UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES J^onore tie Balzac PROVINCIAL LIFE VOLUME VI LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES ™, JA3 IN THE RUE D'ARTOIS "Then" said the drummer, looking at the polished back of the florist, "I become a shareholder in the journals, like Finot, one of my friends, the son of a hatter, who has now thirty thousand francs income, and who is going to be made peer of France ! " THE NOVELS OF HONORE DE BALZAC NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT BY WILLIAM WALTON WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BY EUGENE DECISY AND CHARLES GIROUX, AFTER PAINTINGS BY DANIEL HERNANDEZ AND PIERRE VIDAL IN ONE VOLUME PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY GEORGE BARRIE & SON, PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHTED, 1 898, BY G. B. & SON ■-••«••••..•* ' - » * * * • TIE a o THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 189953 TO MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE CASTRIES THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART The commercial traveller, a personage unknown to antiquity, is he not one of the most curious figures created by the manners and customs of the present epoch ? is he not destined, in some order of things, to mark the great transition which, in the eyes of critical observers, welds the period of material de- velopment and improvement to that of intellectual development and improvement ? Our century will bind together the reign of isolated force, abounding in original creations, and the reign of force uniform, but levelling, equalizing all productions, throwing them together in masses, and obeying a principle of unity, the last expression of societies. After the saturnalia of intelligence generally diffused, after the last efforts of the civilizations which accumulate the treasures of the earth on one point, does not the gloom of barbarism always arrive ? Is not the com- mercial traveller to ideas just what our stage-coaches are to packages and men ? he puts them in a vehicle, (5) 6 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART sets them in motion, knocks them against each other ; he gathers up, in the luminous centre, his due freight of rays and scatters them through the sleepy outside population. This human pyrophorus is an ignorant scientist, a juggler hoaxed by himself, an incredulous priest who, nevertheless, preaches all the better his mysteries and his dogmas. A curious figure ! this man has seen everything, he knows everything, he is acquainted with all the world. Saturated with the vices of Paris, he can affect the easy credulity of the province. Is he not the link which joins the village to the capital, although essentially he is neither Parisian nor provincial, for he is a traveller ? He sees to the bottom of nothing ; of men and localities, he learns the names ; of things, he appreciates the surfaces ; he has his particular yardstick for each special piece of measuring ; in short, his eye glances off objects and does not pene- trate them. He interests himself in everything, and nothing really interests him. A jester and a boon companion, apparently interested in all parties, he is usually a patriot at the bottom of his heart. An excellent mimic, he knows how to assume alternately the smile of affection, of contentment, of good-nature, and then leaves them all to return to his true charac- ter, to a normal condition in which he reposes. He is obliged to be an observer, under penalty of re- nouncing his trade. Is he not continually obliged to sound men by a simple look, to divine their actions, their manners and customs, their solvency above all ; and — that he may not lose his time — to decide THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 7 suddenly as to the chances of success ? Thus the habit of deciding promptly in every case, makes him essentially a judge of men and things ; he assumes, he discourses like an expert on the theatres of Paris, on their actors and on those of the provinces. Then he knows all the good and all the evil places in France, de actu et visu. He will pilot you at need to either vice or to virtue with the same easy assurance. Endowed with the eloquence of a hot- water spigot which can be turned on at will, is he not able with equal ease to shut off and to turn on his collection of prepared phrases which flow with- out stop and produce upon the victim the effect of a moral douche? A sprightly story-teller, he smokes, he drinks ; he wears trinkets, he imposes upon the commonplace people, passes for a lord in the villages, never allows himself to be made tired, — a slang of his own — and knows how to slap his pockets at the proper moment to make his money jingle, so as not to be taken for a thief by the servants, eminently suspicious as they are in the bourgeois households into which he penetrates. As to his activity, is it not the least quality of this human machine ? Neither the kite swooping upon its prey, nor the stag doubling to escape the dogs and throw the hunters off the track, nor the hounds scenting the game at a distance, can be compared to the rapidity of his flight when he scents a commission, to the neatness with which he trips up his rival's heels that he may get ahead of him, to the art with which he noses, he feels, he discovers by instinct an 8 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART opportunity to place his goods. How many superior qualities are there not required for the making of such a man ! Do you find, in any country, many of these diplomats of the ground floor, of these con- summate negotiators speaking in the name of calicoes, of jewelry, of the cloth-trade, of wines, and frequently more skilful than the ambassadors, who, for the most part, have only empty forms ? No one, in France, entertains any doubt concerning the incredible ability incessantly displayed by the travel- ling drummers, these intrepid affronters of negations, who, in the farthermost borough, represent the genius of civilization and the Parisian inventions grappling with the good sense, the ignorance or the routine of the provinces. Can we ever forget here those admirable manoeuvres which knead the intelligence of the populations, by treating by word of mouth the most refractory masses, and which resemble those indefatigable polishers whose files lick into smoothness the hardest porphyries ! If you would wish to know the power of the tongue and the con- vincing pressure brought to bear by phrases upon the most rebellious ecus, those of the small landed proprietor buried in his country mud, listen to the discourse of one of these grand dignitaries of the Parisian industry for the profit of which trot about, strike and function these intelligent pistons of the steam-engine called Speculation. " Monsieur," said to a learned political economist the director-cashier-manager-general-secretary and administrator of one of the most celebrated com- THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 9 panies for insurance against fire, " Monsieur, in the provinces, of five hundred thousand francs' worth of policies that are renewed, not more than fifty thousand francs are paid up voluntarily ; the four hundred and fifty thousand francs remaining are brought into us by the insistence of our agents who go among the insured who are in arrears and worry them until they have signed their new policies, frightening them and beating them by terrifying narrations of conflagrations, etc. Thus, eloquence, the labial flux, counts for nine-tenths in the ways and means of our business." To speak, to make one's self listened to, is not that to seduce ? A nation which has its two Cham- bers, a woman who lends her two ears, are equally undone. Eve and her serpent represent the eternal myth of a daily fact which commenced with the world, and which will perhaps finish with it. " After a conversation of two hours, any man should be yours," said a retired attorney. Let us take a turn around this commercial traveller ! Let us examine this figure ! Do not forget the olive-colored redingote, nor the cloak, nor the stock in morocco leather, nor the pipe, nor the cotton shirt with blue stripes. In this figure, so original that it resists all rubbing, how many divers natures will you not discover ? Behold ! what an athlete, what an arena, what arms, — himself, the world and his tongue ! Intrepid navigator, he em- barks, furnished with a few phrases, to go and fish for five or six thousand francs in the polar seas, in 10 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART the country of the Iroquois, in France ! Is it not a question of extracting, by operations purely intel- lectual, the gold buried in the hiding-places in the provinces, to extract it without pain ! The fish of the rural departments will not rise to the harpoon or torches, and can be taken only by the seine, the net, the most gentle of traps. Can you think now without shuddering, of the deluge of phrases which, at the break of day, recommences its endless cas- cades all over France ? Now that you know the species, here is the individual. There exists in Paris an incomparable drummer, the paragon of his kind, a man who possesses in the highest degree all the conditions requisite for his success. In his speech there are to be found at the same time vitriol and bird-lime, — bird-lime with which to catch his victim, to entangle him and make him sticky ; vitriol with which to dissolve the hardest calculations. His particular line was hats ; but his talent and the art with which he was able to capture customers had acquired for him so great a commercial celebrity that the dealers in the article Paris all paid court to him to persuade him to deign to take charge of their commissions. Thus, when on his return from his triumphal marches he sojourned in Paris, he was constantly invited to weddings and festivals ; in the provinces, the correspondents pampered him ; in Paris, the great houses caressed him. Welcomed, feted, nourished everywhere ; for him, to breakfast or to dine alone came to be a debauch, a pleasure. He led the life of a sovereign, or, better, that of a THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART II journalist. But was he not indeed the living feuilleton of Parisian commerce ? His name was Gaudissart, and his fame, his credit, the eulogies with which he was overwhelmed, had procured for him the surname of the illustrious. Wherever this fine fellow entered, whether it were an office or an inn, a salon or a diligence, a garret or a banker's residence, every- one exclaimed on seeing him: "Ah! there is the illustrious Gaudissart." Never was there a name more in harmony with the style, the manners, the physiognomy, the voice, the language of any man.* Everything smiled on the drummer, and the drum- mer smiled on all. Similia similibus, he was like homoeopathy. Endless puns, a big laugh, the figure of a monk, the complexion of a Cordelier, a general Rabelaisian atmosphere ; garments, body, mind and face were all in accord to proclaim drollery, broad jesting, in his whole person. Frank in business affairs, a good fellow, a story-teller, you will have recognized in him the "obliging gentleman" of the grisette, who climbs elegantly to his place on the imperial of the diligence, gives his hand to the lady timid over her descent from the coupe, makes a joke over the postilion's great handkerchief, and sells him a hat ; smiles at the maid, catches her round the waist or by the heart ; imitates at table the gurgling of a bottle by filliping with his finger on his stretched cheek ; knows how to draw in beer by sucking in the air between his lips ; taps with heavy strokes * Se gaudir — to be merry, to live in clover. Caudriole — free discourse,broad jests. 12 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART of his knife on the champagne glasses without breaking them and says to the others : " Do that ! " which impresses the timid travellers ; contradicts those who are well informed, presides at the table and gobbles up the best morsels. A capable man, moreover, he could at times leave all his jestings and appear quite serious when, throwing away the end of his cigar, he would say, looking at a town : " I am going to see what stuff these people have in them ! " Gaudissart became then the most subtle, the most skilful of ambassadors. He knew how to enter as an officer of the administration into the presence of the sub-prefect, as a capitalist into that of the banker, as a man of religion and a monarchist into that of the royalist, as a bourgeois into that of the bourgeois, in short, he was everywhere that which he should be, leaving Gaudissart at the door and taking him up again when he came out. Up to 1830 the illustrious Gaudissart had remained faithful to the article Paris. As it addresses itself to the greater number of human fancies, the divers branches of this commerce had enabled him to ob- serve the innermost recesses of hearts, had in- structed him in the secrets of his attractive elo- quence, in the manner of untying the strings of purses most firmly knotted, of arousing the desires of wives, of husbands, of children, of servants, and persuading them to satisfy them. None knew better than he, the art of enticing dealers by the fascinations of a bargain, and of walking off at the moment when the desire arrived at its paroxysm. Full of gratitude to THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 13 the hat trade, he would say that it was in dealing with the exterior of the head that he had learned to comprehend the interior ; he was accustomed to pull the hood over people's eyes, to throw himself at their heads, etc. His jests upon the subject of hats were inexhaustible. Nevertheless, after August and October, 1830, he quitted the hat trade and the article Paris, abandoned the commissions of the commerce of mechanical and visible things, in order to launch himself in the more elevated spheres of Parisian speculation. He aban- doned, he said, matter for thought, the manufac- tured products for the infinitely more pure elabora- tions of the intelligence. This requires an explana- tion. As every one knows, the break-up of 1830 brought to life again a number of old ideas which the skil- ful speculators undertook to rejuvenate. Since 1830 more especially, ideas have become property ; and, as has said a writer clever enough not to pub- lish anything, there are stolen to-day more ideas than handkerchiefs. Perhaps, some day, we shall see a Bourse for ideas ; but already, good or bad, ideas are quoted, are gathered in, are of conse- quence, are carried, are sold, are realized and bring in profit. If he do not find any ideas to sell, the speculator endeavors to get certain words into favor, gives them the consistency of an idea, and lives on these words as the bird does on its grains of millet. You need not laugh ! A word is worth an idea in a country in which the label of a bag has greater at- 14 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART traction than the contents. Have we not seen the book trade exploiting the word picturesque, when lit- erature has killed the word fantastic ? Thus the exchequer has conceived the intellectual tax, it has accurately estimated the field of advertisements, reg- istered the prospectuses and weighed the thoughts at the Stamp Office, Rue de la Paix. In becoming a matter of commerce, intelligence and its products naturally obey the laws of other manufacturing in- terests. Thus it happens that ideas conceived in their cups by the brains of some of these Parisians in appearance indolent, but who wage mental battles while emptying bottles or discussing the leg of a pheasant, were delivered, the day after their cere- bral birth, to certain travelling salesmen charged with presenting skilfully, urbi et orbi, in Paris and in the provinces, the toasted cheese of the announce- ments and prospectuses by means of which are captured, in the mousetrap of the enterprise, that rodent of the rural departments commonly called, sometimes the subscriber, sometimes the share- holder, sometimes corresponding member, some- times contributor or patron, but always, every- where, a ninny. "lama ninny ! " has exclaimed more than one poor proprietor, attracted by the prospect of being the founder of something, and who, in the end, has seen a sum of a thousand or twelve hundred francs founder in this doubtful sea. " The subscribers are ninnies who will not com- prehend that, in order to come to the front in the THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 1 5 kingdom of intellect, more money is required than to travel in Europe," etc., says the speculator. There exists, then, a perpetual combat between the dilatory public which refuses to pay the Pari- sian imposts, and the collectors who, living on their receipts, lard the public with new ideas, baste it with enterprises, roast it with prospectuses, spit it on flatteries, and end by eating it with some new sauce in which it is smothered, and with which it intoxicates itself, like a fly in plumbago. Thus, since 1830, what has not been lavished in order to stimulate in France the zeal, the self-respect, of the intelligent and progressive masses! Titles, medals, diplomas, a sort of Legion of Honor for the commonalty of martyrs, have rapidly succeeded each other. In short, every one of the manufactories of intellectual products has discovered a pimento, a special ginger, its great delight. Hence, premiums, hence, anticipated divi- dends ; hence, that conscription of celebrated names levied without the knowledge of the unfortunate artists who bear them and who thus find themselves actively co-operating in more enterprises than the year has days, — for the law has not foreseen the theft of names. Hence, this rape of ideas, which quite as in the slave markets of Asia, the exploiters of the public mind tear from the paternal brain, scarcely yet hatched, and strip and drag before the eyes of their stupefied sultan, their Schahabaham, this terrible public, which, if they do not amuse it, strikes off their head by taking away their peck of gold. 16 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART This craze of our epoch, then, reacted upon the illustrious Gaudissart, and in this manner. A cer- tain company which insured against loss of life and of capital happened to hear of his irresistible elo- quence, and proposed to him unheard-of advantages, which he accepted. The bargain concluded, the treaty signed, the drummer was taken to be weaned to the secretary-general of the administration, who loosened the intelligence of Gaudissart from its swaddling-bands, expounded to him the mysteries of the business, instructed him in its slang, demon- strated the mechanism of it to him piece by piece, dissected for him the special public which he would have to exploit, stuffed him with phrases, nourished him with answers to improvise, provisioned him with unanswerable arguments ; and, in short, sharp- ened the edge of the tongue which was to operate upon life in France. Now, the chubby infant re- sponded admirably to the cares which were lavished upon it by monsieur the secretary-general. The directors of the insurance against loss of life or of capital vaunted so highly the illustrious Gaudissart, showed him so many attentions, displayed so strongly in the light — in the sphere of high banking and of high intellectual diplomacy — the talents of this living prospectus, that the financial directors of two journals, celebrated at that time and since dead, conceived the idea of employing him for the gather- ing- in of subscriptions. Le Globe, the organ of the Saint-Simonian doctrine, Le Mouvement, a Republican journal, drew the illustrious Gaudissart into their THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 17 editorial rooms and each proposed to him ten francs a head for every subscriber if he brought in a thousand ; but only five francs if he captured only five hun- dred. The " line " of political journals not interfer- ing with the insurance " line," the bargain was con- cluded. Nevertheless, Gaudissart claimed an in- demnity of five hundred francs for the week during which he was obliged to assimilate the doctrine of Saint-Simon, citing the prodigious efforts of memory and intelligence necessary to become thoroughly posted on this article, and to be able to argue con- veniently about it, " so as not to be taken in your- self," as he said. He asked nothing of the Repub- licans. In the first place, he inclined to Republican ideas, the only ones which, according to the Gau- dissart philosophy, could bring about a rational equality ; then Gaudissart had already dipped into the conspiracies of the French carbonari; he was arrested, but released because of lack of evidence against him ; finally, he observed to the bankers of the journal that, since July, he had allowed his moustaches to grow, and that he now lacked noth- ing but a certain cap and a pair of long spurs to ade- quately represent the Republic. During a whole week, he therefore went to have himself Saint- Simonized in the mornings at the Globe, and has- tened to learn in the afternoons in the insurance offices the subtleties of the financial language. His aptitude, his memory, were so prodigious that he was able to start out about the 15th of April, the date at which he usually opened his campaign l8 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART every year. Two great business houses, affrighted by the falling off in their trade, seduced, as it was said, the ambitious Gaudissart and determined him to take their commissions also. The king of drum- mers showed himself merciful in consideration of their being old friends, and also because of the enormous premiums which they allowed him. " Listen, my little Jenny — " said he, in a fiacre, to a pretty florist. All truly great men love to allow themselves to be tyrannized over by a feeble being, and Gaudis- sart had his tyrant in Jenny ; he was bringing her back at eleven o'clock from the Gymnase, to which he had conducted her, in grand toilet, into a pros- cenium box of the first row. " On my return, Jenny, 1 will furnish your cham- ber, and in the very best manner. That big Ma- thilde, who rasps you with her comparisons, her real India shawl brought by the couriers of the Russian embassy, her silverware and her Russian prince — who appears to me a very great humbug — will have nothing more to say. I consecrate to the adornment of your chamber all the Children that I shall make in the provinces." " Well now, that is very nice ! " cried the florist. " How then, monster of • a man, you speak quietly to me of making children, and you think that I will permit that sort of work ? " " Ah, there ! are you getting stupid, my Jenny ? — That is a way of speaking we have in our trade." " It is very pretty, your trade ! " THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 19 " But listen then ; if you talk all the time, you will'always be right." " I mean to be right all the time ! Upon my word, you are taking things easy ! " " You will not then let me explain ? I have taken under my protection an excellent idea, a journal which they are going to publish for children. In our line, the drummers, when they have made in a town, we will suppose, ten subscribers to the Children's Journal, say : ' I have made ten Chil- dren;' as, if I make there ten subscribers to the journal called Le Mouvement, I would say : ' I have made this evening ten Mouvements.' Do you under- stand now ? " " That is nice ! You are going into politics then ! I see you already at Sainte-Pelagie, to which I shall have to trot every day. Oh ! when you start out to love a man, if you only knew what you were getting into, on my word of honor, you would be left to manage your own affairs, you men ! Come now, if you are going off to-morrow, we will not bother ourselves with any such disagreeable things ; they are too stupid." The fiacre stopped before a pretty house newly erected in the Rue d'Artois, in which Gaudissart and Jenny ascended to the fourth floor. There lived Mademoiselle Jenny Courand, who was gener- ally considered to have been secretly married to Gaudissart, a rumor which the drummer did not deny. In order to maintain her despotism, Jenny Courand compelled the illustrious Gaudissart to ob- 20 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART serve a thousand little details, menacing him always with prompt abandonment if he failed in the most minute. Gaudissart must now write to her from every town in which he stopped and render her an account of his slightest action. " And how many Children will it require to fur- nish my chamber ? " she asked, throwing off her shawl and seating herself before a good fire. " I get five sous for each subscription." " Beautiful ! And it is with five sous that you pretend you are going to make me rich ! not unless you go as long as the Wandering Jew, and unless you have your pockets well sewed up." " But Jenny, I will make thousands of Children! Just think, the children have never had a journal of their own. However, I am very stupid to try to ex- plain to you business affairs, you understand nothing of these things." " Well then, tell me then, tell me, Gaudissart, if I am so stupid, why do you love me ? " "Because you are stupidly — sublime! Listen, Jenny. Don't you see that, if I take Le Globe, Le Mouvement, the insurance and my articles Paris, in- stead of earning eight or ten miserable thousand francs 'a year by breaking my back, like a Mayeux, I shall be able to bring back twenty to thirty thousand francs from each journey." " Unlace me, Gaudissart, and do it right, do not pull me about." "Then," said the drummer, looking at the pol- ished back of the florist, " I become a shareholder in THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 21 the journals, like Finot, one of my friends, the son of a hatter, who has now thirty thousand francs in- come, and who is going to be made peer of France ! When you think that the little Popinot — Ah ! Mon Dieu! but I forgot to say that Monsieur Popinot was yesterday appointed Minister of Commerce — why should I not have some ambition, I myself ? Eh ! eh ! I would know how perfectly to pick up the gab- ble of the tribune and might become minister, and a swaggering fellow ! Wait now, listen to me : " Messieurs," he said, taking his stand behind an easy-chair, " the press is neither an instrument nor a commerce. Considered in its political aspect, the press is an institution. Now, we are obstinately disposed here to see everything politically ; there- fore, — he took breath — therefore, we have to ex- amine if it is useful or injurious, to be encouraged or to be suppressed, if it should be taxed or free, — grave questions ! I do not feel that I shall waste the time, always so precious, of the Chamber, in ex- amining this article and in bringing its conditions to your notice. We are marching toward an abyss. Certainly the laws are not furnished as they should be—" " What do you say to that ? " he said, looking at Jenny. " All the orators make France march toward an abyss ; they say that or they speak of the chariot of state, of tempests and of the political horizons. Don't I know all the tricks ! 1 have the knack of every business. Do you know why ? I 22 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART was born with a caul. My mother kept my caul, I will give it to you ! Therefore, I shall soon be in power, I shall ! " "You will?" " Why should I not be Baron Gaudissart, peer of France ? Have they not already twice made Mon- sieur Popinot deputy in the fourth arrondissement ? He dines with Louis-Philippe ! Finot is going, they say, to be Counselor of State ! Ah ! if they should send me to London as ambassador, it is I who say it to you that I would stump the English. Never has anyone pulled the wool over the eyes of Gaudissart, the illustrious Gaudissart. Yes, never has anyone got the better of me, and never will any- one get the better of me, in whatever line it may be, politics or impolitics, here as in any other place. But, for the present, it is necessary that I should de- vote myself to each, to the Globe, to the Mouvement, to the Children and to the article Paris." " You will get yourself caught with your journals. I bet that you will not get as far as Poitiers before you are nabbed." " What will you wager, mignonne ? " " A shawl." " Good ! if I lose the shawl, I will return to my article Paris and the hat trade. But, get the best of Gaudissart! never, never ! " And the illustrious drummer struck an attitude be- fore Jenny, looked at her proudly, his hand thrust in his waistcoat, the head in three-quarter view, a Napoleonic attitude. THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 23 " Oh ! aren't you funny ! What have you had to eat to-night ? " Gaudissart was a man of thirty-eight years of age, of medium stature, big and fat, like a man ac- customed to rolling around in a diligence ; a face as round as a pumpkin, full colored, regular in feature and similar to those classic visages adopted by the sculptors of all countries for the statues of Plenty, Law, Force, Commerce, etc. His protuberant stom- ach took on the shape of a pear ; his legs were small, but he was agile and nervous. He took Jenny half- undressed and carried her to her bed. "Keep quiet, emancipated woman I" he said. " You do not know what the emancipated woman is, the Saint-Simonism, the antagonism, the Fourierism, the criticism, and the passionate exploitation ; well, it is — in short, it is ten francs by subscription, Madame Gaudissart." " Upon my word of honor, you are going crazy, Gaudissart." "Always more crazy for you!" he exclaimed, throwing his hat upon the florist's divan. The next morning, Gaudissart, after a notable dejeuner with Jenny Courand, set off on horseback, in order to visit the chief places of the canton, the ex- ploration of which had been particularly recommended to him by the divers enterprises to the success of which he had devoted his talents. After having em- ployed forty-five days in beating up the country be- tween Paris and Blois, he remained for two weeks in the latter city, occupied with his correspondence and 24 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART in visiting the bonrgs of the department. The evening of his departure for Tours he wrote to Mademoiselle Jenny Courand the following letter, the conciseness and the charm of which cannot be equalled by any recital, and which proves, moreover, the particular legality of the ties by which these two persons were united : Letter of Gaudissart to jenny Courand " My dear Jenny, I think that you will lose your bet. Like Napoleon, Gaudissart has his star ; and will have no Waterloo. I have triumphed everywhere under the given conditions. The insurance business is doing very well. I have, between Paris and Blois, placed nearly two millions ; but, in proportion as I advance toward the centre of France, the heads become singu- larly more hard, and consequently the millions infinitely more rare. The article Paris goes along on its comfortable little road. It is a ring on the finger. With my old trick I spit them per- fectly, these good shopkeepers. I placed a hundred and sixty- two Ternaux cashmere shawls in Orleans. I do not know, upon my word of honor, what they will do with them, unless they put them back on the backs of their sheep. As to the article journals, the devil ! that is another pair of sleeves. Great, holy good Lord ! what a lot of whistling it takes to teach these individuals a new tune. I have as yet only made sixty-two Mouvements. That is, in my whole route, a hundred less than the Ternaux shawls in a single town. These hum- bugs of Republicans, they do not subscribe at all ; you talk with them, they talk, they are quite of your opinion, and you are presently fully agreed to overturn everything that exists. You think then that the man will subscribe ? Ah ! well, yes, he does nothing of the kind ! It is enough that he has three inches of ground, enough to grow a dozen cabbages, or enough wood to make himself a toothpick, my good man then begins to talk of the consolidation of properties, of imposts, of returns, of THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 25 indemnities, a heap of stupidities, and I expend my time and my saliva in patriotism. It is a bad business ! Generally speak- ing, the Mouvement is flabby. I write so to these messieurs. This disgusts me, considering my opinions. As for the Globe, that is of another breed. When you speak of new doctrines to people whom you think likely to be interested in these fads, it would seem that you were proposing to them to set fire to their houses. It is all very well for me to say to them tint it is for the future, self-interests properly understood, enterprises in which nothing can be lost ; that man has now preyed upon man for a sufficiently long time, and that woman has been a slave, that it is necessary to bring about the triumph of the great providential thought and to obtain a more rational coordi- nation of the social order, in short, all the reverberation of my phrases. Ah ! well yes, when I open up these ideas, the people in the provinces shut up their cupboards, as if I were going to carry away something of theirs, and ask me to take myself off. They are stupid, these geese ! Le Globe is no good. I have said to them : " ' You are too far advanced ; you are going forward, that is all very well ; but results are wanted, the provinces love results.' " However, I have already done a hundred Globes, and, con- sidering the thickness of these country headpieces, that is a miracle. But I promise them so many fine things that I do not know, upon my word of honor, what the Globules, Globists, Globards or Globiens, will do to realize them ; but, as they have told me that they would have the world ordered infinitely better than it is, I go ahead and prophesy at the rate of ten francs a subscription. There was a farmer who thought that that concerned lands, because of the name, and I stuck him into the Globe. Bah ! he will take hold of it, that is sure, he has a protuberant forehead, all the protuberant foreheads are ideologists. Ah ! talk to me of the Children ! I have made two thousand Children between Paris and Blois. A nice little business ! There is not very much to be said. You show the little vignette to the mother, hiding it from the child because 26 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART the child wishes to see it ; naturally, the child does see it, it pulls Mamma by her dress until it gets its journal, because Papa has dot his journal. Mamma has on a dress worth twenty francs, and does not want to have it torn by her little dear ; the journal only costs six francs, there is economy in it, the sub- scriptions flow freely. An excellent thing, it is a real need, it is placed between candy and pictures, two eternal necessities of childhood. They are reading already, these desperate infants ! " I have had here, at the table d'hote, a quarrel, apropos of these journals and my opinions. 1 was eating peacefully by the side of a monsieur, with a gray hat, who was reading Les Debats. I said to myself : " ' I must try my tribunal eloquence. Here is one who is for the dynasty, I will endeavor to cook him. This triumph will be a famous proof of my ministerial talents.' " And I set myself to work, beginning by praising his jour- nal to him. What do you think of that ! that was drawing it out fine enough. From the egg to the chicken, I set myself to gradually getting the better of my man, launching upon him all the four-horse phrases, the reasonings in F sharp and the whole blessed machine. Everyone listened to me, and I saw a man who had the July movement in his moustaches ready to bite at the Mouvement. But I don't know how it was that I allowed to escape inappropriately the word blockhead. Bah ! then you might have seen my dynastic hat, my gray hat, a bad hat, for that matter, made in Lyons, half-silk, half-cotton, rear up and take the bit between his teeth. For my part, I reassumed my grand air, you know, and I said to him : " ' Ah there ! monsieur, you are a singular fellow ! If you are not content, I will give you satisfaction, 1 fought in July.' " ' Although the father of a family,' he said to me, ' I am ready to — ' " ' You are the father of a family, my dear monsieur,' I said to him. ' Have you any children ? ' " ' Yes, monsieur.' " ' Eleven years of age ? ' THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 27 " ' About that.' " ' Well, monsieur, the Journal des Enfants is about to appear, — six francs a year, one number a month, two columns, edited by the loftiest literary talent, a journal well gotten up, solid paper, engravings from the clever crayons of our best artists, like real East Indian designs, the colors of which will not fade.' " Then I letfly my broadside. There was aconfused father ! The quarrel ended by a subscription. " ' It is only Gaudissart who can do such tricks as that ! ' said the little cricket of a Lamard to that great imbecile Bulot, relating the scene to him in the cafe. " I go off to-morrow for Amboise. I will do Amboise in two days, and I will write you then from Tours, where I am going to try to measure myself against the countries the most color- less with regard to intelligent and speculative things. But, on the word of Gaudissart, they shall be whacked, they will be whacked ! whacked ! Adieu, my little one ! Love me always, and be faithful. Fidelity, under all circumstances, is one of the qualities of the emancipated woman. Who is it that kisses you on the eyes ? "Thy FELIX for ever." Five days later, Gaudissart departed one morn- ing from the hotel of the Faisan, where he lodged while in Tours, and went to Vouvray, a rich and populous canton, the peculiar genius of which seemed to him to be susceptible of being exploited. Mounted on his horse, he trotted along the causeway, thinking no more of his phrases than the actor thinks of the role which he has played a hundred times. The illustrious Gaudissart went along, ad- miring the landscape, and proceeding carelessly, without suspecting that in the joyous valleys of Vouvray would perish his commercial infallibility. 28 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART Here, a few explanations upon the peculiar genius of Touraine become necessary. The sly, story- telling, bantering, epigrammatic spirit with which each page of the work of Rabelais is impressed, ex- presses faithfully the Tourangian spirit, fine and polished as it should be in a country in which the kings of France long held their court ; a spirit ardent, artistic, poetic, voluptuous, but of which the first impulses quickly disappear. The softness of the air, the beauty of the climate, a certain facil- ity of existence and the genial manners there soon smother the sentiment of art, contract the largest heart, corrode the most tenacious of wills. Trans- plant the Tourangian, his qualities develop and pro- duce great things, as has been proven in the most diverse spheres of activity, Rabelais and Semblang ay, Plantin the printer and Descartes ; Boucicault, the Napoleon of his time, and Pinaigrier, who painted the greater number of stained glass windows in the cathedrals ; then Verville and Courier. Thus the Tourangian, so remarkable abroad, when at home remains like the Indian on his mat, like the Turk on his divan. He employs his wit in mocking his neighbor, in rejoicing, and arrives at the end of life happy. Touraine is the veritable abbey of Theleme, so vaunted in the book of Gargantna ; there are to be found there, as in the poet's work, the complying sisterhood, and the good cheer so celebrated by Rabelais is there enthroned. As to the slothfulness, it is sublime, and admirably expressed by this pop- ular saying: "Tourangian, do you want some THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 29 soup?" "Yes." " Bring your porringer." "I am no longer hungry." Is it to the joy of the vine- yard, is it to the harmonious softness of the most beautiful landscapes in France, is it to the tranquil- lity of a country to which foreign arms have never penetrated, that is due the soft abandon of these easy and pleasant manners? To these questions, there is no reply. Go into this Turkey of France, you will remain there indolent, lazy, happy. Were you as ambitious as was Napoleon, or a poet as was Byron, an unknown, invincible force obliges you to keep your poetry for yourself and converts into dreams your ambitious projects. The illustrious Gaudissart was about to meet there, in Vouvray, one of those indigenous jokers, the jests of whom are offensive only by the very perfection of the jesting, and with whom he had to sustain a cruel contest. Rightly or wrongly, the Tourangians greatly love to inherit from their par- ents. Now, the doctrine of Saint-Simon was there particularly held in hatred and vilipended, but as they hold in hatred, as they vilipend in Touraine, with a disdain and superiority of pleasantry worthy of the land of good stories and of tricks played on the neighbors, — a spirit which disappears day by day before that which Lord Byron has called the Eng- lish cant. After having landed at the Soleil d'or, an inn kept by Mitouflet, a former grenadier of the Imperial Guard who had espoused a rich vineyard owner, and to whom he solemnly confided his horse, 30 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART Gaudissart, to his undoing, took his way to the house of malice in Vouvray, to that of the merry- andrew of the bourg, the wag obliged by his role and by his nature to maintain his locality in cheer- fulness. This rural Figaro, an ex-dyer, lived in the enjoyment of an income of seven or eight thousand francs, of a pretty house seated on the hill, of a lit- tle plump wife, of robust health. For the last ten years he had had nothing to do but to take care of his garden and his wife, to marry his daughter, to take his hand at cards in the evenings, to know all the scandals that pertained to his jurisdiction, to inter- fere with the elections, to war with the large pro- prietors and organize good dinners ; to trot about on the causeway, to go to see what was going on in Tours and plague the cure ; finally, for his greatest drama, to await the sale of a piece of property en- closed among his vines. In short, he led the Tou- rangian life, the life of a little city in the country. He was, moreover, the most imposing notability among the bourgeoisie, the head of the small, jealous, envious proprietors, ruminating and peddling about in great contentment evil speakings and calumnies against the aristocracy, beating everything down to his own level, enemy of superiority of any kind, despising it even with the admirable calmness of ig- norance. Monsieur Vernier — thus was named this little great personage of the bourg — was just finish- ing his dejeuner, between his wife and his daughter, when Gaudissart presented himself in the room, through the windows of which might be seen the THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 31 Loire and the Cher, one of the most cheerful dining- rooms in all the country. " Is it to Monsieur Vernier himself ? — " said the drummer, bending his vertebral column with so much grace that it seemed to be elastic. "Yes, monsieur," replied the malicious dyer, in- terrupting him and throwing upon him a scrutinizing look, by which he recognized immediately the species of man with whom he had to deal. "I come, monsieur," Gaudissart continued, "to claim the assistance of your enlightenment to direct me in this canton, in which Mitouflet has informed me that you exercise the greatest influence. Mon- sieur, I have been sent into the departments for an enterprise of the highest importance, undertaken by a number of bankers who desire — " " Who desire to trick us out of something," said Vernier, laughing, accustomed as he was to dealing with the commercial travellers and to see them com- ing to their point. " Exactly," replied the illustrious Gaudissart with easy insolence. "But you must know, monsieur, since you have so fine a tact, that you cannot trick people unless they find some profit in allowing them- selves to be tricked. I entreat you, therefore, not to confound me with the common drummers who base their success upon trickery or upon importu- nity. I am no longer a drummer. I was, monsieur, I glory in it. But, to-day, I have a mission of the highest importance and one which should cause me to be considered by superior minds as a man who 32 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART devotes himself to the enlightenment of his country. Deign to listen to me, monsieur, and you will see that you will have gained a great deal in the half- hour of conversation which I have the honor to en- treat you to grant me. The most celebrated bank- ers of Paris have taken a part in this affair, not fic- titiously, as in some of those shameful speculations which I, for my part, designate as rat-traps ; no, in- deed, it is no longer anything of the kind ; I do not lend myself, for my part, to the peddling of such fool-catchers. No, monsieur, the best and the most respectable houses of Paris are enlisted in this en- terprise, both as interested parties and as a guaran- tee— " Here, Gaudissart launched into the full tide of his eloquence, and Monsieur Vernier allowed him to con- tinue, listening with an apparent interest which de- ceived Gaudissart. But, at the mere word of guar- antee, Vernier had ceased to pay attention to the drummer's rhetoric, he was thinking of some good trick to play him, in order to deliver from these Parisian pests a country justly termed barbarous by the speculators who can bite nothing out of it. At the top of a delicious valley, known as la Vallee coquette because of its sinuosities, of its windings which spring up at every step and seem all the more beautiful as you advance, whether in mounting or descending the joyous route, lived in a little house surrounded by an inclosure of vines, a half-witted man named Margaritis. Of Italian origin, Margaritis was married, had no children, and his wife took care THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 33 of him with a courage that was generally appre- ciated. Madame Margaritis certainly ran consider- able danger in the company of a man who, among other manias, insisted upon carrying always upon himself two long-bladed knives, with which he sometimes threatened her. But who does not know the admirable devotion with which the inhabitants of the provinces consecrate themselves to the care of their suffering, perhaps because of the reproach which is attached to a bourgeois wife who abandons her child or her husband to the public care of a hos- pital ? Then, who does not know, also, of the great repugnance which the provincials entertain for pay- ing the charge of a hundred louis or a thousand ecus required by Charenton or by the insane asylums ? If anyone spoke to Madame Margaritis of the doctors Dubuisson, Esquirol, Blanche, or others, she pre- ferred, with a noble indignation, to keep her three thousand francs in keeping her goodman. The in- comprehensible whims which his mania inspired in this goodman having much to do with the denoOment of this adventure, it will be necessary to indicate the most striking of them. Whenever it rained in tor- rents, Margaritis immediately went out to walk about bare-headed among his vines. In the house, he was constantly asking for the newspaper ; to content him, his wife or his servant gave him an old newspaper of the Indre-et-Loire department ; and in the course of the last seven years he had not yet perceived that he always read the same number. Perhaps a physician would not have observed with- 3 34 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART out interest the relation which existed between the constant recurrence of these demands for the paper and the atmospheric variations. The most constant occupation of this lunatic was to observe the condi- tion of the sky, relative to its effects upon the vines. Usually, when his wife had company, which was almost every evening, the neighbors, taking pity upon her, came to play boston with her. Margaritis remained silent, placing himself in a corner from which he did not stir ; but, when ten o'clock sounded from his clock, enclosed in a great oblong case, he rose at the last stroke with the mechanical precision of those figures set in motion by a spring in the little chimes of the German toys, he advanced slowly toward the players, threw upon them a look very like the automatic glance of the Greeks and the Turks exposed upon the Boulevard du Temple at Paris, and said to them: "Be off!" At certain periods, this man recovered his former sanity, and then gave to his wife excellent advice concerning the sale of his wines ; but he then became extremely troublesome, he stole the tid-bits from the cupboards and devoured them secretly. Sometimes, when the usual visitors to the house entered, he would reply to their questions with civility, but more often his answers were most incoherent. Thus, to a lady who asked him : " How do you feel to-day, Monsieur Margaritis ? " — " I have shaved ; and you ? " he re- plied to her. " Are you better, monsieur ? " another asked him. — "Jerusalem, Jerusalem," he responded. But, usually, he looked at his guests THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 35 with a stupid air, without saying a word, and his wife then said of him : " The goodman hears nothing to-day." Two or three times in the course of five years it happened to him, always about the period of the equinoxes, to fall into a fury at this observa- tion, to draw one of his two knives and to cry : "This strumpet dishonors me!" Otherwise, he drank, ate, walked about, like a man in perfect health. Thus everyone had finally come to pay him no more respect and attention than to a great piece of furniture. Among all his whimsicalities, there was one of which no one could discover the meaning ; for, in the long run, the clever ones of the countryside had finally commented upon and ex- plained the most unreasonable actions of this lunatic. He always insisted upon having a bag of meal in the house, and upon keeping two casks of wine of his vintage, without permitting anyone to touch either the meal or the wine. But, when the month of June arrived, he insisted upon the sale of the bag and of the two casks of wine with all the obstinacy of a lunatic. Madame Margaritis nearly always then pre- tended to him to have sold the two puncheons at an exorbitant price, and handed him the money, which he hid, without either his wife or his servant being able, even when they watched him, to discover the hiding-place. The evening before the day on which Gaudissart came to Vouvray, Madame Margaritis had found more trouble than ever in deceiving her husband, whose reason seemed to have returned. 36 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART " I do not know, indeed, how I shall get through to-morrow," she had said to Madame Vernier. " Just imagine, the goodman insisted upon seeing his two casks of wine. He has so bedevilled me all day that it was necessary to show him two full casks. Our neighbor, Pierre Champlain, had, luckily, two casks which he had not been able to sell ; and, at my entreaty he rolled them into my cellar. Ah there ! what do you think ! the goodman, since he has seen the casks, declares that he is going to sell them off himself !" Madame Vernier had just confided to her husband the trouble in which Madame Margaritis found her- self, a moment before the arrival of Gaudissart. At the first word of the commercial traveller, Vernier proposed to himself to match him with the goodman Margaritis. " Monsieur," replied the ex-dyer, when the illus- trious Gaudissart had fired his first broadside, " I will not conceal from you the difficulties which your enterprise must encounter here. Our country is a country which goes along in the rough, suo modo, a. country into which a new idea never penetrates. We live as our fathers lived, amusing ourselves by eating four meals a day, by occupying ourselves in the cul- tivation of our vines and disposing well of our wines. In all business dealings, we endeavor quite simply to sell things for more than they cost. We remain in this rut without either God or the Devil being able to get us out of it. But I am going to give you a bit of good advice, and good advice is as good as having THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 37 an eye in your hand. We have in this tourg a former banker in whose enlightenment I have, I par- ticularly, the greatest confidence ; and, if you obtain his approval, I will join mine to it. If your proposi- tions offer real advantages, if we are convinced of it, at the word of Monsieur Margaritis, which will have mine with it, there will be found in Vouvray, twenty wealthy houses in which all the purses will open and will take your vulnerary." On hearing the name of the lunatic, Madame Ver- nier raised her head and looked at her husband. "Wait, to be sure! my wife is just intending, I think, to pay a visit to Madame Margaritis, to whose house she is going with one of our women neigh- bors. Wait just a moment, these ladies will conduct you there. You will take Madame Fontanieu," said the ex-dyer, winking at his wife. To name to her the most amusing, the most elo- quent, the most jovial gossip in the whole country, was not that to notify Madame Vernier to select wit- nesses for a careful observation of the scene which would take place between the commercial traveller and the lunatic, so that the bourg might have some- thing with which to amuse itself for a month ? Monsieur and Madame Vernier played their parts so well that Gaudissart did not conceive the slightest suspicion and fell plump into the trap ; he offered his arm gallantly to Madame Vernier and thought that he had made during the journey, the conquest of the two ladies, with whom he was quite wonder- ful in wit, piquancy and uncomprehended puns. 189952 38 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART The house of the pretended banker was situated at the entrance of the Coquette Valley. This dwelling, known as La Fuye, was in no wise remark- able. On the ground floor was a large wainscoted room, on each side of which was a bed-chamber, that of the goodman and that of his wife. This large room was entered through a vestibule which served as a dining-room, and with which the kitchen communicated. This ground floor, destitute of the exterior elegance which distinguishes the humblest houses in Touraine, was surmounted by a mansard story to which you mounted by a stairway built outside the house, supported against one of the gable ends and covered by a pent roof. A little garden, full of marigolds, syringas and elders, separated the house from the enclosure. Around the courtyard rose the buildings used in the wine making. Seated in his main room, near a window, in an easy-chair in yellow Utrecht velvet, Margaritis did not rise when he saw Gaudissart and the two ladies enter, he was thinking of selling his two casks of wine. He was a dry-looking man whose skull, bald in front and garnished with a few sparse hairs be- hind, was pear-shaped. His sunken eyes, sur- mounted by heavy black eyebrows and surrounded by very dark circles, his nose like the blade of a knife, his salient maxillary bones and his hollow cheeks, his generally extended lines, everything, even to his immeasurably long and flat chin, contrib- uted to give to his physiognomy a peculiar expres- THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 39 sion, that of an ancient professor of rhetoric or of a rag-picker. "Monsieur Margaritis," said Madame Vernier to him, " come now, stir yourself a little ! Here is a monsieur whom my husband sends to you, he must be listened to attentively. Leave your mathematical calculations, and talk to him." On hearing these words, the lunatic rose, looked at Gaudissart, made him a sign to be seated and said to him : " Let us talk, monsieur." The three women went into Madame Margaritis's bed-chamber, leaving the door open, so that they might hear all, and be able to intervene if necessary. Scarcely were they installed when Monsieur Vernier came softly through the enclosure, caused the win- dow to be opened for him and entered noiselessly. " Monsieur," said Gaudissart, " has been in busi- ness ? — " " Of State," replied Margaritis, interrupting him. " I effected the pacification of Calabria in the reign of the king Murat." " Well, he has gone to Calabria now," said Monsieur Vernier under his breath. " Oh ! then we shall understand each other per- fectly," replied Gaudissart. "I am listening to you," responded Margaritis, taking the attitude of a man who is posing for his portrait before a painter. " Monsieur," said Gaudissart, turning the key of his watch and giving it in his abstraction an in- 40 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART cessant rotary and regular movement which inter- ested the lunatic very much and perhaps contributed to keep him quiet; "Monsieur, if you were not a superior man " — here the lunatic bowed, — " I should content myself by enumerating to you the material advantages of this enterprise, the psychological motives of which are worthy of being exposed to you. Listen ! of all social riches, is not time the most precious ; and to economize it, is not that to enrich ourselves ? Now, is there anything in life that consumes more time than anxieties over what I call boiling the pot, a common phrase but one which states the question neatly ! Is there also anything which devours more time than the lack of securities to offer those from whom you ask money at a period when, poor for the moment, you are rich in hope?" "Money, — yes, that's right," said Margaritis. " Well, monsieur, I have been sent into the de- partments by a company of bankers and capitalists, who have perceived the enormous loss which is thus sustained, in time and consequently in intelligence or in productive activity, by the men of the future. Now, we have conceived the idea of capitalizing for these men this same future, of discounting for them their talents, in discounting for them what ? — time dito, and of insuring its value to their heirs. It is no longer a question of economizing time, but of giving it a price, a quotation, of representing in a pecuniary sense the productions which you presume you will obtain in this region of the intellect, by THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 41 representing the mental qualities with which you are endowed and which are, monsieur, live forces, like a waterfall, like a steam-engine of three, ten, twenty, fifty horse-power. Ah ! this is progress, movement toward a better order of things, a move- ment due to the activity of our epoch, essentially progressive, as I will prove to you, when we shall come to consider the principles involved in a more logical coordination of the interests of society. I will explain my meaning by practical examples. I leave purely abstract reasoning, that which we designate, we others, the mathematics of ideas. In- stead of being a landed proprietor, living on your income, you are a painter, a musician, an artist, a poet—" " 1 am a painter," said the lunatic, as in a paren- thesis. "Good, so be it, since you comprehend so well my metaphor, you are a painter, you have a fine future before you, a rich future. But I will go still further—" On hearing these words, the lunatic examined Gaudissart with an anxious air to see if he intended to leave the house, and was reassured only when he perceived that he remained seated. " You may be even nothing at all," said Gaudis- sart continuing, " but you feel yourself — " " I feel myself," said the lunatic. " You say to yourself : ' I, I shall be a minister.' Very well, you a painter, you an artist, you a man of letters, you a future minister, you figure up your 42 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART hopes, you tax them, you rate yourself, I will sup- pose, at a hundred thousand ecus — " " You are bringing me then a hundred thousand ecus? " said the lunatic. "Yes, monsieur, you will see. Either, your heirs will necessarily finger them if you should die, since the company engages to deliver the money to them, or you will receive them for your works of art, for your fortunate speculations, if you live. If you have deceived yourself, you may even com- mence again. But, when you have once, as I have had the honor to say to you, fixed the amount of your intellectual capital, for it is an intellectual capital, grasp this idea firmly, intellectual." " I understand," said the lunatic. " You sign a policy of insurance with the com- pany, which recognizes a value of a hundred thou- sand ecus, to you painter — " " 1 am a painter," said the lunatic. " No," resumed Gaudissart ; " to you, musician ; to you, minister, and engages to pay them to your family, to your heirs if, by your death, the hopes, the pot over the fire, based upon the intellectual capital, should be overturned. The payment of a premium suffices to consolidate thus your — " "Your funds," said the lunatic, interrupting. " Why, naturally, monsieur. I see that monsieur has been in business." "Yes," said the lunatic, " I founded the Banque Territorial of the Rue des Fosses-Montmartre, at Paris, in 1798." THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 43 "For," resumed Gaudissart, "in order to pay the intellectual capitals, which each one recognizes in himself and attributes to himself, does it not follow that the generality of the insured should pay a certain premium, three per cent, an annuity of three per cent ? Thus, by the payment of an in- significant sum, a nothing, you guarantee your family against the unfortunate consequences of your death." " But I am living," said the lunatic. " Ah ! if you should have a long life ! that is the objection usually made, a commonplace objection, and you will understand that, if we had not foreseen it, demolished it, we should not be worthy of being — what ? — what are we, after all ? book-keepers in the great Bureau of Intellect. Monsieur, I do not say this to you, but I meet everywhere people who have the pretension of teaching something new, of revealing some line of reasoning or other, to those who have grown gray in the business ! — on my word of honor, it is pitiful. But such is the way of the world, I do not pretend to reform it. Your objec- tion, monsieur, is destitute of sense." "Que'saco? — " said Margaritis. " This is why. If you live and possess the qualities which are estimated in your policy of in- surance against the chances of death, follow me carefully — " " I am following." " Well, you have succeeded in your enterprises ! you have been obliged to succeed precisely because 44 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART of the aforesaid policy of insurance ; for you have doubled your chances of success in disembarrassing yourself of all the anxieties which one has when one drags with one a wife, children, whom one's death would reduce to the most frightful poverty. If you have succeeded, you have then realized on the intellectual capital, for which the insurance was a bagatelle, a real bagatelle, a pure bagatelle." " An excellent idea ! " "Is it not, monsieur?" resumed Gaudissart. " I have named this beneficent fund, I have, the mutual insurance against poverty ! — or, if you pre- fer, the discounting of talent. For talent, monsieur, talent is a bill of exchange which nature gives to the man of genius, and which sometimes has a very long time to run — eh ! eh ! " " Oh ! what fine usury ! " cried Margaritis. " Eh ! the devil ! he is shrewd, the goodman. I have deceived myself," thought Gaudissart. "It is evident that I must overawe my man by the highest considerations, by my humbug, No. i. — Not at all, monsieur," he went on aloud, "for you who—" " Will you accept a glass of wine ? " asked Mar- garitis. " Willingly," replied Gaudissart. " Wife, give us then a bottle of that wine of which we have two casks left. — You are here at the head of Vouvray," said the goodman, showing his vines to Gaudissart. " The close Margaritis ! " The servant maid brought glasses and a bottle of THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART 45 wine of the year 18 19. The goodman Margaritis poured it very carefully into a glass and presented it solemnly to Gaudissart, who drank it. " But you have caught me, monsieur," said the commercial traveller, "this is Madeira, true Ma- deira." " I know it," said the lunatic. " The inconveni- ent quality of the wine of Vouvray, monsieur, is that it can not be used either as ordinary wine or with the entremets ; it is too generous, too strong ; therefore it is sold to you in Paris for Madeira after having been mixed with brandy. Our wine is so luscious and sweet that many dealers in Paris, when our vintage is not good enough for Holland and Belgium, purchase our wines ; they mingle them with the wines of the neighborhood of Paris, and make of them thus Bordeaux wines. But that which you are drinking at this moment, my dear and very worthy monsieur, is a wine for the king, the head of Vouvray. I have two casks of it, two casks only. Those who love the great wines, the high wines, and who wish to have served on their tables, qualities superior to the usual ones of commerce, — as do several houses of Paris who take a pride in their wines — are furnished directly by us. Are you acquainted with any persons who—? " "Let us return to our business," said Gaudis- sart. " We are doing so, monsieur," replied the lunatic. " My wine is capiteux — heady — capiteux agrees 46 THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART with capital in etymology ; now, you are speaking of capitals — do you see ? caput, head ! head of Vou- vray, all that goes together — " " Thus it follows," said Gaudissart, " either you have realized on your intellectual capitals — " "1 have realized, monsieur. Would you like to take then my two casks ? I would arrange the terms very conveniently for you." " No, I am speaking," said the illustrious Gaudis- sart, "of the insurance upon intellectual capitals and of financial operations concerning life. I resume my argument." The lunatic grew quiet, resumed his former atti- tude and looked at Gaudissart. " I say, monsieur,