard, and I--will you +make a fourth?" said the Duke, pointing to the card-table. + +Clotilde came to the table to watch her father's game. + +"She expects me to believe that she means it for me," said the Duke, +patting his daughter's hands, and looking round at Lucien, who remained +quite grave. + +Lucien, Monsieur d'Espard's partner, lost twenty louis. + +"My dear mother," said Clotilde to the Duchess, "he was so judicious as +to lose." + +At eleven o'clock, after a few affectionate words with Mademoiselle de +Grandlieu, Lucien went home and to bed, thinking of the complete triumph +he was to enjoy a month hence; for he had not a doubt of being accepted +as Clotilde's lover, and married before Lent in 1830. + +On the morrow, when Lucien was smoking his cigarettes after breakfast, +sitting with Carlos, who had become much depressed, M. de Saint-Esteve +was announced--what a touch of irony--who begged to see either the Abbe +Carlos Herrera or Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre. + +"Was he told downstairs that I had left Paris?" cried the Abbe. + +"Yes, sir," replied the groom. + +"Well, then, you must see the man," said he to Lucien. "But do not say +a single compromising word, do not let a sign of surprise escape you. It +is the enemy." + +"You will overhear me," said Lucien. + +Carlos hid in the adjoining room, and through the crack of the door +he saw Corentin, whom he recognized only by his voice, such powers of +transformation did the great man possess. This time Corentin looked like +an old paymaster-general. + +"I have not had the honor of being known to you, monsieur," Corentin +began, "but----" + +"Excuse my interrupting you, monsieur, but----" + +"But the matter in point is your marriage to Mademoiselle Clotilde de +Grandlieu--which will never take place," Corentin added eagerly. + +Lucien sat down and made no reply. + +"You are in the power of a man who is able and willing and ready to +prove to the Duc de Grandlieu that the lands of Rubempre are to be paid +for with the money that a fool has given to your mistress, Mademoiselle +Esther," Corentin went on. "It will be quite easy to find the minutes of +the legal opinions in virtue of which Mademoiselle Esther was summoned; +there are ways too of making d'Estourny speak. The very clever +manoeuvres employed against the Baron de Nucingen will be brought to +light. + +"As yet all can be arranged. Pay down a hundred thousand francs, and you +will have peace.--All this is no concern of mine. I am only the agent of +those who levy this blackmail; nothing more." + +Corentin might have talked for an hour; Lucien smoked his cigarette with +an air of perfect indifference. + +"Monsieur," replied he, "I do not want to know who you are, for men +who undertake such jobs as these have no name--at any rate, in my +vocabulary. I have allowed you to talk at your leisure; I am at +home.--You seem to me not bereft of common sense; listen to my dilemma." + +There was a pause, during which Lucien met Corentin's cat-like eye fixed +on him with a perfectly icy stare. + +"Either you are building on facts that are absolutely false, and I need +pay no heed to them," said Lucien; "or you are in the right; and in that +case, by giving you a hundred thousand francs, I put you in a position +to ask me for as many hundred thousand francs as your employer can find +Saint-Esteves to ask for. + +"However, to put an end, once and for all, to your kind intervention, I +would have you know that I, Lucien de Rubempre, fear no one. I have +no part in the jobbery of which you speak. If the Grandlieus make +difficulties, there are other young ladies of very good family ready +to be married. After all, it is no loss to me if I remain single, +especially if, as you imagine, I deal in blank bills to such advantage." + +"If Monsieur l'Abbe Carlos Herrera----" + +"Monsieur," Lucien put in, "the Abbe Herrera is at this moment on the +way to Spain. He has nothing to do with my marriage, my interests are no +concern of his. That remarkable statesman was good enough to assist +me at one time with his advice, but he has reports to present to +his Majesty the King of Spain; if you have anything to say to him, I +recommend you to set out for Madrid." + +"Monsieur," said Corentin plainly, "you will never be Mademoiselle +Clotilde de Grandlieu's husband." + +"So much the worse for her!" replied Lucien, impatiently pushing +Corentin towards the door. + +"You have fully considered the matter?" asked Corentin coldly. + +"Monsieur, I do not recognize that you have any right either to meddle +in my affairs, or to make me waste a cigarette," said Lucien, throwing +away his cigarette that had gone out. + +"Good-day, monsieur," said Corentin. "We shall not meet again.--But +there will certainly be a moment in your life when you would give half +your fortune to have called me back from these stairs." + +In answer to this threat, Carlos made as though he were cutting off a +head. + +"Now to business!" cried he, looking at Lucien, who was as white as +ashes after this dreadful interview. + + + +If among the small number of my readers who take an interest in the +moral and philosophical side of this book there should be only one +capable of believing that the Baron de Nucingen was happy, that one +would prove how difficult it is to explain the heart of a courtesan by +any kind of physiological formula. Esther was resolved to make the poor +millionaire pay dearly for what he called his day of triumph. And at +the beginning of February 1830 the house-warming party had not yet been +given in the "little palace." + +"Well," said Esther in confidence to her friends, who repeated it to the +Baron, "I shall open house at the Carnival, and I mean to make my man as +happy as a cock in plaster." + +The phrase became proverbial among women of her kidney. + +The Baron gave vent to much lamentation; like married men, he made +himself very ridiculous, he began to complain to his intimate friends, +and his dissatisfaction was generally known. + +Esther, meanwhile, took quite a serious view of her position as the +Pompadour of this prince of speculators. She had given two or three +small evening parties, solely to get Lucien into the house. Lousteau, +Rastignac, du Tillet, Bixiou, Nathan, the Comte de Brambourg--all the +cream of the dissipated crew--frequented her drawing-room. And, as +leading ladies in the piece she was playing, Esther accepted +Tullia, Florentine, Fanny Beaupre, and Florine--two dancers and two +actresses--besides Madame du Val-Noble. Nothing can be more dreary than +a courtesan's home without the spice of rivalry, the display of dress, +and some variety of type. + +In six weeks Esther had become the wittiest, the most amusing, the +loveliest, and the most elegant of those female pariahs who form the +class of kept women. Placed on the pedestal that became her, she enjoyed +all the delights of vanity which fascinate women in general, but still +as one who is raised above her caste by a secret thought. She cherished +in her heart an image of herself which she gloried in, while it made +her blush; the hour when she must abdicate was ever present to her +consciousness; thus she lived a double life, really scorning herself. +Her sarcastic remarks were tinged by the temper which was roused in +her by the intense contempt felt by the Angel of Love, hidden in the +courtesan, for the disgraceful and odious part played by the body in the +presence, as it were, of the soul. At once actor and spectator, victim +and judge, she was a living realization of the beautiful Arabian Tales, +in which a noble creature lies hidden under a degrading form, and of +which the type is the story of Nebuchadnezzar in the book of books--the +Bible. Having granted herself a lease of life till the day after her +infidelity, the victim might surely play awhile with the executioner. + +Moreover, the enlightenment that had come to Esther as to the secretly +disgraceful means by which the Baron had made his colossal fortune +relieved her of every scruple. She could play the part of Ate, the +goddess of vengeance, as Carlos said. And so she was by turns enchanting +and odious to the banker, who lived only for her. When the Baron had +been worked up to such a pitch of suffering that he wanted only to be +quit of Esther, she brought him round by a scene of tender affection. + +Herrera, making a great show of starting for Spain, had gone as far +as Tours. He had sent the chaise on as far as Bordeaux, with a servant +inside, engaged to play the part of master, and to wait for him +at Bordeaux. Then, returning by diligence, dressed as a commercial +traveler, he had secretly taken up his abode under Esther's roof, +and thence, aided by Asie and Europe, carefully directed all his +machinations, keeping an eye on every one, and especially on Peyrade. + +About a fortnight before the day chosen for her great entertainment, +which was to be given in the evening after the first opera ball, the +courtesan, whose witticisms were beginning to make her feared, happened +to be at the Italian opera, at the back of a box which the Baron--forced +to give a box--had secured in the lowest tier, in order to conceal his +mistress, and not to flaunt her in public within a few feet of Madame de +Nucingen. Esther had taken her seat, so as to "rake" that of Madame de +Serizy, whom Lucien almost invariably accompanied. The poor girl made +her whole happiness centre in watching Lucien on Tuesdays, Thursdays, +and Saturdays by Madame de Serizy's side. + +At about half-past nine in the evening Esther could see Lucien enter +the Countess' box, with a care-laden brow, pale, and with almost drawn +features. These symptoms of mental anguish were legible only to Esther. +The knowledge of a man's countenance is, to the woman who loves him, +like that of the sea to a sailor. + +"Good God! what can be the matter? What has happened? Does he want to +speak with that angel of hell, who is to him a guardian angel, and who +lives in an attic between those of Europe and Asie?" + +Tormented by such reflections, Esther scarcely listened to the music. +Still less, it may be believed, did she listen to the Baron, who held +one of his "Anchel's" hands in both his, talking to her in his horrible +Polish-Jewish accent, a jargon which must be as unpleasant to read as it +is to hear spoken. + +"Esther," said he, releasing her hand, and pushing it away with a slight +touch of temper, "you do not listen to me." + +"I tell you what, Baron, you blunder in love as you gibber in French." + +"_Der teufel_!" + +"I am not in my boudoir here, I am at the opera. If you were not a +barrel made by Huret or Fichet, metamorphosed into a man by some trick +of nature, you would not make so much noise in a box with a woman who is +fond of music. I don't listen to you? I should think not! There you sit +rustling my dress like a cockchafer in a paper-bag, and making me laugh +with contempt. You say to me, 'You are so pretty, I should like to +eat you!' Old simpleton! Supposing I were to say to you, 'You are +less intolerable this evening than you were yesterday--we will go +home?'--Well, from the way you puff and sigh--for I feel you if I don't +listen to you--I perceive that you have eaten an enormous dinner, and +your digestion is at work. Let me instruct you--for I cost you enough to +give some advice for your money now and then--let me tell you, my dear +fellow, that a man whose digestion is so troublesome as yours is, is not +justified in telling his mistress that she is pretty at unseemly hours. +An old soldier died of that very folly 'in the arms of Religion,' as +Blondet has it. + +"It is now ten o'clock. You finished dinner at du Tillet's at nine +o'clock, with your pigeon the Comte de Brambourg; you have millions and +truffles to digest. Come to-morrow night at ten." + +"Vat you are cruel!" cried the Baron, recognizing the profound truth of +this medical argument. + +"Cruel!" echoed Esther, still looking at Lucien. "Have you not consulted +Bianchon, Desplein, old Haudry?--Since you have had a glimpse of future +happiness, do you know what you seem like to me?" + +"No--vat?" + +"A fat old fellow wrapped in flannel, who walks every hour from his +armchair to the window to see if the thermometer has risen to the degree +marked '_Silkworms_,' the temperature prescribed by his physician." + +"You are really an ungrateful slut!" cried the Baron, in despair at +hearing a tune, which, however, amorous old men not unfrequently hear at +the opera. + +"Ungrateful!" retorted Esther. "What have you given me till now? A great +deal of annoyance. Come, papa! Can I be proud of you? You! you are proud +of me; I wear your livery and badge with an air. You paid my debts? So +you did. But you have grabbed so many millions--come, you need not sulk; +you admitted that to me--that you need not think twice of that. And +this is your chief title to fame. A baggage and a thief--a well-assorted +couple! + +"You have built a splendid cage for a parrot that amuses you. Go and ask +a Brazilian cockatoo what gratitude it owes to the man who placed it in +a gilded cage.--Don't look at me like that; you are just like a Buddist +Bonze. + +"Well, you show your red-and-white cockatoo to all Paris. You say, 'Does +anybody else in Paris own such a parrot? And how well it talks, how +cleverly it picks its words!' If du Tillet comes in, it says at once, +'How'do, little swindler!'--Why, you are as happy as a Dutchman who has +grown an unique tulip, as an old nabob pensioned off in Asia by England, +when a commercial traveler sells him the first Swiss snuff-box that +opens in three places. + +"You want to win my heart? Well, now, I will tell you how to do it." + +"Speak, speak, dere is noting I shall not do for you. I lofe to be +fooled by you." + +"Be young, be handsome, be like Lucien de Rubempre over there by your +wife, and you shall have gratis what you can never buy with all your +millions!" + +"I shall go 'vay, for really you are too bat dis evening!" said the +banker, with a lengthened face. + +"Very well, good-night then," said Esther. "Tell Georches to make your +pillows very high and place your fee low, for you look apoplectic this +evening.--You cannot say, my dear, that I take no interest in your +health." + +The Baron was standing up, and held the door-knob in his hand. + +"Here, Nucingen," said Esther, with an imperious gesture. + +The Baron bent over her with dog-like devotion. + +"Do you want to see me very sweet, and giving you sugar-and-water, and +petting you in my house, this very evening, old monster?" + +"You shall break my heart!" + +"Break your heart--you mean bore you," she went on. "Well, bring me +Lucien that I may invite him to our Belshazzar's feast, and you may +be sure he will not fail to come. If you succeed in that little +transaction, I will tell you that I love you, my fat Frederic, in such +plain terms that you cannot but believe me." + +"You are an enchantress," said the Baron, kissing Esther's glove. "I +should be villing to listen to abuse for ein hour if alvays der vas a +kiss at de ent of it." + +"But if I am not obeyed, I----" and she threatened the Baron with her +finger as we threaten children. + +The Baron raised his head like a bird caught in a springe and imploring +the trapper's pity. + +"Dear Heaven! What ails Lucien?" said she to herself when she was alone, +making no attempt to check her falling tears; "I never saw him so sad." + + + +This is what had happened to Lucien that very evening. + +At nine o'clock he had gone out, as he did every evening, in his +brougham to go to the Hotel de Grandlieu. Using his saddle-horse and +cab in the morning only, like all young men, he had hired a brougham +for winter evenings, and had chosen a first-class carriage and splendid +horses from one of the best job-masters. For the last month all had gone +well with him; he had dined with the Grandlieus three times; the Duke +was delightful to him; his shares in the Omnibus Company, sold for three +hundred thousand francs, had paid off a third more of the price of the +land; Clotilde de Grandlieu, who dressed beautifully now, reddened inch +thick when he went into the room, and loudly proclaimed her attachment +to him. Some personages of high estate discussed their marriage as a +probable event. The Duc de Chaulieu, formerly Ambassador to Spain, and +now for a short while Minister for Foreign Affairs, had promised the +Duchesse de Grandlieu that he would ask for the title of Marquis for +Lucien. + +So that evening, after dining with Madame de Serizy, Lucien had driven +to the Faubourg Saint-Germain to pay his daily visit. + +He arrives, the coachman calls for the gate to be opened, he drives into +the courtyard and stops at the steps. Lucien, on getting out, remarks +four other carriages in waiting. On seeing Monsieur de Rubempre, one of +the footmen placed to open and shut the hall-door comes forward and out +on to the steps, in front of the door, like a soldier on guard. + +"His Grace is not at home," says he. + +"Madame la Duchesse is receiving company," observes Lucien to the +servant. + +"Madame la Duchesse is gone out," replies the man solemnly. + +"Mademoiselle Clotilde----" + +"I do not think that Mademoiselle Clotilde will see you, monsieur, in +the absence of Madame la Duchesse." + +"But there are people here," replies Lucien in dismay. + +"I do not know, sir," says the man, trying to seem stupid and to be +respectful. + +There is nothing more fatal than etiquette to those who regard it as the +most formidable arm of social law. Lucien easily interpreted the meaning +of this scene, so disastrous to him. The Duke and Duchess would not +admit him. He felt the spinal marrow freezing in the core of his +vertebral column, and a sickly cold sweat bedewed his brow. The +conversation had taken place in the presence of his own body-servant, +who held the door of the brougham, doubting whether to shut it. Lucien +signed to him that he was going away again; but as he stepped into +the carriage, he heard the noise of people coming downstairs, and the +servant called out first, "Madame la Duchesse de Chaulieu's people," +then "Madame la Vicomtesse de Grandlieu's carriage!" + +Lucien merely said, "To the Italian opera"; but in spite of his haste, +the luckless dandy could not escape the Duc de Chaulieu and his son, the +Duc de Rhetore, to whom he was obliged to bow, for they did not speak +a word to him. A great catastrophe at Court, the fall of a formidable +favorite, has ere now been pronounced on the threshold of a royal study, +in one word from an usher with a face like a plaster cast. + +"How am I to let my adviser know of this disaster--this instant----?" +thought Lucien as he drove to the opera-house. "What is going on?" + +He racked his brain with conjectures. + +This was what had taken place. That morning, at eleven o'clock, the +Duc de Grandlieu, as he went into the little room where the family all +breakfasted together, said to Clotilde after kissing her, "Until further +orders, my child, think no more of the Sieur de Rubempre." + +Then he had taken the Duchesse by the hand, and led her into a window +recess to say a few words in an undertone, which made poor Clotilde turn +pale; for she watched her mother as she listened to the Duke, and saw +her expression of extreme surprise. + +"Jean," said the Duke to one of his servants, "take this note to +Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, and beg him to answer by you, Yes or No.--I +am asking him to dine here to-day," he added to his wife. + +Breakfast had been a most melancholy meal. The Duchess was meditative, +the Duke seemed to be vexed with himself, and Clotilde could with +difficulty restrain her tears. + +"My child, your father is right; you must obey him," the mother had said +to the daughter with much emotion. "I do not say as he does, 'Think no +more of Lucien.' No--for I understand your suffering"--Clotilde kissed +her mother's hand--"but I do say, my darling, Wait, take no step, suffer +in silence since you love him, and put your trust in your parents' +care.--Great ladies, my child, are great just because they can do their +duty on every occasion, and do it nobly." + +"But what is it about?" asked Clotilde as white as a lily. + +"Matters too serious to be discussed with you, my dearest," the Duchess +replied. "For if they are untrue, your mind would be unnecessarily +sullied; and if they are true, you must never know them." + +At six o'clock the Duc de Chaulieu had come to join the Duc de +Grandlieu, who awaited him in his study. + +"Tell me, Henri"--for the Dukes were on the most familiar terms, and +addressed each other by their Christian names. This is one of the shades +invented to mark a degree of intimacy, to repel the audacity of French +familiarity, and humiliate conceit--"tell me, Henri, I am in such a +desperate difficulty that I can only ask advice of an old friend who +understands business, and you have practice and experience. My daughter +Clotilde, as you know, is in love with that little Rubempre, whom I have +been almost compelled to accept as her promised husband. I have always +been averse to the marriage; however, Madame de Grandlieu could not bear +to thwart Clotilde's passion. When the young fellow had repurchased +the family estate and paid three-quarters of the price, I could make no +further objections. + +"But last evening I received an anonymous letter--you know how much +that is worth--in which I am informed that the young fellow's fortune is +derived from some disreputable source, and that he is telling lies +when he says that his sister is giving him the necessary funds for his +purchase. For my daughter's happiness, and for the sake of our family, I +am adjured to make inquiries, and the means of doing so are suggested to +me. Here, read it." + +"I am entirely of your opinion as to the value of anonymous letters, +my dear Ferdinand," said the Duc de Chaulieu after reading the letter. +"Still, though we may contemn them, we must make use of them. We must +treat such letters as we would treat a spy. Keep the young man out of +the house, and let us make inquiries---- + +"I know how to do it. Your lawyer is Derville, a man in whom we have +perfect confidence; he knows the secrets of many families, and can +certainly be trusted with this. He is an honest man, a man of weight, +and a man of honor; he is cunning and wily; but his wiliness is only in +the way of business, and you need only employ him to obtain evidence you +can depend upon. + +"We have in the Foreign Office an agent of the superior police who is +unique in his power of discovering State secrets; we often send him on +such missions. Inform Derville that he will have a lieutenant in the +case. Our spy is a gentleman who will appear wearing the ribbon of the +Legion of Honor, and looking like a diplomate. This rascal will do the +hunting; Derville will only look on. Your lawyer will then tell you if +the mountain brings forth a mouse, or if you must throw over this little +Rubempre. Within a week you will know what you are doing." + +"The young man is not yet so far a Marquis as to take offence at my +being 'Not at home' for a week," said the Duc de Grandlieu. + +"Above all, if you end by giving him your daughter," replied the +Minister. "If the anonymous letter tells the truth, what of that? You +can send Clotilde to travel with my daughter-in-law Madeleine, who wants +to go to Italy." + +"You relieve me immensely. I don't know whether I ought to thank you." + +"Wait till the end." + +"By the way," exclaimed the Duc de Grandlieu, "what is your man's name? +I must mention it to Derville. Send him to me to-morrow by five o'clock; +I will have Derville here and put them in communication." + +"His real name," said M. de Chaulieu, "is, I think, Corentin--a name +you must never have heard, for my gentleman will come ticketed with +his official name. He calls himself Monsieur de Saint-Something--Saint +Yves--Saint-Valere?--Something of the kind.--You may trust him; Louis +XVIII. had perfect confidence in him." + +After this confabulation the steward had orders to shut the door on +Monsieur de Rubempre--which was done. + +Lucien paced the waiting-room at the opera-house like a man who was +drunk. He fancied himself the talk of all Paris. He had in the Duc de +Rhetore one of those unrelenting enemies on whom a man must smile, as +he can never be revenged, since their attacks are in conformity with the +rules of society. The Duc de Rhetore knew the scene that had just taken +place on the outside steps of the Grandlieus' house. Lucien, feeling +the necessity of at once reporting the catastrophe to his high privy +councillor, nevertheless was afraid of compromising himself by going +to Esther's house, where he might find company. He actually forgot that +Esther was here, so confused were his thoughts, and in the midst of so +much perplexity he was obliged to make small talk with Rastignac, +who, knowing nothing of the news, congratulated him on his approaching +marriage. + +At this moment Nucingen appeared smiling, and said to Lucien: + +"Vill you do me de pleasure to come to see Montame de Champy, vat vill +infite you herself to von house-varming party----" + +"With pleasure, Baron," replied Lucien, to whom the Baron appeared as a +rescuing angel. + +"Leave us," said Esther to Monsieur de Nucingen, when she saw him come +in with Lucien. "Go and see Madame du Val-Noble, whom I discover in a +box on the third tier with her nabob.--A great many nabobs grow in the +Indies," she added, with a knowing glance at Lucien. + +"And that one," said Lucien, smiling, "is uncommonly like yours." + +"And them," said Esther, answering Lucien with another look of +intelligence, while still speaking to the Baron, "bring her here with +her nabob; he is very anxious to make your acquaintance. They say he +is very rich. The poor woman has already poured out I know not how many +elegies; she complains that her nabob is no good; and if you relieve him +of his ballast, perhaps he will sail closer to the wind." + +"You tink ve are all tieves!" said the Baron as he went away. + +"What ails you, my Lucien?" asked Esther in her friend's ear, just +touching it with her lips as soon as the box door was shut. + +"I am lost! I have just been turned from the door of the Hotel de +Grandlieu under pretence that no one was admitted. The Duke and Duchess +were at home, and five pairs of horses were champing in the courtyard." + +"What! will the marriage not take place?" exclaimed Esther, much +agitated, for she saw a glimpse of Paradise. + +"I do not yet know what is being plotted against me----" + +"My Lucien," said she in a deliciously coaxing voice, "why be worried +about it? You can make a better match by and by--I will get you the +price of two estates----" + +"Give us supper to-night that I may be able to speak in secret to +Carlos, and, above all, invite the sham Englishman and Val-Noble. That +nabob is my ruin; he is our enemy; we will get hold of him, and we----" + +But Lucien broke off with a gesture of despair. + +"Well, what is it?" asked the poor girl. + +"Oh! Madame de Serizy sees me!" cried Lucien, "and to crown our woes, +the Duc de Rhetore, who witnessed my dismissal, is with her." + +In fact, at that very minute, the Duc de Rhetore was amusing himself +with Madame de Serizy's discomfiture. + +"Do you allow Lucien to be seen in Mademoiselle Esther's box?" said +the young Duke, pointing to the box and to Lucien; "you, who take an +interest in him, should really tell him such things are not allowed. +He may sup at her house, he may even--But, in fact, I am no longer +surprised at the Grandlieus' coolness towards the young man. I have just +seen their door shut in his face--on the front steps----" + +"Women of that sort are very dangerous," said Madame de Serizy, turning +her opera-glass on Esther's box. + +"Yes," said the Duke, "as much by what they can do as by what they +wish----" + +"They will ruin him!" cried Madame de Serizy, "for I am told they cost +as much whether they are paid or no." + +"Not to him!" said the young Duke, affecting surprise. "They are far +from costing him anything; they give him money at need, and all run +after him." + +The Countess' lips showed a little nervous twitching which could not be +included in any category of smiles. + +"Well, then," said Esther, "come to supper at midnight. Bring Blondet +and Rastignac; let us have two amusing persons at any rate; and we won't +be more than nine." + +"You must find some excuse for sending the Baron to fetch Eugenie under +pretence of warning Asie, and tell her what has befallen me, so that +Carlos may know before he has the nabob under his claws." + +"That shall be done," said Esther. + +And thus Peyrade was probably about to find himself unwittingly under +the same roof with his adversary. The tiger was coming into the lion's +den, and a lion surrounded by his guards. + +When Lucien went back to Madame de Serizy's box, instead of turning +to him, smiling and arranging her skirts for him to sit by her, she +affected to pay him not the slightest attention, but looked about the +house through her glass. Lucien could see, however, by the shaking of +her hand that the Countess was suffering from one of those terrible +emotions by which illicit joys are paid for. He went to the front of the +box all the same, and sat down by her at the opposite corner, leaving a +little vacant space between himself and the Countess. He leaned on the +ledge of the box with his elbow, resting his chin on his gloved hand; +then he half turned away, waiting for a word. By the middle of the act +the Countess had still neither spoken to him nor looked at him. + +"I do not know," said she at last, "why you are here; your place is in +Mademoiselle Esther's box----" + +"I will go there," said Lucien, leaving the box without looking at the +Countess. + +"My dear," said Madame du Val-Noble, going into Esther's box with +Peyrade, whom the Baron de Nucingen did not recognize, "I am delighted +to introduce Mr. Samuel Johnson. He is a great admirer of M. de +Nucingen's talents." + +"Indeed, monsieur," said Esther, smiling at Peyrade. + +"Oh yes, bocou," said Peyrade. + +"Why, Baron, here is a way of speaking French which is as much like +yours as the low Breton dialect is like that of Burgundy. It will be +most amusing to hear you discuss money matters.--Do you know, Monsieur +Nabob, what I shall require of you if you are to make acquaintance with +my Baron?" said Esther with a smile. + +"Oh!--Thank you so much, you will introduce me to Sir Baronet?" said +Peyrade with an extravagant English accent. + +"Yes," said she, "you must give me the pleasure of your company at +supper. There is no pitch stronger than champagne for sticking men +together. It seals every kind of business, above all such as you put +your foot in.--Come this evening; you will find some jolly fellows.--As +for you, my little Frederic," she added in the Baron's ear, "you have +your carriage here--just drive to the Rue Saint-Georges and bring Europe +to me here; I have a few words to say to her about the supper. I have +caught Lucien; he will bring two men who will be fun.--We will draw the +Englishman," she whispered to Madame du Val-Noble. + +Peyrade and the Baron left the women together. + +"Oh, my dear, if you ever succeed in drawing that great brute, you will +be clever indeed," said Suzanne. + +"If it proves impossible, you must lend him to me for a week," replied +Esther, laughing. + +"You would but keep him half a day," replied Madame du Val-Noble. "The +bread I eat is too hard; it breaks my teeth. Never again, to my dying +day, will I try to make an Englishman happy. They are all cold and +selfish--pigs on their hind legs." + +"What, no consideration?" said Esther with a smile. + +"On the contrary, my dear, the monster has never shown the least +familiarity." + +"Under no circumstances whatever?" asked Esther. + +"The wretch always addresses me as Madame, and preserves the most +perfect coolness imaginable at moments when every man is more or less +amenable. To him love-making!--on my word, it is nothing more nor less +than shaving himself. He wipes the razor, puts it back in its case, and +looks in the glass as if he were saying, 'I have not cut myself!' + +"Then he treats me with such respect as is enough to send a woman mad. +That odious Milord Potboiler amuses himself by making poor Theodore hide +in my dressing-room and stand there half the day. In short, he tries +to annoy me in every way. And as stingy!--As miserly as Gobseck and +Gigonnet rolled into one. He takes me out to dinner, but he does not pay +the cab that brings me home if I happen not to have ordered my carriage +to fetch me." + +"Well," said Esther, "but what does he pay you for your services?" + +"Oh, my dear, positively nothing. Five hundred francs a month and not a +penny more, and the hire of a carriage. But what is it? A machine such +as they hire out for a third-rate wedding to carry an epicier to the +Mairie, to Church, and to the Cadran bleu.--Oh, he nettles me with his +respect. + +"If I try hysterics and feel ill, he is never vexed; he only says: +'I wish my lady to have her own way, for there is nothing more +detestable--no gentleman--than to say to a nice woman, "You are a +cotton bale, a bundle of merchandise."--Ha, hah! Are you a member of the +Temperance Society and anti-slavery?' And my horror sits pale, and cold, +and hard while he gives me to understand that he has as much respect for +me as he might have for a Negro, and that it has nothing to do with his +feelings, but with his opinions as an abolitionist." + +"A man cannot be a worse wretch," said Esther. "But I will smash up that +outlandish Chinee." + +"Smash him up?" replied Madame du Val-Noble. "Not if he does not love +me. You, yourself, would you like to ask him for two sous? He would +listen to you solemnly, and tell you, with British precision that would +make a slap in the face seem genial, that he pays dear enough for the +trifle that love can be to his poor life;" and, as before, Madame du +Val-Noble mimicked Peyrade's bad French. + +"To think that in our line of life we are thrown in the way of such +men!" exclaimed Esther. + +"Oh, my dear, you have been uncommonly lucky. Take good care of your +Nucingen." + +"But your nabob must have got some idea in his head." + +"That is what Adele says." + +"Look here, my dear; that man, you may depend, has laid a bet that he +will make a woman hate him and pack him off in a certain time." + +"Or else he wants to do business with Nucingen, and took me up knowing +that you and I were friends; that is what Adele thinks," answered Madame +du Val-Noble. "That is why I introduced him to you this evening. Oh, if +only I could be sure what he is at, what tricks I could play with you +and Nucingen!" + +"And you don't get angry?" asked Esther; "you don't speak your mind now +and then?" + +"Try it--you are sharp and smooth.--Well, in spite of your sweetness, he +would kill you with his icy smiles. 'I am anti-slavery,' he would say, +'and you are free.'--If you said the funniest things, he would only +look at you and say, 'Very good!' and you would see that he regards you +merely as a part of the show." + +"And if you turned furious?" + +"The same thing; it would still be a show. You might cut him open under +the left breast without hurting him in the least; his internals are of +tinned-iron, I am sure. I told him so. He replied, 'I am quite satisfied +with that physical constitution.' + +"And always polite. My dear, he wears gloves on his soul... + +"I shall endure this martyrdom for a few days longer to satisfy my +curiosity. But for that, I should have made Philippe slap my lord's +cheek--and he has not his match as a swordsman. There is nothing else +left for it----" + +"I was just going to say so," cried Esther. "But you must ascertain +first that Philippe is a boxer; for these old English fellows, my dear, +have a depth of malignity----" + +"This one has no match on earth. No, if you could but see him asking my +commands, to know at what hour he may come--to take me by surprise, of +course--and pouring out respectful speeches like a so-called gentleman, +you would say, 'Why, he adores her!' and there is not a woman in the +world who would not say the same." + +"And they envy us, my dear!" exclaimed Esther. + +"Ah, well!" sighed Madame du Val-Noble; "in the course of our lives we +learn more or less how little men value us. But, my dear, I have never +been so cruelly, so deeply, so utterly scorned by brutality as I am by +this great skinful of port wine. + +"When he is tipsy he goes away--'not to be unpleasant,' as he tells +Adele, and not to be 'under two powers at once,' wine and woman. He +takes advantage of my carriage; he uses it more than I do.--Oh! if only +we could see him under the table to-night! But he can drink ten bottles +and only be fuddled; when his eyes are full, he still sees clearly." + +"Like people whose windows are dirty outside," said Esther, "but who can +see from inside what is going on in the street.--I know that property in +man. Du Tillet has it in the highest degree." + +"Try to get du Tillet, and if he and Nucingen between them could only +catch him in some of their plots, I should at least be revenged. They +would bring him to beggary! + +"Oh! my dear, to have fallen into the hands of a hypocritical Protestant +after that poor Falleix, who was so amusing, so good-natured, so full of +chaff! How we used to laugh! They say all stockbrokers are stupid. Well, +he, for one, never lacked wit but once----" + +"When he left you without a sou? That is what made you acquainted with +the unpleasant side of pleasure." + +Europe, brought in by Monsieur de Nucingen, put her viperine head in at +the door, and after listening to a few words whispered in her ear by her +mistress, she vanished. + + + +At half-past eleven that evening, five carriages were stationed in +the Rue Saint-Georges before the famous courtesan's door. There was +Lucien's, who had brought Rastignac, Bixiou, and Blondet; du Tillet's, +the Baron de Nucingen's, the Nabob's, and Florine's--she was invited by +du Tillet. The closed and doubly-shuttered windows were screened by +the splendid Chinese silk curtains. Supper was to be served at one; +wax-lights were blazing, the dining-room and little drawing-room +displayed all their magnificence. The party looked forward to such an +orgy as only three such women and such men as these could survive. They +began by playing cards, as they had to wait about two hours. + +"Do you play, milord?" asked du Tillet to Peyrade. + +"I have played with O'Connell, Pitt, Fox, Canning, Lord Brougham, +Lord----" + +"Say at once no end of lords," said Bixiou. + +"Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Hertford, Lord----" + +Bixiou was looking at Peyrade's shoes, and stooped down. + +"What are you looking for?" asked Blondet. + +"For the spring one must touch to stop this machine," said Florine. + +"Do you play for twenty francs a point?" + +"I will play for as much as you like to lose." + +"He does it well!" said Esther to Lucien. "They all take him for an +Englishman." + +Du Tillet, Nucingen, Peyrade, and Rastignac sat down to a whist-table; +Florine, Madame du Val-Noble, Esther, Blondet, and Bixiou sat round the +fire chatting. Lucien spent the time in looking through a book of fine +engravings. + +"Supper is ready," Paccard presently announced, in magnificent livery. + +Peyrade was placed at Florine's left hand, and on the other side of him +Bixiou, whom Esther had enjoined to make the Englishman drink freely, +and challenge him to beat him. Bixiou had the power of drinking an +indefinite quantity. + +Never in his life had Peyrade seen such splendor, or tasted of such +cookery, or seen such fine women. + +"I am getting my money's worth this evening for the thousand crowns la +Val-Noble has cost me till now," thought he; "and besides, I have just +won a thousand francs." + +"This is an example for men to follow!" said Suzanne, who was sitting by +Lucien, with a wave of her hand at the splendors of the dining-room. + +Esther had placed Lucien next herself, and was holding his foot between +her own under the table. + +"Do you hear?" said Madame du Val-Noble, addressing Peyrade, who +affected blindness. "This is how you ought to furnish a house! When a +man brings millions home from India, and wants to do business with the +Nucingens, he should place himself on the same level." + +"I belong to a Temperance Society!" + +"Then you will drink like a fish!" said Bixiou, "for the Indies are +uncommon hot, uncle!" + +It was Bixiou's jest during supper to treat Peyrade as an uncle of his, +returned from India. + +"Montame du Fal-Noble tolt me you shall have some iteas," said Nucingen, +scrutinizing Peyrade. + +"Ah, this is what I wanted to hear," said du Tillet to Rastignac; "the +two talking gibberish together." + +"You will see, they will understand each other at last," said Bixiou, +guessing what du Tillet had said to Rastignac. + +"Sir Baronet, I have imagined a speculation--oh! a very comfortable +job--bocou profitable and rich in profits----" + +"Now you will see," said Blondet to du Tillet, "he will not talk one +minute without dragging in the Parliament and the English Government." + +"It is in China, in the opium trade----" + +"Ja, I know," said Nucingen at once, as a man who is well acquainted +with commercial geography. "But de English Gover'ment hafe taken up de +opium trate as a means dat shall open up China, and she shall not allow +dat ve----" + +"Nucingen has cut him out with the Government," remarked du Tillet to +Blondet. + +"Ah! you have been in the opium trade!" cried Madame du Val-Noble. "Now +I understand why you are so narcotic; some has stuck in your soul." + +"Dere! you see!" cried the Baron to the self-styled opium merchant, +and pointing to Madame du Val-Noble. "You are like me. Never shall a +millionaire be able to make a voman lofe him." + +"I have loved much and often, milady," replied Peyrade. + +"As a result of temperance," said Bixiou, who had just seen Peyrade +finish his third bottle of claret, and now had a bottle of port wine +uncorked. + +"Oh!" cried Peyrade, "it is very fine, the Portugal of England." + +Blondet, du Tillet, and Bixiou smiled at each other. Peyrade had the +power of travestying everything, even his wit. There are very few +Englishmen who will not maintain that gold and silver are better in +England than elsewhere. The fowls and eggs exported from Normandy to the +London market enable the English to maintain that the poultry and eggs +in London are superior (very fine) to those of Paris, which come from +the same district. + +Esther and Lucien were dumfounded by this perfection of costume, +language, and audacity. + +They all ate and drank so well and so heartily, while talking and +laughing, that it went on till four in the morning. Bixiou flattered +himself that he had achieved one of the victories so pleasantly related +by Brillat-Savarin. But at the moment when he was saying to himself, +as he offered his "uncle" some more wine, "I have vanquished England!" +Peyrade replied in good French to this malicious scoffer, "Toujours, mon +garcon" (Go it, my boy), which no one heard but Bixiou. + +"Hallo, good men all, he is as English as I am!--My uncle is a Gascon! I +could have no other!" + +Bixiou and Peyrade were alone, so no one heard this announcement. +Peyrade rolled off his chair on to the floor. Paccard forthwith picked +him up and carried him to an attic, where he fell sound asleep. + +At six o'clock next evening, the Nabob was roused by the application +of a wet cloth, with which his face was being washed, and awoke to find +himself on a camp-bed, face to face with Asie, wearing a mask and a +black domino. + +"Well, Papa Peyrade, you and I have to settle accounts," said she. + +"Where am I?" asked he, looking about him. + +"Listen to me," said Asie, "and that will sober you.--Though you do not +love Madame du Val-Noble, you love your daughter, I suppose?" + +"My daughter?" Peyrade echoed with a roar. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle Lydie." + +"What then?" + +"What then? She is no longer in the Rue des Moineaux; she has been +carried off." + +Peyrade breathed a sigh like that of a soldier dying of a mortal wound +on the battlefield. + +"While you were pretending to be an Englishman, some one else was +pretending to be Peyrade. Your little Lydie thought she was with her +father, and she is now in a safe place.--Oh! you will never find her! +unless you undo the mischief you have done." + +"What mischief?" + +"Yesterday Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre had the door shut in his face at +the Duc de Grandlieu's. This is due to your intrigues, and to the man +you let loose on us. Do not speak, listen!" Asie went on, seeing Peyrade +open his mouth. "You will have your daughter again, pure and spotless," +she added, emphasizing her statement by the accent on every word, "only +on the day after that on which Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre walks out of +Saint-Thomas d'Aquin as the husband of Mademoiselle Clotilde. If, within +ten days Lucien de Rubempre is not admitted, as he has been, to the +Grandlieus' house, you, to begin with, will die a violent death, and +nothing can save you from the fate that threatens you.--Then, when you +feel yourself dying, you will have time before breathing your last to +reflect, 'My daughter is a prostitute for the rest of her life!' + +"Though you have been such a fool as give us this hold for our clutches, +you still have sense enough to meditate on this ultimatum from our +government. Do not bark, say nothing to any one; go to Contenson's, and +change your dress, and then go home. Katt will tell you that at a word +from you your little Lydie went downstairs, and has not been seen since. +If you make any fuss, if you take any steps, your daughter will begin +where I tell you she will end--she is promised to de Marsay. + +"With old Canquoelle I need not mince matters, I should think, or wear +gloves, heh?----Go on downstairs, and take care not to meddle in our +concerns any more." + +Asie left Peyrade in a pitiable state; every word had been a blow with +a club. The spy had tears in his eyes, and tears hanging from his cheeks +at the end of a wet furrow. + +"They are waiting dinner for Mr. Johnson," said Europe, putting her head +in a moment after. + +Peyrade made no reply; he went down, walked till he reached a cab-stand, +and hurried off to undress at Contenson's, not saying a word to him; he +resumed the costume of Pere Canquoelle, and got home by eight o'clock. +He mounted the stairs with a beating heart. When the Flemish woman heard +her master, she asked him: + +"Well, and where is mademoiselle?" with such simplicity, that the old +spy was obliged to lean against the wall. The blow was more than he +could bear. He went into his daughter's rooms, and ended by fainting +with grief when he found them empty, and heard Katt's story, which +was that of an abduction as skilfully planned as if he had arranged it +himself. + +"Well, well," thought he, "I must knock under. I will be revenged later; +now I must go to Corentin.--This is the first time we have met our foes. +Corentin will leave that handsome boy free to marry an Empress if he +wishes!--Yes, I understand that my little girl should have fallen in +love with him at first sight.--Oh! that Spanish priest is a knowing one. +Courage, friend Peyrade! disgorge your prey!" + +The poor father never dreamed of the fearful blow that awaited him. + +On reaching Corentin's house, Bruno, the confidential servant, who knew +Peyrade, said: + +"Monsieur is gone away." + +"For a long time?" + +"For ten days." + +"Where?" + +"I don't know. + +"Good God, I am losing my wits! I ask him where--as if we ever told +them----" thought he. + +A few hours before the moment when Peyrade was to be roused in his +garret in the Rue Saint-Georges, Corentin, coming in from his country +place at Passy, had made his way to the Duc de Grandlieu's, in the +costume of a retainer of a superior class. He wore the ribbon of the +Legion of Honor at his button-hole. He had made up a withered old face +with powdered hair, deep wrinkles, and a colorless skin. His eyes +were hidden by tortoise-shell spectacles. He looked like a retired +office-clerk. On giving his name as Monsieur de Saint-Denis, he was led +to the Duke's private room, where he found Derville reading a letter, +which he himself had dictated to one of his agents, the "number" whose +business it was to write documents. The Duke took Corentin aside to tell +him all he already knew. Monsieur de Saint-Denis listened coldly and +respectfully, amusing himself by studying this grand gentleman, by +penetrating the tufa beneath the velvet cover, by scrutinizing this +being, now and always absorbed in whist and in regard for the House of +Grandlieu. + +"If you will take my advice, monsieur," said Corentin to Derville, +after being duly introduced to the lawyer, "we shall set out this very +afternoon for Angouleme by the Bordeaux coach, which goes quite as fast +as the mail; and we shall not need to stay there six hours to obtain +the information Monsieur le Duc requires. It will be enough--if I have +understood your Grace--to ascertain whether Monsieur de Rubempre's +sister and brother-in-law are in a position to give him twelve hundred +thousand francs?" and he turned to the Duke. + +"You have understood me perfectly," said the Duke. + +"We can be back again in four days," Corentin went on, addressing +Derville, "and neither of us will have neglected his business long +enough for it to suffer." + +"That was the only difficulty I was about to mention to his Grace," said +Derville. "It is now four o'clock. I am going home to say a word to +my head-clerk, and pack my traveling-bag, and after dinner, at eight +o'clock, I will be----But shall we get places?" he said to Monsieur de +Saint-Denis, interrupting himself. + +"I will answer for that," said Corentin. "Be in the yard of the Chief +Office of the Messageries at eight o'clock. If there are no places, +they shall make some, for that is the way to serve Monseigneur le Duc de +Grandlieu." + +"Gentlemen," said the Duke most graciously, "I postpone my thanks----" + +Corentin and the lawyer, taking this as a dismissal, bowed, and +withdrew. + +At the hour when Peyrade was questioning Corentin's servant, Monsieur +de Saint-Denis and Derville, seated in the Bordeaux coach, were studying +each other in silence as they drove out of Paris. + +Next morning, between Orleans and Tours, Derville, being bored, began +to converse, and Corentin condescended to amuse him, but keeping his +distance; he left him to believe that he was in the diplomatic service, +and was hoping to become Consul-General by the good offices of the Duc +de Grandlieu. Two days after leaving Paris, Corentin and Derville got +out at Mansle, to the great surprise of the lawyer, who thought he was +going to Angouleme. + +"In this little town," said Corentin, "we can get the most positive +information as regards Madame Sechard." + +"Do you know her then?" asked Derville, astonished to find Corentin so +well informed. + +"I made the conductor talk, finding he was a native of Angouleme. He +tells me that Madame Sechard lives at Marsac, and Marsac is but a league +away from Mansle. I thought we should be at greater advantage here than +at Angouleme for verifying the facts." + +"And besides," thought Derville, "as Monsieur le Duc said, I act merely +as the witness to the inquiries made by this confidential agent----" + +The inn at Mansle, _la Belle Etoile_, had for its landlord one of those +fat and burly men whom we fear we may find no more on our return; but +who still, ten years after, are seen standing at their door with as much +superfluous flesh as ever, in the same linen cap, the same apron, +with the same knife, the same oiled hair, the same triple chin,--all +stereotyped by novel-writers from the immortal Cervantes to the immortal +Walter Scott. Are they not all boastful of their cookery? have they not +all "whatever you please to order"? and do not all end by giving you the +same hectic chicken, and vegetables cooked with rank butter? They +all boast of their fine wines, and all make you drink the wine of the +country. + +But Corentin, from his earliest youth, had known the art of getting out +of an innkeeper things more essential to himself than doubtful dishes +and apocryphal wines. So he gave himself out as a man easy to please, +and willing to leave himself in the hands of the best cook in Mansle, as +he told the fat man. + +"There is no difficulty about being the best--I am the only one," said +the host. + +"Serve us in the side room," said Corentin, winking at Derville. "And +do not be afraid of setting the chimney on fire; we want to thaw out the +frost in our fingers." + +"It was not warm in the coach," said Derville. + +"Is it far to Marsac?" asked Corentin of the innkeeper's wife, who came +down from the upper regions on hearing that the diligence had dropped +two travelers to sleep there. + +"Are you going to Marsac, monsieur?" replied the woman. + +"I don't know," he said sharply. "Is it far from hence to Marsac?" he +repeated, after giving the woman time to notice his red ribbon. + +"In a chaise, a matter of half an hour," said the innkeeper's wife. + +"Do you think that Monsieur and Madame Sechard are likely to be there in +winter?" + +"To be sure; they live there all the year round." + +"It is now five o'clock. We shall still find them up at nine." + +"Oh yes, till ten. They have company every evening--the cure, Monsieur +Marron the doctor----" + +"Good folks then?" said Derville. + +"Oh, the best of good souls," replied the woman, "straight-forward, +honest--and not ambitious neither. Monsieur Sechard, though he is very +well off--they say he might have made millions if he had not allowed +himself to be robbed of an invention in the paper-making of which the +brothers Cointet are getting the benefit----" + +"Ah, to be sure, the Brothers Cointet!" said Corentin. + +"Hold your tongue," said the innkeeper. "What can it matter to these +gentlemen whether Monsieur Sechard has a right or no to a patent for his +inventions in paper-making?--If you mean to spend the night here--at the +_Belle Etoile_----" he went on, addressing the travelers, "here is the +book, and please to put your names down. We have an officer in this town +who has nothing to do, and spends all his time in nagging at us----" + +"The devil!" said Corentin, while Derville entered their names and +his profession as attorney to the lower Court in the department of the +Seine, "I fancied the Sechards were very rich." + +"Some people say they are millionaires," replied the innkeeper. "But +as to hindering tongues from wagging, you might as well try to stop the +river from flowing. Old Sechard left two hundred thousand francs' worth +of landed property, it is said; and that is not amiss for a man who +began as a workman. Well, and he may have had as much again in savings, +for he made ten or twelve thousand francs out of his land at last. So, +supposing he were fool enough not to invest his money for ten years, +that would be all told. But even if he lent it at high interest, as +he is suspected of doing there would be three hundred thousand francs +perhaps, and that is all. Five hundred thousand francs is a long way +short of a million. I should be quite content with the difference, and +no more of the _Belle Etoile_ for me!" + +"Really!" said Corentin. "Then Monsieur David Sechard and his wife have +not a fortune of two or three millions?" + +"Why," exclaimed the innkeeper's wife, "that is what the Cointets are +supposed to have, who robbed him of his invention, and he does not get +more than twenty thousand francs out of them. Where do you suppose such +honest folks would find millions? They were very much pinched while the +father was alive. But for Kolb, their manager, and Madame Kolb, who is +as much attached to them as her husband, they could scarcely have lived. +Why, how much had they with La Verberie!--A thousand francs a year +perhaps." + +Corentin drew Derville aside and said: + +"In vino veritas! Truth lives under a cork. For my part, I regard an inn +as the real registry office of the countryside; the notary is not +better informed than the innkeeper as to all that goes on in a small +neighborhood.--You see! we are supposed to know all about the Cointets +and Kolb and the rest. + +"Your innkeeper is the living record of every incident; he does the work +of the police without suspecting it. A government should maintain +two hundred spies at most, for in a country like France there are ten +millions of simple-minded informers.--However, we need not trust to this +report; though even in this little town something would be known about +the twelve hundred thousand francs sunk in paying for the Rubempre +estate. We will not stop here long----" + +"I hope not!" Derville put in. + +"And this is why," added Corentin; "I have hit on the most natural way +of extracting the truth from the mouth of the Sechard couple. I rely +upon you to support, by your authority as a lawyer, the little trick I +shall employ to enable you to hear a clear and complete account of their +affairs.--After dinner we shall set out to call on Monsieur Sechard," +said Corentin to the innkeeper's wife. "Have beds ready for us, we want +separate rooms. There can be no difficulty 'under the stars.'" + +"Oh, monsieur," said the woman, "we invented the sign." + +"The pun is to be found in every department," said Corentin; "it is no +monopoly of yours." + +"Dinner is served, gentlemen," said the innkeeper. + +"But where the devil can that young fellow have found the money? Is +the anonymous writer accurate? Can it be the earnings of some handsome +baggage?" said Derville, as they sat down to dinner. + +"Ah, that will be the subject of another inquiry," said Corentin. +"Lucien de Rubempre, as the Duc de Chaulieu tells me, lives with a +converted Jewess, who passes for a Dutch woman, and is called Esther van +Bogseck." + +"What a strange coincidence!" said the lawyer. "I am hunting for +the heiress of a Dutchman named Gobseck--it is the same name with a +transposition of consonants." + +"Well," said Corentin, "you shall have information as to her parentage +on my return to Paris." + + + +An hour later, the two agents for the Grandlieu family set out for La +Verberie, where Monsieur and Madame Sechard were living. + +Never had Lucien felt any emotion so deep as that which overcame him at +La Verberie when comparing his own fate with that of his brother-in-law. +The two Parisians were about to witness the same scene that had so much +struck Lucien a few days since. Everything spoke of peace and abundance. + +At the hour when the two strangers were arriving, a party of four +persons were being entertained in the drawing-room of La Verberie: +the cure of Marsac, a young priest of five-and-twenty, who, at Madame +Sechard's request, had become tutor to her little boy Lucien; the +country doctor, Monsieur Marron; the Maire of the commune; and an old +colonel, who grew roses on a plot of land opposite to La Verberie on the +other side of the road. Every evening during the winter these persons +came to play an artless game of boston for centime points, to borrow the +papers, or return those they had finished. + +When Monsieur and Madame Sechard had bought La Verberie, a fine house +built of stone, and roofed with slate, the pleasure-grounds consisted of +a garden of two acres. In the course of time, by devoting her savings to +the purpose, handsome Madame Sechard had extended her garden as far as +a brook, by cutting down the vines on some ground she purchased, and +replacing them with grass plots and clumps of shrubbery. At the present +time the house, surrounded by a park of about twenty acres, and enclosed +by walls, was considered the most imposing place in the neighborhood. + +Old Sechard's former residence, with the outhouses attached, was now +used as the dwelling-house for the manager of about twenty acres of +vineyard left by him, of five farmsteads, bringing in about six thousand +francs a year, and ten acres of meadow land lying on the further side +of the stream, exactly opposite the little park; indeed, Madame Sechard +hoped to include them in it the next year. La Verberie was already +spoken of in the neighborhood as a chateau, and Eve Sechard was known +as the Lady of Marsac. Lucien, while flattering her vanity, had only +followed the example of the peasants and vine-dressers. Courtois, the +owner of the mill, very picturesquely situated a few hundred yards from +the meadows of La Verberie, was in treaty, it was said, with Madame +Sechard for the sale of his property; and this acquisition would give +the finishing touch to the estate and the rank of a "place" in the +department. + +Madame Sechard, who did a great deal of good, with as much judgment +as generosity, was equally esteemed and loved. Her beauty, now really +splendid, was at the height of its bloom. She was about six-and-twenty, +but had preserved all the freshness of youth from living in the +tranquillity and abundance of a country life. Still much in love with +her husband, she respected him as a clever man, who was modest enough to +renounce the display of fame; in short, to complete her portrait, it is +enough to say that in her whole existence she had never felt a throb of +her heart that was not inspired by her husband or her children. + +The tax paid to grief by this happy household was, as may be supposed, +the deep anxiety caused by Lucien's career, in which Eve Sechard +suspected mysteries, which she dreaded all the more because, during +his last visit, Lucien roughly cut short all his sister's questions by +saying that an ambitious man owed no account of his proceedings to any +one but himself. + +In six years Lucien had seen his sister but three times, and had not +written her more than six letters. His first visit to La Verberie had +been on the occasion of his mother's death; and his last had been paid +with a view to asking the favor of the lie which was so necessary to his +advancement. This gave rise to a very serious scene between Monsieur +and Madame Sechard and their brother, and left their happy and respected +life troubled by the most terrible suspicions. + +The interior of the house, as much altered as the surroundings, was +comfortable without luxury, as will be understood by a glance round +the room where the little party were now assembled. A pretty Aubusson +carpet, hangings of gray cotton twill bound with green silk brocade, the +woodwork painted to imitate Spa wood, carved mahogany furniture covered +with gray woolen stuff and green gimp, with flower-stands, gay with +flowers in spite of the time of year, presented a very pleasing and +homelike aspect. The window curtains, of green brocade, the chimney +ornaments, and the mirror frames were untainted by the bad taste that +spoils everything in the provinces; and the smallest details, all +elegant and appropriate, gave the mind and eye a sense of repose and of +poetry which a clever and loving woman can and ought to infuse into her +home. + +Madame Sechard, still in mourning for her father, sat by the fire +working at some large piece of tapestry with the help of Madame Kolb, +the housekeeper, to whom she intrusted all the minor cares of the +household. + +"A chaise has stopped at the door!" said Courtois, hearing the sound +of wheels outside; "and to judge by the clatter of metal, it belongs to +these parts----" + +"Postel and his wife have come to see us, no doubt," said the doctor. + +"No," said Courtois, "the chaise has come from Mansle." + +"Montame," said Kolb, the burly Alsatian we have made acquaintance with +in a former volume (_Illusions perdues_), "here is a lawyer from Paris +who wants to speak with monsieur." + +"A lawyer!" cried Sechard; "the very word gives me the colic!" + +"Thank you!" said the Maire of Marsac, named Cachan, who for twenty +years had been an attorney at Angouleme, and who had once been required +to prosecute Sechard. + +"My poor David will never improve; he will always be absent-minded!" +said Eve, smiling. + +"A lawyer from Paris," said Courtois. "Have you any business in Paris?" + +"No," said Eve. + +"But you have a brother there," observed Courtois. + +"Take care lest he should have anything to say about old Sechard's +estate," said Cachan. "_He_ had his finger in some very queer concerns, +worthy man!" + +Corentin and Derville, on entering the room, after bowing to the +company, and giving their names, begged to have a private interview with +Monsieur and Madame Sechard. + +"By all means," said Sechard. "But is it a matter of business?" + +"Solely a matter regarding your father's property," said Corentin. + +"Then I beg you will allow monsieur--the Maire, a lawyer formerly at +Angouleme--to be present also." + +"Are you Monsieur Derville?" said Cachan, addressing Corentin. + +"No, monsieur, this is Monsieur Derville," replied Corentin, introducing +the lawyer, who bowed. + +"But," said Sechard, "we are, so to speak, a family party; we have no +secrets from our neighbors; there is no need to retire to my study, +where there is no fire--our life is in the sight of all men----" + +"But your father's," said Corentin, "was involved in certain mysteries +which perhaps you would rather not make public." + +"Is it anything we need blush for?" said Eve, in alarm. + +"Oh, no! a sin of his youth," said Corentin, coldly setting one of his +mouse-traps. "Monsieur, your father left an elder son----" + +"Oh, the old rascal!" cried Courtois. "He was never very fond of +you, Monsieur Sechard, and he kept that secret from you, the deep old +dog!--Now I understand what he meant when he used to say to me, 'You +shall see what you shall see when I am under the turf.'" + +"Do not be dismayed, monsieur," said Corentin to Sechard, while he +watched Eve out of the corner of his eye. + +"A brother!" exclaimed the doctor. "Then your inheritance is divided +into two!" + +Derville was affecting to examine the fine engravings, proofs before +letters, which hung on the drawing-room walls. + +"Do not be dismayed, madame," Corentin went on, seeing amazement written +on Madame Sechard's handsome features, "it is only a natural son. The +rights of a natural son are not the same as those of a legitimate child. +This man is in the depths of poverty, and he has a right to a certain +sum calculated on the amount of the estate. The millions left by your +father----" + +At the word millions there was a perfectly unanimous cry from all the +persons present. And now Derville ceased to study the prints. + +"Old Sechard?--Millions?" said Courtois. "Who on earth told you that? +Some peasant----" + +"Monsieur," said Cachan, "you are not attached to the Treasury? You may +be told all the facts----" + +"Be quite easy," said Corentin, "I give you my word of honor I am not +employed by the Treasury." + +Cachan, who had just signed to everybody to say nothing, gave expression +to his satisfaction. + +"Monsieur," Corentin went on, "if the whole estate were but a million, a +natural child's share would still be something considerable. But we +have not come to threaten a lawsuit; on the contrary, our purpose is to +propose that you should hand over one hundred thousand francs, and we +will depart----" + +"One hundred thousand francs!" cried Cachan, interrupting him. "But, +monsieur, old Sechard left twenty acres of vineyard, five small farms, +ten acres of meadowland here, and not a sou besides----" + +"Nothing on earth," cried David Sechard, "would induce me to tell a lie, +and less to a question of money than on any other.--Monsieur," he +said, turning to Corentin and Derville, "my father left us, besides the +land----" + +Courtois and Cachan signaled in vain to Sechard; he went on: + +"Three hundred thousand francs, which raises the whole estate to about +five hundred thousand francs." + +"Monsieur Cachan," asked Eve Sechard, "what proportion does the law +allot to a natural child?" + +"Madame," said Corentin, "we are not Turks; we only require you to swear +before these gentlemen that you did not inherit more than five +hundred thousand francs from your father-in-law, and we can come to an +understanding." + +"First give me your word of honor that you really are a lawyer," said +Cachan to Derville. + +"Here is my passport," replied Derville, handing him a paper folded in +four; "and monsieur is not, as you might suppose, an inspector from the +Treasury, so be easy," he added. "We had an important reason for wanting +to know the truth as to the Sechard estate, and we now know it." + +Derville took Madame Sechard's hand and led her very courteously to the +further end of the room. + +"Madame," said he, in a low voice, "if it were not that the honor +and future prospects of the house of Grandlieu are implicated in this +affair, I would never have lent myself to the stratagem devised by this +gentleman of the red ribbon. But you must forgive him; it was necessary +to detect the falsehood by means of which your brother has stolen a +march on the beliefs of that ancient family. Beware now of allowing it +to be supposed that you have given your brother twelve hundred thousand +francs to repurchase the Rubempre estates----" + +"Twelve hundred thousand francs!" cried Madame Sechard, turning pale. +"Where did he get them, wretched boy?" + +"Ah! that is the question," replied Derville. "I fear that the source of +his wealth is far from pure." + +The tears rose to Eve's eyes, as her neighbors could see. + +"We have, perhaps, done you a great service by saving you from abetting +a falsehood of which the results may be positively dangerous," the +lawyer went on. + +Derville left Madame Sechard sitting pale and dejected with tears on her +cheeks, and bowed to the company. + +"To Mansle!" said Corentin to the little boy who drove the chaise. + +There was but one vacant place in the diligence from Bordeaux to Paris; +Derville begged Corentin to allow him to take it, urging a press of +business; but in his soul he was distrustful of his traveling companion, +whose diplomatic dexterity and coolness struck him as being the result +of practice. Corentin remained three days longer at Mansle, unable to +get away; he was obliged to secure a place in the Paris coach by writing +to Bordeaux, and did not get back till nine days after leaving home. + +Peyrade, meanwhile, had called every morning, either at Passy or in +Paris, to inquire whether Corentin had returned. On the eighth day he +left at each house a note, written in their peculiar cipher, to explain +to his friend what death hung over him, and to tell him of Lydie's +abduction and the horrible end to which his enemies had devoted them. +Peyrade, bereft of Corentin, but seconded by Contenson, still kept up +his disguise as a nabob. Even though his invisible foes had discovered +him, he very wisely reflected that he might glean some light on the +matter by remaining on the field of the contest. + +Contenson had brought all his experience into play in his search for +Lydie, and hoped to discover in what house she was hidden; but as the +days went by, the impossibility, absolutely demonstrated, of tracing the +slightest clue, added, hour by hour, to Peyrade's despair. The old +spy had a sort of guard about him of twelve or fifteen of the most +experienced detectives. They watched the neighborhood of the Rue des +Moineaux and the Rue Taitbout--where he lived, as a nabob, with Madame +du Val-Noble. During the last three days of the term granted by Asie to +reinstate Lucien on his old footing in the Hotel de Grandlieu, Contenson +never left the veteran of the old general police office. And the poetic +terror shed throughout the forests of America by the arts of inimical +and warring tribes, of which Cooper made such good use in his +novels, was here associated with the petty details of Paris life. The +foot-passengers, the shops, the hackney cabs, a figure standing at a +window,--everything had to the human ciphers to whom old Peyrade had +intrusted his safety the thrilling interest which attaches in Cooper's +romances to a beaver-village, a rock, a bison-robe, a floating canoe, a +weed straggling over the water. + +"If the Spaniard has gone away, you have nothing to fear," said +Contenson to Peyrade, remarking on the perfect peace they lived in. + +"But if he is not gone?" observed Peyrade. + +"He took one of my men at the back of the chaise; but at Blois, my man +having to get down, could not catch the chaise up again." + + + +Five days after Derville's return, Lucien one morning had a call from +Rastignac. + +"I am in despair, my dear boy," said his visitor, "at finding myself +compelled to deliver a message which is intrusted to me because we are +known to be intimate. Your marriage is broken off beyond all hope of +reconciliation. Never set foot again in the Hotel de Grandlieu. To marry +Clotilde you must wait till her father dies, and he is too selfish to +die yet awhile. Old whist-players sit at table--the card-table--very +late. + +"Clotilde is setting out for Italy with Madeleine de +Lenoncourt-Chaulieu. The poor girl is so madly in love with you, my dear +fellow, that they have to keep an eye on her; she was bent on coming to +see you, and had plotted an escape. That may comfort you in misfortune!" + +Lucien made no reply; he sat gazing at Rastignac. + +"And is it a misfortune, after all?" his friend went on. "You will +easily find a girl as well born and better looking than Clotilde! Madame +de Serizy will find you a wife out of spite; she cannot endure the +Grandlieus, who never would have anything to say to her. She has a +niece, little Clemence du Rouvre----" + +"My dear boy," said Lucien at length, "since that supper I am not on +terms with Madame de Serizy--she saw me in Esther's box and made a +scene--and I left her to herself." + +"A woman of forty does not long keep up a quarrel with so handsome a +man as you are," said Rastignac. "I know something of these sunsets.--It +lasts ten minutes in the sky, and ten years in a woman's heart." + +"I have waited a week to hear from her." + +"Go and call." + +"Yes, I must now." + +"Are you coming at any rate to the Val-Noble's? Her nabob is returning +the supper given by Nucingen." + +"I am asked, and I shall go," said Lucien gravely. + +The day after this confirmation of his disaster, which Carlos heard of +at once from Asie, Lucien went to the Rue Taitbout with Rastignac and +Nucingen. + +At midnight nearly all the personages of this drama were assembled in +the dining-room that had formerly been Esther's--a drama of which the +interest lay hidden under the very bed of these tumultuous lives, and +was known only to Esther, to Lucien, to Peyrade, to Contenson, the +mulatto, and to Paccard, who attended his mistress. Asie, without +its being known to Contenson and Peyrade, had been asked by Madame du +Val-Noble to come and help her cook. + +As they sat down to table, Peyrade, who had given Madame du Val-Noble +five hundred francs that the thing might be well done, found under his +napkin a scrap of paper on which these words were written in pencil, +"The ten days are up at the moment when you sit down to supper." + +Peyrade handed the paper to Contenson, who was standing behind him, +saying in English: + +"Did you put my name here?" + +Contenson read by the light of the wax-candles this "Mene, Tekel, +Upharsin," and slipped the scrap into his pocket; but he knew how +difficult it is to verify a handwriting in pencil, and, above all, a +sentence written in Roman capitals, that is to say, with mathematical +lines, since capital letters are wholly made up of straight lines and +curves, in which it is impossible to detect any trick of the hand, as in +what is called running-hand. + +The supper was absolutely devoid of spirit. Peyrade was visibly +absent-minded. Of the men about town who give life to a supper, only +Rastignac and Lucien were present. Lucien was gloomy and absorbed in +thought; Rastignac, who had lost two thousand francs before supper, +ate and drank with the hope of recovering them later. The three women, +stricken by this chill, looked at each other. Dulness deprived the +dishes of all relish. Suppers, like plays and books, have their good and +bad luck. + +At the end of the meal ices were served, of the kind called plombieres. +As everybody knows, this kind of dessert has delicate preserved fruits +laid on the top of the ice, which is served in a little glass, not +heaped above the rim. These ices had been ordered by Madame du Val-Noble +of Tortoni, whose shop is at the corner of the Rue Taitbout and the +Boulevard. + +The cook called Contenson out of the room to pay the bill. + +Contenson, who thought this demand on the part of the shop-boy rather +strange, went downstairs and startled him by saying: + +"Then you have not come from Tortoni's?" and then went straight upstairs +again. + +Paccard had meanwhile handed the ices to the company in his absence. The +mulatto had hardly reached the door when one of the police constables +who had kept watch in the Rue des Moineaux called up the stairs: + +"Number twenty-seven." + +"What's up?" replied Contenson, flying down again. + +"Tell Papa that his daughter has come home; but, good God! in what a +state. Tell him to come at once; she is dying." + +At the moment when Contenson re-entered the dining-room, old Peyrade, +who had drunk a great deal, was swallowing the cherry off his ice. They +were drinking to the health of Madame du Val-Noble; the nabob filled his +glass with Constantia and emptied it. + +In spite of his distress at the news he had to give Peyrade, Contenson +was struck by the eager attention with which Paccard was looking at +the nabob. His eyes sparkled like two fixed flames. Although it seemed +important, still this could not delay the mulatto, who leaned over his +master, just as Peyrade set his glass down. + +"Lydie is at home," said Contenson, "in a very bad state." + +Peyrade rattled out the most French of all French oaths with such a +strong Southern accent that all the guests looked up in amazement. +Peyrade, discovering his blunder, acknowledged his disguise by saying to +Contenson in good French: + +"Find me a coach--I'm off." + +Every one rose. + +"Why, who are you?" said Lucien. + +"Ja--who?" said the Baron. + +"Bixiou told me you shammed Englishman better than he could, and I would +not believe him," said Rastignac. + +"Some bankrupt caught in disguise," said du Tillet loudly. "I suspected +as much!" + +"A strange place is Paris!" said Madame du Val-Noble. "After being +bankrupt in his own part of town, a merchant turns up as a nabob or a +dandy in the Champs-Elysees with impunity!--Oh! I am unlucky! bankrupts +are my bane." + +"Every flower has its peculiar blight!" said Esther quietly. "Mine is +like Cleopatra's--an asp." + +"Who am I?" echoed Peyrade from the door. "You will know ere long; for +if I die, I will rise from my grave to clutch your feet every night!" + +He looked at Esther and Lucien as he spoke, then he took advantage of +the general dismay to vanish with the utmost rapidity, meaning to run +home without waiting for the coach. In the street the spy was gripped +by the arm as he crossed the threshold of the outer gate. It was Asie, +wrapped in a black hood such as ladies then wore on leaving a ball. + +"Send for the Sacraments, Papa Peyrade," said she, in the voice that had +already prophesied ill. + +A coach was waiting. Asie jumped in, and the carriage vanished as though +the wind had swept it away. There were five carriages waiting; Peyrade's +men could find out nothing. + + + +On reaching his house in the Rue des Vignes, one of the quietest and +prettiest nooks of the little town of Passy, Corentin, who was known +there as a retired merchant passionately devoted to gardening, found +his friend Peyrade's note in cipher. Instead of resting, he got into the +hackney coach that had brought him thither, and was driven to the Rue +des Moineaux, where he found only Katt. From her he heard of Lydie's +disappearance, and remained astounded at Peyrade's and his own want of +foresight. + +"But they do not know me yet," said he to himself. "This crew is capable +of anything; I must find out if they are killing Peyrade; for if so, I +must not be seen any more----" + +The viler a man's life is, the more he clings to it; it becomes at every +moment a protest and a revenge. + +Corentin went back to the cab, and drove to his rooms to assume the +disguise of a feeble old man, in a scanty greenish overcoat and a tow +wig. Then he returned on foot, prompted by his friendship for Peyrade. +He intended to give instructions to his most devoted and cleverest +underlings. + +As he went along the Rue Saint-Honore to reach the Rue Saint-Roch from +the Place Vendome, he came up behind a girl in slippers, and dressed +as a woman dresses for the night. She had on a white bed-jacket and a +nightcap, and from time to time gave vent to a sob and an involuntary +groan. Corentin out-paced her, and turning round, recognized Lydie. + +"I am a friend of your father's, of Monsieur Canquoelle's," said he in +his natural voice. + +"Ah! then here is some one I can trust!" said she. + +"Do not seem to have recognized me," Corentin went on, "for we are +pursued by relentless foes, and are obliged to disguise ourselves. But +tell me what has befallen you?" + +"Oh, monsieur," said the poor child, "the facts but not the story can be +told--I am ruined, lost, and I do not know how----" + +"Where have you come from?" + +"I don't know, monsieur. I fled with such precipitancy, I have come +through so many streets, round so many turnings, fancying I was being +followed. And when I met any one that seemed decent, I asked my way to +get back to the Boulevards, so as to find the Rue de la Paix. And at +last, after walking----What o'clock is it, monsieur?" + +"Half-past eleven," said Corentin. + +"I escaped at nightfall," said Lydie. "I have been walking for five +hours." + +"Well, come along; you can rest now; you will find your good Katt." + +"Oh, monsieur, there is no rest for me! I only want to rest in the +grave, and I will go and wait for death in a convent if I am worthy to +be admitted----" + +"Poor little girl!--But you struggled?" + +"Oh yes! Oh! if you could only imagine the abject creatures they placed +me with----!" + +"They sent you to sleep, no doubt?" + +"Ah! that is it" cried poor Lydie. "A little more strength and I +should be at home. I feel that I am dropping, and my brain is not quite +clear.--Just now I fancied I was in a garden----" + +Corentin took Lydie in his arms, and she lost consciousness; he carried +her upstairs. + +"Katt!" he called. + +Katt came out with exclamations of joy. + +"Don't be in too great a hurry to be glad!" said Corentin gravely; "the +girl is very ill." + +When Lydie was laid on her bed and recognized her own room by the light +of two candles that Katt lighted, she became delirious. She sang scraps +of pretty airs, broken by vociferations of horrible sentences she had +heard. Her pretty face was mottled with purple patches. She mixed up +the reminiscences of her pure childhood with those of these ten days +of infamy. Katt sat weeping; Corentin paced the room, stopping now and +again to gaze at Lydie. + +"She is paying her father's debt," said he. "Is there a Providence +above? Oh, I was wise not to have a family. On my word of honor, a child +is indeed a hostage given to misfortune, as some philosopher has said." + +"Oh!" cried the poor child, sitting up in bed and throwing back her fine +long hair, "instead of lying here, Katt, I ought to be stretched in the +sand at the bottom of the Seine!" + +"Katt, instead of crying and looking at your child, which will never +cure her, you ought to go for a doctor; the medical officer in the first +instance, and then Monsieur Desplein and Monsieur Bianchon----We must +save this innocent creature." + +And Corentin wrote down the addresses of these two famous physicians. + +At this moment, up the stairs came some one to whom they were familiar, +and the door was opened. Peyrade, in a violent sweat, his face purple, +his eyes almost blood-stained, and gasping like a dolphin, rushed from +the outer door to Lydie's room, exclaiming: + +"Where is my child?" + +He saw a melancholy sign from Corentin, and his eyes followed his +friend's hand. Lydie's condition can only be compared to that of a +flower tenderly cherished by a gardener, now fallen from its stem, and +crushed by the iron-clamped shoes of some peasant. Ascribe this simile +to a father's heart, and you will understand the blow that fell on +Peyrade; the tears started to his eyes. + +"You are crying!--It is my father!" said the girl. + +She could still recognize her father; she got out of bed and fell on her +knees at the old man's side as he sank into a chair. + +"Forgive me, papa," said she in a tone that pierced Peyrade's heart, and +at the same moment he was conscious of what felt like a tremendous blow +on his head. + +"I am dying!--the villains!" were his last words. + +Corentin tried to help his friend, and received his latest breath. + +"Dead! Poisoned!" said he to himself. "Ah! here is the doctor!" he +exclaimed, hearing the sound of wheels. + +Contenson, who came with his mulatto disguise removed, stood like a +bronze statue as he heard Lydie say: + +"Then you do not forgive me, father?--But it was not my fault!" + +She did not understand that her father was dead. + +"Oh, how he stares at me!" cried the poor crazy girl. + +"We must close his eyes," said Contenson, lifting Peyrade on to the bed. + +"We are doing a stupid thing," said Corentin. "Let us carry him into his +own room. His daughter is half demented, and she will go quite mad when +she sees that he is dead; she will fancy that she has killed him." + +Lydie, seeing them carry away her father, looked quite stupefied. + +"There lies my only friend!" said Corentin, seeming much moved when +Peyrade was laid out on the bed in his own room. "In all his life +he never had but one impulse of cupidity, and that was for his +daughter!--Let him be an example to you, Contenson. Every line of life +has its code of honor. Peyrade did wrong when he mixed himself up with +private concerns; we have no business to meddle with any but public +cases. + +"But come what may, I swear," said he with a voice, an emphasis, a look +that struck horror into Contenson, "to avenge my poor Peyrade! I will +discover the men who are guilty of his death and of his daughter's ruin. +And as sure as I am myself, as I have yet a few days to live, which I +will risk to accomplish that vengeance, every man of them shall die at +four o'clock, in good health, by a clean shave on the Place de Greve." + +"And I will help you," said Contenson with feeling. + +Nothing, in fact, is more heart-stirring than the spectacle of passion +in a cold, self-contained, and methodical man, in whom, for twenty +years, no one has ever detected the smallest impulse of sentiment. It +is like a molten bar of iron which melts everything it touches. And +Contenson was moved to his depths. + +"Poor old Canquoelle!" said he, looking at Corentin. "He has treated me +many a time.--And, I tell you, only your bad sort know how to do such +things--but often has he given me ten francs to go and gamble with..." + +After this funeral oration, Peyrade's two avengers went back to Lydie's +room, hearing Katt and the medical officer from the Mairie on the +stairs. + +"Go and fetch the Chief of Police," said Corentin. "The public +prosecutor will not find grounds for a prosecution in the case; still, +we will report it to the Prefecture; it may, perhaps, be of some use. + +"Monsieur," he went on to the medical officer, "in this room you will +see a dead man. I do not believe that he died from natural causes; you +will be good enough to make a post-mortem in the presence of the Chief +of the Police, who will come at my request. Try to discover some traces +of poison. You will, in a few minutes, have the opinion of Monsieur +Desplein and Monsieur Bianchon, for whom I have sent to examine the +daughter of my best friend; she is in a worse plight than he, though he +is dead." + +"I have no need of those gentlemen's assistance in the exercise of my +duty," said the medical officer. + +"Well, well," thought Corentin. "Let us have no clashing, monsieur," +he said. "In a few words I give you my opinion--Those who have just +murdered the father have also ruined the daughter." + +By daylight Lydie had yielded to fatigue; when the great surgeon and the +young physician arrived she was asleep. + +The doctor, whose duty it was to sign the death certificate, had now +opened Peyrade's body, and was seeking the cause of death. + +"While waiting for your patient to awake," said Corentin to the two +famous doctors, "would you join one of your professional brethren in an +examination which cannot fail to interest you, and your opinion will be +valuable in case of an inquiry." + +"Your relations died of apoplexy," said the official. "There are all the +symptoms of violent congestion of the brain." + +"Examine him, gentlemen, and see if there is no poison capable of +producing similar symptoms." + +"The stomach is, in fact, full of food substances; but short of chemical +analysis, I find no evidence of poison. + +"If the characters of cerebral congestion are well ascertained, we +have here, considering the patient's age, a sufficient cause of death," +observed Desplein, looking at the enormous mass of material. + +"Did he sup here?" asked Bianchon. + +"No," said Corentin; "he came here in great haste from the Boulevard, +and found his daughter ruined----" + +"That was the poison if he loved his daughter," said Bianchon. + +"What known poison could produce a similar effect?" asked Corentin, +clinging to his idea. + +"There is but one," said Desplein, after a careful examination. "It is a +poison found in the Malayan Archipelago, and derived from trees, as yet +but little known, of the strychnos family; it is used to poison that +dangerous weapon, the Malay kris.--At least, so it is reported." + +The Police Commissioner presently arrived; Corentin told him his +suspicions, and begged him to draw up a report, telling him where and +with whom Peyrade had supped, and the causes of the state in which he +found Lydie. + +Corentin then went to Lydie's rooms; Desplein and Bianchon had been +examining the poor child. He met them at the door. + +"Well, gentlemen?" asked Corentin. + +"Place the girl under medical care; unless she recovers her wits when +her child is born--if indeed she should have a child--she will end her +days melancholy-mad. There is no hope of a cure but in the maternal +instinct, if it can be aroused." + +Corentin paid each of the physicians forty francs in gold, and then +turned to the Police Commissioner, who had pulled him by the sleeve. + +"The medical officer insists on it that death was natural," said this +functionary, "and I can hardly report the case, especially as the dead +man was old Canquoelle; he had his finger in too many pies, and we +should not be sure whom we might run foul of. Men like that die to order +very often----" + +"And my name is Corentin," said Corentin in the man's ear. + +The Commissioner started with surprise. + +"So just make a note of all this," Corentin went on; "it will be very +useful by and by; send it up only as confidential information. The crime +cannot be proved, and I know that any inquiry would be checked at the +very outset.--But I will catch the criminals some day yet. I will watch +them and take them red-handed." + +The police official bowed to Corentin and left. + +"Monsieur," said Katt. "Mademoiselle does nothing but dance and sing. +What can I do?" + +"Has any change occurred then?" + +"She has understood that her father is just dead." + +"Put her into a hackney coach, and simply take her to Charenton; I will +write a note to the Commissioner-General of Police to secure her being +suitably provided for.--The daughter in Charenton, the father in a +pauper's grave!" said Corentin--"Contenson, go and fetch the parish +hearse. And now, Don Carlos Herrera, you and I will fight it out!" + +"Carlos?" said Contenson, "he is in Spain." + +"He is in Paris," said Corentin positively. "There is a touch of Spanish +genius of the Philip II. type in all this; but I have pitfalls for +everybody, even for kings." + + + +Five days after the nabob's disappearance, Madame du Val-Noble was +sitting by Esther's bedside weeping, for she felt herself on one of the +slopes down to poverty. + +"If I only had at least a hundred louis a year! With that sum, my dear, +a woman can retire to some little town and find a husband----" + +"I can get you as much as that," said Esther. + +"How?" cried Madame du Val-Noble. + +"Oh, in a very simple way. Listen. You must plan to kill yourself; play +your part well. Send for Asie and offer her ten thousand francs for two +black beads of very thin glass containing a poison which kills you in a +second. Bring them to me, and I will give you fifty thousand francs for +them." + +"Why do you not ask her for them yourself?" said her friend. + +"Asie would not sell them to me." + +"They are not for yourself?" asked Madame du Val-Noble. + +"Perhaps." + +"You! who live in the midst of pleasure and luxury, in a house of your +own? And on the eve of an entertainment which will be the talk of Paris +for ten years--which is to cost Nucingen twenty thousand francs! There +are to be strawberries in mid-February, they say, asparagus, grapes, +melons!--and a thousand crowns' worth of flowers in the rooms." + +"What are you talking about? There are a thousand crowns' worth of roses +on the stairs alone." + +"And your gown is said to have cost ten thousand francs?" + +"Yes, it is of Brussels point, and Delphine, his wife, is furious. But I +had a fancy to be disguised as a bride." + +"Where are the ten thousand francs?" asked Madame du Val-Noble. + +"It is all the ready money I have," said Esther, smiling. "Open my table +drawer; it is under the curl-papers." + +"People who talk of dying never kill themselves," said Madame du +Val-Noble. "If it were to commit----" + +"A crime? For shame!" said Esther, finishing her friend's thought, as +she hesitated. "Be quite easy, I have no intention of killing anybody. +I had a friend--a very happy woman; she is dead, I must follow her--that +is all." + +"How foolish!" + +"How can I help it? I promised her I would." + +"I should let that bill go dishonored," said her friend, smiling. + +"Do as I tell you, and go at once. I hear a carriage coming. It is +Nucingen, a man who will go mad with joy! Yes, he loves me!--Why do we +not love those who love us, for indeed they do all they can to please +us?" + +"Ah, that is the question!" said Madame du Val-Noble. "It is the old +story of the herring, which is the most puzzling fish that swims." + +"Why?" + +"Well, no one could ever find out." + +"Get along, my dear!--I must ask for your fifty thousand francs." + +"Good-bye then." + +For three days past, Esther's ways with the Baron de Nucingen had +completely changed. The monkey had become a cat, the cat had become a +woman. Esther poured out treasures of affection on the old man; she +was quite charming. Her way of addressing him, with a total absence of +mischief or bitterness, and all sorts of tender insinuation, had carried +conviction to the banker's slow wit; she called him Fritz, and he +believed that she loved him. + +"My poor Fritz, I have tried you sorely," said she. "I have teased you +shamefully. Your patience has been sublime. You loved me, I see, and I +will reward you. I like you now, I do not know how it is, but I should +prefer you to a young man. It is the result of experience perhaps.--In +the long run we discover at last that pleasure is the coin of the soul; +and it is not more flattering to be loved for the sake of pleasure than +it is to be loved for the sake of money. + +"Besides, young men are too selfish; they think more of themselves than +of us; while you, now, think only of me. I am all your life to you. +And I will take nothing more from you. I want to prove to you how +disinterested I am." + +"Vy, I hafe gifen you notink," cried the Baron, enchanted. "I propose to +gife you to-morrow tirty tousant francs a year in a Government bond. Dat +is mein vedding gift." + +Esther kissed the Baron so sweetly that he turned pale without any +pills. + +"Oh!" cried she, "do not suppose that I am sweet to you only for your +thirty thousand francs! It is because--now--I love you, my good, fat +Frederic." + +"Ach, mein Gott! Vy hafe you kept me vaiting? I might hafe been so happy +all dese tree monts." + +"In three or in five per cents, my pet?" said Esther, passing her +fingers through Nucingen's hair, and arranging it in a fashion of her +own. + +"In trees--I hat a quantity." + +So next morning the Baron brought the certificate of shares; he came +to breakfast with his dear little girl, and to take her orders for the +following evening, the famous Saturday, the great day! + +"Here, my little vife, my only vife," said the banker gleefully, his +face radiant with happiness. "Here is enough money to pay for your keep +for de rest of your days." + +Esther took the paper without the slightest excitement, folded it up, +and put it in her dressing-table drawer. + +"So now you are quite happy, you monster of iniquity!" said she, giving +Nucingen a little slap on the cheek, "now that I have at last accepted a +present from you. I can no longer tell you home-truths, for I share the +fruit of what you call your labors. This is not a gift, my poor old boy, +it is restitution.--Come, do not put on your Bourse face. You know that +I love you." + +"My lofely Esther, mein anchel of lofe," said the banker, "do not speak +to me like dat. I tell you, I should not care ven all de vorld took me +for a tief, if you should tink me ein honest man.--I lofe you every day +more and more." + +"That is my intention," said Esther. "And I will never again say +anything to distress you, my pet elephant, for you are grown as artless +as a baby. Bless me, you old rascal, you have never known any innocence; +the allowance bestowed on you when you came into the world was bound to +come to the top some day; but it was buried so deep that it is only +now reappearing at the age of sixty-six. Fished up by love's barbed +hook.--This phenomenon is seen in old men. + +"And this is why I have learned to love you, you are young--so young! No +one but I would ever have known this, Frederic--I alone. For you were +a banker at fifteen; even at college you must have lent your +school-fellows one marble on condition of their returning two." + +Seeing him laugh, she sprang on to his knee. + +"Well, you must do as you please! Bless me! plunder the men--go ahead, +and I will help. Men are not worth loving; Napoleon killed them off +like flies. Whether they pay taxes to you or to the Government, what +difference does it make to them? You don't make love over the budget, +and on my honor!--go ahead, I have thought it over, and you are right. +Shear the sheep! you will find it in the gospel according to Beranger. + +"Now, kiss your Esther.--I say, you will give that poor Val-Noble all +the furniture in the Rue Taitbout? And to-morrow I wish you would give +her fifty thousand francs--it would look handsome, my duck. You see, +you killed Falleix; people are beginning to cry out upon you, and this +liberality will look Babylonian--all the women will talk about it! Oh! +there will be no one in Paris so grand, so noble as you; and as the +world is constituted, Falleix will be forgotten. So, after all, it will +be money deposited at interest." + +"You are right, mein anchel; you know the vorld," he replied. "You shall +be mein adfiser." + +"Well, you see," said Esther, "how I study my man's interest, his +position and honor.--Go at once and bring those fifty thousand francs." + +She wanted to get rid of Monsieur de Nucingen so as to get a stockbroker +to sell the bond that very afternoon. + +"But vy dis minute?" asked he. + +"Bless me, my sweetheart, you must give it to her in a little satin box +wrapped round a fan. You must say, 'Here, madame, is a fan which I hope +may be to your taste.'--You are supposed to be a Turcaret, and you will +become a Beaujon." + +"Charming, charming!" cried the Baron. "I shall be so clever +henceforth.--Yes, I shall repeat your vorts." + +Just as Esther had sat down, tired with the effort of playing her part, +Europe came in. + +"Madame," said she, "here is a messenger sent from the Quai Malaquais by +Celestin, M. Lucien's servant----" + +"Bring him in--no, I will go into the ante-room." + +"He has a letter for you, madame, from Celestin." + +Esther rushed into the ante-room, looked at the messenger, and saw that +he looked like the genuine thing. + +"Tell _him_ to come down," said Esther, in a feeble voice and dropping +into a chair after reading the letter. "Lucien means to kill himself," +she added in a whisper to Europe. "No, take the letter up to him." + +Carlos Herrera, still in his disguise as a bagman, came downstairs at +once, and keenly scrutinized the messenger on seeing a stranger in the +ante-room. + +"You said there was no one here," said he in a whisper to Europe. + +And with an excess of prudence, after looking at the messenger, he went +straight into the drawing-room. _Trompe-la-Mort_ did not know that +for some time past the famous constable of the detective force who had +arrested him at the Maison Vauquer had a rival, who, it was supposed, +would replace him. This rival was the messenger. + +"They are right," said the sham messenger to Contenson, who was waiting +for him in the street. "The man you describe is in the house; but he is +not a Spaniard, and I will burn my hand off if there is not a bird for +our net under that priest's gown." + +"He is no more a priest than he is a Spaniard," said Contenson. + +"I am sure of that," said the detective. + +"Oh, if only we were right!" said Contenson. + +Lucien had been away for two days, and advantage had been taken of +his absence to lay this snare, but he returned this evening, and the +courtesan's anxieties were allayed. Next morning, at the hour when +Esther, having taken a bath, was getting into bed again, Madame du +Val-Noble arrived. + +"I have the two pills!" said her friend. + +"Let me see," said Esther, raising herself with her pretty elbow buried +in a pillow trimmed with lace. + +Madame du Val-Noble held out to her what looked like two black currants. + +The Baron had given Esther a pair of greyhounds of famous pedigree, +which will be always known by the name of the great contemporary poet +who made them fashionable; and Esther, proud of owning them, had called +them by the names of their parents, Romeo and Juliet. No need here +to describe the whiteness and grace of these beasts, trained for the +drawing-room, with manners suggestive of English propriety. Esther +called Romeo; Romeo ran up on legs so supple and thin, so strong and +sinewy, that they seemed like steel springs, and looked up at his +mistress. Esther, to attract his attention, pretended to throw one of +the pills. + +"He is doomed by his nature to die thus," said she, as she threw the +pill, which Romeo crushed between his teeth. + +The dog made no sound, he rolled over, and was stark dead. It was all +over while Esther spoke these words of epitaph. + +"Good God!" shrieked Madame du Val-Noble. + +"You have a cab waiting. Carry away the departed Romeo," said Esther. +"His death would make a commotion here. I have given him to you, and you +have lost him--advertise for him. Make haste; you will have your fifty +thousand francs this evening." + +She spoke so calmly, so entirely with the cold indifference of a +courtesan, that Madame du Val-Noble exclaimed: + +"You are the Queen of us all!" + +"Come early, and look very well----" + +At five o'clock Esther dressed herself as a bride. She put on her lace +dress over white satin, she had a white sash, white satin shoes, and a +scarf of English point lace over her beautiful shoulders. In her hair +she placed white camellia flowers, the simple ornament of an innocent +girl. On her bosom lay a pearl necklace worth thirty thousand francs, a +gift from Nucingen. + +Though she was dressed by six, she refused to see anybody, even the +banker. Europe knew that Lucien was to be admitted to her room. Lucien +came at about seven, and Europe managed to get him up to her mistress +without anybody knowing of his arrival. + +Lucien, as he looked at her, said to himself, "Why not go and live with +her at Rubempre, far from the world, and never see Paris again? I have +an earnest of five years of her life, and the dear creature is one of +those who never belie themselves! Where can I find such another perfect +masterpiece?" + +"My dear, you whom I have made my God," said Esther, kneeling down on a +cushion in front of Lucien, "give me your blessing." + +Lucien tried to raise her and kiss her, saying, "What is this jest, +my dear love?" And he would have put his arm round her, but she freed +herself with a gesture as much of respect as of horror. + +"I am no longer worthy of you, Lucien," said she, letting the tears rise +to her eyes. "I implore you, give me your blessing, and swear to me that +you will found two beds at the Hotel-Dieu--for, as to prayers in church, +God will never forgive me unless I pray myself. + +"I have loved you too well, my dear. Tell me that I made you happy, and +that you will sometimes think of me.--Tell me that!" + +Lucien saw that Esther was solemnly in earnest, and he sat thinking. + +"You mean to kill yourself," said he at last, in a tone of voice that +revealed deep reflection. + +"No," said she. "But to-day, my dear, the woman dies, the pure, chaste, +and loving woman who once was yours.--And I am very much afraid that I +shall die of grief." + +"Poor child," said Lucien, "wait! I have worked hard these two days. I +have succeeded in seeing Clotilde----" + +"Always Clotilde!" cried Esther, in a tone of concentrated rage. + +"Yes," said he, "we have written to each other.--On Tuesday morning +she is to set out for Italy, but I shall meet her on the road for an +interview at Fontainebleau." + +"Bless me! what is it that you men want for wives? Wooden laths?" cried +poor Esther. "If I had seven or eight millions, would you not marry +me--come now?" + +"Child! I was going to say that if all is over for me, I will have no +wife but you." + +Esther bent her head to hide her sudden pallor and the tears she wiped +away. + +"You love me?" said she, looking at Lucien with the deepest melancholy. +"Well, that is my sufficient blessing.--Do not compromise yourself. +Go away by the side door, and come in to the drawing-room through the +ante-room. Kiss me on the forehead." + +She threw her arms round Lucien, clasped him to her heart with frenzy, +and said again: + +"Go, only go--or I must live." + +When the doomed woman appeared in the drawing-room, there was a cry of +admiration. Esther's eyes expressed infinitude in which the soul sank +as it looked into them. Her blue-black and beautiful hair set off the +camellias. In short, this exquisite creature achieved all the effects +she had intended. She had no rival. She looked like the supreme +expression of that unbridled luxury which surrounded her in every form. +Then she was brilliantly witty. She ruled the orgy with the cold, calm +power that Habeneck displays when conducting at the Conservatoire, at +those concerts where the first musicians in Europe rise to the sublime +in interpreting Mozart and Beethoven. + +But she observed with terror that Nucingen ate little, drank nothing, +and was quite the master of the house. + +By midnight everybody was crazy. The glasses were broken that they might +never be used again; two of the Chinese curtains were torn; Bixiou was +drunk, for the second time in his life. No one could keep his feet, +the women were asleep on the sofas, and the guests were incapable of +carrying out the practical joke they had planned of escorting Esther +and Nucingen to the bedroom, standing in two lines with candles in their +hands, and singing _Buona sera_ from the _Barber of Seville_. + +Nucingen simply gave Esther his hand. Bixiou, who saw them, though +tipsy, was still able to say, like Rivarol, on the occasion of the +Duc de Richelieu's last marriage, "The police must be warned; there is +mischief brewing here." + +The jester thought he was jesting; he was a prophet. + + + +Monsieur de Nucingen did not go home till Monday at about noon. But at +one o'clock his broker informed him that Mademoiselle Esther van Bogseck +had sold the bond bearing thirty thousand francs interest on Friday +last, and had just received the money. + +"But, Monsieur le Baron, Derville's head-clerk called on me just as I +was settling this transfer; and after seeing Mademoiselle Esther's real +names, he told me she had come into a fortune of seven millions." + +"Pooh!" + +"Yes, she is the only heir to the old bill-discounter Gobseck.--Derville +will verify the facts. If your mistress' mother was the handsome Dutch +woman, _la Belle Hollandaise_, as they called her, she comes in for----" + +"I know dat she is," cried the banker. "She tolt me all her life. I +shall write ein vort to Derville." + +The Baron at down at his desk, wrote a line to Derville, and sent it by +one of his servants. Then, after going to the Bourse, he went back to +Esther's house at about three o'clock. + +"Madame forbade our waking her on any pretence whatever. She is in +bed--asleep----" + +"Ach der Teufel!" said the Baron. "But, Europe, she shall not be +angry to be tolt that she is fery, fery rich. She shall inherit seven +millions. Old Gobseck is deat, and your mis'ess is his sole heir, for +her moter vas Gobseck's own niece; and besides, he shall hafe left a +vill. I could never hafe tought that a millionaire like dat man should +hafe left Esther in misery!" + +"Ah, ha! Then your reign is over, old pantaloon!" said Europe, +looking at the Baron with an effrontery worthy of one of Moliere's +waiting-maids. "Shooh! you old Alsatian crow! She loves you as we love +the plague! Heavens above us! Millions!--Why, she may marry her lover; +won't she be glad!" + +And Prudence Servien left the Baron simply thunder-stricken, to be the +first to announce to her mistress this great stroke of luck. The old +man, intoxicated with superhuman enjoyment, and believing himself happy, +had just received a cold shower-bath on his passion at the moment when +it had risen to the intensest white heat. + +"She vas deceiving me!" cried he, with tears in his eyes. "Yes, she +vas cheating me. Oh, Esther, my life! Vas a fool hafe I been! Can such +flowers ever bloom for de old men! I can buy all vat I vill except only +yout!--Ach Gott, ach Gott! Vat shall I do! Vat shall become of me!--She +is right, dat cruel Europe. Esther, if she is rich, shall not be for me. +Shall I go hank myself? Vat is life midout de divine flame of joy dat I +have known? Mein Gott, mein Gott!" + +The old man snatched off the false hair he had combed in with his gray +hairs these three months past. + +A piercing shriek from Europe made Nucingen quail to his very bowels. +The poor banker rose and walked upstairs on legs that were drunk with +the bowl of disenchantment he had just swallowed to the dregs, for +nothing is more intoxicating than the wine of disaster. + +At the door of her room he could see Esther stiff on her bed, blue with +poison--dead! + +He went up to the bed and dropped on his knees. + +"You are right! She tolt me so!--She is dead--of me----" + +Paccard, Asie, every one hurried in. It was a spectacle, a shock, but +not despair. Every one had their doubts. The Baron was a banker again. +A suspicion crossed his mind, and he was so imprudent as to ask what had +become of the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, the price of the +bond. Paccard, Asie, and Europe looked at each other so strangely that +Monsieur de Nucingen left the house at once, believing that robbery +and murder had been committed. Europe, detecting a packet of soft +consistency, betraying the contents to be banknotes, under her mistress' +pillow, proceeded at once to "lay her out," as she said. + +"Go and tell monsieur, Asie!--Oh, to die before she knew that she had +seven millions! Gobseck was poor madame's uncle!" said she. + +Europe's stratagem was understood by Paccard. As soon as Asie's back +was turned, Europe opened the packet, on which the hapless courtesan had +written: "To be delivered to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre." + +Seven hundred and fifty thousand-franc notes shone in the eyes of +Prudence Servien, who exclaimed: + +"Won't we be happy and honest for the rest of our lives!" + +Paccard made no objection. His instincts as a thief were stronger than +his attachment to _Trompe-la-Mort_. + +"Durut is dead," he said at length; "my shoulder is still a proof before +letters. Let us be off together; divide the money, so as not to have all +our eggs in one basket, and then get married." + +"But where can we hide?" said Prudence. + +"In Paris," replied Paccard. + +Prudence and Paccard went off at once, with the promptitude of two +honest folks transformed into robbers. + +"My child," said Carlos to Asie, as soon as she had said three words, +"find some letter of Esther's while I write a formal will, and then take +the copy and the letter to Girard; but he must be quick. The will must +be under Esther's pillow before the lawyers affix the seals here." + +And he wrote out the following will:-- + + "Never having loved any one on earth but Monsieur Lucien Chardon + de Rubempre, and being resolved to end my life rather than relapse + into vice and the life of infamy from which he rescued me, I give + and bequeath to the said Lucien Chardon de Rubempre all I may + possess at the time of my decease, on condition of his founding a + mass in perpetuity in the parish church of Saint-Roch for the + repose of her who gave him her all, to her last thought. + + "ESTHER GOBSECK." + + +"That is quite in her style," thought _Trompe-la-Mort_. + +By seven in the evening this document, written and sealed, was placed by +Asie under Esther's bolster. + +"Jacques," said she, flying upstairs again, "just as I came out of the +room justice marched in----" + +"The justice of the peace you mean?" + +"No, my son. The justice of the peace was there, but he had gendarmes +with him. The public prosecutor and the examining judge are there too, +and the doors are guarded." + +"This death has made a stir very quickly," remarked Jacques Collin. + +"Ay, and Paccard and Europe have vanished; I am afraid they may have +scared away the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs," said Asie. + +"The low villains!" said Collin. "They have done for us by their +swindling game." + +Human justice, and Paris justice, that is to say, the most suspicious, +keenest, cleverest, and omniscient type of justice--too clever, indeed, +for it insists on interpreting the law at every turn--was at last on the +point of laying its hand on the agents of this horrible intrigue. + +The Baron of Nucingen, on recognizing the evidence of poison, and +failing to find his seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, imagined +that one of two persons whom he greatly disliked--either Paccard or +Europe--was guilty of the crime. In his first impulse of rage he flew to +the prefecture of police. This was a stroke of a bell that called up all +Corentin's men. The officials of the prefecture, the legal profession, +the chief of the police, the justice of the peace, the examining +judge,--all were astir. By nine in the evening three medical men were +called in to perform an autopsy on poor Esther, and inquiries were set +on foot. + +_Trompe-la-Mort_, warned by Asie, exclaimed: + +"No one knows that I am here; I may take an airing." He pulled himself +up by the skylight of his garret, and with marvelous agility was +standing in an instant on the roof, whence he surveyed the surroundings +with the coolness of a tiler. + +"Good!" said he, discerning a garden five houses off in the Rue de +Provence, "that will just do for me." + +"You are paid out, _Trompe-la-Mort_," said Contenson, suddenly emerging +from behind a stack of chimneys. "You may explain to Monsieur Camusot +what mass you were performing on the roof, Monsieur l'Abbe, and, above +all, why you were escaping----" + +"I have enemies in Spain," said Carlos Herrera. + +"We can go there by way of your attic," said Contenson. + +The sham Spaniard pretended to yield; but, having set his back and feet +across the opening of the skylight, he gripped Contenson and flung +him off with such violence that the spy fell in the gutter of the Rue +Saint-Georges. + +Contenson was dead on his field of honor; Jacques Collin quietly dropped +into the room again and went to bed. + +"Give me something that will make me very sick without killing me," +said he to Asie; "for I must be at death's door, to avoid answering +inquisitive persons. I have just got rid of a man in the most natural +way, who might have unmasked me." + + + +At seven o'clock on the previous evening Lucien had set out in his own +chaise to post to Fontainebleau with a passport he had procured in the +morning; he slept in the nearest inn on the Nemours side. At six in the +morning he went alone, and on foot, through the forest as far as Bouron. + +"This," said he to himself, as he sat down on one of the rocks that +command the fine landscape of Bouron, "is the fatal spot where +Napoleon dreamed of making a final tremendous effort on the eve of his +abdication." + +At daybreak he heard the approach of post-horses and saw a britska drive +past, in which sat the servants of the Duchesse de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu +and Clotilde de Grandlieu's maid. + +"Here they are!" thought Lucien. "Now, to play the farce well, and I +shall be saved!--the Duc de Grandlieu's son-in-law in spite of him!" + +It was an hour later when he heard the peculiar sound made by a superior +traveling carriage, as the berline came near in which two ladies were +sitting. They had given orders that the drag should be put on for the +hill down to Bouron, and the man-servant behind the carriage had it +stopped. + +At this instant Lucien came forward. + +"Clotilde!" said he, tapping on the window. + +"No," said the young Duchess to her friend, "he shall not get into the +carriage, and we will not be alone with him, my dear. Speak to him for +the last time--to that I consent; but on the road, where we will walk +on, and where Baptiste can escort us.--The morning is fine, we are well +wrapped up, and have no fear of the cold. The carriage can follow." + +The two women got out. + +"Baptiste," said the Duchess, "the post-boy can follow slowly; we want +to walk a little way. You must keep near us." + +Madeleine de Mortsauf took Clotilde by the arm and allowed Lucien to +talk. They thus walked on as far as the village of Grez. It was now +eight o'clock, and there Clotilde dismissed Lucien. + +"Well, my friend," said she, closing this long interview with much +dignity, "I never shall marry any one but you. I would rather believe +in you than in other men, in my father and mother--no woman ever gave +greater proof of attachment surely?--Now, try to counteract the fatal +prejudices which militate against you." + +Just then the tramp of galloping horses was heard, and, to the great +amazement of the ladies, a force of gendarmes surrounded the little +party. + +"What do you want?" said Lucien, with the arrogance of a dandy. + +"Are you Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre?" asked the public prosecutor of +Fontainebleau. + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"You will spend to-night in La Force," said he. "I have a warrant for +the detention of your person." + +"Who are these ladies?" asked the sergeant. + +"To be sure.--Excuse me, ladies--your passports? For Monsieur Lucien, +as I am instructed, had acquaintances among the fair sex, who for him +would----" + +"Do you take the Duchesse de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu for a prostitute?" said +Madeleine, with a magnificent flash at the public prosecutor. + +"You are handsome enough to excuse the error," the magistrate very +cleverly retorted. + +"Baptiste, produce the passports," said the young Duchess with a smile. + +"And with what crime is Monsieur de Rubempre charged?" asked Clotilde, +whom the Duchess wished to see safe in the carriage. + +"Of being accessory to a robbery and murder," replied the sergeant of +gendarmes. + +Baptiste lifted Mademoiselle de Grandlieu into the chaise in a dead +faint. + + + +By midnight Lucien was entering La Force, a prison situated between the +Rue Payenne and the Rue des Ballets, where he was placed in solitary +confinement. + +The Abbe Carlos Herrera was also there, having been arrested that +evening. + + + + THE END OF EVIL WAYS + +At six o'clock next morning two vehicles with postilions, prison vans, +called in the vigorous language of the populace, _paniers a salade_, +came out of La Force to drive to the Conciergerie by the Palais de +Justice. + +Few loafers in Paris can have failed to meet this prison cell on wheels; +still, though most stories are written for Parisian readers, strangers +will no doubt be satisfied to have a description of this formidable +machine. Who knows? A police of Russia, Germany, or Austria, the legal +body of countries to whom the "Salad-basket" is an unknown machine, may +profit by it; and in several foreign countries there can be no doubt +that an imitation of this vehicle would be a boon to prisoners. + +This ignominious conveyance, yellow-bodied, on high wheels, and lined +with sheet-iron, is divided into two compartments. In front is a +box-seat, with leather cushions and an apron. This is the free seat of +the van, and accommodates a sheriff's officer and a gendarme. A strong +iron trellis, reaching to the top, separates this sort of cab-front from +the back division, in which there are two wooden seats placed sideways, +as in an omnibus, on which the prisoners sit. They get in by a step +behind and a door, with no window. The nickname of Salad-basket arose +from the fact that the vehicle was originally made entirely of lattice, +and the prisoners were shaken in it just as a salad is shaken to dry it. + +For further security, in case of accident, a mounted gendarme follows +the machine, especially when it conveys criminals condemned to death to +the place of execution. Thus escape is impossible. The vehicle, lined +with sheet-iron, is impervious to any tool. The prisoners, carefully +searched when they are arrested or locked up, can have nothing but +watch-springs, perhaps, to file through bars, and useless on a smooth +surface. + +So the _panier a salade_, improved by the genius of the Paris police, +became the model for the prison omnibus (known in London as "Black +Maria") in which convicts are transported to the hulks, instead of the +horrible tumbril which formerly disgraced civilization, though Manon +Lescaut had made it famous. + +The accused are, in the first instance, despatched in the prison van +from the various prisons in Paris to the Palais de Justice, to be +questioned by the examining judge. This, in prison slang, is called +"going up for examination." Then the accused are again conveyed +from prison to the Court to be sentenced when their case is only a +misdemeanor; or if, in legal parlance, the case is one for the +Upper Court, they are transferred from the house of detention to the +Conciergerie, the "Newgate" of the Department of the Seine. + +Finally, the prison van carries the criminal condemned to death from +Bicetre to the Barriere Saint-Jacques, where executions are carried out, +and have been ever since the Revolution of July. Thanks to philanthropic +interference, the poor wretches no longer have to face the horrors of +the drive from the Conciergerie to the Place de Greve in a cart exactly +like that used by wood merchants. This cart is no longer used but to +bring the body back from the scaffold. + +Without this explanation the words of a famous convict to his +accomplice, "It is now the horse's business!" as he got into the van, +would be unintelligible. It is impossible to be carried to execution +more comfortably than in Paris nowadays. + +At this moment the two vans, setting out at such an early hour, were +employed on the unwonted service of conveying two accused prisoners +from the jail of La Force to the Conciergerie, and each man had a +"Salad-basket" to himself. + +Nine-tenths of my readers, ay, and nine-tenths of the remaining tenth, +are certainly ignorant of the vast difference of meaning in the words +incriminated, suspected, accused, and committed for trial--jail, house +of detention, and penitentiary; and they may be surprised to learn here +that it involves all our criminal procedure, of which a clear and brief +outline will presently be sketched, as much for their information as for +the elucidation of this history. However, when it is said that the first +van contained Jacques Collin and the second Lucien, who in a few hours +had fallen from the summit of social splendor to the depths of a prison +cell, curiosity will for the moment be satisfied. + +The conduct of the two accomplices was characteristic; Lucien de +Rubempre shrank back to avoid the gaze of the passers-by, who looked at +the grated window of the gloomy and fateful vehicle on its road along +the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Rue du Martroi to reach the quay and the +Arch of Saint-Jean, the way, at that time, across the Place de l'Hotel +de Ville. This archway now forms the entrance gate to the residence of +the Prefet de la Seine in the huge municipal palace. The daring convict, +on the contrary, stuck his face against the barred grating, between +the officer and the gendarme, who, sure of their van, were chatting +together. + +The great days of July 1830, and the tremendous storm that then burst, +have so completely wiped out the memory of all previous events, and +politics so entirely absorbed the French during the last six months +of that year, that no one remembers--or a few scarcely remember--the +various private, judicial, and financial catastrophes, strange as they +were, which, forming the annual flood of Parisian curiosity, were not +lacking during the first six months of the year. It is, therefore, +needful to mention how Paris was, for the moment, excited by the news of +the arrest of a Spanish priest, discovered in a courtesan's house, +and that of the elegant Lucien de Rubempre, who had been engaged to +Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu, taken on the highroad to Italy, +close to the little village of Grez. Both were charged as being +concerned in a murder, of which the profits were stated at seven +millions of francs; and for some days the scandal of this trial +preponderated over the absorbing importance of the last elections held +under Charles X. + +In the first place, the charge had been based on an application by the +Baron de Nucingen; then, Lucien's apprehension, just as he was about to +be appointed private secretary to the Prime Minister, made a stir in +the very highest circles of society. In every drawing-room in Paris +more than one young man could recollect having envied Lucien when he +was honored by the notice of the beautiful Duchesse de Maufrigneuse; and +every woman knew that he was the favored attache of Madame de Serizy, +the wife of one of the Government bigwigs. And finally, his handsome +person gave him a singular notoriety in the various worlds that make +up Paris--the world of fashion, the financial world, the world of +courtesans, the young men's world, the literary world. So for two days +past all Paris had been talking of these two arrests. The examining +judge in whose hands the case was put regarded it as a chance for +promotion; and, to proceed with the utmost rapidity, he had given +orders that both the accused should be transferred from La Force to +the Conciergerie as soon as Lucien de Rubempre could be brought from +Fontainebleau. + +As the Abbe Carlos had spent but twelve hours in La Force, and Lucien +only half a night, it is useless to describe that prison, which +has since been entirely remodeled; and as to the details of their +consignment, it would be only a repetition of the same story at the +Conciergerie. + + + +But before setting forth the terrible drama of a criminal inquiry, it +is indispensable, as I have said, that an account should be given of the +ordinary proceedings in a case of this kind. To begin with, its various +phases will be better understood at home and abroad, and, besides, those +who are ignorant of the action of the criminal law, as conceived of by +the lawgivers under Napoleon, will appreciate it better. This is all the +more important as, at this moment, this great and noble institution is +in danger of destruction by the system known as penitentiary. + +A crime is committed; if it is flagrant, the persons incriminated +(inculpes) are taken to the nearest lock-up and placed in the cell known +to the vulgar as the Violon--perhaps because they make a noise there, +shrieking or crying. From thence the suspected persons (inculpes) +are taken before the police commissioner or magistrate, who holds a +preliminary inquiry, and can dismiss the case if there is any mistake; +finally, they are conveyed to the Depot of the Prefecture, where the +police detains them pending the convenience of the public prosecutor and +the examining judge. They, being served with due notice, more or less +quickly, according to the gravity of the case, come and examine the +prisoners who are still provisionally detained. Having due regard to +the presumptive evidence, the examining judge then issues a warrant for +their imprisonment, and sends the suspected persons to be confined in +a jail. There are three such jails (Maisons d'Arret) in +Paris--Sainte-Pelagie, La Force, and les Madelonettes. + +Observe the word inculpe, incriminated, or suspected of crime. The +French Code has created three essential degrees of criminality--inculpe, +first degree of suspicion; prevenu, under examination; accuse, fully +committed for trial. So long as the warrant for committal remains +unsigned, the supposed criminal is regarded as merely under suspicion, +inculpe of the crime or felony; when the warrant has been issued, he +becomes "the accused" (prevenu), and is regarded as such so long as the +inquiry is proceeding; when the inquiry is closed, and as soon as the +Court has decided that the accused is to be committed for trial, he +becomes "the prisoner at the bar" (accuse) as soon as the superior +court, at the instance of the public prosecutor, has pronounced that the +charge is so far proved as to be carried to the Assizes. + +Thus, persons suspected of crime go through three different stages, +three siftings, before coming up for trial before the judges of the +upper Court--the High Justice of the realm. + +At the first stage, innocent persons have abundant means of exculpating +themselves--the public, the town watch, the police. At the second state +they appear before a magistrate face to face with the witnesses, and +are judged by a tribunal in Paris, or by the Collective Court of the +departments. At the third stage they are brought before a bench of +twelve councillors, and in case of any error or informality the prisoner +committed for trial at the Assizes may appeal for protection to the +Supreme court. The jury do not know what a slap in the face they give +to popular authority, to administrative and judicial functionaries, when +they acquit a prisoner. And so, in my opinion, it is hardly possible +that an innocent man should ever find himself at the bar of an Assize +Court in Paris--I say nothing of other seats of justice. + +The detenu is the convict. French criminal law recognizes imprisonment +of three degrees, corresponding in legal distinction to these three +degrees of suspicion, inquiry, and conviction. Mere imprisonment is a +light penalty for misdemeanor, but detention is imprisonment with hard +labor, a severe and sometimes degrading punishment. Hence, those persons +who nowadays are in favor of the penitentiary system would upset an +admirable scheme of criminal law in which the penalties are judiciously +graduated, and they will end by punishing the lightest peccadilloes as +severely as the greatest crimes. + +The reader may compare in the _Scenes of Political Life_ (for instance, +in Une Tenebreuse affaire) the curious differences subsisting between +the criminal law of Brumaire in the year IV., and that of the Code +Napoleon which has taken its place. + +In most trials, as in this one, the suspected persons are at once +examined (and from inculpes become prevenus); justice immediately issues +a warrant for their arrest and imprisonment. In point of fact, in most +of such cases the criminals have either fled, or have been instantly +apprehended. Indeed, as we have seen the police, which is but an +instrument, and the officers of justice had descended on Esther's house +with the swiftness of a thunderbolt. Even if there had not been the +reasons for revenge suggested to the superior police by Corentin, there +was a robbery to be investigated of seven hundred and fifty thousand +francs from the Baron de Nucingen. + + + +Just as the first prison van, conveying Jacques Collin, reached +the archway of Saint-Jean--a narrow, dark passage, some block ahead +compelled the postilion to stop under the vault. The prisoner's eyes +shone like carbuncles through the grating, in spite of his aspect as of +a dying man, which, the day before, had led the governor of La Force to +believe that the doctor must be called in. These flaming eyes, free to +rove at this moment, for neither the officer nor the gendarme looked +round at their "customer," spoke so plain a language that a clever +examining judge, M. Popinot, for instance, would have identified the man +convicted for sacrilege. + +In fact, ever since the "salad-basket" had turned out of the gate of La +Force, Jacques Collin had studied everything on his way. Notwithstanding +the pace they had made, he took in the houses with an eager and +comprehensive glance from the ground floor to the attics. He saw and +noted every passer-by. God Himself is not more clear-seeing as to the +means and ends of His creatures than this man in observing the slightest +differences in the medley of things and people. Armed with hope, as +the last of the Horatii was armed with his sword, he expected help. To +anybody but this Machiavelli of the hulks, this hope would have +seemed so absolutely impossible to realize that he would have gone +on mechanically, as all guilty men do. Not one of them ever dreams of +resistance when he finds himself in the position to which justice and +the Paris police bring suspected persons, especially those who, like +Collin and Lucien, are in solitary confinement. + +It is impossible to conceive of the sudden isolation in which a +suspected criminal is placed. The gendarmes who apprehend him, the +commissioner who questions him, those who take him to prison, the +warders who lead him to his cell--which is actually called a cachot, a +dungeon or hiding-place, those again who take him by the arms to put him +into a prison-van--every being that comes near him from the moment of +his arrest is either speechless, or takes note of all he says, to be +repeated to the police or to the judge. This total severance, so simply +effected between the prisoner and the world, gives rise to a complete +overthrow of his faculties and a terrible prostration of mind, +especially when the man has not been familiarized by his antecedents +with the processes of justice. The duel between the judge and the +criminal is all the more appalling because justice has on its side the +dumbness of blank walls and the incorruptible coldness of its agents. + +But Jacques Collin, or Carlos Herrera--it will be necessary to speak of +him by one or the other of these names according to the circumstances of +the case--had long been familiar with the methods of the police, of +the jail, and of justice. This colossus of cunning and corruption had +employed all his powers of mind, and all the resources of mimicry, to +affect the surprise and anility of an innocent man, while giving the +lawyers the spectacle of his sufferings. As has been told, Asie, that +skilled Locusta, had given him a dose of poison so qualified as to +produce the effects of a dreadful illness. + +Thus Monsieur Camusot, the police commissioner, and the public +prosecutor had been baffled in their proceedings and inquiries by the +effects apparently of an apoplectic attack. + +"He has taken poison!" cried Monsieur Camusot, horrified by the +sufferings of the self-styled priest when he had been carried down from +the attic writhing in convulsions. + +Four constables had with great difficulty brought the Abbe Carlos +downstairs to Esther's room, where the lawyers and the gendarmes were +assembled. + +"That was the best thing he could do if he should be guilty," replied +the public prosecutor. + +"Do you believe that he is ill?" the police commissioner asked. + +The police is always incredulous. + +The three lawyers had spoken, as may be imagined, in a whisper; +but Jacques Collin had guessed from their faces the subject under +discussion, and had taken advantage of it to make the first brief +examination which is gone through on arrest absolutely impossible and +useless; he had stammered out sentences in which Spanish and French were +so mingled as to make nonsense. + +At La Force this farce had been all the more successful in the first +instance because the head of the "safety" force--an abbreviation of +the title "Head of the brigade of the guardians of public +safety"--Bibi-Lupin, who had long since taken Jacques Collin into +custody at Madame Vauquer's boarding-house, had been sent on special +business into the country, and his deputy was a man who hoped to succeed +him, but to whom the convict was unknown. + +Bibi-Lupin, himself formerly a convict, and a comrade of Jacques +Collin's on the hulks, was his personal enemy. This hostility had its +rise in quarrels in which Jacques Collin had always got the upper hand, +and in the supremacy over his fellow-prisoners which _Trompe-la-Mort_ +had always assumed. And then, for ten years now, Jacques Collin had been +the ruling providence of released convicts in Paris, their head, their +adviser, and their banker, and consequently Bibi-Lupin's antagonist. + +Thus, though placed in solitary confinement, he trusted to the +intelligent and unreserved devotion of Asie, his right hand, and +perhaps, too, to Paccard, his left hand, who, as he flattered himself, +might return to his allegiance when once that thrifty subaltern had +safely bestowed the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs that he had +stolen. This was the reason why his attention had been so superhumanly +alert all along the road. And, strange to say! his hopes were about to +be amply fulfilled. + +The two solid side-walls of the archway were covered, to a height of +six feet, with a permanent dado of mud formed of the splashes from the +gutter; for, in those days, the foot passenger had no protection from +the constant traffic of vehicles and from what was called the kicking of +the carts, but curbstones placed upright at intervals, and much ground +away by the naves of the wheels. More than once a heavy truck had +crushed a heedless foot-passenger under that arch-way. Such indeed Paris +remained in many districts and till long after. This circumstance may +give some idea of the narrowness of the Saint-Jean gate and the ease +with which it could be blocked. If a cab should be coming through from +the Place de Greve while a costermonger-woman was pushing her little +truck of apples in from the Rue du Martroi, a third vehicle of any kind +produced difficulties. The foot-passengers fled in alarm, seeking a +corner-stone to protect them from the old-fashioned axles, which had +attained such prominence that a law was passed at last to reduce their +length. + +When the prison van came in, this passage was blocked by a market woman +with a costermonger's vegetable cart--one of a type which is all the +more strange because specimens still exist in Paris in spite of the +increasing number of green-grocers' shops. She was so thoroughly a +street hawker that a Sergeant de Ville, if that particular class of +police had been then in existence, would have allowed her to ply her +trade without inspecting her permit, in spite of a sinister countenance +that reeked of crime. Her head, wrapped in a cheap and ragged checked +cotton kerchief, was horrid with rebellious locks of hair, like the +bristles of a wild boar. Her red and wrinkled neck was disgusting, and +her little shawl failed entirely to conceal a chest tanned brown by the +sun, dust, and mud. Her gown was patchwork; her shoes gaped as though +they were grinning at a face as full of holes as the gown. And what an +apron! a plaster would have been less filthy. This moving and fetid rag +must have stunk in the nostrils of dainty folks ten yards away. Those +hands had gleaned a hundred harvest fields. Either the woman had +returned from a German witches' Sabbath, or she had come out of a +mendicity asylum. But what eyes! what audacious intelligence, what +repressed vitality when the magnetic flash of her look and of Jacques +Collin's met to exchange a thought! + +"Get out of the way, you old vermin-trap!" cried the postilion in harsh +tones. + +"Mind you don't crush me, you hangman's apprentice!" she retorted. "Your +cartful is not worth as much as mine." + +And by trying to squeeze in between two corner-stones to make way, the +hawker managed to block the passage long enough to achieve her purpose. + +"Oh! Asie!" said Jacques Collin to himself, at once recognizing his +accomplice. "Then all is well." + +The post-boy was still exchanging amenities with Asie, and vehicles were +collecting in the Rue du Martroi. + +"Look out, there--Pecaire fermati. Souni la--Vedrem," shrieked old Asie, +with the Red-Indian intonations peculiar to these female costermongers, +who disfigure their words in such a way that they are transformed into a +sort onomatopoeia incomprehensible to any but Parisians. + +In the confusion in the alley, and among the outcries of all the waiting +drivers, no one paid any heed to this wild yell, which might have been +the woman's usual cry. But this gibberish, intelligible to Jacques +Collin, sent to his ear in a mongrel language of their own--a mixture of +bad Italian and Provencal--this important news: + +"Your poor boy is nabbed. I am here to keep an eye on you. We shall meet +again." + +In the midst of his joy at having thus triumphed over the police, for +he hoped to be able to keep up communications, Jacques Collin had a blow +which might have killed any other man. + +"Lucien in custody!" said he to himself. + +He almost fainted. This news was to him more terrible than the rejection +of his appeal could have been if he had been condemned to death. + +Now that both the prison vans are rolling along the Quai, the interest +of this story requires that I should add a few words about the +Conciergerie, while they are making their way thither. The Conciergerie, +a historical name--a terrible name,--a still more terrible thing, is +inseparable from the Revolutions of France, and especially those of +Paris. It has known most of our great criminals. But if it is the most +interesting of the buildings of Paris, it is also the least known--least +known to persons of the upper classes; still, in spite of the interest +of this historical digression, it should be as short as the journey of +the prison vans. + +What Parisian, what foreigner, or what provincial can have failed to +observe the gloomy and mysterious features of the Quai des Lunettes--a +structure of black walls flanked by three round towers with conical +roofs, two of them almost touching each other? This quay, beginning at +the Pont du Change, ends at the Pont Neuf. A square tower--the Clock +Tower, or Tour de l'Horloge, whence the signal was given for the +massacre of Saint-Bartholomew--a tower almost as tall as that of +Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, shows where the Palais de Justice stands, +and forms the corner of the quay. + +These four towers and these walls are shrouded in the black winding +sheet which, in Paris, falls on every facade to the north. About +half-way along the quay at a gloomy archway we see the beginning of the +private houses which were built in consequence of the construction of +the Pont Neuf in the reign of Henry IV. The Place Royale was a replica +of the Place Dauphine. The style of architecture is the same, of brick +with binding courses of hewn stone. This archway and the Rue de Harlay +are the limit line of the Palais de Justice on the west. Formerly the +Prefecture de Police, once the residence of the Presidents of Parlement, +was a dependency of the Palace. The Court of Exchequer and Court of +Subsidies completed the Supreme Court of Justice, the Sovereign's Court. +It will be seen that before the Revolution the Palace enjoyed that +isolation which now again is aimed at. + +This block, this island of residences and official buildings, in +their midst the Sainte-Chapelle--that priceless jewel of Saint-Louis' +chaplet--is the sanctuary of Paris, its holy place, its sacred ark. + +For one thing, this island was at first the whole of the city, for the +plot now forming the Place Dauphine was a meadow attached to the Royal +demesne, where stood a stamping mill for coining money. Hence the name +of Rue de la Monnaie--the street leading to the Pont Neuf. Hence, too, +the name of one of the round towers--the middle one--called the Tour +d'Argent, which would seem to show that money was originally coined +there. The famous mill, to be seen marked in old maps of Paris, may very +likely be more recent than the time when money was coined in the Palace +itself, and was erected, no doubt, for the practice of improved methods +in the art of coining. + +The first tower, hardly detached from the Tour d'Argent, is the Tour +de Montgomery; the third, and smallest, but the best preserved of the +three, for it still has its battlements, is the Tour Bonbec. + +The Sainte-Chapelle and its four towers--counting the clock tower as +one--clearly define the precincts; or, as a surveyor would say, the +perimeter of the Palace, as it was from the time of the Merovingians +till the accession of the first race of Valois; but to us, as a result +of certain alterations, this Palace is more especially representative of +the period of Saint-Louis. + +Charles V. was the first to give the Palace up to the Parlement, then a +new institution, and went to reside in the famous Hotel Saint-Pol, +under the protection of the Bastille. The Palais des Tournelles was +subsequently erected backing on to the Hotel Saint-Pol. Thus, under the +later Valois, the kings came back from the Bastille to the Louvre, which +had been their first stronghold. + +The original residence of the French kings, the Palace of Saint-Louis, +which has preserved the designation of Le Palais, to indicate the Palace +of palaces, is entirely buried under the Palais de Justice; it forms the +cellars, for it was built, like the Cathedral, in the Seine, and with +such care that the highest floods in the river scarcely cover the lowest +steps. The Quai de l'Horloge covers, twenty feet below the surface, its +foundations of a thousand years old. Carriages run on the level of the +capitals of the solid columns under these towers, and formerly their +appearance must have harmonized with the elegance of the Palace, and +have had a picturesque effect over the water, since to this day those +towers vie in height with the loftiest buildings in Paris. + +As we look down on this vast capital from the lantern of the Pantheon, +the Palace with the Sainte-Chapelle is still the most monumental of many +monumental buildings. The home of our kings, over which you tread as you +pace the immense hall known as the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_, was a miracle +of architecture; and it is so still to the intelligent eye of the poet +who happens to study it when inspecting the Conciergerie. Alas! for the +Conciergerie has invaded the home of kings. One's heart bleeds to see +the way in which cells, cupboards, corridors, warders' rooms, and halls +devoid of light or air, have been hewn out of that beautiful structure +in which Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque--the three phases of ancient +art--were harmonized in one building by the architecture of the twelfth +century. + +This palace is a monumental history of France in the earliest times, +just as Blois is that of a later period. As at Blois you may admire in a +single courtyard the chateau of the Counts of Blois, that of Louis XII., +that of Francis I., that of Gaston; so at the Conciergerie you will +find within the same precincts the stamp of the early races, and, in the +Sainte-Chapelle, the architecture of Saint-Louis. + +Municipal Council (to you I speak), if you bestow millions, get a poet +or two to assist your architects if you wish to save the cradle of +Paris, the cradle of kings, while endeavoring to endow Paris and the +Supreme Court with a palace worthy of France. It is a matter for study +for some years before beginning the work. Another new prison or two like +that of La Roquette, and the palace of Saint-Louis will be safe. + +In these days many grievances afflict this vast mass of buildings, +buried under the Palais de Justice and the quay, like some antediluvian +creature in the soil of Montmartre; but the worst affliction is that it +is the Conciergerie. This epigram is intelligible. In the early days of +the monarchy, noble criminals--for the villeins (a word signifying the +peasantry in French and English alike) and the citizens came under the +jurisdiction of the municipality or of their liege lord--the lords +of the greater or the lesser fiefs, were brought before the king and +guarded in the Conciergerie. And as these noble criminals were few, the +Conciergerie was large enough for the king's prisoners. + +It is difficult now to be quite certain of the exact site of the +original Conciergerie. However, the kitchens built by Saint-Louis still +exist, forming what is now called the mousetrap; and it is probable that +the original Conciergerie was situated in the place where, till 1825, +the Conciergerie prisons of the Parlement were still in use, under the +archway to the right of the wide outside steps leading to the supreme +Court. From thence, until 1825, condemned criminals were taken to +execution. From that gate came forth all the great criminals, all the +victims of political feeling--the Marechale d'Ancre and the Queen of +France, Semblancay and Malesherbes, Damien and Danton, Desrues and +Castaing. Fouquier-Tinville's private room, like that of the public +prosecutor now, was so placed that he could see the procession of carts +containing the persons whom the Revolutionary tribunal had sentenced to +death. Thus this man, who had become a sword, could give a last glance +at each batch. + +After 1825, when Monsieur de Peyronnet was Minister, a great change +was made in the Palais. The old entrance to the Conciergerie, where +the ceremonies of registering the criminal and of the last toilet were +performed, was closed and removed to where it now is, between the Tour +de l'Horloge and the Tour de Montgomery, in an inner court entered +through an arched passage. To the left is the "mousetrap," to the right +the prison gates. The "salad-baskets" can drive into this irregularly +shaped courtyard, can stand there and turn with ease, and in case of a +riot find some protection behind the strong grating of the gate under +the arch; whereas they formerly had no room to move in the narrow space +dividing the outside steps from the right wing of the palace. + +In our day the Conciergerie, hardly large enough for the prisoners +committed for trial--room being needed for about three hundred, men +and women--no longer receives either suspected or remanded criminals +excepting in rare cases, as, for instance, in these of Jacques Collin +and Lucien. All who are imprisoned there are committed for trial before +the Bench. As an exception criminals of the higher ranks are allowed +to sojourn there, since, being already disgraced by a sentence in open +court, their punishment would be too severe if they served their term of +imprisonment at Melun or at Poissy. Ouvrard preferred to be imprisoned +at the Conciergerie rather than at Sainte-Pelagie. At this moment of +writing Lehon the notary and the Prince de Bergues are serving their +time there by an exercise of leniency which, though arbitrary, is +humane. + +As a rule, suspected criminals, whether they are to be subjected to a +preliminary examination--to "go up," in the slang of the Courts--or +to appear before the magistrate of the lower Court, are transferred in +prison vans direct to the "mousetraps." + +The "mousetraps," opposite the gate, consist of a certain number of old +cells constructed in the old kitchens of Saint-Louis' building, whither +prisoners not yet fully committed are brought to await the hour when the +Court sits, or the arrival of the examining judge. The "mousetraps" +end on the north at the quay, on the east at the headquarters of the +Municipal Guard, on the west at the courtyard of the Conciergerie, and +on the south they adjoin a large vaulted hall, formerly, no doubt, the +banqueting-room, but at present disused. + +Above the "mousetraps" is an inner guardroom with a window commanding +the court of the Conciergerie; this is used by the gendarmerie of the +department, and the stairs lead up to it. When the hour of trial strikes +the sheriffs call the roll of the prisoners, the gendarmes go down, one +for each prisoner, and each gendarme takes a criminal by the arm; and +thus, in couples, they mount the stairs, cross the guardroom, and are +led along the passages to a room contiguous to the hall where sits the +famous sixth chamber of the law (whose functions are those of an English +county court). The same road is trodden by the prisoners committed for +trial on their way to and from the Conciergerie and the Assize Court. + +In the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_, between the door into the first court of +the inferior class and the steps leading to the sixth, the visitor must +observe the first time he goes there a doorway without a door or any +architectural adornment, a square hole of the meanest type. Through this +the judges and barristers find their way into the passages, into the +guardhouse, down into the prison cells, and to the entrance to the +Conciergerie. + +The private chambers of all the examining judges are on different floors +in this part of the building. They are reached by squalid staircases, +a maze in which those to whom the place is unfamiliar inevitably lose +themselves. The windows of some look out on the quay, others on the yard +of the Conciergerie. In 1830 a few of these rooms commanded the Rue de +la Barillerie. + +Thus, when a prison van turns to the left in this yard, it has brought +prisoners to be examined to the "mousetrap"; when it turns to the right, +it conveys prisoners committed for trial, to the Conciergerie. Now it +was to the right that the vehicle turned which conveyed Jacques Collin +to set him down at the prison gate. Nothing can be more sinister. +Prisoners and visitors see two barred gates of wrought iron, with a +space between them of about six feet. These are never both opened at +once, and through them everything is so cautiously scrutinized that +persons who have a visiting ticket pass the permit through the bars +before the key grinds in the lock. The examining judges, or even the +supreme judges, are not admitted without being identified. Imagine, +then, the chances of communications or escape!--The governor of the +Conciergerie would smile with an expression on his lips that would +freeze the mere suggestion in the most daring of romancers who defy +probability. + +In all the annals of the Conciergerie no escape has been known but +that of Lavalette; but the certain fact of august connivance, now amply +proven, if it does not detract from the wife's devotion, certainly +diminished the risk of failure. + +The most ardent lover of the marvelous, judging on the spot of the +nature of the difficulties, must admit that at all times the obstacles +must have been, as they still are, insurmountable. No words can do +justice to the strength of the walls and vaulting; they must be seen. + +Though the pavement of the yard is on a lower level than that of the +quay, in crossing this Barbican you go down several steps to enter an +immense vaulted hall, with solid walls graced with magnificent columns. +This hall abuts on the Tour de Montgomery--which is now part of the +governor's residence--and on the Tour d'Argent, serving as a dormitory +for the warders, or porters, or turnkeys, as you may prefer to call +them. The number of the officials is less than might be supposed; there +are but twenty; their sleeping quarters, like their beds, are in no +respect different from those of the _pistoles_ or private cells. The +name _pistole_ originated, no doubt, in the fact that the prisoners +formerly paid a pistole (about ten francs) a week for this +accommodation, its bareness resembling that of the empty garrets in +which great men in poverty begin their career in Paris. + +To the left, in the vast entrance hall, sits the Governor of the +Conciergerie, in a sort of office constructed of glass panes, where +he and his clerk keep the prison-registers. Here the prisoners for +examination, or committed for trial, have their names entered with a +full description, and are then searched. The question of their lodging +is also settled, this depending on the prisoner's means. + +Opposite the entrance to this hall there is a glass door. This opens +into a parlor where the prisoner's relations and his counsel may speak +with him across a double grating of wood. The parlor window opens on +to the prison yard, the inner court where prisoners committed for trial +take air and exercise at certain fixed hours. + +This large hall, only lighted by the doubtful daylight that comes in +through the gates--for the single window to the front court is screened +by the glass office built out in front of it--has an atmosphere and +a gloom that strike the eye in perfect harmony with the pictures that +force themselves on the imagination. Its aspect is all the more sinister +because, parallel with the Tours d'Argent and de Montgomery, you +discover those mysterious vaulted and overwhelming crypts which lead to +the cells occupied by the Queen and Madame Elizabeth, and to those known +as the secret cells. This maze of masonry, after being of old the scene +of royal festivities, is now the basement of the Palais de Justice. + +Between 1825 and 1832 the operation of the last toilet was performed in +this enormous hall, between a large stove which heats it and the inner +gate. It is impossible even now to tread without a shudder on the paved +floor that has received the shock and the confidences of so many last +glances. + + + +The apparently dying victim on this occasion could not get out of the +horrible vehicle without the assistance of two gendarmes, who took him +under the arms to support him, and led him half unconscious into the +office. Thus dragged along, the dying man raised his eyes to heaven in +such a way as to suggest a resemblance to the Saviour taken down +from the Cross. And certainly in no picture does Jesus present a more +cadaverous or tortured countenance than this of the sham Spaniard; he +looked ready to breathe his last sigh. As soon as he was seated in the +office, he repeated in a weak voice the speech he had made to everybody +since he was arrested: + +"I appeal to His Excellency the Spanish Ambassador." + +"You can say that to the examining judge," replied the Governor. + +"Oh Lord!" said Jacques Collin, with a sigh. "But cannot I have a +breviary! Shall I never be allowed to see a doctor? I have not two hours +to live." + +As Carlos Herrera was to be placed in close confinement in the secret +cells, it was needless to ask him whether he claimed the benefits of the +pistole (as above described), that is to say, the right of having one +of the rooms where the prisoner enjoys such comfort as the law permits. +These rooms are on the other side of the prison-yard, of which mention +will presently be made. The sheriff and the clerk calmly carried out the +formalities of the consignment to prison. + +"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin to the Governor in broken French, "I am, +as you see, a dying man. Pray, if you can, tell that examining judge +as soon as possible that I crave as a favor what a criminal must most +dread, namely, to be brought before him as soon as he arrives; for my +sufferings are really unbearable, and as soon as I see him the mistake +will be cleared up----" + +As an universal rule every criminal talks of a mistake. Go to the hulks +and question the convicts; they are almost all victims of a miscarriage +of justice. So this speech raises a faint smile in all who come into +contact with the suspected, accused, or condemned criminal. + +"I will mention your request to the examining judge," replied the +Governor. + +"And I shall bless you, monsieur!" replied the false Abbe, raising his +eyes to heaven. + +As soon as his name was entered on the calendar, Carlos Herrera, +supported under each arm by a man of the municipal guard, and followed +by a turnkey instructed by the Governor as to the number of the cell in +which the prisoner was to be placed, was led through the subterranean +maze of the Conciergerie into a perfectly wholesome room, whatever +certain philanthropists may say to the contrary, but cut off from all +possible communication with the outer world. + +As soon as he was removed, the warders, the Governor, and his clerk +looked at each other as though asking each other's opinion, and +suspicion was legible on every face; but at the appearance of the second +man in custody the spectators relapsed into their usual doubting +frame of mind, concealed under the air of indifference. Only in very +extraordinary cases do the functionaries of the Conciergerie feel any +curiosity; the prisoners are no more to them than a barber's customers +are to him. Hence all the formalities which appall the imagination are +carried out with less fuss than a money transaction at a banker's, and +often with greater civility. + +Lucien's expression was that of a dejected criminal. He submitted to +everything, and obeyed like a machine. All the way from Fontainebleau +the poet had been facing his ruin, and telling himself that the hour of +expiation had tolled. Pale and exhausted, knowing nothing of what had +happened at Esther's house during his absence, he only knew that he was +the intimate ally of an escaped convict, a situation which enabled him +to guess at disaster worse than death. When his mind could command +a thought, it was that of suicide. He must, at any cost, escape the +ignominy that loomed before him like the phantasm of a dreadful dream. + +Jacques Collin, as the more dangerous of the two culprits, was placed +in a cell of solid masonry, deriving its light from one of the narrow +yards, of which there are several in the interior of the Palace, in the +wing where the public prosecutor's chambers are. This little yard is +the airing-ground for the female prisoners. Lucien was taken to the +same part of the building, to a cell adjoining the rooms let to +misdemeanants; for, by orders from the examining judge, the Governor +treated him with some consideration. + +Persons who have never had anything to do with the action of the law +usually have the darkest notions as to the meaning of solitary or secret +confinement. Ideas as to the treatment of criminals have not yet +become disentangled from the old pictures of torture chambers, of the +unhealthiness of a prison, the chill of stone walls sweating tears, the +coarseness of the jailers and of the food--inevitable accessories of +the drama; but it is not unnecessary to explain here that these +exaggerations exist only on the stage, and only make lawyers and judges +smile, as well as those who visit prisons out of curiosity, or who come +to study them. + +For a long time, no doubt, they were terrible. In the days of the old +Parlement, of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., the accused were, no doubt, +flung pell-mell into a low room underneath the old gateway. The prisons +were among the crimes of 1789, and it is enough only to see the cells +where the Queen and Madame Elizabeth were incarcerated to conceive a +horror of old judicial proceedings. + +In our day, though philanthropy has brought incalculable mischief on +society, it has produced some good for the individual. It is to Napoleon +that we owe our Criminal Code; and this, even more than the Civil +Code--which still urgently needs reform on some points--will remain one +of the greatest monuments of his short reign. This new view of criminal +law put an end to a perfect abyss of misery. Indeed, it may be said +that, apart from the terrible moral torture which men of the better +classes must suffer when they find themselves in the power of the law, +the action of that power is simple and mild to a degree that would +hardly be expected. Suspected or accused criminals are certainly not +lodged as if they were at home; but every necessary is supplied to them +in the prisons of Paris. Besides, the burden of feelings that weighs on +them deprives the details of daily life of their customary value. It +is never the body that suffers. The mind is in such a phase of violence +that every form of discomfort or of brutal treatment, if such there +were, would be easily endured in such a frame of mind. And it must be +admitted that an innocent man is quickly released, especially in Paris. + +So Lucien, on entering his cell, saw an exact reproduction of the first +room he had occupied in Paris at the Hotel Cluny. A bed to compare with +those in the worst furnished apartments of the Quartier Latin, straw +chairs with the bottoms out, a table and a few utensils, compose +the furniture of such a room, in which two accused prisoners are not +unfrequently placed together when they are quiet in their ways, and +their misdeeds are not crimes of violence, but such as forgery or +bankruptcy. + +This resemblance between his starting-point, in the days of his +innocency, and his goal, the lowest depths of degradation and sham, +was so direct an appeal to his last chord of poetic feeling, that the +unhappy fellow melted into tears. For four hours he wept, as rigid in +appearance as a figure of stone, but enduring the subversion of all his +hopes, the crushing of all his social vanity, and the utter overthrow +of his pride, smarting in each separate _I_ that exists in an ambitious +man--a lover, a success, a dandy, a Parisian, a poet, a libertine, and a +favorite. Everything in him was broken by this fall as of Icarus. + +Carlos Herrera, on the other hand, as soon as he was locked into his +cell and found himself alone, began pacing it to and fro like the polar +bear in his cage. He carefully examined the door and assured himself +that, with the exception of the peephole, there was not a crack in it. +He sounded all the walls, he looked up the funnel down which a dim light +came, and he said to himself, "I am safe enough!" + +He sat down in a corner where the eye of a prying warder at the grating +of the peephole could not see him. Then he took off his wig, and hastily +ungummed a piece of paper that did duty as lining. The side of the paper +next his head was so greasy that it looked like the very texture of the +wig. If it had occurred to Bibi-Lupin to snatch off the wig to establish +the identity of the Spaniard with Jacques Collin, he would never have +thought twice about the paper, it looked so exactly like part of the +wigmaker's work. The other side was still fairly white, and clean enough +to have a few lines written on it. The delicate and tiresome task of +unsticking it had been begun in La Force; two hours would not have been +long enough; it had taken him half of the day before. The prisoner began +by tearing this precious scrap of paper so as to have a strip four or +five lines wide, which he divided into several bits; he then replaced +his store of paper in the same strange hiding-place, after damping the +gummed side so as to make it stick again. He felt in a lock of his hair +for one of those pencil leads as thin as a stout pin, then recently +invented by Susse, and which he had put in with some gum; he broke off +a scrap long enough to write with and small enough to hide in his ear. +Having made these preparations with the rapidity and certainty of hand +peculiar to old convicts, who are as light-fingered as monkeys, Jacques +Collin sat down on the edge of his bed to meditate on his instructions +to Asie, in perfect confidence that he should come across her, so +entirely did he rely on the woman's genius. + +"During the preliminary examination," he reflected, "I pretended to be a +Spaniard and spoke broken French, appealed to my Ambassador, and alleged +diplomatic privilege, not understanding anything I was asked, the +whole performance varied by fainting, pauses, sighs--in short, all +the vagaries of a dying man. I must stick to that. My papers are all +regular. Asie and I can eat up Monsieur Camusot; he is no great shakes! + +"Now I must think of Lucien; he must be made to pull himself together. I +must get at the boy at whatever cost, and show him some plan of conduct, +otherwise he will give himself up, give me up, lose all! He must be +taught his lesson before he is examined. And besides, I must find some +witnesses to swear to my being a priest!" + +Such was the position, moral and physical, of these two prisoners, whose +fate at the moment depended on Monsieur Camusot, examining judge to +the Inferior Court of the Seine, and sovereign master, during the time +granted to him by the Code, of the smallest details of their existence, +since he alone could grant leave for them to be visited by the +chaplains, the doctor, or any one else in the world. + +No human authority--neither the King, nor the Keeper of the Seals, nor +the Prime Minister, can encroach on the power of an examining judge; +nothing can stop him, no one can control him. He is a monarch, +subject only to his conscience and the Law. At the present time, +when philosophers, philanthropists, and politicians are constantly +endeavoring to reduce every social power, the rights conferred on the +examining judges have become the object of attacks that are all the more +serious because they are almost justified by those rights, which, it +must be owned, are enormous. And yet, as every man of sense will own, +that power ought to remain unimpaired; in certain cases, its exercise +can be mitigated by a strong infusion of caution; but society is already +threatened by the ineptitude and weakness of the jury--which is, in +fact, the really supreme bench, and which ought to be composed only of +choice and elected men--and it would be in danger of ruin if this pillar +were broken which now upholds our criminal procedure. + +Arrest on suspicion is one of the terrible but necessary powers of which +the risk to society is counterbalanced by its immense importance. And +besides, distrust of the magistracy in general is a beginning of social +dissolution. Destroy that institution, and reconstruct it on another +basis; insist--as was the case before the Revolution--that judges should +show a large guarantee of fortune; but, at any cost, believe in it! Do +not make it an image of society to be insulted! + +In these days a judge, paid as a functionary, and generally a poor man, +has in the place of his dignity of old a haughtiness of demeanor that +seems odious to the men raised to be his equals; for haughtiness is +dignity without a solid basis. That is the vicious element in the +present system. If France were divided into ten circuits, the magistracy +might be reinstated by conferring its dignities on men of fortune; but +with six-and-twenty circuits this is impossible. + +The only real improvement to be insisted on in the exercise of the power +intrusted to the examining judge, is an alteration in the conditions of +preliminary imprisonment. The mere fact of suspicion ought to make no +difference in the habits of life of the suspected parties. Houses of +detention for them ought to be constructed in Paris, furnished and +arranged in such a way as greatly to modify the feeling of the public +with regard to suspected persons. The law is good, and is necessary; its +application is in fault, and public feeling judges the laws from the +way in which they are carried out. And public opinion in France +condemns persons under suspicion, while, by an inexplicable reaction, it +justifies those committed for trial. This, perhaps, is a result of the +essentially refractory nature of the French. + +This illogical temper of the Parisian people was one of the factors +which contributed to the climax of this drama; nay, as may be seen, it +was one of the most important. + +To enter into the secret of the terrible scenes which are acted out in +the examining judge's chambers; to understand the respective positions +of the two belligerent powers, the Law and the examinee, the object +of whose contest is a certain secret kept by the prisoner from the +inquisition of the magistrate--well named in prison slang, "the curious +man"--it must always be remembered that persons imprisoned under +suspicion know nothing of what is being said by the seven or eight +publics that compose _the Public_, nothing of how much the police know, +or the authorities, or the little that newspapers can publish as to the +circumstances of the crime. + +Thus, to give a man in custody such information as Jacques Collin had +just received from Asie as to Lucien's arrest, is throwing a rope to +a drowning man. As will be seen, in consequence of this ignorance, a +stratagem which, without this warning, must certainly have been equally +fatal to the convict, was doomed to failure. + + + +Monsieur Camusot, the son-in-law of one of the clerks of the cabinet, +too well known for any account of his position and connection to be +necessary here, was at this moment almost as much perplexed as Carlos +Herrera in view of the examination he was to conduct. He had formerly +been President of a Court of the Paris circuit; he had been raised from +that position and called to be a judge in Paris--one of the most coveted +posts in the magistracy--by the influence of the celebrated Duchesse +de Maufrigneuse, whose husband, attached to the Dauphin's person, and +Colonel of a cavalry regiment of the Guards, was as much in favor with +the King as she was with MADAME. In return for a very small service +which he had done the Duchess--an important matter to her--on occasion +of a charge of forgery brought against the young Comte d'Esgrignon by a +banker of Alencon (see _La Cabinet des Antiques_; _Scenes de la vie +de Province_), he was promoted from being a provincial judge to be +president of his Court, and from being president to being an examining +judge in Paris. + +For eighteen months now he had sat on the most important Bench in the +kingdom; and had once, at the desire of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, +had an opportunity of forwarding the ends of a lady not less influential +than the Duchess, namely, the Marquise d'Espard, but he had failed. (See +the _Commission in Lunacy_.) + +Lucien, as was told at the beginning of the Scene, to be revenged on +Madame d'Espard, who aimed at depriving her husband of his liberty of +action, was able to put the true facts before the Public Prosecutor and +the Comte de Serizy. These two important authorities being thus won over +to the Marquis d'Espard's party, his wife had barely escaped the censure +of the Bench by her husband's generous intervention. + +On hearing, yesterday, of Lucien's arrest, the Marquise d'Espard had +sent her brother-in-law, the Chevalier d'Espard, to see Madame Camusot. +Madame Camusot had set off forthwith to call on the notorious Marquise. +Just before dinner, on her return home, she had called her husband aside +in the bedroom. + +"If you can commit that little fop Lucien de Rubempre for trial, and +secure his condemnation," said she in his ear, "you will be Councillor +to the Supreme Court----" + +"How?" + +"Madame d'Espard longs to see that poor young man guillotined. I +shivered as I heard what a pretty woman's hatred can be!" + +"Do not meddle in questions of the law," said Camusot. + +"I! meddle!" said she. "If a third person could have heard us, he could +not have guessed what we were talking about. The Marquise and I were as +exquisitely hypocritical to each other as you are to me at this moment. +She began by thanking me for your good offices in her suit, saying +that she was grateful in spite of its having failed. She spoke of the +terrible functions devolved on you by the law, 'It is fearful to have to +send a man to the scaffold--but as to that man, it would be no more than +justice,' and so forth. Then she lamented that such a handsome young +fellow, brought to Paris by her cousin, Madame du Chatelet, should have +turned out so badly. 'That,' said she, 'is what bad women like Coralie +and Esther bring young men to when they are corrupt enough to share +their disgraceful profits!' Next came some fine speeches about charity +and religion! Madame du Chatelet had said that Lucien deserved a +thousand deaths for having half killed his mother and his sister. + +"Then she spoke of a vacancy in the Supreme Court--she knows the +Keeper of the Seals. 'Your husband, madame, has a fine opportunity of +distinguishing himself,' she said in conclusion--and that is all." + +"We distinguish ourselves every day when we do our duty," said Camusot. + +"You will go far if you are always the lawyer even to your wife," cried +Madame Camusot. "Well, I used to think you a goose. Now I admire you." + +The lawyer's lips wore one of those smiles which are as peculiar to them +as dancers' smiles are to dancers. + +"Madame, can I come in?" said the maid. + +"What is it?" said her mistress. + +"Madame, the head lady's-maid came from the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse +while you were out, and she will be obliged if you would go at once to +the Hotel de Cadignan." + +"Keep dinner back," said the lawyer's wife, remembering that the driver +of the hackney coach that had brought her home was waiting to be paid. + +She put her bonnet on again, got into the coach, and in twenty minutes +was at the Hotel de Cadignan. Madame Camusot was led up the private +stairs, and sat alone for ten minutes in a boudoir adjoining the +Duchess' bedroom. The Duchess presently appeared, splendidly dressed, +for she was starting for Saint-Cloud in obedience to a Royal invitation. + +"Between you and me, my dear, a few words are enough." + +"Yes, Madame la Duchesse." + +"Lucien de Rubempre is in custody, your husband is conducting the +inquiry; I will answer for the poor boy's innocence; see that he is +released within twenty-four hours.--This is not all. Some one will ask +to-morrow to see Lucien in private in his cell; your husband may be +present if he chooses, so long as he is not discovered. The King looks +for high courage in his magistrates in the difficult position in which +he will presently find himself; I will bring your husband forward, and +recommend him as a man devoted to the King even at the risk of his +head. Our friend Camusot will be made first a councillor, and then the +President of Court somewhere or other.--Good-bye.--I am under orders, +you will excuse me, I know? + +"You will not only oblige the public prosecutor, who cannot give an +opinion in this affair; you will save the life of a dying woman, Madame +de Serizy. So you will not lack support. + +"In short, you see, I put my trust in you, I need not say--you know----" + +She laid a finger to her lips and disappeared. + +"And I had not a chance of telling her that Madame d'Espard wants to see +Lucien on the scaffold!" thought the judge's wife as she returned to her +hackney cab. + +She got home in such a state of anxiety that her husband, on seeing her, +asked: + +"What is the matter, Amelie?" + +"We stand between two fires." + +She told her husband of her interview with the Duchess, speaking in his +ear for fear the maid should be listening at the door. + +"Now, which of them has the most power?" she said in conclusion. "The +Marquise was very near getting you into trouble in the silly business of +the commission on her husband, and we owe everything to the Duchess. + +"One made vague promises, while the other tells you you shall first be +Councillor and then President.--Heaven forbid I should advise you; I +will never meddle in matters of business; still, I am bound to repeat +exactly what is said at Court and what goes on----" + +"But, Amelie, you do not know what the Prefet of police sent me this +morning, and by whom? By one of the most important agents of the +superior police, the Bibi-Lupin of politics, who told me that the +Government had a secret interest in this trial.--Now let us dine and go +to the Varietes. We will talk all this over to-night in my private room, +for I shall need your intelligence; that of a judge may not perhaps be +enough----" + +Nine magistrates out of ten would deny the influence of the wife over +her husband in such cases; but though this may be a remarkable exception +in society, it may be insisted on as true, even if improbable. The +magistrate is like the priest, especially in Paris, where the best of +the profession are to be found; he rarely speaks of his business in +the Courts, excepting of settled cases. Not only do magistrates' +wives affect to know nothing; they have enough sense of propriety to +understand that it would damage their husbands if, when they are told +some secret, they allowed their knowledge to be suspected. + +Nevertheless, on some great occasions, when promotion depends on the +decision taken, many a wife, like Amelie, has helped the lawyer in his +study of a case. And, after all, these exceptions, which, of course, are +easily denied, since they remain unknown, depend entirely on the way in +which the struggle between two natures has worked out in home-life. Now, +Madame Camusot controlled her husband completely. + +When all in the house were asleep, the lawyer and his wife sat down to +the desk, where the magistrate had already laid out the documents in the +case. + +"Here are the notes, forwarded to me, at my request, by the Prefet of +police," said Camusot. + + + "_The Abbe Carlos Herrera_. + + "This individual is undoubtedly the man named Jacques Collin, + known as _Trompe-la-Mort_, who was last arrested in 1819, in the + dwelling-house of a certain Madame Vauquer, who kept a common + boarding-house in the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, where he lived + in concealment under the alias of Vautrin." + +A marginal note in the Prefet's handwriting ran thus: + + "Orders have been sent by telegraph to Bibi-Lupin, chief of the + Safety department, to return forthwith, to be confronted with the + prisoner, as he is personally acquainted with Jacques Collin, whom + he, in fact, arrested in 1819 with the connivance of a + Mademoiselle Michonneau. + + "The boarders who then lived in the Maison Vauquer are still + living, and may be called to establish his identity. + + "The self-styled Carlos Herrera is Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre's + intimate friend and adviser, and for three years past has + furnished him with considerable sums, evidently obtained by + dishonest means. + + "This partnership, if the identity of the Spaniard with Jacques + Collin can be proved, must involve the condemnation of Lucien de + Rubempre. + + "The sudden death of Peyrade, the police agent, is attributable to + poison administered at the instigation of Jacques Collin, + Rubempre, or their accomplices. The reason for this murder is the + fact that justice had for a long time been on the traces of these + clever criminals." + +And again, on the margin, the magistrate pointed to this note written by +the Prefet himself: + + "This is the fact to my personal knowledge; and I also know that + the Sieur Lucien de Rubempre has disgracefully tricked the Comte + de Serizy and the Public Prosecutor." + + + +"What do you say to this, Amelie?" + +"It is frightful!" repled his wife. "Go on." + +"The transformation of the convict Jacques Collin into a Spanish priest +is the result of some crime more clever than that by which Coignard made +himself Comte de Sainte-Helene." + + + "_Lucien de Rubempre_. + + "Lucien Chardon, son of an apothecary at Angouleme--his mother a + Demoiselle de Rubempre--bears the name of Rubempre in virtue of a + royal patent. This was granted by the request of Madame la + Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Monsieur le Comte de Serizy. + + "This young man came to Paris in 182... without any means of + subsistence, following Madame la Comtesse Sixte du Chatelet, then + Madame de Bargeton, a cousin of Madame d'Espard's. + + "He was ungrateful to Madame de Bargeton, and cohabited with a + girl named Coralie, an actress at the Gymnase, now dead, who left + Monsieur Camusot, a silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, to + live with Rubempre. + + "Ere long, having sunk into poverty through the insufficiency of + the money allowed him by this actress, he seriously compromised + his brother-in-law, a highly respected printer of Angouleme, by + giving forged bills, for which David Sechard was arrested, during + a short visit paid to Angouleme by Lucien. In consequence of this + affair Rubempre fled, but suddenly reappeared in Paris with the + Abbe Carlos Herrera. + + "Though having no visible means of subsistence, the said Lucien de + Rubempre spent on an average three hundred thousand francs during + the three years of his second residence in Paris, and can only + have obtained the money from the self-styled Abbe Carlos Herrera + --but how did he come by it? + + "He has recently laid out above a million francs in repurchasing + the Rubempre estates to fulfil the conditions on which he was to + be allowed to marry Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu. This + marriage has been broken off in consequence of inquiries made by + the Grandlieu family, the said Lucien having told them that he had + obtained the money from his brother-in-law and his sister; but the + information obtained, more especially by Monsieur Derville, + attorney-at-law, proves that not only were that worthy couple + ignorant of his having made this purchase, but that they believed + the said Lucien to be deeply in debt. + + "Moreover, the property inherited by the Sechards consists of + houses; and the ready money, by their affidavit, amounted to about + two hundred thousand francs. + + "Lucien was secretly cohabiting with Esther Gobseck; hence there + can be no doubt that all the lavish gifts of the Baron de + Nucingen, the girl's protector, were handed over to the said + Lucien. + + "Lucien and his companion, the convict, have succeeded in keeping + their footing in the face of the world longer than Coignard did, + deriving their income from the prostitution of the said Esther, + formerly on the register of the town." + + + +Though these notes are to a great extent a repetition of the story +already told, it was necessary to reproduce them to show the part +played by the police in Paris. As has already been seen from the note on +Peyrade, the police has summaries, almost invariably correct, concerning +every family or individual whose life is under suspicion, or whose +actions are of a doubtful character. It knows every circumstance of +their delinquencies. This universal register and account of consciences +is as accurately kept as the register of the Bank of France and its +accounts of fortunes. Just as the Bank notes the slightest delay in +payment, gauges every credit, takes stock of every capitalist, and +watches their proceedings, so does the police weigh and measure the +honesty of each citizen. With it, as in a Court of Law, innocence has +nothing to fear; it has no hold on anything but crime. + +However high the rank of a family, it cannot evade this social +providence. + +And its discretion is equal to the extent of its power. This vast +mass of written evidence compiled by the police--reports, notes, and +summaries--an ocean of information, sleeps undisturbed, as deep and +calm as the sea. Some accident occurs, some crime or misdemeanor becomes +aggressive,--then the law refers to the police, and immediately, if any +documents bear on the suspected criminal, the judge is informed. These +records, an analysis of his antecedents, are merely side-lights, and +unknown beyond the walls of the Palais de Justice. No legal use can be +made of them; Justice is informed by them, and takes advantage of them; +but that is all. These documents form, as it were, the inner lining +of the tissue of crimes, their first cause, which is hardly ever made +public. No jury would accept it; and the whole country would rise up +in wrath if excerpts from those documents came out in the trial at the +Assizes. In fact, it is the truth which is doomed to remain in the well, +as it is everywhere and at all times. There is not a magistrate who, +after twelve years' experience in Paris, is not fully aware that the +Assize Court and the police authorities keep the secret of half these +squalid atrocities, or who does not admit that half the crimes that are +committed are never punished by the law. + +If the public could know how reserved the _employes_ of the police +are--who do not forget--they would reverence these honest men as much as +they do Cheverus. The police is supposed to be astute, Machiavellian; it +is, in fact most benign. But it hears every passion in its paroxysms, it +listens to every kind of treachery, and keeps notes of all. The police +is terrible on one side only. What it does for justice it does no less +for political interests; but in these it is as ruthless and as one-sided +as the fires of the Inquisition. + +"Put this aside," said the lawyer, replacing the notes in their cover; +"this is a secret between the police and the law. The judge will +estimate its value, but Monsieur and Madame Camusot must know nothing of +it." + +"As if I needed telling that!" said his wife. + +"Lucien is guilty," he went on; "but of what?" + +"A man who is the favorite of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, of the +Comtesse de Serizy, and loved by Clotilde de Grandlieu, is not guilty," +said Amelie. "The other _must_ be answerable for everything." + +"But Lucien is his accomplice," cried Camusot. + +"Take my advice," said Amelie. "Restore this priest to the diplomatic +career he so greatly adorns, exculpate this little wretch, and find some +other criminal----" + +"How you run on!" said the magistrate with a smile. "Women go to the +point, plunging through the law as birds fly through the air, and find +nothing to stop them." + +"But," said Amelie, "whether he is a diplomate or a convict, the Abbe +Carlos will find some one to get him out of the scrape." + +"I am only a considering cap; you are the brain," said Camusot. + +"Well, the sitting is closed; give your Melie a kiss; it is one +o'clock." + +And Madame Camusot went to bed, leaving her husband to arrange his +papers and his ideas in preparation for the task of examining the two +prisoners next morning. + + + +And thus, while the prison vans were conveying Jacques Collin and Lucien +to the Conciergerie, the examining judge, having breakfasted, was +making his way across Paris on foot, after the unpretentious fashion of +Parisian magistrates, to go to his chambers, where all the documents in +the case were laid ready for him. + +This was the way of it: Every examining judge has a head-clerk, a sort +of sworn legal secretary--a race that perpetuates itself without any +premiums or encouragement, producing a number of excellent souls in whom +secrecy is natural and incorruptible. From the origin of the Parlement +to the present day, no case has ever been known at the Palais de Justice +of any gossip or indiscretion on the part of a clerk bound to the +Courts of Inquiry. Gentil sold the release given by Louise de Savoie to +Semblancay; a War Office clerk sold the plan of the Russian campaign to +Czernitchef; and these traitors were more or less rich. The prospect of +a post in the Palais and professional conscientiousness are enough to +make a judge's clerk a successful rival of the tomb--for the tomb has +betrayed many secrets since chemistry has made such progress. + +This official is, in fact, the magistrate's pen. It will be understood +by many readers that a man may gladly be the shaft of a machine, +while they wonder why he is content to remain a bolt; still a bolt is +content--perhaps the machinery terrifies him. + +Camusot's clerk, a young man of two-and-twenty, named Coquart, had come +in the morning to fetch all the documents and the judge's notes, and +laid everything ready in his chambers, while the lawyer himself was +wandering along the quays, looking at the curiosities in the shops, and +wondering within himself:-- + +"How on earth am I to set to work with such a clever rascal as this +Jacques Collin, supposing it is he? The head of the Safety will know +him. I must look as if I knew what I was about, if only for the sake of +the police! I see so many insuperable difficulties, that the best plan +would be to enlighten the Marquise and the Duchess by showing them the +notes of the police, and I should avenge my father, from whom Lucien +stole Coralie.--If I can unveil these scoundrels, my skill will +be loudly proclaimed, and Lucien will soon be thrown over by his +friends.--Well, well, the examination will settle all that." + +He turned into a curiosity shop, tempted by a Boule clock. + +"Not to be false to my conscience, and yet to oblige two great +ladies--that will be a triumph of skill," thought he. "What, do you +collect coins too, monsieur?" said Camusot to the Public Prosecutor, +whom he found in the shop. + +"It is a taste dear to all dispensers of justice," said the Comte de +Granville, laughing. "They look at the reverse side of every medal." + +And after looking about the shop for some minutes, as if continuing his +search, he accompanied Camusot on his way down the quay without it ever +occurring to Camusot that anything but chance had brought them together. + +"You are examining Monsieur de Rubempre this morning," said the Public +Prosecutor. "Poor fellow--I liked him." + +"There are several charges against him," said Camusot. + +"Yes, I saw the police papers; but some of the information came from an +agent who is independent of the Prefet, the notorious Corentin, who had +caused the death of more innocent men than you will ever send guilty men +to the scaffold, and----But that rascal is out of your reach.--Without +trying to influence the conscience of such a magistrate as you are, I +may point out to you that if you could be perfectly sure that Lucien was +ignorant of the contents of that woman's will, it would be self-evident +that he had no interest in her death, for she gave him enormous sums of +money." + +"We can prove his absence at the time when this Esther was poisoned," +said Camusot. "He was at Fontainebleau, on the watch for Mademoiselle de +Grandlieu and the Duchesse de Lenoncourt." + +"And he still cherished such hopes of marrying Mademoiselle de +Grandlieu," said the Public Prosecutor--"I have it from the Duchesse +de Grandlieu herself--that it is inconceivable that such a clever young +fellow should compromise his chances by a perfectly aimless crime." + +"Yes," said Camusot, "especially if Esther gave him all she got." + +"Derville and Nucingen both say that she died in ignorance of the +inheritance she had long since come into," added Granville. + +"But then what do you suppose is the meaning of it all?" asked Camusot. +"For there is something at the bottom of it." + +"A crime committed by some servant," said the Public Prosecutor. + +"Unfortunately," remarked Camusot, "it would be quite like Jacques +Collin--for the Spanish priest is certainly none other than that +escaped convict--to have taken possession of the seven hundred and fifty +thousand francs derived from the sale of the certificate of shares given +to Esther by Nucingen." + +"Weigh everything with care, my dear Camusot. Be prudent. The Abbe +Carlos Herrera has diplomatic connections; still, an envoy who had +committed a crime would not be sheltered by his position. Is he or is he +not the Abbe Carlos Herrera? That is the important question." + +And Monsieur de Granville bowed, and turned away, as requiring no +answer. + +"So he too wants to save Lucien!" thought Camusot, going on by the Quai +des Lunettes, while the Public Prosecutor entered the Palais through the +Cour de Harlay. + +On reaching the courtyard of the Conciergerie, Camusot went to the +Governor's room and led him into the middle of the pavement, where no +one could overhear them. + +"My dear sir, do me the favor of going to La Force, and inquiring of +your colleague there whether he happens at this moment to have there any +convicts who were on the hulks at Toulon between 1810 and 1815; or have +you any imprisoned here? We will transfer those of La Force here for a +few days, and you will let me know whether this so-called Spanish priest +is known to them as Jacques Collin, otherwise _Trompe-la-Mort_." + +"Very good, Monsieur Camusot.--But Bibi-Lupin is come..." + +"What, already?" said the judge. + +"He was at Melun. He was told that _Trompe-la-Mort_ had to be +identified, and he smiled with joy. He awaits your orders." + +"Send him to me." + +The Governor was then able to lay before Monsieur Camusot Jacques +Collin's request, and he described the man's deplorable condition. + +"I intended to examine him first," replied the magistrate, "but not on +account of his health. I received a note this morning from the Governor +of La Force. Well, this rascal, who described himself to you as having +been dying for twenty-four hours past, slept so soundly that they went +into his cell there, with the doctor for whom the Governor had sent, +without his hearing them; the doctor did not even feel his pulse, he +left him to sleep--which proves that his conscience is as tough as his +health. I shall accept this feigned illness only so far as it may enable +me to study my man," added Monsieur Camusot, smiling. + +"We live to learn every day with these various grades of prisoners," +said the Governor of the prison. + +The Prefecture of police adjoins the Conciergerie, and the magistrates, +like the Governor, knowing all the subterranean passages, can get to and +fro with the greatest rapidity. This explains the miraculous ease with +which information can be conveyed, during the sitting of the Courts, to +the officials and the presidents of the Assize Courts. And by the +time Monsieur Camusot had reached the top of the stairs leading to +his chambers, Bibi-Lupin was there too, having come by the _Salle des +Pas-Perdus_. + +"What zeal!" said Camusot, with a smile. + +"Ah, well, you see if it is _he_," replied the man, "you will see great +fun in the prison-yard if by chance there are any old stagers here." + +"Why?" + +"_Trompe-la-Mort_ sneaked their chips, and I know that they have vowed +to be the death of him." + +_They_ were the convicts whose money, intrusted to _Trompe-la-Mort_, had +all been made away with by him for Lucien, as has been told. + +"Could you lay your hand on the witnesses of his former arrest?" + +"Give me two summonses of witnesses and I will find you some to-day." + +"Coquart," said the lawyer, as he took off his gloves, and placed +his hat and stick in a corner, "fill up two summonses by monsieur's +directions." + +He looked at himself in the glass over the chimney shelf, where stood, +in the place of a clock, a basin and jug. On one side was a bottle of +water and a glass, on the other a lamp. He rang the bell; his usher came +in a few minutes after. + +"Is anybody here for me yet?" he asked the man, whose business it was to +receive the witnesses, to verify their summons, and to set them in the +order of their arrival. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Take their names, and bring me the list." + +The examining judges, to save time, are often obliged to carry on +several inquiries at once. Hence the long waiting inflicted on the +witnesses, who have seats in the ushers' hall, where the judges' bells +are constantly ringing. + +"And then," Camusot went on, "bring up the Abbe Carlos Herrera." + +"Ah, ha! I was told that he was a priest in Spanish. Pooh! It is a +new edition of Collet, Monsieur Camusot," said the head of the Safety +department. + +"There is nothing new!" replied Camusot. + +And he signed the two formidable documents which alarm everybody, even +the most innocent witnesses, whom the law thus requires to appear, under +severe penalties in case of failure. + + + +By this time Jacques Collin had, about half an hour since, finished his +deep meditations, and was armed for the fray. Nothing is more perfectly +characteristic of this type of the mob in rebellion against the law than +the few words he had written on the greasy scraps of paper. + +The sense of the first--for it was written in the language, the very +slang of slang, agreed upon by Asie and himself, a cipher of words--was +as follows:-- + + "Go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse or Madame de Serizy: one of + them must see Lucien before he is examined, and give him the + enclosed paper to read. Then find Europe and Paccard; those two + thieves must be at my orders, and ready to play any part I may + set them. + + "Go to Rastignac; tell him, from the man he met at the opera-ball, + to come and swear that the Abbe Carlos Herrera has no resemblance + to Jacques Collin who was apprehended at Vauquer's. Do the same + with Dr. Bianchon, and get Lucien's two women to work to the same + end." + +On the enclosed fragment were these words in good French: + + "Lucien, confess nothing about me. I am the Abbe Carlos Herrera. + Not only will this be your exculpation; but, if you do not lose + your head, you will have seven millions and your honor cleared." + +These two bits of paper, gummed on the side of the writing so as to look +like one piece, were then rolled tightly, with a dexterity peculiar to +men who have dreamed of getting free from the hulks. The whole thing +assumed the shape and consistency of a ball of dirty rubbish, about as +big as the sealing-wax heads which thrifty women stick on the head of a +large needle when the eye is broken. + +"If I am examined first, we are saved; if it is the boy, all is lost," +said he to himself while he waited. + +His plight was so sore that the strong man's face was wet with white +sweat. Indeed, this wonderful man saw as clearly in his sphere of crime +as Moliere did in his sphere of dramatic poetry, or Cuvier in that of +extinct organisms. Genius of whatever kind is intuition. Below this +highest manifestation other remarkable achievements may be due to +talent. This is what divides men of the first rank from those of the +second. + +Crime has its men of genius. Jacques Collin, driven to bay, had hit +on the same notion as Madame Camusot's ambition and Madame de Serizy's +passion, suddenly revived by the shock of the dreadful disaster which +was overwhelming Lucien. This was the supreme effort of human intellect +directed against the steel armor of Justice. + +On hearing the rasping of the heavy locks and bolts of his door, Jacques +Collin resumed his mask of a dying man; he was helped in this by the +intoxicating joy that he felt at the sound of the warder's shoes in the +passage. He had no idea how Asie would get near him; but he relied +on meeting her on the way, especially after her promise given in the +Saint-Jean gateway. + +After that fortunate achievement she had gone on to the Place de Greve. + +Till 1830 the name of La Greve (the Strand) had a meaning that is now +lost. Every part of the river-shore from the Pont d'Arcole to the Pont +Louis-Philippe was then as nature had made it, excepting the paved way +which was at the top of the bank. When the river was in flood a boat +could pass close under the houses and at the end of the streets running +down to the river. On the quay the footpath was for the most part raised +with a few steps; and when the river was up to the houses, vehicles had +to pass along the horrible Rue de la Mortellerie, which has now been +completely removed to make room for enlarging the Hotel de Ville. + +So the sham costermonger could easily and quickly run her truck down to +the bottom of the quay, and hide it there till the real owner--who was, +in fact, drinking the price of her wares, sold bodily to Asie, in one +of the abominable taverns in the Rue de la Mortellerie--should return +to claim it. At that time the Quai Pelletier was being extended, the +entrance to the works was guarded by a crippled soldier, and the barrow +would be quite safe in his keeping. + +Asie then jumped into a hackney cab on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, +and said to the driver, "To the Temple, and look sharp, I'll tip you +well." + +A woman dressed like Asie could disappear, without any questions +being asked, in the huge market-place, where all the rags in Paris are +gathered together, where a thousand costermongers wander round, and two +hundred old-clothes sellers are chaffering. + +The two prisoners had hardly been locked up when she was dressing +herself in a low, damp entresol over one of those foul shops where +remnants are sold, pieces stolen by tailors and dressmakers--an +establishment kept by an old maid known as La Romette, from her +Christian name Jeromette. La Romette was to the "purchasers of +wardrobes" what these women are to the better class of so-called ladies +in difficulties--Madame la Ressource, that is to say, money-lenders at a +hundred per cent. + +"Now, child," said Asie, "I have got to be figged out. I must be a +Baroness of the Faubourg Saint-Germain at the very least. And sharp's +the word, for my feet are in hot oil. You know what gowns suit me. +Hand up the rouge-pot, find me some first-class bits of lace, and the +swaggerest jewelry you can pick out.--Send the girl to call a coach, and +have it brought to the back door." + +"Yes, madame," the woman replied very humbly, and with the eagerness of +a maid waiting on her mistress. + +If there had been any one to witness the scene, he would have understood +that the woman known as Asie was at home here. + +"I have had some diamonds offered me," said la Romette as she dressed +Asie's head. + +"Stolen?" + +"I should think so." + +"Well, then, however cheap they may be, we must do without 'em. We must +fight shy of the beak for a long time to come." + +It will now be understood how Asie contrived to be in the _Salle des +Pas-Perdus_ of the Palais de Justice with a summons in her hand, asking +her way along the passages and stairs leading to the examining judge's +chambers, and inquiring for Monsieur Camusot, about a quarter of an hour +before that gentleman's arrival. + +Asie was not recognizable. After washing off her "make-up" as an old +woman, like an actress, she applied rouge and pearl powder, and covered +her head with a well-made fair wig. Dressed exactly as a lady of the +Faubourg Saint-Germain might be if in search of a dog she had lost, she +looked about forty, for she shrouded her features under a splendid black +lace veil. A pair of stays, severely laced, disguised her cook's figure. +With very good gloves and a rather large bustle, she exhaled the perfume +of powder a la Marechale. Playing with a bag mounted in gold, she +divided her attention between the walls of the building, where she found +herself evidently for the first time, and the string by which she led +a dainty little spaniel. Such a dowager could not fail to attract the +notice of the black-robed natives of the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_. + +Besides the briefless lawyers who sweep this hall with their gowns, +and speak of the leading advocates by their Christian names, as fine +gentlemen address each other, to produce the impression that they are +of the aristocracy of the law, patient youths are often to be seen, +hangers-on of the attorneys, waiting, waiting, in hope of a case put +down for the end of the day, which they may be so lucky as to be called +to plead if the advocates retained for the earlier cases should not come +out in time. + +A very curious study would be that of the differences between these +various black gowns, pacing the immense hall in threes, or sometimes +in fours, their persistent talk filling the place with a loud, echoing +hum--a hall well named indeed, for this slow walk exhausts the lawyers +as much as the waste of words. But such a study has its place in the +volumes destined to reveal the life of Paris pleaders. + +Asie had counted on the presence of these youths; she laughed in her +sleeve at some of the pleasantries she overheard, and finally succeeded +in attracting the attention of Massol, a young lawyer whose time was +more taken up by the _Police Gazette_ than by clients, and who came up +with a laugh to place himself at the service of a woman so elegantly +scented and so handsomely dressed. + +Asie put on a little, thin voice to explain to this obliging gentleman +that she appeared in answer to a summons from a judge named Camusot. + +"Oh! in the Rubempre case?" + +So the affair had its name already. + +"Oh, it is not my affair. It is my maid's, a girl named Europe, who was +with me twenty-four hours, and who fled when she saw my servant bring in +a piece of stamped paper." + +Then, like any old woman who spends her life gossiping in the +chimney-corner, prompted by Massol, she poured out the story of her woes +with her first husband, one of the three Directors of the land revenue. +She consulted the young lawyer as to whether she would do well to enter +on a lawsuit with her son-in-law, the Comte de Gross-Narp, who made her +daughter very miserable, and whether the law allowed her to dispose of +her fortune. + +In spite of all his efforts, Massol could not be sure whether the +summons were addressed to the mistress or the maid. At the first moment +he had only glanced at this legal document of the most familiar aspect; +for, to save time, it is printed, and the magistrates' clerks have only +to fill in the blanks left for the names and addresses of the witnesses, +the hour for which they are called, and so forth. + +Asie made him tell her all about the Palais, which she knew more +intimately than the lawyer did. Finally, she inquired at what hour +Monsieur Camusot would arrive. + +"Well, the examining judges generally are here by about ten o'clock." + +"It is now a quarter to ten," said she, looking at a pretty little +watch, a perfect gem of goldsmith's work, which made Massol say to +himself: + +"Where the devil will Fortune make herself at home next!" + +At this moment Asie had come to the dark hall looking out on the yard of +the Conciergerie, where the ushers wait. On seeing the gate through the +window, she exclaimed: + +"What are those high walls?" + +"That is the Conciergerie." + +"Oh! so that is the Conciergerie where our poor queen----Oh! I should so +like to see her cell!" + +"Impossible, Madame la Baronne," replied the young lawyer, on whose +arm the dowager was now leaning. "A permit is indispensable, and very +difficult to procure." + +"I have been told," she went on, "that Louis XVIII. himself composed the +inscription that is to be seen in Marie-Antoinette's cell." + +"Yes, Madame la Baronne." + +"How much I should like to know Latin that I might study the words of +that inscription!" said she. "Do you think that Monsieur Camusot could +give me a permit?" + +"That is not in his power; but he could take you there." + +"But his business----" objected she. + +"Oh!" said Massol, "prisoners under suspicion can wait." + +"To be sure," said she artlessly, "they are under suspicion.--But I know +Monsieur de Granville, your public prosecutor----" + +This hint had a magical effect on the ushers and the young lawyer. + +"Ah, you know Monsieur de Granville?" said Massol, who was inclined to +ask the client thus sent to him by chance her name and address. + +"I often see him at my friend Monsieur de Serizy's house. Madame de +Serizy is a connection of mine through the Ronquerolles." + +"Well, if Madame wishes to go down to the Conciergerie," said an usher, +"she----" + +"Yes," said Massol. + +So the Baroness and the lawyer were allowed to pass, and they presently +found themselves in the little guard-room at the top of the stairs +leading to the "mousetrap," a spot well known to Asie, forming, as has +been said, a post of observation between those cells and the Court of +the Sixth Chamber, through which everybody is obliged to pass. + +"Will you ask if Monsieur Camusot is come yet?" said she, seeing some +gendarmes playing cards. + +"Yes, madame, he has just come up from the 'mousetrap.'" + +"The mousetrap!" said she. "What is that?--Oh! how stupid of me not to +have gone straight to the Comte de Granville.--But I have not time +now. Pray take me to speak to Monsieur Camusot before he is otherwise +engaged." + +"Oh, you have plenty of time for seeing Monsieur Camusot," said Massol. +"If you send him in your card, he will spare you the discomfort of +waiting in the ante-room with the witnesses.--We can be civil here to +ladies like you.--You have a card about you?" + +At this instant Asie and her lawyer were exactly in front of the window +of the guardroom whence the gendarmes could observe the gate of the +Conciergerie. The gendarmes, brought up to respect the defenders of the +widow and the orphan, were aware too of the prerogative of the gown, +and for a few minutes allowed the Baroness to remain there escorted by +a pleader. Asie listened to the terrible tales which a young lawyer is +ready to tell about that prison-gate. She would not believe that those +who were condemned to death were prepared for the scaffold behind those +bars; but the sergeant-at-arms assured her it was so. + +"How much I should like to see it done!" cried she. + +And there she remained, prattling to the lawyer and the sergeant, till +she saw Jacques Collin come out supported by two gendarmes, and preceded +by Monsieur Camusot's clerk. + +"Ah, there is a chaplain no doubt going to prepare a poor wretch----" + +"Not at all, Madame la Baronne," said the gendarme. "He is a prisoner +coming to be examined." + +"What is he accused of?" + +"He is concerned in this poisoning case." + +"Oh! I should like to see him." + +"You cannot stay here," said the sergeant, "for he is under close +arrest, and he must pass through here. You see, madame, that door leads +to the stairs----" + +"Oh! thank you!" cried the Baroness, making for the door, to rush down +the stairs, where she at once shrieked out, "Oh! where am I?" + +This cry reached the ear of Jacques Collin, who was thus prepared to +see her. The sergeant flew after Madame la Baronne, seized her by the +middle, and lifted her back like a feather into the midst of a group +of five gendarmes, who started up as one man; for in that guardroom +everything is regarded as suspicious. The proceeding was arbitrary, but +the arbitrariness was necessary. The young lawyer himself had cried +out twice, "Madame! madame!" in his horror, so much did he fear finding +himself in the wrong. + +The Abbe Carlos Herrera, half fainting, sank on a chair in the +guardroom. + +"Poor man!" said the Baroness. "Can he be a criminal?" + +The words, though spoken low to the young advocate, could be heard +by all, for the silence of death reigned in that terrible guardroom. +Certain privileged persons are sometimes allowed to see famous criminals +on their way through this room or through the passages, so that the +clerk and the gendarmes who had charge of the Abbe Carlos made no +remark. Also, in consequence of the devoted zeal of the sergeant who +had snatched up the Baroness to hinder any communication between the +prisoner and the visitors, there was a considerable space between them. + +"Let us go on," said Jacques Collin, making an effort to rise. + +At the same moment the little ball rolled out of his sleeve, and the +spot where it fell was noted by the Baroness, who could look about her +freely from under her veil. The little pellet, being damp and sticky, +did not roll; for such trivial details, apparently unimportant, had all +been duly considered by Jacques Collin to insure success. + +When the prisoner had been led up the higher part of the steps, Asie +very unaffectedly dropped her bag and picked it up again; but in +stooping she seized the pellet which had escaped notice, its color being +exactly like that of the dust and mud on the floor. + +"Oh dear!" cried she, "it goes to my heart.--He is dying----" + +"Or seems to be," replied the sergeant. + +"Monsieur," said Asie to the lawyer, "take me at once to Monsieur +Camusot; I have come about this case; and he might be very glad to see +me before examining that poor priest." + +The lawyer and the Baroness left the guardroom, with its greasy, +fuliginous walls; but as soon as they reached the top of the stairs, +Asie exclaimed: + +"Oh, and my dog! My poor little dog!" and she rushed off like a mad +creature down the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_, asking every one where her dog +was. She got to the corridor beyond (la Galerie Marchande, or Merchant's +Hall, as it is called), and flew to the staircase, saying, "There he +is!" + +These stairs lead to the Cour de Harlay, through which Asie, having +played out the farce, passed out and took a hackney cab on the Quai des +Orfevres, where there is a stand; thus she vanished with the summons +requiring "Europe" to appear, her real name being unknown to the police +and the lawyers. + +"Rue Neuve-Saint-Marc," cried she to the driver. + + + +Asie could depend on the absolute secrecy of an old-clothes purchaser, +known as Madame Nourrisson, who also called herself Madame de +Saint-Esteve; and who would lend Asie not merely her personality, but +her shop at need, for it was there that Nucingen had bargained for the +surrender of Esther. Asie was quite at home there, for she had a bedroom +in Madame Nourrisson's establishment. + +She paid the driver, and went up to her room, nodding to Madame +Nourrisson in a way to make her understand that she had not time to say +two words to her. + +As soon as she was safe from observation, Asie unwrapped the papers +with the care of a savant unrolling a palimpsest. After reading the +instructions, she thought it wise to copy the lines intended for Lucien +on a sheet of letter-paper; then she went down to Madame Nourrisson, to +whom she talked while a little shop-girl went to fetch a cab from the +Boulevard des Italiens. She thus extracted the addresses of the Duchesse +de Maufrigneuse and of Madame de Serizy, which were known to Madame +Nourrisson by her dealings with their maids. + +All this running about and elaborate business took up more than two +hours. Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, who lived at the top of the +Faubourg Saint-Honore, kept Madame de Saint-Esteve waiting an hour, +although the lady's-maid, after knocking at the boudoir door, had handed +in to her mistress a card with Madame de Saint-Esteve's name, on which +Asie had written, "Called about pressing business concerning Lucien." + +Her first glance at the Duchess' face showed her how till-timed her +visit must be; she apologized for disturbing Madame la Duchesse when she +was resting, on the plea of the danger in which Lucien stood. + +"Who are you?" asked the Duchess, without any pretence at politeness, +as she looked at Asie from head to foot; for Asie, though she might be +taken for a Baroness by Maitre Massol in the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_, +when she stood on the carpet in the boudoir of the Hotel de Cadignan, +looked like a splash of mud on a white satin gown. + +"I am a dealer in cast-off clothes, Madame la Duchesse; for in such +matters every lady applies to women whose business rests on a basis of +perfect secrecy. I have never betrayed anybody, though God knows how +many great ladies have intrusted their diamonds to me by the month while +wearing false jewels made to imitate them exactly." + +"You have some other name?" said the Duchess, smiling at a reminiscence +recalled to her by this reply. + +"Yes, Madame la Duchesse, I am Madame de Saint-Esteve on great +occasions, but in the trade I am Madame Nourrisson." + +"Well, well," said the Duchess in an altered tone. + +"I am able to be of great service," Asie went on, "for we hear the +husbands' secrets as well as the wives'. I have done many little jobs +for Monsieur de Marsay, whom Madame la Duchesse----" + +"That will do, that will do!" cried the Duchess. "What about Lucien?" + +"If you wish to save him, madame, you must have courage enough to lose +no time in dressing. But, indeed, Madame la Duchesse, you could not look +more charming than you do at this moment. You are sweet enough to charm +anybody, take an old woman's word for it! In short, madame, do not wait +for your carriage, but get into my hackney coach. Come to Madame de +Serizy's if you hope to avert worse misfortunes than the death of that +cherub----" + +"Go on, I will follow you," said the Duchess after a moment's +hesitation. "Between us we may give Leontine some courage..." + +Notwithstanding the really demoniacal activity of this Dorine of +the hulks, the clock was striking two when she and the Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse went into the Comtesse de Serizy's house in the Rue de la +Chaussee-d'Antin. Once there, thanks to the Duchess, not an instant was +lost. The two women were at once shown up to the Countess, whom they +found reclining on a couch in a miniature chalet, surrounded by a garden +fragrant with the rarest flowers. + +"That is well," said Asie, looking about her. "No one can overhear us." + +"Oh! my dear, I am half dead! Tell me, Diane, what have you done?" cried +the Duchess, starting up like a fawn, and, seizing the Duchess by the +shoulders, she melted into tears. + +"Come, come, Leontine; there are occasions when women like us must not +cry, but act," said the Duchess, forcing the Countess to sit down on the +sofa by her side. + +Asie studied the Countess' face with the scrutiny peculiar to those old +hands, which pierces to the soul of a woman as certainly as a surgeon's +instrument probes a wound!--the sorrow that engraves ineradicable lines +on the heart and on the features. She was dressed without the least +touch of vanity. She was now forty-five, and her printed muslin wrapper, +tumbled and untidy, showed her bosom without any art or even stays! Her +eyes were set in dark circles, and her mottled cheeks showed the traces +of bitter tears. She wore no sash round her waist; the embroidery on her +petticoat and shift was all crumpled. Her hair, knotted up under a lace +cap, had not been combed for four-and-twenty hours, and showed as a +thin, short plait and ragged little curls. Leontine had forgotten to put +on her false hair. + +"You are in love for the first time in your life?" said Asie +sententiously. + +Leontine then saw the woman and started with horror. + +"Who is that, my dear Diane?" she asked of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse. + +"Whom should I bring with me but a woman who is devoted to Lucien and +willing to help us?" + +Asie had hit the truth. Madame de Serizy, who was regarded as one of the +most fickle of fashionable women, had had an attachment of ten years' +standing for the Marquis d'Aiglemont. Since the Marquis' departure for +the colonies, she had gone wild about Lucien, and had won him from +the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, knowing nothing--like the Paris world +generally--of Lucien's passion for Esther. In the world of fashion a +recognized attachment does more to ruin a woman's reputation than ten +unconfessed liaisons; how much more then two such attachments? However, +as no one thought of Madame de Serizy as a responsible person, +the historian cannot undertake to speak for her virtue thus doubly +dog's-eared. + +She was fair, of medium height, and well preserved, as a fair woman can +be who is well preserved at all; that is to say, she did not look more +than thirty, being slender, but not lean, with a white skin and flaxen +hair; she had hands, feet, and a shape of aristocratic elegance, and +was as witty as all the Ronquerolles, spiteful, therefore, to women, and +good-natured to men. Her large fortune, her husband's fine position, and +that of her brother, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, had protected her +from the mortifications with which any other woman would have been +overwhelmed. She had this great merit--that she was honest in her +depravity, and confessed her worship of the manners and customs of the +Regency. + +Now, at forty-two this woman--who had hitherto regarded men as no more +than pleasing playthings, to whom, indeed, she had, strange to say, +granted much, regarding love as merely a matter of sacrifice to gain the +upper hand,--this woman, on first seeing Lucien, had been seized with +such a passion as the Baron de Nucingen's for Esther. She had loved, as +Asie had just told her, for the first time in her life. + +This postponement of youth is more common with Parisian women than might +be supposed, and causes the ruin of some virtuous souls just as they are +reaching the haven of forty. The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was the only +person in the secret of the vehement and absorbing passion, of which +the joys, from the girlish suspicion of first love to the preposterous +follies of fulfilment, had made Leontine half crazy and insatiable. + +True love, as we know, is merciless. The discovery of Esther's existence +had been followed by one of those outbursts of rage which in a woman +rise even to the pitch of murder; then came the phase of meanness, to +which a sincere affection humbles itself so gladly. Indeed, for the last +month the Countess would have given ten years of her life to have Lucien +again for one week. At last she had even resigned herself to accept +Esther as her rival, just when the news of her lover's arrest had come +like the last trump on this paroxysm of devotion. + +The Countess had nearly died of it. Her husband had himself nursed her +in bed, fearing the betrayal of delirium, and for twenty-four hours she +had been living with a knife in her heart. She said to her husband in +her fever: + +"Save Lucien, and I will live henceforth for you alone." + +"Indeed, as Madame la Duchesse tells you, it is of no use to make your +eyes like boiled gooseberries," cried the dreadful Asie, shaking the +Countess by the arm. "If you want to save him, there is not a minute to +lose. He is innocent--I swear it by my mother's bones!" + +"Yes, yes, of course he is!" cried the Countess, looking quite kindly at +the dreadful old woman. + +"But," Asie went on, "if Monsieur Camusot questions him the wrong way, +he can make a guilty man of him with two sentences; so, if it is in your +power to get the Conciergerie opened to you, and to say a few words +to him, go at once, and give him this paper.--He will be released +to-morrow; I will answer for it. Now, get him out of the scrape, for you +got him into it." + +"I?" + +"Yes, you!--You fine ladies never have a son even when you own millions. +When I allowed myself the luxury of keeping boys, they always had their +pockets full of gold! Their amusements amused me. It is delightful to +be mother and mistress in one. Now, you--you let the men you love die of +hunger without asking any questions. Esther, now, made no speeches; she +gave, at the cost of perdition, soul and body, the million your Lucien +was required to show, and that is what has brought him to this pass----" + +"Poor girl! Did she do that! I love her!" said Leontine. + +"Yes--now!" said Asie, with freezing irony. + +"She was a real beauty; but now, my angel, you are better looking +than she is.--And Lucien's marriage is so effectually broken off, that +nothing can mend it," said the Duchess in a whisper to Leontine. + +The effect of this revelation and forecast was so great on the Countess +that she was well again. She passed her hand over her brow; she was +young once more. + +"Now, my lady, hot foot, and make haste!" said Asie, seeing the change, +and guessing what had caused it. + +"But," said Madame de Maufrigneuse, "if the first thing is to prevent +Lucien's being examined by Monsieur Camusot, we can do that by writing +two words to the judge and sending your man with it to the Palais, +Leontine." + +"Then come into my room," said Madame de Serizy. + + + +This is what was taking place at the Palais while Lucien's protectresses +were obeying the orders issued by Jacques Collin. The gendarmes placed +the moribund prisoner on a chair facing the window in Monsieur Camusot's +room; he was sitting in his place in front of his table. Coquart, pen in +hand, had a little table to himself a few yards off. + +The aspect of a magistrate's chambers is not a matter of indifference; +and if this room had not been chosen intentionally, it must be owned +that chance had favored justice. An examining judge, like a painter, +requires the clear equable light of a north window, for the criminal's +face is a picture which he must constantly study. Hence most magistrates +place their table, as this of Camusot's was arranged, so as to sit with +their back to the window and leave the face of the examinee in broad +daylight. Not one of them all but, by the end of six months, has +assumed an absent-minded and indifferent expression, if he does not wear +spectacles, and maintains it throughout the examination. + +It was a sudden change of expression in the prisoner's face, detected +by these means, and caused by a sudden point-blank question, that led +to the discovery of the crime committed by Castaing at the very +moment when, after a long consultation with the public prosecutor, the +magistrate was about to let the criminal loose on society for lack of +evidence. This detail will show the least intelligent person how living, +interesting, curious, and dramatically terrible is the conflict of an +examination--a conflict without witnesses, but always recorded. God +knows what remains on the paper of the scenes at white heat in which a +look, a tone, a quiver of the features, the faintest touch of color lent +by some emotion, has been fraught with danger, as though the adversaries +were savages watching each other to plant a fatal stroke. A report is no +more than the ashes of the fire. + +"What is your real name?" Camusot asked Jacques Collin. + +"Don Carlos Herrera, canon of the Royal Chapter of Toledo, and secret +envoy of His Majesty Ferdinand VII." + +It must here be observed that Jacques Collin spoke French like a Spanish +trollop, blundering over it in such a way as to make his answers almost +unintelligible, and to require them to be repeated. But Monsieur de +Nucingen's German barbarisms have already weighted this Scene too much +to allow of the introduction of other sentences no less difficult to +read, and hindering the rapid progress of the tale. + +"Then you have papers to prove your right to the dignities of which you +speak?" asked Camusot. + +"Yes, monsieur--my passport, a letter from his Catholic Majesty +authorizing my mission.--In short, if you will but send at once to the +Spanish Embassy two lines, which I will write in your presence, I shall +be identified. Then, if you wish for further evidence, I will write to +His Eminence the High Almoner of France, and he will immediately send +his private secretary." + +"And do you still pretend that you are dying?" asked the magistrate. "If +you have really gone through all the sufferings you have complained +of since your arrest, you ought to be dead by this time," said Camusot +ironically. + +"You are simply trying the courage of an innocent man and the strength +of his constitution," said the prisoner mildly. + +"Coquart, ring. Send for the prison doctor and an infirmary +attendant.--We shall be obliged to remove your coat and proceed to +verify the marks on your shoulder," Camusot went on. + +"I am in your hands, monsieur." + +The prisoner then inquired whether the magistrate would be kind enough +to explain to him what he meant by "the marks," and why they should be +sought on his shoulder. The judge was prepared for this question. + +"You are suspected of being Jacques Collin, an escaped convict, +whose daring shrinks at nothing, not even at sacrilege!" said Camusot +promptly, his eyes fixed on those of the prisoner. + +Jacques Collin gave no sign, and did not color; he remained quite calm, +and assumed an air of guileless curiosity as he gazed at Camusot. + +"I, monsieur? A convict? May the Order I belong to and God above forgive +you for such an error. Tell me what I can do to prevent your continuing +to offer such an insult to the rights of free men, to the Church, and to +the King my master." + +The judge made no reply to this, but explained to the Abbe that if +he had been branded, a penalty at that time inflicted by law on all +convicts sent to the hulks, the letters could be made to show by giving +him a slap on the shoulder. + +"Oh, monsieur," said Jacques Collin, "it would indeed be unfortunate if +my devotion to the Royal cause should prove fatal to me." + +"Explain yourself," said the judge, "that is what you are here for." + +"Well, monsieur, I must have a great many scars on my back, for I was +shot in the back as a traitor to my country while I was faithful to my +King, by constitutionalists who left me for dead." + +"You were shot, and you are alive!" said Camusot. + +"I had made friends with some of the soldiers, to whom certain pious +persons had sent money, so they placed me so far off that only spent +balls reached me, and the men aimed at my back. This is a fact that His +Excellency the Ambassador can bear witness to----" + +"This devil of a man has an answer for everything! However, so much the +better," thought Camusot, who assumed so much severity only to satisfy +the demands of justice and of the police. "How is it that a man of your +character," he went on, addressing the convict, "should have been found +in the house of the Baron de Nucingen's mistress--and such a mistress, a +girl who had been a common prostitute!" + +"This is why I was found in a courtesan's house, monsieur," replied +Jacques Collin. "But before telling you the reasons for my being there, +I ought to mention that at the moment when I was just going upstairs +I was seized with the first attack of my illness, and I had no time to +speak to the girl. I knew of Mademoiselle Esther's intention of killing +herself; and as young Lucien de Rubempre's interests were involved, and +I have a particular affection for him for sacredly secret reasons, I +was going to try to persuade the poor creature to give up the idea, +suggested to her by despair. I meant to tell her that Lucien must +certainly fail in his last attempt to win Mademoiselle Clotilde de +Grandlieu; and I hoped that by telling her she had inherited seven +millions of francs, I might give her courage to live. + +"I am convinced, Monsieur le Juge, that I am a martyr to the secrets +confided to me. By the suddenness of my illness I believe that I had +been poisoned that very morning, but my strong constitution has saved +me. I know that a certain agent of the political police is dogging me, +and trying to entangle me in some discreditable business. + +"If, at my request, you had sent for a doctor on my arrival here, you +would have had ample proof of what I am telling you as to the state of +my health. Believe me, monsieur, some persons far above our heads have +some strong interest in getting me mistaken for some villain, so as to +have a right to get rid of me. It is not all profit to serve a king; +they have their meannesses. The Church alone is faultless." + +It is impossible to do justice to the play of Jacques Collin's +countenance as he carefully spun out his speech, sentence by sentence, +for ten minutes; and it was all so plausible, especially the mention of +Corentin, that the lawyer was shaken. + +"Will you confide to me the reasons of your affection for Monsieur +Lucien de Rubempre?" + +"Can you not guess them? I am sixty years of age, monsieur--I implore +you do not write it.--It is because--must I say it?" + +"It will be to your own advantage, and more particularly to Monsieur +Lucien de Rubempre's, if you tell everything," replied the judge. + +"Because he is--Oh, God! he is my son," he gasped out with an effort. + +And he fainted away. + +"Do not write that down, Coquart," said Camusot in an undertone. + +Coquart rose to fetch a little phial of "Four thieves' Vinegar." + +"If he is Jacques Collin, he is a splendid actor!" thought Camusot. + +Coquart held the phial under the convict's nose, while the judge +examined him with the keen eye of a lynx--and a magistrate. + +"Take his wig off," said Camusot, after waiting till the man recovered +consciousness. + +Jacques Collin heard, and quaked with terror, for he knew how vile an +expression his face would assume. + +"If you have not strength enough to take your wig off yourself----Yes, +Coquart, remove it," said Camusot to his clerk. + +Jacques Collin bent his head to the clerk with admirable resignation; +but then his head, bereft of that adornment, was hideous to behold in +its natural aspect. + +The sight of it left Camusot in the greatest uncertainty. While waiting +for the doctor and the man from the infirmary, he set to work to +classify and examine the various papers and the objects seized +in Lucien's rooms. After carrying out their functions in the Rue +Saint-Georges at Mademoiselle Esther's house, the police had searched +the rooms at the Quai Malaquais. + +"You have your hand on some letters from the Comtesse de Serizy," said +Carlos Herrera. "But I cannot imagine why you should have almost all +Lucien's papers," he added, with a smile of overwhelming irony at the +judge. + +Camusot, as he saw the smile, understood the bearing of the word +"almost." + +"Lucien de Rubempre is in custody under suspicion of being your +accomplice," said he, watching to see the effect of this news on his +examinee. + +"You have brought about a great misfortune, for he is as innocent as +I am," replied the sham Spaniard, without betraying the smallest +agitation. + +"We shall see. We have not as yet established your identity," Camusot +observed, surprised at the prisoner's indifference. "If you are really +Don Carlos Herrera, the position of Lucien Chardon will at once be +completely altered." + +"To be sure, she became Madame Chardon--Mademoiselle de Rubempre!" +murmured Carlos. "Ah! that was one of the greatest sins of my life." + +He raised his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips seemed to +be uttering a fervent prayer. + +"But if you are Jacques Collin, and if he was, and knew that he was, the +companion of an escaped convict, a sacrilegious wretch, all the crimes +of which he is suspected by the law are more than probably true." + +Carlos Herrera sat like bronze as he heard this speech, very cleverly +delivered by the judge, and his only reply to the words "_knew that he +was_" and "_escaped convict_" was to lift his hands to heaven with a +gesture of noble and dignified sorrow. + +"Monsieur l'Abbe," Camusot went on, with the greatest politeness, "if +you are Don Carlos Herrera, you will forgive us for what we are obliged +to do in the interests of justice and truth." + +Jacques Collin detected a snare in the lawyer's very voice as he spoke +the words "Monsieur l'Abbe." The man's face never changed; Camusot had +looked for a gleam of joy, which might have been the first indication of +his being a convict, betraying the exquisite satisfaction of a +criminal deceiving his judge; but this hero of the hulks was strong in +Machiavellian dissimulation. + +"I am accustomed to diplomacy, and I belong to an Order of very austere +discipline," replied Jacques Collin, with apostolic mildness. "I +understand everything, and am inured to suffering. I should be free by +this time if you had discovered in my room the hiding-place where I keep +my papers--for I see you have none but unimportant documents." + +This was a finishing stroke to Camusot: Jacques Collin by his air of +ease and simplicity had counteracted all the suspicions to which his +appearance, unwigged, had given rise. + +"Where are these papers?" + +"I will tell you exactly if you will get a secretary from the Spanish +Embassy to accompany your messenger. He will take them and be answerable +to you for the documents, for it is to me a matter of confidential +duty--diplomatic secrets which would compromise his late Majesty Louis +XVIII--Indeed, monsieur, it would be better----However, you are a +magistrate--and, after all, the Ambassador, to whom I refer the whole +question, must decide." + +At this juncture the usher announced the arrival of the doctor and the +infirmary attendant, who came in. + +"Good-morning, Monsieur Lebrun," said Camusot to the doctor. "I have +sent for you to examine the state of health of this prisoner under +suspicion. He says he had been poisoned and at the point of death since +the day before yesterday; see if there is any risk in undressing him to +look for the brand." + +Doctor Lebrun took Jacques Collin's hand, felt his pulse, asked to look +at his tongue, and scrutinized him steadily. This inspection lasted +about ten minutes. + +"The prisoner has been suffering severely," said the medical officer, +"but at this moment he is amazingly strong----" + +"That spurious energy, monsieur, is due to nervous excitement caused by +my strange position," said Jacques Collin, with the dignity of a bishop. + +"That is possible," said Monsieur Lebrun. + +At a sign from Camusot the prisoner was stripped of everything but his +trousers, even of his shirt, and the spectators might admire the hairy +torso of a Cyclops. It was that of the Farnese Hercules at Naples in its +colossal exaggeration. + +"For what does nature intend a man of this build?" said Lebrun to the +judge. + +The usher brought in the ebony staff, which from time immemorial has +been the insignia of his office, and is called his rod; he struck it +several times over the place where the executioner had branded the fatal +letters. Seventeen spots appeared, irregularly distributed, but the most +careful scrutiny could not recognize the shape of any letters. The usher +indeed pointed out that the top bar of the letter T was shown by two +spots, with an interval between of the length of that bar between the +two points at each end of it, and there was another spot where the +bottom of the T should be. + +"Still that is quite uncertain," said Camusot, seeing doubt in the +expression of the prison doctor's countenance. + +Carlos begged them to make the same experiment on the other shoulder and +the middle of his back. About fifteen more such scars appeared, which, +at the Spaniard's request, the doctor made a note of; and he pronounced +that the man's back had been so extensively seamed by wounds that the +brand would not show even if it had been made by the executioner. + +An office-clerk now came in from the Prefecture, and handed a note to +Monsieur Camusot, requesting an answer. After reading it the lawyer went +to speak to Coquart, but in such a low voice that no one could catch a +word. Only, by a glance from Camusot, Jacques Collin could guess that +some information concerning him had been sent by the Prefet of Police. + +"That friend of Peyrade's is still at my heels," thought Jacques Collin. +"If only I knew him, I would get rid of him as I did of Contenson. If +only I could see Asie once more!" + +After signing a paper written by Coquart, the judge put it into an +envelope and handed it to the clerk of the Delegate's office. + +This is an indispensable auxiliary to justice. It is under the direction +of a police commissioner, and consists of peace-officers who, with the +assistance of the police commissioners of each district, carry into +effect orders for searching the houses or apprehending the persons of +those who are suspected of complicity in crimes and felonies. These +functionaries in authority save the examining magistrates a great deal +of very precious time. + +At a sign from the judge the prisoner was dressed by Monsieur Lebrun and +the attendant, who then withdrew with the usher. Camusot sat down at his +table and played with his pen. + +"You have an aunt," he suddenly said to Jacques Collin. + +"An aunt?" echoed Don Carlos Herrera with amazement. "Why, monsieur, +I have no relations. I am the unacknowledged son of the late Duke of +Ossuna." + +But to himself he said, "They are burning"--an allusion to the game of +hot cockles, which is indeed a childlike symbol of the dreadful struggle +between justice and the criminal. + +"Pooh!" said Camusot. "You still have an aunt living, Mademoiselle +Jacqueline Collin, whom you placed in Esther's service under the +eccentric name of Asie." + +Jacques Collin shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that was +in perfect harmony with the cool curiosity he gave throughout to the +judge's words, while Camusot studied him with cunning attention. + +"Take care," said Camusot; "listen to me." + +"I am listening, sir." + +"You aunt is a wardrobe dealer at the Temple; her business is managed by +a demoiselle Paccard, the sister of a convict--herself a very good girl, +known as la Romette. Justice is on the traces of your aunt, and in a few +hours we shall have decisive evidence. The woman is wholly devoted to +you----" + +"Pray go on, Monsieur le Juge," said Collin coolly, in answer to a +pause; "I am listening to you." + +"Your aunt, who is about five years older than you are, was formerly +Marat's mistress--of odious memory. From that blood-stained source she +derived the little fortune she possesses. + +"From information I have received she must be a very clever receiver of +stolen goods, for no proofs have yet been found to commit her on. After +Marat's death she seems, from the notes I have here, to have lived with +a chemist who was condemned to death in the year XII. for issuing false +coin. She was called as witness in the case. It was from this intimacy +that she derived her knowledge of poisons. + +"In 1812 and in 1816 she spent two years in prison for placing girls +under age upon the streets. + +"You were already convicted of forgery; you had left the banking house +where your aunt had been able to place you as clerk, thanks to the +education you had had, and the favor enjoyed by your aunt with certain +persons for whose debaucheries she supplied victims. + +"All this, prisoner, is not much like the dignity of the Dukes d'Ossuna. + +"Do you persist in your denial?" + +Jacques Collin sat listening to Monsieur Camusot, and thinking of his +happy childhood at the College of the Oratorians, where he had been +brought up, a meditation which lent him a truly amazed look. And in +spite of his skill as a practised examiner, Camusot could bring no sort +of expression to those placid features. + +"If you have accurately recorded the account of myself I gave you at +first," said Jacques Collin, "you can read it through again. I cannot +alter the facts. I never went to the woman's house; how should I know +who her cook was? The persons of whom you speak are utterly unknown to +me." + +"Notwithstanding your denial, we shall proceed to confront you with +persons who may succeed in diminishing your assurance" + +"A man who has been three times shot is used to anything," replied +Jacques Collin meekly. + +Camusot proceeded to examine the seized papers while awaiting the return +of the famous Bibi-Lupin, whose expedition was amazing; for at half-past +eleven, the inquiry having begun at ten o'clock, the usher came in to +inform the judge in an undertone of Bibi-Lupin's arrival. + +"Show him in," replied M. Camusot. + +Bibi-Lupin, who had been expected to exclaim, "It is he," as he came +in, stood puzzled. He did not recognize his man in a face pitted with +smallpox. This hesitancy startled the magistrate. + +"It is his build, his height," said the agent. "Oh! yes, it is you, +Jacques Collin!" he went on, as he examined his eyes, forehead, and +ears. "There are some things which no disguise can alter.... Certainly +it is he, Monsieur Camusot. Jacques has the scar of a cut on his left +arm. Take off his coat, and you will see..." + +Jacques Collin was again obliged to take off his coat; Bibi-Lupin turned +up his sleeve and showed the scar he had spoken of. + +"It is the scar of a bullet," replied Don Carlos Herrera. "Here are +several more." + +"Ah! It is certainly his voice," cried Bibi-Lupin. + +"Your certainty," said Camusot, "is merely an opinion; it is not proof." + +"I know that," said Bibi-Lupin with deference. "But I will bring +witnesses. One of the boarders from the Maison Vauquer is here already," +said he, with an eye on Collin. + +But the prisoner's set, calm face did not move a muscle. + +"Show the person in," said Camusot roughly, his dissatisfaction +betraying itself in spite of his seeming indifference. + +This irritation was not lost on Jacques Collin, who had not counted +on the judge's sympathy, and sat lost in apathy, produced by his deep +meditations in the effort to guess what the cause could be. + + + +The usher now showed in Madame Poiret. At this unexpected appearance the +prisoner had a slight shiver, but his trepidation was not remarked by +Camusot, who seemed to have made up his mind. + +"What is your name?" asked he, proceeding to carry out the formalities +introductory to all depositions and examinations. + +Madame Poiret, a little old woman as white and wrinkled as a sweetbread, +dressed in a dark-blue silk gown, gave her name as Christine Michelle +Michonneau, wife of one Poiret, and her age as fifty-one years, said +that she was born in Paris, lived in the Rue des Poules at the corner +of the Rue des Postes, and that her business was that of lodging-house +keeper. + +"In 1818 and 1819," said the judge, "you lived, madame, in a +boarding-house kept by a Madame Vauquer?" + +"Yes, monsieur; it was there that I met Monsieur Poiret, a retired +official, who became my husband, and whom I have nursed in his bed this +twelvemonth past. Poor man! he is very bad; and I cannot be long away +from him." + +"There was a certain Vautrin in the house at the time?" asked Camusot. + +"Oh, monsieur, that is quite a long story; he was a horrible man, from +the galleys----" + +"You helped to get him arrested?" + +"That is not true sir." + +"You are in the presence of the Law; be careful," said Monsieur Camusot +severely. + +Madame Poiret was silent. + +"Try to remember," Camusot went on. "Do you recollect the man? Would you +know him again?" + +"I think so." + +"Is this the man?" + +Madame Poiret put on her "eye-preservers," and looked at the Abbe Carlos +Herrera. + +"It is his build, his height; and yet--no--if--Monsieur le Juge," she +said, "if I could see his chest I should recognize him at once." + +The magistrate and his clerk could not help laughing, notwithstanding +the gravity of their office; Jacques Collin joined in their hilarity, +but discreetly. The prisoner had not put on his coat after Bibi-Lupin +had removed it, and at a sign from the judge he obligingly opened his +shirt. + +"Yes, that is his fur trimming, sure enough!--But it has worn gray, +Monsieur Vautrin," cried Madame Poiret. + +"What have you to say to that?" asked the judge of the prisoner. + +"That she is mad," replied Jacques Collin. + +"Bless me! If I had a doubt--for his face is altered--that voice would +be enough. He is the man who threatened me. Ah! and those are his eyes!" + +"The police agent and this woman," said Camusot, speaking to Jacques +Collin, "cannot possibly have conspired to say the same thing, for +neither of them had seen you till now. How do you account for that?" + +"Justice has blundered more conspicuously even than it does now in +accepting the evidence of a woman who recognizes a man by the hair on +his chest and the suspicions of a police agent," replied Jacques Collin. +"I am said to resemble a great criminal in voice, eyes, and build; +that seems a little vague. As to the memory which would prove certain +relations between Madame and my Sosie--which she does not blush to +own--you yourself laughed at. Allow me, monsieur, in the interests of +truth, which I am far more anxious to establish for my own sake than you +can be for the sake of justice, to ask this lady--Madame Foiret----" + +"Poiret." + +"Poret--excuse me, I am a Spaniard--whether she remembers the other +persons who lived in this--what did you call the house?" + +"A boarding-house," said Madame Poiret. + +"I do not know what that is." + +"A house where you can dine and breakfast by subscription." + +"You are right," said Camusot, with a favorable nod to Jacques Collin, +whose apparent good faith in suggesting means to arrive at some +conclusion struck him greatly. "Try to remember the boarders who were in +the house when Jacques Collin was apprehended." + +"There were Monsieur de Rastignac, Doctor Bianchon, Pere Goriot, +Mademoiselle Taillefer----" + +"That will do," said Camusot, steadily watching Jacques Collin, whose +expression did not change. "Well, about this Pere Goriot?" + +"He is dead," said Madame Poiret. + +"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin, "I have several times met Monsieur de +Rastignac, a friend, I believe, of Madame de Nucingen's; and if it is +the same, he certainly never supposed me to be the convict with whom +these persons try to identify me." + +"Monsieur de Rastignac and Doctor Bianchon," said the magistrate, "both +hold such a social position that their evidence, if it is in your favor, +will be enough to procure your release.--Coquart, fill up a summons for +each of them." + +The formalities attending Madame Poiret's examination were over in a few +minutes; Coquart read aloud to her the notes he had made of the little +scene, and she signed the paper; but the prisoner refused to sign, +alleging his ignorance of the forms of French law. + +"That is enough for to-day," said Monsieur Camusot. "You must be wanting +food. I will have you taken back to the Conciergerie." + +"Alas! I am suffering too much to be able to eat," said Jacques Collin. + +Camusot was anxious to time Jacques Collin's return to coincide with the +prisoners' hour of exercise in the prison yard; but he needed a reply +from the Governor of the Conciergerie to the order he had given him in +the morning, and he rang for the usher. The usher appeared, and told +him that the porter's wife, from the house on the Quai Malaquais, had an +important document to communicate with reference to Monsieur Lucien de +Rubempre. This was so serious a matter that it put Camusot's intentions +out of his head. + +"Show her in," said he. + +"Beg your pardon; pray excuse me, gentlemen all," said the woman, +courtesying to the judge and the Abbe Carlos by turns. "We were so +worried by the Law--my husband and me--the twice when it has marched +into our house, that we had forgotten a letter that was lying, for +Monsieur Lucien, in our chest of drawers, which we paid ten sous for +it, though it was posted in Paris, for it is very heavy, sir. Would you +please to pay me back the postage? For God knows when we shall see our +lodgers again!" + +"Was this letter handed to you by the postman?" asked Camusot, after +carefully examining the envelope. + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"Coquart, write full notes of this deposition.--Go on, my good woman; +tell us your name and your business." Camusot made the woman take the +oath, and then he dictated the document. + +While these formalities were being carried out, he was scrutinizing the +postmark, which showed the hours of posting and delivery, as well at the +date of the day. And this letter, left for Lucien the day after Esther's +death, had beyond a doubt been written and posted on the day of the +catastrophe. Monsieur Camusot's amazement may therefore be imagined when +he read this letter written and signed by her whom the law believed to +have been the victim of a crime:-- + + + "_Esther to Lucien_. + + "MONDAY, May 13th, 1830. + + "My last day; ten in the morning. + + "MY LUCIEN,--I have not an hour to live. At eleven o'clock I shall + be dead, and I shall die without a pang. I have paid fifty + thousand francs for a neat little black currant, containing a + poison that will kill me with the swiftness of lightning. And so, + my darling, you may tell yourself, 'My little Esther had no + suffering.'--and yet I shall suffer in writing these pages. + + "The monster who has paid so dear for me, knowing that the day + when I should know myself to be his would have no morrow--Nucingen + has just left me, as drunk as a bear with his skin full of wind. + For the first and last time in my life I have had the opportunity + of comparing my old trade as a street hussy with the life of true + love, of placing the tenderness which unfolds in the infinite + above the horrors of a duty which longs to destroy itself and + leave no room even for a kiss. Only such loathing could make death + delightful. + + "I have taken a bath; I should have liked to send for the father + confessor of the convent where I was baptized, to have confessed + and washed my soul. But I have had enough of prostitution; it + would be profaning a sacrament; and besides, I feel myself + cleansed in the waters of sincere repentance. God must do what He + will with me. + + "But enough of all this maudlin; for you I want to be your Esther + to the last moment, not to bore you with my death, or the future, + or God, who is good, and who would not be good if He were to + torture me in the next world when I have endured so much misery in + this. + + "I have before me your beautiful portrait, painted by Madame de + Mirbel. That sheet of ivory used to comfort me in your absence, I + look at it with rapture as I write you my last thoughts, and tell + you of the last throbbing of my heart. I shall enclose the + miniature in this letter, for I cannot bear that it should be + stolen or sold. The mere thought that what has been my great joy + may lie behind a shop window, mixed up with the ladies and + officers of the Empire, or a parcel of Chinese absurdities, is a + small death to me. Destroy that picture, my sweetheart, wipe it + out, never give it to any one--unless, indeed, the gift might win + back the heart of that walking, well-dressed maypole, that + Clotilde de Grandlieu, who will make you black and blue in her + sleep, her bones are so sharp.--Yes, to that I consent, and then I + shall still be of some use to you, as when I was alive. Oh! to + give you pleasure, or only to make you laugh, I would have stood + over a brazier with an apple in my mouth to cook it for you.--So + my death even will be of service to you.--I should have marred + your home. + + "Oh! that Clotilde! I cannot understand her.--She might have been + your wife, have borne your name, have never left you day or night, + have belonged to you--and she could make difficulties! Only the + Faubourg Saint-Germain can do that! and yet she has not ten pounds + of flesh on her bones! + + "Poor Lucien! Dear ambitious failure! I am thinking of your future + life. Well, well! you will more than once regret your poor + faithful dog, the good girl who would fly to serve you, who would + have been dragged into a police court to secure your happiness, + whose only occupation was to think of your pleasures and invent + new ones, who was so full of love for you--in her hair, her feet, + her ears--your ballerina, in short, whose every look was a + benediction; who for six years has thought of nothing but you, who + was so entirely your chattel that I have never been anything but + an effluence of your soul, as light is that of the sun. However, + for lack of money and of honor, I can never be your wife. I have + at any rate provided for your future by giving you all I have. + + "Come as soon as you get this letter and take what you find under + my pillow, for I do not trust the people about me. Understand that + I mean to look beautiful when I am dead. I shall go to bed, and + lay myself flat in an attitude--why not? Then I shall break the + little pill against the roof of my mouth, and shall not be + disfigured by any convulsion or by a ridiculous position. + + "Madame de Serizy has quarreled with you, I know, because of me; + but when she hears that I am dead, you see, dear pet, she will + forgive. Make it up with her, and she will find you a suitable + wife if the Grandlieus persist in their refusal. + + "My dear, I do not want you to grieve too much when you hear of my + death. To begin with, I must tell you that the hour of eleven on + Monday morning, the thirteenth of May, is only the end of a long + illness, which began on the day when, on the Terrace of + Saint-Germain, you threw me back on my former line of life. The soul + may be sick, as the body is. But the soul cannot submit stupidly to + suffering like the body; the body does not uphold the soul as the + soul upholds the body, and the soul sees a means of cure in the + reflection which leads to the needlewoman's resource--the bushel + of charcoal. You gave me a whole life the day before yesterday, + when you said that if Clotilde still refused you, you would marry + me. It would have been a great misfortune for us both; I should + have been still more dead, so to speak--for there are more and + less bitter deaths. The world would never have recognized us. + + "For two months past I have been thinking of many things, I can + tell you. A poor girl is in the mire, as I was before I went into + the convent; men think her handsome, they make her serve their + pleasure without thinking any consideration necessary; they pack + her off on foot after fetching her in a carriage; if they do not + spit in her face, it is only because her beauty preserves her from + such indignity; but, morally speaking they do worse. Well, and if + this despised creature were to inherit five or six millions of + francs, she would be courted by princes, bowed to with respect as + she went past in her carriage, and might choose among the oldest + names in France and Navarre. That world which would have cried + Raca to us, on seeing two handsome creatures united and happy, + always did honor to Madame de Stael, in spite of her 'romances in + real life,' because she had two hundred thousand francs a year. + The world, which grovels before money or glory, will not bow down + before happiness or virtue--for I could have done good. Oh! how + many tears I would have dried--as many as I have shed--I believe! + Yes, I would have lived only for you and for charity. + + "These are the thoughts that make death beautiful. So do not + lament, my dear. Say often to yourself, 'There were two good + creatures, two beautiful creatures, who both died for me + ungrudgingly, and who adored me.' Keep a memory in your heart of + Coralie and Esther, and go your way and prosper. Do you recollect + the day when you pointed out to me a shriveled old woman, in a + melon-green bonnet and a puce wrapper, all over black + grease-spots, the mistress of a poet before the Revolution, hardly + thawed by the sun though she was sitting against the wall of the + Tuileries and fussing over a pug--the vilest of pugs? She had had + footmen and carriages, you know, and a fine house! And I said to + you then, 'How much better to be dead at thirty!'--Well, you + thought I was melancholy, and you played all sorts of pranks to + amuse me, and between two kisses I said, 'Every day some pretty + woman leaves the play before it is over!'--And I do not want to + see the last piece; that is all. + + "You must think me a great chatterbox; but this is my last + effusion. I write as if I were talking to you, and I like to talk + cheerfully. I have always had a horror of a dressmaker pitying + herself. You know I knew how to die decently once before, on my + return from that fatal opera-ball where the men said I had been a + prostitute. + + "No, no, my dear love, never give this portrait to any one! If you + could know with what a gush of love I have sat losing myself in + your eyes, looking at them with rapture during a pause I allowed + myself, you would feel as you gathered up the affection with which + I have tried to overlay the ivory, that the soul of your little + pet is indeed there. + + "A dead woman craving alms! That is a funny idea.--Come, I must + learn to lie quiet in my grave. + + "You have no idea how heroic my death would seem to some fools if + they could know Nucingen last night offered me two millions of + francs if I would love him as I love you. He will be handsomely + robbed when he hears that I have kept my word and died of him. I + tried all I could still to breathe the air you breathe. I said to + the fat scoundrel, 'Do you want me to love you as you wish? To + promise even that I will never see Lucien again?'--'What must I + do?' he asked.--'Give me the two millions for him.'--You should + have seen his face! I could have laughed, if it had not been so + tragical for me. + + "'Spare yourself the trouble of refusing,' said I; 'I see you + care more for your two millions than for me. A woman is always + glad to know at what she is valued!' and I turned my back on him. + + "In a few hours the old rascal will know that I was not in jest. + + "Who will part your hair as nicely as I do? Pooh!--I will think no + more of anything in life; I have but five minutes, I give them to + God. Do not be jealous of Him, dear heart; I shall speak to Him of + you, beseeching Him for your happiness as the price of my death, + and my punishment in the next world. I am vexed enough at having + to go to hell. I should have liked to see the angels, to know if + they are like you. + + "Good-bye, my darling, good-bye! I give you all the blessing of my + woes. Even in the grave I am your Esther. + + "It is striking eleven. I have said my last prayers. I am going to + bed to die. Once more, farewell! I wish that the warmth of my hand + could leave my soul there where I press a last kiss--and once more + I must call you my dearest love, though you are the cause of the + death of your Esther." + +A vague feeling of jealousy tightened on the magistrate's heart as +he read this letter, the only letter from a suicide he had ever found +written with such lightness, though it was a feverish lightness, and the +last effort of a blind affection. + +"What is there in the man that he should be loved so well?" thought he, +saying what every man says who has not the gift of attracting women. + +"If you can prove not merely that you are not Jacques Collin and an +escaped convict, but that you are in fact Don Carlos Herrera, canon +of Toledo, and secret envoy of this Majesty Ferdinand VII.," said he, +addressing the prisoner "you will be released; for the impartiality +demanded by my office requires me to tell you that I have this moment +received a letter, written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, in which she +declares her intention of killing herself, and expresses suspicions as +to her servants, which would seem to point to them as the thieves who +have made off with the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs." + +As he spoke Monsieur Camusot was comparing the writing of the letter +with that of the will; and it seemed to him self-evident that the same +person had written both. + +"Monsieur, you were in too great a hurry to believe in a murder; do not +be too hasty in believing in a theft." + +"Heh!" said Camusot, scrutinizing the prisoner with a piercing eye. + +"Do not suppose that I am compromising myself by telling you that the +sum may possibly be recovered," said Jacques Collin, making the judge +understand that he saw his suspicions. "That poor girl was much loved +by those about her; and if I were free, I would undertake to search +for this money, which no doubt belongs to the being I love best in the +world--to Lucien!--Will you allow me to read that letter; it will not +take long? It is evidence of my dear boy's innocence--you cannot +fear that I shall destroy it--nor that I shall talk about it; I am in +solitary confinement." + +"In confinement! You will be so no longer," cried the magistrate. "It +is I who must beg you to get well as soon as possible. Refer to your +ambassador if you choose----" + +And he handed the letter to Jacques Collin. Camusot was glad to be out +of a difficulty, to be able to satisfy the public prosecutor, Mesdames +de Maufrigneuse and de Serizy. Nevertheless, he studied his prisoner's +face with cold curiosity while Collin read Esther's letter; in spite +of the apparent genuineness of the feelings it expressed, he said to +himself: + +"But it is a face worthy of the hulks, all the same!" + +"That is the way to love!" said Jacques Collin, returning the letter. +And he showed Camusot a face bathed in tears. + +"If only you knew him," he went on, "so youthful, so innocent a soul, so +splendidly handsome, a child, a poet!--The impulse to sacrifice oneself +to him is irresistible, to satisfy his lightest wish. That dear boy is +so fascinating when he chooses----" + +"And so," said the magistrate, making a final effort to discover the +truth, "you cannot possibly be Jacques Collin----" + +"No, monsieur," replied the convict. + +And Jacques Collin was more entirely Don Carlos Herrera than ever. In +his anxiety to complete his work he went up to the judge, led him to the +window, and gave himself the airs of a prince of the Church, assuming a +confidential tone: + +"I am so fond of that boy, monsieur, that if it were needful, to spare +that idol of my heart a mere discomfort even, that I should be the +criminal you take me for, I would surrender," said he in an undertone. +"I would follow the example of the poor girl who has killed herself for +his benefit. And I beg you, monsieur, to grant me a favor--namely, to +set Lucien at liberty forthwith." + +"My duty forbids it," said Camusot very good-naturedly; "but if a sinner +may make a compromise with heaven, justice too has its softer side, and +if you can give me sufficient reasons--speak; your words will not be +taken down." + +"Well, then," Jacques Collin went on, taken in by Camusot's apparent +goodwill, "I know what that poor boy is suffering at this moment; he is +capable of trying to kill himself when he finds himself a prisoner----" + +"Oh! as to that!" said Camusot with a shrug. + +"You do not know whom you will oblige by obliging me," added Jacques +Collin, trying to harp on another string. "You will be doing a service +to others more powerful than any Comtesse de Serizy or Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse, who will never forgive you for having had their letters in +your chambers----" and he pointed to two packets of perfumed papers. "My +Order has a good memory." + +"Monsieur," said Camusot, "that is enough. You must find better reasons +to give me. I am as much interested in the prisoner as in public +vengeance." + +"Believe me, then, I know Lucien; he has a soul of a woman, of a poet, +and a southerner, without persistency or will," said Jacques Collin, who +fancied that he saw that he had won the judge over. "You are convinced +of the young man's innocence, do not torture him, do not question him. +Give him that letter, tell him that he is Esther's heir, and restore him +to freedom. If you act otherwise, you will bring despair on yourself; +whereas, if you simply release him, I will explain to you--keep me still +in solitary confinement--to-morrow or this evening, everything that +may strike you as mysterious in the case, and the reasons for the +persecution of which I am the object. But it will be at the risk of my +life, a price has been set on my head these six years past.... Lucien +free, rich, and married to Clotilde de Grandlieu, and my task on earth +will be done; I shall no longer try to save my skin.--My persecutor was +a spy under your late King." + +"What, Corentin?" + +"Ah! Is his name Corentin? Thank you, monsieur. Well, will you promise +to do as I ask you?" + +"A magistrate can make no promises.--Coquart, tell the usher and the +gendarmes to take the prisoner back to the Conciergerie.--I will give +orders that you are to have a private room," he added pleasantly, with a +slight nod to the convict. + +Struck by Jacques Collin's request, and remembering how he had insisted +that he wished to be examined first as a privilege to his state of +health, Camusot's suspicions were aroused once more. Allowing his vague +doubts to make themselves heard, he noticed that the self-styled dying +man was walking off with the strength of a Hercules, having abandoned +all the tricks he had aped so well on appearing before the magistrate. + +"Monsieur!" + +Jacques Collin turned round. + +"Notwithstanding your refusal to sign the document, my clerk will read +you the minutes of your examination." + +The prisoner was evidently in excellent health; the readiness with +which he came back, and sat down by the clerk, was a fresh light to the +magistrate's mind. + +"You have got well very suddenly!" said Camusot. + +"Caught!" thought Jacques Collin; and he replied: + +"Joy, monsieur, is the only panacea.--That letter, the proof of +innocence of which I had no doubt--these are the grand remedy." + +The judge kept a meditative eye on the prisoner when the usher and the +gendarmes again took him in charge. Then, with a start like a waking +man, he tossed Esther's letter across to the table where his clerk sat, +saying: + +"Coquart, copy that letter." + +If it is natural to man to be suspicious as to some favor required of +him when it is antagonistic to his interests or his duty, and sometimes +even when it is a matter of indifference, this feeling is law to an +examining magistrate. The more this prisoner--whose identity was not yet +ascertained--pointed to clouds on the horizon in the event of Lucien's +being examined, the more necessary did the interrogatory seem to +Camusot. Even if this formality had not been required by the Code and by +common practice, it was indispensable as bearing on the identification +of the Abbe Carlos. There is in every walk of life the business +conscience. In default of curiosity Camusot would have examined Lucien +as he had examined Jacques Collin, with all the cunning which the most +honest magistrate allows himself to use in such cases. The services he +might render and his own promotion were secondary in Camusot's mind to +his anxiety to know or guess the truth, even if he should never tell it. + +He stood drumming on the window-pane while following the river-like +current of his conjectures, for in these moods thought is like a stream +flowing through many countries. Magistrates, in love with truth, are +like jealous women; they give way to a thousand hypotheses, and probe +them with the dagger-point of suspicion, as the sacrificing priest of +old eviscerated his victims; thus they arrive, not perhaps at truth, +but at probability, and at last see the truth beyond. A woman +cross-questions the man she loves as the judge cross-questions a +criminal. In such a frame of mind, a glance, a word, a tone of voice, +the slightest hesitation is enough to certify the hidden fact--treason +or crime. + +"The style in which he depicted his devotion to his son--if he is his +son--is enough to make me think that he was in the girl's house to keep +an eye on the plunder; and never suspecting that the dead woman's pillow +covered a will, he no doubt annexed, for his son, the seven hundred and +fifty thousand francs as a precaution. That is why he can promise to +recover the money. + +"M. de Rubempre owes it to himself and to justice to account for his +father's position in the world---- + +"And he offers me the protection of his Order--His Order!--if I do not +examine Lucien----" + +As has been seen, a magistrate conducts an examination exactly as he +thinks proper. He is at liberty to display his acumen or be absolutely +blunt. An examination may be everything or nothing. Therein lies the +favor. + +Camusot rang. The usher had returned. He was sent to fetch Monsieur +Lucien de Rubempre with an injunction to prohibit his speaking to +anybody on his way up. It was by this time two in the afternoon. + +"There is some secret," said the judge to himself, "and that secret must +be very important. My amphibious friend--since he is neither priest, +nor secular, nor convict, nor Spaniard, though he wants to hinder his +protege from letting out something dreadful--argues thus: 'The poet is +weak and effeminate; he is not like me, a Hercules in diplomacy, and you +will easily wring our secret from him.'--Well, we will get everything +out of this innocent." + +And he sat tapping the edge of his table with the ivory paper-knife, +while Coquart copied Esther's letter. + +How whimsical is the action of our faculties! Camusot conceived of every +crime as possible, and overlooked the only one that the prisoner had +now committed--the forgery of the will for Lucien's advantage. Let those +whose envy vents itself on magistrates think for a moment of their life +spent in perpetual suspicion, of the torments these men must inflict +on their minds, for civil cases are not less tortuous than criminal +examinations, and it will occur to them perhaps that the priest and the +lawyer wear an equally heavy coat of mail, equally furnished with spikes +in the lining. However, every profession has its hair shirt and its +Chinese puzzles. + + + +It was about two o'clock when Monsieur Camusot saw Lucien de Rubempre +come in, pale, worn, his eyes red and swollen, in short, in a state of +dejection which enabled the magistrate to compare nature with art, +the really dying man with the stage performance. His walk from the +Conciergerie to the judge's chambers, between two gendarmes, and +preceded by the usher, had put the crowning touch to Lucien's despair. +It is the poet's nature to prefer execution to condemnation. + +As he saw this being, so completely bereft of the moral courage which +is the essence of a judge, and which the last prisoner had so strongly +manifested, Monsieur Camusot disdained the easy victory; and this scorn +enabled him to strike a decisive blow, since it left him, on the ground, +that horrible clearness of mind which the marksman feels when he is +firing at a puppet. + +"Collect yourself, Monsieur de Rubempre; you are in the presence of a +magistrate who is eager to repair the mischief done involuntarily by +the law when a man is taken into custody on suspicion that has no +foundation. I believe you to be innocent, and you will soon be at +liberty.--Here is the evidence of your innocence; it is a letter kept +for you during your absence by your porter's wife; she has just brought +it here. In the commotion caused by the visitation of justice and the +news of your arrest at Fontainebleau, the woman forgot the letter which +was written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck.--Read it!" + +Lucien took the letter, read it, and melted into tears. He sobbed, and +could not say a single word. At the end of a quarter of an hour, during +which Lucien with great difficulty recovered his self-command, the clerk +laid before him the copy of the letter and begged him to sign a footnote +certifying that the copy was faithful to the original, and might be +used in its stead "on all occasions in the course of this preliminary +inquiry," giving him the option of comparing the two; but Lucien, of +course, took Coquart's word for its accuracy. + +"Monsieur," said the lawyer, with friendly good nature, "it is +nevertheless impossible that I should release you without carrying out +the legal formalities, and asking you some questions.--It is almost as a +witness that I require you to answer. To such a man as you I think it is +almost unnecessary to point out that the oath to tell the whole truth is +not in this case a mere appeal to your conscience, but a necessity for +your own sake, your position having been for a time somewhat ambiguous. +The truth can do you no harm, be it what it may; falsehood will send you +to trial, and compel me to send you back to the Conciergerie; whereas +if you answer fully to my questions, you will sleep to-night in your own +house, and be rehabilitated by this paragraph in the papers: 'Monsieur +de Rubempre, who was arrested yesterday at Fontainebleau, was set at +liberty after a very brief examination.'" + +This speech made a deep impression on Lucien; and the judge, seeing the +temper of his prisoner, added: + +"I may repeat to you that you were suspected of being accessory to +the murder by poison of this Demoiselle Esther. Her suicide is clearly +proved, and there is an end of that; but a sum of seven hundred and +fifty thousand francs has been stolen, which she had disposed of +by will, and you are the legatee. This is a felony. The crime was +perpetrated before the discovery of the will. + +"Now there is reason to suppose that a person who loves you as much as +you loved Mademoiselle Esther committed the theft for your benefit.--Do +not interrupt me," Camusot went on, seeing that Lucien was about to +speak, and commanding silence by a gesture; "I am asking you nothing +so far. I am anxious to make you understand how deeply your honor is +concerned in this question. Give up the false and contemptible notion of +the honor binding two accomplices, and tell the whole truth." + +The reader must already have observed the extreme disproportion of the +weapons in this conflict between the prisoner under suspicion and the +examining judge. Absolute denial when skilfully used has in its favor +its positive simplicity, and sufficiently defends the criminal; but +it is, in a way, a coat of mail which becomes crushing as soon as the +stiletto of cross-examination finds a joint to it. As soon as mere +denial is ineffectual in face of certain proven facts, the examinee is +entirely at the judge's mercy. + +Now, supposing that a sort of half-criminal, like Lucien, might, if he +were saved from the first shipwreck of his honesty, amend his ways, and +become a useful member of society, he will be lost in the pitfalls of +his examination. + +The judge has the driest possible record drawn up of the proceedings, a +faithful analysis of the questions and answers; but no trace remains of +his insidiously paternal addresses or his captious remonstrances, such +as this speech. The judges of the superior courts see the results, +but see nothing of the means. Hence, as some experienced persons have +thought, it would be a good plan that, as in England, a jury should hear +the examination. For a short while France enjoyed the benefit of this +system. Under the Code of Brumaire of the year IV., this body was known +as the examining jury, as distinguished from the trying jury. As to the +final trial, if we should restore the examining jury, it would have to +be the function of the superior courts without the aid of a jury. + +"And now," said Camusot, after a pause, "what is your name?--Attention, +Monsieur Coquart!" said he to the clerk. + +"Lucien Chardon de Rubempre." + +"And you were born----?" + +"At Angouleme." And Lucien named the day, month, and year. + +"You inherited no fortune?" + +"None whatever." + +"And yet, during your first residence in Paris, you spent a great deal, +as compared with your small income?" + +"Yes, monsieur; but at that time I had a most devoted friend in +Mademoiselle Coralie, and I was so unhappy as to lose her. It was my +grief at her death that made me return to my country home." + +"That is right, monsieur," said Camusot; "I commend your frankness; it +will be thoroughly appreciated." + +Lucien, it will be seen, was prepared to make a clean breast of it. + +"On your return to Paris you lived even more expensively than before," +Camusot went on. "You lived like a man who might have about sixty +thousand francs a year." + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"Who supplied you with the money?" + +"My protector, the Abbe Carlos Herrera." + +"Where did you meet him?" + +"We met when traveling, just as I was about to be quit of life by +committing suicide." + +"You never heard him spoken of by your family--by your mother?" + +"Never." + +"Can you remember the year and the month when you first became connected +with Mademoiselle Esther?" + +"Towards the end of 1823, at a small theatre on the Boulevard." + +"At first she was an expense to you?" + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"Lately, in the hope of marrying Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, you +purchased the ruins of the Chateau de Rubempre, you added land to the +value of a million francs, and you told the family of Grandlieu that +your sister and your brother-in-law had just come into a considerable +fortune, and that their liberality had supplied you with the money.--Did +you tell the Grandlieus this, monsieur?" + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"You do not know the reason why the marriage was broken off?" + +"Not in the least, monsieur." + +"Well, the Grandlieus sent one of the most respectable attorneys +in Paris to see your brother-in-law and inquire into the facts. +At Angouleme this lawyer, from the statements of your sister and +brother-in-law, learned that they not only had hardly lent you any +money, but also that their inheritance consisted of land, of some extent +no doubt, but that the whole amount of invested capital was not more +than about two hundred thousand francs.--Now you cannot wonder that such +people as the Grandlieus should reject a fortune of which the source is +more than doubtful. This, monsieur, is what a lie has led to----" + +Lucien was petrified by this revelation, and the little presence of mind +he had preserved deserted him. + +"Remember," said Camusot, "that the police and the law know all they +want to know.--And now," he went on, recollecting Jacques Collin's +assumed paternity, "do you know who this pretended Carlos Herrera is?" + +"Yes, monsieur; but I knew it too late." + +"Too late! How? Explain yourself." + +"He is not a priest, not a Spaniard, he is----" + +"An escaped convict?" said the judge eagerly. + +"Yes," replied Lucien, "when he told me the fatal secret, I was +already under obligations to him; I had fancied I was befriended by a +respectable priest." + +"Jacques Collin----" said Monsieur Camusot, beginning a sentence. + +"Yes," said Lucien, "his name is Jacques Collin." + +"Very good. Jacques Collin has just now been identified by another +person, and though he denies it, he does so, I believe, in your +interest. But I asked whether you knew who the man is in order to prove +another of Jacques Collin's impostures." + +Lucien felt as though he had hot iron in his inside as he heard this +alarming statement. + +"Do you not know," Camusot went on, "that in order to give color to +the extraordinary affection he has for you, he declares that he is your +father?" + +"He! My father?--Oh, monsieur, did he tell you that?" + +"Have you any suspicion of where the money came from that he used to +give you? For, if I am to believe the evidence of the letter you have +in your hand, that poor girl, Mademoiselle Esther, must have done you +lately the same services as Coralie formerly rendered you. Still, for +some years, as you have just admitted, you lived very handsomely without +receiving anything from her." + +"It is I who should ask you, monsieur, whence convicts get their money! +Jacques Collin my father!--Oh, my poor mother!" and Lucien burst into +tears. + +"Coquart, read out to the prisoner that part of Carlos Herrera's +examination in which he said that Lucien de Rubempre was his son." + +The poet listened in silence, and with a look that was terrible to +behold. + +"I am done for!" he cried. + +"A man is not done for who is faithful to the path of honor and truth," +said the judge. + +"But you will commit Jacques Collin for trial?" said Lucien. + +"Undoubtedly," said Camusot, who aimed at making Lucien talk. "Speak +out." + +But in spite of all his persuasion and remonstrances, Lucien would say +no more. Reflection had come too late, as it does to all men who are the +slaves of impulse. There lies the difference between the poet and +the man of action; one gives way to feeling to reproduce it in living +images, his judgement comes in after; the other feels and judges both at +once. + +Lucien remained pale and gloomy; he saw himself at the bottom of the +precipice, down which the examining judge had rolled him by the apparent +candor which had entrapped his poet's soul. He had betrayed, not his +benefactor, but an accomplice who had defended their position with the +courage of a lion, and a skill that showed no flaw. Where Jacques Collin +had saved everything by his daring, Lucien, the man of brains, had +lost all by his lack of intelligence and reflection. This infamous lie +against which he revolted had screened a yet more infamous truth. + +Utterly confounded by the judge's skill, overpowered by his cruel +dexterity, by the swiftness of the blows he had dealt him while +making use of the errors of a life laid bare as probes to search his +conscience, Lucien sat like an animal which the butcher's pole-axe had +failed to kill. Free and innocent when he came before the judge, in a +moment his own avowal had made him feel criminal. + +To crown all, as a final grave irony, Camusot, cold and calm, +pointed out to Lucien that his self-betrayal was the result of a +misapprehension. Camusot was thinking of Jacques Collin's announcing +himself as Lucien's father; while Lucien, wholly absorbed by his fear of +seeing his confederacy with an escaped convict made public, had imitated +the famous inadvertency of the murderers of Ibycus. + +One of Royer-Collard's most famous achievements was proclaiming the +constant triumph of natural feeling over engrafted sentiments, and +defending the cause of anterior oaths by asserting that the law of +hospitality, for instance, ought to be regarded as binding to the point +of negativing the obligation of a judicial oath. He promulgated this +theory, in the face of the world, from the French tribune; he boldly +upheld conspirators, showing that it was human to be true to friendship +rather than to the tyrannical laws brought out of the social arsenal +to be adjusted to circumstances. And, indeed, natural rights have laws +which have never been codified, but which are more effectual and better +known than those laid down by society. Lucien had misapprehended, to +his cost, the law of cohesion, which required him to be silent and leave +Jacques Collin to protect himself; nay, more, he had accused him. In his +own interests the man ought always to be, to him, Carlos Herrera. + +Monsieur Camusot was rejoicing in his triumph; he had secured two +criminals. He had crushed with the hand of justice one of the favorites +of fashion, and he had found the undiscoverable Jacques Collin. He would +be regarded as one of the cleverest of examining judges. So he left his +prisoner in peace; but he was studying this speechless consternation, +and he saw drops of sweat collect on the miserable face, swell and fall, +mingled with two streams of tears. + +"Why should you weep, Monsieur de Rubempre? You are, as I have told you, +Mademoiselle Esther's legatee, she having no heirs nor near relations, +and her property amounts to nearly eight millions of francs if the lost +seven hundred and fifty thousand francs are recovered." + +This was the last blow to the poor wretch. "If you do not lose your head +for ten minutes," Jacques Collin had said in his note, and Lucien by +keeping cool would have gained all his desire. He might have paid his +debt to Jacques Collin and have cut him adrift, have been rich, and +have married Mademoiselle de Grandlieu. Nothing could more eloquently +demonstrate the power with which the examining judge is armed, as a +consequence of the isolation or separation of persons under suspicion, +or the value of such a communication as Asie had conveyed to Jacques +Collin. + +"Ah, monsieur!" replied Lucien, with the satirical bitterness of a man +who makes a pedestal of his utter overthrow, "how appropriate is the +phrase in legal slang 'to UNDERGO examination.' For my part, if I had to +choose between the physical torture of past ages and the moral torture +of our day, I would not hesitate to prefer the sufferings inflicted +of old by the executioner.--What more do you want of me?" he added +haughtily. + +"In this place, monsieur," said the magistrate, answering the poet's +pride with mocking arrogance, "I alone have a right to ask questions." + +"I had the right to refuse to answer them," muttered the hapless Lucien, +whose wits had come back to him with perfect lucidity. + +"Coquart, read the minutes to the prisoner." + +"I am the prisoner once more," said Lucien to himself. + +While the clerk was reading, Lucien came to a determination which +compelled him to smooth down Monsieur Camusot. When Coquart's drone +ceased, the poet started like a man who has slept through a noise to +which his ears are accustomed, and who is roused by its cessation. + +"You have to sign the report of your examination," said the judge. + +"And am I at liberty?" asked Lucien, ironical in his turn. + +"Not yet," said Camusot; "but to-morrow, after being confronted with +Jacques Collin, you will no doubt be free. Justice must now ascertain +whether or no you are accessory to the crimes this man may have +committed since his escape so long ago as 1820. However, you are no +longer in the secret cells. I will write to the Governor to give you a +better room." + +"Shall I find writing materials?" + +"You can have anything supplied to you that you ask for; I will give +orders to that effect by the usher who will take you back." + +Lucien mechanically signed the minutes and initialed the notes in +obedience to Coquart's indications with the meekness of a resigned +victim. A single fact will show what a state he was in better than the +minutest description. The announcement that he would be confronted with +Jacques Collin had at once dried the drops of sweat from his brow, and +his dry eyes glittered with a terrible light. In short, he became, in an +instant as brief as a lightning flash, what Jacques Collin was--a man of +iron. + +In men whose nature is like Lucien's, a nature which Jacques Collin +had so thoroughly fathomed, these sudden transitions from a state of +absolute demoralization to one that is, so to speak, metallic,--so +extreme is the tension of every vital force,--are the most startling +phenomena of mental vitality. The will surges up like the lost waters +of a spring; it diffuses itself throughout the machinery that lies ready +for the action of the unknown matter that constitutes it; and then +the corpse is a man again, and the man rushes on full of energy for a +supreme struggle. + +Lucien laid Esther's letter next his heart, with the miniature she had +returned to him. Then he haughtily bowed to Monsieur Camusot, and went +off with a firm step down the corridors, between two gendarmes. + +"That is a deep scoundrel!" said the judge to his clerk, to avenge +himself for the crushing scorn the poet had displayed. "He thought he +might save himself by betraying his accomplice." + +"Of the two," said Coquart timidly, "the convict is the most +thorough-paced." + +"You are free for the rest of the day, Coquart," said the lawyer. "We +have done enough. Send away any case that is waiting, to be called +to-morrow.--Ah! and you must go at once to the public prosecutor's +chambers and ask if he is still there; if so, ask him if he can give me +a few minutes. Yes; he will not be gone," he added, looking at a common +clock in a wooden case painted green with gilt lines. "It is but a +quarter-past three." + + + +These examinations, which are so quickly read, being written down at +full length, questions and answers alike, take up an enormous amount of +time. This is one of the reasons of the slowness of these preliminaries +to a trial and of these imprisonments "on suspicion." To the poor this +is ruin, to the rich it is disgrace; to them only immediate release can +in any degree repair, so far as possible, the disaster of an arrest. + +This is why the two scenes here related had taken up the whole of the +time spent by Asie in deciphering her master's orders, in getting a +Duchess out of her boudoir, and putting some energy into Madame de +Serizy. + +At this moment Camusot, who was anxious to get the full benefit of his +cleverness, took the two documents, read them through, and promised +himself that he would show them to the public prosecutor and take his +opinion on them. During this meditation, his usher came back to tell +him that Madame la Comtesse de Serizy's man-servant insisted on speaking +with him. At a nod from Camusot, a servant out of livery came in, looked +first at the usher, and then at the magistrate, and said, "I have the +honor of speaking to Monsieur Camusot?" + +"Yes," replied the lawyer and his clerk. + +Camusot took a note which the servant offered him, and read as +follows:-- + + "For the sake of many interests which will be obvious to you, my + dear Camusot, do not examine Monsieur de Rubempre. We have brought + ample proofs of his innocence that he may be released forthwith. + + "D. DE MAUFRIGNEUSE. + "L. DE SERIZY. + + "_P. S._--Burn this note." + + +Camusot understood at once that he had blundered preposterously +in laying snares for Lucien, and he began by obeying the two fine +ladies--he lighted a taper, and burned the letter written by the +Duchess. The man bowed respectfully. + +"Then Madame de Serizy is coming here?" asked Camusot. + +"The carriage is being brought round." + +At this moment Coquart came in to tell Monsieur Camusot that the public +prosecutor expected him. + +Oppressed by the blunder he had committed, in view of his ambitions, +though to the better ends of justice, the lawyer, in whom seven years' +experience had perfected the sharpness that comes to a man who in his +practice has had to measure his wits against the grisettes of Paris, +was anxious to have some shield against the resentment of two women of +fashion. The taper in which he had burned the note was still alight, +and he used it to seal up the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse's notes to +Lucien--about thirty in all--and Madame de Serizy's somewhat voluminous +correspondence. + +Then he waited on the public prosecutor. + +The Palais de Justice is a perplexing maze of buildings piled one above +another, some fine and dignified, others very mean, the whole disfigured +by its lack of unity. The _Salle des Pas-Perdus_ is the largest known +hall, but its nakedness is hideous, and distresses the eye. This vast +Cathedral of the Law crushes the Supreme Court. The Galerie Marchande +ends in two drain-like passages. From this corridor there is a double +staircase, a little larger than that of the Criminal Courts, and under +it a large double door. The stairs lead down to one of the Assize +Courts, and the doors open into another. In some years the number +of crimes committed in the circuit of the Seine is great enough to +necessitate the sitting of two Benches. + +Close by are the public prosecutor's offices, the attorney's room and +library, the chambers of the attorney-general, and those of the public +prosecutor's deputies. All these purlieus, to use a generic term, +communicate by narrow spiral stairs and the dark passages, which are a +disgrace to the architecture not of Paris only, but of all France. +The interior arrangement of the sovereign court of justice outdoes our +prisons in all that is most hideous. The writer describing our manners +and customs would shrink from the necessity of depicting the squalid +corridor of about a metre in width, in which the witnesses wait in the +Superior Criminal Court. As to the stove which warms the court itself, +it would disgrace a cafe on the Boulevard Mont-Parnasse. + +The public prosecutor's private room forms part of an octagon wing +flanking the Galerie Marchande, built out recently in regard to the age +of the structure, over the prison yard, outside the women's quarters. +All this part of the Palais is overshadowed by the lofty and noble +edifice of the Sainte-Chapelle. And all is solemn and silent. + +Monsieur de Granville, a worthy successor of the great magistrates of +the ancient Parlement, would not leave Paris without coming to some +conclusion in the matter of Lucien. He expected to hear from Camusot, +and the judge's message had plunged him into the involuntary suspense +which waiting produces on even the strongest minds. He had been sitting +in the window-bay of his private room; he rose, and walked up and down, +for having lingered in the morning to intercept Camusot, he had found +him dull of apprehension; he was vaguely uneasy and worried. + +And this was why. + +The dignity of his high functions forbade his attempting to fetter the +perfect independence of the inferior judge, and yet this trial +nearly touched the honor and good name of his best friend and warmest +supporter, the Comte de Serizy, Minister of State, member of the Privy +Council, Vice-President of the State Council, and prospective Chancellor +of the Realm, in the event of the death of the noble old man who held +that august office. It was Monsieur de Serizy's misfortune to adore +his wife "through fire and water," and he always shielded her with his +protection. Now the public prosecutor fully understood the terrible fuss +that would be made in the world and at court if a crime should be proved +against a man whose name had been so often and so malignantly linked +with that of the Countess. + +"Ah!" he sighed, folding his arms, "formerly the supreme authority could +take refuge in an appeal. Nowadays our mania for equality"--he dared +not say _for Legality_, as a poetic orator in the Chamber courageously +admitted a short while since--"is the death of us." + +This noble magistrate knew all the fascination and the miseries of an +illicit attachment. Esther and Lucien, as we have seen, had taken the +rooms where the Comte de Granville had lived secretly on connubial terms +with Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, and whence she had fled one day, +lured away by a villain. (See _A Double Marriage_.) + +At the very moment when the public prosecutor was saying to himself, +"Camusot is sure to have done something silly," the examining magistrate +knocked twice at the door of his room. + +"Well, my dear Camusot, how is that case going on that I spoke of this +morning?" + +"Badly, Monsieur le Comte; read and judge for yourself." + +He held out the minutes of the two examinations to Monsieur de +Granville, who took up his eyeglass and went to the window to read them. +He had soon run through them. + +"You have done your duty," said the Count in an agitated voice. "It is +all over. The law must take its course. You have shown so much skill, +that you need never fear being deprived of your appointment as examining +judge---" + +If Monsieur de Granville had said to Camusot, "You will remain an +examining judge to your dying day," he could not have been more explicit +than in making this polite speech. Camusot was cold in the very marrow. + +"Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, to whom I owe much, had desired +me..." + +"Oh yes, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse is Madame de Serizy's friend," +said Granville, interrupting him. "To be sure.--You have allowed nothing +to influence you, I perceive. And you did well, sir; you will be a great +magistrate." + +At this instant the Comte Octave de Bauvan opened the door without +knocking, and said to the Comte de Granville: + +"I have brought you a fair lady, my dear fellow, who did not know +which way to turn; she was on the point of losing herself in our +labyrinth----" + +And Comte Octave led in by the hand the Comtesse de Serizy, who had been +wandering about the place for the last quarter of an hour. + +"What, you here, madame!" exclaimed the public prosecutor, pushing +forward his own armchair, "and at this moment! This, madame, is Monsieur +Camusot," he added, introducing the judge.--"Bauvan," said he to the +distinguished ministerial orator of the Restoration, "wait for me in the +president's chambers; he is still there, and I will join you." + +Comte Octave de Bauvan understood that not merely was he in the way, but +that Monsieur de Granville wanted an excuse for leaving his room. + +Madame de Serizy had not made the mistake of coming to the Palais +de Justice in her handsome carriage with a blue hammer-cloth and +coats-of-arms, her coachman in gold lace, and two footmen in breeches +and silk stockings. Just as they were starting Asie impressed on the two +great ladies the need for taking the hackney coach in which she and the +Duchess had arrived, and she had likewise insisted on Lucien's mistress +adopting the costume which is to women what a gray cloak was of yore to +men. The Countess wore a plain brown dress, an old black shawl, and a +velvet bonnet from which the flowers had been removed, and the whole +covered up under a thick lace veil. + +"You received our note?" said she to Camusot, whose dismay she mistook +for respectful admiration. + +"Alas! but too late, Madame la Comtesse," replied the lawyer, whose +tact and wit failed him excepting in his chambers and in presence of a +prisoner. + +"Too late! How?" + +She looked at Monsieur de Granville, and saw consternation written in +his face. "It cannot be, it must not be too late!" she added, in the +tone of a despot. + +Women, pretty women, in the position of Madame de Serizy, are the +spoiled children of French civilization. If the women of other countries +knew what a woman of fashion is in Paris, a woman of wealth and rank, +they would all want to come and enjoy that splendid royalty. The women +who recognize no bonds but those of propriety, no law but the petty +charter which has been more than once alluded to in this _Comedie +Humaine_ as the ladies' Code, laugh at the statutes framed by men. They +say everything, they do not shrink from any blunder or hesitate at any +folly, for they all accept the fact that they are irresponsible +beings, answerable for nothing on earth but their good repute and their +children. They say the most preposterous things with a laugh, and are +ready on every occasion to repeat the speech made in the early days of +her married life by pretty Madame de Bauvan to her husband, whom she +came to fetch away from the Palais: "Make haste and pass sentence, and +come away." + +"Madame," said the public prosecutor, "Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre is +not guilty either of robbery or of poisoning; but Monsieur Camusot has +led him to confess a still greater crime." + +"What is that?" she asked. + +"He acknowledged," said Monsieur Camusot in her ear, "that he is the +friend and pupil of an escaped convict. The Abbe Carlos Herrera, the +Spaniard with whom he has been living for the last seven years, is the +notorious Jacques Collin." + +Madame de Serizy felt as if it were a blow from an iron rod at each word +spoken by the judge, but this name was the finishing stroke. + +"And the upshot of all this?" she said, in a voice that was no more than +a breath. + +"Is," Monsieur de Granville went on, finishing the Countess' sentence in +an undertone, "that the convict will be committed for trial, and that if +Lucien is not committed with him as having profited as an accessory +to the man's crimes, he must appear as a witness very seriously +compromised." + +"Oh! never, never!" she cried aloud, with amazing firmness. "For my +part, I should not hesitate between death and the disaster of seeing +a man whom the world has known to be my dearest friend declared by the +bench to be the accomplice of a convict.--The King has a great regard +for my husband----" + +"Madame," said the public prosecutor, also aloud, and with a smile, "the +King has not the smallest power over the humblest examining judge in his +kingdom, nor over the proceedings in any court of justice. That is the +grand feature of our new code of laws. I myself have just congratulated +M. Camusot on his skill----" + +"On his clumsiness," said the Countess sharply, though Lucien's intimacy +with a scoundrel really disturbed her far less than his attachment to +Esther. + +"If you will read the minutes of the examination of the two prisoners by +Monsieur Camusot, you will see that everything is in his hands----" + +After this speech, the only thing the public prosecutor could venture to +say, and a flash of feminine--or, if you will, lawyer-like--cunning, he +went to the door; then, turning round on the threshold, he added: + +"Excuse me, madame; I have two words to say to Bauvan." Which, +translated by the worldly wise, conveyed to the Countess: "I do not want +to witness the scene between you and Camusot." + +"What is this examination business?" said Leontine very blandly to +Camusot, who stood downcast in the presence of the wife of one of the +most important personages in the realm. + +"Madame," said Camusot, "a clerk writes down all the magistrate's +questions and the prisoner's replies. This document is signed by the +clerk, by the judge, and by the prisoner. This evidence is the raw +material of the subsequent proceedings; on it the accused are committed +for trial, and remanded to appear before the Criminal Court." + +"Well, then," said she, "if the evidence were suppressed----?" + +"Oh, madame, that is a crime which no magistrate could possibly +commit--a crime against society." + +"It is a far worse crime against me to have ever allowed it to be +recorded; still, at this moment it is the only evidence against Lucien. +Come, read me the minutes of his examination that I may see if there is +still a way of salvation for us all, monsieur. I do not speak for myself +alone--I should quite calmly kill myself--but Monsieur de Serizy's +happiness is also at stake." + +"Pray, madame, do not suppose that I have forgotten the respect due +you," said Camusot. "If Monsieur Popinot, for instance, had undertaken +this case, you would have had worse luck than you have found with me; +for he would not have come to consult Monsieur de Granville; no one +would have heard anything about it. I tell you, madame, everything has +been seized in Monsieur Lucien's lodging, even your letters----" + +"What! my letters!" + +"Here they are, madame, in a sealed packet." + +The Countess in her agitation rang as if she had been at home, and the +office-boy came in. + +"A light," said she. + +The boy lighted a taper and placed it on the chimney-piece, while the +Countess looked through the letters, counted them, crushed them in her +hand, and flung them on the hearth. In a few minutes she set the whole +mass in a blaze, twisting up the last note to serve as a torch. + +Camusot stood, looking rather foolish as he watched the papers burn, +holding the legal documents in his hand. The Countess, who seemed +absorbed in the work of destroying the proofs of her passion, studied +him out of the corner of her eye. She took her time, she calculated +her distance; with the spring of a cat she seized the two documents and +threw them on the flames. But Camusot saved them; the Countess rushed +on him and snatched back the burning papers. A struggle ensued, Camusot +calling out: "Madame, but madame! This is contempt--madame!" + +A man hurried into the room, and the Countess could not repress a scream +as she beheld the Comte de Serizy, followed by Monsieur de Granville and +the Comte de Bauvan. Leontine, however, determined to save Lucien at +any cost, would not let go of the terrible stamped documents, which she +clutched with the tenacity of a vise, though the flame had already burnt +her delicate skin like a moxa. + +At last Camusot, whose fingers also were smarting from the fire, seemed +to be ashamed of the position; he let the papers go; there was nothing +left of them but the portions so tightly held by the antagonists that +the flame could not touch them. The whole scene had taken less time than +is needed to read this account of it. + +"What discussion can have arisen between you and Madame de Serizy?" the +husband asked of Camusot. + +Before the lawyer could reply, the Countess held the fragments in the +candle and threw them on the remains of her letters, which were not +entirely consumed. + +"I shall be compelled," said Camusot, "to lay a complaint against Madame +la Comtesse----" + +"Heh! What has she done?" asked the public prosecutor, looking +alternately at the lady and the magistrate. + +"I have burned the record of the examinations," said the lady of fashion +with a laugh, so pleased at her high-handed conduct that she did not yet +feel the pain of the burns, "If that is a crime--well, monsieur must get +his odious scrawl written out again." + +"Very true," said Camusot, trying to recover his dignity. + +"Well, well, 'All's well that ends well,'" said Monsieur de Granville. +"But, my dear Countess, you must not often take such liberties with the +Law; it might fail to discern who and what you are." + +"Monsieur Camusot valiantly resisted a woman whom none can resist; the +Honor of the Robe is safe!" said the Comte de Bauvan, laughing. + +"Indeed! Monsieur Camusot was resisting?" said the public prosecutor, +laughing too. "He is a brave man indeed; I should not dare resist the +Countess." + +And thus for the moment this serious affair was no more than a pretty +woman's jest, at which Camusot himself must laugh. + +But Monsieur de Granville saw one man who was not amused. Not a little +alarmed by the Comte de Serizy's attitude and expression, his friend led +him aside. + +"My dear fellow," said he in a whisper, "your distress persuades me for +the first and only time in my life to compromise with my duty." + +The public prosecutor rang, and the office-boy appeared. + +"Desire Monsieur de Chargeboeuf to come here." + +Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, a sucking barrister, was his private secretary. + +"My good friend," said the Comte de Granville to Camusot, whom he took +to the window, "go back to your chambers, get your clerk to reconstruct +the report of the Abbe Carlos Herrera's depositions; as he had not +signed the first copy, there will be no difficulty about that. To-morrow +you must confront your Spanish diplomate with Rastignac and Bianchon, +who will not recognize him as Jacques Collin. Then, being sure of his +release, the man will sign the document. + +"As to Lucien de Rubempre, set him free this evening; he is not likely +to talk about an examination of which the evidence is destroyed, +especially after such a lecture as I shall give him. + +"Now you will see how little justice suffers by these proceedings. If +the Spaniard really is the convict, we have fifty ways of recapturing +him and committing him for trial--for we will have his conduct in Spain +thoroughly investigated. Corentin, the police agent, will take care +of him for us, and we ourselves will keep an eye on him. So treat him +decently; do not send him down to the cells again. + +"Can we be the death of the Comte and Comtesse de Serizy, as well as of +Lucien, for the theft of seven hundred and fifty thousand francs as yet +unproven, and to Lucien's personal loss? Will it not be better for him +to lose the money than to lose his character? Above all, if he is to +drag with him in his fall a Minister of State, and his wife, and the +Duchesse du Maufrigneuse. + +"This young man is a speckled orange; do not leave it to rot. + +"All this will take you about half an hour; go and get it done; we will +wait for you. It is half-past three; you will find some judges about. +Let me know if you can get a rule of insufficient evidence--or Lucien +must wait till to-morrow morning." + +Camusot bowed to the company and went; but Madame de Serizy, who was +suffering a good deal from her burns, did not return his bow. + +Monsieur de Serizy, who had suddenly rushed away while the public +prosecutor and the magistrate were talking together, presently returned, +having fetched a small jar of virgin wax. With this he dressed his +wife's fingers, saying in an undertone: + +"Leontine, why did you come here without letting me know?" + +"My dear," replied she in a whisper, "forgive me. I seem mad, but indeed +your interests were as much involved as mine." + +"Love this young fellow if fatality requires it, but do not display your +passion to all the world," said the luckless husband. + +"Well, my dear Countess," said Monsieur de Granville, who had been +engaged in conversation with Comte Octave, "I hope you may take Monsieur +de Rubempre home to dine with you this evening." + +This half promise produced a reaction; Madame de Serizy melted into +tears. + +"I thought I had no tears left," said she with a smile. "But could you +not bring Monsieur de Rubempre to wait here?" + +"I will try if I can find the ushers to fetch him, so that he may not be +seen under the escort of the gendarmes," said Monsieur de Granville. + +"You are as good as God!" cried she, with a gush of feeling that made +her voice sound like heavenly music. + +"These are the women," said Comte Octave, "who are fascinating, +irresistible!" + +And he became melancholy as he thought of his own wife. (See +_Honorine_.) + +As he left the room, Monsieur de Granville was stopped by young +Chargeboeuf, to whom he spoke to give him instructions as to what he was +to say to Massol, one of the editors of the _Gazette des Tribunaux_. + + + +While beauties, ministers, and magistrates were conspiring to save +Lucien, this was what he was doing at the Conciergerie. As he passed +the gate the poet told the keeper that Monsieur Camusot had granted +him leave to write, and he begged to have pens, ink, and paper. At +a whispered word to the Governor from Camusot's usher a warder was +instructed to take them to him at once. During the short time that it +took for the warder to fetch these things and carry them up to Lucien, +the hapless young man, to whom the idea of facing Jacques Collin had +become intolerable, sank into one of those fatal moods in which the idea +of suicide--to which he had yielded before now, but without succeeding +in carrying it out--rises to the pitch of mania. According to certain +mad-doctors, suicide is in some temperaments the closing phase of mental +aberration; and since his arrest Lucien had been possessed by that +single idea. Esther's letter, read and reread many times, increased the +vehemence of his desire to die by reminding him of the catastrophe of +Romeo dying to be with Juliet. + +This is what he wrote:-- + + "_This is my Last Will and Testament_. + + "AT THE CONCIERGERIE, May 15th, 1830. + + "I, the undersigned, give and bequeath to the children of my + sister, Madame Eve Chardon, wife of David Sechard, formerly a + printer at Angouleme, and of Monsieur David Sechard, all the + property, real and personal, of which I may be possessed at the + time of my decease, due deduction being made for the payments and + legacies, which I desire my executor to provide for. + + "And I earnestly beg Monsieur de Serizy to undertake the charge of + being the executor of this my will. + + "First, to Monsieur l'Abbe Carlos Herrera I direct the payment of + the sum of three hundred thousand francs. Secondly, to Monsieur le + Baron de Nucingen the sum of fourteen hundred thousand francs, + less seven hundred and fifty thousand if the sum stolen from + Mademoiselle Esther should be recovered. + + "As universal legatee to Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, I give and + bequeath the sum of seven hundred and sixty thousand francs to the + Board of Asylums of Paris for the foundation of a refuge + especially dedicated to the use of public prostitutes who may wish + to forsake their life of vice and ruin. + + "I also bequeath to the Asylums of Paris the sum of money + necessary for the purchase of a certificate for dividends to the + amount of thirty thousand francs per annum in five per cents, the + annual income to be devoted every six months to the release of + prisoners for debts not exceeding two thousand francs. The Board + of Asylums to select the most respectable of such persons + imprisoned for debt. + + "I beg Monsieur de Serizy to devote the sum of forty thousand + francs to erecting a monument to Mademoiselle Esther in the + Eastern cemetery, and I desire to be buried by her side. The tomb + is to be like an antique tomb--square, our two effigies lying + thereon, in white marble, the heads on pillows, the hands folded + and raised to heaven. There is to be no inscription whatever. + + "I beg Monsieur de Serizy to give to Monsieur de Rastignac a gold + toilet-set that is in my room as a remembrance. + + "And as a remembrance, I beg my executor to accept my library of + books as a gift from me. + + "LUCIEN CHARDON DE RUBEMPRE." + + +This Will was enclosed in a letter addressed to Monsieur le Comte de +Granville, Public Prosecutor in the Supreme Court at Paris, as follows: + + "MONSIEUR LE COMTE,-- + + "I place my Will in your hands. When you open this letter I shall + be no more. In my desire to be free, I made such cowardly replies + to Monsieur Camusot's insidious questions, that, in spite of my + innocence, I may find myself entangled in a disgraceful trial. + Even if I were acquitted, a blameless life would henceforth be + impossible to me in view of the opinions of the world. + + "I beg you to transmit the enclosed letter to the Abbe Carlos + Herrera without opening it, and deliver to Monsieur Camusot the + formal retraction I also enclose. + + "I suppose no one will dare to break the seal of a packet + addressed to you. In this belief I bid you adieu, offering you my + best respects for the last time, and begging you to believe that + in writing to you I am giving you a token of my gratitude for all + the kindness you have shown to your deceased humble servant, + + "LUCIEN DE R." + + + "_To the Abbe Carlos Herrera_. + + "MY DEAR ABBE,--I have had only benefits from you, and I have + betrayed you. This involuntary ingratitude is killing me, and when + you read these lines I shall have ceased to exist. You are not + here now to save me. + + "You had given me full liberty, if I should find it advantageous, + to destroy you by flinging you on the ground like a cigar-end; but + I have ruined you by a blunder. To escape from a difficulty, + deluded by a clever question from the examining judge, your son by + adoption and grace went over to the side of those who aim at + killing you at any cost, and insist on proving an identity, which + I know to be impossible, between you and a French villain. All is + said. + + "Between a man of your calibre and me--me of whom you tried to + make a greater man than I am capable of being--no foolish + sentiment can come at the moment of final parting. You hoped to + make me powerful and famous, and you have thrown me into the gulf + of suicide, that is all. I have long heard the broad pinions of + that vertigo beating over my head. + + "As you have sometimes said, there is the posterity of Cain and + the posterity of Abel. In the great human drama Cain is in + opposition. You are descended from Adam through that line, in + which the devil still fans the fire of which the first spark was + flung on Eve. Among the demons of that pedigree, from time to time + we see one of stupendous power, summing up every form of human + energy, and resembling the fevered beasts of the desert, whose + vitality demands the vast spaces they find there. Such men are as + dangerous as lions would be in the heart of Normandy; they must + have their prey, and they devour common men and crop the money of + fools. Their sport is so dangerous that at last they kill the + humble dog whom they have taken for a companion and made an idol + of. + + "When it is God's will, these mysterious beings may be a Moses, an + Attila, Charlemagne, Mahomet, or Napoleon; but when He leaves a + generation of these stupendous tools to rust at the bottom of the + ocean, they are no more than a Pugatschef, a Fouche, a Louvel, or + the Abbe Carlos Herrera. Gifted with immense power over tenderer + souls, they entrap them and mangle them. It is grand, it is fine + --in its way. It is the poisonous plant with gorgeous coloring that + fascinates children in the woods. It is the poetry of evil. Men + like you ought to dwell in caves and never come out of them. You + have made me live that vast life, and I have had all my share of + existence; so I may very well take my head out of the Gordian knot + of your policy and slip it into the running knot of my cravat. + + "To repair the mischief I have done, I am forwarding to the public + prosecutor a retraction of my deposition. You will know how to + take advantage of this document. + + "In virtue of a will formally drawn up, restitution will be made, + Monsieur l'Abbe, of the moneys belonging to your Order which you + so imprudently devoted to my use, as a result of your paternal + affection for me. + + "And so, farewell. Farewell, colossal image of Evil and + Corruption; farewell--to you who, if started on the right road, + might have been greater than Ximenes, greater than Richelieu! You + have kept your promises. I find myself once more just as I was on + the banks of the Charente, after enjoying, by your help, the + enchantments of a dream. But, unfortunately, it is not now in the + waters of my native place that I shall drown the errors of a boy; + but in the Seine, and my hole is a cell in the Conciergerie. + + "Do not regret me: my contempt for you is as great as my + admiration. + + "LUCIEN." + + + "_Recantation_. + + "I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I retract, without + reservation, all that I deposed at my examination to-day before + Monsieur Camusot. + + "The Abbe Carlos Herrera always called himself my spiritual + father, and I was misled by the word father used in another sense + by the judge, no doubt under a misapprehension. + + "I am aware that, for political ends, and to quash certain secrets + concerning the Cabinets of Spain and of the Tuileries, some + obscure diplomatic agents tried to show that the Abbe Carlos + Herrera was a forger named Jacques Collin; but the Abbe Carlos + Herrera never told me anything about the matter excepting that he + was doing his best to obtain evidence of the death or of the + continued existence of Jacques Collin. + + "LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE. + + + "AT THE CONCIERGERIE, May 15th, 1830." + + +The fever for suicide had given Lucien immense clearness of mind, and +the swiftness of hand familiar to authors in the fever of composition. +The impetus was so strong within him that these four documents were all +written within half an hour; he folded them in a wrapper, fastened +with wafers, on which he impressed with the strength of delirium the +coat-of-arms engraved on a seal-ring he wore, and he then laid the +packet very conspicuously in the middle of the floor. + +Certainly it would have been impossible to conduct himself with greater +dignity, in the false position to which all this infamy had led him; he +was rescuing his memory from opprobrium, and repairing the injury done +to his accomplice, so far as the wit of a man of the world could nullify +the result of the poet's trustfulness. + +If Lucien had been taken back to one of the lower cells, he would have +been wrecked on the impossibility of carrying out his intentions, for +those boxes of masonry have no furniture but a sort of camp-bed and a +pail for necessary uses. There is not a nail, not a chair, not even a +stool. The camp-bed is so firmly fixed that it is impossible to move it +without an amount of labor that the warder would not fail to detect, +for the iron-barred peephole is always open. Indeed, if a prisoner under +suspicion gives reason for uneasiness, he is watched by a gendarme or a +constable. + +In the private rooms for which prisoners pay, and in that whither Lucien +had been conveyed by the judge's courtesy to a young man belonging to +the upper ranks of society, the movable bed, table, and chair might +serve to carry out his purpose of suicide, though they hardly made it +easy. Lucien wore a long blue silk necktie, and on his way back from +examination he was already meditating on the means by which Pichegru, +more or less voluntarily, ended his days. Still, to hang himself, a man +must find a purchase, and have a sufficient space between it and the +ground for his feet to find no support. Now the window of his room, +looking out on the prison-yard, had no handle to the fastening; and the +bars, being fixed outside, were divided from his reach by the thickness +of the wall, and could not be used for a support. + +This, then, was the plan hit upon by Lucien to put himself out of the +world. The boarding of the lower part of the opening, which prevented +his seeing out into the yard, also hindered the warders outside from +seeing what was done in the room; but while the lower portion of the +window was replaced by two thick planks, the upper part of both halves +still was filled with small panes, held in place by the cross pieces +in which they were set. By standing on his table Lucien could reach the +glazed part of the window, and take or break out two panes, so as to +have a firm point of attachment in the angle of the lower bar. Round +this he would tie his cravat, turn round once to tighten it round his +neck after securing it firmly, and kick the table from under his feet. + +He drew the table up under the window without making any noise, took off +his coat and waistcoat, and got on the table unhesitatingly to break a +pane above and one below the iron cross-bar. Standing on the table, he +could look out across the yard on a magical view, which he then beheld +for the first time. The Governor of the prison, in deference to Monsieur +Camusot's request that he should deal as leniently as possible with +Lucien, had led him, as we have seen, through the dark passages of the +Conciergerie, entered from the dark vault opposite the Tour d'Argent, +thus avoiding the exhibition of a young man of fashion to the crowd of +prisoners airing themselves in the yard. It will be for the reader to +judge whether the aspect of the promenade was not such as to appeal +deeply to a poet's soul. + +The yard of the Conciergerie ends at the quai between the Tour d'Argent +and the Tour Bonbec; thus the distance between them exactly shows from +the outside the width of the plot of ground. The corridor called the +Galerie de Saint-Louis, which extends from the Galerie Marchande to +the Courts of Appeals and the Tour Bonbec--in which, it is said, +Saint-Louis' room still exists--may enable the curious to estimate the +depths of the yard, as it is of the same length. Thus the dark cells +and the private rooms are under the Galerie Marchande. And Queen Marie +Antoinette, whose dungeon was under the present cells, was conducted to +the presence of the Revolutionary Tribunal, which held its sittings in +the place where the Court of Appeals now performs its solemn functions, +up a horrible flight of steps, now never used, in the very thickness of +the wall on which the Galerie Marchande is built. + +One side of the prison-yard--that on which the Hall of Saint-Louis forms +the first floor--displays a long row of Gothic columns, between which +the architects of I know not what period have built up two floors of +cells to accommodate as many prisoners as possible, by choking the +capitals, the arches, and the vaults of this magnificent cloister with +plaster, barred loopholes, and partitions. Under the room known as the +Cabinet de Saint-Louis, in the Tour Bonbec, there is a spiral stair +leading to these dens. This degradation of one of the immemorial +buildings of France is hideous to behold. + +From the height at which Lucien was standing he saw this cloister, +and the details of the building that joins the two towers, in sharp +perspective; before him were the pointed caps of the towers. He stood +amazed; his suicide was postponed to his admiration. The phenomena +of hallucination are in these days so fully recognized by the medical +faculty that this mirage of the senses, this strange illusion of the +mind is beyond dispute. A man under the stress of a feeling which by its +intensity has become a monomania, often finds himself in the frame of +mind to which opium, hasheesh, or the protoxyde of azote might have +brought him. Spectres appear, phantoms and dreams take shape, things +of the past live again as they once were. What was but an image of the +brain becomes a moving or a living object. Science is now beginning to +believe that under the action of a paroxysm of passion the blood rushes +to the brain, and that such congestion has the terrible effects of +a dream in a waking state, so averse are we to regard thought as a +physical and generative force. (See _Louis Lambert_.) + +Lucien saw the building in all its pristine beauty; the columns were +new, slender and bright; Saint-Louis' Palace rose before him as it had +once appeared; he admired its Babylonian proportions and Oriental +fancy. He took this exquisite vision as a poetic farewell from civilized +creation. While making his arrangements to die, he wondered how this +marvel of architecture could exist in Paris so utterly unknown. He was +two Luciens--one Lucien the poet, wandering through the Middle Ages +under the vaults and the turrets of Saint-Louis, the other Lucien ready +for suicide. + + + +Just as Monsieur de Granville had ended giving his instructions to +the young secretary, the Governor of the Conciergerie came in, and +the expression of his face was such as to give the public prosecutor a +presentiment of disaster. + +"Have you met Monsieur Camusot?" he asked. + +"No, monsieur," said the Governor; "his clerk Coquart instructed me +to give the Abbe Carlos a private room and to liberate Monsieur de +Rubempre--but it is too late." + +"Good God! what has happened?" + +"Here, monsieur, is a letter for you which will explain the catastrophe. +The warder on duty in the prison-yard heard a noise of breaking glass +in the upper room, and Monsieur Lucien's next neighbor shrieking wildly, +for he heard the young man's dying struggles. The warder came to me pale +from the sight that met his eyes. He found the prisoner hanged from the +window bar by his necktie." + +Though the Governor spoke in a low voice, a fearful scream from +Madame de Serizy showed that under stress of feeling our faculties are +incalculably keen. The Countess heard, or guessed. Before Monsieur de +Granville could turn round, or Monsieur de Bauvan or her husband could +stop her, she fled like a flash out of the door, and reached the Galerie +Marchande, where she ran on to the stairs leading out to the Rue de la +Barillerie. + +A pleader was taking off his gown at the door of one of the shops which +from time immemorial have choked up this arcade, where shoes are sold, +and gowns and caps kept for hire. + +The Countess asked the way to the Conciergerie. + +"Go down the steps and turn to the left. The entrance is from the Quai +de l'Horloge, the first archway." + +"That woman is crazy," said the shop-woman; "some one ought to follow +her." + +But no one could have kept up with Leontine; she flew. + +A physician may explain how it is that these ladies of fashion, whose +strength never finds employment, reveal such powers in the critical +moments of life. + +The Countess rushed so swiftly through the archway to the wicket-gate +that the gendarme on sentry did not see her pass. She flew at the barred +gate like a feather driven by the wind, and shook the iron bars with +such fury that she broke the one she grasped. The bent ends were thrust +into her breast, making the blood flow, and she dropped on the ground, +shrieking, "Open it, open it!" in a tone that struck terror into the +warders. + +The gatekeepers hurried out. + +"Open the gate--the public prosecutor sent me--to save the dead +man!----" + +While the Countess was going round by the Rue de la Barillerie and the +Quai de l'Horloge, Monsieur de Granville and Monsieur de Serizy +went down to the Conciergerie through the inner passages, suspecting +Leontine's purpose; but notwithstanding their haste, they only arrived +in time to see her fall fainting at the outer gate, where she was picked +up by two gendarmes who had come down from the guardroom. + +On seeing the Governor of the prison, the gate was opened, and the +Countess was carried into the office, but she stood up and fell on her +knees, clasping her hands. + +"Only to see him--to see him! Oh! I will do no wrong! But if you do +not want to see me die on the spot, let me look at Lucien dead or +living.--Ah, my dear, are you here? Choose between my death and----" + +She sank in a heap. + +"You are kind," she said; "I will always love you----" + +"Carry her away," said Monsieur de Bauvan. + +"No, we will go to Lucien's cell," said Monsieur de Granville, reading a +purpose in Monsieur de Serizy's wild looks. + +And he lifted up the Countess, and took her under one arm, while +Monsieur de Bauvan supported her on the other side. + +"Monsieur," said the Comte de Serizy to the Governor, "silence as of the +grave about all this." + +"Be easy," replied the Governor; "you have done the wisest thing.--If +this lady----" + +"She is my wife." + +"Oh! I beg your pardon. Well, she will certainly faint away when she +sees the poor man, and while she is unconscious she can be taken home in +a carriage. + +"That is what I thought," replied the Count. "Pray send one of your men +to tell my servants in the Cour de Harlay to come round to the gate. +Mine is the only carriage there." + +"We can save him yet," said the Countess, walking on with a degree +of strength and spirit that surprised her friends. "There are ways of +restoring life----" + +And she dragged the gentlemen along, crying to the warder: + +"Come on, come faster--one second may cost three lives!" + +When the cell door was opened, and the Countess saw Lucien hanging as +though his clothes had been hung on a peg, she made a spring towards him +as if to embrace him and cling to him; but she fell on her face on the +floor with smothered shrieks and a sort of rattle in her throat. + +Five minutes later she was being taken home stretched on the seat in the +Count's carriage, her husband kneeling by her side. Monsieur de Bauvan +went off to fetch a doctor to give her the care she needed. + +The Governor of the Conciergerie meanwhile was examining the outer gate, +and saying to his clerk: + +"No expense was spared; the bars are of wrought iron, they were properly +tested, and cost a large sum; and yet there was a flaw in that bar." + +Monsieur de Granville on returning to his room had other instructions to +give to his private secretary. Massol, happily had not yet arrived. + +Soon after Monsieur de Granville had left, anxious to go to see Monsieur +de Serizy, Massol came and found his ally Chargeboeuf in the public +prosecutor's Court. + +"My dear fellow," said the young secretary, "if you will do me a great +favor, you will put what I dictate to you in your _Gazette_ to-morrow +under the heading of Law Reports; you can compose the heading. Write +now." + +And he dictated as follows:-- + + "It has been ascertained that the Demoiselle Esther Gobseck killed + herself of her own free will. + + "Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre satisfactorily proved an alibi, and + his innocence leaves his arrest to be regretted, all the more + because just as the examining judge had given the order for his + release the young gentleman died suddenly." + +"I need not point out to you," said the young lawyer to Massol, "how +necessary it is to preserve absolute silence as to the little service +requested of you." + +"Since it is you who do me the honor of so much confidence," replied +Massol, "allow me to make one observation. This paragraph will give rise +to odious comments on the course of justice----" + +"Justice is strong enough to bear them," said the young attache to the +Courts, with the pride of a coming magistrate trained by Monsieur de +Granville. + +"Allow me, my dear sir; with two sentences this difficulty may be +avoided." + +And the journalist-lawyer wrote as follows:-- + + "The forms of the law have nothing to do with this sad event. The + post-mortem examination, which was at once made, proved that + sudden death was due to the rupture of an aneurism in its last + stage. If Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre had been upset by his + arrest, death must have ensued sooner. But we are in a position to + state that, far from being distressed at being taken into custody, + the young man, whom all must lament, only laughed at it, and told + those who escorted him from Fontainebleau to Paris that as soon as + he was brought before a magistrate his innocence would be + acknowledged." + +"That saves it, I think?" said Massol. + +"You are perfectly right." + +"The public prosecutor will thank you for it to-morrow," said Massol +slyly. + +Now to the great majority, as to the more choice reader, it will perhaps +seem that this Study is not completed by the death of Esther and of +Lucien; Jacques Collin and Asie, Europe and Paccard, in spite of their +villainous lives, may have been interesting enough to make their fate a +matter of curiosity. + +The last act of the drama will also complete the picture of life +which this Study is intended to present, and give the issue of various +interests which Lucien's career had strangely tangled by bringing some +ignoble personages from the hulks into contact with those of the highest +rank. + +Thus, as may be seen, the greatest events of life find their expression +in the more or less veracious gossip of the Paris papers. And this is +the case with many things of greater importance than are here recorded. + + + + VAUTRIN'S LAST AVATAR + +"What is it, Madeleine?" asked Madame Camusot, seeing her maid come +into the room with the particular air that servants assume in critical +moments. + +"Madame," said Madeleine, "monsieur has just come in from Court; but he +looks so upset, and is in such a state, that I think perhaps it would be +well for you to go to his room." + +"Did he say anything?" asked Madame Camusot. + +"No, madame; but we never have seen monsieur look like that; he looks +as if he were going to be ill, his face is yellow--he seems all to +pieces----" + +Madame Camusot waited for no more; she rushed out of her room and flew +to her husband's study. She found the lawyer sitting in an armchair, +pale and dazed, his legs stretched out, his head against the back of it, +his hands hanging limp, exactly as if he were sinking into idiotcy. + +"What is the matter, my dear?" said the young woman in alarm. + +"Oh! my poor Amelie, the most dreadful thing has happened--I am still +trembling. Imagine, the public prosecutor--no, Madame de Serizy--that +is--I do not know where to begin." + +"Begin at the end," said Madame Camusot. + +"Well, just as Monsieur Popinot, in the council room of the first Court, +had put the last signature to the ruling of 'insufficient cause' for the +apprehension of Lucien de Rubempre on the ground of my report, setting +him at liberty--in fact, the whole thing was done, the clerk was going +off with the minute book, and I was quit of the whole business--the +President of the Court came in and took up the papers. 'You are +releasing a dead man,' said he, with chilly irony; 'the young man is +gone, as Monsieur de Bonald says, to appear before his natural Judge. He +died of apoplexy----' + +"I breathed again, thinking it was sudden illness. + +"'As I understand you, Monsieur le President,' said Monsieur Popinot, +'it is a case of apoplexy like Pichegru's.' + +"'Gentlemen,' said the President then, very gravely, 'you must please +to understand that for the outside world Lucien de Rubempre died of an +aneurism.' + +"We all looked at each other. 'Very great people are concerned in this +deplorable business,' said the President. 'God grant for your sake, +Monsieur Camusot, though you did no less than your duty, that Madame de +Serizy may not go mad from the shock she has had. She was carried away +almost dead. I have just met our public prosecutor in a painful state of +despair.'--'You have made a mess of it, my dear Camusot,' he added in +my ear.--I assure you, my dear, as I came away I could hardly stand. My +legs shook so that I dared not venture into the street. I went back to +my room to rest. Then Coquart, who was putting away the papers of +this wretched case, told me that a very handsome woman had taken the +Conciergerie by storm, wanting to save Lucien, whom she was quite crazy +about, and that she fainted away on seeing him hanging by his necktie to +the window-bar of his room. The idea that the way in which I questioned +that unhappy young fellow--who, between ourselves, was guilty in many +ways--can have led to his committing suicide has haunted me ever since I +left the Palais, and I feel constantly on the point of fainting----" + +"What next? Are you going to think yourself a murderer because a +suspected criminal hangs himself in prison just as you were about to +release him?" cried Madame Camusot. "Why, an examining judge in such a +case is like a general whose horse is killed under him!--That is all." + +"Such a comparison, my dear, is at best but a jest, and jesting is out +of place now. In this case the dead man clutches the living. All our +hopes are buried in Lucien's coffin." + +"Indeed?" said Madame Camusot, with deep irony. + +"Yes, my career is closed. I shall be no more than an examining judge +all my life. Before this fatal termination Monsieur de Granville was +annoyed at the turn the preliminaries had taken; his speech to our +President makes me quite certain that so long as Monsieur de Granville +is public prosecutor I shall get no promotion." + +Promotion! The terrible thought, which in these days makes a judge a +mere functionary. + +Formerly a magistrate was made at once what he was to remain. The three +or four presidents' caps satisfied the ambitions of lawyers in each +Parlement. An appointment as councillor was enough for a de Brosses or +a Mole, at Dijon as much as in Paris. This office, in itself a fortune, +required a fortune brought to it to keep it up. + +In Paris, outside the Parlement, men of the long robe could hope only +for three supreme appointments: those of Controller-General, Keeper of +the Seals, or Chancellor. Below the Parlement, in the lower grades, +the president of a lower Court thought himself quite of sufficient +importance to be content to fill his chair to the end of his days. + +Compare the position of a councillor in the High Court of Justice +in Paris, in 1829, who has nothing but his salary, with that of a +councillor to the Parlement in 1729. How great is the difference! In +these days, when money is the universal social guarantee, magistrates +are not required to have--as they used to have--fine private fortunes: +hence we see deputies and peers of France heaping office on office, at +once magistrates and legislators, borrowing dignity from other positions +than those which ought to give them all their importance. + +In short, a magistrate tries to distinguish himself for promotion as men +do in the army, or in a Government office. + +This prevailing thought, even if it does not affect his independence, is +so well known and so natural, and its effects are so evident, that the +law inevitably loses some of its majesty in the eyes of the public. And, +in fact, the salaries paid by the State makes priests and magistrates +mere _employes_. Steps to be gained foster ambition, ambition engenders +subservience to power, and modern equality places the judge and the +person to be judged in the same category at the bar of society. And so +the two pillars of social order, Religion and Justice, are lowered in +this nineteenth century, which asserts itself as progressive in all +things. + +"And why should you never be promoted?" said Amelie Camusot. + +She looked half-jestingly at her husband, feeling the necessity of +reviving the energies of the man who embodied her ambitions, and on whom +she could play as on an instrument. + +"Why despair?" she went on, with a shrug that sufficiently expressed +her indifference as to the prisoner's end. "This suicide will delight +Lucien's two enemies, Madame d'Espard and her cousin, the Comtesse du +Chatelet. Madame d'Espard is on the best terms with the Keeper of the +Seals; through her you can get an audience of His Excellency and tell +him all the secrets of this business. Then, if the head of the law is on +your side, what have you to fear from the president of your Court or the +public prosecutor?" + +"But, Monsieur and Madame de Serizy?" cried the poor man. "Madame de +Serizy is gone mad, I tell you, and her madness is my doing, they say." + +"Well, if she is out of her mind, O judge devoid of judgment," said +Madame Camusot, laughing, "she can do you no harm.--Come, tell me all +the incidents of the day." + +"Bless me!" said Camusot, "just as I had cross-questioned the unhappy +youth, and he had deposed that the self-styled Spanish priest is really +Jacques Collin, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Serizy +sent me a note by a servant begging me not to examine him. It was all +over!----" + +"But you must have lost your head!" said Amelie. "What was to prevent +you, being so sure as you are of your clerk's fidelity, from calling +Lucien back, reassuring him cleverly, and revising the examination?" + +"Why, you are as bad as Madame de Serizy; you laugh justice to scorn," +said Camusot, who was incapable of flouting his profession. "Madame de +Serizy seized the minutes and threw them into the fire." + +"That is the right sort of woman! Bravo!" cried Madame Camusot. + +"Madame de Serizy declared she would sooner see the Palais blown up +than leave a young man who had enjoyed the favors of the Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse and her own to stand at the bar of a Criminal court by the +side of a convict!" + +"But, Camusot," said Amelie, unable to suppress a superior smile, "your +position is splendid----" + +"Ah! yes, splendid!" + +"You did your duty." + +"But all wrong; and in spite of the jesuitical advice of Monsieur de +Granville, who met me on the Quai Malaquais." + +"This morning!" + +"This morning." + +"At what hour?" + +"At nine o'clock." + +"Oh, Camusot!" cried Amelie, clasping and wringing her hands, "and I am +always imploring you to be constantly on the alert.--Good heavens! it +is not a man, but a barrow-load of stones that I have to drag on!--Why, +Camusot, your public prosecutor was waiting for you.--He must have given +you some warning." + +"Yes, indeed----" + +"And you failed to understand him! If you are so deaf, you will indeed +be an examining judge all your life without any knowledge whatever of +the question.--At any rate, have sense enough to listen to me," she went +on, silencing her husband, who was about to speak. "You think the matter +is done for?" she asked. + +Camusot looked at his wife as a country bumpkin looks at a conjurer. + +"If the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Serizy are compromised, +you will find them both ready to patronize you," said Amelie. "Madame de +Serizy will get you admission to the Keeper of the Seals, and you will +tell him the secret history of the affair; then he will amuse the King +with the story, for sovereigns always wish to see the wrong side of the +tapestry and to know the real meaning of the events the public stare +at open-mouthed. Henceforth there will be no cause to fear either the +public prosecutor or Monsieur de Serizy." + +"What a treasure such a wife is!" cried the lawyer, plucking up courage. +"After all, I have unearthed Jacques Collin; I shall send him to his +account at the Assize Court and unmask his crimes. Such a trial is a +triumph in the career of an examining judge!" + +"Camusot," Amelie began, pleased to see her husband rally from the +moral and physical prostration into which he had been thrown by Lucien's +suicide, "the President told you that you had blundered to the wrong +side. Now you are blundering as much to the other--you are losing your +way again, my dear." + +The magistrate stood up, looking at his wife with a stupid stare. + +"The King and the Keeper of the Seals will be glad, no doubt, to know +the truth of this business, and at the same time much annoyed at seeing +the lawyers on the Liberal side dragging important persons to the bar of +opinion and of the Assize Court by their special pleading--such people +as the Maufrigneuses, the Serizys, and the Grandlieus, in short, all who +are directly or indirectly mixed up with this case." + +"They are all in it; I have them all!" cried Camusot. + +And Camusot walked up and down the room like Sganarelle on the stage +when he is trying to get out of a scrape. + +"Listen, Amelie," said he, standing in front of his wife. "An incident +recurs to my mind, a trifle in itself, but, in my position, of vital +importance. + +"Realize, my dear, that this Jacques Collin is a giant of cunning, of +dissimulation, of deceit.--He is--what shall I say?--the Cromwell of +the hulks!--I never met such a scoundrel; he almost took me in.--But in +examining a criminal, a little end of thread leads you to find a ball, +is a clue to the investigation of the darkest consciences and obscurest +facts.--When Jacques Collin saw me turning over the letters seized in +Lucien de Rubempre's lodgings, the villain glanced at them with the +evident intention of seeing whether some particular packet were +among them, and he allowed himself to give a visible expression of +satisfaction. This look, as of a thief valuing his booty, this movement, +as of a man in danger saying to himself, 'My weapons are safe,' betrayed +a world of things. + +"Only you women, besides us and our examinees, can in a single +flash epitomize a whole scene, revealing trickery as complicated as +safety-locks. Volumes of suspicion may thus be communicated in a second. +It is terrifying--life or death lies in a wink. + +"Said I to myself, 'The rascal has more letters in his hands than +these!'--Then the other details of the case filled my mind; I overlooked +the incident, for I thought I should have my men face to face, and clear +up this point afterwards. But it may be considered as quite certain that +Jacques Collin, after the fashion of such wretches, has hidden in some +safe place the most compromising of the young fellow's letters, adored +as he was by----" + +"And yet you are afraid, Camusot? Why, you will be President of the +Supreme Court much sooner than I expected!" cried Madame Camusot, her +face beaming. "Now, then, you must proceed so as to give satisfaction +to everybody, for the matter is looking so serious that it might quite +possibly be snatched from us.--Did they not take the proceedings out of +Popinot's hands to place them in yours when Madame d'Espard tried to get +a Commission in Lunacy to incapacitate her husband?" she added, in reply +to her husband's gesture of astonishment. "Well, then, might not the +public prosecutor, who takes such keen interest in the honor of Monsieur +and Madame de Serizy, carry the case to the Upper Court and get a +councillor in his interest to open a fresh inquiry?" + +"Bless me, my dear, where did you study criminal law?" cried Camusot. +"You know everything; you can give me points." + +"Why, do you believe that, by to-morrow morning, Monsieur de Granville +will not have taken fright at the possible line of defence that might +be adopted by some liberal advocate whom Jacques Collin would manage to +secure; for lawyers will be ready to pay him to place the case in their +hands!--And those ladies know their danger quite as well as you do--not +to say better; they will put themselves under the protection of the +public prosecutor, who already sees their families unpleasantly close +to the prisoner's bench, as a consequence of the coalition between +this convict and Lucien de Rubempre, betrothed to Mademoiselle de +Grandlieu--Lucien, Esther's lover, Madame de Maufrigneuse's former +lover, Madame de Serizy's darling. So you must conduct the affair in +such a way as to conciliate the favor of your public prosecutor, the +gratitude of Monsieur de Serizy, and that of the Marquise d'Espard +and the Comtesse du Chatelet, to reinforce Madame de Maufrigneuse's +influence by that of the Grandlieus, and to gain the complimentary +approval of your President. + +"I will undertake to deal with the ladies--d'Espard, de Maufrigneuse, +and de Grandlieu. + +"You must go to-morrow morning to see the public prosecutor. Monsieur de +Granville is a man who does not live with his wife; for ten years he +had for his mistress a Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, who bore him +illegitimate children--didn't she? Well, such a magistrate is no saint; +he is a man like any other; he can be won over; he must give a hold +somewhere; you must discover the weak spot and flatter him; ask his +advice, point out the dangers of attending the case; in short, try to +get him into the same boat, and you will be----" + +"I ought to kiss your footprints!" exclaimed Camusot, interrupting his +wife, putting his arm round her, and pressing her to his heart. "Amelie, +you have saved me!" + +"I brought you in tow from Alencon to Mantes, and from Mantes to the +Metropolitan Court," replied Amelie. "Well, well, be quite easy!--I +intend to be called Madame la Presidente within five years' time. But, +my dear, pray always think over everything a long time before you come +to any determination. A judge's business is not that of a fireman; your +papers are never in a blaze, you have plenty of time to think; so in +your place blunders are inexcusable." + +"The whole strength of my position lies in identifying the sham Spanish +priest with Jacques Collin," the judge said, after a long pause. "When +once that identity is established, even if the Bench should take the +credit of the whole affair, that will still be an ascertained fact which +no magistrate, judge, or councillor can get rid of. I shall do like the +boys who tie a tin kettle to a cat's tail; the inquiry, whoever carries +it on, will make Jacques Collin's tin kettle clank." + +"Bravo!" said Amelie. + +"And the public prosecutor would rather come to an understanding with +me than with any one else, since I am the only man who can remove the +Damocles' sword that hangs over the heart of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. + +"Only you have no idea how hard it will be to achieve that magnificent +result. Just now, when I was with Monsieur de Granville in his +private office, we agreed, he and I, to take Jacques Collin at his +own valuation--a canon of the Chapter of Toledo, Carlos Herrera. We +consented to recognize his position as a diplomatic envoy, and allow him +to be claimed by the Spanish Embassy. It was in consequence of this plan +that I made out the papers by which Lucien de Rubempre was released, and +revised the minutes of the examinations, washing the prisoners as white +as snow. + +"To-morrow, Rastignac, Bianchon, and some others are to be confronted +with the self-styled Canon of Toledo; they will not recognize him as +Jacques Collin who was arrested in their presence ten years ago in a +cheap boarding-house, where they knew him under the name of Vautrin." + +There was a short silence, while Madame Camusot sat thinking. + +"Are you sure your man is Jacques Collin?" she asked. + +"Positive," said the lawyer, "and so is the public prosecutor." + +"Well, then, try to make some exposure at the Palais de Justice without +showing your claws too much under your furred cat's paws. If your man +is still in the secret cells, go straight to the Governor of the +Conciergerie and contrive to have the convict publicly identified. +Instead of behaving like a child, act like the ministers of police under +despotic governments, who invent conspiracies against the monarch to +have the credit of discovering them and making themselves indispensable. +Put three families in danger to have the glory of rescuing them." + +"That luckily reminds me!" cried Camusot. "My brain is so bewildered +that I had quite forgotten an important point. The instructions to +place Jacques Collin in a private room were taken by Coquart to Monsieur +Gault, the Governor of the prison. Now, Bibi-Lupin, Jacques Collin's +great enemy, has taken steps to have three criminals, who know the man, +transferred from La Force to the Conciergerie; if he appears in the +prison-yard to-morrow, a terrific scene is expected----" + +"Why?" + +"Jacques Collin, my dear, was treasurer of the money owned by the +prisoners in the hulks, amounting to considerable sums; now, he is +supposed to have spent it all to maintain the deceased Lucien in +luxury, and he will be called to account. There will be such a battle, +Bibi-Lupin tells me, as will require the intervention of the warders, +and the secret will be out. Jacques Collin's life is in danger. + +"Now, if I get to the Palais early enough I may record the evidence of +identity." + +"Oh, if only his creditors should take him off your hands! You would +be thought such a clever fellow!--Do not go to Monsieur de Granville's +room; wait for him in his Court with that formidable great gun. It is a +loaded cannon turned on the three most important families of the Court +and Peerage. Be bold: propose to Monsieur de Granville that he should +relieve you of Jacques Collin by transferring him to La Force, where the +convicts know how to deal with those who betray them. + +"I will go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, who will take me to the +Grandlieus. Possibly I may see Monsieur de Serizy. Trust me to sound the +alarm everywhere. Above all, send me a word we will agree upon to let me +know if the Spanish priest is officially recognized as Jacques Collin. +Get your business at the Palais over by two o'clock, and I will have +arranged for you to have an interview with the Keeper of the Seals; +perhaps I may find him with the Marquise d'Espard." + +Camusot stood squarely with a look of admiration that made his knowing +wife smile. + +"Now, come to dinner and be cheerful," said she in conclusion. "Why, +you see! We have been only two years in Paris, and here you are on the +highroad to be made Councillor before the end of the year. From that +to the Presidency of a court, my dear, there is no gulf but what some +political service may bridge." + +This conjugal sitting shows how greatly the deeds and the lightest words +of Jacques Collin, the lowest personage in this drama, involved the +honor of the families among whom he had planted his now dead protege. + + + +At the Conciergerie Lucien's death and Madame de Serizy's incursion had +produced such a block in the wheels of the machinery that the Governor +had forgotten to remove the sham priest from his dungeon-cell. + +Though more than one instance is on record of the death of a prisoner +during his preliminary examination, it was a sufficiently rare event +to disturb the warders, the clerk, and the Governor, and hinder their +working with their usual serenity. At the same time, to them the +important fact was not the handsome young fellow so suddenly become a +corpse, but the breakage of the wrought-iron bar of the outer prison +gate by the frail hands of a fine lady. And indeed, as soon as the +public prosecutor and Comte Octave de Bauvan had gone off with Monsieur +de Serizy and his unconscious wife, the Governor, clerk, and turnkeys +gathered round the gate, after letting out Monsieur Lebrun, the prison +doctor, who had been called in to certify to Lucien's death, in concert +with the "death doctor" of the district in which the unfortunate youth +had been lodging. + +In Paris, the "death doctor" is the medical officer whose duty it is in +each district to register deaths and certify to their causes. + +With the rapid insight for which he was known, Monsieur de Granville had +judged it necessary, for the honor of the families concerned, to +have the certificate of Lucien's death deposited at the Mairie of the +district in which the Quai Malaquais lies, as the deceased had resided +there, and to have the body carried from his lodgings to the Church of +Saint-Germain des Pres, where the service was to be held. Monsieur de +Chargeboeuf, Monsieur de Granville's private secretary, had orders to +this effect. The body was to be transferred from the prison during the +night. The secretary was desired to go at once and settle matters at the +Mairie with the parish authorities and with the official undertakers. +Thus, to the world in general, Lucien would have died at liberty in his +own lodgings, the funeral would start from thence, and his friends would +be invited there for the ceremony. + +So, when Camusot, his mind at ease, was sitting down to dinner with his +ambitious better-half, the Governor of the Conciergerie and Monsieur +Lebrun, the prison doctor, were standing outside the gate bewailing the +fragility of iron bars and the strength of ladies in love. + +"No one knows," said the doctor to Monsieur Gault, "what an amount +of nervous force there is in a man wound up to the highest pitch of +passion. Dynamics and mathematics have no formulas or symbols to express +that power. Why, only yesterday, I witnessed an experiment which gave me +a shudder, and which accounts for the terrible strength put forth just +now by that little woman." + +"Tell me about it," said Monsieur Gault, "for I am so foolish as to take +an interest in magnetism; I do not believe in it, but it mystifies me." + +"A physician who magnetizes--for there are men among us who believe in +magnetism," Lebrun went on, "offered to experiment on me in proof of a +phenomenon that he described and I doubted. Curious to see with my own +eyes one of the strange states of nervous tension by which the existence +of magnetism is demonstrated, I consented. + +"These are the facts.--I should very much like to know what our College +of Medicine would say if each of its members in turn were subjected to +this influence, which leaves no loophole for incredulity. + +"My old friend--this doctor," said Doctor Lebrun parenthetically, "is +an old man persecuted for his opinions since Mesmer's time by all the +faculty; he is seventy or seventy-two years of age, and his name is +Bouvard. At the present day he is the patriarchal representative of the +theory of animal magnetism. This good man regards me as a son; I owe my +training to him.--Well, this worthy old Bouvard it was who proposed to +prove to me that nerve-force put in motion by the magnetizer was, not +indeed infinite, for man is under immutable laws, but a power acting +like other powers of nature whose elemental essence escapes our +observation. + +"'For instance,' said he, 'if you place your hand in that of a +somnambulist who, when awake, can press it only up to a certain average +of tightness, you will see that in the somnambulistic state--as it is +stupidly termed--his fingers can clutch like a vise screwed up by a +blacksmith.'--Well, monsieur, I placed my hand in that of a woman, not +asleep, for Bouvard rejects the word, but isolated, and when the old man +bid her squeeze my wrist as long and as tightly as she could, I begged +him to stop when the blood was almost bursting from my finger tips. +Look, you can see the marks of her clutch, which I shall not lose for +these three months." + +"The deuce!" exclaimed Monsieur Gault, as he saw a band of bruised +flesh, looking like the scar of a burn. + +"My dear Gault," the doctor went on, "if my wrist had been gripped in +an iron manacle screwed tight by a locksmith, I should not have felt +the bracelet of metal so hard as that woman's fingers; her hand was +of unyielding steel, and I am convinced that she could have crushed my +bones and broken my hand from the wrist. The pressure, beginning almost +insensibly, increased without relaxing, fresh force being constantly +added to the former grip; a tourniquet could not have been more +effectual than that hand used as an instrument of torture.--To me, +therefore, it seems proven that under the influence of passion, which is +the will concentrated on one point and raised to an incalculable power +of animal force, as the different varieties of electric force are also, +man may direct his whole vitality, whether for attack or resistance, +to one of his organs.--Now, this little lady, under the stress of her +despair, had concentrated her vital force in her hands." + +"She must have a good deal too, to break a wrought-iron bar," said the +chief warder, with a shake of the head. + +"There was a flaw in it," Monsieur Gault observed. + +"For my part," said the doctor, "I dare assign no limits to nervous +force. And indeed it is by this that mothers, to save their children, +can magnetize lions, climb, in a fire, along a parapet where a cat would +not venture, and endure the torments that sometimes attend childbirth. +In this lies the secret of the attempts made by convicts and prisoners +to regain their liberty. The extent of our vital energies is as yet +unknown; they are part of the energy of nature itself, and we draw them +from unknown reservoirs." + +"Monsieur," said the warder in an undertone to the Governor, coming +close to him as he was escorting Doctor Lebrun as far as the outer gates +of the Conciergerie, "Number 2 in the secret cells says he is ill, and +needs the doctor; he declares he is dying," added the turnkey. + +"Indeed," said the Governor. + +"His breath rattles in his throat," replied the man. + +"It is five o'clock," said the doctor; "I have had no dinner. But, after +all, I am at hand. Come, let us see." + +"Number 2, as it happens, is the Spanish priest suspected of being +Jacques Collin," said Monsieur Gault to the doctor, "and one of +the persons suspected of the crime in which that poor young man was +implicated." + +"I saw him this morning," replied the doctor. "Monsieur Camusot sent for +me to give evidence as to the state of the rascal's health, and I +may assure you that he is perfectly well, and could make a fortune by +playing the part of Hercules in a troupe of athletes." + +"Perhaps he wants to kill himself too," said Monsieur Gault. "Let us +both go down to the cells together, for I ought to go there if only +to transfer him to an upper room. Monsieur Camusot has given orders to +mitigate this anonymous gentleman's confinement." + +Jacques Collin, known as _Trompe-la-Mort_ in the world of the hulks, +who must henceforth be called only by his real name, had gone through +terrible distress of mind since, after hearing Camusot's order, he had +been taken back to the underground cell--an anguish such as he had never +before known in the course of a life diversified by many crimes, by +three escapes, and two sentences at the Assizes. And is there not +something monstrously fine in the dog-like attachment shown to the man +he had made his friend by this wretch in whom were concentrated all the +life, the powers, the spirit, and the passions of the hulks, who was, so +to speak, their highest expression? + +Wicked, infamous, and in so many ways horrible, this absolute worship of +his idol makes him so truly interesting that this Study, long as it +is already, would seem incomplete and cut short if the close of this +criminal career did not come as a sequel to Lucien de Rubempre's end. +The little spaniel being dead, we want to know whether his terrible +playfellow the lion will live on. + +In real life, in society, every event is so inevitably linked to other +events, that one cannot occur without the rest. The water of the great +river forms a sort of fluid floor; not a wave, however rebellious, +however high it may toss itself, but its powerful crest must sink to the +level of the mass of waters, stronger by the momentum of its course than +the revolt of the surges it bears with it. + +And just as you watch the current flow, seeing in it a confused sheet +of images, so perhaps you would like to measure the pressure exerted +by social energy on the vortex called Vautrin; to see how far away the +rebellious eddy will be carried ere it is lost, and what the end will +be of this really diabolical man, human still by the power of loving--so +hardly can that heavenly grace perish, even in the most cankered heart. + +This wretched convict, embodying the poem that has smiled on many a +poet's fancy--on Moore, on Lord Byron, on Mathurin, on Canalis--the +demon who has drawn an angel down to hell to refresh him with dews +stolen from heaven,--this Jacques Collin will be seen, by the reader who +has understood that iron soul, to have sacrificed his own life for +seven years past. His vast powers, absorbed in Lucien, acted solely for +Lucien; he lived for his progress, his loves, his ambitions. To him, +Lucien was his own soul made visible. + +It was _Trompe-la-Mort_ who dined with the Grandlieus, stole into +ladies' boudoirs, and loved Esther by proxy. In fact, in Lucien he saw +Jacques Collin, young, handsome, noble, and rising to the dignity of an +ambassador. + +_Trompe-la-Mort_ had realized the German superstition of a doppelganger +by means of a spiritual paternity, a phenomenon which will be quite +intelligible to those women who have ever truly loved, who have felt +their soul merge in that of the man they adore, who have lived his life, +whether noble or infamous, happy or unhappy, obscure or brilliant; +who, in defiance of distance, have felt a pain in their leg if he were +wounded in his; who if he fought a duel would have been aware of it; +and who, to put the matter in a nutshell, did not need to be told he was +unfaithful to know it. + +As he went back to his cell Jacques Collin said to himself, "The boy is +being examined." + +And he shivered--he who thought no more of killing a man than a laborer +does of drinking. + +"Has he been able to see his mistresses?" he wondered. "Has my aunt +succeeded in catching those damned females? Have the Duchesses and +Countesses bestirred themselves and prevented his being examined? Has +Lucien had my instructions? And if ill-luck will have it that he is +cross-questioned, how will he carry it off? Poor boy, and I have brought +him to this! It is that rascal Paccard and that sneak Europe who have +caused all this rumpus by collaring the seven hundred and fifty thousand +francs for the certificate Nucingen gave Esther. That precious pair +tripped us up at the last step; but I will make them pay dear for their +pranks. + +"One day more and Lucien would have been a rich man; he might have +married his Clotilde de Grandlieu.--Then the boy would have been all +my own!--And to think that our fate depends on a look, on a blush of +Lucien's under Camusot's eye, who sees everything, and has all a judge's +wits about him! For when he showed me the letters we tipped each other +a wink in which we took each other's measure, and he guessed that I can +make Lucien's lady-loves fork out." + +This soliloquy lasted for three hours. His torments were so great that +they were too much for that frame of iron and vitriol; Jacques Collin, +whose brain felt on fire with insanity, suffered such fearful thirst +that he unconsciously drank up all the water contained in one of the +pails with which the cell was supplied, forming, with the bed, all its +furniture. + +"If he loses his head, what will become of him?--for the poor child +has not Theodore's tenacity," said he to himself, as he lay down on the +camp-bed--like a bed in a guard-room. + + + +A word must here be said about this Theodore, remembered by Jacques +Collin at such a critical moment. Theodore Calvi, a young Corsican, +imprisoned for life at the age of eighteen for eleven murders, thanks to +the influential interference paid for with vast sums, had been made the +fellow convict of Jacques Collin, to whom he was chained, in 1819 and +1820. Jacques Collin's last escape, one of his finest inventions--for he +had got out disguised as a gendarme leading Theodore Calvi as he was, a +convict called before the commissary of police--had been effected in the +seaport of Rochefort, where the convicts die by dozens, and where, it +was hoped, these two dangerous rascals would have ended their days. +Though they escaped together, the difficulties of their flight had +forced them to separate. Theodore was caught and restored to the hulks. + +Indeed, a life with Lucien, a youth innocent of all crime, who had only +minor sins on his conscience, dawned on him as bright and glorious as a +summer sun; while with Theodore, Jacques Collin could look forward to no +end but the scaffold after a career of indispensable crimes. + +The thought of disaster as a result of Lucien's weakness--for his +experience of an underground cell would certainly have turned +his brain--took vast proportions in Jacques Collin's mind; and, +contemplating the probabilities of such a misfortune, the unhappy +man felt his eyes fill with tears, a phenomenon that had been utterly +unknown to him since his earliest childhood. + +"I must be in a furious fever," said he to himself; "and perhaps if +I send for the doctor and offer him a handsome sum, he will put me in +communication with Lucien." + +At this moment the turnkey brought in his dinner. + +"It is quite useless my boy; I cannot eat. Tell the governor of this +prison to send the doctor to see me. I am very bad, and I believe my +last hour has come." + +Hearing the guttural rattle that accompanied these words, the warder +bowed and went. Jacques Collin clung wildly to this hope; but when he +saw the doctor and the governor come in together, he perceived that +the attempt was abortive, and coolly awaited the upshot of the visit, +holding out his wrist for the doctor to feel his pulse. + +"The Abbe is feverish," said the doctor to Monsieur Gault, "but it is +the type of fever we always find in inculpated prisoners--and to me," +he added, in the governor's ear, "it is always a sign of some degree of +guilt." + +Just then the governor, to whom the public prosecutor had intrusted +Lucien's letter to be given to Jacques Collin, left the doctor and the +prisoner together under the guard of the warder, and went to fetch the +letter. + +"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin, seeing the warder outside the door, +and not understanding why the governor had left them, "I should think +nothing of thirty thousand francs if I might send five lines to Lucien +de Rubempre." + +"I will not rob you of your money," said Doctor Lebrun; "no one in this +world can ever communicate with him again----" + +"No one?" said the prisoner in amazement. "Why?" + +"He has hanged himself----" + +No tigress robbed of her whelps ever startled an Indian jungle with a +yell so fearful as that of Jacques Collin, who rose to his feet as a +tiger rears to spring, and fired a glance at the doctor as scorching +as the flash of a falling thunderbolt. Then he fell back on the bed, +exclaiming: + +"Oh, my son!" + +"Poor man!" said the doctor, moved by this terrific convulsion of +nature. + +In fact, the first explosion gave way to such utter collapse, that the +words, "Oh, my son," were but a murmur. + +"Is this one going to die in our hands too?" said the turnkey. + +"No; it is impossible!" Jacques Collin went on, raising himself and +looking at the two witnesses of the scene with a dead, cold eye. "You +are mistaken; it is not Lucien; you did not see. A man cannot hang +himself in one of these cells. Look--how could I hang myself here? All +Paris shall answer to me for that boy's life! God owes it to me." + +The warder and the doctor were amazed in their turn--they, whom nothing +had astonished for many a long day. + +On seeing the governor, Jacques Collin, crushed by the very violence of +this outburst of grief, seemed somewhat calmer. + +"Here is a letter which the public prosecutor placed in my hands for +you, with permission to give it to you sealed," said Monsieur Gault. + +"From Lucien?" said Jacques Collin. + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"Is not that young man----" + +"He is dead," said the governor. "Even if the doctor had been on +the spot, he would, unfortunately, have been too late. The young man +died--there--in one of the rooms----" + +"May I see him with my own eyes?" asked Jacques Collin timidly. "Will +you allow a father to weep over the body of his son?" + +"You can, if you like, take his room, for I have orders to remove +you from these cells; you are no longer in such close confinement, +monsieur." + +The prisoner's eyes, from which all light and warmth had fled, turned +slowly from the governor to the doctor; Jacques Collin was examining +them, fearing some trap, and he was afraid to go out of the cell. + +"If you wish to see the body," said Lebrun, "you have no time to lose; +it is to be carried away to-night." + +"If you have children, gentlemen," said Jacques Collin, "you will +understand my state of mind; I hardly know what I am doing. This blow +is worse to me than death; but you cannot know what I am saying. Even if +you are fathers, it is only after a fashion--I am a mother too--I--I am +going mad--I feel it!" + +By going through certain passages which open only to the governor, it +is possible to get very quickly from the cells to the private rooms. The +two sets of rooms are divided by an underground corridor formed of two +massive walls supporting the vault over which Galerie Marchande, as it +is called, is built. So Jacques Collin, escorted by the warder, who took +his arm, preceded by the governor, and followed by the doctor, in a few +minutes reached the cell where Lucien was lying stretched on the bed. + +On seeing the body, he threw himself upon it, seizing it in a desperate +embrace with a passion and impulse that made these spectators shudder. + +"There," said the doctor to Monsieur Gault, "that is an instance of what +I was telling you. You see that man clutching the body, and you do not +know what a corpse is; it is stone----" + +"Leave me alone!" said Jacques Collin in a smothered voice; "I have not +long to look at him. They will take him away to----" + +He paused at the word "bury him." + +"You will allow me to have some relic of my dear boy! Will you be so +kind as to cut off a lock of his hair for me, monsieur," he said to the +doctor, "for I cannot----" + +"He was certainly his son," said Lebrun. + +"Do you think so?" replied the governor in a meaning tone, which made +the doctor thoughtful for a few minutes. + +The governor gave orders that the prisoner should be left in this cell, +and that some locks of hair should be cut for the self-styled father +before the body should be removed. + +At half-past five in the month of May it is easy to read a letter in the +Conciergerie in spite of the iron bars and the close wire trellis that +guard the windows. So Jacques Collin read the dreadful letter while he +still held Lucien's hand. + +The man is not known who can hold a lump of ice for ten minutes tightly +clutched in the hollow of his hand. The cold penetrates to the very +life-springs with mortal rapidity. But the effect of that cruel chill, +acting like a poison, is as nothing to that which strikes to the soul +from the cold, rigid hand of the dead thus held. Thus Death speaks +to Life; it tells many dark secrets which kill many feelings; for in +matters of feeling is not change death? + +As we read through once more, with Jacques Collin, Lucien's last letter, +it will strike us as being what it was to this man--a cup of poison:-- + + "_To the Abbe Carlos Herrera_. + + "MY DEAR ABBE,--I have had only benefits from you, and I have + betrayed you. This involuntary ingratitude is killing me, and when + you read these lines I shall have ceased to exist. You are not + here now to save me. + + "You had given me full liberty, if I should find it advantageous, + to destroy you by flinging you on the ground like a cigar-end; but + I have ruined you by a blunder. To escape from a difficulty, + deluded by a clever question from the examining judge, your son by + adoption and grace went over to the side of those who aim at + killing you at any cost, and insist on proving an identity, which + I know to be impossible, between you and a French villain. All is + said. + + "Between a man of your calibre and me--me of whom you tried to + make a greater man than I am capable of being--no foolish + sentiment can come at the moment of final parting. You hoped to + make me powerful and famous, and you have thrown me into the gulf + of suicide, that is all. I have long heard the broad pinions of + that vertigo beating over my head. + + "As you have sometimes said, there is the posterity of Cain and + the posterity of Abel. In the great human drama Cain is in + opposition. You are descended from Adam through that line, in + which the devil still fans the fire of which the first spark was + flung on Eve. Among the demons of that pedigree, from time to time + we see one of stupendous power, summing up every form of human + energy, and resembling the fevered beasts of the desert, whose + vitality demands the vast spaces they find there. Such men are as + dangerous as lions would be in the heart of Normandy; they must + have their prey, and they devour common men and crop the money of + fools. Their sport is so dangerous that at last they kill the + humble dog whom they have taken for a companion and made an idol + of. + + "When it is God's will, these mysterious beings may be a Moses, an + Attila, Charlemagne, Mahomet, or Napoleon; but when He leaves a + generation of these stupendous tools to rust at the bottom of the + ocean, they are no more than a Pugatschef, a Fouche, a Louvel, or + the Abbe Carlos Herrera. Gifted with immense power over tenderer + souls, they entrap them and mangle them. It is grand, it is fine + --in its way. It is the poisonous plant with gorgeous coloring that + fascinates children in the woods. It is the poetry of evil. Men + like you ought to dwell in caves and never come out of them. You + have made me live that vast life, and I have had all my share of + existence; so I may very well take my head out of the Gordian knot + of your policy and slip it into the running knot of my cravat. + + "To repair the mischief I have done, I am forwarding to the public + prosecutor a retraction of my deposition. You will know how to + take advantage of this document. + + "In virtue of a will formally drawn up, restitution will be made, + Monsieur l'Abbe, of the moneys belonging to your Order which you + so imprudently devoted to my use, as a result of your paternal + affection for me. + + "And so, farewell. Farewell, colossal image of Evil and + Corruption; farewell--to you who, if started on the right road, + might have been greater than Ximenes, greater than Richelieu! You + have kept your promises. I find myself once more just as I was on + the banks of the Charente, after enjoying, by your help, the + enchantments of a dream. But, unfortunately, it is not now in the + waters of my native place that I shall drown the errors of a boy; + but in the Seine, and my hole is a cell in the Conciergerie. + + "Do not regret me: my contempt for you is as great as my + admiration. + + "LUCIEN." + + +A little before one in the morning, when the men came to fetch away the +body, they found Jacques Collin kneeling by the bed, the letter on the +floor, dropped, no doubt, as a suicide drops the pistol that has shot +him; but the unhappy man still held Lucien's hand between his own, and +was praying to God. + +On seeing this man, the porters paused for a moment, for he looked like +one of those stone images, kneeling to all eternity on a mediaeval tomb, +the work of some stone-carver's genius. The sham priest, with eyes +as bright as a tiger's, but stiffened into supernatural rigidity, so +impressed the men that they gently bid him rise. + +"Why?" he asked mildly. The audacious _Trompe-la-Mort_ was as meek as a +child. + +The governor pointed him out to Monsieur de Chargeboeuf; and he, +respecting such grief, and believing that Jacques Collin was indeed +the priest he called himself, explained the orders given by Monsieur de +Granville with regard to the funeral service and arrangements, showing +that it was absolutely necessary that the body should be transferred +to Lucien's lodgings, Quai Malaquais, where the priests were waiting to +watch by it for the rest of the night. + +"It is worthy of that gentleman's well-known magnanimity," said Jacques +Collin sadly. "Tell him, monsieur, that he may rely on my gratitude. +Yes, I am in a position to do him great service. Do not forget these +words; they are of the utmost importance to him. + +"Oh, monsieur! strange changes come over a man's spirit when for seven +hours he has wept over such a son as he----And I shall see him no more!" + +After gazing once more at Lucien with an expression of a mother bereft +of her child's remains, Jacques Collin sank in a heap. As he saw +Lucien's body carried away, he uttered a groan that made the men hurry +off. The public prosecutor's private secretary and the governor of the +prison had already made their escape from the scene. + +What had become of that iron spirit; of the decision which was a match +in swiftness for the eye; of the nature in which thought and action +flashed forth together like one flame; of the sinews hardened by three +spells of labor on the hulks, and by three escapes, the muscles which +had acquired the metallic temper of a savage's limbs? Iron will yield to +a certain amount of hammering or persistent pressure; its impenetrable +molecules, purified and made homogeneous by man, may become +disintegrated, and without being in a state of fusion the metal had lost +its power of resistance. Blacksmiths, locksmiths, tool-makers sometimes +express this state by saying the iron is retting, appropriating a word +applied exclusively to hemp, which is reduced to pulp and fibre by +maceration. Well, the human soul, or, if you will, the threefold powers +of body, heart, and intellect, under certain repeated shocks, get into +such a condition as fibrous iron. They too are disintegrated. Science +and law and the public seek a thousand causes for the terrible +catastrophes on railways caused by the rupture of an iron rail, that of +Bellevue being a famous instance; but no one has asked the evidence +of real experts in such matters, the blacksmiths, who all say the same +thing, "The iron was stringy!" The danger cannot be foreseen. Metal +that has gone soft, and metal that has preserved its tenacity, both look +exactly alike. + +Priests and examining judges often find great criminals in this state. +The awful experiences of the Assize Court and the "last toilet" commonly +produce this dissolution of the nervous system, even in the strongest +natures. Then confessions are blurted by the most firmly set lips; then +the toughest hearts break; and, strange to say, always at the moment +when these confessions are useless, when this weakness as of death +snatches from the man the mask of innocence which made Justice +uneasy--for it always is uneasy when the criminal dies without +confessing his crime. + +Napoleon went through this collapse of every human power on the field of +Waterloo. + +At eight in the morning, when the warder of the better cells entered the +room where Jacques Collin was confined, he found him pale and calm, like +a man who has collected all his strength by sheer determination. + +"It is the hour for airing in the prison-yard," said the turnkey; +"you have not been out for three days; if you choose to take air and +exercise, you may." + +Jacques Collin, lost in his absorbing thoughts, and taking no interest +in himself, regarding himself as a garment with no body in it, a perfect +rag, never suspected the trap laid for him by Bibi-Lupin, nor the +importance attaching to his walk in the prison-yard. + +The unhappy man went out mechanically, along the corridor, by the cells +built into the magnificent cloisters of the Palace of the Kings, over +which is the corridor Saint-Louis, as it is called, leading to the +various purlieus of the Court of Appeals. This passage joins that of the +better cells; and it is worth noting that the cell in which Louvel was +imprisoned, one of the most famous of the regicides, is the room at +the right angle formed by the junction of the two corridors. Under the +pretty room in the Tour Bonbec there is a spiral staircase leading from +the dark passage, and serving the prisoners who are lodged in these +cells to go up and down on their way from or to the yard. + +Every prisoner, whether committed for trial or already sentenced, and +the prisoners under suspicion who have been reprieved from the closest +cells--in short, every one in confinement in the Conciergerie takes +exercise in this narrow paved courtyard for some hours every day, +especially the early hours of summer mornings. This recreation ground, +the ante-room to the scaffold or the hulks on one side, on the other +still clings to the world through the gendarme, the examining judge, +and the Assize Court. It strikes a greater chill perhaps than even the +scaffold. The scaffold may be a pedestal to soar to heaven from; but the +prison-yard is every infamy on earth concentrated and unavoidable. + +Whether at La Force or at Poissy, at Melun or at Sainte-Pelagie, a +prison-yard is a prison-yard. The same details are exactly repeated, +all but the color of the walls, their height, and the space enclosed. So +this Study of Manners would be false to its name if it did not include +an exact description of this Pandemonium of Paris. + +Under the mighty vaulting which supports the lower courts and the Court +of Appeals there is, close to the fourth arch, a stone slab, used by +Saint-Louis, it is said, for the distribution of alms, and doing duty +in our day as a counter for the sale of eatables to the prisoners. So as +soon as the prison-yard is open to the prisoners, they gather round this +stone table, which displays such dainties as jail-birds desire--brandy, +rum, and the like. + +The first two archways on that side of the yard, facing the fine +Byzantine corridor--the only vestige now of Saint-Louis' elegant +palace--form a parlor, where the prisoners and their counsel may meet, +to which the prisoners have access through a formidable gateway--a +double passage, railed off by enormous bars, within the width of the +third archway. This double way is like the temporary passages arranged +at the door of a theatre to keep a line on occasions when a great +success brings a crowd. This parlor, at the very end of the vast +entrance-hall of the Conciergerie, and lighted by loop-holes on the +yard side, has lately been opened out towards the back, and the opening +filled with glass, so that the interviews of the lawyers with their +clients are under supervision. This innovation was made necessary by the +too great fascinations brought to bear by pretty women on their counsel. +Where will morality stop short? Such precautions are like the ready-made +sets of questions for self-examination, where pure imaginations are +defiled by meditating on unknown and monstrous depravity. In this +parlor, too, parents and friends may be allowed by the authorities to +meet the prisoners, whether on remand or awaiting their sentence. + +The reader may now understand what the prison-yard is to the two hundred +prisoners in the Conciergerie: their garden--a garden without trees, +beds, or flowers--in short, a prison-yard. The parlor, and the stone of +Saint-Louis, where such food and liquor as are allowed are dispensed, +are the only possible means of communication with the outer world. + +The hour spent in the yard is the only time when the prisoner is in +the open air or the society of his kind; in other prisons those who +are sentenced for a term are brought together in workshops; but in +the Conciergerie no occupation is allowed, excepting in the privileged +cells. There the absorbing idea in every mind is the drama of the Assize +Court, since the culprit comes only to be examined or to be sentenced. + +This yard is indeed terrible to behold; it cannot be imagined, it must +be seen. + +In the first place, the assemblage, in a space forty metres long by +thirty wide, of a hundred condemned or suspected criminals, does not +constitute the cream of society. These creatures, belonging for the most +part to the lowest ranks, are poorly clad; their countenances are base +or horrible, for a criminal from the upper sphere of society is happily, +a rare exception. Peculation, forgery, or fraudulent bankruptcy, the +only crimes that can bring decent folks so low, enjoy the privilege of +the better cells, and then the prisoner scarcely ever quits it. + +This promenade, bounded by fine but formidable blackened walls, by a +cloister divided up into cells, by fortifications on the side towards +the quay, by the barred cells of the better class on the north, watched +by vigilant warders, and filled with a herd of criminals, all meanly +suspicious of each other, is depressing enough in itself; and it becomes +terrifying when you find yourself the centre of all those eyes full of +hatred, curiosity, and despair, face to face with that degraded crew. +Not a gleam of gladness! all is gloom--the place and the men. All is +speechless--the walls and men's consciences. To these hapless creatures +danger lies everywhere; excepting in the case of an alliance as ominous +as the prison where it was formed, they dare not trust each other. + +The police, all-pervading, poisons the atmosphere and taints everything, +even the hand-grasp of two criminals who have been intimate. A convict +who meets his most familiar comrade does not know that he may not have +repented and have made a confession to save his life. This absence +of confidence, this dread of the nark, marks the liberty, already so +illusory, of the prison-yard. The "nark" (in French, le Mouton or le +coqueur) is a spy who affects to be sentenced for some serious offence, +and whose skill consists in pretending to be a chum. The "chum," in +thieves' slang, is a skilled thief, a professional who has cut himself +adrift from society, and means to remain a thief all his days, and +continues faithful through thick and thin to the laws of the swell-mob. + +Crime and madness have a certain resemblance. To see the prisoners of +the Conciergerie in the yard, or the madmen in the garden of an asylum, +is much the same thing. Prisoners and lunatics walk to and fro, avoiding +each other, looking up with more or less strange or vicious glances, +according to the mood of the moment, but never cheerful, never grave; +they know each other, or they dread each other. The anticipation of +their sentence, remorse, and apprehension give all these men exercising, +the anxious, furtive look of the insane. Only the most consummate +criminals have the audacity that apes the quietude of respectability, +the sincerity of a clear conscience. + +As men of the better class are few, and shame keeps the few whose crimes +have brought them within doors, the frequenters of the prison-yard +are for the most part dressed as workmen. Blouses, long and short, +and velveteen jackets preponderate. These coarse or dirty +garments, harmonizing with the coarse and sinister faces and brutal +manner--somewhat subdued, indeed, by the gloomy reflections that weigh +on men in prison--everything, to the silence that reigns, contributes to +strike terror or disgust into the rare visitor who, by high influence, +has obtained the privilege, seldom granted, of going over the +Conciergerie. + +Just as the sight of an anatomical museum, where foul diseases are +represented by wax models, makes the youth who may be taken there +more chaste and apt for nobler and purer love, so the sight of the +Conciergerie and of the prison-yard, filled with men marked for the +hulks or the scaffold or some disgraceful punishment, inspires many, who +might not fear that Divine Justice whose voice speaks so loudly to the +conscience, with a fear of human justice; and they come out honest men +for a long time after. + + + +As the men who were exercising in the prison-yard, when _Trompe-la-Mort_ +appeared there, were to be the actors in a scene of crowning importance +in the life of Jacques Collin, it will be well to depict a few of the +principal personages of this sinister crowd. + +Here, as everywhere when men are thrown together, here, as at school +even, force, physical and moral, wins the day. Here, then, as on the +hulks, crime stamps the man's rank. Those whose head is doomed are +the aristocracy. The prison-yard, as may be supposed, is a school of +criminal law, which is far better learned there than at the Hall on the +Place du Pantheon. + +A never-failing pleasantry is to rehearse the drama of the Assize Court; +to elect a president, a jury, a public prosecutor, a counsel, and to +go through the whole trial. This hideous farce is played before almost +every great trial. At this time a famous case was proceeding in the +Criminal Court, that of the dreadful murder committed on the persons +of Monsieur and Madame Crottat, the notary's father and mother, retired +farmers who, as this horrible business showed, kept eight hundred +thousand francs in gold in their house. + +One of the men concerned in this double murder was the notorious +Dannepont, known as la Pouraille, a released convict, who for five years +had eluded the most active search on the part of the police, under the +protection of seven or eight different names. This villain's disguises +were so perfect, that he had served two years of imprisonment under the +name of Delsouq, who was one of his own disciples, and a famous +thief, though he never, in any of his achievements, went beyond the +jurisdiction of the lower Courts. La Pouraille had committed no less +than three murders since his dismissal from the hulks. The certainty +that he would be executed, not less than the large fortune he was +supposed to have, made this man an object of terror and admiration to +his fellow-prisoners; for not a farthing of the stolen money had ever +been recovered. Even after the events of July 1830, some persons may +remember the terror caused in Paris by this daring crime, worthy +to compare in importance with the robbery of medals from the Public +Library; for the unhappy tendency of our age is to make a murder the +more interesting in proportion to the greater sum of money secured by +it. + +La Pouraille, a small, lean, dry man, with a face like a ferret, +forty-five years old, and one of the celebrities of the prisons he had +successively lived in since the age of nineteen, knew Jacques Collin +well, how and why will be seen. + +Two other convicts, brought with la Pouraille from La Force within +these twenty-four hours, had at once acknowledged and made the whole +prison-yard acknowledge the supremacy of this past-master sealed to the +scaffold. One of these convicts, a ticket-of-leave man, named Selerier, +alias l'Avuergnat, Pere Ralleau, and le Rouleur, who in the sphere +known to the hulks as the swell-mob was called Fil-de-Soie (or silken +thread)--a nickname he owed to the skill with which he slipped through +the various perils of the business--was an old ally of Jacques Collin's. + +_Trompe-la-Mort_ so keenly suspected Fil-de-Soie of playing a double +part, of being at once in the secrets of the swell-mob and a spy laid by +the police, that he had supposed him to be the prime mover of his arrest +in the Maison Vauquer in 1819 (_Le Pere Goriot_). Selerier, whom we must +call Fil-de-Soie, as we shall also call Dannepont la Pouraille, already +guilty of evading surveillance, was concerned in certain well-known +robberies without bloodshed, which would certainly take him back to the +hulks for at least twenty years. + +The other convict, named Riganson, and his kept woman, known as +la Biffe, were a most formidable couple, members of the swell-mob. +Riganson, on very distant terms with the police from his earliest years, +was nicknamed le Biffon. Biffon was the male of la Biffe--for nothing is +sacred to the swell-mob. These fiends respect nothing, neither the law +nor religions, not even natural history, whose solemn nomenclature, it +is seen, is parodied by them. + +Here a digression is necessary; for Jacques Collin's appearance in the +prison-yard in the midst of his foes, as had been so cleverly contrived +by Bibi-Lupin and the examining judge, and the strange scenes to ensue, +would be incomprehensible and impossible without some explanation as to +the world of thieves and of the hulks, its laws, its manners, and above +all, its language, its hideous figures of speech being indispensable in +this portion of my tale. + +So, first of all, a few words must be said as to the vocabulary of +sharpers, pickpockets, thieves, and murderers, known as Argot, or +thieves' cant, which has of late been introduced into literature with so +much success that more than one word of that strange lingo is familiar +on the rosy lips of ladies, has been heard in gilded boudoirs, and +become the delight of princes, who have often proclaimed themselves +"done brown" (floue)! And it must be owned, to the surprise no doubt of +many persons, that no language is more vigorous or more vivid than that +of this underground world which, from the beginnings of countries with +capitals, has dwelt in cellars and slums, in the third limbo of society +everywhere (le troisieme dessous, as the expressive and vivid slang of +the theatres has it). For is not the world a stage? Le troisieme dessous +is the lowest cellar under the stage at the Opera where the machinery +is kept and men stay who work it, whence the footlights are raised, the +ghosts, the blue-devils shot up from hell, and so forth. + +Every word of this language is a bold metaphor, ingenious or horrible. +A man's breeches are his kicks or trucks (montante, a word that need not +be explained). In this language you do not sleep, you snooze, or doze +(pioncer--and note how vigorously expressive the word is of the sleep of +the hunted, weary, distrustful animal called a thief, which as soon as +it is in safety drops--rolls--into the gulf of deep slumber so necessary +under the mighty wings of suspicion always hovering over it; a fearful +sleep, like that of a wild beast that can sleep, nay, and snore, and yet +its ears are alert with caution). + +In this idiom everything is savage. The syllables which begin or end +the words are harsh and curiously startling. A woman is a trip or a moll +(une largue). And it is poetical too: straw is la plume de Beauce, a +farmyard feather bed. The word midnight is paraphrased by twelve leads +striking--it makes one shiver! Rincer une cambriole is to "screw the +shop," to rifle a room. What a feeble expression is to go to bed in +comparison with "to doss" (piausser, make a new skin). What picturesque +imagery! Work your dominoes (jouer des dominos) is to eat; how can men +eat with the police at their heels? + +And this language is always growing; it keeps pace with civilization, +and is enriched with some new expression by every fresh invention. The +potato, discovered and introduced by Louis XVI. and Parmentier, was at +once dubbed in French slang as the pig's orange (Orange a Cochons)[the +Irish have called them bog oranges]. Banknotes are invented; the "mob" +at once call them Flimsies (fafiots garotes, from "Garot," the name of +the cashier whose signature they bear). Flimsy! (fafiot.) Cannot you +hear the rustle of the thin paper? The thousand franc-note is male +flimsy (in French), the five hundred franc-note is the female; and +convicts will, you may be sure, find some whimsical name for the hundred +and two hundred franc-notes. + +In 1790 Guillotin invented, with humane intent, the expeditious machine +which solved all the difficulties involved in the problem of capital +punishment. Convicts and prisoners from the hulks forthwith investigated +this contrivance, standing as it did on the monarchical borderland of +the old system and the frontier of modern legislation; they instantly +gave it the name of _l'Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret_. They looked at the +angle formed by the steel blade, and described its action as repeating +(faucher); and when it is remembered that the hulks are called the +meadow (le pre), philologists must admire the inventiveness of these +horrible vocables, as Charles Nodier would have said. + +The high antiquity of this kind of slang is also noteworthy. A tenth +of the words are of old Romanesque origin, another tenth are the old +Gaulish French of Rabelais. Effondrer, to thrash a man, to give him what +for; otolondrer, to annoy or to "spur" him; cambrioler, doing anything +in a room; aubert, money; Gironde, a beauty (the name of a river of +Languedoc); fouillousse, a pocket--a "cly"--are all French of the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The word affe, meaning life, is of +the highest antiquity. From affe anything that disturbs life is called +affres (a rowing or scolding), hence affreux, anything that troubles +life. + +About a hundred words are derived from the language of Panurge, a +name symbolizing the people, for it is derived from two Greek words +signifying All-working. + +Science is changing the face of the world by constructing railroads. In +Argot the train is le roulant Vif, the Rattler. + +The name given to the head while still on the shoulders--la +Sorbonne--shows the antiquity of this dialect which is mentioned by +very early romance-writers, as Cervantes, the Italian story-tellers, and +Aretino. In all ages the moll, the prostitute, the heroine of so many +old-world romances, has been the protectress, companion, and comfort of +the sharper, the thief, the pickpocket, the area-sneak, and the burglar. + +Prostitution and robbery are the male and female forms of protest made +by the natural state against the social state. Even philosophers, +the innovators of to-day, the humanitarians with the communists and +Fourierists in their train, come at last, without knowing it, to the +same conclusion--prostitution and theft. The thief does not argue out +questions of property, of inheritance, and social responsibility, +in sophistical books; he absolutely ignores them. To him theft is +appropriating his own. He does not discuss marriage; he does not +complain of it; he does not insist, in printed Utopian dreams, on the +mutual consent and bond of souls which can never become general; he +pairs with a vehemence of which the bonds are constantly riveted by the +hammer of necessity. Modern innovators write unctuous theories, long +drawn, and nebulous or philanthropical romances; but the thief acts. He +is as clear as a fact, as logical as a blow; and then his style! + +Another thing worth noting: the world of prostitutes, thieves, and +murders of the galleys and the prisons forms a population of about +sixty to eighty thousand souls, men and women. Such a world is not to be +disdained in a picture of modern manners and a literary reproduction of +the social body. The law, the gendarmerie, and the police constitute +a body almost equal in number; is not that strange? This antagonism of +persons perpetually seeking and avoiding each other, and fighting a vast +and highly dramatic duel, are what are sketched in this Study. It has +been the same thing with thieving and public harlotry as with the stage, +the police, the priesthood, and the gendarmerie. In these six walks of +life the individual contracts an indelible character. He can no longer +be himself. The stigmata of ordination are as immutable as those of the +soldier are. And it is the same in other callings which are strongly +in opposition, strong contrasts with civilization. These violent, +eccentric, singular signs--sui generis--are what make the harlot, the +robber, the murderer, the ticket-of-leave man, so easily recognizable +by their foes, the spy and the police, to whom they are as game to the +sportsman: they have a gait, a manner, a complexion, a look, a color, a +smell--in short, infallible marks about them. Hence the highly-developed +art of disguise which the heroes of the hulks acquire. + +One word yet as to the constitution of this world apart, which the +abolition of branding, the mitigation of penalties, and the silly +leniency of furies are making a threatening evil. In about twenty +years Paris will be beleaguered by an army of forty thousand reprieved +criminals; the department of the Seine and its fifteen hundred thousand +inhabitants being the only place in France where these poor wretches can +be hidden. To them Paris is what the virgin forest is to beasts of prey. + +The swell-mob, or more exactly, the upper class of thieves, which is +the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the aristocracy of the tribe, had, in +1816, after the peace which made life hard for so many men, formed an +association called les grands fanandels--the Great Pals--consisting +of the most noted master-thieves and certain bold spirits at that time +bereft of any means of living. This word pal means brother, friend, and +comrade all in one. And these "Great Pals," the cream of the thieving +fraternity, for more than twenty years were the Court of Appeal, the +Institute of Learning, and the Chamber of Peers of this community. These +men all had their private means, with funds in common, and a code of +their own. They knew each other, and were pledged to help and succor +each other in difficulties. And they were all superior to the tricks or +snares of the police, had a charter of their own, passwords and signs of +recognition. + +From 1815 to 1819 these dukes and peers of the prison world had formed +the famous association of the Ten-thousand (see _le Pere Goriot_), so +styled by reason of an agreement in virtue of which no job was to be +undertaken by which less than ten thousand francs could be got. + +At that very time, in 1829-30, some memoirs were brought out in which +the collective force of this association and the names of the leaders +were published by a famous member of the police-force. It was terrifying +to find there an army of skilled rogues, male and female; so numerous, +so clever, so constantly lucky, that such thieves as Pastourel, +Collonge, or Chimaux, men of fifty and sixty, were described as outlaws +from society from their earliest years! What a confession of the +ineptitude of justice that rogues so old should be at large! + +Jacques Collin had been the cashier, not only of the "Ten-thousand," but +also of the "Great Pals," the heroes of the hulks. Competent authorities +admit that the hulks have always owned large sums. This curious fact is +quite conceivable. Stolen goods are never recovered but in very singular +cases. The condemned criminal, who can take nothing with him, is obliged +to trust somebody's honesty and capacity, and to deposit his money; as +in the world of honest folks, money is placed in a bank. + +Long ago Bibi-Lupin, now for ten years a chief of the department of +Public Safety, had been a member of the aristocracy of "Pals." His +treason had resulted from offended pride; he had been constantly +set aside in favor of _Trompe-la-Mort's_ superior intelligence and +prodigious strength. Hence his persistent vindictiveness against Jacques +Collin. Hence, also, certain compromises between Bibi-Lupin and his old +companions, which the magistrates were beginning to take seriously. + +So in his desire for vengeance, to which the examining judge had given +play under the necessity of identifying Jacques Collin, the chief of the +"Safety" had very skilfully chosen his allies by setting la Pouraille, +Fil-de-Soie, and le Biffon on the sham Spaniard--for la Pouraille and +Fil-de-Soie both belonged to the "Ten-thousand," and le Biffon was a +"Great Pal." + +La Biffe, le Biffon's formidable trip, who to this day evades all the +pursuit of the police by her skill in disguising herself as a lady, was +at liberty. This woman, who successfully apes a marquise, a countess, +a baroness, keeps a carriage and men-servants. This Jacques Collin in +petticoats is the only woman who can compare with Asie, Jacques Collin's +right hand. And, in fact, every hero of the hulks is backed up by a +devoted woman. Prison records and the secret papers of the law courts +will tell you this; no honest woman's love, not even that of the bigot +for her spiritual director, has ever been greater than the attachment of +a mistress who shares the dangers of a great criminal. + +With these men a passion is almost always the first cause of +their daring enterprises and murders. The excessive love +which--constitutionally, as the doctors say--makes woman irresistible +to them, calls every moral and physical force of these powerful natures +into action. Hence the idleness which consumes their days, for excesses +of passion necessitate sleep and restorative food. Hence their loathing +of all work, driving these creatures to have recourse to rapid ways +of getting money. And yet, the need of a living, and of high living, +violent as it is, is but a trifle in comparison with the extravagance +to which these generous Medors are prompted by the mistress to whom they +want to give jewels and dress, and who--always greedy--love rich food. +The baggage wants a shawl, the lover steals it, and the woman sees in +this a proof of love. + +This is how robbery begins; and robbery, if we examine the human soul +through a lens, will be seen to be an almost natural instinct in man. + +Robbery leads to murder, and murder leads the lover step by step to the +scaffold. + +Ill-regulated physical desire is therefore, in these men, if we may +believe the medical faculty, at the root of seven-tenths of the crimes +committed. And, indeed, the proof is always found, evident, palpable +at the post-mortem examination of the criminal after his execution. And +these monstrous lovers, the scarecrows of society, are adored by their +mistresses. It is this female devotion, squatting faithfully at the +prison gate, always eagerly balking the cunning of the examiner, and +incorruptibly keeping the darkest secrets which make so many trials +impenetrable mysteries. + +In this, again, lies the strength as well as the weakness of the +accused. In the vocabulary of a prostitute, to be honest means to break +none of the laws of this attachment, to give all her money to the man +who is nabbed, to look after his comforts, to be faithful to him in +every way, to undertake anything for his sake. The bitterest insult one +of these women can fling in the teeth of another wretched creature is +to accuse her of infidelity to a lover in quod (in prison). In that case +such a woman is considered to have no heart. + +La Pouraille was passionately in love with a woman, as will be seen. + +Fil-de-Soie, an egotistical philosopher, who thieved to provide for the +future, was a good deal like Paccard, Jacques Collin's satellite, who +had fled with Prudence Servien and the seven hundred and fifty thousand +francs between them. He had no attachment, he condemned women, and loved +no one but Fil-de-Soie. + +As to le Biffon, he derived his nickname from his connection with +la Biffe. (La Biffe is scavenging, rag-picking.) And these three +distinguished members of _la haute pegre_, the aristocracy of roguery, +had a reckoning to demand of Jacques Collin, accounts that were somewhat +hard to bring to book. + +No one but the cashier could know how many of his clients were still +alive, and what each man's share would be. The mortality to which +the depositors were peculiarly liable had formed a basis for +_Trompe-la-Mort's_ calculations when he resolved to embezzle the funds +for Lucien's benefit. By keeping himself out of the way of the police +and of his pals for nine years, Jacques Collin was almost certain to +have fallen heir, by the terms of the agreement among the associates, +to two-thirds of the depositors. Besides, could he not plead that he had +repaid the pals who had been scragged? In fact, no one had any hold +over these _Great Pals_. His comrades trusted him by compulsion, for the +hunted life led by convicts necessitates the most delicate confidence +between the gentry of this crew of savages. So Jacques Collin, a +defaulter for a hundred thousand crowns, might now possibly be quit for +a hundred thousand francs. At this moment, as we see, la Pouraille, +one of Jacques Collin's creditors, had but ninety days to live. And la +Pouraille, the possessor of a sum vastly greater, no doubt, than that +placed in his pal's keeping, would probably prove easy to deal with. + + + +One of the infallible signs by which prison governors and their agents, +the police and warders, recognize old stagers (chevaux de retour), that +is to say, men who have already eaten beans (les gourganes, a kind of +haricots provided for prison fare), is their familiarity with prison +ways; those who have been _in_ before, of course, know the manners and +customs; they are at home, and nothing surprises them. + +And Jacques Collin, thoroughly on his guard, had, until now, played his +part to admiration as an innocent man and stranger, both at La Force and +at the Conciergerie. But now, broken by grief, and by two deaths--for +he had died twice over during that dreadful night--he was Jacques Collin +once more. The warder was astounded to find that the Spanish priest +needed no telling as to the way to the prison-yard. The perfect actor +forgot his part; he went down the corkscrew stairs in the Tour Bonbec as +one who knew the Conciergerie. + +"Bibi-Lupin is right," said the turnkey to himself; "he is an old +stager; he is Jacques Collin." + +At the moment when _Trompe-la-Mort_ appeared in the sort of frame to his +figure made by the door into the tower, the prisoners, having made their +purchases at the stone table called after Saint-Louis, were scattered +about the yard, always too small for their number. So the newcomer was +seen by all of them at once, and all the more promptly, because +nothing can compare for keenness with the eye of a prisoner, who in a +prison-yard feels like a spider watching in its web. And this comparison +is mathematically exact; for the range of vision being limited on all +sides by high dark walls, the prisoners can always see, even without +looking at them, the doors through which the warders come and go, the +windows of the parlor, and the stairs of the Tour Bonbec--the only exits +from the yard. In this utter isolation every trivial incident is an +event, everything is interesting; the tedium--a tedium like that of a +tiger in a cage--increases their alertness tenfold. + +It is necessary to note that Jacques Collin, dressed like a priest who +is not strict as to costume, wore black knee breeches, black stockings, +shoes with silver buckles, a black waistcoat, and a long coat of +dark-brown cloth of a certain cut that betrays the priest whatever he +may do, especially when these details are completed by a characteristic +style of haircutting. Jacques Collin's wig was eminently ecclesiastical, +and wonderfully natural. + +"Hallo!" said la Pouraille to le Biffon, "that's a bad sign! A rook! +(sanglier, a priest). How did he come here?" + +"He is one of their 'narks'" (trucs, spies) "of a new make," +replied Fil-de-Soie, "some runner with the bracelets" (marchand de +lacets--equivalent to a Bow Street runner) "looking out for his man." + +The gendarme boasts of many names in French slang; when he is after a +thief, he is "the man with the bracelets" (marchand de lacets); when he +has him in charge, he is a bird of ill-omen (hirondelle de la Greve); +when he escorts him to the scaffold, he is "groom to the guillotine" +(hussard de la guillotine). + +To complete our study of the prison-yard, two more of the prisoners +must be hastily sketched in. Selerier, alias l'Auvergnat, alias le Pere +Ralleau, called le Rouleur, alias Fil-de-Soie--he had thirty names, and +as many passports--will henceforth be spoken of by this name only, as he +was called by no other among the swell-mob. This profound philosopher, +who saw a spy in the sham priest, was a brawny fellow of about five +feet eight, whose muscles were all marked by strange bosses. He had +an enormous head in which a pair of half-closed eyes sparkled like +fire--the eyes of a bird of prey, with gray, dull, skinny eyelids. At +first glance his face resembled that of a wolf, his jaws were so broad, +powerful, and prominent; but the cruelty and even ferocity suggested by +this likeness were counterbalanced by the cunning and eagerness of his +face, though it was scarred by the smallpox. The margin of each scar +being sharply cut, gave a sort of wit to his expression; it was seamed +with ironies. The life of a criminal--a life of danger and thirst, of +nights spent bivouacking on the quays and river banks, on bridges +and streets, and the orgies of strong drink by which successes are +celebrated--had laid, as it were, a varnish over these features. +Fil-de-Soie, if seen in his undisguised person, would have been marked +by any constable or gendarme as his prey; but he was a match for Jacques +Collin in the arts of make-up and dress. Just now Fil-de-Soie, in +undress, like a great actor who is well got up only on the stage, wore a +sort of shooting jacket bereft of buttons, and whose ripped button-holes +showed the white lining, squalid green slippers, nankin trousers now +a dingy gray, and on his head a cap without a peak, under which an old +bandana was tied, streaky with rents, and washed out. + +Le Biffon was a complete contrast to Fil-de-Soie. This famous robber, +short, burly, and fat, but active, with a livid complexion, and deep-set +black eyes, dressed like a cook, standing squarely on very bandy +legs, was alarming to behold, for in his countenance all the features +predominated that are most typical of the carnivorous beast. + +Fil-de-Soie and le Biffon were always wheedling la Pouraille, who had +lost all hope. The murderer knew that he would be tried, sentenced, +and executed within four months. Indeed, Fil-de-Soie and le Biffon, +la Pouraille's chums, never called him anything but _le Chanoine de +l'Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret_ (a grim paraphrase for a man condemned to +the guillotine). It is easy to understand why Fil-de-Soie and le Biffon +should fawn on la Pouraille. The man had somewhere hidden two hundred +and fifty thousand francs in gold, his share of the spoil found in +the house of the Crottats, the "victims," in newspaper phrase. What a +splendid fortune to leave to two pals, though the two old stagers would +be sent back to the galleys within a few days! Le Biffon and Fil-de-Soie +would be sentenced for a term of fifteen years for robbery with +violence, without prejudice to the ten years' penal servitude on a +former sentence, which they had taken the liberty of cutting short. So, +though one had twenty-two and the other twenty-six years of imprisonment +to look forward to, they both hoped to escape, and come back to find la +Pouraille's mine of gold. + +But the "Ten-thousand man" kept his secret; he did not see the use of +telling it before he was sentenced. He belonged to the "upper ten" of +the hulks, and had never betrayed his accomplices. His temper was well +known; Monsieur Popinot, who had examined him, had not been able to get +anything out of him. + +This terrible trio were at the further end of the prison-yard, that is +to say, near the better class of cells. Fil-de-Soie was giving a lecture +to a young man who was IN for his first offence, and who, being certain +of ten years' penal servitude, was gaining information as to the various +convict establishments. + +"Well, my boy," Fil-de-Soie was saying sententiously as Jacques Collin +appeared on the scene, "the difference between Brest, Toulon, and +Rochefort is----" + +"Well, old cock?" said the lad, with the curiosity of a novice. + +This prisoner, a man of good family, accused of forgery, had come down +from the cell next to that where Lucien had been. + +"My son," Fil-de-Soie went on, "at Brest you are sure to get some beans +at the third turn if you dip your spoon in the bowl; at Toulon you never +get any till the fifth; and at Rochefort you get none at all, unless you +are an old hand." + +Having spoken, the philosopher joined le Biffon and la Pouraille, and +all three, greatly puzzled by the priest, walked down the yard, while +Jacques Collin, lost in grief, came up it. _Trompe-la-Mort_, absorbed in +terrible meditations, the meditations of a fallen emperor, did not +think of himself as the centre of observation, the object of general +attention, and he walked slowly, gazing at the fatal window where Lucien +had hanged himself. None of the prisoners knew of this catastrophe, +since, for reasons to be presently explained, the young forger had not +mentioned the subject. The three pals agreed to cross the priest's path. + +"He is no priest," said Fil-de-Soie; "he is an old stager. Look how he +drags his right foot." + +It is needful to explain here--for not every reader has had a fancy to +visit the galleys--that each convict is chained to another, an old one +and a young one always as a couple; the weight of this chain riveted +to a ring above the ankle is so great as to induce a limp, which the +convict never loses. Being obliged to exert one leg much more than the +other to drag this fetter (manicle is the slang name for such irons), +the prisoner inevitably gets into the habit of making the effort. +Afterwards, though he no longer wears the chain, it acts upon him still; +as a man still feels an amputated leg, the convict is always conscious +of the anklet, and can never get over that trick of walking. In police +slang, he "drags his right." And this sign, as well known to convicts +among themselves as it is to the police, even if it does not help to +identify a comrade, at any rate confirms recognition. + +In _Trompe-la Mort_, who had escaped eight years since, this trick had +to a great extent worn off; but just now, lost in reflections, he walked +at such a slow and solemn pace that, slight as the limp was, it was +strikingly evident to so practiced an eye as la Pouraille's. And it is +quite intelligible that convicts, always thrown together, as they must +be, and never having any one else to study, will so thoroughly have +watched each other's faces and appearance, that certain tricks will have +impressed them which may escape their systematic foes--spies, gendarmes, +and police-inspectors. + +Thus it was a peculiar twitch of the maxillary muscles of the left +cheek, recognized by a convict who was sent to a review of the Legion +of the Seine, which led to the arrest of the lieutenant-colonel of that +corps, the famous Coignard; for, in spite of Bibi-Lupin's confidence, +the police could not dare believe that the Comte Pontis de Sainte-Helene +and Coignard were one and the same man. + +"He is our boss" (dab or master) said Fil-de-Soie, seeing in Jacques +Collin's eyes the vague glance a man sunk in despair casts on all his +surroundings. + +"By Jingo! Yes, it is _Trompe-la-Mort_," said le Biffon, rubbing his +hands. "Yes, it is his cut, his build; but what has he done to himself? +He looks quite different." + +"I know what he is up to!" cried Fil-de-Soie; "he has some plan in his +head. He wants to see the boy" (sa tante) "who is to be executed before +long." + +The persons known in prison as tantes or aunts may be best described in +the ingenious words of the governor of one of the great prisons to the +late Lord Durham, who, during his stay in Paris, visited every prison. +So curious was he to see every detail of French justice, that he even +persuaded Sanson, at that time the executioner, to erect the scaffold +and decapitate a living calf, that he might thoroughly understand the +working of the machine made famous by the Revolution. The governor +having shown him everything--the yards, the workshops, and the +underground cells--pointed to a part of the building, and said, "I need +not take your Lordship there; it is the quartier des tantes."--"Oh," +said Lord Durham, "what are they!"--"The third sex, my Lord." + +"And they are going to scrag Theodore!" said la Pouraille, "such a +pretty boy! And such a light hand! such cheek! What a loss to society!" + +"Yes, Theodore Calvi is yamming his last meal," said le Biffon. "His +trips will pipe their eyes, for the little beggar was a great pet." + +"So you're here, old chap?" said la Pouraille to Jacques Collin. And, +arm-in-arm with his two acolytes, he barred the way to the new arrival. +"Why, Boss, have you got yourself japanned?" he went on. + +"I hear you have nobbled our pile" (stolen our money), le Biffon added, +in a threatening tone. + +"You have just got to stump up the tin!" said Fil-de-Soie. + +The three questions were fired at him like three pistol-shots. + +"Do not make game of an unhappy priest sent here by mistake," Jacques +Collin replied mechanically, recognizing his three comrades. + +"That is the sound of his pipe, if it is not quite the cut of his mug," +said la Pouraille, laying his hand on Jacques Collin's shoulder. + +This action, and the sight of his three chums, startled the "Boss" out +of his dejection, and brought him back to a consciousness of reality; +for during that dreadful night he had lost himself in the infinite +spiritual world of feeling, seeking some new road. + +"Do not blow the gaff on your Boss!" said Jacques Collin in a hollow +threatening tone, not unlike the low growl of a lion. "The reelers are +here; let them make fools of themselves. I am faking to help a pal who +is awfully down on his luck." + +He spoke with the unction of a priest trying to convert the wretched, +and a look which flashed round the yard, took in the warders under the +archways, and pointed them out with a wink to his three companions. + +"Are there not narks about? Keep your peepers open and a sharp lookout. +Don't know me, Nanty parnarly, and soap me down for a priest, or I will +do for you all, you and your molls and your blunt." + +"What, do you funk our blabbing?" said Fil-de-Soie. "Have you come to +help your boy to guy?" + +"Madeleine is getting ready to be turned off in the Square" (the Place +de Greve), said la Pouraille. + +"Theodore!" said Jacques Collin, repressing a start and a cry. + +"They will have his nut off," la Pouraille went on; "he was booked for +the scaffold two months ago." + +Jacques Collin felt sick, his knees almost failed him; but his three +comrades held him up, and he had the presence of mind to clasp his +hands with an expression of contrition. La Pouraille and le Biffon +respectfully supported the sacrilegious _Trompe-la-Mort_, while +Fil-de-Soie ran to a warder on guard at the gate leading to the parlor. + +"That venerable priest wants to sit down; send out a chair for him," +said he. + +And so Bibi-Lupin's plot had failed. + +_Trompe-la-Mort_, like a Napoleon recognized by his soldiers, had won +the submission and respect of the three felons. Two words had done it. +Your molls and your blunt--your women and your money--epitomizing +every true affection of man. This threat was to the three convicts an +indication of supreme power. The Boss still had their fortune in his +hands. Still omnipotent outside the prison, their Boss had not betrayed +them, as the false pals said. + +Their chief's immense reputation for skill and inventiveness stimulated +their curiosity; for, in prison, curiosity is the only goad of these +blighted spirits. And Jacques Collin's daring disguise, kept up even +under the bolts and locks of the Conciergerie, dazzled the three felons. + +"I have been in close confinement for four days and did not know that +Theodore was so near the Abbaye," said Jacques Collin. "I came in to +save a poor little chap who scragged himself here yesterday at four +o'clock, and now here is another misfortune. I have not an ace in my +hand----" + +"Poor old boy!" said Fil-de-Soie. + +"Old Scratch has cut me!" cried Jacques Collin, tearing himself free +from his supporters, and drawing himself up with a fierce look. "There +comes a time when the world is too many for us! The beaks gobble us up +at last." + +The governor of the Conciergerie, informed of the Spanish priest's weak +state, came himself to the prison-yard to observe him; he made him sit +down on a chair in the sun, studying him with the keen acumen which +increases day by day in the practise of such functions, though hidden +under an appearance of indifference. + +"Oh! Heaven!" cried Jacques Collin. "To be mixed up with such creatures, +the dregs of society--felons and murders!--But God will not desert His +servant! My dear sir, my stay here shall be marked by deeds of charity +which shall live in men's memories. I will convert these unhappy +creatures, they shall learn they have souls, that life eternal awaits +them, and that though they have lost all on earth, they still may win +heaven--Heaven which they may purchase by true and genuine repentance." + +Twenty or thirty prisoners had gathered in a group behind the three +terrible convicts, whose ferocious looks had kept a space of three +feet between them and their inquisitive companions, and they heard this +address, spoken with evangelical unction. + +"Ay, Monsieur Gault," said the formidable la Pouraille, "we will listen +to what this one may say----" + +"I have been told," Jacques Collin went on, "that there is in this +prison a man condemned to death." + +"The rejection of his appeal is at this moment being read to him," said +Monsieur Gault. + +"I do not know what that means," said Jacques Collin, artlessly looking +about him. + +"Golly, what a flat!" said the young fellow, who, a few minutes since, +had asked Fil-de-Soie about the beans on the hulks. + +"Why, it means that he is to be scragged to-day or to-morrow." + +"Scragged?" asked Jacques Collin, whose air of innocence and ignorance +filled his three pals with admiration. + +"In their slang," said the governor, "that means that he will suffer the +penalty of death. If the clerk is reading the appeal, the executioner +will no doubt have orders for the execution. The unhappy man has +persistently refused the offices of the chaplain." + +"Ah! Monsieur le Directeaur, this is a soul to save!" cried Jacques +Collin, and the sacrilegious wretch clasped his hands with the +expression of a despairing lover, which to the watchful governor seemed +nothing less than divine fervor. "Ah, monsieur," _Trompe-la-Mort_ went +on, "let me prove to you what I am, and how much I can do, by allowing +me to incite that hardened heart to repentance. God has given me a power +of speech which produces great changes. I crush men's hearts; I open +them.--What are you afraid of? Send me with an escort of gendarmes, of +turnkeys--whom you will." + +"I will inquire whether the prison chaplain will allow you to take his +place," said Monsieur Gault. + +And the governor withdrew, struck by the expression, perfectly +indifferent, though inquisitive, with which the convicts and the +prisoners on remand stared at this priest, whose unctuous tones lent a +charm to his half-French, half-Spanish lingo. + +"How did you come in here, Monsieur l'Abbe?" asked the youth who had +questioned Fil-de-Soie. + +"Oh, by a mistake!" replied Jacques Collin, eyeing the young gentleman +from head to foot. "I was found in the house of a courtesan who had +died, and was immediately robbed. It was proved that she had killed +herself, and the thieves--probably the servants--have not yet been +caught." + +"And it was for that theft that your young man hanged himself?" + +"The poor boy, no doubt, could not endure the thought of being blighted +by his unjust imprisonment," said _Trompe-la-Mort_, raising his eyes to +heaven. + +"Ay," said the young man; "they were coming to set him free just when he +had killed himself. What bad luck!" + +"Only innocent souls can be thus worked on by their imagination," said +Jacques Collin. "For, observe, he was the loser by the theft." + +"How much money was it?" asked Fil-de-Soie, the deep and cunning. + +"Seven hundred and fifty thousand francs," said Jacques Collin blandly. + +The three convicts looked at each other and withdrew from the group that +had gathered round the sham priest. + +"He screwed the moll's place himself!" said Fil-de-Soie in a whisper to +le Biffon, "and they want to put us in a blue funk for our cartwheels" +(thunes de balles, five-franc pieces). + +"He will always be the boss of the swells," replied la Pouraille. "Our +pieces are safe enough." + +La Pouraille, wishing to find some man he could trust, had an interest +in considering Jacques Collin an honest man. And in prison, of all +places, a man believes what he hopes. + +"I lay you anything, he will come round the big Boss and save his chum!" +said Fil-de-Soie. + +"If he does that," said le Biffon, "though I don't believe he is really +God, he must certainly have smoked a pipe with old Scratch, as they +say." + +"Didn't you hear him say, 'Old Scratch has cut me'?" said Fil-de-Soie. + +"Oh!" cried la Pouraille, "if only he would save my nut, what a time +I would have with my whack of the shiners and the yellow boys I have +stowed." + +"Do what he bids you!" said Fil-de Soie. + +"You don't say so?" retorted la Pouraille, looking at his pal. + +"What a flat you are! You will be booked for the Abbaye!" said le +Biffon. "You have no other door to budge, if you want to keep on your +pins, to yam, wet your whistle, and fake to the end; you must take his +orders." + +"That's all right," said la Pouraille. "There is not one of us that will +blow the gaff, or if he does, I will take him where I am going----" + +"And he'll do it too," cried Fil-de-Soie. + + + +The least sympathetic reader, who has no pity for this strange race, may +conceive of the state of mind of Jacques Collin, finding himself between +the dead body of the idol whom he had been bewailing during five hours +that night, and the imminent end of his former comrade--the dead body +of Theodore, the young Corsican. Only to see the boy would demand +extraordinary cleverness; to save him would need a miracle; but he was +thinking of it. + +For the better comprehension of what Jacques Collin proposed to attempt, +it must be remarked that murderers and thieves, all the men who people +the galleys, are not so formidable as is generally supposed. With a +few rare exceptions these creatures are all cowards, in consequence no +doubt, of the constant alarms which weigh on their spirit. The faculties +being perpetually on the stretch in thieving, and the success of a +stroke of business depending on the exertion of every vital force, with +a readiness of wit to match their dexterity of hand, and an alertness +which exhausts the nervous system; these violent exertions of will +once over, they become stupid, just as a singer or a dancer drops quite +exhausted after a fatiguing pas seul, or one of those tremendous duets +which modern composers inflict on the public. + +Malefactors are, in fact, so entirely bereft of common sense, or so much +oppressed by fear, that they become absolutely childish. Credulous to +the last degree, they are caught by the bird-lime of the simplest snare. +When they have done a successful _job_, they are in such a state of +prostration that they immediately rush into the debaucheries they crave +for; they get drunk on wine and spirits, and throw themselves madly into +the arms of their women to recover composure by dint of exhausting their +strength, and to forget their crime by forgetting their reason. + +Then they are at the mercy of the police. When once they are in custody +they lose their head, and long for hope so blindly that they believe +anything; indeed, there is nothing too absurd for them to accept it. An +instance will suffice to show how far the simplicity of a criminal +who has been _nabbed_ will carry him. Bibi-Lupin, not long before, had +extracted a confession from a murderer of nineteen by making him believe +that no one under age was ever executed. When this lad was transferred +to the Conciergerie to be sentenced after the rejection of his appeal, +this terrible man came to see him. + +"Are you sure you are not yet twenty?" said he. + +"Yes, I am only nineteen and a half." + +"Well, then," replied Bibi-Lupin, "you may be quite sure of one +thing--you will never see twenty." + +"Why?" + +"Because you will be scragged within three days," replied the police +agent. + +The murderer, who had believed, even after sentence was passed, that a +minor would never be executed, collapsed like an omelette soufflee. + +Such men, cruel only from the necessity for suppressive evidence, +for they murder only to get rid of witnesses (and this is one of +the arguments adduced by those who desire the abrogation of capital +punishment),--these giants of dexterity and skill, whose sleight of +hand, whose rapid sight, whose every sense is as alert as that of a +savage, are heroes of evil only on the stage of their exploits. Not only +do their difficulties begin as soon as the crime is committed, for they +are as much bewildered by the need for concealing the stolen goods as +they were depressed by necessity--but they are as weak as a woman in +childbed. The vehemence of their schemes is terrific; in success they +become like children. In a word, their nature is that of the wild +beast--easy to kill when it is full fed. In prison these strange beings +are men in dissimulation and in secretiveness, which never yields till +the last moment, when they are crushed and broken by the tedium of +imprisonment. + +It may hence be understood how it was that the three convicts, instead +of betraying their chief, were eager to serve him; and as they suspected +he was now the owner of the stolen seven hundred and fifty thousand +francs, they admired him for his calm resignation, under bolt and bar of +the Conciergerie, believing him capable of protecting them all. + + + +When Monsieur Gault left the sham priest, he returned through the parlor +to his office, and went in search of Bibi-Lupin, who for twenty minutes, +since Jacques Collin had gone downstairs, had been on the watch with his +eye at a peephole in a window looking out on the prison-yard. + +"Not one of them recognized him," said Monsieur Gault, "and Napolitas, +who is on duty, did not hear a word. The poor priest all through the +night, in his deep distress, did not say a word which could imply that +his gown covers Jacques Collin." + +"That shows that he is used to prison life," said the police agent. + +Napolitas, Bibi-Lupin's secretary, being unknown to the criminals +then in the Conciergerie, was playing the part of the young gentlemen +imprisoned for forgery. + +"Well, but he wishes to be allowed to hear the confession of the young +fellow who is sentenced to death," said the governor. + +"To be sure! That is our last chance," cried Bibi-Lupin. "I had +forgotten that. Theodore Calvi, the young Corsican, was the man chained +to Jacques Collin; they say that on the hulks Jacques Collin made him +famous pads----" + +The convicts on the galleys contrive a kind of pad to slip between their +skin and the fetters to deaden the pressure of the iron ring on their +ankles and instep; these pads, made of tow and rags, are known as +patarasses. + +"Who is warder over the man?" asked Bibi-Lupin. + +"Coeur la Virole." + +"Very well, I will go and make up as a gendarme, and be on the watch; I +shall hear what they say. I will be even with them." + +"But if it should be Jacques Collin are you not afraid of his +recognizing you and throttling you?" said the governor to Bibi-Lupin. + +"As a gendarme I shall have my sword," replied the other; "and, besides, +if he is Jacques Collin, he will never do anything that will risk his +neck; and if he is a priest, I shall be safe." + +"Then you have no time to lose," said Monsieur Gault; "it is half-past +eight. Father Sauteloup has just read the reply to his appeal, and +Monsieur Sanson is waiting in the order room." + +"Yes, it is to-day's job, the 'widow's huzzars'" (les hussards de la +veuve, another horrible name for the functionaries of the guillotine) +"are ordered out," replied Bibi-Lupin. "Still, I cannot wonder that the +prosecutor-general should hesitate; the boy has always declared that he +is innocent, and there is, in my opinion, no conclusive evidence against +him." + +"He is a thorough Corsican," said Monsieur Gault; "he has not said a +word, and has held firm all through." + +The last words of the governor of the prison summed up the dismal tale +of a man condemned to die. A man cut off from among the living by +law belongs to the Bench. The Bench is paramount; it is answerable to +nobody, it obeys its own conscience. The prison belongs to the Bench, +which controls it absolutely. Poetry has taken possession of this social +theme, "the man condemned to death"--a subject truly apt to strike the +imagination! And poetry has been sublime on it. Prose has no resource +but fact; still, the fact is appalling enough to hold its own against +verse. The existence of a condemned man who has not confessed his crime, +or betrayed his accomplices, is one of fearful torment. This is no case +of iron boots, of water poured into the stomach, or of limbs racked by +hideous machinery; it is hidden and, so to speak, negative torture. +The condemned wretch is given over to himself with a companion whom he +cannot but trust. + +The amiability of modern philanthropy fancies it has understood +the dreadful torment of isolation, but this is a mistake. Since the +abolition of torture, the Bench, in a natural anxiety to reassure the +too sensitive consciences of the jury, had guessed what a terrible +auxiliary isolation would prove to justice in seconding remorse. + +Solitude is void; and nature has as great a horror of a moral void as +she has of a physical vacuum. Solitude is habitable only to a man of +genius who can people it with ideas, the children of the spiritual +world; or to one who contemplates the works of the Creator, to whom it +is bright with the light of heaven, alive with the breath and voice of +God. Excepting for these two beings--so near to Paradise--solitude is +to the mind what torture is to the body. Between solitude and the +torture-chamber there is all the difference that there is between a +nervous malady and a surgical disease. It is suffering multiplied by +infinitude. The body borders on the infinite through its nerves, as the +spirit does through thought. And, in fact, in the annals of the Paris +law courts the criminals who do not confess can be easily counted. + +This terrible situation, which in some cases assumes appalling +importance--in politics, for instance, when a dynasty or a state is +involved--will find a place in the HUMAN COMEDY. But here a description +of the stone box in which after the Restoration, the law shut up a man +condemned to death in Paris, may serve to give an idea of the terrors of +a felon's last day on earth. + +Before the Revolution of July there was in the Conciergerie, and indeed +there still is, a condemned cell. This room, backing on the governor's +office, is divided from it by a thick wall in strong masonry, and the +other side of it is formed by a wall seven or eight feet thick, which +supports one end of the immense _Salle des Pas-Perdus_. It is entered +through the first door in the long dark passage in which the eye +loses itself when looking from the middle of the vaulted gateway. This +ill-omened room is lighted by a funnel, barred by a formidable grating, +and hardly perceptible on going into the Conciergerie yard, for it has +been pierced in the narrow space between the office window close to the +railing of the gateway, and the place where the office clerk sits--a den +like a cupboard contrived by the architect at the end of the entrance +court. + +This position accounts for the fact that the room thus enclosed +between four immensely thick walls should have been devoted, when the +Conciergerie was reconstituted, to this terrible and funereal service. +Escape is impossible. The passage, leading to the cells for solitary +confinement and to the women's quarters, faces the stove where gendarmes +and warders are always collected together. The air-hole, the only outlet +to the open air, is nine feet above the floor, and looks out on the +first court, which is guarded by sentries at the outer gate. No human +power can make any impression on the walls. Besides, a man sentenced to +death is at once secured in a straitwaistcoat, a garment which precludes +all use of the hands; he is chained by one foot to his camp bed, and he +has a fellow prisoner to watch and attend on him. The room is paved with +thick flags, and the light is so dim that it is hard to see anything. + +It is impossible not to feel chilled to the marrow on going in, +even now, though for sixteen years the cell has never been used, +in consequence of the changes effected in Paris in the treatment of +criminals under sentence. Imagine the guilty man there with his remorse +for company, in silence and darkness, two elements of horror, and you +will wonder how he ever failed to go mad. What a nature must that +be whose temper can resist such treatment, with the added misery of +enforced idleness and inaction. + +And yet Theodore Calvi, a Corsican, now twenty-seven years of age, +muffled, as it were, in a shroud of absolute reserve, had for two months +held out against the effects of this dungeon and the insidious chatter +of the prisoner placed to entrap him. + +These were the strange circumstances under which the Corsican had been +condemned to death. Though the case is a very curious one, our account +of it must be brief. It is impossible to introduce a long digression +at the climax of a narrative already so much prolonged, since its only +interest is in so far as it concerns Jacques Collin, the vertebral +column, so to speak, which, by its sinister persistency, connects _Le +Pere Goriot_ with _Illusions perdues_, and _Illusions perdues_ with this +Study. And, indeed, the reader's imagination will be able to work out +the obscure case which at this moment was causing great uneasiness to +the jury of the sessions, before whom Theodore Calvi had been tried. +For a whole week, since the criminal's appeal had been rejected by the +Supreme Court, Monsieur de Granville had been worrying himself over +the case, and postponing from day to day the order for carrying out the +sentence, so anxious was he to reassure the jury by announcing that on +the threshold of death the accused had confessed the crime. + +A poor widow of Nanterre, whose dwelling stood apart from the township, +which is situated in the midst of the infertile plain lying between +Mount-Valerian, Saint-Germain, the hills of Sartrouville, and +Argenteuil, had been murdered and robbed a few days after coming into +her share of an unexpected inheritance. This windfall amounted to three +thousand francs, a dozen silver spoons and forks, a gold watch and +chain and some linen. Instead of depositing the three thousand francs +in Paris, as she was advised by the notary of the wine-merchant who had +left it her, the old woman insisted on keeping it by her. In the +first place, she had never seen so much money of her own, and then +she distrusted everybody in every kind of affairs, as most common and +country folk do. After long discussion with a wine-merchant of Nanterre, +a relation of her own and of the wine-merchant who had left her the +money, the widow decided on buying an annuity, on selling her house at +Nanterre, and living in the town of Saint-Germain. + +The house she was living in, with a good-sized garden enclosed by a +slight wooden fence, was the poor sort of dwelling usually built by +small landowners in the neighborhood of Paris. It had been hastily +constructed, with no architectural design, of cement and rubble, the +materials commonly used near Paris, where, as at Nanterre, they are +extremely abundant, the ground being everywhere broken by quarries open +to the sky. This is the ordinary hut of the civilized savage. The house +consisted of a ground floor and one floor above, with garrets in the +roof. + +The quarryman, her deceased husband, and the builder of this dwelling, +had put strong iron bars to all the windows; the front door was +remarkably thick. The man knew that he was alone there in the +open country--and what a country! His customers were the principal +master-masons in Paris, so the more important materials for his house, +which stood within five hundred yards of his quarry, had been brought +out in his own carts returning empty. He could choose such as suited him +where houses were pulled down, and got them very cheap. Thus the window +frames, the iron-work, the doors, shutters, and wooden fittings were all +derived from sanctioned pilfering, presents from his customers, and good +ones, carefully chosen. Of two window-frames, he could take the better. + +The house, entered from a large stable-yard, was screened from the road +by a wall; the gate was of strong iron-railing. Watch-dogs were kept in +the stables, and a little dog indoors at night. There was a garden of +more than two acres behind. + +His widow, without children, lived here with only a woman servant. The +sale of the quarry had paid off the owner's debts; he had been dead +about two years. This isolated house was the widow's sole possession, +and she kept fowls and cows, selling the eggs and milk at Nanterre. +Having no stableboy or carter or quarryman--her husband had made them do +every kind of work--she no longer kept up the garden; she only +gathered the few greens and roots that the stony ground allowed to grow +self-sown. + +The price of the house, with the money she had inherited, would amount +to seven or eight thousand francs, and she could fancy herself living +very happily at Saint-Germain on seven or eight hundred francs a year, +which she thought she could buy with her eight thousand francs. She had +had many discussions over this with the notary at Saint-Germain, for she +refused to hand her money over for an annuity to the wine-merchant at +Nanterre, who was anxious to have it. + +Under these circumstances, then, after a certain day the widow Pigeau +and her servant were seen no more. The front gate, the house door, the +shutters, all were closed. At the end of three days, the police, being +informed, made inquisition. Monsieur Popinot, the examining judge, +and the public prosecutor arrived from Paris, and this was what they +reported:-- + +Neither the outer gate nor the front door showed any marks of violence. +The key was in the lock of the door, inside. Not a single bar had been +wretched; the locks, shutters, and bolts were all untampered with. The +walls showed no traces that could betray the passage of the criminals. +The chimney-posts, of red clay, afforded no opportunity for ingress or +escape, and the roofing was sound and unbroken, showing no damage by +violence. + +On entering the first-floor rooms, the magistrates, the gendarmes, and +Bibi-Lupin found the widow Pigeau strangled in her bed and the woman +strangled in hers, each by means of the bandana she wore as a nightcap. +The three thousand francs were gone, with the silver-plate and the +trinkets. The two bodies were decomposing, as were those of the little +dog and of a large yard-dog. + +The wooden palings of the garden were examined; none were broken. The +garden paths showed no trace of footsteps. The magistrate thought it +probable that the robber had walked on the grass to leave no foot-prints +if he had come that way; but how could he have got into the house? +The back door to the garden had an outer guard of three iron bars, +uninjured; and there, too, the key was in the lock inside, as in the +front door. + +All these impossibilities having been duly noted by Monsieur Popinot, +by Bibi-Lupin, who stayed there a day to examine every detail, by the +public prosecutor himself, and by the sergeant of the gendarmerie at +Nanterre, this murder became an agitating mystery, in which the Law and +the Police were nonplussed. + +This drama, published in the _Gazette des Tribunaux_, took place in the +winter of 1828-29. God alone knows what excitement this puzzling crime +occasioned in Paris! But Paris has a new drama to watch every morning, +and forgets everything. The police, on the contrary, forgets nothing. + +Three months after this fruitless inquiry, a girl of the town, whose +extravagance had invited the attention of Bibi-Lupin's agents, who +watched her as being the ally of several thieves, tried to persuade a +woman she knew to pledge twelve silver spoons and forks and a gold watch +and chain. The friend refused. This came to Bibi-Lupin's ears, and he +remembered the plate and the watch and chain stolen at Nanterre. The +commissioners of the Mont-de-Piete, and all the receivers of stolen +goods, were warned, while Manon la Blonde was subjected to unremitting +scrutiny. + +It was very soon discovered that Manon la Blonde was madly in love with +a young man who was never to be seen, and was supposed to be deaf to all +the fair Manon's proofs of devotion. Mystery on mystery. However, this +youth, under the diligent attentions of police spies, was soon seen +and identified as an escaped convict, the famous hero of the Corsican +vendetta, the handsome Theodore Calvi, known as Madeleine. + +A man was turned on to entrap Calvi, one of those double-dealing buyers +of stolen goods who serve the thieves and the police both at once; he +promised to purchase the silver and the watch and chain. At the moment +when the dealer of the Cour Saint-Guillaume was counting out the cash +to Theodore, dressed as a woman, at half-past six in the evening, the +police came in and seized Theodore and the property. + +The inquiry was at once begun. On such thin evidence it was impossible +to pass a sentence of death. Calvi never swerved, he never contradicted +himself. He said that a country woman had sold him these objects at +Argenteuil; that after buying them, the excitement over the murder +committed at Nanterre had shown him the danger of keeping this plate and +watch and chain in his possession, since, in fact, they were proved +by the inventory made after the death of the wine merchant, the widow +Pigeau's uncle, to be those that were stolen from her. Compelled at last +by poverty to sell them, he said he wished to dispose of them by the +intervention of a person to whom no suspicion could attach. + +And nothing else could be extracted from the convict, who, by his +taciturnity and firmness, contrived to insinuate that the wine-merchant +at Nanterre had committed the crime, and that the woman of whom he, +Theodore, had bought them was the wine-merchant's wife. The unhappy +man and his wife were both taken into custody; but, after a week's +imprisonment, it was amply proved that neither the husband nor the wife +had been out of their house at the time. Also, Calvi failed to recognize +in the wife the woman who, as he declared, had sold him the things. + +As it was shown that Calvi's mistress, implicated in the case, had spent +about a thousand francs since the date of the crime and the day when +Calvi tried to pledge the plate and trinkets, the evidence seemed strong +enough to commit Calvi and the girl for trial. This murder being the +eighteenth which Theodore had committed, he was condemned to death for +he seemed certainly to be guilty of this skilfully contrived crime. +Though he did not recognize the wine-merchant's wife, both she and +her husband recognized him. The inquiry had proved, by the evidence of +several witnesses, that Theodore had been living at Nanterre for about +a month; he had worked at a mason's, his face whitened with plaster, and +his clothes very shabby. At Nanterre the lad was supposed to be about +eighteen years old, for the whole month he must have been nursing that +brat (nourri ce poupon, i.e. hatching the crime). + +The lawyers thought he must have had accomplices. The chimney-pots were +measured and compared with the size of Manon la Blonde's body to see if +she could have got in that way; but a child of six could not have passed +up or down those red-clay pipes, which, in modern buildings, take +the place of the vast chimneys of old-fashioned houses. But for this +singular and annoying difficulty, Theodore would have been executed +within a week. The prison chaplain, it has been seen, could make nothing +of him. + + + +All this business, and the name of Calvi, must have escaped the notice +of Jacques Collin, who, at the time, was absorbed in his single-handed +struggle with Contenson, Corentin, and Peyrade. It had indeed been a +point with _Trompe-la-Mort_ to forget as far as possible his chums +and all that had to do with the law courts; he dreaded a meeting which +should bring him face to face with a pal who might demand an account of +his boss which Collin could not possibly render. + +The governor of the prison went forthwith to the public prosecutor's +court, where he found the Attorney-General in conversation with Monsieur +de Granville, who had spent the whole night at the Hotel de Serizy, was, +in consequence of this important case, obliged to give a few hours +to his duties, though overwhelmed with fatigue and grief; for the +physicians could not yet promise that the Countess would recover her +sanity. + +After speaking a few words to the governor, Monsieur de Granville took +the warrant from the attorney and placed it in Gault's hands. + +"Let the matter proceed," said he, "unless some extraordinary +circumstances should arise. Of this you must judge. I trust to your +judgment. The scaffold need not be erected till half-past ten, so you +still have an hour. On such an occasion hours are centuries, and +many things may happen in a century. Do not allow him to think he is +reprieved; prepare the man for execution if necessary; and if nothing +comes of that, give Sanson the warrant at half-past nine. Let him wait!" + +As the governor of the prison left the public prosecutor's room, under +the archway of the passage into the hall he met Monsieur Camusot, who +was going there. He exchanged a few hurried words with the examining +judge; and after telling him what had been done at the Conciergerie +with regard to Jacques Collin, he went on to witness the meeting of +_Trompe-la-Mort_ and Madeleine; and he did not allow the so-called +priest to see the condemned criminal till Bibi-Lupin, admirably +disguised as a gendarme, had taken the place of the prisoner left in +charge of the young Corsican. + +No words can describe the amazement of the three convicts when a warder +came to fetch Jacques Collin and led him to the condemned cell! With one +consent they rushed up to the chair on which Jacques Collin was sitting. + +"To-day, isn't it, monsieur?" asked Fil-de-Soie of the warder. + +"Yes, Jack Ketch is waiting," said the man with perfect indifference. + +Charlot is the name by which the executioner is known to the populace +and the prison world in Paris. The nickname dates from the Revolution of +1789. + +The words produced a great sensation. The prisoners looked at each +other. + +"It is all over with him," the warder went on; "the warrant has been +delivered to Monsieur Gault, and the sentence has just been read to +him." + +"And so the fair Madeleine has received the last sacraments?" said la +Pouraille, and he swallowed a deep mouthful of air. + +"Poor little Theodore!" cried le Biffon; "he is a pretty chap too. What +a pity to drop your nut" (eternuer dans le son) "so young." + +The warder went towards the gate, thinking that Jacques Collin was at +his heels. But the Spaniard walked very slowly, and when he was getting +near to Julien he tottered and signed to la Pouraille to give him his +arm. + +"He is a murderer," said Napolitas to the priest, pointing to la +Pouraille, and offering his own arm. + +"No, to me he is an unhappy wretch!" replied Jacques Collin, with the +presence of mind and the unction of the Archbishop of Cambrai. And he +drew away from Napolitas, of whom he had been very suspicious from the +first. Then he said to his pals in an undertone: + +"He is on the bottom step of the Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret, but I am the +Prior! I will show you how well I know how to come round the beaks. I +mean to snatch this boy's nut from their jaws." + +"For the sake of his breeches!" said Fil-de-Soie with a smile. + +"I mean to win his soul to heaven!" replied Jacques Collin fervently, +seeing some other prisoners about him. And he joined the warder at the +gate. + +"He got in to save Madeleine," said Fil-de-Soie. "We guessed rightly. +What a boss he is!" + +"But how can he? Jack Ketch's men are waiting. He will not even see the +kid," objected le Biffon. + +"The devil is on his side!" cried la Pouraille. "He claim our blunt! +Never! He is too fond of his old chums! We are too useful to him! They +wanted to make us blow the gaff, but we are not such flats! If he saves +his Madeleine, I will tell him all my secrets." + +The effect of this speech was to increase the devotion of the three +convicts to their boss; for at this moment he was all their hope. + +Jacques Collin, in spite of Madeleine's peril, did not forget to play +his part. Though he knew the Conciergerie as well as he knew the hulks +in the three ports, he blundered so naturally that the warder had to +tell him, "This way, that way," till they reached the office. There, +at a glance, Jacques Collin recognized a tall, stout man leaning on the +stove, with a long, red face not without distinction: it was Sanson. + +"Monsieur is the chaplain?" said he, going towards him with simple +cordiality. + +The mistake was so shocking that it froze the bystanders. + +"No, monsieur," said Sanson; "I have other functions." + +Sanson, the father of the last executioner of that name--for he has +recently been dismissed--was the son of the man who beheaded Louis XVI. +After four centuries of hereditary office, this descendant of so many +executioners had tried to repudiate the traditional burden. The Sansons +were for two hundred years executioners at Rouen before being promoted +to the first rank in the kingdom, and had carried out the decrees of +justice from father to son since the thirteenth century. Few families +can boast of an office or of nobility handed down in a direct line +during six centuries. + +This young man had been captain in a cavalry regiment, and was looking +forward to a brilliant military career, when his father insisted on his +help in decapitating the king. Then he made his son his deputy when, +in 1793, two guillotines were in constant work--one at the Barriere du +Trone, and the other in the Place de Greve. This terrible functionary, +now a man of about sixty, was remarkable for his dignified air, his +gentle and deliberate manners, and his entire contempt for Bibi-Lupin +and his acolytes who fed the machine. The only detail which betrayed +the blood of the mediaeval executioner was the formidable breadth +and thickness of his hands. Well informed too, caring greatly for his +position as a citizen and an elector, and an enthusiastic florist, this +tall, brawny man with his low voice, his calm reserve, his few words, +and a high bald forehead, was like an English nobleman rather than an +executioner. And a Spanish priest would certainly have fallen into the +mistake which Jacques Collin had intentionally made. + +"He is no convict!" said the head warder to the governor. + +"I begin to think so too," replied Monsieur Gault, with a nod to that +official. + +Jacques Collin was led to the cellar-like room where Theodore Calvi, +in a straitwaistcoat, was sitting on the edge of the wretched camp bed. +_Trompe-la-Mort_, under a transient gleam of light from the passage, +at once recognized Bibi-Lupin in the gendarme who stood leaning on his +sword. + +"Io sono Gaba-Morto. Parla nostro Italiano," said Jacques Collin very +rapidly. "Vengo ti salvar." + +"I am _Trompe-la-Mort_. Talk our Italian. I have come to save you." + +All the two chums wanted to say had, of course, to be incomprehensible +to the pretended gendarme; and as Bibi-Lupin was left in charge of +the prisoner, he could not leave his post. The man's fury was quite +indescribable. + +Theodore Calvi, a young man with a pale olive complexion, light hair, +and hollow, dull, blue eyes, well built, hiding prodigious strength +under the lymphatic appearance that is not uncommon in Southerners, +would have had a charming face but for the strongly-arched eyebrows and +low forehead that gave him a sinister expression, scarlet lips of savage +cruelty, and a twitching of the muscles peculiar to Corsicans, denoting +that excessive irritability which makes them so prompt to kill in any +sudden squabble. + +Theodore, startled at the sound of that voice, raised his head, and at +first thought himself the victim of a delusion; but as the experience +of two months had accustomed him to the darkness of this stone box, +he looked at the sham priest, and sighed deeply. He did not recognize +Jacques Collin, whose face, scarred by the application of sulphuric +acid, was not that of his old boss. + +"It is really your Jacques; I am your confessor, and have come to get +you off. Do not be such a ninny as to know me; and speak as if you were +making a confession." He spoke with the utmost rapidity. "This young +fellow is very much depressed; he is afraid to die, he will confess +everything," said Jacques Collin, addressing the gendarme. + +Bibi-Lupin dared not say a word for fear of being recognized. + +"Say something to show me that you are he; you have nothing but his +voice," said Theodore. + +"You see, poor boy, he assures me that he is innocent," said Jacques +Collin to Bibi-Lupin, who dared not speak for fear of being recognized. + +"Sempre mi," said Jacques, returning close to Theodore, and speaking the +word in his ear. + +"Sempre ti," replied Theodore, giving the countersign. "Yes, you are the +boss----" + +"Did you do the trick?" + +"Yes." + +"Tell me the whole story, that I may see what can be done to save you; +make haste, Jack Ketch is waiting." + +The Corsican at once knelt down and pretended to be about to confess. + +Bibi-Lupin did not know what to do, for the conversation was so rapid +that it hardly took as much time as it does to read it. Theodore hastily +told all the details of the crime, of which Jacques Collin knew nothing. + +"The jury gave their verdict without proof," he said finally. + +"Child! you want to argue when they are waiting to cut off your +hair----" + +"But I might have been sent to spout the wedge.--And that is the way +they judge you!--and in Paris too!" + +"But how did you do the job?" asked _Trompe-la-Mort_. + +"Ah! there you are.--Since I saw you I made acquaintance with a girl, a +Corsican, I met when I came to Paris." + +"Men who are such fools as to love a woman," cried Jacques Collin, +"always come to grief that way. They are tigers on the loose, tigers who +blab and look at themselves in the glass.--You were a gaby." + +"But----" + +"Well, what good did she do you--that curse of a moll?" + +"That duck of a girl--no taller than a bundle of firewood, as slippery +as an eel, and as nimble as a monkey--got in at the top of the oven, +and opened the front door. The dogs were well crammed with balls, and +as dead as herrings. I settled the two women. Then when I got the swag, +Ginetta locked the door and got out again by the oven." + +"Such a clever dodge deserves life," said Jacques Collin, admiring the +execution of the crime as a sculptor admires the modeling of a figure. + +"And I was fool enough to waste all that cleverness for a thousand +crowns!" + +"No, for a woman," replied Jacques Collin. "I tell you, they deprive +us of all our wits," and Jacques Collin eyed Theodore with a flashing +glance of contempt. + +"But you were not there!" said the Corsican; "I was all alone----" + +"And do you love the slut?" asked Jacques Collin, feeling that the +reproach was a just one. + +"Oh! I want to live, but it is for you now rather than for her." + +"Be quite easy, I am not called _Trompe-la-Mort_ for nothing. I +undertake the case." + +"What! life?" cried the lad, lifting his swaddled hands towards the damp +vault of the cell. + +"My little Madeleine, prepare to be lagged for life (penal servitude)," +replied Jacques Collin. "You can expect no less; they won't crown you +with roses like a fatted ox. When they first set us down for Rochefort, +it was because they wanted to be rid of us! But if I can get you +ticketed for Toulon, you can get out and come back to Pantin (Paris), +where I will find you a tidy way of living." + +A sigh such as had rarely been heard under that inexorable roof struck +the stones, which sent back the sound that has no fellow in music, to +the ear of the astounded Bibi-Lupin. + +"It is the effect of the absolution I promised him in return for his +revelations," said Jacques Collin to the gendarme. "These Corsicans, +monsieur, are full of faith! But he is as innocent as the Immaculate +Babe, and I mean to try to save him." + +"God bless you, Monsieur l'Abbe!" said Theodore in French. + + + +_Trompe-la-Mort_, more Carlos Herrera, more the canon than ever, +left the condemned cell, rushed back to the hall, and appeared before +Monsieur Gault in affected horror. + +"Indeed, sir, the young man is innocent; he has told me who the guilty +person is! He was ready to die for a false point of honor--he is a +Corsican! Go and beg the public prosecutor to grant me five minutes' +interview. Monsieur de Granville cannot refuse to listen at once to +a Spanish priest who is suffering so cruelly from the blunders of the +French police." + +"I will go," said Monsieur Gault, to the extreme astonishment of all the +witnesses of this extraordinary scene. + +"And meanwhile," said Jacques, "send me back to the prison-yard where +I may finish the conversion of a criminal whose heart I have touched +already--they have hearts, these people!" + +This speech produced a sensation in all who heard it. The gendarmes, the +registry clerk, Sanson, the warders, the executioner's assistant--all +awaiting orders to go and get the scaffold ready--to rig up the machine, +in prison slang--all these people, usually so indifferent, were agitated +by very natural curiosity. + +Just then the rattle of a carriage with high-stepping horses was heard; +it stopped very suggestively at the gate of the Conciergerie on the +quay. The door was opened, and the step let down in such haste, that +every one supposed that some great personage had arrived. Presently a +lady waving a sheet of blue paper came forward to the outer gate of the +prison, followed by a footman and a chasseur. Dressed very handsomely, +and all in black, with a veil over her bonnet, she was wiping her eyes +with a floridly embroidered handkerchief. + +Jacques Collin at once recognized Asie, or, to give the woman her true +name, Jacqueline Collin, his aunt. This horrible old woman--worthy of +her nephew--whose thoughts were all centered in the prisoner, and who +was defending him with intelligence and mother-wit that were a match for +the powers of the law, had a permit made out the evening before in the +name of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse's waiting-maid by the request of +Monsieur de Serizy, allowing her to see Lucien de Rubempre, and the Abbe +Carlos Herrera so soon as he should be brought out of the secret cells. +On this the Colonel, who was the Governor-in-Chief of all the prisons +had written a few words, and the mere color of the paper revealed +powerful influences; for these permits, like theatre-tickets, differ in +shape and appearance. + +So the turnkey hastened to open the gate, especially when he saw the +chasseur with his plumes and an uniform of green and gold as dazzling as +a Russian General's, proclaiming a lady of aristocratic rank and almost +royal birth. + +"Oh, my dear Abbe!" exclaimed this fine lady, shedding a torrent of +tears at the sight of the priest, "how could any one ever think of +putting such a saintly man in here, even by mistake?" + +The Governor took the permit and read, "Introduced by His Excellency the +Comte de Serizy." + +"Ah! Madame de San-Esteban, Madame la Marquise," cried Carlos Herrera, +"what admirable devotion!" + +"But, madame, such interviews are against the rules," said the good +old Governor. And he intercepted the advance of this bale of black +watered-silk and lace. + +"But at such a distance!" said Jacques Collin, "and in your +presence----" and he looked round at the group. + +His aunt, whose dress might well dazzle the clerk, the Governor, +the warders, and the gendarmes, stank of musk. She had on, besides +a thousand crowns of lace, a black India cashmere shawl, worth six +thousand francs. And her chasseur was marching up and down outside with +the insolence of a lackey who knows that he is essential to an exacting +princess. He spoke never a word to the footman, who stood by the gate on +the quay, which is always open by day. + +"What do you wish? What can I do?" said Madame de San-Esteban in the +lingo agreed upon by this aunt and nephew. + +This dialect consisted in adding terminations in ar or in or, or in al +or in i to every word, whether French or slang, so as to disguise it by +lengthening it. It was a diplomatic cipher adapted to speech. + +"Put all the letters in some safe place; take out those that are most +likely to compromise the ladies; come back, dressed very poorly, to the +_Salle des Pas-Perdus_, and wait for my orders." + +Asie, otherwise Jacqueline, knelt as if to receive his blessing, and the +sham priest blessed his aunt with evengelical unction. + +"Addio, Marchesa," said he aloud. "And," he added in their private +language, "find Europe and Paccard with the seven hundred and fifty +thousand francs they bagged. We must have them." + +"Paccard is out there," said the pious Marquise, pointing to the +chasseur, her eyes full of tears. + +This intuitive comprehension brought not merely a smile to the man's +lips, but a gesture of surprise; no one could astonish him but his +aunt. The sham Marquise turned to the bystanders with the air of a woman +accustomed to give herself airs. + +"He is in despair at being unable to attend his son's funeral," said +she in broken French, "for this monstrous miscarriage of justice +has betrayed the saintly man's secret.--I am going to the funeral +mass.--Here, monsieur," she added to the Governor, handing him a purse +of gold, "this is to give your poor prisoners some comforts." + +"What slap-up style!" her nephew whispered in approval. + +Jacques Collin then followed the warder, who led him back to the yard. + +Bibi-Lupin, quite desperate, had at last caught the eye of a real +gendarme, to whom, since Jacques Collin had gone, he had been addressing +significant "Ahems," and who took his place on guard in the condemned +cell. But _Trompe-la-Mort's_ sworn foe was released too late to see +the great lady, who drove off in her dashing turn-out, and whose voice, +though disguised, fell on his ear with a vicious twang. + +"Three hundred shiners for the boarders," said the head warder, showing +Bibi-Lupin the purse, which Monsieur Gault had handed over to his clerk. + +"Let's see, Monsieur Jacomety," said Bibi-Lupin. + +The police agent took the purse, poured out the money into his hand, and +examined it curiously. + +"Yes, it is gold, sure enough!" said he, "and a coat-of-arms on the +purse! The scoundrel! How clever he is! What an all-round villain! He +does us all brown----and all the time! He ought to be shot down like a +dog!" + +"Why, what's the matter?" asked the clerk, taking back the money. + +"The matter! Why, the hussy stole it!" cried Bibi-Lupin, stamping with +rage on the flags of the gateway. + +The words produced a great sensation among the spectators, who were +standing at a little distance from Monsieur Sanson. He, too, was still +standing, his back against the large stove in the middle of the vaulted +hall, awaiting the order to crop the felon's hair and erect the scaffold +on the Place de Greve. + +On re-entering the yard, Jacques Collin went towards his chums at a pace +suited to a frequenter of the galleys. + +"What have you on your mind?" said he to la Pouraille. + +"My game is up," said the man, whom Jacques Collin led into a corner. +"What I want now is a pal I can trust." + +"What for?" + +La Pouraille, after telling the tale of all his crimes, but in thieves' +slang, gave an account of the murder and robbery of the two Crottats. + +"You have my respect," said Jacques Collin. "The job was well done; but +you seem to me to have blundered afterwards." + +"In what way?" + +"Well, having done the trick, you ought to have had a Russian +passport, have made up as a Russian prince, bought a fine coach with a +coat-of-arms on it, have boldly deposited your money in a bank, have got +a letter of credit on Hamburg, and then have set out posting to Hamburg +with a valet, a ladies' maid, and your mistress disguised as a Russian +princess. At Hamburg you should have sailed for Mexico. A chap of +spirit, with two hundred and eighty thousand francs in gold, ought to be +able to do what he pleases and go where he pleases, flathead!" + +"Oh yes, you have such notions because you are the boss. Your nut is +always square on your shoulders--but I----" + +"In short, a word of good advice in your position is like broth to a +dead man," said Jacques Collin, with a serpentlike gaze at his old pal. + +"True enough!" said la Pouraille, looking dubious. "But give me the +broth, all the same. If it does not suit my stomach, I can warm my feet +in it----" + +"Here you are nabbed by the Justice, with five robberies and three +murders, the latest of them those of two rich and respectable folks.... +Now, juries do not like to see respectable folks killed. You will be put +through the machine, and there is not a chance for you." + +"I have heard all that," said la Pouraille lamentably. + +"My aunt Jacqueline, with whom I have just exchanged a few words in the +office, and who is, as you know, a mother to the pals, told me that the +authorities mean to be quit of you; they are so much afraid of you." + +"But I am rich now," said La Pouraille, with a simplicity which showed +how convinced a thief is of his natural right to steal. "What are they +afraid of?" + +"We have no time for philosophizing," said Jacques Collin. "To come back +to you----" + +"What do you want with me?" said la Pouraille, interrupting his boss. + +"You shall see. A dead dog is still worth something." + +"To other people," said la Pouraille. + +"I take you into my game!" said Jacques Collin. + +"Well, that is something," said the murderer. "What next?" + +"I do not ask you where your money is, but what you mean to do with it?" + +La Pouraille looked into the convict's impenetrable eye, and Jacques +coldly went on: "Have you a trip you are sweet upon, or a child, or a +pal to be helped? I shall be outside within an hour, and I can do much +for any one you want to be good-natured to." + +La Pouraille still hesitated; he was delaying with indecision. Jacques +Collin produced a clinching argument. + +"Your whack of our money would be thirty thousand francs. Do you leave +it to the pals? Do you bequeath it to anybody? Your share is safe; I can +give it this evening to any one you leave it to." + +The murderer gave a little start of satisfaction. + +"I have him!" said Jacques Collin to himself. "But we have no time to +play. Consider," he went on in la Pouraille's ear, "we have not ten +minutes to spare, old chap; the public prosecutor is to send for me, +and I am to have a talk with him. I have him safe, and can ring the old +boss' neck. I am certain I shall save Madeleine." + +"If you save Madeleine, my good boss, you can just as easily----" + +"Don't waste your spittle," said Jacques Collin shortly. "Make your +will." + +"Well, then--I want to leave the money to la Gonore," replied la +Pouraille piteously. + +"What! Are you living with Moses' widow--the Jew who led the swindling +gang in the South?" asked Jacques Collin. + +For _Trompe-la-Mort_, like a great general, knew the person of every one +of his army. + +"That's the woman," said la Pouraille, much flattered. + +"A pretty woman," said Jacques Collin, who knew exactly how to manage +his dreadful tools. "The moll is a beauty; she is well informed, and +stands by her mates, and a first-rate hand. Yes, la Gonore has made a +new man of you! What a flat you must be to risk your nut when you have +a trip like her at home! You noodle; you should have set up some +respectable little shop and lived quietly.--And what does she do?" + +"She is settled in the Rue Sainte-Barbe, managing a house----" + +"And she is to be your legatee? Ah, my dear boy, this is what such sluts +bring us to when we are such fools as to love them." + +"Yes, but don't you give her anything till I am done for." + +"It is a sacred trust," said Jacques Collin very seriously. + +"And nothing to the pals?" + +"Nothing! They blowed the gaff for me," answered la Pouraille +vindictively. + +"Who did? Shall I serve 'em out?" asked Jacques Collin eagerly, trying +to rouse the last sentiment that survives in these souls till the last +hour. "Who knows, old pal, but I might at the same time do them a bad +turn and serve you with the public prosecutor?" + +The murderer looked at his boss with amazed satisfaction. + +"At this moment," the boss replied to this expressive look, "I am +playing the game only for Theodore. When this farce is played out, old +boy, I might do wonders for a chum--for you are a chum of mine." + +"If I see that you really can put off the engagement for that poor +little Theodore, I will do anything you choose--there!" + +"But the trick is done. I am sure to save his head. If you want to get +out of the scrape, you see, la Pouraille, you must be ready to do a good +turn--we can do nothing single-handed----" + +"That's true," said the felon. + +His confidence was so strong, and his faith in the boss so fanatical, +that he no longer hesitated. La Pouraille revealed the names of his +accomplices, a secret hitherto well kept. This was all Jacques needed to +know. + +"That is the whole story. Ruffard was the third in the job with me and +Godet----" + +"Arrache-Laine?" cried Jacques Collin, giving Ruffard his nickname among +the gang. + +"That's the man.--And the blackguards peached because I knew where they +had hidden their whack, and they did not know where mine was." + +"You are making it all easy, my cherub!" said Jacques Collin. + +"What?" + +"Well," replied the master, "you see how wise it is to trust me +entirely. Your revenge is now part of the hand I am playing.--I do +not ask you to tell me where the dibs are, you can tell me at the last +moment; but tell me all about Ruffard and Godet." + +"You are, and you always will be, our boss; I have no secrets from you," +replied la Pouraille. "My money is in the cellar at la Gonore's." + +"And you are not afraid of her telling?" + +"Why, get along! She knows nothing about my little game!" replied la +Pouraille. "I make her drunk, though she is of the sort that would never +blab even with her head under the knife.--But such a lot of gold----!" + +"Yes, that turns the milk of the purest conscience," replied Jacques +Collin. + +"So I could do the job with no peepers to spy me. All the chickens +were gone to roost. The shiners are three feet underground behind some +wine-bottles. And I spread some stones and mortar over them." + +"Good," said Jacques Collin. "And the others?" + +"Ruffard's pieces are with la Gonore in the poor woman's bedroom, and +he has her tight by that, for she might be nabbed as accessory after the +fact, and end her days in Saint-Lazare." + +"The villain! The reelers teach a thief what's what," said Jacques. + +"Godet left his pieces at his sister's, a washerwoman; honest girl, she +may be caught for five years in La Force without dreaming of it. The pal +raised the tiles of the floor, put them back again, and guyed." + +"Now do you know what I want you to do?" said Jacques Collin, with a +magnetizing gaze at la Pouraille. + +"What?" + +"I want you to take Madeleine's job on your shoulders." + +La Pouraille started queerly; but he at once recovered himself and stood +at attention under the boss' eye. + +"So you shy at that? You dare to spoil my game? Come, now! Four murders +or three. Does it not come to the same thing?" + +"Perhaps." + +"By the God of good-fellowship, there is no blood in your veins! And I +was thinking of saving you!" + +"How?" + +"Idiot, if we promise to give the money back to the family, you will +only be lagged for life. I would not give a piece for your nut if we +keep the blunt, but at this moment you are worth seven hundred thousand +francs, you flat." + +"Good for you, boss!" cried la Pouraille in great glee. + +"And then," said Jacques Collin, "besides casting all the murders on +Ruffard--Bibi-Lupin will be finely cold. I have him this time." + +La Pouraille was speechless at this suggestion; his eyes grew round, and +he stood like an image. + +He had been three months in custody, and was committed for trial, and +his chums at La Force, to whom he had never mentioned his accomplices, +had given him such small comfort, that he was entirely hopeless after +his examination, and this simple expedient had been quite overlooked by +these prison-ridden minds. This semblance of a hope almost stupefied his +brain. + +"Have Ruffard and Godet had their spree yet? Have they forked out any of +the yellow boys?" asked Jacques Collin. + +"They dare not," replied la Pouraille. "The wretches are waiting till +I am turned off. That is what my moll sent me word by la Biffe when she +came to see le Biffon." + +"Very well; we will have their whack of money in twenty-four hours," +said Jacques Collin. "Then the blackguards cannot pay up, as you will; +you will come out as white as snow, and they will be red with all that +blood! By my kind offices you will seem a good sort of fellow led away +by them. I shall have money enough of yours to prove alibis on the other +counts, and when you are back on the hulks--for you are bound to go +there--you must see about escaping. It is a dog's life, still it is +life!" + +La Pouraille's eyes glittered with suppressed delirium. + +"With seven hundred thousand francs you can get a good many drinks," +said Jacques Collin, making his pal quite drunk with hope. + +"Ay, ay, boss!" + +"I can bamboozle the Minister of Justice.--Ah, ha! Ruffard will shell +out to do for a reeler. Bibi-Lupin is fairly gulled!" + +"Very good, it is a bargain," said la Pouraille with savage glee. "You +order, and I obey." + +And he hugged Jacques Collin in his arms, while tears of joy stood in +his eyes, so hopeful did he feel of saving his head. + +"That is not all," said Jacques Collin; "the public prosecutor does not +swallow everything, you know, especially when a new count is entered +against you. The next thing is to bring a moll into the case by blowing +the gaff." + +"But how, and what for?" + +"Do as I bid you; you will see." And _Trompe-la-Mort_ briefly told the +secret of the Nanterre murders, showing him how necessary it was to find +a woman who would pretend to be Ginetta. Then he and la Pouraille, now +in good spirits, went across to le Biffon. + +"I know how sweet you are on la Biffe," said Jacques Collin to this man. + +The expression in le Biffon's eyes was a horrible poem. + +"What will she do while you are on the hulks?" + +A tear sparkled in le Biffon's fierce eyes. + +"Well, suppose I were to get her lodgings in the Lorcefe des Largues" +(the women's La Force, i. e. les Madelonnettes or Saint-Lazare) "for a +stretch, allowing that time for you to be sentenced and sent there, to +arrive and to escape?" + +"Even you cannot work such a miracle. She took no part in the job," +replied la Biffe's partner. + +"Oh, my good Biffon," said la Pouraille, "our boss is more powerful than +God Almighty." + +"What is your password for her?" asked Jacques Collin, with the +assurance of a master to whom nothing can be refused. + +"Sorgue a Pantin (night in Paris). If you say that she knows you have +come from me, and if you want her to do as you bid her, show her a +five-franc piece and say Tondif." + +"She will be involved in the sentence on la Pouraille, and let off +with a year in quod for snitching," said Jacques Collin, looking at la +Pouraille. + +La Pouraille understood his boss' scheme, and by a single look promised +to persuade le Biffon to promote it by inducing la Biffe to take upon +herself this complicity in the crime la Pouraille was prepared to +confess. + +"Farewell, my children. You will presently hear that I have saved my +boy from Jack Ketch," said _Trompe-la-Mort_. "Yes, Jack Ketch and his +hairdresser were waiting in the office to get Madeleine ready.--There," +he added, "they have come to fetch me to go to the public prosecutor." + +And, in fact, a warder came out of the gate and beckoned to this +extraordinary man, who, in face of the young Corsican's danger, had +recovered his own against his own society. + + + +It is worthy of note that at the moment when Lucien's body was taken +away from him, Jacques Collin had, with a crowning effort, made up +his mind to attempt a last incarnation, not as a human being, but as +a _thing_. He had at last taken the fateful step that Napoleon took +on board the boat which conveyed him to the Bellerophon. And a strange +concurrence of events aided this genius of evil and corruption in his +undertaking. + +But though the unlooked-for conclusion of this life of crime may perhaps +be deprived of some of the marvelous effect which, in our day, can +be given to a narrative only by incredible improbabilities, it is +necessary, before we accompany Jacques Collin to the public prosecutor's +room, that we should follow Madame Camusot in her visits during the time +we have spent in the Conciergerie. + +One of the obligations which the historian of manners must unfailingly +observe is that of never marring the truth for the sake of dramatic +arrangement, especially when the truth is so kind as to be in itself +romantic. Social nature, particularly in Paris, allows of such freaks +of chance, such complications of whimsical entanglements, that it +constantly outdoes the most inventive imagination. The audacity +of facts, by sheer improbability or indecorum, rises to heights of +"situation" forbidden to art, unless they are softened, cleansed, and +purified by the writer. + +Madame Camusot did her utmost to dress herself for the morning almost in +good taste--a difficult task for the wife of a judge who for six years +has lived in a provincial town. Her object was to give no hold for +criticism to the Marquise d'Espard or the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, in +a call so early as between eight and nine in the morning. Amelie Cecile +Camusot, nee Thirion, it must be said, only half succeeded; and in a +matter of dress is this not a twofold blunder? + +Few people can imagine how useful the women of Paris are to ambitious +men of every class; they are equally necessary in the world of fashion +and the world of thieves, where, as we have seen, they fill a most +important part. For instance, suppose that a man, not to find himself +left in the lurch, must absolutely get speech within a given time +with the high functionary who was of such immense importance under the +Restoration, and who is to this day called the Keeper of the Seals--a +man, let us say, in the most favorable position, a judge, that is to +say, a man familiar with the way of things. He is compelled to seek out +the presiding judge of a circuit, or some private or official secretary, +and prove to him his need of an immediate interview. But is a Keeper of +the Seals ever visible "that very minute"? In the middle of the day, if +he is not at the Chamber, he is at the Privy Council, or signing papers, +or hearing a case. In the early morning he is out, no one knows +where. In the evening he has public and private engagements. If every +magistrate could claim a moment's interview under any pretext that might +occur to him, the Supreme Judge would be besieged. + +The purpose of a private and immediate interview is therefore submitted +to the judgment of one of those mediatory potentates who are but an +obstacle to be removed, a door that can be unlocked, so long as it is +not held by a rival. A woman at once goes to another woman; she can get +straight into her bedroom if she can arouse the curiosity of mistress +or maid, especially if the mistress is under the stress of a strong +interest or pressing necessity. + +Call this female potentate Madame la Marquise d'Espard, with whom a +Minister has to come to terms; this woman writes a little scented note, +which her man-servant carries to the Minister's man-servant. The note +greets the Minister on his waking, and he reads it at once. Though +the Minister has business to attend to, the man is enchanted to have a +reason for calling on one of the Queens of Paris, one of the Powers of +the Faubourg Saint-Germain, one of the favorites of the Dauphiness, of +MADAME, or of the King. Casimir Perier, the only real statesman of the +Revolution of July, would leave anything to call on a retired Gentleman +of the bed-chamber to King Charles X. + +This theory accounts for the magical effect of the words: + +"Madame,--Madame Camusot, on very important business, which she says you +know of," spoken in Madame d'Espard's ear by her maid, who thought she +was awake. + +And the Marquise desired that Amelie should be shown in at once. + +The magistrate's wife was attentively heard when she began with these +words: + +"Madame la Marquise, we have ruined ourselves by trying to avenge +you----" + +"How is that, my dear?" replied the Marquise, looking at Madame Camusot +in the dim light that fell through the half-open door. "You are vastly +sweet this morning in that little bonnet. Where do you get that shape?" + +"You are very kind, madame.--Well, you know that Camusot's way of +examining Lucien de Rubempre drove the young man to despair, and he +hanged himself in prison." + +"Oh, what will become of Madame de Serizy?" cried the Marquise, +affecting ignorance, that she might hear the whole story once more. + +"Alas! they say she is quite mad," said Amelie. "If you could persuade +the Lord Keeper to send for my husband this minute, by special +messenger, to meet him at the Palais, the Minister would hear some +strange mysteries, and report them, no doubt, to the King.... Then +Camusot's enemies would be reduced to silence." + +"But who are Camusot's enemies?" asked Madame d'Espard. + +"The public prosecutor, and now Monsieur de Serizy." + +"Very good, my dear," replied Madame d'Espard, who owed to Monsieur +de Granville and the Comte de Serizy her defeat in the disgraceful +proceedings by which she had tried to have her husband treated as +a lunatic, "I will protect you; I never forget either my foes or my +friends." + +She rang; the maid drew open the curtains, and daylight flooded the +room; she asked for her desk, and the maid brought it in. The Marquise +hastily scrawled a few lines. + +"Tell Godard to go on horseback, and carry this note to the Chancellor's +office.--There is no reply," said she to the maid. + +The woman went out of the room quickly, but, in spite of the order, +remained at the door for some minutes. + +"There are great mysteries going forward then?" asked Madame d'Espard. +"Tell me all about it, dear child. Has Clotilde de Grandlieu put a +finger in the pie?" + +"You will know everything from the Lord Keeper, for my husband has told +me nothing. He only told me he was in danger. It would be better for us +that Madame de Serizy should die than that she should remain mad." + +"Poor woman!" said the Marquise. "But was she not mad already?" + +Women of the world, by a hundred ways of pronouncing the same phrase, +illustrate to attentive hearers the infinite variety of musical modes. +The soul goes out into the voice as it does into the eyes; it vibrates +in light and in air--the elements acted on by the eyes and the voice. By +the tone she gave to the two words, "Poor woman!" the Marquise betrayed +the joy of satisfied hatred, the pleasure of triumph. Oh! what woes did +she not wish to befall Lucien's protectress. Revenge, which nothing can +assuage, which can survive the person hated, fills us with dark terrors. +And Madame Camusot, though harsh herself, vindictive, and quarrelsome, +was overwhelmed. She could find nothing to say, and was silent. + +"Diane told me that Leontine went to the prison," Madame d'Espard went +on. "The dear Duchess is in despair at such a scandal, for she is +so foolish as to be very fond of Madame de Serizy; however, it is +comprehensible: they both adored that little fool Lucien at about the +same time, and nothing so effectually binds or severs two women as +worshiping at the same altar. And our dear friend spent two hours +yesterday in Leontine's room. The poor Countess, it seems, says dreadful +things! I heard that it was disgusting! A woman of rank ought not to +give way to such attacks.--Bah! A purely physical passion.--The Duchess +came to see me as pale as death; she really was very brave. There are +monstrous things connected with this business." + +"My husband will tell the Keeper of the Seals all he knows for his +own justification, for they wanted to save Lucien, and he, Madame la +Marquise, did his duty. An examining judge always has to question people +in private at the time fixed by law! He had to ask the poor little +wretch something, if only for form's sake, and the young fellow did not +understand, and confessed things----" + +"He was an impertinent fool!" said Madame d'Espard in a hard tone. + +The judge's wife kept silence on hearing this sentence. + +"Though we failed in the matter of the Commission in Lunacy, it was not +Camusot's fault, I shall never forget that," said the Marquise after +a pause. "It was Lucien, Monsieur de Serizy, Monsieur de Bauvan, and +Monsieur de Granville who overthrew us. With time God will be on my +side; all those people will come to grief.--Be quite easy, I will send +the Chevalier d'Espard to the Keeper of the Seals that he may desire +your husbands's presence immediately, if that is of any use." + +"Oh! madame----" + +"Listen," said the Marquise. "I promise you the ribbon of the Legion +of Honor at once--to-morrow. It will be a conspicuous testimonial of +satisfaction with your conduct in this affair. Yes, it implies further +blame on Lucien; it will prove him guilty. Men do not commonly hang +themselves for the pleasure of it.--Now, good-bye, my pretty dear----" + +Ten minutes later Madame Camusot was in the bedroom of the beautiful +Diane de Maufrigneuse, who had not gone to bed till one, and at nine +o'clock had not yet slept. + +However insensible duchesses may be, even these women, whose hearts +are of stone, cannot see a friend a victim to madness without being +painfully impressed by it. + +And besides, the connection between Diane and Lucien, though at an end +now eighteen months since, had left such memories with the Duchess that +the poor boy's disastrous end had been to her also a fearful blow. All +night Diane had seen visions of the beautiful youth, so charming, +so poetical, who had been so delightful a lover--painted as Leontine +depicted him, with the vividness of wild delirium. She had letters from +Lucien that she had kept, intoxicating letters worthy to compare with +Mirabeau's to Sophie, but more literary, more elaborate, for Lucien's +letters had been dictated by the most powerful of passions--Vanity. +Having the most bewitching of duchesses for his mistress, and seeing her +commit any folly for him--secret follies, of course--had turned Lucien's +head with happiness. The lover's pride had inspired the poet. And the +Duchess had treasured these touching letters, as some old men keep +indecent prints, for the sake of their extravagant praise of all that +was least duchess-like in her nature. + +"And he died in a squalid prison!" cried she to herself, putting the +letters away in a panic when she heard her maid knocking gently at her +door. + +"Madame Camusot," said the woman, "on business of the greatest +importance to you, Madame la Duchesse." + +Diane sprang to her feet in terror. + +"Oh!" cried she, looking at Amelie, who had assumed a duly condoling +air, "I guess it all--my letters! It is about my letters. Oh, my +letters, my letters!" + +She sank on to a couch. She remembered now how, in the extravagance of +her passion, she had answered Lucien in the same vein, had lauded the +man's poetry as he has sung the charms of the woman, and in what a +strain! + +"Alas, yes, madame, I have come to save what is dearer to you than +life--your honor. Compose yourself and get dressed, we must go to the +Duchesse de Grandlieu; happily for you, you are not the only person +compromised." + +"But at the Palais, yesterday, Leontine burned, I am told, all the +letters found at poor Lucien's." + +"But, madame, behind Lucien there was Jacques Collin!" cried the +magistrate's wife. "You always forget that horrible companionship which +beyond question led to that charming and lamented young man's end. That +Machiavelli of the galleys never loses his head! Monsieur Camusot is +convinced that the wretch has in some safe hiding-place all the most +compromising letters written by you ladies to his----" + +"His friend," the Duchess hastily put in. "You are right, my child. +We must hold council at the Grandlieus'. We are all concerned in this +matter, and Serizy happily will lend us his aid." + +Extreme peril--as we have observed in the scenes in the +Conciergerie--has a hold over the soul not less terrible than that of +powerful reagents over the body. It is a mental Voltaic battery. The +day, perhaps, is not far off when the process shall be discovered +by which feeling is chemically converted into a fluid not unlike the +electric fluid. + +The phenomena were the same in the convict and the Duchess. This +crushed, half-dying woman, who had not slept, who was so particular over +her dressing, had recovered the strength of a lioness at bay, and the +presence of mind of a general under fire. Diane chose her gown and got +through her dressing with the alacrity of a grisette who is her own +waiting-woman. It was so astounding, that the lady's-maid stood for a +moment stock-still, so greatly was she surprised to see her mistress +in her shift, not ill pleased perhaps to let the judge's wife discern +through the thin cloud of lawn a form as white and as perfect as that +of Canova's Venus. It was like a gem in a fold of tissue paper. Diane +suddenly remembered where a pair of stays had been put that fastened +in front, sparing a woman in a hurry the ill-spent time and fatigue of +being laced. She had arranged the lace trimming of her shift and the +fulness of the bosom by the time the maid had fetched her petticoat, and +crowned the work by putting on her gown. While Amelie, at a sign from +the maid, hooked the bodice behind, the woman brought out a pair of +thread stockings, velvet boots, a shawl, and a bonnet. Amelie and the +maid each drew on a stocking. + +"You are the loveliest creature I ever saw!" said Amelie, insidiously +kissing Diane's elegant and polished knee with an eager impulse. + +"Madame has not her match!" cried the maid. + +"There, there, Josette, hold your tongue," replied the Duchess.--"Have +you a carriage?" she went on, to Madame Camusot. "Then come along, my +dear, we can talk on the road." + +And the Duchess ran down the great stairs of the Hotel de Cadignan, +putting on her gloves as she went--a thing she had never been known to +do. + +"To the Hotel de Grandlieu, and drive fast," said she to one of her men, +signing to him to get up behind. + +The footman hesitated--it was a hackney coach. + +"Ah! Madame la Duchesse, you never told me that the young man had +letters of yours. Otherwise Camusot would have proceeded differently..." + +"Leontine's state so occupied my thoughts that I forgot myself entirely. +The poor woman was almost crazy the day before yesterday; imagine the +effect on her of this tragical termination. If you could only know, +child, what a morning we went through yesterday! It is enough to make +one forswear love!--Yesterday Leontine and I were dragged across Paris +by a horrible old woman, an old-clothes buyer, a domineering creature, +to that stinking and blood-stained sty they call the Palace of Justice, +and I said to her as I took her there: 'Is not this enough to make us +fall on our knees and cry out like Madame de Nucingen, when she went +through one of those awful Mediterranean storms on her way to Naples, +"Dear God, save me this time, and never again----!"' + +"These two days will certainly have shortened my life.--What fools we +are ever to write!--But love prompts us; we receive pages that fire the +heart through the eyes, and everything is in a blaze! Prudence deserts +us--we reply----" + +"But why reply when you can act?" said Madame Camusot. + +"It is grand to lose oneself utterly!" cried the Duchess with pride. "It +is the luxury of the soul." + +"Beautiful women are excusable," said Madame Camusot modestly. "They +have more opportunities of falling than we have." + +The Duchess smiled. + +"We are always too generous," said Diane de Maufrigneuse. "I shall do +just like that odious Madame d'Espard." + +"And what does she do?" asked the judge's wife, very curious. + +"She has written a thousand love-notes----" + +"So many!" exclaimed Amelie, interrupting the Duchess. + +"Well, my dear, and not a word that could compromise her is to be found +in any one of them." + +"You would be incapable of maintaining such coldness, such caution," +said Madame Camusot. "You are a woman; you are one of those angels who +cannot stand out against the devil----" + +"I have made a vow to write no more letters. I never in my life wrote +to anybody but that unhappy Lucien.--I will keep his letters to my dying +day! My dear child, they are fire, and sometimes we want----" + +"But if they were found!" said Amelie, with a little shocked expression. + +"Oh! I should say they were part of a romance I was writing; for I have +copied them all, my dear, and burned the originals." + +"Oh, madame, as a reward allow me to read them." + +"Perhaps, child," said the Duchess. "And then you will see that he did +not write such letters as those to Leontine." + +This speech was woman all the world over, of every age and every land. + + + +Madame Camusot, like the frog in la Fontaine's fable, was ready to burst +her skin with the joy of going to the Grandlieus' in the society of the +beautiful Diane de Maufrigneuse. This morning she would forge one of the +links that are so needful to ambition. She could already hear herself +addressed as Madame la Presidente. She felt the ineffable gladness of +triumphing over stupendous obstacles, of which the greatest was her +husband's ineptitude, as yet unrevealed, but to her well known. To win +success for a second-rate man! that is to a woman--as to a king--the +delight which tempts great actors when they act a bad play a hundred +times over. It is the very drunkenness of egoism. It is in a way the +Saturnalia of power. + +Power can prove itself to itself only by the strange misapplication +which leads it to crown some absurd person with the laurels of success +while insulting genius--the only strong-hold which power cannot touch. +The knighting of Caligula's horse, an imperial farce, has been, and +always will be, a favorite performance. + +In a few minutes Diane and Amelie had exchanged the elegant disorder +of the fair Diane's bedroom for the severe but dignified and splendid +austerity of the Duchesse de Grandlieu's rooms. + +She, a Portuguese, and very pious, always rose at eight to attend +mass at the little church of Sainte-Valere, a chapelry to Saint-Thomas +d'Aquin, standing at that time on the esplanade of the Invalides. This +chapel, now destroyed, was rebuilt in the Rue de Bourgogne, pending the +building of a Gothic church to be dedicated to Sainte-Clotilde. + +On hearing the first words spoken in her ear by Diane de Maufrigneuse, +this saintly lady went to find Monsieur de Grandlieu, and brought him +back at once. The Duke threw a flashing look at Madame Camusot, one of +those rapid glances with which a man of the world can guess at a whole +existence, or often read a soul. Amelie's dress greatly helped the Duke +to decipher the story of a middle-class life, from Alencon to Mantes, +and from Mantes to Paris. + +Oh! if only the lawyer's wife could have understood this gift in dukes, +she could never have endured that politely ironical look; she saw the +politeness only. Ignorance shares the privileges of fine breeding. + +"This is Madame Camusot, a daughter of Thirion's--one of the Cabinet +ushers," said the Duchess to her husband. + +The Duke bowed with extreme politeness to the wife of a legal official, +and his face became a little less grave. + +The Duke had rung for his valet, who now came in. + +"Go to the Rue Saint-Honore: take a coach. Ring at a side door, No. 10. +Tell the man who opens the door that I beg his master will come here, +and if the gentleman is at home, bring him back with you.--Mention my +name, that will remove all difficulties. + +"And do not be gone more than a quarter of an hour in all." + +Another footman, the Duchess' servant, came in as soon as the other was +gone. + +"Go from me to the Duc de Chaulieu, and send up this card." + +The Duke gave him a card folded down in a particular way. When the two +friends wanted to meet at once, on any urgent or confidential business +which would not allow of note-writing, they used this means of +communication. + +Thus we see that similar customs prevail in every rank of society, +and differ only in manner, civility, and small details. The world of +fashion, too, has its argot, its slang; but that slang is called style. + +"Are you quite sure, madame, of the existence of the letters you say +were written by Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu to this young man?" +said the Duc de Grandlieu. + +And he cast a look at Madame Camusot as a sailor casts a sounding line. + +"I have not seen them, but there is reason to fear it," replied Madame +Camusot, quaking. + +"My daughter can have written nothing we would not own to!" said the +Duchess. + +"Poor Duchess!" thought Diane, with a glance at the Duke that terrified +him. + +"What do you think, my dear little Diane?" said the Duke in a whisper, +as he led her away into a recess. + +"Clotilde is so crazy about Lucien, my dear friend, that she had made +an assignation with him before leaving. If it had not been for little +Lenoncourt, she would perhaps have gone off with him into the forest +of Fontainebleau. I know that Lucien used to write letters to her which +were enough to turn the brain of a saint.--We are three daughters of Eve +in the coils of the serpent of letter-writing." + +The Duke and Diane came back to the Duchess and Madame Camusot, who were +talking in undertones. Amelie, following the advice of the Duchesse de +Maufrigneuse, affected piety to win the proud lady's favor. + +"We are at the mercy of a dreadful escaped convict!" said the Duke, with +a peculiar shrug. "This is what comes of opening one's house to people +one is not absolutely sure of. Before admitting an acquaintance, one +ought to know all about his fortune, his relations, all his previous +history----" + +This speech is the moral of my story--from the aristocratic point of +view. + +"That is past and over," said the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse. "Now we must +think of saving that poor Madame de Serizy, Clotilde, and me----" + +"We can but wait for Henri; I have sent to him. But everything really +depends on the man Gentil is gone to fetch. God grant that man may be +in Paris!--Madame," he added to Madame Camusot, "thank you so much for +having thought of us----" + +This was Madame Camusot's dismissal. The daughter of the court usher +had wit enough to understand the Duke; she rose. But the Duchess de +Maufrigneuse, with the enchanting grace which had won her so much +friendship and discretion, took Amelie by the hand as if to show her, in +a way, to the Duke and Duchess. + +"On my own account," said she, "to say nothing of her having been up +before daybreak to save us all, I may ask for more than a remembrance +for my little Madame Camusot. In the first place, she has already done +me such a service as I cannot forget; and then she is wholly devoted to +our side, she and her husband. I have promised that her Camusot shall +have advancement, and I beg you above everything to help him on, for my +sake." + +"You need no such recommendation," said the Duke to Madame Camusot. "The +Grandlieus always remember a service done them. The King's adherents +will ere long have a chance of distinguishing themselves; they will be +called upon to prove their devotion; your husband will be placed in the +front----" + +Madame Camusot withdrew, proud, happy, puffed up to suffocation. She +reached home triumphant; she admired herself, she made light of the +public prosecutor's hostility. She said to herself: + +"Supposing we were to send Monsieur de Granville flying----" + +It was high time for Madame Camusot to vanish. The Duc de Chaulieu, one +of the King's prime favorites, met the bourgeoise on the outer steps. + +"Henri," said the Duc de Grandlieu when he heard his friend announced, +"make haste, I beg of you, to get to the Chateau, try to see the +King--the business of this;" and he led the Duke into the window-recess, +where he had been talking to the airy and charming Diane. + +Now and then the Duc de Chaulieu glanced in the direction of the flighty +Duchess, who, while talking to the pious Duchess and submitting to be +lectured, answered the Duc de Chaulieu's expressive looks. + +"My dear child," said the Duc de Grandlieu to her at last, the _aside_ +being ended, "do be good! Come, now," and he took Diane's hands, +"observe the proprieties of life, do not compromise yourself any more, +write no letters. Letters, my dear, have caused as much private woe as +public mischief. What might be excusable in a girl like Clotilde, in +love for the first time, had no excuse in----" + +"An old soldier who has been under fire," said Diane with a pout. + +This grimace and the Duchess' jest brought a smile to the face of the +two much-troubled Dukes, and of the pious Duchess herself. + +"But for four years I have never written a billet-doux.--Are we saved?" +asked Diane, who hid her curiosity under this childishness. + +"Not yet," said the Duc de Chaulieu. "You have no notion how difficult +it is to do an arbitrary thing. In a constitutional king it is what +infidelity is in a wife: it is adultery." + +"The fascinating sin," said the Duc de Grandlieu. + +"Forbidden fruit!" said Diane, smiling. "Oh! how I wish I were the +Government, for I have none of that fruit left--I have eaten it all." + +"Oh! my dear, my dear!" said the elder Duchess, "you really go too far." + +The two Dukes, hearing a coach stop at the door with the clatter of +horses checked in full gallop, bowed to the ladies and left them, going +into the Duc de Grandlieu's study, whither came the gentleman from the +Rue Honore-Chevalier--no less a man than the chief of the King's private +police, the obscure but puissant Corentin. + +"Go on," said the Duc de Grandlieu; "go first, Monsieur de Saint-Denis." + +Corentin, surprised that the Duke should have remembered him, went +forward after bowing low to the two noblemen. + +"Always about the same individual, or about his concerns, my dear sir," +said the Duc de Grandlieu. + +"But he is dead," said Corentin. + +"He has left a partner," said the Duc de Chaulieu, "a very tough +customer." + +"The convict Jacques Collin," replied Corentin. + +"Will you speak, Ferdinand?" said the Duke de Chaulieu to his friend. + +"That wretch is an object of fear," said the Duc de Grandlieu, "for +he has possessed himself, so as to be able to levy blackmail, of the +letters written by Madame de Serizy and Madame de Maufrigneuse to Lucien +Chardon, that man's tool. It would seem that it was a matter of system +in the young man to extract passionate letters in return for his own, +for I am told that Mademoiselle de Grandlieu had written some--at least, +so we fear--and we cannot find out from her--she is gone abroad." + +"That little young man," replied Corentin, "was incapable of so much +foresight. That was a precaution due to the Abbe Carlos Herrera." + +Corentin rested his elbow on the arm of the chair on which he was +sitting, and his head on his hand, meditating. + +"Money!--The man has more than we have," said he. "Esther Gobseck served +him as a bait to extract nearly two million francs from that well of +gold called Nucingen.--Gentlemen, get me full legal powers, and I will +rid you of the fellow." + +"And--the letters?" asked the Duc de Grandlieu. + +"Listen to me, gentlemen," said Corentin, standing up, his weasel-face +betraying his excitement. + +He thrust his hands into the pockets of his black doeskin trousers, +shaped over the shoes. This great actor in the historical drama of the +day had only stopped to put on a waistcoat and frock-coat, and had not +changed his morning trousers, so well he knew how grateful men can be +for immediate action in certain cases. He walked up and down the room +quite at his ease, haranguing loudly, as if he had been alone. + +"He is a convict. He could be sent off to Bicetre without trial, and put +in solitary confinement, without a soul to speak to, and left there to +die.--But he may have given instructions to his adherents, foreseeing +this possibility." + +"But he was put into the secret cells," said the Duc de Grandlieu, "the +moment he was taken into custody at that woman's house." + +"Is there such a thing as a secret cell for such a fellow as he is?" +said Corentin. "He is a match for--for me!" + +"What is to be done?" said the Dukes to each other by a glance. + +"We can send the scoundrel back to the hulks at once--to Rochefort; he +will be dead in six months! Oh! without committing any crime," he added, +in reply to a gesture on the part of the Duc de Grandlieu. "What do you +expect? A convict cannot hold out more than six months of a hot summer +if he is made to work really hard among the marshes of the Charente. But +this is of no use if our man has taken precautions with regard to the +letters. If the villain has been suspicious of his foes, and that is +probable, we must find out what steps he has taken. Then, if the present +holder of the letters is poor, he is open to bribery. So, no, we must +make Jacques Collin speak. What a duel! He will beat me. The better plan +would be to purchase those letters by exchange for another document--a +letter of reprieve--and to place the man in my gang. Jacques Collin is +the only man alive who is clever enough to come after me, poor Contenson +and dear old Peyrade both being dead! Jacques Collin killed those two +unrivaled spies on purpose, as it were, to make a place for himself. So, +you see, gentlemen, you must give me a free hand. Jacques Collin is in +the Conciergerie. I will go to see Monsieur de Granville in his Court. +Send some one you can trust to meet me there, for I must have a letter +to show to Monsieur de Granville, who knows nothing of me. I will hand +the letter to the President of the Council, a very impressive sponsor. +You have half an hour before you, for I need half an hour to dress, +that is to say, to make myself presentable to the eyes of the public +prosecutor." + +"Monsieur," said the Duc de Chaulieu, "I know your wonderful skill. I +only ask you to say Yes or No. Will you be bound to succeed?" + +"Yes, if I have full powers, and your word that I shall never be +questioned about the matter.--My plan is laid." + +This sinister reply made the two fine gentlemen shiver. "Go on, then, +monsieur," said the Duc de Chaulieu. "You can set down the charges of +the case among those you are in the habit of undertaking." + +Corentin bowed and went away. + +Henri de Lenoncourt, for whom Ferdinand de Grandlieu had a carriage +brought out, went off forthwith to the King, whom he was privileged to +see at all times in right of his office. + +Thus all the various interests that had got entangled from the highest +to the lowest ranks of society were to meet presently in Monsieur +de Granville's room at the Palais, all brought together by necessity +embodied in three men--Justice in Monsieur de Granville, and the family +in Corentin, face to face with Jacques Collin, the terrible foe who +represented social crime in its fiercest energy. + +What a duel is that between justice and arbitrary wills on one side and +the hulks and cunning on the other! The hulks--symbolical of that daring +which throws off calculation and reflection, which avails itself of any +means, which has none of the hyprocrisy of high-handed justice, but is +the hideous outcome of the starving stomach--the swift and bloodthirsty +pretext of hunger. Is it not attack as against self-protection, theft as +against property? The terrible quarrel between the social state and the +natural man, fought out on the narrowest possible ground! In short, it +is a terrible and vivid image of those compromises, hostile to social +interests, which the representatives of authority, when they lack power, +submit to with the fiercest rebels. + +When Monsieur Camusot was announced, the public prosecutor signed that +he should be admitted. Monsieur de Granville had foreseen this visit, +and wished to come to an understanding with the examining judge as to +how to wind up this business of Lucien's death. The end could no +longer be that on which he had decided the day before in agreement with +Camusot, before the suicide of the hapless poet. + +"Sit down, Monsieur Camusot," said Monsieur de Granville, dropping into +his armchair. The public prosecutor, alone with the inferior judge, +made no secret of his depressed state. Camusot looked at Monsieur de +Granville and observed his almost livid pallor, and such utter fatigue, +such complete prostration, as betrayed greater suffering perhaps than +that of the condemned man to whom the clerk had announced the rejection +of his appeal. And yet that announcement, in the forms of justice, is a +much as to say, "Prepare to die; your last hour has come." + +"I will return later, Monsieur le Comte," said Camusot. "Though business +is pressing----" + +"No, stay," replied the public prosecutor with dignity. "A magistrate, +monsieur, must accept his anxieties and know how to hide them. I was in +fault if you saw any traces of agitation in me----" + +Camusot bowed apologetically. + +"God grant you may never know these crucial perplexities of our life. +A man might sink under less! I have just spent the night with one of +my most intimate friends.--I have but two friends, the Comte Octave de +Bauvan and the Comte de Serizy.--We sat together, Monsieur de Serizy, +the Count, and I, from six in the evening till six this morning, taking +it in turns to go from the drawing-room to Madame de Serizy's bedside, +fearing each time that we might find her dead or irremediably insane. +Desplein, Bianchon, and Sinard never left the room, and she has two +nurses. The Count worships his wife. Imagine the night I have spent, +between a woman crazy with love and a man crazy with despair. And a +statesman's despair is not like that of an idiot. Serizy, as calm as +if he were sitting in his place in council, clutched his chair to force +himself to show us an unmoved countenance, while sweat stood over the +brows bent by so much hard thought.--Worn out by want of sleep, I dozed +from five till half-past seven, and I had to be here by half-past eight +to warrant an execution. Take my word for it, Monsieur Camusot, when a +judge has been toiling all night in such gulfs of sorrow, feeling the +heavy hand of God on all human concerns, and heaviest on noble souls, +it is hard to sit down here, in front of a desk, and say in cold blood, +'Cut off a head at four o'clock! Destroy one of God's creatures full +of life, health, and strength!'--And yet this is my duty! Sunk in grief +myself, I must order the scaffold---- + +"The condemned wretch cannot know that his judge suffers anguish equal +to his own. At this moment he and I, linked by a sheet of paper--I, +society avenging itself; he, the crime to be avenged--embody the same +duty seen from two sides; we are two lives joined for the moment by the +sword of the law. + +"Who pities the judge's deep sorrow? Who can soothe it? Our glory is +to bury it in the depth of our heart. The priest with his life given to +God, the soldier with a thousand deaths for his country's sake, seem +to me far happier than the magistrate with his doubts and fears and +appalling responsibility. + +"You know who the condemned man is?" Monsieur de Granville went on. +"A young man of seven-and-twenty--as handsome as he who killed himself +yesterday, and as fair; condemned against all our anticipations, for the +only proof against him was his concealment of the stolen goods. Though +sentenced, the lad will confess nothing! For seventy days he has held +out against every test, constantly declaring that he is innocent. For +two months I have felt two heads on my shoulders! I would give a year of +my life if he would confess, for juries need encouragement; and imagine +what a blow it would be to justice if some day it should be discovered +that the crime for which he is punished was committed by another. + +"In Paris everything is so terribly important; the most trivial +incidents in the law courts have political consequences. + +"The jury, an institution regarded by the legislators of the Revolution +as a source of strength, is, in fact, an instrument of social ruin, for +it fails in action; it does not sufficiently protect society. The jury +trifles with its functions. The class of jurymen is divided into +two parties, one averse to capital punishment; the result is a total +upheaval of true equality in administration of the law. Parricide, a +most horrible crime, is in some departments treated with leniency, while +in others a common murder, so to speak, is punished with death. [There +are in penal servitude twenty-three parricides who have been allowed the +benefit of _extenuating circumstances_.] And what would happen if here +in Paris, in our home district, an innocent man should be executed!" + +"He is an escaped convict," said Monsieur Camusot, diffidently. + +"The Opposition and the Press would make him a paschal lamb!" cried +Monsieur de Granville; "and the Opposition would enjoy white-washing +him, for he is a fanatical Corsican, full of his native notions, and his +murders were a _Vendetta_. In that island you may kill your enemy, and +think yourself, and be thought, a very good man. + +"A thorough-paced magistrate, I tell you, is an unhappy man. They ought +to live apart from all society, like the pontiffs of old. The world +should never see them but at fixed hours, leaving their cells, grave, +and old, and venerable, passing sentence like the high priests of +antiquity, who combined in their person the functions of judicial and +sacerdotal authority. We should be accessible only in our high seat.--As +it is, we are to be seen every day, amused or unhappy, like other men. +We are to be found in drawing-rooms and at home, as ordinary citizens, +moved by our passions; and we seem, perhaps, more grotesque than +terrible." + +This bitter cry, broken by pauses and interjections, and emphasized by +gestures which gave it an eloquence impossible to reduce to writing, +made Camusot's blood run chill. + +"And I, monsieur," said he, "began yesterday my apprenticeship to the +sufferings of our calling.--I could have died of that young fellow's +death. He misunderstood my wish to be lenient, and the poor wretch +committed himself." + +"Ah, you ought never to have examined him!" cried Monsieur de Granville; +"it is so easy to oblige by doing nothing." + +"And the law, monsieur?" replied Camusot. "He had been in custody two +days." + +"The mischief is done," said the public prosecutor. "I have done my +best to remedy what is indeed irremediable. My carriage and servants are +following the poor weak poet to the grave. Serizy has sent his too; nay, +more, he accepts the duty imposed on him by the unfortunate boy, and +will act as his executor. By promising this to his wife he won from her +a gleam of returning sanity. And Count Octave is attending the funeral +in person." + +"Well, then, Monsieur le Comte," said Camusot, "let us complete +our work. We have a very dangerous man on our hands. He is Jacques +Collin--and you know it as well as I do. The ruffian will be +recognized----" + +"Then we are lost!" cried Monsieur de Granville. + +"He is at this moment shut up with your condemned murderer, who, on the +hulks, was to him what Lucien has been in Paris--a favorite protege. +Bibi-Lupin, disguised as a gendarme, is watching the interview." + +"What business has the superior police to interfere?" said the public +prosecutor. "He has no business to act without my orders!" + +"All the Conciergerie must know that we have caught Jacques +Collin.--Well, I have come on purpose to tell you that this daring +felon has in his possession the most compromising letters of Lucien's +correspondence with Madame de Serizy, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and +Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu." + +"Are you sure of that?" asked Monsieur de Granville, his face full of +pained surprise. + +"You shall hear, Monsieur le Comte, what reason I have to fear such a +misfortune. When I untied the papers found in the young man's rooms, +Jacques Collin gave a keen look at the parcel, and smiled with +satisfaction in a way that no examining judge could misunderstand. +So deep a villain as Jacques Collin takes good care not to let such a +weapon slip through his fingers. What is to be said if these documents +should be placed in the hands of counsel chosen by that rascal from +among the foes of the government and the aristocracy!--My wife, to whom +the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse has shown so much kindness, is gone to warn +her, and by this time they must be with the Grandlieus holding council." + +"But we cannot possibly try the man!" cried the public prosecutor, +rising and striding up and down the room. "He must have put the papers +in some safe place----" + +"I know where," said Camusot. + +These words finally effaced every prejudice the public prosecutor had +felt against him. + +"Well, then----" said Monsieur de Granville, sitting down again. + +"On my way here this morning I reflected deeply on this miserable +business. Jacques Collin has an aunt--an aunt by nature, not putative--a +woman concerning whom the superior police have communicated a report to +the Prefecture. He is this woman's pupil and idol; she is his father's +sister, her name is Jacqueline Collin. This wretched woman carries on a +trade as a wardrobe purchaser, and by the connection this business has +secured her she gets hold of many family secrets. If Jacques Collin +has intrusted those papers, which would be his salvation, to any one's +keeping, it is to that of this creature. Have her arrested." + +The public prosecutor gave Camusot a keen look, as much as to say, "This +man is not such a fool as I thought him; he is still young, and does not +yet know how to handle the reins of justice." + +"But," Camusot went on, "in order to succeed, we must give up all +the plans we laid yesterday, and I came to take your advice--your +orders----" + +The public prosecutor took up his paper-knife and tapped it against +the edge of the table with one of the tricky movements familiar to +thoughtful men when they give themselves up to meditation. + +"Three noble families involved!" he exclaimed. "We must not make the +smallest blunder!--You are right: as a first step let us act on Fouche's +principle, 'Arrest!'--and Jacques Collin must at once be sent back to +the secret cells." + +"That is to proclaim him a convict and to ruin Lucien's memory!" + +"What a desperate business!" said Monsieur de Granville. "There is +danger on every side." + +At this instant the governor of the Conciergerie came in, not without +knocking; and the private room of a public prosecutor is so well +guarded, that only those concerned about the courts may even knock at +the door. + +"Monsieur le Comte," said Monsieur Gault, "the prisoner calling himself +Carlos Herrera wishes to speak with you." + +"Has he had communication with anybody?" asked Monsieur de Granville. + +"With all the prisoners, for he has been out in the yard since about +half-past seven. And he has seen the condemned man, who would seem to +have talked to him." + +A speech of Camusot's, which recurred to his mind like a flash of light, +showed Monsieur de Granville all the advantage that might be taken of +a confession of intimacy between Jacques Collin and Theodore Calvi to +obtain the letters. The public prosecutor, glad to have an excuse for +postponing the execution, beckoned Monsieur Gault to his side. + +"I intend," said he, "to put off the execution till to-morrow; but let +no one in the prison suspect it. Absolute silence! Let the executioner +seem to be superintending the preparations. + +"Send the Spanish priest here under a strong guard; the Spanish Embassy +claims his person! Gendarmes can bring up the self-styled Carlos by your +back stairs so that he may see no one. Instruct the men each to hold him +by one arm, and never let him go till they reach this door. + +"Are you sure, Monsieur Gault, that this dangerous foreigner has spoken +to no one but the prisoners!" + +"Ah! just as he came out of the condemned cell a lady came to see +him----" + +The two magistrates exchanged looks, and such looks! + +"What lady was that!" asked Camusot. + +"One of his penitents--a Marquise," replied Gault. + +"Worse and worse!" said Monsieur de Granville, looking at Camusot. + +"She gave all the gendarmes and warders a sick headache," said Monsieur +Gault, much puzzled. + +"Nothing can be a matter of indifference in your business," said the +public prosecutor. "The Conciergerie has not such tremendous walls for +nothing. How did this lady get in?" + +"With a regular permit, monsieur," replied the governor. "The lady, +beautifully dressed, in a fine carriage with a footman and a chasseur, +came to see her confessor before going to the funeral of the poor young +man whose body you had had removed." + +"Bring me the order for admission," said Monsieur de Granville. + +"It was given on the recommendation of the Comte de Serizy." + +"What was the woman like?" asked the public prosecutor. + +"She seemed to be a lady." + +"Did you see her face?" + +"She wore a black veil." + +"What did they say to each other?" + +"Well--a pious person, with a prayer-book in her hand--what could she +say? She asked the Abbe's blessing and went on her knees." + +"Did they talk together a long time?" + +"Not five minutes; but we none of us understood what they said; they +spoke Spanish no doubt." + +"Tell us everything, monsieur," the public prosecutor insisted. "I +repeat, the very smallest detail is to us of the first importance. Let +this be a caution to you." + +"She was crying, monsieur." + +"Really weeping?" + +"That we could not see, she hid her face in her handkerchief. She left +three hundred francs in gold for the prisoners." + +"That was not she!" said Camusot. + +"Bibi-Lupin at once said, 'She is a thief!'" said Monsieur Gault. + +"He knows the tribe," said Monsieur de Granville.--"Get out your +warrant," he added, turning to Camusot, "and have seals placed on +everything in her house--at once! But how can she have got hold of +Monsieur de Serizy's recommendation?--Bring me the order--and go, +Monsieur Gault; send me that Abbe immediately. So long as we have him +safe, the danger cannot be greater. And in the course of two hours' talk +you get a long way into a man's mind." + +"Especially such a public prosecutor as you are," said Camusot +insidiously. + +"There will be two of us," replied Monsieur de Granville politely. + +And he became discursive once more. + +"There ought to be created for every prison parlor, a post of +superintendent, to be given with a good salary to the cleverest and most +energetic police officers," said he, after a long pause. "Bibi-Lupin +ought to end his days in such a place. Then we should have an eye and +ear on the watch in a department that needs closer supervision than it +gets.--Monsieur Gault could tell us nothing positive." + +"He has so much to do," said Camusot. "Still, between these secret cells +and us there lies a gap which ought not to exist. On the way from the +Conciergerie to the judges' rooms there are passages, courtyards, and +stairs. The attention of the agents cannot be unflagging, whereas the +prisoner is always alive to his own affairs. + +"I was told that a lady had already placed herself in the way of Jacques +Collin when he was brought up from the cells to be examined. That +woman got into the guardroom at the top of the narrow stairs from the +mousetrap; the ushers told me, and I blamed the gendarmes." + +"Oh! the Palais needs entire reconstruction," said Monsieur de +Granville. "But it is an outlay of twenty to thirty million francs! +Just try asking the Chambers for thirty millions for the more decent +accommodation of Justice." + +The sound of many footsteps and a clatter of arms fell on their ear. It +would be Jacques Collin. + +The public prosecutor assumed a mask of gravity that hid the man. +Camusot imitated his chief. + +The office-boy opened the door, and Jacques Collin came in, quite calm +and unmoved. + +"You wished to speak to me," said Monsieur de Granville. "I am ready to +listen." + +"Monsieur le Comte, I am Jacques Collin. I surrender!" + +Camusot started; the public prosecutor was immovable. + +"As you may suppose, I have my reasons for doing this," said Jacques +Collin, with an ironical glance at the two magistrates. "I must +inconvenience you greatly; for if I had remained a Spanish priest, you +would simply have packed me off with an escort of gendarmes as far as +the frontier by Bayonne, and there Spanish bayonets would have relieved +you of me." + +The lawyers sat silent and imperturbable. + +"Monsieur le Comte," the convict went on, "the reasons which have led me +to this step are yet more pressing than this, but devilish personal to +myself. I can tell them to no one but you.--If you are afraid----" + +"Afraid of whom? Of what?" said the Comte de Granville. + +In attitude and expression, in the turn of his head, his demeanor +and his look, this distinguished judge was at this moment a living +embodiment of the law which ought to supply us with the noblest examples +of civic courage. In this brief instant he was on a level with the +magistrates of the old French Parlement in the time of the civil wars, +when the presidents found themselves face to face with death, and stood, +made of marble, like the statues that commemorate them. + +"Afraid to be alone with an escaped convict!" + +"Leave us, Monsieur Camusot," said the public prosecutor at once. + +"I was about to suggest that you should bind me hand and foot," Jacques +Collin coolly added, with an ominous glare at the two gentlemen. He +paused, and then said with great gravity: + +"Monsieur le Comte, you had my esteem, but you now command my +admiration." + +"Then you think you are formidable?" said the magistrate, with a look of +supreme contempt. + +"_Think_ myself formidable?" retorted the convict. "Why think about it? +I am, and I know it." + +Jacques Collin took a chair and sat down, with all the ease of a man who +feels himself a match for his adversary in an interview where they would +treat on equal terms. + +At this instant Monsieur Camusot, who was on the point of closing the +door behind him, turned back, came up to Monsieur de Granville, and +handed him two folded papers. + +"Look!" said he to Monsieur de Granville, pointing to one of them. + +"Call back Monsieur Gault!" cried the Comte de Granville, as he read the +name of Madame de Maufrigneuse's maid--a woman he knew. + +The governor of the prison came in. + +"Describe the woman who came to see the prisoner," said the public +prosecutor in his ear. + +"Short, thick-set, fat, and square," replied Monsieur Gault. + +"The woman to whom this permit was given is tall and thin," said +Monsieur de Granville. "How old was she?" + +"About sixty." + +"This concerns me, gentlemen?" said Jacques Collin. "Come, do not puzzle +your heads. That person is my aunt, a very plausible aunt, a woman, and +an old woman. I can save you a great deal of trouble. You will never +find my aunt unless I choose. If we beat about the bush, we shall never +get forwarder." + +"Monsieur l'Abbe has lost his Spanish accent," observed Monsieur Gault; +"he does not speak broken French." + +"Because things are in a desperate mess, my dear Monsieur Gault," +replied Jacques Collin with a bitter smile, as he addressed the Governor +by name. + +Monsieur Gault went quickly up to his chief, and said in a whisper, +"Beware of that man, Monsieur le Comte; he is mad with rage." + +Monsieur de Granville gazed slowly at Jacques Collin, and saw that he +was controlling himself; but he saw, too, that what the governor said +was true. This treacherous demeanor covered the cold but terrible +nervous irritation of a savage. In Jacques Collin's eyes were the lurid +fires of a volcanic eruption, his fists were clenched. He was a tiger +gathering himself up to spring. + +"Leave us," said the Count gravely to the prison governor and the judge. + +"You did wisely to send away Lucien's murderer!" said Jacques Collin, +without caring whether Camusot heard him or no; "I could not contain +myself, I should have strangled him." + +Monsieur de Granville felt a chill; never had he seen a man's eyes so +full of blood, or cheeks so colorless, or muscles so set. + +"And what good would that murder have done you?" he quietly asked. + +"You avenge society, or fancy you avenge it, every day, monsieur, and +you ask me to give a reason for revenge? Have you never felt vengeance +throbbing in surges in your veins? Don't you know that it was that idiot +of a judge who killed him?--For you were fond of my Lucien, and he loved +you! I know you by heart, sir. The dear boy would tell me everything at +night when he came in; I used to put him to bed as a nurse tucks up a +child, and I made him tell me everything. He confided everything to me, +even his least sensations! + +"The best of mothers never loved an only son so tenderly as I loved +that angel! If only you knew! All that is good sprang up in his heart as +flowers grow in the fields. He was weak; it was his only fault, weak as +the string of a lyre, which is so strong when it is taut. These are the +most beautiful natures; their weakness is simply tenderness, admiration, +the power of expanding in the sunshine of art, of love, of the beauty +God has made for man in a thousand shapes!--In short, Lucien was a woman +spoiled. Oh! what could I not say to that brute beast who had just gone +out of the room! + +"I tell you, monsieur, in my degree, as a prisoner before his judge, +I did what God A'mighty would have done for His Son if, hoping to save +Him, He had gone with Him before Pilate!" + +A flood of tears fell from the convict's light tawny eyes, which just +now had glared like those of a wolf starved by six months' snow in the +plains of the Ukraine. He went on: + +"That dolt would listen to nothing, and he killed the boy!--I tell you, +sir, I bathed the child's corpse in my tears, crying out to the Power +I do not know, and which is above us all! I, who do not believe in +God!--(For if I were not a materialist, I should not be myself.) + +"I have told everything when I say that. You don't know--no man knows +what suffering is. I alone know it. The fire of anguish so dried up my +tears, that all last night I could not weep. Now I can, because I feel +that you can understand me. I saw you, sitting there just now, an Image +of Justice. Oh! monsieur, may God--for I am beginning to believe in +Him--preserve you from ever being as bereft as I am! That cursed judge +has robbed me of my soul, Monsieur le Comte! At this moment they are +burying my life, my beauty, my virtue, my conscience, all my powers! +Imagine a dog from which a chemist had extracted the blood.--That's me! +I am that dog---- + +"And that is why I have come to tell you that I am Jacques Collin, and +to give myself up. I made up my mind to it this morning when they came +and carried away the body I was kissing like a madman--like a mother--as +the Virgin must have kissed Jesus in the tomb. + +"I meant then to give myself up to justice without driving any bargain; +but now I must make one, and you shall know why." + +"Are you speaking to the judge or to Monsieur de Granville?" asked the +magistrate. + +The two men, Crime and Law, looked at each other. The magistrate had +been strongly moved by the convict; he felt a sort of divine pity for +the unhappy wretch; he understood what his life and feelings were. +And besides, the magistrate--for a magistrate is always a +magistrate--knowing nothing of Jacques Collin's career since his escape +from prison, fancied that he could impress the criminal who, after +all, had only been sentenced for forgery. He would try the effect of +generosity on this nature, a compound, like bronze, of various elements, +of good and evil. + +Again, Monsieur de Granville, who had reached the age of fifty-three +without ever having been loved, admired a tender soul, as all men do who +have not been loved. This despair, the lot of many men to whom women can +only give esteem and friendship, was perhaps the unknown bond on which +a strong intimacy was based that united the Comtes de Bauvan, de +Granville, and de Serizy; for a common misfortune brings souls into +unison quite as much as a common joy. + +"You have the future before you," said the public prosecutor, with an +inquisitorial glance at the dejected villain. + +The man only expressed by a shrug the utmost indifference to his fate. + +"Lucien made a will by which he leaves you three hundred thousand +francs." + +"Poor, poor chap! poor boy!" cried Jacques Collin. "Always too honest! +I was all wickedness, while he was goodness--noble, beautiful, sublime! +Such lovely souls cannot be spoiled. He had taken nothing from me but my +money, sir." + +This utter and complete surrender of his individuality, which the +magistrate vainly strove to rally, so thoroughly proved his dreadful +words, that Monsieur de Granville was won over to the criminal. The +public prosecutor remained! + +"If you really care for nothing," said Monsieur de Granville, "what did +you want to say to me?" + +"Well, is it not something that I have given myself up? You were getting +warm, but you had not got me; besides, you would not have known what to +do with me----" + +"What an antagonist!" said the magistrate to himself. + +"Monsieur le Comte, you are about to cut off the head of an innocent +man, and I have discovered the culprit," said Jacques Collin, wiping +away his tears. "I have come here not for their sakes, but for yours. I +have come to spare you remorse, for I love all who took an interest in +Lucien, just as I will give my hatred full play against all who helped +to cut off his life--men or women! + +"What can a convict more or less matter to me?" he went on, after a +short pause. "A convict is no more in my eyes than an emmet is in yours. +I am like the Italian brigands--fine men they are! If a traveler is +worth ever so little more than the charge of their musket, they shoot +him dead. + +"I thought only of you.--I got the young man to make a clean breast of +it; he was bound to trust me, we had been chained together. Theodore +is very good stuff; he thought he was doing his mistress a good turn by +undertaking to sell or pawn stolen goods; but he is no more guilty of +the Nanterre job than you are. He is a Corsican; it is their way to +revenge themselves and kill each other like flies. In Italy and Spain +a man's life is not respected, and the reason is plain. There we are +believed to have a soul in our own image, which survives us and lives +for ever. Tell that to your analyst! It is only among atheistical or +philosophical nations that those who mar human life are made to pay +so dearly; and with reason from their point of view--a belief only in +matter and in the present. + +"If Calvi had told you who the woman was from whom he obtained the +stolen goods, you would not have found the real murderer; he is already +in your hands; but his accomplice, whom poor Theodore will not betray +because she is a woman----Well, every calling has its point of honor; +convicts and thieves have theirs! + +"Now, I know the murderer of those two women and the inventors of that +bold, strange plot; I have been told every detail. Postpone Calvi's +execution, and you shall know all; but you must give me your word that +he shall be sent safe back to the hulks and his punishment commuted. +A man so miserable as I am does not take the trouble to lie--you know +that. What I have told you is the truth." + +"To you, Jacques Collin, though it is degrading Justice, which ought +never to condescend to such a compromise, I believe I may relax the +rigidity of my office and refer the case to my superiors." + +"Will you grant me this life?" + +"Possibly." + +"Monsieur, I implore you to give me your word; it will be enough." + +Monsieur Granville drew himself up with offended pride. + +"I hold in my hand the honor of three families, and you only the lives +of three convicts in yours," said Jacques Collin. "I have the stronger +hand." + +"But you may be sent back to the dark cells: then, what will you do?" +said the public prosecutor. + +"Oh! we are to play the game out then!" said Jacques Collin. "I was +speaking as man to man--I was talking to Monsieur de Granville. But if +the public prosecutor is my adversary, I take up the cards and hold them +close.--And if only you had given me your word, I was ready to give you +back the letters that Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu----" + +This was said with a tone, an audacity, and a look which showed Monsieur +de Granville, that against such an adversary the least blunder was +dangerous. + +"And is that all you ask?" said the magistrate. + +"I will speak for myself now," said Jacques. "The honor of the Grandlieu +family is to pay for the commutation of Theodore's sentence. It is +giving much to get very little. For what is a convict in penal servitude +for life? If he escapes, you can so easily settle the score. It is +drawing a bill on the guillotine! Only, as he was consigned to Rochefort +with no amiable intentions, you must promise me that he shall be +quartered at Toulon, and well treated there. + +"Now, for myself, I want something more. I have the packets of letters +from Madame de Serizy and Madame de Maufrigneuse.--And what letters!--I +tell you, Monsieur le Comte, prostitutes, when they write letters, +assume a style of sentiment; well, sir, fine ladies, who are accustomed +to style and sentiment all day long, write as prostitutes behave. +Philosophers may know the reasons for this contrariness. I do not +care to seek them. Woman is an inferior animal; she is ruled by her +instincts. To my mind a woman has no beauty who is not like a man. + +"So your smart duchesses, who are men in brains only, write +masterpieces. Oh! they are splendid from beginning to end, like Piron's +famous ode!----" + +"Indeed!" + +"Would you like to see them?" said Jacques Collin, with a laugh. + +The magistrate felt ashamed. + +"I cannot give them to you to read. But, there; no nonsense; this is +business and all above board, I suppose?--You must give me back the +letters, and allow no one to play the spy or to follow or to watch the +person who will bring them to me." + +"That will take time," said Monsieur de Granville. + +"No. It is half-past nine," replied Jacques Collin, looking at the +clock; "well, in four minutes you will have a letter from each of these +ladies, and after reading them you will countermand the guillotine. +If matters were not as they are, you would not see me taking things so +easy.--The ladies indeed have had warning."--Monsieur de Granville was +startled.--"They must be making a stir by now; they are going to bring +the Keeper of the Seals into the fray--they may even appeal to the King, +who knows?--Come, now, will you give me your word that you will forget +all that has passed, and neither follow, nor send any one to follow, +that person for a whole hour?" + +"I promise it." + +"Very well; you are not the man to deceive an escaped convict. You are a +chip of the block of which Turennes and Condes are made, and would keep +your word to a thief.--In the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_ there is at this +moment a beggar woman in rags, an old woman, in the very middle of the +hall. She is probably gossiping with one of the public writers, about +some lawsuit over a party-wall perhaps; send your office messenger to +fetch her, saying these words, 'Dabor ti Mandana' (the Boss wants you). +She will come. + +"But do not be unnecessarily cruel. Either you accept my terms or you +do not choose to be mixed up in a business with a convict.--I am only a +forger, you will remember!--Well, do not leave Calvi to go through the +terrors of preparation for the scaffold." + +"I have already countermanded the execution," said Monsieur de Granville +to Jacques Collin. "I would not have Justice beneath you in dignity." + +Jacques Collin looked at the public prosecutor with a sort of amazement, +and saw him ring his bell. + +"Will you promise not to escape? Give me your word, and I shall be +satisfied. Go and fetch the woman." + +The office-boy came in. + +"Felix, send away the gendarmes," said Monsieur de Granville. + +Jacques Collin was conquered. + +In this duel with the magistrate he had tried to be the superior, the +stronger, the more magnanimous, and the magistrate had crushed him. At +the same time, the convict felt himself the superior, inasmuch as he had +tricked the Law; he had convinced it that the guilty man was innocent, +and had fought for a man's head and won it; but this advantage must be +unconfessed, secret and hidden, while the magistrate towered above him +majestically in the eye of day. + + + +As Jacques Collin left Monsieur de Granville's room, the Comte des +Lupeaulx, Secretary-in-Chief of the President of the Council, and a +deputy, made his appearance, and with him a feeble-looking, little old +man. This individual, wrapped in a puce-colored overcoat, as though +it were still winter, with powdered hair, and a cold, pale face, had a +gouty gait, unsteady on feet that were shod with loose calfskin boots; +leaning on a gold-headed cane, he carried his hat in his hand, and wore +a row of seven orders in his button-hole. + +"What is it, my dear des Lupeaulx?" asked the public prosecutor. + +"I come from the Prince," replied the Count, in a low voice. "You have +carte blanche if you can only get the letters--Madame de Serizy's, +Madame de Maufrigneuse's and Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu's. You +may come to some arrangement with this gentleman----" + +"Who is he?" asked Monsieur de Granville, in a whisper. + +"There are no secrets between you and me, my dear sir," said des +Lupeaulx. "This is the famous Corentin. His Majesty desires that you +will yourself tell him all the details of this affair and the conditions +of success." + +"Do me the kindness," replied the public prosecutor, "of going to tell +the Prince that the matter is settled, that I have not needed this +gentleman's assistance," and he turned to Corentin. "I will wait on His +Majesty for his commands with regard to the last steps in the matter, +which will lie with the Keeper of the Seals, as two reprieves will need +signing." + +"You have been wise to take the initiative," said des Lupeaulx, +shaking hands with the Comte de Granville. "On the very eve of a great +undertaking the King is most anxious that the peers and the great +families should not be shown up, blown upon. It ceases to be a low +criminal case; it becomes an affair of State." + +"But tell the Prince that by the time you came it was all settled." + +"Really!" + +"I believe so." + +"Then you, my dear fellow, will be Keeper of the Seals as soon as the +present Keeper is made Chancellor----" + +"I have no ambition," replied the magistrate. + +Des Lupeaulx laughed, and went away. + +"Beg of the Prince to request the King to grant me ten minutes' audience +at about half-past two," added Monsieur de Granville, as he accompanied +the Comte des Lupeaulx to the door. + +"So you are not ambitious!" said des Lupeaulx, with a keen look at +Monsieur de Granville. "Come, you have two children, you would like at +least to be made peer of France." + +"If you have the letters, Monsieur le Procureur General, my intervention +is unnecessary," said Corentin, finding himself alone with Monsieur de +Granville, who looked at him with very natural curiosity. + +"Such a man as you can never be superfluous in so delicate a case," +replied the magistrate, seeing that Corentin had heard or guessed +everything. + +Corentin bowed with a patronizing air. + +"Do you know the man in question, monsieur?" + +"Yes, Monsieur le Comte, it is Jacques Collin, the head of the 'Ten +Thousand Francs Association,' the banker for three penal settlements, +a convict who, for the last five years, has succeeded in concealing +himself under the robe of the Abbe Carlos Herrera. How he ever came to +be intrusted with a mission to the late King from the King of Spain is a +question which we have all puzzled ourselves with trying to answer. I am +now expecting information from Madrid, whither I have sent notes and a +man. That convict holds the secrets of two kings." + +"He is a man of mettle and temper. We have only two courses open to us," +said the public prosecutor. "We must secure his fidelity, or get him out +of the way." + +"The same idea has struck us both, and that is a great honor for me," +said Corentin. "I am obliged to have so many ideas, and for so many +people, that out of them all I ought occasionally to meet a clever man." + +He spoke so drily, and in so icy a tone, that Monsieur de Granville made +no reply, and proceeded to attend to some pressing matters. + +Mademoiselle Jacqueline Collin's amazement on seeing Jacques Collin in +the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_ is beyond imagining. She stood square on +her feet, her hands on her hips, for she was dressed as a costermonger. +Accustomed as she was to her nephew's conjuring tricks, this beat +everything. + +"Well, if you are going to stare at me as if I were a natural history +show," said Jacques Collin, taking his aunt by the arm and leading her +out of the hall, "we shall be taken for a pair of curious specimens; +they may take us into custody, and then we should lose time." + +And he went down the stairs of the Galerie Marchande leading to the Rue +de la Barillerie. "Where is Paccard?" + +"He is waiting for me at la Rousse's, walking up and down the flower +market." + +"And Prudence?" + +"Also at her house, as my god-daughter." + +"Let us go there." + +"Look round and see if we are watched." + +La Rousse, a hardware dealer living on the Quai aux Fleurs, was the +widow of a famous murderer, one of the "Ten Thousand." In 1819, Jacques +Collin had faithfully handed over twenty thousand francs and odd to this +woman from her lover, after he had been executed. _Trompe-la-Mort_ was +the only person who knew of his pal's connection with the girl, at that +time a milliner. + +"I am your young man's boss," the boarder at Madame Vauquer's had told +her, having sent for her to meet him at the Jardin des Plantes. "He +may have mentioned me to you, my dear.--Any one who plays me false dies +within a year; on the other hand, those who are true to me have nothing +to fear from me. I am staunch through thick and thin, and would die +without saying a word that would compromise anybody I wish well to. +Stick to me as a soul sticks to the Devil, and you will find the benefit +of it. I promised your poor Auguste that you should be happy; he wanted +to make you a rich woman, and he got scragged for your sake. + +"Don't cry; listen to me. No one in the world knows that you were +mistress to a convict, to the murderer they choked off last Saturday; +and I shall never tell. You are two-and-twenty, and pretty, and you have +twenty-six thousand francs of your own; forget Auguste and get married; +be an honest woman if you can. In return for peace and quiet, I only +ask you to serve me now and then, me, and any one I may send you, but +without stopping to think. I will never ask you to do anything that can +get you into trouble, you or your children, or your husband, if you get +one, or your family. + +"In my line of life I often want a safe place to talk in or to hide in. +Or I may want a trusty woman to carry a letter or do an errand. You +will be one of my letter-boxes, one of my porters' lodges, one of my +messengers, neither more nor less. + +"You are too red-haired; Auguste and I used to call you la Rousse; you +can keep that name. My aunt, an old-clothes dealer at the Temple, who +will come and see you, is the only person in the world you are to obey; +tell her everything that happens to you; she will find you a husband, +and be very useful to you." + +And thus the bargain was struck, a diabolical compact like that which +had for so long bound Prudence Servien to Jacques Collin, and which the +man never failed to tighten; for, like the Devil, he had a passion for +recruiting. + +In about 1821 Jacques Collin found la Rousse a husband in the person of +the chief shopman under a rich wholesale tin merchant. This head-clerk, +having purchased his master's house of business, was now a prosperous +man, the father of two children, and one of the district Maire's +deputies. La Rousse, now Madame Prelard, had never had the smallest +ground for complaint, either of Jacques Collin or of his aunt; still, +each time she was required to help them, Madame Prelard quaked in every +limb. So, as she saw the terrible couple come into her shop, she turned +as pale as death. + +"We want to speak to you on business, madame," said Jacques Collin. + +"My husband is in there," said she. + +"Very well; we have no immediate need of you. I never put people out of +their way for nothing." + +"Send for a hackney coach, my dear," said Jacqueline Collin, "and tell +my god-daughter to come down. I hope to place her as maid to a very +great lady, and the steward of the house will take us there." + +A shop-boy fetched the coach, and a few minutes later Europe, or, to +be rid of the name under which she had served Esther, Prudence Servien, +Paccard, Jacques Collin, and his aunt, were, to la Rousse's great +joy, packed into a coach, ordered by _Trompe-la-Mort_ to drive to the +Barriere d'Ivry. + +Prudence and Paccard, quaking in presence of the boss, felt like guilty +souls in the presence of God. + +"Where are the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs?" asked the boss, +looking at them with the clear, penetrating gaze which so effectually +curdled the blood of these tools of his, these ames damnees, when they +were caught tripping, that they felt as though their scalp were set with +as many pins as hairs. + +"The seven hundred and _thirty_ thousand francs," said Jacqueline Collin +to her nephew, "are quite safe; I gave them to la Romette this morning +in a sealed packet." + +"If you had not handed them over to Jacqueline," said _Trompe-la-Mort_, +"you would have gone straight there," and he pointed to the Place de +Greve, which they were just passing. + +Prudence Servien, in her country fashion, made the sign of the Cross, as +if she had seen a thunderbolt fall. + +"I forgive you," said the boss, "on condition of your committing no more +mistakes of this kind, and of your being henceforth to me what these two +fingers are of my right hand," and he pointed to the first and middle +fingers, "for this good woman is the thumb," and he slapped his aunt on +the shoulder. + +"Listen to me," he went on. "You, Paccard, have nothing more to fear; +you may follow your nose about Pantin (Paris) as you please. I give you +leave to marry Prudence Servien." + +Paccard took Jacques Collin's hand and kissed it respectfully. + +"And what must I do?" said he. + +"Nothing; and you will have dividends and women, to say nothing of your +wife--for you have a touch of the Regency about you, old boy!--That +comes of being such a fine man!" + +Paccard colored under his sultan's ironical praises. + +"You, Prudence," Jacques went on, "will want a career, a position, a +future; you must remain in my service. Listen to me. There is a +very good house in the Rue Sainte-Barbe belonging to that Madame de +Saint-Esteve, whose name my aunt occasionally borrows. It is a very good +business, with plenty of custom, bringing in fifteen to twenty thousand +francs a year. Saint-Esteve puts a woman in to keep the shop----" + +"La Gonore," said Jacqueline. + +"Poor la Pouraille's moll," said Paccard. "That is where I bolted to +with Europe the day that poor Madame van Bogseck died, our mis'ess." + +"Who jabbers when I am speaking?" said Jacques Collin. + +Perfect silence fell in the coach. Paccard and Prudence did not dare +look at each other. + +"The shop is kept by la Gonore," Jacques Collin went on. "If that is +where you went to hide with Prudence, I see, Paccard, that you have +wit enough to dodge the reelers (mislead the police), but not enough to +puzzle the old lady," and he stroked his aunt's chin. "Now I see how +she managed to find you.--It all fits beautifully. You may go back to +la Gonore.--To go on: Jacqueline will arrange with Madame Nourrisson to +purchase her business in the Rue Sainte-Barbe; and if you manage well, +child, you may make a fortune out of it," he said to Prudence. "An +Abbess at your age! It is worthy of a Daughter of France," he added in a +hard tone. + +Prudence flung her arms round _Trompe-la-Mort's_ neck and hugged him; +but the boss flung her off with a sharp blow, showing his extraordinary +strength, and but for Paccard, the girl's head would have struck and +broken the coach window. + +"Paws off! I don't like such ways," said the boss stiffly. "It is +disrespectful to me." + +"He is right, child," said Paccard. "Why, you see, it is as though the +boss had made you a present of a hundred thousand francs. The shop is +worth that. It is on the Boulevard, opposite the Gymnase. The people +come out of the theatre----" + +"I will do more," said _Trompe-la-Mort_; "I will buy the house." + +"And in six years we shall be millionaires," cried Paccard. + +Tired of being interrupted, _Trompe-la-Mort_ gave Paccard's shin a kick +hard enough to break it; but the man's tendons were of india-rubber, and +his bones of wrought iron. + +"All right, boss, mum it is," said he. + +"Do you think I am cramming you with lies?" said Jacques Collin, +perceiving that Paccard had had a few drops too much. "Well, listen. In +the cellar of that house there are two hundred and fifty thousand francs +in gold----" + +Again silence reigned in the coach. + +"The coin is in a very hard bed of masonry. It must be got out, and you +have only three nights to do it in. Jacqueline will help you.--A hundred +thousand francs will buy up the business, fifty thousand will pay for +the house; leave the remainder." + +"Where?" said Paccard. + +"In the cellar?" asked Prudence. + +"Silence!" cried Jacqueline. + +"Yes, but to get the business transferred, we must have the consent of +the police authorities," Paccard objected. + +"We shall have it," said _Trompe-la-Mort_. "Don't meddle in what does +not concern you." + +Jacqueline looked at her nephew, and was struck by the alteration in +his face, visible through the stern mask under which the strong man +generally hid his feelings. + +"You, child," said he to Prudence Servien, "will receive from my aunt +the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs----" + +"Seven hundred and thirty," said Paccard. + +"Very good, seven hundred and thirty then," said Jacques Collin. "You +must return this evening under some pretext to Madame Lucien's house. +Get out on the roof through the skylight; get down the chimney into your +miss'ess' room, and hide the packet she had made of the money in the +mattress----" + +"And why not by the door?" asked Prudence Servien. + +"Idiot! there are seals on everything," replied Jacques Collin. "In a +few days the inventory will be taken, and you will be innocent of the +theft." + +"Good for the boss!" cried Paccard. "That is really kind!" + +"Stop, coachman!" cried Jacques Collin's powerful voice. + +The coach was close to the stand by the Jardin des Plantes. + +"Be off, young 'uns," said Jacques Collin, "and do nothing silly! Be on +the Pont des Arts this afternoon at five, and my aunt will let you +know if there are any orders to the contrary.--We must be prepared +for everything," he whispered to his aunt. "To-morrow," he went on, +"Jacqueline will tell you how to dig up the gold without any risk. It is +a ticklish job----" + +Paccard and Prudence jumped out on to the King's highway, as happy as +reprieved thieves. + +"What a good fellow the boss is!" said Paccard. + +"He would be the king of men if he were not so rough on women." + +"Oh, yes! He is a sweet creature," said Paccard. "Did you see how he +kicked me? Well, we deserved to be sent to old Nick; for, after all, we +got him into this scrape." + +"If only he does not drag us into some dirty job, and get us packed off +to the hulks yet," said the wily Prudence. + +"Not he! If he had that in his head, he would tell us; you don't know +him.--He has provided handsomely for you. Here we are, citizens at +large! Oh, when that man takes a fancy to you, he has not his match for +good-nature." + +"Now, my jewel," said Jacques Collin to his aunt, "you must take la +Gonore in hand; she must be humbugged. Five days hence she will be taken +into custody, and a hundred and fifty thousand francs will be found in +her rooms, the remains of a share from the robbery and murder of the old +Crottat couple, the notary's father and mother." + +"She will get five years in the Madelonnettes," said Jacqueline. + +"That's about it," said the nephew. "This will be a reason for old +Nourrisson to get rid of her house; she cannot manage it herself, and a +manager to suit is not to be found every day. You can arrange all +that. We shall have a sharp eye there.--But all these three things are +secondary to the business I have undertaken with regard to our letters. +So unrip your gown and give me the samples of the goods. Where are the +three packets?" + +"At la Rousse's, of course." + +"Coachman," cried Jacques Collin, "go back to the Palais de Justice, and +look sharp---- + +"I promised to be quick, and I have been gone half an hour; that is too +much.--Stay at la Rousse's, and give the sealed parcels to the office +clerk, who will come and ask for Madame _de_ Saint-Esteve; the _de_ will +be the password. He will say to you,'Madame, I have come from the public +prosecutor for the things you know of.' Stand waiting outside the door, +staring about at what is going on in the Flower-Market, so as not to +arouse Prelard's suspicions. As soon as you have given up the letters, +you can start Paccard and Prudence." + +"I see what you are at," said Jacqueline; "you mean to step into +Bibi-Lupin's shoes. That boy's death has turned your brain." + +"And there is Theodore, who was just going to have his hair cropped to +be scragged at four this afternoon!" cried Jacques Collin. + +"Well, it is a notion! We shall end our days as honest folks in a fine +property and a delightful climate--in Touraine." + +"What was to become of me? Lucien has taken my soul with him, and all my +joy in life. I have thirty years before me to be sick of life in, and I +have no heart left. Instead of being the boss of the hulks, I shall be a +Figaro of the law, and avenge Lucien. I can never be sure of demolishing +Corentin excepting in the skin of a police agent. And so long as I have +a man to devour, I shall still feel alive.--The profession a man follows +in the eyes of the world is a mere sham; the reality is in the idea!" he +added, striking his forehead.--"How much have we left in the cash-box?" +he asked. + +"Nothing," said his aunt, dismayed by the man's tone and manner. "I gave +you all I had for the boy. La Romette has not more than twenty thousand +francs left in the business. I took everything from Madame Nourrisson; +she had about sixty thousand francs of her own. Oh! we are lying in +sheets that have been washed this twelve months past. That boy had all +the pals' blunt, our savings, and all old Nourrisson's." + +"Making----?" + +"Five hundred and sixty thousand." + +"We have a hundred and fifty thousand which Paccard and Prudence will +pay us. I will tell you where to find two hundred thousand more. The +remainder will come to me out of Esther's money. We must repay old +Nourrisson. With Theodore, Paccard, Prudence, Nourrisson, and you, I +shall soon have the holy alliance I require.--Listen, now we are nearly +there----" + +"Here are the three letters," said Jacqueline, who had finished unsewing +the lining of her gown. + +"Quite right," said Jacques Collin, taking the three precious +documents--autograph letters on vellum paper, and still strongly +scented. "Theodore did the Nanterre job." + +"Oh! it was he." + +"Don't talk. Time is precious. He wanted to give the proceeds to a +little Corsican sparrow named Ginetta. You must set old Nourrisson to +find her; I will give you the necessary information in a letter which +Gault will give you. Come for it to the gate of the Conciergerie in two +hours' time. You must place the girl with a washerwoman, Godet's sister; +she must seem at home there. Godet and Ruffard were concerned with la +Pouraille in robbing and murdering the Crottats. + +"The four hundred and fifty thousand francs are all safe, one-third +in la Gonore's cellar--la Pouraille's share; the second third in la +Gonore's bedroom, which is Ruffard's; and the rest is hidden in Godet's +sister's house. We will begin by taking a hundred and fifty thousand +francs out of la Pouraille's whack, a hundred thousand of Godet's, and a +hundred thousand of Ruffard's. As soon as Godet and Ruffard are nabbed, +they will be supposed to have got rid of what is missing from their +shares. And I will make Godet believe that I have saved a hundred +thousand francs for him, and that la Gonore has done the same for la +Pouraille and Ruffard. + +"Prudence and Paccard will do the job at la Gonore's; you and +Ginetta--who seems to be a smart hussy--must manage the job at Godet's +sister's place. + +"And so, as the first act in the farce, I can enable the public +prosecutor to lay his hands on four hundred thousand francs stolen from +the Crottats, and on the guilty parties. Then I shall seem to have shown +up the Nanterre murderer. We shall get back our shiners, and are +behind the scenes with the police. We were the game, now we are the +hunters--that is all. + +"Give the driver three francs." + +The coach was at the Palais. Jacqueline, speechless with astonishment, +paid. _Trompe-la-Mort_ went up the steps to the public prosecutor's +room. + + + +A complete change of life is so violent a crisis, that Jacques Collin, +in spite of his resolution, mounted the steps but slowly, going up from +the Rue de la Barillerie to the Galerie Marchande, where, under the +gloomy peristyle of the courthouse, is the entrance to the Court itself. + +Some civil case was going on which had brought a little crowd together +at the foot of the double stairs leading to the Assize Court, so that +the convict, lost in thought, stood for some minutes, checked by the +throng. + +To the left of this double flight is one of the mainstays of the +building, like an enormous pillar, and in this tower is a little door. +This door opens on a spiral staircase down to the Conciergerie, to which +the public prosecutor, the governor of the prison, the presiding judges, +King's council, and the chief of the Safety department have access by +this back way. + +It was up a side staircase from this, now walled up, that Marie +Antoinette, the Queen of France, was led before the Revolutionary +tribunal which sat, as we all know, in the great hall where appeals are +now heard before the Supreme Court. The heart sinks within us at the +sight of these dreadful steps, when we think that Marie Therese's +daughter, whose suite, and head-dress, and hoops filled the great +staircase at Versailles, once passed that way! Perhaps it was in +expiation of her mother's crime--the atrocious division of Poland. +The sovereigns who commit such crimes evidently never think of the +retribution to be exacted by Providence. + +When Jacques Collin went up the vaulted stairs to the public +prosecutor's room, Bibi-Lupin was just coming out of the little door in +the wall. + +The chief of the "Safety" had come from the Conciergerie, and was also +going up to Monsieur de Granville. It was easy to imagine Bibi-Lupin's +surprise when he recognized, in front of him, the gown of Carlos +Herrera, which he had so thoroughly studied that morning; he ran on +to pass him. Jacques Collin turned round, and the enemies were face to +face. Each stood still, and the self-same look flashed in both pairs of +eyes, so different in themselves, as in a duel two pistols go off at the +same instant. + +"This time I have got you, rascal!" said the chief of the Safety +Department. + +"Ah, ha!" replied Jacques Collin ironically. + +It flashed through his mind that Monsieur de Granville had sent some one +to watch him, and, strange to say, it pained him to think the magistrate +less magnanimous than he had supposed. + +Bibi-Lupin bravely flew at Jacques Collin's throat; but he, keeping his +eye on the foe, gave him a straight blow, and sent him sprawling on +his back three yards off; then _Trompe-la-Mort_ went calmly up to +Bibi-Lupin, and held out a hand to help him rise, exactly like +an English boxer who, sure of his superiority, is ready for more. +Bibi-Lupin knew better than to call out; but he sprang to his feet, ran +to the entrance to the passage, and signed to a gendarme to stand on +guard. Then, swift as lightning, he came back to the foe, who quietly +looked on. Jacques Collin had decided what to do. + +"Either the public prosecutor has broken his word, or he had not taken +Bibi-Lupin into his confidence, and in that case I must get the matter +explained," thought he.--"Do you mean to arrest me?" he asked his enemy. +"Say so without more ado. Don't I know that in the heart of this place +you are stronger than I am? I could kill you with a well-placed kick, +but I could not tackle the gendarmes and the soldiers. Now, make no +noise. Where to you want to take me?" + +"To Monsieur Camusot." + +"Come along to Monsieur Camusot," replied Jacques Collin. "Why should we +not go to the public prosecutor's court? It is nearer," he added. + +Bibi-Lupin, who knew that he was out of favor with the upper ranks of +judicial authorities, and suspected of having made a fortune at the +expense of criminals and their victims, was not unwilling to show +himself in Court with so notable a capture. + +"All right, we will go there," said he. "But as you surrender, allow me +to fit you with bracelets. I am afraid of your claws." + +And he took the handcuffs out of his pocket. + +Jacques Collin held out his hands, and Bibi-Lupin snapped on the +manacles. + +"Well, now, since you are feeling so good," said he, "tell me how you +got out of the Conciergerie?" + +"By the way you came; down the turret stairs." + +"Then have you taught the gendarmes some new trick?" + +"No, Monsieur de Granville let me out on parole." + +"You are gammoning me?" + +"You will see. Perhaps it will be your turn to wear the bracelets." + +Just then Corentin was saying to Monsieur de Granville: + +"Well, monsieur, it is just an hour since our man set out; are you not +afraid that he may have fooled you? He is on the road to Spain perhaps +by this time, and we shall not find him there, for Spain is a whimsical +kind of country." + +"Either I know nothing of men, or he will come back; he is bound by +every interest; he has more to look for at my hands than he has to +give." + +Bibi-Lupin walked in. + +"Monsieur le Comte," said he, "I have good news for you. Jacques Collin, +who had escaped, has been recaptured." + +"And this," said Jacques Collin, addressing Monsieur de Granville, "is +the way you keep your word!--Ask your double-faced agent where he took +me." + +"Where?" said the public prosecutor. + +"Close to the Court, in the vaulted passage," said Bibi-Lupin. + +"Take your irons off the man," said Monsieur de Granville sternly. "And +remember that you are to leave him free till further orders.--Go!--You +have a way of moving and acting as if you alone were law and police in +one." + +The public prosecutor turned his back on Bibi-Lupin, who became deadly +pale, especially at a look from Jacques Collin, in which he read +disaster. + +"I have not been out of this room. I expected you back, and you cannot +doubt that I have kept my word, as you kept yours," said Monsieur de +Granville to the convict. + +"For a moment I did doubt you, sir, and in my place perhaps you would +have thought as I did, but on reflection I saw that I was unjust. I +bring you more than you can give me; you had no interest in betraying +me." + +The magistrate flashed a look at Corentin. This glance, which could +not escape _Trompe-la-Mort_, who was watching Monsieur de Granville, +directed his attention to the strange little old man sitting in an +armchair in a corner. Warned at once by the swift and anxious instinct +that scents the presence of an enemy, Collin examined this figure; +he saw at a glance that the eyes were not so old as the costume would +suggest, and he detected a disguise. In one second Jacques Collin was +revenged on Corentin for the rapid insight with which Corentin had +unmasked him at Peyrade's. + +"We are not alone!" said Jacques Collin to Monsieur de Granville. + +"No," said the magistrate drily. + +"And this gentleman is one of my oldest acquaintances, I believe," +replied the convict. + +He went forward, recognizing Corentin, the real and confessed originator +of Lucien's overthrow. + +Jacques Collin, whose face was of a brick-red hue, for a scarcely +perceptible moment turned white, almost ashy; all his blood rushed to +his heart, so furious and maddening was his longing to spring on this +dangerous reptile and crush it; but he controlled the brutal impulse, +suppressing it with the force that made him so formidable. He put on a +polite manner and the tone of obsequious civility which he had practised +since assuming the garb of a priest of a superior Order, and he bowed to +the little old man. + +"Monsieur Corentin," said he, "do I owe the pleasure of this meeting to +chance, or am I so happy as to be the cause of your visit here?" + +Monsieur de Granville's astonishment was at its height, and he could +not help staring at the two men who had thus come face to face. Jacques +Collin's behavior and the tone in which he spoke denoted a crisis, and +he was curious to know the meaning of it. On being thus suddenly and +miraculously recognized, Corentin drew himself up like a snake when you +tread on its tail. + +"Yes, it is I, my dear Abbe Carlos Herrera." + +"And are you here," said _Trompe-la-Mort_, "to interfere between +monsieur the public prosecutor and me? Am I so happy as to be the +object of one of those negotiations in which your talents shine so +brightly?--Here, Monsieur le Comte," the convict went on, "not to waste +time so precious as yours is, read these--they are samples of my wares." + +And he held out to Monsieur de Granville three letters, which he took +out of his breast-pocket. + +"And while you are studying them, I will, with your permission, have a +little talk with this gentleman." + +"You do me great honor," said Corentin, who could not help giving a +little shiver. + +"You achieved a perfect success in our business," said Jacques Collin. +"I was beaten," he added lightly, in the tone of a gambler who has lost +his money, "but you left some men on the field--your victory cost you +dear." + +"Yes," said Corentin, taking up the jest, "you lost your queen, and I +lost my two castles." + +"Oh! Contenson was a mere pawn," said Jacques Collin scornfully; "you +may easily replace him. You really are--allow me to praise you to your +face--you are, on my word of honor, a magnificent man." + +"No, no, I bow to your superiority," replied Corentin, assuming the +air of a professional joker, as if he said, "If you mean humbug, by +all means humbug! I have everything at my command, while you are +single-handed, so to speak." + +"Oh! Oh!" said Jacques Collin. + +"And you were very near winning the day!" said Corentin, noticing the +exclamation. "You are quite the most extraordinary man I ever met in my +life, and I have seen many very extraordinary men, for those I have to +work with me are all remarkable for daring and bold scheming. + +"I was, for my sins, very intimate with the late Duc d'Otranto; I have +worked for Louis XVIII. when he was on the throne; and, when he was +exiled, for the Emperor and for the Directory. You have the tenacity of +Louvel, the best political instrument I ever met with; but you are as +supple as the prince of diplomates. And what auxiliaries you have! I +would give many a head to the guillotine if I could have in my service +the cook who lived with poor little Esther.--And where do you find such +beautiful creatures as the woman who took the Jewess' place for Monsieur +de Nucingen? I don't know where to get them when I want them." + +"Monsieur, monsieur, you overpower me," said Jacques Collin. "Such +praise from you will turn my head----" + +"It is deserved. Why, you took in Peyrade; he believed you to be a +police officer--he!--I tell you what, if you had not that fool of a boy +to take care of, you would have thrashed us." + +"Oh! monsieur, but you are forgetting Contenson disguised as a mulatto, +and Peyrade as an Englishman. Actors have the stage to help them, but +to be so perfect by daylight, and at all hours, no one but you and your +men----" + +"Come, now," said Corentin, "we are fully convinced of our worth and +merits. And here we stand each of us quite alone; I have lost my old +friend, you your young companion. I, for the moment, am in the stronger +position, why should we not do like the men in _l'Auberge des Adrets_? +I offer you my hand, and say, 'Let us embrace, and let bygones be +bygones.' Here, in the presence of Monsieur le Comte, I propose to give +you full and plenary absolution, and you shall be one of my men, the +chief next to me, and perhaps my successor." + +"You really offer me a situation?" said Jacques Collin. "A nice +situation indeed!--out of the fire into the frying-pan!" + +"You will be in a sphere where your talents will be highly appreciated +and well paid for, and you will act at your ease. The Government police +are not free from perils. I, as you see me, have already been imprisoned +twice, but I am none the worse for that. And we travel, we are what we +choose to appear. We pull the wires of political dramas, and are treated +with politeness by very great people.--Come, my dear Jacques Collin, do +you say yes?" + +"Have you orders to act in this matter?" said the convict. + +"I have a free hand," replied Corentin, delighted at his own happy idea. + +"You are trifling with me; you are very shrewd, and you must allow that +a man may be suspicious of you.--You have sold more than one man by +tying him up in a sack after making him go into it of his own accord. +I know all your great victories--the Montauran case, the Simeuse +business--the battles of Marengo of espionage." + +"Well," said Corentin, "you have some esteem for the public prosecutor?" + +"Yes," said Jacques Collin, bowing respectfully, "I admire his noble +character, his firmness, his dignity. I would give my life to make +him happy. Indeed, to begin with, I will put an end to the dangerous +condition in which Madame de Serizy now is." + +Monsieur de Granville turned to him with a look of satisfaction. + +"Then ask him," Corentin went on, "if I have not full power to snatch +you from the degrading position in which you stand, and to attach you to +me." + +"It is quite true," said Monsieur de Granville, watching the convict. + +"Really and truly! I may have absolution for the past and a promise of +succeeding to you if I give sufficient evidence of my intelligence?" + +"Between two such men as we are there can be no misunderstanding," said +Corentin, with a lordly air that might have taken anybody in. + +"And the price of the bargain is, I suppose, the surrender of those +three packets of letters?" said Jacques Collin. + +"I did not think it would be necessary to say so to you----" + +"My dear Monsieur Corentin," said _Trompe-la-Mort_, with irony worthy +of that which made the fame of Talma in the part of Nicomede, "I beg to +decline. I am indebted to you for the knowledge of what I am worth, and +of the importance you attach to seeing me deprived of my weapons--I will +never forget it. + +"At all times and for ever I shall be at your service, but instead of +saying with Robert Macaire, 'Let us embrace!' I embrace you." + +He seized Corentin round the middle so suddenly that the other could not +avoid the hug; he clutched him to his heart like a doll, kissed him on +both cheeks, carried him like a feather with one hand, while with the +other he opened the door, and then set him down outside, quite battered +by this rough treatment. + +"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said Jacques Collin in a low voice, and in +Corentin's ear: "the length of three corpses parts you from me; we have +measured swords, they are of the same temper and the same length. Let us +treat each other with due respect; but I mean to be your equal, not +your subordinate. Armed as you would be, it strikes me you would be too +dangerous a general for your lieutenant. We will place a grave between +us. Woe to you if you come over on to my territory! + +"You call yourself the State, as footmen call themselves by their +master's names. For my part, I will call myself Justice. We shall often +meet; let us treat each other with dignity and propriety--all the more +because we shall always remain--atrocious blackguards," he added in a +whisper. "I set you the example by embracing you----" + +Corentin stood nonplussed for the first time in his life, and allowed +his terrible antagonist to wring his hand. + +"If so," said he, "I think it will be to our interest on both sides to +remain chums." + +"We shall be stronger each on our own side, but at the same time more +dangerous," added Jacques Collin in an undertone. "And you will allow me +to call on you to-morrow to ask for some pledge of our agreement." + +"Well, well," said Corentin amiably, "you are taking the case out of my +hands to place it in those of the public prosecutor. You will help +him to promotion; but I cannot but own to you that you are acting +wisely.--Bibi-Lupin is too well known; he has served his turn; if you +get his place, you will have the only situation that suits you. I am +delighted to see you in it--on my honor----" + +"Till our next meeting, very soon," said Jacques Collin. + +On turning round, _Trompe-la-Mort_ saw the public prosecutor sitting at +his table, his head resting on his hands. + +"Do you mean that you can save the Comtesse de Serizy from going mad?" +asked Monsieur de Granville. + +"In five minutes," said Jacques Collin. + +"And you can give me all those ladies' letters?" + +"Have you read the three?" + +"Yes," said the magistrate vehemently, "and I blush for the women who +wrote them." + +"Well, we are now alone; admit no one, and let us come to terms," said +Jacques Collin. + +"Excuse me, Justice must first take its course. Monsieur Camusot has +instructions to seize your aunt." + +"He will never find her," said Jacques Collin. + +"Search is to be made at the Temple, in the shop of a demoiselle Paccard +who superintends her shop." + +"Nothing will be found there but rags, costumes, diamonds, +uniforms----However, it will be as well to check Monsieur Camusot's +zeal." + +Monsieur de Granville rang, and sent an office messenger to desire +Monsieur Camusot to come and speak with him. + +"Now," said he to Jacques Collin, "an end to all this! I want to know +your recipe for curing the Countess." + +"Monsieur le Comte," said the convict very gravely, "I was, as you know, +sentenced to five years' penal servitude for forgery. But I love my +liberty.--This passion, like every other, had defeated its own end, for +lovers who insist on adoring each other too fondly end by quarreling. By +dint of escaping and being recaptured alternately, I have served seven +years on the hulks. So you have nothing to remit but the added terms +I earned in quod--I beg pardon, in prison. I have, in fact, served my +time, and till some ugly job can be proved against me,--which I defy +Justice to do, or even Corentin--I ought to be reinstated in my rights +as a French citizen. + +"What is life if I am banned from Paris and subject to the eye of the +police? Where can I go, what can I do? You know my capabilities. You +have seen Corentin, that storehouse of treachery and wile, turn ghastly +pale before me, and doing justice to my powers.--That man has bereft me +of everything; for it was he, and he alone, who overthrew the edifice +of Lucien's fortunes, by what means and in whose interest I know +not.--Corentin and Camusot did it all----" + +"No recriminations," said Monsieur de Granville; "give me the facts." + +"Well, then, these are the facts. Last night, as I held in my hand the +icy hand of that dead youth, I vowed to myself that I would give up +the mad contest I have kept up for twenty years past against society at +large. + +"You will not believe me capable of religious sentimentality after what +I have said of my religious opinions. Still, in these twenty years I +have seen a great deal of the seamy side of the world. I have known its +back-stairs, and I have discerned, in the march of events, a Power which +you call Providence and I call Chance, and which my companions call +Luck. Every evil deed, however quickly it may hide its traces, is +overtaken by some retribution. In this struggle for existence, when the +game is going well--when you have quint and quartorze in your hand +and the lead--the candle tumbles over and the cards are burned, or the +player has a fit of apoplexy!--That is Lucien's story. That boy, that +angel, had not committed the shadow of a crime; he let himself be led, +he let things go! He was to marry Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, to be made +marquis; he had a fine fortune;--well, a prostitute poisons herself, she +hides the price of a certificate of stock, and the whole structure so +laboriously built up crumbles in an instant. + +"And who is the first man to deal a blow? A man loaded with secret +infamy, a monster who, in the world of finance, has committed such +crimes that every coin of his vast fortune has been dipped in the tears +of a whole family [see _la Maison Nucingen_]--by Nucingen, who has been +a legalized Jacques Collin in the world of money. However, you know as +well as I do all the bankruptcies and tricks for which that man deserves +hanging. My fetters will leave a mark on all my actions, however +virtuous. To be a shuttlecock between two racquets--one called the +hulks, and the other the police--is a life in which success means +never-ending toil, and peace and quiet seem quite impossible. + +"At this moment, Monsieur de Granville, Jacques Collin is buried with +Lucien, who is being now sprinkled with holy water and carried away to +Pere-Lachaise. What I want is a place not to live in, but to die in. +As things are, you, representing Justice, have never cared to make the +released convict's social status a concern of any interest. Though the +law may be satisfied, society is not; society is still suspicious, and +does all it can to justify its suspicions; it regards a released convict +as an impossible creature; it ought to restore him to his full rights, +but, in fact, it prohibits his living in certain circles. Society says +to the poor wretch, 'Paris, which is the only place you can be hidden +in; Paris and its suburbs for so many miles round is the forbidden +land, you shall not live there!' and it subjects the convict to the +watchfulness of the police. Do you think that life is possible under +such conditions? To live, the convict must work, for he does not come +out of prison with a fortune. + +"You arrange matters so that he is plainly ticketed, recognized, hedged +round, and then you fancy that his fellow-citizens will trust him, when +society and justice and the world around him do not. You condemn him to +starvation or crime. He cannot get work, and is inevitably dragged into +his old ways, which lead to the scaffold. + +"Thus, while earnestly wishing to give up this struggle with the law, I +could find no place for myself under the sun. One course alone is open +to me, that is to become the servant of the power that crushes us; and +as soon as this idea dawned on me, the Power of which I spoke was shown +in the clearest light. Three great families are at my mercy. Do not +suppose I am thinking of blackmail--blackmail is the meanest form of +murder. In my eyes it is baser villainy than murder. The murderer needs, +at any rate, atrocious courage. And I practise what I preach; for the +letters which are my safe-conduct, which allow me to address you thus, +and for the moment place me on an equality with you--I, Crime, and you, +Justice--those letters are in your power. Your messenger may fetch them, +and they will be given up to him. + +"I ask no price for them; I do not sell them. Alas! Monsieur le Comte, I +was not thinking of myself when I preserved them; I thought that Lucien +might some day be in danger! If you cannot agree to my request, my +courage is out; I hate life more than enough to make me blow out my own +brains and rid you of me!--Or, with a passport, I can go to America and +live in the wilderness. I have all the characteristics of a savage. + +"These are the thoughts that came to me in the night.--Your clerk, no +doubt, carried you a message I sent by him. When I saw what precautions +you took to save Lucien's memory from any stain, I dedicated my life +to you--a poor offering, for I no longer cared for it; it seemed to +me impossible without the star that gave it light, the happiness that +glorified it, the thought that gave it meaning, the prosperity of the +young poet who was its sun--and I determined to give you the three +packets of letters----" + +Monsieur de Granville bowed his head. + +"I went down into the prison-yard, and there I found the persons guilty +of the Nanterre crime, as well as my little chain companion within an +inch of the chopper as an involuntary accessory after the fact," +Jacques Collin went on. "I discovered that Bibi-Lupin is cheating the +authorities, that one of his men murdered the Crottats. Was not this +providential, as you say?--So I perceived a remote possibility of doing +good, of turning my gifts and the dismal experience I have gained +to account for the benefit of society, of being useful instead +of mischievous, and I ventured to confide in your judgment, your +generosity." + +The man's air of candor, of artlessness, of childlike simplicity, as +he made his confession, without bitterness, or that philosophy of vice +which had hitherto made him so terrible to hear, was like an absolute +transformation. He was no longer himself. + +"I have such implicit trust in you," he went on, with the humility of a +penitent, "that I am wholly at your mercy. You see me with three roads +open to me--suicide, America, and the Rue de Jerusalem. Bibi-Lupin is +rich; he has served his turn; he is a double-faced rascal. And if you +set me to work against him, I would catch him red-handed in some trick +within a week. If you will put me in that sneak's shoes, you will do +society a real service. I will be honest. I have every quality that is +needed in the profession. I am better educated than Bibi-Lupin; I went +through my schooling up to rhetoric; I shall not blunder as he does; I +have very good manners when I choose. My sole ambition is to become an +instrument of order and repression instead of being the incarnation of +corruption. I will enlist no more recruits to the army of vice. + +"In war, monsieur, when a hostile general is captured, he is not shot, +you know; his sword is returned to him, and his prison is a large town; +well, I am the general of the hulks, and I have surrendered.--I am +beaten, not by the law, but by death. The sphere in which I crave to +live and act is the only one that is suited to me, and there I can +develop the powers I feel within me. + +"Decide." + +And Jacques Collin stood in an attitude of diffident submission. + +"You place the letters in my hands, then?" said the public prosecutor. + +"You have only to send for them; they will be delivered to your +messenger." + +"But how?" + +Jacques Collin read the magistrate's mind, and kept up the game. + +"You promised me to commute the capital sentence on Calvi for twenty +years' penal servitude. Oh, I am not reminding you of that to drive a +bargain," he added eagerly, seeing Monsieur de Granville's expression; +"that life should be safe for other reasons, the lad is innocent----" + +"How am I to get the letters?" asked the public prosecutor. "It is my +right and my business to convince myself that you are the man you say +you are. I must have you without conditions." + +"Send a man you can trust to the Flower Market on the quay. At the door +of a tinman's shop, under the sign of Achilles' shield----" + +"That house?" + +"Yes," said Jacques Collin, smiling bitterly, "my shield is there.--Your +man will see an old woman dressed, as I told you before, like a +fish-woman who has saved money--earrings in her ears, and clothes like a +rich market-woman's. He must ask for Madame de Saint-Esteve. Do not +omit the DE. And he must say, 'I have come from the public prosecutor +to fetch you know what.'--You will immediately receive three sealed +packets." + +"All the letters are there?" said Monsieur de Granville. + +"There is no tricking you; you did not get your place for nothing!" +said Jacques Collin, with a smile. "I see you still think me capable +of testing you and giving you so much blank paper.--No; you do not know +me," said he. "I trust you as a son trusts his father." + +"You will be taken back to the Conciergerie," said the magistrate, "and +there await a decision as to your fate." + +Monsieur de Granville rang, and said to the office-boy who answered: + +"Beg Monsieur Garnery to come here, if he is in his room." + +Besides the forty-eight police commissioners who watch over Paris like +forty-eight petty Providences, to say nothing of the guardians of Public +Safety--and who have earned the nickname of quart d'oeil, in thieves' +slang, a quarter of an eye, because there are four of them to each +district,--besides these, there are two commissioners attached equally +to the police and to the legal authorities, whose duty it is to +undertake delicate negotiation, and not frequently to serve as deputies +to the examining judges. The office of these two magistrates, for police +commissioners are also magistrates, is known as the Delegates' office; +for they are, in fact, delegated on each occasion, and formally +empowered to carry out inquiries or arrests. + +These functions demand men of ripe age, proved intelligence, great +rectitude, and perfect discretion; and it is one of the miracles wrought +by Heaven in favor of Paris, that some men of that stamp are always +forthcoming. Any description of the Palais de Justice would be +incomplete without due mention of these _preventive_ officials, as they +may be called, the most powerful adjuncts of the law; for though it must +be owned that the force of circumstances has abrogated the ancient pomp +and wealth of justice, it has materially gained in many ways. In Paris +especially its machinery is admirably perfect. + +Monsieur de Granville had sent his secretary, Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, +to attend Lucien's funeral; he needed a substitute for this business, a +man he could trust, and Monsieur Garnery was one of the commissioners in +the Delegates' office. + +"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin, "I have already proved to you that I +have a sense of honor. You let me go free, and I came back.--By this +time the funeral mass for Lucien is ended; they will be carrying him to +the grave. Instead of remanding me to the Conciergerie, give me leave to +follow the boy's body to Pere-Lachaise. I will come back and surrender +myself prisoner." + +"Go," said Monsieur de Granville, in the kindest tone. + +"One word more, monsieur. The money belonging to that girl--Lucien's +mistress--was not stolen. During the short time of liberty you allowed +me, I questioned her servants. I am sure of them as you are of your +two commissioners of the Delegates' office. The money paid for the +certificate sold by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck will certainly be found +in her room when the seals are removed. Her maid remarked to me that the +deceased was given to mystery-making, and very distrustful; she no doubt +hid the banknotes in her bed. Let the bedstead be carefully examined and +taken to pieces, the mattresses unsewn--the money will be found." + +"You are sure of that?" + +"I am sure of the relative honesty of my rascals; they never play any +tricks on me. I hold the power of life and death; I try and condemn them +and carry out my sentence without all your formalities. You can see for +yourself the results of my authority. I will recover the money +stolen from Monsieur and Madame Crottat; I will hand you over one of +Bibi-Lupin's men, his right hand, caught in the act; and I will tell you +the secret of the Nanterre murders. This is not a bad beginning. And if +you only employ me in the service of the law and the police, by the +end of a year you will be satisfied with all I can tell you. I will be +thoroughly all that I ought to be, and shall manage to succeed in all +the business that is placed in my hands." + +"I can promise you nothing but my goodwill. What you ask is not in my +power. The privilege of granting pardons is the King's alone, on the +recommendation of the Keeper of the Seals; and the place you wish to +hold is in the gift of the Prefet of Police." + +"Monsieur Garnery," the office-boy announced. + +At a nod from Monsieur de Granville the Delegate commissioner came +in, glanced at Jacques Collin as one who knows, and gulped down his +astonishment on hearing the word "Go!" spoken to Jacques Collin by +Monsieur de Granville. + +"Allow me," said Jacques Collin, "to remain here till Monsieur Garnery +has returned with the documents in which all my strength lies, that I +may take away with me some expression of your satisfaction." + +This absolute humility and sincerity touched the public prosecutor. + +"Go," said he; "I can depend on you." + +Jacques Collin bowed humbly, with the submissiveness of an inferior to +his master. Ten minutes later, Monsieur de Granville was in possession +of the letters in three sealed packets that had not been opened! But +the importance of this point, and Jacques Collin's avowal, had made him +forget the convict's promise to cure Madame de Serizy. + + + +When once he was outside, Jacques Collin had an indescribable sense of +satisfaction. He felt he was free, and born to a new phase of life. He +walked quickly from the Palais to the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, +where mass was over. The coffin was being sprinkled with holy water, and +he arrived in time thus to bid farewell, in a Christian fashion, to the +mortal remains of the youth he had loved so well. Then he got into a +carriage and drove after the body to the cemetery. + +In Paris, unless on very exceptional occasions, or when some famous +man has died a natural death, the crowd that gathers about a funeral +diminishes by degrees as the procession approaches Pere-Lachaise. People +make time to show themselves in church; but every one has his business +to attend to, and returns to it as soon as possible. Thus of ten +mourning carriages, only four were occupied. By the time they reached +Pere-Lachaise there were not more than a dozen followers, among whom was +Rastignac. + +"That is right; it is well that you are faithful to him," said Jacques +Collin to his old acquaintance. + +Rastignac started with surprise at seeing Vautrin. + +"Be calm," said his old fellow-boarder at Madame Vauquer's. "I am your +slave, if only because I find you here. My help is not to be despised; +I am, or shall be, more powerful than ever. You slipped your cable, and +you did it very cleverly; but you may need me yet, and I will always be +at your service. + +"But what are you going to do?" + +"To supply the hulks with lodgers instead of lodging there," replied +Jacques Collin. + +Rastignac gave a shrug of disgust. + +"But if you were robbed----" + +Rastignac hurried on to get away from Jacques Collin. + +"You do not know what circumstances you may find yourself in." + +They stood by the grave dug by the side of Esther's. + +"Two beings who loved each other, and who were happy!" said Jacques +Collin. "They are united.--It is some comfort to rot together. I will be +buried here." + +When Lucien's body was lowered into the grave, Jacques Collin fell in +a dead faint. This strong man could not endure the light rattle of the +spadefuls of earth thrown by the gravediggers on the coffin as a hint +for their payment. + +Just then two men of the corps of Public Safety came up; they recognized +Jacques Collin, lifted him up, and carried him to a hackney coach. + +"What is up now?" asked Jacques Collin when he recovered consciousness +and had looked about him. + +He saw himself between two constables, one of whom was Ruffard; and he +gave him a look which pierced the murderer's soul to the very depths of +la Gonore's secret. + +"Why, the public prosecutor wants you," replied Ruffard, "and we have +been hunting for you everywhere, and found you in the cemetery, where +you had nearly taken a header into that boy's grave." + +Jacques Collin was silent for a moment. + +"Is it Bibi-Lupin that is after me?" he asked the other man. + +"No. Monsieur Garnery sent us to find you." + +"And he told you nothing?" + +The two men looked at each other, holding council in expressive +pantomime. + +"Come, what did he say when he gave you your orders?" + +"He bid us fetch you at once," said Ruffard, "and said we should find +you at the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres; or, if the funeral had left +the church, at the cemetery." + +"The public prosecutor wants me?" + +"Perhaps." + +"That is it," said Jacques Collin; "he wants my assistance." + +And he relapsed into silence, which greatly puzzled the two constables. + +At about half-past two Jacques Collin once more went up to Monsieur +de Granville's room, and found there a fresh arrival in the person of +Monsieur de Granville's predecessor, the Comte Octave de Bauvan, one of +the Presidents of the Court of Appeals. + +"You forgot Madame de Serizy's dangerous condition, and that you had +promised to save her." + +"Ask these rascals in what state they found me, monsieur," said Jacques +Collin, signing to the two constables to come in. + +"Unconscious, monsieur, lying on the edge of the grave of the young man +they were burying." + +"Save Madame de Serizy," said the Comte de Bauvan, "and you shall have +what you will." + +"I ask for nothing," said Jacques Collin. "I surrendered at discretion, +and Monsieur de Granville must have received----" + +"All the letters, yes," said the magistrate. "But you promised to save +Madame de Serizy's reason. Can you? Was it not a vain boast?" + +"I hope I can," replied Jacques Collin modestly. + +"Well, then, come with me," said Comte Octave. + +"No, monsieur; I will not be seen in the same carriage by your side--I +am still a convict. It is my wish to serve the Law; I will not begin +by discrediting it. Go back to the Countess; I will be there soon after +you. Tell her Lucien's best friend is coming to see her, the Abbe Carlos +Herrera; the anticipation of my visit will make an impression on her +and favor the cure. You will forgive me for assuming once more the false +part of a Spanish priest; it is to do so much good!" + +"I shall find you there at about four o'clock," said Monsieur de +Granville, "for I have to wait on the King with the Keeper of the +Seals." + +Jacques Collin went off to find his aunt, who was waiting for him on the +Quai aux Fleurs. + +"So you have given yourself up to the authorities?" said she. + +"Yes." + +"It is a risky game." + +"No; I owed that poor Theodore his life, and he is reprieved." + +"And you?" + +"I--I shall be what I ought to be. I shall always make our set shake in +their shoes.--But we must get to work. Go and tell Paccard to be off as +fast as he can go, and see that Europe does as I told her." + +"That is a trifle; I know how to deal with la Gonore," said the +terrible Jacqueline. "I have not been wasting my time here among the +gilliflowers." + +"Let Ginetta, the Corsican girl, be found by to-morrow," Jacques Collin +went on, smiling at his aunt. + +"I shall want some clue." + +"You can get it through Manon la Blonde," said Jacques. + +"Then we meet this evening," replied the aunt, "you are in such a deuce +of a hurry. Is there a fat job on?" + +"I want to begin with a stroke that will beat everything that Bibi-Lupin +has ever done. I have spoken a few words to the brute who killed Lucien, +and I live only for revenge! Thanks to our positions, he and I shall +be equally strong, equally protected. It will take years to strike the +blow, but the wretch shall have it straight in the heart." + +"He must have vowed a Roland for your Oliver," said the aunt, "for he +has taken charge of Peyrade's daughter, the girl who was sold to Madame +Nourrisson, you know." + +"Our first point must be to find him a servant." + +"That will be difficult; he must be tolerably wide-awake," observed +Jacqueline. + +"Well, hatred keeps one alive! We must work hard." + + + +Jacques Collin took a cab and drove at once to the Quai Malaquais, to +the little room he lodged in, quite separate from Lucien's apartment. +The porter, greatly astonished at seeing him, wanted to tell him all +that had happened. + +"I know everything," said the Abbe. "I have been involved in it, in +spite of my saintly reputation; but, thanks to the intervention of the +Spanish Ambassador, I have been released." + +He hurried up to his room, where, from under the cover of a breviary, he +took out a letter that Lucien had written to Madame de Serizy after that +lady had discarded him on seeing him at the opera with Esther. + +Lucien, in his despair, had decided on not sending this letter, +believing himself cast off for ever; but Jacques Collin had read the +little masterpiece; and as all that Lucien wrote was to him sacred, he +had treasured the letter in his prayer-book for its poetical expression +of a passion that was chiefly vanity. When Monsieur de Granville told +him of Madame de Serizy's condition, the keen-witted man had very wisely +concluded that this fine lady's despair and frenzy must be the result +of the quarrel she had allowed to subsist between herself and Lucien. +He knew women as magistrates know criminals; he guessed the most secret +impulses of their hearts; and he at once understood that the Countess +probably ascribed Lucien's death partly to her own severity, and +reproached herself bitterly. Obviously a man on whom she had shed her +love would never have thrown away his life!--To know that he had loved +her still, in spite of her cruelty, might restore her reason. + +If Jacques Collin was a grand general of convicts, he was, it must be +owned, a not less skilful physician of souls. + +This man's arrival at the mansion of the Serizys was at once a disgrace +and a promise. Several persons, the Count, and the doctors were +assembled in the little drawing-room adjoining the Countess' bedroom; +but to spare him this stain on his soul's honor, the Comte de Bauvan +dismissed everybody, and remained alone with his friend. It was bad +enough even then for the Vice-President of the Privy Council to see this +gloomy and sinister visitor come in. + +Jacques Collin had changed his dress. He was in black with trousers, and +a plain frock-coat, and his gait, his look, and his manner were all that +could be wished. He bowed to the two statesmen, and asked if he might be +admitted to see the Countess. + +"She awaits you with impatience," said Monsieur de Bauvan. + +"With impatience! Then she is saved," said the dreadful magician. + +And, in fact, after an interview of half an hour, Jacques Collin opened +the door and said: + +"Come in, Monsieur le Comte; there is nothing further to fear." + +The Countess had the letter clasped to her heart; she was calm, and +seemed to have forgiven herself. The Count gave expression to his joy at +the sight. + +"And these are the men who settle our fate and the fate of nations," +thought Jacques Collin, shrugging his shoulders behind the two men. "A +female has but to sigh in the wrong way to turn their brain as if it +were a glove! A wink, and they lose their head! A petticoat raised a +little higher, dropped a little lower, and they rush round Paris in +despair! The whims of a woman react on the whole country. Ah, how much +stronger is a man when, like me, he keeps far away from this childish +tyranny, from honor ruined by passion, from this frank malignity, and +wiles worthy of savages! Woman, with her genius for ruthlessness, her +talent for torture, is, and always will be, the marring of man. The +public prosecutor, the minister--here they are, all hoodwinked, all +moving the spheres for some letters written by a duchess and a chit, or +to save the reason of a woman who is more crazy in her right mind than +she was in her delirium." + +And he smiled haughtily. + +"Ay," said he to himself, "and they believe in me! They act on my +information, and will leave me in power. I shall still rule the world +which has obeyed me these five-and-twenty years." + +Jacques Collin had brought into play the overpowering influence he had +exerted of yore over poor Esther; for he had, as has often been shown, +the mode of speech, the look, the action which quell madmen, and he had +depicted Lucien as having died with the Countess' image in his heart. + +No woman can resist the idea of having been the one beloved. + +"You now have no rival," had been this bitter jester's last words. + +He remained a whole hour alone and forgotten in that little room. +Monsieur de Granville arrived and found him gloomy, standing up, and +lost in a brown study, as a man may well be who makes an 18th Brumaire +in his life. + +The public prosecutor went to the door of the Countess' room, and +remained there a few minutes; then he turned to Jacques Collin and said: + +"You have not changed your mind?" + +"No, monsieur." + +"Well, then, you will take Bibi-Lupin's place, and Calvi's sentence will +be commuted." + +"And he is not to be sent to Rochefort?" + +"Not even to Toulon; you may employ him in your service. But these +reprieves and your appointment depend on your conduct for the next six +months as subordinate to Bibi-Lupin." + + + +Within a week Bibi-Lupin's new deputy had helped the Crottat family to +recover four hundred thousand francs, and had brought Ruffard and Godet +to justice. + +The price of the certificates sold by Esther Gobseck was found in the +courtesan's mattress, and Monsieur de Serizy handed over to Jacques +Collin the three hundred thousand francs left to him by Lucien de +Rubempre. + +The monument erected by Lucien's orders for Esther and himself is +considered one of the finest in Pere-Lachaise, and the earth beneath it +belongs to Jacques Collin. + +After exercising his functions for about fifteen years Jacques Collin +retired in 1845. + + +DECEMBER 1847. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Ajuda-Pinto, Marquis Miguel d' + Father Goriot + The Secrets of a Princess + Beatrix + + Bauvan, Comte Octave de + Honorine + + Beaumesnil, Mademoiselle + The Middle Classes + A Second Home + + Beaupre, Fanny + A Start in Life + Modeste Mignon + The Muse of the Department + + 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 + 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 + + Bibi-Lupin (chief of secret police, called himself Gondureau) + Father Goriot + + Bixiou, Jean-Jacques + The Purse + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Government Clerks + Modeste Mignon + The Firm of Nucingen + The Muse of the Department + Cousin Betty + The Member for Arcis + Beatrix + A Man of Business + Gaudissart II. + The Unconscious Humorists + Cousin Pons + + Blondet, Emile + Jealousies of a Country Town + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Modeste Mignon + Another Study of Woman + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + The Firm of Nucingen + The Peasantry + + Bouvard, Doctor + Ursule Mirouet + + Braschon + Cesar Birotteau + + Bridau, Philippe + A Bachelor's Establishment + + Cachan + Lost Illusions + + Camusot de Marville + Cousin Pons + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Commission in Lunacy + + Camusot de Marville, Madame + The Vendetta + Cesar Birotteau + Jealousies of a Country Town + Cousin Pons + + Cerizet + Lost Illusions + A Man of Business + The Middle Classes + + Chardon, Madame (nee Rubempre) + Lost Illusions + + Chatelet, Sixte, Baron du + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Thirteen + + Chaulieu, Henri, Duc de + Letters of Two Brides + Modeste Mignon + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Thirteen + + Collin, Jacqueline + Cousin Betty + The Unconscious Humorists + + Collin, Jacques + Father Goriot + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Member for Arcis + + Corentin + The Chouans + The Gondreville Mystery + The Middle Classes + + Crottat, Monsieur and Madame + Cesar Birotteau + + Dauriat + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Modeste Mignon + + Derville + Gobseck + A Start in Life + The Gondreville Mystery + Father Goriot + Colonel Chabert + + Desplein + The Atheist's Mass + Cousin Pons + Lost Illusions + The Thirteen + The Government Clerks + Pierrette + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Seamy Side of History + Modeste Mignon + Honorine + + 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 + The Firm of Nucingen + A Man of Business + The Middle Classes + + Espard, Charles-Maurice-Marie-Andoche, Comte de Negrepelisse, Marquis d' + The Commission in Lunacy + + Espard, Chevalier d' + The Commission in Lunacy + The Secrets of a Princess + + Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d' + The Commission in Lunacy + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + Another Study of Woman + The Gondreville Mystery + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + Beatrix + + Estourny, Charles d' + Modeste Mignon + A Man of Business + + Falleix, Jacques + The Government Clerks + The Thirteen + + Finot, Andoche + Cesar Birotteau + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Government Clerks + A Start in Life + Gaudissart the Great + The Firm of Nucingen + + Fouche, Joseph + The Chouans + The Gondreville Mystery + + Gaillard, Theodore + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Beatrix + The Unconscious Humorists + + Gaillard, Madame Theodore + Jealousies of a Country Town + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor's Establishment + Beatrix + The Unconscious Humorists + + Gaudissart, Felix + Cousin Pons + Cesar Birotteau + Honorine + Gaudissart the Great + + Givry + Letters of Two Brides + The Lily of the Valley + + Gobseck, Esther Van + Gobseck + The Firm of Nucingen + A Bachelor's Establishment + + Gobseck, Sarah Van + Gobseck + Cesar Birotteau + The Maranas + The Member for Arcis + + Godeschal, Marie + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Start in Life + Cousin Pons + + Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de + The Gondreville Mystery + The Thirteen + A Bachelor's Establishment + Modeste Mignon + + Grandlieu, Duchesse Ferdinand de + Beatrix + A Daughter of Eve + + Grandlieu, Mademoiselle de + A Bachelor's Establishment + + Grandlieu, Vicomtesse de + Colonel Chabert + Gobseck + + Grandlieu, Vicomte Juste de + Gobseck + + Grandlieu, Vicomtesse Juste de + Gobseck + A Daughter of Eve + + Granville, Vicomte de + The Gondreville Mystery + A Second Home + Farewell (Adieu) + Cesar Birotteau + A Daughter of Eve + Cousin Pons + + Granville, Baron Eugene de + A Second Home + + Grindot + Cesar Birotteau + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Start in Life + Beatrix + The Middle Classes + Cousin Betty + + Herrera, Carlos + Lost Illusions + + Katt + The Middle Classes + + La Peyrade, Charles-Marie-Theodose de + The Middle Classes + + La Peyrade, Madame de + The Middle Classes + + Lebrun + Cousin Pons + + Lenoncourt-Givry, Duchesse de + The Lily of the Valley + Letters of Two Brides + + Louchard + Cousin Pons + + Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier + The Chouans + The Seamy Side of History + The Gondreville Mystery + The Ball at Sceaux + The Lily of the Valley + Colonel Chabert + The Government Clerks + + Lousteau, Etienne + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor's Establishment + 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 + + Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des + The Muse of the Department + Eugenie Grandet + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Government Clerks + Ursule Mirouet + + Madeleine + Cousin Pons + + Marron + Lost Illusions + + Massol + The Magic Skin + A Daughter of Eve + Cousin Betty + The Unconscious Humorists + + Maufrigneuse, Duc de + The Secrets of a Princess + A Start in Life + A Bachelor's Establishment + + Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de + The Secrets of a Princess + Modeste Mignon + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Muse of the Department + Letters of Two Brides + Another Study of Woman + The Gondreville Mystery + The Member for Arcis + + Meynardie, Madame + The Thirteen + + Mirbel, Madame de + Letters of Two Brides + The Secrets of a Princess + + Montcornet, Marechal, Comte de + Domestic Peace + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Peasantry + A Man of Business + Cousin Betty + + Nathan, Raoul + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + Letters of Two Brides + The Seamy Side of History + The Muse of the Department + A Prince of Bohemia + A Man of Business + The Unconscious Humorists + + Nathan, Madame Raoul + The Muse of the Department + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Government Clerks + A Bachelor's Establishment + Ursule Mirouet + Eugenie Grandet + The Imaginary Mistress + A Prince of Bohemia + A Daughter of Eve + The Unconscious Humorists + + Navarreins, Duc de + A Bachelor's Establishment + Colonel Chabert + The Muse of the Department + The Thirteen + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Peasantry + The Country Parson + The Magic Skin + The Gondreville Mystery + The Secrets of a Princess + Cousin Betty + + Nourrisson, Madame + Cousin Betty + The Unconscious Humorists + + Nucingen, Baron Frederic de + The Firm of Nucingen + Father Goriot + Pierrette + Cesar Birotteau + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Another Study of Woman + The Secrets of a Princess + A Man of Business + Cousin Betty + The Muse of the Department + The Unconscious Humorists + + Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de + Father Goriot + The Thirteen + Eugenie Grandet + Cesar Birotteau + Melmoth Reconciled + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Commission in Lunacy + Modeste Mignon + The Firm of Nucingen + Another Study of Woman + A Daughter of Eve + The Member for Arcis + + Peyrade + The Gondreville Mystery + + Poiret, the elder + The Government Clerks + Father Goriot + A Start in Life + The Middle Classes + + Poiret, Madame (nee Christine-Michelle Michonneau) + Father Goriot + The Middle Classes + + Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de + The Ball at Sceaux + Ursule Mirouet + Beatrix + + Rastignac, Eugene de + Father Goriot + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Ball at Sceaux + The Commission in Lunacy + A Study of Woman + Another Study of Woman + The Magic Skin + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + The Gondreville Mystery + The Firm of Nucingen + Cousin Betty + The Member for Arcis + The Unconscious Humorists + + Rhetore, Duc Alphonse de + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + Albert Savarus + The Member for Arcis + + Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Government Clerks + Ursule Mirouet + + Schmucke, Wilhelm + A Daughter of Eve + Ursule Mirouet + Cousin Pons + + Sechard, David + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial At Paris + + Sechard, Madame David + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial At Paris + + Selerier + Father Goriot + + Serizy, Comte Hugret de + A Start in Life + A Bachelor's Establishment + Honorine + Modeste Mignon + + Serizy, Comtesse de + A Start in Life + The Thirteen + Ursule Mirouet + A Woman of Thirty + Another Study of Woman + The Imaginary Mistress + + Tours-Minieres, Bernard-Polydor Bryond, Baron des + The Seamy Side of History + + Vernou, Felicien + A Bachelor's Establishment + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Daughter of Eve + Cousin Betty + + Vivet, Madeleine + Cousin Pons + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Scenes from a Courtesan's Life, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCENES FROM A COURTESAN'S LIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 1660.txt or 1660.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/1660/ + +Produced by Dagny, Bonnie Sala, and John Bickers + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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