THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 COMEDIE HUMAINE 
 
 Edited by 
 GEORGE SAINTSBURY
 
 All rights reserved

 
 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 A HARLOT'S PROGRESS 
 
 (Splendeurs et Mueres des Courtisanes) 
 
 VOL. II 
 
 Translated by 
 
 JAMES WARING 
 
 "with a Preface by 
 
 GEORGE SAINTSBURY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 J. M. DENT AND CO, 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCXCVl
 
 Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 A HARLOTS PROGRESS 
 
 THE END OF EVIL WAYS ..... I 
 
 VAUTRIN'S LAST AVATAR . 122 
 
 562311
 
 LIST OF ETCHINGS 
 
 THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE AND GATEWAY TO THE PALAIS DE 
 
 JUSTICE, 1830 Frontisticce 
 
 PAGE 
 THE CORSICAN AT ONCE KNELT DOWN AND PRETENDBD 
 
 TO BE ABOUT TO CONFESS . . . . . 193 
 
 THE SALLE DES PAS-PERDUS . . . . . 245 
 
 Drawn and Etched by W. Boucher.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 As has been noted in the Introduction to the first 
 volume of the Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes^ La 
 demure Incarnation de Vautrin^ though forming, accord- 
 ing to the author's conception, an integral part of that 
 work, stands in more ways than one aloof from it. It 
 was much later written than the earlier parts, except 
 Ou menent les mauvais Chemins^ and it was later written 
 even than that. Moreover, it marks in two different ways 
 a much maturer stage of the author's ideas as to heroic 
 convicts a stage in which, I think, it is not fanciful 
 to detect a considerable reduction of the gigantesque 
 element and a substitution of something else for it. 
 
 We may note this in two ways. In the earlier con- 
 ception of the matter, as exemplified chiefly in Ferragus 
 and Le Pere Goriot^ the heroic element considerably 
 dominates the practical. In the one Balzac had shown 
 an ex-convict defying society and executing a sort of 
 private justice or injustice, just as he pleased. In the 
 other he had adopted (and had maintained still later in 
 an apologetic epistle to a newspaper editor, which will be 
 found in his works) a notion of the criminal as of a sort of 
 puissance du mal pervading and dominating society itself.
 
 x Preface 
 
 In the present book, or section of a book, which, it must 
 never be forgotten, was one of his very latest, things are 
 adjusted to a much more actual level. The thieves'- 
 latin which it contains is only an indirect symptom of 
 this. Ainsworth in England and others in France had 
 anticipated him notably in this. But indirectly it shows 
 us that he had come down many stages from his earlier 
 heights. Bourignard and the early Vautrin worked in 
 clouds, afar and apart ; they had little to do with actual 
 life : in La demure Incarnation de Vautrin we find our- 
 selves face to face with the actual, or only slightly dis- 
 realised ' realities of convict life. Some of these details 
 may be disgusting, but most of them, as we know from 
 unromantic authorities, are tolerably true ; and where 
 truth is, there, with an artist like Balzac, art never fails. 
 It is the drawback of the youthful poet or novelist that 
 he is insufficiently provided with veracity, of the aging 
 novelist or poet that inspiration and the faculty of turn- 
 ing fact into great fiction fail him. But there was no 
 danger of this latter with the author, at nearly twenty 
 years' interval, of Le dernier Chouan and La Cousine Bette. 
 He could only gain by the dispelling of illusion, and he 
 could not lose by the practice of his craft. 
 
 Another and still more interesting mark of resipiscence 
 is conveyed in the practical defeat of Vautrin and in his 
 desertion to the side of society itself, which, we are 
 given to understand, he never afterwards left, nor less 
 perhaps in the virtual rebuff which Corentin (another 
 heros du mal of the older time) receives at the end. The 
 old betrayer of Mile, de Verneuil is told in so many 
 words that he can be dispensed with ; the old enemy or 
 society has to take its wages ; the funds of la haute pegre
 
 Preface xi 
 
 are squandered on Lucien de Rubempre, just as any foolish 
 heir might squander them, and the whole scheme of a 
 conspiracy against order breaks down. True, Madame de 
 Maufrigneuse and Madame de Serizy get their letters j 
 but that is neither here nor there. 
 
 The most interesting scene in the book, I suppose, is 
 that in which the scheme of the prison authorities for 
 trapping Vautrin fails by dint of his adroitness, and the 
 command of a strong mind over a weak one, as between 
 him and the other convicts, to whom he had been a 
 fraudulent trustee. It is not free from unsavoury details, 
 but the mastery of it quite exceeds its repulsiveness. It 
 is worth noting, too, that Balzac shows how thoroughly 
 he has mastered the principles of his art by intermixing 
 this very success with evidences of Vautrin's humanity 
 after all. And of minor details there is not, I think, 
 one more interesting in the book, while there are few 
 more interesting in all Balzac, than the fact that in the 
 opening interview between Camusot and his wife the 
 author borrows from Guy Mannering the incident of 
 Pleydell's discovering the importance of Dirk Hatteraick's 
 pocket-book by the play of his countenance as his 
 examiner passes from that to other things, and vice versa. 
 The fact is that Balzac was to the very last an ardent 
 devotee of Sir Walter, and that like all great novelists, 
 I think, without exception, but not like M. Zola and 
 some other persons both abroad and at home he was 
 perfectly alive to the fact that Scott's workmanship, his 
 analysis, his knowledge of human nature, and his use of 
 it, are about as far from superficiality as the equator is 
 from the pole. In construction and in style Scott was 
 careless, and as it happens, Balzac was in neither respect
 
 Xll 
 
 Preface 
 
 impeccable. But in other ways the pupil had, and knew 
 that he had, little advantage over the master except in a 
 certain parade of motives and details, as well as (though 
 not to a very great extent) in a greater comprehension 
 of passion, and, of course, to a much greater extent in 
 liberty of exhibiting that comprehension. Let us read 
 Balzac and admire Balzac as much as possible; but when 
 any one talks of Scott as shallow in comparison with 
 Balzac, let us leave the answer to Balzac himself. 
 
 (For bibliography, see Preface to Splendeurs et Mi seres 
 des Courtisanes.) 
 
 G. S.
 
 A HARLOT'S PROGRESS 
 
 THE END OF EVIL WAYS 
 
 AT six o'clock next morning two vehicles with postil- 
 lions, 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 ? The 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 gen- 
 darme. 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 nick- 
 name 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. 
 
 VOL. II. A
 
 2 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 For further security, in case of accident, a mounted 
 gendarme follows the machine, especially when it con- 
 veys 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, per- 
 haps, 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 tum- 
 bril which formerly disgraced civilisation, though Manon 
 Lescaut has 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 misdemeanour ; 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 ' New- 
 gate ' 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 inter- 
 ference, 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 con- 
 vict to his accomplice, c It is now the horse's business ! ' 
 as he got into the van, would be unintelligible. It is
 
 A Harlot's Progress 3 
 
 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 gaol 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 gaol, house 
 of detention, and penitentiary ; and they may be sur- 
 prised to learn here that it involves all our criminal 
 procedure, of which a clear and brief outline will pre- 
 sently 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 splendour 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 1'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
 
 4 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 the various private, judicial, and financial catastrophes, 
 strange as they were, which, forming the annual food 
 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 high road 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 honoured by the 
 notice of the beautiful Duchesse de Maufrigneuse ; and 
 every woman knew that he was the favoured 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 possible 
 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 5 
 
 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 re- 
 modelled ; 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 pre- 
 sumptive evidence, the examining judge then issues a 
 warrant for their imprisonment, and sends the suspected 
 persons to be confined in a gaol. There are three such 
 
 faols (Maisons d'Arret) in Paris Sainte-Pelagie, La 
 orce, and les Madelonnettes.
 
 6 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 c 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 stage they appear 
 before a magistrate face to face with the witnesses, and 
 are judged by a tribunal in Paris, or by the collective 
 Court in 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 
 recognises imprisonment of three degrees, corresponding
 
 A Harlot's Progress 7 
 
 in legal distinction to these three degrees of suspicion, 
 inquiry, and conviction. Mere imprisonment is a light 
 penalty for misdemeanour, but detention is imprisonment 
 with hard labour,a severe and sometimes degrading punish- 
 ment. Hence, those persons who nowadays are in favour 
 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 great trials, as in this one, the suspected 
 persons are at once examined (and from inculpes become 
 prevenus] j 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 swift- 
 ness 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 postillion 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
 
 8 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 c 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 end 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 realise 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 familiarised 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 9 
 
 the dumbness of blank walls and the incorruptible cold- 
 ness 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 gaol, 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. 
 
 c 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. 
 
 4 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 advan- 
 vantage 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.
 
 IO A Harlot's Progress 
 
 At La Force this farce had been all the more success- 
 ful in the first instance because the head of the c safety ' 
 force an abbreviation of the title c 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 con- 
 stant 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 archway. Such indeed 
 Paris remained in many districts and till long after.
 
 A Harlot's Progress II 
 
 This circumstance may give some idea of the narrow- 
 ness 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 diffi- 
 culties. 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 greengrocers' shops. She was so thoroughly 
 a street hawker that a Sergent 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 plaister 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 re- 
 pressed 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 
 postillion in harsh tones.
 
 12 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 1 Mind you don't crush me, you hangman's apprentice ! ' 
 she retorted. c 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 
 recognising his accomplice. c Then all is well.' 
 
 The post-boy was still exchanging amenities with 
 Asie, and vehicles were collecting in the Rue du Martroi 
 
 1 Look out, there Pecairefermati. 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 
 in 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 : 
 
 4 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 communi- 
 cations, 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 his-
 
 A Harlot's Progress 13 
 
 torical 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 shall 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 
 1'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 halfway along the quay at a 
 gloomy archway we see the beginning of the private 
 houses which were built in consequence of the construc- 
 tion 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 the Parlement^ was a de- 
 pendency 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 build-
 
 14 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 ings, 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 
 Parlementy 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 strong- 
 hold. 
 
 The original residence of the French kings, the Palace 
 of Saint-Louis, which has preserved the designation of
 
 A Harlot's Progress 15 
 
 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 PHorloge 
 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 harmonised 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 build- 
 ings. 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 Con- 
 ciergerie 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 harmonised 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 xn., 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 archi- 
 tecture of Saint-Louis. 
 
 Municipal Council (to you I speak), if you bestow 
 millions, get a poet or two to assist your architects if you
 
 1 6 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 wish to save the cradle of Paris, the cradle of kings, 
 while endeavouring 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 mouse-trap ; 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 butside 
 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 17 
 
 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 1'Horloge and the Tour de Mont- 
 gomery, in an inner court entered through an arched 
 passage. To the left is the c mousetrap,' to the right the 
 prison gates. The c 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 com- 
 mitted 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 c go up,' in 
 the slang of the Courts or to appear before the magis- 
 trate of the lower Court, are transferred in prison vans 
 direct to the ' mousetraps.' 
 
 The ' mousetraps,' opposite the gate, consist of a 
 
 VOL. II. B
 
 1 8 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 certain number of 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 c mouse- 
 traps ' 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 t 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 them- 
 selves. 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 19 
 
 Thus, when a prison van turns to the left in this yard, 
 it has brought prisoners to be examined to the c mouse- 
 trap ' ; 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 scrutinised 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 identi- 
 fied. 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 marvellous, 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.
 
 2o A Harlot's Progress 
 
 The number of the officials is less than might be 
 supposed j 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 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 com- 
 mitted 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 parlour where the prisoner's relations 
 and his counsel may speak with him across a double 
 grating of wood. The parlour 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 21 
 
 large stove which heats it and the inner gate. It is im- 
 possible even now to tread without a shudder on the 
 paved floor that has received the shock and the con- 
 fidences of so many last glances. 
 
 The apparently dying victim on this occasion could 
 not get out of the horrible vehicle without the assist- 
 ance 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 resem- 
 blance 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 
 
 C I appeal to His Excellency the Spanish Ambassador.' 
 
 4 You can say that to the examining judge,' replied 
 the Governor. 
 
 c Oh Lord ! ' said Jacques Collin, with a sigh. c But 
 cannot I have a breviary ? Shall I never be allowed to 
 see a doctor ? 1 have not two hours to live.' 
 
 As Carlos Herrera was to be placed in close confine- 
 ment 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 formali- 
 ties of the consignment to prison. 
 
 4 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 favour what a criminal must most
 
 22 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 mis- 
 take. 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. 
 
 4 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 sub- 
 terranean maze of the Conciergerie into a perfectly 
 wholesome room, whatever certain philanthropists may 
 say to the contrary, but cut off from all possible com- 
 munication 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 an air of indifference. Only in 
 very extraordinary cases do the functionaries of the Con- 
 ciergerie feel any curiosity ; the prisoners are no more 
 to them than a barber's customers are to him. Hence 
 all the formalities which appal 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 23 
 
 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 dis- 
 entangled from the old pictures of torture chambers, of 
 the unhealthiness of a prison, the chill of stone walls 
 sweating tears, the coarseness of the gaolers 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 xin. and Louis 
 xiv., the accused were, no doubt, flung pellmell 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
 
 24 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 were incarcerated to conceive a horror of old judicial 
 proceedings. 
 
 In our day, though philanthropy has brought incalcul- 
 able 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 burthen 
 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 repro- 
 duction 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 bank- 
 ruptcy. 
 
 This resemblance between his starting-point, in the 
 days of his innocency, and his goal, the lowest depths of 
 degradation and shame, was so direct an appeal to his last
 
 A Harlot's Progress 25 
 
 chord of poetic feeling, that the unhappy fellow melted 
 into tears. For four hours he wept, as rigid in appear- 
 ance 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 / that exists in an ambitious man a lover, a 
 success, a dandy, a Parisian, a poet, a libertine, and a 
 favourite. 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, c 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 that 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
 
 26 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 4 During the preliminary examination,' he reflected, 
 1 1 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 ! 
 
 4 Now I must think of Lucien ; he must be made to 
 pull himself together. I must get at the boy at what- 
 ever 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 en- 
 croach on the power of an examining judge; nothing 
 can stop him, no one can control him. He is a monarch,
 
 A Harlot's Progress 27 
 
 subject only to his conscience and the Law. At the 
 present time, when philosophers, philanthropists, and 
 politicians are constantly endeavouring 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 dissolu- 
 tion. Destroy that institution, and reconstruct it on 
 another basis ; insist as was the case before the Revolu- 
 tion 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 demeanour 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 imprison-
 
 28 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 ment. 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 applica- 
 tion 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 will 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, c 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 29 
 
 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 favour 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 the occasion of a charge of forgery 
 brought against the young Comte d'Esgrignon by a 
 banker of Alencon (see Le 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 be 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 this 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
 
 30 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 * 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 ' 
 
 1 How ? ' 
 
 4 Madame d'Espard longs to see that poor young man 
 guillotined. I shivered as I heard what a pretty woman's 
 hatred can be ! ' 
 
 1 Do not meddle in questions of 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 hypo- 
 critical 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 him- 
 self," she said in conclusion and that is all.' 
 
 4 We distinguish ourselves every day when we do our 
 duty,' said Camusot. 
 
 1 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 31 
 
 are as peculiar to them as dancers' smiles are to 
 dancers. 
 
 4 Madame, can I come in ? ' said the maid. 
 
 'What is it ? ' said her mistress. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Keep dinner back,' said the lawyer's wife, remember- 
 ing 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's bedroom. The Duchess presently appeared, 
 splendidly dressed, for she was starting for Saint-Cloud 
 in obedience to a Royal invitation. 
 
 4 Between you and me, my dear, two words are 
 enough.' 
 
 4 Yes, Madame la Duchesse.' 
 
 4 Lucien de Rubempre is in custody, your husband is 
 conducting the inquiry ; I will answer for the poor boy's 
 innocence j 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. 
 I am, as you know, true to those who do me a service. 
 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 recom- 
 mend 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
 
 32 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 c 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 
 
 4 What is the matter, Amelie ? ' 
 
 4 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 most power ? ' she said in 
 conclusion. c 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. 
 
 1 One made vague promises, while the other one 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 
 
 1 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 Govern- 
 ment 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 intelli- 
 gence ; 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 j but though 
 this may be a remarkable exception in society, it may be 
 insisted on as true, even if improbable. The magistrate
 
 A Harlot's Progress 33 
 
 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 sus- 
 pected. 
 
 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. 
 
 4 Here are the notes, forwarded to me, at my request, 
 by the Prefet of police,' said Camusot. 
 
 4 The Abbi 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 Neuve-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.' 
 
 VOL. II. C
 
 34 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 * 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 con- 
 demnation of Lucien de Rubempre. 
 
 4 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 dis- 
 gracefully tricked the Comte de Serizy and the Public 
 Prosecutor.' 
 
 * What do you say to this, Amelie ? ' 
 
 * It is frightful ! ' replied 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.' 
 
 l Lucien de Rubempre. 
 
 1 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 Mau- 
 frigneuse and Monsieur le Comte de Serizy. 
 
 'This young man came to Paris in 182 ... without any 
 means of subsistence, following Madame la Comtesse Sixte
 
 A Harlot's Progress 35 
 
 du Chatelet, then Madame de Bargeton, a cousin of 
 Madame d'Espard's. 
 
 4 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 con- 
 ditions 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 ;
 
 36 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 4 Lucien and his companion, the convict, have suc- 
 ceeded 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, con- 
 cerning 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 account 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 infor- 
 mation, sleeps undisturbed, as deep and calm as the sea. 
 Some accident occurs, some crime or misdemeanour 
 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 37 
 
 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. 
 
 4 Put this aside,' said the lawyer, replacing the notes 
 in their cover ; c 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.' 
 
 4 As if I needed telling that ! ' said his wife. 
 
 ' Lucien is guilty,' he went on ; * but of what ? ' 
 
 C A man who is the favourite 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. 
 
 4 Take my advice,' said Amelie. l Restore this priest
 
 3 8 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 hus- 
 band 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 encourage- 
 ment, 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 indiscre- 
 tion 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 39 
 
 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 con- 
 tent to remain a bolt ; still the 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. 
 
 c Not to be false to my conscience, and yet to oblige 
 two great ladies that will be a triumph of skill,' thought 
 he. c What, do you collect coins too, Monsieur ? ' said 
 Camusot to the Public Prosecutor, whom he found in 
 the shop. 
 
 c lt 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 its ever occurring to
 
 40 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 Camusot that anything but chance had brought them 
 together. 
 
 4 You are examining Monsieur de Rubempre this 
 morning,' said the Public Prosecutor. 4 Poor fellow I 
 liked him.' 
 
 4 There are several charges against him,' said Camusot. 
 
 4 Yes, I saw the police papers j but some of the infor- 
 mation came from an agent who is independent of the 
 Prefet, the notorious Corentin, who has 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.' 
 
 c We can prove his absence at the time when this 
 Esther was poisoned,' said Camusot. * He was at Fon- 
 tainebleau, on the watch for Mademoiselle de Grandlieu 
 and the Duchesse de Lenoncourt.' 
 
 4 And he still cherished such hopes of marrying 
 Mademoiselle de Grandlieu,' said the Public Prosecutor 
 4 1 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.' 
 
 4 Yes,' said Camusot, 'especially if Esther gave him 
 all she got.' 
 
 4 Derville and Nucingen both say that she died in 
 ignorance of the inheritance she had long since come 
 into,' added Granville. 
 
 4 But then what do you suppose is the meaning of it 
 all ? ' asked Camusot. 4 For there is something at the 
 bottom of it.' 
 
 4 A crime committed by some servant,' said the 
 Public Prosecutor.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 41 
 
 4 Unfortunately,' remarked Camusot, 4 it would be 
 quite like Jacques Collin for the Spanish priest is cer- 
 tainly 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.' 
 
 4 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 im- 
 portant question.' 
 
 And Monsieur de Granville bowed, and turned away, 
 as requiring no answer. 
 
 4 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 over- 
 hear them. 
 
 4 My dear sir, do me the favour 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.' 
 
 4 Very good, Monsieur Camusot. But Bibi-Lupin is 
 come . . .' 
 
 4 What, already ? ' said the judge. 
 
 4 He was at Melun. He was told that Trompe-la- 
 Mort had to be identified, and he smiled with joy. He 
 awaits your orders.' 
 
 4 Send him to me.'
 
 42 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 The Governor was then able to lay before Monsieur 
 Camusot Jacques Collin's request, and he described the 
 man's deplorable condition. 
 
 4 1 intended to examine him first,' replied the magis- 
 trate, c 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. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 c What zeal ! ' said Camusot, with a smile. 
 
 * Ah, well, you see if it is hej replied the man, * you 
 will see great fun in the prison-yard if by chance there 
 are any old stagers here. 
 
 c Why ? ' 
 
 4 Trompe-la-Mort sneaked their chips, and I know 
 that they have vowed to be the death of him. 1 
 
 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 43 
 
 1 Could you lay your hand on the witnesses of his 
 former arrest ? ' 
 
 4 Give me two summonses of witnesses, and I will find 
 you some to-day.' 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 Yes, sir.' 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 And then,' Camusot went on, c bring up the Abbe 
 Carlos Herrera.' 
 
 1 Ah, ha ! I was told that he was a priest in Spanish. 
 Pooh ! It is a new edition of Collet, Monsieur Camu- 
 sot,' said the head of the Safety department. 
 
 4 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
 
 44 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 cypher of words was as follows : 
 
 1 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 exculpa- 
 tion ; but, if you do not lose your head, you will have 
 seven millions and your honour 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. 
 
 1 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 45 
 
 his sphere of dramatic poetry, or Cuvier in that of 
 extinct organisms. Genius of whatever kind is intui- 
 tion. 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 Camu- 
 sot'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 armour 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, drink- 
 ing the price of her wares, sold bodily to Asie, in one of
 
 46 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 1'Hotel de Ville, and said to the driver, l To the 
 Temple, and look sharp, I '11 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 
 c 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, c 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 jewellery you can pick out. Send the 
 girl to call a coach, and have it brought to the back 
 door.' 
 
 4 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 47 
 
 4 1 have had some diamonds offered me,' said la 
 Romette, as she dressed Asie's head. 
 
 4 Stolen ? ' 
 
 4 1 should think so.' 
 
 4 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 recognisable. After washing off her 
 4 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 perfumes of powder a la Marechale. Playing with 
 a bag mounted in gold, she divided her attention be- 
 tween 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 who 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
 
 48 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 atten- 
 tion 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. 
 
 4 Oh ! in the Rubempre case ? ' 
 
 So the affair had its name already. 
 
 4 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 gossip- 
 ing 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 con- 
 sulted 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 49 
 
 the maid. At the first moment he had only glanced at 
 this legal document of 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. 
 
 4 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 look- 
 ing out on the yard of the Conciergerie, where the 
 ushers wait. On seeing the gate through the window, 
 she exclaimed 
 
 1 What are those high walls ? ' 
 
 1 That is the Conciergerie.' 
 
 ' Oh ! so that is the Conciergerie where our poor 
 queen Oh ! I should so like to see her cell ! ' 
 
 4 Impossible, Madame la Baronne,' replied the young 
 lawyer, on whose arm the dowager was now leaning. 
 4 A permit is indispensable, and very difficult to procure.' 
 
 4 1 have been told,' she went on, 4 that Louis xvm. 
 himself composed the inscription that is to be seen in 
 Marie-Antoinette's cell.' 
 
 4 Yes, Madame la Baronne.' 
 
 4 How much I should like to know Latin that I might 
 study the words of that inscription ! ' said she. 4 Do you 
 think that Monsieur Camusot could give me a permit ? ' 
 
 4 That is not in his power ; but he could take you 
 there.' 
 
 4 But his business ' objected she. 
 
 VOL. II. D
 
 5<D A Harlot's Progress 
 
 4 Oh ! ' said Massol, c prisoners under suspicion can 
 wait.' 
 
 4 To be sure,' said she artlessly, * they are under sus- 
 picion. 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 
 him by chance her name and address. 
 
 1 1 often see him at my friend Monsieur de Serizy's 
 house. Madame de Serizy is a connection of mine 
 through the Ronquerolles.' 
 
 4 Well, if Madame wishes to go down to the Concier- 
 gerie,' said an usher, 'she ' 
 
 4 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 4 mouse- 
 trap,' 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. 
 
 4 Will you ask if Monsieur Camusot is come yet ? ' said 
 she, seeing some gendarmes playing cards. 
 
 4 Yes, Madame, he has just come up from the 
 44 mousetrap." ' 
 
 4 The mousetrap ! ' said she. 4 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.' 
 
 4 Oh, you have plenty of time for seeing Monsieur 
 Camusot,' said Massol. 4 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 ? '
 
 A Harlot's Progress 51 
 
 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 pre- 
 rogative 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 sup- 
 ported by two gendarmes, and preceded by Monsieur 
 Camusot's clerk. 
 
 1 Ah, there is a chaplain no doubt going to prepare a 
 poor wretch ' 
 
 4 Not at all, Madame la Baronne,' said the gendarme. 
 4 He is a prisoner coming to be examined.' 
 
 c What is he accused of? ' 
 
 c He is concerned in this poisoning case.' 
 
 * Oh ! I should like to see him.' 
 
 4 You cannot stay here,' said the sergeant, c 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, c 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
 
 52 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 necessary. The young lawyer himself had cried out 
 twice, c 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. 
 
 1 Poor man ! ' said the Baroness. l 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. 
 
 4 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 ensure 
 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 colour being exactly like 
 that of the dust and mud on the floor. 
 
 * Oh dear ! ' cried she, c it goes to my heart ! He is 
 dying ' 
 
 1 Or seems to be,' replied the sergeant. 
 
 c Monsieur,' said Asie to the lawyer, c take me at once 
 to Monsieur Camusot ; I have come about this case ;
 
 A Harlot's Progress 53 
 
 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 Gallerie Marchande, or Merchants' 
 Hall, as it is called), and flew to the staircase, saying, 
 4 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 
 c Europe ' to appear, her real name being unknown to 
 the police and the lawyers. 
 
 4 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 un- 
 wrapped 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.
 
 54 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 Mau- 
 frigneuse, 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, 
 1 Called about pressing business concerning Lucien.' 
 
 Her first glance at the Duchess's face showed her how 
 ill-timed her visit must be ; she apologised for disturbing 
 Madame la Duchesse when she was resting, on the plea 
 of the danger in which Lucien stood. 
 
 c 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.' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Well, well,' said the Duchess in an altered tone. 
 
 * I am able to be of great service,' Asie went on, c for 
 we hear the husbands' secrets as well as the wives'. I
 
 A Harlot's Progress 55 
 
 have done many little jobs for Monsieur de Marsay, 
 whom Madame la Duchesse ' 
 
 1 That will do, that will do ! ' cried the Duchess. 
 1 What about Lucien ? ' 
 
 4 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 ' 
 
 c 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. 
 
 1 That is well,' said Asie, looking about her. c No 
 one can overhear us.' 
 
 1 Oh ! my dear, I am half dead ! Tell me, Diane, 
 what have you done ? ' cried the Countess, 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's 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
 
 56 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 wound ! Jacques Collin's ally at once discerned the 
 stamp of one of the rarest feelings in a woman of the 
 world : real sorrow ! the sorrow that graves 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 were 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. 
 
 1 Who is that, my dear Diane ? ' she asked of the 
 Duchesse de Maufrigneuse. 
 
 c 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's 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 recog- 
 nised 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 57 
 
 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 fulfil- 
 ment, 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
 
 58 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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.' 
 
 c 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, c 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.' 
 
 <!?' 
 
 4 Yes, you ! You fine ladies never have a sou 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, fhe million 
 your Lucien was required to show, and that is what has 
 brought him to this pass ' 
 
 4 Poor girl ! Did she do that ? I love her ! ' said 
 Leontine. 
 
 * Yes now ! ' said Asie, with freezing irony.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 59 
 
 1 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. 
 
 1 Now, my lady, hot foot, and make haste ! ' said Asie, 
 seeing the change, and guessing what had caused it. 
 
 4 But,' said Madame de Maufrigneuse, c 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 favoured 
 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 in- 
 different expression, if he does not wear spectacles, and 
 maintains it throughout the examination. 
 
 It was a sudden change of expression in the prisoner's
 
 60 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 colour 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. 
 
 4 Don Carlos Herrera, canon of the Royal Chapter of 
 Toledo, and secret envoy of His Majesty Ferdinand vn.' 
 
 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 authorising 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 61 
 
 the magistrate. l 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. 
 
 c 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. 
 
 4 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 colour ; 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. 
 
 1 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.'
 
 62 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 I 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 constitu- 
 tionalists who left me for dead.' 
 
 4 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 
 
 4 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. c 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 ! ' 
 
 4 This is why I was found in a courtesan's house, 
 Monsieur,' replied Jacques Collin. c 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 j 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 1 am convinced, Monsieur le Juge, that I am a 
 martyr to the secrets confided to me. By the sudden- 
 ness of my illness I believe that I had been poisoned that
 
 A Harlot's Progress 63 
 
 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 dis- 
 creditable business. 
 
 4 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 this speech, 
 sentence by sentence, for ten minutes ; and it was all so 
 plausible, especially the mention of Corentin, that the 
 lawyer was shaken. 
 
 4 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 ? ' 
 
 4 It will be to your own advantage, and more par- 
 ticularly to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre's, if you tell 
 everything,' replied the judge. 
 
 4 Because he is Oh, God ! he is my son,' he gasped 
 out with an effort. 
 
 And he fainted away. 
 
 4 Do not write that down, Coquart,' said Camusot in 
 an undertone. 
 
 Coquart rose to fetch a little phial of 'Four thieves' 
 Vinegar.' 
 
 4 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.
 
 64 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 '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. 
 
 4 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 admir- 
 able 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 uncer- 
 tainty. 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. 
 
 1 You have your hand on some letters from the 
 Comtesse de Serizy,' said Carlos Herrera. c 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 c almost.' 
 
 4 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. 
 
 1 You have brought about a great misfortune, for he is 
 as innocent as I am,' replied the sham Spaniard, without 
 betraying the smallest agitation. 
 
 c We shall see. We have not as yet established your 
 identity,' Camusot observed, surprised at the prisoner's 
 indifference. c lf you are really Don Carlos Herrera, 
 the position of Lucien Chardon will at once be com- 
 pletely altered.' 
 
 ' To be sure, she became Madame Chardon Made-
 
 A Harlot's Progress 65 
 
 moiselle 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. 
 
 1 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 c knew that he was ' and ' escaped convict ' 
 was to lift his hands to heaven with a gesture of noble 
 and dignified sorrow. 
 
 4 Monsieur 1'Abbe,' Camusot went on, with the 
 greatest politeness, c 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 4 Monsieur 1'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 satisfac- 
 tion of a criminal deceiving his judge ; but this .hero of 
 the hulks was strong in Machiavellian dissimulation. 
 
 c I am accustomed to diplomacy, and I belong to an 
 Order of very austere discipline,' replied Jacques Collin, 
 with apostolic mildness. 4 1 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 unim- 
 portant 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. 
 
 4 Where are those papers ? ' 
 
 *I will tell you exactly if you will get a secretary 
 
 VOL. II. E
 
 66 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 xvin. 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 
 has been poisoned and at the point of death since the 
 day before yesterday ; see if there is any risk in undress- 
 ing him to look for the brand.' 
 
 Doctor Lebrun took Jacques Collin's hand, felt his 
 pulse, asked to look at his tongue, and scrutinised 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 67 
 
 Seventeen spots appeared, irregularly distributed, but the 
 most careful scrutiny could not recognise 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 that 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 con- 
 cerning 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 con- 
 sists 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
 
 68 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 1 An aunt ? ' echoed Don Carlos Herrera with amaze- 
 ment. c 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 in- 
 difference 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.' 
 
 C I am listening, sir.' 
 
 4 Your 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 
 arc, 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 69 
 
 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 xu. 
 for issuing false coin. She was called as witness in the 
 case. It was from this intimacy that she derived her 
 knowledge of poisons. 
 
 c ln 1812 and in 1816 she spent two years in prison 
 for placing girls under age upon the streets. 
 
 4 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 favour 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. 
 
 4 If you have accurately recorded the account of 
 myself I gave you at first,' said Jacques Collin, 4 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.' 
 
 4 Notwithstanding your denial, we shall proceed to 
 confront you with persons who may succeed in diminish- 
 ing your assurance.' 
 
 4 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,
 
 yo A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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, 4 It is 
 he,' as he came in, stood puzzled. He did not 
 recognise his man in a face pitted with smallpox. This 
 hesitancy startled the magistrate. 
 
 'It is his build, his height,' said the agent. c 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. 
 
 4 It is the scar of a bullet,' replied Don Carlos Herrera. 
 * Here are several more.' 
 
 ' Ah ! It is certainly his voice,' cried Bibi-Lupin. 
 
 1 Your certainty/ said Camusot, c is merely an opinion ; 
 it is not proof.' 
 
 c I know that,' said Bibi-Lupin with deference. c 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 71 
 
 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 busi- 
 ness was that of lodging-house keeper. 
 
 4 In 1818 and 1819,' said the judge, 4 you lived, 
 Madame, in a boarding-house kept by a Madame 
 Vauquer ? ' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 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 ? * 
 4 That is not true, sir. 
 
 4 You are in the presence of the Law ; be careful,' 
 said Monsieur Camusot severely. 
 
 Madame Poiret was silent. 
 
 4 Try to remember,' Camusot went on. 4 Do you 
 recollect the man ? Would you know him again ? ' 
 
 4 1 think so.' 
 
 4 Is this the man ? ' 
 
 Madame Poiret put on her 4 eye-preservers,' and looked 
 at the Abbe Carlos Herrera. 
 
 4 It is his build, his height j and yet no if Mon-
 
 72 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 sieur le Juge,' she said, 4 if I could see his chest I should 
 recognise 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. 
 
 4 Yes, that is his fur trimming, sure enough ! But it 
 has worn grey, Monsieur Vautrin,' cried Madame Poiret. 
 
 4 What have you to say to that ? ' asked the judge of 
 the prisoner. 
 
 1 That she is mad,' replied Jacques Collin. 
 
 4 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 ! ' 
 
 4 The police agent and this woman,' said Camusot, 
 speaking to Jacques Collin, c cannot possibly have con- 
 spired to say the same thing, for neither of them 
 had seen you till now. How do you account for 
 that ? ' 
 
 4 Justice has blundered more conspicuously even than 
 it does now in accepting the evidence of a woman who 
 recognises a man by the hair on his chest and the sus- 
 picions of a police agent,' replied Jacques Collin. 1 1 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 it. 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 ' 
 
 4 Poiret.' 
 
 4 Poret excuse me, I am a Spaniard whether she 
 remembers the other persons who lived in this what 
 did you call the house ? '
 
 A Harlot's Progress 73 
 
 ' A boarding-house,' said Madame Poiret. 
 
 4 1 do not know what that is.' 
 
 ' A house where you can dine and breakfast by sub- 
 scription.' 
 
 1 You are right,' said Camusot, with a favourable nod 
 to Jacques Collin, whose apparent good faith in sug- 
 gesting means to arrive at some conclusion struck him 
 greatly. ' Try to remember the boarders who were in 
 the house at the time when Jacques Collin was appre- 
 hended.' 
 
 * There were Monsieur de Rastignac, Doctor Bianchon, 
 Pere Goriot, Mademoiselle Taillefer ' 
 
 1 That will do,' said Camusot, steadily watching Jacques 
 Collin, whose expression did not change. c Well, about 
 this Pere Goriot ? ' 
 
 * He is dead,' said Madame Poiret. 
 
 4 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, c both hold such a social position that 
 their evidence, if it is in your favour, will be enough to 
 procure your release. Coquart, fill up a summons for 
 each of them.' 
 
 The formalities attending Madame Poiret's exami- 
 nation 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. 
 c 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.
 
 74 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 4 Beg your pardon ; pray excuse me, gentlemen all,' 
 said the woman, curtseying to the judge and the Abbe 
 Carlos by turns. c 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 enve- 
 lope. 
 
 * Yes, Monsieur.' 
 
 c 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 
 scrutinising the postmark, which showed the hours of 
 posting and delivery, as well as 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 75 
 
 this letter, written and signed by her whom the law 
 believed to have been the victim of a crime : 
 
 c Esther to Luclen. 
 
 ' MONDAY, May 13, 1830. 
 
 * My last day ; ten in the morning. 
 
 4 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 wine. For the first and 
 last time in my life I have had the opportunity of com- 
 paring 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. 
 
 4 1 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 sacra- 
 ment j and besides, I feel myself cleansed in the waters of 
 sincere repentance. God must do what He will with me. 
 
 c 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.
 
 j6 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 c 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 sweet- 
 heart, 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 ! 
 
 4 Poor Lucien ! Dear ambitious failure ! I am think- 
 ing 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 77 
 
 effluence of your soul, as light is that of the sun. How- 
 ever, for lack of money and of honour, 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 dis- 
 figured by any convulsion or by a ridiculous position. 
 
 4 Madame de Serizy has quarrelled with you, I know, 
 because of me ; but when she hears that I am dead, you 
 s"ee, 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 mis- 
 fortune 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 recognised 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
 
 78 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 an indignity j 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 honour to Madame de 
 Stae'l, 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. 
 
 1 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 crea- 
 tures, 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 shrivelled 
 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 car- 
 riages, 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 79 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 A dead woman craving alms ! That is a funny 
 idea. Come, I must learn to lie quiet in the grave. 
 
 4 You have no idea how heroic my death would seem 
 to some fools if they could know that 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. 
 
 4 "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. 
 
 4 In a few hours the old rascal will know that I was 
 not in jest. 
 
 4 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, beseech- 
 ing Him for your happiness as the price of my death,
 
 8o A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 c 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 magis- 
 trate'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 
 his Majesty Ferdinand vil.,' said he, addressing the 
 prisoner, ' you will be released ; for the impartiality de- 
 manded 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. 
 
 4 Monsieur, you were in too great a hurry to believe 

 
 A Harlot's Progress 81 
 
 in a murder ; do not be too hasty in believing in a 
 theft.' 
 
 4 Heh ! ' said Camusot, scrutinising the prisoner with a 
 piercing eye. 
 
 4 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. c 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.' 
 
 1 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, return- 
 ing the letter. And he showed Camusot a face bathed 
 in tears. 
 
 c If only you knew him,' he went on, c 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 fascin- 
 ating when he chooses ' 
 
 * And so,' said the magistrate, making a final effort to 
 
 VOL. II. F
 
 82 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 discover the truth, c you cannot possibly be Jacques 
 Collin ' 
 
 4 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 favour namely, to set Lucien at liberty 
 forthwith.' 
 
 4 My duty forbids it,' said Camusot very good-naturedly ; 
 1 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. c 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. c My Order has a good 
 memory.' 
 
 c Monsieur,' said Camusot, l that is enough. You must 
 find better reasons to give me. I am as much interested 
 in the prisoner as in public vengeance.'
 
 A Harlot's Progress 83 
 
 c Believe me, then, I know Lucien ; he has the soul 
 of a woman, of a poet, and a southerner, without per- 
 sistency or will,' said Jacques Collin, who fancied that 
 he saw that he had won the judge over. l 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 j 
 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 ? ' 
 
 4 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. 
 
 c Monsieur ! ' 
 
 Jacques Collin turned round. 
 
 * Notwithstanding your refusal to sign the document,
 
 84 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 my clerk will read you the minutes of your examina- 
 tion.' 
 
 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. 
 
 4 You have got well very suddenly ! ' said Camusot. 
 
 4 Caught ! ' thought Jacques Collin ; and he replied 
 
 4 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 
 
 1 Coquart, copy that letter.' 
 
 If it is natural to man to be suspicious as to some 
 favour 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 pro- 
 motion 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 85 
 
 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. 
 
 1 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. 
 
 4 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 ' 
 
 This thought gave him pause. 
 
 As has been seen, a magistrate conducts an examina- 
 tion exactly as he thinks proper. He is at liberty to 
 display his acumen or be absolutely blunt. An examina- 
 tion may be everything or nothing. Therein lies the 
 favour. 
 
 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. 
 
 4 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 con- 
 vict, nor Spaniard, though he wants to hinder his protege 
 from letting out something dreadful argues thus : " The
 
 86 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 c Collect yourself, Monsieur de Rubempre ; you are 
 in the presence of a magistrate who is eager to repair
 
 A Harlot's Progress 87 
 
 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 c 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. 
 
 c 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." '
 
 88 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 This speech made a deep impression on Lucien ; an 
 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. 
 
 c 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; C I am asking 
 you nothing so far. I am anxious to make you understand 
 how deeply your honour is concerned in this question. 
 Give up the false and contemptible notion of the honour 
 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 favour its 
 positive simplicity, and sufficiently defends the criminal ; 
 but it is, in a way, a coat of mail which becomes crush- 
 ing as soon as the stiletto of cross-examination finds a 
 joint in 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 89 
 
 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 examina- 
 tion. 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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. 
 
 4 And now,' said Camusot, after a pause, * what is 
 your name ? Attention, Monsieur Coquart ! ' said he to 
 the clerk. 
 
 ' Lucien Chardon de RubempreV 
 
 ' And you were born ? ' 
 
 4 At Angouleme.' And Lucien named the day, month, 
 and year. 
 
 4 You inherited no fortune ? ' 
 
 4 None whatever.' 
 
 4 And yet, during your first residence in Paris, you 
 spent a great deal, as compared with your small income?' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 That is right, Monsieur,' said Camusot ; 4 1 commend 
 your frankness ; it will be thoroughly appreciated.' 
 
 Lucien, it will be seen, was prepared to make a clean 
 breast of it. 
 
 4 On your return to Paris you lived even more expen- 
 sively than before,' Camusot went on. 4 You lived like 
 a man who might have about sixty thousand francs a 
 year.' 
 
 4 Yes, Monsieur. 1 
 
 4 Who supplied you with the money ? '
 
 90 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 4 My protector, the Abbe Carlos Herrera.' 
 
 * Where did you meet him ? ' 
 
 1 We met when travelling, just as I was about to be 
 quit of life by committing suicide.' 
 
 c You never heard him spoken of by your family by 
 your mother ? 
 
 1 Never.' 
 
 4 Can you remember the year and the month when 
 you first became connected with Mademoiselle Esther ? ' 
 
 4 Towards the end of 1823, at a small theatre on the 
 Boulevard.' 
 
 4 At first she was an expense to you ? ' 
 
 4 Yes, Monsieur.' 
 
 4 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 ? ' 
 
 4 Yes, Monsieur.' 
 
 4 You do not know the reason why the marriage was 
 broken off ? ' 
 
 4 Not in the least, Monsieur.' 
 
 4 Well, the Grandlieus sent one of the most respect- 
 able 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, learnt 
 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 '
 
 A Harlot's Progress 91 
 
 Lucien was petrified by this revelation, and the little 
 presence of mind he had preserved deserted him. 
 
 ' Remember,' said Camusot, c 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.' 
 
 4 Too late ! How ? Explain yourself.' 
 
 c He is not a priest, not a Spaniard, he is ' 
 
 ' An escaped convict ? ' said the judge eagerly. 
 
 4 Yes,' replied Lucien, c when he told me the fatal 
 secret, I was already under obligations to him j I had 
 fancied I was befriended by a respectable priest.' 
 
 1 Jacques Collin 'said Monsieur Camusot, begin- 
 ning a sentence. 
 
 c Yes,' said Lucien, c 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. 
 
 c Do you not know,' Camusot went on, c that in order 
 to give colour to the extraordinary affection he has for 
 you, he declares that he is your father ? ' 
 
 c He ! My father ? Oh, Monsieur, did he tell you 
 that ? ' 
 
 c 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.' 
 
 c It is I who should ask you, Monsieur, whence
 
 92 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 convicts get their money ! Jacques Collin my father ! 
 Oh, my poor mother ! ' and Lucien burst into tears. 
 
 1 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 
 honour 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 judgment comes in after j the other 
 feels and judges both at once. 
 
 Lucien remained pale and gloomy j he saw himself at 
 the bottom of the precipice, down which the examining 
 judge had rolled him by the apparent candour 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 03 
 
 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 mis- 
 apprehended, 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 favourites 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
 
 94 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 collect on the miserable face, swell and fall, mingled with 
 two streams of tears. 
 
 1 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 con- 
 sequence 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, c 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. 
 
 1 In this place, Monsieur,' said the magistrate, answer- 
 ing the poet's pride with mocking arrogance, c I alone 
 have a right to ask questions.' 
 
 4 1 had the right to refuse to answer them,' muttered 
 the hapless Lucien, whose wits had come back to him 
 with perfect lucidity. 
 
 1 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 95 
 
 determination which compelled him to smooth down 
 Alonsieur 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. 
 
 4 You have to sign the report of your examination,' 
 said the judge.' 
 
 ' And am I at liberty ? ' asked Lucien, ironical in his 
 turn. 
 
 c Not yet,' said Camusot ; c 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 com- 
 mitted 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.' 
 
 c Shall I find writing materials ? ' 
 
 4 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 initialled 
 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 descrip- 
 tion. 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 demoralisation 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
 
 96 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 that lies ready for the action of the unknown matter 
 that constitutes it j 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. c He thought he might save himself by 
 betraying his accomplice.' 
 
 c Of the two,' said Coquart timidly, c the convict is 
 the most thorough-paced.' 
 
 c 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 woo.den 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 c 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 0.7 
 
 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, c I have 
 the honour 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. 
 
 4 D. DE MAUFRIGNEUSE. 
 C L. DE SERIZY. 
 4 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 
 burnt the letter written by the Duchess. The man 
 bowed respectfully. 
 
 4 Then Madame de Serizy is coming here ? ' asked 
 Camusot. 
 
 4 The carriage was 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 ambition, 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 
 
 VOL. II. G
 
 p,8 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 of two women of fashion. The taper in which he had 
 burnt 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 dis- 
 grace 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 09 
 
 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 the Palais 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 apprehen- 
 sion ; he was vaguely uneasy and worried. 
 
 And this was why. 
 
 The dignity of his high functions forbade his attempt- 
 ing to fetter the perfect independence of the inferior 
 judge, and yet this trial nearly touched the honour 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 pro- 
 spective 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. 
 
 4 Ah!' he sighed, folding his arms, c formerly the 
 supreme authority could take refuge in an appeal. Now- 
 adays 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
 
 TOO A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 ? ' 
 
 1 Badly, Monsieur le Comte ; read and judge for your- 
 self.' 
 
 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 his very marrow. 
 
 4 Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, to whom I 
 owe much, had desired me . . .' 
 
 c 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 101 
 
 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. 
 
 4 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 grey 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. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 c Too late ! How ? ' 
 
 She looked at Monsieur de Granville, and saw con- 
 sternation written in his face. ' It cannot be, it must 
 not be too late ! ' she added, in the tone of a despot.
 
 102 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 Women, pretty women, in the position of Madame 
 de Serizy, are the spoilt children of French civilisation. 
 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 recognise 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. 
 
 4 He acknowledged,' said Monsieur Camusot in her 
 ear, c that he is the friend and pupil of an escaped con- 
 vict. 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's sentence in an undertone, ' that the convict 
 will be committed for trial, and that if Lucien is not
 
 A Harlot's Progress 103 
 
 committed with him as having profited as an accesssory 
 to the man's crimes, he must appear as a witness very 
 seriously compromised.' 
 
 ' Oh ! never, never ! ' she cried aloud, with amazing 
 firmness. c 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 ' 
 
 c Madame,' said the public prosecutor, also aloud, and 
 with a smile, l 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 ' 
 
 c On his clumsiness,' said the Countess sharply, though 
 Lucien's intimacy with a scoundrel really disturbed her 
 far less than his attachment to Esther. 
 
 c 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 
 
 4 Excuse me, Madame ; I have two words to say to 
 Bauvan.' Which, translated by the worldly wise, con- 
 veyed 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
 
 IO4 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 subsequent proceedings ; on it the accused are committed 
 for trial, and remanded to appear before the Criminal 
 Court.' 
 
 'Well, then,' said she, 4 if the evidence were sup- 
 pressed ? ' 
 
 c Oh, Madame, that is a crime which no magistrate 
 could possibly commit a crime against society.' 
 
 4 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 any 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 to you,' said Camusot. c 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 Gran- 
 ville ; no one would have heard anything about it. I 
 tell you, Madame, everything has been seized in Monsieur 
 Lucien's lodgings, even your letters ' 
 
 1 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. 
 
 c 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 105 
 
 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 vice, though the flame had already burnt her deli- 
 cate 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. 
 
 4 1 shall be compelled,' said Camusot, ' to lay a com- 
 plaint against Madame la Comtesse ' 
 
 4 Heh ! What has she done ? ' asked the public pro- 
 secutor, looking alternately at the lady and the magistrate. 
 
 * I have burnt 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. c If that is a crime well, Monsieur must get 
 his odious scrawl written out again.' 
 
 1 Very true,' said Camusot, trying to recover his dignity. 
 
 1 Well, well, " All 's well that ends well," said Mon-
 
 io6 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 sieur de Granville. 4 But, my dear Countess, you must 
 not often take such liberties with the Law ; it might 
 fail to discern who and what you are.' 
 
 4 Monsieur Camusot valiantly resisted a woman whom 
 none can resist ; the Honour of the Robe is safe ! ' said 
 the Comte de Bauvan, laughing. 
 
 4 Indeed ! Monsieur Camusot was resisting ? ' said the 
 public prosecutor, laughing too. 4 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. 
 
 4 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, 4 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 dip- 
 lomate with Rastignac and Bianchon, who will not 
 recognise him as Jacques Collin. Then, being sure of 
 his release, the man will sign the document. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 Now you^will see how little justice suffers by these
 
 A Harlot's Progress 107 
 
 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. 
 
 1 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 de Maufrigneuse. 
 
 * This young man is a speckled orange ; do not leave 
 it to rot. 
 
 c 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 still 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 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Love this young fellow if fatality requires it, but do 
 not display your passion to all the world,' said the luckless 
 husband.
 
 io8 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 I Well, my dear Countess,' said Monsieur de Granville, 
 who had been engaged in conversation with Comte 
 Octave, c 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. 
 4 But could you not bring Monsieur de Rubempre to 
 wait here ? ' 
 
 I 1 will try if I can find 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 con- 
 spiring 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. Accord-
 
 A Harlot's Progress 109 
 
 ing to certain mad-doctors, suicide is in some tempera- 
 ments the closing phase of mental aberration ; and since 
 his arrest Lucien had been possessed by that single idea. 
 Esther's letter, read and re-read 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 CoNciiRorRiK, May i$tA, 1830. 
 
 4 1, 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 Mon- 
 sieur 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. 
 
 4 And I earnestly beg Monsieur de Serizy to undertake 
 the charge of being the executor of this my will. 
 
 * First, to Monsieur 1'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 francs if the sum stolen 
 from Mademoiselle Esther should be recovered. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 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 re.l?ase of prisoners for
 
 no A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 4 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, 
 
 4 1 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. 
 
 4 1 beg you to transmit the enclosed letter to the 
 Abbe Carlos Herrera without opening it, and deliver to 
 Monsieur Camusot the formal retractation 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 beg- 
 ging you to believe that in writing to you I am giving
 
 A Harlot's Progress 1 1 1 
 
 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. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 c 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
 
 ii2 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 4 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 colouring 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. 
 
 1 To repair the mischief I have done, I am forwarding 
 to the public prosecutor a retractation of my deposition. 
 You will know how to take advantage of this document. 
 
 4 In virtue of a will formally drawn up, restitution 
 will be made, Monsieur 1'Abbe, of the moneys belong- 
 ing 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 enchant- 
 ments 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress 113 
 
 c Do not regret me : my contempt for you is as great 
 as my admiration. 
 
 { LUCIEN.' 
 
 * Recantation. 
 
 1 I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I retract, 
 without reservation, all that I deposed at my examination 
 to-day before Monsieur Camusot. 
 
 1 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. 
 
 4 LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE. 
 
 'AT THE CONCIERGERIE, May 15, 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 
 
 VOL. II. H
 
 ii4 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 done to his accomplice, so far as the wit of a man of the 
 world could nullify the results 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 labour that 
 the warder could not fail to detect, for the iron-barred 
 peephole is always open. Indeed, if a prisoner under 
 suspicion gave 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 his examination he was already medi- 
 tating 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 sup- 
 port. Now the window of his room, looking out on 
 the prison-yard, had no handle to the fastening j 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 por- 
 tion 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
 
 A Harlot's Progress 115 
 
 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 back 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 them- 
 selves in the yard. It will be for the reader to judge 
 whether the aspect of this 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 Court of Appeals and the 
 Tour Bonbec in which, it is said, Saint-Louis' room 
 still exists may enable the curious to estimate the depth 
 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
 
 n6 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 chok- 
 ing 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 recog- 
 nised 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 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 once they 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 j he
 
 A Harlot's Progress ny 
 
 admired its Babylonian proportions and Oriental fancy. 
 He took this exquisite vision as a poetic farewell from 
 civilised 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. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 1 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 neighbour shrieking wildly, 
 for he heard the poor 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 Gran- 
 ville 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
 
 1 1 8 A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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. 
 
 4 Go down the steps and turn to the left. The 
 entrance is from the )uai de 1'Horloge, the first arch- 
 way.' 
 
 1 That woman is crazy,' said the shop-woman j * 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, c Open it, open it ! ' 
 in a tone that struck terror into the warders. 
 
 The gatekeepers hurried out. 
 
 1 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 1'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 guard-room. 
 
 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. 
 
 c Only to see him to see him ! Oh ! I will do no
 
 A Harlot's Progress 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 ' 
 
 1 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. 
 
 4 Monsieur,' said the Comte de Serizy to the Governor, 
 * silence as of the grave about all this.' 
 
 4 Be easy,' replied the Governor; 'you have done the 
 wisest thing. If this lady ' 
 
 'She is my wife.' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 That is what I thought,' replied the Count. 4 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 
 carnage there.' 
 
 4 We can save him yet,' said the Countess, walking on 
 with a degree of strength and spirit that surprised her 
 friends. 4 There are ways of restoring life ' 
 
 And she dragged the gentlemen along, crying to the 
 warder 
 
 4 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 
 t hroat.
 
 I2O A Harlot's Progress 
 
 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 
 
 1 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, 4 if you will 
 do me a great favour, you will put what I will 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 : 
 
 4 It has been ascertained that the Demoiselle Esther 
 Gobseck killed herself of her own free will. 
 
 4 Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre satisfactorily proved 
 an alibi) and his innocence leaves his arrest to be re- 
 gretted, 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, 4 how necessary it is to preserve absolute 
 silence as to the little service requested of you.' 
 
 4 Since it is you who do me the honour 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 ' 
 
 4 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.
 
 A Harlot's Progress i 2 r 
 
 4 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 acknow- 
 ledged.' 
 
 4 That saves it, I think ? ' said Massol. 
 
 'You are perfectly right.' 
 
 'The public prosecutor will thank you for it to- 
 morrow,' said Massol slily. 
 
 Now to the great majority, as to the more choice 
 reader, it will seem perhaps that this Study is not com- 
 pleted 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.
 
 122 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 
 
 4 Madame,' said Madeleine, l 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. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 What is the matter, my dear ?' said the young woman 
 in alarm. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Begin at the end,' said Madame Camusot. 
 
 4 Well, just as Monsieur Popinot, in the council room 
 of the first Court, had put the last signature to the ruling 
 of 4t 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 123 
 
 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 " 
 
 4 1 breathed again, thinking it was sudden illness. 
 
 c "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." 
 
 4 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
 
 124 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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.' 
 
 1 Indeed ? ' said Madame Camusot, with deep irony. 
 
 1 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 j 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 appoint- 
 ment 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 Parlements, 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 125 
 
 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 im- 
 portance. 
 
 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 feet, 
 the salaries paid by the State make priests and magis- 
 trates 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 j 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 ? '
 
 126 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 * But Monsieur and Madame de Serizy ? ' cried the 
 poor man. c Madame de Serizy is gone mad, I tell you, 
 and her madness is my doing, they say.' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 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 ! ' 
 
 1 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 ? ' 
 
 1 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.' 
 
 4 That is the right sort of woman ! Bravo ! ' cried 
 Madame Camusot. 
 
 c Madame de Serizy declared she would sooner see the 
 Palais blown up than leave a young man who had enjoyed 
 the favours of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and her 
 own to stand at the bar of a Criminal Court by the side 
 of a convict ! ' 
 
 c But, Camusot,' said Amelie, unable to suppress a 
 superior smile, 4 your position is splendid ' 
 
 * Ah ! yes, splendid ! ' 
 4 You did your duty.' 
 
 4 But all wrong ; and in spite of the Jesuitical advice 
 of Monsieur de Granville, who met me on the Quai 
 Malaquais.' 
 
 4 This morning ! ' 
 
 4 This morning.' 
 
 ' At what hour ? '
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 127 
 
 i At nine o'clock.' 
 
 4 Oh Camusot ! ' cried Amelie, clasping and wringing 
 her hands, ' and I am always imploring you to be con- 
 stantly 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 ' 
 
 4 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 patronise 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 j 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.'
 
 128 Vautrm's Last Avatar 
 
 The magistrate stood up, looking at his wife with a 
 stupid stare. 
 
 1 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. 
 
 4 Listen, Amelie,' said he, standing in front of his 
 wife. c An incident recurs to my mind, a trifle in itself, 
 but, in my position, of vital importance. 
 
 4 Realise, 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. 
 
 c Only you women, besides us and our examinees, can 
 in a single flash epitomise 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 129 
 
 4 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 com- 
 promising of the young fellow's letters, adored as he was 
 by ' 
 
 c 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 astonish- 
 ment. c Well, then, might not the public prosecutor, 
 who takes such keen interest in the honour 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 ? ' 
 
 c 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 
 
 VOL. II. I
 
 130 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 favour 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 in- 
 fluence by that of the Grandlieus, and to gain the com- 
 plimentary approval of your President. 
 
 1 1 will undertake to deal with the ladies d'Espard, 
 de Maufrigneuse, and de Grandlieu. 
 
 4 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 magis- 
 trate 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 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 ! ' 
 
 4 1 brought you in tow from Alen9on to Mantes, and 
 from Mantes to the Metropolitan Court,' replied Amelie. 
 4 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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.' 
 4 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 recognise 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 recognise him as Jacques Collin 
 who was arrested in their presence ten years since in a 
 cheap boarding-house, where they knew him under the 
 name of Vautrin.' 
 
 There was a short silence, while Madame Camusot sat 
 thinking. 
 
 c Are you sure your man is Jacques Collin ? ' she 
 asked. 
 
 4 Positive,' said the lawyer, c and so is the public 
 prosecutor.' 
 
 c 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
 
 132 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. c My 
 brain is so bewildered that I had quite forgotten an im- 
 portant 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 ' 
 
 4 Why ? ' 
 
 4 Jacques Collin, my dear, was treasurer of the money 
 owned by the prisoners in the hulks, amounting to con- 
 siderable 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 133 
 
 4 1 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 recognised 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. 
 
 c 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 high road 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 person- 
 age in this drama, involved the honour 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 for- 
 gotten 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
 
 134 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 c 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 
 honour 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, 
 4 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 '35 
 
 for the terrible physical 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 magnetises 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. 
 
 4 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 
 magnetiser 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 vice 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
 
 136 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 begged him to stop when the blood was almost bursting 
 from my finger tips. Look, you can see the mark of 
 her clutch, which I shall not lose for these three 
 months.' 
 
 c The deuce ! ' exclaimed Monsieur Gault, as he saw 
 a band of bruised flesh, looking like the scar of a burn. 
 
 4 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 unyield- 
 ing 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.' 
 
 c 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. 
 
 4 For my part, 1 said the doctor, c I dare assign no 
 limits to nervous force. And indeed it is by this that 
 mothers, to save their children, can magnetise 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.'
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 137 
 
 'Monsieur,' said a 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 Concier- 
 gerie, c 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. 
 
 4 His breath rattles in his throat,' replied the man. 
 
 c It is five o'clock,' said the doctor ; c I have had no 
 dinner. But, after all, here I am at hand. Come, let us 
 see.' 
 
 c Number 2, as it happens, is the Spanish priest sus- 
 pected of being Jacques Collin,' said Monsieur Gault to 
 the doctor, c and one of the persons suspected of the 
 crime in which that poor young man was impli- 
 cated.' 
 
 * I saw him this morning,' replied the doctor. 
 c 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. c 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
 
 138 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 interest- 
 ing 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 j to see how far away the re- 
 bellious 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 in his progress, his loves, his 
 ambitions. To him Lucien was his own soul made 
 visible. 
 
 It was Trompe-la-Mort who dined with the Grand-
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 1 39 
 
 lieus, 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 realised 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 un- 
 happy, 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 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, c The boy is being examined.' 
 
 And he shivered he who thought no more of killing 
 a man than a labourer does of drinking. 
 
 Has he been able to see his mistresses ? ' he wondered. 
 c Has my aunt succeeded in catching those damned 
 females ? Have these Duchesses and Countesses be- 
 stirred 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
 
 140 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 uncon- 
 sciously 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 
 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, that 
 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. 
 
 After getting to Spain and metamorphosing himself into 
 Don Carlos Herrera, Jacques Collin was on his way to 
 look for his Corsican at Rochefort, when he met Lucien 
 on the banks of the Charente. The hero of the 
 banditti of the Corsican scrub, to whom Trompe-la-
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 141 
 
 Mort owed his knowledge of Italian, was of course 
 sacrificed to the new idol. 
 
 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 weak- 
 ness for his experience of an underground cell would 
 certainly have turned his brain took vast proportions in 
 Jacques Collin's mind ; and, contemplating the proba- 
 bilities 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. 
 
 4 1 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 in- 
 culpated 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.
 
 142 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 i Monsieur,' said Jacques Collin, seeing the warder 
 outside the door, and not understanding why the 
 governor had left them, c I should think nothing of 
 thirty thousand francs if I might send five lines to 
 Lucien de Rubempre.' 
 
 4 1 will not rob you of your money,' said Doctor 
 Lebrun ; c no one in this world can ever communicate 
 with him again ' 
 
 * No one ? ' said the prisoner in amazement. c Why ? ' 
 
 4 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 
 
 4 Oh, my son ! ' 
 
 4 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, c Oh, my son,' were but a 
 murmur. 
 
 4 Is this one going to die in our hands too ? ' said the 
 turnkey. 
 
 4 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 Collins, crushed by 
 the very violence of this outburst of grief, seemed some- 
 what calmer.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 143 
 
 4 Here is a letter which the public prosecutor placed in 
 my hands for you, with permission to give it you sealed,' 
 said Monsieur Gault. 
 
 4 From Lucien ? ' said Jacques Collin. 
 
 4 Yes, Monsieur.' 
 
 4 Is not that young man ' 
 
 1 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 ' 
 
 4 May I see him with my own eyes ? ' asked Jacques 
 Collin timidly. 4 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. 
 
 4 If you wish to see the body,' said Lebrun, 4 you 
 have no time to lose ; it is to be carried away to- 
 night.' 
 
 4 If you have children, gentlemen,' said Jacques 
 Collin, 4 you will understand my state of mind ; I hardly 
 know what I am doing. This blow is worse to me than 
 death j 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 the 
 Galerie Marchande, as it is called, is built. So Jacques 
 Collin, escorted by the warder, who took his arm, pre- 
 ceded by the governor, and followed by the doctor, in a
 
 144 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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, c 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 ; 1 1 have not long to look at him. They will take 
 him away to ' 
 
 He paused at the word c 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. 
 
 4 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 was to 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 trellice 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 Mbe Carlos Herrera. 
 
 4 MY DEAR ABBE, I have had only benefits from 
 you, and I have betrayed you. This involuntary ingrati- 
 tude is killing me, and when you read these lines I shall 
 have ceased to exist. You are not here now to save me. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 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 
 
 VOL. II. K
 
 146 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 Pugatcheff, 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 colouring 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 you, I am for- 
 warding to the public prosecutor a retractation of my 
 deposition. You will know how to take advantage of 
 this document. 
 
 4 In virtue of a Will formally drawn up, restitution 
 will be made, Monsieur 1'Abbe, of the moneys belong- 
 ing to your Order which you so imprudently devoted 
 to my use as a result of your paternal affection for me. 
 
 4 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 enchant- 
 ments of a dream. But, unfortunately, it is not now in 
 the waters of my native place that I shall drown the
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 147 
 
 errors of a boy, but in the Seine, and my hole is a cell 
 in the Conciergerie. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 Why ? ' he asked mildly. The audacious Trompe- 
 la-Mort was as meek as a child. 
 
 The governor pointed him out to Monsieur de 
 Chargebceuf ; 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 arrange- 
 ments, 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 magna- 
 nimity,' 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. 
 
 c 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 ! '
 
 148 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 After gazing once more at Lucien with the 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 
 labour 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 hammer- 
 ing 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 has 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 the real experts in such 
 matters, the blacksmiths, who all say the same thing, 
 ' The iron was stringy ! ' The danger cannot be fore- 
 seen. 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 149 
 
 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 con- 
 fessing 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 ; c 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
 
 150 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 anteroom 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 colour 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 gaol-birds desire brandy, rum, and the like. 
 
 The two first archways on that side of the yard, facing 
 the fine Byzantine corridor the only vestige now of 
 Saint-Louis' elegant palace form a parlour, 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 the line on occasions when a great 
 success brings a crowd. This parlour, 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 151 
 
 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 parlour, 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 parlour, 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
 
 152 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 ; except- 
 ing 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^ mars 
 the liberty, already so illusory, of the prison-yard. The 
 4 nark ' (in French, h 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 
 c 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,
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 '53 
 
 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, harmonising with the coarse and sinister faces 
 and brutal manner somewhat subdued, indeed, by the 
 gloomy reflections that weigh on men in prison every- 
 thing, 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
 
 154 Vautrm's Last Avatar 
 
 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 concerne'd 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 imprison- 
 ment 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 j 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 '55 
 
 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 acknow- 
 ledge the supremacy of this past-master sealed to the 
 scaffold. One of these convicts, a ticket-of-leave man, 
 named Selerier, alias 1'Auvergnat, 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 paid 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 sur- 
 veillance, 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 religion, 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
 
 156 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 examining judge, and the strange scenes to ensue, would 
 be incomprehensible and impossible without some explana- 
 tion 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 mur- 
 derers, 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 every- 
 where (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 the 
 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 doss 
 (pioneer 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).
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 157 
 
 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 cambr'iole is to l screw the shop,' to rifle a room. 
 What a feeble expression is to go to bed in comparison 
 with c 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 civilisation, and is enriched with some new expres- 
 sion 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 T Abb aye 
 de Monte-d-Regret. They looked at the angle formed by 
 the steel blade, and described its action 25 reaping 
 (faucher)-, and when it is remembered that the hulks are 
 called the meadow (le pre], philologists must admire the
 
 158 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 inventiveness of these horrible vocables, as Charles Nodier 
 would have said. 
 
 The high antiquity of this kind of slang is also note- 
 worthy. 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 c 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 symbolising the people, for it is 
 derived from two Greek words signifying All-working. 
 
 Science is changing the face of the world by con- 
 structing railroads. In Argot the train is le roulant ^7/, 
 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 150 
 
 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 murderers 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 gendar- 
 merie, 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 opposi- 
 tion, strong contrasts with civilisation. These violent, 
 eccentric, singular signs sui generis are what make the 
 harlot, the robber, the murderer, the ticket-of-leave man,so 
 easily recognisable 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 colour, 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 juries are making a
 
 160 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 c 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 succour 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 under- 
 taken 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 associa- 
 tion 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 161 
 
 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 
 4 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 
 favour of Trompe-la-Mort's superior intelligence and 
 prodigious strength. Hence his persistent vindictiveness 
 against Jacques Collin. Hence, also, certain com- 
 promises 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 skil- 
 fully chosen his allies by setting la Pouraille, Fil-de-Soie, 
 and Biffon on the sham Spaniard for la Pouraille and 
 Fil-de-Soie both belonged to the c Ten-thousand,' and 
 le Biffon was a c Great Pal.' 
 
 La Biffe, le Biffon's formidable trip, who to this day 
 evades all the pursuit of the police by her skill in dis- 
 guising 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. 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 1 62 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 Prison records and the secret papers of the law courts 
 will tell you this ; no honest woman's love, not even that 
 of a 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 
 baulking the cunning of the examiner, and incorruptibly 
 keeping the darkest secrets, which makes so many trials 
 impenetrable mysteries.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 163 
 
 In this, again, lies the strength as well as the weak- 
 ness 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 contemned 
 women, and loved no one but Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 As to le Biffon, he derived his nickname from his con- 
 nection with la Biffe. (La BifFe is scavenging, rag- 
 picking.) And these three distinguished members of 
 la haute pegre^ the aristocracy of roguery, had a reckon- 
 ing 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 
 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
 
 164 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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, recognise old 
 stagers (chevaux de retour\ that is to say, men who have 
 already eaten beans (les gourganes^ a kind of haricots pro- 
 vided 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 Con- 
 ciergerie. 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 Bon bee as one who knew the Conciergerie. 
 
 1 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 keen-
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 165 
 
 ness with the eye of a prisoner, who in a prison-yard 
 feels like a spider watching in its web. And this com- 
 parison 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 door 
 through which the warders come and go, the windows 
 of the parlour, 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 hair-cutting. Jacques Collin's 
 wig was eminently ecclesiastical, and wonderfully natural. 
 
 4 Hallo ! ' said la Pouraille to le Biffon, c that 's a bad 
 sign ! A rook ! (tanglier, a priest). How did he 
 come here ? ' 
 
 ' He is one of their " narks " ' (trues, spies) l of a new 
 make,' replied Fil-de-Soie, c some runner with the brace- 
 lets ' (marchand de facets equivalent to a Bow Street 
 runner) l 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 facets] ; when he has him in 
 charge, he is a bird of ill-omen (hirondelle de la Greve) j 
 when he escorts him to the scaffold, he is 'groom to the 
 guillotine ' (hussard de fa guillotine}. 
 
 To complete our study of the prison-yard, two more 
 of the prisoners must be hastily sketched in. Selerier, 
 alias 1' Auvergnat, alias le Pere Ralleau, called le Rouleur, 
 alias Fil-de-Soie he had thirty names, and as many pass- 
 ports will henceforth be spoken of by this name only,
 
 1 66 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 
 grey, dull, skinny eyelids. At a first glance his face 
 resembled that of a wolf, his jaws were so broad, power- 
 ful, 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 
 hunger 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 grey, 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 167 
 
 that he would be tried, sentenced, and executed within 
 four months. Indeed, Fil-de-Soie and le Biffbn, la 
 Pouraille's chums, never called him anything but le 
 Chanoine de F Abb aye de Mont e-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 
 c victims,' in newspaper phrase. What a splendid fortune 
 to leave to two pals, though the two old stagers would 
 be sent back to the gallows within a few days ! Le 
 Biffon and Fil-de-Soie would be sentenced for a term of 
 fifteen years for robbery with violence, without pre- 
 judice 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 c Ten-thousand man ' kept his secret ; he did 
 not see the use of telling it before he was sentenced. 
 He belonged to the c 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. 
 
 4 Well, my boy,' Fil-de-Soie was saying sententiously 
 as Jacques Collin appeared on the scene, c the difference 
 between Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort is ' 
 
 4 Well, old cock ?' said the lad, with the curiosity of a 
 novice.
 
 1 68 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 
 
 1 He is no priest,' said Fil-de-Soie ; c 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 169 
 
 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 practised 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, recognised 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 con- 
 fidence, the police could not dare believe that the Comte 
 Pontis de Sainte-Helene and Coignard were one and the 
 same man. 
 
 4 He is our boss ! ' (dab or master,) said Fil-de-Soie, 
 seeing in Jacques Collin's eye 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. t Yes, it is his cut, his build ; but 
 what has he done to himself? He looks quite different.' 
 
 4 1 know what he is up to ! ' cried Fil-de-Soie ; c he has 
 some plan in his head. He wants to see the boy* 
 (sa tante] c who is to be executed before long.' 
 
 The persons known in prison slang 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
 
 170 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 Lord- 
 ship there ; it is the quartier des t antes.' ' Oh,' said 
 Lord Durham, 'what are they!' 'The third sex, my 
 Lord.' 
 
 c And they are going to scrag Theodore ! ' said la 
 Pouraille, c such a pretty boy ! And such a light hand ! 
 such cheek ! What a loss to society ! ' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 1 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. c 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. 
 
 1 Do not make game of an unhappy priest sent here 
 by mistake,' Jacques Collin replied mechanically, recog- 
 nising his three comrades. 
 
 c 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. 
 
 1 Do not blow the gaff on your Boss ! ' said Jacques 
 Collin in a hollow threatening tone, not unlike the low
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 171 
 
 growl of a lion. 'The reelers are here ; let them make 
 fools of themselves. I am faking to help a pall 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 com- 
 panions. 
 
 1 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. 
 4 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. 
 
 4 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 parlour. 
 
 ' 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 recognised 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 epitomising every 
 true affection or 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
 
 172 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 the prison, their Boss had not betrayed them, as the false 
 pals said. 
 
 Their chiePs immense reputation for skill and inven- 
 tiveness 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. 
 
 1 1 have been in close confinement for four days and 
 did not know that Theodore was so near the AbbayeJ 
 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 ' 
 
 4 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. c 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 practice of such functions, 
 though hidden under an appearance of indifference. 
 
 c Oh ! Heaven ! ' cried Jacques Collin. * To be mixed 
 up with such creatures, the dregs of society felons and 
 murderers ! 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 173 
 
 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 Pou- 
 raille, '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. 
 
 4 Why, it means that he is to be scragged to-day or 
 to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Scragged ? ' asked Jacques Collin, whose air of inno- 
 cence 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 per- 
 sistently refused the offices of the chaplain.' 
 
 ' Ah ! Monsieur le Directeur, 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 fervour. ' 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,
 
 174 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 1'Abbe ? ' 
 asked the youth who had questioned Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 4 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 im- 
 mediately 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. 
 
 4 Ay,' said the young man j c they were coming to set 
 him free just when he had killed himself. What bad 
 luck!' 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 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). 
 
 c 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 175 
 
 honest man. And in prison, of all places, a man believes 
 what he hopes. 
 
 4 1 lay you anything, he will come round the big Boss 
 and save his chum ! ' said Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 c If he does that,' said le Biffon, l though I don't be- 
 lieve 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. 
 
 1 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 '11 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, rinding 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 Cor- 
 sican. 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 here be remarked that 
 murderers and thieves, all the men who people the galleys,
 
 ij6 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 ex- 
 hausting 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. 
 
 4 Are you sure you are not yet twenty ? ' said he 
 
 1 Yes, I am only nineteen and a half.'
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 177 
 
 'Well, then,' replied Bibi-Lupin, 'you may be quite 
 sure of one thing you will never see twenty.' 
 
 c 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 souffle e. 
 
 Such men, cruel only from the necessity for suppress- 
 ing 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 re- 
 turned through the parlour to his office, and went in 
 search of Bibi-Lupin, who for twenty minutes, since 
 
 VOL. II. M
 
 178 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 recognised him,' said Monsieur 
 Gault, c 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.' 
 
 4 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 play- 
 ing the part of the young gentleman imprisoned for 
 forgery. 
 
 ' Well, but he wishes to be allowed to hear the con- 
 fession of the young fellow who is sentenced to death,' 
 said the governor. 
 
 4 To be sure! That is our last chance,' cried Bibi- 
 Lupin. C 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 
 patar asses. 
 
 1 Who is warder over the man ? ' asked Bibi-Lupin. 
 
 4 Cceur 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 recognising you and throttling you ? ' said the 
 governor to Bibi-Lupin. 
 
 4 As a gendarme I shall have my sword,' replied the 
 other ; 4 and, besides, if he is Jacques Collin, he will
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 '79 
 
 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 ; c it is half-past eight. Father Sauteloup has just 
 read the reply to his appeal, and Monsieur Sanson is wait- 
 ing in the order-room.' 
 
 ' Yes, it is to-day's job, the " widows' huzzars " ' (Its 
 hus sards de la veuve^ another horrible name for the 
 functionaries of the guillotine) c 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 con- 
 clusive evidence against him.' 
 
 * He is a thorough Corsican,' said Monsieur Gault ; 
 4 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, c 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 con- 
 demned wretch is given over to himself with a com- 
 panion whom he cannot but distrust. 
 
 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
 
 180 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 of the jury, had guessed what a terrible auxiliary isolation 
 would prove to justice in seconding remorse. 
 
 Solitude is a 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 Con- 
 ciergerie, 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 formid- 
 able 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 181 
 
 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 confine- 
 ment 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 strait 
 waistcoat, 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 com- 
 pany, 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
 
 1 82 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 worry- 
 ing 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 Mont-Valerien, 
 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 183 
 
 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 neigh- 
 bourhood of Paris. It had been hastily constructed, with 
 np 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 civilised 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 win- 
 dows ; 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 Nan- 
 terre. Having no stable-boy or carter or quarrymen 
 her husband had made them do every kind of work she
 
 184 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 thou- 
 sand 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-mer- 
 chant 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 wrenched ; the locks, 
 shutters, and bolts were all untampered with. The walls 
 showed no traces that could betray the passage of the 
 criminals. The chimney-pots, 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 185 
 
 the robber had walked on the grass to leave no foot- 
 prints if he had come in 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 j 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 Nan- 
 terre, 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.
 
 1 86 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 inven- 
 tory 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 recognise 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 187 
 
 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 recognise the wine-merchant's wife, both she and 
 her husband recognised 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, and 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 Con- 
 tenson, 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, an 
 order for the execution in his hand. Monsieur de 
 Granville, who had spent the whole night at the Hotel de
 
 1 88 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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, c unless some extra- 
 ordinary 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 con- 
 demned 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. 
 
 4 Yes, Jack Ketch is waiting,' said the man with 
 perfect indifference. 
 
 Chariot is the name by which the executioner is known
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 189 
 
 to the populace and the prison world in Paris. The nick- 
 name dates from the Revolution of 1789. 
 
 The words produced a great sensation. The prisoners 
 looked at each other. 
 
 4 It is all over with him,' the warder went on ; 4 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. 
 
 4 Poor little Theodore ! ' cried le Biffbn j 4 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. 
 
 4 He is a murderer,' said Napolitas to the priest, 
 pointing to la Pouraille, and offering his own arm. 
 
 4 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 under- 
 tone 
 
 4 He is on the bottom step of the Abbaye de Mont-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.' 
 
 4 For the sake of his breeches ! ' said Fil-de-Soie with 
 a smile. 
 
 4 1 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. 
 
 4 He got in to save Madeleine,' said Fil-de-Soie, 
 4 We guessed rightly. What a boss he is ! '
 
 190 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 4 But how can he ? Jack Ketch's men are waiting. 
 He will not even see the kid,' objected le Biffbn. 
 
 1 The devil is on his side ! ' cried la Pouraille. c 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 Concier- 
 gerie 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 recognised 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. 
 
 4 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 
 burthen. 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 
 
 I 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 strait waistcoat, was sitting on the 
 edge of the wretched camp bed. Trompe-la-Mort, under 
 a transient gleam of light from the passage, at once 
 recognised Bibi-Lupin in the gendarme who stood leaning 
 on his sword. 
 
 *Io sono Gaba-Morto. Parla nostro Italiano,' said 
 Jacques Collin very rapidly. c Vengo ti salvar.' 
 
 I 1 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 inde- 
 scribable. 
 
 Theodore Calvi, a young man with a pale olive 
 complexion, light hair, and hollow, dull, blue eyes, 
 well built, hiding prodigious strength under the lym-
 
 192 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 phatic 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 recognise 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 j and speak as if you were making a confes- 
 sion.' He spoke with the utmost rapidity. c 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 
 recognised. 
 
 4 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 recognised. 
 
 * Sempre mij said Jacques, returning close to Theodore, 
 and speaking the word in his ear. 
 
 1 Sempre //,' replied Theodore, giving the counter 
 sign. 4 Yes you are the boss ' 
 
 4 Did you do the trick ? ' 
 
 1 Yes.' 
 
 ' Tell me the whole story, that I may see what can be 
 done to save you ; make haste, Jack Ketch is waiting.'
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 '93 
 
 The Corsican at once knelt down and pretended to 
 be about to confess. 
 
 Bibi-Lupin did not know what to do, for the conver- 
 sation 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. 
 
 1 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 them- 
 selves in the glass. You were a gaby.' 
 
 <But ' 
 
 4 Well, what good did she do you that curse of a 
 moll?' 
 
 c That duck of a girl no taller than a bundle of fire- 
 wood, 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 modelling 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 
 
 VOL. n. N
 
 1 94 
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 ; 4 1 was 
 all alone ' 
 
 c 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.' 
 
 1 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 inex- 
 orable roof struck the stones, which sent back the sound 
 that has no fellow in music, to the ear of the astounded 
 Bibi-Lupin. 
 
 4 It is the effect of the absolution I promised him in 
 return for his revelations,' said Jacques Collin to the 
 gendarme. c These Corsicans, Monsieur, are full of 
 faith ! But he is as innocent as the Immaculate Babe, 
 and I mean to try to save him.' 
 
 c God bless you, Monsieur PAbbe ! ' 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. 
 
 4 Indeed, sir, the young man is innocent ; he has told
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 195 
 
 me who the guilty person is ! He was ready to die for 
 a false point of honour 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. 
 
 4 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 aud 
 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 j 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 for- 
 ward 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 recognised 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 centred 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
 
 196 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 colour 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. 
 
 4 Oh, my dear Abbe ! ' exclaimed this fine lady, 
 shedding a torrent of tears at the sight of the priest, 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Ah ! Madame de San-Esteban, Madame la Marquise,' 
 cried Carlos Herrera, c what admirable devotion ! ' 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 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 worth 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. 
 
 4 What do you wish ? What can I do ? ' said Madame 
 de San-Esteban in the lingo agreed upon by this aunt 
 and nephew.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 197 
 
 This dialect consisted in adding terminations in ar or 
 in 0r, in al or in / to every word, whether French or 
 slang, so as to disguise it by lengthening it. It was a 
 diplomatic cypher adapted to speech. 
 
 4 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 
 evangelical unction. 
 
 * Addt9, Marchesaj said he aloud. * And,' he added in 
 their private language, c 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. 
 
 4 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, c this is to give your poor prisoners some 
 comforts.' 
 
 c 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 c Ahems* and 
 who took his place on guard in the condemned cell.
 
 198 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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, c 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 ! ' 
 
 c 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. 
 
 1 What have you on your mind ? ' said he to la 
 Pouraille. 
 
 1 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 199 
 
 job was well done ; but you seem to me to have blun- 
 dered afterwards.' 
 
 4 In what way ? ' 
 
 4 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 ! ' 
 
 4 Oh yes, you have such notions because you are the 
 boss. Your nut is always square on your shoulders 
 but I ' 
 
 4 In short, a word of good advice in your position is 
 like broth to a dead man,' said Jacques Collin, with a 
 serpent-like gaze at his old pal. 
 
 4 True enough ! ' said la Pouraille, looking dubious. 
 4 But give me the broth, all the same. If it does not 
 suit my stomach, I can warm my feet in it ' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 1 have heard all that,' said la Pouraille lament- 
 ably. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 But I am rich now,' said la Pouraille, with a sim- 
 plicity which showed how convinced a thief is of his 
 natural right to steal. 4 What are they afraid of?'
 
 2OO Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 4 We have no time for philosophising,' said Jacques 
 Collin. c To come back to you ' 
 
 4 What do you want to do with me ? ' said la Pouraille, 
 interrupting his boss. 
 
 1 You shall see. A dead dog is still worth something.' 
 
 4 To other people,' said la Pouraille. 
 
 4 I take you into my game ! ' said Jacques Collin. 
 
 4 Well, that is something,' said the murderer. ' What 
 next ? ' 
 
 4 1 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 argu- 
 ment. 
 
 4 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. 4 But 
 we have no time to play. Consider,' he went on in la 
 Pouraille's ear, c 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's neck. I am certain I shall save Madeleine.' 
 
 4 If you save Madeleine, my good boss, you can just 
 as easily ' 
 
 4 Don't waste your spittle,' said Jacques Collin shortly. 
 4 Make your will.' 
 
 4 Well, then I want to leave the money to la Gonore,' 
 replied la Pouraille piteously. 
 
 4 What ! Are you living with Moses' widow the
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 201 
 
 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 in his army. 
 
 4 That's the woman,' said la Pouraille, much flattered. 
 
 4 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 j 
 you should have set up some respectable little shop and 
 lived quietly. And what does she do ? ' 
 
 4 She is settled in the Rue Sainte-Barbe, managing a 
 house ' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Yes, but don't give her anything till I am done for.' 
 
 4 It is a sacred trust,' said Jacques Collin very seriously. 
 
 4 And nothing to the pals ? ' 
 
 4 Nothing ! They blowed the gaff for me,' answered 
 la Pouraille vindictively. 
 
 4 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. 4 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 satis- 
 faction. 
 
 4 At this moment,' the boss replied to this expressive 
 look, 4 1 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.' 
 
 4 If I see that you really can put off" the engagement 
 for that poor little Theodore, I will do anything you 
 choose there ! '
 
 2O2 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 ' 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 ' 
 
 4 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 ' 
 
 1 Arrache-Laine ? ' cried Jacques Collin, giving Ruf- 
 fard 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. 
 
 1 What ? ' 
 
 1 Well,' replied the master, c 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 made 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 203 
 
 three feet underground behind some wine-bottles. And 
 I spread some stones and mortar over them.' 
 
 4 Good,' said Jacques Collin. 4 And the others ? ' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 The villain ! The reelers teach a thief what 's what,' 
 said Jacques. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Now, do you know what I want you to do ? ' said 
 Jacques Collin, with a magnetising gaze at la Pouraille. 
 
 4 What ? ' 
 
 4 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's 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 ! ' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Good for you, boss ! ' cried la Pouraille in great glee. 
 
 4 And then,' said Jacques Collin, 4 besides casting all 
 the murders on RufFard Bibi-Lupin will be finely sold. 
 I have him this time.' 
 
 La Pouraille was speechless at this suggestion ; his 
 eyes grew round, and he stood like an image.
 
 204 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 He had been three months in custody, and was com- 
 mitted 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 sem- 
 blance of a hope almost stupefied his brain. 
 
 4 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. c 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 the money 
 in twenty-four hours,' said Jacques Collin. c 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. 
 
 c With seven hundred thousand francs you can get a 
 good many drinks,' said Jacques Collin, making his pal 
 quite drunk with hope. 
 
 4 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 ! ' 
 
 4 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 205 
 
 * 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.' 
 
 1 But how, and what for ? ' 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 1 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 L argues ' (the women's La Force, i.e. les 
 Madelonnettes or Saint-Lazare) 4 for a stretch, allowing 
 that time for you to be sentenced and sent there, to 
 arrive and to escape ? ' 
 
 4 Even you cannot work such a miracle. She took no 
 part in the job,' replied la Biffe's partner. 
 
 4 Oh, my good Biffon,' said la Pouraille, * our boss is 
 more powerful than God A'mighty.' 
 
 1 What is your password for her ? ' asked Jacques 
 Collin, with the assurance of a master to whom nothing 
 can be refused. 
 
 4 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 
 Tond'if: 
 
 4 She will be involved in the sentence on la Pouraille, 
 and let off with a year in quod for snitchingj said 
 Jacques Collin, looking at la Pouraille. 
 
 La Pouraille understood his boss's scheme, and by a
 
 206 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 
 
 1 Farewell, my children. You will presently hear 
 that I have saved my boy from Jack Ketch,' said 
 Trompe-la-Mort. c Yes, Jack Ketch and his hairdresser 
 were waiting in the office to get Madeleine ready. 
 There,' he added, c 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 the savage 
 power which enabled him to hold his own against 
 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 marvel- 
 lous 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 entangle- 
 ments, that it constantly outdoes the most inventive
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 207 
 
 imagination. The audacity of facts, by sheer impro- 
 bability 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 not this 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 havei seen, they fill a most im- 
 portant 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 favourable 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
 
 208 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 mediatory potentates who are but an obstacle to be re- 
 moved, 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 curio- 
 sity 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 favourites 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 : 
 
 4 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 ' 
 
 1 How is that, my dear ? ' replied the Marquise, looking 
 at Madame Camusot in the dim light that fell through 
 the half-open door. c You are vastly sweet this morning 
 in that little bonnet. Where do you get that shape ? ' 
 
 4 You are very kind, Madame. Well, you know that 
 Camusot's way of examining Lucien de Rubempre drove
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 209 
 
 the young man to despair, and he hanged himself in 
 prison.' 
 
 4 Oh, what will become of Madame de Serizy ? ' cried 
 the Marquise, affecting ignorance, that she might hear 
 the whole story once more. 
 
 4 Alas! they say she is quite mad,' said Amelie. 'If 
 you could only 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.' 
 4 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, c I 
 will protect you ; I never forget either my foes or my 
 friends.' 
 
 She rang ; the maid drew open the curtains, and day- 
 light 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 
 
 VOL. II. O
 
 2io Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 pro- 
 nouncing 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 
 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 Camu- 
 sot, 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 compre- 
 hensible : they both adored that little fool Lucien at 
 about the same time, and nothing so effectually binds or 
 severs two women as worshipping at the same altar. 
 And our dear friend spent two hours yesterday in Leon- 
 tine'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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 211 
 
 wretch something, if only for form's sake, and the young 
 fellow did not understand, and confessed things ' 
 
 4 He was an impertinent fool ! ' said Madame d'Espard 
 in a hard tone. 
 
 The judge's wife kept silence on hearing this sen- 
 tence. 
 
 * 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 husband's presence 
 immediately, if that is of any use.' 
 
 1 Oh! Madame ' 
 
 'Listen,' said the Marquise. C I promise you the 
 ribbon of the Legion of Honour 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 bed- 
 room 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
 
 212 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 lover painted as Leontine depicted him, with the vivid- 
 ness 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. 
 
 4 And he died in a squalid prison ! ' cried she to her- 
 self, 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, 4 1 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 had 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 honour. Compose your- 
 self and get dressed, we must go to the Duchesse de 
 Grandlieu ; happily for you, you are not the only person 
 compromised.' 
 
 1 But at the Palais, yesterday, Leontine burnt, I am 
 told, all the letters found at poor Lucien's.' 
 
 4 But, Madame, behind Lucien there was Jacques 
 Collin ! ' cried the magistrate's wife. c You always for- 
 get that horrible companionship which, beyond question,
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 213 
 
 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 ' 
 
 4 His friend,' the Duchess hastily put in. * You are 
 right, my child. We must hold council at the Grand- 
 lieus'. 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 re-agents 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 ladies'-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 remem- 
 bered 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 trim- 
 ming 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
 
 214 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 boots, a shawl, and a bonnet. Amelia 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. 
 
 4 Madame has not her match ! ' cried the maid. 
 
 * There, there, Josette, hold your tongue,' replied the 
 Duchess. c Have you a carriage ? ' she went on, to 
 Madame Camusot. c 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 . . .' 
 
 1 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 Leon- 
 tine 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, c Dear God, save me this time, and 
 never again ! " 
 
 4 These two days will certainly have shortened my 
 life. What fools we are ever to write ! But love 
 prompts us j we receive pages that fire the heart through
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 215 
 
 the eyes, and everything is in a blaze ! Prudence deserts 
 us we reply ' 
 
 * But why reply when you can act ? ' said Madame 
 Camusot. 
 
 c 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 Mau- 
 frigneuse. c I shall do just like that odious Madame 
 d'Espard.' 
 
 4 And what does she do ? ' asked the judge's wife, very 
 curious. 
 
 * She has written a thousand love-notes ' 
 
 c So many ! ' exclaimed Amelie, interrupting the 
 Duchess. 
 
 c Well, my dear, and not a word that could com- 
 promise her is to be found in any one of them.' 
 
 4 You would be incapable of maintaining such cold- 
 ness, such caution,' said Madame Camusot. c You are 
 a woman ; you are one of those angels who cannot stand 
 out against the devil ' 
 
 1 1 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 ' 
 
 4 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 burnt 
 the originals.' 
 
 * Oh, Madame, as a reward allow me to read them.' 
 
 c Perhaps, child,' said the Duchess. ' And then you 
 will see that he did not write such letters as those to 
 Leontine.'
 
 216 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 Mau- 
 frigneuse. 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 in- 
 eptitude, as yet unrevealed, but to her well known. To 
 win success for a second-rate man ! This 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 stronghold which power cannot touch. The 
 knighting of Caligula's horse, an imperial farce, has been, 
 and always will be, a favourite 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 217 
 
 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. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 c And do not be gone more than a quarter of an hour 
 in all.' 
 
 Another footman, the Duchess's servant, came in as 
 soon as the other was gone. 
 
 4 Go from me to the Due 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 com- 
 munication. 
 
 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. 
 
 4 Are you quite sure, Madame, of the existence of the
 
 2i 8 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 letters you say were written by Mademoiselle Clotilde 
 de Grandlieu to this young man ? ' said the Due de 
 Grandlieu. 
 
 And he cast a look at Madame Camusot as a sailor 
 casts a sounding line. 
 
 4 I have not seen them, but there is reason to fear it,' 
 replied Madame Camusot, quaking. 
 
 4 My daughter can have written nothing we would not 
 own to ! ' said the Duchess. 
 
 4 Poor Duchess ! ' thought Diane, with a glance at the 
 Duke that terrified him. 
 
 4 What do you think, my dear little Diane ? ' said the 
 Duke in a whisper, as he led her away into a recess. 
 
 4 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 Fon- 
 tainebleau. 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 Mau- 
 frigneuse, affected piety to win the proud lady's favour. 
 
 4 We are at the mercy of a dreadful escaped convict ! ' 
 said the Duke, with a peculiar shrug. 4 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. 
 
 4 That is past and over,' said the Duchesse de Mau- 
 frigneuse. 4 Now we must think of saving that poor 
 Madame de Serizy, Clotilde, and me ' 
 
 4 We can but wait for Henri; I have sent to him.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 219 
 
 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 Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, 
 with the enchanting grace which 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. 
 
 4 On my own account,' said she, * to say nothing of 
 her having been up before daybreak to save us all, I ask 
 you for more than a remembrance for my little Madame 
 Camusot. In the first place, she has already done me 
 such 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.' 
 
 4 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 
 
 4 Supposing we were to send Monsieur de Granville 
 flying- 
 It was high time for Madame Camusot to vanish. The 
 Due de Chaulieu, one of the King's prime favourites, 
 met the bourgeoise on the outer steps. 
 
 4 Henri,' said the Due de Grandlieu when he heard his 
 friend announced, 4 make haste, I beg of you, to get to the 
 Chateau, try to see the King the business is this ; ' and
 
 22O Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 he led the Duke into the window-recess, where he had 
 been talking to the airy and charming Diane. 
 
 Now and then the Due de Chaulieu glanced in the 
 direction of the flighty Duchess, who, while talking to 
 the pious Duchess and submitting to be lectured, answered 
 the Due de Chaulieu's expressive looks. 
 
 c My dear child,' said the Due de Grandlieu to her at 
 last, the aside being ended, ' do be good ! Come, now,' 
 and he took Diane's hands, c 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 ' 
 
 c An old soldier who has been under fire,' said Diane 
 with a pout. 
 
 This grimace and the Duchess's 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. 
 
 4 Not yet,' said the Due 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 Due de Grandlieu. 
 
 c Forbidden fruit ! ' said Diane, smiling. c Oh ! how I 
 wish I were the Government, for I have none of that 
 fruit left I have eaten it all.' 
 
 c 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 Due de Grandlieu's 
 study, whither came the gentleman from the Rue 
 Honore-Chevalier no less a man than the chief of the
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 221 
 
 King's private police, the obscure but puissant 
 Corentin. 
 
 * Go on,' said the Due de Grandlieu ; c go first, Mon- 
 sieur de Saint-Denis.' 
 
 Corentin, surprised that the Duke should have remem- 
 bered him, went forward after bowing low to the two 
 noblemen. 
 
 ' Always about the same individual, or about his con- 
 cerns, my dear sir,' said the Due de Grandlieu. 
 
 ' But he is dead,' said Corentin. 
 
 ' He has left a partner,' said the Due de Chaulieu, * a 
 very tough customer.' 
 
 4 The convict Jacques Collin,' replied Corentin. 
 
 * Will you speak, Ferdinand ?' said the Due de Chaulieu 
 to his friend. 
 
 * That wretch is an object of fear,' said the Due de 
 Grandlieu, c 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 1 am told that Made- 
 moiselle 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, medi- 
 tating. 
 
 1 Money ! The man has more than we have,' said he. 
 c Esther Gobseck served him as a bait to extract nearly 
 two million francs from that well of gold called Nucin- 
 gen. Gentlemen, get me full legal powers, and I will 
 rid you of the fellow.' 
 
 * And the letters ? ' asked the Due de Grandlieu.
 
 222 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 4 Listen to me, gentlemen,' said Corentin, standing up, 
 his weasel-face betraying his excitement. 
 
 He thrust his hands into the pockets of his black doe- 
 skin 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 great 
 men can be for immediate action in certain cases. He 
 walked up and down the room quite at his ease, harangu- 
 ing 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 possi- 
 bility.' 
 
 'But he was put into the secret cells,' said the Due de 
 Grandlieu, 'the moment he was taken into custody at 
 that woman's house.' 
 
 1 Is there such a thing as a secret cell for such a fellow 
 as he is ? ' said Corentin. c He is a match for for me ! ' 
 
 1 What is to be done ? ' said the Dukes to each other by 
 a glance. 
 
 4 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 Due de Grandlieu. 
 c 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, 
 now, we must make Jacques Collin speak. What a 
 duel ! He will beat me. The better plan would be to 
 purchase these letters by exchange for another docu-
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 223 
 
 ment 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 unrivalled 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.' 
 
 4 Monsieur,' said the Due de Chaulieu, c 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 Due de 
 Chaulieu. c 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 Grand- 
 lieu 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.
 
 224 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 hypocrisy 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 as much as to say, 'Prepare to die ; your last 
 hour has come.' 
 
 c I will return later, Monsieur le Comte,' said Camusot. 
 4 Though the business is pressing ' 
 
 'No, stay,' replied the public prosecutor with dignity.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 225 
 
 * 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 per- 
 plexities 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 him- 
 self 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 j he, the crime to be avenged embody the same 
 
 VOL. II. P
 
 226 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 
 
 c You know who the condemned man is ? ' Monsieur 
 de Granville went on. C 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. 
 
 4 In Paris everything is so terribly important ; the 
 most trivial incidents in the law courts have political 
 consequences. 
 
 4 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 de- 
 partments treated with leniency, while in others a 
 common murder, so to speak, is punished with death. 1 
 
 1 There are in penal servitude twenty-three parricides who have been 
 allowed the benefit of extenuating circumstances.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 227 
 
 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 un- 
 happy 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 emphasised 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 mis- 
 understood 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.'
 
 228 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 1 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.' 
 
 1 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 recognised 
 
 * Then we are lost ! ' cried Monsieur de Granville. 
 
 4 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 favourite 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. 
 
 1 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 satisfac- 
 tion in a way that no examining judge could misunder- 
 stand. 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 229 
 
 the foes of the government and the aristocracy ! My 
 wife, to whom the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse has shown 
 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. 
 
 4 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 Jacqueline Collin. This 
 wretched woman carries on a trade as 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.' 
 
 4 But,' Camusot went on, 4 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. 
 
 4 Three noble families involved ! ' he exclaimed. c We
 
 230 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 4 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. 
 
 4 Monsieur le Comte,' said Monsieur Gault, 4 the 
 prisoner calling himself Carlos Herrera wishes to speak 
 with you.' 
 
 4 Has he had communication with anybody ? ' asked 
 Monsieur de Granville. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 1 intend,' said he, 4 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. 
 
 4 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 231 
 
 him by one arm, and never let him go till they reach 
 this door. 
 
 'Are you quite sure, Monsieur Gault, that this 
 dangerous foreigner has spoken to no one but the 
 prisoners ? ' 
 
 1 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 ? ' 
 
 4 She wore a black veil.' 
 
 1 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 ? '
 
 232 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 4 Not five minutes ; but we none of us understood 
 what they said ; they spoke Spanish no doubt.' 
 
 1 Tell us everything, Monsieur,' the public prosecutor 
 insisted. 4 I repeat, the very smallest detail is to us of 
 the first importance. Let this be a caution to you.' 
 
 4 She was crying, Monsieur.' 
 
 * Really weeping ? ' 
 
 4 That we could not see, she hid her face in her hand- 
 kerchief. She left three hundred francs in gold for the 
 prisoners.' 
 
 4 That was not she ! ' said Camusot. 
 
 4 Bibi-Lupin at once said, "She is a thief!"' said 
 Monsieur Gault. 
 
 4 He knows the tribe,' said Monsieur de Granville. 
 4 Get out your warrant,' he added, turning to Camusot, 
 4 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 down into a man's mind.' 
 
 1 Especially such a public prosecutor as you are,' said 
 Camusot insidiously. 
 
 1 There will be two of us,' replied Monsieur de 
 Granville politely. 
 
 And he became discursive once more. 
 
 1 There ought to be created, for every prison parlour, 
 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 
 an ear on the watch in a department that needs closer 
 supervision than it gets. Monsieur Gault could tell us 
 nothing positive.' 
 
 4 He has so much to do,' said Camusot. 4 Still, be- 
 tween these secret cells and us there lies a gap which
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 233 
 
 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 un- 
 flagging, whereas the prisoner is always alive to his 
 own affairs. 
 
 4 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 
 mouse-trap ; 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. c I am ready to listen.' 
 
 * Monsieur le Comte, I am Jacques Collin. I 
 surrender ! ' 
 
 Camusot started ; the public prosecutor was im- 
 movable. 
 
 4 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.
 
 2 3 4 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 I 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 demeanour 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 1 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 magis- 
 trate, with a look of supreme contempt. 
 
 ' Think myself formidable ? ' retorted the convict. 
 4 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. 
 
 1 Look ! ' said he to Monsieur de Granville, pointing to 
 one of them.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 235 
 
 ^ Call back Monsieur Gault ! ' cried the Comte de 
 Granville, as he read the name of Madame de Maufri- 
 gneuse'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. 
 
 4 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 ? ' 
 
 4 About sixty.' 
 
 4 This concerns me, gentlemen ? ' said Jacques Collin. 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Monsieur 1' Abbe has lost his Spanish accent,' observed 
 Monsieur Gault ; 4 he does not speak broken French.' 
 
 4 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, 4 Beware of that man, Monsieur le Comte j 
 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 
 demeanour covered the cold but terrible nervous irrita- 
 tion 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. 
 
 4 Leave us,' said the Count gravely to the prison 
 governor and the judge. 
 
 4 You did wisely to send away Lucien's murderer ! ' 
 said Jacques Collin, without caring whether Camusot
 
 23 6 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 colourless, or 
 muscles so set. 
 
 1 And what good would that murder have done you ? ' 
 he quietly asked. 
 
 4 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 ! 
 
 c 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 has 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 237 
 
 c 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.) 
 
 4 1 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 
 
 c 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. 
 
 4 1 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
 
 238 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 
 beloved. This despair, the lot of many men to whom 
 women can only give esteem and friendship, was perhaps 
 the unknown bond on which the strong intimacy was 
 based that united the Comtes de Bauvan, de Granville, 
 and de Serizy j 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 in- 
 difference to his fate. 
 
 ' Lucien made a will by which he leaves you three 
 hundred thousand francs.' 
 
 4 Poor, poor chap ! poor boy ! ' cried Jacques Collin. 
 c 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 ! 
 
 4 If you really care for nothing,' said Monsieur de 
 Granville, * what did you want to say to me ? ' 
 
 1 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 him- 
 self.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 * 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 ! 
 
 4 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 traveller is 
 worth ever so little more than the charge of their 
 musket, they shoot him dead. 
 
 4 1 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 the 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. 
 
 1 If Calvi had told you who the woman was from whom 
 he obtained the stolen goods, you would not have found 
 the real murderer j 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 
 
 honour ; convicts and thieves have theirs ! 
 
 1 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
 
 240 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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.' 
 
 4 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 j it 
 will be enough.' 
 
 Monsieur Granville drew himself up with offended 
 pride. 
 
 4 1 hold in my hand the honour of three families, and 
 you only the lives of three convicts in yours,' said 
 Jacques Collin. c I have the stronger hand.' 
 
 c But you may be sent back to the dark cells : then, 
 what will you do ? ' said the public prosecutor. 
 
 4 Oh ! we are to play the game out then ! ' said 
 Jacques Collin. C 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. 
 
 4 And is that all you ask ? ' said the magistrate. 
 
 C I will speak for myself now,' said Jacques. 'The 
 honour of the Grandlieu family is to pay for the com- 
 mutation 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 241 
 
 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 j 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 ! 
 
 1 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 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.' Mon- 
 sieur 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 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 242 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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.' 
 
 4 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. 
 
 1 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 j but this advantage must be unconfessed, secret and
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 243 
 
 hidden, while the magistrate towered above him majes- 
 tically 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-coloured 
 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 calf-skin 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 ' 
 
 1 Who is he ? ' asked Monsieur de Granville, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Do me the kindness,' replied the public prosecutor, 
 1 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. 
 4 On the very eve of a great undertaking the King is 
 most anxious that the peers and the great families should
 
 244 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 Chan- 
 cellor ' 
 
 c I have no ambition,' replied the magistrate. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx laughed, and went away. 
 
 c 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. 
 
 1 So you are not ambitious ! ' said des Lupeaulx, with 
 a keen look at Monsieur de Granville. c Come, you 
 have two children, you would like at least to be made 
 peer of France.' 
 
 1 If you have the letters, Monsieur le Procureur 
 General, my intervention is unnecessary,' said Cor- 
 entin, finding himself alone with Monsieur de Granville, 
 who looked at him with very natural curiosity. 
 
 4 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 patronising air. 
 
 4 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 245 
 
 sent notes and a man. That convict holds the secrets 
 of two kings.' 
 
 4 He is a man of mettle and temper. We have only 
 two courses open to us,' said the public prosecutor. 
 4 We must secure his fidelity, or get him out of the 
 way.' 
 
 'The same idea has struck us both, and that is a 
 great honour for me,' said Corentin. 4 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. 
 
 4 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, 4 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 Mar- 
 chande leading to the Rue de la Barillerie. 4 Where 
 is Paccard ? ' 
 
 4 He is waiting for me at La Rousse's, walking up and 
 down the flower market.' 
 
 4 And Prudence ? ' 
 
 4 Also at her house, as my god-daughter.' 
 
 4 Let us go there.' 
 
 4 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 CoJlin had faithfully 
 handed over twenty thousand francs and odd to this
 
 246 Vautrm's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 
 
 4 1 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. l 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 j be an honest woman if you can. In re- 
 turn for peace and quiet, I only ask you to serve me now 
 and then, me, and any one I may send to 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. 
 
 4 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.'
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 247 
 
 And thus the bargain was struck, a diabolical com- 
 pact like that which had for so long bound Prudence 
 Servien to Jacques Collin, and which the man never 
 failed to tighten j 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 pur- 
 chased 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. 
 
 4 We want to speak to you on business, Madame,' said 
 Jacques Collin. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Send for a hackney coach, my dear,' said Jacqueline 
 Collin, 4 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'lvry. 
 
 Prudence and Paccard, quaking in presence of the boss, 
 felt like guilty souls in the presence of God. 
 
 4 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 y when they were
 
 248 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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.' 
 
 4 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 
 fell. 
 
 c 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 ringers 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 coloured 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, bring-
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 249 
 
 ing in fifteen to twenty thousand francs a year. Sainte- 
 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.'
 
 250 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 'And in six years we shall be millionaires,' cried 
 Paccar d. 
 
 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. 
 
 c 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. 
 
 c In the cellar ? ' asked Prudence. 
 
 4 Silence ! ' cried Jacqueline. 
 
 c Yes, but to get the business transferred, we must 
 have the consent of the police authorities,' Paccard 
 objected. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 c You, child,' said he to Prudence Servien, c 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 251 
 
 into your mis'ess's room, and hide the packet she had made 
 
 of the money in the mattress ' 
 
 'And why not by the door ? ' asked Prudence Servien. 
 c 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.' 
 
 4 Good for the boss ! ' cried Paccard. 4 That is really 
 kind ! ' 
 
 4 Stop, coachman ! ' said Jacques Collin's powerful 
 voice. 
 
 The coach was close to the stand by the Jardin des 
 Plantes. 
 
 ' Be off, young 'uns,' said Jacques Collins, 4 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 every- 
 thing,' he whispered to his aunt. 4 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. 
 
 4 What a good fellow the boss is ! ' said Paccard. 
 4 He would be the king of men if he were not so rough 
 on women.' 
 
 4 Oh yes ! He is a sweet creature,' said Paccard. 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 If only he does not drag us into some dirty job, and get 
 us packed off to the hulks yet,' said the wily Prudence. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Now, my jewel,' said Jacques Collin to his aunt, 
 4 you must take la Gonore in hand ; she must be hum-
 
 25 1 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 bugged. 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.' 
 
 c 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.' 
 
 Isee what you are at,' said Jacqueline ; c you mean to 
 step into Bibi-Lupin's shoes. That boy's death has 
 turned your brain.' 
 
 c 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.'
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 253 
 
 1 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 safely 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. 
 1 How much have we left in the cash-box ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Nothing,' said his aunt, dismayed by the man's tone 
 and manner. C 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 not been 
 washed this twelve months past. That boy had all the 
 pals' blunt, our savings, and all old Nourrisson's.' 
 
 c Making ? ' 
 
 ' Five hundred and sixty thousand.' 
 
 * We have a hundred and fifty thousand which Pac- 
 card 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 ' 
 
 c 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.' 
 
 4 Oh ! it was he.' 
 
 4 Don't talk. Time is precious. He wanted to give 
 the proceeds to a little Corsican sparrow named Ginetta.
 
 254 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 wich 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. 
 
 i The four hundred and fifty thousand francs are all 
 safe, one-third in la Gonore's cellar la Pouraille's share j 
 the second third in la Gonore's bedroom, which is Ruf- 
 fard'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 hand on four hundred thou- 
 sand francs stolen from the Crottats, and on the guilty 
 parties. Then I shall seem to have shown up the Nan- 
 terre 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. 
 
 1 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 255 
 
 to the Galerie Marchande, where, under the gloomy 
 peristyle of the court-house, 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 main- 
 stays of the building, like an enormous pillar, and in this 
 tower is a little door. This door opens on a spiral stair- 
 case 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 depart- 
 ment have access by this backway. 
 
 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 l Safety ' had come from the Con- 
 ciergerie, and was also going up to Monsieur de 
 Granville. It is easy to imagine Bibi-Lupin's surprise 
 when he recognised, in front of him, the gown of Carlos 
 Herrera, which he had so thoroughly studied that morn- 
 ing ; 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,
 
 256 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 
 
 1 Ah, ha ! ' replied Jacques Collin ironically. 
 
 It flashed through his mind that Monsieur de Gran- 
 ville had sent some one to watch him, and, strange to 
 say, it pained him to think the magistrate less magnani- 
 mous 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 to 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 has not taken Bibi-Lupin into his confidence, and in 
 that case I must get the matter explained,' thought he. 
 4 Do you mean to arrest me ? ' he asked his enemy. 
 1 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 do you want to take me ? ' 
 
 ' To Monsieur Camusot.' 
 
 c Come along to Monsieur Camusot,' replied Jacques 
 Collin. ' Why should we not go to the public prose- 
 cutor's court ? It is nearer,' he added. 
 
 Bibi-Lupin, who knew that he was out of favour with 
 the upper ranks of judicial authorities, and suspected of 
 having made a fortune at the expense of criminals and
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 257 
 
 their victims, was not unwilling to show himself in 
 Court with so notable a capture. 
 
 4 All right, we will go there,' said he. 4 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. 
 
 4 Well, now, since you are feeling so good,' said he, 
 * tell me how you got out of the Conciergerie ? ' 
 
 c By the way you came ; down the turret stairs.' 
 
 4 Then have you taught the gendarmes some new 
 trick ? ' 
 
 c No, Monsieur de Granville let me out on parole.' 
 
 * You are gammoning me ? ' 
 
 4 You will see. Perhaps it will be your turn to wear 
 the bracelets.' 
 
 Just then Corentin was saying to Monsieur de 
 Granville 
 
 c 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.' 
 
 c 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. 
 
 4 Monsieur le Comte,' said he, c I have good news for 
 you. Jacques Collin, who had escaped, has been 
 recaptured.' 
 
 1 And this,' said Jacques Collin, addressing Monsieur 
 de Granville, c is the way you keep your word ! Ask 
 your double-faced agent where he took me.' 
 
 1 Where ? ' said the public prosecutor. 
 
 4 Close to the Court, in the vaulted passage,' said Bibi- 
 Lupin. 
 
 VOL. II. R
 
 258 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 '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. 
 
 ' 1 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 reflec- 
 tion 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 atten- 
 tion 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. 
 
 4 We are not alone ! ' said Jacques Collin to Monsieur 
 de Granville. 
 
 4 No,' said the magistrate drily. 
 
 'And this gentleman is one of my oldest acquaint- 
 ances, I believe,' replied the convict. 
 
 He went forward, recognising 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 259 
 
 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 formid- 
 able. He put on a polite manner and the tone of 
 obsequious civility which he had practised since assum- 
 ing 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 behaviour 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 recognised, Corentin drew 
 himself up like a snake when you tread on its tail. 
 
 * Yes, it is I, my dear Abbe Carlos Herrera.' 
 
 4 And are you here,' said Trompe-la-Mort, * to inter- 
 fere 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. 
 
 c And while you are studying them, I will, with your 
 permission, have a little talk with this gentleman.' 
 
 ' You do me great honour,' said Corentin, who could 
 not help giving a little shiver. 
 
 4 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.'
 
 2.60 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 c 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 honour, a magnificent man.' 
 
 4 No, no, I bow to your superiority,' replied Corentin, 
 assuming the air of a professional joker, as if he said, c If 
 you mean humbug, by all means humbug ! I have every- 
 thing at my command, while you are single-handed, so 
 to speak.' 
 
 < Oh ! Oh ! ' said Jacques Collin. 
 
 1 And you were very near winning the day ! ' said 
 Corentin, noticing the exclamation. c 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 Due 
 d'Otranto ; I have worked for Louis xvm. 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's 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. c Such praise from you will turn my head ' 
 
 ' It is deserved. Why, you took in Peyrade ; he 
 believed you to be a peace officer he ! I tell you what, 
 if you had not had that fool of a boy to take care of, you 
 would have thrashed us.' 
 
 4 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 261 
 
 by daylight, and at all hours, no one but you and your 
 
 men 
 
 4 Come, now,' said Corentin, c 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 
 V 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. c A nice situation indeed ! out of the fire 
 into the frying-pan ! ' 
 
 c 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 polite- 
 ness by very great people. Come, my dear Jacques 
 Collin, do you say yes ? ' 
 
 I Have you orders to act in this matter ? ' said the 
 convict. 
 
 I 1 have a free hand,' replied Corentin, delighted at 
 his own happy idea. 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Well,' said Corentin, * you have some esteem for the 
 public prosecutor ? '
 
 262 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 4 Yes,' said Jacques Collin, bowing respectfully, c 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, watch- 
 ing the convict. 
 
 1 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 ? ' 
 
 c 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 sur- 
 render of those three packets of letters? ' said Jacques Collin. 
 
 4 1 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, c 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 263 
 
 c Good-bye, my dear fellow,' said Jacques Collin in a 
 low voice, and in Corentin's ear : c 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 ! 
 
 4 You call yourself the State, as footmen call them- 
 selves by their masters' names. For my part, I will call 
 myself Justice. We shall often meet; let us treat eacl 
 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, l l think it will be to our interest on 
 both sides to remain chums.' 
 
 1 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 agree- 
 ment.' 
 
 '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 
 honour ' 
 
 'Till our next meeting, very soon,' said Jacques 
 Collin. 
 
 On turning round, Trompe-la-Mort saw the public
 
 264 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 prosecutor sitting at his table, his head resting on his 
 hands. 
 
 4 Do you mean that you can save the Comtesse de 
 Serizy from going mad ? ' asked Monsieur de Granville. 
 
 4 In five minutes,' said Jacques Collin. 
 
 c And you can give me all those ladies' letters ? ' 
 
 ' Have you read the three ? ' 
 
 Yes,' said the magistrate vehemently, c 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. 
 
 c Excuse me, Justice must first take its course. 
 Monsieur Camusot has instructions to seize your aunt.' 
 
 c He will never find her,' said Jacques Collin. 
 
 { Search is to be made at the Temple, in the house 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, c an end to all this ! 
 I want to know your recipe for curing the Countess.' 
 
 * Monsieur le Comte,' said the convict very gravely, 
 C 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 quarrelling. By dint of escaping and being recap- 
 tured 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 265 
 
 1 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 ; 
 4 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. 
 
 4 You will not believe me capable of religious senti- 
 mentality 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 quatorze in your hand and the lead the 
 candle tumbles over and the cards are burnt, 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 ! 
 
 1 And who is the first man to deal a blow ? A man
 
 266 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 legalised 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. 
 
 c You arrange matters so that he is plainly ticketed, 
 recognised, 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 inevit- 
 ably dragged into his old ways, which lead to the scaffold.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 267 
 
 ' 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 which 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, Jus- 
 tice 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. 
 
 1 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
 
 268 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 candour, 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, l 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 j 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 269 
 
 ' Decide.' 
 
 And Jacques Collin stood in an attitude of diffident 
 submission. 
 
 1 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
 
 270 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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'ceil, in thieves' slang, 
 a quarter of an eye, because there are four of them to 
 each district, besides these, there are two commis- 
 sioners attached equally to the police and to the legal 
 authorities, whose duty it is to undertake delicate 
 negotiations, and not unfrequcntly 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 favour of 
 Paris, that some men of that stamp are always forth- 
 coming. 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
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 271 
 
 a substitute for this business, a man he could trust, and 
 Monsieur Garnery was one of the commissioners in the 
 Delegates' office. 
 
 c Monsieur,' said Jacques Collin, * I have already proved 
 to you that I have a sense of honour. 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 Concier- 
 gerie, give me leave to follow the boy's body to Pere- 
 Lachaise. I will come back and surrender myself 
 prisoner.' 
 
 1 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 as 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 dis- 
 trustful ; she no doubt hid the bank-notes in her bed. 
 Let the bedstead be carefully examined and taken to 
 pieces, the mattresses unsewn the money will be found.' 
 
 4 You are sure of that ? ' 
 
 ' I am quite 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
 
 272 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 ought to be, and shall manage to succeed in all the 
 business that is placed in my hands.' 
 
 4 1 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.' 
 
 4 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 hear- 
 ing 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. 
 
 c Go,' said he ; * I can depend on you.' 
 
 Jacques Collin bowed humbly, with the submissive- 
 ness 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 273 
 
 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. 
 
 c But if you were robbed ' 
 
 Rastignac hurried on to get away from Jacques 
 Collin. 
 
 c 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. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 274 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 Just then two men of the corps of Public Safety came 
 up ; they recognised Jacques Collin, lifted him up, and 
 carried him to a hackney coach. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 c Come, what did he say when he gave you your 
 orders ? ' 
 
 c 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 ? ' 
 
 4 Perhaps.' 
 
 c That is it,' said Jacques Collin ; * he wants my assist- 
 ance.' 
 
 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 275 
 
 * You forgot Madame de Serizy's dangerous condition, 
 and that you had promised to save her.' 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 Save Madame de Serizy,' said the Comte de Bauvan, 
 4 and you shall have what you will.' 
 
 'I ask for nothing,' said Jacques Collin. 4 I sur- 
 rendered at discretion, and Monsieur de Granville must 
 have received ' 
 
 4 All the letters, yes,' said the magistrate. 4 But you 
 promised to save Madame de Serizy's reason. Can you ? 
 Was it not a vain boast ? ' 
 
 4 1 hope I can,' replied Jacques Collin modestly. 
 
 4 Well, then, come with me,' said Comte Octave. 
 
 4 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 discredit- 
 ing 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 favour the 
 cure. You will forgive me for assuming once more the 
 false part of a Spanish priest ; it is to do so much good ! ' 
 
 4 1 shall find you there at about four o'clock,' said 
 Monsieur de Granville, 4 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. 
 
 4 So you have given yourself up to the authorities?' 
 said she. 
 
 4 Yes.' 
 
 4 It is a risky game.' 
 
 4 No ; I owed that poor Theodore his life, and he is 
 reprieved.'
 
 2j6 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 4 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.' 
 
 4 That is a trifle ; I know how to deal with la 
 Gonore,' said the terrible Jacqueline. 4 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. 
 
 4 Then we meet this evening,' replied the aunt ; 
 1 you are in such a deuce of a hurry. Is there a fat 
 job on ? ' 
 
 4 1 want to begin with a stroke that will beat every- 
 thing 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.' 
 
 4 He must have vowed a Roland for your Oliver,' said 
 the aunt, 4 for he has taken charge of Peyrade's daughter, 
 the girl who was sold to Madame Nourrisson, you know.' 
 
 4 Our first point must be to find him a servant.' 
 
 4 That will be difficult ; he must be tolerably wide 
 awake,' observed Jacqueline. 
 
 4 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. 
 
 4 1 know everything,' said the Abbe. 4 1 have been
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 277 
 
 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 crimin- 
 als ; 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's bedroom ; but to 
 spare him this stain on his soul's honour, 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.
 
 278 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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. 
 
 4 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 
 
 1 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 honour 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.
 
 Vautrin's Last Avatar 279 
 
 I shall still rule the world which has obeyed me these 
 five-and-twenty years.' 
 
 Jacques Collin had brought into play the overpower- 
 ing 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's image 
 in his heart. 
 
 No woman can resist the idea of having been the one 
 beloved. 
 
 1 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 i8th Brumaire in his 
 life. 
 
 The public prosecutor went to the door of the Count- 
 ess's room, and remained there a few minutes ; then he 
 turned to Jacques Collin and said 
 
 You have not changed your mind ? ' 
 
 1 No, Monsieur.' 
 
 t 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 ? ' 
 
 4 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 sub- 
 ordinate 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 bv Lucien de Rubempre.
 
 280 Vautrin's Last Avatar 
 
 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 
 Coffin. 
 
 After exercising his functions for about fifteen years, 
 Jacques Collin retired in 1845. 
 
 December 1847. 
 
 END OF VOL. II. 
 
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